Sustainable Settlement and Agriculture – Page 52

Round and round with parade of leaders.

All that the past two months has shown is that the flaws within Labor run deeper than Rudd. The inability to defend itself and land blows on the opposition, and silly policies such as the citizens’ assembly, demonstrate this.

Gillard never had a honeymoon as leader. The external and internal polling showed her accession to the leadership returned the government to a competitive position, nothing more.

The focus group research showed Gillard had no capital or goodwill with the electorate. Voters were uncomfortable with how Rudd was treated and Gillard would be cut no slack.

It will forever be argued whether she should have rushed to the election. Sages counselled that Gillard should have waited until at least October, if not early December.

Another two weeks of Parliament, appearances at football finals and generally just acting as leader for three months would have given Gillard some gravitas and goodwill. Promising Rudd foreign affairs would also have been a good idea.

Instead, she called a snap election believing all the fundamentals were right and a sound but unspectacular campaign would suffice.

Two weeks in and the polls show Labor is back to where it was when Rudd was dumped. Consequently, Labor has resorted to the same shock tactic Rudd used as he tried to restore his fortunes – warning that Abbott will be prime minister.

It didn’t work then, but a Labor strategist said at the weekend that now Abbott was the poll favourite and the election was three weeks away, Labor’s last hope was that the message would have added resonance.

When Abbott knifed Malcolm Turnbull for the Liberal leadership in December, he was acutely aware of his colourful past and asked more in hope than reality that he be judged ”from this point on”.

Even ”from this point on”, Abbott has offered plenty of material. About faces on climate change, an abandonment of principle on industrial relations, a change of heart on paid parental leave and breaking a promise not to increase taxes spring to mind.

But he should brace for a do-or-die effort against him in the next three weeks, including the reawakening of events from well before he became leader.

Abbott’s campaign thus far has been a disciplined and small-target affair, little more than a series of sober and often copycat policy announcements while largely avoiding blunders.

One of the key differences between the two campaigns has been the impact of the immediate former leaders. While Rudd, as the strategist said, ”has caused us massive damage”, Turnbull has been positioning himself nicely.

Turnbull has spent a lot of the campaign helping fellow holders of marginal seats. He has swept through Queensland and Victoria and has more trips planned. Turnbull is not only doing his bit to help the Liberals win, he is also doing what he failed to do last time, cultivating the backbench.

Turnbull did not reverse his decision to retire because he wanted to sit on the backbench. Should Abbott win and then stumble like Rudd, then in this merry-go-round era of leadership changes, Turnbull will be ready.

Abbott’s policy to create ‘aged care Crisis’

“More beds without qualified nurses, proper consideration of skills mix and staffing levels will simply escalate these problems.”

Ms Chaperon says the funding package shows the Opposition does not understand the complexities of aged care.

“This is a simplistic attempt to throw money at the aged care sector without considering all of the health and care needs of residents. That includes the need for skills mix and staffing levels for nurses,” she said.

“This shows Mr Abbott does not have an understanding of the aged care industry in Australia.”

Freeing up the bed placements, which have already been allocated, was part of Mr Abbott’s $935 million aged care package that also includes:

21 days of convalescence care for around 20,000 eligible patients at a cost of $300 million
$14 million for pet therapy programs
$12 million to promote wellbeing and funding for companionship programs
a reduction in red tape for aged care providers

Ms Chaperon says the Opposition’s decision to allocate money for pet therapy programs while ignoring nursing staff is deeply concerning.

“Tony Abbott has pledged $14 million for pet therapy and yet has not mentioned nursing care,” she said.

“This is deeply concerning and indicative of a party who do not understand the basics of aged care and the vital role of nurses in the sector, to the residents and to their families.”

‘No new beds’

Her sentiments were echoed by Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon, who says the policy will not result in any more beds being made available.

Ms Roxon says Mr Abbott is funding the announcement by channelling money away from other vital aged care services.

“There are no new aged care beds and there is no new money,” she said.

“He has come clean with the public and explained that that he is going to use money set aside by our government to provide extra GP services to those in residential care to help fund this idea.

“When you’re talking about residents in aged care they are vulnerable, they do often have complex health needs.

“And to not be providing or indeed be cutting medical and nursing services to aged care, is really not going to improve the situation to the many thousands of Australians who are in aged care.”

She says Mr Abbott is trying to capitalise on the Government’s achievements in the health sector.

“He wants to get credit for steps our government is already taking to deliver better services to the community,” she said.

“Since we’ve come to office there are 10,000 additional aged care beds that have become operational.

“Mr Abbott is simply wanting to count beds that are already targeted to come on line. So this is not new funding, this is Mr Abbott pretending he can deliver beds in a different way.”

But the Opposition Leader says the Coalition will be better able to target health funding where it is needed most.

“We are investing the same as the Government proposes to invest, but we think this will produce more concrete results,” he said.

“We think it will guarantee that you will actually get 3,000 additional beds, it will guarantee that we will actually get 20,000 people assisted as they are moving from hospital back to their homes.

“So this is about practical action. It’s real action.”

Tags: community-and-society, aged-care, government-and-politics, federal-government, person, abbott-tony, federal-elections, australia, nsw

1 August, 2010

Greens seek to capitalise on voter frustration

Senator Brown did not launch any new policies but reiterated Greens support in several areas such as:

legalising gay marriage
better treatment of asylum seekers
no nuclear waste dumps
a national recycling program
junk food advertising bans
parliamentary debate on Australia’s Afghanistan troop commitment

The Greens have also called for a national food security plan, a dental scheme and high-speed rail for the east coast.

Senator Brown singled out The Greens’ backing of the $42 billion stimulus package as a significant achievement in the last term of Government.

“We put that package through, saving hundreds of thousands of jobs and thousands of businesses from recession,” he said.

Yesterday’s Nielsen poll put support for The Greens at 12 per cent and it is expected The Greens will gain the balance of power in the Senate in its own right at the next election.

The poll also put the Coalition in an election-winning lead and Senator Brown warned that a Coalition government would only offer deadlock or dominance.

“We will never just say no,” he said.

“We Greens have a plan and a vision which is not stuck, which is clear about the future of this country.”

Senator Brown also took a swipe at Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s oft-repeated election slogan of “Moving Forward”.

“If you’re going to move forward you have to say where you’re going,” he said.

Senator Brown used his speech to say coal companies should have to pay for the cost of extra port and rail facilities to export the resource.

He says the Greens are the only party in favour of a carbon tax.

“Both the big parties want to fund rail lines and port facilities in Queensland and New South Wales to hurry more coal from these big corporations – 75 per cent owned outside Australia – to hurry it to world markets, to be burnt to worsen climate change which threatens all of us.

“Here are The Greens – let them fund that themselves after we’ve imposed a carbon tax.”

Tags: government-and-politics, elections, brown-bob, brown-bob, federal-elections, australia

First posted 1 hour 44 minutes ago

1 August, 2010

Greens target swing voters in record ad campaign

Senator Brown says if the Greens do not hold the balance of power in the Senate there will be a deadlock between the major parties.

“We’re making sure that voters know how they vote in the Senate is extraordinarily important,” he said.

“That the Greens have been a big dividend for all Australian voters in the last Senate.

“Without us there’d be no stimulus package, Tony Abbott’s party wanted to block that.”

Tags: government-and-politics, elections, federal-government, greens, information-and-communication, advertising, brown-bob, federal-elections, australia

First posted 4 hours 24 minutes ago

31 July, 2010

Yesterday, another leaked claim was made that Gillard had also delegated her responsibility to attend the nation’s most important security committee and sent her former bodyguard to appear in her place.

Gillard was forced to call an early morning press conference to attempt to dampen the claims she had held up increased pensions and the planned parental leave scheme.

While she appeared to her supporters as “passionate” at that press briefing, she actually gave the claims more substance, confirming that she did in fact raise questions in the Gang of Four’s Strategic Priorities and Budget Committee about the cost of the popular measures, and she destroyed her previous argument for Cabinet confidentiality. It now exists only

when it can conveniently conceal political disasters.

Her break from the scripted performances led to questions about why the Labor campaign managers don’t let her off the leash more often and let voters see her as she is when she is not being overly-handled by her image makers?

Even her meet-and-greets in suburban malls have been stage-managed to such an extent that ordinary members of the public are frozen out of any contact.

Labor has wedged itself. It presented Gillard, dressed in virginal white, on June 24, but she did not in fact emerge entirely as a political virgin after being anointed by the sisterhood’s Governor General Quentin Bryce on June 24.

The dissociation of the Gillard government from its immediate predecessor, the Rudd government, weakens Labor’s principal argument, that Rudd and Treasurer (and now Deputy Prime Minister) Wayne Swan, saved the nation from the global fiscal crisis, and begs this obvious question.

If Rudd saved the nation, why was his political career brought to an abrupt end by Gillard with the support of some of the biggest trade unions? Gillard has never explained where or how the Rudd government “lost its way”, necessitating the unprecedented axing of an Australian prime minister in his first term of office by a rabble of elected and un-elected Labor thugs.

Now Labor can’t ask for votes on the basis of the recent economic record without explaining what Rudd’s role was in pushing for the economic stimulus package and what position Ms Gillard took on the same measures.

The Australian economy, as Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens told central bankers at Sydney University on May 15, 2008, was in an extraordinarily enviable position.

While there were challenges in the long term, including health and the needs of an ageing population, he said: “there would be very few countries, if any, which would not envy Australia’s fiscal position. The capacity to respond, if need be, to developments in the future is virtually without peer.”

The crash was almost six months away but the heavy lifting had been done. Rudd hadn’t mentioned dark clouds ahead, nor had Swan, only former Treasurer Peter Costello had warned of trouble on the horizon and he had been ignored.

Labor’s record in government has been abysmal. It has showed through its mismanagement of the asylum seekers issue, the lethal pink batts and the wasteful schools building program that it is beyond hopeless.

In the past week, Christmas Islanders awoke to see the 150th illegal boat since Labor weakened Australia’s border protection laws, taking the number of asylum seekers attracted by the soft touch to more than 7180.

Treasury papers also confirmed that the nation is borrowing more than $100 million a day to pay for Labor’s failures and can expect to pay about $120 million a day next year.

When Labor came to office, Christmas Island was empty and the Treasury was full. Now Christmas Island is overflowing and the Treasury is skint.

Labor has also shown itself to be cruelly partisan in office. Announcing support for suicide prevention last week, Gillard mentioned only one “hotspot” The Gap, the nation’s most notorious suicide site.

But the local council, in the Liberal-held seat of Wentworth, has already been refused funding twice for its suicide prevention masterplan, designed by experts and approved by the emergency services. No money has been set aside by Gillard or Infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese for this plan. Rudd is this weekend in hospital having had his gall bladder removed. Critics may say that his bile duct has been overworked, but all wish him a speedy recovery, if only to see what he will do next.

He has said he is prepared to campaign “both in his own electorate, elsewhere in Queensland and the rest of the country as appropriate”. Gillard says she is “respecting Kevin Rudd’s wishes to campaign for re-election as the member for Griffith – no other request has been made of him.”

On March 7 2006, at the Sydney Institute, Gillard lectured the nation about leadership.

She said that “before you can persuade Australians of your credentials to run the country, you have to show that you can run your political party. And to do that, we must unshackle our party from the factions.”

Four years on, nothing has changed except the leadership of the nation.

The factionalists are now in government, out of control and destructive.

By Gillard’s own measure they must be sent packing on August 21.

Final report into Black Saturday relased

The Commission wants the Government to roughly quadruple the amount of controlled burning it undertakes.

It has also recommended parts of Victoria’s ageing electricity infrastructure be upgraded to reduce the risk of fires.

The report has also flagged a program of voluntary acquisition for homes in high-risk areas.

A total of 173 people were killed and thousands were left homeless when bushfires swept across Victoria on February 7, 2009.

The Commission also examined the bushfire that destroyed 30 homes in Gippsland the week before Black Saturday.

The report concludes former Victorian Police chief commissioner Christine Nixon took a “hands off” approach on Black Saturday.

It says her performance on the day “left much to be desired”.

Ms Nixon has admitted going to dinner at a Melbourne hotel as the fires raged.

The Commission found Ms Nixon, former Country Fire Authority chief Russel Rees and the head of the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Ewan Waller, “did not demonstrate effective leadership in crucial areas” by ensuring that “prompt and accurate warnings were issued to communities in the path of the fires”.

Government response

The Government will not respond to the Commission’s recommendations for several weeks after consulting with the community.

Victorian Premier John Brumby will meet bushfire survivors today.

He will also receive a briefing about the report’s recommendations.

Mr Brumby says the release of the report will be difficult for survivors and those who lost loved ones in the fires.

He has called on the wider community to throw its support behind fire-affected communities.

“I think it’s important for all Victorians, indeed all Australians, to recognise, to acknowledge, to understand the trauma, the hurt, the pain that all of those families, their friends and their extended families will be feeling today,” he said.

Mr Brumby says it is important for the Government to consider its response to the report carefully.

“As Premier I feel the full weight of responsibility to make sure that we get our response to the Commission’s report right to make sure we make our state as safe as possible,” he said.

“The people of our state want the opportunity to have some input.”

‘Gaps’ in report

Communities affected by the bushfires are beginning to examine the final report.

Copies were delivered to fire-affected communities and community hubs have been set up in some areas to give survivors the chance to read the findings in a supportive environment.

Lyn Gunter, the mayor of Murrindindi when the Black Saturday fires swept through the shire, says there are some “gaps” in the final report.

“I’m encouraged but I don’t think it’s enough,” she said.

“The major gaps are going to be the communications, the safer places and the identification of those.

“And it’s about knowing these are going to be implemented.

“People want the confidence to know these recommendations and the recommendations for their safety are going to be implemented.”

Tags: disasters-and-accidents, fires, bushfire, royal-commission-victoria-2009-bushfires, australia, vic, flowerdale-3717, kinglake-3763, marysville-3779, st-andrews-3761, strathewen-3099, yea-3717

First posted 1 hour 38 minutes ago