UPDATE : Malcolm Turnbull refuses to resign, preferring to drag out the humiliation and public mockery for a few weeks, or months, more. Whatever.
By Darryl Mason (channeling the recently deceased Grods)
You can read all the news and quotes about the (confirmation pending) resignation of Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull elsewhere, there is more important issues to discuss right now.
This one :
This is for you, Bren :
Get your motor running, Head out on the highway, Get down to the Liberal Party HQ You can take on Abbott & Costello (You're a doctor after all)
Yeah Bren you can make this happen, Take the leadership in a love embrace Fire up your cans of pensioner soup And explode into Rudd's face (You're a doctor after all)
You were born, born to be mild You can fly so high Even if you've never voted Liberal in your life
I know, I know. Just let me dream this pleasant Bren dream a little longer, before the cold moist nightmare of Tony Abbott as Liberal Party Leader begins....
.
Monday, September 29, 2008
How Turnbull Bulleted Brendan
Brendan Nelson may have been an idiot, but as opposition leader he was a mostly harmless idiot. And he was our idiot. The peoples' idiot. He put on his show, and we enjoyed it, most of the time. Brendan Nelson was fun as opposition leader.
...a picture of political bastardry, animosity and aggression. I now understand why Dr Brendan Nelson took what at the time appeared to be a dangerous and illogical decision to open up his leadership position to a vote less than 10 months after becoming his party's leader. He couldn't take the pressure any more. And the pressure was unrelenting.
Turnbull carved a big X on Brendan's forehead, the very first day of Brendan's reign :
Turnbull walked up to Nelson and gave him a negative review of his first performance as leader. Soon after, unable to contain himself, Turnbull walked into Nelson's office and dressed him downin front of his wife and staff.Nelson was stunned. So were his staff.
Now that's downright nasty, and no accident. Turnbull wanted to shatter Brendan, he wanted to fuck with his mind.
The denigration soon spread. Turnbull told a member of Nelson's staff that his boss was "hopeless". He told journalists the same thing. It became common knowledge in the press gallery that Turnbull's attitude toward Nelson was dismissive and corrosive, a corrosion which built up the pressure and ate into Nelson's credibility in the press gallery as his opinion polling numbers floundered.
Turnbull holds very good, very grand parties to which he invites his friendly media. And they love him for it.
The state of chaos that was the Liberal Party for most of this year has subsided, somewhat, with the completion of Turnbull's all but unprecedented four year rise to the top of conservative politics in Australia. Well, liberal-Green-Conservative politics. Turnbull's invention.
What the fuck do they stand for now, anyway? Turnbull wants to bail out the banks, and the front bench wears its newfound greenism unconvincingly, uncomfortably. They champion The Greens years long demands for increases to the pension, and more investment in new, alternative energy. Nobody in the Liberal Party wails about how awesome the Iraq War has turned out for everyone involved, including all those dead Iraqis, like Alexander Downer did. Now the free market is viciously mauling the poor yet again, with far more bloodshed to come, everyone wants to be a socialist.
As of now the Liberal Party is not a political movement or a political philosophy but, apart from a band of idealists, a collective of opportunists masquerading as a cause. The deeper you go, the less you find.
The reason why the media, particularly the ABC, keep boring us with stories about Peter Costello still eyeballing the leadership of the Liberal Party is because he actually is, and a very anti-Brendan-like campaign of undermining Turnbull has begun. Costello expects Turnbull to crash and burn. He will piss on the flames and take over.
Forever the optimist.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
RIP (Rock In Peace)
Forget politics, Brendan. You gave it your all and those dirty bastards still stabbed you in the back whilst nodding collectively as you raged about pensioner poverty and the poor quality of cheap soup. Hit the open road, Brendan, jump back in a truck and plough those highways. And don't forget your guitar.
Grods pays a hearty tribute to the most entertaining leader of the Liberal Party since Alexander Downer.
Who will speak up now for the elderly pensioners of Australia who are so poor they can't afford toilet paper and have to wipe their bottoms with their cats instead?
There's Nelson, Who Wants To Blow Him Away?
I thought calling for the assassination of political leaders was illegal?
I have discovered that (Rudd)...has a fondness for guns.
Come on, Laurie. You didn't "discover" this. This news is so old, it's wearing incontinence pants and a Seekers t-shirt. December, 2006 :
Kevin makes no apologies for being a long-standing supporter of shooters’ rights. He has participated in a number of celebrity events at the Belmont range throughout the years, along with former South Australian ALP Senator John Quirk, who serves as a patron for a number of shooting organisations.
You can "discover" this news about Rudd & Guns for yourself through deep, thorough investigative journalism in the fetid heart of Canberra, like Oakesy, or by some complex Google searching, using the words "Rudd gun".
I'm going to miss Brendan Nelson. He was pure Comedy Gold, however unintentional his brilliantly hilarious impression of a Liberal Party leader was.
Nelson was as funny as a kitten as with its head caught in a empty yoghurt container.
Unlike Malcolm Turnbull, who's about as amusing as a school bus accident.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Nelson's New Strategy : Silence
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson is still polling like Ivan Milat, despite the Rudd government providing a heaving banquet of opportunities (FuelWatch, GroceryWatch, Rudd's World Tour : Redux, the Carbon Tax) for him to publicly shred PM Rudd (or at least Treasurer Wayne Swan) and to mock the government's first eight months in office.
But almost every time Brendan Nelson opens his mouth and begins speaking to the media, he ends up saying something that further instills the irresistable desire in almost every Australia to hit the mute button, or to throw the radio out the window, or to crash the car because you haven't mastered the steering wheel volume controls yet and you'd rather take your chances sailing through a guard rail into a mist-filled valley than listen to Nelson talk about old people he's met who are so poor they can't afford hot water for their tea, thanks to Kevin Rudd, and have been reduced to sucking tea bags left to heat for a while in the sun.
So Brendan Nelson, according to news reports, has decided to adopt a new, highly experimental and rather thrilling strategy to win back public support and hold onto the job that Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Costello don't yet want :
We should all wish him the best of luck.
What awesomely surreal press conferences this could lead to.
Nelson steps forward, smiles and says nothing. The silent seconds tick by. A journalist jumps in, fires off her question, but Nelson doesn't reply. He just stands there. smiling. More questions come, still nothing from Nelson. The journalists confusion quickly turns to hostility as they realise Nelson is doing something they don't understand. It's too innovative. The questions and demands for him to say something, anything, only grow in number and volume the more Nelson says nothing.
When the journalists are exhausted, defeated, Nelson turns and walks away. Still smiling.
Suddenly Australia wants to know what this bizarre little man has to say for himself.
"What is he up to?" "Why won't he speak?" "What will he say when he does finally talk to us again?" "He still shits me, but I'm curious now he's clammed up, who is the man behind that smug grin?"
This could work for Nelson. Hell, why not? Nothing else has.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Most Australians Want Carbon Tax, Now
More Chaos Looms For Libs As They Plot Delaying Introduction Of ETS
Some stunning poll results on how Australians feel about the introduction of an emissions trading scheme :
As the Coalition meets in Canberra today to forge a climate change policy that would delay an emissions trading scheme beyond 2010, it will be confronted with evidence that most Australians support the Rudd Government's position.
Brendan Nelson is expected to adopt a policy with his shadow cabinet colleagues that opts to delay an ETS until greenhouse gas giants such as India and China act to cut their emissions.
But the latest Newspoll survey has confirmed widespread public support for an ETS, with 60 per cent of voters backing the adoption of a scheme "regardless of what other countries do".
Another 23 per cent support a scheme if other countries act.
Only 11 per cent of voters oppose an ETS under any circumstances.
I'm surprised at how low real opposition to the carbon tax amongst Australians actually is. You'd think such a controversial, and likely very costly scheme, would be far more divisive, and generally opposed. Apparently not.
Expect failed Melbourne Age 'journalist', former Labor Party advisor and now full-time Liberal Party climate change policy fantasist Andrew Bolt to once again call most Australians a bunch of idiots, or worse, for not subscribing to his anti-progress, Greens = Hitler hysteria and fear-mongering conspiracy theories.
However, it should be entertaining to see Bolt go into an apoplexy of rage that his claims of a Vast Green Pagan Lefty Conspiracy over climate change are simply not getting through to the public, despite him having the highest combined online, newspaper and TV profile of just about any commentator in Australia.
The Professional Idiot is all over Murdoch newspapers and websites, as well as the ABC, but few believe what he shouts through a growing collection of visible ticks, eye-rolling and general head-shaking. Perhaps his message would get through more, and be more influential, if he didn't come across as such a petulant, whiny, fringe-dwelling, hysterical fuckwit.
Those poll numbers are really going to suck the wind out of the Liberals who thought they could knock the shit out of PM Rudd, and in particular climate change minister Penny Wong, over the introduction of a carbon tax, and capitalise on what The Professional Idiot claims is growing scepticism amongst Australians on the reality of man-made climate change.
And Opposition transitional leader, Brendan Nelson, will be utterly smashed by the next Liberal Party leader, Malcolm Turnbull, over those poll numbers on the ETS and climate change in general, and of course, these utterly dire Liberal polling numbers as well :
It also confirms the Government's dominance over the Opposition, with Labor leading the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis by 57 per cent to 43 per cent.
Kevin Rudd also kept his 50-plus percentage point lead over Dr Nelson as preferred prime minister...
Mr Rudd had 66 per cent support as preferred prime minister compared with Dr Nelson's 14per cent.
Newspoll shows the Rudd government would trounce a Nelson-led opposition if the election was held today.
Labor's primary vote rose four points from the last poll to 47 per cent - the highest since the election.
Kevin Rudd has a satisfaction rating of 58 per cent, with 66 per cent saying he makes a better PM.
Amazing. Rudd and the Labor government are polling almost better now than they did when they flogged John Howard's then government at last year's election.
But why?
Is Rudd really that popular, or are the Liberals so boondoggled and their message and policies so confused and hard to keep up with that most Australian voters just don't want to know about them anymore?
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Senior Liberal : Brendan Nelson Won't Fart Without Permission
If opposition sorta leader Brendan Nelson wants to let rip with a strawberry tart, he has to seek permission from his "Svengali" Nick Minchin.
The same story also reveals that Alexander Downer is planning his return to the front benches of the opposition, throwing away a booming career as a morning radio personality in Adelaide, for starters. It must have been a hard decision for Downer to make, to sacrifice personal wealth and international acclaim so he could drop back into the front lines for the war on Ruddzilla, having turned down all the multi-million dollar executive positions he has been offered with some of Australia's leading corporations. Just like former treasurer Peter Costello.
You know highly respected politicians like Downer and Costello have been fighting to surface from beneath the avalanches of offers of blue chip executive positions since they lost the election. Don't you remember? Downer, Costello and Tony Abbott kept telling us, all through the Howard government's third and fourth term, that supremely talented men like themselves could always make millions in the private sector.
We really are a blessed country to have dedicated servants of the public, like Downer, make such supreme financial sacrifices for the good of the nation.
Please do the right thing and make a run at the leadership of the Liberal Party yourself, Mr Downer. Don't listen to the polls that claim you're as popular as bowel cancer. Your country needs you. And more laughs, too.
At your expense.
UPDATE : Damn, it looks like Downer is going to quit within weeks, instead of providing further, occasionally painful, unintended amusement for the masses. Typical. Selfish bastard, thinking only of himself and not of the needs of financially depressed Australians who could do with a few more laughs. At his expense.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Get Away From Me, You Loser
A brilliant piece of photography by The Age's Jason South. I think that's my pick for political photo of 2008, and probably 2009 as well. Unless one turns up of Alexander Downer being mauled by chickens. Or Tony Abbott being assaulted by wombats.
Or Wayne Swan being savaged by, what else?, a swan.
Brendan Nelson is extremely, supremely confident that he will be battling Rudd in the federal trenches next election. He's so there. How confident is he?
“As confident as I can… yes, very confident.”
His confidence is lacking some confidence.
It's comedy genius. Groucho Marx would have been proud.
Grods Corp noticed that the creaking Liberal spin machine is cleaning up Nelson's verbal splutterings in transcripts. To make him sound more confident.
Nelson's Liberals Are The Spinal Tap Of Australian Politics
Shock : Real Questions On Real Issues From The Opposition
...what we got from the shadow treasurer was something quite novel: a cogent and intelligent critique of the Rudd Government's first budget, coupled with a vigorous defence of the Liberal tradition.
The Rudd Government's first budget isn't bulletproof, by any means - the only reason it might have seemed a bit that way over the past 10 days is that the Opposition has been firing dum-dums directly into its own feet.
But Mr Turnbull yesterday managed to articulate some of the uneasy questions raised by last week's budget, with none of the mawkish sentiment of a Nelson oration.
Questions like: How can a government on one hand claim that climate change is our greatest challenge, then on the other hand remain silent about the budgetary impact of an emissions trading scheme, while simultaneously penalising the solar energy industry?
How can a government carry on about our crumbling public hospital system, while simultaneously making money by tipping hundreds of thousands of new patients into it?
There must be dozens of other simple and powerful questions like these the Turnbull-led opposition (or Nelson led opposition if you insist on dwelling in fantasy) can trumpet to finally get some momentum back on their side. There's a fair bit of confusion for many people on what the first Rudd government budget means for them, and now the Liberals have an opportunity to ramp up the pressure.
Well, maybe. If they can stop stabbing each other in the back. When federal Parliament staff take an inventory of the dining rooms' cutlery, they will only have to take a look at Nelson's spine to find most of the missing sharper implements.
Nelson is probably more unpopular now in his own party than he is with larger Australia. And while Nelson may now be 70% cutlery steel, Turnbull is the focus of bizarre suspicion from within his own ranks. Incredibly, a conspiracy is gaining ground among die-hard Liberals (well, some Andrew Bolt readers anyway, which makes up a fair bit of the Liberals support base, those who aren't Liberal staffers anyway) that Turnbull is a Labor double agent, bent on destroying the big Ls from within. Brilliantly amusing.
Up until Turnbull's sweat-heavy but effective speech yesterday, which should mark a turnaround in political fortune, the Liberals had been far too busy showing why they are the Spinal Tap of federal politics. They were once big, but they've fallen on hard times, the reviews of their new product is mostly terrible (two words : Shit Sandwich) and constant touring (by Nelson) is making them only look more pathetic and out of vogue, regardless of the size of their Stonehenge monument or the number of dwarves they have dancing around it.
And no, I have no idea what that last reference means...at least, not yet.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Howard's Rage
Opposition leader Brendan Nelson has tried being a shiny, happy person, as he toured Australia "listening", but with serial-killer levels of public approval, Nelson's remaking of the Liberal Party leadership clearly hasn't worked.
Former Liberal leader, and ex-prime minister, John Howard, suggests a new strategy :
John Howard last night urged Liberal Party faithful to maintain the rage, saying they should work hard to get out of Opposition and promising a federal Liberal government "will come again".
"Rage against opposition," he said. "Work as hard as you can to get out of opposition as soon as you can.
"Opposition is a dismal position in politics. I had my share of opposition, I had 13 years of it, and I hated every year of it, I hated every week of it."
So much hate, for so many years.
John Howard seems to have delayed his promise to fade away quietly, and not become like other ex-MPs, always giving speeches and making public comments and critiques. Maybe next year.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Howard's Helping/Non-Helping Hand
Back home after his trip to the United States to collect six figures worth of Iraq War blood money from his NeoCon backers, former prime minister John Howard has offered a "helping hand" to demoralised, PTSD-crippled Liberals.
But did Howard offer a "helping hand" to temporary Liberal leader Brendan "I'm Going Nowhere..." Nelson?
FORMER prime minister John Howard says he is willing to help the Liberal Party and its embattled leader Brendan Nelson with the "difficult job" of being in opposition.
JOHN Howard helped the Liberal Party raise much-needed funds at a dinner thrown in his honour in Brisbane last night, but there was no helping hand for his successor, Brendan Nelson, as he battles through a fierce bout of leadership speculation.
(Howard admitted) his diplomacy needed work. Asked at a function at the George H. W. Bush presidential library in Texas to name his top three achievements, he started with gun control.
No-one in the Texas audience clapped.
Howard won't offer his total support for Brendan Nelson because he probably believes that if the chaos, back-stabbing and plunging poll numbers for Nelson and the Liberals continue, he just might get another shot at running for prime minister. Just like his hero Menzies.
He won't take the offer (well,probably not), but he sure is going to get a chub when they ask him, or when the rumours begin that Howard might be making a return to politics.
UPDATE : The Australian lead editorial sinks a hilariously righteous boot into Howard for being too conservative and not embracing the "symbolism" that is supposedly making Rudd so popular right now :
...the popularity of the Prime Minister and Labor is going through the roof because it has taken a whole lot of easy symbolic actions that were easy to identify years ago. Mr Howard's long-standing refusal to offer an apology to the Stolen Generations or sign the Kyoto Protocol may have limited his ability to act. A change of heart by Mr Howard on these issues may have been seen by voters as a sign of political desperation. But given the opportunity, Mr Costello may have been able to freshen up the image of conservative forces to reflect the expectations of modern Australia and take some of the easy benefits now being showered on Mr Rudd.
With Brendan Nelson struggling to get out of single figures in the opinion polls, what does this say about the long-term assessment of the Howard years? That by being too conservative and refusing to reflect contemporary views, Mr Howard has destroyed the conservative side he served.
The Australian rails on Howard for being too conservative....what more needs to be said?
The new poll reveals that support for the Coalition has plunged a mindblowing 25% in three months.
Have I missed something? Have Coalition shadow ministers been videod clubbing baby koalas or eating whale meat kebabs?
The truth is, of course, that John Howard really was the vote catcher of the Coalition. He was their messiah and their antichrist. Even people who hated John Howard still found reasons to vote for him, or at least agree with him. With Howard gone, we now see exactly how popular the Liberal Party is in Australia. About as popular as the Bush administration is in the United States. About as popular as a kick in the nuts.
Losing Howard and gaining Nelson as leader is like sending The Rolling Stones on the road without Mick Jagger. Sure, some people will still go to see Keith Richards play, but you won't get a fireworks show, and your wife and most of your friends probably won't want to come with you.
It must be almost embarrassing for Kevin Rudd and Labor to discover how much of the country is behind them, and so very supportive during the new government's first 100 days in office, despite interest rate rises, housing shortage horrors, a plunging stockmarket and Rudd turning out to be even more dull and droll than he was as opposition leader.
73% of Australians favour Rudd as prime minister, and 51% prefer Labor over the Coalition.
7%. Nelson isn't leadership material, but how can his ratings be so utterly apocalyptic?
After all, he's not Tony Abbott.
Or Alexander Downer.
Maybe Nelson should get back on his motorbike and start popping a few monos outside Parliament House for the media. Hell, maybe he should just try and Knievel his way right over Parliament House while standing on the handlebars.
Such a stunt couldn't make him any more unpopular than he is right now.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Party Colleagues Want Brendan Nelson Gone From Leadership Within A Year
Nelson "Insincere, Fake....A Nobody"
Opposition leader Brendan Nelson must be a haunted man. Particularly after reading this article.
Nelson's obvious disgust at having to back Labor on the long overdue end to the stalling and conspiracy-mongering of saying 'Sorry' to Aborigines made him look a truly pathetic man when he had to front the media and declare he had changed his mind on one of the most controversial issues of the John Howard era in only a handful of weeks.
"...we have no responsibility to apologise or take ownership for what was done by earlier generations," he said.
The 'Sorry' problem for the Liberals is intense, and it keeps detonating again and again under their feet, like unexploded daisy cutter mines had been scattered throughout their offices by the Labor Party.
Malcolm Turnbull is said to have lost his shot at the leadership of the Liberal Party because he supported a national 'Sorry' statement and official apology for numerous past crimes against the Aboriginal People, and because he did not consult enough, or often enough, with the partyroom before he went to the media and started making declarations.
Nelson supposedly did the right thing, by "consulting with the partyroom" before he announced that numerous Liberals who believe in the Andrew Bolt "unstolen generation" conspiracy would keep their mouths shut and give their backing to something they truly didn't believe in.
A number of senior Liberals find the word "stolen", as in "stolen generation", utterly repellent.
Why, they wonder, can't we simply call them "The Saved Generation."?
Malcolm Turnbull recently got an insight into how some senior Liberals regard him when he was told he was being "too fucking sensitive" by the Opposition senate leader, Nick Minchin, in front of colleagues :
The row started outside of the party room on Thursday, after Senator Minchin went on ABC radio and confirmed Mr Turnbull lost the leadership because his public support for an apology to the stolen generation suggested he would not consult the partyroom.
After Mr Turnbull told him the comments were "unhelpful'' because the whole leadership debate was settling down, Senator Minchin is understood to have yelled at his frontbench colleague, declaring he was "too f..king sensitive'' as he walked away.
Brendan Nelson's leadership of the Liberal Party is stripping away the layers of Howard-era conservatism. Now they're 'Sorry', they're against killing whales, they like Green things, they don't like WorkChoices.
What other old beliefs, clinging on like barnacles, will Liberal conservatives have to betray or cast aside to re-sell themselves to under 40s Australians as "The Ones Who Really Care. Really."
Whatever kind of Liberal Party emerges at the other end of its Renovation Rescue-like attempt to revive a staid room by only changing the curtains, it probably won't have Brendan Nelson as its leader :
"He's a nobody, who is insincere and fake,'' one Liberal said.
"If he was here by the end of the year I would be very surprised. (Turnbull) is clearly the preferred person.''
Sometimes it's not so nice to know what your colleagues really think of you. Particularly if you're Brendan Nelson.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Now It's The Liberals Turn To Say "Bloody Howard!"
The nation's Liberal leaders have blamed an unhealthy focus on the former Howard government for contributing to their electoral woes.
State and territory Liberal Party leaders held a crisis meeting in Melbourne to try to revive the fortunes of the party, which languishes in opposition throughout Australia.
Victorian opposition leader Ted Baillieu said while it had been important to focus on keeping the party in power federally, the situation had changed following the November 24 election loss.
"The focus on the federal coalition from time to time drew resources, staffing and focus to that effort," he said.
"The efforts of the state and territory division have not been helped.
"We need to assert the states and territories, who are central ... to reviving the fortunes of the party."
Is that it? No quotes hammering Howard, or shredding Abbott, Nelson, Downer or Costello for spending most of 2007 singing the praises of John Howard when they all knew, from their own polling, that Howard was a key reason why they would lose the federal election?
Baaah!
At least the state Liberal leaders showed what they thought of the new federal Liberal 'leader' Brendan Nelson. He wasn't invited to the pow-wow.
Baillieu took the time to spell out just what the Liberals now stand for :
"We stand for freedom of the individual, freedom of enterprise, growth and aspiration, small government and a strong and productive, safe future for all Australians," he said.
So basically they stand for everything that Howard was opposed to, or did his best to ensure Australians were denied.
Smells like a nasty war is brewing between state and federal Liberals.
What a shame. And just when they where showing signs of....well, nothing much really.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Scrapping Mega-Billions Jet Fighter Purchase May 'Harm Australia-US Relations'
It's nice to know that Australia's much-praised and constantly touted close relationship with the United States is worth more than six or seven billion dollars in questionable war industry purchases from Boeing.
Cancellation of the controversial $6.6 billion contract to buy 24 F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter-bombers could hurt Australia's diplomatic and commercial relationship with the US, a national security think tank has warned.
...Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon yesterday reaffirmed his Government's pre-election pledge to review the purchase announced without warning in March by then defence minister Brendan Nelson.
At the time, Dr Nelson said the deal was made after advice from the Defence Department and RAAF that the US-built Super Hornet offered the best solution to a looming air combat capability gap.
Deliveries of its intended replacement, the state-of-the-art but unproven F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) are not expected until 2013 and, at a starting price of $15.6 billion, the project is running over budget and embroiled in production delays.
Andrew Davies, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warns :
...that any decision to axe the Super Hornet contract would carry "precipitous" consequences. It would require "careful management in Washington", he said, and would result in fraught commercial ties with Boeing...
"The very first question you have to answer is: what sort of stoush do you think you are going to be in when you need something like that?" he said.
So is Australia only so highly valued by the US because we spend billions of dollars a year buying 'product' from their war industries, and pouring billions more into American owned war machine corporations based in Australia?
It's not often the public gets such insights into the politics and blackmail of war industry business between the United States and Australia. And as usual, it's ugly and more than a little seedy.
Brendan Nelson is one of the more spectacular war industry whores Australia has produced in decades. Under Nelson, and the Howard government, Australia's 'defence' budget was set to roar beyond $30 billion in 2008 (including the "extra projects" never announced in budgets).
It remains to be seen whether the new Labor defence minister will stick to all the deals and promises Howard and Nelson made to international war industry corporations, mostly American ones.
Outside of the United States, Australia under Howard had one of the largest defence budgets of any country in the world, with Russia and China only spending a few billion more in the past few years than Howard did.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Brendan Nelson Hand Carves WorkChoices Tombstone
Radical New Liberal Policy : "We Are Listening To The Australian People"
What exactly are the Liberal Party going to be opposed to in opposition?
Apparently, the Brendan Nelson led Liberals have vowed to fight to ensure that the Labor Party lives up to promise to rollback the WorkChoices regime they forced onto the Australian people, against their will.
At a news conference with Deputy Leader Julie Bishop, Dr Nelson said the Coalition would now scrutinise the Rudd Labor Government's scrapping of the laws to ensure it was "implemented as stated''.
"We will be working very hard to make sure that the legislation the Labor Party and Mr Rudd present to the Australian Parliament is consistent with the last stated position of the Labor Party,'' he said.
Wow. who needs drugs? Just try and wrap your head around that. The Liberal Party is now going to "scrutinise" the Labor Party's windback of WorkChoices to make sure that they live up to their promise to get rid of the John Howard's biggest political ambition : utterly stripping away the most essential rights of Australian workers, destroying the unions, and handing control of Australia's workforce to the country's biggest corporations.
Nelson is basically saying : "We introduced it, now we're going to make sure that you really get rid of it."
Parliament next year will be hallucinogenic if this is any indication of how Monty Pythonesque the Liberal Party will be in opposition.
"We have listened and we have learned, and one of the issues that was very important to the Australian people in changing the Government on November 24 was that of WorkChoices," he said.
"We've listened to the Australian people, we respect the decisions they have made, and WorkChoices is dead."
Dr Nelson said the package of industrial reforms was "one of the reasons'' Australians voted to change the Government.
The Liberal Party insist they are now listening to the Australian people. Talk about a revolution. Actually listening to the majority collective opinion of the Australian people? WorkChoices was brought in because the Liberal Party had spent so long listening to the opinions and demands of Australia's business community.
So WorkChoices is dead. Well, that was a complete waste of another $700 or $800 million dollars.
How many hospitals and schools would that kind of money brought up to world's best standards?
Brendan Nelson is busy chipping away at a new tombstone today. The one that will mark the political grave of Australia's biggest champion of WorkChoices - Joe Hockey.
It's no exaggeration. John Howard really did destroy the Liberal Party.
Dry your eyes.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Liberals Defy The Australian, Nelson Pays The Price
Curse Of The Newspoll To Badmouth Libs Until Turnbull Takes Over
More Coalition Supporters Prefer Rudd As PM Than Nelson And Abbott Combined
But the Liberals dared to ignore Kelly, and the Murdoch media's cheerleading for Turnbull, and chose Brendan "I've Never Voted Liberal In My Life!" Nelson to lead the party instead.
The Liberal Party may have chosen the wrong man as its new leader, with Brendan Nelson only half as popular as beaten rival Malcolm Turnbull among voters.
Brendan Nelson had only given his first interview as the New Liberals leader mere hours before the poll was taken. He hadn't even been leader for 48 hours!
A Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian at the weekend also found 61 per cent of voters named Kevin Rudd as their preferred prime minister, with Dr Nelson rating only 14 per cent.
The poll showed almost as many Coalition voters believed Mr Rudd would make a better prime minister as Dr Nelson.
...the Newspoll - the first since polling day - found Mr Turnbull was the most favoured Liberal Party figure.
But of course!
Thirty-four per cent of the 1125 respondents named the millionaire former banker and environment minister as the best person to lead the Liberals. Dr Nelson scored 18 per cent. West Australian Julie Bishop, who was elected as Dr Nelson's deputy last Thursday, scored 14 per cent.
Former health minister and Howard loyalist Tony Abbott won the support of 9 per cent of respondents...
...in further bad news for the Liberals, Mr Rudd was also the preferred prime minister among 27 per cent of Coalition voters.
More Coalition voters think that Ruddley Do Right makes a more preferable PM than Nelson and Abbott combined. And Rudd hadn't even been sworn in as PM when the poll was taken!
Fantastic!
The rest of the 'Nelson Really Sucks' story from The Australian guts the Liberal leader like a pig and throws his entrails around the room, churning through the embarrassment of Nelson getting teary in his 'victory speech' to shellshocked Liberals and copping a "verbal bollocking" from Turnbull for giving a speech that was as exciting and inspiring as any you might hear at a funeral.
Not surprisingly, Brendan Nelson is not so happy at the continuing 'Let's Make Front Page Stories Out Of Our Polls' paradigm in force at The Australian, which scatters it's 'Liberals Are Really Shit Now' headlines and data across the entire sprawl of Australia's Murdoch newspapers, which grabs a market share of more than 70% of all the newspapers published in Australia, and in turn creates news stories for the wire services, all the network and cable channel news programs and virtually all the ABC News broadcasts.
Oh yes, Turnbull will be leader of the Liberals. Sooner than Nelson thinks.
Here's Nelson going nuts about the Newspoll assassination attempt. Sorry, did we say going nuts? Of course we meant "laughing off":
"It's day five, I mean, gimme a break," Dr Nelson said.
"I think the average Australian out there is saying `I might see if I can get to know this guy'.
"I think again the average Australian will say `look, fair go, let's just find out what the bloke's on about first and then make your own judgment'."
The Liberal Party may have chosen the wrong man as its new leader, with Brendan Nelson only half as popular as beaten rival Malcolm Turnbull among voters.
Fortunately, we saved an image of the knifing from news.com.au. The photo of Nelson was not chosen in his favour :
I particularly like the readers poll. Forget who the Liberals chose to lead the party. Who do you think should be leader? Vote now, and we'll turn the results into yet another story tomorrow saying news.com.au readers "overwhelmingly" prefer Turnbull to Nelson.
Your free media and democracy in action.
Nelson's Liberals : Sorry, We Still Won't Say Sorry
With the 'New' Liberals me-tooing on gay rights, canning the election-losing bits of WorkChoices, ratifying Kyoto and acknowledging that Australians had stopped listening to John Howard's ideas, about the only key issue they've got left that separates from Rudd Labor is the Nelson-led objection to saying "Sorry" to the Aboriginal people for past crimes and injustices.
Nelson's explanation that they shouldn't have to apologise for something they didn't actually do, because none of them were born during the worst of the Aboriginal land-stealing, massacres, rapes and slavery, is both sad and bizarre. That Nelson's Liberals won't say "Sorry" because they fear an onslaught of compensation claims is cold, calculating and downright offensive to most Aborigines.
The "Sorry, No Sorry" position now hangs over Nelson's Liberals like a curse. During the 2004 election, an Aboriginal elder pointed a bone at Howard, cursing him. It clearly took a few years for the curse to come to fruition.
But it will keep acting on Nelson's Liberals until they follow the will of the majority of Australians and make this modest, and painless, gesture of reconciliation.
Philip Adams points out here that you cannot claim the 'Feel The Pride' parts of our generations-past history, Gallipoli for example, and then refuse to claim the dark and ugly parts as well :
The brave bits of history, the proud moments belong to us all and we collectively bathe in the glory. It's the nasty bits of the past we don't acknowledge. They had nothing to do with us. They were no part of our business.
This is a lopsided view of history. Let us share in past glories while shunning past guilts. Moreover, we will do our best to deny that they happened. Enter the historical revisionism of a Keith Windschuttle. Massacres of Abos? Where? When? Show us the documents! Show us the receipts for the corpses! If there's no paperwork, it never happened. Oral histories of Aborigines? Vivid, detailed accounts of slaughter and atrocities can be discounted. They're not worth the paper they're not written on. No need for sorries there.
Howard's classic cherry-picking of 'We Own This' bit of history but 'We Don't Want That' should be left behind with the (hopefully) old Liberal Party, and its blinkered view of this nation's history, he led to such a shattering defeat ten days ago.
(Howard's Liberals) want to choose the bits where our ancestors behaved decently, bravely, selflessly, and turn them into mythology, sentiment and, from time to time, the worst sort of patriotic pap. Look at us! Look who were are! In the same breath they turn their backs on our shames and crimes. They've got nothing to do with us. We weren't there. We hadn't been born. Sorry, Brendan, but that's not on.
Britain has to live with the potato famine in Ireland, Germany with the Holocaust, Japan with Manchuria, Turkey with the Armenian genocide and the US with slavery. You may be able to mount a convincing case that Australia's history, colonial as well as recent, in regard to Aborigines hardly compares. But the atrocities and tragedies occurred and continue to affect Aboriginal lives and Australia's sense of itself. And saying sorry is such a small thing.
Brendan Nelson has backed equal legal rights for same-sex couples in a move that immediately distances the new Liberal leader from the conservative social policy of the Howard era.
"...I believe in addressing the social and economic injustices affecting homosexuals the length and breadth of this country.''
You can now toss the issue of the Liberals & Gay Rights into the flaming cauldron of dissent and chaos already blazing away over what stance they should be taking on WorkChoices and the whole "Sorry" issues.
Nelson also neon-signs what he clearly hopes will be the underlying philosophy of his New Liberals :
"We must have social and human ideals, which are the ultimate objectives of our economic development.
"I've sometimes said that, even if all our economic problems were solved, all our fundamental questions would remain unanswered.''
The New Liberals should consider a coalition with The Greens. Then they could isolate Labor as being out of touch and "Howard-like" in their conservative approach, under Kevin Rudd, to Australia's problems.
"I say to all Australians … to the men and women of Australia in every walk of life: My commitment to you is to provide you with an inspiring alternative government and a liberalism you can identify with," he said.
"I will work my damndest to see that I and my colleagues have earned your vote in three years' time."
The Opposition Leader agreed that the party needed a fundamental ideological rethink and promised to travel the "width and breadth" of the country seeking the views of ordinary Australians.
Let's hope he does a better job of it than John Howard, who, when confronted by those who opposed him or challenged his views, often had his security muscle them away, or instead became snappy,robotically recited mantras and took on the appearance of someone who was being forced to sniff a fresh dog turd.
It sounds like Nelson wants to reshape his party philosophy based on what the Australian people have to say. Which is certainly better than the way Howard shaped his political Liberal philosophy - by listening to histaliban of extremist and ultra-conservative media hacks, lackeys and Quadrant fetishists.
Speaking of which, rehabilitated Howard hugger Miranda Devine shows she knows how to go with the new flow with her rapturous praise of Brendan Nelson's performance as the New Liberals leader, only two days after he won the top job :
"He would make a wise and compassionate prime minister if ever he had the chance."
Nelson can rest assured that Devine will do everything she can to make sure Nelson gets that chance.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Liberals Go For Brendan "We Went To Iraq For The Oil" Nelson
Nelson's First Betrayal Of The Wing Nuts : "We Love Kyoto, Too!"
Nelson has managed to fight off the Malcolm Turnbull Leadership Coup, but only just, winning his spot at "the worst job in Australian politics" by only a handful of votes.
This means the Liberal Party will rumble with chaos and "Did Turnbull do it?" leaks undermining the new leader for months, or even years, to come.
Brendan "We Went To Iraq For The Oil" Nelson can be counted on to make life a little bit difficult for the Rudd government, but will remain a figure of public mockery, and will continue to provide plenty of gaffes and jaw droppers to keep the Liberal Party In Chaos entertainment coming.
So much for the Liberals taking a message from the election and creating a new, more appealing front line team and set of themes. They will isolate themselves even further from the Australian mainstream, with Nelson now free to air his wacko views on education, religion and the 'War on Terror' whenever he likes.
UPDATE : Maybe the wing nuts won't be so happy with Nelson, after all.
Brendan Nelson is podiuming and announcing...Kyoto Is Good!
"I have heard the message from Australians that was delivered on Saturday and whatever some critics of the Kyoto Protocol might actually think, it's symbolically important to Australians," he said.
"Australia has rightly refused to sign the Kyoto protocol."
"...is it not time to consider in the longer term the most obvious power source, nuclear power? It is not only in electricity production that nuclear energy offers potential for Australia. It could also be used to fuel water desalination on a large scale."
The Labor Party will have lots of fun with those quotes.
"The Liberal Party believes in Kyoto ratification and a post-2012 system that binds developing nations into the compact."
Kind of close.
It looks like Nelson will be uttering plenty of "Me Toos!" in the coming months, on WorkChoices (goodbye), on withdrawing combat forces from Iraq (good luck) and on embracing the fight against climate change (our members own waterfront properties).
The more the wing nuts rip into Nelson for not being as demented, bigoted and extreme as they are, the more isolated they will become in Australian politics, and Australian society.
