It is not too hard now. Abbott has been reduced to a hysterical, flailing wreck by
(a) Carr’s magisterial calm in foreign affairs;
(b) the failure of the Carbon Tax to end the world;
(c) the interesting fact that Nauru has increased, not ended, boat arrivals, and
(d) the ice is melting in the Arctic and, by 2020, will be gone; and
(e) Newman has begun sacking nurses.
These things have brought the Labor vote up to 48 or 49 and saved the Independents, and Bandt. It is clear that Labor would be 52 under any other leader (Carr, Shorten, Plibersek) and it is probable Gillard, for reasons that include gallantry, will stay on. It is desirable therefore that Labor do the following.
(1) Announce a pull-out from Afghanistan by March 2013.
(2) Put a one percent levy on all goods sold, including food, houses and things bought online, for eighteen months.
(3) Reduce the wages of all public servants earning more than 120 thousand a year by eight percent.
(4) Impose a one-off tax of twenty percent on the income in 2012-13 of Gina, Clive and Twiggy. (This will bring in two billion dollars.)
(5) Offer to pay the wages of the nurses and the firefighters Newman has just sacked, if he gives them their jobs back.
(6) Offer to buy the Sydney Monorail, and keep it running.
(7) When O’Farrell says no to this, film the wrecking of the Monorail and in commercials say, ‘This is what O’Farrell’s fellow North Shore Catholic Liberal Abbott plans to do to the Australian economy.’
This will assure even Gillard 52 percent and Labor of a gain of four to twelve seats, five in Queensland. The Afghanistan decision alone would put us over the line, and tempt rogue Liberals to vote with us. The Rinehart-Clive-Twiggy tax would be applauded by 98 percent. After the victory, we might consider buying a controlling share of Qantas, Fairfax and the Commonwealth Bank.
Discuss.
Name:
Make it Rudd, Nationalise Queensland, stick to the ALP platform and fix the gay marriage thingo (including Bandt) and Roberts your fathers brother.
PS; It should stay where it is but weren’t NSW selling the monorail to Tasmania?
Chris, no one gives a stuff about gay marriage. Just like the monorail, It’s a trivial issue. Bob Carr is arguably the only adult on the front bench although some of his ideas are quite loopy. He believes in global warming and probably thinks the ice caps are melting like a lot of the loopy left do. Tony Abbott will sort out Climate Change like Campbell Newman did with a stroke of the pen. Abolish it. Easily fixed.
Some of your other ideas are good Bob. Raise taxes. Reduce public service. Lindsay Tanner coming out today to say knifing Rudd tarnished Labor will swing Newspoll back to where it was a few weeks back. Tanner was another adult. How desperate Labor look now without adults in charge.
Frank the 60+% in the polls don’t give a stuff?
Interesting concept you’ve got there!
Jesus wept.
The ice caps are melting.
So are the glaciers that feed the Ganges, and a billion people.
Why weren’t you told?
He was told. He’s just another one of the Egyptian ostriches living in denial.
Put a big levy , or better a fat tax on all fattening food, we are getting too obese, any bigger and we have to start widening the foot paths, and making larger and stronger cars…
A gina tax would be good too,make that one big.
We could ask someone nice, like Plibersek, to entice Tanner back into politics, I miss him too.
Helvi!
I never thought of you as a proponent of the Nanny State.
And Plibersek nice?
Think old peoples teeth.
Chris, obesity is a world wide problem, a very BIG problem, we can’t ignore it…
It all begins at home, Helvi.
Chris, not all parents know about good nutrition. What’s wrong getting some help from schools and health care people.
Many schools are already educating the kids, and only have healthy foods on offer at their tuckshops.
Helvi, try France for a healthy school lunch. A vending machine nowhere in sight until Uni.
Its the law.
I’m not suggesting a little help wouldn’t go amiss for those too feeble to work it out.
A tax isn’t a help.
If even our eating habits overall have to be state controlled we better all wear grey and a little cap and set off each day to the peoples tractor factory.
Who passed that law in France? Not the nanny state surely?
Actually the school lunch is not mandatory and just because there are no vending machines at the school doesn’t mean they are taxed out of existence every where.
“Wear grey and a little cap” as in private school? And what is this thing about tractors? Yes they did have tractor factories in the Soviet Union and I suppose the people who built them did wear monochrome protective clothing as distinct from capitalist factories where elves in rainbow laughingly conjure flying carpets and flaming chariots into being. Nothing so mundane as a tractor.
Yeah yeah, off the topic I know. But isn’t everyone sick of these cliches….
Bob, great ideas as always but nobody cares about the Sydney monorail. Why would a federal government bail out a loss making loop around Sydney? How will that increase votes in WA or QLD, where Labor is bleeding?
The monorail was a dud from day one. I see they had to rescue almost 50 people from it this week.
Why not fund light rail in Canberra or the VFT to Melbourne? Much more popular measures don’t you think?
And yes, let’s tax Gina and her ilk.
Old women who will now have to walk a mile from Town Hall Station care about the Monorail. There’s a million of them. How many more do you need?
Nobody, you say?
Really?
You can’t tax people by name, that violates the principle of the rule of law. And outside the political layer people are still smart enough to understand that. Higher taxes on the very rich in general for sure; but not just the noisy unpleasant ones.
The one percent levy is regressive. While I don’t cry for the finances of people on over $120,000 a year I do recognise that in 2012 that income doesn’t make one rich, and I don’t see why public servants should be picked.
Income tax is not regressive, and I think I can concede to the Henry George people that the site value tax is not necessarily regressive. Add “abolish the GST and replace it with income tax” to your basket of popular measures.
Dunno about the monorail. But the video sounds very effective!
Rudd and Gillard have to make their peace if ALP is to win. It is only commonsense for Rudd to prefer being on the front bench of either government or a strong opposition to being a backbencher of a weak opposition. All that is asked of Gillard and Rudd is the ordinary adult maturity we expect of any divorced couple with kids. They can’t be that much inferior to the rest of us, surely?
Agree, Julia and Kevin have to kiss and make up.
Carr can become the Minister for culture, arts, literature etc…
Kevin back being the Foreign Minister.
No, but you can fine people by name.
Or you can tax everyone with an income over one hundred and twenty thousand a year an extra ten percent.
Yeah but fining people has to be done by a court, for an offence against the law….not an offence against taste niceness even decency. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for parting the big miners from more of their wealth, just have to be careful not to do it in a way that further undermines civil rights. “Defend the gains of the bourgeois revolution!” as the (trotskyist) Spartacist League would say….and one of those gains, not enshrined explicitly in our Constitution but there between the lines, is the prohibition against an act of attainder or the like…This prohibition was the real reason the High Court found that the Communist Party Dissolution Bill was unconstitutional; formally the judgement was made on technical grounds but Chief Justice Dixon made it quite plain why he was looking for technical grounds.
So it is big stuff this principle, one of the core civil liberty protections. Forgive me for the lecture
which was probably not necessary but in these times not wise to take anything for granted.
1) Half a trillion loan from China
2) Real tax reform
3) Public Education the Gold standard
4) Program of regional development/planned settlement
5) A giant bloody pipe from the north to the south
6) High speed rail
7) Dual carriageways nation wide.
9) Republic
10) Fund the first Australian car company, that soon would be making the world’s best electric passenger vehicles, trucks, tractors…
All good things,Wills, will they ever happen.
I’d start with the tax reform and fast trains.
Sorry, Education Reform has to be The Number One.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland
Whenever things get really desperate Helvi, I go here and read about Finland’s education system to remind myself that a better world is possible.
In regards to the UN bid, to be able to talk of our education system in the same breath as Finland’s, as well as how we use it to strengthen multiculturalism, multilingualism…
11) Ceremonious burning of the Anglosphere.
12) Rigorous media content laws
13) Four Federal Government funded films a year. One from each state government.
14) Membership drive aiming at 100,000, not 10,000.
Thanks adding the films on your list, has any politicians since Whitlam talked about arts…
An excellent wish list, Wills!
Whitlam and I share a birthday.
I’ve driven plenty of forklifts that run swell on large batteries Chris, when the meter would run low, you take the machine to the battery bay and get a fresh one. Similar to swapping a gas bottle. It is pretty simple. All from the comfort of my pram.
There was a very annoying man on Qanda on Monday, that spoke a lot of technology and said the word exponential a lot. R&D Sir, R&D.
Yes I do actually understand about electric forklifts et al, very handy and with the added benefit of not killing the staff with fumes.
Too subtle for some maybe, but power is required to charge batteries ditto to drive an electric car.
I’m not anti renewables, at least the ones that have a chance of working but it will be a long time before there is enough of it to eliminate conventional supply.
What do electric cars run on?
Electric cars can run off 100% renewable energy and therefore they use no carbon, and leave no carbon footprint.
In Germany, one town has solar panels on all buildings and feeds excess back into its own grid to power all electric vehicles.
After start up costs, there is no cost for any electricity for the entire town and all its electric vehicles. And no petrol or gas is consumed.
And people think the Greens are crazy - paying for electricity is crazy when we can generate it at no cost after set-up!
Great! Lets all live in a village.
Obviously you’d get the job as The Idiot.
Here’s a tip for you - projects need to be tested and proven before they are rolled out. That’s how good government operates. If it works in a town of 10 thousand then it can work in a city of 10 million.
But go ahead, pay for something like the sun and wind that is free.
15) Swift eradication of Radburn style ‘Villages’ throughout Western Sydney and Australia whilst rolling out a huge public housing scheme that sees 3/10 new houses on each new estate built and owned by the federal government.
16) Move all power lines underground, use the telegraph poles to build a bridge to Tasmania.
17) My Community Gardens website, where citizens can register, organise and participate in the beautification/utilisation of public spaces.
18-) Create a ministerial portfolio for the beautification and utilisation of public spaces.
19) Fix the M5
20) Pay John Clarke $1,000,000 to write and produce five thirty second skits/election commercials.
It’s getting better, I like the idea of beautification of public spaces.
We have some open public space next our place,we got some almost free mulch from the council to improve the soil, have fertilized the area ,I put some garden seats there, and someone else donated a table, we have planted extra plants, now we just need a small barbie and the neighbourhood is set for any informal get-together…
Gosh, what an original line Pleb.
I don’t think you get it do you. It’s one thing to speak in awe and hushed tones at the altar of the little Green God.
It’s electricity we need not fantasy. I rather fancy you are one the types that would turn Hazelwood off right now, because of all the available wind.
Great ideas. We will think and then forget about it on the beach over Xmas.
As we always do
This will assure even Gillard 52 percent and Labor of a gain of four to twelve seats, five in Queensland. The Afghanistan decision alone would put us over the line, and tempt rogue Liberals to vote with us.
Not one of these, 1 through 7, would change one single vote.
Might give some genuine warm and fuzzies, but none of them are crunchers at the ballot box.
Say why.
And why, in the last eight months, a million votes have moved Labor’s way.
Tell me the interest rates coming into polling day, four months ahead, then two weeks, and the forecast for the following year, and you have one ballot box crushing factor.
Hate to say it, but voters do the “what’s in it for me” action. All else is window dressing. Sorry, genuinely.
Re the votes to Labor - that’s two things, at this stage. One, Gillard has held strong, in the face of intense criticism (valid or not) and for which people are getting tired if nothing else - and yes, you are right that gallantry plays a role in this. Two, Mr Abbott.
The sentiment - not votes - for my bobs, is moving away from Abbott, more than anything else.
Hence, Labor, immediately, has to isolate Abbott: dismiss him and his politics into irrelevence in the national narrative. The moment is now to capitalise on this.
Yes, ignore Abbott, and please unite,after all the Liberals don’t badmouth each other in public like Labor does.
Tanners, Rudds and Gillars and the Labor commentators, kiss and make up.
A ps to that. Labor may well benefit more from keeping Abbott there. Seriously worth a thought.
Perhaps it’s idealistic, but I’m for isolating Abbott, watch the shitfight for leadership; Turnbull being the obvious option. But the weird voices of hurrying-now ambition would shout out nicely, and show us more of what’s going on within the Coalition. That’s all good.
Should Turnbull be allowed, I think it would be good for the national conversation, and excellent for the country. Bring that on.
And Turnbull as PM? Can’t stand the Liberal ethos etc, but a stint with Turnbull PM is intriguing to say the least.
If that makes any sense, then Labor may well wish to go to the box with the current [deleted].
Why does every have to whinge about boat arrivals as if there is something strange going on, as if not one person ever caught a boat here before now?
It is a legal right, it will remain a legal right and there is not a thing any domestic policy can do about it.
To claim that flogging refugees to Nauru or promising bribes never paid to force people to go home is going to stop the millions who have to leave home each year is an Australian delusion.
For the spivs. in the salvos. to be involved in the illegal trafficking of humans though is beyond obscene.
Lindsay Tanner is right, today’s ALP are shonks, spivs and chancers.
I am halfway through Jenny Hocking’s brilliant new bio of Gough, now there was a statesman who at 96 can still outhink and out speak any of todays lot.
Marilyn, you continue to be horrible and are banned, again, for life.
Please, please, go away.
Can’t see what is “horrible” about Marilyn, Ellis. Not a barrel of laughs perhaps, but neither are many of your regular commentators.
And a few really are horrible.
Marilyn has sworn at me even I want to let every asylum seeker in. As she has a good heart, she can swear at me, but only her,not the other horrors, who are roaming free here…
Yes a good heart; pity about the brain.
Anyone so miserable as to swear at you, Helvi, deserves whatever they get.
There are some things up with which we will not put, and I reserve the right to speak to those posters of absolute nonsense expressed disrepectfully just how where and when I please.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, you pair of fucking knobends. Bob doesn’t like it when all politician’s are written off holus bolus, he likes to individuate them. Marilyn is seemingly incognisant of another factor which makes that particular comment inadvertently sensitive. Aside from that, she’s a fucking soothing balm. Bob’s only concern is the raising of the quality of the propoganda output, that’s why he’s not riding Frank’s arse. And why he’s not riding yours, he probably lumps you in the same category.
“Individuate”? No prizes for that one Reader1.
“Incognisant” is truly horrible as well.
I don’t mind “fucking knobends” as much as I mind your mangling of the English language.
If I am in need of elocutoratory assistive advisement, I’ll be looking to June Daly Watkins long before I look to you, Miss Prim.
Miss Prim? You were accusing me of sexual harassment a few days ago - make up your mind!
There is no contradiction there.
A bit off your best Bob. Just reversing the thrust of your point isn’t enough to be very funny when it is so obviously false. I mean “Carr’s magisterial calm in foreign affairs”? Nah. Too obviously wrong and even a child can see that your trying to indicate how woeful he has been but we already know that. This latest praise of Morsi of Egypt is typical of his gaffes and lack of nous and so Carr is not a good example.
As for the rest, more of the same unfortunately. As subtle as a train smash and not funny. Not funny at all.
I did get a laugh out of the “by 2020, will be gone” but only because it reminded me of the many times that old chestnut has given me a laugh before (it has been creeping up though, that sort of thing – lower Manhattan was supposed to be flooding by the end of the 20th century, remember -and Arctic ice was supposed to be gone my now on some forecasts. They are a constant source of mirth for me but not the satire you intended on this occasion.
Replace the words ‘magisterial calm’ with what you think is the case.
Do it now.
‘Ponderous self-importance’
‘Languid expediency’
Take your pick. Or shall we go on. Your turn Mr Ryutin.
“enthusiastic amateur” fits best.
Plus a victim of the “loving restaurant eating does not make one a potential restauranteur” syndrome (I made up that syndrome but it is valid and fits Carr I think).
I should have added a link to this cringeworthy press conference. Note the grovelling stuff about Morsi of Egypt.
http://foreignminister.gov.au/transcripts/2012/bc_tr_120924.html
Read the stuff near the end about Morsi. Ugh!
How did he do at the United Nations?
Badly?
Tanner is right .Restructure the party during the inevitable slaughter and get back to policy formation as before being inclusive and not poll driven. Sad to say Bob but I believe Carr is part of the problem. He is representative of the hollow Labor politician of today. Spin Spin Spin. We would do the party a favor if he was sent packing back to Macquarie.I honestly believe the heirs to the leadership you suggest will all be old,grey and disillusioned before there is anther chance for us, Reading your post of last gasp suggestions saddens me greatly. If they had any backbone they would do what we all know is our only hope and that is a last throw of the dice and restore Rudd to lead the charge and hope all are up to it.Abbott and the Libs will continue to stuff up to keep Gillard there with the help of Murdoch.
He Who Dares Wins
Say what it is that Carr has done or said lately that you disagree with.
Do it now.
He’s the one who is the galah prancing around on the world stage. All he has is that voice of authority which as you say from a previous post imbues an air of authority. Not much substance from a man who wants to know where the cameras are first and foremost. Media are giving him a lengthy honeymoon period. To show some relevance he will eventually stuff up big time.He has form on the board and can’t help himself Just look at NSW
Watch out, or this village might lose its idiot second class. Bob is onto you, shadley.
Stop doing what you are only best at DQ- Grovelling
You seek to confirm your status again?
Bob wants Bob Carr as leader, whilst I say there is no vacancy, Bob Carr says there is no vacancy and at least two thirds of the Party MPs have declared that there is no vacancy.
End of story, village idiot second class.
Gillard will be PM until about 2019.
To shad:
Say what he has said or done that you disagree with.
Just do it.
To Bob-just a snippit http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20120508137?Open&refNavID=HA8_1
Immediately, Labor needs to deal with Abbott with a concerted, all in at all times, dismissive, singular line:
“Mr [don't personalise him using Tony] Abbott’s negativity has no place in our Australian way of life.”
And that’s it. Say no more. Say it for two months solid.
People may not want Gina, or Twiggy, or any other high roller to pay extra. If Gina really was a nation builder, she would have had all of the above done in 36 months off her own bat, you know, the enormous amount of capital at her disposal. A patriot, bringer of the special economic zones, bollocks.
All the evidence states that privatisation is more expensive, slower, less effective and less productive.
The risk takers simply will not take the risks. Geothermal is waiting for the capital, it’s all waiting for the capital. Perhaps once we had a reliable and dedicated force of public servants and perhaps they are not of the same in ilk today. I think we are extremely western/anglocentric, I think China has shown the world how to combine the best of both economic models.
(8) Cutback the $40 Billion Submarine project to fund the purchase 100 Skycrane (Elvis) Firefighting helicopters.
What a good idea.
Bob, in all the years you have worked for and with politicians, has any ever taken your advice on a policy matter?
Of course they have. Bob use to write Labor leader speeches
Labor can start their recovery by immediately telling our tourist P.M to get her arse back on a plane and return to Australia and stop embarrassing us at the U.N. Maybe send Bob Carr over to Dixie where he can wax lyrically about the American civil war, something that seems to interest him more than the affairs of Australia.
Anyone listening to the platitudese coming out of Gillard’s cake hole at the U.N. about peace and harmony would have to be on the verge of throwing up. Anyone listening to her speech from the Arab league would remember we joined in helping to destroy Iraq. She obviously doesn’t.
What a laugh it all is.
You should read more and learn the obvious DQ.Phill is typical of most. It is OK to have an opinion but it has to have logical foresight. Gillard is gone period. The only thing keeping her there is her fellow betrayers. The party one would hope is more important than them. We will see. otherwise take note of what happened to the Democrats.
Maybe the ugly utterances by Allan Jones at Sydney University Liberal Club will do more harm to Abbott than anything else can.
At least Turnbull has immediately urged Jones to say sorry, whilst Tony is silent…
Why are people listening to this monstrous man?
I did predict this Helvi
Earlier on the SULC tweeted how clever Jones’s speech was, now they have taken it down…
Forty-five minutes anti Labor tirade on national television with a weak qualified apology by Jones to Gillard will be privately praised by most Liberals.
Just picture the headlines tomorrow Shad. The best the Libs can hope for is a Bulldogs victory. If Melbourne wins by forty though…I could not think of a better start to October.
At least Rudd and Turnbull were quick to denounce Jones. Abbott is probably conferring with Jones on what to say as he doesn’t wish to put the parrot offside