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rank and rank file

rankandfile...

Senior Liberals are closing ranks around Opposition Leader Tony Abbott after accusations by Liberal MPs that he is leaving them in the dark over important policy decisions.

In the Coalition party room yesterday, Victorian MP Kelly O'Dwyer and Paul Fletcher from New South Wales questioned the economic wisdom of retaining the Government's superannuation boost while, at the same time, dumping the mining tax that funds it.

The decision was made outside the party room by the Liberal leadership group - although key finance spokesman Andrew Robb was excluded from the phone hook-up a fortnight ago.

Liberal sources have told ABC News Online Mr Abbott was "annoyed" by the party room dissent and told Ms O'Dwyer, who once worked for then Treasurer Peter Costello, to talk to her former boss about it.

"It wasn't a good look," one MP told ABC News Online, saying a number of MPs were unhappy about the way Mr Abbott reacted.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-23/liberals-close-ranks-around-abbott/3688432?WT.svl=news1

 

Gus: let me be frank here... Julia leads a much better team than Abbott's rancid bunch of has-beens...

double-headers ....

Hi Gus,

You might well be right but I actually suspect that both sides could swap jerseys & continue playing their games without interruption.

In my view, it would take a hundred years of hard scrubbing to begin to remove the "odour" of deceit, dishonesty, self-interest & rank opportunism that is evident in all of them.

Cheers,

John.

decent politics...

A confused electorate produced a confusing result at the federal election in August last year.

Interestingly, however, a more resilient Labor government has emerged – albeit dependent on the independents and in an alliance with the Greens but not without its own ideas on a whole range of matters.

The Gillard government now has its own version of the American Alliance, a price on carbon and associated tax and expenditure measures, the NBN, the COAG reform agenda and the Fair Work Act. It also has proposals for poker machine reform, asylum seekers (''the Malaysian solution'') and a tax on mining.

It's starting to look like a strategy. Supporters say it is a nice mix of ''left'' and ''right''. Opponents, on the other hand, say it sends too many mixed messages, for example on how we should view China, to be called a strategy. One thing is for certain – the public will have to be convinced that it is a strategy and not a smorgasbord if Labor is to have a chance of winning.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/has-labor-gone-from-confusion-to-strategy-20111121-1nqft.html#ixzz1eVQDnv6S

On the other side of the ledger, Tony Abbott is completely incompetent. He is nastily shifting to the extreme right in his own mind, because it's the easy populist option. He is not really interested in the welfare of most people though — especially he appears to wish he could kick the vulnerable people to teach them not to be "bludgers". His troops have no idea about the future, of this country and of this planet — and to great extend they have little understanding of decent politics... 
I better go and wash my mouth... Did I say "decent politics"? Is this a contradiction in terms?...

yes john...

"One has to pick" a side that will do the least damage, hopefully. It is my humble opinion that Team Coalition would stink at least four times as much as Team Labor in the showers...

mr no-no was asleep...

But someone in Mr Albanese's office has been busy and the boss was armed to the teeth when he approached the dispatch box.

He evoked the ghost of Liberal Party founder, the oft-quoted (albeit usually by Liberals) Sir Robert Menzies, to insert the knife and give it a good half-turn.

"On far too many questions we have found our role to be simply that of the man who says no," Mr Albanese quoted Sir Robert as saying.

"A visionary was Robert Menzies. Sixty-seven years ago he picked this bloke," he said amid guffaws from the Government benches and applause from a grinning Kevin Rudd.

Albo had more from Menzies.

"'There is no room in Australia for a party of reaction. There is no useful place for a policy of negation'.

"That is what Robert Menzies said about this person who has led the Coalition of yesterday into the Noalition of today." Groan.

Sleepwalk

With his party behind him joining in, the House leader chanted "no, no, no" to an Opposition Leader who was, by now, looking quite bemused by the tirade which was conducted in the trademark Albanese style of relentless screech.

Mr Albanese told the House how late last night Mr Abbott had to be nudged awake during divisions by Opposition business leader Christopher Pyne and Chief Opposition Whip Warren Entsch.

"He says this is the most important issue facing Australia; couldn't be bothered getting to his feet. Slept through it."

Now ABC News Online can't verify that Mr Abbott was asleep and the replay is inconclusive, but Mr Albanese wouldn't tell a porkie to the Parliament - would he?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-23/albanese-launches-attack-on-abbott/3689660?WT.svl=news3

fake requiem for industrialus workchoiceii...

John Howard flinched as his former right-hand man Arthur Sinodinos declared he wanted to hold a memorial service for the Coalition's failed WorkChoices policy.

Senator Sinodinos, who replaced former frontbencher Helen Coonan who retired as a NSW Liberal senator this year, was one of the architects of the controversial workplace relations policy when he was chief of staff for then prime minister Howard.

"Let me conduct a brief memorial service for the industrial relations policy formerly known as WorkChoices," Senator Sinodinos told a packed upper house during his first speech to parliament.

In the public gallery's first row, sitting next to the senator's wife Elizabeth and son Dion, Mr Howard visibly flinched, perhaps mindful that the 2007 election defeat was partly blamed on the policy.

The new senator said under WorkChoices the award safety net was stripped back and this had been a mistake.

"The truth is we failed to prepare the ground for such a major reform," Senator Sinodinos said.

"Some employers abused that freedom."

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is on the public record saying WorkChoices is "dead, buried and cremated" but the Government continues to taunt the Coalition about the policy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-23/sinodinos-calls-for-big-australia-in-maiden-speech/3689928