New Testingstan

Is Graham Richardson psychic? Thought you might enjoy this after the conversation on the role of the media in current leadership woes.

What a fantastic article

BRAH

thought you might enjoy this one as well: Guy Rundle on Julian Assange's Senate bid.

I really enjoy these articles you send me every now and then Jester.

I really liked the bit about how the Greens, publically, support the idea of Wikileaks making a senate bid, but privately are pissed off about it. I also like a lot of the analysis that went into this article.

ITT jester doesn't write a paper he has to give on Thursday and instead reads this awesome new blog he found: Piping Shrike.

The first article, about asylum seeker policy, is a corker, but his backlog is pretty good too.

write that fucking paper, jester

I wrote that paper

Yeehaw.

Now get back to work, peon.

/is behind schedule on writing his own report

Inside Tony Abbott's Mind - Waleed Ali.

So I've been thinking along similar lines for a little while (and actually own David Marr's Quarterly Essay on Abbott, though haven't read it). I don't think he is going to be the massive wrecking-ball that the left fears because of the apprenticeship he served under Howard; and in particular, both Howard's demise and Can-Do Campbell's enormous fuck-up in Queensland show the dangers of letting ideology rock the boat. But at the same time, you get the sense he will be a mediocre prime minister for precisely the same reason - he's a 'reformer' rather than a traditional conservative, but knows most of his proposed reforms are totally unacceptable to the electorate. So it'd be steady as she goes while significant problems go unfixed.

The Abbott article is good. It's a reminder to a lot of people that Abbott isn't just an bundle of soundbites and dangerous ideology, but someone who is truly smart and understands politics and the public.

And a lot of the speculation I've seen lately has been about things like the opposition to Gay Marriage, which people expect to disappear as soon as he has the PM position, he forces the Libs to vote for it, Labor can either let him win and be remembered as the PM who brought in Gay Marriage and moderate his image, or they can oppose it... And yeah.

Same with the NBN, he'll get in and they'll suddenly reveal that they've reviewed the evidence now available to them (insert cheap shot about Labor hiding facts or something too) and that the contracts with Telstra etc are even more locked down than had been revealed and we're committed to the NBN by poor Labor business practices. But seeing as we're committed to it, you can be sure that the strong economic and business minds of the Libs will make sure it gets done right.

Marieke Hardy speculated in a blog a few months back that he'd probably wind up softening his stance on gay marriage and ultimately let it go through to a conscience vote, securing his place in history as the PM that made it happen where Gillard et al didn't. At the end of the day, I'm voting for my incumbent independent and he can support whichever party he likes.

Yeah, Denison was a good seat to be in. Even if we did have to put up with Eric Abetz.

Now I'm in what can safely be described as liberal heartland. Home of Menzies, Peacock, Georgiou and now Frydenberg.

Though, the margin isn't as big as it could be, so maybe something crazy could happen.