The Beast In Me

*

The beast in me
Is caged by frail and fragile bars
Restless by day
And by night rants and rages at the stars
God help the beast in me

The beast in me
Has had to learn to live with pain
And how to shelter from the rain
And in the twinkling of an eye
Might have to be restrained
God help the beast in me

Sometimes it tries to kid me
That it's just a teddy bear
And even somehow manage to vanish in the air
And that is when I must beware
Of the beast in me that everybody knows
They've seen him out dressed in my clothes
Patently unclear
It's New York or New Year
God help the beast in me

The beast in me

Johnny Cash

These were the battlefields, lit up, trails of light blazing in flaming tracks, shocking in their intent, dismal in their finality, the ruined fields, the overwhelming sense of disappointment. And yet it was these very same battlefields which marked an entirely ruined consciousness. The lights were all cascading downwards, barely lighting the ground before dying like fireflies. The disruption was intense. The sense of longing intense. We were being called for a greater purpose, but nothing was so profoundly devastating as to look across these places, see what was meant to be, realise that everything had aged, call forth great squadrons, light up every corner of a silicon network, feel the flesh corroding as he walked; it wasn't fair. But nothing was meant to be fair. Fireflies. That's all they were. But fireflies who could imagine greater things; battlefields, corroded places, things which were of infinite longing, which held no place, which said, yes you were, my darling, darlingk, darlingk, I want money. Pappa, I want money. They all laughed. ATM, the girls laughed at my friend, painting the letters across his forehead. They all thought it a great laugh his girlfriend had ripped him off and he was devastated.

What on earth did you expect? Ian has finally left; leaving the lobby very impressed, well laughing anyway, at the number of girls he managed to squeeze in during such a short stay. My God, the boy said. Lady, lady, lady. Well the old one wasn't performing very well and Ian wasn't going to let any chance go by, not when he was returning to the "sexual desert", as he calls Sydney. They parade their enormous forms. I want to go, Sahr said, after she came to pick up her picture and other things the day after Ian had departed and sat, wondering whether she was going to get any more money. He was slow enough to reach into his pocket that she didn't stay. Enormous times. You were fast forwarded through what happened to me over a number of months, he said, but Ian was having none of it in the eternal wrestle for dominance. Intellectual poverty, he snorted, to make such a comparison, but it wasn't anything of the kind. Nothing came close to the wild devastation he had gone through. Nothing was going to be incidental to these crimes. He was getting old now. Could he be tiring of the boys? That's what they all said. You grew tired of the whores, the easy availability, beauty at a price.

They all wrestled with what was on display. They were all seeking a quiet time in a quiet place. They were all going to be displaced at one time or another. He wasn't prepared to answer their questions; as if he knew any answers. Be courteous to the traveller, kind to the stranger. That was about it. Have some common decency. Pass through the eye of the needle. Despair and be born again. Collapse realities. Take the easy way out. Try and let the battlefield go; although the extremity of those falling lights, the beauty of the desolation, the intensity of chaos, they were all things he didn't want to let go. A naked form, a fumbling intent. A body into which to seek oblivion. But we always woke up. There was always another day. There wasn't any way to keep up this excess. So profound, so deeply profound. That was why he loved it so much; that battlefield full of cascading lights, the muddy surface, the night sky flashing neurotically, the silvered, slivered intent. And so it was that he came full circle. And said goodbye. Not just to Ian. To things he should never have been attached to in the first place. Said goodbye and went to live in a nice quiet house. And sought a full blessing. Begin again; a new life. Take care, they said. Words from the English which had entered the Thai language. Take kae, they cooed. Take good kae. Taking care of Pappa. Duty over desire. Money over lust. These things were small and passing. He was about to enter a new domain.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/gillard-picks-up-where-rudd-left-off/story-e6frg9if-1225929099425

KEVIN Rudd set a new benchmark in the annals of Australian politics. He became the first prime minister to be worse than Gough Whitlam.

His colleagues seemed to agree with this judgment, denying him even the opportunity which Whitlam -- and indeed all previous prime ministers -- had to defend his/their first election victory. True, their judgment was more that Rudd would be worse than Whitlam for them personally. The damage he could continue to wreak on the nation was an entirely secondary consideration. White cars and other perks always trump the national interest.

Now, before she has even entered the Lodge, his successor Julia Gillard has embarked on challenging that new "Rudd benchmark" by picking up precisely from where he, so to speak, left off.

Two things among many cemented Rudd's grasp of the prime ministerial dunce's cap. The Emissions Trading Scheme and the $43 billion National Broadband Network. The first constituted a direct and utterly pointless attack on the foundation of not just this nation's prosperity but its very existence. Our vast resources of coal in general and its use for power generation in particular.

The second constituted -- constitutes -- perhaps the greatest waste of resources in our history. It at least equals the great railway building binge of the closing decades of the 19th century, which it most closely and disturbingly matches. Indeed, with politicians across the eastern states now also "feeling a fast train coming on", the NBN might well be a return to that sort of 19th century hard-wired waste in the 21st century.

One alone would have won the "accolade" for Rudd; the two together rendered certain his position in the pantheon of prime ministerial disasters. Now they were both bad enough when committed to by a nascent Rudd government. First a prime minister setting out to directly attack his own country through the ETS. None dared call it treason, for it was, to misquote either Ovid or John Harington, more simply stupidity.

And second, the biggest infrastructure project in the nation's history, which was completely uncosted initially -- the billions probably didn't even get the courtesy of an envelope's back, just a prime ministerial enthusiasm. Neither then nor now has there been any rigorous analysis to identify the claimed benefits against the very real costs.

How much worse is it now to persist with the NBN and to go back to an attack on our greatest national asset, this time via a carbon tax, when we know so much more about the context for each?

Rudd's insistence that the ETS be adopted before Copenhagen was bad enough. Now we know Copenhagen turned into Hoppenfloppen. Any move towards a unilateral carbon tax is that much the more irresponsible and stupid.

Similarly and even more so with the NBN. Back when the enthusiasm for the fixed NBN took hold, the iPad was barely a gleam in the eye of Steve Jobs. It was certainly not the, ahem, apple of his eye, as it didn't exist. Why the iPad? Because it captures the rapid, unpredicted and unpredictable shift to broadband mobility. Yet the government, and now Gillard as PM, is mandating the immobility of a fixed broadband network.

The 19th century railway splurge is a telling and -- should be -- uncomfortable precursor. For in the space of two generations most of those fixed lines were rendered obsolete by the car and its pervasive adoption, as a matter of deliberate choice because of its flexibility, by every family in Australia.

Now the railway builders did not and could not anticipate the car. Apart from the more basic reason for many of the lines -- pure political pork -- rail networks made sense in their context. But imagine if they had known the car was not just coming but was already here? How much worse would a decision to nevertheless pour billions into fixed rail networks have been.

That is exactly the position with PM Gillard. She now knows the iPad exists. Rudd didn't. Because two years ago, it didn't. Further, in Ziggy Switkowski's warp-speed world, we won't be waiting two generations.

To persist with the fixed NBN with that knowledge of the iPad and what it portends, is beyond folly. Indeed further, the way its birth and subsequent explosive growth should tell us there is a myriad of known unknowns, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, jostling to the surface behind it.

Of course we remain on pretty safe ground to argue that we need a fixed fibre core. But probably of much more limited extent than we might have thought when FTTN (fibre-to-the-node) was "the solution". That might mean wiring up the nation to regional centres. Funny about that: much like we still have with railways.

But then the continuing communication capillaries to the homes should be some mix of wireless and the good old telephone cable. And the Foxtel and Optus cable in the capital cities. The telephone cable because it's there and works perfectly well for what most consumer need and want. To stress, what they want now. Wireless because it's cheap and either upgradeable or disposable, and what consumers want.

There were actually two reasons for the enthusiasm for the Rolls-Royce upgrade to the $43bn FTTH (fibre-to-the-home). It was the second which brought competition tsar Graeme Samuel inappropriately into the government's tent. An attempt to break Telstra. More specifically, it's monopoly hold on the nation's infrastructure. So we saw Samuel move on from his job of regulating competition and applying the rules, to trying to mandate the very structure in which competition would occur.

Now the real point is not whether this is desirable or appropriate; simply that it's become irrelevant and unnecessary. Telstra's monopoly hold on our telecoms core is eroding as rapidly and as surely as its share price. And it's doing so mostly because of that switch from fixed to wireless. We don't need to build a pervasive fixed NBN to get greater competition. So, we have a Gillard government proposing to plough-on, bullheadedly building the most expensive white elephant in our history; and also embarking on a direct attack on our nation's prosperity, knowing that the first is silly and the second crazy. Do we have to wait three years to pass the accolade from her predecessor?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iFCUoD_iGBrFwchNJDxcmY6phsRg

NEW YORK — Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Friday that early elections could take place early in 2011 if the opposition Red Shirts prove they can remain peaceful.
"We believe that six more months of continued stability... should be able to set the scene for a possible early election next year," he told a think tank in New York, where he was attending the UN General Assembly.
"But that very much depends, still, on how the opposition and the Redshirts respond," Abhisit added in the talk at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"If they would prove that they are interested in democratic movement, peaceful assembly and rejection of any illegal activity -- and of course violent activity -- then I think we should be on course to achieve a solution."
Early elections are a key demand of the opposition Red Shirts movement.
Abhisit, the British-born, Oxford-educated head of the establishment Democrat Party, does not have to go to the polls until the end of next year.
He had proposed holding polls this November but shelved the plan when opposition protests in April and May ended in a bloody government crackdown and riots in Bangkok.
Ninety people died and nearly 1,900 were injured in the army assault to clear away the protestors on May 19.
The protesters were campaigning for elections they hoped would oust the government, which they view as undemocratic because it came to power with the backing of the army after a court ruling threw out the previous administration.
Most of the Red Shirt leaders are now in jail or wanted on terrorism charges for their roles in the two-month-long mass rally.
Abhisit insisted that elections could take place, but only once stability had returned. "I don't believe in elections where there can be intimidation, threats or use of force," he said.
He acknowledged that "we cannot claim to have returned the situation to complete normalcy," but said that "ordinary people are not affected" by the continuing emergency rule.
He also defended himself against accusations of damaging media freedoms, saying that only outlets which "incite violence" had been closed.
"I'm not sure whether you'd allow any special station for Al-Qaeda here," he told his mostly American audience.
Sporadic violence continues to afflict the country. A small bomb hidden in a rubbish bin exploded in a residential area of Bangkok on Friday, wounding three people, police said.
Despite the instability, Thailand's economy is performing strongly, the premier said. GDP is projected to grow eight percent this year and exports are growing at 30 percent a year, he said

Please Do Not Urinate Here

*

This was what we imagined. A blighted past where nothing made sense. We caught you. We transfigured you. We were riding high above the infinite, a view across all the channels, all the grating ice, all the dips and fur-roughs, the channels which stretched forever, the alien sky, the places where we weren't now but loved so much. We wanted you, so much. We loved you, so much. We were caught amidst these strange inter-laces, lattices, places that meant nothing and everything, profound, oh my God I love you so much. Please rescue me. I could see the troughs. They were just stretching, like some European surrealist painting, into a distance we could never imagine, into a place we could never despair, or paint our own despair, pinpoint what was a stupid agony, that frivolous panting which was meant to be everything. No, I not give you so much money. No, I not so stupid. No I love you mak mak, and yes, it was the most stupid of things. Yes, I want to go sing karaoke in some stupid bar, no you not steal my soul. Oh how I loved you. Oh how I wanted you. Oh how the inconvenience of your stupid plans laid havoc to my stupid life. And yet, yet, we were there, his friend ordered drinks, we said yes to parties without margin; let's face it, we're the foreigners, we pay everlasting.

There it was, everything. Conflicting signals. He wanted to be her. He wanted to be him. He wanted to embrace everything. He wanted to avoid everything. Every ancient voice. They weren't just the sentinels of the ancient carved channels, they were spiritual voices that tapped into something far deeper, far more psychotic, for more emblematic. I kept myself pure for you, what a fool was I. He listened to the barbarism of the German's voice. The greed dripping in every last sentence. Hyped up on some sex drug or other. It was from then, he thought, that he began to notice just how ugly some of the foreigners were, the cute Thai boys with them. Was that a pained expression on the boy's face? Bit fat tubby pale queen, with rounded face and rounded belly, strutting, that was really a strut. He'd manage to buy something he could never get any other way. Well that was the commerce. But it was the German who disturbed him the most. Apart from being bald it was the whopping big nose ring that was perhaps his most notable feature. And the fact that he was drunk and edgy, and had just ordered a bottle of red which he clearly intended to drink on his own. And then parallel universes kept breathing through the fabric, touching him, sending shivers up his arms.

Evil in intent, these hungry ghosts. It wasn't long, as he sat outside the Balcony, before the German had told him not just his life story but things he really could have lived without, so that images of that hyped up ugly ugly ugly form having his way with some poor Thai boy kept recurring, off putting. There couldn't have been anything more hideous, exploitative. He walked past the Thai boys touting for business outside the massage parlours and couldn't look at them the same. Imagine having to put up with that German? Sweating, humping, demanding. Shudder through the depths. Even the sea creatures at the bottom of the ocean could feel their horror. It came as no surprise to discover the German had just sold his piercing shop in Berlin and was living on the proceeds. He had been married, he told him, to his boyfriend of 20 years, but these days they only got off together once or twice a month. There was an endless procession of other forms, faces, bodies, supplicants, bare asses. He was into S & M and the Thai boys just weren't into all that, so it wasn't very satisfactory, he declared. Then he stood up, handed the bottle of red back to the bar and declared he was going off to the massage parlour. Ten minutes later the German was back. He looked surprised. I came in seconds, he declared. It's the sex drug. I'll go back in half an hour and do it again. I haven't got my money's worth yet. Some things he didn't need to know. Some things he really didn't need to know. I hope you tip the boy well, he said. I've already paid, the German declared. Tip him, he insisted. It means nothing to you.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/24/3021064.htm?section=justin

The Federal Government has found a Coalition MP who is prepared to be deputy speaker and pair with Speaker Harry Jenkins, the ABC understands.

ABC News 24 political editor Chris Uhlmann has been told the deal is close to being sealed.

Any such move by a Coalition MP would preserve the Government's two-seat majority and would no doubt enrage the Opposition and its leader Tony Abbott.

This lunchtime Queensland Liberal MP Alex Somlyay, who was dumped as the Opposition's whip in the recent reshuffle, told ABC Radio Current Affairs that he had been approached for the deputy speaker's job and was considering his position.

Earlier he told ABC NewsRadio that he would speak publicly on the reported job offer later today.

The major parties are locked in a brawl over who should fill the role after the Coalition backed out of a deal to have to have the speaker paired with an opposite member during divisions.

Walking away from the deal yesterday, Mr Abbott argued that it was unconstitutional.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and independents Bob Katter and Tony Windsor have attacked Mr Abbott for going back on his word.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11367296

Thousands of anti-government "red-shirt" protesters have defied a state of emergency by staging a demonstration in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

The protesters were marking the fourth anniversary of the coup that ousted ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

It was also exactly four months since the suppression of their long-running protests in the capital.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok says security was tight but there was no sign of violence.

Another gathering was also held in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Protesters in Bangkok gathered at the crossroads which earlier this year they had turned into a fortified encampment.

Thousands of red balloons were released and many demonstrators carried banners calling for the release of comrades held in prisons across the country.

Some red-shirt leaders face charges of terrorism and others are accused of breaching emergency laws which remain in place in Bangkok and several other provinces.

More than 90 people died and about 2,000 were injured during two months of protests earlier this year, which blocked off the commercial heart of Bangkok.

Many within the red-shirt movement are loyal supporters of Mr Thaksin who is currently living in exile to avoid a jail sentence for corruption.

The coup which ousted him caused deep divisions within Thailand.

Our correspondent says Sunday's peaceful demonstration is a vivid reminder that those rifts remain.

Taking Care of Pappa

*

Infinite. But that didn't stop the pain. The pleasure principle had already died. His friend got drunk on "Margies", as he called Margaritas, his favourite drink; and then headed off with the girl to the Electric Blue go go bar, where his friend took his latest girl in a queue of girls, downed tequila shots and pole danced with the go go girls until they were too drunk to stand. They'd written the chorus:
We were choir boys in quicksand
In the land of hungry ghosts
Amongst all the back slapping and bleary late night toasts
On the streets of Bangkok, Irish pubs and Sunday roasts
We were choir boys in quicksand
In the land of hungry ghosts.
They were crucified before they had even started. Nothing worked. Every excess had been surrendered. They were too old for it now. Taking care of pappa, that's how they thought of it. Hardly erotic. Tip tip. Good natured as they were. Flesh on flesh. Yabba pscyhotic girlfriends cleaning guns. Does it work? he asked. Yes, she replied. Hmmm, might take the hint, he thought, and stay away from her boyfriend. Their history was history. He could offer everything she couldn't. She'd cheerfully kill him.

The story went round in ever expanding loops. He couldn't be crucified if he had already died; if the streets of Calcutta called; if the chaotic scenes of the Howrah Bridge still held promise; a place where there was still a future, or had been last time they were there. Only in their thirties. The children still young. Everything young. Even the decaying Frenchmen in their cheap Indian rooms were a source of fascination and delight; how could a European throw themselves so thoroughly away. Easy, he thought. Oblivion took many forms. Gassap Gassai. Restless. They would be crucified in an oblivion drenched age. You sad, someone accused. You sound unusually sad, insisted Jaan on Skype. He denied every last accusation. Over tired. Can't sleep. The pleasure dome was a sinister place. The boy had cheerfully despatched the girl so he could take care of pappa. But she kept coming back. She crazy, boy say, she say money don't matter. The girlfriend kept cleaning the gun. It was safer to leave. Even he had finally worked that out. There wasn't any way to be more fulfilled, except to adopt a more sensible lifestyle. Spiritual solutions, they chanted. As if he could hear all the denial, all the stories; all the chaotic cult like garbage that spewed from their mouths. I was prepared to believe anything I was told, they declared. Well I'm not, he thought. And that was it. Laugh out loud if you want to. If you want to make God laugh tell him your plans.

We were choir boys in quicksand
In a land of hungry ghosts.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7146695.html

The capital of Thailand heated up again on Sunday four months after a blood-shedding dispersal to a chronic anti-government rally, as well as four years after a bloodless military coup that ousted the then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Although the activities in Bangkok by the Red-shirts called it a day by 6 p.m. local time on Sunday free of violence or unrest, analysts believe the return of about 10,000 Red-shirts to the downtown Ratchaprasong area, where was the central stage for the April-to-May rally, has alarmed authorities that the anti- government movement could be regaining power.

Holding activities on Sept. 19 has been a routine for Red- shirts since the coup on that day four years ago toppled Thaksin, their leader de facto, but this year new importance was attached to the date: Four months ago on May 19, the troops dispersed the Red-shirts protesters by force. The Red-shirts leaders said the gathering meant to commemorate the 91 people, mostly Red-shirts protesters and security forces, who died in clashes between authorities and the anti-government group during the protests.

In the morning of Sunday a group of Red-shirts travelled to Pathum Wanaram temple near the Rachatprasong Intersection and laid red roses outside the pavilion, where six people, including both protesters and medical workers, were killed in the dispersal operation.

In the afternoon more and more people with red shirts joined them. They gathered at the Ratchaprasong area, chanting Red-shirts songs, tying red-ribbons and lighting candles to memorize those who died during their rally in April and May.

On Friday, Red-shirts across the country laid red roses in front of prisons nationwide in a bid to express best wishes to, and call for the release of, 252 Red-shirts including their leaders, who had been detained after the chronic rally ended.

A cavalcade of Red-shirts on Saturday also drove all the way to the northern province of Chiang Mai, a stronghold of them and Thaksin, to stage another rally on Sunday, with key Red-shirts members, including Jatuporn Promphan, delivering speeches.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/coalition-crab-walking-away-from-parliamentary-reform-says-labor/story-fn59niix-1225927174275

INDEPENDENT MP Tony Windsor has described the Coalition's objection to fellow independent Rob Oakeshott's bid to be Speaker as "payback".

The comments came after Mr Oakeshott withdrew his bid to be Speaker and expressed a preference for the Coalition to provide the next Speaker.

The independent passed up the chance to become Speaker after meeting Tony Abbott and the manager of opposition business Christopher Pyne in Sydney late yesterday.

Mr Oakeshott said yesterday Mr Abbott had “agreed to come back within 24 hours on the issue of a Liberal MP in the Speaker's chair”.

He said that was “something I would strongly consider endorsing as a step towards the Westminster model of a truly independent speaker”.

With parliament due to resume next Tuesday it remains unclear who will fill the Speaker's chair.

Mr Windsor said today the Coalition might be punishing Mr Oakeshott for siding with Julia Gillard after the election, handing Labor minority government.

“There is a little bit of sour grapes there in terms of not getting the backing of Rob Oakeshott to form government, so this may be a little bit of payback in a sense,” he told ABC.

Labor leader of the house Anthony Albanese accused the Coalition of “crab-walking” away from the parliamentary reform agreement both major parties had signed up to.

“Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne have to make their position clear, they haven't up to now, they have been crab-walking away from that agreement,” he said.

“What we have seen since the government was formed is Tony Abbott go back to his old habits of talking about conflict politics, and what we need to know is what the rules of the game are.

“Will they stick by that agreement and then we can make a decision based upon the rules of the game.”

Mr Oakeshott said the constitutional problems about him becoming Speaker and raised by the Coalition in recent days had not been discussed during parliamentary reform negotiations.

“The assumption was that everyone was doing their own diligence, no-one was relying on each other, everyone was very aware of what we were trying to achieve,” he told the ABC's AM program.

“The fact that now we are finding out after the event that people have signed up to something that they have admitted they haven't done their homework on is of concern.”

Not Sure

*

The images were fleeing like rats into a grey ether; and he wore the distended, ragged tiger t-shirt with pride. It cost him 200 baht and already it was falling apart. But he liked the distended red Asian tiger and the word "Answers" crawling across his chest. As if there were any answers. As if the flight of the tiger through the smoky sky held anything but a sense of infinite strangeness, of Asian nights and infinity and a clarion call to right the wrongs. He wasn't shattered or bereft, confused or blinded. Wounded by life, perhaps, by worries that marked the fall of innocence, by a thousand creeping sensitivities that blurred into one enormous vague out. Oh pretty boy, come hither. As if it meant anything. As if they hadn't already been where everyone should go. To the end of the line. Not to Absolut, but absolute, there in the peak of indulgences and the singing of modern songs of discredit. He couldn't be sure what was happening. Fool if he succumbed to demands, idiot if he didn't. These were not the times of which he had dreamt.

One happy year in Bangkok, that's all I ask, is exactly what he had told himself. But now it was more about strategy and hypothesis and completing things which were overhanging from the past. Taking what was his and making it whole. Confounding. There were a thousand ways to think about this. He was going straight to hell in a hand basket. All attempts at reversal were bound to fail. He had crossed the line at high speed and failed to put on the breaks until five seconds before collision. When it was simply too late to avoid disaster. Castrophise; that's what we do, someone said. He couldn't care less. Believe? What was there to believe in? Of the many conflicting philosophies, he remained in doubt. Pick one, is that what you do? I was so desperate I would have believed anything, I was prepared to do exactly what I was told, they say. And he looked at them; defiance in the face of God. The worst beating he had ever had as a child was when he announced he didn't believe in God, or at least wasn't sure; and then subsequently refused to apologise. Why should he apologise for telling the truth?

The belts snaked out into an infinity of loss. We were sure there were answers, we just weren't sure what they were. It wasn't to be found in baffled excess; he'd given that a good enough shaking. From the clubs at dawn to the bewildered mornings; to the intoxicating foreign landscapes that morphed in and out of whatever constituted the present. They had become just like any other bank, rude, incompetent, dismissive. They had subsequently tried and cried and flayed themselves with wonder; and still nothing worked. I no like, he said, it puts me in a very awkward position, fool if I do, bastard if I don't, he said of yet another Thai request for money; from their always sprawling, always needy, always supposedly in crisis families. Falangs as mobile ATMS. Infinite money; he was more about infinite loss. If there was any way to stay sane he would crawl onto the raft. Act with dignity, act with dignity, these fleeting moments of flight, as he greeted his friends at the brothel door, where they had been waiting for him. How were the boys, the mamasan asked. The boys are very nice, he said, I'm not working very well. A head case. Surely not. The city was as ravishingly beautiful was it was every other day; an infinitely fascinating place; with new corners to be discovered at every turn. New treachery. New delight. It couldn't be clearer. He took no action.

THE BIGGER STORY:


http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/oakeshotts-speaker-bid-could-tip-balance/1943302.aspx

The Federal Government is seeking urgent legal advice on a bid by Independent Rob Oakeshott to become Speaker, a move that would dramatically shift the power balance in the new Parliament.
If he is successful, the Coalition may refuse to supply a Deputy Speaker, forcing Labor to nominate a backbencher and thereby lose its wafer-thin majority.

The situation would arise because the votes of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker are cancelled by ''pairing''.

This arrangement was put in place by the historic agreement forged by Prime Minister Julia Gillard with the country Independents to make the Speaker more independent of party politics.

Labor and Opposition frontbenchers could not say last night if the agreement would remain valid if Mr Oakeshott was successful in becoming Speaker. They also questioned how Mr Oakeshott could fill the role of Speaker but still push issues for his electorate. A fall-back position to Labor's problem would be installing renegade Independent Bob Katter as the Deputy Speaker, because he has sided with the Coalition.

The Canberra Times reported yesterday that the current Speaker, Labor's Harry Jenkins, was in danger of losing his prestigious position.

Mr Jenkins, who would not comment last night, became collateral damage in horse trading when Mr Oakeshott turned his attention to the Speaker's position after rejecting Ms Gillard's invitation to be a minister.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/16/3013085.htm?section=justin

Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer says he is willing to support his old political foe Kevin Rudd in his new job.

Mr Rudd was sworn in as Foreign Affairs Minister earlier this week and is now on his first overseas trip to Pakistan and the United States.

During the election campaign Mr Downer said the former prime minister was unfit for the post because he had damaged Australia's relationship with some important countries.

But last night Mr Downer told Lateline that was in the past.

"He's become the foreign minister, Labor has formed the Government and I think the really important thing now is that he be given a chance as the Foreign Minister to do the job that he's been appointed to do, and to do it effectively.

"The one thing I'm not going to do is dwell on things he said about me and things that I've allegedly said about him.

"Whatever any of us may have thought beforehand it's certainly my view that we need now to give him a bit of support and hope that he does very well. It's not about Kevin Rudd, it's about Australia, and it's in Australia's national interest that he does well."

Picture: Novices in Chiang Mai.

Harbingers

*

I couldn't be seen like that. Not gasping, not panting. Not just desperately wanting everything to end. Not able to achieve a heightened place. Money saved at every turn. Bangkok brothels mounted in corridors, each to be explored. He couldn't care less what the consequence. I love you. I miss you. These things were dancing on a very fine pin. I love you; when the whole of the city beckoned; redolent with glory, puhm poohey, plump, chubby, an observation of status or derision. I love you, that is what I have come to know. We were going to make the swiftest break, the most immediate of corridors, sweeping, beautiful. Dizzy, you bet you. Spewing out of those Colognes, out of the swirling spear, out of the elegiac ear piece, out of Christmas and New Year, out of wind tunnels and constellations not just of exquisite despair but mind numbing beauty, as if consequence was the only answer, as if we said too much just by being here. As if he lied and lied and lied. Just to to be there in the instance, paralysed, transfixed, whole ancient scenes and absolutely modern cities glazing in a transfixed hallucination straight before him. Nothing would be the same, nothing would be the same.

At least I don't stare out the window for two hours every time there's a suggestion we do something, Ian said, all fresh and brash from Australia, all working fine, all happy, ancient times, ancient red light districts, their patina of gloss so old that they had taken on a more enduring light, of insane, instant beauty, of a deadening hand, of finite joy; of short moments, he thought, when the woman behind the bar, when he had already told the girl he had a boy waiting at home and they would be going back for dinner shortly he was just showing his straight friend the sights while trying to be sensible himself, dumped the keys to an upstairs room in front of him. Infinite loss. All the bar laughed, when it was explained that his friend was the straight one; and so she took back the key with good spirits and he tipped the girl 100 baht for her company. It was all too brutally frank. Ian gave his Sexy Sar too much money, and so she didn't come. Why would she bother? He already paid her. It was always going to be a brutal waste. He pay to take her to Australia; then no boom boom. Everyone warn him. Be careful your heart. It's easy to fall in love with them. We're old, we were lonely; at least in that department. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.

So to cure some real or imagined illness, angst, dankness of spirit, old fashioned horniness, sometimes he would take himself off to the brothel; where there wasn't any doubt, they take good care. It was always going to be such a terrible waste. They were so beautiful. He couldn't reach whatever state it was he wanted to reach; so he took himself in laughing, finite manner through the craziest reaches; and they danced to remember, they danced to forget. There was a prickling disorientation between them. Take care. You take care. Many mistakes. If he hadn't been so vulnerable he wouldn't have been so crazed. So they had a quiet night at home. He reached back through the days to the boring part; where they were happy in their quiet routine; where a big night out was Saturday at the kareoke bar, when there was no school the following day. It was always going to be thus. It was going to be an insane waste. He was going to be fractiously concerned. He was going to fuss. He calm me down, he explained to the interpreter, he make my house a home. Before, I never sleep more than two hours a night. He think that now I am gassap gassai, restless, but it is nothing to what went before. When the "ting tong" craziness was in every reach; every frame; when he walked the best walked dog in the world through the mistiest, loneliest streets. Then he came here. And never slept alone again. And that was that. Some people were very easy to make happy.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/gillard-lashes-out-at-media-coverage-20100912-1570l.html

JULIA Gillard has lambasted the media for not exposing the up to $10.6 billion black hole that Treasury found in Tony Abbott's election costings.

She has also taken an oblique swipe at some of News Ltd's coverage.

The Prime Minister said the campaign contained a lesson for media organisations.

The central issue had been the economy - the government's stimulus versus Mr Abbott's slogans about debt and waste. But ''it took three independents to find the $11 billion black hole. That should have been a job done by journalists during the campaign. People should have known that before they voted'', she told the ABC. ''The biggest story of the campaign was effectively missed''.

The independents got the information after the election because they insisted Treasury should cost both sides' promises as part of their negotiations with them. Mr Abbott, who had earlier refused to submit his policies for official costing, eventually agreed to do so.

Pressed about criticism of News Ltd's political coverage, and particularly Greens leader Bob Brown's attack on The Australian, Ms Gillard was cautious but said: ''I don't believe in editorialising on the front page. I do believe people have got an obligation to report the facts.

''I think that there are times when media personalities actually think that they are involved in the political process rather than commentating on the political process … I've been known to joke that Sky TV is endlessly journalists interviewing journalists - the politicians are no longer required.''

Senator Brown has accused The Australian of stepping ''out of the role of the fourth estate to think it's the determinant of who has seats in the Parliament'' and said that ''it needs to be taken on''.

The Australian's editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell, told Crikey last week that Ms Gillard had rung him twice during the last week of the election campaign and had ''both times thanked me for our fair and balanced coverage''.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/13/3009789.htm?section=justin

A Sydney man who embarked on a bicycle quest around Europe to find his son is hoping to be reunited with the boy today, nearly three years after his mother fled with him to the Netherlands.

But Ken Thompson has been told it could be months before he will be able to bring the boy back home to Australia.

In 2008 Mr Thompson's estranged wife left Australia with their son Andrew before a court had determined custody arrangements.

Dutch authorities have told the ABC that extradition proceedings are underway to have Melinda Stratton returned to face contempt of court charges.

Andrew was three years old when his mother took him from Australia, and is now six.

Mr Thompson's desire to find him was so strong he quit his job as a deputy fire chief, mounted a bicycle, and rode 6,500 kilometres through Europe to find him.

He says he is excited ahead of today's reunion.

"I've been searching the world for him for two-and-a-half years," he said.

"So the process now is to give him time to come to accept that his father is here and that his father wants to see him."

It is understood Andrew came to the notice of authorities when he was enrolled for school.

Picture: Glen Campbell www.glencampbellpictures.com

draft

*

The herd mentality was back, if it had ever left; gassap gassai, restless, the boy said, and everything moved away in rivers, across time, through the channels that pummelled through walls, the flash of a thigh, a sunny smile, a gesture, a path not taken. It was never going to be the same. There were a hundred ways of viewing these things. There were crises that never made the point, misshapen faces, and he knew that a destiny awaited him he did not want to face. There were flowers in the garden, faces misaligned, communist bodies marching in concord, trimmed hedges, beds of orchids, hanging trees, crows perched up high, watching every move, harbingers, and even while he sat a turtle crawled across the grass and tried to nuzzle into him. You're not well, you're dizzy, someone said, and he knew it to be true. They couldn't much match what was happening to him. All across time, things were fleeing, bright spots, pain etched out of wilderness, thighs flitting through the grass, voices calling, an overwhelming sadness so out of line with the rock and roll lifestyle. He went to see Mark in the locked ward, but he had already left, despite having been strapped down only a few days before, and was drinking again, by all reports. Brandy Alexanders, rock and roll drinking, he had proudly declared.

I'm having the time of my life, Mark had declared, but Tom, who had so looked up to him, so relied on him, was barely amused. No one else around him is having a good time, he mused. He's already been expelled from one apartment block. The city sprawled heavenward; voices of discontent, and their shattered Sabbaths, their feeble attempts at spirituality, reached back through time and denied their current forms. If only there had been an answer. If only things hadn't taken such a ruinous course. He could feel the bells ringing. The walls of white patched with concrete, hiding the dreaming, slumbering forms of the Chinese, the only ones who felt secure, after a lifetime of denial. The soldiers were back at every entrance to the Sky Train. At the entrance to Limpini Park. He could feel what should have been; but didn't know how to answer. I didn't care, even when he was ripping me off. I was simply a soldier, on a path to ruin, he declared. And all was expelled, all made new, and yet his own answers were like far off Christmases, seen through a television mist, exposed for myth. He couldn't really explain what was happening.

That there was nothing concrete, that the simplest of calls through him into ruin, made for an answer that was often brutal, yet at the same time lacking in substance. The streets were quiet, it being a Sunday. Ian had arrived at the apartment from Australia at 3am. All was jostling for position. Larger than life. Bigger than a tree. Big, was all he could say, failing to cross the language barrier. Big. Everything. Big of body, big of personality. Here in these quiet times, where his ruinous instincts only served to make things worse. Where he would happily have dived into oblivion, if it had provided any thing at all, any answer. But the high apartments floating on the ceilings of ice, the sheets of cloud, high in the sky, were only remnants of old sail boats, places they had been before. There wasn't an answer in any kaleidoscope, no matter how easily conjured. It was hard to imagine that anything could be worse. Or better. That he could be happier, or sadder. More together or more unkempt. More fulfilled or more empty. The pain and disillusion kept up its constant rhythm. He could hear them making love through the wall, Ian and Sexy Sar. And he decided he didn't want to hear, turning up old Rolling Stones as loud as the thin walls would permit. As loud as the frequent calls would permit. For as long as he could submit to any form of denial. It was all wrong. And strangely, just as he had written about crows heralding the deaths of old warriors, of birds flying backwards through the sky, they gathered in Limpini, and nobody but he seemed to see.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2010/09/10/weekend-talk-thread-september-10-12/#comments

Ray Hunt
Posted September 10, 2010 at 8:27 pm | Permalink
While it’s unfortunate that Julia Gillard has inherited such a
poisonous media environment, to simply blame a relentlessly-malignant
Murdoch media agenda and a lazy, blinkered, herd-mentality amongst the
Canberra political reporters would be to miss the underlying strategic
problem – and ignore the single best opportunity the Gillard
Government has of succeeding politically during the next three years.

If the ALP was a corporation, the organisational response to their
dreadful performance during the 2010 election campaign would have been
brutal, wide ranging and swift. Many heads would have rolled.

But politics is a specialised business, the art of the possible, so
the axing of Rudd, Swan, Arbib and the incompetent NSW right mafia
can’t/won’t happen. File it under realpolitik. Minority status means
the government can’t afford any of these incompetent hacks outside the
tent.

The unprofessional and reactionary communications approach of the ALP
since November 2007, however, is an area where much can and should be
done.

In a speech to the ALP party room on Thursday that clearly marked her
intention to adopt a different presentational style to Rudd, Julia
Gillard said her government would not be worried by the daily news
cycle. ”Our challenge is to get out clear (linear messages about) what
we stand for – not be worried about each day’s 6 o’clock news,”
according to a report by Michelle Grattan and Katharine Murphy in
Friday’s Age.

The ALP had a good economic story to tell during the 2010 election
campaign. They had protected Australian jobs during the worst global
economic turbulence since 1929. Interest rates were low. Inflation was
low. Government debt was low. Economic growth was the high. The ALP’s
economic policies had clearly delivered for their natural constituency
on the issue that mattered most to most people, but even with an army
of spin doctors and plenty of paid advertising they could not get this
positive message out.

Julia Gillard has publicly acknowledged on a number of occasions the
government communications effort was poor. Why is it so? The problems
were born during the ALP’s brilliantly-executed 2007 election
campaign.

In 2007 the highly-effective advertising campaign was run by a
well-known, left-leaning communications group; and the ground-breaking
online guerrilla campaign that was lifted by Team Obama the following
year was delivered by a small group of creatives. Both teams worked
pro-bono for 9 months. Success usually has many fathers but not this
time. Rudd’s cocky Gen Y spin doctors and an advertising identity who
did the Kevin 07 branding work and TVCs claimed all the credit for a
focused campaign they had played marginal roles in.

The creative brains behind the campaign were shafted. Not paid, not
credited and kicked into the long grass. This story is common
knowledge in ALP circles and has been written about by The Age’s Shaun
Carney, The Daily Telegraph’s Malcolm Farr, The Australian’s David
Burchell and Mike Steketee and others.

So, on November 24 2007, there was an abrupt end to the strategic
media focus, the positive linear messaging, the effective issues
management, the wit and charm of the campaign, and so ended the ALP’s
ability to get their key messages out to “their people” via the media.

In place of strategic media management, came smart-arse, sexist,
reactionary techniques. Plenty of clever short-term tactical plays but
no strategy and no joined-up approach to whole of government
communications.

Led by Rudd, a sub-prime communicator with a fragile ego and
vindictive personality, political journalists were used, abused and
discarded by his spin team just like the hapless campaign creatives
had been.

Lachlan Harris, who was placed in Rudd’s office by Wayne Swan, was the
main offender but he was not alone. Rudd’s media team lacked an
understanding of the complex game of media chess they were supposed to
be playing – they were demonstrably unable to proactively or
reactively manage issues – because they lacked professional experience
and life skills.

Equally important, Cabinet Ministers and Rudd’s senior media people
lacked the foresight and courage to pull Rudd back into line, even
thought the many communication and personality problems that
ultimately led to Rudd’s down-fall were already apparent by February
2009.

Journalists were enraged by the way Rudd and his spin doctors
mistreated and insulted them. News Ltd’s senior people were equally
enraged by a deluded Rudd screeching idle threats at them.

The unprofessional Rudd media team broke the basic rules of political
media engagement – there is always tomorrow, you can’t win
confrontationally, the media pack for all their annoying quirks needs
to be charmed, persuaded and carried along by linear narratives; not
bullied, personally insulted and ignored.

Ultimately, the graceless Rudd posse reaped what they sowed, the only
surprise is that the inevitable consequences of their many
professional failures took two years to materialise.

Unprofessional communications practices, ill-will and lack of strategy
are the primary reasons why the ALP could not get the good news out
during the 2010 campaign. The journos were so dirty they would not
listen and the unpaid brains behind the 2007 campaign for some strange
reason declined to get ripped-off again.

It’s also why Julia Gillard has had to deal with such a toxic media
terrain from day two of her Prime Ministership.

So what should the ALP do about this poisonous media relations hangover?

The answer is surprisingly simply.

Have a clean sweep of the Ministerial media offices. Step one, sack
all of Rudd’s former media advisors. Bring in the people who actually
delivered the goods in 2007 to do a top-to-bottom communications
audit. As part of the process, ask the gallery journalists to identify
who the most “shop soiled” of the spin doctors are. Discover which
names keep popping up and terminate them.

Make the rest of the government spin doctors reapply for their jobs.
All of them. Intensively test them over a full week – in practice and
theory – using evidence-based metrics to identify those who have the
integrity and the necessary strategic, creative, issues-management and
media-relations skills to professionally fill these positions.

Replace the many that don’t make the cut with experienced
professionals from a variety of non-ALP backgrounds.

And run a very-humble, relationship-repair program with the political
journalists who, like it or not, do more to shape the general public’s
perceptions of politics than anyone else.

For Julia Gillard, the one shining star of the 2010 campaign disaster,
acting now to rebuild the government’s communications apparatus is her
great big opportunity to make a clean break with the toxic Rudd
hangover and finally start getting some of the government’s positive
messages into the public domain.

It may be her only chance.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/rudd-the-wrong-choice-bishop/story-e6frf7jx-1225918474301

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard's appointment of Kevin Rudd as foreign minister risks Australia's international relations because of the fractured relationship between the pair, Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop says.

Ms Bishop told reporters in Perth this afternoon that Ms Gillard had missed an opportunity to "clear away the wreckage of the Rudd-Gillard government".

"The leader that was sacked by his own party because he led the government off course ... is now expected to navigate Australia through our foreign policies," Ms Bishop said.

"The leader who was sacked by his own party because he could not get along with people is now Australia's number-one diplomat."

Ms Bishop said Mr Rudd had caused damage to some of Australia's most important international relationships and was now being sent back to repair that damage.

"The relationship between the prime minister and the foreign minister should be one of absolute trust and confidence," she said.

"Yet Julia Gillard has appointed as foreign minister the man who she tore down so brutally from the position of prime minister and we know that Kevin Rudd then spent most of the election campaign in retribution.

"The Australian people know it was the Kevin Rudd camp that released information and so breached cabinet confidence against Julia Gillard and revealed her opposition to pension increases and a paid parental leave scheme."

She also said it was "the Rudd camp" that had leaked the news that Julia Gillard did not attend all national security meetings and had sent her staff instead.

Ms Bishop said Mr Rudd's appointment presented a risk for Australia "because of the fractured relationship between Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd".

Ms Bishop said Stephen Smith, who now moved from foreign affairs to defence, had been "a steady hand on the wheel" and there was no reason why he should have not remained in foreign affairs.

"It seems that Stephen Smith will now be taking on the role of peacemaker," she said.

Ms Bishop said Mr smith would bear a heavy burden not only as defence minister but also ensuring a truce was kept between the Gillard and Rudd camps in government.

She said that under Mr Rudd's prime ministership some of Australia's most important overseas relationships had deteriorated, including those with China, India, Japan and Indonesia.

He would have his work cut out for him to repair that damage, Ms Bishop said.

"He will obviously have to apologise to East Timor for the bungle Julia Gillard made over announcing that East Timor would have a processing centre for asylum seekers when East Timor doesn't want such a centre."

A Bangkok building site.

Unimpressive Last Time

*

Now was a time to be free. Now was a time to find a home and stay there. Sweet Jesus, evoked all the grandiloquent lines. Nothing wrong with a bit of delinquent grandiosity he declared. Johnny Cash: "...playing Jesus to the lepers in my head". Bukowski: We were born to strew flowers down the avenues of the dead. Burroughs: Fish boys ejaculating on silver streams. The windy smell of rotting oranges. All these strange, well actually they didn't seem strange at all, thoughts came and went as he grizzled at idiots and worried about money and found odd tunes to play, here, there, everywhere he went, oscillating in darkness and in health, shorn, bereft, off stage, passing through the days and the eye of the needle, consequence in a land and a time without consequence, shorn of meaning and delivered anew. It made sense but no sense; so instead he felt sleepy and went to bed early. Chaos was at the door but not allowed in. They could almost have been happy. Well I received no warning of this, and therefore refuse to pay. You can suffocate for all I care. Let's go marching through the rivers of the dead. Let's find new boys in the back streets, in the slums. Very handsome, he said. It was the universal pick up line in this part of the world. As in, come home, I will tip you generously. And you won't have to do too much.

Pom chow, or Putchow, they declared, I am man, which meant, of course, you can do anything you like to me except eff me. And that was where he was left, wandering, uncertain of his heart, uncertain he had done the right thing in selecting one from the crowd, happy in intent and discontent at heart, wandering shamelessly through other breezes; shorn of meaning, bereft of purpose, slaving over typewriters, passing through the eye of a needle. All was well but not well. We were certain of purpose but yes shorn of meaning, and existing with people who had done nothing with their lives except not drink; have you managed to cobble together some days? old Wayne asked. Oh yes, he declared, tired of them all. Tired of their jaded philosophy and meaningless prattle about God. Old Scott snuggled up to him like a cat, used to affection, to never being knocked back, even when it wasn't sexual. The pain in his shoulder simply got worse. He could be blessed or he could be cursed; the road was open to either alternative. He was meandering through their paths. He was shocked and shorn of virtually everything they had ever asked for. He smiled and they smiled back. For once he didn't want to be anywhere else.

These times were branded anew. He made as if to move forward and was spiked on some strange spear. The echoes of other lives kept spiralling outwards; and he slept like he hadn't slept in years. These days were marked as a fall of purpose; as a destiny he could not deny, as a way to keep himself awake and as a snivelling piece of gutter thought; an erotic flash to achieve whatever; thoughts and friends and purpose and meaning, swirling in a single cyclonic depression. He would go down the corner shop and buy "nung burrie", one cigarette, and sit on the stool in the ramshackle corner store and castigate himself for not being able to go from one to none on a daily basis. First line of defence, Peter had always taught him, but defence against what? Why couldn't he just be happy. Why did he have to have one cigarette to stoke the feared emphysema, every day? Why were there so many shadows at the edge of sight? That's all I want, he had thought, one happy year in Bangkok; in a life which hadn't been all that happy. Just one happy year. But the truth was he didn't just want one happy year, he wanted to stay here forever, he didn't want to go anywhere. He certainly didn't want to go back to Australia. And if Calcutta was the place he had chosen to die, well he wasn't there yet. And so he worried about how he could afford it, not this year, but next. And wondered what would happen. And cursed and blessed them, all the spirits of the dead. And wrote, wrote, of birds flying backwards and a prickling sense of fear and heightened reality, preceding disaster. And knew, deep down, he didn't deserve to be happy. Not for a year. Not in Bangkok. But he was going to do it anyway; and nothing was going to stop him.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/return-of-the-rudd-as-labor-licks-wounds/story-e6frfllr-1225916242809

KEVIN Rudd is expected to return to the Cabinet as Labor holds its first autopsy of the federal election campaign.
Julia Gillard is expected to promote Mr Rudd as part of the pre-election promise she made that he would serve on the frontbench if she was returned to power. It is speculated that he will be her foreign minister.
The reshuffle opens the door for other promotions in key ministries, but a question mark remains over whether Ms Gillard will reward powerbrokers Bill Shorten and Mark Arbib. Both were instrumental in removing Mr Rudd in June.
There is also an offer of a job to Rob Oakeshott, the NSW regional MP whose support helped Labor stay in power. Today's caucus meeting is also a chance for Labor MPs - those who are left - to voice their criticism of Labor's campaign which reduced a first term majority to a second term minority government.
Meanwhile Liberal MPs will hold their first party room meeting. Tony Abbott will be re-elected as Opposition Leader and Julie Bishop is set to remain as his deputy after a mooted challenge from Andrew Robb stalled overnight.
The abortive challenge is seen as having been aimed more at shadow treasurer Joe Hockey than against Ms Bishop.
Labor reshuffle
An announcement on the reshuffle might not be made immediately, with ministers expected to be sworn in next week. But here are some of the moves that have been speculated:
- Mr Rudd to become Foreign Minister, booting Stephen Smith out of a portfolio he is considered to have done well in;
- Mr Smith to take on Defence, which has been left empty by Senator John Faulkner's decision to retire from the frontbench;
- Former union boss Greg Combet could also be Defence minister, having served in a junior portfolio in Labor's first term. Or he could be given Workplace Relations or Education, which were Ms Gillard's portfolios before she took the top job, if Simon Crean is moved on;
- There could be demotions for Peter Garrett in the wake of the failed home insulation scheme and for Penny Wong, after Labor's inability to negotiate its climate change plan through the Senate in its first term;
- Senator Wong's job could go to Mr Combet, Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese or Agriculture Minister Tony Burke;
- Chris Bowen is expected to take over as Finance Minister after the retirement of Lindsay Tanner, a former rival of Ms Gillard whose seat has been won by the Greens;
- There could also be a demotion for Immigration Minister Chris Evans, after the asylum seeker issue was used by the Coalition and Greens during the campaign to bleed support from Labor;
- Mr Oakeshott has been offered a "regional ministry" - probably regional development - but he is still talking it over with his family;
- A promotion for Mr Shorten and Senator Arbib could be seen as rewarding the pair who orchestrated Ms Gillard's rise. That could be divisive inside Labor, which needs to remain united with only a one-vote buffer in the lower house. It could also be easily exploited by the Opposition as jobs for the "faceless factional men".
Reading the entrails
A promotion for the campaign strategist Senator Arbib could also be a hard sell after what has been described as a disastrous campaign which almost saw Labor turfed out after just one term in office - something which is incredibly rare in Australian politics.
There is expected to be heavy scrutiny on the performance of national secretary Karl Bitar. Some of the blame will also be levelled at the state branches in New South Wales and Queensland.
Either way, there are calls for heads to roll. "It's the worst federal campaign I have ever seen," Labor pollster Rod Cameron has said on ABC TV. "The fact that Labor just snuck into government is an absolute disgrace," he said, adding that those in charge should not be allowed to direct a campaign ever again.
Mr Bowen has said there was more to the campaign than just Mr Bitar. "The campaign was difficult in many instances, we had many difficult issues to respond to during the campaign," he has said on his way into Parliament House this morning.
Mr Abbott has kicked off his day with a bike ride. He has said only that it should be "an interesting day".
He is not expected to undertake a wide-ranging reshuffle of the team which nearly toppled a first-term government. But he will have to find room for Malcolm Turnbull's return.
It is suggested Mr Turnbull could take the Communications portfolio, which will see him fighting Stephen Conroy over the net filter and the national broadband network.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/return-of-the-rudd-as-labor-licks-wounds/story-e6frfllr-1225916242809#ixzz0yzYznOQ0


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10672063

Australia has emerged relieved, but divided and sceptical, from the 17-day limbo that ended when independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott nudged Prime Minister Julia Gillard back into power.

Windsor and Oakeshott have been attacked for the decision by many within their conservative electorates - which overwhelmingly rejected Labor and the Greens - and by senior members of the rural based Nationals, the junior Coalition partner. The two New South Wales MPs had earlier been members of the party.

Liberal Senator George Brandis told ABC Radio that the Government had as much legitimacy as the Pakistani cricket team.

No formal polls have yet emerged, but internet polling has shown conflicting views: on the Age website respondents supported the independents' choice by 53 per cent to 47 per cent, but Daily Telegraph respondents rejected it by 73 per cent to 22 per cent. But the response in another Age internet poll said only 26 per cent believed the decision would deliver stable government, while 20 per cent thought "maybe", and 54 per cent expected instability.


Describing the result as a stunning outcome for Gillard, the Australian said that while a minority Government represented a considerable challenge for Australia, it was not necessarily a negative.

The Sydney Morning Herald said Labor had been given a second chance to show some spine, and the Canberra Times said it came as no surprise the independents saw Gillard as a better prospect for stable, progressive government - but that she had no room for complacency.

The Australian Financial Review saw the result as "the worst possible outcome for Australia - a Government with a weak mandate, uncertain of getting any legislation apart from supply bills through the House of Representatives, and subject to a Greens veto in the Senate". Sydney's Daily Telegraph said the only certainty to emerge from the election was further dramatic uncertainty, while News Ltd Melbourne stablemate the Herald Sun said that despite present relief, "there is an apprehension this seemingly fragile Government is unlikely to serve a full term".

Commentators were divided.

"Persuading a coalition of Greens and four different independents that her consensus style could produce stability as well as outcomes for their constituents, in a situation where Labor won less primary votes, is a stunning achievement," the Australian Financial Review's Laura Tingle wrote.

But News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt disagreed: "This was the worst way for Labor to win, and the best way for Tony Abbott to lose it. What a discreditable end to 17 days of largely pointless political haggling," he wrote.

Picture: Blackberry. A street in Cbiang Mai.

Safe Haven

*

There were a thousand things right and a thousand things wrong; focus on the negative; I don't do happy, the dwarf said; and yet here they were, marooned in a happy place, where the world could get lost and they could feel ultimately safe. He was astonished by what had happened. Where was the misery? Where was that atrophied creature behind seven veils, seven walls; the creature shrieking at the very hint of light? Now the days passed in relative domestic bliss. Ian was coming to stay and he looked forward to his old friend's no doubt chaotic presence; beaming good cheer and healthy lust. If only he could share the same simple pleasures. We were moving deeply into the quagmire, fragile and forgotten. Atrophied not the word, but sheets of pain and ossifying flesh, calcified nails and stringy hair, a corpse walking, a mind deranged, love lost. They could smell the stranger from 20 feet behind; the stench of his urine soaked clothes. Drunk? Shawn asked. Mad, he responded. Mad. They lurched down bewildered, busy streets, and if there was antyhing better to be had, he did not know it.

The synopsis was clearly forgotten, forsaken. Nate was still in Safe Haven and from all reports remained as uncommunicative as ever. Forlorn. Lost. A bricked in kiln. Walls of non-communication the only protection. He would like to have been the same, romantic, stoic, silent, but was far too garrulous, too social, too gossipy, to ever keep it up for long. They would be surrounded. They would make way for younger flesh. Sometimes there was nothing to be said. He could not even warn them they were on the wrong path. He sat in meetings and declared his contempt and hatred. God bless you, the American mumsy said. They would go for lunch at the Saint Louis canteen afterwards; 55 baht for rice with two dishes, a bottle of water and Thai dessert. There were a million Christmases. He would dish out tips to the staff. He could feel his stomach sinking because he did not want to go back; not back to Sydney, that city where he had been so desolated; where he jerked across the pavements like a scattered form, a misshapen ghost, with no emotion matching another, with no coherence but a bitter slide, no hope, that was for the young; and no desires but the unnatural.

Desire was for fluent creatures, with a confluence of instincts, a bright step, a gleam in the eye, a new car a new girlfriend a flash job a neat set of friends. It wasn't for a forlorn creature with a wasteland in its head. It wasn't for a bundle of rags coated in addiction sweat. It wasn't for a grimy skinned wasteoid in a blizzard of conflicting despair, so conflicted self deprecating humour was the only way to operate even as a semblance of normality; and so it was he pretended to be human. Frustrated, even so, by the many inhibitions, limitations of the flesh. A short life time being amongst its many deficits. Here and struggled and gone. A crack a smile a flimsy glare; all in the muted flash of a dark bar moment; and then it was gone and the infinite was nothing, the flash of an artificial firefly in the biggest of nights, a speck of mica glinting under a foreign sun, even less than dust, just a moment. That was all. Seen by some, seen by one, then gone. The skyscrapers soared up around them; and the flashes of joy he had known for so long, they, too, hung precariously in the balance; and waste-oid or not, the flesh eaters were coming to get him. Reminding him of the old cliché: just because you're paranoid does not mean they're not out to get you. The frozen flesh was a barely inhabitable place. And all the infinities of negation, the forms of indulgence and annihilation, they, too, were barely worth the wait; the only thing of value the silent, or not-so-silent, commune between his fellows. On a bare rock. Far, far away.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/tony-abbott-narrowly-misses-out-on-becoming-australias-next-pm/story-fn5tas5k-1225915620290

HE MISSED out by the narrowest of margins on claiming the nation's top job but Tony Abbott was applauded as a hero by colleagues when he stepped forward to accept election defeat last night.
Mr Abbott will be re-endorsed unopposed as Liberal leader tomorrow, with Julie Bishop staying as his deputy and foreign affairs spokeswoman, and the man he replaced - Malcolm Turnbull - promised a senior front bench role.
The Liberal audience was roused by Mr Abbott's warning the new Government would be challenged, and forced to an election if its performance warranted it.
"You won't be surprised if, as an Opposition, I tend to focus on what can be done better," he said.
But the acclaim for the man who nearly wiped the electoral floor with Labor and at one stage thought he had, will disguise a number of problems within the Liberal Party exposed by the election.
One is the operation of the NSW branch, where candidates were selected quite late and campaign organisation was considered poor.
There also will be questions asked in Victoria where the Liberals failed to make big inroads against Labor, and a renewed crispness in relations with the party's Coalition partner, the Nationals.
First there will be recovery from the emotional turmoil of the 17 days following the five-week election campaign which failed to give Australia a government until yesterday.
Liberal figures, including Mr Abbott, were strongly hopeful of getting the backing of the independents early yesterday after Rob Oakeshott's six meetings with the Liberal leader the previous day.
The overwhelming feeling in the Abbott office yesterday, where MPs and staff watched the press conferences that announced their fate, was disappointment after winning more seats and 700,000 more primary votes than Labor.
"A negotiation is at times a bit of an emotional roller coaster and I certainly felt optimistic and pessimistic, I felt exhilarated and deflated in turns in the course of the last fortnight," Mr Abbott said.
"I'm not surprised that my colleagues sometimes did [as well] and I'm not surprised that occasionally something of their mood was communicated to the outside world."
Mr Abbott warned that the delicate balance in the House of Representatives might lead to an early election should the Gillard Government make a major error.
"How quickly we go back to an election depends entirely on the performance of this Government," he said.
"If the Government's performance is so manifestly deficient that it loses a vote of confidence in the House, then it is highly likely that we will have an election.
"It is entirely in the Government's hands and I certainly would not lightly move no confidence in the Government given the circumstances we are now in and I wouldn't expect people to lightly support such a motion."
Mr Abbott said he could not have asked for more support from colleagues and staff and the Liberal Party.
"The Coalition won more seats and more votes but sadly we did not get the opportunity to form a government," he said.
He wished Prime Minister Gillard well and said he hoped she had "a better government than it was over the last three years".
"For our country's sake, I hope that the Labor Party can rediscover the soul that has been so lacking, particularly over the last part of the previous parliament," Mr Abbott said.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/tony-abbott-narrowly-misses-out-obecoming-australias-next-pm/story-fn5tas5k-1225915620290#ixzz0ytMzHAvg

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/take-the-centrist-path-despite-greens-tony-blair-tells-julia-gillard/story-fn59niix-1225915661385

TONY Blair has urged Julia Gillard to stick to the "Third Way" centrist path of recent Australian and British Labor governments.

In his first Australian newspaper interview in three years the former British Prime Minister told The Australian that Gillard's new government should carefully wind back fiscal stimulus spending and avoid being locked into long-term deficit spending even if the Greens use their balance of power in Parliament to pressure the government to spend up.

At the same time Blair said the unprecedented influence of the Greens in both houses of the Australian parliament would have the positive effect of increasing the chances of Australia doing more to fight climate change.

The Greens' vow of support for Gillard's new Government "can mean that certain reforms obviously to do with the environment will be easier to accomplish as a result of that support," said Blair, who runs his own think-tank to champion climate action.

Blair said Gillard's announcement that she would appoint her predecessor Kevin Rudd to her Cabinet was not just an astute move it was also personally admirable.

"It is not for me to offer Julia advice, she is perfectly well able to do the whole thing on her own, but I think the fact is that bringing someone of Kevin's experience and talent into the Cabinet is a tribute to both of them actually," he said.

"One of the things that is important in politics today is use the talent that you have got."

The Australian and UK governments now both find themselves in the awkward position of lacking single-party majorities at a time that the public wants clear and strong leadership but it should still be possible for Gillard and her British counterpart David Cameron to provide that leadership, Blair said.

In his new memoir "A Journey" Blair argues that his successor as British PM Gordon Brown lost this year's election because he strayed to the political Left rather than sticking to the New Labour creed of Blair's decade in power, and he said Gillard must avoid the same temptation and keep trying to overhaul public services.

"She is a very, very capable leader, I'm sure she will do well," Blair said in his London office .

"Coalition politics is always tough but the key thing is that (the public) want strong direction."

The biggest challenge for Gillard would be to stick to the approach launched by the Hawke-Keating government and shared by Blair's own government in trying to modernise and prune government rather than resorting to the comfort zone of an old-fashioned "big government" approach.

"I hope very much that Julia does manage to do that and I am sure that she will give it a good go."

"It is a strange thing about today's politics, the paradox is that the public are unsettled and uncertain, it is an era of low predictability, you have got a coalition government in the UK as well as Australia and yet people actually want strong leadership as well.

"So that is the challenge but you know provided (Gillard and the non-Labor MPs backing her government) agree their program they can carry it out but it is going to be interesting because both in Australia and in the UK government is going to have to be taking tough decisions with coalition government in place.

"It is far more difficult but on the other hand it is better than being in Opposition."

Picture: Peter Newman.

Now Is The Time

*

All trace of everything was being erased as it happened, a program destroying its own path, physical pain alternating with a blank head. He plunged off the air just as quickly as he regained competence; and everything was delightful. Nothing made sense and yet he should have known better. After the 100th partner, most people start to lose count, the worker at the STD clinic said; when he claimed ignorance to the ridiculous question of how many people he had been with. The mirrored walls. The lithe bodies. The charming smiles. The pain that cramped his shoulder. The winning smiles that drained him of every cent; just as he had done to another generation in another country. As if it was all the same. A continuum. A little gaggle of them went to visit Mark from Wales; another of the charming British. Wise boys and wise scenes. Sow! Forward with strength; Aek kept emphasising, noticing how rapidly he had plunged off the air, disturbed. One phone call and he felt like drinking, that's all it took. They would never be the same again. The human body was not meant to cope with such sustained stress. Indulgence. Despair. An infinity of if not pleasure; then exploration. Work. Everything counted, everything was a quest. Except he didn't know where he was going.

They would be armed again. They would be made strong. He would join them in joy. He would go to the country and come back. He would constantly fork out money. Same same Aek, he would ask, as in, he costs money. Happy not to work. But the tumult and the shouting. Happy go school. Except what was real and what was not? He didn't know any more. As if he didn't have his own secrets; as if virtue was imprisoned only in the faithful; as if age didn't creep up on everybody. He couldn't be denied; and yet there was little to recommend either option. He couldn't make the voice recognition work properly. Persevere, Peter advised. Repetitive strain injury from a lifetime of typing was doing him in. There had been advantages to not having a computer; not working. Not indulging in a lyrical strain of imagery. Not pretending to be gifted; when all it constituted was hard work. At least you're doing something you enjoy, something that's a challenge, people observed of the film script he was struggling to complete; and he knew there were other ways, other things, thoughts that should be divined but weren't, forests that should be explored but instead only represented even greater mystery than the skyscrapers that surrounded them.

They went out to Issaan and he felt sick to the pit of his stomach. There wasn't much doubt where this was going when the massage boy appeared entirely naked in the room, generous to a fault, time out of mind, front and back; old soldiers, clamped cramped pain, singing soldiers marching in tight dappled uniforms, their olive skins against the wild dark, the pain that constituted a return to form, a time which was both terrible and perfect, which meant all was heading their way. He couldn't be sure but he was happy here. Never heard you say that; mamma said. But she had also warned, quoting an old song: My mother told me, there'd be days like this. Everything cramped up. Whole worlds slewed away. Earthquakes rocked the planet. Mai mee banhah, he said, there is no problem; although the constant drain on his finances represented exactly that. There were phrases to be had. There were times that should have been altered, transferred, transfixed, plastered into pin points of pain. Migraine, he tried explain, but this migraine was well into its fourth day and the flashing lights and the enveloping pain meant he could not concentrate, could hardly be seen for hearing, could crawl with embarrassments at the stories as they were rewritten; wanted to be safe, wanted to remember everything that had happened; wanted to know why there was no memory, why the machine was failing to function, why he couldn't stand up. If you don't agree with us you are incapable of honesty. Give it a rest. Sober days. He was sick of the lust. Instincts run riot; a quagmire of conflicting impulses. All of them out of line, out of queue, out of proportion. Blessed be the saints.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/judges-absent-as-gillard-bids-for-miss-australia-crown-20100831-14fkm.html

THE BIGThe definition of relevance aside for a moment, Ms Gillard was very clearly involved in a beauty contest yesterday.

Never has a larger crowd been assembled for a prime minister to flash her wares to a smaller audience.

Ms Gillard commanded a packed National Press Club, itself beamed nationwide on TV, to sashay her stuff to just three judges. And they didn't even turn up.

The independents whose eyes the Prime Minister most wanted to catch - Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter - were busily dashing elsewhere around Canberra seeking information from experts about whether they should gaze more kindly upon either Ms Gillard or the buffed Tony Abbott, who has been modelling for them in private.

Ms Gillard the trained lawyer would know, of course, that the longer the jury is out, the less likely the prosecution will get the decision it seeks.

Thus, she had to keep grimly prosecuting her case, which is why she took the stage at the press club to declare that she ought to be Miss Australia.

Why, she wanted to make the democratic system more open and more transparent and, especially, she wanted to ''strengthen the role of the national Parliament in the decisions that affect the everyday lives of Australians''.

Make that the everyday lives of the independents. And yes, ''clearly the new Parliament will also have to focus on the needs of regional Australia''. Which, of course, is where the crucial independents live.

But precisely what did she mean by parliamentary reform? She was asked about question time.

Would long-winded non-answers get the shove in the race to give the independents their desire?

Ms Gillard responded with a long-winded answer that didn't shed much light, though she suggested that time limits for questions and answers in question time and the ability to follow up with supplementary questions were ''obviously important''.

This itself was revelatory, for such tiny mercies had never been given the time of day by prime ministers until the independents were given the opportunity to cast a judgmental eye.

Ah, but what about the right to avoid the question?

''There's the vexed question of relevance, which of course - a bit like beauty unfortunately - is in the eye of the beholder,'' she responded vaguely. Yes, and no one yet knows what is in the eyes - or the minds - of the only beholders who count as this beauty contest grinds its frustrating way to an uncertain conclusion.

Tony Wright is Age national affairs editor.GER STORY:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/31/AR2010083104496.html

Saying there is "still a lot of work to do" politically in Iraq, President Obama on Tuesday congratulated U.S. troops stationed at Fort Bliss for their accomplishments in the war zone over the past seven years. He thanked a gathering of uniformed service members, some of them about to deploy overseas, saying their service made the withdrawal of combat troops possible.

"We are in transition," Obama said. "And that could not have been accomplished had it not been for the men and women here at Fort Bliss and across the country.

Still, Obama said he would not be taking a "victory lap" when he addresses the nation from the Oval Office on Tuesday night.

"It's not going to be self-congratulatory," Obama said of his prime-time speech, only the second such address he has made as president. "There's still a lot of work that we've got to do to make sure that Iraq is an effective partner with us."

Obama traveled to the Texas base, home of the 1st Armored Division, on a day unusual for its focus on the two wars he inherited upon taking office - a day his advisers hoped would underscore his fulfilled promise to end the Iraq conflict. Obama rose to national prominence as an opponent of the Iraq invasion and 2007 surge, saying months after it began - as the Democratic primary campaign was heating up - that the troop increase in Iraq "had not worked."

Obama called former President George W. Bush on Tuesday and is expected to mention him by name in the speech. But he has mostly sidestepped the question of whether he has changed his view of the surge, with his advisers saying that it was a combination of added troop strength, political improvements and the Sunni awakening that helped stabilize the country.

Further tests are on the horizon in Iraq, where a government has yet to be formed more than five months after the elections. Under the Status of Forces agreement signed by Bush and the Iraqis, all remaining U.S. troops are scheduled to leave by the end of 2011. The Obama administration has left itself very little room to alter those plans, saying that it would require a request from the Iraqis themselves to leave troops behind and that no request has come in. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said he could not speculate about an extended U.S. troop presence because it is a "hypothetical."

"We have to receive their request before we're able to discuss it," Rhodes told reporters traveling on Air Force One with Obama.

Picture: Peter Newman.
Pi