the ALP of today has no resemblance to what the ALP of 40 years ago was.
cohenite,
cheers for that, great to see somebody else realising that. You've made my day. Hmmh, I just spoiled it again bey remembering that we're still paying good money for big Goagh.

Good morning all,

Excellent discussion.

@Shadow Minister, we are on the same page at last! I agree with you about the sexist comments made at the function cabinet members attended.

This must be treated exactly the same as the disgusting comments by Alan Jones at the Young Libs dinner.

That is, the CFMEU and the Labor Party must disassociate themselves from the comedian and never employ him again; the CFMEU - which invited him – must apologise; all MPs present should repudiate the offensive joke; and MPs should henceforward have nothing to do with the comedian.

Similarly, the Liberal Party must disassociate themselves from Alan Jones and never employ him again; the Liberal Party – the group which invited Jones – must apologise; all MPs present should repudiate the offensive comments; and MPs should henceforward have nothing to do with Jones.

I agree, SM, that both are equally serious and must be treated equally.

Re: “desire to silence AJ”. No, that is not true, is it, SM? Pretty sure the article is clear. Re-read the part with the seven-point list and the following paragraphs. Thanks.

@Cohenite, regarding Peter Slipper, what do you mean “Alan, they VOTED for him!”

Also Shadow Minister, what do you mean “Except every single ALP woman supported him in the parliament”?

What period are we talking about? After the text messages came to light? Or before? Do you really want to compare the number of times throughout his career Labor MPs voted for Slipper to take on a Parliamentary role with the number of times the Coalition voted for him?

Which party endorsed him for the last seven elections?

Finally, Anthony and Shadow Minister, have you noticed how you and others point to my “unquestioning loyalty to the ALP/Green/left side of politics” or similar?

This is a curious thing. Because when we re-read this article and subsequent comments, my arguments are only supportive of honesty, integrity, decency, equality, truth and consistency – and opposed to sexism, misogyny, racism, fabrication, lies and abuse of power.

Why do you automatically associate this stance with the ALP/Green/left?

Cheers, AA

AA,

The left is associated with lies, dodgy dealing, double standards, abuse of power, corruption, and rampant hypocrisy.

AJ's remark has little to do with Your attacks on AJ and are a pretext for your real target which is to get AJ to:

4 tone down his belligerent anti-Labor attacks or abandon them altogether
5 be shifted to a role where he cannot wield his present destructive influence
6 resign or be sacked from 2GB altogether

Which is effectively silencing him politically, (the real objective of the disproportionate attacks on him, his employer, and his employer's sponsors.)

As for Juliar, While her tirade initially won her Kudos, as the public digs deeper into the reason behind her dummy spit, they are waking up to the blatant hypocrisy.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pms-speech-goes-from-bad-ass-to-bad/story-fn59niix-1226494771520

"On Thursday, John Chalmers, group communications manager at Buzz-Numbers, warned that while the Australian public had largely lauded the Prime Minister's attack, on Twitter, Facebook and other sites, "our analysis suggests support for Gillard may change as the public connects Gillard's contradictory stance".

As the tone of the commentary changed, Jezebel started a debate on double standards."

Every single ALP MP woman and man, while giving lip service to condemn Slipper's texts, (after having access to them for months) to a person voted to keep him as speaker. Actions speak louder than words.

Hi again Shadow Minister,

Yes, you've now read the article correctly. Thanks. Yes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are reasonable. None of these seeks to silence AJ’s legitimate analysis, does it?

I don't support 7. We should all have free speech.

Your other observations relate to universal questions – in Australia, here in France where we've just had elections, and in the USA where elections are looming.

Questions arising from your recent posts:

1. Remember I asked if you'd counted the times Jones was found guilty by the Australian Communications and Media Authority of fabrication?

You said you hadn’t, but you guessed "a fraction of 1% were found to be incorrect.”

Okay. How about you actually go to the ACMA website and then report back as to whether that may be an underestimate?

2. You claim “the left is associated with … abuse of power, corruption, and rampant hypocrisy.”

Maybe. But the question is: how does it compare with the right? No?

With regard to corruption, for example, do you acknowledge that the 5-year Rudd/Gillard period has actually had the lowest rate of ministerial sackings/resignations of any government anywhere in the world among Westminster nations since 1820?

3. Do you accept that the number of Government backbenchers accused of offences in the last 5 years is also at a world-record low?

4. Regarding your reference to The Australian, SM, do you realise that’s an article by Denis Shanahan?

Do you agree he's the Murdoch fabricator holding the Australian record for the greatest number of lies in a front page scoop – set earlier this year – as shown here:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13338

Do you have a reference not from a proven Murdoch liar? If so, will be happy to look at it. Thanks.

5. Finally, just for clarification: You claim “every single ALP MP woman and man” gave “lip service to condemn Slipper's texts (after having access to them for months)”.

This is a central point, SM, I agree. How do you know that they all had access for months? When precisely was access achieved?

Thanks, SM.

Cheers, AA

"This is a curious thing. Because when we re-read this article and subsequent comments, my arguments are only supportive of honesty, integrity, decency, equality, truth and consistency – and opposed to sexism, misogyny, racism, fabrication, lies and abuse of power."

Saint Alan.

Flawed Saint Alan; every women in the federal ALP voted for Slipper knowing about his emails and his grossly derogatory comments about women; yet they decry Abbott for...what exactly; ostensibly supporting Jones; but Abbott publically castigated Jones for his tasteless, that is not sexist, comments.

Gillard is abusing the very real issue of misogyny in the world, primarily from religious sources, especially Islam, to deflect legitimate criticism of her equally very real governmental defects and possible criminal past.

The 2 possible criminal issues Gillard is avoiding are the false declaration of purpose in the application for association and the false witnessing of a signing of a Power of Attorney; there is cogent evidence against Gillard in respect of both these potential criminal acts, yet what we have are self-congratualtory articles from supermen like Alan about their virtuous defence of the frail womenfolk in our midst.

Well, Gillard clearly does not need defending Alan; why don't you go to Pakistan and defend women in real need like these:

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frank-crimi/the-talibans-barbaric-shooting-of-child-activist/

AA,

In what universe are your objectives reasonable. "4 tone down his belligerent anti-Labor attacks or abandon them altogether" is a direct attack on his free speech and trying to get him fired for an off colour remark to a student function is waaaay out of proportion.

I looked up the ACMA cases against AJ, and could only find a handful over the last couple of decades. This would make my previous estimate of AJ's attacks being >99% correct spot on.

As far "greatest number of lies in a front page scoop" That goes to the labor election manifesto including such gems as "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead" and "the east Timor solution". Poor Dennis reporting on what comes from Labor whose statements' truth have a half life of minutes. DS is also far from the only political commentator saying the same thing.

According to the financial review, Nicola Roxon (running Slippers case) had access to the texts months ago, (which labor has not contested) which puts paid to their claims that they intended for Slipper to resign.