Cat Plunges Nation Into Debt

Yes, the illustrations for Kevin Rudd's first children's book look innocent enough....



But while Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is fussing over his cat, outside two children are waving frantically to stop an ice-cream van, or perhaps a debt truck, from running them down :



Does Rudd notice? No he does not.

The book is not about those children, it's about Rudd's cat and dog's secret life as pro-Union Jack flag rescuers :

The Prime Minister's trusty four-footed patriot friends, of course, save the day. ''Quick Abby!'' said Jasper. ''You nab Chewy and I'll save the flag.''

In a curious piece of politically pointed satire, Senator Barnaby Joyce writes his own dialogue for Rudd's dog and cat :

Jasper – Well Abby, if we have to plan for our future we have to build on what provides for us cats now. For instance where do we cats catch mice, rats, frogs and other cat food? Where do us cats hang out and get down and dirty with other cats?

Abby – Generally derelict buildings!

Jasper – Spot on Abby! So I have been building a whole new portfolio of future useless buildings, some buildings that aren’t even needed today, so our kittens will never be short of food again. I have put them in schoolyards so they can fill up with scraps of food and old mats and furniture – and mice!

Abby – You crazy cat, you really are revolutionary. Your kittens will be so fat.

You sort of get where Senator Barnaby Joyce is coming from, and then think '.....What in all fuck? This is the shadow finance minister!' :

Jasper – I am a pretty major cat, Abby. You should see my plane and have a gander at my passport. I hang out with all the major talent and will fly anywhere in the world to do it and for absolutely any reason. No party is complete without me. You should pass by my alley and have a look at the photos.

Abby – But how did you pay for all this you crazy cat?

Jasper – Simple! Just borrow the money. I have borrowed more money than any other cat in the history of this alley, and I have made sure that we have stimulated the growth of the local tip with the purchase of a whole range of crazy cat consumables such as flat screens and toys and other electronics so if the school halls burn down we can head back to the tip.

Abby – You revolutionary cat! By the way what is the debt on the poor suckers account?

Jasper – About $120 billion and rising fast, but this cat is not the one paying for that. There’s no easier, more guilt free way to spend money, than by spending some other cats money on other cats!

Always blame the cat.

Rudd's Totalitarianyrannical Grip On The Nation Even Extends To The Family Pet

7.30 Report, August 28, 2009 :

Q : So (PM Kevin Rudd) doesn't come home and kick the cat?

Therese Rein : Oh, no, he would never kick....

Q : ....to use a well-known imagery.

Therese Rein : He would never kick Jasper or the dog or anyone at home. No. I don't see him do that.

No, Rudd has other ways of disciplining Jasper The Cat :



Looks like a combination nerve and throat hold.

Every cat owner knows the expression on Jasper's face. It's equal parts "Someone or something's about to get shreddded" and "Help Me!"

Free Jasper!

Meanwhile, Rudd exploits the cat and the dog, by turning their adventures around The Lodge into a children's book :

"...we've interviewed the cat and the dog. They have been very co-operative in their responses..."

Yes, I bet they were.


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The Australian confirms John Howard tried and succeeded in crushing dissent at the ABC :

When the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched its political analysis program Insiders in 2001 the public broadcaster's own staff were forbidden from being panelists.

John Howard's coalition government was closely monitoring the ABC, which it viewed as enemy territory, and network programmers mindful of not agitating outspoken communications minister Richard Alston approved the show on condition only external commentators representing a spectrum of different views were used.

And yet, despite very strong opinions and criticisms from ABC journalists and commentators against prime minister Kevin Rudd all over ABC radio, TV and online, not one journalist has so far revealed any pressure coming from the PM's office to tone it down or shut up.

Rudd Too Busy With Obama To Notice Abbott

KevinRuddPM on Twitter reacts to the elevation of Tony Abbott to the leadership of the Liberal Party, and the sudden dumping of support for any carbon tax at all by the opposition :

Good meeting today with President Obama in Washington. Long discussion on climate change. Only 18 days to go to Copenhagen.

All countries now need to push as hard as possible for the strongest global action possible.

We need it for the environment, the economy, for jobs and for our kids.

The Real Reason Why Rudd Went Begging To The Indonesians

He had no choice.

If you piss off the Indonesians, the cartoonists at the Jakarta Post will go hard and shred you mercilessly, even if you are the prime minister of Australia.

As John Howard and Alexander Downer discovered, in April 2006 :



You probably didn't need to see that again. No doubt, it's already burned into your mind, forever.

UPDATE : I spoke to soon. The Indonesian president is reportedly heading to Australia next month for "crisis talks" with Kevin Rudd. Jakarta Post cartoonists sit ready and waiting....

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Come On In, Stay The Hell Out

Is Kevin Rudd's flippy stance on asylum seekers a future-focused strategy to make him more popular? Or less?

Kevin Rudd, October 2006 :

"Another great challenge of our age is asylum seekers. The biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear. The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst.

"We should never forget that the reason we have a UN convention on the protection of refugees is in large part because of the horror of the Holocaust, when the West (including Australia) turned its back on the Jewish people of Germany and the other occupied countries of Europe who sought asylum during the '30s."

Kevin Rudd, October 2009 :

"I make absolutely no apology whatsoever for taking a hard-line on illegal immigration to Australia".

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

"...this Government makes no apology whatsoever for the fact that we have a tough line on asylum seekers"

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

"(The Liberal Party) is a party without one skerrick of moral compass when it comes to people smuggling", he said.

As Chris Ulhmann, on ABC OffAir, makes clear, in a crystal clear deconstruction of Rudd's religious politicism :

The Opposition's compass at least has the virtue of pointing, roughly, in one direction.

The Government has softened Australia's stance towards asylum seekers and it is determined to maintain strong border protection. These are not mutually exclusive propositions and there are defensible, reasons for doing both.

But confronted with a rising tide of boat people it panicked because it was scared its policy changes would be blamed for the influx and the electorate would punish it.

Rudd's moral compass on asylum seekers now appears to be spinning crazily, searching for the strongest attraction.

But when RuddGov's poll numbers fall five or six points in the next few weeks, and the TurnOpp stages its biggest poll boost this year, will Kevin Rudd be upset?

Or happy?

I'm going with happy.

Rudd doesn't want to go into the 2010 federal elections with 70% of Australians favouring him as prime minister. Where's the challenge in that?

He'll be even happier when the heated protests by die-hard RuddLabor voters, appalled at his fliporama on asylum seekers, begin.

If they begin....

Kevin Rudd's promise to provide access to a laptop for all primary school students in Australia would have made Australia the first country in the world to do so.

But Uruguay got there first, and went one better :

Uruguay has become the first country to provide a laptop for every child attending state primary school.

President Tabaré Vázquez presented the final XO model laptops to pupils at a school in Montevideo on 13 October.

Over the last two years 362,000 pupils and 18,000 teachers have been involved in the scheme.

The "Plan Ceibal" (Education Connect) project has allowed many families access to the world of computers and the internet for the first time.

Now that's an education revolution. And no Windows for these laptops. Free and easy Linux instead.

Rudd Vs The Australian....Kind Of

It all seems a bit....staged. It's good for Rudd, and it's good for The Australian :

Kevin Rudd last night attacked The Australian as "right-wing" and less than objective, particularly on the issue of climate change.

"If you cite your source as The Australian newspaper, I simply say this: (It is a) free country; every paper can express their point of view -- the editor of The Australian has said that he edits a right-wing newspaper -- and so he does," Mr Rudd said.

"Let us not pretend that it (The Australian) would seek to present itself as an objective source of information. It opposes the government's actions on climate change, and has done so consistently.

"That's their democratic right; we have a free press. And so they should; that's a matter for them."

The editor-in-chief of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, responded last night: "The actual quote referred to The Australian as a centre-right paper but the PM is loose with his verballing these days."

Tepid.

More than anything else, it shows just how unimportant KevinRuddPM and his advisors think The Australian is as a part of the national debate, or as an influential force on the Australian public, at large.

Kevin Rudd reaches more people, directly, on Twitter, than he does when he gets written up in The Australian. Rudd's 'circulation' on Twitter, is many hundreds of thousands higher than the current newsagent, and free-in-the-foyer-many-city-offices, circulation of The Australian.

He doesn't need The Australian to be on his side.

A disregard for 'The Heart Of The Nation' that would been almost incomprehensible a few years ago.

Laurie Oakes : Hark, Hear The Turnbull Death Rattle

Brendan "Pensioners Eat Cheap Soup! Soup!" Nelson must have to steer clear of most newspapers and TV news these days, lest he risk choking to death on karma laughter.

Laurie Oakes explains why :

Now that Joe Hockey has indicated he would not leave the party in the lurch should Turnbull's leadership become untenable, you can hear the death rattle. No matter what he does, the muttering among Liberal MPs becomes increasingly ominous and the erosion of his authority gathers pace.

The public sees an Opposition racked by internal brawling and a leader lurching from crisis to crisis, so the polls get worse and Turnbull's position deteriorates further. The accepted wisdom is that the Coalition has brought all this on itself through a lack of discipline and Turnbull's ineptitude.

But credit where it is due. Turnbull and the Opposition would not have got into such a disastrous position without a great deal of help from Kevin Rudd.

Rudd has played clever and ruthless politics. Wedge politics. And he learned how to do it from an expert.

John Howard made an art form of using issues such as asylum seekers to divide the Labor Party. Climate change is for Rudd what Tampa and "children overboard" were for Howard. He has used the emissions trading scheme legislation as a wedge to open up a deep ideological fault line in the Coalition.

The only valid reason for Rudd's insistence that the ETS Bill must be passed before the United Nations Copenhagen climate change conference in December is a political one - to wedge his opponents. And the strategy has been spectacularly successful.

Rudd long ago refined the Divide & Inflame techniques used so effectively by John Howard. The prime minister now does pretty much the same thing to Turnbull, month in, month out, that he did to Howard for the entire year leading up to the 2007 elections.

Rudd promised to fuck with the minds of the Liberal Party when he became the Labor opposition leader. Becoming prime minister only meant he got to have more fun breaking their spirit, and sowing confusion and paranoia amongst their ranks. So much so, the Liberal diehards are pulling away, distancing themselves, and have taken to claiming they are "Conservatives" instead of Liberals.


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Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd : "You Can Get Fucked!"

Prime Minister Kevin "Strippers & Booze" Rudd listens to the latest string of complaints from Labor factional bosses, and replies, curtly :

"I don't care what you fuckers think!"

"Don't you fucking understand?"

"You can get fucked!"

Rudd's swearapalooza was unleashed on Labor faction leaders when they apparently kept whining about the slashing of MPs' printing allowances from $100,000 to $75,000 a year.

You can't say Rudd's response was altogether inappropriate.

UPDATE : The story above was reported by Glenn Milne, who Kevin Rudd called "the Liberal Party journalist of choice" when asked about his swearing this morning. Rudd didn't deny he unleashed as quoted, saying :

"I think it's fair to say that consistent with the traditions of the Australian Labor Party, we're given to robust conversations. I made my point of view absolutely clear, and that is these entitlements needed to be cut back, and I make no apologies for either the content of my conversation or the robustness with which I expressed my views."

Fair enough.

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Move Over, Kevin, We Have A New Contender

Our prime minister is probably the world's most famous living picker of head-located orifices.



Well, not anymore.

While President Obama was posing for what will easily become one of the most legendary presidential photos ever taken (at least for the Star Wars generation)....




This guy went for a dig....



It's too late for Photoshop.



(h/t - Reddit)

Mungo MacCallum On The Legacy Wars

From Crikey :

It’s all Kevin Rudd’s fault. Here we are, nearly two years out of the Howard years and happily consigning them to well-deserved oblivion.

And then Rudd has to mention the war; and of course John Howard and Peter Costello lurch out of the political cemetery to boast about the size and quality of their tombstones and pretend they are not really dead after all, and Malcolm Turnbull feels that he has to join in and defend the two people in the world he most wants to forget. Such is the level of discussion in contemporary Australia.

The trigger, of course, was Paul Kelly’s latest blockbuster, a weighty, indeed ponderous, attempt to spin the 24 years of government by Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard with (in alphabetical order) Peter Costello into one seamless thread of economic reform.

Launching the book, Rudd predictably dismissed the Howard-Costello period as a mere hiatus; he and only he was the true bearer of the flame kindled in 1983. This admittedly partisan view was derided as mean-spirited and mendacious, but it did invite a critical appraisal of Howard’s legacy and what, if anything it has left us. And on close examination it is not a legacy which can be dismissed lightly. It can, however, be dismissed heavily, so here goes.

The proudest boast of Howard and Costello was that they handed over a robust and vibrant economy, free of debt and sizzling with growth. It was indeed free of government debt; on the other hand private debt, vigorously encouraged by government policy, was through the roof and still climbing. And certainly Australia’s economy was growing and had been for many years.

The problem was that the growth had been squandered on election bribes to middle class voters. Vast quantities of tax had been collected only to be handed back, although the hand outs disproportionately favoured the top end of town. Very little was invested in infrastructure and still less set aside for the inevitable downturn – thus Rudd’s need to borrow large amounts, which is now the target of coalition outrage.

Indeed, so extreme had been Howard’s profligacy that if all his 2007 election promises had been honoured, the budget would have gone into structural deficit even if the boom had continued. Not much of a bequest after all.

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

Rudd’s principal charge against them is that they did almost nothing to boost productivity against the inevitable time when the mining boom came to an end. Education, research and innovation were all allowed to run down, almost to the point of stagnation. This is where the bonanza should have gone and this will be the priority in the years ahead.

In other words, economic reform will certainly continue, but not as an end in itself: it will henceforth be a means towards social reform. And it is by this criterion that Rudd’s own legacy will be judged.

Read The Full Story Here

Digital Dinosaur Boomers Alert : Rudd Begs YouTubed Video Game Brainwashed Online Youth To Help Him Save The Country

Why can't I write Fox News-style headlines and stories on an Australian blog? I can, and I will.

By Darryl Mason

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, or Krudd as he is covertly known by the 'wired-up' generation who are champing at the bit to sit on death panels to weed and cull the ranks of future national wealth-absorbing Baby Boomers (unless a Liberal Party government wins the early 2010 elections and John Howard returns, Menzies-style, to shepherd them into senility) is now inviting the digitally-enhanced hordes of Generation Y to help him design future Labor policy.

It's true! The most nightmarish future fear of all Baby Boomers has already come spine-chillingly true. Goths & Emos are deciding how to run the country.

If you were Prime Minister for a day - what would you do to :

• help our young people grow up safe, happy and resililient
• give young people the skills they need to learn, work and fully engage in community life ?
• reduce the physical and mental health risks facing young Australians, including negative body image, anxiety and depression, obesity and alcohol-fuelled violence?
• enable young people to accept responsibility for their actions and their behaviours?
• help young people to negotiate the challenges of today's society?

Wait....resililient? R-E-S-I-L-I-L-I-L-I-E-N-T?

Yes.


How can Kevin Rudd run the country when he can't even master SpellCheck? If what the Liberal Party is saying is true about what the K Rudd Krew is doing to this nation (and let's face it, when have The Liberals ever lied [?]), the Goths & Emos probably can't do any worse.

But maybe the prime minister himself didn't write that piece on his blog today. Maybe it was a staffer? Maybe Krudd's emo-advisor?

Nope.



The prime minister is already sending people scurrying for their dictionaries (or as the digital youth call them "those word things") on a near daily basis without him going and making up words.

Even quite catchy words like Resililient.

UPDATE : On Twitter, I tried to blackmail the prime minister using the screencap of his misspelling of 'resilient'....



...but I decided instead to go pubilc with it fro the glood of th natoin.




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Once Were (Political) Warriors

Prime minister Kevin Rudd has succeeded, once again, in getting the past and present stars of the Liberal Party to waffle on defending decisions made one, two and three decades ago. Just as he intended.

Dennis Shanahan in The Australian :

John Howard and Peter Costello have struck back politically and personally at Kevin Rudd's characterisation of their government as indolent and uncaring neo-liberals, declaring the Prime Minister has reached "new heights of political mendacity".

Stirred from his sick bed, Australia's second-longest-serving prime minister has accused his successor of politicising and demeaning 30 years of continuing Australian government reforms, including those of the Hawke-Keating era, for partisan benefit.

On Monday, Mr Rudd, at the launch of The March of Patriots, by The Australian's Paul Kelly, said the Howard government had been "indolent" and the Coalition could not claim to be partners with Labor in Australia's economic reforms of the past 30 years.

"The Liberals' failure to advance a framework for increasing national productivity is not a minor blemish on their economic record," Mr Rudd said.

"It reflects a fundamental failure of long-term economic reform and casts legitimate doubt over the extent to which the Liberal Party can be regarded as partners with Labor in the great project of economic modernisation."

Even social reforms that "endured through long periods of Liberal rule" survived, according to the Prime Minister, only because of political expediency and not because of any genuine support or belief.

Rudd has effectively pulled off this kind of caper, of forcing Liberals to go on the defensive about their most important claims to economic success and major reform, from the very first week of his leadership of the Labor Party. Rudd's strategy of getting the Liberals all hackled up succeeded all the way through the 2007 election campaign. And it's still working now for Rudd.

As John Howard proves, as he desperately seeks to remind Rudd that he used to be someone important :

In one fashion or another we are all political warriors, but we have a superior obligation to the national interest. That obligation obtains in opposition as well as in government.

No side of Australian politics has a monopoly of either virtue or merit. Each according to its own value system has attempted to improve the lot of Australians.

In failing to acknowledge this last Monday, my successor diminished himself, and not the Liberal and National Parties.

This 24 hour wonder must have been worth a few good laughs for Rudd.

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Does Joe Hockey Mean Wilson Tuckey Is About To Drop His Pants And Start Singing Cold Chisel Songs?

By Darryl Mason

The Liberal Party was already in meltdown mode. I don't know what this mess is called, but it's thumping nastily with the kind of radioactive fallout that will require much contamination-style heavy scrubbing and hosing down before it's safe to go near again. It's also funnier than John Howard tripping up stairs :

Joe Hockey likened Wilson Tuckey to the crazy uncle at a family wedding yesterday as the Coalition started to tear itself apart over how to deal with Labor's proposed emissions trading scheme.

Backbenchers traded insults, the Nationals split from the Liberal leadership, and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, declared his opponents a divided rabble as they sparred over when and if it should negotiate with Labor over the legislation.

Kevin Rudd doesn't even have to try anymore. He can just sit back at 2am and watch repeats of Lateline frame by frame to catch the flickers of utter devastation that briefly crease the faces of all Liberals who now front up for TV interviews.

The renegade backbencher, Mr Tuckey, stirred trouble on Tuesday when he emailed every colleague attacking the embattled leader, Malcolm Turnbull, as arrogant and inexperienced.

The NSW frontbencher Bob Baldwin fired back at Mr Tuckey with an email also sent to all colleagues. He called Mr Tuckey's behaviour "absolutely disgraceful and unforgivable, particularly from someone who boasts so much experience … Perhaps he should consider packing his bags".

Emails. Again. Imagine the carnage if they started cutting loose on Twitter?

And so on to Joe Hockey's already infamous quote about Tuckey :

"Every family has an uncle who goes a little wild at the family wedding."

The Liberal Party is like a family wedding?

Hockey's out of his mi...wait a sec.

Mostly empty dance floor? Check.

Long winded-speeches by too many people who have had too much to drink or not enough? Check.

Lack of younger people with something interesting to say? Check.

Crazy uncle(s) going wild? Check.

People pasing each other in hallways muttering "fuck you" under their breath? Check.

Shit. Joe Hockey is right!

I think Peter Garrett sang a song once about this taking this kind of stand :

One anti-Turnbull backbencher said the Coalition was "going to get done like a dinner" regardless of when the election was held. "We might as well get done like a dinner with our principles intact."

That's it. It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

Mr Rudd said trying to negotiate with the Coalition in its current state was inconceivable. It should concentrate on fighting climate change, not each other, he said.

Mr Rudd then excused himself, because he could no longer contain his laughter one second more. Unconfirmed reports indicate the prime minister then continued to laugh so hard, so helplessly, for the next six hours he was unable to give a planned dinner speech, he had to be carried into the house and could not eat or drink or dress himself for bed.

Government insiders tell me that treasurer Wayne Swann has been repeatedly streaking past Malcolm Turnbull's home shouting, "Hey Malcy? What about those inflation figures? Huh? Huh? Bite me!"

Meanwhile, on Sydney's leafy North Shore, John Howard, geed up from the first episode of the SBS documentary about his years in power, and not at all bothered by those many scenes of his early days when he looked dorkier than the entire cast of Revenge Of The Nerds, ponders asking Peter Costello to be a mate and "wait until I have another go".

There must have been so many Liberals watching the first episode of that SBS doco, Liberal Rule, who found themselves bubbling with tears, their chests wracked by sobs, as they contemplated a Groundhog Day of interminable horror : another decade + plus in opposition, all years as grim and long and soul-devouring as the last time, which (before John Howard proved that if you hang around anywhere long enough you will eventually be put in charge) culminated in a desperation so wretched these words were spoken in all seriousness, "Yes, Alexander Downer would make a good leader of the Liberal Party."

Do you get the feeling there is a Night Of The Long Knives coming soon for some of the creaking older members of the Coalition? A number major financial backers of the Liberal Party demanded the house be fumigated of anything that smelled even remotely of Rodent, months ago. The pressure on Malcolm Turnbull to ditch the driftwood must be intense.

I'll repeat my wacky prediction of earlier this year : the Coalition opposition that comes out of the next federal election will likely be a coalition of Turnbull Liberals and The Greens.

Stop laughing.

It's the only dream Malcolm Turnbull's got left.

Kevin Rudd Reaches For SuperDag Status

From Twitter :


I do like that he took the nickname used by his critics (KRudd- krudd - crud) and now signs that as his name.

If Only We Could Mine And Export 'Having A Go'

PM Kevin Rudd gets a decent, fairly serious profile in the US Time Magazine.

It's often interesting to read how American, UK or European media portray Australia in its feature stories. The perspective, obviously, is greatly different from anyone living here, and what may seem common knowledge to us, or to Australian journalists, often seems fascinating to outsiders. It's also curious to read a feature story in corporate media that makes Australia sound so damned triumphant, so successful, with the potential of being a major player on the world stage through the rest of the 21st century.

This Australia? Here? Really?

If Time Magazine is right, Kevin Rudd cuts a much more impressive figure on the world stage than the local media has led us to believe.

Grabs from the Time Story :

As Rudd reveals his foreign exploits, the crowd shifts; attentions wander. The Aboriginal elder who kicked off the event with a traditional welcome ceremony lets his eyelids droop....Rudd, 51, doesn't fit the typical mold of an Australian man of action....Rudd is the consummate globalized citizen....,"(Rudd will) put in a full day in the Parliament and then, because of the time difference, call world leaders way into the night".... Its geographic remoteness notwithstanding, Australia deserves watching.... (Australia) has a chance to show the rest of the world the importance of maintaining good relations with both the new century's superpowers....If Rudd can navigate warm and friendly relations with both the U.S. and China, he will turn out to be a politician of more than local significance.... "I'm in the business of making a difference"....After more than 17 years of sustained growth, Australia is flirting with recession....Rudd comes across as more buttoned-up than many of his predecessors.... In moments of crisis, his emotions resonate.....the global financial crisis underlines how individual countries, even supremely powerful ones, cannot rely on go-it-alone approaches...."I am acutely conscious of what happens when you simply allow things to drift to unrestrained nationalism".... "friends of all, enemy of none"....as a child avoiding work in the cowshed, he would retire to the farthest reaches of the farm with a book on Asian archaeology.....For the better part of two centuries, Australia's self-perception was that of a chunk of the West that unaccountably found itself floating in the South Pacific....Until the 1970s, an exclusionist White Australia Policy kept out most Asian immigrants. But today, around 8% of Australians are of Asian descent...."At last," says the Prime Minister, "we have some decent food to eat"....Some Asian, Middle Eastern and African Australians complain that they are somehow considered less truly Australian than those who came from, say, Italy, Greece or Croatia....the specter of a communist country of 1.3 billion people can spook even close economic partners.....In Taipei, where Rudd studied Mandarin, his home was the wonderfully named Republic of China Anti-Communist Recover the Mainland International Youth Activity Center...in a speech in Mandarin to students at Peking University last year, he infuriated his Chinese government minders by highlighting human-rights abuses in Tibet....can a nation really welcome being economically yoked to China if it also sees Beijing's ambitions as a threat?.... "America has a great history of reinventing itself".... at the dawn of this new century, as a country and a continent unto itself, Australia has to define its security on its own terms...."You can sit around quietly on the global diplomatic circuit and get nowhere," he says, "or you can ball up a few ideas, some of which have some prospects".... Makes you wonder whether Australia couldn't export that having-a-go spirit along with its iron ore, coal and gas. The world might be better for it.

Read The Time Magazine Profile Of Kevin Rudd Here

See That Shark? Watch Me Jump It

Meanwhile, The Great 'Rudd Shields Swan Over Fake Email (GRSFEC)' Conspiracy Theory Takes Shape

By Darryl Mason

After a consistently entertaining and dramatic week in politics in which utes and emails came to feature together for the first time in newspaper headlines. The Daily Telegraph's Piers Akerman straps on his water skis and submits his claim for monumental irrelevancy,

The last weeks of the winter session have been more damaging to the Rudd Labor Government than the Coalition, no matter how you slice it.

The first polls after the solid week of Utegate headlines, hysteria and claims of snarky conspiracy, show the opposite of what Akerman effervescently claims, and the damage inside the Liberal true believer ranks seems intense :

Malcolm Turnbull has paid for his botched attack on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, with more than half of voters believing he was deceitful about a now-notorious fake email. Even among committed Coalition voters, nearly a third believe he has been deceitful and another 10 per cent say he has been dishonest.

A Galaxy poll taken at the weekend has revealed the Opposition Leader's integrity has taken a hammering, revealing a rump of only 7 per cent of voters who think he was "open and honest" during the affair.

If it turns out that Turnbull was speaking, mostly, honestly throughout his dozens of interviews last week, something else will be needed to explain why so many Australians looked at Turnbull being interviewed on TV and thought, 'Oh, this guy is so full of shit.'

Malcolm Turnbull was interviewed by the AFP ("The Feds" for American readers) on Sunday, and Labor keeps hammering that Turnbull has something to hide. Something big. Maybe even a little dark, sinister.

Those kinds of vague claims crack deep into our culture's love-hate mistrust of politicians. We love corrupt politicians in novels and TV shows, the bastards, but we hate them in real life, those bastards.

And A Politician Who Has Something To Hide From The Feds feeds our political thriller fiction-fuelled desire to see corrupt politicians flayed publicly and prosecuted rigorously, regardless of who they are.

So Lindsay Tanner goes for a gushing head wound :

"Clearly, he's not going to provide his computer records to the federal police," Mr Tanner told the Nine Network.

"Given the nature of the potential crimes we're dealing with here, that is appalling. He should be making all assistance available to the federal police in order that they can determine whether any serious crimes have been committed and pursue them accordingly if they have been."

Brutal. And damn hard to shake off, even if the AFP interrupted Masterchef for ten minutes to announce that Malcolm Turnbull was in the clear and there was no reason to doubt his honesty on anything ute or e-mail related anymore. Even then, there would be plenty of Australians wandering around muttering, "Malcolm Turnbull? Dodgy prick."


Piers Akerman asked his readers the following question :

....did anyone really believe someone within Treasury would be sending faked emails?

Commenters responded to his call for exploration of a larger conspiracy involving Rudd & Swan and reasonably high-tech fakery and so was crafted a conspiracy theory swollen with potentially thrilling drama, tech-treachery and possible falls from power that makes you want to shout "I Want To See This Movie! (or at least read the book)', even if the theory doesn't turn out, in the end, to be actual reality. Some of these comments from Akerman's blog have been slightly
edited :

Michael A replied to lethal
Sun 28 Jun 09 (06:26am)

It is very interesting that the AFP were able to tell everyone the email was a fake almost immediately but have still not enlightened us as to the origins of the email. Was this all a Labor setup?

Angry God replied to lethal
Sun 28 Jun 09 (12:06pm)

As far as I understand computers and managed networks such as government systems, they facts are that the original email would contain data known as the MAC addreess. This is a unique number (that can be spoofed if you know what you are doing). The managed network locks these MAC addresses to the network switch.

A resonable investigator would have been able to identify the originating computer in a few seconds if they were competant. We assume that they are competant and as such we know that the AFP knows which computer initiated the modified (read fake) email.

In a managed network the spoofing of a MAC address within an email will be highlighted as a security breach. So either no spoofing of the MAC address occured or the email was sent from an outside of government network computer.

The AFP will know this info. It will be interesting where the fake comes from as it will be identified by this method.

Ann replied to lethal
Sun 28 Jun 09 (12:24pm)

The cursory search of PMO and Treasury computers by Rudd lackeys found no evidence of email so Rudd shrieks “It’s a fake”. Yet AFP take five minutes to find it was generated on a Treasury computer, sent to Grech home computer then deleted from Treasury computer.

samantha replied to lethal
Sun 28 Jun 09 (02:41pm)

For me, there are two really big questions that need to be answered. WHO in Treasury devised the email, and for what purpose?

Sammi replied to lethal
Sun 28 Jun 09 (03:03pm)

The Treasury generated email was created to catch their leak and it was made as juicy as possible to make sure it would be passed on to the Opposition and used, hence Rudd knew about it before it re-emerged. It also served the double purpose of covering up the copious email trail created by Swan and Co while attempting to secure a loan for Rudd’s mate.

It's a very interesting theory. And no-one showed up to try and dispel it, for many hours on Sunday.

Unlike the Liberal Party staffers who haunt News Limited blogs, do the Labor Party staffers who zip around online, posting anonymous comments on blogs as they run interference, dispensing disinformation, countering accusations, get the whole the weekend off?

Piers Akerman, for what's it worth, is convinced the Great Rudd & Swan Fake Email Scandal still has plenty of drama to be played out :

...the hard evidence still shows that Swan did more in his attempt to assist Rudd’s car-dealer mate, John Grant, than he did for any other car dealer in the nation.

That is indisputable.

Treasury officials, operating on clear instructions from Swan’s office, went to extraordinary lengths on Grant’s behalf.

We'll see. But it would be no great surprise if Rudd and Swan produce something that gets them off the hook. Rudd promised to "mess with their heads" when he became Labor Party leader, and it doesn't look like he has given that strategy even a week off since.

Being the mind-bogglingly biased Liberal Party flunkie and junkie that he is, Akerman wants his readers to believe that whatever happens, it's Not Yet Over for Malcolm Turnbull. Akerman has to rally the team for the man who said that John Howard broke Australia's heart. Akerman knows Turnbull is shedding support faster than Brendan Nelson railing against whatever, but he has to pump for Turnbull. And throw in something conspiratorial about the Greens as well.

This is what Akerman does for a living.

But I'm not convinced that even if Wayne Swan was seized by the AFP and sent in chains to the SuperMax for a solid water-boarding session to finally get him to answer e-mail and ute related questions that happen to be those very "Not The Right Questions" he has refused to answer so far, that Malcolm Turnbull would still be able to effectively change the clearly very real belief amongst so many voters that he is brimming with bullshit and a craptastic liar as well.

Australians love great liars.

It was long part of our oral storytelling tradition to try and spin the wildest yarns, and any brave and bold attempt to pass off a story mostly comprised of obvious fiction was always admired, even if the teller couldn't carry the tale convincingly.

But we can't respect nor tolerate bad liars. And Malcolm Turnbull, like Swan, is a bottom shelf liar.

Turnbull thinks he is a rare brandy, but he is a harsh house spirit scotch when it comes to effectively bullshitting the Australian public. His face is a billboard screaming, "Don't listen to my words, look at my eyes, see? even I don't believe what I'm saying, why should you?"

Joe Hockey loometh.

.

If Only Kevin Rudd Was Carrying A Plastic Turkey

No journo at the Daily Telegraph was willing to put their name in the byline of this asinine fluff :

The sideways glance can speak a thousand words.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has had a trying few days as he and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull have engaged in an ugly political scrap resulting in both calling for the other's resignation.

Therese Rein is a woman clearly committed to her husband's long-term success. But did her composure slip for a few seconds on Sunday as she left her Canberra church? Did we glimpse an expression that said she was stressed, weary and unimpressed? Is Utegate - the issue of whether or not her husband helped out an Ipswich car dealer - wearing a little thin on her?

The Daily Telegraph 'story' doesn't bother to answer any of those questions.

Here's a couple of more pertinent questions :

Was that absurd guff from the Daily Telegraph some kind of hopeless attempt to ferment speculation that 'Utegate'-related pressure is causing problems in the prime minister's marriage?

Is the Telegraph really that desperate to try and distract from the fact that its promotion of fake e-mailery has helped to further destabilise and will probably, ultimately, lead to the destruction of Malcolm Turnbull's leadership of the Opposition?

A sideways glance may "speak a thousand words", but even with copious fluffing, Therese Rein's bored look at her husband was only worth 165 words to the Daily Telegraph.

"We're Going To Need Another White Board...."

By Darryl Mason

I wasn't kidding when I said that Kevin Rudd doesn't see a biting comedy when he watches ABC's The Hollow Men, he sees a tense, real-life drama, filled with the kinds of challenging events and burning bureaucratic tensions he already knows all too well.

Occasional reader Kerry contrasts the episode of The Hollow Men where the prime minister's staff must decide if the PM's good mate, and defence minister, should quit or be sacked with yesterday's big non-Chaser related news event, the resignation of Kevin Rudd's good mate, and defence minister, Joel Fitzgibbon :

How Hallowmen is this? It ticks all the boxes:

Ministry – defence

Reason – breach of ministerial conduct (very close to undisclosed investments)

Friend of PM – PM gave full support to his mate the defence minister until the announcement.

Resignation – Was it genuine or did the Hollow Men's Tony/Murph real life equivalents in PM's office argue whether it needed to be a resignation or sacking?

The only thing missing is that it’s not close to Remembrance day.

It's very annoying that I can't search through permanently-online episodes of The Hollow Men and link to the right moments in the TV show to make these 'coincidences' clearer. But searching video like we can now search song lyrics is still two or four years away.

Joel Fitzgibbon's resignation is just another curious example of Ruddlife imitating The Hollow Men, instead of the other way around. The episode where the PM's staff battled to decide whether it looked better for the prime minister to sack his defence minister, or accept his resignation, was only repeated on ABC 1 a couple of weeks ago.

Rudd's key staff have seen The Hollow Men. How could they resist watching it? So they'd know this episode, and would have been aware of its interesting parallels to how they had to sell this major fuckup in Rudd's considerably smooth sailing of recent.

The Budget episode of The Hollow Men, aired a week before the Wayne Swann delivered the real one, was also full of key phrases and words that were put to good use when Swann and Rudd and Julia Gillard stepped in front of the media to sell it.

You'll know some sort of Evil Lefty ABC conspiracy is afoot if the Wonder Drug episode of The Hollow Men airs a week or two before the Rudd government begins seriously trying to sell the swine flu Wonder Vaccine.




The details of why Fitzgibbon had to quit are here, in short he failed to "fully comply with the ministerial code of conduct", but when you read the following quotes from Rudd, you can easily imagine the Hollow Men-like scenes inside the PM's HQ as his staffers battled to come up with just the right wording, the all important phrasing, to get the prime minister over this credibility-degrading crisis :

"The minister's decision was to extend his letter of resignation at his initiative," Mr Rudd said.

"I accepted that resignation, it was the right thing to do."

Mr Rudd described Mr Fitzgibbon as a "first-class Defence Minister".

"The Government expects high standards of accountability on the part of ministers," he said.

"I feel very sad about this," Mr Rudd told a press conference in Canberra....

Mr Rudd said Mr Fitzgibbon had made "mistakes in terms of accountability and paid a high price".

He said Mr Fitzgibbon's resignation goes to the "probability of the process engaged in".

Finding agreement on the "probability of the process engaged in" could have taken hours, and at least one completely filled up white board.