Australia General Discussion

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What is Rudd's great sin?

He's non-collaborative (ie Ministers often only know of a decision in their portfolio once it's announced) - this is especially bad in the ALP, where the caucus is meant to a filtering process. The other ALP-specific sin is that he's not aligned with one of the factions - which means no one trusts him. But for the public at-large (and those of us in Canberra) - he's very ill-mannered, in private every 3rd word is f*** (or some variation), and his government was marked by a lot of activity, policy made up on the fly and no real pay off.  

Didn't he screw over Peter Garrett by making him take the fall for something he ordered Garrett's ministry to do over Garrett's head or something? Some kind of harebrained insulation scheme that ended up killing people?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How's Garrett doing at Education, out of curiosity? I remember being distinctly upset on his behalf because of how unfair it seemed and because of how I knew of his music career from when my mother used to play his cassette tapes in the car when I was little.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Catapulting someone into the Prime Ministry as a 'sacrificial lamb' strikes me as an absolutely terrible idea on pretty much every level.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Is there any hope of a Coalition leadership spill in the remotely foreseeable future or is the Australian right up Abbott Creek without a paddle for the remainder of this Parliament?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Just got back from dinner. What's Abbott talking about, exactly?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Who was the last Australian Prime Minister who didn't have some sort of glaring personality defect that noticeably affected their ability to do their job? Was it Hawke or Fraser? I honestly think it might have been either Hawke or Fraser.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I suppose it's fitting that he didn't outlive Gough for long.