Tony Abbott : What A Scumbag Part Two

It was Labor who was supposed to crack under the pressure of a six week long election campaign. That was John Howard's strategy. And some Labor heavyweights are showing the strain, most notably Peter Garrett in a swirl of confusing messages about climate change. But the public expects newbies, like Garrett, to make mistakes and to occasionally stuff up the message.

But when one federal government minister after another makes a fool of himself in public, you can see that the enormous pressure of six weeks under the microscope is being felt all round.

Earlier in the week it was environment minister Malcolm Turnbull who cracked, when a 'leak' revealed that he all but demanded the Liberals change their concrete stance on refusing to ratify the Kyoto Treaty.

Yesterday it was health minister Tony Abbott who shattered under the strain.

Abbott was late for a televised debate, then lost it and swore on camera. But far worse was the number of disgusting comments about a dying man, and questioned his legitimacy. A man whose chief concern in his last months of life is that those dying from asbestos-related illnesses, like himself, be given access to drugs that will ease their condition and the suffering of their families.

Abbott said Bernie Banton's motivations should be questioned :

"I know Bernie is very sick, but just because a person is sick doesn't necessarily mean that he is pure of heart in all things."

The public reaction was generally one of absolute disgust, and Abbott admitted that he felt no need to apologise until he saw the headlines in the newspapers.

The fact that his disgusting behaviour was the lead news story on most evening news broadcasts would have only convinced further to say he was sorry. But how sorry was Abbott? The fact that he was smirking throughout the apology he gave on camera gives no credence to his claims that he believed he stepped over the line.

Hilariously, Andrew Bolt, yet another of the Murdoch media's team of professional Howard government apologists, strove to remind us that Abbbott was a good man, with a good heart, and wanted us to feel sorry for Abbott because he had, according to Bolt, been unfairly treated in a Lateline interview last night.

We are supposed to believe that Abbott's attack on a dying man was something unusual, and that the health minister bagging out a victim of asbestos is not the sort of behaviour that should see him forced to resign as health minister.

But Abbott has long been a nasty little creature, who will say and do anything, insult and disparage anyone, if he thinks it will help his own career and that of his political masters.

In May, Tony Abbott threatened the Australian public if they dared to vote Labor into office. Sounding like a cross between Darth Vader and a brutal dictator, Abbott said all Australians would face "consequences...dire consequences" if they tossed out his government.

Abbott's threat signaled the start of a tide of raw panic flowing through the Coalition government, reaching up to the highest ranks of the Liberals, which continues today, despite a recent slight improvement in some polls.

In June, Tony Abbott whined about how Australians expected too much from their politicians :

"Nothing but the best is good enough from Australian politicians and, the better it becomes, the more zealously voters reserve their right to raise their expectations."

Heartbreaking stuff. If only our expectations of our politicians to deliver on their promises was so much lower, then their jobs would be so much easier.

Only a few weeks ago, Tony Abbott's 'dark' past as a secret unionist and strike maker was exposed, just when the Liberals were pouring another $10 million or so of taxpayers money into advertising claiming the Labor Party was full of unionists who would destroy the nation's economy.

In early October, Abbott claimed that women who had not had a 'broad range of experiences' were qualified to hold positions of power in the Australian government, and bagged out deputy opposition leader Julia Gillard for spending too much of her time working at her task. This from a government who has done more than any other to force women, particularly single mothers, into the workforce. He was forced to apologise for that as well.

But Abbott has long had his Day Of Hell coming. He is a man who has long cherished his well-deserved reputation as Howard's chief attack dog, and political assassin, but you can only get away with being a destroyer of lives and careers for so long before all that bad karma comes back to you, with gusto.

Abbott has long been one of Australia's most unpopular politicians. Questioning the credibility of a dying man, who has devoted what remains of his life to helping others, and smirking his way through an apology, will do nothing for the government's chances come election day.


Tony Abbott Threatens Australians Will Face "Dire Consequences" If They Vote Labor

You Demand Too Much Of Us, Abbott Whines About Australians Wanting Politicians To Keep Their Promises

Tony Abbott's 'Dark' Unionist Past

What A Scumbag : Part One

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.

Australian Treasurer Warns Of Global Financial "Tsunami"

Is Costello Planning To Undermine The Australian Economy And Stock Market In A Last Ditch Effort To Stay In Power?

Treasurer Peter Costello knows that if his government loses the coming federal election, he can kiss goodbye his dream of one day becoming prime minister. But that's not all he will lose. Come the day after the election, if Costello is no longer the treasurer for the next three to four years, he will have disappointed his many local and international masters.

As we count down to election day, and the Howard government faces near certain defeat, Costello is getting grimly desperate. He is now lashing out out at the banks, the Reserve Bank in particular, the Labor Party in general but now also the global financial system.

The Australian economy, and the global economy in general, is weak and fragile he now tells us.
If his government loses the election, recession will descend. Few economists agree with Costello, but that won't shut him up.

Costello wants Australians to be terrified of daring to vote Labor. Think of your mortgage, think of your stock portfolio. His verbal terror campaign will grow only more shrill, and dangerous, as the election draws closer.

Labor will destroy, or at minimum thoroughly damage, the Australian economy, claims Costello. He may as well be standing on a street corner, with dried vomit on his shoes, a wine cask under his arm shouting, "You're all doomed! Doomed I tells ya!"


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But even all that cheap talk fear-mongering doesn't fully explain Costello's incredible statement on how the world markets are now facing a global financial "tsunami". It's his first missile in a coming volley, and he will inform us in coming days how the "tsunami" will affect the Australian economy, and in turn, the pockets of every Australian.

Mr Costello predicted the US economy would weaken in the wake of its subprime mortgage meltdown, and said the breakneck pace of Chinese growth could not continue.

At some stage, likely to coincide with a move to a floating exchange rate, the Chinese economy would unleash even greater instability on global markets than the US had.

"That will be a wild ride when that happens," he said. "That will set off a huge tsunami that will go through world financial markets."

Figures released yesterday show the Chinese economy grew at an annual rate of 11.5 per cent. Inflation has run above 6 per cent.

China's fixed exchange rate, widely seen as undervalued, has been blamed for the growing trade imbalance with the US, because it keeps the price of Chinese products artificially low.

"All flows of capital they have been sending to the US might reverse, and you will get a major realignment on major currency markets," Mr Costello said. "China is very strong but you can't just grow an economy in double figures on a long-term basis."

So Costello is saying that if China wanted to, they could utterly devastate the already staggering American economy. Is he admitting the American economy, and the world economy in general, is now at the mercy of China?

China now holds more than $1.3 trillion in US debt, that is the "flows of capital" Costello is talking about. Americans, on average, spend more than they earn and rely on Asian financial giants, like China, to buy up their debts. But China has been showing signs of preparing to dump some of that American debt, even if it means massive losses. American debt, in the form of Treasury bonds, are quickly becoming next to worthless on world markets, and China won't let itself be left holding that much in dead money. Also, more and more countries are now choosing to dump the American dollar as the international trading currency of choice, and the US dollar is losing its standing as the 'oil currency' on world markets. The Euro is now starting to take its place, for Iran, for Russia and, soon enough, probably for Japan as well.

Local, and international markets, play close attention to the words of the Australian treasurer. Costello is going to have to be very careful with his claims between now and election day.

Unless, of course, Costello's plan is to try and start stock market brush fires in the next month, in the hope that a fast storm of bad economic news, and plunging local share markets, will frighten Australians into voting the Howard government back into office.

As we've said before, there are many powerful, very wealthy people in this country, and internationally, who will suffer if the Howard government loses office, as they most surely will if things don't change dramatically in the next few weeks.

The Australian corporate elite have probably never had a cosier relationship with an Australian government in history, and that relationship will go through a process of transformation under Labor. To a point, anyway. But it's the kind of change the poisonously greedy don't want to undergo. They don't want to renegotiate, with a new government. They want the cosy relationship to stay the same.

The Australian people are not the only masters Costello serves. You shouldn't put any act of desperation beyond the reach of these people, or Costello himself, between now and election day.

They have so much to lose if the Howard government is swept from power.

We are unlikely to see a calm, and orderly, change of government.


Go Here To Read The Online Novel ED DAY - Life In Sydney After The Bird Flu Pandemic

Howard's Pledge To Keep Interest Rates At "Record Lows" Has Cost Mortgage Payers $3000 Since Last Election

Not being a part of the Canberra press gallery, I'm not too sure how widespread this rumour was, but it goes like this : It was John Howard who insisted on pushing the 'Keeping Interest Rates Low' and 'Keeping Interest Rates At Record Lows' mantras during the 2004 federal election. Treasurer Peter Costello objected, loudly, knowing it was a lie that would probably come back to burn them, but Howard would hear no dissent on the subject.

And how those two lines are coming back to burn the Howard government now.

For the first time in history, interest rates will be raised in the middle of a federal election campaign. This will be the sixth straight rise since that election, and every newspaper, radio station and television news program in the country, is reminding Howard of his pledge to 'keep interest rates at record lows.'

Howard, and Costello, first tried to claim that interest rates were still low, when the fourth and fifth rate rise hit. But that argument is dead now. People are hurting.The estimates of hundreds of thousands of families being pummeled by rising mortgage payments is the news story of the day :

Another rate rise - which would be announced on November 7, just 17 days before the election - would be the sixth straight rate rise since the Coalition was re-elected in 2004, after promising to keep interest rates at "record lows".

The increase in mortgage rates since then would add more than $3000 to the annual cost of servicing a $250,000 mortgage.

Labor treasury spokesman, Wayne Swan said that over the past five years, food costs had risen 50 per cent faster than the overall cost of living, which was up 21.4 per cent. Health costs had risen by 30 per cent while education costs were up by 40 per cent.

Food costs are likely to rise even further, as the effects of a worldwide grain shortage takes hold, leading to larger increases in the price of bread and milk, for starters.

So desperate is Peter Costello to get the focus off him and the PM and their dodgy promises about interest rates, he's now claiming that a Labor government would lead the country in a recession.

So this golden economy that Howard and Costello never stop trying to take total credit for is that weak and fragile, is it?

It's a tactic unlikely to work. Rudd got in early and warned the Australian people that Howard & Company would use The Fear in their campaigning.

But that won't stop them trying. What else have they got now?

Two weeks out from the election, Howard and Costello will be so desperate they'll probably run ads with old footage from the Great Depression of the 1930s, of soup kitchens and lines of unemployed workers and dirty-faced children picking through garbage bins. 'If you want to go back to this, vote for Kevin Rudd.'

Now that would be a fear campaign.

And there's also this - more good news for the government : financial markets are reportedly betting on two interest rate rises by the end of the year.

The Great Rudd Command Your Vote

I think we have a winner for the best YouTube joke clip of the 2007 federal election. Thus far anyway.

A simply brilliant piece of 'propaganda', with great lines scattered throughout the 'Rejected Labor Party Advertising' clip.

I won't spoil it for you. Just watch it :





If the clip doesn't load here, go to the YouTube page here.



Nobody said it was subtle. But it is funny.

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."

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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

Rudd To Howard, Costello : I Can Do You Both

After taking on John Howard in last night's debate, and scoring an obvious victory, Kevin Rudd has announced that he is now ready to take on John Howard and Peter Costello in another debate.

Rudd's reasons for the double challenge are sound - Howard is going to hand over to Costello, supposedly, sometime in the next two years if the Howard government wins the election, so why shouldn't the public see both Howard and Costello debating the wannabe PM?

"So with the debate last night, it's true, you should in reality have Mr Costello there for half the time and Mr Howard there for half the time, because that is what they are saying to the Australian people,'' Mr Rudd said.

"I'll be delighted to have a debate where they shared it 50:50.

"If they want to play it tag team, that's fine by me.''

The debate was a huge ratings winner last night, pulling more than a million viewers to the ABC broadcast, some 1.5 million to Channel Nine and a reasonable 60,000 to cable channel Sky News.

The more that Howard and Costello try and dismiss Rudd as a worthy PM, and try to punch holes in Labor policies, the more pressure there will be for another debate. If they're so concerned about what Rudd as PM would do to the economy of Australia, then surely it is worthwhile for them both to challenge his ideas and policies in a public debate?

And why not? What are Howard and Costello afraid of? Frankly, I think Costello would probably thrash Rudd in a debate, even if he 'tag teams' with Howard, but you're unlikely to see it.

Which means that for the rest of the election campaign, every time Costello, Howard, Abbott and Downer attack Labor policies, Rudd & Co. can fire back with "Well, if that's the way they feel, why not debate us on the issues in a televised debate?"

The more often Howard And Friends try to 'worm' their way out of another debate, now the ABC, Nine and Sky now it will probably be another ratings winner, the more sneaky, controlling and cowardly they will look.

Why Bribe The Rich?

Stop Demanding Praise, Just Shut Up And Do Your Job

John Howard and Peter Costello did a masterful job of appearing not to be at all thrown by Kevin Rudd's announcement of his tax policy. Or should that be, the Howard government's tax policy, but with the big fat bonuses for the richest Australians diverted to many tens of thousands of parents who can't afford to get their kids online and computer literate.

As Glenn Milne makes clear in this column, big fat tax cuts for the rich, a few handfuls of gold coins for the rest, don't win voters over anymore. And they haven't for a while. It's like Rocky VI. Yeah, it might be good to see Balboa bounce back, but does it really matter anymore?

Voters want something more. Money into health, education, infrastructure. Where all those curiously large surpluses are supposed to be spent, before they become curiously large surpluses

It's that simple.

Ruddin Hood taking away tax cuts for the rich was probably expected by Howard and Costello, but even a day or two later they didn't seem to comprehend just how popular Rudd's few-red-lines revision of their tax policy really are.

Here's Milne :

...courtesy of Costello and John Howard's decade plus of economic management, Rudd promises $31 billion of tax cuts for middle and low-income earners.

Then he jettisons the Government's cuts for those earning more than $180,000 a year and commits the savings of $2.3billion to helping families meet the education costs of "breaching the digital divide''.

Winning elections is about having a coherent narrative.

Leaders must construct a story about where they want to take the country that resonates above the rival political noise, sufficient that it carries all the way to the ballot box on polling day.

The danger for John Howard now is that the education rebate threatens to do just that. Rudd has been smart here, if economically disingenuous.

He reaps the same Budget harvest as Howard and Costello, enabling him to promise the same generous tax cuts to the constituencies that count politically, but he overcomes the cynicism that accompanies such tax give-aways by the altruistic "gift'' of the education rebate.

There is another overlay at work as well - voters now show an increasing reluctance, at least in the published opinion polls, to want to appear selfish. So while the Howard/Costello package backs self-interest in the form of tax cuts, the polls consistently show that voters would prefer governments to spend their surpluses on services, such as health, and infrastructure.

What Rudd has done is dual-track his messages: he appeals to self-interest by embracing the Government's tax cuts but he also satisfies the vanity of voters, who at the same time want to regard themselves as selfless, by convincing them Labor's "alternative'' is about the future of their children rather than their own hip pocket.

Howard spent a decade social-engineering Australians to dream big, to want more, to spend beyond their earnings, to become mega-consumers. But the bills are piling up, the McMansions are being taken away by the banks and Howard and Costello are still telling us all that we've never had it so good.

And they're still demanding that they be thanked, praised and cheered for what they've done.

You don't need to take a poll to know that what really gets under the skin of so many Australians when it comes to Howard and Costello, and Abbott and Nelson and Downer, is their constant carping and demands for people to praise them for their allegedly excellent economic management.

And when they don't get that praise, as they very rarely do, they act all prissy and sooky.

Don't they get it?

How many Australian workers get told they've done a great job?

How many get told that, over and over again?

How many Australians expect to see people on TV addressing them directly saying, "Mate, you're bloody awesome. Seriously. You rock. You're a deadset legend. This country would absolute ratshit without all that great work you've done."

Few, if any.

Australians do their jobs, they work hard, and they mostly don't ask for praise, recognition or rewards, outside of time with the family, or a weekend free to do what they want to do.

But off the back of another massive Surprise Surplus, and 'tax cuts for all', there's Howard and Costello, yet again, waving frantically for our attention. "Hello? I'm over here! Don't you have something you want to tell me? Yes? How brilliant I am? Well, thank you."

What we expect Howard and Costello to do is to do their bloody jobs. Run the country, keep the economy strong, and spend the money handed over in tax making our health, education and infrastructure the best in the world.

But what we most expect, and are now clearly demanding, is for all those politicians to get on with and shut the hell up and stop demanding praise for doing their jobs properly.

We will expect the same of Rudd and Co. Do your jobs, do them well, don't expect to be praised.


Howard shouldn't be on the ropes going into the Great Debate tonight, but he clearly is. Wife Janette will spend most of Sunday reminding him that she isn't ready to move out of Kirribilli yet, so he can't fuck it up.

Expect to see Howard sweating a bit. Hopefully someone has reminded him that This Is It. His last days, if he doesn't pull off a miracle. Will the pressure be too much? Rudd will probably look and act like he has been slowly drip-fed, all day, a carefully balanced mix of valium and ecstasy.

It's not up to Rudd to blow Howard away. Howard has to forget Rudd completely, and remind the majority of Australians why they voted for him before, and convince them why they must vote for him again. One last time.

This may involve some of that trembling lip, weepy eye 'how can you do this to me?' DeNiro-quality acting that Howard has pulled off so often in the past.

90 minutes of them both selling themselves, and probably their souls, for our votes will probably be 50 minutes too long, but you can hope for some action, some screw ups, some great drama.

He who wins the debate won't necessarily win the election. But all eyes will be on Howard. If he screws it up, if he cracks, if he shudders, faints, or clutches at his chest, you will know we really are in The Last Days Of John Winston Howard.

Let's just hope we get some laughs.

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.

Bush Backs Rudd?

"New Leadership" Refreshes Democracies

Kevin Rudd promises "new leadership". John Howard doesn't like the sound of that. Hell, why would he? The only thing new about Howard is the glowing fake tan and his recent trip to the botox clinic.

We don't need new leadership, says Howard, we need the "right leadership".

But, interestingly, US President Bush is in the Kevin Rudd camp on the need for democratic nations to regularly refresh their leadership. This from only a few days ago :

"...it's time for new blood...there's nothing better for a democracy than to renew itself by elections and new leadership."

It'll be interesting to see if anyone in the Labor Party dares to quote President Bush as a way of endorsing Rudd's "new leadership" mantra.

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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.

Tony Abbott : What A Scumbag

Health Minister Tony Abbott must have been very displeased to have recently learned he is one of the most unpopular senior politicians in Australia. Yesterday he set out to ramp up his unpopularity even further, by launching a foul, insidious attack on the woman who is set to become Australia's deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard.

Tony Abbott told the Sydney Daily Telegraph :

"It would be a lot easier for her to realise her ambition if there was evidence of a broader lifetime experience."

"The average person would look askance at such a political animal," he said.

"The thing about (Ms) Gillard is that she is very bright, just uber-professional and a formidable debater," Mr Abbott said.

"It's very hard to be a leader in a democratic society if your life has been consumed by the job."

Incredible stuff coming from Australia's most vicious political animal himself. A man obsessed with his own power and image, who still appears morosely uncomfortable in the presence of female politicians, and someone who was, and remains, so determined to fulfill his role as the 'executioner' of Australian federal politics that he once teamed up with 'the enemy' to destroy the rise of a popular and viable third party choice, that being the 'peoples' movement' of Pauline Hanson.

Abbott's attack is yet another sign of the panic now eating away at the front bench of the federal government, as they try to deal with the reality that the tide of public opinion has finally turned against them, and they will soon be thrown out of power.

But Abbott's attacks on Gillard are all the more bizarre because it was his own government that transformed the lives of millions of Australian families by forcing through the reality of 'working families', where mothers are encouraged to park their children in childcare before they can even walk, so they can 'embrace' the opportunities of our so-called 'economic miracle' by taking jobs they didn't necessarily want, or even need.

It was Abbott's government that launched a psychological war on Australian women, through propaganda and mind-numbing TV ads, that created the mindset that any mother who stayed home to look after the children was somehow less than worthy, was not pulling her weight, or was refusing to actively engage in Australian society.

Julia Gillard, who now enjoys some of the highest poll numbers for any Australian female politician in history, responded to Abbott's vile attempt at character assassination :

She responded by questioning whether Mr Abbott could have succeeded in politics if not for the fact that his wife had brought up their children while he pursued his career.

"Could Tony Abbott have been at the same stage of his political career if he'd been the mother of his three children, rather than the father of them?" she said.

And she predicted her rise to the top in the Labor Party will pave the way for other single women - and men - to enter parliament as part of a "diversification" of politics.

In the latest sign the election will become a brutal war of words, Mr Abbott said voters were seeking a "bit more humanity" from their political leaders.

If Abbott means his kind of "humanity" then he truly has lost the plot.

Abbott, naturally, then tried to withdraw his remarks. But he meant every word he said. Of course he did. He just thought that he could get his attacks into the papers, and into the headlines, and that a day or so would pass before Julia Gillard fired back.

It didn't work out that way.

"I should not have said anything that could be construed by anyone as a personal attack on Gillard," Abbott said, when he realised he had monumentally fucked up. Yet again.

Yes, but you did say all that, didn't you Tony? And you meant every word. And now your government will have to pay the political price for it.

Does the Howard government even want to win the election? Sometimes it's hard to believe they do.

Tony Abbott : Voting Against The Howard Government Could Result In "Very Dire Consequences"

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.

Is Howard Delaying Election In Anticipation Of An Explosive 'Event'?

As we mentioned here, there is a growing paranoia amongst the Australian people, and some quarters of the media, that prime minister John Howard is holding off announcing the date of the federal election in anticipation of a Big Event that might turn the tide against a humiliating defeat at the polls.

The short version of this suspicion is 'Howard Needs Terror'. Murdoch journalist Andrew Bolt was probably the first to clearly state that a terror attack in Australia could be of great benefit to John Howard. Back in July, Bolt dreamily fantasised about how :

"...something might yet turn up that will make us appreciate anew his vast experience and steadiness under fire...if there were to be another terrorist attack...(we could) admire his firmness in handling it."

The 'Big Event' scenario popped up again last night in a discussion on Lateline. The interviewee is Michael Costello, a columnist with Murdoch's The Australian newspaper :

Costello : In 2001, events were absolutely crucial. Not so much Tampa as people think, but what was absolutely crucial was out of the blue, 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. That totally turned things round and it's worth remembering that even so, with all that going for them, the Government only just got across the line, 51-49.

Q: So the Government's hanging out waiting for a disaster?

Costello : No, no, I'm just saying events can happen.

If President Bush has already made his decision that the US and Israel will go to War On Iran before Christmas, you can rest assured that he has already told his good mate John Howard about his plans. Hundreds of Australian troops in the south of Iraq would likely become targets for retaliatory strikes or terror hits by Iran, or the Shiite militias, so Howard would need to get them out of the way. Hopefully.

If terror threats elevate as polling day grows near, you can expect to see the 'Steel Wall' security fencing used during the APEC conference back on the streets of Sydney. The government has a three year lease on the five kilometres of ten foot high security fencing. It's being stored in Darling Harbour, only minutes out of the city centre, along with dozens of the white mobile 'prison' buses that were used to block off entire streets during the anti-Bush protests a few weeks back.

If you were being funneled through gates in that fencing, lined with police, to cast your vote on election day, would you be more likely to vote for Howard or Ruddley-Do-Right?

Exactly.

Enough! Call The Election - What Is Howard Waiting For?

Ruddley-Do-Right Plays Down Historic Labor Victory, Again

What exactly is John Howard's strategy right now? To utterly bore every single Australian into a state of such total nihilism that they no longer care who wins the election, just so long as the fucking thing is over and done with?

Maybe.

Howard & Co. are now basically waiting on a miracle. They're praying and stalling for Kevin Rudd to be exposed as a Satanist, for Julia Gillard's human head to peel back exposing a twelve foot lobster clawed alien, or for the entire front bench of the Opposition to be photographed picking up teenage male prostitutes on a back street in Darlinghurst completely drongoed on crystal meth.

There is now no reasonable excuse left for Howard not to call the election. His government's term is up, and every time he smirks his stupid knowing grin when he is asked, by the media, or someone in a mall in Bennelong, when he will finally announce the election date, more Australians want to brain him with hammers and then drag him down the street behind the family car.

There is no miracle on the horizon that will save Howard's skin. It's over. His political casket is open, the mourners are gathering in their thin ranks, the flowers are wilting and the church organ is playing his favourite Bob Dylan song (but only the music). All that's left for Howard to do now is to get in that hole so the grave diggers can go home.

Every week that crawls past, another few million dollars in pre-election Howard & Co. advertising elicits no response but the collective angry punching of mute buttons across the nation. The money pit of useless, pitiful government advertising is burning up taxpayers' dollars, at the very same time hundreds of thousands of Australian families are fixing vastly overdue, red-heavy mortgage bills to near empty fridges, while dad is down the pawn shop asking what he can get for the kids' X-Box.

Nearly a solid year's worth of polls show the majority of the Australian public has made up its mind. The time for a change of government is at hand, and delaying the election by weeks, or months, will only make the nation more bitter and cynical about the absurd waste of money and time they're now witnessing.

We are being warned that the 'official' election campaign will be brutal, nasty and dirty. What, worse than it already is?

How much of this crap are Australians supposed to be expected to tolerate?

Do Australians have to march in their hundreds of thousands on city streets demanding the right to exercise their democratic rights to vote before this bullshit ends?

There will be no election miracle for Howard now. Next Tuesday's Newspoll will probably show an even greater lead for Labor, and that will surely snap the last remaining threads of sanity holding together the heads of appallingly bitter Liberals like Tony Abbott and Alexander Downer.

And how much longer do we have to hear Labor claiming the election will be "tight" and "close"? Completely ignoring the constant, and growing, support of the Australian public for a big win at the election is almost as insulting as Tony Abbott's claim, earlier in the year, that the Labor Will Win polls only show that most Australians are a bunch of dingbats.

Cut the smarmy humility Ruddly-Do-Right and read your own polls. Labor is set to sweep into power in an election victory that will rock the nation to its foundations.

Unless, of course, Howard finds a reason to cancel or delay the election.

It's shocking how often you hear people now discussing such a reality in pubs, in bus queues and in supermarket checkout lines :

"We'll get hit by terror attacks. Howard won't care if it's Al Qaeda or Young Liberals."

"Janette doesn't want to go back to living in their old house. She'll be ringing to the Terrorist Dob In Line a couple of hundred times a day to ramp up the threat level."

"That fuckwit Bush will bomb Iran and then they'll say we can't have elections 'cause it's too dangerous for us to line up to vote. You know, the shitheads here will hit us 'cause America hit Iran, that sort of thing. That's what they'll tell us anyway."

All of this cynicism and fears of 'false flag' terror events ferment only because more and more Australians are growing suspicious as to why Howard is delaying the elections. The premium question is not when will Howard call the election, it's why hasn't he called the election yet?

Is it because he is waiting for something to happen?

The Looming Labor Victory is now so obvious and impossible to ignore that even Howard apologist and Liberal media lackey Dennis Shanahan has seen the (blinding) light :

"It’s extraordinary and a tribute to Rudd that only 10 months after being written off, Labor is now in a position of trying to fight complacency, arrogance and cockiness."

Howard's last prime ministerial act of mercy to the Australian people should be to call the election now.

Before the Australian public loses all faith in democracy.

Before the NeoCons can bomb Iran for cutting too many multi-billion dollar energy deals with China and Russia.

Before Tony Abbott's fury fries his own soul and he tries to strap on a bomb vest and throw himself into a Friday night crowd at The Rocks Markets, for the good of his party.

Today's the day, prime minister. Call the election. If you make us blow a pre-Christmas December Saturday lining up to vote, the public will only punish you more.

Liberal Chief Of Staff : Australian Soldiers In Iraq Like Nazi Guards At Concentration Camp

As Liberal Party MPs, and their key staffers, try to deal with the reality that they are extremely likely to lose their seats, and their jobs, in the coming federal elections, the sheer desperateness of their position is showing itself in ever more vile and disgusting ways.

Peter Phelps, the chief of staff to a Liberal MP, attended a public forum where respected and distinguished Iraq War veteran Colonel Mike Kelly was speaking. Col. Kelly is running for the seat currently held by Phelps' boss in the coming federal election.

During the Q & A that followed Col. Kelly's speech, Liberal Party staffer Phelps grew angry as Col. Kelly refused to acknowledge his absurd claims that because Col. Kelly was a veteran of the Iraq War he was being hypocritical to hold the position that Australia should now withdraw its combat forces from the war zone.

Phelps is clearly so stupid, and ignorant, he doesn't comprehend that if you're already in the Australian Army when the federal government goes to war on another country, you do as you are ordered. Col. Kelly did the same as the many hundreds of other Australian soldiers who disagreed with the now vastly discredited case for War On Iraq put forward in early 2003 by prime minister John Howard, when Howard followed US President Bush into invading, occupying and allowing chaos to reign in Iraq.

Just because an Australian soldier didn't think the war was right, or necessary, didn't mean he or she had a choice about serving.

Col. Kelly refused to be baited by Phelps, who was told to shut up by other locals who wanted to ask Col. Kelly more relevant questions on local issues. Phelps kept going, seething with anger, and then asked Col. Kelly if his role in Iraq was like that of the Nazi guards at the Belsen concentration camp during World War 2.

Phelps has now apologized to Col. Kelly, but only after the despicable incident was raised in federal Parliament. In short, Phelps was shamed into apologizing, or forced to do so by his boss. Phelps insulted Col. Kelly, and every other veteran of the Iraq War, last week. He had more than five days to apologize. He refused to do so until today.

Despite his belated retraction, Phelps clearly believes what he said.

In a letter to Col. Kelly, Phelps referred to his comparison between Australian soldiers serving in Iraq, and Nazi guards at WW2 death camp, as "a partisan political point."

From AAP :

Col Kelly was keen to move past the row today but reiterated his pledge to run a clean and fair campaign.

"From the start of this, I made a commitment to play the ball and not the man, and focus on the issue," he said.

"I call upon all candidates to run a clean campaign and let's hope we can go that way from here."

Col. Kelly can have his dream of taking part in a clean election campaign, but furious, pathetic soldier-hating Liberals like Phelps will make sure that is one of the dirtiest campaigns ever seen. The Liberals are desperate, and scared, and their actions will become only more explosive, abhorrent and vile as the reality of their fate causes further panic.

Labor backbencher Michael Danby, the only Jewish MP in Parliament, described the comments as offensive not only to the Jewish community but to former and current Australian military personnel.

"I felt sick to my stomach sitting in federal parliament hearing some of these comparisons," Mr Danby said.

"Dr Phelps has attempted to equate an Australian who served in Iraq with someone who was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Belsen.

"This is deeply offensive not just to the Australian Jewish community but to all of our World War II diggers and airman who fought to defeat Nazism.

"It's also an astonishing attack on our servicemen in Iraq."

It's not the first time the Liberals have insulted Australian veterans. And it won't be the last.

Liberals like Phelps are following the example set by their leader, John Howard, who said the thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans who voiced their dissent against the War On Iraq, in early 2003, were giving "aid and comfort" to Saddam Hussein.

Around the same time, John Howard was busy doing all he could to supposedly ignore more than a dozen memos, letters and reports that flowed through his office warning him that the Australian Wheat Board was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to the Saddam Hussein regime.

Liberals, like Phelps and Howard, don't care if they're being hypocrites, or spitting blood in the faces of Australian veterans with their crude and shameful insults. They only care about winning, nothing more.

Howard Gives Rudd The Finger In Parliament


This photo by Gary Ramage appeared in today's edition of The Australian


As anyone who wears glasses will tell you, the only time you use your middle finger to "adjust your glasses" is when you're either missing your index finger, or when you want to send a non-verbal message.

Yesterday in federal parliament, of all places, prime minister John Howard showed just how petulant and immature he can really be, particularly when he's losing the election he refuses to call.

He gave Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, sitting opposite, the finger.


Howard and the Liberals have been polling so miserably for virtually all of 2007 that even when a new poll reveals they have "clawed back" ground, it is impossible to ignore the fact that they still won't win on these numbers.

They don't need to claw back ground, they need something close to a miracle.

Or something that will allow Howard to delay the elections until well into 2008.

BushCo. and NeoCon allies in France and Israel launching a War On Iran perhaps?

As we predicted here on the weekend, the latest Newspoll has shown a four point increase of support for coalition government, but Howard's rating remain virtually unchanged on a fortnight ago. We got that bit wrong. We were convinced that Howard would get some sympathy votes in the polls because he had been so thoroughly humiliated for a solid week.

Labor maintains a 10 point lead on the Howard government, but the poll shift saw Labor dropping four points and the coalition gaining four. Nothing hugely dramatic either way, but it could have been worse for the Howard government. They could have dropped from 18 points behind to 22.

Maybe the government got a rise because when the poll was taken on the weekend, Australians were convinced the Liberals were still going to toss Howard overboard?

Here's a round up of the latest Newspoll :

Labor still has a clear election-winning lead on a two-party-preferred basis of 55 per cent to the Coalition's 45, and Kevin Rudd is well clear of Mr Howard as preferred prime minister.

But an eight-point narrowing in Labor's primary vote lead during the APEC meeting, and despite the Liberal Party's devastating leadership instability, will boost Coalition morale at this morning's crucial party meeting in Canberra.

They'll need it.

More than half of Howard's senior cabinet couldn't muster messages of support for the prime minister when he needed it the most. The Australian public shows more respect and support for Howard than his own government ministers do.

Also, Workchoices doesn't stink any less this morning than it did last week, or last month, despite the raft of new ads showing 'ordinary' Australian workers having epiphanies about why giving up overtime and penalty rates is actually good for them. Or something.

Howard now has to come up with a reasonable excuse as to why he won't call the federal election now. Or at least in the next week.

The Labor Party will shred him over the reasons why he is delaying the election. And so they should. Howard has no reason other than his own interests to put off the inevitable. The three years is up, the election is due.

Unless, of course, Howard knows something is coming that the rest of us don't yet know about.

Would Howard use military action on Iran as an excuse to delay the federal election he is surely going to lose?

Do you really think he would not use such a horror, to cancel the election, if he was given the chance or the option to do so?

Of course he would.

Howard The Bitch

Tells Liberals 'You're Nothing Without Me'

Finding out that half of his cabinet couldn't be arsed to muster up a strong message of support during the APEC summit must have really got under the skin of John Howard. In fact, we know that it did.

He's none too subtly begun to point out that while the Liberal poll numbers are tanking, he's still doing pretty well, with most recent approval ratings hovering around 50%. It's not me they hate, Howard is telling his senior ministers, it's you bastards :

The Prime Minister said that if the party was as popular as him, the Government wouldn't be in trouble.

Mr Howard insisted he would go into the coming election as a team with Treasurer Peter Costello, but underlined his own attractiveness to voters.

"...my level of personal support is significantly higher than that of the party's," he told Melbourne radio. "If the party's level of support in the opinion polls was as high as mine is, it would be a different story.

"I'm not drawing any particular comfort from that. I'm just making the observation."

Expect more such 'observations' from Howard about his many deeply unpopular Liberal colleagues (yes you Tony Abbott and Alexander Downer) soft-peddling the line "You're a bunch of losers and I'm sick of winning elections for you wankers."


By the way, it should be becoming clear to Australian voters by now what the New Howard Style will be for the coming (official) election campaign : Peter Beattie with more pouting, and more earnest whining for "just one more chance to really prove myself".

Here's some lines that we expect Howard to start, or keep on, spouting over the next six to eight weeks :

"Well, yes, we were wrong on (insert humiliating scandal or dirty rotten lie)"

"I won't say 'I've Got A Dream', but I will say 'I Have A Vision For Australia's future."

"We could have handled (insert scandal, dirty rotten lie) a lot better than we did, and for that I apologize. I really do."

"I will be stepping down, but I will make sure that when I do, Australia is even a better place to live and work (emphasis work) than it is today. That is my vision."

"Most Australians already know that Australia has become the greatest country in the world (thanks to me), but before I go I want to make sure the rest of the world knows it, too."

"It's not about me, it's about our team, and the nation's future."

"I'm sorry...I apologize...I never meant to mislead anybody....I always had the nation's best interests at heart....I always had the national interest in mind when I made that decision."

"I do have regrets. But I've only ever wanted what's best for the country, and what's best for all Australians."

"I had to stay and fight this election, because our entire team is united in wanting all of Australia to know that they cannot afford to make a bad choice they will come to regret next year."

"I didn't mean 'Australians have never been better off' financially, I meant we've never been better off as a country."

Enough of that.

We'll finish up by tipping next week's Newspoll results.

Howard will stage something of a comeback, five or more points, with a slight drop off for Rudd. The Liberals will regain three or four points. Labor will stay about the same.

In some book about five years from now, we're going to find out that last week's tumultuous Liberal Party Leadership Melt-Down was not all that it appeared to be.

If Howard does gain some noticeable ground in the polls next week, it will be much harder for his traitors to toss him over the side, just as he planned, and it will prove that what happened was less scandalous and explosive than what we've been led to believe.

We figure Howard's wife, Janette, saw the signs of a coming betrayal from his colleagues and told him to cut it off before it gained steam by forcing them to make a move.

Why PM Refused To Quit - JanHow Didn't Want To Lose The Good Life

Much has been made, as it well should, of prime minister John Howard's years of claims that he would only stay in the top job of the Liberal Party as long as his party wanted him to stay, and as long as it was the best thing for his party.

Now we know that most of the senior ranks of the government wanted Howard to step down last week, for the good of the party, but he refused.

And now we know why. His wife, Janette Howard, didn't want to move out of Kirribilli House, where she has lived the very, very good life for more than ten years, all at the taxpayers' expense. And it's been very, very expensive. Millions worth of renovations, millions more for new furniture. Tens of millions of dollars spent hosting parties, cocktail parties, barbecues and get togethers. The wine bill alone runs into the thousands each and every month.

Of course John Howard denies point blank that his wife made him stay, so she could stay, but it's certainly no great secret that JanHow is the PM's top adviser, motivator and whip cracker.

Janette Howard overruled Cabinet ministers who wanted her husband to step down as Prime Minister.

Government sources yesterday said John Howard's wife was central to his decision to stay on to fight his Liberal Party critics, and the election.

"Mrs H is the key," a source said.

Last night Mr Howard denied his wife's advice was decisive.

"I think that's unfair to my wife, it's wrong," he told Nine's A Current Affair. However, there is a strongly held view within senior ranks of Government that her involvement was indeed pivotal.

Government sources said it was Mrs Howard who over Friday and Saturday helped convince him to stay on.