The Boys' Club

Acknowledging that the present divertissement in the Liberal Party is not about leadership in general but about Peter Costello in particular; it is interesting that no women are ever talked about as potential party leaders.
The other side are not particularly blameless in this regard either, but it is noteworthy that I could mention: Macklin, Wong, Gillard, Roxon off the top of my head. But I am hard pressed to mention any woman at all...other than Bronwyn...on the other side. No wonder the Liberals still present as a factional boys' club

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!

Apology

It is interesting to note how many commentators are picking up on the PM saying  "Sorry" for the interest rate rises.

Though both the PM and Abbott yesterday said that saying "Sorry" is not to be taken as an apology. (see some commentary from Julia Gillard here). Gillard rightly accuses them of playing with words.

But we shouldn't be surprised, after years of it,  to find that Howard is confused about what sorry means. He almost seems to wet himself at the possibility of mouthing these words, so you could have bowled me over with a mushy orange when I heard the taboo words pass his lips.

It is such a stubborn, narrow and old-fashioned, old-man thing. It looks like never being able to admit that you have been involved in something that didn't quite work out.

It is this I think the electorate hates. In the end it reflects a failure to receive criticsm, which is a recipe for disaster. well electoral disaster any way.

By way of an aside if we look back a dozen or so decades when writers were in the habit of writing what were styled  apologias. As indeed the pictured handsome academic J H Newman did, they were not apologising at all for their lives. They were explaining. I think that apology needs to be understand as a key dynamic in explaining what is going on, and politicians should explain.  

I don't think Howard does this. He excuses himself...it's the former Labor Government, it's the generations before us, it's the world economy.... and the electorate is fobbed off not with explanation but buck-passing.

What we want, or I do any way, is not buck passing but accountability.  Vision not opportunism, and apologia not excuse.E

Resisting temptation

It's always challenging to continue a stream of blogging, but I have resisted many temptations this week

• I have resisted the temptation to blog about either Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard. And to say how there is a real danger that amidst all the hoo-hah about generational change, the real problem is that it may just be more of the same
  
• I have not even touched Australia's famous Test Cricket victory. Or to say how diufficult it is for a "former Pom" (and I use that expression advisedly, I think after spendiong 40 years here I am entitled to no longer be a Pom. Though it was interesting how the visit of relatives recently brings a slide back into former accentual patterns.
• Further to that I have resisted commenting on my current reading Mother Tongue by that amazing dilletante Bill Bryson , who seems to know enough about most things to keep me (and others) interested (some humourous stuff here)
• I certainly have resisted talking about the weather. Even though there have been four seasons in one week and it's going to be 38 tomorrow.
• I have resisted the temptation (because it only just crossed my mind) to remind those who need to be shriven to go to the box...because I forgot I was supposed to be going last night!!
• I certainly resisted the temptation (Vicky) to talk about Borat, which I did go to see. And I agree with David Stratton's comments that for a film that was 1 hour and10 minutes, it was about 60 minutes too long. And I am afraid I am too much of a rememberer of Auschwitz to find any anti-Semitism funny.
• I have resisted the temptation to discuss Fiji, or how it is remarkable that tourists coming back seem to have been largely unaffected by the coup.
• And I have definitely not talked about Christmas, Which is only 18 days away.