Well OMFG !!!

[Freddy]

Just got in from another day of listening to idiots, put Get Smart on the box, and logged into Poll Bludger, everyone over there seems to be rather up beat.
The talk is over the latest polling.
Well knock me over with a trucking feather Trevor

The latest morgan is 52.5 - 47.5 % TOO THE ALP !!!!
Yep, that's right, you're reading correctly
The Good Guys are getting back in front.
Makes ya proud to, be an Aussie. ;D

[Freddy]

whooops

www.roymorgan.com/

[Earl Grey]

Incredible.
(Unfortunately)

I don't believe Morgan Polls are accurate predictors of the wider community.

Still...we can dream and hope.

[Freddy]

Dec 20, 2012 10:38:21 GMT 11 Earl Grey said:

Incredible.
(Unfortunately)

I don't believe Morgan Polls are accurate predictors of the wider community.

Still...we can dream and hope.

The Poll averages are at about 50-50. (MOE)
If that is a true reflection, then Abbott is toast.

[spindrift]

Problem is Labor is being run by factions and looking after mates who want power and payback favours, and that is not giving them much credibility in the public eye.....which is unfortunate for if Abbott was too win because of this jaded perspective then the good things that Labor can achieve will be lost, such as the carbon tax that will achieve renewable energy targets that will be the only mechanism that in the long run is cheaper energy and lower power bills.

Taking away the carbon tax is not good economic thinking....as renewable power energy cannot be fed into the power grid thus making electricity cost higher.

Anyhow Labor should have stuck with Rudd, instead of with Jules who cannot keep promises and so is being badly advised.

[pim]

Labor should have stuck with Rudd

Too late for that, Tonto! Even though I agree with you - albeit in hindsight!! Lord knows I've been critical of julia. I think her prime ministership has been cursed by the manner in which she came to it - in the way that Fraser's prime ministership always had an albatros of the 1975 Coup around its neck.

(Btw and as an aside, notice how the language has changed over the decades? What was called by Labor "Kerr's Coup" in the 1970s is these days called the "Dismissal". There's a reason for that and it's insidious: to call it the "Dismissal" makes it about the man who was sacked - Whitlam. To refer to it as the "Coup" places to focus squarely on the coupmasters who were Kerr and Fraser. It'll always be the "Coup" to me!)

Julia's political errors have been legion and a lot of her political problems of legitimacy and breaking promises have been of her own making and I resile from none of the criticisms I've laid at her feet. Take the budget surplus for example. Yes I agree that the move by Swan to dump the surplus makes good economic sense and it frees Labor from the political albatros it had hung about its neck of "Surplus come hell or high water!" But at the same time it's more grist to the Liberal narrative of "another Labor lie and broken promise".

I could go on and on about Julia's political failings and it's time I gave my spleen a rest. It's also time to acknowledge her achievements which add up to an impressive record of legislative achievement in spite of everything that the media and a feral Opposition have thrown at her.

Take the piece in yesterday's Fairfax press that Skippy posted in high glee and schadenfreude about India being the most dangerous place in the world for women. I read that article and, while I can only agree with some of the descriptions that the (female) writer gives of the harrassment and threatening behaviour towards Western women (my ex-wife experienced something similar overseas while we were still married, as I recall, so I'd believe what the writer says), let alone towards Indian women, the writer then attempts to turn the article into a political polemic against Julia Gillard and her government's policy of closer engagement with India by attacking Gillard's "misogyny" speech as opportunistic - misogyny is bad at home but OK in India. This is a political attack on Gillard that is disingenuous in the extreme. Gillard's "misogyny" speech, far from being opportunistic, was a response to Tony Abbott's opportunistic and unprincipled playing the "sexism and misogyny" card against Slipper and his shameless attempt to involve Gillard. So the press lies and this is but an example of the "attack dog" approach of both the media and the Abbott Liberals. In spite of that, Gillard's achievements are the stuff of legend and I don't believe Abbott will succeed in dismantling them even if he becomes PM. In fact, as the French say Il se cassera les dents là-dessus = he'll break his teeth trying. If he carries his wrecking ball approach into Government it'll be his undoing.

There will be a legend around Gillard, of the female Labor PM who stood up to the bogan boys club of the political conservative establishment and still ahieved a stellar record of ground-breaking reform. I think she's already guaranteed her entry into the Labor pantheon.

And maybe that's necessary. Those of us who have lived through the last few years are all too familiar with what it took to get this far. But future generations will only see the results.

But I'll leave you with this little insight:

The Liberals used Tea Party tactics against Julia in a similar way to what was thrown against Barack Obama in the US. In the US those Tea Party tactics failed because Obama got re-elected. In Australia they look as if they might succeed.

Ask yourself: if you look at both the US and Australia, and if these Tea Party tactics were always going to succeed in one and fail in another, which one would you prefer that they succeed or fail in?

If the choice is between:

A: Tea Party tactics succeed in the US and fail in Australia

or

B: Tea Party tactics succeed in Australia and fail in the US

I'll take Option B, thank you very much!! And that looks like what we're gonna get.

[spindrift]

Well such as it is Pim we both agree on the strong political leadership of Gillard and the achievements she has made in a hung parliament, and the coup on Rudd was a bad judgment move, giving the public a perception the factions are ruling the power base and calling the shots.

What ails Labor and its lagging in the polls trailing the coalition is Gillards leadership style in being constrained just to the politic and not setting the agenda on social issues that the people need to think on morally and ethically, while she was on fire with the misogyny issue there hasn't been much else such as the suicide death of the Indian nurse Jacintha Saldanha, little response, a leader who has respect is one that has an opinion and conveys that to the people.

The above sentiment (while written in my own words) has to accredited to Mark Latham and his opinion article "Use the Bully Pulpit, Julia" The Aust. Financial Review...20/12/12 and what also I agree with is that Gillard is seen as one dimensional and we are not seeing enough of her own opinions and personal beliefs that would create a difference between Abbott and his coalition and Labor.

Also on the subject of misogny and one Indian newspaper article
opinion, we can see on the news womens rights in India are very much in the way of change..who ever wrote the article iandf the critique of Gillard is failing to see that Indians themselves recognise that there is a problem with womens rights and that there is movement to make change.

May take some time ..to be certain Indians are smart enough people not to remain in the dark ages in a modern world, unlike the Taliban mob.

[pim]

I'd be very interested to read Mark Latham's opinion piece that you cited, Tonto: Use the Bully Pulpit, Julia but I keep running into the paywall. Any way you could post it?

[spindrift]

Read the article in paper form Pim, had the same online issue, cough up or nothing...I will try and scan it for you tommorrow.

"Use the Bull Pulpit" ....is actually a Teddy Roosevelt quote on politicians thinking outside the box in public debate, try searching that one and you will get the gist of what Latham is saying about Gillard.

The Finacial Review came to me via a visting daughter who buys it, I normally only buy the local newspaper that comes out once a week for the neighbourhood goss, but actually quite enjoyed reading the Review, and indeed will start buying it...quite informative on many topics, I simply made the assumption it was just a RW rag.

Goes to show we can be wrong in our assumptions about some things...but certainly right about Abbott being a deadshit drongo ratbag...!!

[spindrift]

Fin Review

Mark Latham

Libs’ cover-up claim is crazy
PUBLISHED: 22 Nov 2012 00:05:57 | UPDATED: 22 Nov 2012 12:30:52


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Mark Latham

When Barack Obama was re-elected it was due, in good part, to the wasted energy of his opponents.

Instead of developing a new economic policy in response to the global financial crisis and engaging the President in a battle of ideas, the far-right of the Republican Party tried to knock him out on a constitutional technicality.

The Birther movement argued that Obama’s original birth certificate in Kenya had been destroyed and a new, fake document had been created in the state of Hawaii, making him ineligible for the presidency.

The Liberal Party is making a similar mistake in its attempt to unseat Julia Gillard. In her campaign against the Prime Minister over the Slater & Gordon matter, Deputy Liberal Leader Julie Bishop has developed one of the most bizarre conspiracy theories imaginable. Last weekend she spoke of a “a sinister cover-up” relating to the way in which files from the early 1990s could not be found at the Slater & Gordon law firm in Melbourne, the West Australian archives and the Federal Court in Brisbane. According to Bishop, “somebody is deliberately destroying documents”, warranting a police investigation.





Sadly, this is what modern conservatism has become: a policy-free zone seeking government through the propagation of wild claims. As a frontbencher over the past five years, Bishop’s work has been characterised by an absence of public policy – first as opposition spokesperson for workplace relations, then as shadow treasurer and now as spokesperson for foreign affairs. Outside of her family and immediate Liberal colleagues, no one in Australia could identify what she stands for or believes in.

The “sinister cover-up” allegation is crazy. The Australian newspaper has examined thousands of pages of material on the Slater & Gordon matter over the past year, using a range of documentary trivia and misrepresentations to keep its campaign against Gillard alive.

Anyone visiting the website Michael Smith News will find hundreds of scanned documents and wacky claims against the Prime Minister. Whoever “somebody” might be, “deliberately destroying documents”, he or she has done an appallingly bad job. On Monday, the Federal Court found its Brisbane files, again highlighting Bishop’s recklessness.

Smith, who has worked closely with a number of shadow ministers on this issue, has not been reticent in identifying the suspected thief, describing the Prime Minister as “the great file-emptier”. This is the type of imagery the far right has cultivated: Gillard, presumably under the cover of darkness, pilfering Slater & Gordon’s files, then dashing to Perth to raid the WA archives, before jetting to Brisbane and breaking into the Federal Court.

The likes of Smith and Andrew Bolt (who has also promoted the “sinister cover-up” theory) make the Obama Birthers look like intellectuals.

Even the Liberals’ key strategists have joined the conspiratorial chorus. On Monday morning on Sky News, the manager of opposition business, Chris Pyne, declared the missing files to be “a serious problem for the Prime Minister’s credibility”. He added a fourth set of documents to the “cover-up”: a missing box at the NSW Federal Court Registry. When I asked Pyne for evidence supporting this allegation against Gillard, he replied: “What I meant was – if the files were all in place and able to be accessed, they would surely back up the PM’s statements that there has been not one shred of evidence produced that there has been any wrongdoing on her part” – a gobbledygook response.

The consequences of this nonsense for Tony Abbott’s and Bishop’s leadership of the Liberal Party are profound. With the collapse of the opposition’s anti-carbon tax campaign and its failure to develop a policy agenda, the Liberals have run out of things to talk about. They have fallen back on conspiracy theories and quirky Abbottisms, such as his ruminations last week on the cultural integrity of urban Aborigines versus outback Aborigines – the funniest “urban” joke since Elaine Benes invented the urban sombrero in Seinfeld.

Prior to the resurrection of the Slater & Gordon issue in August, the opposition was coasting in the opinion polls. Since then the political race has tightened and Abbott has fallen to pitiful levels of personal approval. That’s the problem with fanaticism in politics: it makes people pick the wrong issues. The Liberals cannot win a character contest. They can only beat Labor by debating policies.

Mark Latham is a former Labor leader.

[geopol]

He can certainly write and present, succinctly, a powerful argument. Nevertheless I have known the Liberals are ignorant, lying arseholes for many years, so this simply reinforces my views, but with added zest....Thanks for posting that Spin....

[Earl Grey]

[spindrift]

Latham writes a good critique Geo...and below is best I can do for you Pim..and that about sums it up Earl..

[Earl Grey]

;D

[pim]

Hey Spindrift! Thanks mate!! You went to a bit of trouble for me and I appreciate it.