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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| The denial by the Ministers and the PM are laughable. This Government have lost the plot. |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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^ Nonsense. I demand that you back that absurd claim up with evidence. Hard evidence. Lost the damn plot? I challenge you to demonstrate that this government ever had the bloody plot in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iutwA_dsfxE
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| OK you got me, that is so True. This episode will damage the LNP even more, if that is possible. |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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^ That is so beautiful. 
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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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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Immigration Minister Dutton's office knew about it in advance, we now discover. Not once but twice the minister's office was informed but somehow the minister "forgot" to read the mail.
Yer right.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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| David wrote: | | More on Shorten's incredible backflip |
Huh? What shower did you come down in? Nothing in the slightest "incredible" about it.' Business as usual. Shorten has a set-in-stone policy of never, ever crossing Abbott on so-called "national security" matters. His minders are convinced, almost certainly correctly so, that to battle the unholy trinity of Abbott, Murdoch, and the shock jocks on this ground is electoral suicide. (Similarly, Abbott and his minders are determined never to battle Labor on issues where Labor always wins: hospitals, education, work choices: on the Liberal maps these are large blank areas with "here be dragons" written across them in red ink.)
It doesn't matter what the policy is: if it is branded as "national security" by the man in the funny hats, Shorten waves it through. Smart? Or spineless? Doesn't matter, it's the only sure way to get rid of this, the worst government Australia has ever had. Don't play to their strengths! FMD, if the batsman's best shots are the hook and pull, don't give him short balls on the leg side!
When it became clear that the government had screwed the pooch so terribly that it was safe to speak up, Shorten did so immediately. Standard policy again.
The only people who think this was a "backflip" are, frankly, so naive that they shouldn't be commenting on politics. It was business as usual, 100% according to the script.
(Whether you regard that - the truth of the matter - as better than or worse than the naive imagining that it was a "backflip" is another matter. My own view is that I'd never vote for a faceless, spineless machine man of the type that Labor elect to lead them these days (Shorten or any of his many clones on the front bench), but I am nevertheless grateful that he's there because - frankly - better men are not going to win government any time soon, so the mildly evil nonentity that is modern Labor is the preferred alternative to the weeping canker that is Abbott's crew. You may or may not agree with me.)
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| Tannin wrote: | | David wrote: | | More on Shorten's incredible backflip |
Huh? What shower did you come down in? Nothing in the slightest "incredible" about it.' Business as usual. Shorten has a set-in-stone policy of never, ever crossing Abbott on so-called "national security" matters. His minders are convinced, almost certainly correctly so, that to battle the unholy trinity of Abbott, Murdoch, and the shock jocks on this ground is electoral suicide. (Similarly, Abbott and his minders are determined never to battle Labor on issues where Labor always wins: hospitals, education, work choices: on the Liberal maps these are large blank areas with "here be dragons" written across them in red ink.)
It doesn't matter what the policy is: if it is branded as "national security" by the man in the funny hats, Shorten waves it through. Smart? Or spineless? Doesn't matter, it's the only sure way to get rid of this, the worst government Australia has ever had. Don't play to their strengths! FMD, if the batsman's best shots are the hook and pull, don't give him short balls on the leg side!
When it became clear that the government had screwed the pooch so terribly that it was safe to speak up, Shorten did so immediately. Standard policy again.
The only people who think this was a "backflip" are, frankly, so naive that they shouldn't be commenting on politics. It was business as usual, 100% according to the script.
(Whether you regard that - the truth of the matter - as better than or worse than the naive imagining that it was a "backflip" is another matter. My own view is that I'd never vote for a faceless, spineless machine man of the type that Labor elect to lead them these days (Shorten or any of his many clones on the front bench), but I am nevertheless grateful that he's there because - frankly - better men are not going to win government any time soon, so the mildly evil nonentity that is modern Labor is the preferred alternative to the weeping canker that is Abbott's crew. You may or may not agree with me.) |
Mostly right & mostly on the money. New Matilda & their fellow travellers prefer condemning Bill Shorten than Abbott. Small target is smart politics. While I would have preferred a quick & decisive smackdown of the Mad monk from the beginning by Shorten, the writer for New Matilda Michael Brull often omits fact for a bit of scorn: Brull preferred to believe that Abbott did not know about it. This from a micro - managing government where a minsters fart needs to approved from the PM's office (thank you Insiders).
Shorten has come out & quite rightly condemned all. Timing shmiming.
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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The thing is, his condemnation now is every bit as phony as his initial reaction was. What this shows again is that Shorten has absolutely no capacity to lead the debate on issues of civil liberties (or anything else, for that matter). Every man and his dog had to dump on the Border Farce before Shorten was willing to jump on board. It's on the record that he knew about the ABF statement - the same one that even Abbott and his goons want nothing to do with - and couldn't see anything wrong with it (or else lacked the courage to do anything other than endorse it). That indicates absolutely terrible judgement, and no safe grandstanding over the coming weeks is going to erase that fact.
Don't give me sob stories about poor old Labor and their impotence on 'national security'. Nobody forced them to roll over and act as a rubber stamp for Abbott's illiberal agenda. The ALP have been granted the most incompetent and unpopular Coalition government in generations, a government that all the current polling suggests is about to be turfed out in a landslide.
I'm not aware of any independent observer who credits Shorten or his party with that situation, by the way - if anything, the polls strongly suggest that Shorten's value-free, content-free approach is deeply unpopular with the electorate and costing the ALP a much greater lead. I don't think you need to be a rocket scientist to see that a bold and confident opposition would absolutely wipe the floor with the nutjobs in power.
A bold and confident opposition would call out cynical attacks on civil liberties and even be willing to lose a few votes over it, because they would know that making a strong and principled stand on defending this country's values would win them admirers elsewhere. That would require a willingness to lead the discussion, to make a statement of principle even when it's not 100% safe to do so.
Shorten had a chance to do that on Friday morning, and he squibbed it. He was prepared to rubber-stamp the stop-and-search exercise, just as his party have already rubber-stamped a number of other attacks on the Australian way of life. Those laws will still be in place when Shorten takes office in a year's time. What indication is there that he will overturn them? What reason do we have to believe that he won't drag Labor's 'me-tooism' into government and run a 'national security' campaign of his own?
Playing dead on national security is not unavoidable - unless, of course, your leader lacks initiative, moral vigour and courage. That's our next Prime Minister in a nutshell. Is that such a trivial problem for our country to have?
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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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| David wrote: | | The thing is, his condemnation now is every bit as phony as his initial reaction was. |
Huh? He's a man doing a job. Following the strategy as laid out by his planning team is what he is supposed to do. You want him to be worse at it?
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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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Ah, the Nuremberg Defence. Don't blame the opposition leader, he's just following orders!
I guess you won't be having too many negative things to say about Abbott in the future, then?
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Culprit
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| I'd be concentrating more on those in power at the moment. Shorten is in opposition and has to walk on eggshells. |
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Tannin
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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What offensive garbage. "Nuremberg"? As if. The policy of not contesting Liberal so-called "national security" issues is designed to win government and stop the fascist policies. You've got the wrong side in the gun here. Do get a clue. Please.
| David wrote: | | What this shows again is that Shorten has absolutely no capacity to lead the debate on issues of civil liberties |
No it doesn't. That was proved years ago. Blind Freddie knows that. There is nothing remotely surprising here. What country were you in when the metadata laws were first proposed? Don't they have newspapers there?
| David wrote: | | Don't give me sob stories about poor old Labor and their impotence on 'national security'. Nobody forced them to roll over and act as a rubber stamp for Abbott's illiberal agenda. The ALP have been granted the most incompetent and unpopular Coalition government in generations, a government that all the current polling suggests is about to be turfed out in a landslide. |
Oh David. Pull your head out of the sand. Please. Do at least try to see what's going on in front of you. How the hell do you think we got to this point of having a prospective anti-Liberal landslide? We have had bad Liberal governments before. OK, never one as bad as Abbott's, but Howard was awful, and everybody knew it. How did Howard win election after election in spite of being (semi) competent and (vaguely) decent and (slightly) honest only by comparison with the appalling Abbott?
Ans: Labor walked into his "national security" traps.
Again and again and again. Howard was very nearly as unpopular as Abbott's mob - half his ministers were the same crooked boobies we have now, remember, including Abbott himself. And yet, every single damn election, Howard pushed the "national security" nerve and 51% of Australia voted for him. And Howard, let us remember, was opposed by exactly the sort of Labor leader you are begging for. That is why he won. Labor leaders like Beazley and Latham were confident, intelligent, and articulate. They were passionate yet measured and responsible. They were everything you are asking Shorten to be now. And Howard thrashed them. Every time. (Yes, Latham turned out to be a hopeless git, but no-one knew that until after Howard had already beaten him.)
Shorten's policy isn't just good tactics, it is essential tactics. I'd far rather have Albanese, of course, but Shorten is on-course to be the most successful Labor opposition leader since Whitlam. What he will be as Prime Minister is another question, and one best considered in another thread.
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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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| Tannin wrote: | | The policy of not contesting Liberal so-called "national security" issues is designed towingovernment andstopthe fascist policies. |
Really? Then why do you agree with me that ...
| David wrote: | | Shorten has absolutely no capacity to lead the debate on issues of civil liberties |
?
I certainly agree on the first part of your claim: this approach is designed to win government. But on the second part, who knows whether Shorten intends to roll back, stop or increase the 'fascist policies'? Data retention certainly isn't going anywhere, I wouldn't imagine, and he's already backed the citizenship bill. If they think it's necessary to keep up with the blackshirts while in opposition, who's to say they won't follow the same principle in government?
These are hardly trivial questions. They're not just throwing a couple of inconsequential bones to the tabloids. These policies will have a massive impact on the kind of country we live in over the years to come.
Abbott did not win the last election on 'national security'. It barely came up during the campaign. He won on economic scaremongering, racism and Labor instability. Howard's one election victory on 'national security' was in 2001, and Labor under Kim Beazley did exactly what they are doing now. It's utter nonsense to suggest otherwise.
(As for Latham, are you kidding? Everyone at least half-suspected he was a nutcase.)
But, you know, even if you were right, so what? Maybe Abbott and his government think that taking a draconian approach to national security is the only way they can win the next election. That may well be the case. How are Shorten's tactics any more defensible? Both are cynically exploiting fear and ignorance, and both are willing to throw Australian citizens' civil liberties under the bus in order to win an election. Now, remind me why we should be giving one of those guys a free pass on this.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Tannin wrote: | | The policy of not contesting Liberal so-called "national security" issues is designed towingovernment andstopthe fascist policies. |
Really? Then why do you agree with me that ...
| David wrote: | | Shorten has absolutely no capacity to lead the debate on issues of civil liberties |
?
I certainly agree on the first part of your claim: this approach is designed to win government. But on the second part, who knows whether Shorten intends to roll back, stop or increase the 'fascist policies'? Data retention certainly isn't going anywhere, I wouldn't imagine, and he's already backed the citizenship bill. If they think it's necessary to keep up with the blackshirts while in opposition, who's to say they won't follow the same principle in government?
These are hardly trivial questions. They're not just throwing a couple of inconsequential bones to the tabloids. These policies will have a massive impact on the kind of country we live in over the years to come.
Abbott did not win the last election on 'national security', by the way. It barely came up during the campaign. He won on economic scaremongering, racism and Labor instability. Howard's one election victory on 'national security' was in 2001, and Labor under Kim Beazley did exactly what they are doing now. It's utter nonsense to suggest otherwise.
(As for Latham, are you kidding? Everyone at least half-suspected he was a nutcase.)
But, you know, even if you were right, so what? Maybe Abbott and his government think that taking a draconian approach to national security is the only way they can win the next election. That may well be the case. How are Shorten's tactics any more defensible? Both are cynically exploiting fear and ignorance, and both are willing to throw Australian citizens' civil liberties under the bus in order to win an election. Now, remind me why we should be giving one of those guys a free pass on this.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace
Last edited by David on Mon Aug 31, 2015 1:31 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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