The Gillard Government

[Calliope]

The political agenda for 2013;

Gillard, the Labor Party and the union movement have a fierce emotional and institutional self-interest in Abbott's destruction, while Abbott, in turn, will perpetuate this issue to hurt Gillard's standing and further mobilise sentiment against the Labor brand with its union links and instances of corrupt behaviour.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...d-in-a-stalemate/story-e6frg74x-1226527044324

 

[DB008]

Some e-mails going around.....

Julia G might be forced into resigning because of AWU slush funds saga.
I'm watching the Shadow Attorney Generals (George Brandess) press conference and he is saying that Julia has broken the law "breached the commercial and crimanal law of WA".

 

[sptrawler]

Geez Danny, I'd love to be there when someone tells Gillard she is sacked, I reckon it would be classic.
It would be a dead cert to win "funniest home videos".
You reckon the Abbott spray went viral.
Imagine Swan, Shorten, Albanese and the boys after she read them "the riot act", with Tim in the background trying to look busy. That would be priceless

 

[Logique]

As a columnist, we pretty much know Piers Akerman's starting point, just as we know with Mike Carlton and Lenore Taylor. Anyway, Piers' latest offering, something about gooses and cooking, very seasonal -

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...-goose-is-cooked/story-e6frezz0-1226526946741

..Watching Gillard respond was like sitting through a pirated video of The Exorcist as she twisted and writhed and sneered and spat "negativity, sleaze and smear" across the chamber. She had earlier released a statement in which she accused the Liberals of running a witch hunt - a discredited smear campaign - and of having "nothing"..

..Re-reading her quotes and watching her performance and listening to her evasive, obfuscatory declamations, one wonders what happened to all that truth-telling. And its not just me. Early on Thursday I received a message on my blog from regular contributor, a dyed-in-the-wool Labor supporter who uses the name Judith. She wrote: "I must now eat humble pie. I have put some time into reading as much as I can about this sordid affair. It hurts me to the core to say this but Julia Gillard must step down..

 

[MrBurns]

As a columnist, we pretty much know Piers Akerman's starting point, just as we know with Mike Carlton and Lenore Taylor. Anyway, Piers' latest offering, something about gooses and cooking, very seasonal -

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/new...-1226526946741

..Watching Gillard respond was like sitting through a pirated video of The Exorcist as she twisted and writhed and sneered and spat "negativity, sleaze and smear" across the chamber. She had earlier released a statement in which she accused the Liberals of running a witch hunt - a discredited smear campaign - and of having "nothing"..

..Re-reading her quotes and watching her performance and listening to her evasive, obfuscatory declamations, one wonders what happened to all that truth-telling. And its not just me. Early on Thursday I received a message on my blog from regular contributor, a dyed-in-the-wool Labor supporter who uses the name Judith. She wrote: "I must now eat humble pie. I have put some time into reading as much as I can about this sordid affair. It hurts me to the core to say this but Julia Gillard must step down..

That is epic, couldn't have put it better myself, I might pinch (with attribution) it and post it on the ABC The Drum at next opportunity. Watch all the lefties go berserk

 

[drsmith]

Coalition 54% 2PP.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...axy-poll-reveals/story-fncvk70o-1226528115008

 

[Calliope]

Julia sees Abbott's promised judicial enquiry into union corruption as "sleaze and smear."

The Coalition has promised a judicial inquiry into union corruption if it wins the next election.

"Mr Abbott's made it perfectly clear that he's going to stay wedded to this sleaze and smear, not only now, but even if he was prime minister," Ms Gillard said

.

No doubt, the Union movement will be pouring considerable resources into the election in order to prevent their corruption practices being further exposed.

The irony is that the union members who are the victims of this corruption will be paying for the campaign, supported of course by money extorted from employers.

 

[noco]

Julia sees Abbott's promised judicial enquiry into union corruption as "sleaze and smear."

.

No doubt, the Union movement will be pouring considerable resources into the election in order to prevent their corruption practices being further exposed.

The irony is that the union members who are the victims of this corruption will be paying for the campaign, supported of course by money extorted from employers.

Yes Calliope, the unions will come out with all guns blazing.

But I would say there resources must be starting to diminish with unions members leaving in droves and companies who were once bribed may now stand up to these thugs.

 

[Julia]

In this mode, Julia Gillard fed a line to the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend that won her exactly the headline she wanted in a mass-circulation newspaper, repeated to thousands more through the News Ltd website: “Prime Minister’s $250 lifeline for families’ power bills”.

Above extract from Business Spectator.

There was some analysis of this proposal on Radio National's 'Breakfast' this morning.
The analyst suggested it was based on some optimistic assumptions (or words to that effect).

This is Gillard's specialty: the warm and fuzzy sounding headlines, viz saving households on electricity (never mind her input of the carbon tax, that doesn't count), the NDIS where only a very small trial is funded, and the Gonski reforms, the funding for which seems unknown.

She seems to operate on the probably correct belief that many people will just hear the headline stuff and not follow up on whether there's actually any account for how this magic will happen.

Perhaps something more for the Opposition to point out a bit more often.

Further extract from the Business Spectator article:

What is absolutely certain is that these new arrangements will not deliver a reduction in household or small business power bills.

This is borne out by what Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson has been saying – that the worst of the power bill hikes are over but Australians shouldn’t expect to see their costs going backwards unless they take action themselves to find a lower-cost supplier and to change their patterns of consumption.

It is also borne out by what the key COAG advisor on energy regulation, the Australian Energy Market Commission, has said after an intensive 18-month review of current arrangements that canvassed opinion widely, including from many consumer groups.

 

[bunyip]

The Darling Downs region in Queensland is one of the fastest growing areas in Australia, due mainly to the developing coal seam gas industry in the Surat Basin. Towns like Dalby, Chinchilla, Roma, Tara, Miles and a number of others are experiencing rapid growth, putting strain on all kinds of services.
Against this background of rapid growth and services that are struggling to cope, the Gillard government recently announced a 6.1 million dollar funding cut to the Darling Downs health budget. Queensland has lost 63.3 million dollars of federal government health funding so far this year,
In the usual pattern with Labor governments, Rudd and Gillard and her motley crew went nuts by splashing money around with reckless abandon, with the inevitable and predictable result that sooner or later the well would run dry and they’d have to make serious funding cuts.
It really is pathetic. Rapidly expanding regions of our country should receive increased federal funding. And that’s what would happen under a responsible and competent government. But Gillard and Co. are doing the opposite.
The Queensland Nurses Union is heavily critical of the Queensland LNP government for implementing cost-saving measures in Queensland Health. They should redirect their anger at the Federal Labor Government over their continued funding reductions to QLD.
Never yet have I seen a Labor government that was responsible and competent in handling money.

 

[drsmith]

Joe Hockey may well be right here.

The government was “crab walking away from the surplus so they can do what they do best”, he said.

“Once the shackles of any surplus are off, Labor will engage in reckless spending, especially given their $120 billion of unfunded promises,” Mr Hockey said.

A last ditch vote buying exercise in the lead up to the next election at the expense of future generations.

It's either that ot an early election for Labor.

http://afr.com/p/national/deficits_loom_for_next_two_years_9IYQAl8T3MgGl7r07rZObN

 

[IFocus]

I know its pointless adding balance to these threads below is the sort of spin I read here constantly

Pyne caught red-handed with the airbrush

Christopher Pyne had his airbrush out yesterday – erasing the entire global financial crisis from Australia's economic history.

"Well if there had been a Coalition government for the last five years ... I think most people accept that we would have had continuing surpluses," he told Sky television.

Actually most people do not accept that.

In 2009, a forecast $20 billion surplus became a $57 billion deficit in part because Labor spent more than $50 billion as stimulus in the face of an international economic meltdown and in part because company tax revenue collapsed due to the financial crisis.

Classic

For the record, he told Fairfax Media we were were taking his statements "too literally . . . I was simply making the point that the Coalition's economic management is better than Labor's".

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...he-airbrush-20121210-2b4rq.html#ixzz2EdLvG5Z6

In retrospect, what Mr Turnbull said looks pretty smart (he also argued it was implausible to effectively and efficiently spend $16 billion on school halls in the timeframe proposed and that the pink batts scheme should be means-tested or require a co-contribution from the householders, which might have saved a whole lot of pain) But even if Australia had done exactly as the Coalition said we should do at the time, we'd still have come out of the crisis about $180 billion in debt, rather than $200 billion. And the nation would still have run very large budget deficits.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...he-airbrush-20121210-2b4rq.html#ixzz2EdLo8ZwH

 

[Calliope]

Classic

Yes it really is classic how rusted-on lefties attempt to take the Focus off government failures by nit-picking about opposition statements. What on earth does Pyne have to do with Labor's massive deficits.:screwy:

 

[Macquack]

Yes it really is classic how rusted-on lefties attempt to take the Focus off government failures by nit-picking about opposition statements. What on earth does Pyne have to do with Labor's massive deficits.:screwy:

Nothing, but you would have to admit that Pyne is a pain in the ass.

 

[drsmith]

In retrospect, what Mr Turnbull said looks pretty smart (he also argued it was implausible to effectively and efficiently spend $16 billion on school halls in the timeframe proposed and that the pink batts scheme should be means-tested or require a co-contribution from the householders, which might have saved a whole lot of pain) But even if Australia had done exactly as the Coalition said we should do at the time, we'd still have come out of the crisis about $180 billion in debt, rather than $200 billion. And the nation would still have run very large budget deficits.

Rubbish.

That airbrushes all of Labor's other mistakes.

 

[drsmith]

Primary support for Labor sinks back to 32% on Newspoll.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...-stalls-newspoll/story-fn59niix-1226534075103

They are also going backwards again on Essential Media.

http://essentialvision.com.au/category/essentialreport

 

[IFocus]

Nothing, but you would have to admit that Pyne is a pain in the ass.

LOL good point.

 

[MrBurns]

Nothing, but you would have to admit that Pyne is a pain in the ass.

I actually like Pyne a lot, I know he has the born to rule attitude and silver spoon in the mouth way of talking BUT if you listen to him he's a very smart boy, makes a lot of sense.

 

[Calliope]

The gap is opening. Still time to desert the sinking ship Quack and Focus.

http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/12/11/1226534/149223-aus-na-file-federal-newspoll.pdf

 

[Calliope]

Gillard says she is not fazed over the Newspoll results. She says the next election will be decided on policies.