Campaign Day 34

Even John Howard is feeling that this is a long election campaign. Yesterday he was reported to have confused the number of days left until polling day. Not twelve, John - definitely not twelve!

I've managed to get to the tail end of this federal campaign without being doorknocked once by anyone from a candidate's team. This has to be a personal record.

Smart money is on Labor's Justine Elliot in Richmond

Centrebet Sports at 12.48pm today had the smart money on Labor in the seat of Richmond.

ELLIOT Justine (ALP)    1.08   

PAGE Sue (NATS)          6.50

 

For the seat of Page odds were within a whisker of each other.

GULAPTIS Chris  (NATS)  1.83

SAFFIN Janelle   (ALP)    1.87

 

In the seat of Cowper the odds were a bit long for Labor.

HARTSUYKER Luke (NATS)   1.27

SEKFY Paul (ALP)                 3.40

Coalition spin doctors have lost control

Campaign spin doctors for the Coalition must be nearing a complete psychotic break as they rush to patch up ever increasing holes in the Howard Government facade.

Yesterday was one of their worst days yet, with WorkChoices exposed, massive porkbarrelling uncovered, no real bounce across the opinion polls after John Howard's lacklustre campaign launch and 60% of voters in the latest Neilsen poll predicting a Labor win.

 

Throwing money at the electorate, negative campaign advertising, multiple dog whistles, even a few dirty tricks - none of this appears to be working. A headline in today's The Australian appears to say it all, "Little fight left in dispirited incumbents".

 

With only seven more agonising days to go until the election, many Liberal and Nationals candidates must be praying for the pain to end. I'm sure most of their spin doctors would be on heavy medication by now.

 

News.com.au:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22768039-29277,00.html

Cumulative Newspoll 16 November:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/newspoll-16nov.pdf

The Australian today:

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/spincycle/index.php/theaustralian/comments/little_fight_left_in_dispirited_incumbents

Campaign Day 33

Switched over to Aunty before hitting the horsehair last night and saw a tape of Federal Minister Tony Abbott telling Liberal Party foot soldiers that Work Choices had stripped away workers' basic rights and that it was now harder to discover how employers were treating their employees.

John Howard is telling us that he has the ticker to continue to govern and that we should all vote for the Coalition. The real question is - do Australian families have hearts strong enough to survive three more years of his destructive rule?

Fruit doesn't fall far from the tree: development program used as million dollar slush fund by Howard & Co.

"THE national auditor has slammed the Howard Government's use of a key regional grants program, citing many examples of financial mismanagement and apparent pork-barrelling.

The Government pumped a third of the money from the Regional Partnerships program into 10 rural Coalition seats over three years, asking for a list of 100 projects by electorate and bid amount to be funded in the 2004 election lead-up.
And the auditor found that ministers were more likely to overrule departmental opposition to specific projects if they came from Coalition seats, and more likely to knock back funding for projects recommended by the department if they originated in Labor seats.
The damning suggestions of pork-barrelling are in an audit report released today that shows $110 million worth of projects approved for regional partnerships funding between 2003 and 2006 breached its own financial management rules.
It shows the Government, including then regional services minister John Anderson and then parliamentary secretary DeAnne Kelly, regularly overruled departmental objections to funding proposals and, in some cases, did so without having received a grant application.

"The manner in which the program has been administered over the three-year period to 30 June 2006 examined by ANAO had fallen short of an acceptable standard of public administration," the Australian National Audit Office said."
The Age full article today:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22763338-601,00.html

 

Well what could you expect with John Howard in charge of the bickie tin. Weren't both his father and grandfather caught raiding the pantry in the 1920s and 30s. What is that old saying? The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

 

"But Howard's father had another life. While this old soldier worked his humble Sydney service station, he was also - on paper - a New Guinea planter with a string of estates where 200 native labourers grew copra in his name. Lyall Howard had cashed in his status as a returned digger to "dummy" for the trading house W. R. Carpenter and Company Ltd. His own father, Walter, was doing it, too. The Howard case provoked secret, official investigations at the highest levels in Canberra, but they and their powerful backer got away with the scam."

The Sydney Morning Herald full article:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-secret-howard-plantations/2006/06/10/1149815326249.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

 

"Shortly after these allegations (c. 1939) it was claimed Sir Walter Carpenter gave his palatial Sydney residence to the Australian government for a children's home before leaving to settle in Canada."

Some background on the New Guinea plantation rort:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2375/is_n1_v32/ai_19898542/pg_17

Tax rebate not welfare, says Howard: the h-e-l-l it isn't!

John Howard is bleating in the media that certain Coalition election promises aren't welfare.

 

"The Prime Minister says he wants to build an opportunity society rather than perpetuate a welfare state, but has come under fire handing out money regardless of income.
The prime minister says it is a question of balance. 
"I do not regard it as welfare to give people a tax break for having children,'' he said after visiting one school.
"The family tax benefit (part) A is a tax break, it's not welfare.
"It's an insult to the parents of Australia to call something that compensates parents for the cost of having children as welfare."

The Australian yesterday:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22756531-11949,00.html

 

Sorry, John. Tax concessions, tax rebates, tax relief (or however you want to say it), along with low-interest emergency loans to business, subsidies, income support, the public hospital system, public education, private medical care rebates, travel concessions, elements of superannuation etc., are all welfare.

 

Any time government supports the individual, family, business or private institution with cash or other benefit, it is welfare. Welfare is a term denoting a thing which falls within the class of 'for the public good'.

There is nothing insulting about this term.

 

If you don't believe me, just ask your own economists. While you're at it, you might like to ask them for a definition of middle-class welfare - you have been handing that out for over a decade without a qualm.

Where were you Chris? Local takes Nationals candidate for Page to task

A letter to the editor in The Daily Examiner today taking the Nationals candidate for Page to task.

 

"Political poser

I HAVE lived in the Clarence Valley for the past 20 years.

 What I would like to know Chris (Gulaptis) is just what have you done for this community during these years? Apart from a stint as a councillor, I can't recall anything that brings you to mind.

 I do recall when I, on my own, tried to obtain an ambulance for Yamba and asked you to support my efforts at a meeting with the local Lions Club.

 You did turn up, but told me that I would not get it. Much later when Mr. Jim Agnew asked me to help in obtaining same, it was Terry Flanagan, a Labor man, that was our great support. Without him we would have struggled.

 So much for your interest in local health interests.

JUNE MASCORD

Wooloweyah"