Wow. So now fttp is "wacko".

What a fucking troglodyte.

Has he changed his tie since before the election?

In his short period in office so far, prime minister Tony Abbott has been taken to task on two issues with important neighbours: asylum seeker boats arriving from Indonesia, and the rights of New Zealanders living in Australia on temporary visas. A recent Monash University report also warns that the increase in the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) program is contributing to the unemployment of local Australian youth.

Constructing migrants as “good” or “bad” for Australia is a complex process. In the populist imagination, “bad” migrants are welfare-dependent, unskilled, and culturally different. “Good” migrants, on the other hand, are highly skilled, wealthy, independent and either culturally similar or willing to assimilate.

So, what do contentions around these very different types of migrants tell us about the way immigration may be framed in Australia over the next three years?

Conservative governments in general face a paradox when it comes to immigration policy. Although their support base favours a “tough on immigration” stance, business and industrial lobbies push for fewer restrictions on importing foreign workers. In the US, this paradox has led to harsh levels of border security, such the militarisation of the Mexico-US border during the Bush administration, alongside very limited controls on the employment of undocumented workers, whose labour has become vital to particular industries.

Resolving the paradox in Australia involves some key political moves. Political parties tend to create simplistic discourses around desirable or “good” migrants and undesirable or “bad” migrants, and maintain streams of foreign labour that remain somewhat hidden from public view.

International students, backpackers, former students on temporary graduate visas and New Zealanders all fall into this second category of “invisible” streams of foreign labour. Election debates on immigration focused solely on asylum seeker boat arrivals and 457 skilled visas. Migrants in these other categories effectively bypass many of the stringent control mechanisms of skilled migration programs. However, they provide increasingly valuable skilled and unskilled labour to various industries.

Media focus on the “bad” migrants serves to deflect attention from these hidden migration schemes and from an overall “liberalisation” of immigration policy. The Howard government generally focused on demonising asylum seeker arrivals: a strategy that was highly effective in deflecting attention from its record skilled immigration intakes and its expansion of work rights for international students and working holiday makers.

The recent calls for New Zealanders to gain more rights to social welfare and permanent residence have been based on the idea that they are “good workers” and have a shared social and cultural history with Australia.

At the coalface of the labour market, however, the realities of what makes a “good” foreign worker can differ from the public image of an elite, highly-skilled and English-speaking migrant. Particular industries in Australia desire migrants who are cheap, expendable, and willing to do dirty and dangerous work. Temporary visa statuses and weak language skills can be a boon to unscrupulous employers, as they mean that workers are more likely to put up with poor conditions and low pay.

Despite arguments from the Monash report that backpackers are “taking jobs” from local young people, it remains a very hard sell for employers to convince Australian youth to stay in small towns and work in abattoirs and orchards when they have the alternative options of studying or receiving unemployment benefits.

Research shows that recent refugees end up in the low status and low-paid jobs that locals avoid. These include jobs such as cleaning, aged care, meat processing, taxi driving and construction. Those taking working holidays in Australia similarly fill gaps in insecure and seasonal agricultural and construction work, which is particularly important in the context of a resources boom that has drawn away local sources of labour.

So what can we expect on immigration from an Abbott government? Most likely, continued political grandstanding about asylum seeker policy. There will be little mention of the rights of migrant workers who are already here, and very little immigration policy reform that could genuinely be described as “tough”.

probably got a box of them....;) ;)

Kevin Rudd first tried to woo Murdoch press, Bruce Hawker reveals

Former PM's adviser reveals extensive attempts to befriend News Corp preceded hostilities during election campaign

Lenore Taylor political editor
theguardian.com, Thursday 31 October 2013 00.01 AEST

Kevin Rudd made no secret of his fury at the strong anti-Labor editorial stance taken by News Corp papers during the 2013 election campaign, but a new book by one of his closest advisers reveals how hard he first tried to find favour with News after he returned to the prime ministership.

A diary written through the turbulent time by strategist Bruce Hawker, published as The Rudd Rebellion: The Campaign to Save Labor, argues that News Corp’s campaign against Kevin Rudd and Labor played a significant role in Labor’s loss because the newspapers did Tony Abbott’s “dirty work” for him, allowing the Coalition leader to stay positive and persistently blowing the Labor campaign off course.

“News Corp is easily the most powerful political force in Australia – bigger than the major parties or the combined weight of the unions … I saw how, on a daily basis, the storm of negative stories that emanated from News Corp papers blew our campaign off course,” he writes.

But Hawker also reveals that in the first days after Rudd returned to the leadership, he and his advisers were expecting, and working hard for, a more positive relationship with the organisation that controls 60% of Australia’s print media circulation.

A major concern for Rudd and his advisers one week after he resumed the leadership, for example, was one News Corp paper’s angry reaction because the Rudd team had “dropped” an exclusive story to another News Corp paper.

Rudd had determined the federal party would intervene in the scandal-ridden NSW branch and the announcement was to be made on Thursday, 4 July.

“Kevin wants to drop it to the Oz tonight. I can see trouble brewing – this is too big a yarn to allow one paper special treatment … Sure enough, when [NSW Labor secretary] Sam Dastyari found out that [Daily Telegraph political editor Simon] Benson was not getting an exclusive he became very worried and said that Benson would be cranky. Cranky was an understatement – Simon went ballistic … I placated him and promised him a better story down the line.”

Hawker writes that later that evening, Rudd had also “phoned [Paul] Whittaker, the editor of the Telegraph, and given him some quotes to go under Simon’s byline”. It is unclear if these quotes were ever printed.

A few days later he relates leaking exclusively to the Sunday Telegraph the story that Labor would bring forward the end date of the fixed carbon price, a few days after that how Benson caught a VIP flight with the new prime minister to “do a story on our team” and two days later how Rudd had invited Chris Dore, the new editor of News Corp’s Queensland tabloid, the Courier-Mail, to a meeting at his Brisbane home.

But one week before Rudd called the election, his team began to fear that all the special treatment might not be rewarded.

“On a more ominous note we are hearing reports and getting intelligence from within News Corp that a campaign was being co-ordinated within the company to inflict as much damage as possible on the Labor government. We didn’t have to wait long to see evidence of this.”

“There is little doubt that [New York Post editor-in-chief] Col Allan’s return is linked directly to the election and a determination to use News Corp’s key tabloids to drag down the government. There have been reports of a meeting of News Corp editors and Col Allan where his instruction was to go hard against Rudd.”

Hawker’s response was to commission research from Labor pollster John Utting to “see if News Corp actually does change people’s minds and if there are ways of successfully countering an attack or even pre-empting one by reference to Murdoch’s financial or political ambitions”.

He records discussions of a counter-strategy against the News Corp “war”, including advertising in the papers themselves or on radio shows with a similar market, like Sydney’s 2GB or Brisbane’s 4BC, research to quantify and identify the bias and messaging based on the commissioned polling research.

“I took the [leadership] team through the polling, including how the fact that Rupert Murdoch is no longer an Australian citizen is an issue among the focus groups tested.

In Hawker’s analysis the News Corp attacks were well planned and co-ordinated, allowed Abbott to “stay positive” – “he didn’t have to do any attacking – News Corp was doing it for him on a daily basis” and left Labor caught in a “pincer movement” between News Corp attacking with news stories and the Liberal party’s negative advertising.

He says the attacks served to “undermine Rudd’s credibility and legitimacy … and fed shock jock radio programs, which continued throughout the day the attacks started by the newspapers in the morning”.

That meant attention was diverted from any issues Labor wanted to run, for example the News Corp papers’ stories after the first debate about Rudd’s use of notes, rather than the issues in the debate, or the story accusing Rudd of being rude to a makeup artist before the second debate.

“They allowed News Corp reporters to suggest that Rudd was off message and chaotic in his dealings with the media when, in fact, the same news organisation set up the ambushes. Invariably he would spend half of his press conference defending or explaining what really happened, for example with the makeup artist.”

And he does not believe the fact that the anti-Labor swings were lowest in NSW and Queensland “where News Corp’s anti-Rudd invective was at its most virulent” should be used as an argument to downplay the role of News in the campaign.

Early in the campaign Rudd adopted a strategy of “calling out” News Corp and his view that it was running a deliberate, commercially motivated campaign against him, but later in the campaign Hawker counselled the former leader to restrain his anger.

In the second week of the election campaign, Hawker remarks that Rudd’s “confidence needs building after the pounding he has taken at the hands of News Corp … News Corp even ran a story yesterday showing Kevin’s son, Marcus, smoking a cigar at a party to celebrate his last day at school two years ago. I explained to Kevin that this was an attempt to ‘mind fuck’ him and he just has to resist the temptation to swing back.”

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/oct/30/kevin-rudd-murdoch-press-bruce-hawker

Climate Change Victim: McDonald's Dollar Menu?

DROUGHT LEADS TO RISING BEEF PRICES

By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff
Posted Oct 23, 2013 1:32 PM CDT

(NEWSER) – McDonald's iconic Dollar Menu will next month become the Dollar Menu & More, meaning some of the items on it will cost $2 or even $5. What can you blame for the increase? Quartz says climate change. Rising temperatures have led to droughts, which have forced ranchers to pay more for feed and raise fewer cows as pasture space diminishes. All of that means more expensive cattle, and thus, more expensive ground beef.

Another issue: Franchisees have never been happy about the menu's ultra-low price-points, and with beef prices on the rise, McDonald's decided to allow them "flexibility" with the prices of certain items. Plus, as Businessweek points out, franchisees aren't happy about keeping items at $1 when something that cost a dollar in 2002 (when the menu was introduced) should cost $1.30 today. Even so, analysts think some franchisees will still be annoyed at having to make a change, but in the end, they'll profit from the new menu, Reuters reports.

http://www.newser.com/story/176390/climate-change-victim-mcdonalds-dollar-menu.html

NBN maps updated yesterday, wow, just wow.

-PB

Mr Newman said Mr Palmer had his own integrity issues and accused the self-proclaimed billionaire, resort operator and budding film maker of planning to shirk his responsibilities as an MP to declare his interests.

"He continues to make the assertion that he does not need to declare his pecuniary interests,'' the Premier said.

I'm so keen for Palmer to take the sword to Newman :lol:

-PB

But then who'll take the sword to Palmer?

Labor party signals carbon standoff by demanding emissions trading scheme
Bill Shorten says Labor 'won’t be bullied by Tony Abbott because he doesn’t accept the science of climate change'

Labor will oppose Tony Abbott’s long promised repeal of the carbon price if the Coalition fails to implement an internationally linked emissions trading scheme.

The opposition has thrown down the political gauntlet on carbon pricing before the resumption of the new parliament this month, laying the groundwork for a partisan stand-off on Abbott’s signature election issue.

Shadow cabinet resolved on Friday to hold Labor’s election posture on carbon pricing.

Labor will allow the “tax” to go in favour of a cap on pollution and a floating carbon price from July 2014.

But the Coalition will reject the overture, favouring its own “direct action” scheme.

“The opposition will move amendments consistent with our pre-election commitments to terminate the carbon tax on the basis of moving to an effective emissions trading scheme,” the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, told reporters in Canberra on Friday.

“However, if our amendments are not successful, we will oppose the government’s repeal legislation in line with our long held principled position to act on climate change to build a modern economy,” he said.

Shorten was asked by reporters whether the ALP would be better off politically rolling over and accepting Abbott’s mandate to abolish the carbon “tax”.

He replied Labor would “never be a rubber stamp for Tony Abbott”.

“We won’t be bullied by Tony Abbott because he doesn’t accept the science of climate change,” Shorten said.

He said the opposition believed it had an obligation to act in accordance with the science and also to set the economy up on the best footing to deal with the transitions associated with a changing climate.

Shorten said Labor was happy to allow repeal of the clean energy package provided a credible scheme for reducing carbon pollution was put in its place.

Labor’s posture suggests Abbott will have to wait until the new Senate is in place before securing the eventual repeal of Labor’s carbon package. Abbott is likely to have the numbers in the Senate for repeal after July 2014.

Shorten ducked a question on whether senators for the Palmer United Party had a conflict of interest in the repeal debate given the commercial interests of their party leader, mining magnate Clive Palmer. Shorten said he was certain all senators would “adhere to the laws of the land”.

Earlier, the shadow infrastructure minister, Anthony Albanese, told reporters he expected Palmer not to participate in votes where he might have a conflict of interest.

Albanese said Palmer was entitled to the presumption that he would act appropriately, but where there was a specific conflict of interest, he should not participate in a parliamentary vote. “I think that is a reasonable thing to expect,” Albanese said on Friday morning.

The amendments flagged on Friday by Shorten are yet to be drafted. The carbon pricing issue is yet to be formally endorsed by the Labor caucus, and views inside Labor about the merits of sticking with the election policy remain mixed.

Before Friday’s shadow cabinet meeting, Labor’s national secretary, George Wright, urged parliamentarians to stick with the election policy, which he said positioned the party of the right side of history.

Greens leader Christine Milne says Prime Minister Tony Abbott does not have the courage to call a double-dissolution election in order to scrap the carbon tax before next July.

Labor on Friday said it would support the repeal legislation if the Coalition accepted amendments that would see the introduction of an emissions-trading scheme.

Labor's position leaves some wriggle room, but not much, and there is no sign the Government will agree to its proposal.

The Coalition has a long-held policy of replacing the carbon tax with its direct-action policy, which would see the Federal Government intervene directly to businesses and homes to lower emissions.

Ms Milne has confirmed that her party will not support the Government's repeal legislation, even with Labor's proposed amendments.

"Labor isn't even clear itself on what its amendments may or may not be. It hasn't said what the target it would want in the bill to be either," she said.

"Labor knows as well as I do that we have an emissions trading scheme already legislated. It is the law in Australia; it's operating with a fixed price and will go to a flexible price.

"What people who care about climate change want to hear is that there is a serious effort in the Federal Parliament to maintain the only scheme we have which is bringing down emissions.

"And that's especially in the week when the scientists are telling us that we have to do much more than we're already doing."

Labor's stance and the Greens' ongoing resistance means, in all likelihood, the Government will have to wait until the new Senate sits next July to pass the repeal bill, or risk going to a double-dissolution election before then.

However, the prospect of a fresh election does not bother Ms Milne.

"I don't think [Tony Abbott] would have the courage to go to a double-dissolution. There are plenty of governments who've had the trigger and not gone to a double-dissolution and I think Tony Abbott would not have the courage to do it frankly," she said.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox says it is positive Labor would consider supporting the repeal, but he thinks its conditions for doing so are unrealistic.

"I think the last thing the business community wants to see is that this debate roll on for another 18 months or so with continued uncertainty around carbon policy," he said.

"We've had to tolerate this for a very long time and it's cruelled investment in Australia. So, the quicker we get some resolution to it, and hopefully some bipartisanship, the better."

Another election in WA would be so cool, just like having two A-league grand finals in one year

Did anyone catch Q&A tonight?

I remember we were having a conversation a few weeks back about ABC being bias towards the left-wing, and I have to agree about that in regards to Q&A. It's such a lefty circle jerk. The right-wing guest is ridiculed/attacked by the other hosts (who are typically left-wing), and Tony Jones is the worst of the lot.

Case in point:

Right wing person gives 60 second spiel about issue.
Lefty makes a 'witty' remark.
Uni student audience laugh, making the right wingers point feel diminished.

If some people get their way,then the ABC and Sbs will stop getting funding and cease to exist, which some people will say is a good thing ,but there needs be a balance between right and left

The point is there is no balance. With the ABC is almost exclusively left. Which would be fine, except they are a publically funded institution.