Red Rag

Last Friday, John Howard had this to say about setting the election date:

But obviously, I have to keep saying that I haven’t decided because that is the case, and until I have decided I can’t say anymore and people can parse and analyse everything I’m saying and look into my eyes and try and get some kind of nuance, some kind of inflection or intonation in the voice, I wish them well.

There are quite a few Liberals who must have been gazing deeply into Howard’s eyes, then. Today’s West Australian reports that Julie Bishop and Judi Moylan’s direct mail had arrived in letterboxes by 9:00 on Monday morning. Crikey reckons the South Australian Libs were just as fast.

Gary Adshead wrote:

The synchronicity is positively scary, but the real question is how did the Libs get out of the blocks so early when John Howard was saying on Friday and Saturday he still hadn’t decided when he’d be firing the starter’s gun?

[Inside Cover] has received telephone calls from cynical readers (never knew we had any) suggesting Honest John wasn’t being completely honest and the letters prove it.

But that may be going a little overboard because it could easily be argued the party’s political machine had the letters ready to go once the PM announced the race was on and slipped them into a direct mailing system Sunday night.

The problem with that explanation is Labor also prepares its direct mail early, and would have been no less keen to get their letters into the post. Yet there have been no reports of Labor mail arriving early on Monday morning.

Adshead rang Judi Moylan’s office to ask them how they did it. He even prompted them with the possible explanation he had come up with, but they wouldn’t bite:

“She’s not commenting on that issue, I’m afraid,” the staffer said.

IC: Not just to say the letters were pre-prepared?

Staffer: No.

The only possible explanation is that Liberal MPs were told last week that the election would be called on Sunday.

And Howard is a liar.

Best election post yet.

As the Australian Federal Election campaign heats up, Antony Loewenstein counter-spins the news.

He hasn’t posted anything since Friday. The whole point of election blogs is to give you news and analysis faster than mainstream formats. Is it any wonder that Loewenstein can’t get a link from the front page of the SMH site?

Further to my previous post encouraging Labor supporters to get involved in the election campaign, this one’s for Greens fans who want to see Howard turfed.

A three step guide to supporting the Greens and ensuring a Coalition defeat:

1. Find out which are the marginal seats in your area. It doesn’t matter who currently holds them, they’re the most important seats come 9 October. Check out Antony Green’s handy Electoral Pendulum for assistance.

2. Contact your local Greens branch and tell them in which marginal seat you want to campaign. Don’t let them push you into a seat with a margin of more than a few percent, and don’t campaign if they’ve decided not to preference Labor — you might secure a few more Senate votes, but it will have absolutely no impact on who forms government.

3. Doorknock, letterbox, do all of that. But most important is that you hand out how-to-votes on polling day.

So why is a Labor hack like me telling you to campaign for the Greens? Well, I know some of you are die-hard Greens supporters. I’ll never convince you to give your first preference to Labor. The next best thing is to secure as many second-preferences as possible.

If the Greens direct their preferences to Labor, roughly 3% more Greens voters will send their votes our way. In most seats, that works out to a couple of hundred votes — in a tight contest for a marginal seat, it might make all the difference.

To give you some idea of just how important those votes are, consider these results from the last election:

Solomon
ALP:  23,670
CLP:  23,758
Difference:  88 votes

Canning
ALP:  34,330
LIB:  34,860
Difference:  530 votes

Dobell
ALP:  37,005
LIB:  37,565
Difference:  560 votes

There’s not a heck of a lot in a marginal seat.

One of the biggest problems with this is that the Greens often don’t have volunteers available to man every polling booth. The Coalition could end up back in power because nobody was there to tell Greens supporters how the Greens wanted them to vote.

So all the Greens who read this must volunteer on a marginal campaign. Drag your family and friends along. Remember: Evil triumphs when good people do nothing.

(Thanks to Giovanni for inspiring this post. He’s the kind of guy who, when he gets out of your car, remembers to lock the door. A lot of people don’t do that, but Gio does.)

It’s on:

Prime Minister John Howard has arrived at Government House at Yarralumla in Canberra, with speculation tipping an election for October 9.

The visit to Governor-General Michael Jeffery is a necessary first step in dissolving parliament so that the election can be called. Mr Howard’s commonwealth car drove up to Yarralumla at 11.37am.

He is expected to call a media conference at Parliament House about 1pm.

Perth readers who want to ensure a Labor victory should get involved in a marginal seat campaign. We have a shot at winning Canning, and we need to hold Stirling, Swan and Hasluck. There’s plenty of work to be done, from answering phones to delivering campaign material.

Jann McFarlane
Stirling; +1.6%

158 Main Street,
Osborne Park WA 6017
Tel: (08) 9443 3355
Fax: (08) 9443 3377

Kim Wilkie
Swan; +2.0%

2-4 Mint Street,
East Victoria Park WA 6101
Tel: (08) 9470 4131
Fax: (08) 9470 4138

Sharryn Jackson
Hasluck; +1.8%

Unit 1, 1862 Albany Highway,
Maddington WA 6109
Tel: (08) 9493 2333
Fax: (08) 9493 2666

Kay Hallahan
Canning; -0.4%

PO Box 398,
Kelmscott WA 6991
Tel: (08) 9495 1620

And then there’s the slightly less marginal campaign I’m working on — wresting Moore from the hands of Colonel Sanders:

Kim Young
Moore; -6.0%

PO Box 24,
WOODVALE WA 6026
Tel: (08) 9309 3311
Email: kimformoore@yahoo.com.au

If you decide to join the ALP, that would also be helpful.

Feel free to email me if you want more information about getting involved.

Yay for the Nordeens, the Hot Lies and After the Fall. Highlight of the night, though, was the train ride home: watching a drunken homophobe get his arse kicked (literally) by an angry lesbian and her mates.

A while ago Crikey had a piece on one of the Liberal Party’s websites, and I wrote this letter to them:

I’ve just been having a poke around Tony Abbott’s laughable “Rent Rort” website, and I noticed something interesting.

In his interview with Laurie Oakes on Sunday, we heard this little exchange:

“LAURIE OAKES: Now, the John Curtin house - sorry, the Centenary House affair that you refer to as the rent rort, I notice there’s a new website up this morning - www.rentrort.com.au , authorised by you, on this affair. Who’s paying for that? Are tax-payers, or the Liberal Party?

“TONY ABBOTT: No, look, that was put together by volunteers, using my words in the House, and it’s not being paid for by tax-payers in any way, shape, or form…”

I can tell you who the volunteers were.

The domain “rentrort.com.au” is being served from “rentrort.netharbour.com.au”, which is a subdomain on Net Harbour’s website. One of Net Harbour’s founding directors is Tim Howard — the Prime Minister’s son.

I wonder how many other negative little websites like this will pop up between now and the election — and whether these “in kind” donations will be declared to the AEC if their total value reaches the required threshold?

Robert Corr

Now we discover that the Liberal Party are keeping Tim Howard’s company afloat, as they seem to be regular customers.

Net Harbour has been hired by either John Howard or the NSW Liberal Party — they both claim responsibility — to spam electors in Bennelong. Needless to say, some voters are not happy about copping the propaganda in their inboxes, especially as the recipients don’t all live in Bennelong.

In his response to the controversty, Howard set out his vision for Australia: spam. “That is what the future of this country is all about.”

Howard is obviously trying to help out his son, but it might backfire and cost him votes. Howard is facing a high-profile campaign in Bennelong — and one of those running against him is Troy Rollo, founder of the Coalition Against Bulk Unsolicited Bulk E-mail.

I wonder what else John Valder has up his sleeve?

Update: As I suspected he would, Rollo has just been on ABC news saying that Howard’s connection to a spam company goes to his credibility.

The Catholic Church’s decision to alienate its gluten-intolerant congregation is potentially fatal:

Anaphylaxis Australia, which represents wheat-allergic people who could die in minutes even from a low-gluten wafer, has written to Australian Catholic leaders, urging them to intercede with the Vatican.

[…]

The Anaphylaxis Australia letter says sufferers risk death within minutes from even minute particles of allergens.

A trial of the new wafers is not an option, nor is taking the chalice instead because communion wine is highly likely to contain traces of wheat.

Rather than admit that its wheat-based host requirement is senseless dogma, the Church is prepared to put people’s lives at risk.

Guest post: Damien Norris

Elections are looming. Will we want more of the same or do we feel like a change? They say a change is as good as a holiday however, like our ever-reduced levels of annual leave, a governmental ‘change’ may not leave us any more refreshed.
Read the rest of this entry…

This view always reminds me of Star Wars. The Maritime Museum is a very futuristic building, and those cranes could be some kind of walker. Mind you, no landscape looks as much like Star Wars as this aerial view of Najaf…

Trusts often has this effect on people.

I don’t have time to look at John Howard’s rebuttal of Labor’s Truth Overboard document in much detail right now, but I will make a couple of quick comments. These things just jumped out at me as I skim-read the document:

FACT 5: HECS
There is no interest rate on HECS or under FEE-HELP.

There’s a 20% “administration fee” on FEE-HELP. Students who borrow $50 000 to pay for their full-fee degree will be expected to pay back $60 000 plus inflation. Interest is “a fixed charge for borrowing money; usually a percentage of the amount borrowed”.

FACT 6: HECS
There is no deregulation of fees under HECS. The Howard Government has endeavoured to provide universities with access to additional funding and has done so by allowing universities to increase fees for HECS places by a maximum of 25%.

There is no deregulation of fees under HECS. The Howard Government has endeavoured to provide universities with access to additional funding and has done so by deregulating fees under HECS.

Black is white, war is peace, etc, etc.

FACT 10: GST
The ALP’s use of a quote from the National Tax and Accountants’ Association about the length of the Tax Act is highly misleading.

It appears to relate to the Tax Act as a whole and not the specific number of pages relevant to the GST.

I’m not sure what the point is here. Before the GST, there were a total of zero pages relating to the GST. Afterwards, there were more than zero pages relating to the GST. So even on the Government’s own ridiculous terms, the relevant part of the Tax Act is longer.

FACT 25: GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
The Howard Government continues to adhere to the advertising guidelines which applied to the Labor Party when in office.

Er… that’s the point. Howard promised he would change the guidelines, but hasn’t done so.

Don’t miss Perth Rock City for all your twisted local satire needs.

Lord-Mayor Peter Natrass has just posted a message to his public:

I wish to defend myself against the scandalous accusations which were made in The West Australian newspaper by my ex-wife, Stupid Bitch, as I used to call her. She has said that I used to bash her. Let me assure you people that I would never do such a thing, I am a fully trained gynaecologist and know how to handle women.

This is a vicious smear campaign orchestrated by poofters. There is a vast homosexual conspiracy against me that has been going on for some time, as the good non-deviant Liberal voting people of Perth who support me well know.

The journalists at The West Australian are a bunch of Marxist pillow-biters. We all know this. It is a matter of public record. They punch doughnuts and read Das Kapital. Let me put this bluntly, they are socialist poo-stabbers, the lot of them. Jealous of my non-perverted relations with a member of the wonderful government that runs this beautiful land, not to mention a member of the opposite sex, they are out to destroy me and to undermine my position as Premier of Perth.

Yes, it’s a defamation suit waiting to happen. But it’s hilarious in the meantime!

If you’ve ever wondered why the Liberal Democratic Party has never secured even enough votes to reclaim its deposit, look no further than this post, in which Sam Ward defends racist hiring policies.

Apparently, if the customers don’t like boongs, then I have a duty to join in their racism.

Fucking moron.

Chris Sheil’s already mentioned Labor’s dossier of John Howard’s lies, and since it’s likely to pop up elsewhere, I thought it might be worth making the document available to the blogosphere.

I’ve uploaded the PDF file, or you can read a HTML version over the fold, with permalinks to each lie.

Related links: John Howard Lies, Liars for Howard.

Update: It’s now up on the ALP site.
Read the rest of this entry…

It’s very hard to take Greg Barns seriously on issues of sexual morality. After all, even if Ross “Vote-for-the-other-guy” Cameron had been caught masturbating over child pornography, Barns would tell us it’s none of our business.

Cameron stands on a so-called “family values” platform. It’s entirely appropriate for the electorate to ask just how sturdy that platform is.