Shame Julia
Don't play your carbon tax no more..
click image
The once great
Australian Labor Party is diminished greatly, in the hands of self interested people who believe they
own the labor party
and who will pretty much do anything to maintain their personal power.
Everyone should take an active interest in their government... the
servants of the public. However many are deterred from doing so when one observes the vitriol, and ridicule, heaped upon those who try by the likes of federal labor member,
Minister Anthony Albanese. Many, particularly those seeking to do business with governments, feel or believe that it is fraught with danger to
challenge them,
their policies and decisions. Actually if one carefully
orchestrates
the manner in which such criticism, interaction and discussion takes place,
using the mechanisms of government and bureaucracy, as well as technology and human networks,
a detente can be achieved with the more enlightened members of Australia's parliaments and bureaucracies. It should be noted that the federal
are far more sophisticated in such interactions than the states and territories.
We, the people of Ausralia, should require Australian politicians, Ministers and members of governments and the public service bureaucracrats
to engage with their citizens, and critics, more openly and more often. If not then we should demand their resignation and obtain such by the most
appropriate measures.
Whether they be a politician, public servant, corporation or institutions board members or a corporate manager, they
have to
serve somebody....
You just have to find who it is.
IPA Occasional Papers - Energy & Carbon Tax
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WHO ADVISES JULIA GILLARD?
January 30, 2012, Below in this web site I have posed the question who advises Julia Gillard? Now we have actual evidence that those who do have the por judgement that I have commented on in many articles.
I have also noted that the Prime Minister, her staff and advisers and the former Minister for Health the Honourable Nicola Roxon, and her personal gatekeepers, are not interested in productive, critical and challenging interaction and ideas from anyone outside their coterie.
They would prefer to continually stumble along from one looming disaster to eventaul disaster, after another. ms Roxon is about to have a significantly despondent, and very unrewarding, time in the High Court and other venues, over tobbaco packaging this year.
It is not as if they are not told often enough by people who are prcatitioners in the various sectors where these portfolios operate. Everything in Gillard's office, In Roxon's office especially seems to fall on "deaf and politically blind assistants'desks".
The areas in the national spotlight in 2012 that are fraught with minefields for the Gillard labor government are (a) the National Dental Scheme, (b) The Preferred Provider Scheme in Health delivery (c) Private Health, Public Health costs, premiums, fraud and over servicing (d) Market Manipulation in the health sector by the
very system of management, the preferred provider schemes and vested interests. The ACCC needs to take a real look at this activity and its affects on the public interest.
I,and my associates, coleagues and clients, will esnure that these all get a fine airing and a lot of activity. Ms Plibersek has been notified well in advance.
We have, as of yet, formed no opinion of the operation of the portfolio, and its willingness to embrace outside contributions and assistance, under the Honourable Tanya Plibersek.
Finally there is (e) the "non existent or some might say
failed Education Revolution"
and the much vaunted, and self congratultory, role of Ms Gillard as former Education Minister and now as
Prime Minister in this vital area of Australian economy and society. Talk about ongoing smoke, mirrors and incompetence. (Kevin Beck, "The Revolution that Failed to Fire", Melbourne Australia)
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TONY ABBOTT RESPONSE ON THE POKER MACHINE ISSUE TYPICALLY INANE AND DISINGENUOUS
Mr Wilkie and his personal staff simply were not equipped to play in the rough game we call federal politics
It is not about Julia being trustworthy or not, its is about "newbies" and bright eyes
I have come to expect nothing enlightening from Tony Abbott. When Julia Gillard left mr. Wilkie hanging in the beeze on mandatory gambling limits for poker machines Tony cann add nothing illuminating to the debate.
His rivetting retort was that Gillard could not be trusted. Mr. Abott must think that the greater population has no inkling how politics works.
He is without any doubt the worst choice from among the liberal ranks for the leadership position. I predict that like Mr Costello, Mr Abbott will not become Prime Minister except by
a quirk of fate which will bear no relationship to his planning, stategic sense and abilities.
From time time those who interact with the parliaments of the nation see the "newbies" come in. The shining eyed politicians and their staff. Brimming with enthusiasm, perceptions and visions. parliament (at the federal level) is an adrenalin rush.
It is fullon and the world of politics is something to behold. There is however one trusim. It is the house of labor and liberal. It is not the house of minorities, indepdendents and greens. Deals, and maintenance of that duopoly, is the order of the day. Thus inro this comes Wilkie and co.
Among their single agenda ideology they must cater for a mass of complex bills and other activities. They receive very fundamental training and induction by the parliamentary wing and they are let loose. They are under resourced and under experienced.
They must focus on their electorate in order to stay in office and thus their attention and experience is limited. This effectively blinkers their understanding, and awareness,
of the big picture. Seasoned, multiskilled and aware, advisers are not found in these non party parliamentary members' offices.
I write to the independets, I wrote three times to Mr Wilkie and suggested a meeting. I received no reponse.
I meet others in my industry sectors and we talk about dealing with Mr Wilkie and the like. We are all agreed they are incompetent in the tasks that they seek to embrace.
They do not (to use a colloquialism) have a clue as to how it all operates no that behind the scenes labor and liberal do deals all of the time.
There are practitioners in both parties whose sole task is to broker deals and common positions. How does legislation get through otherwise?
We exploit the truism and the system against the likes of Mr Wilkie and the Greens and other independents depending on the issue. They are fodder to the registered lobbyists, the media and the
game players.
In their defence this is not isolated to the federal parliament. The states, and territories, members of parliaments, and their staff, are even less plugged in to reality and an understanding of power and influence.
Into their world's wander the lobbyists, the negotiators, the small and big enterprises and associations and the odd individual.
If these people are (a) not from their electorate and/or (b) not obvious as big names in society and eslewhere, the
it is highly likely they will not quite understand why they are there.
Now in the case of Mr Wilkie he put labor (Gillard) into government on a single aspiration - mandatory limiting of gambling bets on pokies.
A waste of public funds took place, enquiries and studies.
He, and his staff, were being played. He, and his staff, thought that because he held the balance of power, with a few others, that was their ticket to success, a gaurantee.
The independents, and their staff, largely behave as if they can treat anyone who comes to
them with ideas, offers, and challenges, with impunity and disregard. They are there in the parliament and they know how it works.
What mr Wilkie, and his staff, did not get was that liberal - labor deeper bond and the political machine to which I refer above.
They also do not understand power and influence. It is not always resident in the parliament.
I would hazard that Mr Wilkie, and his staff, have never spent hour after hour, day after day, week after week, in a Tabaret.
They have never experienced the actual lives of the people they are trying to engineer into their
own version of the world. Perhaps they are not aware that in communities the local people, unless directly affected by problem gambling, could not give a toss if someone wants to bet, and lose, all of their wages.
That is the cold hearted reality of the TAB and the Pokie rooms. I see them regulary across the nation in small towns and larger suburbs.
Another reality for this group, are the subsidised lunches for pensioners and others, the entertainment and the strange camaraderie that exists.
All in all Mr Wilkie, and his staff, were ill eqipped for the task they embarked on.
They faced a very powerful, entrenched number of entities - Clubs NSW, the Hotels Association and the Casino and Gaming enterprises,
and the technology companies.
Whereas Mr Wilkie, and his staff, could only spread themselves thinly and focus mainly on their dealings with the Committee and the Prime Minister,
these enterprises and their hirelings, and advisers, can move across the nation quickly. They are well resourced, and operate every day
beyond the horizon of Mr Wilkie and his staff. For that matter these mercenaries are usually beyond the horizon of the Prime Minister and Minister's offices and those of state and territory across a wide range of issues and portfolios.
Mr Wilkie, and his team, like other independents rely upon limited funding from the public purse to operate and act.
Though this lot of federal independents do get extra allowances from the PM for helping labor into power. Still those resources are not
deep and too often they are not the best money can buy.
The politically loyal get positions often without reference to skill and competency.
Mr Wilkie was easy prey for vested interests though he did cost them millions and they are not very happy about that.
Come election time they will repay. As his staff sit pondering their fate and blustering how they will withdraw support to labor,
I would believe that they have learnt few, if any, lessons from this. Others looking on like Tony Windsor and his staff may observe and learn.
I always look forward to the "newbies" because they are so oblivious, inexperienced and easy to play with. ("Newbies" in Australia's Parliaments, Kevin Beck, January 2012)
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TONY ABBOTT, THE POSTER BOY FOR DEGRADATION OF THE PARLIAMENT
Just pips Julia Gillard for low quality leadership.
We have no political statesmen or women in our federal parliament.
The reputation of the Australian federal parliament,and the people within, is at its lowest ebb in the history of Australian governance.
The incumbents are iverall held in contempt by many voters. Yet it seems that the elected members are prepared to ignore all of the signs in pursuit of their personal interest. The
two most responsible for this decline are Julia Gilard and Tony Abbott with the latter taking the lead role.
Abbott's obsession with Gillard's legitimacy appears ro have over ridden common sense.
He has become manic and uncaring of how his words and actions are percieved and translated into parliamentary process. Question time is a rabble.
Its processes are managed by parasites of the public purse pursuing their own vested interests. The Speaker has no acknowledged integrity and esteem.
The two leaders have no integrity nor do they have personal qualities to be admired in the public interest.
The quality of public performance is measured, in media terms, by the level of insults and smart alec behaviour and the tone. Gillard may be able to spew viotriole but she cannot deliver a memorable speech that inspires.
Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are not eloquent.
One fool in the parliament proffers that the electorate prefers a majority party in power. As if this would raise the tone and quality. We are where wew are at because of the quality of candidates.
The incumbents are overall a disgrace. They represent some of the lowest denominators on offer on the voting card.
The independents, and the Greens, imperiously think that this is how a parliament should perform. What tripe.
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CORRUPTION AND FRAUD IN AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE SECTOR AND INSURANCE INDUSTRY
In 2012 watch the Australian media for exposure of the rorts on the government national
dental scheme. Already page 2 of the weekend Australian, 31 January 2011.
Suddenly the ACCC will look at the Preferred Provider Scheme. It is supposed to ensure lower costs. But it ultimately manipulates
the Australian medical, and ancillary, market. The consumers are being creamed whilst the ACCC sucks its thumb. See it all come out in the open.
Learn that the doctor in your local the hospital, is not actually employed by the hospital. They are really businessman and business women, looking after their own welfare as well as yours?
I am not saying that their brillaint skills are tainted. Hoever not all of them are altruistic. Ask your local hospital nurse and remember Queensland.
How much of your annual health fund fees include an element of accepted corruption and over servicing by Medibank and the other funds? How much does the government and public service actuallly know?
What is the level of fraud on Australian healthcare across every sector? One hundred million? Two hundred million? More?
I think it is about 17% of all expenditure at a minimum. Who benefits at your expense? Watch the media and this web site. (Kevin R beck, Melbourne Australia, "Accepted Endemic Corruption, Fraud and Over Servicing, Robbing Consumers")
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GILLARD NOT SO CLEVER ON POKER MACHINES
In 2012 Prime Minister Julia Gillard will have to satisfy Mr Wilkie from Tasmania on poker machine gambling.
Again she shows that she is
not all that clever. Did she, her cabinet and her advisers, look below the hood?
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NOT OVERLY CLEVER?
Wikileaks will come to bite Julia very badly.
If you are a Canberra watcher of the public service, and the political class,over the last three decades,
you may have observed an apparent shift from
anticipatory leadership to a clumsy deteriorating model of questionable competency in both classes. lobbyists, theorists, and academics,
may attribute this to a loss of intellectual capital, brought about by the politicisation of the
public service, a brain drain or people reaching retirement age.
Whilst politicisation may have begun with Hawke and Keating it accelerated under
John Howard until both labor, and liberal, have completed the
commodificatuion of the service. It is not so much that is serves the Minister and the government of the day that is the perplexing
quandary but that the service has become introverted, isolated from what some might call the real world or maybe it is full of short term contractors.
The current labor government and the Prime Minister has no Chief of Staff like John Howard had - Mr Arthur Sinodinos - who is entering the parliament. It appears that labor has not
learnt that having very astute people working with the PM is of great benefit. Moving away from the office of the PM and the head of Prime Minister and Cabinet, those Australian government
agencies with clever Ministers, such as Kim carr, Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson (seasoned) perform exceptionally well.
The others under Julia Gillard's crew of accolytes, not so well by comparison and some very very dismally.
When I look at the liberal party under John Howard, or Tony Abbott, I note that there is a wide set of skills, and experiences,
and a modicum of clear heads willing to pull up the leader and bring some sanity, clarity or
thinking to the process. When I look at Julia Gillard, and her Ministry and pary structure, I see a managerial model that actively shuts down any such moderation or
challenge. So Julia, and her band, decide to take Kim Carr out of cabinet. Do we assume that Ms Gillard, and her advisers, had any idea as to the
consequences and were willing to weather the storm?
The storm being inside and outside the party. Or that they were simply dim to the liekly reaction? Kim Carr was a very good Science Minister. So Ms
Gillard has managed to commit another "unclever" act of sabotage of something going very well in government.
She has managed, by this action, to vandalise something worthwhile.
The Prime Minister claims to have education at the top of her mind. What is the proof of that? She trashes the relationship between the educational, research community and her government for her own political ends.
Then we come to Wikileaks, Mr Assange. here the Prime Minister is equally unclever because it is not apparent that she perceives the future at all.
The American whistleblower, military man, Bradley Manning is being held in a prison confined by himself for what, 23 hours per day? Some of this time he is naked?
he is now appearing before a military court.
The purpose apaprently is to break him. For what purpose to link him to Assange so that the US can extradite the Wikileaks founder from the UK?
On that matter what has the Prime Minister had to say about the case to extradite him to Sweden? SFA.
So we have an administration torturing oneof its citizens who had the temefrity to show that senior members of the US Administration break international law. We have the killing of civilian deliberately bordering on some definition of crimes against humanity.
There is much more in the Wikileaks material. We have a fairly unclever Prime Minister and staff who are unable to see where all of this is going.
The Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd knows precisely where it is going. he unlike the Prime Minister has something to say about Assange and his rights.
Julia Gillard will more clearly be shown to be toadying to the US and, unless she brightens up after the New Year, to have
sacrificed a citizen for politically expediency.
The Prime Minister has demonstrated that she is superb in handling internal politics in a minority parliament dealing with Independents and Greens but on most other aspects, and observing her performance during her time in public
office she appears not to have a clue. She is a lawyer and the question one might ask is would you hire her
having seen her capabilities in public office? (Kevin R Beck, An unclever politician? Melbourne 2011)
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SOME OF US HAVE COME TO LEARN
Julia Gillard is not all that politically bright
The year of Gillard's government has been one of "dumb and dumber". Eevn as the year ends we see another example of the not so smart holder of the office of leader of the labor Party.
There is no celebration for Australia's most valuable Prime Minister in the modern era, paul kaething. Why not? Well the jealous and the stupid, with narrow minds and large egos, usually act like this, not only in politicallife but also in corporate.
Gillard can go to the Christmas lunch oblivious to the fact that those who are actually brighter than her know she is not so smart.
Paul Keating towers above the mediocre seat warmers of the Australian federal parliament. he will be celebreated. (Kevin R Beck, Can the Prime Minister get dumber and dumber? Melbourne 2011)
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DOING BUSINESS IN AUSTRALIA WITH GVERNMENT IS VERY TAXING
December 2011: It is not the red tape. It is the incompetence and the barriers created by Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and advisers who are
basically wrapped up in their own ideology and self pursuits or are in the case of many, simply unable to grasp
the complexity of their portfolios and function efficiently. The fiasco around the
tender for the broadcast of Australia to the world (Sky consortia versus the ABC) is not an abnormality. The cost to business of millions is not something that happens rarely.
It happens with regularity. It is the norm. Tendering to an Australian state or federal government agency is fraught with high risk and
cost because no business can have reliance, and trust, in
the process. They make much of probity and lawyersand consulatnts are the winners regardless of outcome.
State and federal departments are beset with new Ministers, new heads of divisions, with reforms,
policy changes, interferring political advisers and in some cases incompetent Ministers. All
senior public servants bound in "political straight jackets". Theys erve the government. The government unfortunatley is both incompetent and corrupt in many ways. Corruption can have many meanings.
It is in this environment that business has to duck and weave playing fiddle to narrow minded egos and self interested parasites who feed
on the public purse masquerading as knights in shining armour protecing the constitency. Or is thos ewho pay them the most?
The way to many a modern labor politicians heart is through their purse and in some cases their genitals,
as we see now in NSW.
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GILLARD'S SKILL IS ONE ON ONE NEGOTIATION
This has kept Labor in government
Does
this translate to being an effective
Prime Minister?
DISAPPOINTMENT TURNS TO DESPAIR
December 2011: The year ends with the Australian labor Party conference showcasing the lack of capacity of Julia Gillard, to be leader of substance and the shallow
talent of her allies in the party. The Prime Minister stood at the podium and delivered a lack lustre speech like a droning whinging parrot.
There was no fire, no passion. Gillard does not have these qualities on display when delivering a set piece. Sometimes one gets a glimpse of passion and fire but it usually just a feigned act of indignity in the parliament
irrelevent to the future of the nation. Mediocrity encourages mediocrity and the mediocre gather and feed off each other whilst patting themselves on the back.
Listen to the drivel that comes out of Wayne Swan's mouth every day and note that when he rose to speak at the labor conference most of the business
participants went elsewhere.
Ms. Gillard and her crew invent their versions of truth. They are focused on froth, and bubble, while the
nation's growth stalls in many sectors. Lacking in coherent policy and
innovative thinking Ms Gillard bores the socks of the thinkers and doers.
The labor conference was to be lively and the Prime Minister wanted fire. She said she wanted it to be full of debate and challenge.
Sure, words, and more words, all as usual hollow, in another managed stage show. The farce regarding the snub, and the treatment of the
former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd showed that Julia Gillard is quite silly or perhaps even stupid. This just adds to the perception that she is not a very capable leader. The focus on narrow debates, in the public gaze -
uranium, gay marriage and hidden negotiations around asylum seekers - did not allow anyone to see behind the veil. That was it? She came out of it looking like the goose she often is. Where is the exciting policy canvas into which we can paint the dots?
The passion came from retired federal Senator, John Fauklner. He was politely heard and ignored. He has more worth
in his political life, and more stature, than the lot he was addressing at the conference. He told the party faithful that whihc everyone else sees but the closed minded parasites that infest the upper echelons of the
labor party machine. Gillard let him be hung out. The senior leader of the Australian Labor party wants to get 8,000 new members. The party bleeds about 6,000 a year. So they have to recruit about 14,000. Who would join the labor party to be under the yoke of Gillard and friends at the federal level and the
flaccid and vacuous lot in the states and territories?
Every motion arising from Faulkner, carr and Bracks' report on the election and future of the party, that could deliver Faulkner's passion was defeated and cast to the dust bin. The labor party can rot slowly butv the problem is that in Australia we have only two choices - the rotting, putrid labor party or the
minimalist and and boring, liberal party. Tony Abbott is as futile in a leadership role as is Gillard.
Yet career politicians and party apparatchiks have hijacked Australia's governmeents. The nation, as a whole couldn't give a bugger.
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ARE AUSTRALIA'S GOVERNMENTS WEAK ON SLAVE LABOUR?
The Textile and Footware union seeems to be the only organisation that devotes significant effort to trying to protect people from being exploited in the Australian clothing and footware industry sector.
When slave labour merchants are caught (particularly live on camera) the major labels who live off the sewat shops express amazement. They immediately cancel the contract and so the exploited lose their livelihood and the
corporatioon pays no price, they move on as if nothing happened.
Well bullshit. My view is that they should be held primarily liable and should have to demonstrate the steps they took to ensure their products were lawfully produced wherever they may procure them.
In Australia that would include a requirement for the buyer to inspect the premises regularly.
There are signals that would alert them to the realisation that their garments are being produced, with a high probablity, of exploitation.
Surely KMart realises that to be able to sell a child''s dress for $A5.00 someone, somewhere,is being exploited.
The major clothing labels and corporations
should be held liable under legislation. Their managers, and boards, should be subject to criminal prosecution under state and federal laws. Those alws should mandate that
the reposibility lies with the clothing and footware companies who contract these services to show that they were reasonably unaware what is going on in
Australia's sweat shops.
I do not see much from the Australian federal government, opposition colaition or state and territory governments to bring justice to the exploited.
This is so typical of Australia's politicains. They would rather argue nebulous, and self interested, agendas than take colective actions on issues they can fix.
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RORTS IN GOVERNMENT DENTAL HEALTHCARE REALLY
How much in all areas of Australia's health? $100M plus?
If you regularly read the Age, or the Australian, newspapers, or listen to talk back radio,
you may have become aware that tens of millions of dollars is being rorted
from the public dental scheme through "administrative error" by caring local practitioners. You may have heard the federal
Minister Tanya Plibersek talking about it on radio and heard the bleating of the association rpresentatives,
the denials by the private health care funds about rorting in general and observed the usual finger pinting. You may have heard the apologists for the practitioners.
You may not know that some of the practitioners are druiving very nice. very expensive cars, as they carry a patient load of unusually high numbers compared to others who obey the rules.
The rorting of the public dental scheme requires the participation of a a medical doctor (GP) and a dentist.
The government, the bureaucrats, the health funds and the associations have known about it for years. In the most recent examination of cases about 43 practices out of around 65 have been found to have accidentally made unfortunate mistakes.
What those in the government, bureaucracy, the health funds and the professional associations did not expect
was people in the know
telling you the consumer. You PAY AN EMBEDDED PRICE IN YOUR TAXES AND IN YOUR PREMIUMS FOR HEALTH INSURANCE FOR TOLERATED ACCEPTED FRAUD IN HEALTH SERVICES DELIVERY IN AUSTRALIA.
It is monetarily, corporately and politically, cheaper, overall, to have you the taxpayer, and the consumer robbed,
than for those who are in charge of it all, to act decisively to stop it. It can be fixed technologically but that would require the owners of the terminals in the surgeries and the
health funds to cough up the money. They would rather you bore that cost. They are not miserly they are derelict and some are to my mind questionably corroded.
The ACCC has known for some time that the preferred provider scheme duistorts the market and leads to fraud.
Preferred providers are those the health funds tell you to go to.
According to the blurb you benefit from cheaper prices. Those forced cheaper prices come with hidden downsides, they
lead to "over servicing" and "administrative errors" on a mass scale. How massive?
Well start at say $80 million for dental and go up by tattslotto numbers for
all Medical, Hospital and Medicare. The preferred provider scheme is a sanctioned cartel which under any other situations would be illegal. (Kevin Beck, Preferred Provider Schemes should be outlawed, Melbourne 2011)
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DYSFUNCTIONAL PARLIAMENT AND INCOMPETENT PRACTITIONERS OF THE POLITICAL ART COST AUSTRALIA BILLIONS
The Australian labor government, under th stewardship of Julia Gillard, has managed
to get its carbon tax legislation passed in the lower house and it is now subject to manipulated, and controlled, Senate approval. Immediately the leader of the Opposition has stated that it will be repealed. Tony Abbott has exhorted businesses not to buy permits because their will be no refunds.
This is the public representation of the degradation, and functioning, of the Australian Federal Parliament
and its constituents. Rather than negotiate policy, and legislation, each self interested party plays brinkmanship ramming everything through with the barest of majority.
Meanwhile the community looks on in ever growing disillusionment at the easte, decay in ethics, morals, competency and nation serving. Similarly the parliament cannot reach agreement on refugee policy due to the incompetence of the Minister for Immigration and the relevant Shadow Miniter, who should be mature and
professional enough to broker a solution. Add to this the National Broadband Network and we have every major policy, and legislative,
action subjected to the behaviour of junk yard political dogs.
Federal labor, through the Prime Minister, is ideologically drive, self opinionated,
stubborn,
and unyielding,
as is the opposition, through Tony Abbott. The Greens, and Independents, are pursuing their own agendas and as such
contribute to the anarchy and
dysfunctionality. It is a disgrace. The cost to the nation, brought about by the constituents of the parliament,
since 2006 is now in the billions. There is no indication that any policy is well founded and grounded.
It is strangling itself and yet labor continually tells us that we are not on the
eve of destruction.
Every word, every response is laced with vitriole and insult.
Every action, every word, is shallow, veiled in charades, manipulated and too often false.
"It’s been a rough, tortuous and compelling decade long journey through the domestic political landscape. It was characterised by feckless, dawdling and weak leadership. It cost the jobs of a prime minister and an Opposition leader – Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull.
And it may well cost the job of the incumbent prime minister who made the ultimate call, and drove the outcome.
It has added a new layer of toxic poison to the political debate with ferocious and unprecedented personal diatribe from shock jocks about Julia Gillard.
'Gotcha' journalism is now the norm. Even ABC radio presenters are preening like peacocks as they interview
Gillard and desperately hoping for a frozen
facial reaction or a curt riposte that will make that nights TV news all over the place....The carbon price debate also changed the way we view politics, and politicians. We no longer revere them, or trust them. We see them as people working for their own advantage, and not the national interest.
".. (Source of extract: Canberra's lost on the low road
Alister Drysdale, 17 Oct 2011, Business Spectator)
"Mind your body language, it says more than you might want, Benjamin Preiss, October 13, 2011
.....click here, view article and video
Ms Gillard cannot focus on fundamentals, on health and education, cannot promote the building of infrastructure and cannot offer value but she surea s hell can give us nebullous bullshit and vacuous garble, as well as destructive policies and
activities. It seems that there is no escape from this slide to the bottom until 2013. One may wonder what the ultimate cost is to the nation
from the coalescence of these people into the parliament at one time?
Their individual, and collective, destructive tendencies, and poor capacities, in debate, negotiation and public interest,
far outweigh any notion of public value arising from their employment.
In amongst all of this the media dwells on the possible
dumping of Julia as Prime Minister.
Tony Abbott is busting a gut to become Prime Minister throwing all caution, as a servant of the public to the wind. (Kevin Beck, The Destruction of Austarlia's Parliament, Melbourne Australia 2011)
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LABOR HAS UNUSUAL COMMUNICATION STYLE
"Show us the real anybody"
Wayne Swan may be oblivious to the skills of Treasurer, one of whihc is to assist and protect the leader.
This requires parliamentary performancesof the ilk of Peter Costello and Paul Keating. So when Wayne gets anywhere near a media scrum he manages to convolute, ramble and stuff it up in some way.
He creates a poor image of communication capability. Add this to the demonstrable strategic capacities of the senior
labor party parliamentarians and their advisers, and one can see the Australian Labor Government struggles with the most basic of fundamentals,
engaging anyone in meaningful dialogue.
Maybe it is their untrusting natures, seclusion, detachment from the real world, lack of diverse employment
experience or a combination of these and other detrimental qualities?
So Wayne organises a tax summit. In one breath he says all ideas will be accepted and yet he has stated that
there are things off limits, like GST, so those ideas, and propositions, will fall on deaf political ears.
He has a reform summit where no communique or outcome will issue and thus no reform plan is obvious, so why go?
A $1,000,000 tax payer funded event and for what?
Mr Swan has gone around talking up this circus as if it is a forum of new age opportunities and a channel to government. It is a rerun of Rudd's 2020 without the trimmings and the fanfare.
What labor's tax summitt is, another bungling attempt to create some bridge between a selected group (of elites) and the government, an
illusion of action beyond the ideological agenda already launched and a pathetic strategy with no apparent value objective.
This is then to be followed by a Jobs Summit. Here Labor will trot out their myopic, and hoary aged policies and strategies regurgitated
over the years. Union, and labor, invented oldies and goodies in their eyes. There will be the obligatory short framed, minimal competency
training programmes, ones that have no life long learning foundation,
the usual job hustlers, and small training placement, private and charity owned, agencies, raking bilions from the Job Network will be motivated into action.
There will be mutterings about retraining and moving people from where they live to places where jobs purportedly are.
There will be the employers whinging that they cannot get the
right skills. There will be feeble attempts by government to over come agism and the stupidity of interviewers who thesmelves lack experience of life.
It is effectively a rerun movie, over and over, year after year with labor party advertisements built in.
Then labor will wax lyrical about how good it all was.
They really need expert, and ongoing, training in the various modes of thinking and brain function, human behaviour,
communications and general common sense. They also need to get out of the spin vehicles they move around in. Show us the "real Julia or anybody". (Kevin Beck, The Real Julia and Anbody", Melbourne Australia)
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GILLARD'S FLAWS MAY BE MINOR COMPARED TO THE OPPORTUNITIES
Gillard fails to see opportunities that are everywhere
Julia Gillard appears to lack imagination. She borrows almost everything. Education policy, climate change policy, carbon policy, tax policy and
political policy. She is so stage managed that she is no longer her own woman. Her advisers are responsible for her poor public perception.
She needs to unload this deadwood and surround herself with
talent not parasites who are so besotted with their own perceptions and baggage that they cannot see what they are doing to her.
Julia should be able to nail Abbott politically and socially. Have you watched Tony walk? He has a hulking style, as if he is going to enter
the ring and box. He is not a charasmatic, good looking man. There is a plethora of social studies that demonstrate good looking people
get better jobs, better opportunities, better incomes and have far more acceptance. Julia is far better looking and charasmatic than Abbott. I think she is actually brighter than he is.
She is a better negotiator.
The labor party appears to be oblivious of these truths, sad as some of them are. The demeanour of Mr Abbott is disconcerting to myself and to many.
Paul Kelly, Editor at Large, for the Australian newspaper, seems to see characteristics for Abbott that I do not. When I read Kelly's articles I think
I am reading a PR piece for the Opposition Leader. Kelly waxes lyrical about Abbott, his inner workings and belief structure, and above all
else tries to present a human side.
Abbott is a career politician who has, as I see it, added very little to the development of the nation. A mediocre employment and heath Minister he evolved into the current role by the poor fate of
Peter Costello.
Mr Abbott is decidedly average.
In contrast to Kelly's adoration,
Susan Mitchell, in her book a "Man's Man", would have us believe that Aboott is the devil incarnate. I am not sure that he is a mysoginist as some would propose.
However I do agree that he is a product of a male environment, a male world that is archaic, prejudiced, mired in bigotry and deep conservatism.
It is a world inhabited with a lack of innovative thinking. The club.
Comprehensive Catholic prejudices seem to be deep within the Abbott psyche. He says that he has no intention of changing any of the things,
that he does not believe in. Thus he puts political
pragmatism before virtue and his own ethical foundation. How can one respect such a person? Like Gillard Abbott too is a borrower and not an inventor.
There are not many inventors in the Australian political system.
IF JULIA HAD COURAGE SHE WOULD SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE
An interesting characteristic of those who lack courage, and initiative, is their willingness
to continue with being stupid despite all of the clues that confront them.
Gillard is a bigot and like Abbott is ultimately prejudiced against gay people. She can say she is not but such denials are hollow.
Gillard if she is not a bigot and prejudiced has the mans by which she can demonstrate clearly she is not.
However she and the others who cause pain unnecessarily will go to defeat rather than do something that is difficult. If we
pander to men in frocks who would promote veiled hatred dressed up as something else, who would have us pray to statues, and carvings,
and chant rubbish to some nebulous entity then
we are, in many ways, a stone age society with IPODs.
Gillard faces, if you believe the Australian newspaper, a challenge to her Prime Ministership. The labor party is heading towards great defeat
according to the pundits.
Yet Gillard sees no opportunities here? She sees no opportunity to break with this cycle of despair and hurt that is rendered upon some in our society including some in her own party.
It is this failure that is most galling to me. The stupidity of those who will not reconstruct themselves to do something out of left field an would rather cling to
their shallow moral and ethical codes.
SAs a cotrast to bold confronting policy, she is quite happy to blithely punt on a gamble - climate change, to be yet another sheep in the paddock.
She is happy to spend billions on yet another mediocre plan or two. She is happy to trot out unimaginative education policies
as Minsiter and Prime Minister. She is happy to be boring and not worth listening to.
If she has no adventure, and vision, that she has not plageurised from someone else, then she deserves to lose her role as PM and her political career for, as the first female PM, she is just aping the common man in drag. (Kevin R Beck,
Missed Opportunities, Melbourne, 2011)
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THE GILLARD LABOR GOVERNMENT'S RADICAL APPROACH THREATENS THE NATIONAL INTEREST
One can well debate whether
Julia Gillard
is a reformist Prime Minister, looking at the mining tax, carbon tax, poker machine controls and the overall desire to
manage Austarlian's lives from the cradle to the grave. However what she is, is radical in her approach.
It may well be that this labor government, and soem of its
members
constitute the worst government in Australia's political history. Despite her, and the government's, record Gillard et al refuse to accept accountability.
This is the way of the modern political party and governments of Australia at any level.
The asylum seeker legislation, a direct attack upon the High Court, and the manner of
her belligerent approach to the
prosecution of her agenda in the face of strident opposition is a prism through which we can observe Ms Gillard's approach to almost everything.
There is a tendency towards autocracy, barely hidden in the velvet glove of her language. Ms Gillard continually challenges the opposition, and Tony Abbott, to
place the national interest first.
I view Ms Gillard as hypocritical in this regard. Ms Gillard seems to be of the firm belief that she is right and Australians are like children who need to be cajoled,
lectured, and chastised, for disobedience. When coupled with the
radical ideas, and practices, proposed by the Greens and independents, Ms Gillard, and labor, are a danger to the national interest.
Former Prime Minister Rudd, and many of the current Ministers under Prime Minister Gillard, talk of evidence based approaches under pinning their policies. I think this is a furfie. There is
little published information of the deliberative processes that would give credence to their claims leading us to the
inescapable conclusion that they had applied such rigour. Gillard presses forward regardless of the signals and the barriers to achievement.
If the national
interest were to be served then the Prime Minister might consider using one of her legislative endeavours to trigger a double dissolution.
This would serve to allow the electors, the owners of democracy and not the politicians, to judge. It would also act to test the incumbency of the Greens by
focusing voter attention on to the hidden, and radical, nature of their ideology and activities.
The nation is in the grip of a low skilled naive group of legislators and managers.
Political, and personal agendas, interests
over ride
the national interest, everyday of the Gillard administration. To bring on a double dissolution may in fact be positive
in ensuring that labour keeps a semblance and shred of its dignity and is not wiped out totally through its own inadequacies which are likely to rise with ever increasing regularity before the next
mandated polling date. (Kevin Beck, Double Dissolution Call by Gillard, Melbourne 2011)
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LET SWAN HAVE HIS MOMENT IN THE SUN
The Australian federal opposition has some very nasty people in their ranks. Wayne Swan has been given an award by Euro Magazine.
It is quite surly, and ignorant, to belittle, and riducule, this in Australia's national parliament.
Such is the quality of the composition of representation.
I often wonder if electors give any consideration, or care, about the people they send to parliaments?
Many of the parliamentarians who command the stage ought look in a mirror and tape themselves so they can hear
their diatribe and peurile banter and realise it is largely hot air and crap.
They nmight also pnder their contribution to culture, integrity, ethics and maturity in one of the nation's most important forums. Al can grow in their roles,
and give the nation value. There are many freloaders wiating their go at the trough of the executive government.
The behaviour, quality and content, all comes down to leadership. A rabble near always reflects the character, and nature, of the pack leader.
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WHEN WILL IT DAWN ON YOU?
Honourable Prime Minister, Julia Gillard MP
Parliament House
Canberra
21 September 2011
Dear Prime Minister
Who advises you on strategy and what calibre of talent do you have around you? No one in your camp
saw any of this coming?
Now you have added another debacle to your list of debacles,
the Off Shore Processing rework. As some might say blind freddy could have told you that (a) Tony would be a
mongrel
and (b) even if he was sweet just once, your dodgy rework of the Malaysian solution
would have still been struck down by the High Court.
Maybe I am reading the constitution incorrectly and its interpretation of life. It actually doesn't mention Ministers does it?
However there is some stuff about legal action by the executive (that is you) being reviewable by the
them (that's the High Court) and them having the last say. Do you think that there might be
something in there that would limit how far you can manipulate things to get around the High Court? That is to my mind an attack on the very structure of our federation.
It shows what sort of individuals you lot in government are. It is indeed a privilege if you do not like the umpire's decision to be able to change the rules.
Actually I tyhink it lowers your personal status even below its current low level.
Yet your team seems oblivious to the proposition of the separation of powers and focused only on your short term goals. Removing "natural justice" would seem to be a bit of a stretch
and something that a quality Prime Minister might not want on their resume. So why do you want it on your resme?
Now I know you are totally besotted with the people smugglers, and aren't waiting for the Federal Court to say that bringing boat people is actually probably not ilegal.
You have created in your mind a fantasy about danger, motivation and greed.You are bulding on Kev's denigration of the people who charge to bring them here.
Obviusly the customer has no fair trading regulatory body and so you have taken on that role for yourself and your side kick, Chris.
Is the issue conveniently the people smuggling or is it
that you cannot bear the thought of not having your own way?
If people can seek asylum in Australia, under international law and we are party to that law
then how is coming here by boat illegal? You made it up that it is ilegal as did John Howard before you and Kevin.
If they can flee persecution and seek their human rights then why can they not do it by boat? Why is it called people smuggling by the
likes of the certain labor, and liberal, senior politicians?
Why do you, and others, misrepresent, cloak the truth in smoke, and mirrors, and lies? Are you choosing political
self interest over the national good and the integrity of Australia? Of course you are but you would claim otherwise. When you pronounce your high principles they come across as hollow, and disingenuous, why is that?
Who could have imagined you, and Kev, not winning any of the big public song and dances
you have both put on! Apart from poor planning you and your colleagues are not good at working out the pitfalls.
A practiced expert who is also an astute reader of Australian politics, with just a smidgin of common sense,
and a reasonable ability to think about how things actually
work and play out would be able to
predict your failures.
They are predicted in many of my web sites well in advance.
I saw you in parliament yesterday totally disregarding the Speaker. Treating the forum, and him, with contempt,
as you ranted at Tony, blathering above the Speaker who was saying "Order,
Prime Minister, Order!". You can come across as quite petulant and ignorant some times. The rework of the
Malaysian solution was not inspired, it was quite stupid I think. It seems to cast you in the light of being
not a really nice person. You now look like you happened to get to the big offce by a series of events
not of your own making and have no idea what to do in the role. It is sad actually watching your political, and personal prestige, slip away and your plans unravel.
After all, you have worked your whole life for this and you are, in your own words, the best person for the job. Bye bye Prime Minister.
Yours sincerely
Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia
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WILFUL BLINDNESS - WILFUL STUPIDITY
Margaret Heffernan wrote an article for the
Huffington Post
a USA poitical publication. She says that if there is knowledge that you could have had, should have had but chose not to have
you are still responsible. Heffernan's statement embodies the whole Prime Ministership of Julia Gillard, and much of the Australian political, party and government process.
Hefferna syas that wilfull blindness is about real time information that is available but is ignored. This is the case with the issue of offshore processing of asylum seekers.
Gillard is a disgrace as a Prime Minister because she palces her won personal agenda (staying in office) to fulfill her unilateral goals regardless of any other consideration.
Like many modern politicians she is a parasite on the system and democracy eatin away at it core. Wilful blindness is systemic and adopted. Heffernan says the reason for all of tis is "power".
Again this is spot on.
When confronted with the reality of wilful blindness and questioned, Gillard moves into the abstract. She talks in nebulous terms
like clouds. She is so certain she is right. However her wrld is cut from the rality of the ordinary persin whihc explains the polls and dislike of the Prime Minister.
Gillard has no idea how to exercise power for the well being of the nation beyond her own perceptions. What she beleieves and wants to do is synonymous in her mind with the national good.
In her mind the data and the ideology works so the decison must work. Thus we see how many mistaked she and her colleagues make. Mistakes costing billions.
She and her Minister for Immigration were blinded to reality of the High Court becasue they were given the advice they aanted not what they needed. Albanese said on television that the governmet wants to
confront its critics head on. This is quite simply rubbish. The Gillard labor government is gutless, and hides, behind the cloak of office. Pushing the processing offshore is like outsourcing.
It is a strategy that makes it all semm to disapper but those who have never experienced the resuts of outsourcing, like the Prime Minister, and Ministers who support this risk prone strategy, do not realise that they cannot control the
process, cannot over sight it and thus will suffer a thousand political cuts.
What
Gillard wants to do is circumvent the High Court and in doing so degrade and lower its status. She is willing to fawn to Abbott, another politician unfit for the high office to which he aspires.
He is similarly disposed to wilful blindness and syupidity. This a significant reason why both are not fit to be Prime Minister. They blur the line between
executive and judiciary. The proposition that the government should be higher than the High Court and that the Court should do the government's will is the
thinking of people who have no value for their democracy. For Gillard and Abbott inconvenient facts are invisible. The big ideas of Gillard and Rudd before her have created a blinded and also tunnel vision. According to Gillard we should trust her and
see what happens. Her big ideas and visions scare us but in her mind they become safe because she has an unyielding self esteem and ego.
Gillard's ideology and self belief is how she deals with reality. When the reality is different to what she expects, or wants, we see her become petulant as indicated in her attack on the High Court. Gillard uses the tools of government, the spin and the resources of the people, and bureaucracy,
to supress contradiction, to supress evidence and to persuade us to her truth and facts. Lost is her moral sense asshe fails to see the signs of her failed authority
Gillard wants to maintain office so she will side with the bigots, and the fearful, rather than making herslef a pariah and outsider by challenging those who demonise the asylum sekkers who are not doing anything illegal.
Too many people accept futility as the reason for remaining silent. Gillard is a person in high place who is protected from being challenged for her ignorance by the ordinary person.
She offers us the dark side of our nature having observed the years of John Howard. She offers us familiarity with our own insecurity and says that she will protect us from the evil boat people who may
disrupt our society and lives. In doing so she condemns us to years of mediocrity being less than we can be. The High Court did not
change the playing field and create a different interpretation. What it did was put Gillard in front of a mirror, of reality,
which she now seeks to smash because she doesn't like the
reflection.
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PRIME MINISTER GILLARD JUSTIFIES STAYING PUT
Almost begging
Prime Minister I wish you well
... but ... (click)
When asked if she would consider resigning, or if her colleagues were plotting to get rid of her, Julia Gillard responded that she was staying put.
She claimed to be the best person for the job because she had planned for this all of her life. She has goals.
"Madonna I’m not going anywhere, I’m the best person to do this job and I’ll continue to do it,
and what this job is about is leading the nation to a better future.
I’ve got a very clear vision of that future, I’ve been driven all of my political life by a series of
goals about spreading opportunity and making sure that no one gets left behind and we are
delivering important policies and plans to do just that, to give people the benefit of jobs, the benefit of
better opportunity through better education and of course important reforms to make sure we don’t leave people
behind because they have a disability, or because they have a need for healthcare." (Source of extract: Transcript of interview with
Madonna King, ABC Brisbane, FRI 02 SEPTEMBER 2011)
This smacked ever slighlty of hubris and perhaps a little
desperation.
The best person for the job - amongst the labor hopefuls currently in the parliament or the best for the job from every
other Australian?
Human nature is such that many people in high places cannot conceive failure or a lack of skill and competency.
They may be full of it whilst others hope that something will change. If they just hang in there. Tony Abbott hopes this too.
Julia has an expectation that if she gets her policy ideas, and actions, in - like the carbon tax, health, mining tax, gambling reforms, tobbaco laws,
and other tremendously exciting propositions that all will be shown to be visionary.
Julia is what we Australians call a punter. She goes on in the hope that the gamble will pay off.
The significant problem seems to be that Julia, and the other members of hersenior parliamentary team,
have litle idea of strategy, poor communuication and articulation skills, add to this the notion that they
cannot anticipate outcomes. Do they realise that the HIGH COURT WILL STRIKE DOWN THE PLAIN PACKAGING OF CIGARETTES?
What is the foundation of the government's law proposed by Nicola? Is it health oriented? Then why not ban smoking?
The government taxes it mightily. Then if they will not ban it and Australia is a signatory to international treaties,
as they were for the refugees, then why are they expecting some other outcome? Have the same lawyers they used for the refugee advice given them the tobacco advice?
The Health Minister Nicola Roxon will turn a
whiter shade of pale
just as her colleague Chris Bowen has.
Nicola
versus
the tobacco companies. Whom do you think will win? Can labor sustain another loss of face?
Do they really have the capacity for government? I "just
don't get it."
Kevin Beck, Melbourne Australia 2011.
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AND SO IT CAME TO PASS AS SAID IT WOULD
THE HIGH COURT DISAPPOINTED THE GOVERNMENT VERY SEVERELY
Minister Chris Bowen, and the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, have both
gone to great pains to say over, and over, that the
High Court has changed the interpretation of the law from the accepted interpretation existing for years. Every time
they open their mouths they reiterate this. They tell us that their lawyers, and the Australian government solicitor,
advised them they were on secure ground. They believed all they were told and entered a
trance world
of their own making.
They are clearly justifying they did not expect this. The question I would ask is how did
I interpret
the High Court's decision in the opposite vein, below, in the next article, where I set out the synopsis of the logic I used.
What is irksome about all of this is, despite the highest court in the land, and the arbiter of the Australian Constitution,
and legislation making a decision Tony Abbott blathers on along with his
endlessly boring spokesperson Scott Morrison. We have fools in the media, with little concept of the separation of powers and the
ability to interpret and assimilate conmplex legal arguments claiming that the High Court has entered the realm of politics and government.
They are writing and talking drivel. Not only do Abbott, and Morrison, blather but they misrepresent, again and again,
the history of the Howard government's efforts in handling refugees. Tony Abbott is now offering to assit the labor government to change the law. Where does he get his advice, from the same lack lustre sources as the government?
His Nauru solution is a crock that will not get up unless Nauru passes laws agreeing to accept responsibility for the refugees.
Does Nauru want to risk hundreds applying for residency there because they like the lifestyle?
Tony Abbott sounding more and more like broken record.
TIRED OF LIES AND MISREPRESENTATIONS
The likes of Tony Abbott, and many other senior politicians (of all parties), in my opinion, should not be
in Australia's parliaments.
They have demonstrably questionable ethics. They all too often seem to engage in misleading, and deceptive political rhetoric. That which they do
not make up they
borrow from others
or use spin doctors to
distort the information we receive.
Abbott, et al, would have us believe that the boats stopped coming to Austarlia becuase Howard decided to process refugees off
shore in Nauru and papua New Guinea.
This is not true.
A confluence of events stopped the boats, inter alia, the sinking of the Siev X and the death of hundreds of people,
the Indonesian government's crack down on smugglers, the changed circumstances in the Middle east, to name but a few causes.
Yet Abbott, and Morrison, rewrite history to suit.
CAREER PARASITES ON THE PUBLIC PURSE
The whole issue of boats, and refugees, and the mixture of lies, and rantings, has become more than irksome and irritating.
Tony Windsor was correct in not choosing to work with Tony Abbott though Mr Windsor probably was not considering the
poor capabilities of certain labor Ministers when he chose to do a deal with Julia. Abbott, and Gillard, should
reach agreement in the national interest. And this agreement should not be the tripe that Tony Abbott offers.
It should be a minimum cost, humanitarian solution free of the gutter tactics, and ignorant ravings, of people who are turning out to be nothing more than career
parasites on the public purse, continually ofefring up the same hack policies that they think will deliver a different result. It is unlikely that this will occur because Mr Abbott
does not act in the national interest. He has one goal, to be PM - "whatever it takes". He can never bend and admit that
it's over.
Tony Abbott will not do the nation a service and find a new career.
(Kevin Beck, "Career Parasites on the Public Purse", Melbourne 2011)
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HIGH COURT TO DISAPPOINT GOVERNMENT
WHO ADVISES THE GILLARD GOVERNMENT - AND WHY DO THEY
GET IT WRONG
SO OFTEN?
HIGH COURT
Today, 31 August 2011, I expect the High Court to rule against the Minister for Immigration on the matter of the
transfer of children to Malaysia and also the Minister's assessment that Malaysia is an all right place under human rights criteria.
I would be extremely surprised if the government won any of the arguments. This will place them squarely on the
cross road
of their
ever diminishing existence. The
High Court
is the last bastion of defence
against the excesses of the political class who have come to treat Australian democracy as their own
chattel.
I would have thought, logically, that being a guardian of a child did not encompass shipping them off to a
third country and observing them casually, if at all, from afar.
Also assessing a country for human rights compliance would be something deeper than a politically
expedient tick from a half baked administrator.
Why are we, as a nation, petrified of disadvantaged people
coming in boats
seeking a new life?
Could it be that our political leaders are of such low quality, and integrity, that many of
us ape their stupidity, besotted by their averageness and ignorance? Alternatively are we a nation of semi
literate challenged types who
gather as sheep before the demigods of shock jock radio and print? Are we racist? I sit and watch the refugees as
tears go by.
LOOK OUT THE BOATS ARE COMING IN DROVES! WELL THEY ARE NOT - BUT GILARD AND ABBOTT WILL NOT TELL YOU THAT
Lacking in integrity and ethics Australia's federal leaders have eschewed humanity and truth in favour of political
interest and ego. They are detached from the national good.
The ongoing saga of boat people eats into our souls, and our psyche, and tears at the fabric of Australian egalitarianism. Iy destroys our bureaucracy by requiring civil servants to
act beyond their nature and beliefs. They are corroded by the labor and liberal political parties.
Julia Gillard
is just another career politician rising through the
ranks to high office without the necessary prerequsities for leadership,
talent, and qualities that might strive to achieve greatness.
The labor party, like other political parties, surround themselves with party apparaatchiks, sycophantic types rather than people who might appear antogonistic challenging and questioning.
There is no interaction by Minister's staff with the latter types. In the case of the Gillard government this had lead to a cocooning. It is only a matter of time. Yet we will face another
set of poor choices. Australian politics is such a small gene pool.
THE BENCHMARK OF MEDIOCRITY AND AVERAGE
The benchmark of good government, in Australia, is singular. It is the ability to achieve a surplus,
which any administration can do without too much thinking and innovation. They just have to copy the
mind numbing,
debilitating model
that every political hack government now uses.
There is no vision, there is no excitement, there is just same old, same old cardboard cut out, in a different coloured hair shirt.
WRITING THE FUTURE
The people who are losing their jobs in the manufacturing indutry may have been mightily
impressed with Prime Minister
Julia Gillard's
soliloquy (a soliloquy is a device
often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing
any of the other characters, and is delivered often when
they are alone
or think they are alone) about how
they write the future and the government is right there with them as they write those stories. Julia and some of her Minister's are so detached from reality
that they might as well be alone.
"The government would help the people of the region forge its future, Ms Gillard said.
'The future of the Illawarra will be written by the people of the Illawarra, but
we will be here
every day to support
the people of the Illawarra as they
write that future,'
she said. 'I will be relying on our local members, on Sharon Bird and Stephen Jones.
They are great advocates of this local community.
'We will be staying in close touch with them, in close touch with people in this region, to
design this new future
for the Illawarra.' (Source: Gillard makes pledge to Illawarra region
Updated: 14:13, Tuesday August 30, 2011, Sky News).... article by: Kevin Beck, Melbourne Australia
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POLITICAL PARROTS AND DODOS
Should there be a competency test for parliamentary membership?
Below in this web site I pillary Minister Albanese for his
derisive comments
about the protestors who travelled to parliament house Canberra recently.
He was not alone in being ignorant and ill considered. The evangelist of the liberal party, in the media, stood up addressing the crowd and
attacking jounalists whom he felt may have slighted him. he took everyone to task who were desreving of insult and Jone's retribution.
It was the ,b>Alan Jones show and he raved drawing out the quacking geese, and parrots, of the federal parliament.
Mr Jones railed that NSW police had stopped the trucks at the NSW border and refused to allow them to enter.
A cavalcade of senior parliamentary members Bronwyn Bishop and
Warren Truss joined in. They carried the false accusations forward. Bronwyn was particularly
effusive about Alan's place in modern Australian society.
The police were being demonised through Mr Jone's tirade and by Bishop and Truss. There were conspiracies galore.
In actual fact there was no blockade by NSW police or anyone else. They stopped the cavalcade to tell the people about
the arrangements, and the rules, and then let them ccntinue on.
Consistent with the unethical nature of modern day politics, exhibited by members of parliaments in Australia,
there was no withdrawal, or mea culpa, from the cerebrally challenged who parroted the Jones assertions.
Maybe they said something privately to Mr. Jones ... along these lines ..... "Hello Alan... Bronnie here ...(to hear my personal version of the rest of the convresation - click the parrot)?
"Hello Alan... Wazza here ... (click the Dodo to hear my version)
The most dynamically stupid, and
vacuous,
member of the parliament is often the leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.
If he had a policy idea he would probably shock many including some in his party. (Kevin Beck, The Federal Parliament - Jones Fan Club, Melbourne 2011)
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AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SERVICE
All too often the plaything of Ministers of governments
The ethos of the public services, in Australia, is that they serve their
Minister/s and government of the day regardless of the
Ministers' capacities, capabilities and behaviour. They are pushed into doing things that they are not geared up for both ideologically
and operationally. No more so than at the federal level.
take for example the departments of Immigration, Environment, Education and more, who have borne the brunt of criticism
about massive waste under green policies, pink batts, BER and inhumane practices on refugees. The litany of crap is quite extraordinary and on going.
We can observe Kevin Rudd's days as Prime Minister when his frenetic, and exceptionally debilitating, and
destructive, management style drove the public service, and its people, into the ground. Now we can see a similar trait
in his role as Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Rather than use the meagre funds of the Department to staff Australia's representative offices around the world,
to educate our DFAT officers in other languages and moving them away from Canberra, we see many a personal agenda at play. People want to stay around the centre of power and live the good life in Canberra.
Close to the sea and the snow it is a lovely regional town.
The most prominent agenda for Mr. Rudd is that he seeks an interim seat, for Australia, on the Security Council. In pursuit of this he is hardly in Australia wasting more of the Department's money on personal trips whihc he
smoothly, and smugly, justifies. If one monitors the gossip and the international cables we learn that Mr Rudd is not that highly regarded
overseas and some may see him as a tad over blown in self regard. Others think he is folksy even quaint - mate, chop on the barby and fair suck of the sauce bottle - type of fellow.
"FOREIGN Minster Kevin Rudd has launched a comprehensive defence of Labor's bid
for a temporary seat on the UN Security Council for 2013-14,
saying the international security watchdog has never been more relevant."
(Source: Kevin Rudd states Australia's case for place on UN Security Council Joe Kelly From: The Australian June 01, 2011)
Note the words "temporary". Actually Australia would exert little influence against the other more powerful "permanent" members.
But when has this labor government, or Rudd's own bash at being PM, ever put national interest, and the spending tax payer money on personal whims and ideas,
above their own personal political agendas and interests? I cannot think of an example except when they gave stacks of money to us during the GFC. Billions down the spout of labor's profligacy.
Meantime on the way Mr. Rudd can continue to destroy
elements of the public service under his demonstrably ignorant stewardship.
Julia Gillard is neutered against him least he turn a tantrum in the minority government. having little diplomatic nouse and skill she ignores his
rubbish in favour of labor's personal political interest. (Kevin Beck, "Governments' Personal Things", Melbourne Australia 2011)
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IGNORANCE AND FOOL HARDY ANTICS
As the convoy of disheartened protestors descended on the federal capital to voice their grievances
the Gillard labor government showed its brand of government via a
loud mouthed political thug
who uses parliamentary privilege to spray vitriole and contempt for those who would dare criticise or challenge in a manner not acceptable to the
Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses of our nation's parliaments. Labor under Julia Gillard continues to corrode, and corrupt, the parliament
and the nation's political process.
Minister Anthony Albanese is an elected public servant who should engage in vocational education to understand his place, and role,
or get out of the parliament. However such opinions fall on deaf ears.
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IT IS ONE THING TO BE INCOMPETENT, SOMETHING ELSE TO BE BRANDED IMMORAL AND LACKING INTEGRITY AS WELL
August 2011: Listening to protestors arriving outside parliament house
in Canberra I noted a shift in the tenor of their grievances.
Many had quite a lot to say around the theme of incompetency. The majority were focused on the belief and/or perception
of lying. Charges of lying, immorality and lacking in integrity are emerging themes over riding
the label of incompetency.
Allegations around federal parliament labor member, Craig Thomson's
purported use
of a trade union credit card are acting as a lightning rod of discontent.
Julia Gillard, and Wayne Swan, again proved their naive and inept management of significant, and debilitating,
issues by backing their labor colleague.
In a real government environment, rather than the surreal atmosphere of this parliament, Thomson would have been initially
supported and then have been dumped.
Swan's failure to act decisively on removing Thompson from his committee chair has compounded the "shifty" and
"thuggish"
image of this government. Many in business, and personal life,
are reticent to speak out less they be subjected to retribution.
"UNDER-FIRE Labor MP Craig Thomson - already battling claims he authorised union funds to pay for prostitutes -
reduced a charity worker to tears in a spittle-laden tirade that has increased pressure on him to resign.
MP 'reduces charity worker to tears', Labor MP Craig Thomson has been accused of making a charity worker cry at a rally against pokies reform.
Mr Thomson gave a Salvation Army worker a verbal "bollocking" after a
fiery poker machine rally in the NSW Central Coast and allegedly threatened to name and shame her in parliament, reported The Daily Telegraph.
It is claimed that he called her a "disgrace" and threatened to "finish your career".(Source:15 August 2011 Sky News)
There is no evidence that Ms Gillard, key members of the labor government cabinet or their strategist advisers, have any clue how to manage the issues, manage the administration or to act with integrity.
Even if Gillard gets the carbon and mining taxes through the parliament, deals with disability or has any impact on heaqlth delivery in Australia it is likely that these will be over shadowed by a litany of personal foibles, incompetence and imooral geastures and policies on the part of the
senior Ministers of labor. Gillard should know by now that immigration is like an albatross around her neck and all of the sleight of hand and set up deals and macchinations are only inceasing the death throes.
Ms Gillard should take the high ground and demonstrate integrity and a visionary approach to the future,
AGREE A DOUBLE DISSOLUTION WITH TONY ABBOTT AND TAKE
THE PARLIAMENT TO AN ELECTION WIPING THE GREEN PARTY CONTROL OF THE SENATE OUT.
If Ms Gillard, and the labor party, continue their dance with the Greens the party will be
forever tainted, and Australia, will
suffer greately under the Greens uncompromising, and
naive,uninformed, views of the world of things.
IT HAS TO BE A DOUBLE DISSOLUTION
If we had an ordinary election the Greens would
retain their Senate seats because only a dissolution would dissolve both house of parliament simultaneously. This is indeed a
hard ask of the Prime Minister
for there are many who
are placing their personal situation ahead of the nation in the "conspicuous consumption of power" by a few. The people are
crying out for Julia to do the right thing in the interests of the nation.
The problem with this "right thing by the nation" is that the labor party governmentm, the Greens and the independents actually
believe that they are doing the right thing. They believe that their strategies and their policies are well founded
and their intentions are good,
doing the best that they can.
Under pinning this is a second belief that if they tough it out somehow all
will be
revealed,
it will make sense. There may be pain
but it work out and we will all be
better off.
This is, after all a mess that the voters of Australia created. The voters dealt Julia the cards she has.
They have taken
litle if any interest in the processes for the choice of candidates for parliaments, no interest in the
quality of government, or performance, at any level, and little if any interest in legislation, or behaviour, unless it affects them directly.
We have been happy to live life without a care,
taking the gifts,
the tax cuts, the GFC cheques and the pensions and family benefits. We have for a long time been partying and
relaxed
about it all.
Now the people squeal like stuck pigs. Trusting neither Gillard, nor Abbott, the voters are caught between a rock and a hard place. If the shoe was on the other foot and Abott was
in Julia's place he would not take the moral position or a visionary decision. Nor would there be any tools availabloe to the people to get rid of a poor conservative government.
What this tells us is that Australia's system of democracy (at state and federal level) is structured, and manipulated, in favour of the
two major parties, and a handful of controlers within, to the detriment of Australia.
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WHO IS PRIME MINISTER GILLARD'S SENIOR STRATEGIST?
I think she should consider finding a new one. Someone with lateral thinking capacity, creativity, intuition,
experience and talent.
The government has spent $A12,000,000 on a sugary piece of advertising,
promoting an Australian wind farm corporation?
Why? What purpose did it serve? It did not tell us any facts, did not impart any real policy
and is of such duration as to be useless.
It is a waste of money.
Any good strategist knows that to have impact the message must be succinct,
simple, fact based and be repeated over and over to a cost of probably $A50,000,000. Then we are getting a letter in our mail boxes.
A campaign to return those letters to Minister Combet's office, in Canberra, is underway. What is the problem? The carbon tax does not exist and will not until 2012. It may never exist if not passed in parliament or an election eventuates.
The Prime Minister has said that all of the
carbon tax
proceeds will be spent on
household compensation. Is that true? I thought Australia had signed an agreement whereby it would pay 10% of any carbon tax
proceeds to some international climate entity?
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LACKING INTEGRITY AND SPINE
...click image
2011: PRIME MINISTER
SPEAK FROM THE HEART
AND TELL US JUST ONE TIME, PRECISELY
WHAT WE ARE
"If the consent of the governed is extorted through the manipulation of mass fears...
democracy is impoverished", Al Gore, The
Assault on Reason, 2007, at the beginning of this web page.
The opinion polls indicate that a large proportion of voters do not like Julia Gillard and the labor federal government.
Yet another set of polls imply that Tony Abbott is also not held in high regard. The general theme seems to be disenchantment with government and the people in it.
When we spoil children they tend to exhibit forms of behaviour such as low self esteem, enough is never enough,
self doubt, rebellion, disregard and entitlement. So perhaps the politicians of the modern era have spoilt the
Australian voter. In doing so they themselves may have sown the seeds of contempt and disregard.
We do not have to like our leaders but
those who are good leaders are respected. How can we have respect for a Prime Minister who is speaking
to us from the darker side of human nature
and fear. Minister Chris Bowen is doing
something dirty.
The High Court will today (August, 8, 2011) determine just how dirty, if at all.
The issue of refugee boat people arriving off Christmas Island, is not about
immigration,
or refugees coming without approval. It is fundamentally about
politics. The pandering by weak kneed politicians to the average, challenged Australian. The "average"
are those who cannot think, and rationalise,
for themselves until someone prods them to do so. The "average"
are those who believe that the government is their defacto parent. The average believes the drivel put out by thes hock jocks and the biased commentators.
They do not do their own research, are self made middle to low income red necks and bigots, extraordinarily conservative,
are likely more interested in Oprah Winfrey, Judge Judy, the Block, reality television,
MMM,
Master
Chef and the World's Greatest Loser (these are not refugees) with whom they can identify. They feel threatened. They have little interest in their democracy.
They are in the majority.
Australia's refugee disgrace is a daily reminder, to the nation, of poor intellectual capacity, low integrity and leadership qualities
of our leeders. It is a reminder of the spineless, gutless, and
unethical behaviour
of our most
senior politicians, ably assisted by
parasites, and sycophants, that infest the nation's government and bureaucracy.
Want to stop the boat people coming? Then take away $A50,000
per smuggler boat, from our aid budget to the '
country from whence it came. Make the governments accountable, not the poor unfortunates on the boats. If they do not get aid then ask their representatives to leave Australia until the smugglers are stopped.
The number of boat people that have come here since Tampa, during the days of John Howard's government
would perhaps fill half of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Yet the political leaders of Australia imply we are being over run.
They are using this
issue for their own personal political interests and because they lack imagination except dark elements. In doing this the Australian taxpayer is picking up the cost.
The refugees sent away to malaysia wil, after 45 days, receive an identity card and they will live, have health care and education, and be able to
work in Malaysia, all paid for by Australia. Why can that not be done here? In addition Australia will take 4,000 refugees
for every 800 boat people we send over. All for what, scaring the people smugglers?
They are taking Australia down the pathway of the darkness where we know we do not want to be. What is the use of trying to
tell these
self interested parasites
anything? Scared of their own political shadows they spread their cancerous policies and bile.
Instead of leading they wait for the shock jocks, the polls and the loudest voices to set the agenda and their behaviour.
Just once can we not have a person of integrity stand up and say enough is enough, wake up to yourselves and help these desperate people?
Maylasian solution, Nauruan solution, cancerous heart
solutions. Where is the
real Julia Gillard?
When Julia Gillard became Prime Minister many of us had
high hopes
that maybe, just maybe, she would be one of Australia's finest Prime Ministers.
To date she has mightily disappointed. ("Julia, I did but see her passing by", Kevin Beck, Melbourne Australia, 2011)
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BOB BROWN AND THE AUSTRALIAN HATE MEDIA
Senator Bob Brown Green's leader is incensed by
by critics.
He thinks that the Australian media, particularly the Australian newspaper,
has got it in for him.
As the Green's takeup their seats in the federal senate,
in the cold of a Canberra winter, I ask them what they
want to be?
No doubt they feel
elated.
WAS PRIME MINISTERIAL OFFICE AND GOVERNMENT WORTH DESTROYING THE LABOR PARTY?
Emily's list members would have been over the moon when Julia Gillard became Deputy Prime Minister.
To be within reach of the top role they would have been ecstatic. What was the advice, and the drive, that lead
Julia Gillard to forge an agreement with the
independents and the Greens? Was the achievement of being the first female Prime Minister just too much to pass up?
Is the prize of government too much for the few
who are given preselection for senior political office, by the party and the
Prime Minister, worth more than the integrity and the future of the Australian federal labor Party?
Today August 2, 2011 we see a government under the
primeval influence
of a man who thinks that a single world government , one value one vote, would be okay.
A George Orwell character in human form in the Australian parliament.
We see a labor government under the thumb of
people
who have as their primary objectives
fringe ideology,
personal crusades and
nutty agendas,
all to be
feted at the public expense.
It is now extraordinarily difficult to separate the altruistic member of parliament and the best of the party machine,
working for the good of the nation and the individual, from the sycophants and parasites.
Large quantities of parliamentary time is taken up pursuing personal ideological objectives of a limited few in the parliament or dodgy environmental projects to appease the Greens.
This is not lost on the public and it is highly likely that Ms Gilllard, and her supporters, have taken the spoils in the short
term to the long term detriment of the labor party and many good parliamentary members who
are sidelined and replaced by charlatans and zealots.
When will the Prime Minister say to Senator Bob, and the likes of Tasmanian
representative Wilkie...
...click
NO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT GILLARD MAY
DESTROY
FEDERAL LABOR PARTY.
Examination of the manner of operation of the Rudd and Gilard labor governments, the strategic thinking, research and intuitive capabilities of the incumbents
would suggest that the office of the Prime Minister and that of a number of senior Ministers is serioulsy under skilled. The extent of failures, mishaps, poor judegement and lack of awareness by senior labor party
practitioners in the federal labor government reinforces the view that Ms Gillard does not anticipate, or accept, that
the prize of government and the labor modus operandi for policy development, poor design and implementation,
all the while under the shadow directorship of the
independents, and the Greens, is a highly dangerous model for the long term electoral health of the Australian labor party.
The recent (very charismatic) announcement on the Health Reform package by the Prime Minister, in concert with a frowmning and blinking,
Health Minister Ms Roxon, was over blown. Prime Minister Gillard portrayed it as the most far reaching health reform since Medicare. Maybe so.
In my view it is reasonable policy not extra good and not very good, just reasonable. Yet the model has moved from stealing the 30% of the
GST from the states to fund 60%
of all health acre in Australia (Rudd;s over reach) to 50% and then finally under this model to about 41% - 44% without stealing the GST.
The states still retain control. There is the ubiquitous web site "My Hospital" similar to "My School" and "My Grocery" , and "My Fuel watch" (labor loves a web site,some are deemd by many to be failures). There is the monitoring of
performance. One exception in the deal is the long term growth funding to 2020 by the Commonwealth. Ms Julie Bishop on the opposite side
of the house jumped straight in bagging the whole thing. They may not pass the legislation. For a lawyer Ms Bishop
seems to demonstrate either a very honed skill to digest, and assimilate, complex legislation in all its aspects at extraordinary speed,
or a propensity for quick shooting from the hip with little research and analysis. I would sincereley hope she has the former
extraordinary abilities.
Anyway maybe Julia should agree a double dissolution with the liberals and go to an election
denuding
the Greens of their seats in the Senate, in the national interest.
(Kevin Beck, The
Price
of Prime Ministerial Office in Australia, 2011)
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PM's CHARISMA CANNOT MAKE UP FOR INCOMPETENCE
Swan, and Roxon, join the list of poor judgement and
incompetence in the Australian federal labor government
Julia Gillard, alone, without advisers in her ear, making her own statements
rather than
reading poorly authored speeches is very exraordinarily
charismatic and engaging.
So why can she not convert it?
It is only when she gets in to the
invitation list of supporters.
Opposition politicians left off the ist, many business and industry bodies,
media critics and unfriendly academics and of course people like Kevin Beck.
They invited those people whom they see as likely to recommend Labor beliefs and policies, with a few tweeks.
No one likely to argue with myopic thinking and ineptitude.
The invitation list is concocted to fit with labor's peurile, and vindictive, behaviour in government.
It is yet again a petty, and immature demonstration so
typical of
the manner of government by the Australian labor party members of the federal parliament and their
puppet masters
in the labor machine offices.
To do it this way is to lessen the crebility and value of the event immediately.
The Health Minister,
Nicola Roxon,
a lawyer, is found to have breached somewhat critical legislative requirements in the administration of her own portfolio.
This is not surprising to me since a team of colleagues and a very prominent medical practitioner have been trying to get her attention on fraud for two years now with no success.
She is publicly shown to be incompentent, along with the former health minister,
Tony Abbott,
who also did so when he was in office. Roxon, and Abbott, along with their senior health advisory
staff,
have managed to have every investigation into Medicare rorting, and fines and sanctions imposed by the Professional Services Review tribunal
declared invalid
by the full bench of the Australian federal court. Ms Roxon, and Mr. Abbott, knowing the legislation requirements or not, did not choose to consult the Australian Medical Association. This could be taken as further evidence of their childish
behaviour, and ignorance, in their senior ministry roles. No one in their departments told them? No one knew the law?
Lives ruined, massive pecuniary impositions on practitioners and an incompetent Department of highly paid public servants, failing to pick this up,
again demonstrates that there has been a significant decline in
ability, talent, and holistic overview, within the government and the public service. Where were the lawyers who are supposed to advise
on these things?
Even as labor charts its own demise Tony Abbott fails to demonstrate his credentials.
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CONSUMING AUSTRALIA
The quality of political debate, governance and corporate management seems to be declining.
"ConsumingAus"
examines these propositions in greater detail.
In relation to the Australian federal parliament, Tony Abbott continually demonstrates a
tenuous grasp, and understanding of, important issues. He tends to try and turn verything into an attack on the Gillard government.
What will he do when Julia is
gone?
His statements about the hacking of a telecommunications web site and the
subsequent vulnerability of the NBN were
tripe.
Mr. Abbott's pronouncements may show a lack of
ethical
responsibility as a legislator when
viewed through a prism of
his personal
interest.
This is perhaps no different to the myriad of
Green
parliamentary members'
personal agendas
in a declining professional, and sophisticated, environment.
(Kevin Beck, "The Nature of Governance and Personal Political Interest in Australia, 2011"
|
DAY BY DAY THE CARBON TAX IN AUSTRALIA
|
Australia's economic interests will be exposed by labor's stupid carbon policy
Selective deafness or just plain
stubborness?
As time goes on it seems more apparent that Ms Gillard's department, and advisers,
have not undertaken deep research, and analysis, of the holistic implications of the proposed carbon tax.
They tend to stick to generalities and emotive attacks on Tony Abbott rather than
extolling details and answering questions coherently. They are extraordinarily poor communicators.
Even as the government senior Ministers appear incapable of articulating the
policy
and the effects the world is altering
beneath their collective feet. In any event why do they think that Australia will merge into a global carbon tax emissions scheme?
"The absence of a global framework undermines the political and policy case for
prioritising emissions cuts. It's a message that has not been lost on international carbon markets.
According to the World Bank's recently released 2011 State and Trends of the Carbon Market report, for the first
time since 2005 the international carbon market went into recession last year.
The cause of its decline was the lack of clarity "urgently needed on the post-2012 international climate change regime and
on other countries' plans to use market-based mechanisms to meet domestic greenhouse gas [reduction] objectives".
(Source: Slim chance of global carbon market post Kyoto Tim Wilson From:
The Australian July 26, 2011.)
|
COMBET, AND SENIOR LABOR, OBSESSED BY ABBOTT
Labor is being stitched by many more opponents than Abbott
July 2011:
Greg Combet,
Minister for flexible portfolio shifts, appears on television with the task of sellig the carbon tax. Minute after minute goes by and instead of actually
selling the concept to the "Meet The Press" panel of journalists he rants about Tony Abbott. Mr. Combet seems to
still be in Australian Council of Trade Union mode. He accused the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry of being stooges for the liberal party.
This is an immature display by a mediocre senior Minister of the government who needs to hone his communication and plicy selling skills before he spins generalities, and insults, everywhere.
He did not once justify the tax or the policy.
Thus it is with the
Prime Minister,
Wayne
Swan
and
Penny Wong.
The only federal labor Minister who
seems to have a grasp of selling anything coherently, and methodically, is
Bill Shorten.
Meanwhile more
anti carbon tax
web sites pop up. Whilst
Tony Abbott
may, in the minds of labor, the Greens and the Australian
media be orchestrating the attack on the labor policy platform this is not the case.
There are more, behind the scenes, oppononents running
anti government policy
campaigns than the liberal party can muster or itself knows of.
Prime Minister Gillard, and her team of strategists and advisers, need to do their homework more diligently and broadly least they be
out foxed.
"Australian Labor and blind ignorance", 2011
Kevin R Beck
Melbourne, Australia 2011
|
WHO TOLD THE PRIME MINISTER TO GO ON AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN?
There are people, working in all sorts of enterprises, who wait for something, anything to come up so that
they can participate and be seen to be doing something, anything to justify their existence. When there are extended periods of quiet, inactivity or elongated delays they
become even more anxious to be involved. Thus it seems with the labor federal government. Everything they have proposed, or propose, has very long lead times.
Instead of planning, and carefully, assessing the moments when they should do things they rush to the press box and babble about floss and bubble. They pad
the current state of affairs and blow it up to appear as if there has been productive activity.
They talk about all the things they are
going to do and what they will mean and deliver, tomorrow, next year, in 2020 and 2050 and sometimes in the next century. Everything that the Prime Minister and the other members of parliament put out there is speculation.
So having produced a general framework out of their "clinical and detached, incubator", climate concensus committee Julia and her sidekicks rush off around Australia. The framework is not detailed in every aspect, is not
framed in legislation and will not become legislation if at all) until 2012. So again Julia, Combet, Swan and Wong speculate and read crystal balls.
They open cans of worms. The outcome of the current circus lead by the Prime Minister, and willingly contributed to by leader Tony Abbott, has no
end result or objective that is positive to the nation. Does she intend to do this until mid 2012?
Ms Gilllard exhorts the media not to write "crap", yet the party advisers, academics and experts, Ms Gillard
and her colleagues have precisley done that. Why are their camp of experts, and commentatprs, anymore compelling and accurate than others?
From the simple statement that the government will tender, and replace, 2,000 megwatts of dirty coal power stations,
that no coal power stations will be built again, that whole regional towns will disappear, that Whyalla will not be affected by impacts on the steel industry
and the Latrobe Valley according to Combet has no worriesbecause there will be support. The labor government will destroy your life's work, your community and will put a figure of value on that.
Where was Combet in 1994 when the people of the valley were told similar things? He was in the ACTU being paid by the dues of people whose lives were being trashed by his and his mate's incpmpetence and guile then as they are now.
To my mind Greg Combet is one of those people in the organisations as described in the opening of this article. Moving on from pink batt charades to the new circus tent.
Perhaps the most coherent, and intelligible. amongst all of them (labor, liberal, independent and green) is the Assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten.
The absolute demonstration of total ignorance of the ordinary person, about the whole exercise, is the woman who told Abbott, in a town hall meeting,
that she was happy to "pay an extra $10 per week to compbat climate change".
It does not bear debating for it is illogical and naive. What does this woman think $10 bucks from every Australian will do?
The collective $10s from all of us will not go anywhere near taking 2,000 megs off the grid let alone also managing the reducing of pollution.
If there is no end outcome out of all this day to day pantomine then what is the purpose and who told the Prime Minister
it was a good idea? If she thought it up herself then she has again proven her poor judgement.
By far Ms Gillard and Bob Katter are the most charismatic, and entertaning performers, on the 7PM Report on television.
Unlike Bob Katter, Julia had no idea how to blend her arguments into that forum. Instead she bats her eyes, flashed the coquetish smile and talks seductively about generalities.
For some inexplicable reason a few days later she resorts, in a Press Club speech, to
memories, blubbering about being shy, whilst simultaneously trying to dispel the aura of being an accused, demonstrable liar.
She told a woman in a shopping centre that she did not set out to mislead. Howvere when faced with a hung parliament
she had a choice, ethics and integrity, or the other. Is this in itself not crap? So what is she about and who told her to do it??
(Kevin Beck, "labor simply has no inate sense of strategy", Melbourne, 2011.
|
The wholesome image, and nauseating practiced cant, of a kid lauding
the merits of a carbon tax, and the Prime Minister, at the end of the
ABC Q&A programme
speaks volumes of the campaign and the role of the public broadcaster.
(Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia)
|
NO CARE NO RESPONSIBILITY
Australia's new, and old,
Green members
of the Australian parliament, can trot out whatever drivel, scare mongering and fantastical statements they like for they are
not leaders and nor are they policy implementers. They are demonstrating that what they really are,
is irresponsible whilst bordering on irrational unproven theories and sometimes plain
stupdity. Stupidity - they make statements without any deep knowledge of the topic, the problems, the boundaries, the challenges,
the economics, the technological capability, the lack of resources and skills, the barriers and the simple
"it cannot be done" realities of life in Australia.
Sarah Hanson-Young
It's Just Her Imagination
"GREENS senator Sarah Hanson-Young believes the South Australian
steel town of Whyalla can transform itself into a hub of wind energy if Julia Gillard's
carbon tax forced manufacturer OneSteel to close its operations.
The South Australian senator yesterday said OneSteel's steelworks employed "several hundred people . . .
and I imagine the flow-on effect for that small town would be significant". OneSteel is directly responsible for the jobs of up to
4000 people in the city of 22,000 people. ... "I think the people of Whyalla are able to withstand whatever comes out of this carbon price," Senator Hanson-Young said yesterday.
Whyalla's steel mills will die anyway: MP The Australian, 4 days ago
"It's not going to have a rash type of impact on people, it's going to be able
to set some signals there to try and drive some proper investment." (Source: Steel town could thrive without steelworks, says Sarah Hanson-Young
Michael Owen, SA political reporter From: The Australian July 05, 2011 12:00AM)
"The package also signals the end of 2,000 MW from some of Australia's dirtiest coal-fired power stations,
such as Playford B. There's now the opportunity to close Playford B and replace it with a solar-thermal plant." (Source, Sarah as above)
JULIA'S 2000 MW Pipe
Dream
The Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said that the government will issue tenders to close up to 2,000 MW of generation. Hazelwood, in the Latrobe Valley, is the one most mentioned
along with Playford above.
Tenders to do what? Pay out the owners? Replace the stations with something else? How much does it cost to buy out the owners,
decomission a power station, particular one with eight turbines, and associated ash ponds, like Hazelwood?
Well the owners will want a swag of money. Then there is hundreds upon hundreds of millions to decomission and what about the asbestos
in Hazelwood? How long will that take? Can you take out Hazelwood before you have the replacement generation?
Obviously not. So it keeps running for how many more years?
Then how much is it to build the equivalent of 200MW generation stations using gas, solar or some other energy source? What configuration are they in? If gas are they single or dual cycle, the price is greatky different.
The federal government cannot allow single cycle. Yet they cannot stop it unless they are paying for it. There is not enough in the carbon tax colection and the budget to do this pipe dream.
At least $7 billion dollars, over how many years? The dream of closing the 2000MW, decomissioning and replacing simply
will not happen.
(Kevin Beck, "A 2000MW wet dream" 2011)
Bob Brown
Mumbo Jumbo
"The Australian Greens propose an extended electricity grid across Australia to bring renewable energy on line.
"This can convert South Australia, an importer in the age of fossil fuels, to a renewable energy exporter,"
Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
Speaking in Adelaide today, Senator Brown said South Australia had huge potential for geothermal, solar and wind power.
"However, there should be a full inventory of this potential to ensure investment in the grid is configured to meet
future renewable energy production.
"South Australia has it all - wind, geothermal and solar - and it should be exporting clean
energy to the rest of Australia and the world," said Senator Brown." (Source: Greens: SA will become renewable energy export hub,
Media Release | Spokesperson Bob Brown, Monday 16th August 2010, 1:44pm)
The Greens
policy statement summary.
|
July 11, 2011, DAY TWO
CARBON TAX SELL
IN AUSTRALIA
JULIA SAYS NO COAL POWER STATIONS WILL BE BUILT IN AUSTRALIA FROM NOW
Misrepresenting carbon dioxide as a vilian
Unfortunately for Ms Gillard this is not true. On the ABC Q&A programme Ms Gillard respnded to a question regarding the proposed 600 MW coal station at Morwell in the latrobe Valley, to be built by HRL
Technology. She stated that her carbon pricew ould stop coal stations being built. Not so. The economics of the proposde power station, which is using a new
gasified technology to remove a lot of the emmission capacity from the brown coal, is lilely based on including a carbon price of $A30 per tonne whihc is above the labor government's range.
The approval to build the station comes predominantly from the state government. The federal environmental Minister ahs limited capacity to intervene. There are no threatened little
vertebrates, parrots and worms here. The Victorian EPA has granted a permit for just 300 MW but this is liklely to alter under the new Ballieu coalition state government.
"EPA Victoria has announced part approval for HRL Dual Gas (HRL) Latrobe Valley demonstration power plant.
Under strict conditions, the project has been granted an EPA Works Approval (WA),
which permits the company to construct a 300MW plant to generate electricity through new gas technology." (Source: WME, Environmental News,
Vic EPA greenlights 300MW dual gas power plant, Monday 23 May 2011).
The bald statement by the Prime Minister belies the reality of energy in Australia and the role of coal as base load.
Gas, economuically, even under the carbon tax is not superior as an investment.
Additionally when we add other energy producing technologies in such as wind we make the coal based stations more inefficient ...
"the coal plants are shutting down and restarting at irregular and unpredictable
intervals they operate inefficiently and sustain interference with emission control equipment resulting in
increased sulfer dioxide,
(SO2) nitrous oxide (NO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Data for the report came from evaluation of
four years of emissions records from individual power plants owned by Xcel Energy Inc in Colorado."
(Source: Consumer Energy Report,
Controversial Report: Wind Energy Causes Pollution, Posted by Lloyd McGraw on Wednesday, April 21, 2010,
"the main products of the combustion of natural gas are carbon dioxide and water vapor, the same compounds we exhale when we breathe." (Source:
Natural gas and the environment, naturalgas.org)
So if both coal and gas produce carbon dioxide what are the villians?... They may be nitrogen oxides (NOx), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). So why does the Prime Minister and all the other Ministers not talk of these?
Senator Bob Brown extolls the use of gerothermal sources, claiming that South Australia has enough to power all of Australia.
What is the relevance of this to the above? Read on.
WHY DON"T WE ALSO HAVE A NITROGEN AND SULPHUR DIOXIDED TAX?
"Industries that carry out activities such as wood pulping,
paper manufacturing, petroleum and metal refining and metal smelting,
especially of ores containing sulfides, such as lead, silver and zinc,
all emit sulfur dioxide into the air. Fossil fuel combustion, such as in coal-burning power plants,
also emits sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide can occur naturally in the environment
through geothermal activity, which is energy from the heat of the earth, such as hot springs and volcanoes.
Sulfur dioxide is also produced when vegetation on land, in wetlands and in oceans decays or breaks down....Sulfur dioxide may be present in exhaust fumes emitted into the atmosphere by cars, buses and trucks.
...
...we use it in a wide variety of ways — from preserving yummy fresh fruit to cleaning our toilets with bleach!...
Common products containing sulfur dioxide include foods, such as dried fruit, preserved fruit, food preservatives,
as well as wine, bleach, disinfectant and fumigants which are used to control pests....Textile bleaching, wineries, and fumigation, where fruit growers and farmers spray their crops to keep insects away, are also sources of sulfur dioxide.
Sulfur dioxide can have serious effects on our environment. It is absorbed by soils and plants, affecting our land and water ecosystems, and it can even be captured within and below clouds, which increases the chance of acid rain. Fortunately,
we have not had any acid rain in Australia." (Source: Australian government, Sulfur dioxide,
Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, 2009)
So how much does Australia produce?
Report Year Total Industry Emission (kg)[1]
2005/2006, 1,300,000,000
2006/2007, 1,300,000,000
2007/2008, 1,400,000,000
2008/2009, 1,300,000,000
2009/2010, 1,200,000,000
Australia produces less in 2010 than in 2005 ro any other year.
So what about nitrogen?
"Industries that are involved in processing food,
treating sewage, garbage tips and intensive livestock industries, such
as poultry farms, are all industrial sources that can emit total nitrogen. Emissions from these
industries can end up in surface water and groundwater. Organic nitrogen, which is a nitrogen compound found in
living material, is found in soil, and in plant and animal material such as
manure, sewage waste, compost and decomposing roots and leaves. Oxides of nitrogen are contained in exhaust fumes emitted into the atmosphere by cars, aeroplanes, trains and boats. These
emissions are dissolved by rain and then enter streams, lakes and other water bodies. Common foods that contain total nitrogen in various forms include spinach, beetroot, lettuce,
radishes and rhubarb. Meat, fish, and dairy products can contain low levels of nitrate and nitrite. Cured meat,
such as ham and salami, and sausages also contain nitrate and nitrite. Lawn and garden fertilisers contain nitrates,
while furniture, floor polish and household cleaners may contain nitrites....
Water catchment runoff (an area of land that contains and provides water to creeks and rivers) also contains
total nitrogen. This runoff can come from farming land, and be used for farm animals or growing crops;
and also from urban areas such as the lawn at your home where fertiliser has been used.
Total nitrogen can have damaging effects on the environment and particularly on aquatic life — the fish,
shellfish and other creatures in our rivers, lakes and oceans — because most nitrogen is leaked into waterways.
Total nitrogen can also lead to toxic blue-green algal blooms. Blue-green algae can make both humans,
animals, and birds and fish, very sick. Do you see how important it is to help keep our waterways clean?"
Total Industry Emission (kg)[1]
2005/2006, 35,000,000
2006/2007, 32,000,000
2007/2008, 34,000,000
2008/2009, 32,000,000
2009/2010, 33,000,000
(Source; Ausralian government as above)
APOCOLYPTIC
STATEMENTS
DOES NOT PUT AUSTRALIA'S PRIME MINISTER IN A RATIONAL LIGHT
During the ABC television Q&S programme on Monday evening 11 July 2011, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard
talked of the destruction of the Barrier Reef and other apocolyptic events in the cfontext of the proposed carbon tax. This created unease in my perception of how the Australian federal governments enior politicians are
over stating the efecst and benefits of their proposed carbon tax. It is not clear how Ms Gillard could actually think
that labor's puny efforts in the face of nature.....
Photo by Jinkinpark,
All Voices -http://www.allvoices.com/users/jinkinpark)
could change the future of the
planet,
yet this seems to be the objective of their spiel. To
distort fact and engage in some
holy crusade.
"A volcano dormant for decades erupted in south-central Chile on Saturday, belching an ash cloud more than 6 miles
high that blew over the Andes and carpeted a popular ski resort in neighboring Argentina....(Chile Volcano Erupts, Spews Towering Ash Column, Panet Ark, Date: 06-Jun-1, Chile)
... Strong winds have carried the ash clouds some 9,400 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand and planes in New Zealand, Australia,
Asia and Europe were grounded. The ash cloud could be seen from space.
Some climates ceptics claim that volcanors spew out more carbon than man does in 100 years. However this
may not be true.
One thing that is true, there are a lot of
conflicting opinions
including amongst scientists. Julia Gillard, Greg Combet, Wayne Swan and
Penny Wong are all cherry picking what suits. On the other hand Tony Abbott is not offering much in the way of a compelling counter argumenet grounded in facts. In this regard he presents a retarded low
brow argument in opposition. What is also true is that the greater number of Australians are too lazy, or too self absorbed with their daily lives,
to take the time to investigate for themselves.
They prefer to watch television, read the newspaper and/or listen to talk back radio to form their views and mutter their distorted perceptions to each other.
Few can run a lucid and informeed debate as to whether or not the carbon tax policy is good or bad.
They are just sheep all baaing in the various community pens across the nation.
The above named federal Ministers are also engaged in my view, in an immoral, and unethical, manipulation
by mixing tax reform into the carbon tax legislation. Cynically I see this as a deliberate
tactic to confuse, and also bait, the population.
Ms. Gillard,
et al, lack an ethical compass. As part of the argument carbon dioxide is described as a pollutant. Carbon is similarly defamed. The 500 ndustries as dsecribed as "polluters", the use of disparaging and
message laden disparaging labels is a long used political tactic to condition the audience. These polluters are, by Labor and the Green's own,
definition, "evil". CO2 is not a pollutant. It is a friendly trace gas necessary for all life. Human-produced CO2
is a miniscule fraction of a percentage of greenhouse gases. 96.5% of all greenhouse gases emit from the oceans, naturally.
Without CO2, vegetation dies, herbivores die, you die. CO2 levels used to be much higher many times in the past. Higher temperatures from the sun result in CO2 levels
rising long afterwards. Rising CO2 is an effect of global warming, not a cause. Global warming and cooling is a natural phenomenon.
The higher the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the greener our planet becomes. Forests and plant life growth has increased by approx 40% over the last 50 years, thanks to CO2.
Increasing CO2 yields larger food crops. This is beneficial to a growing population.
WHAT IF THERE WAS ANOTHER THREAT MORE REAL?
What if we were actually on the
verge of an ice age?
The science is strong on this proposition so why has Julia Gillard, et al,
chosen the other version, global warming? Has Ms Gillard or her coleagues heard of the Milankovitch cycles?
"Ice ages are made up of both icy periods (known as glacials),
and intervening warm periods (interglacials). We're currently in an interglacial period.
Historically, interglacial periods last approximately 10,000 years, which is about how long this one has lasted." (How the Ice Age Worked
by Molly Edmonds, Geography, How Stuff Works)
"Another theory centers on atmospheric gases. Studies of trapped air from glacial ages have indicated that
carbon dioxide and methane gases were at lower levels [source: Skinner]. When these greenhouse gases are abundant,
they trap energy and keep it close to Earth, thus keeping the planet warm. When these gases aren't present, that radiant energy escapes.
Scientists don't know exactly why the
levels of these gases fell, but it does appear to factor in to the magnitude of temperature changes [source: Skinner]." (Source: click
here, it's Molly, as above)
Some think that the country might be better off if Julia, and the others, were not in government.
Yet, to my mind,
the alternative of the coalition offers no value. Tony Abbott does not impress as a statesman. To withdraw in glum silence, and glowering silence, or to spit
vitriole, is not the answer. We must engage in analysis, in debate, in the economics and the science.
Politicians, like so many
corporate managers, have to fiddle with everything. They have to propose change, and reform, to justify their existence. They read something or attend a seminar and become true believers.
They sit in their offices twiddling their thumbs waiting for a crusade, a meeting, as study and above all, an opportunity for austerity and sack
cloth.
They cannot agree, and settle, on the best way to do something leaving things to go along trusting the employees, the citizens and the actual doers.
They must exhort, their nust be endless growth, they like experiments, and things that keep them busy and in work. Regardless of who may be
in any of the governments, across Australia, they actually offer little to our life benefit compared to those outside of their respective domains.
Governments will say they create jobs, well they don't unless they expand the public sector.
According to the accepted politics, and maangement theories, We must have endless surpluses, never borrow, except to spend on consumption to keep the
country economy ticking over (consumer debt is good, government debt is bad), we must all engage in austerity now in order to be better off in the future,
a point we never seem to reach. We
labour
under the dead weight of parasitic behaviour and self interest.
"The main reason we end up with twits in public office is due to apathy. The overwhelming number
of Australians do not belong to a political party and therefore we have no say regarding the people that are
selected by these parties to stand for election. To make matters worse, most Australians know very little about the person
they eventually vote for and would struggle to write a half page outline of this person’s background or experience.
So we have a fool’s democracy, where are small group of major party power brokers give us the illusion of a democracy,
while we sit back and are too lazy to do anything about it.
To add insult to injury we have too may politicians. Unlike other professions that are required to become more efficient
due to the increased use of technology, we have not seen any decrease in the numbers of politicians. Since 1977 an extra 26 MP’s and 12
Senators have been added to our tax bill, and there have also been increases in the number of state and local council elected representatives as well. The justification for these increases is linked to an increasing population so it appears our elected officials are incapable of being more efficient like the rest of us.
We would all be better served in Australia by having fewer but more capable elected officials whose pay would be linked to performance."
(Source:Shareswatch Australia Blog, Politicians: we get what we deserve. November 23rd, 2008 · Greg Atkinson)
"We are watching a
slow tragedy
unfold" (Value Adding in Australia, The Beginning of the End: A Note from Viv Forbes,
Posted by jennifer, May 23rd, 2011)
|
IMMATURITY IN AUSTRALIAN POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
lacking sophistication and
finesse
2011 July: Australia is a developed, well educated nation. The federation of our government is strong and
stable. Despite the status of Australia in the world our politicians in government and opposition largely resort to crude insults and opeurile tactics in order to perotect or expand their polutical interests and retention of power.
Is this beacuse their advisers are child like in their capacities or are the people who get into party and politics simply ignorant?
The Australian labor party at the federal level are distributing an
advertisement
called "A Day in the Life of Tony Abbott. If Mr Wright at the labor party thinks that this is smart sophisticated politics then it is no wonder that the greater number of
Austarlians view the political parties in Australia with disdain. The Prime Minister would no doubt say that this is a party advertisement
and not one put out or authorised by her or the federal government that she leads. However Ms Gillard is the
primary face of the labor party and she presents a very unsophisticated persona as Prime Minister and
the ultimate leader of the Australian labor party. The labor advertisement is "bogan".
As we move into the carbon tax, and climate change, sell we have senior labor government Ministers, and opposition political party spokesperosn and Green party spokespeople pontificating about things that will happen in 2020 and 2050.
Do they think that it is
credible
to use Treasury modelling as the basis of the justification? They are implying their statements as facts.
There is the off chance that Trasury might get one
piece of crystal balling right in the lifetime of the economists who reside in the federal agency. Their record is
appalling.
There is every likelihood that Ms Gillard, Mr Swan and Mr Combet
will actually
stuff it all up,
and mire the government, in yet another
debacle simply because they lack the experience, credibility and sophisticated skills,
necessary to handle, and articulate, a very complex policy issue. They will in their desperation
stretch
the facts.
THEIR FIRST STUFF UP ON DAY ONE - THE WEB SITE BEHIND JULIA'S
ORCHESTRATED TELEVISION APPEARANCE, ON SUNDAY 10th July, 2011, DOES NOT EXIST AS OF MONDAY 11am, July 2011
A point made in an opinion piece from a blogger: "I noticed while they were crapping on that they had a website, cleanenergy.gov.au as it was listed under the telecast.
Don’t bother going there though because at the time of me posting this it didn’t exist.
If they can’t even make sure their website goes live on time what hope have we that they got they got their modelling right.
The whole point of that telecast was to get the electorate to believe that they will be better off under
the carbon tax." (Source: Can We Believe Julia Gillards Carbon Tax Scheme?, by BS ARTIST on JULY 9, 2011: http://www.loadofbullshit.com)
Reading BS' blog I tried to log onto the cleaneregy site and it is not there.
- Oops! Google Chrome could not find www.cleanenergy.gov.au - Did you mean: www.cleanenergy.qld.gov.au
(Kevin Beck, Melbourne Australia, Monday 11 July, 2011)
SOME INDEPENDENT VIEWPOINTS
"Carbon tax: the policy and the politics
by Bernard Keane
This is a better package than the CPRS it is so closely modelled on, but not by a lot.
The key problem with the CPRS was that compensation for emissions intensive industries was
so great and went for so long that it neutered the price signal, meaning the entire scheme was a giant money
circulator that wouldn’t have started decarbonising the economy until well into the 2020s. .... The other key advantage over the
CPRS is the use of tax cuts aimed at addressing EMTRs for low-income earners. This isn’t merely sensible policy, it’s actually
consistent with the government’s own reform efforts so far under Julia
Gillard, aimed at increasing workforce participation.... The bad news is some of the worst polluters will
get even more than they got under the CPRS.... The Clean Energy Finance Corporation may also turn out to be a
problem for future governments if and when investments in renewables and low-emissions technology go bad. On the other hand,
like the new ARENA, having industry and financial expertise guiding government spending on renewables rather than bureaucrats
and ministers might achieve more than years of sub-par renewables industry policy has.
And buying abatement from the electricity sector is the kind of policy garbage we’re used to from the
opposition?—?clear government winner-picking." (Source: Carbon tax: the policy and the politics
by Bernard Keane, Sunday, 10 July 2011, Crikey.com)
"For an issue that has wreaked such political devastation, that has brought down a prime minister and two
opposition leaders and that has dominated the Australian debate for years, the carbon price policy released today is pretty mild.
In fact it is all so generous that the compensation costs more than the tax raises – to the tune of $4 billion over the scheme's first
four years, even with more than $2 billion in cutbacks in fuel excise rebates for the mining and aviation industries.
(Miraculously the only year the scheme ends up in the black is 2012/13, the year the budget is scheduled to return to surplus. More
amazingly still, the permanent increases to pension and benefits are delivered in 2013/14, which just happens to be an election year.)
.... And there are some losers. Explaining all the giving and
taking that means most families will be ok is going to be very hard. Explaining the long term benefits even more difficult."
A modest policy but the real test is in the selling
July 10, 2011 - 6:42PM, OPINION, Lenore Taylor, Sydney Morning Herald national affairs correspondent)
Of particular concern should be the drivel that emanates from the Greens. base load solar power for one. Also Bob Brown stated today Monday 11, July, 2011 that South Australia geothermal could
supply all of Australia's power needs many times over. The Greens want Hazelwood power station, in Victoria closed (one quarter of the state's generation) with little compensation to the owners.
They Greens have no awaeness of sovereign risk and no understanding of how base load power supply generation and transmission works or how long it takes to plan and build a power station or power stations to take up
the Hazelwood load. There is s surplus of supply in the whole Austarlian generation market but is the transmission grid network linked, and does it have sufficient carrying capacity, and
redundancy between states including Tasmania, to create a real national electricity market? Who will invest in power stations when a minority political party, holding the balance of power that it exercises such
influence and control over a nationally elected government?
The Greens Party
spokespeople
occupy a very special place in the every day life of the planet, some may think they are detached from reality.
("Day One of the Carbon Tax
Sell"
Kevin Beck, The Mosaic Portal, Melbourne, Australia, 2011)
|
Research papers on Social Responsibility
Globalisation Impacts
Various Countries
|
July: SLOW TORTURE THEN MURDER
In the early nineties the government, members of parliaments,
the managers of the electricity and mining industries, the members of local government and many others lied to the people of the
Latrobe Valley Victoria. The occasion was the privatisation sale of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV).
The lies covered evrything imaginable. The bright future the valley would have, the new horizon of productivity, growthy and jobs.
Large enticing go away packages were thrown at the employees. In a frenzy investors paid too much for the power stations and the mines.
The people were betrayed by the Australian labor party and the Coalition government of the liberal national party.
It was a slow burn torture ultimatley leading to a drawn out death roll.
Now Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia, and leader of the labor party, will increase the agony.
Labor will implement a carbon tax that will destroy the Latrobe Valley once and for all.
Labor will wash away their guilt (though it is likely that they have none) in a warm
bath of money, trust me and lies.
Money is being offered again to the owners of the assets (the SECV was a publicly owned utility)
but this time they are private companies who own the Hazelwood and Yallourn Power stations.
The money will be provided to shut down the stations. Power stations that produce a very big slice of the Victorian state power supply.
Theorists will say that the generation will be taken up by the national grid and new entrants to the market, gas fired power stations.
The Greens as stupid as ever will dance on the grave of the valley,
pontificating their tripe about the capacity of renewables. Australia's most dangerous politician, Senator Bob Brown,
predicts the end of coal. Salivating, and grinning, Senator Brown and his Green coven foretell of a wondrous
place
A great financial crisis will be again be wrought
upon the Latrobe Valley
The State Electricity Commission of Victoria was the world's largest vertically integrated
power station, mining, transmission and distribution utility.
A feat of engineering and a world class enterprise it served the state well.
It was the creation of a great Australian, Sir John Monash adn the people who inhabited its walls for decades.
The State Electricity Commission of Victoria was ultimately destroyed, like all of our icons, by people who, in their lives create
nothing and leave nothing. We have seen them before, we see them now and we will see them again in our future. ("The Destroyers of Austarlian Icons, Kevin R Beck 2011")
|
July: PLAIN PACKAGING OF TOBACCO WILL FAIL
The Health Minister Ms Nicola Roxon will be
defeated
in the court.
|
I DON'T BELIEVE LABOR ON PETROL
The Prime Minister Julia Gillard came on telly on Sunday saying that consumers and small business
would not have to worry about a carbon tax on petrol because it was not going to be included - never ever. The first reaction was to listen to every word she said.
"On consumers and small business" so who will pay a carbon tax on their petrol? Are all petrol refineries exempted from the carbon tax?
Or is it that consumers and small business must claim or will receive a payment at some future date in time? How will an individual consumer or small business owner be identified at the
petrol bowser as against the big trucking company?
Is the Prime Minister,
Julia Gillard
believable?
PRIME MINISTER A LIGHT WEIGHT
The Prime Minister says she wants debates based on facts.
However she always slippery. To demonstrate what she means by facts she
selectively quotes
data from a CSIRO report on sea level and
temperature
rises. Data that suits her case and which has been taken out of context
from among many choices in the report. She is aided, and abetted, in this
effort
by her advisers who have now become parasites on the public purse and
corroders of our democracy and government.
A group of people actively engaged in pursuing a personal political agenda against the Australian national interest. Such political party apparatchiks and political staff
infest every parliament in Australia. The Prime Minister I think actually believes in the cause she is pursuing. Unfortunately she ahs chosen a topic so conflicted and complex that it is beyond her graps and many
others including myself. No matter how much I read,
study
and consume, I am not convinced and am no more certain of any of the scientific arguments on climate, carbon,
energy or renewables.
To state that the science is in on climate change to my mind demonstraes that Ms Gillard has not done a lot of personal research. For that matter
Ms Gillard does not seem to have a grasp of deep facts on any topic
about which she is questioned. What demonstrative detail does she have on education, health, energy, environment, defence,
economy and finance and foreign affairs and trade? What is her special interest? In what field does Julia Gillard excel? She definitely is short of details, and knowledge, about the science of
climate change
and the role of
carbon
in our planet. SWimilarly disposed towards drivel, and lack of deep facts, and knowledge, are Minister
Combet, Minister Garrett and Minister Wong. All have a go at the environment.
Why would a government put tax on
carbon?
Frankly I consider the Prime Minister Ms Gillard
to be light weight when it comes to policy framing, ideas and debates and she has not demonstrated an ability to assimilate and distill the facts needed to fuly engage the community.
When asked detail questions about many of her policies she avoids providing facts herself.
OPPOSITION LEADER A LIGHT WEIGHT ALSO
Tony Abbott has made himself a small target by never engaging in anything beyond slogans and smart one liners - big new tax.
When he is asked to explain how he will pay for the direct action plan for his environmental policies he says that he will
achieve budget savings. Mr. Abbott has engaged in this hoary old
redirection for years. Mr Abbott continues the myth that the coalition are better economic managers than labor. Mr Abbott continues to resort to the
nebulous statement and is very short on detail
position. I think that he does not have too much in his arsenal of capabilities. He also is a hypocrite in the same vein as the Prime Minister choosing what suits his distorted perspectives and
vapour ware policies. He is continuing to try and force the labor government to an election by taunting them. There is an old saying about fools who repeat the same thing expectig a different result.
Even if there was a national election Mr Abbott is oblivious to the proposition that the electorate will not be likely to elect the coalition in its won right making Tony Abbott Prime Minister.
He would be a very average if even that Prime Minister in my personal view.
Rather than conduct public policy debates in a climate of open transparency and mature critique we are
forced to endure the modern career politician's
process of spin. lies and degrading insults . One can well say
isn't it a pity
isn't it a shame. Imagine the difference if the leaders, and members, in our federal parliament
were talented and inspirational, how far we might go as a nation. So if we are going to be ignored and treated this way then we can join the debate at
their level.
So the Grens have arrived and some of them are quite
comely.
Bob Brown could not hide his jubilation. He made it clear that
this parliament
is their domain to be used as they see
fit to achieve their goals and objectives.
Where did
all the opportunities go?
As
Julia
concentrates on her smile and
concocted
stories, feckless policies and ideas, we can ask
why
the Prime Minister and other members of our parliaments cannot address the
fundamental problems of our society? Why they cannot develop a health system,
rid Australia of racsim and deal with indigenous plight that continues year after year after year, agree
a system of industrial relations, have an education revolution and solve homelessness, violence and
drug addiction? Why can't they solve real problems before the supernatural? maybe the
answer is....
Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia, "Australian Political Leaders in Australia and Their Vapour Ware Policies, 2011".
|
THE ALTERNATIVE TO A CARBON TAX
June 2011: There is an argument that climate change is real and that something should be done to eradicate poluution where feasible.
Yet labor, and the coalition, seem oblivious to the manner in which sophisticated intellectuals go about determining
the methods and objectives. Instead
they engage in peurile tit for tat destructive dialogue and antics. Tony Abbott has recently demonstrated that he is no more suited to the job of Prime Minister than Julia Gillard.
Unfortunatley democracy can have its drawbacks as the Australian nation is saddled with mediocrity and the less capable.
The issue is not actually about climate change it is about economics and the methods by which our governments
approach the issues and problems. A carbon tax, an emissions trading scheme, are the products of the
herd mentality. Labor's own lack of vision, hubris, and ego, locks itself into a pathway where eveything
is make or break their way rather than carefully thought out, and openly, debated policy and action.
Governments in Australia most notably federal labor exclude a large segment of the nation from participation.
Greg Combet, still operating in trade union spin mode, is going to spend $12,000,000 to do exactly what I am deriding. The plan is to con the nation using
consumption media techniques.
The Gillard cabinet seems to be bereft of innovative thinkers ro they are captive to the faction boss.
The Gillar labor government lacks deep talent overall.
Ab alternative to a carbon tax would be to establish a management system where we fine tune outputs, promote R%D technologies and actions and
for thsoe who won't play nice, heavily fine the polluters. Setting targets for each industry sector, and individual business within that sector,
with timelines, abatement and R&D breaks and programmes.
The industry, and the individuals within, it are bound under corporate law (as the corporation) and through cascading legislation down to the
individual where fines and sanctions on directors, boards and managers are metered out to comply. The structure requires that they demonstrate
effort. The amount of effort they make, and the progress, can offset sanctions and fines on the company and the individuals within.
Within this structure we can incorporate policiies for the accounting of international competition and manage the system to compensate accordingly.
But no. In the world of Australian politics we are governed by know all types who are besotted with their own views, ideas and
capabilities to the exclusion of all else.
The incumbents within the federal, states and territories, govern on gut instinct sidelining, and denuding,
the public service, and others, from having any real influence, input and contribution. Kevin R Beck, 2011, the Alternative to a Carbon Tax
|
BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID
The Greens Cometh
June 2011: Here they
come.
In a few weeks the constituency of the Australian Parliament will change.
The Australian Senate will fall into the hands of the Greens Party who will hold the balance of power. The Senate amends, passes or rejects legislation.
The federal labor government will be at the behest of the Independents in the House of Representatives
and the Greens in the Senate. They will arrive with a
fitting tribute
and
entry
into
Canberra
and the
Parliament.
SO WHAT CAN WE
EXPECT?
The Greens are the
militia
of Australian politics.
The same sex proponents, the
culture club of politics.
The arbiters of what one should and should not be allowed to do. They are here to unleash the passion that has been
pent up for decades. They are the crusaders for the under trodden and the disenfranchised. They are the
heavyweight champions
dressed up in the clothes of the concerned, and thinking, Australian politician. They appear to be the enemy of business and corporations.
In Sydney the Greens are opposed to any development at Sydney airport. According to them the residents of the areas, around Sydney airport should have consideration over the development of the country's major port of entry.
"“No amount of technical talk about the new landing scheme can hide the fact that the outcome will be more aircraft landing at Sydney Airport and that means more noise.
“Similar schemes have resulted in an additional 12 planes an hour landing at some overseas airports.
The Greens candidate for the seat of Grayndler Sam Byrne said “This scheme delivers more aircraft movements every
hour, making it clear why Mr Albanese has always refused to
commit to the cap in movements called for by the local community....If the Minister fails to rule out of the the Performance-based
Navigation scheme he will have once again demonstrated that his government puts the interests of private operators before those of the community."
(Source: Albanese Fails On Sydney Airport Navigation Upgrade Plan
By Sam Byrne, on May 26th, 2010, http://www.greens4grayndler.org/?p=15)
Sydney International airport has a curfew. No planes come in after 11pm, none leave before 6am. Welcome to
third world Australia with no complementary fast rail system between the major capital cities. A transport policy that is archaic and nepotistic in its political concept.
When the ash from a volcano in South America crosses into our air space our jet fleets are grounded and thousands are stranded. What chance have we as nation got with this sort of
state and federal transport planning coupled with the political interests in our parliaments? (Kevin R Beck, Melbourne, June 2011)
Ms Lee Rhiannon joins the Australian Senate at the next sitting of parliament in July 2011.
"On behalf of the Greens thanks and congratulations to Lauren and all the organisers of the Sydney Vegan Expo. This is a huge undertaking.
Many of us here are on a journey – exploring how to remove animal products from our diet. Some of us are already vegans
and vegetarians, but I believe we are all on this journey – there is always more to learn and more to do.
Evidence from the Food and Agriculture Organisation,
the CSIRO, Sydney University and many other researchers reveals that reducing and eliminating animal
products in our diet is a good news story not only for one’s own health but also for the health of our planet." (Lee Rhiannon, Greens Party, exract of a speech)
"There are many reasons why right-wing parties dominate in western democracies - control of the media,
mistakes and divisions by parties of the left. But the reason I would put out in front is that for the public it is the right wing
of politics that is addressing their concerns about terrorism.
We need to see the right's misuse of the threat of terrorism to frighten and disempower people as an opportunity to build our progressive
movements. We need to promote our values of justice, environmental protection, equity. But I do think in this current climate we do need to
consistently address people's fear and insecurity.
We need to say we are committed to people being secure in their homes and their communities. There is nothing wrong with using the language of
the right if we have a progressive analysis. If we do not address people's fears about terrorism we reduce the reach of our other messages.
People will find it virtually impossible to relate to our analysis of why there is an upsurge in terrorism, and will be opposed rather than
united with the progressive movement.
Promoting our voice on terrorism will allow us to differentiate ourselves from those committed to misusing terrorist attacks for political gain.
It is one thing to be well organised, not be sectarian, and develop creative ways of promoting our message but what are the crucial issues for our society and therefore for the progressive movement.
Two critical struggles of the 21st century that are very much entwined is addressing climate change and economic inequality. I say they are
connected because when people live below
the international poverty level that they eke out a living on less than $1 a day as 1.2 billion people do environmental protection has no
meaning; the
environment is one more thing that is trashed in the name of survival. ...
A revitalisation needs to address these shortcomings and that means recognising that
the Coalition is the party of wealth, privilege and big business.
Yes the problems with Labor at times come close to those we encounter with the Coalition but I still argue that there are differences. (Lee Rhiannon,
Revitalising progressive politics, filed under: Political issues, Speech, Sunday 17 May 2009)
GREENS senator-elect Lee Rhiannon has again been accused of pushing an anti-Israel agenda after
accepting an invitation to speak at a "Palestine solidarity" conference, while
the Senate yesterday condemned the Greens' support of a boycott against the Jewish state." (Source: Fury at Lee Rhiannon talk to Palestine forum
James Madden and Milanda Rout From: The Australian May 12, 2011)
Nicolas Perpitch - The Australian - 7 June 2011, SOUTH African anti-apartheid activist and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu
has written to a Greens-controlled Sydney council congratulating them for their temporary boycott of Israel, according to
incoming Greens senator Lee Rhiannon.
The inner Sydney Marrickville Council’s boycotts, divestment and sanctions campaign was axed in April after being condemned
by both major parties and Greens leader Bob Brown.
But Ms Rhiannon, who indicated she will continue to advocate for the BDS when she enters the Senate on July 1, said last night
it was a peaceful and non-violent campaign and compared it to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
She told the ABC’s Q&A program that Marrickville’s Greens Mayor Fiona Byrne would today be presented with a letter written by Dr Tutu.
QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh has urged Julia Gillard to avoid "radical and extreme politics", warning that Greens'
proposals to ban new coalmines - The Australian 2011-05-25
That harsh light confirms that the Australian Greens is not the warm, ...
Instead, the Greens have the most radical set of policies and goals of any party .... The graphic listed 20 broad proposals claimed to be advocated by the Greens. ...
download document to read more
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THUS ENDETH THE LESSON
Ego and hubris, the modern career politician in Australia
should have realised by now that
their sophisticated model may have served them well to get where they wanted to be over the past decade or two
but now the media, and the electorate, have grown tired of self indulgence, self interest, greed and corruption with
the attendant lack of truth and substance. These people are not team players. They are
loners
hell bent on their own interests and
objectives. So
click here
you political party hacks and
thiefs of democracy.
|
AM I HEARING CORRECTLY?
Minister Joe Ludwig has been discussing with Indonesian authorities how the abbatoirs in Indonesia can kill animals while they are
conscious? Is this true? If so one can only assume that Mr Ludwig and the labor government are truly detached from reality. Do they think the band of agitators are going to accept this ridiculous alternative?
Why would we agre to such a proposition? Why do we care about pandering to the ignorant practices of those who clai that it is
a religious compliance? The live animal export market, out of Australia, is on its
last gasping legs.
Did the growers think that it would go on forever?
The sadists, charlatans, crooks, the incompetents and the Senator Heffernan funny farm types are in the minority. Various Australian governments have presided over
a cruel system without being diligent as to exactly what was occurring and the ramifications. Minister Joe Ludwig is demonstrable of the
seat warming politician, who achieves high office on measures, and criteria, unique to the rarified world of politics and governments. He has been
placed in charge of a substantial
entity without the experience, wherewithall and skills to determine what needs to be done and when. Was Minister Joe Ludwig ever comprehending and
vigilant or were the correspondence, the reports
and the real world kept from him? What standing orders has he given his department about his expectations?
Minister Ludwig has just come back from Indonesia and what did he achieve? Not much if anything it seems.
Why is he not focusing on how to transform this archane, farming and export business sector to some other form of business model
that does not pander to barbarian practices. Regardless of how it is done the Australian labor government needs to quickly embrace the fact
that it is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars on their part, to address collective incompetence and ignorance.
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WHAT CAN SAVE THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL LABOR PARTY GOVERNMENT?
These people are not team players.
June 2011: So what if the Kevin Rudd anniversary wake has been called off!
While the media continues its feckless speculation, and manufactured reporting, of the
leadership tension
between Julia Gillard and the former PM, Kevin Rudd
Prime Minister Gillard says that once the detail of the carbon tax
is out all will be different. She will
win us over.
She will
thrill us
with the
truth,
vision, the price, the brazen
audacity
of it all. A change is
gonna come.
The fortunes and
popularity of the Prime Minister.
and the government will rocket upwards. We will all
follow
the
pied piper of Australia enthralled in the science of the
rhythm divine.
Labor's solution to
climate change
- the carbon tax silver
bullet
She further opines that business will turn on Tony Abbott if he, and the coalition, try to
unwind
the tax
should labor lose government at some future date.
The reason is, she claims, they want certainty. Certainty of what? Isn't a promise to stop the tax certainty for business as much as labor's own offer of certainty?
The central tenet of the federal labor party's policy framework is about
unfettered rule
Australian electorates are only allowed to vote on issues once every three years or at the invitation of the Prime Minister or (in the case of
constitutional crisis) the Governor General. That's it. We have to suck it and see, no matter the cost or impact.
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June 2011: DO WE ADD LACK OF TACTICAL SENSE TO THE LONG LIST OF INADEQUACIES OF SOME FEDERAL
LABOR MINISTERS AND THEIR POLITICAL STAFF?
Tony Abbott wants a plebiscite on the carbon tax but even if there was one, at a cst of $AUD 60 million, would Julia and Wayne et al, still listen? What is it the common denominator in all of the apparent imcompetencies of the federal labor government?
Given the way our system works can presume that everything is sheeted home to the relevant parliamentary member.
But where do the political staff and their capabilities enter the equation and to waht extent are
the senior Ministers relying upon
young, foolish,
naive, inexperienced advisers and the
lesser talented members of the party? Those who deal with governments know that each parliamentarian has their gatekeepers.
We also know, from experience, that the staff in parliamentary officse are not that versed in deciphering what is important and who is who.
This is not unlike the corporate and institutional worlds where people work in closeted environments with no real intelligence gathering.
Back on parliamentarians and the competencies of their staff. Is there someone in Minister Joe Ludwig's office who tells the
Minister that he is looking, and sounding, like a dill when he says
"animal welfare outcomes" twenty times in an interview and repeats it ad nauseum over the coming weeks?
The stay on message rule has been drummed into parliamentarians heads until they are automatoms rather than human interactors.
One question to pose to the elctorate
is....how stupid do people appear to politicains and their advisers?
What will happen if the labor party
changes leaders? Well the labor party will not.
Other questions I would like to ask are: (a) why is it that the labor party does
not value
its leaders as much as it did in the
past?
(b)
how did the labor party
end up like this?
and (c) why don't Australians value their democracy, ang governments,
not caring enough
to participate? and (d) does Australia, really want
Kevin Rudd back?
HOW BRIGHT IS THIS?
On June 16, 2011 the Australian Parliament passed a motion condemning the Malaysian solution for
processing refugees. This may have been a political exercise where Tony Abbott, and the Coalition, played upon the unpopularity of,
and worry among members of parliament, but it was still a majority vote by
the elected members of the parliament. Without waiting to think the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, stated that she would press ahead with the
proposal. Apparently the parliament can be
ignored.
This goes beyond politics to the heart of how our parliament operates and its integrity.
We already know that the major parties will place their own self interest before the good of the parliament and the nation
whilst clothing themselves in
hypocrisy.
It does not seem smart, on the part of the Prime Minister, to alienate the people she needs - the
independents by treating their vote with the same
contempt
the Prime Minister displays for other members of the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile Greg Combet, Australia's newest political
expert
on climate change, announces that the government will spend $12 million of taxpayers
money to tell the nation the Gillard labor government's version
of reality and truth.
He too displays
arrogance towards the members of the inter parliamentary committee that are purportedly working their way through an agreement.
Greg Combet is to me a smug member of the labor party who ignores the lessons of everyday fractious existence in which the labor
party finds itself. How bright is it to alienate them on this, cattle and every other thing that labor can stuff up? What may happen very soon is that
Ms Gillard receives a phone call from one, or more, of the idependents
telling her.
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June 2011: IT IS NOT THE LABOR PARTY LEADERSHIP (THE CHOICE OF PRIME MINISTER) THAT IS THE PROBLEM FOR LABOR
It is clothed in its own vanity
The state of the Australian federal government is a complex web of personal ambition, factional power, historical
processes, quality, and abilities, of political candidates and parliamentary members, advisers and strategists and above all human nature.
Everyday media coverage, speculation and manipulation and the gladiatorial nature of the operation of politics and government adds to the mix.
The labor party may well get behind the Prime Minister as reported in the media today 16 June 2011) but this is hardly the real problem. The real problem with the labor government is
capability and competency of the Ministers. Joe Ludwig exemplifies this. Lacking an awareness of cause and effect, responding to media and public pressure and the vision of animals being totrured by cruel uneducated
people, the Minister and his advisers went, for what seemed the best "politic" and safe action - ban the export of live animals to Indonesia. After all John Howard did it in 2006 in relation to Egypt.
Well the difference then was competency. John Howard had a number of farmers in his Ministry who knew the industry and the consequences of such actions and who knew how to mitigate the outcomes and carry out the necessary planning and implementation.
By comparison Howard's Ministers were far more savvy, and worldly, than the current labor Ministers who are
working with Julia Gilllard, with the exception of Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson. They both have deep experience and awareness.
Minister Ludwig has compounded his problems by demanding that the Meat and Livestock Association pay $5,000,000 in compensation to growers
threatening them when they balked. Logically perhaps, in the minds of the Minister and his staff, the MLA had accepted alevy from grwoers of cattle to look after the situation and the education and standards of the slaughter houses in Indonesia.
There was primary evidence broadcast by the ABC that they may have been negligent or perhaps totally failed in this task and thus it was only fair the MLA pay. The problem for Mr Ludwig is that
sheeting home guilt, blame and penalty is not the most pressing issues he faces. 150,000 animals may have to be destroyed. They are unsuitable by weight for the Australian market.
It appears that Mr Ludwig, his staff and those who ar handling this matter were oblivious to the 350 kilogramme measure on live exports, the facts that these animals cannot travel in southern cold climates, that there is not enough food in the
Queensland and Northern Territory grass lands to feed them, that setting them loose on this feed is an environmental danger. Whole communities are going broke quickly because of Joe Ludwig's decision.
This and many more issues including diplomacy appear beyond their awareness and grasp. Ludwig and the government dither wringing their hands at the situation
they find
themselves in.
The resort to threats is a standard tool used by those who do not understand government and the limitation of power.
It may also have developed out of the basic foundation of labor's experience - the trade union negotiation and operational ethos. many of the labor senior people in
the federal government structure are from trade union and adversarial legal backgrounds. Many business leaders, and owners, are reticent to criticise, or oppose
Ministers, and their advisers/apparatchiks, since they fear retaliation. Retaliation is a tool used by federal, and state labor, and many of the
people
they employ, and appoint, to political and public office. There is an underlying tone of thuggishness, and threat,
in their modus operandi in politics, government and public office. What they have not yet learned is the limitation of their power, influence and above all abilities. They swing
their political axes
without due care of the consequences. Consequences which they cannot
perceive but do not know that they cannot. The polls and peoples' views of Rud versus Gillard versus Abbott are irrelevant in this void.
When labor came to government under Kevin Rudd initially the presumption by those who were
put into positions of power, and advisory, roles was that the government can mandate what it wants. Couple this with a misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about the role and capacity of the Australian Public Service
versus State Public Service and the government found itself in a
world of pain.
It seems that every major policy, and programme, initiative created, and implemented, by the Rudd government came unstuck.
Many of the labor apparatchiks have come from state backgrounds where the public service is focused on implementation and delivery.
Such skills are not necessarily resident in all of the federal public service agencies, as evidenced by the waste, and mismanagement,
that has occurred in the
pink batts insulation
debacle, orcehstrated by Peter Garrett the
solar
subsidy programme and other green initiatives, the car clunkers and green automotive schem,
the schools PC technology programme, the Education Revolution (which was really a halls and other facilities
building programme) orchestrated by Julai Gillard, the mining tax, the carbon tax and now the livestock drama.
Evidence is mounting that the probability that federal labor can damage and destroy, whole industry and economic sectors is quite high and dramatic. They are doing this solely through their inept ghandling, poor judgement and general lack of experience and skill.
Their talents are of a low order and as such are likely to compound their woes as the party becomes more demonstrably unfit for government.
Bob Brown, leader of the Greens, opined that the stocks of Ms Gillard will rise once the details of the carbon tax is announced,
similarly Greg Combet poses this proposition. They are both detached from the
reality
of
the situaton. And when the final curtain comes down how will we feel about the
plight of Ms Gillard
and the political machine that
self destructed,
within its own
vein world.
(Kevin Beck, The vanity of the Australian Labor Party, June 2011)
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WHAT DOES "PROGRESSIVE" MEAN IN THE CONTEXT OF LABOR PARTY POLICY AND GOVERNMENT?
"Many powerful sectional interests are also
lining up to oppose Labor and its progressive policies - whether it is sections of the mining and
gambling industries or big tobacco.
What this means is that there has never been a time when the grass roots support and activism of Labor Party members like you has
been more important to the Party, its policy agenda and its success.
This is a time for the Labor Party and Labor people to stand up and be counted." (A Message from George Wright, Secretary of the Australian Labor Party, by email 09/06/11)
Progressive may be something that means everything whilst actually meaning nothing. How long does a policy sit around waiting and when does it become progressive? is it progressive after
regurgitation? Is Mr Wright trying to
endow Australian Labor with a forward looking perspective using the term in the hope of making the policy appear smart, innovative, up to date and above all
relevant to the target audience? To the battlers, the middle class, to families?
The Progressive Movement was once based in the
United States. It was then a reformist movement that had it hey day from the late 1800s to World War One. Various renditons of Progressive philosophy, and politics,
have been rebirthed down through the generations.
Some resulting in war through collective nationalism.
Progressives are usually university, or higher educated, types who like to appear
enlightened. Herbert Croly, wrote of Progessivism, in his work, "The Promise of American Life".
A book often deemed to be contenptuous of individualism. The term re-emerged in the sixties
to once again denote any person, organisation, or idea left of moderate. The central tenet of the Clinton presidency.
Progressivism is also associated with the period of the Prohibition Era where denial was deemed good for the soul.
Is labor espousing that (like the Greens) we deny ourselves much in favour of something nebullous in the future?
Is this what George Wright says that he admires in relation to the Gillard government? If one denies the religious fervour of the Labor
government's climate change babble and the
propoganda of the Department of Climate Change (the Australian Public Service risks becoming a propoganda arm of the Gillard labor government
and the Greens party), then that person is a barbarian?
Progressive politics, and government, reform under this buzz word is meaningless. In the case of Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Progressive
government and polciy, seems to be one step forward and three back, one left and one right, two sideways and a twirl.
Or perhaps Progressive is like this?
The progressive Tea Party....Democracy, civility and better future for Americans, http://www.progressiveteaparty.net/, United States of America
Imagine a parallel universe where the Great Crash of 2008 was followed by a Tea Party of a very different kind.
Enraged citizens gather in every city, week after week—to demand the government finally regulate the behavior of corporations and the superrich,
and force them to start paying taxes. The protesters shut down the shops and offices of the companies that have most aggressively ripped off the
country. The swelling movement is made up of everyone from teenagers to pensioners.
They surround branches of the banks that caused this crash and force them to close, with banners saying, You Caused This Crisis. Now YOU Pay." (How to Build a Progressive Tea Party
Johann Hari, February 3, 2011, the Nation)
Or this?
"There's rising populist anger against the bailed-out billionaires -- they're only
going to get more angry as the same folks who crashed the system are now making record bonuses.
January 29, 2010, TAKE ACTION, Change.org| There's been a good deal of heated debate about the failure of progressives to
respond to the economic crisis." Watch out Tea Party, Progressive Anger Is Alive and Kicking, Les Leopold, Alternet.
Progressivism where the "National Government must step in and discriminate ... on behalf of equality and the average man" (Croly op cit), as Australia becomes a
nanny state sucking on the tit of government. Dewey defined democracy: "that form of social organization, extending to all areas and ways of living, in which the powers of individuals shall ... [be] directed" -- by the State,
which can justly be described as the god of Progressive belief.
How is it that "Progressivism" that was once
associated with competition, and democracy,
culd become embroiled in regulation, class warfare and an attack on the corporation? Could it be that the nation of the global corporation, the United States of America, brought
it to this situation with the Global Financial Crisis being the end result? Even now Wall Street has learnt no lessons.
It is so typical of the modern world that a term is adopted, because the spin doctors think it will have some resonance whilst actually proving to be incoherent, or even
dangerous,clap trap. ("Progressive labor under Gillard", Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia 2011)
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AUSTRALIA'S HIGH FARCE IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
June 2011: The promises, anthems and themes, of Australian federal politics
Accident prone or incompetent?
The Kevin Rudd, and Julai Gillard, labor governments have managed to earn a reputation ofr being incompetent in every issue they face.
There is the trend to announce things before they are negotiated and affirmed e.g Refugees and East Timor processing, refugees and Malaysia,
carbon pollution tax, slaughter of animals in Indonesia. The Minister Joe Ludwig has taken teh art of dissembling and nonsenical statemnets to a new high. In a media interview he answered a question and said that
would be a mater for the independent reviewer he had just appointed. When asked who the reviewer is he said that an announcement about that person
had not yet been made. Does he know whom he appointed? He then rambled on about processes and platitudes repeaing himself insome sort of circuitous torture routine designed to scramble the listener's brain.
Meanwhile oblivious to the action he was taking, the Australian Quarantine Service was also unaware, Australian
cattle producers were loading animals at the wharves.
They were caught unawares and now wonder what they will do with the animals at these facilities and those on the farms ready to go?
Butchers have noticed a drop in trade as people react locally in Austraklia
to the cruelty shown on ABC Four Corners Programme. farmers fear a glut of beef on the Australian market.
Then in comes the vacuous Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who has perfected the rambling and opaque
response technique. Joe says on Wednesday 8, July 2011
that the suspenion of live animal exports to Indonesia will be 6 months and the Prime Minister says on the ABC Radio National programme the next morning Thursday 9, July 2011 that there is no specified timeframe.
One may well wonder how John Howard so effectively handled the end of live exports to Egypt in February 2006 compared to this effort by the labor federal government?
There is another technique implemented by labor to massage our thinking and allay suspicion whihc apparently they think (in their own minds) gives them credibility. It is
the crystal ball gazing, and fabricated, analytical paper approach to convincing us about everything. Every day some research entity, or the federal Treasury and Climate Change Departments,
pop out a new paper on what will happen if we have a carbon tax and what will happen if we do not.
These marvels of intuition propose outcomes for fifty years time or for the end of the century. They speak of sea level rises inundating cpast lines to destroy buildings.
These are truly wondrous efforts of research and economic modelling using cuisenaire rods, voodoo dolls and pins for the critics and unbelievers and
sudden sounds to startle.
Since Australian labor, and the coalition, members in the federal parliament are enagged in songs, and dances, so it is only right that
I contribute my own choices. Click the coloured text below for my chosen musical allocations. (Kevin R Beck, Melbourne 2011)
The carbon tax
promise
Jenny Macklin's indigenous
dreaming.
The Kevin Rudd
theme.
The Chris Bowen
offer.
The Wayne Swan
melody
Peter Garrett walk in the
sunshine
Bob Katter and the Australia Party
theme song
Tony Abbott and the
shifty themes band
Malcolm Turnbull - memories of an
earlier time.
Senator Barnaby Joyce's
anthem
Christopher Pyne, Tony never actually said that he supported
anything
Julia sorry but
it is just too late.
Penny Wong on policy
formulations.
Julie Bishop
what would you say?
Tanya Plibersek
just say anything.
Tony Abbott
burn this house down
To the whole of the federal parliament
political life is tenuous
Sophie Mirabella who sees
the devil in parliament.
Bob Brown. Kerry Nettle, Adam Bandt and Sarah Hanson-Young's
ride
Joe Hockey
suspicions
Malcolm Turnbull give me
another go.
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May 2011: Gillard and Labor Cabinet WILL GO TO ANY LENGTHS
For Your Economic Future You Must Independently Inform Yourself
THE ENGINEERING OF CONSENT BY THE GILLARD GOVERNMENT
The Australian labor government, under Julia Gillard will ride on the back of
a pro carbon tax set of commercials (funded by external supporters) trying to convince you about the beneficial effects on the environment of a
carbon tax using high profile celebrities. Enlist, equip and harness the power of trusted, informed and
credible messengers. The commercial itself is designed to mislead. The power station behind Michael caton is in battersae Engfland closed thirty years ago. There are no
Australian power stations belching out black smoke. Joseph Goebbels perfected manipulative techniques. Ms Gillard has eschewed policy innovation,
and balanced argument, moving
to lies, misrepresentation and desperate tabloid activity to achieve her objectives. The labor government is adopting the media,
and public relations,
tactics
of major corporations. In the world of the power collective ethics and morality, truth and fiction coalesce accodring to need and objective.
The federal Labor government will lie to you in their desperation.
Government in Australia is no longer about policy and open debate.
It is about power, influence and self interest. It is about winning at all cost, fired by the egotistical, and over blown, belief that they know better. The Austalian population must be educated to accept the ideology and the knowing.
This is some form of religious zeal not government.
"The word Spin has come to define both the process of political communication,
and the practice of public relations itself. The history of the term requires some examination.
Arguably, until around 1992, Spin did not have such a widespread meaning—it was simply one tactic in an election campaigner's armoury.
Now it seems to embrace the whole process of communication, not only
between election campaigners and the media, but also between a Government and its people,
or between a public relations professional in any field, and his or her target publics.
The development of Spin as a word has gone through a number of stages.
It now has widespread popular usage, which has arisen through two principal processes: The increasing celebrity status of
the spin-doctor role: and the usefulness of the word to tabloid sub-editors." 2006, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
"Every Climatologist will tell you the Earth's temperature has been much hotter and colder than it is now. There was an Ice Age and it warmed up,
there was a Mini Ice Age just 500 years ago and it has been warming up ever since. The Industrial Revolution was not around during those periods.
NASA reports because of Solar Flares the Sun is the hottest it has been in over 100 years. There are no cars on the sun.
Global warming is causing ice to melt on Mars. There are no cars on Mars.
Thousands and thousands of studies and experiments prove that more carbon dioxide produces better fruits,
vegetables, trees and almost any sort of plant life.
Most of the temperature increase happened before 1940 (Before most carbon dioxide was released by cars and factories)
The hot year of 1998 was caused by El Nino." Global warming Lies, http://www.globalwarminglies.com
.....click for all theories.
The labor government persists in using the IPCC as the evidential basis of its climate
policies - Independent climate scientist Peter Taylor has said that the the
IPCC’s credibility has been deeply dented and something has to be done.
It can’t just be a matter of adjusting the practices. They have got to look at what are the consequences of
having got it wrong in terms of what the public think is going on. Admitting that it needs to reform means something has gone wrong and
they really do need to look at the science. Climate change sceptic David Holland, who challenged leading climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia to disclose their
research, said: “The panel is definitely not fit for purpose. What the IAC has said is substantial changes need to be made.” (Climate Change Lies
Exposed, September 1, 2010, http://www.disinfo.com/2010/09/climate-change-lies-exposed/)
.
Julia Gillard, and her senior labor Ministers Wayne Swan, Greg Combet and Penny Wong, togther with Peter Garrett, and too many other new Ministers,
have long demonstrated an inability to coherently present, debate and argue
their policy positions. Greg Combet took over from Peter Garrett after the pink batts fiasco, amid multi billion dollar loss,
only to perpertrate the legacy of inefficiency and ministerial incompetence.
Now unable to articulate, and convince, the nation regarding their
climate change
fallacies and questionable science, they have created a climate change commission (stacked with supporters)
a cross bench parliamentary committee and
somehow an outside body has hired actors to convince the population that a carbontax is necessary.
The Gillard labor government will not engage in open debate by establishing a balanced commission of enquiry consisting of
the many opposing, and consenting, interests. Instead they will massage our minds, tell stories to the ignorant and above all corrode and corrupt
government and process,
in Australia, in pursuit of their own egotistical interests and intuitions.
Here is fact. The level of carbon dioxide has risen about 5% above the levels of the early century. The temperature has not gone up. Here is another, the
it rained and filled our dams when Tim Flannery, and Penny Wong stated, that it would not happen and the nation would be dry.
There are more factsthan are being offered by the government and the proponentswho blame carbon for warming the planet.
People must, if they want to ensure their economic and social futures,
investigate
them and inform themselves. (No Quality In This Government, Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia 2011)
|
A PRIME MINISTER LET DOWN BY THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY MACHINE
Is this her last performance? Not if support comes unexpectedly from the outside.
Stay
One can lay the boot into Prime Minister Julia Gillard, for political sport,
because she supplies so much ammunition. But after a while one might reflect on how this ammunition is made available so readily and also reflect on
what is the end result of this sport? Whose interests are served?
One may wonder why the labor party is failing to protect her? Where can the Prime Minister turn and who can
she turn too?
This is the national leader of the Australian labor party but one could not tell because everybody seems to be having a go at her including her own party. Watching the Bolt Report on Sunday 15th May 2011, former NSW labor government Treasurer Michael costa took the
opportunity. Mark Latham former (failed) labor leader in the federal parliament has done it often including his thuggish display at her during the campaign when he played pseido journalist. He contributes to the
degradation and slime outlined below.
One can listen to the gossip, and the back biters, who say Ms Gillard does not listen,
but the question I would ask is - who is telling her, guiding and helping her, and who is she not listening too? Is anybody of political capability and without
personal motivation, and ambition, actually talking to her?
As far as I can see the labor party machine has totally let her down and is actually nibbling away at her like a parasitic thing. So Julia Gillard Australia's first
female Prime Minister
is abandoned to the lions by the very people who
should be standing guard around her. Abandoned by
Kevin Rudd
who gets no accolades for his performance and lack of support
and assistance to
Julia.
Rudd masks it behind a facade of falsehoods.
Political commentators say that she is politically dead. It is a
disgrace
that one of the oldest, and proudest, parties in Australian politics should allow this to occur.
She is literally
alone,
her singular strident defence really is the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, whose street fightig ability is questionable.
Conroy is quite capable of dealing with the backroom labor party machine that
chooses to either put in a half hearted exercise cloaking itself from scrutiny.
The Prime Minister hoped that her budget would
let some sun
into her gruelling political life.
What I find incongruous is that Tony Abbott is not a
tactician politician when measured against the likes of labor partician members.
He is a
great pretender,
longing for John Howard, getting a free run to use his slogans. All that labor can put up against
him is a whimpy, whining wet rag response. Where is the machine and its, behind the scenes, hard men and women?
Tony Abbott has only one arrow in his bow and that is he has managed to stay on song,
"life could be a dream"
if there was to be an election, and the people chose him. A boring repetitive and
shallow song,
cutting off Julia's agenda at every turn. Mr Abbott is assisted by
a low grade media (see below) that has an unethical heart and little measurable talent for public interest
policy analysis. If we are charitable it is lazy reporting, if we are contemptuous of the quality of journalism it is untruthful reporting and talk back.
His weaknesses are many, and varied, and offer unlimited ammunition to the behavioural scientist and skilled political
strategist. They do not have to like her or
say they love her
but they should at the very least protect her.
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AUSTRALIAN MEDIA DEGRADES OUR DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNMENT
Politicians embrace the dumb and the feckless
May 2011: The owners, and the editors, of Australia's tabloid press, and commercial
television stations, are a cancer on Australian democracy.
Their attention to quality, and truth, in reporting, and analysis, is not mediocre, it is, in my opinion, well beyond that,
it is an indictment of their self indulgence and ignorance. Bias is clearly seen. Of equal culpability are the reporters, and journalists, who prostitute their work
and who lack any resonance with quality and the traditions. They are a collective blight.
They reduce complex issues, and debates, to misrepresentative and often untruthful headlines, and stories, playing up the
divisions and the gladiatorial aspects of our politics.
They do not hold the government or the opposition political members accountable by hard work and investigative journalism and
enquiry. They do not analyse the poor quality of our political systems, structures, leadership, dumb and hackneyed policy and irrational
debates. Instead they subject the incumbents of politics to a barrage of
ridicule, insults, attacks and mud raking until what we are left with is squalour. A squalour seeded and nurtured by media types of low ethics.
Politics is lumbered with dumb journalists, plagerisers following the theme like sheep, current affairs programme makers, and presenters, who lack intellectual rigour. It is bearing the
ignominy of shock jocks, pandering to the semi literate, bigoted and under educated in Australian society.
The media creats a class war theme not politicians. This is the case with the 2011 budget reporting. No one in the labor party, of the
Gillard government, implied that
people on combined incomes of $A150,000 were rich. Yet the popular media generated these headlines deliberately to pursue this theme.
Lies suit opposition p-olitical parties and Tony Abbott is not going to opt for integrity putting the record striaght. Those who are in the game would say to propose such a thing is naive.
The so called forgotten middle class, the strugglers with two kids and a combined income of $150,000 placing them in the top 13% of income in the nation,
focused on by the press, and television, are not losing rom this budget, if at all, perhaps $A30.00 per year at best.
Tony Abbott is lauded for his self indulgent pursuit of personal interest over national interest. His sole goal is to try
and bring the goverment down and to
force an election. This is quite dumb given that the odds of it occurring are almost none and he appears to be not all that bright with regard to reality.
This serves to show us the limitations of the leader of the Opposition not his potential.
As he pursues this day after day he makes no real or lasting contribution to quality government, policy and debate. He is robbing the nation of his skill and experience preferring political self interest over public interest and his oath of parliament.
It is quite sad that Mr Abbotts hang around, in politics, year after year waiting for their chance at high office by sheer natural attrition.
His record of performance, as a Minister, when analysed in detail, and depth, does not enlighten one as to his potential to be Prime Minister.
The best talent in Australia is not going to seek out public office in this environment.
Lost to us is any hope of being able to use the popular media as a cypher to consider what is on offer in terms of policy and people ability.
IF ONE DARES TO CRITICISE THE QUALITY, OR PERFORMANCE, OF AUSTRALIA'S POLITICIANS THEY ARE MARGINALISED,
RIDICULED AND SUBJECTED TO RETALIATION
RARELY INFORMING THEMSELVES AS TO THE MOTIVATION OF OTHERS, OR ENGAING IN CONSTRUCTIVE ENQUIRY
THEY RESORT TO THUGGERY
In this mix is the egotistical and unlateral, nature of the leaders, who rather than listen, plan and consult, seem to
believe that they are the font of knowledge and the only ones capable of anything. They act on gut instinct or the advice of those singing from the appropriate, and approved,
song sheet.
It is reported that Prime Minister Julia Gillard refuses to take advice from anyone of experience left in the labor party and instead accepts her own cousnel and embraces the
new model of government.
It is said that once she makes up her mind that is it.
Others in the opposite camp confide that Opposition leader Tony Abbott is so light on policy, and detail, and short on ability
that he resorts to the singular. The tactic of
belittlemnt, and derogative carping, using simple, but media effective terms like "great big tax", "class warafre" "stop the boats" and other
inflammatory slogans. Simple minded phrases repeated ad and reported ad nauseum until the public become brain washed by his tripe.
Opposition Finance spokesperson Andrew Robb described Tony Abbott as lethal in his budget response. They are all happy to appear
like lemings, political drones.
The media finds the smart arse statement of Wyatt Roy (labor has not delivedr a budget surplus in his life time and thus why should Swayne Swan be beleived)
to be one of the telling exchanges in parliament. Mr Roy has been around ten minutes and has the life experience, depth of education, and capabilities of an adolescent.
It was noted that Wayne Swan lacked a quickness of wit in return. All of this is not helped by his lack lustre, wooden,
performance when he gives interviews on the media. Wayne Swan struggles in the portfolio. This is debilitating because the accepted wisdom that the liberal party are better money managers is false.
One of Australia's ethical and careful journalists, George Megalogenis, a senior feature writer for The Australian newspaper clearly demonstrates that this asdsumptiion is fasle.
Labor is far better. The liberal party leaders and senior politicians are quite happy to recant the lies and misrepresentatons are not pulled up by the lower grade media journalistsa nd shock jocks.
Labor should tajke out large advertiseents in the tabloids citing george's work. Another waste of money resulting in misleading assumptions are the polls that purport to tell us that
Julia Gillard is lower on some nebullious scale than Tony Abbott or someone is beleived to be a better Prime Minister or is more liked or some other piece of tripe.
This is not news, has no public interest value and serves no public interest purpose but it is trotted out on news bulletins as factual representation of who would win an election if one were to be held tomorrow. WEhy bother if there is to be no election tomorrow?
manufactured news, and stories, rule over intuitive investigative and well crafted jornalism. This is the age of the personal opinion commentator masquerading as journalist.
It is factional politics that decides roles occupied in the parliaments not skill and ability.
Our parliaments are run by men, and women,
lacking experience and credibility. People who having reached the pinnacle of power in their myopic festering worlds, then
subject Australian society to the mediocrity, and limitations, of their self interested and egos.
The democracy, management and operation, of our governments
have become squalid, two party political, houses of collective corruption, fraud and lies.
Former federal Finance Minister and past Minister of labor government's, started collecting material for a
book on the corrosive impact of the media on politics more three years ago. He left federal politics a few months back. The sentiments and propositions he expresses in his current book are
along the lines of those expressed above. However I think that Lndsay must also take some of the blame. He was an influential labor politician who had a stellar history and for most of it sought to act in the
public interest. Yet he and others were party to the dumbing down, the manipulatioon and the creation of elements of the system that pervades today. It is all very wel to blame the media but he has no history of
gladiatorial attacks on them from the pulpit of his own ministry and his electorate. He waited until he was gone. he has no history of stating how dumb and uneducated, uncaring and
detached the people of Australia from their most precious commodity - democracy.
(Kevin R Beck, Defrauding Australian Democracy and Government, 2011
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The Australian Labor Party has
abandoned
its roots and no longer represents the worker, the unemployed and the disadvantaged.
AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY GETS A NEW NAME
The Hot Air Balloon Party
click here
Meanwhile Prime Minister Julia brings out her big gun, the smile,
personal charisma,
the laugh, all the while chiding the recalcitrant child who defies the authority and
dares to question why?
All the while the labor machine
moves inexorably onward
towards the dream, brooking no contradictions or interference. They are however at risk of the
Black Box, Game and Other Theories.
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May 2011: THIS WILL BE TOUGH BUDGET... SURE TREASURER
For weeks the Prime Minister and Treasurer
have been saying that they will have to take hard decisions in this budget and people will not be happy.
"Swan warns budget will be tough for business, By Michelle Hammond, Monday, 11 April 2011,
The Federal Government is warning businesses to brace for a tough budget next month
as new figures show a $4.5 billion revenue shortfall, prompting the need for harsh spending cuts."
May 11th, 2011 - the reality
"Swan's budget as tough as tofu", economics correspondent Stephen Long - analysis, On Tuesday 10 May 2011, 23:27 EST, ABC Australia,
"Swan and Gillard promised a "tough budget." It's not that. There are no big, hard, politically painful savings measures,
only some cautious tinkering." The great no-tax-cut budget of 2011. Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Hartcher, May 10, 2011 - 8:21PM,
"Not tough but definitely responsible", May 11, 2011, Peter Hartcher, National Times
BUDGET 2011: Swan's big missed opportunity, Rob Burgess, Published 8:05 AM, 11 May 2011 Last update 10:20 AM, 11 May 2011,
"The big omission in Wayne Swan's budget speech was any acknowledgement of the structural deficit buried beneath his return-to-surplus numbers. When commodity prices show any prolonged weakening, as they inevitably will, a big hole will appear.
Worse, however, is that this budget was a chance to do something about it by moving towards
the reforms laid out in the Henry tax review, which argued that we should simplify the tax system
to incentivise participation and make it clearer who is being taxed and who is not."
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May 2011: AUSTRALIAN LABOR GOVERNMENT AND THE PETER PRINCIPLE
NATION BUILDERS? NATION WRECKERS?
Whilst the focus may be on the Australian labor government, and its leadership, we should also question Tony Abbott's judgement, and comments, about the National Broadband network. Malcolm Turnbull's proposition to use wireless is technically naive since he appears not to have taken user loading and band spectrum capacity into account.
Anyone who observes, or interacts, with Australia's federal government, and their agencies, may be lead to the assumption that this government, and elements of the bureaucracy, are extremely
incompetent. High levels of
frustration
are the norm for anyone trying to work with the labor government unless one is in the "labor fold or club".
POLITICS BUREAUCRACY AND THE APPLICATION OF MR. PETER'S PRINCIPLE
The Peter Principle was first introduced by L. Peter in a humoristic book (of the same title) describing the pitfalls
of bureaucratic organisation. The original principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people
tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The principle is based on the observation that in such an organisation
new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned,
they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely,
until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent.
At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies make that it
is very difficult to "demote" someone." Source: 1992-2000 Principia Cybernetica.
"In practice 'new public management' has led to (a) politicisation of administration (b) emasculation
of Public Services; (c) and ineffectual governance with symptoms including: unbalanced economic gains;
consequent social stresses; and chronic weaknesses in infrastructure, service delivery and regulatory roles.
The dominant goal of Public Services shifted from helping the public by ensuring good government, to 'helping' the government of
the day to retain political power. Ironically this model often led to unexpected electoral backlashes against state administrations
who were seen as 'autocratic' after 5-6 years incubation, probably because they had surrounded themselves with 'yes men' and thus
lost touch with the fact that not everyone
shared their assumptions. This approach was reportedly being put in place in the federal government in 2000.
(Source: THE DECAY OF AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: A DIAGNOSIS, CENTRE FOR POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS)
Kevin Beck theorises that there are two major systemic features which go a long way to (explaining) creating the failures, and mismanagement,
we have seen during the past four years, within the operation of the federal labor government and the agencies
implementing the government's policies."
The first is unilateral management styles of the Ministers, regardless of competence and a lack of oversight, and accountability, mechanisms and measures
of these Ministers by the Parliament, and by the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Who supervises a Minister's performance and demands excellence? There can be no accountability where the Minister is factionally aligned, perhaps influential and is deeply involved in choosing the
Prime Minister.
The Australian Public Service is required to follow the Minister's directives, and that of the adviser, regardless of the perceived consequences. They may raise objections and argue strongly through thei respective heads and boards but when it comes down to it, the
government members rule regardless of their capacity. There is no mechanism of intervention by the people. The next systemic feature is the prodigious effort to avoid accountability, and responsibility, resulting
in excessive caution, regulation and the catch all - probity, within Departments. The good public servants are subject to abuse, and retribution, by many of their agency
hierarchical (there are lots of them in the chain of command)masters and the political advisers if they make an error or do not jump accordingly.
Under these twin features there is a high probability of failure and waste.
The system is broken, in parts, yet we, and those we pay, tolerate and operate within it.
Massive amounts of money go down the drown at the hands of these failures. Unless Australia has capable Prime Ministers, of great ability,
aided by strong capable Ministers, with a focus on public interest, versus political interest it is likely that
we rely on good fortune rather than good judgement and management. Those capabilities appear not to be present, in abundance at leadership levels, in the Labor and Liberal parties of Australia. Labor seems to be the most inept of the two.
Julia Gillard is no doubt politically astute and adept. However she has not
demonstrated a capacity for
developing and enunciating policy. There is vacuum so vast that it envelops the nation in every aspect of labor's federal government. So far her work in politics, and in government, has been lack lustre and mundane.
There are no highlights and no successes. This is dangerous indeed as she blindly
pursues ideological crusades with no apparent grasp of the detail, ramifications or consequences.
What is it blind faith or blind stupidity? On the issue of
climate change
she continues her vacuous statements - the science is clear. Aaccording to Ms Gillard all of this
justifies a carbon tax, yet she cannot articulate why. On television some time back Ms Gillard stated that only the big polluters would pay the carbon price. She then went on to state that
when the eligible individual received their government compensation payment they would exercise choice in the supermarket buying
those products, which would now be labelled as low emitters. Is she serious? Will manufactuters advertise that their products are created out of extensive pollution?
Ms Gillard was postulating the simple theory of substitution effect. Simple indeed, especially when she has little idea that it is a
false theory and presumption. There is one unknown that
bedevilles economists, it is human behaviour. People do not act rationally.
When labor put a luxury tax on some cars there was
hysteria from the industry and they rushed to Canberra protesting loss of jobs and economic ruin. It never happened. Demand remained and rose for those vehicles. They are prestige posssessions and the dearer the better for the buyer.
MS GILLARD'S SIMPLE THEORY OF CONSUMER BEHAVIUR UNDER A CARBON PRICE IS IN CONFLICT WITH REAL LIFE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR.
Many people assume that everyone's level of knowledge, and understanding, is similar to their own, that other's beliefs are similar and that if not they can be swayed by logical argument. For Julia Gillard and many others the
propositions (they extoll) for climate change is something proven and closed to question. This is not the case. Thorstein Veblen in his work "The Theory of the Leisure Class", 1988, and his
invention - "conspicuous consumption" explained why people do not behave as others (marketers, economists, executives and politicians) may expect. The pursuit of social status by the
aspirant class. Ms Gillard may not have been aware of the extensive study of human behaviour, and market consumer theory, when she proposed the consumer's erudite qualities, and attentive natures,
but she should have noted that, in 2011, a large number of people in Australia occupy the aspirational class spectrum.
She also seems to be implying that consumers will (a)care to over ride their desires (b)be knowledgeable and care about what products
apparently come from low emitters versus the polluters and (c) will substitute accordingly.
Not so Prime Minister. It does not work like that in a real, reasonably wealthy,and hedonistic, (I want it now), society.
Another factor is that a great number of the aspirant class are not prone to deep and/or life long education, and intellectual, development needed to assimilate complex matters.
Treasurer Wayne Swan has likened the actions of government to Keynesian economics. This implies that
he too knows very little of the foundation of economic theory, whether it be monetary or Keynes' philosophy. Pump priming is not the simple central theme of Keynesian economics.
Like Veblen, Keynes noted in 1931 that people liked to spend to feel superior. Today like America, Australia is in the grip of "convenience
consumption". It is packaged and commoditised. The nation here, like in America, has been programmed in its behaviour by the Chinese export of cheap goods.
However unlike America we are not on a slide to national bankruptcy.
We are however, like America, in the grip of incompetent politicians who squander opportunity for short term political gain and self interest.
What Australians will do with Ms Gillard's largesse is what they did with Kevin Rudd's largesse. They may accumulate some of the money
as savings but they will, when feeling good, accumulate goods.
They may save because they are spooked by the GFC but it is likely they will react, as J K Galbraith theorised, in his work "The Affluent Society",
1958. They will probably seek variety of goods rather than quantity. There are countering human and economic behavioural influences that will work against Ms Gillard's
simple theory becoming a reality and creating another policy failure and uneeded cost impost.
Minister Greg Combet claims, rather naively, that millions of people will be better off under a carbon price
without offering any evidence to prove his statement credible. This is the tool of the modern politician, say it often enough
and it becomes folk lore. What is more probable I think is that the traditional conspicuous consumption by the
ever growing aspirant class, now being ballooned by refugee numbers, will bring on a rise in emissions and pollution. How does a carbon price that is offset by donations to consumers
create a trigger for change of behaviour, and action, in any part of the economy?
What does a carbon price do to reduce pollution and where? There is no logic here. Ms Gillard and her Ministers are painting themselves into a corner and trying to use political muscle and
the powers of government to air brush their way out.
In the background Australia's business leaders swallow the climate myth, and the carbon tax proposition until they actually think it through and look at what is hapenning in society and economy.
They ramble on about the need for certainty rather than questioning the foundation of the proponents' assumptions and evidence.
The
major reason business executives will not go
over the cliff, leming like, after Ms Gillard, Mr Combet, Mr Swan and ms Wong, is the worry that their bonuses, and jobs, may be at risk. What if this is all a load of crock?
Ms Gillard cannot convince anyone, with a brain, that her beliefs are
rational and we should bet the nation's prosperity on. For a thinking, and inquisitive, person
it is clear that Ms Gillard really lacks a capacity to create policy that dtives growth and production. Another word that is used aa a cane on our backs - production.
According to the academics we are not productive. We work long hours and many slave for minimum wages in the Australian economy yet, according to the experts,
we still fail to produce.
This has been the mantra for decades. Produce what? Just like reform is the mantra. We must reform in
order to be productive yet we are not told how and not assisted in this never ending task,
by governments, bureacurcaries, enterprise or institutions to do this. What about if they reformed themselves first and became productive themselves, as an axemaple to us?
The Prime Minister offers no productive policies. Much of her reformist views, and general policies, are radical experiments. She offers
no policies of wealth creation or lifestyle enrichment. Ms Gillard's industrial relations model is quite the opposite to a productive incentive.
The lazy, and the uneducated, are rewarded and the successful are punished by policy and tax.
The politically loyal are rewarded in many ways by sinecure and benefits.
In Julia Gillard I see a working class person, rising to high office by the use of a system, rather than merit.
A person who has not grown in poise, or stature, in the role
of high office. Ms Gillard switches on the charm as the primary weapon and cajoles those who she needs to influence or she thinks can help her.
A person whose intellectual capacity, and grasp of policy and idea creation, I truly believe, is not up to the task of being the leader of a developed
country. Ms Gillard has built nothing of substance in her day to day occupancy of the office of federal Minister or Prime Minister.
The Peter Principle
will bring the Australian nation to its most mundane possibilities. We are there now and when the Green Senators arrive, in mid 2011,
we will become a nation at their mercy.
Behind the Prime Minister stands Wayne Swan, the Treasurer. He is as hapless in policy and innoavtion as his leader.
A bland and boring type who repeats phrases that he has learned by rote. Wayne wan has been touted by some as possible leader, is Labor mad?
This man is grey, uninspiring and mediocre. Why can we not have the best talent in government to lead us in Australia, today, in any political party? Simply because a small number of
political machine men, and women, would rather pursue their own personal interests at the expense of sate, territory and national government. Together they hold the purse and the power and they are a grave
danger to the nation. Then we can add Greg Combet, who fails in the task of compelling us by reason and logic. It appear labor makes announcement
when they have little or nothing to say, because they
need to appear to be doing something. For them it goes too slow but they have no idea how to move the bureaucracy and the structure along.
These are not change masters.
THE NATIONAL BROADBAND IS A GREAT PROJECT however the way labor and its strategists handle it, it is likely to flounder before
the next election. The programmed installation needs to be rolled out quickly.
The federal Labor government seems intent on making everything hard through stupidity and maladministration. Why was there no economic justification produced and standard checks and balances undertaken? Minister Stephen Conroy is another Minister oblivious to the twin features of sytemic barrier creation described in the opening.
He comes acrss as an aggressive, and combative, personality. His demonstrated management ability
is likely to ensure that the National Broadband Network may never achieve the goals implied in the glossy public relations spiel.
At the glacier pace of implementation, and the burdensome tender processes, whihc seem to be porrly constructed and amnaged by the agency, and the
unrealistic expectations of the NBN management as to the cost,
the labor governmet will run out of days before they have to go to
the polls. There may well be insufficient installations across Australia to give the NBN robust structure and irreversible protection.
The next government can disband it or sell it.
We are caught in a hard place here because Tony Abbott's proposition for broadband technology is as much head
in the sand as any other. I have both Telstra, and Optus, wirless broadband and they are not worth the excessive charges rendered on me by the enterprises who charge a lot and deliver mediocrity.
They do not go anywhere near the
rated speeds of the devices due to environmental, and technical, suffocation and the poor investment in local infrastructure at the exchanges.
I meet gateways in the ISP providers structures that destroy the potential speed adn the more users that are on the local wireless spectrum wherever I am connecting the more degraded thes ervice becomes.
Wireless cannot download or upload large files seamlessly and quickly to meet the potential of the technology and Malcolm Turnbull should takea course in internet communications technology if he wants to offer informed opinion.
My mobile phone coverage provided, by Optus, is variable from good to appalling. It is too often of such low quality that it makes it unpleasant to
communicate by phone. People hear every thir or fourth word.
Even with Minister Conroy's fibre to the house (NBN) I will still be captive to the capability of the ISP infrastructure (for internet and other wireless access)
like everybody else. What legislative service requirements have been put in place to ensure the ISPs provide minimum acceptable standards?
What do you think the regulatory definition of broadband is? The Australian Competition, and Consumer Commission, engage in show pony antics,
with large scale high profile prosecutions, and determinations,
rather than fundamental consumer protections. Try writing the ACCC a letter and then observe the weaving, and ducking in their reply, where half the letter is a recitation of the act and their role as if the writer is not aware of what they do.
HEALTH MANAGEMEBNT, POLICIES, STRUCTURES, SYSTEMS, FUND RATES, THE HEALTH INSURANCE SUBSIDY, PREFERRED PROVIDER SCHEMES,
FRAUD AND OVER SERVICING ADD TO THE ECONOMIC WASTE AND VANDALISM
The health portfolio, and the private health insurance sector, along with the government owned Medibank Private, are
about to take a shellacking through investigation and dawning awareness that the system for ancillary health delivery is falwed and open to manipulation. The government has known of this for years. Yet nothing has been done.
Consumers will become aware that the preferred provider scheme has promoted endemic corruption, manipulation and sometimes calculated fraud.
I think that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission does not think laterally and is either unaware or disinterested in how the health market model actually works.
The Minister Nicola Roxon, and her senior advisers, have their head in the sand (despite endless correspondence) and some meetings, and politicians of all persusasion (labor, liberal, national, greens and independent) have ignored evidence presented.
The bureaucracy has sought to push the issue away into some other arena of accountability and responsibility.
Every time the Minister agrees to a
rise in health fund rates she is embedding ever growing levels of over servicing, over charging and endemic blatant fraud.
The promise made by Kevin Rudd for universal health funding across Australia has not materialised. Julia Gillard it may be remembered was the author of Medicare Gold, abandoned for its flaws and ill informed
policy assumptions.
Under the federal labor government's management the public service, and quality of government, declines dramatically. They waste our taxes and the
funds of business (a significant waste are the tenders that go nowhere - Minister Plibersek managed to destroy $60,000,000 of tax payer investment and tens of millions of business funds when the government killed the Access Card. Dealing with labor is
onerous, very risky and time consuming. Something quite obvious to those who have to deal with government every day.
Unfortunately the liberal
party, under Tony Abbott, offers little comfort. I think Australia might be more comfortable with Malcolm Turnbull, and Joe Hockey, in the two senior roles,
who at least have demonstrated a modicum of management capability, and vision, as Ministers. I did not truly appreciate John Howard until Kevin Rudd, and Julia Gillard, began to wreak
havoc. John Howard allowed everyone a say and a go regardless of station. He listened and treated everyone with respect even if one (like me) was sometimes prone to insult.
John Howard may not have built more than a big railway but maybe, as he grew into the job, we would have got more.
We will never know. But what we will get now, from Ms Gillard and federal labor, if they remain in government, is - poorer not richer, in every way. To be fair Tony Abbott just trots out more old school hackneyed measures largely focsued on creating a surplus
with minimal investment in the nation's future. He is not a nation builder either. Short - termism is the political objective and focus.
Many of us may want the parliamentary Independents to act now, before the Greens take office in the Senate in mid 2011, to end Julia Gillard's damaging time in office
by putting the nation to the vote. The choices we have in those seeking office are bleak and uninspiring.
(Kevin Beck, "Julia Gillard, and federal Labor, sucking the energy from an apathetic nation", Melbourne April, 2011
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MINISTER GREG COMBET IS FAST BECOMING THE MINISTER WHO CALLS MEETINGS, MAKES SPEECHES AND SAYS NOTHING OF SUBSTANCE
click here... whilst you read the article
the different coloured words are live ... you can wait for each song to finish before you click the next word...
Sometime back I seem to remember that Greg Combet and the other labor
climate change lights, smoke and mirrors
proponents said all the proceeds from a carbon tax would
go to social equity. Now he says that more than 50% will go to low and middle income earners to offset the cost of the carbon tax. So which
story is it Minister?
click here... whilst you read
Greg has delivered a press club speech and was unable to answer any questions of substance effectively rendering himself as lacking in detail, judgement and substance.
Asked about economic numbers, values and impacts all he can do is speak in generalisms,
offering the excuse that there isa group working somehwre on these things. Then why have the speech session?
The government is trying to fill the void they have made, and stop Tony Abbott's relebtless march against them, with froth and bubble.
In a radio interview Minister Combet told Fran, ABC Radio National Breakfast, April 13th 2011,
that "the fact is millions of people would benefit from a carbon tax". FACT? Is he a futurist able to determine
exactly how the transfer of cost imposts on industry will be passed on to consumers? Is he able to foretell what a certain level of carbon price will do to the
whole economy or parts of it?
The senior members of the parliamentary labor party, across Australia, in all jurisdictions, seem to think if they trot out generalities and twaddle that the greater number of people in
Australia are gullible. Devoid of any ideas as to how to stop the opposition's ridicule the Prime Minister, Climate Ministere and Finance Minister, resport to hyperbole and fiction.
They tell stories of grandiose schemes whilst
Senator Nettle
waxes lyrical about the wonderful future that is coming our way as we become brave and innovative,
embracing
the
Greens
theories of
sack cloth and economic self flagellation
- curse our greed. Instead of worrying about the loss of jobs in the traditional carbon economy we are exhorted to embrace the nebullious
jobs that will arise in the renewable energy economy. Senator Nettle refuses to accept or even
think about the fact that renewable energy cannot produce large base load electricity needs. reneqwablwe energy systems (windmills, tide, solar and batteries) cannot run cities, cannot run large scale industry and cannot be competitive against overseas
fossil fuel energy prices.
Again we see that the senior Ministers of labor at the federal level who are engaged in the
.
shifty business
of their
government,
churn it out
making it up as they go.
IT IS NOT FACT MINISTER COMBET IT IS SUPPOSITION ABOUT
THE FUTURE
AND IN MY PERSONAL VIEW ANOTHER
MISREPRESENTATION AND
FANTASY
|
PRIME MINISTER GILLARD -
WHY
ARE YOU BEING A BULLY?
Are labor politicians naturally disposed to being
bullies and thugs?
If not then they are in trouble image wise, they are
getting a reputation for being just that. They are thugs to their own party members and
to their parliamentary members.
It is well known that labor parliamentary politicians are told how to vote and ultimatley what to say and do.
They betray their constituents and their office by allowing others to dictate and in this regard the factional bosses should be
prosecuted under the constitutional laws for pressuring, and blackmailing, a member of parliament by threatening their preselection
Quite often these thugs go beyond the borders of the party and the parliament threatening, and belittling,
anyone who challenges, questions and/or opposes their points of view, policies and actions.
The Prime Minister decided unilaterally that
it would be good idea to jettison refugees into East Timor establishing a detention centre there.
Never mind that the tax payer has a
perfectly good centre in naurua paid for. Wayne Swan and Julia Gilard pay lip service to good econopmic maangement as it suits and
they place their own political egos and self interests ahead of the national good. The Australian media ignore the statisticsa nd the context. They focus on boat refugees and not on anyone else who comes here by any other means for example by plane.
Politicians label and stereotype for political gain and to stoke the fires of racism and fear in the community.
Having dug their initial hole labor likes to widen it and then peeing in it, they create a festering, stinking sewer.
Devoid of ideas and remarkably lean in the talent arena they
push on.
East Timor decided that they did not want to establish a class system of the haves and have nots with refugees living better than their own citiens, so they politely refused.
Despite this Gillard
persists
sending her bureaucrats in to
massage
their attitudes and recalcitrant response to her perfectly good idea (that is in her own mind). Ms Gillard is a lawyer by trade and this may be the basis of her thinking,
style and demeanour.
East Timor, unlike the labor pary thugs, and the Prime Minister, continue to show good grace.
On, and on, Julia Gillard prattles on about her shallow awareness, her world of pet obsessions, ideas and interests.
All the while
dressing it up
as good policy in the national interest.
Now you better hide .... click
We (those who have been or are being shunted out of the party by thugs) will
keep at it,
not giving up, beavering away in the background. Well beyond your horizons
implementing strategies
designed to consign those targeted to the
rubbish bin of history. Tony Abbott should not assume that this is a good thing for his
future
political career either.
A new paradigm, set of values and other candidates are needed to replenish our democracy and governments.
- Honesty and Integrity
- Dedication and Sincerity
- Vision and Focus
- Interpersonal and great communication abilities
- The Ability to Motivate and Inspire
- Consistency
- Will Power and Charismatic Self Esteem
- Multi skilled and talented
- Able to synthese vast amounts of information, delegation
- Knowledge and Experience of the World
- Patience
- Decisive but pragmatic, willing to listen, absorb and learn
- Decisive but pragmatic, willing to listen, absorb and learn
- Above Corruption and Threats
- Humility with Strength
Therea re probably many more, but the Labor, Liberal and the Greens
parliamentary parties and their incumbent members, do not appear to possess many of these qualities and some have none of them.
|
April 2011: AUSTRALIA'S BEST STAND UP COMEDIANS
I rate
Wayne Swan
as the best stand up comedian in Australia for his impersonation of a Treasurer and economic manager.
As we approach May 2011,
federal budget
time here in labor la la land, the Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
is also vying for the best comedian accolade but her delivery is awful.
Wayne on the other hand has the look and feel. Meanwhile Ross Garnaut, the government's guru of economic forecasting, whilst seeming
to be a climate change specialist, is a member of the
government's
travelling climate circus
and labor comedy festival hollywood production crew. We are on the verge of
catastrophe
man made (and I do not mean the independent members abandoning Julia later in 2011),
that will be the end of us. Other members of the comedy crew are
Greg Combet,
the slowly disappearing
Penny Wong
and the junior Minister
from NSW, Senator
Mark Abib.
Comedy and warts.
"Senator Arbib, are you part of the disease infecting NSW Labor?
MARK ARBIB, FEDERAL SPORTS MINISTER: Well we just heard Morris Iemma's comments. And can I say, look, I think there's been a fair bit of re-writing of history in terms of NSW and the NSW Government. Probably what Morris should do is spend some time self-analysing what happened over the period.
LEIGH SALES: He not the only person that says the party's diseased. Anna Bligh has said that in the past as well." (Source: 7.30, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 28/03/2011, Reporter: Leigh Sales)
Having realised that their overall presentation is failing to deliver a captive audience, Julia, Wayne and Greg et al, will resort to postulating the indefinable.
It is the uncertainties that they will be certain about.
Meanwhile construction companies carrying out Julia's very own Building the Education Revolution seem to be falling off the perch owing significant debts.
Mr Fixit Combet has passed the ball on insulation to a fledgling junior Minister who seems to have attracted the ire of several hundred small businesses bankrupted by the labor government's ineptitude and Combet's contilued failures over the insultaion debacle.
But like all comedians yesterday's audience has fogotten the dialogue so move on to the new script.
The independents were for all intents and purposes bonding as a mini party and then became huffy at each other over gambling machines and other ittitables. Julia has decided to call the Greens something other than professional implying they aspire to abnormalities outside of the
mainstraem thinking, which to my mind is dull and boring. If Julia appeals to the mainstream, and so does the Honourable
Tony Abott,
then it must be that 8,000,000 or so Australians who struggle with basic literacy and numeracy.
In the Senate enquiry on milk and food stuff, Senators Harradine and Xenophon contributed the dazzling one liners that Coles, and Woolworths, should be broken up. They really do demonstrate the legislators penchant for guy feeling and ideological
line delivery in their own comedy routines without too much care for fact and knowledge. Australia's food prices are above the developed world generally because we have a small market and the multi national producers just keep adding rises and the supermarkets can lump it.
All in all, our federal parliamentary members' collective skills, and experiences, leaves very much to be desired. The show must go on. (Kevin Beck, The End of Days, 2011)
Climate Change, Carbon and Warming
Minister Wong (again) It's Not Absolutely True
"One of the enduring pillars of the climate change issue is that the temperature of the Earth is increasing at
an unprecedented rate … we’ve heard it a million times over the past few decades. However, it is well known that the
temperature of the Earth has not increased over the past decade, and the
lack of recent warming is now receiving serious consideration in the leading scientific journals." (Source: World Climate Report, February 1, 2010)
What is to come of you, will you handle the Finance portfolio
Minister, Penny Wong?
Greg Combet
The fixer who has moved on without fixing the solar panel disaster. He has now taken over
climate and carbon.
And for him the message is the same as it was for Penny Wong - "Minister it is not true".
 ....click....
|
Career politicians, among many - the clones of patronage, have lied too many times.
7.30 Report, ABC Australia...Government is not believed ... click
THE THIEVES OF AUSTRALIA'S DEMOCRACY ARE A CANCER
WHAT MISFORTUNE OF FATE, AND COALESCENCE OF EVENTS AND UNFORTUNATE TIMING, COULD SADDLE AUSTRALIA
AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
WITH THE MOST INCOMPETENT, AND MEDIOCRE, MIX OF POLITICIANS, AND SOME SYCOPHANTIC AND INCOMPETENT
SENIOR BUREAUCRATS, IN THE NATION'S HISTORY?
Are we, as a nation, so detached and stupid, indolent and uncaring, uneducated and
immature,
as to the value of our democracy and government, that
we would allow this to happen? We need to rid the nation of the incumbents in our governments, the political career class of politician.
But how do we do that? The quality of candidatenot the best the nation has.
The manipulation, corrosion and the
corruption
of our governance is entrenched. Australia is in the grip of parasites,
at every level of government, local, territory, state and federal,
who are career party politicians. They have no employment experience outside of the party and/or union machine.
Those who are good and competent are slaves to the thugs, and craven leaders of their respective political machines.
The time has come to
end their
control,
and the March state election in
NSW
will demonstrate the loathing the people have for the modern Australian labor party.
Let 2011 be a lesson for all political parties.
The Australian Labor Party
|
THE EXACT MOMENT WHEN JULIA GILLARD MORPHED INTO BEING A PRIME MINISTER FOR JUST A FLEETING MOMENT .... THEN .... GONE
Julia Gillard the politician has been viewed through a prism of narrow political performance. The attack master of the
federal parliament, emulating the tried methods of paul Keating and Peter Costello. Withering comments, mixed with derision, sarcasm and humour. A persona that tittilates the
parliamentary press gallery but not the ordinary voter. A systematic methodology designed to gain popular media coverage in the rarified, and unnatural world of politics and
governments.
In one moment of time, on the floor of the federal parliament, Julia became A TRULY ADMIRED Prime Minister of Australia.
....click image..
THAT SAID NOW BACK TO THE BUSINESS OF POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, PARLIAMENT QUALITY AND OPERATIONS
|
March 2011: TONY ABBOTT AND HIS SUSPECT JUDGEMENT
On Wednesday 23 March 2011, What is the calibre of Tony Abbott's political staff? Do they do tyheir job or do they let him down?
Tony Abbott attended a rally outside parliament house. The rally was against
Julia Gillard's carbon tax plan.
Unfortunately the
protesters,
lacking decorum, and intellectual power, chose to use insults, denigration and engage in blatant stupidity. They carried placards with term such as 'witch" and "Bob Brown's bitch".
Senator
Bob Brown,
leader of the Greens, is a politician who has a public record of giving rather than taking. Unlike others, including Tony Abbott, he is not seen as a parasite on the
public purse. Bob Brown puts his money and his assets behind his beliefs, in environment and the wellbeing of society. He has entered into a relationship with Julia Gillard, whihc placard holders described in unflattering terms.
The relationship is
bizarre,
naive and in almost every way fanatastic in the light of labor's decline in the pnatheon of Australian politics.
He is the epitomy of decorum and a gentleman. He could give lessons to the clowns
and louts of the Australian liberal, national and labor parties, that infest our parliaments handing out abuse and
degrading the system.
Barnaby Joyce
also loves a crowd and he got up
screaming,
frothing at the mouth, spitting vitriole. He too
appears to have a limited capability in policy debating.
Tony Abbott
got up, with the offensive placards providing a back drop, and pandered to the fools and ignorant participants. The rally has a air of
unreality.
Some might offer that it is a window into the decay in Australia mores and society values.
Unfortunately, Tony is extremely light weight on policy detail, knowledge and argument.
So he needs slogans - turn back the boats - no new big tax - and other simple, small syllable phrases to express himself.
He may well think that any publicity is good publicity and so a mob hurling abuse and insults fits well with his style of representation, and leadership, in parliament.
Labor Minister Combet jumped up in parliament lambasting everyone concerned and demonstrated that he lacks the eloquent and measured image of Senator Bob Brown. Combet is a parrot given a task to run out the same arguments.
The fixit man of labor, never mind that he is actually boring, colourless and also deficient in the breadth of knowledge to debate
carbon, climate and warming.
Is it naive to trust an economist who claims to be also a climate expert? Perhaps for labor it
is easier to say - the science is proven - too hard to go back and say oops we may be wrong.
Like his compatriot before him.
2010: Australia's Proposed Emission Trading Scheme (Rudd labor government 2007 - 2010)
The Campaign To Stop The ETS
Climate Change, Carbon and Warming
Minister Wong (again) It's Not Absolutely True
"One of the enduring pillars of the climate change issue is that the temperature of the Earth is increasing at
an unprecedented rate … we’ve heard it a million times over the past few decades. However, it is well known that the
temperature of the Earth has not increased over the past decade, and the
lack of recent warming is now receiving serious consideration in the leading scientific journals." (Source: World Climate Report, February 1, 2010)
What is to come of you, will you handle the Finance portfolio
Minister Penny Wong?
Greg Combet
The fixer (who made a botch of fixing the solar panel disaster has now taken over climate. And for him the message is the same - Minister it is not true.
Thus instead of debate in the parliament we have a fight where people are ejected and insults continue and a spurious and holow demand for an apology to the
Prime Minister. One might be forgiven for wondering what issue is actually important enough to over ride the self interest, and egos, of Australia's parliamentary members of
the major political parties?
The independents in the federal parliament should well consider that the carbon issue should be put to a referndum (as an alternative to withdrawing support for Julia Gillard) or simply have an election called by supporting a no confidence in the
labor government. (Kevin Beck, "Australian Politics in the Gutter", Melboure Australia)
|
THE CLUELESS, INCOMPETENT, THE SELF INTERESTED AND THE PARASITIC
March 2011, The Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, was not elected by the people.
She will say whatever is necessary to achieve her objective of the moment. "I am ruling out a carbon tax". "It is not a tax", "I am happy to call it a tax".
The lack of integrity of politicians is something we have come to expect. The office of Prime Minister is degraded, and very diminished,
under this woman's control. Julia Gillard, and her government, are very dangerous persons
to democracy and the economic and social stability of Australia. Together with Bob Brown's Greens they will become in mid year truly frightening.
The Prime Minister Julia Gillard is described by many journalists as the
pre-eminent political performer in federal parliament. Their benchmark is her ability to feign rage, throw insults whilst never actually saying
anything worthwhile in question time. Tony Abbott, and some of his colleagues, poor Sophie for example, are equally uninspiring and
by their performance in parliament and their diatribe, intellectually challenged. Such is the double edged sword of democracy giving every one a vote allwoing all sorts into the parliament.
Acording to the press gallery, performance in parliamentary question time is the real measure of the quality of
our representation and the incumbents therein?
"25 March 2011: Election coverage is being 'dumbed down', meanwhile,
the public has little appetite for hard political journalism anyway and newspapers
are cutting journalist numbers to the very bare bones, writes Narelle Miragliotta. The media
performs a critical role in the political life of democracies: in its fourth estate function,
the news media serves as the (self-appointed) guardian of the public interest. However, there is a
longstanding perception that the news media often fails to deliver on much of its promise." (source: Political journalism
and election reporting: a race to the bottom? Narelle Miragliotta, Australian policy on Line, apo.org.au,
March 2011, Political journalism and election reporting: A race to the bottom? Narelle Miragliotta, Monash University,
Sally Young How Australia Decides: Election Reporting and the Media, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press,
2010 (352 pp). ISBN 9-78052114-707-1 (paperback)"
The media give the people what they apparently want and can handle. Theatre is far more interesting to the jounalists who appear incapable of examining policy or assessing
the quality and measures of the government's portfolios. We are not well served by the fourth estate in Australia. Political journalists focus on the gladiatorial aspects and do not understand the complexities of policy. Financial look at the stock market and economic impacts
from whatever source they think is reputablea nd reliable. It all becomes "he said, she said" reporting.
The overall score is mediocrity out of ten.
To my mind the Prime Minister, has like many politicians who reach high office, a singular talent. To manipulate the politics of political factions and party structures,
to climb to the top within a corrupted and corroded system of patronage and thuggery. She gets her job as Prime Minister, in federal parliament,
not from the people of Australia but from a coterie of attendants and parasites, who like her live on the public purse. They wait their turn and in the meantime utilise the process to entrench themselves.
Ms Gillard's poor policy developmet capabilities (Gold Card Medicare whilst in opposition) and lack of administrative capacity as a Minister (Education revolution that never was, BER) are on display.
Prior to coming to parliament she exhibited no particular talent for high office. Parliament descended into farce as she, and the equally challenges in talent and ability,
Tony Abbott, threw insults back and forward. Mr Abbott is also equally poor on policy and substance. Neither Ms Gillard nor Mr Abbott have grown in their roles, rather they appear diminished.
Gillard herself has to bear a lot of the acrimony, and the front line work, due to the depth, and variable talent, within the labor
Ministry and the party. The two prominent,
and touted future leaders of federal Labor,
Greg Combet and Bill Shorten, have also risen through a manipulated, and corrupted system. They have ridden on the back of others using the
membership dues, collected within the trade union movement, to fund the party machine activities and their careers. They are the most urbane and polished of the lot.
They easily wore the suits eschewing the blue collar dress of some of their colleagues. They learnt to rub shulders and assimilate into the power collective enjoying the rarified atmosphere and fruits of the "haves".
In the case of Shorten he cemented his political credentials by marriage as well, straddling the conservative fence. A true deal maker in the fullest sense.
Combet is the earnest boffin. Some in the press gallery describe him as "Mr Fixit" without really going deeper than their own biased perceptions and poor judgement of life behind the doors of
the political chambers. The fixer of what, government stuff ups? Well if that is his role he is not very good at it in my opinion. The labor insiders seem unable to see into the future totally misjudging the
likely impact of their behaviour and policy prescriptions. Did Julia Gillard mean to make it harder for Labor in NSW to win the election? Did Julia mean to commit all of her political capital on a carbon tax?
Did she want to appear more stupid by implying that this policy will not hurt? If that is the case what is the incentive to reduce pollution? Who is ultimately paying for Julia and her cohorts' folly?
What sort of strategists, and advisers, do they have guiding and assisting them?
It is written into folk lore,
by gushing journalists, that
the ACTU senior types who enetr parliament and the union bosses within them, are somehow influential - homogenous entities with a membership base solely focused on, and dedicated to,
the Labor Party ideology and lifestyle. The members are not. The unions are managed to deliver the power to a few and to fund the election campaigns for the incumbent labor party parasites in public office around the nation.
Most union members are clueless as to the operation of their union, distant and disengaged and the behaviour of the
senior people therein as the majority of voters are clueless about the operation, and quality, of their governments. Both ordinary union member, and voters, belong becuase they must. As such they are only focused, intermittently, on their individual situations and belong to unions or engage with government within
a very narrow spectrum of need and reasoning. Australia's institutions become the play things, and the delivery machines, of those who know precisely how to get as much as possible for themselves and their own constituents.
CARBON TAX
Here is another example of the government's inability to plan, manage and maintain a coherent and cohesive policy campiagn.
Swan says that there is confusion about the carbon price.
""I accept that there's a lot of confusion about the fact that we are bringing in an interim price, which people describe as a carbon tax," he told the Nine Network.
"But it doesn't operate like a traditional tax. It is not deducted from your pay packet, it comes from the big polluters." (Source: Carbon tax plan confusing, says acting PM Wayne Swan
Matt Johnston From: Herald Sun March 07, 2011 12:00AM )
Who created that confusion? The government itself. There is not one major policy campaign that has been conducted, by the Australian labor governments of Rudd and Gillard, with any
measure of competency. What are the talents of the labor government's tactical teams, communication and media advisers, in the office of the Prime Minister, Treasurer and Climate Change Minister?
Not many if one judges the performance of labor in federal government up to March 2011.
Ignoring the claims that Ms Gillard lied to the electorate at the 2010 election,
the primary fact is that, Gilllard has failed to prove that carbon is a demon. She has no intention of debating the efficacy of the claims of proven science or the nee dfor a carbon price.
Swan et al point nebulllously to the need for a market mechanism. This mechanism apprarently will be as successful as the privatisation of electricity and operation of the electricuty and gas markets.
Prices rocketing to the moon.
Yet the fallacy persists that we are better off selling off our assets. Swan and Combet say that the carbon price will be paid by the big polluetrs and not by the people of Australia.
The labor governemnt surely thinks we are stipud. The cost will be passed on. The onwers of large carbon based operations such as Hazelwood power station in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria must be salivating over the
proposition of getting their investment back if the government (state and/or federal) pay them to shut down. Who pays that bill?
The Prime Minister, and others, such as Wayne Swan, Greg Combet and Penny Wong, et al, are disengaging with the truth, constantly, being selective in their language, changing their stories,
embracing platitudes, shallow rhetoric and sophistry. They parrot one liners.
Watch Gillard when she is questioned about policy detail. She cannot engage the debate. She is light weight in every spectrum of her Prime Ministerial office.
The proponents ignore
competing arguments
that do not suit their ideology and own views. Of great worry is that federal
Labor is in partnership with the Greens who base their policies and ideals on ignorance, such as "base load generation from solar".
They too
ignore the reality
preferring to dream of a technological nirvana. Greg Combet trots out the balm, "coal industry wil be okay" under their guiding self perceived clarity and
brilliance of thought and policy.
IMMIGRATION
The Department is the organ grinder and in many ways the Minister is the monkey. This is among the most powerful, and inept departments, of government.
It too suffered the ignomy of another revolution syndrome, with Ms Gillard popping out her East Timor regional solution. It has had to manage incision of the Australian landscape, Christmas Island and Nauru and the whims of
governments, past and preset, who have litle clue about how to actually deal with people preferring to use the portfolio and refugees as political footballs and electioneering gimmicks.
Racism is denied, multiculturism eschewed and then re-embraced. The Department observes the reckless words of parliamentarians. Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard are failures when it comes to enlightened leadership. They dance to the shock jocks
barrage and it is here in this complex story of sadness and despair, they seem to be really clueless.
EDUCATION
Wanting to keep the status quo of her creation when Minister for Education,
Julia Gillard appointed the sycophantic, and less than stellar comrade, the
all singing Peter Garrett, as Minister for Schools. His primary task, in this vital portfolio, is to get a web site up called "My School".
No matter how this utility is shown to be dysfunctional and destructive, he and Julia, persist that
it is about informing parents and about transparency. Never mind that the Department tasked with this ludicrous exercise is as incompetent as the Ministers and past Minister, the now Prime Minister.
When one examines Julia's time as Minister for Education, and the current period as Prime Minister, her stated passion for education has not
delivered a rise in numeracy, and literacy, performance across the primary school sector. A web site cannot engender the individual
qualities and drive to excell in learning. So what is the purpose? Gillard has no
"life long learning"
policy and it is unlikely that Peter Garrett has a clue as to what such might be?
THE FLOOD LEVY
The Prime Minister has managed to get her flood tax through parliament. What this means is that the failure of government, federal and state and the over riding of local government in building and planning, and the stupidity of people who
live on flood plains, flood pathways and river edges and places where tides can wipe them out (with no insurance at state or local individual level) is beig paid for by the general population.
Even as we put our hands in our pockets the system goes on and they are rebuilding in places where every decade or two they will be wiped out again. Gillard takes the easy way out like her state conterparts.
HEALTH
Labor trumpeted their credentials and polci making prowess for health as they did for education. More noise than substance.
Rudd said that the Commonwealth would fund health and the states would be subservient.
Like education they grossly underestiated the task and the vested interests. They forgot the Constitutioon and the power that this under pinning document gives the states.
Like the failed education revolution, the health revolution faltered and fizzled, Rudd and Roxon could not deliver.
The cost of health in Australia blooms exponentially dtiven by vested onterest and technology.
There is massive embedded fraud, over servicng, manipulation of the pharmaceutical benefits list and endemic
corruption
where control of the system, planning and delivery lies in the hands of a few powerful
interest groups.
The politicians, of all persuasion, are unwilling to confront these interests. Instead Health Ministers such as Nicola Roxon continue to
spin the truth, manufacture reasons and labels such as "revolutions" that are not revolutions or reforms. Ms Roxon entrenches the costs of duplication,
corruption and over servicing, through maladministration and political cowardice. She is assisted by a mega department that has a portfolio of interests way too large. A super department that is in many ways academic, poor in policy skill and delivery.
There is much more failure and expose to be highlighted within the government of federal labor but the above will do for now. (Kevin Beck, "Parasites and the Clueless, Managing The Australian Nation", 2010)
|
Nicola Roxon Approves Rate Rise for Health Insurance Including Fraud
February 2011: More massive cost mismanagement by the labor Federal Government - The Minister for Health Nicola Roxon has ignored material sent to her office or she has not seen it. This material shows that
consumers are being ripped off and that many of the providers of dental, and other, services are
rigging claims
to maximise their income and/or protect their client base.
There are a variety of ways in which this occurs, but typically it involves:
-
Exaggerating the services that were actually provided, such as claiming for more extensive preparatory work before filling a tooth - something that cannot easily be audited
- Billing the health fund for additional or related services that were not provided at all.
- The reason that ancillary providers undertake these activities is to protect and increase their income, however their actions:
Diminish the rebate funds available for genuine claimants
- Drive up health fund premiums
- Cause other providers to adopt similar practices in order to attract and retain customers.
Unlike the Medicare scheme, where the patient has a role in ensuring that only the services provided are billed, through the way that accounts must be presented and paid,
private health funds do not follow the Medicare model. As a result, over servicing and upcoding among ancillary providers,
is very difficult to police and stamp out. The largest private healh fund in Australia is owned by the Australian government. Thus the government, via the Ministers for Health and Finance (the shareholder) are
complicit in allowing this behaviour, accepting it and
rendering it into increased health fund rate rises.
The people who have been bringing this to the attention of the relevant Ministers' staff, to the
bureaucrats, to the health funds themselves (including the Boards) and the technology providers (terminal providers for claiming, whihc include a major bank)
for well over a year, have been ignored, dismissed and ridiculed. It is lucrative business for all.
Dismissal and failure to think about or even model possible outcomes of their policies is the standard modus operandi of the Rudd - Gillard labor government (and
for that matter all other governments in Australia) who tolerate no criticism, brook no alternative ideas being put forward and become abusive and thuggish,
when their ideology attacked or discredited. (Kevin R Beck, " Australian Labor Party Handbook of Practice - Always
Shoot the Messenger")
|
GOVERNING IN AN IMAGINERY WORLD WITH NO LIGHTS
February 2011: There is something that I do not quite understand about the Gillard labor government and for that matter the Rudd labor government before.
They seem to be detached from the reality of society and community. Take for example all of the failures of admoinistration and the waste and the record of incompetence yet they do not grasp the
consequences of that as they now try to govern in a minority parliament with a hostile, disbelieving media and public. Take the current situation where Minister Bowen persist with a quite stupid, and
further damaging demonstration of the inadequacy of this labor government by sending a boy who has no direct family left, from their funeral to incarceration in Christmas Island. Bowen drivels on when confronted
with the stupidity and the irrationality of it, about the process. He comounds his inadequate grasp of reality by saying that he intends to release the boy back into the community quite soon as soon as he (the incompetent Minister) is assured that
everything is in order.
The media spin merchants in his, and the Prime Minister's office, must border on frantic melt down as this, and every other, instance of the failure of basic capabilities are demonstrated across portfolios
day after day.
The Australian natiion is gifted with such political choices, as the pugnacious and equally incomprehensible leader of the Opposition mouths
irrationalities and platitudes, along with his erstwhile colleagues, Senator Scott Morrison, Andrew Robb, et al, trotting out recycled statements and policies that are as clear as mud. The career politician is a drain on productivity, innovation and stamina in modern day Australia and not worth the money they are paid.
|
STUMBLING AROUND
February 2011: Forgetting Tony Abbott's contribution to the disater as irrelevant and all too often shallow motivation, as Queensland drowned under a wall of water and was ripped by Cyclone Yasi, Australia's premier female politician, Anna Bligh,
spread a calm, caring and factual blanket across her constitutents. Ever the consummate practitioner she had detail and answers at her command down to depth of knowing that was quite astonsihing.
By comparison Australia's senior female politician stumbled along, every statement in monotone, shallow, usually general and too often motherhood.
She inoned how the government and the people would be behind Queensland and there
for as long as it takes, etc etc.. being behind Queensland is for the Gillard labor government about levying a flood tax.
Will we have a cyclone tax now? The fixation with keeping budgets in surplus has long moved beyond voter interest, the masses do not care. Only the investors, and share market traders, and those who think a surplus, and credit rating, increases their investment
dividend care. The greater number of Australians would rather have assets, infrastructure and services than a AAA credit rating. "Singular focus - ego", to set themselves out there as economic managers drives the modern labor,
and liberal politicians, not substance and policy.
When Prime Minister Julia Gillard tries to sound serious she defeats herself with her
poor communication,
language (I am "gonna" she says)and the great millstone, an extensive record of administrative management ably assisted in the latter cases by Treasurer Wayne Swan.
In the days, months and years, to come it will be Queensland Premier Anna Bligh who will deliver on the ground, and her task
will be much more than putting a few Centrelink officers in towns, and cities, to handle benefit applications and cash payments. In a way having this as her first task makes us wait for the possibility that she may transfer to the federal government.
Which role is more important to the nation? (Kevin Beck, "The days of wine and roses gone" 2011)
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FEDERAL LABOR GOVERNMENT DAYS EXTENDED PERHAPS
BUT MS GILLARD HAS FEW STRENGTHS AND NO DEMONSTRABLE POLICY CREATION OR DEVELOPMENT TALENT
January 2011: Prior to Christmas I predicted that the Gillard government would
last until about mid 2011. This was based on the propensity of the Rudd - Gillard government to ake so many mistakes and their record of poor
and wasteful administration. Howvere now things are different. There is a crisis. Queensland has 75% of its surface area under water and one of Australia's
engine houses has been shut down.
JULIA GILLARD DID NOT FEIGN HER SADNESS
On television, in Queensland, the Prime Minister, the Honourable Ms Julia Gillard, expressed her sorrow at the deaths of adults and children in the floods with visible emotion.
yet she did not go overboard. However she appears uncomfortable in situations which require a broader set of
knowledge and awareness skills in comparison to her colleague, Anna Bligh, Premier of
Queensland.
Ms Gillard's delivery is
wooden and she is very light on policy. Giving away money and putting a few
hundred Centrelink people on the ground to process is claims is easy. Will this lack of policy ability ultimatley bring her down?
The strength of the two senior women leaders of
Australia is apparent in certain respects, Anna Bligh, is in the right place at the right time and Queensland is well served. This is in contrast to the government of New South Wales. Even as the flood crept into NSW the
Premier, and government, in that state was nowhere
to be seen until Grafton was threatened. It is a pity that labor NSW is such a shabby government denying Premier Kenneally the dignity to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other two.
The Queensland government is not all that respected but citizens can put aside their petty, and often ill informed, and biased, views
to deal with their lives.
TONY ABBOTT'S STUPID DAM IDEA OR IS IT?
For some critics Mr. Abbott proved that he is not up to the task of
being Prime Minister with his rubbish plan to study dam locations for a year. One wonders if the liberal pary has any
intellectual capacity in its senior federal ranks? Dams are very costly, are not terribly good at controlling floods as we now
see in Brisbane and most, if not all,
of the good dam locations have been built. So what are ledt econdary? What is the purpose of a dam? Is it to mitigate drought or manage flood?
How is the balance achieved? If Tony Abbott had either investigated this himself or allocated it to a bright party/staff researcher he would have learnt this quickly inside of a month not a year.
Instead he made a goose of himself and needs to consider another career, preferably in the private sector, where he can waste someone's else's time and money
other than the taxpayer. Though what he might be marginally, or reasonably, good at does not come quickly to mind. (Kevin R Beck, "The Acending Julia Gillard, 2011")
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DO GOVERNMENT'S LIE?
Diplomacy, Politics and Public Service is a Tough game
"TONY EASTLEY: US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show that the Australian Government was willing to accept a compromise
on whaling with Japan as recently as February last year. ... TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The Government's public pronouncements
around the same time took on a different tone." (Source: WikiLeaks show Australia considered whaling compromise
Timothy McDonald reported this story on Tuesday, January 4, 2011 08:12:00, AM, Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
"Mr Garrett said the flights had strengthened the anti-whaling mood in Australia and made it difficult for the government to compromise with Japan.
Two weeks later, then prime minister Kevin Rudd publicly called for an end to the hunt.
At the same time, Australian diplomats were urging politicians to strike a deal.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world/australia-discussed-secret-whale-deal-wikileaks-cables-claim/story-e6frfkyi-1225981614928#ixzz1A8HVBpPE" (Source: Australia discussed secret whale deal, WikiLeaks cables claim
From: AAP, January 04, 2011 11:43AM, on www.news.com"
"It seems Peter Garrett, the Australian Environment Minister, stood his ground against the compromise deal (10CANBERRA93 created 2010-02-05),
although it appears the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade were keen on the compromise deal as a way of reforming the IWC (and perhaps earning some brownie points with the US). Environment Department Chief of Staff David Williams gave a small amount of ground when he outlined a negotiating position for the Australian Government that "delivers a much lower level of whaling, but it has to be accompanied by signals of commitment to address other key issues - sustaining the commercial moratorium, keeping whaling out of the southern sanctuary areas and Australian antarctic waters, bringing all whaling under the control of the IWC, and preventing future scientific whaling." Even
this small degree of compromise would be found politically objectionable to many conservation minded Australians." (Source: Wikileaks: Garrett stood his ground on whaling compromise, Sea Shepherd tax status targeted
Tue 04 Jan 2011, By takver on Indymedia.com.au")
Commentary by Beck: The Wikileaks cables are the perceptions, and an edited record, of diplomats, and others, who report their version, and recollections or interpretations of events and discussions.
These are not minutes sent out to the parties for correction. Are we to presume that, in an environment where one's career aspirations are at the whim of others, including the ruling political party in power at the time, these are accurate, and unbiased, summaries?
I think not. They merely serve to show us that facts and events are a changing feast according to who is writing the history. Wikileaks titillates our prejudices not our logic and fairness. (Kevin R Beck, "Don't let truth get in the way, January 2011)
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PRIME MINISTER GILARD, AND ATTORNEY MCLELLAND, DAMAGE LABOR GOVERNMENT INTEGRITY
Several weeks back I wrote to a number of senior labor members of Australia's government, including the
office of the Prime Minister and Attorney General. I indicated to them that in my considered opinion
their public statements
regarding Julian Assange, and Wikileaks, would come back to damage their credibility and integrity.
It would render their government irreparably harmed and likely to trigger an election in 2011.
On my
Gillard government web site
I ask how a government (Rudd and Gillard) can make so many blunders on almost every major action
of their time in government?
Of course one can never expect a reply to communications that warn, or criticise, from the members of any of Australia's governments because the
ethos under which these people operate is "they are the font of all knowledge" and critics are to be dismissed, ridiculed and all too often
threatened. Ms Gillard, and her senior Ministers, run a shockingly
ethically challenged
and
grossly inexperienced government and yet despite time after time getting in a mess they blunder stubbornly on.
One may offer assistance or guidance many times but it falls on deaf ears. (Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia "The Tin Ear" 2010
On December 6, 2010 prominent Australians wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister... I await her consideed response and sadly expect it to be as ignorant as her, and the Attorney General's first set of utterances.
I note that the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, and the conservative side of politics is silent, why is that? Could it be that Tony Abbott is no more of a statesman leader than the incumbents? Our choices of leader of the
Australian government, at any one time, are extremely limited.
Dear Prime Minister,
We note with concern the increasingly violent rhetoric directed towards Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.
“We should treat Mr Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him,” writes conservative columnist Jeffrey T Kuhner in the Washington Times.
William Kristol, former chief of staff to vice president Dan Quayle, asks, “Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are?”
“Why isn’t Julian Assange dead?” writes the prominent US pundit Jonah Goldberg.
“The CIA should have already killed Julian Assange,” says John Hawkins on the Right Wing News site.
Sarah Palin, a likely presidential candidate, compares Assange to an Al Qaeda leader; Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator and potential presidential contender, accuses Assange of “terrorism”.
And so on and so forth.
Such calls cannot be dismissed as bluster. Over the last decade, we have seen the normalisation of extrajudicial measures once unthinkable, from ‘extraordinary rendition’ (kidnapping) to ‘enhanced interrogation’ (torture).
In that context, we now have grave concerns for Mr Assange’s wellbeing.
Irrespective of the political controversies surrounding WikiLeaks, Mr Assange remains entitled to conduct his affairs in safety, and to receive procedural fairness in any legal proceedings against him.
As is well known, Mr Assange is an Australian citizen.
We therefore call upon you to condemn, on behalf of the Australian Government, calls for physical harm to be inflicted upon Mr Assange, and to state publicly that you will ensure Mr Assange receives the rights and protections to which he is entitled, irrespective of whether the unlawful threats against him come from individuals or states.
We urge you to confirm publicly Australia’s commitment to freedom of political communication; to refrain from cancelling Mr Assange's passport, in the absence of clear proof that such a step is warranted; to provide assistance and advocacy to Mr Assange; and do everything in your power to ensure that any legal proceedings taken against him comply fully with the principles of law and procedural fairness.
A statement by you to this effect should not be controversial – it is a simple commitment to democratic principles and the rule of law.
We believe this case represents something of a watershed, with implications that extend beyond Mr Assange and WikiLeaks. In many parts of the globe, death threats routinely silence those who would publish or disseminate controversial material. If these incitements to violence against Mr Assange, a recipient of Amnesty International’s Media Award, are allowed to stand, a disturbing new precedent will have been established in the English-speaking world.
In this crucial time, a strong statement by you and your Government can make an important difference.
We look forward to your response.
Dr Jeff Sparrow, author and editor
Lizzie O’Shea, Social Justice Lawyer, Maurice Blackburn
Professor Noam Chomsky, writer and academic
Antony Loewenstein, journalist and author
Mungo MacCallum, journalist and writer
Professor Peter Singer, author and academic
Adam Bandt, MP
Senator Bob Brown
Senator Scott Ludlam
Julian Burnside QC, barrister
Jeff Lawrence, Secretary, Australian Council of Trade Unions
Professor Raimond Gaita, author and academic
Rob Stary, lawyer
Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Lance Collins, Australian Intelligence Corps, writer
The Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC
Brian Walters SC, barrister
Professor Larissa Behrendt, academic
Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees, academic, Sydney Peace Foundation
Mary Kostakidis, Chair, Sydney Peace Foundation
Professor Wendy Bacon, journalist
Christos Tsiolkas, author
James Bradley, author and journalist
Julian Morrow, comedian and television producer
Louise Swinn, publisher
Helen Garner, novelist
Professor Dennis Altman, writer and academic
Dr Leslie Cannold, author, ethicist, commentator
John Birmingham, writer
Guy Rundle, writer
Alex Miller, writer
Sophie Cunningham, editor and author
Castan Centre for Human Rights Law
Professor Judith Brett, author and academic
Stephen Keim SC, President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights
Phil Lynch, Executive Director, Human Rights Law Resource Centre
Sylvia Hale, MLC
Sophie Black, editor
David Ritter, lawyer and historian
Dr Scott Burchill, writer and academic
Dr Mark Davis, author and academic
Henry Rosenbloom, publisher
Ben Naparstek, editor
Chris Feik, editor
Louise Swinn, publisher
Stephen Warne, barrister
Dr John Dwyer QC
Hilary McPhee, writer, publisher
Joan Dwyer OAM
Greg Barns, barrister
James Button, journalist
Owen Richardson, critic
Michelle Griffin, editor
John Timlin, literary Agent & producer
Ann Cunningham, lawyer and publisher
Alison Croggon, author, critic
Daniel Keene, playwright
Dr Nick Shimmin, editor/writer
Bill O'Shea, lawyer, former President, Law Institute of Victoria
Dianne Otto, Professor of Law, Melbourne Law School
Professor Frank Hutchinson,Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), University of Sydney
Anthony Georgeff, editor
Max Gillies, actor
Shane Maloney, writer
Louis Armand, author and publisher
Jenna Price, academic and journalist
Tanja Kovac, National Cooordinator EMILY's List Australia
Dr Russell Grigg, academic
Dr Justin Clemens, writer and academic
Susan Morairty, Lawyer
David Hirsch, Barrister
Cr Anne O’Shea
Kathryn Crosby, Candidates Online
Dr Robert Sparrow, academic
Jennifer Mills, author
Foong Ling Kong, editor
Tim Norton, Online Campaigns Co-ordinator, Oxfam Australia
Elisabeth Wynhausen, writer
Ben Slade, Lawyer
Nikki Anderson, publisher
Dan Cass
Professor Diane Bell, author and academic
Dr Philipa Rothfield, academic
Gary Cazalet, academic
Dr David Coady, academic
Dr Matthew Sharpe, writer and academic
Dr Tamas Pataki, writer and academic
Miska Mandic
Associate Professor Jake Lynch, academic
Professor Simon During, academic
Michael Brull, writer
Dr Geoff Boucher, academic
Jacinda Woodhead, writer and editor
Dr Rjurik Davidson, writer and editor
Mic Looby, writer
Jane Gleeson-White, writer and editor
Alex Skutenko, editor
Associate Professor John Collins, academic
Professor Philip Pettit, academic
Dr Christopher Scanlon, writer and academic
Dr Lawrie Zion, journalist
Johannes Jakob, editor Sunili Govinnage, lawyer
Michael Bates, lawyer
Bridget Maidment, editor
Bryce Ives, theatre director
Sarah Darmody, writer
Jill Sparrow, writer
Lyn Bender, psychologist
Meredith Rose, editor
Dr Ellie Rennie, President, Engage Media
Ryan Paine, editor
Simon Cooper, editor
Chris Haan, lawyer
Carmela Baranowska, journalist.
Clinton Ellicott, publisher
Dr Charles Richardson, writer and academic
Phillip Frazer, publisher
Geoff Lemon, journalist
Jaya Savige, poet and editor
Johannes Jakob, editor
Kate Bree Geyer; journalist
Chay-Ya Clancy, performer
Lisa Greenaway, editor, writer
Chris Kennett - screenwriter, journalist
Kasey Edwards, author
Dr. Janine Little, academic
Dr Andrew Milner, writer and academic
Patricia Cornelius, writer
Elisa Berg, publisher
Lily Keil, editor
Jenny Sinclair
Roselina Rose
Stephen Luntz
PM Newton
Bryan Cooke
Kristen Obaid
Ryan Haldane-Underwood
Patrick Gardner
Robert Sinnerbrink
Kathryn Millist
Anne Coombs
Karen Pickering
Sarah Mizrahi
Suzanne Ingleton
Jessica Crouch
Michael Ingleton
Matt Griffin
Jane Allen
Tom Curtis
John Connell
David Garland
Stuart Hall
Meredith Tucker-Evans
Phil Perkins
Alexandra Adsett
Tom Doig, editor
Beth Jackson
Peter Mattessi
Robert Sinnerbrink
Greg Black
Paul Ashton
Sigi Jottkandt
Kym Connell, lawyer
Silma Ihram
Nicole Papaleo, lawyer
Melissa Forbes
Matthew Ryan
Ben Gook
Daniel East
Bridget Ikin
Lisa O'Connell
Melissa Cranenburgh
John Bryson
Michael Farrell
Melissa Reeves
Dr Emma Cox
Michael Green
Margherita Tracanelli
David Carlin, writer
Bridget McDonnell
Geoff Page, writer
Rebecca Interdonato
Roxane Ludbrook-Ingleton
Stefan Caramia
Ash Plummer
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STUPIDLY, MYOPIC AND SELF ABSORBED THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW MUCH ATTENTION THEY PAY?
I received this email today Sunday 12 December, 2010:
Dear Kevin,
Today I’ve announced some important reforms to help make our banking system more competitive and sustainable, and make sure it works for Australian families and business, not against them.
I’ve certainly had a lot to say about the banks in the last couple of years, and -- like a lot of people -- I’ve made plain my displeasure about how the Big Four added on their own interest rate increases above official moves.
The aim of our bank package is to give consumers more power to get a better deal, help smaller lenders put more competitive pressure on the big banks, and make sure our financial system continues to supply a sustainable flow of credit to households and businesses.
Competition is the best way to ensure borrowers and depositors get a better deal as well as more choice.
This is a detailed package of reforms, and I’ve spent months working with our regulators and the industry to make sure we get it right.
Of course, there’s no easy solution here and things won’t change overnight. But I’m going to keep working hard to help all Australians get a better banking deal.
If you’re interested in reading more about the package, here’s the press release and the policy document.
Thanks for everything you do to support your Gillard Labor Government.
Now if you read the commentary below would you think I am doing anything for the Gillard government? If you communicate to them, they do not read the content.
The semi literate who open the mail put you on a mailing list
and then the party hacks blindly send the stuff out, in the name of a Minister or the Prime Minister, treating you like an idiot. Is there no wonder that respect for these clowns
was burnt up a long time back. (Kevin R Beck, "The Parasites of the Australian Labor Party" 2010)
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DECEMBER 2010: SENIOR PUBLIC SERVANT EXPOSES MORAL VOID IN GILLARD GOVERNMENT
During the week a senior and respected public servant resigned his oosition as head of the
Murray Darling Basin Authority. He did so on a matter of principle. There are two sides to every argument and the
resignation may be the result of one party being
overly precious or not. In my opnion Mr taylor exposeyet again the craven nature of the Gillard government. The senior Minister
Tony Bourke, and the
Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who will do whatever it takes to get their agenda and objectives up. According to Mr taylor
he was told to act outside of legislation for the political benefit of the government. Prime Minister Gillard produces a legal opinion to the contrary. What a surprise. Does she also have a US cable to go with it?
One should always doubt the politician's credibility, particularly one with a record like Julia Gillard. A grain of salt as the adage goes.
Unlike his political master he has integrity and honour and thus he resigned. In her ignorance and stupidity Gillard
does not realise the effect this has on the rest of the Australian Public Service.
Gillard, and her less enlightened colleagues, rely upon the
ignorance and detachment of the general public assuming that it is they who keep the politician in office. Everyone knows that is not the case as the two maor parties should have larnt from the
federal election of 2010.
It seems that their abilities to invent their own interpretations keeps them in a state of perpetual fantasy as to their tenure. Their will be another election before the full term of Julia Gillard.
The question is whether anyone in the Australian parliament cares about the integrity of the public service to give a damn or will another quality public servant
have sacrificed their careers for an ideal that is
outmoded
in this modern era? (Kevin R Beck, "The Ethical Void of Gillard's labor Government 2010", 2010)
"Murray-Darling Basin Authority chairman quits, Phillip Coorey, December 7, 2010
The chairman of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Mike Taylor, has resigned, taking a swipe at the Gillard government.
Mr Taylor informed Water Minister Tony Burke he would leave his post at the end of January. He then confirmed his resignation in a statement released this morning.
His resignation is the latest blow in the government's attempts to produce a plan for sustainable water use. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, wants a plan ready by the end of next year.
Advertisement: Story continues below
But Mr Taylor today rejected the push by the government that the authority should account for the social and economic implications of water cutbacks across the basin, a move that was forced upon it after angry outbursts from farmers.
He said that the authority was neither empowered nor equipped to undertake the whole task of designing a sustainable plan for the river system." (Source: Sydney Morning Herald)
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DECEMBER 2010: COME ON CHRISTMAS AND OUT THEM OUT OF THEIR MISERY
labor mishandles their policy activity again
The Treasurer Wayne Swan surely is feeling miffed and annoyed. bank bashing is supposed to be politically rewarding and safe.
But not for labor. They cannot take a trick. Mr Swan heralded great changes to the banking regulatory systems that would engender greater competition.
perhaops the best one of the inititaives was to assist credit unions to become more like banks. Banning exit fees for new mortgages and looking at transportability of account numbers,
Mr Swan was probably excited. The government probably should not have suggested that their initiatives would hold down interest rate rises.
The government did not get accolades, they got brick bats.
"Fifth banking pillar 'a joke': Symond, Published 4:07 PM, 14 Dec 2010 Last update 8:08 PM, 14 Dec 2010, AAP
Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond has labelled the government's moves to create a fifth pillar of banking as a joke.
Treasurer Wayne Swan has unveiled measures to create a campaign to promote credit unions and building societies as a way of breaking the power of the big four banks.
But Mr Symond, who founded the Aussie mortgage originator group in 1992, said the government had ignored the contribution of non-bank lenders in sparking competition in the home loan market.
In doing so, he derided the plan to prop up mutuals.
"I'm disappointed that the Treasurer, in announcing his initiatives, has failed to consult with that sector that brought on competition, the non-banks ... who have been totally shut out of the current funding environment," Mr Symond told a Senate hearing in Sydney on Tuesday.
"It wasn't the banking sector that brought competition, it wasn't the mutuals ... but to suggest the mutuals can become the fifth force in banking, quite frankly, is a joke."
Mr Symond also criticised the government's plan to ban exit fees on new standard variable mortgages from July 2011,
describing it as a secondary problem." (Source: AAP, Business Spectator,http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Fifth-banking-pillar-a-joke-Aussie-John-C585U?OpenDocument&src=hp5)
"Exit fee ban won't help existing borrowers, AAP, December 12, 2010, 5:54 pm
Borrowers who take out a new home loan from July 2011 will be spared having to pay an early exit fee but Australians already on a mortgage will still be slugged.
Treasurer Wayne Swan will introduce legislation next year which would see lenders prosecuted if they try to bring back exit fees through another name.
But the government's banking competition reforms, unveiled on Sunday, are more likely to hurt smaller lenders, who charge up to $7300 for borrowers wanting to switch loans.
The Commonwealth Bank charges an exit fee of $700 while Westpac demands $900 to leave.
Adding a touch of irony to his announcements, Mr Swan took a swipe at smaller, non-bank lenders in outlining the reforms designed to break the market share of the big four banks.
"If smaller lenders have to depend, on their business model, on an exit fee as high as $7000, well that's just not sustainable," Mr Swan told reporters in Canberra on Sunday.
"And it's not something that we can tolerate if we want to have a banking system that is competitive."
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said the policy to abolish exit fees was more likely to hurt smaller lenders and do little to foster competition considering that ANZ and National Australia Bank had already scrapped the charges.
"Smaller players won't be able to do it so out with the exit fees and in with the application fees - other fees will go up because the smaller players need that fee income to remain
somewhat competitive with the larger players," he told reporters in Sydney on Sunday." (Source: 7 News Yahoo, http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/8494557/exit-fee-ban-wont-help-existing-borrowers/)
BANKING SHOWDOWN, Attacks from all sides over bank reform, PUBLISHED : 14 DEC 2010 04:48:25
Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stephens, AMP economist Shane Oliver, and Australian bankers Association CEO, Steven Munchenberg all warned that banning exit fees risked hurting small lenders". (Source, Australian Financial Review, 14 december 2010)
"Non-banks warn of higher rates, 14/12/2010 7:50:54 PM,
Australia's non-bank lenders have intensified their attack on Treasurer Wayne Swan's plan to boost mortgage market competition, arguing it will lead to higher interest rates.
The federal government wants to ban exit fees on new standard variable home loans from July 2011.
The Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia, the peak body for non-bank lenders and home loan brokers,
says this will hurt smaller players, who comprise just three per cent of the market.
"They would have to put up their interest rates," the association's chief executive, Phil Naylor, told a Senate hearing in Sydney on Tuesday.
"But if they put up their interest rates, they're no different to the rest of the lenders in the market."
Non-bank lenders charge some of the lowest interest rates in the mortgage market but also levy some hefty exit fees." (Source: Money, Nine MSN,
http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8183008)
All above suggest the government initiatives will drive interest rates up. The Reserve bank Governor has no partisan interest maybe others do. The Australian Senate enquiry is listening to all sorts of dommsday stories and
predictions. One of the most interesting appearances and thought bubbles was from Cameron Clyne, CEO of the National Australia Bank. He pondered a break from the relationship between the Reserve Bank cash rate and the
banks own lending rates. This is consistent with my analysis and
predictions.
Some time back, on the
predictions web site
I pointed out that there is no real relationship between the RBA cash rate and the cost of funds to banks since they are borrowing off shore and
are subject to globval markets. The RBA deliberations deal with inflation, the bank's rate settings are not focused on capping inflation.
The RBA wants to blunt consumer, and worker, sentiment, banks do not. tabloid media and politicians like to play up the "draconian" link when it does not really exist. In creating and maintaining the facde the medio and politicians have
given the banks a vehicle to raise rates in line with RBA cash rate incresaes even though they might not have to.
It is all smoke and mirrors. Punters really need to educate themselves on the whole thing and can go here to the Mosaic Portal
investment
web site. (Kevin R Beck, Melbourne, "Misunderstanding the role of RBA cash rates in Australia", 2010)
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DECEMBER 2010: GILLARD'S ADVISERS ARE SERIOUSLY LETTING HER DOWN
I am being charitable in the above statement, giving the Prime Minister
the benefit of the doubt that it is she who has no idea of the status of her office and no class.
There she is dressed in the same unflattering fashion, talking the lazy drawl, in the company of Oprah Winfrey on the Yarra River. The
standard low grade stunt of the modern politician, the picture grab with someone who has more admirers than she (Julia) has.
Julia Gillard basks in the limelight of the USA star, without realising how obsequious, and demeaning, that may appear to some.
Does the Prime Minister, and her Chief of Staff and advisers, not yet get the status of her office and why she almost did not see
another term as Prime Minister?
Yet again Julia Gillard demonstrates a lack of gravitas of office and image.
The Oprah Winfrey band wagon came here on the
make, paid for by others ($A4,000,000 - $A5,000,000, the majority probably had no passports.
Am I being elitist or should the Prime Minister be walking with heads of state and not some
frumpy US television personality with an audience that struggles with literacy and numeracy?
Martin Ferguson some months back
gushed in parliament about how Oprah had an audience twice the size of our population and the television ratings etc,
without really indicating if he knew the demographic, and the socio economic quantum of her audience. According to Tourism Australia the Oprah Winfrey demographic are affluent women who make travel decisions.
I have not quite seen the affluence in her USA audience. However one must assume, given their control over our tourism dollar, that their determinations are accurate.
Maybe our decision makers have no idea of the structure of US day time television, who knows? The Australian Tennis Open, Australian Grand Prix and Flemington Spring Racing Carnival
add more television value to an international audience of likely incoming tourists.
If the results do not materialise from the Oprah visit then the Prime Minister of Australia, the Minister and Tourism Australia, all risk looking like twits,
with poor judgement and no class. Hopefully it will be raging successful investment but we probably will not know since transparency is not one of the halmarks of our governments and bureaucracies.
(Kevin R Beck, "Cultural cringe, and the creeping, degeneration of the status of the office of Prime Minister in Australia, 2010)
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DECEMBER 2010: ROBERT McLELLAND MAKES ME ASHAMED OF MY AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
AUSTRALIA NEEDS TO BE RID OF THE INCOMPETENT, AND DANGEROUS, GILLARD LABOR GOVERNMENT
Independents in parliament need to review their support
The above blunt statement is a product of frusteration and three years of dealing with, and observing, an incomptenet and inept set of senior Ministers of the
labor party. Not all Ministers are in this category (Ferguson and Crean are very competent) but overall the Gillard government is appalling. The case of Julian Assange is yet another example. There is no careful thought before Ministers put their mouth into gear without their brain.
Examine Australia's Attorney General and his first set of public statements. he like many of his coleaguesstates things that are either inappropriate, ultra vires or off the cuff.
The rhetoric is overblown, the situation more often than not misrepresented and the drama exascerbated by the Minister and overall government incompetence.
There are arguments for and against what Wikileaks is doing. But according to the US and Australian governments, in general,
response to eveything are black or white. The threat to national security of the USA, and to other nations, institutions and people,
is first, and foremost, the lax security of the United States which enables an intelligence officer, in a remote location, to download and store higghly classified material without apparently triggering some warning oversight or audit.
The threat is the US reliance on technology as the wonder device of the modern era.
Technology drives every aspect of the US and when it fails or is flawed dramatic consequences occur. The US now conducts war from a facility using technology and wonders why they tend not to be able to win and then they wonder why
third world nations can kick their butts.
The next threat to security is the propensity for diplomats, and people, like Australia's former Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, to run off at the mouth and for
someone to write it all down in a document which is in electronic form ready for transmission by any lunatic or person with some injkling of technology. The material is not encrypted. Many years back such confidential materials went in diplomatic bags. One tended not to write a lot because it produced paper and took time. Now
the US is paying the technology price - 250,000 cables all in a few gigabytes, all trotted out it seems by any man and his dog.
The last threat is the US itself. Soying on members of the United Nations including Ban Ki Moon and degrading their allies such as the UK with remarks about the quality of their soldiers.
The threat is the
SHEER IGNORANCE, HUBRIS, GAWL AND DUPLICITY, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA'S POLITICIANS AND OFFICIALS.
December 2010: "Intuition..... thoughts and preferences that come to mind quickly and without much reflection"
Intuition is not crystal ball gazing or voodoo. Intuition is shaped by experience and environment. Then there is "prescience..... knowldege of things before they happen.
This is a rare talent and not one that is possessed, apparently, by anyone in the Gillard labor gpvernment. Quite the opposite, appaers to be the case. The labor party lacks any attribute to foretell the outcome of their actions.
So it goes with the Wikileaks.
It is not knew that the Australian labor government should demonstrate its inept capacity for misjudgement. They have for the past three years given us multiple examples.
Australia's Attorney General today demonstrated that he is just another politician who lacks a prescient capability. Australia's government - the puppet of
someone else. The monkey grinder who makes our government dance.
Paul Keating once said politics is the battle of ideas. One idea is that government should be accountable. We tolerate secrecy, and lying, in the name of national security and anti-terrorism. We tolerate too mcuh.
"Mr McClelland yesterday slammed Mr Assange's actions as potentially life endangering and "incredibly irresponsible and reprehensible".
(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may have broken Australian law and may not be welcomed back to the country if convicted, Attorney-General Robert McClelland says.
Mr Assange, who has been involved with the online posting of about 250,000 US diplomatic memos, is the subject of a Swedish arrest warrant over sex-crime allegations.
He was born in and holds a passport for Australia and may return to the country. 'I'm aware the US Attorney has said that US law-enforcement authorities are looking very closely at the fact that United States laws may have been breached and the Australian Federal Police are looking at whether any Australian laws have been breached,' Mr McClelland told reporters on Saturday.
'We have also indicated that we will provide every assistance to United States law-enforcement authorities.' (Source: Australia to help US over Assange
Updated: 21:04, Saturday December 4, 2010)
McLelland suggested that Julian Assange might not be welcome back into Australia. Why is that Minister? he did not steal documents. He did not break into secret files and computer systems.
He received every journalists dream package. He may not be a journaluist but he is a publisher of sorts.
McLelland seems to have trashed centuries of common law and the notion of citizenship and the rights of a citizen to be proteced.
Through this statement McLelland became another piece of political flotsam floating in labor's
political sewer. Gillard apparently agrees. One would not expect her to have a devastating argument or turn of phrase for she can rarely go to the heart of a matter.
Mr. McLelland may assume the greater number of Australians know nothing of the world of shadows and diplomacy, and through his
misrepresentation and hollow threats, insults thinking, reading and knowledgeable Australians. The trade mark of the Australian politician in a senior role is to
embellish, spin or lie, to resport to hyperbole and over statement of the
the consequences of anything including their own participation and efforts. He suggests that peoples' lives are at risk and in doing that shows us what a political fool he is. What poppycock rubbish
from a senior member of government.
The wikileaks cable expose shows many of us what we already knew through other media, international reading and in some cases our work. Diplomats are in a world of their own making and are not to be trusted.
Our own former Prime Minister is a former low level diplomat. Not a high level one, a low level one. Thus many may have felt he was unsuited to high office all
through his career culminating in losing the Prime Ministership without an election. Wikileaks shines a light across the world.
McLelland obviously has a very flimsy awareness of the
technology
that surrounds, and impacts his, and every other government, throughout the world.
It is not wikileaks alone that
plays the fiddle to orchestrate the
dance.
A technology that is already
turning its attention
onto the Gillard government's poor handling of the Wikileaks issue.
Then the next day, the position stated by Mclelland is retracted by a spokesperson:
Australia's Attorney-General Robert McClelland hinted that the government
would not stop WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from coming home. According to a spokesperson of McClelland,
the Attorney-General stated that the 39-year-old Australian is 'entitled' to come home and could also avail consular assistance overseas.
"Mr. Assange, like every Australian citizen, has rights, and nothing is stopping him from coming home to Australia," the spokesperson said quoting McClelland on Monday."
(Source: International Business Times, By IBTimes Staff Reporter, Monday, December 6, 2010, "Wikileaks' Assange can come home: top Aussie official")
The Australian media is already derisive of the government for rhetoric and weakness. The state against the indivisual, the classic battle replayed through the ages.
THE US, AND AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS, STUPIDLY MAKE ASSANGE THE MARTYR
This lack of foresight (prescience) is going to backlash on Australia and the USA.
The Wikileaks diplomatic cable expose are lurid examples of a nasty back biting gossipy world of diplomacy.
In which we can note that which many of us knew before, the US has little loyalty towards allies.
One may be inclined to the proposition that it is an unethical, self absorbed nation that created a global
financial crisis and now a diplomatic blunder of monumental proportion.
Assange, through the informant, has shown the world what the US character really is all about.
These cables show the world what goes on bheind the lies, and the subterfuge, of diplomacy, politics and governments around the world. It has exposed the poor judgement of a myriad of people who occupy positions of trust and responsibility.
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary has apologised to the British for the slur on their troops. The
British Prime Minister might like to think about walking away from
Afghanistan. "Treason, treachery, execution" are the typical rants of American shock jocks and loud borish politicians.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says that it after all won't matter much because we all need the USA.
This fading empire exhibits a venial arrogance and hubris, everyday.
Perhpas McLelland and the Prime Minister have not considered how Wikileaks maintains its presence? Who funds it and for what purpose?
Mr Assange is not the sole individual behind Wikileaks and some of the hidden supporters are indeed very powerful corporate and political operators.
Through his misjudgement, Minister Robert McLelland, may well turn out to be one of those Australians who ultimately
betrays his country's ideal of egalitarianism. Instead of being in Australia's federal parliament Mr. McLelland might consider a career as a dramatic
actor,a comedic role in a soap opera, for which he exhibits the required talents.
There is an element of apparent paranoia in Julian's threats to unload material onto the web if he is pursued by authorities
and some might be inclined to ponder if he has a history of such inner feelings? Then again why is he different to many in the US administration, and legislative assemblies, who are also exhibiting tendencies of paranoia?
(Kevin R Beck, Melbourne, "The Decline of an Empire and the Rise of Paranoia" 2010)
IMPORTANT:
The powerful elite are shutting donw Wikileaks, but are they really all that powerful? You can access it through direct links:
http://88.80.13.160/ and http://204.236.131.131/, and http://wikileaks.info/>, or
Click here
Mirror sites are being established across the Internet. How many people can Australia's Mr. Mclelland, and the US
administration and ranting politicians, threaten? (Kevin R Beck, Melbourne, "Gillard's Shameful Government", 2010)
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HOW DO THE GOVERNMENTS OF RUDD, AND GILLARD, ACHIEVE SUCH LEVELS OF MISMANAGEMENT?
The Australian labor party strategists, advisers and certain
Ministers of the federal government seem to have the ability to take a publicly supported,
and promising idea, or policy, and to turn it into a disaster and
ultimately a failure.
Consumer matters - fuel watch, grocery watch, environment and the pink batts,
the
education revolution
which turned out to be a building programme, and not a learning policy, the MyWeb site that has false or missing statistics,
a national curriculum rejected by experts, water policy buy back scheme and
the Murray Darling Basin quite stupid plan,
energy
and the failures of planning for growth in demand at federal and state level, where the government thinks that small population and education about use with increased tariffs is a solution,
the community housing projects for the
disadvantaged including indigenous peoples which delivers liitle to no impact in assisting low income, disadvanatge or reducing homeslessness,
the failed homeless policy vaunted by Kevin Rudd just after the federal election of 2007, the medical super clinics, a hospital bed programme that delivers 11 extra beds in three years,
the
solar scheme, emission trading, and
climate change,
and the national broadband network (NBN). The government actually had, and still has(reduced) , support for the NBN, but Senator Conroy, the Minister in charge, still wants to bully and
frustrate and oversight or questioning. He is a thug rather than a facilitator and it is his fault alone that the government's capital in this area of policy and action is trashed.
One tires of dealing with thugs in politics of which the Australian labor party seems to have the most. The project is the largest infrastructure investment in Australia's history and the government arrogantly will not realease the economic justification.
How do they achieve this failure and ignorance of management practice,
in such spectacular self destructing, and costly, fashion? Their rushed crash through style, inept management, has cost the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and yet labor leaders
most notably Julia Gillard try and tell us that everything is a glowing achievement, stubbornly refuting critics, independent analysts, the media's and commentators claims, researchers, think tanks
and others like the OECD and the Australian Auditor General. As e end 2010 it seems that the labor government does not understand that it no longer has control.
Julia Gillard should spend her time over the holidays taking fashion tips
and lessons along with elocution lessons to stop her drawling, lazy delivery,
introduced into politics by John Kirner in Victoria, decades back.
The voters have grown tired of the manipulation, the lies and thuggery,
corrosion and corruption
of Australia's government at every level. John Brumby, and the labor government, in
Victoria,
are about to learn just how tired they are with the result of the
Victorian election of 2010 ending his government, with a hung parliament and swing to the liberal national party.
The losers will be independents, labor and the Greens. The Greens will win no seats in the Victorian lower house of
parliament.
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,
JULIA GILLARD EQUAL PAY
Today I received an email from the Prime Minister explaining that her government did really believe in equal pay for women.
Why did this email come? Well because the federal governmet has joined the national wage case in tge Fair Pay circus tent arguing that a pay rise for community services workers (predominantly owmen) would risk the
ability of the government to return the budget to surplus. Well the risk is not to the budget and the surplus but to the politicians particularly Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
"Union's fury at Labor's pay rise 'backdown'
By Simon Santow
Posted Tue Nov 23, 2010 12:19pm AEDT
The Federal Government is being accused of betraying hundreds of thousands of community workers who are seeking a pay rise.
The Australian Services Union (ASU) says it was assured it would have the Labor Party's backing on an equal pay case before Fair Work Australia.
But that was before a Government submission outlined the difficulty in funding any significant pay rise.
The secretary of the ASU in New South Wales, Sally McManus, says its members are furious and they are questioning what the Labor Party stands for.
"Anger would be an understatement," she said.
"There's fury, absolute fury because workers in my union and elsewhere too, when we went to the election, expected that Labor would support equal pay."
Ms McManus says 31 Labor MPs, including cabinet ministers Tony Burke, Anthony Albanese, Greg Combet, Robert McLelland and Tanya Plibersek, all signed a pledge to support full funding for the equal pay case.
But by the time the Government made its official submission to Fair Work Australia, concerns about funding any increase were also being highlighted.
"Now for there to be a backdown or a betrayal it is a bit too much to bear," Ms McManus said. (Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/23/3074026.htm?section=justin)
In typical political form the spin machine of the major political party attempts to justify the unjustifiable in order to be all things to all people.
This is the
immoral, parasitic mob that infests Ministry offices,
paid from the public purse to mislead, and lie to, us whilst leaving their political bosses (theoretically) untarnished. This is a common practice of the
Australian liberal, and labor, parties and their respective Ministers and advisers.
In fairness I am providing a link to the Labor Party news site so that you may read all of their material and judge it in the context of my articles, and the content below.
Click here for the ALP site>
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TREASURER WAYNE SWAN EXPOUNDS THE PURPOSE OF OUR POLITICS
When I received the email from the Treasurer, with the text of his speech at a book launch,
and noted the heading "our politics" I wondered whose politics? Does he mean the
labor party's ownership or the politics of Australia's parties and operation of government,implying that it is the collective?
From reading his speech you can make your own assumptions. The ownership of government in Australia vests with a handful of political party
members and macinists, controled by the
preselection process, and incumbency seniority it does not vest in the Australian people. Australians in my personal view are stupid, indolent and ignorant, for allowing this to continue.
Go to Mr Swan's speech
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"Thought for today. What is my thought for today?"
"Musings,
Julia Gillard, Reflections In a One Way Smokey Mirror", Kevin R Beck, The Nature
of Politicians in Australia, 2010
Image courtesy of Kitty Roach
NAIVE PRIME MINISTER EMBARRASSING IN OFFICE
Questioning Ms Gillard's Competency to Be Prime Minister?
There was jubilation as Australia's first female Prime Minister was sworn in, in the latter part of 2010.
A lawyer who had worked her way up through the corrupt and rancid male donminated world of labor party politics. One could overlook her lazy, elocution, similar to Joan Kirner's
annoying linguistics (former Premier of Victoria), one could overlook the frumpiness of Ms Gillard whose dress sense seems to be as elusive as her grasp of foreign affiars and
other key elements of the role. But should one forgive her stupidity, and willingness, to accept whatever she is told by the political leader of a nation known for its abuse of human rights?
"A GRAPHIC video has emerged of a Papuan man being poked in the genitals with a fiery stick as he is interrogated by men
who appear to be members of Indonesia's security services.
The Papuan man, stripped naked, bound and with one of the interrogators placing a foot on his chest,
is being asked about the location of a cache of weapons. After telling his interrogators the weapons were hidden in a pig pen,
one of them screams at him: ''You cheat, you cheat.''
Another interrogator then says ''get a fire, get a fire'' before a colleague administers the torture with a stick that has been placed in a fire and is smouldering. The man screams in agony,
and does so again when the stick is again pressed against his genitals." (Source: Torture of Papuan man shown on video, Tom Allard, Jakarta, October 18, 2010: WAToday.com)
Activists say Papua torture inaction 'embarrassing' for Australian PM,
Soldiers tortured a naked and bound Papuan man.[Asian Human Rights Commission]
Indonesia admits its soldiers have tortured detainees, Created: Fri, 22 Oct 2010, Matt Brown, Indonesia correspondent
Human rights activists say it is a farce that no serious investigation will be undertaken into the events surrounding a video that showed Papuan detainees being tortured by Indonesian troops.
It was a hot issue when Prime Minister Julia Gillard went to Jakarta a few weeks ago, and Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised a swift investigation into the matter.
The video was graphic and shocking.
Indonesian soldiers tortured a naked and bound Papuan man, taking a burning stick to his genitals, supposedly looking for weapons used by local insurgents.
Australian government officials were alarmed by what they saw and the Indonesian government quickly confirmed the torturers were soldiers.
To date there is no evidence that Dr Yudhoyono's assurances to the Australian Government were based on anything more than an empty promise."
(Source: ASBC radio Australia News,http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201011/3073445.htm?desktop)
Click for: More torture by Indonesian military videos
Click for: Paedophile Paradise
AUSTRALIANS DON'T PAY PEANUTS BUT ELECTORS STILL GET....
People populating the governments of Australia, appear not to listen. It seems to me that they will
not look for alternatives, stubbornly sticking to their beliefs and own selective propositions. They, if ever, rarley tolerate
challenges to their basic beliefs, preferring their "gut" feelings and experiments.
The definition of a foll may be someone who repetitively does the same thing, dressed up as something esle, expecting a different result.
They may pretend not to hear anyone who may contradict, or refute, their views, ideologies and
fantasies. They will fashion experience, truth
and events, to suit their own analysis of history, rewrite the histopry to suit. They will repeat the myth until it
becomes a self fulfilling, and entrenched, outcome or event in their minds.
So it is with the outcomes of elections.
Politicians, and party machine people, turn defeat into a win or a some form of success. They cannot comprehend that the general population no longer believes or respects them, or if they do comprehend they don not care for the system is corrupted and
for the select few, in safe seats with gauranteed preselection, the votes of the Australian nation's constituents are irrelevant.
Along the way, they will quack the need for new ideas, for rejuvenation and
new blood in the party, claiming to be formists, but in reality they will not embrace such propositions for to do so threatens their self interests,
personal careers and positions of power and influence.
(Kevin R Beck,
Melbourne Australia, the Nature of Australian Politics and Governments, 2010)
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November 2010 KARL BITAR AND LABOR'S ELUSION
“People who desperately didn't want Tony Abbott as prime minister felt free to vote for the Greens, an
independent or even for the Opposition because they were convinced we'd win." (Source: 'Expectation problem' led to near defeat, says Karl Bitar, author
James Massola From: The Australian November 09, 2010).
Where does Mr Bitar get his assertion (proof) that the voters thought labor would win? This web site
click here
demonstrates, quite clearly, that this is not the case. The web site was constructed two months
prior to the federal election. The campaigns referred in the web site were
devised, and implemented,
during the Rudd Prime Ministership and some elements well before that time.
Mr Bitar, like some others in labor, have talked of an ideas embracement and a rejuvenation of participation. This is
motherhood rubbish, since the systems devised by the party machine people, including Karl Bitar, are designed to manage particvipation, control and debate in a rigid adherence framework.
The labor party that Greg Combet, romantically refers to in his "values" statements no longer exists. Like Mr Bitar, Mr Combet is a party to the control of how thigs work.
"Dear Australian Electoral Commissioner,
On behalf of many concerned citizens of Australia I would like to make an
application for the deregistration of the Australian Labor Party.
Section 137 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 says that a political party can
be deregistered if the Commission is satisfied on reasonable grounds that a political party
has ceased to exist. Although the Act doesn't say whether "ceased to exist" relates to the party's physical,
philosophical or spiritual condition, it's a pretty safe bet in the Labor Party's case that it qualifies on all
grounds. Finding "reasonable grounds" is easy: all you need do is compare Labor's constitution and objectives with recent Australian history." (Source:
Kellie Tranter, Application to deregister the ALP, 17 MAY 2010, ABC "Drum Unleashed", http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/34474.html).. and in response bloggers write, inter alia:
"Chookman : 20 May 2010 1:18:16pm, Kellie has written a very good overview of the now defunct ALP - and its descent into the abyss of neo liberalism.
This demise began in the 80's and has continued to the point where Malcolm Fraser now looks like a bloody leftie compared to the ALP.
Like many Australians in 2007 I was ecstatic at the demise of John Winston Howard, and his non core promises, however it
appears that K.Rudd and the ALP are now ensconsed on the same pathway." ... "Greenkiller :
19 May 2010 1:26:11pm, Poor diddums Kellie. Once again, matters are not as she would wish them, therefore something must be wrong,
or at least be "deregistered".
Of course, if the ALP was to remain true to its outdated values and the ideals of the socialist international, it would never, EVER win office."
... "Aunty Social : 21 May 2010 3:28:13pm, Barry Jones once made a list of the idelogical differences between the Labor and Liberal paerties, and writes in his last book, A Thinking Reed that those differences no longer exist.
In 2004 Jones wrote "Australia now has two mainstream parties of the right: the ALP on the centre-right and the Liberal Party on the hard-right". (Source: ABC as above)
The primary objective of the two parties, labor and liberal, is obviously to win government. This is quite clear. For Karl Bitar to postulate that there is any other compelling requirement is to treat the
listener as being uninformed. Julia Gillard already tried the smoke and mirrors approach to campiagning by presenting herself as a chameleon (and one without fashion sense to boot) offering us the shallow
proposition of a new Julia. Does she now realise, and contemplate, how silly, and hollow, she is? The Australian labor party at the federal level seems to be staffed with incompetent strategists and people who trsuggle with the art of
communication. Maybe they are lost in adoration of technology, twitter, facebook and the like, and sound bites, unable to articulate ideas and visions. The speech writers of modern Australian politics in 2010
are not a patch on Don Watson. Don encapsulated the world of Karl Bitar, and other senior members of the party machine and the parliament,
in his book "Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant & Management Jargon, Random House Australia, 2004".
'I think this language; it's the language of a cad. It's the language of someone who's actually trying to escape the reality and is unwilling to be honest about it. In the end it doesn't do any harm to be honest, I don't think.' Don Watson speaking on ABC radio,
5 November 2010.
Minister Penny Wong's
performance in her climate portfolio
corporate banking monster.
If the Australian labor government, and the liberal party opposition, want competition in banking then they should empower
the credit unions to be able to offer full banking services under their charters. In the meantime Mr Bitar can ponder the prospect of a hung parliament for the
Victorian
state election of November 27, 2010.
(Kevin R Beck,
Melbourne Australia)
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October 2010 (AUSTRALIA) FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S APPALLING ADMINISTRATION
It seems that every major initiative, handled by the Rudd - Gillard labor government, is applaingly executed.
We have had the insulation debacle, the building the education revolution debacle, the East Timor regional refugee solution debacle, the climate change debacle,
the mining tax debacle and now there is the Murray Darling Basin Independent Authority debacle. Are there no people of capable administration, and lateral thinking capacity, within the
the labor party governments, advisory groups, senior advisers and bureaucrats, across Australia? Anyone with any awareness and sense of the psyche of regional Australia would have known the outcomes of labor's policy sets and their
proposals, yet labor bullocked on ignoring anyone outside its own myopic views.
(October 1, 2010: distribution of this set of predictions
took place to politicians in October 2010 - "FOOD, ENERGY, WATER AND STAPLE PRICES WILL RISE DRAMATICALLY
UNDER STATE LABOR GOVERNMENTS AND FEDERAL LABOR PARTY POLICIES"
Click here
The Murray Darling Basin Authority published a draft submission of ideas and actions relating to water across multiple states in Australia.
They beased their assumptions and propositions on thin evidence and little examination. The paper was entirely environmentally focused and as such one wonders what the capacity of the
Chair, and Board, members of this authority might be regarding how the farmers and local residents in those affected communities might be? The reaction is set oput below.
(Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia)
October 18, ANGRY predictions of dying country towns have
forced the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to rethink the human cost of water clawbacks from irrigators.
The besieged authority will commission a fresh investigation of the socio-economic impact of proposed reductions in
the volumes of water farmers can take from the Murray-Darling system. The authority has been ridiculed ....After a week of abusive public meetings in basin communities,
authority chairman Mike Taylor said the message from regional Australia was "loud and clear". (Source: Murray-Darling Basin Authority rethinks water clawbacks
Michael Harvey From: Herald Sun October 18, 2010 12:00AM)
" MARK COLVIN: More than a thousand people queued up today for the first
public meeting of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority since it released its draft water buyback plan last Friday.
Farmers and irrigators in Shepparton in the Riverina could not hide their rage.
They claimed the plan would cripple rural Australia and cost tens of thousands of jobs....No how dare you buggers sit up
there and tamper with our livelihood." (source: ABC PM, Farmers angry over public meeting of Murray-Darling plan
Alison Caldwell reported this story on Tuesday, October 12, 2010 18:30:00)
" PROTESTOR: We want our water back. (Protesters throwing papers on a bonfire), PROTESTOR 2: Burn the plan! Burn the plan!,
PROTESTOR 3: You bunch of wankers! Get out of here and leave us alone!
JULIA GILLARD (at press conference): Now I
understand people care about this issue passionately.
MAN 1 (at meeting): Governments couldn't give a shit about what happens to us people here. MAN 2 (at meeting): Basically the plan is bullshit.
MAN 3 (at meeting): You're talking shit! MAN 4 (at meeting): You have hurt my wife and family you sons of bitches.
SIMON CREAN, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT MINISTER (excerpt from AM, ABC Radio): I know the television pictures show the anger.
TONY WINDSOR, INDEPENDENT MP (excerpt from 7.30 Report, ABC TV): I think the magnitude of the changes has actually frightened people.
SIMON CREAN (excerpt from AM, ABC Radio): People get angry.
PROTESTOR (outside meeting): It stinks, MAN 5 (outside meeting): Stupidity, absolute stupidity, MAN 6 (outside meeting):
There's an answer to this you drongos. Build more dams, easy, MAN 7 (outside meeting): No water's no business you know?
MAN 8 (at meeting): What happens to the famers? What happens to us?, scrap the plan, take it back to Canberra, MAN 9 (at meeting): What happens to the farmers, what happens to us? You're only worried about the basin! What about us?
(Applause and cheering), WOMAN (at meeting): Take it back to Canberra!
WOMAN 2 (at meeting): Who is going to compensate business when we go under because our communities are decimated?
MAN 10 (at meeting): Is it the intention of the MDBA to bankrupt regional Australia?
(Cheering)
MAN 11 (at meeting): What you are doing is destroying communities. You don't care and obviously the Government doesn't either.
NEWSREADER (excerpt from ABC TV News bulletin): The Federal Government has announced a parliamentary inquiry into the social impact of the Murray Darling Basin plan.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM (water grabs @ 1:00), This is in many ways a weak response from a weak Government,
SIMON BIRMINGHAM (excerpt from Sky News): This is in many ways a very weak response from a weak Government.
GARY HARDGRAVE (excerpt from AM Agenda, Sky TV): Whenever you see the word commission you know there's a minister hiding.
MAN 12 (at meeting): You've done absolutely no good whatsever. MAN 13 (at meeting): All I can see is my future and my children's future being flushed down the toilet at the moment.
(Source: ABC Insiders Programme,Major row erupts over Murray Darling plan, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcast: 17/10/2010)
The Murray darling Basin Authority naively put out a report that was based almost entirely on environmental objectives and
maybe the fools who did this in such a dim witted manner have learnt that operating in isolation of reality (the environmental agenda in governments today in Australia is a recipe for economic, social and
political disaster and destruction)has its consequences. Julia Gillard should think carefully about her
carbon tax,
and
climate change,
ideas
which are now proven to be based on ignorance, poor advice and
flawed science and ideological propositions. Then she should open up her office, and cabinet teams, to some uncomfortable, and alternative, advisers who amongst other things have
a broader set of accurate political and analytical skills. If she does not then her government
will come tumbling down
in the first half of 2011. Mark my words. (Another article compiled by Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia)
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AUSTRALIA'S FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO REFORM (ASIC) THE FINANCIAL REGULATOR AND ITS MANAGEMENT NOW
Australian Securities and Investment Commission Incompetent
September 2010: For many years critics have pointed to the continued failure of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.
Successive Ministers under labor and liberal governments have been derelict in their portfolios resulting in massive losses to investors.
The government regulator's incompetence
destroys lives and wealth
It is time for the new federal Minister to take the reins and earn their salary doing a public good for a change.
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WEEK ONE OF THE NEW ERA IN AUSTRALIA'S FEDERAL PARLIAMENT
Australia's parliament is finally balanced and is drawing much media and political commentary.
People, with no experience of hung parliaments, and no experience of much at all,
are extolling scenarios and beliefs. The coalition under Tony Abbott is whining that Julia Gillard is not
the legitimate Prime Minister, because the people did not vote her in. A few independents delivered the crown. Well if
Tony Abbott had been given the crown by the independents would he be legitimate? He was not voted in either.
Their justification for being chosen to govern is another simpering claim, they state that they
got more primary votes and more seats than labor. Big deal, they did not win the election under the rules of the Constitution.
Of course the opposition could be visionary and innovative instead of being ignorant. They could propose legislation and get it voted in because they are at the same level of parliamentarian representation
as labor. But instead they revert to the historic view that an opposition is there to oppose.
No wonder that the nation has grown somewhat tired of their self perceived roles, and games, and hung them all out to dry.
The National Party, Senator Boswell, Barnaby Joyce and Warren Truss cannot get past the fact that there are independents in
seats that they deem to be their property. They also whine that the independents should have sided with the
coalition because a number of people in those seats voted National after they voted independent. When they win they
defend, and support, the preferential voting system, when they lose (especialy by a little bit) they
denigrate everything, cast speels and incant charms whilst behaving like sulking, immature adolescents with intellectual,
and personality, challenges. The members of parliament are all now on show. Would they like to be remembered for their narrow minded
approaches and
self inteest rather than for embracing the future and getting on with a new era and method of governing together.
This is test for Tony Abbott and members overall not for Julia Gillard alone. Will Tony rise to the challenge?
Governing, I put it to you,
is the role of the parliament. It is not the sole right of a political party executive as has been the modus oeprandi for too long.
I am not sure that the signs are there that Tony can adjust. Mr Abbott could not turn his talent to negotiation when it became apparent that the parliament was hung. He stayed in robot mode.
Even at the last minute when he should have been winning over the two independents he was still in election mode.
Julia Gillard on the other hand proved that when there is a unusual task at hand, that is difficult and people focused, she can rise to it
and she does not need an old song sheet like some carping (parliamentary and non parliamentary) dilettantes.
(Kevin Beck, Melbourne Australia, September 9, 2010)
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Below is yesterday
(election 2010),
above is today, September 2010, Ms Julia Gillard is the Prime Minister
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AUSTRALIA AND PRIME MINISTER MS JULIA GILLARD
Julia Gillard represents the new breed of professional politician. Limited in career experience and
with minimal job experience they enter politics and climm through the ranks of their respective political parties. They apply, within a rarified selection process, for the
top jobs of Australia. They do not have a job interview like normal people, and are not judged by any relevant measure for the positoons for which they aspire.
They learn to manipulate the system, use the public funds at their disposal and to capture the democratic process to their pown self interest.
CAREER POLITICIANS: SHOULD WE VIEW THEM AS PARASITES EATING AT OUR SYSTEM OF DEMOCRCAY AND GOVERNMENT, EFFECTIVELY DISENFRANCHISING US?
Tuesday July 13, 2010: The Prime Minister said - "In a Gillard government ..."
Ms Gillard continues the presidential style of governing. She purloins the peoples' government as her own. Actually Ms Gillard it is
a labor government if your side wins, the 2010 federal election, not a "Gillard government". Humility is replaced by hubris in modern
Australian politics and governments.
Australian voters are not enamoured with their political choices, and the two main parties, liberal and labor, have candidates at state and federal
level who are uninspiring. The system is corrupt and the two parties have control so they do not care about the
disenchantment. It is not as if the Australian electoral list is blessed with choices.(Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia)-
Go to Beck commentary
Read about the contest of mediocrity
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... The ability to predict is the realm of
the Futurist
Based on Tetlock's theories, and research, anyone's predictions are just as likely to come true or be off the mark as any of the expert predictions.
One can only hope that through ongoing learning, observation, comparison, evaluation and measurement, reading and listening to the views of others one might minimise the probability, and continuance, of always being wrong.
You be the judge.
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BELOW: NEWS AND COMMENTARY BY INTEREST GROUP - TOPICS
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AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, GOVERNMENTS AND PUBLIC SERVICES
An alternative source of views, and information, about Australia, its governments
and bureaucracies creadted, and updated, by Kevin R Beck, Melbourne Australia.
Australia's governments cannot pass objectional, and contentious, reform legislation or
legislation that requires trust and integrity of arguement, because they have lost their legitimacy, lost the respect of voters, business and
those who value the quality of their governments and democracy. Australian politics, and government, is decaying under the influence of political parasites,
using spin. Australia's governments are extensively corroded, manipulated and corrupted.
There are no visionary and courageous, leaders.
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Hello and welcome to my web site.
I hope you find the Mosaic Portal useful, and unique, and continue to return here again as I add more and more
topical sites. This web site, and all of the others, are
free to use.
WHAT IS IT AND WHY YOU SHOULD USE THE MOSAIC PORTAL
Inform yourself, find things that may impact your world of work and goals.
Things beyond your horizon. There are a large number of commentary sites dealing with
Australian
politics, governments, consumers and corporations. Information sites about major issues that are impacting your nation, your work and community, things like
climate change,
sites for women,
sites reporting on analysis and
predictions
(futurist), sites describing activism tools and communications utilities,
vocational web sites for teachers, for professionals, academics, artists and thrill seekers. You will find them, and many more, below in the
the individual Mosaic Portal
site directory, click here.
.... Where will you go today, what will you see, hear and learn? Click here.....
Kevin R Beck, Melbourne, Australia
services click here
Free to all, provided with the compliments of Kevin Beck, a lateral thinking, game theory strategist.
Providing information, informing and educating, seeking out impact, and change, in targeted areas of Australia's governments, public services, society and economy.
Sometimes taking an interest in the wider world.
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The numerous political web sites within the
Mosaic Portal
network are not
all encompassing
critiques, and commentary, on Australia's governance. The Australian Political web sites cover selected issues that the owner of the
Mosaic Portal
network,
Kevin Beck,
deems to be of
such import as to shape opinion, action and outcome. For the more observant, and lateral thinking, the articles also point to
motivations
and the
activities
of the owner that will impact government
objectives. The numerous articles, and commentary, look at the credibility, ethical vacuums and the pending fates, of Australia's state, federal and territory political
parties and the
flight of the voters from them.
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