It takes a crushing defeat for some senior Labor figures to state the obvious:

<Former West Australian Labor premier Geoff Gallop said the state election result reflected the electorate's view of his party.

"The public are looking in and they don't like what they see," Dr Gallop told Sky News.

"They don't like the way it works, they don't like the way it functions."

Dr Gallop said Labor had to reform its structure or it would continue to struggle.

"Until they do that, it will battle," he said>

But will the massive loss be sufficient to dislodge the cynical men and women who find benefit in that dysfunction and convert the policy and even the assets of the Party to their own benefit?

A truth I have no answers to.
Not a surprise,and not a comforting one.
I knew our fate and wrote of it here.
I in my daily swim in the media, saw both the cabinet, substitute Labor right, backing the Stone around Labors neck, Gillard, and those who put it there, themselves.
Too a debate to be aired tonight about that filth Obied, and the hollow shallow, non-men who let him use them, and my party.
Hollow? not the word for how I feel this morning.
See I remember Labors bright promise, under Rudd.
I see the very near death, under Gillards supporters, even now planning to reward themselves, post trashing of my party by giving the head knife man, her/Rudd,s job.
Yet I can, if totally brain damaged, be happy my lifes love, my union, the owner of that knife, sang SOLIDARITY FOREVER and its head,a man like Shorten I once, maybe stil Idolized thought would change voters minds.
And his words, straight out of mad Magazine! that those opposing my party,s death/Gillard, should shut up!
There by not only claiming ownership of my party, its past and future, but voters/members right to be different.
Reform Labor?
Please do but are there tens of Eddy [filth[] Obead riding my party to death,in the same self interest not the party,s?

Labor in WA was just wiped off the map for the same reason it will be annihilated at the September election: TAXES!

Voters don't want the carbon tax. It's a threat to their well-being.

certainly the wipe out of the Greens gives some hope that people are starting to think rationally.

We must keep in mind that W Bush was elected twice and look what he did to the world.
The inmates of WA are going to be sorry of course just as the Queenslanders are.
We are all going to rue the day that Abbott becomes Pope, er sorry Prime Miniature.

Dear Robert LePage,

Labor will be outed at the next election because Gillard deceived the nation by introducing the carbon tax behind their backs.

1. People don't like taxes that they perceive as having an adverse effect on their lives; and 2. They don't like it even more when they think it has been introduced by deception.

Goodbye Julia! Hello Tony! Sounds like a good title for a book.

Relax, folks ! Only another 187 days !

The best measure of Gillards uselessness is she is running second to Abbott.

Hi there ONTHEBEACH & BELLY...

Interesting Topic there ONTHEBEACH, though I've heard the same old 'talking heads' of federal Labour, declare that WA was fought purely on State issues, nevertheless it still can't augur all that well for Labour in September eh ?

BELLY ol' mate, I can't say I particularly enjoy seeing your beloved Labour Party consigned to perdition in the upcoming Federal Election, in September.

As you well know, I've no specific knowledge of who's who within Labour. But, it's these 'faceless' backroom power brokers, the faction leaders behind the scenes that (in my humble opinion) need to be purged (unequivocally and absolutely) from the ranks of Labour !

But you and I have discussed this on several occasions eh BELLY. Isn't it up to you, by you I mean the rank and file of your party, to finally rid yourselves forever this corrupt group ?

Failure to do so, will reverberate the beginning of the end of this, the oldest political party in Australia, and that would be an enormously sad milestone in our political history, of this once great Country !

It is Julia Gillard's political judgement where she failed dismally.
She need not have agreed to the green's demand that she bring in the
carbon tax.
The Greens were NEVER going to support the opposition.
She could have had their support for nothing and the Labour MPs now realise that.

Simple fact is the Liberals are at the moment the first choice of two evils.

In reality they are both useless, but at least Abbott will not bankrupt us he will fix the Labor mess by taking away everything Juliar and co gave us.

187 days is a long time in politics.

So what are the odds on a spill in the next couple of weeks, say around March 28th, - 3 to 1 ?

then a 'confessional' budget, i.e. one in which the sins of Gillard and Swan are exposed, Khrushchev-style, - 3 to 1 ?

and an election soon after, maybe by the end of June - 2 to 1 ?

Abbott will sweep in, of course, 85 Coalition -20 Labor -2 Indpendents (Katter and Wilkie), - 4 to 1 ?

and gain an outright majority in the Senate - 2 to 1 ?

For all that to come to pass would mathematically be odds of 144 to 1. In practice, the odds look a lot shorter than that.

We'll see.

Wouldn't be dead for quids !

Fixing the problems of the ALP policy making
requires more than changed leadership. The control
by party machine men and relying on bad research to
justify egregious policies that prove the government
if tougher than the opposition would still be there
if the PM was removed or left.

As for the carbon tax issue...

There is a gulf of difference between a broken promise in the
context of altered circumstances and a deliberate decision
to mislead. To accuse the PM of lying, to argue that the
carbon pricing scheme is based on a deliberate pre-meditated lie
in itself display some towering mendacity.

That it has persisted for so long and spawned the name "Ju-liar,"
says more about Mr Abbott's guile and ability to manipulate the
facts for his own destructive ends then it does about the PM's
trustworthiness.

Claiming that the cost of a lamb roast will soar to $100, that
whole towns and industires will disappear and that our entire
economy will be laid to rest - dear oh dear.

As for WA election results... the following sums things up
rather nicely:

"Labor's the party of government activism the party that says
government can make you - richer, smarter, healthier.
The Libs are the party that tells is government doesn't work,
and then they get elected and prove it!"

Ask Queensland and Victoria.

Lexi my sweet, Gillard could have got away with a lie or two. The carbon tax one was a bit bold, particularly the following lie, that the greens made her do it. It is what followed that confirmed her difficulty with the truth.

The greens were her captive, more than she was theirs. They were going to support her anyway, she did not have to buy them, so another lie there.

Then we have things like the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a wild promise to be implemented in the never never. Any thinking person, with basic arithmetic, can look at the national accounts, & see that this, like oh so many of her promises, is just not affordable. To implement it would bankrupt us all.

It is this type of recklessness, not caring who is hurt in the long run, that makes her so despised. She must know it is not possible, & therefor another lie.

I suppose it is almost possible that her understanding of math is that bad she doesn't know what she is doing. One can only assume Swannies is, with his promises of a surplus, when again, everyone knew it was not possible.

If this pair are not lying, they must be delusional. What ever the case, they have to go as soon as possible, along with any fools that have aided & abetted them.

And if you watched 4 Corners exposure of Obeid, Macdonald, et al last night you would never want to vote Labor (NSW or national) - ever again.

The big question is: Is Labor dead or just going to be obliterated over the next few years?

Wait until they start making the arrests following the ICAC hearings. I bet the NSW Libs will be trying their hardest to stack the benches during the trials with their own judges in order to do maximum damage to Labor.

And, my God! Has anyone ever noticed the physical resemblance between Ian Macdonald and the Devil?

This mornings poll is bad news for the Australian Labor Party!
Extraordinary thing to say?
Maybe but true.
This is the year my heart breaks, can any one think I want an Abbott/Turnbull victory?
How many understand that poll, if taken only in QLD WA NSW would spell *Landslide for Liberals*?
Who fully understand who dumped Rudd, and even I doupt it was because they thought Gillard was better.
Are we aware of the ownership of Federal Labors right, inside and out of the house?
Do we understand that faction sheltered and gave its power to Obied?
REFORM, why has Gillard school yard bully boys team stood in front of it?
A leader, any one but Gillard, would have little trouble with Abbott.
If I named, and I can, the power behind the dumping of Rudd, in and out of Parliament, I would be considered a traitor.
Yet in 20 years my words would be seen as quite true, the predictions of damage to my party,s brand having come true.
But too the reforms I now beg for will be well in place.
Those who would today call me traitor know this,you may well be that.
No man should hide the wrongs in his side, the fact that Abbott is unfit to lead a bike race is no reason to say we should,without change and reform, win.
Yet I will to the last second beg my party to try to win, election, not personal battles over future leadership dreams.

Dear Hasbeen,

Interesting times ahead that's for sure.
Voters usually get it right in the end.

Belly, you said;
If I named, and I can, the power behind the dumping of Rudd, in and
out of Parliament, I would be considered a traitor.

Can you see that this is the basic cause of the Labour Party's problem ?

In this you are putting the Union, or Party above Australia.
I think most of us believe that the future of the Labour party is
important for democracy in Australia. Even the Liberals can see this.
After all they promote the principle of competition.
I suspect that you are hinting that the AWU was the power behind the
dumping of Rudd. When you tot up the number of ex AWU officials in
the government that seems feasible.

Lexi, "Voters usually get it right in the end"

That implies that voters get it wrong and some form of benign dictatorship is required. There are those who believe they always know best what is needed for people. First, we must resist them.

I don't believe you mean that at all. Like the rest of us you are becoming jaded by the political circus, the daily show that the media need for ratings. Fortunately there are good people in parliament and they are not all on the one team. How they influence their own party where there is a daily demand for populist policies and a lot of back-door decisions by inner cabinet is a vexing problem. Sometimes the only solution is a Spring clean and try to start afresh.

Keep positive and rest. Your deep spirituality must be some solace, a balm in that.

I would be very careful of those who think they know best

Bazz you draw along bow, have you considered your view?
From my post history has anything I have ever posted said other than my team needs massive reform.
Show me Bazz who of you, the fixed on welded Liberals who ever say such about their team.
Tell me no terminological inexactitudes, problems exist.
Look only at this mornings headlines, from England, a ex Minister, and his ex wife, sentenced to 8 months in prison, each of them.
For fraud involving who was driving a speeding car.
A NSW Minister National party, committed that crime and was forced from office, but why not prison.
The links I speak of, are on the public record, why? do you jump so readily on unions? yes they are the power base of some.
But if you understood, it is them, the right, who took on the true dangerous left and won.
The 1950,s left, the refusing to send mail to pour troops in the Asian War, scrabbled headed left.
The simple truth should be clear, my wish is reform,an end to power brokers, prison terms longer that 10 years for the NSW FILTH.
Not destruction of the only true reformist party in our country.
I recommend those gloating at Liberals coming victory, Labors choice to run dead/Gillard, under stand Abbott is not Howard,s shoe lace.

I don't understand the point you are making.
I had pointed out that your loyalty might be misplaced.
You appear to have more loyalty for the union or the Labour Party
than for Australia. Otherwise you could tell us who was behind the Rudd dismissal.
I suggested it might be that you were protecting the AWU.
I would not say I was a welded on Liberal but I have for some time now voted Liberal.
I think that famous saying "The Faceless Men" is very real and maybe
more so now.

However I think both parties are failing us in the way they are
ignoring the future economic tribulations that we are facing just
because they are more than three years away.

Yes Belly, if any Liberals committed the offences similar to those that Obeid and McDonald and Thomson and Gillard are ALLEGED to have committed, I hope they too get 10+ years' sentences or whatever punishment fits the crime.

And if those Labor stalwarts DID commit those offences that they are accused of ? Then of course, 10+ years' sentences.

And if they are as innocent as the day is long, as pure as the blood of the lamb, then they should be raised to the hills, as martyrs to the cause of Justice and the People's Will, etc.

Labor or Liberal. Equal justice. Do the crime, and you do the time.

Lexi, darling, you have such a warm heart, but your comment that, "Voters usually get it right in the end", may be recalled over the next few months.

I hope you don't mind some of us rubbing it in when voters get it right in the end :)

Cheers,

Joe

Bazz you are getting on old mate.
Seems you dig up non-things from my posts and find it easy to blame the trade union membership 20% of this country, for every wrong.
I will attempt a thread to settle this issue and highlight the very real danger, in my view, that movement faces, if by the acts of SOME who gain and miss use power from that base.
Loudmouth yes very much agree.
But lets be honest, even the cab drivers taking me and others to ALP state conferences knew Obied and his right faction, once the very engine room of National Labor!
Was as rotten as he is.
My words are for one reason, my party has been used, increasingly from within.
The suits own it, are so remote from my hungry childhood we are a different species.
My country deserves much better than Gillard, as slippery as an eel and not a hope of victory.
Every day!polls say Rudd would win, maybe only lessen the blow!
But he if returned would tell us reform not hiding the filth is under way.
This country needs a party of reform, in admit it will not be ever again of the true left, because voters insist, unless they are hungry it not be.
My opponents in my life,s loves the Union and party, are blind!
If we enter opposition as the dirty rug Gillards installation sees us and without true and honest public shameing of the NSW filth we stay, in opposition.

Belly said;
Seems you dig up non-things from my posts and find it easy to blame
the trade union membership 20% of this country, for every wrong.

Previously Belly said;
If I named, and I can, the power behind the dumping of Rudd, in and
out of Parliament, I would be considered a traitor.

That is what I was asking about. It is not a "non-things" from your post.
I don't know who was behind Rudd's dismissal.
You say you do. I just asked why you would not say who it was and
questioned whether your loyalty was misplaced.

Paul Kelly touches delicately and indirectly on a possible solution to the dilemma that the Labor Party is in - since it isn't big enough for BOTH Gillard and Rudd at the same time, pressure them to BOTH retire from politics. NOW.

A Gillard- and Rudd-free Labor Party would allow it, after a painful few years in the wilderness, to get its act together again. In ten years, Shorten and Combet and other survivors will still be in their fifties, and hopefully able to work together for the good of the Party, and of the country.

Jo

Good Morning Everyone,

When I stated that "voters usually will get it
right in the end," it wasn't an original thought.
I quoted from Peter Coleman's Preface to, "The
Costello Memoirs," Coleman talking about
politicians in general told us that, "Whatever
they maya say, most of them (i.e. pollies) do
not go into Parliament to bring about particular
reforms, they go in because they find the life
irresistible. They want to be in it all their lives.
They enjoy its exhilarating highs and take its
miserable (and tedious) lows in their stride.
They face long years in the wilderness with equal
equanimity. They take for granted the slander of
fools. They also believe that the voters will get
it right in the end. Their day will come. They
are politicians in the way others are poets.
They can't help themselves..."

Of course there are politicians who are not like
that. To whom all of that stuff is the excuse of
the seat-warmer, the hack, the careerist, or at
best the adventurer. They belong to a different
parliamentary tradition - and as dear onthebeach
pointed out - they exist on all sides of politics.

However, at present I have to admit that I am
somewhat disappointed by the current state of
affairs in our political system. And, I think that
I'm not alone.

Lexi yes agree.
Some things need airing, the see saw nature of the polls is telling us both leaders are not the one the country wants.
This up and down nature may see a less than landslide win for Liberals.
We first must ignore the votes of almost every one here.
Those votes are fixed and always have been.
At play on my side is self interest,!those miffed at Rudd,s demeanor, but not enough to say so earlier, want to ride the ship right to the sea bottom.
They see defeat as better than saying we got it wrong.
Unpalatable, but true, Gillards fate is assured, not by those thinking she lied, most of them are conservative or unable to think it out.
She is doomed because unlike me, many will not reward her knifing Rudd this time.
Many males just will not vote for her ever, because she lacks that something needed to highlight her as leader.
Time exists for change, in both sides.
If asked for a straw to grasp? other than Rudd.
Then climate change is that straw, beach side erosion is already turning some to believers, world wide flooding and storms too.
By September, just maybe, denial-ists will not be so clearly heard.

Belly in that post you are making that standard Labor mistake. You are telling others why they do something. This is such a recipe for failure & you all keep doing it.

You put yourself on the road to failure when you don't find out the real reason you are loosing voters. You really do have to stop talking, & listen some times. That is listen with your hearts, rather than ears. When you really don't understand where we are coming from, you'll have trouble appealing to us.

For me, & most of my friends, Rudd has nothing to do with it. Most of us despise him from when we saw him knifing Beasley. Get him off our TV screens & in no time he'll be forgotten. He is no more memorable than that other one, Latham was it?

Getting rid of Rudd was a plus for Gillard, at first, as was her trying to get some sense into education. I was prepared to like her.

Then came the carbon tax, & the continual lies & vote buying with crazy ideas, with our money, & she'd lost it.

It might be hard, but you need someone who is nice. Another Beasley, someone who we could actually like & admire, & a lady is fine, just no more harpies.

To help you, I'll start it off, "LEXI for PM". So there you are, now get it rolling.

I would say that the rising cost of living is causing the most pain and is the first issue for voters. The full effect is hidden in all sorts of changes by both sides of politics but especially by user pays and withdrawal of some services.

Hasbeen,

Lexi for PM ? In an ideal world, maybe. But she may be too good for a real world, too inclined to see the good in everybody.

So that might be the cruellest thing to do to such a beautiful person.

Maybe what the Labor Party needs right now is the replacement of Gillard and the simultaneous expulsion from the party of both Gillard and Rudd. Clear the decks and get rid of the faction system altogether, and work together to re-build.

Just a boozy thought :)

Joe

Lexi would never survive pre-selection. Not because she doesn't have the wit and grit, but because the system is murky and corrupt.

Politics will always reward those gifted in the dark arts of self-promotion, sucking up, nobbling opponents and so on. But never more so than in recent decades where there has been a growth in the number of career politicians. Lexi correctly alluded to that in passing.

Next problem is the regular tiresome departures from the Westminster model, especially where conventions such as accountability are concerned. That is the work of all of the major parties and the Greens protest party. The public disagrees but since when were politicians concerned with that?

The only option is for the electorate to regularly tip governments out in the hope that some statesmen (non gender specific) will happen along some time.

Bazz trying yet again.
Unionists are wait for it, are power brokers watching.
Individuals, each comes wrapped in their own thoughts and opinions.
Only very few, do not think for them selves.
The fact is Unionism is insurance, for your workplace safety and well being.
Income and your very lifestyle.
In other times, life was harder, they held much more allegiance to the Union as a whole, sometimes,in some shops, [workplaces] they still do.
20% Of workers are unionists, they vote Liberal or Labor Greens or National, they are as you and I are, not empty headed, they can, and do think.
At the head of EVERY UNION is the man I some times for some only not all, call power brokers.
Now Bazz, you tell me, do you think EVERY UNIONIST, is happy to see those power brokers more involved in politics than union matters?
Are the Liberal/Greens/National voting members content to see such?
Would unions have more members if at the least, broking was done other than publicly?
My party if it is only a parking space for ex union folk is dead.
But it is not, while some intrude on the right to think as we want it is however damaged.
I know if you walked for a week around any union oficials beat you would know we need unions doing unions work.

BRAND LABOUR IS DIRTY REMEMBER OBEAD, REX JACKSON, GIBSON, GRAHAM RICHARDSON, ANGELA D’MORE, KARYN PALAZZANO, TRIPODI, ORKOPOULOS, MACDONALD, ROOZENDAAL ETC.

No need to yell. The caps lock button is the one on your keyboard that says 'caps lock'. Please remember to press it before your next post.

Cheers,

Tony

Tony Lavis, now here's a useful little side topic.

As a clumsy old bugger, with a new [& over sensitive] keyboard, I sometimes get that damn key when I just wanted an A.

As an obvious expert, pray tell, is there some method of converting a couple of lines, typed in capitals, into lower case? It would be nice not to have to delete them, & retype.

Tony leave the child alone mate.
He has the most honest sign in name in the forum.
Sillier is the right spelling thou