''Will the foreign minister,'' mischievously asked Julie Bishop, ''advise the House when he intends to return to Bogan-ville?''

That, at least, was the way most MPs, merrily slapping their thighs, chose to interpret Ms Bishop's question to Kevin Rudd.

Boganville is Kevin's naughty private name for The Lodge now that it is occupied by Julia and Tim.

For those who have lived under a cultural rock over recent decades, the Macquarie Dictionary helpfully offers a definition of bogan: a person who is not ''with it'' in terms of behaviour and appearance, and hence perceived as not being ''one of us''.

It's a limited definition: there are now large numbers of flannel-shirt-wearing, flag-waving, ute-driving, ugg-boot clad, mullet-coiffed and McMansion-residing westies who wear the bogan tag with pride.

Former Liberal leader Alexander Downer says he has no doubt Kevin Rudd would have won last year's election if he had stayed as Labor leader.

It is just over a year since Kevin Rudd was removed as prime minister by Labor party powerbrokers and Julia Gillard was installed as leader.

The September poll resulted in a hung parliament, but Mr Downer says Mr Rudd would have won clearly.

"I don't think there's any doubt about that at all," he told Sky News.

"I think Kevin Rudd would've won because the voters would've said, 'well he's been a bit disappointing, he's not what we hoped ... but he's only been there for three years, we're not going to throw him out after three years'."

The former Howard government minister says when Labor started to struggle in the polls, it gave the party powerbrokers an excuse to remove Mr Rudd.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/26/3253707.htm?section=justin

Ramblings from Clowner are silly and not trustworthy... First, Rudd was adamant that he would go the distance for a "full term".

Someone had to stop him from such position and bring the elections FORWARD... Why? Tony Abbott was painting porkies everywhere in the room and killing reasonable politics by saying "no" to anything reasonable that would forward Austalia's position... Rudd was going down hill fast... He was totally ill-equipped to fight Tony. Why? Because they come from the same big church... but Tony is slicker, more cunning, less proper policy-driven. Both are guilt and belief ridden.... Julia is not — even if she does small mistakes while being quite altruistic. Tony and Rudd mistakes are massive and driven by religious misunderstandings...

The very fact the Opposition and the media did their level best to make last week's anniversary of the downfall of Kevin Rudd into a major political event suggests that they don't have much else going for them.

Admittedly they had a little help from Kevin Gone-to-heaven himself; the idea of holding an assassination dinner for his friends at his Canberra residence was a silly provocation, and the discovery that he didn't have enough friends to make it worthwhile a welcome reality check. And the general public stayed away in droves. The event can now be consigned to history, at least for another year.

And Julia Gillard handled the kerfuffle with grace and skill, resisting the temptation for both self-justification and gloating, determinedly facing, as always, forward. The worries about her credibility and her persuasiveness in communicating with the electorate remain - her latest attempt to provide a vision thing for the real Julia seems to have fallen as flat as its many predecessors - but no-one in the caucus at least has any doubt of her tenacity, nor of the fact that she would fight like hell to hang onto the job in the unlikely event that a serious challenger emerged before the next election.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2773278.html

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There is a silly poll that says should Rudd be PM he would win an election at the present against an ever increasing silly nasty Abbott. News for you: don't trust such polls. Some iffy Liberal (conservative) moron might push the idea of a Rudd "victory" as to actually push for a new election sooner than needed and get their silly little shit elected.

Been there done that...

See toon at top.... The media in general is doing its darnest to sink Julia for no other reason than they're just a right wing propaganda machine. Abbott is doing tax-cut-clowning as to bamboozzle this too willing media in which some commentators "rubbish" them both with a faint praise for the little shit.... Until Abbott is kicked out of politics or get hit by a tonne of bricks on the head, the country called Australia will be poorer for letting him spoil its future....

Ahahha... Peter Reith is furious that Abbott is a wet blanket... (I won't give the link, it's not worth the effort)... Yeah, that'll be the day... I am an official conspiracy theorist analyst... And I can smell a rotten fish from 16.4 kilometres (ten miles or so) away. The idea of Peter Reith coming back to Australian politics, after Johnnee sent him to pasture as an ambassador somewhere because he stunk electorally, is somewhat funny. Peter Reith was deep into the fudge during the Howardian years... He was at the centre of the "children overboard" porky that helped Howard to another term as liar-in-chief... Peter Reith also tried to push the waterfront reforms by infamously making Patrick use scab labour, illegally imported from another country, using guards and guards dogs to protect the scabs... As far as bashing workers into the ground, Minchin was a choirboy compared to Peter Reith.

But I digress into my conspiracy analysis. I am like Lord Monkton: I believe in grand conspiracies.

Imagine for a moment that the Liberals (conservatives) want you to believe that "WorkChoices has been dead, buried and cremated.." But they still want to do a bit of tweaking of the industrial relations. They let us know from time to time that all they want to do is a little painless adjustment if we only let them... So they need to make us believe that Tony is the man to do just that: "little adjustments" to the industrial relations laws... So Peter Reith, who did not get the gig as president of the Liberals (conservatives) by one lousy vote, blasts Tony for being ambivalent about industrial relations... All this kerfuffle meaning that we, the dumb voters, can therefore assume that Tony is a reasonable bloke on the turf of industrial relation laws...

See how it's done. It's the confidence trick by excellence... Anyone with a brain knows that Tony is not ambilvalent about industrial relation laws. He wants to make sure a new version of WorkChoices sees the light... Sure the old one "died", but the daughter of Work Choices is still on the menu. The Liberals (conservatives) want you to believe that it's a moderate adaptation... A bit like the smiling daughter of LePen having taken over from her drab father... Or a bit like creationism being replaced by "intelligent design"...

If you don't see a well constructed conspiracy by the Liberals (conservatives) using Peter Reith as a prop, you, of course, know more than I do about being naive and trusting. Have a good life.

Former Liberal minister Peter Reith has hit out at Opposition Leader Tony Abbott for urging him to run for the Liberal Party presidency, then voting against him.

Mr Reith is furious that he was asked to run for the presidency by Mr Abbott, who then publicly showed his ballot paper to Mr Reith's opponent, the incumbent Alan Stockdale, indicating that Mr Stockdale had secured his vote.

And in revenge he has vowed to push for industrial relations reform, against the wishes of Mr Abbott, who has sought to avoid debate on the issue to avoid a Labor campaign on the divisive Workchoices policy.

Mr Reith said he had "suspended his interest" in commenting about industrial relations policy since February because of a promise to Tony Abbott.

"The suspension, by his own hand, is lifted," Mr Reith told ABC radio this morning.

But Mr Reith denied he was bitter about Mr Abbott's about face.

"Tony and I have always got on very well, and so it's certainly not personal."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/28/3255342.htm

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Is Tony Machiavellian? Sure is... read my comment above this one...

Unions say former Liberal minister Peter Reith has exposed the Coalition's desire to revive WorkChoices.

Mr Reith, who was a minister in the Howard government, has urged the party to adopt a more muscular industrial relations policy after losing a tilt for the federal Liberal presidency.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has sought to avoid debate on the issue, to avoid a Labor campaign on the divisive WorkChoices policy.

Mr Abbott says he wants to change workplace relations laws, but his policy will not be ideological.

But the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Jeff Lawrence, says Mr Abbott is under internal pressure to take a draconian approach.

"We see here a pattern - every time the Liberal Party has an opportunity to attack workers' rights, it does," he said.

"The Liberal Party is absolutely committed in its soul to WorkChoices.

"Our fear is that Mr Abbott - notwithstanding that he can see some electoral advantage in keeping his intentions secret - will actually succumb to this, and will commit to an industrial relations policy which is effectively a return to WorkChoices."

Mr Reith has already begun his campaign for workplace relations reform, saying WorkChoices was not necessarily the reason for the election loss in 2007.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/28/3255922.htm?section=justin

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Please read the two comments above this one very carefully....

From Unleashed- ABC

blah blah blah

...

For example the evil of long term unemployment is once again plaguing Australia despite that fact that there has been no recession to drive it.

Unemployment in May 2011 was running at 4.9%, still well above the 4.0% low of February 2008, but the rate of long term unemployment, that is people who have been out of work for 12 months or more, has grown rapidly, albeit to a figure below its recent peak of 128,000. Since December 2008, long term unemployment has grown by about 67% from 70,000 to 116,000 in May this year.

This reverses a steep decline in the numbers of long term unemployed that the coalition achieved when it won office and began implementing labour-market reforms.

The current resources boom is actually disguising the impact of the regulatory environment. Underutilisation in the labour market is running at about 12% and the youth unemployment rate remains at level reached at about the peak of the Global Financial Crisis.

Ian Hanke is Director of Communications and Strategy for the HR Nicholls Society.

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Ahem... what a lot of bull... The figures quoted by Hanke are as loose as a clown's pockets. The HR Nicholls Society is a ratbag rightwing organisation — aligned with the Liberal (conservatives) Party — designed to eradicate unions and kill organised labour by enticing individual workers with promises of tailored attention — that we also know as the whip. It is designed to sqeeze as much as possible out of workers for the least amount of wages which in an ideal world may seem fair, but in fact is designed to destabilise the employment market in favour of employers by making employees far less secure. Employment under such conditions would not flourish more, probably less — all these would do is hammer the "struggling families" (as our jovial Joe Hockey and little shit Abbott calls those who earn less than AUD150,000 per year) even more... So do I smell the third leg of the Abbott/Reith conspiracy?.... YES! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!  With Ian Hanke adding his two bob's worth ON THE SAME DAY timeframe,  one knows there is something afoot in the rank of the rancid rabid Australian rightwing...

Work Choices is about to be ressuscitated with rosy cheeks.... See the three comments above this one...

BIG business has stepped up calls for changes to industrial relations laws after Peter Reith criticised Tony Abbott for being too scared to advocate reforms.

Mr Abbott hit back at Mr Reith yesterday, saying the Coalition would have an industrial relations policy in place before the next election but it would be based on solving problems with Labor's Fair Work Act, ''not ideology''.

Mr Reith regarded this concession from the opposition leader as a victory.

''I should lose the federal presidency more often,'' he told the Herald.

This was a reference to Mr Reith losing by one vote on Saturday a ballot for the federal presidency of the Liberal Party. He said Mr Abbott urged him to challenge the incumbent, Alan Stockdale, but then voted against him.

As a result, Mr Reith said this freed him to air his views publicly on the need for the Coalition to embrace industrial relations reforms, something Mr Abbott has avoided to prevent Labor running a WorkChoices-style scare campaign.

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/9652#comments