Is it time for Joe Hockey to be forced out of the Liberal Party?

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/god-is-good-but-just-be-sure-not-to-take-him-too-literally-20091109-i58p.html

I wouldn't force a man from a political party because he is reasonable, tolerant and understanding.

Establishing his brand and a sneaky sniper's shot from cover in the leadership tussle with the crazy Abbott.

Have both recently sworn allegiance with Turnbull because that is always a good sign that the knives are out again in the Liberal Party?

Since when did 'Honest Joe' Hockey wear his heart on his sleeve and worry about anyone but Number One? A leopard doesn't change its spots so easily.

If Malcolm is going to be the New Year roast turkey that leaves a nice long running time for the new leader to clear the table and appear strong, with a team behind him.

The latest possible date for a joint House/Senate election is Saturday, 16 April 2011.

I suspect Joe Hockey is out to establish himself
as "Leader" material in the minds of the Electorate.

I watched the last episode for the year -
of "Q and A" last week.
Joe got teased by the panel members about his future
plans of writing and speaking engagements on religious
topics.

One panel member inferred that Joe was taking
a page out of the PM's book. The PM had done a similar
thing prior to his run for office.

Apparently writing
on religious topics goes a long way towards
establishing an ambitious politician
as a man of "character," and is supposedly
an excellent political move.

I guess it can't hurt. It's better than doing
something controversial like coming out for
Abortion, or The Right-to-Die, or Gay Marriage.
Religious topics are always safe bets to write
about.

We'll have to wait and see if it works for Joe.

Foxy wrote: I guess it can't hurt. It's better than doing
something controversial like coming out for
Abortion, or The Right-to-Die, or Gay Marriage.
Religious topics are always safe bets to write
about.

Dear Foxy,

You probably have it right. I'm handicapped with a low cynicism quotient.

Hockey frightens me. He's a Liberal frontbencher who seems like a decent, tolerant bloke more often than not.

He should be expelled immediately! Otherwise, people might vote for the Coalition at the next election.

Dear David F,

I think you rock!

Dear CJ,

I like Joe as well!

He reminds me too much of the Aussie Home loans Guy. I really want 'people skills' to be next leader, as once a party hits rock bottom, the only way is up. He's the equivalent of Mark Latham for ALP.

I never thought I'd say this, but since the rodent has left, and the Rud-bot has replaced him, I actually pine for that mean and tricky rodent again. I'd even go for the whining red headed socialist over that chameleon bureaucrat with the sincerity of a Mike Munroe smile.

Yuk- what is it with people FAWNING over these sleezebags simply because they make a few (vague) statements solely because they KNOW people will fall for it?

Hockey, like Turnbull, are dodgy as they come- yet they have hordes of idiotic followers lapping up statements that either man clearly doesn't give a toss about himself. It seems especially strong amongst "small l liberal" people- which in my opinion speaks volumes about their intelligence- quite similar to "compassionate conservatives".

And I'm saying this as someone who DESPISES religious politicians- and as such places every strongly religious party at the bottom of my ballot paper- below the Fishers and Shooters- Liberal AND Labor amongst them.

C J Morgan

If Hockey frightens you what do you think of Bob Brown nominating recycled ex-Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett for the Lower House seat of Brisbane?

Bartlett as some may recall, disgraced himself by stealing a bunch of bottles of wine, being boozed in the Senate and abusing and manhandling a woman Senator. A 'f'ing bitch' was one of the names he called her it was alleged.

If Andrew Bartlett was a footballer you'd have him hanged by his testicles, fined and banned for life, right C J?

Others may also remember the Private Member's Bill introduced in 2005 by Bartlett when he was a Senator, that on the surface was aimed at 'animal welfare', but had it passed, it would have banned fishing.

You are right of course, Joe Hockey is way, way better than some who seek election.

Here are relevant links:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/07/1070732071968.html

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/06/1070625569688.html

At the time Bartlett got a slap on the wrist.

Christ will still be on the throne long after fools like Hockey talk their incoherent nonsense. The Liberal party has never been God's party as such. Malcolm Turnbull would be similar to Hockey in that he has no idea of sin, righteousness or judgement to come. Mr Hockey might think he can explain the unexplainable adult fairytale of evolution but sounds just idiotic as others who try and explain away the Creator. Mr Hockey obviously displays much blind faith like the many evolutionist do. The sad reality of politics is that men and women will say or do anything to get elected. Their display of arrogance towards their Creator is really nothing short of pathetic. No doubt many of these Liberals will be hypocritical enough to be sprouting the Lord's prayer. At least Bob Brown is open about his defiance.

I think its wise for Hockey to express what he actually believes
in a religious sense, if he's got plans for the top job.

I don't think that Australians would vote for a religious extremist
(other then runner and a couple of his friends :) )

Abbott still believes that he is PM material, but he's shown himself
to be too deep in the pocket of the Catholic Church when it comes
to Govt, so I don't think people would vote for him.

So yup, I think that Hockey has potential to replace Turnbull,
when the time comes. Turnbull could be his treasurer.

Er, Cornflower - this thread's about Joe Hockey and whether he should be expelled from the Liberal Party because he's not a raving Christian fundy, as the idiot OP apparently desires. It's not about Andrew Bartlett, nor your obsession with Bob Brown.

It's good to see that we can agree that Hockey appears to be OK for a Liberal. I wouldn't want him as PM, but he's certainly the pick of the less than stellar Opposition ranks.

C J Morgan

Of course it is relevant, you continually make it known that you are are a card carrying watermelon and here you are commenting on a senior member of another political party, 'fundies' and so on.

You are just avoiding the subject of Andrew Bartlett, which is understandable.

Talking about religion, it was refreshing to see that Bob Brown made it a number one priority to come up with a policy on prayers for the opening of parliament - he wants 30 seconds of silence instead.

Now if only the Greens can get it together to have a policy on those less important planks of their platform such as sustainability.

Correction- my post of 3:44:49pm should have read. "Bartlett as some may recall, disgraced himself by taking a bunch of bottles of wine".

Seems to me that Cornflower's doing everything she can to deflect attention from Joe Hockey and the religious right of the Liberal Party, the ostensible subjects of this discussion.

Of course, if she wants to bitch about politicians from other parties she should observe the forum rules and start her own thread.

Wait, wait, wait.

Let me get this straight, Cornflower.

In the gay marriage thread you're leaping, twisting, dissembling, dodging, attacking, and doing everything else you can to avoid giving CJ an answer to his extremely simple question, and now you're trying to turn a Joe Hockey thread into an Andrew Bartlett thread by justifying a series of peculiar non-sequiturs with the bland assertion that they're relevant, despite a complete lack of connection or rationale.

Do you hope to be regarded as a serious commentator on this site, or have you looked at Runner and One Under God and said, "Yes! THAT is the standard I'm aiming for!"?

King Hazza- "And I'm saying this as someone who DESPISES religious politicians- and as such places every strongly religious party at the bottom of my ballot paper-"
Yes indeed, just as I do!

Since hearing about Joe Hockey's bizarre desire to give a talk on his views of a Christian life on Q and A the other night, I am no longer interested in him as a politician- and I used to think he was a breathe of fresh air in politics.

He is now nearly as bad as Abbott (small regurge- excuse me!).

Runner- " The Liberal party has never been God's party as such."
Well, amen to that Runner, and I pray that no Political Party ever be known as God's party.

It seems passing strange, for a few reasons, that Joe Hockey feels a need to "defend god" at all.

Why would an omnipotent omniscient being need a puny mortal primate - Joe or anyone else for that matter - to take a public stand in its name?

If religionists are the nominal majority in this country - as religious officials, lobbyists, and culture warriors are quick to boast - why do their private beliefs need "defence"?

Where Joe and other MPs clearly lack courage is to:

- Leave the realm of fantasy to the players of religion.
- Preach & practice a fair go for ALL, not theistic nepotism.
- Defend an individual right to freedom from religion.

These things should be an article of faith for any liberal lefty, as Joe claims to be.

AUSTRALIANS FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54429760859

Would have liked to watch this thread.
It was intended to be a good one.
But I am away till Sunday, however it seems some do not even understand the threads intended direction.
Yes Joe wants to the top job, no not Abbot please.
And yes the Christian very right have to much say.
With Turnbull reduced to a smiling fool by his own party some one must lead.
Who else?
Cornflower has gone to great extremes to fail to understand C J Morgans posts.
Am I wrong or are we talking about Hockeys run for leadership and his views on the church?

Suzieonline you have no idea how happy I am to read what you wrote- it's nice to know I'm not the only one who isn't reading so far into someone's publicity stunt and seeing it for what it is.

Which is kind of strange as every person and their dog managed to point it out in John Howard back when he was charming voters with his supposed stances and policies (even the people who agreed)- yet come Turnbull, Hockey etc and it looks like people are sincerely falling for it.

Go figure...

TRUTHNOW78, thanks for that link. I had got the impression from other media Hockey spoke in support of interpreting the bible literally. Turns his was advocating the reverse.

So he isn't a right wing fundamentalist nutcase after all. I can breath a sight of relief.

I can see this would be real disappointment to you. But you should be realistic. If the Liberal Party expelled every sitting member who wasn't a right wing fundamentalist nutcase there wouldn't be many left. I'd hope the would fall well below 6 members, and if I recall correctly you need at least 6 to be considered a party for funding purposes.

Left, Right, Centre Left, Centre Right, Mainstream, Green. Religious, Non-Religious, Forward, Backward for crying out loud kick the bloody lot out.
Give the Koories a go they can't do any worse than the lot that we have today and of the past.
At least they may be able to preserve the land that has been so ravaged by all the rest

Thanks from
Dave

Who would be an appropriate opponent for a Today show star? A show biz showman, full of smoke and mirrors?
Let me show my extreme age. Set a thief to catch a thief.

I did have a lend of C J Morgan who had already replied in jest to the thread topic. Maybe that should be 'p*ss-take', to be in keeping with modern parlance.

Re Hockey, I haven't seen anything to convince me that Joe isn't just being a politician and they all have ambition. However times have changed when a Coalition heavyweight can come out direct and say something that could be construed as criticism of organised religion.

What commentators haven't picked up is that Catholicism and dare I say it the creeping conversion of some in the Anglican church to conservative Catholicism (eg priests and Mass) was the main target of Hockey's remarks. Resentment of the influence of Rome runs deep in the Liberal Party and there are some good reasons for that. It certainly isn't a 'best fit' with liberal philosophy and ideology.

Hopefully Joe Hockey's article heralds deep soul searching in the Party and results in some real change. That is what should come first and at some stage in the process the most suitable leader will become obvious. What is not needed is another 'strong' leader, rhetoric in the place of liberal ideology and automatons occupying the front bench.

Cornflower- I'm afraid the closest thing to "soul searching" in the Liberal Party will be a group discussion on how to market themselves as 'moderates'- to just the right amount to hopefully not alienate either the secular or religious.

That's pretty much the only thing they know how to- or care to do- market themselves.

What King Hazza said. It was, after all, the same point that I made in my first comment in the thread. That's what scares me about Hockey - voters might actually like him, unlike the rest of the Liberal front bench.

So Cornflower was just taking the piss? How very droll.

Good to see her posting on topic, though.

I'm with Cornflower on this. And I have the honour to live in the man's constituency.

>>I haven't seen anything to convince me that Joe isn't just being a politician and they all have ambition.<<

That's all he is, in a nutshell.

He's a politician, doing what politicians do to ensure that they remain firmly immersed in the gravy train.

As an individual, he's a lightweight. As a politician, he has more political savvy than many, and probably has a source of good political advice somewhere.

His self-promotion on Sunrise alongside Kevvy was a masterstroke. As was his Sunrise-driven Kokoda project. His grasp of the political demotic is his most valuable asset. This piece of pseudo-religious fluff is straight out of the "pre-election public ingratiation" handbook.

His ministerial and shadow-ministerial stints do not survive scrutiny. As Minister for Small Business and Tourism, his achievements on behalf of small business were undetectable, while his activities for Tourism involved a great deal of travel to new hotels and resorts.

Tough gig.

He was made uncomfortably aware of his limitations in 2008, engineering a move out of the shadow Health portfolio when it became clear that he was totally outgunned in parliament by Nicola Roxon.

He might be just politically smart enough to time his run for the leadership so that the mud of losing next year won't stick. But don't expect anything from him that involves effort, or putting his values on the line, or standing up for the people he is supposed to represent. His public persona is pure, unadulterated political expediency.

But apparently that's exactly what we have come to expect of our politicians.

It will be enough for Joe to qualify for the extra benefits of being an ex-opposition leader. He needs a straight man beside (preferably in front of) him to perform.

An effective opposition is essential for good government. 'Effective' meaning one that has talented people who are willing to represent all of the community. The Liberals need to be very careful, the old days of sledging opponents as socialists and communists (ala Nick Minchin) are past and while that might have appealed to the WW2 generation, it simply does not wash today.

Rudd cleverly cut the ground away from under their feet on their (superficial) image of being good money managers by appointing Costello to a post.


C J Morgan,

Never fear, that secret watermelon business is safe with me.

No-one will ever know that the Greens have feet of clay (about as close as any of them will ever come to the land), accusing others of hypocrisy while nominating He Whose Name is Never to be Said on OLO (HWNNSO) for the Brisbane seat. Lock up your flagons and the womenfolk can fend for themselves, eh?

*As Minister for Small Business and Tourism, his achievements on behalf of small business were undetectable, while his activities for Tourism involved a great deal of travel to new hotels and resorts.*

Pericles, I will have to disagree with you on that one.

Politicians dreaming up a way to "help" an industry, are commonly
a recipee for disaster. The best that they can do is cut red tape
and let business do what it does best.

So I don't judge politicians by how much they "do". Very often,
doing nothing, is in fact their best course of action.

I guess I've just seen too much well meant Govt assistance thrown
at industry, most of it wasted, even if the intentions were well
meant.

There's no disagreement, Yabby.

>>Politicians dreaming up a way to "help" an industry, are commonly a recipee for disaster. The best that they can do is cut red tape and let business do what it does best.<<

You betcha.

My point was exactly that. Joe Hockey had no interest in finding out from small business, what were their government-induced challenges.

He sidestepped key issues, such as what happened to all those promises that GST would replace payroll tax, like dog crap on the footpath.

Too busy swanning around in tropical resorts.

>>I guess I've just seen too much well meant Govt assistance thrown at industry, most of it wasted, even if the intentions were well meant.<<

Amen to that. I haven't had a solitary cent from the government since starting my first business, and expect none.

One of the reasons is that the rules that govern the handouts are actually designed to encourage failure. Only those truly hopeless cases, inevitably destined for the scrap-heap of business history, are able to qualify.

It's blindingly obvious why this is the case.

No-one in the public service has the faintest notion how any company operates, let alone small business. Asking them to produce a strategy that supports small business is like asking me to design a Large Hadron Collider.

Putting a common-or-garden snout-in-the-trough politician in charge simply carries on the tradition.

I made no claim regarding Hockey's competence or effectiveness. What is quite clear is that he's far more electorally attractive than his cohorts on the Opposition front bench, and thus would likely attract votes if made their leader. Needless to say, I don't regard the prospect of an electorally popular Coalition very favourably.

Cornflower, we know you hate the Greens, but this thread's about the Libs. Start your own thread if you want to just slag off at the Greens.