May 18th Federal Election

[Morrigu]

^ you did it again Kirner!!

We are opening a new hospital in 2 weeks or so the Joan Kirner Women's and Children's - the mere mention of the name sends my usually low BP skyrocketing - so just ignore me grumpy old thing!!

[stui magpie]

Consider this an apology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxJg9zYXuW0

[Morrigu]

^ oh I remember that - loved it then and now thanks apology accepted And David White who for the most looked like a more anaemic version of Monty Burns!

[watt price tully]

I.... They set the stage for JFK to get a run, who I seriously dislike, but have to begrudgingly admit did some good stuff.[/b.........I guess we just roll with it.

Yes he got himself voted out; The best thing he did for all Victorians especially if you needed health and an education.

I wholeheartedly agree he did do some good things.

With 20-20 hindsight, closing PANCH and commissioning the Northern hospital at Epping, closing QV in the city and moving the services to Monash, the principle of putting heathcare where the people live rather than in the CBD was good. Some of the schools that were closed were replaced by new ones in areas that needed them. Commissioning the Western Ring Road and several other infrastructure projects.

Privatising utilities was good IMHO in theory but the practice hasn't worked out great. He did do some good stuff, shook up the status quo and despite being an arrogant cnut who I never voted for, I'm prepared to give him a pass.

Morrigu, I wasn't really denigrating Kerner, she was sat on a steaming pile from the Cain administration and did the best she could. She may well be a lovely person but that doesn't equate to being a good leader

Moving hospitals from the CBD to where the population lives started well before Kennett. MMC was done in the 1980's from the Queen Vic site.

Kirner like a lot of women had to clean up the mess after the blokes f*cked things up. Her worst decsion was to approve a casino in Melbourne that Kennett made far worse. Kennnets worst decsion: not enough space....

[ronrat]

I played hockey with Joan Kirners som in under 16s at Croydon. She was always down bellyaching about the state of the showers or the lack of something. She never actually did anything positive for the club. She bullied her way to head of the mothers club association. She went mental when she found out our coach (a Snr Const of Police) gave us beer at the end of the season. Her husband told her to keep out of it. Little did she know how much. Butch told her a slab of cans between 12 16 year olds under adult supervision was hardly the end of the world. What she didn't know was that it was 10 slabs he lost us to us when he said we couldn't beat the undefeated team in the last round. A slab for a win and one for each goal we won by. We won 10 nil but he held a slab back for the Dads who used to ferry us about.

[stui magpie]

Meanwhile One Nation just keeps on giving:

This is the NRA bloke caught on video

One Nation candidate Steve Dickson caught uttering sexual and racial slurs in new undercover footage

https://www.theage.com.au/federal-elect ... 51icr.html

Tip of the iceberg.

Another 1 Nation bloke sprung over social media stuff showing him groping women, 2 lib candidates resign, 1 over homophobic remarks the other over anti muslim comments, a Labour candidate under fire for rape jokes on Facebook 7 years ago and Shorten claims he never met a candidate dis endorsed for anti Semitic comments despite photographic evidence they had.

Just another day in Aus politics.

[David]

Seems pretty clear that parties are employing people to trawl through social media feeds to find anything that could be incriminating. Kind of pathetic, really.

[stui magpie]

They should be doing that before endorsing a candidate to stand at election.

Basic checks, citizenship eligibility and have they posted or liked anything on social media that is going to cause grief.

[David]

Yeah, but what kind of puritanism are we endorsing in doing so? Ask a room of 1000 people who among them has never expressed an ignorant political opinion or made an un-PC joke, and see how many hands go up.

To me, this is just gutter politics:

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/labor-candi ... er-vetting

[Pies4shaw]

Probably - but is it really OK that we can't find a few people to run a country who can keep their appalling personal foibles to themselves? There are millions and millions of people in the country who could be elected - and most of them could probably manage not to post rape jokes and pornography on line. It's not actually a big ask, is it? How low should the bar be set?

[stui magpie]

They don't have to be puritans but an IQ higher than peat moss should be a minimum expectation to be a politician.

Before you seek a nomination for federal politics, first thing is to check your background and make sure you aren't eligible for citizenship of another country, second thing you do is deactivate all social media accounts. You can create new ones if elected.

What might be considered funny within a close group of friends may not stand up as desirable behaviour for a politician once exposed to the general public who you need on side to get elected.

[stui magpie]

Interesting article on Clive Palmer, suggesting on some areas he's more progressive than Labor.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-02/ ... t/11074364

[David]

Probably - but is it really OK that we can't find a few people to run a country who can keep their appalling personal foibles to themselves? There are millions and millions of people in the country who could be elected - and most of them could probably manage not to post rape jokes and pornography on line. It's not actually a big ask, is it? How low should the bar be set?

I think this is a really good article on this subject. I really worry about the kind of toxic, anti-human political culture we’ve developed:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/new ... 5828007218

[K]

"So many political scandals have erupted in the past 24 hours, it’s hard to keep up. These are the candidates who have bitten the dust."

https://www.news.com.au/national/federa ... fc9956fd2a

[Pies4shaw]

Probably - but is it really OK that we can't find a few people to run a country who can keep their appalling personal foibles to themselves? There are millions and millions of people in the country who could be elected - and most of them could probably manage not to post rape jokes and pornography on line. It's not actually a big ask, is it? How low should the bar be set?

I think this is a really good article on this subject. I really worry about the kind of toxic, anti-human political culture we’ve developed:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/new ... 5828007218

It's not nice that politicians' back-roomers behave badly but it is scarcely news.

Politics is, by its nature, always going to be "toxic, anti-human" because it tends to attract, by and large, people that most of us would not wish to have governing us, if we could convince anyone else to put their hand up for a go. "We" didn't develop this - the sludge self-selects.