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.