Mckew needs a 4% swing,
the liberals call it "further evidence that the Labor Party is getting cocky."
maybe,
maybe there could be something said about pots, kettles, name calling and the colour black.

GO MAXINE GO!

I must have been laughing so hard that I made an error (just couldn't get the image of Howards reply to this challenge out of my head).

Correction-
I should have said,
Howard needs a swing of 4% against him to loose the seat.

I think this is going to be a lot more interesting than the whole Wilkie Greens attempt.
McKew presents very well (duh!).

When Maxine joins Family First I'll be yelling "Maxine for PM" :)

She is a great lady.. heartwarming and generous. I just don't see 'Labor'as the right horse to ride to the finish.

So, if I was in Bennelong and voted against her, it would not be against "her" but against Labors connection with the Unions.
I'd probably also vote against John, because of his economic rationalism and pandering to China. (promotion of agri/mining interests at the expense of high tech industrial interests...electronic being one)

I wonder if Rob is still concerned with the ABS 'right wing bias'. Maxine certainly adds to a long list of 'right wingers' who have diverted into the Labour party. Poor old Pru must be feeling very lonely. It a wonder Phillip Adams and Kerry O'Brien have not yet had a run with the Labour party.

I too like Maxine, think she's got a lot guts doing what she's doing and by golly if she tips Howard out of a seat he has held for 30 years it will become political folk lore overnight.

But hang on, why is Labor doing the 'celebrity thang' ?

Yes unknowns are hard to bank on and celebs come with their own PR chutzpah but will it be enough to convince the electorate to vote Labor?

Maxine come with real political street credo no doubt but will those who inhabit Bennelong pencil in a cross against an incumbent PM?

• Yes / NO / Maybe

It'll be interesting to watch the votes role in on election night TV coverage as it’s perhaps the best example of media political celeb Vs political warhorse ever.

Peter Garret had some well known political qualities; Maxine is something very different again.

Watching Keza O’Brien interviewing his old 7.30 Report colleague on the Veracity and intentions of Federal Labor policy will be riveting.

I agree Rainier. Although unlikely, the prospect of Maxine McKew beating the incumbent King Rat and sending him into overdue rodent retirement, is a lovely thing to fantasise about on a fine Wednesday morning, with a touch of autumn in the air... :)

I don't even mind very much that she's standing for the ALP.

CJ,

Yes, I think the broad church of anti Rodentials have reached consensus on our responsibility to set the Rat Trap. Unfortunately this consensus has not been given strategic traction in terms of developing a coalition of the “willing” to get rid of King Rat”.

Deals with the Greens and Dems on preferences (vital to Labor victory) are no doubt being discussed in the back rooms.

But this needs to be out in the open, now, not at a few days before the booths open.

16 seats is a big ask. Last minute deals will not do. Maxine (and not party heavies) needs to be given a free hand on this

I live in the Bennelong division (East Ryde), and I'm a natural liberal voter; professional, middle class etc etc.

I've never voted ALP my whole life, and would naturally vote liberal in any election.

But I could never vote for John Howard now or in the future for one single reason; Iraq.

You just can't tell the electorate that Australia must go to war against another power for specifics reasons, which turn out to be false and expect to get away with it.

Like many at the time, I supported the war because I thought 'this government is so certain we must do this, surely we have to trust that they know something they can't tell us'. At some point you have to trust your leaders, or just go mad. Everytime I see another atrocity in Iraq I think 'I voted for that to happen'.

None of their reasons were remotely valid, and I just can't vote for someone who just brazenly lies like that.

So with a very heavy heart I will be voting ALP at the federal election on this issue alone; I feel it is a moral choice.

What depresses me even more is that the widespread hatred of JH within NSW is killing the chances of the liberal opposition in the upcoming state election. In terms of sheer incompetence this state labour government is something unique, and the state needs a change as much as the country does.

cheers,

gw

What would be the implications of John Howard standing as a candidate and failing to win Bennelong at the next Federal elections, but the Coalition nevertheless being returned to government?

It would seem that, with the Liberal party prospectively having lost its leader in circumstances creative, overnight, of political folklore, but still having retained government, there would be a need for an immediate leadership ballot.

What a 'pure' environment for a leadership contest! This spill would not have been engineered by previously acknowledged aspirants to the position of Prime Minister, but brought about by the VOTERS (of Bennelong), who must, at a time so close to an election (yea, with that election not yet even finalized), be RESPECTED. In the rush to show this 'respect', old pledges of loyalty, and old obligations amongst members of the parliamentary Liberal Party to erstwhile 'heirs apparent' may well be seen as having little relevance in the (very) short lead-up to the ballot. There would have been no backstabbing, no plotting of the like that took down Simon Crean and Kim Beasley, or long ago, John Gorton. Just pure happenstance.

The clear need for New Direction, Bold Vision, and a Clean Break from the Image of Yesteryear would surely be self-evident to all parliamentary Liberal Party members, but just in case it isn't, a veritable galaxy of commentators would be ready at hand to do their thinking for them! Now who could possibly fill the bill?

Yes, the electors in the Division of Wentworth will bear a heavy responsibility at the 2007 Federal elections. Oops, did I say Wentworth? Of course I meant Bennelong! Bennelong, did you hear? Bennelong.

Now this surely couldn't have been the plan all along, could it? That would imply bi-partisan collusion! Now that just couldn't happen, not in Australia, could it?

Behold, the good shepherd giveth his life (whether he know it or not) for he whom he doth shepherd.

Just thinking out loud.....

A PM looking like a dead (forget lame) duck in his own constituency is hardly a solid foundation to take to the electorate. What chances are there that, if Rudd and McKew and the ALP continue to gain real traction that the Libs will dump Rattus Maximus before the polls?

With visions of electoral defeat and members in marginal seats looking over their shoulders, the enlightened forces of protecting one's own as.. sorry, self-preservation may just become strong enough to prompt a revolt.

After all, in the immortal words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: 'politics is about surviving until Friday afternoon'

What a gloriously igominious end to our little Caesar.

I'm not sure the Libs have the cojones to dump JH ahead of time, but I'm wondering whether he himself will take this opportunity to depart before the election, of his own accord.

By walking away he avoids the possibility of humiliation, which is an experience he will travel to the moon to avoid.

I suspect that, having the personality he has, he still broods over his treatment at the hands of Keating (remember the "yesterday's man, a cultural artefact like the Astor TV, the AWA radiogram and the Morphy Richards toaster" jibe?), and probably still smarts from the palace coup that ousted him in 1989.

If he does walk away, he will be handing a poisoned chalice to Costello. In fact, more like an exploding poisoned chalice, if the metaphor will stretch that far.

And I believe that he is sufficiently mean, devious, grudge-bearing, arrogant and self-centred to do exactly that.

Go Maxine Go!

I hope the electorate sees the light and gets rid of this mean, visionless liar.

'Bonzai' once, famously, wore a bullet proof vest, now he needs one that is vote proof.

Years from now I will look forward to telling my grand kids about living through the Howard era.

In preparation, writing a children's book titled 'King Ratty gets his Own' is on my list of things to do.

I hope it teaches them morals and the need for compassion and honesty.

I hope Maxine provides the rest of the plot for this story.

Bags a First Edition copy, signed by the author!

Hahaha, I really hope JH loses his seat soon. Although I'm an ALP supporter, I can't say that I like Maxine McKew very much. She's a classic example of a latte-sipping Labor candidate. I still remember her letter to Latham asking him whether she could be given a more 'affluent' WASP-y seat instead of the former Asian-heavy safe Labor seat which she was allocated.

Being an Asian-Aussie, I kinda take offence at her for that.

But if she can beat JH, then all is forgiven :) Hey, what can I say, I'm desperate here :)

Dream on the lefty ludites,the new game has just begun.Kevin Rudd has already tripped whilst padding up and hasn't even faced his first ball.
Kevin Rudd the new Messiah?Not likely with the bunch of no talent Union wonders who couldn't run a Solo Petrol Station let alone our national economy.It is still the economy that matters and Labor are lumbered with Gillard the Experimental Socialist and Garrett the rabid greeny.It is a recipe for absolute chaos.

Arjay, I am perplexed by your faith in Howard's perceived superior economic management. I thought you would have been perspicacious enough to see through the spin. Remember, Howard inherited an economy set to expand thanks to Keating's reforms.

In reality, what's Howard done? Privatised around $70 billion worth of high-yielding public assets in nine years, disinvested in key sectors, used tax incentives to fuel a debt-intensive real estate bubble, and put all our eggs into the commodities basket by serving as China's quarry (even selling our resources at below market prices). After a decade it's becoming unstuck. We have the lowest growth rates in the industrialised world, but some of the highest interest rates. Our trade deficit has hit its worst since the 1970s and many of Howard's "battlers" are now enjoying negative equity on their overpriced homes. With moribund export growth and ballooning foreign debt being used to finance housing and consumer imports, how can we honestly afford another three years of Howard?

Maxine must be suffering withdrawal symptoms,now that she is not on at 7.30 every night we now see her on an earlier time spot.
"Death threats" well that should bring out the media scrum.
I only hope Maxine will withstand the high pressure life in politics that her predecessor Mary from Melbourne, who managed to convince the pollies in the Victorian State parliament to give her a multi million pension after working for a few years in the Victorian Labor Government.
TAX FREE PENSIONS ARE THE WAY TO GO.after working on the 7.30 Report.

Oligarch,we do have a balance of payments dilemma that has worsened with the reduction in tarrifs.We have two choices.We either increase tarrifs again and the prices of our consumerables such as cars become far more expensive and of much lower quality,or we work harder and smarter to compete with the rising giants of India and China?

John Howard's IR reform is all about making us more competitive.The Unions and the Labor Party are in denial.The resources boom will end and eventually we will run out of things to sell.As the world population expands expodentially,so energy and resources become scarcer and more expensive.In a finite world of energy and resources,helping the poor in the long run,makes all our lives more difficult.

I would rather see a world far less populated so that human life and labour is once again valued.

That said,Maxine McClueless is way out of her depth and was only put there to distract John Howard from the main game.

Arjay, Australia's average working hours are already longer than most other OECD countries. As for Work Choices, productivity has actually declined since the legislation was introduced. So as our working hours increase, our productivity is in steep decline. Another Howard Government economic miracle.

As for competing "smartly", the Howard Government receives another fail grade in terms of education and innovation. We have an ongoing skills crisis. We are the only country in the developed world to have gone backwards in public investment on higher education, whereas the OECD average has increased by a factor of nearly 50%. Tax concessions for Research & Development have also been cut back to the point where Australia now has the second lowest level of R&D investment in the OECD. Smart countries are spending more than three times as much on R&D than Australia. We are working harder, but definitely not smarter.

Howard and Costello were quick to tear up the industry and export policies by which the Keating Government increased Australia's export share, but they have put nothing in their place. It should be no suprise then that since the Howard Government came to office, Australia has experienced one of the lowest rates of export growth in the OECD.

Any fool can balance a budget through privatisation and deinvestment, but that won't sustain long-term prosperity.

I dont think it is fair to regard McKew's candidacy as a simple celebrity 'milking' (ala Schwarzenegger). She is obviously intelligent and she should know the ropes pretty well. Personally, I am not particularly enamoured with her but anyone whose brain is in the-right-way-around is a bonus in politics.

While Garrett has yet to show any political cred (I always thought he was too idealistic for the job) and while his might well be a 'celebrity candidacy' I think anything that stops him dancing is good.

Posted by runner, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 12:16:09 PM
"I wonder if Rob is still concerned with the ABS 'right wing bias'."

Dont tell me there is right-wing bias at the Australian Bureau of Statistics as well! - I always thought there was.

Oligarch, nice come back.

Arjay you've been told.

I'll never watch the ABS again.

The policy of tarrif reduction was put in train in the Hawke /Keating era.Howard's Govt just maintained that policy.I don't agree with it.There are no level playing fields and it won't be long before our car industry goes too.We have gone for agressive tarrif reductions which no other developed countries have dared embark.

You cannot just blame everything on John Howard.If the Labor Party had their act together and presented real competition with credible policies,then the Howard Govt would have performed a lot better.

When you play a weak team too often,you end up playing like them.

I agree that unilateral tariff reductions are utter stupidity. Both sides are indeed culpable. Nevertheless, Labor actually has an industry policy, as opposed to the "hands off" approach adopted by the Coalition. Costello may ridicule the mere notion of an industry policy, but the fact is that growth in manufactured exports has slowed from 15 per cent a year under Labor to 5 per cent under the Coalition.

According to Tim Colebatch at The Age:

"In 1994, the then Bureau of Industry Economics (later abolished by the Howard Government) published a forward look to 2005-06. It predicted that by then, exports would have grown 130 per cent in 14 years, cutting the deficit on manufacturing trade deficit to 4 per cent of GDP. It forecast a growth of 90,000 jobs, manufacturing growing roughly as fast as the rest of the economy, and the volume of sales up more than 50 per cent.

It was possible to think like that in 1994 because manufactured exports were in the middle of a decade of rapid growth. Hard to believe now, but Australia's manufactured exports between 1986 and 1997 were growing as fast as those of the Asian tigers, growing in volume by almost 15 per cent a year. Projecting that growth forward, the bureau saw Australia starting to become a significant global exporter of computers and telecom equipment, pharmaceuticals, aircraft parts, and of course, processed foods."

What happened? The Coalition.