=== Todays Toon ===
Snowed under.The St. Bernard Pup (to his Master). "This situation appeals to my hereditary instincts. Shall I come to the rescue?"
[Before leaving Switzerland Mr. Lloyd George purchased a St. Bernard pup.]
Cartoon from Punch 15 September 1920
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was a British statesman who was the first Welsh Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the only Prime Minister to have spoken English as a second language, Welsh having been his first.=== Bible Quote ===
“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”- Zephaniah 3:17=== Headline ===
BP seems to catch a break as a mile-long tube siphons a large amount of leaking oil to a tanker from Gulf of Mexico seafloor.Plea for Talks Won't Ease Thai Military Crackdown
Red Shirt protesters say they're ready to negotiate with Thai gov't, but that won't stop crackdown on 'terrorists'
All Eyes on 3 Senate Primaries
Dems and GOP are closely watching primaries in Pa., Ky. and Ark. that are pitting Washington against everyone else
Girl Shot Dead in Detroit Police Search
Hunt for Detroit murder suspect turns to tragedy as officer's gun accidentally goes off, killing 7-year-old girl
Mark Webber leaps into contention for this year's Formula One championship after becoming the first Australian to win the Monaco Grand Prix in 51 years. Picture: Luca BrunoGillard closes the gap on Rudd
JULIA Gillard dramatically closes in on Kevin Rudd as preferred Labor leader, latest poll reveals.
Teens told to remove Facebook photos
POLICE urge all teenagers to remove their profile pictures and the names of their schools. - it is ok for kids to lie on facebook. They can lie about their age and say they are in their 80's. That and a few practical steps can go far to improving security. But nothing is perfect. Nona made a mistake, and has paid a very high price for it. It was a tragedy. - ed.
Jess delights in good mates, fruit, Twilight
THERE'S a lot to catch up on after spending seven months at sea.
Put dog in boot, cabbie tells blind woman
TAXI driver refused to let passenger ride with her guide dog - and he's not the only one.
MasterChef's Preston 'w**ker of the year'
MEN'S magazine tells food judge he needs to "chill out and eat cheese on toast once in a while".
Hoons warning couldn't save driver
A WOMAN who was killed when a car slammed into her vehicle as she tried to park had aired fears about drivers hooning through her town.
=== Comment ===
Even Labor admit that Rudd must goPiers Akerman
IN politics, the point of difference is everything. In 2007, Kevin Rudd sold himself to the Australian people as John Howard-lite. - It doesn’t matter how bad the ALP is, they can find someone else. But my tip is they won’t before the election. Rudd does not run the ALP, he is merely a suit. He serves a function and so he constipates process, but he doesn’t run it. He is not in control of what is happening. He is reactive, not proactive, and so he is covering up his mistakes, be they assassinating a Timorise guerilla, or a child’s rape. He appoints people and gets applauded for forward thinking, but these people are only appointed to cover up his closet skeletons.
I don’t care who succeeds him .. they won’t lead the ALP either. The ALP needs reform, but Hawke and Keating were not capable of doing it. Personally, I think someone like Mr Howard or Mr Greiner could be brought in to reform the ALP, but it will take decades. - ed
===
NONE BETTER THAN THIS
Tim Blair
The best political ads come from Alabama:
Via Nicole, who emails: “How do we get this guy on the ballot with Chris Christie? I would gladly don a hazmat suit for all of the exploding liberal heads.” The ad – created by Ladd Ehlinger Jr. – has already been condemned as “the most American thing ever made”, which means it’s working.
===
WRITE A PLAY ABOUT IT
Tim Blair
Rage on stage:
The failure of the judges of this year’s NSW Premier’s Literary Awards to nominate any plays has provoked bitter resentment among playwrights.… once they’ve finished the busy lunchtime shift.
In a show of solidarity, scores of playwrights, theatre practitioners and artists will meet today to protest …
===
WAVES GENERATED
Tim Blair
The Port Kembla Wave Generator Project – a ”a terrific example of clean energy” – now lies dormant on the ocean floor:
The landmark Oceanlinx wave energy system, the Mk3PC, sits underwater at the bottom of Port Kembla’s eastern break wall after heavy seas ripped the unit from its moorings …The project was launched by Peter Garrett two months ago.
Attempts to tow the structure to safety were hampered by heavy seas.
The barge-like structure was lodged tight against the eastern breakwater on Friday night with crews expected to make a second effort on Saturday, but by Saturday morning the structure had sunk.
===
HOCKEY MOCKERY
Tim Blair
Dan F., in Chicago for the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, emails:
Steve Milloy wins the prize for the best registration handout EVER ...
UPDATE. Meanwhile, another climate-themed conference was recently held in Bolivia:A decision by a climate-change group to fly leading activists 12,000 miles to a conference threatens to tear the movement apart …
The leaders argued it was necessary to attend the ‘transnational protest’ – even though the flights generated eight tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gases.
Now a furious backlash against the trip threatens to split the group, which in the past has blockaded Heathrow airport and clashed with police at demonstrations against coal-fired power stations.
===
MALCOLM AND HIS OLDER NEIGHBOUR
Tim Blair
Latest column.
===
URSUS BOGUS MAXIMUS
Tim Blair
Instead of running that image of Ursus bogus, why didn’t Science magazine choose this shot instead? It’s by the same artist, and is far more heart-wrenching on account of the tragically immobile wind turbine. (Via Shub Niggurath.) Meanwhile, the original photoshopped poley is causing grief for warmenist Peter Gleick, as Bradley Fikes reports:
When blogs (including this one) pointed out Science’s photo blunder, Gleick got quite irate — not at Science for its carelessness — but at those who pointed out the mistake.Warmies are always sensitive to the pointing out of mistakes. So would you be too, if your worldview was based on them. Speaking of worlds, please enjoy the global travels of our peripatetic poley. I like to think of him as the people’s poley.
UPDATE. The NYT’s Andrew Rivkin:
Polar bear pictures, particularly, have proved problematic. Remember the image of the bear struggling in the waves circulated by an environmental group awhile back? The waves were from the prop wash of the helicopter overhead.We also remember the NYT’s polar bear problems. They went on for quite some time.
===
FAITHS COMPARED
Tim Blair
Peter Foster evaluates birthers, truthers and warmers.
===
HYPERBOLE DEPLOYED
Tim Blair
Murdoch paranoia from UK election wrongster Bob Ellis:
I didn’t calculate, it now seems, on the rattled ego of Clegg (who sacrificed his party’s future existence to seize for himself a few fraught months as Deputy Prime Minister) nor the unprincipled will to power of the Tories (who gave up all their significant policy positions to crawl, tongue dragging, into Number 10) nor the sleepless cunning of the Murdoch snitches whose hyperbolic deployment of an unremarkable bugged grumble by Gordon Brown as he sped away in a private car cost Labour ten seats they could have used well as bargaining chips in their crucial chat on Monday, nor the Labor grandees’ contempt for the slippery slumming posh-boy Clegg, it now seems. And so I got it wrong, so wrong; and I’m sorry.Oh, don’t mention it. I mean, seriously, don’t mention it. Ellis’s apologies are even more painful than his predictions. An extra load of Murdoch paranoia from Mike Carlton:
In the past 18 months there has been a relentless media campaign to destroy the Rudd government, the most savage onslaught upon a federal Labor administration since the Whitlam years.He doesn’t mention savage onslaughts against conservative governments. Interesting.
Naturally, this has been led by the forces of darkness at News Ltd. The Murdoch gorilla threw itself into the demolition of Gordon Brown’s Labour Party in Britain. It seeks to wreck the Obama presidency in the United States. Here, it battles for the return of a Tory Brutopia to Canberra.Whoa, Mike. Hold on a second. If News Ltd.’s “forces of darkness” are leading the attacks on Rudd, how can the “hyenas of talkback radio” also be “at the front”? News Ltd doesn’t own any talkback stations in Australia. Logic master Carlton next blames the Rudd attacks on ... Rudd:
And as ever, the hyenas of talkback radio are howling at the front of the pack.
Rudd and the government started to lose control of the narrative. They were spooked by the collapse of Copenhagen and the weakening of a national consensus on climate change; blind-sided by the widespread and often criminal rorting of the home insulation scheme and the school building program; unnerved by the rising tide of refugee boats turning up off Ashmore Reef.Welcome to the forces of darkness, Mike. We’ll put you on a desk next to your old mate Phillip Adams.
The backdowns and withdrawals began, and they were not managed well. Rudd began to look as if he was missing in action, leaving it to lesser mortals to clean up the mess …
Finally - if I might be so bold, Kevin - a little advice on media management: enough of the hospital visits. Decent of you, I know, but they have become a leaden visual cliche.
===
APART FROM THAT, THEY’RE COMPLETELY RATIONAL
Tim Blair
The AGW community is behaving exactly like the UFO cult studied by psychologist Leon Festinger in his classic study of cognitive dissonance, reports Art Horn.
===
Media scrambles to hide Rudd's incompetence and blames Dutton
Andrew Bolt
Liberal frontbencher and dill Peter Dutton thought the prospect of a couple of hundred dollars of profit was worth the risk of incalculable harm to the Liberals’ attack on Kevin Rudd’s “super profits” tax. And so he bought $2000 of BHP Billiton shares when the tax had sent BHPB’s price through the floor.
Gloated Peter Martin:
Coalition frontbencher Peter Dutton bought BHP on Tuesday May 4 when it closed $38.59That’s $2.50 profit, minus any transaction costs. It’s also, as Martin fails to note, damn all of a recovery in BHPB’s price, with the stock down more than 8 per cent since Rudd’s tax plan was announced.
Friday it closed $38.64
He was better share trader than he was a politician.
In fact, the latest trading shows that Martin is wrong on two counts:
BHP backpedalled 3.55 per cent, or $1.37, to $37.27.Which puts Dutton down by $66. So he’s no better an investor than he is a politician. (UPDATE: He’s now down by $71.)
Maybe he should have listened more to his leader’s warnings about the disastrous effects of Rudd’s super tax on mining. - or maybe he knows the price will go back and improve from sensible policy when ALP lose the election later this year - ed.
UPDATE
BHP Billiton chairman Jac Nasser writes to shareholders:
Historically, the stability and competitiveness of Australia’s tax system has been central to providing resources companies and investors with the confidence to invest billions of dollars in long life projects exposed to the risk of significant commodity price movements.Rudd is in over his head now, Because of his past backflips he cannot afford to back down. But it seems increasingly clear that the country cannot afford for him not to.
In a break with this successful tradition, two weeks ago the Commonwealth Government announced a proposal to opportunistically increase the tax on resources companies. The Government’s proposal would see the total effective tax rate on BHP Billiton’s Australian profits increase from 43% to 57% making the Australian resources industry the highest taxed in the world. This compares to a tax rate of 23% in Canada and a range of 27%-38% in Brazil. These are two of the largest resource rich countries that compete with Australia for investment, customers and jobs.
Australia’s resources industry did not happen by luck. The industry was built by generations of hard working Australians together with the investments made by companies and shareholders. The proposed super tax fundamentally, abruptly and unfairly changes the rules of the game.
Based on these proposed changes your Chief Executive Officer Marius Kloppers has already said that if the tax goes ahead it would seriously threaten Australia’s competitiveness, jeopardise future investments and adversely affect the future wealth and standard of living of all Australians.
In addition, the proposed tax will unfairly impact communities and working families across regional Australia, the people who provide essential goods and services to our industry, superannuation funds, individual shareholders and future generations.
It is not just the resources industry that will be impacted. The risk is that Australia could now be seen by the rest of the world as a less stable and less competitive place for long term investments. If this eventuates, the great work of Australians to build the strong economic foundation of the country over decades could be undermined, representing a crucial turning point for Australia....
We will be assessing our Australian operations and investment plans as details of the proposed tax become clearer and we will advise you as decisions are made.
On this issue alone, the logic suggests that Rudd must be replaced if Labor is to save what’s left of its economic credibility.
A very early call, I know. But watch how this plays out.
UPDATE 2
Reader Dave:
The real question is - if this is such a good policy - why aren’t Labor MP’s buying?
===
Artists demand prizes
Andrew Bolt
Here’s a tip for the artists demanding taxpayer-funded prizes. Write something worth rewarding - especially with tickets, rather than a politician’s grant:
The failure of the judges of this year’s NSW Premier’s Literary Awards to nominate any plays has provoked bitter resentment among playwrights.Let’s check the Sydney Morning Herald’s review of the first of those plays mentioned - Let the Sunshine - to see what the artists are so crossly defending:
In a show of solidarity, scores of playwrights, theatre practitioners and artists will meet today to protest against having their work snubbed by the awards judges who deemed none of the 25 plays submitted for the $50,000 award was good enough to shortlist.
Among the plays submitted were David Williamson’s Let the Sunshine, John Doyle’s Pig Iron People, Joanna Murray-Smith’s Rockabye, Steve Rodgers’s Savage River and Alana Valentine’s Sarrinah.
… bloodless caricatures ... all the blazing obviousness… Williamson’s settings are similarly sketchy ... glib cultural shorthand ... stiffness ... lack of invention ...UPDATE
The prizemoney saved is going to the “professional development” of new talent, which seems sensible.
===
Green popes as bad as the Borgias
Andrew Bolt
Never has a religious movement been headed almost exclusively by shameless hypocrites:
A decision by a climate-change group to fly leading activists 12,000 miles to a conference threatens to tear the movement apart.The hypocrites’ excuse?
The leadership of Climate Camp – which is opposed to flying and airport expansion – have been accused of hypocrisy after they sent two members on a £1,200 round-trip to Bolivia.
The leaders argued it was necessary to attend the ‘transnational protest’ – even though the flights generated eight tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gases.
Now a furious backlash against the trip threatens to split the group, which in the past has blockaded Heathrow airport and clashed with police at demonstrations against coal-fired power stations.
If I died tomorrow and didn’t take my return flight or any others in the future, the planet would still be being ruined.How many billions of us could say the same?
At least the Renaissance Popes had the grace to hide their sinning from from the faithful.
(Thanks to reader Markus Frank.)
===
Why didn’t Howes shoot rich Twiggy in his class war ad?
Andrew Bolt
Paul Howes, the AWU boss, has let his old Trotskyist Resistance past get the better of him by running class-war ads attacking rich mining bosses for “taking” minerals “out of Australia”, like they were, you know, stealing them:
The ads, which began airing on Foxtel yesterday, target the sizeable profits made by the heads of the three behemoths of the Australian mining industry: Clive Palmer, BHP’s Marius Kloppers and Rio Tinto’s Tom Albanese.(What’s Howes saying: that the crime is to export the minerals? And the solution is to put them back?)
“For decades the mining industry has been taking things out of Australia,” the ad begins, before running shots of the men. “Along the way it’s made some mining bosses very, very rich.”
The commercial concludes with the exhortation: “Let the mining bosses know: It’s time to put something back”.
But the oddest thing about his choice of villainous fat cats - the South African Kloppers, the American Albanese and the fat guy Palmer.
Someone’s missing - the billionaire who’s been about the most vocal in fighting the super-profits tax. The miner who’s long seemed a friend of Labor, and campaigner for Aboriginal employment.
Why isn’t Twiggy Forrest in your ad, Paul? Or would attacking a dinki-di miner like him make you ad seem even more stupid?
Watch the ad here:
UPDATESometimes, of course, an old AWU boss decides a billionaire who rips us off is very, very attractive and well-worth defending, having done so much for the AWU boss country:
Federal Labor MP and former union heavyweight Bill Shorten, a long-time family friend of the Pratts, said Mr Pratt was “gravely ill”, but was last night conscious and still able to hold a conversation.And as for the daughters of other very rich men in the drill-and-dig business....
“He is a great Australian and it is terrible to see him gravely ill,” Mr Shorten said.
“I think it’s fair to say that Richard Pratt is currently held in very high respect by many many people in Victoria and Australia; he employed thousands of people in good jobs.”
UPDATE 2
It’s only a few months ago that Clive Palmer, now being vilified as a take-take-take fat cat who got rich by “taking things out of Australia”, was lauded as the hero who saved hundreds of Queensland jobs:
QUEENSLAND’S richest man Clive Palmer has been credited with a phenomenal multimillion-dollar turnaround at Townsville’s near-mothballed Yabulu Nickel refinery…(Thanks to reader Nigel.)
Just six months ago, the mining billionaire saved 950 jobs as he threw a lifeline to the north Queensland economy. Under his new ownership the former BHP Billiton plant is back in the black and turning a profit after once bleeding an incredible $40 million a month.
“He’s the Lang Hancock of the 2000s,” Yabulu general manager Trefor Flood said. “He’s larger than life; he cares about people… We were all staring down the barrel of wholesale job losses, shutting the gate and closing the plant....”
Townsville’s civic leaders have embraced the mining mogul as their own for his support of north Queensland’s Fury soccer team, of surf clubs, and of school “breakfast for kids” programs.
===
Maybe Latham wasn’t so mad on Rudd, after all
Andrew Bolt
Reader Pat Mc is wondering if Mark Latham was really as mad as Labor now claims. Consider just some of what the former Opposition Leader wrote of his then foreign affairs spokesman in his Latham Diaries, and ask why so many commentators were so slow to see through Rudd, too:
Rudd is mentioned on no fewer than 40 occasions in his diaries and never finds one good thing to say about him. Here are just a few quotes from his book.
Rudd’s Foreign Policy
Monday 24th March 2003, Page 217
“War in Iraq and Simon has got himself into a terrible tangle. The basic lesson: never listen to Rudd on foreign policy. If that guy is an expert then I’m Henry Kissinger.”
Page 218
Today Rudd was even worse. At 9.15 am he played a role in drafting the troops resolution at Shadow Cabinet but at 5.00pm at the National Right Meeting after Robert Ray attacked the wording Rudd stood up and disowned it calling it hopeless. I’m still shaking my head in disbelief that it was the same person at both meetings. He’s an incredible piece of work.
Rudd on Trust
Saturday, 22nd November 2003, Page 243
All the snakes are sliding around in the grass feeding their poison to Seccombe (SMH Journalist): Rudd, Swan, Albanese, Tanner and Comb-over.
Page 249
It is amazing that the journalist couldn’t see through him. Two factors: they are lazy and dumb and Rudd is a fanatical media networker. He is addicted to it worse than Heroin.
Wednesday, 14 April 2004, Page 280
I’ve had a suspicion for some time now that Rudd has been feeding mat erial to Oakes. Decided to set him up, telling Kevvie about our focus groups on Iraq. No such research exists-Gartrell says he’s doing some quantita tive polling but not focus groups. Today, right on cue, Jabba has written in the Bulletin: ‘The Labor Party’s polling firm has been busily running focus groups to test the public mood following Latham’s ‘troops -out’ announce ment. The most significant finding, I understand, is overwhelming support for the alliance with the United States’.
Trapped him. Two weeks ago in New Zealand, I announced our inten tion to have a Minister for the Pacific Islands. That’s the job I’ll give Rudd if we win. Joel thinks I’m joking, but I’m deadly serious. Rudd is a terrible piece of work: addicted to the media and leaking. A junior minister in Government, at best.
Rudd’s Vanity
Saturday, 30th December 2003, Page 256
Kevvie wanted his title expanded to the more grandiose Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Security. No worries, but then he rang me last Sunday to say he objected to McClelland also having the word `Security’ in his title. At first I thought it was some kind of joke, but the crazy bastard was serious: he had a long and absurd argument about the alleged overlap between the two jobs. I suggested he talk to McClelland, hoping to never hear from him again.
By the end of the day, Rudd was threatening to go to the backbench, over a question of semantics. I told him I was willing to accept his resigna tion and he went away to think about it. The ideal contingency plan was McMullan to Foreign Affairs and then I could save face with Coxie in Finance. Rudd called at about 11 p.m. and backed down, allowing the announcement to go ahead the next day.
Friday 22nd October 2004, Page 364
Another slice of Caucus chaos: Kevin Rudd. On Wednesday, ‘ The Australian ‘ carried a front-page story saying that if Rudd didn’t became Shadow Treasurer he would go to the backbench. My thoughts went back to December last year and his tantrum over his title. He’s such a prima donna
Rudd came around to see me yesterday morning, lobbying to be Shadow Treasurer. He went into a long explanation of why he’s so wonderful. When he finished I put my cards on the table: that I regard him as disloyal and unreli able, and he only holds his frontbench position because of his media profile and public standing among people who have never actually met him. I also told him that if the newspaper report was true, he should get ready for the backbench, as there was no way I could give him the Shadow Treasury.
He appeared surprised, protested his innocence and then broke down badly, sobbing over the recent death of his mother, just before polling day. I told him to leave work and go back to Brisbane to rest with his family. But he wouldn’t give up. Even though he was crying, he kept on lobbying to be Shadow Treasurer. It was becoming quite sad. Then he said words that I will never forget: ‘I swear on my mother’s grave that The Australian story is wrong, totally wrong, and that I’ve been loyal to you and will continue to be loyal to your leadership’.
I don’t mind people bullshitting to me in politics, but not like this. Last week he rang around Caucus to gauge the mood after our loss, and told Trish Crossin that my leadership was on notice: I had until the Budget Reply speech next May to prove myself. He’s always bagging me to journal ists and that’s not going to change any time soon. I don’t trust him, no matter what he says
===
Time the state had a family breakdown
Andrew Bolt
I like Bob Smith, the President of Victoria Legislative Council, but this excuse for his extravagent travelling overseas on the public purse is a joke:
Asked by The Age about his busy travel schedule, Mr Smith stressed the importance of maintaining relationships with Victoria’s three international sister states: Jiangsu province in China, Aichi prefecture in Japan, and Busan in South Korea.This sister-city and sister-state rort has to stop. It’s no more than an excuse for politicians to invite each other on junkets. If Bob’s sister states are so important to us, how come not one in a 100,000 voters could name the three Victoria has?
UPDATE
What pleasant prospects of free travel they offer:
Melbourne Sister Cities are Osaka, Japan; Tianjin, China; Thessaloniki, Greece; St. Petersburg, Russia; Milan, Italy and Boston, Massachusetts, USA.What, no Addis Ababa? No Ouagadougou?
UPDATE 2
Sydney’s sister cities offer even more delights for the travelling politician:
San Francisco, USA 1968UPDATE 3
Nagoya, Japan 1980
Wellington, New Zealand 1982
Portsmouth, England 1984
Guangzhou, China 1985
Florence, Italy 1986
More friends with benefits, with Brisbane seeming at least to be the most business-like:
Brisbane(Thanks to reader Dave.)
Kobe, Japan (July 1985)
Auckland, New Zealand (August 1988)
Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China (June 1992)
Semarang, Indonesia (January 1993)
Kaohsiung, Taiwan (September 1997)
Daejeon, South Korea (June 2002)
Chongqing, People’s Republic of China (October 2005)
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (February 2009)
Perth
Kagoshima, 1974
Houston, 1984
Rhodes, 1984
Megisti, 1984
San Diego, 1987
Vasto, 1989
Nanjing, 1998
Taipei, 1999
Adelaide
Austin, Texas, United States - 1983
Christchurch, New Zealand - 1972
George Town, Penang, Malaysia - 1973
Himeji, Japan - 1982
Wuhan, China - 2007
===
Years later, a rort closed
Andrew Bolt
What kept them? At long last some sense - and a rort ended:
AUSTRALIA is about to become a harder place to get into if you are a dance instructor, piano tuner, hairdresser or chef.Hairdressers I know who have trained such wanna-be Australians swear the country is now well stocked with newly arrived trained hairdressers doing anything but cutting hair.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans has slashed by half the list of 400 occupations given an easy ride into Australia in the independent skilled migration program, replacing them with 180 ‘’highly valued occupations’’.
And how many of these “chefs” and “hairdressers” did we let in in a single year? Try 5000.
===
Rudd’s scheme bursts, armed forces wither
Andrew Bolt
Remember Kevin Rudd’s grand scheme last year - what great headlines it produced! - for the biggest peace-time buildup of our armed forces?
KEVIN Rudd is set to announce Australia’s biggest military build-up since World War II, led by a multi-billion-dollar investment in maritime defence, including 100 new F-35 fighters, a doubling of the submarine fleet, and powerful new surface warships.Yeah, right. Ross Gittins explodes yet another Rudd deceit:
About 10 days before last year’s budget Kevin Rudd made a grand announcement that the previous government’s commitment to increasing real defence spending by 3 per cent a year would be continued.Which goes to the heart of the fakery in selling this Budget:
But 10 days later the budget pushed a lot of that spending (mainly the purchase of major equipment) off into the never-never. This year’s budget papers say real defence spending is expected to fall by 6.5 per cent in 2011-12 and by a further 3.8 per cent in 2012-13 (the year we supposedly return to surplus).
Then, however, it grows by 5.3 per cent the year after (and, if we only knew, no doubt skyrockets in the years beyond the forward estimates). Rudd’s grand promise just gets rolled further and further into the future.
Budgets used to be about what the government plans to do in the coming financial year. Now they’re about what supposedly will happen any time over the next four years.(Thanks to readers CA and zbcustom.)
How unreal can you get? Who on earth knows what will happen over the next four years? No one. Certainly not Treasury (nor any of the smarties who think they know better than it). This time last year Treasury’s best guess was that unemployment would peak at 8.5 per cent next year; now we know it peaked at 5.8 per cent in the middle of last year…
This year there’s been huge emphasis - encouraged by the government’s rhetoric and amplified by the media (including yours truly) - on one figure: the projected budget balance in three years’ time, a surplus of $1 billion. Hallelujah! Home and hosed. All over bar the shouting.
How absurd can you get? Treasury isn’t even prepared to dignify this figure with the status of a ‘’forecast’’? It’s the product of a completely mechanical, punch-in-predetermined-numbers ‘’projection’’. Here’s another absurdity: the public debate about the budget treats all its figures as if they were accomplished facts.
===
Better Coke than the booze
Andrew Bolt
Sure, drinking fruit juice is healthier - but is it smart to limit this tasty alternative when the biggest battle is to get such communities off alcohol?
THE Federal Government will look at new ways to cut down soft drink consumption in remote Northern Territory communities.(Thanks to reader CA.)
===
How many millions more will this boat cost us?
Andrew Bolt
May is turning out to be a very big month for boats, which sure don’t seem deterred by Kevin Rudd’s “tough” new rules last month:
A boat carrying 92 asylum seekers has been intercepted near Scott Reef off the north west coast of Western Australia.(Thanks to reader Boat Watch.)
===
Two more polls show Labor - and Rudd - are struggling
Andrew Bolt
Newspoll says the Budget did next to nothing for the Rudd Government:Labor’s primary vote went from a record low of 35 per cent before the budget to 37 per cent, resulting in a two-party-preferred vote, based on preferences at the last election, of 50 per cent to the Coalition’s 50 per cent.The Rudd brand is broken, and perhaps for good:
Despite the dramatic budget announcement of a return to surplus in 2012 - “in three years time and three years early” - dissatisfaction with the performance of Mr Rudd reached a new high of 51 per cent - compared with 50 per cent before the budget - while satisfaction remained unchanged on 39 per cent, Mr Rudd’s lowest on record.There’s still some buyer resistance to Tony Abbott:
In the past two weeks, which includes Mr Abbott’s budget reply, satisfaction with the way he is doing his job has fallen from 45 per cent to 42 per cent and dissatisfaction has risen from 43 to 45 per cent - a “negative satisfaction” rate of three points.But Julia Gillard will quietly prepare for the fast-looming day she is called:
The real change in leadership support has been towards Julia Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister and Education and Workplace Relations Minister, who has cut Mr Rudd’s lead over her as preferred Labor leader from 25 points just three months ago to only five percentage points last weekend.Another poll confirms Labor’s woes, but isn’t quite as hot on Gillard, although warming to her:
An exclusive Galaxy Poll for the Herald Sun shows Labor and the Coalition deadlocked at 50-50 on the two-party preferred vote… The Galaxy Poll reveals Mr Rudd’s previously sky-high ratings have dived with just 45 per cent saying he is the best choice to lead the Government, while 34 per cent would prefer Ms Gillard. A further 21 per cent were uncommitted.But Wayne Swan seems unhappy for Gillard to be considered the one and only challenger, and Laurie Oakes does some advertising for him:
Treasurer Wayne Swan produced what most commentators praised as the right Budget for the time… Then - surprisingly to some - Swan also proved an effective communicator, conveying his economic message in simple language that matched the Budget’s “no frills” content.Glenn Milne seems rightly unimpressed with Laurie Oakes’ cheap gotcha attempt on Tony Abbott yesterday, using a document I understand was fed to him by the Government, which then warned other media outlets to watch for what it knew was about to happen.
When Rudd weighed in, the comparison did not flatter the PM. More Swan and rather less Rudd should have been the order of the day…
Rudd’s dramatic fall from grace in the opinion polls has prompted leadership speculation. And all of it, so far, has centred on Julia Gillard, which is understandable… . But this week has certainly shown that Gillard is not Labor’s only viable alternative.
Swan packed his leadership baton away when Rudd toppled Kim Beazley in 2006, but - as a Labor insider remarked - “He did not put it up for sale on eBay; it’s still in his knapsack"…
Gillard’s Teflon coating might wear off, particularly if the school building program becomes an election campaign embarrassment. But Swan’s performance reminded colleagues that he is there.
Sure, Coalition frontbencher Peter Dutton was a goose to leave himself open to a (baseless) attack by buying (just) $2000 of BHP shares, but as I guessed on Insiders yesterday, he did so not because he thought Rudd’s new tax would be good for BHP but because it had just wiped out another 2.38 per cent of its value in a single day.
===
Marking down the idea of Europe
Andrew Bolt
The German Chancellor tries to explain to her people why they had to bail out Greece and then offer another $200 billion for a bailout to save the euro:
The stakes could scarcely be higher. ”If the euro fails, it is not only the currency that fails,” Merkel warned last week. “Then Europe fails. The idea of European unity fails.”Uh oh:
The euro fell to its lowest level since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. on concern that the 16-nation currency may be headed for disintegration… The euro fell 3.1 percent to $1.2358 this week, from $1.2755 on May 7.And with the fall in the euro, falls German faith in the political institution and supra-national philosophy behind it:
Suddenly Germans are asking questions about the European project that has been the bedrock of their politics for 60 years, leaving Angela Merkel, the chancellor, under fire from the electorate, the opposition and her own party…
“We foot the bill for EU disaster,” screamed a headline in Bild, the tabloid newspaper. Christoph Schmidt, a government economist, responded by warning: “Germany cannot become Europe’s paymaster."…
Her timing was also poor. The euro talks, combined with the Greek bailout, led to a CDU defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia’s state election last weekend and with it the loss of her majority in the upper house…
There is now a pervasive awareness in Germany that the post-war consensus of subsuming its national identity — and national self-interest — in the “common European house” no longer gets a popular rubber stamp.
“We give millions to countries where they have big annual pay rises, perks for civil servants and soaring pensions. I’ll have to work to 67 for a pension that might not be enough,” complained Ulrike Daunheim, a 38-year-old shop assistant and Bild reader…
Part of the public outrage over Greece comes from the shock felt over its financial duplicity in a society based on trust and honesty: Germans face no barriers on tubes or trains, while soft drinks and beer are sold from open fridges on the street into the small hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment