Australia’s refugee problem has attracted global attention. This from the New York Times.
All change as Turnbull names his team
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Well we waited, and waited, and the even after the press conference was called, we waited some more, but Malcolm Turnbull has finally announced his Shadow Ministry, offering a major shake-up that rewards supporters and concentrates expertise on what he believes will be the key issues for the remainder of the Government’s first term. (See the full Turnbull team here and here). Julie Bishop has won the battle — if it ever was a battle — for the Shadow Treasuryship, and strong Turnbull supporter Chris Pearce– returning to the shadow ministry after rejecting Brendan Nelson’s offer of a Parliamentary Secretaryship last December — will support her on financial services and superannuation, as well as Nelson/Costello supporter Tony Smith, demoted to the outer ministry. Andrew Robb moves from Foreign Affairs to a new, and awkward, portfolio of Infrastructure, COAG and ETS design (try conjuring an acronym out of those). Warren Truss picks up Trade in place of Infrastructure. In perhaps the smartest move, Turnbull has moved Nick Minchin from Defence to replace Bruce Billson, who has struggled to get any coverage, in Communications, with the goal of placing greater pressure on Stephen Conroy over the severely-delayed broadband rollout. Helen Coonan makes a return to the political frontline, becoming Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate and taking Robb’s place at Foreign Affairs. Her Human Services portfolio moves to Nigel Scullion (now there’s a peculiar choice). Michael Ronaldson remains Special Minister of State but now mimics John Faulkner by becoming Shadow Cabinet Secretary. Greg Hunt — who will be deeply unhappy about losing carriage of the ETS, has been given expanded responsibilities in relation to water and the environment, ending the previous split that had the Nats’ John Cobb saying one thing on water and Liberals saying another. Neither will Tony Abbott be too happy, having had his publicly-declared wish to move to somewhere more central than Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs ignored. Jenny Macklin will gleefully exploit that for months to come. Joe Hockey – who people may not be aware was Health spokesman rather than just prime grunter in Question Time – moves to Finance, swapping with Peter Dutton. Christopher Pyne returns to shadow Cabinet – reversing Brendan Nelson’s inexplicable rejection of him — in Education, supported by Sophie Mirabella, and Michael Keenan is the big winner, coming into shadow Cabinet to square off against Julia Gillard in Employment and Workplace Relations. At least he won’t come with too much Workchoices baggage. Bronwyn Bishop missed out altogether, as did Pat Farmer. And rightly so. The biggest problem with a major reshuffle like this is that everyone now has new jobs to learn. After nine months, Ministers and Shadow Ministers were settling into their portfolios. Now on the Coalition side they have to start all over again. |
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19 Comments
Sophie Mirabella on women and presumably child care is obviously a bizarre joke, There are many women on the Coalition side that have good records in this area but not her. to quote from her first speech
“I learnt early on how important it is to speak out against those who would take away people’s freedoms, who challenge the role of the family, and who would make people reliant on government and not on themselves.” Not a feminist note but a paen of praise for individualistic sucesses. And sh boycotted the Apology! She is ahrdliner and not appropriate in these areas
Really Malcolm, that is not a good choice!
Eva Cox
eva Cox
Spot on Hugh!!
The biggest problem with a major reshuffle like this is that everyone now has new jobs to learn. After nine months, Ministers and Shadow Ministers were settling into their portfolios. Now on the Coalition side they have to start all over again.
/quote
Fortunately for us, they are in opposition, and have a few years to learn, at least.
Re Sophie, same argument applies. Time to disqualify herself. How about suggesting a replacement, rather than rant about her appointment?
Sophie called her colleagues political terrorists when the trashed the bill to keep locking kids in concentration camps post Cornelia Rau.
Do Crikey not find this an appalling and strange choice? She is sort of Palin in drag and Palin’s approval went to 56% in a flash and dived to 35% in a bigger flash.
I loved Rudd’s response to the question about Palin being Hot - I like moose. Great answer.
venise blame us catholics for many things but not Sophie she is Greek and greek Orthodox
ps Ihead arumour that she was seen in her electorate recently can anyone confirm?
Jack, it’s not the left particularly, or the right for that matter. Bigotry is rarely politically defined. It’s just the way people get fired up on the net. You’ve got to be more outrageous than the last comment so that yours stands out.
Jack, u are referring to David Foster Wallace.
Andrew Robb was the better choice to be shadow treasurer.
Robb may well have pressured Swan into doing a Kerin.
Swan is still the weak link.
Interesting comment JamesK, I can’t say I disagree although Swan is doing better than I’d expected - I’d figured he’d have done his Kerin by now. As an ALP supporter (in the sense that I’m happy to discuss the ALP’s failings as much as its successes) I REALLY hate Robb on the basis that I see him as one of the genuinely bad guys of the Howard era (also Minchin, Abbott, the traditional loons out of WA and the more recent loons such as Mirabella). On the other hand, if I was a swinging voter, I’d be giving some serious consideration to Turnbull. He’s only a quality narrative away from the Lodge.
Isn’t it a giggle how the lefties turn to personal insult & bigotry themselves when they don’t like something.
Marilyn: Mirabella is”…sort of Palin in drag”
Lucy: Claims Mirabella is a bigot before including a bit of blasphemy against Christians !
Venise: Claims a Liberal-Catholic conspiracy to run the country (I’m sure Venise wouldn’t dream of making anti-semitic or anti-muslim comments).
Don’t know the first thing about Mirabella but find it funny that some people rush to condemn those they label bigots with a bit of their own bigotry !
Sophie Mirabella is the worst possible choice to speak for women. She is yet another Catholic piece of Howardite trash. She has f*cked everything she has ever touched. And it hasn’t taken Malcolm Turnbull any time at all to reveal his true self. Of course, being a Catholic himself, he probably had to appoint her in order to appease the Catholic overlords who control Australia’s destiny; who were doubtless dismayed to see ‘God’s little helper’ (Tony Abbott) fail to get the job he wanted. (I love watching the cock-of-the-walk publicity hungry Abbott being starved of his aspirations.
So there we have it ladies. Yet another hard right-wing Catholic running the Liberal (?) Party. Plus ca change, plus ca la meme chose.
Sophie Mirabella is a screaming Howardite, a homophobe, a bigot, a stolen generation apologist, she voted against the RU-486 bill and spoke disparagingly about the “Labor sisterhood” in the process… where do you even start with that one? Which women is she supposed to be representing? Evidently not lesbians, asylum seekers, Aboriginal women, Muslims… Jesus Christ I’m getting annoyed just thinking about it.
“Hate”……presumably for his prior to MP role as party national director……. but why? He seems both moderate and sensible to me.
It was my supposition that Minchin was kept there out of deference to his qualities as a “powerbroker”, a la Joe Tripodi in the NSW cabinet.
ev - yep, think you are spot on - although i do like the absurd & of course display my own bias every time i post !
On who worships what, read an interesting essay from John Foster Wallace - excerpt:
“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh…or some intangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.”
Thought it resonated (although he did hang himself a couple of weeks ago)…
> Andrew Robb moves from Foreign Affairs to a new, and awkward, portfolio of Infrastructure,
> COAG and ETS design (try conjuring an acronym out of those).
Council
Of
Australian
Governments,
Urban and
Land
Areas, and
Trading of
Emissions
No, let’s face it, it was obvious, and not very good anyway.
Agree with everybody on the Sophie Mirabella appointment. When are the Liberals going to learn that the loony right are political poison, and that far-right policies like Work Choices etc. etc. don’t resonate with the electorate. The best thing they can do is consign right-wing warriors like Mirabella, Minchin et al to the scrapheap of history. They treat Howard as an elder statesman of the party but they are deluded if they think that his far-right views are mainstream. Howard’s political successes are as follows: 1996 - defeated Keating due to lies, the time-for-a-change syndrome and Keating’s perceived arrogance; 1998 - Labor received more votes and Howard would have been a one term PM but for the electoral boundaries; 2001 - more lies, and fear, racism and xenophobia, fuelled by 9/11; 2004 - Labor freaks out and chooses an unelectable weirdo as leader. As soon as Labor chose a half-decent leader it was good bye Johnnie. Where in all that is a ringing endorsement of Howard’s Prime Ministership? And he left the Liberal Party without a heart, without integrity, without a succession plan, without talent. Malcolm Turnbull MUST ditch the hate-filled loony right, typified by Sophie Mirabella, and embrace the progressive centre if he wants to succeed.
Wasn’t Sophie Mirabella Sophie Panopolous, that right-wing airbag whose only contribution to the republican waste of time held at Parliament House was that the word ‘whereas’ was ‘daggy’?
Why the Libs will lose the next election, right there.
I’d forgotten to add that the revolting Ms Mirabella, member for Indi, and resident queen of Wangaratta’s society(?). Is yet another member of the groveling multitude who faints with delight at the thought of Royalty.
Malcolm Turnbull will live to regret his open embracement of everything that John Winston Howard lived for. Shame, Malcolm, shame. I hope you trip over your undershot jaw and break your neck! No, that’s too good for you. I’ll think of something worse. Pig! Betrayer of the Republic. Well, there’s one good thing, he has given me someone to hate.
Shuffling portfolios, who knows and who dosent? managing a portfolio is not only the managerial aspect. knowledge of the portfolio is critical. I believe this is were we as a nation are constantly let down. Ministers rely upon the advisers, bureacrats,are often intrenchend and in many cases just not up to speed. If you do not understand the portfolio, how do you know when there is tardiness and incopidence?
It is the bereacracy that needs a big shake up, isn’t that what Kevin Rudd promised?