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chicky_pie

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Lentern said:
Heard O'farrell ranting about Rees not even having the support of his caucus and as we speak backroom plots to replace him with Tebbut or Roozendaal or what not are taking place. My opinion is that this is very dumb strategy from O'farrell, the public are tired of what epitomises NSW labor and Rees' biggest hope is that he can convince the public that he isn't a mouthpiece for the machone and that the old Iemma cabinet want him gone. Basically Barry just needs to ensure nothing that can turn the electoral cliamte on it's axis happens and talking up leadership coups and backbench revolts and that kind of thing could do that. Probably won't but it's a silly risk to take.

From now, the Liberals have to be negative towards Labor, it's a good strategy. Maybe 9 months before 2011 election, the Liberal policies would come out and yeah you know the rest..positiveness = win votes.
 

Will Shakespear

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would it be possible for the NSW senate to make a double dissolution happen somehow? -_-
 

boris

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chicky_pie said:
we have a lazy old granny as our NSW Governor, Bashir or something, yet all the bad stuff Labor has done, she hasn't yet sack these Labor bums?
Shes from Narrandera yo
 

Will Shakespear

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Miles Edgeworth said:
There is no way the ALP will win the 2011 election. It's an impossibility.


Indeed, the events of this week should see Mr O'Farrell hang his head in shame. Were it not for his cheap opportunism in blocking the power sell-off to maximise the pressure on Morris Iemma, NSW Treasury would now be several billion dollars richer.


Mr O'Farrell can quibble all he likes about the price the power industry would have attracted, waffle on about competition policy, the timing of the sale, but one fact remains indisputable.

He was the man who stood between taxpayers and a massive, multi-billion-dollar windfall. By doing so, he left a two-bit Cabinet and a hapless state Treasury to fill that shortfall with a raft of obscene tax, toll and fare hikes, and the axing of vital public services.

Well done, Barry. The extent of his opportunism is inverse to the amount of real policy work he has done.

Like a recurring nightmare, the NSW Liberals are sleep-walking towards polling day, hoping they can fall over the line by telling voters they're not the other guys. People expect more and if Mr O'Farrell cannot deliver, within weeks not months, his party should find a leader who can.
 

chicky_pie

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boris said:
Shes from Narrandera yo

I'm sure she can make 1 phone call to channel 9/media/parliament and say; 'guess wot, I'm going to sack Nathan Rees and call for a early election'.

omg i will pee my pants in happiness if this does come true :eek:
 

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Will Shakespear said:
would it be possible for the NSW senate to make a double dissolution happen somehow? -_-
NSW Legislative Council cannot block supply (Constitution, s5A), so no.
 

Rafy

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chicky_pie said:
we have a lazy old granny as our NSW Governor, Bashir or something, yet all the bad stuff Labor has done, she hasn't yet sack these Labor bums?
While an incompetent government, they haven't yet done anything illegal (Like Lang in '32) and they continue to enjoy the confidence of the Legislative Assembly.
Sacking the government on the grounds of incompetence is the people's task at a general election. It would be probally indefensible for the Governor to do it.
 

Lentern

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chicky_pie said:
From now, the Liberals have to be negative towards Labor, it's a good strategy. Maybe 9 months before 2011 election, the Liberal policies would come out and yeah you know the rest..positiveness = win votes.
I'm not lecturing O'farrell for being partisan, attack Rees, attack the caucus, attack Tripodi, attck Carr, attack the cross city tunnell, attack the desal plant, attack, attack, attack! But trying to drive wedges between Rees and the party machine is dumb. Rees' strongest hope is to appear dictatorial and authoritarian and create the impression that powerbrokers are being aggravated and bypassed. People hate NSW labor but at this present time there is a fairly neutral sentiment about the actual leader, O'farrell should try and link the two, not separate them. If the election is about Liberal versus labor than liberal will destroy labor like nothing we've seen before, but if it can become about Rees and Tebbutt versus O'farrell and whoever his deputy is it will be a closer contest. Probably labor is too unpopular to win either way but it's a matter of close win or landslide.
 

Lentern

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Miles Edgeworth said:
There is no way the ALP will win the 2011 election. It's an impossibility.
I thought the same about Howard in late 2002. But then this nong tried to ease the squeeze and climb that ladder of opportunity. Whilst he was at it he was going to bring troops home by christmas and help young Australians to either earn or learn. Then some other nongs lead by the lesser known Ferguson decided "yeah that's what we need" and before we knew it it was the worst election result since 1977.

Lesson being, never underestimate the ability of the minority faction becoming blinded by their own opportunism and throwing away the election in their attempts to control the party frontbench.
 

Rafy

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Recall mechanism required.
 

spiny norman

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/battered-drivers-win-on-points/2008/11/14/1226318927489.html

MOTORISTS who commit minor speeding offences will be treated more leniently after the Roads Minister, Michael Daley, announced he would relax penalties and overhaul the demerit points system.

He said motorists caught doing up to 15 kmh over the speed limit were treated too "too harshly".

Motorists lose three demerit points, or six points on double-demerit weekends, for driving just a few kilometres over the limit, sometimes costing "decent" drivers their licence.

Mr Daley said that when he was parliamentary secretary to the roads minister and the treasurer he witnessed the inequity of the system and made it one of his first jobs as Roads Minister to ask the Roads and Traffic Authority to review it.

"Three points demerit for exceeding the speed limit for somewhere between zero and 15 can lead to a situation that is harsh and unfair and I think it is time to introduce a bit more fairness," he told ABC radio.

"Without pre-empting any decisions I may make, I will be having a good look at the whole demerit scheme and that is one of the things that I think should be changed, and I will do my best to change, is to reduce the points for the 0-15 bracket."

Mr Daley said he would introduce the changes "soon" but would not commit to a timetable or provide details of the changes.

"I don't want to tinker with bits and pieces here and there. If I am going to look at the scheme, I will look at all," he said.

The Opposition road safety spokesman, Andrew Fraser, said the demerit points system needed to be overhauled but should not be a knee-jerk reaction to the unpopular mini-budget.

"He is just reacting - albeit in a positive way - to the screams about what was in this week's mini-budget, with the changes to the No Standing zones, becoming No Stopping zones, with fines and demerit point losses if you are caught," Mr Fraser said.

"We need to review the demerit point system and look at the best approach, in terms of road safety and not just revenue.

"What I'd like to see him address is the situation where someone who has been caught with a three-point or a six-point demerit point loss, they may be able to get the fine forgiven, but the court has no power to have demerit points restored."

The Pedestrian Council chairman, Harold Scruby, said he had long been pushing for an overhaul of demerit points.

"As it is at the moment, it is inconsistent and unfair because gradations of the speed limit go up by 10 kilometres while the penalties go up by 15 kilometres," he said.

A spokesman the NRMA said the motoring group had also raised the issue of demerit points with Mr Daley. "We want a fair system which ensures that the punishment doesn't outweigh the crime. We're pleased the minister has taken this step," the spokesman said.
Far be it for me to praise NSW Labor, but this is good.
 

Will Shakespear

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We’re drowning in Sydney Harbor

Andrew Bolt
Friday, November 14, 2008

NICE bridge. Shame about the city. In fact, Sydney is sliding from a joke to a disaster, and it’s taking the rest of us with it.

Not since Joan Kirner in Victoria have we seen a state led as catastrophically as is NSW, and Sydney is just the tawdry measure of its astonishing decline.

Correction: NSW Labor makes Kirner’s lot look a model of propriety. At least her ministers, numbers men, hacks and faction heavies, were honest - and fully clothed - as they drove Victoria into the ground.

They weren’t murdering each other, dancing half-naked in Parliament, molesting boys, sleeping with developers bearing gifts or walking over the bodies of men shot just 90 minutes earlier.

Sure, we in Melbourne may gloat, now that Sydney’s refugees will help us to become the country’s biggest city by 2054, at least according to the Bureau of Statistics.

But what should wipe the smirk off our faces is the fact that NSW now threatens to drag the whole country into a recession.

So mismanaged has the state been for so long that the new Premier, Nathan Rees, this week confessed his state would run a deficit this financial year of almost $1 billion.

And that’s only after his mini-Budget slashed spending by $3.3 billion over the next four years, and hiked taxes by $3.6 billion.

How does this hurt us?

Here’s how: our flagging economy so needs extra spending that the Rudd Government has just announced a $10.4 billion cash-for-Christmas stimulus package, hoping to stop us from slumping into recession.

The Federal Government lifts spending to save the country; the NSW Government slashes spending to save itself. And you and I will pay, brother.

Already, federal Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has hinted that the feds may have to spend even more of our money to make up for the cash these NSW clowns have pulled out.

Nor does the damage stop there. NSW, responsible for a third of the national economy, is predicted to grow this financial year by an anaemic 1.25 per cent - well under Treasury’s forecast for the national economy of 2 per cent.

NSW is the sick man of Australia, and the only consolation is the rest of us don’t have to live there.

We don’t have to put up with electricity supplies so precarious that the state is predicted to run out of power in just six years.

We don’t (quite) have to live with water supplies so run-down that Rees now admits Sydney last summer came close to “drinking mud”.

We don’t have to live in a state whose leaders are so frightened of unions that public transport is still run by the Government - at crippling losses.

We don’t have to put up with trains so bad that one in four carriages breaks down every month, with the Auditor-General warning that not enough new ones are being bought to meet demand.

We don’t have to put up with one public hospital scandal after another, or a Department of Community Services so dysfunctional that 156 children it knew were at risk died last year before its eyes - up from 114 the year before.

We don’t have to put up with such clogged roads, such green-inspired land shortages and such expensive housing. We don’t have to live in a city of race riots, ethnic enclaves and beaches ruled by surfer gangs.

Oh, excuses are being made, of course. The latest is that the financial crisis came along and suddenly spoiled a perfectly good set of books.

But this is a collapse that was years in the making. Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day.

You can trace Sydney’s fall back to the decade-long reign of Bob Carr, the Labor premier and media pet who decided the best solution to a city bursting at the seams was simply to shut its doors.

“Sydney is full,” this global warming worshipper declared. Heaven forbid it should grow. Just think of all the gases! Those hideous McMansions.

And he went to sleep, along with his ministers. No dams were built. No transport reformed. No electricity system privatised or made efficient.

Indeed, the then minister in charge of the iconic Snowy River scheme even boasted that this great damming of the waters for irrigation and power was exactly the kind of thing the Government would now “not necessarily pursue because we live in a more environmentally conscious age”.

Want another symbol of the decline? Not one of the five rail projects Carr promised Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong a decade ago has yet been built. The only one to even be started is already two years behind schedule and millions over budget.

If all this failure had at least been achieved with a Kirner-style ideological purity or a Steve Bracks-style amiability, you might even forgive it. If you were a dope.

But to be delivered such a national tragedy by such a bunch of sleazebags and bunglers is unforgivable. Yes, there are also many decent politicians in this Government, but count the scandals of this past year alone.

We’ve seen former Aboriginal affairs minister Milton Orkopoulos jailed for sexually assaulting boys and handing out heroin, and his chief of staff, Sergeant Nathan “I know nnnnnothing” Rees, made premier.

We’ve seen Education Minister John Della Bosca stood down while police checked what threats he and his wife, federal Labor MP Belinda Neal, might have made to staff at a bar who merely asked them to moved tables.

We’ve seen the police minister sacked for dancing in just his underpants at a party in his Parliament House office, and allegedly rubbing himself against a female colleague while telling her daughter: “I’m titty-f...ing your mother.”

This week we saw the small business minister sacked after an independent inquiry ruled he’d lied when denying he’d verbally abused a woman on his staff, and grabbed her to make sure she stayed for his spray.

We’ve had the same minister now accused of threatening to attack a senior policeman in Parliament if he didn’t stop investigating a close associate. (The allegation is denied.)

And last month the Independent Commission Against Corruption recommended the prosecution of 11 people, four of them former Labor councillors of Wollongong City, after an investigation into a planning officer who had slept with, and taken bribes from, developers needing her help.

You’d think that was enough to fill the slop bucket. Enough already. Tip the stinking lot over the side.

But wait, there’s even more.

A judicial inquiry into the murder of Labor MP John Newman this week heard Reba Meagher, another dumped minister, explain how she first became a Labor politician, the NSW way.

She said she was just 26 when she was called into the office of Della Bosca, then the state Labor general secretary, to be offered a seat in the NSW Parliament - as a reward for not standing for the Senate position he wanted for his wife.

Small problem. Both seats were already held by Labor politicians, one of them John Newman.

But, bang. Problem no longer. Not six hours later Newman was shot dead in his driveway, a crime for which a Labor councillor and numbers man, Phuong Ngo has been jailed.

And just 90 minutes later Della Bosca rang Meagher - or so she told the inquiry - again asking if she’d like Newman’s Cabramatta seat.

(Della Bosca told the murder trial in 2000 he could not recall meeting Meagher that afternoon and offering her any seat. Nor is anyone suggesting he had any prior knowledge of any threat to Newman’s life.)

What is astonishing is that it’s only a year since this Government was returned to power. How did the voters come to make such a ghastly mistake?

They are sure repenting it. Labor last month lost a by-election for Ryde after a swing against it of 22.9 per cent. Labor’s support in Newspoll has plummeted from 59 per cent at the start of last year to 44 per cent now.

And the media support that propped up Labor for so long has dropped with it. The Sydney Morning Herald this week branded Rees “the demolition man”. The rival Daily Telegraph shouted, “Premier, sack yourself . . . and your wretched Government”, and was flooded with thousands of emails from readers clamoring for a new election.

But that’s the catch . . . and warning. NSW, stupidly, has fixed, four-year terms. This shiftless, shifty gang will be in power for three more years.

This is not just a threat to the economy of NSW. It’s a threat to all Australians. And it’s a threat to the trust voters put in their democracy to give them a government that truly represents them.

For God’s sake, call an election. Even Melbourne cannot afford the rabble that now rules Sydney.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_were_drowning_in_sydney_harbor/
 

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