Taking the office to you When I was elected to the Federal Parliament in September 2008, I promised to introduce a ‘Mobile Electorate Office’ to move around the electorate, listening to people about the issues concerning them. I believe it is absolutely crucial that I am accessible to all of my constituents, no matter where they live.  I have delivered this promise. If re-elected, I will continue to regularly travel around Mayo, holding various street corner meetings to discuss any issues affecting locals. It is vital that I am aware of problems within the electorate so that I can best represent the people of Mayo both at a local level, and in Canberra. Since being elected, I have held Mobile Electorate Offices at Williamstown, Kingscote, Strathalbyn, Stirling, Victor Harbor, Goolwa, Lobethal, Aberfoyle Park, Inglewood, Macclesfield, Yankalilla, Nairne, Norton Summit, Mount Pleasant, Birdwood, Mount Compass, Kangarilla, Mount Barker and Woodside. Some of the issues people hav... more

Death by focus group under Prime Minister Gillard For months Julia Gillard and her Labor mates have been abusing Tony Abbott’s direct action approach to climate change. And the response? A focus group. Wow, how inspiring. This raises real questions on what a re-elected Gillard Government would really do? The truth about the Gillard policy record is appalling. Putting aside the fact that she was there for every decision made by the Rudd Government, her personal contribution to policy has been appalling. Her first major foray into policy was the famous ‘Medicare gold’ which was one of the key issues that saved the Australian people from a Mark Latham prime ministership. It was the policy that would have sent Australia to the brink of bankruptcy. Julia Gillard is responsible for the computers in schools programme – a $1.2 billion blow out, 300 000 laptops delivered out of 970 000 promised, no broadband hook up for schools as was promised in 2007 and the programme delayed for longer t... more

Rann Labor’s plan fails Mount Barker On Thursday 10 June, the Rann Labor Government released a draft amendment to the Mount Barker Development plan causing significant concern in our local community. This week I took the unusual step of writing to all residents in the District Council of Mount Barker because I am very concerned that the draft plan fails our area and I believe residents must ensure that they take the opportunity to voice their concern. I believe this draft plan fails because it gives no consideration to the future sustainability of the Adelaide Hills region. This amendment proposes to release some 1,310 hectares of land for development in Nairne and Mount Barker, resulting in an additional 7,000 houses. This comes on top of the sizeable increase in population that the region has seen over the past ten years. The amendment sets expansion targets without considering key infrastructure needs including a second freeway interchange for Mount Barker, investment in wastew... more

Labor mates mining Rudd’s new-found cash deposit Two weeks ago I wrote for the Punch a piece about Kevin Rudd breaching his election commitment and dumping the Auditor General from the advertising process. This was in response to the politically motivated advertising on the so-called health reforms that were launched by Rudd Labor. However it turns out Kevin Rudd wasn’t satisfied with simply breaking part of his pre election commitments on government advertising; he wanted to go all the way. The advertising campaign for the mining tax was born.  It is neither a campaign based on legislation, nor on a Bill in Parliament, and it doesn’t advise Australians of a change of government entitlement.  In fact it is an advertising campaign on a tax that isn’t planned to be introduced into Parliament until after the next election. The advertising campaign was so urgent that it was exempted from the “new” process by a Labor Minister after an application by another Labor Minister.&... more

You can add ads to Rudd’s list of policy backflips Have you heard a radio advert lately telling you that the new health reforms are really good for you? They are hard to miss and there is avalanche to come. According to the Budget, the Rudd Government will spend $126 million on five campaigns in the next few months. These campaigns cover topics including climate change, tax reform, health reform, broadband and paid parental leave. $33 million will be spent in the next six weeks alone. You would be right to be surprised by this given the high talk and large promises made by Kevin 07 prior to the last election. He promised in May 2007 that a Rudd Government would have the Auditor General ‘vet’ all government advertising programmes over $250,000 to ensure that they were not political. After watering down this promise in government, the new ‘Kevin 10’ dumped this promise two days before Easter this year. In fact, he was so strong in his claim, he actually said to Matt... more

Don’t forget sustainability in the population debate Australia’s population will be a major issue at the coming federal election. Not just because of the ongoing problems with Labor’s border protection laws but because Australians are increasingly concerned with the sustainability of our country. Last year in a rare moment of clarity the Prime Minister made very clear that he ‘believed’ in a ‘big Australia’. He made these comments on the day that his government announced its population target for Australia of 36 million by 2050 It was refreshing to hear a clear statement from this Prime Minister who is often as simple to follow as assembly instructions from IKEA. However what this clear statement highlighted was a concern that I hear all of the time in my electorate from people who are convinced that we are living beyond our sustainable limits. My electors are worried that we are risking our own food security by allowing urban development on our best food producing land... more

Labor’s attacks on Tony Abbott are purely cosmetic In recent weeks we have been witness to the beginning of an orchestrated attack on Tony Abbott’s character by Kevin Rudd and his Government. Most of these attacks are nasty and personal, designed to raise doubts about the character of Tony Abbott in the lead up to the election. Already Labor is spending money on negative television advertising about Tony Abbott and there will be millions of dollars more spent on this type of negative material between now and election-day. Labor has massive amounts of money to spend thanks to the millions of dollars given to them each year by their union paymasters. So desperate are Senior Labor figures to try and dent Tony Abbott’s momentum that in recent days they have been attacking him in the media for participating in community events. In past couple of weeks we have witnessed senior Ministers attack Tony on the basis of his participation in a community ironman event and his now famous ‘Pol... more

Nick Minchin is a great loss to the Liberal Party With the announcement of Nick Minchin’s retirement the Liberal Party has lost not only a substantial figure but also one of our great warriors. It is fair to say that Nick doesn’t like the Labor Party and nor do they like him. There are few people in the Liberal Party’s history who have had a more significant role in the direction and fortunes of our great Party, particularly in South Australia.  His loss will leave a major hole for the Liberal Party and our national Parliament. His record as a Minister is second to none.  He was Australia’s longest serving Finance Minister and unlike the current incumbent he managed to be part of the senior economic team that delivered surplus budgets, paid off debt and invested money to meet our future challenges.  He realised, unlike Lindsay Tanner that the job of Finance Minister was to reduce government spending rather than increase it. He was one of the key pillars of the Howa... more

State elections: It’s not over until the fat lady swings The South Australian election is not over just yet.  Some 20% of votes are yet to be counted and there are three Labor seats which are too close to call.  Bright will most probably be Liberal by the end of the week and Hartley and Newland are still in play.  If all three come to the Liberal Party then Labor will only have 22 seats and will need to do a deal with independents to survive. We should consider the facts on Saturday night’s result.  There was an eight percent state wide swing to the Liberal Party resulting in approximately 52% of the state wide two party preferred.  There will be at least five new members of the Liberal team, an increase of a third to the Parliamentary team.  Better still the new members including Dan Van Holst Pellekann, Steven Marshall, John Gardner, Tim Whetstone and Rachel Sanderson have genuine talent and will add some real fire power. On the other hand Labor los... more

SA election: Why Mike Rann’s time is up In his book, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the exiled Czech novelist Milan Kundera, explains how to rewrite a states history: “The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory.  Destroy its books, its culture, its history.  Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.  Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.” Mike Rann must own a dog eared version of this book if his Punch interview is anything to go by. The claims Mike Rann made in his interview with David Penberthy on the Punch on Monday can only be taken seriously if you believe that Mike Rann was beamed down from another universe at the start of 2002. Mike Rann claims in this interview that the reason South Australians should be falling over themselves to re-elect him is because he singularly dragged the State from the doldrums and delivered an age of prosperity.  Really?
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