The Labor government has announced its intention to ram 22 pieces of legislation through the House of Representatives this week, necessitating 10pm sittings of Parliament. The opposition, through Joe Hockey, has claimed that the rushed timetable will not allow sufficient debate of legislation enabling things such as FuelWatch and equal benefits for gaymosexual couples. The government, through Anthony Albanese, has hit back accusing the opposition of hypocrisy due to its habit under John Howard of doing the exact same thing with legislation covering areas such as industrial relations and asylum seekers.

I was highly critical of John Howard’s government when it dodged scrutiny and debate of its legislation by using its numbers to force it through Parliament as quickly as possible; it was anti-democracy and bad for Australia. But Labor using the primary school argument of “they did it first so we’re going to do it as well” makes a total mockery of Kevin Rudd’s pre-election rhetoric that his party would restore back to government the respectability that had been eroded during the Howard years.

Kevin Rudd and Labor should allow proper debate of their legislation in Parliament or else they risk lowering themselves to the democracy-hating levels that John Howard used to enjoy flirting with.

I said it the other day and I’ll say it again now: it’s extremely disappointing that the dominant political debate in this country at present (and for the foreseeable future) is about slashing a teensy four or five cents from the skyrocketing price of petrol by fiddling with taxes. This issue should’ve been addressed ten years ago because now there’s nothing we can do in the short-to-medium term about our dependence on oil or its underlying price.

But both major parties have placed themselves on this ridiculous battlefield, both are looking like dickheads, and both are proposing bad policies. Brendan Nelson and the opposition have gone into middle Australia worship and battler empathy overdrive, demonstrated excruciatingly by the good doctor in Parliament the other day. And Labor, desperate to look like they’re doing something when there’s basically nothing that can be done, has released their kneejerk FuelWatch policy.

I can’t believe I’m going to say this but FuelWatch stops the market from delivering the cheapest prices by restricting the function of competition. Putting aside collusion (which has rarely been proven and is monitored like a hawk by the ACCC) petrol retailers at present monitor their prices throughout the day and react to other outlets’ prices as necessary. FuelWatch prevents service stations from lowering (or raising, to be fair) their price after their initial price point is set the night before, therefore preventing them from reacting to a lower price on offer down the road.

I feel dirty.

Besides, the majority of analysis seems to indicate that FuelWatch, at best, delivers very little in terms of cheaper petrol and, at worst, raises prices marginally. Bad policy no matter which way you look at it.

Labor got itself into this mess by campaigning on cost of living issues and their subsequent need to “do something” once they took office. It’s a shame that the first major blow struck against Labor this term was mostly their own fault.

The leader of political party X releases a cost-of-petrol policy. A leak to the media reveals that a senior minister in that party thinks policy is bad.

The leader of political party Y releases a cost-of-petrol policy. A leak to the media reveals that a senior minister in that party thinks the policy is bad.

Two almost identical events interpreted in two very different ways by the media and assorted commentators. The coverage of party X’s leak is almost entirely in the context of leadership while coverage of party Y’s leak is about the policy itself and the control that the party seems to have over internal dissent.

Interesting, is all I’m saying.

Desperate men do desperate things. And things don’t come more desperate than Brendan Nelson’s pathetic attempt to smear the Labor Gippsland candidate yesterday by referring to his previous capacity as an arts festival organiser.

The Labor candidate in Gippsland has been promoting a show which is sexually explicit, would offend the vast majority of Australians and is inconsistent with the sort of values that we would certainly want to see represented in a candidate for the federal parliament. Mr Rudd needs to make it very clear to Australians and the people of Gippsland whether these are his standards and if this is the candidate that he really wants to represent the people of Gippsland.

But karma done got ya, Bren-doc.

It emerged yesterday, after the Opposition Leader branded Labor candidate Darren McCubbin unfit for parliament for booking the show for a local festival, that the Howard government funded the event.

And former arts minister and Liberal senator George Brandis appointed Mr McCubbin to the commonwealth peak body for festivals and praised his abilities.

This man is becoming a parody of himself.

I can’t see how the government’s budget decision to slash CSIRO funding by $63 million can be anything but:

a) Bad policy and bad for Australia;
b) A slap in the face for science in Australia; and
c) An admission that the Labor policy to “revitalise” the CSIRO was non-core.

It is widely held that Australia is suffering a science and technology “brain drain” due to pitiful funding of research in this country, yet the Rudd government talks endlessly about things like strengthening industry, protecting agriculture from the effects of drought, and battling climate change through smarter energy generation. Unless we want to import the knowledge and technology required to meet these sort of challenges we must ensure that the CSIRO is generously resourced. And while corporate dollars should make up a portion of total funding the bulk of the money must inevitably come from the taxpayer purse unless government introduces serious incentives for corporations to invest serious money (while ensuring that commercial interests do not impact on the integrity of the research, of course.)

The CSIRO receives total funding of far less than a billion clams per year — pocket change for the kind of work they do — and the Rudd Labor government just tightened the belt even more despite promises to do otherwise. Very disappointing, Kevin.

Last week the Labor government delivered its first budget in thirteen years to mixed reviews, to which opposition leader Brendan Nelson responded in a not-totally-pathetic fashion when put in the context of his dismal leadership record. Today the coalition was handed a rare golden opportunity to stick one up Labor…

The exclusive Herald Sun/Galaxy poll taken at the weekend shows just 23 per cent of voters overall believe they will be better off as a result of the Budget.

A total of 33 per cent said they would be worse off, while a large pool of 44 per cent were uncommitted.

…and what do they do with it?

MALCOLM Turnbull has publicly confirmed a split within Liberal ranks over fuel excise but denied he is the source of a devastating leak that threatens to reignite the Liberal leadership question.

Them crazy Liberal attention seekers noticed that the negative spotlight looked set to shine elsewhere so they imploded just a little bit more to ensure that they stayed smack-bang in the centre of punters’ attention.

And what’s with Turnbull so actively undermining Nelson’s leadership in the public sphere? As if you’d put your concerns about a major party policy in an email to the leader’s chief of staff only minutes before that policy’s announcement unless you planned to use that email to boost yourself at a later date.

Sez Turnbull: “Naturally I support the policy measures announced in Dr Nelson’s Budget Reply.”

Bwah! Hah, ha, ha, haw!

Just compare the confident stance of Treasurer Wayne Swan (in blue) with the inward-toe defensiveness of PM Kevin Rudd and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner (in red). Rudd looks like he’s got a pole up his arse and Tanner looks like he’s part of a soccer wall.

Class of ‘07

According to Treasurer Peter Costello’s definition of a union official as somebody who is a mere union member, our GrodsPoll reveals that 73% of GrodsCorp readers are union officials.

This poll result indicates that GrodsCorp is more dominated by the union movement than the ALP and, therefore, less trustworth with the keys to the Australian economy than Labor. Remember this well when you’re marking your ballot paper on November 24.

Just now on ABC’s Insiders, Treasurer Peter Costello claimed that being a union member is equivalent to being a union official. Pressed by host Barrie Cassidy to explain how Shadow Treasurer Wayne Swan was a union official as claimed by Liberal Party advertising, the best Costello could do was point towards his AWU membership.

In the interest of full disclosure I must declare that I am a union official due to my membership of the AEU. The Liberal Party says that 70% of the Labor front bench are union officials, so lets try and work out what percentage of GrodsReaders are union officials. Drop a quick ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in comments to indicate your union membership status.

UPDATE: Screw the comments thing; let’s GrodsPoll it.

My students’ homework this week involved finding a political news article that contained opposing opinions from two or more political parties. On Friday one of the kids came up to me and said, “Ed, I’ve found heaps of political stories that have the opinions of the ALP and the Liberals but their opinions are always the same.”

Rudd should be ashamed if even an eleven year old can see it.

For the past few months some lefty Australian bloggers have been running this graphic on their sites, summing up the hopes of all anti-Liberal voters:

Kevin Rudd’s “me-too” politics have been causing us to roll our eyes for some time but you know it’s reached serious levels when you wake up to this headline splashed across the front of The Age: ‘ME-TOO POLICY MESS’. All because a shadow minister had the audacity to — wait for it — restate official ALP policy. Rudd, getting a sniff of differential between his Party and the government, jumped into damage control mode, slapping down the offending shadow minister, and hitting the airwaves to reassure voters that ‘Labor’ was still spelled L-I-B-E-R-A-L.

Facing criticism from survivors and families of Bali bombing victims, Mr Rudd tried to control the damage by portraying his stance — as on a host of other contentious issues — as being in line with that of the Howard Government.

“On the wider question of the death penalty, the Liberal Party’s policy, like Labor’s policy, is identical, and that is our global opposition to the death penalty.”

As a clearly unimpressed Michelle Gratten said, “The Labor leader’s plan was politically savvy, but leaves a sour moral taste.”

This is exactly the kind of shit that the ALP’s style-over-substance preselection of celebrity candidates produces:

ALP federal candidate Nicole Cornes has stumbled on radio while trying to explain her party’s industrial relations policy.

[...]

Asked by ABC 891 morning announcer Matthew Abraham about Labor’s alternative to the Federal Government’s WorkChoices, Ms Cornes stumbled and went silent…

“AWAs allow for over $100,000…,” she said before inexplicably going silent.

Abraham was forced to ask “what do you mean, sorry?”

Ms Cornes tried to recover.

“AWAs take away penalty rates, WorkChoices…”

Abraham again had to ask “what do you mean by they allow for over $100,000?”

Ms Cornes said: “They don’t allow for people to negotiate over $100,000.”

But, finally, Abraham had to rescue her.

“Federal Labor believes workers earning under $100,000 per year should be protected in the workplace by a strong safety net,” Abraham said.

Ms Cornes agreed: “They should be.”

(source)

There goes a couple of hundred more swinging voters who were considering voting Labor — and who can blame them?

There has been the usual chorus of righty indignation about another ABC on-air staff member (in this case ABC TV’s Melbourne sports reporter, Angela Pippos) being approached by the ALP to run for state or federal Parliament. And as usual it proves nothing more than the ALP is heading further and further into the world of celebrity politics at the expense of politics about, um, you know, policy.

Pippos has reportedly turned down the offer to run for Williamstown, but in line with ABC policy was forced to take leave as soon as she received the ALP’s offer. This is sensible since the ABC can’t dare show any hint of bias or else Andrew Bolt, Timmeh Blair, Piers Ackerman and Gerard Henderson would gorge themselves on righteousness. But it begs the question: how can a sports reporter show left-wing bias? If anything, the ABC shows a right-wing bias in its sports reporting if this morning’s Radio National piece is anything to go by. Entertaining sports presenter Warwick Hadfield called the AFL corporation the Soviet Communist Football association (or something similar) in a derogatory manner.

Ack! Right-wing bias at the ABC!

Listening to the frantically desperate John Howard flailing about in the media at the moment you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Labor states are responsible for everything bad that happens in this country, while the federal Liberal government (despite continually having to mop up states’ mess) is responsible for everything good that happens. Apparently the states cause higher interest rates and lower housing affordability, not to mention educational failures and negligent healthcare.

But here’s a little-known list of other evil deeds for which the ALP state governments are totally responsible.

* Delta Goodrem and Kylie Minogue’s cancers (QLD and VIC respectively)
* Crowded House’s first breakup (NSW)
* Channel Nine’s refusal to screen The Secret (SA)
* Big Brother (QLD — Peter Beattie specifically)
* John Howard’s dismal YouTube reviews (WA)
* Family First party (VIC)
* Emo (TAS)
* Scientology (NT)
* Iain Hall (QLD — again)

Unfortunately this list is incomplete. Please list other state government evils in comments.

Industrial relations. Uranium policy. Climate Change. Education.

Who cares?

The really big question to be answered at the ALP National Conference is this: What tune will play when Kruddy takes the stage?

John Williamson’s Hey True Blue? John Farnham’s You’re The Voice? Something by Anthony Callea?

Let us know your hot tip for Kevin Rudd’s theme song or, if you’re reading this after the start of the conference, let us know what you think it should’ve been instead. You may also want to chuck in a suggestion for The Man Of Steel at the Liberal conference because we all know he reads this blog.

Hi, John!