I am such a man. I am such a manly man. Surely I am the manliest of men to ever walk the Earth. Why you ask? What has caused this celebration of hirsutey goodness? Well, it takes a real man to admit his mistakes and I have made a mistake….a bit. Maybe not really a mistake, maybe just jumped the gun. In fact, maybe, with all available evidence at the time of writing I was correct and all my opinions and assumptions were brilliant. After all, hindsight is 20/20 and that is how all judgment calls are judged.

So, what is all this about? Well, in my last Daily Shout piece I was on the defensive for Peter Garrett and his role in not only the deaths of four insulation installers, one hundred or so house fires and the failure of a scheme that in reality should have been meat and potatoes for the Government. I’m not going to go back on everything that I wrote; as the majority of it is true. The one point that I would like to correct is this: Peter Garrett was very aware of the dangers that this scheme posed.

Shortly after my first election piece was posted I came into some knowledge that Peter Garrett was directly given, and I mean directly, hand-delivered as it were, information that the way the Insulation scheme was going to be run would result in shonky installers, inferior insulation and deaths. If this is true, and judging the source, it is, then this brings a whole new level of culpability, not to only Peter Garrett, but also to Kevin Rudd.

There, mistake corrected, everyone move along, nothing to see. I think I now have chest hair.

Mr Rudd has now swung into action to fix the problems caused by the bungled scheme and I’m pretty sure he will do fair job of it. It will be, however, an answer to a problem that never should have existed. If Peter Garrett’s excuse for the problems was that he only read a ten month old risk assessment document ten days ago, then maybe someone else needs to have a crack at being the Environment Minister. It’s going to become an increasingly important Portfolio and probably not the realm of a second term politician.

Anyway.

Despite this upset, at this early stage I’m still giving my support to Labor in the upcoming election. There are a few reasons for this, one, I refuse to give my vote to Tony Abbott and two, I still like Kevin Rudd, even though he is fence-sitting on certain issues. There is one thing he brings to the position that was missing in the Howard years, yet, for some reason he is being criticised for it, that is, intelligent use of the English language. (Sorry, I don’t usually hope in on other people’s writing, but his time I just can’t help myself. WTF?? Skoe, you can’t be serious!!! - Ed)

Why must everything be dumbed down these days? I love listening to K-Rudd talk and before I go any further may I ask a question? Who would you prefer to listen to talk for an hour, Kev or little Johnny? Exactly. This is the man who represents us on the world stage and I would personally prefer it if this man didn’t us either ‘um’ or ‘ah’ as every second word. I also like the idea of today’s so-called journalists scurrying for their dictionary and thesaurus every time Kev rips out a speech, apparently though, he is not connecting with the common man. Is this Kev’s issue or is it the fault of our media for not continuing to educate the masses with intelligent programming and news reports?

It’s a side issue but rather than provide us with something to expand on the knowledge we obtained through various years and modes of schooling they would much rather plump for a show based on a premise like, “Insert Celebrity Type Here”, searching for love, money, food or vague hope of restoring dignity. However, I digress.

There has also been much maligning of the election promises Kevin and his team have failed to deliver. I am also upset about some of them, particularly the easy ones, Broadband Internet for example. I, like many others, are forced to use Wireless Internet, which doesn’t work. I’m only twenty kilometres from the city yet I have no access to DSL. This makes me mad. The biggest problem with the implementation of this system is that it is being overseen by an idiot and his one man cause, the internet filter, (I’m not going to go into the whole filter thing here, I think Justin did a piece on it if you’re interested). The whole filter issue could be fixed by a single statement: “They’re your kids! You supervise them!” Problem solved, now can we please get the internet fixed?

However, while the Broadband thing remains the fault of the current government, the failure of some election promises is not. After all, it’s hard to get things introduced in parliament when the deciding vote comes down to an idiot who is the puppet of the opposition. To remove all doubt here I’m talking about Senator Steve Fielding. Can the people who voted this moron in please remove their heads from their arses in the next election and use their own minds to decide who to vote for and not what the Liberal party suggests? Of course, this state of affairs could be worse; Fielding could be in charge of the Internet implementation.

The Liberal Party remain in disarray, with Joe Hockey seemingly doing everything he can to shoot down Tony Abbott and votes in Parliament being deferred because half the Libs want to cross the floor. This is not a party I want to entrust my future to. I’d also like to give Labor another term just to see what else they can do. After all, the handling of the GFC was done pretty well and there are many reports from retailers big and small that the $900 bonus worked a treat. Sometimes, things just take a little longer than three years.

Oh yeah, did you see Tony Abbot almost getting killed on Colac Road?

Just sayin’….again.

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