I was recently told of this and yes thank you it's great. :)

Abbott declared his knifing of Turnbull was on principle. He declared Turnbull was not consultative enough before announcing policies. Abbott since can be accused to doing likewise on a number of issues, so his principled stand undermined.

I'm not suggesting there will be coups in our region because of likely political instability in our federal parliament. What I am saying is that if the parliament becomes unnecessarily combative, it could mean our attention on what is going on in the region could diminish allowing for anti-democratic elements to solidify their respective positions. It's not like this stuff happens over night.

I'm also very acutely aware that our system of parliament is combative. It is robust and you do need a thick hide. I thoroughly enjoy it watching how different sessions roll out and I enjoy watching Question Time. However there is a difference between outrightly opposing everything and actually working on finding negotiated outcomes for big ticket issues.

At the moment the Opposition is outrightly opposing everything without offering an alternative vision. It's the lack of policy substance on both sides that particularly offensive but the Liberals are deliberately and unnecessarily using obstructionist tactics. I don't think this will play out in their favour over the long run.

And this is why I think Abbott's approach is not leadership.

He's been exposed that he harbours core and non-core policies. What he doesn't say is just as loud because those could indeed by the core policies. However, lets be honest the only thing he's been consistent on has been re-introducing individual contracts and unfair dismissal laws.

Hi Alex,

Great point about setting up different Analytics accounts instead of profiles. I came across this problem a while ago and because of very similar reasons to yourself; but never thought to blog about it.

Nice one.

Cheers
Alex

It is more than appropriate for the Tasmanian Greens to reject the offer which would essentially pit the Greens against the Greens in a tricky and sneaky move by Bartlett. The Tasmanian Greens seem to be doing exactly what they should be doing in this kind of situation. They haven't dismissed the pledge to not put or support no confidence motions. The reported offer sounded too unworkable for any political party to accept.

Although I maintain that a rosy relationship between the Labor and Liberal parties will eventuate.

Matt, I couldn't agree more with your assessment of Rudd. And yes it is quite easy to tell what side of the political fence I sit on. While the Prime Minister has been a let down and so far hasn't delivered on many of Labor's policy commitments, Abbott continues to make policy on the run. There has been inconsistent announcements, one week he's banging on about Labor's big fat tax and a couple of weeks later Abbott's proposing his own big fat tax. He is also making policies which he hasn't put past his own party room, something he claimed was a big problem for Turnbull.

I remain convinced of my position that Abbott is doing nothing more than shooting from the hip and hoping something sticks instead of doing the hard work of developing coherent policies.

For me seeing the flag used to mean that someone was overly zealous about proving they were Australian or they had some love of the country. It is quite annoying that much of what the day seems to mean has turned into a hillbilly festival. The plethora of false platitudes and rhetoric about the day is definitely another aspect that makes me cringe.

It would be nice if the day could be used to remind ourselves of the history of the country rather than the "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie - Oi, Oi, Oi" swill we get these days.

The Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) has been very quick to announce the date for the by-election forced by the resignation of Lynne Kosky. Details from VEC are:

"A by-election will be held for Altona District on Saturday, 13 February 2010. To be eligible to vote you must be on the electoral roll by 8.00pm on Monday, 25 January 2010."

You can find an outline about Altona District here

Thanks for those links Richard but reading the ABC's item quite clearly states in the second paragraph:

"Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material."

Only further down does it state that if people don't want uncensored Internet then those people have to opt out. This is a very big difference. It is mandatory unless you specifically opt out meaning you would have had to actively seek to opt out and know when the filter is turned on to have done so.

Kate Lundy spends her post debating semantics while reconciling ALP policy with Conroy's filter scheme. While it's excellent she's prepared to blog about it she maintains the party line.

Abbott appears to be up to his (and his former master's) old tricks of playing wedge politics. This is a very sensitive issue, which Abbott knows about and is not as simple as he is trying to portray in the media. He is trying to avoid having any serious discussion about the Coalition's policies because he knows they don't have what it takes to win the next election.