Election Blogging And Drinking

I was wrong. Turns out I don't have a life.

This will be election night blogging mixed with a drinking game.

Every seat declared for Labor, one shot of Wild Turkey.

Let's begin.

6pm - votes are rolling in, some booths are counting slower than others. Bob Hawke has apparently called the election for Labor. Literally. He shouted it out the window of the car driving him to the Sky News studio while laughing maniacally.

Oohh, first couple of seats are being called for Labor with less than 1% of the vote counted. Good enough for me. Three seats, three shots.

7pm - more Labor seats, more shots. Is this dangerous? Decided each three Labor seat shots of Wild Turkey have to be balanced out with shots of orange juice or black coffee for Liberal seats declared.

Christ, is this eight Labor seats already, or twelfvve? Who cares....must eat something.

7.30pm - No. Mal Brough is being tipped to lose his seat. But Tony "Too Honest" Abbott will keep his seat. Of course, one of the only few decent Liberals loses. Howard & Friends will be finding Labor chewing gum under the opposition benches for months to come. Is it over for Howard & Friends? Yes.

8pm - Labor, shot, Labor, shot, Labor, shot, Labor, shot, Liberal, coffee, Labor, National, Labor, Lalorr, Layloooh..

8.20m - Bob Hawke has been calling it live on Sky for an hour. Kerry O'Brien has to cover the growing smirk with his hand, but his huge hand is not big enough. With the amount of hair Julia Gillard lost each week of the election to new makeovers, she's lucky it's finally over. Two more weeks and she would have had Peter Garrett's hairstyle.

8.40pm - Labor, Labor, Labor (let's go for just LR for Labor okay?) LR, LR, LR, Liberals...wow, Howard will lose to Maxine McKew. So paying personal visits to 8000 homes in Bennelong without the nation's media and a half dozen security in tow does pay dividends.

9-ish? - bluurg. Oh crap. whi is the rooom tilting to one syde? LR, shot, LR, shot, LR shiit.

Howard will concede soon. Costello is speaking now, so Howard will make his arrival at the hotel and cut into Costello's near-tears speech.

Howard arrives at hotel with clearly pissed off Janette The Wife. Howard's mere riding up the escalator is enough for every channel to dump Costello's speech just as he was getting to how awesome Australia is. Story of Costello's decade really.

Great speech from Mal Brough. He asks Labor to continue his work in Aboriginal communities. No doubt they will, but without handing over land to mining companies which was always Howard's plan.

9whenever - Howard is history. That's worth two shots. Interesting speech from The Loser but Janette's grimace is distracting. She's still interrupting and nagiiiinng him even when he's strying tto exit with class. Howard all but concedes Bennnelong to Maxine McKew as his farewells his extremely bitter supports. "NOOO!!!! WE LOVE YOU JOHNNN!!!" Fantastic. Someone in the crowd manages to shout "HOWARD IS A WANKER!!!" loud enough for it to be heard on the ABC. What a send off. Great speech from Howard. Pity he didn't talk up how awesome Australia is more often in the campaign instead of claiming we would plunge into living hell if Labor wins.

...there is no Liberal government anywhere in Australia now. The whining of the conservatives begins. Naturally they will blame the ABC. And Channel Nine. And, hilariously, the Murdoch media. Blah blah blah

10pm - W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-Wipeout! The Liberals 11.5 year reign is over. Finished. Australians clearly didn't believe Howard's bullshit. The world will not end on Monday morning. Another chapter in Australia's history will begin.


I said you sonn offa bitch! I never likkked yuuo....listen listen, listen, you are bloody great mate, really...no, no, listen....shit...I gotta ss ff what? .............fuckit.....woiw r rr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


1.58am - crashed out in a pile on the floor when Kevin Rudd started his victory speech a few hours ago. Sign of things to come no doubt. Children won't go to sleep? Put on the Kevin Rudd Best Speeches DVD and they will fall into a half-coma within minutes.

Liberals booed any mention of Labor when Howard conceded. The Labor faithful managed to mostly restrain themselves when Rudd praised Howard.

Good Christ! Alex Hawk won Mitchell. If you see him, splash him with holy water and watch him scream and writhe. Tony "Too Raw" Abbott now has competition for who will be the biggest arsehole on the opposition benches. We will watch this nasty piece of work very, very closely.

2am Sunday morning - so it's over. Conservatives have been absolutely routed in Australia last night. Labor wins by 22, or more, seats. One of the most complete and total victories in Australian political history.

Some fantasists are already claiming that seeing as Rudd outed himself as a conservative, the conservatives won regardless of Howard's loss. Yeah, okay. That's Howard quality bullshit. Remember what Peter Garrett said? "When we get in, we'll just change it all" or something like that. Clearly that's what Australians want to happen now.

Kevin Rudd, we're already being told, won his monumental victory off the back of catchy slogans and populist salesman pitches. Of course he did. John Howard completed the transformation of Australia into a consumer society, so why shouldn't Rudd win when he had the best buy-this-now slogans and the far more impressive marketing campaign?

The new age of Labor begins tomorrow. The bloodbath in the Liberal Party has already begun. Conservatives are in the vast minority in Australia today. Australia just became more Australian, once again.

One Of These Men Will Wake Up Sunday Morning A Total Loser



Interesting photo. Note the handshake. Kevin Rudd's gone for the dominant, intimidation grasp, with his thump on top, pressing down on John Howard's hand, pinning him, which is a good way to sum up the entire campaign, or the whole year in fact.

Both John Howard and Kevin Rudd have supplied news.com.au with last ditch pitch columns to win your vote....unless you're voting for The Greens, or the Shooters Party. And let's face it, who isn't?

Not much new in either column, but Rudd definitely wins the battle of the headlines :

Howard : There Is No Risk-Free Change Of Government

Well duh. Snoooze.

Rudd : What's The Point Of Voting For Howard?

Ouch.

A two party, winner-takes-nearly-all-election like ours guarantees that either Kevin Rudd or John Howard will suffer a soul-crushing, spine-cracking, head-melting, brain-frying, spirit diluting defeat.

Which is great fun, if both of them give you the absolute shits.

The best part is when the loser has to front the media and try to act like they don't feel as though they've been run over by six consecutive road trains.

You will probably see John Howard cry if he loses. And Alexander Downer cry. And Peter Costello cry. Tony Abbott, meanwhile, will just look like he has eaten twelve raw kittens and is looking for more.

There will be no federal election live-blogging here. I do have a life. There may be an update early Sunday morning, but no promises on that.

Remember, if anyone tries to intimidate or threaten you on your way in to casting your vote, you are legally allowed to kick them. Probably.

Liberal Party Pro-Terrorism Leaflet Scandal Grows And Grows As Federal Election Dawns

Jackie Kelly : "I Think It's A Huge Entertainment..."

Controversy Linking Sydney Muslims To Supporting Terrorism Against Australians Will Help End John Howard's Government


By Darryl Mason

The scandal over a leaflet drop in Sydney's western suburbs by volunteers for prime minister John Howard's Liberal Party fills newspapers today, and steals precious column inches, headlines and news breaks away from Howard's message in his last big push for re-election.

The leaflet, purporting to be from an Islamic group support terrorism, a group that doesn't actually exist, claimed the opposition government, now expected to win Saturday's election, supported terrorists who killed Australians, and said Muslims would soon have more opportunity to convert Christians.

The husband of the Liberal Party candidate running for election in the Western Sydney seat of Lindsay this Saturday, and the husband of the retiring Liberal Party member, have now both been kicked out of prime minister John Howard's party for distributing the leaflets claiming a vote for Labor is a vote in support of terrorists who've killed more than 80 Australians in the Bali bombings.

The leaflet also claimed the Labor Party would build more mosques in Western Sydney and were in favour of allowing Islamic extremists into the country.

A third man, in the executive of prime minister John Howard's party, has also been expelled.

All this less than 48 hours out from an election that is widely tipped to see the downfall of the John Howard government.

Incredible.


John Howard's reaction?

He knew nothing about the leaflets, they were not authorised Liberal Party election material, he has distanced himself from the scandal, and now he expects us to believe that neither of the two Liberal Party politicians had any idea of what their husbands were up to in writing, printing and then delivering the leaflets to hundreds of homes in one of the most highly contested seats in the election.

Current Liberal Party member for Lindsay, Jackie Kelly, is still insisting the unauthorised campaign brochure her husband helped to write, print and distribute to homes in Western Sydney was "a joke" and that she thought it was "funny." She tried to explain away the scandal, still laughing, by claiming her husband, and the other men involved were drunk and bored.

Pressure is on Howard to now announce the resignation of the Liberal Party candidate for Lindsay, Karen Chijoff, who's husband, Greg Chijoff, has been named as one of the three men now caught up in the election rocking scandal, along with Jackie Kelly's husband, Gary Clark.

How could Karen Chijoff not have known that her husband Greg, who has been campaigning by her side for weeks, was not involved in the illegal distribution of unauthorised Liberal Party leaflets trying to capitalise on the distress and fear resulting from the more than 100 Australians killed in terror attacks in Bali and the United States?

Tonight's current affairs shows, which draw combined audiences of about 20-25% of Australia's population, are expected to go hard on this story, uncovering similar tactics used by Jackie Kelly in past elections, and interviewing the families of Australians killed in international terror attacks.

Bizarrely, John Howard tried, unsuccessfully, to spin away the storm of controversy today by claiming that a wife should never be held responsible for the actions of her husband, and attempted to relate the individuality of husbands and wives to the rise of feminism, and that such separations of responsibility for each other's actions should be celebrated, not damned.

Barely mentioned in most of the coverage so far is that the leaflets directly linked Australian Muslims to supporting international terrorists and terrorist attacks. Linkages that have been essential to John Howard's divide-and-rule strategy of giving white Australians an easy target for vilification and loathing, though it should be pointed out that only the smallest minority of Australians have ever fallen for Howard's race and religion-based baiting.

The Howard government defeat may be even worse than the latest polls indicate, which is, to quote John Howard from earlier in the year, already set to be a defeat of near total "annihilation."

The 'Pro-Terror Liberal Party Leaflet Scandal' has literally exploded from nowhere in less than 18 hours, and questions about the involvement of senior members of the Liberal Party dominated John Howard's final major pre-election speech and Q & A session with the cream of Australia's journalists.

Excerpts from retiring Liberal Party politician Jackie Kelly's unhinged interview earlier today :

JACKIE KELLY: Well, I've read the alleged pamphlet and when I first read it I had to laugh because I think everyone who reads it has their first instinct is to laugh, pretty much everyone who's read chuckles in terms of the parody it does make of various things that have happened during the campaign.

CHRIS UHLMANN: But just to establish it, your husband and two colleagues were handing out this pamphlet...

JACKIE KELLY: Well, my understanding is they were letterboxing...

CHRIS UHLMANN: This pamphlet?

JACKIE KELLY: Well, I don't know. Well, I don't know, allegedly. Allegedly.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And this pamphlet says it comes from an Islamic organisation that doesn't exist? It says the ALP wants the Bali bombers forgiven and supports the construction of a mosque in western Sydney. What's funny about that?

JACKIE KELLY: Oh, look, it makes a parody....I think its sort of, I think its intent is to be a send-up but it obviously hasn't worked.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Isn't it its intent to drive people away from the Labor Party? Isn't that the intent of this?

JACKIE KELLY: No, well, I think if you read it you'd be laughing. I think it's quite....most people who've read it have sort of said, "Oh, well, that's a Chaser-style of prank."

CHRIS UHLMANN: Alright, who printed it?

JACKIE KELLY: Oh, look, I don't, I don't - I'm not, I don't know enough about it.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Was it from your office?

JACKIE KELLY: No. Absolutely not.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Who funded it?

JACKIE KELLY: I don't know. I don't know.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Who authorised it?

JACKIE KELLY: Well, look, there isn't any authorisation on the alleged document....

CHRIS UHLMANN: Can you guarantee that no funds came from your office, or from the Liberal Party for this?

JACKIE KELLY: Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

CHRIS UHLMANN: So where did the money come from? Someone must have printed it.

JACKIE KELLY: Look, everyone's got home printers and whatnot...

CHRIS UHLMANN: Was the Liberal state office involved in this joke?

JACKIE KELLY: No, not at all.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Was the Federal office involved in this joke?

JACKIE KELLY: Not at all.

*******************

JACKIE KELLY: Where is this conversation going?

CHRIS UHLMANN: I rang and I've identified myself as a reporter and I want to know how much you know about this particular document?

JACKIE KELLY: I don't know anything about it, right? I know basically what my husband has told me, his version of events, and obviously what the papers are alleging, and obviously what the ALP is putting about.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Jackie Kelly, finally, do you approve of this kind of thing?

JACKIE KELLY: No. Absolutely not. With my experience in politics and everything, this is just really immature stuff, that hardly makes influence on anyone's vote and I think it's a huge entertainment for other people.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Jackie Kelly, thank you.

JACKIE KELLY: Cheers.

Cheers?

The audio of the interview makes clear that Jackie Kelly is lying through her teeth.


Here's the full text of the leaflet from the non-existent Islamic Australia Federation :

"The role of the Islamic Australia Federation is to support Islamic Australians by providing a strong network within Islamic Australia.

"Muslims supporting Muslims within the community and assisting and showing christian Australians the glorious path to Islam.

"In the upcoming federal election we strongly support the ALP as our preferred party to govern this country and urge all other Muslims to do the same.

"The leading role of the ALP in supporting our faith at both state and local government levels has been exceptional and we look further to further support when Kevin Rudd leads this country.

"We gratefully acknowledge Labor's support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings.

"Labor supports our new Mosque construction and we hope, with the support or funding of local and state governments, to open our new Mosque in St Marys soon.

"Labor was the only political party to support the entry to this country of our Grand Mufti reverend Sheik al-Hilaly (sic) and we thank Hon Paul Keating for over-turning the objections of ASIO to allow our Grand Mufti to enter this country."

It's beyond obvious that the leaflet was not intended as a joke, or a "Chaser style prank."

It was a carefully planned and constructed psychological operation to smear the Labor Party as supporters of terrorism against Australians and to scare voters in the mostly Christian western Sydney suburb of St Mary's into believing they would be converted to Islam if Labor wins the election.

Labor Party volunteers caught the Liberal Party volunteers in the act of distributing the leaflets on Tuesday night. The Labor Party was tipped off to the leaflet and its distribution by people inside the Liberal Party who strongly disagreed with this extremist and anti-Democratic behaviour.


The Chaser Offers Jackie Kelly A Job

Why Conservatives Can't Do Comedy

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'Your New Reality'

Two Major Journalists Required To Cope With Sheer Weight Of Howard's Final Week "I Shit You Not" Fear Mongering Pitch

When I worked as the editor of a city newspaper, many years ago, the newspaper's owner would walk into the office with a local MP's wordy press release in hand, plonk it down on the desk and say "Just run it."

After I'd scanned through the mind-numbing mass, or mess, of information, the conversation would usually go like this :

"I need to check the claims he's making here...some of this is way over the top."

"Just run it."

"I need to give the opposition a chance to react to these claims. They deserve the right of the reply."

"Just run it."

"People are going to laugh at this. They're going to pick up the paper next week and think we're just a local government mouthpiece."

"Just run it."

"Why do you need journalists? You could just get the secretary to type all this shit up..."

"Just run it...Actually, run it on the front page."

The editorship didn't last long.

I flashbacked to those days when I looked at The Australian today and saw this story, where John Howard summons up his most doom-laden verbiage to try one last Big Scare. It's the last minute of the final quarter, the clock is ticking, Australians need to be told they should be trembling as they hover that pencil on Saturday near boxes marked Labor or The Greens.

After weeks of desperate electoral tactical meetings and long lectures from supposed masters of political campaigning and 'damage control', John Howard is finally ready to unveil the New Horror.

The Labor-Green 'Axis'! Lookout! Booga! Beware!

Howard uncorks so much spin, froth and horror-heavy twaddle that The Australian needed two of its biggest hitters - Dennis Shanahan and Paul Kelly - to transcribe it all.

Because that's all this excretible excuse for a news story, from the newspaper that proudly boasts it "keeps the nation informed" really is, in the end. One long Howard rant, with barely a few hundred words from Kelly and Shanahan, but they're only writing what John Howard is saying, instead of just having Howard say it. They typed in a handful of their own words to break up the full stream of direct Howard quotes.

Back at my small city newspaper all those years ago, we only needed one person to transcribe the politician's press release and turn it into a front page story. The Australian needs two senior journalists to do the same thing.

Unless, of course, the editor of The Australiian thinks that having the names of Dennis Shanahan and Paul Kelly in the byline will give this gormless guff some weighty credibility. You know the kind of thing : it must be true what Howard is saying because, look, it's got Kelly and Shanahan bylines on it.

A double team effort! Whoa!

Because Paul Kelly and Dennis Shanahan are merely transcribing what Howard had to say, we're providing a handy translation. The Kelly/Shanahan 'interview' transcript is in italics.

John Howard has warned Australians they risk electing a Labor-Greens alliance that would impose a new national direction and conduct radical experiments with their values and institutions.

In a final-week interview with The Australian, the Prime Minister said the nation faced a "watershed election", where the real issues had been disguised by the me-tooism of Kevin Rudd and in which the workplace reforms of his Government would be lost forever if Labor were elected.

Most Australians clearly want the the workplace reforms to be lost. That's why they're voting Howard out.

Convinced his hopes of a Coalition win at the weekend are not yet extinguished, Mr Howard said: "Part of my mission this week is to drive home the risk. My every waking hour and every available minute will be to drive home the risk of Labor."

Howard is going to rant doom around the clock like a drunk evangelist on a street corner wearing a 'The End Is Nigh' sandwich board.

He said a Labor government would mean higher unemployment, higher inflation and a rollback of industrial reforms that would terminate forever hopes of a freer labour market.

Complete and utter speculation from Howard. This is what he thinks may happen, but he has no proof, and most economists don't back up his claims. Kelly and Shanahan don't bother to even note that Howard could well be proven totally wrong.

Mr Howard warned that a Labor victory would mean a Labor-Greens Senate majority and an era of social re-engineering, with policy changes on drugs, education, social issues and political correctness in conflict with his social conservatism.

"There will be a return of political correctness. There will be a softening in relation to things like drugs. You will get a less socially conservative country at the very least.

Shocking. Rudd may actually wind back some of Howard's welfare for the rich, follow the nation's will and offer a Sorry to Aboriginals, and stop treating 19 year old pot smokers like psychotic hardened criminals.

"I think the country's mood is that people want economic progress but they don't want experiments with our basic values and institutions. Imagine if you are depending on the Greens to get a measure through the Senate on education. Imagine what they would extract."

Imagine if the Greens, who will likely claim 12% or more of the national vote, were actually able to represent the will and desires of their voters instead of having to suffer through the Coalition getting almost 100% of their bills and ammendments passed through the Senate? The horror!

Howard believes his values are what's best for all Australians, not apparently realising the 1950s were five long decades ago.

Asked about the future under the Coalition, Mr Howard said Peter Costello "will be elected unopposed" as his successor. In a warning to leadership aspirants, Mr Howard pledged to the Treasurer, saying this would be "the right thing" for the Liberal Party and for Australia.

Howard is dreaming.

By the time Howard finally hands the Kirribilli House keys back to Australia, if he's actually re-elected as PM, Malcolm Turnbull will have carved a deep trench through the Liberal Party on his way to the top job.

If the Coalition loses government, the old order will torn to shreds in months of bitter infighting about who lost the election, and all those golden Liberal seats. Peter Costello has about as much chance of becoming the next PM, or leader of the Liberals, as Peter Garrett has of taking control of BHP. Costello's poll ratings with the Australian public are absolutely abysmal, he's about as popular as a kick in the nuts with no $500 cheque from Australia's Funniest Home Video to ease the pain.

The Liberals are bitter, yet happy enough, to let Howard spin his little fantasy about Peter Costello taking over, but only until the New Year. Then the real fight inside the Liberal Party begins.

Mr Howard defended his policy of tax breaks to empower choice. He rejected the criticism it was middle-class welfare.

Of course it's middle-class welfare. Why does he think so much of the middle-class voted for him in 2004?

"It's not dependency to give a tax break to people for doing certain things," he said. "I find this blurring of the distinction between expenditure and tax incentives as ridiculous. We encourage people to make choices about their children's education through tax breaks ... We support people who have children by giving them tax breaks. That's authentic Liberal orthodoxy.

What Howard's true masters want, they get. Liberal orthodoxy under Howard is welfare for the middle class and fat tax cuts for the rich. The rest get less money spent on hospitals and education and an extra milkshake and a sandwich as a reward for not trying to storm Parliament House with flaming torches in hand.

It's no mystery why Shanahan would let his name go on such a rag bag of predictions, baseless projections and scare-mongering speculation. But why would Paul Kelly let his name anywhere near such tripe?

Does he no longer care at all? Is he about to retire?

Four more days to go...

Howard Keeps Australia's Media Moguls Rich With Your Money

16 Months, $500 Million

Nobody does more to keep the flow of taxpayer cash running hot into the pockets of Australia's extremely wealthy media moguls than John Howard.

In just 16 months, according to this story, the Howard government has spent a mind-boggling $500 million dollars on anti-Labor, anti-union fear campaigns, pro-WorkChoices propaganda and so-called 'government-funded information advertising'. The Howard government has spent more than $1 million a day on ads, for almost 500 days running.

But it's not government-funded advertising, it's You Fund It :

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's annual report showed $281 million was spent on government advertising last financial year.

And the splurge didn't stop in July. Another $209 million was spent in the run-up to the poll announcement five weeks ago.

The most recent ad campaigns centred on changes to WorkChoices, climate change policy, changes to superannuation and internet safety.

Mr Howard defended the spending, declaring it all "legitimate", but Labor leader Kevin Rudd condemned it, pledging if elected on Saturday to tighten rules governing the use of taxpayers' money for publicising information campaigns.

The Howard government now spends more taxpayer dollars on advertising, per head of population, than any other country in the world.

You won't be surprised to learn that the Herald Sun, one of the big beneficiaries from such advertising splurges, buried this story under a headline about how John Howard backs his "good mate" Peter Costello to takeover the Liberal Party leadership when he finally quits.

John Howard calls directing half a billion dollars of your money into the pockets of some of Australia's richest people being economically responsible and "fiscally conservative."

UPDATE : I shouldn't be so hard on the Herald Sun. At least they ran the $500 Million In 16 Months On Ads story, even if they did so under a headline about another story. The Australian managed to wind back the impact of the revelations of Howard government ad spending this way :

Government Spends $196 Million On Ads

True enough, but as the Herald Sun article clearly reveals, it's not even half the real story.

International Media Picks Up On 'Howard's Battlers Now Turning On Him' Theme

As John Howard's government enters what certainly looks like its last days in power, the international media is starting to pump the theme that he will lose office because the legendary 'Howard Battlers' have decided to dump him because the 'McMansion Dream' has turned sour.

This from the UK's Telegraph :

The aspiring working classes of Australia who catapulted John Howard to power 12 years ago look set to turn on him in lethal fashion in this week’s election, as his promises of growing prosperity have soured.

A survey has found that two-thirds of voters with mortgages between $100,000 and $200,000 (£86,000) intended to vote on Saturday for the opposition Labour Party, heralding a catastrophe for Mr Howard’s conservation coalition.

Since being elected in 1996, Mr Howard has drawn much of his support from "battlers" – blue collar families living in the outer suburbs of Australia’s big cities – seducing them with a Thatcherite philosophy of economic liberalism and social conservatism.

But the Australian dream of owning an air-conditioned "McMansion" with a two-car garage has soured.

Interest rates have risen six times since Mr Howard made a rash pledge at the last election, in 2004, that he would ensure they stayed low.

Compounding the pain for mortgage holders is the fact that house prices have fallen in many working class "battler" suburbs since the property boom peaked around 2003.

The photo running with the story here shows John Howard looking old, bitter and annoyed. The story made the Editor's Pick on the website.

The Top Five Immediate Missions Of Australia's New Prime Minister

Number One : Ratify Kyoto Protocol

Kevin Rudd has revealed the five things he will do, straight off the bat, when he becomes prime minister after next week's federal election :

1. Ratify the Kyoto Protocol. "We need to make sure we are around the negotiating table immediately ... for the next round of commitments on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions."

2. Start immediately to negotiate with the states on reform of hospital practices. "That is of crucial importance - we've got $2.5billion on the table but we'll need to frame a co-operative agreement around performance measures."

3. Begin the roll-out of the high-speed broadband network, along with connections to schools. In tandem, open up tenders for the $1 billion school computer program.

4. "Hit the ground running" with the implementation of the $2.5 billion program to upgrade trades training centres in secondary schools. "I went back to C block [the technical faculty] at [his old school] Nambour High the other day - it hadn't changed since I was there. It was like walking into a museum."

5. Begin negotiations with the Americans and Iraqis for the staged withdrawal by mid next year of Australian combat troops. "I have been very blunt with President Bush ... I have a no-surprises policy when it comes to these things."

It will be interesting to see what John Howard & Friends do with this story. Rudd has all but declared victory, before he's victorious. It should drive Howard nuts, and he will have restrain himself from having a full meltdown so close to the election.

Rudd has pledged to do all the above five within the first 100 hundred days of taking power. How very American presidential of him.

He also said Labor would get two days off, Christmas and Boxing Day, then it's "straight back to work."

He should have added a sixth pledge. Actually answer the questions journalists ask him. His masterful evasion of answering even the most basic questions may completely change, after he wins. If he doesn't, he can expect to cop many months of hammerings from journalists.

I don't actually think Rudd is being arrogant in unveiling his Top Five agenda a week before the election. I'm sure he's privately very nervous that something could go drastically wrong on Election Day. I'm more inclined to think that Rudd's headline grabbing interview, for the Sunday papers, and a leader story on the evening news (Sunday being the day of the biggest newspaper sales, and highest audiences for evening news) is yet another example of his CIA-quality psychological war against John Howard.

Expect Howard, or at least a few of his ministers (we're looking at you Downer) to absolutely flip out at Rudd's "incredible arrogance" in unveiling his 'Once I've Won' agenda.

Now Shanahan Tries I-R-O-N-Y : Denying Polls "Defies Logic"

After writing numerous columns this year where he stubbornly ignored that Labor was absolutely, relentlessly, canning the Coalition in poll after poll after poll, notorious pro-Howard propagandist for The Australian newspaper Dennis Shanahan is now claiming the Coalition's desperate position of last defence, that the polls must surely wrong, "defies logic."

Yes, really :

John Howard only has one chance left to retain government: the published polls are wrong.

It's a scenario that takes another beating from today's Newspoll survey, showing swings in the 18 most marginal Coalition seats no better than the general polls, which have shown a consistent Labor lead of 8-10 points on a two-party-preferred basis all year.

Yet party officials on both sides, federal and state, insist the contest remains close and the election will be tight.

This defies logic and the published polls. How could a contest that has been poles apart ever since Rudd became leader of the Labor Party become tight overnight on November 23?

Err, that's pretty much the same question that the bloggers you and your editor had an absolute shitfit about, back in July, have been asking you, Mr Shanahan, all year long. How can you defy the logic of the polls?

There will be so much back-flipping from Australia's conservative media in the next week, as they try to recast themselves as not backers of the losing team, that editorial floors will look more like Olympic gymnastic venues. But full of not nearly so attractive, or limber, gymnasts.

If The Threat Of 'Terror' To Australia Is So Great, Why Is Howard's Security So Weak?

I was photographing the security fence cutting through the Botanical Gardens, during the APEC summit, when an American jogger walked up and asked what I was doing. I showed him the camera, and some of the images, and told him it was such an amazing and weird site to see that I had to get photos.

"It's like a piece of modern art," I said, and the American laughed. "Yeah, ugly as hell."

I asked him if he was a Bush secret service agent, on a break, a question he ignored completely. He then asked if John Howard went for a walk every morning along the foreshore of the harbour, like he had seen on the news.

Every morning he's in Sydney, I said. The American nodded and snorted a laugh, before saying something along the lines of "He's not worried about his security then?"

It's a question worth considering. No doubt John Howard insists on a low key security presence, so passers-by are able to say hello and shake his hand. He clearly enjoys the contact with the people, and it looks good on TV as well.

But if the threat of terrorism to Australia is so great, so real, and so pending, you also have to ask why it is that any terrorist's presumed number one target leaves himself wide open, every morning on his walk, and at almost every speech and public appearance?

All of this was sparked by the incident today, where a man armed with a pooper scooper tried to "rush" the prime minister during a speech. The man was holding the pooper scooper, he said, because he wanted to clean up Howard's smelly trail of non-core promises that he's left in his wake :

A protester carrying a doo-doo collector surged towards the prime minister, getting to within three metres of him as the PM took the stage.

The man - wearing a badge marked Ken Franklin but later identified as education union official Ken Case - was tackled by security and thrown out of the Convention Centre, before explaining he had been collecting Mr Howard's non core promises.

And a long and festy trail of broken promises it is indeed.

If Howard's lax security is anything to go by, perhaps the threat of terrorism is not quite as intense as all those evening TV ads and intrusive airport security checks might lead you to believe it is.

If the prime minister, a prime mover in the horrific War On Iraq, can leave himself so wide open to protesters and possible snipers every morning and every afternoon, what the hell are the rest of plebs supposed to be afraid of?

Robert Manne Kisses John Howard Goodbye

There's already been a few John Howard eulogies published, but this one from Robert Manne, published today in the latest issue of The Monthly, will set the standard for the so-called "Lefties" that many on the Liberal side of politics and commentary are expecting to dance all over Howard's political grave. They're probably going to be bitterly disappointed.

Manne's comments are mostly respectful, honest and throws some early perspective on The Howard legacy. I'd certainly agree with Manne that the darker days of Howard's reign will shock future generations, while his success as a steady hand on the economic tiller will mostly be forgotten. That happens with all prime ministers and presidents. Howard will be no exception.

Howard was right to stare down many conservative Australians to bring about effective gun control. It is hard to believe that the absence of urban massacre since Port Arthur is an accident. Despite very serious intelligence and political error in the lead-up to the East Timor independence plebiscite, the role his Government played in the creation of an independent East Timor represents Howard's finest hour.

The greatest mistake in the first half of the Howard years was the attack he launched against what American neo-conservatives had labelled political correctness. The country's racist past was increasingly denied. The ambitions for reconciliation with the indigenous population and for the creation of a multicultural society were abandoned. The bitterness of so many indigenous people and the daily experience of marginalisation faced by Australian Muslims are the consequences.

The Keating government bequeathed to Howard a dangerous legacy in the policy of mandatory detention of asylum-seekers.

After losing East Timor, Indonesia secretly encouraged boats of asylum-seekers fleeing from the regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban to sail on to Australian territory. The cruelty with which the Howard Government treated these people will astonish Australians in the future

... Our support for the invasion of Iraq was the worst foreign policy decision ever made by any Australian government.

Manne also writes that "Only when (the Rudd era) opens will the meaning of the Howard years become clear."

A growing number of commenters on the blogs of Piers Akerman, Andrew Bolt and various opinionists for The Australian are gloating loudly about how the careers of conservative commentators will be over once Rudd wins and Howard is gone.

Hardly. The Akermans, Bolts and Tim Blairs will thrive on the change of government, as Rudd moves to implement his new policies and some will inevitably fail, or fail to live up to the hype. But how long will their readers put up with "I told you so!" and "Lookit what they done now!" as insightful commentary?

The fans of a losing cricket or football team of the final test or grand final don't mind getting together after a horror defeat to drown their sorrows, complain about the refs or rip to shreds the players who they know were capable of better. But even the most die-hard supporters only want to do that once or twice. They don't keep getting together to bitch about the defeat. They mostly move on, and look forward to the next season.

If a Rudd government manages to shake off the darkest days of the Howard era, and injects Australian society with new energy and optimism, the bitterness, endless whining and sniping of the Akermans, Bolts, Shanahans and Blairs will lose them a fat chunk of their audience. They risk becoming what they so despise today : the kind of commentators who can't stop complaining and fail to see the nation as it is, and the positive ways a federal government can change the nation for the better.

More Gay Men Would Rather See Howard Nude Than Rudd

Perhaps the Australian Associated Press figures this is the kind of light-hearted story that allows them to drop the serious tone. Well, you'd hope that's the excuse for this story intro :

Twice as many voters want to see a nude Kevin Rudd than John Howard with his gear off, according to another opinion poll sure to worry the Prime Minister.

John Howard worries about how many Australians want to see him naked? Well take a wild guess and presume that Howard is probably more concerned right now by nine solid months of polls that have shouted, week in and week out, 'You Are Not Going To Win The Election No Matter What You Do Now'.

But all hope is not lost in the 'nude stakes' for Howard. He's a firm winner with the gay vote :

...18 per cent of men want to see the PM in the buff, compared to only 14 per cent for Mr Rudd.

Could Howard find a new career in retirement as a gay icon?

Howard scored only limp interest from the all important Yoof Vote :

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, Mr Howard fared even worse, with an estimated 153,000 keen for an eyeful, compared to Rudd's 845,000.

The federal election campaign has now become so intensely boring that this will probably be the most interesting Howard Vs Rudd story of the day.

Refuse To Shake PM's Hand? Get Questioned By Police

Calls Of "Scumbag!" Follow Howard On Suburban Mall Visit

Not the best day out on the campaign trail for the prime minister :

* A woman was knocked unconscious and lay unattended at Howard's feet in a shopping mall, after she was 'bowled over' in the rush of media, security and civilians surrounding the prime minister. Wonder if she'll get a "sorry" and an apology?

* At the same shopping mall in Penrith, Howard's progress was marked by waves of locals shouting "You're a disgrace" and "scumbag!" Malls in Penrith are supposed to be the heartland of Howard's 'battlers'. During the last election he was greeted like a hero in Penrith shopping malls. Not a good sign.

* A man who refused to shake the prime minister's hand, saying "I'm not a fan" was "questioned by police, before being allowed to leave". A public show of dissent scores you a quick questioning by police?

* Howard was rigorously questioned by locals on the interest rate rise, why he had 'lied' to them during the last election campaign about keeping interest rates low, why he had hit them with Workchoices and other subjects less appealing for the PM than a bunch of shoppers "Good on you, John!" The shouts of approval were apparently few and far between today.

* Howard was reduced to quoting from the 'conservative' mind of Mark Latham, as he continued his desperate search for anything that he could use to attack Rudd leviathan.

A photo of the suburban shopping mall woman, knocked to the ground, can be seen here.

There's something about that image that should make Howard extremely nervous. One of his cherished 'battlers' lying prone on the floor of a shopping centre, unconscious, the prime minister standing over her, unable to help, not knowing how to help her.

In comparison, Rudd's morning was boring.

Howard Cashes In On Soldier's Death

Claims 'My Burden' Is The "Greatest To Carry"

John Howard and Kevin Rudd will both attend the West Australian funeral of Mathew Locke today, the Australian SAS soldier killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

The classy thing to do, of course, would be for Howard to say something like "I'm going to the funeral to support the family and give my condolences. Beyond that, I'd rather not comment any further, thank you."

But this is John Howard, and he is facing a staggering defeat in three weeks time at the federal elections.

So we get this instead :

"I think about it a lot because I'm the person in the end who sends men and women into battle," Mr Howard told Sky News.

"I feel a very direct responsibility for any death or injury that occurs on the field of battle and it's the greatest burden that anybody has to carry and discharge."

Well, it's not quite as large as the burden that is carried by the families and children of the dead and physically and mentally wounded veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, who will have to deal with the fallout of Howard's decisions to go to war for the rest of their lives, including such things as alcoholism, PTSD and suicide, while Howard gets to retire and take a well-paid board position with an American defence contractor, or a $100,000 a gig speaking tour of NeoCon think tanks.

Howard forgot to mention that it was his government who tried to cheat Australian war veterans out of more than $500 million in much needed support and entitlements, until an extremely brave and honourable whistleblower exposed the disgusting scam and forced Howard to give the veterans the money.

So much for the "greatest burden" he has "to carry".

Howard Praises His Health Minister For Showing "Backbone" After His Shocking Attack On A Dying Man

Abbott Admits He Only Decided To Apologise After He Saw The Blitz Of Outraged Headlines

This is John Howard's idea of a politician who has "backbone."

His health minister, Tony Abbott, launches a shocking personal attack on a dying man - "just because a person is sick doesn't necessarily mean that he is pure of heart in all things," Abbot said. He knows his words are going to hit the headlines, but he doesn't care. Abbott said what he said for a reason. He knew it would get him in the media the next day where he intended to try and turn up the heat on Labor. It didn't quite work out that way. But was John Howard furious at what Abbott said? Well, no. Did he demand his health minister step down? Of course not.

Howard just waited until Abbott apologised, as he knew he would, and then claimed Abbott was showing backbone because he was brave enough to say sorry for his "mistake."

Of course, Howard then used Abbott's trojan horse into the headlines to demand Labor apologise for something their former leader said five years ago. As though there was a comparison.

It's not a new tactic from Abbott. He's done this time and time again. Insult somebody publicly, and then claim to be so very sorry, and admit how wrong he was, and then fill the rest of every interview he gets, because he is the story of the day, with attacks on the opposition.

It's incredible the media still falls for the same trick. But they do. Which is why Abbott keeps doing it. It works for him. He knows he is one of the most unpopular politicians in Australia, so what's he got to lose? He doesn't have to give a shit, particularly now his government is facing defeat, so he uses his odious and foul attacks for the benefit of his political masters.

Here's Howard openly praising Tony Abbott, less than 48 hours after he attacked a dying man :

"Tony Abbott was man enough to apologise," he said in Melbourne.

"That's a person who's clearly got a backbone no matter how unwise his comments clearly were.

"Mr Abbott has done something that many people in the Labor party guilty of equally unwise comments were not prepared to do."

Naturally, Howard found a way to use his own health minister's attack on a dying man to try and gouge away at the credibility of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

And they can't understand why more than 60% of Australians are thinking about voting the lot of them out of office?

And here's Tony Abbott admitting in an interview on Lateline that he only decided to apologise after he saw news and television headlines. That is, he decided to apologise once he saw that every media outlet in Australia wanted to talk to him :

Q: What possessed you to launch a personal attack on Bernie Banton? That was bonkers, wasn't it?

TONY ABBOTT: It was a mistake...

Q : Was it bonkers?

TONY ABBOTT: It was an error of judgement on my part, I shouldn't have done it, and as soon as I realised what I had done, I rang him this morning and I apologised.

Q : As soon as you realised what you'd done, that's sometime after you did it, presumably?

TONY ABBOTT: Look, yesterday was...

Q: As soon as someone made you realise...

TONY ABBOTT: No, no, no, no, no, no, look, I didn't need to be told, once I saw it in black and white in the paper the next morning, I though, 'No, this is a problem, I'd better call him up and apologise.'

TONY JONES: It is a problem. The Health Minister insulting a dying man who is trying to get better access to expensive drugs to treat mesothelioma sufferers. But what I want to ask you here, it's such a bad look, did you actually consider resigning your portfolio today?

TONY ABBOTT: I didn't, mate.

Professional Howard government apologist, Andrew Bolt, doesn't go after Abbott for his appalling behaviour. Of course not. Bolt claims that Abbott is "at heart a decent and humble bloke" and showed "great dignity. Bolt attacks Lateline's interviewer, Tony Jones, for not showing Abbott enough courtesy and respect.

BTW. When Tony Abbott snaps "mate" to a journalist, through those tightened lips, with that pure hate storming in his eyes, it's his polite way of saying "you fucker."

More On All This Here

Tony Abbott : What A Scumbag

Tony Abbott : What A Scumbag Part Two

The Non-Core Promise That Just Will Not Go Away

Howard Says We're Entitled To Believe What He Tells Us To Believe

The story goes that in the lead-up to the 2004 federal election, treasurer Peter Costello and a number of key advisors warned John Howard not to push the claim that his government would keep interest rates at "record lows" and "30 year lows" or even just "low".

It was a con, a bold-faced lie and everyone in Howard's inner circle knew it. Interest rates would go up as surely as they would go back down again, then up again. Don't do it, they supposedly told Howard, it will come back to haunt you. But Howard ignored them all. He went out there and pumped his "keeping interest rates low" promise like a speed-addled evangelical podium pounder granting all who believed him access to Low Interest Rates Heaven.

Howard then rubbed Costello's face in it by leaving it to him to launch the "keeping interest at record lows" ads, which he did, with a very grim face indeed.

Now that interest rates have done nothing but climbed since 2004, and are expected to go up again before election day, Howard is being put on the rack by nearly every journalist who interviews him. It should be excruciating for Howard. It sure is excruciating to watch, and hear. But he doesn't care. He's got a new promise to sell. Under his government, interest rates will be lower than they will be under a Labor government.

Liar, deceiver, prophet.

A few examples from the past week alone.

Radio 3AW :

JOHN HOWARD:…I mean interest rates will always go up and down and I’ve never guaranteed that interest rates would never go up.

NEIL MITCHELL: Well yeah, but your advertising did.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, well the advertising just very briefly in the early part of the campaign and then that was…

MITCHELL: It said, ‘keep interest rates at record lows’. Well that promise is broken isn’t it?

JOHN HOWARD: Yeah well, that particular advertisement lasted two nights and then it disappeared. And you didn’t get out of my mouth…

MITCHELL: No I didn’t but that promise was broken from that advertising wasn’t it?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, interest rates are not at record lows now. I understand that.

MITCHELL: And your advertising promised that.

JOHN HOWARD: Well the advertising did refer to that for two nights. I accept that.

MITCHELL: So it’s a two night promise then Prime Minister?

JOHN HOWARD: No, no well look you’re asking me the question…

MITCHELL: Well you know Labor's going after you on the basis of broken promise...

JOHN HOWARD: Yes I understand that.

MITCHELL: And the advertising was, does now, look dishonest.

JOHN HOWARD: Yes well, look I acknowledge what was said. I acknowledge that. But can I just say to you and to your listeners, that what really matters now is which side of politics is better able to manage an increasingly hostile financial environment. Isn’t that what matters?

MITCHELL: Well I guess it is. But you can’t promise to keep interest lows?

JOHN HOWARD: I'm not doing that

MITCHELL: What are you saying? Same as last time. You’ll be better than Labor, eh?

JOHN HOWARD: Yes I am. I am saying that. …

From the 7.30 Report :

KERRY O'BRIEN : You did say it as a fact, interest rates are now 2.25 per cent higher, as a fact, than when you made that promise. You were not able to keep that promise. Do you simply acknowledge that you weren't able to keep that promise?

JOHN HOWARD: Look, I say again Kerry, people will make a judgment on what I said against what has occurred. But the big question they've got to ask themselves, whatever happened in the past, let's put that aside...it's the future that matters.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But you see, Mr Howard, you want us to put aside the past in relation to your comments, but not with regard to Labor. That is incredibly selective.

JOHN HOWARD: No, I'm perfectly happy to compare past performance as distinct from commentary.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Or past promises.

JOHN HOWARD: Look, leaving ... whatever you like. Look at what happened, look at where we are now...

The Sunday program :

LAURIE OAKES: Wasn't it a mistake to say that you would keep interest rates at 30-year lows?

JOHN HOWARD: Laurie, what I said out of my own mouth...what I said was that they would always be lower under us than under Labor.

LAURIE OAKES: But didn't you actually say you would keep them low.

JOHN HOWARD: Laurie, what matters is precisely what happens in the future.

LAURIE OAKES: But people were, if you like, fooled into voting for you maybe, by what you said, about keeping interest rates at 30-year lows.

JOHN HOWARD: Laurie, the impression that people took from that campaign was that we believed and they believed it that we would do a better job in keeping interest rates down than the Labor Party.

LAURIE OAKES: ...on October 7, 2004...you said 'we don't assume the economy will continue at its own momentum, it will only continue if we continue to do the right things, keeping the budget in surplus, keeping interest rates low, keeping them at 30-year lows.' It did come out of your mouth, Prime Minister.

JOHN HOWARD: Well Laurie, if you look at the average interest rates under the last government, you look at them under us, they're four to five percent lower than what they were.

LAURIE OAKES: We're talking about whether people will believe you this time because you misled them last time.

JOHN HOWARD: You're asking me what I believe they took out of the last campaign and that is that we would do a better job on interest rates. And they'll make up their minds about that.

LAURIE OAKES: They're entitled to believe you or Liberal Party ads last time.

JOHN HOWARD: They're entitled to conclude as they should now that we'll do a far better job of keeping interest rates lower than Labor.

LAURIE OAKES: It's got nothing to do with what you promised at the last election?

JOHN HOWARD: But what matters is what occurs.

LAURIE OAKES: But in an election campaign what matters is whether people believe and can remember what you say.

JOHN HOWARD: But do you know what they believed out of the last election? They believed they should vote for us because we would keep interest rates lower than Labor, and they were right, and the evidence supports that. And the same applies in relation

LAURIE OAKES: Even though you said you would keep them at 30-year lows, they weren't supposed to believe that?

JOHN HOWARD: Laurie, they were entitled to believe that we would do a better job at keeping interest rates down than what the Labor Party would do, and they did. And they were right. And the same will apply in the future.

Activate 'Absolutely No Shame' mode, Mr Howard.

I particularly like the way he repeatedly tells people to forget about what he said last time around, like it doesn't matter a dolt, and to look to the future instead, and then tells voters they are "entitled" to believe what he tells them to believe.

Howard has probably, quite effectively, reduced the election day impact of another rise in interest rates by riddling the subject with a such a strong foundation of boredom, tedium. The more journos raise the issue now, the more likely the punters will switch off, even if it means more dollars out of their wallets.

Cheney, Howard Cut Deal For The Release Of David Hicks

Howard Wanted The Hicks Issue Dealt With Before Election Began, BushCo. Were Happy To Help Out Their 'Man Of Steel' Down Under


UPDATE : How The Cheney & Howard Intervention In US Military Commission Saw Terror Suspect Charges Drop From Attempted Murder Of US Soldiers To Merely 'Supporting Terrorism'


If David Hicks was still being held in Guantanamo Bay, it would be just one more political nightmare for John Howard as he faces an uphill battle to win the federal election.

That Hicks was electoral poison for Howard was widely discussed in the media in late 2006, and many speculated that Howard was pushing his White House friends to get the issue off table, and out of the media, before he began his 11 month long election campaign.

Howard didn't want Hicks released, at first, he wanted him to face the military commission at Gitmo. Howard himself admitted that he could get David Hicks released from Gitmo whenever he wanted to, but he wasn't going to do that.

But by the time US Vice President, Dick Cheney, arrived in Australia for a controversial visit,
marred by 'Free David Hicks' protests, Howard knew he couldn't wait a month or two more. Hicks had to be brought home, and locked away somewhere, with no access to the media until after the election was over.

According to this story, Dick Cheney was more than happy to grant Howard's request :

US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Australian Prime Minister John Howard cut a deal to release Australian inmate David Hicks from Guantanamo Bay, according to a report published in the US today.

The report quotes a US military officer.

"One of our staffers was present when Vice-President Cheney interfered directly to get Hicks' plea bargain deal," the unnamed officer told today's edition of Harper's magazine.

"He did it, apparently, as part of a deal cut with Howard. I kept thinking: this is the sort of thing that used to go on behind the Iron Curtain, not in America. And then it struck me how much this entire process had disintegrated into a political charade."

story continues after...
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Hicks is set to be released from an Adelaide prison in December. He agreed to a plea deal in March, where he would take nine months in jail, back home in Australia, in exchange for pleading guilty to the extremely weak charge of 'providing material support for terrorism'.

For years we were told Hicks was an extremely dangerous terrorist, a "murderer" according to President Bush, and "the worst of the worst" according to some of Howard's senior ministers. We were told he would be charged with being a member of Al Qaeda, attempted murder of Australian and/or American soldiers and being involved in the plotting of terrorist attacks. Such a range of charges could have taken months to get through the military commission system. But a plea deal on the greatly reduced charges saw Hicks in and out of the commission in a matter of days.

In the timeline of events, Hicks became a fresh political nightmare for Howard in December, when claims of torture and mistreatment hit the headlines. The pressure on Howard to do something about the David Hicks problem increased through January, with the media filled with past prime ministers, members of Howard's own party and headline grabbing celebrities asking why we were allowing Americans, our allies in the 'War on Terror', to torture an Australian citizen.

When Cheney visited Australian in February, Howard was ready to cut a deal with the vice president to get the Hicks problem dealt with as soon as possible. Cheney returned home to the US in late February and kicked the process of getting Hicks before a military commission, on vastly reduced charges, into gear.

Within a month, Hicks was in front of a military commission, his plea deal was quickly cut and he was heading back to Australia.

The plea deal caused controversy within the legal ranks of the American military because it was negotiated by the military commission's convening authority, Susan J. Crawford, instead of the chief prosecutor, US Colonel Morris Davis, who had previously expressed great confidence that Hicks would go down for his crimes and not surface for decades.

No great surprise that Susan J. Crawford turns out to have once been a senior official in Cheney's Defence Department, when he was secretary of defence during the reign of President George HW Bush, the current president's father.

Howard furiously denied he was involved in a plea bargain for Hicks, or that he had asked Cheney to do him a favour, to get the Hicks issue out of the way before the federal election campaigning really began.

Howard said the idea that Hicks being cut a plea deal and sent home to face an almost token prison sentence (with the all important proviso that he not be allowed to talk to the media) had anything to do with the coming election was just plain "absurd."

But he didn't outright deny that he asked Cheney to get the Hicks issue rushed through.


March 2007 : Hicks Admits To 'Backing' 9/11 Attacks In Plea Deal, Is Given Suspended Sentence

February 2007 : Howard Says He Can Get BushCo. To Release Hicks Whenever He Wants Them To

December 2006 : David Hicks After Five Years In Gitmo : Unconvicted, Tortured, Broken

Dick Cheney Down Under : Inside The "Violent" Protests

Howard Supporters Attack War Veteran As Street Festival Swamped By Huggers And Haters

PM Forgets Where He Is, Addresses Crowd "Mr Speaker..."


Apples got lips?

It's election season, and just about every single public appearance by prime minister John Howard and contender Kevin Rudd will make the evening news. Many of these appearances will be boring, and dead air-time. Which is why, whenever possible, Howard Huggers and Howard Haters will do whatever they can to give the media something to report. If the Huggers and Haters can grab the media's attention for only a few seconds, they can get their message across, usually within the opening minutes of the news bulletins.

John Howard, and Maxine McKew, the popular challenger for his Bennelong electorate seat, both made appearances today at an apple festival, a community event, and so did the Huggers and Haters.

Hundreds from both camps showed up, chanting, shouting and abusing each other.

One of the more nasty incidents today came when a group of Young Liberals shouted abuse at Ray Osburn, who identified himself as a war veteran. When Obsurn challenged Howard, his Huggers yelled at Osburn to "Get a life!" and to shut up, shouting that he was "an idiot."

While Maxine McKew danced in a Kevin07 t-shirt in front of grinning supporters and locals, Howard plunged into the crowd to press some flesh :

"Ten more years!" supporters called.

"Go home, ya slimy old bastard," opponents responded.

Many of the Eastwood locals seemed taken aback by the venom of the Huggers and Haters, and must have wondered what had happened to their normally subdued annual street festival.

Howard appeared rattled by the vocal critics in the crowd and forgot where he was :

"It's a remarkable, Mr Speaker - 'Mr Speaker!' There you go, I get into these bad habits!" he said.

"Whenever anybody interrupts me I say 'Mr Speaker.'"

Weird.

Now Begins Six Weeks Of Desperation, Savage Ugliness, Fear And Smears, Threats, Harassment, Knocks And Shocks

Or : Welcome To The 2007 Federal Election

So it begins. Six weeks of official campaigning, after nine months of unofficial campaigning, to determine who will run Australia for the next three to eight or more years.

Will it be Labor?

Will it the Liberals?

Will you even be able to tell the difference?

Are you already beyond caring?

This poll claims that John Howard will be chased into retirement on a wave of young voter fury and older voter disgust come election day. The numbers are foul enough for the Howard government that they must be close to ready to start sacrificing goats in the hope of conjuring up some magical intervention, satanic or divine.

The Newspoll due out by Monday night is expected to focus on the views of younger voters, and somewhat fresh issues like home carers, and it too will show that the Howard government is going to be carved up like a pig at a bacon lovers festival.

Most of the poll experts, and political opinionists - well, those that aren't counting on a John Howard victory to avoid getting the sack - agree that Howard needs nothing short of a miracle to win back the faith of millions of Australian voters in only 42 or so days.

The chant from the public stands is repetitive and steady : Howard's too old, too tired, too boring, too untrustworthy, too cynical, too cliched, too old, too boring, too smug, too arrogant, too worn out, too familiar....did we already say too old and boring?

Workchoices and climate change will be Howard's ruin. They can engrave it on his tombstone today, to save time later.

He hid the truth about what Workchoices would mean for the paypackets of hundreds of thousands of young Australians until it was almost too late, and he hid from the truth about climate change, until long after the vast majority of Australians had agreed that they were more concerned about how global warming would affect the lives of their children and grandchildren than they were worried about terror threats or an economic downturn.

It's going to be an ugly, vicious campaign, and 42 days will feel like 42 weeks. There will be widescreen, Dolby surround Smearing and Fearing until you just can't take it anymore and want to punch Flanders in the face. Or Tony Abbott.

Labor will be able to play it cool, with Rudd already acting like he's the prime minister, waiting for the old guy to bugger off, so he can get down to business. Expect more of this. They aren't the ones who are desperate, so don't expect them to be out there with the begging bowl, or the blood-soaked axe.

The real fight will be coming from the Liberals, and it will be one of the more democracy-tainting, soul-destroying, sickeningly savage events in recent Australian history.

If you thought turning on the TV and seeing hundreds of beach thugs beating women and tourists and attacking cops and ambulance drivers during the Cronulla Riots was an appalling spectacle, wait until you see what Tony Abbott and Alexander Downer and the Exclusive Brethren have got up their sleeves.

But that, in the end, will all just be part of the general desperation of the Liberals. They're like a boatload of fishermen who are floating with liferafts in the ocean and the sharks are circling.

The senior ranks of the Howard government know that if they are destroyed at the polls, the party as they know it will be torn to shreds, from the inside out. Think of the chest-burster in the Alien movies. Like that, but with more blood and exploding guts.

Few of the current ministers, with the exception of Philip Ruddock, will be ready to move to the opposition benches, or the back benches, which means the extremist nutfucks in the Liberal Party, the ones who think race riots are a great way to rally white Australia, will be fighting for their time in their sun. And they'll string their own off the light poles to get it.

It's also worth remembering that there are many people in business here who will do just about anything to make sure John Howard and the Liberals keep control of the nation, and that's where some of the real danger lies in this election campaign.

How far will the secret rulers of this land go to maintain their very profitable status quo? Kevin Rudd is not expected to do much that will drain their gravy boats, but dismantling Workchoices is going to make many of these corporate elites very, very angry, and very, very desperate.

And there's the international 'influence' already looming like dark brooding cloud over this country's future.

If you don't think the psychotic ranks of the NeoCons aren't going to get involved in this election campaign, you're going to be in for even more nasty surprises. Have you got your Go Bag ready yet?

It's going to be both thrilling, and sad, to see how far John Howard will go to avoid going down in Australian political history as one of our most spectacle losers.

There will be moments of brilliance from Howard, that will make you think 'Shit, he just might win this thing', and there will be many moments of pitying misery. Some of which may want you to crack a beer, in celebration, or sympathy. The 2007 federal election campaign is almost certain to be John Howard's political wake.

But you can't feel sorry for him. He had his chance to go, to leave in style, but he got too greedy and demanded one more dance, even if it meant a grim funereal march into the shadows for his party. Which it now surely does.

So what will the Howard Miracle be? Nobody can think of one. There's nothing on the horizon that can turn the anti-Howard tide. If you took a poll this weekend in just about any pub in Australia on what people thought of his plans for Aboriginal Reconciliation, the general response would "scumbag".

But John Howard doesn't have to go down like a loser, even if he is one. He always has the option of canceling the elections, should there be an event of the scale that a national emergency needs to be declared.

There are some events far more important than election day. And none of them are good :

An horrific series of terror attacks?

A sudden and mind-boggling attack on Iran by the US and Israel, leading to mass deaths of Australian soldiers in southern Iraq from retaliatory attacks?

A spectacular earthquake and tsunami slamming the east coast?

The outbreak of a mega-deadly bird flu pandemic?

But then, perhaps we're simply in for a dreary and utterly boring election campaign, now we've already lived through what was an increasingly aggravating unofficial campaign that has dominated most of the year.

Maybe election day will come and go before we even know it. And then Christmas plans will fill our minds, and a new year will be just around the corner.

Whoever wins the election, you can count on one thing for certain : in 2008, a fairly annoying speccy man who you don't feel you can trust 100% (or even 60%) will be running the country, and life will go on, roll on, rumble, bumble, stumble and flumble on, for most of us, pretty much as it did for in 2007, and 2006 and 2005.

Things won't change anywhere near as much as you might like to think they will.

They never really do.

Calm Down, Grandpa



Image from Crikey's excellent coverage Election 2007.


Definitely one of the creepiest images from the 2007 federal election 'non-campaign'.

So far.

Feeding Howard Into The Mill

In February, Kevin Rudd promised that he would mess with John Howard's mind, and then grinned. The mind-messing continues into its ninth straight month, and Howard is cracking.

Witness the fiasco surrounding the new $2 billion pulp mill in Tasmania's Tamar Valley. Rudd and Labor refused to say whether they would back the pulp mill until "the science" was in. The "science" being a report that would reveal if the pulp mill would become an environmental catastrophe.

This move by Labor all but forced Environment minister Malcolm Turnbull into following through on his pledge to make sure the mill would meet "world's standard" measure on not polluting the surrounding waters and otherwise fairly pristine environment.

The science comes in, Turnbull holds off on releasing the report, enduring a monumental bollocking in the media from an orchestrated campaign by anti-mill activists, centred around Turnbull's NSW seat, that the Liberals were unable to blame on Labor.

Turnbull then announces, yesterday, that the mill will go ahead, and Howard is like a bull at a gate, unable to contain his glee, all but certain that Labor will have no choice but to oppose the mill, or to try and delay committing to backing its construction.

After all, if a Tasmanian pulp mill can throw into chaos the likelihood of Turnbull retaining his local seat at the coming election, then surely, surely, there had to be some negative fall out for Labor?

No such luck.

Howard cut loose yesterday morning, claiming Labor was playing "chicken politics" with the pulp mill issue. But Howard was in meltdown mode. He was jumpy, hyper, almost manic. He looked like someone had dropped a bad E in his morning coffee. Some media reported the below quotes as being "thundered" by Howard :

"I mean it’s playing chicken politics to just criticise a process. I mean they’ve got the decision, we’ve taken the decision, we didn’t put it off, we didn’t defer it because it was a bit difficult.

“I would say to Mr Rudd and Mr Garrett, do you support the decision or do you oppose it?

“I mean are they for it or against it? Do they agree with the mill, subject to the stringent environmental requirements, or do they oppose it? Do they want jobs for northern Tasmanians or don’t they?”

All but minutes later, Labor's captain conservationist, Peter Garrett, calmly, firmly, announced the Labor position on the pulp mill's future :

“A Rudd Labor government would not seek to overturn or amend the decision by Mr Turnbull.”

Slam dunk.

The controversial pulp mill decision is now owned by the Howard government. And the media is champing to turn it into the big environmental issue of the election campaign. Another 'Save The Franklin River' adventure. They'll probably make it an enormous deal, even if most Australians aren't interested, if only so they can go and hang out in beautiful forests in quiet, calm Tasmania and laugh it up with the Greens.

Howard is well spooked by Rudd now. Veteran political commentators and Liberal Party staffers are stunned at how nothing sticks to Rudd, and how he somehow keeps managing to pass the most controversial of election issues right back to Howard to deal with.

The head messing continues. The tally of success for Rudd is long, near faultless and worthy of some pride.

Even people who don't want to see Howard lose are caught up in the entertainment of watching the King being bested, again and again, by some blow-in from the provinces.

Rudd seems largely unfazed by anything, and is relentlessly moving through a drip-feed series of policy announcements, most of which appear to be welcomed by the majority of Australians, as though he already is prime minister. He doesn't seem to be so much fighting against Howard, as flicking him away like an annoying fly that keeps buzzing back.

All of which leaves Howard scrambling for relevance and ramping up his 'I'm A Nice Guy!' routine to such levels of near-absurdity that it now appears he has been replaced by one of his own comedic impersonators.

It's great that Howard gets out in his local community, hanging at fetes, and rolling up his sleeves to spin the chocolate wheel. People seem to genuinely enjoy seeing their prime minister having fun in such non-official situations.

But more and more it feels as though we are watching videotapes sent back from five to eight years in the future, when a long gone, and somewhat forgotten ex-prime minister is taking whatever public appearance gigs he gets offered. Even if it's calling the meat tray, or spinning the wheel, with a blinding grin, at the local school fete.