First up, I hate what they did to you. I really do. Even if you were totally hopeless in the job, you didn’t deserve what they dished out. There were other ways they could have used to address their problems with you, but they were too unimaginative, ignorant, ambitious, short-sighted, and just plain nasty to do anything other than what they did. So I don’t blame you if you still want to kick their miserable, rat-fucking arses.
But Kevin, we’re all in seriously deep doo doo now. We’re looking at Prime Minister Abbott. This prospect casts an unimaginable blight on all our lives, Kevin, and I’m sorry if I sound harsh, but all our lives together are bigger than your one. You know this in your heart. I know you do, you are a decent chap. You are struggling with the clamourings of your ego and the demands of the greater good. That’s understandable, I would be too.
But Kevin, if there was ever a time for a man to force himself to move on from the self-interested concerns of his seriously affronted pride, mate, this is it.
I know you were gutted when they chucked you out. I watched you cry and mate, I cried with you. I’ve never fully recovered, so I can see how hard it’s been for you.
It will take a real man to do this but if you do, everybody will be gobsmacked with gratitude, Kevin. Stand up, and tell the world in a great big voice that under no circumstances, and no matter what transpires, you will never, ever, ever agree to lead the ALP again during the term of this government. Take yourself right out of the contest, mate. Leave no possibility open. Let us all know, unequivocally, that you are out of the race. End it, Kevin, I’m begging you. End it now while there’s still a glimmer of hope for us.
Kev, they are a bunch of chunts, there’s no denying it. And they are reaping what they sowed. Anybody with an ounce of psychological insight could have told them that it could only ever end in tears, and it has, mate, it has. But Kev, all of us are crying, and we are (in the main) innocent bystanders.
So Kev, while you have a right to be a destabilising influence for as long as you want, I’m begging you, for the sake of my unborn grandchild, due in April, think of the bigger picture. Think of us under an Abbott government. Think of what you can do towards helping us avoid that fate. Think like a hero, Kev. Think like a hero, and walk away from any possibility of resuming the leadership.
Because if they do change leadership you, Kevin, are the absolutely very last person who should step into the breach. This is no time for revenge, mate. I know you want it, and it’s probably due, but Prime Minister Abbott? None of us deserve that fate.
Yours sincerely,
Jennifer
∫
Dear Blog Regulars
Would you like me to set up a permanent space where you can talk about whatever you want?
No Place For Sheep 
Hear hear, or as come might have it, here here. Bravo, Jennifer. Wonderful plea.
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Elizabeth, it seems you are having the same problems I’m having with the auto correct function: “as come might have it!”
I’ve been saying for a long time now that the ‘puters have become too smart for their own bootings! Bloody things, simply take over and give you the irates! I expect the cause of the next world war will be a computer generated word corruption!
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Thanks. I thought it was my fault – a typo – but only noticed it now when you pointed it out. Whether computer generated or self generated these glitches can make for surprising reads. I try to be forgiving of myself and others when they happen, though I’m less kind to ‘HAL’ like computers.
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Where’s Freud?
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The big flaw in your plea JW is that it leaves an unelectable Gillard in front of a big heap of pissed off real Labor voters, with trembling pencil clutching hands, who won’t vote for Gillard.
Had your plea been aimed at Gillard or Labor generally it would have made more sense.
There are only days left for Julia.
Your (our) fate has never been in Rudd’s hands.It’s in those of the likes of Howe.
Plead to him, and then back the public in to do the right thing.
I don’t know about anyone else,but you just gave me even more reasons not to vote for rat fuckers.
Right plea,wrong target.It is not Rudd who needs to step aside.
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My instinct was to make the very plea you’ve asked for below, but I’d still finish your last sentence, “It is not Rudd who needs to step aside, they both do!
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Yes the continual blaming of Rudd when it is Gillard who has driven our country back to the 1950’s with her racist bigotry is driving me nuts.
It is not Rudd that is doing anything and just because others prattle endlessly that he is does not make it the truth.
Remember all the whining that the cabinet was being run like a dictatorship by Rudd? Well Gillard is running a fucking Leninist star chamber with the troops too cowed to stop her.
Rudd said last year and most days since that he would not be standing for the leadership and has kept his word because unlike the rest of the apparatchicks he does have some honour.
But I still cannot stand that racist, bigotted anti-woman coward Gillard who was caught yesterday again by the courts behaving outside the law and putting lives at risk.
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Jennifer, Jennifer, JENNIFER!
You are not praying to a god, mate; you are praying to a man who is different to the woman who sits on his throne, only by popular shout. There’s bugger all difference between Kevin and Julia. Bugger all. Mere numbers of certain people at the back and mere numbers of a lot of people out at Tahrir Square. It couldabeen the other way: Julia first, Kevin next. Mobs -at the back or in the Square- move unaffected by virtue or logic; just self interest.
I don’t know why anyone is do hung up on Kevin. It’s such a bloody good theatre. Theatre of the absurd. Punch ‘n Julia stuff. Enjoy. Don’t turn it into a Morality play because it simply isn’t. No morality, no morality play.
But we’ve seen the Hypo and ago show in the other article of yours so I won’t strut and fret upon the same stage boards again but, believe me, the way this Govn’t has panned out, we see a tale told by two idiots in the same manner and whether the gods shove Julia in front or Tony, or Kevin, the show will not change a bit. Perhaps a few shadows will shuffle a little differently but Julia has made it clear: she too is an idiot, deserving of much the same disdain.
I don’t know. Perhaps if someone else from the ALP comes forward. Someone who has the guts and the stamina and the right heart and the right brain and the friends to support him or her. Perhaps Pliberchek can do this. I think if there was a spill and she got the gig I’d go for them. I can’t think of anyone else really. Shorten is a slime bag and the rest are cushions for the reigning King or Queen. But that’s the only way I’d let this bunch get anything more than my very reluctant last or second last preference, ahead of the Sex party, and the Alice in Wonderfulness Party.
And, oh, you had my synapses going nuts trying to work around your metaphor of “rat-fucking arses!” I mean… how are arses ever given the opportunity to fuck?
Just enjoy the show, Jennifer! It’s a show and nothing more now.
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I learned the term *rat fucker* from Kev.
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Now that you know the term, you could get the low-down on the technique.
Perhaps give Paul Howes a call?
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I’d rather not
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Red fucker is fine but rat fucker arse? Does things to my head. Rat fucking heads, perhaps? Nah that doesn’t work either.
When did he say that, JW? Pity I missed it. Not on the ABC, surely!
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Damn it! RAT, RAT, RAT fucker, you stupid auto corrector!
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I know Tim Minchin alludes to it as part of his show, noting that it appeared in a headline as RAT F**KER as if the asterisks don’t actually make it even more obvious that everyone knows what the word is 🙂
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But why bother, no-one has ever confirmed the truth of it – he is supposed to have been overheard by some pathetic public servant in Copenhagen.
That does not make it a fact.
Although most of the ALP are ratfuckers today.
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And not by the choice of the rats.
The caucus today proved how shit scared they are of whatever physical / political threats they use against Labor.And these are thugs ‘outside’ the elected govt.
Now that Labor has nailed Abbotts name to the door of the lodge I hope he formalises the most vicious far reaching union corruption hunting Royal Commission imaginable.
Because Labor has denied us a chance at the next election,of avoiding Abbott,it is only fair that the NSW right King Makers who destroyed Labor should rot in jail.
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EDIT
They = the right faction.
As in;
“political threats the unelected union hitmen use against Labor.And these are thugs ‘outside’ the elected govt.”
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From your blog to his ears, we can only hope.
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I thought he had ruled himself out. It’s his supporters who are the problem. Well, it the Labor party in general.
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No he only ruled himself out last time.
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Yep that is politics.
What goes around has come around.
I am sure Gillard said directly to Rudds face the very last second they went into caucus,Kev you have my support 101%.
Labor doesn’t have much choice.It sure aint Gillard.
I think Crean is sniffing around as we speak.
Gillard will probably go on a Sunday.(Maybe even this one coming)
The louder the denial,the closer the spill date.
Even with a change of leader they will need to get rid of the AWU poison completely, so the flogged horse may yet be dead.
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I think about 90% of the buggers have strong connections to the Catholic church. Drives me nuts that!
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They ARE chunts. Where do you start? Back to Abbott and Costello; Howard, Ruddock and Alston?
Rudd for being up himself.. the right faction for playing on the anxiety for the darkest and most selfish of reasons..Gillard for allowing herself to be sullied by involvement, was it a poison chalice?
The Opposition for monotonous brown shirt obstructionism aided and abetted by the lurking scum of big business and a lobotomising press and media?
What can save it going down the tube permanently from this point?
Like Classical Athens we’ve had our brief moment in the sun, taken it for granted and soon will be no more than a memory of an opportunity blown.
Perhaps a later historian will observe that our ruin ought to be seen against the context of oligarchic Globalisation and the shadowy manipulations of foreign influences operating from the shadows, but how would we know, cotton wooled as we are.
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Rudd is not up himself, he is a decent and kind human being who has care for the less well off – why do you make such fucking dumb statements about people you have never met in the hope of sounding just like a Murdoch hack.
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To the question of a suitable Gladiatorial Venue, (off topic area) I will go with the flow.I am neither Christian or lion, but up for a fight.
Personally I think it works fine as is, apart from the inevitable topic creep,which is better than tumble-weeds clogging the skyline.
Most posters(even the regulars) are either too lazy or too busy to ‘properly’ review previous ‘like’ (as in similar) topics and subsequent comments,and tend to rely on dubious memory banks.This will always cause conflict, but if all the fan/shit encounters happen in one central place, it may help.
It’s your blog JW.I just appreciate it for what it is and value the venue/opportunity.
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Well Jennifer if we’d the keys to the asylum then I’d post the following letter to somebody else…….
Dear Julia,
Thanks for your work, the misogyny speech in particular was a high point, but I think it is time we talked. You know what’s coming. The writing’s been on the wall for months. We gave you our support and I think it is clear that you compromised in the attempt to honour that arrangement, but frankly I think you probably overestimated some of us and reading this you’ll know exactly who they are and where the bodies are buried. I urge you now to recognise that bitter knowledge won’t do you slightest bit of good. In fact in asking you to step down gracefully I’m acutely aware that I risk asking for an almost superhuman exercise of humility that if you chose to ignore the request can only bring irreparable harm to us all.
You are a feisty woman of that we have no doubt, and an accomplished one too. Nobody could have expected that in a minority government such an ambitious legislative agenda would be even considered let alone pursued with a surprising degree of success. And here we are, you delegate a couple of pieces of legislation to Conroy and Roxon and they have to go and overreach. This apparently brings the whole bloody house of cards down on your head as if your other troubles weren’t enough. You know what they say about good works being forgotten at the first sign of a stuff-up! And so it goes, dear Julia, so it goes….
Nor am I going to kid you that it helps that you’ve been played like a fiddle by an unrelenting set of tea-bagging rabble that pass for an opposition party. If not Abbott then Murdoch’s stooges and those utter doses of foetid stool water Jones and Pickering have all made their marks in different but inexorably telling ways.
You made some mistakes even as you succeeded in so many other areas. An atheist should have supported gay marriage. The mining tax was hurting Kevin in the polls but let’s face it squibbing the challenge of bringing it in properly will now have cost you more. What you were thinking in skimping on the payments to single mothers is frankly beyond me but an honest mistake is best admitted and rectified honourably. I only wish the same could be said of the gaffe you made in speaking so harshly of Julian Assange. The bloke’s probably his own worst enemy given his ego, but you really misread the Australian people’s sensibilities when you called his brand of journalism “illegal”. Correct me if I’m wrong but I suspect the heady atmosphere of dalliances in the company of Ms Clinton et al might have distorted your perspectives a little more than you’d care to admit, water, bridge, under!
A Labor party Prime Minister also needs to know where the true believer’s hearts and minds are at and play to those as if they’re strengths rather than weaknesses. Frankly the list of issues where you failed in that regard is as long as it is confusing, we need if anything to ensure we move to get those voters back even if it does piss off people in the Queensland and Western Australian marginal seats you and your poll watchers have fretted so long and hard over.
Above all I really don’t know how you live with yourselves there in Canberra knowing the suffering that you’re causing to refugees it is a pain in the very soul of the Australian conscience that we allow the xenophobic attitudes of a few to dictate policy around an issue that is more political football in a dog whistling race to the absolute bottom of political oblivion rather than anything we remotely even associate with humanitarianism.
We want to thank you for action on climate change that made a stand that we need to actually build on far more than we have. For continuing with the help of some competent support from capable people to run a healthy economy, and finishing the task of eradicating Work Choices, thanks. For education reform I hope continues to progress with or without you, thanks. For the genesis of an NDIS, and for paid parental leave we acknowledge that progress. And for pushing through the Royal Commission we hope will draw a line under institutional child abuse, we hope the result will prove something for which we’ll be especially grateful.
Grateful but realistic Julia I have to say, because if we’re honest 90% of the reason we voted for you was because you weren’t Tony Abbott. This man scares us so badly that we’re galvanised in our will to identify and elevate the very best possible Labor Candidate we can muster to defeat him. And that I have to say after nearly three years of long hard and what I know must have been tiring work for you nonetheless can’t resurrect your electoral hopes from the one calumny even Labor supporters get squeamish about, Rudd! It divides us like no other issue and we need you to help us wipe away that veil of tears and stagger back somehow towards the light on the hill.
You need to resign. There I’ve said it.
Like any relationship in its final throes, it isn’t you, it’s us.
Take comfort in the fact that we’re not asking you to step aside for Rudd. He needs to make himself doubly scare right now, he was toxic then and it really hasn’t gotten much better.
We were thinking though that maybe Bill Shorten, Bob Carr or even Tanya Plibersek might start with a clean slate and buoy the party’s chances for the upcoming election. With your gracious support this might even be considered your finest hour. The alternative being ignominy and defeat I think it offers some real positives.
Think about it and let us know, but not for too long.
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Dear HG,
I’d have said
Dear Julia,
Please resign before the fleas you are now infested with, kill the whole pack.
You never know, you just may yet get to drag your bum across our carpet in the foreseeable future.
In the meantime let’s keep the front door shut so the mangy pit-bulls don’t find there way into the nursery, and eat the babies..
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and……
Possible subs?Greg Combet and Tanya Plibersek,maybe.
Perhaps Smith.
Shorten?
Never.No guts and he knifed Rudd.Labor must get rid of the hit squads.Get rid of the payback opportunities.All traces of the internal hate.
And the bit that gets me about those who cannot accept Rudd I would love to see a list of the reasons, why you see him as so bad.
(No I am not declaring adulation,just seeking fact based explanation)
Anything considered proof is admissible,here say is not.I know he has been accused of incompetence and megalomania etc, (easily said) but the big thing he had going was his dis-connection to the creepy NSW right etc.
Or is the real reason that people see Rudd as an easy target for Abbott (for making a comeback), and that Labor would not be able to play the misogynist card?
Other than opposition,MSM and pro Gillard spin, I have not seen what I would call credible reason why Rudd was dumped in the first place.So if we are too rule out Gillard, (Because of her loyalty to others outside her elected role. And not before time) and we are to rule out Rudd, we need to make sure Plan C is not encrusted with similar infective scabs.
And again as a matter of observation,not to be construed as a Rudd T-Shirt,can anyone seriously claim that the first rung which broke on Gillards ‘ladder of ascension to popularity’, was not the disloyalty (and type of it) shown by the dethroning of Rudd?
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I think I’ve outlined Julia’s failings well enough, and that Jennifer has described some of Kevin’s. I don’t think Rudd is sooooooo bad that he truly deserves the dead man’s hand he’s been dealt, and dealt from the bottom of a dirty deck. But we’re operating at the top level of politics and the contenders are reasonably formidable.
I hear the argument for vindication that you’d probably like to make, but the obstacle really is that no amount of spin could reconcile the flip flopping required to pretend that one minute he’s good Kev then toxic incompetent Kev then leadership material all over again!
Clearly if the main criterion is to beat Tony then a fresh face is less of a liability.
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I read that Crean is calling for an end to the instability and for Labor to be “unified”. that’s a bit like calling for everyone to hold tightly to each other as they plummet over the cliff.
In any case, they had better get their act together quick smart – it’s now or never to make the change if they are to have any chance of retaining government….IMO
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I think that if the gracious path were mapped out as I would wish that it might then after the May budget would be the better time.
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After the budget?That would be ludicrous.You’d be asking a new leader to pay for someone elses shopping, and to be responsible for any items that showed up in the trolley.
I think if it is going to happen, a new leader needs to own and lead the whole agenda,a new one.Not a hand me down.Some of what is happening in the last 48 hours certainly indicates Ministers selling their wares, so the spill is days away,probably.
Perhaps THIS weekend?Sunday?
A live cross from Barries couch?
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Too late she cried as she waved her wooden leg!
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Re phrase: Too late he cried as he waved his guillotined dick!
Could any dramaturge ever conjure up a script as flat as this?
“Hear ye, hear ye, good citizens of Oz! Come inside the tent and see the most amazing show on earth! Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!”
Actually it reminds me of the roman theatre -the theatre staged in the red districts of Rome and in some of the mountain districts. The impresario (owner of the theatre) would stand outside and, for a while, would yell, “Fifty cisterces for an arm, twenty for a hand, one hundred for an eye…”
Some poor suck would approach and strike a bargain with him. Then the poor suck would be directed around the back of the theatre and the impresario would start yelling again: “Come one, come all! Come inside the theatre and see the chopping off of an arm! Come one come all!”
And that is what the audience would expect to see in the theatre: the chopping off of an arm, the arm of the poor suck!
Well, the aussie public was diddled today. No blood spilled, no arms chopped, the dagger is still firmly lodged between Rudd’s shoulder blades and the blood has dried and coagulated quite firmly. The pain obviously has dulled considerably.
I’ll just try and keep my puke down every time I hear the words, “she’s a tough lady, tough as nails…”
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He certainly showed the Gillard camp he has more principle in his faeces than they have as a whole(no pun intended).
Looks like the stand-over merchants win the day, and Labor heads for the cliff in overdrive.
Could the Labor strategists be so stupid that the public cries for change mean more Gillard.
Don’t answer,I think pale whinger might be their strategist.
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This media induced panic is pointless and self defeating.
Everyone should take a couple of aspirin with a glass of water and go have a lie down for twenty minutes.
Then, in a moment of calm reflection, they might work out who the REAL enemy is..
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“no amount of spin could reconcile the flip flopping required to pretend that one minute he’s good Kev then toxic incompetent Kev then leadership material all over again! ”
So in saying this are you saying there’is’ evidence of Kev being toxic, or that that the opportunistic dickheads who ditched him had NOTHING really ‘on’ him, so it would be monumentally hypocritical of them to support him now based on, ‘he’s better than Julia’?
And if you did have some actual evidence of his incompetency or his ‘unfitness’ to lead, could you upload it?
I know what’s done is done, but it would be nice at some point to actual see the removal of a PM justified, by some logical and reasoned evidence.
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Let it GO Hypo, there’s not evidence of lots of things that people believe, and it sucks, but I’d still lay London to a Brick that neither Rudd nor Gillard can win the next election.
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Well I’ll take that as a no.
Thanks.
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Yep, it’s an uncomfortable no, but a no nonetheless. A cold comfort no, because it wouldn’t matter if it was yes. The whole party losing face to vindicate one man’s contention that he wasn’t incompetent doesn’t make his slide in the polls go away or increase Labor’s chances of winning the election under his leadership.
It’s a no and no you can’t have your old job back because we may have lied about our reasons to save face but that doesn’t mean the less palatable reasons aren’t still very problematic for us.
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May the bricks from the wall you obsessively push, regardless of harm done onlookers, fall on you too, Hydro.
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I hope high school treats you better.
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But Kev never seemed “toxic” to me…or probably the majority of people who voted for a government led by him.
The toxicity apparently was confined to his leadership style and was felt by those who turfed him. I think it’s a perfect case of the pollies acting in their own personal interests almost totally disconnected from public perception.
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I think it was poll driven as much as it was probably as a result of personality issues that may have existed in the background. We accept when MP’s resign for “family reasons” that it’s usually code for something more sinister. In Rudds’s case use of the word “toxic” simply coded for a mix of poor polls and political ambitions that saw him rolled by the members of his own party.
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Thank you,Poirot.
For acknowledging what is probably a broad view.
Although perhaps not here.
If polls are a reason Gillard should have been turfed a long time ago.
Rudd was ditched by people not even in the caucus,because it was them he stood up to,when he declared HE would choose the Ministers.
Shock horror,that it could not involve the NSW right.
At least real history will reflect this,albeit too late for the punters.
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Reading the book Shitstorm by two liberal supporters it is clear that Rudd was only a problem to clowns like Arbib who were not smart enough to be honest about anything at all.
Rudd was dumped because spivs. like ARbib and Gillard and Shorten were acting as spies for Israel and the US and they wanted him gone for not being subservient enough.
It’s all there in the Wikileaks cables.
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Shorten stinks to high heaven. Combet has a long way to go before he can read his context. Smith is too much of a yankofile. Pliberchek is probably the only one suitable for now.
The reason Rudd was shuffled out of the throne room is simple: He is not as zionophile as Gillard, who is a screaming lover of the zionists and a screaming hater of anyone associated with the muslim faith.
Do go back to the time of the decapitation and look at what preceded it. Mossad theft of aussie passports: Rudd denounces it. At the same time, Gillard is in Israel declaring from the top of the wailing wall that Israel has a right to protect itself and other zionist slogans that try to justify their gruesome treatment of the Palestinians. Within hours, one was replaced by the other. And Arbib was conducting his own perfidies.
It’s all about the zionists lobby. You’re either with them or you’re a gonner.
The same will happen to the next “Rudd” so I’m wondering if the old Rudd re-emerges, will he do so after he was made to convert?
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Game on, as of 5 minutes ago.
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Oh Goody!
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Combet! Combet! Combet!
Combet! Combet! Combet!
Combet! Combet! Combet!
Combet!………….
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LOL! No way, Hypo!
He wouldn’t be even standing. Wouldn’t have the requisite belly muscles!
It’ll be Rudd/Crean.
Now, if only Plibs wanted the job, I’d be totally elated!
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Question time is going ahead…should be fun!
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I’d like to hear from the Indies and the Greens!
Come on down, Windsor!
Come on down Oakshot!
Come on down Wilkie!
Come on down Christine!
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Sorry, Hypo….I think if they’re to have any chance at the next election, it has to be Rudd.
Combet may get his chance one day….a bit like Costello should have (if it hadn’t been for Howard’s emperor complex)
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Ballot at 4:30 pm…..
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Best slip an extra six pack in the fridge.
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I agree with your take on the Zionist, yank, fellating obsequiousness in both tea parties.You can also add ‘Cathode’ loyalty to Abbott’s hymn sheet.
‘The culling process’ will likely never rid us of weapons grade political influence.
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Peter Garrett off the leash and unmuzzled.
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Not by the looks of this morning’s headlines we won’t.
This is more like Game of Thrones that a representative democracy!
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More like a Game of thorns, hudso! Thorny crowns and poison chalices! Wooooooohooooooo!
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Yep less the codes of honour and preservation of dignity!
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Ah yasss!
We poor chroniclers of our times.
Rudd had enough savvy not to duped by the tabloid shadow puppet entertainment, but some naifs in the Labor party doped on the Murdoch kool aid were acting out a soap opera of their own, high on the fumes of the beat ups of mass msm.
And of course people like Tony Jones are deeply miffed that their lust for ALP blood went unassuaged. No privatisations, no consultancies?
But guess what, worse still, now that the *faux* leadership conflict boil is lanced, the REAL choice, between the government and Abbott and his autocrat backers, is suddenly brought back into dramatic relief.
With no side issues to distract or use as unfair smear against one side for the benefit of the other, they will now have to get off their arses and check out things like the IPA’s Abbott “austerity” package for a story;
won’t that be a shame?
Even Gillard will look attractive, when THAT is focussed upon!!
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Keep the parade moving, as fast as you can Optimist Man,
there’s rain on the way.I’d hate to see you get your cape wet.
I think you need to send a list to the MSM,ABC etc, and tell them exactly what facts they ARE allowed to report.
Notwithstanding I too would like the spotlight firmly on Abbott, but I’d say that might just require some adult behaviour from whoever the party is who sits opposite him.
Perhaps you can enlighten us on who exactly that is.
And perhaps some who ‘is still ; posting here’ can inform us on why they think it is OK for evil scum outside a political party, has the right to control it.
After all,isn’t it the argument of the ****faux***Labor, Gillard-tonguing, camp that ‘such evil outside forces’ control the media and the coalition?
And that this is a ‘wrongness’ unapproachable?
Wouldn’t a failure to address their own position on this, with ‘like’ examination be *hypocritical*??
(Not a Q for you mr palm washer,it’s way past your snooze time.)
Gillard will wake up tomorrow to be the Greatest Friday Faux-Wit of all time.Duly surrounded by 99 yellow bellied weasels, and a 3 legged scape goat..
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Let’s just see how the budget goes shall we.
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If we actually get that far.
However,
Can you do me a favour HG.
Can you commit to calling a pork barrel, a pork barrel when you see it?
Because at this stage I think we will all admit ‘the buying of votes’ is set to begin.And I hope we all see that as what it is.And admit it.
Cash for conscience.Things which did not matter a year ago, suddenly becoming relevant.Western Sydney should ring a bell.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t come that cheap.You?
Yesterday JW begged KRudd to bite the canvass.He did.
Now I guess what I’d like to hear, is where to from here (and thank-you perhaps to Mr Rudd.)
And to me, ‘where to from here’ should not simply mean, drawing a quarantine line around discussing the govt and its actions, especially that of our PM.
Or should it?
What we know about the coming budget is that it is about 2+billion worse off since Swan dumped the guaranteed surplus.(And heading ^ North^)You can subtract whatever bribes follow from here.And given the price of commodities I think you better get a Plan D ready HG.
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Kevin Rudd was not ever going to challenge, it was all Crean being ridiculous.
Fancy trying to make Rudd believe that he could trust Crean after the abuse dished out to him last year by Crean.
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A very well played dish of revenge by Rudd. Kevin didnt have to do anything to extract punishment on Crean. Simon was either deluded, whispering to the wrong people or perhaps having a sideswipe at Gillard without actually saying it. As others have said Gillard is toast, all she can do is drag the ALP into a inglorious defeat and that will be what she is mostly remembered for. Some admired Thatcher for playing tough, but in the end she had to be shoehorned the same way. Why is it that female western political leaders have even more political deafness than the menfolk…..they seem to simply just never know when their time is up. I suppose they kid themselves they are being “strong” or have “support” but the reality is they are just stubborn, power obsessed and generally really on-the-nose electorally….but to see them grip on with every polished fingernail is unedifying and classless – its like watching someone tear a dress apart at a Christmas sale rather than let go. A real lose/lose situation, ah well maybe Julia will reflect on what she’s done in October and realise too late – who knows? The ALP had a slim chance of retaining power with a fresh face (Not Rudd) and the possible benefit of the honeymoon poll effect – you can forget all that now though…
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Faux-Labor barrackers live in a vacuum.They have no idea of the maelstrom election campaign awaiting Gillard under Labor.
And all Abbott needs to do is cut and paste reality into a slick ad campaign.
I doubt he will seriously need to bend or twist a thing.
On his way out Bowen threw Labor the life line,by describing exactly what it is which makes the faux-Labor brand so toxic.
The Howes etc who control the steering wheel of power have to go, and grass roots believers and the belief systems of traditional Labor must be reinstated.
Nothing else will and should save them.
The deception will end.Either electorally or internally, and if it is electoral,it will at least be emphatic.
Yesterday I wished Labor well.Today?
What Labor?
And for those who have read this as a deliberate ploy to shake the media,I think you over estimate the pathetic strategists of the now unaccountable AWU.
May ICAC bring us closure.
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At least it’s popped the pimple, last chance Labor, last chance Julia Gillard.
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Oh I think we both know we’ll excuse pork barrelling on the side we prefer when the other side is worse.
Actually if I’m to be honest I’d have to say that I’d rather have my vote bought with promises of roads, hospitals and middle class welfare than to think that Australia votes on “stop the (fucking) boats”.
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Would throwing money at a rarely used sports ground in a marginal seat would be OK?
That sort of thing?
Singling out spending based on the voting intentions is fine by you?Not a ‘needs’ basis.
This is the new Labor way?
I am asking about pork barrelling, and whether when you see it you would call it.But I think I know where you sit now.
I am all for infrastructure spending,but unlike you a white elephant in one electorate is a non-Dr in another.
So there we part.
And as always when you revert to ‘it’s OK because the other side is worse’, I think it says a lot.
Pork Barrel one versus pork barrel two.Nice work.
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Nope I didn’t say it is okay because the other side is worse. What’s more I think you know that and you put words in my mouth to entertain an argument we don’t need to have.
What I tried to point out instead was that since both sides indulge in a certain amount of pork barrelling I tend to look straight past that to the bigger picture of what kind of government we’re going to get from the person I cast my vote for.
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Well that’s good to know,HG.
I had you pegged as more of a waste minimiser.
Western Sydneys traffic flow is sure to benefit people who need a hospital bed in Darwin,and we may not be able to get our ‘teef’ fixed in time, but at least the grass at the Ghost Town Footy Oval will be soft underfoot.
I’ll watch the space and chat about the stellar spendy things when they pop up.
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Its a matter of perspective though. When we calculate how much money we’re pouring into detention centres the cost of a bit of grass pales. You can interpret that to mean that were either of the majors to do an about face on refugee policy then I might just give less than a fat rat’s about how many ovals they re-surface if pulling the wool over the eyes of a few Westies is the price we have to pay to do a really honourable thing.
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I hear you.But our ‘homey’ Aussie racists vote, and them Westies would probably argue that ‘reffos’ don’t.
You point out adequately that a footy oval has more chance than a humanitarian back-flip.So ‘they’ can live and die in far off in tents while an unused oval lays dormant.
Both Tea Parties deal the same way.
As I pointed out way back,when Fergy was licking Ginas butt, we could easily have the best of both worlds.Train up the refugees (here),to fill any ‘genuine’ labour voids in our workforce.
The irony of the reverse racist part of the 457 crackdown,is it is local Aussie employers who are doing the exploiting, so the unions need to campaign to name and shame them.The same demographic of employers who want the boats stopped.
We are swerving now,so I’ll get back to PB-ing when it pops up.
From either TP.
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Fair enough if you want to say the idea of either party actually offering policy so compelling as to make a little pork barrelling on the side seem justifiable. But I guess what I’m alluding to is proportionality when it comes to comparing some of their more minor stuff-ups with the size of the budgets we otherwise trust politicians to handle responsibly.
Some people buy into the outrage over Obeid or Thomson. I on the other hand seldom fret about these things. For me it becomes something of a question of hypocrisy that we pick on the small stuff if we can catch a rat in a trap that kicks-off a media feeding frenzy. Meanwhile we’re too busy looking the other way too notice the harms being caused by grossly unrepresentative governments who’re uniformly bent to the will of vested interests.
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Well in order for Labor to avoid installing the “grossly unrepresentative governments who’re uniformly bent to the will of vested interests”, by default Gillard is going to need to save their own arses. She must appoint not only shit hot replacements to the front bench, but they will need to be squeaky clean and have no AWU, CFMEU look, about them.Or any ties to the usual knife-men.
I sense Gillard will play the ‘pre-emptive misogyny’ victim and appoint as many women as she can in an effort to dull opposition attacks, and have the ‘don’t pick on us ladies’ ace, up her sleeve.Watch this space.
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I’ll just be honest and say that some of the people who’ve gone in the past few days (not all, but some) I really did think will be making way for better ministers.
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No-one, apart from Wong, Macklin and Garrett could be worse than Ferguson.
Imagine the money the ALP can save, now they can dump the subtitles on question-time, whenever Ferguson spoke.
Labor also has lost a few good (ish) souls.But not to worry.Post the Abbott apocalypse they will be back to rebuild Labor.
Whereas Gillard will be as welcome as a blind mullet in a hot Jacuzzi.
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There are worse things to be found in some Jacuzzis is all that I’m saying for the moment 🙂
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The things that get swept into the ‘porridge filters’ ?
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Knighthoods I think they’re called 😉
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Are these replies being attached to the corresponding comment?
They all seem to be lining up as one after theother.
Anyway,HG knighthoods?
That is a reply to…..?
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break it down Hypo, sounds like night + hood = things that get caught in the filters.
Wanna try Cockney rhyming slang next 🙂
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Oh yeah!
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Cassandra Wilkinson on the Drum! What a sickening “born-to-rule” “Labor Advisor” this pompous git is! What on earth are these creatures doing in the ALP -advising them, even!
“Ferguson is right! We should talk about Class warfare!” (Because I’m upper class, neh, neh, neh!) She and Fergs are the quintessence of what’s wrong with this Tea Party! Fucked in the head. No wonder Howard won time and time again!
Rudd anointed Chriss Bowen as the next PM. Who gives a toss?
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And Gillard has anointed Abbott, via the caucus.
Big business wins again.If Labor were any dumber they would all be Fergusons.
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I needed only watch the opening few seconds to be told Cassandra Wilkinson now works for The Australian, a rag I steer clear of for the sake of my blood pressure.
On the other hand watching further in there is a good argument that Labor may as well accentuate the positives which is what they’ll need to do in their election campaign. Wilkinson burying her head in the sand for the purposes of this discussion seems like she’s just put there to create tensions between differing perspectives, otherwise known as fulfilling the ABC’s balance agenda.
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One of the best things to come out of the events of 21 March 2013 is the exit from the cabinet of our Batman member of parliament.
Previous to the 2010 election Batman was the highest percentage margin winning ALP seat in the country.
At the 2010 election that margin was reduced from about 20% to about 6 or 7%, and with luck in 2013 that margin will disappear altogether.
This was the best news we have had in Batman in the 12 years we have been living here!
Mannie De Saxe
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I dont agree with you at all on this one. The mysoginy swipe got a few old school feminists excited but really didnt get much traction in the electorate I believe.It looked weak and defensive (and a bit desperate) in a lot of quarters when reading the blog reactions. Mostly it was just more mud flinging and although the OS press jumped on it like a new mainliner drug, she didnt really get much of a lift in the polls from it. I have to say it didnt impress me at all. It’s a pretty weak (and somewhat childish) argument that has nothing at all to do with running the country …she is supposed to be the PM FFS, It was hardly worthy of the office. I also doubt that sufficient numbers in the electorate will change their vote back to her based on that tactic. Try again Julia.
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I am not saying there is anything in the ‘mysogyny’ attacks.Quite the opposite.What I AM saying is the whole thing is based on what the FACELESS ‘men’ think is a good idea.I think she ‘might’ load up with women, who could very well be ditched if the miracle of re-election occurs.But that election win is three yards the other side of impossible, so it is all pointless.
I’ve said it before ,IMO Gillard has done untold damage to the cause of women in politics.And I am far from being Robinson Crusoe, in that view.
And that ‘opinion’ is not going to crack the skin of her cheer squad here, who think her shit doesn’t stink.
The AWU boys are likely to get desperate enough to do anything now.
Including a female make over.
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Brilliant HG!! We need Julia to be humble and Kevin to be heroic!! Will we get either? Like fuck we will!!!
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I think the “test” needs to be the ‘demonstration, delivery and maintenance of the commitment to the values (progressive as well) the Australian people voted for’.
The PMs loyalty to the populous.
It’s that simple.The first hurdle, at which Gillard falls flat on her face.But we all know that now.
If the view is that Rudd cannot reflect Labor values and go on to win the election, then I choose Combet.
And I still find it hard to swallow, that no matter what the public want,chose or choose, arse-holes like Howes, Arbib and Shorten trample all over our democratic choices.They have to go.(Don’t worry Arbib is still active.In the same way Minchin is)
After the blood dries up, and the bodies have been carted off, I hope we get to see a strengthened Green party,if not the formation of a new party,which picks up where real Labor, left off.
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Thanks 🙂 is there an echo in here?
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Excellent HG!
If she stays, Labor “will” lose.
I can’t believe that a lefty like me could be left so uninspired (often repelled) by a leader – and a party under that leader. I think a good measure of Gillard is that her leadership could be the one that delivers us an Abbott government.
That’s sad……
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It’s true I’m afraid, even if in a slightly awkward way.
Reading Greg Jericho’s pieces on the drum, he presents good evidence that the economy is actually doing okay. Whereas voters have often gone with their hip pocket nerve in the past, now we’re playing it seems with confidence tricksters of a different calibre, possibly because we’ve a minority government.
So you could argue that Gillard may be the best actor with the shittiest script ever devised and fail not so much on her own merits as against insurmountable odds. I’m not actually buying that, but it may help explain why she needs to go, and could bow out honourably if she so chooses.
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I think a big heap of people just look at her and ask themselves what and who she stands for, because they sure as hell know it’s not them or their beliefs any more.
And despite what the sock puppets and trolls say all over the net about the ‘stupidity’ of voters, I actually believe the punters are justifiably hypersensitive to everything she says and does now, which is why they know when they smell opportunistic announcements and bribes, and observe them with disdain and disgust.
Some of that hypersensitivity MAY be due to MSM spin, but not enough to concur that everyone has been duped by them.And the MSM has not been a factor for months.The recent ‘leadership speculation’ is the first time in months the focus has flicked back, and it is at ‘Labor’ generally not just Gillard.
She got a good run in her sanitised cotton wooled West Sydney tour.
Bloody hell,talk about contrived.
And outside this blog,in the real world, a big very heap of independent and highly respected community leaders (even pro Gillard, pro-Labor ones)and stalwarts are observing the same machinations, (drawing the same conclusions) and so are a big slab of people, who are not consumers, or supporters, of the MSM. Especially the demographic who would normally support Labor.
And just in case,I think I will start to rehearse a few chants,
Combet!Combet!Combet!
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First we take Manhattan….
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Yes the economy is fine, but the social atmosphere of rewhipped racist attacks on innocent people whipped up by Gillard at her deluded Lowy speech has been destroyed and re-traumatised after just starting to recover from Howard.
When Gillard gives her speech to apologise to stolen children today remember this – she has 1,000 children jailed today with 8 of them potentially for life.
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I know what you’re referring to, but does anyone really expect that Abbott will lock up less children? I think that’s the reality of the situation that you’re probably not reflecting in those comments.
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But, HG, the bigger reality is Gillard has done many things we’d expect Abbott to have done.That’s where the answer needs an explanation,not a counter claim.
And I doubt that we will cop anything from the Gillards supporters here, but, ‘the caucus has spoken,move on’.
To which I’ say dream on.The next inevitable crash will be mortal.Whether it will be in September is the question.The Indies under relentless pressure may buckle.And I find it impossible to believe that the phones of sitting members and their in-boxes are now clogging up with the inevitable question of ‘what have you done’?
Nothing has changed in my mind,other than I have even less confidence that the caucus is contaminated by external influences.
“To the cliff,to the cliff.”
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If you want me to say that it is okay to conduct the post mortem while the subject is still breathing then you’ve called at the wrong time.
As for your opinion that Abbott is no worse than Gillard I’ve heard it before and told you how much I disagree before, short of descending into unnecessary hostilities I can think of nothing constructive to say about such a patently stupid idea. Please in the future tell it to somebody else.
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Why do you find the obvious comparison so abhorrent, and why do Gillards supporters here ALWAYS lower themselves to using the oft trotted out lie that ‘not supporting Gillard is a declaration of support for Abbott’.
Is distortion and lies something you value, or is your lack of a position on this a threat to your ego?
The only time I raised the voice or lowered the tone was when I was lied about or to.
And like I keep saying, the evidence abounds.If you or the paul wanker care to cut and paste the obvious reams of ‘vote for Abbott I have posted with time and date’, I’ll debate your point.The only weak and insipid tack taken has to try and devalue the voting system, by claiming there are only two ‘moral’ choices.
That to me is YOUR declaration that a minority government is not an option, and so therefore, the logical next step is for like minded people to demand the electoral system change.
I know how to vote, and I know how to vote with my conscience, and have always declared Gillard and Abbott sit at the bottom of the card at this time.
Suck it up.
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No I don’t advocate the not supporting Gillard is a vote for Abbott. But not supporting the strongest possible Labor party in the contest that we know reduces to the lesser of two evils when it comes to who is going to lead government goes very close to tacitly conceding a coalition victory, and I’ve never made any secret of the need to face those facts.
I have made it abundantly clear that I support the idea of a minority government with a strong Green presence. That however is only possible if they’ve got somebody to partner with, and I assure you it won’t be the coalition. Abbott has already shown that he couldn’t work with the Greens and independents when his political life depended upon it.
As far as I’m concerned we mainly agree but if I’ve told you once then I’ve probably told you a thousand times voting in any way that enables an Abbott government and then calling it conscience is pure bullshit.
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“but if I’ve told you once then I’ve probably told you a thousand times voting in any way that enables an Abbott government and then calling it conscience is pure bullshit.”
and I have told you the same amount of times that my principles come first and that subsequently Abbott and Gillard come as last.So stop even ‘inferring’ otherwise.Please.
The thing you don’t get is that voting in a way which installs Gillard perpetuates the very things you hate that she has done, and sends an unequivocal signal for the arse-holes who pimped her to keep moving in that direction.So what do YOU want a faux-Labor party who is a cancerous fuckpile AND a coalition of equal measure? Or THE Labor Party and that unthinkable coalition option.
Because that is what YOUR eventual scenario delivers.
There is no baby in the bath water HG.
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Nice closing line and some fair points, but I’m very frustrated trying to converse with you because you can’t see Abbott is patently worse than lady Gaga!
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EDIT
” believe that the phones of sitting members and their in-boxes are NOT now clogging up ”
and
“Nothing has changed in my mind,other than I have even less confidence that the caucus is NOT contaminated by external influences.
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What is the point of saying that to me? Rudd stopped the vile practice and she started it again only worse.
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The point is that your man Rudd just pissed his pants on the carpet and refused to throw the dice. We’re going to be stuck with the dose of the trots that is Abbott and you’re not offering constructive solutions having never had one to offer ever as far as I can tell!
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“short of descending into unnecessary hostilities I can think of nothing constructive to say about such a patently stupid idea.”
and yet seconds later
“The point is that your man Rudd just pissed his pants on the carpet and refused to throw the dice.”
Not constructive HG.
Heaven forbid that Marilyn is not claiming ownership of Rudd, just disowning Gillard?
I know,it’s hard for you to grasp.
Shame really.
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Hey I’m disowning both of them may their chooks turn into emus etc…. But sometimes when calling a spade a spade doesn’t work then somebosy’s going to pipe up and call it a friggin’ shovel!
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But it will still be a spade, Hudso!
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It is just an expression, but I have had at least one person try to explain that technically they’re two quite distinct types of digging implement! 🙂
I implore you to consider that in the spirit of what was meant the expression makes perfect sense to most people, just as could a few more of the political points we try and make here be interpreted in the spirit in which they’re offered rather than twisted six ways from Sunday in an effort to argue the indefensible sometimes.
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He did not piss his pants on the carpet, he said last year he would not contest and Crean has said he did this all by himself.
It’s a good idea to ask the person involved if they want the job before calling for a spill.
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Seems to me that he was informed that he didn’t “quite” have the numbers. It would have been nuts for him to go ahead assuming that.
I think at some stage in the not too distant future he will have the numbers – and if and when that happens, the party will re-install him as leader.
He always maintained that if he was called on by overwhelming support that he would go for it…that didn’t happen today.
More’s the pity 😦
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It seems to me the electorate wanted change but something dark and foreboding stood between caucus and it’s members piping up.
I think now they will all know for sure they are toast,so finding a sacrificial lamb would not have been easy.I still think the party ‘should’ be bigger than personal egos, but then this is not real Labor,by any stretch.
My hope now is for comprehensive reform of the party or it can go to hell.
I think given Rudd is the factions biggest threat, he is (was??) now the only current choice to take on the factions.So I am not so sure he will ever get a foot in the door.
As I said earlier,a forced election may now be the shortest route to a rebuilt Labor party.
I guess a death or resignation is not so far fetched.
I don’t know how they managed to be ‘more’ mortally wounded than yesterday, but Labor surely are.I think Rudds position was a very principled one,and a few Labor wannabees and true believers are probably kicking themselves now, for not taking this last chance.
I think if Rudd hears too many unsavoury comments going forward he may just snatch it.And I would not blame him if he did.
Let us all remember that today, 100 people endorsed everything Gillard has done so far and will do from now on.Those 100 people are claiming to represent an accurate view of their constituents, and I beg to differ.
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Which was why he counted numbers in his office all day and only stated his intention not to run when it had emerged that he lacked the numbers.
So while I agree that he chose a half decent set of words when he finally announced he wasn’t running I also noted that he left the door open for the party to draft him back into service if that was what the majority wanted. It’s almost the same set of words Howard used to excuse staying in 2007 when he should have gone.
It just saddens me to see that Labor has become consumed with a toxic struggle between two people who are supposed to be on the same side, when there’s actually somebody on the opposite side of politics sitting back and laughing his ugly great head off at them.
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Your last paragraph puts you within an inch of agreeing with me that Gillard will be the very reason Abbott gets in.I say that because now we have the proof 100 of the cowardly pricks endorse her as an unelectable liability.
You’re more than welcome.
It’s a pity that the pro-Gillard camp takes the weak and easy option of blaming one man ,over the 99 people who have ignored the communities voice, or were too chicken to pipe up.
That’s probably another 50,000 votes to Abbott.
A song for faux Labor and this self inflicted dance of theirs.
http://www.lyricstime.com/blancmange-living-on-the-ceiling-lyrics.html
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Okay but the argument I’d make there is that Gillard and Rudd are about equally poorly placed to beat Abbott which is the main game as I see it.
I get the argument that Rudd may in your estimation give Labor’s moral compass and thus your conscience in voting for him something of a boost. But I really do have to caution that it would be all too short lived.
I think we have to get our priorities right and if Gillard could be replaced with one of a list of other people we’ve discussed then hopefully it would be for the better. Rudd just isn’t one of ’em.
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Not toxic enough, YET, Hudso!
Go to Aeschylus’ “Seven Against Thebes” and see how toxic it can get.
Two brothers, sons of Oedipus, who inherited the throne of Thebes from their father (the reason is well known so I won’t re tell it here) and who were supposed to rule each on alternate years, didn’t. When Polyneices’ turn came, his brother, Eteocles refused to turn the throne over to him. So Polyneices goes off and, to cut a long story short, returns with an army, including seven great fighters… The two brothers meet on the battlefield and agree to fight one-on-one, winner takes all.
Both die with the sword of the other…
I don’t think this internal, infernal war has stopped because it is driven from outside the walls and because very few of the fighters know what they’re fighting for, any more; and, of course, if THEY don’t know, nor will the punters.
And the punters don’t like to get involved in domestics. Private fights don’t concern them and they are certainly not going to invest their loyalty to a dysfunctional family. They’ll move away. They’d rather cop the crap from the disgusting Libs then to be constantly witnessing hen-and-cock fights. They’ll move away until the fights stop and the family looks all clean and in their Sunday best. A good policy or two will enhance their chances but it will still be a matter of the punters breaking by what then has become a new tradition for them: vote Libs and cop the crap!
And traditions are hard to break from. Look at the religious nutters! It doesn’t matter what crap their church covers them in, they will go on, going to their tradition ridden mass, Sunday after Sunday.
Tradition and customs are hard to drop so the ALP will have to work extremely hard to attract their attention again.
Hudso, forget the leaders. No matter how much they’d like to think the game is about them, it isn’t. They are more dispensable than a used tissue and just as thin. In the end, it’s about policies. That’s why I find it impossible to hand my unqualified loyalty to any politician, on a platter. It is always tentative and subject to their constantly showing me that they deserve it. It can be withdrawn quick smart at the first malodorous activity.
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Yes I think you’re right the only consolation we’re going to get now is in minding the small things and hoping the large will follow. Labor could just about change its name to Fukushima they’re that toxic.
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Mademoiselle, you tell to Poirot qu’est-ce que c’est that is worrying vous, oui? Monsieur Abbott. He is how shall we say, le monsieur Abbott est un très mauvais homme, non? Ah, but Melle Gillard, elle est even more bad, oui?
So, my cher ami, there is no problem of choice. You put un wherever your spit lands, non?
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Absolument!
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Oh, bad luck, Jennifer! Though, it ain’t over until it’s over and it ain’t over yet.
And two interesting questions arise:
1) Are testicles only allocated to males or do females also get a pair; and is it an unbecoming thing when females get them? And,
2) What is passing through the lips of all the Libs at the moment? Will the boxer be replaced with a banker?
A third, less bothersome question is whether or not Rudd will actually stand. Less bothersome because we know the answer.
But this question is teasing my grey cells at the moment: If Gillard won’t call for a spill, are enough (a third) of the members disposed towards having one?
And will Rudd chuck Crean out next year if he gets the job?
All these questions! Looks like I’ll have to take a sleeping pill tonight. Otherwise it’ll be another wake in fright morning!
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Balls?
In politics ; men have balls.
In politics ; women do not.
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I think the problem with Gillard was that she thought it was necessary for women to acquire them as well, so she put on the hobnailed boots and marched on… in a stumbling sort of way and kept falling on her bum all the time.
Balls are for men. Function as ballast for our brain.
No good for women. They have to have lobotomy to be able to use them.
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Another day when I’ll be doing no work! Oh, goody!
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Crean reminds me of John Button, whom I knew for a while, though Button was a great deal sharper.
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Anna Burke is losing her temper, her cool and her shit!
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Well, how unusual! Abbott moving a non-confidence vote!
When the brain fails, move a non-confidence vote. How many times did he do it this year?
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Predictable and applicable all at the same time.
Ironic,really.
4;30 seems a life time away.I think Gillard will secure all the senior female votes in caucus.
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Shit, just thought of a possible hiccup: What if the Indies don’t vote with Gillard on this motion? A Double Dissolution?
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Time for the dagger to be pulled out from between Rudd’s shoulder blades. (I’m sorely trying to be Homeric!)
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Or Churchilian.
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Don’t!
I’m Homerphobic.
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I thought you were hypocritophobic!
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I’m rabid.
Haven’t you noticed me ‘phobing’ at the mouth?
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LOL, now that you mention it!
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It seems Abbott and Bishop were waiting for this moment for a while now. Their speeches are well written. Lots of detail! Lots of flowery rhetoric!
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Agree!
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Between now and 4:30 how many people here might be willing to say that whoever wins the leadership spill has their support, (unless they already chose to support another party).
I’m just wondering whether if we don’t believe we’d throw our support behind a leader we can expect Labor members to do so either.
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My support is the same as always.What the person supports and represents.
It is what Gillard does which poisoned her.If she wins nothing changes,If someone else does,they better not be another Howes political pack mule.
The problem for any call about our support, is that too many of us failed to read the small print last time.
Try biting me again faux Labor.
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Thanks for answering, but to be frank it hasn’t been much help. I threw the question out there because when I saw the headline the first thing I wondered was whether anyone really believes we’ll get any change out of all this. Obviously loyalty to the leader never really counted for anything, so unless a third person steps into the ring, then this is just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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Well If you want a community view you either door knock or filter through the available evidence.If like a lot of Gillardites you believe all MSM media or political commentators lie, that might be hard.
I’d say dumping Gillard improves Labors chances.
That’s all.And it may or may not be enough, but the rest is up to the party and its members.Not the likes of the faceless men, who must be jettisoned.
So the equation reads,(as it always has)
“Any” Labor leader + the status quo of factional overlords = Abbott victory.
(No matter how much cash and spin and policy is presented)
This is so much bigger than Rudd or Gillard.So whoever gets in must make brave open decisions.Shock and awe,if you like.
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See now you’re turning away from the spirit of the question which was to ask whether anything will provide the unity needed to overcome the actual enemy, remember him?
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The “enemy”, for all intents and purposes, is the disenchantment of long-time Labor supporters (like me!).
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Not necessarily. I think as I outlined earlier a third person chosen from the ministry might be the better way to go. I think Gillard would then need to accept the umpire’s decision graciously and do what Rudd’s failed to do and bow out of any further challenges.
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A third person would likely be a wish-washy solution to a chronic problem. Neither here nor there. Sometimes there’s only one choice for leader. New blood in a situation like the one in which Labor presently finds itself is likely to signal a stop-gap rather than a decisive unified decision.
Remember the last time Howard took over? The Liberal party until then were in continuous
disarray. His elevation under those circumstances steadied the ship and their whole situation turned around.
Btw, Rudd hasn’t actually put his hand up yet.
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He’s not running!!!
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Well that was an entertaining farce.
When Tony wins the election, perhaps all the Laborites can give vaudeville a shot.
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Too late she cried again.
I think you’re wrong I think Labor needs to put the clash between these two personalities behind it.
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It won’t make a bit of difference what they put behind them, Hudso. It is what il popolo della Australia, has put behind them that matters and my feeling is that if they fart, ie, il popolo della Australia, the ALP carcass will roll back a mile!
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All over bar the shouting then?
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Yes, Hudso. The shouting will return on election night, from all those -what, seventy caucus members?- who would have lost their jobs! A lot of toddlers will be kicked and babies left titles on that night!
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Maybe so. I does always appear to be the case whatever happens, but I still hope somebody figures out some way of giving Abbott a run for his money!
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HG,
If you are so naive to believe that either Gillard has any grace(let alone more than Rudd) you need an enema.Rudd has just shown how much integrity he has.Something Gillard could never do.
Third party versus political wilderness.A clear choice, and they need to be unconnected to the Howes et al camp.
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Geezus, Crean must be the biggest dickhead in Canberra!
What a nob!
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Biggest dickhead?Pretty big shoes to fill in that town.
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That’s right tomatou, you and hypo deteriorate into howls of miffed rage because the PM has seen off both the malcontents in her own party and the meddling oligarchy.
From this point, she will come backl ike a steam train, as she did last year and that misanthropic cretin Abbott and his big business string pullers will be swept away at the September referendum.
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Pauly, sweetheart! She’ll be rushing out there like a steam train, all right, just the engine part. The rest of the wagons will be left behind. And where will she be going? Over the cliff like a lemming!
She has won a battle; and the ALP loves little battles. Arm wrestles really. The war will be a very bloody affair.
Joel is spitting blood already.
They’re going to be such a weakened party they’ll be crawling to the election on all fours.
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“….come back like a steam train…”
Old Spooner had it right.
She’ll not resemble the down bound train – more likely Labor, the town bound drain……
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Well it looks like we’re not going to find out today… and its a pity!
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It’s all a matter of reality.
The reality is that under Gillard’s leadership it is most unlikely that Labor can win the next election – even against the likes of Abbott.
Now Labor can ignore this reality – like the Libs did under Howard – or they can face up to the most likely prospect and organise themselves accordingly.
I can still recall seeing Howard sitting next to Costello on the eve of the election, saying that they were going to election as some kind of comedy duo. It was pathetic. We all knew they were going down, but they seemed to think that they could present themselves like that – as a double act for the Liberal leadership – and that the electorate would buy it.
Disconnects like that blow voter’s minds 🙂
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Okay now you’re just confusing me. Are you saying that you’d accept the results of such a Ballot or not?
I think you’re trying to say you’d accept Rudd as leader rather than Gillard, just not in so many words. Which is fine if that’s what you meant. But it wasn’t really the question.
You’re saying that Gillard can’t win, which may be true, and I doubt Rudd can either. Which leaves me wondering whether any result of this leadership spill matters to anyone at all really?
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The evidence says that Gillard cannot win.
likewise her own party.
To assume Rudd cannot at this stage is based on conjecture.The point I think is (as you seemed to have built an NPFS slogan industry on, along with Helvi,DQ and others,)
THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS!
If there is a third and fourth evil, may they speak now or forever hold their peace.
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Agreed, with a slight caveat. Whereas a leadership ballot has some chance of throwing up candidates other than the two assumed main contenders, the election ballot due to be held later this year shows very few signs of being a truly three cornered contest even if the balance of power could go again to minor parties or independents.
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HG,
I’m merely going on an innate feeling. When Gillard arrived, I tried to get in the swing…. but in no time I found myself feeling allergic to Aus politics. I was stunned by the feeling that I couldn’t stomach domestic politics anymore. How did that happen?
Nothing she has done since has helped to lift the miasma that descended upon when she became leader – in fact, many of her actions have made it worse.
I have no idea whether Rudd can deliver the impetus Labor needs to win the upcoming election, but I’ll be damned if they will be in a worse position than they’re in now.
I’m still taken aback that Rudd was removed when and how he was…..
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You may well be right in all that you say, Poirot- blame the right faction in particular more than Gillard- but changing horses mid stream is beyond counter productive for Labor and the vast majority of Australians and won’t benefit anyone here, or elsewhere, apart from the oligarchs.
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I think a third party would be better, what about that idea?
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If Labor sacks Gillard, it will be the final phase of their self-destruction.
A bit of spine in the face of the banking/mining/media oligarch and their attempts to overthrow democracy, please Labor.
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How about ‘spine’ in the face of unelected corrupt union officials?
Too much for your low standards?
It’s all everyone else’s fault isn’t it?
Gillard will be the single reason for any terminal affliction connected to Labor.She may as well for for Abbott,given her commitment to installing him.
The buck stops with the leader.She owns her popularity.She deserves whatever fate the election holds,many in Labor do not.
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I can just see all the single mothers rushing to vote for Gillard!
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EDIT
“She may as well work for Abbott,given her commitment to installing him.
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LOSERS
I would hate to think that democracy loses out amongst all of the damage done to the positive results that the minority experiment actually delivered,in that the punters will hurry back to even more bi-polar perceptions when voting, as they focus way too much on the two majors.We need a broadly representative govt at all levels.I hope it has not been damaged and debased too much, and people spooked into dumping principle for party..
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Quite so, Hypo.
And, to answer Hudso’s question, if Rudd wins, I’ll go back to Greens 1 and ALP 2 (or before the Libs).
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Similar view here,but I will use that as a temporary plan until I see the cut(or otherwise) of any new leaders jib, and how fast certain poxonauts fall in behind them etc.
I am not in any hurry to install ‘anyone’ given Labors abysmal recent history.
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Fair enough but I wasn’t asking who you’d vote for so much as to say whether this ballot really solves anything in the minds of the voters if the choices are limited to Gillard and Rudd.
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If Rudd gets in and legitimately cuts out the Howes type cancer,I think Labor has a reasonable chance.
But wait,there’s more>
Imagine (if you can) the toxicity and saturation frequency of the opposition campaign which is headed our way.
Any leader will need to be superhuman and ultra genuine.
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The most I can see any leader doing is to ignore the influence of Howes and the NSW right, possibly to their peril. They aren’t elected members of the parliament so a new PM can’t even take their jobs away.
I think the toxicity is confined to the battle for leadership that has perversely been permitted to occur during a term in government. This usually and for good reason, does not occur, and reeks of desperation as far as I can see.
They need a third person to step up and take over.
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Plan C is in tatters HG.
They blew it.
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Yep they certainly dud!
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JW starts hanging around Canberra and now there’s a spill.
She sure works fast.
Well done.
How about lobbying for Combet JW?
Combet!, Combet!, Combet!, Combet!…..
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Oh dear.
Rudd bails.
Now Labor has one last roll of the dice.
An third contender or political death under Gillard, or miracle.
Given the atheism here,the third alternative is the best bet.
Choose wisely caucus,choose wisely.
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Gillard had to sack Crean,but she will live to regret it.He did what was required.
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Unless, of course hw was working for Gillard!
Who knows what the fuck is going on with the Labs!
I can hear the Lib slogans now! Puke tossed upon puke!
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Could Rudd turn Independent?
Or resign from his seat and force a bi-election?Could he then rejoin Labor later?
Interesting times.
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Well pale walker ,I am willing to bet you a testicle(if you can borrow one) that Gillard will not win the election in September.
100 people were too shit scared to put there hands up,is not a sign of unanimous support, it is a sign of what power and threats the factions have used.Rudd was probably billied out of the race.And why would he want to lead the lamds to slaughter?Can you imagine the “underminding” (sic) certain thugs would have unleashed?
Spin it however you want.Nothing changes for those of us who are not sleep walking sycophants.
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NEWSFLASH
Just informed that Status Quo will be singing the results of Labors opinion polls from now and till the election.
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NEW NEWSFLASH:
Wire just in from the ALP Cock Room: Poll aborted! Poll aborted! SImon Crean has coq au vin for super!
NEW NEW NEWSFLASH:
Wire just in: A new new new Labor party to be doing the same old, same old shit until it gets thrown out of the dunny in September!
NEW NEW NEW NEW NEWSFLASH:
Another wire just in: I’m emigrating to New Zealand… or maybe Zanzibar!
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OLD NEWSFLASH
NZ is in drought.If you like milk,think again.
If you like blood move to Canberra in around Sept 15th.
Should drown in it.
Good on Crean, a little while back I said he was dull and boring,or words to that effect.
Today he completely rebuilt Labor single handedly.
Kudos,Simey.You have a tiny bit more of my respect today.Labor is so different,now.
Gawd,
I hope Rudd can somehow force an early election.
I note Abbott played the ‘broken minority govt card’, but would not rule out accepting his own version.
I guess any more ructions and Windsor and Oakeshott will withdraw support,anyway.It is far from over,no matter what Labor wishful thinkers postulate.
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Oh, shit! here we go! Abbott is about to speak! Gurp!
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I don’t know if this be a good thing or a bad thing or if it is even a valid thought but one thing that might be considered a consequence of this charade is that backstabbing might not be so frequent henceforth (I hate the phrase, “going forward”)
This next thought though I’m certain is a bad thing and that is, the ALP will never correct itself henceforth. This ship of fools will go on sailing in the same waters -star board to the right- until it falls off the planet.
I just hope the Greens don’t follow the bastards!
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A three ho—-ur tour.
The Cast:
99 Gilligans and one gormless Skipper.
Scene 1
Strewn across the beach at the lagoon.
Clutching their AWU stubby holders.
Not a professor in sight.
And a gorilla a amongst the coconuts across the way.
Just sit right back………………………
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“You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.
Now Ev’ry gambler knows that the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep.
‘Cause ev’ry hand’s a winner and ev’ry hand’s a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.”
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I took my eye off the stage when the indies voted with the abbott on the no confidence motion. I’m sure there is a strong hint there as to why things turned out the way they did.
Were they giving Rudd a message? The wrong one? Did they frighten the chickens?
At least three quarters of those caucus members will be tossed out of the corridors of power and probably only because they didn’t bring Rudders in. Their constituents will be spewing on the front door of their electoral office from now until election time.
And as for going out door knocking! Grrrr! I can feel the chill from here!
Shit, if I were Rudd, I’d be telling Crean to go masturbate next time he wants a thrill! What a stupid, stupid move. All the Rudd supporters will be gathering under a tall tree with a long thick rope, waiting for him. Froth dripping from their mouths!
Silly old codger!
Homework not done, Simie! Back of the room and detention.
But, I think you’re right, Hypo, the day will, I hope, make everyone of those twits reflect a little -about the meaning of life, politics, hell and shit for breakfast!
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I think Simon showed a great deal of shrewdness, what better way to hose down the media heatup/beatup than ask for a spill probably already knowing that Kev planned to stand by his word and not stand. I’d say this was a move by Labor to take on the media seagulls and dissipate the issue for enough weeks to get policies discussed (There is an election coming after all) So rather than a dill, perhaps he was being a strategic old fox? The Murdoch press’s main ammo against Labor is to trot out rumours of leadership destabilisation – now having played that card they’ll just have to speculate about something else for a change.
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What the always wrong Ellis wrote
“4.19 pm
Rudd is not going to challenge.
What an odious little putz.
He’s like a rich boy, prodding his pet tarantulas, because of the thrill it gives him.
Fuck him and the paperclip he rode in on.”
Nice work Bob.
Please predict Gillard will last another fortnight.
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Damn Hypo, I nearly pasted that exact excerpt myself!
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Bob has lost the plot, Rudd is not an odious putz, he was set up again and refused to take the bait.
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I guess that’s what becomes of a body, which survives on a walnut sized brain and a bean bag sized liver.
Like I said, may he please choose Gillard as Labors best hope.
Australia needs her and her pimps to disappear emphatically.
Bobs reverse support delivers!
It’s almost surreal to think that ‘anyone’ in this galaxy thinks this thing is over.
It is also the deepest insult on the community, since Howard declared (after he was jettisoned) that his biggest regret was the disproportionate social circumstance of indigenous people.
Pffft.
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Ha! great minds think alike, Marilyn.
While the media were focussed on today’s malarkey, issues like the sad story of Bowen’s asylum seeker case, where the minister, incredibly, refused to use the ministerial discretion available to him to prevent asylum seekers in fear of retaliation as opponents of harsh regimes being sent back, went completely unremarked on, as example.
How much serious stuff do the public miss for silly soap opera “personality” stuff, stuff that can only ultimately benefit the coalition?.
I’d be be after the delinquent media before any politician, even
Abbott, just at the moment.
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I think Kev can smell a poisoned chalice from a mile away…it was a wise choice to not put his hand up. Bob is speculating that Rudd was behind the moves to spill….wrong wrong wrong
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Kevin Who?
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All most amusing.
Two days ago : Julia Gillard PM
Today : Julia Gillard PM
The dogs may bark but the caravan moves on.
.
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I don’t know whether I qualify as a ‘blog regular’, but I would like to address the postscript question “Would you like me to set up a permanent space where you can talk about whatever you want?”. I would hate for the import of that question to go unrecognised. Which is not to say that in what follows I am necessarily recognising it.
Such an area would enable amplifications of the necessarily brief abstracts on Twitter that on occasions may be pointers to important issues upon which MSM journalism is letting the public down. The ability to develop a point without a word limit intruding is quite useful. The further ability to then link, on Twitter, to an explanatory post on ‘Sheep’ could be of great help in ventilating certain issues, or circumventing MSM editorial suppression.
The problem at the moment is that if advantage is taken of the very light degree of moderation exercised on ‘Sheep’ to introduce red herrings, it only gives further encouragement to thread hijacking, to the general detriment of the site as a quality discussion blog, no matter how interesting some red herrings may come to be seen to be.
Perhaps such an area could operate somewhat in parallel to the nature of your own blog posts, with an opening post topic indexation showing topic and author? I know I have tended to use OLO as much, or more, as a ‘journal of record’ than as a vehicle for participating in current discussions, with the relevance of some posts to a yet-to-emerge public discussion not becoming apparent for perhaps quite some time. The problem with using OLO in this way is twofold: word and posting limits, and the fact that threads go dead into the archive after around 20 days since the last post. Those limitations do not apply on ‘Sheep’.
Now that your ‘Dear Kev’ blog post has obviously not fallen upon deaf ears, I intend demonstrating (unless you would prefer I didn’t) in this thread an ‘amplification post’ in relation to what is claimed to be the introduction of the political censorship of Twitter by the government, which ‘government’ I am taking to be the Australian government, upon which I have already tweeted, thus:
I don’t know whether I qualify as a ‘blog regular’, but I would like to address the postscript question “Would you like me to set up a permanent space where you can talk about whatever you want?”. I would hate for the import of that question to go unrecognised. Which is not to say that in what follows I am necessarily recognising it.
Such an area would enable amplifications of the necessarily brief abstracts on Twitter that on occasions may be pointers to important issues upon which MSM journalism is letting the public down. The ability to develop a point without a word limit intruding is quite useful. The further ability to then link, on Twitter, to an explanatory post on ‘Sheep’ could be of great help in ventilating certain issues, or circumventing MSM editorial suppression.
The problem at the moment is that if advantage is taken of the very light degree of moderation exercised on ‘Sheep’ to introduce red herrings, it only gives further encouragement to thread hijacking, to the general detriment of the site as a quality discussion blog, no matter how interesting some red herrings may come to be seen to be.
Perhaps such an area could operate somewhat in parallel to the nature of your own blog posts, with an opening post topic indexation showing topic and author? I know I have tended to use OLO as much, or more, as a ‘journal of record’ than as a vehicle for participating in current discussions, with the relevance of some posts to a yet-to-emerge public discussion not becoming apparent for perhaps quite some time. The problem with using OLO in this way is twofold: word and posting limits, and the fact that threads go dead into the archive after around 20 days since the last post. Those limitations do not apply on ‘Sheep’.
Now that your ‘Dear Kev’ blog post has obviously not fallen upon deaf ears, I intend demonstrating (unless you would prefer I didn’t) in this thread an ‘amplification post’ in relation to what is claimed to be the introduction of the political censorship of Twitter by the government, which ‘government’ I am taking to be the Australian government, upon which I have already tweeted, thus:
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I have no idea why my post of March 22, 2013 at 2:37 pm in this thread went up in duplicate. Do feel free to delete the duplication (or indeed the whole post, if you feel it out of place in this thread), Jennifer.
I was, as stated, only trying to address your postscript question. This sub(?)-tweet of yours from some time ago lent me inspiration:
I note that there have been some questions raised by others in this thread as to whether replies indentation is working in the manner expected. I have posted this comment as a reply to my own earlier post as a test as to this.
Perhaps the Wordpus blog software does not lend itself to the suggestions I made, even should you wish to implement something like what was suggested. Or perhaps your tweet was a ‘message’.
‘Sheep’ is your blog upon which others are privileged to post. I think all posters have an obligation, as the blog presently operates, to pay the courtesy of at least trying to tie their posts to something present within the opening blog post. That way discussion may avoid straying to far into the realm of out-and-out unsubstantiated opinionation.
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Second-last line of post of March 23, 2013 at 10:11 am: “too”.
And it looks like reply indentation is working, at least for replies to one’s self.
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I agree with Jennifer’s tweet, but this post is clearly on politics and therefore open slather for those who like to talk politics. There’s so much speculation here as to a future we cannot know, and yet people speak with such authority about what’s going to happen. This troubles me for its self- fulfilling quality.
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Elisabeth, you are indeed correct as to the topicality of posts to this thread. I had thought with the outcome determined, it might not be premature to address the postscript question, but perhaps it was too early.
However, here is where Jennifer raised the issue, and here is where I thought some productive ideas might emerge. I completely concur with your last two sentences.
I seek to tie “people speak[ing] with such authority about what’s going to happen” to reported (and preferably linkable) background facts. It seems researching, or engaging with the implications of such, is not a popular pastime with much of the prognosticenti.
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I agree that prophecies about politics can be self fulfilling but even as one who disdains and often disparages the MSM I’m not unaware that their influence exists at least to the extent that I’m usually slightly surprised to find that anyone beyond my small circle of friends and acquaintances agrees or is even aware of ideas that aren’t being talked about in the media. I guess like me they’re all getting their information elsewhere, probably on the internet, but then that seems so fragmented with relatively few unique identities in any single blog or twitter conversation that it seems almost spooky that there’d be a level of commonality between us.
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Can you write out clearly the guidelines as to what discussions/words/tones and views allowed in your narrow world ?
You make Conroy seem like a moderate.
You pussy foot around issues when you’re challenged.You select the gender you want engaged and now you want people to put aside the feelings/beliefs/observations they have because they may ‘come true’, and that’s an outcome not suitable to you.
Perhaps you could discuss the issues and not the rules?
Amazing.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-27/twitter-to-censor-content-in-some-countries/3796316
It would probably be concerning except it’s all basically from one or two blogs.
Hypo singles out polliter.com which is traceable via whois but only to an address I don’t know whether to believe?
Brooks, William
3655 Torrance Blvd Suite 230
Torrance, CA 90503
US
Others using blogger aren’t so traceable, but it usually turns out to be one guy and a keyboard purporting to speak for many and making a fuss over something for which I can see no independently confirmed evidence. Many of us who are disinclined to trust Wikipedia certainly shouldn’t be taken in so easily as to trust these guys!
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Back in mid-February 2013 Twitter userID ‘@vexnews’ posted a tweet in relation to the then topical expulsion from Malaysia of Senator Nick Xenophon. That tweet contained a link to a PDF document, one that I viewed at the time. As is my habit, I effectively ‘archived’ this @vexnews tweet by re-tweeting it: the re-tweeting causes the tweet in question to be inserted within my own tweets timeline, such that I can easily track down tweets I may subsequently wish to revisit.
Shortly after I had re-tweeted the @vexnews tweet I brought up my own tweets timeline where the re-tweet is effectively ‘archived’ in order to download the PDF from that link to my own hard drive. My click on that @vexnews-tweeted link yielded the result shown in the Twitpic linked in this tweet of mine:
Subsequently, the record of my re-tweet of the @vexnews tweet has gone missing from my own tweets timeline. I am questioning as to whether this recorded disappearance of a specific, identifiable tweet as recorded in the address bar of my screenshot constitutes evidence of the censorship of Twitter of the like described in the Politer item linked to in hudsongodfrey’s post above.
HG has also effectively pre-empted another of my concerns. Assuming that what I have seen may constitute evidence for such censorship of Twitter, which government, US or Australian, may have actually instigated the censorship, given Twitter is US-based, in this case?
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There could be a few reasons why a tweet disappears from the twitter timeline, apart from twitter censorship. These could include self censorship either in the form of deleting a particular tweet, or perhaps even if one decided to close down their twitter account. I’m not entirely sure about either, but it wouldn’t be hard to test.
My inclination as always is to say that in a choice between a conspiracy and a stuff-up I suspect the later until proven otherwise.
I’ve also had enough experience of one man political activist groups and black helicopter nuts to be a fairly qualified sceptic in such matters.
If I’m wrong though then fill us in as to the implications of all this, because there is another side to this coin. When you get hit and run propagandists on behalf of foreign causes in particular, then it often means that they’re coming from foreign sources who try to sew a seed of dissent then cover their tracks. Most of the time just knowing that renders they’re mostly rather incompetent work effectively harmless because you’re then simply going to ignore it. But it will and does happen, should be expected to occur and isn’t really at all shocking to me in the slightest. I may just have bigger BS detectors than most, but I do tend to just ignore it if they can’t source their propaganda.
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HG, as you can see from one of my tweets embedded in an earlier post, the prospect of these claims as to selective censorship of Twitter being a hoax was my own initial reaction.
It has been my experience that when I have effectively ‘archived’ a tweet within my own tweets timeline by re-tweeting it, the tweet in question remains visible in that timeline even if the poster that originally tweeted it subsequently deletes it. In other words, a ‘marker’ as to its having once been tweeted remains visible to me. Left clicking the ‘view tweet’ or ‘expand’ buttons in such circumstances yields a ‘tweet does not exist’ notice.
What happened here is that the @vexnews tweet that I had re-tweeted for archival purposes shortly after disappeared from my own tweets timeline, contrary to other experience.
During the brief interval that the original @vexnews tweet remained visible on Twitter, I copied a link which it referenced into this tweet:
If you click on that now-embedded link you will get a ‘tweet does not exist’ notification.
I was able to obtain a link to the PDF in question from Twitter userID ‘@TimorJustice’ own website after a response to this tweet:
All of this I find interesting in the context of the MSM story about the expulsion of Senator Xenophon from Malaysia having so suddenly gone so dead. Even had it been just a stunt, I would have expected more coverage. Could it have been that because the PDF dealt with electoral matters, that while related to a Malaysian setting, were perhaps also capable of being seen to be relevant to the Australian electoral scene?
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Nothing would surprise me with this.Readers may remember that I noted earlier that if Roxon and Conroy and or (ASIO ?) wanted to access our privacy or filter our net etc, they would do it by the back door if not by the front.
People are naive as to what freedoms we really have.We have enough freedom to not flick egg or mud on the wrong faces(read Indo,US,Israel or whatever arse our government happens to be licking,at the time).
It happens with both Tea Parties.So we are stuck with it.I would not be surprised if the Australian security tipped off Malaysia.
Bali 9 anyone?
I am no conspiracy theorist, and agree a bit with what HG had to say,but this stuff is not conspiracy.Things like this are more like reverse treason.If or when the Bali 9 are executed, there are Australian Fed Police who knowingly contributed to that result. No wonder Assange has been hung out to dry.
In the past I have had stuff disappear off the ABC Drum, more than once.No rules broken.No reason given.There are people who have their political video footage rubbed from Youtube, again without explanation.There are many govt depts who will not release basic non-commercial data.
The reek of rotting fish is over powering
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Hypo, thanks for re-posting the link to Politico earlier, for whatever it may prove, or not, to be worth. It does look as if it may have been piggy-backing on the ABC item published here on 27 January, which would have been 26 January in California.
Here is a working link to Clinton Fernandez ( @TimorJustice )’ website for the suspected object of the suppression, the PDF document report:
http://t.co/VoeQ49Mg
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So what do you reckon then, someone’s hacked Twitter or maybe just your account, or it’s Twitter themselves and they’re not letting on?
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Worth a read even though its Murdoch Press (Added the mobile version you can load on a PC so you get past the paywall) http://m.news.com.au/TopStories/fi1885731.htm
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I saw words like ‘luvvies’, ‘Kafka-esque’….stopped reading and scrolled down,saw Joe Hildebrand at the bottom, say no more 🙂
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No matter who the author is what the words are it is another astute observation of the treachery,incompetence and inevitable obliteration.
A pity some people wake up after the event.No doubt they will be the first to say,
don’t blame me’, or try to rewrite another version of the truth to cover their tracks.
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Interesting stuff. He’s not a Gillard supporter that’s for sure. But at least he speaks from a perspective that is kind of similar to many of us who might have preferred Labor to succeed if only they hadn’t compromised everything in sight just to cling to the seat of power.
What it doesn’t say is that Rudd has been equally as divisive as Abbott over the past two years. Two men more seething in their discontentment at having been denied what they regard as rightfully theirs you could never find. It is personal politics not about the business of good governance. it shows and frankly it really doesn’t deserve to be rewarded.
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Hudson, Julia, Kevin, whoever… for me Coalition with Abbott as the leader is unthinkable.
If they had Turnbull up but no Morrison, Pyne, Mirabella, Barnaby, Abetz, and so on… I would not worry about them either.
Even Howard, but not Abbott.
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Agreed,
I was listening to ABC radio this morning and the interesting question once raised on Q&A came up. What if Rudd and Turnbull formed the third party? It is an interesting thought that both majors are that much on the nose that any credible splinter group might well trump them.
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A new party containing Rudd and Turnbull? Idealistically appealing maybe, but such a party would stand absolutely zero chance. Who are their bolted on fantatics going to be? The ALP, Libs ,One Nation all have them – an alliance between Rudd and Turnbull would only appeal to the beige channel flicking middle class who are unlikely to subscribe, donate or man polling booths….especially when the car’s still to be washed and footy is on. Their support base would come from the idle, less committed, apathetic middle.
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Devisive schmisive,HG.
The article was about saving Labors arse,pure and simple.
If all you have said in your last paragraph is true, and all you have said about the lesser of two evils is also true, than we get back to declaring that (whether we love or loathe Rudd) he (or a 3rd Party) was Labors last chance.They flopped.
I cannot even see blatant vote buying saving the Gillard day.
And Rudd has reason to feel fully and comprehensively betrayed and most voters share that view.And I would hazard a guess that his decision to not run was seen my a majority of them as more honourable,than opportunistic.Why people need to appoint HIM as a villain, has me fucked.Crean ignored Rudds text for his own personal gain.
And after all this time of you and DQ and others telling me he was the anti Christ I still have seen no evidence to back it.All we have is opinion on it from the same media that Gillard supporters accuse of being one eyed.
I don’t think you can have it both ways.
As I have said the MSM and the coalition ad campaign are going to have a field day with the front bench line up as ICAC proceeds and unionists get gigs.
It is the next in a long line of fatal errors of judgement.
Reminder, (from within the ranks) Labor would prefer to lose an election under Gillard than change their leader.
So be it.
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No not divisive schmisive!
I see Rudd as in many ways the purveyor of a better set of polices than Gillard, but possibly also as a person who would have served better at the power behind the throne than in front of if, but who has refused to accept his failure. Gillard has now also failed because she has been too much the political animal, compromising on everything having left us with more disappointment than success once you take into account that even 90% of success will easily be overshadowed by 10% failure in politics.
They’re now become both divisive figures within their parties. A flagging Labor government can’t rejuvenate its prospects when the electorate knows at least two thirds of them think Gillard should go. So of course leadership change is now necessary. What I think we need to remember about it though is that if Rudd had won with an unlikely two thirds support then he’d be in exactly the same compromised position.
The conventional wisdom has been that once in government you don’t unseat the leader, and Labor has found out precisely what a slippery slope breaking that rule has turned out to be. Even worse they’ve transparently allowed their personal ambitions to get in the road of the task of serving the people that they represent, as has Abbott.
We need new blood. Badly!
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I doubt that its a hack of Twitter, given the extraordinary low profile (so far as most of any viewing public would be likely concerned) of the subject-matter. The object of having hacked Twitter is surely that of being able to subsequently boast about it to as large an audience as possible.
Whilst I have had my online experience degraded in the past by what are likely attacks delivered through the browser (eg. ‘fork bombs’ tying up processor resources), I have seen no evidence of my Twitter account having been hacked. In any case, it would be far more likely for a user like @vexnews to be such a target, rather than an extremely low-profile Twitter user like me.
So my money would be on something like your third option, but not precisely as you have described it. As it appears this little sub-thread is now starting to divert into perhaps interesting, but substantially unattributable ‘labelistic’ speculations, I will shortly post another bottom-of-the-thread comment if only to give a little more indentation space.
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I really only mentioned things like hacking by way of covering a full range of the possibilities including those that are probably least likely.
I think there’s probably a relatively unsophisticated explanation, not a concerted attempt to hack. I don’t rule out somebody having knowledge of ways to exploit the twitter system, and I certainly don’t rule out people having time and interest in doing so as a form of politically partisan trolling if you like.
But if I’d be right to doubt that anyone has significant reasons to target you then it has to be said that Twitter also lacks reason to bother censoring those conversations.
Overall I think Twitter’s business model would be threatened by the discovery of censorship, something I think is reasonably hard to do without arousing suspicion, and that’s why I think there are reasons to doubt they are doing so. Ask then instead why what seem to be exclusively right wing groups are accusing twitter of censoring them? Could it just be that they’re unhappy that they’re under-represented on twitter because the nature of our politics is contracted such that their supporters are fewer but generally more influential in other realms of society whereas social media reflects a different reality.
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BTW
I see the last remnants of the Labor left will soon be eradicated.This will help the local faithful decide where their loyalties to ‘principles’ lie.
And the left that are snatching it are not ‘real’ left by any stretch.This should finalise the Tea partying of faux Labor once and for all.
Greens it is, for the foreseeable future.
Labor can no longer claim any custodianship of the fair go.
If I could I would mount a class action to stop them continuing to bastardise the term.
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Time for a “New Labor” movement? Unfortunately we know whats happens to the labor vote when it splits
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The people leaving the front-bench now know a sinking ship when they see it.I don’t think Abbott is scary enough for most swinging voters.And labor won’t have the same cash to splash on a large fear campaign.
So if you add the loss of traditional Labor voters to the list of Rudd supporters abandoning ship,( in the electorate)it is almost impossible for Labor to mount a case which can swamp the other Tea Partys avalanche of ads in the pipeline.
Looking more like either an Abbott govt or a coalition minority, with an early trigger.
RIP Labor.
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The point we’ve been trying to make to hypo, for months.
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No.
You have been trying to ‘sell’ me something only a soon to be extinct caucus would want to buy.
Hence the answer
X
NO DEAL !
I’ll try my luck at rewarding neither,if it’s all the same.
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Bump,
what FGump posted ^ up yonder ^
“Dear Julia,please explain”,
http://polliter.com/2013/03/15/exclusive-aust-govt-bans-political-comment-on-twitter/?wprptest2=0
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Australia despite Abbott looming is still Nirvana. How would you feel living in Cyprus? Isn’t it amazing to simply deduct 10% from the locals bank accounts.
The 1492 billionaires in the world own 4.2 trillion. that 4.2 000.000.000.000.- (give and take a nought). Would it not make more sense to deduct 10% from them instead giving 42000 billion. That would even give a leg up to Spain, Greece, Italy as well as Cyprys.
For those keen to sign up to the European Union to teach them a lesson, here is you chance.
http://www.change.org/petitions/european-union-to-levy-10-on-world-s-1426-billionaires-instead-of-the-people-of-cyprus
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Sorry, that should have appeared at the bottom.
Australia despite Abbott looming is still Nirvana. How would you feel living in Cyprus? Isn’t it amazing to simply deduct 10% from the locals bank accounts.
The 1492 billionaires in the world own 4.2 trillion. that 4.2 000.000.000.000.- (give and take a nought). Would it not make more sense to deduct 10% from them instead giving 42000 billion. That would even give a leg up to Spain, Greece, Italy as well as Cyprys.
For those keen to sign up to the European Union to teach them a lesson, here is you chance.
http://www.change.org/petitions/european-union-to-levy-10-on-world-s-1426-billionaires-instead-of-the-people-of-cyprus
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The comments and replies end up in all sorts of weird places for some reason.This article is an example.It is like you comments end up halfway up the page.
Wordpus strikes again.
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Will everyone PLEASE leve Kevie Krudd alone please, he has my 100% support behind the backbenches. We set up a kindergarten table and chair set for him to play with Joel, Kimmy the Bowman, Craig, Peter and of course Tony and Julie.
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Peter who? Peter Costello?
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“When People Cannot See”
“Joel Fitzgibbon, who quit as chief government whip after the spill, says the ****majority of Caucus decided they would rather lose ****at the September poll than see the former prime minister return.”
Outspoken Labor historian and former New South Wales minister Rodney Cavalier says the party has no chance of winning the election in September.
He has renewed his call for widespread reform of the party and predicts Labor’s primary vote will drop dramatically over the next few weeks.
“The two words that one heard all of yesterday from ordinary people as well as commentators were ‘shambles’ and ‘farcical’ and it’s hard to counter with either description,” he said.
“I think they’ll go to 23 (per cent primary vote). In my view it doesn’t much matter once you’re below 35. You can’t win from 32 and you can’t win from 35.”
NBN Update for rural and semi-rural readers.Or slightly urban,in some cases.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-22/nbn-rollout-could-be-delayed-by-10-years3a-expert/4589520
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The two last questions in the Galaxy poll are the interesting ones.
They demonstrate a split (in real Labor voters) by way of logic
Click to access 133210-galaxy-poll.pdf
And I predict this to be the best polling until the election.Any spikes from here on in will be attributable to unsustainable pork-barrelling.
Which for 2 obvious reasons, are a waste.
The first being Labor won’t be there to implement the promise, and secondly the cash aint there.
Readers will of course note that ‘Galaxy’ is **always** written off by faux Labor voters.Except of course the bit they like where it supports their thin view.
I suspect the real poll will reflect a colder version of reality than any mini-poll which usually hovers on the side of optimism for sitting govts.
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Does the Crean really rise to the top?
Well he probably does if LJ is the opposition to a premise.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-28/the-27difficult27-war3a-howard-reflects-on-iraq/4600672
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