Well, this week has been full of political surprises, hasn’t it?
This week Julia Gillard told the National Press club that she would hold this year’s Federal Election on September 14, causing all sorts of uproar. First, we had people complaining that we were in for the longest election campaign in history – this is true, as usually we have only 5 or 6 weeks of campaigning once a PM approaches the Governor-General to dismiss parliament, not more than 220 days. The next issue was that the date was the same as the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. Now, if an election is held in the third quarter of the year, as this year’s will be, you have to deal with both AFL and NRL Grand Finals, which means that those weekends are out of the question. This leaves very few weekends for an election to be held, so September 14 is the day of the election of 2013. If you do celebrate Yom Kippur, you can pre-poll vote or send in a postal vote – it is not that big of a hurdle to overcome – my family helps my grandmother pre-poll vote every election.
Then, Craig Thomson, the Federal MP for the seat of Dobell and a former member of the Labor Party was arrested for fraud. It is a long complicated story, that culminated in his arrest, and lead to the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to say that the Prime Minister had been running a “protection racket” (read about that here).
Now Nicola Roxon and Chris Evans are leaving politics by the Election, sparking more talk from the opposition that the Government is unstable and that there is a lack of confidence within the party (read my view on that here),
From what I can tell this week, all the Opposition has done is bad mouth the image of the Labor Party and that irks me. Any policy over the last few months that has been introduced by the Government has not been refuted because the Coalition thinks the policy is a bad one, but because it was the Labour Party that introduced it. Here’s what I mean: Student A want to give everyone in her class a lollypop. Student B thinks that is a bad idea, not because he thinks lollipops are unhealthy and full of sugar, but because it is Student A that is handing them out. As the election gets closer, if this is all Tony Abbott and the Opposition can pull up to refute policies, I will be incredibly surprised, angry and willing to throw things (Yes, that maybe taking things a little to far) if they win. While elections are about popularity, they are also about good policy, integrity and a willingness to do things for the better of the country. I do not see the Coalition doing that.
Quotes of the Week
“My only regret as health minister is the inordinate amount of time we were too long fixing many of the problems that Mr Abbott left from his time as health minister. A lot of my time, a lot of the Government’s time, a lot of staff and bureaucratic time fixing issues that were simply neglected for the nearly four years that he was the health minister.” – Nicola Roxon on her time as Health Minister, taking a bit of a swipe at the Opposition Leader (who was Health Minister under John Howard).
“Every fibre of my being is screaming out to say how wrong this is” – Craig Thompson outside Wyong Court, after his arrests for fraud.
“It should be clear to all which are the days of governing and which are the days of campaigning” – Julia Gillard, after telling the public when the election would be held, and explaining why she had told everyone.
“It’s always been about the judgement of the Prime Minister… who was running a protection racket for Craig Thomson for months and years.” – Tony Abbott on Craig Thompson’s arrest when asked during his speech at the National Press club, once again bad mouthing the image of the Labour Government.
Faux Pas of the Week
This week’s faux pas comes courtesy of the Premier of NSW, Barry O’Farrell. When Craig Thompson’s lawyer was complaining about the strip search of his client, which is probably normal procedure. However O’Farrell decided that it was a good idea to mention Thompson getting his clothes off, which I think made the situation worse. No update on whether he has made an apology as demanded…otherwise he might have a defamation suit on his hands. Oops!
Kara L 