a nutter for Baillieu to keep an eye on

While the Liberal Baillieu Government has come across as a pretty moderate outfit (which is why I supported them over Brumby) during its first 6 months in office, it should be remembered that they are still a "conservative" Government, and eternal vigilance is required.
And as an example, it looks like they've got a real right royal wiredo on the back benches by the name of Geoff Shaw see here . This bloke belongs to those God awful pentecostals (who are the worst of the worst), and while the angle of the story has focused on his gay/child molester jibe, I think equally insulting have been his comments in his maiden Parliamentary speech where he acknowledged ''the original owner of the land on which we stand - God, the Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the Bible''. This was nothing but a deliberate slap in the face directed towards Aborigines, a not so pleasant reminder that there's still plenty of people in the Liberal Party (and not just in West Australia) who don't go for this land rights justice mumbo jumbo for the "original owners", and that they'll need to take second place to God.
Of course while the Aborigines were the original peoples of this "Terra Nova", for a Member of Parliament to go into the chamber and make a speech to essentially claim ownership of the land to an abstract being, is plainly ridiculous.....but perhaps fitting for a pentecostal.
But to give you an example of how these pentecostals operate (and going back to the original story), instead of replying to his constituent with something along the lines of "thank you for your feedback etc etc", he just got nasty, in fact brutally nasty. From the reported remarks, what way is that to speak to a 20 year old constituent? But no doubt the "red rag to a bull" was the fact that this kid was gay, so immediately in the eyes of your average hate filled pentecostal he's "evil" and no longer needs to be treated with the respect deserving of a constituent.
A nutter for Baillieu to keep an eye on indeed.

public transport causing early grief for Baillieu

Franchised train operator Metro Trains, through its incompetence, is causing some early grief for the Bailleu State Government. As I've mentioned previously, to divert attention from their own poor management practices, they tried to blame the driver's union for their appalling train performance figures, and now they're taking a caning over their new timetable which starts next week read here .
A suburban train timetable is a very complex beast, and by untangling it there's bound to be "winners and losers" out of it. But they (and the Government) seem to be like rabbits in the spotlight, totally gobsmacked for a response. Take this quote from the newly elected Liberal MP for the area covering Laburnum station which is losing 10 morning peak services; ''there is a reduction [in train services at Laburnum], but … we have to look at the future and how can we improve the problems on that line if we don't deal with the fundamental problems?''. Now I know she's only new to the game, but this has to be just about the most  nonsensical response to an issue that I've ever heard. At least the Brumbles.....sorry....Brumby media machine woud've spewed out all sorts of distracting data to back up their decision. Whereas all we get here is some sort of mumbling about the future from the local MP, and a "our hands are tied" response from the Minister.
So if they're having trouble selling that, lets see what their response will be when the media get a sniff that in the new timetable travel times have been lengthened on the Caufield group lines to make them more "realistic", ie. poor punctuality figures are covered up by adding more minutes to the journey. I wonder if we'll get any more babbling about the"future" on this one?
But the Baillieu Government's troubles are just starting if my sources are correct, apparently this Monday (to coincide with the new timetable) there's going to be a train driver's sickie boycott. So there'll be plenty of media there to film angry commuters screaming obscenities at Metro and the Government. Indeed plenty of uncomfortable days ahead me thinks?

will the carbon tax, or refugees kill off Labor first?

A while back I offered my first praise of the Gillard Government see here over her "courage" in arguing for a carbon tax. But since that brief moment of sunshine, not alot has gone right for the Government, and it's all pretty much their own fault.
They're getting killed every day in the media over carbon, but have been completely inept at arguing why we need this tax on carbon so much, and what the benefits will be for all of us. But part of that slow burn has been caused by the lack of detail released which has allowed the dooms dayers to speculate at will at how expensive everything will be, and how many jobs and investment opportunities will be lost etc.
So while even wily commentators like Laurie Oakes have all but written of the Government  read it here , I'm prepared to wait until they release their budget, and release their carbon plan in full before writing their obituary.
But if carbon isn't enough of a bogey man for Labor, their asylum seeker policy is completely up in flames. East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta finally stuck the knife into the whole silly East Timor Processing Centre proposal, an idea that was never going to wash, and only designed to clear the decks for the election.
But Labor really only has itself to blame on this issue, they've been completely spooked by voting suburbia's inherent prejudice to "illegals" since the Tampa incident in 2001. A party with real leadership would argue that asylum seekers are a reality that we need to accept, and as a civilised tolerant country people escaping oppression will want to seek refuge here. And in the great scheme of things it's not really that big of an issue compared with Europe, for example in Greece between 2004 and 2008 the tally of arrested illegal immigrants rose from 44,987 to 146,337, and that's just the ones they caught! But Gillard (and Rudd before her) didn't have the courage to face down the populist chest thumping, and as punishment for their smoke and mirrors routine, they're now well and truly looking down the barrel.
But like I said earlier, I'm prepared to wait a little bit longer before writing them off completely, but to give you an idea of just hard it will be to turn things around, according to Essential Research, 61% of respondents see Labor as out of touch with voters, a devastating figure for a 3 and a half year old Government, and only 28% think Labor is clear on what it stands for. Very ominous numbers indeed.

Labor vs the Greens..and the future of progressive politics

There has been alot said in recent times about Labor's attack on the Greens "extremism", and alternatively the conservatives attack on the minority Labor Government being in bed with the Green monster.
While Opposition Leader Abbott's spinning of PM Gillard's attack on the Greens as a faux fight for the cameras is only distracting attention away from the Labor Party's very real concern over their long term ability to shake off the Greens menace on the progressive side of politics.
Gillard's comments that the Greens are "well intentioned", while in the same breath accusing them of not sharing "Australian values" is a transparent attempt to woo back those transient progressive voters who have strayed from the flock back to mother with horror stories of what evil lies beyond the hill. No wonder Bob Brown returned volley on that one.
Labor's real problem is that it is in danger of  perhaps never being able to govern in its own right again? The Greens are the only party standing up for true progressive causes; Palestine, anti war, equal rights, anti discrimination, climate change etc.
With a party membership (Labor) of about 45,000, and with the vast majority of that being inactive (ie stacked) members, you now have no intellectual base coming through with ideas and vision. You're essentially a dying party run by a nomenklatura at party headquarters.
While the inner city seats still rely on Liberal preferences for the Greens to win, its only a matter of time before their vote is strong enough to roll labor. There's now too many educated "elites" who won't fall for Labor's empty branding and sloganeering in those seats. So once you've lost that intellectual base of your Party, who's left? The lower socio-economic class migrant seats with their rusted on voters?
Former Liberal Party Senator Reg Withers once scoffed at the idea when asked that the Liberals may be finished as a major Party, primarily because any Party that regularly polls 40% of the primary vote is only a step away from Government. And this is Labor's problem, their days of breaking 40% may be well and truly over?
So where is Labor to go, "moving forward" (to use their own cringe worthy slogan)? Do they follow the US Democratic Party model of morphing into what were once moderate Republicans, leaving a massive void on the Left which the Greens will gladly accept? You can (maybe) get away with that in the land of "enterprise", but a recipe for disaster in this country.
Former PM Keating pilloried the current Party apparatchiks for not believing in anything, and the next generation of power hungry young men are (believe me) no better!
Perhaps the Labor Party needs to reconnect with its base, and that doesn't mean listening to ambitious union leaders sniffing out a future pre-selection either. But the men and women of the branches, good people with ideas on climate change, human/equal rights, a balanced foreign policy, economics, national identity and a wealth of other important issues which can help define the Labor Party.
But the real danger is that it may already be too late?