I think you're right, which is why they'll have to do it at least once (probably more); otherwise it will be yet another Kevvy Cock up. However, I also think that the ALP will go along with Rudd for the moment, however unpalatable individuals may find this option.

Clare, I assume you mean SHY? I don't think anyone's asked her, which IMO is a small but positive sign that the ALP is back on track. :E SHY and their own internal fluff bunnies are the people who got Labor into this pile of manure in the first place.

Of course. This is how any government fights smuggling, and this is something where the current government have been lousy on all counts. Whether it's people, drugs or guns (the three most smuggled things today; from memory cash is fourth) smugglers are smugglers. They'll look for the loophole that allows them to keep earning shedloads of money by trafficking misery across borders. :yuk:

What has become obvious (I hope even to the fluff bunnies) is that people smugglers are smugglers. They transport goods for profit. The fact that in this case those goods are people and many of them are drowning is not a concern for a smuggler as long as they've paid up front. Attempting to combat people smugglers with a moral argument is as useless as doing the same to drug traffickers ('think of the poor gullible teenagers who buy the product' :bored:) because they simply don't care.
No Cookies | The Courier-Mail
FWIW, Bagaric's a leftie but a Greens basher. IMO they deserve a bashing. The day they stepped away from true green issues and decided they were a political force was the day they became serious trouble.

The problem is, a lot of leftie quasi-Labor supporters like them. They see the surface spin about nukes and organic food and don't look deeper into the Greens manifesto. This gives the Greens a political respectability that they patently don't deserve, any more than One Nation. Both these parties are big on populist spin and largely quiet about their true objectives.

While on both counts the cloven hoof shows clearly, the average voter isn't interested enough to follow through and examine the scarier policies. This type of voter just nods along with the popular bits and 'protest' votes against the major parties (and even us would-be commentators don't have a lot of love for the majors at present :uhoh:) which gives these fringe dwelling ratbags a degree of political importance that they patently don't deserve.

7x7,

Like your thinking. However I still consider all solutions proposed to date by both sides of politics merely address the symptom and not the cause. The cause is, in my view, the huge "pull" factor of unlimited welfare. It is now a well known fact that many of our "asylum seeker" mateys are uncannily well versed in the Australian welfare system. Deny them immediate access to the gravy train that is Australian welfare and I reckon you'll go half way to solving the problem.

In fact the same could apply to welfare system in general, but that's another argument.

And while I'm at it, free Fliegs!!

True, but a lot of other irregular arrivals (usually tourist or student visa holders gone wild) are working their butts off. Taxi, anyone? Takeaway curry with rice? Cheap demolition work with no pesky environmental approvals? While the welfare system undoubtedly appeals to some (particularly the western Sydney brigade) I think a lot of people come to Australia legitimately or otherwise because there's money to be made by working and opportunities for people who do so.

I'm a chatty person who catches a fair few cabs (and buys too much takeaway :\) and plenty of new Aussies are here because they believe they can do well for themselves and their family. Of course plenty do so, even if it's on the Wrong visa :suspect:. If people in the Punjab are hearing this message so are the people who catch boats, particularly the Sri Lankans and the Pakis. Both countries are short on opportunity and long on civil strife, so I don't think it's unreasonable for people living there to see a boat trip as an easier option to a better life.

Do we go along with that? Very different question, and IMO the answer is no. However, that doesn't make them evil for taking a wel-advertised option that looks good. Plenty of Australians fall for credit/investment/property scams every day; what's so different about the boat scam? This is a scam issue that needs to be addressed as such. Whether the scammees are looking for welfare or a stable job in a place without civil conflict, the boat option is still a scam, and that's how the government needs to treat it; without the emotive crap from the Greens and Co.

Hi WITW no I definitely meant SBY the Indonesian guy, with whom Kevvie apparently agreed that unilateral action was not a good idea then went ahead and did the PNG thing without telling SBY what he was going to do. :ugh: so showing that was just another set of empty words and gestures.

SHY is a waste of space IMO but agree she and her ilk have done a lot of damage to the Labor brand. But if it was a strong enough brand that enough people felt truly represented them people like her wouldn't be able to have that much influence. I see "Labor Values" as an outdated ideology that now means "Snouts in the trough lads/EMILYs listers, whatever it takes" and has nothing to do with the workers and is certainly not in a position to take any moral high ground.

Not that that attitude is exclusive to Labor politicians of course :mad:

Sorry, gotcha. :)

What is going on?

In Rudd, Australia has a Prime Minister who is acting like an amoral, opportunistic thug, interested in only one thing - staying PM, no matter how much he demeans the position. Seriously, what won't Rudd do to keep his bloodied hands on the wheel?

Like the majority of Australians, I had no time for Gillard. I considered her leadership incompetent, but for undesirability Rudd is an order of magnitude beyond incompetent.

Look what he's doing. For a start, he's not governing, he's cynically campaigning without declaring an election and moving into caretaker mode, all the while hurling millions of dollars of partisan advertising at us. No wonder decent, mature men around him have sacrificed their careers, their life's honest work in many cases, rather than be part of a Rudd government, however short it is.

Rudd's like a cancer. He's ruthless and has no mercy. His word is worthless, except as an instrument inflicting great damage. He is a pestilence of epic proportions, deadly to his host body, the ALP, and therefore a grave threat to our once stable two party system.

It's as if the innocent, unworldly fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden Greens have created the conditions for Rudd to germinate and grow to his present horrific proportions. He's like an insane, malevolent, megapowerful Tin Tin.

Being a Liberal voter has nothing to do with wanting this madman neutralised. As Rudd's own brother said, using a different metaphor 'You never half stake a vampire.'

This is gold and well worth remembering
 

"TONY Abbott got a cracker of a question when he attended a community forum in Launceston on Thursday night.

It had him defending not only himself, but Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard as well.


A former soldier, who said he had seen both good and bad leadership during his time in the Army, rose above parochialism and spoke for a large section of the Australian community.


"I do not trust, nor would I put the word 'leader', with any of our politicians," he said. "I know your first priority is yourself, your second priority is the party, the third priority is probably getting the party elected and the fourth is staying in power. "Somewhere in your priority list is my country. This country has been crying out for a leader who puts it above everything else. Why should I vote for you?"


It was a stark reminder of the low esteem in which politicians are held in Australia. In a July Reader's Digest poll of how 50 professions rate in terms of trust, politicians came 49th, just ahead of door-to-door salespeople. Call centre staff, real estate agents, insurance salespeople, sex workers, even journalists, are regarded more highly. The hung Parliament produced by the 2010 election was a consequence of that disdain. It indicated an electorate unable to discern much in the way of leadership on either side of politics.
The widely held cynicism reflected by the ex-Digger should worry all politicians. Abbott, to his credit, took it seriously, telling the audience he wanted to stand up for politicians as a class.
"I don't say we're perfect," the Liberal leader said. "I don't say we're infallible. I don't say we aren't, from time to time, influenced by a whole lot of considerations, including getting elected. But if you think our country has succeeded by and large - and for all of the argument that we might have with any particular government or with any particular prime minister or politician, this is a great country - I think you've got to say that the politicians haven't been all that bad."
Then came something that must have surprised many Coalition loyalists. It was almost as though Abbott had taken seriously Rudd's comment, on the day he wrested back the prime ministership, that politicians should "try to be a little kinder and gentler with each other".
"I have enormous disagreements with Mr Rudd," Abbott told the forum. "I have enormous disagreements with Julia Gillard. But I don't accuse them of bad faith and I don't think that they are not, in their own way, patriots.
"They pursue different policies. To some extent the things that are important to them are not so important to me and vice versa. But nevertheless, they are trying to do, as best they can, the right thing by our country."
If politicians behaved toward each other with the kind of respect implicit in Abbott's statement, they would be viewed in a far less cynical light. But, of course, they don't.
Anyone who has followed Abbott's savage attacks on political opponents would laugh at his assertion that "I don't accuse them of bad faith".
Rudd's call for kinder, gentler politics on the very day he tore down a rival after a ruthless campaign of denigration by his supporters was similarly risible. It is highly unlikely that the recent behaviour of either leader has raised the standing of politicians.
The expensive advertising campaign for Rudd's Papua New Guinea solution to the asylum seeker problem is a case in point. It is clearly aimed more at impressing Australian voters than at putting the frighteners on people smugglers and their clients in Indonesia. So much so that it could well be counter-productive, making people more suspicious about what the Government says and does.
On the other side, Abbott and his lieutenants put politics ahead of national interest by claiming the Government is not fair dinkum about banning boat people from settling in Australia.
The policy can work only if people smugglers and their clients are convinced of the Government's resolve.

ALSO, Abbott's proposal to put a three-star military officer in charge of dealing with the asylum seeker issue sounds impressive, until you recall that the opposition pooh-poohed the advice of a four-star commander last year. That was Air Vice Marshall Angus Houston, former chief of the Defence Force, who headed the taskforce that proposed the Malaysian solution - blocked in Parliament by the Coalition and the Greens.
Now the PM risks adding to the cynicism by holding off calling an election. Just about everyone wants to get it over with and that includes most ALP strategists. Voters won't be impressed if they get the idea that polling day has been delayed so that Rudd can strut the world stage at the G20 economic summit in St Petersburg in early September.
Abbott is right when he says that when the rest of the world envies us, Australian politicians can't have done too badly. But Abbott's Launceston questioner is right, too, when he says they could do better if they put the country above everything else.

Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in the Herald Sun"

Oakes struggles against his feelings to give Abbott credit just as much as Abbott does to give some credit to Gillard and Rudd, but Oakes makes a good point.

Perhaps it is precisely cause Australia is inherently fortunate - excellent resources, a healthy climate, a basically unified population occupying an entire island under a well-proven administrative system - that we can and have accepted poor behaviour from our politicians.

An incompetent farmer may still prosper if the farm is on prime land.

On the other hand, we only get one life. Why should we accept sh*t from our politicians? It may sound naive, but why shouldn't politics - public service - be one of the highest and respected roles in our society, an aspiration for the best of us rather than the ill-gotten reward for years of a*se-licking and chicanery?

OK, that is naive, but surely there's a way of promoting a better political class than the one we have now. In my opinion, the Liberal side in Australia delivers better than Labor with its burden of excessive union influence, although the Liberals are not without the insidious influence of rent-seekers etc as well.

That was a great question from the ex-Digger, and Abbott seemed to reply with some honesty at least. I'd be interested to hear Rudd's off the cuff answer to the same question.

I am not a fan of Oakes

From what I hear, he is a bully and quite happy to "out"
people but in Canberra was (and maybe still is) a party
animal, rooting, tooting, etc

Perhaps Oakes just does what everyone else does in Canberra. Poor behaviour begets poor behaviour, and a bad example from a leader begets it quicker than anything else.

WITW,
I take your point. You perhaps inadvertently bring up another issue; visa rorting. I recall a recent news article claiming significant 457 visa rorting involving Indian IT workers. I'm not picking on the Indians per se. Yet another reason to treat our "asylum" seeking mates with suspicion.
I am sure that many "asylum seekers" are quite willing to seek meaningful employment, however I re-state my previous assertion that a significant number of them have a remarkable knowledge of welfare entitlements in Australia.

Mind you, so do many Aussie ferals who wouldn't otherwise work in an iron lung.

I see that John McTernan will now be a regular panelist on Sky's 'Contrarians'.

This seems to fly in the face of what I understood the terms of a 457 visa to be. Is there someone out there who can clarify these terms? He originally was admitted into Australia to work for the Rann (SA) State Government, but somehow was able to transfer to work for Julia Gillard (or, to be more accurate, as a federal government employee - so to work for you and me) still under the same 457 visa.

Now that he's working for News Limited, and (I would imagine) there'd be some difficulty convincing any disinterested observer that there is a shortage of journalists in Australia, how is it that he is able to remain here? Has he been able to switch to a different type of visa?

A rather well-known name in Australian journalism has been mentioned on these pages. I remember the gentleman in question very well from a very brief encounter I had with him in 1972. I was on duty to meet Gough Whitlam's aircraft when it returned to Canberra from his first trip to China as PM.

The journalist in question, even then already possessing a great face and figure for radio, was among the press who had accompanied Whitlam to China. In those days, Customs were almost like a Gestapo in the way they enforced what you could and could not bring into the country without it either being taken from you or paid duty on.

Unless there had been a Customs officer on the aircraft who had done all the usual Customs stuff before landing, (I have to admit, a possibility, if a very slim one), Whitlam - or someone with an awful lot of clout in Whitlam's party, (buying the meedja off?), waived all that on this particular arrival. Taxis were authorised to come right onto the RAAF tarmac to the cargo doors of the aircraft to allow the meedja to load up all their goodies straight into the taxis' boots. The goodies included lots of large electronic gear, (on which duty was definitely payable - for mere mortals at least), and this all went straight into the taxis and off the Base.

At the time, we mere mortals who were witnessing for the first time that different rules would seem to apply to some, commented that there was no way all those in the press accompanying Whitlam would have bought all that gear only to be very pleasantly surprised that no duty was payable on it. They'd been pre-briefed, and early enough to allow them all to shop 'till they dropped.

However, that's not the point of my post. I recall the gentleman in question starring in overseeing the unloading of his baggage and purchases, making a total tool of himself ordering the RAAF groundcrew to get his gear into his taxi.

He lost me completely on that day and I've never seen him do, say or write a damn thing to change my opinion of him one whit since.

He is and always has been a Labor Party propagandist and hack.

Seems the arrogant disregard for the ADF by the ALP is par for the course. Ask 34SQN what they think of Kevvie.:mad:

Possibly because those of a leftist persuasion seem to think they are morally superior to those who really serve our country, Cap'n.

But it's not restricted to labor. I have it on impeccable authority that Wyatt Roy displays a similar level of Kevvie arrogance towards serving personnel and support staff. Perhaps it's a Queensland pollie thing.

No, it's all pollies

Honestly, ask anyone who has served in Aus and done a parade
where a pollie has been inspecting officer or a guest.

How many have genuinely been interested ?

Beazley was like a kid wanting to be a soldier but anyone else ?


RJM
I think Oakes might have been an instigator, not a follower :O

You don't even have to ask them, you'll still hear about it:ooh:! Likewise the AFP. I feel sorry for all of them.
However, my understanding is that both groups liked dealing Gillard, and found her pleasant and well mannered. Same with Howard. Someone in the party should tell Rudd to pull his frigging head in and stop stamping his tootsies; it's no way for a Prime Minister to behave.

As much as most hated Gillard, she always maintained her politeness
and from what I have seen of her for 10 years, always has.

The sooner Gillard finds something productive to do out side of politics the better. A twisted and bitter ex PM is the last thing this country needs.








.

Cooda, when would a junior Opposition backbencher like Roy have interaction with Service (military) personnel?

I see Michael Smith is alleging that Iran is "doing a Castro" in sending Iranian criminals to the West, killing two birds with one stone by getting rid of his problem children on the one hand and destabilising the 'enemy' - the West - with the very same move.

The great friend of the West The Islamic Republic of Iran sends its favoured emissaries to help Australia - Michael Smith News