Senator Nettle and the Jabiru Venture:

Chief of Staff for Senator Kerry Nettle, Jon Edwards, writes: Re. “Why Senator Nettle was wrong on immigration laws” (yesterday, item 24). It is Greg Barns who is wrong. Senator Nettle has never said that the crew of the Jabiru Venture’s claim about the migration laws was based on an accurate assessment of the Migration Act. Nor did she need to. What Senator Nettle told the media yesterday was the first hand account of a crew member who has claimed repeatedly that the crew were told not to bring the Indonesians on board for immigration and security reasons. This has been confirmed in the Australian‘s report today. Senator Nettle’s point was that the hard line taken on immigration law by John Howard has left the perception that these laws may pose problems for the owners of boats that assist asylum seekers. Senator Nettle reported the claim of the crew that this perception actually did prevent the Indonesian families from being rescued earlier. It doesn’t matter what the actual provisions of the Migration Act are – it’s the perception that counted. This perception is entirely understandable given the track record of this government in regard to intercepting asylum seeker boats and threatening those who would assist them in the way the MV Tampa did back in 2001. As to the accusation of cynical electoralism – c’mon Greg it’s just not credible. You know that this is exactly the kind of straightforward criticism of the climate of fear that the Howard government’s immigration laws have created that Senator Nettle has pursued throughout her time in parliament; election or no election, business as usual.

The Gunns AGM:

John Hayward writes: Re. “John Gay aborts Gunns AGM amid tough questioning” (yesterday, item 1). Stephen Mayne’s account of the extraordinary Gunns AGM had to confine itself to irregularities in the conduct of the meeting. The operational conduct of Gunns and its government subsidiaries is far more bizarre. Having already landed the stupendous perk of the Managed Investment Schemes, then the apartheid-style device of the Protection of Agricultural Land policy in Tasmania, Gunns seems to be going for the final solution with its draft Wood Supply Agreement with Forestry Tasmania. As it stands, the agreement will seemingly permit the transfer of State Forest roads ownership to Gunns, followed by a consolidation of that road ownership with the State Forest itself. No mention of price or areas. Having already succeeded in brazenly gifting nearly 78,000 ha of State Forest Crown Land to Forestry Tasmania as private freehold, the Lennon Government may well have concluded that the sky’s the limit for largesse to mates. They are not likely to get any arguments from federal forestry stable mates Kerry O’Brien or Martin Ferguson.

The Crikey Cabbie Panel calls it:

John Kotsopoulos writes: Re. “Crikey Crib Sheets Part 4: Cabbie Panel calls it” (yesterday, item 12). Cabbie Bruce Tootell claims: “It’s mostly the young and uneducated who are going to vote Labor.” Such an Olympic standard forelock tug Mr Tootell! If everyone you have spoken to is voting Liberal and they are mainly businessmen how would you know the education level of Labor voters? If you want to get a handle on the mental age of many of the Liberal supporters get onto one of the tabloid blogs and be embarrassed.

Julia Veitch writes: Your cabbies themselves offer thoughtful insights, but I wonder about their sample population. The cabbies carry people who can afford to pay for taxis, are in a hurry and like convenience. There is most likely a preponderance of business people, who historically support the Liberal party, which suggests that the sample could be skewed Liberal. I wonder what a poll by bus-drivers might show, if it was possible to chat to people in a queue buying tickets.

Bill Heffernan:

Boris Kelly writes: Re. “Bill Heffernan: air safety guardian” (yesterday, item 2). Tony, Bill, Jackie… So many nuts, so little time.

Election 04 editorials:

Cathy Bannister writes: Re. “Election 04: The newspapers’ choice last time round” (yesterday, item 20). The editorials weren’t as unanimous as Jane Nethercote has painted in her list of 2004’s editorial endorsements. Jack Waterford, Canberra Times, 8 Oct 2004, endorsed Latham: “Australia needs a new government . . . Any reservations about Mr Latham’s capacities, or Labor’s grab bag of promises, are not so great that they should overcome the doubts about the fitness of the Howard government to continue…”

TV advertising:

Steve Carey writes: Re. “TV advertising has been a colossal waste of money” (Early Campaign Edition: Day 39, item 4). I disagree strongly with Richard Farmer about the Labor “whinging Wendy” ad – it’s well written and gets across the message very well. I have no axe to grind, just… think Richard’s wrong, is all.

The future of the Coalition:

Russell Bancroft writes: Re. “And the new Senate powerbrokers are … the Nationals” (yesterday, item 4). I think that you will find that should there be a change of government, the Coalition will quickly be dissolved and the Nats go it alone. Historically, the Libs and Nats have only been in coalition whilst in government. In Victoria, the coalition fell apart soon after the 1999 state election. I am fairly certain that for a number of years during the Hawke-Keating government the federal coalition was in abeyance.

The electoral gods must be crazy:

Robert Molyneux writes: Re. “MacCormack: The electoral gods must be crazy” (yesterday, item 7). David MacCormack has missed an even worse joke from the electoral gods. The little girl allegedly starved to death by her white parents lived in Hawkes Nest, Howard’s holiday base. So much for drastic intervention in NT.

Booth workers:

Simon Disney writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (yesterday, item 6). Yesterday, Crikey published: “Form a queue! I am told there are more than 900 people who have volunteered to man the polling booths for Maxine McKew and there is a waiting list if you want to help! Is this unprecedented? They may not be waiting for the PM with baseball bats but there is certainly a rush on to meet him at the frontline!” Answer: No. Ted Mack used to regularly get more booth workers than he needed. I was NSW campaign manager for the Australian Democrats on a couple of occasions back in the 1990s and once asked his team if he would like Democrat booth workers to hand out for Ted in any of the smaller booths they couldn’t cover. I think I spoke to his wife, who said, “Thanks, that’s very sweet, but no need… we have every booth covered with rosters changing throughout the day – and a waiting list of people just in case we need them”. I think the longest any of their booth-workers had to work was 2 hours!

Kevin Andrews:

Dave Horsfall writes: Mark Edmonds (yesterday, comments) wonders about the connection between Kevin Andrews’ policies and being a Christian. Later on, he observed that Jesus did indeed display compassion; I think he answered his own question…

Interest rates:

Mikey Hughes writes: Garth Wong (yesterday, comments) is wrong. Wong claims the Howard statement “Interest rates will always be lower under a Coalition Government than an ALP Government” is still true because at current rates of 8.5% it’s lower than Whitlam, Hawke, and Keating’s were. But Howard had a capped rate of 13.5% when he was treasurer in the early 80s so that adage is not true because Whitlam and Keating averaged under that rate. Time to put that statement to the pasture where it belongs Howard Huggers.

Bronwyn Bishop:

Stephen Martin writes: Re. “Bronwyn Bishop: but think of the children!” (yesterday, item 19). I note that Ms Bishop’s letter is signed “sincerely, Bronwyn Bishop”. My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines sincere as inter alia “free from pretence or deceit”!

Curtin Uni:

Damian Leach writes: In regard to Brian Mitchell (yesterday, comments); Yes, Curtin University does have satellite campuses in multiple electorates throughout Western Australia, and also has campuses overseas, however, the main campus (Bentley) is in Swan which the Liberals would certainly like to win as at the 2004 election it was won by the ALP by around 100 votes. If we are going to classify “pork” in Unis as those in Coalition seats, or the seats the Coalition would like to win, wouldn’t it be logical that they would like to win all seats? I would have thought a more reasonable proposition would be that during a political campaign, the ‘pork’ goes towards marginal seats (such as Swan), rather than safe seats (such as Pearce) where a more dramatic swing would be required for the seat to move, which from my reading of your stats is accurate (correlated with the fact that there is currently a significant difference between the number of ALP safe seats and Coalition safe seats). I agree with the sentiment of the article that ‘pork’ doesn’t necessarily lead to good public policy making.

The Leader’s literary competition:

Michael Nolan writes: News editor Nick Richardson’s response (yesterday, comments) to complaints from entrants in the Leader papers’ literary competition, who were surprised to learn that their work may have been published in an anthology, was horribly patronising. “You would have thought that all writers wanted to get published,” he scoffs. Do journalists at the Leader waive their salary? Do freelancers he employs go unpaid? Or is he making a distinction between professional and creative writing? Try publishing a Les Murray poem and telling the big man he gets nothing, should be grateful, and might purchase a gilt-framed copy from the Leader office. Presumably, Richardson feels competitions attract non-professionals only, but writers of all levels of experience enter competitions. Some, for example, try for an income supplement by entering the many competitions run by journals, websites, organisations and newspapers around the country. To assume that entrants must be desperate amateurs is supreme arrogance. To recap: the winners haven’t received their winnings, entrants’ work was published without their knowing permission, entrants weren’t told whether their work appears in the anthology, and neither winners nor entrants received a complimentary copy of the anthology but, rather, were invited to buy one. Cash only.

Cricket:

Nathan Johnson writes: Re. “Where’s the marketing? Cricket Australia caught handling the ball” (yesterday, item 28). Charles Happell hits a six! That’s what happens when cricket bureaucrats take the fun out of cricket! Punters have and will continue to abandon matches. One only has to look at the recent World Cup debacle to see how dull and boring 95% of the matches were. Cricket Australia and their fun police have only themselves to blame. 20/20 games, a third candy game offering has also further fragmented the crowds. Too many options leave consumers irritated, disillusioned and incapable of making decisions. Banning the Mexican wave was one of the first nails in the coffin

Sam Highley writes: Re. “A few thoughts on the second Test” (yesterday, item 29). Re. Charles Happell’s pontificating about “how on earth did Brett Lee win the man-of-the-match award?” in yesterday’s Crikey. Erm, isn’t the man of the match typically awarded to a player on the winning side.

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