Right Pulse

Abbott can’t win the election without winning seats in Western Sydney. With all the talk about over-population, lack of infrastructure, carbon emissions, etc… Abbott needs one major announcement that covers those issues and would kill off Gillard.

How about agree to help Barry O’Farrell build a high speed rail link for Western Sydney as part of a long-term plan to build high-speed rail between Newcastle – Sydney – Canberra?

Abbott could announce funding assistance for the scoping study, cost-benefit analysis, project office and risk mitigation – which is about as much as any party could be expected to do from opposition.

This idea has been kicking around for years. In fact at the last election Kevin Rudd proposed the idea, but of course it came to nothing. The system would be built, paid for and operated by a private contractor via a tender process.

The existing rail and ALP bosses have been opposed to the idea because it would offer direct competition to the existing slow City Rail, and all the union machination their involvement in infrastructure projects entail. However, former NSW Treasurer Michael Costa was reported to be in favour of the idea.

The rumour mill in the NSW public service is that NSW Premier Kennelly is considering a move to Federal politics after the March 2011 election. Despite the abominable position of her government in the polls – less than 30 per cent primary vote -  she remains a popular figure amongst voters. There is no reason to suppose she couldn’t win a seat.

She lives in the same seat held by Peter Garrett. Given his mediocre to terrible performance as a minister, Kennelly may have some cause for challenging him after the Federal election – or at least find a seat close by to run in.

Imagine a show down between Kennelly and Gillard, or Gillrudd as many are now calling her.  That would be juicy.

If that does not work out Kennelly should consider defecting to the Liberals. Seriously.  She is not exactly in bed with the union movement, went to a conservative Catholic college, is a social conservative – not sure about everything else. I just can’t see Kennelly sitting the next four years on the NSW opposition benches.

One thing we do know is that she – despite her popularity – will lose the next state election.

The Roy Morgan poll for the NSW election has the Coalition winning big:

In New South Wales the Liberal Party and National Party support is 58% (up 6.5% since February 17/18 & 24 – 28, 2010) well ahead of the ALP (42%, down 6.5%) on a Two-Party preferred basis, a special telephone Morgan Poll taken over the last 2 weeks finds.

Primary support for the ALP is 28.5% (down 6% since February 2010 and down 10.5% since the 2007 NSW State Election), Liberal Party 44% (up 3%, and up 16.1% since the 2007 NSW State Election) and National Party 1% (down 1%), The Greens 16% (up 5%), and Independents/Others 10.5% (down 1%).

The gay sex scandal obviously hurt the ALP. Not sure if the poll factored in the recent drama with upper house member Ian Macdonald, who has resigned and is facing a corruption investigation. But it is only going to get worse of the ALP. Who is left to run the state?

Rudd is spruiking his mining tax in WA, claiming that he will invest $6bn from tax revenue to fund WA infrastructure.

Mr Rudd yesterday announced a new $6 billion regional infrastructure fund, to be paid for by the new super profits tax.

Under the proposal, the resource-rich states of WA and Queensland would get $2b each for infrastructure projects.

Today Mr Rudd told Mr Barnett to come up with a better alternative.

“[Colin Barnett] is very critical of the tax reform plan that we have made. My challenge to him is, what is his alternative plan?” he said.

Firstly the revenue from the mining tax has already been committed in the forward estimates. So Rudd does not have the money to pay for anything – other than by raiding the Future Fund. Secondly, what good is infrastructure when private enterprise has been destroyed by his odious tax regime. Essentially Rudd wants to replace private sector investment with public sector investment. Mining companies already pay for most of their infrastructure in WA. No one is seriously saying that Rudd will be able to provide ports, rail and road better than the private sector. Especially after the education building programme debacle. It is another crazy hair brain Rudd scheme.

Christine Nixon is a perfect example of the left – where intentions are always more important than outcomes. Even if people end up dead.

Barrister and former state attorney-general Jim Kennan described the claim that Ms Nixon attempted to mislead the commission while under oath as an evil allegation and a gratuitous attack on a person of outstanding character….

But the criticism of Ms Nixon was intense.

Counsel assisting the commission Jack Rush QC suggested she had failed the test of leadership on Black Saturday and had sought to mislead the commission.

Lying to the commission of her where abouts on the day of the fire  – doing her hair, having dinner, writing her book, and her general dereliction of duty would have landed a military equivalent in serious legal trouble. Let’s hope that Nixon is eventually charged and that she faces time behind bars.

The public has a right to know that a minister of the crown engages in sex orgies in a club of ill-repute, unbeknown to his family and in complete contradiction of public statements the minister has made about the family in order to enhance his re-election prospects. People like commentator and part-time conservative Andrew Bolt at the Herald Sun should have figured this out by now. Four good reasons are laid out by David Penberthy:

The first is that as a politician his entire existence is underwritten by the taxpaying public – his salary, his car, his living arrangements, his ability to travel, all of it is fully or partially funded by the public, and to an extent which massively eclipses the average wage earner. The second is that as a politician he wields enormous and direct power over the way we live our lives, even own financial status. 

The third is that as a politician he has chosen to project an image of himself in order to win votes – the happily married father of two, who has used his wife and children as a visual backdrop for his campaigns for local and state government. The fourth is that he is part of a government which has been distracted, to say the least, by a series of scandals in which poor decisions, corrupt conduct and even criminal conduct have prevented a minister or member from doing his job.

Imagine the media out-cry if it had been, gee i don’t know, JOHN HOWARD that was caught out engaged in homosexual orgies at a public venue unbeknown to his family and the public. Would there be the same media crowd trying to protect Howard as they are now trying to protect the former minister in question David Campbell? Especially since Campbell has still not explained his whereabouts when the F3 meltdown occurred a few weeks ago (it now appears he was at his Sydney flat for a period of time).

There’s also a ludicrous post-facto assessment going around today of David Campbell’s performance as a minister. It might be kind, but it is also crap. David Campbell wasn’t a good minister – he was a hopeless minister….The most spectacular recent example was the routine accident last month on the F3, the main artery north from Sydney to the Central Coast, which left motorists paralysed for 12 hours, with the minister refusing to front up at all to explain himself to the public during the day.

Add in other sexual scandals involving ministers, including child-sex and prostitution offenses and a pattern has emerged with this government. Connect the dots people. The government is untrustworthy, sneaky and lacks all credibility. Speaking of which, in a seperate report:

It has also been revealed that Ms Keneally, Joe Tripodi and Mr Terenzini had a meeting on Tuesday in which the possibility of Mr Terenzini coming into Cabinet was discussed. Ms Keneally said he would be considered should a vacancy arise. Government sources said it was a co-incidence that two days later a spot became available with Mr Campbell’s resignation.

With Joe Tripodi there are no coincidences.

Arthur Sinodinos sees incompetence:

As Captain Rudd said to First Mate Arbib, full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes.

The public service must be laughing up its sleeve. No doubt exhausted by the 24/7 routine in Canberra, many of them would be enjoying the sight of a government not in control of events. Evidence-based policy-making has been replaced by poll-driven policy on the run. Are these the ingredients of a long-term successful government?

Too many reviews, too many hostages to fortune too close to the election.

Take Rudd’s recent health deal, from the founder of Medicare:

…..what kind of health reforms might follow?

Not much, really, because the program is almost entirely about process; a rash promise made in 2007; political outcomes; perceptions; the control of money and power.

Charming. Rudd’s priorities: power and money.

….the Australian Medical Association questioning who was in charge of the hospitals, and states and territories refusing to co-operate on the proposed local health networks. Mr Rudd is also yet to seal a deal with Western Australia.

It seems that the ALP state leaders took away a very different interpretation of the health deal than what Rudd is spinning to the media. It is pretty clear that Rudd is desperate for success, some where, so will say anything to make it look like he has brought home the health bacon.

Does anyone really know how Rudd’s health proposal will actually improve public health? The creator of Medicare can’t figure it out so don’t expect me as a humble blogger to provide any insightful details.

It seems though that Rudd has thrown over $20 billion at the states to get them to sign up to his proposal. It will be interesting to see where Wayne Swan thinks that money is coming from as part of the May budget. The per capita spending on public health must absolutely swamp the per capita spending on the equivalent private health care services. Did anyone say value for money?

WA Premier Barnett is holding out. And with good cause. His state only gets 60 per cent of their GST back as it is. Handing another 30 per cent over to the Commonwealth so their hospitals can be run from Canberra isn’t going to go down well with WA voters.

“In other words, the outcome would be exactly the same, but we would not agree to the Commonwealth taking in a pre-empt way one third of the GST.”

Mr Barnett said Western Australia was prepared to pay an equivalent amount of money into a state controlled fund.

I always considered that eventually the ALP state leaders would come round to make Rudd look like the short-term big hero. But I am prepared to bet a large sum of money that in ten years time we will be back where we started – noting that the agreement does not really kick in for another 4 years.

Clearly a liar and an incompetent. Someone with limited operational experience promoted above her station because of her gender. The Herald Sun writes about disgraced former Victorian Police commissioner Christine Nixon:

Her performance today before the Bushfires Royal Commission was not only embarrassing but unconvincing.

ENOUGH is enough. Christine Nixon should be immediately sacked from her post as chair of the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority.

Read on to discover the lies she told the Royal Commission first time round to cover the fact that she went MIA during last years Victorian bushfires which killed over 170 people – even though she had statutory responsibilities to coordinate disaster relief for all emergency services. Instead of doing her duty, she went and stuffed her face with food at a local pub because she “had to eat”, while people were being burned to death. It is not entirely clear if she even kept her phone on so she could be contacted during the night.

She couldn’t take the heat so got back in the kitchen (pub).

If she was in the military there would be a court marshaling. But because she is the product of the left she is being protected by equally incompetent left-wing Victorian and Federal ALP governments. Where intentions are always more important than results. Even if people die.

UPDATE

More lies. Apparently Nixon had an appointment with a hairdresser and her ghost writer on her autobiography on the day of black Sunday. So she got her hair done, wrote a bit of propaganda and then finished the day with stuffing her face while ignoring her statutory responsibilities to the community. Imagine if John Howard had done such a thing. The ABC and ALP victim groups wouldn’t be so forgiving.

Even though the Liberals won most of the vote, it always seemed unlikely that they could form a government with the Greens:

LABOR leader David Bartlett is Tasmania’s premier again after Governor Peter Underwood called on the incumbent party to form government….Mr Underwood ordered Mr Bartlett to recall parliament and test his support as premier on the floor of the assembly.

The Liberals are going to hold a non-confidence motion against the government after Bartlett promised before the election that the party with the most votes would be given an opportunity to form government first. So in order for Bartlett to keep his promise, he would need to support the vote of no confidence to allow the Liberals an opportunity to form government with Labor backbenchers or the Greens. If this fails Bartlett would have to support a recall election to sort the hung parliamentout. If Bartlett fails to support the motion, which is likely, I can’t imagine his ALP-Green government lasting long. The Greens are a highly volatile political party.

With the Greens, people always come second in favour of power. Environmental protection has been used for years as a guise to exercise greater power and control over people’s private lives. Virtually every single Greens policy involves such – except of course when it comes to allowing people to use drugs to kill themselves or denying medical care to babies that survive late term abortions. Then that is considered okay.

Liberal leader Will Hodgman says he will move a motion of no-confidence immediately.

He had expected to become Premier because his party won more votes.

“On day one, Tasmanians know that they have a government that has been built on deceit and lies,” he said.

“In their lust for power, [the Greens have] sold out to the Labor party, soundly beaten at the election and have offered unconditional support – so when I said a vote for the Greens is a vote for Labor, I was right.”

“[Mr Bartlett is] forming an illegitimate government with the support of the Greens – Tasmanians now have a Labor-Green government that is built on lies.”

Illegitimate in the sense that Bartlett has broken his gentleman’s agreement. So that is now N.T. 2008, S.A. 2010 and Tasmania 2010, where the Liberals won the popular vote and where applicable also won the two party preferred vote but not have enough seats to form government. Something reall stinks. Did anyone say gerrymander?

UPDATE

Seems Bartlett was playing tricky games to stay in power, as revealed by the Governor:

Mr Underwood said David Bartlett did not have the right to promise power to Liberal leader Will Hodgman.

Fair enough. It gets worse though:

The Liberals are furious because on April Fools’ Day the Premier made this promise:

“Labor will only ever move no confidence motions in the most serious circumstances of gross maladministration, of corruption or incompetence or in those circumstances. I mean that’s always going to be the case,” Mr Bartlett said.

But in a letter to the Governor on Wednesday, Mr Bartlett said he would not make any assurances about no-confidence motions or blocking supply.

So Bartlett was telling lies all along. The Governor was also clearly justified in his decision. He has no other choice before him. Bartlett was saying one thing in public, but only told the truth to the Governor.

Mr Hodgman says Mr Bartlett has broken his promise in order to hang onto power.

“It was deliberate, not only recanting from his original position, but it did directly leave the Governor, in my view, in a invidious position where Mr Bartlett was saying on one hand I’ll pretend to give the Liberals power but I will also threaten to take them down at the first opportunity,” he said.