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a kinder, gentler polity .....

a kinder, gentler polity .....

Two conflicting urges struggled within Tony Abbott's breast on Tuesday evening as he dealt with the news that Julia Gillard would form the next government.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Abbott began his press conference at Parliament House. "The longest election is finally over. The Coalition won more votes and more seats than our opponents, but sadly, we did not get the opportunity to form a government."

This was the first urge, to frustration and anger, as Abbott promised to hold the government "ferociously to account".

For most of human history, surges of frustration and anger, untamed and untutored, led tribes to kill each other in bloody power struggles as they held each other "ferociously to account".

But primitive passions are constrained by higher calls. Abbott continued: "Obviously, I'm disappointed about that but that's our system and I certainly am not going to let my disappointment at the result blind me to the great strengths of our system, which I will always respect."

This was the second urge, devotion to duty and convention. It was absolutely the right response.

But the rest of the Coalition frontbench apparently missed this point. Abbott's promise to respect the system was comprehensively trashed by his own frontbench. Only 16 hours later, the Coalition let loose the most dangerous accusation in Australian politics since the constitutional crisis of 1975.

The Liberals' deputy leader in the Senate and a former barrister, George Brandis, opened the attack: "Most Australians wanted a change of government. Your government has as much legitimacy as the Pakistani cricket team," he told Labor's Craig Emerson on ABC radio.

At a 3pm doorstop the shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, had his turn: "This is an illegitimate government. It is the first time, certainly since World War II, that a party - either Liberal or Labor - with the fewer seats forms government. That is inherently unstable ... Julia Gillard didn't win the vote. She didn't have the majority of seats."

And that night on Lateline Christopher Pyne took aim: "I think it's fair to say that Julia Gillard has never been elected by the Australian public to be Prime Minister. She took over eight weeks ago because of faction leaders giving her the job and now two country independents have given her the job, so it's fair to say this government doesn't have any legitimacy."

The recurring theme of the Coalition frontbench is that the government is illegitimate. This is a powerful charge. The Oxford defines illegitimate as "not authorised by law; improper; not recognised as lawful offspring; bastard; wrongly inferred; naturally abnormal."

Yet the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, plainly disagreed by swearing in Gillard as Prime Minister.

And it's no wonder. The constitution is clear. "The constitution doesn't speak to the question of legitimacy at all," says a constitutional lawyer at Melbourne University's Law School, Professor Simon Evans.

The word "legitimacy" belongs not to constitutional law, says Evans, but to "a different domain of discourse." Yes, the way the opposition has been using it, it's about politics and spin and psychological warfare. It's not based in the constitution and it's not based in law.

Coalition lets it rip but the spray is too ferocious

and this .....

We're no strangers to minority governments. John Howard led one for 11 years, relying on the support of a party that steadfastly refused to unite with his - a party so separate, in fact, it was entirely excluded from the Liberals' recent negotiations with the independents.

The new arrangement does appear more fragile than the Liberal-National Coalition, so a spirit of goodwill is required on both sides of the House if this is going to work. There are already some discouraging signs: Tony Abbott's credulity-straining wish for a "kinder, gentler polity'' is clearly not shared by some of his howling, posturing frontbenchers who seem determined to undermine the new structure. Ideology might be dead, as Tony Windsor remarked, but tribalism isn't.

The claim by Christopher Pyne, among others, that the new government is not legitimate would amount to sedition if it were not so laughably self-serving. Had the independents chosen to align themselves with the Liberals and Nationals, would Pyne now be wringing his hands over his government's illegitimacy?

''Ah,'' the whiners would respond, ''but we got more votes.'' This is both false and irrelevant, but is in danger of entering conservative folklore as a serious proposition. Any parliamentarian knows governments are formed on the basis of the number of votes they can command in the House of Representatives, not the total number of votes polled in an election. It's only ever about seats: the ''popular vote'' is a concept alien to our form of parliamentary democracy.

Another nonsense put about by people who should know better is that ''this prime minister was not elected by the people'' and is therefore not a legitimate prime minister. This is so wrong-headed, it's a wonder it has any currency at all. We are not America. We do not elect a president. And we most certainly do not directly elect a prime minister. We elect a parliament comprising local members who then, with whatever horse-trading might be called for, organise themselves into a government and an opposition. The government elects its leader who becomes the prime minister (an office not even referred to in our constitution).

The election everyone lost, except the system

meanwhile .....

In the post-election excitement, you might have missed the award of this year's Blake Prize "for exploring the religious and spiritual in art''.

Being neither religious nor arty, I'm not sure what's required here, although I suspect that putti and crucifixion scenes are a bit vieux chapeau, vicar.

Among the finalists there was a Stations of the Cross that looked like a Mambo T-shirt, and a cardinal clutching an altar boy, but that was about it for anything recognisable in the god-bothering line,

The winner was an oil on Belgian linen, 150 X 122 centimetres, by one Leonard Brown, entitled If You Put Your Ear Close, You'll Hear It Breathing. The judges were in ecstasy: " ... a deeply lyrical work full of subtle variations, like a metaphorical teardrop or the quiet weeping of the seraphims," they gushed. (Seraphim is actually a plural and does not require the "s", but let's not quibble.)

Anyhow. If You Put Your Eye Close you would have sworn it was a sheet of wallpaper in little blobs of beige and cream.

It reminded me of something, and eventually I got it: add a cuckoo clock and a flying trio of china ducks and you would have my grandmother's lounge room, circa 1955. But then she was a religious old dear.

Mike Carlton

eat wisely and be merry...

Get a grip on your life expectancy

September 13, 2010 - 11:21AM
Firm grip ... hand strength an indicator of life expectancy, researchers find.

A firm handshake and brisk walk could be indicators of a longer life expectancy, researchers claim.

Scientists at the Medical Research Council analysed the results of 33 studies into the link between ability to carry out simple physical tasks and age of death.

They found people who performed better at tasks including gripping, walking, rising from a chair and balancing on one leg tended to live to a riper age.

Tens of thousands of men and women across the globe took part in the studies, some of which followed participants for 43 years.
Of the 14 studies dealing with grip strength, it was found that those with the strongest hand grasps tended to live longer than those with feeble ones.

This was the case even after age, sex and body size was taken into account.

Likewise slow walkers were found to have a greater risk of an earlier death compared to those with a brisk stride.

Most of the studies were carried out on older people. But the authors of the paper, published in the British Medical Journal, insist the study goes further than simply linking physical fitness with life expectancy.

They suggest that a person's ability to perform everyday tasks could help predict their mortality.

--------------------------

Gus: silly me... I thought that having a "healthy life would give me at least some chance of longevity which is mostly overrated in a climate change situation anyway. But with these criteria in mind, we're going to be plagued and aggrieved by an Abbott for a long too-long time. Good luck to him, though to be a brisk walker and a balancing idiot on one leg does not make him — and anyone else — cleverer than say a swinging monkey at the Adelaide zoo. Is there a scientific measurement for wearing red budgie-smugglers? I knew some very physically fit people who died young for over-doing it. I know some people with a dead-mullet handshake who have outlived many people with the crunching sausage grip. May be it could be due to idiots who crunch my lovely fingers get a big virtual left-hand hook in the smiling piano keys, so they release the bone-crunching grasp... But sometimes, as soon as I feel them start the crunch, within a smidgin of second I match the grip with a superior vice-like force... If fingers don't break is that they give up. Beyond this it's obvious that those feeble characters with health problems will have difficulties getting out of a comfortable chair. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

I think —and I know — that having a healthy diet (you are what you eat), doing some exercises and being happy without being careless can help us live longer, but not exclusively... Watch for that oncoming bus...

never trust a budgie smuggler .....

The Coalition has been accused of breaking a deal on parliamentary reform after reneging on an agreement that would have paved the way for an independent Speaker.

Independent MP Rob Oakeshott, who has put his hand up to be the Speaker, has called for the matter to be resolved urgently before Parliament sits again on September 28.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will now meet the NSW MP on Monday to discuss parliamentary reform and details regarding the speakership.

Mr Oakeshott said the coalition would break a "very clear and very public agreement" if it backed out of the deal.

"This meeting (with Mr Abbott on Monday) is to determine his commitment to this agreement in the lead-up to the first sitting week," Mr Oakeshott said in a statement issued this afternoon.

"It is in this agreement that pairing rights were agreed to be given to the Speaker to ensure a Speaker can be appointed without losing local MP rights in a parliament where every vote by every MP will matter."

Earlier today he told Sky News the Coalition had reneged on the deal.

Oakeshott warns of Mexican stand-off as Coalition reneges on deal

meanwhile .....

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has taken out two Ernie Awards at the 18th annual forum that names and shames public figures for making sexist comments throughout the year.

But he missed out on the top prize this year, the Gold Ernie, which went to a group of university students at St Paul's College in Sydney for setting up a pro-rape Facebook page.

The college's "Define Statutory" group, which defined itself as "pro-rape, anti-consent", was condemned by women's groups, the government and police when it came to light last November.

At the awards show in Sydney last night, Mr Abbott won a Political Silver Ernie award for such comments as "What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing."

He was the favourite to win the political category after being nominated eight times this year.

Ernie Awards | Tony Abbott stars at sexist awards night

the noise from rattus junior .....

Tony Abbott accepts he needs to do more than criticise the government in the hope it collapses before its three-year term expires.

And despite promising during the election campaign to junk Labor's community cabinet if elected, Mr Abbott says he now realises the benefit of frequent community contact and has promised to mount his own roadshow between now and the next election.

''Reaching out to the public can't be a once-in-three-years event. It should be the core business of a political movement and it should start now.''

He also announced yesterday his first act when Parliament resumed next week would be to introduce a private member's bill and seek the support of the independents to overturn the Queensland government's Wild Rivers legislation which protects an area of Cape York for environmental reasons.

Mr Abbott is acting on advice from Cape York elder Noel Pearson, but yesterday a collective of indigenous groups from the Cape hit back, arguing they did not want the legislation overturned and that Mr Pearson was not the spokesman for all indigenous people in the Cape.

In a speech to the Menzies Research Centre in Sydney yesterday, Mr Abbott vowed to hound the government incessantly but also acknowledged the Coalition had to accentuate its own positives to force a change.

Tony Abbott plans do more than attack government and Gillard

the feral budgie .....

Labor will redouble its efforts to find a Coalition deserter willing to be speaker after Tony Abbott reneged on a deal to guarantee a Labor speaker a ''pair'' so the minority government would not be penalised a precious number in the House of Representatives.

The government, Greens and independents condemned Mr Abbott for trying to ''wreck'' the Parliament as any remaining goodwill was shattered before sittings resume next week.

''He has said to me, and effectively to the Australian people, that his word is worth absolutely nothing,'' the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said.

''The spirit that Mr Abbott is bringing to this Parliament is one of what he can wreck rather than what can he achieved.''

Move to lure Coalition defector

and then ....

The federal opposition is threatening to drop support for a long-standing convention that allows ministers to be absent from parliament without leaving the government short of votes.

The move follows the coalition's refusal to pair a Labor Speaker with one of its own MPs, effectively reducing the government's lower house majority to just one vote.

Warren Entsch, the opposition's new chief whip, says a convention to provide pairs for ministers absent from parliament on official business should not be taken for granted by the Gillard minority government.

"Each one will be taken on its merit," he told ABC Radio today, adding circumstances such as national interest would be taken into consideration.

Abbott plays hardball on pairing tradition

we'll all be rooned .....

There's nothing like some gloomy punditry from Access Economics to cheer things up. Wayne Swan would have sprung from his bed with a glad cry last Tuesday on news that Australia's premier economic consulting firm, as it boldly bills itself, was predicting the budget will slump back into the red in 2013-14.

The ubiquitous Access front man, Chris Richardson, is punting on a deficit of $1.8 billion that year against a Treasury forecast of a $4.5 billion surplus.

Ho hum. Only last year Richardson was telling us all that the budget was "buggered", the economy would "unwind scarily fast" and a recession was inevitable.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. As everyone knows, economists are hopelessly bad at crystal ball-gazing and are best ignored.

As to the future of our wonderful New Paradigm Parliament, we can be certain of one thing: Tony Abbott will go all out to wreck it. He revealed his true colours by reneging on the group hug deal on the speakership,

Swaggering into the House on Wednesday with that peculiar gait somewhere between Anthony Mundine and a Disney duck, he exuded aggression. When the government lost a vote on a fiddly bit of parliamentary procedure, he crowed like a rooster on a dung heap.

His strategy, though, is curious. A few weeks ago Phoney was loftily pronouncing that the Australian people wanted Parliament to concentrate on "bread and butter concerns" rather than "fringe issues" like euthanasia.

Yet his first go at a private member's bill will be an attempt to overturn laws protecting Queensland's wild rivers from development, hardly a burning question in the public mind.

In this, he is spurred on by that messianic self-promoter, the North Queensland Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson, who says the laws are "colonialism".

Angels should fear to tread here. There are plenty of indigenous leaders in Cape York who won't have a bar of Pearson. Among others, Murrandoo Yanner from the Carpentaria Land Council says he's a hypocrite "leading whitefellas astray'', and fears that overturning the Wild Rivers laws would see development destroy a pristine wilderness, in the traditional Queensland manner.

Abbott's push on this will be instructive. Clearly, he will stop at nothing to gain the prime ministership. The kinder, gentler polity is as dead as a dog in a ditch.

Mike Carlton

political malingering .....

Tony Abbott has accused Julia Gillard of "low bastardry" in disclosing that he had declined her offer to travel together to Afghanistan to visit Australian troops.

As the Australian officer in charge of the Afghanistan deployment warned it was "not the time to get the wobbles", the Opposition Leader - at the end of a full-day visit to the coalition base in Tarin Kowt - said he had personally told the Prime Minister weeks earlier that he planned to visit separately.

''So Gillard's office were briefing [reporters] last Monday that I'd somehow dudded the troops by not visiting,'' he told reporters.

''I regard it as an act of low bastardry given what Gillard knew based on the conversation I'd had with her personally.

However, the Herald's chief political reporter, Phillip Coorey, who broke the story, said it had not come from the Prime Minister or her office.

Abbott acccuses Gillard of "low bastardry"