Shrek Returns to Swamp, Finds Donkey

Joe Hockey and Jackie Kelly discuss campaign strategery

As if being the poor goose that has to defend Workchoices isn’t enough of a burden, now Joe Hockey has to try and put out the fires of those political pyromaniacs of the Kelly Gang in his own seat – in 48 hours.

Shreks electorate of North Sydney is filled to the brim with people of a certain moral persuasion on social issues, their delicate Naw Shaw sensibilities being almost legendary…. Dahrling.

But out in the Bogansville of Lindsay, uber-Bogan Jackie Kelly and her bourbon swilling coterie of mental midgets thought it would be a really shit hot idea to start handing out fake ALP pamphlets depicting Labor being under the thumb of mufti-madness.

Gold. Read the rest at Possum's Pollytics.

Go see the interview with Kelly. Make sure to watch right to the end. Laurie Oakes tears her a new one.

Howard on the 7.30 Report

Slippery right to the end. He won't release their secret plan on Ultra-Workchoices but expects us to trust them when they say there is no secret plan.

He just invented a parallel history where Keating didn't get rid of centralise wage fixing. Reckons Keating, who made it idependent, didn't respect the independence of the reserve bank. Jesus Christ. Voters clearly think the economy is a '64 Chevy and Howard is the dancing Elvis doll on the dashboard that keeps it running because it's 'lucky'. He's lying and spinning in all directions. Howard has been thoroughly exposed by O'Brien for the mediocre fraud he is. I feel sorry for him, almost. He looks lost.

Howard wants to have everything both ways! He denies running a fear campaign. Claims we all love him really because he's a 'good economic manager' (thanks, mug punters). He replies to accusations of running a fear campaign by pulling out the Rudd=risk. Now he's running the Greens fear campaign. Uh oh, nuclear power... He pretty much admits he has a plan for a nuclear Australia. He is so slippery, Kerry's nailing him to the wall. Kerry nails him on stealing Rudd's education revolution but taking it back to the '50s. Keeps trying to bring back the culture wars. This goes back to an earlier post I made on Rudd's neutralisation of the media. Without his media chums Howard's wedges just look like the rantings of an old codger whose views belong in a dusty museum hallway.

Kerry goes after Howard's excessive advertising. Apparently he won't respond to Kerry's question on asking Downer to canvass the party room on his behalf. Claims that he won't lose his seat. I saw the terror in his eyes just then. Hahaha "My focus is my focus." Hahahaha, Kerry says goodbye to Howard as if this is the last time (we can only hope).

It's easy to feel sorry for Howard, now that his pathetic empire of lies and deceit seems to be collapsing around him. I do feel sorry. I feel sorry for refugees left to drown or rot in island gulags so he could have another crack at the wine cellar. I feel sorry for the 4,000,000 plus Iraqis made sport of the wind and sun, refugees from their country so Howard could feel like a big man. I feel sorry for the soul of our country, tarnished by eleven years of corrosion. For Mr Howard I feel... nothing. He'll wander off into a lavender retirement, pensioned off with all the creature comforts. Maybe there'll be a newspaper column to vent his bitter, twisted spleen on. Meanwhile the rest of us will get back to scrubbing the dirt off our national identity.

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The Hoon for Ryan

Looks like Michael Johnson, our local member for fixing potholes, cleaning up graffiti, hooning and everything else except federal issues, especially if they involve John Howard, has put his foot in it.

We’ve all seen the Coalition local campaign themes of “cracking down on local crime“, “making our roads safer” and my particular favourite - combating “hooning, graffiti and drugs on our streets“.

The problem with these types of campaigns though, is that there’s always some silly knob out there that puts his foot in it.

I present to you Michael “Hoonster” Johnson, the Liberal member for Ryan.

Full post at The Poll Bludger

Why it’s all about John

Possum's Pollytics has an interesting take on the importance of Howard to the Liberals' chances in the election.

Possum Comitatus @ 7:03 am

Since February, the Coalition political strategy has played out on the ground as an attempt to focus attention on Rudd. Whether this has been more by accident than design is probably worth pondering as well, but for all the “look at Kevin” programs, not a great lot has been achieved.

Full post at Possums Pollytics

Seat du jour: Corangamite

Published by William Bowe at 6:04 am under Federal Election 2007

Since its creation at federation, Corangamite has covered a shifting area around Colac 150 kilometres west of Melbourne. The electorate was entirely rural until 1955, when it crept into Geelong’s outer suburbs of South Barwon and Belmont. Labor’s only wins have been in 1910, when future Prime Minister Jim Scullin became

Full post at The Poll Bludger

Ross Daniels, Labor candidate for Ryan, happened to be campaigning outside Toowong Village shopping centre when we went there a couple of hours ago. He happily posed for a photo, which one of the ladies with him took using our camera (making sure to get the shopping centre tower in so people could tell where we were!).

We wished him luck -and boy do we ever, even though we'll probably both vote Green- but he'll need more than that to overturn Michael Johnson's massive margin and grab the seat. Too many wealthy Howard-lovers here... in fact, whenever a bitchy, expensively-dressed housewife tries to run us over with a shopping trolley in Coles, Gam and I often look at each other and say "Liberal voter!".

It's Like TeeVee On The Internets

We'll be doing weekly lazy YouTube posts each weekend when people selfishly stop visiting and go live their lives. Here's a few good ones.

Search For A Scapegoat: Gay Marriage Edition


Targeting young single voters


Keating Goodness


What Happened Last Week?


Does My Ass Look Short In This?

Greens Queensland Campaign Launch

Gam and I made a bit of a mad scramble to get to the Greens' Queensland campaign launch today. Gam had clinic, so he caught the train to Ipswich at 7:30am and returned early at around 12pm so we could ride to Ahimsa House at West End for the launch. We'd originally planned on catching the City Cat there, but upon finding we'd have to wait half an hour, Gam said it would be faster to ride there over the William Jolly bridge. And so it would have been if the route from the Coronation St riverside bike path over the bridge and to Ahimsa House hadn't been a veritable obstacle course filled with death traps and what seemed like a total lack of pedestrian crossings and traffic lights. It must have been the least pedestrian and cyclist-friendly part of Brisbane we've ever been to.

Consequently, we were late.



We arrived about 5 minutes before Bob Brown finished his speech and crept around trying to find good spots to take photos from without trampling on or blocking the views of the roughly 50 or so people who attended. The light inside was pretty terrible and after the speech Bob Brown headed outside for a chat to the media.



On his way out he was accosted by several people including Gam, who asked him to pose for a photo with me- Gam said we were nobodies and would he mind having his photo taken with me, and of course Bob Brown said that wasn't at all true and happily posed for a photo. Classic photo position with his hand behind my back, which I realised was all sweaty and gross because we'd ridden there and I had been wearing a backpack. Sorry about that, Bob! He had the good grace not to look disgusted :)



I later told Gam he should have introduced himself as 'the inventor of lolhowards'. Which isn't strictly true given that one blogger did one back in May and Gam's first one was in July, but it still would have sounded good!

Gam snapped about a million pictures while Bob Brown did his speech outside- the idea is that you've got a better chance of getting a good one if you snap loads, and I suppose it's true to some extent. He also tried hard to get a nice photo of the Greens' Queensland senate candidate Larissa Waters- we think she looks a tad manic and scary in her campaign photos and we figured we could do better:





Gam also snapped a nice picture or two of the media:





We also caught up with the Greens' candidate for the federal seat of Brisbane, Elizabeth Guthrie, who we first met by chance at Southbank a couple of weeks ago. In the same vein as the Facebook group 'I wish I lived in Bennelong so I could vote for Maxine' I almost wish we lived in the seat of Brisbane so I could vote for Elizabeth. She seems lovely. Guess I'll have to settle for Dr Evan Jones, our local Greens candidate (Ryan).



All in all an interesting experience. Not particularly exciting (unless you count the near death experiences trying to cross the roads where there were no pedestrian crossings for miles... and we were near a primary school and a park!). There was a nice moment when a bunch of kids doing what looked like a gym class in the school hall across the road started cheering and waving at Bob Brown. Gam wondered if they even knew who he was, but then some of them started yelling 'go the Greens!', so I suppose they did. It was terribly cute and would have been a great photo opportunity if there hadn't been the stupid business of having to have the kids' parents sign release forms before any photographs could be used, so no photos were taken. You can bet your arse John Howard or Kevin Rudd would have sprinted across the road to take advantage of an opportunity like that, traffic not withstanding.

Ask a Polly

I say my good man, is this a good time to ask you a few questions?

Ross Daniels, Labor candidate for Ryan, has replied to the email we sent out, asking about his opinion re: Andrews and Sudanese migrants. He directs us to his blog post on the issue and says he'd be happy to meet us. Right. so here's your big chance to ask a real live Labor party candidate a few tough questions! Stick them in the comments and we'll ask them and post the replies (within reason)! Thanks to Mr Daniels for being so generous with his time. Here's his blog post on the Sudanese migrants issue. Have a look at the rest of his blog, the bloke seems to have his own opinion.

PM’s announcement to recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution

Posted by Andrew Bartlett under Indigenous Issues

John Howard’s announcement in a speech to the Sydney Institute that – if re-elected - he will seek to hold a referendum to formally recognise indigenous Australians in our Constitution is unexpected, but I think it is very welcome.

I’ve already seen comment brimming with cynicism about this announcement, suggesting it’s a pre-election stunt or even a way to keep the Prime Ministership away from Peter Costello for more than half of the next term if he does manage to get re-elected.

Personally, I couldn’t care less what his other motivations might be. And of course it would have been better if he’d tried to do something like this ages ago. But it’s still a good step, albeit only a first step, towards implementing just one measure amongst the many needed to properly recognise and respect the unique role the First Australians play in our nation’s past, present and future.

Full post at The Bartlett Diaries

Larissa Waters Responds

Dear Gameli,

As I said to a recent forum hosted by the Ethnic Communities Council of Qld,
I think recent comments by Kevin Andrews, Pauline Hanson and Gary Hardgraves
are racist and ignore the real facts, which show very low levels of crime in
the Sudanese community.

I have publicly apologised to Sudanese Australians on behalf of Kevin
Andrews. The 6,000 Sudanese Australians in Queensland are all welcome here,
along with their families. I hope they can forgive us for individuals like
Pauline Hanson and Kevin Andrews, who do not represent the bulk of warm,
generous Australians.

On more formal policy matters, The Greens do not support the use of
'integration' concerns as a reason to adjust immigration quotas. It is not a
relevant criteria when assessing humanitarian refugees. Increased support
services for newly arrived refugees is the obvious answer to any settlement
problems not a knee jerk, politically suspect decision to ban African
refugees.

A full copy of the speech I gave at the ECCQ event is attached for your
information.

Kind regards, and thanks for seeking my comment,
Larissa

Larissa Waters

B.Sc (Envt), LLB (Hons), Grad Dip (LP), Solicitor

Greens Lead Senate Candidate for Queensland

North Brisbane Branch Convenor

www.larissawaters.net


Don't forget to suggest a question for Ross Daniels!

From one red morgue to another

Nick Xenophon

Published by William Bowe at 2:34 pm under Federal Election 2007

Today has brought a fascinating development in the battle for control of the Senate, with South Australian Legislative Council “No Pokies” member Nick Xenophon throwing his hat into the ring. Xenophon pulled off one of the most sensational achievements in Australia’s recent electoral history at the election last March, when his ticket polled 20.5 per cent of the statewide vote – only 5.5 per cent less than the Liberal Party.

Full post at The Poll Bludger

McClelland Fucks Up

I'm trying not to fuck it up, but some people really aren't helping...

Robert McClelland, a man who's been a front bencher for nearly ten years, recently decided Kevin was having it a bit too easy and decided to attack John Howard. The problem with this is that Robert chose to attack Howard's strongest point, uphill.

Let's face facts. We need Rudd to remove the Liberal majority. This is the primary goal at this election. McClelland has had several opportunities to break ranks and make principled statements on govt. hipocrisy re: human rights. the 2001 election and the Pacific solution come to mind. Why now, on the anniversary of the single biggest issue that cost Labor the last election, would he choose to make noises on the issue?

Yes he's just stating Labor party policy but he's a fucking idiot to do it now. The death penalty wasn't an election issue. Now it's an issue that will only hurt Labor. The sections of the electorate Labor needs to win the election are not exactly known for their principled stands on human rights. He may as well have come out and said he wanted Osama to have a fair trial. Now the media have the sort of silly he said she said bullshit issue they love to keep going and the govt., with a desperation born of impending doom are pounding away at the issue, lying away about Labor supporting Bali bombers. If anything the govt.'s hysterical, overblown reaction might minimise the damage.

If Rudd hasn't issued an order to party members to shut their yaps, he's an idiot. When you're in government you can make all the quixotic statements you want. Until then, shut up and do what it takes. I don't buy the argument that Rudd's leaning towards the dark side. Would you rather have a principled opposition wandering the political wilderness while we get 3 more years of a bigger liberal majority? No? Didn't think so. It's not as if anyone is under the delusion that Howard would ever be more likely than Rudd to allow his ministers to listen to their consciences.

This post seemed to piss people off so I've reproduced it here. Flame away lurkers!

Our Saturday bike ride- and how Bob Brown got away

On Saturday we went for a bike ride. Intending to go to New Farm, we first rode over the Eleanor Schonell bridge to the Mrs Flannery's at Woolloongabba to buy coffee beans. Because we haven't ridden anywhere in ages I've lost all my 'cycling muscles', so we stopped on the ES bridge to take some photos before heading to Mrs F's. Nice to see the view of the river down toward Indooroopilly and Sherwood for a change.



Gam took some pictures of the Dutton Park cemetery. We have fond memories of the place thanks to an 'adventure' where we caught the wrong train and hopped off there, unsure of our Brisbane geography, only to be caught in a storm and having to walk through the cemetery to the Ferry in the pouring rain, with thunder and lightning all around us- and me barefoot thanks to one of my sandals breaking!



By the time we'd got to Mrs Flannery's, Gam had pity on me and said we could always do New Farm next weekend, so we rode to Southbank for a New Zealand Natural ice cream. Normally we shy away from visiting Southbank on the weekend, because it's chock-full of smoking bogans and their spawn. Thanks to the refurbishment of the fake beach it was much quieter. Still a high proportion of smokers among the people there, but because there were far fewer people than usual it wasn't anywhere near as bad. Gam (as always) had Cookies and Cream ice cream, while I had an Orange Choc-chip ice cream. I couldn't remember if I liked the orange choc-chip or mint better- I think the orange and chocolate ice cream I was thinking fondly of was the Haagen Daasz in the City (which is usually an awful ice cream experience thanks again to all the goddamned smokers that pollute the place). The New Zealand Natural Orange Choc-Chip flavour isn't really orange-y or tangy at all. But it is a really attractive fluoro orange colour! Come to think of it, the photo below doesn't really do justice to the colour- it seems to look more of a peachy colour...



As we were about to leave Southbank we spied a small group of people with Greens flags attached to their bikes and wearing Greens t-shirts, so we asked them if we could take a couple of photos. It turned out that Bob Brown had been in New Farm that morning and they had been to see him speak (d'oh!!!). The guy in the photo is Wally Guthrie, membership secretary for the Mount Cootha branch of the Queensland Greens, while his wife Elizabeth Guthrie is the Greens candidate for the seat of Brisbane!

Elizabeth Guthrie, candidate for the federal seat of Brisbane, with husband Wally.

Wally has asked us to help hand out Greens how-to-vote cards on election day. I've always considered myself an open-minded voter, but I said to Gam the other day that with this federal election being the third I'll have voted in, and my fundamental disagreements with the principles (or lack of) espoused by the major parties, I can see myself unwittingly ending up a lifelong Greens voter. So perhaps we'll be taking Mikey's advice and joining up in the near future, as long as the Greens don't have clauses in their charter that prevent us from mouthing off whenever we feel like it. At the very least we'll likely be doing the HTV thing on election day. And signing up for email updates to better keep our eye on Bob Brown's whereabouts. Curse my weak legs and our Saturday morning sleep-in!

Wally Guthrie and some friends.

Evan Jones Responds

Evan Jones

This weekend we sent the following email to several candidates in our electorate, Ryan, as well as several other QLD politicians from all parties.

Dear Mr Jones

We'd like to get in touch with you to ask for your comment on Mr Kevin
Andrews' recent comments regarding African migrants to Australia. As a
candidate in the upcoming election and as an individual, how do you feel
about his comments?

Evan Jones, Greens candidate for Ryan responds thusly:

Dear Gameli,

I hope you are well.

In regards to your question, I am appalled and sickened by Mr Andrews racist comments regarding the conduct of the Sudanese community in Australia.

I work in Stones Corner where there are a relatively large number of Sudanese refugees. I have never noticed any antisocial behaviour and, unless you count the kids playing football, I have certainty never seen any gangs.

Further more, police reports in the media have vindicated the Sudanese community from any abnormal trends.

I am also perplexed at the introduction the non-humanitarian consideration of 'integration' to the refugee intake process.

There is a humanitarian disaster in Darfur, and the plight of the refugees coming from that region is extreme. This is reason to commit more strongly to assisting in what ways we can, not a reason to pull back from our human responsibility.

Australia is a wealthy country, well able to afford to be more compassionate. We also have a rich tradition of multi-culturalism. What ever political gains the government thinks it can get by selling xenophobia I trust that the majority of Australia will not buy into it.

Yours,
Evan Jones

Australian Greens
Ryan

Some Australians are more equal than others

Posted by Andrew Bartlett: Sat 6 Oct 2007

On Friday night I attended and spoke at a pre-election forum in Brisbane organised by the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland. It was focused on the issues of immigration, citizenship, multiculturalism and refugees & asylum seekers. Other speakers apart from me were Laurie Ferguson from the ALP, Teresa Gambaro from the Liberals, Larissa Waters from the Greens and Jan Pakallus from the Citizens Electoral Council.

The forum happened to coincide with the pre-meditated and deliberate public attacks on Australians with Sudanese heritage by the Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, supported by the Prime Minister and other Coalition members. Not surprisingly a number of Australians there who were originally from Sudan were present who were less than happy and made their anger plain to Teresa Gambaro. I had a tiny bit of sympathy for her, as I doubt she personally supports Kevin Andrews’ comments – but only a bit.

Full Post at The Bartlett Diaries

Andrew Bartlett is a Democrats Senator from Queensland.

Pollyspotting: Michael Johnson

Our local member (we live in the safe Liberal seat of Ryan), spotted this morning when I saw a bunch of guys in yellow shirts conducting a synchronised waving exercise every time a car passed them on Benson St, Toowong. I had to wait a bit before I could see the signs they were standing in front of, but sure enough they had Michael Johnson's face plastered all over them. Typically, I forgot the camera and had to make do with my mobile, so you can't even really recognise anyone... Johnson is the little dude in the stripey shirt. In the last photo I think a couple of them might have even noticed me snapping them and waved, because the wave I caught on camera wasn't nearly as choreographed as the ones they were doing for the cars.

I had two hunches this morning- one was to take my camera when dropping Gam off at the train station, and the other was to wear my Kevin07 t-shirt. Both ignored. Dammit.

Mandarin lesson for the party

Posted by the piping shrike at Friday, September 28, 2007

Rudd’s zig-zagging on the ministry did not have much electoral significance. Government attempts to make it so were more an attempt to shift the focus away from the uncertainty over its own leadership. But whereas the Liberals' uncertainty stems from a loss of leadership authority, Labor’s is the opposite and represents its consolidation.

Full post at The Piping Shrike

Over their heads

Posted by the piping shrike at Thursday, September 27, 2007

Two celebrity politicians were in the national media with varying degrees of success yesterday. Comparing Peter Garrett to the ALP candidate for Boothby, Nicole Cornes may seem a broad brush, but they have some interesting features that point to the current state of the party that chose them.

Full post at The Piping Shrike