Twitter Updates for 2012-05-31
- I received some interesting news about something long-overdue yesterday. I'm off to Deni today, but hopefully I can make a blog post tonight #
May 31st, 2012 at 09:00pm
May 31st, 2012 at 09:00pm
When the cows take over the road and enforce their own set of road rules.
I took this video about 10 to 15 KM east of Conargo, while I was on my way to Deniliquin.
Incidentally, it took exactly five hours for me to get from the Shell service station in Dickson to the Centrepoint Motel in Deniliquin, and it was the first time I’ve made the trip without stopping along the way (I did go through a drive-thru, but that doesn’t really count). The distance travelled was 496.8 KM, making an average speed of 99.36 KM/H.
Samuel
May 31st, 2012 at 08:10pm
There were some very interesting scenes in federal parliament yesterday when Craig Thomson, the self-suspended Labor member for Dobell suddenly changed his mind on how he wanted to vote, and sided with the Coalition. He did this at a time when it was too late for anybody in the Coalition to abstain from the vote, and therefore put Tony Abbott’s promise that the Coalition would not rely on the “tainted” vote of Craig Thomson in jeopardy.
Both Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne (the Coalition’s manager of business in the House of Representatives) bolted from the chamber to avoid the vote and cancel out Craig Thomson. Mr. Pyne made it out, but Mr. Abbott did not. Regardless, their goal was achieved; Craig Thomson’s vote was cancelled out.
But to the same extent, Labor got exactly what they wanted. There can be no doubt, despite Labor’s claims to the contrary, that this was a stunt aimed at making Tony Abbott unwittingly break a promise and that Labor got something even better. The footage of Tony Abbott running from the chamber was used in the mainstream media along with captions such as “mad dash” (referring to the media’s “Mad Monk” nickname for Tony Abbott) as some sort of evidence of erratic and unprofessional conduct on Tony Abbott’s behalf.
Those of us in the know are well-aware that Tony Abbott was trying to uphold a promise, but people who don’t pay quite as much attention or interest to politics would have come away from the coverage with the notion that Tony Abbott did something wrong and has questionable judgement. In the short term at least, I think Labor got more out of this than they ever could have dreamed of getting from having Craig Thomson break Tony Abbott’s promise on a fairly minor vote. In terms of the political point-scoring of the day, Labor won simply because the majority of the media ran the coverage in a way which was very favourable to Labor.
Tony Abbott did the right thing and got a roasting for it…and I dare say most of the public don’t even know it.
The thing which I’m left wondering now is, seeing as the stunt worked reasonably well for Labor, what’s to stop them from pulling it again? And if they do, how will the Coalition respond?
The vote, in case you’re wondering, was over whether the Labor government’s plan to increase the federal government’s debt limit should continue to be debated. A minor procedural vote on an important issue. Labor probably won on that point as well as we’ve barely heard a peep about the debt limit in the last 24 hours, when it should have been the Coalition’s main talking point.
As for Craig Thomson himself. Channel Nine’s “A Current Affair” has shelved plans to air an interview with a prostitute who claims to have been engaged by Mr. Thomson at some stage, but won’t say why. One can only wonder what pressure was brought to bear on Nine to prevent them from airing the interview which could have contributed strongly to the downfall of a government. I suspect they were threatened with the loss of revenue from government advertising. I also suspect that we will hear more about this in a few weeks…probably at the hands of “Today Tonight” who would undoubtedly like to find an angle on this story which paints “A Current Affair” or the Nine Network as being “weak”.
It’s amazing how Craig Thomson, one man, can have such a grubby reputation and make such a mockery of something as important as the parliament. Meanwhile, all of us suffer from having an inept government which is being kept in power via the mockery.
Samuel
May 31st, 2012 at 08:01am
May 30th, 2012 at 09:00pm
May 29th, 2012 at 09:00pm
2 comments May 28th, 2012 at 09:00pm
May 27th, 2012 at 09:00pm
May 26th, 2012 at 09:00pm
May 25th, 2012 at 09:00pm
An email to 2GB’s Luke Grant
G’day Luke. Welcome to 2GB. We last spoke when you were in Melbourne and an ash cloud had grounded my flight…good to hear you again.
Anyway, online gambling, you’re absolutely right. It’s hypocritical of the government to be so opposed to poker machines while embracing online gambling which, as we all know, is exactly where folks will go if the pokies no longer satisfy their gambling urges.
Why doesn’t Wilkie ever talk about online gambling? I dare say that, if you can call gambling a problem (I don’t, I call it a choice), it’s a bigger problem than pokies. At least with pokies, you have to hand the machine your cash, whereas online, it’s your credit card number and it doesn’t hurt until the statement arrives and you realise you’ll be paying it back for years.
I suppose though, if the government are going to tax it, that might just get Wayne Swan his promised surplus.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
May 25th, 2012 at 04:21am
May 24th, 2012 at 09:00pm
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