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Last updated on August 5th, 2017 at 08:13 am
Anne Summers in the SMH:
The last Australian political leader who invited the opposition to help handle a national crisis was John Curtin, who persuaded Robert Menzies to join his wartime cabinet.
What the hell?
(Via Hal G.P. Colebatch)
From Wiki on Sir Robert Menzies:
In September 1939, with Britain’s declaration of war against Nazi Germany, Menzies found himself a wartime Prime Minister. He did his best to rally the country, but the bitter memories of the disillusionment which followed the First World War made this difficult, and the fact that Menzies had not served in that war and that as Attorney General and Deputy Prime Minister, Menzies had made an official visit to Germany in 1938 and had expressed his admiration for the regime undermined his credibility. At the 1940 election, the UAP was nearly defeated, and Menzies’ government survived only thanks to the support of two independent MPs. The Australian Labor Party, under John Curtin, refused Menzies’s offer to form a war coalition.
I think she’s cocked it up somewhat.
Sir Robert Menzies, 12th Prime Minister of Australia. Wiki.
John Curtin 14th Prime Minister of Australia. Wiki.
(History isn’t my strong suite…)
Kae – history may not be your strongest area but google usually beat it. I would be willing to back your research over hers.
Please take the afternoon off – you must be exhausted.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 24 at 10:57 PM • permalink
It sounds great in theory, you know, forgetting partisan differences in a time of crisis. The problem is that for that to happen, both parties have to be agreed about the nature of the crisis and how to resolve it.
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 24 at 10:59 PM • permalink
- Others more learned will comment on the Menzies issue, but Anne is certainly wrong when she says, of the Joe McDonald funniest workplace video:
Anyone who has watched the video in full can see the exchange was more humorous than threatening and could hardly be construed as violent, certainly not within the norms of the building industry.
Bullshit. It shows the kind of thuggish verbal intimidation which Anne (and Media Watch) wouldn’t hesitate to characterize as ‘hate speech’ in any other context. The only humour I detected was of the unintentional kind, when McDonald, who has a massive beergut, tells one of the employers to ‘Shut up, fatman!’
“Better the Union’s Lackey than Howard’s Bitch-Boy”.M/s Summers is surely becoming even more twisted and bitter in her dotage than one might have thought possible.Lazy,fat Kim for all his defects doesn’t deserve to be described as anyone’s “bitch-boy”.On the other hand Kevii shows all the form and talent necessary to qualify as both the “union’s lackey” and Howard’s bitch-boy” combined.
Did I forget to mention that Joe McDonald’s beergut is so huge it has its own postcode? Hell, it even has its own event horizon. It warps the orbits of the inner planets and draws comets off their courses. Still, hearing Joe’s lilting Scots burr made me nostalgic for the 70s and 80s, especially in Victoria, when every bloody-minded gobshite union thug had either a Scots, Northern Irish, or Northern English accent.
One thing to admire about Summers is that as the Chair of Greenpeace for six years, and with a regular newspaper column, I don’t recall her ever making a statement about the environment. At least she didn’t pretend to care.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 24 at 11:13 PM • permalink
wedge politics: forcing your opponent to choose between the extremists in their midst and credibility in the electorate. Hence they are “wedged” between unelectability or internal bickering (which leads to unelectability).
tricky/clever: this translates as “we don’t understand why Howard is so popular. He must be using some evil kind of magical trickery to keep on winning.”
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 24 at 11:14 PM • permalink
On PMs past, Sky News had that Quisling Malcolm Fraser attacking everything about Howard’s indigenous crisis plan. If you were to believe him, Aborigines had no serious problems until John Howard was elected PM and certainly while Fraser himself was PM, it an absolute paradise for Aboriginal Australia.
Fraser has moved from the man who told Australians that “life wasn’t meant to be easy” to someone way out on the left fringe with the Greens and the Democrats trying to make it easy for illegal immigrants, child rapists and terrorists.
Fraser had three career highlights:
1. He deposed Gough Whitlam
2. He installed Robert Mugabe as the despotic ruler of Zimbabwe
3. He turned up in the reception of a US hotel without his trousers.The last one might seem cruel but it marked a turning point in Australian politics. He was the first ex-PM to become an embarrassment to the nation. Sadly, it has now become the norm for ex-PMs to be pathetic sideshows on the fringe of politics, as evidenced by Hawke and Keating
The old man loved them. After one Union speech laced with language and threats Dad stuck a sawn of shotie in the pricks face and the Union bloke went a bit weak at the knees…One other day some young combet looking upstart made a few threats about beatings so the old man grabed him and hung him over an open lift well 10 storys up,the bloke started to cry so the old man dragged him back in….Never any problems on Dads sites.
Kevin had little trouble fitting in with cabinets strict “bitch-boy” dress code.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 06 24 at 11:33 PM • permalink
But, er, what’s a “sawn of shotie”?
“Sawn-off shotgun” – a shotgun with the barrel removed for ease of concealment.
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 06 24 at 11:38 PM • permalink
Thissy here tells us that Menzies was part of the Advisory War Council – not the cabinet.
The link suggests – as you would hope – that there was significant bipartisanship during wartime. However the point Summers is trying to make passeth all understanding.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 24 at 11:46 PM • permalink
That “sawn-off” in the wikipedia pic.is actually only a semi-sawn-off.One needs to remove most of the stock leaving only the grip to qualify as a proper “sawn-off”.Of course one needs to exercise caution when firing the device as the recoil is impressive.Fortunately one usually only needs to display the weapon to achieve the desired result.Firing it is rarely necessary.Oh.there we are talking about guns again.I do hope Professor Fuckwit is paying attention.
- Yesterday morning, Rudd put on a crackerjack performance with Laurie Oakes on the Sunday television program. He leapfrogged over the Prime Minister with announcements that addressed some of the deficiencies of the indigenous children’s rescue package: lack of political consultation and lack of police resources. Rudd would recruit 500 extra federal police and create a national war cabinet to oversee the national emergency on indigenous child sexual abuse.
Now does that sound like “Oh, goody, goody! He’s back in the game”, or what?
Leapfrogging = running to the head of the parade.
Lack of political consultation = scooped!
500 extra police = my initative is bigger than yours (but wait for the complaints about more indigenes in jail)
And I guess it’s obvious why the North American usage of “sawed off” shotgun isn’t used in Australia.
BTW, would anyone like to chip in to buy Anne a Politicians of Australia Chronological Organiser®? PACO® helps you put Aussie politicos in their place. Only US$29.99 in better stores everywhere.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 06 25 at 12:08 AM • permalink
- This is the traditional sawn off shottie favoured by bank robbers and standover men.
A purist might prefer the version with exposed hammers.
Dammit, here we are talking about guns again. The Prof will be, well, vindicated.Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 06 25 at 12:10 AM • permalink
But by the end of last week Rudd had lost his aura of invincibility.
Aura? Dang! Is that what that thing was?
Would this qualify as a “Sod Off!” Shottie ?
But by the end of last week Rudd had lost his aura of invincibility.
He immediately blamed his staff for losing it. It was found later in the week exactly where Kevin had left it.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 06 25 at 12:23 AM • permalink
- And the good news from that article ?
Can’t you just smell the fear from the lackeys ?Already excuses are being manufactured as they see the peak of the popularity curve steadily becoming a memory …There is almost an element of recrimination before the event…
You have to give them credit for planning ..- usually the divisions and blame attribution comes after the election .
I prefer this Anne Summers, especially if she’s using and wearing products from tyhis Anne Summers to the Hatchet-faced Herald Harpy (and I would poke knitting needles into my medulla before I imagined her dresseed and utilising her namesakes goodies).
Must’ve been a real hoot in the tea room at the SMH with Annie, Adele and Margo in full cackle- no wonder Terry Lane had a Macbeth Moment.
Everything that Anne Summers writes on Menzies/Curtin is the precise opposite of reality.
Obviously from the Simon Crean school of history – say something often enough, and maybe people will begin to believe you.
1) Curtin did not extend an offer to Menzies to join his war cabinet; Menzies extended the offer to Curtin
2) Curtin declined the invitation.
Is anyone surprised that a climate change activist is making up stories to support their position?
I welcome union bashing from the KRudder, and perhaps some more distance from the ACTU. When the ALP unshackles itself from that shambling, industrial relic, the country will be better off, regardless of who wins the elections.
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 25 at 12:56 AM • permalink
Curtin was never really the same following daylight savings.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 25 at 01:03 AM • permalink
Hey Tim, question- Can you write a post for us non-Ozarian Yanks and Canuks about the coming election? Like one of those capsule things which give the flavor of the thing: for instance, what is it with your Labour/Democrat/Centre-Left party?
Why does Labour keep electing -and tell me if I’m wrong here- keep electing crazy people? I mean, am I wrong that, you know, these people are sorta off their rockers to greater or lesser degrees?
And why are so MANY nutters; why is the Australian Labour Party so unable to put up those solid, technocratic Gordon Brown/Klaus Ernst/Billary stodgy Labour-type candidates that almost all other labour parties in the West manage to put up? Was there some kind of personality test for unstable personalities given to Labour candidates and they accidentally switched the answer key?
Anyway, aside from the crazies I was wondering how this election was shaping up.
Posted by mencken_cynic on 2007 06 25 at 01:37 AM • permalink
#39 – Not quite. It is the consensus of both sides that Kevin Rudd is a smarmy twerp who masturbates to his own press clippings.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 06 25 at 01:39 AM • permalink
Mencken_cynic, I secodn your suggestion.
But our ALP heroes are not all nutjobs – there’s er, Geoff Gallop, and er, Alan Carpenter, and er, whatshisname in Queensland and um, in Victoria, yeah, Bracksie, thats him!
Basically, since John Howard got in every state governement has gone to Labor.
I just wish we RWDBs pining for our grandfather’s shotguns could claim the ‘credit’… but I think it is an Australian preference to play off a Liberal national government (tax and leadership) against Labor states (Spending and caring…)
#41 Drippings on his clippings, eh?
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 06 25 at 01:51 AM • permalink
Why does Labour keep electing -and tell me if I’m wrong here- keep electing crazy people?
I might do a longer piece later, but in a nutshell comparing the Australian parlimentary system to the USA system (Canada and the UK are heavily influenced by regional issues largely absent from Australia).
In Australia the party gets all the scrutiny, which in practice means its policies and ministers. Individual MPs get almost no scrutiny, and the foibles of an individual has minimal impact.
There are no primaries and candidates are selected by backroom wheeling and dealing. So to get selected, is a matter of getting the fixers and string pullers in your pocket.
Who the candidate is, has almost no impact on the vote. To quote an Ulster expression, ‘A donkey could get elected as long as it was the right shade of orange.’.
And if this sounds corrupt and mafia-like, it’s because it is.
Consensus is also effectively achieved when the question of a Politicians pay rise comes up,as it did about a week ago.The major parties invariably find unanimity.The hypocrites (Greens and Democrats) pretend to be offended by the prospect of the rise,knowing that they’re quite safe in so doing and of course never remember that they could donate the extra pay,that they would have everyone believe they find abhorrent,to a genuine charity.
Hmmmm … I seem to recall that when Howard, after Port Arthur, suggested stealing back private property for no reason, destroying it (sometimes in front of its owners), spending all up a billion dollars of OUR money, denigrating and demonising Australian citizens because they owned firearms and proposing the so-called “national” firearms legislation—Big Kim rushed to his side, proclaiming “bipartisan support”—and apart from one or two gutsy independents, not one other politician got off his/her belly to say jackshit about it …
Rudd would recruit 500 extra federal police and create a national war cabinet to oversee the national emergency on indigenous child sexual abuse.
Don’t tell the left who are busily crying about an ‘authoritarian’ approach. Good to see that Rudd has an alternate plan. / sarcasm.
By the way, Howard’s sure to win now, lefty Kim is voting Greens. Whoda thought it?
#40, mencken, the way the labor party works is this, in my own neck of the woods: set up a nepostic dynasty, with a seat handed down from father to son, brother to brother, father to daughter. all incompetent.
Then the ALP machine moves in, sacks the incumbent if there’s a voter margin of more than 10%. Install an ACTU heavyweight or a TV personality.
Trash the incumbent via nasty gossip.
During our recent floods the Melbourne-based Greg Combet, so freshly parachuted into the seat of Charlton, didn’t make an appearance in the Hunter. It wasn’t on his radar. And he will be the inevitable next star labor frontbencher. Hopefully on the opposition bench.
During our recent floods the Melbourne-based Greg Combet, so freshly parachuted into the seat of Charlton, didn’t make an appearance in the Hunter. It wasn’t on his radar. And he will be the inevitable next star labor frontbencher. Hopefully on the opposition bench.
Should have told him there was an opportunity to raise taxes he would have been there in a flash.
Posted by surfmaster on 2007 06 25 at 03:40 AM • permalink
Summers may have been thinking of Billy Hughes. An old man at the time, and a former Prime Minister from World War I days, Hughes became opposition leader (United Australia Party) when Labor won in 1941 and Menzies was dumped. Hughes became a member, at Curtin’s invitation, of Labor’s “War Advisory Council”.
When Menzies inveigled his way back into the party leadership in 1943, he pulled out of the War Advisory Council. Hughes tried to stay on, but was expelled from the party for ‘fraternising with the enemy’, so to speak (i.e. Labor).
A hammerless sawn-off shottie? What is this, fashion week?
Posted by Crusader-Rabbit on 2007 06 25 at 04:02 AM • permalink
#57 – She’s very pro abortion. So much so that she’s designed her blog to look like one.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 06 25 at 04:10 AM • permalink
chest deep in waders? You were breeding waders?
Posted by Crusader-Rabbit on 2007 06 25 at 04:35 AM • permalink
#65 “Humans can’t have sex when they’ve got the bloody things strapped on.” What? Haven’t you heard of crotchless waders.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 06 25 at 04:56 AM • permalink
- Oh. I see now. I thought waders were, you know those long-legged birds..
never mind. I get it. The waders can’t breed inside wellington boots.
Obvious, really. I need another scotch though.Posted by Crusader-Rabbit on 2007 06 25 at 04:58 AM • permalink
- 67, that’s an ugly, ugly pic to send a man to.
Those knobbly knees….Posted by Crusader-Rabbit on 2007 06 25 at 05:00 AM • permalink
#62 – mareeS – it is good to think he will at least do a token visit before he claims victory in the seat.
What a pompous prat, sorry, pompous head kicking union pratt.
Posted by surfmaster on 2007 06 25 at 05:02 AM • permalink
#71, surfmaster, nah, what a fuckwit, actually. At least I don’t have to vote in Combet’s electorate (my sister does, so she is disenfranchised). I only have Sharon Gruesome to contend with, sad little ex-schoolteacher person that she is.
But she means well.
Even if she is ALP.
I’ll still be voting her at the bottom of the ticket, though.
Gordon Brown is not noted for mental stability amongst those who watch politics a bit more closely.
After the local elections he went into hiding for over a week in a depressive episode!
Also rumoured to be a Friend of Dorothy.
He “me too-ed” when he should have questioned the lack of consultation with political and indigenous leaders
Summers was the woman that wrote ‘Damned Whores and God’s Police’ in the 70’s where she claimed women in Australia’s past were colonised by imposed sexual slavery by their men and as unofficial British policy. Now that she is presented with actual real horrendous contemporary sexual slavery, she wants to quibble? What a dog’s breakfast the feminist movement has become.
#77, well, yes. Just so long as she doesn’t have those wader knees. Definitely.
Posted by Crusader-Rabbit on 2007 06 25 at 05:25 AM • permalink
#85, just let me finish googling “wader knees botox” and I’ll hop right to it.
Posted by Crusader-Rabbit on 2007 06 25 at 05:31 AM • permalink
As long as the rumour is not about rudd and gillard being an item – I don’t want to lose my dinner on the carpet.
Posted by surfmaster on 2007 06 25 at 05:52 AM • permalink
The fact that union leaders pour tens of millions of dollars into the ALP and then gain preselection en-masse ought to be a scandal every election…
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 25 at 06:33 AM • permalink
#21 Grimmy, as a rule I loathe pornography, but your sort with lots of blowing-up thingies works for me.
Keep em coming.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 06 25 at 08:23 AM • permalink
Wait, you’re saying there’s still an advanced nepo culture waiting in the wings of a completely first rate civilization and economy; and one that is Anglo-derived as well? I don’t get it.
And ok, forget the nepotism, run along to that 10 point margin thing: is it really so short sighted? It seems so…random.
Posted by mencken_cynic on 2007 06 25 at 04:42 PM • permalink
Oh I get the reasoning, it’s just so bloody unwise in such an obvious sense; you can’t see by glance it makes for self-promotion in such close quarters. It’s just such an obviously bad idea out of tune with Anglo parliamentarianism and for being a Loyal Opposition in general.
Posted by mencken_cynic on 2007 06 25 at 07:51 PM • permalink
I confess that I’m somewhat baffled by the context of Ms. Summer’s statement. Is she suggesting that Howard should invite Rudd in out of the rain, or is she suggesting that Rudd is being magnanimous in letting Howard have a say-so in the running of his own government?