On Channel 10 at 10am: have we been too mean to Gillard that she’s too scared to meet voters in the street?
Plus: meet the surprising new face of the Liberals that explains Labor’s woes out West.
On the panel: Amanda Vanstone and John Della Bosca.
And a little fact-checking of our biggest alarmist....
Nice guy, apparently, but momentary carelessness and a lack of wise counsel ...
TED Baillieu’s embattled chief of staff has resigned after a week of controversy that led to his former boss quitting as Victorian premier.
Tony Nutt has just tendered his resignation, leaving new Premier Denis Napthine having to find a new chief of staff. Before standing down as leader, Mr Baillieu spectacularly referred Mr Nutt and Victorian Liberal director Damien Mantach to Victoria’s new crime-fighting body after it was revealed the Liberals covertly paid former adviser Tristan Weston $22,500.
Denis Napthine is trying to give himself a clean start.
If I were Tim Mathieson, I wouldn’t buy tomorrow’s Australian. Wouldn’t go see sport, either.
Simon Crean was the leader Labor should have picked last year so it could show it could govern calmly. Now the only option left is the sugar hit of Kevin Rudd.
But no, says Stephen Conroy, who has reportedly tried and failed to get Bill Shorten to stand:
Senator Stephen Conroy, the leader of the government in the Senate and the Communications Minister, said there was no move to replace Ms Gillard with Regional Australia Minister Simon Crean, who led the party leader in opposition during the Howard government… “Julia Gillard overwhelmingly won a vote last year for the leadership, she retains the majority support of the parliamentary Labor Party and she’ll take us to the next election,” Senator Conroy told ABC Radio in Melbourne.
It seems Geoff Shaw did in effect sack the Premier, not the Liberal Government, which can carry on:
Frankston MP Geoff Shaw stunned his colleagues when he moved to the cross-benches, citing Mr Baillieu’s leadership as a reason. But after Mr Baillieu quit as premier, Mr Shaw was quick to praise new Premier Denis Napthine. “I think the new Premier will be perfect for Victoria,” Mr Shaw said..
UPDATE
There are two areas in which Baillieu did make a mark. His insistence that the Victorian government stand up to the costly and bullying behaviour of the construction unions is a real achievement. There is now a new code of conduct governing the awarding of government construction work and a new regulatory authority. The second area of which Baillieu can feel rightly proud is his resolve to stand up to Canberra on important matters of regulation, funding and control. He refused to introduce the inferior federal Work Health and Safety Act, knowing that Victoria’s occupational health and safety laws better serve the state. He fought, in partnership with his redoubtable Health Minister David Davis, the health funding cuts imposed by Canberra mid-year. He has refused simply to sign up to the Gillard government’s grand plans for national funding of education and the national disability insurance scheme, knowing full well that Victoria’s budgetary position is not well placed to meet significantly higher financial commitments.
UPDATE
Baillieu had a long list of problems to be fixed. Yet his only achievement – getting rid of the police chief – is looking more and more like an accident. His anti-corruption commission is toothless. Public transport is still poor. The Myki card rollout was a disaster. It also turned out that Victorians had been overpaying for water and Baillieu couldn’t work out that people might want their money back. Political appointments under the Brumby government have been maintained, and some of those individuals have been promoted. Baillieu fixed none of the problems he was elected to fix. He failed to stamp his authority on the public service and was unable to articulate why his government should remain in office. On present polling, the ALP will return to government at the next election.
But back to that farewell speech, when those things dearest to Baillieu were given heartfelt voice. So what were the high points of his time in office, the things he valued most? Two items topped his list: the belief that multiculturalism is Victoria’s “greatest strength” and his abiding love for our local “arts community.” Apart from testifying to the pernicious influence of his party’s multi-cultists on the ex-Premier’s thinking, the former also explains why that affront to free speech, the state’s anti-villification statutes, survived party room efforts to scuttle them; likewise that lawyers’ picnic, the Human Rights Charter.
Earlier this week I argued the Australian Human Rights Commission - agitating for tougher controls on free speech - should be scrapped and its functions devolved to the many state commissions doing much the same anti-discrimination work.
Save money, preserve our freedoms.
Professor Patrick Parkinson now gives further evidence that a whole layer of “anti discrimination” bossiness could be removed for little cost and much gain.
He says the Gillard Government’s proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill isn’t just an appalling attack on free speech but massive and oppressive duplication:
The proposed law contained 18 different grounds on which someone could complain of discrimination and sue in court if mediation failed. In addition, the Fair Work Act 2008 provides that an employer must not take adverse action against an employee or prospective employee “because of the person’s race, colour, sex, sexual preference, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family or carer’s responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin”. The states and territories have comprehensive anti-discrimination laws as well. Tasmania has 20 different grounds on which you can sue for discrimination. No one in government seems to have asked whether we actually need all these laws and why the federal parliament and the states have to compete in demonstrating who is more committed to “equality”.
Read it all. Parkinson is surely right about the bill’s astonishingly impertinent attempt to control the free speech of most of us:
Hitherto, federal anti-discrimination laws mainly prohibited discrimination by persons possessing responsibility, authority or power in areas such as employment and education. The draft bill ...did not just apply to the normal domains of paid employment, education and the provision of goods and services but to membership of and the activities of clubs and associations. That even included informal groups gathering for social and literary purposes… The bill also applied to “participation in sporting activities (including umpiring, coaching and administration)” and to voluntary and unpaid work. Neighbours who help one another are volunteers. Stay-at-home mothers do unpaid work.
The sheer arrogance of Labor wanting to give officials such power over what we say and do. It is utterly disgraceful.
Telecom consultant Kevin Morgan is not the first to fact-check Nick Ross, the ABC’s in-house propagandist of the Gillard Government’s NBN:
Under the heading “politics” in his January 23 blog on the ABC technology website, Ross makes no bones about his objective: “With it being election year, there is a great deal to be done in informing the public about the current NBN policy and the consequences of ditching it in favour of a Coalition alternative.” There we have it, an ABC employee sees absolutely nothing wrong in using the ABC website to sell government policy at the expense of the Coalition objectivity. And factual accuracy can go begging given Ross’s mission.
How utterly ironic. Communications Minister Steve Conroy, who has proposed tough new controls on journalists and bloggers, punished media critics , had an inquiry set loose against conservatives and sceptics and agitated against Channel 10 showing my program has this morning complained on the ABC that the ABC has disciplined Ross.
AN ABC journalist has been disciplined by the broadcaster’s management over concerns that his online posts about the National Broadband Network failed to meet its “standards of objective journalism”.
You’d laugh if you weren’t throwing up at such hypocrisy.
If Conroy thinks Ross should be free to propagandise to the Coalition’s advantage - and on the public’s dime - he should be just as adamant that the rest of us be free to speak our minds, too.
Apart from the fact this trip was doomed from the start, the conduct of it ensured more bad publicity. Her office seemed to be terrified that the Prime Minister might meet an ordinary citizen in an unscripted circumstance. Here she was, staying next door to one of the largest registered clubs in Australia, and she sought to avoid it like the plague… She could find time for a dinner with the mummy bloggers who seem increasingly influential but she failed to do the obvious. Particularly for a Labor leader, the chance to dine in the bistro with ordinary punters you would have thought would be one not to miss. An $8 chicken schnitzel with the mob while sipping a cool beer would seem to be a no-brainer. Not for our Julia, though… Sure, she avoided the inevitable ugly confrontation, but she left voters believing that she thought she was above them or that they who had put her in her job in the first place were too dangerous to be trusted.
Then there is the mad, unfocussed spending of money Labor doesn’t actually have:
Not only will Gillard and Wayne Swan have to find $15 billion worth of cuts just to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Gonski reforms, Gillard announces another billion or two almost every day. She kicked off her week in the west with a huge promise to raise the height of Warragamba Dam. Within hours of the promise being made it became apparent that she expected the state government to pay for almost all of it and in any event the cost of the exercise had been significantly underestimated. The problem for her is that the promises come and go so quickly. Virtually no one believes her, so within 24 hours of a promise being made the press drops off and what was supposed to lift Labor’s flagging heartland vote disappears as well.
Julia Gillard pays her union dues to keep the union support she desperately needs to save her job. How the AWU will be pleased with the woman it helped to install - and how pleased, too, with Shorten, its former secretary:
Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten yesterday briefed employers and union leaders on the proposed changes to the Fair Work Act that address a series of long-standing union demands. Sources said the changes meant that unions would be able to secure arbitration of their long-running dispute with bionic ear-maker Cochlear, which has spent six years refusing to strike a deal with unions. Employers accused the government of trying to re-impose “compulsory arbitration” on companies ... Unions would also benefit from increased right-of-entry provisions that will allow them to meet employees in their lunchroom during meal breaks. The proposal has been fiercely resisted by resource employers who assert non-unionists should be allowed to take their meal breaks without potentially being harassed.
Er, wait. The Age says the opposite:
Union officials face limits on the number of visits they can make to factories and worksites under the latest changes by the Gillard government to the Fair Work Act.
Although there’s this important caveat:
It is believed the changes will also give unions greater rights as to where they can meet workers.
Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan wants an inquiry into potential conflicts of interest stemming from Peter Costello’s ownership of a lobbyist firm and his role overseeing an audit of Queensland’s finances. Mr Costello is chairman of Queensland’s Commission of Audit, which has recommended that the Queensland government privatise its energy sector and outsource government services, including health. Mr Costello’s private company ECG (Espstein Costello Gazard) Advisory Solutions has, at the same time as the audit, been registered as a lobbyist for energy company SP AusNet, Primary Health Care, ASG Group and Serco Asia Pacific. All could potentially benefit from the recommendations of the audit report.
Costello is merely offering advice. It is the Government which decides whether to accept it - whether to sell assets and to whom, through independent bodies. That is where questions of any conflict of interest properly arise.
Costello’s former client list may indeed seem an invitation to criticism and jeering. But demands for inquiries are absurd and an exercise in vindictive, partisan politics:
The Brisbane Times news website is reporting the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) has received a complaint that Mr Costello’s report could benefit some of his clients as a lobbyist.
What low rent politics, especially given this:
On Thursday ECG Advisory rejected claims that it represented companies that could benefit from recommendations of its chairman and co-owner, Mr Costello. The company said: ‘’ECG has no current business relationship with SP AusNet, Primary Health Care or ASG. These relationships concluded before the audit made its 28 February, 2013, recommendations. Serco is represented in Queensland by another firm.’’
Is this confirmation that Julia Gillard’s attack on temporary workers - invited here to do needed work Australians can’t do - is just to divert anger at her having lured tens of thousands of boat people who come here without passports and claim welfare (in most instances) for at least the next five years?
JULIA Gillard is facing dissent in the cabinet and caucus over her attack on 457 visa rorts… Internal fears are being raised, including by some Gillard supporters, that the move has subjected Labor to claims of xenophobia and failed to ease anger in western Sydney over the influx of asylum-seekers.
Dennis Shanahan says that’s sure how many Labor MPs, including Gillard’s own supporters, see this disgraceful diversion:
There is a widespread view Gillard’s inflated criticism of the 457 visa program is not directed at a policy outcome; undermines Labor’s economic management; is code for “doing something” about the intractable public concerns about illegal boat arrivals and asylum-seekers’ release into the community; is not having a positive political impact in western Sydney where there are lots of “foreign workers”; is damaging our attempts to sell the Asian Century; and is only being done to shore up the PM’s personal support among key union blocs ahead of the last parliamentary sitting before the budget… The suggestion of a “crack-down” is a diversion from the fact the 457 visa program has hit record levels under the Gillard government… Australia needs 457 visa workers, it’s a great pathway to immigration and vast sectors of our community services will collapse without them.
Let’s compare.
The vast majority of boat people say they are from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka, and these are exactly the refugees most likely to be unemployed and living on welfare, even after five years [according to an immigration Department report]. Just 9 per cent of Afghan adults have a job and 94 per cent receive benefits… It’s the same story among Iranian adults, just 12 per cent of whom work. Sri Lankans have a better employment rate—34 per cent...
This class of visa allows businesses to bring in skilled workers temporarily where no local workers can be found… Sixty-five per cent of all people who received a 457 visa in the last six months are either managers or professionals… Their average 457 salary is $90,000 a year.
THE Italian company that has the $300 million contract to manufacture and supply the ribbon fibre-optic cable for the National Broadband Network says production would have stalled if it weren’t for skilled workers on 457 visas… A spokesman for Prysmian Group Australia ... said the technology was so niche the company needed workers on 457 visas… The NBN Co uses four “prime” contractors that manage the rollout across all states and territories. A senior source within one of these companies said his firm did employ workers on 457 visas… Experts said they believed a number of the companies contracted to help build the NBN had or continued to employ workers on 457 visas, often doing highly skilled work.
Robert McClelland seems to have had enough of the government blaming its bureaucrats in the Ben Zygier case - which may involve more ASIO links than we’ve been told:
As Julia Gillard acknowledged for the first time shortcomings in the way ASIO and the Department of Foreign Affairs had handled the matter, [former attorney-general Robert] McClelland defended his former agency, saying ASIO had acted appropriately throughout. Mr McClelland said ASIO briefed him on the case shortly after Zygier’s arrest in January 2010… Mr McClelland would not discuss the content of the briefing. “But what I can say is that I had recommended to me the course of action that ASIO proposed to take—to brief relevant agencies, departments and officials,” Mr McClelland told The Australian. “A course of action I approved and thought was appropriate.” Mr McClelland said those he authorised briefings for were named in the review compiled by DFAT and released by Foreign Minister Bob Carr on Wednesday. They included then prime minister Kevin Rudd’s foreign policy and intelligence adviser, Phillip Green; national security adviser Duncan Lewis; DFAT secretary Dennis Richardson; and ASIS chief Nick Warner. Frances Adamson, the chief-of-staff to then foreign minister Stephen Smith, was briefed verbally. Yesterday, a spokesman for Mr Smith said he had no recollection of being briefed on the case. Ms Adamson also had no recollection of being briefed.
Hmm. Good on McClelland for pushing the responsibility back up to where it seems to belong.
The Greens never saw a profit earned by someone else that it they didn’t want for their own big-spending schemes.
In this case, they don’t understand that the $11 billion they’d like to claw from the banks is money the banks will have to pass on to borrowers or to gouge from savers if they want to stay safe and sound:
A mining tax-style levy would be imposed on the big four banks under a radical Greens policy to make banks surrender a slice of their earnings in exchange for protection from insolvency… The policy would mean a 20 basis point - or 0.2 per cent - levy, on all bank assets above $100 billion and would thus apply exclusively to ANZ, NAB, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank, which among them have loan books worth $1000 billion.
Deputy Greens leader and banking spokesman, Adam Bandt, said the plan had been fully costed by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office which found it would raise $11 billion over four years.
Which, of course, makes this a tax on the savers and investors of this country, to flow to the coffers of the Greens wasters and splurgers.
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