Turnbull: Bolt Is "Unhinged" And "Demented"

The Herald Sun is now trying to recast extremist Andrew Bolt as a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Good luck

By Darryl Mason

Finally, Malcolm Turnbull has said out loud what I've been writing here on this blog for almost eight years.

Murdoch's Andrew Bolt is "unhinged" and "demented."

Tell us something we don't know.

Turnbull: 

“...it borders on the demented to string together a dinner with Clive Palmer and my attending as the Communications Minister the launch by a cross-party group of friends of the ABC and say that that amounts to some kind of threat or challenge to the Prime Minister.

“It is quite unhinged. Now, Mr Bolt is fond of attacking what he regards as the government’s enemies in the media, principal amongst whom of course he numbers the ABC. I don’t think you would see anything as crazy as that on the ABC.

“Mr Bolt, he proclaims loudly that he is a friend of the government. Well with friends like Bolt, we don’t need any enemies.’

A split within the Liberal Party has been rumbling for months, as PM Abbott continues to plummet in the polls, and he and Treasurer Joe Hockey's extremist Budget 2014-2015 is rejected by an ever growing number of Australians.

Abbott has taken the right wing extremism of Andrew Bolt, The Australian and turd basket lobby group The IPA to the Australian public, has acted on their demands, has echoed their rhetoric, and the Australian public has been repulsed. Not all Australians, but certainly enough to cause the non-right wing nutters of the Liberal Party and their Nationals coalition partners to get nervous indeed. Many Liberal Party backbenchers, for example, are now wondering if Toxic Tony is going to lose them their seats at the next federal election in 2016, or even sooner.

Turnbull well knows that he doesn't need Murdoch media, or Bolt's support, to become prime minister, or to become a popular prime minister. Murdoch's media blew their wad going all out to get Tony Abbott elected PM, and Bolt is seriously tainted by his declared friendship with Abbott. How can anyone trust anything he has to say about Abbott, or Abbott's agenda, when he is known as a serial defender of his pal?

Turnbull's outburst against Andrew Bolt was sparked by a Bolt column today linking Turnbull to Clive Palmer, after their 'secret meeting' dinner in Canberra, and Bolt painted the pair as united against Bolt's buddy Tony Abbott:

Bolt smells the stench of Abbott's impending political death in the air and is trying to head Turnbull off at the pass, questioning his loyalty and trying to rally Abbott supporters in the Coalition against Turnbull and Palmer.

MegaFail.

Turnbull responded to Bolt's conspiracy theory in the stunning doorstop, quoted at the top, with the media a few hours ago. And everything exploded.


Fairfax media, rivals to Murdoch's NewsCorp, home of Bolt, unleashed with obvious glee.

The Australian Financial Review:

Philip Coorey in AFR:

Malcolm Turnbull has labelled columnist Andrew Bolt demented and unhinged after the leading conservative cheerleader suggested the Communications Minister was undermining Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Mr Turnbull told journalists in Parliament on Monday that Mr Bolt’s theories were damaging the government.

Mr Turnbull was incensed on Sunday when Mr Bolt, while interviewing Mr Abbott on his weekly TV show, asked the Prime Minister: “Now, why is Malcolm Turnbull wooing Clive Palmer on his own? It looks like he’s got his eye on your job.”

This was a reference to a casual dinner in Canberra last week with Mr Turnbull, Mr Palmer, Treasurer Secretary Martin Parkinson and businessmen John Fast and Tom Harley.

The participants all claimed it was a spontaneous and harmless gathering but it spiked paranoia inside the Coalition because Mr Palmer has been refusing to even talk to anyone else in the Coalition until he is given what he considers ample resources.

In his newspaper column on Monday, Mr Bolt continued the attack on Mr Turnbull, saying the dinner sent “an unmistakeable message to Liberal MPs:

“Replace Abbott with Turnbull as prime minister and Maybe Palmer will play ball’’.

Mr Bolt further accused Mr Turnbull of giving comfort to the enemy by launching a new parliamentary group of friends of the ABC.

 The Sydney Morning Herald:

Matthew Knott:

News Corp commentator Andrew Bolt's leadership speculation "borders on the demented" and is ''quite unhinged", says Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Turnbull's dinner with Mr Palmer sparked fears among some in the Coalition that he was attempting to destabilise Mr Abbott's leadership, according to reports.

"It borders on the demented to string together a dinner with Clive Palmer and my attending, as the Communications Minister, the launch by a cross-party group of friends of the ABC and say that that amounts to some kind of threat or challenge to the Prime Minister," Mr Turnbull told reporters on Monday.

"It is quite unhinged. Now, Mr Bolt is fond of attacking what he regards as the government's enemies in the media, principal amongst whom of course he numbers the ABC. I don't think you would see anything as crazy as that on the ABC.

"I just have to say to Mr Bolt, he proclaims loudly that he is a friend of the government. Well with friends like Bolt, we don't need any enemies."

On Monday, Mr Bolt told Fairfax Media: ''It's a great shame and quite telling that Malcolm Turnbull attacks someone he calls the government's media friend with far more vitriol than I can recall him ever attacking one of the government's media enemies.

''This fits a pattern. No doubt he [Turnbull] will expand on this in his next Q & A appearance with Tony Jones.''

What a prissy, sooky reply from Bolt. But then, what else could you expect?

Bolt's readership is dropping away, his blog comment count is a shadow of his glory days and his TV show just can't seem to find any new viewers.

What Abbott is realising, and Bolt probably already knew, is that there is an extremely limited audience and pool of voters in Australia for IPA-style extremism. Bolt can't find more viewers and readers because he's fully tapped the market available.

What Turnbull understands is that there are far more 'soft conservatives' than extremist conservatives, like Bolt, like the IPA, like The Australian's editor Chris Mitchell.

Turnbull knows he can win back a huge slab of Liberal Party voters who feel done over by Abbott since the 2013 election and are now rejecting Budget 2014-2015.

And Turnbull is right.

The action over Abbott's tenuous leadership will grow only more heated from here on in.

UPDATE: The Abboot-Turnbull-Bolt fiasco makes it to Parliament:




From The Orstrahyun Archive...



 2009: The Last Time Andrew Bolt Went To War On Turnbull To Save Abbott

Andrew Bolt: I Don't Know How Twitter Works, But Its Freedom Scares Me

Seriously, What A Fuckwit - Bolt's Biggest Shriek For Attention Yet

Bolt's Reality Meltdown Over Fukushima

Malcolm Turnbull Denies Inhaling - Rudd Fails Sniff Test - Federal Election 2013 - Day 13

Macolm Turnbull campaigns in Sydney (source) :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd meets a local in the Territory (source) : 

 More on Kevin Rudd's visit to the Territory from The NT News.

Turnbull : Hatred Does More Damage To The Hater Than To The Hated

Former leader of the Australian Liberal Party Malcolm Turnbull announces his resignation as the Federal Member for Wentworth, and posts a poignant farewell to Canberran politics. Excerpts :

The last 5 ½ years have been a wild ride, filled with achievements and disappointments. Losing the leadership was heartbreaking....

I will miss enormously my work as a local MP. Whether it was visiting a school or a play group, a surf club or a church or synagogue, being the local member has always been fun.

My wife, Lucy, and I have always lived in Wentworth and look forward to remaining involved with our community, and to again pursuing new business opportunities, especially with early-stage businesses and new technologies. One of our greatest passions is supporting and promoting Australian technology. For a highly educated developed nation, we derive far too little of our gross domestic product from our own intellectual property.

The dispute about climate change policy and the loss of the leadership was traumatic but I am resolved to leave Parliament without bitterness or resentment. Politics can be a tough and brutal business. We politicians treat each other harshly and the media treats all of us - no doubt deservedly - even more so. It is a rough game and if you lose a battle, as I have done, then you will get hurt. But you don't have to get bitter.So many people in politics find themselves nursing resentments and hatreds for years. Often they may have justification in doing so, but far better to let it go. Hatred does more damage to the hater than to the hated.

Turnbull wanted to, and doggedly tried to, drag the Liberal Party and conservative politics into the 21st century. Obviously they're not ready for all that, just yet. And it will cost the Liberal Party dearly at the 2010 federal election.

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Turnbull Disappears Thousands Of Comments From His Blog

Late last year, two weeks after he was Abbotted from the Liberal Party leadership, Malcolm Turnbull turned to his blog to get his message out about why he thought an ETS was vital, and why so many of his Liberal Party colleagues were fuckwits (obviously I'm summing up his opinions).

What was even more remarkable about very recent former leader of the Liberal Party venting on his blog was that he chose to leave the comments unmoderated. Visitors to his blog could, and did, say anything they wanted. For about six weeks. A few of his posts racked up more than 1000 comments each, probably an Australian personal blog comment record. There was plenty of support for Turnbull, but you rarely see a politician allow such a torrent of abuse at themselves to appear on their blog.

Recently, Turnbull cleaned house at his blog and deleted all the comments. Most of the comments from a post he wrote about climate change are still in Google Cache here.

This comment was up on Turnbull's blog for at least three weeks, read by tens of thousands of people :

Ben 12:23am :

The only reason Turnbull stuck to his guns in trying to ram through the ETS bill before the public had a chance to understand it was... Mal has vested interests.

As previous chairman of Goldman Sachs (who bank rolled Obama's Presidential campaign and will manage the global ETS scam), and with a 500 million dollar (including interest) joint law suit over Mal's head, in the wake of his dealings as GS adviser to FAI during the HIH scandal...

I'm sure you'll remember Goldman Sachs (under Turnbull's stewardship) cooked the books to make it look like FAI was worth millions when it was worth nothing? HIH subsequently bought FAI on the advise of Goldman Sachs and Turnbull for 300 mil.

Mal and his criminal mates, Larry Adler et al, (now banned from being company directors), brought on the collapse of HIH collapse and the downfall of many Australian businesses who depended on HIH for their insurance.

Goldman Sachs is due to settle this case against them very soon. Goldman's deal with Mal is that they will waive any claim on him of personal liability but his balls are owned by Goldman Sachs to the tune of hundreds of millions of $$$$$$$. But that’s chicken feed compared to the billions they’ll rake in from the management of the ETS scam.

THAT is why Turnbull was prepared to risk his political arse for the ETS. He could care less about the environment. He has no environmental scruples, demonstrated by his insistence on converting Tasmania's old growth forests into toilet paper with his GUNNS deal when he was environment minister.

This is all on public record, yet the details of this story haven't been exposed in any comprehensive way in the media. Why not?

Mal is a high powered corporate sleaze with his snout in the trough at the really big end of town.

The media has completely whitewashed this. I've never seen Turnbull questioned in relation to any of this. How does he manage to fly under the radar?

Because we reward criminals if they wear a nice smile and a suit.

Links:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/hih-score-settled-for-malcolm/story-e6frg6no-1111119117953

http://www2.goldmansachs.com/services/advising/environmental-markets/business-initiatives/trading-and-cap-markets.html

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/malcolm-spared-a-grilling-in-hih-case/story-e6frg8zx-1111117525251"

It was good to see, if only for a few weeks, a prominent Australian politician so unfrightened of his past as to allow the above comment to be published at his blog, and read by tens of thousands of people.


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Conga Line Of Hilarity

By Darryl Mason

Mike Carlton takes his well-sharpened scythe to the new Opposition front bench :

That egregious drongo Kevin Andrews is the Coalition's new shadow minister for families, housing and human services, ha ha.

The rebarbative Senator Eric Abetz gets workplace relations, haw haw. Bronwyn Bishop, aka Attila the Hen, will be "working with seniors", tee hee.

Philip Ruddock, the whited sepulchre, returns from the dead; a backwoods Queensland bean counter, Barnaby Joyce, is given the finance portfolio and, most hilarious of all, Senator Nick Minchin will handle energy and resources. Chortle, guffaw.

Never let it be said that Tony Abbott is without a sense of humour.

Oh, he's a comedic genius. The grimly determined straight man to Barnaby 'Fuck China' Joyce.

Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull sits back, enjoying the show as much as the rest of us, probably more, and bides his time. Let the reanimated Howard-era remnants take the floor for a while, let them spout their 20th century ideas and ideals to a nation that has mostly well and truly moved on. Let them frighten away the few still willing to dump some cash into the Liberal Party coffers. Let them lose the next federal election and lose their seats in the process. Then the rebuilding of the Liberal Party can begin.

If Turnbull can still be bothered by then, that is.

But the question for now is, how will Tony Abbott deal with what are expected to be the very regular mopping up sessions before the media after Barnaby Joyce relieves himself with a grin? How many times will Abbott jam his hand into a plastic bag to quickly disappear yet another moist, warm Joyce deposit on Econogeddon before he just fucking snaps?

And what does Abbott think about the stories drifting down from North Queensland on how Barnaby has been boasting to some locals that the Liberals need him far more than he needs them? That soon enough the polls will reveal he is a more popular choice for opposition leader than Abbott? And that he could one day, if he really wanted to, even have a fair crack at becoming prime minister?

After getting rid of Tony Abbott, that is.

A fresh slogan for the opposition they can have for free :

The Coalition 2010 : Please Stop Laughing.

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Andrew Bolt Hates Democracy

By Darryl Mason

Not just democracy, but free speech as well :

"Those who still like (Malcolm Turnbull) should urge him to keep his silence...."

"(Malcolm Turnbull) should be manouvered out of Parliament, if not the party."

The Professional Idiot wanted democracy in Iraq, even if it cost a trillion dollars, the lives and limbs of hundreds of thousands of people, and made orphans of millions of Iraqi kids. But when a Liberal Party politician holds a differing opinion to his own and that of the new Liberal Party leader, Tony Abbott, well, The Idiot wants democracy and free speech in Australia to be subverted.

And with his usual cowardice, The Idiot refuses to link directly to Malcolm Turnbull's blog, so his readers can see exactly what Turnbull wrote, and make up their own minds.

Bolt droogie and fellow gatekeeper, Tim Blair, also refuses to link to Malcolm Turnbull's blog. Maybe he's just jealous because Turnbull gets so many more comments than he does these days....

Anyway, this is what Malcolm Turnbull wrote on his blog that has so infuriated Andrew Bolt and made rant like an anti-freedom of speech fascist :

While a shadow minister, Tony Abbott was never afraid of speaking bluntly in a manner that was at odds with Coalition policy.

So as I am a humble backbencher I am sure he won't complain if I tell a few home truths about the farce that the Coalition's policy, or lack of policy, on climate change has descended into.

First, let's get this straight. You cannot cut emissions without a cost. To replace dirty coal fired power stations with cleaner gas fired ones, or renewables like wind let alone nuclear power or even coal fired power with carbon capture and storage is all going to cost money.

To get farmers to change the way they manage their land, or plant trees and vegetation all costs money.

Somebody has to pay.

So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, "bullshit." Moreover he knows it.

---------------

....the fact is that Tony and the people who put him in his job do not want to do anything about climate change. They do not believe in human caused global warming. As Tony observed on one occasion "climate change is crap" or if you consider his mentor, Senator Minchin, the world is not warming, it's cooling and the climate change issue is part of a vast left wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world.

Which, in a remarkable coincidence, also happens to be a theory long promoted by Andrew Bolt and his commenters, some of whom were Liberal Party politicians, staffers and advisors writing under fake names.

Turnbull :

The Liberal Party is currently led by people whose conviction on climate change is that it is "crap" and you don't need to do anything about it.

Tony himself has, in just four or five months, publicly advocated the blocking of the ETS, the passing of the ETS, the amending of the ETS and, if the amendments were satisfactory, passing it, and now the blocking of it.

His only redeeming virtue in this remarkable lack of conviction is that every time he announced a new position to me he would preface it with "Mate, mate, I know I am a bit of a weather vane on this, but....."

Many Liberals are rightly dismayed that on this vital issue of climate change we are not simply without a policy, without any prospect of having a credible policy but we are now open to the charge that we are also without integrity. We have given our opponents the irrefutable, undeniable evidence that we cannot be trusted to keep our word or maintain a consistent position on the issue of climate change.

Unlike the cowardly Andrew Bolt, Malcolm Turnbull's blog is open for comments from readers on his stories and opinion, and unlike Andrew Bolt, Turnbull is not afraid to let through some very harsh criticisms indeed :

"are you throwing nothing more than an articulate tantrum?"

"As usual, you're hell bent on getting your own way like a typical spoilt brat, and couldn't care less about anyone else."

"Your a farce now Malcolm"

"(You are) nothing but a egocentric backstabbing bastard"

"Sour grapes from one of Rudd's elves. It doesn't matter what party you say you're on Malcolm, you are Rudd's boy. "

"unclench yours fists, stop stamping your feet and stop behaving like a spoiled brat."

"sour grapes comes to mind. Give me a break. You banter has as much BS in it as anyone who wants to take bat and ball and not play the game. Grow up"

Expect Andrew Bolt to grow only more hysterical and shrill when the Tony Abbott experiment doesn't produce the results the Abbott Army, firmly embedded in the Murdoch and Fairfax media, have been praying for.

It's going to be one of those elections.

Entertaining.

Australian politicians attacking and criticising each other through blogs and on social networking sites like Twitter is a new phenomenon. But it will cause much chaos, debate and delight as we move into the federal election campaign proper.

It's going to be ugly, and funny, but that's free speech. That's democracy.

UPDATE : After visiting The Orstrahyun to read the above story, Andrew Bolt finally provides a link to Malcolm Turnbull's blog, noting the harsh criticism of Turnbull in the comments section that I noted above. Bolt thanks reader 'Steve' for pointing this out to him, even though he based a lengthy post on what Turnbull wrote in that now controversial post.

So it appears Bolt didn't even read the Turnbull blog post himself, before writing about it here.

So much for research.

Malcolm Turnbull : Not As Much Fun As Brendan Nelson



Piers Akerman apologises for helping Malcolm Turnbull to the leadership of the Liberal Party :

As one who supported Malcolm Turnbull’s bid to oust Peter King in the electorate of Wentworth, and his subsequent deposing of former Opposition leader Brendan Nelson, I admit an error in judgment.

The Turnbull I admired then read widely, listened to argument and made up his mind on the evidence placed before him.

---------------

Now, Turnbull has joined Rudd and Wong and global warming tarts like Tim Flannery in denying the work and purpose of those who seek nothing but the truth....

Global Warming Tarts? I've had one of those. The woman behind the counter in the cake shop warned me they were bloody hot, but when I bit into one, I discovered it was actually quite cold.

The Ak :

After showing great promise, and being given great assistance...

Particularly by The Daily Telegraph, and The Australian.

....his political career is coming to a humiliating and inglorious close.

Who are you going to put the kiss of death on next, Piers?

@AlexHawkeMP better hope Akerman doesn't start praising him to the heavens, or he will never get to lead the Christian Liberal/Christian Greens Coalition of 2016.

This isn't widely known, but in the wake of the hilarious fuckapalooza of Godwin Gretch e-mails, Malcolm Turnbull was offered shocking, damning photographic evidence of KevinRuddPM's darkest secrets, but by then Turnbull was too scared of leaks to bring them before the public :

Twitterocracy

By @DarrylMason

Deputy PM, Julia Gillard, on Insiders :

"(A leader) can't govern the nation by tweet."

And yet, one day we will probably be voting by Twitter, using laptop thumbprint or iris scanners. Gillard :

People don't expect their politicians to just text out a message.

Imagine, you know, "What do you think the defence budget should be?" And apparently a whole lot of tweets come back and you accept that. That's not leadership."

It's not leadership. But it's an interesting way to get some instant unfiltered feedback, which is exactly what (pending) Liberal Party leader Joe Hockey did last week on Twitter :

Hey team re The ETS. Give me your views please on the policy and political debate. I really want your feedback.

Julia Gillard, of course, is not on Twitter. Yet.

If you're not on it, you don't get it. And even when you are on it, you still won't get it for a while. And then, one day, whap! you realise what Twitter is all about, what it can do, and, perhaps more importantly, what it can do for you.

David Speers, political editor of Sky News, has a great piece on political reporting through 140 character messages :

Now it's all about Twitter.

And here everyone can play along. If you "follow" the right people, anyone can have a front-row seat. The role of Twitter in providing information during the Mumbai terrorist attack and the Iranian election has been well documented.

But last week we saw Twitter seriously step up to the plate in Australian political reporting for the first time.

New developments, big and small, along with pithy comments were constantly "tweeted" by plugged in journalists around the clock. While still relying on party sources for major developments, I picked up a lot of good information from journalists I trust on Twitter.

----------------------

Like anything to do with press-gallery journalism, there's a healthy dose of competition when it comes to Twitter.

Every journo wants to be the first to tweet something new and there's nothing more embarrassing than thinking you have, only to scroll down and see The Australian's Samantha Maiden posted the same thing 15 minutes ago.

But there's also an interesting spirit of information sharing among competing journalists.

I didn't have much time last week to see or the news during the day, but checking into Twitter once an hour (or a few times an hour when the action in Canberra was heating up), gave me what felt like a front row seat to the historically explosive flurry of activity in the halls and backrooms of Parliament House, as press gallery journalists not only competed with each other to be the first on radio or TV with breaking news, but the first on Twitter. Most of the time, they twooted their scoops minutes before they broke them on air, or hours before they appeared on their news sites.

There are probably more Australian journalists working the twootstream than politicians, but after this week, that will all change. The idea that any serious politician will head into a late March, 2010, federal election without being on Twitter, or at least having someone in their office twooting for them, and reading the @ feedback, will seem bizarre, so very 20th century, and pigeonhole them as being out of touch with their electorate.

If Twitter really takes off with the Australian public, and it certainly seems to be doing incredibly well so far, we will see up-and-coming politicians build their base through Twitter, and arrive in Canberra with thousands of followers, instantly communicating and sharing news with their electorate online.

I'm not seeing a lot of negatives to the above prediction. Eventually, it will be all but impossible for politicians to lie or deceive on Twitter. They'll get absolutely hammered, near instantly, not only by their own followers, but by their political enemies and the digital media always searching for that next Twitter scoop.

For that reason alone, Twitter is great for Australian democracy, and honesty in politics.

The brighter the sunlight, the quicker the dark clouds of spin fade away.

What's God Got To Do With It?

By Darryl Mason

Looks like a photo editor at the Sunday Herald Sun has a sense of humour. Could there be a more non-flattering pic of Tony Abbott (clothed, that is) kicking around to illuminate this story?



Frightening.

Another Glenn Milne 'exclusive' :

The only declared leadership challenger to Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, says he's a "pragmatic common-sense" politician and not a narrow-minded conservative.

Who writes Abbott's material? He should be doing stand-up comedy. Wait, he already is!

Well known for his staunch Catholicism, Mr Abbott said he had never let his religion interfere with his policy decisions....

No. Never. For Abbott, it's always what's best for Christian Australia. And God, obviously.

(Abbott) conceded that colleague Joe Hockey might be considered by some a better choice as Liberal leader if Mr Hockey chose to stand on Tuesday.

Malcolm Turnbull must be sick to fucking death by now of doing so much charity work for the Libs. How much more humiliation can he take?

Abbott :

".....I don't think I am necessarily God's gift to politics...."

Necessarily? He's leaving himself some wiggle room to drop the "I don't think" and "necessarily" should Biblical Armageddon arrive.

"This is not all about me. It's about a change to policy and putting the Liberal Party in the best united state to win the next election."

If the Liberals keep fucking around like they have these past couple of weeks, The Greens and Labor are going to rip away Libseats across the country. Without even trying.

Bob Brown must be laughing himself to sleep.

The Chaser's new book is now available. With a very timely cover indeed.



You can order an autographed copy here.

I do still have a story on The Chaser coming, focusing on producer/writer/performer Julian Morrow's quest to come up with a new TV show format that will go beyond anything they've done so far, but will not go down the predictable route of easy outrage. As he put it in a recent speech, how easy is it to offend conservatives? Too easy. He doesn't sound interested at all in heading back into that territory.

The story I've been writing is long, getting onto 8000 words, and I think I'll break it up into three parts.

Part One will focus on the shooting of one of their last big public gags (the "One More Picture" bit that aired in the final show).

Part Two will focus on the interview I did with Morrow, the recording of the final show, and what happened at the after party.

Part Three will focus on the speeches Morrow has given since The Chaser's War On Everything ended, and his feelings about what the the War On Everything achieved, where they failed, and what they might be getting up to next.

So thanks for being patient, and I'm sorry it's taken so long.

I hope to get Part One up late next week.

Feel free to post abuse in comments if I miss this hazy deadline.

Won't You Be My Friend?

The NSW Liberals have launched a campaign where you can 'join' the party, by paying $15. The first benefit is you don't have to actually attend any meetings. That news alone has NSW Liberal Party supporters (or photo models) leaping for joy :



Look how happy this guy is :



The Liberals have once again found a red-headed woman named Pauline to advocate their policies, but this time she seems far less...intense :



If only Malcolm Turnbull could whip up that level of enthusiasm for the Liberals, federally.

Laurie Oakes : Hark, Hear The Turnbull Death Rattle

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

Laurie Oakes explains why :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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A Political Party Suicides, In Slow Motion

By Darryl Mason

Devastating. What a headline from the ABC :



Is it still dirty, rotten, ABC Lefty Bias when it's also the stone cold truth?

Chris Ulhman :

Mr Hockey has never actively sought the leadership, having made the quite astute decision some time ago that now is not a good time to be leader of the Opposition.

But since Mr Turnbull declared last week that his party should back him or sack him over his push to propose amendments to the Government's emissions trading plan he has completely lost control of events.

A growing group within his party is now desperate to see the back of him, declaring it's time to put an end to what some mockingly dubbed "the Turnbull experiment". For them ETS has become the "eliminate Turnbull scheme".

Yesterday one senior Liberal crystalised the views of many with whom I spoke.

"There is broad consensus in all parts of the party that it's over," he said. "It is just a matter of time. It's just not working."

And all the Liberals I have spoken to about this - even Mr Turnbull's supporters - lay the blame for the unwinding of his position squarely at his feet.

Turnbull will soon be gone. It can't last more than a few weeks. The daily humiliation is clearly eating away at him. When he steps down, presumably due to "health problems", in November, his attempt to lead the Liberal Party out of the 20th century will have cost him (depending on who you believe) $10-50 million out of his own pocket.

Will Joe Hockey step up before Christmas? Losing one election is not an unshakable curse, but if he doesn't take the leadership, Tony Abbott will and once Abbott has done his best to storm up a national vortex of peak-stupidity, by campaigning on a score of Andrew Bolt-approved conspiracy theories, there may not be much of a viable Liberal Party left for Joe Hockey to lead.

But Turnbull's insistence on all but fully agreeing with the Rudd government on the ETS, even as it turns the full force of the Liberal Party backbench against him, and sinks his poll numbers even further, has to make you wonder who Turnbull's political masters really are, and how many more major missions he has other than to get Australia signed on to an ETS and the seemingly inevitable worldwide carbon tax that would follow.

Then again, what the hell would I know? I announced the resignation of Malcolm Turnbull back in early August, while anticipating the return of Brendan Nelson.

And when Turnbull's resignation does come, Brendan Nelson will probably weep tears of laughter.


November 2007 : Listen Up Turnbull, This Is How It's Going To Be

How The Australian's Caroline Overington Tried To Help Malcolm Turnbull Win Wenworth

January 2009 : Turnbull's Problems With Coalition Climate Change Doubters Break Into The Open When Barnaby Joyce Says He Refuses To "Goose Step" Around Liberal Party Offices

July 2009 : In a Monty Python-esque Moment Of Doubt, Turnbull Almost Admits The Liberals Will Lose An Election Fought Over Climate Change Policies.

Malcolm Turnbull On Death Of Newspapers

Turnbull writing on the fall of newspapers, and the controversy over mainstream media charging readers for news content, in The National Times :

It was Rupert Murdoch who shrewdly, if gloomily, predicted: "The internet will destroy more profitable businesses than it will create."

And there are few businesses more vulnerable to the internet than newspapers, especially those dependent on revenues from classified advertisements.

It is hard to imagine many people poring through hard copy classifieds if they have access, as most do, to the speed, functionality and comprehensiveness of online classified sites.

While the demise of newspapers has been greatly exaggerated, the trend is certainly against them.

As an avid consumer of news, I can say that I only buy hard copy newspapers nowadays out of habit.

The vast bulk of the news and opinion I read I have received electronically – much of it before the newspaper itself actually finds itself to my front door.

We all understand that the circulation revenue of most publications, and certainly all newspapers, was always woefully inadequate. The newspaper was a cheap, on occasions free, platform upon which to sell advertisements both display and classified.

A similar observation could be made of free to air television, although there the oligopoly was a function of regulation.

The internet has changed all that. As broadband, especially wireless broadband, becomes more and more ubiquitous the barriers to entry to compete against free to air television, newspapers and magazines are evaporating.

From the consumer's viewpoint there is the prospect of almost infinite abundance of information and opinion. Our son in Hong Kong reads the Australian media online with the same ease as he, and we, are able to read the New York Times, the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal - not to speak of the South China Morning Post.

And the access to opinion is not limited to those big names. Increasingly opinion leaders have their own online blogs. If you want to get an expert, often contrarian, insight into the Chinese economy for example you can go to www.mpettis.com a specialist blog by a professor at Peking University and enjoy not just Michael Pettis' views but also a vigorous debate and commentary on every post.

The days when only a handful of media companies controlled access to the media megaphone are fading from view.

There are four main players in this game and it is interesting to consider each of their positions in the old and new worlds.

The author of the content – the journalist for example – faces the challenge of news organisations with diminishing revenues. But he or she still has a valuable and important contribution to offer. People want to read Annabel Crabb or listen to Alan Jones. But what about the humble news reporter whose byline is less memorable or compelling? The advertiser has it made. The avenues for spruiking their wares gets wider and cheaper all the time. The internet offers the opportunity of very precise targeting too – so its all upside for the advertiser.

The consumer too has it made – content is becoming more and more diverse and almost all of it is free. Those sites which try to charge big money run the risk that they drive down traffic which then reduces their attractiveness to advertisers who after all are only interested in eyeballs.

The publisher, the big, established media company, has the most to lose. It is all downside. The reason the Sydney Morning Herald could charge a premium for its classifieds (or indeed its display advertising) was because it had a large number of dedicated readers for whom there was no, or very few, alternative mediums – now there is an enormous range of alternatives most of them offering vastly superior functionality.

Many traditional hard copy publishers have sought to move into online publishing, but in doing so they have arguably only hastened their own demise. Because they assumed the hard copy publication was paying for the content, the marginal cost of repurposing it for the internet was negligible. Hence access to online newspaper websites is almost invariably free. They therefore offered advertisers the opportunity to access the readers who were interested in the content offered in hard copy for a tiny fraction of the price of an advertisement in the newspaper itself.

And you can see this decline in the share price of Fairfax. When the Tourang consortium took over Fairfax in 1992 the shares listed at $1.20. Today – seventeen years later – the stock price is $1.64.

So who wins out of all this? Certainly the advertisers and the consumers, that's a no brainer.

The established newspaper companies will struggle to build enough additional value in their online businesses to offset the loss of value in their declining hard copy businesses.

But what about the writers and journalists? Are they to face an anarchic brave new world where they have to try to sell their wares on line as Alan Kohler and Bob Gottliebsen are trying to do?

And what happens to investigative journalism?

Opinion is relatively cheap to acquire or produce. But who now can pay for a team of reporters to work diligently away at government or corporate misconduct?

This era of profitless abundance should give us cause for concern – it raises real issues for our democracy. Will newsrooms deprived of the resources to do their own sleuthing become more and more dependent on packages of information prepared and presented to them by the growing army of government media advisers and spinmeisters?

How independent can the media be if it lacks the financial resources to do its work?

Good question.

The answer will become clear over the next two years.

Turnbull Resigns...Probably

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....


.

"..............."

Malcolm Turnbull reminds Howard-era Liberals that an emissions trading system was also part of John Howard's plans for Australia to sign up to the Global Carbon Tax so favoured by Rothschilds and Murdochs alike :

"We've already experienced one election on climate change so we know what …"

Yes, what?

"....so we know what...."

Yes, Malcolm? What?

Mr Turnbull argues internally that the Coalition would be savaged in an early, double dissolution election on climate change and he started to say this publicly yesterday before checking himself.

I thought he was having a Life Of Brian moment :

Brian: And to them only shall be given...to them only...shall...be...given......

Woman in crowd: What?

Brian: Hm?

Woman in crowd: Shall be given what?

Brian: Oh, nothing.

Woman in crowd: Hey, what were you going to say?

Brian: Nothing!

All crowd: Yes, you were!

Woman in crowd: Yes, you were going to say something!

Brian: No, I wasn't, I'd finished!

Man in crowd III: Ah, come on, tell us before you go!

Brian: I wasn't going to say anything, I'd finished!

Blind man: What won't he tell?

Man in crowd III: He won't say.

Blind man: It is a secret!

Man in crowd II: I know.

Blind man: Is it?

Man in crowd II: It must be, otherwise he'd tell us.

Man in crowd III: Oh, tell us!

Yes Malcolm, tell us!


.

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

By Darryl Mason

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Liberal Party is like a family wedding?

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

Mostly empty dance floor? Check.

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

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

Crazy uncle(s) going wild? Check.

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

Shit. Joe Hockey is right!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop laughing.

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

See That Shark? Watch Me Jump It

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

By Darryl Mason

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So Lindsay Tanner goes for a gushing head wound :

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

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

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


Piers Akerman asked his readers the following question :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is indisputable.

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

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

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

This is what Akerman does for a living.

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

Australians love great liars.

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

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

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

Joe Hockey loometh.

.

You Can Tell A Lot About A Man By The Size Of His Palm Tree

By Darryl Mason

Sniggling, giggling Murdoch journalists "expose the private life" of Australia's most nervous public servant, Godwin Grech....well, if by expose they mean quoting neighbours talking about what a really nice, hard working, generous guy he is, then yes, consider Grech's private life exposed.

We could all do with having our private lives "exposed" in such flattering terms.

But what the fuck is up with these journos fixation with the palm tree in Godwin Grech's front yard?

...known for living in a house with a big and amusing palm tree in the front garden...

...the palm tree was planted before he moved in.

Are they trying to tell us something they're not legally, or ethically, allowed to say about Godwin Grech's private life?



And if Godwin Grech was attracted to his Canberra home because there's a massive phallic-shaped palm tree dominating the front yard, what the hell does that have to do with his possible involvement in e-mail fakery and a supposed mole leaking to Turnbull & Friends from inside the Treasury?

Well, nothing.



Neither Malcolm Turnbull, Wayne Swan or Kevin Rudd are likely to step down over this Ute & Emails related scandal now consuming five or six hours a day of sitting time in the Parliament, but somebody will have to pay.

It seems increasingly likely that somebody will be Godwin Grech, particularly now Liberal politicians, off the record, are trying to out Grech as 'The Mole' who the Australian Federal Police appear to believe has been leaking info to the Libs for years from inside the Treasury :

The Treasury official at the centre of the OzCar affair, Godwin Grech, has supplied unofficial information to the Coalition, dating back to its days in government, the ABC has learned.

The revelation lifts already intense pressure on Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull to explain how much he knew, and when, about the email forgery that has backfired so spectacularly.

Several Liberals have told the ABC they believe Mr Grech has been supplying information to Mr Turnbull, and one says he knows it to be the case. However, the nature of that information is not known.

***********

The Australian Federal Police yesterday raided Mr Grech's home, uncovered the email and declared it a fake. They suspect Mr Grech was involved in creating it.

The ABC understands that Mr Grech will also be questioned about other leaks from Treasury.

The AFP has been "quietly watching Treasury for a while" and senior Government ministers are convinced there is at least one mole in the department.

If you think this Ute & Email related scandal has been nasty so far, you haven't seen anything yet.

Political careers are on the line, and the hysteria in Parliament will be even worse today, particularly after Joe Hockey's woeful, sweaty-lipped interview with Tony Jones on Lateline last night, where he demanded that journalists should reveal their sources if politicians like himself are expected to reveal theirs.

Tony Jones sliced up Hockey like sashimi, and it was only halfway during the interview, when the sweat began to concentrate on his upper lip and he had trouble swallowing, that Joe Hockey apparently realised that AFP officers would be watching Lateline and noting down his reaction to everything Jones hit him with about Liberal-friendly leakers inside the Treasury and his decade old association with Godwin Grech. And Jones hit with a lot (I'll come back to this when the transcript is up), but probably not everything Jones already knows. Why blow tonight's lead story on Lateline on an interview with Hockey?

Godwin Grech will not be sleeping easy.

Unlike prime minister Kevin Rudd, who is no doubt keeping his wife and neighbours awake with his endless, howling laughter at just how spectacularly, hilariously, this whole scandal has blown up in the face of Malcolm Turnbull.

Media Watch has a very short, but detailed, round up of the scandal so far, focusing it as should on the one element most of the media has shied away from so far : the role of the media in this scandal, and in particular, Sydney's Daily Telegraph.


Correction : an earlier version of this story said Malcolm Farr was responsible for the Daily Telegraph piece about Godwin Grech's "amusing palm tree". He wasn't. The story's byline now reads 'By Janet Fife-Yeomans and Alison Rehn'.

.

Howard : You Stupid People, Why Can't You See How Mega I Was?

By Darryl Mason

How strong, how formidable a legacy can it really be when John Howard has to repeatedly remind us of how strong and formidable that legacy is supposed to be?

"The legacy of the former Liberal government is one that we should all want to own," says the 2007' Federal Election's Biggest Loser, who, in the words of Dame Elizabeth Murdoch, destroyed the Liberal Party on his way to retirement.

"Australia was a stronger, prouder and more prosperous nation in November 2007 than it had been in March 1996. Yet attempts have been made to discount the contributions of competitive capitalism and more open markets to the remarkable economic growth, in many nations, during these past 30 years."

And how many of those who "prospered" through increased access to cheap and voluminous personal credit remain prosperous today? Enough to sustain that fantasy...sorry, legacy?

John Howard spells out "Who We Liberals Are" for those who have forgotten, and how easily they forget :

"We are a party of the individual rather than of the collective. We see the maximum good for the nation being achieved when each individual is encouraged to do his or her best.

"We are a party that should always see the family as the most important unit in our society, not only as a source of love and emotional security, but also, quite pragmatically, as mankind's most efficient social welfare system. Liberals should always retain their strong belief in the fundamental force of the market. That does not mean that the market always functions smoothly or that it is not open to abuse."

And something from Mr Howard about a new great, or even greater, depression now looms thanks to some of the most outrageous gambles and acts of mega-billion dollar fraud ever committed in the history of the world, perhaps?

No.

"The notion that markets need extensive reregulation is based on a false reading of what has happened to the world economy."

World economy? Do they still even call it that? What's left of it?

It's bad enough that Rudd & Friends dare to claim credit for what was achieved during the Liberal Years Of Peace And Prosperity And Magic Wonderfulness For All, but Howard is so desperate to scrabble for scraps of credibility and respect these days that he is positioning himself as having continued in the tradition of 1980s economic reformers, and former prime ministers, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

Heeeeerrrrrre's Johnny :

"In 1980 our nation needed five great reforms. We needed to deregulate our financial system, fundamentally change our taxation system, make our labour markets freer, reduce excessively high tariffs and rid the government of ownership of commercial enterprises that would be better run privately. By 2007 these five great reforms had been achieved."

Folding himself into the legacy of the Hawke and Keating Years must have come as something of a surprise for the Liberal desperates gathered to hear Howard speak yesterday.

Well, gathered to hear Malcolm Turnbull speak, suffering through Howard, stifling snores and groans as they collectively wondered when this loser was going to get the fuck off the stage so Turnbull could wake up himself and get on with leading the Liberal Party into whatever hell awaits them next.

END OF PART ONE