Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s Victorian seat of Kooyong could fall to an independent, a new poll shows.The UComms poll of 847 residents conducted on April 12 found independent candidate Monique Ryan held a 59 to 41 per cent two-party preferred lead over Mr Frydenberg in the inner-Melbourne electorate.The poll also showed a 44 per cent disapproval rating for Mr Frydenberg’s record as local MP and a 57.2 per cent disapproval rating of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Apparently, it’s better, according to The Age, to have a bunch of irresponsible bullshit artists, self-interested hoons, and money wasters running the nation than a responsible team that still believes in negotiation, compromise, and service in running and not owning this country. The showman is more important than the job at hand. That’s not journalism. That’s not evaluating anything other than personalities,and paying no attention to the job that needs to be done. That’s evaluating the past three years, and asking whether any real changes are required and will be made moving forward. If so, who is better, more reliable, and more trusted to implement them. The clown or the dour leader of a real team who aren;t merely raiding the country to fill their own pockets. We aren’t in need of an overcharged spruiker, entertainer and distraction, we have had one for three years.
There is a path out of the opposition trenches, but the ALP will have to change their strategy to achieve it.
Source: Election 2022: Albanese has five weeks to combat Labor’s biggest challenge
What we don’t care about according to the LNP and MSM.
It seems the most extraordinary story: Seven Coalition MPs on the record “have hit back at criticism of Scott Morrison’s broken promise to deliver a federal ICAC, declaring voters aren’t raising the corruption commission”. It also seems like a story successfully promoted by “Coalition sources”. To paraphrase, “the punters don’t care about integrity in government, so we don’t need to”. As far as excuses go for not delivering the integrity commission promised four years ago, it is pathetically, miserably, depressingly weak, albeit still better than Scott Morrison’s actual excuse: “It’s Labor’s fault.”
Source: Michael Pascoe: The election campaign is silent on the biggest issues
Undoubtedly, as most of you are users of various platforms of social media you may well have encountered from time to time the hashtags #ThisIsNotJournalism and #MediaBias.
Finally, these are the key facts of the 2022 Federal Election which have either not been properly reported by our media, or totally forgotten in relation to Morrison Government:
This is not an exhaustive list of the matters the media should be extensively covering regarding the Morrison Government, being the worst government in our history which is also being presided over by our worst Prime Minister, but it sure would be a good start for the media to focus on these issues, and Labor’s policy announcements, if we wish to see some ‘balance’ in coverage of the 2022 Federal Election.
We are witnessing media bias in the 2022 Federal Election campaign, and it certainly isn’t journalism.
Last week, the first week of the election campaign was dominated by Albo’s gaffe. It was a bit of a shocker, to be sure, but hardly deserving of blanket coverage when the Morrison campaign was flat-out pork barrelling with the taxes of ordinary Australians, simply buying votes with somebody else’s money. And what of the straight out lies, that the subsidies for logging companies would bring about 73,000 jobs, or that – having sold the Port of Darwin to the Chinese on a 100 year lease for just $510m – it was a good idea to build another port for $1.5bn with no consulting engineers or financial modellers involved to assure us it was even feasible. ABC has little choice but to listen to what people are saying on social media, not spurn it. Elitism will only ruin their credibility. That means recognising that its corporate media peers are institutionally biased and driven by commercial and political agendas. In other words, they will have to do their own work, ignore the clickbait. It won’t be easy. Who has really been lobotomised here?
America’s Republicans adapted and politicized CRT to have it removed from their school’s curriculums. The LNP in Australia does the same simply playing Simon Says or Monkey see monkey does and have attempted to do the same. Tudge and now Robert LNP are also trying to change the educational course of Australian history and racially mythologize it. However, their effort in “cancelling culture” has been totally forgotten over the course of this 2022 Election
Because Black history is the history of America. We are witnessing a unique and horrible phenomenon: the total denial of the story of American colonialism and the importance and horrors of the slave trade. The Republican party has made a decision that white children and youth ( who seem to be the only children and youth they care at all about) are not to be exposed to any materials that might make them aware that our ancestors were not models of moral perfection- they might feel a twinge of discomfort, or maybe even question the racism that is the Republican daily diet.
If you think these A-holes aren’t in it just for the money think again.
Facing multiple defamation lawsuits, the far-right website InfoWars on Sunday voluntarily filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Texas.
Source: Far-right InfoWars website files for bankruptcy protection | US news | The Guardian
Julia Banks tells a different story. “It was the three months of Morrison’s leadership that … was definitely the most gut-wrenching, distressing period of my entire career.” Morrison an advocate for women? It’s risible and – as The Monthly’s Rachel Withers notes, it’s insulting to women. “The claim is laughable. If there’s anyone Morrison was trying to save it was factional consigliore Alex Hawke (Evangelical) in the seat of Mitchell, and his overarching aim was to maintain control of the numbers in the party. At the end of the day, the only person Scott Morrison truly stands up for is Scott Morrison.”
Source: A Tinpot Dictator? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Conservatives Reversed and polluted the term WOKE as they did Racism Climate. They said White Lives Matter too, Heterosexuality matters as well, that Women are Misandrists, Poverty is the fault of the poor, not the system, and in the case of the failure to set up an ICAC, it’s their opposition’s fault. They claim Morrison hasn’t been able to rule the nation because the opposition does.
No, what Morrison is actually saying is “Australia isn’t a Democracy” ” It’s My Way or the Highway” There is no place for an opposition in Australia no place for Democracy in his church. He is the voice an Autocrat an evangelistic pastor of Australia. .
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he will only introduce his highly criticised model for a federal anti-corruption body if Labor promises to let it through parliament unchanged.
Source: Scott Morrison refuses to budge on Labor backing anti-corruption model
From Murdoch whose organization was busted bugging the phones of dead girls, celebrities, and politicians comes an Easter Gift. Yes, Murdoch who pretended to be old, without memory, sick, and frail like Alan Bond trying not to be jailed. That same sleezy Murdoch who sacrificed his staff and a major paper to flee to America. Today’s Murdoch Putin’s ally in Russia and the enemy of Democracy in the US. Is now playing the 5th columnist in Australia’s 2022 election despite despite the fact that Scott Morrison is a leader he doesn’t like because he can rid us of him later.
For most, Easter is a time for rest and renewal. For Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp it is a time to keep shaking the pom-poms for the Coalition and thrashing Labor. At least Nine’s mastheads SMH and Age ran on the Coalition’s mega-pork this morning; some $55bn in public money being spayed about to buy votes. For their Murdoch peers in the media duopoly, there was no such attempt at balance; they were still pinning their ears back with inflated claims, “Labor’s jobs plan to cost billions”. Like their fallacious Darwin Port and Tasmanian loggers coverage this week, the fear-mongering over jobs was not based on any substance. Substance is not their strongest suit. Going into week two of the campaign, Albo’s starts again with the large handicap of a Coalition-subservient media cheering on incumbent Scott Morrison.
Source: News Corp’s Easter Albo shellacking – Michael West Media
Yet again the world is amazed at the degree to which Democracy has been blindsided by the media in Australia. Murdoch, Costello and Stokes leave little room for Democracy. If Morrison wins the ABC will be shut down not just watered down like it has been. Morrison didn’t just “host” the media at that very private function he celebrated and gifted them. Skye & News Corp are sponsoring the First Debate on Wednesday with a panel led by Paul Murray immediately after. Hardly a balanced program for those watching a more than challenging one for Albanese which he has already lost.
We must note the Prime Minister and his Government, beleaguered by poor performance and mismanagement, is still in contention this election because of Australia’s media coverage.
Source: Media sets up protective barrier to seal Morrison’s victory
This Captain pick’s and narrows the once Broad and Liberal Church, the pride of John Howard, for a much narrower one. One filled with evangilists, bigots, and hate dividing Christians for the votes of a few extremist cults like QAnon. They are happily trampling on the lives of some trans-children’s hope.
“I don’t share Matt’s view. I share Tony Abott’s view,” Morrison said. “I’m not joining that pile on. Others may wish to, who fundamentally are seeking for her [Deves] not to be there. I suspect because they don’t like some of the things she’s talking about when it comes to women and girls and sport.”
The Australian Electoral Commission and Facebook have voiced alarm at a bubbling campaign from minor party candidates raising baseless claims about election fraud or ballots being altered, warning of “dangerous” voter integrity misinformation being imported from the United States.
Currently, the LNP in Australia is importing their ideas from the US Republicans who have given up on the great experiment of Democracy. We have seen their Australian clones adopt a carbon copy of the culture wars from U.S. From rumblings that the election is being “rigged” to multiculturalism being the scourge that’s dividing this nation from a mythical and heroic one they claim once united us. The increasing drift to the right is taking us away from from a representative Democracy and driving us towards Mussolini’s dream of a Corporate State and in the long term to the death of the Liberal-National Coalition as a political party. Their current short-term agendas carries with them the long-term consequences of the board taking over the company..
“Overall, Greene’s position within the Republican party seems secure. That’s partly because the Republican leadership is surely aware that most of the energy and activism in conservatism is in the far-right wing that stands behind Greene. In fact, Greene is the poster child of a rising group of rightwing radicals: in Congress, she likes to present herself and like-minded allies such as representatives Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz as the future of the Republican party, and they aren’t shy about their intention to purge whatever vestiges of “moderate” conservatism might still exist within the Republican party.”
Source: Historian Explains Why Far-right Extremists Are the Future of the GOP | The Smirking Chimp
This however does not suggest that opposition to the State of Israel is anti- Semitic or anti-Judaic
Many Christians of varying denominations regard their faith as having developed from Jesus’s rejection of Judaism. But Jesus was a faithful Jew who respected and protected Jewish traditions, practices and laws. The belief that Christianity replaced or supplanted Judaism is known as Christian supersessionism. Christian supersessionism has not only fed into negative perceptions of Jews and Judaism since antiquity, but has also incited violence against Jews. Historically, Christian anti-Jewish sentiment often became especially pronounced when Christians observed Holy Week, the week commemorating the time leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. As Amy-Jill Levine, a leading professor of New Testament and Jewish studies, writes, “every time the Passion narratives are read, the threat of anti-Judaism reappears.”
Source: How misreadings of the Christian Gospels fuel anti-Judaism and Ignore Jesus’ Jewishness
We are currently witnessing WW3 with Putin the world’s Megalomaniac having lit the fuse.
Lviv: Russia’s defence ministry has ordered the last Ukrainian defenders left in Mariupol to surrender at dawn in order to save their lives.
Source: Russia-Ukraine war: Russia orders Mariupol’s last defenders to surrender or die
How many Liberals does it take to change their leader when the decision making structure of the party has swung Right? More than dozen members in this current parliament seem to have decided that Morrison wasn’t suitable and resigned? Liberals across Australia and particularly in Morrisons State of NSW are abandoning the Party like never before. Religious groups aren’t run on Democratic principles and Morrison and neither is the Liberal Party any longer.
Morrison is a diehard Pentacostalist Brian Houston his mentor and more than anyone else Morrison has introduced its evangelical leadership style and principles into our political debate and he did it from the get go declaring us to be a Christian Nation.
Like Trump he’s applied “captain’s picks” to this election not representative ones. Liberals are abandoning their membership of the party the way Republicans are in the U.S because of the abandonment of Democracy and rising Autocracy. However, in their abandonment they’re handing it to Evangelicals who have foregone belief in Seperation of Powers the very core of a Multicultural Democratic State. It’s those very fanatics Morrison appoints and appeals to like Deves in Warringah. He supports those against LGBTQIs and specifically Trans. His Religious Discrimination Bill is a fight back against Marriage Equality, the role of women and their place in society has been noted Jen his role model. The very notion of trickle down goodness and Charity from the top rather than politically driven, demanding progressive change has been crystal clear.
Morrison is a cultist who believes he’s a member of an elect. He’d rule with a stick if he could and did when he was given charge of Immigration. Unfortunately Morrison’s isn’t enlightened or a member of an elect and his efforts like most cultists leads back to darker times and a trend we are witnessing globally built more on faith than rationality.
At a media conference this week at the start of the current election campaign, Morrison said: “It’s not a popularity test. You go to the dentist. It doesn’t matter if you like him or not, or like her or not. But you want to know that they’re good at their job.” But if you go to the dentist and they’re bad at their job, you find another dentist. One who is good at their job. And a good leader of their team. A person you can trust.
Source: Julia Banks: When voting for ‘the devil you know’ isn’t good enough
However, when one Party hosts private events for the media the odds become stacked as to who is controlling and focussing the “gotchas”
My thought for the day The right to vote in an election is the gift that democracy gives. Therefore, it is incumbent on the voter to have a rudimentary understanding of politics and take an interest in the political landscape. ( John Lord)
Source: This will be a ‘gotcha’ campaign – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Isn’t integrity what underpins all governments and elections?
The Liberal leader Scott Morrison’s comments this week ramp this up as a key question for the 2022 federal poll. He promised before the last election to introduce an integrity commission and he has not done that. Now he is trying to blame Labor for the broken election promise. Integrity underpins every other promise made – by everyone vying for government.
In the eyes of the world Australia has slid on the Corruption Index. In the eyes of Morrison ICAC spells FEAR
Scott Morrison appears to be fearful of the prospect of a federal integrity commission conducting investigations, the former barrister for NSW’s anti-corruption agency says. The Prime Minister pledged to voters before the last election to establish a Commonwealth integrity commission during the most recent Parliament, but never did.
Source: ‘Scared’ Morrison dumped corruption commission: ICAC counsel
Andrew Bolt cries blue murder at the ABC’s bias against the LNP
Leigh Sales questioning Adam Bandt’s 6% tax increase for billionaires with the retort that the ultra-rich will be less inclined to give charitably is way off the mark.
Source: Leigh Sales parrots ultra-rich narrative – Michael West Media
In response to Labor Senator Tim Ayres’ questions, a First Assistant Secretary in PM&C Department, John Reid, stated that he believed the Australian Future Leaders Program did not yet have a physical office, phone number, website, nor had it employed any staff.
Source: Federal Government faces pressure over $18 million charity funding
Australia also supported the slaughter of a Million Indonesians in the overthrow of Soekarno in the 60s and swept it under the carpet.
A key ally of Suharto at the time, the Australian government helped do Indonesia’s bidding. Among other things, this meant criticizing Australian activists who relayed stories of starvation, cruelty, and murder following East Timor’s annexation. One of these activists, Peter Job, has since pored over declassified documents proving that Australian politicians and civil servants lied to the public while helping to facilitate some of the worst atrocities of the Suharto regime. He spoke to Jacobin about his research, and his recent book, A Narrative of Denial: Australia and the Indonesian Violation of East Timor.
Source: Australia Helped Indonesia Cover Up Atrocities in East Timor
Israeli occupation forces attacked Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, wounding more than 150 Palestinians while it was filled with Ramadan worshippers on one of the holiest days in the Islamic calendar.
Source: Israel terrorizes Ramadan worshippers at al-Aqsa mosque | The Electronic Intifada
Julia Davis of The Daily Beast flagged this amusing clip of Russia’s Kremlin-backed news trying to make sense of the sinking of their warship. In bizarre fashion, one pundit called for all-out war with Ukraine over the incident (as if their ‘Special Operation’ is nothing), with strikes on Kyiv (which they’ve already done), and with the host stating that Russia is now at war with NATO and that World War III is here. All a bit surreal. One wonders what ordinary Russians make of this foolishness?
Source: Kremlin TV Freaks Out Over Sinking Of The Moskva | Crooks and Liars
The T
The Promise and the Bubble: I’ll sign a Stat Dec
However, before he signs his statutory declaration to say he didn’t do what he likely did, he should consider the fact that accusations against him are not malicious, bitter slurs or in any way offensive if they are true. Now Morrison says the only reason he would be required to sign a statutory declaration is if a court ordered him to do so.
Conclusion: You Are What You Do The current government has a tenuous relationship with integrity. Morrison could not lie straight in bed, as his remarks on the campaign trail referenced above suggest. As Senator Wells said ‘the fish stinks from the head’. The refusal to introduce a federal corruption watchdog, along with the terrible arguments against it, speaks volumes about the Morrison Government. This cabal of (allegedly) corrupt corporate criminals must be removed and a powerful, retrospective, non-partisan watchdog introduced.
Source: Integrity Bites: Attack of The Independents – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Change of wording applied here to the wording of Morrison’s associated media, who reported Rachelle Miller as giving the Government “permission” rather than “challenging the government to release the full and truthful account of her case by dropping the NDA which Morrison was hiding behind. Will Morrison now oblige us and have the truth and information released or will he keep it unavailable?
Lawyers for Miller say the former Coalition staffer wishes to remove ‘any impediment’ preventing the PM giving a ‘full and truthful account’ of her case
It’s no longer “what can we do for you, but what you can do for us in terms of $$$? In the end many of these announced promises will simply go the way of vanashing bubbles even if the LNP government wins. Morrison has been only doing one thing for the past 3 years,and that’s rehearsing the reselling of his massively expensive waste. It’s like a replay of Sunset Boulevarde “Action Lights your on Scotty” with not a voter invited on to his very “on set party” for the crew.
The system under which billions of dollars of grants are handed out to communities across Australia is irretrievably broken. There’s no other conclusion to be drawn from the figures compiled by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that, grant by grant, electorate by electorate, show a community’s ranking on the electoral pendulum dictates its financial support.
Source: Government grants: A broken system failing every taxpayer
Lovely! the SMH, AFR, The Australian, Age and the Murdoch tabloids are all running with a story about Scott Morrison forking out $220m in grants to chop down trees. 73,000 jobs they reckon!
You know who I am I’m forever blowing bubbles Morrison
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has “let her rip” on the pristine native forests of Tasmania today. It was his “This is coal” moment for another dying industry. Former Greens leader, farmer and 40 year logging activist Christine Milne explores the government’s latest bizarre and destructive pork barrel.
Morrison hosts his “unnamed” team of supportive churnalists at his secret and and very private “free drinks party”. Bussed them in and got busted by an electorate ” local voter” who he called a “trespassing ALP apparatchik”. The pitbull came out and Morrison bared his teeth, called the AFP and demanded some action. However the voter was deemed legal and innocent of everything and Morrison like bullies simply “over reacted” giving the game away, displaying yet again his true nature.
For the sake of impartiality, the media must extricate itself from the vortex of the Prime Minister’s “influence”, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson. On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Scott Morrison hosted a private drinks party for select journalists covering the election campaign. The party was held in a pub in Penrith, and the journalists were bussed to the venue. We only know this because an uninvited young man, Adisen Wright, gate-crashed the party and filmed his encounter with Scott and later the AFP.
Source: At Morrison’s media party, there’s no such thing as a ‘free’ drink
The marriage of Oligarchs and power isn’t just a Russian story. Sanction Australia’s Oligarchs and watch the LNP crumble.
Some of Russia’s richest and most powerful men have been described as oligarchs. But what does the term really mean and why is the West so fascinated with them?
Yes, another Morrison Promise in action, The bubble that is fast failing to materialise into little more than a vacuous announcement..
Ukrainians who have come to Australia after fleeing their war-torn country have found themselves stuck in limbo without access to Medicare or the right to work due to restrictions on their visitor visas (subclass 600). Advertisement Displaced Ukrainians are waiting for the federal government to grant temporary humanitarian visas (subclass 786), which would allow holders to work, study and access Medicare for three years. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke announced on 20 March plans to make the visa available, but it still hasn’t come to fruition, meaning displaced Ukrainians have been completely dependant on not-for-profits for food and accommodation since their arrival.
Source: Displaced Ukrainians stuck without access to Medicare, rental assistance | SBS News
Even Noam Chomsky, while more viscerally critical of the invasion—he called it “a major war crime, ranking alongside the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland in September 1939”—then proceeded to speak all about NATO, endorsing someone else’s claim that “there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion” of NATO. Once again, Putin appears here as almost helpless, apparently left no other choice but to invade Ukraine in trying to defend Russia.
Almost no one on the left has supported the war. But saying “Down with the Russian invasion” and then turning immediately to blaming America, and only America, for provoking it is almost the same. Not only does it show a lack of basic understanding about Russia, it is also a stunning betrayal of the most basic internationalist principles. If we want to support the right of self-determination to America’s neighbors, we can’t deny the same to Russia’s. If we’re not able to recognize multiple imperialisms, we are guilty of the same kind of Americocentrism for which we castigate others.
Source: The Left has to Recognize Russian Imperialism in Ukraine or it is Trapped in Americocentrism
Russia claims an “Own Goal” or self inflicted “accident” Ukraine a “successful misslle strike”
Russia says the flagship of its Black Sea fleet was seriously damaged and its crew evacuated following a fire that caused an explosion, while Ukraine insists the vessel was hit by missiles. The incident on the Moskva missile cruiser occurred after ammunition on board blew up, the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian defence ministry as saying. “As the result of a fire on the Moskva missile cruiser, ammunition detonated,” it said in a statement. Russia said the 500-strong crew was all evacuated.
Source: Russian Black Sea fleet takes massive hit in Ukraine attack
I have never seen a Prime Minister have so many people from their own party so disappointed with them like I am witnessing with Mr Morrison, and I have been following Australian politics since 1975. I wrote to the Prime Minister by email on Friday, 8 April 2022 in which I not only asserted he was unfit to hold office, and to immediately call an election, but I also raised these points about Mr Towke’s interview with Mr Aly of The Project on 6 April 2022 which Mr Morrison has not answered:
Bye Bye ICAC Bye Bye
Scott Morrison has effectively abandoned his promise to establish a federal anti-corruption watchdog, confirming he would only proceed with legislation in the new parliament if Labor agreed to pass the Coalition’s heavily criticised proposal without amendments.
Morrison has simply brought
1) Nope Nope Nope to describe his LNP Government in that if you don’t agree with him and everything he demands nothing will get done. More over it’s your opposition that’s at fault. How childish and Trump is that?
2) There is no room for Representative Democracy with an LNP government lead by Scott Morrison. Negotiation and compromise are a weakness and he couldn’t give a running fuck if 60% of the nation don’t vote for him.
3) His LNP isn’t interested in passing any bills to improve the country moving forward. Yhat suggests a compromise. Julia Gillard did that, and almost set a record on the number of bills passed. A seemingly Kumbyiah record, according to Morrison. It represented weakness, and loss of leadership in the country. Did Brian Houston ask his followers for advice? He had strength, and conviction in doing nothing about his father’s pedophelia. According to Morrison doing nothing is a sign of strength and he has done a lot of that. Like burying many reports that came back negative The Prayer Room, Tudge, Higgins and should we go on?
Once again demonstrating the chutzpah and audaciousness that has come to frame his style when under pressure, Morrison denied that he had broken a promise and blamed Labor for its lack of delivery. Yes, the opposition. Yes, I know they are not in power, but he said it’s their fault we don’t have one because they would not vote for the government’s model.
During his time in power, Morrison has received relentless barrages in social media and punditry circles for having problems with misogyny, women, empathy, integrity and understanding climate change. He has been awarded such titles as “Scotty from Marketing”, drawn from his time as a failed marketer. He leads a government that is one of the most corrupt and authoritarian in recent memory, scarred by waste, venality and an accomplished stupidity verging on the moronic.
After 26 years in parliament, including a stellar economic record in government, we should know all we need to know about Albo. After all, Morrison’s one term as prime minister has given us more than enough cause to vote his Government out.
Source: 7 crucial things ‘we know’ about Scott Morrison that we ‘don’t’ about Albo
If you think being on the campaign trail with Prime Minister Scott Morrison means meeting real voters, think again. Mr Morrison has sewn safety harnesses, thrown basketballs and inspected native timber. But he has so far mostly avoided the activity you would think took precedence in a re-election campaign: meeting voters.
Source: Election 2022: What it’s like to be among Scott Morrison’s media pack
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