Kevin Rudd

[rhen]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

Rudd defends Bligh over conflict of interest claims
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/18/2308068.htm

The Courier-Mail can reveal Ms Bligh and husband Greg Withers enjoyed a three-week stay in January at the mansion of Thiess board member and former federal minister Ros Kelly.
In May, Thiess won the Airport Link project, valued at $3.4 billion.
Thiess's consortium bid, called BrisConnections, beat two others for the Airport Link project and associated infrastructure, including the Northern Busway and the Airport flyover, valued in total at $4.8 billion.

If it is not a conflict of interest then it's a case of dumb and dumber and dumbest...believe that?

 

[Julia]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

Rhen, you are just such a nasty cynic, aren't you. Ms Bligh was, in her words this evening, "just doing a favour for a friend: watering the plants, walking the dog". Oh really?
And they wonder why we don't hold them in high regard!

 

[hangseng]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

Simple question, simple answer:

Absolutely not.

Seems lost without a script to read from and the latest debacle of the LNG field in WA Kimberleys displayed Garrett has no idea. Add in the lack of foresight with alternate energy and they worry me.

 

[Julia]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

We have two by-elections coming up as a result of the retirement of Alexander Downer and Mark Vaile.

Are there any Labor supporters here who'd care to comment on the fact that Labor is not intending to stand a candidate in these?
Heavens, the Greens and the Democrats are going to put someone up.
Why are Labor being so spineless?
Aren't they failing the electorate by not giving the voters a full democratic choice?

 

[bvbfan]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

Mayo is a blue ribbon Liberal seat from what I've heard. No chance for the ALP

Vaile's I'm guessing is a fairly safe Nationals seat.

Still think they should put someone up

 

[Judd]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

I agree they should have an ALP candidate. It almost smacks of distain for the voters in the electorates.

An no Mr Rudd does not inspire confidence in me. He comes across as preaching. And his little lips purse-up as if he has been eating lemons. All he would need is a bit of rouge on his cheeks and he be perfect for a bit part in Blackadder III

No I didn't vote Liberal.

 

[Euler]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

...... And his little lips purse-up as if he has been eating lemons. All he would need is a bit of rouge on his cheeks and he be perfect for a bit part in Blackadder III .......

lol .. classic, Juddy, classic!!! ... did you write scripts for the Goons in a previous life.

PS .. you're playing great football on the paddocks too!

 

[Julia]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

I've been trying to work out why I dislike Mr Rudd so much, given that before he became leader of the ALP I thought he had a lot of promise. Somehow since becoming PM he seems to have turned into a sort of cardboard cutout, an automaton even. His speech is without inflection or emotion, and most things he says sound as though they are being read from a prepared script.

Reading Crikey.com this evening, the following passage summed it up pretty well. Does anyone else have this sense about our Leader?

We know less than any recent Prime Ministers -- less even than stone-faced Malcolm Fraser -- about what Rudd is actually like. With Hawke, Keating and Howard, what you saw was what you got, whether it was Hawke’s messianic self-conviction, Keating’s seamless combination of thug and big-picture visionary, or Howard’s sheer, dogged ordinariness.

Perhaps it's Rudd’s newcomer status. Politically, he’s only been on the scene five minutes, and unless you’re a regular Sunrise viewer you’re unlikely to have known much about Rudd before December 2006. But even so, Rudd has a detachment, perhaps best demonstrated by his habit of studiously ploughing through his paperwork while not at the Dispatch Box in Question Time, as if to say "you guys can engage in this theatre, but some of us have real work to do."

It’s verging on psychoanalytic bullsh-t to suggest Rudd’s family circumstances are at work here, but it’s hard to avoid the impression that a young, brilliant kid growing up in the backblocks of Queensland, having lost his dad when just 11, would develop as a defence mechanism a capacity to project an appropriate persona to people, while carefully insulating his real self from the outside world and the damage it can inflict.

The studied self-deprecation is another giveaway on this score. No one is under any illusions that Rudd knows how intelligent he is -- but his constant references to his nerdishness, to not having all the answers, looks like another defence mechanism -- a clever and appealing one -- but one that has been used by plenty of intelligent people to get along with the rest of us mere mortals.

Becoming Prime Minister -- as Boland notes in the book -- will only reinforce this. You’re a full-time public figure, perhaps the public figure, and your life is no longer your own. If Rudd has a tendency to hide himself, the demands of his current job will only exacerbate it. Inside Kevin 07 may not be the last book about the Rudd years in which the central figure seems curiously absent.

 

[nioka]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

I've been trying to work out why I dislike Mr Rudd so much, given that before he became leader of the ALP I thought he had a lot of promise. Somehow since becoming PM he seems to have turned into a sort of cardboard cutout, an automaton even. His speech is without inflection or emotion, and most things he says sound as though they are being read from a prepared script.

Reading Crikey.com this evening, the following passage summed it up pretty well. Does anyone else have this sense about our Leader?

Julia, I've been wondering why you seem to dislike him so much. Maybe you have found the answer.

I've had mixed feelings. When I look at the performance of his "crew" I am pleasantly surprised at their performance, especially Swan and Gillard. Maybe Rudd is a good organiser rather than a dominating leader as we have had in the past. He seems to have united a team behind him and maybe that is what has been lacking in the past. We are not doing too bad, as a country, considering the difficult world conditions. I doubt if there is a better alternative at this stage. He is making the hard decisions necessary with climate change, oil prices and our position in the world stage. I put him down as the quiet achiever.

I voted labor for the first time in a fairly long life to help get rid of Howard expecting it to be a one off but I'll stick with Rudd at this stage.

 

[Julia]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

I voted labor for the first time in a fairly long life to help get rid of Howard expecting it to be a one off but I'll stick with Rudd at this stage.

Nioka, if there were to be a change of leader for the Libs would you feel differently, and if so, who would that leader be?

I had felt very disappointed that Mal Brough lost his seat in the last election because I liked his straightforward style and apparent capacity to just 'get on with it'. But his histrionics over the Qld Presidency of the proposed new conservative party have been quite astonishing and have, as far as I'm concerned, relegated him to the ranks of the also-rans.

Would the public view Costello any more favourably if he were to make a come back to the front bench, perhaps take over the leadership?

Re your comments about the Labor team, I do have to concede several brownie points for Julia Gillard whose voice I just can't bear. She has demonstrated good judgement and sensible comment in pretty much everything I've heard her speak about. Much prefer her to her leader.
Nothing remotely kind to say about Mr Swan, however. Best to just shut up about him.

 

[nioka]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

Nioka, if there were to be a change of leader for the Libs would you feel differently, and if so, who would that leader be?

Definetely not Costello. A good brain but not a leader. Turnbull strikes me as having the potential but there is not a Liberal TEAM at the moment. They would have to define policy and be united behind it for me to be interested. I'd like to see a few more gifted independents in the house and have them unite to have the balance of power to keep the party that holds the reins in line. In other words they have neither a leader or a team.(or a policy for that matter)
The Howard years were wasted, the infrastructure necessary for this country to prosper was not put in place and time and money frittered away on grandstanding the world stage and living beyond our means.

 

[agro]

Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

anyone else get the feeling that our PM, kevin, seems to be out of the country more often than he is in the country?

also, the sense that he is trying to be a hero and save the world from global warming?

and seeing though Australia voted for change, we have got change, inflation (higher interest rates), union strikes (truckies), does not want to take the tax cap of petrol prices, and a whole lot of other things i could go on and on about

i think we would have been 100 times better under an experienced liberal government who had a proven record (if only Howard gave acceptance to Costello running the party) but that's how it goes..

/vent - hope i don't get flamed now

 

[fordxbt]

Re: Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

lets be honest now who wouldnt be having a tax-payed holiday if they were in his position
id start with the caribbean 'urgh, pollution of the sea, have to check this one out..'

 

[robots]

Re: Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

hello,

yes totally agro,

look at the issues of credit crunch, when Howard went the "world" got smashed,

Howard was the WORLD leader

thankyou
robots

 

[wayneL]

Re: Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

also, the sense that he is trying to be a hero and save the world from global warming?

Tilting at windmills....

...he should change his name to Don Quixote

 

[shmi]

Re: Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

i dont think that agro was inferring that howard was a world leader or anything of the such, more that in terms of massive change that are unstoppable (ie world economic collapse) then it would be better to have experienced people in power that has really kept Aust in above average condition then take a punt on some change.

 

[subaru69]

Re: Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

KRudd, in one word it says so much.

The best thing that I can say is he won a popularity poll, unfortunately it means he gets to run the country.

The Minister for Rock Bands, when he was with Green Peace, protested a company my friend was running about some environmental thing they weren't even doing and cost them $M's in lost production.

KRudd comes out and says Bill Henson is 2nd to a paedophile, then the case gets thrown out and Garrett says it's a victory for common sense/ freedom of speech or whatever.

The wrong time, for the wrong causes.

ASF should set up a 'Watch' of some sort to keep the markets under control, or would we be infringing KRudd's intellectual property?

My head hurts, will stop now.

 

[Julia]

Re: Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

also, the sense that he is trying to be a hero and save the world from global warming?

Yes. I think it's more about Kevin and his CV than actually a concern for the environment etc. He's mightily concerned about his image, both here and even more importantly, abroad.

and seeing though Australia voted for change, we have got change, inflation (higher interest rates), union strikes (truckies), does not want to take the tax cap of petrol prices

:Not just the truckies, Agro. Also electricity workers and Qantas engineers.
Can anyone quote specific strikes during the Howard government? I don't remember any but could have forgotten. Can't help getting the feeling that the unions (as part of the ubiquitous 'working families') are thinking they can have a field day with strikes now that they have a sympathetic Labor government.

i think we would have been 100 times better under an experienced liberal government who had a proven record (if only Howard gave acceptance to Costello running the party) but that's how it goes..

/vent - hope i don't get flamed now

The latest poll affirms this. But let's not get carried away about Costello.
He failed to garner the numbers to challenge Howard, has over the years shown a propensity for 'lack of ticker' and the capacity to sulk. Suspect we are showing a fondness for him now simply because of the paucity of alternative within the Libs.

 

[wayneL]

Re: Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

Like I said before the election. The best thing for the Liberal party was to lose.

Kev will get the blame for all the economic malaise currently infecting the world and it will give the Libs 3 years to sort themselves out sans Johnny Rotten.

If the Libs had won, they would cop the blame and spend the pursuing ten years in the wilderness... and you would have had to put up with Johnny Rotten for three more years.

If the Libs can get themselves sorted, they'll win next time again and stay for at least another three terms.

Kevo will be history.

Sorted.

 

[nioka]

Re: Kevin 07 or Kevin 747

Ask yourself this question; Would "things" be any better if howard was still leader and in power"?

Honestly now, party politics aside.