This pic isn't really here to bag out Howard, but jeez, that's the best pic of Rove that I've ever seen. 

Crazy John Threatens Legal Action:

Opposition Leader Mark Latham today said he was unaware of a threat by mobile phone retailer Crazy John's to take legal action against Labor if it did not stop using its name.

Crazy John's yesterday accused Labor of ripping off its brand name and image and giving an incorrect impression that the retailer was associated with the ALP.

The accusation came after Mr Latham seized on the company's name to attack the $6 billion election spending spree announced by Prime Minister John Howard on Sunday.

Mr Latham accused Mr Howard of embarking on a reckless spending spree, labelling it "Crazy John's end-of-career clearance sale".

Crazy John's said it would seek legal injunctions against the ALP if necessary to stop the party using its name.

But Mr Latham today said he was unaware of the legal threat.

"We can assure Crazy John's there is no way he would be as reckless as Mr Howard in the spending stakes," he told Brisbane radio station 4BC.

Election 2004 | Day 31 | Roundup (or Suckup)

9 DAYS TO GO.

$1.40 Coalition, $2.70 Labor.

I scored yet more crap in my letterbox today from Kezza. This is the fourth piece of junk I've gotten now. And I got a whole one piece from Ptolemy a few weeks ago. What's the deal?! Serious lack of advertising here. Kezza also took out nearly a half page ad in the local paper, whereas Ptolemy had about a 4cm one. Seriously Ptolemy, sell your car or something and advertise more.

Extra Labor Savings Found:

A COALITION push to discredit Labor leader Mark Latham was derailed yesterday when Treasury said Australia would be $133 million better off under Labor savings policies.

Shafted.

Here's something to cheer up anyone thinking the Coalition might win it - Chris Sheil confidently predicts an ALP win.

More Polling Stuff
Award for worst wording of a sentence ever when regarding percentages:

After transfers are taken into account, the poll puts support at 51 per cent for Labor and 49 for the Coalition, though 12 per cent of respondents said they were still undecided, leaving the election wide open with nine full days of campaigning to go.

It also seems that vote buying doesn't really work, and that two thirds of people will have Iraq on their minds when they go to vote.

I'm Ready To Lead, He's Ready To Leave
ALP campaign launch was today. And did the olds ever score or what! If you're over 75, all your medical stuff is covered. That was the biggie. Others were quarterly pension adjustments, allowances for grandparents with custody of their grandkids, and other stuff.

The Australian Health Association, Catholic Health Australia, Australian Nursing Federation, Health Services Union, veterans, and the ACTU reckoned the Medicare Gold policy rocked. So did my grandma (but she's fiercely pro-Labor anyway).

But there was still one old fart that didn't like it...

"Mr Latham's speech is completely devoid of any plan to keep the economy strong into the future and interest rates low."

- Guess who?

Yes, good old Johnny. Funny how he can say that when his only "plans" to "keep interest rates low" in his speech were "we run strong budgets" and "Labor's IR policy is the spawn of Satan." WOW! I FEEL INSPIRED!

He's going to be hanging around Melbourne tomorrow, so hopefully Ms Fits will flash her panties at him. Or hit him with a brick. Either way.

Bob had this to say about the speech:

"I must say I think there is a freshness about the Latham package which will win points with the electorate. There is a flavour of that emerging in the campaign, that there's a little bit of staleness about the government and about the prime minister."

- Bob Brown

• SMH: Latham: I'm Ready To Lead
• News Ltd: Pensioners Win Big With Latham
• ABC: Latham To Do "Whatever It Takes"

The Daily Telegraph doesn't like Latham, but I think they were impressed.

Lozza reckons Howard will be gone within a year if he wins this election.

And in closing, a chunk of a longer interview where Howard makes himself look like a tossbag.

JOURNALIST: How have you changed the psychology of Australia and Australians during your eight-and-a-half years of government?

PRIME MINISTER: Oh, that is an incredibly sort of reflective question to ask me on a day like this. I mean, perhaps, you know, over a cappuccino or a latte or something or other you might like to…you could bring all your friends along as well. I think Australia is a more self-confident country now than it was in 1996. I think it has a greater sense of belief in its own separate identity. I don't think it agonises over its cultural identity. I think it just thinks it's in pretty good shape. It certainly has a sense of wellbeing but it retains its traditional commitment to a fair go and a sense of compassion but that we are a fortunate prosperous country and the dominant decision people have got to make is, who is better able to keep it that way. Who is better able to maintain that prosperity, not take it for granted, not assume that we'll always be there, but who's better able to maintain that prosperity and to keep their interest rates low. I think those things do play on the minds of Australians and so they should because you can't take these things for granted.

The Ando Zone: Episode 1

I made a pretty little banner, as that other graphic was just too big.

Unfortunately, all has been extremely quiet on the Ando front...

Except today he managed to call Tony Windsor a coward for going to the police over his claims that someone had bribed him with a diplomatic posting to get him to stand down.

"I am singularly unimpressed by what I see as an act of cowardice."

Go Ando! To hell with those chickenshits that believe in integrity in government!

And then he continued:

"Who in the National Party, apart from me in consultation with the PM and foreign minister, could have offered somebody a diplomatic posting? It could only have been me."

Awesome! Case closed then.

He also claims that water reforms are the nation's greatest environmental breakthrough. That's right, refusing to sign Kyoto sort of killed a lot of competition for this prestigious honour.

"So who was it that provided the greatest environmental breakthrough in the last Parliament? Me and the Nationals."

I know every time I brush my teeth, have a shower, take a dump, the first thing I think of is my undying gratitude for John Anderson. Then I think "I wonder where I'll be in 118 weeks time."

Pregnant Sex Scandals is the topic on Jerry Springer on Fox8 tonight. I'm wondering if we'll see a certain politician on.

Major News

In Latham's entire campaign address today, he said "ease the squeeze" once. Looks like he's winning the battle against addiction to bad catchphrases.

Compare this to Howard saying "interest rates" 19 times in his.

Church Party Won't Support Three Liberals:

FAMILY First, the party backed by the Assemblies of God, has confirmed it will not swap preferences with lesbian Queensland Liberal candidate Ingrid Tall or parliamentary secretary Warren Entsch, who supports gay marriage.

However, Family First said it would swap preferences with Ross Cameron, the Liberal MP for Parramatta who last week moved out of his family home after publicly confessing to an affair while his wife was pregnant with twins.

Insert lots of question and exclamation marks here.

Well, looks like I was way off about the election reasons. Rob says this:

This is not a double dissolution. The G-G has the power to dissolve the House of Reps, and does so on the advice of the PM. He can do this whenever he likes, but practical considerations (for example, keeping Senate elections in line with HoR elections) limit the time available to do it.

And Nomes goes into more detail:

This is not a double dissolution election, but a half-Senate. This is the usual state of events - to enshrine state rights only half the Senate goes at once. As each Senator has a two-election term, there is little turnaround, which causes a certain stability. A double dissolution is truly a shake up.

Double dissolutions were a big feature of the Fraser years and the Hawke Government years but seem to have gone the way of the dinosaurs because the Howard Government has been too frightened to use it. You are right that when supply is blocked the Prime Minister can seek a double dissolution from the G-G, and hope to remove the blockage that way, but it's politically risky.

Why can Howard call an election when he wants to? Strictly he doesn't - he asks the GG to dissolve Parliament, and has to persuade the G-G that is is necessary and desirable. Clearly however the GG usually does what the PM wants - except for Whitlam. Three year terms are merely a convention. Fraser went twice in two years.

Thanks for clearing that up, people.

Election 2004 | Day 30 | Roundup

10 DAYS TO GO. Start counting down!

Centrebet has the Coalition at $1.28 and Labor at $3.30. Bah. Someone also put $200,000 on Howard to win today. That's gonna be painful. :P

As far as ordinary polls, I give up. So does the SMH.

To MeggieMacGroovie, regarding "how come the PM can call an election whenever he wants?": This is from the murky depths of my memory, from back when my school did its Year 6 trip to Canberra in 1994, so it's most likely wrong. There is a set term of 3 years for a party to be in office, however, if the Senate knocks back a bill twice that the House Of Reps tries to pass, then the government has the right to call a double-dissolution election. Which is what this is. Howard could have done it ages ago, but opinion polls have constantly shown he would get his arse kicked. His back was up against the wall at the end of last month however, due to Mike Scrafton and the truth coming out about Tampa and everything, so he called the election to dodge the Senate inquiry and possibly get utterly drilled (otherwise the election would be in November sometime). That's my entirely skewed and uninformed perspective on it however. You should probably be asking someone who studies politics or whatever.

"The Australian Constitution provides for a bicameral system, that is, proposed laws must be agreed to by two differently constituted houses of parliament, as a safeguard against misuse of the law-making power. The Constitution also provides a method for resolving deadlocks which might arise in the event of a disagreement between the two houses. If the Senate twice fails to pass a bill from the House of Representatives, under certain specified conditions, the Governor-General may simultaneously dissolve both houses, in which case elections are held for all seats in both houses. This double dissolution procedure is the only exception to the rule of fixed terms for senators. If the deadlock persists after the elections the Governor-General may convene a joint sitting of the two houses to resolve the matter."

- Senate Briefs

Read more stuff here.

Note that I'm seriously not 100% sure on this so don't take it as gospel.

My Head Is Full Of Bacon
Unfortunately Pauline Pantsdown's I Don't Like It (first song to be left off the Hottest 100 due to legal action) doesn't look like it'll be unbanned. Oh well. If you pick up the Rock Against Howard album, there's a song on the second disc where John Howard gets the Pauline Pantsdown treatment. It rocks.

Interest Rates
Regarding 14 financial institutions unanimously saying the government made no difference whatsoever when it came to interest rates:

"They are not always right. With great respect to those people, they haven't been right in the past and I'm not certain they're going to be right in relation to this. They're just asserting something. I'm pointing to field evidence."

- John Howard

Field evidence = interest rates under Labor back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Sure beats all that mathematical trickery!

In other news, the ALP wants to save the dolphins, and Howard is being a bastard. Tomorrow is going to be really interesting.

Howard bailed on the Kyoto Protocol, citing that it'd cut Australian jobs. How? I thought it'd create more jobs as companies would need to employ more people for R&D, etc.

And what an utter fucking joke this site is. So bad that whoever wrote it was too scared to attach their name to it. Whois info:

Domain name: mayorlatham.com

Registrant, Administrative, Technical, Billing Contact:
TAAML
Domain Admin (info@mayorlatham.com)
0000000000
Fax: 0000000
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN UNKNOWN
AU

...Which I'm fairly certain is technically illegal.

Still on the hunt for Andoisms... All is quiet.

Attack Of The Killer Religious Right

Piers Akerman reckons Family First are TOTALLY AWESOME. That's reason enough to be worried.

Net filtering is currently a voluntary act, the decision being made by the consumer. The Carrie's Mum Party want to make it mandatory.

CONSERVATIVE political newcomer Family First wants an annual levy of $7 to $10 on all internet users to fund a $45 million mandatory national internet filtering scheme aimed at blocking pornographic and offensive content at server level.

From Family First Seeks Net Gag.

Wow! Internet censorship! I thought this got shot down as a fucking stupid idea back in 2002?

Election 2004 | Day 29 | Roundup

Athena Starwoman New Polling Consultant
Okay, I seriously don't know what the deal is with polls. Roy Morgan did one the other day that put both majors 50/50, now News Ltd are putting Labor ahead. This follows polls from like 3 days ago that said the Liberals had their biggest majority since 1975 or something.

So if poll results fluctuate this massively over such a short period of time, what the hell is the point? Why not call the psychic hotlines in New Idea and ask them instead? Or decide it over a daily game of two-up? I have a magic eight-ball, we could use that!

Greens Stuff
For possibly the first time in history, there is a pro-Greens editorial piece in a newspaper. Amanda Lohrey of The Age asks Are Brown's Greens Really Feral?

Bob was in Brisbane today, launching the Greens' state campaign.

Bob also announced that the Greens had preferenced Pauline Hanson above Family First, because she's the least insane of the two. Unlike those silly Democrats. They're really up shit creek without a paddle right now.

Abbott Smells
Someone ran out of toilet paper today, so they decided to use the front of Tony Abbott's campaign office instead.

"You wonder why people would want to express themselves this way when there are perfectly acceptable ways of expressing themselves at the ballot box."

- Tony Abbott

I dunno, 11 days is a long time to hold a turd in.

Boom tish.

Australian Council Of Trade Unions
They've been slagging Howard's spending spree recently (so have Labor). Firstly over Howards plans to spend $289m making Australian Technical Colleges (why not just fund TAFE more?).

"He's too desperate, too dishonest to admit that a skills crisis has been created on his watch, so his answer is 24 technical schools, 7,000 students and performance contracts for principals. It's a joke."

- Sharan Burrow, ACTU President

And then on childcare plans, Shazza had this to say:

"Millionaire parents who can afford a full-time nanny that qualifies for in-home child-care benefits and carries out domestic chores including cleaning and ironing and shopping, stand to gain more than $200 a week in tax relief under the coalition's childcare rebate proposal At the same time, the majority of families with children in family day care or a child care centre will get as little as $6 a week extra."

Labor also announced childcare plans today, $1.6b worth of them. The main part of it is that families will score about one day's worth of free childcare a week. And he said "ease the squeeze" again. Gah.

No other big announcements from them. They're waiting for the formal campaign launch on Wednesday for all the cool stuff.

Voting Kicks Off
The first votes in Australia were cast today in Wallace Rockhole in the NT- and they went to Labor. The AEC has 379 remote polling stations, so people in the middle of nowhere can do their votes. The catch is they have to do it over a week earlier than everyone else, because of the distance factor.

And overseas voting also kicked off in London.

"I think the Howard cringe factor comes into effect over here," said Scott Plimpton, campaign manager for the ALP UK branch.

"Once Australians get out of the country and they see how we're viewed from afar they see the Howard government is an embarrassment internationally.

"Before I came overseas I was quite insular as to Australia's place in the world. The only things you tend to see of Howard in the press over here is him kow-towing to Bush, strutting around with the Queen."

Taken from World View On Overseas Votes.

Costello

"I'm not going to retire from politics."

Damn.

Interest Rates

"He spent $6 billion in one hour. He's the six billion dollar man, a bionic vote-buying machine."

- Mark Latham

While I still think this whole interest rates thing is a load of shit, it's good to see Labor using the Liberal's bullshit against them, saying Howard's spending will push up interest rates. And Ross Gittins says Labor Isn't A Big Economic Risk.

Questions
Is it just me, or has there been a slight shift away from bias towards the Liberal party in News Ltd-owned stuff in this past week?

And whats with Ando not making a goose of himself recently? I've made this pretty Ando Zone graphic and everything, and now I can't find anything to use it on. "Salinity isn't as bad as we thought!" doesn't cut it. Maybe someone's pulled him into line?

Finally: A funny piece on the whole pre-emptive strike fiasco. And also an article debullshitting Howard's campaign speech.

The Ando Zone

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as Kim Beazley's gut and as timeless as John Howard's ideals. It is the middle ground between ignorance and stupidity, between science and religion, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his limited knowledge. This is the dimension of unprovoked criticisms. It is an area which we call...

John and Pete about to pash on. 

Howard spends another day campaigning. 

Election 2004 | Day 28 | Roundup

Wow. So it looks like the NRL GF will be a non-event. Eastern suburbs tossbags versus a team that's brought the NRL into disrepute more times than any other team I can remember (and did that rape case ever get solved?). After Penrith got the arse last night, I was hoping North Queensland would do a fairytale today, but alas, it wasn't to be. Bah, who to cheer for now... It's like choosing between Family First and CEC.

Centrebet odds for the Coalition are $1.33, Labor $3.00 again. I blame that poll.

On a day where I thought not much happened, it turned out that a shitload did. Now to hammer through all these open tabs...

"My Husband Is Not A Liar"
So says Howard's wife. So if he's not a liar, what is he? Utterly incompetent? Which gets to be the subject of the new ALP ad:

"Have you noticed that when there's a crisis, a mistake, a backflip, misleading information, missing information, a blunder, an inquiry, a failure, an oversight or a cover-up... John Howard is never to blame? If John Howard isn't aware of what's going on, that's terrible. If he is, that's worse."

Sounds fun.

Open-Letter Writing Fever
Around about 380 academics from virtually every university in Australia sent Howard an open letter regarding Iraq. Headlines most likely will read "PM Rejects Iraq Letter" or something like that once again. But that's not all! Twenty medical experts are gearing up to send another open letter, demanding changes to the FTA with relation to the PBS. Ugh. Goddamn FTA.

And a bunch of musos have taken out ads in Drum Media and other mags, speaking out against Howard.

While we're on the subject, here's what Bob Mathews wrote to Howard 3 days prior to the Iraq announcement.

Can you remember the last time so many people were this pissed off with the government?

Time To Go John has also launched - which is a set of anti-Howard short films.

Liberal Campaign Launch
In amongst mentioning interest rates 19 times in the one speech, Howard made with the non-core promises at the formal campaign launch today. There's an arseload of stories around so I'll just put a list up of a few:

• PM in $6bn help for families
• What shall we do with the drunken sailor?
• Latham labels Howard's speech a $6bn vote grab
• From the book of John, hymns for the disciples
• Now $6 billion for Howard's heroes
• Howard falls back on some ugly old reliables
• Spree puts interest rates under pressure
• Drunken spender giveth and giveth ... but not with a glad heart
• PM's spending spree will push up rates: Labor
• Message pushes right buttons
• Crazy John's gone reckless: Latham

Costello
He's said that he's contemplating leaving politics after Christmas, if he can't get leadership. So who would be next on the list? I'd like to see Tony Abbott as the Liberal leader, but in opposition, and with him having to step down before an election. It'd rule. He's such an utter twat; it'd be the most interesting government term ever, with Latham as PM and Abbott being an utter dick. But have him step down before he could do any actual damage.

A Tale Of Two Treasurers
Finally: Costello gets grilled on Sunrise. It rocks. Crean had a chat on the Insiders. Not as interesting but still alright.

And so ends this badly cobbled together post. I'm going to bed.

What the fuck? Talk about making a complete goose of yourself.

Election 2004 | Day 27 | Roundup

TWO WEEKS TO GO.

Nic: Yes, I realise 99% of religious people aren't like this. I just don't want Carrie's mum to be in any position of power.

Bob Mathews And John Howard
I wrote a tiny bit on this last night. Bob Mathews is the national expert on WMDs (says SMH, not me), and kept trying to tell Howard prior to the Iraq war that it was a bad idea. His superiors kept blocking him from seeing Howard, so three days before the decision to go to war, he ended up writing a letter and sending it not as a government official, but as a concerned citizen. Obviously Howard gave it a lot of thought, because we luckily didn't get involved in Iraq, and aren't partially responsible for the fucking over of an entire country and the deaths of thousands.

Latham Launches Pre-Emptive Strike On Downer

"He's made a lot of errors in recent times as foreign minister, I just don't think he's fit for the job. I find it horrifying that the foreign minister would be publicly talking about circumstances where it is understandable if another country attacked Australia."

- Mark Latham

That's Latho, predictably calling Downer an idiot, for commenting that it's perfectly fine for other countries to come over and bomb us.

Poll Fallout
So we still have this Herald poll showing Howard could win easily if the election was held this week. I really don't get it. He has performed like crap since the election even began, could possibly lose his seat in Bennelong (go Darp go!), yet all of a sudden the Coalition is ahead of Labor? No idea. Back Pages went into it.

Latham Visits
Latham spent yesterday hanging around Seven Hills, helping launch Ed Husic's campaign.

As far as Latham is concerned, no one is more of a westie than he. "You can say it's a political experiment, it's a political novelty, but I've always called it home ... I hope it says something about western Sydney and also the Australian Labor Party that if you can grow up in a public housing estate and get put through a government school and [have] a family that cares, years later you can be running to be prime minister."

So awesome. *dreamy girlish sigh*

"We're not in a campaign where we wander around to Penrith Stadium and drop money out of our pockets to marginal seats."

- Latho

Campaign Launches
Both major parties are formally launching their campaigns. Coalition tomorrow and Labor on Wednesday. Read more at The Age.

Oh For Fucks Sake...
Libs have announced $50m for the rollout of broadband. Wow. And to think we have Richard Fucking Alston, the former Liberal Greatest IT Minister In History, to thank for the current shitty rollout of it. Plus the whole Telstra monopoly thing that the ACCC never properly investigated thanks to him. I should devote a post to all of his fuckups and dodgy deals.

And The Rest
Labor announced $48m to improve cancer treatment. News Ltd are saying $112m though. *shrugs*

Howard is freaking out over delays in Labor approving their anti-terrorists advertisements. "Goddammit Labor! Look what you've done! If only those fridge magnets were out a day earlier!"

The Dems are scared that the Coalition could own the Senate. I think I'll vote Dems, then Greens, then ALP, then the rest for my Senate vote. And for the House of Reps: ALP, Greens, Dems, indie, and I'm not sure whether to put the Liberals in front of the crazy religious parties or not.

News Ltd are reporting the ALP wants to review Woolies/Coles and their petrol dockets.

And one of Howards kids is helping Bush get re-elected. Friends in high places, hey?

Umm. I really can't think of a caption for this. 

John Howard appears to continually use the Tampa crisis, the Children Overboard saga, the war in Iraq, the Bali bombing and most recently the Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta as reasons why we can’t afford to get rid of the Coalition - after all, who do we trust more? A Government who has been through such crises and who will undoubtedly know what to do during future incidents, or a new and naive Government, led by unproven upstart Mark Latham?

This strikes me as incredibly daft. It’s like me telling you all that I’m a great driver and that as my passenger, you have nothing to fear as I have been involved in fifteen smashes, thus I obviously know my way around a crash site. Therefore, I should continue being designated driver since I am the most experienced at being behind the wheel during an accident.

I love Jess.

Election 2004 | Day 26 | Roundup

Interest Rates
Oh this is beautiful.

The world's leading financial houses have rejected the Government's scare campaign against Labor on interest rates, predicting a change of government would make absolutely no difference to future rate moves.

A survey yesterday by Reuters found that all 14 financial institutions prepared to forecast future interest rates said the peak level of rates in the next three years would be the same whoever was in power.

I hope this makes front page news tomorrow and Labor runs with it. It'd be the best way Howard could go out - completely defeated after basing his election campaign on a lie. Forever to be remembered like that. Here's hoping anyway. I mean there's been a lot of stories showing why his claim is full of shit, but to have 14 financial institutions say the same thing, well, it has a heap of weight. Robert Corr digs into it more in a great post.

Nationals Fuckup

"There should be no reason why a very well resourced and high profile and highly resourced public school should not be able to charge some sort of fee to attend it."

Unfortunately, that wasn't Ando. It was Kay Hull, making a fool of herself for the National Party. She denies she embarrassed the party. Oh well, try harder next time. News Ltd has a nice roundup of insane education policies the Coalition are looking at.

Cameron Gets The Boot
Ross Cameron, Liberal MP for Parramatta, has been kicked out of home, after recently admitted he was boning another woman while his wife was preggers with twins. I sort of feel sorry for him with all the crap he's going through, but on the other hand, there's some things you just don't do, and he deserves everything thrown at him. The Chaser have been giving him lots of shit over this whole thing.

Coalition In Cahoots With Crazy Religious Party
Following on from my bitch about Family First, we now have the Coalition doing preference deals with them.

"I think that it's a watershed moment for Australian history that a new party can have influence even prior to the federal election going ahead," Family First SA Senate candidate Andrea Mason said.

I think its a fucking scary moment in Australian history. Name one country that hasn't gone down the shitter whilst under the power of a religious party. The SMH has an interesing/scary writeup on Family First.

Downer: Idiot

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said it would be acceptable for another country to launch a pre-emptive strike on terrorist networks in Australia if Australia did not take action itself.

Enough said.

The SMH has scored a letter that Bob Mathews (apparently Australia's leading expert on WMDs) wrote to Howard prior to the Iraq war. Check it out.

The latest SMH poll puts Howard in an election-winning position, which goes totally against every other poll. Dunno if they've fucked up, or if it's something to be concerned about. Back Pages usually dissects these things nicely, but I think Christopher Sheil is most likely asleep right now.

Penrith Star, Page 5. 

The Prime Minister, John Howard, was asked yesterday to name one independent economist who supported his claim that rates would rise under a Labor government. "I don't need to invoke names," he said.

That's because there are none.

That's from PM Without Mates On Rates Claim. News Ltd is also running a story where the Reserve Bank states that falling house prices and rising mortages will be a problem, no matter who wins the election.

Election 2004 | Day 25 | Roundup and Religious Rantings

The problem with The Chaser Decides is that it goes by so fast. They started wrapping up, and I thought to myself "what the hell? It's only been going 5 minutes." The clock disagreed with me. Have to wait till next week now.

Howard is doing the vote-buying thing with regards to stadiums, this time down in Melbourne.

Today was quite slow. News Ltd's election page is basically the same as it was 24 hours ago. Aside from Ando opening his mouth, nothing really interesting has happened.

Idiotfactor Ten Billion
Although I think Alexander Downer made a stupid comment. That's what he's all about though, isn't he?

SOUTH Australian AFL teams had a better chance of winning premierships under a coalition government, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday.

Enough said.

An old lady told Latham to bring back the biff... and yeah, that's pretty much it.

Attack Of The Killer Howard
Here's how the rest of the world sees Howard's pre-emptive stance:

• Howard's anti-terror teams rejected (New Zealand)
• Malaysian FM urges Howard to exercise caution on pre-emptive strikes (China)
• Campaign rhetoric heats up in Australia (China)
• Alex Downer plays down 'hairy-chested' comments (Taiwan)
• Aussie pre-emptive strike plan just an election ploy? (Singapore)
• Australia Won't Conduct Anti-Terrorism Strikes on Asian Allies (USA)
• Howard terror plan gets brush-off (Britain)
• Howard unveils anti-terror plan (Taiwan)
• Australia says Asian anti-terror allies not targets of pre-emptive strikes (all of Asia)
• Security row fires Australian poll (USA)
• Howard vows to base anti-terror teams in Asian nations (Taiwan)
• Malaysia warns Australia over pre-emptive strike threat (Asia)

Freaky Minor Parties
I'm poking through the list of candidates for my electorate. Aside from the usual Labor/Liberal/Greens/Democrats, there's four other parties and one indie. How come each of these four other parties seems completely insane? Why is it only complete nutcases seem to want to register new parties? Do the Big Four parties satisfy everyone's needs for normalcy? I have:

The No GST Party. Its founders are former One Nationers David Oldfield (who used to work for Tony Abbott), and David Etteridge. I can't find any information on them on the net, but seriously, a party that has a policy as the name of it can't be mentally stable.

"What's your policy on immigration?"
"Well, we won't charge them GST."
"Tasmanian old-growth logging?"
"So long as it doesn't involve GST."

And so on.

The Family First Party. There's been a lot written about these people in the news and on the net lately (Crikey, Daily Flute, policies lists). Basically because they're TOTALLY FUCKING INSANE RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. They also have links to known musical terrorist, al-Guy-Sebastian. Religion and politics mix about as well as kerosene and orange juice. Religious parties should be completely banned outright.

Citizens Electoral Council. Go browse their website. It sounds like the crazed rantings of a uni student protester, mixed with the crazed rantings of someone who lives in a bomb shelter. Take this paragraph picked at random:

If mankind is to survive the death of globalisation, it must take inspiration from the greatest periods of renaissance in the past, to establish a new worldwide renaissance. This new renaissance will accompany and inspire the establishment of a new, just world order, a New Bretton Woods international monetary system. Lawfully, the most enlightened cultural periods of past Western civilisation each reflected a renaissance upsurge within the three great religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is from those renaissance highpoints in each religion, that one finds the profound ecumenical basis so urgently needed to avoid the present drive toward a "Clash of Civilisations". The basis of such true ecumenicism among the "children of Abraham", is their shared belief that all mankind, man and woman alike, are created in the living image of God, by virtue of the unique, cognitive qualities of the individual human being, creative capabilities which no animal possesses. If God is the Creator of all, then only mankind, which alone among living creatures possesses its own divine spark of creativity, is in God's image. To the extent that all human beings, of whatever colour, religion or cultural origin, view themselves - and therefore each other - in that way, then we will have established the basis for solving the present, existential crisis in which mankind finds itself.

OH. MY. GOD.

And lastly, the Christian Democratic Party. Wow, alarm bells are going off already. Here's their policies. While probably the least insane of the bunch, religion is flowing strongly and their preferences are going to Family First. Plus Fred Nile's eyebrows look suspiciously like Howard's, but bleached. Check out the blurb down the side of the main page from Robert Moyes, particularly this crazy attack on the Greens:

They decry the Christian faith, they advocate stopping all funding to non-government schools, they would force schools and churches to employ homosexuals, they would legalize euthanasia, abortions, same sex marriages, ecstasy, speed and heroin, reduce the water held in dams, ban new jails, attack the RSL, allow pornography, unrestricted brothels and so on. In most of these matters the Australian Democrats join with the Greens. Senators from both parties include homosexuals living in sexual relationships.

So sick of this hypocritical bullshit. They want multicultural laws that "unite and not divide," meaning they're nice and tolerant of whatever race/gender/whatever you are, but if you're homosexual (being that people have a choice in the mattery, like how they can choose what race, culture and gender they want to be) you will go to hell and burn for eternity!

And so concludes my badly written writeup on whacked out religious parties, finishing with an attack on the CDC that I feel wasn't harsh enough, but I'm too tired to go researching more stuff.

Politics should be based on what is happening today. Not off a 2000 year old book. Says me anyway.

More On ADI Site Related Stuff

"We secured from the Government a commitment at the last election that they would not sell off government-owned land without consulting with the local community. Now we find... they have their fingerprints over a secret deal, which the community would not have been even made aware of, had we not been able to uncover this information at the eleventh hour."

- David Bradbury, Penrith Mayor + Federal ALP Candidate

That's taken from Cranebrook Sell-Off Broke Promise: ALP.

Hmm. The land was sold off by Airservices Australia (they do air traffic control stuff), to Infracorp. Airservices Australia is a government-owned organisation, yet the public wasn't told about this at all. Double hmm.

Infracorp sent a letter to the ASX on the 30th of July, announcing that it bought the land and intends to develop it. Sounds like a lot of public consultation went on (yes, that was sarcasm).

The Labor candidate for the seat of Lindsay, David Bradbury - who is the current Penrith mayor - said the sale of the Cranebrook site, and the revelation of the in-house environmental report on western Sydney lands - smacked of secrecy, and suspicious upcoming deals.

"As the Cranebrook example shows, there may well have been some consultation with developer interests, but there has been no consultation with local community interests," he said.

The member for Lindsay, Jackie Kelly, broke her silence on the issue yesterday and called on the council to block any efforts to rezone the land.

"I will continue to fight against over-development for the people of western Sydney," she said.

So Jackie at last speaks! The question is, why did she only speak now, given that she most likely would have known all about this back in July (and is supposedly against all this type of stuff)?

Infracorp stands to make a shitload of cash if council rezones the land.

And finally, Ian Campbell, Liberal Minister For The Environment, says a report finds that only 4 out of 28 sites in Western Sydney are worth saving.

He said that despite a council report suggesting the site had threatened species and rare woodlands, the Government's environmental assessment had uncovered no evidence to support such a conclusion.

The report still hasn't actually been released to the public.

This election has been so entertaining to follow. I really can't see why so many people can be so indifferent. 

Bah.

Mark Ptolemy had to take down his blog, thanks to people abusing the comments system and filling it with porn links and insults. Bored Year 7 students, or something far more sinister (Young Liberals)? We'll never know.

If Australia Was Iraq, What Would It Be Like?

Interesting reading.

Ando Update

Ando (apparently now a security expert) is at it again! This time saying it's possible that the Virgin bomb scare hoax was done by trade unions.

The Pilots Federation IR manager, Laurie Cox, had this to say:

"The Deputy Prime Minister has made a statement which I believe is highly irresponsible at this point in time. [I] think it [is] about time the Government had a fair look at it's aviation policies. It is completely out of control, we've seen that on airspace, now we have stupid statements coming out like 'this is a union stunt' to do something about security."

I'm going to make a little The Ando Zone graphic and stuff when I get enough free time.

The Chaser Decides

Don't forget! The Chaser Decides starts tonight at 9 on the ABC, after Kath & Kim!

Election 2004 | Day 24 | Tax and Roundup

Firstly, a bit of an update on Costello and arithmetic.

Peter Costello stepped up his attack on Labor's tax and family plans, but it might backfire.

The Treasurer claimed Labor's tax policy is underfunded by $2.7 billion, even though he has not seen all the documentation behind its calculations.

Many of the figures he disputes are not simple arithmetic errors but involve complex economic assumptions, open to debate and interpretation.

Labor was dismissive.

"Mr Costello's claims are desperate and they're untruthful," said the shadow treasurer, Simon Crean.

And Costello's attack is high stakes. He is now at odds with two of the most respected economic modelling experts - the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) and the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - which did the numbers for Labor's policy.

Oh I'd love to see this explode in his face. There's some more stories - Dodgy Figures Claim Denied By Labor, Crean Defends Policy Costings, Costello Finds "Raft Of Errors" In ALP Tax Plan, Labor's Sums "Wrong By $700m," Costello's $700m Tax Debate Backfire.

Wheee. The two organisations that went through the plan with a fine-toothed comb have also done work for the Treasury in the past.

And the rest in short because I need to sleep:

Mark Ptolemy is pissed off over the anti-Greens leaflet distributed by the Liberals.

Both Labor and Liberal returned all their donations from James Hardie, into funds for asbestos victims. Labor did it a month ago, Howard preferred to wait until the court findings were handed down.

Labor wants to put $1b into hospitals, but the funding will come from the states. There's a mixed reaction.

Todays Telegraph reported that the whole branch-stacking allegations was a load of crap (remember though, the Tele reported it), and there was a big editorial piece on it too. Can't find it online though.

Finally, Howard announced vouchers of $800 for each apprentice so they could buy tools. Umm. Yeah. The ACTU reckons its stupid and does nothing to fix skills shortages.

The ADI Site

I haven't really followed the million year long story of the ADI site fight, so if I get my facts wrong, feel free to kick me in the head.

Firstly, I would like to write the answer to the question that has been plaguing me since I ever heard about this all those years ago:

Q: What does ADI stand for?
A: Australian Defence Industries.

Thankyou Google. Now I can at last sleep at night.

So, the ADI site story goes like this: There's 1545ha of bushland near St Marys, playing host to all sorts of plant and animal life, including but not limited to kangaroos, cockatoos, frogs, echidnas, emus, falcons, snakes, koalas, and all sorts of other stuff. So it's a heap of bushland, not unlike what you see in national parks and whatnot. It is publicly owned land... but Comland and Lend Lease want to knock it all down, develop 5000 houses, and stick an industrial area in it. Lovely. There's been big fights going over this for ages, and they're still continuing. Read more about the whole deal over at the ADI Residents Action Group.

Lagoon inside the site.


One side ADI, the other side St Marys.

The lovely Naomi (who from here on I will call Nomes, due to my habit of giving everyone either one syllable nicknames, or ending them with "o" or "za") gave me a heads up on this story the other day, but I couldn't find it anywhere on the net and ended up forgetting about it. Counter Spin gave it an airing, and linked to an article. Jackie Kelly backflips over this each season, so this latest development is interesting. Here's whats going on:

A huge parcel of redundant government land next to the controversial ADI military site has been sold to an undisclosed buyer for a secret sum - with the deal likely to be settled days before the federal election.

The federal agency responsible for air navigation and safety, Airservices Australia,confirmed yesterday it had reached agreement to dispose of the 181-hectare site, at the edge of Cranebrook.

It is opposite the 1545-hectare ADI site, scene of a decade-long environmental challenge which has failed to stop the planned construction of 5000 homes in one of Sydney's biggest urban developments.

Airservices sold the Cranebrook lot as it is, meaning the prospective owners will inherit some disused sheds and a few broken-down communication towers. On face value, it could be a lucrative subdivision prospect. But, like the ADI site, environmental studies have suggested the land has at least two vulnerable species of plant, as well as rare forest and woodland traces.

How intriguing! This land is right next to the ADI site and features a few of the same characteristics, and has been sold off - but strangely enough nobody knew that it was sold until today. With the level of scrutiny that goes on regarding this place, you'd assume that it would have been front page news in the local papers for the past month. But no, absolutely nothing at all, until today. Surely good old Jackie would have known about it, and brought it up, seeing as though she loves the environment so much? Surely she'd have something to say?

Sink me! For days Mike Carlton, 2UE's breakfast announcer, had been desperately seeking Jackie Kelly, the Liberal MP for Lindsay, to break her silence on the secret sale of Commonwealth land near Cranebrook. He was at it again early yesterday, indulging in a little theatrics for his listeners, lamenting how Kelly had become suddenly so invisible.

That's from today's Election Diary.

What to make of all this? Who knows. Something is definitely up though. The Penrith Press (and Penrith Star) will no doubt feature a heap of coverage on it as of the next issue, so I'll find out more then.

Costello: Makes Pythagoras Look Like An Idiot

The Simon Crean of the Liberal party (except Costello has no balls) today claimed that Labor's tax policy was wrong by $700m.

(now watch me put the spin on this, this site is Completely Biased after all)

Is this a case of pot kettle black, considering Costello's budget surplus turned out to be $3.5 billion off his predictions, or that $3 billion in GST revenue had "unexpectedly" appeared? That's like $6.5 billion out of whack, yet he's claiming Labor can't add?

It shits me that News Ltd will report evil doings against Liberal candidates, but when it's anti-Greens or anti-Labor, nothing gets said.

The Ando Files

Hack Watch has suggested doing a John Anderson special. It isn't a bad idea. Could have a whole post devoted to Andoisms. Maybe a new term could be introduced into the English language! "Getting Andoed" - where someone makes wild and stupid unprovoked statements, damaging their own reputation and pissing off a whole group of people.

"You know what?! I cheated on this exam, and I think you're a shitty teacher!"
"Oooh, he's just Andoed himself/done an Ando."

Anyway, latest on the Ando trail is that he's said he'll step down as leader of the Nationals if they lose seats. Why?! He could have merrily gone on his way acting like a tool and nobody would have said anything, but now he's gone and created a condition for himself that'll most likely see him looking for another job after October 9. Stupid, stupid man.

Election 2004 | Day 23 | Roundup

Centrebet have the Coalition on $1.33 and Labor on $3.00 once again.

If you absolutely hate yourself and enjoy playing really bad Flash games, The Bulletin have one up called Election Invaders.

The ALP have all their TV ads online in MPEG format. My favourite at the moment is the education one.

Half the Liberal party site doesn't work in Firefox/Mozilla properly (ie. the links up the top). It shits me. I thought all government websites had to follow standards or something?

Time Magazine has a good article that delves into interest rates and the economy, and is worth a read.

Howard The Gymnast
Howard has been backflipping and imploding and everything over this whole pre-emptive strike. Today he's telling south-east Asia that no, what he meant about pre-emptive strikes is that he wouldn't be doing them without taking Labors route first.

"I wasn't saying that we were going to launch an attack against another country."

- Howard

Really? Because yesterday I got the impression you were fully prepared to attack another country if something happened.

Best line from this ABC article?

Mr Howard insists he would not attack another country without its cooperation.

"Yeah, hang on a sec, I think we have some nukes out the back here that you can bomb us with, it's all good."

Labor's foreign affairs man, The Ruddmeister, had this to say:

"Now, what we have revealed is that Foreign Minister Downer at the same time is privately, in diplomatic conversations in Canberra, telling the diplomatic corps, including Indonesian and other South-East Asia representatives that don't worry, the Howard government is not serious about this. What the prime minister has done in the election context is come out sounding very hairy-chested, I presume in his belief that this is electorally appealing to the Australian community but at the same time is doing continuing foreign policy and national security policy damage in terms of our relationship in the region."

Downer and Howard don't appear to be on the same wavelength with regards to this whole thing. Could this be the issue that costs them the election? Probably not, but it is a monumental fuckup.

Schools
The Australian has a stupid editorial, titled Lessons In Division Don't Add Up. It attempts to break down Labor's private schools education policy into insiders vs outsiders, then says its stupid and full of contraditions, and you just can't do that kind of thing with policies.

Us = Insiders.
Refugees = Outsiders.

Worked pretty well for Howard there.

Teacher's unions are urging parents to vote for non-Liberal parties, as basically every single one of them has a better policy than Howard.

Anderson Again
He's now claiming Labor is "salivating" at the thought of governing with the Greens. Yes, of course, you moron. I'm sure they start slobbering uncontrollably at the thought.

Ca-Ching!
Indie MP Tony Windsor says he'll name who tried to bribe him into not running for re-election, but only if he's asked to do so in front of an inquiry. Centrebet should have a thing going on which party it was.

TV Stuff
Labor wants to bring the World Cup back to free-to-air TV, as Foxtel bought all the rights to it when the Liberals changed the laws earlier this year to allow them to do that. They also want to change the anti-siphoning laws so that FTA sports that networks decided not to screen (say hi to Channel 7 and rugby) could be shown on pay TV. Plus $105m for the ABC (including funding for a digital kids/youth multichannel! Imagine a Triple J-esque version of Channel V! The return of Behind The News! Introduced legislation to remove any bias from the ABC!), getting Telstra to get rid of its stake in Foxtel, and the fourth FTA TV network is on the cards still! Woo! Most of the details on the ABC/film policy are on the ALP site. I'm just getting giddy thinking about all the multichanneling possibilities.

I want to sleep now. Read about the chaos that is the electorate of Wentworth (more here), then wonder how come this feels like the most badly written post I've made on Blogger.

This is the third piece of glossy crap Kezza has sent me in as many weeks. Interestingly enough, Jackie Kelly's junk follows the exact same format and colour scheme. Is this the same for all Liberal junk mail around the country? 

Election 2004 | Day 22 | Yeah, You Know The Drill

I seriously have to write this earlier in the evening instead of just before I go to bed each night. It's wrecking my sleeping patterns and all the news is stale by now. Argh.

I have been searching through the Australian Bureau of Statistics site trying to figure out how many people in Australia are in a single income family, making under $35,000, with three kids (one under five). It just seems like such an obscure statistic that I want to know what percentage of the population is in it. Can't find it anywhere at all on there though. That site is like a giant mirror maze.

Western Sydney Bribes
Mushroom asked me what I thought about the Panthers Stadium upgrade. I think it is a complete load of crap and something that Panthers and the NRL should be involved in, NOT the government. It'd be like Howard announcing funding to stack another level on the Plaza or something. It isn't as if Penrith Stadium even needs the money. Not only does the biggest leagues club in the southern hemisphere run the place, but virtually every game this season has been nearing capacity crowds, and sponsorship is on pretty much everything.

"These funds, that's the $10 million, will enable the playing surface to be replaced..."

- Howard in Penrith on Sunday

I fail to see how someone can spend $10 million replacing dirt and grass.

Possibly it'll go towards increasing the capacity, which leads to more business for the NRL and Penrith, and once again is something that the government should have no involvement in whatsoever.

And don't get me started on UWS again. But while nobody did, I've just gotten myself started on it by mentioning it.

UWS has had to axe degrees whilst students are halfway through them, sprawl subjects over campuses, bury books, and do all sorts of other shit because the government has been raping them with regards to funding for the majority of this decade. A UWS degree should command ten times as much respect as other universities as you'll have to endure a whole lot more bullshit and hardship to get it. And now, lucky us! Election time comes and they want to fix it all. Will people believe them after almost a decade of shitfights with the Uni? It shrieks "non-core promise" to me.

The Daily Telegraph reckons all of Western Sydney will continue to vote Liberal. Apparently we really are that stupid. Although anything the Telegraph publishes should be held under a blowtorch for a week before it can be believed as fact. Newspolls released today said the ALP would have won the election if it was held yesterday.

Bomb The World
Ooh! I was waiting for Piers The Fuckwit to write a piece slagging Latham for not willingly launching pre-emptive strikes on other countries, and he has! Sometimes I wonder if he personally disagrees with what he's writing, but has to fill a quota of pro-Howard articles or something.

Since Beslan, though, Russia has declared it will fight terrorists wherever they are. Surely this is the position that must be adopted if international terrorists are to be eliminated.

That's a brilliant idea Piers! That way everyone on the planet can go about their lives living in fear of being nuked not by terrorists, but by other countries that suspect we have terrorists! Fuck it! Why stop there?! Let's just bomb some random countries we don't like! I'm sure launching a few at Indonesia, with a population nearly 6 times the size of us, wouldn't carry any consequences whatsoever! I'm sure there's some American terrorists that don't like Australia too! Let's shoot a few bombs over there! That'll show them who's boss! Japan had a few submarines over here in World War 2 - they could be planning something else. Let's flatten Hiroshima again! I don't much like New Zealand either. Those sheep are probably planning something. I think our only option is to sink it. The Teletubbies came from Britain, and they're pretty funny looking. Definite terrorist material. Back to horses and carts for you!

Oh this is awesome. Bomb the shit out of other countries and don't expect anything worse in return. Howard truly is the smart option. Thankyou Piers, you have opened my eyes to the stupidity of my left-wing ways.

Australians can't afford to risk their security by taking the Latham option on defence.

Defence or Offence?

Kimbo also had a go at Howard on the pre-emptive strike thing.

"Why doesn't the Prime Minister pre-empt? Why doesn't he attack them? It's known now where they are and he can attack them, but the point is he doesn't do that - he doesn't do that because it would poison our relationship with them [South-East Asia] permanently."

So would that make Howard a (shock horror) liar?

Malaysia also told Howard to get stuffed. And then Latham did it as well!

Scandalous!
What other shit happened today? Oh! Two stories. The first being claims from someone that hates Latham, that he was involved in branch-stacking a few years back. Odds are this is probably true, as while unethical, it is frequently done within all political parties. The second being Tony Windsor, an independent in New England with nothing really against any party, was offered a diplomatic posting if he withdrew himself from running for re-election in his seat (totally illegal). The seat was previously held by right-wing parties for 82 years, until he won it in 2001. A spokesman for Howard said "no such offer was made with [the Prime Minister's] authority or knowledge." Which, let's face it, as this excuse has been used so many times before for anything that goes wrong with Howard, basically confirms Howard had everything to do with it.

The Rest
And other shit:

Labor plans to completely phase out plastic bags by 2007.

And they want to freeze line rental costs with Telstra for their first term, check out SMS pricing (it costs about half as much in the rest of the world than it does here), put in a cooling off period for buying a new mobile, and, best of all, bring in a do-not-call list for telemarketers. OH GOD YES.

And lastly, the sky is blue, water is wet, and Tony Abbott is still a dickhead.

Bahahaha!

Go Barto!

Even inanimate objects think so! 

If I'm deliriously happy on October 9, do you reckon Howard will announce his retirement in his concession speech? He might as well; there's no point sticking around as Opposition Leader for 2/3 of a term.

Election 2004 | Day 21 | Doing The Roundup Thing

Yeah, I'm a lazy disappointment: I slept in and sorta kinda missed the whole Howard bribing the commoners scene at Penrith today, unfortunately. No doubt he'll be back in a few weeks pretending to support businesses on High Street when the Plaza expands, or some other lie. It'll be interesting (and possibly incredibly depressing) to see if everyone around here will fall for this shit or remember the ADI site, UWS (remember the book burying scandal last year?), Badgery's Creek, etc.

"If the people of Parramatta want their interest rates low, they should vote for him."

- John Howard, somehow under the impression that Ross Cameron runs the Reserve Bank

PM Cutting And Running On Family Payment Crap?
The ABC seems to be the only news source running this story (update: the SMH has caught onto it too):

The Federal Opposition says a leaked cabinet document shows Prime Minister John Howard only agreed to a $600 per child payment to families as a short-term political fix, in the lead up to the election.

Interesting! Howard doesn't actually deny it, just dodges the accusation.

The John Anderson Show
Deputy PM John Anderson once again damaged the Coalition campaign by making stupid comments, this time telling everyone that voting for independents was a waste. Seriously, I'm waiting for him to claim that all Australians are stupid fuckwits or something similar.

Howard The Warlord
Pre-emptive strikes. Howard supports them, Latham doesn't.

So, are you willing to bomb/invade/whatever other countries because intelligence reports (which have been oh so reliable under Howard) say a terrorist threat is imminent in Australia? If this was the case, wouldn't the terrorists be in Australia? If you knew something was going to happen, wouldn't you probably know what it was going to be and therefore be able to stop it. And what right do we have to go bombing other countries at all? Does this mean we can then expect other countries to come invading us if they think we're plotting anything (because it'd only be right for them to respect us as much as we respect them)?

"Isn't it better to say that you'll do things in co-operation in a proper fashion, work collaboratively with our neighbours to ensure we deal with these threats?"

- Latham, leaving violence as the last option instead of the first

Howard is all for even more insane anti-terrorism measures, instead of providing funding and education to poverty-stricken areas, in an attempt to kill root causes.

Howard Acts Predictably
Here we go, claiming his attacks on Latham's time aren't personal.

Mr Howard said everything he or Mr Latham did in public life was up for scrutiny, but he would not indulge in personal attacks.

Because indulging in personal attacks would just be low, wouldn't it? The media is also obsessing over where Latham is planning on sending his 3 year old kid to a public or private school.

Here's one to cheer Clare up: Protest May Unseat Abbott, stating Bigears is in danger of losing his seat to pissed off voters.

And that's it for tonight.

"Bill Gates is an exemplar to the capitalists of the world."

- John Howard, referring to a man whose company dominates any market they choose to enter, not by competing, but via unethical business tactics and leveraging of an illegal monopoly

"Zeig heil!" 

Read about Darp's experiences over the weekend.

Get angry.

And do something to get the Liberals the hell out of power.

Election 2004 | Day 20 | The Greens And Labor

Right. Firstly.

Latham Pulls The Chicks
A week ago, the Herald Sun (hi News Ltd) ran a story that said women have deserted Labor. Today the SMH ran a story saying women were progressively moving towards Labor. Which one to believe?

And today's big story...

The Greens/Labor/Liberal Love Triangle
Firstly, The Daily Telegraph are running a story saying "Howard Won't Do Deal With Greens." Isn't it meant to be the other way around, Greens Won't Do Deal With Howard? Or would that put Howard in a negative light? Or have I just been awake too long?

So the big story anyway, Labor and the Greens did a preference deal today. The Greens will preference Labor after the Democrats, but before the Liberals, and Labor will preference the Greens before the Democrats, One Nation, and the Liberals. None of this applies to Tasmania. This slightly increases Labor's chances of making government.

John Howard - If You Can't Tell The Truth, You Don't Deserve To Run A Country
The Liberals, never above lies and mudslinging (ever), intend to start slagging off Latham at the start of this upcoming week. So expect a lot of ads bagging him for his job as mayor of Liverpool Council (of which, under his leadership, was named the most successful reforming council in the state in 1995, according to findings by a Wollongong Uni study). Howard has never run a council, so he'd of course know what he's talking about.

Liberals Hope Riff People Are Morons
And this just fucking pisses me off. Howard is going to the Riff tomorrow to announce a bunch of fucked up funding promises in a cynical attempt to bribe Penrith's voters.

First off, I went to UWS for a year and a half and basically hated it. Other than the Liberals, it's my favourite thing to bag. However, just because it wasn't for me, doesn't mean it isn't for everyone. I have had friends that have stuck through and done the courses, some across three campuses due to subjects being dropped thanks to the Libs and funding cuts.

The Liberals have let UWS rot in shitty administration and massive underfunding for 8 years, now they want to buy some votes by throwing $20m at it - which makes you wonder why they cut all the funds in the first place.

Now, let's take a look at a few of Jackie Kelly's (Liberal MP for Lindsay) greatest hits:

• UWS cuts: Liberal MP Jackie Kelly fails to do her job
• Statistics at 50 paces as the professor and politician war over uni funding
• Ptolemy attacks UWS cuts
• UWS rejects government's IT sledging
• The aspirations of Jackie Kelly MP
• In Kelly country, fear and not much loathing
• UWS accuses Jackie Kelly of smear campaign
• UWS Staff Stop Work Targets MPs
• $50 fee to park (relating to funding cuts)
• University of hard knocks

Get the picture? Here's some choice quotes:

"Not a chance. Over my dead body. Never."

- Jackie Kelly, on UWS funding, just a few months ago

"No one in my electorate goes to uni."

- Jackie Kelly, proud of her city (2019 students at UWS are from Lindsay)

And funding for Penrith stadium? I mean, what the fuck? The biggest leagues club in the southern hemisphere is sitting across the street, run by the same people, and Howard is handing out funding?

Argh! Giving special treatment to marginal seats just seems so fucked up.

I was going to drop down to the Plaza tomorrow to pick up the Spazzys album, so I might stop in at the Joan Sutherland Centre with some eggs.

Centrebet odds for the Coalition have dropped again - $1.28 compared to Labor's $3.30. Who are these invisible fucking idiots that keep swinging towards Howard?!

OH MY GOD, I'M SEEING DOUBLE. 

Election 2004 | Day 19 | Roundup

I spent the entire afternoon/night upgrading my car audio system from a broken tape deck and speakers that suspiciously look like they're made out of paper, so I haven't really been following what's happening. Gotta get up early tomorrow too so this'll be a quick one.

I was just thinking, if Howard actually wins this election, what'll we do? There's so much riding on it, more (in my opinion) than any other election I can think of. So what if he wins? Will there be riots? Mass suicides? End of the world? It'd be like Skeletor beating He-Man, Dr Claw beating Inspector Gadget, the bad guy killing James Bond and getting away with his plan. I don't know how we can take another three years of Howard. Really, I don't. Imagine Australia in 3 years time under him, considering the point we're at now. Health care could be entirely user-pays, public schooling would be non-existant, only the rich would go to uni, a total lack of Australian content on TV, News Ltd owning every newspaper in Australia. And if we're stupid enough to vote him in this time around, what'll stop us voting him (or some other equally evil bastard running the Liberal party at that time) next time? Will you have any faith in humanity left? Will we continue on this road of... fuck, I don't know what to call it.

Centrebet odds have dropped for the Coalition again, $1.33 to Labor's $3.00. Apparently they're never wrong. They're also betting on whether or not Pauline Hanson will get in the Senate (leaning towards no at the moment).

An SMH poll shows support for Howard is on the increase. HOW?! I don't understand how the hell a weeks worth of promises that'll be broken can make up for 8 FUCKING YEARS of screwing everyone around. I think of people like cattle more and more every day. Or maybe goldfish.

Costello conveniently announced an "unexpected" GST windfall of $11.8b, most likely to defuse the shitfight going on with the states over water. So we have this massive intake of cash, plus the massive budget surplus, I dunno, it sort of seems to me that he's either extremely cheap when it comes to spending on Australia, or he's a shit treasurer if all this completely unexpected money keeps appearing.

Okay, and now for the most pointless waste of ink ever today - this story, courtesy of The Daily Telegraph:

Liberal MP for Robertson Jim Lloyd yesterday cut the ribbon on a dishwasher.

And stupidest person of the day goes to Ralph Hahnheuser, running for Senate by refusing to eat for three weeks. I'm sure he'll make a good impression meeting voters after two weeks.

And as far as goddamn whinging about reallocation for private school funds: boohoo, 111 get reduced funding. 2500 get increased funding. Yet there's a backlash.

While most people have forgotten about Afghanistan by now, Counter Spin linked to an article which is utterly shocking. Is this what you get to look forward to when America invades your country to establish "democracy"?

And this Liberal/Greens preference deal is bullshit, and always has been. News Ltd are the only ones that keep persisting with stories of it.

Finally, the ABC has a gigantic list of every candidate running. Unfortunately it's in alphabetical order, but you can click the links to your electorate and it'll have a list of everyone running in there. Or you can poke around the AEC site, but it's much less neat.

Some more sites that've popped up:

• 105reasons.org - 105 reasons not to vote for John Howard. Well, there's only 41 there at the moment, but you can submit your own if you want.
• End The Lies - This one is is for a nationwide rally on the Sunday before the election, calling for an end to the Howard government.

Mark Ptolemy finally updated his blog with a big slagging out of the Liberal party (re: the anti-Greens junk mail and other things). Go Mark!

Election 2004 | Day 18 | Giving You Today's News, After The Day Is Over

Does it seem that the Liberals have done pretty much jack shit in the way of policy announcements this election? All they seem to do is wait for Labor to announce something, then bag it out four hours later.

Murray River Stuff
Latham said Labor would give $500m to get more water flows for the Murray, to return 450GL of water back to the system within three years. And then they'd invest another $500m in the Murray Darling River Bank, which is an organisation in water infrastructure, catchment management programs, and private sector efficiency. Howard's response? "Too vague."

More Water Stuff
The state premiers have sent Howard a letter telling him how much of a dick he is for his plans to fund his water policy by cutting state funds. Thrilling. No doubt he'll reject it tomorrow.

More On The Anti-Greens Junk Mail
The Greens themselves have issued a press release denouncing the piece of crap that the Liberal party put out. New Matilda is also going into the whole thing, and so have Crikey apparently, but I'm not a subscriber or anything so I dunno for sure. Counter Spin have been doing a lot of work on it too, speaking to Scott Morrison about it. Hopefully this whole thing has backfired in the Liberal's faces.

In other Greens-related news, News Ltd are at it again, claiming the Greens want to abolish all the states.

"How on earth can you even contemplate removing the states? What will they call state of origin rugby games?"

- Tasmanian Minister Bryan Green.

Last time I checked, the ARU weren't running State Of Origin.

This story, amazingly enough, is exclusive to News Ltd. I should start scanning shit from The Daily Telegraph. Howard got on the bandwagon today too, urging everyone not to vote Green.

Mmmbop
Howard bagged out Pauline Hanson's policies, magically knowing what they were all even though she only applied to the AEC today. Latham stated that they wouldn't do a preference deal with her. Howard hasn't ruled it out.

Howard Sticks Fingers In Ears Again - Re: UN
Howard reckons UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is wrong on his claims that the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. Because an utter bastard of a PM, in a country of 20m, surely knows more than the Secretary-General of the UN.

"I haven't seen that report but the legal advice that we have, and I tabled it at the time, was that the action was entirely valid in international law terms, and that was a legal opinion that we obtained from the relevant people in Australia."

- John Howard, claiming the UN is wrong without actually bothering to read what they said

Dickheads In The Media
Piers Akerman has written his second article that makes him look like a fuckwit this week. Okay, so they always make him look like a fuckwit, but you know what I mean. I've never followed Victorian news but apparenly you people get a fuckwit called Andrew Bolt doing his thing. Who ever knew a gigantic walking penis could write? Hack Watch is keeping track of all these wonderful contributors of our society, and many more!

Howard's End are looking for the best possible slogan to stick on a fridge magnet. The best entry gets printed onto 5,000 of them, and distributed freely to people in Howard's electorate. Slogan Of The Day:

Young and free? Our PM's 65 & we lock up refugees.

Some crazy protester went and confronted Howard today. Does this shit actually work? Do people listen to them, or automatically write them off because what they're doing to get attention?

And the rest in brief:

• Labor wants to bring in a directly elected national indigenous organisation
• Latham says a 66% pay rise to Qantas directors is "pretty crook"
• Howard wants to hand out an extra $20m to local communities to fight crime

Plus a heap more things on private schools blah blah. It's dominating the news so you shouldn't have to look here for it.

Unrelated To Politics, It Was Just Pissing Me Off When I Was Writing This
And finally, this is unrelated to everything, but I just had to say it - The Daily Telegraph and the SMH are bitching that the Australian Idol fuckwits have only been nominated for unit sales, and not for album of the year or artist of the year in the ARIA awards. NEWSFLASH, DICKHEADS: If cardboard could sing, it'd have a deal with Idol. Their generic flavour of music brings nothing whatsoever to the industry except for TV ratings and CD sales. The day premanufactured bile from the popstar machine wins album of the year over actual talent is the day Australian music has gone to the shithouse (no, Delta doesn't fall in this category). Imagine a major art award. Could it be won by someone with a team of market researchers, concept designers, case studiers, someone sourcing everything, drawing the actual work up, then getting the artist to paint it, whilst having their hand held by a producer, then getting the work touched up by someone else? No, unless it was a postmodernist piece on raping away artistic merit for the sake of fast sales.