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Australian federal election called for 21 Aug 10

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As of yesterday, the politcal game of cat and mouse has commenced. Shared IAW the usual.... http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/federal-election-called-for-august-21/story-e6frfku0-1225893176751



Federal election called for August 21
From: AAP July 17, 2010 12:34PM Increase Text Size Decrease Text Size Print Email Share Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Kwoff Add to Myspace Add to Newsvine What are these? AUSTRALIANS will go to the polls on August 21 after Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the date for the next federal election today.

Ms Gillard made the announcement at a media conference in Parliament House just after midday.

"Today I seek a mandate from the Australian people to move Australia forward," she said.

"This election, I believe, presents Australians with a very clear choice. This election is about the choice as to whether we move Australia forward or go back."

Ms Gillard said she had been driven through her adult life by a clear set of values learned from her parents.

"Over the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to share those values with the nation," she said.

"I believe in hard work. I believe in the benefits and dignity of work. I believe in what comes as an individual when you do your best and you earn your keep."

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Ms Gillard said there was no challenge Australia could not conquer if the country worked together.

"So in this, the forthcoming election campaign, I'll be asking the Australian people for their trust," she said.

"I'll be asking Australians for their trust so that we can move forward together."

Ms Gillard said moving forward meant plans to build a sustainable Australia, "not a big Australia".

"Moving forward means making record investments in solar power and other renewable energies to help us combat climate change and protect our quality of life," she said.

Ms Gillard said budget surpluses and a stronger economy would offer Australians the chance "to get a job, keep a job, learn new skills, get a better job and start your own business".

She said she would protect the Budget's return to surplus in 2013 during the campaign by not going on an "election spendathon".

"By making sure that any promise we make to spend money is offset by a promise to save money," she said.

"By making sure that the budget bottom line doesn't change by one cent during the election campaign."

Ms Gillard said she wanted to build what Australia achieved working together in the face of the global financial crisis and global economic uncertainty.

"The uncertainty is not behind us yet, and economic challenges are still very much with us and hard working Australian families who are doing it tough can attest to that," she said.

The Prime Minister said that "moving forward" also meant stronger protection for the nation's borders.

"And a strong plan, a real plan that takes away from people smugglers the product that they sell."

Ms Gillard noted that Labor had increased expenditure on hospitals by 50 per cent in its first term.

She said moving forward on health meant training 3000 nurses and 1300 GPs during the next three years "all the while as we expand our GP super clinics and implement our health reforms.

"We'll move forward together with a sustainable Australia, a stronger economy, budgets in surplus and world-class health and education services and other essential services that hard working Australians and their families rely on," she said.

Ms Gillard said the Opposition's economic approach was backward looking, citing the Coalition's stance against the stimulus package.

Failing to provide the stimulus would have sent the economy downwards into a spiral of lower incomes, lost jobs and reduced services.

"That is the spiral they would have recommended for this country but the wrong thing for Australians. It would have taken us backwards," she said.

Ms Gillard accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of remaining committed to Work Choices, no matter what words he sought to use as camouflage.

"In terms of the words he seeks to disguise his intent with, we have heard all of that before," she said.

"Their gaze is fixed in the rear-view mirror, rather than on the road ahead," she said.

Ms Gillard said Mr Abbott thought improving education and health meant cutting their funding.

"He's now calling for that same backwards-looking approach to other services that hard-working Australians need," she said.

"Instead of creating GP super clinics, he would eliminate them, instead of expanding trades training centres, he would end them, instead of providing computers to children in schools - he would see none of that."

Ms Gillard said she believed the Labor Government had been a good one, but acknowledged there had been "some problems".

"Yes there has been some lessons learned and I've acknowledged that we've learned some lessons along the way."

Mr Abbott represented a threat to the nation's future and return to policies of the past, Ms Gillard said.
"We've come too far as a country and we've evolved too much as a society to risk that kind of backwards looking leadership."

Australians had an opportunity to elect a government that would see the nation become stronger.

"The choice is very, very clear. And I look forward to presenting our case for judgment to the Australian people over the weeks ahead."



It was an early start for Ms Gillard, who left her home in Melbourne about 7am (AEST) before flying to Canberra for a 10.40am meeting with Governor-General Quentin Bryce at Yarralumla.

The Prime Minister emerged from Government House 30 minutes later after formally seeking permission to hold the election.

Young families, cyclists and many media members were camped on the grass outside the entrance to the official residence.

A small group of protesters held a banner saying: "We want Kev the people's PM."




 
I wonder how all this will play into it.

Racism in Australia
571 comments
Bruce Haigh

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2588104.htm


The recent attacks on Indian students have thrust the issue of racism in Australia into the mainstream news bulletins.

The Indian government has protested, the Indian media has expressed concern and Kevin Rudd has made one of his grave statements.

And the Australian media toyed with the notion that perhaps there are elements of racism in this country.

Of course Australia is racist. It is still viewed by mainstream Australia as wrong, so it is practised with some guilt and in polite company circumspection. Quiet soundings at social gatherings of what appear to be like-minded people, eventually leading to, once credentials seem to have been established , 'I have nothing against them but...'

Polite and sometimes not so polite racism is the underbelly of conservative politics and conservative attitudes. Racism weaves its way through Australian sport with varying degrees of official tolerance, but in some codes it has equal billing with misogyny. It was there for all to see with the crude sledging engaged in during the last Australian cricket tour of India.

In not so polite society racism is blatant. Have you seen the ugly text messages relating to Aborigines, Muslims, Jews, Indians and refugees?

Australians from the dominant Anglo/Celtic culture expect new Australians from other cultural backgrounds to show some respect, perhaps even a small cringe and obsequiousness, forelock tugging, until such time as they know the ropes, cut their cultural ties and enter the mainstream.

Temporary settlers and long term visitors are expected to absorb mainstream culture more quickly and to show a suitable degree of deference. Some individuals and national groups are better at this than others. Maybe Indians have a problem with deference?

Of course racism is a fact of life in Australia. The treatment of Aborigines is the most glaring example and is there for the world to see.

Aborigines are not equal before the law in Australia; they die in the back of prison vans. Whitefellas speak, plan and make decisions on their behalf. Rehabilitation programs in prison are minimal and many prison guards display racial prejudice including toward visiting relatives. White decision makers are currently in the process of denying outstations to Aborigines.

Since the time of white settlement racism has been part of the weft and weave of this country.

The first identified threat by white settlers was from thieving, dispossessed Aborigines, who were placed in the same category as Australian fauna; and then Asians, who apparently constituted a threat to the wage structure and racial purity.

The Union Movement and The Bulletin magazine urged maintenance of a white Australia policy and it was not difficult to bring the Squatters and members of the professional middle class along with them. Keeping Australia free for the white man was one of the catch cries for recruitment to the First Australian Imperial Force.

The White Australia Policy officially died with the election of the Labor Whitlam government in 1972; but it didn't.

Attitudes in the white macho middle class didn't change. It was a badge of honour among the emotionally and intellectually beleaguered (and challenged) conservatives in the middle class to oppose anything the Whitlam government instituted.

Expecting big things from Malcolm Fraser when he was elected Prime Minister in 1976, they were disappointed, if not shocked with his attitude and policies toward Aborigines, refugees arriving by boat and opposition to Apartheid. He was a class and Party traitor.

Hawke and Keating maintained, and in some areas increased, policies of public decency toward Aborigines, minority groups and refugees. Under them both there was even a week-long celebration of the worth and value of refugees known as Refugee Week. It died under Howard.

John Howard brought his class and race warfare to government. He was a champion of the marginalised white middle class. His anger at the direction of policy over the preceding 24 years seethed and festered. WorkChoices and the detention and vilification of refugees were the resulting policies.

Howard's treatment of refugees arriving by boat was state sponsored and sanctioned racism. It sent a powerful message, not to desperate refugees but to other Australians, some of whom saw it as encouragement to develop and express their own racism.

Mohammed Haneef was a victim. The unwillingness of the AFP to admit mistakes or apologise also sent a powerful message both overseas and to those within this country who put the AFP on a higher pedestal than they do tolerance and human rights.

The Rudd government has kept in place the fundamentals of the Howard government's intolerant policies toward Aborigines and refugees. As an example to others it leaves much to be desired as does Rudd's recent intemperate attack on people smugglers. Does Rudd believe that government policies reinforcing and backing racist actions and attitudes would not have a negative impact at street level?

The Rudd government has been gutless in reversing and attempting to heal the damage done by Howard. His government needs to implement a schools and university program promoting human rights and combating racism.

 
I'd never put my foot forward into Canada's politics (been gone for almost 16 yrs), although I would vote Harper if I was a resident, and to put one's foot forward into another country's political situation/environemnt without ever living there, knowing the actual history, or any real genuine knowledge is going out of one's lane.

I just thought announcing that a federal election here was a newsworthy item, just like the recent election in the UK.

Its common knowledge here that vast majority of assaults/attacks against Indians here is tribal violence from another ethnic group.

Here is a report from an Indian news paper, as usual, shared IAW the usual...

http://greathindu.com/2009/06/indian-media-hiding-facts-its-lebanese-muslim-attack-against-hindus-in-australia/
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INDIAN MEDIA HIDING FACTS: It’s Lebanese Muslim attack against Australian Hindus

June 26th, 2009 | 25 Comments | Posted in Great Hindu
The media, fails to mention what kind of Lebanese-Australians are apparently attacking Indians in Australia. Officialdom calls this a “law-and-order” issue, and the Indian press rants about “racism” in Australia. No one, it seems, is asking what kind of Lebanese these assailants are. Are they Christians? Or, more likely, are they Muslims? The Indians are mostly, one would assume, Hindus. Maybe this is a religious issue? Muslims, given Islamic tenets regarding polytheists and idolators, have a long, sordid, intolerant, and murderous history of “Hinduphobia.”

Two years back, I was studying for my MBA in Sydney. At my University every Indian student I knew was aware that we were supposed to avoid neighborhoods where young Lebanese men congregated. Since it was no secret then, I am assuming it’s no secret now. What political correctness gone amok is preventing this weekly, the Indian and Australian civil society and media from acknowledging and discussing is that, a majority of the attacks on the Indians were/are being carried out by Australians of Lebanese descent, who happen to be Muslim.The Lebanese young men are not doing this because a majority of Indian students down under happen to be Hindus; they are attacking Indians because they believe that we are “soft” targets. And, until the attackers are disabused of this perception, I am afraid the attacks will continue.

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Your ABC source makes the far left side of the CBC look like child's play.

As for our election, the majority of the people will decide to either keep the ulta-left winged Labor government, or install the rightwing Liberal party.

Time will tell. As for racism in Canada, I googled and got over 1,120,000 results, you'll find it in every corner of the world.
 
Here's the beef on Haneef  ;D

Its a bit of a long read, but if anyone wants to know the facts, feel free to chuck a squizz at the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhamed_Haneef

Muhamed Haneef
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
Dr
Muhamed Haneef

Born September 29, 1979(1979-09-29)
India
Occupation Doctor of Medicine
Known for Falsely accused of terrorism, and subsequent wrongful detention
Home town Mudigere
Spouse(s) Firdous Arshiya
Parents Shami Khaleel (father)

Mohamed Haneef (born 29 September 1979) is an Indian physician who was wrongly accused of aiding terrorists, and left Australia upon cancellation of his visa amid great political controversy.

 
Carcharodon Carcharias said:
Time will tell. As for racism in Canada, I googled and got over 1,120,000 results, you'll find it in every corner of the world.

India wins 2,350,000.
 
Good one Dennis  ;)

Like I said, you'll find racism everywhere, the election in Australia is about the outragous overspending by Labor, along with poor border protection,  poor policy for home insualtion, green loans, solar power (insulation caused 4 deaths and over 120 houses burned down) and basically complete mismanagement of many other introduced policies, etc.

We've just had enough of the arrogance and spin.

Time for a change, at Labor borrowing $100,000,000 a day, every day, we've had enough!
 
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