Friday, December 28, 2007

Cabinet staying closed for Christmas, by Paul Maley - The Australian - 28th December 2007

WHILE Kevin Rudd rolled his sleeves up and got stuck into work yesterday - around an official function at the Test cricket - some of his cabinet were still enjoying a Christmas break.

Many ministers appeared to have ignored his pre-Christmas edict - perhaps said tongue in cheek - that his team was only allowed Christmas Day and Boxing Day off.

A ring-around by The Australian yesterday revealed only four cabinet members had offices staffed and operating: Attorney-General Robert McClelland, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Communication Minister Stephen Conroy.

In fairness, several MPs said they were working from home and several more spent at least part of the day responding to enquiries, including cabinet secretary John Faulkner and Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon.

Wayne Swan's adviser said the Treasurer would be flying back to Brisbane from Canberra yesterday and would divide his time between his family and the office.

Spokespeople for Immigration Minister Chris Evans and Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the MPs would be working from home. Ms Roxon planned to spend some time in her electorate office yesterday. "She's in Melbourne today working on the election surgery package," her spokesman said.

Senator Wong's office said the minister was only performing "minimal duties" and would spend the day "catching up on briefings and those sorts of things", both from home and her Adelaide office. Mr Garrett was on hand to deal with urgent matters, his office said.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard was on leave, with Senator Wong standing in as Acting Workplace Relations Minister.

Mr Rudd certainly followed through on his comments about having limited time off.

On Boxing Day, he slipped quietly from The Lodge and served breakfast to the homeless at a local Canberra charity.

Mr Rudd's clandestine mission of kindness was conducted under conditions of strict secrecy.

Media Man Australia Profiles

Politics

Kevin Rudd

Social and Community Entrepreneurs

Friday, November 30, 2007

Seven women, new faces in Rudd team, by Phillip Coorey - The Sydney Morning Herald - 30th November 2007

KEVIN RUDD has made good on his promise to ignore Labor's factions by unveiling a ministry of his own choosing, with six new faces and a record seven women.

And the Prime Minister-elect put his whole team on notice he would be a hard taskmaster, saying there would be two cabinet meetings next month, and their only summer holiday would be Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Mr Rudd and his wife, Therese Rein, went to the Lodge yesterday afternoon to meet the vanquished John Howard and his wife Janette for a tour of what will soon be their home.

Mr Howard will drive to Government House today to formally tender his resignation as prime minister.

The new Labor front bench, to be sworn in on Monday morning, includes 20 cabinet ministers, 10 junior ministers and 12 parliamentary secretaries.

The star Labor recruits Maxine McKew, Greg Combet, Gary Gray, Mike Kelly and Bill Shorten were all made parliamentary secretaries, an indication Mr Rudd views them as future ministerial material.

"Everyone, including yours truly, is on notice in terms of performance," he said.

After receiving a hero's welcome, Mr Rudd told the caucus "we have an enormous burden of responsibility lying ahead of us".

He urged MPs to look at the pictures on the wall of past Labor leaders and think of the challenges they had faced, including war and the Depression, when contemplating their own tasks. "We have struggled in the fields, we have fought the good fight, and we have prevailed," he said.

Among the big changes yesterday was the massive workload given to the deputy leader, Julia Gillard, of workplace relations and education, two of Labor's busiest policy areas.

"It's a big job but for a very talented individual, and if I did not have that confidence then I wouldn't have done it," Mr Rudd said.

Stephen Smith was promoted from education to foreign affairs while Robert McClelland, the former foreign affairs spokesman, was appointed attorney-general.

Wayne Swan and Lindsay Tanner were confirmed as treasurer and finance minister respectively while Peter Garrett kept the environment portfolio, but was partially sidelined by being confined to a domestic role.

The South Australian senator Penny Wong was given the new cabinet position of climate change and water. She will be Australia's chief negotiator on ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and in discussions for a global greenhouse gas reduction target to succeed the Kyoto agreement.


Senator Wong will also be responsible for implementing Labor's state goal of a 20 per cent mandatory renewable energy target by 2020.

Senator Wong, Mr Garrett and Mr Swan will all accompany Mr Rudd to the United Nations climate change summit in Bali in two weeks.

Simon Crean and John Faulkner are the only appointments with previous federal ministerial experience. Mr Rudd said the factional allegiances of his front bench "were not even faintly relevant" to his decision making.

"I spent a lot of time myself working on this in the last few days and I bounced a few ideas off various people, including Julia as my deputy, and including some of the wise old owls in the establishment," he said.

The factions were left to squabble over the minor positions. Harry Jenkins will become speaker of the House of Representatives and John Hogg the Senate president.

Kerry O'Brien, one of the six dumped from the front bench, will become Senate whip, and Roger Price will be House whip.

The six dumped from the former front bench were senators O'Brien, Kate Lundy and Jan McLucas and MPs Bob McMullan, Laurie Ferguson and Arch Bevis.

They were replaced by Senator Faulkner, Kate Ellis, Brendan O'Connor, Warren Snowdon, Justine Elliot and the former NSW state minister Bob Debus. Mr Debus is the only new MP to be elevated to the ministry. He was given the junior ministerial portfolio of home affairs.

Mr Rudd has shelved plans for a department of homeland security. He announced a review next year in which the various federal agencies to be affected by such a proposal could make submissions.

"I do not want, with a new government being sworn in, for our security agencies to be confronted with a new ministry of arrangement," he said.

Websites

The Sydney Morning Herald - Federal Election

Media Man Australia Profiles

Politics

Thursday, November 29, 2007

There's a whole lot of shaking up going on, by Dylan Welch - The Sydney Morning Herald - 29th November 2007

Today marks perhaps the pinnacle in the remarkable change in both character and duties of what are now two of Australia's most prominent politicians.

First, former Midnight Oils frontman, wacky dancer and activist Peter Garrett.

Second, the three-times married, one-time earring-wearing, guitar-strumming, Labor-voting bikie and medico Brendan Nelson.

But after today's announcements - Garrett to become Australia's Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, and Nelson now the leader of the Liberal Party - have either any wild man left?

Perhaps a comparison might serve to illuminate. First some of the lyrics from "Blue Sky Mine", written by Garrett:

"The candy store paupers lie to the share holders / They're crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers / The balance sheet is breaking up the sky".

And then today's rather less impulsive lyrical achievement:

"I am excited and humbled by the opportunity given to me by Kevin, and honoured to be part of the new Labor Cabinet, as Minister for Environment, Heritage and Arts," Garrett wrote in a statement today after Kevin Rudd announced his new cabinet.

"I am very proud of the comprehensive set of policies and proposed actions we put to the people of Australia in the election campaign, and I am very pleased and proud to be involved in implementing them," he continues, unaware that most of Australia had already tuned out and chucked on a scratched old copy of "Redneck Wonderland" on the stereo.

Then the former Labor-loving, now Liberal-leading Nelson, who once actually wore a diamond earring, something even the most bling-obsessed US rapper is loath to do.

He is also known to fill the halls of Parliamment late at night with his guitar renditions of songs from bands such as The Animals and Slim Dusty.

The man who once declared he had never voted Liberal in his life, joined the Australian Labor Party in 1988 and ran a medical practice with the brother of one-time Labor leader Simon Crean, defected to the Liberal Party in 1994 and has since risen through the ranks.

Though even in late 1994 Nelson showed signs of wavering, when he was quoted as saying: "I would feel equally comfortable as a moderate Liberal as I would in the Labor Right".

He was also once referred to by arch-conservative former Treasury secretary John Stone as a "political hermaphrodite".

Yet as of this afternoon the chameleon-like history of Nelson will almost certainly settle as he assumes the mantle of overlord of the largest conservative party in Australia.

No more diamond earrings, one can assume.

Media Man Australia Profiles

Politics

Peter Garrett

The Environment

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Libs turn on Howard, by Phillip Coorey, Chief Political Correspondent - The Sydney Morning Herald - 27th November 2007

If you needed any convincing as to the shape the Liberal Party is now in, read and consider this article, containing powerful quotes, from Phillip Coorey.

SENIOR Liberals including the leadership contenders Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott say the party should dump Work Choices, the policy that cost them so dearly under John Howard's reign.

Frustrations with Mr Howard for staying too long as leader boiled over yesterday, as former senior ministers Alexander Downer and Nick Minchin revealed they had asked him to stand aside as prime minister.

Mr Turnbull and Brendan Nelson emerged as the frontrunners for the Liberal leadership as the disintegration of the old guard continued apace with the resignation of the Nationals leader, Mark Vaile.

"Robert Menzies would be turning in his grave if he saw the condition his beloved party was in today," said Michael Kroger, the Victorian Liberal Party identity and close friend of Peter Costello, who has abandoned his long-term ambition to take over from Mr Howard.

Mr Kroger said the party was at its lowest point since it was founded. It was in government nowhere and its organisation was in bad shape.

Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott - as well as the former minister Helen Coonan - agreed that Labor had a mandate to abolish Work Choices and that the Liberal Party had to distance itself from the policy. The former minister Christopher Pyne, who will square off against Andrew Robb and possibly Julie Bishop for the deputy leadership, said: "There's no need for us to hang on to old shibboleths. The Liberal Party is not wedded to policies from the previous government."

On the ABC's Lateline last night, Mr Pyne agreed Mr Howard had stayed too long. "No Liberal candidate could look in the mirror and say the leadership of John Howard was not the central factor on Saturday," Mr Pyne said.

Senior Liberals also agreed the Coalition had to abandon its opposition to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Senator Minchin, the Liberal Party powerbroker and former minister, revealed he had urged Mr Howard to step down in March last year when he marked his 10th anniversary as prime minister. It is understood he pressed Mr Downer to urge Mr Howard to stand down at the time, but Mr Downer was reluctant to do so.

Mr Downer did not start pressuring Mr Howard until this year, and he said last night he did so "more than once". But he added that Peter Costello never had the numbers to defeat Mr Howard.

Senator Minchin said yesterday: "It's always difficult to win five terms, and so I did seek in him [Mr Howard] retiring on top at the 10th anniversary of our government in order to ensure he did not face what regrettably has now occurred."

In contrast to the turmoil of his opponents, the prime minister-elect, Kevin Rudd, got on with the business of government - and warned the Senate not to stand in his way because he had a clear mandate for change.

Mr Rudd said his education revolution would be the priority of his first cabinet meeting next week. He also announced a meeting with the premiers within three months to discuss health, and has already received advice about ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

Abolishing Work Choices would be the first legislative action next year, he said, and some Liberals who are threatening to oppose it, such as Senator George Brandis, would do so at their peril.

"I thought the Australian people had a fairly clear message on that only a couple of days ago," Mr Rudd said.

Unlike his colleagues, Senator Brandis says Mr Rudd has no mandate to get rid of Work Choices.

While Mr Howard continued to lie low, a tearful Mr Vaile accepted his share of the blame for the election loss and stepped down as Nationals leader. The party will select a new leader this week.

Coalition sources said Mr Abbott did not have a hope in the Liberal leadership contest, and the fight would be between Mr Turnbull and Dr Nelson, who has spent years cultivating the back bench. Dr Nelson and Mr Abbott declared themselves candidates for the leadership yesterday.

Mr Abbott, renowned for offending people, lauded his "reasonably good people skills" as an attribute. He said his aggressive nature was required to hold Labor to account and he would try to end the "destructive" factionalism in the party, especially in NSW.

Mr Turnbull welcomed the competition as eagerness to renew. "We've been walloped by the electorate, but we have got to get off the mat and get started," Mr Turnbull said. "We can win in 2010, but we can't waste time." Mr Turnbull, who argued unsuccessfully in cabinet for the Kyoto Protocol to be ratified, said Mr Rudd had a mandate to do so, and "I don't think anybody can reasonably oppose that".

Mr Downer, a former Coalition leader and foreign minister, said he was not enthusiastic about another stretch in Opposition and would not seek a leadership position. He is likely to move to the back bench to consider whether to remain in politics. Joe Hockey, who had responsibility for Work Choices in the government, ruled out a leadership tilt, but said he would serve on the front bench.

Bitter that the party did not heed his warnings, Peter Costello will stay as a backbencher until he finds a job in the private sector.

Dr Nelson, a veteran of the Howard era, took a chip at Mr Turnbull's three years in politics. Dr Nelson said he had both the energy and the experience to lead.

Mr Rudd will announce his ministry this week and yesterday had a 15-minute phone call with Maxine McKew, who deposed Mr Howard in Bennelong.

New Australian Prime Minster, Kevin Rudd, head of Labour Party

This past Sunday night Kevin Rudd, head of the Australian Labour Party became Prime Minister of Australia. Congratulations Kevin and your great team at the ALP.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Media Release - Greens Shred Work Choices - 16th November 2007

Greens candidates Craige McWhirter and Conny Harris joined one of the
party’s Senate candidates, David Shoebridge to shred a copy of John
Howard's WorkChoices legislation outside Tony Abbott's office in Manly.

Mr Shoebridge said: "As a lawyer practicing in employment and industrial
law I see on a daily basis how unfair the Howard Government's
WorkChoices laws are.

“John Howard’s industrial relations legislation is making life much
harder for working Australians and there is no evidence it has created
jobs or increased productivity.

"Kevin Rudd said he'd rip up WorkChoices, but now he's back flipped and
wants to keep most of it, including individual contracts. Labor wants
‘WorkChoices Lite’.

“The Greens are determined to immediately abolish the Australian
Building and Construction Commission, restore union rights of entry and
reinvigorate the industrial relations commission.

"We also want to scrap AWAs and protect all workers from unfair
dismissal," Mr Shoebridge said.

Mr McWhirter said “Re-electing Greens Senator Kerry Nettle is essential
if Australia is to have any hope of restoring fairness to the industrial
relations system.

“Greens balance of power in the senate will take away from an incoming
Rudd Labor government any excuse for not repealing all of WorkChoices.

“It is vital that John Howard’s control of the senate comes to an end.
The only way that can happen is with more Greens in the senate because
Labor cannot win back control on its own.

“The people the Northern Beaches want to see an end to WorkChoices and
voting Greens is the best way to do it,” Dr Conny Harris said.


For more information:
Conny Harris - 0432643295
Craige McWhirter - 0415958783
David Shoebridge - 0408 113 952

--
Craige McWhirter - Re-energising Mackellar!
0415958783
Greens Candidate for Mackellar


Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Politics should go by board, by Phillip Adams - 13th November 2007

REMEMBER them changing the guard at Buckingham Palace? Christopher Robin went down with Alice. Will we enjoy a similar spectacle in Australia when guards of all sorts change after a Rudd victory on Saturday week?

That most spectacular variation on Wentworth-style branch stacking, the board of the ABC, comes to mind. When you look for a pattern of government-friendly appointments, only the Bush administration's Supreme Court comes close. The Harris Street headquarters in Sydney may as well be run by Quadrant or the H.R. Nicholls Society.

Kevin Rudd will face a problem with precedent. No sooner had Paul Keating organised the anointing of Brian Johns as the ABC's big cheese than John Howard won his first federal election and the new PM promptly appointed his closest friend as chairman. Johns lost his Canberra power base and found himself answering to the diplomatic and basically decent Donald McDonald. This was, clearly, an untenable situation for both men. And the new chairman found himself facing a roomful of ALP appointees and, worse, a staff-elected director.

I thought McDonald's elevation a good move. He'd have the PM's ear and, with his track record in arts administration, would, I argued, be a buffer between a vengeful Government and the ABC staff. Which is how McDonald began and ended his terms of office. It was what happened in the middle - the Jonathan Shier fiasco - that did the damage. It seemed important to build a bridge between McDonald and Johns. Knowing them both, I volunteered. What, I asked the chairman, might help?

First, scouts honour, McDonald asked me to ask Johns to "do up his shirt buttons at board meetings". It seemed the marvellously rumpled chief executive, an unmade bed on legs, neglected to do so and his ample tummy would loll on the board table. This offended his dapper chairman's sensibilities.

The other issue? Would I suggest to Johns that he ask a couple of the board to resign so the Howard Government could appoint replacements? This, McDonald felt, would take much of the tension out of the Government's relationship with the public broadcaster.

To his credit, McDonald had felt it decent to proffer his resignation from a number of NSW's arts organisations when Bob Carr was elected premier in 1995. The premier's response was civilised: he declined to accept them. When Howard won a year later, I too resigned from all government jobs, such as my board membership of the proposed National Museum. Keating had offered me the chairmanship, but I doubted Australia would get the museum if I stuck around.

(From day one, Howard started clearing the decks of Labor appointees, such as forcing the resignation of Janet Holmes a Court from the body preparing the celebrations for Australia's centenary of Federation. Holmes a Court's job went to Dick Smith, a Howard favourite until he began attacking the Government over aviation safety.)

I passed on McDonald's requests to Johns, whose shirts remained unbuttoned. Nor did any board member fall on his sword. It took a process of attrition to replace the Labor-leaning ABC with one in Howard's image. This branch-stacking not only continued but also showed an ideological escalation with the recent additions of Janet Albrechtsen and Keith Windschuttle. And as well as the stacking there was the sacking of staff-elected director Quentin Dempster.

Let it be said, however, that the dark days of Shier have not returned, that before he left the building McDonald succeeded in calming down the place and the audience. Russell Balding was a good interregnum managing director while the newie, Mark Scott, though warmly endorsed by conservative columnist Gerard Henderson, seems to be respected by the staff.

And, though a constant target of right-wing criticism, I'm still there at the ABC. The board and I have, it would seem, a simple arrangement. We simply ignore each other. If the culture wars are raging at the ABC, neither Albrechtsen nor Windschuttle has demanded heads on plates. Television ratings are through the roof, largely thanks to the risk-taking irreverence of The Chaser's War on Everything. Has the incumbent board gone troppo? Many in Howard's ministry argued that McDonald allowed himself to be seduced by the ABC and had gone over to the dark side. I await Albrechtsen's next opinion page column and Windschuttle's first edition of Quadrant with interest.

A Rudd government would have to deal with the rage of ALP supporters who believe the ABC is in the hands of the enemy. Surely Dempster, the staff-elected director, will be welcomed back. But board appointments? Unless there are a few resignations, it'll take years to change the political balance.

Rudd has a great opportunity to end party-affiliated appointments to the ABC. There are proposals to change the whole approach, to ensure that these crucial jobs go to the most talented irrespective of their political sympathies. Rudd still has time to make an announcement. Meanwhile, the US principle applied when the presidency changes hands, of immediate resignations right across Washington, has its merits. The best and brightest can be reappointed, the rest shown the door.

Media Man Australia Profiles

Phillip Adams

Politics

ABC

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Another bad campaign day for PM, by Michelle Grattan - The Age - 28th October 2007

Perhaps he thought if he ignored it, the question would go away. It didn't. Again and again, John Howard was asked about the report in the weekend Australian Financial Review that Malcolm Turnbull had recently urged that the Government, even at this late stage, ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Repeatedly, Howard simply parrotted that what we need is a new agreement.

The political embarrassment in the small shopfront in North Parramatta was palpable. It was one of the bad moments of the Coalition's campaign, of which there are now a few.

For once Howard's Saturday did not take him to Bennelong. Instead he turned up in a Labor seat that the redistribution has made Liberal.

The chances of Liberal candidate for Parramatta Colin Robinson reaching Parliament in the present climate appear zilch, but Robinson has a special claim to fame. He's a member of the Electrical Trades Union ("proudly so," the PM said). That means he shares a kennel of sorts with Dean Mighell.

The ETU is a punching bag for the Government but Robinson can be held up to prove the PM's point that he's not against unions as such — anyway, Robinson has never been an official. (Robinson said people very rarely talk to him about WorkChoices and don't complain about it, which seems rather surprising.)

Howard's day began badly. A Canberra Times poll in the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro indicated that Special Minister of State Gary Nairn may be headed for a big loss. This was at odds with Liberal polling Howard reported to the party room before Parliament rose. A Nielsen Online national poll had Labor ahead 56-44 per cent.

The PM had no fewer than three press secretaries in attendance for his doorstop in the shopfront. After some Howard words about full employment and union thuggery, questioning soon turned to why he hadn't agreed to Turnbull's proposition. "What we need is a new international agreement … with all of the major emitters," the PM said. He did not talk about what was said in cabinet, he said, relaunching into the need for a new international agreement, a line he delivered at least half a dozen times.

Howard's (and later Turnbull's) failure to deny it has effectively confirmed the report about Turnbull's proposal. It is very damaging for the Government, showing ministers divided over what has been a key difference between Labor and the Coalition. Turnbull also emerges publicly as the good guy on climate change, something that won't endear him to a few of his colleagues.

The proposal apparently came up as ministers cast around for ways to improve the Government's fortunes as it headed to the election. It is not that surprising it was rejected. It would have gone back on what the Government has said for years. Whether such a last-minute repentance would have done much good is questionable anyway — it might have just been seen as total expediency. But that it was discussed is a measure of the Government's concern about the climate change issue, and its wider situation.

Asked whether he was worried about electoral defeat, Howard scoffed yesterday, asking for the next question. That was when David Luff, one of the press secretaries, decided enough was enough, and ended the news conference.

The PM soon made for his car, telling journalists to go and see the new anti-union power ad Joe Hockey was launching. Then he sped off. We are left to speculate about who leaked the Kyoto story — in which Turnbull declined to comment on the cabinet discussion but agreed that there were arguments for such a "symbolic" move — and with what motive.

The cabinet has usually been nearly leak proof. Perhaps some are now writing the history before what they see as a likely defeat.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Candidates to face off at public forum - St George and Sutherland Shire Leader - 25th October 2007

Voters will have a chance to see candidates for the seat of Cook in action at a public forum on climate change next week.

Liberal candidate Scott Morrison will face Labor's Mark Buttigieg and the Greens' Naomi Waizer at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery on Tuesday at 7.30pm.

Mr Buttigieg has been hailed by the Sutherland Climate Action Network as being "well ahead of his own party" on climate change.

Forum organiser Jonathan Doig said Mr Buttigieg's responses to the environment movement's survey at TheBigSwitch.org.au had been impressive.

"It's exciting to see a local politician openly support what the scientists tell us is necessary, which the vast majority of voters also want," he said.

"We look forward to a lively and informative debate on Tuesday night."

Mr Doig said Mr Morrison had not yet responded to The Big Switch survey, but has agreed to attend the forum. Candidates will present their climate solutions and then face audience questions.

The forum will be introduced by University of NSW renewable energy expert and author Dr Mark Diesendorf.

Details: 7.30pm Tuesday, October 30, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, 782 Kingsway, Gymea. Entry by donation. No bookings needed, 0409 049 185.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Rudd yet to give the nod on Sunday debate, by Stephanie Peatling - The Sydney Morning Herald - 16th October 2007

I was interviewed on ABC Radio Mid North Coast this morning by Fiona Wyllie on this matter. I made it clear to her and the audience that an election is for everyone and not supposed to be elitist, and also that pay TV was a luxury of sorts, and that I in face used to work directly in the pay television industry. In addition, that by Howard wanting the debate to be on pay TV only is yet another example of him being out of touch with everyday Australians, some of which can't afford pay TV.
http://www.abc.net.au/midnorthcoast


Two national television networks are busily making arrangements for a debate between the two leaders to take place this Sunday night, but whether the Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, will turn up has yet to be confirmed.

The ABC and Sky TV are preparing for a 90-minute debate between the Prime Minister, John Howard, and Mr Rudd that will be organised by the National Press Club.

The ABC is planning to broadcast the debate live on television, radio and the internet from 7.30pm, with commercial networks also expected to show it.

Although Mr Howard is keen for the encounter, Mr Rudd refuses to say whether he will be there. Mr Rudd wants three debates, including one on industrial relations, over the campaign.
"Let's be fair dinkum about this," Mr Rudd said.

"If you get to this Saturday or Sunday, at the end of the first week of a six-week campaign, will all of Mr Howard's policies be on the table? No, will all of our policies be on the table? No."
Mr Rudd also wants to establish an independent commission to set the terms of election debates. He said it was "silly and just wrong for the government of the day … to set the rules, the timing and the contents of the debate".

But Mr Howard scoffed at the idea saying it was "the bureaucrat coming out in Mr Rudd, rather than the leader".

He is unlikely to change his mind and agree to any further debates.

A letter from the federal director of the Liberal Party, Brian Loughnane, to his Labor counterpart, Tim Gartrell, put no less than 15 stipulations on the debate.

The Great Hall of Parliament House will be the venue for Sunday night's debate. A panel of five journalists will be chosen by the National Press Club.

Sky TV confirmed the political editor of its news channel, David Speers,would moderate the debate.

The Greens leader, Bob Brown, weighed in, saying there should be three debates and he, too, should participate.

"There are many issues where Labor and the Coalition have exactly the same position … The Greens are the real opposition and should be included in the debates," Senator Brown said.

The Greens - Craige McWhirter - Solar power to Re-energise Mackellar - 22nd August 2007

This weekend I will commence my campaign to “Re-energise Mackellar” by taking renewable energy to the people of Sydney’s northern beaches Mackellar electorate.

By powering common household items, I will be bringing home the practical reality of solar power at Winnermerey Bay on Saturday, from 10-4pm and Avalon Markets on Sunday, from 10-4pm.

I’ll be taking an array of 6 solar panels to public parks, providing an opportunity for people to get hands on experience with solar power. The panels will be running a variety of household electrical goods, such as televisions, water pumps, DVD's, computers and even a Nintendo Wii console.

By taking renewable energy out to the public, I will be demonstrating the viability of renewable energy to the general public and commencing my efforts to re-energise the electorate of Mackellar.

Once people begin to become familiar with renewable energy, they will realise that climate change is not an economic cost but an economic opportunity that this nation cannot afford to miss.

By failing to make renewable energy affordable to the average Australian, Bronwyn Bishop and the Howard government have failed the Australian people by placing their ideological faith in iron-age fuels such as coal and the ironically named "clean coal" before the best advice of our leading scientists and economists who are advocating national investment into renewable energy.

The Greens believe that the transition to renewable energy can provide a jobs-rich era of sustainable economic prosperity. It's an opportunity that we can't afford to miss out on.
More information: Craige McWhirter, 0415958783

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Friday, March 09, 2007

Media Man Australia Politics Profile Updated

Our friend Penny Wynne was mentioned in The Manly Daily again today

Penny Wynne profile

Politics profile

Manly For Families Blog

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Politics Profile Update

The Media Man Australia Politics profiles have been updated:
Media Man Australia Politics