I have some difficulty understanding why Rudd's strip-club trip a few years ago is making news over the past few days. Perhaps in other parts of the country they have more prudish ways, but the part I find surprising is that Rudd claims only to have been to a strip club on this one occasion. I have been to strip clubs on half a dozen occasions I can recall (and probably one or two I cannot recall), and I do not remember on any of those occasions any of the gentlemen in the group heading home out of shame.
I am fascinated by Ms Hanson's incredible ability to be unable to listen.
I despair that Australian's are rapidly becoming narrow minded but even in that climate Ms Hanson has had some very clear message. Ethnic Cleansing is not the answer.
For those that think that we should deny entry to people based on race or religion - wake up and smell the coffee. The world is multi cultural and multi faith. The only logical conclusion of denying multi culturalism is genocide. Sooner or later you have to deal with "those other types" unless you intent to remove them from the planet.
The Greens have selected Lindsay Peters, who ran for the State electorate of Epping this year, as their candidate for Bennelong. His bio for the New South Wales election is still available, and my assessment from the Cheltenham candidates forum is probably a reasonable starting point for considering his suitability:
Pundits are no longer asking whether the Liberal Government will be defeated this year &emdash; now they are only asking "by how much". On the other hand, they say, neither Costello nor Turnbull could turn this around. This is based on surveys that show voter support for the Liberal Party would be even lower without Howard as leader.
In the 2004 election, with a high profile campaign by Andrew Wilkie for the Greens, the Prime Minister set up one campaign office - in the same building as his electorate office near the south-eastern tip of the electorate in Gladesville. This year he has already set up one in the heart of Eastwood, and this week another has sprung up in Epping, taking over the old campaign office for Greg Smith in the New South Wales election this year.
The news services continue today getting stuck into Prime Minister, John Howard, for forgetting the name of a Tasmanian Liberal candidate for the House of Representatives in this year's Federal election. Apparently they believe the Prime Minister is supposed to have the names of every coalition candidate and every coalition Senator and Representative so well ingrained into his brain that he can pull the details out without any notice.
That is a headline you probably never expected to see on a story with my name on it, but nevertheless in this case it is true. I agree with Senator Heffernan that it would be a good idea to drug test politicians. There are several reasons for this, but first and foremost it is this: the people who make our laws should be, and be seen to be, obeying those same laws. If they are unwilling to obey the laws they make, why should others in the community obey them?
The Prime Minister, John Howard, is facing attacks from multiple directions in Bennelong. Not only is the ALP's Maxine McKew an incredibly strong candidate who relates very well to Bennelong residents, but GetUp has started its campaign of voter education with doorknocking in Bennelong. On top of that John Valder has been making noises about running another "anybody but Howard" campaign, and a political activist youth group called 3000 votes has been formed which seeks to change that number of votes from Howard to McKew.
In an effort to paint Labor as irresponsible economic managers, the Federal Government has commissioned a report that claims the State governments have blown the "windfall" from the GST by overpaying public servants, with the majority of the increase having gone into "education, health and policing." To put it another way, the Liberals want the States to cut the pay of teachers, nurses and police.
In the case of teachers and nurses at least this completely ignores economic realities. The States are having a hard time keeping both teachers and nurses in the system. These critical roles are becoming much harder to fill with existing staff leaving for other industries. A good number of them are becoming lawyers, and when I started my law degree I was startled to find that teachers and nurses easily topped the list of current occupations in the graduate law class. Most of those completed their law degrees full time or even at a faster rate than full time while working at the same time. This is a phenomenal work load &emdash; these people are obviously not lazy, in fact they are the very people we should be trying to retain in the system. Yet they were focusing their energy on switching to a new career as fast as humanly possible.
Pauline Hanson is back announcing that she is forming a new party called "Pauline's United Australia Party" in an effort to extend her series of unsuccessful runs for Parliament to five, having lost in the 1998 Federal Election, the 2001 Federal Election, the 2003 NSW Election, and the 2004 Federal Election. She is like a character from a bad horror series who keeps coming back even though you were sure she was dead at the end of the last movie.
Hanson claims she has formed a party because:
I am standing as a Senate candidate for Queensland and it was essential for me to have a party structure so I can have my name placed above the line on the ballot paper.
