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Ruddstoration;a week in politics, and other events
With Labor facing probable defeat in the upcoming elections, the party caucus has switched to former leader Kevin Rudd, who has returned to the position of Prime Minister. The problem with Labor, contrary to the Tory carping, is not so much the policies, which fall into the category of "quite good actually" (increased tax-free threshold, NDIS, Gonski, NBN, Clean Energy Act, Henry Review, Murray-Darling Basin recovery, etc) with some really notable exceptions (notable exceptions; treatment of asylum seekers, marriage equality, intervention in indigenous communities), but rather a leader who simply did not generate mass appeal or for that matter, mass loyalty within the ALP - and that is an issue of importance. Immediate results are very positive with big swings to Labor recorded by Roy Morgan and Reach-Tel. This translates to a gain of around eleven seats for Labor in Queensland, a state known for being a little pariochial.
In what is the first major policy shift, Rudd has done the right thing by single parents, reversing planned welfare cuts, and extended the timeline for the state governments to sign up to the Gonski education reforms. A big challenge in the next few days will be when Rudd meets with the Indonesian PM, where the issue of asylum seekers is brought up. Rudd has made it quite clear that the "turn the boats back" policy of Abbot is reckless and dangerous. If Rudd can pull off some sort of amazing agreement with Indonesia (say, having them agree to join the Convention on the Status of Refugees), then Abbott will be in serious trouble. With moves to a market-based scheme on carbon pricing evident, what happens when an incessant campaign driven by negative politics suddenly finds that it has to nothing to campaign against?
In my own life the few days of the week were entirely taken up by conducting HPC with Linux courses. The third course, Advanced HPC using Linux, almost entirely dealt with MPI programming, and I was quite happy with how it went, especially given it was the first time I've conducted the class. On a completely unrelated subject, on Thursday evening ran a session of Pendragon which is now up to the "Romantic phase", which included pagan insults of Guinevere, the chase of a unicorn, a visitation of an elf king, and the elevation of one of the PCs to the status of Duke of Anglia (which is a poisoned chalice if I've ever heard one). Apropos, looking forward to Sunday's game of Space 1889. Tomorrow's excitement however is a champagne breakfast with Alan Austin, who is visiting from France.
In what is the first major policy shift, Rudd has done the right thing by single parents, reversing planned welfare cuts, and extended the timeline for the state governments to sign up to the Gonski education reforms. A big challenge in the next few days will be when Rudd meets with the Indonesian PM, where the issue of asylum seekers is brought up. Rudd has made it quite clear that the "turn the boats back" policy of Abbot is reckless and dangerous. If Rudd can pull off some sort of amazing agreement with Indonesia (say, having them agree to join the Convention on the Status of Refugees), then Abbott will be in serious trouble. With moves to a market-based scheme on carbon pricing evident, what happens when an incessant campaign driven by negative politics suddenly finds that it has to nothing to campaign against?
In my own life the few days of the week were entirely taken up by conducting HPC with Linux courses. The third course, Advanced HPC using Linux, almost entirely dealt with MPI programming, and I was quite happy with how it went, especially given it was the first time I've conducted the class. On a completely unrelated subject, on Thursday evening ran a session of Pendragon which is now up to the "Romantic phase", which included pagan insults of Guinevere, the chase of a unicorn, a visitation of an elf king, and the elevation of one of the PCs to the status of Duke of Anglia (which is a poisoned chalice if I've ever heard one). Apropos, looking forward to Sunday's game of Space 1889. Tomorrow's excitement however is a champagne breakfast with Alan Austin, who is visiting from France.
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What I find extraordinary is how quickly the population has shifted, and I suspect it will shift further still.
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.(A)
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