=== Todays Toon ===
Henry Robert Brand, 2nd Viscount Hampden, GCMG (2 May 1841 – 2 November 1906) was Governor of New South Wales from 1895 to 1899.Brand arrived in Sydney, Australia on 21 November 1895, and served an uneventful term. He was the second-last Governor of New South Wales before the Federation of Australia. He left Sydney quietly and returned to London, where he died in 1906.
=== Bible Quote ===
“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”- Matthew 16:25=== Headlines ===
McCain Disputes Brewer's 'Drug Mule' Claim
Arizona Sen. John McCain distances himself from the state's governor over her remark that most illegal immigrants are being used to transport drugs into the U.S.Hundreds Busted in Violent G-20 Protests
Toronto cops bust more than 500 rogue protesters after they broke off from peaceful demonstration by G-20 summit
Does Petraeus Need an Afghan Shake-Up?
Senators suggest Obama clean house on civilian side of Afghan war team if Petraeus can't get along with those who rubbed McChrystal the wrong way
VP Caught in Custard Shop 'Smartass' Gaffe
Biden calls Wisconsin custard shop manager a 'smartass' after the man offered the VP free dessert if he can lower taxes
Police have released this picture of a man wanted for questioning over the brutal and shocking stabbing of a bushwalker on a busy and popular tourist trail.PM to shut out Rudd, plotters
JULIA Gillard is expected to announce her new Cabinet today.Bodies of young men found in front yard
TWO men aged 21 and 30 have been found shot to death out the front of a suburban property.
'It's a miracle we are all alive' after crash
ONE of seven Aussies injured in Thai boat crash says she had "a bad feeling" before the collision.
Athlete's plan for Brit switch a 'bit rich'
JANA Rawlinson held negotiations to run for Britain because Athletics Australia “doesn’t care” about her.
Move to bring back evictees a bit 'snaky'
MASTERCHEF'S surprise plan to bring back rejected rivals didn't go down well with contestant Claire.
Too young to drink or vote - but not shoot
KIDS as young as 11 are applying for guns licences as pro-shooters claim it "promotes responsibility".
Pregnant women should be tested for smoking
PREGNANT women should be given a breath test to reveal the impact of smoking on their unborn child, health groups say. The carbon monoxide test, commonly used in cessation clinics, would determine if they are smoking, how much, and even the impact of passive smoking. Mothers-to-be in the UK will be urged by midwives to have the test at their first antenatal appointment, to check if they are being honest about their smoking habit. Women who fail the test would be offered professional help to quit, under the guidance by Britain's public health watchdog. But the stance by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has sparked howls of protest from critics who say it is too intrusive, and will erode trust between midwife and patient. Australian health bodies say if done properly it could be an effective and confronting tool to help and encourage mums-to-be to quit.
=== Comments ===
Tide turns against RuddPiers Akerman
IN an extraordinary coincidence, as Kevin Rudd was being tipped out of the Prime Minister’s office, an Aboriginal woman denied justice by Queensland’s Goss Labor Government - which Mr Rudd once was said to have run - had more than $120,000 in extraordinary damages tipped into her bank account. - Rudd’s purpose is not really power at all. He is a sanguine personality type which, among the other characteristics noted at the link is typical of the tall story teller who needs lots of attention and praise, and will tell taller stories until they achieve that end. In the form Rudd has it, it is a mental illness.
Gillard is more Choleric, and argumentative. Sanguines are good at parties for humor. Cholerics are usually abrupt and bad at parties, but good at arguing.
Neither Rudd nor Gillard have substance. They want their pork barrels to supply their creditors. Rudd had exhausted the possibilities. Gillard is only good to the next election, and if she wins (not a certainty) will do as you say .. nothing but claim the faults aren’t there.
The coup was predictable and predicted by me and others. I also said that it would be a sign that the ALP are so certain of being wiped out that they will need insulation so as to claim, after the election that they have cleared the dead wood in favor of a new generation. I also said they might retain Rudd too, and my magic powers of prediction fell short there, but I think what I wrote there holds true too. The ALP are expecting defeat and the press corp have not told the public. The polls are far worse than the ALP have admitted, or they wouldn’t be trying this three card trick. Neither Rudd nor Gillard were or are in control.
Notice how strong and masterful Mr Abbott was on Red Kerry’s 7:30 report? Mr Abbott and the Libs need to keep their discipline, while the ALPhave lost theirs.
But for me, Gillard, Sunrise youtube. She failed to keep her election promise on Sunrise and I will hold her to account for that. - ed.
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YESTERDAY’S HERO
Tim Blair
Catherine Deveny after the election:
On Sunday morning I woke and felt like a woman in love. I felt buzzy and post-coital. Do you reckon Kev got lucky? It was a full moon that night. I bet there are going to be a swag of election babies born in August — all with the middle name Kevin. I’m beside myself that I’ll be living in an Australia with a prime minister called Kev …Catherine Deveny after the dismissal:
I did a victory lap around the People’s Republic of Moreland in my KEVIN07 T-shirt on Sunday morning. It was delicious.
Let’s remember, and be honest here, none of us voted for Kevin Rudd. We voted to get rid of Howard.
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CLIMATE CHANGE: WHITE MALE MILLIONAIRES HARDEST HIT
Tim Blair
As some prescient bloke wrote 13 months ago: “Climate change has turned out to be a helpful device to change governments – stitch up the middle-class Prius vote, grab Green preferences, impress stupid university students – but a bitch of a thing to deal with once in government.”
Actually, that was me, getting it right for once. Well, maybe only half-right. As an issue, climate change has now gotten rid of both Kevin Rudd, who was in government, and Malcolm Turnbull, who wasn’t.
Still, that’s two Australian millionaires brought down by their climate fixations. So much for IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri’s 2007 claim that “it is the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit.”
Poor Malcolm. Poor Kevin.
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ENGLAND vs GERMANY
Tim Blair
Tonight’s World War II Cup match between England and Germany inspires a cliché riot:
There is no love lost between these two old adversaries, and no quarter will be given when they lock horns in another all-or-nothing encounter.A wordless opinion is preferable:
At least the Germans never got their hands on cricket.
UPDATE. Germany leads England 2-1 at halftime. Just like 1942! Apparently some type of controversy denied the English a second goal.
UPDATE II. Just saw the replay ... goal.
UPDATE III. Germany 3-1 with 23 minutes to play.
UPDATE IV. Germany 4-1 with 20 minutes to play.
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Crean up, Rudd down
Andrew Bolt
Julia Gillard keeps changes to a minimum for an early election, with Simon Crean getting a big promotion and Kevin Rudd a big swerve:
Ms Gillard, announcing the reshuffle in Canberra, said Mr Crean would take over education, employment and workplace relations.Lindsay Tanner, who is retiring, stays in Finance until the election.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith will take over Mr Crean’s portfolio of trade.
Ms Gillard said she would appoint former prime minister Kevin Rudd to a senior cabinet position if Labor was re-elected.
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Will the media learn from Rudd?
Andrew Bolt
As recently as a year ago, the media pack was almost united on three articles of faith.
First, global warming was an unquestionable crisis.Some examples? Here’s Paul Kelly last year:
Second, no political leader could oppose the immediate adoption of emissions trading and be credible.
Third, Kevin Rudd was a brilliant salesman and astute politician who had the next election virtually all sewn up, especially thanks to his global warming policies.
I believe that the (Liberal) party room will endorse a series of amendments (to the Government’s emissions trading scheme) which will be the basis for negotiation with the Rudd Government. I mean frankly if they oppose that, that would be signing their own political death warrant… This raises the prospect that the legislation won’t pass and that the election next year will see climate change as a frontline issue. Now this will be a mortal political threat to the Opposition.Then there’s Michelle Grattan:
This was Michelle Grattan on 25 November 2009: ‘It is in the Liberal party’s interests to vote for the ETS and get the climate change issue as much off the election agenda as possible.’ Earlier, she described resistance to an ETS among Liberal MPs as ‘ill-judged’ because ‘Turnbull’s instinct in wanting to help the government get the legislation through is correct’.Dissent from any of this was not just rare, but an invitation to retribution. Ask the ABC’s then political editor, Chris Uhlmann, who eight months ago dared to write of Rudd:
There is a view that he [Rudd] has the face and a bearing of a parson, and the heart and soul of a dictator. He has cowed his party, his caucus, his cabinet and the bureaucracy. He holds all the prizes, and anyone who wants to advance must pay homage to him. He bludgeons alternative opinions to death.Wonder where Chris is now? And would a “sorry” make it all better?
Shouldn’t the media now engage in a mea culpa? After all, global warming seems far from as urgent as everyone thought, both major parties have lost the leaders who once foolishly promised an ETS, both parties are now led by more popular leaders who have shoved the ETS to manana, and the collective wisdom now is that Rudd is and always was a disaster and a klutz.
But here’s how the media works. Those pundits who have only argued over the past couple of weeks that Rudd was a disaster - Laurie Oakes, for instance - are now hailed as far-sighted, despite having pumped his tyres for years, while those very few who have warned for two years he was trouble remain dismissed as ideologues.
And so the caravan moves on…
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Abbott’s 12 points are superior to anything ALP offers
Andrew Bolt
Overlooked in the fuss over our first female prime minister was a discussion on policy, not gender. Here the 12 pledges released on the weekend by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott:
Restore the budget surplus within three years and start paying labor’s debt…And this denial:
End labor’s waste and restore cabinet government…
Reject labor’s massive new mining tax and other taxes that hurt productivity
End government discrimination against small business…
Enforce strict border security and control…
Link population growth to the provision of better infrastructure…
Protect private health and improve the public health and hospital system
Take direct action on water and the environment ...
Help growing families to get ahead with six months paid parental leave…
Provide safer neighbourhoods…
Restore work-for-the-dole and mutual obligation…
Raise standards in education - The Coalition will work with the states to give principals the right to pay the best teachers more.
We will not bring back work choices...More fleshing out is obviously needed. The child-care promise is, of course, a millstone, and it’s a pity that the expensive and useless greens policies are electorally necessary - or deemed to be.
(Thanks to reader The Artist Formally Known As Rudderless.)
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Gillard’s best lines come from America
Andrew Bolt
Julia Gillard - or whoever wrote her first speech as PM - seems to have looked to American Democrat presidents for inspiration:
I believe in a government that rewards those who work the hardest, not those that complain the loudest. I believe in a government that rewards those that day in and day out work in our factories and on our farms; in our mines and in our mills; in our classrooms and in our hospitals. That rewards that hard work, decency and effort. The people who play by the rules, set their alarms early, get their kids off to schools; stand by their neighbours and love their country.Here’s Bill Clinton in his 1992 speech accepting the Democrat nomination for President:
And so, in the name of all those who do the work, pay the taxes, raise the kids, and play by the rules, in the name of the hardworking Americans who make up our forgotten middle class, I proudly accept your nomination for President of the United States.Here’s Roosevelt in a famous 1940 radio address, also valorising factories, mines, farms and mills, which are so rare in modern Australia, actually:
I saw the workmen in the mills, the mines, the factories; the girl behind the counter; the small shopkeeper; the farmer doing his spring plowing; the widows and the old men wondering about their life’s savings.(Thanks to reader Karen.)
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Culture counts in crime
Andrew Bolt
You’re not supposed to notice if you wish to be thought enlightened and kind:
Police hold black men responsible for more than two-thirds of shootings and more than half of robberies and street crimes in London, according to figures released by Scotland Yard… Just over 12 per cent of London’s 7.5million population is black, including those of mixed black and white parentage, while 69 per cent is white, according to the Office for National Statistics.Increasingly the topic in Western societies will become what was once no-go - the links between ethnicity and crime, or, rather, culture and crime. Two key points of agreement will eventually emerge that should be blindingly obvious already: that people are less likely to trash their own home, and newcomers are less likely to feel a sense of duty to what’s yet to feel like theirs.
(Thanks to readers Terry and Albert.)
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Gillard wins the irrational vote
Andrew Bolt
More evidence that Julia Gillard has given Labor a modest increase in the polls - and a winning margin:According to the latest Newspoll survey, conducted exclusively for The Australian between Friday and Sunday, the first full three days of Ms Gillard’s leadership, Labor’s primary vote leapt seven percentage points from 35 per cent the weekend before Mr Rudd was removed to 42 per cent.No wonder Gillard is doing well. Ask Germaine Greer and she’ll tell you she’s solved almost everything already:
The Coalition’s primary vote support was unchanged on 40 per cent but the Greens’ vote crashed back five points to 10 per cent.
On a two-party-preferred basis, based on a calculation of preference flows at the 2007 election, Labor is now on an election-winning lead of 53 per cent to the Coalition’s 47 per cent, exactly as it was at the 2007 election and about where it was in April before Mr Rudd’s personal support crashed.
Gillard isn’t just news, she’s good news.Um, which “disastrous snarl-ups” did Gillard solve, Germaine?
It was probably a mistake for Rudd to have left her in charge while he was in Bali, in what turned out to be a vain bid to become a global player in climate change politics.
When poorly implemented policies ended in disaster, it fell to Gillard to steady the ship, which she did with such charm and ease of manner, we almost forgot that she was implicated in most of them.. The nation got used to the way she disentangled the most disastrous snarl-ups with patience and good humour, heading off orchestrated media hysteria with her own kind of deadpan common sense and the fewest possible words
In fact, if you believe Greer, Gillard didn’t even persuade Rudd to take the decision that killed his credibility:
Rudd’s catastrophic fall in the polls was a direct consequence of his abandonment of his climate change program… Gillard should perhaps consider making common cause with ousted Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull as a first step towards revivifying the carbon trading scheme.But Greer isn’t the only woman inventing virtues in Gillard:
“SAMANTHA Middleton is happy that a redhead like herself is running the country after Julia Gillard was sworn in as Prime Minister. ...Yeah, right:
When you have red hair, people tend to take you more seriously ...
UPDATEMaybe the red hair isn’t just a coincidence:
So Julia Gillard doesn’t believe in and will clamp down on boat-people. What other red-headed politician does she remind us of?UPDATE 2
Dennis Shanahan:
THE Labor Party is full of tough bastards. They dumped Kevin Rudd as prime minister to get back now to where they were in the polls in April.UPDATE 3
Grown man and part-time academic Dennis Glover writes a love letter:
As I sit in my cafe just after the announcement of the result, young people are high-fiving at the news that Julia Gillard’s moment has come.... It’s infectious....Small correction, Dennis: Gillard was chosen not by the “women of Australia” but the faction bosses of Labor, every one of them a man.
Anyone who has worked alongside the new Prime Minister, as I have been fortunate enough to do in various roles since student days, will tell you a curious and unusual thing for a political office: you always know when she has arrived—the place starts to lighten up, laughter is heard, people feel good…
.... she’s invariably the one who brings people to the point, who forces them to make decisions, and who sends them marching out to get results—always with a wry smile on her face about the folly that’s been going on around her.... there is something about her that makes them want to listen to what she has to say.... Strength, belief, good sense, enjoyment of the challenge: these are infectious and will radiate from her happy, laughing, motivated and effective office to the electorate beyond.
She also has steel and ambition.... Women of Australia, as Gough Whitlam now might say, in Julia Gillard you’ve made a wise choice of the first female to lead our country.
UPDATE 4
Hugh Mackay:
Let’s not overplay ‘’first female prime minister’’. It might have been a big story in the 1970s but, today, Sydney has a female lord mayor, a female premier, a female governor, a female prime minister and a female governor-general.(Thanks to readers David and Watty.)
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Run for the polls while they’re still smiling. And the miners are still mute
Andrew Bolt
Julia Gillard will call an election as soon as possible (assuming the next polls are favourable) - and certainly before she actually has to make many tricky decisions. Some clues include having as few Ministers as possible with new briefs to master:
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard is expected to announce a limited reshuffle of her ministry today, with speculation that Simon Crean or Stephen Smith could get her old portfolio.And this unavoidable test looms, and Gillard will not want to be waiting for the results to come in, in the form of more boats:
Ms Gillard was due to speak last night by telephone to former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who is still at The Lodge, about his future. It is believed that before the talks her inclination, supported by advice from some colleagues, was for Mr Rudd to rest in the next few weeks rather than return to the frontbench immediately.
Mr Crean or Mr Smith would be well qualified to step into the former Gillard job of education, employment and workplace relations. Mr Crean, the Trade Minister, was minister for education and employment in the Keating government. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith shadowed industrial relations and education in opposition…
Victorian parliamentary secretary Bill Shorten, one of those who helped bring off last week’s coup, appears unlikely to be promoted in the reshuffle.
Sources said Ms Gillard had hinted to senior colleagues that Parliament - due to resume on August 24 - would not come back, making the election sooner rather than later…
Her other priority is finalising the mining tax issue, with a government announcement perhaps this week.
She will soon announce how her government will handle Sri Lankan asylum seekers, whose processing was suspended for three months, which ends on July 8.UPDATE
Stephen Bartholomeusz says the miners are itching to get their ads back on air before it’s all too late, because Gillard is unlikely to give them much more than would Rudd:
The obstacle to a genuine re-think of the RSPT is ... Wayne Swan and the fact that he not only remains treasurer but has been elevated to Deputy Prime Minister.UPDATE 2
It was Swan who dreamed up the ‘brilliant’ idea to pluck the RSPT from the 138 recommendations in the Henry Tax Review and use the $12 billion of revenue it would generate in the budget out-years to both fund a spate of pre-election spending and bring forward a return to surplus three years ahead of schedule.
Now Swan is charged with leading the negotiations with the miners that, to have any chance of succeeding, would have to involve an acceptance that his brilliant tax is a destructive dud.... Gillard can’t ditch the tax and start again, nor concede the key changes to the tax demanded by the sector – in particular its retrospective application to past investment – without destroying Swan, which isn’t going to happen. Nor can she somehow shelve the issue before the election by promising to conduct a complete review, without pre-conceptions, of the tax post-election without blowing up Swan’s budget and credibility.
How many of these miners were born yesterday? From the Australian Financial Review:
The Gillard government is seeking an agreement with the nation’s miners which would offer the prospect of bigger concessions on the resource super profits tax but push the final decision to beyond the coming federal election.This is either to fool the miners after the election, or the voters before it.
UPDATE 3
Swan indeed seems determined not to make any substantial concession on his super profits tax. Either that, or he’s making no economic sense at all:
“Our return to surplus is in no way dependent upon revenues from the mining tax and is in no way affected by the outcome of the negotiations that we are having with the mining industry.”No wonder the Government would rather have a quick election and cave into the miners after that. Fancy having to tell the voters that the goodies they’ve been offered - more super and less company tax - are off the table, after all.
But Mr Swan has acknowledged that if major changes are made to the tax that affect its projected revenue, the measures it is due to fund will have to be cut.
“I said on the day I launched the Government’s response to the independent tax review that those initiatives were dependent on the revenue on the mining tax,” he said.
UPDATE 4
Henry Ergas says there’s another multi-billion-dollar disaster that Julia Gillard - inexperienced in financial matters - urgently needs to fix. It’s the $6 billion that the Labor Government has agreed to pay Telstra to stop competing against it’s $43 white elephant of a broadband plan::
For that money, Telstra will hand over to the NBN the customers on its copper network without even seeking their consent. This avoids NBN Co having to win over those customers, reducing the need for keen pricing and competent management.Another reason to dash to the polls before voters wake up to the full scale of the Government’s waste.
But it gets worse. For Telstra will also cease providing high-speed broadband service on its hybrid fibre coax network, which passes about 20 per cent of homes.
That network, which will continue to provide pay TV, has many years of life left in it. Decommissioning its broadband service so as to force customers on to the NBN spends scarce resources to destroy useful capital…
Why is this being done? Because the HFC, which already offers 100 megabit/second service in Melbourne, could give the NBN a serious run for its money… That NBN Co wants to be rid of so effective a potential competitor is unsurprising. But how can that be in the interests of the consumers?
(Thanks to readers Richard, Max and Steve.)
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Will Bob Brown dare savage Brown Gillard?
Andrew Bolt
The Greens will be slaughtered unless they do what they’re not inclined to - attack Julia Gillard.
First, she’s stealing their votes:
The latest Newspoll, published in The Australian newspaper today, shows the Labor government has returned to the levels of support it had before former PM Kevin Rudd’s popularity crashed in April....(T)he Greens’ vote fell back five points to ten per cent.Second, she’s refusing to promise their great dream:
Ms Gillard’s position on emissions trading has been ambiguous since she replaced Kevin Rudd on Thursday. She has said she supported a carbon price, but declined to back Mr Rudd’s timetable of reviewing whether to introduce emissions trading in 2012.Will the Greens, most of whose supporters are women, dare attack our first female Prime Minister?
Marvellous to see the irrational vote so divided.
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Gillard’s watchdog blind
Andrew Bolt
Do you get the impression that Julia Gillard’s new watchdog doesn’t actually want to bark?
THE $14 million taskforce into the schools stimulus will not take details of 112 new complaints because it cannot assure “anonymity”.(Thanks to reader Spin Baby Spin.)
Public Schools Principals Forum chairwoman Cheryl McBride presented taskforce head Brad Orgill with 112 complaints on Friday, many of those from school principals who had earlier been too scared to make complaints for fear of retribution from education departments.
Ms McBride said she was stunned to learn Mr Orgill - who was appointed by the federal government to probe whether the Building the Education Revolution scheme funds were providing schools with value for money -would not investigate the details of each complaint.
“While we had the whole stack there, (Mr Orgill) wouldn’t take the names of the schools because he said he couldn’t guarantee the anonymity of principals making the complaints,” Ms McBride said.
“It seems like a really weak response from a taskforce with 30 staffers and a $14m budget. Why he couldn’t take the complaints even if just as a resource makes no sense to me - it just smacks of the taskforce not wanting to know the true size of the problem.”
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Frosty Joe
Andrew Bolt
Republicans were warned that if they voted for Sarah Palin the US would get a vice president with a foot-in-mouth syndrome. And so they did.
UPDATE
Meanwhile reporters demonstrate how groupthink occurs, creating a consensus of disparaging opinion in the press room about a Palin speech - apparently not trusting each individual to reach the right conclusion unassisted:
A Fox News report on Palin’s speech and on the people who tried their appalling best to stop it or at least smear her.
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