Anna Bligh seem to be struggling to hold back the huge smile she reserves for her own point scoring sorties within the parliament on junior opposition members who are never give right of return of fire by the speaker, when she delivered that first press conference announcing that she would be in control of the flood and that she would assemble a team to deal with it and that she would have a press conference every two hours to keep people informed, she was almost shaking with glee at the thought of free publicity of her being in control of Queensland and getting a big one up in opinion polls by over estimating almost every detail of the catastrophic flood surge in the Brisbane and Bremmer River systems and then being the political hero when it fails to reach the expected levels and the public are relieved enough to forget how badly they have been treated by her and her government for over a decade.
Bligh and her entourage of head nodding stooges stand there every two hours giving their press release and re iterating the last two hours of already televised news, the head nodding being a vital part of the delivery and even comrade number 1 the Prime Minister has head nodded behind her to emphasise that she is fixing the problem and indeed is in control of the Flood and must therefore be re-elected.
Bligh even has lame duck NSW Premier the "septic Tank" Kristina Kenealy up in a chopper trying to score some political points with the electorate in that state in a copybook rerun about how if the floods come further into NSW she, like Bligh, will control the issue and save the people.
Yes I'm skeptical of Bligh's motives with good reason too, when the initial flooding in Queensland started to get quite severe particularly in northern Queensland (where her vote base is slim) where was she? Well she was away with her family to see the fireworks on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, to be fair she did a rocket trip back to show some face but she was very much unconcerned by the plight of all the national party voters across the country areas of Queensland in my opinion.
Until the destruction in Toowoomba and the subsequent "wall of water", which appears to have come from severe under maintenance around the dam up there and breaching of diversion banks which kept water from the town centre, came over the hill and flowed down the two main water courses with volumes in multiples of the capacity of those water courses destroying homes, businesses and lives and heading toward the heartland of Labor voting South East Queensland which presented a unique opportunity for unprecedented publicity , personal heroism and votes.
While the facts are devastating for everyone who has copped some damage or personal loss and even more for those who have perished and their families, the Bligh bandwagon and the TV news coverage rolls on submersing us in unprecedented Bligh mania, even cutting off mid sentence other guests because she has begun to speak, the horror of what has happened, what efforts are being put into action and how ordinary Australians are working to help one another pales into insignificance when Bligh begins to parrot the news, . . .again.
Unfortunately we are in for more tomorrow as the news coverage of this one in a hundred year event (which last happened only 36 years ago) is now part of Bligh and Labor's political campaign machine.
Will this get us another term of asset sales, mismanaged budgets and continue the game of infrastructure catch up while developers plunder our green spaces? why yes, yes it will, unless the questions that need to be asked are , and only accepting the real answers and not spin from the media happens, then we'll be in real trouble.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Hypocracy, corruption, lies, no it's just a big political donation
Bob Brown , as ever with a glib line and appearing as gormless as any politician back pedaling from the reality of questions being asked about what just could be Australia's largest ever political donation, is trying to have us believe that what he has professed as being the ruination of political independence to the major parties is not the same for the Greens.
The creator of Wotif.com, Graeme Wood who has previously stated that he would like to see more action on climate change, has donated to the greens before the August elections a sum of $1.6 million which was most likely used in advertising that quite possible was one of the main factors in the Greens' getting the vote they did, despite the huge swings against the two majors which the Greens are almost totally discounting believing instead that they are now a major party.
So why is Bob Brown putting up such weak argument and defending his position so much if in reality the Greens have clean hands?
Bob Brown has in my opinion fallen for the exact same gambit as every other party, the need for money to advertise has outweighed the need to stay independent, to stay true to the political ideals and to remain free of political debt, he has accepted the money while for years damning every other political donation as effectively "payment for service" in that those donating money in larger amounts require some return on that "investment"
Bob Brown is going to struggle to shake of the title of worlds biggest Hypocrite just as much as he is struggling to explain the acceptance of such a huge sum from someone who has such an obvious agenda.
The donation was almost large enough in corporate terms that Graeme Wood could be considered a Naming rights sponsor, in other words the Greens would become the "Graeme Wood Greens"
I don't expect to see the Greens getting anywhere near the vote they got in the last Federal election in the near future, especially with the unwanted publicity of some of the policies they themselves did not advertise, like re introducing death duties and raising the GST, but this one off donation has raised their profile in a manner which raises more than just a few eyebrows regarding Brown's own credibility especially now that he has a real live MP elected and the only things they seem to be doing is pursuing personal agenda's like Bob's own inability to accept civil union as a confirmation of his own relationship and wanting to change the marriage act to force those who don't perform marriage on same sex couples to have to do so.
Bob Brown is about as relevant as Kevin Rudd these days anyway, he's ready to retire with his pocket full of entitlements which he claimed he was against, and as a mere senator when his party now has a member in the lower house who should be leader anyway, (bob has always taken the easy road via the senate and whinged about not being taken seriously)
If money dictates policy, then the greens are now a fully bought bitch, there is no way they can shrug off the stench of Hypocrisy now they have accepted the countries single biggest political donation, Bob Brown must resign in shame.
.
The creator of Wotif.com, Graeme Wood who has previously stated that he would like to see more action on climate change, has donated to the greens before the August elections a sum of $1.6 million which was most likely used in advertising that quite possible was one of the main factors in the Greens' getting the vote they did, despite the huge swings against the two majors which the Greens are almost totally discounting believing instead that they are now a major party.
So why is Bob Brown putting up such weak argument and defending his position so much if in reality the Greens have clean hands?
Bob Brown has in my opinion fallen for the exact same gambit as every other party, the need for money to advertise has outweighed the need to stay independent, to stay true to the political ideals and to remain free of political debt, he has accepted the money while for years damning every other political donation as effectively "payment for service" in that those donating money in larger amounts require some return on that "investment"
Bob Brown is going to struggle to shake of the title of worlds biggest Hypocrite just as much as he is struggling to explain the acceptance of such a huge sum from someone who has such an obvious agenda.
The donation was almost large enough in corporate terms that Graeme Wood could be considered a Naming rights sponsor, in other words the Greens would become the "Graeme Wood Greens"
I don't expect to see the Greens getting anywhere near the vote they got in the last Federal election in the near future, especially with the unwanted publicity of some of the policies they themselves did not advertise, like re introducing death duties and raising the GST, but this one off donation has raised their profile in a manner which raises more than just a few eyebrows regarding Brown's own credibility especially now that he has a real live MP elected and the only things they seem to be doing is pursuing personal agenda's like Bob's own inability to accept civil union as a confirmation of his own relationship and wanting to change the marriage act to force those who don't perform marriage on same sex couples to have to do so.
Bob Brown is about as relevant as Kevin Rudd these days anyway, he's ready to retire with his pocket full of entitlements which he claimed he was against, and as a mere senator when his party now has a member in the lower house who should be leader anyway, (bob has always taken the easy road via the senate and whinged about not being taken seriously)
If money dictates policy, then the greens are now a fully bought bitch, there is no way they can shrug off the stench of Hypocrisy now they have accepted the countries single biggest political donation, Bob Brown must resign in shame.
.
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