Brown [Greens Tasmania] will make a gesture by introducing further amendments to the changes flagged by Howard in regard to mandatory detention.
If they are acceptable to Labor and the Democrats they may even pass the Senate.
Unfortunately the divisions that caused Howard to bend will disappear under a threat from outside that may score a point for Beazley and so debate in the lower house will be short if not sweet.
Instead the Liberal rebels, who on the performance of Georgiou and Moylan should be Ministers [Vanstone, although loyal has not addressed the problems with DIMIA that were apparent before the Solon/Alvarez affair became public, the mental health of detainees being one, could do with a rest], will join in a wall behind Howard.
Howard has gone as far as he will go and will now claim all this as a victory, there will be no need for a Royal Commission now, thus burying whatever Palmer will present, and it is rumoured to be a shocker, under the fix of the Master.
It only leaves one little weakness, for a crew that is steadfast in its demand for change, to exploit.
If division is death then we will see many changes to the telcos before the Nationals accept the T3 sale. Barnaby Joyce will now have great power to entrench himself as the saviour of the bush.
Good or bad the Nationals will be shoring up their support in the bush, enough of those peaky independents with questions about offers of overseas postings and pork barrel deals for funding.
It will be scary if he gets the cycle of drought and climate change linked.
Farmers, here’s your big chance for changes to protect yourselves from foreign competition and drought.
And a note for Sophie, if she expects to get on. Curtail that head kicking media grab approach. It doesn’t show the stability and solidarity required of a Minister.
phill Parsons expects Howard’s promises on detention to be fudged and lost in the implementation, the rebel Liberals to all retire at the next election, failing to gain party endorsement. Like Labor, memories are long and haters good, although unlike Labor in Tasmania they will not reject an asset if it means the difference between government and opposition.
Rick pilkington
June 19, 2005 at 16:24
I like what Julia Gillard said of Panopolous.
“I don’t think anybody’s ever taken Sophie seriously, have they?.
We know Michael Ferguson does. The sqeaky clean Ferguson from launceston gave a slightly-restrained sideways nod to the distasteful Panopolous. Not suprising from Ferguson. Watch as he follows in the footsteps of other great Tasmanian Liberal god-botherers and successfully brown-noses his way up the liberal ranks.
He will go far.
Georgio, Moylan etc have shown more ticker on this than Beazley ever has. Kudos to the rebels for putting themselves out there. Beazley,s response to the Govt. changes made him look and sound as impotent as ever on the issue of asylum seekers and detention.
KIM BEAZLEY: “I don’t believe that this establishes the right way to go. Whatever the improvements, the right way to go is to get this problem now fixed. We’re not interest in the resolution of the Liberal Party’s internal problems. We’re interested in the resolution of the border protection mess. That’s what we’re interest in and this does not achieve that objective”.
I can still hear Beazley the Hard-liner making all the Right-sounding noises against Asylum seekers in the lead up to 2001 election. Sadly, Beazley couldnt see any votes in opposing Howard on Asylum seekers and made the fatal decision to bow to the party,s right faction. In reinventing himself as a reactionary he was smashed by the rat.
Weak as piss!