"They learned nothing and forgot nothing"

[pim]

The thread title is a quote that traditionally has been attributed to a French guy called Talleyrand about the old French Royal Family who were said to have learned nothing from the events leading up to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, but forgot nothing when they were restored to power and put all their old cronies back in their former positions and tried to pretend that the Revolution and Napoleon had never happened.

I guess we'll see, after September and beyond - especially beyond - whether the above quote will also apply to the Australian Labor Party.

And before the Liberal-luvvies on the board become too cocky and puffed up with schadenfreude, their turn will come! Peter Costello's replacement in the seat of Higgins is a perfect example off what I mean: Kelly O'Dwyer. Capable lady from what I hear. But her beackground? She's a former staffer in Peter Costello's office. And that's my point, isn't it.

Petro Georgiou, the former member for Kooyong? Replaced by another young top gun Joshua Frydenburg. His background is that he'd been a staffer in the offices of Daryl Williams, Alexander Downer and John Howard. Don't get me wrong here! I think he's a bright bloke! But another staffer?

Then there's the guy who's taken over Alex Downer's old seat of Mayo in the Adelaide Hills - Jamie Briggs. Again, a bright bloke! There's nothing personal in any of this! But what's his background? You guessed it: he was a staffer in the office of John Howard.

Sounds like the gene pool that they're drawing from on both sides is getting smaller and smaller.

Are both parties becoming like the Bourbons, except that the ALP is reaching crisis point first?

Oh and btw just when we accept that the Bourbons are the poster pin-ups that represent all political entities that have reached an advanced stage of sclerosis and decline, the Bourbons are still going strong. They were restored as a monarchy a generation ago. But not in France. They are now the Spanish Royal Family.

Doing quite well, so I hear!!

[Deleted]

So its meet the new boss same as the ol' boss scenario....no surprises there ...what I find amusing is the Liberals Abbott, Hockey et al..are out spruiking what a great job Hawke and Keating had done...now that is a surprising turn of events.

[pim]

Amusing? I guess it is in a melancholy way. I'm not surprised, Spindrift, that Abbott and Hockey are contrasting Hawke/Keating with Rudd/Gillard. What's more, I think they're right to do so. It's been a fundamental position of mine for a long time that there will be no "moving forward" for Labor until they reclaim the legacy of Hawke/Keating and that the current malaise dates back to the aftermath of the 1996 wipeout when Beazley Labor curled itself up in a ball, wanted nothing to do with Hawke/Keating - especially on the economy - and vacated the field which Howard/Costello promptly took over and they claimed the Hawke/Keating legacy as their own. And Beazley Labor let them do it. The Libs have dominated the economic debate ever since and Labor hasn't been able to lay a glove on them - even in government. It's part of what what I've always argued is down to the political incompetence of both the Rudd and Gillard Governments which had its genesis in a much earlier period.

But it gets worse, Spindrift: for the past two years Tony Abbott has also been quoting Ben Chifley at Labor. Now that hurts! Ben Chifley! There is no greater Labor icon than Ben "Light on the Hill" Chifley.

But it's deserved! It serves modern Labor right.

[Deleted]

Well it is either laugh or cry.... choosing to laugh is better.

While many a Labor voter feels disenfranchised, and hence why the Libs are trying to snare their vote with past Labor glory days rhetoric, it is that most of these people, such as myself, still want Labor to win...and thats what Abbotts team is up against.

And albeit likely but never know your luck...Abbott wins in a landslide majority, all his pre-election promises such as on Super, Work Choices etc etc will be off the table, a whole new ball game..Hawke, Keating, Chifely..it will be who..??..wot's that to do with our reforms and agenda..what ever that maybe.

[geopol]

I certainly hope for a Labour victory The Liberals will be an unmitigated social and probably political and economic disaster, something that I find puzzling that most of the rest of the punters are too blind to see...Is there any consolation in feeling though that many, many who vote Liberal will end up jobless or is that just too cynical and probably even nastily uncharitable?

[pim]

Superb article, Earl Grey. And not before time! I've been posting for some time now that the media is the great sleeper issue of these elections.

[Deleted]

As paper sales decrease so up goes the hype and beat up's to sell papers.

So when Abbott is the new boss....will the media focus be on his government, or is it a righto we have done our job, we can now sit back and let things run their course., run with the Pope and Royalty gossip news to sell papers...no doubt the papers will find something to beat up on.

[geopol]

Thank you for posting that Earl. The journalists, even the commentators on the ABC seem to be acing as urgers rather than presenting us with objective representations of what is happening in the political world. I find it shows itself in the level of language so many of them use: slipshod, thoughtless aggressive and too often emotive. Maybe this is because of a paucity of vocabulary or because they are unaware of the discreet differences of meanings that differentiate words whose meanings are quite close, but whatever it is, it should be unacceptable, whether it sells papers or not.

[Deleted]

Opinions expressed in the media like Gay Alcorn are sadly lacking in these times, albeit she has changed her spots somewhat from previous opinions when she was a employee of Fairfax, and has been part of the msm (main stream media) that is more interested in feeding the media beast 24/7 than spending the time in writing good journalism.

While there are very good journalist who are writing very informative news, in business and markets, environment, etc.. in political journalism it is lacking the narative of selling the message of what is good or bad policy, and simply blame the government for not selling the message, when indeed it is a function of their job, too inform people.

Murdoch press for example its all Abbott (a former News Journo employee himself)--- him good and Gillard bad,..and nothing in between. Hence why Abbott can reel in the press journo's hook line and sinker, as no journalist is expressing good or bad policy, as with what would happen when the carbon tax is withdrawn...considering it was big industry such as Shell and BP who thought such at tax as the best way for Australia to do something about climate change, with afffirmative direction that betters and leads the worlds competitors who do not know what to impliment and where to spend in infrastucture, as there is no governmnet direction, as in the US.

So what happens with industry when Abbott repeals the carbon tax, and the mining tax that distrubutes more fairly the share of resource profits that belong to all Australian's, where's the narrative ..??

Labor has produced excellent policies, and when recently 11 bills passed in parliament nothing from the press gallery, except beat up a leadership challenge when there wasn't a challenge.

The msm has the (as I heard him described as) DLP like Abbott odds on too win, and all they have to do is say nothing, not even pronounce their policies for scrutiny ....just Abbott good...Labor baaaad...what a farce it is.

[garfield]

The media by and large just reflect the thoughts of the public, when gillard was the the first PM with a vagina we were all in awe and went along for the ride, things were peachy for a while there until cracks started to appear, all of a sudden the great experiment of having a PM with a vagina began to unravel.
We realised that even having a PM with a vagina doesn't automatically mean we are shielded from fuckwit politics and in rolled the boat people scammer invasion of cashed up middle eastern "refugees" to retire on centrelink.
The fact that gillards main priority in life was to ensure that bogus reffos from the ME were given first class treatment over Australian citizens virtually signed her death warrant.
You can't really blame gillard though, as a person of the left it is their number one priority in life to fuck up their own community, the left are born hard wired this way, its just nature doing its dirty work.
Be thankfull that there is still a great aussie spirit of getting rid of dead wood like gillard and her fuckwit supporters and restoring sanity to our great country otherwise we'd end up like Greece in no time.

[caskur]

Hey, you journalists out there in TV newsland...

can you shut your pieholes and also stop writing page fillers on our boring inept government and go find real jobs...

tyia.