Opinion Domestic Politics BF style
- Thread starter bomberclifford
- Start date
- Tagged users None
raman
Kind of a Jagger-Tarzan
He's a congenital coward which, in this specific situation, is somehow even worse.
raman
Kind of a Jagger-Tarzan
Well, duh...
If you were diagnosed with melanoma would you do what you could to deal with it ASAP or just "see how it goes"?
True. But using your analogy you wouldn't decide you were going to have open heart surgery and then go searching for an ailment.
Last edited:
raman
Kind of a Jagger-Tarzan
That's not using my analogy so much as abusing it.
raman
Kind of a Jagger-Tarzan
Do you need a safe space?
Hah, don't get me started on that.
raman
Kind of a Jagger-Tarzan
What the Trump bandwagon does to people
Contested Marx
Schrodinkley's Cat
- Jun 21, 2014
- 11,632
- 25,884
- AFL Club
- Port Adelaide
- Other Teams
- Maggies, Spurs, Raiders?
The Lindsey Graham backflip and unbridled support of Trump is quite incredible really
Almost like team Trump has some dirt on him eh
raman
Kind of a Jagger-Tarzan
It’s interesting, the rest of the Republican Party would also stab their own mothers for Trump, but there does seem to be a little bit extra going on in Graham’s case.
RussellEbertHandball
Flick pass expert
Been banging on about that for years.
It's why I regularly quote ex PM Paul Keating. In the lead up to the 1996 election, which saw Labor get beaten after 13 years in power, (Hawke had been PM for 8.75 years and Keating 4.25, but was Hawke's Treasurer for just over 8 years) he wasn't popular and Queensland Labor premier Wayne Goss said Queenslanders were waiting for him with a baseball bat, and they were and they hit him out of he park, the majority of people didn't like his arrogance, thought he was too rude, too politically correct, were sick of his continual reforms and change, but the one area he scored off the charts compared to the opposition leader and future PM John Howard, was Leadership. That became his campaign slogan - just one word - Leadership. He was prepared to do the hard tough reform to make the big changes that weren't popular, that has helped Oz have 28 years without a recession.
The fish always rots from the head first. You can't make the big tough changes when things haven't worked, without great leadership. We lack that. We have, don't rock the boat and dont set the bar too high type leaders.
GremioPower
Taking notes of policy re: bikini/lingerie images
- May 26, 2017
- 20,975
- 43,229
- AFL Club
- Port Adelaide
- Other Teams
- Grêmio, DC United, Pistons
Oh please. Don't bring politics into a sports forum especially if you are going to be so extravagantly biased about it. Yes, Paul Keating by definition was a leader. He was the treasurer and the Prime Minister after that. He was a strong, reformist leader yes. Just like Stalin, and Hitler, and Col. Gadaffi et. al.
Was he a great leader? Absolutely not. As a Prime Minister, he is rarely ranked in the Top Ten Prime by authorities such as The Age, The Canberra Times, even the Financial Review who should have been his biggest allies according to your post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_prime_ministers_of_Australia
Additionally, looking at the attributes of great leaders, he has about half of the necessary attributes for a great leader as far as I can see:
1. Sincere enthusiasm
2. Integrity (the secret evil tax that I wanted to implement in the 80's...)
3. Great communication skills (1995: Protesters should 'go and get a job')
4. Loyalty (ask Bob Hawke)
5. Decisiveness
6. Managerial competence
7. Empowerment (more often than not left colleagues in a quivering foetal mess on his office floor)
8. Charisma (surely one of the least-liked politicians of all time, and that is really saying something)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimber...es-that-define-great-leadership/#3fdf02443b63
He did make some great financial reforms, no doubt, and brought them in with no consideration or concern for the average person he was meant to be representing at the time. Implementing reforms and then standing back and letting them run wild (17 % interest rates anyone?) is hardly responsible reformation. No better example than this is the 'recession we had to have' which caused huge financial failure, arguably of systemic proportions. Of course, the damage was not confined to the financial sector, as businesses and households cut spending and unemployment rose. Some sectors of the economy have still not recovered from this necessary recession which was not caused by economic reform so much as a vanilla boom-bust cycle where asset prices became over-valued and the excesses of the 80's hit with full force.
Some of his reforms have stood the test of time and have helped Australia avoid recession, but as important has been the responsible guidance and management of these reforms as well as the implementation of other policies which Keating had nothing to do with. Including:
- Open up to the world. We have benefited from being in a rapidly developing neighbourhood, close to Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and especially China
- Welcome immigrants
- avoiding the subprime-lending boom
- Fight recessions right. Our policymakers combated the 2008 global financial crisis more adeptly than ones in the United States or in Europe, implementing fiscal stimulus quickly and not turning to budget austerity as the economy recovered.
At least some of our seemingly endless spell of growth is due to happenstance, luck, and idiosyncrasy: where the country lies on the map, what its neighbours’ budgets have looked like, and what mineral deposits happen to lie underneath us.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/what-australia-knows-about-recessions/578482/
By all means, bang on about your personal political leadership heroes, but do it in an appropriate forum. At least use a better example. The AFL wouldn't even let Paul Keating have a responsible position of leadership at an AFL club. But if they did it would be a catastrophe because of the many leadership skills he does not possess which would more than offset any good he would do.
This is the thread recession we had to have
Isn't that exactly what you have just done?
Ps.... I hate politicians, they are all twats!
RussellEbertHandball
Flick pass expert
Leadership comes in many forms and just like politicians can learn from sports leaders so can sports people and sports organisations learn from political leaders. Only fools say you cant mix sport and politics.
What a *in bullshit concept to compare of reformer in a democracy to murderous regimes. Like comparing apples with cane toads.
Who reformed the Australian economy and tax system like Keating? Sure as treasurer he spent Hawke's political capital but look at the drongos of the last 17 years. Their tax reform is to cut tax rates, not fundamental structural reform. The Liberals are supposed to be friends of business and in power for 17 of the last 23 years and have done stuff all to reform employee shares to drive incentive in tech companies like in USA and Europe. Piddly $1,000 a year worth of share exemptions.
I started my first professional job a fews months after big tax changes were announced and just before the legislation hit parliament. It was massive, massive reform. But I didn't know any better. It wasn't until about 2010 that it dawned on me how massive the change was and how having to go thru that change, shaped me.
When I studied economics in the mid 80's Australia hadn't had a current account surplus for a decade, because whilst we might have a trade surplus some years, we would always have large foreign investment requirements, and therefore the compound effect every year of capital inflows meant dividends and interest payments would be bigger than any trade surplus for many decades to come.
But compulsory super introduced in 1992, which was supposed to hit 12% early 2000's but Howard halted and is still at 9.5%, has produced $2.8 trillion superannuation pool of funds and last quarter the national accounts showed a current account surplus for the first time since 1974. Compulsory savings is how Singapore went from beggars to a world financial centre. We didn't have a nasty Lee Kuan Yew and his son BG Lee to dish out punishment to anyone who disagreed with them.
Who changed APEC from a meeting of ministers to an annual summit of leaders where, USA, Russian Chinese and Japanese leaders meet every year, rather than once in a blue moon?
The President of China and the PM of Japan had never meet post WWII until that first APEC leaders summit in Seattle in 1993 when they wore the brown bomber leather jackets and not the flowery shirts at the end of the summit.
Those leaders now get to know each other rather than just deal with intermediaries over those few years or long decades in China and Japan's case, and the world is a safer place of those 4 nations not trying to blow each other up.
Which other leader would have been able to handle the Mabo decision without going and ripping off the Aborigines and trying to annul the court decision with reams of legislation?? You saw the racist pants pissing after the Wik decision by the Howard government with hundreds of pages of legislation to overturn the Wik case and the nasty campaign against Aborigines as if they were going to take over the country.
Brian Harradine's deciding vote in the senate to back the Wik legislation, was only given because he knew Howard would have go to an election and run a racist, race based election campaign. To the day he died Harradine felt guilty that he had let down the Wik people who he negotiated with.
Which other Australian leader has set up the equivalent of the Canberra Commission, with international experts, including the then recent former head of US strategic command, to curtail the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons?
When the cold war was over who lead the effort to get rid of nuclear weapons in total?? Australia via that commission. The documents and principles that that commission put together, still are the founding documents and principles for a de-nuclear weapons world. The report was issued just after Keating lost, and Howard didn't know what to do with it, and it collected dust on the shelves.
Which Australian PM went out of his way to build relationships with Indonesia? Whether we like it or not Indonesia is an important part of our strategic security structure.
Keating was too soft on Saharto but he saw it as a way to help secure Australia. I don't like the stance Keating took and he is too easy to dismiss expansion by Russia and China, but he points to history saying its always happened and it isn't going to change.
Which Australian PM has been prepared to make Australia a republic, independent of the crown and have one of us, be the ultimate boss of our people? Keating called for a inquiry, Turnbull and his committee laid out all the different models, and he was going to have a 2 step process. First a plebiscite that said do you want Australia to become a republic, a simple yes or no vote. Then if a yes, a process would have been set up and models debated and would have been put to the public for a binding referendum to select the majority model.
But Howard in his cynical approach had a convention and the convention came up with the model, which Howard knew didn't have majority support, despite the majority of people being pro republic. Great politics s**t leadership.
Is Keating the greatest PM of Oz or world leader?? Nope. Did he have his faults and make mistakes and have policies I disagreed with?? Absolutely.
I have written a lot about the lack of leadership at the club. That's why we went with co-captains. I have also written once or twice that FDR is the greatest leader I have studied, but that nobody would know what I'm talking about if I constantly quoted him.
In my life time, I have only ever seen one bloke run a campaign with just one word - Leadership. GremioPower said it's ALL about leadership. He's the only leader I have seen who fully embraces that concept to the nth degree. He is the only leader who I have seen voters say they want to kick him out but admire that he is a strong capable leader that gets things done. And he didn't murder people like the strong men leaders you quoted. His strength was in driving change, not driving bullets through people skulls.
But after 13 years people wanted a change - a more relaxed and comfortable leader.
10-12 years in power is about as good as you get for a political party in a true democracy these days.
So whilst you were probably worried about high interest rates and a job in the 1990's and well as now, I'm interested in the big picture. I was paying 15.5% mortgage interest rates and got sacked in the early 1990's.
If I was a pants pisser I would have blamed the government. But it was more complicated and there was the bigger picture to fix up. There was a recession, but the cold war ended and a new world order was coming. This wasn't the time to be lead by small minded pants pisser who couldn't see the big long term picture and tectonic changes coming.
Our club has been lead by small minded pants pissers for too long. The big picture is the flag, that's what I'm interested in. Once again as GremioPower said its ALL about leadership and that's why I gave the Keating example because he is a strong leader from my life time for who is prepared to make the tough changes to make long term structural change and didn't worry if he built up a stock of enemies.
Looks like our mods are pissing their pants a bit like some of our club leaders who don't like to rock the boat.
And these points specifically
2. Integrity (the secret evil tax that I wanted to implement in the 80's...)
What are you talking about? Option C in the Tax reform package at the July 1985 tax summit?? What was secret about that? It was debated on the floor of old parliament house at the tax summit, he lost out, unions and business lobbied against it, he was pissed off, he didn't spit the dummy, but he went off and adjusted his other packages and got them through the caucus deliberations whilst Bob was overseas, and then got them through parliament and are the fundamental basis of our current tax system. And then between his preference in 1985, and when Hewson launched Fightback at end of 1991 he had done plenty of things to change the tax mix that would have changed his mind - as well as being politically opportunist about it.
3. Great communication skills (1995: Protesters should 'go and get a job')
Keating was a great communicator of his ideas. That's why his quotes and analogies have lasted so long. You might not like them, he might have said the odd stupid thing, which politician hasn't, but who else has communicated to the Australia public what an economic J curve is, or if you don't fix current account problems we become a banana republic to shock them to accept a 5% of GDP cut in government outlays over 4 or 5 years. Imagine trying to do that today? Being a great communicator isn't about being nice and not saying nasty things.
4. Loyalty (ask Bob Hawke)
He was loyal to Hawke until Hawke dumped a bucket of s**t on him and said he was replaceable after he presented his bring home the bacon budget in 1988. He set up the Kiribilli accord to set up a hand over date.
But they had talked about how long Hawke would serve back in 1982 and 1983 when Hawke was looking to knife Hayden. Hawke talked about being PM for 2 full terms and if Keating supported him against Hayden and moved his faction to support him, he would then hand over power to him.
Bob got the shits when he made that speech shortly after his treasury official died, Chris xxx, he was emotional, it was the end of the year, it was supposed to be off the record and he said Australia had never had a great leader by world history standard, and after 7.75 years he had enough of playing second fiddle to Hawke.
So he challenged Hawke. Big deal, it happens all the time in politics.
Hawke knifed Hayden. Howard knifed Peacock and Downer and tried to knife Hewson. Peacock knifed Howard. It happens in politics.
Last edited:
I'm one of those who assumes that if a politician's lips are moving, they are lying.
But, I pine for some statesmanship/leadership rather than venal self-interest at all levels of government, so well said.
Ok, I'll have another look at FDR.
You use the phrase 'big picture' approximately 4 times in your post and I doubt it is a coincidence that is in the title of Paul Keating's last released and authorised biography.
You have your opinion and I have mine. I'm just glad they have been moved to an appropriate forum. I'm not really interested in getting into a full-blown discussion on the pros and cons of Keating, which is by no means an admission that I think your rebuttal post wins the day. Much of what I said you misunderstood or changed to a different track bringing up further irrelevant topics which expands the scope past that which I would wish to discuss.
By Forbes definition of a great leader, Keating was serisously lacking in half the attributes a great leader had. I will agree with you that he was a big picture reformist who lost sight of the welfare of the voters who asked him to represent them in government.
RussellEbertHandball
Flick pass expert
As I quoted here in the China thread;
Certified Legendary Thread - China History in the Making
To preserve for prosperity, and in case anyone missed it :)
www.bigfooty.com
.... this is the full Keating quote from December 1986 and I think others are like still on the charcoal sketch - Mr Keating. "I'm still on the big canvas, painting the big picture and I may splash a bit of paint but Mr Howard hasn't got off the charcoal sketch.
Forbes list of great leadership criteria sees most politicians fail then, because you can find lots of times they didn't meet most of those categories. If you are going to nit pick and find one or two examples where they did do this or that, then they all fail. But leading a country is different to leading a business or leading a not for profit.
Ford Fairlane
Moderator
- Feb 21, 2002
- 77,626
- 184,465
- AFL Club
- Port Adelaide
- Other Teams
- Port Adelaide Magpies
- Moderator
- #845
- Oct 8, 2004
- 17,928
- 24,191
- AFL Club
- Port Adelaide
- Other Teams
- Liverpool
UK BBC/ITV/Sky exit poll:
It predicts a majority government for Boris Johnson's Conservative Party, with 368 seats to Labour's 191, the Scottish National Party's 55 and the Liberal Democrats' 13.
That would translate to a staggeringly large Tory majority of 86.
If the poll is correct, the Conservatives will gain 50 seats and Labour will lose 71.
It predicts a majority government for Boris Johnson's Conservative Party, with 368 seats to Labour's 191, the Scottish National Party's 55 and the Liberal Democrats' 13.
That would translate to a staggeringly large Tory majority of 86.
If the poll is correct, the Conservatives will gain 50 seats and Labour will lose 71.
Schulzenfest
TheBrownDog
I absolutely cannot for the life of me imagine how the UK could've looked at the last few years and the absolute cluster* that is Brexit, and overwhelmingly swung towards 'yep, these are definitely the people we want running our country'. Baffling.
DaTBird187
What D Farke?
- Feb 9, 2014
- 16,464
- 44,208
- AFL Club
- Port Adelaide
- Other Teams
- Liverpool, Boston Celtics
Every year over and over it happens across the world.
The fact that Scot Morrison, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson could all get elected......
RussellEbertHandball
Flick pass expert
That's because you have blinkers on and can't think outside your own world view and experiences.
Do you have any British friends living there? Have you talked to them over the last 2 or 3 years?
They are sick of the Brexit bullshit which has basically been going since David Cameron called a referendum on Europe in February 2016 for June 2016. Very little else has got done, especially the last 12 -15 months.
This was a one issue election. Johnson said we are out in 6 weeks time.
Corbyn said we are going to have more negotiations, another referendum in a few months time and who knows how long the government and UK will be stuck in the quagmire.
Labor voters changed their votes not because they love Boris Johnson or the Tories but because they wanted a conclusion to Brexit. They also didn't like some of Corbyn's old style socialist agenda. Large chunks of Labor party parliamentary members and party members didn't even like Corbyn's policies.
The Scottish people didn't vote for Labor or Tories policies, they voted to stay inside Europe.
Boris wont last. The party will ditch him after they are out of Europe.
Last edited:
RussellEbertHandball
Flick pass expert
I've just watched the returning officer declare Boris Johnson's seat of Uxbridge & Ruislip South . Some great candidates names and results.
www.bbc.com
Lord Buckethead of the Monster Raving Loony Party (dressed in a knights outfit with a big bucket) 125 votes
Count Binface an independent 69 votes
Bobby Elmo Smith an independent 8 votes dressed in a big red Elmo suit
Uxbridge & Ruislip South parliamentary constituency - Election 2019
See the candidates and latest news in your constituency
www.bbc.com
Count Binface an independent 69 votes
Bobby Elmo Smith an independent 8 votes dressed in a big red Elmo suit
