Rudd's 2020 continues to underwhelm at my house

The official view from Canberra in the wake of that basically elitist gabfest; "The Australia 2020 Summit was held on 19 and 20 April 2008 at Parliament House in Canberra, bringing together 1,000 participants from across the nation and generating more than 900 ideas."

The media view on Wednesday; "JUST nine new ideas from nearly 1000 developed by Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit talkfest are set to be adopted. But the most popular one, for Australia to become a republic appears to have sunk without a trace."

Apparently Rudders favours:
"A national "golden gurus'' mentoring program;
$50 million for the development of a bionic eye;
The creation of a civilian corps help out in war zones and natural disasters;
A dedicated ABC children's TV channel;
A new indigenous cultural education centre;
A PM's award scheme to boost Asian links;
A "roundtable" for business and schools; and,
A high-speed broadband for vocational education organizations."

As well as:
"A Skills for the Carbon Challenge initiative to equip workers and business with green skills"

Well, I guess vocational education organizations will be underwhelmed, since Rudders has already announced a national high-speed broadband for every town of 1,000 souls or more.
Likewise the various inventor's of bionic eyes will probably be grateful for further funding, but also might've preferred to have had that money during the hard slog of creating medical prosethesis.
While the Republic Movement will be livid and plotting dire revenge.

Now we hear that the PM wants a 2020 summit every few years.
I think all those in-flight gourmet meals must be going to more than Rudders' chin line when he come up with a mish mash idea like that.
After all - Cate Blanchett might not want to have another baby every few years!

For what it's worth here's the report Responding to the Australia 2020 Summit.

Whatisname and I had a meeting of minds

It was an almost comic situation.
In full camera glare Kevin Rudd watched political triumph threaten to turn to smoke on the breeze, as President Obama first forgot his title and then had obvious difficulty recalling Our Kev's name in the middle of one photo opportunity for the gathered media during the Australian Prime Minister's visit to Washington this week.

North Coast Area Health Service debt in 2009

I guess that we should all be thankful for small mercies on finding that the North Coast Area Health Service debt of $9 million is the fourth lowest across New South Wales.
Still, the total picture clearly shows that it is time for the Commonwealth to resume total responsibility for the provision of public hospitals and health services.
Unfortunately, all Kevin Rudd promised in the lead up to the 2007 federal election was that he would take over the running of public hospitals if the states did not agree to a national reform plan by mid 2009.
Hardly the answer to so mammoth a problem, when the debts keep mounting and the states (especially New South Wales) are so obviously incapable of solving the financial and workforce crises in health services.

Debt List:
Sydney South West Area Health Service $0
Hunter New England Area Health Service $0
Children's Hospital at Westmead $4.5m
North Coast Area Health Service $9m
Greater Western Area Health Service $10m
North Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service $22m
Greater Southern Area Health Service $22m
South East Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service $24m
Sydney West Area Health Service $26m
NSW Health owes $117.5 million to creditors
(Debt figures according to The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 2009)

We're all in this (recession) together and other fractured fairy tales

The Prime Minister is back from his annual hols and has jumped up before the cameras with the cry We're all in this together! in his Australia Day reception speech.

"This is a difficult time, and in the short term there is no quick fix.
Things will get worse before they get better.That is where all of us – not just government – have a role in lessening the effects of the crisis.
We are all in this together: business, unions, governments, the community sector – and every nation in the world.In these times, employers must do their utmost to protect their workers from dismissal, knowing that these workers will serve them well when times turn good again.
Workers, too, must restrain any wage claims."

No, Rudders, we are not all in this together.
The Aussie banks and their boards, mines and their multinational owners, top CEOs across the country, big national businesses, kings of the racing world, those with inherited wealth, and many more citizens with large salary packages, are not standing shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone. Unless it's with a pollie or two they think may send a cash injection or tax cut their way (look at who's complaining about your fiscal stimulus package and getting ready to close an outlet if you don't believe me).
So don't give me that guff about wage restraint being a strategy to lessen the effect of the global financial crisis.
It's only a strategy which will be used to increase the personal profits of many of the big employers.
Why? Because the bottom line is that most employers still secretly feel that they are paying workers money for jam and that no unskilled or semi-skilled worker deserves more that a pittance wage.
As for small business owners (especially in some parts of the NSW North Coast) they seem to believe that workers should pay their employers for the privilege of having a job.
And I'm not the only one saying so. Get the picture, mate?

Poll results for Tuesday 20 January 2009 in the mid-afternoon.

Update later in the morning:

The Australian reports that Kevin Rudd has given pay rises to two of his top advisors through bonus payments. "With superannuation and overtime added to salaries, principal advisers earn close to $250,000 in annual income." and therefore are already well paid. It seems Kev thinks that there is one rule for his 'friends' and another for the checkout chicks of this world. The former get to live life as usual, the latter get to fund the national recession fightback.

Quick, Kev, do something! The media cycle is slipping through your spin

Click to enlarge

Google Trends shows that Team Kev didn't quite manage to hold the attention of the national electorate over the last 30 days.
Despite Rudders Christmas 'bonus' to so many households, Santa Claus trounced the PM everywhere it mattered for most of December 2008.
It's obviously time for another media release.
Announcing funding in 2009 to save Aussies from athlete's foot perhaps?

Ooops! Kev's running late with more than his Chrissie present buying.........

At the official Prime Minister of Australia website something strange is going on.

I can find press releases for December 2008 at its media centre for the days leading up to Christmas:
24 Dec

Appointment of Departmental Secretaries - Media Release

22 Dec

Holden to build all-new small car in Australia - Media Release

21 Dec

Government launches 12 year plan to reduce homelessness in Australia Mission Australia Centre Surrey Hills, Sydney - Media Release

20 Dec

Australia provides support for Afghanistan Elections - Media Release

19 Dec

National Peacekeeping Memorial Design Unveiled - Media Release

18 Dec

Prime Minister addresses Australian troops serving in Afghanistan Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan - Speech

But where is Rudder's 2008 christmas message to the peasants citizens?

All I can find is his message for 2007.

I suppose that as most of his message is the usual generic pap, and he also visited our troops in Afghnaistan in December 2007, his staff decided that they couldn't be bothered to update the sentiments with a newer entry.

Carbon Emissions Reduction 2008: Kevin explains his climate change scenario to the rest of Australia

Now Kev's flogging pictcha books

Now that Federal Parliament in recess until next year, it appears that (since last Friday) Our Kev has found himself a part-time job for the holidays.
Flogging a book by Fairfax Media already marked down from $56.23 to $45.99:

KevinRuddPM For those asking for a link to 'Century of Pictures,' here it is http://tinyurl.com/5oj33y Enjoy! #KevinPM Team 4:45 PM yesterday from web

KevinRuddPM Looking forward to launching the 'Century of Pictures – Celebrating 100 Years of Herald Photography' exhibition this afternoon. 12:28 PM yesterday from

Can Therese Rein ever be seen with Kevin Rudd again?

Shown here are a media photograph and a cartoon of the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Mr. Rudd and his communications minister want to impose a national ISP-level filtering system on the Australian Internet.

LogiPik is one form of filtering software guaranteed to stop unwanted images in their tracks.

Here is its assessment of the Kevin Rudd cartoon:
Evaluated as: p*rn
Completed in 1 sec.

And here is its assessment of the Kevin Rudd photograph:
Evaluated as: p*rn
Completed in 2 sec.

Additionally, here is its assessment of a media photograph of Kevin Rudd and child (not shown here, because what child wants to be reminded that they were once close to the man that a filter rejected):
Evaluated as: p*rn
Completed in 12 sec.

Yes, it's staring us in the face - Kevin the PM p*rn star.

With such a 'dubious' moral character on display for all the world to see; can Therese really afford to keep this man?
Especially when the chance exists that at least one of the various filtering software/hardware systems (that would be used by ISPs if the Great Firewall of Australia comes to pass) will frequently label her husband and life partner as a piece of p*rnography.
Because, let's face it, Australian ISPs are bound to rely on systems which in turn rely on dubious software and blacklists found overseas.

Cartoon from Strange Times and photo from Time Magazine

Southern Cross academic tells Northern Rivers residents to contact Rudd about climate change

According to The Northern Star on Monday:

THE Rudd Government's commitment to fighting climate change will soon be tested, according to Professor Jerry Vanclay, head of Southern Cross University's school of environmental science.

Dr Vanclay was speaking at a climate change forum held in Ballina on Friday night, organised by Federal Member for Page, Janelle Saffin.

The professor said it was still too early to rate the Government's performance on climate change, but he suspected it would not be following all the recommendations in the Garno Report.

"I sense there has been a softening of their position," he said.....

He said the burning of coal and petroleum created six billion tonnes of carbon emissions each year, of which only four billion tonnes could be offset by Mother Nature.

"An immediate reduction of about one-third will immediately stop the problem of global warming," he said.

Dr Vanclay said reducing carbon emissions by one-third would be easy for most people. "Solar hot water panels, driving a smaller car, having a water tank so water doesn't need to be transported and building homes that don't need air-conditioning would be enough," he said.

Dr Vanclay warned that the evidence to support climate change was very strong. "I don't have a lot of patience for people who question climate change, there is no question about it any more," he said.

Dr Vanclay said people needed to tell Kevin Rudd to take the lead on climate change action because Australia's infrastructure was under threat.

If you wish to have your say on climate change:

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

or

Online email here.

Kevin Rudd is following 'no_filter Yamba' tweets?

Hi, no_filter_Yamba.

Kevin Rudd (KevinRuddPM) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Kevin Rudd's profile here:

http://twitter.com/KevinRuddPM


Best,
Twitter

Aw, isn't that nice............

If anyone is interested in following yet another of those Joycean stream-of-consciousness tweeters, no_filter_Yamba can be found here.

Kevin Rudd discovers Blogotariat

So much to see, so much to do - sometimes a poor blogger misses the most exciting moments.

Fresh from his venture on Twitter, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd now has his KevinPM.com.au blog registered on the Blogotariat.

On 17 November he left a little calling card on his blog excitingly called; Message from the G20.

Days before that on 13 November he deposited; Kevin PM, "Welcome to KevinPM, where we can communicate about the big challenges confronting Australia".

Yep, Rudders is about as exciting as watching paint dry and his team of pithy ghostwriters is not much better.

Still there always the Twitter 'no clean feed' pixies gently protesting his tweets to amuse folk like me.

A thoughtful pause on Sunday

Is this the type of company Australia should be keeping?

No Australian Internet Censorship at FaceBook

Who said that?

Who said this about Internet censorship?
"I'm quite concerned by them, I saw the reports, also the comments by Kevin Gosper.
My attitude to our friends in China is very simple. They should have nothing to fear by open digital links with the rest of the world during this important international celebration of sport."

If you said Kevin Rudd you're on the money, cobber.
Internet censorship in China bad, Internet censorship in Australia good - according to the twisted logic of our prime minister.

Say again, Mr Rudd!!

In an interview with the ABC 7.30 Report on Wednesday, Prime Minister Rudd was asked:

And that begs the obviously question, if our banks are well capitalised, they're sound, they're well regulated, there's not a problem, why can't they pass on any interest rate cut officially next week in full to mortgage holders?

I'm still trying to untangle Rudd' reply which began:

Well, the Reserve Bank of Australia only last week indicated through the Financial Stability Review that the cost of bank finance has obviously gone up as a result of the global financial crisis. Our banks are not immune from the impacts of this.

Therefore, obviously, if there is an official interest rate cut, we the Australian Government want to see a maximum pass through of that to consumers.

But we must make sure also it is done if a manner which is consistent with the stability, continued stability, maintaining the stability of the Australian financial system.

Consumers have just been through 10 interest rate rises in a row under the previous Government and they deserve the maximum pass through. And the maximum pass through also consistent with maintaining the stability into the future of our system.

牛糞, Kevin 牛糞!

Kevin 747 packs his travel bag - again!

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stepped into another jet plane on the weekend and flew out of the country.
I'm beginning to lose count of how many overseas trips Our Kev has made since the federal election of November 2007.
Is this the 14th, 15th or 16th taxpayer-funded jaunt?

Here on the NSW North Coast we are struggling with high fuels costs without a real choice to use public transport, rent increases in a housing pool which is not growing to keep up with demand, spiralling grocery prices in areas with some of the lowest wages and highest unemployment in Australia, a crumbling health system with a truly laughable public dental service, inadequate pensions of all sorts which see recipients going without life's essentials and many self-funded retirees taking a big hit from the global financial crisis.

Kev old cobber, I'm not impressed - you're putting on pork and we're getting skinnier.

Somehow that just doesn't seem right in the lucky country.......

Uh oh...

I put Kev on the plane 24 hours ahead of his departure time. Sorry for the confusion.

Kevin on Earth begins to show some cracks

The latest Newspoll in The Australian on How we see our leaders [31 July 2007] demonstrates that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has the beginnings of an image problem.

The percentage of those Australians interviewed who thought Kevin Rudd arrogant rose from 34% in November 2007, to 33% in February-March this year and presently sits at 43%.

Brendan Nelson on the other hand fell in the arrogance stakes from 48% in February-March 2008 to 42% currently.

The Prime Minister also faded somewhat across all the survey categories , particularly when it came to perceptions of the degree to which he was 'in touch with voters'.
There Rudd dropped 13 percentage points this year.

Perhaps his initial love affair with popularist politics and those almost daily media announcements of 'grand ideas' were more than passing mistakes from which he could recover easily.
Credibility does just not rise up out of the ballot box, it is something that is hard earned in the weeks and months that follow electoral success.

Link to poll here.

Time to get out the butterfly net, Julia Gillard and capture that flighty PM

Original photo from Google Images

Extract from edited version Kevin Rudd's speech at the official opening of Catholic World Youth Day 2008 found at the Australian Prime Minister's website.

"Some say there is no place for faith in the 21st Century. I say they are wrong. Some say that faith is the enemy of reason, I say, also they are wrong.
Because faith and reason are great partners in our human history and in our human future. Rich in humanity, rich in scientific progress.
Some say only that which they see wrong in Christianity and in the church, I say let us speak also about what is right in Christianity and the church."

With so many Aussies now having a religion that isn't 'christian', only paying lip service to their family's religion or having no religion at all, this is a perfect example of an increasingly evangelical Rudders on an electoral losing trail.

Julia, you delivered the party votes to this egotistical idiot - rein him in before he promises Bene and George that we will become a theocracy!

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke flunks Media Presentation 101

Like a lemming over the proverbial cliff, Federal Agricultural Minister Tony Burke went to the defence of his leader Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on the weekend.

"VOTERS don't want Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to slow down, a senior minister says.
Mr Rudd has been urged to ease his workaholic ways or face a political backlash from exhausted public servants.
Medical experts have also warned that Mr Rudd could be putting his own health and that of his staff at risk by expecting them to work long and demanding hours."

Poor Tony is flunking tips on media presentation and aligning himself with a the very un-Labor position that 'bosses' can ask for an unreasonable level of work hours per day or an unreasonable range of hours (with or without overtime) simply because they are the boss.

The Agriculture Minister would do well to remember that Australia's disgust with the arrogant and unreasonable expectations of employers under WorkChoices was a large factor in last year's 'regime change'.
He should be very careful when treading on voter toes in this way. Especially when his leader has taken to publicly preening himself for being a hard boss.

It's QANDA season on the ABC

I have to confess that last night I switched off the ABC's new show Q and A after the first few minutes of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's flat delivery when answering the first audience question.

I've promised myself that I will try to make it through next week's program when, hopefully, my tolerance for political whaffle is higher.

 

However, the QANDA webpage did deliver evidence of a few interesting questions for Mr. Rudd. 

 

Author	ConcernedScientist
Date/Time	22 May 2008 2:04:19pm
Subject	>Re: What would you ask Kevin Rudd?

Mr Rudd...

When it comes to Global Warming, it would appear to me that your government's first budget is 'rearranging the deck chairs whilst the Titanic is sinking'.

Ok - some passengers might deny the ship is sinking (the water used to be 4 metres below their cabin's port-hole, and now its gone up to 6 metres - so from their perspective the ship is rising!), but the scientific consensus is the HMAS Earth is sinking and we have to do something about it NOW!

So why are you making it MORE difficult for Australians to 'use our existing life-boats' like installing solar cells on their roofs ?

Why are you investing large sums of money in trying to develop a new super 'lifeboat' (so-called clean coal - which might not even float), when there are existing technologies available TODAY (like solar thermal, wind, geothermal, photovoltaic, etc )?

Why are you not putting in the same effort to fight Global Warming as you are to fighting inflation?

You said recently "Hi, my name is Kevin, and I'm here to help" - Didn't you really mean "... and I'm here to help the Coal Industry" ?