Big Ted Wakes!

There was a full moon in Melbourne this week - a 'super moon' - and there was a definite feeling of something different in the air. The spirit of change.

Footy was back, or nearly back. The days were getting shorter and darker. People moved furtively about in the gloom, discussing their teams chances over the worlds best coffee. And over on Spring Street, somewhere in the depths of the State Parliament building, something ominous was stirring...

Big Ted Baillieu, our premier of six months, was waking from his fitful slumber:



But before we get to that, a brief history lesson.

We don't change Governments very often in this country, conservative bunch that we are, normally giving the incumbent mob around ten years or so to do their worst and earn our ire. In the last twenty five years there have only been 2 changes of Federal Government, and three changes at Victorian State level.

One consequence of this is that it gives the Opposition a good chunk of time to come up with a wish list of things they'd change when they finally do get their turn. And after ten years or so of waiting, they're normally itching to get a chance to enact their program.

Think the Hawke Government in 1983 and its rapid program of economic reform; floating the dollar and deregulating the banks. Or the Howard Government in 1996 and its swift moves to deregulate the Labor market and begin work on the GST. Or even, at a local level, the Kennett Government in 1992 and it's rush to declare war on the population of the state, burn down all the villages and cancel Christmas.

So we don't change Government very often but, when we do, we normally see fairly swift changes enacted. As Paul Keating noted, before the 1996 election,

'When you change the Government, you change the country.'

But this has not been Big Ted's style, since taking office late last year.

In fact, in the six months since that time he has appeared to be more interested in working on his camouflage techniques than enacting any sort of legislative agenda, while the State parliament has been about as busy as the Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, before the Oompa Loompa's arrive:

'No one goes in... and no one comes out!'

And this brings us back to the original point of this piece, which hopefully hasn't been lost along the way. The Liberal Party in Victoria are finally on the move. Yes, after the miserable lassitude of the last few months they're slowly getting on with the business of breaking their election promises.

This process started slowly, which seems fitting for a group determined to pace themselves.

During the last election campaign, Baillieu and co ran pretty hard on Labor's poor performance on public transport. Much was made of the shortcomings in Victoria in this area - late and cancelled services, aging infrastructure, poorly negotiated contracts with the private operators, myki - but rather less of what was to be done to rectify them. The Liberals slid along on a vaguely worded promise to 'fix' the system.

So anyone that took this promise seriously must have been surprised to see that the new Governments first moves in this area were to cut services. Trains running from the suburbs to the city loop are to be trimmed considerably at leak times as part of a new timetable. Now while Baillieu may not have promised to run more trains, you'd probably struggle to find too many regular punters who regarded fewer services as much of a public transport 'fix.' Nevertheless, Baillieu has tried to defend this by claiming that fewer services will mean a better functioning system, to the infuriation of anyone out West who'll have to wait longer to get into town.

But with the next batch of broken promises, he's struggling even to get cover from vagueness or semantics.

During the election campaign, Baillieu gave a public commitment to significantly increase the pay of Victorian school teachers. Increased such that, in his words at the time, Victorian teachers would be 'the best paid in the country' (currently they rank about mid table). It should be noted that this policy announcement still sits on the Victorian Liberal website (see link above).

Last week he announced, by way of the Government's first pay offer to teachers, that this would not be happening after all. In fact, the Governments new pay offer, an increase of 2.5%, would not only move Victorian teachers backwards, in comparison to how teachers are paid in other states but, as it is below the current inflation rate of 2.9%, would also represent an actual pay cut, in real terms.

Offering to cut pay having promised to substantially increase it? Not even John Howard had the brazen 'non-core promise' cajones to try that!

Baillieu explained away this dramatic about face by saying:

'I am very keen to get the best possible outcome for teachers through an EBA process, and we remain committed to that, and...'

... oh fuck me, I think if I write out the rest of his weasel word excuse I'll probably want to go and drown myself afterwards. So we'll leave the obfuscation to Big Ted and just state in much simpler language that's he's been caught out ditching a policy that he obviously never took seriously. And for this he deserves to get as much grief and criticism as possible.

And this isn't the only policy reversal that fits into this category either.

Having got the state's teachers offside, Big Ted then made similar moves to infuriate the states police force and community care workers in the same manner: by denying them a reasonable pay increase. Again, the Government's offer is to be a pay increase of 2.5% to both sectors, again, below the rate of inflation and so representing a cut in wages in real terms. The police union were particularly aggravated by this:



considering how much time Baillieu spent droning on during the election about the crime wave gripping the state and how he was going to hire about 400 000 new coppers. While he may not have broken this promise, to turn Victoria into something akin to a medium security prison, yet, it's obvious that he does intend for his newly expanded law enforcement battalions to be poorly paid. Which has all sorts of implications, including public safety, staff moral and recruiting.

Having said all of that though, I guess it's still hard to know exactly how to feel about what is happening at the moment down on Spring Street.

On the one hand, it's good to see that the Premier and his Senior ministers haven't succumbed to some mysterious new form of polio that renders them crippled and paralysed, unable to speak or move. On the other, though, it's a shame that they have to demonstrate this by breaking a number of their key election promises and shafting the state civil service. Since I'm feeling conflicted, perhaps it's best if I leave the summing up to 'Sharon of Melb' who posted this comment on the Herald Sun site yesterday, under an article about Big Ted:

Sharon of Melb: Baillieu has to go. All he has done is hang out with Oprah and swum in the sea.

I'll have to consult 'Sharon of Melb' more often. She's much more concise than I am.

50th Post Anniversary: Some Political Favourites Recalled

It came to my attention the other day that I had achieved a signficant milestone with this blog: 50 entries. Which makes it about the longest running project of my entire life.

So the importance of this milestone is not to be underestimated. And I feel like I've come along way in the past 6 and 3/4 months, since it was pouring rain one Sunday afternoon and the Foxtel had gone down and my girlfriend was out of town and I had nothing better to do but rant online. Well, I should say, we've come a long way on this journey together, as I wouldn't want the 14 people who regularly read this stuff to feel left out.

So to mark my 50th post, I thought I would give a kind of brief (it's kinda sunny today and nice outside) recap of some of favourite moments in Australian politics, during my time as an observor.

I'm from New Zealand originally and when we moved to Australia in 1986, Australian politics was dominated by the long, and bizarrely coiffered, shadow of Bob Hawke. Among a number of achievements in public life, he is now perhaps best remembered as the wearer of the most spectacular jacket in Australian political history:



Although I also think of him as the teller of the perhaps the greatest joke in Australian political history:



Hmmm... the greatest joke in Australian Political History? It's hard to say. I mean, it's a tough call. There's a lot of competition:



In any case, Hawke worked a very effective double team for a few years with Paul Keating, who served a lengthy apprenticeship as Treasurer, Deputy Leader and Principal Head Kicker. Keating would eventually grow tired of playing second fiddle and have Hawke removed in a fairly bloody coup, which left him to take up the fight against the then Opposition Leader John Hewson. Hewson had been riding high in the polls against Hawke, but found the going harder against Keating, who quickly moved to attack him on a variety of fronts as the 1993 election drew close: (the good bit starts about 2.50. Sorry, I didn't have time to cut it down):



History, of course, shows that Keating did stage a remarkable comeback and defeat Hewson at that election, although it was probably hard not to feel a little sorry for the Liberal leader. Next to Keating, he was left looking a little insipid:



Hewson's defeat would, eventually, pave the way for the return of Mr 17%, old 'Lazarus with a Triple Bypass' himself: John Winston Howard. Howard had suffered at the hands of Hawke in the 80's, but Keating was never as popular with the public as the Silver Bodgie and Howard sensed his chance. Gearing up for the 1996 election and his final tilt at the top job, Howard's thirst for power was the same, only this time he came armed with a secret weapon; He could sing:



Howard, of course, became PM and just like some parable out of the Old Testament, darkness settled over the land. A darkness that lasted for about a thousand years... or at least 12. There was no singing.

I lost my interest in politics for a bit around this time. The years 1996 - 2003 are largely a blank in my political mind, as Howard and his acolytes took over and did their best to make Australia into a small country town circa 1950, while Kim 'Marshmallow' Beazley drove lots of people like me out of Labor Party forever.

In this dark time, right thinking people opposed to Howard were very much in the minority, and had to take solace in things like this:



But in 2003, a ray of hope appeared again, in the form of Labor leader Mark Latham... Yes, I know, in these enlightened times that sentence seems to make no sense, but there it was. Labor had a Keating-esque leader again and for the first time in seemingly forever, looked likely to be competitive at the 2004 election as Latham took the attack up to Howard:



But a little of this sort of thing can go a long way. And in an election where serious issues like the Iraq war, middle glass welfare and Australia's brutal treatment of refugees seemed to be largely ignored, Latham found himself getting jeery thumbs-down signals for this trivial moment:



Some pundits even went so far as to say that this overly aggressive handshake may have cost Latham the election, which is so unlikely that it may well be true.

The 2004 election marked something of a generational change in Australian politics as younger, fresher faces made their way into Parliament and began to make their presence felt. They also showed some of the older hands some new moves:



Although Costello's mimicking of Peter Garrett's dancing in that last clip is undoubtedly a payback for this (quite possibly my favourite political moment from the last 20 years):


Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning Live At Olympics... by ZapMan69

Gumption on an important issue on a very public stage. Let's hope the current ALP takes note when trying to sell their carbon pricing policy.

From the new crop, Labor would also find their next leader. A man who's unlikley culinary tastes would make him something of a global internet sensation:



Kevin Rudd was, perhaps, the unlikliest leader the Federal Labor Party has ever had. Quite apart from the ear wax thing, he was a man only 9 years in Parliament, without a lot of personal support in caucus and without strong links to the trade union movement, all of which should have been fatal handicaps. Nevertheless, when Kim Beazley was finally, mercifully, taken out and put down, this was who the ALP would turn to. And who would, even more surprisingly, lead the ALP out of the wilderness by defeating Howard at the 2007 election. Howard, less surprisingly, did not take this occurrence well:



Rudd was a new player on the national stage and was largely unknown to the general public when he took office. He would very quickly move to establish his own unique style, one which included asking himself an awful lot of questions:



'Do I look like I'm interested in answering your question? No I don't.' A motto that all politicians seem to live by.

Rudd's idiosyncrasies would soon bug the population very badly, so much so that his cabinet colleagues would have him replaced before his first term as PM was even up. Which proved a boon for the advertising industry, if no one else:



Rudd's replacement would be Julia Gillard who, after a promising first 5 minutes, would quickly end up emulating all of his unpopular traits. I was going to post a clip or a photo of this, but searching for something just proved too depressing.

So we should probably just move onto Julia's opponent, the one and only Tony Abbott, who generates that much oddball media he should probably have a highlights package of his own. Now when people think of Abbott at the moment, they probably think of this:



But to think only about this truly bizarre moment, where the first time round you're really not sure if he's going to punch the journalist or spontaneously combust, is to forget about some of his other hits. And we wouldn't want that to happen. So how about the time he denied and then confirmed a meeting he'd had with Cardinal George Pell, all in the space of 8 seconds:



Or the time he accused a dying man trying to get justice of conducting a 'stunt' by trying to meet with him:



I mean, I said 'Say what's on your mind Tony,' but Jesus! And then there was the time he swore at his shadow opposite number:



And the time he tried to explain how we shouldn't necessarily pay attention to everything he said. I mean, not to go assuming that he meant all of it:



The upside, of course, is that Abbott is a young guy, and so there should be plenty more material for me to use, when I recap the next twenty years.

And, just very quickly in small print, can I thank everyone who's had a look a look at this so far and given me feedback.

A Great Big New Tax on Everything

One thing we know for certain about Tony Abott: He is a man who can spot a 'Great Big New Tax On Everything.' Although his task has been made easier in this respect, for the 'Great Big New Tax on Everythings' have been proliferating like jack rabbits.

First there was the 'Resource Rent Tax,' a tax on mining profits above a certain level, first proposed by Kevin Rudd and then modified by Julia Gillard. Abbott identified both original and modified proposals as a 'Great Big New Tax on Everything.'

More recently, we had the 'Queensland Natural Disaster Levy,' a tax on anyone earning more than $50 000 who's house wasn't washed or blown away, to help with reconstruction after the cyclone and floods in that state. Abbott had this one pegged as a 'Great Big New Tax on Everything' too.

And now that we've finally reached what will likely be defining moment of the Gillard Government (or the Gillard/Whoever They Replace Her With Before the Next Election Government), the attempts to lower Australia's carbon emissions by attaching a price to them, Abbott has found another one. Gillard's embryonic proposal to introduce a modest tax per tonne of carbon released into the atmosphere, designed to help the environment and, you know, save the planet, is actually another one of these bloody 'Great Big New Tax on Everythings' that the Government is so keen on:



So a good question would seem to be: Why is the Labor Party so keen on bringing in a Great Big New Tax on Everything?

And an even better question might be: How is it that a member of the Howard Government, who really did introduce a Great Big New Tax on Everything in the form of the GST, is allowed to get away with this nonsense?

But we can leave those questions for another time.

Right now, let's just reiterate what is obviously an established fact: TONY ABBOTT IS VERY OPPOSED TO NEW TAXES TO HELP LOWER CARBON EMISSIONS.

He's stated this opposition, in every available media outlet at his disposal, so often that you start to wonder if his vocabulary contains anything more than the words 'opposed, 'new,' 'tax,' 'on,' and 'carbon.' Which, if true, is probably a bit dull for his wife and kids, let alone those of us who pay regular attention to his public pronouncements.

But this is not to say that he doesn't think carbon emissions shouldn't be lowered. He may be a late convert to the whole 'Inconvenient Truth,' global warming business, but he's inside the tent now. His previously stated skepticism (Abbott once referred to global warming as 'absolute crap') has gradually given way to oft repeated acceptance.

What, then, does the alternative Prime Minister propose to do about lowering Australia's carbon emissions? If he's not going to put a price on them and let the market sort it out? How's he going to fix this problem at no cost to us, the taxpayer?

Well, he's got a $10 billion dollar 'Direct Action' policy that would fund a variety of initiatives designed to directly lower emissions; tree planting, clean coal, free fluorescent light bulbs for all, that sort of thing. A whole range of things really, hundreds of them. And best of all: No new GREAT BIG NEW TAX ON EVERYTHING!

But wait.

Whereabouts is he going to get his $10 billion worth of funding from to pay for all these warm and fuzzy programs? I half expected him to go:

'Magic!'

when he was asked this question, and then maybe throw a smoke capsule on the ground before making for the exit, in the style of some sort of super villain:



For the very obvious answer is that that $10 billion dollars is going to come from the Australian tax payer, either through new taxes or reallocation of funds from existing revenue. A case of 'Half a dozen new, small taxes on everything' perhaps?

And this is where Coalition fantasy land starts to diverge from reality. For the Government's heavily criticised carbon tax is actually a tax on business, not on us regular punters. At least not directly. Businesses are the ones that are going to have to pay the levy for whatever tonnage of carbon they emit into the atmosphere (currently expected to be about 4c per 100 trillion tonnes or something equally negligible).

Abbott's argument is that businesses will then pass this extra tarriff onto us regular punters in the form of higher charges, and so higher prices, and this forms the basis of his GREAT BIG TAX ON EVERYTHING spiel. Which undoubtedly has some basis in fact. Nevertheless, us punters have a choice about how we spend out money. We can choose to accept these extra prices and stick with the same polluting companies that we've always used or, or, we can take our money elsewhere and buy products and services from carbon neutral industries that don't attract the tax and so have cheaper prices. This is the whole purpose of putting a price on carbon through a tax (or an emission trading system): peoples desire for the best price and the best value for money will reward non carbon industries through increased business.

Which is the market in action.

But with Abbott's proposal, there's no choice at all. He'll simply take $10 billion from our collective pockets and funnel it off to whatever fiddling-at-the-margins schemes he thinks will play best in the media. Which will mean more tree planting and more solar panel rebates, all paid for directly by us. And tree planting and solar panel rebates are all well and good, and certainly have their place in an overall climate strategy, but they really aren't an effective centrepeice of a policy if the goal is really to reduce carbon emissions in a cost efficient manner.

Take a recent report in 'The Age,' for example, that showed that in the last ten years Federal Governments of both stripes had spent $5.5 billion on climate reduction policies of the tree planting and solar rebate type that had reduced our emissions at the cost of $168 per tonne. And then compare that to the Government's mooted carbon tax that will reduce emissions at the price of $20 - 25 per tonne (not 4c per 100 trillion tonnes as has been inaccurately reported elsewhere) and see which one you think is the better policy.

Hmmm... the $168 dollar per tonne one paid for by us? Or the $25 per tonne way paid for by the polluters? Tricky...

It says a lot about the current state of political debate in this country that Abbott is allowed to go around the country masquerading as an anti-tax campaigner, while simultaneously proposing to take $10 billion dollars worth of extra taxes from us. Government in fighting and a lack of detail in what has been announced so far has let Abbott off the hook.

Julia Gillard must also lift her game as the Prime Minister has shown, so far, that she is not a good sales rep for her Government's ideas. The focus is on her and the ALP and they must deliver in two areas simultaneously. Explaining their carbon tax policy better and turning the attention of the media and the people to the cost and flagrant hypocrisy of what the Opposition is proposing.

It's a chewing gum and wallking at the same time moment for Labor and, so far, they haven't shown that they're capable of doing either.

The Political Love Child

In the 1990s, Tony Abbott once jokingly described himself as the political love child of John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop. And Like a lot of good jokes, we laugh because it's funny and we laugh because it's true.

The relevance of Bronwyn Bishop to that equation has faded over time, as Bishop's career has faded, but Tony Abbott remains very much John Howard's progeny. It's written all over his political career, in letters too big to miss.

Abbott got his start in politics working as Press Secretary for, then Opposition leader, John Hewson. Hewson would subsequently claim that he hired Abbott based on a recommendation from John Howard, then in the wilderness on the back bench, and that Abbott had repaid him for this by acting 'pretty much as a spy for Howard.' After Hewson's demise following the 1993 election, Abbott would then head up 'Australians for Constitutional Monarchy,' - The only institution in Australia that has the courage to tell the truth: that everything is just fine! - an organisation dedicated to preventing Australia from becoming a republic. A cause always close to John Howard's political heart. Or, at least, close to the dead black thing that sits in the chest cavity where Howard's heart ought to have been.

Abbott would then move into parliament after a by election in 1994, into the ultra safe Liberal seat of Warringah. After the 1996 election, won by Howard in a monumental landslide, Abbott would be rewarded by his father figure with promotion to a cabinet secretary position, from where he made a relatively rapid rise up the ranks into the senior ministry.

Abbott would remain a loyal acolyte of Howard's throughout his time as Prime Minister, one of the very few not to tell him to resign immediately prior to the 2007 election when all indicators pointed to Howard being beaten badly. And, in the aftermath of that surprise outcome, probably the staunchest defender of Howard's legacy from Opposition.

The careers of the two, political father and son, are deeply entwined then, rooted in far in the past and consecrated over time. It is impossible to consider Abbott's political persona without considering Howard's, and Howard's influence over his 'son.'

Which leads us to last weeks debate over asylum seekers. And whether it was appropriate for the government to pay for a handful of them to attend a funeral for family members in Sydney. The dead were victims of an awful tragedy, when a flimsy boat carrying refugees disintegrated on rocks at Christmas Island:



Abbott, and his suddenly rabid immigration spokesman Scott Morrison, held that flying these people cross country and back was a waste of public money. Morrison lead the attack, stating that having tax payers foot the bill for this expense was 'unreasonable.' This on a day when the news was filled with images of utterly distraught people, weeping and hysterical as their relatives were buried, after a shocking tragedy:



How anyone could look at this footage, or read about it, or hear about it on the radio, and not feel anything other than sorry for the people involved is almost beyond comprehension. But Morrison saw it strictly in terms of dollars and cents. Our dollars and cents, wasted on some ratbag darkies from some faraway place he'd rather not know about.

The Government would later reveal the cost of flying these people to and from the funerals as $300 000, or approximately what the Parliamentary canteen in Canberra spends on sticky buns in a year. In other words, not that much money in an economy valued at about $300 billion.

Abbott looked on approvingly at Morrison's performance, and added some slightly toned down criticism of the Government of his own. When Morrison subsequently made a half hearted, heavily qualified 'apology' for what he had said - apologising for the timing of his remarks but not the content - Abbott heaped praise on his head, labeling the shadow minister 'courageous.'

All of which could have come straight from any period in Howard's time as Prime Minister. The whole business was straight out of the JWH 'Dog Whistle' playbook. Absurdly exaggerated demonisation of a handful refugees, tough talk to the press about what to do with them, having one of his ministers put the really tough line out (with Morrison standing in for Phillip Ruddock) while he appeared to offer a more nuanced position and then finally the palms up 'It's not like we hate refugees or are racist or anything' semi sofetning of what had been said done with a straight face to the press.

In style and substance, Abbott really followed in his father's footsteps this time.

And it could well be that he will get the same kind of political benefit from his hard line, cold hearted, blatantly racist stance that Howard used to get. A couple of days after the comments of Morrison and Abbott had been batted back and forth in the media, and in the face of the now usual limp, gutless response from the Government, 'Crikey' offered evidence that indicated public opinion was strongly behind the two Coalition cunts... sorry, leaders, on the issue.

An online poll in 'The Australian' reportedly showed 98% of respondents opposed to taxpayer funds being used to fly the asylum seekers across country. While a similar poll in 'The Herald Sun' had %70 opposed. 'Crikey' also offered a sample of talkback callers who had phoned in on the topic. Some highlights:

* Caller Carole says she’s angry over the taxpayers having to foot the bill for asylum seeker funerals yesterday. She says the Muslim community should have been able to do it. She asks where they get money for mosques and schools.

* Caller Chris says a lot of money has been spent bringing asylum-seekers to Sydney, and asks whether the Federal Government paid for the Australian flood victims or the VIC fire victims to go to funerals.

* Caller Debra says she wishes to air her disgust and disappointment at the decision to use tax payers money to pay for the asylum seekers funeral. She says she doesn’t believe these people are paying taxes when they get here. She asks if they are going to pay for her bridge climb.

* Caller Michael says most people in the community are sick of paying for things such as this.

* Caller Lenti says Asylum seekers should be sent to North Korea.

Compassionate bunch, aren't we?

'Oh people died? Fuck them! Send 'em all to North Korea! Where's my Government handout?' In fact, I'm surprised that Abbott didn't say this himself, although perhaps he's saving it for another time.

It's also important to bear in mind, in relation to the bleating commentary about how the Government never does anything to help decent white folks with the costs of a funeral or tragedy, that there are any number of Government benefits that do exactly that. Among the more prominent:

BEREAVEMENT ALLOWANCE: Fortnightly payments after the death of a partner.

BEREAVEMENT PAYMENT: Lump sum payment after the death of partner.

FUNERAL/MEMORIAL ASSISTANCE: Up to $10 000 to help with funeral costs associated with a natural disaster.

FUNERAL BENEFIT: Up to $2000 to help with funeral costs for a member, or former member, of Australia's armed forces.

And this is literally the tip of the iceberg. A comprehensive list of assistance after someone passes on would go on longer than this blog entry, which is already long enough.

So we are a compassionate bunch, or can be, when our better instincts are roused. Which is not going to happen while Abbott continues to emulate his political father. Hopefully he realises that it is every childs duty to break away from their parents at some point and forge their own identity, and realises it soon.

Bad Week... Good Week...

Tony Abbott has known bad days in politics.

There was that time, on the campaign trail in 2007, where he abused a dying mesothelioma victim, rocked up late to a televised debate with his shadow ministry opposite and then swore at and abused said opposite for criticising him. Or there was the time, immediately after the Liberals 2007 election defeat, that he wanted to put his hand up to be leader, only to sound out his parliamentary colleagues and find out that none of them would support him. And, of course, there was the 2007 election defeat itself, which left Abbott staggering, Heathcliff like, across the cliff tops of Eastern Sydney, after his mentor John Howard was pitched out of office.

But all of these bad days had been in Abbott's past.

Since his unlikely and unexpected rise to the Liberal Party leadership in late 2009, he has had nothing but sunshine, lollipops and rainbows:



And a bit of good luck. Firstly, his seemingly entrenched and popular opponent, the robotic bloke from Queensland, conspired against himself and self destructed in a flash of bad polls and 'ratfucking' jokes. Secondly, the robotic blokes replacement, Julia from the Suburbs, almost immediately started acting just like the bloke she'd just replaced - flimsy, no policies, weasel word language - and so nullified any appeal she may have had. And finally, the ALP ran one of the worst and most inept election campaigns in the country's history and nearly threw away a comfortable electoral buffer.

Even the fact that Abbott ultimately led the conservatives to defeat at the 2010 election, normally the very bottom of the heap for a political leader, didn't seem to have quite the same effect on him. Somehow, he managed to convey the impression that he had actually won in some way, or that the new government was illegitimate or, at least, that being Opposition leader was better than leading a rag tag coalition of misfits, rebels and weirdos.

So perhaps his good luck was due to run out...

For last week contained a number of bad days for Tony Abbott.

Firstly, a recap.

Tony's week of misery started with the release of his proposed cuts to the Federal budget. The ones that will generate $2 billion worth of savings and so negate the need for a flood levy/tax to pay for disaster relief. As is the case with these types of things, even people who might be in favour of spending cuts in general, can become opposed once they see what, exactly, will be cut.

Which is what seemed to happen to Abbott's, previously loyal, deputy, shadow foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop. Bishop had strongly opposed Abbott's initial plan to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Africa and had succeeded in getting him to drop the idea... only to have him replace it with a plan to cut hundreds of millions of dollars to an AusAid scheme that funds secular schools in Indonesia. Bishop was angry enough to confront Abbott in his office about it, a meeting which leaked out into the press and fuelled already existing rumours that the pair don't get along and can't work together.

Although the proposed cuts are simply that, proposals, which are not going to be enacted in reality, Abbott's trenchant opposition to the Government's tax/levy had made them the focus of media attention and his ideas significant. A major public spat with his deputy over them was not a good look for the Opposition leader. As they say in politics, 'Disunity is death.'

Of course, later in the week, Abbott would look back on an argument about hypothetical budget cuts as a happy sort of time. A tea and scones in the garden with the newspaper and the family kind of Sunday morning. For later in the week, Abbott would find himself overtaken by 'Shithappensgate.'

This issue had been percolating for a few months, from late last year, when Abbott went to Afghanistan to visit Australian troops, in the wake of the killing of one of them, Jared Mackinney . The Australian Defence force took some video footage of Abbott while he was with them; joking with the troops, wearing a helmet, firing some weapons, the usual sort of macho idiot stuff that politicians can't resist around the army.

This footage was not released to the public and would not have been, if veteran Channel 7 reporter Mark Riley hadn't played a hunch and obtained it - after a three month legal stoush with Abbott's staff, who didn't want it out in public - via the 'Freedom of Information' act. The acquired tape contained footage of Abbott discussing the death of Mackinney with local commanders and then clearly stating the words, 'Well, it's obvious that... shit happens sometimes doesn't it?'

Now Abbott was quick to point out that his remarks needed to be taken in context (and it seems the whole political system would fall apart without the existence of that phrase). He had been on the public record as critical of the level of logistical support our troops received in Afghanistan and had implied this may have contributed to the death in question. The local commanders had told him that he felt the troops were well supported and so Abbott was trying to say, in a way, that he'd been wrong. But his remarks were pretty careless and would, undoubtedly, make some people seeing them think of him as a cold, heartless cunt.

Which may have been a better look than initially thought, after Abbott was confronted by the footage by Riley outside Parliament House. After watching it on Riley's laptop and answering a few questions in a hostile yet perfunctory way, Abbott suddenly lapsed into an angry silence, glaring at Riley as if he was about to explode. Or, at least, turn the clock back to his university days and flatten him with a few punches:



Later, Abbott's supporters would claim that their boy was maintaining a 'dignified silence' and choosing not to respond to 'gutter journalism' and a 'media ambush.' If this is true, then it's only true in the sense that the Black Knight from 'The Holy Grail' chose to surrender quietly:



The truth is that Abbott's 'dignified' response did much more damage than the 'Shit happens' video, which ultimately, no one seemed to give a shit about anyway. But by going on national TV and acting like a nutjob, Abbott confirmed all the worst suspicions that people (including some inside the Parliamentary Liberal party) have about him; that he's rash, unstable, prone to let his emotions get the better of him and incapable of thinking on his feet.

A tough week for Abbott, then, with one damaging issue after another and all of it covered with maximum hostility by the national press. So it must have come to some surprise to him, and us, to start the following week (this week) with polling showing the Liberal Party in a triumphant position in the polls. I mean, the conservatives are so far ahead that if the numbers from yesterday's poll were repeated in an election, Labor's representatives in Canberra would be reduced to the blokes that run the parliamentary canteen. And even their position might be shaky.

And it's difficult to know what to make of this. Either Abbott is better liked - and so more resilient in the polls - than we'd thought, or Julia Gillard is so on the nose that nothing Abbott could do could really affect the Liberals numbers much. Either way, this spells dire news for the ALP... and anyone who thought about moving to Canada if Abbott won the election last year.

Inertia

'The Age' editorial yesterday made the point that Victoria's new-ish Premier, 'Big' Ted Baillieu, was a bit of a slack arse.

Well, not in so many words, of course. Even as it sacks people and moves as much of it's content online as possible, the Melbourne broadsheet is still pretty conservative.

But it did make the point, more delicately, thet Big Ted has been Premier for a few months now and that there aren't many signs of life emanating from the Premier's office. In fact, the only tangible thing that Baillieu seems to have acheived since being elected is that he managed to make the Premier's Christmas Party an alcohol free event, so ruining the day for everyone attending (Baillieu is a tee-totaller and so marks himself out as unique in Australian political history).

In terms of what he's managed to do in relation to the big issues facing the state; public transport, health, education, crime, the economy and so on to infinity, you'd struggle to find any Governmental movement on any front. Which may surprise people. Especially the people that voted for him.

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember Big Ted going on at some length about all the problems facing Victoria during last years election campaign. I mean, he had a pretty extensive list - which, well, I've already written out in the previous paragragph, so I won't redo it here - which he talked about at mind boggling length and which his party put all over every availabe media outlet in negative campaign ads:



And this worked well for him.

People took notice, or were just sick of being told that waiting 4 hours for a train was 'Part of the Plan,' and turfed Labor out on the back of a 6% statewide swing to the conservatives. The era of Big Ted had arrived!



Aaargh! What is that thing with him? Kill it!

Anyway, at least we thought his era had begun.

Some of his supporters are now starting to look like people waiting for an overdue plane; it was meant to be here two hours ago and they've moved from mild disinterest, to annoyance, to concern, to a growing certainty in their hearts that terrorists have blown it up over the Pacific.

Did Big Ted's supporters take the wrong message from the election campaign? Was all that talk about late trains and hospital waiting lists and crazed gangs of homeowner hating youth criminals meant to be... I dunno, reportage? Just to let us know that things were bad? In case we hadn't noticed that the train we were waiting for never showed up or that our aunty was hobbling around while waiting for corrective surgery?

If it was, well, nice of them to point it out. But maybe a little disappointing.

Although anyone that did actually pay attention to the last election campaign would not have been surprised that solutions to Victoria's problems are not materialising. For none were proposed. From either side.

John Brumby stuck doggedly to the same unpopular, universally derided policies that he'd been pushing for several years, and so committed political suicide. And Baillieu and the Liberal Party mainly just nodded and smiled and made sure everyone knew that Jeff Kennett was no longer a candidate.

In terms of specifics, Baillieu offered us two new train lines, a handful of new trains, about a gazillion more police and that was about it. And even this minimal 'agenda' has been pretty much glossed over, forgotten about and obfuscated since Big Ted was elected and Liquorland had their state parliament contract terminated.

The counter agrument to all this, of course, is that the Liberals were only elected a few months ago and that time will be required for them to enact their policies. Or, for starters, for them to figure out what their policies are. And additionally, Labor ran the state for a long time and the public service is intrinsically slow in responding to change, so even when the Liberals are ready to move in key policy areas, we will need to be patient in order to see results.

But this is no reason for inertia.

Baillieu was given a clear mandate by the electorate and he enjoys a majority in both houses of Parliament. He has far fewer obstacles in his path than, say, Steve Bracks had when he took over a Premier. So there is no excuse not to get on with it. Especially since the same people that were unhappy with transport and health and so ended Brumby's career, will quickly turn on the new bunch if they sense that they're sitting on their hands.

'Well after 12 years of Labor neglect...'

Will only work for so long. Baillieu and co need only look at the Rudd/Gillard government to see how popular a timid, do nothing style of governance is with the punters. Baillieu needs to outline his agenda, properly, and nominate his policy priorities as soon as he can. And then actually move forward with some boldness to legislate for them.

The fact that the same issue of 'The Age' that featured the critical editorial contained not one story of what the Baillieu government was doing is not a good sign.

Best Photos of the Fortnight - 13 February 2011

Ok, well, I had best photos of the week ready for last week, and I forgot to post them ok? I have a life you know. Ahhhhhhhh, forget it...


TANK GUY

Photo: Emillio Moranatti
A protester against the Mubarak Government in Tahrir Sqaure, Cario on February 6 demonstrates how everyone has lightened up a bit since the last 'Tank Guy,' that guy in Tiananmen Sqaure,' came and went. Then, Tank Guys had to sacrifice themselves, now they can bet a of a kip in while protesting. The 21st century is a much better place for the Tank Guys (also illustrated by the fact that the Chinese government is unchanged while Mubarak was gone from power a few days after this photo was taken).



SUPER

Photo: Mike Stone
Green Bay head coach Mike McCarthy hugs one of his players after the Packers successfully won Super Bowl XLV, defeating the Pittsburgh Stealers 31 - 26 in Arlington, Texas. The game was watched by a record TV audience of 200 billion, more than 30 times the population of the planet at this time, so proving that aliens and time travelers are avid NFL fans as well.



PERDY

Photo: Tom Dorsey
The continuing cold weather in America produces a never ending stream 'Awww, perdy' photos, as this one of a Sawtooth Oak in Kansas demonstrates.



CYCLONE YASI

Photo: NASA - Godard Space Agency
Sweeping down on the Queensland coast like the spirograph from hell, tropical cyclone Yasi reached Category 5 in terms of both wind speed and media coverage. Incredibly, it was all over in a few hours, as the cyclone made landfall around 1am on Wednesday and was far inland and much diminished about 12 hours later. Even more incredibly, the word 'spirograph' is not in my computers dictionary.



BANANA CARNAGE

Photo: Unknown
As is so often the case with natural disasters in Australia, bananas were among the worst affected by the cyclone, as this image of a flattened plantation in Queensland shows. Expect Banana Split prices to go through the roof, once again.



FIRE!

Photo: Paul Pichugin
And after the rain... and the flooding... and the cyclone... came the fires, sweeping through the bush on the outskirts of Perth, West Australia. If the global warming experts are right and changing temperatures will produce more of these disasters, then people in Australia are seriously fucked.



MILDURA TRAIN CRASH

Photo: Glenn Milne
Five foreign farm workers miraculously escaped injury after their car was crushed by a Mildura bound freight train. Police stated that how the car ended up in front of the train was still a mystery...



CAR CRASH

Photo: Tim Jean
... but not as much as a mystery as how this car ended up on it's... well, end, after a car crash in heavy snow outside of Salem, New Hampshire.


NEW YEARS

Photo: Tyrone Siu
This is either; a) Westerners celebrating the start of the Year of the Rabbit on Chinese New Year in Hong Kong or, b)A meeting of the 'Donnie Darko AQppreciation Society.'