Fair Shake Of The Coup Bottle

One of the final messages from @KevinRuddPM on Twitter :



It should have read : This is still a democracy.

In Australia, coups don't require military assistance. So far.


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Coup D'eRudd

Australia Vs Serbia. Gillard Vs Rudd.

Both events will make great television tonight.


(ABC News graphic)

ABC News :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's leadership is under siege tonight from some of the Labor Party's most influential factional warlords.

It must be true. ABC managing director Mark Scott said so on Twitter :



UPDATE : ABC News online is now covered in decorations :



Kerry O'Brien closed the 7.30 Report by describing the Rudd leadership challenge as :

"...a fluid situation."

With or without a serious challenge tonight, there will be all sorts of bodily fluids being spilled.


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Downer On Rudd : Studious, Bright, Passionate, Qualities Shine Through

Former Howard government foreign minister and failed Liberal Party leader Alexander Downer sings the praises of prime minister Kevin Rudd :

There is a parliamentary consensus that Kevin Rudd is bright. No one could reasonably doubt his addiction to hard work, his studious attention to detail and his passion to acquire knowledge. His success at university and in his early years as a junior diplomat attests to that.

As prime minister, those qualities have shone through. Kevin Rudd, PM, knows stuff, speaks a foreign language — and a hard one at that — and works day and night with barely a break to sleep.

Downer also has some criticisms. Rudd swears and wants to be on TV a lot, he's conceited and vain, and he works public servants too hard. And that's about it.

Compared to Downer, who ignored numerous memos and intelligence reports telling him there were no WMDs in Iraq, even before the war began, and that an Australian company was bribing Saddam Hussein with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, Rudd's failings and mistakes seem minor, and trivial, despite his profligacy.

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Beer Not Bought

Why would anyone think the Murdoch media are actively, hysterically campaigning against prime minister Kevin Rudd?

From the front page of today's Daily Telegraph online :



Bombshell.

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Plague Of Locusts? Blame Rudd

It may seem completely irrational to blame what is expected to be the worst locust plague in decades on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, but I've been reading plenty of Australian tabloid newspaper columnists recently and I've learned utterly irrational blame-gaming matters not a hoot.

It's Kevin Rudd's fault.

From Bloomberg :

The worst locust plague in more than two decades is threatening to strike Australia, the world’s fourth-largest wheat exporter, after rainfall boosted egg-laying by the insects in major crop growing regions.

“There are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crops and pastures that are potentially at risk,” Chris Adriaansen, director at the Canberra-based Australian Plague Locust Commission said in an interview by phone.

The forecast plague could cost Victoria’s agriculture sector A$2 billion ($1.7 billion) if left untreated, the state government said today.

“The advice of leading scientists indicates the scale of the coming spring’s outbreak could be as bad as we experienced in 1973 and 1974 when locusts swarmed through much of Victoria,” state premier John Brumby said today in a statement. “Prior to that, the last outbreak of this scale was in 1934, so we could be facing a once-in-a-lifetime locust plague with locusts swarming right across the state.”

Australian farmers have mostly completed planting of winter crops including wheat and canola, with final output depending on favorable weather through the remainder of the year. Aerial pesticide spraying and ground-level controls by agencies and growers is planned to curb the spread of the locusts and reduce damage to crops and pastures, according to the commission

A swarm may contain millions of locusts covering several square kilometers and overnight migrations of as much as several 100 kilometers are not uncommon, it said.

High density swarms, with more than 50 insects in a square meter, can eat 20 metric tons of vegetation a day, according to a South Australian primary industries website.

The Full Story Is Here

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is often accused of being utterly boring and morosely humourless, at least as far as his public persona goes. He's trying to change that perception on Twitter :





Er, yeah. Okay.

Apparently there's some soccer games about to start in South Africa, and an Australian soccer team will be playing, too. Though you'd hardly know it from watching the TV, or reading newspapers. They've barely mentioned it all.

(Yeah, I know, that was even less funny than Kevin Rudd's Friday afternoon attempt at humour).

Hush Little Kevvy, Don't Say A Word....

Annabel Crabb wonders, both seriously and satirically, whether prime minister Kevin Rudd is suffering through advanced insomnia and the effects of intense sleep deprivation :

Mr Rudd's own spouse has confirmed that the PM can get by on just three hours' sleep a night.

This revelation raises some compelling side issues - like: How do you stay married to someone who only sleeps for three hours a night? When do you go through their stuff?

But it also explains some of what we are seeing; the panicky decision-making, the forced bonhomie of yesterday's Canberra press conference (what exactly is a "rolled gold bucket of fear based on myth"? It sounds like a Kings Cross cocktail, the sort of thing that might have got Ricky Ponting into trouble, in loucher days), and the inability to communicate some basic points.

The breaking of the campaign promise on political advertising is one thing.

The more worrying element of the Prime Minister's reversal is that he actually needs to pay someone else $38 million to explain a policy decision because he is having difficulty explaining it himself.

Sleep deprivation can be deadly serious (says me at 2:12am). It not only fucks your head, and clouds your judgment, depriving yourself of sleep bitchslaps your immune system, destroys your libido, causes aural and visual hallucinations and induces intense paranoia.

The Sleep Doctor is in. Here's what you need to do, Kevin.

Take a sick day, check into a hotel, punch a few breakfast billies (Swannie hangs out in the rock scene, he'll be able to fix you up), eat a pizza while getting stuck into the bourbon, run a warm bath, put some mid-1980s Clannad on the stereo (not too loud), sink into the warm water for a solid half hour while thinking only of fluffy sleepy kittens lazily pawing at the air, flop out of the bath, wrap yourself in a warm towel, stagger into the bedroom, drawer the curtains, climb into bed, pull the blankets right up over your head to induce the feeling of being somewhere womb-like and imagine you're in a lift, going down - the top floor is bright light, and each floor you descend when the doors open is a deeper, darker shade of blue. The bottom floor is wonderful, peaceful darkness.

Sleep for ten hours.

Repeat.

Thank me later.

Hey Boltadamus! Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!

By Darryl Mason

Murdoch tabloid journalist, and Liberal Party Yoda, Andrew Bolt, likes to praise himself when his predictions about Australian politics come true.

He would appear to have a pretty good track record, but it's an illusion.

Bolt makes dozen of predictions a month, so obviously there's a good chance that one or two of them might come true, months or years later.

Here's Andrew Bolt's latest prediction :

My tip is that Rudd is now finished and will be replaced. I’m guessing this could even occur within four weeks

I will bet Andrew Bolt $1000, to the charity of his choice, that prime minister Kevin Rudd will neither quit nor be overthrown by colleagues by June 28.

Will Andrew Bolt take the bet?

Will he announce on his radio show and in his blog that he is so confident in his prediction of Rudd's imminent political demise that he is willing to wager $1000 that Rudd will be gone inside four weeks from today?

No, he won't.

But I wait to be pleasantly surprised.

My own ability to Nostradamus Australian political tremors and earthquakes is, however, disturbingly accurate (kind of) or simply downright obvious (more likely). Here's a bunch of predictions I made before the 2007 Federal Election :

Labor Wins By Five Seats

Howard Loses Bennelong

Liberals Retain Wentworth

Greens Nail 14% Of National Vote

John Howard Brutalised In Media By Liberal Party Colleagues For Losing Election

Peter Costello Announces Retirement

Tony Abbott Announces Retirement

Malcolm Turnbull Fights For Liberal Leadership Against Demented Far Right

John Howard Embarks On $100,000 Per Speech Tour Of American NeoCon Think Tanks

Liberal Party Fractures, Descends Into Savage Infighting

Shelf Full Of New Books Reveal Dark Secrets Behind John Howard's Years As Prime Minister

John Howard To Score Knighthood From Queen

The Shape Of Rudd's 'New Labor Conservatism' Comes Into Focus - Lefties Grow More Nervous By The Day About Future

Peter Garrett Quits Politics, Rejoins Midnight Oil To Fight Rudd's Pro-Logging, Pro-Nuclear New Labor

Philip Ruddock Quits Politics To Take On Role As Mr Burns In Non-Animated Simpsons Movie

Obviously a couple of those were jokes, but I'm totally disappointed Fox never went ahead with the live action movie of The Simpsons. Ruddock would have been absolutely brilliant as Mr Burns.

You can e-mail Andrew Bolt here - bolta@heraldsun.com.au - and challenge him to accept my wager.


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Majority 33% Of People Prefer To Read Awesomely Distorted Polls

Bad news for the Gillard Gushers. A new Daily Telegraph polls reveals only 1/3 of Australians favour Julia Gillard as prime minister, while 2/3 prefer Kevin Rudd.

Whoops, how did I get that so wrong? What I meant to say was :


The Daily Telegraph

An infamous Rupert Murdoch memo must have hit the vacuum tubes a few weeks ago : Get Rudd The Fuck Out Of There, or words forming a similar directive.

It seems like only yesterday the young journos of News Limited's head office were laughing it up over games of pool with Kev's Krazee Krew at a Surry Hills pub, having dealt with Howard through a very effective campaign of near daily photos of him looking all old and bent over and alone. Finished.

You'll know it's really on when the photos begin appearing of Kevin Rudd furtively licking his lips, a habit, a temptation, he is unable to resist even when he knows he's being interviewed on TV and his head will appear two metres high in pubs and bars, while jocular drinkers shout "Fuck me, we've got a lizard running the country!" to much laughter.

Bad enough to see on TV, devastating to have staring up at you from the pages of a newspaper.


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The Chaser on Kevin Rudd, three years ago :



Maybe Kevin needs a theme song? It worked for Gough Whitlam (he was a pre-internet, pre-colour TV Australian prime minister who, by the rapturous, near religious-like, frenzy of dancing, chanting and clapping on display below was seen to be God-like by some of his followers) :



Baby Boomers were so much funnier when they were young.


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How Australia's 5th Richest Man Is Trying To Fuck With Your Mind

By Darryl Mason

It's like watching Jabba The Hut channeling Glenn Beck, with a script written by Rupert Murdoch's chief propagandist Andrew Bolt :




Clive Palmer has had some exceptional training in psychological manipulation.

You can break down most of the key Palmer responses into three categories - Emotional Triggers, Fear Triggers and The Brighter Future theme, to inspire hope of better things to come. All of it done purposefully.

The Emotional trigger phrase is "Mums and Dads".

The Fear trigger word is "Destroy".

'The Brighter Future' theme can be seen in variants on what will happen "when" (not if) opposition leader Tony Abbott wins the 2010 Federal Election.


Emotion :

"....when mums and dads and ordinary Australians have seen the treasurer destroy their future and the future retirement."

"Everyone knows this is true. And this is bad for our workforce. It's bad for the mums and dads that work in the mines."

"But don't destroy the economy and don't destroy the industries that are employing thousands of Australians - ordinary mums and dads around Australia."

Fear :

"....ordinary Australians have seen the treasurer destroy their future and the future retirement."

"...that's what the Labor party and Mr Rudd's about - destroying the wealth of Australians."

"But don't destroy the economy and don't destroy the industries that are employing thousands of Australians..."

"(Treasurer Wayne Swan is) suggesting 'Let's take our best industry and destroy it and bring it down to the level of the rest of our economy'."

"...give them the ability to invest in projects that will provide real jobs and create real wealth, not destroy wealth. "

"And that's why we don't like to see it being destroyed by these guys."

"...he's the first person that I'd sack for bringing a tax like this, trying to destroy our resources industry."

"If it ain't broken, leave it alone. Don't try to tinker with it. Don't try to destroy it."

The Brighter Future :

"....let's make a firm stand against the ALP and send them into the Opposition where they belong. And that's what Tony Abbott's going to do in the next election..."

"...this tax is thrown out once and for all as it should be and the Treasurer is thrown out of office as he will be in the next election."

"...the Treasurer should get the boot as well and as the Prime Minister will get the boot at the next election..."

"...that's why Tony Abbott's the last sentry at the gate and he'll throw the Government out at the next election."

Here Palmer manages to cram all three into less than 15 seconds :

"....when mums and dads and ordinary Australians have seen the treasurer destroy their future and the future retirement.

And this is what's really wrong - it goes at the whole viability of our nation and that's why it's got to be stopped and that's why Tony Abbott's the last sentry at the gate and he'll throw the Government out at the next election."

And, for the smirking amusement of his mega-rich pals and his allies in the conservative media elite, he remembers to label his enemies as Communists and Socialists :

"Just because you happen to be a socialist or a communist like we know Mr Swan is, as he wants equal distribution....But comrade Rudd and his team are going to bring them back to Australia."

Communist China is, of course, one of Clive Palmer's biggest investors.


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RuddRagers thought they had found and noted and ranted and whined about every last fault they could or would ever possibly think of when it came to the prime minister. They were wrong.

The photo :



The comment :

....who else holds a hot dog like that?

There is the brink of petty, and then there is the abyss.

Australian Beaches "Like A Petting Zoo For Great White Sharks"

It blows my mind that anybody is seriously discussing whether or not Robin Williams is being racist in his jabs at Australians :

Robin Williams loves Australia, he's been working and holidaying here for decades, and owned a house up near Palm Beach for years. If you find anything at all offensive, as an Australian, in what Williams had to say, you should have heard him ripping Australia and Australians during his unannounced appearances at Sydney's Harold Park Hotel and The Comedy Store back in the mid-1980s. Now that was some hardcore slagging of Aussies. Brutal, and absolutely hilarious.

Prime minister Kevin Rudd would have been better off correcting Williams and pointing out that Charles Darwin did in fact visit Australia, and his observations of Australian fauna, and flora, played an important role in Darwin's humanity rocking theory of evolution :

While Darwin never saw a kangaroo in Australia, despite riding a horse from Sydney to Bathurst, he did see many other species. Darwin made some very astute observations about Australian animals, especially the platypus. At the time, the platypus was regarded as a curious creature, and it baffled the scientific world. Darwin was the first British scientist to see a platypus in its natural environment, at a creek near Bathurst, in 1836.

For over forty years after his visit, Darwin used and relied upon collections of specimens from Australia that related directly to his 'theoretical concerns at any given time and his recognition of the peculiar status of the continent'.

A Comprehensive Look At Charles Darwin In Australia

UPDATE : An unnecessary apology from Robin Williams, with an offer of friendship :

"Mr Rudd, I apologise. I would like to modify my terminology and use the term `English good old boys' instead.

"I'd love to go to a strip club with you in New York...."

Brilliant!

@TwitterHype

Politicians are calling Federal Election 2010 'The Twitter Election', apparently :

Federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming told a parliamentary seminar discussing the "Twitter election" that politicians could use the social networking site Facebook as a powerful tool to phish phone numbers.

Yes, a federal member of parliament does appear to be lavishing praise on a form of digital identity fraud, at least according to this headline :



From the Courier Mail :

"There is extraordinary capacity there to create non-political pages and harvest and phish huge numbers of not only emails but mobile phone numbers," he said.

"And once you have a mobile phone number . . . they don't have to follow me, I phish them and can sort of harvest huge numbers of mobile phone numbers and then I just drop them onto a single piece of software and I can SMS hundreds if not thousands of people directly when I choose."

Yeah, that'd work great. If people didn't furiously mind getting spam messages from politicians on their phones and want to punch the sender in the face, or the nuts.

What's the thinking here?

And if it really is going to be 'The Twitter Election', what should we make of the massive gulf in Twitter followers when it comes to the main event?






There's no denying the incredible power of a politician being able to reach thousands, or tens of thousands of voters through Twitter updates, free of media filtering or re-interpretation.

So far on Twitter, Rudd (and/or his team) is making Abbott look like an amateur.

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Two Believers In Old Superstitions Battle For Leadership Of Australia

What in all fuck?

Kevin Rudd has taken on his arch-rival Tony Abbott on a heavenly question - whose saintly namesake is the best?

At a dinner in Brisbane to mark St Patrick's Day, attended by both leaders, the Prime Minister jokingly contrasted his namesake - St Kevin of Glendalough - with Italy's St Anthony.

Mr Abbott (said) "...the PM is trying to be more Queensland and more catholic then he really is."

Sticking to the Irish-Catholic theme, Mr Abbott joked that Archbishop John Bathersby said that Mary Mackillop's second miracle was to bring him as leader of the opposition.

Can you both step into the 21st century, please?

The Full Story Is Here

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Tony Abbott : It's Time For Big Business To Share The Wealth Around

By Darryl Mason

Tony Abbott on paid maternity leave, July 2002 :

"I'm dead against paid maternity leave as a compulsory thing. I think that making businesses pay what seems to them two wages to get one worker are, almost nothing could be more calculated to make businesses feel that the odds are stacked against them."

Tony Abbott, last night on Lateline, stacks the odds :

"If we are gonna have a comprehensive paid parental leave scheme any time soon, the fairest way to do it is for it to be a cost on business, and the fairest way to make it a cost on business is to ask larger businesses, the businesses that have the greatest capacity to pay, the businesses that have suffered least through the global financial crisis, they're the people who can best bear it."

Tony Abbott wants big business to share the wealth around, in particular to single-income families?

Who does he think he is? Obama?

"(Compulsory paid maternity leave) is pro-family, it's pro-child, it's pro-mother, and in the end, it's gonna produce a much stronger economy, because if we look after mothers in the workforce, we'll have more kids, and there is no greater contribution to the future economic strength of Australia than the kids we have now."

Well, kids, and coal.

Tony Abbott wasn't too keen to be reminded of the statements he made back in 2002 by Lateline host Leigh Sales :

TONY ABBOTT: ....I'm fully aware of that quote, Leigh. I have changed my mind.

LEIGH SALES: I'm sure you are. Our viewers ...

TONY ABBOTT: And isn't it a good thing to change your mind as your understanding grows?

LEIGH SALES: That is quite a change of heart.

TONY ABBOTT: Yeah, no, look, I accept that.

LEIGH SALES: So what's brought it about?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, what's brought it about is deeper understanding of the practical difficulties of women who are trying to juggle families and careers. We should not ...

LEIGH SALES: And how have you come to that deeper understanding?

TONY ABBOTT: By, I suppose, being more conscious of the burdens that friends and family members are carrying and of thinking more deeply about the sorts of choices that I would like to be available for my own daughters.

He wants big business to pick up the tab for his daughters' maternity leave.

So what's good for Abbott's children is good for Australia. I wonder if he had elderly relatives who smoked cannabis to relieve arthritis pain and reduce inflammation he would suddenly be backing medicinal marijuana?

Last night, Abbott also attempted to unleash on prime minister Kevin Rudd :

"It is pretty clear he is a guy who is all announcement and no follow through. He is, t coin a phrase, 'All Hat And No Cowboy'."

Abbott didn't coin the phrase. It's been in common usage in Texas for decades :

"It is not a compliment in West Texas to be referred to as 'All hat and no cowboy'. It is a term of derision used to indicate the person has little real character beneath the very thin veneer of appearance."

It's a good line, but it doesn't sound very Australian.

There is argument that the correct West Texas historical phrase is actually "All Hat, No Cattle", which certainly sounds more local.

Or perhaps Abbott knows this phrase, too, and decided not to use it to attack Rudd, because it has been popularly attached to George W. Bush since the late 1990s.


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Juli-aaaaaahhhhh

By Darryl Mason

Liberal Party activists Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt get started on their campaign to seed division in the federal Labor Party vote, by pushing deputy prime minister Julia Gillard as the person who should leading Labor into the next election.

After all, Kevin Rudd is a one term prime minister, or so goes the new chant, even though polls show nothing like the anger and outrage against Rudd that professional Liberal Party activist-columnists, including Miranda Devine, claim is running wild across the land.

You know what's coming next, don't you? A full-blown campaign from the Friends Of The Liberal Party in the opinion pages of, mostly, the Murdoch media claiming that Gillard "has almost got the numbers" and "is set to challenge for the leadership of the Labor Party."

It's early March now, the election is likely to arrive before late November, so they'll need at least four months to really get those Gillard Vs Rudd rumours flaming up, after they light the first fires of course.

So expect rumours along the lines of "Senior Labor Party officials believe Rudd is dooming the government to one term" and "Gillard knows she can win where Rudd cannot" to start flooding the gruesomely predictable opinion pages of the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph and The Australian in a month or so. Paul Sheehan from the Sydney Morning Herald can be relied on to join in the chanting, too.

Murdoch-funded Liberal Party activists like Andrew Bolt want to get started now, he's champing at the bit, but he knows it's still a bit too soon.

First, Glenn Milne has to fill a Sunday Telegraph page with "leaks" from "senior government figures", and then it's on.

Not the federal Labor government leadership challenge, just the column filler that will breed more columns and heated talkback debate. Anything, anything, to avoid devoting all but the most hostile attention to The Greens, who are shaping up to gain control of the Senate.

The 20th century newspapers have to at least try and give the impression that they can still influence the outcome of elections, even if they no longer really believe it themselves.

And it surely must be only a matter of weeks now before some Liberal Party politician embarrasses himself by claiming Kevin Rudd is an "Epic Fail."

Or maybe they're saving that for some of their 'hip' new campaign ads?

March 10 update : And so it begins, earlier than I predicted :

"Jones and I aren't alone among conservatives for falling for a politician whose choice of books now suggests she's readying to take over from the increasingly friendless Kevin Rudd."

"Watch your back Kevin."

"So while we love challenger Gillard now...."

She's already challenging Kevin Rudd for leadership of the Labor Party? Scoop!

And this note of warning :

"I fear this love for La Gillard may well end in tears, like Act 5 of Romeo and Juliet itself."

Julia Gillard will appear one day to be dead, and Australian conservative journalists will commit suicide and then Gillard will wake up from her sleep to find them all dead and then kill herself out of intolerable grief and loss?

And, man, and I thought I had some weird fantasies :

Has (Julia Gillard) bent global warmist Tim Flannery over the dispatch box in the middle of Question Time and administered a richly deserved spanking with a dead penguin....?

Weirdo.

Presenting Friendly NewKev : The 2010 Edition

Australian panel TV shows where comedians allegedly show their razor sharp wit are notoriously scripted and rehearsed.

So how many times did prime minister Kevin Rudd run through the questions he was thrown on Good News Week last night, with his staff? I'd say, at least ten times. Probably a few times with his image handlers as well, just to get the nuances of Friendly NewKev just about right :



Has a laugh track been added to enhance the crowd reaction?

Rudd had to change his public image, he was moving dangerously close in real life to the impersonation by Anthony Ackroyd :



UPDATE : 2UE political correspondent Latika Bourke reports the prime minister's office has confirmed Rudd had plenty of time to rehearse :

"(GNW) producers volunteered the seven comedy quiz questions to the Prime Minister in advance...'

I wonder what would have happened had they changed those questions on the night, without letting Rudd or his people know?

You just don't get that kind of anarchic behaviour in Australian TV comedy anymore.

It's all so safe.

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Kevin Rudd Admits It : The Great Global Warming Conspiracy Is A Commo Plot!

You didn't believe it when Andrew Bolt told you. You didn't believe it when puzzle maker Christopher Monckton told you. So will you finally believe it when prime minister Kevin Rudd tells you?

"Let me tell you, (global warming) is all one global communist conspiracy. So watch out, and lock up your friends. It's going to come and get you in the middle of the night."

An interesting strategy. That line got Rudd one of his biggest, and most genuine, laughs of the night from the Q & A audience of students, and successfully deflated some of the tension of the room.


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A Panel Of One

From Q & A :

Here are the questions our panel faced this week.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was the sole guest.

He near effortlessly swivelled through his iBrain MP3 carousel to come up with tranquiliser-strength answers to most of the questions posed by an audience of 200 GenYers, already numbed into mild shock by the loss of their phones, they were sometimes seen furtively grasping their own fingers to stop them unconsciously air-texting.

Some of the occasional non-soft questions lobbed at the prime minister :

MATTHEW LAING asked: Prime Minster. Last week a series of newspapers ran stories noting the long list promises made at the last election by the ALP that remain unfulfilled after more than two years. Is it any wonder then why idealistic youth become cynical adults when it comes to politics?

LINNA WEI asked: The Australian Medical Association in Queensland has said that 100 lives a year could be saved if the legal drinking age was lifted to 21, the same as it is in the US. Teenagers start driving when they are 18; coincidentally this is also the legal drinking age in Australia. Mr Rudd, have you thought about lifting the minimum legal drinking age in Australia?

GEORGIA LOURADIS asked: The French government is currently moving to ban the wearing of the Burqa in public locations. Do you think it should be a core part of Western and Australian values: that woman should show their faces in public just like men?

PERKASH BATRA asked: Australian Universities are encouraging International Students TO STUDY in Australia, whereas Racism is increasing day by day, creating a big problem for International students. I have been victim myself. What are government plans to overcome this issue?

MOSES KENHOK GOI ADUOT asked: Why is Australia more than happy to receive president Barack Obama (a black man) when they are ashamed of their own black citizens, whether Aboriginals or African Australians?

BLAISE JOSEPH asked: Given the Climategate e-mails scandal. Given that the IPCC claims on Himalayan glaciers melting and Amazon rainforests disappearing were both fabricated. Given that the Dutch government is now reviewing all IPCC claims. Given all this: do you still have full confidence in the claims of the IPCC, and is it still necessary to rush ahead with your ETS?

One of Kevin Rudd's finest moments from the often snippy series of mini-lectures he responded with to many of the questions posed :

"...the question asked by this person over here was on the basis that they were not. I just wanted to be clear about the basis upon which that question was asked...."

Strong Coffee Required : The Q & A Transcript Is Here

Interestingly, when you scan through the questions, Rudd got asked a number of harder questions than usually posed to him by the news media.

Why did this Q & A need to be moderated by Tony Jones, or anyone, anyway? The youth would have sorted the prime minister out if he waffled for too long.

And what's so bad about hearing the prime minister shouted out and corrected and occasionally heckled by a roomful of kids?

That's the kind of PM Vs The Kids debate action we want to see.

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