Dennis might be too hasty in counselling Gillard against "falling into the trap of focusing on unions" And far from being driven by the long outdated notion of "social democracy" (remember Labor disavowed that for neoliberalism nearly thirty years ago), let along the meaningless label "progressive", Gillard's support for community service workers and increased funding to education (NOT) are both classic examples of doing the bidding for two of the largest trade unions in the country, the Australian Services Union and the AEU. For Gillard to look to Obama for inspiration would be bizarre. The Americans are poorer than us, less educated, and have budget deficits and other debts so large they might as well be a Latin American country in the 1980s, for all their relevance to US.
Gillard has already chosen her foreign Svengali - the Scottish Karl Rove, John McTernan.

Vowing ongoing support for unions is a mixed bag, to say the least. This means, for example, total commitment to jobs and miners create jobs, don't they, regardless of the impacts of coal on the ecosphere; and we wouldn't want to tax minerals miners too heavily because well they might shed jobs even as they invest in driverless trains. No, I think the entire claim that the ALP is 'of the unions' is a distraction because, after all, only 20% of employees are union members. That means a lot of working class people are not represented by the ALP and they know it.

I understand. I am not shilling for Gillard. I was just pointing out to Dennis that Gillard's speech to the AWU was actually more sincere, and backed up by actions that Dennis even noted. While it's true that only 20% of employees are union members, the circle of people close enough to that 20% to share union support pushes the importance of unions perhaps to the 40/50% mark. That's a very large bloc of voters who can be managed by the very efficient, comprehensive, and seasoned union networks from the shop floor, throughout the public services, the public school system, the health system, and so on.

"That means a lot of working class people are not represented by the ALP and they know it."

Got it in one, Anthony.

I was sitting in a crib hut at smoko this morning when the subject of Gillard's interview on ABC local radio came up (no, I didn't raise it). Without exception the fluoro-wearing men in that hut were scathingly dismissive of our "working class heroine".

The ALP and the careerist lawyers who own it have lost any credibility among working people.

"Australia's Worst Union" is not remotely interested in working people except as cash cows. Howes; what hard work has he ever done? How many callouses has Little Billy Shorten ever earnt?

The whole AWU is summed up by the fact that in a Union of a (claimed) 150,000 members, the Ludwig/Howes rabble were "re-elected unopposed" in the recent "elections.

Can anybody tell me the last time a worker from the shop floor was elected to the ALP leadership group?

i'd trade the modern Corporatocracy for a nice bit of social democracy any day.

wow, the Americans poorer than us, when one city in America has a larger economy than our entire country ( you do know that overseas investors are getting 83% of the profit of the mining boom right?)

I suppose that "doing the bidding of trade unions" in supporting workers and increasing access to education is actually an example of them returning to their traditional base, i.e. opportunity and workers rights.

If only the Liberals were still recognisable by Robert Menzies.

Svengali? Karl Rove and John McTernan have an evil plan to control Julia Gillards mind?

You might need to lend her one of your tinfoil hats, in the national interest of course, after all she IS your Prime Minister (just guts you doesn't it?)

no, that only means that the people who work with you have a similar mindset about Julia Gillard.

Some people actually recognise the achievements of the government in extremely difficult circumstances. It's hardly been a normal term of government for a range of reasons.

I think she's done a pretty good job considering what she's had to deal with and it is a great shame that good legislation was crippled through appeasing those whose self interest and influence overcame good policy.

Too many people have been sucked into this whole manufactured loathing thing courtesy of the Murdoch press, Bolt, Jones and Henderson.

Robert, while you are entitled to yearn for a socialist society where governments and bureaucrats take investment decisions away from civil society, I'll stick to the evidence - which is pretty irresistible - that socialist societies are not very good at producing the wealth necessary for the comfort expectations of a society like Australia. And yes, Australia is richer than the US on a per capita basis, which is what matters.
As for "doing the bidding of trade unions", I mean what I say. It is the AEU, ASN, CFMEU, AWU, etc who exert power on governments, not individual teachers, social workers, and shearers. Anyway that is not the point. You are in fact agreeing with me. I was the one who pointed out to Dennis that Gillard was correct to identify her government as labourist, not a "progressive" or "social democratic" party. Thus, Gillard's recent focus on unions DOES show a return to Labor's base.
As for "after all she IS your Prime Minister (just guts you doesn't it?)", I DID vote for her - passionately - in the last election, and have been a long-term fanboy.

Robert, I interact with lots of people in my work. The group I referred to aren't my regular workmates, just the people I happened to be with at the time. As it happens, they were also unionists, members of the BLF for the most part, with a couple from the ETU.

They are representative of a broad sentiment within the blue-collar workforce and it's got nothing to do with Murdoch or Bolt, it's entirely down to a lack of any confidence that the ALP is interested in ordinary workers, along with a deep sense that Gillard herself is not a trustworthy person.

My liking for a socialist democracry is the small factor of governments actually making decisions in the interests of the electorate instead of the interests of the Corporate Sector.

i.e. the watering down of the MRRT was NOT in the interests of the electorate, but squarely in the interests of the resources sector, as is the Mining Acts in all states.

There is more to life than wealth, a fact some people may have forgotten in the pursuit of profit.

I had got the impression that you had susscumbed to the bash Julia just because syndrome, sorry for that.

Robert, as I explained elsewhere, I am not a 'rusted-on' ideologue, let alone party politics partisan. I have gathered that most people on The Conversation are, and therefore see all politics through the prism of a non-existent polarised world of Liberal and Labor. In other words, there's probably a lot of confirmation bias that goes on here.

i am not rusted on either, i'm sorry if i gave the impression that i thought you were. I would love for people to actually think about things and come to their own conclusions and acknowledge the successess and failures in all political organisations. That I can respect.

What i can't stand is when people parrot media spin.

The more people regurgitate it, the more i feel compelled to defend against it.

I don't know if it is a character defect or an allergic reaction to injustice.

I will admit that I have found the Gillard government much more dreary and lazy than I expected. However, putting that all down to Gillard is too simplistic. No government in my political memory (I am too young to remember the Whitlam years) has had to deal with being a minority government. So who knows how things might have been had they at least had control of the House. Still, all this avoiding responsibility for policy-making and electoral persuasion by outsourcing to interminable parade of "expert committees" - Finkelstein, Gonski, Dodson brothers, etc - is appalling. These "experts" are not our representatives; the MPs are. We elect people to parliament so THEY can do the policy work and legislating. Allied with that, I really do think Nicola Roxon has been an extremely unhelpful member of Team Gillard, and am glad she is gone.

i've always thought that the main purpose of referring stuff to committees was to be able to claim to be doing something about an issue without actually doing something.

And all too often, those expensive committees reports are placed on a shelf somewhere dark and dank and quietly forgotten about to grow fungus.

Maybe their too busy thinking of how to outmaneuver each other than actually doing the work they are paid to do... by us.

And your impression has turned out to be exactly correct. Everyone of those issues has been latched onto aggressively by the vested interests, but every single one has been eventually rejected by Gillard.

Though on a more cynical level, every one of those "expert" reports resulted in tens of millions of dollars being flicked to the vested interests for "education" purposes. In other words, upper middle class pork-barrelling.

Now Kim, you can't throw that at Gillard without also throwing it at every Prime Minister, Premier, CEO, Board of Directors, etc since Federation.

It is systemic, and not monopolised by any one party or person.

Can't throw *what* at Gillard?

"And your impression has turned out to be exactly correct. Everyone of those issues has been latched onto aggressively by the vested interests, but every single one has been eventually rejected by Gillard."

as in by singling Gillard out in your comment you imply that it is a fault that is hers, as opposed to a fault in the actual process that all leaders of all stripes have used.

Robert, the tens of millions of dollars are not given the "expert panel" report authors. The money is given to various institutional and organisational interests AFTER the "expert panel" has finished.

I would have thought that Labors problem is one of communication. How credible is the opposition given TA's own admissions about not believing what he says unless its written down, little things like non-core promises and all the ranting and raving about MRRT and ETS which they promised would be the end of us all, but somehow wasn't?

i'd freely admit that Labor has recieved some pitiful advice at times and made some bad decisions, i.e. forcing single mothers onto newstart, but it's really hard to form an effective comparison given that the coalition is so light on details and policies.

So easy to make motherhood statements, we all do it, but when you are presenting yourself as an alternative government, you are required to back it up with more than "just because".

I personally don't think that TA would make a good prime minister and genuinely cringe when i think about him representing us on a global stage, irrespective of the Coalitions policies.

" How credible is the opposition given TA's own admissions about not believing what he says unless its written down"

Abbott is steeped in the Jesuit tradition of logical reasoning. He tends to think about things by positing questions, which he then tries to answer. This is rationalism at work. I've long been bemused by those who propose that he should have ready answers delivered reflexively.

Have you ever played with the "Eliza" program, or other similar pseudo-Turing applications? Do you really want a PM who has pre-programmed responses to every question?

its a shame he doesn't display logical reasoning to the people he would like to vote for him.

I would like a PM that actually answers questions asked in a way that can be understood and that is able to take questions that have not been carefully scripted to be on message. Julia Gillard, despite what criticisms people may have, actually did turn up to Q&A and actually answered the questions that were asked.

I dont know what he does at home, but i havent really seen him posting genuine questions, just a lot of negativity and political opportunism. Remember when he gave the death stare to that journalist for about 5 minutes because he asked a question that wasn't scripted?

He is certainly steeped in something, just not sure about the logical reasoning thing.

Gillard is pre-programmed with answers by her spin-doctor McTiernan. I listened to her on ABC radio this morning speaking to Steve Austin and she was completely at ease until asked a couple of unpredictable questions, which threw her. They included a question about the intellectual input to her cabinet most notably and one about the ethical underpinnings of her decisions, as well as the last one, about what input Mr Mathieson has, which was notably disparaging.

She's a Turng machine, nothing more.

All interesting figures, but not terribly instructive. I closed down my sawmilling business early last year because my market had dried up. Why? The simple and unpalatable truth is that nobody wanted my product, sadly. Why? Well, once again, a simple and unpalatable truth: they could buy product that was dressed and readily available from elsewhere cheaper than I could supply a competing product in a longer time frame. Sure, my product was locally sourced. Sure, it was a sustainable product. Sure, it was a better quality.

None of that matters: what the client wants is adequate product, available RIGHT NOW (no planning required) at a competitive price.

So I closed. Anzac Day last year was the first time in 17 years that I have been paid not to work. In the two years preceding it I had not cleared enough to pay rent. Do I regret closing down?

The opposition is already saying it will raise taxes (maternity leave) and cutting services, namely public sector positions.

Thankfully we have Queensland showing us the strategy they have in mind.

Hi Robert

Except Tony Abbott has stated that it isn't a tax that will be used to raise revenue for parental leave - its a levy!

And stating that you will cut public sector positions is one of the typically dishonest approaches adopted by politicians. It will not and cannot raise enough to cover the cost of promises. Especially when the MRRT and carbon taxes are supposed to go, but the offsets like higher pensions and higher tax free threshold will stay.

Joe Hockey has said that he welcomes the recent initiative on honesty in election financial commitments. We shall see......

they have said that all legislation that is linked to the Carbon Tax and the MRRT will also be repealed, including higher pensions and raised tax free thresholds.

The Carbon Tax also started out as a "levy" but the opposition changed it in public awareness to tax. Please educate me as to the real world difference between the two?

It is realistic to treat the promises of politicians with skepticism. But when the Coalition says the economy would be better under a Coalition government without saying exactly how or what they intend to do, instead "just because" I for one am not filled with confidence. Particularly given that the ALP, although with certain valid criticisims, have managed to steer the economy successfully through a global financial melt down.

So despite the complexities of minority government, on the one hand we have a political party that has shown it's mettle and another that promises to do better "just because".

Maybe if the Coalition actually put something of substance out instead of just thought bubbles, scripted PR opportunities and the back of TA's head as he avoids any questions of significance, I would be able to make a more informed decision come election day. As it is i am not inclined to accept their bland assertions about being better "just because".

Robert,

There is no difference between a tax and a levy - I was being sarcastic.

And while some members of the coalition have stated in talking points that they would wind back the carbon tax compensation package, they have not written it into policy that they would dump the raising of the tax free threshold, nor have they said they would cut pensions. To say either would be electoral suicide.

What they have said is that the income tax burden on Australians would be less under a coalition government, that the MRRT and carbon tax will be repealed, and all their promises will be funded by savings. And if you believe that (and I can see that you don't), then I have a bridge that you may wish to buy....

Stephen, this is the first time in my life I have dreaded all political options so much, it kinda spooks me. But then again, I was hysterically (in retrospect) supportive of both Mark Latham and Julia Gillard. This time, I've got nowhere to turn. I loathe far too much of The Greens non-environmental policies, as they are stuck in the Cold War. Now, if Malcolm Turnbull and Penny Wong split from Lib-Lab and started their own party, I'd become hysterically supportive of them.

Hi Kim

I've never been much of a Liberal voter, mostly Labor, often the Greens in the past.
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But IF Mr Turnbull were leader of the Libs, I would vote for them.

I see in him a pragmatic person willing to own up to the good and bad on both sides. I see an intelligent man who seems inspired by good ideas and seemingly has a vision for the future.

BUT who knows, the reality may be completely different.

I cannot see the value of being a dyed-in-the-wool voter for any party, it smacks of dogmatism.

Its obviously easy to sit behind our keyboards and criticise, but bugger me if the stakes aren't high, and we should demand BETTER from our political representatives.

I find it interesting that so many people think Turnbull would be better for the country than Abbott. While I agree that, personality-wise, the former is more appealing, it seems to me that nothing much would change; we would still have Hockey, Bishop, Brandis, Hunt, Morrison et al. I can't see that they have a backup of intelligent and honourable people that Turnbull could choose to make a new front bench.

In many Australian circles the "swinging voter" is treated as an irrational and clueless buffoon who cheapens and destroys "real progress". OTOH, I think that any Australian person who is not - at least in theory - a "swinging voter" is the real dupe, unless they are very, very committed to single issues; that's perfectly rational, and therefore a lot of Greens voters could be counted as rational non swinging voters. in fact they are much more rational than people who think they are voting for some grand political program, whose metanarrative is shared by one and only one political party. Neither Communism nor a libertarian utopia with the State shutting itself down are on the cards in 21st century Australia.
Most of the ideological battles for what Australia will be have been fought, with some decisive victories against certain utopian yearnings, and quite a lot of coalescing around agreed sociopolitics. Broadly enjoyed comfort is the basic yearning of Australian people, with both Labor and Libs ebbing and flowing about how much of that yearning they are prepared to use the State to fulfill.
Ever since the Keating government, anybody not alive to the reality that their own interests (both selfishly and more socially construed) will sometimes be served more by one party than the other, while at other times it is the reverse. Any Australian adult who describes themselves as a 'rusted on' Labor/Liberal voter deserves the greatest skepticism from all thinking people. If they don't have a rational reason, chances are they are just Useful Idiots. And will be treated as such by the parties.

agree, the funny thing is that it's the "unsafe" "Swinging" electorates that get plied with gifts at election time.

Robert, that is the other side of the same coin - both parties treat rusted-on voters as Useful Idiots.