Julia Gillard recycles a second-hand idea that didn't drive Kim Carr wild the first time

The Prime Minister on Saturday:

AUSTRALIANS own a lot of old motorcars and those old cars guzzle a lot of petrol and they spew out a lot of pollution. I want to help Australians update their motor vehicles and so today, I'm announcing one practical and affordable measure to help Australians do just that. Today, I am announcing that from the first of January next year, if you own a car that was manufactured before the first of January 1995 and you take that car to a motorcar dealership and then buy a car that meets emission standards, you will get a $2000 rebate.

Even Kim Carr thinks it's a waste of money. David Hassall on website GoAuto.com.au on March 25, 2009

FEDERAL industry minister Kim Carr does not believe that Australia needs a "cash for clunkers" scrappage scheme. "The difficulty is that it's extremely expensive and there are finite resources for the government," Carr told GoAuto this week. His department has estimated the cost of a scrappage scheme at about $1 billion, depending on the age cut-off and amount offered. Despite calls from the Motor Traders Association of NSW for the government to offer $3000 for inefficient old "bombs" to be scrapped in favour of modern new cars, Carr believes that a new government tax break for business buyers is a more effective incentive.

Laurie Oakes in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday:

THE sad truth is we have a couple of political pygmies heading the two major parties in this election. Both have small ambitions for the country. Both are afraid to lead.

The worm agrees. Oakes last night on the Nine Network:

NEITHER of the worms looked very interested.

Oakes in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday:

SO Julia Gillard's answer to climate change is to set up the biggest focus group in history. Kevin Rudd's farcical 2020 Summit looks sensible by comparison.

Oakes disagrees. Channel 9 April 21 2008:

THERE'S a thing known as the Monkey Theorem. It holds that, given enough time, a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters will eventually produce the works of William Shakespeare. It has to be said that the thousand delegates at Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit failed to produce anything remotely Shakespearean. The importance of the summit lies not in the ideas it generated, but in the backing it provides for a whole lot of things Rudd wanted to do anyway. Now, when he pushes the states to agree to reforms to the federal system, he can invoke the summit's findings to ratchet up the pressure.

Has the First Bloke got a rival? Claire Harvey in Sydney's The Sunday Telegraph yesterday:

GILLARD directs her warmth at men and women alike, but she seems to have a particular affection for The Australian's political correspondent Matthew Franklin, repeatedly touching his arm and smiling in his direction, gently rebuking and teasing: "Have you had a coffee this morning, Matt? We did say last question (but) . . . all right, Matthew," she says at a Blacktown auto garage on Wednesday, where she has spent the morning meeting apprentices, pretending to inspect a car engine and staging a doorstop press conference. She scrunches her nose and smiles at Franklin, who appears slightly startled. "I shouldn't be rewarding persistence, though, in that sense should I, because we never know where it will lead. We'll be here all day and then you won't get your coffee." Franklin keeps firing demands and slamming Gillard in his stories, and she keeps up the teasing banter day after day.

Pointed complaint. Boxer and footy player Anthony Mundine in The Herald Sun yesterday:

I RANG my (travel) agent and apparently it was some bird from Melbourne. She works at frequent flyers and she reckons I told her she could have the points. I never told her she could have all my points.

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