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.

WEE are not so sure. He is a wily old ______. There is still a long way to go to the next election and he’s been down and out for the count before. But most agree he hasn’t been quite this far down and out in his years in office. Perhaps we are really sensing a mood for change among the Australian people, and it would be quite extraordinary that in an economy that is still going strong, issues around human rights, the war in Iraq and workplace relations come into focus as key concerns for the voting public.

The war and human rights have been in focus before and haven’t damaged Howard. It’s really still a waiting game to see if he has credibility left on these issues, or if people are really just sick of the accumulation of mean-spiritedness and untruths over much of these social matters. Perhaps this election won’t be fought on “it’s the economy stupid” but rather over the broad vision of where Australia is heading as a nation in the next twenty years.

Whatever the next few months hold, it is going to get vicious. Howard will not risk the trashing of his legacy without a fight. Or… Costello. Nah, he’s left his run way too late.

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.

Goward faces new test, and Debnam is accused of threatening to block her rival

Mr Debnam angrily denied the claims concerning the disendorsement threat yesterday. “If I had a conversation with Martin Laverty, there’s only two people that can tell you that it’s true,” he said. “There’s no way Martin Laverty would tell you it’s true, so it’s not true.”

The problem is the statement that there was no way that Martin Laverty would tell you it’s true. It sounds almost like a threat.

It doesn’t sound very convincing really does it?

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.