Old leaders week. Yet another appearance for the week by an old political leader. Following on from John Howard, Paul Keating and Peter Costello comes Mark Latham with his Australian Financial Review column (not online, of course) making a mockery of his old Labor Party’s My School website. The former opposition leader described it as “another Rudd government skyrocket: plenty of colour and light at its launch but with no clear policy destination as it fizzled out and fell lamely back to earth.” In the Latham opinion if the federal government is not willing to overhaul the site, especially with the publication of value-adding results, it should be disbanded.
So a mention for Malcolm. As Malcolm Fraser has been quiet this week — he must have finished his book-launch tour — I think it appropriate he not be forgotten. So here is the portrait of the ex-PM by Robert Hannaford that has made the finalists for this year’s Archibald Prize:
Where the jobs came from. The mining industry might still be just under half the size of agriculture when it comes to employment in Australia but it is certainly where the dramatic growth has come from. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning show that between February 2005 and this year employment in the mining industry grew by 58% to 174,500. Agricultural employment in the same period fell by more than 7000, with jobs in manufacturing industry declining from 1,053,200 to 1,002,300.
Belatedly calling a halt. Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett has finally called a halt to the smear-a-Green phone calls but I’m sure the damage has already been done. The automated phone calls with their recorded voice are sure to have annoyed many more people who will now not vote Labor than they will have convinced to vote Labor rather than Green.
Half way through Howard’s tenure I almost had a nervous breakdown because he was so awful. Part of the reason I didn’t was because of Malcolm Fraser’s “Australians All” web site. Fraser monitored Howard’s despicable use of race as a political tool and went into bat for David Hicks, among others. No-one was more surprised than I that we were suddenly allies as I wouldn’t have p*ssed on him if he was on fire when he was in office. Gary Foley once told me he was the best prime minister aboriginal people ever had. He does not deserve this sort of snide comment.
They just can’t help speaking out.
A tip: John Howard is still running the Liberals, but only out of revenge.
The whole Liberal philosophy at the moment is to try to knock Rudd out after one term.
Call it Johnny’s revenge — the reason being that John is a vindictive man, and because he lost his seat as well as the PM position he is doubly pi**ed off.
Hopefully the electorate are still as resolved to move on from the Howard method of style over substance.
Action-man Abbott only works under orders. He was the attack-dog for Howard. What has changed?
Anyone?