Don’t mess with the Baltics. The President of Latvia once cut me off on the 427.
(Note for the perplexed: the 427 is King’s Highway No. 427, a freeway that goes past Pearson Airport in Toronto. I was on the way to work, on the bus. The bus was approaching the transition lane that would let it into the express lanes, when a police cruiser blocked the lane. We proceeded along the collector lanes. I noticed that the express lanes were empty. An accident up ahead? No. Suddenly a motorcade flashed past, heading for the airport. The cars bore maroon flags with horizontal white stripes. Equally suddenly, the motorcade was gone. The police opened the lanes and were gone. And then everything was back to normal.)
I live in NSW but didn’t know about this until now. I have been in South Korea all this year and don’t follow Australian news sites. Its certainly an interesting development.
She’s clearly made an impression among her constituents. I saw over the feed an half-hour ago that she’s trying to claim the credit for a good set of national employment figures.
Me: “Keneally’s jumped over Gillard to claim the employment figures. She must have realised she’s in for a happy time, not a long one.”
Cow-orker: “Who?”
Me: “Keneally”
C-O: “Who?”
Me: “Kristina Keneally”
C-O: <Incomprehending shrug>
Me: “The premier”
C-O: “Of where?”
That’s a different story. The feds are at the point where due to the electoral cycle they know that they have an election before the NSW government does, and the current mob of no-hopers could cost them as many as a dozen seats in NSW (and, entirely possibly, the election).
The strategy at the federal level is torn between stepping in and completely rejigging the NSW branch, instructing them to hold a vote of no-confidence in themselves and therefore to go to an early election, which they will lose disastrously, and distancing themselves as far as possible from the state party.
The word I have from friends who are staffers is that the feds’ preference is the former, but forcing the state government out will be expensive, difficult and incredibly damaging if they’re not willing to go - and at this point state Labor have nothing to lose and think that if the economy is running hard when they have to take a poll they might sneak back in.
State Labor is mistaken in this. One shudders to think how much would be left of them if their opponents were competent. I understand that they’re currently being pressured to install someone with a brain as premier, but the only ones in parliament who qualify are either centre-leftists or so horribly on the nose with the voters that they’d be unelectable as partof a popular government.
So the line that’s being taken in public is to ignore the NSW branch. Nothing to see here, folks, especially for the rest of the country. The feds don’t want themselves tarnished, so they’re trying as hard as they can not to be in the media with anyone from NSW. Did you notice how, at the COAG meeting last week, Kev and Krissy were doing a dance in every photo opportunity where she was trying to get next to him and he was always trying to keep at least one premier between them? That wasn’t an accident.
I’d also point out that the article in the SMH today by Elizabeth Farrelly has been one of a number written by a variety of journos in a number of media over the past few months that has been incredibly careful not to call KKK the extremely corrupt minister of an unbelievably corrupt Planning department.
Certainly not to call her that in any legally actionable way, anyway. The current that runs through the piece is clearly just the reader’s inference and was no way intended by a journo who would very much like to keep their home and car, thank-you.
I seriously thought that at the last election. I think they were so amazed to stay in power, they now think they can get away with anything. As much as I’ve never heard of Kristina Keneally before, I can’t even remember the current leader of the NSW Liberals. Plus, federal Liberals are so wack at the moment, it’s not helping their state counterparts.
The issue is that I don’t think there are any non-corrupt Labor ministers left in NSW. For my first Australian state election I will likely have to hold my nose and vote Lib, cause the Greens preferences swing labor.
Then, I cry in my beer.
I did see the Kev and Krissy two-step, and was amused by it.
Federal Libs are pure entertainment at this point, with Heeey Abbooott pulling figures directly out of his rectum today ($500 billion dollars for the ETS, yes indeedly do neighbor) and when called on it, simply says he doesn’t believe the modeling that’s been done.
Add to that Minchon who believes that climate change is a way for the small L liberals to de-industrialise rich nations, and Abbets who is trumpeting the return of Let’s Not Call It Work Choices, Shall We the Libs are a sideshow.
Turnbull wasn’t The One, but he wasn’t The Crazy, which is what we have with Abbot now.
OTOH, Kev and Co need to speak the hell up in the media more and point out the festering crazy, lest it take hold, US Republican style. shudder
Hold on - if that’s the way that you want to go, why not vote Green with Lib preferences?
I note that at the last election I voted for Fred Nile because he didn’t put any junk mail in my letterbox, then gave first preferences to the socialists who only gave me one piece, ending with the Greens who foisted five pieces on me and then the ALP with 87 pieces of junk mail since the previous election.
I don’t know that it’s appropriate to make fun of Tony Abbott. I used to tell Labor fans when they railed about Peter Costello, “Be grateful. If it wasn’t for him the guy standing beside Howard would be the devil incarnate.”
I think all politicians are worthless, self-serving scum but Abbott is plain creepy.
The former president of Latvia did not “grow up in Toronto” although she lived there for a while. She went to school in France and spent most of her adult life in Montreal, just a few blocks from where I live. She was a professor of psychology at the Universite de Montreal. I never actually met her, but I know a number of people who did.
What’s interesting is the complete lack of coverage this is getting in QLD. I’m surprised because the Bligh Government up here is not exactly popular at the moment (having recently decided to put even more speed cameras on the roads in an effort to [del]increase revenue[/del] improve road safety and sell off many of the Government’s enterprises to get some quick cash), so you’d think they’d be encouraging Queenslanders to take a seat in the peanut gallery and follow the situation in NSW instead of giving the QLD Government grief…
Well, we’re still busy selling things at post-crash prices, so we have a way to go to catch up. Hell - it’s taken us 20 years to catch up with Joh and Russ.
Really? I am aghast. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked! See? —>>:eek::eek::eek:
I wonder how quickly she’ll claim that she’s Obeid and Tripodi’s marionette if she’s shown to be corrupt? That no confidence vote call is getting louder.
Also - what happened in the McGurk case, because she was mentioned as being mentioned on those tapes?
Poor petal, she’s totally hopeless. Out in Cowra today telling farmers the state will pick up their water tab, cause of the drought. Pity the state didn’t notice this whole farmers struggling thing earlier, when it was less like a grab for support…