Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Family First has given the green light to the LDP's deadly policies to legalise 'soft' drugs and late term abortion, which shows Senator Fielding cannot be trusted to represent everyday families, and proves that his claims to be pro-family are an absolute joke.

Hello. Does being a Christian determine how you vote? Yep, but it depends on which Christian values you prioritise.

With only weeks to go until the election, I thought I'd better pull my finger out and try to learn something about Kevin Rudd. I must admit, Rudd’s winning the Labor leadership for me was a bit of a bummer. His fastidious personality and love of detail seemed perfect for some high brow portfolio, but I couldn’t imagine the public flocking to him as leader. (Boy was I wrong.)

There are some interesting things in play in this Election, and while anything can happen in an election campaign, let me stick my neck out and do a Malcolm McKerras, only unlike the former (who has never ever predicted an election outcome correctly in living memory despite being a self-confessed psephologist and making a living out of it) I hope to get the result roughly correct.   I still believe at this stage that the Coalition will be returned in the House of Representatives with a drastically reduced majority and will maintain its majority in the Senate.

I watched Insiders this morning with a friend who works in Parliament House and admired Andren immensely. Upon hearing the tributes from Howaerd and Rudd, and the solemn wish of Canberra' chief personal muckraker journo Glen Milne that we need more decent blokes like Andren in Parliament, she burst into tears. 

How could a Labor man make a flippant remark to a right-wing Sydney shock jock? Those types only get their own jokes, which they only make at other people's expense. And those types are hungry for publicity. They're not really human, Peter.What you've done is a real worry. Rudd's talking to swingers who need to feel safe about Labor. You've just handed the Government a gimme.

Webdiarist Susie Russell emailed me amazing news today which I thought you might like to hear. Yes folks, Vaile has agreed, under questioning from a talk back listener and citizen extraordinaire, to take a lie detector test on AWB!

Most people prepare themselves for disappointment but Margo Kingston put an excessive and dangerous emotional investment in to a Howard defeat (not a Latham victory) in 2004. She put a misplaced faith in to the spontaneous Iraq war protests and in to her online activism. She set herself up for failure. Then she burnt out.

Hi there. I wrote my first letter to the editor this week, published yesterday in the Canberra Times, about the Australian Christian Lobby's attack on the Greens. I did my first door knocking ever last Saturday - oh the pleasure in overcoming that fear - and yesterday I helped advise Kerrie Tucker when she filmed an election ad. The lesson there was not to be so bloody anxious and intense that it rubs off on the candidate! 

Isn't it weird. Amrozi is about to be shot dead as the Indonesian courts decide they can't even look at the nation's Constitutional protection of human rights re the Bali Nine plea not to be shot dead - because they're foreigners. I, for one, will never forgive this government for handing over our bloody stupid, off the rails young people for arrest, knowing Indonesia had the death penalty for such offences. Yet there is silence from Labor. Where is Labor's promise to never ever let this happen again?

The Spooky Men's Chorale supported the Not Happy John launches in 2004 and 2007, and for the 2004 campaign wrote their extended treatise on the politics of Australia and how to fix its problems, Vote the Bastards Out. Their performance at Gleebooks was one of the few good moments in the election campaign so far. Now they're launching their new release, Stop Scratching It - a treatise on how to run the War on Terror ...

We are now entering a long political drought. For in this election climate, we are complicit in a new and frightening dismissal in Australian politics. It is the dismissal of Human Rights.

Malcolm is Webdiary's candidate in Wentworth. He writes: "Well, the Federal Election is shaping up to be as boring as batshit so webdiarist Malcolm B. Duncan decided to enlist some help to fulfill a promise he made me a while ago.   The family pet writes...

As this century unfolds I find that I am living in a changed Australia. While it is still a country of great potential we have gone backwards in a number of ways over the last decade. Our future is not simply a matter of sustaining economic prosperity ...  Australians need to address a range of other issues. The decision to join the invasion of Iraq ... was in my judgement, the worst foreign policy decision made by any Australian government since the end of World War II. (Richard Woolcott)

Kerryn Higgs: "As the campaign rolls on, we will hear the government’s specious arguments over and over again. Guy Pearse’s book provides a very useful antidote to the overblown claims of “world leadership” which will surely lace the rhetoric." Sally Woodward: "This book should be on the ‘must read’ list for all Australians, but none more so than those who believe or hope the Howard Government will come around on climate change if re-elected."

"During the election campaign, we are asking people to enter the Australia Fair site and email their local candidates (this will be automated) calling for action to improve fairness in Australia. We are also asking candidates to prepare statements for posting on the website." Peter Davidson, ACoSS

A space for you to get your (and my) reactions down as it happens and as they occur to you.

“Oh, my head. What day is it? What Country is it? Who was that woman? Was it a woman? Was it only one woman? I MUST stop drinking absinthe. Go for the Greens they said. Oh, my head.    Where’s the … oh sorry… bloody cat. " Alphonse de Ponce.

The re-election of John Howard in 2004 with a majority in both houses of parliament is surely one of the low points in Australian political life. By 2004, we already had compelling evidence of Howard’s duplicity. So when we handed control of both houses of parliament to this known scoundrel, it exposed the failings of our media, our two-party system and our civil society itself.

There is something patently illiberal and unconservative about despising individuals due to factors beyond their control. To despise an individual due to the colour of their skin or their ethno-religious background requires a suspension of one’s reason. I always thought Liberals believed individuals should be given every opportunity to reach their full potential regardless of their background. All of which raises the question — is John Howard’s Party still a Liberal Party? And if it isn’t, who should real Liberals be voting for in the upcoming election?

A decade ago The Greens had a very simple slogan - “No environment no economy”. Today that is even truer. "Ten years ago it was a warning. Now, in 2007; it is a description of our reality. And the farmers, the fishers, the tourism industry workers, the city dwellers on water restrictions – Australians everywhere – know this is true. Without the environment, there is no economy." Bob Brown

In northern NSW local communities are getting increasingly anxious about the effects of logging on their catchments. Recently a court refused to convict several people who had taken direct action to protect their catchment. Now the residents of another valley are preparing for action.

Malcolm B Duncan, a prominent member of his local Kings Cross community, is a Sydney barrister known for saying what he thinks about or vice versa.  He intends standing as an independent candidate in the federal electorate of Wentworth. His least successful political slogans were "Come and have a beer with Duncan" and "Vote Donkey; Vote Duncan".  He is Chairman of the Taxation Reform Party (NSW) Inc.

Big Kev even threw in the 'vision' word, just once, his 'vision' for the best education and training system in the world, to drive us forward when the mining boom ends.

Until recently the peak oil debate in Australia has been largely confined to internet forums such as Webdiary. That situation has changed dramatically in recent weeks with the release of the Queensland Government’s long-awaited Oil Vulnerability Taskforce Report. World oil production is peaking – it’s official, at least here in Queensland.

The word 'trust' was absent. The phrase 'interest rates' was absent. Out of the blocks on the front foot with a shock in 2004, reacting to Rudd in 2007 by starting his pitch with Rudd's slogan, 'New leadership'. Nope, 'the right leadership'.

"This election will focus on the showdown between John Howard and Kevin Rudd. But there is another battle looming – the contest for the balance of power in the Senate between Family First and the Greens." Family First Senator Steve Fielding

'I acknowledge that my own journey in arriving at this point has not been without sidetracks and dry gullies.  There have been low points when dialogue between me as Prime Minister and many Indigenous leaders dwindled almost to the point of non-existence.  I fully accept my share of the blame for that. On the night of the 1998 election I publicly committed myself to endeavouring to achieve Reconciliation by the year 2001.  In the end, that did not happen.' John Winston 'whatever it takes' Howard

Michael Kirby explores the interface of consensus and dissent in contemporary Australia In politics, securing consensus is often now essential because of the comparative decline in electoral support for the major political parties.

Hello. Here is the Australian Law Council's statement yesterday on the death penalty debate. The recent history of this issue is very interesting, as is its prominence now. I'll try to write something later.