24 November 2007

after the gold rush

A few quick reflections:


  • Howard was more magnanimous than I would have expected;

  • but his voice still makes me want to break things;

  • Mrs VVB noticed that Janette was nudging and urging him all the time, whereas Therese Rein just beamed and applauded Kevin;

  • Costello looked more human than I have ever seen him;

  • Kevin Rudd needs to learn to use the second person more frequently - there is enormous power in using 'you' rather than talking in the third person abstract, particularly in relation to the "great Australian people" and even moreso in relation to your own family, for crying out loud;

  • he could also perhaps drop the frequency of the "great Australian people" line - out the back door, perhaps?

  • who promised to govern for all Australians in 1996?

  • who did in 2007?

  • will he?

  • we're still under the colonial yoke in Ryan, I must have a word with our neighbour;

  • but it's a new dawn.

Afterthought - I should have visited the Canberra Times before now. Geoff Pryor did his analysis and came up with this cracker of a cartoon. Given Mrs VVB's observations on Janette tonight, the panes on the left of the cartoon are spot on. It's only come out lately how much influence she has wielded and it's been of a particularly narrow, pernicous and socially regressive type.

Presumably Therese will simply want to screw workers' entitlements :-)

Also, this will be the last Howardia post.

I would expect.

4 comments:

Ann ODyne said...

I have been saying allover the blogs for a long time that Janette is the real Howard story.
She looked pretty damn scary during his concession speech.

Therese Rein's Zillion-dollar employment business was created out of the privatising of centrelink's employment service ... 1998? .. whose idea was that?

How the Subbies are gonna love the Rein Rudd ruddy reining-in potential of the names.

I saw Brisbane recently and had breakfast in beautiful Bulimba on a gorgeous day and toured nearby Norman Park their natural habitat.

Nothing like a change of govt as a sop to the masses to distract them from Sir Humphrey Appleby's activities (on which the election is hardly a blip).

phil said...

The old man used to work for the CES many years ago. You can imagien what he thought of the privatisation...

JahTeh said...

It's unfortunate that 'Darth' Ruddock still lives and Kevin 'Gulag' Andrews didn't get buried. The Mad Monk must have worn his knees out since his God was merciful, to him not us.
Little snot in LaTrobe I detest is hanging on by 300 votes with postals to come. They used some very dirty tricks there and ex-rodent threw money around like a drunken sailor.

Anonymous said...

I have always asserted that JHW would never hand over to Costello – he would always find a way not to do so. What I didn’t realise is that he would prefer to destroy the party rather than do so.



And now Costello has taken his football home. Good!



It’s interesting – hearing JHW’s puke-making departure speech last night, and in particular his double chunder praise of Costello, you realise that either –

He knew about Costello’s plan to opt out, in which case he was very disingenuous… or
He did not know, in which I cant help but wonder about the close communication within the leadership team… hmm…


Who now for Lib leader, do you think? Downer? No! Ruddock? No! Nelson? Maybe but I hope not… Turnbull? Just maybe… He’d be my choice…

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