Abbott is apparently thinking of trying to woo the independents. I dont think this is a good idea. They cant be trusted and have shown that they care about nothing other than their own hides.
Oakshott and Windsor would have preferenced the coalition ahead of labor on their how-to-vote cards, and then "preferred" labor in parliament.
That is straight up deception and it may well reveal curruption.
The coalition won that election. The people in the independent's electorates would have voted coalition if they knew how the independents were going to behave. The preference of the people of Australia and of those in these electorates was clear and was totally disregarded by the independents.
I want to know why.
We know one thing for sure: that the Tamworth Two sided with the government because they felt there were more likely to sit for a full term than the Libs, by Windsor's own admission. STOP. REWIND. Windsor openly admitted defying the will of the nation in order to remain in the manner to which he had become accustomed for as long as possible. He knows he is toast at the next election after what he did.
As for Oakshott. What does he get if he runs the full three years. He gets set up for life. He wants his pension, and he only gets it if he sits as an MP for two full terms. Thanks a bunch Oakyboy. Now we all have to work our fingers to the bone and watching Labor waste our tax money on one ill-fated misguided project after another, just so you can avoid work at all.
But Oakshott and Windsor are honourable men. NOT!!!!!
The anti-curruption enquiry into Oakshott allegedly helping a local company dump toxic waste needs to be prosecuted to the hilt. He should be forced to resign so there is no longer a labor majority. Then an election will be called and the Australian people will finally have their voices heard, dispite the best efforts of the Labor party and their self-serving mates.
There can no negotiation with liars and cheats
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
TRUE SHIT
Speaking of pretentious people and things, has anyone seen Red Hill yet? I saw in the The Age (i occasionally flick to the front page of the site to get a feel for just how moronic leftards are being on any given day) that the movie tanked on it's opening weekend. I thought, hey i'll give an "Aussie western" set in the high country a chance. Anyone who is expecting True Grit will be bitterly disappointed, as was I. This was True Shit.
I'll begin at the beginning, which was terrible. A strange snarling presence in nearby picturesque hills is sensed by horses in a field, and spooks them. But the director didn't want to scare horses so he filmed a flock of cockatoos flying away with neighing sounds overdubbed to give you the "vibe" of a stampede. Lame does not begin to describe. Incidentally the origin of this snarling turned out to be a panther let loose in the Australian Alps, who made an appearance later on, but had nothing more than a metaphorical relation to the storyline. It was part of the opening scene, and yet it had no impact on the plot whatsoever. This was really, really bad writing.
The hero of the film is a city cop about 25 who moves to the country. He gets' a gruff and nasty reception from the local country cops. They and all the country people in the film are portrayed was either violent rednecks or weak morons. The reason for the move is because the hero's wife needs quiet surroundings because of a troubled pregnancy. After this point is established, the wife and the pregnancy have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. The hero sees his wife for 2 minutes at the start and 2 minutes just before the end. at these times their dialog is nothing more than cooing noises. Basically female characters did not exist in this film and those that do are sheltered from being part of the story.
That wouldn't matter so much if the hero was not also sheltered from being part of the story. The hero does not actually do anything for the entire film that actually affects of diverts the flow of events, he just sorta watches it all happen. He watches as the "bad guy" slaughters a bunch of cops in a remote town one after the other. This execution process is dragged out for 2 hours. There is basically enough action for one 30 min cop show. Typical of most Aussie scripts there is really really poor timing and contempt for the audiences desire to actually be entertained.
But back to the hero. He did have a tiny bit of an arc, because at the beginning he admitted to his commanding officer that he was unable to shoot a kid back in the city who pulled a gun on him, resulting in himself being shot (but clearly surviving). When he justifies his action to his CO saying "maybe he just needed help, not a bullet". The other cop's reply is "We'd be having a very different conversation if you were dead". Actually, they wouldn't be having a conversation at all. But stupid dialog aside, the hero's arc is to try an overcome his inability to shoot people. He achieves this in the end when he all-off-a-sudden discovers he has a quick-draw super-accurate shooting arm. Duh.
But the worst part about the film was not it's poor pacing, irrelevant characters and b-stories, implausible scenarios or character actions. It was it's predictability. About 15 mins into the film we find out, thanks to the cliche of a news report in the background, that an inmate has escaped prison, and is armed and dangerous, and he's aboriginal. It was clear at that point that this person was the "bad guy" but he could never be the real bad guy and the real bad guys would be racist redneck country cops. Of course those cops had conspired to send an innocent man to jail and he was after payback, and the movie would inevitably and predictably just be a playing out of this revenge tail. At some point later on we would find out the real story and realise that the killer was fully justified in murdering every adult male in a country town.
So the real protagonist is the Aboriginal guy, his name is Jimmy. But he is not given an dialog until the very end when he gets one line. He just looks scary and kills people. Is that racist? Probably. Anyway the white hero has nothing do to because the righteous path is being followed by the aboriginal guy as he dispatches all the cops and other bumkins, and if the hero disrupted the carnage then that would be against the flow of the morality tale. In fact the hero aides this process. It is the hero's inability to shoot crims that precipitates this whole chain of events when he fails in his duty to protect the town from the escapee, by putting down his gun when confronted by him on the high road on the edge of town. It doesn't occur to the hero that an armed ex-con is entering the town where his pregnant wife and child are located, bent on slaughter. Or maybe it does, but he has some sixth sense that the man aiming a gun at his head does not want to kill anyone who doesn't deserve it. I mean as if. As it happens the Aboriginal guy does not shoot the hero at this point because the hero manages to clumsily fall off a cliff instead. Talk about a useless cop.
At the end (i presume anyone reading this far does not care about spoilers) the white hero finds out the full story of what the locals did to Jimmy and his wife before Jimmy was sent to jail. He does not find this out from detective work. He just get's lucky and finds a repentant redneck who spills the beans before hanging himself. Once again the hero cop fails to stop someone from dying. Then he calls for backup from a nearby town and tries to arrest the real bad guys. It is at this point he discovers he is a crack shot when he has to kill a couple of yokels, in self defense naturally. But Jimmy the Aboriginal guy is given the honour of killing the head yokel (i'm tellin ya he's the real protagonist) and he does this in full view of the cops just arrived from the nearby town. Of course these cops dont know the full story and respond by killing the Aboriginal guy. The white hero once again just watches on as this all unfolds without any of his input. THE END.
There you have it. Predictable crap. I'm sorry to say it but Australian scripts are piles of shit. NZ films take a massive dump on ours.
Incidentally the movie was worth going to because beforehand i saw a trailer for a remake of True Grit coming out with Jeff Bridges playing the old part of John Wayne. I so badly hope they redo the classic line "If I ever meet a Texan who didn't drink out of horse's hoofprint i'll shake his hand". Now that is a script.
Australian films will never be any good again until we re-adopt the mantra in Mad Max: "We're giving the people back their heroes".
I'll begin at the beginning, which was terrible. A strange snarling presence in nearby picturesque hills is sensed by horses in a field, and spooks them. But the director didn't want to scare horses so he filmed a flock of cockatoos flying away with neighing sounds overdubbed to give you the "vibe" of a stampede. Lame does not begin to describe. Incidentally the origin of this snarling turned out to be a panther let loose in the Australian Alps, who made an appearance later on, but had nothing more than a metaphorical relation to the storyline. It was part of the opening scene, and yet it had no impact on the plot whatsoever. This was really, really bad writing.
The hero of the film is a city cop about 25 who moves to the country. He gets' a gruff and nasty reception from the local country cops. They and all the country people in the film are portrayed was either violent rednecks or weak morons. The reason for the move is because the hero's wife needs quiet surroundings because of a troubled pregnancy. After this point is established, the wife and the pregnancy have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. The hero sees his wife for 2 minutes at the start and 2 minutes just before the end. at these times their dialog is nothing more than cooing noises. Basically female characters did not exist in this film and those that do are sheltered from being part of the story.
That wouldn't matter so much if the hero was not also sheltered from being part of the story. The hero does not actually do anything for the entire film that actually affects of diverts the flow of events, he just sorta watches it all happen. He watches as the "bad guy" slaughters a bunch of cops in a remote town one after the other. This execution process is dragged out for 2 hours. There is basically enough action for one 30 min cop show. Typical of most Aussie scripts there is really really poor timing and contempt for the audiences desire to actually be entertained.
But back to the hero. He did have a tiny bit of an arc, because at the beginning he admitted to his commanding officer that he was unable to shoot a kid back in the city who pulled a gun on him, resulting in himself being shot (but clearly surviving). When he justifies his action to his CO saying "maybe he just needed help, not a bullet". The other cop's reply is "We'd be having a very different conversation if you were dead". Actually, they wouldn't be having a conversation at all. But stupid dialog aside, the hero's arc is to try an overcome his inability to shoot people. He achieves this in the end when he all-off-a-sudden discovers he has a quick-draw super-accurate shooting arm. Duh.
But the worst part about the film was not it's poor pacing, irrelevant characters and b-stories, implausible scenarios or character actions. It was it's predictability. About 15 mins into the film we find out, thanks to the cliche of a news report in the background, that an inmate has escaped prison, and is armed and dangerous, and he's aboriginal. It was clear at that point that this person was the "bad guy" but he could never be the real bad guy and the real bad guys would be racist redneck country cops. Of course those cops had conspired to send an innocent man to jail and he was after payback, and the movie would inevitably and predictably just be a playing out of this revenge tail. At some point later on we would find out the real story and realise that the killer was fully justified in murdering every adult male in a country town.
So the real protagonist is the Aboriginal guy, his name is Jimmy. But he is not given an dialog until the very end when he gets one line. He just looks scary and kills people. Is that racist? Probably. Anyway the white hero has nothing do to because the righteous path is being followed by the aboriginal guy as he dispatches all the cops and other bumkins, and if the hero disrupted the carnage then that would be against the flow of the morality tale. In fact the hero aides this process. It is the hero's inability to shoot crims that precipitates this whole chain of events when he fails in his duty to protect the town from the escapee, by putting down his gun when confronted by him on the high road on the edge of town. It doesn't occur to the hero that an armed ex-con is entering the town where his pregnant wife and child are located, bent on slaughter. Or maybe it does, but he has some sixth sense that the man aiming a gun at his head does not want to kill anyone who doesn't deserve it. I mean as if. As it happens the Aboriginal guy does not shoot the hero at this point because the hero manages to clumsily fall off a cliff instead. Talk about a useless cop.
At the end (i presume anyone reading this far does not care about spoilers) the white hero finds out the full story of what the locals did to Jimmy and his wife before Jimmy was sent to jail. He does not find this out from detective work. He just get's lucky and finds a repentant redneck who spills the beans before hanging himself. Once again the hero cop fails to stop someone from dying. Then he calls for backup from a nearby town and tries to arrest the real bad guys. It is at this point he discovers he is a crack shot when he has to kill a couple of yokels, in self defense naturally. But Jimmy the Aboriginal guy is given the honour of killing the head yokel (i'm tellin ya he's the real protagonist) and he does this in full view of the cops just arrived from the nearby town. Of course these cops dont know the full story and respond by killing the Aboriginal guy. The white hero once again just watches on as this all unfolds without any of his input. THE END.
There you have it. Predictable crap. I'm sorry to say it but Australian scripts are piles of shit. NZ films take a massive dump on ours.
Incidentally the movie was worth going to because beforehand i saw a trailer for a remake of True Grit coming out with Jeff Bridges playing the old part of John Wayne. I so badly hope they redo the classic line "If I ever meet a Texan who didn't drink out of horse's hoofprint i'll shake his hand". Now that is a script.
Australian films will never be any good again until we re-adopt the mantra in Mad Max: "We're giving the people back their heroes".
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Pride and Shame - election 2010 slight return
We'll we have a result.
I'm proud of the fact that I didn't predict it at first.
I'm proud of the fact that I didn't think Australian politicians could be that undemocratic.
Now I am ashamed, because they obviously can, and are.
Tony Windor and Rob Oakshott are scum. They bring shame on this country.
In the UK when there was a hung parliament after that recent general election the Lib Dems respected the fact that the Conservatives had garnered the bigger slice of the vote, and their leader formed a coalition with the David Cameraons Tories, against the will of many in his party.
That's because the will of the people trumps the will of the parties
AND the will of the MPs.
Or it should.
Not here in Australia. All you have to do is drive a truck load of money up to an independent's electorate and abracadabra, a party that lost the primary vote, has fewer seats and didn't win the 2-pp vote by a significant margin (this stat is a artifact of the seat-by-seat preferential system anyway and not significant) can form a government.
The shame of it.
The poms played by the rules and we didn't. The shame of it. For years i have dispised the English for running Ricky Ponting out with a specialist-fielder super-sub in the Ashes 2005.
But now it is clear, they fight fairer than us. Think about that. Think about it hard.
When in comes to politics the independents are the equivalent of the Pakistani cricket team.
And Julia Gillard and the ALP are the currupt bookies - feeding the problem with their greed, and inborn disregard for honour.
there is no point to sport unless the best team wins. There is no point to democracy unless the people's will is respected. When you break that fundamental trust there is no honour in either, only shame.
Tony Windor, Rob Oakshott : I condemn you. In going against the will of your electorates you have sealed your place in infamy for all eternity. May all the disasters of this next government be blamed upon you, accursed, and bring exile upon yourselves and all your progeny.
You will all have to move to New Zealand to escape the back-turning isolation of the Great Southern Land.
But there are things to be proud of from the Aussie election 2010. Our conservative party is actually conservative. Our leader is a conservative. The people responded will to his conservative message. All good things to be proud off which sadly for the UK they can't boast about there.
But still, the shame of the British being fairer than us is too much to bear. Something must be done. These independents must not only be voted out, but made pariahs in their country communities.
Oh BTW. Did you hear about the broadband "experts" that Windsor consulted who advised him to support the National Porn Network. Turns out that one of them was an out of work telstra techinician. So Windor basically spent 43 billion (minimum) of your money to give his mate a job. There is a word for this. It starts with "c" and ends with "orruption". There is also a word for people like Tony Windsor. It also starts with "c".
I'm proud of the fact that I didn't predict it at first.
I'm proud of the fact that I didn't think Australian politicians could be that undemocratic.
Now I am ashamed, because they obviously can, and are.
Tony Windor and Rob Oakshott are scum. They bring shame on this country.
In the UK when there was a hung parliament after that recent general election the Lib Dems respected the fact that the Conservatives had garnered the bigger slice of the vote, and their leader formed a coalition with the David Cameraons Tories, against the will of many in his party.
That's because the will of the people trumps the will of the parties
AND the will of the MPs.
Or it should.
Not here in Australia. All you have to do is drive a truck load of money up to an independent's electorate and abracadabra, a party that lost the primary vote, has fewer seats and didn't win the 2-pp vote by a significant margin (this stat is a artifact of the seat-by-seat preferential system anyway and not significant) can form a government.
The shame of it.
The poms played by the rules and we didn't. The shame of it. For years i have dispised the English for running Ricky Ponting out with a specialist-fielder super-sub in the Ashes 2005.
But now it is clear, they fight fairer than us. Think about that. Think about it hard.
When in comes to politics the independents are the equivalent of the Pakistani cricket team.
And Julia Gillard and the ALP are the currupt bookies - feeding the problem with their greed, and inborn disregard for honour.
there is no point to sport unless the best team wins. There is no point to democracy unless the people's will is respected. When you break that fundamental trust there is no honour in either, only shame.
Tony Windor, Rob Oakshott : I condemn you. In going against the will of your electorates you have sealed your place in infamy for all eternity. May all the disasters of this next government be blamed upon you, accursed, and bring exile upon yourselves and all your progeny.
You will all have to move to New Zealand to escape the back-turning isolation of the Great Southern Land.
But there are things to be proud of from the Aussie election 2010. Our conservative party is actually conservative. Our leader is a conservative. The people responded will to his conservative message. All good things to be proud off which sadly for the UK they can't boast about there.
But still, the shame of the British being fairer than us is too much to bear. Something must be done. These independents must not only be voted out, but made pariahs in their country communities.
Oh BTW. Did you hear about the broadband "experts" that Windsor consulted who advised him to support the National Porn Network. Turns out that one of them was an out of work telstra techinician. So Windor basically spent 43 billion (minimum) of your money to give his mate a job. There is a word for this. It starts with "c" and ends with "orruption". There is also a word for people like Tony Windsor. It also starts with "c".
Friday, September 3, 2010
One weekend for country people to save the country
The three ex-national independents could give us a decision on monday
Well thanks for that guys. Cheers for being so prompt. I mean really it's not that important. Take your time, eh. It's not like $50m in public servants wages is being wasted every day there is no govt. It's not like the country is defenseless against a possible double-dip US recession. All good. No rush
There is only one thing that can be said for sure at this point. That these three guys will lose their seats at the next election. They have piss farted around to such an extent that, although they complain nobody can be trusted, they are themselves shown to be totally untrustworthy and unreliable.
The electorates in which they sit are conservative electorates. If they side with Labor they are toast. They all know it. But even if they side with the Nationals it's too late for em. Their electorates will vote national or liberal next time. for sure. because it's the only way they can be sure of getting conservative govt.
They only way now to save their own skins is to side with the coalition and before the next election to join the coalition and retain their seats as sitting national or liberal members.
The people in their electorates have been given one last weekend to stand up and be counted by their independent MPs. The must protest outside their electorate offices and in town squares and let these morons know what way the country should go.
The three are behaving in the most disgraceful anti-democratic way and ignoring public opinion in their own electorates.
If they side with labor they will live forever in infamy. They will bring in a mining tax, a carbon tax and greater green restriction of rural development. They will have let rural australia down in a big way. They will be ridden out of town on a rail - in time honoured rural tradition.
I am so angry that TOny Windsor colluded with treasury to mis-represent Coalition costings. A difference of opinion was purported to be a black hole. That "black hole" was no bigger than Labors deliberate fudging of the costing of the mining tax. And pales into insignificance when put next to the huge known unknown of the National Porn Network. $43 billion my arse. That will be $80 billion or i've never downloaded a byte.
Why Windsor want's to do this is unknown to me but it looks he is willing to put personal grudges with Nationals above the good of the nation and the will of his electorate.
Makes me sick.
Get on out there and protest in their electorates I say. There has to be some footage of the actual voters here. The people who's say is actually important. And it has to show that they are pissed off with three hoodlums holding the nation to ransom.
Well thanks for that guys. Cheers for being so prompt. I mean really it's not that important. Take your time, eh. It's not like $50m in public servants wages is being wasted every day there is no govt. It's not like the country is defenseless against a possible double-dip US recession. All good. No rush
There is only one thing that can be said for sure at this point. That these three guys will lose their seats at the next election. They have piss farted around to such an extent that, although they complain nobody can be trusted, they are themselves shown to be totally untrustworthy and unreliable.
The electorates in which they sit are conservative electorates. If they side with Labor they are toast. They all know it. But even if they side with the Nationals it's too late for em. Their electorates will vote national or liberal next time. for sure. because it's the only way they can be sure of getting conservative govt.
They only way now to save their own skins is to side with the coalition and before the next election to join the coalition and retain their seats as sitting national or liberal members.
The people in their electorates have been given one last weekend to stand up and be counted by their independent MPs. The must protest outside their electorate offices and in town squares and let these morons know what way the country should go.
The three are behaving in the most disgraceful anti-democratic way and ignoring public opinion in their own electorates.
If they side with labor they will live forever in infamy. They will bring in a mining tax, a carbon tax and greater green restriction of rural development. They will have let rural australia down in a big way. They will be ridden out of town on a rail - in time honoured rural tradition.
I am so angry that TOny Windsor colluded with treasury to mis-represent Coalition costings. A difference of opinion was purported to be a black hole. That "black hole" was no bigger than Labors deliberate fudging of the costing of the mining tax. And pales into insignificance when put next to the huge known unknown of the National Porn Network. $43 billion my arse. That will be $80 billion or i've never downloaded a byte.
Why Windsor want's to do this is unknown to me but it looks he is willing to put personal grudges with Nationals above the good of the nation and the will of his electorate.
Makes me sick.
Get on out there and protest in their electorates I say. There has to be some footage of the actual voters here. The people who's say is actually important. And it has to show that they are pissed off with three hoodlums holding the nation to ransom.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Either we Hasluck or we hasn't
Been a big weekend. Got completely smashed on Saturday night and after watching the election coverage down the pub with some Liberal mates I walked into the city singing at the top of my lungs and rampaged through a famous rock bar entertaining all and sundry with my humourous Mick Jagger impressions and bellowing drunk vocals. I did better than the last federal election because this time I managed to avoid being thrown out of the bar. Great night.
Whilst the result is still undecided it's safe to say the election was a big victory for the Liberals, at least in the moral sense. Labour's discraceful behaviour has been punished, they have lost their majority (and hence their legitimacy as Tony pointed out). To do that to a first term government is almost unprecidented especially one that started out so popular.
We smashed the ALP. Hazzzah!!!
Tony Abbott has entered the pantheon of Liberal gods. Menzies, Howard and Abbott are the leaders that will command the greatest loyalty and respect from their troops forever more. These are the Titans that truly took the nation forward, and continue to do so.
The chants of "Tony! Tony! Tony!" as he was speaking on election night echoed the feeling in my breast of admiration bordering on adoration for our fearless leader who went from being almost universally ridiculed in the media and polticians, even by his own party (and even himself !!) with the nickname "people skills" to showing a real warrior's discipline and if not delivering us victory, then delivering us the most glorious defeat since Gallipoli.
The difference hangs on one seat, Hasluck, where Ken Wyatt hopes to bear the Liberal standard as the first Indigenous elected into the lower house.
Here's the arithmetic:
I am at this point assuming that the 3 independents who are former Nationals would rather drink light beer in a tutu than side with the pack of lazy whingers that are the Labor party. The two deciding factors here will be the mining tax and Abbotts personably macho personality. I cant see Bob Katter respecting arch BS artist Gillard. I really can't. And i can't see any of them selling out their regions by backing the tax. I also think they will work as a block because they are much more powerful that way.
Also if they side with Labor, like the WA libs threatened to do after the election there, there will be a voter revolt expressed in a torrent of emails threatening to next time turf them out by voting for the coalition . Country people hate Labor if when their representatives don't.
So that means we need 73 seats to form government. 73 + 3 = 76 seats, the required majority.
We have 72 basically in the bag at the moment, as long as there is no postal vote flow to labour in the eastern state's closest electorates. Postals make up the majority of votes yet to be cast, and historically i'm told postals have favoured the Libs.
But that's still only 72, so we need Hasluck. Badly. I am told by insiders that the ALP did a huge postal vote campaign in Hasluck. So i'm a little scared.
Still if we lose Hasluck we might be saved if Labor lose Denison to the independent Andrew Wilkie. Wilkie's noises indicate that he does not think Labor has delivered the kind of "stable, competant and ethical government" that he says he wants to support. I think he would side with Abbott on must issues apart from boat people. That would give us a majority of 72 libs and 4 independents.
Having said that the ALP is tipped to take Denison. So this discussion is a bit academic.
It's Hasluck or nothing.
Well not nothing. We have our pride back. Howard's ghost is avenged. Maxine Makew (dont care to spell it right) is a journalist again. And she's leading the ill-disciplined back-biting that will destroy any ALP government that tries to cling to power.
There is one other possibility, although remote, and that's if we fail to win Hasluck and cannot govern even with the 3 independent former-Nationals. That does not mean these 3 will be able to enter into an agreement with the ALP. The mining tax might be a sticking point and if Oakshott is to be believed they'd send the country back to the polls. This is unlikely because that poll result could see the independents voted out for being too smart by half, and Gillard would almost certainly accept any ultimatum put to her by the independents that would allow her to hang on to power, even dropping the mining tax or totally gutting it.
For the ALP to lose would be oblivion. I personally think they would never recover. The myth that they stand up for the little guy would be forever dispelled. They have been so cynical and shifty they would have to rebrand themselves. I honestly dont think that's overstating it. Labor's brand is acknowledged as poison even by them, Gillard used the word "Labor" only twice in her campaign launch.
For us losing is OK. The coalition is back federally. We bring a kind of honest muscularity to political discourse in this country, and good hard-working salt-of-the-earth Aussie men and women love it xoxoxo
Whilst the result is still undecided it's safe to say the election was a big victory for the Liberals, at least in the moral sense. Labour's discraceful behaviour has been punished, they have lost their majority (and hence their legitimacy as Tony pointed out). To do that to a first term government is almost unprecidented especially one that started out so popular.
We smashed the ALP. Hazzzah!!!
Tony Abbott has entered the pantheon of Liberal gods. Menzies, Howard and Abbott are the leaders that will command the greatest loyalty and respect from their troops forever more. These are the Titans that truly took the nation forward, and continue to do so.
The chants of "Tony! Tony! Tony!" as he was speaking on election night echoed the feeling in my breast of admiration bordering on adoration for our fearless leader who went from being almost universally ridiculed in the media and polticians, even by his own party (and even himself !!) with the nickname "people skills" to showing a real warrior's discipline and if not delivering us victory, then delivering us the most glorious defeat since Gallipoli.
The difference hangs on one seat, Hasluck, where Ken Wyatt hopes to bear the Liberal standard as the first Indigenous elected into the lower house.
Here's the arithmetic:
I am at this point assuming that the 3 independents who are former Nationals would rather drink light beer in a tutu than side with the pack of lazy whingers that are the Labor party. The two deciding factors here will be the mining tax and Abbotts personably macho personality. I cant see Bob Katter respecting arch BS artist Gillard. I really can't. And i can't see any of them selling out their regions by backing the tax. I also think they will work as a block because they are much more powerful that way.
Also if they side with Labor, like the WA libs threatened to do after the election there, there will be a voter revolt expressed in a torrent of emails threatening to next time turf them out by voting for the coalition . Country people hate Labor if when their representatives don't.
So that means we need 73 seats to form government. 73 + 3 = 76 seats, the required majority.
We have 72 basically in the bag at the moment, as long as there is no postal vote flow to labour in the eastern state's closest electorates. Postals make up the majority of votes yet to be cast, and historically i'm told postals have favoured the Libs.
But that's still only 72, so we need Hasluck. Badly. I am told by insiders that the ALP did a huge postal vote campaign in Hasluck. So i'm a little scared.
Still if we lose Hasluck we might be saved if Labor lose Denison to the independent Andrew Wilkie. Wilkie's noises indicate that he does not think Labor has delivered the kind of "stable, competant and ethical government" that he says he wants to support. I think he would side with Abbott on must issues apart from boat people. That would give us a majority of 72 libs and 4 independents.
Having said that the ALP is tipped to take Denison. So this discussion is a bit academic.
It's Hasluck or nothing.
Well not nothing. We have our pride back. Howard's ghost is avenged. Maxine Makew (dont care to spell it right) is a journalist again. And she's leading the ill-disciplined back-biting that will destroy any ALP government that tries to cling to power.
There is one other possibility, although remote, and that's if we fail to win Hasluck and cannot govern even with the 3 independent former-Nationals. That does not mean these 3 will be able to enter into an agreement with the ALP. The mining tax might be a sticking point and if Oakshott is to be believed they'd send the country back to the polls. This is unlikely because that poll result could see the independents voted out for being too smart by half, and Gillard would almost certainly accept any ultimatum put to her by the independents that would allow her to hang on to power, even dropping the mining tax or totally gutting it.
For the ALP to lose would be oblivion. I personally think they would never recover. The myth that they stand up for the little guy would be forever dispelled. They have been so cynical and shifty they would have to rebrand themselves. I honestly dont think that's overstating it. Labor's brand is acknowledged as poison even by them, Gillard used the word "Labor" only twice in her campaign launch.
For us losing is OK. The coalition is back federally. We bring a kind of honest muscularity to political discourse in this country, and good hard-working salt-of-the-earth Aussie men and women love it xoxoxo
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
The notes that lost the election for Gillo
For Gillard to bullshit the Australian people shows a flawed character.
To be so easily caught out and humiliated shows sheer stupidity.
At the economic debate this week there will be alot of jokes "Is that answer in your notes or off the cuff?". Is it "from the heart?"
Australians absolutely relish exposing the hypocrisy of those who wish to rule over them.
She just lost the trust, the respect and the votes of everyone who was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Australian women deserved better than this. The first female PM is headed for the the exits exposed as a fake and fibber and a lightweight.
And it's all her own fault.
She could have said "no" when the offer to roll Rudd was made. She could have stopped the power of the ALP faction bosses. She could have let labor take it's electoral medicine. She could have returned when her turn came and swept all before her.
But she saw a weak Rudd and she drove in the knife.
Out! out damned spot! - she'll soon have plenty of time to reflect.
To be so easily caught out and humiliated shows sheer stupidity.
At the economic debate this week there will be alot of jokes "Is that answer in your notes or off the cuff?". Is it "from the heart?"
Australians absolutely relish exposing the hypocrisy of those who wish to rule over them.
She just lost the trust, the respect and the votes of everyone who was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Australian women deserved better than this. The first female PM is headed for the the exits exposed as a fake and fibber and a lightweight.
And it's all her own fault.
She could have said "no" when the offer to roll Rudd was made. She could have stopped the power of the ALP faction bosses. She could have let labor take it's electoral medicine. She could have returned when her turn came and swept all before her.
But she saw a weak Rudd and she drove in the knife.
Out! out damned spot! - she'll soon have plenty of time to reflect.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Paul Kelly = labor fraud
Paul Kelly, writer for the OZ, hides behind a mask of objectivity, which he uses to persuade others of the centrist persuasion, but he is a labor man through and through.
This is the guy who sold us the line that Rudd was an economic conservative at the last election. He should never be allowed to live it down.
Kelly is once again exposed in the piece linked below
He accuses Abbott of arrogance for refusing to debate Gillard again, or rather accepting her refusal of two weeks ago to debate him again
talk about damning with faint praise. in this he attacks labor party strategy so much that it is evident he has strong emotions invested in a labor victory
Show your colours Kelly. Tell us who you vote for.
The Australian has once again failed to live up to it's free market creed by failing to endorse the (truly) conservative candidate.
There must be a real war at that paper between the front-line journos who cant stand labor, and the pseudo-intellectual commentators like kelly and van onselen who hide their true lefty selves
All journos should have to declare their political interests at the top of each article, in the same way economic interests are recorded
I proudly vote Liberal
Abbott 4 PM!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
It's all about Kevni
The fairfax papers are providing the best entertainment this election.
The mercilessly take the piss out of Rudd's gaul-bladder-recovery speech to the media
Loving watching the lefties eating each other alive.
In other news Paul Kelly, the guy who pushed the idea that Kevni was an "economic conservative", reveals his true Labor colours again
Monday, August 2, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Boatpeople debate drowning in Gillard's BS
Well.
Gillard's asylum solution is falling apart, it took about 12 hours. East Timor are not up for the "regional processing centre" at all.
All she had to do was re-open the Nauru one and be done with it.
I knew she was stuck. She cant please the right and the left at the same time.
But she's gonna give it a damn good try.
The bullshit is staggering, if it were possible I'd say it is worse than under Rudd. (The amount BS in the Asylum speech yesterday was well outlines by Bolt here)
I remember wayne swan last week saying that labor were not going to engage in "megaphone diplomacy" - on the mining tax that time.
This week that is literally what Labor did. OK there was no literal megaphone but they made a loud announcement through the media to other countries in the region, by-passing the more subtle and usual diplomatic channells, and expected those other countries to go along with it.
Surprise surprize that NZ and East Timor wont have a bar of it.
GIllard claimed to have consulted other countries, but that was limited to phone calls the night before to top-level people that those people felt duty bound to not snub straight away for fear of harming relations with Australia, probably because it had been the first chat they'd had with the new Aus PM and as heads of state/govt they represent their people and must be tactful, even when taken by suprize.
But we learn today that nobody had been informed in a meaningful way and the person in East Timor gillard consulted, president Jose Ramos-Horta, has no constitutional power to help her anyway.
Hypocrisy, stupidity, and incompetence par excellence. I really don't think it's possible for Labor to rate higher on any of these scores.
And oh. Does anyone think that Aussie voters concerned about border security are gonna be happy about the decision to give free gunboats to our neighbouring countries?
Um. We actually want to discourage invasion, not enable it. I mean WTF!!!!!!
Dumb and dumber.
Labor wants a "nuanced" position on asylum. But people-smugglers are the biggest cynics in the world, and they know bullshit when they hear it.
A really simple message has to go out - "don't bother coming. it wont get you anywhere." That is the only way to stop the boats.
But labor has lost all credibility on this issue and people smugglers know deep down that labor is kept in power by lefties and lefties sympathise with their plight.
So when gillard gives this messages she is not believed. There are are 7 words she has to utter that might make a difference to the boats
"We were wrong. John Howard was right."
There is an emotional meaning that comes with the use of the words "John Howard" and that meaning is "we're serious."
All considerations of currying favour with lefties at that instant go out the window, and the people smugglers realise, "John Howard. That was the guy that stopped us last time. Shit we're in trouble now."
But Gillard is a hypocrite. And she will never admit that. Proof: her insistence on saying that the pacific solution was immoral under Howard while adopting it herself, and calling Liberals baby- drowning murderers when in fact it is Labor policies that have lured boat people to their deaths in huge numbers.
If you have your cake and eat it too you are probably covered in spew.
And we can all smell it.
What most shits me about labor and the media's position on this issue is that the people of australia were consulted on boatpeople in 2001 - the so-called "tampa" election. They said loud and clear that the solution they wanted was to stop the boats by re-electing Howard with an increased majority.
Then labor comes along and lies about wanting to stop the boats (They dont want to stop the boats. They want the boats to come) and gets into power and undoes all the good work that had been done previously by the Liberals, a solution that the people wanted and voted for.
Labor have disregarded the orders of their masters the Australian people, and deceived them. They have insulted the sovereignty of the will of the Australian people - as represented by our constitutional system of elections.
I think that's what Abbott's line should be. The Australian people have already spoken on this and Labor should respect the the Australian people's decision.
Stop trying to play us for a bunch of saps. We voted for Howard's solution. Admit you were wrong and give it to us, or step aside.
The boats are going go keep coming. Because labor wants them to come. They see boatpeople as refugees when they are not. They are economic migrants coming to this country illegally. A refugee wanting protection goes to the embassy of a friendly country or to the neighbouring country. As soon as the bullets stop they are ok. They dont need to come all the way over here to be safe. It's money that lures people all this way, not safety. Refugees need to be re-settled but they have no right under the UN convention on refugees to choose what country there are settled in. This is what boatpeople try to do. Boatpeople exploit the sympathy and openness of western societies to play on our guilt and pretend to be refugees when they are not.
Under John Howard in the past and under Abbott in the future Australia took/will take in our fair share of legitimate asylum-seekers resettled by the UN, from Somalia etc.
We wont be taking in any illegal immigrants.
Gillard's asylum solution is falling apart, it took about 12 hours. East Timor are not up for the "regional processing centre" at all.
All she had to do was re-open the Nauru one and be done with it.
I knew she was stuck. She cant please the right and the left at the same time.
But she's gonna give it a damn good try.
The bullshit is staggering, if it were possible I'd say it is worse than under Rudd. (The amount BS in the Asylum speech yesterday was well outlines by Bolt here)
I remember wayne swan last week saying that labor were not going to engage in "megaphone diplomacy" - on the mining tax that time.
This week that is literally what Labor did. OK there was no literal megaphone but they made a loud announcement through the media to other countries in the region, by-passing the more subtle and usual diplomatic channells, and expected those other countries to go along with it.
Surprise surprize that NZ and East Timor wont have a bar of it.
GIllard claimed to have consulted other countries, but that was limited to phone calls the night before to top-level people that those people felt duty bound to not snub straight away for fear of harming relations with Australia, probably because it had been the first chat they'd had with the new Aus PM and as heads of state/govt they represent their people and must be tactful, even when taken by suprize.
But we learn today that nobody had been informed in a meaningful way and the person in East Timor gillard consulted, president Jose Ramos-Horta, has no constitutional power to help her anyway.
Hypocrisy, stupidity, and incompetence par excellence. I really don't think it's possible for Labor to rate higher on any of these scores.
And oh. Does anyone think that Aussie voters concerned about border security are gonna be happy about the decision to give free gunboats to our neighbouring countries?
Um. We actually want to discourage invasion, not enable it. I mean WTF!!!!!!
Dumb and dumber.
Labor wants a "nuanced" position on asylum. But people-smugglers are the biggest cynics in the world, and they know bullshit when they hear it.
A really simple message has to go out - "don't bother coming. it wont get you anywhere." That is the only way to stop the boats.
But labor has lost all credibility on this issue and people smugglers know deep down that labor is kept in power by lefties and lefties sympathise with their plight.
So when gillard gives this messages she is not believed. There are are 7 words she has to utter that might make a difference to the boats
"We were wrong. John Howard was right."
There is an emotional meaning that comes with the use of the words "John Howard" and that meaning is "we're serious."
All considerations of currying favour with lefties at that instant go out the window, and the people smugglers realise, "John Howard. That was the guy that stopped us last time. Shit we're in trouble now."
But Gillard is a hypocrite. And she will never admit that. Proof: her insistence on saying that the pacific solution was immoral under Howard while adopting it herself, and calling Liberals baby- drowning murderers when in fact it is Labor policies that have lured boat people to their deaths in huge numbers.
If you have your cake and eat it too you are probably covered in spew.
And we can all smell it.
What most shits me about labor and the media's position on this issue is that the people of australia were consulted on boatpeople in 2001 - the so-called "tampa" election. They said loud and clear that the solution they wanted was to stop the boats by re-electing Howard with an increased majority.
Then labor comes along and lies about wanting to stop the boats (They dont want to stop the boats. They want the boats to come) and gets into power and undoes all the good work that had been done previously by the Liberals, a solution that the people wanted and voted for.
Labor have disregarded the orders of their masters the Australian people, and deceived them. They have insulted the sovereignty of the will of the Australian people - as represented by our constitutional system of elections.
I think that's what Abbott's line should be. The Australian people have already spoken on this and Labor should respect the the Australian people's decision.
Stop trying to play us for a bunch of saps. We voted for Howard's solution. Admit you were wrong and give it to us, or step aside.
The boats are going go keep coming. Because labor wants them to come. They see boatpeople as refugees when they are not. They are economic migrants coming to this country illegally. A refugee wanting protection goes to the embassy of a friendly country or to the neighbouring country. As soon as the bullets stop they are ok. They dont need to come all the way over here to be safe. It's money that lures people all this way, not safety. Refugees need to be re-settled but they have no right under the UN convention on refugees to choose what country there are settled in. This is what boatpeople try to do. Boatpeople exploit the sympathy and openness of western societies to play on our guilt and pretend to be refugees when they are not.
Under John Howard in the past and under Abbott in the future Australia took/will take in our fair share of legitimate asylum-seekers resettled by the UN, from Somalia etc.
We wont be taking in any illegal immigrants.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Gillard, an unexpected bonus for the Libs
Why? Because it was getting too easy to take the piss out of Kevin Rudd. Although i must admit i did enjoy the Kevin OLemon ad.
But Gillard is harder to attack. She's a woman so she might attract (irrational) sympathy from a bloke having a go at her, and she's more sturdy as a personality and experienced as a poltician than Rudd. (I'll have mOre on Rudd's issues and a possible case later)
Abbott now has to come out and outline why he is better. He needs to return to some of the themes in battlelines and be the compassionate conservative he is.
I dont believe he is a turn-off for females because he is good looking and strong in physique and personality. Any talk of looks is superficial and not intended to be patronising to parts of the electorate. But it all counts in politics.
Besides Gillard looks like Lady Macbeth now. She's not the figure of transcendent compassion that Rudd and Obama were. Lefties wont respond to her that well.
The emotional playing field is level, almost. Tony has to defend as well as attack or it wont matter how many goals he scores, Gillard will score more.
If he shows us his mad skills I am for the first time predicting a Liberal victory in the next federal election.
But Gillard is harder to attack. She's a woman so she might attract (irrational) sympathy from a bloke having a go at her, and she's more sturdy as a personality and experienced as a poltician than Rudd. (I'll have mOre on Rudd's issues and a possible case later)
Abbott now has to come out and outline why he is better. He needs to return to some of the themes in battlelines and be the compassionate conservative he is.
I dont believe he is a turn-off for females because he is good looking and strong in physique and personality. Any talk of looks is superficial and not intended to be patronising to parts of the electorate. But it all counts in politics.
Besides Gillard looks like Lady Macbeth now. She's not the figure of transcendent compassion that Rudd and Obama were. Lefties wont respond to her that well.
The emotional playing field is level, almost. Tony has to defend as well as attack or it wont matter how many goals he scores, Gillard will score more.
If he shows us his mad skills I am for the first time predicting a Liberal victory in the next federal election.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
I feel pity for the ALP. This is new territory
I really despise Rudd, but he was elected by the people of Oz, and today he was treated like shit on the bottom of a union bosses' shoe today ... and scraped off. I bet he feels like it too.
Gillard is a smart and brave woman. I agree with her anti-teacher's union policies. Of any labor figure i'd prefer her as PM.
But i'm sure she'd prefer to have been elected by the Australian People rather than ALP faction bosses.
These are dissapointing circumstances for such a historic occasion. The first woman Australian PM deserved to be elected like Thatcher. Not marched in to the job with a gun to her head. The people of Australia, the women of australia deserved that too.
Nevertheless PM Gillard deserves congratulations. The glass ceiling is no more. I hope Australian girls and women feel more confident for this historic event.
OK enough empathy for labor. They have been holding my country back for 100 years and it's an insult to the hard-working people of this country to consider Labor politicians as human beings for more than a few seconds every electoral cycle.
So from our perspective, is PM Julia Gillard a game changer?
I dont honestly think so tonight. Gillard has more appeal than Rudd, sure, but watching the news reports tonight they all give almost as much airtime to the devious backroom machinations of the ALP as they do to the historic appointment of a woman PM.
I think that australia has equality of the sexes. I dont think that being a woman will protect Gillard from criticism, nor will it prevent Abbott from attacking. After all Labor are personal in their attacks on Abbot. We also have Julie Bishop on our side.
Labor has installed female leaders recently in queensland and NSW. Bligh was confirmed in her job by the electorate but since then the gloss has worn off Anna Bligh and CHristina Keneally pretty quickly. And it's only fitting that any person in high office be judged on their merits. I dont think Julia Gillard will be any different.
Gillard is fundamentally tied up with certain ALP policies that are not popular and very difficult to change without them losing huge swathes of their base: The ETS reversal, the building education revolution rorts, and the lack of control of our borders.
I really dont see how she can change policy on this and i dont think Aussies are that dumb that they will think a change in salesperson is a change of product here (to quote the Libs today)
Without taking back the ETS the left voters will stay away from labor.
Without moving to the right on asylum the right voters will stay away. They are stuck.
She cant change the BER policy failures without writing history. Labor tried that in true Big Brother style today with it's first references to the "Gillard Government". Kevin Rudd is not the un-Prime Minister of whom we do not speak.
The one thing Gillard can change is the mining tax. and progress has been made. Abbott in parliament today was trying to say that the policy would not change as long as the revenue from the tax is fixed in the budget.
I think we can rest assured, if this labor backflip is a con, the miners wont be fooled. The Ads on both sides have been suspended for now. But unless the retrospectivity of the tax is removed, the rate reduced, the rate of profits at which the tax kicks-in increased, and different rates for different minerals are negotiated and signed off then i see a return of the ads and the mining industry throwing their weight behind the libs, and a liberal victory.
This is about more than the tax aswell. The miners have had to put up with strikes recently. They can see the unions flexing their muscles. The unions need one more term in govt to consolidate their power and take us back to the bad old days of class war and economic retardation. The miners dont want this after spending so much effort to get unions out of the mines in recent years.
Nevertheless business rolled over at the last election. I dont trust them to defend themselves and the future prosperity of the nation this time around.
The best thing to come from all this is that the machinations of the labor party factions have been brought into the open for all to see... well, as much as they can be. They remain secret but we know they are there , and we know they are ugly. IT has always been that way. It will always be that way. As i wrote before labor is about intimidation. Labor thinks a carrot is a short orange stick.
This is all the eventual result of Howard taking on the unions with workchoices. I still contend that Howard knew WC was an electoral dud. It was always bait to trap the unions into a fight that would resolve itself in Australia's favour a decade or so later. Union power relies on them remaining in the background. Their hubris has brought them into the open. They are exposed.
Every tear Kevin Rudd shed washed away the false idea that the Labor party is the guardians of morality in politics. They are utterly without mercy.
The idea their fight for worker's rights gives them the moral high ground is simple false. Workers are not just the people who work with their hands. Bosses are workers too in that they work hard and also that they are usually employees. Shareholders are the ultimate "bosses" but they are the mums and dads of australia with money invested and super funds. The idea that black hearted cigar smoking men are behind the scenes bleeding the people of australia for their profit is bullshit. Always was.
I just finished reading the history of BHP. They've had their oversights in public and industrial relations, but Australia became an industrial nation largely because of the energy and enterprise of their management and staff.
Short of being and ANZAC, I dont see how you can get more public-spirited and patriotic than that.
Gillard is a smart and brave woman. I agree with her anti-teacher's union policies. Of any labor figure i'd prefer her as PM.
But i'm sure she'd prefer to have been elected by the Australian People rather than ALP faction bosses.
These are dissapointing circumstances for such a historic occasion. The first woman Australian PM deserved to be elected like Thatcher. Not marched in to the job with a gun to her head. The people of Australia, the women of australia deserved that too.
Nevertheless PM Gillard deserves congratulations. The glass ceiling is no more. I hope Australian girls and women feel more confident for this historic event.
OK enough empathy for labor. They have been holding my country back for 100 years and it's an insult to the hard-working people of this country to consider Labor politicians as human beings for more than a few seconds every electoral cycle.
So from our perspective, is PM Julia Gillard a game changer?
I dont honestly think so tonight. Gillard has more appeal than Rudd, sure, but watching the news reports tonight they all give almost as much airtime to the devious backroom machinations of the ALP as they do to the historic appointment of a woman PM.
I think that australia has equality of the sexes. I dont think that being a woman will protect Gillard from criticism, nor will it prevent Abbott from attacking. After all Labor are personal in their attacks on Abbot. We also have Julie Bishop on our side.
Labor has installed female leaders recently in queensland and NSW. Bligh was confirmed in her job by the electorate but since then the gloss has worn off Anna Bligh and CHristina Keneally pretty quickly. And it's only fitting that any person in high office be judged on their merits. I dont think Julia Gillard will be any different.
Gillard is fundamentally tied up with certain ALP policies that are not popular and very difficult to change without them losing huge swathes of their base: The ETS reversal, the building education revolution rorts, and the lack of control of our borders.
I really dont see how she can change policy on this and i dont think Aussies are that dumb that they will think a change in salesperson is a change of product here (to quote the Libs today)
Without taking back the ETS the left voters will stay away from labor.
Without moving to the right on asylum the right voters will stay away. They are stuck.
She cant change the BER policy failures without writing history. Labor tried that in true Big Brother style today with it's first references to the "Gillard Government". Kevin Rudd is not the un-Prime Minister of whom we do not speak.
The one thing Gillard can change is the mining tax. and progress has been made. Abbott in parliament today was trying to say that the policy would not change as long as the revenue from the tax is fixed in the budget.
I think we can rest assured, if this labor backflip is a con, the miners wont be fooled. The Ads on both sides have been suspended for now. But unless the retrospectivity of the tax is removed, the rate reduced, the rate of profits at which the tax kicks-in increased, and different rates for different minerals are negotiated and signed off then i see a return of the ads and the mining industry throwing their weight behind the libs, and a liberal victory.
This is about more than the tax aswell. The miners have had to put up with strikes recently. They can see the unions flexing their muscles. The unions need one more term in govt to consolidate their power and take us back to the bad old days of class war and economic retardation. The miners dont want this after spending so much effort to get unions out of the mines in recent years.
Nevertheless business rolled over at the last election. I dont trust them to defend themselves and the future prosperity of the nation this time around.
The best thing to come from all this is that the machinations of the labor party factions have been brought into the open for all to see... well, as much as they can be. They remain secret but we know they are there , and we know they are ugly. IT has always been that way. It will always be that way. As i wrote before labor is about intimidation. Labor thinks a carrot is a short orange stick.
This is all the eventual result of Howard taking on the unions with workchoices. I still contend that Howard knew WC was an electoral dud. It was always bait to trap the unions into a fight that would resolve itself in Australia's favour a decade or so later. Union power relies on them remaining in the background. Their hubris has brought them into the open. They are exposed.
Every tear Kevin Rudd shed washed away the false idea that the Labor party is the guardians of morality in politics. They are utterly without mercy.
The idea their fight for worker's rights gives them the moral high ground is simple false. Workers are not just the people who work with their hands. Bosses are workers too in that they work hard and also that they are usually employees. Shareholders are the ultimate "bosses" but they are the mums and dads of australia with money invested and super funds. The idea that black hearted cigar smoking men are behind the scenes bleeding the people of australia for their profit is bullshit. Always was.
I just finished reading the history of BHP. They've had their oversights in public and industrial relations, but Australia became an industrial nation largely because of the energy and enterprise of their management and staff.
Short of being and ANZAC, I dont see how you can get more public-spirited and patriotic than that.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Two-face Intimidates while claiming the miners are doing the intimidating
Two-face aka Rudd has caused people to lose their jobs, and is claiming that this is not his fault but rather an intimidation tactic by miners.
THis is typical labor hypocrisy. To straighten out this twisted view of morality lets ask the PM a few questions -set him an exam, if you will:
Q1) Out of the PM and the miners, who can command the police to enforce the law as they see fit?
A: Obviously the PM.
Q2) Who can refuses to use the police enforce to the law against illegal strikes if they so desire?
A: The govt.
Q3) WHo can change the law at will, even without any consulation with any other person in the country apart from their mate the treasurer ?
A: The PM. (if it were not for the Fact that Abbott can block it in the senate. thank god)
Q4) who can coerce union-members into giving up more money against their will to pay for a advertising campaign that damages their own job prospects?
A: Err. the Labor party
Comparing the PM's view that miners have a monopoly on intimidation with these obviously correct answers we can give him only one result: EPIC FAIL!!
Lefties dont get it. A capitalist can't force anyone to do anything. They cant punish you. They can only reward you. IF you want to work, you can be rewarded. If you dont work. they cant do shit about it.They cant even sack you under unfair dismissal laws. That's why strikes are effective - as long as the police refuse to enforce the contracts which workers legally entered into to actually GO TO WORK AND WORK THERE.
Indimidation is The Labor way. Use large men to scare hard-working people off work sites. ALways was this way, always will be . Picketing strikers have no legal right to block people who are not striking from working on site , because they dont own the mine and cant prevent access to it. Unless they have a complicit labor govt which refuses to enforce the law.
The government is doing all the intimidating here. Only the govt has guns. when push comes to shove. the govt has the power. when labor is in power they turn that power against he hard-working and innovative part of the community - because they envy them so much. It dropped a bombshell on the mining community and said "take it or leave it". the facade of consultation after that fact is merely that - a facade. Once the election is over Rudd will shaft everyone to whom he has promised concessions, just like he did last time, with one exception - his paymasters the unions.
Labor does not get that their tactics of intimidation are not open to business. Business is all carrot. Labor is all stick. This was first pointed out by Ayn Rand who said money is a not evil, because it changes hands when people get something in exchane for it. The brute force of governments is much more easily perverted to unjust ends than the exchange of payment for goods and services. Where's the intimidation there?
The only thing a capitalist can use as a stick is offerring a bit less carrot. If you dont like carrot, business cant force you to take it. only govts can do that.
But there is one thing that the government cannot force people to do. It cant force people to give a shit. It cant force people to work hard and get ahead. And it CANT FORCE BUSINESSES TO STAY OPEN EVEN THOUGH THOSE BUSINESSES DECIDE THAT IT'S NOT WORTH THE EFFORT.
When that happens. The industrious people just go "f*ck it. i'll become a bludger myself. Not only am i not making any more money than my staff whist stressing myself out all day and night. i spend my whole life taking shit for it - just because i'm the bastard who came up with the business idea in the first place and and lost sleep trying to make it a reality and GAVE OTHER PEOPLE JOBS. Well you can all get stuffed. I QUIT!"
Labor is so addicted to the drug of intimidation they cannot understand that the business sector wont respond to it. Rudd offers nothing to the miners, and expects them to make a deal and like it. That's not how business works. Where's the carrot?
A labor polician sees a carrot and thinks it's a short orange stick, and then procedes to beat hard-working industrious people do death with it.
Picture an army of unionised public servants commanded by labor commisars walking onto business sites across the country and beating managers to death with carrots. And when the staff question the wisdom of this they force-feed them carrots until they die from vitamin C overdoses.
That's the future of this country if you re-elect Rudd.
Mmmm, carrots.
THis is typical labor hypocrisy. To straighten out this twisted view of morality lets ask the PM a few questions -set him an exam, if you will:
Q1) Out of the PM and the miners, who can command the police to enforce the law as they see fit?
A: Obviously the PM.
Q2) Who can refuses to use the police enforce to the law against illegal strikes if they so desire?
A: The govt.
Q3) WHo can change the law at will, even without any consulation with any other person in the country apart from their mate the treasurer ?
A: The PM. (if it were not for the Fact that Abbott can block it in the senate. thank god)
Q4) who can coerce union-members into giving up more money against their will to pay for a advertising campaign that damages their own job prospects?
A: Err. the Labor party
Comparing the PM's view that miners have a monopoly on intimidation with these obviously correct answers we can give him only one result: EPIC FAIL!!
Lefties dont get it. A capitalist can't force anyone to do anything. They cant punish you. They can only reward you. IF you want to work, you can be rewarded. If you dont work. they cant do shit about it.They cant even sack you under unfair dismissal laws. That's why strikes are effective - as long as the police refuse to enforce the contracts which workers legally entered into to actually GO TO WORK AND WORK THERE.
Indimidation is The Labor way. Use large men to scare hard-working people off work sites. ALways was this way, always will be . Picketing strikers have no legal right to block people who are not striking from working on site , because they dont own the mine and cant prevent access to it. Unless they have a complicit labor govt which refuses to enforce the law.
The government is doing all the intimidating here. Only the govt has guns. when push comes to shove. the govt has the power. when labor is in power they turn that power against he hard-working and innovative part of the community - because they envy them so much. It dropped a bombshell on the mining community and said "take it or leave it". the facade of consultation after that fact is merely that - a facade. Once the election is over Rudd will shaft everyone to whom he has promised concessions, just like he did last time, with one exception - his paymasters the unions.
Labor does not get that their tactics of intimidation are not open to business. Business is all carrot. Labor is all stick. This was first pointed out by Ayn Rand who said money is a not evil, because it changes hands when people get something in exchane for it. The brute force of governments is much more easily perverted to unjust ends than the exchange of payment for goods and services. Where's the intimidation there?
The only thing a capitalist can use as a stick is offerring a bit less carrot. If you dont like carrot, business cant force you to take it. only govts can do that.
But there is one thing that the government cannot force people to do. It cant force people to give a shit. It cant force people to work hard and get ahead. And it CANT FORCE BUSINESSES TO STAY OPEN EVEN THOUGH THOSE BUSINESSES DECIDE THAT IT'S NOT WORTH THE EFFORT.
When that happens. The industrious people just go "f*ck it. i'll become a bludger myself. Not only am i not making any more money than my staff whist stressing myself out all day and night. i spend my whole life taking shit for it - just because i'm the bastard who came up with the business idea in the first place and and lost sleep trying to make it a reality and GAVE OTHER PEOPLE JOBS. Well you can all get stuffed. I QUIT!"
Labor is so addicted to the drug of intimidation they cannot understand that the business sector wont respond to it. Rudd offers nothing to the miners, and expects them to make a deal and like it. That's not how business works. Where's the carrot?
A labor polician sees a carrot and thinks it's a short orange stick, and then procedes to beat hard-working industrious people do death with it.
Picture an army of unionised public servants commanded by labor commisars walking onto business sites across the country and beating managers to death with carrots. And when the staff question the wisdom of this they force-feed them carrots until they die from vitamin C overdoses.
That's the future of this country if you re-elect Rudd.
Mmmm, carrots.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Like taking money from a baby, with the government's help
A loophope in the funding arrangements of the Julia Gillard memorial school hall rollout across the nation has granted the unions $80m.
Those big yobs in th CMFEU should have to apologise to the little kids at these schools. It's those poor little b*stards and all future generations that are going to have to pay back our commonwealth debt (to China) plus interest so that those bludging bozos could get their nice bonus.
Give the money back to the kids you thieving thugs. The fact that Rudd, Gillard and the ALP aided an abetted this crime just makes me sick.
The classic quote is the union official saying how the union yobs would use the bonus to "take their families our to dinner" or a "movie". Dont make me laugh. It's going straight to CUB and the TAB.
Talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat.
We'd all sooner have a meritocratic democracy where brains are rewarded - not brawn, cunning and intimidation.
Those big yobs in th CMFEU should have to apologise to the little kids at these schools. It's those poor little b*stards and all future generations that are going to have to pay back our commonwealth debt (to China) plus interest so that those bludging bozos could get their nice bonus.
Give the money back to the kids you thieving thugs. The fact that Rudd, Gillard and the ALP aided an abetted this crime just makes me sick.
The classic quote is the union official saying how the union yobs would use the bonus to "take their families our to dinner" or a "movie". Dont make me laugh. It's going straight to CUB and the TAB.
Talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat.
We'd all sooner have a meritocratic democracy where brains are rewarded - not brawn, cunning and intimidation.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Uranium not Racism: the real reason behind India's PR campaign against Rudd's Australia
2010 and i'm back again. Thanks for the encouraging comments. It's an election year so it's time to spit on the knuckles and start pummelling those sorry bastards who are determined to keep Australia in the 19th century forever - the ALP.
I'll begin with a post that is as close as i get to investigative journalism. a web-search lasting longer than 5 mins. I have found a trail of posts that highlight a narrative that seems to have been lost in the recent clamour of controvery over violence in Victoria against Indian students. That narrative tells the story of India's building fury with Australia, brought on not by alleged racism, but by one particularly bad diplomatic decision by the that dunce of diplomacy, Chairman Rudd.
Right from the outset in discussing Australian/Indian relations I must say that I do not accept for a second that Australia is any more racist than any other country, including India. Our diversity of races is conclusive proof to the contrary. Anyone who wants to know about the roots of Australian tolerance should read John Hirst's 2009 book "Sense and Nonsense in Australian History". It outlines beautifully that Australia has always been a tolerant place because Protestants and Catholics have lived here since the beginnings of the colony in virtually perfect harmony, certainly alot more harmoniously than they ever have done in Northern Island, or for that matter, France, England or just about anywhere else. The Irish catholics were much better assymilated into Australia than they ever were into America. Not that I ever like to have a go at the US, i'm just saying that in OZ we have a particularly good track record of tolerance and cohesion between different groups in society.
Andrew Bolt has been brilliant in arguing that racism is not a significant factor in student attacks in Melbourne. His best defense of your reputation is here. Furthermore, he attests that it's the Brumby government's inablility to enforce the law, and it's amazing ability to hide that fact, that is the real scandal. But I humbly submit that he does not answer one question. Why are the Indian media IN INDIA whipping up a massive frenzy over so-called racism in Australia? What has got them so mad? The answer can be summed up in one word: Uranium.
Sound crazy? Not at all. This Indian rage is about alot more than student safety. It's about an insult to Indian national pride and the denial of Indian prosperity, both delivered courtesy of Kevin Rudd.
Let me take you back to the last months of the Great and Glorious Howard Government (henceforth GGHG). Howard decided to sell Uranium to India after getting satisfactory guarantees that the uranium would only be used for peaceful power-generation purposes. Some had a problem with this citing that India are not signatories to the international Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty (NPT). I remember clearly at the that Howard's rationale was that we sell uranium to China, so why wouldn't we sell it to India? And in wonderful Howardian style that was the end of the argument. Decision made.
And India was happy. With the prospect of cheap power for India's future development our relationship with India was at an all time high. This article by Kaushik Kapisthalam from 23 Aug 2007 shows just how happy the indians were and gives a great justification of India's use of uranium dispite not signing the NPT. It does also end with an ominous warning:
Enter Kevin Rudd. As one of the very first actions of his government chose to end the relationship of trade in uranium with India. This was done on the basis that India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty. The strict safeguards that Howard obtained from India was not enough for Rudd because he has ambitions to make Australia a permanent member of the UN security council, and probably to make himself UN secretary general, and therefore seeks to follow UN rules to the letter, and beyond. With this pedantry Rudd has put his personal ambition ahead of Australia’s national interest and indeed the interests of the Indian people who are trying to lift themselves out of poverty with cheap clean energy.
In an article by hugely influencial Indian columnist Brahma Chellany (quoted in the Australian here on 3/3/08) the author seeths with rage at Rudd's decision:
As Chellany so colourfully points out Rudd is actually going beyond Australia's duties under the NPT that allow the sale of uranium to non-signatory countries. He's sucking up to the UN. This is Rudd-style diplomacy, fawning and licking to the UN just like he does with China. It's no suprise to non-leftards when, Lo and behold, all that happens is that he and the nation he represents get treated with contempt.
So influencial Indians in the media and government of that country have been mightly pissed off with us for two years now because of Rudd's denying them uranium on a technicality - in true pencil-pushing style.
Now let's come back to the present, or the less distant past. May 30 2009 to be exact. On that day I was watching the new and saw a report of the Indian High Commissioner to Australia Sujatha Singh basically accusing the Victorian police of racism, by saying they showed a "lack of sensitivity" when Indians were the victims. I take it that she meant the police didn't really care about enforcing the law in these cases, not that they didn't say "there there" and hand over the kleenex. In response I thought two things: Firstly, try as they might, the Victorian police have trouble enforcing the law when anyone is the victim because they are crucially under-staffed and under-funded under labor. But what really struck me was that the ambassador from India to Australia, not some low-ranking official but the number one person charged with maintaining good relations between the two countries, was here undermining confidence in law and order in this country. I could not believe my ears. "OMFG!" I remember thinking, "This woman is going to incite a bloody riot!". If she had concerns of this nature the job of an ambassador is to have tactful discussion with other high-level members of the government and diplomatic community in order to bring the pressure to bear behind the scenes. Diplomacy is not about public speaking, and it sure is not about causing instability in the partner nation. I should have written it down that day because of what happenned in the immidiate aftermath.
The following day I was attending the Emerging Writers Festival in the attire of a Victorian (as in 19th century) Gentleman. After a lecture I decided to go outside onto Swanston st for a breath of fresh air. Imagine my suprise when I looked up from my pocket watch and I spied before me thousands of Indians marching down the street shouting and generally being surly. And there I was by myself metres away in the uniform of, a white colonial overlord. I have to say i fely a little trepidatious so i nipped back inside for a slug of brandy and a whiff of snuff to steady the nerves.
Because of the proximity in time of the High Commissioner's remarks and the protest i got a feeling, on top of the pleasant sensation brought on by brandy and snuff, that this protest was not a grass-roots movement of students concerned for their own welfare but rather the opposite: a top-down PR campaign if not explicitly organised by the Indian authorities then at least implicitly permitted by them, and intended to cast Australia in a bad light at home and abroad. In short, it smacked of revenge. "Revenge for what?", I mused, but a few gulps and snorts later, my mind moved onto other matters.
Over the coming months the issue just got bigger and bigger. Simon Overland has done a great job in my opinion never giving an inch to the suggestion that the Victorian Police are racist. But the Indians were not having a bar of it. And of course lefties here in Australia who so love to hate their fellow countrymen were all over the issue like a rash, re-enforcing the negative message again and again.
The Indians obviously kicked us right were it hurts, in our knee-jerk reflex for national shame. As another former colony they probably understand it well. The cringe. The teeth-grinding slow-burning humilialtion of of an imported sense of an inferiority. Both cultures should learn to relax because if we only visted the old colonial masters in Britain we'd realise they feel ever more inferior than we do, but back to the point.
As the issue grew I returned to ruminating about the cause for this rancor of Indians toward Australians? Do we not give them our cricket players for their IPL? do we not consume their delicious curries in huge quantities. DO we not love watching Bollywood with graceful actors dancing around in retina-burning colours, not to mention physiques. Do we not use the mathematical concept of zero and its symbol "0" (both invented in India) in the vast bulk of our daily calculations?
Apart from the the occasional 5-day period during a test match, we love india. Why the hell were they so pissed off with us? I just could not see how their anger was proportionate to issue of student attacks here in Melbourne. That would explain protests by Indians here, but the burning or effigies of Rudd in India??? I dont think so.
Then it hit me. Uranium. My memories of the fury in the Indian articles i had read came flooding back. Of course, i thought, this is not about the safety of a relatively small number of Indians in a far flung town in Aus. It's about the spit in the face that Rudd delivered to the entire Indian nation by denying them their very reasonable expectation of getting Aussie uranium. Who knows? Maybe they thought that decision was racist. In any event it piqued them. They felt the morally righteous Rudd was looking down his nose at them, as if they were children that could not be trusted with scissors. I know i get this feeling every time Rudd opens his mouth. I can't blame the Indians for hating him too.
But I was not sure whether this smearing of Australia, this whipping up of public hatred against us in two countries, was really orchestrated by the Indian intelligencia( the authorities and media) or was it a organic response to the concerns of the indian-man-in-the-melbourne-street. There was one more bit of info i needed to complete the loop.
I noticed on the ABC's coverage of the first Melboure protest regarding the treatment of Indian students on May 31st 2009 that it was organised by FISA, the Federation of Indian Students of Australia. So at what point did they announce they were having a protest? Was it a weeks long build-up of a grass-roots thing, which takes alot of time and effort to even tell people about let alone organise and gain council permission etc. Or was is on the spur of the moment?
I searched the FISA website for reference to the word protest. The only references that came referring to the May 31st protest had a later date and were merely commenting on it retrospectively. All mentions of a protest prior to May 31st were about those held by taxi-drivers. "That's be right", i thought. "Melbourne is the new Paris under Labor: wonderful wide boulevards, classy coffee-houses and a bleedin riot every second week". But nothing came up in my search about organising the student protest.
Then came my stroke of investigative genius, "What if i search for the word 'Rally'?". I puched it in and after a cupple of typos ... BINGO. Up came this page. "FISA calls for a PEACE RALLY" it proclaimed, in what i thought were vaguely aggressive capital letters. The date?
30.May.2009.
They day before the protest. And the same day as the High Commissioners remarks.
It might not be a smoking gun, but it's a still-vibrating sling-shot. To me this clearly demonstrates that the FISA protest was organised IN RESPONSE TO the public speach given by the Indian High Commissioner implicitly accusing the Victorian police of racism. She did not command anyone to do it (like Chinese authorities organising Olymic torch rally intimidation would have) but because she was saying the law was unjust she gave Indian students in Australia a moral justification for breaking it, which at the very least gives implicit permission to make a scene through civil disobedience.
The student's response was swift. Sure, it wasn't illegal except in one case, it wasn't the car burning of "youths" in Paris, but i can tell you that I felt threatened by what looked to me like an angry mob. And it would not have taken much more friction for many laws to have been broken that day. Once again its testimony to the stoic tolerace of Melbournians that they put up with the disruption to public transport until the student protest petered out and they went back to their theses.
Whether the ambassador intended for people to protest or not, and i'm not accusing her of that, I dont think the protests would have happened without her speech. It removed natural impediments to such action. I mean these people were university students. That means they have career prospects and visas that could be cancelled. Do you really think they are going to protest in the street unless they reckon their embassy has their back, and will support them publically if something goes wrong? I doubt it very much.
The anger that the Indian govt, Indian media and Indian people are feeling towards Australians has been building for some time - two years to be precise, since the day Rudd announced they would be denied our uranium. Remarks about "racism" must be understood in the context of the diplomatic dispute between the two countries. I do not poo-poo concerns about the safety of Indian students. These are certainly legitimate and would be best addressed by a return to law-and-order in Victoria. But pardon me, High Commissioner, this would be easier if you did not undermine the rule of law in our state by implying the cops only enforce it if the victims are white.
So what is the upshot of all this? It's obvious isn't it. We should stop slashing our wrists over "racism" and return to the policy of the GGHG and go back to selling uranium to India. After that we'll all be mates again.
Rudd's diplomatic blunder of refusing India uranium aggravated them in the extreme because it denied them both status as a trusted nation and cheap clean low-emissions power. Well actually they are getting their uranium from Canada now, so Rudd's little protest did nothing except deny australia loads of export income and cause our image to be besmirched in India for a generation. Now THAT's what i call a diplomatic own goal.
Uranium is the cause of all this drama and the drama will go on until that cause is removed. This is a top-level governmental and diplomatic issue. Rudd will never go back on his decision because his UN ambitions outweigh any other concerns (if indeed he has any) about the welfare of Australians and Indians. We cannot expect the normalisation of our diplomatic relationship with friends and cricketing rivals in India until a coalition govt is re-elected that is willing to deal with other nations as equals.
In the meantime at the grass-roots level I urge people to participate in Vindaloo against violence. Let's sit down for a chat with our Indian mates and stuff our faces.
UPDATE: Good to see that Julie Bishop is right on the case with his one
UPDATE: LOL! I just found by typing in the labels field that i already covered the topic of India Uranium nearly two years ago on the 3/3/08 here. I dont suck as much at this whole blog thing as I thought ;)
I'll begin with a post that is as close as i get to investigative journalism. a web-search lasting longer than 5 mins. I have found a trail of posts that highlight a narrative that seems to have been lost in the recent clamour of controvery over violence in Victoria against Indian students. That narrative tells the story of India's building fury with Australia, brought on not by alleged racism, but by one particularly bad diplomatic decision by the that dunce of diplomacy, Chairman Rudd.
Right from the outset in discussing Australian/Indian relations I must say that I do not accept for a second that Australia is any more racist than any other country, including India. Our diversity of races is conclusive proof to the contrary. Anyone who wants to know about the roots of Australian tolerance should read John Hirst's 2009 book "Sense and Nonsense in Australian History". It outlines beautifully that Australia has always been a tolerant place because Protestants and Catholics have lived here since the beginnings of the colony in virtually perfect harmony, certainly alot more harmoniously than they ever have done in Northern Island, or for that matter, France, England or just about anywhere else. The Irish catholics were much better assymilated into Australia than they ever were into America. Not that I ever like to have a go at the US, i'm just saying that in OZ we have a particularly good track record of tolerance and cohesion between different groups in society.
Andrew Bolt has been brilliant in arguing that racism is not a significant factor in student attacks in Melbourne. His best defense of your reputation is here. Furthermore, he attests that it's the Brumby government's inablility to enforce the law, and it's amazing ability to hide that fact, that is the real scandal. But I humbly submit that he does not answer one question. Why are the Indian media IN INDIA whipping up a massive frenzy over so-called racism in Australia? What has got them so mad? The answer can be summed up in one word: Uranium.
Sound crazy? Not at all. This Indian rage is about alot more than student safety. It's about an insult to Indian national pride and the denial of Indian prosperity, both delivered courtesy of Kevin Rudd.
Let me take you back to the last months of the Great and Glorious Howard Government (henceforth GGHG). Howard decided to sell Uranium to India after getting satisfactory guarantees that the uranium would only be used for peaceful power-generation purposes. Some had a problem with this citing that India are not signatories to the international Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty (NPT). I remember clearly at the that Howard's rationale was that we sell uranium to China, so why wouldn't we sell it to India? And in wonderful Howardian style that was the end of the argument. Decision made.
And India was happy. With the prospect of cheap power for India's future development our relationship with India was at an all time high. This article by Kaushik Kapisthalam from 23 Aug 2007 shows just how happy the indians were and gives a great justification of India's use of uranium dispite not signing the NPT. It does also end with an ominous warning:
On the other hand, should Australian leadership after the next elections take a more dogmatic approach in defence of a failed treaty [NPT], they would be making a huge and futile mistake. India is likely to get uranium from other sources should its deal with the US go through and New Delhi would unlikely forget the slight it received from Canberra.
Enter Kevin Rudd. As one of the very first actions of his government chose to end the relationship of trade in uranium with India. This was done on the basis that India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty. The strict safeguards that Howard obtained from India was not enough for Rudd because he has ambitions to make Australia a permanent member of the UN security council, and probably to make himself UN secretary general, and therefore seeks to follow UN rules to the letter, and beyond. With this pedantry Rudd has put his personal ambition ahead of Australia’s national interest and indeed the interests of the Indian people who are trying to lift themselves out of poverty with cheap clean energy.
In an article by hugely influencial Indian columnist Brahma Chellany (quoted in the Australian here on 3/3/08) the author seeths with rage at Rudd's decision:
"[Rudd] has made plain his intent to cosy up to the world's largest autocracy, China, while nullifying an important decision that his predecessor took to help build a closer rapport with the world's largest democracy."
"In touting its ideological resolve to uphold the NPT, the Rudd Government wants to be more Catholic than the Pope. Far from the NPT forbidding civil exports to a non-signatory, the treaty indeed encourages the peaceful use of nuclear technology among all states.
"Rudd has no qualms about selling uranium to China but will not export to India, even though the latter is accepting what the former will not brook - stringent, internationally verifiable safeguards against diversion of material to weapons use."
As Chellany so colourfully points out Rudd is actually going beyond Australia's duties under the NPT that allow the sale of uranium to non-signatory countries. He's sucking up to the UN. This is Rudd-style diplomacy, fawning and licking to the UN just like he does with China. It's no suprise to non-leftards when, Lo and behold, all that happens is that he and the nation he represents get treated with contempt.
So influencial Indians in the media and government of that country have been mightly pissed off with us for two years now because of Rudd's denying them uranium on a technicality - in true pencil-pushing style.
Now let's come back to the present, or the less distant past. May 30 2009 to be exact. On that day I was watching the new and saw a report of the Indian High Commissioner to Australia Sujatha Singh basically accusing the Victorian police of racism, by saying they showed a "lack of sensitivity" when Indians were the victims. I take it that she meant the police didn't really care about enforcing the law in these cases, not that they didn't say "there there" and hand over the kleenex. In response I thought two things: Firstly, try as they might, the Victorian police have trouble enforcing the law when anyone is the victim because they are crucially under-staffed and under-funded under labor. But what really struck me was that the ambassador from India to Australia, not some low-ranking official but the number one person charged with maintaining good relations between the two countries, was here undermining confidence in law and order in this country. I could not believe my ears. "OMFG!" I remember thinking, "This woman is going to incite a bloody riot!". If she had concerns of this nature the job of an ambassador is to have tactful discussion with other high-level members of the government and diplomatic community in order to bring the pressure to bear behind the scenes. Diplomacy is not about public speaking, and it sure is not about causing instability in the partner nation. I should have written it down that day because of what happenned in the immidiate aftermath.
The following day I was attending the Emerging Writers Festival in the attire of a Victorian (as in 19th century) Gentleman. After a lecture I decided to go outside onto Swanston st for a breath of fresh air. Imagine my suprise when I looked up from my pocket watch and I spied before me thousands of Indians marching down the street shouting and generally being surly. And there I was by myself metres away in the uniform of, a white colonial overlord. I have to say i fely a little trepidatious so i nipped back inside for a slug of brandy and a whiff of snuff to steady the nerves.
Because of the proximity in time of the High Commissioner's remarks and the protest i got a feeling, on top of the pleasant sensation brought on by brandy and snuff, that this protest was not a grass-roots movement of students concerned for their own welfare but rather the opposite: a top-down PR campaign if not explicitly organised by the Indian authorities then at least implicitly permitted by them, and intended to cast Australia in a bad light at home and abroad. In short, it smacked of revenge. "Revenge for what?", I mused, but a few gulps and snorts later, my mind moved onto other matters.
Over the coming months the issue just got bigger and bigger. Simon Overland has done a great job in my opinion never giving an inch to the suggestion that the Victorian Police are racist. But the Indians were not having a bar of it. And of course lefties here in Australia who so love to hate their fellow countrymen were all over the issue like a rash, re-enforcing the negative message again and again.
The Indians obviously kicked us right were it hurts, in our knee-jerk reflex for national shame. As another former colony they probably understand it well. The cringe. The teeth-grinding slow-burning humilialtion of of an imported sense of an inferiority. Both cultures should learn to relax because if we only visted the old colonial masters in Britain we'd realise they feel ever more inferior than we do, but back to the point.
As the issue grew I returned to ruminating about the cause for this rancor of Indians toward Australians? Do we not give them our cricket players for their IPL? do we not consume their delicious curries in huge quantities. DO we not love watching Bollywood with graceful actors dancing around in retina-burning colours, not to mention physiques. Do we not use the mathematical concept of zero and its symbol "0" (both invented in India) in the vast bulk of our daily calculations?
Apart from the the occasional 5-day period during a test match, we love india. Why the hell were they so pissed off with us? I just could not see how their anger was proportionate to issue of student attacks here in Melbourne. That would explain protests by Indians here, but the burning or effigies of Rudd in India??? I dont think so.
Then it hit me. Uranium. My memories of the fury in the Indian articles i had read came flooding back. Of course, i thought, this is not about the safety of a relatively small number of Indians in a far flung town in Aus. It's about the spit in the face that Rudd delivered to the entire Indian nation by denying them their very reasonable expectation of getting Aussie uranium. Who knows? Maybe they thought that decision was racist. In any event it piqued them. They felt the morally righteous Rudd was looking down his nose at them, as if they were children that could not be trusted with scissors. I know i get this feeling every time Rudd opens his mouth. I can't blame the Indians for hating him too.
But I was not sure whether this smearing of Australia, this whipping up of public hatred against us in two countries, was really orchestrated by the Indian intelligencia( the authorities and media) or was it a organic response to the concerns of the indian-man-in-the-melbourne-street. There was one more bit of info i needed to complete the loop.
I noticed on the ABC's coverage of the first Melboure protest regarding the treatment of Indian students on May 31st 2009 that it was organised by FISA, the Federation of Indian Students of Australia. So at what point did they announce they were having a protest? Was it a weeks long build-up of a grass-roots thing, which takes alot of time and effort to even tell people about let alone organise and gain council permission etc. Or was is on the spur of the moment?
I searched the FISA website for reference to the word protest. The only references that came referring to the May 31st protest had a later date and were merely commenting on it retrospectively. All mentions of a protest prior to May 31st were about those held by taxi-drivers. "That's be right", i thought. "Melbourne is the new Paris under Labor: wonderful wide boulevards, classy coffee-houses and a bleedin riot every second week". But nothing came up in my search about organising the student protest.
Then came my stroke of investigative genius, "What if i search for the word 'Rally'?". I puched it in and after a cupple of typos ... BINGO. Up came this page. "FISA calls for a PEACE RALLY" it proclaimed, in what i thought were vaguely aggressive capital letters. The date?
30.May.2009.
They day before the protest. And the same day as the High Commissioners remarks.
It might not be a smoking gun, but it's a still-vibrating sling-shot. To me this clearly demonstrates that the FISA protest was organised IN RESPONSE TO the public speach given by the Indian High Commissioner implicitly accusing the Victorian police of racism. She did not command anyone to do it (like Chinese authorities organising Olymic torch rally intimidation would have) but because she was saying the law was unjust she gave Indian students in Australia a moral justification for breaking it, which at the very least gives implicit permission to make a scene through civil disobedience.
The student's response was swift. Sure, it wasn't illegal except in one case, it wasn't the car burning of "youths" in Paris, but i can tell you that I felt threatened by what looked to me like an angry mob. And it would not have taken much more friction for many laws to have been broken that day. Once again its testimony to the stoic tolerace of Melbournians that they put up with the disruption to public transport until the student protest petered out and they went back to their theses.
Whether the ambassador intended for people to protest or not, and i'm not accusing her of that, I dont think the protests would have happened without her speech. It removed natural impediments to such action. I mean these people were university students. That means they have career prospects and visas that could be cancelled. Do you really think they are going to protest in the street unless they reckon their embassy has their back, and will support them publically if something goes wrong? I doubt it very much.
The anger that the Indian govt, Indian media and Indian people are feeling towards Australians has been building for some time - two years to be precise, since the day Rudd announced they would be denied our uranium. Remarks about "racism" must be understood in the context of the diplomatic dispute between the two countries. I do not poo-poo concerns about the safety of Indian students. These are certainly legitimate and would be best addressed by a return to law-and-order in Victoria. But pardon me, High Commissioner, this would be easier if you did not undermine the rule of law in our state by implying the cops only enforce it if the victims are white.
So what is the upshot of all this? It's obvious isn't it. We should stop slashing our wrists over "racism" and return to the policy of the GGHG and go back to selling uranium to India. After that we'll all be mates again.
Rudd's diplomatic blunder of refusing India uranium aggravated them in the extreme because it denied them both status as a trusted nation and cheap clean low-emissions power. Well actually they are getting their uranium from Canada now, so Rudd's little protest did nothing except deny australia loads of export income and cause our image to be besmirched in India for a generation. Now THAT's what i call a diplomatic own goal.
Uranium is the cause of all this drama and the drama will go on until that cause is removed. This is a top-level governmental and diplomatic issue. Rudd will never go back on his decision because his UN ambitions outweigh any other concerns (if indeed he has any) about the welfare of Australians and Indians. We cannot expect the normalisation of our diplomatic relationship with friends and cricketing rivals in India until a coalition govt is re-elected that is willing to deal with other nations as equals.
In the meantime at the grass-roots level I urge people to participate in Vindaloo against violence. Let's sit down for a chat with our Indian mates and stuff our faces.
UPDATE: Good to see that Julie Bishop is right on the case with his one
UPDATE: LOL! I just found by typing in the labels field that i already covered the topic of India Uranium nearly two years ago on the 3/3/08 here. I dont suck as much at this whole blog thing as I thought ;)
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