In the excitement of the tobacco tax grab, it turns out the Rudd government has abandoned the internet filter.
KEVIN Rudd has put another election promise on the backburner with his controversial internet filtering legislation set to be shelved until after the next election.
A spokeswoman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said yesterday the legislation would not be introduced next month’s or the June sittings of parliament.
With parliament not sitting again until the last week of August, the laws are unlikely to be passed before the election.
Internal polling must be terrible.
Can you please, everyone, stop calling censorship ‘filtering’. If you use their doublespeak, they win.
And this is no victory, it’s still a threat we face and have to be vigilant about.
The hilarious thing is, the leaked proposed list of banned sites, which is on wikileaks, contains all the links to the child porn and crap, so if they’d never even bothered with this crap, there wouldn’t be a ready made list of nasty stuff available on wikileaks.
Dead Kennedy
29 Apr 10 at 6:38 pm
The ABC is reporting that Rudd’s promise to do something about the “national obscenity” of homelessness has delivered nothing.
While Kevin may not have reduced the number of homeless, his insulation scheme did reduce the number of homes. Close enough for government work.
C.L.
29 Apr 10 at 6:46 pm
It’s not really a backflip. It’s more of a pike with a twist.
Infidel Tiger
29 Apr 10 at 6:50 pm
Rudd’s ongoing policy capitulation is a spectacular fail of his vision and judgement. Worst PM ever.
DavidJ
29 Apr 10 at 6:52 pm
They said if we supported Tony Abbott as Opposition Leader we’d end up with Mark Latham running the country.
And they were right!
C.L.
29 Apr 10 at 7:00 pm
This year’s election slogan: Kevin, oh shit.
Infidel Tiger
29 Apr 10 at 7:02 pm
let’s be grateful for small mercies shall we? thank god he backflipped on this
Jason Soon
29 Apr 10 at 7:03 pm
All we need is for him to abandon the NBN and he will have completed Tony Abbott’s first term agenda in 7 days.
Infidel Tiger
29 Apr 10 at 7:08 pm
“Kevin, oh shit”
Nice
Jarrah
29 Apr 10 at 7:16 pm
Speaking of Abbott, perhaps he should have saved the population targets discussion for another day and let Rudd’s policy implosion continue unabated.
DavidJ
29 Apr 10 at 7:19 pm
Betcha Conroy won’t survive after the election. Assuming Rudd is re-elected – which I expect.
ken n
29 Apr 10 at 8:42 pm
If Homer’s theory that this is all to produce a surplus in the forward estimates a year early is correct, then the NBN has to go too.
Sinclair Davidson
29 Apr 10 at 8:49 pm
Hold your horses. Wait till we see page 21.
C.L.
29 Apr 10 at 8:51 pm
Jesus fucking Christ. Is this man missing a spine or what? Which is good for us, I suppose, but it must be incredibly depressing for his supporters.
MIchael Fisk
29 Apr 10 at 8:55 pm
The CEO has said the NBN will be in positive cash flow from the first day it rolls out.
He based that on EBITA . EBITA is the copped out acronym for Earnings before interest and tax and amortization (depreciation). This is quite possibly the most misleading concept ever devised by rational man.
What the CEO doesn’t say is that if he didn’t use EBITA and projected for earnings after Interest and amortization the Australian taxpayer will be swimming in red ink for 30 years. I’m ignoring the possibility of tax as there wouldn’t be a chance in hell this white elephant is going to be profitable.
Telstra could build it and be profitable in a few years years.
JC
29 Apr 10 at 9:00 pm
DavidJ
Abbott should basically keep his mouth shut while this implosion occurs.
JC
29 Apr 10 at 9:02 pm
Memo Abbott:
Stand back, say nothing, just point and laugh at the slowly swinging corpse that was Kevin 07.
Pedro the Ignorant
29 Apr 10 at 9:13 pm
Why does anyone vote Labor? They are incompetent and corrupt.
Rococo Liberal
29 Apr 10 at 9:20 pm
Why does anyone vote Labor? They are incompetent and corrupt.
Personal example from less than one hour ago. Some Rudd worshipper was trying to defend this decision of his. I got so angry I had to leave the room. What the hell do you do when dealing with people who defend stuff like this? Seriously, give me a rhetorical strategy!
John H.
29 Apr 10 at 9:25 pm
I stand by my prediction that Tony Abbott will be facing Julia Gillard at the next election.
Samuel J
29 Apr 10 at 9:28 pm
CL
You need to understand how “homelessness” is defined.
http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/hou/hou-204-10755/hou-204-10755.pdf
NSW stats
Boarding houses – 7626 persons, 28% of total
SAAP accommodation – 5110 persons, 19%
Friends and relatives – 10,923 persons, 40%
Sleeping rough – 3715 persons, 13%
Total of 27,374 in NSW
[Okay - put that quote into blockquotes to avoid some of the confusion in the thread below. Sinc]
boy on a bike
29 Apr 10 at 9:34 pm
Rudd was talking about “20,000 units of social housing” in February. Anyone who seriously believes the galoot who failed to deliver promised houses for Aborigines, failed to build promised community health centres, failed to build promised child care centres, failed to deliver promised laptops, turned the BER into an epochal debacle and burned down 120 houses – as I say, anyone who seriously believes this galoot will build 20,000 flats for the homeless is so delusional as to require an intervention.
C.L.
29 Apr 10 at 9:47 pm
Sleeping rough – 3715 persons, 13%
.
so 13 percent of the homeless are actually homeless.
daddy dave
29 Apr 10 at 9:49 pm
A very Ruddian response from BOAB. I link to an ABC report on fears of a gulf between the prime minister’s (typically) macho rhetoric and actual realities. BOAB responds with a distraction about defining homelessness.
C.L.
29 Apr 10 at 10:01 pm
Rocco
The first 2 1/2 Hawke administrations were the best government this country had. Dues where dues are due.
SamuelJ:
I hear you brother.
JC
29 Apr 10 at 10:05 pm
The unraveling of Rudd. I’m flabbergasted. I’ve never seen a Prime Minister jettison core principles so quickly as Rudd. Mr Rudd has criticised the market for irrational behaviour. But the market seems rational by comparison to recent behaviour by our Prime Minister. Has the Lodge turned into a lunatic asylum?
Samuel J
29 Apr 10 at 10:21 pm
CL, BOAB’s point was that homelessness is a trumped up issue to begin with.
daddy dave
29 Apr 10 at 10:24 pm
The first 2 1/2 Hawke administrations were the best government this country had.
Luckily for them they had Howard’s Campbell Report to guide them.
Infidel Tiger
29 Apr 10 at 10:25 pm
Thanks daddy dave, you precluded the need for me to respond.
When a statement is made that “we will halve homelessness” or whatever, it helps if you actually understand the bureaucratic definition of the objective. How Canberra’s minions define something is often radically different to how we might define the same thing.
The 20,000 “social housing units” will be occupied by those currently in boarding houses. Those boarding houses will then be filled by another tranche of “homeless” rent-seeking bloodsuckers. The taxpayer will then be hit up again to build housing for the “homeless”.
The rough sleepers will continue to occupy parks and the underside of bridges, as they always have. It will do sweet FA for them.
boy on a bike
29 Apr 10 at 10:36 pm
Oh, my apologies to BOAB if I misunderstood his point.
C.L.
29 Apr 10 at 10:36 pm
By the way, my Ruddian statement is simply a direct quote from the report. I can’t figure out how to put things into italics with this comment system. If I had written the definition, it would have read:
1. meth-consuming stinky bearded alco-bums
2. bludgers
3. loafers
boy on a bike
29 Apr 10 at 10:39 pm
No worries, CL.
boy on a bike
29 Apr 10 at 10:39 pm
Infidel:
It really doesn’t matter where they got they queues from. In fact in a lot of ways I really believe they were forced into those turn of events.
However they saw the ball and ran with it.
The thing I’m always pissed with keating about is that he seems to understand how the world really does work but isn’t prepared to take the plunge like Mike Costa.
I have little doubt that there isn’t anything Costa believes in that Keating doesn’t. Yet Keating isn’t man enough to front up. He prefers adulation by the latte set.
——————
SamuelJ.
If I may be so boastful I’ve been saying for a while now that Charlie Rudd has clay feet.
Like you I also don’t think he’ll limp it to the next election.
The next set of polls will most likely be the cause of the final push.
He’s a goner. He knows it, we know it .
The only thing keeping the pissweak little fucker in the job is that his colleagues haven’t summoned the guts to see him off.
But they will once the next poll shows up… or possibly the one after that.
ALl he needs between now and then is a senior public servant to resign saying he can’t work with a mentally unstable dickhead and it’s over. I’m wondering if he’s dumb enough to be acting up in front of his staff.
My guess is that he’s on a loser whichever way he goes. If he starts playing all nice to them he’s fucked anyway as the people below him would read that as transparent crap. If he’s still rude they see no redemption.
You can’t afford to ever stumble in the workplace when you’re a prick like Rudd.
JC
29 Apr 10 at 10:41 pm
You’ve simply been suckered by the “homeless-charity complex”.
boy on a bike
29 Apr 10 at 10:41 pm
Please let him leave his microphone on so that we get a Gordo Brown “bigot” moment…….
boy on a bike
29 Apr 10 at 10:42 pm
as I say, anyone who seriously believes this galoot will build 20,000 flats for the homeless is so delusional as to require an intervention.
If I were homeless, I would simply refuse to live in one of Rudd’s spanking new flats even if by some miracle he came through with the goods. The slums of Bombay are tenfold safer than anything this lunatic will cook up.
Michael Fisk
29 Apr 10 at 10:44 pm
The other thing that could be happening behind the scenes is that Charlie may be threatening to sing like a canary if he’s deposed as leader and bring the entire house of cards down.
He could be telling them.. underhanded like… that he knows where all the skeletons are buried and will leak everything to the media if they screw him….. like the fuck up in the schools portfolio thereby ruining Gillard.
I really don’t think there’s an end to what a ruthless little turd he.
This is a very dangerous time for ALP.
JC
29 Apr 10 at 10:47 pm
Thanks, BOAB. I’m watching Duel (1971) on YouTube as I work on some other stuff and multi-tasking isn’t my strong point.
C.L.
29 Apr 10 at 10:48 pm
He’s spending $6.6billion of our money on 20,000 units – that’s $330,000 per unit.
To quote from that damned report again:
“The minimum community standard is a small rental flat––with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom and an element of security of tenure––because that is the minimum that most people achieve in the private rental market. However, the minimum is significantly below the culturally desired option of an owner-occupied house.”
Who else but a brain dead government could build one bedroom flatlets for $330,000? Where are they building them? Vaucluse?
boy on a bike
29 Apr 10 at 10:48 pm
Oops
I really don’t think there’s an end to what a ruthless little turd he is.
JC
29 Apr 10 at 10:48 pm
If I had written the definition, it would have read:
1. meth-consuming stinky bearded alco-bums
2. bludgers
3. loafers
Also,
4. people who just choose to be homeless for their own reasons like can’t be fucked dealing with the burdens of regular accommodation.*
—————–
*decribes some of the homeless people around Canberra who are well-nourished and have access to healthcare, as well as being drug-free and interesting, informed conversationalists with cash in their pockets.
Michael Sutcliffe
29 Apr 10 at 10:48 pm
About the last good movie that Spielberg made.
boy on a bike
29 Apr 10 at 10:49 pm
Well if a piece of shade cloth strung between a couple of posts costs $900,000 at a primary school, I’d guess $330,000 might get you the handle for a broom closet.
Infidel Tiger
29 Apr 10 at 10:50 pm
It’s an astonishingly incompetent administration, JC. I was previously a “Whitlam comparison” skeptic, but now it appears that judgment was a little too optimistic. Whitlam was a smart guy, but with no moral principles and a cabinet of troglodytes. Rudd has none of Whitlam’s endearing features.
Michael Fisk
29 Apr 10 at 10:50 pm
He’s spending $6.6billion of our money on 20,000 units – that’s $330,000 per unit.
That’s an improvement on their “jobs stimulus”, which entailed the expenditure of something like $450,000 for every job “created” (or “saved” as they later fudged).
Michael Fisk
29 Apr 10 at 10:53 pm
You could at least say of Whitlam that he had flair, panache perhaps, even when things were crumbling around his ears.
daddy dave
29 Apr 10 at 10:55 pm
that’s $330,000 per unit.
.
These per unit type analyses could get more of a run. The NBN for instance costs over $5000 per household for every house and apartment in the land, just to connect the fucking internet.
daddy dave
29 Apr 10 at 10:56 pm
Whitlam is still loved by the luvvies. When Kev’s time is up he’ll be as welcome as a bacon sandwich in Medina.
Infidel Tiger
29 Apr 10 at 11:00 pm
Fisk:
Whitlam had stature. He was in the wrong job. He would have made one of the finest QC’s in the country’s history if he had stayed in his core competency.
Hawke… Keating.. you could disagree with these guys, but you couldn’t say they were incompetent. And they were all liked by their colleagues and the people working for them by and large.
Howard was loved by his cabinet to the extent that they all took a bullet for him (Hawke too) and the people that worked for him respected him and he them.
This turd has absolutely no attributes at all as a leader or any core competency other than being a first rate prick to his staff and cabinet while possessing no skill set in terms of policy formulation or seeing it through.
He’s the worst PM we have ever had and this really has nothing to do with ideology.
When things were good he used (abused) the country;s resources to improve his own station around the world to springboard into a UN job of some sort.
He really is despicable.
JC
29 Apr 10 at 11:00 pm
He’s the worst PM we have ever had and this really has nothing to do with ideology.
As a leftie I completely endorse that. The biggest redeeming feature of recent events is that it paves the way for a Gillard leadership. Not suggesting that is an improvement but it is hard to imagine how it could be worse.
John H.
29 Apr 10 at 11:09 pm
JC is very observant. It is time that the Cabinet put Rudd out to pasture – in the Nation’s interest. Perhaps they can create a fake retirement village that looks like the United Nation’s Secretary-General’s office that Kevvie can be happy delivering speeches to CGI-generated people. I don’t care who replaces him – even Belinda Neal would be better.
Samuel J
29 Apr 10 at 11:12 pm
That would be a good stimulus project, Samuel – a UN potemkin village for Rudd. Demolishing it with Rudd inside would also be very stimulating.
Michael Fisk
29 Apr 10 at 11:20 pm
Don’t be shy, John, Gillard would be a clear improvement.
Michael Fisk
29 Apr 10 at 11:20 pm
JC is very observant
lol
It’s called banking, SamuelJ. There are more Rudd’s in the field or there were than you could poke a stick at.
I had two bosses in my time that remind me of Rudd which is why I seem to understand him
We got both of them in the end.
JC
29 Apr 10 at 11:27 pm
I should think the atmosphere of paranoia would be so tangible in cabinet these days, you could break off a piece and chew on it. It’ll be like an episode of “I, Claudius” soon, as our man seeks reassurances of loyalty in numerous one-on-one meetings with his peers.
Which reminds me, did anyone else read in Nikki Savva’s book where our man refers to Swan as “DC”? Reading that gave me such a frisson of pleasure to know that DC himself (along with every other polly) would have read that and wanted revenge – while our man would have read it and had his sphincter puckering like a strobe light as he formulated numerous “maaa-a-a-a-a-ate”-laden denials.
Life is good.
Ev630
30 Apr 10 at 1:31 am
Haven’t read it. DC stands for?
C.L.
30 Apr 10 at 1:41 am
Take a wild guess.
Ev630
30 Apr 10 at 1:52 am
I dunno. Dick Cheney?
C.L.
30 Apr 10 at 2:08 am
Downs Cyndrome[sic]? No, that isn’t it. Two words, first word one syllable, rhymes with thumb.
Ev630
30 Apr 10 at 2:12 am
That’s pretty much the most honest thing I’ve ever heard Rudd say.
jc
30 Apr 10 at 2:24 am
CL, “Devoted Catholic”… no that’s not it.
Ev630
30 Apr 10 at 2:30 am
Our glorious leader Mr. Rudd did proclaim:
To delay passing the CPRS into law until after the Copenhagen UN climate change conference last December was, in Rudd’s words, “absolute political cowardice”, “absolute failure of leadership” and an “absolute failure of logic” that should not prevent Australia from leading the world on climate change.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/poor-political-skills-doomed-rudds-climate-policy/story-e6frg6zo-1225860365181
——-
Thus Mr. Rudd is an absolute political coward, and absolutely failed leader and and absolutely stupid man. As Mark Twain quipped: Suppose I were an idiot and a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
John H.
30 Apr 10 at 2:36 am
Marvelous, John. Marvelous!
Ev630
30 Apr 10 at 4:58 am
Does this mean Rudd won’t be taking any more policy cues from his mates in the Chinese Government?
asf
30 Apr 10 at 9:50 am
Government in total chaos:
Rudd shelves another promise and stalls on electoral reforms.
C.L.
30 Apr 10 at 11:10 am
Rudd must feel like he’s in one of those movies where one of the characters suddenly goes all serious and says, “Whatever you do – DON’T MOVE!” – and then the camera moes back to reveal a huge freaking spider on the other guys back.
Rudd has seen the polls, and is now scared to act – he doesn’t want to implement anything before the election, just in case it makes things worse.
He’s basically a caretaker PM. A “lame duck” as the Americans call it. He should call an election as soon as possible to get it over with.
Fleeced
30 Apr 10 at 1:52 pm
Rudd destroys the insulation industry
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/rudd-lied-to-us-say-insulation-installers-in-parliament-house-protest/story-e6frgczf-1225860637570
jtfsoon
30 Apr 10 at 1:53 pm
The way Rudd’s going, he probably wouldn’t even dare being interiewed by The Circle crew.
dover_beach
30 Apr 10 at 1:58 pm
This definitely looking more and more like a one-term government.
Rococo Liberal
30 Apr 10 at 2:41 pm
[...] policy has simply gone in to hibernation until after the Federal election. Despite the media and blogosphere cries of “backflip”, this is a smart tactical [...]
Internet censorship: not dead, just sleeping
3 May 10 at 10:35 pm