Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?

Peter Costello also received quite a flogging this week for comments he alledgedly made three years ago at a dinner with three Press Gallery journalists - "He can't win. I can". Obviously referring to his desire to lead to the Liberal Party.

Yet, this dinner was off the record. These damn journos! (n.b. this anti-journo sentiment will probably creep into many of my posts - i'll apologise now). I realise that in politics you can never take "off the record" for granted, but don't these journos run around screaming at PR practitioners about their lack of ethics - well in this case that a bit like the pot calling the kettle a big fat liar!

Even though John Howard was quick to sweep in under the carpet saying he and Costello had a harmonious and productive professional relationship (what about their personal relationship?) it still pisses me off.

Watching question time last week when Wayne Swan was grinding into Costello over the incident, it was interesting to see how these politicians operate. For example, when asked about the night, Mr. Costello replied, "As I remember I had the fish", while looking back at his front benchers to see who was laughing. I might as well have been watching Thank God You're Here.

Who cares if Mr. Costello wants to jump in the hot seat? As long as he and Johnnie can work well on a professional basis... everyone says how strong Australia's economy is at the moment and how we're in a better position than we've ever been - well Mr. Costello is the Treasurer isn't he? So he must be doing something right...

Bad Ass Stripper

Kevin Rudd has received a lot of attention in the media this week due a drunken night out at New York strip club Scores. Now to me this is what make politics interesting, dare I say sexy! How did he swindle his way out of this incident? He was too drunk to remember what happened! How Australian is that? It's also an excuse I'm sure every CSU student is familiar with.

Of course, many media reports have suggested that this could work in Rudd's favour; making him appear more human. We know incidents like this worked in Bob Hawke's favour. Today's opinion polls showed little change to Kevin Rudd's rating, yet the incident only came to light on the last day of the survey, so a more accurate measurement will probably appear in the next published poll.

However human it does make Rudd appear, it also raises the issue of accountability when spending tax payer's money whilst representing Australia. I wonder, where do we go to find out exactly how politicians spend while overseas? What kind of ramifications are there for inapproproately spending the tax payer's dollar? I can recall Mr. Howard often hammering his key message of, "It was within the allocated budget" when being called up on the massive amount of money spent of government advertising... So Mr. Rudd - is that pocket full of $5 notes within the allocated budget, or are you just happy to see me?

My First Posting

Hi All,

This is my first blog posting - just a test at this stage. Hopefully in future I'll be able to say something far more insightful.

Until then...