'Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Karl Bitar

National Secretary

Australian Labor Party

Hello Karl, Whatever you do - DO NOT DELETE THIS MESSAGE -

On the eve of an election we should never have feared to lose and which we quite frankly are possibly capable of losing...& terrified of losing. I decided to reply to your automated email to my husband. We share the same email address but please NOTE this is from me.

His wife, Jackie. (Not Terrance)

Talk about sending emails & doing things at the last minute!! This is really bizarre. Here you are sending emails to"'members",  the "converted", of all people at 05:11pm on the eve of a federal election!!!

It didn't have come to this, Julia.

Although a rusted on Labor voter, I will swallow my pride, confront an aversion to conservatism and vote Liberal, purely out of spite.

Australians don't all sleep with cricket bats next to their bed to thwart invading boat people; Paul Keating was Australia's greatest treasurer, prime minister, antique clock collector and deliverer of artful insults; and Labor is traditionally the party of substantial economic reform. But it's all gone so horribly wrong.

You have to be suspicious when big policies are released this late in a campaign. As such, the Liberal Party's infrastructure policy has the distinct whiff of rodent about it.

Aside from all manner of lofty promises about systematic approaches to infrastructure (we got that from the last mob too, until there was an election to win in Sydney's west), the major announcement is a scheme for "infrastructure bonds":

from Crikey .....

At least Abbott's honest about wilful refusal to buy into global warming

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

In the trigger-happy post-9/11 world, the favoured way to instigate a war is to demand that the designated "evildoer" prove a negative. 

As the clock ticks down to the 2010 Federal Election what exactly are the major political parties offering Australian voters? Very little it seems. The atmosphere of major party fear and loathing is cause for some serious reflection on the state of democracy in Australia. Isn't it about time that we as citizens start to push for real change and accountability.

That moment has arrived and it is up to us to do something.

from Crikey .....

Mungo: double disillusion leaves spirit of the nation in jeopardy

Mungo MacCallum writes:

Holy asylum seekers Boatman - Australia's border patrol forces would have a hotline to Tony Abbott under a Coalition Government to ask him if they're allowed to turn the boats back.

As another boatload of illegal immigrants arrived on the weekend - the 152nd since Labor won office - Mr Abbott explained how his pledge to turn back the boats would work.

"In the end it would be a prime ministerial decision," Mr Abbott said.

"It would be the Government's call based on advice of the commander on the spot."

Mr Abbott said the phone call from sea would come to him - on the boatphone - and it would be his choice whether or not to turn a boat back if it was safe to do so.

"I've said all along that I would be the underdog," Mr Abbott said.

"I'm running against the full might of an incumbent government. I'm running against five incumbent state Labor governments. I'm running against the union movement which is a $1 billion-a-year logistics support operation for the Labor Party. I'm running against big money, big factions. I'm running against big politics .....

I'm running against everyone."

from Crikey .....

Meglomaniacal Abbott finally comes out of the cabinet

Andrew Dodd writes:

FEDERAL ELECTION 2010

Generally, Tony Abbott does humility pretty well. But in a couple of questions at the Rooty Hill RSL on Wednesday night his guard slipped and we saw another side of his personality.

from Crikey .....

Rundle: the topic is cancer - the 2010 election and the collapse of political legitimacy

Guy Rundle writes:

Physicist Stephen Hawking, who recently said humans should avoid seeking out aliens because they might colonise our planet if they noticed us, has now warned that mankind must colonise other planets or face extinction.

"I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," Hawking tells BigThink.com. "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million.

‘For those who value our present way of life, the Greens are sweet camouflaged poison.’