1.20pm – The Minister for Regional Australia, Simon Crean, has asked Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call a leadership ballot.
Crean says he has asked Gillard to call a spill. He says if she refuses the Caucus should petition her for a ballot.
Crean says Kevin Rudd should run. Crean says he will support Rudd. [Read more...]
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has appeared at the Woodford Folk Festival with her Labor predecessor Bob Hawke.
Gillard told the gathering that the “big decisions” made by her government “would have been effectively the same” even if the government had not operated in a minority.
She said that she wanted to launch the National Disability Insurance Scheme on July 1st and deliver “further education reforms” before “we get around to winning that election”.
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Gillard said she was an “incredible optimist” and cited her own life story as one that “instills a sense of optimism in me”. She said that “it says something wonderful about this place” that she could come to Australia aged 4 and become the first female prime minister. “Why wouldn’t you be optimistic about the future?”
Bob Hawke said that no predecessor or successor of his “has had as much difficulty with the processes of politics” as Gillard has. Despite not controlling the numbers, “the legislative record of this government is quite remarkable,” he said.
Hawke said that Gillard had been subject “to some unfair criticism because she’s a woman”.
There were cheers from the crowd when Gillard referred to her misogyny speech. She said one upside to her experience was talking to girls about going into politics. She told the story of a woman who told her young son that he could become PM, only to be told by the boy: “No, mum, you need to be a girl to do that.” [Read more...]
Queen Elizabeth II has delivered her annual Christmas message to the Commonwealth.
The televised message comes at the end of the Queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations of her 60 years on the throne.
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The National Rifle Association has proposed a program to put armed police guards into all American schools.
At an extraordinary press conference today, the Executive Vice-President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, said that it was necessary to match a “bad guy with a gun” with a “good guy with a gun”.
LaPierre was twice interrupted by protesters holding anti-NRA banners. He refused to take questions from journalists.
The NRA has chosen former Arkansas Republican congressman Asa Hutchinson as co-ordinator of its armed security program.
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Text of statement by Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice-President of the National Rifle Association.
The National Rifle Association’s 4 million mothers, fathers, sons and daughters join the nation in horror, outrage, grief and earnest prayer for the families of Newtown, Connecticut … who suffered such incomprehensible loss as a result of this unspeakable crime.
Out of respect for those grieving families, and until the facts are known, the NRA has refrained from comment. While some have tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent.
Now, we must speak … for the safety of our nation’s children. Because for all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, no one — nobody — has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face: How do we protect our children right now, starting today, in a way that we know works?
The only way to answer that question is to face up to the truth. Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them.
And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk. [Read more...]
Australians cannot trust the Gillard government to manage the economy or to tell the truth, according to the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.
Speaking at a joint press conference with shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, Abbott said the government’s retreat on the budget surplus was another betrayal of a fundamental promise.
Abbott said the government had been behaving as if the surplus “wasn’t something that might happen, it was something that had happened.” The government has no economic strategy, just a political strategy, he said. “You can’t trust them to manage the economy or to tell the truth.”
Abbott claimed that in the 2010 election campaign Gillard had made a budget surplus pledge the day after she promised not to introduce a carbon tax. “They’ve been talking of a surplus for three years.”
“We will pursue this government every single day for its failure until the election,” Abbott said. [Read more...]
