UNLIKE the ABC’s confused talkback callers and Fairfax’s ill-informed editors, Aborigines in the Northern Territory and the northwest of WA appear relieved the Federal Government is moving on the endemic problems of sexual abuse and ill-health in dysfunctional remote indigenous communities.
OPPOSITION leader Kevin Rudd is the master of the meaningless 20-second sound bite based on no more (presumably) than a passing pleasure at the sound of his own voice.
THE ACTU is leaving nothing to chance in this election. As union members continue to opt out of the dying movement and union leaders scramble for seats in Federal Parliament (the ALP’s lifeboat), union bosses are targeting remaining members in a campaign with ominous precedents.Union HQ has authorised its stormtroopers to zero in on the nearly quarter of a million members who live in marginal seats _ and work on them to ensure they vote the union line.Using computer programs rather than the brick-through-the-window terror favoured by groups such as Hitler’s nazis, Stalin’s communists and Mao’s Red Guard, union activists have been told to home in on church groups, faith organisations and family members.Union bosses are urging activists to contact members using an electoral data base search program – zeroing in on members in marginal electorates.The 75-page ACTU election strategy directs union officials to routinely contact members identified by the programs and bombard them with political material, even register them to vote if necessary.Despite all the nonsense about privacy legislation, those union members in swinging seats identified by the ACTU, will, in effect, be told: “We know who you are and we know where you live, we know how many are in your family and even if they are entitled to vote”.This is intimidating enough, but coming from an organisation associated with the Robespierre of Australian politics, Greg Combet (soon to parachute into a safe Labor seat) and Sharan Burrow, who arguably broke the International Labor Organisation’s rules with her attempts to politicise its dealings and has since been attempting to blacken Australia’s name in the global community, it is a deeply sinister development.The ACTU may claim it is merely providing information for its members to disseminate at barbecues but that response underestimates the collective intelligence of the average Aussie barbie.When the union stooge starts trumpeting the benefits of union membership and the ALP from a prepared set of question-and-answers most sensible people will see through the garbage and move the conversation on to more relevant issues – the weather or Paris Hilton.
The pathetic response of Labor and the major voices in the Australian environmental movement to the Government’s climate change initiatives gives the lie to the notion that environmentalists have the interests of the nation at heart.
EFFORTS by NSW trade union supremo John Robertson to gloss over the grossly offensive and sometimes outright criminal behaviour of union leaders are as ridiculous as the act of putting lipstick on the fabled pig.
DEPUTY Premier John Watkins provided dramatic proof of his ever-narrowing tunnel vision last month when he whined about the effects of the September meeting of Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation nations in Sydney.
Richard Wagner’s triumphant Ride Of The Valkyries had nothing on the glowing mood of leading Labor lights as they scrambled onto Qantas’s conveniently timed F562 on Thursday evening.
ACTU boss Greg Combet has made no bones about his ambition to return the trade union movement to what he considers to be its rightful place – running the country.
FEDERAL Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has put a knife to the throat of big and small business with the ALP’s new industrial relations policy, but has ducked all responsibility for his position.
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd’s promise to the Labor faithful to bring “fresh thinking” to Australian politics reeked of former NSW Opposition leader John Brogden’s 2003 slogan, “A fresh approach”.And (now, please don’t call me Yoda – Yoda’s just a source) his introduction, “My name is Kevin, I’m from Queensland and I’m here to help”.
THERE is something seriously wrong with a justice system that favours known criminals aged under 18 but goes heavy on upright citizens.
THE Anzac tradition risks being undermined and debauched by politically correct post-modernist teachers, as evidenced by the Simpson award-winning essay extracted yesterday in The Daily Telegraph.
OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd has flown to the US to demonstrate his fitness to manage the crucial Australian-American alliance – leaving a lot of unfinished business in his wake.
IN ANOTHER outstanding victory for the civil rights lobby, two HIV-positive men in Victoria and South Australia were permitted to run wild by health officials, passing on their infection to as many sexual partners as they could, because their right to privacy was deemed paramount.
SOMETIMES one person can make a big difference, as Senator Jeannie Ferris who died in Canberra on Monday, proved.
THE Left likes to take its information pre-digested, with pre-formed opinions offered by wannabe celebrities. Whether its Al Gore’s hyperbolic disinformation on global warming or a curtain call of aspiring actresses bleating about maggot-free sheep, the fellow travellers prefer the easy intellectual road.
FORMER NSW premier Bob Carr has taken due credit for the return of the Labor Government, now led by his successor, Morris Iemma.Though Carr was kept under wraps by the Iemma team throughout the election, he told The Australian newspaper of his deep personal satisfaction as successful Labor candidates referred to the millions his government had committed to infrastructure in every seat in their western Sydney electorates.
A FOURTH victory for the NSW ALP would be a win for the professional political class and a huge loss for voters across Australia.Premier Morris Iemma and his team offered no bright vision for their state, they had no record of achievement they could point to, but they did use all the political skills they could muster to convince voters that their Conservative opponents posed an even greater risk.
JOHN Howard may face the biggest challenge of his prime ministership when Federal Parliament resumes today.How he handles Labor’s planned assault on the integrity of the Coalition could well lay the pattern for the election expected in October.
Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/piers-akerman/page/33