What's Julia Gillard's New Slogan?

Before the last federal election Julia Gillard had the slogan "Moving Forward". Whenever she was asked a question relating to policy and mistakes made by the Labor Party the answer was always the same - "We're moving forward".

Now that Labor is floundering in the polls and there is some talk from her party that has reached the media, with the possibility that she will be replaced, she doesn't seem to be moving forward anymore. Now she's stated "I'm not going anywhere".

I think this is the point where Gillard has gone as forward as she's going and has stopped just prior to moving backwards. It's as though she hasn't felt the knives in the back yet, perhaps they're still being cleaned after deposing Kevin Rudd, but they are certainly out. I said at the end of last year that she would lose her position before the next election and be replaced by Stephen Smith, the current minister for defence, and he has been very quiet of late. Strange, that.

Let's see how long Gillard runs with her new slogan.

Kevin Rudd Has Too Much Gall

Well, obviously the gall of the man reached amazing levels. That's got to be why Kevin Rudd went to hospital to have his gall bladder removed today. How else do you explain it?

There were a few theories at work:

- The knife from Julia Gillard and her mates went in so deeply that it struck the gall bladder.
- He's doing it for the sympathy vote in the upcoming election.
- The doctor wanted to take the piss out of him after the rest of the country had had a turn.
- Being kicked out of the prime ministership by his own party after having taken his party to the greatest number of seats ever was just too galling for him.
- He was desperate to lose a bit of weight after not having time to exercise.

Interesting that he went to a private hospital and not a public one. Mind you, with the fact that if you earn over A$75k/yr you need to have private health insurance or pay a higher Medicare levy in this country. Not really surprising at all in that case, after all.

RSVP's Ad Featuring Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd's image being used for a dating agency? Yep. Pretty funny ad if you ask me too. I wonder if they asked his permission. It's not as if he's short of a few bob with his wife worth some A$50m. Is it a case of he's been dumped because of the RSPT and now is available on RSVP?

Been dumped lately? Kevin Rudd the poster boy.

Kevin Rudd Has Much To Be Thankful For

Even though Kevin Rudd was unceremoniously dumped as Labor leader by his party yesterday, I think that he has much to be thankful for. At least in Australia when the leaders lose support they are only politically assassinated and not physically assassinated. They lose their head politically. There are many countries around the world where he wouldn't have gotten so luckily. It was only a few knives in the back after all.

One thing that Rudd said in his outgoing blubber was that even though he was still prime minister he wasn't the leader of his own party. But he still had 15 minutes left, before Julia Gillard was to be sworn in as prime minister, and "anything could happen." Really, Kevin? You didn't achieve much in two and a half years I don't see how in another quarter of an hour you could do a single thing worthwhile. Perhaps his last public lie?

Full Transcript Of Kevin Rudd's Teary Farewell

Here's a full transcript of Kevin Rudd's teary farewell.

Here's the condensed version.

Sniff, sniff.
"Bastards!"

Kevin Rudd - Delusional Till The End

Kevin Rudd - "I was elected by the people of Australia as Prime Minister of Australia" - The Australian

"I was elected to do a job. I intend to continue doing that job. I intend to continue doing it to the best of my ability." - Obviously another backflip, well may it be his last. For some 11 hours later he was no longer prime minister.

Rudd was wrong and continued to mislead the Australian public - he was elected by the electorate of Griffith (Qld). It just so happens that he was the leader of the party with majority of members in Lower House in our Parliament. It was the Labor Party caucus which voted leader, at the time, to become prime minister. Don't make the mistake that Australians vote who the prime minister will be. Australians don't vote for the national leader. Kevin Rudd was still deluding himself, along with the Australian people, until the very end.

Bit of a shock to see how quickly the end came about but it is welcome. Change in the Labor Party leader but no real change in the crap that they deliver.

Rudd Limericks

With all of the goings on with a change in prime minister in Australia today I let my internal poet come to the surface. Couple of options for a limerick about Kevin Rudd that I came up with.

There once was a prime minister called Rudd
Who turned out to be quite a dud
He lost the ability to fool ya
So the Labor Party voted in Julia
And today they jettisoned this piece of crud


There once was a prime minister called Rudd
Who turned out to be quite a dud
Promises he failed to deliver
Made the Labor Party shiver
So today they jettisoned this piece of crud

Kevin Rudd Is A Nation-Destroying Socialist Who Needs To Be Stopped

Kevin Rudd, Krudd, is a nation-destroying socialist who needs to be stopped. When the media is stating that he's more destructive than Gough Whitlam ever was that's saying something. Gough Whitlam, as you may or may not know, headed the only Australian government in history that was dismissed by the Governor-General.

What has Kevin done this time to upset me? Well, it's actually taken a week for me to calm down enough to write something that's not as likely to have me charged with libel or sedition. He's called for a Resources Super-Profit Tax, RSPT, which is capable of ruining our great nation. This RSPT kicks in when miners earn more than the 10-year government bond rate of about 6%. Six percent people! This communist, socialist, fascist bastard obviously doesn't know anything about capitalism and profit. What about the risk and return model? Anybody worth his salt knows that a company needs to make 15-25% return to be profitable. I don't think Shell likes to have any assets not performing at at least 18% profitability. Wesfarmers looks for around 18% and I know that they had an asset (Wesfarmers Transport) producing about 15% and that was divested. What sort of a joke is this idiot?

Krudd claims that the miners aren't returning the money to Australia and are taking it all for themselves. He wants to ensure that all Australians share in the returns from our non-renewable resources. Ha! Why don't they invest in the shares of these companies? I think the fact that the states can obtain royalties from the miners and I don't believe that the federal government can do so is one reason to introduce this tax. Krudd wants to cut the states out of tax revenue altogether.

Krudd claimed that 40% of BHP Billiton and 70% of Rio Tinto were owned by overseas investors in his defence of introducing this new tax. I read today that there are over 3.3 billion shares listed for BHP Billiton. Well, 60% of 3.3 billion shares is an awful lot of money still which affects Australians directly so there are no faceless sufferers. Krudd actually thinks that this won't affect Australians and it's just some faceless foreigner who will cop it in the arse. Almost every Australian will be affected as those that have superannuation invested in shares will probably be affected as BHP and Rio will be in practically all superannuation funds. How much did the miners drop last week? BHP went from a close of $40.75 on Friday the 30th of April (the RSPT proposal was released on Sunday the 2nd of May) to $37.50 the following Friday. A drop of 8%. Rio went from $72.10 to $64.98 in the same time frame which was a drop of 8.75%.

The RSPT will lead to a considerable drop in foreign investment and Australia has long required foreign money to build infrastructure. Today is no different. And it's not only the foreigners that will limit investment as Cape Lambert Resources announced, almost immediately, that it would not invest in Australia but would look overseas. I mean, wouldn't you if the tax rate was going to reach approximately 57% and become the highest in mining in OECD countries? No wonder the Canadian Finance Minister is rubbing his hands with glee fully expecting miners doing business in Australia currently to turn their attention to his country.

One thing mining companies consider when investing overseas is sovereign risk. They want to be fairly certain that the rules of play don't change once they have started the game. I see this RSPT as something akin to nationalisation whereby a sovereign government takes some or all of a company's assets. Looks like Krudd and his crew are trying to nationalise the resources industry in Australia. Even Kim Jong-il is looking better than Krudd in turns of a popular socialist at this point in time.

Talk about killing the golden goose. Resources are returning billions of dollars annually in the form of taxes and royalties. Companies are taxed at 30%, still high by OECD standards, and workers, thousands of them country-wide, pay greater rates of income tax than that. Stopping many projects in this country is not going to increase revenue nor create wealth for our workers. It'll certainly put a halt to a two-pace economy though. More mining leads to greater employment, more training required for workers and more tax payments from wage earners.

Krudd has had five months to look over the Henry Tax Review, from Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, so how could he be so blind as to what the reaction from resources companies, and the stock market and foreign investors, would be? What is Krudd's modus operandi here? If he's so worried about inflation what better what to combat it than ruin the value of a major section of the Australian people's capital - the stock market. If he wants to sell this country off to his Chinese mates then why not destroy the value of all major business so that the Chinese can come in, all cashed-up, and take what they like at bargain prices?

What about boom and bust? Sure, the resources sector is booming at the moment. It's a once in a lifetime, not generation, boom with China (and India to follow) growing amazingly. Not even the rebuilding following World War II comes close to the super requirements of commodities that we currently have. There'd be no money to invest in a bust anyway. Why bring that forward by 20 years?

It's time for Kevin Rudd to go. He's hit the self destruct button but unfortunately it's not on a five second timer. We have to wait until the next election. Obviously Kevin wants us to all live on kibbutzes but where is the money to build them coming from? Everything he has touched since coming to office, if you'll pardon my French, has turned to shit. Household insulation installation - bit lump of expensive shit. Laptop for every secondary student - costly, not totally effective lump of shit. Stimulus Package - massive, almost completely ineffectual waste of billions of dollars we don't have - constitutes a dump of momentous proportions. Where are the nation-building stimuli that would benefit this country after having a war chest built up by the former Liberal government?

It's time the Governor-General came a-knocking on Kevin Rudd's door. Before someone with more evil intent does. Don't worry as that won't be me. I don't think he's even worth a bullet.

Tax Hike On Cigarettes - It's About Time

I don't know about you but I abhor smoking. The smell is horrible, the health effects and the cost on the hip pocket all disgust me. When I was growing up our house was a smoke-free zone except for visitors who were deemed too important to offend by telling them to go outside. This was only one visitor from memory. It's been drummed into me from being a toddler that smoking is unacceptable.

Finally Kevin Rudd's government has done something that I can agree with. They upped the price of a packet of cigarettes by 20% by way of a tax increase. Very few smokers that I know (actually I don't associate with a great deal of smokers) would be put off by the price. They all know that it is detrimental to their health, which should be the biggest reason for quitting, but they still can't bring themselves to do it. Once they're hooked price doesn't really come into the equation. Finance 101 talks about supply and demand and the association with price. I don't think that the price hike will deter many hardcore smokers but long term there will be less smokers as youngsters will be able to afford to smoke less and less. If the young can be stopped from taking up the habit initially there will be much lower demand for cancer sticks. And that bodes well for society in my opinion. I feel that the effects of this will pay off in the long run but not create a significant change in the attitude of current smokers.

Another initiative of the government is to ensure that cigarette packaging is plain. The ghastly photos of gangrenous toes, cancer-ridden mouths and affected eyeballs obviously hasn't done the trick. There has been some response that the plain packaging won't have an affect but I'm sure it will. Cigarettes won't catch the eyes of the young and impressionable. I reckon it will see real benefits in the years to come.

I wonder how much money the government reaps from taxes on cigarettes and how much medical care actually costs the community with regards to treatment for smokers. If there was more to gain by getting rid of cigarettes then laws would be passed for them to reach $50/packet or ban them altogether but methinks that the revenue stream is too hard to ignore.

I can see Australian tourists returning home trying to bring more foreign cigarettes into the country. Why aren't they banned from the duty-free list? That would help a little bit. I don't see smokers getting their wages docked for taking smoko breaks when non-smokers can't.

Of course the tobacco industry is none too pleased by the decision taken by the government. Why would they be? I don't have any time for those who (knowingly) deal in death. I'm sorry to see that they can't find an industry that I find so personally offensive to make money out of.

Well done Kevin - 1 out of 7239 right is getting back on track.

You Are Wrong Gordon Ramsay

I guess you've all heard the furore over Gordon Ramsay calling Tracy Grimshaw a pig. He also refered to her as a lesbian. Grimshaw has apparently gone to great lengths to show that she isn't a lesbian.

Our prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said that Ramsay was a "new form of lowlife." It's funny that Australia's deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, commented that Ramsay should, "get back in the kitchen." Don't you find that to be an ironically sexist remark?

Well, Gordon Ramsay, you're wrong. Tracy Grimshaw isn't a pig. She's more like a bulldog chewing a wasp or a botox experiment gone wrong.

Many people are calling Ramsay "sexist" for his comments. I think maybe he gets a bit carried away and thinks they are saying "sexy" or "sexyist". Don't call me a sexist though. I get enough of that from my wife. But she would say that. She's a woman.

He he.

Stimulus Package Not So Stimulating

Sorry, I'm not talking about President Obama's stimulus package worth US$787 billion. I'm talking about Kevin Rudd's A$42 billion stimulus, or whatever it is worth nowadays. Giving the poorer people of this nation a handout of A$900 is not going to go very far in stimulating the economy. After you've headed to the bottlo, the TAB and the races what is going to be left and how much have you done to stimulate the economy? Bugger all, in my book.

Poor people are poor for a reason. There would be very few poor people that you could give $900 to that would make it work for them, e.g. investing in their education and obtaining a better paying job.

This stimulus package isn't about creating jobs for that person to obtain either. It should be about providing infrastructure for the nation that will allow the economy to gather momentum once demand returns. It should be nation building and not nation cleansing as we are borrowing the money anyway.

In Australia if you borrow money for the legitimate purpose of investing to make money you receive a tax deduction based on interest charges. It should be the same with the stimulus package. This country is borrowing a huge amount of money for it all to pissed up against the wall or for a few consumer electrical goods probably manufactured overseas. Just a bit of good for the world economy, the retail traders in Australia might enjoy it but the fact is it won't create jobs.

We should be looking at carrying out massive infrastructure projects that will benefit the nation instead of making our children burdened with a huge debt. Surely a high speed rail network, better port facilities, refining/processing factories (as opposed to selling raw materials - Australia has been the world's mine for too long), electricity generation, homes for the homeless, more education facilities, etc could have been included.

The opposition, led by Malcolm Turnbull, were right to oppose the stimulus package. Maybe it's just the cynic in me but when I hear talk of an early election, about 18 months early, it appears to be just one large vote-buying exercise.

Never mind the size of the package, I don't think that it is in Australia's best interest and I'm opposed to the way it has been formulated. Kevin Rudd is just Mr Popularity, imho. Australia is just going to be saddled with debt and nothing to show for it.

Kevin Rudd - Prime Minister On Holiday

Kevin Rudd's election campaign slogan in 2007 was "Kevin 07". And he was duly elected Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia by the Labor Party when they successfully took office.

In the 10 months since he became Prime Minister he's been overseas on 10 trips for a total of 43 nights away. Now the Liberal Party are calling him "747 Kevin" or "Kevin 747" in reference to his travel. They're even considering printing a t-shirt with "747 Kevin" on the front and "Where the bloody hell are you?" on the back.

Why stop there? Why not create a limited edition board game along the lines of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and call it "So Where in the Bloody World is Kevin Hob-Nobbing Today? He could even star in a movie role that Macaulay Culkin made famous - Kevin, We're Home Alone.

At least when Harold Holt, the 17th Prime Minister of Australia, went missing it was a genuine mystery. Kevin Rudd is just missing in action.

Political Greenhorn In Charge Of The Wrong Portfolio

I guess Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, gee that's a difficult phrase to get used to, didn't have much choice when choosing candidates for portfolios within the Labor government that we now have. But honestly, putting a person in charge as Sports Minister who doesn't know Sir Donald Bradman's test average? What was he thinking?

Kate Ellis, the federal member for Adelaide, where the Adelaide Oval is situated with a stand called the Bradman Stand, didn't recall Bradman's test batting average - 99.94 actually. It is also the GPO Box number for the ABC in all capital cities.

Political incompetence. I remember when Justin Madden, a former AFL footballer, entered Victorian politics and became the Victorian Sports and Recreation Minister I had my doubts to his credentials. It seemed to be a case of popularity rather than having the ability to do the job. But let's face it, the guy understands sport so is well positioned to have a say in helping to manage it. Kate Ellis hasn't started off on the right foot. In fact, she appears to have gone out to bat without the pads on.

China Sets Up New Special Administrative Region

In news from the weekend China has set up a new Special Administrative Region. It shall be known as Australia SAR. A puppet has already been installed as the leader - Kevin Rudd. In fact, Mr Rudd speaks Mandarin better than 90% of the mainland Chinese population so there will be few communication issues between Australia SAR and China, the motherland.

This means that China will do well at the Beijing Olympics as there will be several hundred representatives from Australia SAR who are in medal contention and these will be added to the motherland's medal tally.

No more worrying about BHP Billiton wanting to buy Rio Tinto or the rumours that China Investment Corp (CIC) will be required to make a bid for Rio Tinto on behalf of the motherland to block the move. No, with Australia SAR established these once Australian businesses can be nationalised and absorbed by the motherland without having to pay a cent. There go the worries about raw materials supply.

The establishment of Australia SAR will mean the dropping of the 457 visa for foreign workers. Just import workers from the motherland at will. Wherever the workers are needed they can be deployed within days. Who said Australia SAR was suffering from low unemployment? There are millions of workers waiting for these jobs.

Don't fool yourself Australians, er Australia SARians. You voted for Labor in the federal election and you've picked up Chinese ownership in the process.

Whichever Angle You Look At It...

Whichever angle you look at it...

Rudd looks like he's full of rubbish.

Still rubbish from this angle.

Still looks like rubbish.

If it looks like rubbish, smells like rubbish and smells like rubbish, it's probably rubbish.


Rudd is still rubbish. He might be trying to hide the fact but it'll come out in the end. I saw this at a polling station in Victoria Park and it was the first thought that came into my head. Just had to photograph it.

The Sky Has Fallen On Our Heads

Labor won the federal election in a Ruddslide, er landslide yesterday. Even the prime minister looks set to lose his seat.

I knew bad things would happen if Labor won. The sky has well and truly fallen on our heads. In fact, the sun has failed to rise. It should have been up three hours ago and hasn't made an appearance. And my Sunday paper wasn't delivered. We're all doomed I tell you. Three years of federal Labor. And they have all the state and territory administrations as well. How depressing. I can't stand union bastards.

Real Federal Election Issue

The federal election is only two weeks away. When are we going to get to the real election issues? We've heard all the talk about health, education, nuclear power, water, aged care etc, etc.

Does Kevin Rudd, who is leading by some margin at the moment over incumbent John Howard, follow the cricket? Does he have the passion? Will he support the Australian cricket team and be seen watching them? Is cricket high on his agenda as the nation's top politician?

It has the same importance as Christianity has to becoming the President of the United States. If you're not a Christian then you're not ready for the White House. If you're not a cricket diehard then you're not fit for leading Australia.

It's a simple as that. So what is it, Kevin? 'Fess up.

Once Again The ALP Doesn't Tell The Whole Story

The Australian Labor Party are pretty good at not telling the whole truth, aren't they? Smarmy Kevin Rudd, leader of the ALP, is running a campaign to eventually lead to him becoming Australian prime minister in 2007. It even comes with the catchy, if a little tacky, slogan of "Kevin 07".

KEVIN07 T-shirt

At least he's not licensed to kill. But what worries me is the fact that the whole story isn't being told. Where is the rest of the slogan which relates to his deputy, Julia Gillard? I know what it is:

"Gillard. In a milliard!"

Perhaps I should tip off the current prime minister, John Howard. He's such a cool and happening dude he may use this information to flame the Labor Party.