Scientific studies have empirically proven that righties are unable to read text below Font Size 4 because their smaller brains are incapable of tuning their optic nerves to such an acute degree.

[size=1]-ozboy[/size]

well out of these two i would pick Albanese...... but i think he is a bit of a lightweight....

:lol:

How ironic that you brainless knob is criticizing someone about their brain size and by the way add yourself on the desperate looser list too:-({|=

Missing a clear joke and then criticising another person's intelligence isn't exactly the way to go there, No12.

Abbott's model to wreck a government may come back to bite him

September 14, 2013

Peter Hartcher

Combative: Tony Abbott's strategic, aggressive model of opposition helped destroy a government.

Tony Abbott is promising again and again that he will lead a "methodical, measured, calm" government. But he's overlooking something. He's just finished writing a rip-roaring new guidebook on how to be a successful opposition.

It's the Abbott model of how to destroy a government. And guess what? The Labor party noticed.

Rule No. 1: Don't give the government a thing. Fight it up hill, down dale, day in day out. Be strident, be angry, be unreasonable. Apply maximum pressure and see what cracks.

Rule No. 2: Don't allow the government to control the narrative. Make a lot of noise. Fill the airwaves with angry dissent and maximum outrage. Generate an impression of disorder. If you control the narrative, you control the psychological battlespace.

Rule No. 3: Exploit the deadliest of all contemporary policy issues, the one that was central to the downfall of the last three prime ministers: climate change. This remains a potent issue and will remain so for years.

And the Abbott model worked. "We limited Labor to six years," points out a quietly satisfied member of the Coalition leadership. "Labor under Hawke and Keating had 10 years; we had 11½ years under Howard. Labor is out after six."

So while Abbott wants to be methodical, measured and calm, will the Labor opposition let him?

Whether it's Anthony Albanese or Bill Shorten leading the Labor Party, you can be confident the opposition will apply the Abbott model.

Both men plan a combative, aggressive style and relentless pressure. Both are determined to keep Abbott's policy on climate change a centrepiece of contention.

Abbott gave Labor no quarter and can expect none in return. He showed new ways to crack a government and they will now be applied to him.

There are three obvious objections to this as a workable construct for the new opposition leader.

First, can't a new prime minister dominate the logistics, the policy and the psychology of a new parliament? Surely Abbott can resist Labor's efforts at payback.

Abbott already has slowed the pace of government and steadied the pace of media engagement. The incoming prime minister, a week after the election, is still incoming.

He's postponed the formalities of swearing in by a week. He's proposing a serenely slow resumption of Parliament. He has given no press conferences or media door stops for an entire week.

The supposedly relentless 24/7 media cycle? He's ignoring it, and the media cycle is starting to ignore him. This is exactly what he wants, putting sport back on the front page, as he's said, with the government in the background.

So why can't he simply continue as he's begun? Another prime minister, Julia Gillard, started with a very similar intention. Her government would play a long game and "not be worried about each day's six o'clock news", she told her caucus in her first remarks as leader.

She elaborated: "What I seek to be judged by is not necessarily the accumulation over a 24-hour period of the six or seven media cycles that are now in that 24 hours.

"What I would seek to be judged by is what gets done and what gets achieved. This business isn't about entertaining. It's about leading the country."

But Gillard soon discovered that while she might not have worried about the daily political news space, the opposition certainly did. It took full advantage. Her utopian long game was a losing proposition. Public opinion was being formed by the opposition in the daily media while Gillard was governing.

Oppositions have an inherent advantage - they have nothing else to do.

Five months after taking the prime ministership, Gillard was facing open criticism inside her own caucus meetings from MPs complaining that she was failing to "sell" Labor's achievements.

Gillard was forced to abandon her effort to maintain a stately distance from the media ruck.

When the Abbott government, inevitably, comes under pressure, when Labor inflames public opinion against it and the polls start to turn, Abbott will face the same dilemma.

The second objection to Labor's ability to turn Abbott's model against him is Labor itself. It's in disarray. Divided, defeated, demoralised, how can it bring a sustained attack on the new government?

The answer is that the Coalition was in exactly such a state when Abbott first arrived as leader.

After the defeat of the Howard government, the demoralised Coalition cycled unhappily through Brendan Nelson then Malcolm Turnbull before turning, by a single vote, to Abbott in a partyroom coup.

As Kerry O'Brien put it directly to Abbott on that very day, he'd been given a "very shaky mandate to lead a deeply divided party". O'Brien was right.

Abbott's most urgent task was to build a stronger leadership mandate and to unite his party. If he didn't master his party, it would quickly overwhelm him. This was why he created the Abbott model.

Abbott didn't become what Wayne Swan liked to call "the most negative opposition leader in Australia's history" as a matter of personal preference or by sheer chance. It was a matter of survival.

One of the architects of the Abbott model, a member of his inner circle, recently explained the strategy in a revealing moment of instructive frankness: "Tony needed to secure his leadership. To do that, before anything else, his job was to be competitive'' against Labor. "That's got to be overarching."

Two things will follow if an opposition leader is seen to be competitive.

"First, people outside the game will look at you - you get lounge-room time." The adviser points to an opposition leader who's failed to do that - John Robertson, the NSW Labor leader. "He doesn't get a look-in.''

And second, ''you get to secure your leadership" against internal challenge.

"The most important thing is that you have to have unity and discipline, and that was very hard after losing power and losing John Howard." Without unity and discipline, a leader will be weakened, undermined, distracted and, ultimately, destroyed. This is the story of the Rudd-Gillard years.

It was Abbott's need to unify his party, to survive as leader, that explains why he was hyper-aggressive and super-confrontational from day one: "All the way through it was to keep maximum pressure on Labor and see what buckled. And everything buckled."

The first thing that buckled was Labor's resolve to persist with its promised emissions trading scheme; that, in turn, led to the downfall of Kevin Rudd; and that, in turn, set up the cycle of internal feuding that led to the downfall of Julia Gillard.

The Labor leader to emerge in four weeks' time will be in a very similar spot. The party is defeated and demoralised. The new leader - whether Albanese or Shorten - will be the winner of a divisive factional contest.

Albanese and Shorten are the leading exponents of factional warfare of their generation. Albanese is the leader of the national Left faction of the Labor party; Shorten is the champion of the national Right. This is old Labor, old politics, in the old style. This is the sort of factional warfare that both men grew up with.

If Labor needs some serious introspection after its defeat, this is not the way to get it. It is happening nonetheless. The party is running on ancient reflex.

Winning the leadership is critical to the factional power balance. The party's leadership has never been held by a member of the Left. This is why it's an irresistible prize for Albanese; it's why the Right is determined to defeat him.

Gillard was notionally a member of the Left in her earlier days, but neither the Left nor Right consider her to be a true member of that faction.

Her belief system and policy preferences confirmed her as a natural member of the Right, the faction that delivered her the prime ministership.

The winner of this contest will inherit a defeated, divided and deflated party, just as Abbott did in December 2009. The Abbott model will suit his needs, whether it's Albanese or Shorten.

The third objection to the viability of the Abbott model is that it depended on carbon policy. Abbott's assault on Rudd's ETS was indispensable in the Rudd downfall; his campaign against Gillard's carbon tax was every bit as important.

But surely Labor can't run hard against Abbott's carbon repeal policy? Hasn't the carbon tax been a fatal liability for Labor? Isn't it politically discredited beyond redemption? Albanese and Shorten can't be serious about persisting on this?

The biggest problem with the carbon tax wasn't the policy, but its provenance - it represented a broken promise, it was an emblem of betrayal, it was the basis for the abusive campaign against Gillard as "Juliar". With Gillard gone, it's just a carbon tax.

More important than Labor's view of the policy is its stance towards Abbott. The Abbott model showcased oppositionism as the ultimate belief, rather than belief in any particular policy. In other words, it's more important to oppose the government on a policy - any policy - than it is to consider the policy on its merits.

As Abbott said of the policy divisions in his own party on the day he took the Liberal leadership: "I am confident that what looked like deep divisions were more a function of us being asked to go against our natural instincts to support a government.

"Now, the natural instincts of an opposition are to oppose a government."

That's the lesson that Albanese and Shorten took from the experience.

Abbott wants to change policy by repealing the carbon tax while still pledging to cut carbon emissions. This is fraught, politically and scientifically.

It's fraught politically because Abbott needs to get the Senate to agree to repeal the tax. Labor and the Greens have a blocking majority in the Senate till July 1 next year, and thereafter Abbott will need to negotiate with a ragbag of untested independents.

It's fraught scientifically because no independent expert believes that Abbott's alternative - so-called direct action - can cut emissions as much as he's promising.

And as the climate changes, governments worldwide will go into a new round of global negotiations over the next year to agree to emissions cuts. Abbott's policy could become a failed promise at home and a negotiating liability abroad.

By opposing Abbott's carbon policy, Labor plans to capitalise on all his difficulties. They learnt from the master.



Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/abbotts-model-to-wreck-a-government-may-come-back-to-bite-him-20130913-2tqa7.html#ixzz2eq2ksqsC

Julia Gillard launches scathing attack on Kevin Rudd and the pain she still feels over being dumped

LINDA SILMALIS CHIEF REPORTER
The Daily Telegraph
September 14, 2013 11:06AM

JULIA Gillard has launched a scathing attack on Kevin Rudd, saying his return and the lack of "one truly new idea" had cost Labor the election.
Speaking for the first time about her dumping in June, Ms Gillard also described the grief she felt after she was replaced, saying it hit her "like a fist, pain so strong you feel it in your guts, your nerve endings".

The comments, made in a 5000-word article published in The Guardian, are set to create a headache for Labor, which is desperately trying to move on from the election loss.

Ms Gillard, who has previously reserved her criticism of Mr Rudd, said the party could muster no reason for his comeback other than the hope that its polling may improve.

Labor's decision to change leader was "only done - indeed expressly done - on the basis that Labor might do better at the election", she said.

"Labor comes to opposition having sent the Australian community a very cynical and shallow message about its sense of purpose," she wrote.
"Labor unambiguously sent a very clear message that it cared about nothing other than the prospects of survival of its members of parliament at the polls.

"No alternate purpose was articulated during the election campaign that made sense to the Australian people.

"Kevin clearly felt constrained in running on those policies where Labor had won the national conversation, because those policies were associated with me. Y

"Yet there was not one truly original new idea to substitute as the lifeblood of the campaign."

Former prime minister Julie Gillard has opened up for the first time about losing the Labor leadership to Kevin Rudd.

Ms Gillard, who said she spent the night of the Federal election "alone", is still haunted by her dumping.

"I know now that there are the odd moments of relief as the stress ekes away and the hard weight that felt like it was sitting uncomfortably between your shoulder blades slips off. It actually takes you some time to work out what your neck and shoulders are supposed to feel like," she said.

"I know too that you can feel you are fine but then suddenly someone's words of comfort, or finding a memento at the back of the cupboard as you pack up, or even cracking jokes about old times, can bring forth a pain that hits you like a fist, pain so strong you feel it in your guts, your nerve endings.

"I know that late at night or at quiet moments in the day feelings of regret, memories that make you shine with pride, a sense of being unfulfilled can overwhelm you. Hours slip by."

She urged the party not to repeal the carbon tax, even though "without doubt, Tony Abbott won this public opinion war and dominated this political conversation."

Ms Gillard said the short-term discomfort of denying the mandate of voters was less of a price to pay than Labor being seen as party "without belief, fortitude or purpose.

"Labor should not in opposition abandon our carbon pricing scheme," she said.

"Climate change is real. Carbon should be priced. Community concern about carbon pricing did abate after its introduction. Tony Abbott does not have a viable alternative.

"While it will be uncomfortable in the short term to be seen to be denying the mandate of the people, the higher cost would be appearing as, indeed becoming, a party unable to defend its own policy and legislation: a party without belief, fortitude or purpose."

Ms Gillard accuses Mr Rudd of failing to "embrace Malcolm Turnbull's bipartisanship when it was on offer" and then failing to "go to an election early on carbon pricing in late 2009 or early 2010."

She urged her Labor colleagues to stay focussed and "remain positive", while empathising with those who had lost seats.
"We have some grieving to do together," she said.

Ms Gillard also admitted to having made a mistake by not contesting the "tax" label for the fixed price period of the emissions trading scheme.

"I feared the media would end up playing constant silly word games with me, trying to get me to say the word "tax"," she said.

"I wanted to be on the substance of the policy, not playing "gotcha".

"But I made the wrong choice and, politically, it hurt me terribly."

http://www.news.com.au/national-news/nsw-act/julia-gillard-launches-scathing-attack-on-kevin-rudd-and-the-pain-she-still-feels-over-being-dumped/story-fnii5s3x-1226719034631

Julia Gillard: losing power 'hits you like a fist' - exclusive

Former prime minister reveals grief, pain and regret over losing power, and issues fierce defence of her time in office in article for Guardian Australia

Julia Gillard: power, purpose and Labor's future

Lenore Taylor
theguardian.com, Saturday 14 September 2013 11.38 AEST

Julia Gillard has talked for the first time about the deep pain and grief she felt about losing power, and how she chose to spend the night of the federal election alone.

In an exclusive 5000-word article written for Guardian Australia, the former Labor prime minister of Australia says that “losing power is felt physically, emotionally, in waves of sensation” and that the pain “hits you like a fist, pain so strong you feel it in your guts, your nerve endings.”

Gillard also says that Labor lost the election because Kevin Rudd returned without “one truly original new idea” and because he was unable to explain her enduring policy achievements. She believes that the party could muster no reason for his comeback other than that its polling might improve.

The wide-ranging article is the first time Gillard has made any comment about her removal as prime minister of Australia in June.

In an unusually frank description of the emotional impact of losing power, Gillard writes: "I sat alone on election night as the results came in. I wanted it that way. I wanted to just let myself be swept up in it."

She continues: "Losing power is felt physically, emotionally, in waves of sensation, in moments of acute distress. I know now that there are the odd moments of relief as the stress ekes away and the hard weight that felt like it was sitting uncomfortably between your shoulder blades slips off. It actually takes you some time to work out what your neck and shoulders are supposed to feel like.

“I know too that you can feel you are fine but then suddenly someone’s words of comfort, or finding a memento at the back of the cupboard as you pack up, or even cracking jokes about old times, can bring forth a pain that hits you like a fist, pain so strong you feel it in your guts, your nerve endings.

“I know that late at night or at quiet moments in the day feelings of regret, memories that make you shine with pride, a sense of being unfulfilled can overwhelm you. Hours slip by."

The article also includes:

a fierce defence of Labor's policy contributions;
an appeal to the Labor party to choose future leaders on the basis of substance and purpose rather than opinion polls;
an admission of mistakes Gillard says she made over the carbon tax, including not contesting the label that it was a “tax” for fear that the media would play “silly word games” and try for a “gotcha” moment; and also a plea to Labor to stand firm on its policy on carbon pricing: “climate change is real”;
praise for Rudd as “right and brave” for sticking with Labor’s policy on carbon pricing in the election, as well as an attack on some of his “bizarre” policy ideas.
On Rudd’s ousting of her in June 2013, Gillard is withering.

"Labor comes to opposition having sent the Australian community a very cynical and shallow message about its sense of purpose," she writes.

Labor’s decision to change leader was “only done - indeed expressly done - on the basis that Labor might do better at the election. Labor unambiguously sent a very clear message that it cared about nothing other than the prospects of survival of its members of parliament at the polls.”

She continues: “No alternate purpose was articulated during the election campaign that made sense to the Australian people. Kevin clearly felt constrained in running on those policies where Labor had won the national conversation, because those policies were associated with me. Yet there was not one truly original new idea to substitute as the lifeblood of the campaign.”

Gillard urges her Labor colleagues to own major policies which she argues have so dominated the debate that the Coalition has been forced to accept them — including on disability reform, school funding and education more broadly.

And, contrary to suggestions by some in Labor that the party should agree to the repeal of the carbon tax, Gillard is adamant that Labor must also stand firm and stick with its policy on carbon pricing, even though "without doubt, Tony Abbott won this public opinion war and dominated this political conversation.”

"Labor should not in opposition abandon our carbon pricing scheme,” she insists. “Climate change is real. Carbon should be priced. Community concern about carbon pricing did abate after its introduction. Tony Abbott does not have a viable alternative.

“While it will be uncomfortable in the short term to be seen to be denying the mandate of the people, the higher cost would be appearing as, indeed becoming, a party unable to defend its own policy and legislation: a party without belief, fortitude or purpose."

She acknowledges she "erred by not contesting the label ‘tax’ for the fixed price period of the emissions trading scheme", a decision that paved the way for Tony Abbott's contention that she had broken her pre-election promise not to introduce a carbon tax.

"I feared the media would end up playing constant silly word games with me, trying to get me to say the word 'tax'. I wanted to be on the substance of the policy, not playing 'gotcha'. But I made the wrong choice and, politically, it hurt me terribly."

She also attributes blame for Labor's earlier political failures on climate policy to Rudd, for failing to "embrace Malcolm Turnbull’s bipartisanship when it was on offer", and then failing to "go to an election early on carbon pricing in late 2009 or early 2010." But she praises him for sticking with the policy in 2013.

"Labor is on the right side of history on carbon pricing and must hold its course. Kevin Rudd was both right and brave to say this in the dying days of the campaign," she says.

However she ridicules several of Rudd's 2013 policy ideas, which she calls on the party to ditch immediately. "The bizarre flirtation in the campaign with ‘economic nationalism’ and the cheap populism of appearing anti-foreign investment must be chucked out now. Poor policies like the different corporate tax rate for the Northern Territory and the hugely expensive move of naval assets from Garden Island should be ditched."

The former prime minister connects her own grief at her defeat to that which her colleagues are feeling now because they were voted out of government, or lost their seats.

"I know that my colleagues are feeling all this now. Those who lost, those who remain. We have some grieving to do together."

But she exhorts the Labor party, to which she devoted most of her adult life, to remain focused and positive.

"Ultimately it has to be grieving for the biggest thing lost, the power to change our nation for the better. To protect those who need us to shield them. To empower through opportunity. To decide what future we want for all our nation’s children and then build it. And when the grieving is done, that’s our purpose."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/13/julia-gillard-losing-power-fist

meanwhile in new research released recently...ozboy, Afro and lefties can see fonts under 2 due to the fact they are use to handling microscopic male apendage....

Edited by batfink: 14/9/2013 03:02:31 PM

10 of the most vicious fights in Australian politics

Personal attacks, vicious insults, physical fights, backstabbing – Australian politicians have seen it all. Here are some of the worst examples

Van Badham and Karen Pickering
theguardian.com, Thursday 27 June 2013 13.11 AEST

Another day has passed in Australian politics, and, with it, the prime-ministerial career of Julia Gillard. To the outside world, the griping, carping, leaking and factional bloodbaths in the corridors of power may appear to herald a new era of dark malice on a continent famed for its sunshine.

Foreigners: please be aware that your sudden awareness of our political fistfights is but a Twitter phenomenon. Perhaps it's because the weather's good for fighting, because our nasal vernacular affords a brutal-sounding rhetoric, or because the white systems of government are built on a foundation of Aboriginal genocide and yet broil with angry guilt – but be assured Australian politicians have been committing acts of high bastardry against one another for years. Here is our top 10.

BILLY HUGHES V ALFRED DEAKIN (AND THE REST)


Billy Hughes. Photograph: Public domain
"Little Digger" Billy Hughes, Australia's seventh prime minister, can perhaps be identified as the founding father of Australian political bastardry. Despised for splitting from the Labor party while prime minister over the contentious issue of conscription for the first world war (he was in favour), Hughes's political adventurism began with seven years in colonial government, and proceeded over 51 more years in a federal parliamentary career. Ever the political survivor, Hughes knew little loyalty beyond his own ambition, and changed party membership five times: from Labor (1901–16) to National Labor (1916–17) to Nationalist (1917–30) to Australian (1930–31) to United Australia (1931–44) to Liberal (1944–52). Three parties expelled him, and he represented four different electorates in two states. He once allegedly used the floor of parliament to tell Australia's second prime minister, Alfred Deakin, that "at least Judas had the decency to hang himself!" resulting in cries of "dreadful! dreadful!" from the speaker of the house who collapsed in shock, and died, never regaining consciouness.

EARLE PAGE V ROBERT MENZIES


Earle Page. Photograph: naa.gov.au
The delightfully-monikered Page (one of his middle names is Christmas) is Australia's second-ever longest-serving parliamentarian (41 years) and entered parliament in 1919 in one of the smaller, agricultural-protectionist parties that eventually evolved into the Country party and thence the modern National party. Page became deputy prime minister in a coalition with the United Australia Party (UAP), which was led by Labor’s own Judas-du-jour, Joseph Lyons. When Lyons died suddenly in 1939, Page became caretaker prime minister for three weeks before the UAP promoted Robert Menzies to the leadership – a man Page loathed and refused to serve. His antipathy to Menzies reached its zenith in a vitriolic personal attack on his own coalition partner on the floor of parliament, where Page accused him not only of ministerial incompetence but of physical cowardice for failing to enlist in the first world war. The speech echoed around parliament for years and was frequently cited by Menzies' Labor nemesis, Eddie Ward.

EDDIE WARD V GOUGH WHITLAM

A firebrand of the militant trade union movement who rose in the Labor ranks through the tough 1930s, Eddie Ward's visceral opposition to Liberal leader Robert Menzies made his reputation, but it was his adversarial confrontations within his own party that sealed his fate. Believing himself to be the heir apparent to the Labor leadership after the death of Ben Chifley in 1951, he lost out to Doc Evatt and was devastated to lose again, to Arthur Calwell, in 1960. Denied also the consolation of the deputyship by the election of a young Gough Whitlam, Ward's resentment exploded; he attacked Whitlam in the party room. Calwell intervened, slipped and injured his knee, and Whitlam fled down the parliamentary corridor. Ward gave chase, but a pause to remove his glasses afforded Whitlam time to dash into his office, and Ward's fist connected only with the closed office door.

GOUGH WHITLAM V MALCOM FRASER (AND JOHN KERR)


Gough Whitlam. Photograph: nla.gov.au
Gough Whitlam might’ve thought that the Senate blocking his government’s supply in 1975 was a storm he could weather. After all, his short time as prime minister had been characterised not only by frenetic political activity and legislative change but scandal in the form of the Khemlani Affair and the more literal affair of Jim Cairns and Junie Morosi. But the governor general, John Kerr, had other ideas, and Fraser’s role in the Dismissal will never be forgiven by many who think Australian democracy died on the steps of Old Parliament House that day. He might be everyone’s favourite lefty uncle now, but in 1975 Malcolm Fraser cooperated with Kerr, helping to bring down an elected government, surely the biggest act of political bastardry in Australian history.

BILL HAYDEN V BOB HAWKE

Bill Hayden wasn’t a wildly charismatic or popular Labor leader but he had a strong factional base and was widely respected within the party. He’d also made a huge dent in Malcolm Fraser’s lead during the 1980 election and was poised to become the next prime minister of Australia. But the ALP was jonesing to elevate a man with more raw charm than you could shake a stick at, who held records for drinking beer and won over everyone he met (except bosses, who didn’t care for him), former ACTU leader, Bob Hawke. After Hayden’s closest advisers convinced him to step aside for the good of the party, he famously noted the injustice by saying "a drover’s dog could lead the Labor Party to victory, the way the country is". He was right about the direction of the electoral wind but Hawke proved rather more popular than his canine comparison, going on to win elections with the kinds of polling and majorities politicians dream about and remaining a beloved national figure to this day. Hayden, of course, became a very effective governor general, disinclined to interfere in the affairs of parliament.

BOB HAWKE V PAUL KEATING


Bob Hawke. Photograph: nla.gov.au
The (first) Kirribilli Pact gave its name to later such bargains in the Australian political sphere, and earlier versions of the same must’ve passed between many leaders before 1988. With Keating snapping at his heels, Bob Hawke agreed to hand over the leadership without a fight, as long as Keating would support him through the 1991 election. The time to hand over the reins came and went, Keating challenged and lost, before heading to the backbench to lick his wounds and shore up the factional numbers needed for a successful spill. He got there in 1992 and Hawke took a long time to forgive his former protégé. Unlike Rudd though, he bowed out of parliament somewhat gracefully and seemed to spend a lot of time after this hanging out by the pool with Blanche. Keating would eventually lose the leadership of the country to Howard in 1996, in a defeat that few predicted would change the direction of the nation.

PAUL KEATING V PRETTY MUCH EVERYBODY


Paul Keating's offical portrait. Photograph: Ming Xia/flickr
A political animal since, well, birth it seemed, the boiler-maker's brilliant son Paul Keating rose through the Labor ranks via neither the unions nor student politics but through policy mastery, political deftness and a volcano of verbal bastardry that erupted from his mouth like perpetual lava. Neither allies nor opponents were spared the man's infamous capacity for snark: he accused erudite Labor comrade Jim McClelland of "having swallowed a fucking dictionary", rebuffed Gough Whitlam's suggestion that he should attend university because "then I'd be just like you" and referred to the man he would depose, Bob Hawke, as "Old Silver" and "Old Jellyback", threatening to stick to him "like shit to a blanket" when Hawke proposed a too-generous tax concession to sport.

The best and worst of Keating was, of course, saved for the opposition. Peter Costello was "all tip and no iceberg", Andrew Peacock an "intellectual rust-bucket", and Wilson “Iron Bar” Tuckey a "stupid, foul-mouthed grub". He famously called his 1993 opponent John Hewson, "a feral abacus" with a performance "like being flogged with warm lettuce", and in saying "I want to do you slowly", delivered a taunt that still echoes in the dark corridors of the Australian political imagination. Keating may have lost the election to Howard in 1996 but one suspects that Keating's special brand of spoken bastardry will endure beyond any memory of Howard's words. What, after all, do a majority of votes matter, when your opponent has described you to history as a "mangy maggot", "the old desiccated coconut", "araldited to the seat" and a "dead carcass, swinging in the breeze"?

JOHN HOWARD V PETER COSTELLO

Poor old Peter Costello was a loyal subject, a treasurer who delivered everything he was asked, and a John Howard acolyte who formed part of the bedrock of Howard’s support within the party after the revolving-door leadership of the 1990s. Many hoped that a transition of leadership from Howard to Costello would arrest the breakneck speed towards the hard right on social (if not fiscal) policy and deliver fairer outcomes on everything from Reconciliation to the republic. But Howard and Hawke had something in common – an inability to prise their hands off the levers of power, and Costello was denied time (2001) after time (2004), despite a Kirribilli-style arrangement for transition. Howard reneged but instead of hitting the backchannels and building support for a challenge, Costello basically pouted, which Australians resented. His inability to connect with voters was compounded when it became clear he believed the leadership should be gift-wrapped rather than fought for. Who knows what the 2007 election might’ve held if Costello had stood up to his old mentor?

MALCOLM TURNBULL V TONY ABBOTT


When the most conservative leader the Liberal party has ever seen knifed one of the most progressive, there was only one vote in it. And Tony Abbott must’ve been overjoyed to discover he could saddle Turnbull with the most difficult and absurd portfolio to sell – opposing the hugely popular and globally applauded National Broadband Network (NBN). Cut to Turnbull grimacing his way through pressers ever since, as he tries to convince the Australian public that the Liberal plan would cost marginally less (or the same to householders) while dissembling around that old adage that you get what you pay for – or in this case, less than what we’ll pay for, with significantly less coverage, bandwidth and access for Australian internet users. The move has damaged Turnbull in the eyes of voters but as long as the Liberal party’s own faceless men support Abbott, it’s not the only thing neutralising Turnbull’s leadership ambitions.

JULIA GILLARD V KEVIN RUDD (PART ONE IN A SERIES)


Rudd and Gillard during gentler times. Photograph: Andrew Mears Pool/EPA
After the leadership carnage in the Labor party that followed the defeat of Keating by John Howard in 1996, many in the party and outside of it saw former diplomat Queenslander Kevin Rudd as Labor's shining, Mandarin-speaking, next big thing and delivered him a massive election victory that robbed the once-thought-invincible Howard of his own seat in 2007. But while Rudd's mastery of Mandarin was impressive, his interpersonal skills seemed to be vastly overrated. Despite his popularity in the electorate, Rudd infuriated any potential partners in the Senate, near everyone in his own caucus and even his personal staff with his narcissistic, arrogant style. After the failure of Rudd to pass an emissions trading scheme, caucus rolled him for his deputy, the cool-headed, professional negotiator, Julia Gillard.

She herself had more than a bit of prior in bastardry; a former member of Labor's socialist left faction, she split to lead her own faction in order to deal herself into power with the support of the right. We scarcely need tell you how this one ended.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/27/vicious-fights-australian-politics

It has been very interesting hearing Joe talk about the need for stimulus packages to keep the Australian economy moving...

Wonder why? ;)

So he's going to WASTE BILLIONS in ILLEGITIMATE HANDOUTS?

What happened to the BUDGET EMERGENCY???????

Come on mac, it is just evidence of the greater understanding of economics that the incoming coalition government has over the outgoing coalition government.

10 things Sophie Mirabella actually said
by: DANIEL PIOTROWSKI
From:
news.com.au
September 14, 2013

Sophie Mirabella never hesitates to go on the attack.

WE SUSPECT not many of her parliamentary colleagues will miss Sophie Mirabella if she loses her seat.

Mrs Mirabella is Tony Abbott's bomb-thrower. She never hesitates to go on the attack and is one of few MPs to have been ejected from Parliament by a Speaker from his or her own party.

But she's behind by more than 1000 votes in a tight race for the seat of Indi. And because of that, she announced she will not sit on Mr Abbott's frontbench.

As she might not be on the national stage much longer, news.com.au has taken a look back at the small armoury of bombs Mrs Mirabella has detonated during her time in politics:

HA, YOU DON'T HAVE KIDS:

"You won't need his taxpayer-funded nanny, will you?" - Mrs Mirabella to Julia Gillard in federal parliament, 2008.

'SKANKY HOS':

"Where was the outcry from Labor women when Mark Latham called a female journalist a skanky ho? Not a peep. - Mrs Mirabella in an opinion piece, September 2009.

QUESTIONING THE STOLEN GENERATION:

"It has been reported that an Aboriginal-led taskforce on the 'stolen generation' in Victoria could not identify one truly 'stolen' child." - Mrs Mirabella, reported in The Australian, in February 2008. She did not attend former prime minister Kevin Rudd's apology.

JULIA IS LIKE GADDAFI

"If Ms Gillard believes Australians want to pay higher electricity and higher petrol prices, she is as deluded as Colonel 'my people love me' Gaddafi." - Mrs Mirabella during the carbon tax debate in March 2011.

SO MANY INSULTS. CAN'T KEEP TRACK

"Yesterday I withdrew the comment 'bagman' (about Wayne Swan). Today I did not use that word. I called the Treasurer 'a pathetic liar'. Which one do you want me to withdraw?" - Mrs Mirabella to the House of Representatives in May 2011.

DID YOU TAKE YOUR PILLS THIS MORNING?

"Why don't you go and pop your Alzheimer's pills?" - Mrs Mirabella's remarks, reported by Fairfax media, to Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan on February 29, 2012. They were debating the price of milk.


Reaction ... GetUp defended Ms Mirabella’s response. Picture: Supplied
THE SHEIKH INCIDENT:

After copping criticism for doing little as GetUp founder Simon Sheikh passed out on Q & A:

"Initially I like others in the audience and on the panel, I thought Simon was making a joke or laughing at Greg (Combet)," she said.

"Being right next to him and having very challenging vision in my right eye, I had to turn right around. I couldn't see him.

"Then when it became apparent there was a medical problem the crew were there to assist him and I think we were all in a bit of shock."

ON RECEIVING 'THE NASTY PRIZE':

"Who will you miss the least, Tony Windsor?"

"I've got to say Sophie Mirabella. She wins the nasty prize ..." - retiring MP Tony Windsor on ABC TV in June 2013.

Mrs Mirabella's reply is damning in faint praise:

"Yeah, look, it's quite a surprise from Tony Windsor because all I've ever exchanged is mundane

daily niceties. I never had a go at him for supporting the Labor government, but at the same time I didn't fawn all over him either."

THERE'S 'NO NEED TO BE NASTY':

"(Malaysia was not a) signatory to the UN Convention ..." - Mrs Mirabella talking asylum seekers on Q & A.

"What do YOU care about that, Sophie, really ..." Tanya Plibersek opens fire.

"Excuse me, Tanya, there's no need to be nasty," the Liberal MP replied. "There's no need to be nasty."

OF COURSE, PEOPLE HAVE SAID BIZARRE THINGS TO HER:

Remember this? Labor backbencher Belinda Neal said in 2008: "Your baby will be turned into a demon by evil thoughts."

Mrs Mirabella replied: "The Labor Party will stop at nothing to denigrate others - even attacking an unborn child".

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/things-sophie-mirabella-actually-said/story-fncynjr2-1226718988535#ixzz2erlc31U3

That only applies when you're trying to make the incumbent look bad. Once you're in power it's all "It's not as bad as we made it look".

Tony Abbott abandons possum-infested Lodge in Canberra to live with AFP recruits until renovations are complete

SAMANTHA MAIDEN THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SEPTEMBER 15, 2013 12:00PM

TONY Abbott has decided to bunk with Australian Federal Police recruits in a $120-a-night flat while renovations are conducted at the possum-infested prime ministerial residence The Lodge.

The modest and unusual digs, in a red brick AFP building close to Parliament, will feature a kitchenette and around-the-clock security from his AFP security officers and their junior colleagues.

Perhaps most importantly for the fitness fanatic, the student quarters also include an impressive gym.

The AFP recruits were informed over the weekend that they should soon expect a very "VIP" visitor.

The Lodge is preparing for major renovations that could last for up to a year to repair dodgy wiring, remove asbestos and replace the roof on the 1927 property.

Mr Abbott rejected the other options on offer: a $3,000 a week dress circle rental in the nation's capital. Mr Abbott currently stays at the five-star Hotel Realm.

Coalition to revive work for dole program

Providing proper security to the Prime Minister was the biggest problem in finding a temporary new abode, with many options requiring significant security upgrades if AFP officers were to properly protect the PM. For that reason, staying a hotel was swiftly discounted as an option.

The plan represents one of the most unusual Canberra living arrangements for a politician since former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson camped out in Joe Hockey's shed to save money after his divorce settlement. When Mr Abbott needs to entertain VIP guests he will do so at his Prime ministerial offices at Parliament House.

Russell Crowe backs Anthony Albanese to lead ALP over Bill Shorten

In Sydney, Mr Abbott will also be able to use Kirribilli House on Sydney Harbour, but he has not yet announced when he will move out of the family home and live there.

In the 1980s, Mr Abbott lived at St Patrick's seminary where he trained as a Catholic priest. Mr Abbott's unusual choice echoes the Canberra habits of his unlikely political hero: Labor's Ben Chifley.

As Prime Minister, Mr Chifley preferred the Hotel Kurrajong to the Lodge. He died there in 1951 after suffering a heart attack. The historic hotel is close by to the AFP flat Mr Abbott will live in.

"My old man always says that Ben Chifley was a great prime minister, I think probably because he was very down-to-earth and a decent human being,'' Mr Abbott said.

Maiden: Roo Poo Senator a breath of fresh Gippsland air

The vexed question of where to put the Prime Minister while the renovations were conducted at the Lodge has exercised the minds of public servants for years after Julia Gillard first signed off on the multi-million dollar renovations of the historic property two years ago.

Ms Gillard was fond of regaling guests with stories of the possum urine stains in the ceiling detailing the horror in a 2012 interview with The Sunday Telegraph.

"We had a celebrated incident where we had a visiting foreign leader,'' Ms Gillard said.

Akerman: Tasmania a harbinger of Green doom

"There was much shooing of people out of the dining room because someone spotted wee making its way down the wall to one of the very precious paintings from the National Gallery."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/tony-abbott-abandons-possuminfested-lodge-in-canberra-to-live-with-afp-recruits-until-renovations-are-complete/story-fni0fiyv-1226719300744

Operation Sovereign Borders will have an immediate impact on asylum seekers from Day One.

Tony Abbott, Sunrise repeated Asia Pacific Focus 15/09/2013

This week four boats & 300 plus asylum seekers arrived.

\:d/ fantastic news! \:d/

Welcome a safe country!

well considering sovereign borders is not in place yet, and i would bet pennies to pounds the quote of "day one" was meaning day one of sovereign borders.......and i would expect a big RUSH of seekers prior to the shutters being nailed up....

common sense please....;)

OR it is bad , and bad enough to need to stimulate again....

Stop patronising Australians

As news of the election of Tony Abbott spread around the world, many could not hold back their glee at being able to berate Australia. I'm tired of it

Bridie Jabour
theguardian.com, Thursday 12 September 2013 16.04 AEST

As news of the election of Tony Abbott spread around the world, many could not hold back their glee at being able to berate Australia.

British comedian Bill Bailey was quick to jump on the bandwagon, tweeting "Abbott as PM, it MUST be TV reality show 'Faking It' where a hapless twonk passes himself off as a politician. Can't be real." Many others bandied around reworkings of the joke “And we thought America was stupid for electing George W Bush ... Australia was just 10 years behind as usual."

Such jibes are not new to me. The world thinks I'm an idiot.

I was just another 21 year old in a London pub when the general unease about how I and my fellow Aussies are perceived on the world stage became an acute realisation. I was simply exuding our national character without thinking about it (brash, loud and painfully cheerful), when I noticed one of the English boys sneering.

"Do you even know where meat pies come from?" he said.

"Sure I do," I told him. "Wales. It started out as the Cornish pastie, and the original filling was venison." (Thank you Neil Gaiman for working it into The Sandman!)

He looked visibly startled.

"Well, most of you ... think you, you know, invented it. You lot don’t usually know much."

This is Australia’s lot: to be patronised by those who obviously know better. Part of the problem is the fact that we are such a young country, and a lot of our culinary and sporting culture involves co-opting that of others and making it our own. Meat pie – Wales. Pavlova – New Zealand. Even Aussie Rules developed as an off-season training regime to that most English of world sports, cricket.

And so Australia as the bumbling, sexist, racist and stupid country continues to be the easy go-to joke for both overseas news outlets and your average traveler. It’s a lazy caricature, but how many people want to bother with thinking before they speak?

Even when the world is applauding former prime minister Julia Gillard for a blistering feminist speech on misogyny, her attack is also being used insidiously to reinforce that tired stereotype – we are a bunch of hicks. The New Yorker went as far as calling her speech “weirdly substantial news” coming of this English colony. Likewise, Ashton Kutcher thinks a good way to promote his movie is to ask whether Australians even know who Steve Jobs was. Elsewhere, our now prime minister Tony Abbott was introduced to the world stage only when he accidentally used the word "suppository" instead of "repository".

As far as patronising goes, the worst offenders are usually American or English. It has got so bad that Aussies have started to buy into the clichés. After moving to London and New York, it usually takes all of three days before they post links on Facebook to whatever outrageous thing has been said that day, righteously telling those of us who have stayed “see? This is why I left Australia”.

Really? Are you enjoying observing the dismantling of England’s welfare system up close, not to mention a prime minister whose extraordinarily privileged background seems to be one of his main qualifications for the job? As for America, give me a break – at least England has a welfare system to dismantle in the first place.

Australian TV presenter Eddie McGuire makes a racist joke, and I hear a cavalcade of “that would never happen where I live” from my visiting foreign friends. A restaurant makes a wretched menu referring to our then-prime minister’s thighs and breasts and again, I’m inundated with social media posts about where it would never happen – yep, that’s right, back home.

Even putting aside for a moment the treatment endured by – to name a few – Irish, Indian and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at the hands of the empire, Brits still do not get to lecture anyone on racism. Please don't act like you live in some colourblind utopia when mosques are being targeted with explosive devices three times within a month in your own country.

I don’t hear as much tsking from Americans on racism grounds – mainly just comments about knifey-spoony and Australia’s supposed lack of intellect. Which is funny, because we are the ones who invented the cervical cancer vaccine (well, professor Ian Frazer did, but we can claim it as my country’s achievement) and we did not try to stop teenage girls from being vaccinated because we're embroiled in moral hysteria.

Don't get me wrong – that UK and US citizens behave badly does not dilute or excuse some of the atrocious behaviour perpetuated by Australians. It does not take away from our lack of self-awareness, from the baffling but quietly constant rage many seem to carry against any woman in a position of authority, or from the dismissiveness that surfaces when dealing with anyone who does not look like “us”. But just like the US and the UK have many flaws, we do have our redeeming qualities. We are just asking to be given the third dimension so many others take for granted.

So stop patronising us.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/12/stop-patronising-australians

Gee Bridie's got her knickers in a twist...

I smell a bogan. She gives a bad name to people who have travelled. Dish out crap to lots of other nations and yet you can't take a little banter from an Englishman in a pub?

Farkkk off.

What happened to the doomed AUSTERITY MEASURES????

I thought we were heading towards a recession.

Unemployment is forecast to rise to 6.5%, I thought the Liberals were good for business and the economy....

Edited by Joffa: 15/9/2013 01:13:25 PM

This. Poms tend to be an up themselves, patronising lot but that's their problem not ours.

As for the Yanks - never met any who wasn't interested in and respectful of Australia and Australians.

This chick's got NFI.

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They're not even in government yet lol

But they've kept telling us that the moment we get rid of Juliar and Rudd the Dudd then business will pickup because everyone will have 'confidence' and 'stability'?

Or was that just more bullshit?

Well you just can't change things overnight, you can't undo six years of bad government and austerity measures placed on businesses with one election. If you were readiing the news business and consumer is the highest it's been since May 2011, so the signs for greater economic prosperity are there.