Hollywood comes to The Rescue

Lord of The Rings star Hugo Weaving joined Whispers on the floor of the Teacher's Federation Theatre  in Surry Hills at a rally by the Friends of the ABC to protest funding cuts to the national broadcaster. Under the current conservative government over $300M this year alone has been slashed from the ABC budget by PM Malcolm Turnbull leading to the loss of 800 jobs (despite promising no cuts previously).

It was standing (or seated on the floor) room only as Weaving spread his legs out to enthusiastically applaud the various speakers. They included top selling author  Tom Keneally of Schindler's List fame, Magda Szubanski, star of the ABC'S Kath & Kim and "red" Kerry O'Brien , the retired broadcaster who fronted the 7.30 Report and 4 Corners for many years.

Kerry O'Brien, Magda Szubanski and Tom Keneally at the Save the ABC Rally

Often criticized as being too "left wing" O'Brien read out many of the 100s of letters he would receive after hosting ABC political broadcasts during election days. Most attacked him as being too favourable to the Liberal Party and too tough on the Labor Party.
Szubanski compared the recent same sex marriage survey that found a 62% positive result for LGBT marriage rights with the Aussie public and quoted credible surveys that say 68% of Australians love their ABC.
One speaker pointed out that after slashing ABC TV & radio broadcasts to our South Pacific neighbours which received audiences the UK's BBC would envy,  China has quickly filled the void snapping up 300 of the Australian broadcast wavelengths and now dominate our nearest neighbours.
The rally, which was followed by one in Melbourne and will be repeated around the country are in response to a recent Liberal Party conference where delegates voted to privatize the ABC.

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Out and about canvassing today in the Longman bi-election with the Labor Party candidate Susan Lamb was Hollywood star Danny Glover.
Glover is making quite a splash around Australia and appears to have become an activist for several local matters including Indigenous affairs.

She's back !

How pleasing to see our favorite chanteuse and actress Maria Venuti made it to the Bong Bong Picnic Races this week. Maria suffered a stroke earlier this year after she found a stranger in her living room. But she's looking much better and as always, larger than life. Maria is pictured here with two Southern Highlands' residents broadcaster Alan Jones and the always stylish Glen Marie Frost.

There was a time when the Picnic Races had to be cancelled for a number of years due to the attendees imbibing just a little too much in alcoholic refreshments and basically running amok. Now they have returned to calmer times and really are a wonderful day out in a superb location.

Noticeable attendees: broadcaster Alan Jones who tends to be to the right of politics but his new friendship with the former Australian Labor Party candidate for Prime Minister Mark Latham has taken on all the attributes of a bromance. Latham seems to have veered to the right at a rapid pace and now writes for the right-wing website Rebel Media and when he's not castigating "snowflakes" he's cosying up to that Milo character or getting stuck into former Labor colleagues like ex-PM Kevin Rudd and former NSW premier Kristina Keneally who has a real chance of picking up the Bennelong seat in the upcoming by-election which could put Labor in power and PM Malcolm Turnbull out.

We digress: Latham and Jones have teamed up to give the world just what it needs- another cookbook as Mark tweeted with the accompanying photo : "Here we are in the kitchen enjoying the great story about Alan's sultana scone recipe. One of many cracking recipes to feature in the book.'
We can't wait.

The Wit & Wisdom of Eddie Obeid

The family companies may be feeling the pinch- son Moses Obeid looks set to lose the lease of the Rushcutters Bay Marina, but our favourite ex-Labor Power Broker & ICAC witness Eddie Obeid retains his sense of humour.
As the Shuttle revealed in LatteLife Newspaper , if Eddie were to face again any sort of formal tribunal, he has a 6'4" transvestite nephew who once belonged to the legendary Sydney drag troupe, Sylvia & The Synthetics who is very fond of his uncle. Said nephew is itching to turn up in short black dress, huge sunnies and a large picture hat to lend support to Eddie.
We digress : Mr Obied has been tweeting lately his views, not only one of Sydney's top nosheries but shows he also has a cracking sense of humour as you can see in his second tweet.

Shuttle history on sale

A photograph taken by a Social Shuttle contributor is for sale on Ebay and currently stands at $660  $810. It's a snap of former Prime Minsters Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke with the then Labor Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and it's signed by all four leaders. 25 signed copies were produced and many have re-sold for much higher sums
You can bid here : http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=261277166245

and so it comes to pass..

     3 months ago tSS predicted then Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull would either start a new political party or defect to Labor if he lost a leadership battle.

     Today he has announced he will cross the floor on a crucial vote on climate change proposals, defying his leader Tony 'Mad Monk' Abbott. Abbott's climate policies will turn out to be a lame duck mess when examined in full (and when he actually decides what they are). They'll receive as much impact as when he recently announced viginity was a virtue before marriage. Thousands of teens yawned , looked mildly bemused and went on rutting as before.

It has begun.

        The Liberal / National Party Coalition shot themselves in the foot when they booted Turnbull. The  Rhodes scholar, ex-merchant banker, barrister and Kerry Packer adviser has notched up bigger scalps than the current PM Kevin Rudd.

         He took on Margaret Thatcher's government when they tried to ban the memoirs of ex MI5 spy Peter Wright and his SpyCatcher book. Turnbull trounced them in the English courts. Turnbull succeeded in the Maralinga nuclear fallout trial in Britain when he led the cause for compensation for indigenous people whose lands had been bombed relentlessly by British nuclear testing in the 1950's. A few weeks after the testing ended in 1961 some signs were stuck about the sacred Aboriginal lands warning of the potential radium fallout-written in English.

     When a reluctant former PM John Howard added Turnbull to his ministry he consistently ignored Malcolm's advice. With home ownership stretching beyond the grasp of thousands of Aussie families, Turnbull introduced radical proposals for mass housing programs based on age old European and British housing societies that had served those communities so well for decades. They were ignored.

     5 years ago at a political party function tSS told Turnbull his dreams would be dashed by joining the Liberal Party. His natural home was the centre left Labor Party that would leap upon his obvious talents.

      While political pundits and timeservers on daily newspapers delight in a brief re-surgence in the Coalition's poll fortunes they ignore the quickly shifting populace that is Turnbull's constituency that no longer takes in just the well-heeled Eastern Suburbs of Sydney that house the richest in the nation, but also now include working class areas and the gay and lesbian conclaves of the inner city. Turnbull scraped in at the last election when a blue ribbon Liberal seat began turning left. Malcolm has less than 12 months before a general election to do the obvious-switch parties if he wants to retain his Wentworth seat or just leave. The line of succession has already been decreed. Rudd will serve as PM until 2015 after he increases his majority next year, wins a further election and then hands over to the first female Oz PM, Julia Gillard.

       It is then Turnbull will be in a commanding position if he joins Labor now. As it is, he is a dead man walking as is the entire Coalition for at least 10 years.

       Why will they not listen ?

# fact: Turnbull's cousin is the British actress Angela Lansbury

# fact 2. The British Maralinga tests make Australia the most nuclear bombed country on the planet with 21 major devices and many smaller ones exploded. Some areas are still contaminated.

# fact 3 'Maralinga' is an ancient Aboriginal word for "field of thunder".

# check out:  Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians

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Update : Crikey has done a round-up of various political writer's views on Malcolm Turnbull's speech in Parliament on climate change. Most agree his views were presented with more conviction than PM Kevin Rudd's. Has Turnbull singled the first move in a tactic that would see him placed in a powerful position and having a direct influence on whoever governs ?. The Demcrats under Don Chipp dominated in the Upper House for decades when they held the balance of power with just a handful of senators with both main political parties negotiating deals . The Greens under Bob Brown have almost claimed that position but a small break-away Senate party could scupper their plans and Turnbull with just 2 other Senators could become kingmaker.

Malcolm Turnbull has a fortune estimated at $100M. He is only interested in politics for one reason-to affect change. You read it here first.

"a legend like a character out of central casting.."

   Bob & Blanche Hawke                                                                Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

That's how Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described former PM Bob Hawke when I asked him for a comment tonight about the great Labor Party hero at his 80th birthday party. I think it was meant as a compliment. He added " I'm pleased he got to 80 and I hope he's around for another 20 years". I expect Bob thinks likewise.

150 of the faithful had gathered at Guillaume at Bennelong restaurant at the Sydney Opera House to toast the Golden Bodgie. Hawkie looked his best, resplendent in black tie and his silver mane had never glowed so glossily..
             There were a series of endless toasts from Labor luminaries and a recorded messages from Bill Clinton and golfer Greg Norman plus a live hook-up to former British PM Tony Blair who all sung Hawke's praises. And there were 2 billionaire widows in the room-Kerry Packer's widow Ros and Jeanne, the wife of the late Dick Pratt  who both proclaimed words along the lines of "Bob was good to us when he was in power". Well yes, quite.

Advertising guru John Singleton who masterminded Hawke's 3 election wins said "Hawke would still be PM today if it hadn't been for events"-possibly a gibe at that other Labor PM Paul Keating who had unseated Hawke in a party room spill. Keating sat looking stoney faced.
          
Handel's Messiah may have been thrilling a packed Concert Hall in the main body of the Opera House but this was after all, a celebration for the party of the working man so what could be more appropriate than a stripper gram. One with a difference-a slim female in a mask of Hawke's great adversary, recently trashed PM John Howard . She girated bizarley and slowly stripped. That was enough for tSS-we left just as Bob and Blanche-B1 & B2 were about to cut Bob's birthday cake-a giant golf ball !

John Singleton's squeeze Yvette Hartman in Versace



                                                                        


                                                                         Paul Keating

If striptease is your thing, check out Johnny Howard / Gypsy Rose Lee here
( warning -may offend  )