The 44th Parliament

[pim]

"dye" is a colouring liquid used to stain a given item. A "die" is the singular noun for the plural "dice".

So you'd say "the die is cast" or "the dice are cast"

Alea jacta est!

[Freddy]

Well, regardless of correct word usage, the precedent has been set.
It's now acceptable to roll your leader mid-way through your first term.
I give Abbott 12 months before he gets that "tap" on his shoulder.

[pim]

Tapped on the shoulder by ...?

[Freddy]

Nov 19, 2013 19:55:03 GMT 11 pim said:

Tapped on the shoulder by ...?

Well, it could be anyone, Turnbull, Hockey.....
The point is that Abbott is showing a tremendous talent for turning anything he touches to shit.
At some point, the powers that be in the LNP will want to be more than just a one term wonder.

[pim]

Freddy I think that you're right in that his boat people agenda is in dire trouble over the spying thing. The fact is that notwithstanding anything that Abbott may have said to the contrary, he can't turn back the boats without the full co-operation of the Indonesians and he needs the Indonesians a helluva lot more than they need him.

I have a view on the spying stuff that involves every Australian Government since Howard so it's just Abbott's rotten luck that this broke on his watch. But tough titties! Them's the breaks and it couldn't have happened to a nicer fella! The seeds of this were sown during the Howard years when Howard embraced completely the post 9/11 Bush Admin's paranoia about terrorism. The new ASIO complex in Canberra has to be seen to be believed. The amount of $$$ that Howard poured into intel services was an increase of several 100% and Indonesia was a target with the Bali bombings etc. What was new as the surveillance of the Indo leadership. Howard praised SBY to the Australian people as well as to the Indo's and at the same time was spying on him. That was not clever but what was even dumber was the embrace of the Bush/Cheney paranoia. All thopse chickens are now coming home to roost and it's on Abbott's watch. This is bad news for him. If anything is turning to shit, the relationship with Indonesia is turning to shit and with it turn back the boats. Labor should be ramming home its Malaysia solution but even more importantly they should be exposing the damage to the relationship with Indonesia.

The other policy area is the price on carbon. I do believe that in the medium term that's going to be bad news for Abbott too, but not in the short term. There's still a bit of populist mileage in it for them.

So on those two crucial policy areas Abbott has an immediate problem with Indoinesia and stop the boats, and a longer term problem with the price on carbon. The problem with Indonesia is not of his making but he's the one in the box seat and he's the one who has to handle it. Boofhead tactic won't help, in fact they'll do the opposite. There's an election next year in Indonesia and even in the best-case scenario we were never going to get the next Pres on Indonesia to be as favourable to Australia as SBY. So there were bumps in the road ahead anyway. But what's happened is that the Australians have pissed off SBY. It's like pissing in your own nest! It's not a clever thing to do.

I have to go, but I don't think Abbott will be tapped on the shoulder any time soon.

[Freddy]

Nov 19, 2013 22:32:32 GMT 11 pim said:

I have to go, but I don't think Abbott will be tapped on the shoulder any time soon.

As soon as Abbotts bluster starts to impact on our corporate interests, he will be tapped, quick smart.

[Freddy]

Hmmm, it seems that the LNPs election strategist, Mark Textor, has been pouring Kero on the fire (and no, I don't mean the Speaker).
He has used Twitter to call the Indonesian FM as a "70's porn star"

Apart from juvenile, it's quite scary to think where the LNP mindset comes from.

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