AlexWhite.org » Liberal Party

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.

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.

Dog whistles

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:06:02 +0000

There’s a bit of discussion around the traps to do with dog whistling. The idea is that Tony Abbott is dog whistling to the electorate on the issue of refugees by talking about “being tough on boat people” (one of his 12 point plan is “Enforce strict border security and control”). Similarly, Abbott’s ad showing the “threat” of Australia being swamped by asylum seekers, showing big red arrows attacking Australia has been presented as masterful dog whistle politics.

However, in my view, this is just an example of the Liberals and Tony Abbott sharpening their racist framing openly.

Dog whistle politics is about saying something that is interpreted by a certain section of the population differently to the rest of it. Howard’s statement that “we will decide who comes to Australia and the circumstances in which they come” is a dog whistle because for Australians who are anti-immigration and anti-foreigner, Howard is telling them “we’ll keep the foreigners out”. For the rest of Australia, it sounds like a simple border security issue without overt anti-foreigner overtones.

The red arrows and anti-boat people rhetoric from Tony Abbott and his immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison in comparison are just out and out courting the substrata of racist voters. There’s no dog whistle. It’s just a plain whistle that everyone can hear.

The Liberals have decided to try to legitimise anti-refugee, anti-boat people rhetoric in the public domain – much as Pauline Hanson did. While Howard was never out and out racist, because he courted the centre of Australian politics, Tony Abbott is all about agitating and exciting his ultra-conservative “base”. Because Rudd and Gillard have captured the centre, Abbott is adopting US-style Tea Party tactics.

Joe Hockey doesn’t understand productivity: Great news for Tony Abbott

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:06:45 +0000

Joe Hockey’s budget reply speech yesterday to the National Press Club, universally described as a “shemozzle”, has revealed that the Shadow Treasurer doesn’t understand what productivity is. This is, of course, good news for Tony Abbott.

Joe Hockey doesn't know what productivity is. Photo: AAP: Alan Porritt.

Productivity is considered amongst neo-liberal economists as the key driver of economic growth and health. It is the key issue determining the rise and fall of Australia’s economic fortunes. The higher an economy’s productivity, the higher that country’s standard of living (measured in GDP).

Simply put, productivity is ratio of outputs (measured in the national accounts) to inputs (labour, materials, etc). It is a supply-side measure “capturing technical production relationships between inputs and outputs. But, implicitly, it is also about the production of goods and services that are desired, valued and in demand.” Productivity is important to the discussion around workplace relations because “productivity data are used to investigate the impact of product and labour market regulations on economic performance”.

Productivity is measured by aggregating labour productivity and capital productivity. Labour productivity defined as output per united of labour input (typically measured in hours of work), while capital productivity is efficiencies gained through capital stock (such as machines). Multifactor productivity is not widely used but is technically a better measure of productivity performance than labour productivity, and simply put is productivity improvements gained from better training, education, management practices and operational processes, rather than better machines or longer working hours.

Joe Hockey’s definition of productivity is:

Productivity growth, that is growth in GDP per capita…

He then goes into what the the Government should do to increase productivity.

This is, of course, unbelievably hypocritical (and also amazing that he gets productivity so wrong), because one of the main stated aims of WorkChoices was to increase productivity. The central objective, according to the then-Government was to “encourage the further spread of workplace agreements in order to increase productivity and hence the living standards of working Australians.” (Kevin Andrews, Hansard, 2 Nov 2005)

Hockey identifies the MUA/Webb Dock dispute as a good example of increasing workforce productivity. Working harder and longer is the most simplistic way to increase workforce productivity – and it just shows Hockey’s (and the Liberals’) lazy policy making that they consider this to be a good example.

Of course, during the WorkChoices period (2005-2007), productivity growth dropped, and there was negative growth in multifactor productivity in that period.

The Liberal Party, Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott want to bring WorkChoices back. Abbott is on the record as saying:

Let me begin my contribution to this debate by reminding members that workplace reform was one of the greatest achievements of the Howard government

Joe Hockey defended WorkChoices and the (false) claims that WorkChoices increases productivity.

Despite WorkChoices being a key plank in the Liberal Party’s economic plan to boost productivity (which it didn’t do), Joe Hockey has demonstrated that he doesn’t actually know what productivity is.

Good sources on productivity (that Joe Hockey should read):

Productivity Commission, Productivity Primer

Andrew Charlton, Ozonomics: Inside the myth of Australia’s economic superheroes, Random House Publishing, South Australia, 2007

OECD, OECD Compendium of Productivity Indicators, 2008

Abbott’s “Sarah Palin moment” is good news for Tony Abbott

admin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:18:10 +0000

Tony Abbott has developed more policy on the run while running off his mouth as a speech in front of a bunch of wealthy West Australian industrialists.

“There has got to be a system which encourages people to take up work where that work is available and certainly the idea of having people on the dole where there is relatively unskilled work freely available, I think the Australian public don’t like that idea very much.”

Unsurprisingly this suggestion – cutting unemployment benefits of under-30s who refuse to spend the several thousand dollars it requires to get to WA to work in a regional mining community – has created a bit of controversy. Abbott’s basically declared that he doesn’t want the nice people vote or the lazy dole bludger vote.

It is clear where this policy thoughtbubble came from:

The latest UK Tory election poster.

David Cameron’s policy is to cut benefits for “dole bludgers”:

This is our new welfare contract: do the right thing and we will back you all the way. But fail to take responsibility – and the free ride is over.

It’s fairly clear that Abbott and the Liberals are aping the UK’s neo-Thatcherite Tory Party on more than just their website.

I wonder how much more Tory policy will be carbon-copied by Abbott before the next Federal Election?

Weakened immune system and cognitive impairment is great news for Tony Abbott

admin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 23:14:15 +0000

In yet another great week for Tony Abbott (@tonyabbottMHR), the Opposition Leader has admitted that he hadn’t really recovered from the Ironman event before embarking on a 1000km bike ride.

There is no evidence that the drink in Mr Abbott's hand is alcoholic.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m really recovered from the Ironman. I think I needed a longer break. That might have been a bit of a mistake. But I’m fine, I’ll get there.”

While some have criticised Tony Abbott for his extreme exercise regime, which health experts have warned could impede his cognitive functions and cause heart strain.

Physiologist Adam Fraser described the alternative prime minister’s recent exercise regime as “extreme” and warned he might be prone to overtraining – weakening his immune system, making him vulnerable to colds and causing sleep disorders.

This week has seen a major national debate on health care reform. While the Prime Minister and Labor premiers were tackling the important issues to Australians, Tony Abbott was “rumoured to be “on the sauce” the night before.”

Mr Abbott is well known for undertaking extreme physical activity without adequate preparation – something that can be both physically and mentally unhealthy – but surely no one would accuse Tony Abbott of embarking on the final leg of his 1000km bike ride while under the effects of excessive alcohol consumption.

After all, who would accuse Mr Abbott of such poor judgment and recklessness?

UPDATE:

A Columbia University paper into the effects of extreme exercise from marathons is concerning.

But what about the effects of heavy, strenuous exercise? Research into the physiological effects of marathon running, the event on which we focus in the present study, suggests the possibility of maladaptive consequences. Dehydration, gastrointestinal bleeding, muscle damage, immune suppression, and even sudden cardiac death have all been reported (see Uchakin, Gotovtseva, & Stray-Gundersen, 2003). Marathon running also greatly increases production of cortisol and norepinephrine, hormones that are elevated by physiological and emotional stress. Marathon runners’ cortisol levels have been documented (Cook, Ng, Read, Harris, & Riad-Fahmy, 1987) to rise fourfold above the highest levels induced by the most common laboratory-based stress task, the Trier Social Stress Task (Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993). Indeed, cortisol levels recorded 30 min after completion of a marathon rival those reported in military training and interrogation (Taylor et al., 2007), rape victims being treated acutely (Resnick, Yehuda, Pitman, & Foy, 1995), severe burn injury patients (Norbury, Herndon, Branski, Chinkes, & Jeschke, 2008), and first-time parachute jumpers (Aloe et al., 1994). Other neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine, are similarly elevated in marathon running (Demers, Harrison, Halbert, & Santen, 1981). Leading experts (Sapolsky, 2004, p. 104) have concluded that marathon running is one of the most stressful activities in which normal, neurologically intact humans engage. The affective valence of marathon running is, of course, quite different from that of the traumatic situations referenced above. However, the physiological response is on a par with these events.

(Reviewing on physical exercise and the cognitive function, my emphasis.)

Iron Men ideal to lead Australia: More great news for Tony Abbott

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:34:56 +0000

Kim Crow from Back Page Lead opines in Crikey:

What Abbott achieved on Sunday by finishing that ironman is phenomenal. He swam 3.8km, biked 180km and ran 42.2km. For me, that demonstrates incredible guts, courage, determination, persistence, resilience, strength of character, strength of mind and … fitness! These qualities are exactly the qualities you look for in a strong leader, and transferable to the political domain.

This is after Health Minister Nicola Roxon had the audacity to suggest that the full-time training regime needed to regularly compete in Iron Man competitions could impinge on considered policy making.

I think Kim Crow might be on to something. Clearly we need a leader for Australia that has “incredible guts, courage, determination, persistence, resilience, strength of character, strength of mind and … fitness”.

But why would we want a leader who takes a measly 14 hours to cross the finish line?

If Kim is right, and we need a fitness fanatic to take charge over our Commonwealth, then let’s get the real deal.

Shannon Ponton and Michelle Bridges should be the new Opposition Leader and Deputy.

Presenting…

Shannon Ponton and Michelle Bridges. The new Tony Abbot and Julie Bishop.

Shannon and Michelle have shown that they can whip unhealthy Aussies into shape – exactly the skills of motivation, determination, persistence and strength of character that we need for potential leaders of the Liberal Party. All of the skills from The Biggest Loser are transferable to the political arena. And what’s more, they’d be more popular than either Tony or Julie (and they are definitely better media performers).

The fact that Julie Bishop can’t run a marathon quite frankly should disqualify her for deputy leadership – this is why Michelle Bridgets is such a good choice to replace Bishop.

The Liberal Party would be derelict in its duty to the Australian people (and to the media who are spoiling for an election contest) if they didn’t immediately coopt both Shannon and Michelle into Parliament and parachute them into the leadership.

I’m glad that Kim was able to make this point – Lord knows that it has needed saying in Australia’s political arena for a long time.

The term “queue jumping” encourages people smugglers

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:50:48 +0000

Conservative politicians like Tony Abbott and Steven Fielding who widely promote the use of “temporary protection visas” and that boat people are “jumping the queue”, are in fact giving people smugglers a product to sell to desperate refugees.

…We will put the temporary protection visas back in place.

(Abbott, 18 March 2010)

Temporary protection visas encourage refugees to not integrate into multicultural Australia, but rather to stay within their own ethnic and language groups. Abbott’s policy of TPVs would simply exacerbate social problems.

By saying he will reintroduce TPVs, Abbott is telling immigrants and refugees that they don’t need to learn and adopt Australian values, or integrate into our multicultural community. Abbott is telling them that they can continue to hold their foreign values, because they only have a “temporary” visa, so should feel no loyalty or connection to Australia. Refugees on TPVs find it difficult to learn English (there was little support under Howard for English-language lessons) because they can’t access support and have no local English-speaking ties to the community.

Similarly, talk of “jumping the queue”, by the likes of Steven Fielding, simply gives people smugglers a product to sell to refugees.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding says the Federal Government should consider sending asylum seekers who arrive by boat to refugee camps in other countries because they are “jumping the queue”.

(Fielding, 11 March 2010)

In fact, there is no queue, and refugees arriving by boat does not disadvantage a person applying for asylum overseas.

However, people smugglers are able to use the hysteria of the likes of the Liberal Party and Fielding, to convince desperate refugees that they can some how get admitted to Australia earlier than if they went through the UNHCR.

By constantly carping about a “queue” in the media, the Liberals and other conservatives are doing the marketing for people smugglers. People smugglers can point to conservative politicians to demonstrate that their service can help refugees “jump the queue”.This completely undermines the strong message that the Rudd Government sends out about a tough line on people smugglers.

Tony Abbott always goes on about “people dying on the high seas”, but he needs to look at his own role in contributing to the so-called “pull factors”.

Lessons from the Modern Prince, Part 3: He was against it before he was for it (aka: the Barnaby principle)

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:52:20 +0000

This week has seen what appears to be the end of the honeymoon period for Tony Abbott, coinciding with his triathlon run, resignation of key powerbroker Nick Minchin, reshuffle and demotion of Barnaby Joyce, and his disastrous health care debate with Rudd.

Abbott’s reversal of fortune is a case study of Machiavelli’s advice to “avoid flatterers” as advisors, and to stick to your guns. Following the advice of flatterers and flip flopping is a recipe for a prince (or political leader) to be held in contempt.

This series of posts is part of Project 52 – one post per week throughout the year.

It is that of flatterers, of whom courts are full, because men are so self-complacent in their own affairs, and in a way so deceived in them, that they are preserved with difficulty from this pest, and if they wish to defend themselves they run the danger of falling into contempt…

With these councillors, separately and collectively, he ought to carry himself in such a way that each of them should know that, the more freely he shall speak, the more he shall be preferred; outside of these, he should listen to no one, pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions. He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt.

Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter XXIII

There is a tendency for political commentators to look at a poll and then search for the most recent things that happened while the poll was being conducted to explain the results. In my view however, polls don’t measure what people thought of the week before the poll. Rather, most people (who don’t follow politics or current affairs regularly) are impressionistic. They get their political news in small bursts over a period of months (or even years).

Thus, polls measure people’s impressions of politics that have been formed over a long period of time. Polls closer to elections (such as the week before the election) are far more likely to find people at the time they are turning their mind to politics.

How are we to see the recent Newspoll that has Abbott’s personal ratings drop significantly, Labor’s TPP to rise, Rudd’s popularity to return to 2008 levels and the Liberals’ economic credibility to crash?

There are two reasons.

“It is that of flatterers, of whom courts are full“… Tony Abbott has surrounded himself with a shadow cabinet full of flatterers. In modern political parlance, these people are his ideological clones: ideas free populists. Barnaby Joyce is the standout of these flatterers, praised by Abbott as an outstanding “retail politician”.

Political parties that rely on flatterers as shadow-ministers “fall into contempt” with the Australian people, who can see that the shadow-ministers simply give advice to promote their own ideological interests. Barnaby and his ilk (the Peter Duttons, Cory Bernardis, Sophi Mirabellas, Greg Hunts, Eric Abetzs, and Bronwyn Bishops) are seen as Abbott yes-men (and yes-women). They have no credibility on policy. They are simply ideological warriors.

Because Abbott only listens to these flatterers, and because the people can see they are without substance or wisdom, he has fallen into contempt.

Abbott highlighted this fact when he first elevated Barnaby Joyce to the shadow cabinet as Shadow Finance Minister, and then dumped him in favour of Andrew Robb (another flatterer).

Tony Abbott's problem is that he flip-flops.

“…outside of these, he should … pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions.” Tony Abbott compounds his political sins of listening to Barnaby Joyce by being a flip flopper. He is the modern equivalent to Emperor Maximilian (Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire during Machiavelli’s time).

Fra Luca, the man of affairs to Maximilian, the present emperor, speaking of his majesty, said: He consulted with no one, yet never got his own way in anything. This arose because of his following a practice the opposite to the above; for the emperor is a secretive man — he does not communicate his designs to any one, nor does he receive opinions on them. But as in carrying them into effect they become revealed and known, they are at once obstructed by those men whom he has around him, and he, being pliant, is diverted from them. Hence it follows that those things he does one day he undoes the next, and no one ever understands what he wishes or intends to do, and no one can rely on his resolutions.

Tony Abbott didn’t consult over his announcement on paid parental leave and opposition to the Government’s scheme. There was a great commotion and dissent in the Coalition Party-room over the business-tax element of the plan. Similarly, his shadow ministers were annoyed that they weren’t consulted. As a result, Abbott announced that he may end up supporting (or at least not opposing) the Government’s parental leave scheme.

Tony Abbott was against health care reform, saying “it’s a bad plan”, yet after the horror Newspoll, he said: “The coalition will not necessarily oppose the government’s public hospital changes”.

The constant flip flops demonstrate that (apart from the fact that Abbott should be an acrobat rather than an ironman) the Opposition Leader is incapable of being steadfast in his resolution. At the first sign of trouble, he changes direction – like a political weather-vane.

This view was established from the start of his leadership, when Abbott supported, then opposed the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Malcolm Turnbull branded Abbott a weathervane over this issue.

Looking at the recent Newspoll, Machiavelli’s advice seems apt for Abbott’s poll-plummet: “He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt.“

New Liberal website takes leaf from Tory tree

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:01:40 +0000

The Liberal Party in Australia has launched its new website, on the heels of Labor’s new “Labor Connect” site.

I’ve written before about how previous Liberal leaders have mimicked a lot of the style of UK Tory leader David Cameron (Turnbull especially), but I haven’t commented on how much of the presentation of the Liberals – design wise – likewise copies the Tories. The Tories have been at the cutting edge of Westminster political innovation – importing much of the new US campaigning techniques (such as their MyConservatives website).

A case in point is the new Liberal website. The new website, as you can see from the screen shot below, takes a leaf from the Tory design book (see the Tory website here – which has changed recently, but see the screen shot here). Lots of blue sky in the background, and the colour scheme is a nice blue/green.

Getting the new technology, and using it properly has been a major trouble spot for conservative political groups. The Republicans for example are notorious for under using social media and their web presence during the 2008 election. Similarly the Liberals during the 2007 election were humorously woeful.

Now it seems that the Tories have been exporting some of their high-priced new media gurus to Australia, to show the Libs how to do it.