The secretive Trans Pacific Partnership is reportedly
close to being finalised, which is bad news for people who don't want to
give away their rights and freedoms to multinational corporations, says GetUp!.
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS from around the world have been meeting in New
York to negotiate the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
(TPP). It's a deal, so shrouded in secrecy, even our own Parliament doesn't know the details.
If Australia signs onto the TPP, it will give multinational corporations the power to sue the Australian Government for decisions they claim impacts their investments in Australia.
The most recent meeting in New York just wound up at the beginning of this week and a deal is reportedly close. But it's not too late. We have an opportunity right now, to tell our politicians
that we don't want a deal that will prevent our access to affordable
medication, allow foreign companies to sue our Government for protecting
people over profits, or restrict our internet freedoms.
We've already seen the dangerous implications of these powers played
out right here in Australia. Similar provisions in an Australian-Hong
Kong treaty are being used by U.S. global cigarette and tobacco company, Phillip Morris, to sue the Australian Government over the introduction of plain-packaging laws.
Forces all around the world are banding together to stop this deal
from going ahead, to ensure their governments can't be sued for making
decisions that are in the public interest.
If foreign corporations are given the power to sue national
governments when changes to domestic laws affect their profit margins,
it will inevitably restrict our government's ability to put in place
regulations to protect our environmental assets and our health. What's
worse, these lawsuits would be played out in secret international
courts, which only corporations have access to, with no rights of
appeal.
It's hard to believe this could happen in Australia, but there are
already cases around the world of companies using what's known as Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions to sue governments:
A foreign-owned energy company filed a $250 million lawsuit against the Canadian government, when Quebec placed a ban on dangerous fracking processes in a local river.
In El Salvador, a Canadian company is suing the government for $315 million
in "loss of future profits" because local citizens won a hard-fought
campaign against a gold mine that threatened to contaminate their water
supplies.
An international utilities company sued the Argentinian Government, for imposing a freeze on water and energy bills during the global financial crisis.
And in Canada, U.S. pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly is suing the government for $500 million in compensation, because the courts revoked two of the company's patents citing lack of evidence around the drugs' supposed benefits.
Do we want to live in a country where foreign-owned companies
have the right to sue our government for introducing laws to protect our
farms, land, water or even our health? International corporations
should not be able to take the Australian Government to court. It flies
in the face of democracy and will leave taxpayers at risk of paying
corporations enormous amounts in compensation.
Worryingly, Trade Minister Andrew Robb has already indicated he's willing to sign on to the deal, which is why we need to act quickly.
Here in Australia, only one in ten voters have heard about the TPP.But
if this deal goes ahead, it will be all of us who stand to lose — so
it's time we spoke up. We need as many Australians as possible to hear
about the dangers of the TPP.
The deal is still being negotiated, but could be finalised when
ministers from the 12 different countries next meet. So we need to get
the word out there and make some noise before Minister Robb signs the
dotted line. The fight to stop the TPP is a huge, coordinated,
international resistance and the more people who join the fight, the
better our chances will be.
The mother of all trade deals has kicked off the mother of all campaigns — with millions of people around the world joining the fight to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP).
Since January, more than 100,000 people have watched our new video
explaining the dirtiest dirty deal you've never heard of. Almost 50,000
people have signed our petition to stop a secretive treaty that threatens our national interest. But we need to work even harder if we're going to get the word out about a deal that few Australians have even heard of.
Find out my about GetUp!'s campaign by clicking here. Follow GetUp! on Twitter @GetUp.
Backwards land (Image via Twitter) It is not for nothing that Australia is called the Land Down Under, because the way we run things here ‒ in politics and media ‒ is always contrary to expectations, done backwards, reversed, or turned upside down and put on its head.
I had a vivid personal demonstration of this recently, when I went to
an interview a senior Queensland politician, Shakin' Ray Stevens,
outside a polling booth, about a potentially serious conflict of interest.
Instead of answering my reasonable questions, he decided to remain mute, yet wave his arms around, make "duck quack hands" in my face and mime slapping me.
It seems he thought he wasn’t being filmed ‒ as if that would be any
excuse ‒ even though I had stood in front of him openly filming
interviews with his fellow candidates for five minutes before I went to
speak to him.
After the video went viral, that afternoon, I was interviewed by the ABC
on live radio. The interviewer said she wasn’t interested in why
Stevens was avoiding my questions, but was concerned about whether I had
"gone too far" as a journalist. The public official has a right to
avoid scrutiny, the interviewer seemed to be suggesting — sitting as he
was on a public street, under a marquee, outside a polling booth,
attempting to seek re-election.
The arrogant, aggressive fool was, of course, re-elected by his masochistic constituents, though with a much reduced margin, which he blamed upon“negligent media coverage”.
The final word went to some fool on Twitter, who suggested he may have
received “sympathy” from his constituents, because people don’t like
“gotcha” interviews.
The Queensland election as a whole, however, appears to have been won by Stevens’ opposition — to the intense "shock" of everyone in the authorised media commentariat — despite Labor leading in the polls for most of the last year.
Democracy be damned! Paying even more through the nose for electricity to further enrich members of the Business Council of Australia is vital economic reform, according to the haughty lip flappers of the pompous elite and denying it dooms a generation.
Everything as it should not have been.
This disconnect; this reversal; this cognitive dissonance so evident
and recurring in Australian public life, sometimes, however, expresses
itself in artful irony, making it impossible not to experience intense
bursts of Schadenfreude.
Currently, we have a prime minister a man who spent years campaigning on a platform of trust — despite being a self-confessed liar.
The media gave him marks for this confession, because apparently it showed he was "fair dinkum" and “genuine”.
A deep-seated bigot, bully and sexist,
his main claim to worldwide attention as Opposition Leader was for
attempting to censure the female prime minister in Parliament over her
Speaker’s alleged misogyny — and then watching on in apoplexy as she tore him into tiny pieces over his own repeated transgressions against her and other women.
He and his treasurer ‒ a literal fat cat, as well as a whining innumerate misanthrope ‒ brought in a budget that attempted to solve a budget emergency that didn’t exist, given Australia had one of the lowest levels of public debt in the world.
The budget ‒ sold of course as “vital economic reform” ‒ shared the
pain of remedying this fictitious crisis by sharing the pain equally
amongst all the most disadvantaged
people in our society — the students, the young, the unemployed, the
homeless, the poor, the sick, the disabled and the elderly.
When the public reacted unfavourably to this, the prime minister didn’t blame the Budget, but said they just needed to work harder selling it — to butter it with more delicious lies until the people could somehow swallow it and force it down.
Lo and behold, this strategy hasn't worked and the polls remained down and sinking. So, to remedy this situation, our English born ‒ perhaps still English ‒ prime minister had a marvellous idea to raise people’s spirits — why not use Australia's national day to knight our British queen’s consort — an English aristocrat who is already a prince.
But it all came to nothing because, when the froth and bubble had died down, they remembered that they had also hounded the previous two prime ministers for fomenting chaos and dysfunction after deposing each other outside of an election.
And so they are now stuck with a hated, lying, oath breaking,
allegedly corrupt, lying, monarchist, misogynist, potentially ineligible
prime minister — until the next election, or until they decide the
break the last taboo they said they would never do.
Which they will certainly do. And it shouldn’t be long now. Check your watches.
It is difficult not to laugh.
Australia, you see, is the upside down land ‒ the land behind the
mirror ‒ where everything ‒ at least in politics and public life ‒ is
seen, done and interpreted in precisely the opposite way of how it
actually should be.
It’s impossible to fight, so don’t worry about it, just turn yourself upside down, do a silent chicken dance and enjoy the ride.
Reading the mainstream newspapers this week and
listening to talkback radio has been like going back in time to 2013
when the Labor government was in disarray, the economy was supposedly
haemorrhaging and the national debt was skyrocketing.
We remember how the Murdoch press were in hyper drive spilling out story
after story about a dysfunctional government, incompetent ministers,
backbench members speaking out of turn, leadership rumblings which
turned out to be true and so on, and so on. Talkback Radio was doing
much the same.
Today, that same Murdoch press are still at it, as are Fairfax and yes,
talkback radio too. And it is still the government they are lambasting,
except that it is the new government, the one we elected just 17 months
ago. How the wheel has turned.
Yesterday, February 4th 2015 was perhaps the most telling when Paul Kelly, editor at large with The Australian wrote such a scathing article about the present government, I thought we had just emerged from some form of time travel.
A link to Paul’s article is blocked behind a paywall. But this is what he wrote, “The
Abbott government is being destroyed before our eyes. The Liberal
Party’s frustrations and divisions have cracked wide open. It has taken
only 17 months for a sizeable section of the party to announce that Tony
Abbott has failed as PM and needs to be liquidated.”
I would go further than that, Paul. The whole government needs to be
liquidated. But in saying that I hope neither of us have violated some
obscure national security law that might interpret the word ‘liquidated’
as meaning something more than a harmless metaphor.
As Paul’s article points out though, this whole, hilarious circus, has
come to this point, i.e. the possibility of a leadership spill next
week, without a leadership contender playing any part. It’s all about
the failings of the present leader.
Frankly, anybody who could see through the facade Tony Abbott has been
hiding behind for the last five years, could see this coming a mile
away. When looking at his contradictory nature, things he said way back
when, compared with his comments on a variety of issues today, it should
have been obvious to anyone in the media a long time ago.
It
was obvious for a large part of the electorate. That is evidenced by
the election result itself; hardly a landslide. But such was the hatred
for Julia Gillard, who by any measure looks positively presidential
today, those contradictory failings were allowed to go through to the
keeper by a supportive media who just wanted her, Kevin Rudd and Labor
out.
And now the chickens have come home to roost. For those of us who saw
what was happening, who could see the fallacy of Abbott’s promises, the
lies about the state of the economy, the opportunism over the boat
people, the regressive climate change policy and perhaps a dozen or so
other contradictions, we are all now struggling to hide our enjoyment at
the way things have turned out.
Are we guilty of Schadenfreude? Yes we are. Schadenfreude is such a delightful way of expressing our present feelings. I think Blair Donaldson, a responder on Facebook captured the feeling best when he wrote, “If
members of Abbott’s own party are more interested in removing him than
finding a viable alternative, it says a lot about the poisonous
atmospherics in the party. There must be a fair bit of schadenfreude
among the PM’s critics in the party and on the opposition benches as
they watch Abbott get undone by his own ego and incompetence.”
Drawing by David Rowe
Abbott’s time as PM is nearly over. It just needs to be pronounced.
But I can’t help thinking how much I would enjoy letting it bleed on for
a little while longer.
I hate to distract you from the clusterfuck that is your political
party at the moment. But I can’t help but notice you’re all very busy
doing whatever it is you do during a painfully drawn out Libspill; you
know – making phone calls, counting numbers, receiving phone calls,
tallying numbers to be counted, and not really concentrating on your
jobs that you get paid to do, by us the tax payers. It’s all actually
fairly boring apart from being absolutely impossible to look away from.
But while you seem to be personally readying yourself for the job you’ve
been readying yourself for your entire life, I wanted to just let you
know how I feel about your leadership ambitions and the type of Prime
Minister you are going to be. I don’t think you’re going to enjoy this.
First I’d like to say that I do appreciate that you’ve previously
been very vocal about your support of action to reduce the catastrophic
effects of climate change and of course we know you lost the leadership
of the Liberal Party previously for your determination to be bi-partisan
and to support Rudd’s ETS. You should be applauded for this noble
gesture. However, what you will not be applauded for my be, and all
Australians who worry about our ever uncertain future in a
post-climate-change world, is that you are willing to give up on this
determination, this value, this hallmark of your political career, in
order to get yourself a new job. It’s one thing to be a spineless,
cowardly, lying little worm like Tony Abbott and to stake your political
career on denial of climate change and the wrecking of a perfectly good
Carbon Price. But honestly, I think your betrayal would be worse
Malcolm. Because you have shown that you understand the science, you
accept the science, and you’re alarmed about what the science is telling
us. Yet for your own political purposes, for your own personal
ambitions, for your own sense of individual achievement, glory, power
and no doubt pay rise, you are willing to do deals with climate change
deniers on the acceptance that you won’t, when in the most powerful job
in this warming land, do anything about climate change. And that makes
you the lowest of the low. That makes you worse than a denier. That
makes you a grub. Please don’t think Australia isn’t going to notice.
Another policy I am similarly concerned about you getting anywhere
near in your planned future as PM is the National Broadband Network. We
already know that you’ve been beavering away doing your best to destroy
this future-proofing world’s- best national infrastructure project for
the benefit of your Telstra mates in your job as Minister for
Communications. Or is that the Minister for
not-as-fast-as-they-should-have-been Communications? You’ve proved over
this NBN wrecking that you’re not fit to be in charge of Australia’s
future technological innovation, and therefore you’re not fit to be
making decisions about Australia’s future, full stop. And no, I’m not
going to give you any benefit of the doubt about what motivated you to
destroy the NBN and to instead create a joke of a copper fraudband. If
you were thinking you might be able to blame Tony Abbott for everything
that happened before you took his job, you’ll need to think again.
Because if that’s the case and you did just do whatever you were told
without protest, without care for the damage you were doing, then you’re
even more unqualified to be our Prime Minister.
As a man who knows how to make money, and who lives in Australia’s
most expensive suburb in a house that makes the Lodge look like a
cottage, you must know that talk is cheap. Yet, despite your popularity
due to presumably the leather jacket you wear on Q&A and your
some-might-call-charming-but-I-would-call-smarmy demeanour, all I see
from you is talk about your values and absolutely no action to back
these values up. For instance, have you ever, once, whilst working as a
member of the Abbott government, crossed the floor to protest Abbott’s
policies? No? Have you spoken out publically about Abbott and Hockey’s
outrageously unfair budget and actually fought them to change anything?
Or have you just been laying low, like a snake in the grass, waiting for
your moment to strike, your moment to take what you believe to have
always been yours at the expense of the Australian public who never
chose you as their PM?
The fact is that I don’t trust you Malcolm. I don’t trust you as far
as I can throw you. You’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing who talks about
supporting gay marriage, but given the chance would forget he ever said
that and instead campaign to reincarnate Howard’s WorkChoices as soon as
I can say ‘free-marketer’ or ‘neoliberal stooge’. You want what’s best
for your rich mates. Though you might make this look a bit prettier than
Abbott, we have learnt throughout this painful period of Abbott’s prime
ministership that the most important thing is not how something looks,
but how they behave. What policies they try to push through. You would
deregulate universities, you would slash and burn to create a small
ineffectual government, you would destroy Medicare, you would cut
education funding, you would fight on behalf of miners as they deny
Australians their fair share, you would get rid of penalty rates, you
would decrease the minimum wage, you would deny rights to asylum
seekers, you would destroy the NBN and you would deny Australia a
climate change policy. How do I know you would do all these things?
Because you’ve been doing it as a member of Abbott’s government and
there is absolutely no reason on earth why someone like you, who shares
Abbott’s values, would do anything differently. A turd with a cat-like
grin polished across it is still a turd.
(Image by @JohnGrahamArt) The real reason the Abbott Government is in such trouble is because there are two ALP moles in its highest ranks, writes Ray Barraclough.
I BELIEVE I have found the real reason why the current Australian government faces internal turmoil.
The evidence comes to me repeatedly from what I see in the public performance of two of the major figures involved.
I say "performance" deliberately because that is the key to this
revelation. It has to do with acting and acting skills. (Or the absence
of some such skills, as I will explain.)
At the outset, let me state what I have discerned. And I am keenly
aware that what I say may come as a surprise to you, for none of the
commentators in the media seem to have grasped what is actually
happening.
It is this. There are two ALP "moles" in the highest ranks of the
Cabinet. And it is in watching their press conferences and interviews
that I have come to discern vital clues indicating that this is the case
in regard to these two powerful politicians.
The major "mole" is Tony Abbott.
His minder has obviously told him to learn his lines thoroughly. That
means time to be spent off-stage repeating the lines over and over
again to get them lodged in his brain. Unfortunately, because Tony has
not been trained in drama school, he has not realised that in the real
performance the lines need only to be said once. The constant repetition
of the same lines is for rehearsals, not for speeches in the real
theatre.
For the second "mole" it is a different, but understandable, failure in stage craft.
Like many of us who have not been trained in the theatre, Scott
Morrison tends to over-act. I surmise that his minder (or minders) have
advised him to play the role of a good cabinet minister, coming across
with an air of infallibility and a steady, but not 'in your face',
arrogance.
But given Scott's drive and energy — he overacts. So, instead of a
humble infallibility, it tends to be an intense infallibility. Instead
of just steady arrogance it is menacing arrogance. I sometimes have to
take a step back from my TV set during a 7:30 interview on the ABC. because of Scott's 'over-the-top' acting style.
Though I will say this for Scott. He has mastered the stage
appearance that Raymond Burr was able to potray so menacingly in Alfred
Hitchcock's famous movie Rear Window.
I almost forgot to mention the other compelling evidence for the
"mole" scoop — namely that there have been a number of adroit Abbott
decisions designed to weaken the Government but which have been well
covered up by the repetition of words like "consult", "colleagues",
"team" and "captain".
The most glaring was he knighthood decision. That almost gave him
away. It was far too clumsy. But none of his colleagues stumbled on the
real reason or on the overall consistent strategy.
Anyway, that is my prognosis. Now, how can I get anyone to be my
"mole" in, say, the Murdoch press to share this insight with my fellow
members of Team Australia?
The John Graham cartoon at the top of the page is available for purchase (as an original, not a print) from the IA store.
The electorate isn't volatile. Voters aren't unpredictable. The rules
have not changed. If you lie to people, if you promise one thing and
deliver its opposite, if you treat public office as your due and the
ordinary people who put you there with contempt, they will turn on you.
And when they come for you, their vengeance will be swift and terrible
to behold.
These are not arcane or complex truths. The modern
world has not worked some fundamental transformation on politics. This
is not about Twitter. If you lose office it's not because people didn't
understand you. It's because they understood you all too well.
There
has been nothing so frustrating the last forty-eight hours as watching
the political class in all of its incarnations get this wrong.
Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk thanks supporters on election night. Photo: Robert Shakespeare
Left, right, participant, observer, they have all rushed to blame
or credit the voters who put Campbell Newman to the sword, as though
Newman himself bore little or no responsibility for the result.
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It is understandable that we reach for metaphors, and almost always from the natural world in these cases.
Landslides
and storms are the favoured analogies when governments are swept from
office, especially with a bloodless violence that seems a force of
nature.
You could see the surprise turn to shock turn to numb
horror (or disbelieving joy) on the faces of the players from the LNP
and ALP on Saturday night. They did not understand what was happening.
This
was as evident in the protests of the conservatives that they had done a
great job, as it was in the yammering of the ALP about "assets, assets,
assets".
Both sides, for very different reasons, could not help but give the impression that millions of voters had somehow screwed up.
The
'volatility' theory, the idea that no government anywhere is safe these
days, ignores the stone cold fact that no government anywhere was ever
safe as long as the electoral system was fairly administered.
You earn power, you don't deserve it by right of birth of mere claim.
Campbell
Newman and his party spent every day of the last three years
demonstrating that they didn't understand this. Annastacia Palaszczuk
has an enormous amount of work ahead of her to prove that she is any
different.
A razor thin majority and the constant need to consult
both in and outside Parliament House might actually help with that. She
needs to wake up every day and tell herself, "If we don't get this
right, we're gone."
And getting it right means actually delivering
on that very tired old cliche of governing for everyone. The harm done
to the LNP on Saturday was all self harm.
And of all the wounds
they inflicted upon themselves, none cut deeper and festered as
poisonously as the threat that any seat voting for the Opposition could
not expect a Newman government to deliver on any of its promises.
There at least, was a promise you could trust them to keep. What stupid, arrogant thugs they were.
The Prime Minister was more wooden than Pinocchio at his National Press Club address today, says Dr Martin Hirst, but luckily the Canberra Press Gallery were there to bowl him a few full tosses.
With a reference to Peter Greste, who was freed today, this meme circulated on Twitter after Abbott addressed the National Press Club in Canberra today (2/2/15)
THE PRIME MINISTER began his National Press Club address
looking wooden and stiff. But that’s not surprising — as a human being,
he always comes across on television as wooden and stiff. Perhaps he’s
like that in real life too.
I’m not sure about that because we were both 35 years younger when I
was doing political battle with him at Sydney University in the late
1970s. Thus, we were both more supple, lithe and in our manly prime.
Then Abbott was a “rugger bugger” and a “John’s boy”, which meant that
we regarded him as wooden and stiff, and best avoided in the Quad after
dark. Today, I’ve got more hair, but also more padding — so let’s not go
there, or at least no further.
But, to be fair, Tony Abbott loosened up a little towards the end.
Not during the speech, but after when facing questions from the Canberra
media pack. I have some experience of this too.
I was a Press Gallery journalist in the early 1990s and witnessed many performances at the National Press Club.
Most of them involved wooden and stiff politicians, or visiting
dignitaries. Perhaps its the environment inside the Press Club itself,
which is wooden and stiff. So too, from memory, is the food; served ‘A-B
roll’ style. ‘A’ gets the lamb or chicken, ‘B’ gets the beef and
everyone gets the vegetables, which may have begun life wooden and
stiff, but which were boiled into submission at the hands of the club
chefs.
Maybe the food’s better today, but the set piece performances and
badly crafted speeches don’t seem to have improved. So, maybe, the lack
of emotion, movement and conviction in the PM’s recycled speech notes
was not his fault.
a) blaming Credlin for what is clearly Abbott’s own fault; or
b) not blaming Credlin, thus revealing my
sexism by discounting the fact that just because she’s a woman doesn’t
mean she can’t also be a domineering bitch whose royally f****d up an
entire government single-handedly.
Women can do anything a man can do and somethings a woman can do better than any man.
But today was all about Tony. In fact, I didn’t see Peta Credlin in
the audience cut-away shots. Lots of mugging ministers with oily smiles
tightly painted on their grim visages; a few of Margie looking pretty
much as wooden as Tony; and a couple of David Speers sitting next to Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.
I’m sure there’s some subtle message in that about the closeness of Sky News
presenters to the Abbott cabinet, perhaps it was the luck of the draw,
or perhaps it signals that Cormann is Speers’ deepthroat on leadership
bickering around the Cabinet table.
Pure speculation I know, but the papers are full of it today, so why
shouldn’t I, an inveterate electronic graffitist, have my own little
moment of “What if?”
The speech itself was predictable, dull, full of self-congratulation,
replete with blaming “Rudd-Gillard-Rudd”, talking up the terror threat,
beating the national security drum and repeated protestations that
“only this government” can deliver economic miracles.
And, no, it won’t save Abbott’s arse. If anything it is likely to
make the backbenchers even more nervous and the ministers more pissed
off.
The public it seems, shares this sentiment.
We were treated to scare tactics over Hizb ut-Tahir, an Islamic
organisation that Abbott wants to ban, but for which he has not yet
found a sufficiently compelling official excuse to justify it.
But don’t worry. Abbott’s crack team will be on it and soon enough
there will be reason aplenty to outlaw the Islamic “party of
liberation”.
The audience was also treated to some fairly ludicrous economic theorising from the Prime Minister, such as:
"…every dollar the government spends is a dollar you don’t spend now or in the future."
Really? But isn’t the point of spending on education so that we will
have more money to spend when we grow up to be adults like Tony and co?
And isn’t the point of spending on health so that we are well enough to work until we’re 70 or older?
The economic gibberish continued with homilies such as every big
business starts out as a small business and the almost religious
commitment to budget surplus, which is another idea that most sensible economists think is ideology, not science.
Abbott also played the “race card”, saying that the government will
crackdown on Chinese homebuyers. That’s just playing to the remaining
few dozen Hansonites, it does not make policy sense at all.
However, I digress, the point of this piece is to discuss the
questions casually tossed onto the lectern by humble scribes hoping to
score the story of the afternoon by either:
a) delivering the PM a lollygagger to bash out of the park, thus ensuring the front page / bulletin lead, or
b) chucking a hard full toss cherry
straight into the Prime Ministerial budgie smugglers, thus ensuring the
front page / bulletin lead
So who were the winners and losers?
There were 14 questions spread evenly among the mainstream media
outlets; it is worth noting that no electronic graffiti artists were
given a shot. Perhaps, at $80 for non-members, the cost of tickets is
prohibitive, or maybe we’re not that welcome in the enclave of the
political establishment.
The first interrogator was the ABC’s Chris Uhlmann,
who, in my view, gets a bad rep as a Liberal stooge. Maybe he is, but
his question was pretty good, drawing on Abbott’s Jesuit training to put
him on the spot:
"In good conscience are you the best person to lead this
government and prosecute its agenda, and have you considered resigning?"
Well, this one turned into a lollygagger and only required a simple
“Yes, and no. Yes and no, Chris” from the PM. The longer answer involved
the “rejection of KAOS”, at the last election, but I wasn’t even aware that the secretive cold war spy agency was even standing.
More seriously though, Abbott attempted to rewrite history here — remember him calling on Gillard to resign? No, neither does Tony. He said that only the electors could toss out a government and sitting Prime Minister.
The second question could also have been a beauty. Steven Scott of the Brisbane Courier-Mail:
You didn’t mention the Queensland election in your speech, and I’m
just wondering, why do you think the Queensland electorate turned
against the LNP so dramatically and how will you convince your
colleagues they don’t face the same threat under you? [S Scott, Courier-Mail]
Abbott’s response dodged most of the question and focused on the PM’s
“deeply” felt sorrow for Campbell Newman and his colleagues. The
central message was that the selling of the “difficult reform” in
Queensland was not done well. On the implications for himself, all
Abbott could offer was that the coalition needed to make a “bigger
effort” to convince the Senate cross-benches to support it.
There will be more consultation with the back bench too, said Abbott, clearly pitching to the party room not to ditch him.
My take out is look out for more bribes to the PUP senators and the other independents.
He scored a two off this medium pace delivery.
At this point the PM got all Eat, Pray, Love with a ramble about how all of us are on the journey together.
Seriously, taking new age mantras from a loopy self-help book? Is
that all you’ve got. Certainly for the electronic graffitists working
from home, it was a special highlight.
“It’s the only journey worth coming on,” the PM solemnly intoned, waving his arms in the air (seriously).
Laura Tingle (Australian Financial Review) brought us all down to earth with her question about the economy and unemployment. Bummer, Laura!
"You focused on a stronger economy in your speech and on the need
for jobs, but just noting that there are an extra 63,400 people who
became unemployed since you were elected, can you spell out for us how
you’re going to address that. And I reference your G20 economic plan
which was built heavily on investment in infrastructure, which you also
mentioned in your speech. How is that affected by the changing balance
of asset programs in the states and will that have a material impact on
the economic forecasts?"
Phew, we finally got there.
Abbott repeated his infrastructure and growth comments and his legacy
as an “infrastructure Prime Minister”. He then lambasted the Victorian
Labor Government to great applause and laughter from his nervous
supporters in the audience.
That was a lollygagger in the end and Abbott thumped it for six and more.
Could Malcolm Farr – perhaps once (if not still) the most interesting and leftwing journalist in the NewsCorpse stable – do better?
Farr:
"Staying with jobs, a number of workplace matters will be
reported on by the Productivity Commission later in the year, but if I
could go to your current thinking: are you aware of or have you read any
credible study or research that says that lowering or removing the
minimum wage creates more jobs?"
I like this question because it is something that the NewCorpse
tabloid readers in working class suburbs would want to know about it.
Abbott’s answer was noncommital and the PM padded up to deflect it
into the covers — but it could be a sleeper question that comes back to
bite him.
Abbott said he would respect the umpire’s decision, but clearly that only applies if the decision is “Not out.”
Malcolm’s deceptive spin was followed up by SBS TV’s Catherine McGrath:
"In terms of economic debate, do you think that as Prime Minister
you need to bring the political debate forward in Australia, and do you
concede in any way that the skills that brought you to government–
successfully tearing down Labor–are not necessarily the skills you need
now and there might be some rebooting needed."
Abbott let this one go through to the keeper by suggesting that he would not “speculate upon myself”. But clearly that is what this whole Press Club thing is all about.
So good delivery Catherine, even though it didn’t take a wicket.
Next up, Andrew Probyn from The West Australian was given the ball. He has the look of a fiery quick and the run up was pretty good.
"Prime Minister, dare I say it, but you have appeared to
contradict your mentor John Howard today, when you said that voters had
the right to hire and fire prime ministers. Mr Howard used to say that
leadership was the gift of the party room. Do you still have the
confidence of the party room?
"And secondly a “Yes or no” question: If you were offered a Knighthood would you take it?"
Shit, these double-barrel questions, too easy to dodge, so not a great delivery in the end.
Abbott’s pause and this, his second, “Well, yes and no,” answer got a laugh.
Then it got weird. Abbott ignored the “party room” aspect of the
question (no surprise) and told a long and possibly apocryphal story
about visiting a pub in Colac to pour beers for friendly and
appreciative locals.
The in-house cheer squad lapped it up, but the response from the armchair critics was less warm.
This punter was even blunter:
Yep, apparently Colac is hometown to Liberal Party chief Brian Loughnane who is also married to Peta Credlin. Perhaps the Abbotts and the Loughnane/Credlins share a caravan there.
Probyn had to interject at this point to get Abbott to answer is party room question and the PM wasn’t happy.
All he could say (several times) is:
“We’ve had a rough couple of months.”
Probyn’s delivery sconned the PM, but the helmet of dodging the question saved him on this occasion.
To be honest, I suspect that like me you are losing interest at this
point in what is really a pretty pointless match; so let’s skip straight
to the highlights reel.
Channel Seven’s Mark Riley
has form bowling to the Prime Minister; who could forget that wonderful
long stoney silence —Tony Abbott’s infamous “shit happens”
moment.Here’s a reminder, it’s that good:
Given their history, Riley’s question was always going to be difficult for the PM to fend away.
It was long, it was detailed and it was a beauty. Riley took Abbott
through a series of quotes about being collegiate and working with his
colleagues, going right back to 2009.
Abbott was not happy and it showed on his face and his aggressive
stance at the crease; the rictus grin was back and in full force.
Then the fast ball:
Why have you not kept any of those promises delivered 12 or 15 times
to your party thus far, and why should your backbench and your cabinet
have any faith that you’ll keep it this time.
Now the nub. That delivery shook Abbott up and he gave a long and
contradictory answer about the now infamous series of “Captain’s calls”
he has made over the past 18 months. This could be another sleeper that
bites Abbott on the bum some time soon or later. Abbott’s answer was
full of contradictions and wobbles. A potential series winner from Mark
Riley.
The rest of the line up was pretty tame and some, like the dear
Michelle Grattan should really retire. But I want to mention Keiran
Gilbert from Sky News.
He asked what I thought was the question of the day:
"G’day Prime Minister, Keiran Gilbert from Sky News. I understand
that yesterday you had consultations with some of your closest
supporters and in it [sic] you recognised that you do have a
serious threat to your leadership underway and you said, and I quote “In
these circumstances you can either panic or you hold your ground.”
you’ll be holding your ground. Is that a recognition that you are facing
a serious threat to your leadership.
"And the second question [oh no Keiran, don’t spoil it]
You met with Julie Bishop last night; did you ask her for a commitment
she would not challenge you? And, if so, what did she say."
That’s technically three questions Keiran and I did try for three years to teach you not to do that, but anyway, good effort.
While all this was going on Abbott was furiously drinking his water
and the death stare was back. If looks could kill, Gilbert would be
dead, buried and cremated. It obviously got under the PM’s skin.
The answer was pretty weak. All that Abbott could do was play a defensive shot — back to the whole “difficult patch” for the government drivel.
“As for Julie,” the PM went on, “Julie’s a friend of
mine. Julie’s my deputy, she’s been a terrific deputy, she’s been a
terrific minister. I believe I have her full support and I certainly
look forward to having her continued support.”
That was the question that nearly got past the PM’s protector. He got just enough bat on ball to prevent serious injury.
But I still want to know what was said in those meetings and who is the insider who's talking to Sky News and briefing them on what should be private discussions.
The gallery is a mixed bunch and the bowlers don’t always come into
the match with form and fitness. Today was no exception, but then,
giving journalists food and wine at lunch time is a surefire way to put
them off their game.
Most would rather sleep it off than have to go back and file another
boring yarn about Abbott speaking at the Press Club and not really
saying anything.
Let’s hope there’s a return match before too long.
