I think Penny Wong is Australia's most effective political operator within the parliament but I don't think the country is mature enough to deal with her as opposition leader. I'd love to be wrong and see her crucify opponents... but I think she'd attract too much negative attention and besides, she can't do it from the Senate and there's no way of moving her to the lower house without engineering a by election result.

I can't agree with you there mate, in this context. Australia treats women poorly and women in politics extremely poorly. There's no equality apparent. No male PM has ever had a radio announcer suggest he should be tied in a chaff bag and dumped at sea. No male pollie has ever had to deal with the ongoing campaign of harassment that Sarah Hansen Young deals with regularly. There are other examples but there's two easy ones off the bat.

I think Penny Wong is Australia's most effective political operator within the parliament but I don't think the country is mature enough to deal with her as opposition leader. I'd love to be wrong and see her crucify opponents... but I think she'd attract too much negative attention and besides, she can't do it from the Senate and there's no way of moving her to the lower house without engineering a by election result.

Being an effective operator in the parliament is not the same as being PM.

Let's say Penny Wong was a bloke. It's not the case, but let's say she's a fifth generation Australian white bloke in a safe lower house seat, just for the sake of argument to take out all those factors ... She still wouldn't be a good candidate for the ALP driver's seat. Too punchy, too aggressive, too partisan. Too snarky.

I love a good snark more than anyone, but it's a different personality.

But by all means if the ALP want to put her in as party leader, I'm willing to take bets on how she goes.

Clogs, you up m8?

I can't agree with you there mate, in this context. Australia treats women poorly and women in politics extremely poorly. There's no equality apparent. No male PM has ever had a radio announcer suggest he should be tied in a chaff bag and dumped at sea. No male pollie has ever had to deal with the ongoing campaign of harassment that Sarah Hansen Young deals with regularly. There are other examples but there's two easy ones off the bat.

I think Penny Wong is Australia's most effective political operator within the parliament but I don't think the country is mature enough to deal with her as opposition leader. I'd love to be wrong and see her crucify opponents... but I think she'd attract too much negative attention and besides, she can't do it from the Senate and there's no way of moving her to the lower house without engineering a by election result.

And I happen to think right there is where part of the problem lies. Australia does not treat women poorly. That is a truly appalling statement.

Are you happy with the rate of death due to domestic violence in Australia, Clogs? Do you think that's ok? Do you think that the overall rate of sexual assault and abuse that women suffer is ok as well? Are you happy with the notion that most of the women you know probably don't feel safe walking down a street at night, or even just going out in everyday life? That most of them will admit to always being on watch for threats, to always being careful not to say anything that will be interpreted as permission for unwanted attention?

Are thse concepts in line with women not being treated poorly, to you?

Are you happy with the rate of death due to domestic violence in Australia, Clogs? Do you think that's ok? Do you think that the overall rate of sexual assault and abuse that women suffer is ok as well? Are you happy with the notion that most of the women you know probably don't feel safe walking down a street at night, or even just going out in everyday life? That most of them will admit to always being on watch for threats, to always being careful not to say anything that will be interpreted as permission for unwanted attention?

Are thse concepts in line with women not being treated poorly, to you?

I think Penny Wong is Australia's most effective political operator within the parliament but I don't think the country is mature enough to deal with her as opposition leader. I'd love to be wrong and see her crucify opponents... but I think she'd attract too much negative attention and besides, she can't do it from the Senate and there's no way of moving her to the lower house without engineering a by election result.

Are you happy with the rate of death due to domestic violence in Australia, Clogs? Do you think that's ok? Do you think that the overall rate of sexual assault and abuse that women suffer is ok as well? Are you happy with the notion that most of the women you know probably don't feel safe walking down a street at night, or even just going out in everyday life? That most of them will admit to always being on watch for threats, to always being careful not to say anything that will be interpreted as permission for unwanted attention?

Are thse concepts in line with women not being treated poorly, to you?

I don't think gender is as big an issue as people make it out to be. Gillard got some rough shit thrown her way. But Crazy Tony in speedos just garners a few laughs. Imagine if it was jolly Julia in a bikini or something.



I don't think Wong is very good in debates at all. Far too often she goes after the person and ignores the actual issue they are talking about.

I think the opposite but I've seen quite a bit of her operating in Senate Estimates committees where she is formidable.

:lol:

I'm like you I think.. I like some punchy in my pollie, so to speak. I'm guessing the ALP will go with yet another scripted performer and people will compare degrees of charisma gain measured in millisimpers.

Being an effective operator in the parliament is not the same as being PM.

Let's say Penny Wong was a bloke. It's not the case, but let's say she's a fifth generation Australian white bloke in a safe lower house seat, just for the sake of argument to take out all those factors ... She still wouldn't be a good candidate for the ALP driver's seat. Too punchy, too aggressive, too partisan. Too snarky.

I love a good snark more than anyone, but it's a different personality.

But by all means if the ALP want to put her in as party leader, I'm willing to take bets on how she goes.

Clogs, you up m8?

I think the opposite but I've seen quite a bit of her operating in Senate Estimates committees where she is formidable.

So no tax cuts this year. Is this the fastest broken campaign promise ever? Seriously these wankers can’t get themselves organised to get to Canberra and pass legislation in time? Fuckin laughable and it was their signature policy

Yep, it will be like this for the next 3 years

Howard stayed in for 9 years or whatever primarily because he was a good salesman. Morrison is a good salesman. The ALP are going to need a straight talking man of the people to have a chance in 3 years. Saturday night was the first time I'd listened to Albanese talk at length. It aint him. He looks like a defrocked catholic priest too, imho.

Tanya is effective, my guess is her and her corner reckon the ALP will lose next time too, so she'll have a crack in 3 years. I agree with that assessment. The ALP just lost the unlosable to a 7 month relatively unknown PM taking over an absolute clusterfvck. Provided Morrison doesn't do a Campbell Newman (highly unlikely) or get busted shagging a goat (more likely - there's some pretty good looking goats you have to admit) then his gloss with the parliamentary team will keep the boys in check.

Bowen is thick. He couldn't even regurgitate the tax rates. I don't know anything of the youngish Queenslander getting mentioned. He'd be might be worth a go. Not a lot to lose.

Whatever, we need both sides and to be a lot better.

Yep, it will be like this for the next 3 years

The death duty thing is off the charts for penetration.

The death duty thing is off the charts for penetration.

Integrity experts say the patently false and “scandalous” claims spread during the election give renewed impetus for truth in political advertising laws, saying reform is now a “no-brainer”.

The election was littered with false and exaggerated claims, many of which were propagated by fringe groups on social media and amplified by major parties.

An invention claiming Labor planned to introduce a death tax, for example, appears to have begun on unsourced Facebook pages, spread to other users via direct messages and paid ads, before finally being amplified by Coalition politicians.

Guardian Australia’s project to monitor hidden campaigning on social media began to pick up claims about a Labor “death tax” in mid-April, when users received direct Facebook messages stating “Labor, the Greens and Unions have signed an agreement to introduce a 40% inheritance tax”.

Other third-party Facebook groups, including an anti-Labor page named Rite-ON!, spread the death tax claim using paid Facebook ads, and it was amplified by Coalition figures, including the Liberal senator Jane Hume and the Queensland LNP MP George Christensen.

Christensen paid for three Facebook ads on Labor’s supposed death tax, one of which said “we know Labor have secret plans to bring in a death tax”.

Social media was also used to spread falsehoods about Labor’s plan to introduce a car tax. The origins of this claim are more obvious. Guardian Australia tracked dozens of paid Liberal party ads spreading the car tax claim into the Facebook newsfeeds of targeted users.

“Bill Shorten and Labor plan to introduce a Car Tax which would increase the cost of nearly all of Australia’s new cars,” one ad, paid for by the Liberal WA branch, said.

Labor – which was itself guilty of spreading the Mediscare falsehood about the Liberals – held no policies to introduce a car or death tax.

Progressive politicians like to assume that, on election day at least, blue-collar workers and urban progressives will bridge their differences, and make common cause to support leftist economic policies. This assumption might once have been warranted. But it certainly isn’t now—in large part because the intellectuals, activists and media pundits who present the most visible face of modern leftism are the same people openly attacking the values and cultural tastes of working and middle-class voters. And thanks to social media (and the caustic news-media culture that social media has encouraged and normalized), these attacks are no longer confined to dinner-party titterings and university lecture halls. Brigid Delaney, a senior writer for Guardian Australia, responded to Saturday’s election result with a column about how Australia has shown itself to be “rotten.” One well-known Australian feminist and op-ed writer, Clementine Ford, has been fond of Tweeting sentiments such as “All men are scum and must die.” Former Australian Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, who also has served as a high-profile newspaper columnist, argues that even many mainstream political positions—such as expressing concern about the Chinese government’s rising regional influence—are a smokescreen for racism.

In an interview conducted on Sunday morning, Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek opined that if only her party had more time to explain to the various groups how much they’d all benefit from Labor’s plans, Australians would have realized how fortunate they’d be with a Labor government, and Shorten would’ve become Prime Minister. Such attitudes are patronizing, for they implicitly serve to place blame at the feet of voters, who apparently are too ignorant to know what’s good for them.

What the election actually shows us is that the so-called quiet Australians, whether they are tradies (to use the Australian term) in Penrith, retirees in Bundaberg, or small business owners in Newcastle, are tired of incessant scolding from their purported superiors. Condescension isn’t a good look for a political movement.

Taking stock of real voters’ needs would require elites to exhibit a spirit of empathic understanding—such as by way of acknowledging that blue-collar workers have good reason to vote down parties whose policies would destroy blue-collar jobs; or that legal immigrants might oppose opening up a nation’s border to migrants who arrive illegally. More broadly, the modern progressive left has lost touch with the fact that what ordinary people want from their government is a spirit of respect, dignity and hope for the future. While the fetish for hectoring and moral puritanism has become popular in rarefied corners of arts and academia, it is deeply off-putting to voters whose sense of self extends beyond cultish ideological tribalism.
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err this is the electoral commission not letting parliament sit.
Just settle its going to be a hard 3 years for you.

It will be a hard 3 yrs....not financially, but i couldn't give a shit about tax cuts. But yes other parts and direction of where we are going as a country does concern me.

Electoral commission or not they can get this done if they want, tax office has said they will push it through. But point is they said they'd do it. So it's a broken promise

But they weren't really Fats, the Non-liberal vote was high

And the Greens made gains everywhere.

Isn't it time you sloped off back to G&GR?

But they weren't really Fats, the Non-liberal vote was high

And the Greens made gains everywhere.

Isn't it time you sloped off back to G&GR?