Labor candidate Kirsten Lesina in fight to hold seat

Tarina White

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

© The Cairns Post

Tough task: Former Cairns councillor Kirsten Lesina expects a hard fight to hold the seat of Cairns for Labor.

Resigning from council to officially launch her state election campaign, Cairns Labor candidate Kirsten Lesina conceded she would have to work hard to win the seat that has been a Labor stronghold for more than a century.

With polls showing the LNP is set to trounce Labor in the election, the former Division 4 Cairns Regional councillor faces huge pressure to win the seat. Labor holds Cairns with a margin of 4.2 per cent."No doubt it’s going to be tough and I’m in for the fight of my life," Ms Lesina said.

Long-time Labor MP Desley Boyle held Cairns in the 2009 election scoring 45.8 per cent of the vote compared with LNP candidate Joel Harrop’s 39.8 per cent.Ms Boyle is not standing for re-election this year.

Ms Lesina (pictured) is running against former The Cairns Post journalist and LNP candidate Gavin King, Katter’s Australian Party candidate and police officer Darren Hunt and John Piva of the North Queensland Party.

The 25-year-old, who set a record as the youngest councillor elected in the Cairns region, said her four years of local government experience sets her apart from her competitors."It’s a great training ground because you do have that experience of managing a large budget," said Ms Lesina, who won a seat on the council in the same year she graduated from law school at James Cook University."I’ve had four years of experience on council managing a $330 million business."

The fourth-generation Cairns resident will focus her campaign on health care, job creation and education.

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Bob Katter the spoiler | Will he spoil the party for 'Can Do' Campbell

No preference deal for Katter's party

AAP

Monday, February 20, 2012

© The Cairns Post

Confident: Katter's Australia Party leader Bob Katter (right) with member for Beaudesert Aidan McLindon at Canungra's Outpost Cafe for the Party's campaign launch. Picture: TIM MARSDEN

Katter's Australian Party predicts Labor incumbent Kate Jones won't need its preferences to retain the crucial seat of Ashgrove in the Queensland election.

Federal leader and Kennedy independent MP Bob Katter and state leader Aidan McLindon announced yesterday the party would not direct preferences to either Labor or the Liberal National Party.

The announcement came after speculation they would do a preference swap deal between Ms Jones in Ashgrove and Mr McLindon in Beaudesert.

But Mr McLindon said in his electorate yesterday he had been friends with Ms Jones for 16 years, and was confident she was "strong" enough to retain Ashgrove herself. She will be battling LNP leader Campbell Newman for the seat, who must win if he is to become premier. Mr McLindon said after studying the policies of both major parties, he could not find any differences. "It’s very, very clear to see the ALP and Liberals have become two heads of the same creature," Mr McLindon said. "We’re not in a position in good conscience to preference either of those parties."

The party would negotiate with minor parties and independents on a seat-by-seat basis, Mr McLindon said. "We will look at the merits or otherwise of their policy positions and what they believe in," he said.

Mr Katter said the decision not to direct preferen-ces came down to principle rather than politics. "We’ve got to do what we consider the right thing to do," he said. "It’s pretty hypocritical if we put, ‘It’s the principle of it’ on our logo and then go out saying, ‘Well, we’ll get two more votes if we go this way than if we go that way’. "If they want preferences, then they should come forward with policies that will say the sort of things that we’re saying."

Mr Katter said his party could not give preferences to the two major parties because of their "flawed" support for the coal seam gas industry and their economic performance, including that of Mr Newman in his time as Brisbane’s lord mayor.

But he said the biggest sticking point was both parties’ refusal to block plans from mining companies to bring in foreign labour to work in the state’s mines. "One of them (Labor) refuses to say that they haven’t discussed bringing in 14,000 workers – in other words, they’ve admitted that they’re bringing in 14,000 foreign workers to take all our jobs off us," he said. "And the other party, the LNP leader (Mr Newman) has steadfastly refused to say he’s going to stop it."

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Cr Rob Pyne will not be deterred and turns up heat

 

http://therocknews.com.au/2012/02/20/pyne-turns-up-heat-in-campaign-against-corruption-and-misconduct-following-defamation-threat/

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Is the ALP brand dead in the water?

Federal caucus must not play into Abbott's hands

• by: Steve Bracks
• From: The Australian
• February 20, 2012 12:00AM

Minority government is hard. Relationships and trust matter. But a good leader can make it work. That was certainly my experience of minority government in Victoria between 1999 and 2002, working with the three independents in the Victorian parliament.

And that is my impression of the Gillard government over the past 18 months. She has made minority government work effectively. Just look at the substantive nation-building reforms. A law to structurally separate Telstra. A law to bring balance in how we pay for health services. A law that spreads the benefits of a mining boom. And a set of laws that puts a price on carbon.

And these are all reforms that can only be stopped by one thing: the election in the short term of an Abbott government.These reforms must be protected at all costs. They are core to our nation being a fair, prosperous and sustainable place to live. And these are reforms that place Julia Gillard as one of Labor's great reformers.

But if the federal caucus doesn't back the Prime Minister to see out her term, it won't just put these reforms at risk, it will hurt a generation of working people and their families.There seems to be an unknown number of federal caucus members who think it is a choice between Gillard and Kevin Rudd. It is not. It's a choice between a Labor government and an Abbott government.

They would undoubtedly know that the Prime Minister's personal relationships and trust with all but one of the crossbenchers is the bedrock of the government. But these crossbenchers have all said their arrangement is with Gillard and not the Labor Party.
They have indicated that if there is a leadership change we would go back to the drawing board and effectively all bets would be off.

Who is the big beneficiary of this? Tony Abbott.

That is because the withdrawal of the crossbench support would result in an election being called by the Governor-General, or Abbott being commissioned as prime minister. But the first minority Abbott government would be a short-run thing with his electoral support being sky high.

He would capitalise on this lead in the polls with an immediate election, resulting in a massive majority and potentially control of the Senate. We can't deny that Labor's public support is low. That is clear. But it is also mid-term, following some serious policy reforms where the right thing hasn't been the popular thing. By the middle of the year, millions of households will be benefiting from tax cuts and extra cash from the government, and small businesses will be getting a tax break. All that would be lost with an early election. And who loses the most? Well, that's a difficult question.

Is it a generation of Australians who deserve the best possible communications system that a completed NBN would deliver.Is it working people who would be forced to subsidise the healthcare of Australia's richest millionaires and billionaires? Is it the generation of young people who would miss out in the profound investment and reform agenda that will transform our nation's education system?

Is it older Australians who would see the largest ever increase in the aged pension clawed back?Or working Australians who would see their future living standards drop as the world-class retirement incomes policy funded by the minerals resource rent tax was wound back so that $4.5 billion could be given back to mining companies? Is it our environment, as our biggest polluters will pay no penalty for the pollution they put into our atmosphere every day? And let's face it, Australia would never have a carbon price; no politician would introduce one again.

Or is it Australian families who want the chance to lay the foundations for a ground breaking National Disability Insurance schemeThey are all too great a price to pay. It's not a risk worth taking.

I know Gillard and Rudd well. They have their respective strengths. Isn't is best to use those strengths to see federal Labor under Prime Minister Gillard serve its full term, thereby implementing key nation-building reforms? The Australian people deserve no less a commitment.

Steve Bracks was Victorian premier from 1999-2007

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Julia Gillard | Death by a thousand cuts!

Tackle Kevin Rudd now, Julia Gillard urged

• by: Matthew Franklin, Chief political correspondent
• From: The Australian
• February 20, 2012 12:00AM

Kevin Rudd at the international airport in Brisbane. Picture: Annette Dew Source: The Courier-Mail

Julia Gillard is being urged to take on Kevin Rudd in a ballot as early as next week to prevent Labor's leadership wrangling smashing the party's chances in the March 24 Queensland election.

After weeks of playing down the push to restore the Foreign Minister to the Labor leadership, sections of Labor's Right faction moved to a war footing yesterday, urging the Prime Minister to call a caucus ballot they predicted she would win.

Accusing Mr Rudd of gross disloyalty and his supporters of lying about his level of support, a senior Right faction leader told The Australian last night: "This has to stop. She has to take him on."

The push came as Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, on the first day of the formal campaign for the state election, demanded Canberra take the federal Labor leadership "wild card" out of her battle for re-election.

"I don't care how they resolve it, I just want it resolved," said Ms Bligh, refusing to back Mr Rudd or Ms Gillard. There are signs Julia Gillard's closest supporters have started to crab-walk away from her. Ms Bligh's clear frustration came as another senior Queensland Labor source claimed the party's chances would improve with Mr Rudd as prime minister, because Ms Gillard was unpopular in the northern state.

As Ms Gillard rejected leadership questions and declared she wanted to get on with her job, Tasmanian crossbencher Andrew Wilkie inflamed the tensions, revealing that he had discussed the Labor leadership with Mr Rudd in November.

Mr Wilkie's comments, denied by Mr Rudd, were seized on by Gillard supporters as evidence Mr Rudd had been destabilising the Prime Minister for months, despite his claims to the contrary. Ms Gillard ousted Mr Rudd to become the nation's first female prime minister in June 2010. A succession of poor opinion poll results and political misjudgments by the Prime Minister in recent months has worried Labor MPs, with Victorian Darren Cheeseman declaring on Saturday that Ms Gillard should resign for the good of the party.

Within hours, a video clip was posted on YouTube showing Mr Rudd when he was prime minister delivering a foul-mouthed rant about his inability to record a video message.  As his supporters accused the Gillard camp of posting the video to discredit the former leader, Mr Rudd gave Sky News a midnight interview to assure colleagues he had mellowed since critics of his prime ministership complained of his dictatorial style, foul mouth and bad temper. "I don't walk away from some of my own failings in the past," Mr Rudd told Sky.

"The bottom line is, I think you do learn, and what I've tried to learn from all that is do less in a given working day, rather than trying to do everything "I think it's also important to delegate more and be sort of happy and contented about that."

Later yesterday, as Mr Rudd left Australia for a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Mexico, Ms Gillard denied any knowledge of the YouTube posting as she won strong support from ministers including Peter Garrett, Tanya Plibersek and Craig Emerson.

Former Victorian premier Steve Bracks, writing in The Australian today, urges Labor to stick with Ms Gillard, while Victorian backbencher Steve Gibbons attacked Mr Rudd's "chaotic and deeply offensive" leadership.

"Only a psychopath with a giant ego would line up again after being comprehensively rejected by the overwhelming majority of colleagues," Mr Gibbons wrote on social media site Twitter. The Prime Minister, visiting Darwin to commemorate the 70th anniversary of its World War II bombing by the Japanese, did not buy in to the speculation.

"I'm getting on with the job with the strong confidence of my colleagues," she said. "We are delivering for this nation the changes we need to have a prosperous economy for the future, so working Australians can be assured they'll have a place in that economy, and so will their children."

Several Right faction sources said claims Mr Rudd's support in the 103-member caucus was approaching 40 votes were wrong, and his backers were lying. "I think she has to take him on to end this," said one senior Labor figure. "And I think she has the numbers to win."
Another source agreed, saying Mr Wilkie's claim of a discussion with Mr Rudd in November about a leadership tilt "put the lie" to the Foreign Minister's claim he had not been undermining Ms Gillard. "It's proof of disloyalty," the MP said. "This can't just go on and on. They are circulating lists overstating Kevin's support, and I think the only way to end this is to test the numbers."

Another Right faction figure said he was in two minds about the wisdom of bringing on a spill. "I think if a few of us just get on with out job it might help. Kevin isn't passing any loyalty tests out there at the moment."

Caucus is due to meet on Tuesday of next week. The Prime Minister can declare the leadership vacant at any time and any other caucus member can seek an extraordinary caucus meeting with three days notice and with the backing of at least one third of Labor MPs. An early meeting is unlikely because Mr Rudd is not due to return to Australia from international meetings until next weekend.

As Ms Bligh resigned herself to her re-election campaign being overshadowed by the federal brawl, former Queensland premier Peter Beattie took to Twitter to appeal for a resolution of the tensions at the top. "Julia Gillard needs to call a caucus meeting and resolve the leadership question once and for all, or Anna Bligh may as well stay at home," Mr Beattie wrote.

Mr Wilkie, speaking to Sky News, said he held a 90-minute discussion with Mr Rudd in November about the Labor leadership. Mr Wilkie said he had no doubt Mr Rudd wanted to return to The Lodge, and said he would find the Queenslander easier to work with than Ms Gillard, who earlier this year reneged on a promise to introduce compulsory pre-commitment technology to the nation's poker machines.

Mr Wilkie forecast an imminent Labor leadership challenge, and his West Australian crossbench colleague Tony Crook said he had been sounded out by a Rudd supporter before the resumption of parliament.

Queensland crossbencher Bob Katter refused to comment on the Labor leadership, while Greens leader Bob Brown voiced concerns about whether a new leader would show the same commitment to delivering the outcomes in the power-sharing agreement signed with Ms Gillard.

A spokeswoman for Mr Rudd said the meeting with Mr Wilkie covered a range of foreign policy issues, including Mr Wilkie's call for an inquiry into Australia's role in the Iraq war.
"Mr Wilkie raised leadership late in the conversation," the spokeswoman said. "At no point did Mr Rudd indicate he was seeking the leadership, nor request support for it."

Additional reporting: Joe Kelly
 
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Kevin Rudd is a Happy Little Vegemite

The video, showing a furious Kevin Rudd ranting and swearing, was leaked on the internet last night as the Government's leadership feud reached crisis point. The video was posted anonymously on YouTube after Prime Minister Julia Gillard's supporters declared war on Mr Rudd's character.

Posted under the title "Kevin Rudd is a happy little vegemite", the video dramatically raised the stakes in the bitter leadership rift between Ms Gillard and Mr Rude said the video, in which an obviously frustrated Mr Rudd slams the table and uses four-letter curses, was embarrassing but his frustration was directed at himself and no one else.

PM Julia Gillard told to quit

JULIA Gillard faced a revolt last night by marginal seat MPs who publicly called for her to resign as Prime Minister.  "Anyone who's got a touch of suspicion about them would say that if this was done, somewhat embarrassingly, a couple of years ago, and it suddenly emerges now, then obviously it's a little bit on the unusual side," Mr Rudd told Sky News. "But these are questions for others. "But the bottom line here is, I accept responsibility for what occurred. I'm not about to point the finger at others."

He said the video was from one of a number of speeches he recorded from time to time for Chinese community occasions, and was probably done in a reception room next to the prime minister's office "a couple of years ago". "You'd sit down and try and get the script right. Obviously I wasn't getting it right on this occasion and was getting pretty frustrated about it."

Mr Rudd said it was no secret that he did often swea "I've never pretended not to swear from time to time. That's been out there for a long, long time. "I wish I'd sweared (sic) less but that's just the truth of it."

His spokeswoman declined to say where the video had come from, saying: "He (Mr Rudd) regrets any offence that might be caused by the release of this selectively edited footage recorded a number of years ago."

The person who anonymously posted the video on YouTube yesterday identified themselves as HappyVegemiteKR - an apparent play on Mr Rudd's repeated descriptions of himself as a "happy little Vegemite" when questioned on his leadership aspirations.

The clip is a compilation of out-takes as an increasingly frustrated Foreign Affairs Minister fluffs his lines struggling to deliver a recorded speech. "Arrrhhh mate this is just impossible," he says, looking off-camer. "Just tell these d---heads in the embassy to just give me simple sentences . . ."

Timing coincides with leadership speculation

The emergence of the video capped a tumultuous day in federal politics in which  one of Ms Gillard's MPs publicly urged her to "resign now. The shock tactics designed to blast the Prime Minister out of office in favour of Mr Rudd were led by Victorian Labor MP  who holds the marginal seat of Corangamite by just 400 votes.Darren Cheeseman,

As the Prime Minister flew into Darwin last night to mark the 70th anniversary of the Japanese bombing, Mr Cheeseman publicly called for her to stand down as her defiant supporters insisted she would fight on. "There's no doubt about it. Julia Gillard can't take the party forward. The community has made its mind up on her," he told the Sunday Herald Sun. "And I think it's in the best interests of party she should resign."

The extraordinary call was earlier backed by some of the Ms Gillard's ministers. "For the good of the party. For the good of the Government, she should stand down," a senior minister said.

In the event of a leadership vote, the Gillard camp maintained she had more than 60 votes in the 103 ALP caucus, but even her supporters conceded a ballot was high-risk because it would probably show more than a third of MPs wanted her gone.

A Labor powerbroker warned Mr Rudd was destroying the party, driving down the primary vote with relentless destabilisation. "He's taken ALP caucus hostage. His message is, 'I'll shoot the Prime Minister - if you don't give me the job'. "He is lying about his support levels."

As ministers loyal to the Prime Minister yesterday threatened a wave of mass resignations if Mr Rudd regained the leadership, there were predictions Left faction powerbroker and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese or Climate Change Minister Greg Combet would be approached to serve as deputy prime minister if Mr Rudd returned to The Lodge. But angry Labor MPs, including Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, backed Ms Gillard.

Julia Gillard still has support

Ms Roxon said Ms Gillard was "absolutely" the better choice for prime minister over Mr Rudd. "Julia has worked absolute miracles with the hand she has been dealt," she said. Both sides believe Ms Gillard will not resign.

Asked whether he had support for a leadership challenge, Mr Rudd declined to answer. Last night, a senior minister described Mr Cheeseman as "desperate and dateless". "This is a typical cry for relevance from the usual suspects, the desperate and dateless in the caucus who are easily fooled," he said. " If they had anywhere near the numbers they claim, they wouldn't be dropping this sort of rubbish out, as always when Kevin is about to jump on another plane. Mr Rudd flies to Mexico today for a foreign ministers' meeting.

Labor challenge will occur - Wilkie

However, Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has since weighed into the debate, saying he would find it easier to work with Mr Rudd than Ms Gillard if the Foreign Minister regained his former job of prime minister.

Mr Wilkie tore up his agreement to support the Gillard minority government after the Prime Minister broke her promise on gambling reforms in January. The independent member for the Hobart seat of Denison said his relationship with Ms Gillard had taken a "battering" since he pulled his support for the Labor government. "A word has not passed between Julia Gillard and myself since Friday night of January 20," Mr Wilkie told Sky News today. "I would find it easier to work with Kevin Rudd than Julia Gillard at this point of time."

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Is Anna Bligh on the ropes?

Campbell Newman ready to rout Anna Bligh as Newspoll shows big lead

• by: Michael McKenna, Queensland political editor
• From: The Australian
• February 18, 2012 12:00AM

Campbell Newman has extended the Liberal National Party's commanding lead over Labor in Queensland, and enters the state election campaign on track to inflict a savage defeat on the Bligh government.

With Premier Anna Bligh set to see the state Governor tomorrow to dissolve parliament ahead of the March 24 poll, The Weekend Australian's exclusive Newspoll kicks the LNP 16 points clear of the ALP, which faces an electoral bloodbath.

Labor's base vote is pegged at 30 per cent and, when preferences are factored in, it trails the LNP 42 per cent to 58 per cent. On those numbers, Labor would lose more than half of its 51 seats, including ministers touted as future leaders, in the 89-seat parliament.

The Newspoll shows the pre-Christmas momentum Ms Bligh generated has stalled and the LNP is close to regaining the 20-point lead it opened up on Labor after Mr Newman became leader 11 months ago.

A special analysis by Newspoll shows Bob Katter's fledgling party has only 4.8 per cent of the primary vote across the state. This leaves Katter's Australian Party well behind the 23 per cent secured by Pauline Hanson's One Nation in 1998 when it won 11 seats - a feat the federal independent MP has claimed his party could repeat.

KAP picked up a third of those who said they would not vote for the major parties or the Greens. Despite Ms Bligh telling The Weekend Australian this week that she could win back support and regaining the trust of voters who had turned against Labor after 19 of the past 21 years in power, the LNP base appears largely rock-solid.

Newspoll found two-thirds of LNP supporters had locked in their vote, and would not consider an alternative on polling day, while less than half of Labor's supporters said they would remain loyal to Ms Bligh.

The Bligh government could face a drubbing on March 24, with a further 40 per cent of Labor supporters conceding there was a slight chance they might take their support elsewhere. The Newspoll results will deliver a blow to Labor morale after its rebound in support late last year, and following a heated few days in parliament this week.

Ms Bligh turned up the attack on Mr Newman using the cover of parliament to predict the LNP leader would "end up" in jail over his family's business interests.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Ms Bligh was unapologetic about the attack and expressed the belief she could deliver Labor its sixth consecutive election victory in Queensland. "I think this will be a very tight, very hard-fought election, and it will be an election where I will certainly be talking about a big vision for a big moment in Queensland's history," the Premier said.

Ms Bligh promised a refreshed frontbench - with the elevation to cabinet of younger, energised backbenchers - and a plan to harness the resources boom, with heavy emphasis on jobs, education and training.

Mr Newman, who has set a 4 per cent unemployment target for the state over the next six years, told The Weekend Australian that, if elected, he would reform the public service, return ministerial accountability and revive struggling sectors of the economy. "We are promising to get the state back on track after the whole ethos of Queensland has been diminished and dragged down," the LNP leader said.

Mr Newman dismissed the Labor attacks on him as the actions of a "desperate" government. But they continue to take some political skin off Mr Newman's personal standing among voters, with dissatisfaction over his performance increasing to 37 per cent from 33 per cent in the October-December Newspoll. In the last Newspoll, his satisfaction level fell five percentage points to 45 per cent, where it remains.

Ms Bligh's satisfaction levels have increased to 41 per cent, up by two percentage points.
Labor last night turned to former prime minister Paul Keating for a fundraiser in the Brisbane north electorate of Ashgrove, where Mr Newman is trying to take the seat from incumbent Labor MP Kate Jones.

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The Ides of March dawn for Gillard

Kevin Rudd marches towards Labor leadership challenge

• by: Dennis Shanahan and Sid Maher
• From: The Australian
• February 18, 2012 1:22AM

Kevin  Rudd is prepared to challenge Julia Gillard as prime minister next month, before the Queensland election and the federal budget parliamentary session.

The former Labor leader is readying for a strike at regaining the top job in the final March sitting of parliament as Labor MPs fall away from supporting the Prime Minister. Senior cabinet ministers expect a challenge during the Queensland election campaign, despite the potential damage to Anna Bligh's hopes of re-election and claims the Foreign Minister "doesn't have the numbers" or is afraid to "put up or shut up".

The rapid shift of support within the Labor parliamentary caucus in the past two sitting weeks has convinced Mr Rudd's supporters he has 40 of the 52 votes he requires to win a challenge. Gillard supporters estimate the Prime Minister has 45 votes, with the rest of the 103 Labor MPs and senators undecided. The latest episode of the Greek drama that is the Labor leadership appears set to be staged during the Ides of March.

But Rudd supporters believe many MPs counted as Ms Gillard's supporters are "soft" and could shift if there were another blunder by the Prime Minister's office or a ballot was called. In the past 72 hours, there have been claims Labor's influential NSW branch is "running dead" on the leadership, that the Left is demanding a bigger role for its rising star Greg Combet, possibly the deputy leadership, in return for its support, and that ministers have signalled to Mr Rudd's camp they would be prepared to work with him in cabinet."Kevin isn't about being vindictive, and apart from a couple of obvious changes - such as Wayne Swan - there wouldn't be wholesale change," a minister told The Weekend Australian yesterday.

A key Rudd supporter said: "After the Beazley leadership change, all the strongest opponents to the Rudd challenge were given top jobs in the ministry." In recent days, the Prime Minister has recognised the threat to her leadership, and ministers loyal to her, including Nicola Roxon and Craig Emerson, have sounded out MPs about their view on how the government is doing and to work out the numbers.

Some ministers who have been suggesting to MPs it would be "suicide" to return to Mr Rudd as prime minister just 20 months after he was dumped have been bluntly told "She's finished" and Labor has no chance with Ms Gillard as leader. NSW right-wing MPs have been told the influential state branch "supports the leader" but will not interfere or direct NSW MPs on their vote.

"Essentially, they're running dead and will not tell MPs how to vote," a source said. "The NSW Right has been a bloc vote." Ministers supporting Ms Gillard have argued that if Mr Rudd does not challenge before the end of next month, with the last sitting day of parliament being March 22, his campaign will stall during the six-week pre-budget break and give Ms Gillard a chance to improve her dire position in the polls. "If he doesn't go before the end of March, he'll be seen to have nothing," a senior minister told The Weekend Australian.

Other ministers said Mr Rudd was cowardly and would not challenge, and would be seen as a wrecker who was destroying Labor's chances. Ministers said Mr Rudd would be afraid to jeopardise his role as Foreign Minister, which he has enjoyed, by launching a leadership bid that failed.

But MPs backing Mr Rudd said he had showed determination and a willingness to take risks when he challenged Kim Beazley for the leadership in 2006, and any bid would seek to win outright. "The aim is not to go in and set up a close result for a second bid later on, but to win the first time," one minister said. "The idea of going to the backbench after a close result is only a fallback position."

Both Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd continued to parry questions about the leadership yesterday. At the launch of a charity campaign for Caritas in Brisbane, where schoolchildren were calling out for Mr Rudd to become prime minister again, he responded to leadership questions by saying: "Schoolkids are always nice, and they're well-mannered and they're friendly, as are the people of Queensland. "But in answer to your fundamental question, I'm very happy being the Foreign Minister of Australia, and as they say in the classics, I've got to zip."

At the opening of a training centre at a Catholic college in Canberra, Ms Gillard did not respond to questions about a Rudd challenge, but said: "Nothing is more important to me than just getting on with the job we need to do to give these kids the best possible future, and to give our nation the strongest possible economy for the future. "So when they graduate from here and whatever the rest of their education journey brings, they will be young adults in a prosperous economy where they can get an opportunity and get a chance."

MPs spoken to by The Weekend Australian expressed frustration at the government's performance at the end of another week of parliament in which Ms Gillard's leadership was under pressure. "The marginal seat-holders are being worn down," one MP said, expressing frustration that the government was unable to take advantage of an economy that had unemployment down to about 5 per cent. Instead, the government had been bogged down by job losses at Qantas and manufacturers, which were obscuring the benefits of the boom.
"We should be like Black Caviar - we should be streets ahead," one MP said.

Several MPs expressed frustration at the Prime Minister's performance. "All the injuries are self-inflicted," one said. Another said Mr Rudd's replacement by Ms Gillard was a "Greek tragedy - there were no winners".

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Possible manipulation of votes cast in Division 6 CRC Blog poll

If the CRC Div.6 election was held today who would you vote for?

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If we examine closely the above figures we find that the 200 votes were distributed as follow:

Cooper         43 votes     21%

Rees             18 votes     9%

Sheppard    139 votes   70%


I do not see a problem with the above result except to say that Annette Sheppard must be an extremely popular ex Councillor. 

What has been brought to my attention by various readers of my Blog is the abnormally high voter turn out for Division 6. The average votes per Division is 126 and yet in Division 6, 200 votes were cast. I find this abnormally inflated and the possibility of manipulation is of concern to the moderator.

I have therefore, removed the suspect Division 6 poll and have posted a new one. I will be keeping a close eye on this Division for any trend that is inconsistent with the average votes cast in other Divisions.

For the record I also notice that the votes cast for Division 9 of late also show signs of possible manipulation. However, at this stage I am proposing to take no further action.

This poll in by no means scientific and therefore is open to manipulation and honesty is paramount. Cheers.

Ross Parisi

17.02.2012

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Has the Queensland electorate stop listening?

Labor links Newman to FBI crime probe

Thursday, February 16, 2012

© The Cairns Post

On the attack: Premier Anna Bligh raised questions about Campbell Newman's

Premier Anna Bligh launched an extraordinary attack on her opponent's character, alleging the conduct of his family's business could land him behind bars.

The FBI is reportedly investigating Majella Global Technologies, the company of Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman's brother-in-law Seb Monsour, to determine whether it breached US trade secret laws. The company was formed to sell disaster recovery technology, just nine days after floodwaters receded in Brisbane in 2011.

The FBI is probing the possible theft of US military technology.

Ms Bligh tabled several documents in State Parliament yesterday, saying the paper trail led straight to Mr Newman's door. Under parliamentary privilege, she read out Mr Newman's home address before suggesting he could meet the same fate as disgraced former Labor minister Gordon Nuttall. "When it happens on your side you need to condemn it," she said. "When Gordon Nuttall happened we referred him to the CMC. I gave evidence against him in court. "Those people are behind jail (sic) and Campbell Newman will end up there as well."

Labor has been asking questions about the Newman-Monsour family's interests since Mr Newman announced his plans to contest the premiership from outside of Parliament. Ms Bligh told Parliament the "complex web" of company structures showed Mr Newman's wife, Lisa, helped establish the company in question, and was a financial beneficiary of its parent company. "Lisa Newman's financial interests are her husband's financial interests. That's how it works in this country," Ms Bligh said.

Earlier, Mr Newman tried to distance himself from his in-laws' business interests. "I don't know anything about his business interests," he said. "I'm not involved and neither is my wife." In a statement released after Ms Bligh's tirade, Mr Newman said she had "lost all credibility in her desperate bid to cling to power".

In a statement, Mr Monsour said Labor had engaged in political opportunism.

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Leadership tussle: Rudd circles, Gillard stumbles

By ABC's Barrie Cassidy

Posted February 17, 2012 08:05:27

 Photo: Gillard needs to lift her primary vote. She can't do that while Rudd continues to circle. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Judas kiss

The pressure must surely be building on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call a party room ballot and try and stop in its tracks Kevin Rudd's undeclared run for the leadership.

Rudd's numbers now are modest; perhaps a support base of 20 and sometimes approaching 30 depending on the mood of the day. That's from a caucus of 103.

But as every day goes by, the chances are he will build on that support. This week was a case in point. Julia Gillard had one of her worst weeks in politics because essentially trivial matters were badly handled. The damage was significant because it went to the most vulnerable aspects of her leadership – credibility and trust.

It is of no consequence that somebody in her office was preparing a speech in the event that she might win a leadership ballot. It would or should have been obvious to all those around her that that was at least a possibility and it would be prudent to start preparing for it. That she remembered little of it is also unsurprising. She would have been pre-occupied with issues like, should I challenge and will I have the numbers?

Equally unremarkable was the showing of polling unfavourable to Rudd to colleagues. Why wouldn't she? For days, she had been urged by key people to mount a challenge. Surely, armed with relevant material, she would seek to sound out colleagues.

For goodness sake. In the mid-90s, Liberals disenchanted with John Hewson's leadership, showed polling to Kerry O'Brien. And he was never a Liberal MP. All Gillard ever said was that she hadn't made up her mind to finally take the plunge until the day itself. There is nothing in the preparation of a speech or the showing off of polling that is inconsistent with that. But such straight forward and candid explanations were beyond the Prime Minister. By agreeing to a long pre-recorded interview with Four Corners, she allowed herself to be ambushed. She had no time to prepare. In the end she looked shifty and unconvincing.

Her colleagues were gobsmacked. It set back her cause. She can be thankful there is no mood for change across the broader caucus or in the state branches. No mood for change to Rudd, and no mood – yet – for a change to a third candidate, though all that may change if the issue is allowed to drift.

And that mood could start to change as early as next week. It's a non-sitting week and Kevin Rudd has a golden opportunity to declare: "I'm from Queensland, and I'm here to help," as he travels the state drawing crowds and seemingly doing all he can for Labor in the state election.

The speculation that is killing Gillard and the Government will go on no matter what. Nothing else is breaking through. Gillard needs to lift her primary vote. She can't do that while Rudd continues to circle. She needs to act, and sooner rather than later.

The Government is finished if it can't use the May budget and then the tax cuts and pension rises in June to start rebuilding its stocks. If the leadership issue is not dealt with before then, both the May and June exercises will be futile.

The alternative argument is that such a pre-emptive move would be interpreted in parts of the media as a recognition on Gillard's part that the challenge is real and her leadership is threatened. Well knock me down with a feather. Rudd is campaigning. Rudd is talking to journalists about the leadership despite his astonishing denial.

I know the names of some of those he has spoken to. I know where he said it – in his office – on a parliamentary sitting day – and I know what he said. He told them a challenge would happen; he told them he was prepared to lose the first ballot and go to the backbench; and in one conversation he laughed about the prospect of Gillard stumbling again.

Yet the Foreign Minister has categorically denied ever having spoken to any journalist about the leadership. He can deny the approaches only because he believes the journalists involved are bound to both protect their sources and to treat such conversations as confidential. He is protected by the cloak of journalistic ethics.

But when does this become as important or more so than the briefing former treasurer Peter Costello gave journalists at Canberra's Waters Edge Restaurant, on March 5, 2005?
Costello – according to one of the journalists present – the ABC's Michael Brissenden – told them over dinner that he had set a deadline of April the following year for John Howard to retire, or else he would destroy his leadership by launching a challenge.

He told them if the coup failed, he would move to the backbench to "carp" and build numbers for a second challenge. It is fascinating in retrospect to revisit what the journalists said at the time. Brissenden said the three journalists left the dinner with the understanding that the story could be reported as background.

But the next day they received frantic phone calls from Costello's staff pleading that the conversation be treated as off the record. They went along with that, but two years later, had a change of mind. They went on the record and outed Costello because they argued, "The strength of Mr Costello's denials today (April 14, 2007) go to matters of credibility for the man who still holds hopes of one day leading the nation." Indeed.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders. View his full profile here.

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Crime and Misconduct Commission and Local Government Tribunal to

Probe hits Cairns Regional councillor's election hopes

Daniel Strudwick

Thursday, February 16, 2012

© The Cairns Post

Voters will know before the local government election in April whether a Cairns councillor has been found guilty of misconduct after a year-long inquiry into claims he favoured his campaign donors.

Cr Sno Bonneau has been under investigation by the Crime and Misconduct Commission and Department of Local Government and Planning since February, 2011, after fellow councillor Rob Pyne raised misconduct claims against him. Cr Bonneau has criticised the investigation for being unnecessarily drawn out and will consider legal action against the agencies because the case has impacted his chances of re-election at the April 28 poll.

The Cairns Post revealed yesterday Cr Bonneau has already filed a defamation claim for $300,000 in damages against Cr Pyne, who raised the allegations with the council CEO and this newspaper a year ago.

Cr Pyne claims Cr Bonneau accepted election donations from business owners and property developers, and voted on council decisions that impacted his donors without declaring a conflict of interest. Cr Bonneau, who has always maintained his innocence, says he welcomes a decision from the independent tribunal.

But he insists councillors should not be the subject of unresolved investigations so close to an election. "We've been writing to the department and the CMC – everyone we could – since the middle of last year and it’s been very frustrating that we haven’t known when this would be finalised," Cr Bonneau said "I’m going to pursue the fact that they have taken so long because it is really unfair. "I’m concerned that this could happen to other people – it’s a shockingly long time for them (the CMC and Local Government Department) to play around with this." The department has defended the length of its investigation, saying it was standard for misconduct matters to "take a considerable amount of time". "Due to the serious nature of the allegations we want to get all the information to ensure the correct outcome," a department spokesman said.

The department would not say when the outcome of its investigation would be announced, except that it would happen "well before the local government elections".

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My Opinion

Investigation of this type should not take as long as it puts tremendous strain on the individual. If Government sets up these bodies then they should be well funded and with guidelines outlining the length of time taken to hand down decisions.

However, to be fair in this case on the Investigating bodies , they do have to deal with a Councillor that whether on Council business of personal matters, is frequently absent from Division 9.

Ross Parisi

16.02.2012

Cr Bonneau should stand aside while the investigation is underway.

Cairns councillors' rift deepens with $300,000 legal threat

Daniel Strudwick & Melanie Petrinec

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

© The Cairns Post

Action: Councillor Sno Bonneau has launched defamation procceedings against fellow Councillor Rob Pyne.

A CAIRNS councillor accused of misconduct has started legal action against the fellow councillor who reported him, lodging a defamation claim for $300,000 in damages.

Court documents filed on behalf of Cr Sno Bonneau say claims raised by Cr Rob Pyne have caused distress and embarrassment. When told of the civil action Cr Pyne said: "When I stood for the council, I promised to act as a watchdog and stand up for transparency and accountability. This will not change." But Cr Bonneau said the matter may never proceed to the courtroom because he was waiting for the outcome of a State Government investigation into the allegations before serving Cr Pyne with the lawsuit.

The investigation by the Crime and Misconduct Commission and Department of Local Government and Planning had lasted a year, and the department could not say when any determination would be made. "The proceedings have been filed to keep my claims within the 12-month limitation period but (they) may never be served or acted upon," Cr Bonneau said, referring to the one-year deadline imposed on defamation action in Queensland courts.

His claim related to a dossier collated and circulated by Cr Pyne in February last year, which included allegations that Cr Bonneau had taken cash donations from developers and business owners and then failed to declare a conflict of interest when the council made decisions relating to the donors.

In the statement of claim, Cr Bonneau alleged Cr Pyne’s accusations, which were also published in The Cairns Post in February last year, painted him as corrupt, unfit to remain as a councillor and unethical.

"General damages are sought to vindicate the reputation of the plaintiff (and) compensate the plaintiff for distress and embarrassment caused to him," the claim stated. Aggravated damages are being sought on the "falsity of the matter complained of", the "maliciousness" of the dossier and Cr Pyne’s alleged "intention to publicly diminish the standing and credibility of the plaintiff".

Cr Pyne said he was disappointed in the length of time it was taking to finalise the investigation, but he stood by the allegations. "I’m sure the outcome of the investigation will vindicate me," he said.

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My Opinion

In a modern democracy it is so important that the safeguards set up to protect its fragile state operate with efficiency within a reasonable time limit. Allegations made against Bonneau by Pyne were submitted for investigation almost a year ago. As at the time of this posting the investigation is still underway and no time limit has been set for the decision.

This matter must be determined as soon as possible and certainly before nomination for the Cairns Regional Council election are called for. It would be untenable if the decision was handed down after the election at which Bonneau was successful. The electors have a right to know whether Bonneau has breached the Local Government Act and whether he is indeed eligible to stand.

In meantime I believe that transparency is paramount and that justice is not only done but seen to be done. Therefore, I call on the Cairns Regional Council CEO to request Bonneau to stand down while the investigation is underway.

Ross Parisi

15.02.2012