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.
