Election 2007

[Bean Is A Carrot]

Just heard the results. YYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[baudrillard]

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!

This election I don't have to throw myself into a pool full clothed. :)

[RealInspectorShane]

Such a relief to finally have Howard out of there, though I was disappointed that none of the election coverage bothered to quote 'one right up the bracket!". And nobody needed to reenact Don's Party---except maybe the Liberals. :)

[waker]

A sad day for comedians though!

[hamsalad]

A great result indeed!
I almost feel bad for Howard though, losing his seat. Costello, Downer, Turnbull etc all kept theirs. At least now he has no excuses NOT to retire.

His concession speech was rather good, too. The only time it truly looked like he was going to shed some tears was when he talked about Costello taking leadership of the Libs. One of the few mistakes in the speech he made was; "I believe that the future of the Liberal party lies with people... ah........ Peter Costello" not verbatim but it made me think of Tony Martin sitting at home thinking "Damnit, why couldn't we be ending next week?".

I was flipping between the ABC's coverage, on which Kerry O'Brien was critisizing the other networks' coverage by calling them desperate clowns and Sky news, who had Kim Beazley & Bob Hawke commentating on their panel. Neither of them could really get a word in though as they kept throwing to sattelite links that didn't work.

[dondonz]

http://blogs.abc.net.au/thepollvault/2007/11/more-stars-come.html#more

Hmm... who are they?

[William Grimbling]

I spent election night at a Whitlams gig... it was brilliant!! (Both the gig and the result.)

They had a telly on stage, and Tim Freedman switched on every few songs to catch up on some election coverage. We caught a bit of Maxine McKew's victory speech, and Tim launched into a reworked version of Roxanne:

Maaaxine... you put The Rodent out tonight.... Maaaxine....

[ShitScared]

http://blogs.abc.net.au/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/24/mcguaran_panel.jpg

[kim]

yay! but the guys look so small! maybe it's because their huge smiles are disproportionate to the rest of their body. and methinks capril has come a bit too early...

[menagers]

Who is that pollie? <EDIT: Er, Ok. Peter McGauran (NAT), Gippsland. Do you think this has something to do with a film?> Rob seems happy-chubby, which is v.good.

Such a hero front bench Rudd, Gillard (I love her!! A female deputy PM - How good is this?), Garrett, Combet, Shorten... Fantastic. And YAH BOO! Sucks to your ass-mar! Snob suburb of mine, who made me grovel for my How-To-Vote Labor card. And seven forms of piss off to all those wankers down the cricket club who were crying like it was the end of the world.
Was great to hear O'Brien crack the shits again. One for old times sake. It was funny to watch him become visibly more chuffed as the night wore on. And Julia, she has a hairdresser for a partner, and the best he can offer her is a Beatle cut. Dear oh dear.

Anyone see Graham Bond in the throngs of people around Maxine?

Anyone think Anna Bligh looks a tad like Jane Kennedy?

[Mason Hell-Cat]

His concession speech was rather good, too.

"Please! Please! Please!"
J.W.Howard, November 24 2007

(quote of the evening)

[William Grimbling]

Speaking of Quote of the Night, more from the Whitlams gig...

"This next song has a discordant, modernist arrangement. But now that we live in a society, not an economy, you're free to appreciate art again."

[RealInspectorShane]

"Please! Please! Please!"
J.W.Howard, November 24 2007

(quote of the evening)

Described by Helen Coonan as 'one of the great political speeches'. :D

[menagers]

I find Helen Coonan to be the Dickhead Ultimo. She always reminded me of Jane Turner doing Bobby Batista.

And yeah, didn't Howard berating his own diehards give you the creeps bigtime? Time for the Horlicks Johnny.

[skel]

Damn. I'm on the other side of the fence. I'm sorry to see the coalition out. Can anyone honestly say they did major wrong by them? Interest rates are way down since the Hawke/Keating era. Tax has been cut for most of us. I really thought if it ain't broke.... I think Rudd is gonna screw us big time. Goodbye surplus. (I am cynical too because I'm a teacher and one of Rudd's dumbfuck promises is to bring in performance based pay for teachers. National exams were kids go up agianst every other student in the country and then the teacher gets screwed. I mean the guy is trying to buy a computer for every student in high school. Talk about a waste of money). Probably not the forum for big political debate though. I'm neither a labor or liberal diehard but I do love Bob Hawke because of one reason: It was 1996 and it was a day nighter at the SCG. The cameras pick up Hawkey walking through the crowd. Tony Greig says "There is former Prme Minister Bob Hawke enjoying a night at the cricket". They cut to the next delivery and when they go back to Hawke, he is skolling a beer, open throat, while ten guys with no shirts on chant him on. NOW THATS A PM.

[Bean Is A Carrot]

I could crap on for hours are why I've hated John Howard since he got in, but here's a summary:

* He's done nothing about the environment.
* His disgusting stance on refugees and asylum seekers.
* His disgusting stance on indigenous affairs (how cynical has the intervention been!).
* The fact that when I got out of uni I couldn't get a decent job (and the Libs had been in power for several years at that point and could have made an impact).
* The way in which they've run down public education and boosted the private sector, making it more difficult for people from poorer backgrounds to get a good start in life.
* The endless ABC budget cuts, their ludicrous accusations of bias against its staff (as if they weren't a much balance to the Murdoch press) and the way they stacked the board with right wing loonies.
* Their support for creepy conservative organisations like the Sydney Institute and Hillsong.
* Their gross smears against childless women like Julia Gillard. In an over populated world, what's wrong with opting for a career?
* Workchoices.

I could go on...

[ShitScared]

Damn. I'm on the other side of the fence. I'm sorry to see the coalition out. Can anyone honestly say they did major wrong by them?

I never trusted Howard since he went back on his infamous quote "There will be NO GST. NEVER EVER!"

Since then, I've hated the Mr Sheen look-a-like... it's gone from there.

[Bean Is A Carrot]

And how could I forget:

* Iraq
* The over-the-top reactions to security post 9/11#
* General Bush's poodle-type behaivour

# When I voted at Australian House in 2004 there were machine gun toting security guards. Why?

[Mason Hell-Cat]

I read with keen interest Paul Keating's response in yesterday's SMH. I have always been a big fan of Keating and have always respected his views. I find his views on the outgoing government to be spot on:


When Howard decided to go after workers with his Work Choices legislation, he did so not out of any economic necessity, as the economic record for wages and inflation attests. He did it simply to break the back of the unions. His motivations were ideological and spiteful, telling us he had learned nothing from the fact that there had been no wages breakout in Australia since the one he detonated 26 years earlier.


He connived in the defeat of the republic referendum so that now we are more likely than not to have King Charles and Queen Camilla as our heads of state, as ludicrous as that would be.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/divisive-leader-who-squandered-australias-hopes/2007/11/25/1195975870462.html

[baudrillard]

skel, you don't understand that the surplus came from selling off every asset the government owned? As well as destroying all social programmes/infrastructure? Oh, I guess next you can sing the praises of the IR laws and crushing the unions to the point where wages are whatever your averages Coles employer can negotiate/bargain with the manager of the franchise they work for? Short-sighted fiscal irresponsibility is no excuse to damn Rudd for things previous Labor governments have done, stand up and take responsibility for what the Liberals have done to get where they have rather than just look at the end result. The end does not (always) justify the means. Nothing personal mate, but why do you think there was a backlash like this? Because of "change for change sake" or because people couldn't fucking stand the tightening of the screws anymore and weren't buying the bullshit of the Howard's battlers illusion?

[SandhurstMachinery]

I might be the only one here - but I think it would be a good idea if this thread was left to wither on the vine.

If you're that keen for political debate maybe a visit to some political forums might be the answer.

I can see that someone is going to go overboard with their political views & say something offensive.

Just my view though.

[Mason Hell-Cat]

Im hoping for something offensive to come from this thread.

[menagers]

So Yah Boo, Sucks to your ass-mar didn't rate then?

[SandhurstMachinery]

Im hoping for something offensive to come from this thread.


OK - Hinder & Nickelback make really good music.

Offensive enough?;)

[baudrillard]

Let's take this outside! I'll 'ave ya!

[skel]

Hahaha Hinder. What the hell happened to them? That was like a three month love affair. I don't wanna harp on about politics, I really couldn't care less but I will say this. I spent a little bit of time working in the Queensland Health system (the most efficently run Government organisation ever...pfft) and Dr Rudd (or Dr Death as he is known) is well remembered by every person who ever worked for QH in the late 80's and early 90's. Let's just say they aren't glowing reviews. My point is we are always gonna have dickheads in parliament. Unless they pay 10 million a year to attract someone with a brain. Its unfortunate but thats the world we live in. Its a world with two George Bushes. Thats just wrong. Least there is only one Nickleback though....Oh crap, horrible thought. When do we start getting the "Nickleback experience" at places like Twin Towns or Penrith Leagues. Backnickle anyone?

[kim]

'Please, please, please!' Let's not get this thread out of hand :-D
WHAT THE LATE SHOW FORUM NEEDS IS TO LOVE...

But seriously, everyone can say what they like in the off-topic forum. I'm not going to censor it!*


* Unless it's spam, or defamatory, and I need to for legal reasons!

[Bean Is A Carrot]

I can see that someone is going to go overboard with their political views & say something offensive.

I've seen none of that so far, apart from that Hinder comment.

Look, I'm not saying Rudd's a saint. If anything he's the Australian Tony Blair. I just think it's a refereshing change to have a PM who'll sign Kyoto, get the troops out of Iraq, apologise to the Aborigines, get rid of Workchoices and consider a Republic. And I'm under no illusions that he will eventually disappoint me. Even Whitlam did crap things.

[kim]

Change is good, so long as people don't get complacent and make sure they keep the bloke on his toes -- let's see how he fares in five years! (Blair...)
The reason I left Australia was because I was bored and unmovitated and the referendum result (rigged question!) was the last straw -- I figured that I might as well join the motherland than stand in its shadow. But it's going to be a long time...

[baudrillard]

10 Reasons Why it's great to see him go
Phillip Adams | November 27, 2007

SPARE me the sentimental tosh about John Howard. Here's why his departure is a joyous occasion.

The scene: The Great Hall at the University of Sydney. The grand opening of a conference for the Centre for the Mind. Crowds have gathered to see Nelson Mandela cut the ribbon. As chairman of the advisory board it is my duty to welcome our patron, the Prime Minister. That long-time opponent of sanctions against apartheid South Africa will then welcome Mandela. When I complain bitterly about my chore, the vice-chancellor murmurs, "Protocol."

A last-minute phone call from a protocol officer in the PM's department.

"Do you really want to introduce the PM?" he asks.

"Of course I bloody well don't!"

"Yes, it would be a bit hypocritical."

"Not as hypocritical as the PM introducing Mandela."

The resolution? The VC will introduce Howard. I'll move the vote of thanks. When I explain the change, Mandela isn't fussed but asks me: "How's Paul Keating getting on?"

This backstage kerfuffle is nothing to Malcolm Fraser's loud performance in front of the gathering dignitaries, including the PM. He tells of a crisis early in his prime ministership involving Vietnamese close to the Australian embassy. They are understandably desperate to be allowed into this country. Fraser phones Gough Whitlam, who agrees they should be welcomed. "So did my entire cabinet, except for one person. Guess who!" And he points the finger at Howard.

The scene: John Laws's 2UE studio in 1988. Anticipating One Nation by many years, Howard warns the nation of the dangers of Asian immigration. So outraged is the response to his statement that Howard loses his job as Opposition leader a year later.

The scene: A new prime minister manipulates Hansonism in the mid to late 1990s. Forget dog-whistle politics. In a campaign as deafening as any air raid siren, Howard declares war on multiculturalism and political correctness. White Australia rises from its grave. Bigotry is unleashed via an epidemic of racist graffiti, schoolyard attacks and shock-jock broadcasting. Thanks to the main parties' accommodation of One Nation, Australian racism is world news.

The scene: A few thousand refugees flee the Taliban and Saddam Hussein in 2001. Howard brands them queue jumpers, illegals and has cohorts hint that they're terrorists. The Tampa sails into view and our detention of decent people in concentration camps becomes an international disgrace. Kim Beazley rolls over. The ALP is complicit in this political pornography, this immense stunt. Kids overboard. The Australian Navy is appalled by what it's ordered to do. More than 350 die on the SievX. All this wins Howard another term.

The scene: 9/11. Howard jumps the queue to sign up for the misconceived war on terror and the horror story of the Iraq invasion. Immense numbers of Iraqis are killed. We are complicit in hundreds of thousands of deaths, in Abu Ghraib, in torture, in rendition. It isn't democracy that blossoms in the Middle East. It's terrorism. To this day Howard insists that the fiasco of Iraq is a success.

The scene: Guantanamo Bay. Howard permits the monstrous treatment of David Hicks.

The scene: The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission prepares Bringing Them Home, the tragic account of the stolen generations. Before publication date in 1997, Howard's bovver boys not only deride the document but slander Ronald Wilson. Historical revisionism kicks in. Reconciliation is rejected. The black-white divide deepens. Quadrant crows. Pauline Hanson is pleased.

The scene: The Kelly gang - the husbands of retiring member Jackie Kelly and her would-be replacement - are caught distributing a piece of crap designed to press the hot buttons on anti-Muslim bigotry. We're told this attempt to throw fuel on the world's most inflammatory issue is a prank. The PM promptly denies any knowledge of this dirtiest of dirty tricks, yet it sits within the culture of bigotry he has encouraged over many years.

The scene: As the election gains pace, Howard's immigration minister Kevin Andrews targets the alleged criminality of Sudanese refugees and immigrants. Deja vu all over again.

The scene: A few days before the election, Howard is asked to list his proudest achievements. Right up front he says the destruction of - yes - political correctness.

Is Howard a bigot? His support of apartheid South Africa, his long-term indifference to the issues of Aboriginal Australia, his exploitation of the refugee issue and his on-the-record hostility to Asian immigration would suggest so. Or is he a main-chancer, a cunning manipulator of other people's fears and racism? If the latter, isn't that morally worse? That's why I'm not shedding tears at Howard's departure. Because his fondness for the Menzies era involved the revival of too many aspects of White Australia. No other modern PM on either side of politics would have touched it with a barge pole.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22822665-5013491,00.html

[baudrillard]

no offense skel, just thought it was a very well written article.

[Mason Hell-Cat]

The reason I left Australia........ the referendum result (rigged question!) was the last straw

well you've gone to the right place if you were sick of being in a monarchy! haha

[ShitScared]

well you've gone to the right place if you were sick of being in a monarchy! haha
That's what I thought too.. a bit of a contradiction!

[Mason Hell-Cat]

btw who are Hinder? Never heard of em.

[skel]

no offense skel, just thought it was a very well written article.

Oh dude, none taken. I honestly don't care who the hell runs this joint. As long as they give me funding...

[Bean Is A Carrot]

I love Phillip Adams. Thanks for post, baudrillard.

And I think you're all missing the point about why people left Australia for Europe (and elsewhere) during Howard's reign. You just couldn't get a start. Howard did nothing for young people, in fact he had a very open contempt for them (mainly because he's a deeply cynical operator he knew that he could get all the votes he needed from the older baby boomers and his fellow war babies by railing against immigrants and the like).

I got out of uni at the start of 1998 and figured that by now the recession must be over and I could get a decent job. How wrong I was! Eventually I got a very crappy job, at which toiled away at for 18 months. Then I got the plane to London, and what do you know, I landed a good job, then a few more. It's different now, but in 2000 there were so many opportunities for young people in London and I could finally start my career. There was also a sense of optomism from people in the UK, still on a high from the Blair victory a few years back. Sure it went sour after 9/11, but I was on a roll, why would I come back to Australia? Even now that Australia's had it's own 1997/Blair moment, when I actually feel proud to be Australian for the first time in over a decade, I don't know if I could go back. Why? Well, timing is everything and I'm established here now and it'd be very difficult to re-establish myself back in Australia. Howard and co drove a lot of people like me away, as Menzies did with people like Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer, Clive James, John Pilger and Robert Hughes. And a great many of us have been lost forever.

[kim]

That's what I thought too.. a bit of a contradiction!

Hehe, it might seem like that, but it had nothing to do with the monarchy - as Bean said, there were more job opportunities - I had an OK job in 2000 but it (and I) wasn't going anywhere. Within weeks of settling in London I had a fun job.

After the referendum it was a kind of 'well if Australians don't want to stand up on their own two feet I might as well move to the source' attitude. There was more to it than that, but that evening I was wandering around with Yes written on my forehead in lipstick and the stick I got from everyone in the pubs and streets was disturbing. They all seemed so insular and argumentative and proud of themselves. Plus I wanted to see the world - that night I spoke to some guy who felt like he didn't need to get out of NSW let alone see other countries. Granted, I was egging them on with the lipstick - I was only 22 ;)

The good news is I'll probably be back in Oz for family reasons... but might decide to come back here ...

[menagers]

God, I remember that question. Wasn't it absolute bollocks? You could get what you wanted if you were prepared to eat the big shitcake. I remember my husband-to-be and I were listening to Kim Beasley (cue theme) on Triple J afterwards, and it was so sad hearing him say "That's it, now. There will never be another referendum on this issue". I was horrified to think this true at the time, but how sadly prophetic.

[waker]

Are you sure he wasn't talking about cheese?

[menagers]

Have you got any cheese? Awww, I'd love a bit of cheese.
You can take your hand off my leg for starters.

Out of interest, the question in question (?!) was this: To alter the Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with the Queen and Governor-General being replaced by a President appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament.

I still don't get it. Oh actually, yeah I do. It's basically what we have now with the G-G, but with a new name - El Presidente. We could live with that. They should have had booths in shopping-centres explaining it to 'the people'.

And for the ex-pats, here's a question: Do you have difficulty going back to the UK after a home visit? When I was 20 I made it over there, on the entire contents of my passbook account, because I was obsessed with the place and simply had to touch it. But, when uni called and the money ran out, back home I came (and went a little allworkandnoplaymakesjackadullboy on the 3 day flight home). When I got off at Tulla, I looked up and saw a sky so perfectly blue, it could have been a paint colour card. I went down to my local beach and squelched the sand in my toes... and that was all she wrote. Ok, fair enough, my only job there was working at Dixie Fried Chicken in Chingford. Where they told me off for working and I wondered why there was a large perspex screen like in the banks. Come pub closing time, when one boy squeezed through the 3 inch gap at the top of it, just to ask me for his PORTION OF CHIPS, TA LUV face-to-face, I had answered my own question.

[Bean Is A Carrot]

The thing about the republic vote (and I'm another of those pissed-off Yes voters) was that people said they didn't like the proposed model. They seemed to want a more American style model, which is not what was put forward. I still maintain that had the question been "Do you want a republic?" people would have said Yes, which makes the fact that people put aside this obvious desire for a republic to object to the proposed model a very mature decision. Still disappointing, mind.

And to answer menager's question, I'm far more interested in the cultural and employment opportunities available in London than going to the beach. And the violence in London is much exaggerated. I've never been in a situation that's scared me. In fact, walking around late at night I feel quite safe, because there are lots of others walking around too. Compare that to the Australian suburbs where you could be walking along, get attacked and no one would be around to witness it or help you.