7.40 am
Oakeshott is leaving politics and a petition is going round, maybe, for a leadership spill and Sam Dastiyari appearing in Rudd’s office and Bowen’s. It may well be Rudd is close to the numbers and I am in despair.
9.20 am
At the Reps I put in calls to Tom and Viv but they’re on the phone and Emma, from Thomson’s office, in due course signs me in. I talk with the two security guards, both Labor supporters, and we agree that Rudd, who has now done more damage than Billy Hughes, is not a serious person. He has wrecked thus far the careers of Beazley, Debus, McMullan, Faulkner, Duncan Kerr, Maxine McKew, Crean, Ferguson, Bowen, Husic, Hawker, Arbib and Gillard, and will wreck if he can Carr, Clare, Combet and Shorten. It’s what he does. It’s what he likes to do. He’s rich, and it amuses him to play with poorer people’s lives. He is not a serious person.
9.45 am
On the television in Aussie’s Windsor is resigning too. This can’t be happening.
He is near tears, and concerned, it seems, for the safety of his family.
Heffernan comes by and calls me Shithead and claims I have taken his seat. We josh, as usual, about his many experiences of sex with barnyard animals in his faraway Dogpatch youth and he respectfully goes away. ‘I can see you’ve got things to do,’ he says.
10.40 am
Aussies is crowded and the coffee queue too long to wait in. At the ATM I urge Garrett to ‘use these, the last hours of your ministry,’ to raise the Howard/Mandela matter. ‘I will if there’s an opportune moment,’ he says, and I curse him.
10.55 am
It seems for twenty minutes my motorola has gone bung altogether. Whatever buttons I push do not resurrect it. I ring my son and get his machine. I decude to dictate henceforth to my wife but no, she is off teaching TAFE. In despair I leave it charging in a corridor and a guard recognises it as an IED and calls the bomb squad. I come to get it just in time, he says curtly. It would otherwise have gone into a barrel of water, or been blown up with gunfire.
What a day.
11.05 am
I get at last my first coffee from a nice tall girl who queues for it and I feel better. We can still win in a landslide with Gillard but we must keep our nerve, old friend, we must keep our nerve. Craig Thomson says Rudd won’t stand, he hasn’t the numbers. He, too, grieves for Windsor. He was just in Albo’s office, watching him for an hour. ‘We’re losing all our Chifleys,’ I tell Viv. Brown, Andren, Oakeshott, Windsor, Tanner. It would have been so different had Rudd not been conniving sleeplessly these three long years. Gillard would have had an absolute majority for a start.
1.40 pm
I go to the Canberra Press Club and am assigned to Table Six. Beside me is a staffer of the Prime Minister whom I ask what the numbers are. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘we haven’t seen any petition. Or any signatures on one.’ Bob Carr then speaks, off the cuff with his usual magisterial calm, eventually of the Anglosphere Tony Abbott wants to drag us into, and seems a perfect, measured, magnanimous and courteous Prime Minister.
While he is on his feet word comes through that the petition is circulating, and gaining signatures. After his speech the first question is xxxx. He answers it shrewdlyxxxxx (I will put up the transcript when I have it). Other questions he deflects like Don Bradman, a man of which he may not have heard.
His performance leaves the reptiles abashed and shamefaced. They are watching the world’s best Foreign Minister ever, in one of his last appearances in that capacity, who will be gone from it soon, probably, because the doddering cuckold they work for feverishly favours the party of Julie Bishop, a policy idiot.
I tell the man next to me that that will tell him how we can win after the questions to Bob. He says he is eager to hear this. And he leaves immediately, scarpering back to Parliament House.
2.00 pm
Carr rings me and we chat. I suggest he calls a ten o’clock press conference and says, ‘I will vote for the Prime Minister in any contest. If, however, her position becomes vacant, I will put up my hand.’ He laughs and says he is leaving the country. We recall, together, how in 2003 he was offered the leadership and until 8.35 am he was considering it, but in the end he couldn’t do it to Kim. And Latham got it, and so it goes.
3.20 pm
Abbott tries on a motion demanding an immediate election and it is defeated with Windsor’s and Oakeshott’s vote but not Wilkie’s. A large fat ethnic fool keeps talking to me and falling asleep and snoring and waking up again and saying fool things to the television and I want to kill him. Gillard is relaxed and almost radiant in Question Time, at her schoolgirl-debater’s best. When Pyne speaks of his love of his country he looks ridiculous. I am approached by the editor of honi soit, an organ Laurie Oakes and I co-edited in 1962, and asks me what the fuck is going on. I tell him I sense that Gillard is safe. On the television is an allegation that Shorten has switched.
4.25 pm
I go up to Shorten’s office and ask if he’s changed sides. ‘You better ask him, mate,’ I’m told. On Skynews I learn the Prime Minister ‘will speak of the leadership’ — on Skynews — soon.
I go back down, and a cluster if reptiles are waiting for Smith and Swan to come out of a room. As if that matters.
Many, many people are walking towards me as I go to Aussies.
4.40 pm
Gillard is calling a caucus vote at 7 pm and asking the loser to leave politics altogether. Her performance was magnificent, glamorous and centred, assured in a way that I am sure Tony Windsor was won over by. I just rang Carr who was loitering at the airport and asked him was he staying in the country. He said, ‘Yes.’ I asked if he knew what had just happened. He said, ‘Yes, of course. I’ll see you after.’
Skynews reckons Rudd has the numbers, which is fair evidence he hasn’t. If Rudd refuses to leave politics if he loses, he will lose votes. It might be 51-51. Ah dear.
Rudd will give an interview soon.
Where will he be?
5.35 am
I go with two bewildered students towards the Caucus Room but a moustached old guard won’t let us in. We run, and make it to the Non-Members’ Dining Room in time, and we watch Rudd’s pitch on the big screen.
And it is very good indeed. And it makes me think that he could win the election. I suspect that wavering caucus members would suddenly think so too. It is a fresh old face, a back-to-the-future feel to it, as there was I guess when Howard, eighteen years after he was first Treasurer, was leader again.
I hate him, and I do not think that treachery should be rewarded, but there you go. He will get fifty-seven votes, and there you go.
And he’ll beat Abbott too.
5.45 pm
It’s probable the Gillard knitting shots had something to do with it. Once again she was giving face to a gender miscalculation, like the abortion speech, and the Peris-Kneebone incident, the’captain’s pick’ of a soggy female candidate over a useful one, and her refusal to marry Tim, and it showed her putting her foot in it when it was easy not to. It showed a tone-deafness that few politicians have, a kind of ignorance of life that comes from not going to the movies, or plays, or reading novels. She thought the game was easier than it was.
On Skynews they’re picking Albo as Deputy, and Bowen as Treasurer, and Crean as Communications.
Even I am getting used to it.
6.25 pm
I just got a tremor that Gillard may survive. Don’t know any more.
6.30 pm
Holy shit, Shorten is calling a press conference.
Will he say he’s standing?
6.42 pm
Well, he did it. He came out for his mortal enemy
Wow.
Rudd by seventy votes now.
No, no, fifty-nine.
Name:
Here we go again the ALP circus rolls into town!
Banned for life.
Go away.
Sorry if you find that comment offensive but Its just my opinion.
It is not a circus. It’s the best government since Chifley’s.
How dare you.
Gillard has been the best Prime Minister in my view since Whitlam. She has been attacked and vilified in the mainstream press for her voice, unmarried status, her walk, her physical features and also her position on the Carbon Tax. I agree its disgusting. Rudd should not get involved in the leadership again. This discredits Labor.
OK you can stay.
Instead of hungry lions for brother Dan we get a den of lyin swine manufacturing petitions and threatening the life and family of independent members. Murdochracy. This is it.
“I’ve read my Bible 10 times though/And Jesus justifies me/The man who does not vote for me/By Christ he crucifies me!” sang the Wobblies.
But yeah they have done better than mgiht have been expected, given the degenerate political climate. The take home moral I guess is that a minority ALP government with Greens holding the balance of power is the best the system can provide at the moment.
This minority government has been great. ln my view the closest thing to democracy this country has had. i hope we continue to vote this way ( for Independents and minor parties)
Robert I was just thinking exactly the same thing. We need another Hung parliament.
Who is Hung?
You have lost the plot. Bob Carr is a useless tool who now claims that Iranians are not refugees fleeing the brutal regime in Iran even though 97% are granted refugee status.
He has made a dirty deal with Sri Lanka to torture and imprison Tamils and you call him magisterial.
He is s nincompoop,
You are alone in that view.
No she isn’t.
You two are alone in that view
Marilyn, have your Abbott and his progressive females (Bishops and Mirabellas), have your asylum seeker friendly Scott Morrison.
Go and celebrate the Gillard’s loss.
Do not start on Carr. Send your Julie Bishop to deal with foreign lands.
Not interested in your swearing.
I would have said “the Rudd circus”…
Gillard has been a good PM. Rudd should withdraw.
Agreed.
Oh God, I join you in your despair!
Me too!
yep
shitting broken glass, actually
Bizarre beyond words. Do these people have a death wish or what?
Never mind, wisdom is the distillate of heart’s blood and so on and so forth; you are doing what lies to your hand by chronicling events so that others may learn from them and do better.
But my god.
The Ruddites can’t help themselves. It may split the Party.
The Noalition will be giggling in their caves and under their rocks, and their supporters will be scuttling around their keyboards.
DQ quit while you are behind, or do I cut and paste?
We have been overtaken by events, phill - please see my later posts. We now need to make the best of it.
DQ you once told me to have faith. Keep our powder dry etc. Well we both want the same thing. We only differ on how to get there.
Rudd can win, he must win.
Phill, I have dried my tears for Julia,and I now promise to support Kevin wholeheartedly..
We can’t have Abbott, that will be my future mantra…
I am in despair also. Rudd gone to China I hear, typical.
Rudd has just cancelled his China trip.
I can hear Akerman’s and Bolt’s fingers tapping on theirpoison Murdoch keyboards as you forecast this horror story on your blog
To be honest who can blame them. The ALP is just serving this rubbish up as a gift to the LNP and the MSM. How can a party self-destructing like this be any benefit to the Nation. Throwing Rudd out of the Party today could not be any more damaging and might actually bring focus and unity. Why continue to play his game?
It really writes itself
Rudd’s chess move of a China trip tomorrow interesting. Does he expect to go as the new PM? Or is this a way of forcing the caucus vote before the plane leaves, and he’ll cancel the trip if he wins?
Rudd has just cancelled his trip to China.
No. Rudd does not want any blood on his hands or be accused on knifing Gillard. He will fly out as normal. He will expect his labor caucus members to draft him as PM while he is away.
He can then return to Australia a conquering hero. The reluctant warrior drafted against his wishes to save the Labor party. A mighty burden he must bear. Sky News will film his decent. Garlands of flowers will fall at his feet.
Interesting side note, in the Hebrew bible a red heifer was ritually sacrificed and its ashes scattered for the purification of the party.
Evidenced based truth or cynical speculation?
Seeing into your own mind is difficult enough and here you look into Kevin Rudd’s and come up with what? You expose yourself like a rain coated flasher in a well hung paralyzed parliament stung by the Murdochratic spineless jelly fish. Your venom is hereby neutralized eunuch
I’m meditating on Nelson Mandela. Just for now.
Hope they hurry up and get it done.
Oakeshott leaving politics is not really a surprise however, I am also in despair about a Rudd Return!
Would it be a surprize if his family has also been threatened by Abbott goons
Oakeshott on Lateline last night was superb - even Emma was abashed into conducting a proper interview! The ABC should be issued with the following ultimatum: From this day forward until the election, concentrate your focus on policies and policies only when interviewing anyone from Canberra. I dare them. It could change everything.
Yeah, Oakeshott gets a tick. The good ship Labor is not sinking, everyone panicking, rushing from port to starboard, starboard to port, this is not the way to behave. Stay calm. Wait and see. Despair is distracting, writing the script for Abbott.
Ad now Windsor not contesting as well possibly handing it to Joyce. What is going on there?
This is absolute nonsense!
Windsor explained that he’s sick. He’s an honest man. Enough said.
Also not surprised Windsor is leaving politics - more to come.
You ask “What is going on there”?
I think you know - they are starting to desert a sinking ship. More to come.
Tanner Roxon Windsor Oakshott? Maybe they just had enough of the filth of the Abbott crime family and would rather keep their knees and hearts unbroken and stay awake instead of sleeping with fishes.
The Abbott fleas are no picnic for politicians.
Fleas? Laying down with dogs can keep you warm but you might wake up with a doggy dog like Snoop who famously scratched them fleas off his balls with his mutherfukkin paws.
Windsor has done his bit; can be and undoubtedly is a proud and, when the dust settles, happy man. Labor will have a majority without him.
Joyce? either way, into the dustbin of history
Before you all collapse from an attack of the vapors take a deep breath.
Other than venting your collective spleens about what is happening or not happening realise you are wielding no influence; none, zilch, nada.
Relax and wait.
Good advice, but like all good advice probably a waste of breath : o )
All is not lost; if the party can get a grip on itself, the worst may be prelude to a new start (uner Gillers *much* preferably)
Windsor and Oakeshott had to go. Neither stood a chance.
Why bother with elections. Much cheaper to just call a secret agent code named a hater of democracy Hank and have Hank decide.
They cannot reward Rudd with the top job in the land. They cannot reward a wrecker with the top job - they simply can’t!
If he gets on that bloody plane to China without first helping to resolve the leadership crisis (either way) - then he really should be suspended from the party.
There has to be a ballot. This has to be resolved now.
Why not bring it on!
Unless it’s a one-way ticket!
Rudd could afford to buy the plane.
Windsor & Oakshott saying wont support a Rudd Leader as deal only with Gillard.
Katter saying he will to keep stability. But has no confidence in Rudd, Gillard, or Abbott.
Way to go Bob. The only one talking any sense lately.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Those in dark despair: join you local Singing For Health club. Perhaps someone could suggest a good song for those wilting in the heat of the battle, our poor ailing brothers and sisters? And stop writing the script for Tony…
Here is a Doggy Dogg World song for you
It’s like everywhere I look, and everywhere I go
I’m hearin motherfuckers tryin to steal my flow
But it ain’t no thang cause see my nigga Coolio
Put me up on the game when I step through the do’
Ya know, some of these niggaz is so deceptive
Usin my styles like a contraceptive
I hope ya get burnt, it seems ya haven’t learnt
It’s the nick nack patty wack, I still got the biggest sack
So put your gun away, run away, cuz i’m back (why?)
Hit em up, get em up, spit em up, now
Tell me what’s goin on
It make me wanna holler, cuz my dollars come in ozones
Lone for the break-up, so take off your clothes
and quit tryin to spit at my motherfuckin hoes
Speakin of hoes, I’ll get to the point
You think you gots the bomb cuz I rolled you a joint?
You’s a flea… and I’m the Big Dogg
I’ll scratch you off my balls with my motherfuckin paws
Y’alls, niggaz, better recognize
And see where I’m comin from it’s still East Side till I die
Why ask why? As the world keeps spinning to the D-O-Double-G-Y
It’s a crazy mixed up world, it’s a Doggy Dogg World
It’s a Doggy Dogg World, it’s a Doggy Dogg World
The Dogg’s World
At the moment and on this issue yes.
great good can come of this day if the Labor caucus is up to it
their fate is now in their own hands
If Windsor and Oakeshott support a no confidence motion in any Rudd redux, it may then change the government, immediately.
The Governor General may not agree and require an election within 5 weeks . . . or not; perhaps a test of the numbers in the House . . .
Hardly a scenario conducive to good government!
The Rudd backers had better think twice about a leadership challenge given what Windsor and Oakshott has said..
As it makes no difference anyway why do they bother with their silly threats.
Care to elaborate?
11.05 first coffee; sheesh, it’s hell in there, Bob. Keep it up, great stuff as ever; remember it’s always darkest right before the dawn
I feel sick to the stomach with the way Ms Gillard has been treated. She is head & shoulders above Rudd (whom I voted for in 2007 but wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire now).
This is gold Bob, and we appreciate your being just offstage to keep the rest of us updated in ways the paid media can only dream of doing. Please banish any thoughts you ever had of abandoning your blog.
the doddering cuckold gets called on another vile campaign of lies (in addition to ALP, climate, etc, etc)
Antony Lowenstein notes a letter in the UnAustralian
“Your campaign to equate the call for an academic boycott of Israel with anti-Semitism is an attempt, as sinister as it is absurd, to stifle an important debate.
“There are other countries that occupy territory recognised as not their own; kill large numbers of civilians in military action; stockpile nuclear weapons without joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and violate the 1973 UN convention against apartheid. But only one does all four.
“There is no non-Jewish state in that category, so the charge of discrimination is easily disproved. Or are you resolved not to let facts get in the way of a good witch-hunt?
“Jake Lynch, director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sydney University”
SMH reporting Rudd spokesman as saying he is still going to China. Has leave from Thursday afternoon. Gives us another 24 hours of this to endure.
For mine, he wants to be loved and to tear down Julia Gillard after all the hate she has had heaped upon her would wound his image. He’d also have to go back on his word and no-one would ever take him at it again.
All that notwithstanding, he should have got on the team three years ago or the team should have put him out of the club. There are no innocent parties.
Well as reported JG offered Rudd a lift in the VIP plane and he declined. The only reason to report that story that I can see is to imply that Gillard wants to make peace but Rudd does not.
If this is true then it is Rudd holding back from the deal that is in both their interests, and he wants PM now or nothing. This seems so foolish to me, hubristic. Disconnected.
Obama has just delivered a landmark speech on climate change, talk is all about reducing emissions from power stations etc. Irrespective of how you do this, climate change recognition and discussion does not favour the Liberals, it’s their achilles heel. Abbott has staked his campaign on it, Obama has all but ripped that stake out of the ground.
And now the Prime MInister and Labor party members et al, are raving this in the house as I speak. It’s a winning card. Sad that I have to reply to my own post. I thought you were all policy driven Labor supporters?
….more landmark fakery straight from barry obama’s mouth maybe….click on this link below for another point of view-
http://my.firedoglake.com/stevehorn1022/2013/06/25/obama-climate-plan-a-full-throttle-fracking-endorsement/
There is a petition circulating…
And while this is happening I cannot but think this is entirely bizarre,
On the Labor side we are told there is a party divided, but both sides of the divide all agree on pretty much on all the policy positions and achievements. On policy they are united but they are divided?!?!?
BUT
On the Liberal side, where we are told we have a party united, there they cannot agree on key policy positions, some think climate change is crap, some want and ETS, some want expensive maternity leave funded by a tax on the rich, some say we cannot afford it, some see same sex marriage as evil, some want same sex marriage as a right… etc. etc.
Bizarre
Put Rudd up against the wall.
Followed by every reporter who turned this non issue into front page headlines.
Fucking amazing stuff.
Now, is there any Liberal out there, anywhere, willing to have a crack at a policy argument?
Anyone?
Hello?
If they put krudd up, the Green vote will go through the roof omho.
It will be where my vote will go.
As Bob so eliquenntly put it, paraphrasing
‘The man that killed 4 kids with pink batts when Peter Garrett told him not to’, well I certainly am not going to vote for that incompetant %^$^$&.
Whatever Rudd’s responsibility for these deaths we should never forget that it was true-blue Australian small -businessmen who sent these young men into those roofs.
A representative of one of these companies told the enquiry that it was “not possible to guarantee safety and make a profit.”
Shoddy Aussie workmanship, that’s all. Gillard wanted to improve our education system, under her even our tradesmen would have been better trained, even educated.
We had a gas heater installed last year by some Aussie plumbers, it heated the outside, not the inside of the house.
Some plumbers, nothing to do with Rudd or Gillard, maybe trained under Howard.
Good Lord. The outside of the house? I’m astonished.
Yes Helvi, the gas BBQ goes outside usually.
The gas-heater had the inlet reversed for the hot air to go outside while sucking in the cold outside air to the inside. The second lot of plumbers couldn’t believe it.
Bizarre it is and I thank you for having the courage to say so = excercise your freedom of speech here while you can - the Abbott criminal goon squad is already in boot camp getting ready to break you in pieces if you dare.
A word of caution about evidenced based truth discovery - it was good while it lasted and look how far we came before the Howard Blair Bush barbarian dark age broke out.
Take care and protect your loved ones. We’ll all need god on our side.
Windsor will be missed. He is a sane sensible human being and it seems to me that parliament does not have enough of his like, and certainly we cannot afford to lose the ones we have.
We need more like Windsor.
Women and Men of his calibre have no interest in the vile filth of these subhuman untermenschen scum who are intent upon paralyzing parliamentary democracy in the US and here in Oz.
As Socrates and Plato said twenty three hundred years ago - the only way to get the best leaders installed is to compell them to serve the public interest or you get tyrants like Abbott helping themselves and their matrons and patrons.
As we speak Barry Cassidy is questioning the existence of the mystery petition. Is it a fake?
If it’s any consolation, there isn’t long to wait. 24 hours and counting down - maybe less.
We were all there. Stories for the future generations. Being there when it happened.
Call it Gonski, call it whatever you want - education bill passed an hour ago no matter what stupidity we’re watching now.
Raise your glass for our children Ryutin.
How amazing that the “journoze” have failed to report this landmark event adequately.
Gonski has set the course for the cultivation of the knowledge age society and the sustainable global culture of the future we must have to avoid extinction with the untermenschen conservatives.
And now of course we know that PM Gillard has called a leadership vote for 7PM AEST. Two more hours is all.
Out of interest I just checked the odds with the TAB. Yesterday Labor was $7.50, Coalition $1.08. THE ODDS ARE CURRENTLY SUSPENDED. I’ve always thought the odds important, as they say “put your money where your mouth is.” If there is a challenge it will be interesting to see the odds afterwards, one way or another.
Regardless of the millions of words thrown about, those figures have told all for quite some time.
The bookies aren’t in the business of losing money.
As far as a majority in the senate for the libs is concerned, the odds are 9. So the bookies are having a bet each way.
We cannot have an Abbott controlled Senate. People need to vote Greens in the Senate.
And Reps!
Lets have Ben Waterhouse for PM.
Bookies are the smartest and most knowledgeable of all humans on planet Earth - right.
In the Darwinian evolutionary struggle for life the bookies are the “race” favoured for preservation - right.
Lets execute all the senators and all the members of the house of representatives and set up a government of the bookies, by the bookies for the bookies.
If they succeed in putting that pompous little narcissistic prig back in, I’ll be voting Green. And I really don’t want to do that… but I can’t vote for a Labor party that is THAT stupid.
agree
I know. Like hiring your blackmailer or your spouses lover. Odd.
Why not just volunteer to work directly for the Abbott crime gang to paralyze parliamentary democracy. That would be more honest.
Rudd is now being reported as preparing to make some announcement today at 5PM AEST.
Fibe more minutes is all.
As much as it pains me to say it, I think the Coalition will win the upcoming federal election. The crooked mainstream media having done it’s job.
However, this will trigger a transformation in the Labor Party. Traditional Labor-voters will have HAD ENOUGH of the Right-leanings of Labor and a clean-out of all members who aren’t left-leaning will occur.
That, or a new party will be formed, called Real Labor (or New Labor - not to be confused with the Right-leaning UK version) where all the Left-leaners will escape to, leaving the current party to die.
Please tell me this is likely to happen…! I can’t watch another episode of Q&A with Labor panellists like Matt Thistlethwaite!!! And please tell Graham Richardson to slink off and kark it.
Okay, so now we’ll surely have a ballot. The big question is: Will Bill Shorten rat?
He was wearing a blue tie yesterday…..
A ballot, only if they have 30+ signatures on the petition. This has not been reported yet as a fact. I would have thought that if there were 30+ then it would have been leaked by now. We will see.
If there is a ballot, will Bill Shorten stand?
See what odds you can get on Shorten with blue red or yellow ties and concrete boots perhaps.
Cassidy admits the petition is a fake and pretends he spoke to ALP caucas members who have seen it but refuse to be identified? The stink reminds me of the rotted carcass of the gangrene sun-king Rupert.
Where is this petition?
Does it even exist?
(2:55 PM: The Sniveling Grub snivels, calling for a suspension of standing orders to settle this “leadership dispute”. Meh!)
Could it be that he fears a PM released from parliamentary obligations and ready to focus on campaigning for the next eighty days. Eighty days.
The cameras are on in the caucus room and the room is filling with journoze ready to cover Kevin Rudd’s announcement.
How exciting can it get?
What will he say?
A few more minitz is all and we’ll know.
Rudd expected to nominate they say. Who expects him to nominate or is the expectation only in a dead computer somewhere?
So far Rudd noshoze for journoze. Already he is ten minutes late? Is it a message from kevin or from god in heaven.
Finally on his way they say now. On his way. Can you imagine. The excitement of it all.
Here he is.
The Poodle is speaking… err lying in Parliment again.
Is there any chance at the next election that he might lose his seat???
Too right Bob Carr is the best Foreign Minister - and it’s a bloody shame he’ll be gone from it too soon.
I do not care who leads the ALP, I just desperately want to see the LNP lose.
I’m with you;
And I’ll still be out Saturday doing the doorknock organised down here.
Ballot 7pm tonight - Gillard, Skynews.
Thank god - sanity has prevailed. Win or lose Julia has done the right thing. This always had to be dealt with this week.
Reading between the lines of the Skynews interview I would say she’s still got the numbers.
Rudd has just confirmed he will contest after being urged by so many caucus members.
Australian families are afraid of what the Abbott crime gang will do.
Gillard sounds confident & must be looking forward to finally seeing Rudd off.
I hope she retains the leadership.
Now that Rudd has confirmed he is nominating for the leadership we will see how much money has been spread around to try to divide and conquor the ALP/Greens/Independents government.
The time has come to divide the Lib Nat coalition - enemies of democracy - enemies of freedom.
Eighty days.
Kev’s running and in campaign mode.
Go Kevvy.
Rid the ALP Ludwig’s puppets.
Rather rid this nation and this world of Abbott Murdoch and all their covert agents trying to divide and conquor the Australian public and the ALP/Greens/Independents government.
Abbott’s calling for an election so the people can decide who will be PM.
I would have thought that Abbott would know that the voters don’t elect the Prime Minister.
Then again, he’s probably just being a fucking liar again, like with ‘illegals’.
Abbott is calling for a change in the scheduling of the September 14 election because he is afraid his fantasies might collapse if he has to face a real campaign.
An organized social media campaign assault is needed to run him out of Warringah. The people of French’s Forest deserve better
Yes, of course Rebecca technically Australians do not vote directly for the Prime Minister however many of us are heavily swayed by who the leader of the party is. I suspect many on this blogg would vote ALP as opposed to Greens if Gillard or Shorten was leader. Rudd? Not so many.
The leadership ballot and the state of origin both on tonight. Woooooo!
Go the Blues!
Well that’s 1 to qld tonight.
Now for the origin.
Bob,
If krudd gets up in a couple of hours, you will need to write another book, ‘The year it all fell down a whole lot more’.
I am sure you are already thinking along these lines.
BTW: read your book, a great read. I read it cover to cover while waiting for doctors to see my daughter in emergency at the hospital. Appendicitis. I finished it before the appendicectomy, so my only criticism, not long enough.
Hope she’s okay:)
Which She?
My daughter is doing fine.
Julia I am really worried about.
Crikey.com, for what it’s worth, is predicting a 56-46 win for Gillard. There’s a detailed breakdown on their site.
I’m no expert, but the numbers look a bit too favourable for Rudd. For example, they’ve put Crean in Rudd’s column on a ‘notional’ basis, whatever that means - but at this stage it’d be logical for him to vote for whoever he thinks will win.
I hope you’re right. The best result will be for Gillard to win and Rudd to leave politics.
Somehow I don’t think this will happen.
An even better result will be for Turbull to kick Abbott all the way out the back entrance of Menzies House.
Then perhaps the fringe dwellers Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt can work together knitting a nice big hessian bag around themselves and Tony Abbott.
Or they might consider swimming with Harold Holt and Luca Brasi.
You’ve given me the first laugh I’ve had all afternoon.
thanks Malcolm.
So welcome - we’ll need much more in the 80? days ahead ay
Slight qualification. That’s actually not a prediction, as I wrongly stated, but an analysis of where Crikey thought the numbers were last week. I guess a week is a long time in politics…
Live in interesting times, I despair of the utter idiocy of the ALP. Is there any chance of Fatty O’Barrell issuing a demolition order on the Sussex St Lubyanka? A bunch of apparatchiks who would rather be in Opposition for years than not have the causcus in thrall to their manipulations, having been so wonderfully successful since.. never.
Do they have to produce the ‘petition’. No one has seen it?
the PM in Parl. today was extremely confident, and gave no sign of weakness or faltering.
Shorten should of challenged.
Shorten is a slimy treacherous shit.
Piss off. There is so much shit written on this page today it is laughable.
“9.20 am
At the Reps I put in calls to Tom and Viv but they’re on the phone and Emma, from Thomson’s office, in due course signs me in. I talk with the two security guards, both Labor supporters, and we agree that Rudd, who has now done more damage than Billy Hughes, is not a serious person. He has wrecked thus far the careers of Beazley, Debus, McMullan, Faulkner, Duncan Kerr, Maxine McKew, Crean, Ferguson, Bowen, Husic, Hawker, Arbib and Gillard, and will wreck if he can Carr, Clare, Combet and Shorten. It’s what he does. It’s what he likes to do. He’s rich, and it amuses him to play with poorer people’s lives. He is not a serious person.” Lies.
I think that’s pretty rich coming from someone who says “should of”.
I wish that he had of. He’s be PM in waiting now if he took that opportunity. Option C was always the better option. He should have. I understand why he didn’t. I understand why he did what he did, but I wish, he was the leader.
Don’t tell lies. Long live the ALP and long live democracy!
Good one.
Et tu Brute?
reminds me of Orwell,
‘ I did not betray Julia’
Wish I was there with you comrade. I am cursing the timing of this. If given the chance, I probably would have thrown away my last semester of university to skip the exams and make Radio Ellis live and thrown all across social media. Damnit. Such a missed chance. We have had such impeccable timing thus far. Just a thought - Rudd is for gay marriage now. Platform change/election winner - gay marriage on the table. Watch the polls skyrocket.
It’s over for Gillard, as I predicted. This is/was/always will be about the party.
Rudd and yes I will take bets, will go close to winning the election.
If she goes phill, it’ll break my heart.
Judd at the risk of sounding like a soppy cunt, I will be in fucking tears, if Gillard goes. Believe it.
But this is not about Rudd or Gillard, this is about the Australian Labor party. They should have not dumped Rudd in the first place.
All this talk about what Rudd is or isn’t is total fucking Bollocks. To that so what? He is a winner, he would have won the next election. No, not my opinion the opinion of the media and political pundits.
I could give a flying fuck who leads Labor so long as Labor wins.
The Liberal party is made up of left over medieval bully boys. They are going to fuck over the working class like there is no tomorrow if they win government.
The changes in society I have seen under Fraser and Howard were bad enough. Abbott will make them look like a couple of choir boys.
Whatever happens there are dark days ahead of us.
You’ve dragged your 4th paragraph and your 7th from my heart phill.
I’m off to drink beer and whiskey.
I will be joining you. Hope springs eternal. Rudd can win. He must win.
At least we have a show now.
Hey phill, I liked Rudd, I had no problem with Rudd. Following that June noght I said as loud as could to anybody that would listen that bitar and mob of cowards should be shot. And I’d pull the trigger, no worries.
But gillard made a go of it. She fought Abbott every step, she tried reform wherever she turned, and she would NEVER IMHO have had a minority government to deal with if it wasn’t for Rudds 2010 treachery. He denied her a real chance at governing on her own.
I can’t forgive him for that.
Party’s one thing, principle’s another.
You say it’s about the party, well, in 2010 Kevin didn’t think so.
But what’s done is done and tomorrow’s a new day. I’ll always vote Labor but don’t ask me to buy the line that Rudd’s all about the party. He’s not. gillard was and look what happened to her.
My mate Combet’s gone too.
FFS!
Judd please don’t put words
in my mouth.
The party thinks he can win, or at least limit the damage. What Rudd thinks matters not.
Please spare my intelligence and not tell me Rudd is any different to Gillard.
Most of the people are in government for themselves, that is the nature of the beast.
Cynical? Yep. I’m well over 60 not sixteen.
My point was that Rudd should have shut the fuck up before 2010. He should have shut the fuck up after the first failed challenge.
He should have done that for the PARTY, for PRINCIPLE.
But he didn’t. And what we are seeing tonight is the result of that.
You say you want Rudd back for the good of the party. That’s right enough.
I say, if Rudd was as interested as you and me are in the good of the party he would have pulled his fucking head in 3 years ago.
That’s what I’m saying, I’m not putting words in your mouth, I’m telling you my thoughts on Rudd.
Well it’s all hypothetical at the moment. Lets wait and see.
I think Rudd can win.
At the end of the day, we all perceive things differently. As it stands it’s about fifty fifty.
Lets leave it at that.
What is a Labor Party that supports while male supremacy as Rudd was far worse at everything else. No good at the role, a bully, hated but wow a white male. That is all he had going so Labor have supported sexism and bullying. If Labor are supporting and rewarding these horrid acts of sexism and bullying who do I vote for who will stop them?
Well go right ahead, be my guest, vote for Tony Abbott.
Phill, I’m with Jips - voting Green now I’m afraid. Can’t vote for the pie-faced white-anting twat, or the cowardly Party who voted him back in. Just can’t. He is completely repulsive and so are they.
Well done Bob, there are time s when i know not what to make of you, but i applaud this for its sensitivity and accuracy…
On another tack, i heard Gerrard Henderson say you called John Howard an “unflushable turd” i don’t think i’ve ever laughed so much as then…
A wonderful speech. God help us.
Agree.
Me too.
Likewise. Jesus, what a loss.
Vanessa I have voted Green. That will not help. We don’t have the numbers to have principle. Principles just don’t matter fighting a well funded, aided and abetted by a compliant media, Liberal party.
The cabinet ministers that have resigned and not standing in their seats again sure have principles don’t they?
Principles that will see single mother pushed into poverty further. Sick people not being able to get treatment etc., etc.
But worse handing over power to a mob of medieval bully boys, who if they think their is the slightest doubt they can’t win, with Abbott, will dump him.
These people who are hauling arse,
don’t have any principles, just misguided loyalty.
Phill, the ALP has just demonstrated is has no fucking principles! I think Bob was right - they could have won if they’d united behind Gillard - if they’d lanced the boil that is Rudd. But no, they brought him back in. Completely disgusted. They’ve lost a hell of a big chunk of the women’s vote, my friends are posting about it and it’s all over twitter too. Very stupid move.
Well we will agree to disagree. I think they have a better chance with Rudd and have consistently said so since he was dumped.
Yes they will lose a lot of women and pick up a lot of blokes. Swings and round abouts.
Principles are in the eye of the beholder. Did they have principles when they dumped Rudd? Please.
The ‘women’ voting intention on Wednesdays snap Morgan Poll after the change actually increased the Labor vote by 4%. (ALP +4 LNP -4%)
That’s not a loss Vanessa.
It was an SMS poll so it should be reaching the younger ones who don’t have landlines according to one theory on this blog.
Phill and Vanessa you do udrstand the preferential system, right?
No excuse for giving ALP first preference.
Jeremy, I may look like a cabbage, but I am not Green.
Some cabbages are red, Phill.
The Greens are better than the Alternative Liberal Party which is not saying much. Not long ago I heard Bob Brown say that politicians are nothing with out a movement prepared to take direct action to back them up….visibly embarrassing some of his young followers. But imagine an ALP leader stating this truth!
No Phill - socialist Green or what you will, but no excuse for voting ALP 1. That is a vote for working-class servitude.
Who needs Antony Green when we have predictions such as Bob’s 5.35pm entry.
ABBOTT YOU COWARD:-come out wherever you are and announce your “policies”.Give an interview for once. STOP HIDING,STOP LYING and stop hiding behind your wife and daughters’ skirts!
now that rudd is our newest and greatest dear leader he should take the important portfolio of foreign minister too…..so that he can spend most of his time out of the country