The Australian politics thread

[howardj]

Went to the EKKA today as it was a holiday in L(B)ogan City where I live. I didn't run into the great man (who was also there) and probably was too drunk to recognise him. lol

Taped the debate between Sloppy and Swanny and just watched it. There was some real fire and brimstone. It was good stuff.

I think the election is slipping away though. Still predicting the Torys to fall short by about 5 seats, but it could easly be by as much as 10. Seats are very hard to move, especially 17 of them.

Interesting snippets here from the General heading onwards.

Gillard on Q and A at 9:30pm.

/Over and out

[James90]

Fairly impressed with Hockey today. Didn't sit down and watch it per se, but from the background noise I could hear, he was getting plenty of traction with his attacks on the Government.

Is very hot and cold though, old Joe. Has had some shockers in recent times. Was never a match for Lindsay either.

[Burgey]

Must be something about agricultural shows and Tory leaders.

I remember going to the Easter Show here in 1978 (I was 8 then) and seeing Malcolm Fraser doing what looked to myyouthful eyes as something quite un-natural to a sheep (he was grabbing it around its girth to assess the wool or something)

He seemed a decent enough bloke it should be said. Was probably a bit rough of me to start screaming "Shame Fraser Shame" at him.

I like your signature HJ. You should add Malcolm Fraser's name to the quote. While you're at it, add Tip Costello's quote about TA being not much chop on economic matters .

[social]

Originally Posted by howardj

Went to the EKKA today as it was a holiday in L(B)ogan City where I live. I didn't run into the great man (who was also there) and probably was too drunk to recognise him. lol

Taped the debate between Sloppy and Swanny and just watched it. There was some real fire and brimstone. It was good stuff.

I think the election is slipping away though. Still predicting the Torys to fall short by about 5 seats, but it could easly be by as much as 10. Seats are very hard to move, especially 17 of them.

Interesting snippets here from the General heading onwards.

Gillard on Q and A at 9:30pm.

/Over and out

Still cant believe that the Libs will win despite the ALP doing everything in their power to serve it up to them on a silver platter

They really are having an absolute shocker and the only reason I could think of why anyone would continue to support them is that they are the incumbents

[Adamc]

Originally Posted by Burgey

Must be something about agricultural shows and Tory leaders.

I remember going to the Easter Show here in 1978 (I was 8 then) and seeing Malcolm Fraser doing what looked to myyouthful eyes as something quite un-natural to a sheep (he was grabbing it around its girth to assess the wool or something)

He seemed a decent enough bloke it should be said. Was probably a bit rough of me to start screaming "Shame Fraser Shame" at him.

[Spark]

Loving this Q&A for a change. No dickheads bickering and interrupting and shouting over each other, no partisan squabbling or insults.

Just policies, policies, policies. A breath of fresh air.

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by Spark

Loving this Q&A for a change. No dickheads bickering and interrupting and shouting over each other, no partisan squabbling or insults.

Just policies, policies, policies. A breath of fresh air.

This.

This is a tour de force by our Dear Leader. Whether you think Gillard did well or not, fact is she fronted and did her best.

That **** plays well.

Abbott on next week. Hmm, think I might tag along..

[SirBloody Idiot]

Don't like Hockey most of the time, but man he was on fire today. Comes off so much better when he isn't being an idiot.

Swanny really needs to get those bottom teeth fixed if he wants a tilt at PM IMO.

[Matt79]

Julia smashed it on Q and A tonight. Was an impressive performance without notes - as one twitter comment noted, she does a great line in complimenting the questioner on his question while redefining it in a way that doesn't offend, but even then, I don't think she gave any real weasel answers to anything - including that she didn't feel that she had anything to apology to Rudd for, and therefore hadn't apologised to him.

As Burgey said, will be interesting to see how Abbott goes when he gets his right of reply.

[Jono]

Question about Mark Latham was hilarious, and Julia's response was gold

[Jono]

Originally Posted by Spark

Loving this Q&A for a change. No dickheads bickering and interrupting and shouting over each other, no partisan squabbling or insults.

Just policies, policies, policies. A breath of fresh air.

Indeed. Still think the panels can be excellent though, with the right personnel. The show two weeks ago was fantastic.

Originally Posted by SirBloody Idiot

Swanny really needs to get those bottom teeth fixed if he wants a tilt at PM IMO.

Haha I doubt he'll get a chance with Shorten floating around.

Maribyrnong represent

[Jono]

Swan wins for content, Hockey wins for style

Hockey contradicts Abbott to tune of $7b

Ftr I'm still yet to see the debate.

[howardj]

Originally Posted by Burgey

Must be something about agricultural shows and Tory leaders.

I remember going to the Easter Show here in 1978 (I was 8 then) and seeing Malcolm Fraser doing what looked to myyouthful eyes as something quite un-natural to a sheep (he was grabbing it around its girth to assess the wool or something)

He seemed a decent enough bloke it should be said. Was probably a bit rough of me to start screaming "Shame Fraser Shame" at him.

I like your signature HJ. You should add Malcolm Fraser's name to the quote. While you're at it, add Tip Costello's quote about TA being not much chop on economic matters .

Surely you don't have to have it spelt out to you, do you?

There is no irony in what Fraser and Costello said. They are both perfectly qualified to comment on whether somebody is ready to be PM, and whether they are economically savvy respectively. By contrast, Rudd (the PM whose tenure is measured in months, not years) looks like an absolute ass when passing opinion on who is and who is not 'up to the job of being PM'. How could he be so lacking in self-awareness, so vain, not to see how silly he looked when saying that. The man, by any definition, was a failure. Not even you or Bruce Hawker could spin otherwise.

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by howardj

Surely you don't have to have it spelt out to you, do you?

There is no irony in what Fraser and Costello said. They are both perfectly qualified to comment on whether somebody is ready to be PM, and whether they are economically savvy respectively. By contrast, Rudd (the PM whose tenure is measured in months, not years) looks like an absolute ass when passing opinion on who is and who is not 'up to the job of being PM'. How could he be so lacking in self-awareness, so vain, not to see how silly he looked when saying that. The man, by any definition, was a failure. Not even you or Bruce Hawker could spin otherwise.

Costello is not qualified to say who should or shouldn't be PM, when he never had the stones to run himself. At least Rudd had the stones to stand up and have a crack at it.

Costello is the ultimate s******ing school kids, big with the sneer and the one-liners, but when asked to come to the front of the class, lacks the balls to go through with his rhetoric.

[howardj]

I agree that Gillard was quite impressive last night - I'm willing to give credit to the other side, and am not a paid up party hack . However, her job was made considerably easier by Tony Jones - who is either biased or has not been following politics as closely as he should be - not pulling her up on various claims very important claims which she just repeated over and over again last night. Two off the top of my head were:

- that the Liberals are increasing company tax and that this will make groceries dearer (at worst, the rate will stay at 30%, and for all but 3000 companies it will be half of a percent lower than Labor i.e. 28.5% compared to 29%.) It was like he pretended he did not know that the Liberals are cutting company tax by more than what Labor are.

- that the Liberals opposed economic stimulus. She must have said this, unchallenged, at least 10 times. The facts are that they supported the first stimulus, and only voted down the second round because they thought it should be $20 billion, not $42 billion. Turns out, given all the waste and given that it is still rolling out now, it looks like they were right.

For Jones to sit there, and surely the guy knew about these things otherwise he is derelict in his job, and let her go unchallenged and repeat these things, was high farce. It was an unpaid, unchallenged advertisement.