And also something of a psychopath. About a year ago, he was confronted by an impertinent question from a reporter (Aussie media leans toward impertinence, unsurprisingly), and he was so infuriated that he froze in place for a good 30 seconds, giving the reporter a death stare and trembling with rage. You just waited for him to reach out and strangle the reporter. Eventually, he regained some form of calm and concluded the interview.

Not the sort of bloke you want in power.

What sort of fuckwit says that about the tent embassy, especially today of all days? This is just a sneak peak of what things will be like if the Liberals get in next election....

Our PM had a bit of a fright - and she wasn't even the target.

Compare and contrast with JFK, RFK, MLK, Reagan and Giffords.

...just saying, those protesters would never have gotten within 100 yards of President Obama.

Also, the level of security ringed around POTUS vs. a Congresswoman is a massive difference. The Secret Service don't mess around.

We do have a sorry history of assassinations.

(S)he was talking about proximity and I was talking about severity, which, of course, is exactly your point.

We've had only two (failed) political assassination attempts on pollies in Australia, one way back when and one in the 1960s. [Correct me if I'm wrong, please, fellow Ozzies]. We've had a couple of pollies killed, but they were connected to crime/gangs/drugs investigations.

But, by and large, assassination isn't a great fear for our pollies. I suspect the Oz Secret Service guys will be delivering one message to our PM :::: "Don't go anywhere with Tony Abbott!!!!!!"

Completely OT and not worth starting a seperate thread about: Any other Aussies pissed off about starting the Australia Day fireworks during the Federer - Nadal semi-final? How bloody stupid. They couldn't actually find somewhere in Melbourne not 100 metres from the stadium? Didn't look good in Europe, guys.

I'm not a tennis fan

The secret service and the police sure went berserk though. The people had no makeshift weapons nor were they throwing rocks or other projectiles. But it's very obvious, at least to me, that the cops were reacting with fear.

with that look of fear on their face. They are lucky that the vast majority of us would prefer peace. But it is good to show them that if we want, we can take a piece. Think about what you do Gillard, we are watching ALL of you; better treat us right.

fear and physical intimidation can come from anywhere, not just groups you agree with...

She was just caught in the cross-fire. It was Tony Abbott who set this one off. Both him and the folk at the tent embassy who deliberately tried to work up the crowd and thought it'd be a great idea to gallop over to The Lobby and do a mass thumping of those full-length windows are to blame for what happened, not Gillard....

While Abbott's timing and delivery was, as usual for him, completely off, I've been surprised by the number of people on our local website who agree with the general sentiments. I'm ambivalent about the tent embassy, in that it's seen as an eyesore in a city where there's many eyesores, and it's not doing any harm to anyone. But after seeing the infighting going on and the restraining orders flying around keeping some folk away from the tent embassy, including, IIRC, a Ngunnawal elder (the Ngunnawal are the traditional owners of the land Canberra was built on), to me it lost its direction and purpose in the latter 20 years of its existence. Back in 1988 when the pollies up and moved from OPH to the new Parliament House, the tent embassy should have followed and set up on the lawns there. Now it's considered by many locals to be nothing but a curiousity for tourists. Given that it's looking likely Abbott and his neanderthals will win the next election, if someone was looking for a way to ensure they'll remove the caravans and tents, they found a surefire way yesterday to make sure it'll happen....

Thanks for sharing.

He makes Howard look like a Rhodes Scholar.

And at least we never had to see JH in his budgie smugglers.

In relation to population targets for Australia, Gillard told Fairfax Media in August 2010 that while skilled migration is important: "I don't support the idea of a big Australia". Gillard also altered the nomenclature of Tony Burke's role as "Minister for Population" to that of Minister for Sustainable Population".[83]


After winning leadership of the Labor Party, Gillard identified addressing the issue of unauthorised arrivals of asylum seekers as a priority of her government. She announced that negotiations were underway for a return to "offshore processing" of asylum seeker claims. Gillard ruled out a return to processing at Nauru and named East Timor as a preferred location for new detention and processing facilities.[84][85] The East Timorese Government rejected the plan.[86]

In October 2010, her government announced that it would open two detention centres for 2000 immigrants, due to the pressures in allowing women and children to be released into the community. One to be opened in Inverbrackie, South Australia and one in Northam, Western Australia.[87] She said it would be a short-term solution to the problem and that temporary detention centres will be closed.

Indigenous issues and asylum seekers are two completely different issues. I'm traditionally an ALP voter (I sometimes vote for the Greens in the Senate as a protest vote), and the ALP's stance on asylum seekers is little different to that of the Coalition. Asylum seekers and detention centres are a big issue for me, and I'm disgusted with the government's position on it...

On the other hand, what happened here yesterday had nothing to do with detention centres. I've just come back from breakfast with a friend who went there to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the tent embassy, and she said what happened was it was all going great until a breakaway group started stirring up the crowd and baying for blood. That wasn't what she was there for, so she left. The whole thing had been planned. Someone took the time and effort well in advance to find out where the PM and Tony Abbott would be (they were at an awards ceremony for Emergency Services workers, the people who get out there and help during fires and floods), took something Abbott had said in Sydney much earlier that day, made out he was actually saying it only 200 metres away at The Lobby, and deliberately inflamed some of the crowd...

I'm in total agreement with what Mick Gooda had to say about it...

But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda last night condemned the protesters' behaviour after about 200 of them banged on the three glass sides of the restaurant chanting ''shame'' and ''racist''.

''An aggressive, divisive and frightening protest such as this has no place in debates about the affairs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or in any circumstances,'' Mr Gooda said.

''While we need to acknowledge that there's a real anger, frustration and hurt that exists in some indigenous communities around Australia, we must not give in to aggressive and disrespectful actions ourselves.''

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/australias-day-of-shame/2434446.aspx

that it's a small leap from international to domestic application.

Sometimes a little fear is a good thing. They've got decades of wrongs to be mad about.

It's really simple. Indigenous Australians are Australian citizens. Asylum seekers aren't. As I said before, indigenous issues and asylum seekers/mandatory detention are two completely different issues...

Fear? I'm pretty sure it wasn't fear driving the window bangers yesterday. Though I guess there's always the fear that the tent embassy doesn't make it into the news much at all nowadays. And any publicity is seen as good publicity by some folk...

I meant its good for the powerful to feel a little fear.

Sorry, but I totally disagree that it's a good thing for Julia Gillard to have been scared yesterday. She had nothing at all to do with what Abbott said, and while there's little daylight between their stances on asylum seekers, there's a vast difference when it comes to indigenous issues....