Australia General Discussion

[Platypus]

Simon Crean please.

I supported Gillard taking over from before it was a real possibility, and I'm glad she did. I've supported her fully, until about yesterday. But the last week has shifted my view, to the point where now the number one concern has to be stopping an Abbott win, and particularly an Abbott win with huge numbers. I don't know who can do that, but I now think it can't be Gillard, and that's a shame.

[Platypus]

I think Crean is a neutral figure. He would be the most effective at putting the attention firmly on Tony Abbott, which is the only way the government can win. There's nobody on the labor side who wouldn't be seen as a desperation move, so if you're going to do it, choose someone who can't be criticised for lack of experience or knowledge. With Crean, the message could work that he was a safe pair of hands for Australia, was a skilled politician, but was more importantly a skilled and highly knowledgeable governor. Contrast a perhaps dull but unquestionably capable Crean with Abbott, and Labor can win.

[Platypus]

Chaotic as opposition leader how? He was certainly dull, but he also started the process of reforming the ALP, something that needed to happen and couldn't have under someone like Latham or Rudd.

I'm partly supporting him because he went to both my primary school and high school, to be honest, but he also has a very strong history ofdoing what is best for the party, including most relevantly stepping down from the leadership at a point that his colleagues wouldn't have forced him to.

I suppose that you will have butted heads with him and his staff in your job, so fair enough... but is he as bad as most ministers? And would he be worse than Abbott?

[Platypus]

Crean really is the focal point here, but he won't jump to Rudd. He hates Rudd more than most, and would only do it if he thought it was the only way for Labor to win, not for him to become DPM. That said, he wouldn't say no to being the new Treasurer, I suspect.

[Platypus]

Crean really is the focal point here, but he won't jump to Rudd. He hates Rudd more than most, and would only do it if he thought it was the only way for Labor to win, not for him to become DPM. That said, he wouldn't say no to being the new Treasurer, I suspect.

[Platypus]

So Gillard is gone, for sure, but is Rudd really going to be the replacement?

[Platypus]

He hasn't nominated, but he will.

[Platypus]

Crean is fundamentally a party man. I think he's taken the fall to give Gillard a unanimous win.

(Dreamland?)

[Platypus]

I think I already broke it an hour ago, but yeah, Rudd's not standing.

[Platypus]

Ish, it depends on the leader and the party and the times. Howard was much more in control than Blair, for example.

[Platypus]

DIICCEE. Not a mouthful at all.

[Platypus]

Martin Ferguson supposedly just joined Twitter, if it's him it's quite hilarious.

https://twitter.com/MFergusonMP

There are quite a lot of fake politicians on twitter.

My favourite was fake steve fielding, but there are others worth checking out.

[Platypus]

Horrible

[Platypus]

Cheers Canada

[Platypus]

Peter Slipper joins Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, which allows it to officially register, and then gets unanimously expelled.

Queensland

[Platypus]

Abbott the only leader brave enough to take questions. Abbott = real leader, real solutions.

Shame he can't actually ask them on matters of importance.

Milne did too, btw.

[Platypus]

Is Wayne Swan retiring from politics altogether and not contesting his seat again?  I've heard contradictory things today.

He's said he's contesting his seat, but will not be on the frontbench under Rudd.

[Platypus]

I'd say so.

[Platypus]

Depends who is in the caucus. I think there's a solid 40% of the Liberals who would prefer anyone to Turnbull, about the same number who support him, and then the rest would support him if no other strong candidate was put forward - and Hockey isn't strong enough.

The problem is, I don't see anyone other than those two and maybe at a stretch Julie Bishop being real possibilities.

I'd say Abbott stays on if it's hung, but is challenged by Turnbull. If he loses and it's close, Bishop or Hockey take over; if he loses and it's a big loss, Turnbull has another crack.

All based on basically nothing though

[Platypus]

Abbott didn't choose Julie Bishop as his deputy, she was the deputy under Turnbull and when the Turnbull coup happened it was agreed that she would hold the deputy's position unchallenged to placate the Western Australians, who were sick of all the leader options being from the suburbs of Sydney.

Abbott-Turnbull-Nelson-Howard all having essentially neighbouring seats is not unnoticed within the party. Add in Hockey and the trend is even clearer - Bennelong, North Sydney, Bradfield, Warringah, Wentworth.

All we need now is for Labor to go with Albanese and Plibersek and Sydney's dominance will be absolute

[Platypus]

Tony Abbott is the Minister for Women....


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/tony-abbott-womens-minister-portfolio

[Platypus]

It's been fairly quiet, but the ACT has passed a law that will allow for same sex marriage, although it first must survive a Commonwealth government challenge to the law's legitimacy:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/love-is-in-the-air-and-the-capital-is-open-for-business-20131022-2vzlo.html

[Platypus]

While O'Neill is better than I expected, Kelly would've been a worthy replacement.

[Platypus]

There is genuine buyer's remorse in Australia, I think. I very much doubt it's a pro-Labor result, after all they did lose the election far more than the coalition won it, but I think the average voters - I call them Cranbourne man and Cranbourne woman, named after an outer suburb of Melbourne that used to be a town - have discovered that the Calition isn't the solution to all the perceived ills of the government under Labor, and furthermore brings it's own particular problems.

The bsiness with Indonesia possibly hurts, and if it does so it's remarkably unfair on Abbott, after all the Labor party would respond the same and it all happened under Rudd. That said, Labor didn't contest the election promising idiotic policies to be implemented on Indonesian soil without the consent of the Indonesian government.

I doubt the other major issue that Labor tried to push in opposition has had a huge amount of bite either - the lack of women in senior roles - due largely to the fact that a sizeable whack of people for whom that is a major concern would be unlikely to vote for Abbott of all people anyway.

The most interesting number for me is the total collapse of the 'other'. I'm not a polling geek, but my memory suggests that 'other' tends to rise significantly following an election and stays high until voter's minds are focussed by an election campaign. Instead, the figure has essentially halved compared to the election result, which I think may be a sign that Palmer's on the nose with his voters as much as with the rest of the country?

All in all it means very little. The Libs are never going to turf Abbott over poll numbers. The only real take-away for me is that I have gone from expecting Griffith to fall to the coalition in the by-election quite handsomely to somewhere about 50-50.

[Platypus]

As an aside, my main beef with the government isn't the handling of the Indonesian situation at all, it's this tosser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdvp8emWwqY