Jacinda Ardern’s resignation as prime minister in January was a courageous and pragmatic decision for herself, her family and her party. Although many said she’d done a great job as leader, she rightly reminded us that a great leader is “one who knows when it’s time to go”.
Source: Jacinda Ardern says goodbye to parliament: how her politics of kindness fell on unkind times
Beleaguered and embattled prime minister Tony Abbott attempts to make a not completely terrible career-saving speech
Tony Abbott fits neatly into a category that doesn’t understand diplomacy. And, he seems incapable of adapting to this level of diplomatic dignity. He is like a street thug pretending to be the Maître Di’ for a 5 star hotel; a role he is ill prepared for and either unwilling or unable to develop.As a consequence, for those of us who take pride in our international reputation, he has become a national embarrassment.
His brain snap comment about shirtfronting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, at the G20 meeting in Brisbane next month. His follow-up comment, ’You bet you are’ was so out of sync with the first remark that it suggested he was not in control.The last international leader I can recall who became a figure of international amusement was, coincidentally, a former Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. Boris was a drunken fool; a buffoon. Yeltsin was a figure of derision.
While Abbott’s antics are not even close to those of Yeltsin, the ‘shirtfront’ comment coming on the back of his comments about the Scottish vote for independence will ensure that future overseas trips taken by him will attract a lot more attention from the international media and for all the wrong reasons.
The quality of the Coalition governance has been appalling. They fail on several fronts; the economy and the environment being the most obvious. But an election is still two years away. The prospect of two more years under Abbott’s leadership is becoming intolerable.
The Liberal Party should put the people first; they should show some ticker and end this charade. It is time to restore some international diplomacy to our reputation and regain some national pride.
Consider the number of shouts and whispers we heard after MH17 went down.
First the crime, then the cover-up. The criminals will be brought to justice. Putin will be held personally responsible for this act of evil. The worst peacetime atrocity in modern history. Putin ‘not welcome’ in Brisbane. Putin to be denied permission to come to Australia. Putin, if he comes here, will be ‘brought to justice’. Hundreds of millions to be spent ‘bringing them home’. A war should be suspended so we can recover the bodies. Hundreds of millions spent while we wait for the war to be suspended. A national day of mourning. A multi-faith service in a Melbourne cathedral for the innocent dead.
None of this, after Gaza, ISIS and Ebola, seems very proportionate any more.
What was clear from the start, that it was an unintended shooting down of a plane that was foolishly in air space over a war zone and mistaken for another plane, seems the case now, like a six-car pile-up on New Year’s Eve, or a Mediterranean ferry sinking in a storm.
And now we have Putin coming to Brisbane. How will he be treated? As a murderous neo-Communist dictator the ICC should put on trial for crimes against humanity? Or as what he is, the world’s most powerful man, one we should treat pretty gingerly?
The politics of the exclamation mark make it difficult for us either to greet him or to shun him. Did he personally order the shooting down of the plane? Of course not. Is his war on Ukraine illegal? Absolutely. Was his takeover of Crimea constitutional? Possibly. Will we be selling him our uranium and beef again soon? Of course we will.
So…?
Abbott and Newman are in a fix of their own making. They are accustomed to dealing with semi-fictional enemies — the wicked people-smuggler, the homegrown crucifying terrorist, the furtive criminal unionist, the heinous Kevin Rudd who personally sent boys into roofs where they were electrocuted — and faced with actual, complex, powerful humans with agendas of their own, they are at a loss as to what to do or say, lest the bad guy … answer back.
It is not beyond the bounds of likelihood that Putin will want to debate Abbott in a public place and Abbott will flee from the encounter. It is not beyond the outskirts of possibility that he will persuade some delegates that Kiev did the shooting-down and doubts will be officially articulated on this score.
But because Abbott, who deals only in menacing fictions, is unprepared for the real Putin and not just a huffing muppet he wanted not to come here, Abbott, the hyperbolist, will have no words to deal with him face to face, as Bob Carr might have done, and engage him in actual conversation. And will look, as he usually does, a fool.
The Abbott adventure gets worse and worse. Kobane will fall and Abbott will be shown to have been forbidden by Baghdad to send help there. Baghdad will fall and ISIL command the former Mesopotamia. The Budget will be rejected and Palmer demand that Hockey be sacked before any more negotiation take place. Abbott will be too weak to sack him and Turnbull will move against him.
It is no joke to say, as I have every other day for eighty-four days, that this is the worst free-elected government in a thousand years on this planet.
And, daily, it gets worse and worse.
I wrote this article 12 years ago. Has anything changed?
Australia is fast heading down a dangerous path. While our stories of history may permit us to see an era of fascism only in some distant place and some distant time, there is no guarantee in this story that the ugly head of right wing extremism will not rise again. Just because we participated in the fight against it, and shared in the spoils of the victory over it, does not remove us from being the constructors of an equally horrific threat. The current rhetoric of patriotism that is circulating within this nation suggests quite clearly that fascist ideologies are gaining prominence once again. And in this land where we claim there is opportunity for all, amidst all the rhetoric of a tolerant multiculturalism, such destructive ideas are starting to appear quite normal.
I’m not saying that John Howard is akin to Hitler. Let’s be honest, he really doesn’t have that much flair. Given a bit more intelligence, and the ability to speak with passionate vigour, and he might be taken more seriously by the masses. As it stands, however, he’s far too feeble and too docile to be such a crowd-controlling force. All too often his slippages and wayward comments have to be reshaped by his publicity machine in order to make them fit the full picture. It’s as if he doesn’t quite have all the pieces there to be able to do it alone.
Today, we fail to see that the Aussie dream, where the voice of the average person on the street is said to matter, is all but dead; that our governments are becoming increasingly distant, wrapped up in their own corporate-style worlds from which they see nothing of the reality of our lives. We just sit back and we trust them. We let them tell us of the fear on our streets and to our borders. There’s something out there, threatening, waiting to get in. Don’t go outside. Don’t question. The foreign—the outside world—is, so we are told, now a danger to our “normal” and precious way of life. But this way of life, this normality of us, is just an idealised way of life. It doesn’t even exist. The people we offend by adopting such a nationalistic and high-and-mighty stance may soon grow impatient with having to appease us. We would do better, therefore, to start recognising our commonalities with them instead of dozily lapping up the rhetoric of right wing ideologies without thought, without concern for the kind of future we invite. But we can only begin this process of communication and understanding when we stop thinking of ourselves as some superior and master, unquestionably lucky race.
Dean Laplonge is a cultural theorist whose research and consulting work explores the relationship between culture and everyday practices. He is the Director of the cultural research company Factive (www.factive.com.au) and an Adjunct senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales.
Shouting ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre is frowned upon in most societies and thought an example of a limit on freedom of speech we can all agree on. Tony Abbott did something far, far worse yesterday. He told an entire nation they could be randomly beheaded at any moment.
He then told us to calm down, and behave as if he hadn’t said it.
He added to the usual terrors female shift-workers endure on late night buses, late night trains and the long walk from a railway station home at 1.30 a.m. — the ultimate horror of having your head cut off.
He did it by adding the word ‘random’: by not even implying, but saying straight out that you didn’t have to be famous, or politically connected to a particular cause, or a prominent member of a particular faith. You could be an ‘innocent bystander’, beheaded.
He then said it was very easy to do. All one needs, he said, is a knife and cell-phone, and an accomplice with a car.
Is this responsible? Is it the act of a nation’s leader, or a cyberbully? It seems to encourage terrorists, implying they can’t be easily detected and it doesn’t matter who they kill.
Forty-six people ‒ Australian people ‒ died from cigarettes yesterday, none from decapitation.
Three or four motorists will die this weekend, in car accidents.
Before Christmas, two young men will die in pub brawls.
‘Domestic’ terrorism will occur — a father kidnapping and threatening his estranged wife or children once or twice this fiscal year.
I will bet a lot of money no-one will be beheaded here in Australia.
It is because it is not a very Australian thing to do. People who live here don’t do that sort of thing and thereby imperil their families, and the livelihood of their parents, brothers and sisters. It is a long way from the battlegrounds of Baghdad, Mosul, Gaza, Donetsk, where such ‘terrorist’ things do happen lately — incidents in war.
And this is why it hasn’t happened in ninety-nine years and nine months here, since the Battle of Broken Hill in January 1915. It is not a particularly Australian thing to do.
And frightening old women with it is, I think, unbecoming for a prime minister. And possibly illegal, as it ‘encourages the terrorists’.
If the Prime Minister were serious about it, the two big football games this weekend in Sydney would have been cancelled, along with the opening night of The King And I. If he were serious, there would be random body searches of Middle Eastern women entering the Sydney Art Gallery. Most art galleries, given ISIL’s hatred of art, would be closed for six months.
But he isn’t serious, he’s making mischief.
He’s lost most of the policy battles of his first year and he’s thought a joke by many people, by many others a disgrace, and he’s embarked on the biggest ‘scare campaign’ since the Yellow Peril.
He’s become what I call the Chicken-Little-in-Chief. And he shouldn’t, any more, be given the time of day.
And he should be asked to resign by his colleagues (as Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond was a few hours ago and has done), or by the Senate, or by a poll of public opinion.
He’s blown it. May the sky come falling down
Abbott with the chief of the defence force: 39% of those surveyed rated handling of ‘relations with other countries’ as good and 24% as poor, resulting in a net rating of +15%.
Choice of war hasn’t helped Abbott’s standing in the polls. However it’s a pity we are such such a bellicose nation and encouraged him on this decision.
I am starting to think that when Mr Abbott promised us a “grown up” government, instead of “responsible adult” government he actually meant he would treat us citizens like children, responding to unwanted scrutiny with that most hated parent refrain, “because I said so…” that will drive a kid to their bedroom in fury and frustration, normally with bonus door slamming.
That is just not good enough. It is not “ridiculous” to want proof and be assured that our Prime Minister – be it this one or any MP in future who aspires to the top job in our nation while Article 44(i) of the Constitution is on the books – is a “law-abiding” citizen who legally deserves to be in the position of Prime Minister of this nation.
I might be only a punter but I try to teach my kids that Rulz is Rulz! — whether you are Joe Blow, Jill Dill or Prime Minister of Australia.
With Prime Minister Tony Abbott plunging Australia back into another war in the Middle East, John Pilger argues that the attack on Gaza poses a wider threat to us all, fuelled by a complicit media.
SAID THE VISIONARY Edward Said:
“THERE IS a taboo on telling the truth about Palestine and the great destructive force behind Israel. Only when this truth is out can any of us be free.”
Tony Abbott and Words of Wisdom
On Wisdom
No one. However smart, however well-educated, however experienced is the suppository of all wisdom
On Womens Business
I want to make it clear that I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion, but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation’s legacy of unutterable shame.
Abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations.
While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it’s inevitable and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework
What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.
Climate Change
It seems that, notwithstanding the dramatic increases in manmade CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world’s warming has stopped.
If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax
Climate change is absolute crap
The argument [behind climate change] is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.
Homosexuality
[on homosexuality] I’d probably … I feel a bit threatened
[on homosexuality] If you’d asked me for advice I would have said to have adopt a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about all of these things…
Fatherhood
If you wanna know who to vote for, I’m the guy with the not bad-looking daughters.
I won’t be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated [for cervical cancer], maybe that’s because I’m a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won’t be
I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question… it [their virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly, that’s what I would say.
Asylum
These people aren’t so much seeking asylum, they’re seeking permanent residency. If they were happy with temporary protection visas, then they might be able to argue better that they were asylum seekers
Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.
Youth
When you are challenging the young, they can come back at you with language of tremendous power and they are no respecters of sacred cows, you know, the young. There’s nothing politically correct about the average young Australian when it comes to use of language.
MP’S
I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared scripted remarks.
If we’re honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband. you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he’s employing someone while he is in fact a boss.
Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage
There may not be a great job for [aboriginal people] but whatever there is, they just have to do it… And if it’s picking up rubbish around the community, it just has to be done.
olddogthoughts 
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