Wheels fall off for some in local elections

The election of local councils across Victoria brought out the best but sometimes the worst in preferential voting! Even Rob Spence, MAV CEO and doyen of all things good in local government, had to admit that there was something rotten in the state of Victoria when it came to these local council elections. What has crept up on local elections but clearly self evident this time around is that opportunism has taken over and candidates from across the political spectrum have lined up with friend but mostly foe to secure a vote!

No wonder there was a low turn out of eligible voters given that in some municipalities and wards there was a sporting team of candidates for 1 or 3 positions. There was no way a voter could feel informed of the candidates and confident of what their vote might deliver. 

And while we are on the topic of elections it is apparently doing the rounds in Canberra that there will be a snap election in March! Given the gains that the PM has made on Abbott and the need to spend up big if Labor is to win, an election post a Budget is not going to deliver the surplus that the Government has locked itself into. So hold on!

Elections

Victorian local government elections will deliver a mixed bag of results given the preferential voting that skews the capacity of candidates toward doing the numbers rather than doing the policies.  The City of Melbourne is the only municipality with compulsory postal voting and the weighting of votes in favor of business. The Lord Mayoralty teams open the door for their number one candidates so one can determine before voting commences 7 of the 9 councillor positions.  It would appear that the Doyle Team and the Greens will be in the final count for the Lord Mayoralty and likely to each take 2 councilor positions. The other Lord Mayoralty teams will be fighting it out for the remaining 5 positions and likely to come down to Shanahan, Nolte and Morgan plus another. I remain hopeful that whatever the mix that the City continues on its current path.

Come on Insiders get inside!

I used to be an avid watcher of Insiders with Barrie Cassidy on a Sunday morning. That was until the likes of Bolt and Akerman et al seemed to be the dominant voices (there were others on the couch but they either shouted over or manoeverd their views above others) so I looked elsewhere for my news on the week that was! (I have been amused and mildly informed by Johnathan Green on RN Sunday Breakfast).

I am now back and find that the Insiders reveals more about our journalist's approach to their profession than the past week's political events and the players. The most edifying this week concluded the program with a snippet from a commercial channel on Bill Shorten's run in with a pie or rather the shop owner who he abused. It was a useful snippet as it explained that Bill thought she said the PM would be soft like the microwaved pie he was about to order for his kid. In fact she said that she 'like' the PM. A small mistake but one that brought t the Opposition down on Bill big time for slagging off at a small business owner.  Perhaps Barrie could have used the snippet and asked the panel about the Opposition's response rather than Bill's given it was an honest mistake and the Abbott Opposition plays on uninformed grabs that even when they are found to be untrue have the desired impact!

The Insiders, apart from some comments by Lenore Taylor, who does investigate what is behind the news, which I assume was to be the modus operandi for the program, Denis Atkins from the Brisbane Courier Mail (a regular insider) seems to take Queensland as the litmus and bases all of his analysis on his view from his office tower in Brisbane City. He can see as far as Melbourne apparently.

What the program lacks is journos who base their comments on analysis and critique. Not the throw away 'he said this' and 'he said that' and she (unknown person of the Opposition) said the PM was soft! I would prefer Barrie to have his panel justify Abbott and not on the basis that he is 'Abbott'. Come on Insiders get inside!!

Abbott free zone!

Returning from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development on the eve of the introduction of a price on carbon leading to an ETS one can only be somewhat underwhelmed by the inability or perhaps reluctance of our journalists  to ask the second question when interviewing Abbott on his opposition to a carbon price and his inflammatory and often exaggerated claims against the Government's introduction of a carbon price.

In answer to questions that seek to expose his claims he shifts the question to a 'But what about..." And invariably the questioner falls away and moves to another! It highlights the manipulation of the media generally by the Abbott lead Opposition as each Shadow(y) Minster has also perfected this art of  obfuscation.

There is no doubt that the reality of the carbon price will not have the calamitous effect that is being peddled by Abbott. When asked if his achieving the 5% carbon reduction will have a similar impact. that is the closure of coal mines. aluminum smelters and our iron and steel industy of course the answer is 'No'! Enough said. Next question!

We are on a pathway to a sustainable and less carbon intensive economy. A future that holds out hope for a green economy and jobs. As a yougn local council leader said in Rio - 'I don't fear the future but I do fear the present'!

So Campbell was a denier after all! (Just like Ted)

Newman to dump state carbon programs, eyes Federal 'clean energy' cash 

 

Campbell Newman's Liberal National Party Government will abolish state climate programs – with at least one exception – and instead focus on maximising Queensland businesses' access to Federal 'clean energy' funding. 

Reading is believing!

What they said......

“For the extreme left it [the existence of climate change] provides the opportunity to do what they've always wanted to do, to sort of de-industrialise the western world. You know the collapse of communism was a disaster for the left...and really they embraced environmentalism as their new religion.” – Nick Minchin, Liberal Senator and former Australian Government Minister

"I am truly excited to announce that the proposed 2013 College Station budget will not include funding for this organization (ICLEI). It is an insidious, extreme institution that does not represent our citizens, and for our taxpayers to continue to fund it would be ridiculous."  - Councilman Jess Fields, City of College Station, USA

Death by a media pack!

They won't want to admit it but the media have turned a 'phoney leadership war into a real one' (their words not mine!) Grattan, Schubert, Shanahan et al must be leaning over their typewriters lamenting the plight of the Government and salivating over the MPs they have been able to goad into driving their appetite for easy headlines without the investigatory and rigorous reporting that was once a tradition in their profession. They have moved their trade into the 24/7 world and succumbed to not information overload but information over consumption and they have become bloated by their sources! 

It's politics, stupid!

Kerry has done it again this time on 4 Corners revealing the ugly face of Gillard’s betrayal of Rudd! Or has he? What would we have thought if Gillard’s supporters were not preparing for her takeover given the plight of Rudd and the media commentary at the time that said he was a jerk and an ineffectual one at that! 

Why would anyone not have imagined that polling, persona and the disaffection with Rudd would not lead to a change of leadership either before or at the election (the latter with Abbott as PM). As Gillard told her interegator in answer to several questions about whether she knew that her office was preparing a speech for her ‘overthrow’of Rudd, she replied ‘That’s politics'.  Surprise, surprise! 

What Kerry actually revealed was what we all know, politics is ugly!

Barrie Cassidy revives the past!

The ABC Insiders is getting so far up itself it is in danger of becoming lost in its own conspiracy theories. Cassidy (now turned commentator) has recalled the Keating/Hawke and Peacock/Howard machinations to set up an unlikely but nevertheless headline grabbing scenario in which Rudd calls for a leadership votes loses and goes to the backbench to have another suck on the sauce bottle!   Grattan, Schubert, Tingle and now Cassidy et al should cut the interminable guess work and do what a good journo does and get some facts and put on record the meanderings and menacing of politicians and their bedfellows and we will all be better off!

High above the ground....

The new year promises to be as divisive and as delusional as the last! The politics of wedging is likely to be taken to another level of distraction and the issues and the opportunities that we need as a nation and as an international community will be left languishing. The media having returned from the long break seem to have quickly taken on the role of feeding the pollies with throw away grabs and lines that serve only to demean their reporting. It is a pity that there has not been a turnover of some of the worn out commentators who spill out the same old lines and opinions that is all far too predictable.  But don't get me wrong...I feel buoyed by the opportunities inherent in elections to bring out the worst and best in our pollies! Let's see who can rise above it!