Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[amaroo]

Re: Where will you be election day (September 14th)

So the last 3 state elections have been absolute flogging's for labour looks like a bit of a trend

I think the only labour MP smiling at the next election will be KRudd

Still they've all got their huge super pots just need to access them a bit earlier

TBH Rudd deserves to smile all he wants....funny how all the king makers of 2010 are nowhere to be seen.

Interesting to see Richo publicly acknowledging that he spoke to Billy Shorthorn lobbying him to switch away from Gillard......seems the kingmaker hasn't got the stomach for it in 2013.

Love the highlighted quote

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Former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson confirmed last night he had spoken with Mr Shorten about shifting support to Mr Rudd, but he is not for turning. "All I can say is I always give him the benefit of my wisdom," Mr Richardson said.
"But he's not shifting."
"I believe the chances are 55-45 the leadership change will happen in the next fortnight. And I think they'll do it. "I think Rudd is probably high 40s to 50 (votes in caucus). If Newspoll comes out with a bad result I think she's gone."She doesn't listen to anyone. If you want a delegation, it would have Right-Left clout.
"Even her strongest supporters are starting to think, 'Is it all worthwhile?' I think it will be in the next two weeks but we will see.
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[casanovawa]

But what do the independents think??

Are they still saying they only support Julia and a change will result in an early election, or is everyone so concerned with saving their own skin that they'll just make it up as they go along???

To be frank I'd prefer Julia to stay head and lead them to a drubbing, i think almost anyone else will get a better result, but imagine Kev coming back with all the rich vein of material of sound bites from his Labor colleagues to run in the campaign... And would you really give him much of a chance of not being rolled by Shorten shortly after the election if he could pull off a miracle seeing mostly everyone in caucus and the unions still hate him???

And Shorten has to think long and hard about does he risk his future on trying to right this leaking boat that's heading for the rocks??? Could really end up in scoring an own goal personally...

While interesting to watch, its hardly the text book example of how to have a government focused on running the country...

 

[Skyring]

But what do the independents think??

Are they still saying they only support Julia and a change will result in an early election, or is everyone so concerned with saving their own skin that they'll just make it up as they go along???

The independents are pretty well irrelevant now. IMHO. It's unlikely they will swap support at this stage short of some hugeous disaster.

The Western Australian election result will be focussing the minds of every Labor MP in a seat with a margin of less than 10%. Stephen Smith might say that the result will go down to the wire, but his crystal ball must be broken. If he knows anything that is going to save Labor's skin, he's not telling Julia, who is going to be facing another tough week, commencing Tuesday, when Parliament resumes, a new Newspoll is due, and the failure of the Western Sydney Reality Show will have sunk in.

If she can survive seven sitting days, she's got six weeks until the budget when it will be glaringly obvious that Swannie isn't bringing home the bacon.

 

[Deleted member]

"Sleeping out"? I think perhaps there are 10 000 without regular accommodation, but certainly not that many sleeping in streets and parks.

My impression is that Australia has a few problems, but we are a secure liberal democracy, where freedoms are cherished and observed, the rule of law operates, health and social programs are well-supported, education is excellent and in general we have a lifestyle that is the envy of a great many nations.

Defence spending is ridiculously high, especially when so many of the big ticket programs are flawed or delayed. The submarines are a case in point. We face few military threats and our defence force is involved in a pointless war overseas.

I don't see the rest of the issues raised as huge problems.

To my mind, the biggest problem facing us is an increasing gap between the richest and the poorest in our society. Nations where there is a flatter social structure also do well in other key indicators such as longevity, literacy, housing and general welfare.

Were it all that simple.
A credible threat will appear once we have no military capability. It's the fine line we need to tread between enough and not enough when it comes to military spending ....Unfortunatly.

 

[amaroo]

Were it all that simple.
A credible threat will appear once we have no military capability. It's the fine line we need to tread between enough and not enough when it comes to military spending ....Unfortunatly.

With the boffins we have signing contracts & writing off countless Billions - I'm sure you're correct. Defence procurement is the biggest joke in Canberra.....even outdoes Julia.

Defence is the last bastion of unlimited excess......the sooner we empty the ranks of overloaded & bloated uniforms the better we will be. Department cuts are well overdue IMHO.

Big budgets rarely results in better outcomes!

 

[casanovawa]

Defence spending is rarely done really well anywhere, there are legions of examples of overspends and under performances on projects and weapon systems so maybe it needs to be assessed a little differently to just building a road or a bridge...

But the repercussions of getting a bridge wrong are much less than getting your defense infrastructure, planning, deployment, training wrong when the problem suddenly arises, and we are never good at seeing that history has mostly proven...

There does seem to be quite an incestuous relationship between defence companies and senior military officers which is in general i think unhelpful...

 

[amaroo]

I see Bob Carr is trying to flick the brown stuff onto Morris Iemma.......ALP, what a disgrace!

 

[casanovawa]

Where's this?? I saw a snippet of him dishing some home truths on removing Eddie Obeid from Cabinet on 4 Corners tomorrow night, not that NSW State politics interests me a great deal...

 

[amaroo]

where's this?? I saw a snippet of him dishing some home truths on removing eddie obeid from cabinet on 4 corners tomorrow night, not that nsw state politics interests me a great deal...

smh.......

 

[cove]

The WA Labor leader gave quite a speech and it could have been a great victory speech only he had to change a couple of words seeing he lost in a landslide.
Not being too iT proficient I have not posted his last hurrah but you would battle to connect his speech with the drubbing.

 

[Mal]

It will be very interesting to see if Julia gets "rolled" (or knifed) in the next week or two by her own party.

I don't think it would change the election result significantly - the replacement would have way too much work to do, but it can't make their result worse!

 

[cove]

Perth people think of Julia Gillard as a poor listener. In her electorate she has a high number of single mothers who have had their benefits cut so I am wondering how popular she is now in her electorate.
Stephen Smith is in trouble in his electorate so that might stop us building subs in Australia. I think we have at least one Collins class sub still able to put to sea but that one may not be able to dive.

 

[Pukka]

It will be very interesting to see if Julia gets "rolled" (or knifed) in the next week or two by her own party.

I don't think it would change the election result significantly - the replacement would have way too much work to do, but it can't make their result worse!

I hope she stays I'm happy with the polls as they are.

 

[drron]

Where's this?? I saw a snippet of him dishing some home truths on removing Eddie Obeid from Cabinet on 4 Corners tomorrow night, not that NSW State politics interests me a great deal...

here is the article-
Premiers clash over Obeid rise

Frankly both should sholder the blame.
Iemma was co founder of the Terrigals,Carr got out of his sick bed to testify as to Eddie's good character in court and only sacked him after a andslide win thinking he didn't need him any more.Resigned 2 years later.

 

[markis10]

Stephen Smith is in trouble in his electorate so that might stop us building subs in Australia. I think we have at least one Collins class sub still able to put to sea but that one may not be able to dive.

Thats a bit harsh, we have four subs operational (sea) at present and the Collins class has showcased her capabilities on the world wide stage numerous times, including RIMPAC 02 where a LA class attach sub was interchanged with a Collins across various scenarios successfully and a year later another Collins class sunk a US Attack sub in exercises. I must admit the workers in Adelaide are a tad slow, maintenance for 5 years for one sub?

 

[Skyring]

The WA Labor leader gave quite a speech and it could have been a great victory speech only he had to change a couple of words seeing he lost in a landslide.
Not being too iT proficient I have not posted his last hurrah but you would battle to connect his speech with the drubbing.

Reminds me of Kevin Rudd after he was dirked. He gave an emotional speech, talking of all the wonderful things he'd done. The problem was that he hadn't done anything but the meaningless symbolic gestures. Anything that involved actually doing anything more than employing another battalion of clerks to prepare studies, hadn't actually gotten done.

Or Keating before him, who had another self-serving speech about all the things he'd done right and yah sucks to the voters.

Howard's concession speech was a masterpiece of honesty and humility. I was driving a bunch of one-eyed Laborites while he was giving it, and while they were pretty stoked with their boy getting up, and they may have had one or two sherberts during the night, they reckoned it was pretty good.

The one I liked best was Rosemary Follett, when she was kicked out by the ACT voters. She just couldn't understand it. All the boxes had been ticked, all the interest groups given something. But the voters had elected Kate Carnell in a landslide. Rosemary let rip with the hatred and didn't hold back.

Her problem was she didn't like people. She couldn't smoke in her office, so she went out on the balcony. The people could gaze upon her there, so she had a sort of screen erected to fix that. Likewise, people could see her getting out of her car in the morning to walk to the front door of the Legislative Assembly, so she used to drive into the loading dock, have them lower the roller door, and only then get out of her car.

Kate Carnell, on the other hand, had been a shopkeeper, had her ear to the ground, loved a good photo opportunity and was always smiling, in stark comparison to Ms Vinegar.

I think, to have a chance in politics, it's not enough to rely on Big Data and focus group reports and political stunts with a team of minders. You need to actually love the voters, get out and talk to them. Let them know you are human and not up yourself.

Then again, Keating won in 1993, and I didn't think he would.

 

[Alanslegal]

No matter what Tony Abbott said on 60 Minutes last night he still remains in my eyes as homophobic as ever.

 

[Moody]

No matter what Tony Abbott said on 60 Minutes last night he still remains in my eyes as homophobic as ever.

42 Minutes? Is that still on?? Do people still watch it???

So is Tony continuing the "Nice" campaign that seems to be all the rage? I don't know why he bothers - he could be his normal anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti-refugee, anti-union, anti-atheist, anti -{whatever I've forgotten} self ... and still romp in to government in September.

Oh I see - it will give the aspirational voters the excuse later on to say "I had no idea he would do all these things!" Of course the members of this forum are not so stupid and know exactly what a Tony Abbott government will say and do. Australia will endure and I will continue to live here because regardless of the moronc rhetoric that we are now subjected to, the incumbents don't usually screw things up so badly it can't be fixed.

I mean - what if Labour wasn't in charge during the GFC? We would have gone into recession but a very minor one, the unemployment rate would have peaked higher and more companes may have gone under, the schools would have missed out on a lot of infrastructure .... but in exchange for the extra misery we would be roughly in the same spot now and with less debt. I personally don't mind swapping misery for debt (hence my mortgage) but others don't mind misery so much as long as it doesn't happen to them!

Anyway, democracy will have its say in September and at the moment the outcome is not in doubt. I just wish it was an increasingly informed democracy, but instead everything is being dumbed-down and we seem to exist in a policy vacuum. How sad.

 

[Alanslegal]

Tony Abbott declaration that he puts facial moisturiser making him Mr Nice?!, LMAO!

Millions of aussie men put on facial moisturiser, I have been doing so for the last two decades at least and I'm in my early 30's.

There's no nice in Mr Abbott, just a sleaze and a slime that will do anything to get into power. He can be so anti-'this and that' but at the end of the day, he's got little policies, little ideas and his team and our future deputy PM - Julie Nobody Bishop? Who's her? Little substance.

 

[Hvr]

Anyway, democracy will have its say in September <snip>

And the mark of this great country is that regardless of the incumbent and the winner of the election we have a peaceful hand over of power.

I agree with you about the ill informed electorate and the blame game that will eventuate. Still if the Libs are going to be in power for a couple of terms they'll eventually have to deliver something.