Life is a highway. Are you going my way?
I’m on a journey. I hope you can come too.
That journey is to effect the sort of change in the Labor Party which I think we can all agree is needed if it is to survive & prosper as a Progressive Social Democratic political party, onwards through the 21st century and beyond.
As someone who gets to see politics in the raw in NSW, I think I am qualified to say my piece about what has occurred as the 43rd Parliament drew to a close, and I hope that you respect the fact that I have thought long and hard about the situation we have all just lived through and which the party finds itself in with respect to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard exchanging roles yesterday, and I hope you respect my perspective.
You don’t have to agree with it, just respect the fact that it is neither a knee-jerk, reflexive lashing out, or a requiem for the ALP that some might expect or demand, just my perspective. A different perspective.
In fact, I’m not going to make a comment either way about the manner in which Kevin Rudd came to get back the position of Prime Minister. That has been hashed out ad infinitum and we all have an opinion about the propriety of that action and the manner in which JGPM (for she will always be that to me, I coined the acronym after all on Twitter), was relentlessly undermined by forces within her own party, the media and the Opposition, which includes their mouthpieces in the Conservative Think Tanks. That’s a given, and a shame that it had to occur to the nation’s first female Prime Minister, and that it coincided with the advent of 24/7 News media in this country. They have to have something to comment on, dissect, analyse and pontificate about in an increasingly obvious partisan way.
Such is life. We do it too, and those in glass houses shouldn’t cast around for stones at a time like this because to continue to express rancour now only expends our energies needlessly and for short term existential gain. Not the sort of long-term productive gain which can really lead to us vanquishing our common enemies.
Who are they?
Firstly, and foremostly, it is the Coalition.
In a very short space of time, we of the Progressive bent will be facing them in the trenches, and we had better get our acts together I say, in double-quick time, if we are to have a chance of defeating them. That’s all that counts right now.
Bitter recriminations are fine, and all well and good in the short run but only serve to hobble the cause we all believe in, in the long run, if we let those feelings eat away at our souls. That way lies an ineffective and divided rabble, and a heart-breakingly thumping win for the Conservatives. With all that would entail in a draconian policy sense.
So, yes, Kevin Rudd was an A-Grade A-hole, and so were the Cardinals and the other assorted Rudd Rats. I think we can all agree that their behaviour was reprehensible, and they too are our enemies within.
Which is why I have decided not to resign from the Labor Party, as others have. I have decided that Kevin Rudd and his acolytes & congenital chancres within the Labor Party may be having their day in the sun in the Labor Party now, but the cause of reform drives me on to the horizon beyond them and is the greater good which I have decided to keep working for, inside the party.
As I said to a couple of ladies up my way when I first joined the ALP, you can get upset about things and yell from the sidelines, or you can run onto the field as part of the team & get down and dirty with the rest of them and fight for what you believe in and do your best to kick goals and produce the sort of results you think should be being achieved.
“History is made by those who turn up”, as Tony Windsor said. So I’m going to keep turning up because I am on a personal crusade, with the Labor Party as my vehicle, for what I believe in. I have succeeded in sidelining some of the malign forces that we all detest in my local area, which has prevented them from having a platform on the national stage, and we have got a better representative as a result. Also I believe that if I stick with it I can do my bit to fulfill the legacy of JGPM in the party, as Tanya Plibersek appears to have decided to do also, and stick around to vanquish the malign forces and see them replaced by those who represent the qualities we respect.
I do.
If I don’t and I give up and go away I think that I would feel worse. I do.
I also think Julia Gillard would approve because we are staying to stand and fight another day. Nothing good is ever easy, and the past 3 years and the last 3 days have shown me me that when the going gets tough, the tough get going and the show MUST go on. They might have won the battle but they will not win the war. I fight on.
THE PUB 
Rudd wearing a pale blue tie to the swearing in ceremony was code to all the boys of both teams that they own the sandpit again.
slav
I thought they make up the “outer Ministry” may be wrong
Yes I just checked I was wrong 😳
Hmm. Reading up the info on the Victorian state redistribution, even though the Liberals are going into it with 2 extra notional seats, there’ll be less of a swing needed to defeat them.
Previously Labor would have needed a 1.2% swing to win the 2 seats required for government, now it only needs an 0.4% swing to win 4 seats. Better still, a 2% swing to Labor will win 8 seats, where previously it would’ve only won about 3-4.
However, I expect this time around, Labor might have a better performance in Melbourne than in the regions. Bracks and Brumby were from Ballarat and Bendigo while Daniel Andrews is from the city. Still though, it would be nice to have the Regional marginal circle from Bellarine to Gembrook back to Labor again.
Also, I think the election in 2014 will most likely go the opposite way of whoever wins the federal election. If Rudd wins, Napthine might get a second chance. If Abbott wins, Victorians will probably want Andrews in as a counterbalance.
The right despise Turnbull so there is no chance they’ll turn to him before the election. They have too much invested in their boy and will need to be routed, their policies discredited, before MT gets any look in.
Having said that, I was completely wrong about last week’s events, so who the hell knows.
I look forward to the vision of Abbott,s face when he realises he has lost and will soon be relegated to the rubbish bin of history.
jackhawks,
Desperate political parties do desperate things. 😉
Joe6Pack,
I look forward to similar expressions from the Opposition in toto! Can you imagine both the Bishop’s faces? 😀
However, there is a long road from here to there.
Not confusing anything. That is what Rudd said. Nothing about Whitlam. Came from his summit. according to Rudd.
Morgan has Labor up 51.5-49.5. Only Morgan and long before the Liberal Dirt Machine kicks in.
But just get it up near evens gives Labor a huge advantage with the Gillard policy and programs legacy, against Abbott’s policy-free oppositopn.
C@tmomma
As most here know I have despised Abbott since his phony Truck stunts.
His world crashing down around him give me endless joy.
The others would be the icing on the cake.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/prosecutors-oppose-thomson-push-to-avoid-jury-trial-20130701-2p6fs.html
In regards to polls, I think that there might be a ‘runaway’ effect as the election gets closer.
Even though it got through a lot of legislation with lots of compromises, the hung parliament has not been very popular, so in an effort to avoid another one, a lot of swing voters might throw their support behind whichever party is leading, just to get a majority government.
I think Kevin Bonham or another psepho said that tended to happen a lot with Tasmanian elections after hung parliaments.
You know…I went back to my casual job today and found that there was little if ANY interest in the whole Gillard/Rudd affair. I then did an assessment of those people around me at work..and I find there are envieonmentalists who lean toward neo-green because they can make a quid or two from that…people married into indigenous or ethnic groups who are racist…young people sporting cult/religious dress/coiffure etc that have no idea what such adornment means….it is all just fashion..and I have to ponder…: Perhaps that is all it was…Julia just fell out of fashion…
We are all “fashionistas” now!
‘You know…I went back to my casual job today and found that there was little if ANY interest in the whole Gillard/Rudd affair.”
Jaycee, I have been saying that for a while. Much or the public are not listening. Exception is that they seem tp see that Rudd is back. Would not surprise me, if some would be surprised to know, he has never been away.
Yes, NDIS has been talked about for a long time. That is not what Rudd acknowledged.
Well, I just watched The Drum and they had Uber Liberal Attack Dog, David Myles on to push out the Coalition Attack Talking Points, plus Jim Chalmers and Ellen Fanning.
David Myles ran with ‘Half the Cabinet has left because they can’t work with Kevin Rudd’ line. Ellen Fanning gave a more sophisticated analysis, saying what I posited a while ago that maybe the electorate have factored in ‘Psychopathic Kevin’ to their judgement?
Jim Chalmers said, wtte, ‘David Myles would say that, wouldn’t he?’ Also he made the point that people, in Queensland yes, whom he has been speaking to out and about, have been saying that they are glad that there is no more instability and that the leadership has been decided.
Yes, I do know who created the instability until he wrested the leadership back. 😉
Us Qlders. are a strange bunch
This thread will close in 10 minutes.
The Reverend Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, has retired. His successor has not yet been elected.Let’s hope they choose someone fromn the 17th century this time, that would be a huge leap forward.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/07/01/3793510.htm?site=sydney
joe6pack,
😀 My Mum was a Queenslander and she would agree with you. On the other hand my Dad hailed from SA – he was a cattle man who did his apprenticeship on properties owned by Sir Kidney Kidman. He was used to the British breeds of cattle (herefords and angus) until he was sent to Queensland to manage one of Kidman’s properties. All was well until the Bos Indicus breeds were introduced and then all Queenslanders he described as “queer cattle” !!
Hallelujah Joe !
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