I’ve been meaning to do a new open thread for a while (last Salon was 12 January). When I saw news of the first entry below I thought it was too good to pass up!
His agent described him as “virtuous globalisation mastermind”
It was 24 June 2010. I was the dentist chair watching Kevin Rudd giving his tearful exit speech, played on the TV in the ceiling. Rudd recounted the achievements of his term. Quite a long list, it was.
Peter Brent tries to make sense of what happened after that in Regrets? We’ve had a few.
To leave aside for a moment whether shunting Rudd was a good idea, and how all that worked out, Brent thinks the reason for our quick turnover of PMs is the Senate and our propensity to elect third party senators.
Currently the Coalition needs three out of five from One Nation’s two, Centre Alliance’s two and Jacqui Lambie’s one.
A lot of the time One Nation lines up, after some histrionics, with the Coalition. Which then leaves it up to Jacqui Lambie. I find that just a bit terrifying. Continue reading Rudd shunted 10 years ago: reflections and reappraisals
Four of the Bahnisch siblings and their partners have decided to meet up and invade Europe again. Back in 2008 it was the Rhine, this time the centre-piece is a trip down the Danube, if it has any water in it. I’ll be away from 8 September to 13 October.
This time I think it best for the blog to lie fallow. John D has been busy doing good works, and there are no other active bloggers to keep the site going.
I’m expecting my posting to taper in the coming week. We’ll see.
I think the idea may have come from former Labor minister Craig Emerson and Nick Cater, the Director of the Menzies Research Centre. The National Reform Summit was sponsored by The Australian, The Australian Financial Review and KPMG and everyone that mattered was there – business groups, community groups, the unions, addressing all manner of social and economic issues, and apparently reaching furious agreement.
Laura Tingle says the key question is now how the debate now feeds back into politics. My feeling is that the ideological fissures will again reappear as we get back to sound bites and point scoring.
Joe Hockey said we can’t go into the future looking out of the window od a Holden Commodore. I’d just like a government with its hands on the wheel. Hockey said consumers will lead the way.
Martin Parkinson said we are sleepwaliking into a real mess if we don’t get a grip.
Roy Green and John Hamilton Howard tell us what we need to do to ensure Australia remains an innovative nation.
I couldn’t believe what seemed to be going on. Something called Border Force. People who looked like cops. Stopping people at random on the street to see whether their visa was in order!
Under the Migration Act, an authorised officer can ask for information from someone the officer “knows or reasonably suspects is a non-citizen”.
The information can include evidence of being a lawful non-citizen and personal identity papers. The person must comply with the request within a time period “specified by the officer”.
If the officer “knows or reasonably suspects” the person is an unlawful non-citizen the officer must detain that person.
In effect the immigration system was being militarised.
Any way it seems to have stopped before it started.
That was 1600 years ago on 24 August:
It was the first time in 800 years that Rome had been successfully invaded. The event had reverberations around the Mediterranean.
It must have seemed like the end of the world at the time.
Gillard has been getting a bit of a razz for saying that she now supports same sex marriage. A bit bloody late, they say.
Actually she’s repeating what she said in her book some time ago. Her position has been misunderstood, by people who either don’t listen or hear only what they want to hear. There is a statement in the link, but let me try again.
Gillard as a young feminist saw the institution of marriage as hopelessly patriarchal and wanted it nixed in favour of civil unions. She would do nothing to support the institution.
She has come to realise that history has spoken. The institution of marriage will endure and even be cherished. That being the case she now recognises that it should be open to all.
She has been seen as strangely conservative, or sucking up to conservative interests, whereas she was actually more radical than most.
Because of the way the blog currently presents posts on the home page I think it’s better to remove the introductory material to a different place. For new readers, here’s the rationale for this space.
An open thread where, at your leisure, you can discuss anything you like, well, within reason and the Comments Policy. Include here news and views, plus any notable personal experiences from the week and the weekend.
For climate topics please use the most recent Climate clippings.
The gentleman in the image is Voltaire, who for a time graced the court of Frederick II of Prussia, known as Frederick the Great. King Fred loved to talk about the universe and everything at the end of a day’s work. He also used the salons of Berlin to get feedback in the development of public policy.
Fred would only talk in French; he regarded German as barbaric. Here we’ll use English.
The thread will be a stoush-free zone. The Comments Policy says:
The aim [of this site] is to provide a venue for people to contribute and to engage in a civil and respectful manner.
Mark forecast that participating in the program The Killing Season would diminish both Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. He was right – Gillard more than Rudd.
Anthony Albanese was also right when he said that you shouldn’t change a first term prime minister on the basis of a newspaper story and again when he said that on that night the Labor Party killed two prime ministers. Continue reading The Killing Season continues
An open thread where, at your leisure, you can discuss anything you like, well, within reason and the Comments Policy. Include here news and views, plus any notable personal experiences from the week and the weekend.
For climate topics please use the most recent Climate clippings.
The gentleman in the image is Voltaire, who for a time graced the court of Frederick II of Prussia, known as Frederick the Great. King Fred loved to talk about the universe and everything at the end of a day’s work. He also used the salons of Berlin to get feedback in the development of public policy.
Fred would only talk in French; he regarded German as barbaric. Here we’ll use English.
The thread will be a stoush-free zone. The Comments Policy says:
The aim [of this site] is to provide a venue for people to contribute and to engage in a civil and respectful manner.
Here are a few bits and pieces that came to my attention last week.
1. CSIRO cuts
The CSIRO is set to lose one staff member in five over the next two years.
The effect of the Federal Government’s cut of $114 million is now becoming clearer, with at least four regional research sites under threat.
National organiser for the CSIRO Staff Association, part of the CPSU, Paul Girdler, says 878 staff are to be cut over two years, until June 2015.
“It’s over 100 more than originally forecast.
“Over two years, the CSIRO is losing 21.5 per cent of its workforce, or one in five jobs.
“This new analysis demonstrates the cuts are even worse than when they were announced.”
Given the cuts last year, the total tally is 1,400 jobs at the Science Organisation.
CSIRO Chairman Simon McKeon says the organisation has “cut into the bone”.
We should be redoubling if not doubling our science effort.
Julian Cribb, science writer and author of The Coming Famine, says every government since Labor under Bob Hawke has slashed the CSIRO.
I simply can’t understand Industry Minister Ian McFarlane saying year-on-year funding is increasing, unless you cut overall first and then increase the funding each year. In which case he is intentionally misleading.
There’s more on the 7.30 Report.
Stephen Luntz at Crikey explains that many scientists will have unfinished projects, which doesn’t help them establish a reputation to find a job elsewhere.
Those made redundant include Nobel prize contender San Thang.
Stella Young, comedian, journalist and disability advocate, has died aged 32. I gather her death was unexpected. She will be missed.
3. Gillard’s My Story
I finished Gillard’s My story a while ago and have been meaning to report on it. Generally speaking I agree with Natalie Mast’s review but have a query about her final summation:
My Story is a substantial piece of work, yet there are times where policy wonks will be wishing for greater detail on negotiations or even why certain policy decisions were taken. Still in a work this size, limits must be made. For the most part Gillard’s focus is on key issues and those close to her heart.
The lucid presentation of Gillard’s case ultimately provides a cogent defence of the reasons for the challenge to Rudd, the difficulties her government faced, both internal and external, and an insight into Gillard herself.
I thought her detail on individual policies was more than one would expect. As PM she was impressively across a wide range of briefs and her recall is astonishing.
Lucid, yes, also very reflective and self-critical.
The first 130 pages tell the story of how she came to power and governed. In the following 331 pages she takes policy areas one by one, explaining how and why decisions were taken and in some cases an assessment of what still needs to be done, but laced with back stories and relevant anecdotes. The book forms a valuable resource.
Natalie Mast is right in saying she supported Rudd to the hilt and praises him where she thinks he did good work. I too found it surprising that she virtually took over organising his office for him. Also in areas such as health she ended up running the policy internally because Rudd was incapable of doing so.
Surprises include her attitude to gay marriage, which has always been painted as conservative. She says her brand of feminism historically saw marriage in general as an oppressive institution, so it was marriage that she opposed, not the gay bit. She concedes that views have now moved on.
I’ve come the the conclusion that Rudd probably did cause the leaks during the 2010 election campaign. Probably. Gillard reckons it wasn’t to bring her down, Rudd wanted to be foreign minister in her government and she was intending to give him something else. She was told the leaks would continue until she changed her mind. When she conceded his wish the leaks stopped.
One thing is certain, she will never respect Rudd as a person, a view he probably reciprocates.
Finally, I’d love to say more about the misogyny speech. Spoken unscripted with such eloquence and passion, yet she wasn’t personally angry. There is a lesson in there, but it will have to wait for another time.
The Daily Telegraph is calling it “explosive”, the SMH has latched onto Gillard calling Bob Carr lazy.
Whatever.
Ray Martin’s interview with Julia Gillard is being broadcast on Channel Nine at 7pm tonight (Tuesday), promising bombshell after bombshell and the whole truth. Unlikely!
For the record, I agree with Wayne Swan and Stephen Smith that Rudd had become dysfunctional and needed to be replaced. They say, however, he should have been left in the chair until after the 2010 election, which he would have won. If history had taken that course Gillard would still be prime minister, we’d have the full version of the NBN, Gonski, NDIS and health would be funded into the future and we’d be heading for a surplus. Abbott would be historical detritus.
But that didn’t happen and Gillard took over. Then Rudd should have left politics. If so, Gillard would still be PM we’d have the NBN, Gonski etc etc.
Given that Rudd didn’t go away, early in 2013 after it became clear that Gillard couldn’t show her face in Western Sydney, she should have resigned for the good of the party. Probably we’d still have Abbott as PM, but it would have been the honourable thing to do.
But what happened happened and we as Australians have to come to terms with it. The way we, the media, the Abbott led Opposition and yes, Kevin Rudd treated Julia Gillard is simply not acceptable in a mature, civilised society. We are all implicated in some way.
That’s why I’ll be watching. The wound is still open.
