Thom Woodroofe, 21, all round good guy, former young Victorian of the Year, and named one of Melbourne’s top 100 most influential people by Melbourne Magazine, wants a job. Specifically Thom, who now lives in New York City, wants a job in Australia’s expanded delegation to the United Nations if it wins a temporary position on the Security Council.
How else can one explain the fawning drivel that Thom has written in the Drum in support of Australia’s bid? It reads like a job application to me.
Unfortunately, like many who have grown used to being on the public teat, Thom seems unable to distinguish between his private self-interest (nice job) and Australia’s national interest – it is certainly against our national interest to join the Security Council. We would compromise our values, and jeopardise our important international relationships. A temporary position on the Security Council would be all cost and no benefit.
Oh, did someone from Luxembourg spike Julia Gillard’s food?
On 18 October 2012, I will be celebrating our loss to Finland and Luxembourg.
Gillard must’ve been hanging around Luke Hodge from the Hawks who also had the shits recently.
Lysander Spooner
25 Sep 12 at 6:18 pm
Hyvä Suomi!
lotocoti
25 Sep 12 at 6:22 pm
If Abbott was serious he would announce that a future coalition government would resign any security council seat in the unlikely event Australia actually got one.
Sinclair Davidson
25 Sep 12 at 6:43 pm
I don’t get it. Is it as prestigious as hosting the World Cup? (sarc).
You’d think after Kevin’s brown-nosing it would be a lay down misère.
manalive
25 Sep 12 at 6:44 pm
Sinclair is right. If Abbott announced publicly that Australia would resign its seat, it would ensure our defeat (who would vote for Australia knowing that a likely Abbott Government would resign? Who would put their names forward to go on the expanded delegation knowing that it would be a very temporary move?
Samuel J
25 Sep 12 at 6:51 pm
Is it easier to join the axis of evil?
Combine Dave
25 Sep 12 at 7:11 pm
That would be value for money. Sunk costs, suppose, Samuel?
As to Thom: never heard of him.
Abu Chowdah
25 Sep 12 at 7:18 pm
Abu – yes it is a sunk cost. The savings would be: not compromising our reputation and the ongoing costs of the additional personnel at New York and in Australia servicing our delegation. The savings should also include the look on Rudd’s face if Abbott made such an announcement: priceless.
Samuel J
25 Sep 12 at 7:26 pm
Christ on a crutch! ‘Fawning drivel’ hardly begins to describe that piece.
Willmott Fribbish
25 Sep 12 at 7:30 pm
That’s where fucking losers do business. We don’t stand a hope in hell.
Infidel Tiger
25 Sep 12 at 7:35 pm
On the contrary, the UN encapsulates Australian values – not mainstream values but those of the NSW ALP or the NSW Greens. It is imprecise to say it would be all cost and no benefit, the cost would be bourne by the public and large and the taxpayers in particular while the benefits would be captured by morally vain leeches.
Our leeches are world class and deserve to be represented at what is effectively the Olympics of graft and corruption. They will definitely bring back gold for themselves, if not Australia.
Rob
25 Sep 12 at 7:44 pm
LOL. No really, it made me lol.
Gab
25 Sep 12 at 7:47 pm
“PAUL MURRAY: Is it right that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advised Kevin Rudd right back at the start of this exercise that it was not a good idea to lobby for this position in 2013?
JULIE BISHOP: That is right. We know because the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advised the Howard government before we lost office in 2007 that the best time to seek a seat on the Security Council would be 2018, there was a vacancy. And we know that the government was advised in 2008 that if it did enter the race it would be too late and that it would require significant resources and efforts to be diverted away from other priorities, but typical Labor government? They impulsively decided to go ahead without thinking through the cost and the consequences.
So Paul, in principle we support Australia serving on the UN Security Council but like so many things this government does, we have deep concerns over the way they have gone about it. They entered the race very late against the advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, they haven’t set out what they hope to achieve if they win a temporary seat on the Security Council and more importantly the government has compromised a number of foreign policy principles and priorities in order to win the votes of countries who will be electing the two countries for these temporary seats.”
6PR interview 24 Sept, 2012.
They’ve thrown $40 million around the Carribean and Africa trying to get votes. They’ve set aside a further $24million, all for a temporary seat that has no influence on anything. Genius.
Gab
25 Sep 12 at 7:54 pm
Rob is of course right. A thorough cost-benefit analysis should counts as benefits that which is received privately by ALP apparatchiks.
Samuel J
25 Sep 12 at 8:06 pm
JULIE BISHOP: But the point about aid is a significant one. Our interests are best served by focusing on our region, and in order to win votes for the Security Council bid the government have been redirecting a significant amount aid to the Caribbean. Now the Caribbean is not considered to be one of the poorest areas on earth and strategically it doesn’t make sense for the government to be madly running around throwing money at countries in the Caribbean to buy their vote.
One example was Australia gave $150,000 to a statue to commemorate anti-slavery in the Caribbean and Africa to be built in the UN Plaza in New York. Now I fail to see how Australia spending $150,000 on a statue in the UN Security Council Plaza will benefit Australian taxpayers, let alone deliver aid to any country.
Gab
25 Sep 12 at 8:07 pm
Any club you want to be a member of obviously has very suss membership requirements and unclean bathrooms.
Infidel Tiger
25 Sep 12 at 8:18 pm
JB: One of the concerns we have is that Australia should be elected to the Security Council because of our values and principles not because we are prepared to compromise on them. And I know for a fact that Syria made it quite clear on behalf of Arab League countries that Australia could not expect their support unless Australia was less supportive of Israel, and we have seen changes in the Australian government’s support for Israel.
…
So which countries have temporary seats?
JB: I think a good example would be the recent Security Council debate over Syria. All the focus was over what Russia and China would do and there was no mention of the role of temporary members, the ten temporary members who don’t have a veto.
And I think you are absolutely right, the test for those who are insisting this is essential for Australia’s foreign policy and is essential to elevate Australia on the international stage, should be asked to name the current temporary members. I mean they might be surprised to find that Azerbaijan, Guatemala and Togo are amongst the temporary members. How many people would know that?
Gab
25 Sep 12 at 8:18 pm
hz
25 Sep 12 at 8:28 pm
Maybe she ate a dodgy hot dog like Kev? Mind you, Kev ate a hot dog in a stadium that didn’t sell hot dogs, but… could have been anything…
ar
25 Sep 12 at 10:52 pm
How else can one explain the fawning drivel that Thom has written in the Drum in support of Australia’s bid?
Typical Leftie epsilon male, slurping his way up the pyramid of seniority. If this creature, who looks like he wouldn’t last ten rounds with a seven-year-old girl in Strawberry Shortcake sneakers, is one of Melbourne’s 100 Most Influential, then one must either despair for that city or wonder what the editors of Melbourne Magazine were smoking.
Mind you, on the same page I find a link to “Rwandan Genocide Trail Opens in Norwegian Court”, which indicates that The Drum is just as deficient in proof-reading skills (for letting through ‘trail’ vs. ‘trial’) as it is common sense (for letting this ‘fawning drivel’ – and indeed it is that – be published).
perturbed
26 Sep 12 at 12:57 am
I am not game to look for a magazine article with the hubris to believe that there are 100 genuine intellectuals in Melbourne, or that anyone except the favored themselves would be interested enough to not only pay for it, but read it all the way through.
On the security council thing. At least it would fix Gillard’s perennial problem of “how do you solve a problem like Kevin?” Though the ALP would subsequently lose Griffith in a by-election.
entropy
26 Sep 12 at 6:40 am
Read one paragraph until nausea forced me to stop.
Oh my … this brown-haired Johnny Bravo impersonator looks just like the type of progressive the world needs.
Well done Son … just tell them “I’m Thom from Victoria and I’m here to help.”
Abraham
26 Sep 12 at 8:11 am
Anyone who is called ‘Thom’ rather than ‘Tom’ is a wanker.
Rococo Liberal
26 Sep 12 at 8:21 am