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Adam Bandt cures cancer

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:58:32 +0000

If you read Adam Bandt’s blogs and media releases, you’d be forgiven for thinking that he was the best thing since sliced bread.

Cure for Cancer

Adam Bandt’s campaign is all about how sending him to parliament is somehow “historic”. He campaigns on the slogan that he would be the first Greens MP to be elected at a general election. His logical conclusion is that this will result in an outbreak of progressive policy in Parliament due solely to his presence.

Of course, Federal Parliament had a Greens MP for 2 years – the Greens MP for Cunningham Michael Organ. Although Michael Organ was elected in a byelection, the two types of election (general and by) are not so different that Bandt would “make history”. This historic event afterall is a Greens MP in the House of Reps.

Bandt clearly has delusions of grandeur. For example, apparently:

Adam Bandt … previously occupied Julia Gillard’s old position as a partner in the industrial unit of law-firm Slater & Gordon.

Clearly he’s not shy about coming forward; this seems to suggest sees himself as Prime Ministerial material.

If claiming Gillard’s old desk was not enough, Bandt also sees his announcement of Greens Party car policy as the equivalent to inventing the ute.

My relative invented the ute, and I like to think i am following in his foot steps by launching a new Greens’ plan for weaning Melbourne’s cars off petrol.

So, seriously. Somehow launching a policy that will never be implemented is on par with inventing the ute. It’s also amazing that Bandt big notes himself by tenuously linking himself to a “relative” who “invented the ute”.

Amazing.

Labor in Melbourne

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:18:46 +0000

I’ve written here about how the Greens Party are burying the record of first ever Federal Greens MP Michael Organ in order to promote Adam Bandt yet another white male lawyer (a second being the Greens candidate for the state seat of Melbourne).

Cath Bowtell's campaign website

Cath Bowtell is the Labor candidate for Melbourne. If elected, she would be the first ever woman elected to the seat of Melbourne, alongside the first ever woman Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Cath Bowtell was the former senior industrial officer for the ACTU and was intimately involved in securing improvements to workers rights under the Fair Work Act.

Her website is a good example of a strong campaigning website with a community action focus. There’s some nice integration of cutting edge web apps, as well as good use of social media and email. The design is nice and clean, with good amounts of white space. Given that her campaign has only just gotten up and running in the last fortnight, this is a stellar effort.

Declaration: I am a volunteer on Cath’s campaign.

Tony Abbott on Facebook

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:16:05 +0000

A quick search of Facebook reveals that Tony Abbott has a massive presence on Facebook. Tens of thousands of people are fans.

Unfortunately, most of those people aren’t fans of Tony’s, but of sanitary napkins or of leaving the country if he’s elected. The biggest fan page for Tony Abbott is “Friends don’t let friends vote for Tony Abbott” with over 27,800 people a fan. The official Tony Abbott page (which hasn’t been updated since June 30 as of the writing of this post) has a mere 8,900 fans – far fewer than the negative ones combined.

Like John Howard before him, Tony Abbott doesn’t really understand the Internet or social networking. The Facebook page is used as a repository for photos, and the Liberal Party’s new whizzbang web page is used for little more than showcasing Youtube ads and media releases.

Tony Abbott really is old fashioned.

The first Green in the House of Reps?

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:36:03 +0000

By making history and sending the first ever Green to the lower house, Melbourne will send an enormous message to all the parties that these issues are important and need to be agitated and pushed in parliament.

So says Adam Bandt, wannabe Greens Party candidate for the seat of Melbourne (emphasis mine).

The campaign being run by Bandt and the Greens Party is based on the lie that Adam Bandt would be the first, and historic, Greens MP elected to the House of Representatives. By electing Bandt, apparently, this would send a message to the major parties, Labor in particular, and see a shift to the left on a raft of policies.

Furthermore, a single Greens Party MP sitting on the cross benches will, according to Bandt, have more influence with Julia Gillard (or Tony Abbott if the worst happens and he loses) than a Labor back bencher:

Having another Labor member sitting on the back bench isn’t going to achieve anything as far as getting these reforms is concerned. What will achieve it is more Green voices being able to shift the debate and hold [Julia Gillard] to account.

Now, despite Adam Bandt’s breathless sloganeering in Melbourne, Michael Organ from NSW holds the title of first ever Greens Party Member of Parliament.

Michael Who?

I was the first Australian Greens Federal Member for Cunningham in the Australian parliament from 19 October 2002 to 9 October 2004.

That’s right. For two years after a by-election in Cunningham (covering Wollongong) there was a Greens MP in the House of Representatives.

And after two years, Michael Organ was not re-elected. Because the people of Cunningham realised that the Greens Party can’t actually achieve anything.

Of course, Adam Bandt and the PR company running his campaign don’t want you to know about this.

They have fabricated the idea that “history” will be made in Melbourne. “History” was already made in Cunningham. At the time, this was a big deal, as this Canberra Times article shows. Yet Bob Brown and the rest of the Greens Party campaigners have conveniently forgotten about Michael Organ.

Why? Because in his two years as a Greens Party MP, he was able to achieve nothing. Check his Wikipedia page, or his personal web page or his list of Parliamentary speeches. No achievements are listed. Nothing delivered for his local constituents. In fact, he achieved so little that the Greens Party, Bob Brown, NSW Greens supremo Lee Rhiannon and even Adam Bandt have erased him from Greens history.

Significant IR changes possible through regulations, other Acts

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:26:59 +0000

Tony Abbott said that he won’t change the Workplace Relations Act in his first term of government, and Eric Abetz says the only “tweaks” will be to regulations.

Image: Tandberg, The Age, 2005.

Significant changes to the industrial relations regime in Australia is possible through regulation changes, and to amendments to other Acts.

For example, the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs) were regulations imposed onto universities that affected their funding. The HEWRR regulations forced universities to offer AWAs to staff, exclude a wide range of things from collective agreements and more — all through regulations.

Similarly, Tony Abbott could significantly change the Corporations Act to remove workers rights, side stepping the Workplace Relations (Fair Work) Act. Other Acts could be changed as well to impose Tony Abbott’s extreme IR agenda.

An academic from NSW goes through some of the other possible ways for Tony Abbott to strip workers of their rights in an interview with Workplace Express:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has promised not to amend the Fair Work Act if elected, but McCallum told Workplace Express that the power of incumbency itself should not be underestimated.

Federal governments, he said, “have powers to appoint people to FWA; they have powers to intervene in proceedings”. They had, he said, a special power under s431 (which had not yet been used) to terminate industrial action.

They also had a contracting power with private enterprise, “where they can lay down who they’d prefer to deal with”.

“People forget the powers of Government, powers to appoint to all sorts of boards, powers not to consult with the trade unions about anything. These are far more important powers than changing the regulations, and in fact when [former Prime Minister] John Howard came to power he shut out trade unions from everything, and that was far more devastating than minor amendments to the regulations.”

Changes to regulations also significantly impact on unions’ ability to collectively bargain. The list of non-allowable matters is contained in regulations. Non-allowable matters are those that are unlawful to be included in a collective agreement, such as bargaining fees or environmental matters.

Tony Abbott could easily add a great number of things to non-allowable matters, restricting the ability of workers to improve their pay or conditions.

Election Diary, day 4: Joe Hockey and Paris Hilton

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:15:09 +0000

Wayne Swan is to surpluses what Paris Hilton is to celibacy. They remember it once existed, but they’ll never see it again.

Joe Hockey, today at the launch of the Liberal Party’s economic policy.

While Tony Abbott laughed Hockey’s use of a woman’s sexuality for political purposes as Joe being a “good communicator”, it’s statements like this that underscores the Lib’s problem with women.

They just don’t respect them.

It doesn’t matter what Paris Hilton’s personal life is like. It’s not appropriate for the prospective Australian Treasurer to use a woman’s personal sexuality as election fodder.

The conservative media is downplaying this gaffe. Either Hockey is a “good communicator” whose “turn of phrase” is a bit rough around the edges, or it’s an example of the hysterical PC police and leftie media pouncing on every little thing.

The Liberal Party is obsessed with sex and sexuality. This is why so many of them constantly talk about abortions and contraception. It’s also why Tony Abbott felt it necessary to lecture his daughters about their sex lives in Australian Women’s Weekly in January this year.

We all knew Tony Abbott was particularly obsessed, but it’s clear that even supposedly “moderate” Liberals like Hockey are sexists.

Election Diary, Day 3: the wisdom of Tim Dunlop

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:35:14 +0000

On day three of the 2010 Federal Election the Greens Party did a preference deal with Labor. It was widely reported as some kind of master stroke, or devil pact.

According to the Greens Party, the decision was made on the basis of climate change policy:

The government’s campaign spokesman, Chris Bowen, said the deal showed Labor’s climate change credentials were greater than those of the Opposition.

“They show that the Greeens recognise that the Labor Party is a party which accepts that climate change is real, unlike Mr Abbott,” he said.

However, Bob Brown, who was not involved in the decision, threw a grenade into the deal after it was announced:

‘‘You can make up your mind up about where you’re going to put your number one vote, and I hope that’s for the Greens, and then you make your mind up about who you put second and who you put third,’’ he said.

Tim Dunlop has written about this over at the ABC Election Website. Tim is generally widely respected in progressive politics as being very even handed. I was certainly a regular reader when he blogged regularly. His contribution is worth quoting in its entirety:

But this is par for the course. The Greens like to pretend that they are above politics as usual, a point I have made elsewhere.

I’m getting a bit tired of it. The Greens are a political party like any other. They leverage matters in order to maximise their vote in the same way as any other party. The fact that they won’t admit it makes them as disingenuous as any other party.

Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t vote for them in the Senate. But let’s not kid ourselves.

Tim Dunlop has also written about the Greens Party’s pretenses of being “above politics” here.

Disaster at LP

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:23:19 +0000

Just when the election starts off, pre-eminent progressive blog Larvatus Prodeo has suffered an attack (and/or code malfunction) that has effectively taken it off air.

While they are continuing to blog on a WordPress hosted blog, I must say that this downtime is extraordinarily bad timing.

Election Diary, Day 1

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 06:21:58 +0000

When I got up this morning, instead of cartoons on Channel Nine, there was live coverage of Julia Gillard’s trip to the Governor General’s resident at Yarralumla.

The election was being called. All this week, I’ve heard “insiders” say it would be called today, so I’m sure they’ll be gratified that they’ve been proven right.

This is the first entry of my election diary. It will be an occasional post about the election, commentary, or update on what what I’m doing

The first thing I’m commenting on is the new Tony Abbott Revealed site I’ve set up. It’s really an experiment to see how many people (if any) I can interest and engage, using the various social media tools that I’ve picked up and written about.

A particular feature is the wiki – an easily editable section of the website that anyone can change and update.

With the Twitter-sphere going wild this morning, and things only looking like they’ll heat up over the next four to five weeks, this should be an interesting experiment indeed.

UPDATE:

Hmmm… my comment didn’t get published yesterday on The Punch.

Thanks to everyone who’s replied to my comment.

Given that I’ve written about my involvement with TonyAbbottRevealed.org.au on my blog: I hardly think it’s a secret.

The union I work for is not affiliated to any political party, and certainly is not affiliated to the ALP. The site is not paid for by any political party, but from my own pocket.

All the site does it put Tony Abbott’s own words on the internet. Visitors such as your good selves are free to make up your own mind.

100% renewable energy in Australia by 2020

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:13:53 +0000

The target in Australia of 20% renewable energy by 2020 is the lowest it can respectfully be. There is no reason for the target number other than “it sounds good”.

We’re currently around less than 5% in Australia.

A recent report by Zero Emissions Network and the University of Melbourne Energy Research Institute shows that it is technically feasible to reach 100% renewable energy by 2020.

Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan in brief:

The plan shows that it is technically possible to reach 100% renewable energy for Australia within a decade and the technology to achieve this transition is commercially available now. (Solar thermal with molten salt storage replaces baseload power currently sourced from fossil fuels.)

Australia has one of the best solar resources in the world – solar thermal power in the ZCA plan will supply 60% of Australia’s electricity.

Wind will supply 40% of Australia’s electricity in the ZCA plan. This is comparable to Denmark’s 50% by 2025 goal, and Spain’s 25% by 2020. In another comparison, China’s wind energy industry has been growing by 100% per year for the last four years.

The plan sets out detailed resource and labour requirements. A transition to 100% renewable energy will create around four times more permanent jobs than currently exist in the domestic fossil fuel sector.

The ZCA Plan will generate an investment of $370 billion over ten years – a stimulus to the Australian economy that is equivalent to 3% of our GDP over ten years.

The investment required for the transition is affordable at $8 per household per day.

I had the pleasure of speaking to some of the authors of the report from the Energy Research Institute a week ago, to discuss some renewable energy policy.

It’s my firm belief that as we move towards 20% over the next decade, it will become clear that transitioning to a clean economy is easier than we believe it to be now. If we succeed in reaching 20% by 2020, I think we can ramp up quickly to close to 100% by 2030.