Loons and ratbags to run Labor

[nero_bolt]

BILL Shorten was right about one thing yesterday. It wasn’t Tony Abbott who threw the Labor Party into opposition, it was the Australian people.

Problem is, Shorten still hasn’t figured out why.

Delivering what was billed as a historic, reforming speech in Melbourne yesterday the Labor leader declared he was going to rid the party of union domination and open it up to the “grassroots”.

He vowed to transform Labor into a “membership-based party”.

That sounds all noble and democratic but what it means in practice is handing the party over to the lunatic Green Left.

For all his talk about a new moral purpose, Shorten was just drawing from the old well of politically correct poison which has brought his party to its knees.

More affirmative action to increase numbers of women MPs was a clue.

So was the fact Shorten raised “the rancour over the recent Western Australian process (which) shows that in the future we need a method that provides a local voice.”

That “rancour” between Labor running mates Joe Bullock and Louise Pratt in Western Australia over Labor’s abysmal results in the latest re-run Senate election encapsulates Labor’s dilemma.

Bullock, who won Labor’s only Senate seat in WA, is a socially conservative member of the powerful shoppies union, which is headed by the outgoing right-wing faction leader and social conservative Joe De Bruyn.

Pratt, No. 2 on Labor’s Senate ticket, is an openly lesbian gay rights activist and Labor staffer, backed by the left-aligned United Voice union, who has been involved in Labor politics since her student days.

The pair are typical of the Labor Party’s increasingly schizophrenic nature.

Pratt and her union have been attacking Senator Bullock as an old homophobe since it became clear she wasn’t going to win the sixth Senate spot in WA.

Smearing him as a homophobe and bigot is a classic tactic of the dictatorial intolerant Left to shut down someone with opposing views, or someone who simply gets in your way.

Conveniently lost in all of the excitement over Bullock’s supposed homophobia were the killer truths he imparted.

He branded the Labor Party’s membership “mad”, and warned uncoupling from the common sense “ballast” of the unions would leave Labor open to every “every weird lefty trend that you can imagine, and there’d be no party left.’’

That is the inconvenient truth about the past six disastrous years. Labor saddled Australia with two hopeless prime ministers, who left a trail of destruction that will take decades to repair.

On climate policy they were wrong and deluded to try to lead the world. Cosying up to the Greens was a mistake. The only industry they boosted was people-smuggling.

Yet there has been no mea culpa, no soul searching, or apology. Just business as usual, as if making Labor membership a one-click process on the internet will save the party.

Of course the union movement is sick too, but instead of embracing the royal commission into corrupt unions as an opportunity to clean house, Shorten railed against it as a “star chamber”.

The fact is that, in the struggle for the soul of Labor, no one has clean hands.

In the end, the Left is using union corruption scandals for factional advantage to seize power for themselves.

Their beloved “grassroots” is code for GetUp style fringe-dwellers who will ensure the party remains unelectable.

Labor’s WA Senate result last month, the worst in its history, will be the new normal.

Really, if Labor wants to go further down that path, they should recruit Scott Ludlam as leader. At least he knows what he believes in.

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/loons_and_ra...

[lakeland27]

once more bolt relies on innuendo and unsubtantiated slur. kernohan is hardly a man of good character, perhaps bolt can relate to that. .of course  the more likely scenario is that he'd be willing to use claims made by carl williams to bolster his pathetic arguments

[spotweldersfriend]

Well if Bill & co. are doing everything wrong, you and Dolt should have something to crow about.So why complain?A bit worried Tone's on the nose are we? The only PM that didn't have a honeymoon period.He's a goner.

[lakeland27]

the other point being of course is the highly unlikely scenario of shorten offering kernohan a seat .. bolt is stretching credulity as is his stock in trade.

[vampire-teddy]

you can sprout all you like to put labor down at this time it will not take the attention away from the digsusting and appaling way the country is currently being run.  Australia is at an all time low being run by a bunch of bigoted, uninformed, unintelligent, uncompassionate out of touch fools who are doing their best to destroy what was once a decent caring country.  we will have less educated people, less healthy people and more crime out of financial desperation but at least we will have a fleet of second rate military planes.  labor may not win the next election but i think there is a very good chance the NLP will lose it. by then of course our national parks and the barrier reef will be damaged, our national reputation will be a joke, the rich richer (gina rienhart)  and the poor poorer.  any government that sees coal and coal seam gas as the future is obviously in need of some serious help.  I am just waiting for the press release that insists the world is flat.

[acacia_pycnantha]

They are not fools. They have arranged things to their benefit. Mr Abbott knows very well that he has earned the moniker of "one term Tony" and doesn't expect to be re-elected, so he and his party are going to get the most (for themselves) out of their one term in govt that they can.

All the pain will come in the first two years (and that first 100 days has felt like years) and in the last year will come the very expensive bribes to the electorate in the slight hope that they will be re-elected, but which will guarantee that the incoming next govt will be financially embarrassed by their actions.

Lest we forget? Pensioners will never forget the threat (even if it doesn't actually eventuate in the May budget) to their meagre subsistence aged pension.

In a wealthy first world country such as Australia is, the very least we can do is to ensure that our aged, work-exhausted people will not starve or become homeless when they are unable to continue to work due to age and/or infirmity.

The lunatics are those who are now in govt and who propose policies which will ensure their own electoral doom next time around.

Unfortunately, these lunatics are "crazy like a fox" and will ensure they get away with as much personal loot for themselves as they can before being consigned to political oblivion for a few more years . . . until the voter/s forget again, just like they did the last time when they voted in this present govt.

That's not to say that Labor is any better . . . they really blew their chance when they finally got it . . . let's hope that both parties learn by their mistakes.

I suspect they won't though . . . they'll just rely on the voters' propensity to forget.

Vote "none of the above" because they're all a bunch of either inept wallies or a rapacious bunch of looters who will get what they can for themselves and their corporate friends before they take a taxpayer funded obligatory holliday in opposition.

For a short time only?

Lest we forget.

[silverfaun]

Labor running their scare campaign and verballing all over the place.

Shorten is a master wiv his scares and what if's.

They're gunna do this they're gunna do that with no leg to stand on, people can tell lies from truth, they saw enough of it with Labor and the last 6 years of it.

All the angst coming from the disappointed, all the slogans coming from the left (one term tone) amd all the other on here scaring up a storm?? well go for it., voters are glad they ousted Labor, glad in their millions, glad they don't have to worry every day about what machinations the desperado's were conjuring up behind the scenes.

Just how much more regulation they could get through to featherbed at the unions behest.

Labor has always made the fatal error of thinking that voters are stupid, they don't grasp the nuances, well you know what? they aren't stupid and can smell the lies and bs a mile off that's why they ousted Labor and that's why labor will be buried in opposition for years.

Bill is crippled, can't do anything about the unions and the corruption, they won't let him, Bill is a creature of the unions and they know that.

[vampire-teddy]

i am not a labor supporter, have not been for some time.  i don't like either of the main parties but i could not vote none of the above as the as that would be a dokey vote for the NLP.  Labor mada mistakes but nothing like what is going on at the moment.  I am not saying that the Libs couldn't do a better job either but not with the current leadership group.  we need a new crew on both sides.