Tag Archives: Cameron

Baddies v Baddies, Nerds and Threats

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Sunday saw the Labor Launch, in which Rudd announced  policies to help apprentices, such as mandatory employment of a certain amount of apprentices in major projects and giving them an allowance to buy their tools. He also announced tax breaks for small business and told people the election wasn’t over until the last ballots are cast. Tony Abbott was mentioned 26 times and Julia Gillard was acknowledged, which I think was nice. Anthony Albanese said that while Tony Abbott can jump through tires, but Kevin Rudd is a nerd. I’m not going to simplify it.

Speaking of simplifying, Tony Abbott is in a bit of a pickle after saying that the issue in Syria was “baddies versus baddies” – the Labor party has jumped on this saying that this shows that Abbott does not have the capacity to deal with international issues – the Liberals disagree. It’s made international news (why is it always the awkward moments?) but apparently both David Cameron and Barack Obama have used the term “bad guys” – in context Cameron said “you’ve got a lot of bad guys in Syria” and Obama said that they don’t “know who the bad guys are” – either way, Tony Abbott probably shouldn’t have said it.

Monday saw Kevin Rudd go to a high school, I’m not sure why, it had something to with him being a nerd…he keeps telling people not to vote for Tony Abbott too, understandable, given that he wants to win – but still, he says it a lot.

It also turns out that the Labor-held seat of Page is very important. It changes with the government, like most marginal seats in the cities. The Nationals and Liberals are fighting for it, given that the seats surrounding it are most likely going to them. The Nationals really, really want it, given that it used to be a safe seat for them. Mind you, people thought some NSW state seats were really safe Labor, and then swung 30% the other way, so anything can happen.

Tuesday saw Tony Abbott threaten to have a double dissolution election if he doesn’t get his way with removing the carbon tax. Labor of course wants a floating carbon price. It will be interesting to see what happens…

It also saw this video of Kevin Rudd go viral:

The Australian Christian Lobby (who lost their site to the Australian Cat Ladies) think he will lose votes, and that is their opinion. It is interesting to note that all of the Christian clergy saying that Rudd would lose votes were Protestant and I think mostly Anglican – not a single Catholic clergyman was interviewed as they refused to comment.

Oh well, Saturday is coming…..I’ll leave you with some Antony Green ranting:

The Two Weeks That Were – May 26 to June 8

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Once again, I had university assignments…they’re all done now, so we should get back to normal next week.

Well, well, well. The last two weeks have been a bit entertaining, with rants, people falling in pot plants and sandwiches being thrown.

John Madigan had a rant about a plan to give politicians bonuses depending on the number of votes they get. Now, on average an MP in the House of Representatives is representing about 100,000 people. So say John Doe, who is a member of the Funky Dancing runs for the seat of Fish Fingers (I am quite confident that there is not an MP, party or seat by those names in any state) and wins with 60,000 votes. Under this plan, he gets a $1 (1 dollar) for every vote, which is a bonus of $60,000 for him and/or his party. At least, that;’s how I assume it works, and I don’t know how it would work in the Senate, as some Senators are there with 2.3% of their state’s vote – and with preferential voting, it could be a lot more complicated. John Madigan, a Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Senator said that it was an outrage and that this was the reason “people hate politicians’ bloody guts” – Good on you John. Mind you, he’s a Victorian Senator…so I can’t vote for him. 😦

The onslaught of the sandwiches continued when Julia went to a high school in Canberra. She got another sandwich thrown her way. Why was she at a high school? Well in fact, the ACT Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher was signing the ACT up to the Gonski education reforms. Yay. The PM also let a

On a slightly sadder note, news came in this week that former Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh has cancer. It’s non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (Hodgkin’s lymphoma is more radiation sensitive), and by the sounds of it, they caught it early. Hope she gets well soon.

Quotes of the Fortnight

“There’s no money for dental care, there’s no money for single mothers, we tell everybody else to pull their belts in and then we’ve got to have more money to so-called fund democracy…We’ve got a bunch of people that are so disconnected from what the average person on the street’s hopes [and] aspirations are, it’s just un-bloody-believable. What message are we sending to people? The message isn’t good. And we wonder why there’s such a high informal vote. We wonder why people hate politicians’ bloody guts – well it’s on display here for the whole world to see.” – John Madigan sticking it to the man.

“Perhaps he thought I was hungry” – Julia Gillard, answering a press question about the sandwich.

“Watch my tea!” – NSW Labor Senator Doug Cameron

Tweet of the Fortnight

Julia Gillard’s nod to the State of Origin – Gonski Style

Random Fun of the Fortnight

The antics of News Crews. Abandoning Scott Morrison in favour of Joel Fitzgibbon

They were also falling into pot plants (I couldn’t find footage on YouTube, but I saw it on the news – UPDATE: I did)

and asking stupid questions…all in a day’s work really.

The Week That Was – March 24 to March 30

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Well this week was anti-climactic.

In comparison to last week, there was little drama in federal politics which was nice. This week there were poll results that bashed the Labor Party quite considerably, there was another cabinet reshuffle, and if NSW politics is of any interest to you, the ICAC inquiry continued with members of federal parliament being questioned.

The polls came in this week and the Labor Party is down in the polls, but that’s because the Labor Party had an “appalling week”… fair enough. If you don’t know what that’s about, then you’ve probably been living under a rock. Continuing on from last week’s saga, Julia Gillard reshuffled cabinet. You can find out who she has in her cabinet here. I really don’t care at this point in time who’s where in cabinet. That sounds a little odd I know, but I’m sick of all the crazy. Honestly, could you run the nation just this once?

Ok, I’ve finished ranting. Moving on…

ICAC continued this week, with federal senators and MPs being questioned. From what I gather, Doug Cameron and Luke Foley had some interesting things to say about what was going on. Including the fact that Doug Cameron thought it would be better for Ian Macdonald to retire quietly despite the fact that everyone thought he was doing bad, which he was by the way. In an excellent use of imagery, Luke Foley described Mr Macdonald as “Eddie Obeid’s left testicle”. Lovely. I really needed that image in my head this week (sarcasm hand has been raised) I really, really did.

Well, that’s it for this week…I believe it’s holiday time for parliament, so I’m thinking we might look at some international issues this coming week….

HAPPY EASTER!

Quote of the Week

“I don’t need a poll to tell me that last week the Labor Party had an appalling week” – Julia Gillard, on why she didn’t care about this week’s poll. Good on her.

Tweet of the Week

This comes from an Australian comedian, and his take on what’s going on in Korea right now…