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.

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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

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Peter Garrett

The Environment

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.

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

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.

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Phillip Adams

Politics

ABC