the liberal party
Brendan Nelson: Welcome to Country
Something I hadn’t realised before: Brendan Nelson’s seemingly self-consciously ad-libbed speech at the Welcome to Country Ceremony that greeted the 42nd Parliament, was actually cribbed in large part from that awful piece of work he delivered at the Stolen Generations apology the next day.
Naturally, nobody realised this at the time and despite the jarring ring to his talk about “involuntary sacrifices that made possible the economic and social development of this nation” he was cheered at the end of this first speech.
These involuntary sacrifices that he keeps going on about - is he obliquely referring to the creation of the indigenous pastoral slave system that suppported our agricultural industry for so long? Talking about this at least makes a kind of sense in the Welcome to Country. The later reference to nationalistic “sacrifices” specifically in relation to the Stolen Generations, whose “involuntary sacrifice” of family, culture and place surely didn’t contribute to our economic development, is more confusing.
Post mortem deception
Brian Loughnane, in his National Press Club address the other day said:
Labor has been given a clear mandate by the Australian people based on specific promises and this will be the basis on which they will be judged at the next election.
Labor has set high expectations, and voters will expect the new Government to live up to them. They made very specific promises to prevent grocery prices going up, to prevent petrol prices going up and to prevent interest rates from going up. Our research shows the Australian people are watching carefully to see whether Labor’s promises are just more spin or whether they can deliver. The Coalition intends to hold Labor to the standards it set itself. Mr Rudd declared the buck stops with him – it will not be good enough or acceptable to the Australian people for Labor to try and blame the previous Government when times get tough. The Australian people have given Labor a go based on very specific promises and they expect them to be delivered. (Emphasis added)
Incredible really. The Libs are trying to say that the ALP made the same mistake this election as the Libs did in 2004.
Capitulation.
Nelson declares WorkChoices dead
Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the Coalition has dropped its WorkChoices policy.
Dr Nelson says the Coalition was damaged at the election by its industrial relations policies and he has officially declared WorkChoices dead.
He has called on the Government to move quickly to introduce its draft industrial relations legislation.