Insiders 14/2/10

Shabby week for Rudd. And the ALP.

Epic fail of Rudd on Q&A with the children (sorry, youngsters), they're not giving him the hero's/pop-star's welcome...

Barnaby's cock up. Boy have they given him a serve. But Abbott bit back!

"Who's gonna save me" playing in the background of the story of Garrett's insulation safety debacle. Garrett's certainly been first class, but minister?

Toohey - Kaiser is front page news... the Conroy meeting with Kerry Stokes in the US, skiing. The rebate of licence fees to Stokes. Paid holiday for Conroy. No undertaking for local content.

Megalogenis - By-election in Victoria - 12% swing to Liberal in Altona. Very labour.

Middleton - Galaxy Poll in Qld shows Bligh is cremated toast. Approval rating is only 28%. But we don't get to vote until 2012. Perhaps the next election (Federal) will be the protest vote in Qld.

SA election, if ALP has unsatisfactory result it can be blamed on the Premier's affair.

Chris Pyne - Garrett's story isn't finished yet. He's responsible for his portfolio and the buck stops with him. It is his fault. It was his program (the batts). Rudd must remove him, if not, it will then be Rudd's problem.
Meet the Press clip of Rudd attacking Abbott regarding his statement that the roof deaths and problems are Garrett's responsibility as minister. Pyne says: He was warned there were problems, the program needed to be changed.

A lot of people are saying, in Garrett's defence, that he can't be responsible for the deaths and the problems with the ceiling insulation roll out. Well, my take is that the government was handing out the money and if they didn't check the credentials, general and safety, of the installers before handing out the money (no safety certificate/OH&S certificate, no money), too many shonky operators jumped on the money train for the insulation roll out. If the government couldn't ensure that the jobs were done safely by inspecting them, they should have only used the qualified installers who met all the required safety and other standards set by the authorities. It's now snowballing into a more costly impost and whose fault is that?

Why do they always get their interviewees to hang shit on previous leaders, or those who have been dismissed and now just can't shut their blubbering gobs about how bad the party is with their new leader... sour grapes (sour gripes?).

Your Shout
In a cafe with the Australian Sceptics.
These wankers believe in climate change. Those who are sceptial of climate change they'd prefer them to be called "deniers". They sound like Rudd supporters. Worth a watch (if only to shout at the tv).
One young bloke was sceptical of CC at first, but there's a "mountain of evidence for it". Oh dear.

Again witht the insulation issues and Garrett. Garrett was warned there were safety problems, warned and he did nothing.

Oh, but there's not been a coronial inquest, so how do we know that the lack of safey issue has caused the deaths... erm. Yeah, George M, whatever you think.

Greg Hunt, if you can't manage Pink Batts and Green Loans how can you manage the complex
tax issues?

Garrett handled with kid gloves in parliament when replying to the questions raised about the Batt debacle.

Who will last longer? Barnaby or Garrett? Middleton likes him, he's just got the wrong portfolio. Mega says he thinks like a journo, saying the first thing which pops into his head, which is pub talk. Toohey says that there are no financial geniuses in the Libs.

Kaiser's almost half million job. Amazing. What's Kaiser's claim to fame again?

Rudd on Sunrise with Kochie crawling up his bum. Rudd, "I yam who I yam". Yep, he's a yam.

Q&A promise to take over hospitals... what happened? How can we trust you? His chook's bum mouth seemed to be getting tighter and tighter and tighter. I'm amazed he could talk at all.

"Can I say ..." Kevin, you can say all you like. It's not working on the hoi-polloi or the kids any more. They're onto you. You are toast.

Talking Pictures
Rubbishing Abbott about women ironing. Seems women were hot under the collar about it. Funny that, I thought it was the journalists who took offence about the women/ironing comment. A lot of ironing cartoons. Cartoons about what a great leader Turnbull is and his great speech in parliament.

Tell me, were there any cartoons about batts, death, house fires, spinning-bullshitting PMs? Any at all?

Our balanced ABC. (Byt the way, boys, budgie is spelt with an "ie", not a "y", get it right. Especially when it's a sight gag involving a prop.)

Tony, get another slogan. "Yes we can" has been taken by a mob who can't, it's tarnished and they aren't of the same stripe as you.

Yawn. Time for a nap I think.

Mega - Ted Baillieu - defending the Indian students will benefit the Libs.