Oh for ____’s sake! Well the Liberal Party of Australia is really focused in on the important issues.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been accused of swearing on purpose on national television to increase his appeal to voters.

Last night on Channel 7 Mr Rudd dropped the word “shit” as he spoke to sacked Pacific Brands workers about the Government’s decision to spend billions stimulating the economy.

“People have to understand that, because there’s going to be the usual political shit storm, sorry, political storm, over that,” he said.

His comments were applauded by the audience.

But this morning Melbourne’s Liberal Mayor Robert Doyle and Opposition frontbencher Peter Dutton both accused Mr Rudd of scripting the moment

via Rudd flies into swearing storm – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

What a bunch of tossers. With all there is to criticise Kevin Rudd over this is the one? Or is it payback for the equally moronic carry-on about the Labor Party’s horror that Malcolm Turnbull mentioned the name of the Prime Minister’s wife and wealth in the same sentence.

Can someone inform both parties there’s an economic meltdown, bushfires and industrial relations legislation to discuss in rational and mature ways – WEE guess that’s hoping for too much.

WEE think the most amazing thing about this election was the fact that the off-mainstream press (MSM) were so stunningly accurate with their predictions of a Labor win. When many were wavering and worrying about the ‘narrowing’ or Rudd just messing up, the poll watchers were calmly asserting that there was nothing to worry about.

And on the night it seems they were dead right. WEE must say, that we didn’t really believe the wise old sage, Possum, would be right – although WEE were confidently predicting a Labor win to friends and sundry, back in the deep recesses WEE had our doubts.

And then, on the evening of the election broadcast (admittedly before Queensland votes had begun counting) WEE were still wavering, worried sick that Howard and his cronies would win their unwinnable election.

But to great relief, Possum and Pollbludger were proved correct. And Howard was swept from office.

Highlights of the night included the roar from the crowd in the tally room when the ABC showed a graphic of Bennelong with Maxine McKew ahead of John Howard. Also Kerry O’Brien claiming that there, ‘was a swing to the ABC’. Priceless. It could possibly be Freudian slip of the century – in that it confirms everything the Howard huggers and ABC haters have mythologised about what’s wrong with the national broadcaster.

And finally, the change of government. It’s noticeable. There is a different feeling out there in the community now. A collective sigh of relief that Howard has gone. A slight jolt when an announcer on TV mentions the Prime Minister and you see an image of Kevin Rudd. We’re still getting used to it. Eleven years is a long time, and it’s been a long time between drinks for compassionate and respectable government. Let’s hope that Rudd can deliver the goods.

See the link following…

Rudd a Haneef jellyback: Downer | NEWS.com.au

Okay, they look incriminating given the situation, but until we hear some explanation of the comments from Haneef it’s hardly a smoking gun. And what have they edited out of the conversations? Let’s face it, Andrews has hardly covered himself in glory here, and WEE would be wise to be cautious. The question remains, why has it taken so long to get this into the public domain? And why were we told this morning this information could not be provided? Still so many questions in this poorly managed saga.

Read the latest here…

Andrews reveals Haneef details – National – theage.com.au

Can’t really do much about that, eh? WEE do not trust this Government to make an objective assessment about this evidence, given the extreme prejudice they have shown in the case to date. Just who in this debacle has demonstrated ‘bad character’?

Please see this link for more…

Andrews to keep Haneef details under wraps | NEWS.com.au

Now WEE have cautioned before on any early triumphalism over the excellent polls that Labor has been experiencing since Rudd’s elevation to Opposition Leader. We still would caution but even WEE have to admit that the results are starting to look sticky. And the stickier the polls look, the more Howard tries to throw some mud that will stick on Rudd.

To date that strategy seems to be an abysmal failure. First Brian Burke, then his childhood memories, a couple of other things we can’t recall, and finally Therese Rein, his wife. All of this mud, all of this hot air, and Labor remains high in the polls.

So what is going on? It seems that history is repeating itself. Howard is sounding suspiciously like Keating in the last months of his government. Tired old lines like you change government and you change the country – well, duh! I think people get that. Other lines like Rudd and Labor don’t have enough experience in government to govern – well, that’s a neat formula for a one-party state. And these lines were all tried by Keating to no effect. What should be concerning Liberal back-benchers more is this sense of history repeating itself.

The government is falling into all the same old traps of other governments on their way out. It’s extraordinary that people who have been in politics as long as John Howard has don’t recognise these signs – or maybe they do and they just don’t have any other way to respond.

Whatever the case, if the polls don’t have some shift in them soon a change of government may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. What’s very interesting is a recent poll (can’t remember whose) showing a significant majority of voters now think that Labor will win the election. Of all the polls this one should be the most concerning for the Coalition – most people are countenancing a change and that builds a momentum all its own.

From a purely personal perspective, WEE are particularly enjoying seeing Howard squirm. We enjoyed it immensely in the early part of the Latham experiment, and WEE are really enjoying the extended play version that Rudd is delivering. Rudd’s performance in the Parliament yesterday was very telling – he looked calm and measured, Howard on the other hand looked rattled and lost.

He should have gone when he had the chance last year, but as ever, Howard’s own selfishness (he loves the trappings of power) and vindictiveness (anyone but Costello) were more prominent in that decision than his oft-voiced ‘what’s best for the nation’ hubris.

Well, NSW have voted and it’s another four years of the Labor Party running the state. If ever there was a winnable election for the Coalition, it should have been this one.

WEE were struck, watching the election coverage last night, that it’s inexplicable in any logical world why the Liberal Party did not select Barry O’Farrell as its leader when they had the chance. WEE hope they get the message coming out of this election that people just don’t like Peter Debnam. They don’t relate to him. The Liberals can bang on all they like about the negative campaign of the Labor party and it’s attacks on Debnam, but in the end those ads only resonated with people because they really don’t like him.

Why didn’t the Liberal Party mount a negative personal attack on Iemma? Because people like him. They certainly mounted negative personal attacks on Costa, Sartor and Tripodi (who WEE have it on pretty good authority people don’t like!). Why did the Liberal Party attack Latham with such gusto at the last Federal election? Because they suspected that people didn’t like him much and eventually that was the case. Sure the negative campaigns can be powerful, but there has to be a grain of reality in people’s perception for negative campaigns to work.

Look at Kevin Rudd. The federal Liberal Party’s attempts to hone in negatively on him have backfired spectacularly. That’s because no matter what he has or hasn’t done, people like him and reckon he’s okay. If the federal Liberal Party had handled Rudd in the way the NSW Liberals have handled Iemma, they may have avoided the embarrassment of the last few weeks of ministerial losses. Not attacking Iemma probably helped the NSW Libs in making the state election a positive result for them (even if they didn’t win office).

All they have to do now is realise that Debnam comes across as a bit of a spiv and so people don’t really like him or relate to him. They need to get rid of him as quickly as they can and install someone that people do relate to – WEE happen to think that’s O’ Farrell.

The NSW right obviously has much to answer for on this front, it was the dirty campaign to get rid of Brogden that installed Debnam in the first place (after O’Farrell withdrew from the leadership contest because he knew the right would wreck his chances by undermining him, even if he won).

Ironically, if they had all left Brodgen to it, he probably would have been Premier this weekend. Instead their meddling has delivered another four years of government to the ALP in NSW.

And all his crazy old cronies can all go and spend their lovely pensions in retirement while the rest of the world works out how to clean up the mess that Bush and his henchmen created in Iraq.

WEE pray for the families that have lost loved ones in this terrible debacle that started with the WTC disaster in 2001 and has ended up in a mid-east disaster in 2006.

WEE hope that it won’t be in vain. And WEE hope that future US leaders will look back on this dark period and learn that you can’t fight violence and oppression by replacing it with more violence and oppression. No more Vietnams and no more Iraqs please.

Let’s take a different approach to solving the world’s problems.

News from Australia and around the world online | NEWS.com.au

THERAPEUTIC cloning could lead to hard-up women selling their eggs to supply the embryos, former deputy prime minister John Anderson suggested today as the stem cell debate heated up again.

Yes, and human organ transplant could lead to men and women selling their body parts for profit. Although WEE are not sure anyone would buy Anderson’s brain.

Honestly, could politicians in this debate actually have an intelligent exchange about this rather than fear-mongering? There’s all sorts of medical procedures, industrial procedures, biological procedures and other procedures that people can make an unethical profit from. We don’t ban all of those.

So yes, it is possible a ‘hard-up’ woman (please note that it’s always the ‘poor’ who do bad things) might want to sell her eggs, but that’s why we have a legal system and regulation. There are always people who will abuse a system, however regulation of this type seems to work for IVF, WEE are sure it just might work in this instance too.

The terror policies are designed on the false premise that the terrorists are attacking us because they hate us. Over and over again this premise has been proved false in all the research. The line that these people are blowing us up simply because they hate us is spouted by the US Government, the British Government and the Australian Government to protect themselves from the disaster that is Iraq.

Terrorists, especially the phenomena of the ‘home-grown’ terrorist are blowing us up (or want to blow us up) because of their perception that the US, British and Australian governments shouldn’t be in Iraq and are committing atrocities against Muslim peoples. Now whether you agree with that perception or not (and WEE don’t hold that view), it is clear as the nose on your face that they are not blowing us up simply because they hate us, but because they have a gripe with the policies of our government. Until Bush, Howard and Blair can admit that, then this cycle of violence will continue.

And now we in Australia are all being punished for our leaders’ ineptitude through these anti-terrorism laws. WEE are afraid these laws are built on the need for a fair bit of trust in your government. If there is one thing that not many people have for governments these days it’s trust.

We’ve been bombarded with examples of how government’s can’t be trusted — weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graib, Children Overboard, IR Laws, asylum seekers, wrongly deported citizens — the list goes on. Now they want us to believe they should be trusted with the significant situation of denying Australian citizens their liberty.

Frankly, it’s not good enough for them to say that they will only be used against ‘real’ terror suspects (whatever that means). And who decides who the ‘real’ terror suspects are? You guessed it, the same people who have lied, obfuscated, blocked enquiries, and institutionalised abuses of human rights. The same people who got intelligence wrong on Iraq, who lied about their knowledge of the ‘rendition’ of Habib.

Sure, I’m feeling safer. It really is quite astounding that we could even be contemplating this. And the reason we are even contemplating this is the total incompetence of the coalition governments’ response to September 11. They have created this situation with their completely inadequate response to the challenges presented by that terrorist attack.

It strikes WEE that the incompetence of the last few years will only be surpassed by the incompetence of the implementation of these laws.

The only difference is that the government can suppress their incompetence in the future. Who knows what horrible mistakes will be made. But there is one thing for which we can be certain… there will be horrible mistakes made.