Two and a half more years of Anna

The breathtakingly cynical manipulation of the electorate has paid off and Anna has been elected Premier of Queensland overnight. After 11 years of inaction, little planning and excessive spending during the boom years leaving little to show for it Queenslanders have asked for more.

Predictably they were given the trite 'we have heard the message of the electorate' boiler plate from the Premier:

"There is a very strong message here for us and that is that many people who have voted Labor for the last couple of elections didn't ... and they didn't because they are disappointed with our performance in a number of key areas"

Bligh will now get on with the job of giving the people of Queensland lots more of the same inaction combined with spending and taxing.

Rudd saw it as an opportunity to push the class warfare line he has been angling for since January:

"Full marks to her - she was up against a cyclone, an oil slick, a conservative billionaire throwing millions at the Liberals and Nationals' campaign but she came through."

Governance really is terrific right now. The evidence of a systemic failure of governance in Queensland is astounding. Just ask this nurse who was attacked doing her job. Dr Patel's patients (the ones still with us) or anyone who wants to water their garden.

the PM's lack of authenticity

Janet Albrechtsen gets closer to the core of the fundamental hypocrisy of Rudd and Labor in a cracking piece last week.

She correctly points out that Labor had no response to the excellent article that Turnbull wrote in response to Rudd diatribe in the Montly.

She notes 'they were forced to resort to using Rein because they had no other comeback to Turnbull’s criticism of Rudd.'

But this is where it's really at:

The man who sold himself as a safe pair of economic hands prior to the 2007 election has now unmasked himself as just another old-fashioned class warrior - when it suits. The Prime Minister’s performance on Channel Seven’s Sunday Night program was the ultimate exercise in spin where he felt the pain of “you good people”—the Pacific Brands workers—and unloaded yet again on the “unrestrained greed” of corporate executives. He even uttered a swear word for effect. Presumably, he thinks this is how you enamour yourself to workers. But it’s all an illusion.

Rudd has more personas than Sybil, the girl with 13 different personalities portrayed by Sally Field in a 1976 film. At business functions, Rudd is the epitome of rationality about the role of business. Among workers, he says the relocation by Pacific Brands “absolutely stinks”. Rudd worked as a senior China consultant with KPMG from 1996 until 1998. Does he honestly expect us to believe that he would have told his KPMG clients not to run more cost effective manufacturing operations in China? Does he now tell the Chinese Government that he doesn’t want Australian firms to run manufacturing operations in China?

Rudd and his comrades in government are the very worst form of class warriors. They feel the pain of the underclass when it suits and then enjoy the fruits of the overclass. As Strewth reported on Monday, there was a fear of awkwardness when Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Industry Minister Kim Carr boarded a plane last week with Pacific Brand’s CEO, Sue Morphet.

Alas, the only awkwardness emerged when the workers’ pals in the Labor Government slid into their business-class seats for the arduous flight from Melbourne to Sydney while Morphet travelled in economy. Indeed, pass through that deliberately nondescript frosted glass door to Qantas’ exclusive Chairman’s Lounge any day of the week, where Labor MP’s waft around enjoying free food and drink far from the workers outside. It’s not free of course. Rudd’s friends, the workers, are paying for it.

Spare us, Prime Minister. The real lesson is this. If you are going to write the kind of dishonest and hypocritical claptrap as you did in The Monthly, you can expect to have people pointing out the intellectual and moral weaknesses in your arguments. And you have to understand this battle of ideas can get a bit willing. If you’re going to dish it out, you need to stand your ground when someone belts you back in an obvious weak spot. Glass jaws have no place in politics. And with due respect, PM, if you are going to start a fight like this, don’t hide behind your wife’s skirt when battle is joined.

Waking up to St Kevin and the rancid stench.

In the Sydney Morning Herald today Paul Sheean really drives home the folly of Rudd's all things to everyone stand for nothing but winning elections philosophy. He gives a preview to the 2010 election:

• Fiscal folly and gross economic mismanagement: 'Rudd is on course to become the next Gough Whitlam, but Whitlam without the wit.'
• A handy quote that will be played over and over during the campaign alongside some awful unemployment statistics: '"Any person's job loss through no fault of their own is a lost job too many when it comes to me. I'm the Prime Minister of the country, the buck stops with me." Not unlike the ALP's 'working familes have never been better off' quote from Howard.
  
• The Rancid Stench of Hypocrisy: In opposition, Rudd opposed the GST, which in retrospect has been a tremendous stabilising influence in the economy, thanks to John Howard. During the last election, Rudd campaigned as an "economic conservative". Upon winning office, and inheriting a $90 billion financial buffer from outgoing treasurer Peter Costello, he accused the previous government of creating a dangerous inflation threat. It was a fabrication.

Hear hear.

Gillard's homophobia

Labor has every right to take the gay community for granted - the opinion leaders are uncritically fawning.

Yesterday when Mr Pyne rose to interrupt Ms Gillard with a point of order during Question Time, the Education Minister laid into him. This is Gillard in Question Time on 23 February:

"I must admit that I did want to see the member for Warringah (Tony Abbott) making a comeback,'' she said.

"In a choice between macho and mincing, I would have gone for macho myself.''


Ms Gillard continued: "And obviously the Leader of the Opposition (Malcolm Turnbull), faced with the choice of a doberman or poodle, has gone for the poodle.

"Presumably he prefers Abba to Cold Chisel, because that is the kind of thing we see on display.''

The clear intimation from Gillard is that Pyne is gay and what better way to make that point by subtly reinforcing some negative gay stereotypes.

Gay men don't walk, they mince.

You can't be gay and macho.

Gay men, they love poodles because in the animal kingdom, they have the same status as gay men - they are weak, they get all dressed up and they don't really deserve to be taken seriously.

And if you like ABBA, you are most probably a mincing homosexual.

If you are Julia Gillard, and you are caught out - brush it off and claim it was spur of the moment stuff. And by the way, homophobia is 'humorous':

"In question time you've got to have your moments of humour and I think that that was a moment of humour,'' Ms Gillard said today.

Disgraceful.

Pork barrelling

“Fortunately for Australia, there is a mood for change in the community – a community tired of the old politics of vote buying and pork-barrelling,”
Treasurer Wayne Swan, March 2008

That's a relief. Didn't last long though. Today - Friday the 13 - the Senate passed the biggest pork barrelling package in Australian history. Nation building 2009 style is now comprised of insulating private homes, giving people some random cash (where did $950 come from?) and building netball courts in schools (long neglected by state Labor governments).

Turnbull put it best: 'You know what someone said to me just a little while ago, very wise point. He said, imagine if 60 years ago Ben Chifley and Bob Menzies had sent everyone a cheque for 50 pounds instead of building the Snowy Mountain scheme'.

No need to imagine. The reality is unfolding before us.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Kevin. Cracker.

Janet Albrechtsen nails it in this cracking piece in the Australian today.

She perfectly captures the essence of Rudd's appeal to the disengaged - how he stands for nothing and runs on populist, safe issues regardless of the long term good.

Breathtaking Hubris

Say what you like about Tony Abbott, he is what he says he is and he knows how to write.

Abbot really nails the folly, hypocrisy and inconsistency in Rudd's essay on 'the great neo-liberal experiment' in the Australian this weekend.

I am yet to see anyone so succinctly and forcefully put the argument. In the process he goes to the heart of what divides Labor and Liberal in Government.