Election 07: Australia flips a coin

[mr friendly guy]

Downer was the leader before Howard toppled him. Full Frontal used to regularly make fun of him. I see the years haven't matured him. I mean what is with his oo la la Rudd speaks Chinese, well I can speak French yada yada yada. Who cares Downer, the French aren't paying us big bucks for our natural resources, the PRC is.

And what is with his Rudd goes to a strip club, naughty boy line. Well Downer is goes to a Men's club. What does he do in a club full of guys and no chicks. Yes, what does he do.....

[Lusankya]

Ah yes. I remember watching that detailed documentary on his leadership, The Downer Months. Compelling viewing.

[mr friendly guy]

I see the West Australian are bitching that Rudd won because people thought Howard was just stale and we needed a change for no good reason other than that. Geez. What about the bits where their policies did deviate, workchoices any one? Rightly or wrongly there was lots of apprehension about this policy and the ALP keyed in on it.

But then I can't expect much. The West Australian is a right wing newspaper which actually tipped Howard to win despite all the polls, and a lot of their letters to the editors are done by retards. They must have been a retard short that day as they had to print 2 letters by the same man spewing anti-Rudd vitriol.

[Archaic`]

What about the bits where their policies did deviate, workchoices any one? Rightly or wrongly there was lots of apprehension about this policy and the ALP keyed in on it.

Out of interest...does anyone know if there was really apprehension about Work Choices, prior to the Union's advertisements following their introduction? The whole thing seemed fabricated out of thin cloth to me.

[mr friendly guy]

I vaguely remember people bitching about it even before the unions started their scare campaign, although those people may have been union members for all I know.

Assuming some of those people on the scare campaign were really affected, then there is at least some pre-existing apprehension. It just took the unions and the ALP to capitalise on it.

[Lusankya]

And now the Liberals have chosen a new leader.

NEW Liberal leader Brendan Nelson says he will support ratifying the Kyoto Protocol - but refused to directly reject the unpopular WorkChoices policy.

Mr Turnbull - who had been the favourite to win but was defeated by Dr Nelson by 45 votes to 42 - will become shadow treasurer.

Former education minister Julie Bishop has won the deputy leadership, beating contenders Andrew Robb and South Australian MP Christopher Pyne for the job vacated by outgoing treasurer Peter Costello.

Dr Nelson, the former defence minister and a former head of the Australian Medical Association, has assiduously courted Liberal backbenchers for years by assisting with their fundraising efforts.

more story here.

I can't say I'm too surprised, to be honest. I don't think Turnbull's been an MP for long enough to become Liberal leader yet. He also probably stepped on a few toes amongst the senior Liberals with all of his liberal views. I expect Nelson to lose the next election and then for Turnbull to take control of the party as the economy's starts going downhill, just in time to say, "Labor can't handle the economy, vote for me!"

[mr friendly guy]

Nelson is the leader? Well he is less of a joke than Downer or Abbott. But wasn't he the one who thought its not ridiculous to introduce intelligent design into schools while he was education minister?

Unless Rudd really stuffs up I can't see how he will lose to Nelson. I would prefer Turnbull given his less conservative views, which would actually give me a decent alternative come next election. But then I suspected he won't get it given he is still too new. It would be like the ALP electing Peter Garrett as their leader.

And this quote is absolutely priceless

He also probably stepped on a few toes amongst the senior Liberals with all of his liberal views.

I expect some foreigners would be getting confused about the naming of our political parties.

[mr friendly guy]

Rudd has chosen his cabinet

Rudd picks new team


Jonathan Pearlman
November 29, 2007 - 3:03PM

Kevin Rudd has promoted Stephen Smith to Foreign Affairs Minister while his deputy, Julia Gillard, will be Minister for both Education and Industrial Relations.

The first Rudd cabinet will include former lawyer Robert McClelland as Attorney-General. The former NSW Attorney-General, Bob Debus, will move straight into the ministry and oversee domestic law enforcement as Minister for Home Affairs.

Maxine McKew will be a parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister.

Former ACTU head Greg Combet and new MP for Eden-Monaro Mike Kelly will be parliamentary secretaries for defence.

Peter Garrett will be Environment Minister and will take on Heritage and the Arts, but will hand responsibility for tackling global warming to Penny Wong, who takes on Climate Change and Water and will attend the UN conference in Bali.

Antony Albanese, the former spokesman for water, will be Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development.

Ms Gillard will now be required to usher in Mr Rudd's so-called education revolution while overseeing the dismantling of the WorkChoices legislation.

Former Labor leader Simon Crean has kept responsibility for Trade and Nicola Roxon keeps Health.

Mr Rudd described his cabinet as "a fresh team with fresh ideas". The ministers are likely to be sworn in on Monday.

"Julia Gillard is a first-class human being with a first-class mind," he said.

Former deputy leader Jenny Macklin will be Minister for Family Community and Indigenous Affairs. Tanya Plibersek will be Minister for Housing.

Six dropped

Laurie Ferguson, Kate Lundy, Jan McLucas, Kerry O'Brien and Arch Bevis have all been dropped from cabinet.

Kim Carr will be Minister for Science and Martin Ferguson will be Minister for Tourism. Tony Burke, formerly immigration spokesman, will be Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Craig Emerson keeps small business and Nick Sherry will be Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law. Joe Ludwig, the former shadow Attorney-General, will be Minister for Human Services.

Stephen Smith, the former education spokesman, takes over Foreign Affairs from Mr McClelland.

As announced during the campaign, Wayne Swan will be Treasurer and Lindsay Tanner will be Finance Minister and will also be Minister for Business Deregulation.

Joel Fitzgibbon will stay on in Defence.

Other new ministers - all in junior posts - are Kate Ellis, Minister for Youth and Sport, Justine Elliot, Warren Snowdon and Brendan O'Connor, who will be Minister for Workforce Participation.

Stephen Conroy enters cabinet as Minister for Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy.

The big loser was Bob McMullan, one of few former ministers, who was in the Keating cabinet but has not made it into Kevin Rudd's. He will be a parliamentary secretary.

"I'm proud of the fact that we have a woman as deputy Prime Minister. We will have four women in cabinet," Mr Rudd said.

"These women are in these positions because they have worked their guts out."

John Faulkner, the ALP national president who was closely involved in the election campaign, goes straight into the ministry as Special Minister of State.

Mr Rudd said he had broken with Labor conventions and hand-picked his cabinet without consulting the party's factions.

"Since Julia and I first became leader and deputy, I dont think either of us have been near such a [faction] meeting," he said.

"It has not even been frankly relevant to my considerations. I have looked for the best team possible. Part of modernising the Labor party is putting all that stuff behind us."

Mr Rudd said John Howard's head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Peter Shergold, intends to resign and will leave at the end of the year.

Mr Rudd said he thought highly of Dr Shergold - one of the country's most powerful public servants - and had not pushed him to resign.

Mr Rudd has not picked a minister for federal-state relations, but said he and his Treasurer, Wayne Swan, will oversee the push to reform federalism.

[Lusankya]

Bah. A part of me feels annoyed that I'll have to learn new names for all of the posts now. At the moment the only members of cabinet that I can name off the top of my head (Aside from Rudd and Gillard) are Peter Garrett and Kate Ellis, and the only reason I remember Kate is because I was in her electorate. It's all terribly inconvenient.

[mr friendly guy]

ABC had a bit about Nelson. I must admit I had forgotten he was once president of the AMA. The irony of the president of one of Australia's most powerful unions being leader of the Liberals.

Although as far as unions go, the AMA doesn't have this compulsory unionism bullshit, which explains why 2/3 of Australian doctors aren't members. The other thing is the AMA is reportedly right wing, although I wouldn't know since I only joined for a year, having figured paying $936 annually for discounts to shops I never go to isn't worth it.

[mr friendly guy]

And now the Liberals are suffering from Labor's disease of factionalism

More grubby tactics - and so the cycle begins

December 1, 2007

Foul play in Lindsay has advanced a trend of widespread political skulduggery - but it was ugly factionalism that paralysed the Liberals, rendering Labor a forgotten enemy. David Humphries reports.

FROM a furious John Howard, his last days of prime ministerial campaigning suffocated, to the lower echelons of the Liberal Party, whose conviction has surely been tested, the grubby actions of a handful of rogue Liberals in western Sydney will be remembered as the night any flicker of re-election hope extinguished.

The reality is even harsher for a party searching for a link between that fear-mongering and bigoted deceit, and the disintegration of voter support in Howard's home state.

Lindsaygate, as it quickly reduced to shorthand, was a time bomb waiting to blow. And everybody of significance within the Liberal Party knew it, or should have known it. Why? Because the letterboxing under darkness four days before the election of flyers purporting to be Islamist endorsement of Labor's support to "forgive our Muslim brothers … unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings" was the culmination of a pattern of dirty tricks.

Rather than whacking it in its infancy, the Liberal Party in NSW was paralysed in ugly factionalism, characterised by a loathing so intense between warring camps that Labor was often ignored as the enemy.

Having borrowed from Labor's deep drawer of dirty tricks, the Molotov became the cocktail of choice for these trench warriors, allowing the ALP to parade itself as the epitome of unity. Lindsaygate was merely the worst manifestation of this reliance on deceit.

It had echoes of the 2004 trick in neighbouring Greenway, where voters received a bogus flyer setting out an invented promise by the Labor candidate to push for a "better deal" for Muslims.

In 2001, Steve Simat, a former staffer of the then Lindsay Liberal MP, Jackie Kelly, admitted to a parliamentary inquiry to soliciting party members to stand as Penrith council candidates under banners ranging from opposition to the Badgerys Creek airport to the advocacy of marijuana - and to direct preferences his way.

Ken Higgs, a Liberal campaign volunteer, says he rejected an invitation to establish a bogus entity to deliver preferences to the Liberals in the 2003 state election. Branch stacking - swamping rank-and-file membership with recruits largely uninterested in the political process - is widespread.

The NSW Liberal leader, Barry O'Farrell, told shadow cabinet on Tuesday that the Rudd campaign could teach Liberals much about unity and discipline. "Anyone not about that should head out that door there," he said.

Earlier, O'Farrell referred to "the enormous damage" done by extremes. "I've seen both sides behave similarly … it's got to end."

It's showing no signs of doing that. On learning of the rogue plot, the Liberal left could have aborted Lindsaygate by dobbing in the plotters to the party hierarchy, but instead tipped off the ALP's assistant secretary, Luke Foley, allowing him to arrange the ambush that trapped the letterboxers red-handed.

When that led to the expulsion of Jeff Egan, the right-wing Liberal state executive member exposed by the ambush, one left-winger boasted: "His is a great scalp for us." The right pointed its fury at both the perpetrators and the "treacherous" individual or individuals, who alerted Labor to the scam.

Whoever was responsible, Labor got quick notice. According to an affidavit sworn by Steve Hutchins, a senator based in the western suburbs, Foley phoned him at noon on Tuesday with enough details for the two to set the trap. A posse of eight Labor supporters was formed, and it tracked the three carloads of perpetrators from Kelly's Penrith home to the backstreets of St Marys.

Caught in the act, the scammers alerted Chris Hall, a campaign helper from head office. Hall phoned the party state director, Graham Jaeschke, at 11pm.

Howard was in his Philip Street office on Wednesday morning when the news reached him. The Liberals chose the front foot, instructing Howard's press secretary, David Luff, to reveal their version of events to journalists on the Wednesday campaign bus.

That way, it might have got an airing that night, and lost some of its oomph by the time of Howard's last big media event the following day - his National Press Club address. The strategy flopped spectacularly.

The Australian Federal Police is examining whether the Electoral Act was breached because the flyers did not carry the authorisation and identification of their printer. NSW police are investigating whether the NSW Crimes Act prohibition on the making of false documents was breached. That investigation will go to the question of who printed the flyer in the name of the fictitious Islamic Australia Federation.

That's one of the intriguing unanswered questions. Certainly, the Liberal Party does not seem to have sought answers. Two perpetrators, Greg Chijoff, the now estranged husband of the Lindsay candidate, Karen Chijoff, and Gary Clark, the dentist husband of Kelly, who retired at this election, insist their spouses knew nothing of the scam.

Apart from written apologies, both men have gone to ground, as has Kelly, said to be in Queensland, and Chijoff, whose political aspirations have been dashed by the Lindsay swing of nearly 10 per cent. In short succession, Chijoff lost local government, state and federal elections, her job with Kelly and now her husband.

Egan, a government relations consultant whose firm, Flagship Communications, concedes some clients are now considering whether to continue, also went to ground. Last week, he said he had been falsely accused of distributing unauthorised material. Just what he meant is unclear because he's not available to elaborate.

Also unavailable is Troy Craig, a Glenmore Park activist also identified in the Labor ambush.

One point is likely about the flyers' publication, however. It seems it was produced on a Riso, an expensive, high-volume printer provided to federal MPs. Just how Howard can state categorically that no taxpayer funds were used in the flyers' production is unclear, given few steps seem to have been taken to establish its source.

Kelly made an appalling situation even worse. On Thursday, she ignored a party order for silence, and went on national radio trying to laugh off Lindsaygate as a prank gone awry. Resorting to the excuse for end-of-season footballers' mayhem, Kelly said the lads came up "with their own skylarking over a few beers". Boys will be boys.

"If you read it, you would be laughing," she said. Labor laughed all the way to the polls. Mitch Fifield didn't. "I saw that the Prime Minister said a couple of days ago he was still quite fond of her," the Liberal senator said on election night. "I'm not, and I'm sure there are a lot of Liberals around Australia who are not either."

There were only tears from Chijoff. Although an imprecise measure, the swing on pre-poll votes, cast mostly before the exposure, was half that of election day. She arrived weeping at a funereal election night party at the Nepean Rowing Club.

The gathering was tiny. Those whose desperation and recklessness had squeezed Howard's windpipe were nowhere to be seen. Nor was Chijoff's champion, Kelly. Duty, however, did not abandon 16-year Liberal member Wendy Anderson. " I vomited when I found out," she said.

In a Liberal Party riven by ideologues, expect the spewing to go on for some time.

I have to say this was bullshit and ranks up there in the dirty trick department. But really, was it any worse than John Howards Children overboard bullshit and Kevin Andrews mistreatment of Mohammud Haneef and villification of Sudanese refugees? The only difference was that these Liberals were relative small fry.

[Lusankya]

Another difference is probably that in this case is that polls were showing that sentiment was turning against Howard and the conservative Liberals, so a wet liberal staffer decided to take out a few more conservative scalps and tell the Labor party about it. All of the other bullshit things were introduced to the public with a decided conservative-Liberal bias.

As for factionalism, I figure that factionalism is more or less inevitable in a political system in which the major divide between parties is whether or not they like unions. The Liberals are always going to have friction between the conservatives and the wet liberals, and the Labor's always going to have the Labor left and the Labor right. The only reason that the Liberals have appeared so united recently was because of Howard's personal influence, and you could even begin to see cracks in that towards the end of his last term, with the beginning of the Downer-Turnbull alliance (I don't know why Downer's in Turnbull's camp - perhaps he just hates Abbott and Costello).

It's always rather strange when you're reading about a politician and they seem quite progressive in their social ideas, which makes you think, "What the hell are they doing in the Liberal party? Oh, wait. They don't like unions. Ok."


And because I'm posting in this thread anyway: I actually think that Howard's power was based quite a bit on smoke and mirrors. Crean, Latham and Rudd all had quite strong honeymoon periods, which suggests that the voters wanted to get rid of Howard, and were hopeful that Labor would provide a decent alternative. I also put quite a bit of the swing towards the Liberals in 2004 down to the fact that Howard was up against "the guy who broke the taxi driver's arm" and the fact that nobody would be surprised if Latham punched George W. Bush in the nose. Now, even though I'd like to see that, I personally don't want to be living in the country whose PM does that. [/rant]

[mr friendly guy]

It's always rather strange when you're reading about a politician and they seem quite progressive in their social ideas, which makes you think, "What the hell are they doing in the Liberal party? Oh, wait. They don't like unions. Ok."

Never realised that was why. I dislike several unions based on their thuggery, but I will never join the Liberals because of their backward social conservative views. And thus I am once again forced to vote for the lesser of the two evils *sigh*.

[Lusankya]

Well, when one of your major parties is the political wing of the trade unions, the other party is pretty much forced to be the Not The Trade Unions Party. That's why we used to have the Democrats, aka the Disgruntled Liberals Party. They pretty much existed for people who wanted the Liberals, except without the conservative social policies. In 2004 when they collapsed, about half of their vote went to the Liberals (incidentally, that's another reason why I don't necessarily consider 2004 to be a huge victory for Howard - people were expecting the Democrats to remain relevant, which they didn't). I think that in a lot of ways, the Dems had forgotten their roots, and had managed to alienate a lot of their supporters by being not quite Liberal enough. These days we have the Greens, who have taken up the role of the Disgruntled With the Major Parties Party.

I kinda hope that the liberal wing of the Liberals will become more dominant in the next few years, although how much of that is wishful thinking, I don't know. I like to think that they'll look at the swing towards Malcolm Turnbull at the last election and think, "ah, we should be more like him," but who knows what's going through their mind at the moment. Of course, they could be doing what about 90% of Australians seem to think they're doing, and just waiting for the right moment (say 6-9 months before an election) before they ditch Nelson for Turnbull.

[mr friendly guy]

I kinda hope that the liberal wing of the Liberals will become more dominant in the next few years, although how much of that is wishful thinking, I don't know.

Nah, I am afraid we have to wait for all these old farts to die first. Its mean, but a lot of older people hold conservative views. You just have to wait for the younger people to be more ascendent.

That being said, the Liberals seem to be missing more of their old front bench since Phillip Ruddock has also stepped down, so the more liberal wing might become dominant sooner than I predict. Good riddance any way. Ruddock was a dick when he was the Minister for Aboriginal affairs and he didn't get any better as immigration minister.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Any idea what sort of foreign policies Rudd will pursue for Asia as a whole?

[mr friendly guy]

Hopefully he won't declare us as America's deputy in the Asia pacific region like the goddamn idiot Howard did. I bet that went well in the region

Otherwise I imagine the closer engagement with China, which most probably manifests as increasing trade. I suppose he could encourage China to engage in world affairs more with regards to climate change.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hopefully he won't declare us as America's deputy in the Asia pacific region like the goddamn idiot Howard did. I bet that went well in the region

Otherwise I imagine the closer engagement with China, which most probably manifests as increasing trade. I suppose he could encourage China to engage in world affairs more with regards to climate change.

That depends. For M'sia and Indonesia no, for Singapore, I am guessing behind doors quietly yes. But I have to agree that Howard's whoring to the US was getting bloody irritating, if not overly obnoxious.

How much hold Australia has on China is questionable at best though. The Chinese have proven quite single minded on what they want done, the world damn all.

[mr friendly guy]

Well Rudd has ratified Kyoto which won't side line us from the current batch of climate change talks in Bali. Thats already makes Rudd better than Howard. Now to see what he does about the stolen generation apology.

Note I am so far focusing on things which Rudd can do reasonably quickly. Most of Labor's policy changes can't be implemented until the senate changes over and the coalition loses their majority in the senate.

[Lusankya]

Work Choices will be interesting. I believe that the Greens and Family First will agree to roll it back, but Xenophon wants to retain some of the protections for small business that the legislation contained, so they won't be able to roll it back completely, unless some of the 49% of the Liberal party who think that Work Choices was the reason they lost the election decide to help Labor out (the other 51% claim that it was climate change that lost them the election, because at least that they it's partly nature's fault, but Work Choices is something they did to themselves).

[atg]

unless some of the 49% of the Liberal party who think that Work Choices was the reason they lost the election decide to help Labor out

I wouldn't be surprised if Barnaby Joyce (Nationals Senator) votes with Labor, after all he voted against it when Howard was ramrodding it through parliament.

[weemadando]

And now, my organisaton (Centrelink) is going to be overrun by people calling, coming in and generally complaining because they'll want all of Labor's campaign promises to be paid out right the hell now and many won't understand why they aren't getting the money promised by the Liberal's too.

Bribery in elections is fun.

[Lusankya]

unless some of the 49% of the Liberal party who think that Work Choices was the reason they lost the election decide to help Labor out

I wouldn't be surprised if Barnaby Joyce (Nationals Senator) votes with Labor, after all he voted against it when Howard was ramrodding it through parliament.

I thought that was VSU, or did he vote against Work Choices as well?

[thejester]

Any idea what sort of foreign policies Rudd will pursue for Asia as a whole?

The same? It's been Australian policy for 30+ years to engage with Asia, while Howard was certainly closer to the US than most he still pushed heavily on regional initiatives such as ASEAN. Keep in mind that by far the most destabilising act in Australia-Asian relations - East Timor - came about as the result of overwhelming public pressure rather than Howard saying 'let's go play policeman!'

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Any idea what sort of foreign policies Rudd will pursue for Asia as a whole?

The same? It's been Australian policy for 30+ years to engage with Asia, while Howard was certainly closer to the US than most he still pushed heavily on regional initiatives such as ASEAN. Keep in mind that by far the most destabilising act in Australia-Asian relations - East Timor - came about as the result of overwhelming public pressure rather than Howard saying 'let's go play policeman!'

Howard has successfully, on many occasions, irked Indonesia and M'sia to death. If by anything, Australia's foreign policy for Asia has been clumsy as hell.