Sa Election

Australia has one of the best democracies in the world and it’s something we should be immensely proud of. Our democratic system is one which encourages everyone to be involved in the political process, and thus shape the future of this great nation.

However, during this year’s South Australian election the Labor Party threw our whole system in jeopardy. Instead of contesting the election in a fair and open manner, instead of putting faith in their own policies to capture voter support, they chose to engage in a deceptive and misleading campaign by impersonating another party.

It was a disgraceful act and one which bought the whole integrity of our electoral system to its knees.

Continue reading "The Family First farce that shamed our democracy" »

I first met Bruce Hawker when he gave John Fahey’s staff just 24 hours to pack their belongings after the 1995 election defeat and get out of Premier-elect Bob Carr’s new offices. At that time I was Director of Policy to Fahey.

Whilst bitterness is not in my nature I use events to define character – mine and theirs.

Bruce Hawker is a spin merchant. He moulds the message for electoral gain. So when I read his piece today on The Punch about the weekend elections I was not surprised. How does Labor turn a hostile 7.4% swing in South Australia and a hostile 12% swing in Tasmania into a win for Rudd? Easy: “It could have been worse.”

Continue reading "Hawker’s bluff: Spinning the state results for Labor" »

A week or so ago conservative commentators across Australia were predicting all sorts of implications for Kevin Rudd from last Saturday’s elections in Tasmania and South Australia. 

On Saturday morning as the last Newspoll results landed with a thud on front doors across Adelaide, they began to polish up their “the tide is turning against Labor everywhere” columns.

Some of them are still out there beating this drum but the more astute have gone silent.  It is possible they are embarrassed, because it’s clear from the results that neither the South Australian or Tasmanian elections hold any portents for Federal Labor. 

Continue reading "The Saturday night electoral massacre that wasn’t" »

If you missed yesterday’s excellent interview with South Australian Treasurer Kevin Foley on Adelaidenow here’s the potted version – he doesn’t want the top job, he just wants a girl.

For the uninitiated, Foley is the man who last year went public about the collapse of his marriage, his subsequent failed relationships with a raft of women, his battle with depression, his late-night ruminations about whether his political career has been worth the sacrifice. Late last year to his eternal credit he was filmed at an Adelaide karaoke venue singing the above rendition of The Gambler.

The serious takeout from the Foley interview was that he appears to have put his leadership aspirations on hold and will serve as a loyal deputy until such time as Mike Rann goes of his own volition. Not that he was being that presumptuous – he admitted to being really worried about whether Labor would get home tomorrow at all.

Continue reading "Who wants a hot date with a State Treasurer?" »

Things are reaching fever pitch in the City of Pubs Slash Churches.

The election that everyone thought was going to be a low-key shoe-in for Labor has turned out to be quite the ride.

There haven’t been any really sexy promises – there’s not enough spare cash around. There’s been a Liberal Party pledge to have a good hard look at a particularly pesky roundabout. South Australia’s one-way freeway might end up being a two-way freeway, which just draws embarrassing attention to the original decision to make it only go one way.

Continue reading "SA’s whispering campaign has Adelaide by the balls" »

Bruce Hawker is the director of Hawker Britton and is advising the Rann Labor Government on its campaign.

We are now at the business end of the South Australian election campaign and the contest is going down to the wire.

After years of internal division the Liberal Party had - until this week - managed to develop an appearance of unity on the back of Mike Rann’s problems following the Michelle Chantelois allegations.

With four leaders in four years and little more than a veneer of unity following an acrimonious leadership spill involving former deputy leader Vickie Chapman and current leader Isobel Redmond, the Liberal campaign settled on a “small target” strategy.

Continue reading "SA election: A party that can’t run itself…" »

Jamie Briggs is the federal Liberal member for the South Australian seat of Mayo.

In his book, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the exiled Czech novelist Milan Kundera, explains how to rewrite a states history:

“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory.  Destroy its books, its culture, its history.  Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.  Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.”

Mike Rann must own a dog eared version of this book if his Punch interview is anything to go by.

Continue reading "SA election: Why Mike Rann’s time is up" »

As elections in two states loom it is becoming absolutely clear that voters are in the process of switching off the Labor Party.

What this means is that Australia will have a changed political landscape post March 20 - no matter what the outcome of the polls.

And the aftershocks from these elections could have profound implications for federal Labor, which will seek re-election with two crippled state divisions providing distractions and baggage.

Continue reading "The state elections could be an albatross for Rudd’s neck" »

Dear Trevor Grace,

I write to commend you on your candidacy in the upcoming SA state election.

For too long, our government has been a slave to the neo-leftist, baby hating and quite frankly DISGUSTING collection of man-hating feminists intent on destroying every beautiful soul chosen by God to populate this green planet. And I say green because as you so rightly hint at on your website, climate change is nothing but a LIE perpetuated by beardy-weirdies intent on taxing the hard working because their own laziness and pursuit of the ARTS means they can neither afford air-conditioning nor a house to put it in.

Continue reading "A dear Trevor letter" »

It was the week in which the words “Macquarie Banker” finally became rhyming slang after a member of the millionaire’s factory was caught perving on jpegs of Miranda Kerr during a live cross about interest rates.

The week in which the words “cyberbully” and “tweet” were listed for inclusion in a Macquarie of a different kind.

It was also the week in which one of the most old-fashioned politicians in Australia, a man who seemed puzzled enough by the 20th century and is really struggling with the 21st, blundered into a raging cyber-storm which had the potential to blow away a government seeking re-election in just seven weeks’ time.

Continue reading "How a political luddite got smashed in cyberspace" »