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Last updated on August 8th, 2017 at 05:09 pm
Kim Beazley and Kevin Rudd duke it out for ALP leadership:
Walking into a meeting of the national executive in Canberra today, Mr Beazley announced Mr Rudd, foreign affairs spokesman, had approached him earlier to ask Mr Beazley to hold a leadership ballot.
“Kevin Rudd approached me this morning and said that he indicated that he wanted a ballot in regard to my position” Mr Beazley said.
Mr Beazley will call for a spill of all party leadership positions at a special caucus meeting on Monday.
“I will contest it (the ballot),” Mr Beazley said.
“I have the experience to be the alternative prime minister of this nation and therefore to be the prime minister of this nation.
“I have done the hard yards in politics.”
Kevin Rudd has not yet made a public statement.
For such small mercies we are deeply grateful. More on this colossal war of the supertitans from Malcolm Farr.
UPDATE. A letter in today’s SMH: “Kim Beazley will really miss the yellow Mr Squiggle.”
UPDATE II. Beazley told to quit politics if he loses.
UPDATE III. Iemma supports Kim; Beattie likes li’l Kevin.
UPDATE IV. The dream team emerges from hiding.
- You do sort of get the feeling that Peter Costello will have his time in the Lodge and then some.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 11 30 at 08:55 PM • permalink
- The colossal war of the supertitans? I hardly know who Beasley is (nice to see he finally got away from thathorrid family). Kevin Rudd? No idea who he is. Hells bells, if it wasn’t for Tim Blair, I wouldn’t even know who John Howard is. It would be very deserving if the Australian government paid Tim a monthly stipend for informing the world about Australia.Posted by wronwright on 2006 11 30 at 08:56 PM • permalink
- First Milne v Milne and now Beazley v Rudd!
It’s been a terrific couple of days.
Like at the Walkley Awards I predict the triumph of the little guy over the big guy.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2006 11 30 at 08:57 PM • permalink
- Of course, I meant Milne vs Mayne!Posted by Jack Lacton on 2006 11 30 at 08:58 PM • permalink
- It’s like watching an argument between a trekkie and star wars fan about which is more realistic. Amusing to watch but ultimately the outcome is irrelevant, especially when one is talking in Wookiee the other Klingonese or whatever it is.
However in the interests of the contest I pick the Rudder over the Bomber.
Kim Beazley and Kevin Rudd duke it out for ALP leadership:
It was the slap heard round the world!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 11 30 at 09:18 PM • permalink
- Rudd (slaps Beazley in the face with his glove): Sah, I demand satisfaction!
Beazley: Yes, The 18 piece bucket is too small.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 11 30 at 09:24 PM • permalink
- Bomber simply needs to do what any big brother does to a noisy, little brother.
Sit on his head and fart.
I reckon that Big Kim could ferment a particularly odorous gaseous manifestation of his culinary diversity that would need more than wee Kevie’s pixie dust to subdue.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2006 11 30 at 09:29 PM • permalink
- Big kim reckons he will beat Kevin Costner hands down for the leadership, he has even set his alarm clock so he doesn’t forget to show up.Posted by surfmaster on 2006 11 30 at 09:48 PM • permalink
- Ballot, shmallot
Surely the only civilised way to sort this out is with a fight.
I would back Beazley over Rudd, but Gillard would make quick work of Macklin, and soon be all over Beazley like a bad case of hives.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 11 30 at 09:50 PM • permalink
- #15 Martin Prince! I knew i recognised that stuffed shirt bastard!Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 11 30 at 09:54 PM • permalink
- #11 – What was the unfortunate mix? 0.25 blood alcohol, 2 panadeine forte’s, 6 vicodin, 3 viagra and half a g of meth?Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 11 30 at 10:00 PM • permalink
- Kevvy is only running because he no longer wants to be on a Rudderless ship in the sea of politics.Posted by surfmaster on 2006 11 30 at 10:09 PM • permalink
- Kevin beats Kim for leadership of the ALP.
After a honeymoon period, where the press laud Kev as “Labor’s great white hope” the public don’t vote for him. Kevin gets tired of the endless dealings and demands of the Labor party factions and resigns to write a book or two.I always watch my favorite movies twice.
- Julie Gillard will be standing for deputy leader. Good news. She is a raving hard-lefty – Mark Latham writ large but prettier and smoother. A spinster – not that there’s anything wrong with that.Posted by walterplinge on 2006 11 30 at 10:43 PM • permalink
- Am I the only one who is finding it hard to take the Wiggles seriously now that Greg has gone?Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 11 30 at 10:54 PM • permalink
- #3: I’m with wronwright. As Butch Cassidy said to the Sundance Kid, “Who are those guys?” Don’t know anything at all about Rudd, and I have some vague recollection of Beazley breaking the CountryTime Buffet on All-You-Can-Eat night, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge on the subject. And what kind of lingo is this? Beazley “calls for a spill”; “I’ve done the hard yards”. Oh, good lord! This isn’t one of those cricket stories, is it?
- paco
“doing the hard yards” is a sporting term that comes from Rugby League. It refers to a forward who runs into the middle of the opposition pack and still makes ground despite 6 near neanderthals attempting to tear him limb from limb.In American football terms it would be the equivalent of a running back who makes yards between the tackles on third and short.
- OT But there is a lesson for all of us here.
If you are going to lie about crowd numbers one year, it is a mistake to do it again next year
in a situation where everyone can count ‘em.Also, nice work from sheilvoyant Wally Sear who observed
“I’m sure they can get 100,000 people to the MCG – the IR laws are very unpopular, and the only way Howard can sell them to the public they’re going to screw over is with tens of millions of dollars of misleading and expensive taxpayer-funded advertising.”
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 11 30 at 11:54 PM • permalink
- MM – The Lancet estimates that 17,355,000 people attended the MCG yesterday and that Bradman remained 416n.o at stumps.Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 11 30 at 11:59 PM • permalink
- Paco – a spill is a reference to a vote, but every position is up for grabs. It is like if the Republicans decided to, in the middle of next year, have in party votes for every position, including the committies, from leadership of the House and Senate all the way down. Where the term originated from probably involves some pepper, a monkey, scotch tape and a leaky Russian sub or something.Posted by Stuart Lord on 2006 12 01 at 12:12 AM • permalink
- Re #34
BTW Nearly all references to crowd number estimates for the November 15 2005 IR protest rallies appear to have been expunged from the ACTU website, although Mr Google tells us that they once existed.
Here’s betting that the next protests will not be at the MCG and that crowd estimates will show a rapid (300-400%)increase(‘cos no-one can count ‘em).
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 12 01 at 12:14 AM • permalink
- You and your impeccable standards, Dan Lewis, man of letters. I had a real zinger about Beazley and pork barrelling.Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 12 01 at 12:24 AM • permalink
- There is better than fat jokes?
Speaking of eyebrows, this is what a real Australian PM looks like.
Eye brows are a feature of longevity in Australian PMs (think Hawke/Howard). Beazley looks to me like a potential two-termer, but Kevin Rudd has got nothing going on.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 12 01 at 12:33 AM • permalink
- This is WAAAY OT but has to be shared.
check out yellow pages. In business type, put in “oriental food” and enter “wa” for the location. Then hit search.
Happy eating!
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 12 01 at 12:50 AM • permalink
- Interesting. Stupid of the Labor Party to even consider doing this, but … interesting nonetheless.
I would have thought that the ALP would have preferred to dump or keep Kim following the Federal election, depending on the result, but obviously not. Some chaps are feeling raucus in the caucus …
I reckon the Rudder might make a good ALP leader and potential PM – definitely better than Kim – but this is just stupid.
- Well for the poor old labor hacks, i guess its a case of a toss up between bad and worse… Either way they are probably looking forward to another 3 years of overpaid irrelevance and impotence…
While Rudd is hardly ideal leadership material, its not particuarly difficult to make the leadership pair of Rudd/Gillard look more appealing than the current shambles which really just consists of lame old Bomber, and that washed up, has been Macklin…
I mean describing her as a talentless non-entity is a put down to card carrying members of that group… If you ever wanted an indictment of what factional politics and dabbling with gender quota’s tends to puke up from time to time, she would be it…
So as I see it, its the damaged-goods Bomber against two rabidly ambitious mediocrities, who will no doubt turn on each other after the next election loss with the second untempting option probably “triumphing”… But then again, these are actually just the sort of low lifes that the Kingstons, Ramsays and Adams of the world deserve to have representing them!!!!
- #46 – That’s why the yellow pages on-line is and always has been total crap. I pay $600 a year for a bold entry + website (bold is expensive – as well all know) and it doesn’t pay for itself.
I blame Sensis – the Mapsource mapping in my Garmin isn’t a whole lot better.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 12 01 at 02:31 AM • permalink
- #43, Margo’s maid, On that basis one has to concede that Gillard would be a better PM than lil’ Kevin…Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2006 12 01 at 02:54 AM • permalink
- I know sweet F.A. about Gillard except she’s a single childless strong-lefty. I’m not attacking her personal choices, but purely from a PR perspective, I expect she will have difficulty convincing ‘Bob and Betty from Blacktown’ to identify with her lifestyle and believe that she ‘understands them’ and can represent their issues.
It’s a cold, hard political reality but people warm to people who seem ‘similar’.
As for Kevin Rudd, his style comes across as a bit too upper-class toff-ish, but I’ll give the fella credit where credit is due – way back in February when the “Mohammed cartoons” controversy broke, he was straight off the blocks within a day with an absolute unequivocal defense of free speech and condemnation of the violent protests/demands that I didn’t see matched by any other ALPer, nor many in the Government, media, anywhere else…
I like Howard more – but Kev will always have a bit of respect from me for that one day alone.
- An unrelated issue.. I just saw this link on Andrew Bolts blog..
The Lancets study has bee well and truly BITCHSLAPPED
Posted by curious george on 2006 12 01 at 03:16 AM • permalink
- Kevin Rudd, well spoken, good diction etc. Julia ‘Kath and Kim’ Gillard as his running mate. What a competition for the ears. It makes no difference anyway. They will stay in opposition, while they pander to niche and fad causes, disaffected moonbats, radical greens, and whinging ethnic minorities. So, whatever the outcome, the leader will have to ‘toe’ the comrades line or else.
- I want to know what the hell is going to happen to the ALP if Beazley wins! Will Condescending Kev get his marching orders or will Beazley lack the ticker to kick him out?
Whatever happens, bloody hilarious!Posted by curious george on 2006 12 01 at 03:31 AM • permalink
- Margos:
Eye brows are a feature of longevity in Australian PMs (think Hawke/Howard).Think Menzies!!
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 12 01 at 03:39 AM • permalink
- Curious George:
I want to know what the hell is going to happen to the ALP if Beazley wins! Will Condescending Kev get his marching orders or will Beazley lack the ticker to kick him out?
OTOH – will Beazley serve under Rudd, if asked? He wasn’t asked when Latham beat him, only to be drafted back just before the election to give the front bench an ounce of credibility.
Neither Pixie Rudd nor Julia Gruesome have any experience as Ministers. Imagine that lot getting the levers of power.
“Hey, Julia, now that I’m PM, did you know if I want, I can oder a Pizza and some-one else will pay for it? Woo-hoo!”
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 12 01 at 03:52 AM • permalink
- Go Kevvy. All the coalition will need for election advertising is one of Kevvy’s Sunday doorstops. 15 minutes of uncut pedantry will get the endorsement of Exit Australia and for those who stay the course, without having their large intestines leaping out of their throats to strangle them to stop the pain, pathological aversion. Sitting through one of his lectures is like catching some sort of dull virus.
- Is this the first ever Karl Rove induced leadership challenge in OZ politics?Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 12 01 at 04:33 AM • permalink
- The SWAT Womble in command of Australia’s Defence? Fucking spare me. The man is an imbecile in regards to how to project Australian national interest. The professional diplomat in him would hand over the north of Australia to placate Indonesia, to get along, as it were.
As for standing and saluting the potential Queens representative, blow it out your ass. I’d prefer Beazley and Ferguson. At least you know when they are stabbing you in the back.
- Rudd is a strange one
His personal background suggests he would be more at home at leader of Family First rather than the ALP
Gillard – well she’s just a marriage wrecking slut. Wrecked Rob Hulls marriage at a state level and then moved federal and wrecked Emersons – international level wreckage next!
- Beazley I can’t stand to listen to. I used to quite like him but now I have no reason to believe he believes what he’s saying. The attempt to make him behave like a ‘leader’ has turned him into a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Gillard I can’t stand to listen to chiefly because of the way she speaks and because I keep wondering what the way she speaks might mean. Wouldn’t you think that a few years of university would at least have sufficed to take the edge off the bogan? Or maybe bogan is who she thinks she represents and she’s trying to maintain lowest common denominator parity with them, which would be worse.
Rudd I can’t stand to look at or listen to because of his prissy, purse-mouthedness. His talk about Christianity sounds more like post-modernist social work theory to me.
Couldn’t stand to look at or listen to Crean because of his pointy little teeth, his squinty little eyes and his air of entitlement. (“My turn to be the leader! My turn to be the leader! I was ACTU president, like Hawkey. So it’s my turn to be the leader!”)
Couldn’t stand to look at or listen to Latham because of his general foul-mouthed, boofheaded, thuggish stupidity.
But I’m very, very glad that Martin Ferguson isn’t trying for the top ALP job. Having to listen to him and look at his face on a regular basis is something too awful to contemplate.
And having said all that what I really would like to know is how Stuart Lord enjoyed his date.
- Interesting coincidence: Kevin and Julia are challenging Kim and Jenny.
Whichever side wins, it’s going to remain the K&J Show.
K and J – Knee-capped and Jumped-on.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 12 01 at 06:28 AM • permalink
- Gillard’s light grey plain suits are a short step away from the Dr No/Dr Evil evil dictator suits. She wears it well.Posted by boxofmatches on 2006 12 01 at 06:36 AM • permalink
- I recall reading a puff piece in a newspaper about Kevin Rudd where passing reference was made – possibly from Latham’s bio – of Rudd having some “mysterious gaps in his cv”.
My guess is this implies he spent some time unemployed – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
No doubt Rudd’s background is not as colourful as Latham’s but I have yet to see a journalistic piece that has made a serious attempt to investigate it.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 12 01 at 06:40 AM • permalink
- Rudd’s nick when he was DG of Premiers in Qld was Dr Death.Posted by boxofmatches on 2006 12 01 at 06:52 AM • permalink
- #74 – Gillard I can’t stand to listen to chiefly because of the way she speaks…Or maybe bogan is who she thinks she represents and she’s trying to maintain lowest common denominator…
It’s been done before – think Bob Hawke. Impeccable middle-class antecedents, university education – Oxford, even! All the same he affected a bogan accent and syntax so he could be at one with the horny-handed sons of toil that support the ALP. It worked brilliantly. He would never have been PM if he’d had spoken Cultivated Australian.
I recall reading George Bush does it too – a big difference between how he speaks in the Oval Office and in public. The article suggested he says ‘noo-cloo-ar’ (or whatever) just to wind up the press corps. They fall for it every time.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 12 01 at 06:52 AM • permalink
- If Krudd wins, how will he handle this?
Reason with them?
ABC (US) News
Washington, Nov. 30, 2006 — U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.
This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.
U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.
Evidence is mounting, too, that the most powerful militia in Iraq, Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, is receiving training support from the Iranian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah.
Or will he ( along with other quagmire admirers) continue to spout the line that everyone should pull out because the insurgents are winning. A bit of further reading puts a very different light on the Iraq quandary.
Sunnis finished!
- KRudd is an arselicker according to Latham
Remember these quotes –
“Kevin Rudd, or ‘Heavy Kevvie’ is owned “lock stock and barrel” by the United States. Never listen to Rudd on foreign policy, he wears a stars and stripes jockstrap to bed.”
“Rudd is a terrible piece of work, addicted to the media and leaking. He is the King of the Caveats, who never writes anything for himself or comes out with detailed policies, a junior minister at best, I would have made him Minister for the Pacific Islands.”
“On the day his mother died, I had a meeting with him and even though he was crying, he kept on lobbying to be shadow treasurer.”
- #80, I remember when he was copping a lot of flack from the Left about his pronounciation of nuclear, he gave a Press Conference where he clearly said “nu-cu-lar”, paused and then winked. It was beautiful.Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 12 01 at 07:24 AM • permalink
- Bumped into Gillard at Port hedland detention centre.
She was there with a bunch of other Government and opposition types for an inspection.
Word got out in the compound that they were there at the family block area. The polies had to be evacuated and the compund erupted into its usual riot.
Gillard was at the control room where I was busy getting the CERT gear unlocked.
Ill say this about the lady, she can swear!! I dont think the resis helped their cause much with her anyway, she was spitting chips and not liking being ignored as we tried to calm the riot down.
The end result of the visit was thousands of dollars damage, a man with a broken neck (He landed on me falling out of a tree) and 24 hours of shitfights.
Id love to see her put under a bit of pressure, she didnt handle it very well that day.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 12 01 at 08:04 AM • permalink
- #77
I recall reading a puff piece in a newspaper about Kevin Rudd where passing reference was made – possibly from Latham’s bio – of Rudd having some “mysterious gaps in his cv”.
My guess is this implies he spent some time unemployed – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
It could also mean he was doing work of highly classified nature, which would come in handy given his current portfolio.
High-level clearance is something Beazley and Rudd have, but not Latham. Latham may have just been jealous (or too stupid to identify something most Canberrans might assume).
This is just my theory of course.
- Doesn’t the ALP know that Aussies would never vote for a short, nerdy looking bloke in big glasses….. Well, er.Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2006 12 01 at 08:25 AM • permalink
- #91 Yes but since we’re talking about the ALP, it’s more like the scene in Blazing Saddles when the nancy boy Top Hat dancers starting fighting with the cowboys. “Hey, they’re beating poor Barry. Come on girls, let’s get ‘em!”Posted by wronwright on 2006 12 01 at 09:33 AM • permalink
- Kevin Rudd in Parliamentary debate.Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 12 02 at 04:32 AM • permalink
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If Rudd had left Beazley to lose the 2007 election, he would have been a natural replacement and had plenty of time to establish himself prior to the 2010 election. And he would have had the party more or less united behind him (out of necessity, but unity is unity). I can only assume that he’s impatient with waiting or he believes he will win the ballot and the 2007 election.
Also, since this all began with Beazley making his Karl Rove error, does that mean the Dark Lord is giving us a hand now?