The Greens have handed Julia Gillard an overdue political divorce but Labor's leadership woes are deepening.
Powerbroker (Oz): BILL Shorten is being urged to break the government's leadership impasse as Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan face mounting pressure to reveal how they can salvage Labor from its dire position.
Cock-a-hoop (Oz): LABOR has lashed the Greens for putting "fringe" policies ahead of jobs and growth, as the former political partners yesterday shattered their alliance and intensified a fight for votes at this year's federal election.
Rubbery figures (SMH): The SMH reports the Gillard government's innovation and jobs package was launched this week despite warnings from its industry department and the tax office that the $1 billion saving at the heart of the policy might never eventuate.
***Email Capital Circle. Click here to subscribe***
Friends with benefits: Once Labor and the Greens were inseparable. Then all they seemed to do was fight. Now they want to see other people, but just can't help being attracted to each other. Christine Milne made a big show of breaking up with Julia Gillard yesterday. "Go then!" said Labor. But Milne made it clear nothing much has changed. The Greens will still guarantee Labor confidence and supply. So Labor gets to look single, but Milne will still come around from time to time when it's in both parties' interests.
Steak out: The Greens asserted their individuality in more ways than one yesterday. The traditional, and very tasty, National Press Club steak was struck off the menu yesterday for Christine Milne's address. Quiche was served in its place. It's unclear whether the eggs were certified free-range.
True blue: Australia's oldest union, the AWU, had a slick new video production prepared for its national conference. It's narrated by Aussie actor Jack Thompson, who could make shovelling sh*t sound romantic. But Gillard supporter Paul Howes should have had a closer look at the script. "Over the past five years 130,000 manufacturing jobs gone because somebody had forgot to turn the lights on and wake Australia up," says Thompson. He's talking there about the last two terms of Labor government.
Apple Pie: First he accused Tony Abbott of starting some sort of Australian chapter of the far right American Tea Party. Now Wayne Swan is channelling Barack Obama and Sarah Palin at the same time. "You know, you can't put lipstick on a pit-bull and call it a blue heeler," he said on the Gold Coast yesterday, referring to Abbott. In 2008, Obama declared: "You know, you can put lipstick on a pig , but it's still a pig." But the canine reference was originally Palin's: "You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."
Cut out and keep: "You will never find from me or from any government I lead the kind of politics of division which I fear others seek to introduce. I will never try to divide Australians on the basis of class, on the basis of gender, on the basis of race. i will just never do that." - Tony Abbott yesterday.
***Email Capital Circle. Click here to subscribe***
Today: Julia Gillard is in Adelaide where she'll visit the Air Warfare Destroyer facility at Techport to discuss innovation and jobs. She'll attend a community cabinet meeting tonight at Aberfoyle Park High School.
Tony Abbott is in Melbourne, where he'll be out and about in the community.
Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings will address the National Press Club.
The Committee for Economic Development of Australia will hold its annual economic and political overview briefing in Adelaide.
The National Rural Women's conference is on in Canberra. A new website will be launched to prevent workplace violence against professionals in rural and remote Australia.
***Email Capital Circle. Click here to subscribe***
Wipout looms: LABOR risks losing its next generation of leaders and some of its wiliest veterans as perilous polling points to a massacre at the next election.
It's over: The Daily Telegraph reports the Greens have torn up their formal alliance with Julia Gillard in a dramatic political dummy spit that the Prime Minister's internal enemies appear intent on using to bolster their case for a leadership change.
But situation normal: The SMH reports a three-minute telephone conversation has ended the 2010 post-election alliance between the Greens and the ALP, yet the government will not fall and the impact of the split may be unnoticeable to voters.
Woo hoo: The AFR reports the federal government is celebrating the Greens' decision to "sever" their power-sharing agreement, saying it frees Labor from the bogey of being associated with the minor party while having no impact on its hold on power.
Riven: The AFR reports Labor's powerful NSW Right faction is deeply divided over the need for a leadership change, with members disputing claims by some Kevin Rudd supporters that the faction has abandoned Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Pressure: THE independent schools sector has given the federal government an ultimatum to provide details of its new school funding model.
Costly: PARENTS have reduced and plan further cutbacks to the time their children attend long daycare centres because of fee rises flowing from federal government reforms.
Sceptical: The Canberra Times reports some of the bullying and harassment claims from within the CSIRO are "pretty dodgy", according to a senior executive.
Tie: The West Australian reports Colin Barnett and Mark McGowan emerged from the only head-to-head debate of the election campaign unscarred - but neither man landed a knockout blow on the other.
Bad start: NORTHERN Territory Chief Minister Terry Mills has blamed tough decisions after narrowly avoiding a leadership challenge.
Probe: FEDERAL Court officials have been told by Victorian detectives investigating the AWU "slush fund" scandal that they intend to execute a search warrant at the court's registry to retrieve a legal file concerning Julia Gillard's allegedly corrupt former boyfriend, union official Bruce Wilson.
Don't worry: TELEVISION advertising about policy does not need to be accurate as long as the images look beautiful, South Australia's Labor government says.
Defender: THE federal opposition has called on the Human Rights Commission to create a post to protect freedom of speech.
***Email Capital Circle. Click here to subscribe***
Paul Kelly writes: CHRISTINE Milne's busting of the Labor-Greens alliance proves the Greens are Labor's political enemy and that Julia Gillard should never have entered this deal in the first place.
Dennis Shanahan writes: JULIA Gillard and Wayne Swan are being pressured and implored to explain how they intend to solve Labor's dire position only seven months from the election - apart from blaming Kevin Rudd.
Paul Kelly writes: THE Coalition plans to transform the rights agenda.
Simon Benson writes: AS a general rule, rats leave a sinking ship to seek dry land. In the case of the Greens, they have left Earth completely in search of another planet.
Janet Albrechtsen writes: THE 'real Tony's' authenticity comes from doing - mostly away from the cameras.
Phillip Hudson writes: Now it is a political divorce of convenience.
Jessica Irvine writes: Australians have, with increasing regularity, begun booting out governments with strong economic credentials, just ask Peter Costello.
Tony Burke says: "You look at the conservation decisions that have been made and there has never been a term like this one."
Lenore Taylor writes: CHRISTINE MILNE'S formal declaration that the alliance is all over with Labor allows both parties to say what they really think about each other.
Bob Brown writes: The Tarkine wilderness in north-western Tasmania is one of the most beautiful and intact regions of natural heritage left in modern Australia.
Laura Tingle writes: The real positioning going on at the Press Club yesterday must be about the seat of Melbourne the Greens' jewel in the crown.
Sophie Morris writes: Christine Milne blamed Labor for cheating on the Greens with the big miners and said the relationship was over (O-V-A-H, as comedy duo Kath and Kim might say).
No comments:
Post a Comment