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Australasian politics

Use this area to discuss political issues relevant to Australasia, not necessarily directly linked to cAGW. Open house, within reason, and I’m looking for sensible debate where you can express your point of view and expect considered responses.

Discussion

39 thoughts on “Australasian politics”

  1. G’day Grumpy,

    Glad you’ve got an Australasian politics section now, and of course I’m happy to contribute. As I’m sure your readers are aware, there’s quite a lot going on down here at the moment, some of it of historic significance. The most left-wing and totalitarian government in our country’s history is set for slaughter at the ballot box; either on 14 September (the date Gillard announced in January), or possibly as early as June, should Tony Abbott’s no-confidence motion pass when he tables it on budget night (27 May). I’m keeping track of the details over at my blog, plus you’ve also got Andrew Bolt’s excellent site on your blogroll. Another good one you might like to bookmark is Catallaxy Files, generally regarded as Australia’s premier Libertarian blog.

    If you need any input on specific topics, feel free to ask.

    Posted by Ozboy | April 2, 2013, 10:35 pm
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    • The thread’s all yours to post whatever you wish. Lots of us have family in Oz & NZ so it could be useful for them, once I get the traffic, so I have no preconceptions on this; I’m happy to see how it runs. I’ll have a look at your link and if you recommend it, that’s good enough for me. I had a quick look at Bolt’s site to see how I can bring stuff across but it might be better if the links come from other commenter’s posts as I could easily misinterpret the content.

      Thanks for responding as I’m aware you’re on a break.

      Posted by grumpydenier | April 2, 2013, 11:29 pm
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  2. Australian Politics – Get Your Greedy Government Hands Off Our Superannuation Money
    The Australian Government Budget is due in another 6 weeks, and already there are rumblings about what will be in it. One of the things that is being discussed is how a Labor Government, deeply in debt and way in Deficit, looks likely to raid superannuation, and every quarter is speaking out against this so called raid on our savings.

    Read full article here.

    Posted by grumpydenier | April 3, 2013, 8:30 am
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  3. Julia Gillard was installed in 2010 as Australia’s unelected Prime Minister, by a factional deal underwritten by the Australian Workers’ Union, with whom she is inextricably bound in activities now under investigation by the Victorian state police force’s Major Fraud Squad. This skit, from a local TV comedy show the other night, sums up the modern culture of the Australian Labor Party perfectly:

    Posted by Ozboy | April 3, 2013, 10:36 am
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  4. Posted by farmerbraun | April 9, 2013, 4:45 am
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  5. Tory aristocrat Christopher Monckton says Margaret Thatcher, who died overnight aged 87, will be remembered as the greatest British prime minister since Winston Churchill and in some respects greater. Lord Monckton, who was one of her policy advisers from 1982-86, says she “triumphantly” overcame an extraordinary diversity of challenges during her time in office. During a gap in a New Zealand speaking tour he told that Baroness Thatcher inherited an economy “probably in a worse state than any other previous prime minister probably ever had”.

    “Inflation was at 10% and rising rapidly towards 27%, unemployment was at three million and rising, there was demoralisation, business bankruptcies and the whole country had the feeling of becoming a Third World banana monarchy without any bananas. She turned it round in very fine style and that was battle No 1.”

    Battle No 2 was the Falklands war.
    “No other prime minister, perhaps even including Churchill, would have dared to try to fight that one, but she fought it and won it with a reasonably contained loss of life.” And, in doing so, Lord Monckton says she returned Argentina to a democratic state. “It was a dictatorship before and it became a democracy as a direct result of the failure of General Galtieri to defeat her. So that was another great victory. Then almost immediately after that there was the miners strike and she won that.”

    Lord Monckton says her most spectacular achievement was bringing the Cold War to an end with the collaboration of then US President Ronald Reagan.

    “She and Ronald Reagan came from such similar backgrounds, they were both lower middle class if not working class. And they had both done the same thing – they had read text books of free-market economics in their spare time and they were both on the same page. She was very well versed in economics, so she and Ron Reagan together, because of their joint love of economics and of freedom, democracy and prosperity, managed to work together to bring communism down.”

    Berlin Wall fell
    Lord Monckton says it was the proudest day of his life when the Berlin Wall fell and “she had done it”.

    “Then she had to face the [1990] Iraq invasion of Kuwait and once again nobody else would have taken the decision that she took to encourage George Bush senior, who was rather wobbly, to send a taskforce to kick Saddam Hussein back out again, because otherwise he would have gone on and taken Saudi Arabia.
    “I hate to think what the price of oil would now be if that had happened.

    “Sadly, she was not there to see it through. Had she been there to see it through, Saddam Hussein would not have got away with it first time round and we would not now have the trouble with Islam that we have, because at that time Islam was with us and against Saddam Hussein.

    “We had the mandate from the UN, we had the support of the Islamic world, but we threw it away under John Major because he wasn’t going to stiffen the backbone of George Bush.

    “As a result we now have the entirely unnecessary dispute with Islam that should never have happened and would not have happened had she stayed as prime minister.

    “So for that and many other reasons it was a tragedy that the short-sighted, miserable little moaning minnies of her own party failed to stand by her the moment things were becoming difficult.

    “Had they done so the world would be a different and merrier place.”

    During his four years as one of her six policy advisors Lord Monckton says “she was a truly wonderful person to work with because you knew exactly where you stood”.

    “When you went in to give her a piece of advice, particularly if it was unwelcome advice, the best thing you could do was to give it to her straight.
    “She would then stiffen and she would say ‘look, for heaven’s sake, that’s completely against all that we stand for. We can’t possible do anything like that’.

    “And then she would always pause, and you had to learn about that because if you cut and run at the point where she paused she never had any respect for you again. But if you stood your ground then she would listen very carefully.”
    Lord Monckton says things could then get convivial.”

    “She would tiptoe to the door and push it shut and then she would go to the bookcase by the window in her study and reach in behind a tome of chemical formulae and produce a bottle of rather indifferent whisky and two beautiful cut glass tumblers, and we’d each have a slug of whisky.

    “Then we would have a real conversation about policy, which she was fascinated by and the entire business of government could stop if you really interested her.”

    Lord Monckton says the last time he saw her was about two years ago when her “kitchen cabinet” had a dinner for her.

    “She was in very good form, firing on all cylinders for the first couple of hours and then towards the end of the evening she was tiring a little.

    “I saw this and when she looked in my direction I held my thumb up and winked and she put both thumbs up in response and winked back and smiled an enormous smile.
    “She will be sorely missed.”

    Posted by farmerbraun | April 9, 2013, 5:35 am
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  6. OK, test your knowledge of Australian politicians (the Labor variety anyway). Try this quick quiz:

    http://pickeringpost.com/article/those-who-aspire-to-lead-us/1121

    I’ve already posted some answers at my place some time ago:

    http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/getting-the-government-we-deserve/

    Posted by Ozboy | April 9, 2013, 10:08 am
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  7. Some informed opinion ; we’ve been having a little ” spy” episode in Godzone:-

    http://www.nbr.co.nz/ask-Paul-Buchanan

    Posted by farmerbraun | April 17, 2013, 8:54 pm
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  8. Monckton on radio:-
    Lord Christopher Monckton and his views on the state of the world’s climate and why he believes that the current political responses to the harm of a ‘climate changed by carbon dioxide due to human interactions’ are in fact, injurious to society and a functioning economy.

    Duration: 25′55″

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/2552466/calm-on-climate

    Posted by farmerbraun | April 18, 2013, 9:08 pm
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  9. Let’s face it; painting genuine sceptics into the “denier” corner has been the idiot’s game from the outset.

    Posted by farmerbraun | April 19, 2013, 1:05 am
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  10. The Fall of Australia – Coming Catastrophes in the Australian Economy

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB5ihHGsm2o&w=560&h=315

    Posted by grumpydenier | April 20, 2013, 10:12 am
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  11. Happy Anzac Day to anyone who pops in. The last couple of minor disturbances would have been a lot harder to win without your sacrifices.

    Posted by grumpydenier | April 25, 2013, 9:17 am
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  12. The NZ Government has announced its Ten National Science Challenges, which set out the broad areas of science that will be funded, subject to the submission of satisfactory proposals, AND GUESS WHAT IS NOT THERE!

    Woo Hooo!

    Climastrology.

    OF course , James Renwick, the gutless arsehole who was instrumental in denying Monckton a forum for debate, was the first bleating cab- off- the- rank.

    But what is interesting is that the MSM are going to run with infectious diseases (think of the children), as the area that is not specifically targeted , which will tug most effectively at the “heart-strings ” of the sheeple and chattering classes. Good call.

    A clear indication , I think, that Anthropogenic Climate Change is OVER.

    http://www.msi.govt.nz/update-me/major-projects/national-science-challenges/

    Posted by farmerbraun | May 1, 2013, 8:10 pm
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  13. Some rational comments from scientists here:-

    http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2013/05/01/national-science-challenges-unveiled-experts-respond/

    Climate change research is implicit rather than explicit; that makes sense . It is , after all an amalgam of various basic sciences- physics , chemistry and biology.

    Posted by farmerbraun | May 1, 2013, 10:58 pm
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  14. You’ve got to love this h/t Ozboy.

    The Headless Chooks in ‘The Gillard Experiment’

    Posted by grumpydenier | May 5, 2013, 12:50 am
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  15. The fact that articles, such as the below, are even published shows that we continue to make progress:-
    http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/faith-not-facts-drive-global-warming-dc-139899

    Posted by farmerbraun | May 10, 2013, 11:13 pm
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    • I tried posting a comment but it vanished; probably need to sign up or summat. The comment I posted was as follows;

      Even the hypothetical doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels turns out to be a croc. Callendar selected 280-290 ppmv on the flimsiest of evidence.

      There is ample indication that a more accurate average may well have been 330-350 ppmv. CO2 levels were measured at circa 500 ppmv during the period around WWII and quickly fell back.

      The whole thing is built on quicksand and the foundations have already slipped below ground level.

      Posted by grumpydenier | May 10, 2013, 11:29 pm
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  16. No, your comment is there ; the mods are slow but thorough.

    Posted by farmerbraun | May 11, 2013, 2:11 am
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  17. We in Australia are now in the political end-game. Nothing will now change the election result, and Labor are divided between securing some posterity, and booby-trapping the economy for their successors in government.

    http://libertygibbert.com/2013/06/07/the-lemmings-and-the-cliff/

    Posted by Ozboy | June 7, 2013, 10:48 am
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  21. Back in January, Julia Gillard made an executive decision to hold the election on 14 September. Had she consulted Caucus about it first, Michael Danby, the Member for Melbourne Ports, who is Jewish, would have told her that she had plonked the poll on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

    Apparently Rudd has about four alternative dates, but 14 September ain’t one of them.

    Where’s that guy Godwin when you need him?

    Posted by Ozboy | July 1, 2013, 8:32 am
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  22. The campaign gets under way in earnest; pass the popcorn (actually we prefer Jaffas on the mainland):-

    http://www.euronews.com/2013/08/08/australian-pm-kevin-rudd-depicted-as-nazi-by-rupert-murdoch-tabloid/

    Posted by farmerbraun | August 8, 2013, 9:15 pm
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  24. Prophecy; a primer for beginners.

    How not to do it :-

    Posted by farmerbraun | August 17, 2013, 12:57 am
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  25. The Australian federal election is petering out to a foregone conclusion; but if the winning margin is large enough, some fireworks may be expected from the incoming government.

    LibertyGibbert

    This really says it all (the only parliament on earth to make a music video):

    Posted by Ozboy | August 20, 2013, 3:18 am
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  28. Australia’s probable next Science Minister holds an MSc in physics, a PhD in materials science, is a distinguished researcher, and a CAGW sceptic:

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-sceptic-mp-dennis-jensen-wants-to-be-science-minister-20130912-2tltt.html

    And our latest Federal Senator is an avowed Libertarian:

    http://libertygibbert.com/2013/09/12/the-new-libertarian-conscience-of-the-senate/

    Imagine this happening in America or the UK? One day, it just might.

    Posted by Ozboy | September 12, 2013, 11:57 am
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