Australia will have an election on November 24. I'm posting about this on LP and will reprint some of those posts here.
It’s a surprise-a-day campaign here in Wentworth. As everyone knows, this marginal seat is held by Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was elected just three years ago. This hasn’t stopped him from warning us against the “dangerous inexperience” of the “union dominated Labor Party”. That was in the first letter I received from him the other day - the same day I received one from Kevin and George (Newhouse, the local ALP candidate) offering “a better deal for families and seniors”. The ALP letter did offer policies, whereas Malcolm’s offered many underlined sentences, culminating in “Don’t experiment with your vote“.
My attention was diverted from all this by the striking front page this week of the local newspaper, The Wentworth Courier. Wentworth covers the eastern suburbs of Sydney — in other words, it is multi-million-dollar real estate central and the Wentworth Courier could easily be renamed the Real Estate Courier. Consequently, it has a large and avid readership and the Courier’s editorial team seem to be enjoying entertaining them during this campaign. First there was the Cousins Affair — Geoff, not Ben; then last week they had George Newhouse on the cover sheepishly admitting that he too supported the Gunns Pulp Mill. This week the cover was devoted to Danielle Ecuyer, who is toying with the idea of running as an anti-pulp-mill Independent environmentalist in Wentworth. The fun angle to this is that Danielle is “a former partner of Labor candidate George Newhouse”. [I’m fascinated by that “a”. Not “the”. Get the goss here.]
Hardly had I assimilated this news than I received by post a 16-page
glossy full colour brochure from Malcolm. [It’s George and Kevin, but
never Malcolm and John.] 
On the inside cover, against a photo of what looks like non-native
vegetation (it’s distinctly not a Tasmanian forest), is a summary of
“Malcolm’s” environmental achievements in 2007. I gasped with amazement
when reading this — not at his so-called achievements, but at his
chutzpah in suggesting that he is responsible for “the world’s most
comprehensive” emissions trading scheme; that a new target to have a
whole 15% of electricity be “clean” by 2020 is supposed to impress us;
that a $1000 rebate for solar hot water is actually going to “tackle”
the problem of household emissions (and of course it’s not going to do
anything to tackle industrial emissions.) This list contains several
such sleights of hand. 
The sleights of hand continue, through to a headline further in that talks about “clean energy for a cooler planet”. Cooler?! Earlier, we’ve been told that Malcolm “knows that climate change is a fact, not a theory” (he’s so modern) — if he knows that, he knows there’s no chance of stopping the global warming that’s already in train (unless by “cooler” he means a new ice age.) Yet he talks about cutting a deal “to cool the planet”. This looks like deliberate deceptiveness to me.
Because he’s such a great guy, “Malcolm [apparently
in his solo capacity] has been working with major emitting countries…”
blah blah Apec Declaration blah blah “the first time the two biggest
emitters, China and the United States, have agreed that we must set a
global goal for reducing emissions and that all nations must contribute
to meeting it. This is the first step towards a truly effective global agreement…” From the people who refused to sign Kyoto, talking about a country, China, which at least has signed Kyoto. Chutzpah again — or maybe we should just call it spin. 
I wonder what goodies next week will bring.
The grounds for a potential legal challenge to Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to give approval to Gunns Pulp Mill are explored at www.Sydney-Law.com . All are invited to comment.
Posted by: Gordon Craven | Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 08:36 PM
As speculated in the Wentworth Courier I have decided to run as an Independent Candidate. I could no longer stand back on policy failure from both the major parties on Climate Change and the pulp mill. I think the level of dissatisfaction on these issues has been underestimated and badly handled by the Liberal and Labour parties, and I want to offer the constituents of Wentworth a choice this election. If you feel that your vote is wasted as the major parties either don't listen or don't care, then give me your voice this election.Those who govern us must be held accountable for their actions. www.votedani.com
Danielle Ecuyer
Independent Candidate for Wentworth
Posted by: Danielle Ecuyer | Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 05:23 AM