Was an election called this week?
Yes according to all the media.
No according to the person who made the announcement.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Was Tony Abbott running a mini-campaign?
Yes according to the media then No as election campaigns are destabilising according to the libs.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Does any of this matter?
Yes it does 99% of the time but not now because it’s your favorite time of your week at ” THE PUB’
FRIDAY NIGHT RAFFLES.
You know the rules pick 3 numbers 1-100 at 6.oo pm qld time or to make it easier for you supposedly intelligent people 7.00pm AEDST.
Draw will be around 7.00pm QLD TIME,8.00pm SILLY DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME.
The prize is either a quick pick sat.night lotto ticket or for the horse doggie people a $7 pick on any race you wish.
Last week haveachat collected $20.60 on lotto and asked me to donate it to a charity Thank you.
What I have decided is if you win and want the collect which you are entitled to I will send you a check.
If you wish the winnings to be donated to a charity I will pool the money in a separate account and at the end of the year we will do a ‘polldaddy’ poll and decide who will get the donation from all of us at ‘The PUB”
Enjoy Have Fun Stay Safe
THE PUB 
Thanksleonetwo! 🙂
Mesma is such a rich vein to mine. 😉
Good morning all.
Well, the noise of another storm awakened me from my slumbers in the wee hours and, as is my habit, I turned on the radio which usually sends me back to sleep pronto. Not this time, however. Chris Evans bowing out and then Roxon retiring and not contesting the election.
Oodles of thoughts going around and around in my head and a lot of going over the events of the last few days since the PM chucked the grenades in amongst the Press Gallery by informing them of the date of the election.
Now I am wondering if the PM’s actions at the NPC and the events following have been carefully staged to wrong foot the media pack. i.e. surprise them often enough and make them look slow on the uptake because they always look at sideshows will, in these months prior to the election, keep their attention focused on what the government has concealed up its sleeves. Less media focus on Abbott’s stunts, nasty innuendos and lies should draw the mongrel out into the open to show his credentials or lack thereof, to justify his pitch for the Lodge.
That’s where I am at the moment.
Agree with posters here re: cabinet changes. It is giving replacements time to familiarise themselves with portfolio before election.
Two other points/questions
1. IMO PM’s tactic of announcing election date is clever. At every doorstop/presser some journo is going to ask about election campaign. PM would have recognized this. What it does is give the PM an opportunity to say PM is governing and TA is pulling more stunts. Doubt MSM would have reported any statements by PM that she is governing otherwise.
2. On MSM does anyone here have journalist background? Why I ask is that there seems to be a theory floating around that journos only write what they are told to write and that stories to the contrary are not published. If that’s the case, why aren’t journos posting on sites such as this ( anonymously of course)? Which when talking about MSM then leads to the next one: inquiry. Any news?
rnm
‘why aren’t journos posting on sites such as this’
I believe that Meha Baba is a semi-retired ABC one.
ForeverJ
Thats a good thought.
Will journos start to pay more attention to PM or even have a rethink about alienating PM so as to curry favour and get the scoops. My reading of PM is that she hasn’t played media favourites. Maybe that game will change this year. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2013/02/01/evans-departs-leaving-another-problem-for-the-pm/
Evans and Roxon depart
Bernard Keane | Feb 01, 2013 10:38PM
Last night, the sudden resignation of government Senate Leader and Minister for Tertiary Education Chris Evans seemed to create an unexpected intra-party headache for Prime Minister Julia Gillard as she sought to switch the focus to the Opposition and get clear air for Labor’s pre-poll policy agenda.
Today, however, it looks more like a clearing of the decks, with Attorney-General Nicola Roxon also resigning and both departures apparently in the wind for some time.
………..
The departures, inevitably, have been portrayed in the media as evidence of “disarray” in what is supposed to be the Prime Minister’s epically long election campaign. It might more accurately be seen as a clearing of the ministerial decks at the start of an election year.
Damn it all fionajr!…..you’ve caught me out…I just knew I couldn’t keep faking for long!……what’s a “Tethys”?
Adding Evans & Roxon to this list makes it 14 leaving Parli, 7 from each side.
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/02/house-members-retiring-at-the-2013-election.html
February 01, 2013
House Members Retiring at the 2013 Election
As at the 1st of February 2013, there are twelve members of the House who have announced they will not contest the 2013 election. Of the 12, 11 are retiring, one has lost party endorsement. There are seven Coalition members departing and five Labor members.
More members may yet announce their intention to retire, especially given we know the date of the election.
Below are profiles of the 12 members who to date we know will be departing the House.
mm1953
I doubt very much that the PM will be getting into bed with any of the media. My thoughts are that she will continue to attempt to wrong foot the media which will force them to watch her and her govt closely instead of chasing Abbott’s butterflies all over the country.
By the time August 12 comes around and the real campaign begins, the media will have learnt the difference between crap, fluff and substance and realise that in order to fill up their daily reports, they cannot afford to have the government surprising them with unexpected moves.
I have to ask – when are Bronnie and Ruddock going to retire? Bronnie turned 70 last October, Ruddock will be 70 in March. I’m not being ageist here, I’m not too many years behind them, but surely they should go and allow some younger MPs to develop what little talents they may have.
Jaycee,
One of Saturn’s moons – named after one of the Titan(esses) – as are all of Saturn’s lunar objects.
Tethys was a daughter of Uranus and Gaia, She was:
Apart from being mentioned in classical poetry, Tethys – in her “embodiment of the sea” – is also an integral part (“character” isn’t quite the right word) of The Greenwitch, the third of Susan Cooper’s wondrous The Dark is Rising sequence.
Blame it on my combined passions for mythology and children’s literature …
I love the way the journos are saying the resignations were “unexpected”.
That’s code for “WE didn’t expect them”.
I can see Julia corralling the ministers together in the Cabinet room and asking, “Who’s not up for the long haul? We need everyone on deck, so if you’ve got anything to say about your future careers, say it now please.”
If you put it in that light, it was fairly obvious this would be happening. It just didn’t occur to our Thomson/stunt/gotcha obsessed media to flag the idea.
JamesJ on PB re’ equal time:
Seems to know his stuff.
” have to ask – when are Bronnie and Ruddock going to retire? ”
They can’t afford to retire Leonetwo. Neither has the depth of courage, internal strength or wherewithal to spend time in reflection of how they have spent their lives.
If the both, or either, of them had to face the truth of their existence the retirement would more akin to purgatory.
BB
Exactly. It probably happened after someone came to the PM during the pre-Christmas drinks and confessed that they wanted to resign. People had been given the Christmas break to decide whether they wnated to be in or aout and the election startegy was worked out to include the resignations.
This is a confident PM very much in control, not a party in disarray, but the dolts in the OM aren’t allowed to say that. Uncle Rupert and Auntie Gina are dictating the lines and like the obedient donkeys they are the OM parrot the lot.
ian
If that’s true then I suspect we will eventually have a Coalition front bench full of octogenarians. None of the current bunch are going to be able to retire.
i read looked like a headache,
============================================
and thought
why would that be, and also lab. has so much talaent
its time to give some one else a go.
every opportunity for change, should be seen as
as a step forward
when ever a[ living] change comes in to ones life
grabb it and go with it,
we always have,
its only a headache if one makes it so,
————————————————————————–
and stress as i used to tell my staff,, is only what you give your self
its not necceassary at al unless you thrive on it, some do
leonetwo
‘Uncle Rupert and Auntie Gina are dictating the lines and like the obedient donkeys they are the OM parrot the lot.’
I wonder if they actually ‘dictate’ these days.
It probably just pleases them that the numpties never think outside the old square.
Well said, denese! Always look at things as an opportunity, not a cost. 🙂
leonetwo….your mention of Rupert and Gina with their heads together on this issue conjured a ghastly picture of the two of them in a quiet corner of a cafe, Gina squatting like Jabba and a ever so slightly tippled Rupert leaning close and confiding…” This could be the start of a beautiful friendship…” followed by a wink…….Gina laughs like Jabba!
fionajr……………………I shouldn’t wonder…..
i hate to tell you this but its often the woman who asks the bold questions
and acts on it in a family,
and these junos have never had to deal with a woman at the top
and have no idea, how we think,
well the woman junos should know but.
spring cleaning is a very important part of our life
getting rid of clutter and making way for new things
and new ideas.
for example this morning ive thrown out all my old tea towels
i ve decide d to collect blue and white to match my kitchen
oh said why, what wrong with them.
i said it makes you feel refreshed and new its a good a s holiday
now i am going outside to get some blue agapanthus
then off to beach party
enjoy your optermisitc day
I saw Uncle Rupert going the full Opus Dei on Twitter last night decrying the fact that the British High Court had voted to recognise Orthodox Jewish Divorce Laws.
Apparently, allowing one group of religious types, representing a very, very small proportion of the population, to conduct Divorces according to their religious tenets, *cough* Catholicism, is going to bring about the end of society as we know it. Of course, he just had to throw in the logical conclusion in his mind…What next? Sharia Law?
However, I was going to point out to him that this recognition of Hasidic Law doesn’t make it, ipso facto, the Law of the Land. Silly Old Man. 🙂
I did some Spring Cleaning last night as well. Out with the old clothes, and in with the new. 🙂
I invite everyone to have a look at the trendlines, especially the smoother ones that Possum provides.
They went down after the election, then up, then down again (but not as far), then up a bit further than the last “up”. They’re on their way down again, but won’t go down as far as the last “down”.
Much easier to cut out all the “ups” and the “downs” by just putting it as “three steps forward, two back”.
Judging by the frequency of the waves of popularity/unpopularity, by about April-May we’re due for the next “up” for the government.
The alternative is to see every downslope as never stopping, which a few journos once upon a time used to predict, saying the government was heading for 65-35 territory. They’re gone now, off to the Old Journos’ Home (notably Shaun Carney).
If you accept that the government isn’t going to go into the election at 60-40, or even 65-35, then you have to figure in another upswing between now and about April-May.
If you DO think they’re going to tank to previously unplumbed depths, then who’s got rocks in their head?
It’s a big year. People, especially journalists, are treating the election date announcement as one of the common or garden variety. Normally the date is announced a week or so before the writs are issued. Everything’s in a flurry.
But in this case we have simply a final confirmation of something we always knew roughly: the precise date intended. It was always going to be in September-October, despite the “Early Election” fluffing of a few.
The date’s not really a surprise at all, just unusual that the confirmation is made so early. It’s what everyone was gearing up for as the most likely scenario anyway. So why is it so sensational?
Habit.
Usually when these announcement are made it’s a big deal with lots of excitement. The habit of getting excited when the date is announced is clearly hard to break.
Things will calm down. The more rational of the voters will look at things… rationally.
And the government will regain lost popularity sometime in April-May.
Look at the trends, all of them, not the rubbish being written.
Gillard is clearing the decks, making a rails opportunity available for herself and the government with no distractions, jockeys falling off or other interferences (as far as this is possible), ready for a straight run home, a last dash to the finish line.
In racing parlance, a race caller would put it as “nicely placed as they enter the final turn”.
She’s giving it her best shot and she wants only serious and totally committed players around her. That explains just about everything that’s happened in the last few days.
BB:
I see the trend as a smooth drift back to the ALP, offset by massive scandal-mongering in 2012. It stalled in early 2012 while Rudd decided to tilt at windmills, and then blew out badly as Thomson, Slipper and Carbon Tax! coalesced into a massive smear-bomb in the middle of the year. But almost exactly at the point where carbon pricing became a reality, the polls started turning back toward the ALP.
A mini-smearathon over Gillard and AWU stalled things again late in the year. It’s levelling out again now.
Let’s be clear about it – if it’s outside of policy (and specifically Economy), it only has an effect if it’s new and breathtaking. There’s nothing new and breathtaking on the horizon that I can see. We knew Slipper was a thorn in the side of the Coalition and that they had made warnings about him. And we knew that things were brewing over Thomson well before last year. The Gillard-AWU story had also been hanging around. They’ve played all the angles on all the smears they have available to them.
If there’s a trend to come, it has to be toward the ALP. The Coalition got a lot of value out of the ammunition they had, but it was all designed to either force an election or provide them with an unassailable lead that couldn’t be overturned. Neither of those has happened. They have nothing to stand behind policy-wise, and nothing new to add either.
They have to get behind the fortifications and snipe where they can. The ALP are starting to occupy strategic points on the battleground.
I generally agree with you, except on the scandals. The OM has an alarming propensity to take old leftover news, done like last night’s dinner, and find new ways to rehash it as tomorrow’s breakfast.
The Thomson thing is a case in point: add a new ingredient – the arrest – and this gives the media an instant opportunity to go over ALL the old ground, reminding people just what a rotter he was supposed to have been.
Even the Premier of the state now apparently believes that if you’re accused of something (in another jurisdiction, I might add, to wit: Victoria) this is excuse enough to deal with the perp poetically when in custody in a manner befitting the crime (the alleged crime that is).
Take your clothes off for hookers, will you? OK, we’ll make you take your clothes off during routine criminal processing.
I suppose this approach would make it legitimate to rape a child molestation defendant before trial (or after). Or to throw a neg driving defendant under a bus and grind them up a little. Give ’em a dose of their own – alleged – medicine. Quite medieval, actually. Eye for an eye stuff.
On the more positive side, I can’t see that Gillard has done anything particularly wrong, except to wrong-foot the media, who are used to their cosy processes, predictable outcomes and uncontroversial politics played by theirrules.
Outside their game, anything else is depicted as “extraordinary”, “unexpected”, “desperate” or “counter-intuitive”. An early election announcement is thus turned into a “crisis”. A few resignations – the norm for pre-election periods – are sexed up as “Gillard on the ropes”.
But the confident, smirking prediction only yesterday by Melissa Clarke on ABC-24 that the first two weeks of parliament were lost to the government, as they would be all about Thomson, Thomson, Thomson is already looking foolhardy.
I’m sure there were plenty of other predictions made by other journos, but this was just one I happened to witness myself.
Gillard has thrown down the gauntlet to the Press Gallery: accept the new rules and run with the ball. They are railing against the challenge. Their cosy meme of an easy Coalition victory is under threat.
It’s like they can hear the bombers overhead, but they don’t know where the actual bombs will fall, on their neighbourhood or not.
On the ABC right now the ABC-24 crew are trying like crazy to maintain the “Government in crisis” meme… cut off, rather nicely I thought, by reality: the real explanation, not the bullshit made-up one.
Yep, BB. My contention for a while is that the Coalition are moving in ever decreasing circles, revisiting all their old smears one by one, and then doing the rounds again. They can squeeze more life out of Thomson, they can squeeze more life out of Slipper, and they might get little poll bumps out of them, but nothing like the 58-42 they managed when everything was running their way.
But… Carbon Tax fear campaigns are over. Mining Tax fear campaigns are over too. They pushing it uphill saying anything against the NBN. The Gillard/AWU case backfired. Slipper now equals Ashby equals Brough equals Pyne,so victories from here on will be Pyrrhic. We’re seeing the last dregs drained of Thomson too. And they’re draining every last drop there, leaving nothing in the barrel.
They’ll always find new horrible things to insinuate. But none of them are going to have the power to shock and frighted of the previous ones.
There could be a way to disrupt the OM. journos newsline…..at a critical moment in the day, flood several of the leading OM. journs’ with misleading twitter “revelations”…false news and the like.
There will be a new thread up in about 10 minutes – please hold all comments until then!
New thread – sorry for taking so long.