Caption Competition – The Ashes

What can we come up with for this photo of Rudd?

A Swan dive – or a Rudderless goverment

I have been reading lots of version of the Ute-gate (although the tailgate line from Tim Blair is pretty funny too). From what I can see the basics are:

• Rudd and Swan were asked if the acted on behalf of they car dealer John Grant to get assistance from the government OzCar scheme. They both denied it in parliament
• There is supposedly an email from the PM’s office to Goodwin Grech (Treasury official in charge of OzCar) that “alerted” him to Grant’s case
• The email may or may not exist. News Ltd seem to have changed their story from having the email to having it read to them
• Turnbull has made a big thing of the email from the PM’s office
• Emails and faxes have been tabled the do implicate Swann’s office that involve Grant

The text of the email is (from smh.com.au):

Hi Goodwin. The PM has asked if the car dealer financing vehicle is available to assist a Queensland dealership. John Grant Motors, who seems to be having trouble getting finance. If you can followup on this ASAP that would be very useful. Happy to discuss. A

So as I see it, if the email is true then Rudd misled parliament and must resign. If it is false then Turnbull is the one in big trouble. But either way – it looks like Swan did mislead parliament – which means that we have to have a spectacular Swan dive.

Let’s bring all the discussion over here.

Poll Numbers

(I stole this from an N5 comment – and thought it was good to use as a thread – joni)

So the latest Newspoll is out and about, it  shows that Labor on a TPP basis leads 53% to 47% which places them in a better position than when they won the last election. The Essential poll has Labor on 57% to 43% TPP.

While Labor’s primary vote has dropped 2%, half the loss migrated to the Greens which then returned in the TPP. The Greens gain may be explained by the weak targets in Rudd’s CO2 targets. But who knows?

Rudd’s performance is up 2% from 56% to 58% while his dissatisfaction score is down 2%, all of which can be explained by the MOE. In the preferred PM rating Rudd outscores Turnbull 57% to 24%. No joy for the Liberals in those figures, regardless of how they spin it.

When will this ‘honeymoon’ end?

A tosser or a dag?

As we have seen this week, there has been a lot of discussion about Rudd and his use of ‘strine’ to make out that he is a real fair dinkum aussie. I have mates that actually talk like Rudd did the other night. And I mean the traditional aussie slang (ya drongo, hooroo, fair suck of the sav) not the new slang (fully sick).

I reckon that he is just a dag. You know – like the uncle at a wedding that tries to be cool and down with the kids.

Our last PM (you know – the one who lost his seat at the election) was also a bit of a dag too. Wearing the  trackie when walking, his “Happy Feet” photo, his attempt at bowling.

And so the question is – is Rudd just a dag, or is he a tosser? And does it matter?

Rodney Rudd

The comedian Rodney Rude is well known for his “blue” routine, but more and more evidence seems to be coming to light indicating that Kevin Rudd is also quite “blue” in public.

Rudd Slips

Kevin Rudd today said that the governments stance on the GFC has created a “political shit storm”.

On one hand I think that there is nothing wrong with what he said, but the primary issue is that our PM should be more circumspect with his language.

Bad work Rudd.

Misleading headline – this is now a anti-good-news thread.

The headline in this article is very misleading.

The headline tries to imply something that Rudd did not do. In the article Rudd says that they have no plans to cut GST – which is different than saying that they rule it out.

Poor reporting, if you ask me.

One year on.

Keeping up with the theme of Kevin on “Always look on the bright side of life”, today is one year since John Howard became an ex-PM, he has ceased to be the PM, Mr Speaker, and we gained a Rudd government. I just got a text from a friend telling me “Happy Anniversary”, and it made me feel good.

So – how has it been for you?

joni

Your Rudd, my Rudd, our Rudd. Rudd TV

Our quasi-president seems to be all over TV at the moment, re-assuring us, calming us. He made his big statement to the nation last week (which Malcolm quickly covered) and then last night on C7 he had a “town hall” debate – just like in the US debates but without anyone else. I wonder if Malcolm has sent Rudd another note to complain.

Anyway – I missed the debate – still a bit sick and was dozing on the couch – so what did the blogocrats think of the debate, and does anyone have any predictions on when Turnbull will have his version of the show?

Turmoil-enomics II

Here is our thread for Thursday (a bit early, but the Eyes on Lateline scared me).

John Mc emailed me this link which has a pretty cool interactive webpage on the meltdown. Have a look – it’s very informative.

Now – I just watched the Lateline interview with Julie Bishop and so the transcript is not available yet, but at the start of the interview she seemed to say that Rudd did not understand what CDS’s were (Credit Default Swap) when she asked a question in QT. But then later in the interview she admitted to Tony Jones that she did not know what CDS’s were…. now isn’t admitting that she did not understand her question, which means – how could she understand the answer?

Anyway – this is the thread for Thursday.

(Oh – and I closed comments on the previous thread, so if you want to comment put it in this thread)

Comments now closed – please use thread III