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THOUSAND MINUS THREE
GetUp! and go, GetUp! and go, GetUp! and go back home ...
• Two judges get out of Kevin Rudd’s summit;
• Andrew Denton gets out of Kevin Rudd’s summit (as reported by the Sunday Telegraph - no link available);
• But the gleeps at GetUp! are staying in:
Only 1000 people will be deliberating Australia’s future at next week’s 2020 Summit - but that’s not to say your voice won’t be heard. Incredibly, 118 of the chosen delegates are GetUp members, including our Executive Director Brett Solomon ...
That’s from an email to GetUp! cult followers. They’re more circumspect about their summit influence at GetUp!’s site:
1000 leading Australians are heading to Canberra to debate and shape a long-term strategy for Australia’s future in ten key areas ... a bunch of the official delegates to 2020 are also GetUp members ...
Only a bunch? Why so shy? GetUp! should be proud of its power ... especially Lachlan Harris, recently graduated from lowly GetUp! spokesboy to official Prime Ministerial sorryist. Meanwhile, fearless GetUp! truthcheckers report that the Rudd government hasn’t broken a single promise.
Via Alan R.M. Jones and Frollicking Mole. Tony Kevin suggests a few candidates who might fill the Denton/judges void:
Here are some of the names not on the list for the ‘foreign affairs and security’ committee -commentators and writers Bruce Haigh, Peter Mares, Dick Woolcott, Allan Behm, Nic Stuart, activists Helen Caldicott, Sue Wareham, Margo Kingston, controversial persons Andrew Wilkie, Lance Collins, Richard Butler and yours truly, academics Owen Harries, Coral Bell, Alison Broinowski, Stuart Harris, Tony Milner, Desmond Ball. Of course some of these - myself included - may not have applied. And most of my names here are over 55s. I wish the summit well.
Mate, it’ll need more than wishes.
A “non-binding charter of rights?” WTF? Does that mean I don’t have to exercise them, or the state doesn’t have to grant them to me, I wonder, I wonder…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 04 13 at 03:16 PM • permalink#3 & #4: Well, picture a non-binding U.S. constitution: “We the people of the United states, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do
ordain and establishstrongly suggest and highly recommend this constitution for the United States of America.Only 1000 people will be
deliberatingdebilitating Australia’s future at next week’s 2020 Summit...There. Fixed that for you.
Posted by andycanuck on 2008 04 13 at 07:54 PM • permalinkFrom Bolt’s site (an account of a regional pre-summit, whatever...):
Camfu Pham, a local businesswoman, presented on Infrastructure and the digital economy… I am not convinced that we are witnessing a panglossian electronic future in which robots will do the housework… She had a very impressive demonstration, showing the possibilities of technology. She put a pill in glass, waited as one would for an asprin, and it produced a towel ...Get the pill-to-towel lady to Canberra.
#9 I agree.
#11 cataracts also defined as down-dashing.
Does the old GG get a mention before he goes off to the knacker?
#20 Labor has many fronts. Australia Institute ex-Evatt Institute. Most news now is a newsfront. That title would make a good movie maybe directed by Phillip Noyce starring Bill Hunter.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 04 13 at 09:25 PM • permalinkIsn’t the question of whether GetUp! is independent of the Labor Party a little like asking whether Brian Harradine was independent of the Catholic Church, or John Pilger from the Socialist Alliance? They claim to be separate, yet strangely, they always come to the same conclusions…
I’d always thought that the Australia Institute seemed closer to the mindset of certain Greens. Maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s a Green front or a Labor front, anyway - both groups lean left, and hence are ideological enemies to the Liberals.
Lefties love focus groups and ‘community’ gatherings, and the faux sense of togetherness that they bring, so they’ll always be more attracted to form groups like GetUp! But the righties have got to get in on this area if they want to stay competitive, and not give in to the left’s soft authoritarianism. And these groups can’t be just a stooge for the Liberals or the Nationals or the churches, either - I’m thinking things like philanthropic institutions, charities, or just activists who recognise that sometimes the greatest good for the greatest amount of people can be achieved not through the clumsy efforts of governments, but as a result of the generosity and the interest and activities of regular members of the community.
#23 Most of these philanthropic institutions have already been hi-jacked.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 04 13 at 10:04 PM • permalinkI know, Stackja - partly I guess it’s an outcome of these institutions accepting part of their funding from Government. (They can’t be too critical of a big taxing style of government if half of their money comes from it.) Maybe this trend can be turned around - heck, we *have* to turn it around if we value our freedom!
Quentin Bryce, Australia’s new Governor General (with effect September this year), has announced that her project as GG is to close the health and wellbeing gap between indigenous and other Australians.
How’s she going to do that? I thought the job was purely ceremonial.
Sorry, no link, but it’s been announced on ABC news.
#28
Been waiting for summit like that ...
Let’s hope she produces some corroborating metrics before she leaves office.Eva Cox from the Wymmin’s Electoral Lobby today said that putting a woman in the job will aid slection based on merit in the future - tokenism does that? ... beyond parody, yet again.
Wymmin should also alternate the chair with transgenders, merit ‘n all, Eva?
Eva for the next GG (Gargoyle Goyle)?That Tony Kevin - he just gets better and better! Sounds now like he is recruiting for ‘Psychos are Us’! The thought of Kevin, Haigh, Wilkie, Collins and Kingston deciding the future of our national security is enough to scare the shit out of me.
Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2008 04 14 at 03:59 AM • permalinkEva Cox from the Wymmin’s Electoral Lobby today said that putting a woman in the job will aid slection based on merit in the future - tokenism does that? ... beyond parody, yet again.
Good point Egg! Though I kinda don’t have too much of a problem with this. The GG is a symbolic position anyway; all the GG has to do is turn up to events and sign pieces of paper. The decisions are left to elected politicians.
For me, it’s further evidence that the Rudd Government is good at symbolism. It’s proven this repeatedly (what with the ‘sorry’ speech and the ‘Indigenous opening to parliament’). What it hasn’t proven - and what will be much more difficult for it to prove - is that it is good at practical achievements.
Quentin Bryce, Australia’s new Governor General (with effect September this year), has announced that her project as GG is to close the health and wellbeing gap between indigenous and other Australians.
How’s she going to do that? I thought the job was purely ceremonial.Rudd at work. He said he was going to do it. Now when the gap doesn’t close he can blame Bryce. Same logic as 2020. Don’t blame Rudd, blame the 997 people who came up with this shit.
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The summit is a complete farce. I’m surprised Kevin hasn’t noticed that most Australians are fully aware of what a joke it is and cancelled it.