Just shut up and look pretty.
I like this very much.
'NOVICE Labor MPs have been handed detailed "cheat sheets" by the Federal Government to try to prevent damaging Budget bloopers.
The secretive document...gives advice to MPs on how to fend off questions over cuts to family payments, health, education and defence spending.
The Government has instructed MPs to spin the "responsible economic management" line as often as possible.'
Why stop at cheat sheets? Why not flash cards? Why not just send everyone to a great big interviewing etiquette school in the sky and have them trained to give uniformly robotic answers to difficult queries?
Reporter: How do you think the government's planned shake-up of Medicare will affect the public health sector and insurance premiums?
ALP flunky: Math is hard! Let's go shopping!
Alternatively, just take some tips from the other guys.
Comments
Oh, yeah. They're going terrific.
And the fact is, the Federal Labor Party DOES have "a great big interviewing etiquette school in the sky".
Like, they've been in the business for over 100 years. Do you honestly think they've never hit upon the idea of training their Parliamentary reps in dealing with the media?
I mean, I know from personal experience that even Community Childhood Nurses are trained in "dealing with the media".
GPs are trained in "dealing with the media".
I bet Mother Theresa had training in dealing with the media.
For crying out loud, the politicians have press secretaries and style counsellors.
So, we're supposed to be surprised they might give them tips on spin control?
What, because they're the "good" politicians? And only the "bad" bourgeois politicians spin the news?
How old are you again?
ALP flunky - We're for responsible economic management for Australian working families, Kerry.
Reporter - But how do you feel about their reaction? Do they have a case?
ALP flunky - Look Kerry, we're out there providing responsible economic management for Australian working families.
Reporter - Can you forsee an increase in the aged pension at any future time?
ALP flunky - Well, Kerry, our job is to provide responsible economic management for Australian working families.
Reporter - But what about the pension?
ALP flunky - Wooble!
Reporter - I beg yours?
ALP flunky - Wooble, wooble!!
Reporter - Um ...
ALP flunky - I have a nine inch penis.
Reporter - Can we get back to the matter of the pension, please?
ALP flunky - Watch me tie a knot in my testicles. See? I made a monkey!
I like the idea that there's Labor ministers running everywhere with budget 'exam notes' scrawled on their sweaty palms. Imagine the carnage if Pete Garrett washed his hands before an interview.
Reporter: "Minister Garrett, can you tell us any news of the budget for the environment?"
Pete : "Um..." don'tmentionthequokkas don'tmentionthequokkas "Well, we'll be lining quokka nests with torn hundred dollar bills."
Reporter: ...
Pete: "Actually, let me check that with Kevin."
Or if the PM's spin doctor mouthed the words verbatim that Kevin was saying, a split second mefore he actually annunciated the words?
Oh, wait. That already happened, didn't it?
What an excellent Freudian slip? And neologism?
mefore:(adj, adv, prep, conjunction) Devised by a media advisor before spoken by a politician in the first person present tense. As in: "Mefore I comment on the interest rate rise, I wish to consult my media adviser." Middle English, adverb & preposition, from English me + Old English beforan, from be- + foran before, from fore
Date: before 2007
On another note I wonder what dropping the eight grand rebate for solar is *really* all about. My guess is there's some liberal funding monopoly solar panel supplier who K07 and co are trying to "get in the neck". Plausable?
- Jean-Claude Van Damme gets an erection on television
- Farts On Live TV
Zander is in good company.
"On another note I wonder what dropping the eight grand rebate for solar is *really* all about."
Hey, remember Rudd's buddy in China, Shi Zhengrong , the founder of Suntech Power Holdings, solar panel company?
Shi Zhengrong tops the list of the richest people in China.
Rudd and Garrett had us believe that Zhengrong invested overseas because Australia shuns solar cleanliness.
But there are other reasons why a solar panel maker might choose China.
According to the Washington Post, Chinese polysilicon research firm executive Shi Jun says Chinese companies are saving millions of dollars by not installing pollution recovery systems when manufacturing the polysilicon used in the production of the solar panels:
"He said that if environmental protection technology is used, the cost to produce one ton is approximately $84,500. But Chinese companies are making it at $21,000 to $56,000a ton"
In September 2007, Rudd lamented the loss to Australia of "that great Chinese entrepreneur in the solar industry business, Mr Shi, Zhengrong Shi and his decision, that he couldn’t actually sustain his business in Australia, had to invest in China instead. One of the reasons is, the absence of an effective renewable energy target."
That was "mefore" for the election.
It turns out that Zhengrong Shi's decision may have had less to do with energy targets and more to do with lax environmental enforcement.
"Oh. My. God. OMG. Did Miss Fits just (sort of) criticise Labor?"
No, that can't be right. She works for Triple Jay.
Though, I did here someone at ABC-FM Radio Classic on the weekend arts news roundup having a whinge because the budget was surprisingly light on arts funding.
Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Must have had the wrong bandwidth or something.
"If you turn the sound up on the YouTube clip, you can hear the exact moment Downer's butt plug changes gears: 0.31."
Butt plugs have gears? Or is this just a special one?
almost poetic
Journo: The First Home Buyer Affordability Index has hit an all time low. How are you going to deal with this?
ALP Flunkette: First we're gonna sort out the gladiolas from the peonies and then we're gonna get pissed and show everyone our tits *burp*
ALP Flunkette: We are building 100 million dollars worth of inner city apartments close to the University of Technology Sydney, Sydney University, Notre Dame University Australia and the ABC's Ultimo studios - because we know grateful public housing tenants wouldn't think of sub-letting them to cashed up academics, inner-city trendies, ABC Radio announcers and business people working in the CBD.
They just won't. Okay?
"squib was funnier."
Except mine is true.
Like asking Peter Garrett questions within the realm of his.
"Is marxstubatory a wanker?"
Oh, look. You got me. It isn't a $100 million housing scheme for inner city "workers".
It's a $260 million housing scheme for inner city "workers"....
"Prime city land will be transformed into hundreds of new affordable apartments under a $260 million project to bring key workers, priced out of the property market, closer to their work.
The City of Sydney's depot in Bay Street, Ultimo, home to a collection of garbage trucks, and a piece of nearby State Government land now housing 5 per cent of the area's public housing tenants, will be handed over as part of the project to address the city's affordable housing shortage.
The development on the 3.6-hectare site in Glebe-Ultimo will be for 700 new affordable, social and private housing units...."
- Sydney Morning Herald, April 29, 2008
I like this bit...
"The tenants now living in the Department of Housing site will be relocated while the new apartments are being built. The 130 families are expected to have to move within two years."
Yes, we don't want scruffy Department of Housing tenants getting in the way of, er, public housing...
Fear makes the meat tastier. God knows what six months of jittery bafflement and waiting for the knives in the back does for it.
Let me worry about blank
Although I do like the idea of turning that garage in Bay St into public housing for low paid city workers like cleaners. And it would not be too hard to discourage sub-letting.
In my experience the police and local residents would like the current public housing tenants relocated as far away as possible, permanently.
For some reason voters are disturbed by a show of 'disunity' in the party currently in power. I like the idea of lots of independant politicians with a variety of opinions and suggestions for change. Works well in other countries like the Netherlands.
We now have the situation where the right of the ALP has taken the centre from the moderates of the Libs. No real opposition because they basicly agree. Not good for a well performing democracy.
And I do agree the arts funding is inadequate. We subsidise inefficient farmers far too much. ABARE estimates 20% of farms will never break even. wtf not subsidise the arts on the same basis. At least there is a chance the best will make it and do something like pay some taxes or do charity work. Unlike the inefficient farmers holding the rest of us to ransom because they can dictate the composition of the Parliaments.
I think Peter Garrett will contine to have difficulties in the Labour party because he is not allowed to speak his mind. Much better for him to be an independant after the next election.
Imagine being a stylist or spin doctor for some of the current crop of politicians. You would have to be a masochist.
even if bob ellis writes speeches for one.
none but bob brown are exempt from the scrutiny of a left wingers biased eye.
relevant or not..
is that.
i live approximately thirty-three minutes from byron bay, here in the rural delight.. thats not so far.
though when splendour tickets are on sale.
i'm not local enough.
so i sit politely and queue like the rest of the anxious nation, and i'm told to fuck off by qjump every six seconds.
if i miss out again this year, someone will die.
or i'll find a nice pair of fence jumping boots.
marieke, save me.
The Australian political system is corrupt, moribund and beyond any redemption.
Here in Melbourne the corrupt John Brumby has sold the entire state to property developers and merchant bankers just so he can be paid a great big bribe when he finally gets kicked out.
It's the same everywhere.
Just get rid of it and let's start over.
Three, four years ago the apartment market was beginning to collapse so the developers told their lapdogs to bail them out.
They did this by opening the floodgates on immigration.
Now they want to use mass migration to drag down wages and conditions, using the same 'skill shortage' bullshit to justify it.
There is no fucking skill shortage, it's all a great, big fucking lie.
We still have four / five percent unemployment even though working one hour per week qualifies as being employed.
This whole country is just one great, stinking pile of lies and bullshit at the present moment.
The people who are unemployed either have no skills or skills that are not required at the moment.
Its filling the skilled jobs with people with the right skills that is the problem - not just bums on seats.
Probably the most honest political representative in Australia I think.
It took decades to get the smaller states to agree to the original constitution guaranteeing them an equal say in a Federal government. I agree we need fewer levels of government but we need to rewrite the constitution and to do that we have to get the smaller states to agree to surrender some powers. It will take time but it must be done.
First step is to transfer health and education in all states to the Federal government.
Let's have a referendum on that first.
Australia is not 'one great, stinking....etc'.
Lots of challenges yes.
We do need good ideas and methods of implementing them.
To continue to grow the economy we need immigration including refugees How many can we absorb every year is the question. I have no problem with the target suggest in the budget. We were all immigrants at some time, even the Aboriginals.
This is true but there are plenty of people who are qualified but cannot get a job because of the stupidity and bigotry of employers and hiring agencies.
And if the skills shortage was such a huge problem then employers would have training schemes in place to fill these shortages instead of just sitting back waiting for the perfect candidate to simply walk in the door, which is what ninety percent of them do now.
And it was these these same shithead employers who stopped training apprentices and cadets because they were too crazed with greed to make the investment in their biggest asset, the human beings who actually do the work.
Ever see a truck drive itself, or douche it's own oil filter? Lots of employers must have.
And who has destroyed the eduction sector, effectively abandoning any responsibility for training? Fucking dirty, filthy, corrupt politicians, that's who.
And what sort of moral perverts, money-mad degenerates have we become that we would rather asset strip the developing world of it's technicians and professional rather than fix our own mess?
What's the cute answer to all that, eh? Slit the throats of a few virgins on the steps of the stock exchange as a pagan sacrifice to make it all better?
And there is now doubt the previous government stopped funding education and encouraged their financial backers in big business to ignore the training of employees in order to bolster pay to management and dividends to shareholders.
That is why we voted them out.
We have eleven years of bad ideas and mismanagement to clean out of the system.
The message the current economic managers are giving us by putting Gillard in charge of productivity and education is they understand the need for change. And they understand the nexus between productivity and education in the interests of all the members of the labour force.
They provided a extra boost to university education in the budget, above what they had indicated in the election campaign. The problem with apprenticeship training is it in the hands of the states via the TAFE system. One of the reasons education should be a Federal respsonsibility. The previous government set up a second technical training system, federally funded and encouraged private education providers.
Will this government allow it to continue? My guess is yes although they have not said anything yet.
The problem is we just need more workers entering the labour force because we are not reproducing fast enough.
Any suggestions for this?
one if the only politicians who is not afraid to stand up, and who doesn't know the taste of Bush's semen.
bob for pm.
There are alot of good people named bob:
ellis/brown/dylan/marley/the builder.
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