Abbott/Liberal Govt Watch

[once_were_warriors]

I'm the same GNuts. However unlike here in Sth Australia , I do sometimes , more this century have trouble voting for the Libs due to them being in bed with the Nationals

I see the Nationals as important as the Labor Party in the scheme of the Australian economy

You want us to get rid of our agriculture like the Brits have done?

That was Keating's aim - purely personal because he never got a vote out of them

You miss quoted Sky Pilot.

However your response is right up there with some of the best union propoganda that has been purported.

[Sky Pilot]

The point with my discussion about Keating
Anyone can be Prime Minister of this country and, at the moment, Abbott is looking a far better one than Gillard.

Rather amusing that some people on this forum were writing him off when he was first elected

Depends on your political leanings. He has to appeal to the marginal/swinging voters to get elected, this is his major problem.

I am such a voter and if an election was called today, I would still vote Labor. Both severely disappoint me, but when it comes to the crunch I prefer Gillard's nasally tones over Abbotts keystone swagger any day of the week.

Lucky for Abbott I'm in a safe Liberal seat.

How sad that you could support a clueless government on the basis of not liking Tony Abbott. By supporting Labor you are endorsing the loopy Greens. Its tragic really. This mob inherited a $20billion surplus and turned it into a debt that will take us a decade of sound economic management to reverse.

I make a judgement call based on the facts before every election, not liking Abbott is only one such fact.

I take it you swallow whatever propaganda is wheeled out from your favourite party and vote the same way every election? That is sad in my book. Parochial, close minded, and downright sad.

Not entirely true - I have voted for the other side - state and federal - at times when my mob was giving me the sh!ts. But I'm in a safe Liberal seat so the reality is my vote never counts

[Sky Pilot]

I'm the same GNuts. However unlike here in Sth Australia , I do sometimes , more this century have trouble voting for the Libs due to them being in bed with the Nationals

I see the Nationals as important as the Labor Party in the scheme of the Australian economy

You want us to get rid of our agriculture like the Brits have done?

That was Keating's aim - purely personal because he never got a vote out of them

Hey Jimmy - not my quote mate

[redandblack]

Someone posted that Abbott's speech at the President's dinner was superb.

Here's David Penberthy's (definitely not a Labor man) take on it:

It was a tough crowd for Abbott but he made it tougher by giving a speech which managed to be both oddly vain and uncharacteristically inane. Gillard was no great shakes on the day – at her joint press conference with the President she sounded like a nervous wreck as her voice wavered – but she gave a nice speech at the dinner which was all about Obama, and how his life in Indonesia, Africa and then in the US reflected the multicultural make-up of our own country.

Abbott decided to give a speech not about Obama but about himself, about how he had gone to Oxford, how he had fought as a boxer, how he had got himself into a scrape in Afghanistan. He then made the weird point that, just as Obama was the first black president, the Coalition had at the last election returned the first Aboriginal Australian MP to the Lower House.

It was a clunky observation which suggested that the wholly different stories of black America and indigenous Australia are somehow interchangeable. Obama might have seemed kind of touched by it but he would obviously feel an enduring level of suspicion, if not disdain, for Abbott and the Coalition, given John Howard’s memorable declaration that Obama was al-Qaeda’s preferred candidate for the US presidency four years ago, a point on which Mr bin Laden would now differ if not for the happy event of his being shot dead and chucked into the sea.

The biggest challenge Tony Abbott has right now is that federal politics is no longer being played on his preferred turf of nothing other than the carbon tax and border protection.

[The Sleeping Giant]

Oh, I (and half the site) could name one or two professional trolls on here.

So one can make a living out of it?

Wedgie keeps telling me the cheque is in the mail.

[Jimmy_041]

I'm the same GNuts. However unlike here in Sth Australia , I do sometimes , more this century have trouble voting for the Libs due to them being in bed with the Nationals

I see the Nationals as important as the Labor Party in the scheme of the Australian economy

You want us to get rid of our agriculture like the Brits have done?

That was Keating's aim - purely personal because he never got a vote out of them

You miss quoted Sky Pilot.

However your response is right up there with some of the best union propoganda that has been purported.

Glad I supported the unions......... I think

[redandblack]

More on Mr Abbott's speech:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has defended the tone of the welcome speech he gave to US president Barack Obama yesterday.

Mr Abbott's address appeared to breach the long-standing convention which says both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader stay well away from internal politics when visiting dignitaries address Parliament.

In his speech, he talked about Prime Minister Julia Gillard's about-face on selling uranium to India, saying he "welcomed the Government's conversion on this subject".

Several on Mr Abbott's side of politics are reportedly unhappy with their leader, with one unnamed MP quoted in today's Sydney Morning Herald as saying "we were squirming in our seats".

But the Opposition Leader defended himself on Channel 9 this morning, saying he was actually praising Ms Gillard, not criticising her.

Asked why his own MPs were unhappy about the speech, Mr Abbott told interviewer Lisa Wilkinson: "I was praising the Prime Minister, Lisa as you do. I mean, far be it for me, Lisa, to be Dr No on this one."

"I was being Dr Yes. I was saying 'Julia, well done Julia. Better late than never'."

The Government has been quick to seize on the issue, with Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd saying Mr Abbott "simply can't control himself on these occasions".

[Gozu]

Abbott's a clown and it was poor form.

[redandblack]

Laurie Oakes take on Mr Abbott's speech in parliament:

Even his strongest supporters must wonder what gets into Tony Abbott at times. Surely they were embarrassed by his injection of partisan domestic politics into the occasion of President Obama's address to the Australian Parliament.

Here was a big, bipartisan event one so important it should have been above party politics. But Abbott could not resist sniping at the Government over uranium sales and the mining tax in his speech welcoming the President.

It was the political equivalent of breaking wind in church.

A US official was quoted as commenting: "Pettiness of the worst type."

[The Sleeping Giant]

What's wrong with breaking wind in church?

[Jimmy_041]

Just as bad a Keating bringing up about the British Generals when disinterring the unknown soldier in France

[Q.]

Just as bad a Keating bringing up about the British Generals when disinterring the unknown soldier in France

Did Keating drive over your cat?

[Jimmy_041]

no - I got to it first

[woodublieve12]

this guy is a peanut... enough said...

[Q.]

this guy is a peanut... enough said...

No need to talk about Jimmy like that

[Jimmy_041]

[woodublieve12]

[dedja]

Abbott is living that assessment right now in Parliament ...

Good post about the interest rates, Jimmy.

As for the wages explosion, Keating and Hawke deserve credit for the Wages Accord, which was a prime factor in solving that problem.

As for Keating, it's like most things. Those who don't like him think he was terrible with no redeeming features, those who did think the opposite, although I think they realise his faults.

From a political perspective, he was great entertainment and dominated the Parliament. He had a knack of getting to the nub of a matter in few words, such as his assessment of Mr Abbott a while ago.

"He's a wrecker", he said, "give me the top job or I'll wreck the joint"

[Jimmy_041]

Just as bad a Keating bringing up about the British Generals when disinterring the unknown soldier in France

Did Keating drive over your cat?

Wish he'd run over my poodle

[dedja]