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)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Oooh this is too good! I’ve got the popcorn and beer ready, this is going to be a brawl. Wahoo!
johanna said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 2:36 pm
The fact that “conspiracy nutters” latched on to this is not evidence that what they latched on to was incorrect. I was first led to read Chresby’s book when visiting the parliamentary library in Hobart. Not being a conspiracy nutter, I asked a friend who has a keen interest in matters constitutional what he thought of it. His response was that it would need to be tested in the High Court. Chresby also mentions that his thesis would need to be tested there, so we seem to be in agreement on this aspect.
I think the main reason it has not been so tested is that there has been no majority of electors writing such missives.
As for letters to ministers being ignored, while secretary of the Huon Branch of the ALP I wrote many letters to members of the PLP on the branch’s behalf. They were routinely ignored despite not being of the nature prescribed by Chresby. This cost the party some considerable loss of membership at the time, the Git included.
I will also add that legal advice can be quite contrary depending on who one questions. I remember well that many Labor lawyers’ opinions at the time of Whitlam’s sacking that what Sir John Kerr had done was “unconstitutional”. That was when I first read the Australian Constitution and concluded from a common-sense reading of it (rather than as one educated in law) that his act was in keeping with the Constitution.
BTW, I would rather not be called PG these days given that Peter Gleik is being referred to by that acronym.
This discussion of constitutional law is a discussion of which paragragh to use from the bundle of papers. When both houses of Parliament were dissolved by the Sir John Kerr, the Australian people were handed Malcom Fraser and John Howard, the slide away from rational government continued from the racism of Land Rights, the amazing retrospectivity of the “Bottom of the Harbour”, the four pillars which allows Australian banks to lend even now at over %7 to business, through to a carbon tax with a goods and service tax stuck on top of it.
To have a logical discussion about how to resolve a symptom when the cause is in my opinion a disconnect with the knowledge and aspirations of the people the politicians purport to represent is amusing, but there needs to be an understanding that this disconnect exists.
For instance, do the people of the US know our candidates election campaigns are funded from the public purse after a certain portion of the vote has been achieved. There isn’t any ‘shrimp on the barbie’ style fund-raising and I have been unable to find a public notice of any such event. The candidates are party apparatchiks annointed by political parties, often to seats they have little if any connection with.
In other words we are arguing here about the operation of a democracy where it exists in name only. Australia is a one party state and operates, complete with useless windmills in the true Orwellian Animal Farm tradition. If you think the demise of Rudd, Gillard or the labor version of politics will bring renaissance, just listen to the debate of the carbon tax from both sides of the trough.
Peter Walsh says:
February 25, 2012 at 2:12 pm …
Don’t know where you’re from, but in the US (at least in the south), greens are wild plants,
generally nutritious when added to salads, etc. (and usually don’t cost much, if anything).
The wild human type generally consume a lot of other people’s money, and appear to
be anti-nutrition (or anti-plant) by virtue of their war on CO2 plant food…
The Pompous Git, I sincerely apologise for any suggestion that you should be confused with the odious Peter Gleick. I will certainly use your full nom de plume in future, if the occasion arises.
Three quick points:
– The book was in the Parliamentary Library because it was written by a former MP. Any book by a current or former MP, no matter how deluded, is routinely included the the PL collection.
– I made no reference to whether particular letters would or would not receive a reply. Individual Ministers have individual policies on this. The (Liberal) Minister I worked longest for at least acknowledged all letters except abusive or obscene ones. I have worked for ALP Ministers who rarely even acknowledged, let alone responded to, letters from members of the public.
– While you are right to say that there are differing legal opinions on many issues, over a long period every single piece of legal advice, from different lawyers in different agencies, including the Attorney-General’s Department, all said the same thing about this. It simply isn’t true in any way, shape or form.
To put in a nut shell. The Australian Labour party is made up of Trade Union staffers that have progressed up through the ranks to become politicians. To make matters worse the Labour Government is in bed with the Greens, not by choice but by necessity to win the election. The Greens desperately wanted the Carbon Tax for socialistic reasons. Labour are quite happy with that as that means more revenue to try and get into the black after wasting a very hefty $300B + on everything except infrastructure. The Greens also intend to reintroduce death duties.
johanna said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Don’t worry about it too much; just don’t call me late for dinner 😉
You seem to be saying here that our elected representatives cannot be held to account for their actions except at a future election. If that be the case, then I suspect the situation here in Southern Tasmania could become very ugly. A tree arriving at Ta Ann’s veneer mill the other day had been spanked. Luckily no-one was hurt. One tree faller (who for obvious reasons remains anonymous) commenced cutting a face in a tree occupied by a tree sitter who unsurprisingly got down from the tree rather rapidly.
The prime culprits in the minds of those losing their livelihood are the Greens aided and abetted by the Parliamentary Labor Party — in particular Lara Giddings. The Greens have indicated that the next industry they want to destroy is our relatively new aquaculture industry. If there is no remedy such as Chresby suggests, then I’m afraid that direct action may ensue.
Sunspot said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 6:07 pm
There is no Australian Labour Party. We do however have an Australian Labor Party. Or at least we used to. The Git’s letter of resignation to the State Secretary had the concluding line:
I never received a reply, though he did ask me to scrute for him in the next election. So did the Green candidate. I turned them both down 🙂
I haven’t gone through all the preceding posts and i may be repeating some. The Australian
Labor Party was founded by labour unions and was originally a socialist party; that policy has long gone, but the unions still exercise great influence, mainly by controlling the the preselection process which determines who gets selected to the “safe” seats. The unions have left and right factions, however they usually sort out their differences in back room deals. Gillard has union support, Rudd has little or none. Many labor MPs are former union leaders.
Still awake? The Greens party are a disparate group; some partially reformed communists and some genuine environmentalists but all definitely very left wing.
The Liberal Party’s membership comprises small L liberals and conservatives, some influenced by the teachings of the Catholic church. The National Party, who together with the Liberals form the Coalition, are non-city based conservatives influenced by agricultural matters. Cheers from soggy Sydney.
Evan Thomas said @ur momisugly February 25, 2012 at 8:38 pm
The only time the ALP ever became serious about socialism was when Ben Chifley attempted to nationalise the banks in the 1940s. While labour unions were certainly prominent in the establishment of the party, there were also some farmers and even mine owners.
Cheers from sunny Tasmania where yesterday it was 40C at the Git’s place and is currently 35C, somewhat cooler than an hour ago. Time for a refreshing chardonnay methinks 🙂
WOW, great comments!!!
Thanks brc, E.M.Smith, and The Pompous Git for the insights.
Pompous Git – for interest some background – http://www.britsattheirbest.com/freedom/f_british_constitution.htm
Do you have Common Law as the Law?
Myrrh said @ur momisugly February 26, 2012 at 11:15 am
We do, but and it’s a big one, there are differences. Wikibloodypedia has an excellent introductory on this:
[emphasis mine]
Since the Australian Constitution is an Act of the British Parliament, it is subject to possible repeal by that body. While this is unlikely in the extreme, it was a concern to those of us johanna refers to as “conspiracy theorists”. Consequently, the High Court handed down the somewhat bizarre decision that Australia is a sovereign state internally, but not externally. However, we seem to be drifting very OT here.
Thanks for the link. Very familiar territory, but an interesting website to point people at for a backgrounder.