Barrie Cassidy nails it.
The true mentality at work in the Government was exposed in this leadership contest.
They bellow about who is best equipped to beat Tony Abbott.
Can you believe that? They are in government, but it’s all about some Opposition Leader.
Truly pathetic.
A visitor to this country would be forgiven for thinking Abbott was PM and Gillard/Rudd the opposition.
Gab
24 Feb 12 at 4:31 pm
Rare pick of Tony Abbott inside Gillard and Rudd’s heads.
Infidel Tiger
24 Feb 12 at 4:37 pm
Gab
Maybe we can ask the UN for help from the oppresive dictator Tony Abbott who is controlling everything from opposition not letting the legitimate government lead.
kelly liddle
24 Feb 12 at 4:39 pm
Australian opposition leader at the moment must be the laziest jobin the country.
Feet up, cut the cigar and enjoy the show. Tell the office you’ll be seeing them in April.
JC
24 Feb 12 at 4:44 pm
Look how much time Kruddy spend railing against Abbott.
He didn’t offer a single policy change.
All he needed to do was promise to keep the carbon tax and ensuing trading scheme on the books but in abeyance until there was some recognisable international agreement in place, point to the woeful decisions of Gillard and the distrust for her and NOT mention Abbott.
Many thousands of historical Labor voters would have been phoning there MPs to demand they vote for him.
He believes progressives are at the heart of the party.
That belief is fundamentally what’s destroying them.
JamesK
24 Feb 12 at 4:46 pm
I clicked the link and there were 4 comments……….. 3 were attacking Abbott.
Harrys on the Boat
24 Feb 12 at 4:47 pm
Old leather face just nails it out of bitterness though. All he’s doing is reminiscing about how it could have been if there were no leaks and the Slapper had a majority.
Barrie’s analysis of the big lie.. “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”.
Rudd’s actions caused her to lie.
Fme dead.
Election now! and for god’s sake fire all these former Liar’s party advisers and now ABC hangers on.
JC
24 Feb 12 at 4:47 pm
The ALP scare campaign against Abbott has backfired in a big way. By constantly squealing about him, they have raised Abbott’s stature to be equal with the PMs.
They would have been better off following the Howard line of almost ignoring the Opposition Leader and treating him as an irrelevance at best.
Matt
24 Feb 12 at 4:49 pm
And yet the Canberra political journalist is on about image, of a “leader” going all tough Navy Seal by “staring down” – whatever that means.
This is the fella who, with his ageing missus, have made a living as ALP cheerleaders for the past several years and saying stuff all about what they know to be happening behind the “image” before which they worship.
You never ever hear that on his poncy ABC TV show. The Cassidys are dead set hypocrites.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
24 Feb 12 at 4:49 pm
Did anyone notice that the Indigenous leaders at the Tent Embassy who stormed over to the Lobby Restaurant on advice from the ACT union chick called Tony Abbott the Deputy Prime Minister? You had to laugh.
Judith Sloan
24 Feb 12 at 4:53 pm
Marks to Cassidy.
It’s been so obvious in everything these clowns say.
It’s always: ‘This is about who is best able to stop Tony Abbott from forming a government.’
Yes, hilarious. The most dysfunctional, useless government in our history – IN THE MIDST OF YET ANOTHER INTERNAL WAR BETWEEN A MAN WHO QUITS AT 2 AM IN AMERICA AND A WOMAN WHO JUST ORCHESTRATED THE COUNTRY’S FIRST EVER PRIME MINISTERIAL RACE RIOT – is trying to fearmonger about an Abbott administration.
Along the way, they’re actually taking advantage of the situation to conduct sneaky document and policy dumps.
C.L.
24 Feb 12 at 4:55 pm
They are trying anything at the moment. Crean on radio was basically trying to re-write the past year as some sort of Kevin Rudd inspired conspiracy to steal Gillard’s air. Never mind the fact he has been out of the country most of the time as foreign minister.
Marr was wishing apon a star that this was the moment her position becomes legitimate, the public will then accept her as leader after an open ballot.
sean
24 Feb 12 at 5:07 pm
It makes my blood boil to hear Gillard bragging about how difficult it was passing a tax on Carbon Dioxide.
If she hadn’t lied about that she’d be in opposition now!
Anne
24 Feb 12 at 5:07 pm
I think a huge part of the problem is the “fluff” journalism in this country, led by Annabel Crabb.
Peter Patton
24 Feb 12 at 5:11 pm
This really seems to be the Waterloo for lefie columnists and ABC hanger’s on like Barrie Cassidy.
Cut cigar and enjoy the spectacle. It’s fun to watch them pushing all this mountain of shit uphill. Don’t be downwind though.
Most of them aren’t looking past their noses and in fact the only one that smelt a rat, when communist Bob Brown’s ‘quiry was called, was Jonathon Holmes. He was very quick to condemn it in a way that telegraphed the dangers it posed to his side. He knew both sides could play that game. Now the cat’s out of the bag anything is possible in terms of reprisal against the left at the ABC.
JC
24 Feb 12 at 5:14 pm
It is the endless cock ups of this government that gives Abbott the opening, it is his experience that lets him know what the cock up is, and his discipline that allows him to take advantage.
The lefties will never get it, being big government means creating monster card houses which by their nature have to fall down.
Token
24 Feb 12 at 5:15 pm
Abbott should start spending his annual sojourn in a remote Aboriginal community today. Imagine the contrasting footage of Abbott in Cape York or the NT and the ALP over the next few days/weeks/momths.
Peter Patton
24 Feb 12 at 5:15 pm
Gillard has failed in spite of having an easy run.
All BS aside, this parliament and the Coalition lead parliament in 2004 to 2007 are the only parliaments where the government coalition has controlled the house & senate since 1993.
Before that time the lefty Democrats were in alliance with the lefty Labor.
Compare her achivements to Howard 1996 to 2004 or even Rudd 2007 to 2010.
Token
24 Feb 12 at 5:18 pm
Even her piece today argues Gillard’s ‘government’ is a bunch of insane crazies.
C.L.
24 Feb 12 at 5:19 pm
Gold
Token
24 Feb 12 at 5:23 pm
It was curious hearing Kevin go on about People Power. The people power we need to hear from is “the next election”, which is what actually has them freaked, particularly the unindependents.
Oakshott is still deluded, thinking he’s really keeping this wonderful parliament on the rails and achieving good things for the country!
blogstrop
24 Feb 12 at 5:30 pm
No wonder Italy is a basket case.
Thank God my parents emigrated, as I wouldn’t have been able to deal with that widespread level of stupidity.
JC
24 Feb 12 at 5:32 pm
Well, this is as good as it gets for an Opposition.
Only the Liberal Party could fuck this up.
C.L.
24 Feb 12 at 5:32 pm
Just sour grapes. Some of them are pulling the plug quicker than the more rusted on.
Still it’s one of her he said, she said fluff crap.
JC
24 Feb 12 at 5:37 pm
Interesting to note that the last Liberal Party (you know, “the party without policies”) leadership ballot was about genuine policy and philosphical differences.
In contrast, the ALP (you know, the party that is actually in government and can implement policy) ballot is all about personality. There does not appear to be a cigarette paper between them politically. It is all about the spoils.
Matt
24 Feb 12 at 5:43 pm
…. which raises the question: does Abbott do this annual trip for appearances’ sake, or does he do it for personal reasons?
At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I would venture to say he does it because he feels it helps him understand the situation better – preparing for a time when he can do something meaningful about fixing it.
I don’t recall much in the way of media coverage of him on these trips.
What does Gillard or Rudd do in terms of voluntary community service, I wonder?
St Hubbins
24 Feb 12 at 6:03 pm
Me too. Especially since passing the carbon tax was actually a walk in the park – everyone in her coalition of the willing wanted the damn thing.
She keeps bragging about how she gets things done – trouble is, they are always the wrong things!
Viva
24 Feb 12 at 6:46 pm
She hasn’t got that message through, Viva. What with having to supervise a race riot, break a promise with Wilkie, bicker with the little turd.
Once she gets deal with Rudd done, she’ll be able to focus on getting the message through to remind people she lied.
JC
24 Feb 12 at 6:49 pm
oops once she deals with
JC
24 Feb 12 at 6:50 pm
What is Cassidy saying here? That if Gillard had won a majority government, her lie to the electorate wouldn’t have mattered?
Viva
24 Feb 12 at 6:50 pm
Wasn’t Tony Abbott the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs or some portfolio like that in the earlynHoward years?
Anne
24 Feb 12 at 6:51 pm
Correct but Cassidy wouldn’t aqree with that interpretation.
See any hammygar comment for a faultless takedown of your typical reactionary interpretation
He’d suggest that she wouldn’t have needed to say it ‘cos she would’ve been cruising for victory.
So later when she legislated the carbon tax, there would’ve been no lie.
Geddit?
JamesK
24 Feb 12 at 6:59 pm
he’s done it for years without fanfare or media. So’s his missus.
the bloke does a lot of volunteer community work. he’s a volunteer lifesaver and until he got his current gig was a member of his local Volunteer Bush Fire brigade.
This is one of the reasons he’s so comfortable and relaxed in a community setting, he’s been doing volunteer stuff for his whole life.
Contrast and compare with the self-centred union hacks of the ALP and the venal rent-seekers of the (spit) filthy stinking greens.
(Disclaimer – I am a life-long conservationist and have done remote rural and rugged country noxious weed clearing, feral eradication and coastal noxious plant clearing for decades. Greenies never do such conservation work. You never see the f**kers in a hands-on landcare group unless it’s to talk big and steal the money the fund-raising ladies get. Yeah, that happened – we beat the living sh*t out of that bastard. He was stealing it to fund his circle-jerk luvvie bumchums in… The Greens Party. Skin-in-the-game conservationists believe that Greens are the lowest filth imaginable, and can go skydiving out of a snakes arsehole and free-fall for six weeks before having to hit the silk)
Mk50 of Brisbane
24 Feb 12 at 7:08 pm
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/its_time_to_play_the_music/
Which muppet indeed!!!
Skuter
24 Feb 12 at 7:16 pm
Both Gillard and Rudd are that stupid that they think that they only have to counter Tony Abbott to win the next election.
However Abbott is not popular. He barely rates above the worst prime minister in history. The reason people hate Labor is their policies. The two most hated policies being the “carbon tax” and border protection. Yet the pair of dills are both running with these insane policies.
Morons.
jupes
24 Feb 12 at 7:32 pm
If Rudd loses, they really have to kick him out of the ALP, but they can’t while this minority government situation continues.
Peter Patton
24 Feb 12 at 7:36 pm
I suppose if Gordon Wood and Gabe Watson can be aquitted of murder, Rudd can be PM again.
Infidel Tiger
24 Feb 12 at 7:51 pm
He’s got 3 days to go. Has he even got 1/3 of the votes?
Peter Patton
24 Feb 12 at 7:58 pm
Too right MK50!
When Howard reformed environmental works funding, volunteer groups had to apply for competitive grants, the criteria being you had to actually plant trees or whack weeds, the watermelons running the big ones bailed out quick smart, they couldn’t spend it on funding the rent-a-crowd. A lot went into the NSW public service and after stuffing things up there, went into the commonwealth public service. The QLD, NSW &Vic National Parks Associations were notable examples.
Forester
24 Feb 12 at 8:02 pm
Thanks for the profound policy insights.
Now tell us more about the “Paleosimians” and how “airpower” – your word – can be used to “starve” the Mullahs into submission and create an independent Kurdish homeland.
Les Majesty
24 Feb 12 at 8:04 pm
From the comments there :
Driftforge
24 Feb 12 at 8:07 pm
OMG. This has gone from farce to Attack of the Airheads. First the ABC’s Annabel Crab, now The Age’s version of Annabel Crabb has weighed in. Dopey Eva Cox.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/punch-and-judy-show-knocks-policy-to-the-wayside-20120223-1tqnm.html
Peter Patton
24 Feb 12 at 8:07 pm
Surely the Trade Union Party will soon cease to exist. There will still be a Labor Party but I can’t imagine the trade unionists having 50% of the vote after the comprehensive stuff up over the last decade.
Forester
24 Feb 12 at 8:11 pm
oh please: imagine how much more the Liberals would be leading without Abbnoot and his relentless negativism.
Jim Rose
24 Feb 12 at 8:14 pm
Meh, just get him to resign his seat and get Peter Beattie to run in it.
Entropy
24 Feb 12 at 8:17 pm
Thanks for the compliment Lez. I do understand how important such revelations are to you, although rather than ‘profound policy insight’ it’s more of a passing comment about worthless lazy thieving poseur scumbags, m’kay?
I have already devoted enough time to describing the other matters relating to modern ‘aerospace power’ for you. It’s been explained in increasingly simple terminology three times, and seriously it cannot actually be dumbed down any further. It’s already in the equivalent of ‘See Spot Run’ territory.
Truly, I sympathise with your plight and deeply pity you.
Poor thing, I fully understand that your intellectual incapacity means that you can’t advance your thinking any further forward than Guilio Douhet and 1922.
I am afraid that you are just going to have to live with the fact that such sophisticated, complex modern concepts are just beyond your intellectual ken.
Mk50 of Brisbane
24 Feb 12 at 8:17 pm
StHubbins / Mk50
Indeed- now tell me if you expect to see Bob Brown or Sarah Hyphen-Hyphen out with some gloves and a bag on clean up Australia day.
In fact, when was the last time you saw a Green party member outside of a city, except for some lame photo-shoot?
brc
24 Feb 12 at 8:36 pm
Sorry, but I still don’t understand how “airpower” – your term – can on its own be used either to “starve” the Mullahs into submission or (more fantastically) create an independent Kurdish state.
The notions of yours that “airpower” – your term – could do this is completely fanciful.
As I’ve said before, you have a mastery of jargon but your policy notions are ridiculous, and – worse – you can’t even explain your ideas in plain English.
In other words, you possess the qualities of a below average public servant.
Les Majesty
24 Feb 12 at 8:37 pm
imagine how much more the Liberals would be leading without Abbnoot and his relentless negativism.
Don’t get me wrong Jim. Abbott is very popular in my household. Without him we would already be suffering the “carbon” tax with no chance of it being repealed.
Unbelievably though, it appears the majority of punters don’t like him. How can you explain that he is only just ahead of the worst PM in history in the preferred PM poll?
jupes
24 Feb 12 at 8:37 pm
What has any of this to do with Abbott, Gillard or Rudd?
Take it outside, boys.
Gab
24 Feb 12 at 8:39 pm
Lez:
yes, we know, sweetie. Be still, little one.
Mk50 of Brisbane
24 Feb 12 at 8:40 pm
Jupes, I don’t really think that is right. Even with people who get their views from the MSM, there always seems to be a ‘but’ about Abbott.
Normally it goes ‘I don’t really like the bloke, but he seems to do a lot of community work/ but he does not seem like a bad guy etc etc
Mk50 of Brisbane
24 Feb 12 at 8:43 pm
brc
Bingo. They are rent-seeking dirtballs IMHO.
Mention that (for example) you and a bunch of workmates are planning on spending this easter out past Charleville shooting pigs and other vermin along the watercourses, and the greentards wet themselves.
You sure as eggs won’t see any out there doing eradication work at their own expense!
Mk50 of Brisbane
24 Feb 12 at 8:47 pm
Current leadership tiff = Geordie shore on crack
Jack
24 Feb 12 at 8:53 pm
MK50 a fair few Liberal voters I know have expressed a doubt about Abbott even to the extent of “I don’t know that he would do much better (than the current rabble).
Now that’s astonishing to say the least. As noted by you above, Abbott is the genuine article. Integrity personified. How other people don’t see that is beyond me.
jupes
24 Feb 12 at 8:54 pm
Kevin Rudd’s address to the Labor caucus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEaKX9YYHiQ
Peter Patton
24 Feb 12 at 9:00 pm
Your admission of defeat is duly noted.
Les Majesty
24 Feb 12 at 9:17 pm
The phones are currently working overtime, as is no doubt, some other more ‘modern’ forms of number crunching.
richo must be so peed off that he’s not at the centre of this, like he used to be…
Here’s a prediction – the number of phonecalls between laybore pollies in the next 60 hours that commence with the word ‘mate’ will exceed any previous number by at least a factor of three (in the history of the last seven decades or so)…
Rabz
24 Feb 12 at 9:20 pm
Mk50
So your a Katter man eh, good.
Jumpnmcar
24 Feb 12 at 9:21 pm
After all the blowhardism about saving us from the GFC by running us into huge debt, we then get repetitive slanging about the Libs economic credentials. Pardon me, but they’re still the only ones in the game with any semblance of credentials on that front. They actually have a record of achievement. Against it we have bluster, sweep-the-debt-under-the-carpet, and then trust-us-there’ll-be-a surplus one day.
As for journalists who grill Labor pollies about why they didn’t blow the whistle on Rudd sooner: again, forgive me for thinking that there might also have been a bit more whistle blowing from journos during the latest parliament, including the last campaign, from August 2010 onwards. Too preoccupied with bashing the opposition. Precious little ever on the 200 billion debt.
blogstrop
24 Feb 12 at 9:25 pm
Lez:
We have known this for ages.
Whatevs. How’s the weather over there on planet leftard, little one?
What’s really odd about you wallies is that you see everything is seen as an us’n'them which you have to ‘win’. It’s remarkably juvenile. That’s why you clowns constantly post these retrospective unilateral declarations of ‘victory’. It was thr’s fave trick too, every time Cat denizens beat him like a drum for his grotesque idiocy, he’d rock up on a different thread later on and boast about his ‘famous victory’. it’s kinda pathetic, and a longtime staple of the Lavatory Rodeo crown, Leftwrites, etc. it’s really funny to see these sad little legends in their own lunch-time regaling their circle-jerkers with verbose tales of their lordly deeds of derring-do.
It’s especially prevalent when a leftard just does not understand what’s going on.
And that’s valuable for me. I do like seeing how these mental lacunae affect cognitive reasoning – it has a professional application in my game.
My view has always been that if that sort of lying to oneself is necessary to assuage the leftard’s delicate ego and inbred narcissism, then no wonder you knobs have the reverse midas touch.
Professionally… I’ll just say it makes the foe easier to neutralise.
Mk50 of Brisbane
24 Feb 12 at 9:34 pm
Several of us here have been saying that for months.
daddy dave
24 Feb 12 at 10:06 pm
No doubt. But, correct me if I am wrong, there has never been a spill/challenge with so few “undecideds” as – at least as of now – Monday’s vote. For Rudd to win, 20 or 30 MPs, who have already publicly declared for Gillard (and most vigorously), would have to perform a public volte face.
What possible brand new information could these 20 to 30 learn that would provoke them to change sides?
Peter Patton
24 Feb 12 at 10:20 pm
IT
OMG, Watson and now Wood?
And Azaria Chamberlain’s case remains open.
Crazy.
kae
24 Feb 12 at 10:28 pm
It seems to be the week of crazy happenings.
Check out Pickering’s gutter weekend sport on facebook.
Nails it!
kae
24 Feb 12 at 10:29 pm
Don’t wish for the ALP to go away, wish for it to go back to being a party which cares about the bloody country.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the ALP cared about more than being a machine to bloat the pockets of worthless atavistic union hacks.
Yeah, I’m dreaming.
Mk50 of Brisbane
24 Feb 12 at 10:53 pm
No. That is the problem. it doesn’t represent workers. It represents trade union management and luuvies. Some workers are pro Labor but hate the way the party is going.
They need to assert themselves and get rid of the Eurotrash.
.
24 Feb 12 at 10:59 pm
IQ49
You speak nonsensical gibberish, riddled with jargon and ten dollar words.
All the fancy verbiage is cover for your lack of judgment or any sort of proper understanding of how the world works.
I call you on it, by (for example) ridiculing your silly claim that “airpower” – your word – will not only “starve” the Iranian Mullahs into submission but will also lead to an independent Kurdish state (!).
This is a patently absurd notion, and it doesn’t even seem to have occurred to you that this hare-brained scheme of yours, if successful (it wouldn’t be), would have very significant adverse strategic consequences for us and our allies. For one thing, the total alienation of Turkey which would certainly follow from establishment of a Kurdish homeland would have significant consequences for its erstwhile ally, Israel.
But instead of giving any sort of meaningful response to the obvious objections to your silly and impractical scheme, you regurgitate more jargon and gibberish, you tell me I don’t understand the meaning of plain English words, and you address me as “child”.
Perhaps you occasionally have cause to wonder why your career in the public service has stalled.
It’s because you are a pompous jackass who uses ten dollar words and a patronising tone to hide his lack of common sense. People see through that, and they don’t like it – and when they realise you don’t actually have the smarts to back up your fancy talk, they screw you over.
Sorry but that’s how it is.
Les Majesty
24 Feb 12 at 11:30 pm
Dot:
it’s the hope of the ALP (and a faint one) that the workers you mention in your last sentence can reform it.
The old ALP – pre 1940 – was actually an admirable thing. OK, it was uncomfortably racist but the past is a different country, they do things differently there, and their White Australia Policy was seen then as a way of protecting the ‘community of the working class’ so they could prosper.
What the ALP signally failed to do was to evolve as the working class DID prosper. The working class, it turns out, wanted one thing above all else – to be middle class. It’s arguable that this was the reality the ALP failed to understand so they stuck with old concepts. Now they have created (via welfare dependence) an enslaved new class dependent on them. This new class of welfare slaves and the mentally deranged (far left/Gaian earth-mother cultists) is now their support base.
The old ALP is moribund, and that’s a great loss.
Lezz: amusing squeal of pain, there. Love the way you declare unilateral victory.
Mk50 of Brisbane
25 Feb 12 at 9:53 am
Uh, no. I merely pointed out some obvious flaws in your dumbass theories.
Les Majesty
25 Feb 12 at 1:54 pm
Labor became toxic and despicable from the moment Evatt purged the Groupers. After that it was mostly a vehicle for pro-Soviet and Far Left fantasists. The “whatever it takes” Right wing of Richo eventually took control and it is said that “moderates” are in the majority now, but they had none of the principles of the old Catholic Right.
Fisky
25 Feb 12 at 2:15 pm
And actual military history be damned to hell, right? You might want to check out the status of the Iraqi Kurds, which was secured via air power and is pretty close to “independent state”.
Have you given up arguing about the word “starve”? I see you’re still scare-quoting it.
wreckage
25 Feb 12 at 8:18 pm