Oh God. Australia's Opposition Leader

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Lucky us, Australia has a new leader of the opposition, and woe is us if he ever gets to be the PM.

A bit of background, he is a very conservative catholic. Not that there is anything wrong with that, except he seems intent on imposing his values on other people.

His latest bit of sharing with the country:

A woman’s virginity is a special gift that should only be shared after marriage. And yes he used the terms ‘A Gift’ :rolleyes:

Nothing about a man’s virginty, we’re apparently allowed to root around before marriage. (I’m not sure who with though, as apparently all the women should be holding onto their special gift).

This is a bloke who:

  • as the Health Minister upheld a ban on RU486 in Australia (until overruled by a conscience vote),
  • is on record as saying Climate change is complete crap. (Not just whether it was caused by mankind, but the whole concept of climate change),
  • as Families Minster has proposed a return to at fault divorce, so you’d have to prove adultry, or cruelty, et al before being granted a divorce
  • his own daughter is on record as calling him a “gay churchie loser” :smiley:

Here’s hoping Kevin Rudd can maintain his popularity and win this years election. Because I for one don’t want Tony Abbott running the country.

2

He’s a shooting star. He’s making a splash and getting some popularity at the moment because he’s a big mouth who shoots it off in a way that makes for good media copy, and this polls well mid term because no one is actually thinking about politics seriously and Abbott has personality. He’ll burn out shortly.

Now watch me eat my words…

3

See, and you guys make fun of Americans for our crazy lunatic politicians.

We’re all cut from the same cloth, you see. We should get together and blame England for all of our collective problems.

4

Just to clarify … are you talking of Tony Abbott or Kevin Rudd?
:smiley:

5

ummm I have no issue with him stating his opinion that girls should keep their virginity till marriage, I am glad that some didn’t when I was a lad!

Abbot will never run this country, he is a sacrifical lamb put in place untill the libs have a chance of winning, then see ya later!

6

That’s a good Theory/point.

It’s going to take at least another term in office I think before KRudd’s popularity dips to levels where the Lib’s have a decent shot at gaining government again.

I’m not sure who the Lib’s have in the bank as a decent leader though.

7

Yeah Krudd will get at least another term, on the leader side who would have thought Howard would have been popular?

8

I never liked him. Any man that can’t even get a cricket ball down the other end of the pitch after two attempts can barely call himself an Australian!! :smiley:

Personally, (and Costello’s claims to the contrary) I think Howard and the liberals benefited from being in office during the decade long economic boom. A blind monkey could have kept the country ticking along OK during that time.

But anyway, completely off topic, in my own thread even :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Yes, he’s a clueless preachy anti-intellectual reflexive regressive, which is precisely why the Libs voted him in - he’s as close to a Howard clone as they have. It worked for them in 1996 and they are just hoping against hope it’ll work as well in 2010. Besides, who else have they got now? Joe Hockey can’t run for leader again, and there is just no-one else.

They were just too uncomfortable with Turnbull, who let’s face it should really be in the Labor party.

10

Tony Abbot’s daughters are hot.

11

Gah. Did you hear Hockey saying that Gillard isn’t allowed to comment on Abbot’s stupidity, because she doesn’t have kids?

What IS the fascination with Gillard popping out crotch fruit? She’s at least female, which should give her some ability to comment on female virginity. Maybe the Mad Monk’s fooling us all.

12

What a beat up this load of crap is.

I used to tell people years ago to be glad that Peter Costello was second in line behind John Howard because if he wasn’t the anti-christ, Tony Abbott would be. I think he is profoundly creepy.

That being said, he was specifically asked “what would you tell your daughters blah blah blah…” And his answer comes as no surprise. He is a member of an organized religion that espouses those beliefs, he wasn’t asked about his “sons” but admitted that he had done things that he thought were wrong.

I think he was being perfectly genuine and, while I don’t like the guy, I think that making a fuss about his religious affiliations and misrepresenting his statements in the manner that has been done is creepily similar to US politics.

From The Age:

*Asked what advice he would give his three daughters on sex before marriage, he told the Weekly: ‘‘I would say to my daughters, if they were to ask me this question … it is the greatest gift you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly.’’

Mr Abbott, who thought (wrongly) that he had fathered a child with a girlfriend, said he had a chequered past and ‘‘I don’t claim to be any kind of exemplar of virtue’’. On the rare occasions he got into discussions with his daughters, aged from 20 to 16, about appropriate behaviour, ‘‘I start to get on my high horse … they say: ‘Dad, you did all of those things’ and, of course, they’re right. I did.’’*

And after the BS started, from The Australian:

*“I was trying to honestly answer a series of questions and as the parent of teenage kids I wrestle with these things, I think all parents do,” he told Radio 2GB.

“The last thing I would want to do is impose my views on the wider world. But in my position I think I’ve got to be honest and upfront about what my views are.”*

13

Abbott is a fuckwit and has no credibility whatsoever. I’d rather vote for Pauline Hanson than that bloke.

14

Abbott is really just Howard+fundie and the Liberals need to move on past that era of their political history. I can think of no one worse to lead the country than Abbott, except maybe the SA Attorney General.

15

Come on, they could dig a lot deeper. What about Bronwyn Bishop? (No relation to Julie Bishop, the deputy leader of the Liberals, who would be a definite improvement on Abbott.)

16

:eek: The man’s name is “Joe Hockey”??? Why isn’t he running for leader up here??? (Reminds me of the previous quote on how not being able to pitch a proper cricket ball proves you’re not Australian, just change that to a hockey term up here in Canada, in fact, despite all his faults (and Lord knows he has many), our PM at least wrote a book on hockey before his PM-ship (at least I’m pretty sure he did), proving his credentials to lead us. :rolleyes: (And I’m convinced the only reason Ken Dryden is a prominent Liberal MP is because he was goaltender for the Maple Leafs decades ago)

The above probably demonstrates it without my having to state it point-blank, but I’ll do it anyway: I know nothing about Australian politics. That being said, the Liberals are the ones with the fundies? Isn’t that normally reserved for the right-of-centre team? Misleading name if the Libs are indeed the one occupying that end of the spectrum. (Or are more things reversed Down Under than I thought?)

17

Yes, in Australia the Liberals are the main centre-right party, and the Labor Party is the centre-left party. The ALP (Australian Labor Party) is in government federally, in five states, and in the two territories. The Liberals form the government in Western Australia.

18

Time for Abbott and Palin to have an affair.

19

In the contries that inherited the Westminster system, the party names of “Liberal” and “Conservative” often came with it. However, those names were based on the 19th century political issues, where there was normally a consensus on capitalism as the basis for organizing the economy. Once socialism came along in the early 20th century, challenging that consensus, it wasn’t uncommon for one of the two old-line parties to disappear or drastically lose its electoral base, as voters re-aligned on the free enterprise/socialism issues. The surviving old-line party tended to be right-of-centre, regardless of its name.

Which old-line party died out was often a bit of a fluke, depending on the electoral history of the particular jurisdiction. In England, it was the Liberals that lost traction and the Conservatives who became the main right-of-centre party, but in Australia, it was the Conservatives who disappeared and the Liberals who survived. Similarly in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan - with the emergence of the CCF, it was the provincial Conservatives who disappeared and the provincial Liberals who inherited the right-of-centre position (mainly because the Conservatives had been the party in power in Saskatchewan in the early years of the Depression and had been wiped out in the next election, so the Liberals were able to attract those who opposed the CCF.)

Canada at the federal level is unusual in that both of the old-line parties survived. Reasons for that are complicated, but are in part because of the strong regionalism in Canada, coupled with the language debate - the idealogical issues between free enterpise / social democracy were only one of the big issues, not the predominant one, so there was more room for the two old-line parties to continue to hold support.

20

Fuck that. The sooner Rudd gets kicked out, the sooner the idea of the Great Firewall of Australia dies a much deserved death. What we need is a libertarian.