Three items of electoral relevance to emerge amidst the New Year news and polling drought:
• Paul Sakkal of The Age reports Stephanie Hunt, corporate lawyer and former legal adviser to Julie Bishop and Marise Payne, will seek Liberal preselection for Goldstein, which Tim Wilson hopes to recover after losing to independent Zoe Daniel in 2022. Wilson remains the front-runner, in the estimation of a further report in The Age today.
• Lydia Lynch of The Australian reports Margie Nightingale, former teacher and policy adviser to Treasurer Cameron Dick, is the front-runner to succeed Annastacia Palaszczuk in her seat of Inala, the by-election for which is “tipped to be held in March”. Palaszczuk’s former deputy chief-of-staff, Jon Persley, had long been mentioned as her likely successor, but he has withdrawn from contention, saying the party’s gender quota rules played a “big factor” in the decision.
• Sue Bailey of the Sunday Tasmanian reports that veteran former Liberal Senator and conservative stalwart Eric Abetz will seek state preselection in the division of Franklin for an election due in June next year, assuming Jeremy Rockliff’s government is able to keep the show on the road that long.
The meat and potatoes never turned up for the poor and destitute.
Reading the full report, COVID is bubbling in NSW. Especially in our more elderly. Perhaps due to increased exposure during Christmas etc.
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Documents/respiratory-surveillance-20240106.pdf
Mask up! And get the latest XBB monovalent vaccine. I am less convinced with contact transmission but it always helps to wash your hands as the good rhwombat says.
Rex Douglassays:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 1:32 pm
Entropy, I’ll have you know I was onto Morrison very early on as a fraud and nutter. It’s all in the archives here.
——————————————————————–
I wasn’t here and it appears Griff is backing you here. So it appears i missed judge you, sorry.
Where would Petter Dutton tell people to shop if Coles , Aldi , other supermarkets , other small stores and so on followed Woolworths
Scott
Grow your own food !!
Entropy
I identify the frauds and pretenders early. Rudd, Abbott, Trumble, Morrison and Albanese. All of them. Hopeless.
Littlefinger as well. No good.
”
Douglas and Milkosays:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 1:14 pm
Australia Day through French eyes:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1619521803403280385
”
D&M
CLAPPING EMOJI!
Sometimes you are so erudite but You can be so naughty. 🙂
Rex Douglassays:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 1:50 pm
Entropy
I identify the frauds and pretenders early. Rudd, Abbott, Trumble, Morrison and Albanese. All of them. Hopeless.
———————————————-
So i assume from that you only think Gillard was not a fraud as far as Federal leaders and Opposition leaders go?. In the period from Rudd onwards. I’ve seen your posts on Dutton so i know you think him a fraud too, just saw your post on Shorten too. I’m also assuming you believe the lying Rodent was a fraud too?, if we extend the the time period back a bit.
Quote: “We hold this truth to be self-evident”
the supermarket says there’s been a “gradual decline in demand” for such goods
Woolworths is not selling Australia Day shit because fewer Australians want to buy Australia Day shit.
You have an Australian flag to wear as a cape on Australia Day – do you really need to buy a new flag/cape every year? You just wear the same one you wore last year.
This is supply-and-demand. It is capitalism. It is a good thing.
You Tories do pick and choose when you are in favour of capitalism.
just wondering would Rex Douglas be as rough on the greens leaders as he is on Labor leaders if they were in coalition with Labor government/opposition
The Mindaroo Foundation. Another Andrew Forrest initiative.
https://report.minderoo.org/2022/initiative-fire-flood-resilience
January 22, 2021. Top Navy officer joins mission to prepare for fires and floods
One of the Royal Australian Navy’s most senior figures is leaving active service to take up a role with a not-for-profit to help build fire and flood preparedness.
Rear-Admiral Lee Goddard says he was inspired to take the leap by an “audacious and ambitious” plan to make Australia a global leader in fire and flood disaster resilience by 2025. He will be joining the Minderoo Foundation’s Fire and Flood Resilience initiative and leading a network of partners in emergency services, government, corporates, philanthropies, communities and the research sector to deliver a range of missions.
The initiative’s chief executive Adrian Turner said missions are to detect and extinguish dangerous fires within an hour, lift the resilience of the 50 most vulnerable communities to be on par with the most resilient communities, and halve the hazard exposure in Australia’s 50 most fire and flood prone regions by 2025.
Forrest is one billionaire who takes global warming seriously.
“You Tories do pick and choose when you are in favour of capitalism.”
Absolute populist hypocrites. Its a wonder they didnt bring in that “All that shit is made in China anyway” rhetoric.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/11/albanese-government-refuses-to-reveal-stance-on-un-genocide-case-against-israel
Stop hiding like a little mouse, Albo.
Declare one way or the other.
”
Rex Douglassays:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 2:07 pm
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/11/albanese-government-refuses-to-reveal-stance-on-un-genocide-case-against-israel
Stop hiding like a little mouse, Albo.
Declare one way or the other.
”
Could it be abstain?
RD
The Greens will never govern this country in their own right, so you might as well declare your preferred party. Labor or the Coalition?
Agreed Rex. As usual with matters relating to Israel, Labor is in a bind. Hopelessly caught between it’s own base and the Israel & US lobby. Albanese knows the Labor membership are broadly pro-Palestine and anti-apartheid. Yet if Labor were to support South Africa’s case the Israel lobby and US government would be furious with it. So hence we get a great example of Labor government “fence sitting”.
Entropy
Gillard had the guts to align with the progressive crossbench to legislate the clean energy package, despite vehement opposition from many of her own colleagues, the L/NP, corporate media, union aligned superfunds and share investors, who all make up the fossil fuel cartel.
They all tore her down of course. She was far from perfect, but she took them on.
One seriously has to ponder that if the former apartheid white minority government of South Africa had the same level of influence and lobbying power that Israel has at its disposal whether South Africa would still be under white minority rule today.
Rex Douglassays:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 2:07 pm
Stop hiding like a little mouse, Albo.
Declare one way or the other.
_____________________
He is not called each way Albo for nothing.
Excellent.
Pocock has just put out a press release condemning the brutal theocracy running Iran and demanding that the Australian Government condemns Iran for:
1. Funding, training and supplying HAMAS to fire over 5,000 missiles into Israel along with the murder, rape and kidnap civilian noncombatants including women and children.
2. Funding, training and supplying the Houthis to carrying out (to date) 26 attacks on merchant shipping in international waters.
3. Funding, training and supplying Heshbollah to carry out hundreds of attacks on Israel such that 200,000 Israelis have been driven from the homes, farms and businesses
4. Funding, training and supplying numerous terrorist organizations located in Iraq which have been responsible for a series of terrorist attacks resulting in the deaths of civilians
In addition Pocock has demanded that the Albanese Government leads a case to the ICJ for all of the above on the basis that the Iranian theocracy, HAMAS, Heshbollah and the Houthis are all acting consistent with their genocidal declarations in relation to the existence of jews in Israel.
We can’t say that Pocock is not balanced!
Fifteen people have died in violent unrest and riots in Papua New Guinea after some residents took advantage of police being on strike to set shops and businesses alight in the capital.
Eight people died in riots in the country’s capital of Port Moresby while a further seven were killed in Lae, PNG’s second largest city, according to an update from Lae Metro Command.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-11/15-people-dead-in-png-riots/103308660
Is the reason that Australia Day merchandise is down because:
1. People don’t want to celebrate it on a day that causes offence to First nations, And perhaps it would be big again if the date was more appropriately changed
2.Too much multiculturalism in Australia now, Other groups have their own culture and allegiances/loyalties and Australia/Australia Day is therefor of no/little consequence to them
3.Patriotism is going down in general, Even amongst the Anglo community
Rex Douglassays:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 2:25 pm
Still just Aus and Russia in the OECD
————————————————————–
Possibly only Australia as Russia isn’t in the OECD. Though if someone doesn’t know Russia is not in the OECD. You would want to fact check the rest of their statement too for accuracy. Before believing it or not. Though that requires checking what emission standards each of the 35 OECD countries have. Something i’ll leave to Rex as it was his post.
4. All the shit merch is made in China.
Rex Douglas says:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 2:15 pm
Entropy
Gillard had the guts to align with the progressive crossbench to legislate the clean energy package, despite vehement opposition from many of her own colleagues, the L/NP, corporate media, union aligned superfunds and share investors, who all make up the fossil fuel cartel.
They all tore her down of course. She was far from perfect, but she took them on.
—————-
The problem with Gillard was that she wasn’t Rudd when the price on carbon initiative was announced. And the way she was imposed on the voters by Labor in 2010 was not appreciated by some.
But she and Labor couldn’t wait, couldn’t give Rudd a chance at 2 terms. Which he likely would have won still with a Labor majority.
You could say one of the reasons Rudd won in 2007 with 43.3% of the vote 83 electorates, 16 in Queensland, was because of his statement:
‘Climate change is the great moral challenge of our generation’.
It showed a vision for Australia. Which people took up and supported. Later Labor leaders have not expressed any vision, just certain policies they hoped voters would support them on.
It was lacking a vision the Wetherall and Emerson inquiry thought as well as Shorten being unpopular, and not so good policy choices , was one reason Labor lost the 2019 election.
In their analysis they said ‘ a “weak strategy” that failed to adapt to the installation of Scott Morrison as Liberal leader, a “cluttered” and risky policy agenda that spooked suburban and regional voters, and Shorten’s personal unpopularity.
Running through their forensic analysis is also a strong sense of complacency and cockiness among Labor’s brains trust, creating an unwillingness to react when signs emerged that victory was not a foregone conclusion.’
I remember Albanese saying after the loss that he was not involved in any consultation or planning of election policies and strategies.
Order of day is to go bonkers
House Oversight Committee explodes as Hunter Biden crashes their party
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/10/2216544/-House-Oversight-Committee-explodes-as-Hunter-Biden-crashes-their-party?pm_source=ICYMI&pm_campaign=ICYMI01102024
“On Wednesday morning, the House Oversight Committee began debate on a motion to hold Hunter Biden in contempt for failing to appear to give testimony. But that already ludicrous action became even more comical when Hunter showed up at the committee, offering to testify in public if they would only allow him.
Republicans … did not take it well.
After 30 minutes of sitting in the audience while Republicans tried to maintain the importance of only listening to Hunter behind closed doors, he left the room, leaving Republicans to try and carry on with an intrinsically hypocritical hearing that included three members on the Republican side who ignored subpoenas from the Jan. 6 committee.
Most of the morning has been taken up with two things:
Democrats challenging Republicans on why they won’t allow Hunter Biden to testify in public, which he is clearly willing to do.
Republicans explaining how they didn’t have to obey subpoenas from the Jan. 6 special committee even though those subpoenas were upheld in court.
Rep. Michael Waltz is currently explaining how Donald Trump was impeached because Democrats selectively released information that was collected in closed-door hearings … so Hunter Biden should be only allowed to talk in a closed-door hearing. Really.
Waltz also informed ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin that he will “reap what he sows” by insisting that Republicans obey subpoenas.”
TM
He is not called each way Albo for nothing.
___________________________________
In fact he is not called that at all except for Coalition mouthpieces who take their lead from whatever is manufactured by the Coalition Astroturf foundation.
Rex Douglas says:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 1:50 pm
I identify the frauds and pretenders early. Rudd, Abbott, Trumble, Morrison and Albanese. All of them. Hopeless.
____________________________________________
The biggest one of all is Rex – who actually admitted he was a fraud a couple of years back when a respected poster died.
Well, well.
‘Biden Is Everything People Feared Trump Would Be’
“American officials say the Biden administration is not doing all it can to reduce tensions, despite public commitments from senior officials to avoid a regional blow-up.
“ ‘I’ve been trying to keep an avalanche from falling on Lebanon and so have a lot of people,’ one official told HuffPost, saying many national security personnel fear unchecked U.S. support for Israel will make it overly confident about expanding operations into Lebanon. ‘The problem is no one can rein in Biden, and if Biden has a policy, he’s the commander-in-chief ― we have to carry it out. That’s what it comes down to, very, very, very unfortunately.’ ”
https://x.com/caitoz/status/1745276145086705863?s=20
Agreed, but, in retrospect, I have a lower opinion of Gillard than Rudd.
Rex Douglas says:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 1:50 pm
I identify the frauds and pretenders early. Rudd, Abbott, Trumble, Morrison and Albanese. All of them. Hopeless.
Watch Rep. Jared Moskowitz call GOP’s bluff on Hunter Biden
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/10/2216551/-Watch-Rep-Jared-Moskowitz-call-GOP-s-bluff-on-Hunter-Biden?pm_source=ICYMI&pm_campaign=ICYMI01102024
The Daily Dutton has this as its lead story…
Shop ‘elsewhere’: Dutton blasts Woolworths
Peter Dutton has called on consumers to consider boycotting Woolworths because it will not be selling Australia Day merchandise on January 26.
Is Peter Dutton writing his own satire these days?
Railing against Woolies for not having the China made Aussie Flag thongs (nothing says I love my country more than walking all over the flag in sweaty feet eh) but waving through their past 18 months of price gauging “ordinary Australian family’s TM is just the sign of what a successful business looks like?
STFU Pete you do less damage to your credibility when you do.
2023 was the hottest year in human history. 2024 is already setting records
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/10/2216389/-2023-was-the-hottest-year-in-human-history-2024-is-already-setting-records?pm_source=ICYMI&pm_campaign=ICYMI01102024
“The Copernicus Climate Change Service is one of a series of agencies created by the European Union to monitor events on Earth. Its official report made clear just how extraordinary 2023 was, even when compared with other warm years in the recent past.
2023 was confirmed to be the warmest year since records have been kept.
The average temperature was 0.17 degrees Celsius higher than the previous record year of 2016.
The average temperature was 0.60 C higher than the average between 1991-2020.
The average temperature was 1.48 C higher than the average between 1850-1900.
Every month from June to December was warmer than in any past year.
Every single day in 2023 was over 1 C warmer than in the 1850-1900 “pre-industrial” period, and roughly half of the days were more than 1.5 C warmer. Highlighting how hot it was near the end of the year, there were two days in November that, for the first time on record, were more than 2 C warmer than that pre-industrial line.
If those 1.5 C and 2 C values seem familiar, it’s likely because those are the numbers that climate agreements have been trying to avoid. In 2023, the world fell just 0.02 C short of reaching the first of these lines.”
If the lib/nats were pro Australian as they claim
They would be splitting from their political controllers and influencers foreign media tycoons and their propaganda media units
Dutton now saying businesses have a patriotic duty to lose money by stocking goods that aren’t bought.. So long as it’s in a good cause. His.
The leader of the party of free enterprise calls for a boycott of a retail giant because they won’t stock stuff he wants them to.
Beyond parody.
I think I’m supposed to be boycotting Coles because they stocked easter buns on Boxing Day.
Aldi are on the nose with some because they German owned and stock so much imported food.
And now Woolworths.
Where to next? The local IGA is a boutique sort of store that charges boutique store prices.
I live in the State division of Riverton which I think has one of the highest percentages of immigrants from various parts of Asia in WA.
Australia Day merch unlikely to be a big seller around here.
Dutton is just a gutter rat. The lowest of low altitude flyers. He has nothing of substance about him to fear.
You don’t legitimize him by seeking bipartisanship. You identify him as he is and you politically destroy him.
My fellow Victorians know what I’m saying. We saw Matt Guy destroyed, as he should have been.
Douglas and Milko: “Australia Day through French eyes:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1619521803403280385”
I love the French, don’t get me wrong.
But it’s arguably a little bit rich for anyone from France to be sarcastic about our colonial past.
We’re talking about a country that still refuses to relinquish a number of its colonial possessions around the globe (French Guyana, Martinique, Gaudeloupe, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, etc., etc. and, within the lifetimes of many living people, fought unbelievably bloody wars in a failed attept to preserve some of its African colonies: most particularly Algeria.
sprocket_says:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 2:49 pm
The Daily Dutton has this as its lead story…
Shop ‘elsewhere’: Dutton blasts Woolworths
Peter Dutton has called on consumers to consider boycotting Woolworths because it will not be selling Australia Day merchandise on January 26.
—————————————————————–
Are producers or importers of Australian Day merchandise big donors to the LNP?.
If they are, would this be something for a Federal ICAC to look into?.
From the UK cartoons:
Peter Schrank: If Biden stopped signing these cheques the whole horror could be over in a few days. #JoeBiden #VolodymyrZelenski #BenjaminNetanyahu #Gaza #Ukraine
Of course many would believe Ukraine needs those cheques. But Israel?
Look at their policies/ethnic cleansing since 1948.
U.S. struck with historic number of billion-dollar disasters in 2023
https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-struck-with-historic-number-of-billion-dollar-disasters-in-2023
“US Billion-dollar disasters in 2023
Last year, the U.S. experienced 28 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. This surpasses 2020 — which had 22 events — for the highest number of billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. on record.
“The U.S. was hit with more billion-dollar disasters in 2023 than any other year on record, highlighting the increasing risks from our changing climate,” said NOAA NCEI Director Deke Arndt. “Record heat waves, drought, wildfires and floods are a sobering reminder of the consequences of the long-term warming trend we’re seeing across our country. These findings underscore the need for the data products and services provided by NOAA, like this annual report, to help create a more informed and climate-ready nation.”
The 28 events from 2023 include:
17 severe weather/hail events.
4 flooding events.
2 tropical cyclones (Idalia in Florida and Typhoon Mawar in Guam).
2 tornado outbreaks.
1 winter storm/cold wave event.
1 wildfire event (Maui Island of Hawaii).
1 drought and heat wave event.
The total cost for these 28 disasters was $92.9 billion, but that may rise by several billion dollars when the costs of the December 16-18, 2023, East Coast storm and flooding event are fully accounted for.”
‘Sohar says:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 2:39 pm
Well, well.
‘Biden Is Everything People Feared Trump Would Be’
“American officials say the Biden administration is not doing all it can to reduce tensions, despite public commitments from senior officials to avoid a regional blow-up.
“ ‘I’ve been trying to keep an avalanche from falling on Lebanon and so have a lot of people,’ one official told HuffPost, saying many national security personnel fear unchecked U.S. support for Israel will make it overly confident about expanding operations into Lebanon. ‘The problem is no one can rein in Biden, and if Biden has a policy, he’s the commander-in-chief ― we have to carry it out. That’s what it comes down to, very, very, very unfortunately.’ ”
https://x.com/caitoz/status/1745276145086705863?s=20‘
——————————-
Everything that we feared Trump Would Be?
Piffle?
Alternatively, Biden:
1. Put two carrier groups into the Med and threatened Heshbollah that if Heshbollah launched an all-out missile and/or ground invasion into Israel, the US would use those two carrier groups. To date Heshbollah has contented itself with hundreds of incidents of firing missiles and mortar shells into Israel along with occasional forays into Israel by Heshbollah military units. Also to date, Heshbollah has not launched the 100,000 missiles it has for targeting Israel. Despite this ‘minor’ level of Heshbollah assaults, Israel has had to turn into internal refugees something like 200,000 Israeli citizens.
2. Kept the lid on the Israeli hawks who want to launch an all-out ground invasion of Lebanon to push Heshbollah something like 30 km from the border.
3. Kept the lid on the Israeli hawks who want to push 2 million Gazans into Egypt.
4. Warned Iran about the consequences of expanding the conflict. These warning have not been carried out despite serial military provocations by Iran and its proxies, up to and including the wounding of US military personnel.
5. Refrained, to date, from setting the Houthi War alight by not launching attacks on Houthi military targets despite 26 attacks involving hundreds of drones, missiles – including ballistic missiles – by the Houthis on neutral merchant shipping.
6. Has fully supported NATO whereas Trump intends to disestablish NATO.
7. Supported Ukraine whereas Trump intends to support Putin.
8. Has not, unlike Trump, urged his military to get into a war with Iran.
The notion that Biden is ‘everything we feared Trump would be’ is interesting bullshit but bullshit still.
Would Dutton and his cronies apologise to any Woolworths employees who are no longer employed , due to this calling of a boycott ?
Hello?
If Iran stopped arming, supporting and training Hamas, Heshbollah and the Houthis the whole disaster would never had started.
If Hamas stopped hiding behind civilians the whole disaster would stop tomorrow.
In line with my love of capitalism, I would supprort the decision made by Woolworths on the basis that I would be sure that they made it on the basis of market research. It’s difficult for baby boomers like me fully to appreciate the depth of the contempt for Australia Day felt by the younger generations these days.
However, I will be sorry to see the end of the giant inflatable thongs with Australian flags on them. Perhaps KMart will continue to stock them.
Also, I would hope that, if we ever achieve some sort of meaningful reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, we can one day find a different way of incorporating January 26th into our thinking. In the early days of the colony of NSW, it was particularly celebrated by emancipated convicts and the Australian-born: people who faced a considerable degree of prejudice from the rest of the society of that time.
Ideally, it could become a day when we remember the 160,000 or so mainly British and Irish people who were shipped to Australia against their will, many of whom were able to built a better life here for themselves and their descendants. Sure, this was at the cost of Indigenous people being stripped of their traditional lands, but that wasn’t the convicts’ idea.
Irene says:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 3:05 pm
Well, well, well.
Will any of the usual suspects call out Irene for breaking the moratorium?
Of course not. They are waiting to bag me if I comment on some inane drongo’s dumb musings.
S. Simpson says:
Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 2:13 pm
Agreed Rex. As usual with matters relating to Israel, Labor is in a bind. Hopelessly caught between its own base and the Israel & US lobby. Albanese knows the Labor membership are broadly pro-Palestine and anti-apartheid. Yet if Labor were to support South Africa’s case the Israel lobby and US government would be furious with it. So hence we get a great example of Labor government “fence sitting”.
……………….
I don’t quite agree with your assessment Simmo.
On Israel – the Gaza war – whatever international posture Australia takes will be essentially meaningless for any of the ME combatants. All it will do is stir up antagonism domestically that outweighs any any feel good response from the other side.
Furthermore, since the combatants on all sides are equally deserving of the contempt in which they are held by the other side, it is surely sensible policy to avoid taking any position whilst the combatants are still enthusiastic for more mayhem and destruction.
Taking a pseudo internationalist approach (Human Rights) when neither side has any significant interest in complying would be internationally pointless and domestic poison.