Politics in Brief
March 12th, 2007 at 01:05am
A few quick thoughts…
Reverend Fred Nile of the Christian Democratic Party has gone off his rocker again…this time calling for an immediate moratorium on Muslim immigration for ten years, so that we can bring more “oppressed Christians” in to the nation. I have no problem with either group, but I think any move to allow or disallow immigration solely on the basis of a person’s religion is not only offensive, but an incredibly big step backwards. Thankfully Reverend Nile is in the New South Wales parliament and has no chance of changing federal immigration policies.
New South Wales police minister John Watkins has made a big error, promising that Sunday’s closure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge so that people can walk on it for its 75th birthday won’t cause traffic gridlock, as experienced when the Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liners visited the harbour a few weeks ago. Mr. Watkins claims to have a plan to avoid traffic gridlock during the 4.30am to 11pm closure…but as fas as I can tell, that plan involves people leaving their car at home.
Two weeks out from the election and he make a stupid promise about Sydney’s volatile traffic…silly silly man.
In other Sydney traffic news, the Lane Cove Tunnel’s operators claim that the air quality in it has been verified to be good, but there won’t be any cars in their until after the election. A vehicle-free tunnel probably would have clean air in it.
There’s a storm cloud gathering over the validity of a claim from federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd that his family was evicted from their house when he was a child…what that has to do with how Mr. Rudd plans to run the nation is beyond me…back to the issues please. Even another ramble about how bad Labor thinks WorkChoices is would be more interesting than this nonsense.
The idiots at the top end of Telstra’s corporate ladder are threatening the federal government with the “mother of all class actions” if their competitors are allowed to build their own $3.6 billion national high speed broadband network…perhaps Telstra’s daft CEO Sol Trujillo has forgotten that he had a temper tantrum and decided to blame the government for his decision to not build his own broadband network. If, as one of Telstra’s annoying internal mottos claims, “anything.possible”, is it not therefore possible that Mr. Trujillo isn’t the right person to provide essential telecommunication services to the country, and should quit and take his bunch of executive crazies with him “done.now”? (to quote another internal motto).
That pretty much sums up what’s on my mind right now.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: General News,Samuel's Editorials
10 Comments
1. Lachlan Connor | March 12th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Fred Nile gives independents a bad name.
2. Samuel | March 12th, 2007 at 10:37 am
That must make life and your election campaign a bit harder Lachlan.
3. Lachlan Connor | March 12th, 2007 at 10:40 am
It’s tough enough without wingnuts like Nile in the race.
4. Samuel | March 12th, 2007 at 11:15 am
For those of you who aren’t aware, Lachlan Connor is running as an independent for one of the Victorian federal senate seats.
5. Samuel | March 12th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I’m interested Lachlan, how much do statements like the one Reverend Nile made affect your campaign? Do people suspect you of having similar views to him without ever asking you?
6. Lachlan Connor | March 12th, 2007 at 11:38 am
As you noted, Samuel, Nile’s comment was pretty loopy, not to mention offensive. Loopy and offensive comments are not rare from independent political candidates and I think that over time they start to colour people’s opinion of independents.
7. Samuel | March 12th, 2007 at 11:45 am
That is a shame as the few sane independents then have to work even harder just to be noticed.
One of the problems with the coverage of nutty comments is that the usual suspects (party leaders and representatives of groups targeted) tend to be the only people who get the right of reply, which makes people interpret the supposed silence of others.
I don’t really know how hard it must be as an independent running for public office, but the more I think about it, the harder and harder it seems.
My respect for sane independents is growing.
8. Bearded Clam | March 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I would never want to see any politician in briefs. Except maybe Margaret Thatcher.
9. Samuel | March 12th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
For reasons beyond my own understanding…I’m curious, why Margaret Thatcher?
10. Bearded Clam | March 13th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Because shes kind of hot.