Friday 29th of March 2024

affairs of convenience .....

affairs of convenience .....

We're not faking it: Howard 

Commentators who think Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello are faking their friendship are wrong, Mr Howard says. 

The two men put their past leadership issues aside to present an image of a unified Liberal Party team in a joint interview on the Seven Network's current affairs program Today Tonight last night. 

It was the first time the pair had taken part in a joint television interview. 

In it, they agreed their relationship was like a marriage, with Mr Howard praising his treasurer's sense of humour and Mr Costello admiring the prime minister's work ethic.

Newspaper commentators today cast doubt on the sincerity of the interview, saying the two men detested each other. 

Mr Howard said the commentators were wrong. 

"For sure, Peter and I have had our disagreements. He's an ambitious man, I respect ambition in anybody," Mr Howard told ABC Newsradio. 

"No two people could work together as closely as we have over 11-and-a-half years - it's the longest unbroken prime ministerial-treasurer partnership in Australian political history.

We're Not Faking It: Howard

two bob in the fifth...

Tony Abbott dribble in italics

GUS COMMENTS IN BIG LETTERS

The goods or a gamble?

HEY TONY! ... AUSSIES LOVE A FLUTTER!

Tony Abbott
November 21, 2007

John Howard and his team should win Saturday's election because Australia needs at least one competent government. Kevin Rudd's goofy advice that Western Australia should develop a financial services industry to channel Chinese retirement savings into Latin American real estate shows just how clueless he could be without a good government to copy.

KEVIN'S GOOFY ADVICE IS ACTUALLY VERY CLEVER, IF ONLY FUNNY. CHINA HAS SURPLUS U.S. DOLLARS THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH. AS YOU KNOW, TAKING A CUT AS THE MIDDLE MAN IN ANY TRANSACTION IS ALWAYS LOTS MORE PROFITABLE THAN BEING AT THE ENDS OF THE EXCHANGE, WHETHER THE EXCHANGE WORKS OR NOT. RISK FREE. AND HOWARD GOVERNMENT COMPETENT? SNEAKY AND FUDGEY AT BEST.

Something unprecedented will happen on Saturday. A highly effective government will lose despite generally good economic circumstances or 12 months of opinion polls will turn out to be wrong. Australians are not reckless gamblers, at least not with the future of their country, so I think it's much more likely voters will prove the polls wrong than change the government.
AUSSIES LOVE A FLUTTER... ESPECIALLY IN A NO LOSS SITUATION.. AT WORSE THEY'LL BE SERVED WITH THE SAME BLANCMANGE AS YOUR GOVERNMENT, AT BEST, THE SKY'S THE LIMIT.

Labor politicians can't finish a sentence without reference to "working families". In fact, the previous federal Labor government delivered 10.8 per cent unemployment and a 1.8 per cent cut in working families' real wages. The Howard Government has driven unemployment to a 33-year low of 4.3 per cent and increased real wages by 21.5 per cent. The unfairly maligned Work Choices has helped generate the fastest jobs growth in our history with 438,000 new jobs since March last year.
THE FIGURES YOU QUOTE WERE NOT THE FIGURES BY THE END OF THE KEATING GOVERNMENT. THE SITUATION HAD IMPROVED REMARKABLY AFTER INTERNATIONAL TURMOIL AND A FEW "LIBERAL ENTREPRENOORS DODGY-BROTHERS", TAKING BANKS TO THE CLEANERS. THE EMPLOYMENT FIGURES OF THE HOWARD GOVERNMENT INCLUDE PEOPLE WORKING FOR THE DOLE, PEOPLE WORKING ONLY A FEW HOURS A WEEK TO SURVIVE AND RICH PROFESSIONAL GRANT BLUDGERS. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE INTEREST RATE IS NOW HIGHER THAT AT THE END OF THE KEATING GOBERNMENT.

The unions aren't spending at least $30 million to make Rudd prime minister because they think he'll stand up to them. As the former frontbencher Gavan O'Connor recently said, Rudd "wouldn't have the power to stop a union view prevailing over the public interest".
THE HOWARD GOVERNMENT HAS SPENT 360 MILLION ON ADVERTISING WORK CHOICES... RUDD CAN STAND TO THE UNIONS IF HE HAS TO, UNLIKE YOUR PISSY GOVERNMENT WHO DID NOT HAVE THE BALLS TO STAND UP TO THE UNIONS AND CHOSE TO MAKE THEM "ILLEGAL", CONTRARY TO UNITED NATION BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS OF ASSEMBLY. SHOULD YOU BE BACK IN POWER, JO HOCKEY WOULD LOSE HIS JOB WITHIN A COUPLE OF WEEKS IF HE WERE TRUE TO HIS PROMISE OF RESIGNING SHOULD WORK CHOICES BE "MODIFIED"... BUT THEN, HE USED SOME CLEVER ATTENUATED ADJECTIVES TO QUALIFY HIS SLITHERING PORKY.

Likewise, the premiers aren't campaigning for Rudd because he'll be a tough negotiator. They want a prime minister who will use Commonwealth money to pay for state responsibilities. Wall-to-wall Labor governments are much more likely to cover up for each other. It's not good for democracy to have one party in power everywhere.
RUDD WILL BE A TOUGH NEGOTIATOR?

FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC! ALL THE REST IN YOUR GLIB COVER UP SHOWS YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU'RE BLEEDING ABOUT...

THROW TONY ABBOTT OUT!

"The party had no knowledge..."

Labor seizes on Lindsay flyer scandal

Labor is demanding the Prime Minister spell out what he knows about Liberal Party members handing out bogus ALP election pamphlets.

The flyers were distributed in the marginal Sydney seat of Lindsay.

The fake documents claim to be from the Islamic community and they are designed to turn voters away from Labor.

The Opposition's Penny Wong told Lateline she wants the Prime Minister to come clean.

She says he should "disclose all that he knows and all that the Liberal Party knew about this scandalous affair".

The Liberal Party says all up, five people were involved and they have been banned from the campaign.

Two party members have been expelled.

Labor says one of those involved in the mail-run is Garry Clark, the husband of the retiring member for Lindsay, Jackie Kelly.

It says another is a member of the New South Wales Liberal state executive.

Coalition spokesman Andrew Robb says the matter has been dealt with.

"Silly things happen, wrong things happen, this was wrong," he said.

"It certainly was unauthorised. The party had no knowledge of it."

----------------

Gus: People should go to prison for doing stunts of that ilk... It's identity theft... But the damage is done although had it not been caught out, could have been of Florida votes scandal proportion or worse. This stint by Liberal stooges, whether it has been approved or not, shows the Liberal party has had rotten apples in its mist for many years. Of course the Liberal Party "had no knowledge" of anything... if we accept this "apology", it still precisely shows that the Liberal Party does not know what its members are doing and can't "control" its members...

Kick John Howard out.

Fake flyer meant as a joke: Lib MP

Dirty trick or joke gone wrong? Jackie Kelly's husband handed out pamphlets smearing Labor

Retiring Liberal MP Jackie Kelly says a flyer linking Labor to a fake Islamic group in her seat was meant to be a joke.

The Liberal Party has been damaged by revelations that Ms Kelly's husband Gary Clark has been involved in distributing the flyer, which purports to come from the non-existent 'Islamic Australia Foundation', in her marginal Sydney seat of Lindsay.

The fake pamphlet says "we gratefully acknowledge Labor's support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings" and calls for more mosques to built.

The New South Wales state Liberal Party has expelled two of its members over the flyer and Labor and the Liberals have both referred it to the electoral commission.

But Ms Kelly says people have failed to see the funny side.

----------------

Gus: brother!!! The funny side of losing or gaining a parliamentary seat because of a joke? Is Ms Kelly stupid or what? 'A Chaser-style prank'.... MP Jackie Kelly dismisses the controversy surrounding a bogus pamphlet distributed by her husband.

Imagine Al Gore had won the US elections in 2000 as he should have, were it not for the well documented manipulation of votes in Florida. The world would be a different place... And I would argue a better place... But the warmongers, including John Howard, got their wish and now the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan are dragging on. So far this month, 30 US soldiers have lost their life and around 210 have been injured, in Iraq... Sure the numbers have dropped from the highs of mid year, but as even our Hugh White (here talking about terror laws - 2005) points out recently both wars cannot be won. Thus the "job will never be done."

Furthermore, from these shores to the US, greed has permeated all what we do in such perverse way that it's becoming ugly to just survive. And we have been selling our future in the the process. Al Gore would have placed global warming on the forefront as it should have been then and the extreme urgency to tackle this problem would have been lessened.

Kill of the Howard Governement...

Oh "joy"!!!???

Williamson cannot help but imagine the "joy" (Miranda SMH, 22/11/07) he will feel on election night, "picturing the tears and foot-stamping of the well-paid hosts of Howard acolytes littering our press", he writes this week in the online newsletter Crikey.

He laments that anti-Howard-haters have divided the country and caused unpleasantness, while slagging off at John Howard for, among other things, having "horrible knees", which is as good an example as any of the malice of the chattering classes.

But for the most part, despite a surfeit of opinion polls that suggest the Coalition is on track for annihilation, there has been uncharacteristic restraint from Howard-haters, who are taking nothing for granted until they see the stake through the Prime Minister's heart on Saturday night.

---------------------------

Gus: Sorry Miranda, the Prime Minister is not a vampire, although he's been a blood sucker for a bit too long in my book... So it won't be a stake through his heart but possibly a kick up the fundamental...

Sure, "Rudd may find he still has a lot to learn" and it would be a presumption on his part if he did not know that... Actually until the day we cark it, we've got a lot to learn, including John Howard... For John Howard, the lesson of Saturday, — should he meet his political defeat — would be that there is so much lies, porkies and warmongering that a country's average majority can absorb, despite glowing economic cookbooks... For a kick off, the economy is not really as brilliant as the hammock-dwellers are telling us. Under their lazy watch, the trade deficit has ballooned to more than half of the entire yearly country's budget... And most people now are up in credit to their eyeballs. And they have to pay through the nose for everything, including education.

Whoever is winning this Saturday will have to do some mighty footwork to carefully move the explosive set-ups of the Howard fiddles on all fronts — from his economy for a few — not for all — to the "moral" erosion in government... A mighty task that Rudd can do with flair and foresight...

Kick John Howard out.

Buggleing his last post?

... So, Mr Snug'N'Smug John Howard — now getting a dose of fear in his pants as he has lead us by fear for too many years — carries on with more of the same boogey man, warning us of wall to wall Labor in a speech made today, still doing it as I write this... Rattling it would be the first time blah blah, forgetting to mention HE WAS ONE OF THE RARE PRIME MINISTERS to have had control of both houses of federal parliament... after making some promises he did not keep and using this new power to do things he never mentioned.

With this unique power, he unleashed an overt assault on the Australian people's rights and did some highly unsavory fiddles. He enforced some dreadful policies. Before that, one has to remember he did not consult parliament to go to war (for oil) on a whim and fancy (he might have given parliament lip service, conning it with fake "intelligence"). All his ramblings smell of the finest hypocrisy....

Mr Howard has to go. Whether he does or not is in our hands.

A rat rotting under the floorboards

Fake flyer distributors apologise

The men responsible for the bogus Islamic leaflet distributed in the Liberal electorate of Lindsay in New South Wales have apologised.

Both have been forced to resign as members of the Liberal Party after the distribution of campaign flyers which falsely linked the ALP with Islamic extremists.

The pamphlet suggests Labor supports the Bali bombers and calls for more mosques to be built.

The men behind the controversy are the husbands of the retiring Liberal MP Jackie Kelly and the woman who hopes to replace her, Karen Chijoff.

Ms Kelly laughed off the incident this morning but her husband Gary Clark has since written to the NSW Liberal Party, saying he now recognises producing the flyer was a foolish action.

He has apologised in particular to the Muslim community and says he bears no malice.

Greg Chijoff has also apologised, saying his wife was outraged when she heard about the incident.

He says she is a warm and genuine woman who has always been a passionate supporter of different cultures and he is saddened to have caused such embarrassment to the Liberal Party.

---------------------

Gus: why do I smell a rat rotting under the floorboards? Does this means these blokes did their stunt without telling their wives? Wow! So stupid! Instant ground for divorce, unless the "good" ladies knew, which is most likely... And now to say "she is a warm and genuine woman who has always been a passionate supporter of different cultures" smells like the whole thing was a set up to show how "friendly" the woman "really" is... Not on your nelly.

Vote her out. Vote Howard out!...  

Fresh air

Seeing four corners tonight on the Liberal Party blues after "howard's end", if Costello one day wants to know why and especially HOW Howard snookered him at every corner all the time... Pete only has to go and ask senator Heffernam a few questions. With a right to get the honest answers, of course.

Is it possible, for example, that the "dirt files" Heffernam denies ever having mostly concerned the Liberal party power brokers, those who vote Liberal leaders... Who knows?...

But this does not matter anymore, as Costello showed he did not have the balls to take on John Howard. Despite knowing he would be beaten, Costello should have made his case much stronger while resisting the ultimate challenge he showed he was wimpish... In the end Howard lost and the better man won.

Meantime we still need to be vigilant that the likes of Abbott, Minchin and a few other Liberals never ever come back into government of this great country.

As Abbott conceded tonight Rudd was a "fresh face" when he came on the scene in 1996, but in his annoying sneaky way, Abbott will try to demonise Rudd as much as possible. Tony, no one's perfect... For Tony Peopleskill to press these ugly annoying buttons is like the pot calling the white china black. Silly.  

Makes Christopher Pyne look tame and only relatively irrelevant.

Yes Tony, the majority of the Australian people new that the only way to get fresh air was to open the window...