THE REAL OPPOSITION: Vic Liberals greet a public service chock full of inner-city Greens, lefties and GetUp! members

Former umbrella importer Michael Kapel is fighting an apparently successful rear-guard action to hang on to his Chief of Staff job to incoming Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu.

There is extensive chatter though still about the position with Petro Georgiou still rumoured by some to be considering taking it. Others say party director and healer Tony Nutt would be a better choice.

Kapel is considered to be keen on lobbying and would be in a very strong position to do that having won the unwinnable poll. But he’s making it clear, he’s not being squeezed out, while Kapel is considered a divisive figure in party circles, his reputation has been greatly enchanced – as it often is – by simply winning.

Some believe that Baillieu is considering immediately axing the head of the Department of Premier and Cabinet Helen Silver – a John Brumby acolyte and close former NAB colleague of Brumby COS Dan O’Brien – and replacing her with Petro Georgiou so he can embark on a review of the public service which many Liberals believe is dominated by Greens voters, lefties and those with “alternate lifestyles”. While Petro might have some sympathy for these chaps on human rights issues, he would be an effective pursuer of those who would disagree with many Liberal policies and ensure the public service was on board.

The head of Treasury and Finance Grant Hehir, also a dinner-party lefty and one-time campus socialist, was all but publicly warned by incoming Treasurer Kim Wells to get with the programme or get out. It was an unsubtle effort and reflects the Libs desire to make sure everyone realises that a changing of the guard has occurred.

Jim Betts at the Department of Transport was thought to be so hopeless as to be deserving to be the first candidate for euthanasia under a Greens party plan to kill frail befuddled oldies.

They would do well to remember an anecdote one Labor right-winger in Brunswick once told VEXNEWS that when he was handing out HTVs at the federal election at his local booth, the Greens party volunteer was chatting with the GetUp! volunteer both effectively urging a vote for the Greens and both chatting up a storm.

At one point the Green said to the GetUp, “I really think I know you from somewhere” and Ms GetUp responded, “Yeah, where do you work?” and the Green said “DPC (Department of Premier and Cabinet) and GetUp said “Yeh, me too. What section?” And so on.

The bloke telling us the story had more chance of walking on the moon than scoring a job at DPC. Labor was not very good at putting party people into the public service, it had a strong aversion to The Age tut-tutting about it but that didn’t stop a rampaging cultural leftism in the public service that will be Ted Baillieu’s first serious challenge. Many of the public service regarded Brumby as horribly right-wing and most Labor moderate staffers as a menace to be obstructed, avoided and – at best – placated. It will be amusing to see how the deal with right-wing hard-head ministers like Robert Clark, Michael O’Brien and upper house leadership aspirant Matthew Guy.

Even though there’s a whole Department of Sustainability and Environment, for example, in the Department of Premier there is an Office of Climate Change with dozens of very well paid staff churning through millions a year. Efforts by Labor patriots to abolish the thing were unsuccessful. Perhaps retro Petro will have more luck. DSE itself is regarded also as a law unto itself, stacked to the rafters with vegan Greens and nasty nay-saying leftistes.

Get to work Red Ted, you have defeated Labor but now the real enemy awaits you.

GET SQUARE TIME: Labor has won the battle against the Greens but are they willing to wage the war?

The bursting of the Greens party balloon at this election gave many Liberal and Labor patriots more pleasure than they thought they could have with their clothes on.

It was a delicious failing at so many levels.

The collapse in their support from published polls and the federal vote was important.

But much more important was the lesson the Liberals learned at this election.

They learned that while 10% or so of the population really like the Greens party, 90% of people hate them, many, like us perhaps, passionately so.

The reaction from Liberal party branch members, volunteers and voters to Baillieu’s decision to put the Greens last was stunning.

He turned many doubters into grudging admirers. Us included.

It was his finest moment not just of his campaign but of his political life. Finally, he stood for something.

And while it was a no-brainer, looking back, now the same issue faces Labor. Particularly its idealist do-gooder Left faction.

They need to make a strategic decision about the Greens party.

Their current non-decision is a decision to fail, to be gradually stripped of support and seats in inner-city Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and even Hobart.

We see that they have two options: appeasement or total war.

Appeasement might involve a coalition arrangement. A deal where Labor agrees not to compete against the Greens actively in federal seats like Melbourne and its state equivalents in return for the Greens preferences or agreeing to stop constantly calling Labor corrupt, unethical sell-outs or an old party or whatever other filth they have devised.

Needless to say we think that’s a flawed strategy because it would provide the Greens party a platform from which to build and continue their virulently anti-Labor programme.

It’s also a flawed strategy because cost-of-living is the single biggest political opportunity and threat in Australian politics right now. Any association with the Greens party – take noted PM Gillard – is going to be toxic as people struggle to make ends meet.

The Greens party rhetoric is that they want a “price on carbon.” That means higher electricity prices. And higher prices therefore for everything else.

If Labor associates with that, or implements any of it, they are dead politically in our view. Carbon emission reduction solutions that make working people pay more for electricity and force more and more families into fuel poverty is contrary to everything Labor says it’s about.

As Tony Abbott cycles around he must feel like he’s riding to victory if Labor is intent on cosying up to the Greens in such a self-destructive way.

The other option is total war.

Total war against a party that – after all – says it wants to “replace” Labor “bastards.”

Total war isn’t just about putting the Greens last with the important symbolism that involves.

It’s about distinguishing Labor from the Greens on policy and ensuring Labor puts working people first not the passionate views of academics and those who can afford to be Green.

It’s also about confronting the obscene rort that allows “environmental groups” that enjoy the same tax status as the Salvos and Red Cross to campaign like political parties complete with How To Vote Cards, political campaigning and sometimes viciously anti-Labor rhetoric. Many of these Greens front-groups employ Greens candidates and provide shock-troops who have regular anti-Labor protests outside Labor MP’s electorate offices. Some of them urged voters to “put Labor last”. Some followed Labor candidate street-stalls around and made noisy rackets outside local campaign launches.

These “environmental” Greens party front-groups enjoy many tens of millions of dollars of donations that are deducted by rich enviro-donors from their tax returns; they are therefore funded with taxpayers’ money.

We are told Treasurer Peter Costello nearly shut this rort down but did not properly pursue it.

Labor also has to re-engage in the inner-city and treat these seats like the marginal seats they now are. Many – even in the tormented Labor Left – are already there. They know the Greens policies offer only pain to the most vulnerable in the community and to most working families. Greens big spending will create big taxes on those who can’t afford it. Greens climate taxes could make life a living hell for those who can’t afford aircon and heating. Greens candidates are invariably frauds who denounce coal as an evil “dirty” fuel while many have cashed in on the whole mining caper, as we regularly exposed during the campaign.

Both the Coalition and Labor need to have a good, long look at public funding of political parties and ask why they are perpetuating a per vote funding system that has done much to support the Italian-style fragmentation of our once stable two-party system.

Voting systems that support maniacs like Stephen Mayne being elected with 1% of the vote in an electorate also need to be reviewed. Governments should be able to govern, the idea that Mayne would have a veto power on their every decision is frightening for all of us, even the 3000 odd-bods who voted for a man whose every public pronouncement about transparency and accountability has been undermined by his private deeds on the Manningham council where we understand he has actively opposed measures consistent with good corporate governance, has recently threatened critics with defamation proceedings, engages in serial defamation of respected community groups (usually Chinese ones who endure his racist wrath)  and routinely brings the local council into disrepute (according to the CEO who regularly reprimands him) by attacking his colleagues in the local press or in one of his bizarre email rants.

Many believe Mayne – who has the morals of an alley cat on heat – will attempt to parlay his potential balance-of-power upper-house seat into a Liberal preselection somewhere. He is believed to have talked with powerful Liberal ethnic warlord Nick Kotsiras about the possibility already.

Many Liberals hate Mayne because of his ratting on the previous Liberal government but that was then and this is now. If they need his vote, and he’s half as corrupt as we believe, then doing a bit of business to have a working majority in the upper house could be good sport. We digress.

The other vital area of stitching up the Greens is establishing an Office of Parliamentary Budget which would be used to cost the policies of all the parties. How it would work is still a matter for debate and every Opposition would need to be assured of absolute secrecy in the costings process. The Greens party – very strangely – supports this despite its current policy of making outrageous, extravagant and vague commitments on revenue and spending that would – once costed – leave even the most vegan, nimby climate doomster gasping in shock at their irresponsibility and profligacy.

No doubt the Labor Left will devise extra methods of torturing them. They can be a cruel group once crossed. When they had VEXNEWS in their sights, we often had occasion to do a quick body check for little red lights from a nearby Kim Carr sniper.

Now they have an enemy sworn to destroy them rather than just rile them a bit. The Greens party lie about most things but not about that. Their intention is clear and it is advertised. They seek to “replace” Labor “bastards” because they say Labor is unethical and immoral. They say they are pure and wholly virtuous but when most of their candidates are found to have links with multi-national coal-mining concerns or mining boom property development or many other things they routinely condemn, it’s the Greens who have been left looking like absolute frauds.

Labor’s response needs to be carefully considered. And debated in full public view. Debated not just in the Prime Minister’s office and the back-rooms but in the democratic forums of their party. Those who’ve spent months campaigning against the Greens need little persuasion. They’ve been called crooks by hippies just once too often. But there’ll be many more people still attracted by the extreme-left policies and cunning marketing of the Greens, to say nothing of their preferences in marginal seats.

But Greens party boss Bob Brown – the oldest political party leader in the nation – has already indicated that the days of Labor getting Greens party preferences are numbered.

So there’s really very little left in it for Labor. They can attempt appeasement or attempt to consign the Greens party to the micro-party dustbin of history alongside One Nation, the Australian Democrats et al.

Their future is in their hands.

COST OF LIVING CRISIS: Solomon Lew's online tax push would punish consumers and be politically lethal for the federal government

Billionaire retailers Solomon Lew and Gerry Harvey have greatly enriched themselves by importing billions of dollars of foreign-made clothing, toys and plasma screens to flog in their stores.

The Australian retail sector is enormous, estimated to be a nearly $300 billion industry.

The Maybach-driving Lew reckons that the industry is under threat because of online sales where he says consumers buy around $1 billion a month worth of goods.

He told ABC Lateline:

TICKY FULLERTON: We talked about electronic goods, but of course the other threat in your industry is the rise of online retail, isn’t it?

SOLOMON LEW: Yes, well the online situation is growing. And you know, if the numbers that we’re hearing are correct, it’s very, very worrying.
The numbers currently being put out are that approximately a billion dollars a month is going offshore.
Now, that billion dollars a month is doing nothing for Australia. There is no Australian suppliers that are involved, there is no Australian labour that’s involved.

Of course, this nationalist call would make more sense if he wasn’t pretty much exclusively selling imported goods himself.

And guided by ex Simon Crean Chief of Staff and spinner Michael McLeod, he offers a bit of a fear campaign as well:

And if the Government doesn’t do anything about it, you will see that there will be reduced hours that the shopkeepers and their employees will be working. There will be less manufacturing going on, there will be less in the logistics and there’ll be less in the services. So there’s a real fear that this business could grow and it will hurt the Australian economy overall.

Lew has made a huge amount of money not only from selling imported goods but also buying monopoly exclusive distribution rights to things like clothing brands, toys and housewares. That whole model is also under threat because people can often find a bigger range at better prices online. Mums across the nation – who are internet savvy and well-organised – get organised usually quite early in the year to buy toys they know their kids want but know are in short supply here or are much cheaper online. The parcels arrive, get hidden and wrapped in time to delight the little tikes on Christmas Day.

That’s really his issue with online sales. It’s a huge threat to his 1960s style business model from which he has done so well where companies like his added healthy margins to imported goods before selling them to retailers. Lew – used to being the master of his own universe – is now much more easily avoided by price-conscious consumers.

So what he wants is for the federal government to punish online shoppers by discouraging them with the inevitable delays and extra costs that imposing a new tax on their spending when they buy from overseas. It would require a huge staff to collect too, ripping open every little parcel of the latest Ben10 and Dora the Explorer merchandise and levying the correct amount of tax from somebody (presumably the consumer although it’s not explained how this would be collected).

With cost of living emerging as an incredibly sensitive political issue – and clearly the biggest opportunity for a resurgent federal Coalition – the Commonwealth government couldn’t be so silly to attack consumers in this way, could they?