Menzies House

Why is the Labor Party so toxic?

Many Menzies House followers will remember sometime contributor Joseph Del Duca, the avid Rabbitohs fan. Joseph has written a rather extensive appraisal of who will win the next federal election and why.

A new blog site will now become a time usurper for Joseph as he launches into the busy domain of the blogosphere.

I come from Sydney which is a great thing if you are into politics. Living in Sydney means you naturally live your life with a feeling of self-importance and arrogance. The whole essence of living in Sydney is your appreciation that you are more important than everyone else. In most walks of life this self adoration is unfounded however in politics it is actually true. In the 2013 Federal election don’t worry about what happens in Melbourne, Cape York, Coober Pedy, Geraldton or Darwin. If you are looking to see who will be the next Prime Minister of Australia then get a map of Western Sydney and forget about the rest of the nation. That is where elections are won or lost.

Read the full story: http://josephdelduca.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/gillard-not-likely-to-rush-to-a-poll-dance/

One for the history books-why Rugby League need more Rabbitohs

Joseph Del Duca writes passionately about his beloved Rabbitohs. Fate had better bring triumph or...well, you ask him what.

Recently I've been forced to eat my own words but in a very happy way. In April this year, at the start of the rugby league season, I said: "I wasn't sure how many more seasons of pain," I could endure as a Rabbitohs supporter on my biography page. Fast forward to September, and the mighty Red and Green are just one game away from playing in their first grand final in 41 years.

Saturday night, against Canterbury-Bankstown is the game in question. So far an estimated crowd of between 65,000 – 80,000 people are expected.  This makes it the biggest game this season. So what is it that makes this game such a sell a huge event compared to all the others? In my opinion there are two figures that cause this, 1908 and 1935. 1908 is the year South Sydney Rabbitohs were founded, and 1935 is the year Canterbury-Bankstown began its side.

Many have tried and failed to tell us that we need to be passionate about a sporting team. In the dark days of the Super League War we were given the Hunter Mariners, the South Queensland Crushers and the Adelaide Rams. The NBL has tried to convince us to follow the Western Sydney Razorbacks and the A League tries valiantly to convince us that we have an immense rivalry with people from the Central Coast. In spite of this we still see the NBL sail to the edge of bankruptcy. The A League continuously struggles to find relevance, and the NRL consistently fails to achieve impressive crowd figures. The reason is simple; you can't buy history.

The Lady’s Not for Turning

Joseph Del Duca suggests Julia Gillard and Margaret Thatcher share one common feature – they’re both not for turning.

There are many facets of Margaret Thatcher's time as Prime Minister of Great Britain that could be described as memorable. One that often springs to mind is her speech to the Conservative Party National Conference on 10 October 1980 in which she famously told the world that “The Lady's Not For Turning."

 

 

Great Britain's first female Prime Minister had many worthy traits that politicians all around the world would do well to emulate. Not many people would draw similarities between Thatcher and Australia's first female Prime Minister which you would assume pleases Julia Gillard to no end. I don't imagine many people that spend their youth running around preaching the gospel of Socialism like to be compared to a woman who led the world on issues such as small government, free market capitalism and conservatism. 

However, to the dismay of both ladies, they do share one significant point in common. Julia Gillard, like Margaret Thatcher, is not for turning. This is only a recent phenomenon for our Prime Minister. She of course has a long history of turning. Her views on offshore processing have had a few sharp turns in them and she did of course take a slight turn from her “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead” position. But if you look back over the last few months you will see a Prime Minister who has dug her heels in and said "No, I am not turning anymore!"

What makes this similarity most interesting is the fact that whilst being a lady not for turning served Margaret Thatcher so well it is doing nothing for Gillard but cement her demise. When Thatcher decided she was against turning the world was at a stage where removing communist and socialist regimes was a priority. Thatcher did her all to help free the people from the oppressive grip of big government, over regulation and wealth redistribution.  Julia Gillard is doing her best to wipe the dust off these shackles and bring them back.

Gillard’s Goose Cooked Regardless Of Ballot Result

 

Joseph Del Duca argues that even if Julia Gillard wins Monday's vote, it is inevitable that the next election will be a contest between Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd:

The world’s worst kept secret is no longer a secret. The Federal Labor Party is a divided Party. A party that once thrived on their union slogans such as ‘Solidarity Forever’ and ‘United We Stand, Divided We Fall’ have indeed divided. As the slogan suggests, they will fall.

No matter how much Prime Minister Gillard tries to convince us that having a leadership ballot will bring Labor’s troubles to an end, it is clear it will not. The issue of the Labor leadership cannot and will not be resolved until Julia Gillard is Prime Minister - no longer it is no longer a question of if she is done as Prime Minister, but when she will realise it.

The attacks we have seen made by senior members of the Gillard Cabinet this week are unprecedented to say the least. We have seen Wayne Swan leave us in no uncertain terms that the hatred that he held for Kevin Rudd whilst attending school together many years ago has not gone. Simon Crean has gotten behind any microphone that will have him to speak about the damage Rudd has done to the party, and he has been joined in a chorus of Rudd bashing by the likes of Tony Burke and Nicola Roxon. All of these people are front bench ministers and all of them have put their hatred of one man before the unity of their party.

On the other side of the Labor Party we have those who support Kevin Rudd, those such as Doug Cameron, Kim Carr and Darren Cheeseman who have made very clear that Labor has no hope of winning an election whilst Gillard remains Prime Minister.

Private Health Insurance Back Flip Cements Labor’s Legacy

 

 

Joseph Del Duca discusses how cutting the private health is the lastest in a long line of broken promises and bad policy by the Gillard Government:

 The Labor Government is in tatters. They have shown time and time again that they have nothing to offer Australia besides broken promises and a long running soap opera over the nation’s leadership.

The Prime Minister places her own self interest over the good of the country and has proven that she would rather lie and avoid the truth than give up the top job.

We have a Foreign Minister whose loathing of the Prime Minister is clear for all to see. He will stop at nothing to get his old job back. The government’s entire focus is on who will win the fight for the leadership.

 Labor has tried in vain to pass the leadership tensions off as media spin and scare tactics from the opposition. Nobody bought it.  The talk has started, Labor needs to bring this to head as quickly as possible and not allow it to continue to destroy the government. The Prime Minister can deny the writing on the wall as much as she likes but as the saying goes ‘If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, then it’s a duck.’

Federal Labor promised us that 2012 would be different. This has not been the case.  It seems that nothing has changed from last year. We have a government whose time is more consumed with political infighting than it is in doing its job.

There have only been eight sitting day