Headlines Sunday 2nd May 2010

=== Todays Toon ===

Skibbereen 1847 by Cork artist James Mahony (1810–1879), commissioned by Illustrated London News 1847.
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846. He helped create the modern concept of the police force (leading to officers being known as "bobbies", in England, or Peelers, in Ireland, to this day) while Home Secretary , oversaw the formation of the Conservative Party out of the shattered Tory Party, and repealed the Corn Laws.

=== Bible Quote ===

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”- Hebrews 11:6

=== Headlines ===

Gulf oil spill has grown tremendously in only a few days, moving faster and expanding quicker than previously thought, as rough seas thwart cleanup effort.

Border Fight's Local Toll
As national debate grows over Arizona's immigration law, local clashes drive wedge through communities

Obama Slams Anti-Gov't Rhetoric
President tells University of Michigan grads that he is troubled by those making the case that government is bad - newsflash, Obama tires of own incompetence -ed.

GOP Sells Crist Portrait After Breakup
Florida officials take down picture of Gov. Charlie Crist after he dumps Republican Party, will auction on eBay

We're predicting the Packed to the Rafters star will take her home her third Logie tonight - but who else have we marked down for victory?

Rudd following porn on Twitter
NAKED woman in handcuffs among dozens of dodgy accounts followed by the Prime Minister.

Super shake-up we've been waiting for
HENRY Tax Review will give Australians new incentives to save more for their retirement.

Mum stole 100 credit cards from bins
WOMAN jailed for 15 months after using stolen cards to go on $12,000 shopping spree.

Playing pokies can be suicidal habit
MORE than 12,000 Aussies in one state alone contemplate suicide because of gambling problems.

Let me see my grandkids - Bob Irwin
STEVE Irwin's father reveals sadness at not receiving family visit despite heart attack.

Teachers defy union test ban
PUBLIC school teachers across the state have rebelled against their union by voting to proceed with controversial national literacy and numeracy tests.

Junior police left to 'do their best'
THE NSW police force is struggling to keep experienced officers on the beat, exclusive figures reveal. Data obtained under Freedom of Information laws shows 54 per cent of police have less than 10 years' experience in the force, raising concerns that roles previously filled by experienced officers are being left to juniors. Of 15,801 police, 4330 (27 per cent) have less than five years' experience and only 27 officers have served in the force for more than 40 years. It can cost $100,000 to train a police officer, but many leave before taxpayers get their money's worth.

=== Comments ===

PM’s political ticker has ground to a halt
Piers Akerman
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is a political coward, lacking in political ticker who has demonstrated a failure of leadership - says Kevin Rudd. - Rudd said it was “imperative we do something” and that isn’t true. We don’t have to do anything and we may be better off for it. It isn’t a question of doing something or doing nothing. The problem is that Rudd is being nothing. He has no convictions and so cannot prosecute an agenda. The truth is, although he is a control freak, he is not in control .. and that is worse for him. He will never be in control as he hasn’t the acumen or the backing support to achieve it. He needs to make tough decisions, but those decisions also need to be informed, and Rudd is not listening.
If Rudd would listen, here is my book. - ed.
===
Ad Campaign Stirs Emotions
Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James defends 'Learn English' commercial - O'Reilly Factor
===
RUDDBOT
Tim Blair
Prime Ministerial porn delivered via Twitter:

Kevin Rudd has encountered the hazards of social networking – he has been following porn through his official Twitter account.

A bare-breasted woman in handcuffs, an online adult superstore and a pornographic blog were among dozens of dodgy accounts followed by the Prime Minister among his list of supporters, community groups and wife Therese Rein …

Other profiles followed by the PM include a gay resort in Phuket, blogs offering sex shows via webcams and an online store selling adult goods.

How on earth did this happen?

An embarrassed spokesman for Mr Rudd admitted an automated program selected Twitter accounts for him to follow.

In other social media news, these lads turned up at a party that was expected to draw 70,000:
That’s not so bad, for Adelaide. Of course, if this crew had appeared at a carbon protest, they would be described as being ”out in force”.
===
BIRD OILED
Tim Blair
Please remain calm. The first oiled bird has been recovered following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

It was a northern gannet.
===
Rudd taxes credulity
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd typically oversold his tax changes as the greatest for a decade. Instead, even his mate Kochie has a bad taste in his mouth:

How wimpy was that.
It was meant to be a revolution. “A tax plan for our future”.

The promise was for a stronger, fairer, simpler tax system. About time. That’s what we need. Some vision, some leadership.

The 1000 page report from Treasury secretary Ken Henry, and his committee, provides the blue print, the analysis and the recommendations to deliver on the promise.

It’s just a pity the Federal Government has ignored most of those recommendations. And even those few it has adopted have been watered down.

George Megalogenis explains:

A NEW 40 per cent tax on windfall mining profits will pay for a 3 per cent boost to the superannuation guarantee for workers and a 2c in the dollar reduction in the company tax rate, under the Rudd government’s politically cautious response to the Henry review of the taxation system released today.

The resources boom shuffle will collect $12 billion in extra revenue from mining companies and divide the spoils between retirement savings, state infrastructure and all other businesses…

The Rudd government’s response was modest compared to the ambition of the three-volume report from the independent committee headed by Treasury secretary Ken Henry.

Labor rejected outright 27 of the 138 recommendations made, including a land tax on the family home and the reintroduction of indexation for fuel excise.

Even on the advice it took, there were differences. The review wanted the company tax rate lowered to 25c, the government could only afford to reduce it to 28c…

The reform that Labor will sell as best representing its values is the boost in the super guarantee from 9 per cent to 12 per cent to promote national savings.

But even this change is incremental… Workers will not see their super contributions reach 12 per cent of wages until the end of the decade…

The Swan benchmark of 12 per cent by 2019-20 will come entirely from employers

Terry McCrann:

KEVIN Rudd plans to raid the future flood of money expected from the China-driven resources boom to pay for the tax changes announced today…

The introduction of the resources rent tax will make the package similar to the major tax change of the Howard government - the GST. But unlike the Howard package there will not be big personal tax cuts on the other side.

The other big difference is that the future revenues from the GST were “locked in”. The Government would simply clip 10 per cent of every dollar that turned over in the economy.

Not so with Rudd’s new tax. It assumes China will keep booming and its money will keep pouring into our resources industry.

The changes at a glance.

What Rudd ran from in the Henry review.

The Henry review.

UPDATE

The challenge that still needs fixing, as described by the Henry review:

Australia has too many taxes and too many complicated ways of delivering multiple policy objectives through the tax system. The capacity of the legislative and operating platforms of these systems, and their human users, to deal with the resulting complexity has been overreached…

Around 90 per cent of Australian tax revenue is raised through only 10 out of some 125 different taxes that are currently levied on businesses and individuals
===
Ask him again
Andrew Bolt

Chris Uhlmann recalls what turns out to be the most prescient question asked of Kevin Rudd during the 2007 election debate:

Mr Rudd, your troop withdrawals are heavily qualified. And, on other issues, your party labelled the Medicare safety net a sham, and then supported it.

You said the Commonwealth land release was a marginal issue in making housing more affordable and then you adopted it. You oppose capital punishment always and everywhere, except when it’s inconvenient.

You often accuse the prime minister of doing anything and saying anything to get elected. What do you actually believe in, Kevin Rudd? What won’t you qualify or jettison to get elected?

Adds Uhlmann:

In the minds of some of his own, that question has now been answered.

Uhlmann modestly fails to note that he himself asked the question. Didn’t need to, really. Which other press gallery journalist saw through him back then?

He checks what Labor MPs now think of their policies-overboard leader:

Some say they have sustained little electoral damage from toughening the stance on asylum seekers and shelving emissions trading. They say any hurt has been done on the left and most votes lost to the Greens will return through preferences.

One said the about-face on emissions trading had done no damage at all. The public would recognise Labor had tried for two years to get its policy up and had been thwarted by the Coalition and the Greens. The argument that Labor could have an emissions trading scheme this year, if it called a double dissolution election, was one for the chatterati. Real people didn’t know what that was, and didn’t care.

Another thought the emissions trading climb-down was only tricky because the language used to sell the need for action on climate change had been “over-hyped”. It was a short-term problem.

Then there are those who rate their response to the policy U-turns from “disillusioned” to “outraged”. They were more focused on long-term damage to the Labor brand. One MP wondered how his party differed from the Coalition.

“Why are we involved?” he said.

A lot of anger was focused at the party’s NSW right wing, which is seen as the workshop where this “cynical brand of politics” is fashioned… “Look at Bob Carr,” one said. “He was master of the daily news cycle and his government was a disaster.”

There was an old-world notion in the ranks of the disillusioned that words should count.

(Thanks to reader zbcustom.)
===
Guests welcome, gatecrashers not
Andrew Bolt
As in Australia and in Britain. the US finds voters want the right to say who comes into their country - and are not bigots for resenting the uninvited for making themselves at home:

Gallup polls (and others) taken over the past decade find that around 60 percent of Americans, when asked whether immigration was generally a good thing or a bad thing for the country, believe it to be a positive. Yet, when Gallup recently polled Americans about the new Arizona law that cracks down on illegal immigrants, of the three-quarters of voters who had heard about the then-pending legislation, 51 percent said they favor it while only 39 percent say they oppose it.

Americans value immigration. They recoil from lawlessness. And frustration over the impotent border enforcement has manifested itself in a flailing overreach. Arizona’s law isn’t a referendum on Latinos or even immigration itself. It’s an unambiguous rebuke of Washington.

UPDATE

Another sign of strain:

A GERMAN politician says full-body veils, or burqas, worn by some Muslim women should be banned across Europe because they rob women of their personalities.

Silvana Koch-Mehrin, a member of the European parliament, wrote in an editorial on Saturday that fully covering women “openly supports values that we do not share in Europe”.

Ms Koch-Mehrin leads Germany’s Free Democrats in Brussels. Her editorial for the Bild am Sonntag weekly comes after Belgium proposed legislation to ban burqa-type clothing on grounds it violates basic security.

And:

AN “ENGLISH-only” ad by a candidate in the Alabama governor’s race has drawn the state into America’s national debate over immigration stoked by a tough new Arizona law.

The ad by construction business owner and candidate Tim James - viewed more than 500,000 times on YouTube since its release last week - is also generating criticism from rivals and advocates that it could reverse years of economic development based on luring foreign companies, including carmakers from Germany, Japan and South Korea.

Mr James, son of former two-term Alabama governor Fob James Jr, says in the ad that he would drop the practice of giving the state drivers licence exam in 12 languages other than English.

“This is Alabama. We speak English. If you want to live here, learn it,” he says.

(Thanks to reader John.)
===
Conservatives up, Lib Dems falter
Andrew Bolt
Conservatives will win, but the British Parliament will lean to the Left:

The ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph suggests David Cameron, who today promises to hand power “to the people” if he becomes prime minister, will lead the largest party in a hung parliament.

The poll also shows that three voters out of four believe immigration is a significant problem for Britain. After Gordon Brown’s description of a voter who raised concerns about immigration from eastern Europe as “bigoted”, the issue is seen as the second most important in the campaign behind the economy…

The survey puts the Conservatives up three points from last Tuesday on 36 per cent, with Labour up one point to 29 per cent and reclaiming second place from the Lib Dems.

Mr Clegg’s party is down three points to 27 per cent – the same level it was on in an ICM poll at the time of the first televised debate.

Assuming a uniform national swing, analysis by John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, shows that the figures – if repeated on Thursday – would give the Conservatives 279 seats, Labour 261 and the Lib Dems 78.
===
Poo food is just unhealthy for your wallet
Andrew Bolt
No surprise, but yet another green claim is exposed as, um, natural fertiliser:

ORGANIC food does not have greater nutritional value than conventionally grown food, a major University of Sydney study has found.

In a result that will provoke dismay and anger in the organics industry, the study’s authors found that food grown without pesticides or herbicides should not be promoted as healthier because there was no evidence to show that it contained more nutrients than normal food.

And the author of the report went further, recommending consumers stick with commercially grown fruit and vegetables because they are cheaper and, therefore, people could eat more of them.
===
Rein to the rescue
Andrew Bolt
Therese Rein is a businesswoman, mother and self-appointed policy wonk in her husband’s government. She now wants to be a mentor to Australian women, too, and on an odd topic, given the circumstances:

Therese Rein has outlined how she is helping shape disability policy for her husband Kevin Rudd’s government and wants to spark a national debate on whether women expect too much of themselves by trying to be superwomen.

It sounds like self therapy, conducted on a national scale. Says Rein:

If you watch television, a TV show about a family on television, their houses never look like my house, you know, like those really perfect houses where everyone is colour coordinated, you know with the sheets, and she’s got three little kids and she’s greeting him in a negligee and her hair done and make up done, hello, that’s not my house.

Apologies for the cynicism, but the timing of Rein’s announcement - just as her husband is being exposed us an unprincipled and unprecedented bungler - suggests this is just one more example of Rudd’s spin, designed to distract, not inform.

(Thanks to reader elsie.)

UPDATE

Speaking of spin, Rudd even gets a computer to choose for him what he claims are his interests:

Kevin Rudd has encountered the hazards of social networking – he has been following porn through his official Twitter account.

A bare-breasted woman in handcuffs, an online adult superstore and a pornographic blog were among dozens of dodgy accounts followed by the Prime Minister among his list of supporters, community groups and wife Therese Rein …

Other profiles followed by the PM include a gay resort in Phuket, blogs offering sex shows via webcams and an online store selling adult goods…

An embarrassed spokesman for Mr Rudd admitted an automated program selected Twitter accounts for him to follow.

UPDATE 2

Remember back when it was bad for a (Liberal) Prime Minister’s wife to make even the slightest political noise? Here’s the ABC in 2002:

CATHERINE McGRATH: The backdrop to this is sensitivity about claims that Janette Howard has too much influence in the Government. It’s a claim that has been made in the past by John Howard’s critics.

The Prime Minister has always denied that there’s any improper influence but he says publicly that she is a valuable adviser to him.

(Thanks to reader FOEHN.)
===
Still no leaders, a year after the fires
Andrew Bolt
Our leaders failed to lead during Black Saturday. Now there’s a failure to truly lead in the reconstruction, too - and from some of the same people:

THE reconstruction of Marysville is being blocked by bureaucratic delays and an obsession with process, according to four philanthropists who donated millions of dollars in goods and services - as well as time and money - to help rebuild the town.

Mining magnate Andrew ‘’Twiggy’’ Forrest, Linfox managing director Andrew Fox, and property entrepreneur Max Beck have slammed authorities for acting too slowly to construct commercial projects to kick-start the economy in the bushfire-ravaged town, 15 months after Black Saturday. Actor Russell Crowe’s Melbourne representative has also expressed frustration.

Between them the men have raised $1.3 million, which is available for a business project, but so far they have nowhere to spend it, they say.

Mr Fox said the ‘’whole structure’’ of the reconstruction process had failed the people of Marysville....

‘’There should be a leader to say, ‘This has got to happen’. They needed a Peter Cosgrove from day one...’’

Max Beck, founder of the construction company Becton, said he had been helping the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, but withdrew five months ago because he ‘’was disappointed with the speed of the way things were happening’’…

While Mr Forrest expressed faith in the current reconstruction authority chief executive, Ben Hubbard, he said the approach to rebuilding Marysville so far had been ‘’stifled in bureaucracy’’…

‘’We really need the government leaders to show action … by actually achieving rather than slavish adherence to process,’’ he said…

The philanthropists who spoke to The Sunday Age did not specifically blame (reconstruction authority chairman Christine) Nixon for the perceived slow progress, but their criticism will put further strain on her after her recent grilling before the Bushfires Royal Commission over her actions on Black Saturday.
===
Ailing Adams asks stupid Christians to help
Andrew Bolt
Reader bh is astonished:

What a hypocrite Philip Adams is.

He’s spent a lifetime attacking religious beliefs, yet there he is in (yesterday’s) Weekend Australian mag, happily admitting to being treated at St Vincent’s, a Catholic hospital.

Was there not an atheistic hospital this militant atheist could have attended instead? Why not?

No, really: why not?