Dear Geoffrey,

Me a rusted-on leftie?

Actually dear chap - I come from an extremely
conservative side of politics - except that I
prefer to vote for policies that make sense -
I don't have any allegiance to any particular
party. My rational is based on my experience.
I have lived in Victoria under Mr Jeff Kennett,
and saw the damage that he and his party did.

I also can't help but wonder - why is it that
you conservatives - always do the name-tagging
and labelling? I've never heard it the other way
around. Perhaps the tag of conservative carries
a greater insult - and people are hesitant to use it.
Hmmmmm.

Dear Mr Tapp,

Unions don't always get it right. But in Beaconsfield -
they did. They warned the corporate owners of the safety
risks - time and time again. Why did the workers not
go on strike? Because contrary to what you may have
heard about unions - they don't force workers to do
what they don't want to do - and in this case their jobs
were at risk. Workers were threatened if they went on
strike because of safety concerns - they would lose their
jobs. Coporate profits mattered more - than the workers
safety. Blaming unions in this case is an outright lie !

However, I can see that this is futile arguing with people
who don't see the full picture - but only view things
through a very narrow lens. Neither one of you are Liberal
thinkers - in the way The Rt. Hon. Malcolm Fraser would
describe - nor for that matter would Sir Robert Menzies.

Both men had vision and hope for the future of the country.
The current mob aren't Liberals at all. They're conservatives
who are not capable of leading the country in a positive
direction. They only have one agenda - fear and reaction.
And for that reason alone - they won't get in!
Because the voters will get it right in the end!

The workers had safety concerns

You mead the unions lied to the workers that their jobs could be lost even though industrial action for safety was covered in workchoices.

That right the unions didnt tell them that.

The unions are paid by the workers and as you said you cannot get the workers out on strike but then for labor and the unions to blame the liberal government that this occured was an outright lie.

The workers didnt want to go out on strike
or the unions told them because of workchoices they couldnt.

Either way the unions and labor have lied to the people
to the workers
to the media

as these workers could and should have gone out on strike.

All we get is excuses , excuses but not facts.

Cool name for the article. Now we just need another cartoon.

I agree that the Rudd team has done an average to reasonable performance all things considered....

If there was something of substance to comment on regarding the Liberal party then there might be something to add however, I think you got it in one. " Abbott and the Raving Looney Party", Gads, now bless Australia!

The thing I dislike the most about the Liberals is the strategy to oppose everything for the sake of opposing. Citizens are not the focus here, nor is the future of Australia. I would prefer some common ground with government, at least in token a "Do by example approach". We learn nothing from the Abbott team except that "bully tactics" and "soft porn" as a political strategy works. Attractions alright, more for the corrupt mind spinners who seek office, so even less gets done.

The sad part is that so many take them seriously.

http://www.miacat.com/

Belly and foxy, you are both rusted-on ALP supporters. You can buy a cat, name it “Butch”, give it a spiky collar and walk down the street introducing all your friends to your new dog, but they know it is a bloody cat! Wake up!
You can mount an ad hominem argument against me and say you will get no place with GK, and you are, for once, correct!
All foxy has to do to destroy my argument is tell me his reference for the 144 deaths, but I know he won’t because that is the way you lefty dills argue.
Belly, you can call me stupid for claiming the socialists are responsible for more than 10,000 Australian deaths, but you cannot fight the facts! The ALP and the socialists don’t want a nuclear solution.
I have nothing to do with WC. Try and get that through your thick bolshy skulls.
I do blame you stupid socialists for 10,000 dead Australians over the last 45 years. You can call me mad, call me stupid, but you cannot argue the science! Or, can you? Please have a go.
Please tell me that nuclear power is the most dangerous and dirty fuel you can think of and back it up with science, not rhetorical bulls..t!
T2, you said, “Hunt said it was self defeating to allow them to go to China………..” Why? You know that China is building 48 new coal-powered generators a year. You know that Brumby has asked for expressions of interest to transport our brown coal to China! How many little black balloons will hit your kitchen ceiling transporting the world’s crappiest energy source to China! Why not save the little black balloons and burn the brown coal here? Why, because it is a socialist conspiracy to hurt Australia economically. Do you really think the ALP is interested in clean green power?
Geoffrey Kelley

geoffreykelley I don't think the Labor Party or the Liberal Party/National Party are interested in clean energy.

In my first post I asked "Greens?". For me their platform is driven by secular interest groups such as the Gay Lobby and therefore do not represent the majority view. The Greens will still see an increase in their vote this time simply because there is no alternative. I find their social policies unpalatable but at least the environment gets a guernsey

As for socialist conspiracy theories geoffrey I thought they were the domain of the extreme right, not seemingly balanced people such as yourself.

It's the intellectual limitations of our politicians,(particularly those beholden to religious belief) that bother me most and the rest seem to be agents of vested interests.

Opposition senators in the current parliament are fixed on blocking the Govt no matter what they propose.This is the history of the Liberal National Party in opposition and has been since Joh changed the balance of power by taking advantage of the death of a Labor Senator and inserting his own ring-in Senator Fields who voted against the Govt on every occasion, even denying supply. Democracy was not important to these born to rule-ites and they felt a god given right to enforce their view upon us through trickery, stealth and the subversion of the balance of power.

Its not unlike the situation today and Abbott and Co (like Joh) will commit virtuality any dishonesty or dirty trick to gain power and that is both obvious and concerning.

Paul Keating called senators "unrepresentative swill" . Aint that the truth.

Finally geoffrey, you still omit the frontbenchers I mentioned,(probably because they scare you as much as they do me) and you also advocate acquiescence to corporate blackmail.

Do you deny my proposition that exploitation exists?. The people of the Niger Delta are aware of it as we speak.

Someone has to do something to reverse the effects of human pollution regardless of our political partisanships, Abbott and such people put us further away from real solutions than the Rudd Govt does for mine.

T2, allow me to comment on your last post. I agree that neither of the big parties is interested in clean energy. But the Rudd Govt. is campaigning on CO2 and AGW.

The greens are too yellow to be red!

Lord Monckton labelled the Copenhagen conference a socialist conspiracy and he was correct. Rudd ridiculed Monckton claiming his accusations were nonsense and actually a right-wing conspiracy, but in that he LIED!
You will know that the Copenhagen Conference was to ratify the latest UNFCCC proposal (see the FCCC/AWGLCA/2009/INF.1) in which it states quite plainly on page 18 that an objective was to form a world government with the power to tax developed nations and fine individuals within these countries for the purposes of raising revenue. You see, this conspiracy theory applies to the socialists, not the extreme right. This where Rudd lied by blaming the extreme right. He must have been aware of this document. Sometimes I wonder if Rudd really does his homework and it is entirely possible that he was not aware of the contents of this resolution he was hell-bent on ratifying. I think he is a verbose fool.

The religious beliefs of our politicians do not worry me. I prefer a man of faith to an atheist or agnostic.

I don’t think you understand the role of the senate any more than Keating did, a man that I despise. It is a house of revue. You ought to study the reasons our founding fathers’ set it up this way.

I did not omit to address your question about the other Liberal MPs. See my answer dated 20Feb3:43:46PM

Of course exploitation exists, especially in all those crappy African Socialist/Communist govts. you quoted. In Australia it ought to be the function of the unions to prevent exploitation.

I agree with you on pollution, but to single out CO2 is mindless nonsense. That is why the FCC is crumbling and dissolving, not that you would know it from the reaction of our pro-Labor press.

Geoffrey Kelley