Some people are bagging Julia in the same breath as Tony... They claim both are "negative"... Well I have got news for you cobber... Julia is as positive as can be, while Mr Negativity is the pits of no... Julia has acheived and maintained many policies — some are unpopular MOSTLY BECAUSE THE MURDOCH MEDIA (and much other media, including the ABC which is wishy washy to be "balanced") is fighting alongside Tonicchio — the biggest political liar on earth...

But Julia is getting runs on the board... No negativity here.... The only probs that could be affecting Julia are also tainting Tonicchio big time: Israel, US chum, and refugees... But on this last one, Julia played it so sneakily that processing of boat people has to be done onshore, all this without abandoning "the illusion" of being tough on refugees...

Hi Gus,

Perhaps you're right about Julia being "clever" but, if that is the case, in my book it's a case of her being "too clever by half".

Why not be honest with the electorate Gus? Well, the fact of the matter is that I think that she is & I don't think it's a "good look" trying to pretend that she's doing otherwise. 

The problem that the current Labor government has is that it is perceived to "stand for nothing", except for whatever the opinion polls suggest that it should. The same goes for Tonocchio & his band of desperados. Both are equally as bad when it comes to serving the interests of the average Awstraylen.

Our politicians can do double backward somersaults if it means making the Yanks or Israel happy, regardless of public opinion & they can lick each others' arses all day when it comes to protecting benefits that they both enjoy, but its conscience votes galore; parliamentary enquiries by the truck load; secret backroom deals or run a million miles rather than do the hard yards this country needs from its alleged "leaders".

As for Julia, she has demonstrated that she is just as dishonest & shamelessly ambitious as the rest .... that's the reason that the electorate doesn't like her Gus ..., she betrayed Rudd & she has lied to the Australian people. I don't care what the excuses are, they are the facts & people don't like it. Julia could produce policy miracles until the cows come home Gus, but it won't make any difference. She's tainted.

And Tonocchio hasn't realised that he & his creepy front bench colleagues are all just as tainted as Julia, but for a different reason .... everything they say reminds the electorate of the ghost of Rattus past. It's as simple & altogether as powerful as that.

As I've said before & I'll say it again, I am not interested in supporting the worst of two evils ... it's not good enough Gus & we deserve better.

And if we can't have better, then a pox on the lot of them.

Cheers Mate,

John.

The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, is to be applauded for his announcement of reforms in refugee processing. The foundation of Australia's legal commitment to refugees' rights is the 1951 Refugee Convention, which states that we have committed to granting asylum to anyone with "a well-founded fear . . . of persecution . . . due to ethnicity". This is the case with Ismail Mirza Jan, the Hazara man who remains at risk of deportation from Villawood to likely grave danger in Afghanistan, purely because of his physically recognisable ethnicity ("Court stops forced deportation of asylum seeker", November 19).

While waiting for their claims to be assessed, we should treat refugees kindly, as genuine claimants until proven otherwise.

Almost everyone loves to denigrate politicians; it's virtually requisite for being Australian. The government has taken a principled stand on behalf of basic human rights. The next task of the refugee support movement is to inform public opinion, to protect Bowen's stance against an ill-considered, cold-hearted backlash from the community.

Alexander McRae Bundeena

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said today the Government was blaming the deep problems of European economies for the need to find extensive savings.

He blamed Treasurer Wayne Swan and Prime Minister Julia Gillard “because they haven't been able to rein in the waste''.

“It is not Europe's fault that Wayne Swan has a problem,” the Opposition Leader said.

He told reporters: “It's typical of this Government that they should be blaming someone else for their own mistakes.''

But Mr Abbott's colleague, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey, said the Government's reappraisal of the economy had to take into account what was happening in European nations such as Greece, Italy and Spain.

Liberal finance spokesman Andrew Robb also has raised fears about the effect of the European collapse and yesterday accused the Government of failing to acknowledge “Australia's vulnerability to the unfolding major European recession''.

European leaders will continue this week to slowly hammer out new structural measures to shore up the euro currency zone, but market confidence among investors already showed signs of crumbling late last week.

One month after European leaders struck deals over a bailout fund and a debt restructuring for Greece, financial markets are again gripped with pessimism and impatiently looking for more.

Germany is pressing for tighter fiscal discipline through budget controls that would initially draw approval from a few of the 17 nations that belong to the currency union without requiring time-consuming revisions of the union’s treaty. Critics say the plan would effectively create two euro zones, a central one paying lower interest rates and a peripheral one paying higher borrowing rates.

Meanwhile, international investors are holding back, said people familiar with the financial industry, because of uncertainty about the future of the euro zone and worry about how further downgrades of sovereign bonds by credit agencies might hurt banks.

Banks in Europe have also practically stopped lending to other banks, a key task of the financial system that central banks are now performing. And international financial officials fear a self-reinforcing crisis of confidence that could slow down economies — and damage financial institutions and governments alike — just as experienced technocrats are taking charge in Greece and Italy.

“Europe needs to understand that financial markets don’t work on political timelines, and they are already a long way behind the curve,” Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said in his weekly economic note over the weekend. He said European Union leaders had to act quickly to prevent a “slow-motion train wreck.”

“Over the past month, it seems to have been two steps forward, one step back for Europe,” Swan added. “The region’s policymakers have been frustratingly slow to build on the framework announced on October 27.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/european-debt-crisis-investors-confidence-shows-signs-of-crumbling/2011/11/27/gIQAFsJD3N_print.html

Hell! Blame the banks...

Hi Gus,

You make Julia sound like a saint however, I'm not convinced at all.

I don't like being lied to, no matter who it is doing the lying & I'm sure as hell sceptical about "big red's" integrity, based on her public flirtation with big barack baby; her public pronouncements on Julian Assange & her staunch support for the zionists, to cite just a few instances.

Crikey's editorial today on the mining tax covers that issue off quite well ........

"Today's Essential Research poll illustrates just how badly the Rudd government bungled its case for the Resource Super Profits Tax, and how timid Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan have been on the issue ever since.

Essential found that only 11% of voters thought that "all Australians" were benefiting a lot from the resources boom, and only 29% thought they were getting "some benefit". In contrast, 68% thought mining company executives were benefiting a lot, and 42% thought the same of foreign companies.

This is not how voters would prefer the benefits of the boom to be distributed. Fifty seven per cent want mining executives to benefit less from the boom, and 56% want foreign companies to benefit less from the boom. Who should benefit more? Sixty eight per cent want all Australians to benefit more, and only 15% think the balance is currently right. They also want regional communities to benefit more. There's even support for state government, in particular, to benefit more.

We've come quite some distance since May 2010. But the electorate has persistently indicated it supports making the mining industry contribute more of the windfall gains it is enjoying from the resources boom back to the rest of us. The government's MRRT makes a poor show of doing that."

And, as for the lady's concern for the more disadvantaged in our midst, Eva Cox can speak for me when she observes .....

“With the ALP conference coming up next week, where are the motions for commitment to making Australian society fairer? The current government’s various social policy commitments have done little to improve equality for the poorest Australians, apart from exhortations that social inclusion meant they should just get a job.

The latest Social Inclusion report has just been tabled by the Minister for Human Services, Tanya Plibersek, in time for the conference delegates to read. It does not unfortunately address the needs of the long-term unemployed or others caught in the changing economic picture. As a long-term feminist and member of the Left, it is surprising the minister does not address the lack of data on whether her government has improved living standards and well-being for the most vulnerable groups in our society.

The report lists some programs that are likely to appeal to reformists but I could find no mention of the adequacy of income support payments levels or explanations for increasing surveillance and control over those already on the payments. There are no figures showing that cutting payments to sole parents has increased their incomes and children’s well-being. There are no valid statistics to show that income management has improved the health or well-being of the families covered in WA or the NT, yet it is being rolled out at great expense.

The so-called social inclusion report lists future plans such as mental health changes and the proposed disability insurance schemes. The pension rise was good but not extended to those on other payments, who now lag more than $130 per week behind the more respectable pensioners. The proposed rise in super will mainly benefit higher income earners, and paid parental leave works for those with paid jobs. There is nothing for those who have not shared recent prosperity and may even have lost jobs because of the GFC.

The paid jobs are not there for the million-plus who are supposed to be looking for them. At any one time, there may be about 200,000 listed job vacancies but most jobs out there are not for those on payments. They are for people who have current and/or very recent experience, who are not too old, or do not have family responsibilities. Employers prefer those who don’t have visible disabilities or recurrent health problems. Many of those on payments are regularly rejected because of employer prejudices. The problem is with the demand side, not the labour supply, yet the policies make the assumptions that the victims of rejection are the problem. The government’s belief that people on income support just need to try harder and solve all their problems by finding a paid job is why the policies become more punitive and controlling.

The report lists a few achievements and some dubious ones. New social housing is good but there is not enough; Closing the Gap is a rhetorical joke if the minimal progress that is measured by Productivity Commission report is accurate. We have no evidence that more training places for the unemployed and flexible help for job seekers actually gets them jobs. Most of the rest is programs for those with paid jobs and not those who miss out.

On almost the eve of its party conference, the government’s own report ignores the loss of rights of some of the poorest Australians and increasing inequity. So where is the public indignation from the ALP membership about the disgustingly low pay rates of the Newstart Allowance? This offers a basic $35 per day to the non-employed that even the Business Council thinks is too low. The statistics show this payment is not short term and condemns most recipients to serious marginalisation. Yet there is no audible party outcry.

This government continues to move increasing numbers of sole parents onto this low-level, tightly income tested payment, making it harder for them to find decent part-time work that fits their parenting responsibilities. Joining them on this low pay rate are increasing numbers of people with significant but not totally disabling conditions, who are being refused the Disability Support Pension. Who is standing up for new applicants and other people with disabilities who will have to go on the inadequate Newstart pay rate?

The welfare payment system is undergoing a massive policy shift that has been hidden from the public. The major change is to payment systems: from forms of entitlement to what is called conditional welfare. While there have always been obligations on those receiving payments to look for work and upgrade skills, these are becoming stringent and punitive. In addition, many income recipients are now being subjected to paternalistic restrictions on how they spend their income, based on unproven assumptions that income quarantining will improve their job readiness.

These are being imposed on payment recipients nationally. After experimenting in the NT with income management in 72 Aboriginal communities, new variations of the program are being introduced in the NT and spread widely into other disadvantaged populations. The changes are being introduced despite there being no clear evidence of their benefits, possible harm and solid opposition from groups such as ACOSS, Welfare Rights and many of the big welfare agencies.

Where are the Labor Party members objecting to this change and the expansion of some very conservative policies? The new year will see the expansion of income management to places such as Bankstown, Shepparton and Logan. Why no public anger that the NT is about to have income management connected to school attendance despite no evidence it works there either? Where are the Labor people who once would have strongly objected to diminishing the rights of people to welfare payments? Is it because Aboriginal communities were used as the initial stalking horse and residual racism meant people assumed it was all right to infantilise them?

These groups of people have traditionally seen Labor as more likely to care for their needs than the Coalition. Now they have no one to represent their needs. There are no signs in the recently released social inclusion report that there will be any good changes. The government’s wider agenda is to get them all into jobs, even if this is not possible. This may fit the traditional view of Labor as the creator of a working man’s paradise but we have moved away from that narrow gendered view, which left out so much of what were seen as core Labor values. Bad jobs do damage and care needs need to be considered.

Labor had a proud record, post-WW2, of establishing the Australian welfare state, designed to share the resources we had. Imperfect as it was, it signalled to the voters that Labor cared about those who had no access to paid work. The neo liberal shift of the ‘80s fed rising individualism and self-provision in the market but there was still a sense that the ALP would take care of those who needed it. However, under Howard, the welfare of those who did not share in the growth economy was given a lower priority and it was assumed they were at fault and therefore undeserving of public support. The change of government in 2007 brought some optimism that the Labor commitment to a fair go would return.

However, the current Labor government has sold out that basic assumption. It has failed to change the welfare policy directions of the Howard government, while also supporting the gross inequities foisted on indigenous people under the NT so-called emergency. Now, on its fourth anniversary, and on the eve of the national conference, there are no visible signs of a push from the members to reverse increasingly unfair welfare changes.”

Cheers,

John.

One word... Crap... We've got to live with one — or the other...

I'd rather live with Julia than with any of the other clowns including Rudd or Abbott... The media has been poisoning the concepts of many things in order to create confusion... and of course things are never as clear cut as one would hope... Even in the Whitlam days... For example there are sub-info I cannot mention more of, here, on the intervention front, yet I will only say this quickly "a bright and powerful person such as Noel Pearson is self-destructing, self inflicted..." Human nature is never simple... Policies have to weave around this fact. Eva Cox got it simplistically wrong. Look... I've been to Aboriginal communities... I know. Things take time and with the very difficultly poised parliament, it takes a bit of going around to get things done... It also takes a certain time to change mind sets — including that in the public service (which of course, lives "independently" of government policies — see "yes minister").

Julia is not a saint... As I mentioned before, she is an ATHEIST.... so no saint there... Atheists can do things "right or wrong" but usually they are better equipped to deal with the complexities that are muddled bu churches, Apexes and other rite-wing pseudo-charitable network — often designed to keep people in the loop of charity and to make one feel good for giving while one is raping the other side of the world... There is far more from Labor now for those on the threshold of poverty that there was under Rattus.

The one thing though is that often what is there being achieved quietly is poo-pooed by the media and the cynics...  (see the new Murray-Darling Basin proposal — compromise on all sides have to be made)... Unfortunately we've all become greedy cynics since Abbott took over the Libs (conservatives)... This was his aim and he is winning underhandedly.

...

Much of what Mr Swan says is likely to be disputed by Mr Rudd - the enmity between the pair, who first met and worked together to bring down the 32-year-old National Party government in Queensland in the late 1980s, is legendary. It was Mr Swan, for example, who triggered a carpet bombing of Mr Rudd's reputation by senior ministers before the 2012 leadership challenge to Julia Gillard when he said the then-foreign minister ''does not hold any Labor values''.

Mr Swan cites examples of what he calls Mr Rudd's ''unstable personality'', including the latter breaking a pen in a fit of anger in a hotel room, spraying ink everywhere and causing thousands of dollars of damage to the decor.

''Kevin's treatment of people was extraordinarily vindictive and juvenile, and it was frequently on display,'' Mr Swan writes.

''Too often his focus was on having something to announce, and the political upside of any decision … for all Kevin's reputation as a policy wonk, it's something that often took a back seat in his decision-making process. Too frequently it came a distant third, behind media and political considerations.'' There was a ''culture of fear and blame'' in the Rudd office, Mr Swan writes, and the former prime minister was quick to get angry and deliver retribution. ''In most instances, it would not be the senior minister or departmental official who bore the brunt of these outbursts (although this did sometimes happen); rather, a more junior staff member would be the recipient … he burnt through staff like a child flicking matches from a box.''

The pair fell out during the bitter leadership battles of 2003 and 2005, but patched up their differences and worked closely together on the 2007 election campaign.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/wayne-swans-new-book-dishes-the-dirt-on-kevin-rudd-20140815-3ds93.html