Zed is either delusional, or deliberately taking the piss. He takes the swing to the liberals as some grand mandate to govern, despite the fact Labor's vote is higher than liberals, in fact a record high.

ACT election being counted the greens -labor coalition will almost certianly hold, if we're being optimistic greens will lose a seat to labor, but probably to the libs is more likely

Ahem.. Last Federal elections..

Glass houses mate

Forecast budget surplus cut to $1b

Reported by AAP
Monday, October 22, 2012

Treasurer Wayne Swan this morning revealed the government would slash spending by $4 billion to reach the forecast surplus.

The baby bonus will be slashed from $5000 to $3000 for each child after the first, and the private health insurance rebate will rise in line with inflation, not with annual premium increases.

Set to take effect in April 2014, the health insurance changes will save $700 million over three years, adding to the $2.8 billion of savings introduced in May when the government announced it would means test the rebate.

The reduction in the baby bonus, due to start on July 1 2013, will save $461m over three years.

Mr Swan said the forecast budget surplus had been scaled back due to falling government revenue and lower commodity prices.

He also indicated the surplus in 2015-16 had been cut from $7.5 billion to $6 billion.

The government plans to make $16.4 billion in new savings over four years.

Mr Swan said while Australia's economic fundamentals remained strong, worsening global conditions had cut almost $22 billion from tax receipts over the forward estimates and $4 billion alone in 2012/13.

"The weaker global outlook and lower-than-expected commodity prices, along with the general easing of price pressures in the economy, are again slowing the recovery in tax revenue," Mr Swan said in a statement.

The domestic growth forecast has been cut since the May budget.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) is now forecast to grow at around trend at three per cent in 2012/13 and 2013/14.

This represents a downgrade of one quarter of percentage point since the May budget.

Australia's terms of trade is also forecast to worsen, declining by eight percent this financial year compared to a previous forecast fall of 5.75 percent.

But unemployment rate is expected to remain low at 5 percent in 2012/13 and 2013/14, while inflation is likely to remain well contained.

"The government has responded to the more challenging global outlook by delivering $16.4 billion in new savings over the forward estimates," Mr Swan said.

"These savings strike the right balance, minimising any impact on the economy and on the community's most vulnerable, while still maintaining strong public finances."

Unclaimed cash to boost budget by $900m
DateOctober 22, 2012 - 3:36PM

The budget will receive a boost of almost $900 million under a plan to transfer millions in unclaimed money to the taxman and the corporate regulator.

In a measure announced today, the government will collect an extra $675 million by lowering the threshold at which inactive superannuation accounts are automatically moved to the Australian Tax Office.

At present, super accounts of people who cannot be contacted are transferred to the tax office if they hold less than $200 and there have been no contributions for five years.

But from January, super accounts will be transferred to the ATO if the account's owner can't be contacted, there is less than $2000 in the fund, and there have been no contributions for one year or more.

With the nation's lost super accounts holding about $17 billion, the change will deliver to the budget $675 million in savings over the next four years.

The unclaimed money will be held in trust by the government, but members can reclaim their lost funds from the tax office.

"These reforms will benefit individuals with small lost accounts by preventing these accounts from being eroded by fees and charges and protecting the real value of these balances," the government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook said.

Similar treatment will be applied to unclaimed bank deposits and life insurance policies, giving the government an extra $92.3 million over the next four years.

Under current rules, bank deposits can only be transferred to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission if they are inactive for seven years, but this will be cut to three years from January.

Unclaimed company money will also be automatically transferred to ASIC, delivering $118.5 million in savings over four years.

While the government expects to receive a boost from the changes, Superannuation Minister Bill Shorten said raising the threshold for unclaimed superannuation would help unite members with their retirement savings.

"The ATO will use its data matching resources to match these lost accounts with members and assist those members to be reunited with their lost superannuation," Mr Shorten's office said in a statement.

Under the changes, the ATO will also pay members an interest equivalent to inflation on their unclaimed super. At present, no interest is paid.

The government said the reforms would help lower the amount of unclaimed super because it would encourage super funds to collect more information about their members while the accounts were active.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/unclaimed-cash-to-boost-budget-by-900m-20121022-280vy.html#ixzz2A0rDSTQ2

The big question for 2013: who will 'own' middle Australia?
DateOctober 22, 2012

The American election campaign is a guide to our own coming contest.

THE release of new official economic forecasts today could put us on the fast train to dullsville - not because the milestone is unimportant, but because we'll be back faux finger-pointing over the faux surplus.

Politics is working out how to neutralise the disaffection of the middle class. In the US presidential campaign, this dynamic is particularly stark.
You can hear the scratchy sound bites now. That $2.53 isn't a surplus, it's just slippery accounting trickery! Hang on, don't lecture us about black holes when you've got a $70 billion one! We'll always do better than you! Nah, you won't. A proxy battle so war-gamed and ritualised and scripted for the hourly news update that it has been stripped of meaning.

Meanwhile, the big question hovering before the nation - is government ready intellectually and fiscally for the economic and social policy challenges of the future - takes a back seat.

This question is not a partisan point: it has nothing to do with who is more deserving of occupying The Lodge at this moment in time. This is a structural issue, as big picture as it gets. Do we have the revenue we need to deliver the services people in Australia expect? Is our tax system geared to promote equality and economic efficiency in the 21st century? Can we afford our deep-etched sense of egalitarianism, and is it worth championing?

Politics around the world is currently attempting to define what government does in an era of globalisation and profound economic uncertainty. And despite all the sound-bite chaff here, our major parties are well aware that hard policy work looms to ensure Australia remains prosperous, cohesive and solvent.

Politics is working out how to neutralise the disaffection of the middle class. In the US presidential campaign, this dynamic is particularly stark. Republican Mitt Romney is struggling to overcome his tycoon typecasting and be the everyman. Democrat Barack Obama is pitching aggressively to the people Tony Abbott would call the forgotten families. Economic conditions in the US make the empathy offensive a necessity. Times have been really tough. People have lost their jobs and their homes, and the country is locked in an anxious debate with itself about its own tattered exceptionalism.

The candidates in a way are proxies for a fascinating debate in economics about whether there's ''good'' and ''bad'' inequality. (Is inequality something we have to have to spur entrepreneurship? Or is it a recipe for economic inefficiency and instability?)

Obama is pinning himself to the aspirations of the middle class - America does best when we all prosper. It's both a political and a philosophical pitch. He's asserting intervention can be positive; government is on your side on health care, or if you are a manufacturing worker in Detroit.

Whereas Romney is Mr Meritocracy and Mr Small Government.

The contrast in their world views is best summarised by jokes the candidates made at last week's Al Smith dinner. Romney of Obama: ''You have to wonder what he's thinking - so little time, so much to redistribute.'' Obama of Romney: ''Earlier today, I went shopping at some stores in Midtown. I understand Governor Romney went shopping for some stores in Midtown.''

Here in Australia, Wayne Swan talks a lot about the sanctity of the middle class and the risks associated with trends or policies perpetuating inequality. In his mind, this is the central preoccupation of the new progressivism.

Tony Abbott (like Romney in the US) has branded Swan's intervention old-fashioned class warfare. Swan's communication lacks light and shade, so it's easy to marginalise his contribution. But this is a worthwhile conversation, whatever your political stripe, because experts tell us there's a link between societal equality and sustained periods of economic growth.

Thinking ahead to our own election contest next year, who ''owns'' middle Australia, or more pertinently, who will claim they do, and on what terms?

The reflexive response is Tony Abbott. Suburban Dad. The daily cost-of-living offensive. Those forgotten families. ''I'll get that carbon tax monkey off your back.'' A centrist in Liberal Party terms, a person comfortable with activist government, and a populist,

not a hawk.

But then there are the blanks. If you were asked to outline Abbott's broad-ranging economic policy vision, what would you say exactly? Would you say he's anti-redistribution? No, not viscerally. But you wouldn't say he was for it either.

Then there's events. Current fiscal circumstances and Abbott's anti-carbon tax and mining tax stances boxes the Coalition in to making a virtue of austerity.

Labor is playing up Liberal budget cuts in the states, roping Abbott in. Does Abbott play his hand before the election - arguing this isn't shrinking government, it's big society? Or do voters get a shock afterwards?

And what of Labor? The government has to navigate difficult cross-currents. There's the gap between progressive vision and the money to pay for it, in the here and now at least - diminished political capital makes new taxes a hard sell. There's a gap between fighting equality rhetoric and measly government benefits for society's most vulnerable.

Swan is doubtless sincere in sign-posting this important issue, but the government will have to have the courage of the whole debate, not just the parts that are politically convenient.

Katharine Murphy is national affairs correspondent.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/the-big-question-for-2013-who-will-own-middle-australia-20121021-27zh5.html#ixzz2A0vaDakV

Can someone also inform me as to what was so bad about Abbotts comments? Or is it just an example how effective Labor's sexist scare campaign has been? Id love the libs to change leadership just simply as then Labor would have absolutely nothing

all hail comrade rudd

HES GONNA RETURN TO SAVE US

IT'S HAPPENING GUYS

Suddenly, a glimmer of hope

DateOctober 24, 2012
Jack Waterford

Julia Gillard is still the outsider at the next election, but people are now talking of the possibility she could take Labor over the line

Is Prime Minister Julia Gillard moving into smoother water? The opinion polls may still show her behind - probably significantly so - but it must be at least a month since observers have routinely described her, or her government, as beleaguered.

This is by no means necessarily a result of her sexism and misogyny speech, but that of itself may represent a turning point of sorts, if only because it has made Opposition Leader Tony Abbott nervier about head-on attack.

Meanwhile, Gillard has had a period of reasonably uncritical headlines - over the Bali commemorations, her visits to Afghanistan and India, and Australia's election to a UN Security Council post. She has contained a number of events with the potential for bad headlines - mini-budget cuts, signs of a flagging economy, continuing border security problems, a noticeably-sniffing-around Kevin Rudd, and the final acts of the Slipper affair.

She rates personally well ahead of Abbott. Whether this will ultimately be reflected in voting intentions is by no means clear, although one pollster (Morgan) said this week that Labor was actually ahead. Most polls have the Coalition at least several points ahead.

Only six months ago many observers (including me) believed the gap insurmountable and Abbott's election inevitable. An Abbott win is still the most probable result, but many will now grant that Gillard has an outside chance.

The despair of many of her colleagues was not necessarily at individual disasters - because political events are of their nature highly unpredictable - but at her seeming inability to win a single trick. Failure begets failure, inhibits confidence, makes people risk-averse, and makes observers expect, and see, the worst. A sequence of good days generates its own momentum, and can galvanise the whole team.

On paper, there are eight more sitting days before Parliament rises until February, on November 29.

The Abbott camp insists that Abbott has been in a process of repositioning himself, away from sheer oppositionism and head-on attack towards alternative policy and philosophy, and his kinder and gentler side. He has, in any event, probably made as much as he can from carbon tax oppositionism, persistent insistence that Gillard is a liar, and high personal aggression.

Ironically, though, some will insist that any marked shift in the aggro is a proof that Gillard has achieved some moral ascendancy over Abbott as a result of her misogyny speech. Yet a resumption of intense hostilities, as though nothing had happened, would almost certainly rebound against Abbott much more than a chastened response.

The problem for the pugilist is the feeling of being made to back away. He has complained to his caucus that she won't lie down and die; for the year ahead, he has to expect that she won't even be on the ropes.

Abbott does not have to be tamed, and Gillard may have to do little more than survive the next month without any great damage. Then she can, or should, sit down and get serious about her strategy for the year ahead. She needs better teams. She needs better discipline. She needs a more focused effort from the central agencies of government. We need more of the confident, off-the-cuff ''real Julia'', and a lot less of the painfully rehearsed fake Julia. And she needs fewer distractions from policy and program areas that seem unlikely to do much in helping her party regain the confidence of a slight majority of the electorate.

It may well be her own fault, but that doesn't matter now if she moves past it. There was the untidiness of the coup against Kevin Rudd and his own unwillingness to lie down and die, and some tough, and bad, decisions. But she increased her burdens by saddling herself with some poor performers, poor staff work, and a lack of focus. She has fudged dealing with fundamental problems in her own party organisation and structure, the reorganisation of government in her image, or strategic or tactical use of a huge public-relations and advertising machinery.

A Julia Gillard contemplating doing all for re-election would be asking herself how many of her cabinet ministers are doing things, and saying things, that will be helping the government over the year ahead. It is not only a matter of managing policy or programs, but whether they are taking the debate to the enemy, or framing the debate in a way that is to Labor's advantage. If not, are her ministers in the right place, or should they be there at all? Some, such as Peter Garrett and Jenny Macklin can put on bombast and faux outrage but their skills are not effective in the chamber, on television or the street. Others are not even heard.

Relaxed and comfortable prime ministers, not least those with political eyes in the back of their heads, can carry a few passengers - people who are there as a part of factional or regional stitch-ups, or who can bring to the table qualities (including wisdom and experience) not otherwise there. But Gillard is still up against it, and is entitled to ask herself whether she is getting real value for money from the cabinet performances of ministers such as Tanya Plibersek, Martin Ferguson, Joseph Ludwig, Peter Garrett, Jenny Macklin, and Simon Crean. Nicola Roxon may enjoy being attorney-general, but is doing nothing useful by way of policy or politics there. Tanya Plibersek has done a reasonable job as one endlessly sent off to do the media rounds defending the indefensible, but has, in the process, ceased to make health work as a political plus for government.

Jenny Macklin is not providing, or co-ordinating, the development of saleable political and policy ideals, even in her own field and specialty. Her ideas no longer even attract what passes for a party left. Her department is supposed to serve what ought to be a prime Labor constituency, but Macklin's political leadership is so poor a skilful opposition could easily steal it away, something which has already largely happened with the indigenous vote.

Stephen Smith in Defence, Chris Bowen in Immigration, and, perhaps, Tony Burke in Environment, may be doing their best to manage problematic portfolios so that they are not actually political liabilities. But Gillard is entitled to wonder whether that is enough in straitened times, when, once, Labor was the party of choice for managing each of these areas.

Wayne Swan and Penny Wong are senior and capable ministers, but both are poor at selling genuine achievement, with Gillard doing most of the heavy work. Politicians, performers and leaders in Finance and Treasury such as Peter Walsh, John Dawkins, Kim Beazley, Lindsay Tanner, Ralph Willis and Paul Keating, actually inspired confidence and led public debates. The incumbents may be of equal technical ability, but are not in their rank as politicians or vote winners.

Nor does David Bradbury, who seems to take up some of the presentational work by default, inspire great confidence in the Labor brand.

Gillard must accept responsibility for her disposition of her team, and use of it to best effect. She has, moreover, a large personal staff, and a loyal and attentive department whose job it is to co-ordinate that team, to know what is happening, and to close up gaps as they emerge. Perhaps her ''good luck'' in recent times has been by improved staff work, but there seems still a major problem of a lack of governing ideas and themes, road map to the finishing line, or structured plan to get there. Perhaps that's her Christmas holiday project.

Jack Waterford is The Canberra Times' Editor-at-large.



Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/politics/suddenly-a-glimmer-of-hope-20121023-283u6.html#ixzz2ACzIS9ZF

Having Craig Thompsons house and his MP’s office raided today by the police for evidence of fraud is far greater news than this report Joffa.


Best line in this report is I quote: “The opinion polls may still show her behind-probably significantly so…”

Hmm that is so misogynist and sexist... or sorry was that a good report about PM?

Keep on dreaaming Labour Stooges

Swan drank with PM the night before coup
DateOctober 27, 2012
THE night before he turned against his prime minister, Wayne Swan went to Kevin Rudd's office for a drink and congratulated him on defending the newly announced mining tax, a new book reports.

Never a clean way to slay a king
As Julia Gillard's challenge unfolded the next day, the man Mr Rudd had appointed Treasurer lacked the courage to tell him he was abandoning him: "In the case of Wayne, I did not even receive a telephone call advising me he had decided to withdraw his support from me and back Julia as replacement prime minister," Mr Rudd tells the former Labor MP Maxine McKew in her new book. "I had to telephone him myself."

Mr Swan was responsible for bungling the introduction of the mining tax, and Mr Rudd called in the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, to fix the mess, McKew writes in Tales from the Political Trenches, to be published on Monday.


"When I asked him 'What's happening?', he replied he would be 'voting for change'" … Kevin Rudd felt let down by Wayne Swan, according to Maxine McKew's book. Photo: Stefan Postles

But while Mr Rudd had defended Mr Swan, the Treasurer did not reciprocate: "In response to my question on the Wednesday afternoon," the day of the coup, "when I asked him 'What's happening?', he replied he would be 'voting for change'," says Mr Rudd.

"It was only later that I discovered that an arrangement had been put in place to make him deputy prime minister" in a Gillard government. "But the core point was this: at no stage did either Julia or Wayne say to me that, unless I undertook change x, y or z, there would be a challenge to my leadership. So did I feel let down and indeed betrayed? Well of course."

McKew offers a tough verdict on the leadership coup against a first-term prime minister: "It's never happened before in our party. It was engineered and executed by a small group of people intent on indulging their own political vanities."


Maxine McKew's book Tales from the Political Trenches. Photo: Supplied
She is referring to the factional lieutenants and union chiefs who led the coup, the so-called "faceless men." But she also reports that Ms Gillard herself was using internal research to undermine Mr Rudd days before the coup as part of a "conspiracy".

Ms Gillard has maintained that she refused any part in any plotting and only made up her mind to challenge on the day of the coup itself.

Until now, Mr Rudd has largely been blamed for the mishandling of the mining tax. The announcement of the tax in its original form in 2010 provoked the big multinational miners BHP, Rio and Xstrata to fund a vigorous $22 million ad campaign against the tax. It was used within the caucus to argue that Mr Rudd had gone to war with the business community.

But McKew holds Mr Swan squarely responsible: "Rudd trusted his Treasurer."

The prime minister had wanted to avoid a contentious debate on a mining tax and so had set down key conditions for Mr Swan in setting up the tax: "Rudd told Swan that he needed to secure the support of at least one of the major industry players and that he needed to have the states on side. Neither would be easy. But as West Australian Premier Colin Barnett has said, Rudd's 'jaw just about hit the table' when Barnett told the PM at a COAG meeting in April 2010 that the tax was a dead duck."

The big mining firms "felt blindsided by an uncompromising Treasurer," McKew writes. "Swan had not delivered and Rudd had come to believe that he had been sold a pup."

Mr Rudd asked Mr Ferguson to find a political solution. He believed a resolution was in sight but the coup struck him down before one could be delivered.

When Ms Gillard was endorsed by the caucus as leader, she immediately opened new negotiations with the miners. After intensive talks, she announced a deal with a new name and structure for the tax just eight days after the coup.

The tax as originally structured would have yielded $9 billion in revenue for the government in its first year, 2012-13, but under the new deal it was to be $3 billion until Mr Swan last week announced that it had been revised down to $2 billion.

In the first quarter of this fiscal year the three biggest miners reportedly have paid zero mining tax.

Yesterday a spokesman for Mr Swan said McKew's book was ''too full of errors, misunderstanding and untruths … to be taken seriously''



Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/swan-drank-with-pm-the-night-before-coup-20121026-28b46.html#ixzz2ASAfvREo

Penny Wong only second on SA Senate ticket

DateOctober 27, 2012 - 3:39PM

Federal Finance Minister Penny Wong has been placed only second on Labor's South Australian Senate ticket for the next election.

The party's SA convention on Saturday selected the high-profile minister behind the relatively unknown Don Farrell, a former union official.

The vote had been expected although its likelihood drew criticism recently from federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese, even though Senator Wong was also No.2 on the ticket the last time she went to an election.

Senator Farrell is a key player in Labor's right faction in South Australia and also serves as a parliamentary secretary for the government.

After Saturday's vote a diplomatic Senator Wong said she felt honoured to have been endorsed to represent the ALP at the next election.

"There has been much speculation surrounding today's South Australian Senate preselections.

"The Labor Party is a democratic organisation and today 200 elected delegates have determined who will represent Labor in South Australia at the next election.

"I am honoured to have been endorsed in a winnable position on the South Australian Labor Senate ticket."

In her speech to the convention, Senator Wong said the government faced a tough fight to defeat the coalition at the next poll.

"They are tough opponents," she said.

"But we must be resilient and we must be resolute.

"Because too much would be torn down and too much would be taken by a party led by a man who is not worthy to be prime minister of this nation."

http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/penny-wong-only-second-on-sa-senate-ticket-20121027-28c8g.html

Labor fury: Wong beaten in Senate vote

Permalink Andrew Bolt Blog
By Andrew Bolt–, Saturday,
October, 27,
2012,

I have some sympathy for Albanese’s argument, but I would point out that Wong, albeit popular in media circles, has a curious ability to be fluent without being persuasive:


The Labor Party has exploded into open warfare at the highest levels following the defeat of the senior cabinet minister Penny Wong to the number one Senate ticket in favour of one of the lesser known faceless men who helped install Julia Gillard to the Prime Ministership in 2010.

Right-faction powerbroker Don Farrell defeated Senator Wong in a ballot today by 112 votes to 83 with the Finance Minister to be listed second on the South Australian Senate ballot paper at the next federal election.

Senior Labor frontbencher and left-faction figure Anthony Albanese let fly today at ‘‘union powerbrokers’’ saying Labor’s ongoing factional wars were evidence of a broken internal system.

Accusing his party of ignoring the electorate in favour of its own ructions, Mr Albanese said he will demand this week that the ALP national executive overturn the decision and promote Senator Wong to the number one spot.

He labelled the move as ‘‘gross self-indulgent rubbish’’ taken by ‘‘those who should care more about the party and less about themselves.’’

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/labor_fury_wong_beaten_in_senate_vote/

It still baffles me why anyone would want Rudd back.

It still baffles me why anyone would want Rudd back.

You may not want Rudd back, but by god if we’ll tolerate Jules any longer. Hey Cathbert, go look up ‘Emilys List Australia. Under ASIC records, it is still listed as belonging to one Miss Julia Eileen Gillard. Go and see what Emily’s List is about.

Why Labor can win in 2013

DateOctober 30, 2012 - 6:17AM

Many of the nation's political analysts and commentators think the next federal election is a foregone conclusion and will bring with it a Coalition Government.

The case most make is not that the country is in dire straits but rather that the Labor Government has failed miserably in "the politics department". The argument goes like this - there has been and there remains instability over leadership, there is ongoing scandal in Labor's ranks and amongst those who support them, the Government hasn't prosecuted the case for a price on carbon and mining tax well enough, there has been too much inconsistency on key issues, most notably asylum-seeker policy, and a trust deficit has been created following the decision to pursue a price on carbon after saying it wouldn't happen.

The Liberals of course, have their own version of all this case – the Government is unstable and untrustworthy, incompetent and mired in scandal and ideological and out-of-touch. Day in and day out they say the same thing.

However, the question remains - will the Liberal critique resonate with the electorate when they are in the polling station pencil in hand and poised to vote?

One can question the performance of the Government on many issues – and I have through this column – but there are important factors which help its cause, particularly when we look at the uncertainties related to what is happening in Europe and North America.

Australia's economic performance overall has been good, the triple-A credit rating is intact, the challenges of tax, middle-class welfare and climate aren't being ignored, reform of the nation's health and education systems is in train, a good framework has been established for Commonwealth/State collaboration and employees and their unions aren't being shut out. For economic radicals keen on productivity, social radicals keen on fairness and environmental radicals keen on a low carbon economy it's not a perfect record but if you believe in the triple bottom-line it's a solid performance and worthy of commendation.

Add to this the continuing concerns about what a Coalition Government will look like with a National Party partner under pressure from a restless constituency in rural and regional Australia. Tony Abbott is no John Howard, and Barnaby Joyce no John Anderson!

As the election approaches one can also predict that the electorate will focus more on what Liberal "economics" will mean for jobs and the services upon which many of them rely. Their relentless negativity has reached its use-by date and one can only assume that what Liberals like Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb say is that they will do. For low and middle income Australians this will raise the alarm.

What this means is that each side's criticism of the other will produce a points victory to neither. This being said it is tight for Labor and they won't want to see an economic downturn, even if it is caused by global developments. In this context Labor strategists and policy wonks should have a "Plan B" ready to activate.

So too would another dose of internal instability and/or union scandal be hard for the electorate to digest. I trust the Labor Caucus and their extra-parliamentary "mates" understand this.

What we will be left with is the leadership factor. Who will the electorate want as Prime Minister –Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott? What they are seen to represent and how they behave will become central to the political equation. This is clearly a battle Labor can win and the Liberals know it – that's why they are desperate to ensure "the Tony Abbott factor" is not at the centre of the election campaign.



Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/why-labor-can-win-in-2013-20121030-28get.html#ixzz2AlZ1w3Lf

Victoria seems to be swinging back toward Labor, especially at State level.

You’re missing the point, that foundation is a fundraiser to help get female MPs for the ALP.

It still baffles me why anyone would want Rudd back.

The tough questions PM refuses to answer

by: Piers Akerman From: The Daily Telegraph November 02, 2012 12:00AM

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard is offended. She is offended by legitimate questions about her activities as a partner at the Labor law firm Slater & Gordon in the early to mid-'90s.

The questions asked this week in parliament by Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop relate directly to a fund which Gillard set up for a corrupt former boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, who was at the time one of the top bosses of the AWU. Gillard described it as a slush fund during what amounted to an exit interview with senior partners at Slater & Gordon shortly before she left in 1995 to make an unsuccessful bid for a Victorian senate seat.

Gillard's stock response to questions about the slush fund and her knowledge of the racket being run by her former boyfriend is to maintain that she addressed all the issues in a press conference she held in Canberra on August 23.

But that is not so. The questions asked by Bishop this week were not asked by the media in August.

On Wednesday, Bishop reminded the Prime Minister that she had previously said that Ralph Blewitt, another corrupt former AWU union boss, had personally provided funds to purchase a property in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in 1993.

Bishop brandished a cheque for more than $67,000 drawn on the account of the AWU Workplace Reform Association (the slush fund Gillard set up for her boyfriend, Wilson) made out to Slater & Gordon and asked whether Gillard still stood by her claim that she didn't know that the money came from the union slush fund that she had assisted in establishing?

Gillard said she stood by all her statements on the matter.

Bishop quoted from an affidavit sworn by another former AWU national secretary, Ian Cambridge, now a Gillard government appointee to Fair Work Australia, which stated: "I am unable to understand how Slater & Gordon could have permitted the use of funds obviously taken from the union without obtaining proper authority from the union."

She asked how "as a lawyer acting for the union and on the purchase of the property, how could the Prime Minister have been ignorant of the source of the funds?"

Gillard again replied: "I do stand by my statements."

“Given that none of the specific questions asked this week about the slush fund and the Slater and Gordon trust fund have been answered by the Prime Minister previously, how can she continue to assert that she has dealt with them before, as that is patently untrue?"

Gillard's response this time was a complete non sequitur, a diversion, and a retreat into victimhood.

"How can the opposition assert that it is focusing on the nation's interests and not the silly, nasty personal politics when it goes down this track?"she asked. But it is in the nation's interests and it is neither silly nor nasty to probe Gillard's past because her repeated claims that she was unaware of problems with the slush fund she set up for her former boyfriend require far more detailed explanation than she has so far provided.

It is in the nation's interests because Gillard has made character a key ingredient of the game she has told Australians she is engaged in with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

It was Gillard who famously said "game on", it was Gillard who stood at the dispatch box and launched the venomous and unsupported attack on what she claimed was Abbott's misogyny.

But it is Gillard who now does not want her actions or her past scrutinised because to do so would be nasty.

As The Australian reported a fortnight ago, Gillard and her boss Bernard Murphy from Gillard's law firm Slater & Gordon were able to scare off union whistleblowers who attempted to reveal the facts about Blewitt and the misappropriation of money from the secret slush fund that Gillard had registered.

A defamation action they lodged on Blewitt's behalf in the Supreme Court in October 1993 was sufficient to shut up the whistleblowers.

Blewitt - who now admits to being involved in fraud - transferred money from the slush fund to buy the Fitzroy property for Gillard's then boyfriend, Wilson.

Gillard attended the auction and acted as Wilson's lawyer in the transaction, as well as witnessing a power of attorney giving Wilson control of the asset.

She has never answered questions about how she came to witness that document, either.

But what makes Gillard's statements to parliament so remarkable is that, despite all her bluster, she has still not advanced her opinion about how Blewitt came by so much cash beyond the answer to the same question she gave in the 1995 interview with her concerned Slater & Gordon partners.

Then, according to the heavily redacted transcript which has been released, she said: "It all made, you know, relatively sort of sensible sense."

Her only subsequent qualification to that explanation is that she was "young and naive".

Gillard's Scottish spin doctor John McTernan, employed in the PM's office on a 457 visa issued to employers who cannot find skilled Australian citizens or skilled permanent residents to fill a position, says he doesn't anticipate the Prime Minister adding more to what she has been saying in parliament.

Without wishing to be nasty, it is really not too much to ask the Prime Minister to make a full statement about her role in establishing the slush fund.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-tough-questions-pm-refuses-to-answer/story-e6frezz0-1226508626993

Party troops muster for March battle

November 4, 2012
Jessica Wright

AUSTRALIA'S political parties are in the advance stages of preparations for next year's federal election campaign, with a senior Labor strategist saying a March election is ''a distinct possibility''.

With the ALP, the Liberals and the Greens all recording significant and surprising boosts to membership, Labor has gone to its staffers asking for money as it tries to recover from the dire financial status brought on at the last election.

The Coalition is believed to be a long way ahead of the ALP in campaign fund-raising, but a Liberal insider confirmed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's relentless travel across the country was a costly exercise - ''but one that will pay off''.

It is estimated the Liberal Party will spend up to $35 million in the push to install Mr Abbott in The Lodge.

Membership figures for the ALP and the Liberals show Labor is well on track to surpass Julia Gillard's target of 8000 new members by early next year, a big turnaround from 2010, when the post-election review revealed near terminal decline.

Although the national executive guards the number closely, Fairfax has learnt that the ALP now has 44,022 members nationally, up from 39,688 in January. The Liberal Party boasts almost double this, with just over 78,000 paid up members, a boost of more than 20 per cent in 18 months.

Requests for exact dollar amounts for the ALP, Liberal National Party and Greens Party election campaign kitties were not granted but it is believed that Labor is slowly turning around its finances.

But the ALP will again rely heavily on the unions to build its war chest. The ACTU put in place a compulsory $2 a member levy on its 1.8 million union members in September.

A union boss confirmed the movement was split over whether the ''fighting fund'' would be used solely for an advertising fear campaign against the Coalition's industrial reform agenda or be funnelled into key marginal seats in the battleground states of Queensland and New South Wales.

Gillard government staff have also been asked to contribute to the Labor re-election ''fighting fund''.

Labor's national secretary, George Wright, has appealed for ''as little as $10 a fortnight'' from each staffer in a letter rallying the troops. However, it is believed to have had a slow take-up rate among the ''West Wing'' set.

The federal Liberal Party is ''roughly half to two-thirds of the way there of what we would need to mount the sort of campaign we want to'', according to a source within the party.

Liberal federal director Brian Loughnane said most donations since 2010 had arrived in small denominations but in large numbers, similar to the highly successful strategy used by President Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election.

Speculation mounted last week that the Labor Party was considering the option of an early poll, with the government beginning to focus on its ''big ticket'' items: the national disability insurance scheme, education reforms and the Asian white paper.

One theory - mainly pushed by the Coalition - was that Ms Gillard could seek a March election as a distraction from the difficulty of delivering the 2013 surplus in a May budget. A Labor strategist said this was ''a distinct possibility''.

The Greens recorded a new high in membership - 10,429 - shortly after party founder Bob Brown retired, with new leader Christine Milne openly calling for donations for an ''anti-Labor fighting fund''



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/party-troops-muster-for-march-battle-20121103-28r3n.html#ixzz2BDcPhK5E