A day is a long time in politics

[tcpip]

There was a hint a few days ago that the Coalition was going to play a little grubby. First they attempted to claim that a number of Labor candidates were ineligible to stand. That fell apart quite badly. Then there was the hysterics about if Labor wins socialists and unionists will corrupt the minds of the youth.

But now they've really screwed the pooch. It would seem that NSW Liberal Party State Executive member Jeff Egan and the retiring candidate's husband and the candidate's husband, Greg Chijoff, for the marginal seat of Lindsay, Gary Clark, have been caught trying to distribute fake election material from the "Islamic Australia Federation" to support Labor. A copy of the leaflet is available. Worse still, Jackie Kelly has tried to work her way out of it in a (MP3 file ABC radio interview and on television. I don't think I have ever seen Laurie Oakes so angry.

Paul Keating gets his revenge on moral grounds. Bob Hawke gets his on economic grounds. Even Malcom Fraser - a little more carefully - gives his considered opinion. Finally, Catherine Deveny really does have a way with words.

If we do not seize this opportunity for change we will go down in history as the most greedy, gullible, mean-spirited, selfish, short-sighted, tight-fisted generation in the history of Australia. How will it feel sitting in front of that $5000 plasma TV watching reruns of American reality shows, wearing clothes manufactured in a sweat shop and sitting on a sofa made by Third World slaves? How will that feel when our public education and hospitals have been gutted and our environment corroded to a point of no return? How will it feel knowing we have turned our back on people who need us most: the poor, the broken, the scared, the sick, the elderly and the vulnerable? How will it feel when you turn to your children and say, "I believed him"?

There is no way any decent human being could vote for the Liberal Party, or even give them a major party preference, after the events of the past twenty-four hours.

Comments

[msss.livejournal.com]

Well, judging from the last 10 years, it doesn't matter as long as you're ablt to have your mind numbed by the plasma TV and reality shows.

[silverblue.livejournal.com]

I literally wanted to vomit when the 'look, we're rescuing child refugees! On boats! Honest! Forget about the Overboard scandal!' thing came up.

I rather like weasels as an animal. They are neat, sharp, intelligent, and attractive.

The man is rather a leech.

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

lets hope then, that the majority of voters are decent human beings!

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

It's good that Gandalf appears to be riding over the ridge with reinforcements for your Helm's Deep like country.

Mixed news from this front; the federal government created the biggest wildlife sanctuary in Canada, coincidentally in a place where Trudeau thought we should put one back in the day. A lot of people are happy, especially with the land put aside for native claims.

The other side of it is that it's relatively easy to create a big wildlife sanctuary in Canada, where we do have more land than we use, especially up in the Northwest Territories where this one's been created. Easy compared to doing something about Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, which doesn't appear to be happening.

Though I welcome new native land claim areas and wildlife sanctuaries, I also heard that all the federal opposition parties are uniting to pursue information on this scandal that's also been in the news. I take it the sanctuary thing may be a huge smoke screen, apart from it being seemingly the easiest, cheapest way to silence a few environmental critics.

[http://users.livejournal.com/raven_/]

http://www.domain.com.au/Public/PropertyDetails.aspx?adid=2006832414

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

It's just been a cavalcade of shonk this week - and badly mismanaged shonk at that. I was expecting dirty tricks, but I wasn't expecting them to be executed so incompetently.

[tomusan.livejournal.com]

This is a display of complete and utter desperation on the part of the Liberal Party. Their campaign is one of the worst examples of political manuvering and communication - whoever studies this in fifty years time will lambast us for putting up with such a government for so long.

I thought they pushed themselves over the edge with the "Labor = Anarchy" advertisments, as well as the profound tactic of patronizing the majority of their electorate and basically chastising them for voting in "wall to wall" Labor state governments.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Woah.
I don't think I have ever seen Laurie Oakes so angry either.

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

I'm too much of a pessimist to predict a liberal loss I'm afraid. I keep thinking of all those other unwinnable/unloseable elections.

Although when commercial networks start turning on the government...well that's something.

Laurie Oakes ...

[imajica-lj.livejournal.com]

looks like someone just pinched the last of his prize claret.

What are you doing for Saturday?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Fraser has been criticising the Howard government for quite some time now, on one front and another. I don't know that he's characterised Labor as better, but he's certainly made it clear that he thinks the Coalition's lost its moral compass. Did you see the letter he and Whitlam wrote on the lack of accountability in modern government?

[reddragdiva]

My goodness Keating is a flame warrior.

I wonder what Fraser makes of the last twenty-five years. He hasn't changed a single opinion in the last thirty, but he finds himself somewhere to the left of Rudd. Um, what?

[nomnivore.livejournal.com]

You'd think so, but Australians just don't care.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

I totally agree...but then I was involved in student politics and have often been a scrutineer and therefore already know that a section of the Liberal party is like this.

They game the population, and have respect for no-one.

I won't put 'in my view' as I regard this as a fact not an opinion.

[zeemverse.livejournal.com]

Love your journal. Am referring people here for election coverage. Hope this is okay.

[velvetink.livejournal.com]

The scary thing is that most people will most likely vote by the last tv advert they last saw. I'm hoping for a change but think the country is mostly full of idiots.

The youth of today...

[khrysha.livejournal.com]

...could use a damn lot of corrupting.

Self-serving trolls they are.

YAY! ELECTIONS! YAY! NO MORE HOWARD!!

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

any updates?