Comments on: News: Julia Gillard moves to “lift the dark cloud”

By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:42:26 +0000

The “many Australians are embarrassed” line is actually a quote from Tony Abbott. Those are not my words.

And I am talking about the list of facts in the facts box at the end of the article – which is what the original comment was asking about.

By: Ozymandias

Ozymandias — Thu, 03 May 2012 06:31:24 +0000

Actually, Anonymous, judged by any truly objective standard -say, for instance, the number of bills it has passed through the parliament- the Gillard government has not been at all impeded in “doing its job” by relatively trivial issues such as Slipper and Thomson . More than 350 separate pieces of legislation have been passed through both Houses, many of them related to improving the lives of our most vulnerable and disempowered citizens, and making up for 11 and a half years of inactivity by the previous administration.

Lauren’s article is quite thorough in its canvassing of the Slipper and Thomson “scandals” but, as other commenters observe, it presents no new information or perspective and continues a strong anti-Gillard meme that permeates the mainstream media.

The phrase “Thomson and his prostitute-hiring credit card” may, in fact, be actionable under libel laws, BTW.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 02 May 2012 05:21:43 +0000

Elle – Try this one

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/31/2011-us-tornado-year-analyzed-no-trend-indication-still-below-1974/

Are you talking about climate change (as it has happened from the start of time) or mans impact on the climate ?

By: elle

elle — Wed, 02 May 2012 02:55:05 +0000

Hi Mark
Do you have any links? I would be interested to read them.
No one is advocating a ‘stop what you’re doing no matter what’. Of course it takes time to switch over but I think we can make it a higher priority. The carbon tax is obviously not the whole solution but hopefully will lead to further positive action.

Here are some links that support the link between climate change and natural disasters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/28/climate-change-natural-disasters-planning_n_1385214.html
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f542555q2708j21k/
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/66/4/277/

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:14:51 +0000

Elle- I appologise for the mistake with your name , It wasnt intentional. Finite resources are exaclty that and you are correct that they will eventually run out. What im pointing out is they will not run out in the near or medium term as more reserves are being found regularly. There is certainly a case for renewables but in a gradual rollout rather than a case of stop what your currently doing no matter what.
Your links on the natural disasters are interesting. Both are projections (in a small number of cases) on what will happen using the forcasters beliefs. The actual results are different from these.Look at this years results on tornadoes / cyclones in the USA. No increase in occurance or severity.
Check again on the the rest of the world and renewables. China and America building more nucleur plants than ever before. Countries with a lot of natural power generation buying in power from other places to supliment their usage.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 01 May 2012 10:06:31 +0000

How is: ‘that sounds like an alternate leader of this country’ and ‘many Australians are embarrassed by this government’ and ‘Abbott sounds completely reasonable saying…..’ facts?
This is an opinion piece which includes some facts.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 01 May 2012 10:03:52 +0000

By: Meghan B.

Meghan B. — Tue, 01 May 2012 06:17:21 +0000

Really Jackie? You think they’ve changed that much? Because they had no problem at all with him veto-ing RU486 when he was Health Minister only a handfull of years ago.

By: Meghan B.

Meghan B. — Tue, 01 May 2012 06:04:57 +0000

1. It’s called RU486, not RU48.
2. RU486 was not withdrawn, it failed initially to get up but was then passed in 2006.
3. The four female Senators who proposed the 2006 Bill that removed the veto on RU486 were from across the parties – Labor, Liberal, Democrats and Nationals – and this illustrates that in spite of the drug having bipartisan support from women, Tony Abbott’s rejection of it is purely personal and could therefore be said to be based on his religious views.
4. Tony Abbott IS terrifying to women, and it’s not a nonsense scare campaign. In fact, in spite the fact that his party is polling enormously better than the ALP, his personal approval is only just marginally higher than Julia Gillard’s.

By: Loop

Loop — Tue, 01 May 2012 04:20:53 +0000

I think their job of actually governing will be a lot easier when the media stops focusing only on the soap opera/relationships/scandal aspects of parliament!