Julia versus God

I have no problem saying "Hooray!" that our PM told the truth about her belief in God. It would be ludicrous and total lies to do otherwise. It was a Roman coin question (here)no one was interested in the answer (we all knew already) they weer trying to trap her.

I make two points:

1. Just because she doesn't believe in God doesn't mean that we who do are absolved of our responsibility to pray for our leader.
2. There have been many who called themselves Anglicans who embarrass me more by their hardness of heart towards refugees. A Prime Minister, a Foreign Minister, two Immigration Ministers and an Attorney General in the last government were outspoken protagonists of some of the cruellest policies I believe this country has ever known.

Can I also just observe (as I have before) that too much is made of the fact that Rudd used to do doorstops outside St John's Canberra week by week.

It seems to me that he is not the one who engineered this. The reality is that he was a weekly church attender and the press quickly realised that if they wanted to catch him Sundays, even if they wanted to try and "catch him out" or catch him "unawares" (see the aforementioned Roman coin story) then all they had to do was be outside the Church at about 10.30 and he would always be there.

Good on him that he didn't say 'I don't want to be seen to be enthusiastic about being an Anglican and so I'll stop going to church lest they think I'm too pious'.

A true victim of damned if you do and.....

Unhealthy democracy

Writing in The Advertiser , Alexander Downer is no doubt correct that this next election will be interesting because it will give the voters a black and white choice. He is wrong in suggesting that this is ideological.
What it would seem is happening is that, once again, we are being subjected to fear mongering . As Downer himself elucidates, refugees arriving by boat will once again be the
political weapon of the Liberals.
But equally well we might note that Labor will invite us to lash out at the rich mining magnates.
This is not ideology. This is prejudice. This is not healthy democracy it is cynicism at its worst.

I comment, you nitpick, he challenges, she capitulates, we implode...they vanish into obscurity

Is it significant that in a week when the South Australian Liberal Party appears to be imploding (again!), Alexander Downer, who demonstrably is an expert in Liberal shenanigans, chooses nevertheless to divert our attention to a soft target, the Church?
There is a certain sense of irony in this given that the Government to which he belonged, on more than one occasion, told the Church to keep its nose out of politics.

Fair comment?

It is right that we should be reminded, by none other than Alexander Downer, (the Advertiser today) that it is appropriate to have 'zero-tolerance' for people smugglers. No one would disagree with that.

I must admit that I always feel a little uncomfortable being lectured by any former Howard government minister about the rights and wrongs of immigration policy.

What is important is that the true mark of a civilised society is not that it stomps on those who exploit the vulnerable, but that it is generous and compassionate towards those who are so exploited. This does not always appear to be the case either under this government, and certainly not under the former government of which Downer was a part.

The luckiest

Ben Folds has a great song called the Luckiest. I love this song, I am reminded that it's a song I suppose he wrote when he lived at Unley, and the personal references are all the more pignant because of it.

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

What if I'd been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?

And in a white sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

This week's luckiest is Mike Rann! Lucky that in a week in which he could have gone down that there was more spin for Malcolm Turnbull in the other direction. I imagine he won't be quite so teflon-coated in future. Can't wait to see what Alex will make of it on Monday!!!!

Schadenfreude

Here in our family we love 'Schadenfreude'. The peculiarly human trait of (secretly) delighting in the misfortune of others. It was interesting to see Mr A Downer expressing his Schadenfreude towards the Australian Government in today's paper.

Mr Downer's obvious delight in the inherited suffering of this present Government with regard to the difficult refugee plight (what he tells us is Schadenfreude) is a bit sad. He misunderstands that Schadenfreude is essentially kept to oneself and is not smug.

Perhaps it was the Smuggenfreude of the Downers, Abbots and Pynes that the electorate finally decided it had had enough of.

As for Downer extolling the virtues of using Nauru, it just serves to remind us that he still doesn't get it!! At least he admits that Nauru was particularly his unfortunate suggestion.

See the "Schadenfreude" song from AvenQ here ...in the version When Harry met Schade!!(language warning!!!)

These are a few of the most tedious things

In my semi-obsessive way I have a sort of weekly routine. I try to fit in bits of talk-radio into my daily tasks. Judging by conversations I have with people many others do the same, because they hear the things that I do.

But some of it is so irritating.

Like,I tire of hearing the Federal Opposition Manager of Business, Chris Pyne on Mondays saying things like...of I am a Federal Member I can't possibly comment on State politics.... Seems to me he is happy to promote things he agrees with but then when he is obviously in disagreement (as he was today with the Regional Royalties issue...saying it would be foolish for a Labor government despite the local Libs promoting it as a vote buyer ooops winner) When challenged about this inconsistency he trots out his mantra....I can't possibly comment on State politics.

And then of course there is the Honourable Alexander...his Monday ADVERTISER column (here) is developing an air of predictability...along the lines of how provocative can I be...last week it was Obama should give back the Nobel prize.

Today it is: how awful that Australian soldiers should die in the theatres of war to which his government was only too pleased to send them. He admits in the course of his article that many will disagree. I think he is correct. Particularly objectionable is the simplistic critique that perhaps some of the young Afghanis should stay in Afghanistan and fight the Taliban instead of fleeing.

This may be populist, but it is hardly credible analysis. But it will get him attention I suppose.

Equally tedious is the PM's seeming retreat to the Howardist position on refugees...I make no apologies for being firm. Today's cartoon in the same paper has him driving the Refugee yacht with a secret super-keel and the observation...when they will admit that this was really invented by Howard!

The difficulty of China

It is worth reading A. Downer's article about Australia's foreign policy towards China(unfortunately haven't been able to get the link off the net yet). Not surprisingly he is critical (again) of the present government's performance. This is not really surprising since he was the minister responsible in a previous government of a different persuasion.
He does rightly make the point that foreign policy should be about pursuing the national interest and not about pleasing the Canberra Press gallery. It is good to be reminded that the situation in Tibet is more complex than most imagine. But perhaps a bit ingenuous to suggest that recent crackdowns are more the fault of the Tibetan resistance's agression than the Chinese military's disproportionate response.
There is no doubt that we need to be diplomatic in all our foreign relationships. But many of us feel particularly uncomfortable, when diplomatic seems to mean...if China doesn't like it then we capitulate, or keep quiet.
If nothing else diplomacy is surely not about allowing one side...no matter how large...to dominate.

Sense at last

After the curious speculations of "will he- won't he?" one can only think that Peter Costello has made the right decision to quite the Parliament.

There comes a point for all of us when enough is enough, picking it is the only art!

I was however faintly bemused yesterday when he said that he felt that the present Parliament lacked a sense of humour.

Did I hear him say

"I would have thought that one  reason we were there was to entertain"?

Well, actually, I thought we paid you to govern.

Perhaps explains why some found difficulty  taking him seriously. Goes for the previous Foreign Minister, too, who never seemed to quite understand why some people didn't get his jokes.

Agreeing with Alex

No one will be more surprised about my agreeing with him than the former Foreign Minister, but writing in yesterdays Tiser he berates the press, for its incessant whining on behalf of idiots who flaunt the laws of foreign countries and then expect to be bailed out by our Government.

The latest example of a woman who spent days in a Thai jail because she allegedly tried to pocket a "beer mat" (or had it put in her bag!!) is the case in point.

Downer notes that: "After about 10 minutes as foreign minister I was a little surprised to learn I was "responsible" for miscreant Australians who got into trouble in foreign countries."  

And  his heart went out to the current minister over the case in point.

He notes, and I can but agree with him, that we need to take responsibility for ourselves if and when we travel overseas.

There is a worse side to all this. The way the press beats up the legal system of Asian countries as if all are by definition corrupt and well.....just wrong!

Despite the fact that a crime for which a person may well have been jailed in Australia had allegedly taken place...stealing and/or abusing and/or attacking the constabulary; some how we are to believe that because it happens to an Australian in Thailand it is wrong.

There is more than just a little anti-Asian prejudice here!

No, I agree with me old mate Alex.....(I am trying not to gag)...we need to be some what more responsible if we are to be taken seriously as travellers overseas.

Kill the beast, cut his throat, spill his blood....

The feeding frenzy going on round the Minister of Defence, Joel Fitzgibbon, is alarming. No matter what side of politics I have always been a bit alarmed when an Opposition gets the scent of blood. 

It seems that caution is thrown to the wind when a chink in a government's armour is spotted as though getting a minister to resign is a goal in itself.

I am of course not suggesting that incompetence should be allowed to go on unchecked, but has Fitzgibbon been incompetent? The Defence portfolio is notoriously difficult, and there is little doubt that there are those within the department who want him out.

This was true under the former government when the Minister was no less than former Liberals leader, Brendan Nelson. Howard resisted the temptation to sack him even though the (then Labor) Opposition were baying for his blood.

It doesn't seem to me that he has actually been incompetent. The fiasco of the SAS salary fiasco does not seem to me to be his incompetence but that of the public service. His relationship with a Chinese lady friend highlights the sort of carelessness that happens in Opposition which shouldn't happen in Government, and were it the case that we were talking about behaviour while he was a Minister rather than a Shadow Minister then it would be quite different.

Me old mate Alex seemed content not to be drawn into the Fitzgibbon imbroglio on Friday's Lateline but instead was unremitting about his innuendi that Rudd is in the pocket of the Chinese. He just kept repeating it and repeating it..."it's about Rudd, it's about Rudd...it's about (yes you guessed it) Rudd"

This practice of repeating it often enough until someone believes it  (the throwing of mud until it sticks) works quite well in politics. BUT it is pathetic!

Give us substance not innuendo.

Beneath all this the continuing slur that Chinese are somehow not to be trusted is ever with us. Doesn't actually do much for truth!

You're being watched

Local Blackwood Real Estate Agent, Joanne Lemmer, wiull probably be delighted she is the focus of an article in the press today (here), in which her use of a racially offensive joke about President Obama is critcised. It is an old and pathetic joke! Of the cheap shot variety.
Ms Lemmer is well-known in the local community for her outrageous publicity. You either love it or you hate it! Mostly for me it is the latter.

>[By way of clarification Joanne Lemmer has asked that
reference to her full text be made. This can be accessed at the reference she
has given me here http://www.hillsandvalley.com.au/uncut/february09.pdf]

But she is the sort of 'Any publicity.....is good publicity' type of person. When you are talking about how stupid it is you at least are possibly reading her ad rather than ignoring it. As she says in one of her documents:

While they're watching us they're watching you?

The particular issue concerns a joke about black people ...I am not going to repeat it, as I think these days it is inappropriate (always was...but hopefully we are not perpetuating the prejudice of the past ). Some of our politicians (mentioned earlier this week) learnt the hard way for example that you don't joke about people who beat up their spouses!
Ms Lemmer's alleged come back to a reporter was to say (when her disingenuous claims to not risk offence were obviously challenged by the reporter) was to say

"Are you black? Well, when you turn black, you ring up and tell me you're offended."

What nonsense! Admittedly she was probably peeved.
Are only men allowed to critique men, or women women. Can only Indonesians write about East Timor?
Come on Joanne, if you are going to stick your neck out these days you have to be prepared to have it cut off. As some of us have learned this week!

Quick Response

Within moments of publishing my blog the Hon Alexander Downer had replied by email

Your blog is yet another example of why so many Anglicans have lost faith in the church; superficial, partisan and, for someone who professes to be a church leader,inappropriate.

Alexander Downer

Well I do what I can!!

Disingenuous

Kerry O' Brien accused Malcolm Turnbull of being disingenuous, (elsewhere defined as lacking candor) when he said that Treasurer Swan had declared on Sunday a 51 billion dollar shortfall, and today the PM talked of 150 billion. Turnbull could not resist saying "At this rate by tomorrow..."
Now, he is not given to taking such cheap shots, so, O'Brien rightly called him out. (you can chase it down here). I think Kerry the Red delighted in making dear Malcolm squirm, (it was his first program back for 2009).
Turnbull, who has rightly declared that a principal crisis strategy is bi-partisanship, likes (I suspect) economic management and dislikes political gameplaying. Because he doesn't like it he is uncomfortable and more importantly unconvincing. He doesn't seem like a political leader, it was interesting to hear Chris Pyne's faint praise ..."no leadership challenge from me" [anyone who has watched 'Yes Minister!' chuckles at such words. And leadership wrangling will not draw the public to support the Liberal Party.
Unless Turnbull looks like becoming PM he will no doubt lose interest in playing politics.....so I suspect unless there is some significant victory soon he will get out.
Not so disingenuous is dear Alexander who pontificated (yet again) on who is and who is not Australia's worst PM. (He chose Chifley and and Whitlam). A correspondent this morning rightly wonders why he overlooked Billy McMahon, and of course seriously questions Howard's record.
What is disingenuous is Downer's warning to Rudd;

He should not even dream of using a crisis for political advantage

What gall! Try telling the captain of the Tampa that or any of those who have been dragged into the war that Howard needed to bolster his own view of himself as an international player.

No great surprise

No one will have been greatly surprised that Alexander Downer is about to resign to take up some nebulous post for the UN in its work on Cyprus.
I suppose that Cyprus is still an issue, though one commentator has noted that they thought that Cyprus was all concluded 4 years ago.
I think that was pettiness, there is still work to do there. But lest we forget,(here) an ex tempore by-election (on current figures) will cost the taxpayer between 400 and 500 thousand dollars.
The same commentator noted that perhaps this should be deducted from the more thna generous superannuation that Alexander will collect, whilst also having the prestigious UN job and his won private consultancies. Kerching!

A is for

ALEXANDER who has yet to make up his mind

The Ascendant Star

The idea that Alexander will gravitate back to the front bench of the Liberal Party is a fascinating one. There is, after all, a precedent for an old leader being recycled in that party...and to great effect.
Whether the electorate will buy it remians to be seen.
I personally doubt it.
When Howard came back there was the need to re-establish confidence in the faithful.
Now there is the need to move, I suggest, to show that the party is capable of moving into the future not merely re-establishing the glory of the past.
It is an ever-abiding dilemma for organisations (churches not excluded); however glorious the halcyon days may seem it is the present and then the future that has to be realised, not merely the re-creation of the past.
Surely Downer must realise this. Or is the seduction of power so great that even one so politicially astute is blinded.

Tension in the camp

As we reflect on the Howard-Costello years we see there was this tension between the economic discipline of Peter Costello, and the pragmatism of the successful Mr Howard.
Howard's genius was, I suppose, to be able to persuade Costello when it was OK to loosen the belt in order to buy the votes of the electorate. And to do this without fuelling inflation.
I think voters saw through this at the last election.
But it would appear that present leader Brendan Nelson is trying the populist Howard strategy, whilst his Opposition Treasurer Turnbull is at least as, if not more, fiscally restrained than Costello.
So it comes as no surprise that there was an "exchange of emails" (is this the 21st century equivalent of 'pistols at dawn'?). It also is not surprising that Nelson the present leader won, and I use that description advisedly.
It is, however, disconcerting for the poor dears when it all comes out in the public arena, and Turnbull is exposed as believeing one thing but having to say the opposite.
This is of course the nature of politics. Mr Downer did not bat an eyelid on Lateline last night, (false I hear you cry...but I resist the temptation to comment on Alexander's eyelashes...he was looking quite old last night)...back to to the plot. He said quite clearly that we may believe in one point of view but after the argument is over we tow the party line, even if we are fundamentally opposed. He said this is the nature of the Westminster system. I don't believe that is so, I think the Westminster system is about free and open debate...but he's a politician and I am not.
Of course he did point out that from Opposition fiscal promises are all hypothetical any way.
And we might also point out that the fiscal conservatism versus vote buying strategy is going to be the same issue for the present Government; though we are yet to see if there is the same sort of political opportunism in Rudd's heart as there was in Howard's. I suspect not.
But what would I know?

Out to lunch

Alexander Downer spotted out to lunch instead of at Question Time said that was more productive than listening to to the droning of Julia Gillard.

Well excuse me! I have all sorts of things I have to go to & hear people drivel on (they no doubt think the same of me) and I go because that is what I get paid to do.

But aaaah! the hubris of the fallen. The disdain with which the former Foreign Minister treats the Parliament that has done OK by him.

I note again that his by-election (if and when it happen) will cost the taxpayer nearly half a million dollars.

What arrogance!

The cost of freedom

We will no doubt be embroiled soon in the resignation/byelection scandal. As is predicted, and seems an inevitability, senior Liberals will resign in the next few months; ill-suited to sit on the backbench they will no doubt employ their talents elsewhere!

But at what cost?

The first ever election for the Commonwealth of  Australia in 1901 cost £56 331. The Australian Electoral Commission's figures going up to 2005 show that the 2004 election cost in excess of $117 million.

Of great interest are  the various  by-election costs which show that since 2000 a by election cost in excess of $400,000! (see the interesting document here)

At least 4 senior Coalition MPs are being flagged as disappearing before the end of their term, maybe in the next few months (Downer, Andrew, McGauran and of course Costello). This "I didn't win so I'm taking my ball and going home" mentality will obviously be costly to the taxpayer.

I suggest that some reimbursement, perhaps from the more than generous superannuation payouts, could be expected.

They will all of course go on to very highly paid jobs, probably better paid than the Parliament, so I don't have much sympathy.