Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd, who will lead party - 26/6/2013

reply to post by AussieDingus


Too many Aussies already consider themselves to be voting for a party leader when only those in that candidate's electorate are the ones who actually decide whether that person actually wins their seat in parliament. Too much of a personality cult going on and it's Mr Abbot's achilles heel (he's not a likable person for the majority of the population). As has just been demonstrated (again), a party leader is elected by the party and is subject to the whims and fancies of the party members all of whom have gained their positions via the voting public's preferences.

When I go to vote I never consider myself to be voting for a party leader, but the person standing for my electorate who I consider to be the best supporter of issues that concern me locally and nationally. Too many people vote simply based on the party or the party's leader because that's what they've always done (eliminates the need to think about it). The party elects their own leader but that leader must first be elected into office by the public. I've even seen a sitting PM actually lose his own seat in an election so the people do have the final say or so it would seem.

As for the coming election, I'm generally leaning toward the Liberal policies this time because Labor's performance to date has been a circus of expensive errors but the candidates in this electorate will need to win my vote on the day.

reply to post by OzTiger


Not a bad effort from JuLiar Gillard, is it ? Didn't get elected by the majority. Didn't even serve a full term. But now retires with the golden goose for doing nothing but sell this country down the drain. All the while trying to tax us at every chance she got, attacking our Super at every turn, but then sails off into the sunset to live the good life. If this was any other country other than Australia, she would be hanging from a tree as she deserves.

But on the plus side, before Gillard stole office, I kept hearing feminists groups say that the country would be better off if it was run by a woman. But since Gillard stole office and due to her poor performance, I haven't heard those words since from any feminist group. Maybe their silence is acceptance of their misjudgement ?

Rudd will get more seats than what Gillard would of, and this is just a last ditch attempt from a desperate Labour party to try and salvage an unwinnable election. But the good bit about all this is seeing the politicians scramble over each other in the cabinet reshuffle, wondering if their ride on the gravy train is over or not.

Originally posted by Theprimordialocker
reply to post by akushla99

 

'big business' are who decides?

Yes shock horror its a conspiracy forum folks believe such things!
Perhaps such facts are too shocking for you in which case i direct you to fairfax & sons or News Ltd.

edit on 26-6-2013 by Theprimordialocker because: (no reason given)

Shock, horror...he he...

The vote is what decides (in most 'usual' cases)...The fact that complacency and gullibility is a national pastime, is an unfortunate cultural trait...I 'like', not many pollies...but the fashion by which Rudd was originally so unedifiably cast aside, was a poll driven decision...just as this decision to reinstate him was...In practical terms, it was a necessity...it might change things considerably...already 'Leader' polls have altered...the word on the street is Rudd...
I do not read the herald scum or any of the 'bread & circus' mirror ball filth rags...many, many people were appreciative that Rudd was actually lifting the mood of a despondent and cynical populace...apart from policy (and/or the ability to run it through a system that handicaps) a leader should be able to harness the goodwill of the people...Gillard clearly had one good attribute, that she was the first woman Prime Minister...Abbot is a national joke that lives in the 1950's mindset...why does anyone think the issue of gender would ever have come up, re: Abbot and Gillard (he has a shockingly embarrassing record on this front)...

Polls will decide...if people are not too stupid to believe what they read in self-serving bumwipe material...

Å99

Originally posted by 74Templar
reply to post by amraks

 

My prediction on this thread all the way back in February.

A few months up to a month before the election, say around June-ish, it all comes apart at Labour camp. Gillard is ousted and Rudd placed back in power, or another hotshot the commoners relate to as a 'true Aussie battler,' something we all relate to Rudd, as he was and still is the underdog.

Everyone cheers, and votes Labour in for another term. Sometime after a year in 2014-2015, Rudd voluntarily steps down as leader, and the Labour party votes in a new leader. Doesn't matter who by then, the votes have been cast. In that time nothing will actually change, no removing current taxes, no making it easier on the people that just voted for them, and of course that's Labour's ultimate comeback. 'You willingly voted us in. Here's your medicine.'

That's my prediction, and a few friends and my old man said it would happen almost exactly like that also.

That was back in February...

What a prediction....

Anyhoo, enough of this crap, let's get back to the Maroons smashing the Blues again.

Interestingly...I had a discussion with a 'baked-on' Labour leftie...when Rudd was 'assassinated'...my interest in politics extends to watching what happens...my prediction back then was almost exactly as you have written - minus the Rudd stepping aside after re-election of the Labour Party...
I have been saying that something like this would happen...despite armchair analysts saying it would/could never happen...things have happened!...

Å99

reply to post by Pilgrum


You are correct, and I am aware that we don't vote for the leader. My point is that we SHOULD be voting for the leader if we really are a Democracy. And its those very leaders that tell us we live in a Democracy. A political party is just a registered name, but its the people in those parties that bring those parties into existence. Much as a company is just a registered name but once the employees of that company perform their duties, then that company comes into existence.

And when different candidates for the same party can have different individual policies, then its makes no sense at all to be voting for a party. Its the individual, and their policies that should be voted on. It is our current system that needs to change, especially if our politicians want to keep telling us that we are a democracy. Yes, we may be more "democratic" than some other countries, but that doesn't mean that we are a democracy.

But what do we have here..........................we force people to pick one of two parties. Yes, you can vote for another party other than those two, but we have a 2 party preferred system which basically means your non vote for Labour or Liberal will eventually find its way back to either Labour or Liberal. Just ask the people that voted for One Nation, only to find out their vote went to Liberal. But if you voted for One Nation, then its a safe bet to say you didn't want Liberal in power. But due to little Johnny Howards last minute deal on the night before the election, 99% of One Nation voters went to the polling booths not knowing their vote would be going to Liberal.

My whole point is, the people of Australia should be voting for the Prime Minister, not the party they claim to represent. If our so-called democratic system doesn't allow this, then we are clearly not as democratic as we like to convince ourselves of, and our system clearly needs to change. While we continue to operate under this system, people like Gillard can always do what they did, and how they did it. But by giving the power to the voting public [which is what any true democracy preaches], it is the person elected by the majority that will be the Prime Minister. If they choose to stand down, then we vote in another Prime Minister.

And from personal experience, the people who seem to miss the whole point are the people who class themselves as life long Liberal or Labour supporters. Your vote should be based on policy, not bias mentalities. It is not a sporting game, and these are not sporting teams. they are political parties which are supposed to be acting in the best interests of the majority. If you go by policy, rather than political party, then you'll find the party you vote for will almost certainly change over time. And aligning yourself as a life long voter achieves nothing other than showing how ignorant, stupid, and dumbed down so many voters are. No wonder the politicians get away with this most undemocratic system we have today !

We support America like a lap dog in their quest to force their version of democracy onto the world. Yet it appears it is us who seem to have the most confusion as to what a democracy is supposed to be. But then again we can refuse to vote and not take part................oh, hang on, we get fined for exercising that practice !

Yep, democracy at its finest !

No matter who is the pm, julia, rudd or kevin. People will decide NOT them three. Time for the election date, bring it on to clear the uncertainty once it for all. Let the voters decide. Enough of this circus show already!

Originally posted by MegaSpace
No matter who is the pm, julia, rudd or kevin. People will decide NOT them three. Time for the election date, bring it on to clear the uncertainty once it for all. Let the voters decide. Enough of this circus show already!

edit on 27-6-2013 by MegaSpace because: (no reason given)

julia, rudd or kevin ?????

ok sure, and you will be voting? I hope so because there's no mention of any LNP people in your perception of reality

But in all earnest, the first poll gives preferred PM to Rudd and only a 4 point difference between 2 party preferred ALP and LNP. so only a 2 point move and it's all tied up. Going from 48 to 52, to 50 50

I personally can't see Abbott holding it together now. He was only getting support by keeping his head down. Now that he has to actually DO something positive .......... I want to emphasise that, "something positive", I believe that he and his team will be very short on any policies and be shown for the negative, only concerned with big business that they really are.

Just heard a cry by Julie Bishop about how Rudd is coming out with outlandish claims, hmmmmm the pot calling the kettle black much???

re the election dae, that in itself is showing how nervous the opposition are. He doesn't have to give the date until he's ready and he has already shown he isn't going to be a one man band by stating he will confer with his ministers before making any decisions.

When he is announcing his front bench? It was supposed to be this morning. I hope he gives Doug Cameron a run. He's the only honest politican of the lot, if you will permit the oxymoron Albo as Deputy was a really good choice. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him. It'll be interesting to see who's going to be chosen. Obviously Bill Shorten... any guesses apart from that?

This is the result of the last time Julie Bishop had a glaring match with a garden gnome.



Seriously, it'd be scary to be on the other end of her eyes when they were on full-on glare mode.

reply to post by AussieDingus


I believe you've identified the reason the proposed Republic of Oz was defeated in the referendum IE the people still wouldn't get to vote for the President who'd be simply a replacement for the current GG and nothing would change except for the name.

What we need is an honest collection of politicians with the public's best interests as their driving force. Must be an endangered (perhaps extinct) species.

reply to post by MegaSpace


But we had a vote last time when Rudd won, then look at the uncertainty we had until 2 days ago !

Gillard proved that there is no certainty in Australian politics the moment she challenged Rudd in the way that she did. Just as there was as much uncertainty 2 days ago despite Gillard being our apparent Prime Minister, with Rudd playing the same game in return.

An election will not change the fact that the string pullers can just throw in any person they want, at any time, with no say from the public. And until this changes, then 1000 elections will not help us. WE should be voting for the leader of each party and then the overall PM. We should vote by policy, not by personality or party preference. Then when that leader breaks a promise or policy, then THAT person will be held accountable, unlike todays system of just blaming it on the incompetence of the party without mentioning the names of those who broke the promises. Remember, a political party is just a registered name on a piece of paper until the party members act and bring the party into existence. I don't think a registered name on a piece of paper cares too much if it gets blamed, but when a politician knows he/she will be held accountable by the people that put them into power, then we will see a completely different mentality and approach from those we supposedly elect.

If Liberal were serious, they would be going for the throat of labour right now, but they have been mysteriously quite for the last 2 days. But Liberal doesn't want Labour to completely self destruct, because that would ruin the whole game. Labour props up Liberal, and Liberal props up Labour. They need each other to survive and they feed off each others survival. Our Government has an Opposition, well if you completely kill off your opposition, then there is no Opposition, and your game collapses in on itself. Its all a game, and we're the ones being played......................until we change the current system.

Originally posted by Pilgrum
reply to post by AussieDingus

 

I believe you've identified the reason the proposed Republic of Oz was defeated in the referendum IE the people still wouldn't get to vote for the President who'd be simply a replacement for the current GG and nothing would change except for the name.

What we need is an honest collection of politicians with the public's best interests as their driving force. Must be an endangered (perhaps extinct) species.

And that's the problem, any true honest politician doesn't get anywhere near the front bench. Politics is a game, and no one wants to risk their position by going against the game plan. Therefore, the true honest politicians usually get stuck at local level, and those that play the game get promoted through the system. And no matter how honest a local politicians intentions are, they will always eventually be blocked as their requests go up the chain of command.

Just look at our system and its rotation of Ministers for just how corrupt it is. If you performed badly at your job, and had to be stood down from your job due to poor management , you would expect to be looking for a new job, more than likely in a new field or industry. But when a Minister stuffs up their job, they get rotated to Minister of a completely different industry. How someone can claim to have the knowledge to be the Minister of Education, Transport, Defence etc is laughable. Each Minister of an industry should have specified experience in that industry to justify being the head of it. How can someone go from Minister of Education, to then say Minister of Transport ? And if they were stood down from one Ministers post due to poor performance and rotated to another post, then doesn't that just prove its a select club, unelected by the public ? Which slaps a so-called democracy in the face.

The 2 biggest mistakes Australians make is that we still think as a whole that our vote counts, and that as a whole we still convince ourselves that we are a Democracy.

More democratic than some, yes. But democratic in the true sense of the word, not even close !

Hey fellow Aussies, help send a message to the politicians on Saturday 6 July. Stand with Edward Snowden and pressure them to come clean on where they stand on surveillance of Australians.

Originally posted by Pilgrum
As for the coming election, I'm generally leaning toward the Liberal policies this time because Labor's performance to date has been a circus of expensive errors but the candidates in this electorate will need to win my vote on the day.

That is a trap to be wary of. In Queensland at the last state election, they changed governments, voting in the LNP. They did this not because they loved the LNP, they did it because they hated what the Labor government was doing. So, to this end, they didn't properly scrutinise the policies of the LNP. As a result the LNP received a huge mandate. The first order of business was to take funding away from the arts, then it sacked 14000 public servants after saying "The public service has nothing to fear from us." Now it is starting to close schools because their business mates want the land. Queenslanders have woken up to the mistake they have made but are still stuck with the LNP for another 2.5 years. So, please, don't vote blindly against a party , scrutinise policy and vote FOR a party based on that and then keep them accountable.

Originally posted by greatfriendbadfoe

Originally posted by MegaSpace
No matter who is the pm, julia, rudd or kevin. People will decide NOT them three. Time for the election date, bring it on to clear the uncertainty once it for all. Let the voters decide. Enough of this circus show already!

edit on 27-6-2013 by MegaSpace because: (no reason given)

julia, rudd or kevin ?????

ok sure, and you will be voting? I hope so because there's no mention of any LNP people in your perception of reality

But in all earnest, the first poll gives preferred PM to Rudd and only a 4 point difference between 2 party preferred ALP and LNP. so only a 2 point move and it's all tied up. Going from 48 to 52, to 50 50

I personally can't see Abbott holding it together now. He was only getting support by keeping his head down. Now that he has to actually DO something positive .......... I want to emphasise that, "something positive", I believe that he and his team will be very short on any policies and be shown for the negative, only concerned with big business that they really are.

Just heard a cry by Julie Bishop about how Rudd is coming out with outlandish claims, hmmmmm the pot calling the kettle black much???

re the election dae, that in itself is showing how nervous the opposition are. He doesn't have to give the date until he's ready and he has already shown he isn't going to be a one man band by stating he will confer with his ministers before making any decisions.

edit on 27-6-2013 by greatfriendbadfoe because: (no reason given)

Good luck to ever wins, all i want is for this farce / circus show to end & only way for it to end is by calling an election date to let the people decide who will be Prime minister. Im one of the many people who are sick & tired with this current circus show.

reply to post by Archie


A bloated public service is always an outcome of several terms of a Labor government and you do need to switch the Parties around regularly to get any sort of overall balance. Having said that, the sitting member in my electorate is a Labor member and her performance has been quite good for this area but marginal electorates always do well in the funding stakes for some reason

No-one definitely has my vote at this stage but I have to keep in mind that the current administration's policies have been quite expensive for me personally. Your experience may vary.

I hate our stupid Aussie politics.

It is all about their personalities. Hardly any talk about their god damn POLICIES!!!

It;s disgraceful. People voting for people for who they are seen in the news. Nothing about their actual policies, what they believe in, what their party believes in, what they can achieve or hope to achieve.

Originally posted by Pilgrum
reply to post by Archie

 

No-one definitely has my vote at this stage but I have to keep in mind that the current administration's policies have been quite expensive for me personally. Your experience may vary.

I'm at a complete loss as well and that is not usual for me. I've never cast a donkey vote in my voting life because I take the right to vote seriously but I tells ya.... man, I really don't know who I'm going to vote for. It's an awful feeling.

Originally posted by Archie

Originally posted by Pilgrum
reply to post by Archie

 

No-one definitely has my vote at this stage but I have to keep in mind that the current administration's policies have been quite expensive for me personally. Your experience may vary.

I'm at a complete loss as well and that is not usual for me. I've never cast a donkey vote in my voting life because I take the right to vote seriously but I tells ya.... man, I really don't know who I'm going to vote for.

It's an awful feeling.

Then weigh up their policies. As we go into election mode proper, they will have to give out at least some policy info. But I for one will not be voting LNP, I have a wife still suffering from head injuries from a car accident 14 years ago and whenever the LNP were in, we were doing it tough while Howard, Abbott and Costello (it would be funny typing that except for how serious it is) gloated how well off everyone was, Abbott never wanted to look after those in need back then and I haven't seen anything that has changed in his attitude.

reply to post by akushla99

Gillard clearly had one good attribute, that she was the first woman Prime Minister..

Apprently she thinks all her tenure was about was making a point of breaking the glass ceiling for her pro feminist agenda.
The alp has a progressive side alright its the side of their party which which has a "new left" rainbow agenda and not much to do with traditional labour values.
I can see her coming back in politics maybe in some pro womens party not just for left wing women either. I see her as an ultra femo witch, so ding dong the wicked witch is dead good news i say. Australia has been pussy whipped by her for long enough.I dont think the alp was the right party for her agenda.Good to see the the last of pin head garrett as well.

Originally posted by greatfriendbadfoe

Then weigh up their policies.

Because the Australian press has been gutted, it has become near impossible to do this adequately. To really weigh up a policy, it requires tons and tons of research to get an actual picture of what it actually will mean for the country and the voter. If I start now with what has been announced, I might just be done by election time IF Rudd doesn't bring it forward.

Any takers on who will be in Rudd's front bench apart from Shorten and obviously Albo and probably Bowen. No other names spring to my mind automatically although I'm really hoping he gives Doug Cameron a run.

And yes, it will be good to see Peter Garrett go. He should never have been there in the first place. He does much more good outside of politics.