The making of a leader. When your country’s leader gained her working experience at an ambulance chasing law firm it is not surprising that the search for a negotiated compromise dominates the method of government operations.
Fighting for principle with an all-or-nothing approach is a potentially costly business when you don’t get paid if you don’t win at least something. So no surprise really at yesterday’s attempt to find a “solution” to the problem of asylum seekers arriving by boat. Give a little and hope that the other side does the same.
No surprise either that the Gillard bait was not taken. The opponents of yesterday’s plan opposed it primarily because they don’t think it would actually work. They can be awkward things those principles.
Today’s papers and their website readership.
A high stakes poker game. European leaders will tonight begin another round of their interminable talks about how to solve their continent’s economic crisis. The German magazine Der Spiegel presents this summary of what the future possibly holds if the failure to find a solution continues:
The greatest thing since sliced bread? Frozen foam, folks. Reuters reports that the Japanese brewing company Kirin has come out with a soft-serve yogurt-like machine that tops a beer with frozen foam.
Made of pure beer — no ice or water is added — the frozen froth keeps the beer chilled for at least 30 minutes, well over the average of 22 minutes to finish a pint, as a Kirin survey found.
“We thought people won’t spend more than five minutes on a pint of beer but apparently not,” said Kunihiko Kadota, Kirin’s marketing brand manager for the “frozen draft” campaign.
“Women and young drinkers spend much more time to drink it all up, and they like the idea the beer doesn’t get warm towards the end.”
Some news and views noted along the way.
- The destructive, ideological push for austerity.
- Whoa: it’s 2012, and the world’s most popular email service is … Hotmail.
- Chicago decriminalizes small amounts of pot.
- Why flying is no fun (and may be more dangerous).
- Jewish groups condemn court’s definition of circumcision as grievous bodily harm.
- Women are never the right age in organisational terms.
“The opponents of yesterday’s plan opposed it primarily because they don’t think it would actually work. They can be awkward things those principles.”
Principles are in fact wonderful things, but if circumstances change, an intelligent person will modify their principles to meet the new order.
I can only assume you are referring to the Greens, as nobody could be so deluded as to call the coalition policy ‘principled’.
However, quite simply, onshore processing just motivates more boats to hit the water, and consequently leads to more deaths. It is irrefutable.
So of your principles are killing otherwise innocent people, perhaps you need to re-think your principles.
You should take a look at Charles Richardson’s discussion on groupthink. It took just a few weeks with Bob brown gone to expose the greens as mired in a dated philosophy, without the apparent nous to update to meet new challenges.
I’m a fan of the greens, and have voted for them of recent times, but this lack of capacity to re-think their policies under new circumstances brands them as just another dinosaur, yet another species that will find itself extinct.
I hope not, but my concerns about Milne are coming to pass.
Since when has a former school teacher been a good leader at anything.
“No surprise either that the Gillard bait was not taken. The opponents of yesterday’s plan opposed it primarily because they don’t think it would actually work.”
You must be joking – the Lib/Nats oppose the Malaysian ‘Solution” because they are afraid that it WILL work. As for the Greens, they oppose the plan on philosophical grounds, whether it works or not is not the question. Please explain!
I know that this is crude, but to choose my words better would be a waste of time.
Dog’s breakfast has provided the analysis.
Here is the sentiment:
“Get stuffed, Farmer!”
I also think that Falmer’s comments on the asylum seeker committee are confused and wrong.
The whole point of politics is to build coalitions of different interests and is therefore essentially compromise.
The asylum seekers’ committee idea came from the Greens, who are pleased with the results of their same idea for the carbon price. Since the Coalition has said that it wouldn’t vote for its own policy if it were proposed by Labor (!!) it makes sense to see whether common ground may be built with the Greens.
As Keane has pointed out, evidence supports off shore processing but this is opposed vehemently by Greens’ supporters. What better way to seek the Greens’ compromise than adopt a process proposed by them?
I am SO disappointed with the system as it is today. We have the Greens crying about a woman losing all her money sending a Brother on a dangerous boat journey, the Coalition crying aboutchildren who MIGHT suffer if they go to Malaysia, but not giving a damn if they die on a dangerous boat journey. Abbott has never forgiven the Australian voters for dumping Howard, so now, unless we accept hi claim as the REAL LEADER,we must watch him walking off with the ball. Disgusting!