Turnbull and the Teddy Bear

Is Joe Hockey "the cuddly, friendly face of the Liberal Party" ... or is he just fat?

Sorry to bore you with more Liberal leadership posts, but it’s pretty big news for this country and its future. I like the way that Malcolm Turnbull is holding firm and talking tough. Will Hockey make a challenge? Well, not according to what Malcolm is saying in this ABC report. Turnbull has thrown down the gauntlet … right at Joe’s feet. What will the ‘Teddy Bear’ do?:

Joe leaves home

Joe Hockey wants Malcolm Turnbull’s job but before he could make his challenge he had to get permission from ‘Dad’. Here’s Joe being let out of the family home to make his run for Captain of the sinking ship SS Liberal Party:

Joe: “Thanks for the advice, Dad, I think I’m ready now.”

Dad: “Just one more thing, Joe.”

Joe: “Yes Dad, what’s that?”

Dad: “You need to lose some f*cking weight.”

Dumbest scam ever

We’ve all received those so-called ‘Nigerian fraud emails’ saying “you’ve won $x“, or “I need to transfer $x millions into your account”, etc. How anyone ever falls for them is beyond me, they’re such obvious scams. But this one I received today really takes the cake. It’s just blatantly asking for personal details - and it doesn’t even specify which account it wants the password to. How’s the grammar?:

His own man

UPDATE: Malcolm Turnbull’s deputy Julie Bishop has urged him to stand down ~ well that takes the cake. Julie Bishop is an airhead and stands for absolutely nothing. If Turnbull goes the only good thing about it will be that Bishop will go too.

He's gone up in my estimation.

“If where we are heading is for an election on the issue of should Australia take action on climate change or not, and if the Coalition is on the take-no-action side, then it will be a catastrophe for us. That is perfectly clear.

“We cannot be a responsible or credible political party unless we are committed to taking responsible action on climate change.”

Malcolm Turnbull looks doomed as his senior shadow ministers openly rebel, but I think his performance in the face of all this uprising has been outstanding. The fact is, he is spot on and you have to admire someone who has the strength of his own convictions, and shows so much strength in the face of adversity. If he somehow survives this and holds onto the leadership he’ll have effectively reformed the party. But that looks like a forlorn hope when you’ve got backwards-thinking and self-serving retrogrades like Abbott, Tuckey, Bishop (i.e. ‘Battle axe’ Bronwyn Bishop, not Julie – but see ‘update’), Mirabella et al openly criticising him. He’ll go down fighting but, to me, he’ll be forever remembered as his own man. I like him, even though he’s a Liberal.

Sophie shows her hand

UPDATE #2: Sophie’s got all her local members to call in to ABC Local Radio today and say that she’s a hero. I kid you not, it’s all rehearsed.

UPDATE: Further press release from ALP candidate Zuvele Leschen labelling Ms Mirabella’s resignation as self-serving. See foot of post.

Look out Julie, I think Sophie wants your job.

She’s a climate change denialist after all

It really comes as no surprise that our wonderful local member for Indi, Sophie Mirabella, has finally shown her hand by announcing her resignation from the opposition shadow ministry because (or so  she says) she ”cannot support Labor’s emissions trading scheme” … or Malcolm Turnbull it seems.

Well what’s new? Sophie is usually totally out of step with public opinion and her own electorate - as demonstrated on many occasions - especially over the national apology to aborigines. How she holds onto this seat is beyond me.

Code Red Chaos is on the way

What should tourism operators say to their guests when a 'Code Red Catastrophic' fire warning is issued?

Some tourism operators in Bright are proposing that we must “send tourists home” on any day that the authorities declare a Code Red “Catastrophic” fire warning this summer. I don’t agree with them. 

This came out of a meeting held in Bright, which was reported in the Border Mail. The special meeting for tourism operators was held yesterday and was organised by the Alpine Shire in conjunction with the CFA & DSE. I think some of the responses are over-the-top and are in themselves a recipe for disaster. Here are some quotes from the article; my further comments follow:

And now for the really big vote …

Who will be the next mayor of the Alpine Shire Council ?

And who cares? Councillors will meet next Tuesday night, 1 December, to vote for a new mayor. Nino Mautone has had two years in the job and surely must be due to move out. Or will he? Look, I can’t be bothered writing more about this non-event at the moment, but I’ll come back to it later in the week with a run down of how I see it going. Stay tuned – it’s riveting stuff!

Sophie sits on the fence

With the Liberal party in turmoil and Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership to be decided at a spill at 1 pm today, it’s heartening to know that Our girl from Indi Sophie Mirabella is prepared to lay her cards on the table. Speaking on ABC Radio this morning, this is what she said:

Asked to comment on Mr Turnbull’s leadership, she said “I have made a habit of not canvassing leadership issues in the media and I will continue to do so. I’m not going to speculate on the leadership.”

Hmm, how brave and loyal of you Sophie … if she’s not going to publicly express support for Malcolm that means, in other words, that Sophie is saying she supports Turnbull’s challenger, Kevin Andrews. It figures. Oh well, she’s backing a real loser there – I think Turnbull will win this spill by a mile.

Update: Turnbull survives.  The motion to force a spill was defeated 48 – 35 in the party room. So there was no challenge. This has been a non-event and just shows what a mess the Liberals are.

Nick’s a real Wally too

Local engineer & Save Bright representative Nick Malkin has finally spoken under his real name (he usually prefers to comment under aliases like ‘Wal’) and has been quoted on the front page of today’s Bright Observer in relation to the so-called controversy surrounding the construction of the Woolworths supermarket in Bright:

Engineer Nick Malkin said two independent surveys had found the walls were between 800 mm and 2.5 metres higher than shown on endorsed plans. “The current building is illegal,” he said.

Isn’t she lovely?

A fridge magnet to treasure

I have been hanging out for this and it’s been a long time coming. 

This is Sophie Mirabella’s first calendar/fridge magnet for about 18 months. How come?

Well, the last one was – for some reason – a financial year calendar, running from 1/7/08 to 30/6/09. A little confusing you say? Well, maybe a little cunning on her part.

You see , this means she has only had to produce 2 calendars in her current 3 year term. I mean, what’s the point of putting one out in a non-election year? This way Sophie’s calendar will still be stuck on our fridges when the next election rolls around sometime in 2010, reminding us all to vote for the ‘golden girl’.

Well I will*, but will you? This magnet will certainly take pride of place in my kitchen. (*I was lying)

Wally’s on the radio (again!)

He just won’t go away

Maybe Lee ‘Wally’ Rosser is only doing this to promote his own album but there he was again at 9.30 this morning talking to Joseph Thomsen on ABC Local radio about how Woolies had:

 “Manipulated & misrepresented the building plans” for the new Bright supermarket.

I kid you not, that’s what he said. Anyway, I think he needs some new tunes, so I’ve come up with one. I really think this could be his first ‘hit’. To the tune of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett”, from the Beverly Hillbillies, I give you:

Wally cons the councillors

Update: Woolies responds – see foot of post

Alpine council now wants Woolies work to stop

Have a read of this latest press release from the Alpine Council concerning the so-called dispute over the wall heights of the Woolworths supermarket in Bright, presently under construction. After also hearing the council’s Planning Manager Ms Green on ABC radio this morning it seems clear to me that the council has done an about-face and is now seeking an order from VCAT for Woolies to cease work on the building until the ‘dispute’ is resolved. But this latest move clearly contradicts earlier council reports that the wall heights complied with the drawings. I think what’s happened is some of our more soft-headed councillors have bowed to the scare campaign conducted by Lee ‘Wally’ Rosser of Save Bright and are now trying to make it look like they’re doing something. Either that or they’ve just lost the plot completely (assuming they ever had one in the first place). Here’s the press release. My further comments follow:

Wally Wants War With Woolies

Lee Rosser tweets his intentions to wage an ongoing campaign.

It comes as no surprise to find that Save Bright spokesperson Lee Rosser (aka ‘Wal Willow’*) is now calling for a boycott of the new Bright Woolworths supermarket when it opens early next year. He’s tried everything else (and failed) so I guess this is his last resort. Just what drives Lee to act so self righteously by seeking to impose his slow-town, backwoods views on the rest of us is something only he can answer.

 However, this self-penned bio from Lee Rosser’s self-promoting website  gives some insight into why he is so clearly out of step with what the rest of the Bright community and our tourists really want. The lyrics to Lee’s very aptly named song “Giving Yourself Away” say a lot too, if somewhat cryptically:

Is 2009 the end of the ‘noughties’ decade?

And is 2010 the start of a new one?

There’s a stupid segment on ABC Local Radio at the moment, being led by the equally stupid Kathy Bedford, about how this year 2009 is the last year of the current ‘noughties’ decade, for want of a better description.

Bedford is claiming that next year 2010 is the start of a new decade and she’s asking listeners to call in with their highlights and best movies of ‘the noughties’ decade. I kid you not.

But she’s wrong. The 10th year is the last year of a decade, not the first year of a new one, and the next decade starts on 1 January 2011 – just like the 21st century started on 1 January 2001, not 2000, which was wrongly celebrated. But does anyone disagree with that?

Good news & bad news

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow but at least there's relief (and rain) on the way.

There is good news and bad on the local weather front, as you can clearly see from the above B.O.M. 7-day forecast for Bright. The forecast drop in temperature over the weekend and the possibility of rain is obviously the good news, but the bad news I’m referring to is not so much tomorrow’s forecast 40 degrees, it’s more to do with this: