After a horror start to the week for the Liberal Party of Oz (see earlier post) the later half did indeed improve with some valuable comment from some Liberals.
Unfortunately for the Party it came from elder members who no longer have much input but nevertheless it was nice to see something a bit more thoughtful for a change.
First cab off the rank was Malcolm Fraser (pictured at left) who made an insightful reply to Fran Kelly on RN Breakfast. When asked what he thought Kevin Rudd should do (principally about boat people) he said "Kevin Rudd should get out of the way and let his Ministers manage their portfolios."
A very good observation although I appreciate he is viewing it from a different angle. The problem with Oceanic Viking got blown way out of proportion and Kevin 07 did not need to be in center stage as it exploded. He should have left it for his Ministers to solve and only get involved if it really went pear shaped.
The problem arose from some misreading of a poll and Labor is not the only interest group to get it wrong. Even Michelle Grattan got carried away and started reading more into the data. For those who missed it a poll was undertaken just after the rescued Sri Lankans refused to leave the Oceanic Viking at an Indonesian port. Now some Voters were excited and the Press certainly got their knickers in a twist but the Public in general were just watching things unfold. A few different Labor folk started jumping in front of cameras too and that also caught the publics attention.
The results of the poll were Labor down 15 points but Kevin himself only 2 points. For some reason the pundits and even Kevin himself, decided the love affair with Kevin was over. I thought the data was clear. The Voters were happy enough with Kevin but unhappy with all the other members of the Party and trade unionists loudly asking for the asylum seekers to come straight through.
More detailed polling has since shown that the Voters are pretty evenly split over how to treat asylum seekers. Some want to push them away while others want an "Open Door" policy.
The upshot was Kevin hitting the airwaves a la John Howard and popping up all over the place. Personally, I think this is a bad tactic. Eventually you will say something that offends just about everyone or people just get sick of seeing you around. I simply wouldn't go there.
If Rudd hadn't jumped in he could still be relaxing back at the Lodge instead of having to keep going over the same ground.
The second Elder Liberal to make an intelligent comment was a real shock. None other than Sadam Hussien's bag man Alexander Downer. His observation was uncharacteristically accompanied by an admission of having made the same mistake himself. The comment was about carrying on negotions with a megaphone ie. through the Press. He equated it to their (The Libs) dealing with the Tampa the same way. When you use the Press to publicise your agreements you paint the Indonesians into a corner and you will struggle to get the desired result.
Normally Kevin 07 understands this as shown by the Hu Stern case, but somehow this one slipped through. Being the clever clogs that he is, I'd be surprised if he doesn't learn from this error of judgement and he probably recognises disunity was part of the problem after the more detailed polling.
Rudd has had a challenging week, not a disastrous one, and if he reflects on the lessons and fine tunes himself and his party, life for Turnbull is going to be a hard row for quite some time yet.
I got caught up with my first full day at work yesterday so like the butcher who sat on the mincer I'm all behind in my work.
Enjoy.
A young man named John received a parrot named 'Chief' as a gift.
The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary.
Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.
John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to 'clean up' the bird's vocabulary.
Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot.
The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder.
John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer.
For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed.
Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.
Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer.
The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said, "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions.
I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."
John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, 'May I ask what the turkey did?'
It's been a shocking week and it's only Wednesday.
Monday night got things off to an exciting start with the 4 Corners program giving the Climate Change skeptics a full run. After all Malcolm's efforts to try and hide these characters the ABC has given them the opportunity to increase the size of the hole in the hull and they went for it boots and all.
Then something snapped in Joe Hockey who is supposed to be a future leader of the Libs. For some strange reason he has decided to play the God card, presumably because he thinks it will better his chances in Leadership ballots. Logic fail. Kevin 07 beat Howard in spite of his religious beliefs not because of them.
Aussies are always supicious of "God Bothering" from pollies. Yes, you can declare your hand if the matter is raised by others but to start the topic yourself is a very dangerous tactic. When you have another political challenger in your Party representing Cardinal Pell pushing a different God then things can get ugly mighty fast.
To add insult to injury, young Joe has also come out with the extraordinary claim that he doesn't lie. Perhaps he has already forgotten his part in promoting Work Choices but the victims of it haven't. It shouldn't be too long now before the Interviewers start reading back on his unhappy time as the Minister and start quizzing his pronouncements. Perhaps he should have added the caveat "from now on" but even that would be a struggle. His announcement that "People smuggling is in decline" though not an outright lie is certainly a dishonest presentation of the facts.
All this on top of Howard sticking his head up to remind the Voters of children being imprisoned with their asylum seeking parents.
The week can only improve from here.
We have always entertained the notion of having chickens running around the yard and finally we have the ability. The plans have been modified though. Anyone with a garden using wood chips as a water saving method will know where I’m coming from here.
Chooks live to scratch and have no concept of how a garden should look.
But behind a chook wire fence, they have made a brilliant addition to the yard. Got leftover veggies or indeed the scraps left over from their preparation? Into the chook pen. Pulled out a few weeds and want to turn them into compost? In they go too.
After having the chooks for just on a year, the sandy soil in their yard is looking a lot more healthy. Between the chook poo and the weeds, the soil has really built up. We even have worms in there although it’s risky for them to reveal themselves. Nothing gets the excitement levels soaring like turning over a few shovel loads of dirt and a worm or two turning up.
Egg production is a real eye opener too. The eggs are big. And the yokes so yellow. Nothing like their pale cousins in the supermarket. The laying process is a sociable event too. We have 4 chooks and they take it in turns to produce an egg. After one has laid an egg it comes out of the coup and loudly declares success. Then another will walk up the ramp and lay her egg right beside the first one. Out she comes and the process continues.
The actual chicken coup sits right in the back corner of the yard under a huge gum tree. It’s shaded from about 10 am so the chooks have cool conditions throughout the day. Never the less the curent heat wave has dropped production from 4 eggs to 1 per day. I don’t blame them at all. We have had such a mild opening to the warmer weather that the 100 degree F days have been a bit of a shock to the system.
So that’s how chooks have entered our lives. Even more fun than I thought they would be and great little recyclers to boot. A welcome addition to the homestead.
So, I've been using my Typepad account instead of VOX, and whenever I come back over this way I have shit loads of spam comments to delete. Surely, VOX, if you delete a spam account, it should automatically delete all of the spam comments they've left as well?
Have a crack at it. 24 out of 30 is regarded as a pass and plenty of Americans don't reach that level. It goes without saying that Aussies would struggle with an Aussie flavoured version of the same thing.
For the record I scored a paltry 16. I think a few family members who have travelled there regularly would breeze through it.
Independence Day Quiz.
By the way I selected Alberta Canada as my home state because the quiz doesn't know about the rest of the world. Sorry to those Canadians who's stats I have weakened.
How's this for an elegant put down of the current plan by the Victorian government to base our future on "Clean Coal" technology.
It has been submitted to a few papers, by Noel, to see if it gets a run.
I'll also be writing a piece myself over the cheapest option for our aging coal plants in the next day or two.
Nice work Noel. Blogging should be your next career advancement. No Editors to get past!!
_Business Opportunity_!
Following the successful promotion of the "Clean Coal" technology study to the Victorian Government, "Oxymorons Inc" is now seeking interested parties to join with us in Phase 2 of the project.
This vertically integrated Phase 2 will be titled "Dry Water".
Our basic business model is to capture and dehydrate the huge water surpluses in the nation's northern river systems, using (of course) solar energy.
We will then refine and package the product in cardboard boxes which can readily be transported by air, rail or road (at minor cost) to Victoria’s brown coal plants It is then just a simple matter of adding tap water to reconstitute and apply the resource.
As a further revenue stream, surplus ‘Dry Water” packages could be sold to the State’s . drought-affected areas.
Applicants with some technical capacities could be useful, but essential skills required will include the abilities to write successful Government grant applications, and to lobby vigorously the progress of same.
N.L.Matthews
One
day, while going to the store, I passed by a nursing home. On the front lawn
were six old ladies lying naked on the grass.
I thought this was a bit unusual, but continued on my way to the store.
On my return trip, I passed the same nursing home with the same six old ladies lying naked on the lawn. This time my curiosity got the best of me, & I went inside to talk to the Nursing Home Administrator.
'Do
you know there are six ladies lying naked on your front lawn?'
'Yes,'
she said. 'They're retired prostitutes, - they're having a garage sale.'
The current unhappiness with uninvited guests refusing to leave an Australian vessel in an Indonesian port has stirred up the old race hate fans like Wilson Tuckey and Barnaby Joyce with a view to scoring some cheap political points.
Notionally it is better news for the Opposition and has given them a breather from the damaging infighting but it’s not all beer and skittles for them just yet. The problem stems from firstly not having a policy to follow and secondly a lack of logical thinking on the part of their Leader.
In the first instance. chaps like Iron bar Tuckey have no set rules to follow (assuming he actually would) and he gets a bit excited. In Iron bar’s case it led to the bizarre demand that Aussie soldiers should throw the asylum seekers off the vessel.
Now either Tuckey doesn’t have much of a grip of geography or he is running a bit shy of how diplomacy works but sending troops into another country to throw their weight around is not likely to go down especially well with very many people and in all likelyhood is illegal in the International court. (Policy fail)
Secondly, if you do want to score political points as Turnbull
wishes to do, it’s a good idea to try making the statement out loud in
front of your advisers but in private. This way you can check your
statement for logic without it going on record. Clearly young Malcolm
didn’t think it through this time when he claimed the current boat load
of asylum seekers having originated from Indonesia “completely
destroyed Kevin Rudd’s argument about political pressure in Sri Lanka.” That's right up there with the struggling logic displayed by his Deputy Julie Bishop.
News reports from Sri Lanka make it perfectly clear there is a very unsympathetic Government dealing with the surviving Tamil Tigers and for that matter ordinary Sri Lankans who disagree with them. Conciliation is not on the agenda. One boat load can hardly be claimed to be representative of the whole problem.
This really points to Turnbull’s ongoing problem in front of the media. He seems to get over excited and forget to leave himself some wriggle room. Yes, he could make some mileage out of the current problem but he has to be a bit more thoughtful. Blowing his credibility at the opening of an attack gets the focus on him instead of the point he wants to make. It’s not the first time he has made a dill of himself and I think it stems from his attitude that he is always right. Some Press Conferences seem to show him thinking on his feet rather than being prepared.
Can he fix it? Well yes, but does he know he has a problem? I think
his attitude suggests he thinks he is without blame in the current
despair gripping the party room and unless he takes a “good hard look
at himself” he will probably leave the job feeling he was never given a
fair go.
He has been given fairly good support but when he drops the easy ball like this you can’t blame the Libs looking for a better player.
Firstly he lost his two best recruitment officers in Bush and Cheney, then the US Treasury suggested he has cash flow problems. Now the top little earner of the opium harvest is struggling to hold it's price levels.
In the early years of this century (2001) the Taliban felt drugs were evil and almost eradicated the harvest reducing the cultivation by an impressive 91% under their regime. They must have then hired an Economic Rationalist because they have since had a rethink and these days take a cut of the harvest calculated at around 10 %. On current figures this is supposed to come in at around $200M to $400M per year. That's one heck of a lot of explosive in anyone's book.
In 2008 NATO and the Afghan government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to destroy an estimated 3% of the opium harvest. An expensive operation which basically had no effect because the oversupply has driven the price way down. The World consumes about 5,000 tonnes a year but Afghanistan alone grows far more than this level. The upshot of the oversupply was a 33% drop in the price last year.
The Taliban have become rather attached to the previous price levels so now NATO forces are uncovering stockpiles of the crop when raiding Taliban hangouts. Like the drug users themselves, they are addicted to their biggest revenue raiser.
Hopefully the forces of light will reconsider the previous program of eradication (which cost many lives as well as dollars) and try something a bit more innovative like promoting legal crops.
This wins on so many different levels.
- The Afghan government doesn't have to irritate the farmers by destroying their income.
- The Taliban have an even bigger problem of oversupply to deal with.
- The cost in lives and dollars to the Afghan government is significantly reduced.
- NATO forces are less obvious in the negative sense in their interaction with the locals.
- The opium affect on GDP which currently stands at 3% can be replaced by other crops.
Good job too. It's high time they were put on the back foot. Let's hope this opportunity to destabilise the Taliban is embraced.
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