LITERACY. OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY

A WESTERN Sydney public school has jumped 104 positions in Higher School Certificate rankings after focusing on improving literacy skills.
Homebush Boys High, a comprehensive school, leapt from 206 to 102 in the Herald school rankings, based on the proportion of students who scored 90 and above in an HSC subject. (SMH 16.12.2010)
I've been boring people with this for years so why should you escape. Boosting kids literacy skills has a flow on effect across all curriculum areas and that's not to mention classroom BEHAVIOUR.
We've known for many years that kids (especially boys) who have poor literacy skills try to mask the fact by disengaging, claiming that the subject matter is stupid, being disruptive and generally stopping themselves and others from learning. It's certainly been proved in the last three schools I've had. Lift literacy scores and the rates of suspensions, time outs, detentions etc. goes down in line with the rate of Literacy growth. Beautiful graphs.
If Homebush Boys High can do it with high school kids how much better can it be if the kids are helped before they hit puberty with all its complications.
At one central coast school we set out to have no kids in the bottom band in the Basic Skills Test of Literacy in Year 3. Previously they had been waiting until Year 3 to try to fix problems, thus (they thought) ensuring that the growth figures from Year 3 to Year 4 were strong. We took the kids who had not made the grade standard in Kindergarten and ran an explicit phonemic awareness program, with additional staffing from within the school budget. The program ran for an hour every morning five days a week. The second year we extended it to include Years 1 and 2. The school had no additional funding for the program and it is not a school that attracts extra funding due to socio-economic or other factors. Just an ordinary school. The year after I left the kids who were in the fiorst Year 1 sat for the Year 3 NAPLAN (which replaced the BST) tests. The target was met, no one in the bottom band. Most importantly the growth figures that year and in the subsequent two years have continued to rise.
Once the kids had the skills and the confidence the results just keep going up.
So the earlier we address the problem the better the results and not just for the following year, if we keep at it they do better and better.
That a high school has managed it is truly worthy of admiration.

Arbib CIA Spy!

James Bond he certainly is not but Mark Arbib has been exposed by Wikileaks as a regular source for US Intelligence on the internal workings of the Labor party and also of course of the Government. Unfortunately (for Labor) he isn't going to be stood up agaionst a wall offered a mobile phone to make a last call to knife a colleague in the back, and then shot.

He'll still be around stuffing things up for years to come.

The CIA thing is no big deal of course. They gather information from sources all over the place as they analyse important developments and explain what they mean to Washington. 25 years ago I was often contacted by the Labor attache from the US embassy and asked for my take on developments in the unions. I'm sure he was talking to quite a few people and then making allowances for the myriad of personal agendas.

I'd be very worried if they are listening to closely to Arbib though. It's also worrying that Arbib who with Bitar was heavily implicated in the political assasinations of Beazley and Rudd is whispering in the ears of US Intelligence. Are they also whispering back with advice or instructions. One could develop some really hot conspiracy theories out of this, and it is after all the silly season....

Walter Brennan; Life gets tedious.

It's that time of year again. Christmas, the season where one tries very hard to do what everyone else wants and finished up doing NOTHING that they wanted to do. There's a great old Walter Brennan song, lyrics below...you have to imagine his voice just reciting it.

For those too young to remember him Walter starred in the TV series "The Real McCoys". He was in many movies including "Bad Day at Black Rock" with Spencer Tracey where he had another really great speech which may have inspired this song. It's a truly great movie. Walter plays the town Vet, Realtor and Undertaker. It's a depressing place and he gives Spencer (who the locals plan on killing) a little soliloquy right after telling him "I'd like to help you but I'm consumed by apathy" Here it is;

"First, I sell 'em a piece of land. Do you think they farm it? They do not. They dig for gold. They rip off the topsoil of ten winding hills, then sprint in here all fog-heaved with excitement, lugging nuggets --- big, bright, and shiny. Is it gold? It is not. Do they quit? They do not. Then they decide to farm, farm in a country so dry that you have to prime a man before he can spit. Before you can say 'Fat Sam,' they're stalled, stranded, andstarving. They become weevil-brained and butt-sprung. So...I bury 'em. But why bore you with my triumphs?"

And here's the song.

Life Gets Tedious , Don't It?
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
The hands on the clock keep going round,
I just get up and it's time to lay down,
Life gets tedious, don't it?
My shoes untied but I don't care,
I wasn’t figuring on going nowhere,
I'd have to wash and comb my hair,
Life gets tedious, don't it?
Water in the well gettin' lower end lower,
Can't take a bath for a month or more,
But I've heard it told and it's true I'm sure,
That too much bathing weakens yer.
Life gets tedious, don't it?
Open the door and the flies come in,
Shut the door and yer sweating again,
And in the process, I cracked my shin,
Life gets tedious, don't it?
Ole brown mule, he must be sick,
I jabbed him in the rump with a pin on a stick,
He humped his back but he didn’t kick,
There's something cockeyed somewhere.

Ole mouse chawing on the pantry door,
Been chawing there for a month or more,
When he gets through he's gonna be sore,
Cos’ there aint a darnn thing in there.
Life gets tedious, don't it?
Hound dog howling so forlorn,
Laziest dog that ever was born,
He's howling cause he's sittin' on a thorn,
And he's just too tired to move.
Life gets tedious, don't it?

Tin roof leaks and the chimney leans,
There's a hole in the seat of my old blue jeans,
I 'ate the last of my pork and beans,
Life gets tedious, don't it?

Cows gone dry and the hens won't iay,
Fish stopped biting last Saturday,
Troubles piling up day by day,
Life gets tedious, don't it?

Grief and misery pain and woes,
Bills and taxes and so it goes,
And now I'm gettin' a cold in the nose,
Life gets tedious, don't it?

Here we go again....

Here goes another Labor disgrqace, this one has the added advantage of being related by marriage to Joe Tripodi. A man much misunderstood accourding to Eddie Obeid. I think the big problem is that every idiot out there in voter land understands them all to well.
The Labor brand is never going to recover in NSW until there is a huge purge. I just hope that the Liberals who come to power in 2011 are not so awful that we revert to Labor before they have properly cleaned out the stables.

NSW MP rorted expenses, corruption watchdog finds Sean Nicholls
December 7, 2010 - 10:54AM SMH


Angela D'Amore ... expenses fiddle. Photo: Peter Morris
The Labor MP for Drummoyne, Angela D'Amore, is expected to face calls for her resignation after the corruption watchdog found she acted corruptly in falsely claiming thousands of dollars in entitlements for two staff.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption is also recommending that the Director of Public Prosecutions consider bringing charges against Ms D'Amore, who is the parliamentary secretary to the minister for police, for two offences of misconduct in public office.

The commission found Ms D'Amore and a staff member Agatha La Manna "engaged in corrupt conduct by falsely claiming sitting day relief payments".

Advertisement: Story continues below It recommends ‘‘action be taken against Ms La Manna as a public official with a view to dismissing, dispensing with or otherwise terminating her services’’.

Ms D’Amore, who is the sister-in-law of retiring Fairfield MP Joe Tripodi, was investigated over signing false expense claims in three periods between August 2006 and June 2007.

The forms were for a now-defunct entitlement, called the sitting day relief allowance, under which MPs could claim the cost of a staff member in their electorate office to replace one required to attend parliament on sitting days.

One of Ms D'Amore's staff, Karen Harbilas, told the commission she had falsely written the name of another staff member, David Nicoletti, on the claim form after being told to do so by Ms D'Amore. Ms D'Amore denied the claim.

The ICAC says Ms Harbilas’s evidence was the key to exposing Ms D’Amore’s corrupt conduct. It says it has exercised its discretion to not make a corrupt finding against her.

During the hearings, Ms D'Amore's counsel argued the MP had simply been "careless" in signing claim forms which contained false details.

The ICAC report says Ms D'Amore instructed or authorised Ms La Manna and Ms Harbilas to complete false claim forms, which resulted in them receiving a total of $4500 "to which they were not entitled".

Ms D'Amore consistently denied any wrongdoing and her counsel even clashed with the commission over its name for the investigation, "Operation Syracuse", which appeared to reflect on her Sicilian ancestry.

Earlier this year, a Labor MP for Penrith was also found to have acted corruptly in claiming the same allowance.

During public hearings into her matter, Ms Karyn Paluzzano admitted lying to the commission about rorting the entitlement. She was forced to resign soon after, forcing a byelection in her seat of Penrith at which Labor suffered a swing against it of 25 per cent.

FANTASTIC BLOG

Here's an unpaid advert. for a fantasctic blogsite, it's called "Thoughtlines" with Bob Carr. Bob shares comments on the news, book and film reviews and travel reports. It's great for anyone interested in politics, cold war history, the US civil war and a host of great stuff. Here's the address http://bobcarrblog.wordpress.com/
Enjoy!

World Cup Bid Stuffed Up

Not that I actually care all that much, but Frank Lowy has put heart and soul and millions of his dollars into out bid for the World Cup. Now in the last 24 hours we learn that the dreaded Karl Bitar, Federal Sports Mininster, has interposed himself over there to help with the numbers. The man who so far has ruined two and about to be three NSW Labor Premiers and one Prime Minister (not to mention the best PM that we missed out on, Kim Beazely) is now undoubtedly going to stuff up our bid to host the world's biggest event.
Meanwhile back at the ranch the factional warriors are arcing up over the two great issues of the year, gay marriage and nuclear energy. The first one no one really gives a toss about except George Pell and co. The second is just a complete non-event. They'll fight to the death and the result will be nothing. Nuclear energy is too expensive and no one wants the reactor or the power plant withing 1000 miles of their back fence. If Tony Abbot ever gets a five word slogan instead of all the three word ones it will be all over red rover for Julia.

Cardinal Pell Leaves the Planet.

I wonder what the founding father would have made of our local Cardinal's view of ethical behaviour. Had Christ managed to display George's talent for excusing and even justifying the behaviour of sinners, provided that they were wealthy and influential, they'd probably have made him a Senator instead of nailing him up on a cross.
Selling arms, gambling are not cardinal sins Kelly Burke SMH
November 12, 2010

THOU shalt gamble, thou shalt smoke and thou shalt sell arms, the country's most senior Catholic cleric has decreed.

Speaking at an ethics in business lunch hosted by Notre Dame University, Cardinal George Pell suggested it might be somewhat hypocritical for the Catholic Church to condemn gambling outright, given the proliferation of poker machines in NSW Catholic clubs.

''I must confess I do feel a bit uneasy about that, but only a bit uneasy,'' he admitted. ''Because culturally I'm an Irish Australian and we grew up gambling.''

Advertisement: Story continues below Gambling in itself was not intrinsically wrong, he said. Only when it became an addiction, threatening the well-being of oneself and one's family, did it become a sin.

Warming to the forum's theme ''God and Mammon: need or greed in the big end of town'', Cardinal Pell said as far as the ethics of selling tobacco went, supplying adults who were aware of the risks and still chose to smoke was nothing to rush to the confessional about. And when quizzed about the ethics of selling arms, he hypothesised that global military contractors may in fact be acting on a moral imperative.

''I think you can produce arms morally … You might say in some cases it is necessary. We are a peaceful country. If we were unarmed that would be an enticement to evil people. The best way to stay as we are is to be strong and effectively armed so I think you could make the case,'' he said.

Instead, the cardinal's wrath honed in on corporate fat cat salaries, which were morally suspect, he said. His fellow panellist, David Thodey, barely squirmed.

The curliest question Telstra's $10 million-a-year chief executive caught involved a comparison of his nice-guy reputation to that of his predecessor, Sol Trujillo, and its possible relationship to Telstra's recent all-time low of $2.58 a share.

So can nice guys succeed in business?

''It's not about being nice or not nice,'' said Mr Thodey, with a passing reference to the latest round of Telstra redundancies. ''It's about doing things in an ethical and considerate way … in the best interests of our shareholders - which of course include customers and employees.''

Journos do not like Rudd

The article below from this morning's Herald is further proof that jopurnalists do not like Kevin Rudd. It puts him in the worst possible light and the bit at the end about him going off sick is not part of the story but an added dig. I'm sure he deserves it richly.
This blog's been very quiet for a while. It's hard to get interested in politics in Australia today. They are all so bloody boring.

Rudd ruffles feathers to be in Clinton limelight Daniel Flitton SMH
November 10, 2010

Kevin Rudd gatecrashed the special ABC television broadcast with Hillary Clinton on the weekend, demanding a place in the heavily promoted event to share the limelight with the US Secretary of State, an official said.

Mr Rudd's last-minute decision to attend the town hall-style meeting sent organisers at the ABC, the Foreign Affairs Department and US embassy into a spin - coming only hours before the event was due to be recorded.

Mr Rudd was not scheduled to be among the VIP guests at the recording, which included Australia's ambassador in Washington, Kim Beazley, the businessman Hugh Morgan, Melbourne University's vice-chancellor, Glyn Davis, and the US ambassador to Australia, Jeff Bleich.

Advertisement: Story continues below But after a dinner with Mrs Clinton on Saturday night, Mr Rudd insisted he attend. An Australian official familiar with the event said Mr Rudd had stridently demanded plans be changed to include him. ''The behaviour was disgusting and he deserves to be called on it,'' the official told The Age.

There was confusion that Mr Rudd was actually asking to be seated on stage alongside Mrs Clinton and the ABC host, Leigh Sales, for the broadcast dubbed, Hillary Rodham Clinton: An Australian Conversation. This threatened to undo the careful planning for the recording, which involved some six camera positions spread among an audience of about 450 in a Melbourne University lecture theatre.

But Mr Rudd has denied he or his staff asked for a seat on stage. ''No, not at all. I didn't ask to go on the stage at all,'' he told The 7.30 Report on Monday.

''I said to Hillary, 'Oh, you're going to the university tomorrow? That's terrific. I know the vice-chancellor. I'd like to come along and have a look. That's terrific.'''

Mrs Clinton has made a habit of engaging in televised special conversations with younger audiences around the region, including in Cambodia and Indonesia.

She has never previously shared the stage with another foreign minister. Mr Rudd described as a ''bit of mischief'' suggestions he sought a place on stage.

He arrived early at the event and walked up and down the aisle, shaking hands with the audience. He then took a seat in the front row and later attended a morning tea hosted by Melbourne University Asialink following the recording.

After a hectic two days of meetings, where Mrs Clinton repeatedly praised him for his expert knowledge of foreign affairs, Mr Rudd has now fallen ill.

On medical advice, he has pulled out of attending a regional summit in Japan, with the Trade Minister, Craig Emerson, to represent Australia in his place.

Costello vs Howard

It's tempting to say "who cares about these has beens" but it is amusing to watch. it's a damn sight more amusing than watching the current crop of lightweights in Canberra. The weekend australian lastweekend was truly sickening with their studio portraits of a statesmanlike Howard and glowing references to his self serving memoirs. Undoubtedly the most nauseating book since the Hawke memoirs. I don't even rate Blanche's trashy novel (definitely a work of fiction).
But consider for a moment the Gillard memoirs. these people are still doing the impossible and making Tony Abbot look good.

So who will get the blame?

This morning's Sydney Morning Herald has it right.
Calls for Bitar's head after 'inept' campaign Deborah Snow
August 23, 2010
Vote


THE former NSW premier Morris Iemma has publicly repudiated Labor's federal campaign director Karl Bitar, saying if he had a ''conscience'' he would hand his resignation to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.

In a blistering attack on Labor's five-week campaign, Mr Iemma described it as ''the most inept in living memory'' salvaged only by the ''personability and ability of Gillard''.

''Labor booth workers and Labor supporters to a man and woman agree that it was the worst campaign they can recall … It is not for Julia Gillard to ask for Karl Bitar's resignation, it's for him to have a conscience and offer it up,'' Mr Iemma said, publicly stating sentiments that a number of senior insiders have voiced privately.


Morris Iemma Photo: Adam Hollingworth
Mr Iemma was dismissive of Mr Bitar's attempts on Channel Nine yesterday to blame Labor's poor performance on anti-Gillard leaks in the second week of the campaign.

Mr Bitar said the leaks, which targeted Ms Gillard for questioning pension rises and allegedly reneging on a deal with the former Labor leader Kevin Rudd, wiped 10 points off Labor's vote.

But Mr Iemma said Mr Bitar was failing to show ''contrition''.

''No amount of spinning, no amount of fakery about his research can save him,'' the former premier said.

Mr Bitar said the remarks were unfortunate coming from someone who played no role in the campaign.

The bitterness between the pair stems from Mr Bitar's former role as a general secretary of the NSW ALP who helped end Mr Iemma's premiership.

However a number of senior party figures contacted yesterday shared some of Mr Iemma's criticisms.

Among the weaknesses they cited was failure to offer voters a clear strategic vision, frequent switching between messages, the failure to bring Mr Rudd into the campaign earlier, and an over-reliance on narrowly based questions put to focus groups in marginal seats.

''I don't think it was a disastrously executed campaign, I think it was a very ordinary campaign run by people used to running state elections,'' said one party veteran.

Several internal critics accused Mr Bitar and his mentor, Senator Mark Arbib, of setting up a ''closed loop'' of advice inside Labor's national headquarters, where dissenting voices were not welcomed.

Senator Arbib and Mr Bitar hail from the NSW party office in Sussex Street. Mr Bitar took over the top campaign job after the national director Tim Gartrell resigned in 2008.

He became determined to put his own stamp on Labor's campaign team, party observers say. He alienated Neil Lawrence, who had masterminded the winning Kevin07 advertising campaign, by asking other advertisers to bid for the ALP account.

When Mr Lawrence left as a consequence, Mr Bitar said it was because he could no longer afford him on a tight budget. But many in Labor believe the party's TV advertising suffered as a result, failing to sell its achievement in warding off mass unemployment after the global financial crisis.

Mr Bitar also edged aside Tony Mitchelmore, the pollster who had worked closely with Mr Lawrence and Mr Gartrell on the 2007 campaign.

Instead, Mr Bitar took the polling work to research company UMR but is said to have personally written detailed guidelines and the questions for grilling focus groups.

This, the critics claim, resulted in a small-minded federal campaign which lacked a compelling national narrative.

The mixed messages, said one insider, were like ''the pearls without the string. It doesn't make a necklace. The missing string was a strategy.''

Perhaps the worst mistake, in the eyes of some, was failing to reach a pact with Mr Rudd before the campaign started. It appears Labor's campaign directors grossly underestimated voters' lingering resentment about Mr Rudd's political execution.

An uneasy rapprochement between Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd was finally reached in the third week of the campaign after intense diplomacy by Senator John Faulkner. But by then the damage had been done.
Of course Morris has good reason to hate them, but he's dead right. The same clowns that have wrecked the labor brand in NSW have now done it at a Federal level, and they are flat out spinning the result to say that it would have been even worse if they hadn't dragged Rudd down. Never mind that they put him there in the first place, or that when he went wrong (dumping the ETS) it was on their brilliant advice.

More amazing news.

The Spanish state of Catalonia has banned bullfighting. Can't help feeling a bit sad but Hemingway reckoned that there hadn't been an honest bullfight since the 50's anyway. It's an odd sort of thing, difficult to understand. It's not a sport, it's a sort of ritual, very old, very alien. I've only been once to Spain and found it the most foreign place I had ever seen. Very old and very different. The people there had a quality that I found fascinating and difficult to describe. Again, very foreign. It was like another planet.
I hope they don't turn into us. I also hope that we don't turn into them.

Herald Editorial today

Well here it is...to my knowledge only the second occasion EVER that the Sydney Morning Herald has advocated a vote for the ALP. I've though that the Libs were going to win for weeks. Maybe it's a jaundiced NSW viewpoint, Labor is certainly stuffed in theis state. I think people are fed up with arrogance and they are looking for someone to punish. Given the NSW Labor influence in Canberra I don't think that by punishing Gillard they are too wide of the mark. So vote for the Greens. We realy need a Senate that will apply some restraint. They won't sell us out like the Democrats did over the GST.
Why Labor under Gillard deserves a second chance August 20, 2010
AFTER all the bluster and debate, after all the handshakes and promises, after all the claims and counter-claims, we reach the moment of truth. Who do we want to lead the country for the next three years? Gillard or Abbott? Labor or the Coalition? It is no straightforward choice.

It has not been an inspiring campaign; few policies or issues have captured the public's imagination. This is not 2007, when John Howard, for all his many admirable qualities, had clearly held on to power too long; when Kevin Rudd offered a fresh approach on climate change, reconciliation and workplace relations; and when whoever won would inherit a healthy budget balance and a booming economy. In 2010 things are more complicated. We have to pick between two untested leaders, who for five weeks have played an elaborate and at times dispiriting game of policy chess which has confused onlookers – as it was at times clearly intended to do.

What do these people actually stand for? Tony Abbott has apparently buried his belief in workplace change; Julia Gillard has done her very best to convince the electorate that she, too, will stop the boats and won't be hitting households over the head with a big new tax to tackle climate change. So, if this election can be cast as a referendum, what would it be on? The national broadband network versus paid parental leave? These are important issues. Labor will give the nation the NBN, a vital tool for the nation's future, but, at $43 billion, a very expensive one. They have yet to convince the country that this enormous sum will be well spent. Abbott's party promises 26 weeks' paid parental leave, a positive idea, especially for female workplace participation, but again it comes at a high cost – a tax impost on larger employers for up to a decade, perhaps more.

As ever, the central question is: who do you trust? Labor has done much to make voters pause at that question. This has been a government of broken promises and unfulfilled ambitions, large and small. It was, for instance, going to deliver an emissions trading scheme; it has not done so and appears to have no intention of doing so – a thoroughly bad decision. It was going to give us GroceryWatch to keep a lid on household prices; it did not. It promised a similar scheme to push down fuel prices; it has been abandoned.

It is true Labor faced entrenched, sometimes mindless, opposition in the Senate. Yet it has also shown a remarkable inability to explain its policies and bring voters along with it. The mining tax debacle shows that. And in deposing Kevin Rudd, the ALP not only re-emphasised that politics is brutal – it always is and will be, on every side – but highlighted the unpalatable fact that the prime ministership is a plaything of factional leaders. Labor's reputation has sustained considerable damage from being associated with the performance of state governments, especially in NSW and Queensland. Even though this election should be decided on national issues, it is understandable that many voters in places such as Sydney's west are angry and feel betrayed. There is little doubt NSW Labor will be shown the door next year, as it should.

3,1But for all the above, we believe Labor at a federal level deserves another chance. Why?

First, it did successfully get us through the global financial crisis; the nation is not suffering from the crippling economic malaise – the loss of confidence and jobs – still found in the United States and throughout Europe. It is true, some of the economic stimulus was wasted or went astray – but it has to be understood and judged as an emergency measure enacted and managed in haste. That does not excuse it, but it goes a long way to explain it.

Second, Labor does have a plan – properly costed – to reduce national debt and get the federal budget back in surplus; its economic policy settings seem about right.

Third, it has promised to build the national broadband network and increase taxpayer value in the crucial areas of education and health, by forcing the states to perform and be accountable.

Fourth, it has performed well, if not better, in important though less than contentious areas such as defence, national security and foreign policy.

And last – what is the alternative? For all his obvious leadership qualities, Tony Abbott has not yet articulated a cohesive and positive plan for the nation. He has been correct as Opposition Leader to highlight waste in some of the government's stimulus spending. He is also justified in asking whether federal and state Labor governments can deliver on big spending promises such as the Epping-to-Parramatta rail link. He has run a good campaign – one that, if the polls are correct, will bring him very close to a historic victory. He has shown a steadiness during the campaign that has not been obvious during his political career. Until the last few weeks, he was worryingly inconsistent in many policy areas. He needs to show the Australian people that in government he would not revert to policy flip-flops as the political wind changed. If he wins, then we wish him all the best. But it really isn't yet his turn.

Modern life is increasingly fast-paced; many people feel time-poor – and under constant pressure of change. Nowhere is that more true than in politics, judging by the turnaround of leaders on both sides since the 2007 election. But we think Julia Gillard has done enough to be given a chance to lead the nation; and not to be the first Prime Minister in 80 years to lead a government tossed out after one term. Surely we are not so addicted to change. We will be back here in three years or less – and then we will be able truly and fairly to judge Gillard and her government. And we will be able to do so in the light of experience, not simply this campaign.

Why is this child smiling?

Penny has absolutely no idea who Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are. She thinks everything is interesting and amusing. I doubt if she even knows what being bored is. But fear not, her education will at least give her a deep understanding of the latter concept.
We will not be spending election night glued to multiple television sets and internet screens. We are going down to Rathmines community hall which is the former enlisted men's mess hall from the RAAF base that was here. We're going to the Catalina Players, our local amateur theatrical group's annual performance. There's a three course dinner with wine supplied (plenty of it too) and of course the play. There's sherry beforehand too, I only drink sherry once a year. It's a good night, but I may have to get someone to text me election updates. It's not that I really care..other than hoping that the Greens do really well.
Maybe that's what Penny is smiling about, she's a Tasmanian.

Oh come on now...really!

Scarlett Johanssen is reportedly the favourite to play Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo from the Stieg Larrsson books. Lisbeth was described in the books as being tiny and flat chested, resembling a young boy. Hmmmmm.

It's gotta be Tony

Time to get off the fence folks. It has to be Abbott with enough Greens in the Senate to put the brakes on if necessary. The battle of the advertising has been won hands down by the Libs. Almost all the Labor advertising is attack ads, some of them are funny but all they are doing is defining that the Libs are NOT THE ALP.
That's about enough to get many voters swinging to the right. The Libs have done little to get people to vote for them but their mesasge of reasons to vote against Labor is hitting home. The reasons being waste, inefficiency, incompetence and the way they knifed Rudd. In fact maybe the knifing of Rudd should be placed first. Then there is Mark Latham, a stark reminder of what might have happened had everyone voted for the thug that the party bosses picked ahead of Beazley. Now the bosses have picked Julia, she of the Education Policy stolen from New York, the second worst -performing state in the USA which is itself performing significantly behind us in OECD studies.
Teachers are going to vote AGAINST Labor in large numbers.
The Labor ads say nothing except that Tony Abbott is a person who has ideas and beliefs. Boy that's a worry. A politician with ideas and beliefs. You won't find Labor putting anyone like that forward as a leader.

Inspiration?

Where it it eh? Julia is about as inspiring as Imelda Marcos, Tony is still bound and gagged and even Bob Brown is looking irritatingly smug about how well the greens are doing. They are in danger of making the mistake made by third parties in this country throughout our brief history. They mistake disillusionment with the major players for "illusionment" with them. It's a shame.
The picture shows Doug Pagett and I running along somewhere near Crowdy Head. Heading in the wrong direction of course (ie south). Doug reckons he's voting for the Libs because Tony's daughters are HOT. I don't know if he's kidding, but if he isn't it strikes me that his reason is about as good as any other I've heard so far.

Who's the Leaker??

Ordinarily if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck it's probably a duck but this is the ALP so it's probably a deceased parrot. Kevin Rudd, who at one time was Laurie Oakes' cleaner almost certainly is not the phantom pisser. For one thing he's the obvious choice and more importantly he has nothing to gain. It would be a dumb thing to do and he isn't dumb. He's as evil as any of them of course but if he takes his revenge it will be from a great distance and it will be when they least expect it.
I subscribe to the theory that it's an elaborate attempt to frame Rudd and finish him off once and for all by the brilliant minds that brought you the NSW Government. The revelations so far haven't done any real harm but they've kept Rudd's name floating around with negative messages and made it easier for Julia to put hims aside after the election. Thus freeing up one senior cabinet post for one of the deserving string-pullers.
Marb Arbib thinks he's Graeme Richardson, well mate, I knew Graeme Richardson, I worked with Graeme Richardson and I'll tell you mate, you're no Graeme Richardson. He was good at that stuff and of course he was also working on behalf of peopole who had a vision for where they wanted to take the place, not just a wish to get their arses into the big white cars.
So my guess is it's Arbib and Bitar. Possibly with Simon Crean helping out with the cabinet stuff. You can bet Laurie is not making any of this up. I wonder what will come out next. So now doubt does the PM.

Election Latest zzzzzzz

The high spot of the election so far has been Julie Bishop's appearance on The Chaser. Julie is my favourite out of the two Bishop's in the Liberal Party. She gave a very good impression of a woman who actually has a sense of humour and fun...difficult to fake that and perhaps I've been misjudging her because she is otherwise pretty scary. Now that I've seen her give the death stare to a garden gnome (causing him to fall of the table and shatter) I won't be able to see it again without smiling. She should get out more.
The rest of it though has been just as dull as commercial TV. Political journalists reporting on the leaders debate presumably actually watched it from start to finish and all I can say is that they are worth more money and no wonder they drink. The bosses obviously have Julia drugged so that she just drones on and on and on about moooovving foooorrrward and goiiing fooooorward and the Austraaaaaaalian people, all of whom have surely nodded off by now.
Poor Tony is obviously pretty drug resistant so they've just tied him up and stuffed a wallabies scarf in his mouth. You can see from his eyes that he's busting to say things but he can't get it out. I've got a hint for them from The West Wing When the election was going badly for Bartlett one of his campaign team came up with the brilliant idea to "let Bartlett be Bartlett". It'll never happen of course, that was just TV. But if they were to let Abbot be Abbot they just might win. Of course he'd frighten a few horses on the way but the horses he frightens were never Liberal voters anyway.

Here's a picture of Penelope Plimpton. I'm a very slack grandfather because she's 6 weeks old and I've only just managed to put a picture on my blog, but her dad has more than made up for my slackness (see tassieblather@www.plimpton.org)
Barb and I went down to beautiful Tasmania to visit her last school holidays, I also managed to fit in two meals in three days at the Shipwrights Arms.

Election 2010
Labor will get back, possibly with a slightly reduced majority but if Abbot puts his foot in it again or fails to lock Eric Abetz in a dark well sealed room (perhaps with some nazi memorabilia to make him comfortable) for the duration of the campaign the Tories could do even worse.
This isn't to say that Julia and Co are the answer to anyones prayers but rather that the punters won't wake up to them quickly enough. Of course letting them back without any sort of punishment only reinforces their inclination to abandon all pretense of leadership in favour of poll driven populism. I remember one of our truly great leaders saying that leadership was not about tripping over TV leads in shopping centres, it wasn't about being popular it was about being right. He put his faith in the common sense and intelligence of the Australian electorate and look where that got him.
Julia's Labor party are putting their faith in the common sense and intelligence of the elctorate too or more correctly the absence thereof.
I hope plenty of people do punish them though by voting first for the Greens in the Reps and the Senate. People who vote green are smart enough to direct their preferences toward the overall outcome that they want and a big primary vote will make their preferences even more desirable next time. We also have a small chance of getting a Greens senator up in NSW with Labor preferences.
There are three leaders in this election. Two represent the political equivalent of Woolworths and Coles and the third represents leadership based on principled ideas rather than opinion polls. More power to Bob Brown I say. He's a national treasure
It's going to be a very long five weeks and Julia is making it very painful by using the dreadful expression "moving forward" several times a minute. I hated the phrase before it became the slogan so it looks like the CDs are going to get a big workout in the car because listening to the radio could provoke outbursts of rage.
I'll have more to say abut the Bob and Blanche saga when I stop throwing up.

Black Armband History
John Howard's stubborn refusal to offer an apology for the policies that failed our indiginous people was disgraceful and reason enough on its own to finally flush the unflushable one around the S-bend. But he or whoever coined the phrase "black arm band view of history" was on to something. The new National curriculum in History has a fundamental weakness and it is a result of the black arm band which many of our educators seem to wear.
We teach or are meant to teach Australian History as if it were simply the history of the large island (and don't forget the smaller ones) that constitute the Commonwealth of Australia. When I was at school Australian History began with Dirk Hartog (1616), then nothing until 1770 and then after 1788. In the meantime we learned about what had been going on in the places from whence Hartog, Cook and Phillip came. That's to say we learned about the history of the people who descended from those who arrived in 1788. The omission of Aboriginal history was a mistake but perhaps an understandable one. Not only was it not valued, it wasn't known. It still isn't known really, without records (aside from what is interpreted from art) and some sadly limited oral history the history of the time before European settlement is blurred to say the least.
Now we include the time before the arrival of Cook (I think calling it an invasion is silly). But in our guilt ridden rush to give no further offense to anyone, including more recent arrivals from non-european countries we gloss over or ignore the history and thus the cultural background of the group that still make up the bulk of our population. The heritage of the child at school in Dublin or London (not so sure about London these days) is still pretty close to the cultural heritage of kids at school in any Australian town. It's an Anglo history and our anglo guilt makes us push it aside.
It matters because it was from a study of the history of our anglo heritage that we derived our anglo values. The black arm bandits use anglo values as a term of derision now but it's anglo values of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and freedom of association that have given them that liberty.
There's said to be a crisis of "values" in our schools and public schools were famously accused of failing to teach Australian values. The response was to try to deconstruct defined values into their component parts and them teach them like mathematical formulae. This was one of our sillier ideas.
Hidden among the stuff that we used to learn in History was a highly effective hidden curriculum in values. There were heroes (this word is used in its non-gender specific context folks) who did great and brave things. There were triumphs of the rights of individuals over the state like Magna Carta, the Reform Bills, the ship money case. There were ancient examples of the roots of our democracy like Themistocles in Athens and there were more modern exemplars too from Keir Hardie to Emily Pankhurst.
Throw all that away and what's left. About maybe 5% of our cultural heritage. It's an interesting 5% but it's still a very shitty deal, as they say at Goldman Sachs.

The Bosses are back.
Who the hell is Mark Arbib? The first news of a change of PM on the ABC last night was that Mark Arbib had swung his support to Julia Gillard. If the name seems familiar it's because he's one of the geniuses of the NSW right that gave us first Nathan Rees and then Kristina Hairspray.
In retrospect the most significant recent indicator that things were getting close was the story about Simon Crean asking his departmental officials to keep their ears to the ground about government policy because he didn't know what was going on. He knew very well that the story would be out within minutes and he knew what harm it would do, if Julia thinks he's going to be loyal to her she's nowhere near as smart as people think she is. Crean reminds me of a Whitlam saying, referring I think to Sam Jones, "the trouble with Sam is that he's stricken with a conflict of disloyalties". Anyway Crean's a sideshow.
The real show is that the unions and the faction bosses have given up on the Rudd experiment and gone back to the business of running things. It won't be the Rudd kitchen cabinet anymore, it will be the machine as it was in the Hawke days. Big deals done at the top and the rest of us will just go along.
It's sad because I think Kim Beazley is the best Prime Minister we never had (as was his father). Julia Gillard is going to have to do an awful lot to win my vote and that's not even counting the speech therapy to get rid of that awful voice, as melodious as the sound of cutting up a corrugated iron dunny with a chainsaw. I wonder if those backers of hers on the left noticed the strong support she has among the writers of the Australian edition of The Spectator. They like her because she stands up to the evil teacher unions and possibly because she's also not Kevin Rudd.
The jury's probably still out but for my money if she doesn't make a move in the right direction on emissions trading and she doesn't stick to the resource super profits tax that everyone from Ross Gittins to the IMF thinks is a rational and necessary move then I'm not voting for the clowns. I'll vote Green or Independent and give no preferences.
The voters will probably give her a fair go, and she'll exploit that by going early if she can. Interesting times but I can't see anything inspiring anywhere in any direction. Is Malcom Fraser too old at 80 to make a comeback??

this is a big story, buried down the page on the SMH website. Does it remind you of something you've read about before. like maybe in about 1964-5????
US commander unimpressed by Obama and Biden: report June 22, 2010 - 11:22AM
SMH 22/6/10
The US commander in Afghanistan mocks the vice president and denounces a top diplomat in a magazine interview released on Monday, while his aides speak dismissively of President Barack Obama.

Tensions between General Stanley McChrystal and the White House are on full display in an unflattering profile in Rolling Stone of the commander of US and NATO forces in the Afghan war.

McChrystal jokes sarcastically about preparing to answer a question referring to Vice President Joe Biden, known as a sceptic of the commander's war strategy.

"'Are you asking about Vice President Biden?' McChrystal says with a laugh. 'Who's that?"' the article quotes him as saying.

"'Biden?' suggests a top adviser. 'Did you say: Bite Me?"'

McChrystal tells the magazine that he felt "betrayed" by the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, in a White House debate over war strategy last year.

Referring to a leaked internal memo from Eikenberry that questioned McChrystal's request for more troops, the commander suggested the ambassador had tried to protect himself for history's sake.

"I like Karl, I've known him for years, but they'd never said anything like that to us before," McChrystal tells the magazine.

"Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so."'

Eikenberry, himself a former commander in Afghanistan, had written to the White House saying Afghan President Hamid Karzai was an unreliable partner and that a surge of troops could draw the United States into a open-ended quagmire.

The article revisits the friction between the White House and the military last northern autumn as Obama debated whether to grant McChrystal's request for tens of thousands of reinforcements.

Although Obama in the end granted most of what McChrystal asked for, the strategy review was a difficult time, the general tells the magazine.

"I found that time painful," McChrystal says. "I was selling an unsellable position."

An unnamed adviser to McChrystal alleges the general came away unimpressed after a meeting with Obama in the Oval Office a year ago, just after the president named him to take over in Afghanistan.

"It was a 10-minute photo op," the general's adviser says.

"Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was ... he didn't seem very engaged.

"The boss was pretty disappointed," says the adviser.

The profile, titled "The Runaway General," portrays his aides as profane and intensely loyal to McChrystal, while arguing the general has seized control over the war on the military and diplomatic fronts.

The four-star general also derides the hard-charging top US envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, and complains about a dinner with an unnamed French minister during a visit to Paris.

"Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke," McChrystal says, looking at his messages on a mobile phone. "I don't even want to open it."

In a hotel room in Paris getting ready for a dinner with a French official, McChrystal says: "How'd I get screwed into going to this dinner?"

"The dinner comes with the position, sir," says his aide, Colonel Charlie Flynn.

"Hey, Charlie," McChrystal says, "does this come with the position?"

McChrystal gives him the middle finger.

AFP maur

Could Chifley win Labor preselection today?
By Rodney Cavalier
April 21, 2005

Address to the NSW Fabian Society seminar at Gleebooks on Wednesday April 20, 2005

Could Ben Chifley win a Labor preselection today? No.

Could a railwayman from Bathurst win preselection today? No.

Could a man or woman who works during the day or night in a job that involves getting dirty and perspiring and without access to a telephone during working hours win a preselection today? No.

Could a professional devoted to his practice and his clients - that is, willing to work long hours, including night and weekends in preparation and research - could such a person win a preselection today? No.

Who can win a preselection today?

In the absence of intervention at the level of the parliamentary leadership, preselection in seats which matter falls exclusively to the inhabitants of the political class. The political class embraces union officials, ministerial and parliamentary staffs and party employees.

Most of these people, certainly the aspirants for Parliament, are an operative for a faction. The ALP factional operatives are members of the only class which has survived into this century - the political class. They are a coherent grouping which fulfills all of the Marxist definitions of class: consciousness of each other, action in concert, action in self-interest.


The nucleus of the ALP political class is trade union control of the Labor Party. Although unions are reduced to 17 per cent of the workforce and falling, though they represent fewer than one in ten Australian voters and do not command the votes of even half of their own number, union control of the ALP governance is stronger now than ever - even though its formal representation at Conference is 50 per cent. Union control of the administration and the preselection oversight bodies is 100 per cent.

The old BHP culture did not approach the nepotism in some union offices of the de la Salle old boys, the IR undergraduates, the Labor Club at uni X coterie. The coming people are so often the sons and daughters of, married to or living with - or all three.

Unions are the creatures of faction, factions are the instruments of unions. They are indivisible. Break union control, the faction system breaks with it. Workers, note, are not a part of this equation.

The political class is a coterie. The coterie has its differences within - any such divisions are not about ideas or ideology. The factions have become executive placement agencies, disputes between them become serious only when they cannot agree on a placement. They are effectively united for themselves against the world. Otherwise rational adults will defend union control of the ALP, the sine qua non for their place in the sun. Most would not in a world based on merit. The monopoly has come to pass during our adult lives, it became irresistible after 1996 and the loss of Federal government. The decline begins with the otherwise glorious story of the rise and rise of R.J.L.Hawke.

Bob Hawke came from another generation. He was a Rhodes Scholar, cased by Albert Monk, entreated to enter the ACTU. Hawke had the good fortune to be learning at the feet of men who had lived a life, a life which embraced the trenches of the Great War, the deprivations of the 1930s, war and reconstruction. They had been young men in the False Dawn of 1917; not all thought it false, many were true believers in Marx and the perfectability of Man, they lived their commitment into their private lives, resolute in their contempt for private property and the accumulation of capital.

Young Hawke could listen and absorb, build on his reading, mature in his outlook. In having to speak the language of real workers and the men who represented real workers (real workers themselves for the most part), Hawke acquired his distinctive argot, an idiom and a manner which Australians found compelling, especially women.

The rise and rise of Bob Hawke, a career made outside the Parliament, sent a message most terrible to the ambitious. In no time at all a university background in union office became common place. So much so that the products or dropouts of university captured union after union. Having executed the capture they placed more and more of themselves as vacancies arose. Inside one generation the paid positions in unions were filling with men, then women, who had no connection with the industries and callings they were representing, placed there by people exactly like themselves. So many of the representatives of the workers have themselves scarcely any knowledge of work.

Simultaneously, a career and working life spent wholly inside the ALP political class became possible. The notion of a separate stream of ministerial staff is as recent as 1972. Gough thought it useful for his Minister for Transport to have an adviser or two - not ten or 12 - from outside the public service who knew something about planes and trains. Not someone to lend a hand to Luke or Mark in Fowler.

Add up the private staffs for State and Federal Members, upper and lower, ministers and frontbenchers, you will have a vast number of paid jobs at the disposal of the political class, jobs which serve to reinforce its grip on the party at all levels and throughout Sydney and its satellites. None existed pre-1972. None of the theories of ALP democracy have countenanced the existence of a standing army of employees inside the party itself.

People join factions these days because of opportunity and entreaty. The obvious comparison is with the market for footballers: the scouts offer position and opportunity. If the scouts get it right - that is they place the right people who then make good - then their own positions and their own segment of the political class is fortified. That competition between the placement agencies is all the swirl there is these days.

The segments of the coterie are indivisible: men and women move effortlessly between these occupations as opportunity arises or is denied. For most of them the ultimate is to crack a seat in Parliament. Within one generation Bob Hawke has become Steve Hutchins.

The phenomenon is not a conspiracy. It is what happens when a vibrant culture enters a vulnerable host. Like lantana in natural bushland.

What is the portrait of the modern Labor Member of Parliament? She is cased at university where she is achieving less than academic greatness. He will have demonstrated a willingness to follow a leader, not to step out of line. She will join an ALP branch where the postage and the mail-out is met by an MP. His first serious employment is with an MP. Or a Minister where she will know nought of the subject area of the Minister's portfolio. Or a union where he will not have worked in the industry covered by the union employing him. Or her.

She is preselected perhaps for where she lives, perhaps for somewhere she has no association; he has minimal or zero community record. Her campaign is managed by people supplied by Head Office, it is paid for by Head Office, its strategy is determined by Head Office.

Having been elected, he enters the caucus of the faction to which he owes everything; she votes as the leadership instructs, he confirms for another parliamentary term the hegemony of the processes that made her possible. When she delivers her Maiden Speech, it is probable that the staffer of a Minister will have written it. Someone who hopes to walk in her or his footsteps.

The processes of such advancement obviate the humanising essential for a successful adult life - what we call maturing in response to personal experience, intellectual growth, changes subtle in objective response to change in the world. When your outlook on politics is determined for you and your continuing advance depends on adhering to that determination, maturing does not come to pass.

In the natural world the equivalent is the cossetted existence of creatures born in a zoo, knowing no other environment. The cannot survive in the world. They lack the skills to hunt and kill their own. The most obvious consequence is how Federal Labor has lost the faculty of persuasion. Holding a poll to find out what the punters are thinking and then promise that finding as your own best thinking may be the core of what passes for philosophy in modern politics. It is the opposite of leadership.

The Labor Party has ceased to exist below. Its death is one of the great unreported stories of Australian politics. The nurturing of new members, once so vital in our growth, even more vital in passing on traditions of honour and service, is less likely than at any time in our history.

Labor has become a cartel party, essentially dependent on the unacknowledged largesse of the taxpayer. If MPs and Senators ceased to provide postage and stationery to branches in NSW, not fewer than 500 would perish by the end of next month at the latest.

A party does not have to be democratic to survive or prosper. The ALP for much of the time since 1916 is living proof of that. Self-perpetuating oligarchies are the norm for preferment within most parties around the world. The trick is for the established leadership to shake up the ladder which placed them there, to look beyond the obvious and the obsequious to bring in new talent. Boards of public companies have moved away from the nepotism that has become the norm for trade unions and the ALP. You have to be a super-optimist to believe that the members of the political class - occupying positions which represent their bread and butter and their passport to a glittering life - will upset the mechanisms which preserve them from a world based on merit.

Being in government is almost everything. There is no embracing ideology to sustain a Labor Party out of power, no light on the hill, no reserves of character or historical memory. You will note that exactly the same has occurred with the UK Conservative Party. Parties which build their governance on being the government have a crisis waiting for them when they forfeit the public service superstructure. Some of us were predicting this consequence by the early 1990s.

The Caucus which assembled after the election of 2004 is the weakest since Federation. I will defend that statement on any matrix of capacity anyone wishes to employ. The only contest for the appellation are the disasters of 1916 and 1931 when Labor Governments suffered wholesale defections and massive electoral defeats. In those disasters the party suffered massive losses of good people, crises of relevance, doubts about survival. What the party did not then suffer was a crisis in conviction.

No one will dare cite a comparison with 1975. Post-1975, the dimensions of defeat inspired defiance and a great rebuilding. Compare and contrast those earlier responses to defeat, compare and contrast who remained then and who remains now for the crusade required.

Out of the embers of 1975 Labor emerged with a critical mass of seriously able men who were there for the long haul - Bill Hayden, Lionel Bowen, John Button, Ralph Willis, Peter Morris, Peter Walsh, Mick Young, not to forget a very young, bloodthirsty Paul Keating. Where is anyone of that quality now? Other than those who were there already, pre-1996?

Labor stood still in 1977 in terms of seats, it was otherwise with the infusion of quality representation - Brian Howe, John Dawkins (returning after defeat), Barry Jones, Gareth Evans, John Brown, Neal Blewett. John Kerin followed in a by-election. In 1980, the equivalent to 2001 in our time, Michael Duffy and Kim Beazley entered the House. So did the immediate past President of the ACTU, a bloke by the name of Hawke.

Who among the front bench of 2004 would find a place in a Hawke-Keating Ministry even at no.27? Kim, certainly. How many others?

2004 was the third election after going down. The quality of the 2004 intake is embarrassing. The Liberal and National Parties have renewed their ranks, Labor has not. The lack of diversity in Labor's Federal ranks has at last achieved media comment.

We have become progressively weaker after each election since 1996. When you know who is jostling in the queues for coming preselections, you will know that the situation is going to get worse. Much worse.

In every other crisis of identity and electoral melancholy we have tended to draw on History, to note that the Labor Party is magnificent in adversity, to note the party is the most resilient creature in the Australian landscape.

Is there cause for such comfort now? Where exactly does modern Labor draw from? Once upon a time Labor could draw from all the factories in Australia and all the mines, the railways and ships and trucks, the waterfront, the gangs working in the open air. It could supplement that gene pool with a growing army of adherents in the liberal arts, teaching, the law and other professions, essentially anyone we might have characterised as progressive in a whole range of social issues, foreign policy, nationalism, civil liberties. Either directly or through the ranks of union officials, Labor could draw on the best out there for renewal.

Each such source of supply has dried up.

Unless the leadership at the machine level and the parliaments set about smashing the monopoly enjoyed by the political class the party is doomed. Rules changes are required which eliminate employees of the party and Ministers and parliamentarians from contesting selection ballots. The separate disaster of trade union officials should be addressed by legislation that requires each official to be drawn from the ranks of the working membership.

Impositions on the lines of Peter Garrett and Frank Sartor will occur more often during a transitional phase until the party membership rebuilds a catchment of candidates who can represent their fellow Australians and lead Australia's government. A good start will be candidates who are employees in productive employment where it is a dismissable offence during working hours to advance the cause of the ALP or your own preselection prospects.

At beginning of this address I posed questions which flow from the question which gives tonight its discussion. There is one other question. Would Chifley want Labor preselection today? I'll leave that answer to you.

More on what's wrong with Labor in NSW
I guess this might sound like sour grapes because there was a time, back in the 80s when I was a warrior of the NSW right of the ALP. I believed that we had the talent and the philosophy and I still think that I was right. John Ducker was Secretary of the Labor Council and his assistant was Barrie Unsworth, the Industrial officer was John McBean. The General Secretary of the ALP was Geoff Cahill, a weak and shifty figure with a very limited future (and probably a sign of what was to come) but his off sider was Graeme Richardson who proved a very fast learner. They were smart, talented, ruthless and in my view straight shooters. They knew what they wanted but they also knew why they wanted it. All had come "from the tools". They had worked for a living and all in their own way wanted to make things better for the people Labor represents.
Unfortunately they also had an underlying weakness in that they valued loyalty above EVERYTHING. Richardson was the most open about it when he said that the real test of a member of the right was that "you will be with us even when we are wrong".
I failed that test several times. In fact I can only think of one time when I passed it. As Secretary of the Education and Science Policy Committee I had signed off on a policy that would make private schools publicly accountable for every cent they had, from both government and private sources. I had moved it in the policy committee and I was very happy to see it in Labor policy but the private school lobby was not so happy. I don't know where it originated but pressure began for me to alter the wording of the policy that had been agreed before it went to the party's annual conference. It was just before the election of the Hawke Government and the pressure came from very high indeed. Finally I had a call from John Dawkins the shadow minister appealing to me to get the issue of the policital agenda and to trust the coming Labor Govenment. Stupidly I did as I was asked and copped it on the chin at the conference. The altered policy committee report was (of course) passed.
Later that year the Hawke Government sold out public education to keep the private school lobby happy. I went on AM and said so, and got called a disloyal c--- for my troubles. I've been a disloyal c---- ever since.
For 25 years they have promoted blindly loyal branch stackers and this is sadly true of both the left and the right. I'll add a fine article by Rod Cavalier to this blog, if I can ever find it again, lamenting the decline of the left into a faint shadow. No one believes in anything anymore. It's all very sad.

Andrew West has hit the nail on the head with this article in the SMH. Well all apart from the bit where he alludes to Joe Tripodi looking good in a suit.

Mass political party no more - just a haven for careerists ANDREW WEST
June 21, 2010

ANALYSIS

JOHN ROBERTSON is one of the smartest strategists in Labor politics - an authentic, self-educated blue-collar man with the wits to understand the thinking of the electorate. He was the author of the grassroots ''Your Rights At Work'' campaign that was instrumental in toppling the Howard government.

So he was either delusional or disingenuous yesterday when he said the unprecedented 25 per cent-plus swing away from Labor in the heartland seat of Penrith was largely because of voter anger with the former MP, Karyn Paluzzano, who quit after lying to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Deep down, surely he and the tiny handful of wise operatives that remain know that the rejection of the Keneally government reflects a widespread fury at the culture of corruption that pervades NSW Labor.

It is not always a criminal corruption. It is more an ethical corruption.

A recent newspaper column posited that NSW is being run by the same people who took over Young Labor in the early 1990s, only now, instead of squabbling over jobs in ministerial and union offices, they sit at the cabinet table. It was a clever, if incomplete, observation.

NSW Labor is defined by a mentality of entitlement and grievance - and has been for almost 40 years. Back in the late 1960s and 1970s, a coterie of Young Labor operatives, including Paul Keating, Bob Carr and Graham Richardson, sat around and divided up the world.

They believed because they craved seats in Parliament, and plotted a way there, they were entitled to such perks. The problem they struck is that people whose ambition outstripped their talent have followed.

This culture reached its apogee at the 2003 election, when the Fairfield MP Joe Tripodi and his then ally Eric Roozendaal, now treasurer but formerly the party's general secretary, assisted a cast of mates, relatives or relatives of mates into safe Labor seats.

Aside from the premier, the candidates included Tripodi's sister-in-law, Anglea D'Amore, Tanya Gadiel and Paluzzano. Already in Parliament were Tripodi's former fiance, Reba Meagher, and right-wing allies Matt Brown and Cherie Burton.

They, and their sponsors in the Labor machine, decided if you could prove yourself in the superficial arts of political organisation, such as screeching platitudes from a script at party conferences and looking good in a suit, you possessed the qualities necessary for a seat in Parliament.

Few could claim the confidence of a majority of their branch members or demonstrate deep roots in the communities they would represent. (Meagher arrived in western Sydney from the Sutherland Shire via the North Shore, and drove a BMW around her low-income electorate.)

Most tellingly, none came to Parliament having distinguished themselves in a profession, trade or career. And that is the problem with modern Labor. It has ceased to be a mass political party, with members who are also active in community groups. It has become a haven for careerists, where idealists are sniggered at as ''losers''. But who are the losers now?

Big Kev is Watching

A man with a photo-ID in a little plastic sleeve walked into our front yard this week and stopped the fellow who is laying some pavers for us (at an hourly rate) from working for a while. He wanted to demonstrate the evil of fruit flies as related to the guava tree in our garden. He was from the Department of Agriculture. He left a brochure and a card with instructions to call him.
How did they know we have a small guava tree? He was apparently driving up and down the street looking for people with fruit trees in their front gardens. Or maybe they use satellites.
The brochure warns me of huge fines if we fail to control fruit flies on our property. Since we don’t have side fences and I’m not sure about fly proof fences anyway I’m mystified as to how they’d prove that the flies came from our place rather than from next door but perhaps they have tiny radio transmitters fitted to the flies.
I had a heart attack last year. Too much gardening perhaps. I was taken to the public hospital but once they found that I had private insurance they shot me off to a private hospital where they said I would not have to wait as long for treatment. The food was better too. There was a letter waiting for me at home telling me that the NSW Department of Health had decided that I would definitely benefit from a rehabilitation program and that I would be contacted. A week or so later I got another letter admonishing me for not being in when the rehabilitation coordinator phoned to tell me when to come in to be rehabilitated. I’d gone for a walk. When I eventually went to meet her she told me a whole lot of stuff that I already knew. She suggested that I should go for regular walks. She asked me about my drinking habits. Now I considered emulating Jeffrey Bernard and saying “none of your fucking business” but why be crude so I said that I would have a few glasses of wine each evening. She told me that she would prefer it if I restricted myself to one glass. I should emphasise that this woman is not my wife or my mother. My wife would have supported the one glass rule but my dear mother certainly would have bristled at it.
Also in the mail at home was a parcel containing a bowel cancer test kit. The less said about this the better but it would appear that not being content with telling me how much I’m allowed to drink, what plants I have in my garden and what to do in my spare time the Commonwealth Government also want to peer up my bum.