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FREAKS WANT TO CONTROL
Tim Dunlop: “Howard, in fact, is a control freak who wants as much as possible under his own control ...”
Margo Kingston: “He’s a control freak - everyone knows that.”
Natasha Cica: “Howard is not the Great Satan. Nor is he Stalin or Hitler. But as a politician, he is a top-down, authoritarian control freak who is profoundly threatened by difference.”
Mungo MacCallum: “Among his other dislikeable qualities, John Howard is a control freak.”
Geoff Kitney: “John Howard is reputed to be the most obsessive control freak political leader of modern times.”
Question: why would a control freak seek to sell a communications network currently under 51% government control? Why would a control freak attempt to yield complete control of that network since taking office? And why are leftists—who, given their desire for state-controlled utilities—calling someone who wants to cede control of Telstra a control freak? Why would a control freak offer Telstra to the uncontrollable realm of market forces?
Next thing you know that control freak will decide the government needs to decide how less of the money you own is spent (tax cuts)!
Control freak!
P.S. I’m not a big fan of “privatisations”. The government run telstra, they hold it in trust FOR the citizens of Oz, the government does not own Telstra. The state should let citizens either take the money, or own a share and sell later.
It’s all about the guvmint not doing as the vaunted betters would have them do. If you do what you say you are going to do, you are a control freak. If you don’t, you are a weak leader who can’t even control “rogue” senators or the party room.
It seems clear that John Howard hasn’t been reading the talking points memo that Margo and co keep sending.Lucky for Australia. Imagine Margo Kingston as the Minister for Communications?In Howard’s first couple of years in government he was often accused by the bats of not showing leadership.
Now they are having difficulty with another term - control freak.
I am having trouble with the term news media.
We don’t seem to have news services any more. The main stock in trade is spin, or simple assertion and attempted slur.Having lived under both Howard and Blair for long periods, all I can say is that Howard is the most leave-alone leader I’ve ever experienced, and good on him for that, whereas the incessant comments from both sides of the fence that Blair is a cont. fr. ring horribly true.
Margo should come and live in Britain—even she would be squawking after a while.*
Fraser, Hawke and Keating are absentee teachers compared to Blair. Most of the crap you get from government in Australia—over-policing the roads, for eg—comes from state govt, whereas in Britain the same sort of thing can’t exist (and it does exist) without the blessing of Brother Blair.
*Well, okay, Margo’d be squawking as soon as she had to queue at Heathrow. But you get my drift, I trust.
Posted by Blithering Bunny on 2005 08 17 at 07:45 PM • permalinkLet me get this right, Tim Dunlop seems upset that Howard has usurped the authority of the Queen of England and by extention has reduced his democratic rights as a citizen? or subject? of Australia ?
This is trite, but…
What happens when the Queen cedes her power and King Charles appoints a Rovian killbot to the post of Govenor General.
“Control freak” means “won’t change his mind and do things the reasonable way.” Once you’ve grasped that, the comments all make sense.
Posted by Assistant Village Idiot on 2005 08 17 at 09:48 PM • permalinkAnd why are leftists—who, given their desire for state-controlled utilities—calling someone who wants to cede control of Telstra a control freak? Why would a control freak offer Telstra to the uncontrollable realm of market forces?
Hardly. A privatised Telstra will be free to control the market, rather than vice-verse. This 800 lb gorilla will be the mother of all monopolists in most markets it chooses to squat in.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel has warned more regulation is needed to stop incumbents like Telstra engaging in “sabotage” to kill off competition.
“It’s absolutely crucial that existing players not be allowed to use their market power to strangle at birth these new forms of competition, either by impeding them or buying up control of the market before it has even developed,” Mr Samuel told the Australian Telecommunications Users Group yesterday.
“As I said recently, if you can’t control the arteries, what you do is get control of the blood,” Mr Samuel said.
Sounds like utility privatization will be a boon to capitalist control freaks.
Hey, has Mother Sheehan weighed in on the Sooperseekrit Afghan pipeline yet?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 08 17 at 10:56 PM • permalinkI did not say that John Howard was a control freak. I said that Leftwingers who opposed the privatization of Telstra were not necessarily statist control freaks. If you want to see control freaks see successful capitalist monopolists - people like Howard Geneen and Bill Gates - at work in an industry they have captured. They dont like surprises.
Jack, perhaps you can explain to me how:
A privatised Telstra will be free to control the market
Given that Telstra will be subject to even harsher regulatory controls than ever before (operational separation in particular); that a fully privatising Telstra finally removes a major conflict of interest (ie, the government is no longer both a shareholder and regulator), and the developement of new technologies which will allow competitors to bypass Telstra’s copper network, it’s quite obvious that the reverse will happen.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 08 18 at 12:06 AM • permalinkbugger, there’s an extra ‘a’ and an ‘e’ floating around in my post. Please donate them to vowel-needy nations. I suggest Kyrgyzstan.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 08 18 at 12:10 AM • permalinkJack, what sort of anti-monoply legislation does Australia have?
I ask because the sort of nightmares you’re discussing tend to be regulated in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission has to approve company mergers, for example. Which is subject to public and political pressure. Which tends to prevent exactly what you’re discussing.
If Australia doesn’t have anti-monopoly legislation of some sort, you need it. If it does, the left is whinging merely because the government won’t have exclusive control of the communications industry.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 08 18 at 12:47 AM • permalinkJeffS, Australia has very similar legislation to the US.
Most on the left in Australia still believe that the Government should control the means of production (it was still part of the Labor party’s manifesto until a few years ago) and the sale of Telstra represents the final nail in Marxism’s coffin so they’re a tad cranky.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 08 18 at 01:12 AM • permalinkHardly. A privatised Telstra will be free to control the market, rather than vice-verse. This 800 lb gorilla will be the mother of all monopolists in most markets it chooses to squat in.
Is this Telstra a phone company? With wires and poles and such? If so, how can they be a monopoly? Don’t you have cell phones in Australia? I gave up my landline for a celly.
Maybe I’m missing something.
Uhoh… Tim’s been reading the Byron Shire Echo. Dont do it T/B! that way lies madness!11!!
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 08 18 at 01:57 AM • permalinkI hope the sale of Telstra will mean that staff will finally be paid properly. A member of my family works at a Telstra mobile phone shop - staff are grossly underpaid and overworked. Staff should be on the normal retail workers award, yet most were never informed of this fact, and were offered contracts to sign which ensured that they would be paid at a lower rate. So there is the bizarre situation of long time staff being paid less than the new people they are training. They have no redress whatsoever.
Meanwhile, senior managers seem to make their own rules about their renumeration.
I rather thought so, Art. But it was pretty clear that Jack wasn’t considering this. So I asked a leading question. Thanks!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 08 18 at 02:22 AM • permalinkHeheh.
There’s so much sarcasm on this thread, trolls could post at will and go completely unnoticed.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 08 18 at 02:41 AM • permalinkHeh, thought as much JeffS! Very nicely done.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 08 18 at 02:46 AM • permalinkOT, if anyone’s feeling “ronery” you should take a look at this:
North Korean Random Insult Generator
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 08 18 at 02:53 AM • permalinkIt’s a ruse, Howard is a Control Freak I tell you, why can’t you see it? He controls everything you see, he controls the market, he is the ‘market forces’, Howard is a Control Freak, now do you understand? Don’t you know Howard has secretly been putting mind control drugs into the water and is controlling us all with subliminal messages using his eyebrows, see its all making sense now isn’t it?
Stop watching the eyebrows I tell you, if you watch you’re doomed, doomed to live in a crypto-fascist Neo-Con hell, doomed I tell you doomed…..
I would have thought being a top down, authoritarian control freak was an essential part of a Prime Minister’s job.
Show me a PM who isn’t authoritarian and I’ll show you a hasty resignation/dismissal.
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 08 18 at 07:09 AM • permalinkLooneyc.
You have revealed the Great Truth Margo the
Mongoloid,Moronic,Meriticious,Masturbatory,Maunderer,Malignant, no… I’ll get it soon… MAJESTIC! That’s it, Majestic… has been seeking.The EYEBROWS are the Control Freak. Howard is under the mind control of invading neocon alien eyebrows!
Hmm. This explains much.I understand that the late (and much lamented) ‘Crazy Joe’ Vialls was working on a world shaking revelation about the Alien Eyebrows helping the HoWARdBushitlerneoconnazibLIAR vast Templar and Mason International Zionist Conspiracy based in Pyongyang using mini nukes to guarantee the success of the imminent Jewish invasion of Tasmania (they are coming in Jumbo Jets, folks!).
Mungo and Margo have taken over from Crazy Joe, it seems. Hope like hell they do not breed.
For Joe died (very sadly, actually, as his bizarre and strangely hilarious conspiracy theories are much missed), and leaves a gap in the community of lefty loons. NTW, aside from the Alien Eyebrows, the rest of it is stuff Crazy Joe really did believe in, and put on his website!
MarkL
CanberraI’ve whacked up a little post at my blog where various lefty/centrist type can respond rather than here (as most are probably alredy banned), so if you want to stoush, go there.
Also, no one seems to get subtle irony over the internet anymore :(
Recent Telstra history has reaffirmed the long term inverse relationship between Government ownership and quality of service. The less government control the better the service. Now remember when Telstra was Telecom and the Government owned the lot. Wasn’t service great then…so long as you didn’t actually want to make phone calls.
Posted by platey mates on 2005 08 18 at 08:51 AM • permalinkOne thing I don’t get is why the Labor Party (the mob who offloaded Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank) is against the privatisation of Telstra.
And maybe those who are against privatisation should have the example of TasRail pointed out to them. Government owned for over 100 years, never made a profit in any of those years. Sold off and the very FIRST year it was a private concern it made a decent profit.
I suspect that’s exactly the reason they’re against privatizing Telstra: it has the potential to make the Howard government look good, again.
The Labor party and its cronies could care less if any government-owned public utility loses money hand over fist, after all it’s not their money that gets pissed away, it’s just tax money.
Seems some people think that joining the issue of control freak to the Telstra issue was some sort of dialectic non sequitur trick by Tim.
The issues did not have to be connected for the point to be made. So many bats calling Howard a control freak is, in itself, evidence of the echo syndrome.
Just like the leadership echo of some years ago. That one does not wash these days, nor should the control freak slur have legs - as many have pointed out, the leader is expected to have some control.
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Hmm, looks like somebody’s been doing “market research”...
But that Howard fella just won’t conform to their damn talking points!