Apathy is the norm, but Labor's right to rule mentality is plain obnoxious

A good rollout and a good idea of who the candidates were; a credit to Colac DCC . People listening to discussion on OCRFM would realise what a wide range of comments were made, making the evening a really worthwhile way of thinking about who to vote for . I can only wonder why considering Brian Crooks and other Councillors concern to improve local government and accountability ( the talk on many lips) why most Councillors were not there . Maybe they think nothing will happen here while Labor is in power . The absence of Labor suggests they believe less in the effectiveness of a good old democratic discussion in, like last night , and more in their right to rule . I hope Polwarth sends the message that its not going to be taken for granted - certainly this was the feeling at this excellent candidates meeting.

Don't forget the free train trip today - Thanks to David O'Brien - putting all the TALK about extar trains on the real line between Colac and Geelong.

The media wet themselves

ABC talk damningly of Liberal leadership all week and or earthquakes in Queensland .Talk about overreaching themselves with rhetoric.The ABC, unlike SBS, are not interested in the reality of the erosion of our democracy and the drip feeders on the tax system .
Uhlman and his crew are so welded on that they cannot see that we too do not like much that Qld Liberals think- they are too busy going for the jugular of individuals.
Since the electoral system has been changed its not worth voting and eventually Australia will see it - changes of government will not fix what only tough medicine in the areas Labor is weakest ( education and welfare and environment) Comfortable ABC  forget they just ran a program on the demise of the National Party and the dangers of minority views making a laughing stock of what was our democracy . City controls the country and that' s as deep as it goes. Media offer solutions instead of real people who work the country
Sure we will be patronized - suddenly the city knows how to run the country - give everyone more money
And any reasonable reflection will show the changes in government in the States over the twenty  years show the same dominance of suburban brilliance over the business of keeping the country growing and alive .

Don't preach democracy;  some of no longer believe it operates here .
We are more like Greece everyday  - hoping that a new government will give us back what we think we  deserve..  next post Same old stuff NEXT ELECTION

What will it be TODAY? My hope is that the Greens get a reality check - I trust it's on the cards

While there still seems a great risk of minor group dominance, in this The VIC ELECTION DAY


The Greens have candidates in all electorates and it will be the most interesting aspect of this election to see how they poll,


Despite their popularity and high spirits ,I am hoping the electorate will see through them as i think many young people are too


I hope it translates to a reluctance to let Labor have another go


I am hoping that if Labor get in , Andrews makes clear he is breaking with the Greens. If there is to a positive side to a Labor win this could be one


However the down side is that

• The bureau will be refueled with reactionaries . 
• Those who want to make the world a better place by taking people to court ( equal opportunity court review) 
• Those who want to make the world a better place by just throwing out old and bringing in latest fad 
• Those who want to make the world a better place by giving people money to behave better 
• Those who want to make the world a better place by putting themselves in charge ( the state of advisory service to members of parliament would be in some quarters ( env and edu be unreliable) 

There is a good old Aussie expression 'takes one to know one ". Wood -headed is the authors problem .The greatest evil is done in the name of the best intention --Now that's a even bigger and brighter bit of world wide wisdom that Bracks might have heeded before he got conned by Green labor into his/their godlike skills in making water.

These noisy and marginal advocates have god like wisdom and power - and all we have to do is to do nothing
All these wonderful ambitions mentioned in the article about Greater Eastern National Park about forest and ecological management would be supported if they actually occurred .
Apparently all this good work starting at Healesville and going east is so easy to do . Apparently it will all happen because we do nothing .
Too bad half the assertions about all the wonderful things that will happen are just plain wrong . As if doing nothing is always the right thing to do .
I hope no readers conduct their lives this way , because its the way of blinkered cowards, full reality deniers and ignorant worriers ,
The rotting of forests will not sequester carbon and the protection of water quality will not occur if you allow acid to degraded the soils and water in over-mature forests.
Let the readers wait for a response from them before they get sucked in again to another Green labor proposal to save the earth by the simplest of tricks . The reality is that this new easy low effort religion is so heavenly minded its of no earthly use--
Simple faiths sound good , but when you test some ( Greens have no history apart from Pedder that works ) - In their case as the arguments show it will just go thud when tested and at our expense.

Lets hope and pray for Andrews that ,  if he gets in , that he makes a clear break with the wacky do gooders.
Dogooders in my book includes the dummies who think reviving trial by loose tribunal is the way to deal with discrimination ( Equal Opportunity Act)

So symbolic of the praxis failure of the left is this : they leave effectiveness to the one eyed looseness of legislation; having no faith in their fellow man and the traditional levers of the soul they are at the mercy of mere politics and legal leverage.

Poll result

with only 2 votes the result is more than  a bit sus . However if the Napthine govt fails today , it should take note re consulatnts,  not listening,  not locally accountable .Things we see not just at State level but in the parlous state of our local Councils.

So much easier to do nothing

If you know nothing .
We locals are off to Forrest this arvo to celebrate the life of a man who knew what he knew and knew a lot about what he didn't know - a wonderful bloke .

The city pretends it knows a lot about the environment ; we know different about who knows what and what the city really knows --- almost nothing.
Who do you vote for? Someone who respects locals or someone who lets someone else (say from the city) make decisions for us. 
Jim Speirs , whose life we celebrate this week,  was one local who knew what he was talking about  . As a result he did a lot to build understanding and respect for his work in and amongst the complex issues of managing Otways resources; He used a friendly, competent  and reasonable conversation that made sense .He knew the 3 crops of timber and the damage done to West Barwon catchment, so he wasn't afraid of history or a risky land use . His own study on the ground showed that we often burned too much ( for sound forest ecology ) and were doing it again   
He wasn't indolent in promoting decision making . He wanted our grandchildren to make houses, furniture and Maton guitars out of the bounty, rather than just let things rot ,die or burn or make acid water ....as some now do.  
Many of us long for the day when our leaders don't just spend all  our resources waiting for a decision from those who don't really know what they are talking about, are too afraid of others,  or are too afraid to admit they don't know the complex beast of environment: 

We have enough leaders who can open up a bridge or a new road.
We want leaders who,  instead of years of indecision and fear , can reopen a simple walkway through the bush to Marriners Falls ,or make a safe place for vehicles to go in a bushfire , or just give us our dogs back . All in a days work for Jim

Why is Napthine worried? His party are dreaming?..... of just how rich they are ?

I mean they have done everything.  Offered us new roads&  railways .   They are raking it in like never before on Stamp Duty .Are they just Kennett style - leave it to business BUT with soft gloves . Bet they don't offer to reduce the number of holidays .  Do we trust them ?----East west link and more - not even costed .  Hard hitting or just let business do what it likes ? Talk big pay later
Surely they can't have gone too far ? Surely the Libs infrastructure talk isn't failing like some crack in their mindboggling ambitions to give us things we want.
Surely the Libs infrastructure talk isn't failing ----- the tangible concrete  is so much easier than real government work

Surely they can't have gone too far ?  something sus  in their mindboggling ambitions to give us things we want  ,
Are we all dummies or do we want our children to have houses , not gloat on the prices of them. Those of us that have them .
Maybe we have seen through all this market and business knows best . After all it just exploits people ?
Are we all dummies or do we want our children to have dreams , not live in boxes while they sell off old public land sites.
Are we all dummies or do we want our children to have dreams to live and work in what was once the most livable suburbs  or just get an 4WD SUV and some new roads so we can get outta here.

Are we all dummies or do we not sense that our biggest problem is the entitlement culture , our vulnerability to debt , throwing things out for new and BUYING in to the commercial . The way some parties play up to it --- and the dumb talk of how wealthy we are .
If I was a teenager I would be reluctant to vote for a government who does not activey recognise its own historical woosiness and playing up to rich in our culture .( spend billions to save commuters 10 minutes on a an an EW link  when the growth probably should be onto  trains )

Its tough for rural people to be represented in the land of the fair go

For all the effort we put in locally here in Corangamite to get the conservatives back , you wonder about the Libs. Their go it alone mentality is too much like the children in charge stuff from the other side- a symbol again of the disease that's creating even more careless reactionaries in new parties around us .
The most scary thing here is to see The Libs back to their old comfort zone. Somehow they didn't realise ( Like Labor does with the Greens) that they NEED to do a sensible ( makes more sense than many silly deals this election ) deal with their allies (esp FF who they failed to get favouring them well- maybe it was FF fault ?). While the Libs got Nationals to put them 2nd here in Corangamite they still spent a lot of money trying to win the unwinnable Mallee off the Nats . Stockdale needs to get his head read by his own followers .
With only a handful of rural seats and a mad mixture of monopoly games around our cities its clear than nooone is really listening to rural people . FF polled better than the Nationals in Corangamite and that not right . Today in the paper our Mayor ignores the farmers clear wisdom ( on salinity ) for the incompetent meddling and non science  of the Bureau.  

Election Issues are not real, but even the ABC aren't seeing it

Its very hard to take even The Drum seriously when Steve Cannane is not aware that he's taking " the issues " too seriously;  4 days before the big day.
Both J& John Dela Bosca had to tell the him the obvious - You are asking us - you shouldn't be asking us! " no we are not qualified to say whether the new carbon market model will work"  - good on them  I say . Too much noise by those who know nothing . So why do we have to listen to Labor move from one word to another  from "tax",to" pricing" and expect to actually engage; ABC is so predictable .
It was only common sense a few decades ago to say - "no I am not qualified " hasn't stopped the ABC trying to qualify itself ( including the light and shallow economic quarter after which thankfully showed Labor to have failed completely - confidence in " the innovative society" has dropped dramatically over the last few years )

 If only the chatterer's would take the complexity of carbon cycling and achieving change seriously they wouldn't be remembered for leading our society into excessive worry about things they know nothing about and don't want to know that they nothing about - want to believe one side rather than properly present both.  Still backing some semblance of "a market mechanism" - IS a trite piece of doctrinal simplicity and careless talk that not even an undergrad in economics would be guilty of .

In an other bit of combined common sense from the panel,  J&J had to remind Steve that the asylum debate hasn't happened - the people still confuse immigration and asylum so what hope have we got when even the ABC haven't pushed the point - now 4 days before the election

One could go through the list of excitements about nothing :  gay marriage and many others which are just talk for the media .
This election is not about the marginal noise but the central failure of Labor to get it ideas working . Rudd's and ABC sycophants  fanaticism is obvious to some of us who observe all the old prejudices , over emotion and thought bubble progress method that is drug driven and simply " hot air "

No more children in charge

Told the story of Labors incompetence in investing in the education revolution in our town.  Got little respectful response from a largely city crowd . We had no choice about getting a " new sec school"; we were part of an experiment . A city based experiment that caused us to lose most of our best teachers and kids to other towns and schools . an experiment that leaves us with 2 unused facilities that could be used by us but that may well be bulldozed and sold to pay for the experimenters failures. 

Millions of dollars of public money wasted, and who will pay for all the broken windows in buildings we once used , now.  We are clearly at risk even now of losing this great opportunity to KEEP the existing capital and cultural assets of our town - let alone build on them . 

Labor is teaching our children, if it isn't working, bulldoze it ;  sell the family assets to pay for your mistakes;  if its stops working, buy a new one; The bank account has money in it , spend it .

Its not clever ; its childish cloning ---market cloning "being a good consumer ". if that means anything but that we are living on the never never . 

We are only ever complete when we encourage each other to be a productive people!  Lets say so clearly at this election 

Told the story of Labors incompetence in investing in the education revolution in our town. Got little respectful response from a largely city crowd . We had no choice about getting a " new sec school"; we were part of an experiment . A city based experiment that caused us to lose most of our best teachers and kids to other towns and schools . an experiment that leaves us with 2 unused facilities that could be used by us but that may well be bulldozed and sold to pay for the experimenters failures. Millions of dollars of public money wasted, and who will pay for all the broken windows in buildings we once used , now.

ABC only pretend to give alternative ideas a go

 Except for The Drum at times . Miriam was no match for Minchen on The Drum tonight and the other guest Aaron tries to reign the disbelief in her long winded  " answers ". She like Kevin talks too much and says little but generalities and defence of "failures ".cf forthrightness of Nick .  Obviously she knows all the ideas to talk to , but can't argue any depth on them ."more food , erosion risk , this here this that ".

Labor party clearly influence what appears to be an independent". Centre for Policy Development. Nick doesn't have to defend himself because he 's practical and honest - unlike so much Labor politics - talk talk talk and Centre for Policy Development  that is not independant ..Centre for Policy speculation?

Labor's kid gloves

The ongoing deceptive projection of either Gillard or Rudd as fronts for Labor says something terrible about Labor - we don't know what they stand for , and its not clear they know either. Moving so easily from left to right suggests, not that they are a broad church , but that  there is nothing in between the images. No doubt they will be busy pre election trying to talk broadchurch and stability of policy.
Let's assume, as is our bent here,   that the issue is not issues ( the substance thereof  --as the desperate reactionary rhetoricians would have it ) but impressions. Clearly just  toughness imaging  is not the issue, but toughness undermined by substituting left for right is the credibility cruncher for thinking people - terrible twin concatenation  to many.
None of us like the hidden extremes in Labor ( glove and fist ) but we MUST always be aware of them - such extremes suggest a vacuum in between. Their ongoing attempts to use the glove is a hypocrisy and thinly veiled tragedy of emptiness  we best reject forever.
The mass exodus of Julia's operatives ( 1/3 of cabinet have just quit) suggest this overblown balloon of rhetoric about "world shattering" has no real their commitment to being implemented ; belated arguing for world changing policy --eggshell thin excuses and "I, me and my exit speeches " . Watch Rudd soften the hard edge of this shallowness and lack of substance!
Is it only an impression that Gillard's cabinet were never as convincing as Rudd's - 2 years of birdbath depth defences for heavenly policies that we will see washed clean or even empty  over the next few months ?
If anyone gets the prize for lightweight and narrow focused, it is this natural association between the left and the greens. 
Julia may have labelled herself and the party "as god like" but she surely she went down because she has not performed like god -let alone sound like.
So how deep does the god like imagery in Rudd run?  Clearly Rudd's alternative humility cop will be attractive to many.
Before anyone else gets carried away,  all parties ( including the most pretentious godlike Greens ) will be judged , not on the power they presume, but there respect for their limited power .
Rudd clearly has an advantage over some in the Liberal party who have never doubted they are infact godlike and always were.
The big question is : Will we be fooled to accept for a second time that Rudd is the kid glove type  covering the iron fist of the fanatical in behind him  . Labor's  hold on the intellect and internal substance is as shaky as their long term reliance  on Barry Jones as a symbol of it . Behind Labors policy is not substance of the many but interest of the few[ Totally ineffective industry and employment development policy and a clever country policy as shallow and shaky as the walls of their hypocritical building education buildings policy .  
Abbott would do well to focus on the facade.

What blatant hypocrisy amongst the remaining Fabians

What shocking desperation is being shown by those would pay themselves by robbing the country .
PM Gillard, this week wants to fund election advertising even before the normal campaigns begin .
We know that its sometimes ignorance ,sometimes arrogance , sometimes both .Their stupidity is unfathomable even unto themselves , let alone the onlooker .

There is no rationale to fabianism except the worship of power itself - government power . These dumb reactionaries  would have us believe that their doctrines have evolved upwards from the Jacobins . The reality is that grabbing a snippet of science to Shaw up a totally unworkable mix of "man is bad , government is good or "man is good,  government is better" will never work . Man is capable of both bad and good and  good government has its limits and is never "better " .  

If anyone should get some money back it could be those of us who only got 3% of the vote and bore the cost ourselves -all that largesse..... and  at our expense ;
The major parties and Labor in particular are a disgrace - drowning out small voices . What BLATANT hypocrisy and arrogance.

Liberals are on the nose in the bush

Nothing stinks worse out here in the bush than arrogance . Sure, the Labor party have done the normal thing and blown the budget , but to say that you blokes know what you are doing is to ignore your own reactionary people and half baked incompetence .
I mean you don't even get it do you . Napthine , whose dad wouldn't cope with where Kennett has taken his own Council, and who has now been given the chance to fix things--- will do what??. Independants everywhere are taking over your right to rule in the bush -right under your noses.
You don't even care that the Nationals have given up on you out here !

Why, because you are as thick about what you have done wrong as what you are about the few things you have ever have done right .


If the Liberals want to win the next election, they will have to restore the damage done to democracy in the Kennett Era. The conservatives have no option but to restore the ability of local government to act in the interests of its ratepayers.That includes the huge ongoing damage done by growing unaccountable bureaus-esp consultant driven high cost confusion planning modelled by ......the State . VCAT was once the jewel in the crown - now its the costliest clown in law that any State has ever had ( you heard it first on blogger!)  .  All the fanfare about saving money is just so much hot air out in the bush if our Councillors aren't in a position to control how Local Government spends its money and does the job.The Liberals can spend as much money as they like in Corangamite,but it won't put them back in power if they don't restore power to the people.


Give us a rest please . Tell us something we don't know -
WE KNOW you are often better at managing money than Labor , but that doesn't take much .You should see how we manage a spare dollar .No one will go into Victorian history  having done more permanent damage to this the once best planned place than the planning jackhammer Jeff and his mates . It may take us 30 years to pay for a useless desal plant , but the way the libs are going they will never reform local government so it works again. You used to worry about quangos , now you just create them or let them grow.  Business led Bullsh .
Get this -You think your members " manage things " - storehouses perhaps ?  We manage businesses that produce things  - that are high risk low margin every day of every year ---having to sell our perishables this week or never .
Most of your lot wouldn't be happy unless you got a cheque each week and a margin of 50% on everything that sits in your import shed adding asset value- too comfortable to see the unsustainability and worse , capitalizing on the value of products WE produce !

In short ------Arrogance !

Tough leadership

Julia Gillard is today trying to say No ; About time ! It comes after years of providing succor to the noisy and immature in her hearing.  Too much bleeting from the bleeding hearts clubs?
Mother Julia , Mother Bligh and Mother ABCTV should not try to take all the calls and Julia has finally realised it . ( you heard it first on blogger 8th March 2013)
The problem then for Father Abbott and Father Napthine , Like Father Balllieuu.  is the tough ask of saying no to some  of the noise .
But which noise?  - some distant noise about slavery today or some close loud noise that noone wants to talk about ! ( like a simpleminded policy to change the atmosphere using a market driven miracle. You watch them pull down their gloriuos imperatives over the next few months!    The Labor party needs a few more miracles but definitely not a man made miracle and a man made miracle based on a power myth that means they presume power they haven't got .
Let's hope the Liberals don't get carried away with their perception of power again either  I believe in mircales but the former idea takes a lot of faith to believe possibel eh! .  One bulldozer a century is definitley too many. You can tell Jeff's got it running again with his appearances this week,
In a strange twist Ian Smith's mate is talking about more railways infrastructure when Smith wanted to close down rail.
The point is , the right noise has often been sat on by the big loud and colourful positive only quickfizers 

In Victoria this week we have leadership from the wonderful Western District ? This may mean we  have we have much to offer OR that we don't quite know what we have been offered .My guess - bit of both! At least we do know what a fair go mate really means --- on the ground .
Well either way,  we have the job,  so here are some suggestions. We have had the bulldozer from the big smoke  and  we all know out here  that bulldozer drivers are still in there in the big smoke; PLUS we know that such singleminded dummies have no idea about the sensitive matters of household .
Maybe the tractor is a better analogy Denis Napthine and Tony  - It ploughs the ground to show up the weeds.
Maybe if you asked us, you might learn something ?

Dams are bad and thats all there is to it

Like humans,  Dams are bad . Good on the Libs for playing Labor and the Greens at a game they love - categories of evil; pedantic simple word games !  Dams like  harvesting,  are sins and there  is no doubt in church about that .
So do the conservatives know what kind  of dams they want , or more importantaly, do they know what  types of dams they can justify? .No,  they want votes but STILL fail to earn them .  Its all very well for Tim of The Wentworth group ( of that rare breed of conservationsit) to say "this and this" but somebody only last year let people build on floodplains in every State - despite all the Care and concern of Greens about real world conservation,  the right advice was not even on the radar screen.  Green labor are as everyone except them knows,  too heavenly minded to be of almost any earthly use . The missing ingredients are  a tiny minority of experts called geomorphologists production ecologists and soil water plant use planners  
Not that I think the Libs know exactly what they are doing when they talk about dams. They may well just be wanting  to support the growing number of engineers to find work out there in infrastructure land.  One hopes that,  like having Tim from the concerned sceintists groups on The drum last night that all the shallow splashing by the religiuosleft  is soon demolished by a bomb from real experts ( makes for a nice change)No the pwoer groups arre still too big to move just because on one chat on the ABC .
The real probem is that engineers on their own can't sort out the broken filters of sound judgement at a local and basic preplanning level . State governments have created all these " high level planning groups"like CMAS ( which put out pontif type edicts )  only to find that local governemnet can't manage without decent independant advicee on geomorphoogy and landscape and ecosystem  protection. Even the most well heeled engineering orgs with a strong rate base in my youth ( like the State  Rivers and Water supply commission and water authorities ) didn't do ecostuff at all well. ( they won't still unless you make them . Engineers will survive the green onslaught,  but scientists who think bigger than the trite green popular plitics of our day have been and will remain the most endangered species for decades to come as well .Why?  Because the GEOM rather than engineers directly define excatly which type of dam and infrastructure is environmentally sound  Abrave me he be if he thinks he can unseat the power of a engineer or an accountant . .
A small group of experts hold the key to better decsion making and credibility of dams ( I am not going to wet the powder too far out from election by elaborating on detail here )
The election will be held without considering the key ingredients  again , but LOCAL  GOVERNMENT  INEPTNESS, now that's an election and reform issue just waiting to blow up .
Does the new legislation address the festering sores of planning and LG role i it ?  - don't make me laugh.  

Unrepresentative sentimentality

The Greens will go into history as a group with some great ideas. Like those who identify with them,  their failure will be to put sentimentality with substance . Politics is the art of the possible and while its good to dream and to have slogans, members of all parties and positions must do their homework.

Advocates of the latest Green push to give gays more rights failed in parliament this week to address even the most basic of questions about law and liberty for children . Our local member Mr Cheeseman claimed his electorate  as highly progressive and liberated from the past  even though more established representatives of Labor like Mr O' Connor would not go that far .But its only one group making all the noise -typical childrenincharge stuff from Labor .

I wonder which of these people below who claimed to be on the edge of history will be still in parliament next time around. I wonder too whether they will quite so lyrical about their fine cutting swords in dealing with bullying,  intimidation and simple sentiment against others. Its been a  great day for the people and parliament when the great majority of them stood and sat quietly against the noisy intimidation and  careless talk that in the last few weeks clearly involved unrepentant  playing of the man and not the ball .

Ayes, 42Mr AlbaneseMr DreyfusMr S. P. JonesMs RoxonMr BandtMrs ElliotDr M. J. KellyMs Saffin*Ms BirdMs EllisMs KingMr ShortenMs BrodtmannMr GarrettMs LivermoreMr SidebottomMr ButlerMr GeorganasMs MacklinMr S. F. SmithMr ChampionMr GibbonsMr MarlesMs SmythMr CheesemanMr GrayMr OakeshottMr SnowdonMr ClareMs GriersonMs ParkeMr C. R. ThomsonMs CollinsMr GriffinMr PerrettMr WilkieMr CombetMs Hall*Ms Plibersek Mr CreanMr JenkinsMs Rishwort

Baillieu's stew

Nothing really radical about the Vic Libs, and it shows . I don't see how they can even win the next fed election because they can only sack PS's  - they are not serious about MANAGEING THEM
Ballieu's ministers clearly don't know what to do.
Walsh, Stockdale, Smith and half the sleepy breed of retail and real estate therapy agents in the Lib party continue to convince themselves that a business approach would restore order; It hasn't and won't . Libs business led recovery since Kennett has cost the Country lots cause its just been handing out tickets to ride to more and more agencies that are not accountable - esp to rural Australia who can seee it more celarly than most ( eg Windsor) .
Water charges just go up and up as the smarter ones in these departments exploit the  hands off Lib dummies  who only ever claim to lead- Their departments  use the taxes to  do what they like.
Just as they did under Labor .
How long before Labor realises that their mistake in creating the wonthagi white elephant was not really just their problem. Walsh and his careless failure to really support the hard working people of this country must be recognised before Libs can win the next election .
The country doesn't need another restructure of DSE and DPI and more clones and quangoes like CMA's - it needs departments who speak for sustainability and for the farming people who know what it is ( neither department at the moment ) .
Clearly they don't have,  cause they don't ask .

Too heavenly minded to be any earthly use - Greenlabor

Yes , for those of us with our feet on the ground,  Bligh and Carr talking about their green credentials in the last week is a  sign of their being completely out of touch with long term practice change in the area.Like so many "resilience" is just a word .  Green labor is not working and it will never work ,because it doesn't understand the subject. The Greens are not serious contenders on conservation practice ; The Greens are not serious contenders for credibility on resilience either - they hardly know what the word means -( even though like all quick fixers and meredescription merchants , it won't stop them being the first to throw the word into the hubub -774 today )
Good intentions are never enough in politics and those who celebrate its ascendancy should leave politics ; leave it to those who practice in the area .
At the heart of Labor's loss in Queensland is a con. While it takes 2 to tango , no government can EVER continue to employ public servants who clearly can't cut it on the ground; ground they so carelessly now control.  Biodiversity protection requires the ultimate commitment - a proper education.  Not the sporting stuff of marginal politics.    More here http://quickfiz.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/queensland-electoral-result.html

Labor - short term gain - long term pain

The conservatives will take Queensland ( 5.30 pm Saturday 24th March 2012)
Last time Labor strategists won an  electorate they did it by putting up a candidate who appeals to conservatives . By pulling him out they showed themselves to be totally untrustworthy . Why does the Labor party put up with such amoral strategists.
Members of the Party need to ask themselves not only whether the end justifies the means ,but more importantly, whether there is indeed a God worthy of the name .
Can't see them doing that - can you ? Does that mean they will be stuck in reactionary mode for eons? .Confession is good for the soul,  because  the party then could finally and in reality, really move on .
Surely people who think Labor is making historical decisions in Parliament each week are confused about how clever they are,and the sort of God like power they are able to muster.

The Katter phenomenon

It was said by the most thoughtful people in Europe even before WW2 that "if we didn't get Adolf we would have got someone like him" . Someone who could only see the power for himself and not the danger in the mob .Tis true wisdom to face this . Malcolm Turnbull is not wise,  as are those who welcome his free wheeling independant mind talk. : If you try to stand for everything,  you stand for nothing .. mate !


Its therefore really stupid and simplistic to think Katter is a wacko to be ignored/isolated .  Brecht said . "The bitch is in heat again "and bright boys from the past "strange disguises "
Just like its stupid and simplistic to think (As farmer of year O"Brien said on Qanda last night
- the city suddenly knows what the country needs
- the city knows so much and is in such a rush that it will squash the voices of those who cry " get the facts first, get it right before you fight "
Its of course most stupid and simplistic of all to think that the problem is "one person a long way from ourselves" . Katter represents his constituency . Did you not notice the Windsors and the Oakeshotts doing the same , while the rest of parliament  play position games in the kindergarten and the club.
 Qanda prefers games to really answering questions - think of how few questions they deal with well.
 Turnbull thinks he can win power by sidling up to Greenlabor and they love him for it. O"Brien would have taken a real man out of the audience last night instead of Turnbull,   but  the "not me mate " questioner who unfortunately for the smallgroups in our society , had no time for politics and representation really . Sad when the silly game of ignorance they play on qanda is about personalities and not people and competence - what fools they all made of themselves trying to talk about something they didn't understand (CC AGW) .
The audience would have welcomed just one honest person in that sycophantic collection who said " best you ask someone who understands this stuff '-( where is the climate commissioner when you need him ?) " Malcolm is winning assent in the club, but losing it where it really matters.

(Mitchell described Katter as dangerous - what  a joke ! Takes one to know one . He lets a really dangerous man like Kennett back to talk . The truth is dangerous if you want to be pedantic ; just make sure your accusations well or they will come back to bite you .- remember Kennett like us knows the problem the problem is that such an arrogant person who thinks they know the answer is very attractive and therefore much more dangerous than one who just insists on the truth being told )

Will the ignorant and arrogant win the next election ?-who knows
well it certainly won't be the current lot---not in Queensland  one: the deeper truth is " short term gain long term pain"  Malcolm and Bligh living the dream .