A cancer on democracy… or at least it used to be when someone else did it. Not now though….

Kevni Jong Ill has been pretty busy over the past few weeks, flitting here, there and everywhere trying to be everything to everyone.

It turns out that being everything to everyone is pretty hard, especially when most of your announcements are nothing more than poorly considered thought bubbles such as the PNG “solution” and changes to FBT governance.

The one thing that is clear as a pair of bollocks on a red kangaroo is that Kevin Rudd is a political chameleon like no other that we have seen.

A shockingly duplicitous individual who will say and do anything that will garner him support from whomever he is talking to at that moment, whether that support be timeless as the rising of the sun or as fleeting as a snowflake in hell.

Back in 2007 Kevin Rudd appeared on ABC’s 7:30 Report as Opposition Leader in the lead up to the election and made his position on Government advertising very clear, stating unequivocally that he considered it to be:

..a sick cancer within our system, It’s a cancer on democracy.

Fast forward to 2013,  Rudd is trying to con the Australian public, again, by saying one thing when it suits him and doing another later on, again when it suits his weathervane like persona.

Contrary to many years of bipartisan Parliamentary tradition, Labor has decided to ignore the Caretaker Conventions which came into affect on Monday when the election was formalised to continue its $30 million advertising campaign that promotes it’s PNG “solution” not only overseas but also, more importantly, here in Australia.

There is no concern over the international advertising for that is where the “asylum seekers” are coming from but there is concern that the domestic advertising cannot adequately be expected to be targeted solely at the families of potential asylum seekers already residing in Australia.

Instead many have argued that the key demographic that the ads are aiming at are low information swinging voters living in Australia’s marginal electorates, most notably in Western Sydney which is a key area of resettlement for refugees and immigrants alike.

In my opinion that is not an unrealistic assumption and plays a large part in Labor’s strategy on PNG.  They don’t really want to stop the boats, they just want to get the votes.

Once that pesky election is over then Labor most likely will flip 180 degrees again and do exactly the opposite to what it expressly promised, just as Peter Garrett infamously admitted prior to winning office.

Under the caretaker conventions, the Government is required to consult with the Opposition over taxpayer-funded advertising.

News.com.au reports that Tony Abbott on Monday wrote to the Prime Minister and urged him to “cease immediately” taxpayer funded advertising, but this has been ignored by the Government.

The Coalition’s shadow attorney-general George Brandis labelled the decision as a

..flagrant breach of the caretaker convention.  This is a scandal. The Government has openly trashed the caretaker conventions

Scott Morrison, the Coalition’s immigration spokesman, also echoed Brandis’ sentiments and said legal action was “under consideration“.

In meantime, the Liberals have launched a petition to try and force the Government to reconsider its decision by weight of public pressure.

In an obvious effort to cause Lefty heads to explode everywhere over another three word slogan, the Liberals have cheekily dubbed the petition Stop the Ads. Voice your concern by adding your name to the petition.

And lest you forget, every illegal boat that enters Australian waters has several impacts;

1. Displacing other refugees from accessing Australia’s substantial humanitarian immigration program
2. Risk to life and limb for people who come from lands where most have never seen the water let alone know how to swim
3. Sideline critical Defence resources from doing their real roles
4. Force people into mandatory detention here in Australia and overseas
5. Contribute to Australia’s continuing Budget blowouts, over $10.8 billion since 2007

What does Feeney the Faceless Man know?

With Martin Ferguson’s recent retirement a bunfight has erupted for his old seat of Batman.

Batman is recognised as Labor’s safest seat in Australia, with Labor holding the seat at the last election with a margin of 25%.

In today’s political environment, this is tantamount to rolled gold for the preferred Labor candidate.

Whoever gets the nod is almost guaranteed a seat in the new parliament after the September election.  They might even get to be the driver of the Labor Tarago post September.

So who is shaping up to get the golden nod?

The front runner at the moment is Senator David Feeney. Feeney is already a Senator but he is likely to lose his Senate seat as he is currently listed as the third candidate on Labor’s Senate ticket.

As a result, Feeney has put  up his hand for the Lower House seat and has been backed in by non-other than the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.

This is where things start to get a bit weird.

You see, Gillard Cabinet ministers Jenny Macklin, Penny Wong and junior minister Catherine King have publicly backed the need for Labor to select a woman for Batman, which really puts them at odds with Gillard.

Macklin was quoted recently saying that the ALP was failing to meet its rules that required 40 per cent of candidates in winnable seats to be women.

…I am very concerned that if a woman is not preselected for Batman, the ALP in Victoria will have only 27 per cent of candidates in held seats who are women.

This is well short of the 40 per cent required by the national rules.

It does not reflect the depth of talented women in Australian society today – women who should be encouraged and supported to take up the opportunity to represent their community.

Where does this 40% quota come from?  It comes from Labor’s contentious 40/40/20 rule, which is a direct policy platform of EMILY’s List, the progressive feminist group that has provided Australia with the cream of female politicians over the past 20 years.

Politicians of calibre such as Kate Lundy, Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong, Jenny Macklin, Lara Giddings and Julia Gillard are all products of EMILY’s List, as were failed Labor Premiers Carmen Lawrence, Anna Bligh, and Kristina Kennelley.

EMILY is an acronym for Early Money Is Like Yeast, as it makes the dough rise and apparently this is directly translatable to women in politics. Get in early and watch them rise to the top.

EMILY’s List Australia was started in 1996 by the infamous and lamentable Victorian Premier, Joan Kirner, who reportedly was apoplectic when Julia Gillard had failed to win pre-selection twice in the early 1990’s.

In order to secure Gillard her treasured spot in our illustrious Parliament, Kirner created EMILY’s List Australia and for the first nine years of EMILY’s List Australia’s operation, Joan Kirner was CEO.

Soon after the establishment of EMILY’s List, Gillard finally gained preselection in the Labor safe seat of Lalor and as they say in the movies, the rest is history.  Except it is history a great deal of people know very little about.

While Julia Gillard is EMILY’s List’s most famous product, it is extremely strange that she is not backing a woman, especially one of the Sisterhood™ for the safe seat of Batman and even more so considering Labor’s Left faction openly canvassing that they may possibly pursue a complaint with the party about the failure to meet the target.

If that complaint were to be upheld the party rules say there must be a spill of every seat’s preselection in the state, including the Prime Minister’s.

So why exactly is Gillard backing Feeney if it goes against Labor policy, flies in the face of her beloved EMILY’s List core beliefs and puts her hold on her own seat at risk?

Apparently Gillard considers Senator Feeney a strong and loyal ally who has performed well.

Particularly since he was one of the faceless factional leaders involved in overthrowing former prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2010, helping Julia Gillard rise to the prime ministership.  So it would seem that because of this Feeney has Gillard’s backing and remains firm favourite for the seat.

However, Michael Smith, the 2UE broadcaster who lost his job because of his pursuit of truth in the AWU scandal, thinks it is not just Feeney’s support of Gillard in the Night of the Long Knives that holds the key to this Machiavellian style pre-selection mystery.

Let’s see what Michael has to say in his recent post – David Feeney, Julia Gillard, Emily and her list. It’s not who you know, it’s what you know about them – because it makes for very interesting reading indeed.

Victoria Police is investigating who got what from the AWU WRA slush fund.

Very serious charges await people who knowingly enjoyed the financial and taxation benefits from that well structured slush fund, which was created using the best legal advice money can’t buy.

A reasonable person would think it quite likely too that an incoming Coalition Government will commission an enquiry knto the AWU Scandal with powers to compel people to give evidence.  That enquiry will have powers the police don’t.   It is always good to know that there are people on the same page as you if the Sheriff comes a-summonsing.

David Feeney has no affirmative action equal opportunity disadvantaged feminine LGBTI or skin shading issues to give him the nod for pre-selection for the safest of safe seats, to rebalance Martin Ferguson’s nonPC white maleness.   David’s  just a normal pudgy former union official white man who knows where the bodies files are.

The Emily’s Listers will be a bit list-off to see that their gel, the first gel PM, has annointed a mere male to take over from the previous holder who was also merely male.

After Wayne HEM put $5,000 forgettable into Ms Gillard’s bank account, and after Bruce Wilson had “just decided while I was away that I should have my home renovated so he just id it” and after Kon Spyridis had made such a racket at the office looking for money – well, along came the Knight in Shining Armour David Feeney to help to record the correct version of history.

David Feeney is named 6 times by Ms Gillard in the Record of Interview with MD Peter Gordon on 11 September, 1995.   David Feeney was a central figure in Ms Gillard’s claims that she paid for all her own renovations.

Here are the 6 Feeney “grabs” from the record of interview, then I’ll publish the whole of the section for context.   The speaker is Ms Gillard, 11 September, 1995.

• David Feeney, who is an official of the Transport Workers’ Union, had raised it with Andrew with the specific intent of Andrew raising it with me and David was happy for me to talk to him about it.

• I have spoken to David Feeney. I spoke to him on Friday afternoon.

• Obviously, it accords with what David Feeney has told me that he was sent away by the AWU and without explanation an account from Con was put in my letter box last week, so that’s the first account that I’ve had from him.

• I’m making arrangements to get the $1780 together to pay the rest of it. I have suggested to David Feeney that I think the way forward in relation to this is for me to simply meet with Bob Smith at FIME and say someone came here looking for payment of an account.

• The information from David Feeney is that Bob Smith doesn’t believe that I am at fault in relation to this. He has got no agenda about damaging me in relation to this or using it against me, that he will be quite happy to see the issue go away, and that he thinks that Bob will respond well to a direct discussion like that.

• I’ve left that matter on the basis that David Feeney will sound Bob out and, provided there isn’t any unforeseen problem, I will meet with Bob as soon as possible for the purpose of clarifying that matter. Now I believe that that must be the source of the rumour about, that must be the factual construct behind what has become the rumour about, about the association or Bruce or the union or whoever paying for work on my house and I don’t obviously given I’ve been fairly surprised by events to date in relation to this matter, I can’t categorically rule out that something at my house didn’t get paid for by the association or something at my house didn’t get paid for by the union or whatever, I just, I don’t feel confident saying I can categorically rule it out

Sorry Emily, when it comes to historic appointments, you can’t compete with David’s grip on a little piece of Australian historic gold.  

It’s not who you know, it’s what you know about them.

Well, as Michael outlines in the rest of his post and indeed nearly his whole blog, Gillard’s motives are not what they seem and are somewhat murkier than most would imagine possible for someone holding the highest office in the land.

A union slush fund, a corrupt union conman and a shonky Labor lawyer, nearly $1 million dollars fraudulently obtained with the help from a dodgy Power of Attorney, supposedly witnessed by one J.E.Gillard, past and current Slater & Gordon MD’s and a couple of dodgy Union officials in Feeney and Shorten running interference to stop things coming to light, then and now.

All of this fleshes out a story that continues to this day, despite the best efforts of Labor power brokers with too much to lose and many in the Left leaning mainstream media all trying to just make it all go away.

They said of Nixon and the Watergate scandal that brought his Presidency to it’s knees that it wasn’t the crime, but the coverup that eventually brought him unstuck.

Gillard’s cries of “I have done nothing wrong” sound eerily similar to the disgraced Nixon’s cries of “I am not a criminal“.

With the factional vultures with an axe to grind circling and the Victorian Police investigating, this story might just well be coming to an end.

From little things big things grow. Much like yeast in bread dough.

None too soon either.

So what does the manual say about the polls Joel?

From Andrew Bolt comes a startling insight from former Labor Chief Whip, Joel Fitzgibbon, into the joke that Labor has become, even to those inside Labor itself.

When asked whether he was shattered about todays Newspoll results that show Labor almost beyond salvation Mr Fitzgibbon pulls out the official Labor playbook to give the suggested response to any questions  relating to the disastrous figures.

And laughs. OMG could this bunch be any WORSE?

I think we know the answer, but lets go to the tape.

The poll that Kochie is referring to is the latest Newspoll which clearly shows that Labor’s support is falling faster than a lead balloon and is heading to Tarago country.

Labor’s lasting legacy… Debt.

Debt is the word on the tip of everyone’s tongue at the moment.

Everyone has some degree of private debt, such as mortgages, personal loans or credit cards, but do we really understand what debt is?

A debt is created when a creditor agrees to lend a sum of assets to a debtor.

Debt is usually granted with expected repayment; in modern society, in most cases, this includes repayment of the original sum, plus interest.

So, as most people would understand, debt must be paid back to creditors eventually.

We also have a maximum amount that creditors are willing to lend us.  Normally this debt ceiling is tied to our income and our propensity to pay back our debts.

So debt could be summed up as follows:

Whatever is borrowed must be paid back, with interest, and there is a limit to what we can borrow.

But what about government debt?  Surely that has to follow the same rules?

Well, that is only partially true. Governments do have to repay the debts that they rack up and they also have a debt ceiling.

The difference between people and governments is that governments can vote to increase their debt ceiling which, in a world of spiralling debt that is getting close to being out of control, is a little scary.

While most Australians would be well aware of our increasing level of national debt that Labor has saddled us with, what few would realise is that under this Labor government Australia’s debt ceiling has been raised three times in the last four years and the future is anything but rosy.

Australia’s rising debt ceiling

March 2009

• Debt ceiling raised from $75 billion to $200 billion
• Reason given – To allow for huge deficits stemming from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)

May 2001

• Debt ceiling raised from $200 billion to $250 billion
• Reason given – Actual deficits exceed initial forecasts

May 2012

• Debt ceiling raised from $250 billion to $300 billion
• Reason given – Wider structural changes included in Budget, mainly to allow Labor to project budget surplus in 2012/13

December 2014

• Debt ceiling will need to be raised again as Government Bonds on issue to fund repeated Budget blowouts finally exceed the current debt ceiling
• Reason given – “Sledgehammer blow” to expected revenues due to dampened commodity prices for resources

Originally, Labor told us that the deficits were temporary and that increases to our debt ceiling would merely provide us with a buffer against the GFC.

In fact, it was Wayne Swan who boldly declared back in 2010:

Well, we’re getting back into surplus in three years. Come hell or high water.

Renowned speaker of truth, Prime Minister Julia Gillard also reassured a nervous electorate in 2010 that her team of economic wunderkinds were all over this surplus thing:

The Budget is coming back to surplus, no ifs no buts, it will happen.

However, the reality is that Australia’s deficits and resultant debt has been anything but temporary, and the oft promised surplus of 2012/13 is now just a distant and faint memory blip in the torrent of soundbites that we are bombarded with from a constant 24/7 media cycle.

While most respected commentators realised that the promises of the magical surplus from Gillard and Swan were hollow platitudes, most of Australian’s took them at face value. How could you not after they trumpeted them far and wide to all that would listen for 3 years?

Estimates abound that between them all Labor politicians promised the surplus over 300 times since 2010.  Catallaxy Files has a great synopsis of the surplus promise timeline which makes for entertaining, yet infinitely depressing reading.

It was Julia Gillard who yet again reinforced Labor’s commitment to balancing the budget at Rooty Hill prior to the last election

Failure is not an option.

Unfortunately for us, failure is the ONLY option when it comes to the Australian Labor Party and money.

There will be no budget surplus in 2012/13 and as Wayne Swan confirmed in his budget speech there will be no surplus for the next four years, and when it does eventually arrive in 2017 it will be so wafer thin that it will have minimal impact on our economy.

By that time the Australian economy will very well have passed the tipping point of no return.

So what has Labor projected for the foreseeable future of our economy?  Deficits, more deficits and even more deficits to come.

Labor’s decade of deficits

• 2012 / 13 – $19.4 billion deficit
• 2013 / 14 – $18.0 billion deficit
• 2014 / 15 – $10.9 billion deficit
• 2015 / 16 – Budget in balance
• 2016 / 17 – Budget in surplus

This is on top of the accumulated deficits that they have already racked up since 2007 (see image at right).

Excuse me if I call “Shenanigans”

The last time a Labor Treasurer delivered a surplus was way back in 1989 so it’s hardly surprising that this year’s Labor surplus promises in 2013 are no more believable than the 300 odd promises they have given us since 2010.

By the time that these clowns manage to eventually get the budget back to surplus our national debt will have balloned to more than $400 billion dollars, all but blowing our current debt ceiling out of the water.

That is FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND MILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT.

Let’s ask the world’s greatest treasurer if we will once again have to raise our debt ceiling due to his gross ineptitude:

When asked if whoever won the election would need to raise the ceiling, Mr Swan said:

“Well, that will be a matter for them.”

Um, no Wayne me old mate.  It is not just going to be a matter for the Liberals.

It is going to be something for ALL OF US Wayne. You know us, the REST OF AUSTRALIA?

If there was ever a clear cut example of the complete lack of care about this dire situation by the Labor Party, then surely Swan’s disgraceful comment must be it.

Don’t worry about the NDIS or Gonski reforms being Gillard and Swan’s legacy.

Labor’s legacy is a mountain of debt.

Always has been.

Always will be.

Why Labor doesn’t bite the hand that feeds it…

In my recent post “The Unholy Triumvirate of Australian Politics” I developed a nice little diagram highlighting the money-go-round that is the relationship between Unions, the Labor Party, and finally Labor Governments.

Well that view has been completely affirmed by John Ferguson in The Australian just a few days ago in his article Militant union underpins ALP, which again is behind Evil Rupert’s Evil Paywall™ so I will summarise for those of you that don’t pay for the news you consume.

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) is one of Australia’s largest and most militant unions, and it turns out that this militant union is seriously underwriting the Labor party.

This really shouldnt come as that much of a surprise because the CFMEU has been publically backed by the ALP here in Victoria, but what is surprising is the level of financial support that the CFMEU and indeed the union movement in general contributes to the Labor party.

As the graphic shows, the CFMEU has contributed $9.1 Million since 2001 towards the Labor party, second only to the extremely powerful Shoppies Union.  That is some serious amount of money going in the front door of the Labor party.

Interestingly, these unusually large donations started to climb after John Howard initiated the royal commission into the building industry started in 2001.  I wonder why that was…

Now, I was a union member once upon a time due to a no ticket no work policy, which despite being against the law was quite openly applied.  Suffice to say that I didn’t last long there 🙂

What irked me was not only that I basically had no choice but to join the union, but also because I had no say whatsoever in what donations were made by my union in my name.

I know of many other people who find themselves in similar positions and almost to the man these people just sign up because they cant be bothered with the bully tactics that union members use to intimidate non-union members.

This is why legislation introduced in NSW to prohibit political contributions to only individuals is a step in the right direction.

Of course this was quite necessary in NSW due to the completely corrupt influence of unions and Labor party members on critical decisions such as the granting of million dollar coal exploration licences and looking at this research it would appear that something similar is needed here in Victoria.

However, I wonder what the response would be if Victoria followed NSW’s lead and banned political donations from organisations and instead insisted that only individual people could make donations?  I would imagine their response would not be a quiet nor meek stroll through the CBD.

Interestingly, this legislation is currently being appealed in NSW by… you guessed it, the Unions.

The only Union that is missing from the list of contributors is the AWU, but I suppose that they probably feel that they have donated enough in the past either in actual funds or in kind.

Like not pressing charges when a supposedly “young and naive” lawyer helped rip off several hundreds of thousand dollars out of their pockets.

The Unholy Triumvirate of Australian Politics

Michael Smith News tells us that ABC  News reports that unions head to High Court to fight donation laws.

The union movement in NSW is taking the State Government to the High Court, challenging electoral donation laws which were changed last year.

In NSW, only individuals can donate to political parties, causing concern in unions and the ALP about how the party will fund its election campaigns.

I have taken Michael’s catchy heading and put it into a pretty picture to illustrate the circular motion of money as it washes through the Union / Labor relationship.

Tough as old boots… and just as palatable

As I mentioned during the week, Stephen Conroy’s ill fated media regulation bill may have woken up certain sections of Australia’s media that have been asleep at the wheel for the past 3 years, or maybe even longer.

Now even territory that was once friendly, if not fawning in it’s praise of Gillard’s famed negotiation skills and her steely resolve to hang on to power at all costs, has started to actually analyse the PM’s performance and personality a little more critically than before following one of the strangest days in Australian political history.

This makes a pleasant change to the normally sycophantic scribbling that the Canberra Press Gallery has continually dished up to Australians in both the News Ltd and Fairfax press over the past few years.

The latest scribe to actually put his thinking cap on is Mark Butler, Editor-at-Large of the Sydney Morning Herald (oh, how I love that term… “Editor–at-Large“).

In Butler’s latest piece this morning, he has had a look at Gillard’s “legendary” toughness and comes to the conclusion that it is now actually a massive flaw of her somewhat questionable character.

Let’s see what Mark has to say after the ALP’s leadership debacle on Thursday

This is the worst of bullfighting: the contest in which the wounded beast thrashes on, scarred and bloodied but stubbornly defiant in the face of what the matador and everyone in the stands knows to be the inevitability of its demise.

Julia Gillard is mortally wounded. She might have lived to fight another day after Thursday’s farcical leadership showdown – and she might well have put paid to Kevin Rudd’s ambitions in the process – but her political demise is assured.

If the Labor caucus is incapable of delivering the coup de grace, then the Australian people surely will on September 14.

Ouch.

Gillard herself considers herself to be “feisty” but, as I explained last week, feisty is not something that I would like to use to describe myself, especially given it’s alternative meanings in the PM’s favourite dictionary.

So, what does Mark have to say about Gillard’s “legendary” toughness now that the Raging Bull of Altona is mortally wounded, as he so eloquently put it?

We have heard much in recent times about Gillard’s toughness.

Friend and foe acknowledge the remarkable emotional strength that has enabled her to withstand the enervating pressures of minority government and the intense and unrelenting attacks that she has endured from opponents inside and outside her party.

But it is time to recognise that toughness not as a virtue but as a terrible flaw, an obstinacy that has encouraged Gillard to defy the harsh reality that her leadership has lost authority and that she is driving the Labor Party inexorably towards disaster.

Well now, that sounds like a pretty fair assessment to me.

Gillard’s authority has long been shattered in all circles in Australia except in those of her main political constituents – Australia’s increasingly unrepresentative unions and the faceless men that run them.

Much like Gillard, Australia’s unions are staring unflinchingly down the barrel as they look to rush headlong to their own demise along with her.

More power to them, I say…

Hopefully by the end of this increasingly painful period of Australia’s history, they too may just be that…

History.

We’re Labor, the fresh start people

Once, twice, three times the lady known as Ms Gillard has steered the Labor party towards a fresh start… At what we’re not sure but it sure isn’t Stabilidy and Cerdundy like we were all promised.

Especially with five senior Ministers and a host of up and comers… who have now gone actually.

Labor, the fresh start people