Greg Combet

In stark contrast with the loons of NZ Labour who were racing to the far left in a bid to secure the leadership the Aussie contenders for Labor’s leadership are instead racing to secure the centre.

LABOR leadership candidate Bill Shorten on Wednesday declared himself a man of the centre, insisting he was best-placed to appeal to the broader public over left-wing rival Anthony Albanese.

But the bid to point out his rival’s hard left background came as Mr Albanese’s blitz continued at a Brisbane campaign event on Wednesday night – with the backing of former Labor MP and Right faction member Arch Bevis.

Another Right member and former Gillard backer Craig Emerson has also backed Mr Albanese as well as Greg Combet, Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong and Doug Cameron.

Mr Shorten’s public endorsements have included former union boss Bill Kelty and former Labor ministers Richard Marles and Mark Dreyfus but right-wing unions are mobilising and it is understood more endorsements will be rolled out in coming days.  Read more »

The ALP ratbags are all abandoning ship…fleeing the onslaught at the election. Simon Crean is the latest.

Simon Crean is now quitting politics at the next election.

This is the man who stood for deputy prime minister at last Wednesday’s Caucus meeting and got thrashed by Anthony Albanese.

On 3AW he says he would have served under Kevin Rudd as a Minister until the election, but Rudd had told him he’d rather give the position to someone else if Crean was leaving anyway.

Andrew Leigh, a Gillard backer and former professor, has resigned as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister.

Kate Lundy has demoted from Minister for Sport to Minister for Multicultural Relations.

The full list of former Gillard Ministers quitting at the election:

Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister

Greg Combet, former Climate Change Minister

Simon Crean, former Regional Australia Minister   Read more »

There are none so bad as those who are willing to sacrifice all in their pursuit of a flawed and unattainable goal. The unions and the Labor party are rejecting proposals to reduce wages at car plants in Australia in a bid to save jobs, in effect damning those workers to the scrap heap.

Toyota Australia complained about high labour costs and sagging productivity at an emergency summit of car industry leaders with Prime Minister Julia Gillard but was brushed off by union opposition.

The meeting was convened two weeks ago after Ford decided to stop making cars in Australia from 2016, leaving only General Motors Holden and Toyota.

At the Melbourne summit, chaired by Ms Gillard and Industry Minister Greg Combet, Toyota executive David Buttner raised the problem of high wages and poor labour productivity.  Read more »

Why does Australia seem have more dodgy ratbags than other countries?

Is it because most of their ancestors were chosen by the best judges of England to live in Australia?

The ALP seems to also have more dodgy ratbags than most other parties as well. Take these two examples.

First up is their very own Phillip Field:

Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor has admitted his claim the 457 visa scheme had been rorted 10,000 times was simply his own ”estimate” – but insisted there had been ”more than a few” transgressions.

Mr O’Connor floated the number during a television interview on Sunday, yet his office was unable on Sunday or Monday to point to any specific evidence to back up the claim.

Employer groups told Fairfax Media on Monday they suspected Mr O’Connor had plucked the number ”out of thin air” and it was part of the ongoing exaggerated rhetoric surrounding the government’s proposed crackdown on the skilled foreign worker program.

In an interview on ABC’s AM program on Friday, Mr O’Connor conceded the suggestion that the 457 visa scheme had been used illegitimately more than 10,000 times was ”a forecast” he had come up with rather than a firm fact.

Read more »

As regular readers will already know I am not a fan of the anti-jobs, anti-people, anti-progress Green taliban. They are luddites. Unfortunately they manage to hoodwink plenty of people into their clutches.

In Australia, Julia Gillard has attacked them:

A FIERY Julia Gillard blasted the Greens as being anti-jobs as Tony Abbott revealed the Coalition was drawing up contingency plans if Labor made Kevin Rudd, Bill Shorten or Greg Combet leader.

The Prime Minister said it was the Greens who had walked away from their agreement because their policies would hurt jobs.

“At the end of the day, the Greens party is fundamentally a party of protest rather than a party of government … a party that would prefer to complain about things than get solutions,” she said.  Read more »