Political death by coffee bean?

The Bean Poll is back! After successfully predicting the 2007 election, Muffin Break is bringing the poll back for the 2010 election to help sort out the TOPBEANS from the HASBEANS and the WANNABEANS from the COULDABEANS. From Saturday July 31, every Muffin Break store across Australia will be encouraging customers to cast their bean vote in a display unit with cylinders for the Labor Party, Coalition (Liberal/Nationals), Greens or Other.

Serge Infanti, Managing Director of Muffin Break says, We had a fantastic response to our Unofficial Election Bean Poll in Australian in 2007 and in the New Zealand 2002 and 2005 federal elections. Each election, the Muffin Break Unofficial Bean Poll has accurately predicted the outcome.

We may not be as scientific or complicated as other polls, but we think we can get the biggest response and we certainly have fun doing it.

At the end of the first week the national poll was running :

Coalition 38%

Labor 33%

Greens 16%

Other 13%

However yesterday The Coffs Coast Advocate reported that the local store is bucking the trend and Labor is now ahead of the Coalition which does not bode well for Nationals incumbent Luke Hartsuyker.

2010 Election Campaign Day 26 - And then Hughie sent locusts

For all those wondering how Hughie might react to an Abbott victory:

"As early as mid-August, eastern Australia may be hit with the biggest locust plague in more than 30 years."

Fowl business on the campaign trail

On the weekend I cleaned out the chook pen and as usual I lined the nesting boxes with all our old newspapers.

The hens were unusually quiet for two days afterwards, but this morning they were in fine form with loud cackling, squawking and general hubbub.

The chooks it seems had developed a new conspiracy theory. If you don’t have hens you might not know that all fowls are major players in developing most conspiracy theories since they nearly always think the sky is falling.

They were all talking at once and at high volume so I could only make out some parts of the general conversation.

The bit about Tony Abbot being the main people smuggler in Australia did confuse me until I collected the eggs and there in plain sight was a photo of Tony in his budgie smugglers. The hens had misread the paper, but then again budgies are just another race of bird people to the hens so perhaps they were not all that wrong.

There was a lot of confusing talk about chicks overboard, core and non-core promises, Malcolm Turnbull’s emails (the hens had always liked Malcolm - they thought he was a fine cock), Cabinet leaks, no GST and latest polling figures.

I couldn’t make head nor tail of it, so I went off to find Arnold the calf since he had been spending a lot of time grazing around the chook pen and he may have been able to sort the chooks latest theory out.

I found him under a tree chewing cud and he told me that the general thrust of the hens' argument was this; there is a history of the Liberal Party not telling the whole truth to the electorate.

The comments about chicks overboard, core and non-core promises and no GST suddenly made sense.

The feathered theory continued.....

Malcolm Turnbull was brought undone by a false email leaked to him by a civil servant. Who benefited out of that? Tony Abbott since he got to become the Leader of the Opposition.
When the national security committee started leaking the chooks asked themselves; who attends these meetings? The answer was government ministers and civil servants. Who is benefiting from these leaks? Why, Tony Abbott. Or so the polling figures are indicating.

Therefore the chooks reasoned; if a strategy works you are more likely to try it again. So their clucklusion is that Tony Abbott is somehow getting civil servants to leak information to damage the government during the election campaign.

They have already condemned Tony for Malcolm’s downfall and now they don’t like the thought of him as PM - not enough room in his policy package for smuggled budgies perhaps?

Picture from The Ark In Space Image Credit Flickr User Skittzitilby

2010 Election Campaign Day 25 - Abbott & Co finally upset Teh Christians

Knew it was only a matter of time before the Oz Opposition led by the very Catholic Tony Abbott upset the other side of the Christian coin during this federal election campaign.
Here is The Australian Christian Lobby hitting back over at Christian Today Australia:
"The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) described as incomprehensible Joe Hockey's announcement that the Coalition would do away with ISP level filtering of the internet.
"This announcement is incomprehensible on a number of levels", said Mr Wallace. "Firstly to say it doesn't work is to deny the trials that show it does. Secondly to have a system that orders takedown notices for Australian sites carrying Refused Classification (RC) material, but allow it to come in unhindered from overseas sites is simply illogical. And finally to imply that parents rather than the ISPs are best equipped to manage the technology by presumably introducing the discredited Net Nanny system, again simply defies technological reality."
Mr Wallace said the anti-filter proponents have run a well funded scare campaign on the issue, beginning with claims it would slow down the internet by up to 87%, only to be proven it was less than 1/70th of the blink of an eye, and conspiracy theories that saw us all becoming like China and North Korea."

Has Abbott joined the coastal river water raiders?

This is Tony Abbott speaking at the Official Coalition Election Campaign Launch on 8 August 2010:

The Coalition will end Labor's procrastination and fully and finally implement the Howard/Turnbull/Anderson plan for the Murray Darling basin.

NSW North Coast residents will no doubt recall that in 2006-07 the Howard Government (with Malcolm Turnbull as Water Minister) was actively exploring the possibility of damming and diverting fresh water from the Clarence River catchment and then piping this water into either the lower part of the Queensland section or the upper part of the New South Wales section of the Murray Darling Basin river system, with a view to providing water to inland irrigators, mines, power stations and, as an afterthought, to increase environmental flow.

Other North Coast rivers were also being considered by Howard, Turnbull and Anderson.

A brief history of proposals to raid the Clarence River catchment:
Clarence Valley Council Mayoral Minute CLARENCE RIVER DIVERSION, April 2007
Dam the Clarence? No Way? June 2007
Dam the neighbours, April 2007
Clarence River dam proposal slammed as deceptive, August 2009

Now I've heard it all! Transcript of Tony Abbott's official election campaign launch 8 August 2010

When an official Federal Coalition election campaign launch includes the following lines delivered by its Brave Leader then one knows the rhetoric can only go downhill from there:

So today, my fellow Liberals and Nationals, we face a historic challenge. Not since 1975 has there been such a time in Australian politics. Our task is nothing less than to save Australia from the worst government in its history.

Full transcript here.

Abbott & stripping the young of their dignity

It's always easy to look at teh yoof of today and think that their dress and behaviour leaves them with little dignity to loose - until you cast your mind back to your own green days and recall the depth of feeling hidden beneath that mess of hair and suede shoes.
So 'Phoney Tony' Abbott's latest talk of visionary ideas about breaking "the youth welfare subculture" by supposedly supplying yoof with jobs in exchange for their voluntarily giving up welfare sounds a bit suss from a man who only months ago wanted to ship young people holus bolus across a continent to barren mining camps run by his free market mates.
Fer gawd's sake! The latest ABS figures show that total unemployment is still trending down, full-time and part-time employment is increasing and labour force participation has increased slightly.
When is comes to the Oz youngsters - the employment to population ratio of all 15 to 19 year olds in June 2010 was 47%.
Around 693,000 teens were in a job last month. A big slice of the rest are either still full-time students (over 1 million), overseas on their gap year, or actively looking for full-time work in this country (about 69,000).
Fact is that the percentage of unemployed yoof is less in June 2010 than it was in May 2009 and last year 84% of Oz teenagers 15 and over were either studying full-time or working full-time, according to the Foundation for Young Australians.
Doesn't sound like much of a welfare subculture to me.

Tones track record on respecting the young.

2010 Election Campaign Day 24 - And the media thinks he's joking?

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Nauru President Marcus Stephen:

"Sometimes I think we need a guided democracy," Mr Abbott joked as they wrapped up discussions, noting that the media in some other countries were "much less disruptive than they are here."

Graphic from Still Life With Cat

Juxtaposition - who said it was a lost art?

The Tweed Daily News website provided a wonderful example of how not to advertise a product in its reporting.

Tweed Daily News, along with other APN publications, is conducting a competition for its readers with 26 BlackBerry Smart Phones to be won. The phones have a recommended retail price $649.

Someone should have told TDN that running an item about security fears over the smartphones on the same page as the competition isn't a good look.

All is revealed: Grafton's Red Herring is a closet socialist

A correspondent in the letters column of The Daily Examiner deserves an award for outing a serial pest who makes far too many appearances on the paper's letters page.

The serial pest, known in some circles as Red Herring, should be given his marching orders by the paper's editor - in the courts such a person is deemed to be a vexatious litigant and, like scamsters associated with horse racing, is warned off and not allowed to expose themselves and their false and fraudulent activities.

A few coping strategies in the event Tony Abbott becomes prime minister

For your consideration. A few coping strategies in the event Tony Abbott becomes Australia's next prime minister on 21 August and you find yourself in the unhappy position of not being a White, Anglo-Saxon Christian Male with a profession or independent income:

1. Unilaterally declare civil war
2. Buy advanced survival gear and head for the hills until 2013
3. Empty your bank account and bribe your way onto the first small boat heading to New Zealand
4. Apply for refugee status with the United Nations
5. Join a protest movement and live underground until the Liberal Party decapitates Abbott or the next election comes around (whichever comes first)
6. Wear RM Williams from top to toe, stuff a pair of footy socks down your pants and loudly thump a bible in order to pass yourself off as a White Anglo-Saxon Christian Male

7. Go on a three-year bender

8. If you are female throw way your shoes and stay pregnant, or if you are a male start bullying your significant other, to show that you're with the Agnus Dei New Order
9. Revert to the superstitious and boil wax effigies of The Great Leader, set fire to his image and generally call upon the dark forces to take their spawn back from whence it came
10. Pretend to be invisible and watch silently from a barricaded house as the country marches backwards into the Middle Ages..........

Cartoon from Google Images

2010 Election Campaign Day 23 - I declare National Mark Latham Day!

The Australian : Shades of that aggressive Latham-Howard handshake

I always knew Mark Latham was a rabbit and this piece in Saturday's Granny Herald only confirms it:

"Mr Latham, who is producing a segment for the Nine Network's 60 Minutes program, approached Ms Gillard and asked why Labor had complained to the network about his presence.

A smiling Ms Gillard responded: "I don't know anything about that, Mark.

"If you want to work for Channel Nine, that's a matter for you."

Mr Latham then suggested his one-time Labor ally speak out against former prime minister Kevin Rudd for trying to sabotage her campaign.

"Have a dig at him," he told her.

But Ms Gillard merely laughed and wished him well with his journalistic endeavours.

An ALP spokesman later denied the party had made any complaint to the Nine Network.

The Nine Network had not responded to inquiries as to whether a complaint was made."

And like the bunny that he is, Latham (whose real beef was that Gillard had refused his interview request) deserves to find himself in the nation's stewpot garnished with onions and a fistful of parsley.

A few steel traps along the campaign trail should do the trick!

Wondering if you may now be able to vote on 21 August? See this Statement from the Australian Electoral Commission on High Court Decision

Wondering if yesterday's High Court of Australia judgment means that you can now vote even if you missed the 19 July close of rolls deadline?

This 6 August 2010 AEC media release explains the position:

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) acknowledges today's High Court decision that allows additional eligible voters to now be entitled to vote in the 2010 federal election. Voters affected are those who submitted correctly completed claims for enrolment after 8pm on Monday 19 July but before 8pm on Monday 26 July.
The AEC will process these additional enrolment claims in coming days and attempt to contact all electors concerned to advise they are entitled to vote and how to obtain further assistance if needed.
The voter lists, used in polling places to mark off those who have voted, for the 2010 election have already been printed and distributed, so it is too late to include these voters on these lists.
This means that voters affected by today's decision who attend a polling place on election day (or early voting centre) will have to cast a declaration vote and provide an accepted form of evidence of identity. The AEC therefore urges those electors to carry their driver's licence or other accepted form of identity with them when voting to easily meet these requirements (list below).
The AEC will provide further advice once it has studied the full detail of the High Court's decision.

Acceptable documents
01 Australian driver licence
02 Birth Certificate, or an extract (must be Australian and issued at least 5 years ago)
03 Certificate of Australian citizenship
04 Concession Card from Centrelink (must be current)
05 Concession Card from the Department of Veterans' Affairs (must be current)
06 Credit or bank account card (must be current)
07 Defence force, Australian discharge document
08 Divorce documents from the Family Court of Australia
09 Employee identification card (must be current with a photograph and signature)
10 Firearm's licence (must be current with a photograph and signature)
11 Justice of the Peace appointment document (must be Australian)
12 Marriage Certificate (must be registered in Australia)
13 Medicare card
14 Passport (must be Australian and current)
15 Proof of age card issued by, or under the authority of, a state or territory government
16 Security guard/crowd control licence (must be current)
17 Student identification card (must be current with a photograph)
Note: Provisional New Citizens must provide their Certificate of Australian citizenship.

Media contact
Phil Diak
Director, Media and Communication Strategy
Canberra
02 6271 4415 0413 452 539