=== Todays Toon ===
Sir Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC (2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995), 14th Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964 (as Sir Alec Douglas-Home). He is the last member of the House of Lords to be appointed Prime Minister and the only Prime Minister to renounce his peerage to leave the House of Lords and contest a by-election to enter the House of Commons. He is also the only Prime Minister to have played first class cricket and the first Prime Minister to have been born in the 20th century.=== Bible Quote ===
“But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children- with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.”- Psalm 103:17-18=== Headlines ===
Cigarette tax 'choking' corner shops as smokers cut back
KEVIN Rudd's tobacco tax is having a direct and debilitating impact on small retailers as smokers cut back on magazines, chocolate and soft drinks to buy cigarettes. Small businesses say they are paying the price for the Rudd Government's 25 per cent increase in tobacco excise, which added an average $2.20 to the price of a pack of 30 cigarettes from April 30. Grocers, newsagents, petrol stations and convenience stores are experiencing little to no drop in cigarette sales, but slumping sales of confectionery, magazines, bottled drinks, newspapers, snack foods and other discretionary purchases, as the impact of rising interest rates, fuel prices and tighter credit squeeze wallets.
President Obama's schedule 'doesn't allow for a meeting' with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer as she requests to speak with him as tensions mount over immigration law.Few Answers on 'Top Kill'
BP gives few details on progress of latest effort to plug oil gusher in Gulf as nation waits for answers
'Rahmbo' Politics Back in Spotlight
WH Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who enlisted help to get Rep. Sestak to drop Senate bid, no stranger to controversy
Finding America's Valiant Veterans
This Memorial Day weekend take a look at the final resting places of American heroes since the nation's founding
Australia no place for bad guys as Catwoman, Superman and other comic stars break world record for the most people dressed in superhero costumesNursing homes a 'living hell'
UNDERCOVER investigation exposes shameful mistreatment of elderly in Australia.
Rudd unluckiest PM ever, says ALP hardman
VETERAN powerbroker Richardson says Prime Minister is no weakling and can pip Libs at the election. LABOR hardman Graham Richardson has re-entered public life as a political commentator, saying he wouldn't dream of entering politics today. Politics is "a horrible business", Mr Richardson said in his first major newspaper interview for several years, in which he offered conditional praise for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, tipped Labor to win the election and declared NSW "corruption-free". - Graham is in fantasy land. There is plenty of evidence the NSW Government is corrupt - ed.Aussie arrested in $11.5m cocaine haul
DRUG ring busted as Australian Federal Police intercept 33kg of cocaine from hitting streets.
Football's female groupies 'on the prowl'
FOOTBALLERS and a woman who slept with 200 players lift the lid on female sport groupies.
Eurovision ruined me, says singer Gina G
NINETIES pop starlet reveals why she won't be watching the music contest that made her famous.
Snake with baby snap an 'absurd stunt'
CHILD welfare criticise Aussie couple for wrapping their baby girl in a snake for a family photo.
Rise in WA born drug babies
THE number of WA babies born with addictions to illicit drugs such as cocaine and heroin is soaring, new figures reveal.
Norm Marlborough wants Brian Burke back in ALP
BRIAN Burke devotee Norm Marlborough wants the disgraced former premier back in the ALP - and says he will lead the charge to try to make that happen. Mr Marlborough, who was found guilty in 2009 of lying to the Corruption and Crime Commission over his dealings with Mr Burke, says his friend "put Labor on the map" and should now be allowed to rejoin the party. Mr Burke was forced to resign in 2006.
Outrageous BRW article savages WA Liberal MP
WA federal MP Barry Haase is threatening to take legal action after he was named by BRW magazine as the third-richest politician in the House of Representatives, disputing figures which put his fortune at almost $5 million.While most people would be aspire to be on the rich list, the Kalgoorlie MP insists he is a "working-class bloke" and claims the BRW listing could affect his chances of winning the newly created seat of Durack.
Perth doctor suspended after serious medical errors
A PERTH doctor has been suspended after a litany of medical errors, including failing to recognise a terminally ill patient needed treatment. Mohamed El Rakhawy continued to practise in WA for nearly six months after he told the state Medical Board he would stop pending an investigation into his skills. He tried also to register as a doctor in other Australian states without disclosing he was being investigated for incompetence. The Medical Board of WA told the State Administrative Tribunal that Dr El Rakhawy made a number of errors in early 2007 while working as a GP at a Midland medical centre and a Boddington clinic.
Puppet claim must stop - Keneally
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally has strenuously denied claims she was influenced by party powerbrokers to appoint Transport Minister John Robertson, saying the claim must "stop now". "That is just an utterly ridiculous claim that somehow I as premier am not making the decisions, and it needs to stop now," Ms Keneally told reporters in Sydney on Sunday. "I want to be clear about that. I will not truck this nonsense that somehow I am not making decisions in my government." The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that Ms Keneally wanted to appoint Frank Sartor as transport minister was vetoed by right faction leaders. - Maybe if the puppet were to clear her strings and investigate the issue of Hamidur Rahman - ed
=== Comments ===
Spending your cash to fight Rudd’s fightPiers Akerman
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd apparently believes the fall in his personal popularity amounts to a national emergency and warrants a special exemption from Labor’s own rules governing spending on government advertising.
Or is Labor’s introduction of the disastrous super rip-off tax, which has seen the Australian dollar yo-yo across currency traders’ screens and put at risk Australia’s reputation as a fairly secure, risk-free investment haven, the national emergency? And what of the report in The Sydney Morning Herald that Mr Rudd had hoped to spark a confrontation with the mining industry and had planned to make a new us-against-them class-war the cornerstone of his re-election campaign?
Is it that Mr Rudd has engineered his own national emergency, devastating the value of millions of Australians’ personal superannuation holdings, threatening the jobs of hundreds of thousands more as mining and engineering firms mothball future projects and freeze expansion of current operations, solely as a political ploy?
Given the proven level of incompetence of Mr Rudd and his team, from his deputy Julia Gillard, through his goose of a Treasurer, Wayne Swan, his duplicitous Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner, Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen, Small Business Minister Craig Emerson, Climate Minister Penny Wong, Environment Minister Peter Garrett (the list goes on), almost every decision taken by the Rudd Government could be described as a national emergency under Mr Rudd’s own loose definition.
Be in no doubt that Mr Rudd and Mr Swan knew their mining tax would be unpopular; the proof is that they have made false claims about it since announcing its introduction on May 2 with the release of the dismal Henry Review on taxation. It is a matter of record that they claimed this big new tax was recommended in a submission from the mining industry. That’s where truth first goes out the window (but not for the last time) in this sad saga of appalling mismanagement and grossly abused standards of governance.
The mining submission was intended for a genuine committee of review which it expected would be taken seriously by a reforming government. Instead, the submission was received by a heavily politicised and loaded committee, which put out an ideological and politically correct series of recommendations, of which the Government accepted something less than two per cent and then distorted almost beyond recognition those which it deigned to acknowledge.
The miners cannot be accused of hypocrisy in the matter, but the Rudd Government has nowhere to hide from that charge. In its customary contradictory fashion, the Rudd ministry, with the willing connivance of Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, claimed that its proposed tax was having no effect on the dollar or the value of Australian mining stocks.
As recently as Thursday he said he had “demolished again by the facts” claims by Opposition leader Tony Abbott that the super tax was hurting the Australian economy.
All the while, Mr Rudd knew that his government was preparing to spend nearly $40 million of taxpayers’ money on what is blatantly political advertising and he knew that he would have to break the guidelines his government introduced to fulfil a promise made during the 2007 election campaign.
During that campaign, Mr Rudd told the ABC he would ban all publicly funded advertising within three months of an election. This, he said, was “an absolute undertaking from us (the ALP). I believe this is a sick cancer within our system. It’s a cancer on democracy.”
He was later asked whether he would deliver on a promise to return decency and probity to public administration, and whether he would he resign if he didn’t deliver.
“You have my absolute, 100 per cent guarantee,” he replied. “And each of you here can hold me accountable for that.”
The actuality is this: within a week of the announcement of the huge 40 per cent tax on mining, Mr Rudd and Mr Swan started to look for ways to get around their own rules on advertising. The loophole was an exemption from a review of their planned advertising by their own appointed Independent Communications Committee granted by Senator Joe Ludwig on the basis of “a national emergency, extreme urgency or other compelling reasons”.
There is no national emergency requiring this suspension of good governance. There is no need for extreme urgency other than the falling popularity of the Rudd Government and there are no other compelling reasons beyond the Rudd’s Government desire for re-election.
This is another great big con by Kevin Rudd and he has again broken more of his own promises to foist it upon the Australian public.
Unhappy with his inability to spark a class war, Mr Rudd (who is now cancelling press conferences) is going to spend your money fighting the sector which, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, generated more value during the depths of the financial crisis than any other part of the economy, overtaking manufacturing for the first time.
This is grotesque.
Mr Rudd is spending Australians’ money fighting those who shielded their economy from the recession that hit other nations.
It demonstrates again why the man who has broken more promises than any other in the history of Australian politics deserves nothing but the contempt of the electorate.
His dishonesty, his disdain for openness, his disrespect for good governance, his condescension for ordinary Australians, are nakedly on display for all to see.
In Canberra, once-loyal Labor apparatchiks now openly laugh at Mr Rudd having achieved four-Bs: batts, boat people, building education rip-off and backflips.
From coast to coast, Labor focus groups are reporting an upwelling of deep personal disapproval for the once-popular PM, a visceral scorn that transcends any the trade union movement was able to muster for former PM John Howard.
In breaching his own probity guidelines and wasting more taxpayers’ money, Mr Rudd may finally have sealed his own fate.
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The Cultural Contradiction of Liberalism
By Elizabeth Ames
This year’s first big summer movie, “Iron Man 2,” reprises the adventures of Tony Stark, the iron suit-wearing industrialist who fights off evil-doers. The media have had fun outing the fictional billionaire as a rarity in Hollywood movies – a capitalist hero. Actually, Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr., is very much in the mold of the classic Hollywood protagonist – the bold individualist who bucks the system.
Hollywood, which makes movies and TV shows generally reflecting liberal values, loves larger-than-life rule breakers like Tony Stark. Nearly every blockbuster hero in recent memory – from Rambo and Dirty Harry to Batman and TV’s Jack Bauer– have been system-flouting nonconformists.
As the latest in this breed, Tony Stark exemplifies a central contradiction of liberalism: Mavericks like him are heroes to Big Government liberals – but only on the screen.
Like Tony Stark, Apple’s co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs is a technology genius who perseveres despite a life-threatening affliction. Jobs doesn’t fight bad guys while wearing an iron suit. But he has pioneered breakthrough products that have improved the lives of Americans and generated thousands, if not millions, of jobs.
In his black turtleneck and faded jeans, Jobs has been an icon of the technology counterculture – the industry’s David struggling against Goliath Microsoft. Now that he’s gotten within striking distance of winning, he has become a target for the usual left-wing accusations of greed. During a commencement speech at Hampton University in Virginia, President Obama briefly bashed Jobs’ latest creation, the iPad, as being part of a technology culture promoting “diversion” and “distraction,” not to mention dangerous ideas (translate: opposition). (more at the link)
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TOO FAT TO FLY
Tim Blair
An oversized, flightless kookaburra is handed in to hospital:
A broken wing was thought to be why she couldn’t fly. But when no fracture was found, the real reason emerged.This bird – hand-fed by friendly humans – is in the previously-unknown Sixth Mode of Kookaburra. She doesn’t like it much when people try to make her exercise, either. More pics here.
“I’ve seen many kookaburras, but never before have I seen one so fat,” wildlife hospital nurse Gemma Watkinson said.“It turned out that it was simply too obese to fly.”
UPDATE. Janet Albrechtsen visits the Sydney Writers’ Festival:
One panel member on Saturday evening seriously suggested that obesity in America was the fault of George W. Bush …Can’t blame tubby local birds on the 43rd President. Must be Rudd’s fault.
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DENNIS HOPPER
Tim Blair
Actor Dennis Hopper has died at 74:
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STALKER TALKS
Tim Blair
The Washington Post secures an interview with reclusive author Joe McGinniss:
According to Joe McGinniss, the offer to rent the house next to Sarah Palin’s came because the landlord trusted him to respect the former governor’s privacy.That’s not the story Joe’s son is putting around. In his version of how the senior McGinniss came to be living next door, it’s all about revenge. Back to the Post:
“She was talking to this mutual friend of ours and said, ‘I’ve got to find someone we’re comfortable with. My biggest concern is the Palins’ privacy, especially the children,’ “ McGinniss said Friday evening from his Wasilla, Alaska, house, in one of his first interviews on the subject. “So this mutual friend said, ‘Well, you know, I think you’re in luck. Joe McGinniss is going to be coming back here, and you couldn’t find a better guy, just the right sort of person to move in and guarantee their privacy.’”
McGinniss had maintained a public silence through it all, but Friday, he agreed to talk to a handful of reporters by telephone. He said that he simply hadn’t anticipated Palin’s response.A better definition of hysteria might be found in leftish reaction to Palin. She’s the homunculus that lives inside liberal heads. How come McGinniss – in whose head the homunculus dwells – didn’t seek alternative accommodation in Wasilla?
“I would term this hysterical,” he said.
A room at the Best Western, not far away, would have been prohibitively expensive.Yet he’s prepared to pay more than $60,000 for a chance to dine with Palin. A nice room at the Best Western, by the way, costs around $4,970 per month – for a five-month total some $35,000 cheaper than Joe’s attempted dinner-stalk. Get your story straight, old man.
He’d hoped to keep things civil and introduce himself anew when he first came across Palin and her husband, Todd.Apparently he used the hostility of silence:
“I wanted to say, ‘I’m writing this book, but I hope we can just get along as good neighbors, and after that, you’ll never hear from me again,’” McGinniss said. “That’s basically what I told Todd on Monday when he came over. He didn’t really want to hear that.
“He took off on how my Portfolio piece was a bunch of lies, and a smear, and all this and all that, and he said, ‘You going to be putting the microphones in now, and the surveillance cameras?’ I said, ‘Listen, you don’t know how lucky you are that I’m renting this place because that’s exactly what’s not going to happen as long as I’m here. I won’t see you, you don’t see me, this will be fine.’
“He talked for a few more minutes beyond that, and he got, I’d say, increasingly hostile.”
Mr. McGinniss said he told Mr. Palin that they could disagree cordially. Mr. Palin, he said, “got silent, folded his arms, and said, ‘We’ll just see.’ ”More from the Post:
Palin intimated that McGinniss could watch the family when it went swimming, but he said that only the edge of their land near the lake was visible from his property. He said he was deeply offended by the implication, not thinly veiled in Palin’s note and subsequent interview with Beck, that he would be peering in on the children.Starting with Joe Jr., teller of rental revenge tales. For McGinniss, the learning continues:
“These little kids, I couldn’t care less about them,” McGinniss said. “I have my own kids and grandkids to care about.”
“By being here, I have learned things, and I’ve gotten an insight into her character, into her ability to incite hatred, that before I only knew about in the abstract.”I would term that hysterical.
UPDATE. Further on that rental revenge angle:
Politico notes that Palin herself confirmed the neighborly dispute on Fox News, saying that Todd had been trying to contact the owner all winter “for fear of something like this happening.”
Listen to Palin here. The relevant section kicks off at 2:50. There is no mention, let alone confirmation, of a “neighborly dispute”.
UPDATE II. A New York Times commenter claims:
McGinniss has no history of any kind of abuse of the subjects he researched for his books …Really? Perhaps not:
Mr. McGinnis is best known as a writer of true-crime books. His book “Fatal Vision” reconstructed the 1979 trial of Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret convicted of murdering his family. Mr. MacDonald later sued Mr. McGinniss, alleging the author had gained his confidence by misrepresenting himself and saying he thought Mr. MacDonald was innocent. The suit was settled, and became the subject of a book by Janet Malcolm that suggested Mr. McGinniss had misled Mr. MacDonald. Mr. McGinniss denies this.
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SCENES FROM THE SPILL
Tim Blair
• Obama finds something tiny on the Louisiana coastline. Is it his approval ratings?
• Quelle horreur! They’ve been using French flags to mop up all that oil.
• No, wait – it’s just wigs from an unrelated clown spill.
• The disaster is so massive that people are wearing safety vests indoors.
• Luckily, serious Democrats are working hard to fix everything.
Meanwhile, Pelosi blames Bush:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) attributed any lack of oversight surrounding the massive oil spill off the Gulf Coast to the previous presidential administration during a press conference Thursday.I guess this means that Obama is one of those burrowed-in Bush appointees:
“Many of the people appointed in the Bush administration are still burrowed in the agencies that are supposed to oversee the [oil] industry,” Pelosi said when asked if Democrats could have prevented or mitigated the crisis by keeping a closer watch on the industry.
Three months before the massive BP oil spill erupted in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration proposed downsizing the Coast Guard national coordination center for oil spill responses, prompting its senior officers to warn that the agency’s readiness for catastrophic events would be weakened.
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Clegg’s man nicked
Andrew Bolt
British Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg last year posed as the leader of a moral movement to clean up politics:
Change is difficult when the two establishment parties have every reason to keep the system stitched up between them. As long as they believe that they’ll have a turn at the wheel, they have no interest in opening up our politics to real change, real democracy.But no sooner does Clegg become deputy prime minister in a new coalition government with the Conservatives, than one of his own is caught out rorting his exes:
But we’ve got to do something different. And that should begin with urgent reform to the lamentable system of MPs’ pay and expenses. But then it must go much further. We must reform politics itself.
BRITAIN’S new coalition government suffered a blow on Saturday when a high-profile finance minister, David Laws, resigned following revelations over his expenses claims.
Laws stepped down as Chief Treasury Secretary after the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported he had channelled more than ?40,000 ($68,300) of taxpayers’ money in rent to his long-term male partner…
The millionaire former banker, a member of the Liberal Democrat junior coalition partners, said he had not disclosed the financial arrangement because of “my desire to keep my sexuality secret”.
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Government lied to excuse its broken promise
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government lies to justify breaking a promise to ban taxpayer-funded political advertising:
The Rudd Government is being accused of orchestrating a propaganda campaign after it bent its advertising rules to spend almost $40million of taxpayers’ money promoting its proposed mining tax…Note well that excuse - that the Government needed to rush out this taxpayer-funded propaganda to counter the mining industry’s advertising campaign against its super tax:
The Rudd Government recently changed guidelines to ensure campaign funds were individually vetted by an independent panel of public servants but a government can skip this measure by claiming a national emergency, extreme urgency or other compelling reasons.
Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig granted the exemption for the new government ads after being told by Treasurer Wayne Swan about an ‘’active campaign’’ against the proposed resources super profits tax.
Ludwig: ‘‘I note and accept the Treasurer’s advice that there is an active campaign of misinformation about the proposed changes and that Australians are concerned about how these changes will affect them. I further note and accept the Treasurer’s advice that, as tax reform involves changes to the value of some capital assets, they impact on financial markets.But an insider and blog reader nails the lie:
‘‘Given that co-ordinated misinformation about the changes is currently being promulgated in paid advertising, I accept the need for extremely urgent action to ensure the Australian community receive accurate advice about the nature and effect of the changes.’’
The pitching agencies were originally briefed a little over three weeks ago. It would have taken at least a week of decision making before the agencies were briefed.
So how many ads did the mining council have running a month ago? None that I can recall. So while Swan and Rudd claim their campaign is a response to the “national emergency” caused by the “disinformation” in the mining council ads, they had given the go-ahead to the campaign before a single mining council ad had run.
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Abbott’s policies worked before, and Rudd’s do not
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd claims Tony Abbott’s new boat people policy wouldn’t work.
But the Parliamentary Library has reviewed past data and given a tick to the temporary protection visas and off-shore processing of boat people now promised by Abbott:
Under the TPV regime introduced in October 1999, unauthorised arrivals found to be refugees and accepted into Australia are granted a three year TPV with the option of applying for further protection at the end of the three years. In September 2001, further changes to the legislation were introduced affecting TPV holders eligibility to obtain permanent resident status in the future....Well. it worked until two years ago, when Rudd abolished TPVs, and announced other changes to relax our boat people laws. My red dot on this Immigration Department graph shows when Rudd’s last big ”reforms” were announced:
TPVs, mandatory detention and offshore processing are part of a border protection strategy aimed at impressing on people that if they come to Australia in an unauthorised manner they will not get the same benefits available to those who arrive in an authorised manner. This strategy would appear to be working there have been very few boat arrivals since September 2001.
I’m not sure the data makes Rudd an expert on effective boat people policies, actually.(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.)
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Fisking Henry
Andrew Bolt
Professor Sinclair Davidson fact-checks Treasury secretary Ken Henry’s latest attack on the miners - specifically his claim that the mining sector dragged down the economy during the financial crisis. Davidson’s conclusion, after presenting the data:
Maybe Ken Henry mispoke… It may well be the case that Henry is in possession of information that is not in the public domain. Perhaps Treasury will make that data available.I really don’t think Henry is doing himself many favours lately.
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Hi, Jonathan
Andrew Bolt
Jonathan is eight months old and deaf. Today his cochlear implant is turned on.
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“Consensus” crumbles. But why did these scientists not say so earlier?
Andrew Bolt
Very, very belatedly we see scientific bodies now endorsing what sceptical non-scientists have tried to warn of for years.
In Australia:
Australia’s former chief scientist, Professor Robin Batterham, is embroiled in a bitter dispute over climate change within one of the nation’s elite science academies.In Britain:
As president of the peer-elected Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Professor Batterham faces demands by members to drop plans for the academy to issue a policy statement supporting climate sceptics… A two-page draft, posted on a password-protected section of the academy’s website, said the academy ‘’does not believe the science is settled’’ regarding climate change.
The most prestigious group of scientists in the country was forced to act after fellows complained that doubts over man made global warming were not being communicated to the public…(Thanks to reader elsie.)
Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, admitted that the case for man-made global warming has been exaggerated in the past.
He emphasised that the basic science remains sound but agreed to issue guidance so that it better reflects the uncertainties.
“Climate change is a hugely important issue but the public debate has all too often been clouded by exaggeration and misleading information,” he said…
The Royal Society will look again at the public communications on climate change after 43 fellows complained that so far the message has not reflected the uncertainty in the debate.
UPDATE
The (Royal Society) appears to have conceded that it needs to correct previous statements. It said: “Any public perception that science is somehow fully settled is wholly incorrect — there is always room for new observations, theories, measurements.” This contradicts a comment by the society’s previous president, Lord May, who was once quoted as saying: “The debate on climate change is over.” ...
Sir Alan Rudge, a society Fellow and former member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Committee, is one of the leaders of the rebellion who gathered signatures on a petition sent to Lord Rees, the society president.
He told The Times that the society had adopted an “unnecessarily alarmist position” on climate change.
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By their friends you shall know them
Andrew Bolt
Michelle Grattan is cross the Liberal Party is losing two people she dignifies with the terms “brave” and “moderate” - as opposed to, one presumes, all the cowardly extremists and opportunists. And what’s pleased her most about these two is their backing for disastrous policies:
(Petro) Georgiou, who was an adviser to Fraser in government, is the philosophical voice of the moderates. He was a key player in Fraser’s commitment to multiculturalism and setting up SBS…When Grattan’s highest admiration is reserved for just that handful Liberals who attack their own party, I think we know where she stands. It’s also telling that she apparently considers “outspoken” to be a praise-word reserved for Liberals who defy Liberals, rather than Liberals who defy the collective mindset of the Canberra press gallery.
As a senator, (Judith) Troeth’s vote has counted.... After Malcolm Turnbull was ousted from the leadership last year, she and Queensland senator Sue Boyce crossed the floor to support the government’s emissions trading legislation.
Troeth and Georgiou were among the four – the others were Judi Moylan and Russell Broadbent – who were upset by Abbott’s Pacific Solution move, especially as he didn’t take it to the party room…
The generational change that is gradually under way in the Liberal party is not producing new strong moderate voices. It is throwing up some outspoken conservatives – and many who are simply pragmatists, sniffing the wind, catching whatever is the current wave.
Some of the high-profile people among the moderate minority are presently gagged because of position, ambition or both.
Shadow attorney-general George Brandis gave an important speech, We believe: the Liberal party and the liberal cause, in the last days of Turnbull, a moderate. “Over the past 20 years or so, there has been an attempt to dilute the Liberal party’s commitment to liberalism,” Brandis said. “One of the keys to grasping the Menzian conception of liberalism is that he did not view the Liberal Party as a conservative party.” Now Brandis is vigorously defending Abbott’s conservative brand of liberalism, as is another high-profile moderate, Christopher Pyne. They have been “incorporated”, just as Robert Hill and Amanda Vanstone were more or less muted by holding senior positions in the Howard government.
It may be galling to hear the “incorporated” moderates saying what they (presumably) don’t believe. But it’s no good assaulting the TV set: we know how the system works, the importance of unity and the strength of political aspiration. In politics, even the best of men and women would usually sell their grandmother for the chance of office. As Troeth says, in nice understatement, “once you’re on the ladder it becomes harder to be outspoken”.
And why is this analytical template almost never applied to Labor? Where is Grattan’s fuming against the “incorporated” Labor frontbenchers who would “sell their grandmother for the chance of office” and are “saying what they (presumably) don’t believe” about global warming, Rudd’s mad super tax, or the damage Rudd has done to our bonds with Israel?
Why doesn’t the silence of Martin Ferguson, Steve Controy, Gary Gray, Craig Emerson and the rest have Grattan “assaulting the TV set”?
UPDATE
Speaking of politicians gagged by their ambitions, or gagged simply by an inability to form an opinion, let’s turn to Victoria:
THIRTEEN Labor MPs with the most marginal seats in the state have given voters the silent treatment six months out from the state election.But not one agreed to answer the questions.
The “Silent 13” includes four Brumby Government ministers and all have refused to answer four key public policy questions.
The Sunday Herald Sun asked the MPs in electorates at most risk of being lost to the Coalition for their views on the troubled myki “smartcard”, crime sentencing, the merits of an Independent Commission Against Corruption and whether Christine Nixon should stay or go as head of the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority.
(Thanks to reader CA.)
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Keneally faces a hiding in Penrith
Andrew Bolt
Hmm. Maybe Kristina Keneally isn’t quite the great white hope for Labor I thought:
LABOR will be clobbered by voters at the Penrith byelection, with secret ALP polling obtained by The Sun-Herald indicating Premier Kristina Keneally will preside over the greatest-ever swing against a NSW government.Mind you, “internal party polling” that’s deliberately released by the party involved always makes me suspicious.
In an ominous sign for the scandal-plagued state government before an election in March, internal party polling predicts a massive two-party preferred swing of 27 percentage points against the government in Penrith on June 19…
On a two-party preferred basis, Labor is on track to claim just 32 per cent of the vote, with 68 per cent for the Liberals representing a stunning turnaround from the 2007 election when disgraced former MP Karyn Paluzzano won for Labor with 59 per cent of the vote…
The polling, conducted by UMR Research early last week, came just days after Transport and Roads Minister David Campbell quit after he was caught leaving a sex club in Sydney’s eastern suburbs…
But the bulk of the damage to brand Labor in Penrith appears to have been done by Ms Paluzzano, who quit this month after she was exposed by the Independent Commission Against Corruption as a liar and a parliamentary expenses fiddler.
(Thanks to reader CA.)
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If Rudd knows best how to stop the boats, why this latest?
Andrew Bolt
I’m not sure that Kevin Rudd is in any position to criticise Tony Abbott’s boat people policy as ineffectual:
ANOTHER boat carrying 53 suspected asylum seekers and two crew has arrived at Christmas Island.(Thanks to reader slowlearner.)
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The rise of the sceptics, fall of the CSIRO
Andrew Bolt
A brave scientist, albeit a warmist, battles group-think:
Australia’s former chief scientist, Professor Robin Batterham, is embroiled in a bitter dispute over climate change within one of the nation’s elite science academies.Meanwhile, a private citizen forces the CSIRO to (very quietly) fix up a very suspicious mistake. Tery McCrann describes the CSIRO’s latest shame:
As president of the peer-elected Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Professor Batterham faces demands by members to drop plans for the academy to issue a policy statement supporting climate sceptics… A two-page draft, posted on a password-protected section of the academy’s website, said the academy ‘’does not believe the science is settled’’ regarding climate change.
It said many scientists believed ‘’climate changes are nothing unusual, based on past geological records’’…
n a recent lecture to the University of Western Australia as academy president, Professor Batterham warned of the dangers of a political over-reaction to climate change.
He said there was ‘’still much of the science that is uncertain’’ and used data in an academy-badged slide presentation that claimed investment to create green jobs in Spain had resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,500 jobs, or 2.2 jobs for every ‘’green job’’ created.
According to a report of the lecture published in a mining newsletter, Professor Batterham said despite scientific uncertainty, ‘’ we need to drastically reduce CO2 or face runaway temperature rise’’.
In March, (the CSIRO) joined with the Bureau of Meteorology to produce a “snapshot of the state of the climate to update Australians about how their climate has changed and what it means”. Although the pamphlet had a neutral title, “State of the Climate”, it was clearly designed to bring the great weight of the apparent credibility of these two organisations to bear against, and hopefully crush, those pesky climate change sceptics.(Thanks to reader StraightShooter.)
But as one of the peskier of them, Tom Quirk—our version of Canada’s even peskier Stephen McIntyre—discovered, there was a very curious omission in one of the CSIRO graphs. It showed the rise and rise of concentrations in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and its fellow greenhouse gas methane. It was an almost perfect replica of the infamous (Michael) Mann Hockey Stick. After being virtually stable for 900 years, concentrations of both CO2 and methane went almost vertical through the 20th century. But as the eagle-eyed Quirk noticed and wrote about on Quadrant Online, methane was plotted only up to 1990, while the plots for CO2 continued to 2000.Why so, when the CSIRO measures methane concentrations and has data up to last year?
Did the answer lie in the inconvenient truth that methane concentrations have plateaued since the mid-1990s? Yet here is the CSIRO, the organisation dedicated to scientific truth, pretending—even stating—that they’re still going up, Climategate style… The first version of the so-called carbon pollution reduction scheme included farming to address the methane question. But as Quirk has shown in a peer-reviewed paper, atmospheric methane is driven by a combination of volcanos, El Ninos and pipeline (mostly dodgy old Soviet) leakage.
A second curious, and even dodgier, thing happened after Quirk’s Quadrant report. CSIRO “updated” its main graph to include the more recent methane data. No admission was made and the graph’s scale made it all but invisible and did not show the plateauing. Further, the CSIRO published a more detailed second graph showing what has happened in the past 30 years, as opposed to the first graph’s 1000 years. But only for CO2, despite the fact that it had exactly the same data for methane.
In short, the CSIRO is a fully signed-up member of the climate change club. It wanted to project the horror story of continually rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. So it simply disappeared inconvenient evidence to the contrary, in the process announcing it cannot be trusted ever again to deliver objective scientific evidence.
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