A belated sigh of relief from me. The election is all over and the lying rodent has weaseled himself out of a job. From me to you John, here’s a big f–k you to you and everything you stood for.
Tag Archive for 'election-07'
Uppdate : It’s happened again!
Sydney radio announcer Steve Price told his audience that when questioning Peter Garrett about Labor’s ‘Me-Tooism’, Garrett replied, it wouldn’t be a problem because they would “change it all” when they got into power.
Garrett has come out and said:
“There is no doubt things would change under a Labor government.
“We would launch an education revolution, we would get rid of Work Choices, we would deliver a high speed broadband network across Australia, we will end the blame game on hospitals.
“There is nothing remarkable about that.”
This plays a little to neatly into Howard’s narrative of the sneaky Rudd story for my liking. And with the absence of source materials for the interview (which happened at an airport lounge) I’m sure his mob will use their imagination.
Let’s pray Kevin doesn’t release a clarifying statement.
Meanwhile, the spectre of death, Phillip Ruddock is suggesting bringing in any new people into government reduces our ability to react to a terrorist incident. This is why octogenarians such as Ruddock (perhaps a slight exaggeration) should immediately be sent to Iraq where their wealth of experience can be put to direct use.
Rudd needs to stop being so nervous about losing the election from the lead that he jumps down on his ministers merely when something they say might be construed as ammunition for the Coalition.
He did it with McClelland over his sensible remarks on the death penalty and he’s done it with Peter Garrett over his remarks about a post Kyoto agreement requiring (or not requiring) developed nations to cut emissions.
Read the transcript and /or listen to the audio for yourself.
Update: Apparently Garrett was explicit in an interview with the Australian Financial Review, if anyone has a copy of it, let me know.
Garrett was not suggesting we take part in binding agreements that would not include the US or China. He was emphasizing the fact that Australia should be a part of the process of getting those agreements made. This is in contrast to Howard’s position that unless a wonderful magical all-encompassing consensus emerges binding everybody, then fuck it.
But by being a bit slippery about the question, (if developed nations don’t sign on, then we won’t avert climate change will we?) Howard pounced on it. Rudd overreacted and in stead of standing by what his minister said, he issued a ‘clarifying statement’. Something a diplomat does, not a leader.
Now the government is spinning that in fact there is very little that differentiates Labor from the Coalition on climate change (a good reason to vote Green!). We have an opposition that wants you to believe it’s economics are identical to the government and a government who wants you to believe it’s environmental policy is identical to the opposition. Presumably because each is envious of the other’s poll numbers on the respective issues.
Check out The Big Switch to find out real points of difference amongst the parties and where your local candidate stands on the most important issue (in my view) of this election.
Show those in power and those who want power what this issue means to you by Walking Against Warming.
On Sunday November 11, join thousands of other Aussies at the Walk Against Warming near you to send a clear message to our political leaders – that the community wants bold and effective leadership on climate change!
GetUp Meeting Spots in Capital Cities
In Melbourne:
Meet at Federation Square at the entrance to the Ian Potter gallery at 12:30pm.
Dale Dickins 0405 776 169 victoria@getup.org.au
One of my favourite jokes about irony:
Homer: It seems the cat has been caught by the very person who was trying to catch him!
Skinner: How ironic
Another:
(Joe who is in a wheelchair finally catches the theif he has been after)
Peter: So what happend to the theif?
Joe: Ironically I severed his spine.
Peter: Looks like you have more competition at next years games.
Joe: No, he’s dead.
Is it ironic that both these jokes are acutally about a lack of irony? No, it’s not.
I mention it because I find it deliciously ironic (not the salty kind) that after selectively releasing chat transcripts in order to slander Dr. Mohammed Haneef’s reputation and credibility, Minister Kevin Andrews has had some unflattering transcripts of his own released.
CONFIDENTIAL emails between top AFP agents and a senior public servant advising Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews indicate that there was a secret plan to thwart a decision by a magistrate to release then terror suspect Mohamed Haneef on bail.
The emails show the AFP was aware of a weekend “contingency” plan to ensure the Indian doctor would remain behind bars by having Mr Andrews revoke his visa under the Migration Act in the event of bail being granted by Brisbane magistrate Jacqui Payne on the following Monday.
The disclosure of the emails will be used against Mr Andrews, who has always insisted that he made his decision to revoke Dr Haneef’s visa under the Migration Act and that it was “unrelated to the question of proceedings in the criminal court in Brisbane”.
A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews told The Australian last night that she was “shocked and a bit concerned” at the disclosure in the emails.
“That’s something, to be honest, I’m a bit lost for words on because it shocks me,” said Kate Walshe, adding that she would seek urgent advice from Mr Andrews.
“I had never heard of any contingency plan. The minister has never referred to one.”
After getting advice from Mr Andrews last night, Ms Walshe said the minister had “absolutely not” been involved in any “contingency” plan to thwart Ms Payne: “It’s not our email and it’s not something that we considered beforehand.
“My answer would be that the police can explain their correspondence to and from each other but there was absolutely no deal or arrangement or contingency instigated, approved, or discussed by the minister or any of his staff at all, ever.”
The emails, obtained under Freedom of Information laws by Dr Haneef’s lawyers, show that while the AFP was uncertain on Saturday, July 14, after an initial bail hearing whether Dr Haneef would be freed two days later by Ms Payne, the police had developed “contingencies”.
The first email, written by Brisbane-based counter-terrorism co-ordinator David Craig to commanders of the AFP’s counter-terrorism unit at 5.22pm on July 14, states: “Contingencies for containing Mr HANEEF and detaining him under the Migration Act, if it is the case he is granted bail on Monday, are in place as per arrangements today.”
Under the Migration Act, such a contingency necessarily needed to involve Mr Andrews.
This email was forwarded at 8.10am on Monday, July 16, by agent Luke Morrish, the AFP’s Canberra-based acting manager for domestic counter-terrorism, to top Immigration Department public servant Peter White.
Mr White, the department’s assistant secretary responsible for character assessment and war crimes screening, gave Mr Andrews comprehensive advice on his powers and his authority to cancel Dr Haneef’s visa and keep him in custody on the basis of secret evidence.
About three hours after Agent Morrish forwarded the email to Mr White on July 16, Ms Payne granted Dr Haneef bail over a terrorism-related charge.
One of the factors relied on by Ms Payne was the extraordinary weakness of the AFP’s case against Dr Haneef, who had repeatedly and strenuously asserted his innocence of any connection with terrorist acts carried out in Britain in June, which were linked to his mobile phone SIM card and his second cousins, brothers Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed. The Gold Coast Hospital registrar was kept behind bars after Mr Andrews made his controversial decision on July 16 to revoke the visa.
Defending his decision on the afternoon of July 16, Mr Andrews said: “This is unrelated to the question of proceedings in the criminal court in Brisbane. This is a direct responsibility set out in the Migration Act. This is simply a matter of me looking at the responsibilities that I have under the migration legislation, acting upon the advice and information provided to me by the Australian Federal Police, and then making a decision both in light of my responsibility and that information and advice.”
The release of the emails, three months after the case against the exonerated Dr Haneef collapsed in disgrace amid disclosures in The Australian of serious errors by police and prosecutors from the Commonwealth DPP, comes amid continuing calls for a royal commission-style inquiry.
Mr Andrews, who has repeatedly maintained that Dr Haneef failed a “character test” arising from his connection to his second cousins, is instructing lawyers for the Crown to appeal against a Federal Court decision that Dr Haneef’s visa should be reinstated.
Dr Haneef’s solicitor, Peter Russo, in Melbourne last night for a speech, told The Australian: “I’m concerned about it. Obviously it’s apparent that there was communication about pulling his visa prior to the magistrate handing down her decision.”
Describing the emails as “a very significant piece in the jigsaw of information”, he called on AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty, Mr Andrews and anyone else who knew of the secret contingency plan to “come clean and explain exactly what discussions did take place”.
Mr Russo said he wanted to say a lot more about the emails, “but I’m limited in what I can say because of a pending Federal Court appeal over Dr Haneef’s visa”.
The Saturday July 14 email written by Agent Craig states: “In my opinion, the magistrate did not appear weighted to either side’s argument and the outcome of her decision on Monday is not predictable.”
Agent Craig also reports that Ms Payne had disclosed to the court that she had worked a decade earlier for Dr Haneef’s solicitor, Mr Russo, and that she had asked if this would be an issue for the prosecution.
While the prosecution did not object to her hearing the matter, Agent Craig wrote to his superiors: “This is somewhat of a concern, in my opinion.”
A leading defence lawyer and close follower of the Haneef case, barrister Greg Barns, last night said the emails showed that “the AFP in conjunction with the Government were essentially completely undermining the judicial process”.
“They were ripping up the doctrine of the separation of powers,” Mr Barns said.
“What you are seeing here is the politicisation of an investigation and the AFP working hand-in-glove to formulate that.
“It shows there was a pre-judgment by Minister Andrews and the Government, prior to the magistrate’s decision being taken, and this decision was politically stage-managed rather than being done according to law.”
An AFP spokeswoman said last night she was getting advice and would provide more details as soon as possible.
Considering that the Haneef debacle was an issue Hedley Thomas gained some measure of credibility as a journalist (though he made some mistakes) I’m surprised his still has a job at The Australian.
According to the AFP, circumventing the authority of the Courts is “normal operational contingency planning” and Andrews has taken a break from his “I’ve got a secret dossier” character to the more common Government ‘Schultz’ line: “I know nothing!“.
From News.com.au
A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said today he had no knowledge of the correspondence.
“He didn’t see the emails. He hasn’t seen the emails. Never heard of the police officer (mentioned),” the spokeswoman told AAP today.
She said Mr White could have received the email and failed to hand it on to the minister, but maintained the minister had a healthy relationship with the department.
“Absolutely, a relationship that any minister would have with his department.
“But there would be no reason for the minister to be seeing such (emails) because they are completely unrelated to his actual decision.”
“A relationship that any minister would have with his department”, well that sums it up doesn’t it? Also known as “plausible deniability”, and what was once known as ministerial responsibility. Just like the Australian Wheat Board scandal or Children Overboard or the entire cultural failure of the Immigration Department or WMD or Abu Ghraib, unless you actually catch the minister in the act -even if you have clear records implicating their department - the minister cannot be held responsible.
The problem is, it works. Fire a minister and you’ve admitted guilt and the public will hold you accountable for it (hopefully). Stick it out and the issue fades from the collective consciousness.
Of course you only get so many fuck up freebies before you’re too much of a liability to keep around. Kevin Andrews is certainly nearing the margin however short of finding a dead prostitute in his car I doubt Howard would sack a minister during an election campaign.
However, am I suffering from the same Confirmation Bias that seems to afflict so many governments around the world? The tendency to attempt to prove rather than disprove your theories?
Perhaps. The emails themselves aren’t really that damning, but I desperately want to see Andrews get what’s coming to him.
I realize that one is not supposed to mention ‘refugees’ this election unless you are a covert agent for the Liberal party trying to wedge Rudd against the lefties and give mainstream (’racist’) Australian ‘battlers’ a reason to go back to the coalition.
Ross Gittins hit on the idea that Labor lefties sincerely hope Rudd isn’t as Howardesque as he is making himself out to be for the purposes of the election campaign.
One of the central issues in this election campaign is what Kevin Rudd would be like as prime minister. Much of John Howard’s campaigning is directed towards convincing us that, once he’d won, Rudd’s me-tooing would stop and the real man would be revealed.
But here’s the funny thing: what Liberal supporters fear, many Labor supporters hope for. They hope that once he’d won, Rudd’s me-tooing would stop and the closet socialist — any kind of socialist — would be revealed.
Michelle Grattan once wrote that the “sniff of power” would keep the left quiet during the election, so intense is their desire to see Howard ride off into the sunset, hunched over and dead with no-one shouting “come back!” Except perhaps for Peter Costello.
I think that nothing short of a ‘Howard-Lite’ candidate is capable of winning power in this country at this time. Perhaps there will be a time for a Goff Whitlam election but this isn’t it, not when the economy is on cocaine and Australian Working Families (AWFs) “have never been better off”.
But in earnest hope we cling to speeches made by Rudd such as the following made back in August 2006.
Industrial relations, asylum seekers and global climate change all needed the attention of Christians, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said at a Christian conference in Parliament House in Canberra.
“There are of course many other (issues).
“But none can dispute that these three are significant,” Mr Rudd said.
On industrial relations Mr Rudd said the government’s controversial Work Choices laws damaged families.
“The key to family life is relationships and the key to relationships is the time to nurture them.
“These industrial relations changes have a capacity to make our family life increasingly time-poor and therefore relationship-poor.”
A compassionate view toward asylum seekers, Mr Rudd said, was part of a long biblical tradition of welcoming strangers.
“That is why the government’s current proposal to excise the entire Australian mainland from the entire Australian migration zone and to rely almost exclusively on the so-called Pacific solution should be the cause of great ethical concern across the Christian churches,” Mr Rudd said.
He described global warming as one of the great fundamental ethical challenges of the modern age.
“For me it is ethically indefensible for this government to have spent the last decade not only refusing to ratify the Kyoto protocol, but actively working with the government of the United States to marginalise it.”
So maybe you don’t bring up refugees in an election campaign lest you scare working family xenophobes. Nor do you harp on or even really mention or refer to the 2.2 million Australians living below the poverty line lest you scare off working family mortgage belt cashed up bogans. But, you certainly talk up industrial relations as much as possible, this hurts working families. And you can whisper platitudes about climate change thanks to Al Gore making saving ourselves from self-annihiliation vogue. But don’t actually detail the sacrifices people are going to have to make or you’ll scare the CUB crowd. (Though he better bloody not have ethanol in mind.)
Rudd calls them ‘Christian’ values though as an atheist I call them ‘humanist’ values and some philosophers might very well call them, simply, ‘minimal human decency’. However, the best way to push Rudd to the left is to vote for the Greens in the senate, the party who understands the urgency of the climate change crisis. The party who doesn’t have to kiss the ass of big business by pulling some kind of phased withdrawal of Work Choices.
Today thank the proverbial ‘lord’ we learn:
A PREFERENCE swap between Labor and the Greens is “all but a done deal” for the Senate nationwide and marginal lower house seats in every state except Tasmania, Greens leader Bob Brown says.
This is after the ALP’s unforgivable act of putting Family First ahead of The Greens in their preferences which is the only reason Steve Fielding was elected in 2004.
How can Steve Fielding of Family First win one of Victoria’s Senate seats with just 45,260 votes?
In short, because virtually every other party - including Labor and the Democrats - preferred Family First to the Greens and practically every other party.
STEP 1 1st preferences
Liberal/NP 1,048,172
ALP 873,649Greens 205,920
Family First 45,204
Democrats 44,099
DLP 44,084
Liberals for Forests 41,289
You can see how the deed was done in all it’s horrible detail here.
This time around, incredibly, it’s going to be a challenge just to oust the Coalition from the senate. Which is why the ALP, Democrats & Greens are putting up a united front.
It’s about time there was some scrutiny of Family First. There is sure to be some public investigation of this malignant growth on our political system now that FF has disendorsed one of their Sydney candidates, Andrew Quah. He clearly did not have the ‘values’ they were after.
Family First is the epitome of one Australia’s nastiest exports, Dog Whistle politics. From their website:
FAMILY FIRST’s top priority is the health and well-being of families;
FAMILY FIRST believes families are the most important thing in our lives;
FAMILY FIRST raises the issues that really matter to families;
FAMILY FIRST gives your family a voice in Parliament, so the needs of families are addressed;
FAMILY FIRST is independent and represents commonsense, mainstream values and ordinary Australian families.
I can hear dogs howling down the street, this is the most obviously coded bunch of bullshit I’ve ever read. “Commonsense, mainstream values” ? Presumably that means they are against dark people. Families are the most important thing in our lives? What does that even mean? We know they’re against homosexuality.
Family First disciplined one of its workers at Dayboro, in the marginal Brisbane seat of Dickson, for answering “yes” to a question about whether Family First supported lesbians being burned to death.
But, given how important families are and all, I would’ve thought they would support IVF treatment and adoption for lesbians not burning them to death.
How does a pro-family party reconcile children behind razor wire in mandatory detention, or refugees unable to reunite with their families in Australia (especially if they’re from Africa)? It doesn’t. Because for the religious right, Christian values mean only two things, anti-abortion and anti-homosexuals.
I wrote the following to Senator Steve Fielding but am yet to receive any response:
Dear Senator Fielding,
You represent a party that “recognises and supports Australia’s international and humanitarian commitments in regard to asylum seekers.” http://www.familyfirst.org.au
/documents/ASYLUMSEEKERS.pdf What action will you be taking to ensure Australia does not continue to flout it’s international and moral obligations as a signatory if the Refugee Convention, in regard to the 72 Sri Lanka genuine refugees who face the prospect of languishing for years indeterminately on Nauru?
Do you regard it as morally just to punish genuine refugees by refusing to settle them in Australia in order to send a symbolic message to a third party (people smugglers)?
So we come back to Rudd’s re-branding of Christian values (minimal human decency). They are of course informed completely by secular humanist values otherwise we would be promoting murder, genocide, rape and unholy acts of human indignity were we rely solely on the bible for our ‘values’. Jesus had some good stuff to say about social justice, let’s grab that and leave the stoning to death shit to the homophobic, anti-women fundamentalists.
My favourite quote about mixing religion with politics is this one:
Mixing religion with politics is like mixing ice cream with horse manure. It doesn’t hurt the manure, but it ruins the ice cream.
Of course you can guess which one I think is the ice cream, and which one is just a bunch of horse shit. Whatever you believe, the great moral crisis of our time, possibly of all time is climate change. It is not interest rates, it is not gay men trying to get married, it is not union thugs.
Right Wingers would have you believe climate change is an economic question, it’s not. There will be economic costs and in the most consumerist, self absorbed, decadent, selfish, short sighted generation in living memory, talk of *gasp* “self sacrifice” seems akin to promoting self-mutilation.
Either we decide that it is right to spend a lot of money seeking to prevent catastrophic climate change or we decide that it isn’t, but we must make that decision on the grounds of how much we value people and places as people and places, rather than as figures in a ledger.
Geroge Monbiot
Imagine the refugee problem brought about by a global food deficit, seal level rises and complete disruption of regular weather patterns. Billions of people will be affected and they will be disproportionately poor. Here in the comfortable west, climate change affects us last and effect us least. But the humanitarian disaster that awaits us is so great that only a sociopath could fail to grasp the urgency of action.
I’m not sure it’s wise for someone who believes in the literal story of Noah and the flood to be holding or co-holding the balance of power in the Senate!
Don’t be hoodwinked by so called ‘Climate Change Realists’, vote for The Greens, it’s about values.
Joe Hockey, master of political nuance that he is, threw a wrench in the Howard, “The unions are coming to eat your children” scare campaign by calling them, “irrelevant” and describing their role as “essentially over“.
Gradually they’ve been falling and most dramatically even under Keating and now they’re just down to 20 per cent,” he said.
One in five workers are choosing to join the unions.
“Now unions have an important safety role in some industries but overall Australians are choosing not join the unions because they see them as irrelevant to their lives.
Now in an attempt to salvage the narrative Howard enunciated:
Unions have a legitimate and proper role in our society
We are not anti-union, we are anti union control, we are anti union domination, we are anti unions having a monopoly role in the workplace, but unions have a legitimate place in our society, always have. It’s just they shouldn’t run the place.
We’re not against the notion of a union just the idea of it affecting any actual change or policy. Y’know ‘control’. That belongs as a birth right to the free marketeers.
Now Joe -I’m a big teddy bear- Hockey explained further:
Given that the unions now only represent 15 per cent of the private sector workforce, yet under Kevin Rudd they would be 70 per cent of his ministry, I absolutely stand by those comments.
Just like our African refugee intake used to be 70 percent, for the year 07-08 it will be zero perecent. So the plight of African refugee’s is now irrelevant to a modern Australia.
Let’s take a look at the party of the people. In touch with the mythical ‘working family’.
My god, have you ever seen a more representative bunch of people. They’ve got Australian diversity written all over them don’t they? This is the party of inept creepy white men isn’t it?
I don’t think the ALP is any better but let’s follow Joe -I’ve never been too good at- Hockey’s argument.
Howard’s Minions:
100% White Bread
13% Women 87% Men
3% Vampire (Phillip Ruddock)
3% Gollum (Kevin Andrews)
So if you’re a white, male, possibly undead voter who doesn’t give a stuff about workplace fairness, investment in education and thinks that climate change is a hoax, then the Liberal Party is for you.
But if in doubt, there is one statistic which can easily confirm your membership:
Feel free to invent your own captions.
Greens Fly ’sack Howard’ banner outisde Kirribilli House
So the ‘official’ election campaign is on. A good time to reflect on the last ten years don’t you think?
Chaser’s War on Everything - Ten Years of John W. Howard
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