Bill Shorten
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| swoop42 wrote: | Both sides of politics are full of uninspiring monotone people.
Shorten just adds to that list.
Probably doesn't support such issues like gay marriage just like Tone either.
He's another Jesus lover.
I saw last night that lawyers, financial advisers and doctors got voted in in the QLD election and that was just on the Labor side.
Not a lot of difference between the right side of Labor and the more liberal of Liberals these days. |
Shorten does claim to support same-sex marriage, but hey, which way is the wind blowing today? He has all the sincerity of a used car salesman, just a bit less convincing.
And yeah, an Xtian. Can't we have at least one non-god-botherer to vote for? Even the arch regent of the supposed hippie socialists, Christine Milne, is one. 
| Dave The Man wrote: | Shorten does not have to do anything. Liberal are Stuffed?
Have you thought of Coming a Polliie Dave? |
In moments of narcissism, yes. But let's face it: what reputable party would have me?  |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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I don't work for people, I employ them.
(Well, since a couple of years ago I do neither, but up until then, I mean.)
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Tannin wrote: | | I don't work for people, I employ them. |
I do both.
I was on an AWA for several years. While there is a philosophical argument against them, many of the people who spew vitriol on individual employment arrangements are comparable to virgins complaining about sex (the Pope anyone?). It's all theoretical.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Yep. You are right. I have not been raped yet, so I'm not qualified to have an opinion on the crime.
Yer right
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| watt price tully wrote: | | As noted to Wokko, we are half way though an election cycle. It would be political suicide to announce detailed policies now, indeed it would be the height of stupidity. None of this makes Shorten a poor pollie or leader. I for one Am glad he has opposed the draconian budget measures that unfairly hit the poor & workers, labours traditional base. |
Yeah, me too, but don't you think it's demoralising that our greatest hope is to be returned to the status quo of two years ago? Actually, considering that Abbott has ruined most of Rudd/Gillard's meagre reforms, make that eight years ago. And once you consider that most of Howard's achievements were blocking progress and wasting surpluses, that's nearly twenty years of national stagnation. A whole generation of potential progress lost.
Anyone can say no to crazy laws instituted by a party of unhinged radicals. And don't get me wrong, all of that needs to be reversed. But household renovation requires more than just cleaning up the mess after last night's swingers party.
Anyway, who came up with this idea that you're supposed to make yourself a small target until 6-12 months before an election when you suddenly come up with a raft of great/nice-sounding/election-bait schemes? Wouldn't it actually be a better idea to start talking about the ideas from the beginning, allow some national discussion and develop a publicly understood policy agenda, rather than coming up with a few rushed, half-baked ideas at the last minute?
Look, I understand the politics of it. At the moment, every time the government gets discussed in the papers, Shorten gets another boost in the polls. But what if he and his party actually tried to put forward an alternative vision, something Australians could look forward to, instead of living by the philosophy of "better to not speak and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt"? He might actually gain some fans in the process, and might be much less vulnerable if the political landscape changes between now and next year.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I am not trying to get him or her wrong all of that needs to be reversed. |
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nomadjack
Joined: 27 Apr 2006
Location: Essendon
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| David wrote: | | Anyway, who came up with this idea that you're supposed to make yourself a small target until 6-12 months before an election when you suddenly come up with a raft of great/nice-sounding/election-bait schemes? Wouldn't it actually be a better idea to start talking about the ideas from the beginning, allow some national discussion and develop a publicly understood policy agenda, rather than coming up with a few rushed, half-baked ideas at the last minute? |
John Hewson says hi! He still calls Fightback the longest suicide note in Australian history and he's right. People say they want 'leadership' but mostly what they want is a political leader spouting ideas that fit with their own worldview, or at least one which doesn't jar against it too much.
Unfortunately, in the current political environment it is very difficult if not impossible to have a reasoned policy debate on most issues. Mainstream news organisations don't have the policy expertise to cover such debates or any interest in doing so, and most voters don't have the time, trust or inclination to participate actively or to follow the debates even passively.
It's politically risky to try and convince potentially antagonistic voters that a certain policy position is really in their longterm interests in a 10 second sound-byte. You just can't have a proper conversation and convince people to shift from their initial position in that environment. Hence the reliance on three word slogans and small targets.
Until the voting public stops rewarding superficial flogs and simplistic slogans driven by focus groups and marketing gurus we'll keep getting the governments we deserve. |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| I'm neither here or there on Shorten and really it doesn't matter. I could be the leader of the Federal ALP and I would win IF the election was held today. It's a long way to go and I am very happy Big Ears has come out today and stated he is not going anywhere. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Guy Rundle hits the nail on the head:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/02/04/rundle-if-abbott-goes-labor-will-have-to-do-some-serious-soul-searching/
| Quote: | Whatever soothing effects the Press Club speech has had on some, it appears to have driven others in the opposite direction and convinced them that the man is incorrigibly rigid and delusional, and that there is no upside to leaving him in place. These are the “Abbott-haters”, apparently. They now constitute a third of the parliamentary party.
...
Which is of course terrible news for Labor, for they have either shown primo security in guarding their comprehensive pitch for the 18 months of a post-Abbott government, or they have nothing in the barrel, de nada zilch zero zip. Based on the last 20 years of Labor, I wonder which it is?
Obviously it was right for Labor to stand well out of the way last year, as the Coalition’s forces were steadily undermined by Clive Palmer’s Guevara-esque guerrilla tactics. The Coalition was essentially its own opposition, with a little help from Palmer United for a good six months. But that should have been the ideal time to start developing quietly, slowly, some new idea of what Labor is in the 21st century, what its new pitch is, what it’s for. Developing it from the ground up, first of all, and then getting it out there in a low-key way.
Something. Anything. There is nothing. Labor is full of people with good ideas, committed to making a better society, yet there is no leadership in place to gather these ideas up and move towards a new idea of Labor.
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Should the Coalition dispatch Abbott, that is going to be the problem from hell for Labor — especially if the new leadership has the audacity to clear the decks, pretty much define the last 16 months as an extended hostage situation, they had to say what this lunatic told them to, etc, etc, but now let’s get back to it. The rapid collapse of Abbott is a gift to the Coalition, and one they could maximise if they made it an occasion for generational change. That is, elevate Bishop not Turnbull, put the latter as Treasurer — where he would be seen by the public as a non-political expert — sack Pyne and Brandis, and replace them with quiet managers with modest programs. Announce a five-year plan for return to surplus, re-affirm a commitment to Medicare, to a modified Gonski and NDIS — which, in realpolitik terms, can be eviscerated in instalments — a new package for higher ed, and congratulations you are now the natural government of Australia again, and you can just bang bang bang Labor over the head with deficits and debt. Labor has nothing to say back, because it has not created anything else to say.
What could/should Labor do, supposing that the Coalition leave Abbott twisting in the gibbet by the crossroads, and they get a reprieve? What they should have been doing is reflecting on what a progressive party is for in the first place — what is implicit in its being. Its general mission is to not take given social existence for granted — to say that there are better and worse collective situations, and that the whole of social life, or a dimension of such, must be transformed at certain times, in service to that. If you don’t believe that, you shouldn’t be in Labor. You should leave and join the Liberal Party and try to make it into a more rational classical-liberal party with a few social-liberal bells and whistles. But if you want to be a Labor Party then what was once its mission — real material improvement of working-class life — has to be seen as a particular case of a more general mission. |
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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^ Nope. Nice bit of writing, but he's from Delusional Fantasyland if he really thinks the current Liberal majority of Tea Party nutters would have a bar of that program. Make no mistake, it should be true, but it will never happen.
Shorten & co are doing the smart thing: lie low and let the bastards self-destruct. Don't put anything of substance out there by way of policy, just keep on being Not-Tony for the next 14 months or so. Meanwhile, figure out a mild, steady-as-she-goes policy agenda for use when needed, but keep it quiet until then.
Progressive? Labor? Forget it. Labor doesn't do progressive, hasn't done since Hawke knifed Bill Haydon. If you want progressive, join the Greens or the Sex Party or, if you can still find them, the Democrats.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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Joel
Joined: 23 Mar 1999
Location: Mornington Peninsula
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| Post subject: Re: Bill Shorten | |
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| David wrote: | | Is this really our next prime minister? How have things gotten so bad? |
Someone has probably already said this by now.
Nup...pretty safe to assume we will have another Liberal PM first (not Abbott). |
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