Headlines Sunday 14th December

Turnbull needs to get tough
Piers Akerman
On Tuesday, Malcolm Turnbull will have been federal Opposition leader for three months but the polls show that voters have yet to take to his style of leadership.

Last Tuesday, the final Newspoll of the year, gave Prime Minister Kevin Rudd a 47-point lead over Turnbull as preferred prime minister (66-19), the same sort of numbers that led to the self-execution his predecessor Brendan Nelson.

Don’t look for a change at the top of the Coalition now though. The Newspoll was taken last weekend when pensioners, carers and other welfare recipients were looking forward to receiving their “sugar hits” in the form of unearned dollars from the Rudd government in the name of economic stimulation.

A fistful of money can be extremely stimulating, as bootleggers supplying illegal grog to Aboriginals at up to $170 a slab in Western Australia have found, whether such spending leads to the protection of jobs in the long-term is yet to be seen. - I appreciate this analysis, although I don’t entirely disagree with it. I think it better expressed than the reasoning of Andrew Bolt on several columns recently, in which he says similar things. I agree that the position is too soft for my liking on some issues. I also agree that it is not the kind of position that wins support. However, I think it shrewder than it has been given credit and not inappropriate in the circumstances.
Opposition is different to leadership. Rudd came to power from opposition. He said nothing, but blamed everything, even things that worked, on the Libs. Rudd is looking for more things to blame. Rudd still has not got a position on anything. The position taken by Turnbull and Dr Nelson is sound. If the electorate had wanted Liberal policy they would have voted for it .. and they may yet. However, before the next election, Turnbull has to show the effect of ALP policy. He doesn’t want to distract from the message he will sell by impotent rage now.
Division is death, and Joyce’s position won’t help .. but doesn’t hurt that much either. The conservatives are in this position because of the ALP. Next time, there will be unity .. but then the conservatives will be calling the shots, then .. and the issue would not have risen under them. The only way for country Australia to get representation in parliament is for them to elect conservatives .. not the ALP - ed.
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An agnostic protests
Andrew Bolt
I agree that atheism is a faith, but this is absurd:


VICTORIAN state primary school students will soon be able to take religious education classes which teach there is no evidence God exists.

Much teaching in state schools is already predicated on the death of God, and religious education classes are the last, tenuous link many students would have to the religious culture that produced the society they now enjoy - and risk frittering away.

But if students are to be taught in religious education that there is no evidence God exists, let them also be taught that there is no evidence he does not exist, either.
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Jobless, meet jobs
Andrew Bolt
Here are three reports from the past three days that tell me dots aren’t being joined and hard questions asked
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Raising Cain
Andrew Bolt
I don’t trust such surveys, but I do fear this one’s not far from the truth:

Australian primary school students suffer bullying at a rate of almost 50 per cent above the international average, putting Australia in the worst category for bullying.
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You paid $95 million for Luhrmann’s insult
Andrew Bolt
What was Kevin Rudd laughing about with his mate Hugh Jackman?

Here’s one possibility: We are paying a quarter of the $150 million net budget of a film that rewrites our history to make us seem almost as racist as the Nazis:

AUSTRALIAN taxpayers will end up paying for close to 25 per cent of the production costs for the movie Australia, thanks to a tax deal between director Baz Luhrmann and the Federal Government.
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Which women will pay?
Andrew Bolt
John Alan Wilde raped yet more women - and violently - the last two times he was let out of jail. He’s refused treatment, is said to be dangerous and is young enough to rape yet again.

And he’s now been released by the Sydney judge, who thinks he deserves a fourth chance. I wonder who will pay the price for this act of mercy?
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Investing our future in the Left
Andrew Bolt
We’re saved! Kevin Rudd is spending billions on critical infrastructure:

VICTORIA has secured $1.9 billion for nine major road and rail projects, and three new facilities at Melbourne’s universities, under a stimulus package designed to kick-start growth… New funding has also been provided for critical social and research infrastructure at RMIT, Monash University and Melbourne University. Monash has secured $89.9 million over five years for a research facility called the “New Horizons Centre”, with construction due to begin late next year.

That strikes me as an investment not in growth but its obstacles.
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Obscene kitchen
Andrew Bolt
A new report demands we spend even more on Aboriginal housing:

MARION Bear is all too aware of her dismal situation as she walks through her rundown home in Mowanjum, an Aboriginal community just outside the Kimberley town of Derby.

“You wouldn’t want to live here, would you?” she mutters as she surveys kitchen walls covered in obscene graffiti.

Actually, I wouldn’t want to scrawl obscene graffiti over my own kitchen. And if one of my relatives or visitors had done such a thing, I wouldn’t have wanted to go a day without cleaning it off.

And this is proof that what’s needed is more money from other taxpayers? Lady, you first clean house and then ask if I could help more.
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Glad they told me they weren’t white
Andrew Bolt
Deborah Walsh of the Indigenous Leadership Network:

We’ve always been here, after all. We’re the first Australians.
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Homeless Cup insider tells
Andrew Bolt
Gaye Miller has a long and distinguished record of helping the poor in Cambodia, but she’ll never bring another team to the Homeless World Cup again.