Category Archives: Politics – Australian

The children’s crusade

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I endured Q&A only because Alan Jones was on, but they left him almost entirely out of it until the last moment when they turned to climate change. So he told the story of how he had asked Tanya Plibersek the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and she had not known. How could she even begin to pontificate on such an issue without such a basic fact, he asked, at which moment he turned to Ms Workman, journalist at The Oz, and asked her the same question. AND SHE DID NOT KNOW!!!!

Great television. So here’s a prediction for the next election: global warming climate change will not be an issue. It has already crested and is now in retreat. It is heading into global moron territory.

The video, by the way, is from 2014.

MORNING UPDATE: Just wandered into the kitchen and who should they be replaying on Channel 10 but Alan Jones and the snippet on climate change from last night. And there was Kerry-Anne defending Alan Jones and saying how mad it is to ruin our economy over such an unproven bit of nonsense.

You can watch Alan Jones for yourself. The entire segment takes six minutes but Alan comes in around four minutes in.

Here is the news report where the twitter feed is taken from with this as the sub-heading: There’s always a cringeworthy moment on Q&A and it came in the form of Alan Jones trying to take on this topic. Here is how the report describes what happened.

The 2GB host then went on about how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere and reeled off so many numbers in a row, no one could keep up.

“It’s 0.04 per cent, and of that 0.04 of a per cent, human beings around the world create 3 per cent. And of that 3 per cent Australia creates 1.3 per cent. So for the 1.3 per cent of 3 per of 0.04 per cent we then decide to have a national economic suicide note.”

Everyone was waiting for him to get out a bag of rice (you can relive that moment in the video above), but thankfully Tony Jones stepped in after pleas from the panel to make Alan stop.

They only tried to make him stop him because they had no answers to what he said.

We’re not insane after all

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I thought it was a 50-50 and so it has turned out. The Coalition was always in with a real chance, not that I wasn’t both thrilled and surprised on the night. Let me take you to the post of a couple of days back: Going for broke.

Labor began the campaign with a kind of certainty that has now evaporated. And because they felt so certain, they were almost actually truthful about the kinds of things they would do. They would import more voting herds irrespective of the effect on our cities and the economy. They would pursue a green agenda to the very last measure of stupidity. They would waste even more money and more prodigiously than in the past. They believe the millennial vote will outweigh the effect on retirees whose incomes may be savaged.

This is a pivotal election. Either Labor finds there are limits by losing the election when they thought it was all in hand, or they win and become a modern version of Whitlam.

The ALP was so certain the election was in the bag that they vastly over-reached that aside from their rustidons, ended up turning the country off completely. They underestimated Scott Morrison, they believed Turnbull and Son continue to slag the Government represented the views of the Liberal Party generally, they were convinced about the universal appeal of climate change, they thought they could get away with plundering the elderly to transfer wealth to others. They thought they could get away opening the borders. They went all in, and lost, big time.

I also think that Tony Abbott had it right when he said that the focus on his electorate distracted the ALP from its larger ambitions, but also that they thought that in bringing Tony down that this was a sign of a greater appeal than was warranted by the facts, as they are now revealed.

Meanwhile, Morrison ran a Donald Trump campaign, not in style since PDT is unique, but in the direction of his appeal. The Libs went after the deplorable vote, with their appeal to hard-working Australians who wish to get on by succeeding in their own worlds in their own way. And the give away at the end of Morrison’s speech last night was when he ended with, “God Bless, Australia”. He is our Donald Trump.

It’s not class warfare, it’s pig ignorance

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The ALP is just daring us to elect them, but if we do, it won’t be as if we weren’t warned: Shorten divides to conquer in class-warfare attacks:

Bill Shorten has intensified his ­attack on retirees, property investors, big business and the wealthy in a speech on the eve of the election, as both sides warned of a tightening contest in an ­implicit message to voters not to deliver the third minority government in Australia in just 10 years.

In a rally cry designed to lock in Labor’s base, with an estimated 10 per cent of voters yet to decide who they will support, the Opposition Leader used his final campaign pitch to a gathering of party faithful to draw even greater contrast between Labor and the “vested interests” of the Liberal Party.

But it was deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek who launched the most strident assault on those she described as “tax dodgers” and multiple homeowners.

“Will it be the big banks and tax dodgers, or teachers and nurses? Will it be people who own six houses already, or young couples buying their first home. Will it be the people who want a refund on tax they haven’t paid, or pensioners who need dental care?

“Who do we want to win the day on Saturday? The sceptics, the deniers, the flat earthers when it comes to climate change or the farmers and the families who want to protect our environment?”

Everyone who rents an apartment, a flat or a house is renting from a “multiple homeowner”. What would either of them know about protecting the environment that anyone living on the land does not already know ten times more than they do? The ALP preys on ignorance and envy and a false sense of fairness. They are the very kind of politician who led Venezuela into the abyss it now finds itself in and from which it may never emerge. Voting ALP is all risk and no gain.

Going for broke

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Labor began the campaign with a kind of certainty that has now evaporated. And because they felt so certain, they were almost actually truthful about the kinds of things they would do. They would import more voting herds irrespective of the effect on our cities and the economy. They would pursue a green agenda to the very last measure of stupidity. They would waste even more money and more prodigiously than in the past. They believe the millennial vote will outweigh the effect on retirees whose incomes may be savaged.

This is a pivotal election. Either Labor finds there are limits by losing the election when they thought it was all in hand, or they win and become a modern version of Whitlam.

Dim bulbs

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Fresh Chicken Wholebird

 

Tony Abbott

 

 

 

 

 

They really do want to turn out our lights. First Ms Steggles, via Andrew Bolt: TONY ABBOTT IN WAR FOR THE SEAT THAT MOST DECIDES OUR FUTURE.

No wonder Tony Abbott feels hunted. The former prime minister is under savage attack because he holds the most important seat in this election.

So much will change if Abbott loses Warringah on Saturday to global-warming extremist Zali Steggall, the former skiing champion.

Global warming will become our dominant religion, the power of militant activists will soar, Liberal conservatives will be cowed and, given the swing needed, the Liberals will have lost the election.

The country will change. The Liberals will change.

And then there’s this from another within the green-side up brigade: Alex Turnbull teams up with GetUp as the voice of robocalls in key Victorian seats.

Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex Turnbull has teamed up with left wing activist group GetUp to record robocall messages urging voters in key Victorian seats not to vote Liberal in Saturday’s federal election.

In Liberal backbencher Kevin Andrews’s eastern Melbourne seat of Menzies, voters will be played a radio clip of Alex Turnbull saying the Coalition is in chaos and doesn’t deserve anyone’s vote.

In Health Minister Greg Hunt’s Mornington Peninsula seat of Flinders, a recorded message will be sent to 17,000 voters, featuring Alex Turnbull saying, “we need more people who want action on climate change.”

The apple never falls far from the tree, worms and all.

The whether vane has shifted

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison and former deputy leader Julie Bishop at the West Australian Liberal Party campaign rally. Picture: AAP

A good sign indeed of whether the Libs are in with a real chance: Key figures attend Lib rally in WA seat of Swan. That’s from The Oz.

Julie Bishop has heaped praise on Scott Morrison at a Liberal Party rally in Perth this evening.

“Scott’s been campaigning so well. I’m feeling very confident. I’ve been saying for a long time that we will win this election,” Ms Bishop told reporters after the prime minister’s speech.

“Scott’s a very experienced politician and he was a very good Treasurer, and he took on the role of Prime Minister in less than ideal circumstances and he’s done an exceedingly good job.”

And then there’s this in both The Age and the SMH: It took John Howard just one minute to deliver the campaign’s most potent attack on Bill Shorten. And look who’s in the picture.

Then Howard appealed to the voters of Warringah, on Sydney’s northern beaches.

“They’re not the big end of town. I mean, that is an insult to every successful small businessman who has worked hard accumulated a bit and wants to leave it to his kids,” Mr Howard said. “I mean that’s what this country is all about!”

John Howard meets shoppers flanked by Tony Abbott.
John Howard meets shoppers flanked by Tony Abbott.CREDIT:NICK MOIR

It was vintage Howard – a nod to Menzies’ forgotten Australians, a paean to suburban values, indignation for those who denigrate diligence, and yes, just a little bit old-fashioned in his gendered pronouns.

Malcolm, who’s Malcolm?

Steggall’s chickens

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Fresh Chicken Wholebird

From the minute I first heard Zali’s name, I automatically associated it with chickens. Nothing personal, just the name. I am apparently not the only one. From Cut and Paste today. And if you keep reading further, you will see that some Green activists have now disguised themselves as plants. It’s appropriate, I suppose, to disguise yourself as a tree or a rose bush if you prefer the Greens, but it does really seem to be going too far, in my own view.

Chicken Man has made his political debut. Jacqueline Maley, The Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday:

A Liberal volunteer supporting Tony Abbott’s campaign for re-election in Warringah has denied he dressed up in a chicken suit in an attempt to derail the rival campaign of independent Zali Steggall. The high-stakes battle for Warringah already involves two “satirical superheroes”: Captain GetUp and more recently Freddie Foreign Money. But in recent weeks a new costumed political superhero has been seen around the electorate: Chicken Man … a person (of indeterminate gender) dressed up in a yellow chicken costume, who keeps showing up at Ms Steggall’s media appearances. Chicken Man seems intent on embarrassing Ms Steggall, brandishing signs which say “Labor for Steggall” and “GetUp for Zali”, which assert associations with Ms Steggall’s campaign that she is keen to dispel.

Tony Abbott tweeted, March 2:

Zali’s Liberal Army (today’s Manly Daily headline) has just two members. Julie Giannesini, who hasn’t been a member since 2007 and when she tried to rejoin late last year was rejected by the Mosman branch because she was so obviously a plant.

The ABC, online, yesterday:

This election, GetUp is focused on unseating conservative stalwarts within the Liberal Party. That’s why it is funnelling resources into the electorates of Liberal MPs Peter Dutton and Mr Abbott. But it says it is not campaigning on behalf of any candidates or parties. Advance Australia has billed itself as “conservative GetUp” and insists it is campaigning in Warringah because GetUp is. “We’re running a campaign to highlight that if people vote for Zali Steggall they’re going to vote for Bill Shorten,” says Gerard Benedet, the group’s director … The anti-Abbott coalition has brought together half a dozen groups across the Warringah electorate. Some are focused on climate change, while others just want to get Mr Abbott out. The coalition was set up by local woman Julie Giannesini. Linking Ms Steggall to GetUp has been a tactic of both the Abbott campaign and Advance Australia. Ms Steggall has hit back, saying: “I have no association with GetUp”.

All I can say is that if Zali really has no association with Get Up, it’s about the only thing positive about her I’ve heard.