Agmates

Dr. James Hansen, a veteran NASA climate expert, has been both lauded and criticized for moving beyond studying global warming to pressing lawmakers and the public to end unfettered coal burning and build a nonpolluting energy system. I interviewed him 6.21.08 for a New York Times story and post and video on my Dot Earth blog.

Agmates Video Gallery

(thanks to Agmate Jeff)

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Is former Treasurer Peter Costello waiting in the wings for Malcolm Turnbull impending demise?

As the issue of Turnbull’s leadership unfolds remember what Senator Ron Boswell said in his article on Agmates when he was expressing his disgust at Malcolm Turnbulls back flip on the telecommunication fund that saw the 4 National Senators and 2 Liberals defy Turnbull and cross the floor. Boswell said -

“Those who ignore the interests of the bush will pay a political price.”

Boswell wrote that 9 days ago and it seems as if the wheels within the Liberal party are starting to whirl…

Supporters of Mr Costello are urging him to fight for his seat at the next federal election, saying the Liberal Party needs him more than ever as Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull fails to make headway in the opinion polls….

Of course in true Costello style the he will only take the leadership if it foystered upon him.

On Wednesday night Mr Costello’s electorate fund-raising body, the Higgins 200 Club, hosted by its chairman, former Foster’s chief executive Peter Bartels, held a cocktail party at a mansion in Toorak to raise funds and offer support to the MP for Higgins.

One guest among the 200 business leaders and members of the Melbourne establishment present said there was a strong view that the former treasurer must stay because Mr Turnbull’s leadership was flailing.

The Liberals must be in dire straits if Costello is their only alternative to Turnbull as leader. Costello did rural & regional Australia no favours in his 11 years as treasurer. Under his leadership as treasurer infastructure and services to rural & regional Australia declined badly.

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If you saw Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull on the ABC 7.30 report last night you would understand that its been a very bad few weeks for the Liberal party Leader.

In the way only Kerry O’Brien can, he was very timid with Turnbull and Turnbull was at best ’stumbling, tentative and sheepish’. And the lesson that Malcolm learned in the last 12 weeks as leader - he has to ‘Communicate better’.

WA PM Wilson Tuckey has a great suggestion how the coalition should run its party room to achieve the best communication. Perhaps Turnbull could start by taking Tuckey’s suggestion.

Turnbull’s record over the 12 weeks of opposing everything and then at the 11th hour ‘rolling over’ has created a very bad perception of him.

And of course he’s at it again on the Industrial relations reforms again today:

THE Rudd Government’s contentious unfair dismissal rules are destined to pass the Senate after Malcolm Turnbull declared he would “not oppose” the changes, as part of a vow to alter the way he works as Leader of the Opposition.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Turnbull said that although the new rules would be a “tax on employment”, he believed the ALP had the electorate’s backing for the new unfair dismissal laws.

So even though the laws will hurt the very people Turnbull and the Liberals represent (Business) he won’t be using the Coalitions numbers to force the amendments even though the independents have the same concerns.

But Independent Senator Nick Xenophon rightly says he has concerns as the legislation goes further than what Labor proposed to the Australian public at the last election.

These mixed messages Turnbull is sending out to the public is that he is the Opposition leader - but what do does he actually oppose. You would not know.

The impression Turnbull is creating as leader is of a Liberal elitist with no real principals that he’ll stand up for. We published this photo yesterday and I will again as I think it sums the way he is perceived by most Australians to date.

What conservatives voters are looking for is a political leader not a tricky and devious lawyer or merchant banker. Turnbull will have to make the transition in the new year if he is to have any future as the leader of the coalition.

On his performance so far he is a very deserved recipient of his appalling 19% approval rating in the latest Galaxy poll I’d say.

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Over the past 12 months Agmates has heaped plenty of scorn on Liberal Party politicians who represent rural & regional constituencies .

Two Liberal Politicians who have copped heaps from us for their blind faith and loyalty to Urban centric Liberal party policy have been NSW Liberal Senator Bill Heffernann and Western Australian Liberal MP for O’Connor (based around Esperance and the wheat belt ) Wilson ‘Iron Bar’ Tuckey.

But we have nothing but praise today for Wilson Tuckey after his letter in todays Australian Newspaper, supporting the Nationals stand and requesting a greater say for rural and regional communities in the Coalition Party Room.

In fact we are so impressed by Wilson Tuckey finally seeing ‘the light’ we are awarding him a prestigious Agmates ‘Onya’ award.

In an article yesterday I said Tony Abbott and the Liberals Just Don’t get It and it appears that Wilson Tuckey [pictured] obviously agrees:

I MUST politely disagree with much of the substance of Tony Abbott’s piece on the Coalition’s recent woes.

First, the Nationals are not always wrong or alone in the positions they take in the parliament on certain issues, and in fact have had the support of many Liberals in the partyroom on the issues discussed recently-climate and telecommunications.

Second, the problem for the Coalition is that our partyroom does not vote formally, and, historically, the leadership has too often chosen to ignore the obvious majority views expressed in debate.

The long-standing process is that the leadership, purportedly representing the view of the entire front bench, recommends a position to the partyroom. However, too often such a recommendation, which may be of doubtful value, is expected to be supported and some MPs feel they might best promote their own interests by their silence.

This problem is not new and those of us who were present during the last term of the Fraser government would remember Malcolm’s autocratic style.

Now that would explain why rural and regional Australia has had such a raw deal from the coalition over the past 3 decades. Tuckey’s suggestion to remedy the situation is a truly democratic one:

The need for this reform is highlighted by recent events where, in the belief that a decision of the executive actually overrode the position of the partyroom, the Leader instructed our senators to change their vote.

I have corresponded with all Coalition MPs and senators recommending binding secret ballots for next year. The first step is to have a functional partyroom were minority interests can be considered and votes taken.

Perhaps Liberal ‘knock their nuts out’ Senator Bill Heffernan [pictured] should take a leaf out of Wilson Tuckey’s book.

It would help redeem himself to the people he is supposed to stand up for and represent.

Wilson Tuckey now joins the  illustrious list of Agmates Onya award winners.

To win an Agamtes Onya you must do something extremely good or make a stand for rural and regional communities.

A big thumbs up from the Agmates community.

‘Onya” Wilson.

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No wonder Kevin Rudds popularity is at an all time high. Australia has to choose between the hyperactive Prime Minister or the stand -for-nothing leader of the liberal party Malcolm Turnbull.

Turnbull backed Rudd’s unlimited guarantee of bank deposits - “we’re supportive of it” - even though it caused a run on other institutions and left state governments unable to borrow. (Now, though, Turnbull correctly calls the guarantee “a financial blunder of epic proportions”.)

Turnbull backed Rudd’s scrapping of WorkChoices, being too scared to deny what he said was Rudd’s “mandate”, even though he knew it would embolden unions and cost jobs.

Turnbull backed Rudd’s $10.4 billion stimulus package - “we are not going to argue about the composition of the package” - even though the mega-splurge was unexpectedly big and will leave us with little to show next year.

Turnbull backed Rudd’s bill to set up $26 billion of infrastructure funds because his fear that the cash would be blown without proper checks was less than his fear of seeming a party-pooper.

Turnbull backed Rudd’s $6.2 billion handout to international car makers even though it works out to a subsidy of around $100,000 for each car industry job, and we’d do better buying cheaper cars from overseas.

Turnbull backed Rudd’s idea to cut our gases with an emissions trading scheme (quibbling only over whether it be introduced in 2010 or 2011) even though the world hasn’t warmed in a decade, Australia’s gases are too little to matter, and this purely symbolic scheme will cost us jobs.

Turnbull backed Rudd’s apology to the stolen generations, even though no one can name even 10 children stolen just for being Aboriginal.

Turnbull backed Rudd’s attack on rich bosses - “I think the level of executive remuneration in many companies over some time now has been very excessive” - even though executives are usually paid what the market says they’re worth, and governments should butt out.

TURNBULL backed Rudd’s tax breaks for new forests to store carbon, even though his National Party allies rightly reckon it a green con that steals good farmland and robs towns of jobs.

Turnbull backed Rudd’s $28 billion funding of private schools this month, because he was too scared to insist schools not be forced to agree to a yet unseen national curriculum.

And the Liberals want to force Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals into taking the same stand as they are. On current Liberal party form that would be a policy of oppose nothing. What a joke.

Source - Andrew Bolt / Herald Sun

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As we reported earlier this week A Senate inquiry has found that fertiliser manufacturers had ‘price gouged’ farmers with fertilizer supplies this year. They are looking to make changes to the Trade practices Act to stop it happening again.

The WA Farmers Federation called for legislation to protect against fertiliser price fixing, after a Senate inquiry found that there had been corrupt trade practices.

Now the other major Western Australia Lobby group has come out saying it does not support legislation to protect farmers.

However, the Pastoralists and Graziers Association’s (PGA) Leon Bradley disagrees with the findings, saying prices are governed by fluctuations in the world market.

He says farmers are being misled, and that could prove costly to their businesses.

“What we’re concerned about is, if farmers delay their action on getting their orders in and taking delivery of them according to the schedule that they’ve agreed to, we will get gridlock in the supply chain for the forthcoming seeding,” he said.

So Leon Bradley is spinning the same line that the fertiliser manufacturers have been, even though the independent Senate inquiry over many months of taking evidence and submissions has found completely the opposite.

Would someone like to explain to the Agmates community what planet these bogans are from? I don’t know who they speak for, but its not a viewed shared by any grain grower that I know of.

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In an opinion piece today, Liberal front bencher Tony Abbott blasts the Nationals and takes a thinly disguised swipe at coalition partner The Nationals and Nationals Senate Leader Barrnaby Joyce.

Nationals senators’ considered decision to vote contrary to the shadow cabinet, though, was more serious. It may have impressed some traditional Nationals constituencies but it didn’t bring the defeat of the Labor Government any closer. … Perhaps 5 per cent of voters cheer when the Nationals reinforce their separate identity. The rest conclude that the Coalition is unready to govern.

Newsflash 1: Tony, thats why your in opposition. In your last term of government in particular you and your Liberal colleges stopped listening to the people of Australia, particularly Rural & Regional Australia. The Nationals have learned from that experience but apparently you and some Liberals have not.

Newsflash 2: It is not up to us to support you and any move you and liberals make to get back into office, even when that move is to the detriment of the very people you purport to represent.  You and the Liberals have no God given right to be the government. It’s up to you / the Liberal party to prove you have learned to listen and to act in your supporters best interest. I’m sorry to break the news to you but those best interests are not solely confined to being anything at all that gets you back in as the government.

Abbott’s thinly veiled swipe at Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals for standing strong on behalf of the people they represent demonstrates that he and the Liberal Party are a long way off being worthy of governing this country.

The prospects of defeating the Government shouldn’t be jeopardised because some people can’t decide which team they’re on. Incorrigible mavericks might sometimes win a seat as independent or minor party candidates but would ultimately find themselves less newsworthy and far less influential.

*****

Update 10.30am

Even rabid conservative supporter journalist Andrew Bolt is highly critical of Tony Abbott and the Liberal party.

Hear it from Abbott. The Liberals under Turnbull are so craven that they will vote for changes they know perfectly well will be disastrous for the country.

If I were Abbott, I wouldn’t defend this gutless irresposibility for a moment later. Better be silent than complicit.

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As much as the Labor government and Green groups desire to see Australia make cuts to its carbon emissions in the end it might be up to the Liberal / National Party to decide if it passes into law.

THE worsening economic downturn and deepening business concerns are hardening the Coalition’s resolve to delay the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme by one or two years.

National Party Senate leader Barnaby Joyce won’t be supporting the Emissions trading Scheme legislation.

National Party senator Barnaby Joyce has said there was no way he could vote for an ETS in the current economic environment,

The Liberals are saying they support the scheme, but want its start delayed by a year or 2. But you can take that with a grain of salt. As the Liberals showed in the Senate last week they will strongly oppose legislation right up to the final hour before the vote then cave in and support the government.

But Malcolm Turnbull and his emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb made it clear yesterday that they could force a delay because many businesses would be struggling just to survive the next few years,

Spot the difference:

Barnaby Joyce say ‘there’s no way’ which means - ‘there’s no way’

Andrew Robb says ‘that they could force a delay’ - which means, ‘ah maybe, not sure, depends’

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Dose Australia need to enact a Bill of Rights. We are the only western democracy without a legislated Bill of Rights.

The Argument will rage over the next 6 months.

On the Negative side are those that believe that we are well served by “Majority Rule” where the Government of the day makes the laws and if we the people don’t like them we vote someone in who will change them.

On The other side are those who support the implementation of a bill of rights which is in essence a fundamental swing in the balance of power from duly elected representatives to an unelected judiciary.

Geoffry Roberston QC (ABC Hypothetical) thinks we need a bill of rights:

he argues that Australia needs a bill of rights for two reasons:

first so that we can become an “advanced” democracy;

and secondly so that our High Court and other judges can make more of an international contribution than they do now.

But Australia has done incredibly well with our current system:

The truth is that Australia is one of the most advanced democracies there is. Our constitutional order came about, not through war or other violence, but as a result of various popular processes in Australia in the 1890s. Even those who did not have the vote back then were often involved informally.

Since federation, Australians have been at liberty to amend the constitution, and we have done so from time to time.

But that’s not to suggest that there are not plenty of problems with the current system. No enshrined right to freedom of speech and refugee detention being but a couple.

In her Human Rights Day oration, published in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, Catherine Branson, president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, complained that innocent people, including children, had been unjustly detained and that Australia had deported its citizens.

In its submission to the 2020 summit, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission claimed that current legal arrangements did not adequately protect citizens from human rights violations.

In support of its case, it cited Cornelia Rau, the Australian resident wrongfully detained by immigration authorities, and Vivian Alvarez, wrongfully deported to The Philippines.

The debate will rage over the next 6 months until the consultation report is delivered to the Rudd Government in July next year and everybody has an opinion.

Here’s What Cardinal George Pell thinks:

“The push for a charter of rights springs from a suspicion of majority rule, a preference for judicial decision-making on fundamental questions, the imperatives of the particular social and political agenda that a charter of rights serves, and the elitism of privileged reformers.

” Australia doesn’t need it or want it.

So what do you think. Do we need a Bill of Rights?

ANU’s research School of Social Sciences and author Dr Linda Botterill [pictured] is on of the few academics in Australia who has extensively study the Federal national Party in Australia.

“I think the National Party federally would do better if they do what they did in Western Australia and that is be prepared to trade one side off the other to get their outcomes,” she says.

The national Party’s unque strenght is what many former leaders consider their weakness.

“The thing the Nationals have going for them is their distinctive rural identity,” Dr Botterill says.

“It probably isn’t a bad tactic for them in the Senate to be playing on that.”

“The Nationals have been independent in the past and I really think their future relies on being independent,” Dr Botterill says.

Botterill argues that the Nationals in order to move forward need to look back. The Country Party of Australia was formed 88 years ago. It’s inaugural Leader William James McWilliam [pictured] on March 10, 1920, rose to speak in the House of Representatives on the supply bill.

“I think it my duty to let honourable members of this house and the country generally know exactly the position in which we stand,” he said.

The Country Party is an independent body, quite separate from the Nationalists or the Labor Party … We take no part in the deliberations of ministerialists or of the opposition.

We intend to support measures of which we approve, and hold ourselves absolutely free to criticise or reject any proposals with which we do not agree … We crave no alliance, we spurn no support; we have no desire to harass the government, nor do we wish to humiliate the opposition.”

That sounds exactly like something the countries most popular National Party Politician Barnaby Joyce would say. No wonder he’s popular.

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