Meet Bob Carr, Australian Foreign Minister Presumptive

Given how much former NSW Premier Bob Carr likes the sound of his own voice, I wager conservative meeja types will be scouring his old lectures, talks, speeches and off-the-cuff remarks for months to come on the off chance that he will become an embarrassment for the Australian Prime Minister.

Here are the man’s views on a variety of subjects at his own blog Thoughtlines with Bob Carr:

Labor Leadership February 27, 2012The public reaction against Labor if leadership speculation is resumed will be catastrophic. It will be branded the “New South Wales disease”.
Uranium Mining in NSW February 15, 2012

Of course the O’Farrell Government is right to attempt legislation to permit uranium exploration in NSW. I said this two months ago.

The Federal Government has expanded uranium mining and opened exports to India. South Australia boasts what will become the world’s largest uranium mine. The ban for NSW reflected the anti-nuclear sentiment of the 1980s and it is irrelevant today when to beat global warming we urgently need every available source of carbon-free energy.

Shooters Party MPs and the Christian Democratic Party would be well-advised to vote for this legislation on common-sense grounds.

The Primary in Florida February 1, 2012
The victory for Romney confirms that dominance in money and organization still counts. So much for the Gingrich insurgency. They confirm the Republican establishment is not in fact on the run from whooping and hollering members of the Tea Party.
The Dumb Demo Looks Dumber: The Nostalgic Left at Work January 29, 2012
UPDATE. Oh my God, so Unions ACT was the tip-off party. No revelation could make my point below more apt. The myth of the demo. The bankruptcy of old Left culture – paint the placards, stoke the anger and abuse, confront the police, produce scuffles. Create a lovely day out for the local anarchists and Trots. For them, a picnic excursion. This is the point I have been making: this outdated, campus-days, Teachers Federation amateur politics helps the Right. It makes Abbott look good.
Tent Embassy Demo January 27, 2012
I agree with Tony Abbott and think his remarks entirely sensible. The tent embassy in Canberra says nothing to anyone and should have been quietly packed up years ago.
Guns and Bibles January 23, 2012

That Rick Santorum is polling double figures in Republican contests confirms this is a B Team contest. But I warmed to the line from his election night speech in support of Americans who live for their guns and Bibles.

It does inspire this thought, however.

Imagine if a senior Iranian politician – a candidate for leadership – said his people should rally around the Koran and their guns.

And imagine the huffing and puffing on Fox, the op eds from the neo cons, the grim faced commentary from the Washington elite that this confirms the threat from Teheran and that war was all the more likely as a result.

There is little sense in the great republic, the US, of how its domestic antics get projected in the wider world.

Why super injunctions are as leaky as a sieve

The Telegraph U.K. 29 February 2011:

A parliamentary committee published a document revealing the details of one of Britain's last remaining super–injunctions.

In the submission to the 26–member committee, Mark Burby, a businessman based in the Channel Islands, claimed that he had been gagged by the "ex–spouse of an Asian head of state" in 2009.

He said the "Asian head of state" – whom he does not identify – was a "substantial" backer of al–Qaeda, and had advance warning of the suicide bombings on London's transport system in 2005.

The ex–wife "and her solicitors have boasted to me and others that she 'owns' the courts in England and Wales and the Government", he said.

Mr Burby alleged the unnamed ex–spouse, whom he described as one of the wealthiest women in the world, had a sexual relationship "with one of her two solicitors"…..

Evidence presented under parliamentary privilege to the U.K. Parliament Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions here.

Neither the media article nor the written submission disclosed much more than what is quoted above. However, I’m of the opinion that a quick Google search based on the name of former air flight attendant Mariam Abdul Aziz would indicate that the silly court-imposed super injunction is not worth the paper it is printed on. This is supported by previously published legal judgments freely available on the Internet which allude to some of the pertinent facts.

If my supposition is in fact correct, then it might make one wonder why Archerfield Partners LLP and the British Courts continue to pursue the fiction that in today’s digital world a legal injunction can or will stop the flow of publicly available information.

Notice to Google Inc. 1 March 2012

As of midnight 1 March 2012 North Coast Voices has suspended displaying Google advertising due to the intrusive nature of the corporation's New Privacy & Terms Policy coming into effect on that day.

How sweet it is - far right politics in action

Well we all knew this was bound to happen as the media changed its focus in the hunt for political bloodletting……… 

Abbott plans cause Liberal dissent by Andrew Probyn in The West Australian on 29th February 2012:

“Fighting has erupted within Liberal ranks caused by old enmities and Tony Abbott's spending priorities.

Argument inside the coalition party room about the Opposition Leader's extremely generous paid parental leave scheme was yesterday temporarily interrupted by another blue.

When Victorian Liberal Senator Scott Ryan sided with consumers over the milk wars, citing WA supermarket prices at one point, Liberal headkicker and farmer Bill Heffernan called his colleague a "f…wit".

Others rounded on Senator Heffernan. Sophie Mirabella bellowed at the 68-year-old to "pop your Alzheimer pills".

And Mr Abbott had to fend off harsh criticism of his paid parental leave scheme which _The West Australian _ has been told is "practically friendless" in shadow Cabinet.

Victorian MP Russell Broadbent said the $3.3 billion scheme, part funded by a 1.5 per cent tax on big business, was the wrong priority when the Opposition should be looking to fund such things as disability services.

Queenslander Sue Boyce agreed, describing Mr Abbott’s proposal as a “Rolls-Royce scheme, when all we need is a Holden scheme”. Under the policy, a woman who takes six months leave to look after their baby will get six months income replacement, capped at $75,000 for women who earn more than $150,000. Despite being deeply unpopular with his entire economic team, the policy was vigorously defended by Mr Abbott who said it was a workplace entitlement and, though a tax on the biggest companies, would increase productivity. One senior Liberal said Mr Abbott was so wedded to the policy that if he was to forced to ditch policies “this one would survive”.  

Which idiot put Bob Carr's name forward?

So “Mr Carr released a statement yesterday confirming that "party officers had talked to him about the possibility of him filling the NSW Senate vacancy and be able to be considered for the office of foreign minister". But he added that "Prime Minister Gillard had definitely not made any offer about the foreign affairs ministry nor had any one on her behalf".

Now which idiot even considered this man as a suitable candidate?

This is the same man who - for no good reason other than he felt like it – quit mid-term as NSW Premier and Maroubra MP causing a state by-election.

The same man who - after talking a lot of guff about wanting to take time in retirement to enjoy the beauty of Sydney – parachuted straight into lucrative positions with major multinationals and placed himself on the corporate speakers circuit.

The same one-eyed adorer of all things American who if let anywhere near national policy would take us down the yellow brick road and into a disastrous U.S. style political system.

The very same opinionated man who in 2005 swore he had no intention of going to Canberra.

UPDATE:

"JULIA Gillard has dramatically asserted her authority as Prime Minister, naming former NSW premier Bob Carr as her new minister for foreign affairs....He confirmed he would seek re-election at the next election, saying he was a “natural senator”.
There goes the NSW vote in 2013!

A selection of Wikileaks' Stratfor emails for your edification and amusement

The Business of STRATFOR

After fifteen years in business it surprises me sometimes how many people wonder about who we are, who funds us, and what we do.  The media refers to us as a think tank, a political risk consultancy, a security company and worse--academics. The Russian media calls us part of the CIA. Arab countries say we are Israelis. It’s wild.  The only things we haven’t been called is a hardware store or Druids.  Given this confusion, I thought it might be useful to occasionally write to our members about the business of STRATFOR, on topics ranging from our business model to how we gather intelligence. 

Let me start with basics.  STRATFOR is a publishing company and it publishes one product—our online intelligence service.  STRATFOR focuses on one subject, international relations.  It uses intelligence rather than journalistic methods to collect information (a topic for a later discussion) and geopolitics as an analytic method for understanding the world.

Stratfor currently has about 292,000 paying subscribers, divided between individual subscribers and institutional ones.  This inflates our subscriber base.  There are many organizations that buy site licenses for all or many of their employees.  We know that most of them never read us.  From a strictly factual point of view, 292,000 paid readers is the number.  Practically it is less but we don’t know how much less.  On the other hand, our free material, two weekly pieces that are sent to our free list and then circulates virally as they say, has been estimated to reach about 2.2 million readers each week.  Where our paid subscription is certainly increased by an unknown degree, this is probably and accurate number. 

The reason that I can be so casual about these numbers is that we do not allow advertising in Stratfor.  If we did, we would be obsessed by the accuracy.  But we don’t for two reasons, one of which is not that we are concerned about advertisers skewing our objectivity.  We are too ornery for that.  The reason is business.  We are in the business of gathering intelligence and delivering it to readers.  Being in another business, selling our readership to advertisers is too complicated for my simple brain.  Plus we would wind up not only depending on my dubious business acumen, but on the acumen of our advertisers.  Second, advertising on the internet doesn’t come close to paying for the cost of content production.  Content aggregators like Google take free content from others and advertise against that.  That’s great business.  But when you are actually producing content, advertising simply won’t cover the costs.

We are therefore one of the few original content producers to be making money by simply selling subscriptions on the web without advertising.  I’m pretty proud of that, in a world where experts say it can’t be done, and I wish I could take credit for that, but it actually is something our Chairman, Don Kuykendall, came up with in 2000.  His view was simple: if you can’t sell at a profit, you don’t have a business.  So we asked people to pay and to my stunned surprise, they did.  So we had a business.

Until that point we were a consultancy.  Only we weren’t a consultancy because a consultant is an expert drawing on long experience to give answers.  Its nice work if you can get it. But we never were a consultancy really. We were a service provider—we would find out things in foreign countries for our corporate clients, usually expensive work in unpleasant countries.  The problem here was profit margin. It costs a lot to gather information in foreign countries, so the nice fat contracts looked very skinny by the time we were done.  We do some intelligence for companies who have been clients of ours for a long time, but at this point about 90 percent of our revenue comes from publishing—you subscription. That supports over 100 employees in the U.S. and sources around the world.

So think of us as a publishing company that produces news using intelligence rather than journalistic methods.  That means that we have people in the field collecting information that they pass on the analysts who understand the information who pass it to writers who write up the information, with any number of steps.  This division of labor allows us the efficiency to produce the product you pay for.  And it has to be a quality product to earn your continued subscription get you to continue to pay. Still gets the point across but sounds less cavalier about it…

The nice part of all of this is that we really aren’t beholden to anyone except our readers, who are satisfied by what we produce, since we have one of the highest renewal rates in the business.  Our goal is simple—to make the complexity of the world understandable to an intelligent but non-professional readership, without ideology or national bias.  Dispassionate is what we strive for, in content and in tone.  In a world filled with loud noise, speaking in a subdued voice draws attention. With over one-quarter of our readers coming from outside the U.S. and Canada, and that percentage growing, these are essential things what are?.

We are more aware than our readers of our shortcomings—everything we do comes under scrutiny from whoever wants to take a shot—including everything I write.  Knowing our shortcomings (I will not tell you about them until we fixed them in the event you missed it) is the key to our success. Fixing it is our challenge.   We are now in a six month surge focused on increasing quality and staff.  The two seem contradictory but that’s our challenge.

Hopefully this gives you some sense of the business of Stratfor that will help you understand us.  I’ll be doing these very few weeks (I don’t want to be tied down on a schedule since I travel a lot—heading to Indonesia at the end of this month).  But its probably time to make sure we aren’t thought of as a think tank—a term I really hate.  When you think of it, think tank is a really bizarre term.

Not for Pub --
We have a sealed indictment on Assange.

Pls protect

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

It is possible to revoke citizenship on the grounds of being a dickhead except in Australia, where all of Queensland and a good part of South Australia, along with all of Sydney Uni would lose their passports.

On 12/05/10 22:42 , Chris Farnham wrote:

Is it possible to revoke some one's citizenship on the grounds of them being a total dickhead?
I don't care about the other leaks but the ones he has made that potentially damage Australian interests upset me.
If I thought I could switch this dickhead off without getting done I don't think I'd have too much of a problem.
BTW, close family friend in Sweden who knows the girl that is pressing charges tells me that there is absolutely nothing behind it other than prosecutors that are looking to make a name for themselves. My friend speaks rather disparagingly about the girl who is claiming molestation.
I also think the whole rape thing is incorrect for if I remember correctly rape was never the charge.

One other point is this. Ferreting out his confederates is also key.
Find out what other disgruntled rogues inside the tent or outside. Pile on. Move him from country to country to face various charges for the
next 25 years. But, seize everything he and his family own, to include every person linked to Wiki.
Marko Papic wrote:
Nate makes a good point. The arrest is not necessarily the end of Julian Assange. He could become a martyr in jail, particularly a Swedish jail, which I imagine has better amenities than my house.

Assange is going to make a nice bride in prison. Screw the terrorist.
He'll be eating cat food forever, unless George Soros hires him.

The following email exchange involves retired Nationals Senator for Queensland Bill O’Chee.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "William \"Bill\" O'Chee"
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 21:57:49 +1000
To:
Subject: Re: Julian Assange arrest
Sadly he didn't have a car accident on the way there.
William Oa**Chee
aa**aa"*aa>>*
Partner
Himalaya Consulting
Australia: +61 422 688886
China mob: +86 1365 1001069
On 07/12/2010, at 9:52 PM, burton@stratfor.com wrote:

Thx

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Nationals keep up their reputation of telling whoppers to NSW North Coast electorates

The whoppers, pork pies, downright lies being told by State and Federal Nats MPs to NSW North Coast voters are becoming so frequent and predictable that by the time the next general elections roll around their reputations won’t be worth a brass farthing.

Here’s one of the latest efforts found in The Daily Examiner on 29^th February 2912 which left Andrew Stoner with egg on his face:

“THE CURRENT 50/50 funding model may make the 2016 deadline for the Pacific Hwy duplication unachievable, according to NSW Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner.

The NSW Nationals leader and Minister for Regional Infrastructure and Services said a return to the previous 80% federal, 20% state funding model could see the 2016 deadline met.

He said by the Gillard Labor Government walking away from the previous 80/20 funding model in favour of the current 50/50 model, the dual carriageway duplication of the highway by 2016 was in serious jeopardy.

"Every other piece of the national land transport network in NSW has been funded at 80% or better by the Federal Government," he said.

"For the Gillard Labor Government to suddenly walk away from a historic funding split of 80/20 is not only disappointing it really jeopardises the 2016 completion date."

But it appears Mr Stoner may have his facts wrong when it comes to previous funding arrangements, with the federal ALP claiming it was not responsible for implementing the current funding arrangement.

Federal member for Page Janelle Saffin hit back at Mr Stoner, saying the 50/50 funding model for the highway was introduced by the federal Coalition and not by federal Labor, as Mr Stoner claimed.

"50/50 funding was first established not by Labor but by the former Howard government back in 2004," she said.

"It was established to reach the goal of the full duplication of the highway by 2016…."