Rudd and the stockmarket

[Rafa]

Re: Labor and the stockmarket

theres already an old thread called Rudd and the Stockmarket...

This topic has been done to death, please find that thread and post comments there if you so wish.
And Mime, you already know about that thread, you've posted in it before, why start another one???

 

[mime]

Re: Labor and the stockmarket

I posted that old thread but I feel that this issue deserves a new thread.

 

[Joe Blow]

Re: Labor and the stockmarket

I posted that old thread but I feel that this issue deserves a new thread.

mime,

I don't see enough of a reason to have two separate threads on what are essentially the same issue - i.e. Rudd/Labor party effect on the stockmarket.

No reason why this question can't be discussed in this thread also.

 

[Rafa]

Thanks Joe...

And to answer your question mime... NO!

 

[sharechaser]

Re: Labor and the stockmarket

theres already an old thread called Rudd and the Stockmarket...

This topic has been done to death, please find that thread and post comments there if you so wish.
And Mime, you already know about that thread, you've posted in it before, why start another one???

Didn't see this thread so posted in the new one, my bad. Thanks for the re-direction.

 

[DB008]

The problem with the unions is that they price themselves out of the market. I have moved over here to WA because of the mining boom. I have heard so many stories about what the unions get upto. Like a bunch of school kids to be honest.
And to think that they might be running to ecomony is very scary to be honest.
Going on strike because there are only 2 flavours instead of 3 on the minesite. The truck for food is delayed because of heavy rain some 500kms away, roads r washed out, and the other flavour of ice cream can't arrive for another week. Woohoo, strike for another week! You've got to be kidding me!!!!
That's just one of 100's of stories l've heard. It's a wonder anything gets done over here. Then again, WA is like 20 years behind the rest of Oz. I know, l have lived almost all over Oz and been around the world several times.
Just my 2 cents worth though.

 

[Rafa]

no worries sharechaser...

See article below from todays Australian... (a paper that generally supports the Libs)...

Scare tactics ignore history
by Mike Steketee - The Australian’s national affairs editor.
Thursday, June 21, 2007


GREG Combet said it only once but the Howard Government has replayed it countless times: “I recall we used to run the country, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we did again.”

It was a year ago at a union rally and the ACTU secretary raised a laugh, which was the idea. But it was not the humour that tickled the Government’s fancy but rather the comment’s potential to feed straight into the mother of all scare campaigns against Labor.

Admittedly, the Combet scenario is pretty frightening. Look at what happened when unions previously ran the country. This bleak period started in 1983, with the election of union boss Bob Hawke as prime minister. The horrors that were visited on us included slashing tariffs that were protecting manufacturing jobs; floating the dollar; deregulating the financial system, including allowing foreign banks into the country to compete with home-grown ones; and, to add insult to injury, privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank, together with other icons such as Qantas.

The unions, or most of them, opposed all of these measures, but don’t be fooled by that. They wielded real power when the government made them partners in the Accord. And guess what they did with it? They slowed wages growth by accepting rises in the “social wage” - tax cuts, superannuation and government spending in areas such as health and welfare - as a substitute for part of their wage claims.

It was a successful prescription, given there was a centralised industrial relations system that had allowed wages and inflation under the Fraser government - with John Howard as treasurer - to rise rapidly as successful claims in one industry flowed to others. The Accord allowed profit levels to recover, encouraging investment, faster growth and ultimately higher employment.

These days, Howard delights in contrasting the higher real wages growth under his Government with that under Labor. The reason for the difference is that by the time he was elected in 1996, the profit share had risen, giving scope for wages to start increasing again. They are still rising after inflation but not as fast as profits, which are at record levels.

Of course, we know there are some nasty union leaders just waiting for Labor to get back into power before they run rampant. Just look at what happened when union bosses such as Norm Gallagher, secretary of the Builders Labourers’ Federation, were given their heads. If you haven’t heard much about the BLF for a while, that is because it was put out of business in 1986 - by the Hawke government in Canberra and the Cain Labor government in Victoria.

Gallagher and the boys were famous for the ways in which they made employers sit up and take notice, by walking off the job in the middle of concrete pours, which did not do wonders for productivity, let alone profits.

Gallagher was an ardent communist (Maoist wing) but he was broadminded enough to stick his hand out for some fat developers’ commissions that allowed him to build a nice little beach house. When police had the effrontery to charge him, solidarity demanded the BLF slap bans on Melbourne building sites to force the state government to drop the charges. It didn’t, Gallagher went to jail and the Hawke and Cain governments legislated to deregister the BLF, meaning it could no longer represent its members before industrial tribunals. For good measure, the Cain government ordered police to raid BLF headquarters and seize its assets.

It was the Hawke government, too, which in 1989 broke the domestic pilots strike and destroyed their union by using military aircraft, foreign pilots and international airlines to carry passengers. Some claimed Hawke was doing the bidding of his friend Peter Abeles of Ansett. But that could not be right, because Hawke was a union boss.

Former Federated Municipal and Shire Council Employees’ Union junior official Paul Keating was in thrall to the union bosses as well. Just look at what he cooked up, once he became prime minister, with then ACTU secretary Bill Kelty. They introduced enterprise bargaining, which sounded the death knell for centralised wage fixing. It also led to a substantial increase in labour productivity, more than the Howard Government’s favoured Australian Workplace Agreements are likely to produce. That is because there is more scope to find ways to work more efficiently when an employer negotiates collectively with employees than when he or she reaches agreements with individual workers.

What accounts for such unfriendly behaviour by union bosses-turned-politicians? Believe it or not, once they have managed to claw their way in to office, they want to get re-elected, and being seen to govern for only one part of the community is not the best way to do it.

That is not to say Rudd government legislation would not be more favourable to unions. Given the Howard Government has stripped them of most of their rights, it could hardly be tougher on them. But as someone who did not come up through the unions, Rudd is even less likely to see eye-to-eye with them on many issues than did Labor leaders of the past. He would have the authority of an election win to stand up to rogue unions.

Sure, Combet and former ACTU presidents Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean would play a part in his government, but they would be no more successful in wrecking the economy than was Hawke.

When the Prime Minister says, as he did last week, that Rudd is the “patsy, the proxy, the delegate, the surrogate of the union movement”, you’d better believe it. And that goes for his Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey as well when he asks, as he did on Sunday: “Does anyone seriously think that the Labor Party is going to stand up to the trade union bosses when it comes to the construction industry? They’ve got no history of doing it.”

Doubting these assertions would require looking back over a longer period than the past three months, and there’s no time for that in an election year.

 

[arminius]

a succinct article.
the howard government indeed lives by one strategy...the politics of fear.

it is a shame that so many intelligent aussies will succumb, as evidenced by these threads, in this 'information age'. im sorry, but if they get back in i will regard my fellow punters cowardly fools.

this is the most important election in a looong time. please get the facts before you vote fellas.
hooroo.

 

[trading_rookie]

Apologies for the late replies…have been very busy of late.

I agree with most of your statements...
But where do you see this race towards the smart low paid workers ending?

Hey Rafa, you mean the end? The bitter end? Who knows, undercutting is out of the question, could you imagine our almost defunct rag trade trying to undercut 15c or less an hour.

Maybe sacrificing part of your salary with a bonus scheme in place could entice at least some of the Australian companies to shelve overseas contracts. Meet your targets and get up to 15-30% of your salary paid as a bonus. But that’s not working ‘smarter’ that’s smart people working harder ;-)

At the end of the day, it’s not only national but international companies that we have to convince to keep a footprint here in Australia – I work for a global player who had no problem relocating almost 75% of a smart workforce offshore. Biggest factor was the strong value of the dollar – it was cheaper to setup business here initially, but now they can get 3 engineers for the cost of one here.

Singapore is not a great example.

How come? Is it because of their political climate? Singapore is a great example of a country that went from a back water to a major player.

norway, denmark etc pay a lot of tax but health and education are first class and free

You can thank the abolishment of free education to former ACTU president/ Labor PM Bob Hawke for the introduction of HECS. Hawke got a free ride while many of us had to pay.

we cannot compete in the world market on price. the only way is quality. we cant make cheap cars, but we could make damn good ones. how many of you drive exy euro cars, when a hyundai is half the price?

We can continue our Coaliton of the Willing theme and go off and liberate and bring democracy to those who ‘need’ it and them lock them into long term reconstruction and trade agreements ;-)

At the other end, movie location sets and special effects might be cheaper but the other clincher to get a Hollywood production made in Melbourne was our IR laws.

So the Coalition is right, their new IR laws means more work downunder ;-)

personally, i struggle to get by financially but i accept that. i just wonder though if students had more time to study, and not work 3 days a week, how much intellectual capital would our students have. our science student is not finding the cure for cancer because he is stacking shelves at woolies. (for 8 bucks an hour-take it or leave it) more austudy isnt going to happen- just a thought though.

If uni students weren’t stacking shelves at Woolies they’d be at the pub pissing it up not studying. Staying up all night to complete assignments while having to get up in the morning to complete a work shift is fine tuning your time management skills, a great skill for corporate jobs ;-)

Firstly, to answer the quote in bold: Research indicates that education plays a crucial role as to where businesses will locate themselves. At the end of the day, wages play a small role in locations for head offices. If wages were an issue, head offices wouldn't have moved from Perth and Adelaide to Melbourne and Sydney in the 90s and early 00s. Wages were undeniably higher there (Sydney and Melbourne) then. So why did they move? Because that is where the most highly educated graduates are located.

Chops, I was referring to the actual workers (office and/or floor) not Head Office. It’s not difficult to employ cheap middle management to look after your cheap labour be it factory floor or back office duties that report back to a Sydney or Melbourne based HQ. A cost cutting exercise that most execs have already executed to cut expenditure.

Why do you think just about every major tech company in the world has their head office near Austin or in Silicon Vallley? It certainly isn't because, "wages are lower" but it is where the suitable graduates for the companies are located. If anything, I'd say Austin has some of the wealthiest paid workers in the world, so to me, wages are a furfy. Business head to where they can get abundant staff for the appropriate field.

Ask yourself how many of those tech companies located in either Austin or in the Silicon Valley haven’t either toyed with the idea or done a feasibility study re: offshoring. Better still, list all the companies in these two cities…including the big one in Seattle and see how many already have a large footprint in India. It’s a competitve market out there and execs know their customers want to reduce the costs’ for the services they pay; cost cutting to increase margins is the only option.

NAB here in Australia are already starting to shift application maintenance and project work to India. Seems the NAB has an interest in low-cost, high-skilled labour in India. (Source: my monthly subscription to MIS June 2007 pg 14)

So chops you’re right, MNC’s want good skilled labour…the cheaper the better! ;-)

 

[trading_rookie]

a succinct article.
the howard government indeed lives by one strategy...the politics of fear.

it is a shame that so many intelligent aussies will succumb, as evidenced by these threads, in this 'information age'. im sorry, but if they get back in i will regard my fellow punters cowardly fools.

Mind boggling indeed. Somehow if one votes for the Coalition at the next elections, they’re labelled cowardly fools. On what assumption Arminus?

I see you as a fool for believing the article was concise in it’s look back at the history of the ALP and somehow trying to win favour over the reader that the current ALP leader has the right stuff to carry the torch.

Infact, let me explain…

GREG Combet said it only once but the Howard Government has replayed it countless times: “I recall we used to run the country, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we did again.”

It was a year ago at a union rally and the ACTU secretary raised a laugh, which was the idea. But it was not the humour that tickled the Government’s fancy but rather the comment’s potential to feed straight into the mother of all scare campaigns against Labor.

The thought of Burrows or anyone else from the ACTU running the country will be a ‘scare’. Reminiscing about the good ole’ days would make most of the 85% or so Australians who aren’t part of a union tremble in fear if they get a chance to run the country again. Come to think of it, with every federal ALP MP a member of a trade union, that could again become a reality…not a Combet ‘joke’.

Reminds me of QLD Premier Beattie. Not only Premier but also top honcho with the QLD Railway Union, the very union dragging it’s feet to help speed up coal exports.
I mean who really cares if we’ve pee’d off a customer from Korea who like Aus is losing money over this ‘bludging’ attitude, unions and the worker first right?

Admittedly, the Combet scenario is pretty frightening. Look at what happened when unions previously ran the country. This bleak period started in 1983, with the election of union boss Bob Hawke as prime minister. The horrors that were visited on us included slashing tariffs that were protecting manufacturing jobs; floating the dollar; deregulating the financial system, including allowing foreign banks into the country to compete with home-grown ones; and, to add insult to injury, privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank, together with other icons such as Qantas.

Oh love the journo’s sarcasm!, but he’s having a lend of himself if he thinks he can compare the past with the present, That is, I-want-everyone-to-love-me cardboard cutout Rudd who needs advisors to inform him what side of the bed to get out of in the morning to a Hawke or Keating.

The unions, or most of them, opposed all of these measures, but don’t be fooled by that. They wielded real power when the government made them partners in the Accord. And guess what they did with it? They slowed wages growth by accepting rises in the “social wage” - tax cuts, superannuation and government spending in areas such as health and welfare - as a substitute for part of their wage claims.

If that’s the case, then why aren’t they happy with the Coalition? Afterall, superannuation has never been so good, and the tax cuts, so many that Swan still hasn’t had time to update the ALP’s tax reforms. That would be because they’re sensing they’re day in the sun now. Rudd is weak compared to Keating who had no problem getting the unions in a ‘headlock’ until they agreed with him.

It was a successful prescription, given there was a centralised industrial relations system that had allowed wages and inflation under the Fraser government - with John Howard as treasurer - to rise rapidly as successful claims in one industry flowed to others. The Accord allowed profit levels to recover, encouraging investment, faster growth and ultimately higher employment.

These days, Howard delights in contrasting the higher real wages growth under his Government with that under Labor. The reason for the difference is that by the time he was elected in 1996, the profit share had risen, giving scope for wages to start increasing again. They are still rising after inflation but not as fast as profits, which are at record levels.

Yeah, yeah, yeah the jury is still out on that one…

Of course, we know there are some nasty union leaders just waiting for Labor to get back into power before they run rampant. Just look at what happened when union bosses such as Norm Gallagher, secretary of the Builders Labourers’ Federation, were given their heads. If you haven’t heard much about the BLF for a while, that is because it was put out of business in 1986 - by the Hawke government in Canberra and the Cain Labor government in Victoria.

Gallagher and the boys were famous for the ways in which they made employers sit up and take notice, by walking off the job in the middle of concrete pours, which did not do wonders for productivity, let alone profits.

Gallagher was an ardent communist (Maoist wing) but he was broadminded enough to stick his hand out for some fat developers’ commissions that allowed him to build a nice little beach house. When police had the effrontery to charge him, solidarity demanded the BLF slap bans on Melbourne building sites to force the state government to drop the charges. It didn’t, Gallagher went to jail and the Hawke and Cain governments legislated to deregister the BLF, meaning it could no longer represent its members before industrial tribunals. For good measure, the Cain government ordered police to raid BLF headquarters and seize its assets.

The BLF put out of business? Don’t think so, the QLD branch still exists, and I’m pretty sure that’s the noisy former BLF branches of NSW and VIC we see dictating and harassing all and sundry, not to mention demanding their ‘comrades’ be paid for striking of all things under the CFMEU banner.

How’s that saying go…oh yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It was the Hawke government, too, which in 1989 broke the domestic pilots strike and destroyed their union by using military aircraft, foreign pilots and international airlines to carry passengers. Some claimed Hawke was doing the bidding of his friend Peter Abeles of Ansett. But that could not be right, because Hawke was a union boss.

To borrow this journo’s style of sarcasm…Hawke was voted in via the radical left because he was a communist, ‘but that could not be right, because Hawke said he wasn’t a communist’.

Again, he’s having a lend of himself if he thinks Hawke didn’t help out a mate. Maybe he should have watched Air Australia that was recently aired on the ABC before putting his foot in it. If there’s one thing that the late Abeles learnt from the late Ansett it was making sure you had the right friends in the right places. Like Ansett’s connections with the Victorian Premier who made sure ‘northern’ shareholders like the late Abeles couldn’t take control of Ansett Airlines…the first time around ;-)

What did Hawke achieve? He brought in foreign pilots to replace ‘seasoned’ Australian ones who got paid a yearly wage to renew their license once a year while going back to their farms or businesses. He got them to sign an agreement that was six pages long as opposed to being something the thickness of the yellow pages.

Kinda like what Howard did with the MUA and what he’s proposing now, but Hawke is the hero, Howard the villain…doesn’t make sense.

Former Federated Municipal and Shire Council Employees’ Union junior official Paul Keating was in thrall to the union bosses as well. Just look at what he cooked up, once he became prime minister, with then ACTU secretary Bill Kelty. They introduced enterprise bargaining, which sounded the death knell for centralised wage fixing. It also led to a substantial increase in labour productivity, more than the Howard Government’s favoured Australian Workplace Agreements are likely to produce. That is because there is more scope to find ways to work more efficiently when an employer negotiates collectively with employees than when he or she reaches agreements with individual workers.

Let’s ask the miners of WA if enterprise bargaining is better than an AWA ;-) And the nerve to mention ‘productivity’! not one of Rudd’s strong points is it ;-)

What accounts for such unfriendly behaviour by union bosses-turned-politicians? Believe it or not, once they have managed to claw their way in to office, they want to get re-elected, and being seen to govern for only one part of the community is not the best way to do it.

That is not to say Rudd government legislation would not be more favourable to unions. Given the Howard Government has stripped them of most of their rights, it could hardly be tougher on them. But as someone who did not come up through the unions, Rudd is even less likely to see eye-to-eye with them on many issues than did Labor leaders of the past. He would have the authority of an election win to stand up to rogue unions.

Hahahaha, the ACTU have him so wrapped around their finger he can’t speak without their permission! Look at him squirm, he so wants to support the AWA’s afforded to miners but he’ll end up with a slap on the wrist. Well that’s what the ALP get for outsourcing Industrial Relations to the ACTU.

To think, the ‘fiscal conservative’ ala Rudd thought he was so smug when he appointed Sir Rod Eddington (the one Gillard refers to as just another voice) to chair the federal ALP’s council of business advisers, and every ALP MP has flatly rejected. Seems they’re more interested in keeping the trade unions they’re member of happy rather than Australian businesses. So much for ALP being for productivity ;-)

 

[trading_rookie]

Apparently, I exceeded the text length, so I've had to break my post into two parts...

Sure, Combet and former ACTU presidents Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean would play a part in his government, but they would be no more successful in wrecking the economy than was Hawke.

Ferguson and Crean are practically hanging onto their seats in the Upper House – literally, on the outer. They’re definitely not part of Rudd’s dream team. No not like the ‘human sound effects man’ Albanese who no doubt thinks he’s at a union rally with all that noise he makes and walking up and down the floor.

At least Crean had the common sense to realise the ALP was on the outer with the Australian people because of their heavy trade union influence. He was on a good thing when he proposed reducing their influence from a staggering 60% to what was it? 50-40%. That’s why he finds himself having to battle pre-selection.

Face facts, most Australians workers don’t want to go back to the bad old days of not only being bullied by bosses but also by their union reps who demanded a fee for the ‘privilege’. Would probably explain why Tony Blair and his party is streets ahead of the Tories, fiscal conservatives with a social conscience and minimal union influence.

When the Prime Minister says, as he did last week, that Rudd is the “patsy, the proxy, the delegate, the surrogate of the union movement”, you’d better believe it. And that goes for his Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey as well when he asks, as he did on Sunday: “Does anyone seriously think that the Labor Party is going to stand up to the trade union bosses when it comes to the construction industry? They’ve got no history of doing it.”

Doubting these assertions would require looking back over a longer period than the past three months, and there’s no time for that in an election year.

And that’s the problem with this article, it fixates too much on the past when the ALP had leaders of the calibre of Hawke and Keating…Rudd is a ‘patsy and proxy’ who jumps on any bandwagon, be it global warming, carbon trading, or housing affordability’, once the policy is no longer flavour of the week, he’s onto something else that might strike a chord with the public. Too busy wanting to be popular rather than standing by his convictions. That’s the kind of leader we need, not someone who’s going to dazzle us with his fluency of Mandarin.

Before I forget, speaking of housing affordability, maybe Rudd should get his state premier mates to abolish stamp duties and start using all those billions of dollars in GST they’ve collected for (as this journo puts it) the social wage – you know, health and welfare, that way pensioners, like those of NSW won’t have to lose those privileges the Iemma government is talking about.

 

[Julia]

Somewhat reassuring article from Aireview regarding minimal difference in the stock market whichever party is in power.

http://www.aireview.com.au/index.php?act=view&catid=8&id=6418&setSub=1

 

[ideaforlife]

I really don't understand people who want Labour simply becasue want to have a change when Liberal has been in power for too long. Why the hell do people want to leave this wonderful economy, lowest employment and plenty of others? Use sense!!!

Apart from the integrity of Rudd - let's not talk about it, for God's sake, they are politicians, Rudd wants to appear to be intelligent and capable and different but I read one of the articles he wrote on Christianity actually it's full of cliche and cut & paste of others' works. Although Rudd might be the best in Labour, look at the state governments, whole bunch of imbecils having no sense of whatsoever. Ok, if you believe Labour is more environment conscious than liberal, let's' not talk about environment has to be backed by prosperous economy, just look at the decision of desalination plants - it consumes chemicals, energy, damages the oceanic environment. It still gets go ahead despite the fact that NSW just had its biggest rainfall. The reason? the investment in rain tank installed in each household, as suggested by Howard, doesn't generate revenue to the local government. Do Labour stick to what they claim they believe? NO! What I see is simple, more people go to work, bring income home, so our consumption ability is increasing, more and mroe luxury goods are coming to Australia and people get to enjoy more good things from the world.

ps. (what it would be like when you don't have a work while still have to pay for high energy bills because all renewable energy cost much more than traditional energy. but don't wrong me that I don't care about environment. Global warming is more of a politically manipulated lie that fact. The correlation between temperature and CO2 emossion is too fragile to be tested given a reasonable lengthy time frame. This cold winter across eastern coast here gives global warming abother laughter)

 

[Warren Buffet II]

Kevin Rudd is a union puppet and that says it all.

I do not want to say that he is an idiot or an imbecil.

Go Johnny, keep the good work and bring more prosperity to this country.

WBII

 

[Rafa]

Somewhat reassuring article from Aireview regarding minimal difference in the stock market whichever party is in power.

http://www.aireview.com.au/index.php?act=view&catid=8&id=6418&setSub=1

yeah, i saw that... it obviously doens't matter who is in charge.


ideaforlife...
its for that very reason, i am not voting howard...

the economy doesnt care whose in power, the stockmarket doesnt care whose in power, the unions are not going to end the mining boom if labor gets elected...

its all a scare campaign to prevent people from voting howard out for all the morally irrephrensible things he has done...

this election, its time to vote on whats morally right.... the economy can well take care of its self now given that its pretty much completely de-regulated.

 

[ideaforlife]

My goodness, Rafa, i can't believe that you don't care whose hands you entrust your country in! Are you saying that it doesn't matter how they spend the money or make a budget (not saying Howard is perfect)? It's like saying it doesn't matter whether its Greenspan or who in the position of Chairman of US federal reserver. It does make a difference!!

Ok, coming back to morality, would you trust Rudd's integrity more than Howard when the former lied about even his meeting Burk? and how many times they met?!! Rudd's wife allegedlly and unknowlingly underpaid her staff? Given more spotlight more of lies would be exposed to the public.

It doesn't matter whether Howards have had private dinner with Costellos as long as they make right and consensus decisions for the country!

 

[chops_a_must]

It doesn't matter whether Howards have had private dinner with Costellos as long as they make right and consensus decisions for the country!

Just like he did for Iraq?

 

[ideaforlife]

Just like he did for Iraq?

You see, I do think it's a mistake to go into the war in Iraq but many people don't see the strategic implications in this involvement. Oh, well, I'm not a political commetator, just to express my opinions here or vent my spleen, no need to defend myself. Stop here.

Cheers

 

[chops_a_must]

You see, I do think it's a mistake to go into the war in Iraq but many people don't see the strategic implications in this involvement. Oh, well, I'm not a political commetator, just to express my opinions here or vent my spleen, no need to defend myself. Stop here.

Cheers

The premise of the argument for war had nothing to do with "strategic involvement". How many intellectual classifications or literary works can we assign to the shenanigans that are being employed right now?

"We were never at war with them." "Or for that reason." Geez.

We truly are living in an Idiocracy, and Howard knows how to play the majority of Australians like the idiots they are. He's got what morons crave! Yeah, he's got sophistry.

 

[ideaforlife]

Rafa, I just saw your ealier post with a paste from the Australian. Yes, it used to support Howard. But don't you know Murdoch has recently expressed his support for Rudd? Murdoch is renowned for his manipulations of sayings in his papers. And I guess in this case you have again been manipulated by media or you chose to be biased by this particular media. But pasting a commentator article from a newpaper is not convincing enough.


There is a saying: three things not to be talked about: sexuality, drugs and politics.