A bit like the next US election I imagine. The Democrats would win with any candidate.
Anyhow, early in that election campaign, Fraser questioned Labor's ability to manage the economy, asserting that people might have to hide their savings under the bed if Hawke was elected. Hawke came back, quick as a flash asking Fraser if he was sure that under the bed was a safe place. "Isn't that where the reds are?" Hawke ridiculed.
Poor old Mal Fraser never recovered from that. The election was all over from then on.
After Peter Costello accused Julia Gillard of being a communist, one witty journalist headlined his report "Redheads under the bed". ;-) Must have been an old-timer who recalled the Hawke come-back. But nothing up to the same standard from Labor itself, bunch of humourless clones the lot of them.
And speaking of lawyers and union closed shops, yes its true. In John Howard's Australia the lawyer's union runs the last remaining closed shop in the country. Funny thing that, just a co-incidence that John Howard is a lawyer. I actually experienced it personally a couple of years back when I tried to run a case on behalf of my co-op against the local council in the Tasmanian Supreme Court. Had the case thrown out on the basis that incorporated organisations were not permitted to be represented by anyone other than a Barrister registered with the Supreme Court. Dates back to the establishment of Van Dieman's Land so they reckon. What a racket!
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas
At 3:46 PM +1000 20/10/07, Mike Ballard wrote:
>Julia Gillard is the deputy Prime Minister of Australia in waiting. She's a
>Labor Party front bencher and second in command to Kevin Rudd. This week,
>Peter Costello, the Treasurer and second in command to John Howard
>told a press
>conference that Ms. Gillard was a "Communist" because she had been associated
>with a group called "Socialist Forum" 20 years ago, during her
>university days.
>The Liberal/National Coalition has begun their campaign with a kind
>of Cold War
>swing. Not only is Gillard a supposed "Communist", but seventy percent of the
>front bench in the Labor Party are or have been trade-unionists. According to
>the Liberal propaganda machine, the spectre haunting Australia is that of a
>"dictatorship of the proletariat", if Labor wins the election. ;p
>The election will take place on November 24th.
>Mike B)
>
>************************************
>http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22609984-5012863,00.html
>
>BY now, most of Australia is probably aware that 70 per cent (ish) of
>Kevin Rudd's frontbenchers are militant Trotskyite unionist
>bomb-throwers.
>
>Nasty bunch that lot.
>
>If they weren't towing the party line for election campaign purposes
>they'd be sneaking around in the dead of night hurling Molotov
>cocktails at random acts of free enterprise.
>
>Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey was on the money yesterday when
>he said that the role of unions in Australia was finished.
>
>"(The role of unions) is essentially over," Mr Hockey told the ABC.
>
>Damn right.
>
>In fact there's a good argument for a Joe McCarthy style inquiry into
>our political candidates: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member
>of a trade union?"
>
>Then we can blacklist the lot of them.
>
>Unfortunately this might include a lot of the Howard Government MPs.
>
>Depending, that is, on your definition a union.
>
>Here's a question: Joe Hockey is a lawyer by trade. Is not law one of
>the most closed shop professions in the country run by various state
>Bar Associations and Law Councils?
>
>Come to think of it, aren't a large number of Liberal Party MPs (60 per
>cent of the frontbench by some counts) from a legal background and
>members of their relevant professional associations?
>
> From memory, lawyers rank right down at the nether regions of (such as
>trade union scumbags) on the "least respected and trusted" lists when
>it comes to public opinion.
>
>Or is a "professional association" that represents the interests of its
>members somehow different to that of a "trade union" that represents
>perhaps less-educated and lower-paid workers?
>
>Take doctors, for example.
>
>It could be argued that the doctors' union - the Australian Medical
>Association - is one of the most powerful advocacy groups in the
>country when it comes to fighting for the rights of its members.
>
>Go the doctors' union. You do a good job for our medicos.
>
>Are they, like the Bar Associations and other professional
>organisations (guilds, federations, unions, call them what you like),
>also an anachronism?
>
>
>Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another
>beer." - W. C. Fields
>http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml
>
>
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>http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html
>
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