SBS has been broken down into a cheap, tawdry, run-of-the-mill commercial TV station and has lost one of the finest newscasters Australia has known in Mary Kostakidis, all out of greed and the fact that the HoWARd government made the commercialisation of SBS possible. (more…)

As I lamented several times in the course of the recently ended 58-week-long campaign for leadership of Australia, the ALP is already showing itself to be just as conservative as the government it has ousted.

Let’s start with an excerpt of a communique from present Shadow Health Minister, Nicola Roxon:

Labor strongly condemns illicit drug use and supports a ‘tough on drugs’ approach as a means of protecting Australians from the terrible consequences of drug use and abuse.

Labor can’t even be bothered to come up with their own ‘brand name’ for their drugs policy, instead continuing to use HoWARd’s moniker for zero-tolerance. One would thus reasonably think that Labor’s drug abuse strategy itself will not be any different as well.

How many times does one have to make the point to government that jail and other punishments and privations do not now, nor have they ever cured addiction- before they twig? How many times must one make the point that prohibition didn’t work with alcohol in the US in the 1920s, instead creating a black market and a supporting network of organised crime that exists yet today, before some sense is injected into government drug abuse policy? (more…)

KRudd has the next three years to just begin cleaning the HoWARd skidmark off Australia’s political knickers.

You go, Maxine!

-weez

The Australia I want:

* Has IR policy which is fair to both workers and employers and protects worker safety as a top priority

* Respects natural human rights, both inside and outside Australia, respects international law and participates in the UN in good faith

* Helps Aboriginals, disabled citizens, sole parents and migrants/asylum seekers who cannot help themselves, never attacking or demonising them for political gain

* Recognises abuse of alcohol and other drugs as a health problem, not a legal problem and thus supports drug and alcohol abuse policies based in medical and psychological evidence, not religious or moralist belief

* Is accountable to the voters through cooperation with our existing FoI laws, elimination of ‘conclusive certificates,’ and real commitments to ministerial responsibility

* Never suppresses political expression with paramilitary or other excessive and unreasonable force

* Never acts for self-perpetuation over the interests of the Australian people through any means, especially not through covert nor overt state-sponsored racism, nor by allowing corporate donors to purchase political favours

The Australia I have had since I got off the plane in Sydney in 1996 has an extraordinarily poor record on all of the above. This is not the character of the place I thought I was going to. I became an Australian citizen in 2003 to have some input on our national priorities.

I’m off to the polling station now. I’ll be voting for a balance of power in the Senate by preferencing Greens [1], Democrats [2], ALP [3].

Which Australia will you be voting for?

-weez

In case you missed it, there’s some verrrry small lettering on the bottom of the racist smear leaflet distributed by the husbands of ‘Jihad’ Jackie Kelly and Karen ‘Dodgy’ Chijoff…

Howard got the red-handed plebs to quit but didn’t sack the candidate, who almost certainly had full knowledge of the smear before it was distributed- and would have been the smear’s primary beneficiary, aside from HoWARd himself.

“We, I hope, live in a society where we treat husbands and wives – although we respect the closeness of their relationship – we treat them as individuals and we shouldn’t automatically transfer blame for the deeds of one onto the other,” [HoWARd] said.

We can quite reasonably automatically transfer blame for campaign dirty tricks when the husbands are Liberal Party ‘power brokers’ who are intimately involved in supporting the campaign which will benefit from the scams.

If you can vote Liberal in any electorate, not just Lindsay, knowing John HoWARd thinks the Chijoffs’ behaviour is fitting for a Liberal candidate and her supporters, then you will be getting the self-perpetuating, politically opportunist liars and racist scumbags you deserve.

-weez

image: Alan Moir for the Sydney Morning Herald

Seems Johnny’s been schooling the Liberal locals in Lindsay.. but Jackie Kelly reckons it’s all a big ‘Chaser-style‘ joke.

[ABC MP3 Audio: What Jackie Kelly sounds like when she’s been busted and squirming like a loose skink’s tail]

Andrew Robb reckons the leaflet was ‘amateur in the extreme.’ I guess he’d know what a real professional smear job looks like then, wouldn’t he?

So… five blokes letterboxing a low-income, predominantly Anglo part of W Sydney (where racism is rampant) in the middle of the night with a leaflet smearing the ALP as pro-Muslim and soft on terrorism a few days before an election… is funny?

Why, yes, I can see the jailarity in it myself.

Karen Chijoff’s hubby Greg is listed as a member of the Executive Committee of the Glenmore Park Action Group, whose president, Troy Craig, was one of the chaps busted leafleting by the ALP stakeout, along with NSW Liberal Party state executive member Jeff Egan. The ALP has only identified 3 of the five people observed dropping the leaflets.

I think it’s rather likely the Chijoffs were aware of this leaflet. Karen Chijoff should tell what she knows- and if she knew anything, like the other conspirators, should be expelled from the Liberals. Karen Chijoff should withdraw from the race for Lindsay.

-weez

HoWARd is still selling fear, uncertainty and doubt, right up to the very last minute.

Not buying.

-weez

For reasons known only the the autocrats on Sussex Street (including Catholic Premier Morris Iemma), the pope and his gang of faerie-tale believers are getting free use of Randwick racecourse for ‘World Youth Day’- which seems to last about 10 weeks for equally unknown reasons. The gathering will cost the people of NSW about $100 million, a significantly bigger chunk than the $30 million NSW Labor has just thrown at an additional 75 hospital beds.

Do you reckon if Tom Cruise and John Travolta showed up demanding free use of Olympic Stadium for a gathering of Scientologists that they’d get it gratis, out of the pockets of the people of Sydney? How about free accommodation for Fred Phelps’ ‘God Hates Fags‘ mob? Seems only fair.

The Catholics’ ban on condom use has damned untold millions to a lingering death from HIV. Their oppression of women through the church’s ban on the right to choose how to operate one’s reproductive bits is surely responsible for the deaths of similar numbers of women from botched ‘backyard’ abortions as well as keeps women in an eternal state of subservience. If those are not crimes against humanity, I don’t know what is.

I can only hope that ‘World Youth      Day     10 Weeks’ is a ruse to get the pope in country so he can be arrested and handed over to the ICC for trial in The Hague.

-weez

In 2004, a number of unfortunate circumstances, including unprincipled preference allocations, led to HoWARd gaining control of the Senate. When HoWARd’s extreme IR policies could be enacted without even simple fetterment and with debate guillotined on party-line votes, HoWARd delivered WorkChoices , every businessman’s wet dream; legalised, anti-family exploitation of workers, rivaling the days of lords and serfs.

Union busting is illegal in many countries, including the United States; union representation is considered a human right there as well- but HoWARd felt no shame at all in giving away the farm to the millionaires.

With a mere stroke of his pen, HoWARd wiped out 150 years of labor unions’ gains for workers, whom traditionally had little power to negotiate wages and conditions. HoWARd took labor relations straight back to the pre-Harvester judgement era.

There’s an opportunity in 2007 for voters to diversify the balance of power in federal Parliament. GetUp Australia has brought together the 3 largest minor parties to advance the idea of voting for balance of power:

I have no faith that a Labor-controlled Parliament will be any more principled than is HoWARd’s. The more cooks tending this cauldron, the better.

The Greens have organised preference swaps with both the Democrats and Labor in some areas. Thanks to the preferential voting system in use in Australia, progressive voters can support this arrangement, which would lead at least to the Greens in the balance of power, by voting Greens #1, Democrats #2, ALP #3 and so on down the line.

-weez

An unknown Aussie George Bailey must have lost the will to live at some point in recent history…

Keep M4 toll and scrap cashback: Scully

Scant detail on Betfair meetings

Iemma sneaks pokies into shopping malls

Private ferries, metro rail on the way

Ferry privatisation would favour Labor’s donors: Greens

If I’d wanted Potter policy in NSW, I’d have voted Liberal. Barry O’Farrell must sleep well knowing his party doesn’t actually have to be in power for the NSW government to float (and enact) far right-wing policy.

How do you get a recall election rolling around here?

-weez