Babies, Wombats and Resignation

Here we go again.

Sunday saw Tony Abbott unveil his Paid Parental Leave Scheme. Women will get up to 26 weeks leave at their current wage with super. If you were on the higher end of the income spectrum, you could get seven times the amount you would under Labor. However, it seems that some Liberals, not to mention most of the Nationals, do not like this plan. Joe Hockey said something along the lines of ‘I’m following Tony’s beliefs’ – which makes me think that he doesn’t like it.

Kevin Rudd says it will damage the economy, and people from the country aren’t happy about it either. Not only that, but the Business Council and the ACTU don’t like it either. It appears that the Greens might like it – although they think it needs fine tuning.

There were also some strange preferences going on – it’s a bit tough to explain, so if you want to look at how it works you can look at what Antony Green has to say about it here – he makes way more sense than I ever will.

On Monday, the opinion polls came out again. Despite dropping to a new low poll result for Kevin Rudd, he is still technically ahead. He was told by one old bloke “Them polls are a bunch of wombats!” – you can watch that here.

It’s come to the point in the election where repetition is constant and the trend is key words repeated three times – e.g. “cut, cut, cut”, “build, build, build” – and I feel like yelling, yelling, yelling.

CEOs have made their position on Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme clear – they don’t like it. Neither do economists – and when the economists think it isn’t a good idea because it may blow out the budget, you should be concerned. The experts have spoken. In related economical news, Joe Hockey didn’t do to well when interviewed about his budget recently.

On Tuesday, Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave was being criticised again. That was the least of his worries though, given that his candidate for the seat of Charlton (Greg Combet’s seat) has pulled out of the running after a website was unearthed. As the ballots are already printed, his name will still be on there, but he will not be campaigning and will essentially give the seat to Labor.

We are now halfway there.

The Week That Was – June 23 to June 29

Wow. What a week.

It began with Julia Gillard copping flak for knitting the Royal Baby a Kangaroo, despite being a supporter of Australia being a republic. I thought that was nice and thoughtful. It ended with a new PM.

It was entertaining, at least for news and political junkies (much like yours truly), and for once, might have had the nation sitting on the edge of their seats. If you weren’t paying attention on Wednesday night you can read what happened in the links at the bottom of this post.

In short, we now have a new Prime Minister – Kevin Rudd.

Not only that, but many people have decided to resign and leave politics, including Julia Gillard, Greg Combet and Peter Garrett. You can see who is staying and going here on the ABC News website. The media did pretty well, especially the ABC and Sky News.

In his first speech as the new PM, Kevin asked for a ‘gentler’ brand of politics and that politicians be nicer to each other. No such luck. By Tony Abbott’s second sentence, he’d taken a stab at Kevin Rudd.

Before I go, I have to say that the Liberal’s rally in Melbourne on the 29th has a distinctive US feel to it. Here’s a picture.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-30/tony-abbott-at-the-launch-of-the-liberal-cmapaign/4790032

Personally, I don’t think we should go in this direction – but that’s just me. What do you think?

Oh well, let’s hope that next week is a little less frantic – I have a holiday planned!

Quotes of the Week

“I remind the Leader of the Opposition that he is speaking on the indulgence of the chair, and it is being tried” – Anna Burke, Speaker of the House, the day after the spill. Tony Abbott had started getting a bit too vocal about the previous nights shenanigans. (from Hansard)

“Before I conclude, let me say a word or two to young Australians. It’s clear that many of you, in fact far too many of you, have looked at our political system and the parliament in recent years and not liked or respected much of what you have seen. In fact as I rock around the place, talking to my own kids, they see it as a huge national turn off. Well I understand why you have switched off. It’s hardly a surprise but I want to ask you to please come back and listen afresh. It’s really important that we get you engaged, in any way we can. We need you. We need your energy. We need your ideas. We need your enthusiasm and we need you to support us in the great challenges that lie ahead for the country. With your energy, we can start cooking with gas.” Kevin Rudd in his speech after winning the spill, encouraging young Australians to come back and pay attention to politics, ended with one of his signature quips. (from Kevin’s website)

Tweets of the Week

https://twitter.com/hamishNews/status/349856913917345792

(Context: Leigh Sales was on the ABC from 7pm until about 10:45 (she is normally just on between 7:30 and 8pm). She and Annabel Crabb were talking for a good hour or so, holding the fort while the media awaited a slightly late Kevin Rudd to speak)

rudd to finish knitting the kangaroo. awkward.

— Jonathan Green (@GreenJ) June 26, 2013

Links

6:24pm

6:42pm

6:59pm

7:54pm

9:09pm

Speeches

Part 1 (Gillard and Swan)

Part 2 (Rudd and Albanese)

Part 3 (Abbott)

Leadership Spill – 9:09pm

Well, Kevin has won the ballot 57-45.

ABC News is starting to get entertaining as they are now unscripted and sans auto cue. Once again, it has turned into journalists talking to journalists.

Chris Hayes the Labor Chair has come back.

Penny Wong is now head of the Senate and Anthony Albanese is now Deputy Head of the House of Representatives. Penny was voted in unanimously, Albanese was voted in at 60-something to 38 against Simon Crean – remember him?

The media pack is now clearing up and the cameras a leaving the small area outside the Caucus room. Now it is just Chris Uhlmann and Mark Simkin talking while people dismantle cameras.

What will Tony say? It would be advised that he talks tomorrow.

Several cabinet ministers have quit, including Greg Combet and Craig Emerson who will also not contest the next election.

Julia Gillard will talk at 9:15 and Kevin Rudd will follow.