I’m not sure I get the electoral calculus involved in this candid revelation:
While being grilled by a roomful of young Australians on ABC Television’s Q&A program last night Mr Rudd was asked if he would like to raise the legal drinking age to 21.
“Of course,” was Mr Rudd’s laughing reply.
Okay, there are more over 21 voters than under 21 voters, but the under 21s are voting for the first time. Kevin, do you really want to get them used to voting for your opponents?
Moved On 
Sounds like he wants their sober opinion Jeremy.
You’re assuming all 18-21 year olds disagree, Jeremy
I’ve had that opinion since I was 16. 18 is too young for most things – you don’t really start growing until you’re in your mid-20s.
They can vote but they can’t drink. Yeah, good luck with that.
Isn’t the experience in the US that the policy causes more alcohol-related deaths than if it wasn’t prohibited, because the 18-21 year olds compound the drinking that they do anyway with trying to hide it.
No I agree. Instead of banning perfectly safe things we should educate people on the safe and correct use of them as soon as possible. I realise that alcohol is no good for the growing brains of teens, but neither is salt, or fatty food if not used in moderation.
Kids should be educated by their parents and other adults as to the propper consumption of alcohol.
I would say to my kids, if they were to ask me about drinking, I would say that they should be very careful about doing things that they might regret and doing things that might in the long run cause them to have less self respect and less respect for others than might be the case. The last thing we should say to kids is, `You could never do this or never do that’, because they’ll rightfully say, `Well you did that so you’re a pretty lousy role model’.
However I still think that they should be taught that you can have a beer and not need to have more or get smashed. All the while the teacher keeping in mind that they will over indulge and get hammered anyway.
I’m not sure that that’s what he meant, though. I haven’t watched/heard the actual segment, but (whole segments of) the transcript makes little sense…
This is a beat up.
When Rudd answered “Of course!”, he wasn’t talking about raising the drinking age.
Just before Tony Jones asked, “Would you like to?”, Rudd had said, in reply to a question about raising the drinking age, something like “I don’t have the relevant data at hand to say whether it’s a sensible policy so I can’t really answer you at present”
So Rudd was saying that of course he’d like to answer the question.
Cheers.
Ah duh!!
I should have checked the transcript first.
Here is the exact quote of what Rudd said before Tony asked, “Would you like to?”;
I suggest watching the episode online for further clarification.
That News Ltd. grab is edited to remove the context.
Typical!
Cheers
It’ll be interesting to see if he comes out and “clarifies” it to remove the confusion, or if he’d prefer to leave it as is.
Regardless of what the PM meant/how his words were represented by News ltd, how would such a concept sit with the recent debate about lowering the voting age?
And if the under 21s have the highest rates of drink driving, then surely a better policy response is not to raise the drinking age, but to introduce a zero BAC for that age group?
In Rudd’s explanation, replace “evidence” with “opinion poll” or “focus group results”.
“I don’t have the evidence in front of me to say whether we can or whether we can’t”
Course, I could just be cynical….
I am not sure that the description “being grilled” fits in with the Q&A that I watched.
Questions and audience seemed to be specially selected and questions submitted beforehand.
No questions on Internet Censorship or R18+ rating for “games”. Unlikely from a young Australian audience.
@ Bryan: Absolutely! That’s what struck me about the show – where were the questions on the Fundie Filter?
Mmmm just as I said it would be Luvie.
Rudd had the questions passed through all the filters and you are happy with that.
Of course Abbott wants to advise his daughters and you object and Rudd wants to ban drinking by all Australian youn people and you object not one bit.
Have you read the hard copy WW article yet loe/leo/Leo? No? Then you are blowing it out your arse.
And please address me as ‘confessions’, my screen name is not luvvie as you well know.
It seems everybody kicking up a fuss about this has simply heard “Kevin Rudd want’s to raise the drinking age to 21” and not listened to what he actually said.
We all know it was a Freudian slip from the wowser-in-chief!
Not like that last PM we had. What a kee-raaaazyy party dude he was. And the kids loved him, too.
The last PM was a shocker. Krudd is closing fast, but still has a little way to go to catch up. In the meantime it is amusing to watch him fall apart as people come to understand him better.
He’s got a looong way to go SB, but thats not really saying much.
Rudd is embarrassing, but far less embarrassing than Howard was. He’s a slime sure, but he’s less of one (Tho its getting closer every day.)
In his favour he is not a racist, chicken shit, shrill little coward. (JH might have been politically brave, but he’s a physical coward. It was obvious when he was around people who weren’t and it influenced the way he approached national security and foreign policy.)
Rudd does seem to have less “substance” than his predecessor, but that particular substance was vile so thats maybe not a bad thing.
Not that I watched Q & A. It got so bad (and predictable) last year this year I’m sticking with Dr Who on Monday nights. Especially if Mr Waffle is on.
I’m reading the transcript tho, and if he’s so into evidence based policy, it might be time to crank up the end drug prohibition bandwagon and get it back on the road.
BTW as far as I’m concerned being an Australian Citizen is my right, not a privilege. Any PM that fails to understand that is actually quite a worry.
Let’s face, Howard was no less of a populist, self-important, embarrassing little nerd than Rudd clearly is. But, as jules said, at least Rudd isn’t a racist.
Maybe, like his predecessor, Rudd will be able to coast along for years and years in government, taking advantage of shithouse opposition and placating the masses with tax cuts in each election year – a winning formula for the rodent.
Pity that the much more accurate Women were much better off before the Howard Government would make a Tele reader’s head explode.
Jules by what mechanism do you feel citizenship is your right?
If you are born here I think you might have an argument, but otherwise?????
Wow did you really say that?
I dunno if I actually want to answer leo, cos its my right, its inalienable, and I don’t need to justify it.
But here’s the deal leo. Anyone born in Australia has an inalienable right to citizenship. The state only exists by our forbearance after all. Its not us or the country, just an administrative process we use cos 20 million people is to many to sort things out face to face.
We use the citizenship process to determine who we let live here, as “one of us” cos of its convenience, not cos it holds any real actual moral authority. Once we “let them in” thats it. they are one of us, and the same rules apply cos obviously they have tied their life and their future to this place the way we have.
All this “its a privilege” bullshit is just that, its messing with the very concept, as if some types of citizenship are better than others.
Its a gift, to be one of us, once its given its unconditional.
There were people who were obviously “Australian” (ie they knew nothing else but living here) who were deported cos they didn’t have citizenship under Howard.
Thats where the sort of “citizenship is a privilege” thinking leads us. To that sort of vile policy.
So it doesn’t matter if I was born here or not its my right. If you don’t like it perhaps its you who doesn’t really belong in Australia.
An inalianable RIGHT to be a citizen?
You are absolutely correct up untill you finished “Anyone born in Australia has an inalienable right to citizenship.”
After that—-shite.
We don’t use citizenship to determine who we let live here at all.
The idea that simply inhabiting the place makes you a citizen is – well to be fair – rubbish.
Now that’s not to say that people who arive from over seas should not be afforded the same legal protections that those born here or already here get, but to allow someone full citizenship simply because they are here is not on.
You’re assuming that simply being here means that they have a tie to the place. You could not be more wrong if you intended to be wrong.
Australia might, as in many (and ever increasing) current cases, simply the safest place that will take you(or the first). You might be here to work, study, play sport or simply bum around. What right, inalianable or otherwise, do you think you have to determine anything about the future of this country and the people here?
I have great sympathy and admiration for people who have actually chosen Australia to live in. They do so out of chouce rather than an accident of their birth like me. Good on them and the more the merrier, but you need to make a commitment and not simply be in occupation of some of the space, in order to be concidered a citizen.
I agree it is a gift, to be one of us, and thus a privilage to be given that gift. We should be able to decide who we extend that gift to.
NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO A GIFT.
Your assertion that citizens have been deported is make believe. If you truely think that you are deluded and I’ll simply need to forgive the wrong view on that basis that you can’t think clearly.
If you think you have the right to what you agree is a gift, you’re simply one of those people who believe that the world owes you something and that’s complete and utter crap.
Maybe we are arguing at cross purposes about different things. I never said that just being in Australia was enough for citizenship. I said once its granted its there its not some conditional thing, and in fact the citizenship laws have changed over history and the last 5 years to reflect that. Turning around and saying “Its a privilege we let you stay here” with its unspoken “so if you don’t like you can fuck of to where you came from” is not only nasty oppressive behaviour, its morally weak and shows you don’t understand the concept.
Perhaps you are one of these people that think the Australian state has some sort of moral authority or divine right to exist. Really its just a mechanism to keep enabling colonialism, and the people who actually care about this place, the big chunk of earth we call Australia, belong to that chunk of earth not the state.
You might care about the state more, I dunno.
“The idea that simply inhabiting the place makes you a citizen is – well to be fair – rubbish.”
Ha whatever.
Thats the whole point about getting citizenship when you are born there. Because you inhabit the place you are a citizen.
“If you think you have the right to what you agree is a gift, you’re simply one of those people who believe that the world owes you something and that’s complete and utter crap.”
Life’s a gift and because of that I have certain inalienable rights. Including the right to life … a gift… and because of that the world doesn’t owe me a living.
I am quite capable of providing for myself (See I can hunt, trap, fish, grow stuff, and gather food from the wild. I know enough about “bush medecine and first aid and all that. I know how to provide shelter for myself and my family, and can build it in hours. Of course the state lays this grid of crap over the top that interferes with that, so in fact it does owe me something if it wants me to allow it to continue to exist.
Just like it owes all of us.
“I have great sympathy and admiration for people who have actually chosen Australia to live in. They do so out of chouce rather than an accident of their birth like me. Good on them and the more the merrier, but you need to make a commitment and not simply be in occupation of some of the space, in order to be concidered a citizen.”
Again you have misread what I said. Or are making assumptions about things I didn’t say.
To be clear, when I said:
“Once we “let them in” thats it.”
I was referring to allowing them citizenship. But I spose you could include people who have lived here for over 7 years, maybe 10 or 15 in that, citizens or not…
“Your assertion that citizens have been deported is make believe. If you truely think that you are deluded and I’ll simply need to forgive the wrong view on that basis that you can’t think clearly.”
I said Australians, not citizens.
One example, that hopeless junky whose parents arrived here when he was two. He was from some Balkan nation I think. He only speaks English (with an ocker accent), spent the entire period of his life as a conscious human in Australia, then got locked up and deported afterward.
Why? – cos although he was naturalised he wasn’t a citizen.
The guy obviously thinks of himself as Australian (he only speaks english and only remembers living here) its the only culture he knows, and sure enough he may have been a fuck up, but he was our fuck up. Till some fuckhead decided to deport him.
That sort of thing happened alot under the Howard government. For all I know it still does.
You can argue he wasn’t a citizen and got what he deserved.
I say he was an Australian regardless and what happened should shame us all.
The voting age should be raised, and the right to vote should be a privilege bestowed only on those who complete 12 months of Civic National Service.
jules
You have a very misguided and unattractive understanding of ‘citizenship’ and ‘rights’
“I said Australians, not citizens.”
Not a citizen = not an Australian.
If you want to be here as a permanent resident, but not make the formal commitment of citizenship, then you can’t call yourself or be concidered an Australian.
“……….spent the entire period of his life as a conscious human in Australia”
LMAO!
You think that a “hopeless junky ” is a good conscious Australian?
Again – if you are not a citizen then why not?
What’s holding these people back? As you said, it is a gift. One we extend freely to anyone who wants to take it up. You have to ask why this bloke never bothered.
I will argue that he was not an Australian. I further argue that that was by choice. His choice not ours.
He also chose to be a fuckup hopeless junky and that’s his shame and not ours.
Right, that’s enough of this. How is this Australian citizenship argument in any way related to my post? Get back on topic.
It actually stemmed from a comment Rudd made during Q and A.
But I’ll leave it till a more appropriate time.
I liked it when Rudd asked for a show of hands on who would like the drinking age raised, and the host made a jab at him about “policy by popularity.” Here was me thinking that was called “democracy!”
What a great many die-hard Labor supporters still don’t get was something I warned them about before the election. There were people like Guy Rundle and those over at LP who were rhapsodizing that a revolution of progressive social legislation was going to wash over the nation and purge us of Howard. But I could tell and I warned them that Rudd would prove to be the most conservative, most wowserish, and most authoritarian PM Australia had ever had.
Next to Rudd, Howard was a mix of Madonna and Keith Richards! 🙂