Bligh, saviour of Queensland!

Bligh saved Queensland from the effects of the GFC

AND

Led us through the worst natural disasters in Queensland.

Hear it here*!

*If you can stomach it.

Roundup - heard today

Abbott attacks 'do nothing' government...
Rudd responds...

KEVIN RUDD: Well I'm not in the business of responding to Mr Abbott on anything. I would simply say this: one core fact remains which is unassailable in any objective political debate. Mr Abbott and his Liberal leader predecessors attacked the Government's response to the Global Financial Crisis, they were wrong.

The Government's response was correct because the Australian Government kept the Australian economy out of recession. Had we gone into the same recession as the rest of the world we would now be having double digit unemployment, with up to half a million more Australians out of work.

That is a fundamental, fundamental achievement of the Government over the last three years and if we look at the rest of the international economic wreckage around the world any objective mind would conclude that what the Government did was absolutely right.

Whatever you say, Kevin, whatever you say...

Third inquiry called into the deaths of Vicky Arnold and Julie-Anne Leahy.
There's more to this than was previously uncovered, I think that the investigation wasn't as thorough as it should have been.

ROBERT REID: The vehicle was removed several hours after the trail bike rider boys found it in the bush. It was removed that same evening to an open police yard at Yungaburra, a tarp was thrown over it and scenes of crime officers from Townsville didn't inspect the vehicle til the Monday morning, so it was there all over the weekend.

When they did arrive and have a look at it, it'd condensed inside the vehicle, there were no fingerprints found.

KERRIN BINNIE: There's since been six more investigations and two coronial inquests.

The inquests found Ms Arnold slashed her friend's throat, bashed her with a rock and shot her in the temple, despite suffering shotgun wounds to her own thigh, under her chin and the back of her head.

Mr Reid believes what really happened to the women is yet to be revealed.

ROBERT REID: I've yet to meet a single person that believed that Vicky, as she was alleged to have done, murdered her best friend and then killed herself. It didn't happen. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now. So hopefully this matter will be corrected.

I hope the families find the truth, because the assumptions and findings of previous inquiries have left far too many questions. Read more here.

Disendorsed Green dumps on party.

CHERYL WRAGG: While Mr Barber may be able to command the endorsement review committee to sack me within the space of 12 hours or something, he does not yet have the power to order the sun to shine for 24 hours a day and PV's aren't going to cut that and nor is wind generation at this time either.

She used to be Labor before she was Green... now she'll be independent. Read more.

Slashing immigration?

Gonna miss those pigs!

New hope for mesothelioma treatment.

That's enough for today.

Update: Don't watch Lateline

Maxine McWho's on... trumpeting how Kevin and the ALP saved Australia from the recession with their well planned, well executed stimulation...

She speaks through gritted teeth, and she always gives the impression that she's talking down to everyone, even her peers...

Can't find a link, the transcripts aren't up yet, and I don't know which part of the program it was on.

Oh, here you are. The link. Here's some of the transcript...

MAXINE MCKEW: OK. Can I just raise someone else we haven't mentioned this week, and that is Senator Nick Minchin's departure from the Parliament. Now he's going to be missed by his party, indeed by a ought lot of people, I would have thought, in the Parliament. A straight shooter. Very much both a social and an economic conservative, but I would think that conservatives like Nick Minchin, even though of course he helped propel Tony Abbott to the leadership, would be in something of two minds.

Clearly there are conservatives like Nick who are in line with Tony Abbott's social views, but will look at his economics, his economic management and be thinking, you know, "Where's he going?" Abbott owes more of his economics to someone like B.A. Santa Maria than, say, a Milton Freedman.

You've got Malcolm sitting there on the backbenches, George, as you know, a free marketeer, believes in a market mechanism for emissions trading. Quite right - I agree with him. But I would have thought there are still big fishes there in the party in terms of, if you like, your liberal wing and the economic dries. Abbott, would say, is an old-style interventionist.

LEIGH SALES: Senator Brandis?

GEORGE BRANDIS: Let me let you in on a secret, Maxine. The only economic management we talk about in the Coalition is your economic management, your disastrous economic management that has taken Australia from the strongest position in the OECD when the Coalition left office to the worst public debt that this country has ever seen in peace time. So, you can be a commentator, Maxine, you can be a commentator, but at the sharp end of politics this is about the Rudd Government's performance, and the Rudd Government's performance in economic management has been lamentable.

MAXINE MCKEW: OK, and I am proud to be part of a government that did not blink when we looked like going into recession and the stimulus, the scale of it and the breadth of it, is what has kept us from recession.

And George, the only figure to look at is the fact that we have 5.3 per cent unemployment. That's the national employment figure. (inaudible) in the United States, it's 10 per cent.

LEIGH SALES: If I can interrupt there, there are some other figures to look at and those are the figures to do with the school buildings program. We've seen some example come out about ridiculous costs for school building projects. How do we know what the extent of that is? Could it be another insulation program where there are - where there is example after example of these price gouging cases taking place?

MAXINE MCKEW: Well, let's just break that down. Example after example. As Julia Gillard has pointed out, we're talking about 20,000 plus projects across something like 9,500 schools and the national hotline has had fewer than 100 complaints.

If we just come to NSW, Education Minister Verity Firth has had an audit underway and where there have been problems - and there's one in the papers today - that has been addressed.

From here it just gets better... er, worse.

Why Aussie banks didn't go bust in the GFC

An interesting take.

H/T Mum

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle

What's that?

Macquarie Bank.

Another audience with the PM - tonight

Where he's going to share his hints and tips to ease us through the not-recession.

It's not programmed so it must be a part of the Sunday Night programme.

Oh, goodie. I can't wait.

I found some information on it here.

Seven has just announced another news special for 6:30pm Sunday night, Minding Your Money: An Audience with the Prime Minister.

The half hour special, to replace The Outdoor Room, will see PM Rudd talking to a forum of Aussies in a pre-recorded special filmed on Sunday afternoon.

Seven says there will be “no moderator, no filter,” just the PM one on one with audience members. Last week’s hurried Financial Crisis Special did well for Seven, at over 1.4m viewers. Nine even dropped Battlefronts from its forthcoming schedule as a result.

No moderator? No filter?

Oh, I might have to watch.

Crash. And. Burn.

Germs has sitrred up a hornets nest, how unusual

Germaine Greer has pronounced that it's good that there is a Global Financial Crisis because (paraphrased)

a year of being poor and honest rather than rich and guilty will do us good

Now there's a flurry of callers to the radio (ABC), raving on about how rich we are in Australia compared to other countries, how much we have given to us (I presume they mean by the government, and we all know how that's funded), and how much we have compared to other countries...

Sorry, people. I've worked for what I have. I've worked and paid tax for over 30 years.

I am far from dishonest and far from rich, so Germs, stick it up your jaxsie!

Oh, and I've done or said nothing to feel guilty about.