What rough beast slinks towards the Prime Ministership ?
from Brisbane Times Friday 19th July…
“Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has played down a new opinion poll showing that the Coalition could win an election in a landslide if Malcolm Turnbull was leading the Liberal Party.
A ReachTel poll for the Seven Network released on Friday shows the Coalition leading Labor 58 to 42 per cent, on a two-party preferred basis, with Mr Turnbull at the helm.
With Mr Abbott in charge, the Coalition lead narrows to 51 to 49 per cent.
The poll also shows Mr Turnbull leading Kevin Rudd as preferred prime minister 65 to 35 per cent against the Labor leader’s 52 to 48 per cent advantage over Mr Abbott.
Conducted on Thursday night, the poll of 2922 residents nation-wide had a margin of error of 1.8 per cent.”
Friends of the Pig’s Arms – I never thought I’d ever say this, but …..
Malcolm Turnbull is far, far in front of Rudd and that unspeakable Lycra clad buffoon in terms of some of the character traits a person (I believe) should have to lead a nation.
Here’s the proof: recorded at his recent appearance at the Pig’s Arms Poets at the Pigs…
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
HELVITYNI: Surely this change re refugees/boat people/escapees is designed to stop people before they decide to go to PNG?
I would have thought Oz should stick to our sphere Asia/Pacific. I welcome the thought of Asian boat people/whatever. But the thing I have against people from the Middle East is their bloody religion. As an Atheist I suppose I shouldn’t care if they’re Muslims or not. But they are five hundred years behind the rest of us.
Rant over
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Venise, not all muslims are talibanis. Malala Yousafzai, the fifteen year old who spoke so eloquently at the UN about education for women and who was shot in the face, is still a muslim.
I am not only an atheist but a fervent antitheist. I’d be establishing reverse madrasas if I had my way; but I, like everyone else, will have to accept that this is not an option and that I must do the best I can, living with theists as co-denizens of this planet.
However, talking about talibanis, Do you have any recollection at all about the Bush-Cheney conclave of christian talibanis? They not only murdered their own, they murdered over a million other people as well!
My view is that the muslim refugees are escaping exactly those worse excesses of the fundamentalist of Islam. Hopefully, when they get here and see that people can have the protection of law and not fear their moronic mulahs, they may work towards bettering the places they left behind.
But the price of Democracy requires constant vigilance, including against our own political, economic and brainless mulahs! Often they are no different to those in the barren mountains of Afganistan.
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I have travelled to Syria, Jordan, Iran, Egypt and Oman and met some enchanting people. Of course not all Muslims are Taliban. But thousands of Muslims are Wahabbi, Ibadi, radical Sunni, and/or radical Shiite and many others. Most of these people believe that only the Quran, the Sunnah-the words of Mohammed, and the Hadith-Mohammed’s running comments on seventh century MEast. are the only acceptable sources of Muslim knowledge. In other words these people are five hundred years behind the rest of us…you know, the Renaissance and all that jazz?
No matter how wretched our politicians, not even Tony Rabbott is still stuck in the fifteen to sixteenth centuries, seventeenth century perhaps, but not the fifteenth century.
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I so wish that our two major parties would sometimes be able to make sensible bipartisan agreements about the difficult issues like the asylum seekers.
No such luck; instead the asylum seekers become an ugly political football game about who can kick them furthest away from Oz.
Our political system is very adversarial and therefore the progress we make is very slow, one step forward and two backwards. We lag behind the many more progressive Western countries
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Don’t forget that, IMHO, Oz is unbearably thin-skinned about what other countries may be thinking of us. (I must stress that I’m not talking about international agreements.) If England, Ireland and Germany, France, whatever, think we are bastards then that’s their problem. I mean, so what?
Looking at many of the so-called ‘progressive Western countries’ which country would you hold up as being progressive; America with its pro-gun, pro-religious ranters, the wretched state of its education? Nearly forty percent of Americans believe god made the world 6,000 years ago. Its mindless ability to go to war??? etc etc and the fact it’s a third world nation. England where a huge percent of its population live in squalor, its youth are unemployed and where they believe in an inherited head of state? France and Germany both edging towards neo-fascism? Spain, Italy, Greece who are all on the verge of being bankrupt? Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a flying fuck what they think about us.
Cheers
Vense
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Interesting audio of Malcolm Turnbull, but, either he’s not a good reader or he doesn’t really understand the text of Will S, heart, fire, etc all in the wrong places.
Agree it’s a joke that the the Libs don’t remove the Rabbott. He’s the sort of Australian I’d cringe before admitting I came from the same country. At the moment it all comes down to who one hates the most, the Rabbott or Kevin Rudd. I despise Kevin Rudd. Whereas I loathe, revile, detest, vomit
forth and bear an implacable hatred towards Tony Abbott.
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A brilliant article by J Burnside in The Age here:
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/youve-been-misled-on-boat-people-here-are-the-facts-20130718-2q5rv.html
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Yes, a good article and the facts which people continually ignore – this information has been out and in the Drum often enough. I always remind bloggers, when I get the chance, that we have 180,000 (or thereabout) people coming here every year (they are all coming here for a better life of course) and why worry about 2000 (well it has gone up a lot lately) souls coming here seeking asylum. I say cut the normal migration and take more of these basically homeless people in. Albury has a large ethnic spread beginning with christian Lebanese and Chinese from way way way back. Lots of central Europeans, and more recently from the Philippines, India, Fiji etc. We don’t have an Iranian restaurant so there is a job there. People here love to eat out, love food.
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Well Therese, I read that in the SMH today as well, but dismissed part of it as it was for the Seven Network. But the point they make is valid.
I was speaking with someone at work whose fairly close to Albo and a party member, that if the tories dumped Adolf and changed to Malcolm then the polls would swing back to the tories. With Adlof at the helm they are looking more likely to lose the unlosable election. Stunned silence as he tried to gather his thoughts. I also mentioned that I’d been speaking with Mrs A when Rudd was on the TV. I said he looked and sounded like a wanker, but said he was a more acceptable wanker than Adolf. It could well be Labors greatest fear.
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And that fear is well founded, algie, after Rudd’s passionate exhibition of his compassion-free disposition towards the most vulnerable of the world.
There seems to be a competition between the leaders of the two major party, a competition to determine who’s the most repugnant, most abominable bastard that roams the corridors of our Democracy and our hastings.
And Malcolm? From the link that Therese has given us, we see where the bastard should be plonked: On the stage of bad theatre. He’s just another dissembler, another charming clown in the lines and verses of a bad comedy. And this, of course is what our political discourse has turned into.
Politics should be of a higher order than that. Loftier thinking, loftier deeds.
Zeus only knows where these may be found these days of ravenous capitalism!
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Yes, that would be right Algy. I really have to bite my tongue. I try not to think too much about politics now because it is too darn depressing. We must not have a Lib win or an Abbott PM. I am hoping Rudd’s ghastly leadership voting ‘reform’ gets the arse. Too awful. Rudd is just as bad a loser as the Libs – that’s saying something I never thought I’d think let alone type.
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Viv, your sentence says it all for me too; I was upset that Julia had to go, then I joined to support Kevin, because I don’t want Abbott. I prefer Mal to Abbott, but then I still don’t want Liberals, there’s just no talent there….bloody depressing, I have to find myself a new hobby….I worry about the boat people, what’s there for them in PNG….
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…your THIRD sentence
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Yes, Helvi – difficult to put into words. Apart from Kevin’s appalling behaviour, Julia’s downfall was mainly horrible media, anti-female PM, no respect because she is a woman, the fact that Julia fought too ‘nicely’. Media presentation of her public perception was not correct. Wherever Julia went she was greeted very warmly but all they could do was repeatedly show the instance where some idiot school kid tossed a sandwich her way. Julia was up against enemies from within and without. The blokes are back in charge and the media are behaving differently – I see it on the ABC news shows. And with the loss of Julia we have also lost some good men.
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