If only we could learn to fall in behind Labor leaders and just criticise the Coalition

THE SMH economics correspondent bemoans our inability to follow the leader.

Ross Gittins in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

IT'S a dramatic demonstration of the way Australians are losing the ability to fall in behind a leader. All of us know the nation's problems won't be overcome without decisive leadership. Yet we give our leaders so little loyalty. The announcement of a government decision is taken as the occasion for the outbreak of dissent. All those with a reason for objecting cry out and their criticism is amplified by the media, whereas those who agree fall silent. Why are we becoming so much more prone to arguing the toss than falling into line? The government is always and everywhere fair game. Consider the lack of public censure of the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, for his utterly obstructive behaviour. Having narrowly lost the last election, he's behaving like a spoilt child, refusing to support any policy proposed by the government, whether good, bad or indifferent.

Falling in behind the leader? Ross Gittins in the SMH, March 4, 2006:

WHAT terribly poor taste for the foreign debt to raise its ugly head during the Howard government's 10th anniversary celebrations, just when everyone's saying what a wonderful job John Howard's done of managing the economy.

Whoops.

ABC News, February 1:

THE Australian Greens say tropical cyclone Yasi is a "tragedy of climate change". Greens deputy leader Christine Milne says the cyclone is another example of why it is important to cut carbon pollution. "This is a tragedy, but it is a tragedy of climate change," she said. "The scientists have been saying that we are going to experience more extreme weather events, that their intensity is going to increase, their frequency."

Bureau of Meteorology website:

TRENDS in tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region show that the total number of cyclones has decreased in recent decades. Tropical cyclone numbers in the Australian region are influenced by the El Nino-Southern Oscillation phenomenon and the decrease in total cyclone numbers may be associated with an increased frequency of El Nino events. Since [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2001 report] there has been a growing number of studies that indicate a consistent signal of fewer tropical cyclones globally in a warmer climate.

The Wire? David Leigh and Luke Harding in The Guardian, January 31:

FOR Julian Assange, like Jason Bourne, the Hollywood secret agent on the run from the CIA, elaborate security precautions may have been second nature. But for journalists used to spilling secrets in the pub they were a new and tricky-to-master art form. Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz and editor Alan Rusbridger borrowed inspiration from The Wire, the US drama series set amid the drug dealers of Baltimore. The show was popular among some Guardian staff; in it, the dealers relied on "burners", or pay-as-you-go phones, to outsmart the police. Katz asked his assistant to buy 20 burner phones for key members of the cables team. The Guardian now had its own leakproof network.

Unfortunately, nobody could remember their burner number. At one point Rusbridger sent a text from his burner to Katz's regular mobile phone; an elementary error that in The Wire would almost certainly have prompted the cops to swoop. The Guardian editor picked up another burner during a five-day trip to Australia. When he got back to London, Katz called him on that number. The conversation -- routed right round the world -- fizzled out after just three minutes when Katz ran out of credit. "We were basically completely useless at any of the spooky stuff," Katz confesses.

Or Get Smart?

MAXWELL Smart: The old "call forwarding from the shoe phone to the cell phone so you don't know where I am and then I appear on the roof behind you and surprise everyone" trick.

Agent 23 [points a gun to Max's temple]: Don't move.

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