Crikey‘s iPad winner:
Mr Rob Nicholls is the lucky winner of Crikey‘s Win a new iPad competition. Congratulations!
Gillard, Slipper, Thomson, et al:
Shirley Colless writes: Re. “Desperate times for a dying prime ministership” (yesterday, item 1). So during the leadership of John Howard, Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, Craig Thompson’s alleged “naughties” were a cause of deep concern and duly broadcast to the world, but Peter Slipper’s alleged “naughties” while common knowledge were no cause for concern — but all of a sudden, once he ratted, the Coalition holier-than-thou attack dogs moved in.
One does have to wonder, how many other dirt files are being held by whomever but not revealed on how many other Coalition and government members?
Martin Gordon writes: The things that does stand out in everything that has occurred in the Gillard prime ministership, is the growing pile of issues wreckage and public dismay that basically reflects on her poor political judgment. She does have a reverse Midas touch.
Sadly for this country, Gillard could not the pick the winner of a one-horse race.
Niall Clugston writes: Everyone seems to have missed the fact that Abbott’s call for the Gillard government to disown Craig Thomson’s vote is unconstitutional. A government cannot dismiss an MP, nor can it choose to ignore a vote.
If Thomson chooses to vote with the government, there is no way to stop him.
Apple:
Allan Brownsdon writes: Re. “Look no further than Apple to explain the retail woes here” (yesterday, item 19). It’s simple really. If I go into JB Hi-Fi or Harvey Norman, I’ll get some sales assistant who knows little about the product and shows little interest in you and what you are after. If they don’t know the answer, they’ll happily make it up.
Walk into an Apple store and you’ll find someone knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the products they sell.
People are just sick of being taken for granted by the big retailers.
Oh dear Crikey. I understand the convergence review is big news and I’m glad that you’re devoting your big guns to covering it.
But something else happened yesterday (admittedly after deadline) that I thought might get *some* coverage in Crikey.
The NDIS got dragged forward by 12 mths and will presumably be part of the Govt’s (rather sparse) good news re-election strategy.
I didn’t expect the MSM to do more than a 5 second grab before moving onto more important matters. But I *did* expect better of Crikey.
Instead, we get….*crickets*.
Top of the class Niall Clugston. They also seem to have overlooked the fact that Abbott’s call would effectively disenfranchise the entire federal electorate of Dobell, which I am (usually) proud to call home. He really doesn’t think these things through, does he? Abbott PM should be a laugh-a-minute.
I don’t agree that everything that Gillard touches is a wreckage. People seem to forget that she is the only PM who has had to face daily and grinding attacks from Abbott and his mates. She is the only PM who has had to walk the thin edge of the hung parliament ‘cliff’. She has done this without public temper tantrums of her own while being vilified as no other PM in Australian history has been. I am hoping that she will be able to hold on at least until the pollution tax has been implemented. Unpopular it may be, but the world 4 degrees hotter will be unpopular too.
Tony Abbott must carry the blame for most of the nastiness that has been hurled at our first woman PM. Imagine him gracefully allowing her to govern after the last election and constructively contributing to policy discussions– and you can’t. If anyone should go it is Abbott.
I must disagree with Allan Brownsdon. I recently bought an LED TV set from JB HiFi in Knox City. I needed quite a bit of help to connect my computer, as well as resolve many issues such as digital recording, WIFI etc. This necessitated ringing the TV salesman at JB HIFI at least 5 times over the following week. Not only was he knowledgeable but at all times was keen to help me to get the TV set up and going. Perhaps the issues he mentioned is the “cultural war” between Apple and other PC producers?