Here We Go

Fiona Uncategorized

It’s chilly spring weather in Melbourne and in a few hours I’ll be off to vote at a distant booth as far away from the Young LibThugs as I can get without leaving the electorate. I’m also going alone: OH had better be very careful when anywhere near me for the next little while.

(Credit: The Australian Labor Party)

All pretty good reasons, in my book.

The Coalition, by contrast, has

not to mention a seriously scary internet “filter” that’s been dropped – for the moment …

The Coalition also has

(and those are just the stars) – a bunch that exceeds in utter, thuggish mendacity and sheer, vicious nastiness anything I have seen in Federal Parliament in over fifty years of being a political junkie.

And, of course, standing behind them, pulling the strings, are

– as unholy a trinity as I have ever seen.

By contrast, the ALP has

decent people concerned about the well-being of all Australians, about equality, and about building for the future.

I will be voting Labor today. I hope sufficient of my fellow-Australians wake up before it’s too late and realise the slaughter-knives are nearly at their throats.

(Credit: The Weekly Times)

606 thoughts on “Here We Go”

  4. This little black duck

    I am bursting with schadenfreude at the thought of Tassie’s voters finding out Tones does not give a flying Fcuk about them and any $’s he dishes out will be to states that really matter.

  5. This little black duck ,

    { Scorps,

    Still some good stuff left in Labor. }

    That’s why Rudd was reinstated. Abbott’s mob have only got a 3.6% swing on the current figures. It could have been worse. Pity they lost so many good ones though. Damn hard to replace if they decide not to run again.

  6. Giving the Wallabies a new coach worked a treat NOT!

    No reason to drop Deans at all.

  7. Scorpio,

    I have not directed my “venom ” at you or anyone else.

    I respect the views of those who post here.

    I despise Rudd for his actions over the last three years and I have stood by that view over that period.

    Until Rudd leaves Parliament labor will have no peace.

    What you think about my position and my views I care little.

    I have no interest in a argument about this issue.

    Everyone has his/her own view and so that should be and arguing would serve no purpose.

    By all means respond to my posts.

    That is what a blog such as this is all about.

    But if my views cause you discomfort it may be best if you scroll past because I will continue to put forward my position and I have no desire to cause you grief.

    Cheers.

  8. kaffeeklatscher,

    Time to keep track of what under-promising and over-delivering we are about to get. Then, of course, there are hidden policies.

    Schadenfreude is right!

  11. doyleym,

    { Just my opinion.

    Worth no less or no more than anyone else. }

    Absolutely and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It just seems that at times, mine doesn’t seem to carry similar weight or make people think a little about their position. Not everyone is right all the time.

  14. If people think that politics has been interesting over the past three years, then strap yourselves in, stock up on the popcorn & watch what unfolds over the next three.

  15. This little black duck

    Lordy that game was depressing. Especially as in an extremely rare event I supported the Wobblies. The new coach worked out as big a cunning plan as the new Labor leader.

  22. Leone,
    Dear me, the Member for Ecuador will be mightily muffed miffed.

    Monsieur Duck,
    Some things go without saying. If only without saying, he went …

  23. And to top off the Senate circus, Palmer looks like he might win a 3rd seat in WA, after a certainty in Queensland and a near certainty in Tasmania.

    So, the next Senate looks like it will be as folllows:

    LNP = 34 (0)
    ALP = 26 (-5)
    Green = 9 (0)
    Palmer = 3 (+3)
    Liberal Democrats = 1 (+1)
    Xenophon = 1 (0)
    Family First = 1 (+1)
    DLP = 1 (0)

    Good luck getting through that, Abbott.

  25. I think I might give Insiders a miss tomorrow. Don’t think I could stand the hubris and smug looks on the faces of Bazza & the panel.

  28. I haven’t watched Insiders for about a year. I don’t miss it at all and I think my blood pressure is a lot better now.

  29. Scorpio,
    I suspect we can look forward to a rebranding of the program as OurSiders.

    On a related topic: be patient and take courage: the many and varied reactions at The Pub to today’s result will subside, only to be resurrected into a burning determination to get rid of the other mob.
    Please be a part of that.

    (Eschewing ABC24 and “Insiders” would be a good move for all of us.)

  30. Richo declares on Sky that Labor has to win back the “tradie” vote. Oh how I look forward to the end of the mining boom’s construction phase. For every 10 construction phase FIFO tradie CUB there will be lucky to be 1 required for production.

  31. Will Abbott be brave enough to appear on Q&A now or will he trot out the ‘I’m too busy being PM’ excuse.

  32. Puffy,
    If you are emulating me in 1975, all I can give you are lots of hugs and a nice soft

    The battle between good(ies) and bad(dies) is ongoing, though one day the pure of heart (and NOT Mr Abbott’s version of that) will win.

  35. Fiona,

    { Scorpio,
    The point is: need it have been so interesting? }

    You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would wish it wasn’t so than my good self.

    Apologies if I have been out of order here tonight but I do think some here need to rein back on the vitriol until such time as there is incontrovertible proof that what they perceive to be factual truth, actually is.

    I like to base my opinions on tangible facts, not feelings or somebody else’s. Especially when those other opinions are repeated here on a continual basis. It gets a bit wearing.

    If people feel that the site would be better off without my occasional contribution, then so be it. I can accept that people can be more comfortable conversing with like-minded souls.

    It can be a bother to have a confronting personality try to demonstrate that maybe some here are going somewhat overboard with their campaign of blame and insinuation. Facts do matter & they sometimes hurt people’s sense of righteousness. I make no apologies for that though.

  36. Puffy, matching you glass for glass, but I just want to cry for what might have been, the cowardly Labor party dumped their best bet for white-anter Rudd, as much as I wanted to believe, he could never make amends for the damage he caused. But reality must set in for the Abbott voters now and onwards and upwards forLabor to the 2016 election – gawd don’t handle white wine well will have a heck of a hangover tomorrow

  37. Scorpio,

    Neither should you.

    However, for tonight, I think the best move is to let other people’s recriminations pass through to the keeper. We still have to be colleagues, friends, and co-operators in a progressive victory next time.

    Meanwhile, I’m matching Puffy and Sandy glass for glass, so goodnight all. Sleep well, and sleep long: tomorrow is a whole new territory. Regroup, plan imaginatively, and win.

  38. Oh yes, according to the new caucus rules, I can vote for the next ALP leader since I’m a member.

    At the moment I’d most likely vote for Albanese if he put his name forward. What I want for a leader is someone who can take the fight right back under Abbott’s nose rather than over here with infighting.

    Even though Albo is with Rudd, I quite like that in the past 4 years that I’ve observed politics, he’s always aimed his guns at the bastards opposite.

  40. That would be a damn shame if he retired. There’s been enough loss of talent in the Labor ranks this year.

  41. So funny – John Faulkner says that on NSW Senate ballot paper many people confused Liberal Democrats and Liberals.
    No-one ever said Liberal voters were smart.

  42. There’s been talk that Albo is seriously thinking about retiring.

    Yeah. I don’t blame him. That bloody Rudd single handedly destroyed the Labor Government in the most treacherous fashion. It had nothing to do with the most concerted campaign by conservative forces and the media that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

    It can’t have been easy being the Leader of the House facing up to the barrage from the other side for 6 years. And that was on top of his Ministerial responsibilities. Then bloke deserves a medal. I think he’ll carry on though. there’s a lot of fight left in him yet.

  44. Scorps, I’ll try to avoid scapegoating Rudd, even though my feelings run the same as most. I will just say this on the matter: the call for what eventually happened was made by Caucus and it is there that blame rests, if anywhere.

    I thought it was foolish at the time, and think it still looks foolish now. However, we still have to consider that they were in all probability reacting to the feedback in their electorates. Gillard’s name had been blackened, quite possibly beyond repair by a concerted Abbott-Liberal-media character assassination. Most of that mileage was made over the totally false claim that “she lied” about the carbon tax. It was very well orchestrated and repeated. In my opinion neither Gillard, the government or the Labor Party did enough to discredit that claim.

    A secondary part of her character destruction was the myth that her reign was illegitimate. That is, she came to office because of the scheming manipulations of the Faceless Men. Then the deadlocking electoral outcome (brought about by those mid-campaign leaks against her), added to that sense of illegitimacy. Abbott and most of his supporters think to this day that they were cheated from office because Gillard was able to negotiate forming a government with support of the independents. There was nothing at all illegitimate about it, but people at large don’t understand the nuances of how a government is formed in the Westminster system by obtaining the confidence of the House.

    Abbott and Pyne played on that relentlessly as did Joyce and radio2GB to the point of inciting action against the “traitorous” independents, who they claimed should have supported the LNP in line with their conservative-type electorates. That, too, is a nonsense under the Burkean style of representative government. But rabble-rousing was pretty easy on such a point.

    The trouble with Rudd’s constant feeding into the media manipulations, even to the point of grabbing attention when a poll was due to be surveyed, was that it fed directly into the question of Gillard’s legitimacy and her tenure security. Especially when you combine it with Abbott’s daily stunts and conjuring up “scandals” to try and change the numbers in parliament. Rudd was by no means the only element that made life difficult for our PM, but his activities added to the whole public perception of Gillard: that she was incompetent, as well as lying scheming and unpopular.

    It was all media perceptions and directly the opposite of her actual character, as Windsor and Oakeshott could testify. Her integrity and respect for others was of very high standard, but you’d hardly have known that from the way the media portrayed her and as the public, depending on the media, perceived her. Had Rudd not acted in the way he did, and carried the fight through the media whisperings, she might have won the respect she had earned. So he can’t be dismissed from it all, even if not the total cause.

    To return to the Caucus decision: inside parliament house, members can be cut off. Apart from their colleagues, their main source of contact and knowledge is the media and opinion polls. It is understandable, especially probably getting similar hostility from voters, that they believed they could not win with Gillard, and could quite possibly be obliterated. It was reasonable in one sense, given the obstinacy of the polls.

    But why I think it was a bad call is seeing this campaign unfold as it did. She may indeed have been unable to turn around that perception. But what she did have was a huge range of policy achievements and a government with an outstanding economic and employment record. During the running of an election campaign it would have been near impossible for the media to suppress or not report these things as she paraded them. In direct contrast with Abbott, whose policy cupboard was bare, she was offering something tangible. Abbott would have tried to avoid debating her but some minimal ones would have had to be held, or she’d have launched into her ‘coward’ theme that she’d already used against him.

    The public might still have hated her, as many did John Howard, But they would have had to respect her, however grudgingly. She would have had conviction, purpose and a record to back her up. I’m sorry they lost their nerve, or imagined the change in leader would improve things. Abbott always had the advantage in media backing for image. But she had the advantage of substance. Changing to somebody whom they’d rejected merely added to another of Abbott’s accusations that they’d do anything to survive.

  45. That’s a consolation too, that Opus Dei libs like Jizzum Diaz are proven to be absolute liabilities in elections.

    I honestly thought that Greenway would be lost at the start, since the NSW 2011 election had one of its main state electorates, Riverstone, which was previously a safe Labor, be absolutely smashed to become a 70/30 ultra-safe Liberal seat. But it’s been pretty much held by Labor with a swing to it federally. Most probably thanks to him.

    Hopefully that will weaken the authoritarian right/opus dei elements of the Liberal party.

  46. well,well,watched a movie and dozed off (couldb’t bare to listen to Abbott claiming victory).

    I wake up to hear that Rudd’s resigning. If he can’t be Captain, he’s taking his bat and ball and going home to sulk (not to say I’m not glad he’s doing just that).

    The prize for Two Facedness tonight had to go to Bowen who said if that if it wasn’t for all the termites in the Party, they’d have won. Too true… but not in the way Bowen was thinking about it.

    Although there are a lot of balls in the air, it doesn’t seem like we didn’t do as badly as the Infallible Polls and Murdoch’s Millions indicated we might.

    OF course I’m sure the journalists will be claiming “landslide”, but really, it was just a regulation win, workmanlike and decisive, but hardly a rout.

    And after all that money and hot air wasted on it.

    Abbott only won because he was kept on an iron lung for four years and protected like the Boy In The Bubble from all harm.

    He is now going to find out just what “The buck stops here” means. No more rehearsals. This is the real thing Tony.

  47. Last update for the night. Labor’s back ahead in Capricornia and Lingiari on Figures from the AEC site

  48. I’m afraid I have to disagree with the sentiments about Albanese. My personal opinion is that he is a flake of the highest order. Not to be trusted at any time.

    He was there, not 6ft away, when Ms Gillard was copping the venom, spite, and malicious innuendo. He had qt procedural conferences with Pyne behind the speakers chair. He would have seen and smelt the bloodlust. Heard the muttered insults. He would have seen a Prime Minister expending what little political capital she had, not to save herself, but to get nation changing legislation through the parliament. All of this he would have seen. He must have felt some of the blows that landed on Ms Gillard. It’s inconceivable that he did not…and still, according to reports, he was a major player in the taking down of Ms Gillard.

    He was a silent cardinal and I fervently hope he pays a heavy price.

  50. For some reason my comment went into moderation from another PC. In any case, what is the estimated 2pp?

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