Just to show that we’re balanced here at Crikey, this is a combination of all the pro-Howard emails that have come in after the election. As you can see, his supporters are all pointing to the visionary third term agenda that he laid before the people.

Perhaps I can shed some light on the election result from faraway London town. Here goes: John Howard served as a Minister under Gough Whitlam during the 1970s! Not Mal Fraser, you understand, but the Patron Saint of the Labor party himself (sorry PK, but when the old boy croaks it you assume the throne.) This startling claim appeared in that bastion of free-thinking radicalism, The Independent newspaper. Maybe Kathy Marks, the paper’s Sydney correspondent responsible for this wholesale revision of Australian political history, was perfecting her tan at Bondi Beach when fearless ABC and Fairfax hacks were leading the fight against the forces of darkness personified by the demonic John Howard. In any case, maybe St.Gough’s squalid, racist remarks about Vietnamese and Balts rubbed off on poor old Johnny. It would explain his hysteria about boatpeople, wouldn’t it?

In all seriousness, though, I cite this case of breathtaking journalistic incompetence as proof that self-loathing leftie hacks are the same the world over. I don’t degrudge Kathy for choosing the beach instead of the campaign trail, because the tendentious sermonising about racism in Oz on display in her election reports are a pretty big hint that she was cutting and pasting her copy straight from the ABC website anyway. Why get all dolled up to hit the campaign trail when you can watch The 7.30 Report after the sun goes down and get the gopsel from Kerry & Co?

Brits, Americans and Europeans with little actual knowledge of Australia could be readily forgiven for accepting as fact the hysterical claims about race relations made throughout the course of the election campaign. Even esteemed publications like the New York Times and Financial Times raged against a return to White Australia in thundering editorials. If Australia isn’t an irredeemably racist cesspit like pre-Mandela South Africa, it’s no thanks to enlightened, progressive intellectuals who actively cultivate racial tension. If things are so horrible in Oz, why don’t the “dissidents” (as they love to portray themsleves) leave? Plenty of white South Africans took this ultimate stand, forgoing the majority of their wealth when it would have been far easier to sit back and benefit from apartheid. Maybe they’re not quit e as sincere as they’d have us all believe. Philip Adams has been working himself into a stew each week in The Australian, trying to convince readers (and himself) that Oz is the most racist place on earth. Now he’s reduced to uttering fatuous lamentations about the “politics of division.” I thought politics was by nature about division. Take out the disagreement and genuine dissent, and you have a kind of celestial North Korea.

Martin Philip.

Bleaters struggling for champions

Jeez, the bleating class tossers are struggling for champions if the best they can come up with are Whitlam, Fraser and Keating. Boof-head Gough can’t bag anyone for racism while his “Fucking Vietnamese Balts” comments are around to haunt him; How can Fraser question the character of anyone after losing his trousers in a seedy Memphis dive while on a mission representing Australian interests? As for Keating, he’s got a cheek making any comment about Australia, after describing the country as the ‘arse-end of the world’.

Remember, the Australians whom these dipsticks brand racist and redneck pay them exorbitant post-PM pensions so they can swan around the world shit-canning the people who got wise and heaved them out of office.

As to the election result, it seems to me that it was won in the western suburbs of Sydney. Now last time I was in that area — two years ago — it exemplified multicultural Australia. Aussies from origins all over the globe, all going about their business with a minimum of fuss. Although I was told it can sometimes get a bit willing between Middle East and Asian youth gangs. So what, that’s rites of passage stuff in a democracy.

More importantly this area is not a million miles from where a Vietnamese gangster murdered a NSW MP and gangs of Middle Eastern thugs went on rape rampages. I have not heard of any rioting in the streets or quid pro quo violence in reaction to these heinous crimes. Surely, you’d expect that in a racist society.

You want to know why Howard won the election. Have a look a house prices, for gawd’s sake. Mine has increased in value by a third in the past two years, increasing my net asset base by $100,000. That’s like getting an extra average wage every week.

It wasn’t the racists in the western suburbs of Sydney that got the Coalition over the line. If the uptown Howard haters bothered to visit blue-collar world, they would find just as many “turn the boats around and send them back” spruikers in the Labor camp. And at the end of the day, there are not a lot of them.

It was the mortgagees who got Howard up. Ordinary people who sacrifice a lot for their suburban dream. They also obey the law and don’t have much time for those who don’t, whether they’re dope dealers, people smugglers or document destroying illegals. If they ever think about them, I don’t suspect they have much time for the bleating class, either.

Finally, I challenge just one of your bleating class correspondents, to come up with an acceptable solution to the illegals problem that won’t send the country broke. No emotional rhetoric, please.

Go Cats!

Bernie

How can a racist support 100,000 immigrants a year

I really liked your web site when I first stumbled across it and was about to subscribe because I think your liberal point of view deserves support. However something seems to have gone wrong in the past few weeks and your one-eyed anti-Howardism just isn’t interesting or worth supporting. You are not offering anything I cannot get from one of the press opinion pages.

You and most other commentators engaged in an anti-Howard diatribe are missing the main point. Of course Howard took the political wind out of One Nation’s sails but making the extremes of politics irrelevant is what we want all our mainstream parties to do. It strengthens our democracy. Your continual suggestions that he has pandered to blatant racism in our community doesn’t square with the facts. Over the last few years under Howard, Australia has had an annual immigration intake of over 100,000 p.a, two thirds of whom are non-white.

It suits the Left and the ALP to subscribe the worst motives to Howard but if he ever wanted to fight an issue on race he had the option to radically change our immigration policies and seek public support for such a stance. But Howard correctly identified community concern about illegal immigration existed side by side with continued comfort with a non-racist official immigration policy. This reflects the fact that they are two quite distinct issues and a hard stance on one does not preclude a very liberal attitude on the other. Howard positioned himself accordingly. Post election the Left and the ALP choose to deliberately confuse the two policies so as to slander John Howard, delegitimise the Liberal Party’s great win and sell the racial tolerance of Australians short, to explain why their own allegedly superior point of view was rejected.

Howard will continue over the next few years, as he has over the past five years, to be the leader of a moderately competent Government that keeps the cause of economic reform moving in the right direction. You will have authored a collection of recent articles that were dreary when written, harmful to an otherwise exciting venture in on-line media and ridiculous in the judgement of prevailing facts and history.

Regards, Kim Jacobs

Whitlam a complete hypocrite

I notice Jim Toohey in Crikey today has picked up on Hawke’s hypocrisy (or at least, if one is extremely charitable, his dramatic, but previously unstated, change of views).

Now that we’ve had the carefully post-election public release of Gough Whitlam’s patronising letter to Kim Beazley regarding his alleged abandoning of principle over the boat people, can anyone find (I looked quickly for it last night, but couldn’t lay my hands on it) documentation of Whitlam’s quoted remark circa 1975 that he didn’t want lots of “fucking Vietnamese Balts” coming to Australia? [The ‘Balts’ reference deriving from the supposedly (I don’t know if it was ever actually surveyed) strongly anti-socialist views, and hence Liberal-voting habits, of Baltic immigrants following their experiences of socialism under the Russian occupations. One may also remember PM Whitlam’s recognition of Russian occupation of the Baltic states, and the subsequent clash he had with a Labor-voting history teacher over it during the Bass by-election.]

While the ‘living in the 70s’ media generation – Adams, Negus, O’Brien et al – continue to drool over Whitlam and rapturously applaud everything he says, some of us can still clearly remember what a mendacious, meretricious, pompous incompetent he really was (and is).

Cheers, Name Withheld

Lefties rewriting history

You have to smile at the similarities of the 1975 ‘Constitutional Crisis’ and Beazley’s recent routing in the polls.

Just as the left wing ideologues re-wrote history to create the ‘Constitutional Crisis’ of 1975, rather than recognising it as clever politics by Malcolm Fraser and a determination of Governor General Sir John Kerr to make sure he was in the history books well and truly, the lefties are calling this recent Federal election a race poll.

If that’s the case, which I don’t think it is, I have one thing to say to people cryign foul: this is politics and politics is about playing the man and the ball. It’s a nasty beat up game where the weak and the faint hearted don’t survive. It’s where the guy with the better idea gets over the line and the guy who doesn’t have the better idea doesn’t win.

Rather than recognising that Howard is a clever man who reads the electorate well, people feel compelled to detract from his victory.

What it comes down to is this: we have a secret ballot in Australia and the majority of Australians agreed with Howard not Beazley. They liked Liberal better than Labor. They chose one over the other.

No one forced them to agree with Howard. No one forced them to turn their backs on their upbringing and beliefs. As far as I know, our immigration policy is exactly the same, and no racial vilification bill has been revoked.

Do you think it could be the electorate just needed a better reason to vote for Howard? That is, they liked the income tax cuts, they didn’t feel the effects of the GST, they appreciated the tax free threshold for self funded retirees and the baby rebate ideas. Maybe they liked the low interest rates and the stable economic results, but they needed a ‘sexier’ reason to vote for him.

From my talks with regular people, Tampa and boat people solidified their vote with Howard. But a lot of them said that they were frightened of voting not for Beazley, but Simon Crean.

The boat peiople thing was a factor, there’s no doubt about it. But not the only factor.

The reason why I think this is because the Queensland Coalition lost the state election earlier this year running on one issue only, ie don’t vote for a party that harbours paedophiles and electoral cheats. While it was a commendable thought, it wasn’t enough to get the voters in.

The Coalition candidates ran very good local campaigns and as part of a team presented a track record of reform and achievement.

So as the lefties try to rewrite history and paint the Coalition as one issue bigots, remember Queensland where the campaign was fought on one issue. And look at how they were slaughtered.

Tom Payne

Bagging Howard won’t modernise Labor Party

Whilst it is natural for any political party and its supporters who are rejected by the electorate to engage in robust review of policy and strategy, it is genuinely sad to see so many in the Labor Party – members and supporters – unable to rise above the mindset of the past decade; someone else is always to blame for our failures.

Hectoring those who voted Liberal as “mindless” and “racist” no doubt gives the name callers a warm inner feeling of virtuosity but also guarantees that very little if any change will be made to the modern Labor Party which is a real shame given the enormous contributions it has made to Australia.

The only reference to “race”, I saw during the election campaign was from critics of the Howard government. In fact, the Prime Minister and the government went out of their way to reassure Muslim members of the Australian community that the strategy employed against those attempting to enter Australia illegally had nothing to do with their race or religion.

Ironically, Australia under John Howard was one of the most generous nations per capita, in offering temporary asylum to Muslim refugees during the Kosovo crisis – remember our dreadful racist Prime Minister stepping forward personally to welcome the arrivals as they disembarked from the plane? Perhaps this was simply a different angle of the infamous “race card” played by Howard for political advantage – he was probably cleverly just pretending to be sympathetic to attract votes!

Whilst it is acknowledged that the Tampa policy had bipartisan support we are supposed to believe one of two things; either that the Labor Party genuinely understood the problem and supported the government’s policy or that it was somehow “forced” to follow along to simply stay in contention. If the first possibility is correct (as Jennifer Hewett seems to suggest in today’s SMH) then Beazley and co. did a pretty lousy job of explaining the reasons for their support to the electorate. If the second possibility is correct then Labor was punished for being deceitful and hypocritical and obviously prepared to abandon genuine principle in the name of political opportunism.

At the end of the day, John Howard was triumphant over the Labor Party, the Democrats, the Greens, the major broadsheets (with the exception of The Australian), the ABC, four ex-Prime Ministers – including one from his own side – five state premiers, an ex-Liberal party leader, several ex-Liberal ministers, ex-senior public servants and dozens of other high profile opinion leaders.

Two final points;

Whilst we do need to safeguard an excellent international reputation, we also cannot “mindlessly” formulate national policies on the basis of what our neighbours think. Most countries in our geographical vicinity have human rights records that are appalling and very few offer the degree of genuine tolerance , multiculturalism, foreign aid.free trade and democracy which Australia does.

To my mind, the most venal display of this whole sorry debate comes from one of the most savvy purveyors of the political art we have seen in recent decades, who said in 1977 in relation to refugee boat people from South Vietnam;

“Of course we should have compassion, but people who are coming in this way are not the only people in the world who have rights to our compassion. Any sovereign country has the right to determine how it will exercise its compassion and how it will increase its population.”

“Obviously there are people around the world who have a strong case for entry into this country and successive governments have said we have an obligation, but we also have an obligation to people who are already here.”

Bob Hawke – President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Jim Toohey

Brisbane

You’re all a pack of whingers

The columns in all the newspapers and in Crikey are full of bleating whingers. How can I pick on whinging Poms!

One thing all socialist lefty’s have in common is that they believe they are morally pure and everyone who does not agree with them is insensitive, a yankee lover and racist. The main thing I have noticed from most people in the far left is that they think with their prejudices, not their brains.

Howard won because we knew what he would do in a given situation. The Greens have also acted consistently. Natasha moved the party to the left and put kids in all the seats pissing off the moderates (like myself). Labor did not know where they are going or why. Simon Crean kept telling half truths and Beazley didn’t offer anything different from Howard except a few platitudes and to give a couple of rich bastards a lot of money to run an airline.

I didn’t want to vote for any party this election. I voted for Ferrari in the seat of Melbourne as well and put all the major parties at the bottom with Democrats lowest. But I will not cry for Labor. They have become a rabble and do not deserve to win until they get some direction. Howard would have lost as he deserved to if the Labor right had not put a gag an Kimbo’s mouth and the Labor Left had not tied Kimbo’s hands behind his back.

Finally Kim’s speech wasn’t that great. I thought he just spouted out his standard rhetoric. He looked a bit relieved. I do not think he really wanted the job.

R. Hamton

Ascot Vale

PS: I will be subscribing soon.

Nothing better than shrieking lefties

Dear Crikey,

what fun I have had at your website for the last couple of days. There is nothing I enjoy as much as the anguished shrieks of outraged lefties; Liberal, Labor, and the also-rans. It must have been hell in the designer cafes and gay bars in the inner cities for the last day or two. Disaffected Liberals, failed and wasted pollies, adolescent school teachers, the blinkered and deceitful ideologues at the ABC, woolly minded republicans, social engineers, Indonesian apologists: the whole spectrum of affluent ‘progressives’ and urban would-be radicals are adding squeaks and twitters to the jungle chorus. Let them howl if they wish, but nobody is listening (and they are most definitely not listening to John Hewson).

I shall certainly maintain my subscription, although I have some sympathy with your correspondent who claims that you are saying nothing that we cannot find on the letters page of the ‘Australian’. However, I think I prefer your sledgehammer approach, and at least I have been spared Philip Adams (so far). I only wish that I had known about the Crikey site the day after the failure of your moronic republic.

Incidentally, I can confirm that the dearth of Democrat HTV people extended to Newcastle. I did a couple of booths, the second being a fairly major one. The first had no trace of their existence (rather like the Senate) while the second had a tatty box below a lopsided poster stuck to a tree about four metres away from the path to the booth. There were only a few leaflets in the box, but still too many. During the six hours that I was there about four people braved the leaf litter and decaying vegetation to take a leaflet while a fifth gave up half way. However, I suspect that a few others took a card in error from the very pleasant lady from the Christian Democrats who was operating next to me.

Keep it coming. It’s nice to know how the bourgeois are thinking.

Regards, David Horkan.

Beazley no man of principle

I’m confused Stephen. You see Kim Beazley as a man of principle, yet you want him to act against his articulated and well-known principles on immigration. Do you know something about the proposed post-election ALP platform that the rest of the country doesn’t?

Of course, if the Big Man was in fact planning to change his stance on boat people from his current belief, wouldn’t that make him a lying populist using immigration to sneak into power?

Paul Wright, Sydney

CRIKEY: Kim Beazley did not concoct stories about children being thrown in the water, he did not publish full page ads gloating that he decides who comes here and he did not link terrorism to boat people. The Rodent did all of this. As someone who hates cynical spin, it’s is the manipulation of public sentiment that angers me the most about Howard’s appalling conduct.

At least Johnny believes in his policies

Dear Crikey

David Burne lashes out at the Green voters, who he accuses of assisting Liberal victory. Sorry mate, but a)I suspect 90+ percent of all former-Labor voters (like myself) who went green this year would have preferenced back to the old red, and b)Labor’s policy didn’t exude ideals of “humanitarianism triumph[ing] over political opportunism” – if anything, they were even more dishonest. We know Johnnie and Co believe in their policies, the same can’t be said for the Beazley bunch.

Don’t be like the Dems in the US, lashing out at all around for losing the unlosable election – instead, take a step back, look at where Labor went wrong in so many places, reconstruct the party so as it truly represents those who need it most, and then, maybe then, those of us who live 30% below the poverty line, those of us who choose each fortnight between text books and medication costs, those of us who have to go to the Salvos and Vinnies might come back to the party of the people. Until then, not bloody likely mate.

Regards, Geoff Parkes

Crikey becoming too partisan

Dear Crikey,

While enjoying the ‘inside gossip’ aspect of your site, I have become increasingly disturbed at the partisan political line pursued by yourself and other contributors. Your personal distaste for Howard seems to have gotten the better of good sense or balance. I was contemplating subscription, but the prevalence of boilerplate ‘comments page’ editorialising over serious analysis has me thinking again. There is definitely a place for iconoclasm, but it should be absolutely without fear or favour, and not subservient to some private crusade. Both the major parties (and the minors, for that matter) certainly offer ample opportunity for lively, unbiased critical analysis.

On the Tampa matter – I still can’t see how restricting illegal access to Australia equates to racism. Personally, I support high levels of non-racially determined immigration, the teaching of languages other than English, respect for all cultures and religions, and would happily vote (and have, in the past) for a candidate from any racial/ethnic background if I agreed with their platform. If the illegal flow of refugees slows in coming months, I can only see this as a good thing – fewer people exploited by people smugglers, and more legal refugees finding a home in Australia. The possibility that some voters with minimal racial tolerance voted for a party with a strong anti-illegal immigrant policy does not in itself make the policy racist. I presume that the flow of One Nation preferences to the Greens doesn’t make the Greens a party of rabid rednecks (and I don’t see Bob Brown refusing to take those votes).

Hope your page veers back towards the centre, and preserves an interesting independent slant. Your finest service has been in the allocation of suitable nicknames for Australian politicians. My personal favourites are the Sphere of Influence, The Prime Miniature and Ah Satan, for what it’s worth.

Kind Regards, Luke Harris

Education, not bleating is required

Crikey

I have to agree with other subscribers that any claim the Coalition’s victory is somehow illegitimate is pretty silly. Clearly Australia is faced with a divide between the ideas and values of an intellectual (sic) minority and the attitudes of an overwhelming number of Australians to issues such as refugees. The lesson the minority (I think one writer assigned them the term “bleating class”) has not yet learnt is that dismissing views they see as uninformed does not make them go away.

Attacking Hanson for being stupid did not stop people believing what she said, and may have consolidated her supporters ideas that it is an “us against them” battle. Complaining when politicians do what they know a large percentage of their constituents want them to, and then calling anyone who agrees with the policy a “racist” or a “xenophobe” or “wedgist” or any of the other condescending titles you can think of does little to solve the problem.

Instead, Crikey and others should be encouraging the public debate to move away from discussing the two-party implications of every policy move and toward publishing more material on the facts about issues such as refugees and their plight. If writers can start publicly demonstrating that those arriving here in fishing hulks are not Bin Laden supporters, rather than complaining about how sinking the boat will win Howard an illegitimate third term, the political capital available to a government for pursuing such a mean-spirited policy is instantly devalued.

Cheers, Simon

Crikey coloured by Howard hatred

Steve,

I have really enjoyed your election coverage which I found to be fairly balanced notwithstanding your stated personal preference which, whilst absolutely defensible (at least you “came out”), I think it unintentionally coloured your reactions and reporting of other events. Nevertheless, Crikey’s total pre election package has been instructive and very very enjoyable.

However, may I offer the following thoughts which have their origins in a discussion I overheard between some of my younger staff members this morning. The election result was an “only alternative” vote result. The result was enhanced by an electorate which is sick and tired of being lectured by a chattering “we, and only we know what is best for you to think and any contrary opinion to ours will be classed racist” media, as well as doddery, expired shelf-life, sad old ex-pollies.

Senator Despoya was rightly treated by the electorate as the flimsy shame that she is and the policy deprived party she repeatedly posed for. Bob Brown’s Greens was an attractive alternative vote because at least they had a policy platform for consideration. The preference voting deals struck a powerfully sour taste in the minds of the electorate who again, just do not like being lectured to. And generally, the media just doesn’t get it.

In fact in many of the late Saturday evening and Sunday morning reviews, there existed a constant tinge of ” look what those poor fool voters have done.” In other words, we the media haven’t/didn’t get it wrong . . . the voters have.

Will the media now understand how out-of-touch it is with the folks from the Burbs and the Bush as it continually rams its group PC down our throats. I doubt it. And of course, it will be the folk’s fault, never the media.

And a final reaction to Saturday evening’s TV coverage which I thought was a terrific mix of styles as I worked over the remote control. Who on earth was that dreadful woman (yep, the blonde one . . . I think Helen someone) on the Nine panel who made such a constant fool of herself with her irrelevant, inaccurate and one-sided interruptions? She put in a shocker.

Thanks again for your terrific coverage.

Regards, The Sole Subscriber!

Crikey typing with one hand

Stephen,

I hope Saturday’s result woke you up. Crikey.com was a must-read a while ago, but lately you and all your correspondents have been typing with one hand wrapped around your old fellas. (In Hillary’s case, the spare digits must have been fishing for the cucumber) .

Christ Almighty!

Crikey once stood for the hope that the Packer/Murdoch/Fairfax/ABC media axis could be circumvented . But all through the campaign, you’ve been operating as a defacto branch office of the ALP. And now you look just as stupid as Fart Boy, that great stinking tub of superating pus now lumbering off into the obscurity.

Get a clue, Mr Mayne. If I want reporting from the pens of morons, I’ll go to Margo Kingston’s Web Diary in the SMH — where every correspondent appears to be suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome.

I expected more from Crikey. You don’t sound retarded, why run your site that way? And I won’t be subscribing until you change your ways.

(Hope your missus lays into you when there’s not enough milk for the wee babe. It will all be your fault for alienating people who might otherwise have paid up.)

Carl Carter

Don’t go over the top Crikey

Crikey, please don’t go over the top in your critique of the 10 November loss. For goodness sakes keep things in perspective.

Personally I disagreed with the Gov’t response to the Tampa crisis, but my vote for the Libs was based on more than this issue. If the ALP response to the Tampa was other than bipartisan it would have had to be a very persuasive one as I did not believe the ALP have/had the economic credentials to take into Govt. Unfortunately there was so little discussion in the general media on matters other than 11 September/Tampa etc Beazley had trouble getting his policies across and properly discussed. This is a pity. But why wait until so late, why wait until critical events unfold and the spotlight and opportunity is lost.

Howard appears to have learnt from the Keating/Richardson tactics of doing whatever necessary to win. Beazley was probably adopting the same tactic by jumping so quickly in Howard’s direction on Tampa, thus locking himself in. For him it was all about not disagreeing on this particular issue let it be disagreement on something else, like health or economic policy.

Tactics like the description of “flip-flopping” are straight out of the Keating manual of grubby politics. Keating was an extemely able manipulator of the political agenda, Howard no less so.

Crikey please raise above all this and keep it all in perspective.

Kevin Hogarth

Beazley was cowardly and self-serving

Dear Stephen,

As if having to tolerate the smugness of little Johnny was not enough, what is the bet that we will now have to stomach the mealy-mouthed tributes to big Kim as he bows out of leadership politics. If he is so decent, then his stance on asylum seekers was cowardly and self-serving, or just plainly stupid. There can be no other possible inference drawn. And what a choice we voters will be faced with once Howard power-walks into the sunset – Crean and Costello. Wow, Monash Law has turned out some colourless duds over the years, but can you beat that pair?

Yours in absolute despair

Mark

Crikey just a left-wing propaganda sheet

Stephen,

I have really enjoyed your service to date, however I feel like the Crikey page has turned into another left wing propaganda media outlet. I hope you have a good hard look at where you are steering Cirkey because you are on the verge of losing a lot of people who have respected your media opinion too date. Your editorial is your greatest asset and if that loses respect and credibility you will end up just another left wing rag, and these are not very profitable.

Keep up the good work and make sure you go back to were you started, and you will continue to have my support

Thanks, anon

Sucked in to all the smartarses at Crikey

Yeah, up yours and your arrogant smartarse mates. So Howard is going to lose right? Because he represents a bunch of racists (us Aussies) right? Well up yours. And all your smartarse mates. No one else has a plan except let anyone in because we feel sorry. But, because there is no other plan and 70 to 90% of Aussies say they want a fucking plan and Howard is the only person who had a plan – even if it was shit – it is everyone’s fault. We are all racists except you and your holy mates. Well, aren’t you so smart. What do you charge people for? To tell them all year Howard is history?

Up yours for the next three years. Howard wins, you are history. And we are all stupid racists because we don’t agree with you and all your mates. Good. Move to Indonesia and do your journalism there and let us suffer for being so stupid.

Up yours Crikey.

Suzanne Jordan

upyourscrikey@hotmail.com

Questioning legitimacy is just stupid

Crikey,

I’ve got to say that Suzanne Jordan’s email is inflammatory and intolerant, but no more so than the rhetoric coming from the “Bleating Class” on the other side. You’re right Suzanne, the self-appointed moral and intellectual superiority of the BC is galling, and their arguments are often insulting (“agree with us, or you’re a racist”). It’s not a Richmond vs Carlton game though – no need to lose civility.

Crikey’s “But wait, there’s more!” addendum proves he’s been spending too much time around Tim Shaw.

“Just like Fraser lacked legitimacy in 1975, the third Howard Government will lack legitimacy because they have lied and manipulated their way through the asylum seekers issue appealing the basest, xenophobic instincts of the 1 million people who voted for One Nation in 1998.”

Beautiful logic this. Not content with turning the election into a referendum on asylum-seekers/border-protection, and thus guaranteeing Howard his victory, the BC now instantly questions the validity of the result. Don’t question the argument, only the result.

They’d rather do this rather than doubt their own behaviour leading up to the election. If they’d just shut up and let the issue die, Howard would have been giving his retirement speech on Saturday night. But no, the fevered and insulting bleating of a minority has driven the majority into “we’ll see” mode, and into the very camp they despise so much.

Democracy is obviously the problem here. We really need to get back to the good old days when the elite governed the poor dumb proles with an wise and benevolent iron hand – Crikey is a monarchist at heart!

cya, Craig

Carping, boring, vain Crikey – just like Fairfax and the ABC

Good on you Suzanne,

I agree with everything you wrote.I initially subscribed to crikey because I thought it said what wasnt being said by the major papers but now it seems that its just a vanity vehicle for Mayne to spew forth his views. He must be so frustrated at how ignorant we all are because we don’t agree with his views. His carping has got so boring that I won’t be renewing my subscription. If I want to read pretentious, carping prose I can go to ABC Online or buy a Fairfax paper.

Mark Newham

Join the Greens you mad lefty

Dear Stephen

Re: Suzanne Jordon

Regardless how disturbed you (& various people in the chardonnay swilling elite) are about the immigration problem, the Libs still have the Treasury benches. And at the end of the day, quite frankly, that is all that matters.

I am pleased to report that the Christian gentleman, the Hon Philip Ruddock is just as equally concerned about the multitude of people being processed by the United Nations in Indonesia; not only about a few boat people that are being conned by people smugglers.

In summary you are doing a brilliant job in building the Green’s primary vote. I suggest that if you desire a Parliamentary career, you should join the Greens or Democrats and campaign for them. At least you will end up with a better personal result than wasting your time with “People Power”, as I predicted some time ago.

Maybe you could run a policy of resettling 5000 immigrants on Philip Adams’ BioDynamic country Estate. I am sure the people of Nauru would vote for that.

All the best

Steve Blizard

Perth

Beazley-Crean dribble rejected

Dear Stephen,

now that the election has been clearly won by the Howard government, hopefully you will wake up and recognise that the majority has spoken. There has been a clear rejection of Beazley, Crean, dribble back of the GST as well as all the politically correct left wing crap that has filled the media recently. The refugee issue is complex and can’t be solved by anyone overnight and we can’t order Indonesia or any other country to do our bidding, no matter what the elites demand. John Howard is doing the best he can under the circumstances. Indonesia is still sulking about Timor and the relationship wont be fixed overnight. Howard has delivered freedom to the Timorese. Don’t forget that. Labor spent more than 10 years kissing a corrupt dictator’s arse and Beazley was part of a government that allowed our army to train Indonesian special forces who used those skills to kill women and children. How soon the media forget the sickening sight of Evans and Alitas sipping champers in an aircraft while signing an illegal deal to carve up oil off the Timor coast, while down below the people were brutalised and subjugated by a corrupt miltary regime. Howard has put these injustices right and our own military showed themselves to have some of our best and brightest young women and men.Where was Labor on all this?

Your site has been especially disappointing in its severe lurch to the left over the past few months and it will be interesting to see subscriber numbers over the coming months. Readers are not interested in touchy feely leftist dribble from your site, we are after a balancing viewpoint to counter the media bias against the Liberals as well as the excellent work you do at taking on the pathetic standard of corporate leadership in Australia. The inside political work by Hillary is excellent. Stick to what you are good at. If you want to be a social activist, stop washing, grow dreadlocks and join the Greens. After largely being seen as a Howard supporter, your decision to back Labor and all the things it stands for, eg. union cronyism, jobs for the bruvvas, open warfare on free enterprise etc,etc, you now indeed look a right wanker and hypocritical in light of the return of the government. Please get back on track and try not to be so wishy washy in future. Finally, give up internet polling, the left obviously tried to stack it given the number of peope who tried to vote more than once versus total support for Howard. The whole exercise has only further harmed your credibility.

Kind regards to your family,

Bill Ibrox.

Beazley’s attack on private schools hurt

Crikey,

I’ve just read your diatribe (over used word, I know but very apt this time) regarding the election.

You should read Paddy McGuiness in Saturday’s SMH. His views were rather prophetic when it comes to yourself.

One of Beazley’s biggest problems was his attack on private schools and by implication success – more than 30% of children are now educated in non-govt schools. (This figure is projected in the near future to reach 50%.) I doubt if one parent who sends their children to a private school would have voted ALP. And you wonder why the ALP “lost” Parramatta – where is Kings School? Dobel also contains many newly affluent.

If you’re looking to make a positive contribution to society then I suggest you work long and hard to stop Kernot becoming another Joan Kerner (a big time angry loser made a saint by the Fairfax/ABC).

I also suggest you should be rejoicing that the republic is now dead (the Turnball model was bull-shit which the ordinary person saw but the elite couldn’t or wouldn’t).

By the way, only scoundrels criticise their families in public – if you did let loose on Howard on the BBC then all I can say is bad Karma is coming your way.

Anon

Wedge something to do with your undies

GOOD GOD! The Pommies are playing great rugby & the Liberals have won the election. An obvious disaster for world politics. The Taliban rulers must be quaking in their boots now that 52 odd % of the Australian population have voted for Howard, Costello & Abbott – who’s on first? Talk about a sucker punch.

How about explaining ” wedge” to other than Crikey readers & insiders. It’s not hard to work out but to most it just means uncomfortable undies. Come to think of it, something that you’ve go to wear but is not necessarily comfortable about sums it up.

Andrew

Labor should ask the hard questions

Crikey,

Look, journalists, pundits and especially Labor politicians now have two choices: they can go in for some more of the usual, maudlin, Bob Ellisian self-mythologising and martyrish ‘we-wuzz-wobbed-by-history-and-racism’ bullshit, or they can ask themselves some hard questions at last.

Clearly Howard used the boat people issue to cynical advantage. Clearly the war was a factor. Gosh, how surprising that a party would use tactics like social (even racial) scarifying, fear-mongering on national ‘security’ and relentless courting of that hypocritical cock-teaser Laura Norder for political gain? Surely the ALP would never do that! (I s’pose all those ethnic-seat ALP branches which mysteriously increase their membership by blocks of hundreds hours after a big day at the naturalisation office do so by old fashioned canvassing, right?) Labor’s hypocrisy on the whole subject of ‘exploiting race’ for political gain is fucking laughable, given that they INVENTED the tactic.

The more important point – as Crikey MUST know after his Kennett experience – is that Labor is up Shit Creek unless it has the ruthlessness and self-discipline to address the REAL malaise within its party: the one which doesn’t relate to some so-called failure in the ‘Visionary’ department (the Keatingesque posturing – or lack there-of – over Big Questions of ‘national identity’ like immigration, reconciliation and the republic). These are matters which certainly get the broadsheet-reading ‘scum of the middle classes’ excited, but are of marginal relevance to winning office. I’m not saying they’re not crucial questions for the intelligentsia to debate, but the truth is that they DON’T win elections. Talking about them makes public life better, but they are, in a ‘getting elected’ sense, effectively non-political.

For example: people talk about ‘wedges’ on boat people all the time, but where’s the fucking ‘wedge’ when both major parties and 80% of the population actually AGREE on how to deal with them? The only people being ‘wedged’ aside here are the ‘elites’. Let’s be honest, even many first-generation immigrants – ESPECIALLY them – support the hardline bipartisan stance. So those of us who oppose it are simply going to have to find other means of persuasion; clearly progress in the political arena is going to be slow. Crafting any potentially-winning policy ‘differentiation’ on this and other ‘social issues’ will be almost impossible until the ALP addresses the deeper malaise – loss of credibility in local electorates. A good solid local member can do a THOUSAND times more to swing public opinion on a tough ‘conscience’ issue than another Whitlam ever could. Personal contact is now paramount, in an age where nobody believes what they see in the Meeja for a second.

And here-in lies the REAL problem for the ALP – the party has become an unwieldy, moribund, centralised, clique-infested party of hacks, time-servers and careerists, and there are far too many CRAP candidates parachuted by factional heavyweights into bemused electorates which, in the end, simply DO NOT WISH TO VOTE FOR THEM. End of story. Tampa, the war…yeah, you can’t deny the impact, but to pretend that that’s the whole election story is mighty self-delusion. In fact, go-getting local candidates (like Christian Zhara and Michelle O’Byrne) managed to solidify their positions in dodgy seats AGAINST a national trend. BIG local issues, COMMITTED local candidates, STRONG local campaigns.

Remember the Aston by-election, too – a seat for the Labor taking, and a rubbish candidate blew it. In fact (can the ALP stomach admitting this?), the PM was right last night – Aston holds the key to Labor’s defeat, and it’s where their post-mortem catharsis must begin. If they don’t FINALLY come to grips with how they failed to take that by-election, then they WILL NOT WIN Government next time, either.

None of this is trying to excuse this ugly, base campaign, or deny that the ALP got no lucky breaks from what is now ‘history’, always beyond their control. But if you NEED lucky breaks to win an election after two terms in Opposition, then there’s something rotten in your house. The ALP has been progressively ignoring grass-roots politics since Whitlam. They have kidded themselves that big posturing on the national stage is what political engagement is all about. They were right for a short while – when they had charismatic leaders who could pull it off – but the electorate is now so jaded, so cynical and so sceptical about the ‘elites’, that you just can’t win government with sexy speeches from Central Office (alone) any more. Keating discovered that; Kennett discovered that.

Political iconoclasm is dead. The ALP’s got to get down and dirty in the local electorates again, and that means a big shake-up in how they run their factions. Big fat fucking chance, I’d say. Once the duller, talent-free, mediocre political automatons take Machiavellian control of your branch, even a crowbar and a crate of gelignite (much less serial election-losing) are unlikely to prise out the loser candidates they insist on installing. But that’s what the ALP need to do to win government. Run local candidates who local people will vote for. The end.

Mate, thanks for the space. Great site.

Jack

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