Memo to Tim Gartrell

Dear Tim,

Thankyou for the campaign flyer exhorting me not to vote for Howard, Costello or the Nationals, which arrived in yesterday's mail .

It's been a full forty days and forty nights since the federal election.

I think Labor may safely assume that it has come out of the political wilderness.

Time to start saving on office postage.

Therefore I look forward to not hearing from you again until 2010. 

TTFN,

Pete

Australian national archives just a tad out of date

Thought I would have a browse through the National Archives of Australia yesterday and much to my surprise found this online entry which is now more than a little out of date.

 

"John Winston Howard

 

John Howard has been the Member for Bennelong (New South Wales) since May 1974. He served in Malcolm Fraser's government as

• Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (1975–77)
• Minister for Special Trade Negotiations (July–December 1977)
• Treasurer (1977–83)
• Minister Assisting the Prime Minister (May–December 1977)

In April 1982 Howard became Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. During the Hawke and Keating governments he was twice Leader of the Opposition (1984–89, 1995–96). Howard became prime minister in 1996."

National  Archives of Australia, 1 January 2007:

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/prime-ministers/howard.aspx

 

A search for Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister of Australia using the same search page yielded absolutely nothing.

Time for archive staff to pull their collective fingers out and remedy the situation. An online version of "Kevin who?" is not exactly appropriate.

Gone but not forgiven

It seems that one elder statesman in the Liberal Party is not adverse to putting the boot into gone-with-a-whimper-not-a-bang John Winston Howard.

 

"MALCOLM Fraser has reopened his long-running feud with John Howard, accusing Mr Howard of opposing Australia's large intake of refugees after the Vietnam War.

Mr Fraser claims Mr Howard approached him in a corridor following a cabinet meeting in May 1977 and said: "We don't want too many of these people. We're doing this just for show, aren't we?"

The Australian article yesterday:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22993100-601,00.html 

 

Wonder what other 'quotable quotes' will surface in coming months? Perhaps something which would indicate the younger John Howard's intentions in attending an anti-Vietnam War rally broken up by right wing elements. 

Bless Julie Bishop's little cotton socks

Last Friday The Age reported Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop as saying "that coalition policy, after officially dumping Work Choices, would revert to backing laws that existed during the first decade of the Howard government."

 

Sort of a small problem there, Ms. Bishop. It seems that the former Howard Government may have been busy erasing the obsolete acts.

Bit hard to support those old IR laws when it appears these been variously amended,superseded or repealed.

Rather like trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

 

ComLaw and Workplace Relations Act 1996:

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/comlaw/management.nsf/lookupindexpagesbyid/IP200403482?OpenDocument

 

Ah Brendan, Brendan....

There's something rather pathetic about watching Mr. "My 100 per cent support" Brendan Nelson try to defend that dodgy Howard Government decision to buy $6.6 billion worth of Super Hornet aircraft.

A little dignified silence might have been the wiser course, as the Rudd Government reconsiders his past deeds as Minister for Defence and those fighter plane purchase contracts.

All Brendan's bleating has done is remind us all what a dismal minister he actually was.