Comments on: Is Rudd’s honeymoon over?

By: shepherdmarilyn

shepherdmarilyn — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:46:26 +0000

Patrick do you think so? With weeks of hysterically whinging about a few refugees?

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:38:03 +0000

i must be cynical to think that a “news ltd”poll could be biased against the labor government.

shame on rupert for making me think that way….

By: shepherdmarilyn

shepherdmarilyn — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:31:23 +0000

Rudd doesn’t seem to have a China connection though does he? There are 1.4 billion people in China and I would hazard a guess almost none of them have ever heard his name.

And he is not proposing to pay China to lock up Afghan and Iraqis refugees for us is he?

Actually if he did it would at least have the cover of legality under the refuee convention.

By: RaymondChurch

RaymondChurch — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:45:16 +0000

So Marilyn what does that say about the Rudd China connection?

By: Venise Alstergren

Venise Alstergren — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:22:08 +0000

SHEPHERDMARILYN: Two things here. 1) I was coming from Poss’s alter ego in a different section of Crikey, where the ambience is a tad more relaxed. I made a mistake, saw Possum’s remark, thought I was elsewhere, and it turned out to be here. If you look at the remark again you’ll see I was being a lot more relaxed than in my normal comments.
2) I don’t have an issue with the refugees. They want a better life, if they can get it of course they’ll come here. I know that’s exactly what I would do in their position. And to suggest Indonesia-for a price-would look after them is sheer insanity.

RAYMONDCHURCH: Good one; my feelings exactly!

Cheers

By: shepherdmarilyn

shepherdmarilyn — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:09:23 +0000

And Venice, here is a reality check. This year so far 584 Afghans have come here by boat, all of them have refugee visas.

At the same time 834 Chinese flew here to seek asylum, they were not locked up, they could work and so on.

Only 116 of them are refugees. So we support the people we know are frauds and demonise the ones we know are genuine and waste $1700 per day to lock them up illegally.

By: RaymondChurch

RaymondChurch — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:48:58 +0000

It is obvious, Christian church going PM Rudd has difficulty with the truth. This is not personal to him of course, most pollies regard the odd dabble in lies as part of the territory. However Rudd makes a great issue of his religious connection and so much so he does door stops on Sundays after attending church. Admirable to show the electorate he is a God fearing man(?), but when it comes to being loose with the truth Kevin seems to be able to seperate Church from State as it suits. His sudden no knowledge of the goings on with the Oceanic Viking and last night his lack of anything about the sinking boat in the Timor sea, is just too damn stupid. It may be he treats the Opposition as a bunch of idiotic imbociles who can be dealt any hand Rudd sees fit to suit his particular purposes. However, as he has found out this morning, the electorate at large is not as stupid. I mentioned in one of Crikeys blogs when the ‘Indonesian Solution’ was first mooted, the PM was treading on dangerous ground and the Australian public would be quick to send the Govt a message if it appeared they were playing political games.
I have a feeling it is not that the voters wish to return to the bad days of Howard and Ruddock and cronies but they want definite action, not the sloppy carryings on of the past 3 weeks. Plus surely, the best way to antagonise Australians is to dish out millions of dollars to an acknowledged corrupt regime, namely Indonesia, for what??? That country has an appalling human rights record but somehow Rudd sees wisdom in paying a large amount of money with no sure result.

This poll may be the wake up call the PM and his Ministers need to bring them back to reality. Already there are rumblings from the back bench and the union bosses, the PM ignores them at his peril. He has seen what has happened to the Opposition and while such a rebellion is hardly likely in Labor ranks, at this stage, the will to survive sometimes outweighs loyalty to the boss.

By: shepherdmarilyn

shepherdmarilyn — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:10:35 +0000

Do you know what Venice, the obsession with less than 2,000 people arriving in 9 months is deranged.

Indonesia has millions of poverty stricken people, they do not protect refugees and Rudd’s team stuffed up when they tried to insist that refugees could be jailed in Indonesia when it is now clear what happened.

The Sri Lankans were herded by the AFP and Indonesian police to apply to the UNHCR which Australia is paying for. They were told they would be looked after but were jailed instead for 5 years, they escaped and tried to get to Australia. Most of them have refugee cards so we cannot jail them anywhere again, ever.

Except we have jailed 50 registered refugees on Xmas Island as we speak.

All this talk of “processing” is bullshit and always was. It takes 20 minutes to determine a prima facie case of the need of protection, the rest is designed to find ways to deny people their human rights.

By: CHRISTOPHER DUNNE

CHRISTOPHER DUNNE — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:05:50 +0000

St Kevin would have to be on TV kicking Jasper around the Lodge whilst wearing his kinky leathers, bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand and swearing like a…well, Wilson Tuckey perhaps.

Then, maybe, perhaps, we’d see this ‘collapse’ across three polls.

It smells fishy to say the least, but of course the media are having a feeding frenzy, and need something else to talk about all day besides a boringly stupid horse race. (Even with the full intention of talking about nothing else so utterly asinine, they still do need a ‘filler’).

I was waiting for someone to point out the bleeding obvious, but once again, it’s left to you Possum.

By: Venise Alstergren

Venise Alstergren — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:54:29 +0000

All the same Possum-although why it should suddenly manifest itself the way your figures delineate, is beyond me-perhaps there are people out there, who are suddenly fed up with a Prime Minister whose energies are devoted to looking cool.

The latest attempt to coerce the Indonesians into taking the refugees- is not such a gripe for me, everyone loves refugees-as long as they don’t have to live next to them-and no matter what he does he’ll get crucified anyway.

But it’s one broken promise after another, one stuff up after another. Especially on environmental issues. Kevin Rudd has become addicted to leaning on his arm in Parliament and pontificating. But he doesn’t bloody do anything to help the issues. Especially on environment, unless making a hash of it counts as doing something.

Loved your crack about an outbreak of sobriety at Flemington.