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.

Rudd flies off to USA today....

Keep him.

Please.

Ruddfall

Is there a possibility that Rudd was asked to bow out, blaming ill health or whatever, as some had suggested a long time ago.

Do you think his answer was in the negative so drastic action was needed?

RAOTFLMFAO! He organised it himself!

So, Kevin organised this "Homecoming" himself.... (Previous post)

Seen on Insiders.... (there's a link on the left to the Insiders site)

Check the program for the giveaway.

Did the dog stay of her own accord?

Just curious.

And I think the belief that he's the smartest guy in the room is an understatement. Smartest guy in the world might be approaching the mark.

Top of the polls!

Separated at birth?

Will the reply show programmatic specificity?

Firstly, will Lord Monckton receive a reply?

Secondly, I wonder what verbal diarrhoea Kev will eject for Lord Monckton...

Nine Australians feared dead in lost plane

which vanished near the Kokoda Track.

PM Kevin Rudd to give briefing on Sunrise tomorrow.

(crawler on Ch 7 screen)

Well, all I can say is Thank God For That. Kev's here to help!

A vain little twerp

OMG

I've just noticed Kevin's comb over!

Check out the picture here...

Courageous and visionary... Yes Minister.

'ere, look 'ere. It's an Aussie rural site. Opinion and some links to interesting stuff. Wander over and have a look.

According to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd the most important challenge that Australia and indeed the world faces is global warming caused by man made carbon emissions.

But what if its not?

The issue is of such critical importance to the PM that during the last week’s ‘one in a centuary” global financial meltdown, the Australian PM seemed hopelessly out of touch with reality.

ABC 4 corners - Heat on the Hill about the Krudd CRAP plan

I foolishly thought that it would give a bit of an airing to the fact that anthropogenic climate change hasn't been proven.

I'm not going to bother, it's Believers complaining that Rudd hasn't gone far enough and that industry has been lobbying the government to water down their carbon reduction scheme...

And it has the obligatory references to the recent fire events in Victoria and the connection with carbon pollution...

I can't watch this shit.

The transcript and vodcast should be here later tonight, if you can stomach it.

Kev's giving the end of the world as we know it speech to the UN. Arrgh.

Michael Costa tears up Rudd's essay

Rudd on a dangerous, ill-informed crusade...

Rudd's essay has been marketed by its publishers as a unique and lucid insight into the present financial crisis. It is hardly this, anyone familiar with the recent popular works of Paul Krugman, The Great Unraveling, and Joseph Stiglitz, The Roaring 90s: a New History of the World's Most Prosperous Decade, would be familiar with the Rudd argument.

In Rudd's version "the current crisis is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free-market ideology that has been variously called 'neo-liberalism', economic liberalism, economic fundamentalism, Thatcherism or the Washington consensus." The political ideology of neoliberals has been "that government activity should be constrained, and ultimately replaced, by market forces".

Read it all here.

Who wrote the Rudd essay?

Interesting article in the Aus from David Burchell today.

The most visible author-figure - who, for convenience I'll call Rudd 1 - is clearly a political firebrand of the old school. He has a grievance against the whole kilter of the contemporary world. Ever since the 1970s, Rudd 1 insists, the planet has been in the grip of a messianic political philosophy, an ideology so bleak and perverse that it has now brought our societies to the brink of the precipice. Neo-liberalism allows no logic in the world other than the logic of markets. All government activity is illegitimate and demands to be displaced by the workings of pure markets, which will then whirl in celestial bliss, like the harmony of the spheres. Further, by a series of intellectual leaps too complicated for me to repeat here, this same political philosophy has underlaid all of the activities of global finance over the past three decades. So the monetary policies of former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan can be viewed as nothing less than the logical working-through of the political philosophy of Friedrich von Hayek, now revealed as a gigantic species of intellectual fraud.

ABC AM 2/2/09 & Rudd to announce Tax Cuts (with links)

Yeah.

THE Federal Government is preparing to announce tax cuts for low-income earners as part of a stimulus package to help the rapidly deteriorating economy.
Senior government sources say the targeted tax relief will be part of a mixed package of big infrastructure and "nation-building" spending, as well as strategic, but direct, short-term cash injections into the economy.

Swan has begun to peddle this as the recession we had to have. So why are they trying to bail everyone out?

AM thismorning, not posted yet but should be after about 9:30am Qld time. (I'll put up more info if I have time when it's posted.)

Latest Transcripts:
Updated Monday, 2 February, 2009

British worker fury over foreign labour
In 2007 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the Government would concentrate on British jobs for British workers. As the recession deepens these words are being thrown back at him. At one oil refinery workers staged a wildcat strike over a contract awarded to a foreign company using Italian and Portuguese employees.
TRANSCRIPT
Trade ministers worried about increasing protectionism
The US and the EU have intervened to try to stop foreign companies taking market share from local producers. Trade ministers meeting over the weekend at the World Economic Forum have urged countries to resist pressure to introduce protectionism as a form of insulation against the financial downturn.
TRANSCRIPT
IMF endorses deficit for Australian budget
A senior official from the International Monetary Fund says a cut of one percentage point by Australia's Reserve Bank board would be appropriate, given the dramatic slowing of economic growth. The IMF also says the economic challenges facing Australia virtually demand the Rudd Government push the federal budget into deficit.
TRANSCRIPT
Swan says deficit inevitable
The Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan says the budget will go into a temporary deficit and he points to shrinking company tax receipts as a significant reason. He says the Government is committed to returning the budget to surplus. And he's warned against a return to protectionist policies saying they would worsen the global recession.
TRANSCRIPT
Super Bowl advertising breaks records
Despite the economic downturn and the collapse of corporate giants, today's American Superbowl has set a new record for advertising spending with many companies ploughing millions of dollars into short but prime time advertising spots.
TRANSCRIPT
Call for state intervention for obese youngsters
A child obesity specialist says some children are so overweight, that child protection authorities should become involved. She says there have been cases of childhood obesity which have led to death.
TRANSCRIPT
Iraqi elections prove test for democratic transition
The provincial elections held in Iraq last weekend saw the turnout of more than seven million voters and polling day was relatively free of violence. One Iraqi exile who has set up a think-tank specialising in Iraqi politics, speaks to AM about the significance of the ballot for Iraq's progress towards democracy. He says the election result will determine whether there's an upsurge in violence.
TRANSCRIPT
Japanese sumo star busted for drugs
For the first time, a Japanese wrestler has been kicked out of the national sport for possessing 16 grams of cannabis. The case is dominating the headlines and there's little public sympathy for the sumo wrestler who's accused of tarnishing the ancient sport.
TRANSCRIPT
Tireless Nadal claims victory over Federer
Rafael Nadal has won his first Australian Open Men's tennis championship in a five set thriller over Roger Federer. His victory prevented Federer from equalling Pete Sampras' all time record of 14 Grand Slam titles.
TRANSCRIPT

Rudd Warned

Don't take men from Guantanamo Bay.

A TOP US general has warned of the risks of taking terror suspects from the notorious Guantanamo Bay military prison as the Rudd Government yesterday admitted it was considering the move after a second request from the Bush administration.

Major General John Altenburg, formerly an appointing authority to the US Military Commissions - the body that oversees the prosecution of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay - told The Weekend Australian that a significant number of former detainees had subsequently undertaken terrorist acts or had been recaptured on the battlefield.

His warning came as Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard revealed Australia had rejected a request early last year from George W. Bush and was "examining (a) second request" made last month to "assist with relocation" of a small group of the remaining 250 inmates.

Janet Albrechtsen with a juicy column

A sip...

THE Rudd Government has some heavy holiday reading for punters this summer. Last week John Faulkner released his electoral reform green paper, which asks some weighty questions about how best to reform our democracy from the improper influence of political donations. However, genuine reform will require the Labor Party to do its own house cleaning: kicking its addiction to union money and its reliance on union election campaigns. Anything less is window-dressing, at best. And, at worst, reforms that address concerns about the practices of pro-business parties while leaving untouched the abuses favoured by the unions will simply skew democracy in Labor’s favour. One-sided reforms will actually damage democracy.

The whole column here.

Kev's cuts will cut deep

Andrew Bolt's editorial is excellent.

So what is Rudd’s noble example to a deaf world going to cost you?

Rudd claims your cost of living will rise just 1.1 per cent a year, mainly through a $6-a-week hike in power bills.

He’s kidding you. Even Rudd seems to doubt his own there-theres, since he’s giving poor families almost double that in compensation, leaving singles and the rest of us to pay for the lot.

And there will be much more to come, because Rudd has left the real pain until after the next election. That’s when he’ll have to ramp up the cost of the new licences to emit carbon dioxide that he’s issuing if he wants us to reach his crazy target.

So in three years, he says, he may include petrol in his emissions scheme, to make it so pricey you’ll think twice about driving. Farmers will also be included later, and must then pay for all their belching and farting cows, sheep and pigs. That’s food prices up.

Then there’s the new technology you’ll have to fund - through extra taxes and charges - as we switch to less gassy ways of doing business.

and

And here’s the last and maybe worst of the costs of Rudd’s grand scheme.

From 2010, he plans to rip at least $11.5 billion a year out of the economy by charging business for a licence to emit carbon dioxide, hoping to price some out of the market or into “cleaner” technology, some of which hasn’t even been invented or trialled.

12 Months with Kevin at the helm... watch out for the shoals!

Libs take the piss.

Get the economy going, shop at Ruddshop!

Heard today that Grocery Watch Choice will be taken over by Choice Magazine.

Wake-up Australian Consumer Association... Its a: Waste. Of. Money.

(nicked from kk at BoltA's)

Malcolm Turnbull on Kevin's first year*.

(*link found at Leon's.)

AM Thismorning 10/10/08

I recommend you listen to the Rudd interview on AM. It should be available soon.

*WARNING*

Shouting at the radio session will occur concurrently with listening.

And Andrew Bolt reports on comments by Michael Costa regarding Kevin Rudd's spin.

And don't miss the clueless PM 'tard on the 7:30 report. (Thanks Wand)

KEVIN RUDD: Kerry, my responsibility to Australia is to speak objectively about the problems we face, and equally objectively, about the strengths we have.
People running around throwing their hands in the air talking about nightmares is not leadership. That's commentary, and I am not in the business of commentary. The nation requires plain talking, straight talking, about the problems we face and the strengths we've got. And that's what I intend to keep doing.

Yes, there is most definitely a difference between commentary and waffle. Ask Kev.