The Beetrooter gets a couple of mentions on Israel’s list of people whoare going straight to hell.
He might even get Guernsey under drunkards as well given his propensity for a beer.
You have to wonder if Barnaby has even read what Folou has posted.
Probably not. But then Barnaby was never one to let the facts get in the way of a good rent.
Kevin Rudd, who always liked the sound of his own voice and was always impressed by the gravity of his own opinions, appeared on 7.30 last night and was interviewed by Leigh Sales. In normal Rudd style, there was a lot of verbiage and not much substance.
He is in danger of becoming the Labor Party’s equivalent of Amanda Vanstone.
Here are a couple of examples from the interview.
Anthony Albanese had just been elected to the Labor leadership without reference to the rank-and-file as was required by the rules introduced by Rudd and which saw Bill Shorten elected by the parliamentarians in 2013 against the wishes of the rank-and-file’
LEIGH SALES: Anthony Albanese’s the new leader. When you implemented the new leadership rules in 2013, the idea was to give the rank and file a say.
That hasn’t happened this time. Is that a bad thing, in your view?
KEVIN RUDD: Well I think it’s always good to have a vote, and I’m sure Albo would have welcomed one. I know him very well and those who would have run against him very well in addition.
But the interesting tempering thing about the rule which I brought in – which has given our party stability in leadership terms since 2013 – is that when people are putting themselves forward as a candidate for the leadership of the Labor Party, they also need to be mindful that it won’t just work as a back room factional stitch-up within the caucus.
They have to think very clearly at that point that they have to address 50,000 people out there across the rank and file of the party and every state of the Commonwealth.And that, I think, cautions against those who just want to do an internal factional stitch-up.
And then there was this
LEIGH SALES: And how might that relationship between the US and China being so fractious impact Australia?
KEVIN RUDD: Well, I’ve always had the view as Prime Minister and as Foreign Minister of this country in the past that Australia’s strategy for navigating our relationship with the United States as our strong, close ally and our deep relationship with China – political relationship, a strong economic relationship and cultural relationship – that we Australians have always been able to walk and chew gum.
I think when Mr Turnbull was in office, starting from the very end of 2017, it began to spin right out of control.
That’s in terms of self-inflicted wounds on Australia’s part; and then we’ve had the new dynamic of the Trump presidency and the trade war, and the proposition in the United States now that it’s time for America to engage in a new era of strategic competition against China, rather than strategic engagement.
So these two factors – one generated itself by this Conservative government in Australia, but the second, frankly, through no fault of Mr Morrison or anybody else, is the new dynamic of the US-China relationship.
It’s going to require very delicate handling in the years ahead in case we end up becoming genuinely the economic meat in the sandwich.
Isn’t that a great answer “genuinely the economic meat in the sandwich.”
It’s typical of the verbose, complex and over-intellectual arguments that Rudd so frequently presents on television. It’s must be difficult to comprehend even for ABC viewers.
Throughout the interview, Rudd kept condescendingly referring to the new leader of the Labor Party as “Albo” while referring to the other members of the party as Ed Husic or Kristina Keneally then adding,
“I think we all have reached a view about Albo many years ago, that he’s a man with a big heart and what you see is what you get.”
It’s a petty and it’s unnecessary.
Perhaps it’s time for Kevin 07 to move on.
The Age reports: The European Union will not renegotiate the Brexit deal that Prime Minister Theresa May agreed, Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said on Tuesday,
“I will have a short meeting with Theresa May, but I was crystal clear: There will be no renegotiation,” Juncker said before a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.
Yet Trade Minister Liam Fox said: If the EU doesn’t want to negotiate any changes – which I think would be unfortunate and I think would be quite surprising – then I think that of course does increase the chance of a ‘no deal’ exit,” Fox said during a trade visit to Egypt.
Which bit of no renegotiation which has been the constant message from the EU does Liam not understand.
From the other side of the world, the Brexit negotiations seem to have been conducted in an atmosphere of incomprehensible stupidity and the situation seems to be getting no better.
Now it appears that the Tories are likely to be led by Boris Johnson who is likely to lead Britain to crash out of the EU without a deal which is likely to be catastrophic not just for Britain but for all its trading partners.
There is a lot of commentary from Tony Abbott supporters that his great talents should not be wasted and he should be given a senior position to benefit the community, the nation and the world
.Like for instance the appointment as US Ambassador when Joe Hockey resigns
So here’s the challenge to Tony.
Given he has a pension of over $500,000 a year tax free. That is $10,000 a week
He should do this next gig as a volunteer
Donate his salary, whatever it may be, to a cause he has espoused
.Like indigenous welfare.
The good voters of Herbert are in for a very rude and slow awakening as the Adani mine is approved, built and goes into operation.
There will be no jobs.
The mine will be built with FIFO Indian labour which will work for a fraction of the price of Australian labour.
It will be housed in camps on site which will also be supplied with provisions flown in from India, not purchased from local suppliers.
The mine will be totally automated.
There will be no beneficial effects to the local economy.
George Christiansen will be able to explain all of this to the good people of the electorate of Herbert who thought there would be huge economic flow ons to the local economy.
In the Senate
26 senators standing None elected
In the House of Representatives
151 Representatives standing None elected
Cost of campaign $80m
Value for money ZERO
Total money owed by QNI Resources $70m to workers
Chances of Workers being paid ZERO
When our side gets beaten, there are always a lot of reasons. Usually, its poor umpiring decisions or the other side cheated in one of many different ways.
At election times, it’s that the voters who got it wrong. Voters never get it wrong. They might vote for the things that we don’t like but they always vote in their best interests. That’s what democracy is about. Many of us thought the election was going to be about climate change. But they don’t care much about climate change in FNQ, not of its going to cost jobs.
But probably, the Parliamentary Labor Party got it wrong when they elected Bill Shorten as leader against the wishes of the grassroots Labor Party.
Would they have won with a different leader? It’s impossible to say of course.
But if you had read the commentary on the articles in THE AGE which is a left-leading newspaper, they were substantially negative about Bill Shorten. He was exceptionally unpopular and he could not have been regarded as a plus for the Labor Party. There will be lots of reasons why the Labour Party lost this election. The leader will certainly be one of them.
We can look back on the last three years of the Coalition government, the leadership instability, the egregious routing of MP’s expenses, the appalling treatment of women: all the things that would make many of us right- allminded folk think that this was not a government that deserved to survive. But clearly, the electorate is not concerned about these issues.
The voters of New England were quite happy to re-elect Barnaby Joyce. George Christensen enjoyed a 13% swing! Peter Dutton enjoyed a 3% swing. Despite a massive swing to the Labor Party during the state election In Victoria, it wasn’t repeated during the Federal election.
Last night’s election demonstrated quite conclusively, and across the country, that the majority of Australians did not buy into the Labor Party’s big picture vision for Australia and preferred Scott Morrison over Bill Shorten as the next Prime Minister of Australia.
There was a 3% swing to the Liberal party nationally. In Queensland, the Labor Party’s primary vote has dropped below 30%. Nationally, Coalition has 42% of the primary vote and the Labor Party has 33%.This cannot be explained away is getting a wrong.
In rural Queensland, the issue was building the Adani coal mine and the jobs the locals see it producing. The idea that the Labor Party might block the building of the dam and cost jobs is much more important to the locals than the questions of the environmental damage that would be done by building the mine.
But in the electorate of Herbert, it’s local jobs not global issues of climate change that are important. Any political party that opposes new coal mines in this area is unlikely ever to be politically successful.
It doesn’t matter whether or not these jobs will eventuate. The locals think they will natural matters.
It’s a similar issue in Tasmania with wood chipping and cutting down first growth forests. The locals will vote out local MP to save a few forestry workers jobs and devastate vast acreage of old-growth forests.
AllIt’s a massive dilemma of how we save our environment against how we protect the employment issues of a small handful of workers.
He begins by saying “In my opinion, he was Labor’s greatest prime minister.”
Why not just, “He was Labor’s greatest prime minister.”
In the face of the storm of criticism, Abbott later amended his statement.
He went on to say “his key achievements “Went against the labor grain, certainly the Coalition supported nearly all his major reforms are helping to make his tenure a time of economic revitalisation.”
Namely, without us he wouldn’t have made it.
What bullshit.
His statement has been universally condemned, even Scott Morrison condemned what Abbott said.
It’s amazing that a man who will almost certainly be ranked as Australia’s worst Prime Minister had the temerity to speak about someone who will be certainly ranked as one of Australia’s greatest.
THE AGE has reported that PM Scott Morrison is appealing to the politically apathetic in the final desperate bid to hang on to power.
Given the voting is compulsory in Australia and that something like 96% of all Australians vote, this is likely to be an extremely small demographic and unlikely to swing the election one way or another.
Also not likely to be a winning strategy.
There couldn’t have been much left at the bottom of the barrel.
Morrison’s comment implies that there is a time to switch to Labor. It’s a pity that he didn’t enlighten us about when that was.
Thing is, election time is the only chance we get to make a change in government so if we are going to make a change now is exactly the right time to do it.
And all the indications are that the voters are going to do just that.
Tim Haslett's Blog 