Federal Election date

[Neferti]

September 14 2013 is rather significant afterall.

Julia Gillard will not contest the next Federal Election.

She is about to be charged with FRAUD. The Victorian Fraud Squad are right on to our PM. Nothing she says about being young and naive will get her out of this.

There is No statute of limitations on FRAUD, so she can't just brush it away with being 34 and stupid at the time.



Good Riddance.

[Aussie]

She is about to be charged with FRAUD.

Really? How is it that only you are aware of this?

[Rorschach]

Return of Rudd can't save ALP
* by: Piers Akerman
* From: The Sunday Telegraph
* February 17, 2013 12:00AM

The NSW Labor Party, both Left and Right wings, are now firmly behind Kevin Rudd, a senior Labor figure told me on Valentine's Day.

Hardly a bouquet for Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

This takes the likelihood of a leadership spill to a new level.

Interestingly, the person who was doing the numbers was one of the handful of those actually responsible for dumping Rudd during his first term as Prime Minister in June, 2010.

The wheel has not only turned, it is now crushing Labor - and Gillard - like a juggernaut.

While Gillard is not likely to give up without a vituperative struggle, such is her nature, her Treasurer Wayne Swan, is badly wounded.

The question that powerbrokers are now considering is not so much how Gillard will go but how to manage Rudd's return.

It is accepted that there is not a realistic chance of retaining power (on current polling) at the next federal election whether it is held as Gillard has announced in September or sooner, as is more likely with a leadership change.

The only hope Labor holds is that a leadership shuffle will reduce the electoral damage.

When Labor does lose federally, it is expected that Rudd will blame everyone but himself for the loss and avoid returning to parliament for any length of time, as previous Labor prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating managed to do after losing to John Howard in 1996.

Howard at least had the excuse that he had lost his seat.

Because of the cascade of Labor leadership spills, from Simon Crean's ousting of Kim Beazley, through Mark Latham's axing of Crean, Crean's dumping in favour of Beazley, followed by Rudd's undermining of Beazley and Gillard's subsequent knifing of Rudd, all pretence of loyalty has long evaporated.

As another Labor figure remarked: "Why would anyone feel sorry for anyone now? No one will break out in crocodile tears, whatever happens.

"Look at the nonsense, which erupted when (NT Senator) Trish Crossin was dumped from the ticket when she was part of the cabal, which did Beazley in and gave us Latham."

Few in federal Labor are prepared to stand up for "captain's pick" senate nominee Nova Peris, with a number claiming that Gillard's decision to ditch ALP candidates in favour an Aboriginal woman was grotesque tokenism of the worst kind and
exactly what Labor had accused the NT CLP of practising when it managed to get a record number of Aboriginal MPs elected on their merits at the recent election.

Labor cannot get out of its own way at the moment.

[/bEven the hamfisted bid to divert attention from the government's woes by staging a press conference which succeeded in tarnishing the reputation of every Australian sporting figure with absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing spectacularly backfired on Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare and Sports Minister Kate Lundy and dismayed Labor sports fans across the nation.

Gillard and Swan struck fear into the hearts of almost every taxpayer with their vague remarks about two fundamental concerns of almost every taxpayer: the income tax rate and the future of superannuation.

Using the same weasel word tactics which have made Communications Minister Steven Conroy's defence of his flawed NBN project a laughing stock, Gillard and Swan have only heightened anxiety with their refusal to rule out changes to either the income tax rates or possible attacks on superannuation savings.

Swan blundered in parliament last week when he forgot to include 30,000 jobless in his figures and gave a false unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent (actual 5.4 per cent) but criticism of his error may have been less harsh if it were not for the fact that this mistake was the latest in a series of self-created bombs that have exploded beneath the government's feet.

It is abundantly apparent that the carbon dioxide tax has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with raising money for a government which has been unable to demonstrate any economic commonsense, despite being presented with a resources boom.

It is even more clear that the mining tax, which Gillard - who has prided herself on her supposed negotiating skills - and Swan negotiated without the assistance of Treasury officials in a locked room with the heads of the big three mining companies has been possibly the worst compromise that any government in the nation's history has ever produced.

They negotiated the tax exclusively and in secret. They excluded all other mining industry stakeholders and state governments and all Commonwealth officials from that negotiating process.

Gillard and Swan own this farce.

Swan over-estimated the gross revenue from the tax and underestimated the cost of the various concessions he and Gillard made in their Heads of Agreement.

The commodity price volatility Swan has attempted to use as a shield to explain the failure of his and Gillard's tax is a complete nonsense.

Swan and Gillard were simply comprehensively out-negotiated and it is their failure that is most to blame for the piddling level of mining tax raised.

Not that the miners were cunningly exploiting loopholes - no, they merely exercised features of the agreement Swan and Gillard created (and boasted about).

On Budget night, 2011, Swan promised his captive Budget night audience "jobs, jobs, jobs". Last Budget night, less than a year ago, he promised a surplus.

Both promises have been broken.

The come "hell or high water" budget surplus, which Gillard and Swan used to say was "guaranteed" was always going to be a joke because it was in the hands of clowns.

In 2011 Gillard made one of few unchallengeable remarks of her political career when she said:

"You can't run this country if you can't manage its budget."

With no Budget surpluses and a string of deficits, Labor has clearly demonstrated that it cannot manage its budget - and it cannot run the country.

Labor insiders know that this government has failed. Someone should tell Arsie... oh wait we've been doing that...

They know the best they can now hope for is sufficient warning before the fall, but the fear of the crash is becoming itself overwhelming.