Tag Archives: Tony Abbott

And just what were those lessons, Tim?

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Let start with a later part of the story which is headed, Tim Wilson opens up over Gillian Triggs report:

Tony Abbott launched a broadside, saying the report was a “stitch up” and a “blatantly partisan politicised exercise” and the HRC “ought to be ashamed of itself” because it did not hold an inquiry when Labor was in power and thousands of people were drowning at sea and there were almost 2000 children in detention.

Of course, the inquiry has the most certain look of a partizan attack on the government, which the HRC would almost certainly never have conducted had Labor still been in government. Here, however, is the way the story began:

HUMAN Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson has thrown his support behind his embattled president Gillian Triggs, refusing to give oxygen to the political attacks clouding the findings of her children in detention report.

Speaking today at the National Press Club in Canberra, Mr Wilson said he supported all his commission colleagues but also backed the Coalition’s border protection policies saying “stopping the boats matters”.

“Let me make this clear, I support all my commission colleagues. I don’t want this to be a distraction,” Mr Wilson said.

He added he was not going to get involved in “engaging or fuelling the political debate around this report”.

“Focus on what it says, focus on the research that’s gone into it and the human stories that have gone into it. That is what needs to happen because if we don’t then The Forgotten Children report will simply be forgotten and so will the lessons from it.”

What, exactly, are those lessons? That it is bad for children to be in detention. Well, it’s also bad for children to be without their parents. It is no doubt also bad for adults to be in detention, but they are there for a reason. The HRC is actively pro-Labor, whose crocodile tears for children in detention are obvious to anyone who can spot hypocrisy at 1000 yards. The real worry for me, however, is why is The Australian giving such lift to this kind of story at this time?

Tony Abbott for PM

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Being from the Tony Abbott wing of the Liberal Party’s deep background cover, a sobered up TA is better by far than any of the alternatives. Prince Phillip is more of a sad joke than a policy issue. Unlike pink batts, the NBN, carbon taxes, mining taxes or the rest, it didn’t cost us a thing. Nevertheless, symbolism is important, and it was a major error. Yet for all that, amongst the possibilities of the moment, I would rather try to win the next election with Abbott as the PM than anyone else.

As an absolute certainty, if the Libs are led by someone who finds global warming anything other than the biggest con in the history of science, a very large part of the Coalition’s natural constituency will, at best, become indifferent to the result of the next election. Abbott was allowed to take over principally because he seemed to have a reasonably clear picture both of the significance of atmospheric carbon to the future of the planet, along with an understanding that his party is probably riddled with people who really do believe something needs to be done.

I can also see that Abbott was distracted by the clamour over 18C which must be, within the scheme of things, pretty small beer as any issue of the moment could be. The Two Dannys ended up with their conviction overturned. There is no issue of significance that cannot be debated at the moment, and there is not a chance in a thousand anyone will be taken to the HRC based on their views of radical Islam. It is symbolism again, perhaps, but there are an awful lot of ethnic minorities who would like to see the law come down on the side of tolerance and against racial abuse.

Where the Government needed to go right from the start was to fix up the two greatest economic messes we have, the level of public spending and the rigidities built into the Fair Work Act. How Martin Parkinson survived past the first month of the government remains beyond me. Whoever it was who allowed such a dyed-in-the-wool Keynesian to continue to oversee Treasury – and a warmist to boot – made the largest imaginable error. The response, presented via our current Treasurer, was the standard Keynesian junk. It was static and based on finding revenue, rather than dynamic and predicated on generating private sector growth.

And then there was the missing IR inquiry that needed to have been introduced from the first day. The PC report should already have been delivered, not just starting out.

But because of a lull in the polls, which happens to every government in the middle of its term, the Libs are apparently about to switch from someone who at present looks in the vicinity of 50-50 to win the next election to someone who is certain to lose. I don’t see the logic, but short-term thinking seems to be the nature of politics in a democracy.

What this sets up is the possibility that Bill Shorten and Labor will aim to be elected with the promise to fix the economy, balance the budget, restore industrial relations stability and create jobs. Sounds like a great idea to me. I only wish someone had actually tried it before now.

Politics post-Qld

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These are the results I did today on a quiz designed to determine which side I am on so far as politics in the United States are concerned. My results were not much of a surprise to me:

Republicans                  98%
Conservatives               96%
Constitution Party        91%
Libertarian                      69%
Democrats                        5%
Socialists                          1%
Green Party                      1%

Feel free to try it yourself at I Side With . . . . But I mention it only as a preamble to my thoughts post-Queensland.

Tony Abbott is the rawest rookie ever to lead a major political party in Australia. There is something so off about his approach to the use of power to achieve political ends that it is positively maddening. Did he really enter politics so that he could choose the winner of Australian Literary Awards and bring knighthoods back. Prince Phillip is a disaster of such stupidity that I am astounded that it had even crossed his mind, never mind that he actually decided to surprise everyone, including his own party. He undoubtedly made the fatal difference in Queensland which endlessly depresses me. It is very possible that this was the fatal mistake and he will end up being assassinated in the rotunda, or however these things are now done amongst the Libs in Canberra. Yet what truly irritates me is that there is no one else I would prefer so far as policy goes. He may no longer be capable of winning the coming election, and if so he will therefore have to go. But no one amongst the leadership group represents the policy matrix I prefer.

I think the junking of his Paid Maternity Leave scheme means either he has seen the light, or more likely, he has had a midnight visit with baseball bats to encourage him “to consult” more closely with the rest. Rudd could never be brought round, but Tony might just make the adjustment, and he has a year or so to get there (or perhaps about three months). The thing about Rudd, however, was that while his colleagues hated him, the country found him quirky but OK. With Abbott, it’s something like the reverse.

The nature of this country is at a crossroads. A Shorten-Plibersek Government would add to the bile, and with the 47% now a universal and climbing, this could be the last Coalition Government for a very long time. And as it happens, today I was down on Acland Street and who should be sitting at the cafe next door but Bill Shorten himself along with his family. What was also quite striking, and why this is still the country it is, was that no one invaded his privacy by coming up to speak to him, nor did there seem to be any security presence anywhere around. And then, half an hour later, I came across him again, at the bookshop looking through a book. My wife thinks it was just a cynical meet-the-people exhibition. I just think he was out to have a quiet Sunday afternoon in just the same way I was having myself.

There is so much going for this country, I just don’t want to see it ruined.

Connection lost

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Two pieces on the editorial page of The Oz this morning, both saying something. The first was from Oliver Hartwich, Tony Abbott should follow Kiwi path to reform. The Kiwi path to reform seems to consist of two useful ideas: work out a valid set of priorities and then create a political constituency that will back the changes required.

Key’s recipe for implementing reforms is simple. His government spends at least as much time on carefully preparing policy changes as it spends on their implementation.

Ah, but you must also know where you have to spend your political capital. What sorts of thing has John Key being pursuing?

Since Key became Prime Minister in 2008, New Zealand has reformed a number of areas. The top income tax rate was slashed to 33 per cent while GST rose to 15 per cent. The government part-privatised some state-owned companies, particularly in the energy sector. It has become more difficult to remain on welfare in New Zealand with stringent work expectations introduced for benefit recipients. Fiscal policy has been tight with the budget on track back to surplus.

Sounds good. Sure no Senate in NZ but at least I can see that they have kept their eye on the ball. Meanwhile, what does our PM spend his political capital on? Another change we have to make is the title of the article. Here is where he spends his political capital:

I seek constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people in a form that would complete our constitution rather than change it.

Such cheap sentimentality is barbarous, absolutely inane. There is not a person out here who actually thinks it would make a dime’s worth of benefit to Aboriginal welfare but there are plenty of reasons to believe it would do damage to our Constitutional order. If this is really why h wanted to be the PM, one way or another, he won’t be Prime Minister for very long.

What Abbott said and the media heard

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Having actually listened to the same speech that is being reported in the paper today, I am not entirely sure those who are doing the reporting quite cottoned on to what the Prime Minister was getting at. The AFR, for example, starts its story on Tony’s speech thus:

Business leaders have told Tony Abbott to sell his own budget, spurning the Prime Minister’s invitation to be more vocal in backing the government’s agenda.

A business association will never back a political party, or will do so only at great risk to its own future. The ALP is little more than the union agenda in a Parliamentary setting, but business and business associations have to work with everyone and in doing so stay politically neutral. Even I, in my occasional days in the media representing business, could criticise Paul Keating and live to tell the tale because, but only because, I never strayed outside our own council-determined policy position.

If I may therefore interpolate, what the PM was saying was that if business wanted to see some of those things that business would like to see – a smaller deficit, lower taxes, a more open industrial relations environment, improved trade relations, or anything else where its own agenda happens to coincide with the Government’s – then it should start pushing these issues harder. The point is not to back the government’s agenda but to back its own, and make it known that there are certain things that business wants the Senate to pass because it will make Australia a better place.

And as just one place where business might find itself assisted by the Government’s agenda, there was another story in the AFR today, No pay rises without efficiency talks, under planned law, which in the paper was titled, “Coalition moves to keep lid on strikes”. It begins:

Ways to make workplaces more efficient would have to be discussed as part of every wage negotiation under a law proposed by the Abbott government.

I promise you this. No other conceivable government in this country will be trying to get such a change made. If business doesn’t back a government which will make such changes they may find themselves dealing with a government that under no circumstances ever will. They need only support the policy but they can do it by whispering it to each other where no one can hear or can say so in public where their support might count.

Having dinner with the PM

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barnacle bill

Along with about 400 others. But do not worry. I have my binoculars and my hearing aids are turned up to max so it should be all right.

Most interesting for me is to see what he’s going to do about Barnacle Bill, how he’s going to scrape those last few barnacles off and get on with governing. He has all the makings of a great Prime Minister but needs to get untracked. As the picture shows, he is just warming up.

The one news item that I found relevant about tonight’s dinner was the front page story in The Australian. Where I will be tonight is at the dinner of my previous employer, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. ACCI is to employers what the ACTU is to unions. It does much else but I have even presented the National Wage Case on occasion which is something of a career highlight. And the story in The Oz was, “Business raises the case for workplace change”. Goodness knows we need it.

Labor along with many others perennially confuse the need to improve the lives of working people with the need to make unions more powerful. I am no enemy of unions but it is essential that their power is contained if an economy is ever to succeed. Slush funds and such are only just the start of the problem. I wrote six reports on the failings of the current industrial relations system while Labor was in government (here’s one) and with none of the legislation as yet changed, the problems continue.

The Government has been promising a review of the IR system by the Productivity Commission, which is what today’s news story was about. It is certainly time this was called on, if not actually long overdue.

You can see why UKIP is starting to win seats

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BEFORE . . .

white van

How insufferable these people are! This was the front page of The Age a couple of days ago: UK Tories slam Tony Abbott on climate policy.

The attitude of Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the global challenges of climate change is “eccentric”, “baffling” and “flat earther”, according to a group of senior British Conservatives.

The group, including Prime Minister David Cameron’s Minister for Energy and a former Thatcher Minister and chairman of the Conservative Party, says Mr Abbot’s position on climate change represents a betrayal of the fundamental ideals of Conservatism and those of his political heroine, Margaret Thatcher.

In a series of wide-ranging, separate interviews on UK climate change policy with The Age, they warn that Australia is taking enormous risks investing in coal and will come under increasing market and political pressure to play its part in the global battle against climate change.

I never read about such people without thinking they are intrinsically dull witted. To be taken in by such obvious flim flan is not a recommendation for someone in public life.

And then there’s Labour. The picture shows a white van in front of a house with the flag of St George all across the front. The flag is the flag of England; the white van is a common symbol of the working class English typically used in a snide sort of way. And it was posted by the Labour shadow attorney-general – who no longer is the shadow attorney-general – as an example of the idiocy she seemed to find in the English for loving England. The complete story:

A little background is needed here: In England, “White van man” is a contemptuous term for a delivery driver, who is seen as representative of the working class. Class hatreds are ferocious in England but are usually denied. The other thing you need to know is that the St George flag has become a common emblem for English patriotism and opposition to immigration. And the party expected to win the by-election (UKIP) is an anti-immigration pary, so the picture in effect said: “Only the despised working class vote for UKIP”. And for a Labour Party MP to show contempt for the workers is fatal. In only a matter of hours she had to resign from her front-bench job. She is a former barrister (Trial Lawyer), who sent her children to private schools — so it is highly probable that her tweet did indeed reflect snobbish views.

People are quite partial to their own countries, which carry their own traditions and history. Progressive internationalists of all parties may yet – I can only hope – find themselves up against a buzzsaw of opposition to the many attempts by our political elites to open our borders and sever these connections with our own past.

. . . AND AFTER

ukip rochester result

Why not shirtfront Mark Scott

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Not, of course, one of those robust run at someone at full tilt while they’re looking the other way kind of shirtfront, as they do in AFL, but merely the grab ’em by the lapels version as they do in that girl’s game they play in Sydney. [OK, OK – just kidding.] But seriously, if even Leigh Sales thinks it’s juvenile and beneath contempt, why isn’t the government starting to take the idiocies of the national broadcaster seriously. Without the ABC, the ALP wouldn’t win an election for ten years. Here’s the story:

LEIGH Sales, presenter of the ABC’s flagship current affairs program 7.30, has suggested she argued strongly against the program showing a five-minute skit that made fun of Tony Abbott’s effort to “shirt-front” Vladimir Putin over Russia’s role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

In response to tweets about The Australian’s story today in which Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull described the decision to show the skit as “baffling and disappointing”, Sales tweeted: “I can robustly make my case in editorial meetings but ultimately, I have to present what’s commissioned.”

The ABC has defended what it called a “lighthearted” skit that went to air on Tuesday night previewing “the showdown of the century” between Abbott and the Russian president over Russia’s role in backing Russian separatists who downed MH17. Thirty-eight Australians were killed in the crash.

It’s not funny, and just because it’s done by a Liberal Prime Minister doesn’t mean it is automatically wrong.

Real reactions and their virtual facsimile

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Comparing Tony Abbott’s reaction to Barack Obama’s over the shooting down of the Malaysian Airline flight made obvious the difference between a genuine reaction to an actual world event and the confected virtual reaction of a standard issue member of the left.

Abbott really was angry and felt the horror in his bones. Obama did not feel a thing but had to conjure the right kind of response since he did not seem to feel it personally himself.

The conservative right shows empathy on a personal level. The left seems to channel its response through a political galvanometer.