Free Republic

Costello is likely to be as supportive on the WOT as howard, but I don't think h is the statesman Howard is. The real danger is that a large proportion of the Australian people hate him and he's likely to lose an election. Beasley is relatively sane, but I'd say his leadership is pretty shaky within the party (he's been ousted before, he's probably safe until the election but if he wins then anyone who ousts him is PM). Given Labors last 2 leaders were Simon Crean (ultra-unionist) and Mark Latham (total nutter) that wouldn't be good.

The Prime Minister isn't directly elected by the people (like the US president is). Instead, individual parliamentary seats are elected, and the victorious party (or coalition) then appoints the Prime Minister.
Immediately after an election this will be the leader of the party (assuming he won his seat). Following that though if the PM ever loses the majority support of the governing party he can be ousted.

Australia's not the best example. For down Under, the more chaotic example is New Zealand - of the last 6 Prime Ministers only 3 were elected (Lange, Bolger, Clark) - the other 3 got in by ousting the current PM (Palmer, Moore and Shipley).

Yeah. Especially with those blokes wearing short shorts 3 sizes too small, lots of leaping and lifting, it's like an entire all-man ballet company every game, and with none of that nasty tackling stuff from those other sports.

I think I just answered is there a gayer sport than soccer.

I'm more than happy to give Bush credit for this actually. Probably doesn't play too well to US audiences but does play quite well for Aussie humour - good natured "cheap-shots" at your mates are fine. From that perspective not rude at all, and I'm sure that's how John took it.
He's a bit hopefull that John will outlast him though - the Aussie election is before the next Us election and I suspect Howard may retire at that stage. Real problem is there isn't really a clear replacement other than the very unpopular Peter Costello.

Yeah, this is a little out of character for John, and IMO if this comment came from him it was almost certainly cleared with the Us beforehand. In a time where so many countries are telling the US to mind it's own business it is a positive thing to have at least 1 allied leader saying the more the Us does the better it is for world peace.
That's how I read this at least.

Which would be bad if it was true. However :-

1) NZ immigrant unemployment is below the Australian born unemployment rate.
2) Kiwis in Australia cannot go on the dole for 2 years - that is you're employed or you're broke. Similarly I haven't noticed (in Melbourne) any Kiwi beggars at all - all that I've encountered have Aussie accents, so it's not like they're getting handouts there either.
3) Australia is currently reporting a major skills shortage, with lack of skilled applicants being the main problem reported by Australian businesses (at least according to yesterday's Age). If Australia doesn't want culturally-similar Kiwi's simply close that border, but also they need to think of who they get in to fix their labour shortage.
4) Is the dole in Australia really that much better than in nanny-state New Zealand? I faltted with someone temporarily unemployed in NZ and she got about $195/week in 1999. A long-term unemployed Aussie here I flatted with was getting about $175 per week in 2003. Even with the exchange rate difference I don't think the Kiwi dole bludgers would be any better in australia than in New Zealand, and without the $500 flight, 2 year waiting period, higher cost of living, lower medical benefits etc.

It is a common myth in Australia about the Kiwi dole-bludgers but it really doesn't stack up with the facts.

It also pretty much highlighted the weakness of Labor's campaign that this was their big policy announcement for Election Week. no major shake up to budgets, defence, trade, health, education, etc, but rather changing some of the rules on logging in the smallest state.

Combined with being led by a nutter, having basically zero policies (their main ad campaign seemed not so much "Vote for Us" as "If you elect Howard he might retire and Costello may become PM", it's rather disturbing how close Labor ended up.

They're still doing a lot better than the last time the Kiwi's were here.

http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/20010521/peacenz.html

[NZ had 19 fighter aircraft and sent a aquadron to train in war games with Australia. Lost 2 craft and 1 pilot. Strangely the fighter wing was disbanded not long after that.

1 country, 1 law. Seems here like the UN wants countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, etc to have 1 ruls for locals (death) and 1 for Aussies (not death).
Total rubbish. If you really want to do something about the cirme in those countries, John Howard should do exactly what he is doing - enough to ensure they get a fair trial but no more.
Hopefully the publicity alone from these cases will mean fewer idiots try smuggling drugs from there into Australia -less crime for them and less druggies for us. A win-win situation.

The ALP may be to the Right of the left in Europe or the Us, but I'm not totally convinced of that staying that way. Beasley is a pretty much a moderate populist, and under him the ALP is likely to appear more centre than left. However they did run Mark Latham in the last election and apart from being a nutter he's right up there with the far left from anywhere (starting with being very anti-US).

Any idea what Helen's up to? Given the number of illegal immigrants in New Zealand and her leftist base I'm surprised she'd put this through.

Wouldn't be anything to do with Sydney - the Lebanese involved in the gang rapes, riots etc there are legal (and seem to be almost all 2nd gen immigrants).


My money's on it being 1 of 2 things :-
1) It's a favour for Australia (what NZ gets back I'm not sure). This would be a much bigger coup from John howard to plug the whole "boatpeople situation". [For Non-ANZers a major issue in the 2001 Australian election was refugess mainly from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq sailing to Australia in fishing boats from Indonesia - notmally 400 at a time).

2) It could be a setup for something far left to pass through. The last time I saw something like this was when Lange put through the nuclear free zone (far left), followed by user pays, privatisation, GST. This could be the same thing in reverse.

Post 13, Ceewrighter wrote "Looks Middle Eastern. Smells Middle Eastern. Let's see if it runs Middle Eastern, too."


That sort of attitude is not helping.
Check out http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17563466%255E601,00.html

A primarily Lebanese Catholic church was attacked. Are you advocating attacking them because they look Middle Eastern??
Target perps, not races.

A few points on this :-

1) this was definately set off by the gang rapes over hte past year, the excuses given at trials (basically their culture made them do it), and the attack on the lifeguards.

The mob violence over the weekend was a racial backlash, not religious. Anyone looking like they were middle-eastern were being attacked. Note that most Lebanese (the main middle-eastern ethnicity in Australia) are Christians - it is likely most of the people attacked were innocent people (and Christians to boot) going about their daily lives who happened to be in the same place as the mob.
Most of the posts on FR from here seem to be totally for this voilence, which is a bit disturbing - this wasn't targetted against muslim lebanese gangs (who won't hit the same spot twice in a week), but against whoever looked like a "Leb". Were those beaten by the Anglo mob Christians? can't tell - this isn't reported at all, if even asked (the main focus is this is racial). Definately emergency services were attacked, and definately women. It's a bit hypocritical to on one hand criticise a culture for it's poor treatment of women while supporting beating up women on the streets going about normal business.

In so saying, it now is turning religious. I'm going to assume that most of the innocents and bystanders are lying low and it appears to be the Anglo-Aussies vs the Lebanese muslims (especially given last nights gathering outside a mosque). Additionally, the Australian (newspaper) makes an interesting clarification on Archbishop Pells statement on the Auburn Church - it's predominantly Lebanese.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17563466%255E601,00.html


At the end of the day I suspect the biggest group of victims here will be Lebnese Christians long run. With the media playing the race card in all coverage it's looking like "Aussies" vs "Lebs", however the Lebanese gangs are more anti-Christian, meaning Lebanese Christians are being attacked by both groups. It's only the australian article I've seen reporting Lebanese Christians being attacked - the FoxNews.com article certainly doesn't mention anything, and with the Australian being owned by Rupert Murdoch they should have the same access to information.

A coople of points on Nz and ANZUS.

Firstly, is New Zealand out of the treaty. As a Kiwi, I know the US "booted" us out, however my understanding is that the New Zealand - Australia part of the treaty is still in effect (as is Australia - US). Is this correct?

Secondly, if NZ invoked ANZUS as did Australia following 9/11 it may indicate that NZ still considers itself in the treaty with respect to attacks on the US. If this was the case, it's a matter of NZ trying to get back in fully with the US.

Finally, I can't see NZ giving up the anti-nuclear policy, however the question is do they have a point (I'm a Kiwi living in Australia, so I do kinda see the NZ point). Should a treaty require all parties to accept everything from all other parties to the treaty? Put it this way - If France (as a NATO member) decided to visit the US with a nuclear armed vessel (or the like), would the US have any rigth to object?

"What were the likes of New Zealand and Canada doing?"

Probably the same thing representatives from the Us and UK were doing.

New Zealand had a fairly similar result in 1993 - National 49, Labout 46, NZF2, Alliance 2.
National and NZF formed a coalition of 51-48, with a member of Labour being voted in as Speaker to make it 51-47 This was the first coalition required in decades.

Since then New Zealand has changed to a German-style MMP system where the makeup of PArliament is based on the % of party vote rather than winning electorates. This makes it much earier for fringe groups (like to Greens) to get in - since MMP came in in 1996 there has not been a single-party victory.

LAtham is a total nutter by the sounds of things. He's basically been totally ripping into everyone who is anyone in the Labour party, while Labour pretty much reply with the same. The real problem they have is Latham is so bad, why did they run him for PM last year. If Labour hadn't totally botched their campaign (basically it was "don't vote for John Howard, he may resign, vote for us". No policies in sight) Mark Latham may well have been the current Australian PM.


This is however a good thing. With Labour in this much chaos, and with the entire upper party discredited (even if Latham is lying they put a lunatic up for PM) the (right-win, equivalent of Republican) Liberal Party should easily romp in next election.

From here, the Governor General has to assess who is in a better position to form a government. Clark can get to 61 votes with Maori, Progressives and Greens. National can get to 54 with ACT and United Future. New Zealand First has stated it will not be in a coalition, and will support the party with the most votes on confidence and supply issues.

So, if the Governor General believes Labour is in the best position to form a government, Helen's PM. As the governing party, they appoint the Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the past when it has been this close the governing coalition appoints a member of the oposition to be Speaker of the House. The Speaker does not vote, unless there is a tie. With a National Party Speaker, the votes are 61 Labour/Green/Coalition/Progressive and 60 everyone else.

Even if there is a tie in electing a party to government (say National, NZF, ACT and United Future do ally in a coalition, meaning Winston Peters breaks his election promises), I believe the Governor General is supposed to appoint the government to the coalition including the party which got the most votes, which is Labour.

I'd be very surprised if the specials swing it away from Labour, The only possible swing would be the Maori party siding with National, which is unlikely given National ran on abolishing the Maori seats and imposing a cut-off date for Treaty of Waitangi claims.

Unfortunately this doesn't work.

The Maori party will never side with National - National campaigned on limiting future claims under the treaty of Waitangi (which guaranteed the Maori certain rights, and is now used to reclaim land sold/taken in the 1700s-1860s, and get exclusice rights to fisheries etc). They also promised to abolish the Maori electoral seats (i.e. so there are no racially-based votes). That would kill the Maori party.

This means Labour can naturally pull 61 seats - Labour, Maori, Progressive and Green - effectively reforming the current government + additional Maori special interests.

National can count on ACT for support. United Future promised to talk first to the party with the most votes, but also would not go into government with the Greens, so they're National. New Zealand First promised not to go into coalition with anyone, but support the party with the most votes on supply and confidence issues. That means Labour can form their coalition with more votes. Also if they appoint a National member as Speaker of the House, that person only gets a tie-breaking vote, so Labour's coalition would have 61/121 votes.

I simply can't see us winning this one, unless the special votes still to be counted (from overseas etc) do something unexpected - these normally swing left though.

There's a few things to note on the Maori people before comparing them to American Indians living on reservations. Firstly is that New Zealand is an integrated society and has been for generations. There are no full-blooded Maori people.

You might also want to do some research before saying half a population is in jail. 7000 prisioners total (as of April)
[source http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3263458a11,00.html]

There's a reference elsewhere which said 70% of the prision population have Maori ethnicity, so about 5,000 total.

NZ 2001 Census results
http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/E717D06C-0687-4BC7-BD05-D8AEF8D39E3A/0/Table1.xls
600000 people of Maori descent total.

So rouchly 0.83% of Maori are in prison. Higher than those without any Maori ethnicity, but MUCH less than the 50% you quote.