There's a number of decent pollies in Labor's cabinet, including Clare, Bowen, Albo and Dreyfus. But that said, Shorten is doing fine; his lack of charisma and personal popularity has forced him to adopt the risky tactic of genuine policy. It's a welcome development.
Agreed. And Australians want stability and a bit of boring actually helps with that.
Labor have been doing the 'calm and measured' thing presentation-wise since Latham lost in 2004, and the right of the party had a similar approach to policy. Ruddy did his own thing, which ruined those plans, and the left under Gillard were still too much into 'big vision'/'grand gestures' (Gillard was apparently a big part of Latham's 'Medicare Gold').
I wouldn't put Dreyfus in there but Clare, Bowen, Albo are all good.
That article mentions some nice turns of phrase (my italics), which follows a fair few comments on BF from people saying he is communicating better:
Dutton's response was not quite as subtle:
Given he's the most notorious dictator in the western world, maaaybe you shouldn't say anything remotely like a compliment about him if you don't know his story well. I guess it's easiest to just point out he wrote Mein Kampf while in jail (which is before he got anywhere near to having power).
I've just watched The War by Ken Burns, because I'd never really considered WWII from the American point of view. There's no way I could have done what those boys, and they were boys, did. My grandad helped liberate Belsen, and it scarred him for life, as well as losing two brothers, my Gran also lost a part of her husband, and ten years of his life, he drank to cope, and dropped dead in front of me, and my brother in 1980. We still owe them so much, it's why I'm enraged when I see aspects of fascist ideology getting tacit approval some sections of the government these days.
Absolutely. There has been money put into renewables for decades, but you do wonder how on earth Germany leads tech. In the back of my head I think I remember the CSIRO developed some break-throughs but Australia didn't capitalise on them, but all I can find via a quick Google search is that they did Solar Water Heater research in the 1950s which led to companies that are still going today; and otherwise there are a bunch of new stories about potential break-throughs over the years. The latest is that they generated 'supercritical' steam - i.e. using solar they made water hot enough to generate energy on par with advanced fossil fuel power stations. That was a June 2014 press release.
The fact Shorten worked so well in the Disability sector I think means he is clearly very different to Rudd. Working well in foreign affairs is largely about your ability to communicate the right messages to different audiences - one ego can drive it all. Understanding Disability would require listening, empathy, patience, bringing together the different groups to agree on the national framework, etc. But as I have said about Labor in the past, it could simply be that they actually listen to and use the public service which means their policies seem so much saner. Civil servants aren't geniuses, but they have stability in a role over decades and so long as they aren't 'captured' by a world view that biases their information collection, they should be very useful.
