Does the PM read God and Caesar?
September 12th 2007 01:29
I note that my prognostications about the PM and his IR laws on Monday were echoed by Mr Howard himself yesterday. Could it be that he takes time after state dinners to read our humble blog?
All of that aside, it seems that the election will be in early December. While I still think it will be an ALP victory, it is no lay down mezzaire.
I note with horror that the PM has started quoting my great uncle:
"One of the goals of the Coalition in the next term of government, if we are returned by the Australian people, is that for the first time we might be able to have a full employment economy," Mr Howard said.
He contrasted Chifley's pledge with the ALP's industrial relations policies which he said would push up unemployment.
"One of the things that Chifley made after the Second World War was a full employment pledge to the workers of Australia.
"He believed in the social justice of full employment.
"It strikes me as passing strange that a party, one of whose former prime ministers Ben Chifley believed in full employment, is the party that has an industrial relations policy that is going to destroy the potential of this country to be a nation of full employment over the next three years." (From today's SMH)
I think perhaps he should take a leaf from the book of Julie Bishop's History Summit. Talk about re-inventing the past to suit a current agenda. This is a history lesson that would set Pol Pot or Madame Mao back in their chairs. Or is Mr Howard channelling uncle Ben? He should know I have rights over that particular occupation and that I take a dim view of interlopers.
Has he forgotten that Ben Chifley was a programatic Democratic Socialist of the old school (whose only differences with Joe Stalin would have been about concentration camps and the proper use of tanks). Ben himself manned the barricades in the Great Train Strike of 1917. He was a union man through and through.
Mind you, what is it about environmental issues that turns free market hatchet men into born again totalitarian centralists. Forget the banks, Turnbull's tree grab, in which the government nationalised the carbon credits from every tree in the nation, would have made even uncle Joe, let alone uncle Ben, blush for shame.
All of that aside, it seems that the election will be in early December. While I still think it will be an ALP victory, it is no lay down mezzaire.
I note with horror that the PM has started quoting my great uncle:
"One of the goals of the Coalition in the next term of government, if we are returned by the Australian people, is that for the first time we might be able to have a full employment economy," Mr Howard said.
He contrasted Chifley's pledge with the ALP's industrial relations policies which he said would push up unemployment.
"One of the things that Chifley made after the Second World War was a full employment pledge to the workers of Australia.
"He believed in the social justice of full employment.
"It strikes me as passing strange that a party, one of whose former prime ministers Ben Chifley believed in full employment, is the party that has an industrial relations policy that is going to destroy the potential of this country to be a nation of full employment over the next three years." (From today's SMH)
I think perhaps he should take a leaf from the book of Julie Bishop's History Summit. Talk about re-inventing the past to suit a current agenda. This is a history lesson that would set Pol Pot or Madame Mao back in their chairs. Or is Mr Howard channelling uncle Ben? He should know I have rights over that particular occupation and that I take a dim view of interlopers.
Has he forgotten that Ben Chifley was a programatic Democratic Socialist of the old school (whose only differences with Joe Stalin would have been about concentration camps and the proper use of tanks). Ben himself manned the barricades in the Great Train Strike of 1917. He was a union man through and through.
Mind you, what is it about environmental issues that turns free market hatchet men into born again totalitarian centralists. Forget the banks, Turnbull's tree grab, in which the government nationalised the carbon credits from every tree in the nation, would have made even uncle Joe, let alone uncle Ben, blush for shame.
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