2010 Election Campaign Day 9 - Lock up your babies!

Beware! Rampant baby snatching underway across the nation as I write.
These are some of the Oz pollies to look out for...........

150 wankers will save Oz? G'arn!

"And so today I announce that if we are re-elected, I will develop a dedicated process – a Citizens' Assembly – to examine over 12 months the evidence on climate change, the case for action and the possible consequences of introducing a market-based approach to limiting and reducing carbon emissions." {'Moving foward together on climate change' speech on 23rd July 2010}
That rumbling sound followed by a slight tilt to the floor which you experienced after Prime Minister Gillard finished her climate change policy speech was caused by thousands of Aussies running towards The Green's camp.
Insulting the intelligence of the average voter can't have been intentional surely? Telling us all that 150 hand-picked wankers are worth more than we are - after the majority of us voted for climate change action in 2007 and have doggedly held on ever since despite denialist propaganda flooding the mainstream media and blogosphere.
Waaay to go Juuuulia!

Unlawful War: well we always knew that they knew and.............

.....they knew that we knew, but it was nice to have it confirmed when Clegg rose to his feet on 21 July 2010!

Nick Clegg was tonight forced to clarify his position on the Iraq war after he stood up at the dispatch box of the House of Commons and pronounced the invasion illegal.

The deputy prime minister insisted he was speaking in a personal capacity, as a leading international lawyer warned that the statement by a government minister in such a formal setting could increase the chances of charges against Britain in international courts.

Philippe Sands, professor of law at University College London, said: "A public statement by a government minister in parliament as to the legal situation would be a statement that an international court would be interested in, in forming a view as to whether or not the war was lawful."

[The Guardian 21 July 2010]

Branding foreheads for crimes & misdemeanours plus mistaken identity

This exchange in The Sydney Morning Herald letters column on 20 July 2010 was emailed to me this week:

List of never-to-be forgiven wrongs

There are three things I can never forgive:
1. The Greens voting with the Coalition against the emissions trading scheme.
2. The Labor Party giving in to the mining giants.
3. Mick Keelty and the Australian Federal Police letting Scott Rush get on that plane (''Rush writes as his last-ditch appeal is lodged'', July 17-18).

Kay Rocavert Drummoyne

I move, as an addendum to Kay Rocavert's crimes and misdemeanours motion (Letters, July 19), that the name Steve Fielding be indelibly marked in reverse print on the foreheads of all Labor Party machine personnel.

Col Shephard Yamba

This also came from the same reader (Hat tip to R's Dad):

"Usually the first time people meet me they call me Tony Abbott. It gets a bit of a laugh, that's about it. Then I tell them I prefer Anthony.
"I voted Labor at the last election. I think I will be voting Liberal this time. But I'm fairly open-minded. I guess I could sway.
"Most elections come down to a jingle: it's time for change. And that's a bit old. I'd like to see more policies.
"I believe more in the Bill Gates effect than the labour effect. If you come up with the right idea, I can't understand why you shouldn't make a billion dollars. But Labor expect that money for the country.
"I'm not particularly racial at all but I think they should send the lot [of asylum seekers] back and get them to apply through the proper channels. If you let one in, or three in, you might as well let them all in."
[The Sydney Morning Herald 20 July 2010]

2010 Election Campaign Day 8 - Beginning of the 2nd Week

And the day before teh grate ledders de-bait...



















Tell David Speers I'm all systems go, go, go!

Mayne announces run for the Senate

Yet another Aussie Steve wants to enter federal politics. Why am I not surprised?

A chunk of Stephen Mayne's announcement emailed out in the early hours of this morning:

Shareholder activist, local government councillor, Crikey founder and former Liberal staffer Stephen Mayne turned 41 today and announced he is running as an independent candidate for the Senate in Victoria on a Nick Xenophon-style anti-pokies platform after the Rudd-Gillard government failed to act on sweeping Productivity Commission recommendations.

Mayne says Australians are the world's biggest gamblers on a per capita basis and Victoria's biggest pokies venue, the Woolworths-run Werribee Plaza Tavern, is located in Julia Gillard's seat of Lalor. He also says the family of the third Liberal-National Senate candidate in Victoria, Julian McGauran, owns a pokies venue, the Millers Inn, in Julia Gillard's home suburb of Altona where gamblers lost a staggering $13.2 million in 2008-09.

"Pokies are arguably the greatest social scourge in Julia Gillard's working class seat of Lalor, but she doesn't seem to care. At least Kevin Rudd declared he 'hates' the pokies before failing to do anything meaningful," Mayne said.

Lalor takes in the local council areas of Wyndham and Melton where working class people, many of them vulnerable females, lost $79 million and $42 million respectively on the pokies in 2008-09.

Mayne is calling for the Labor Party to sell the four pokies venues it owns and runs in Canberra and he'll be directing preferences to which ever party declares the toughest action against pokies in this campaign with the Productivity Commission recommendations being the benchmark which needs to be followed.

"If the Productivity Commission recommends a $1 maximum bet and the Tasmanian Liberals took that policy to the recent state election, then there is no reason why the two major Federal parties can't do likewise," Mayne said.....

Full list of all political and corporate elections contested by the newest Steve.

Northern Rivers xenophobia

For years an inaccurate and nastily xenophobic email has been circulating around the world and, adapted for Australia, it has turned up in Inboxes on the NSW North Coast from time to time.

Here is one version posted on a blog in May 2020 as If you cross the US border...

Now that the Australian federal election campaign has begun, the editor of the Tweed Daily News should exercise some care, because that same piece of arrant nonsense is turning up within that newspaper's pages.

From the Tweed Daily News letters to the editor published on 19 July 2010:

No room for immigrants

MUCH is being made of illegal immigration, be it by boat or plane. My belief is until all homeless Australian-born citizens are catered for, all Australian young people can get a real job, our immigration intake should be zero.

If you cross the North Korean border illegally you get 12 years hard labour.

If you cross the Iranian border illegally you are detained indefinitely.

If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get shot.

If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally you will be jailed.

If you cross the Chinese border illegally you may never be heard of again.

If you cross the Cuban border illegally you will be thrown into a political prison to rot.

If you cross the Australian border illegally you get: a job; an interpreter; free legal aid; a driver's licence; social security number; welfare; free education and free health care.

All at the expense of the Australian taxpayer.

With back-flip Gillard champing at the bit for a federal election, perhaps the locally based federal member could inform us what welfare payments illegal boat people receive. I am sure Australian-born pensioners who are battling to exist would.

Carl Redman *

* Carl Redman, Australian-born Cudgen resident

# Hat tip to Clarrie Rivers for alerting me to this letter.