The dying days of the Fourth Reich: it's the 2007 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION

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Howard's giant election-winning plan:

* Tax-free children's savings accounts to help save for first home

Once again he deftly manages to ignore everyone between the age of 10 and 50. Nice work fuckhead.

And isn't this a half-arsed version of what Rudd announced weeks ago?

* Education rebates of up to $2000 for secondary students

All secondary students? Or just private school ones?

And isn't this a half-arsed version of what Rudd announced weeks ago?

* Attacks Kevin Rudd as 'hollow leader' of 'hollow party'

Oooh I'm scared.

What a joke.

Geez. I made up my mind long ago, I just want it to be done now.

xpost

(xpost: me too)

Mr Howard also said the Government would speed up the release of Government land to increase the supply of new housing.

Labor's already announced that.

He also announced a plan to help fund infrastructure in new housing developments, which he claimed would reduce some of the charges faced by new home buyers.

To be absorbed into the price of properties?

The Prime Minister said his Government would also attempt to boost the number of child care places by helping fund new and expanded child care centres.

After how many years of ignoring pleas for greater capacity in child care?

"I want to pursue with relentless vigour the goal of full employment. Only the Liberal and Nationals parties talk about jobs for Australians any more."

Because 4.2% is low unemployment. Any lower and we're all doing 50 hours a week to cover for the staff we can't find.

"Australia needs an education system that teaches its children to read, write, spell and add up."

No mention of critical thinking again?

And who let the education system go in the first place? Or are we just blaming the states again?

"I believe in the family as the cornerstone of our happiness and our nation"

As long as you're not a big dirty poof, obviously.

"There are storm clouds gathering on the horizon when it comes to economic management."

Can't blame Labor for that after 11 years, can you?

I knew there'd be another ALP policy. What I didn't expect was wall-to-wall ALP policies. "Me-too" my arse.

T/S racism vs being a union member
T/S homophobia vs being a union member
T/S killing 90,000 Iraqis vs being a union member

sorry but I'm unusually cranky today

Where can a musician get in on this lark of providing a paint-by-numbers scary synth drone for these ads? All you do is hold one note down. I'll do that for a buck.

What about the noise that goes whhhuuuUUUUUMP <tinkle> when a bar graph hits the screen?

Sound FX library 101, baby.

I can't help thinking every time there's an event like the Liberal campaign launch, where they're all packed in together in one place, that it would only take one bomb...

Or perhaps just encase them in concrete, like in that episode of 'The Goodies'.

And when you see them all there cracking up over Costello's "jokes", does it ever make you want to punch some faces.

And how come they're all suddenly going on about Communists? Been spending too much time with their American overlords, I suppose.

Christ! Journalist with The Australian tried to pressure an independent candidate in Wentworth to prefernce the Liberal candidate.

THIS is what I mean about the News Corp papers getting desperate.

(xpost)

I can't help thinking every time there's an event like the Liberal campaign launch, where they're all packed in together in one place, that it would only take one bomb...

Annabell Crabb (smh) observed that, if Howard loses the election, the Brisbane lord mayor who opened the launch will be the highest-ranked Liberal in the entire country.

God I love the sound of that.

And how come they're all suddenly going on about Communists?

No more rabbits?

World says "your $64bn in free money is inflationary," Howard says "no it isn't"

Spot the better economist.

Nice also to know that the beneficiaries of yesterday's housing announcement are the rich who already own properties. Out of touch much?

Rupert Murdoch came to Adelaide and said he is not involved in politics. Nope. No sir, not him. I mean, he didn't promise Don Dunstan that he'd make him state premier if he joined the DLP or...well, you know how it ends, Iraq!

Cunt.

srsly, he spends the past six years actively and unwaveringly supporting the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, corrupting the notion of a free press in the process, and he wants to be seen as objective?? Get fucked you melty-face fucking cock head.

Labor launches with HAWKE AND KEATING HOLDING HANDS AND PUNCHING THE AIR.

THIS is what I mean about a mad paradigm shift. These two were poison not long ago.

Also Gough was in there somewhere.

I can't see Fraser backing up yer John Howard in the near future.

Apparently Andrew Bolt wrote this on his liveblog

2:56pm: Tells his wife he hasn’t forgotten it’s his wedding anniversary today. Howard can start packing now.

Hey has anyone seen the Coalition commercial where big union toughs burst in on a child's birthday party, eat the cake, pop the balloons and cancel Christmas?

I saw the one where big union thugs invade Poland, round up the Jews and send them to the gas chambers.

They got off lightly in that one.

From La Bolt's Blog:

There’s an acknowledgement of the traditional owners - a genuflection to the new racism to which Labor is so prone.

Hahaha, what a douche.

Hey has anyone seen the Coalition commercial where big union toughs burst in on a child's birthday party, eat the cake, pop the balloons and cancel Christmas?

-- Tim F, Wednesday, 14 November 2007 21:52 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

You're serious??

Can anyone spell DESPERATE??

Odds on next week there'll be an ad showing union thugs indulging in child pornography and setting fire to Brisbane. This pathetic muckraking can only be hurting the Coalition.

A friend of mine told me that Bob Hawke was seen recently sporting a badge that said 'Union Thug'.

Brilliant!

I can distinctly remember hating Keating with a burgundy passion, but yesterday I was only proud to see him there. Things really have changed, haven't they? Perhaps it's just that Keating's arrogance pales in comparison with Howard's high watermark.

Sometimes the role of elder statesman can bring out the best in some ex-PM's - look at Malcolm Fraser for example.

Absolutely.

I don't see Howard being that successful an elder statesman, to be honest. His legacy won't be a good one, especially now that it's clear the whole economic boom has little to do with him.

On the radio this morning some Liberal hack was trying to paint the unions as a greedy corporation intent on grabbing power to line their own grubby pockets - something along the lines of "pouring $30 million into the campaign to steal the election". Contrasts nicely with the actions of Richard Pratt et al no?

Was that an advertisement? Coz there's a tv ad about that, but it's an ex-LABOR mp that's saying it.

Surely they're chasing the unions because there's nothing else left?

This has to be transparent to even the most hardened Howard supporter.

xpost

I was half asleep but it was on the ABC so I don't think it was an ad; although perhaps I was confused? So who was the ex-labor MP talking about?

I can't remember, but I def recall the $30 milly call.

Autumn wouldn't there be lots of small business types who would respond to a fear-of-a-militant-union type dog whistle though?

Why this time but not any of the previous 13783 occasions Howard has made the same bleat in the last six months?

One feels from the polls that people have pretty much made up their minds. There may be a few vacillators, but not enough to make a large difference from one poll to the next, taking into account margins of error.

Autumn wouldn't there be lots of small business types who would respond to a fear-of-a-militant-union type dog whistle though?

-- badg, Thursday, 15 November 2007 10:47 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Probably, but loads more are worried about being affected by WorkChoices. It just seems like niche campaigning to me.

moley: Everyone's sick of it. It's been going now for almost a year and the country's just exhausted. Normally politics is the subject of every conversation two weeks from voting day, but this year nobody's talking about it. It's selling papers but that's about it. Last week I heard that even the election-themed books that usually sell in high volumes aren't moving.

In other words, yeah, most people made up their minds ages ago and just want the whole thing to stop.

Centrebet has the Coalition at $3.50. That's the highest it's been iirc.

I want a badge that says "union thug livin'"

put out a track called "fuck your PM" by (union) thug

^^^

I'll paste my facebook photo in here when I get around to it.

I have got around to it

http://www.4bitterguys.com/adam/unionomg.jpg

HAHAHAHA, awesome.

I've been trying not to get my hopes up because so many times these past twelve years, they've been dashed and that clique of far right cunts and Howard have stayed in power.

But it's fucking actually happening, isn't it? In nine days time...that lying immoral cunt who has fucked up and sold out this country (and its gonna take a long time to recover) will be gone. And clobbered on the way. And we'll have the hilarity of Costello and Turnbull with hangbags at dawn.

November 24 is going to be one of the happiest days of my life.

It's happening.

I think the turning point (from a probable win to a definitive win) was last week's revelation that the Coalition knows fuck-all about economics, despite this being its one perceived strength. After 12 years of slippery deception, the emperor has no clothes, and no other strength on which to fall back.

Commentators are unanimous and firm in their confidence that the ALP will win. According to Chris Uhlmann, Labor is measured but ebullient, and the Coalition is "grimly determined."

Advertising ends on Wednesday. The Coalition is pushing unions because it can't find a cut-through message. This will ramp up but probably not change, and probably have no effect anyway.

Meanwhile Labor this week shattered just about every negative stereotype it's been given by showing true leadership in fiscal restraint (thereby actually showing up the government in terms of economic responsibility), and expressing once and for all the stark differences between it and the Coalition.

Yesterday's pork-barrelling finding will severely damage the Coalition, but what's another nail in an already nailed-shut coffin? It could be the difference between Labor winning 96 seats and 102 seats in the lower house, which is academic when 76 seats is enough.

What I said weeks ago about status appears to have been otm. Rudd is resolute and the Coalition is (uncharacteristically, yet normally for this year) running around in circles.

I expect Coalition ministers to start publicly breaking down any day now. Barnaby Joyce was first this week, but it'll get worse. Probably Tuesday, if the next Newspoll shows a widening.

Hey, and it's also likely that Howard will lose Bennelong. Seriously. McKew is cranking up the rhetoric something fierce atm. I don't think Labor even expected that.

:D:D:D post, xpost, xxpost

The most interesting statistic in all of this is the trajectory of the major polls.

I always said that people would vote out Howard if someone good came along, and that Latham didn't rouse enough confidence in voters. Rudd's entrance was met with positive polling which hasn't changed. Nothing the Coalition has done all year has had any effect on the polls. They've not even narrowed (perceptibly) during the campaign period, despite consensus to the contrary.

My theory now -- as it was months ago -- is that people just want to get rid of Howard, and nothing he can do would ever have changed this; and that, in the context of Howard's hate-fuelled politics, Rudd can't possibly be worse.

The past 8-9 days have seen a shift in the playing field (new strength for Rudd, new weakness for Howard), so I think that, for the first time all year, the Coalition will lose a serious amount of support to Rudd.