Another week of 2013 has gone and it’s time for Friday night frolics.
Soak in the genial atmosphere,have a drink, marvel at our magnificent staff,share stories,post pictures,play your favorite tunes.
FRIDAY NIGHT RAFFLES will begin around 6.00pm, (I will let you know when) and be drawn about 7.00pm. “QLD.TIME”
Ask for your favorite 3 numbers between 1-100. First in first served.
All are welcome to join in.
Enjoy.
THE PUB 
BK
That article about gun control, came across to me as the usual abbott projection and trying to make out the Gov is trying to be populist. I may be wrong, but I don’t understand what the ‘xxx number of seats are in jeopardy at the next election’ bit is all about, maybe to get a negative reaction to the online poll at the end of the piece.
Good Morning Hardy Souls! 🙂
Phew! What a difference a day makes! I tell you, when the change finally came through about 8pm here last night I just flung open all the curtains, windows and doors and stood there in the beautiful cold rush of air. 🙂
Now, to get political for a little moment, I have to say that the thing which saved our sanity inside the house yesterday was the Batts in the belfry!
I remember when we had a similar temperature, though not as high, in 2006. No Batts in the roof meant that the heat just set up an oven-like atmosphere in the roof space which then radiated the heat down onto us in the rooms below, making us feel like we were being broiled.
Not so much yesterday. After driving around in the stupid heat yesterday, upon walking through the door I noticed a marked difference with the temperature outside. Something that which, at that late stage of the day, ~4pm, would have seen the house in full, no difference between outside and inside, mode in 2006, pre Batts.
The Batts have made a measurable and noticeable difference.
Now, if I were the government I would be shouting this from the rooftops, or ceiling spaces, or whatever. As the push-back against the malevolently-misleading Pink Batts!!” cri de couer from the Opposition has to be countered now, before they get away with putting it up, again, as an implicit criticism of this government. And the government have to highlight all the positive benefits which have flowed from them. Plus they need to put the blame for the deaths and fires from their installation, fairly and squarely, where it belongs. With the negligent employers. Those mates of the Liberal Party that take the Labor government’s money but help out their mates in the Liberal Party with support.
And with 142 fires still burning in NSW today, and countless others in the other States and Territories, the Climate Change message needs to be rammed home. The government has to forget the niceties of just letting the Firies get on with their jobs, and they need to ‘strike while the iron is hot’, so to speak and piggyback off these fires to get out the Climate Change message. Otherwise the alternate message, from the likes of that evil goblin, Andrew Bolt, will get traction.
All I know is, I stared Global Warming in the eye yesterday, in temperatures that were as hot as hell in my book, feeling the sort of inescapable heat stress that will be a stalking horse for us all as we age in the Global Warming era, and the only thing that saved me was being able to walk into a house with government-provided protection.
Protection for the poor which a Tory government would never provide. They’d rather see you expire. You only vote Labor anyway.
kezza
Sorry, I got lost last night – didn’t realise there was a new thread.
What are your questions about policy development?
Very true! Someone senior should say how retrofitted insulation in the roof cavity has helped a lot of people survive, esp the elderly.
sorry zoomster! Most humble apologies from the Management. :{
i my golly goly gosh
so glad bb does not allow trolls here
bp over pb
is 170/80
id say
denese
I am already getting bored with the troll!
BK
Picked your horsie yet?
c@tmomma
herald Sun today managed to report the bushfires in the context of an old enemy. No mention of this extended heatwave contributing to these horrible conditions.
Try again
http://ow.ly/i/1obgV
No wonder the cfa info was a bit confusing yesterday. This puts it into perspective somewhat.
c atomma
bb
a post on trolling and how they use the blogs would be good
its like a nagging person who want stop no matter what you say to them
am i sort of on the wave length of a troll, or is something different
but if people would just ignore them them , its like
teenagers, when one says ok that s enough
they keep popping in and out of te bedroom adding another sentence,
of course silly me would join in .
oh would say , if you just shut up they would to, of if not just let them
the waffle be ignored.
i think some people feel they have to go back at them because it may be seen on the the blog as not being correct so they try to correct it.
but readers of a blog will soon work out that, the person is just talking to themselves.
so bb c tomma a nice post about the phychology of a troll meets us ordinary folk
oh well, didn’t work. You’ll have to clink on the link to see for yourselves.
you did a great job victoria
but as i said like a teenager who knows all takes no adivce
and keeps coming our of room for another go
it made me laugh but also gave me a headache
u did well
C@tmomma
Here is article
[Fire, after all, is Australia’s oldest terrorist: it’s not just what it does, but what it threatens to do.
Yesterday, once again, it was out of control.]
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/waterbombers-protect-houses-under-attack-from-relentless-enemy/story-e6frf7kx-1226557077205
denese
I think the best thing now is to ignore
i think the difference is for me now that i am over arguing
batttled on over there for years arguing and tyring to put the good guys
side even to a labor person, in the end it did my head in
one never wins with these people
so i resorted to just posting like you did links to facts.
but you will never change these types they come to blogg to do what i dont know
people who observe blogs and say nothing learn more from links
i feel
and good confersation, which sadly u dont get
u only have to look at question time to realise.
there is no debating policy any more
Hi zoomster
Some time ago on PB you wrote at length about your experience of policy development within the ALP. I think you were having a discussion with someone about how policies “don’t just get pulled out of an arsk” – except for the odd occasion like John Howard’s back of the envelope $10 billion Murray Darling Basin effort,Tony Abbott’s $3.3 billion a year Paid Parental Leave scheme – or I suppose, it could be argued, Ros Kelly’s whiteboard calculations fiasco.
wtte how it often starts at a grass roots level, committees are formed to work on the detail, the lengthy procedures nutting out the the pros and cons, and then how, if you’re lucky all that hard work gets taken to conference.
I assume a similar system happens within all parties. And for the indies they just get to talk to themselves!
I was just wondering if you remembered that post and where I could locate it. And then, if I may plagiarise some or all of it?
Thanks victoria!
I really don’t think it is charitable to say this, but then the old man himself isn’t charitable, so, really, nothing much will change at News Ltd until the old man pops his clogs.
denese,
While I’m in uncharitable mode, let me just say that I have come to the conclusion that some blog trolls just have a screw loose.
kezza
vaguely, but no I can’t remember exactly where – sorry!!
I can only speak for Victorian Labor, but it works like this:
There are about twenty policy committees, each with twenty members. Most are elected by State Conference delegates (the exception being Country Labor, which is elected by a postal ballot of all Labor members in seats designated as ‘rural and regional’).
Each policy committee meets at least once a month, and is also supposed to hold policy forums throughout the state.
Anyone (in theory!) can bring a policy to one of these committees. (The present Vic Labor leader, Daniel Andrews, walked into ALP HO off the street one day because he had a policy idea. He was told to take it to the relevant PC, which accepted his idea and made it part of their policy platform. It was then implemented by the next Labor government – and Daniel joined the party).
Policy ideas are discussed by the committee, who then presents recommendations about policy to State Conference.
(Part of this process is supposed to be discussion of overlapping policies with other PCs. In practise, this rarely happens, but the SC agenda committee tries to identify contradictory/clashing suggestions before they get to SC and gets the PCs to sort these out).
SC then votes on policy.
Successful policies then become part of the party platform.
J6p
I will study the form guide soon and then let you know.
Denese, talking about trolls, the way Rachel Maddow described a troll, Tony Abbott is one. He makes comments that he knows will get a reaction, but at the end of the day, he doesn’t contribute much to the political debate. That is highlighted by how much legislation he has stopped since 2010, as we know is 0. That is why it is good that the Government do not respond to everything that comes out of his mouth.
You know what is really weird. Lance Armstrong is everywhere in the news because of his interview with Oprah admitting to being a liar, bully and of course a drug cheat. Everytime there is a news break reporting this, i immediately think it is Tony Abbott. I kid you no!!
Thanks zoom
Does the fact that there are 20 policy committees mean that governance can be reduced to 20 umbrella policy areas – aligned with the number of ministries?
Fascinating tidbit about Daniel Andrews too.
zoomsfer
What did you make of the reportage about Andrews re bike accident?
Further to my truncated Howard relevatory piece last night….(I had to give up…the entire front bar was too pissed!) ..How Howard got the bogans into his pocket.
That one “killer” line that sold him to the “battlers” was ..: “We will decide…etc” (it sickens me to repeat it!)…he or one of his creatures must have heard those two parts together or separately while on the hustings…probably where bogans gather to feed and spoor…; the shopping malls!
Then his office cleaned it up, stitched it together with smart syntax and timing and delivered as both complementry and condemnation of “The Others”…..clever in it condems no identifiable single group or individual …like the bogans themselves cannot rationally identify their actual as against perceived amorphous enemy…AND..it “SOUNDS” like a fair and honest statement.
But when you listen to the simplicity and timidity of demand…you can both hear and see the type of person who would spit such clumsy yet concise stupidity!
.
.: Who is the ; “WE”…and who are the : “THEY”?
Abbott has tried to continue the style with his three-word-slogans…the slogans work, but the deliverer doesn’t…..I suppose bogans are not into lycra nor superflurous exercise!
I am wondering what Mrs urdoch will do with the empirewhen she inherits?
“There was quite a level of scepticism when we began to dig the car park.
“The general expectation was that the only bones that would come up would be in the Kentucky Fried Chicken box. What they found of course was a site that had lay undisturbed for 500 years and that was what was remarkable about it.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/remains-of-richard-iii-appear-the-have-neen-found-in-leicester/story-fnd134gw-1226557038899
kezza
not really. Most committees actually report to about three different Shadow Ministers!
Policy areas (as I’ve intimated) tend to overlap.
Which is why I enjoyed being on the Country Labor one so much – as long as we could explain how the policy impacted on rural/regional Victoria, we could poke our noses into whatever we liked!
victoria
It well and truly stinks. But it’s the kind of thing – as I think even Ballieu recognised – which is counter productive.
Most people recognise that pollie’s spouses are off limits, particularly when they’ve not put themselves out in the public domain.
victoria what a great read,
i really enjoyed that, i love the history of it all
victoria
Absolutely fascinating. I’m keen to know what happens next.
Joe – my selection.
Melbourne Race 5 Number 8
Goldstone at approx 3/1
denese/leonetwo
It is fascinating stuff
jaycee,
The Opposition are indeed trying it on again with the ‘Lost Control of Our Borders’ schtick(with that constant allusion to diarrhoea they have carefully built in to the statement). However, the government has at least this time hopped on to the front foot to counter Abbott & Keenan’s lies with the FACTS:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/only-1-of-illegal-guns-in-australia-are-imported-says-pm-20130118-2cyot.html
However, in the Gish Gallop fashion that the Opposition have also tried to perfect, as soon as one lie is debunked, they just make up another one on the same subject, even if it has already been disproven long ago(as they make the assumption the electorate have the memory of a guppy), and then they run hard with that, in order to not let the government get on top of the issue.
In this instance, once the ‘Illegal Guns flooding across our uncontrolled borders’ myth was countered with the facts of the matter, that only 1% of them have actually come in that way and anyway, seizures have increased during the Labor government’s tenure, then, without pausing for breath, Michael Keenan, spews out the other already discredited line:
The federal opposition’s justice, customs and border protection spokesman, Michael Keenan, told Fairfax Media on Friday the Labor Party could not expect people to believe that ”slashing” funding and jobs from federal law enforcement agencies, including Customs and the Australian Federal Police, would improve its ability to police Australia’s borders.
The West Australian Liberal MP said Labor had cut 750 Customs jobs since coming to power in Canberra, and more than $64 million from the agency over the last two budgets.
It’s not true that jobs have been ‘slashed’. As I remember it from last time he came out with this egregious attempted misdirection from the facts, a lot of those jobs have gone due to automation of various areas within Customs and Border protection. Which is also why the Budgets could be cut. Maintaining a machine is cheaper. Also less employees are needed to monitor machines.
Though the Opposition have their lines(that’s pretty much all they have, really), and they are going to run hard with them all this year, I bet.
The government just has to keep on squashing them like the political cockroaches they are. With the facts. Even if it has to be done where it has already been done before.
Just re-posting this to point out that – incredibly – the base photo for this was taken from the Liberal Party web site, under “The Abbott Team”.
I kid youse not: http://www.liberal.org.au/abbott-team/
Jaycee
That “we will decide who comes..and in what circumstances..” was straight out of the old Migrant Entry Handbook, which predates Howard by many years. It was Principle Number 1. It is interesting to see how it is now regarded as a Howard original, a watershed, that has influenced the entire migration debate. Recently I read some Professor who said this, and how Labor had adopted this!
Just wondering why the only photo they have on the Liberal Party’s “Liberal Women” page is one of Julie Bishop.
http://www.liberal.org.au/node/19878
Though it was “Australia decides”, not “we decide”, from recall.
bomberrose:
– “Denese, talking about trolls, the way Rachel Maddow described a troll, Tony Abbott is one. He makes comments that he knows will get a reaction, but at the end of the day, he doesn’t contribute much to the political debate. That is highlighted by how much legislation he has stopped since 2010, as we know is 0. That is why it is good that the Government do not respond to everything that comes out of his mouth.”
It’s a good point – not Abbott as Troll so much (though I like that too), but certainly the what-the-hell-does-he-think-he’s-achieving aspect.
It’s been such a waste for the Coalition, these last couple of years. They’ve been so focused on getting their greasy mitts on the levers of power, they’ve completely ignored their capacity for getting anything done in a hung parliament. I have no doubt they could have come up with some interesting and maybe even successful policy, got it tabled and gained cross-bench support, if they’d wanted to. They could have remade themselves from opposition, articulated a coherent set of policies, and got the cross-benchers wondering if they’d made the right decision in the first place – especially those who’d been leaning right in the first place. When you’re that close to power, the best thing you can do is present as a party that is ready to lead, and is taking the lead in some areas.
But they’ve ignored that path entirely. They appear to have assumed that work was done, and all it took was a little chicanery and a bit of sulking and they’d be handed the keys. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Having zero policy wins, failing to stop any legislation being passed, and ending up with nothing to show for two years on the edge, that’s abysmal any way you look at it.
They played the short game. But they played it over the long-term. And they’re still playing it. That’s a massive failure.
Just wondering why the only photo they have on the Liberal Party’s “Liberal Women” page is one of Julie Bishop.
Because the only other alternatives would scare young children.
All this talk about ‘borders’ gets my goat, it really does. Australia isn’t the US, we don’t have ‘borders’, we have a whopping huge coastline which is pretty much open to anyone who wants to land.
A few thousand asylum seekers arriving by boat each year is hardly a breach of our ‘borders’. We see them coming most of the time, they are picked up and detained. That’s not a failure to police our ‘borders’.
Here’s an example of the sort of illegal activity that can and does happen. This was not too far from me, in a spot that is hardly ‘remote’. It was drugs, not guns or people and it didn’t end well for the perpetrators, but they were stupid for picking an area so close to what passes for civilisation around here.
http://www.afp.gov.au/media-centre/publications/platypus/previous-editions/1998/december-1998/strike.aspx
I’d like to see what an Abbott government would do to improve ‘border protection’ and I’d like to know what the cost would add to that enormous budget hole they are desperately trying to hide.
Tony Abbott, all talk, no action. All smugglers, no budgie.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10860122
Son’s ordeal was our fault, say parents
By Natalie Akoorie
5:30 AM Saturday Jan 19, 2013
A boy who almost died of tetanus before Christmas is home and on the mend, but his parents are desperate for others to vaccinate their children after they did not.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/gillard-hits-back-over-gun-imports-20130118-2cysz.html
Gillard hits back over gun imports
January 19, 2013
Judith Ireland and Bianca Hall
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has hit back at claims by the Liberal Party that her government has failed at protecting Australia’s borders from illegal gun imports, saying that only 1 per cent of guns in Australia come from overseas.
Speaking to Fairfax Media on Friday morning, Ms Gillard said that her government had ”more than doubled” the number of interceptions of illegal packages – that includes drugs and firearms – since 2007.
Make sure you watch the vid
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/meddling-mp-fuels-liberal-row-20130118-2cz0w.html
Meddling MP fuels Liberal row
January 19, 2013
Royce Millar and Melissa Fyfe
A SENIOR state MP’s bid to secure the mayoralty of a Melbourne council for her son has embroiled the Baillieu government in a political row over Liberal party interference in local government.
Leaked emails obtained by Fairfax Media reveal upper house MP Inga Peulich intervened directly on behalf of her son Paul in his failed bid to become mayor of the City of Kingston late last year.
After his defeat, Ms Peulich sought retribution against ”disloyal” Liberal-aligned councillors who voted 8-1 for rival councillor Ron Brownlees.
http://bridgesfrombamako.com/2013/01/16/behind-mali-conflict/
Behind Mali’s conflict: myths, realities & unknowns
Posted on January 16, 2013 by Bruce Whitehouse
Since the French military intervention in Mali, known as Operation Serval, began last week, the internet has been buzzing with talk about its motives. Is France really only trying to contain a terrorist threat, as it claims? Or do major world powers have other, more sinister interests at stake? At its root, what is the conflict in Mali about?
This discourse, generated largely by journalists, analysts and activists unfamiliar with Mali, has been far too speculative for my tastes. Let’s consider what we do and don’t know about the causes and effects of international interest in Mali.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/18/the_eradicateurs_algeria_terrorists_hostages
The Eradicateurs
Why Algeria doesn’t talk to terrorists — even if that means killing hostages.
BY GEOFF D. PORTER | JANUARY 18, 2013
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/tafe-offers-reveal-extent-of-cuts-20130118-2cz0j.html
TAFE offers reveal extent of cuts
January 19, 2013
Benjamin Preiss and Craig Butt
THE number of TAFE courses available to students through the state’s admissions centre has dropped markedly, according to figures from first-round offers.
An analysis of Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre figures showed at least 170 fewer TAFE courses were available this year.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/greens-push-to-ban-drug-company-perks-for-doctors-20130118-2cyzm.html
Greens push to ban drug company perks for doctors
January 19, 2013
Julia Medew
Health Editor
DRUG companies will no longer be able to pay for doctors to travel to conferences under new laws proposed by the Greens to get rid of a multimillion-dollar gravy train believed to be contaminating medical practice.
As concern mounts about the influence of drug and medical device companies’ largesse on doctors, Greens health spokesman Richard Di Natale said he would introduce a bill to the Senate to clean up the pharmaceutical sector’s interaction with health professionals.
The bill would ban payments for doctors to travel or attend education seminars and conferences domestically and overseas, as well as the sponsorship of educational meetings intended for Australian doctors overseas. It will also ban gifts and promotional items and require companies to report the names of health professionals and the fees they are receiving for services such as speeches or consulting.
http://bit.ly/XkhqlV (top link)
Private sector closing jobs gap as indigenous work rises
BY: PATRICIA KARVELAS
From: The Australian
January 19, 2013 12:00AM
BOLD policies to close the gap between black and white Australia in employment are working, with new data revealing that employment growth for Aborigines has increased dramatically, mainly in remote areas via the private sector.
A paper to be released by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University offers the first major analysis of the nation’s closing the gap strategy, demonstrating that between 2006 and 2011, the employment rate increased by 13 per cent in remote areas and 3 per cent in non-remote areas for the nation’s first people.
Excellent comment, Aguirre… https://pbxmastragics.com/2013/01/18/friday-night-frolics/comment-page-2/#comment-9760
The short game over the long term adds up to massive damage to our economy and our society.
The Liberals’ fundamentalist approach – no compromise, no co-operation – mirrors the Tea Party nonsense they seem to have fallen in love with, where they fool themselves into believing the country needs to be destroyed in order to save it.
The short game is vicious and dirty, like the first five minutes of a football grand final, or round one of a boxing match… a softening up process designed to put points on the board early and to injure the other side as much as possible.
It’s exactly the way Abbott used to box: come out swinging, throwing haymakers everywhere, and keep at it. The other guy is supposed to be stunned by the ferocity into fighting defensively, and ultimately forgetting his own game plan.
In the short term it works: a quick knockout and it’s all over.
But, in the long term, you do yourself as much damage as you inflict on the other opponent. And if the other guy keeps his (or in Gillard’s case, her) cool, you find yourself telling your seconds in the corner, “She just won’t lay down and die.”
Collateral damage is great. It’s a fact that polling shows Liberal voters are by far the most pessimistic of all political groupings. They lack confidence. Although not universal, this loss of confidence eventually pervades the entire economy. Business turnover suffers. Marginal firms go to the wall.
In nearly three years all the Coalition has to show for all that negative energy is an underperforming Australian economy, a dumbing down and a nastification of society into sexist, racist, belligerent, angry camps.
The upside for them? A lead in the polls (that isn’t even much of a lead nowadays), and a few journos still rabbiting on about the “inevitability” of a Coalition victory based on a 2011-vintage polling status that no longer applies.
Once it was easy to predict such a victory. At 60-40 how could any other scenario be possible?
But now that it’s much closer, with so many of the Coalition lies and exaggerations smashed on the rocks of reality, with the true state of the nation slowly sinking in, the pundits weave ever more complex theories as to why Abbott will win.
The fact that he is just about THE most unpopular leader of an Opposition in history is waved away as a mere bagatelle. We hear that PPM and personal ratings don’t necessarily predict election results, which may be true when they are just unfavourable.
But Abbott’s ratings are in the sub-basement. They had to dig a new hole to put them in. They had to clear the rats and the cockroaches out to make room.
We also hear that Labor has to contend with marginal seats. But the Libs have more, yet they are never mentioned.
We hear about Western Sydney, in the thrall of Ray Hadley and Alan Jones, with tradies and little old ladies living for the day they can get their baseball bats out again. We don’t hear about South Australia, and the demolition zone of Queensland, or Victoria where the state government is so on the nose.
It’s all based on the belief that the polls of a year or so ago still apply, when they demonstrably do not. Its based on the shock of witnessing naked, untrammeled aggression, “red in tooth and claw”. Its based on hate and habit and partisanship.
The public should beware of ideological warriors, especially ones with a religious bent. The Coalition today is one notch short of nutterdom. It has the nutters there, in place, but they haven’t quite taken over the asylum… yet.
There is a belief that “It’ll be alright on the night”, that as soon as Gillard is gone and Abbott is in power things will return to “normal” (by which I think is meant that the clock will be turned back 6 years to “Australia, circa 2007” – that’s certainly what Tony Abbott promised the NPC a year ago, or so).
But what Abbott has promised is Rolling Thunder, a napalming of the Australian polity, continuous elections until he bludgeons the country into his vision of what it should be: a return to Howardism, with a twist of Catholic crankery… anti-gay, anti-foreigners, anti-Climate Change, anti-decency, anti-everything.
There is no positiveness in it at all. Abbott’s Vision is one based on pugilism, forcing people to do what he wants them to do, by political violence, if necessary. The Coalition is out for revenge. The supporters are angry and are encouraged to stay angry.
It’s no way to live your life, anger.
And it’s no way to run a country either.
BK
your bet has placed fixed price @$3.80.
Good Luck