Newsbytes from Dr. Benny Peiser of The GWPF
Kevin Rudd has declared he will challenge Australia’s prime minister Julia Gillard as leader of the Labor party on Monday, saying he wants to “finish the job” he began before she ousted him. Mr Rudd, dumped as leader in 2010, attacked Ms Gillard as treacherous and untrustworthy and insisted she would not be able to win the next election. Mr Rudd attacked Ms Gillard’s political record, saying she urged him to dump his carbon pricing scheme as prime minister – a move that is credited as initiating his decline. –Jonathan Pearlman, The Daily Telegraph, 24 February 2012
KEVIN RUDD commissioned advice on ”repositioning” his ill-fated climate change policy, including scrapping it, two months before he dumped it, leaked documents show. Mr Rudd yesterday placed the blame squarely on Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan for forcing him to drop the policy but the Herald has obtained a departmental briefing commissioned by Mr Rudd showing he began the process that led to the policy being deferred indefinitely. –Phillip Coorey, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 February 2012
The bloodletting inside the Labor Party is nothing short of animalistic. This week, many of the parliamentarians of the federal ALP have cast aside any semblance of unity and torn at each other in unrestrained frenzy. Australian Labor makes the US Republicans look almost charitable to each other by comparison. Labor, at its lowest standing in the public eye in the 40-year history of the Nielsen poll, does not seem well-placed to afford the luxury. — Peter Hartcher and Phillip Coorey, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 February 2012
Labor’S chances of salvaging anything from the current leadership debacle are receding as fast as you can say “disunity is death”. This is not garden-variety disunity, it is a full-scale nuclear war that, almost uniquely, is taking place within the party of government. It is as crazy as the military acronym suggests – MAD, or “mutually assured destruction”. –Mark Kenny, Adelaide Advertiser, 25 February 2012
Related articles
- Julia Gillard challenges Kevin Rudd to fight Labor Party leadership contest (independent.co.uk)
- Rudd, Gillard shape up for Labor battle (news.theage.com.au)
L. said @ur momisugly February 24, 2012 at 6:55 pm
A few years ago, I would have described myself as “a rusted on Laborite”. The only reason I didn’t vote for the Liberal candidate in the last federal election was because I knew him. This was the same reason I couldn’t vote for either the Labor, or the Greens candidates. For the first time I cast an informal vote and hope the message I wrote on the ballot paper was noticed by the scrutineers. I suspect that we shall see many more independents in the next election and hopefully of the calibre of Bob Katter.
Precisely. But then what else can we expect from someone so wedded to Goldman Sachs?
Think of the the Liberals as being equivalent to the left-wing of the US Democrats.
US Republicans would be seen as fit only for the loony bin.
But I don’t like any of the Australian parties, and yet voting is compulsory.
I would like to remind WUWT readers of the advice Jonathan Kay gave in an article in the National Post in July 2010.
Bad science: Global-warming deniers are a liability to the conservative cause
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/full-comment/blog.html?b=fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/15/bad-science-global-warming-deniers-are-a-liability-to-the-conservative-cause
The Conservative Party went on to win a majority government by using the strategy of not mentioning climate change.
By the way Jonathan May, that article was so bad that I no longer read anything you write, and was disappointed to find that you are the editor over Lord Conrad Black.
Sorry, my auto corrector changed Kay to May, even though I changed it back again, so I thought.
Dale says:
February 24, 2012 at 4:07 pm
“End of the day, Labor is dead next election. It’s a choice of how dead they want to be.”
The way I see it, the options for the ALP caucus are:
1. Keep Gillard, get slaughtered at the election (and losing ground to the Greens also*), dump Gillard for a new leader like Bill Shorten who can start a rebuild that will take at least 2 terms in opposition.
2. Dump Gillard for Rudd, get beaten but not slaughtered*, keep Rudd on for a little while and then switch to a new leader for rebuild etc.
3. Dump both of the losers and put in a new leader now, lose the next election maybe narrowly, but in the process maybe burn the new leader too soon.
Option 3 won’t happen because it would involve burning a new leader too soon.
– Unless someone like Simon Crean could be persuaded to take the bullet, and then step aside for a new generation (e.g. Shorten).
Option 2 won’t happen because Rudd is so hated within the caucus.
Option 1 will transpire.
* I don’t think the Green vote will drop at the next election – you’d have to be an idiot to vote for them last time around and idiots don’t learn – but they might pick up disaffected Labor voters.
** It makes no sense that Rudd should be a preferred option with the electorate, but that seems to be what the opinion polls tell us.
RoHa says:
February 24, 2012 at 8:51 pm
“Think of the the Liberals as being equivalent to the left-wing of the US Democrats.”
Wha -???
IMO it goes roughly from left to right:
Greens
Australian Labor
US Democrats
Australian Liberals
Australian Nationals
US Republicans
“But I don’t like any of the Australian parties, and yet voting is compulsory.”
IMO compulsory voting is a good thing. Sure it means that a lot of sheeple go out and vote without thinking too hard, but at least at the end of the day the winner can claim a mandate and campaigners don’t have to waste time and resources just getting people out to vote. I don’t think being able to win a close election based on your ability to bus people to polling stations is such a great thing. And (for example) I don’t think any US President in recent times has been able to claim they have the direct (as in voted for them) support of more than – what – 25%? of the population.
Richard of Brisbane Australia said @ur momisugly February 24, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Lets see, the Labor Party privatised Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank, and deregulated the banking system. Strange sort of communism if you ask me.
The Liberal Party passed the Aboriginal Land Rights Act affirming “inalienable” freehold title to traditional lands. They established the multicultural broadcaster SBS, and also under Fraser, failed to introduce any significant program of economic reform in the post-Whitlam years. Strange sort of conservatism if you ask me.
Maybe all my books on politicz are wrong eh?
Those of you who believe that the ALP is communist, socialist, or left-wing should bear in mind that the party has long been dominated by its right wing faction. The largest unions are on the right, so effectively the right runs the Labor Party. The Right appoints nearly all top party officials and dominates the committees that have the most power. The most powerful right-wing unions are:
AWU: Australian Workers’ Union
NUW: National Union of Workers
SDA: Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association
TWU: Transport Workers’ Union.
While dominant, the right lack the numbers to roll both left and centre-left, hence Gillard’s appointment as a sop to those factions. Things tend to become a little complicated which is why I earlier pointed to the Political Compass. Understanding that it’s 2D rather than 1D helps a lot.
I will simplify Australian politics for the readers. The Primeminister has been awarded a pay-rise which brings her pay in excess of the US president. The Parliament thought this was a fair thing and their was much rejoicing.
Australia is a one party state and the people in parliament represent the party machine that installed them. The people who inhabit the Parliaments are largely the product of the free University system of the 80s and 90s allowing an infestation of Arts Law faculties and student union politics. The people running Australia are beholden to faceless men operating behind the party system and are possibly incapable of understanding the destruction their stupid laws cause to the remains of the productive classes.
This ridiculous feasting at the temple of thieves has continued while the bounty of the wealth of resources continued. Crunch time is coming as the party borrows against this wealth to fund it’s legalised corruptions. The people lending this money will call the shots and their interest will not lie with this country or it’s people.
Pompous Git said:
Let’s say that we the electors decide to do something for schizophrenics (and just coincidentally The Git who is a nicotine addict). If a majority of electors inform their representative in parliament that it is their WILL that a bill to repeal the tobacco tax be introduced to parliament then the representative is bound by the constitution to do so. Should the representative refuse to do so, then the electors can request that the Governor General remove the representative from parliament and call a bye election to find a replacement. If the GG refuses, then we can request the Queen of Australia do so as she is also bound by the Australian Constitution to implement the WILL of the electors.
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This is utter bunkum. Don’t leave your day job to be a constitutional lawyer.
On the contrary, trying to force a Member of Parliament to do something against their will is contempt of Parliament, and could land you in jail.
brc,
The Australian Labor Party is not descended from the British Labour Party. The Australian Labor Party came into existence prior to the British Labour Party back in the 1890s.
Isn’t it wonderful how politicians can spin even their own history!
When the global warming alarmism was at it’s height, Malcolm Turnbull (Liberal and dead set alarmist) was the leader of the opposition when Rudd was in power. He crossed the floor to support the government on an ETS but it failed to get through a couple of times. This gave Rudd the trigger for a double dissolution election which he declined to take. Turnbull is an ex banker and is supposed to be fairly smart but little evidence exists to prove it. He is intensely unpopular outside his own seat and the Liberal polling was dismal (comes from having a silver spoon stuck up….well you know how that ends).
Rudd was a popular prime minister but disliked by powerful factions within his own party. Down to tin tacks, those who saw the AGW scam for what it was had no choice because the policies were more or less the same on both sides (alarmist) so the popular Rudd was polling well. A power spill in the Liberal party saw Tony Abbot (a known skeptic) take over as leader of the opposition where he sits today. With his rise, skeptics now had a champion and a choice and Rudds popularity started to decline rapidly.
Labor pollies in their weird little green/red worlds saw this as a result of the failure of Rudd to get his ETS up and when Rudd dropped the ETS, he lost the green support and his polling plummeted giving the factions ammo to pull a leadership coup which Gillard won. These facts are not the way the alarmist green/red/Labor party want to see things so they choose to ignore them at their peril.
Prediction: Gillard to win by much less than she would like in a very close vote, Labor will be in opposition for another 10 years. Having said that, I have been known to be wrong about these things occasionally.
Thanks to the Git and Alex Heyworth!
That link on “Our Will” is a very eye-opening read! I knew that if you got enough people in your electorate you could make your member vote a certain way. But I had no idea we could petition direct to the Queen/GG.
So how many letters to the GG saying “Our will is for an immediate full election of both Houses” or “rescind the carbon tax” is required before she needs to act? Is there a certain percentage of voters needed?
Dale said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 3:54 am
It’s not the number of letters, but the number of electors that counts. Read the document that Alex presented. We, the electors, have far more power than our elected want us to know. The Git has much admiration for Clark, Hare and others that bequeathed us this power.
FWIW, I explored the question of “what is a liberal” here
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/i-am-a-liberal/
There is a watershed between UK and USA on the meaning of “Liberal” with the older meaning used in the UK being closer to the USA “Libertarian” while in the USA the Progressives of W.W.II era were embarrassed by the association with the “Third Way Socialism” of Mussolini (who was lauded and even had a cameo shot in a Hollywood movie, prior to the war…) so they needed a new name and cannibalized “Liberal”. Of course, any good reputation gets tainted by using it to advertise shoddy goods, so now the USA Liberals are trying to resurrect the term “Progressive”.
To clear all this up, I’ve adopted the neologisms of:
Clasi-liberal: The Classical UK meaning of “freedom loving libertarian leaning free thinker”
ASo-liberal: The American Social-liberal that is largely just a relabeled 1920’s “Progressive”
When using the terms “Liberal” or “Progressive” in their American sense, for clarity, it is best to append the root from which they both sprang. Prior to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the National Socialist Workers Party ( of W.W.II Germany fame…) giving it a bad name, the name for folks who advocated these policies was Socialists. So: Liberal-Socialists and Progressive(tax)-Socialists are clear and unambiguous usage.
Lately I heard Madam Hillary Clinton say “I’m not a Liberal, I’m a Progressive”(tax). (The parenthetical “tax” is to be added to “Progressive” when used as they are the ones who brought us the Income Tax and made sure it was a “Progressive Income Tax”. Credit where Credit is due… Later I heard Bill Clinton advocating for his “Third Way” policies. Someone needs to tell him that “Third Way” was the description that Mussolini used for HIS corporatist-socialist blended system. Basically, he is letting the Progressive-Socialist roots show…
For some ill defined reason, the ASo-Liberal / Progressive(tax) / Left / Democrats of America really hate it when you call them Socialists, even though their policies are clearly in sync with Socialism in every possible way (other than that they drop the ‘international’ flavor of Communist-Socialism, in favor of ‘global’…) You would think they would be proud of their policies and roots… and happy to be associated with the various European Socialist parties that have nearly identical policies and goals…
At any rate, as I understand it, the use of “Liberal” in Australia is somewhat similar to that in the UK, and different from the use in the USA.
Oh, and “left” vs “right” is a somewhat broken metric as well, since it has mutated strongly over time. Originally Royals and The Church were on the “right” and Classi-liberals were on the “left” as that was their seating in the French Parliament. Later, once the Classi-Liberals were redefined as a different name, they got shoved onto the “right” and the socialists took the “left” Today we have no Royals, and the current Republican policies are more “Left” or “ASo-Liberal” than those of John F. Kennedy (who advocated for a tax rate cut to fix the economy…which he got and which worked…) so at this point there isn’t any party in America that is a Classi-Liberal party. We have Socialists that call themselves Democrats and Corporatist-Socialists that call themselves Republicans. (Our “Libertarian” party is sort of a blend of Clasi-Liberals and near-Anarchists…) so we really have “Socialists”, “Socialist-Lite” and “ELSE Clause”…
So, hope that helps keep things strait as we have “Two people separated by a common language” with ‘exactly opposite’ meanings to Liberal … a confounding of the language that I’m pretty sure was no accident.
johanna said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 1:51 am
Try reading the document that Alex so kindly provided.the link to. Hint: The Git has been asked to edit a book on constitutional law written by a constitutional law. He is not making this stuff up!
Mods, that should have been lawyer. I’m slightly pissed (in the Australian sense) and shortly going to my bed. As MacArthur said: “I shall return”.
E.M.Smith said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 5:36 am
A number of wise words of the sort the git has come to expect from E. M. He is a very clear thinker 🙂
Richard deSousa says:
February 24, 2012 at 10:38 am
The only difference between Rudd and Gillard is that Rudd doesn’t wear a skirt… 😉
======================
some of us suspect he does…at home,
just as the Liar wears the pants:-)
The Pompous Git says:
February 25, 2012 at 5:35 am
Dale said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 3:54 am
Thanks to the Git and Alex Heyworth!
That link on “Our Will” is a very eye-opening read! I knew that if you got enough people in your electorate you could make your member vote a certain way. But I had no idea we could petition direct to the Queen/GG.
So how many letters to the GG saying “Our will is for an immediate full election of both Houses” or “rescind the carbon tax” is required before she needs to act? Is there a certain percentage of voters needed?
===================================
wouldnt matter a jot how many letters or calls she got.
shes also a warmist a puppet and useless.
land being stolen for warmist agendas all over aus ditto water rights.
petitions are fobbed off with what amount to
it isnt our department..the queens busy, go away.
the queen has no rights to say much anymore we are a separate nation..no Commonweal;th on our banknotes etc.
the GG( the horse image fits:-) is a ceremonial nothing.
what i sort of look forward to is the absence of the Liars nasal whinging..
and to see the bitch slapping fight between brownshirt and krudd
damn that would be gold to be able to see n hear:-)
and even better…ALL of them out on their butts.
Warwick Hughes writes:
“[I]t is like this. Labor have engineered this big new tax (The Carbon Tax) which will from mid this year will start to produce an avalanche of revenue – from as Gillard say’s – “the big polluters”. Except for rising power bills and other cost of living things – the hit will not fall directly on Labor voters…. I forsee a blizzard of cheques mailing out to all those in receipt of Govt pensions of many and divers types, dole payments etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_%28Australia%29”
Not a pretty sight! These pathetic rebates or tax cuts elsewhere only temporarily mask the deadly effects of carbon taxation, and the Australians provide Exhibit A on this. The immutable law of taxes is that they always go up, and they never go away. And this is not to mention the destructive power of worthless wind trubines and their subsidies on energy supply, stability, and prices.
If our primaries move into a brokered convention, and a new nominee gets introduced by republican elites, they will very likely attempt to foist a carbon tax supporter on the conservative movement. My evidence for this is that Romney is a carbon tax candidate and is their choice, while all others are intolerable to them. And meanwhile the MSM will simply make a mudstorm over contraception, and no one will be the wiser.
ozspeaksup said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 6:07 am
King Charles I decided he didn’t need to comply with the law and it cost him his head. This is not an issue of the Queen’s rights, but her obligations. If you believe the GG to be powerless, how do you explain the dismissal of Whitlam in 1975?
The Commonwealth of Australia still exists. It does not rely upon mention on a banknote.
The reason most letters and petitions are fobbed off is because they do not include the key word: WILL. Try writing a “my WILL” letter to your local MP. You might be surprised by the alacrity of the response. It is of course entirely possible that our representatives are no longer as well educated as in times past, but I would be very surprised if they were kept unaware of their obligations.
Jeff says:
February 24, 2012 at 10:10 am
The only place greens belong is in a salad….
Jeff…I would vomit on your salad.
The Pompous Git says:
February 25, 2012 at 5:39 am
johanna said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 1:51 am
This is utter bunkum.
Try reading the document that Alex so kindly provided.the link to. Hint: The Git has been asked to edit a book on constitutional law written by a constitutional law. He is not making this stuff up!
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PG, I spent many years working in the Commonwealth government and reading letters to the PM and Ministers containing this ‘magic formula’. They tended to be written (later typed) with lots of CAPS and exclamation marks, with bits underlined in red.
Legal advice consistently said that this was bunkum, from nutters, like the people who entertained wild theories about the dire constitutional implications of taking EIIR off post office boxes. I kid you not, we got hundreds of letters about this from the same tribe of conspiracy theorists.
If it were remotely true, do you not think it would have gone to the High Court by now? Oh wait, they are probably in on the conspiracy too.
The fact that an obscure former MP believed this and wrote about it doesn’t make it true. But if you think it is, knock yourself out. Sadly, it will just ensure that the content of your letters is devalued as the ravings of the mentally challenged.