Rooster writes over on The Pen:

Those “dirty tricks” just keep on coming! Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey accuses the CFMEU of encouraging migrants to become citizens in order to exercise their right to vote (potentially against the Howard Government and WorkChoices).

It’s “un-Australian”, according to the Government.

Bollocks.

Bollocks indeed. Permanent Residents don’t even have to think WorkChoices is unfair to the core to adopt Australian citizenship for the sole purpose of voting out the Tories.

I adopted Australian citizenship in 2003, long before WorkChoices but right after HoWARd blindly and slavishly followed King George into Iraq. Did so with the sole intent of voting against HoWARd and King George (given that I retained my US citizenship) at the next available opportunity.

No unions were involved in the making of this non-tory-voting Australian citizen! John HoWARd created this opposing vote all by himself.

-weez

image: Bill Leak for The Australian

Terrified families flee in panic

Lindsay Murdoch in Darwin and Stephanie Peatling
June 27, 2007

PANIC about the Howard Government’s crackdown on child sexual abuse has spread widely throughout remote Aboriginal communities, where parents fear their children will be taken away in a repeat of the stolen generation. (more…)

I’m still on blogholiday, so I’ll let Bruce Petty do most of the talking:

image:  Bruce Petty for The Age

Prohibition doesn’t work- and aboriginals are full Australian citizens. If you could reasonably (and constitutionally) shut off the booze and send in the Army to Vaucluse to stop their abuse problems, you should reasonably be able to do it to aboriginal people- but not before.

HoWARd couldn’t get any traction demonising migrants, diseased or otherwise, so aboriginals are the Liberals’ election wedge for 2007. There’s more than a little Stockholm Syndrome in Noel Pearson’s ‘we’ll take anything‘ position.

Makes me nothing but sad.

-weez

Just not blogging.

Amuse yourself by playing with this cute little doggie ’til I get back.

-weez

Little Johnny can’t win a trick these days.

Johnny’s smears on Kevin Rudd and Teresa Rein not only aren’t working- they’re backfiring.

After being screwed with WorkChoices, very few working voters lose any sleep when HoWARd tries to raise the spectre of ‘union thugs’ despite the fact that there actually are some pretty thuggish unionists out there.

The same-ol’ HoWARd wedge politics are now looking plainly obvious and desperate, so the racism dog-whistle has been modified to target the more nebulous ‘migrants’ with illnesses like HIV… and astonishingly, leprosy. (more…)

Remember back in April, HoWARd wedgily wanted to ban migrants with HIV? Still does.

However, Johnny now wants lepers banned, too… despite the fact that with present treatments, leprosy is manageable and those under treatment are no longer infectious after a month.

According to a highly placed Canberra souse (no typo), under consideration in the Liberal party room this morning was a proposal from Wilson Tuckey to ban migrants with scurvy; Senator Heffernan is game to block sufferers of potato famine.

-weez