Headlines Thursday 30th October

Rudd’s policy as safe as money in the bank
Piers Akerman
KEVIN Rudd and his team of economic ministers have done nothing but compound the economic problems facing Australians since the global fiscal crisis began. - It just occurred to me, this might be Rudd's way of limiting the pay of 'the big end of town.' By making money worth less, Rudd has lessened the disparity between rich and poor .. something Mr Howard couldn't do even though he made poor people much better off. - ed
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How to report an election
Andrew Bolt
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How brazenly Rudd spins
Andrew Bolt
Exactly how many porkies has Kevin Rudd quietly been telling journalists about his chats with foreign newsmakers? We know already how he verballed George Bush, but Peter Costello has another example:

Last Friday Peter Hartcher of the Sydney Morning Herald told us it was in late March, at a meeting with the Managing Director of the IMF in Washington, that Kevin Rudd became alarmed about the gathering economic crisis. “Fearing the effects on the world economy, Rudd decided to prepare an economic stimulus package for Australia. He and Swan began canvassing specific ideas with their officials”.

Laurie Oakes told us on Saturday in News Ltd papers how Wayne Swan, sitting in a car in pouring rain in January took a call from US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson who wanted to warn him of the dangers in American financial institutions. This explains how according to Oakes “An economic stimulus plan was already on the blocks. As they became increasingly alarmed at what was happening overseas, Rudd and Swan had been working on it, just in case”.

The thing we can confidently say as a result of the co-ordinated media spin over the weekend is that the Government is briefing journalists that it has been working up an economic stimulus plan since January or perhaps March. We are invited to believe that we should be grateful that the Government saw this economic downturn and drew up plans for a fiscal stimulus to meet it.

Unfortunately the facts rather get in the way of this nice piece of spin. The first fact is the May Budget.
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Not the only gay in the village
Andrew Bolt

Little Britain’s Matt Lucas has become famous - and hugely popular - for playing Daffyd Thomas, “the only gay in the village”. Lucas, himself gay, has Thomas constantly outing himself in a tiny Welsh village, only to be disappointed at meeting acceptance, indifference to his sexuality, and more gays than he imagined or wanted.

It mocks the stereotype of a raging queen, and professional victim, but the laughter it invites comes not from a hatred of gays, but a (hopeful) recognition that our villages most certainly have more than one gay and there’s no need to play the lonely martyr. The comedy wouldn’t work if Daffyd’s sexuality was treated with hatred and derision. The fun is in recognising that Daffyd is out of time, protesting against a bigotry he can no longer find, but needs to hide his own shyness and naivity. And in laughing at him, we congratulate ourselves for our tolerance of - or, much better, affection for - the only gay in the village.
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Polls tighten, despite the media
Andrew Bolt
Now even Gallup notices a tightening
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Rudd’s fix makes mess worse
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd is like the pilot who reassures his passengers the plane really is safe - by handing out parachutes only to first class. No wonder that he’s managed to create a run on financial institutions by noisily trying to stop a run on banks that hadn’t actually occurred.

But Terry McCrann has a different analogy for the disaster, which Rudd’s panicky $83 million fix yesterday may only make worse:

IT GETS worse. First the Prime Minister is making a habit of shouting “there isn’t a fire in the theatre”. But I’ve called the fire brigade and I want everyone to flee - err, correction, evacuate the theatre.

And now his ‘policy’ is to turn the entire Australian financial system into banks…
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Mistake-prone Premier won't be listened to
Alan Jones
The recently arrived New South Wales Premier, Nathan Rees needs to be very careful.

There are far too many mistakes emerging.

And the great political risk is that if this continues, the public will stop listening, and that is terminal for any politician.

When he came to the job he said that he would end the spin.

When he went to a public meeting with his Cabinet in Penrith, he said he should get no credit for listening, that's what he's meant to do. But it was the action which followed the listening that counted.

Well, yesterday he was asked whether his Government would guarantee payments to businesses that supply New South Wales public hospitals.

Now the Federal Labor Government had said that any suppliers to Government departments would be paid within 30 days. And Federal Labor said they'd guarantee that.

And if the Government Department failed to meet the deadline, the small business operator would have the right to charge penalty interest on the unpaid debt.

I should point out this is an initiative of the Federal Small Business Minister, a bloke called Craig Emerson who is very able.

Well, Nathan Rees was asked whether he would similarly guarantee the payments to businesses that supply the State Government, and he declined to offer the guarantee.