27 July 2008

Labor deserves 3rd term?

| iCanberran
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The ABC reports that Jon Stanhope has declared that Labour deserves a 3rd term.

I for one agree entirely 100%!Comrade Stanhope has earned our respect and a 3rd term for Labor with his commitment to Canberra and his hard work to improve the lives of Canberrans.

He and Labor have greatly reduced hospital waiting times, reduced class sizes, improved education, invested in adequate road links for Gunghalin, made sound development decisions, refrained from interfering with the judicial process, cleaned up Civic, made land affordable, made housing and renting affordable, reduced homelessness

Well, a lot of stuff I guess.

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Lets have the dragway right on the border, so convenient.
Even better, make it a 24/7 firework area.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy10:55 pm 29 Jul 08

As a NSW resident, I support the idea that the ACT govt provide a dragstrip so I can enjoy this sport at minimal cost.

you want a dragway pay for it yourslef. why should govt. subsidise your hobby? if there was sufficent deamand for a dragway then the market would have provided one privately. its not the role of govt. to line the pockets of the motorists party.

tom-tom, what leaf have you been hiding under for the past 10 years. The Canberra community built and paid for its own Dragway at no cost to govt only to have it wrongfully stolen away by weazel Smythe in 1998. So we have already funded it privately once already. Sonic has promised to re-instate it for the past 10 years. In fact he got into power by promising to re-instate it back in 2001 and 2004.If you say why should Govt pay for it then surely you must also say why should Govt pay for the Stromlo push bike track, the glass works and every other sporting and cultural facility they fund. You have missed the point on the dragway issue and that is the Govt wrongfully stole the Dragway away. The Dragway was built by members of our community at absolutly no cost to the taxpayer and it delivered significant social and economic benefits to canberra.

vg said :

Have a read of the coronial inquest findings into the death of Katie Bender before you start to apportion blame where it isn’t. I have a funny feeling it will shoot down ideas that the former CM knowingly or deliberately placed the public in danger. Should there have been no harm or falling debris everyone would rave about the day they saw the old hospital come down.

As a former CM, despite some obvious shortcomings, she did more for the image and tourism than the current idiot could dream of. All Sonic does is perpetuate a Canberra stereotype for the less educated who live outside Canberra

VG, my point was that she was behind the publicizing of a dangerous occurence – in other countries, they clear a safety zone when they implode a building, not advertise it as a great event for the whole family. (who’d of thought explosives could be dangerous? really.)

Have a read of the coronial inquest findings into the death of Katie Bender before you start to apportion blame where it isn’t. I have a funny feeling it will shoot down ideas that the former CM knowingly or deliberately placed the public in danger. Should there have been no harm or falling debris everyone would rave about the day they saw the old hospital come down.

As a former CM, despite some obvious shortcomings, she did more for the image and tourism than the current idiot could dream of. All Sonic does is perpetuate a Canberra stereotype for the less educated who live outside Canberra

Katie Bender, that is – the little girl.

What happened to Katie was terrible, and I don’t think anybody who lived through that time will ever forget it.

At the end I recall there being a real sense in the community that it was time for a change, but up until then the former Chief Minister did seem to be quite popular with Canberrans.

iCanberran said :

…and yet, in the history of self-government in the ACT, I can think of no other government more generally despised and detested.

Hmmm? Carnell? She did waste a lot of money and turn an implosion into a spectacle at which someone was killed.
Yet, for all the dumb decisions she made and my dislike for her leadership, I can look back and see she was at least trying to make Canberra better. All I see Stanhope doing is penny pinching on the essentials, having little foresight and wasting money, not on events and projects to make Canberra notable, but rather projects to make him feel good inside about helping the crims and the druggies.

she was not!
how did painting the stadium grass green, putting on a spectacle of an implosion (for those who missed it, it exploded, showering debris across the lake and killing a child who SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE, it was a dangerous situation touted as a “family” event)
and got off DUI by driving home after the accident for a stiff drink to calm her nerves? she was only interested in her own gains. never those of canberra.

iCanberran said :

Hmmm? Carnell?

Not in my observation, no. I do recall that my staunchly ALP journalist ex-husband was particularly fond of her on a personal level.

…and yet, in the history of self-government in the ACT, I can think of no other government more generally despised and detested.

Hmmm? Carnell? She did waste a lot of money and turn an implosion into a spectacle at which someone was killed.
Yet, for all the dumb decisions she made and my dislike for her leadership, I can look back and see she was at least trying to make Canberra better. All I see Stanhope doing is penny pinching on the essentials, having little foresight and wasting money, not on events and projects to make Canberra notable, but rather projects to make him feel good inside about helping the crims and the druggies.

ACT govt has heaps of empty jobs going begging.

I don’t buy the fact that 200 jobs at the powerplant in macarthur would suddenly transfor Canberra’s ecnomic status.

And I didn’t support closing schools with no reasonable alternative for the kids that live in those areas – Hall, Tharwa and Melrose. Especially when the next budget was suddenly in surplus.

tom-tom said :

you cant please everybody. its as simple as that.

…and yet, in the history of self-government in the ACT, I can think of no other government more generally despised and detested.

Tom Tom,

There was sufficient demand for a dragway. It was built without Gov subsidy. It paid rates to the Gov for the land it was on.
It was closed, without a cent of compensation, by the rotten little turd of the day.
Sonic promised to build a new one – he reneged.

Why should the dragway supporters pay twice?

tom-tom said :

peterh;

demographic change happens wether you like it or not, i’m sure closing the schools wasn’t an easy decsion to make but i think it will be shown over time to be the right one. if the money’s not there and the schools not going to have sufficent enrollments then its better to close. i dont think there are many parents who would rationally choose for their kids to get a worse education for the sake of convinence.

where exactly would the money for a petrol subsidy come from? should we stop funding the schools or the hospitals? both?

you want a dragway pay for it yourslef. why should govt. subsidise your hobby? if there was sufficent deamand for a dragway then the market would have provided one privately. its not the role of govt. to line the pockets of the motorists party.

where do you want to build the prison? its not exactly in the middle of a bustling cbd. it has to go somewhere why not there?

you dont want a gas power station to go near macarthur? will you be paying the dole money for the 200 people who wont get a job? i assume you’ll be putting the 3 billion bucks the powerstation would bring to the local economy out of your own pocket aswell then.

you cant please everybody. its as simple as that.

I understand that.

I also feel a bit gypped about the “public consultation” that went on over the whole schools closures.

I want the power station to be as it was originally laid out by CTC, as a part of the datacentre construction. The datacentres will create far more jobs than that of just a power station.

not just by providing maintenance and services staff, but encouraging larger companies to see canberra as a viable location for their DR sites.

The fuel subsidy seems to be working for the qld govt, and yes, their public hospital services are in a bit of a mess, but not as bad as ours. we need to find ways to encourage market growth for the jobless, and Govt / local govt isn’t going to cover off this need.

the only way canberra can effectively grow to be sustainable (jobs, education and health) is to entice big business to canberra and to enable more avenues for the SME’s in canberra to sell, service and maintain a larger base of clients.

Otherwise, the health sector will become inefficient, because the numbers currently leaving canberra will grow, and you won’t get better services if there are less population to pay taxes and rates.

in regards to the dragway, I will have to be content to listen to idiots doing burn-outs in my street. I wanted a dragway for purely selfish reasons, so that these buggers can go there and leave me in peace. Stanhope agreed to build a dragway. I voted for him. He lied.

The prison would have been better built with a view to making it as difficult to break out of as possible. Under a flight path, next to southcare would not have been the obvious choice.

when the Gershon report comes out, I am sure that all this will be academic. What I am now worried about is the effect that it will have on the local economy….

peterh;

demographic change happens wether you like it or not, i’m sure closing the schools wasn’t an easy decsion to make but i think it will be shown over time to be the right one. if the money’s not there and the schools not going to have sufficent enrollments then its better to close. i dont think there are many parents who would rationally choose for their kids to get a worse education for the sake of convinence.

where exactly would the money for a petrol subsidy come from? should we stop funding the schools or the hospitals? both?

you want a dragway pay for it yourslef. why should govt. subsidise your hobby? if there was sufficent deamand for a dragway then the market would have provided one privately. its not the role of govt. to line the pockets of the motorists party.

where do you want to build the prison? its not exactly in the middle of a bustling cbd. it has to go somewhere why not there?

you dont want a gas power station to go near macarthur? will you be paying the dole money for the 200 people who wont get a job? i assume you’ll be putting the 3 billion bucks the powerstation would bring to the local economy out of your own pocket aswell then.

you cant please everybody. its as simple as that.

tom-tom said :

peterh;
you had your local school closed down? where their enough kids enrolled to make it viable? was the school large enough to ensure the kids got a good education etc?
you’re paying through the nose for petrol? how exactly would you like stanhope to fix that?
you want a dragway? pay for it yourself.
you dont want a jail? want and need are different things
you dont want a powerstation? take yourself off the grid.

they were overfull. average class was 30 kids.
it was a primary school that was hitting top marks for numeracy & literacy
do what the qld govt are doing – subsidise petrol
why would i do that? I didn’t promise it in my election campaign
we didn’t need a Gaol under a flight path, next to an emergency helicopter base. put it somewhere that wasn’t populated, I might have been ok with it.

if I could, I would. I meant that I didn’t want a gas turbine power station next door to macarthur.

tom-tom,

it isn’t that they closed the school down due to lagging numbers, you don’t kit out the computer class with new smartboards, desktops, printers etc if that school isn’t viable.

the 2 schools nearby are now turning away kids. they just don’t have the room for new attendees.

where do my kids go to school, that keeps them with their new friends at kindy?

how can the schools be closed without any attention paid to the numbers of births in the area from 2004 onwards? I would have looked at the potential numbers for future classes, and if anything, extended the schools.

Ha ha gun street girl. I thought the water tasted a bit different. 🙂

I should have added that we recently had a positive experience with a relative who spent time in ICU and the nursing and medical care was top notch.

I belive the waits in the Casualty are still up to the usual standard.

peterh;
you had your local school closed down? where their enough kids enrolled to make it viable? was the school large enough to ensure the kids got a good education etc?
you’re paying through the nose for petrol? how exactly would you like stanhope to fix that?
you want a dragway? pay for it yourself.
you dont want a jail? want and need are different things
you dont want a powerstation? take yourself off the grid.

mutley...again1:13 pm 28 Jul 08

What did Stanhope do to fish?

Burned their retinas with the view of the Stanhope jewels in his Reg Grundies when he dived in for that helicopter rescue.

Gungahlin Al12:56 pm 28 Jul 08

Fish PeterH? What did Stanhope do to fish?

Nah, that’d be pickled

John Hargreaves anyone?

what, raw?

I don’t want to vote for the Libs, or the Greens. But I sure as he’ll don’t want to reward the Labor folk for two terms of for the most part stupid governance. Makes me long for the days before self-government. Oh gosh, what am I saying. Look what you made me say useless local pollies.

Crikey said :

Like NickD I can’t warm to a Liberal government when they may have people like child-like Brendan Smyth and happy-clappy Jackie Burke in their ranks.

maybe we need to become a council with a mayor. I keep mentioning this, jon would get a shiny gold chain….

Like NickD I can’t warm to a Liberal government when they may have people like child-like Brendan Smyth and happy-clappy Jackie Burke in their ranks.

I am certain that John Howard wanted another term. well, that didn’t happen. Jon Stanhope has to realise that not only do I

Fish
survived the fires
had my local school closed down
am paying through the nose for petrol
want a bleeding dragway
didn’t want a gaol
didn’t want a power station

I also vote.

and I don’t want him in power any more.

VicePope said :

It pains me to think it, much less say it. Even though they have made some fundamental rrors, they probably should get another term, simply because the other side is worse and the pretenders seeking election from outside the major parties look even poorer. That is not to say the government is any good at all. Its saving grace is one sort-of competent leader and three very so-so ministers who would at least register on the scoreboard, even if they couldn’t beat time. The Libs don’t even have that, but they seem to have a level of internal rivalry that’s directed inwards, rather than to persuading the public that they can do the job.

It may be a good chance to retrench some of the duds on both sides and, for that reason only, I am looking forward to voting. A curse on all their houses.

I fail to see the sort-of component of the competent leader and the so-so are more no-no ministers. I do however agree with the last paragraph about retrenching the duds on both sides, 3 labor members have already assisted us to some extent, but there are still 4 or so more to go and the Laborcuts needed outweigh roughly 3 needed to be cut on the Liberal side. Hopefully the people of Canberra will actually take a look at who they’re voting for this time and it may fix the overriding bumbling idiot problem the assembly has at the moment.

Comrade Jon will be getting a very special spot on my ballot paper. The last one. Not that I’m anti labor, just that I’m anti Stanhope. It would be great to see other Ginninderra residents do the same. Why should the residents of Bennelong have all the fun?

Sorry CMD is Chief Minister’s Department.

No probs. The reasonable reader reads you straight and clear.

But Jon would probably misread it, he only likes to hear what he likes to hear. I have friends in CMD who find that problem from time to time.

johnboy said :

So you’d like strike tags though all of them?

Best to use the contact form or send an email if you’re not getting the desired results.

john@the-riotact.com

Yep, strikes though all of them. This is meant to be a comical post, not Labor propaganda.

Did Stanhope really say he “deserves” a third term, or is that just ABC verballing/ construing what he said?

He is pretty arrogant, but I find this one hard to believe until I see a copy of the speech or a report with a real quote in it.

The notion of “deserving” re-election is pretty oddball. This is not how democracy works. You have to be better than the alternative. And even with policies matched up, there are reality tests of credibility (did you deliver in the past?) and truth (were we warned you would cut services?). So there may be deserving history on one side of the ledger, but that can be dragged down by baggage. In my view, on balance and in consideration of his record, Stanhope deserves a lesson in humility.

So you’d like strike tags though all of them?

Best to use the contact form or send an email if you’re not getting the desired results.

john@the-riotact.com

He and Labor have greatly reduced hospital waiting times, reduced class sizes, improved education, invested in adequate road links for Gunghalin, made sound development decisions, refrained from interfering with the judicial process, cleaned up Civic, made land affordable, made housing and renting affordable, reduced homelessness

This a wind up right?

When I posted this item, I had each item listed but then formatted with a line through it. For some reason, it no longer has this formatting so the joke is lost.

Apologies for my crappy grammar, was a bit distracted whilst posting.

You can add ‘betrayal’ to loss of respect too, whatsup. I once was, I thought, a pretty ‘rusted on’ Laborite. No longer, since the last (majority) term.

iCanberrian: I’ve been waiting for the punchline to your joke.

Labor is a joke and if they get re elected its won’t because of their efforts is because some people might not see any reasonable alternatives. Is that something to be proud of ?

When you say that “Stanhope has earned our respect” Who is the collective “our” that you speak of? Stanhope and his team have worked very hard and consistently to loose my respect over a huge range of issues.

VicePope said :

Granny – I agree about the news value of reporting that a pollie thinks he is good. But I’d be confident any of the local media would also run Seselja saying he is a saint and a legend who is a shoo-in for election. It’s probably less about bias, and more about incapacity to assess what amounts to news.

Agreed!

I mean it’s not like he’s only just decided this. It’s not like he’s been sitting there going, “I’ve been a bad, bad boy. Do I really deserve to be elected?”

What were they thinking?

: )

I’m going to vote for them as they’ve been a pretty competant government. The thought of the Liberals running the place is pretty horrible – do you really want Steve Pratt or Vicki Dunn as a minister?

gun street girl12:30 pm 27 Jul 08

pelican said :

And I have to admit Canberra Hospital has improved of late.

That tainted water supply has already been turned on at your place, I see. 😉

Granny – I agree about the news value of reporting that a pollie thinks he is good. But I’d be confident any of the local media would also run Seselja saying he is a saint and a legend who is a shoo-in for election. It’s probably less about bias, and more about incapacity to assess what amounts to news.

Jon Stanhope thinks he deserves a 3rd term.

Why, fancy that.
I am gobsmacked.
Who knew.

Amazing what the ABC considers ‘news’ these days….

: )

Labor has not been all bad for sure – I was pleased that Stanhope stood up for the rights of gay people and civil unions. And I have to admit Canberra Hospital has improved of late. Sadly there is not much to recommend the Opposition so for me it will probably be Labor again but with some good minor party and independent candidates in the mix.

It pains me to think it, much less say it. Even though they have made some fundamental rrors, they probably should get another term, simply because the other side is worse and the pretenders seeking election from outside the major parties look even poorer. That is not to say the government is any good at all. Its saving grace is one sort-of competent leader and three very so-so ministers who would at least register on the scoreboard, even if they couldn’t beat time. The Libs don’t even have that, but they seem to have a level of internal rivalry that’s directed inwards, rather than to persuading the public that they can do the job.

It may be a good chance to retrench some of the duds on both sides and, for that reason only, I am looking forward to voting. A curse on all their houses.

Could only be a paid political advertisement. Nobody could be that stupid.

Well, they definitely deserve something….

i-canberran = ay karumbah…

not entirely wrong as such, just that, well deserves is somehow not the right word. what’s the word expresses the concept ‘the rest are so awful they make me look good, even though in actuality, i’m pants at being government, too’??

Unfortunately the alternatives are potentially a lot worse.

Comrade Stanhope? *Guffaw*

Defefinitely a wind up – get a load of the expression on the woman sitting behind Stanhope – we all know the role of the people in the row directly behind the great and wondrous leader is to nod and smile at everything he says – this member of the party faithful looks what – incredulous? disbelieving? or totally gobsmacked by whatever he just said.

gun street girl9:28 am 27 Jul 08

Don’t worry – they’ll be pumping the drugs into the water supply tomorrow, so you’ll actually believe that stuff.

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