Category: Informed Comment

History tells us that it’s hard to believe him – » The Australian Independent Media Network

We have to thank Andrew Bolt for giving this embarassment more air to the detriment of himself and Gerard Henderson neither of whom laid a glove on Bolt’s media nemesis Waleed Aly. Who was invited to NZ unlike them (ODT)

My interpretation of Henderson’s words was that Aly had no right to question Morrison simply because he was the Prime Minister and he should have more respect.

Was Aly supposed to concede that politicians are the citadels of all knowledge?

Aly is an author, journalist, newspaper columnist, radio and television presenter, lawyer, academic, guitarist, songwriter and thinker.

Scott Morrison is the Prime Minister of Australia has a BSc (Honour’s) from Sydney University.

Central to Aly’s criticism was the proposition that Scott Morrison had, at a shadow cabinet meeting in 2010 “urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns” about Muslims and appeal to the public perception of their “inability to integrate”

This followed his questioning in the same month after forty-eight asylum seekers died in the Christmas Island boat disaster. In February 2011, Morrison publicly questioned the decision of the Gillard Labor government to pay for the relatives of the victims to travel to funerals in Sydney, arguing that the same privilege was not extended to Australian citizens.

After fellow Liberal and shadow treasurer Joe Hockey disagreed with Morrison’s statements, Morrison said that the timing of his comments was insensitive, but did not back away from the comments themselves.

via History tells us that it’s hard to believe him – » The Australian Independent Media Network

What Ashby and Dickson want us to believe – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Ther was amajor Qatari investment partnership with Rupert Murdoch is Ashby pointin fingers at him too? oh Dear!! How almighty crumble. (ODT)

Firstly, we are supposed to believe that the Qatari government have launched a three-year sting operation employing spies to influence the elections in Australia and, in order to exert influence over our government, they sought out James Ashby.

Sorry James, but that’s narcissism on steroids. As if the Qatari government has ever heard of you and as if One Nation will ever have any actual influence over government in this country. You can’t keep a Senator long enough for them to even get letterhead printed at the exorbitant rates you charge for your monopoly on One Nation printing business.

via What Ashby and Dickson want us to believe – » The Australian Independent Media Network

It’s Mueller time but don’t forget: Trump has undermined the very idea of America | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian

The White House at dusk on Friday, after Robert Mueller handed in his report.

Trump and his propaganda machine at Fox News have so aggressively undermined the legitimacy of Robert Mueller’s inquiry – repeatedly conjuring a “witch hunt” and maintaining a drumbeat of “no collusion” – that Mueller’s report, whatever it shows, will almost surely be overwhelmed by a fog of alt-interpretation and epistemological confusion. What’s “collusion?” What’s illegal? What’s unethical? Has Trump been vindicated or not?

The real danger is that as attention inevitably turns to the 2020 campaign, controversy over the Mueller report will obscure the far more basic issues of Trump’s competence and character.

An American president is not just the chief executive of the United States, and the office he (eventually she) holds is not just a bully pulpit to advance policy ideas. He is also a moral leader, and the office is a moral pulpit invested with meaning about the common good.

It’s Mueller time but don’t forget: Trump has undermined the very idea of America | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian

It’s everyone else’s fault says Barnaby – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via It’s everyone else’s fault says Barnaby – » The Australian Independent Media Network

What It Takes To Win A Landslide | Crooks and Liars

What It Takes To Win A Landslide

Why they need Michelle (ODT)

What It Takes To Win A Landslide | Crooks and Liars

Sociopathy as Strength: The Modern Right – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Sociopathy is a broad term that refers to various personality defects. In this instance, I am using the term in the popular sense to mean one who is devoid of empathy for their fellow humans. The resultant lack of empathy often leads to cruelty. This has largely been the approach of right wing governments over the decades. Instead of taking a compassionate and humanistic approach to the issues of the day, the right demands conformity. Indeed, conformity is the price for safety.

As examples of the ostracism principle, consider how Trump treats anyone who looks at him sideways. Alternatively, consider Morrison’s or Canavan’s response to the protesting climate kids. Even if brownshirts do not yet exist and our so-called leaders are not yet actual fascists, they are hardline ideologues who are about using fear to control the population. We will keep you safe from this thing over which we keep stoking fear. Don’t believe me? Let us take a look back.

Compassion is not weakness, and we need to stop viewing in this way. It is possible for humanity to do better than this. We need to stop seeing governmental sociopathy as strength. Rather, we need to see it for what it is: vindictive cruelty designed to maximise fear, breed conformity and maintain the current power structure.

Sociopathy as Strength: The Modern Right – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Collective culpability – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Where is the collective culpability for encouraging an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust where raids on suspects’ houses are televised before they have even been charged with anything?

Where is the admission that collectively blaming all Muslims for the acts of a few has promoted fear and hatred?

Where is the acceptance that conflating asylum seekers with criminals is dogwhistling?

Wasn’t me, says Scott. They love me. I even went on a walk with some Muslim boys once.

Scott says he has led by example and that he has set the tone.

The tragedy is that he is right about that – and look at what has happened.

via Collective culpability – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Killing the innocents and other misdemeanours – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via Killing the innocents and other misdemeanours – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The Nation

White Supremacy in Australia Set the Stage for the Christchurch Massacre
The mainstreaming of hate has become routine, in both the media and politics.
Antony Loewenstein

via The Nation

Greg Hunt’s assurances mean fuck all – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Perhaps in preparation for threatened defamation action against Waleed Aly for reminding us of the reports of Scott Morrison suggesting the Liberal Party should capitalise on community concerns about the inability of Muslims to integrate, Peter Dutton and Greg Hunt have lined up to deny it ever happened.

Dutton and Hunt had in their mind that they would be PM and Deputy leader last August. Both have been censured for their disrespect for the legal system. They have no loyalty, no honesty, no integrity – just naked ambition.

If they are the best you can come up with to provide alibis/cover/character reference, then you are stuffed.

via Greg Hunt’s assurances mean fuck all – » The Australian Independent Media Network

We need to talk about Australian Conservatives – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Our founder, Senator Cory Bernardi, has been a regular critic of Islam, including here calling on Muslims to ‘reject, refute and reform’ Islam, and here where he called out the error of Britain’s migration program accepting Islamic migrants.

One question states that “some have attributed the migration of people of Islamic belief to terror attacks in Australia and abroad” and asks people for their view. In an obvious attempt to solicit negative responses, other questions included, “What is your view on the practice of sharia law in Australia?” and, “What is your view on the Islamic practice of allowing men to marry girls who are under the legal age of sexual consent?”

Bernardi defended the timing of the survey saying “We’re not politicising anything, we’re trying to decide what the Australian people want.”

Far from an innocent information gathering exercise, the very format was intended to offend.

via We need to talk about Australian Conservatives – » The Australian Independent Media Network

How to fix our democracy (Part 1) – » The Australian Independent Media Network

An observation

Lying in the media is wrong at any time however when they do it by deliberate omission it is even more so. Murdoch’s papers seem to do it with impunity.

via How to fix our democracy (Part 1) – » The Australian Independent Media Network

He Who Must Not Be Named… No, Not ScoMo… Well, him too, but the other one! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Of course, I did delete a certain senior politician’s name from a recent piece that I wrote. Apparently, the PM’s office got all hot and bothered when Waleed Aly suggested in a response to Christchurch something that was widely reported in 2011 and threatened defamation action.

A rather interesting response, given Scott didn’t threaten to react so litigously when it was reported way back in 2011. I guess it was different then. It wasn’t being said by a Muslim.

via He Who Must Not Be Named… No, Not ScoMo… Well, him too, but the other one! – » The Australian Independent Media Network

What Liberals really think – » The Australian Independent Media Network

“The party is now characterised by disunity and disloyalty, by tribalism, not by principle or policy but by personal interests – not even party interests and certainly not the national interest.

Despite what they claim, few who stand as Liberals come with a genuine policy agenda or commitment. Their end game is simply to be a politician, or a minister, or even prime minister. Not necessarily to achieve anything in particular – just to be there, and to enjoy the trappings of the position.

via What Liberals really think – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan Blasts The Media For Lopsided Coverage Of Islamic Terrorism | Crooks and Liars

“it is easy to condemn the far right nut case,” but dealing with the “soil and what’s been created, the culture of demonization, of fear, of incitement from main stream columnists, pundits, TV hosts, and politicians” is another matter entirely.

We have been conditioned to believe that a terrorist attack is only an attack carried out by a brown dude with a beard shouting something in Arabic.

Of course, statistics show otherwise. The ADL says three-quarters of terrorist deaths in the United States over the past decade were carried out by far right domestic white nationalist terrorists, a quarter by Muslims.

Can we say that the media coverage of terrorism in this country is 75 percent white nationalists, 25 percent Islamic terrorists? In face, Georgia State University did a study. They found that a Muslim terrorist gets four and a half times as much coverage of his crimes as a non-Muslim terrorist. Four and a half times.

a non-Muslim terrorist has to kill, on average, seven people more than a Muslim terrorist to get equal coverage, as a Muslim terrorist. That’s a hashtag media fail. And I’m always reminded of that old viral tweet that terrorism is one of the only areas where white people do most of the work and get none of the credit.

Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan Blasts The Media For Lopsided Coverage Of Islamic Terrorism | Crooks and Liars

America’s Economy Is Rigged From Top to Bottom

The children of working stiffs learned a brutal lesson this week as federal prosecutors criminally charged rich people with buying admission to elite universities for their less-than-stellar children.

The lesson is that no matter how hard you work, no matter how smart or talented you are, a dumb, lazy rich kid is going to beat you.

via America’s Economy Is Rigged From Top to Bottom

What’s the matter with kids today? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Other than in the headline I have managed not to use the word “kids”. I tried not to do so because it would insult the adult behaviour shown by them during the Climate Strike. Frankly, I don’t give a flying pig if they stayed away from school to give their protest its full weight.

via What’s the matter with kids today? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

If Australia is to move forward, we must dump the Howard legacy – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The fact that the Liberal Party consider John Howard some sort of elder statesman with great knowledge to impart, the fact that they wheel him out every election like he has some relevance to the contemporary electorate, shows just how bereft of ideas they are.

The blame for pretty much every problem we have can be sheeted squarely at the feet of the Howard era, exacerbated by his disciple, Tony Abbott.

via If Australia is to move forward, we must dump the Howard legacy – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Freedom of Speech: An Insidious Monster – » The Australian Independent Media Network

After the New Zealand Terrorist attack, it is evident that every single politician who does not show democratic leadership to unite us and instead plays to the politics of fear and division will soon learn the transactional cost at the ballot box in May. We will no longer tolerate divisive politicians.

Furthermore, many suggest that Bill Shorten will become our next Prime Minister. Bill Shorten stands out head and shoulders as a leader who does seek to unite us. The current Government has a sordid history of politics of fear and division, particularly the Prime Minister. It is clear that Bill Shorten will be the next Prime Minister of Australia.

Bill Shorten, you have a huge responsibility ahead of you. Huge. You need to lead the way and be the voice that will be the emotional contagion to drive the eradication of stigmatisation, discrimination and racist culture in this country.

Bill Shorten – All eyes are on you.

via Freedom of Speech: An Insidious Monster – » The Australian Independent Media Network

An election that’s also about our restoring our democracy – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via An election that’s also about our restoring our democracy – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Respect – » The Australian Independent Media Network

I wrote the following:

I have continued learning throughout life, from a maths degree at 21 to a law degree at 71, with other qualifications including a Masters in between. I have been a teacher (and even an insurance representative) as well as a lawyer and a mediator and have raised 3 children who are also all well-qualified.

In this process I have met thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds and believe I have earned respect from most of them.

But I do not think I would survive in the doghouse which is occupied by our politicians. They lack respect for others, they are too often inflexible, and, clearly, too many of them are there for their own benefit not ours.

via Respect – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Their lying has its roots in the gutter. – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via Their lying has its roots in the gutter. – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison: their achievements (Part two) – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison: their achievements (Part two) – » The Australian Independent Media Network

When the wealth of the few is more important than the well-being of the many – » The Australian Independent Media Network

It also ignores Labor’s proposed income tax cuts which would see everyone who earns less than $125,000 a year – that is, most Australians – hundreds of dollars a year better off compared to what the Coalition is offering.

Coalition policies got the budget in trouble in the first place.  They facilitate tax avoidance by those who can most afford to contribute at the expense of government services and payments to those who can least afford to pay.

If you call that success, then you patently care more about the wealth of the few than the well-being of the many.

via When the wealth of the few is more important than the well-being of the many – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Donald Trump tells a fake American story. We must tell the real one | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian

 

Trump wants us to believe he’s the Triumphant Individual. But in fact he’s a conman who inherited his wealth

The second tale is the Benevolent Community – neighbors and friends who pitch in for the common good.

The third tale is the Mob at the Gates – threatening forces beyond our borders. Daniel Boone fought Indians, described then in racist terms as savages. Davy Crockett battled Mexicans.

The fourth and final tale is The Rot at the Top. It’s about the malevolence of powerful elites – their corruption and irresponsibility, and tendency to conspire against the rest of us.

But the real Rot at the Top consists of concentrated wealth and power to a degree this nation hasn’t witnessed since the late 19th century. Billionaires, powerful corporations, and Wall Street have gained control over much of our economy and political system, padding their nests with special tax breaks and corporate welfare while holding down the wages of average workers.

In this, the rich have been helped by Republicans in Congress and the White House whose guiding ideology seems less capitalism than cronyism, as shown time and again through legislative and regulatory gifts to big pharma, Wall Street, big oil and coal, big agriculture and giant military contractors.

via Donald Trump tells a fake American story. We must tell the real one | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian

Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison: their achievements (Part one) – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison: their achievements (Part one) – » The Australian Independent Media Network

They lie to each other so why on earth would we trust them to tell us the truth? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via They lie to each other so why on earth would we trust them to tell us the truth? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

‘Numerous jobs and professions will change’: up to six million could be lost from automation

via ‘Numerous jobs and professions will change’: up to six million could be lost from automation

The massive cultural shift Scott Morrison is in danger of missing

This might sound reassuring. But I suspect that it, too, risks running foul of prevailing sentiment. Our country is waking up to the fact that, over a very long period, many people have lost, so that others can get ahead. Bank profits, the protection of the church’s reputation, money made by polluting industries, the extraction of valuable minerals from land inhabited by Indigenous people, the incredible wealth enjoyed by some individuals – these successes have come at great cost, to a great many people. Those people know what is important, and are tired of being asked to look away.

via The massive cultural shift Scott Morrison is in danger of missing

Truthdigger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New Face of the Democratic Party

Image: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comic book

She seems determined to remember her roots, and, more importantly, use them as the foundation for policies that will work for the majority of Americans, not the elite few who have made their fortunes off the backs of the most vulnerable members of our society. To say she is the breath of fresh green air the Democratic Party desperately needs is an understatement.

For her progressive, feminist and courageous work, which we hope she’ll keep up, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is our Truthdigger of the Month.

via Truthdigger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New Face of the Democratic Party

This government makes no sense – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Biggest Problem is if you don’t vote for Morrison your voting to make Tony Abbott opposition leader. It’s our responsibility and the only argument we have to struggle with (ODT)

Tony Abbott came to power offering a paid parental leave plan designed to encourage “women of calibre” to breed and then return to the workforce. Not only was that abandoned, those women of calibre were now “double dippers” rorting the system and their existing entitlements were reduced.

After a tortuous process, marriage discrimination was ended – praise be. But then we have an inquiry to work out how churches can ignore the law and continue to discriminate against gays.

The community and the majority of the parliament decide we have an obligation to provide medical care for seriously ill refugees under our care (I still can’t believe that is something they had to actually debate). So people who are traumatised by being incarcerated with no hope on an island gulag will be shifted to another island gulag with no hope of any future and the promise of being sent back should they get well.

It seems the government’s only clear purpose at the moment is to use its few remaining months to reward as many fellow political travellers as they can with high-paying appointments and to secure employment for themselves post-politics.

via This government makes no sense – » The Australian Independent Media Network

It’s anything but normal governance from a bunch of incompetents – » The Australian Independent Media Network

This Government’s performance over its time in office has been like a daily shower of offensiveness raining down on society. Surely management or indeed, lack of it must mean something.

All of this just goes to prove how out of touch the LNP Government is when it comes to the mood and expectations of the people they serve. However, it is also most unusual to have gathered together in the one place at the one time such an astonishingly well-educated group who has not a clue on how to govern. All in all it stinks with the stench of privilege.

via It’s anything but normal governance from a bunch of incompetents – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Nothing underlines white privilege more than the government’s reaction to child sex abuse – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Nothing underlines white privilege more than the government’s reaction to child sex abuse.

When allegations of paedophilia rings and child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory were made, the government sent in the army, stripped people of their rights, and made draconian rules affecting whole communities.

When allegations of child sex abuse were made about children in offshore detention, the government attacked those making the allegations.

When rampant child sex abuse in the Catholic Church was exposed, former Prime Ministers lined up to provide character references for the offenders.

via Nothing underlines white privilege more than the government’s reaction to child sex abuse – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Australia’s three million forgotten voters

Image result for Image Duncan Storrar

Threat Labour can’t ignore advice from Duncan Storrar(ODT)

This is the biggest threat to our democracy.

Everybody thinks Clive Palmer’s texts are silly but where I live they get traction as he is reaching out. His message is a lie but it makes sense to the poor in Whittington, in Geelong and in Corio. We never see most politicians where I live.

But we do have people like the Blair Cottrell crew coming here doing yard maintenance setting up youth groups because they see us as a force to power. Nobody else sees us. This terrifies me. The message they sell is bought here by the masses.

The fact that both the main parties don’t want to deal with poverty will be their demise. So I cry for the poor of this country as we get ignored and used as pawns once again.

The politics in my neighbourhood is all about the Far Right. As nobody in power cares, I fear it will be too late by the time the political class notice that the Far Right is forming an army down here. Their message sells because the Coalition Government and the Labor Party has forgotten us.

And as somebody living in this horrible Great Depression-style poverty that political classes choose for us, I don’t want to live where being like me is dangerous because the Far Right has a foot-hold in my suburb.

via Australia’s three million forgotten voters

Will George Pell go to jail?

via Will George Pell go to jail?

Coalition unveils its emissions reduction strategy – increase the population – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Minister for down down prices are down, Angus Taylor, proudly boasted on The Project (kinda, cause I’m guessing he knows what a con this is) that emissions per capita are at their lowest level in 28 years. That is true. Not because emissions have come down but because the population has increased by over 2 million between September 2013 and now.

via Coalition unveils its emissions reduction strategy – increase the population – » The Australian Independent Media Network

‘You’re fired!’ America has already terminated Trump | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian

Donald Trump delivers his “You’re fired!” catchphrase at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire in 2015.

via ‘You’re fired!’ America has already terminated Trump | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian

Better economic managers?  You gotta be shitting me – » The Australian Independent Media Network

According to just about every journalist, commentator, and Liberal/National politician, the Coalition are better economic managers.

Crap.

Pretty much every problem we have can be laid squarely at their feet.

via Better economic managers?  You gotta be shitting me – » The Australian Independent Media Network

How Kushner and other Key Trump Officials Plotted to Give Saudis the Atom Bomb in Return for Billions

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform has issued a Report on a plot to make billions of dollars by selling Saudi Arabia sensitive American nuclear technology that could allow the Kingdom to develop nuclear weapons. The scheme required breaking US law, which forbids technology transfers that might allow nuclear proliferation.

This scheme is the ultimate in criminality, where US government resources (remember the Manhattan project?) are given away to another government by the white collar criminals now running the US government so that they can scoop up private massive fortunes rivaling those of the richest persons in the world such as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

 

via How Kushner and other Key Trump Officials Plotted to Give Saudis the Atom Bomb in Return for Billions

Gifts bestowed by the ruling elite – » The Australian Independent Media Network

From the second the Coalition formed government, they have been using their position to shower largesse on themselves, their friends and donors.

The tone was set when George Brandis gifted a patently unqualified Tim Wilson a job at the Australian Human Rights Commission, a position Wilson gleefully accepted despite having called for the body to be abolished. The job wasn’t advertised because there was no vacancy. The disability sector lost an outstanding advocate in Graeme Innes to make way for freedom boy so he could increase his profile while he waited for Andrew Robb to retire from the plum Liberal seat of Goldstein.

via Gifts bestowed by the ruling elite – » The Australian Independent Media Network

From the Northern Beaches of Sydney to the Northern Beaches of George Town, Cayman Islands – Michael West

Barack Obama once described it as “either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world”. That was in 2009. The building was Ugland House in George Town on the Caribbean island of Gran Cayman.

Ugland House was then home to 18,857 corporations. And Ugland House is soon to be home to another one, along with the profits of 43 Australian hospitals, unless Treasurer Josh Frydenberg blocks the deal on grounds of national interest.

No sooner had the Northern Beaches Hospital in Sydney been built at a cost of $2 billion to taxpayers, its operator Healthscope opted to sell it, along with another 42 Australian hospitals also subsidised by taxpayers, to a shadowy group which has a large presence in tax havens.

via From the Northern Beaches of Sydney to the Northern Beaches of George Town, Cayman Islands – Michael West

The staggering cost of defending incompetence – » The Australian Independent Media Network

When it was revealed last year that taxpayers had shelled out more than $825 million on lawyers in 2016-17, Attorney-General Christian Porter said he was “taking a particular interest in the expenditure of funds on legal services, applying very close scrutiny to each and every application that comes before me for approval.”

That being the case, one wonders how he can justify approving over $288,000 in legal costs (so far) for Michaelia Cash when all she has done is provide the police with a copy of Hansard and then turn up for one day in court to say “refer to what I said in Hansard”.

Cash is not facing any charges, she was merely a witness who had nothing to say. So why does she need a defence team?

via The staggering cost of defending incompetence – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Our government has turned ‘ministerial responsibility’ on its head

There was a time, unimaginable now, when a cabinet minister and his wife were found by a customs officer to be carrying in their luggage a stuffed Paddington Bear when they arrived in Australia after an overseas trip.The toy, upon which duty was payable, did not appear on the minister’s custom’s declaration.And so Mick Young, minister for state in Bob Hawke’s government, stood aside from the frontbench while the matter was investigated.Peter Dutton, Michaelia Cash, Tim Wilson and Mathias Cormann.Peter Dutton, Michaelia Cash, Tim Wilson and Mathias Cormann.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen, AAPIt was 1984, Hawke, just a year into his administration, wanted no more scandal, and Young’s sacrifice was disproportionate to the crime.AdvertisementIt was, however, a memorable example of the concept of a minister taking responsibility for impropriety, even if it was inadvertent.Illustration: John Howard tried early in his term and lost seven ministers in less than a year for various sins relating to conflicts of interest and expenses and travel rorts.The current Australian government, however, has turned the concept on its head.With fast-gathering regularity, ministerial responsibility appears to have all but decayed to no responsibility.Daily now the nation is assaulted by revelations of conduct that would get the cold shoulder in a shearer’s pub.

Our government has turned ‘ministerial responsibility’ on its head

Ambassador Joe Hockey helps out travel firm

All in house and the Finance Minister ” forgot” to check who paid for his “private” travel arrangements. Lets not forget what happened to Peter Slipper for $900 (ODT)

Australia’s US ambassador, Joe Hockey, asked embassy staff to meet with a corporate travel company before it lobbied for government work, even though the former treasurer is close friends with the company’s chief executive and now a big shareholder.

In April 2017, Mr Hockey told Washington embassy staff to meet with an executive from Helloworld, the listed travel services company managed by Andrew Burnes, Mr Hockey’s good friend and federal Liberal Party treasurer.

The meeting in Washington in April 26, 2017 was arranged after Mr Burnes contacted Mr Hockey. The company’s 2017 annual report shows Mr Hockey is one of Helloworld’s 20 largest shareholders, with a stake now worth more than $1.3 million.

Senator Cormann admitted getting Mr Burnes to book family trips for him on three separate occasions, with the July 2017 Singapore booking, worth more than $2700, made just weeks before Helloworld was announced as the winner of a Finance Department tender to oversee $1 billion in federal government flight and accommodation spending.

via Ambassador Joe Hockey helps out travel firm

Politicians create problems rather than solve them – » The Australian Independent Media Network

If politicians had the strength to do what is right, we could make this world a far better place. Instead, we are subjected to lying, mealy mouthed excuses. endless arguments about ridiculous trivialities, and empty egotistical posturing.

We are led by politicians who are more scared of losing an election than of wrongly sending us to war or of the consequences of ignoring climate change.

You aren’t a “strong leader” Scott. You are an empty blowhard on the make who doesn’t have the ability or the courage to solve anything.

via Politicians create problems rather than solve them – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Economy, corruption and democracy, Coalition style

They all downgraded Australia badly during the two years Tony Abbott led the Coalition Government starting in late 2013. That will be no shock to those who have followed Abbott’s dismal 25-year parliamentary career. What may surprise is that nothing much improved under his immediate successor Malcolm Turnbull. Nor under the latest Coalition work experience prime minister Scott Morrison.

via Economy, corruption and democracy, Coalition style

Grattan on Friday: What does “reopening” Christmas Island actually mean and why do it?

The Liberals think anything to do with “boats” is lethal for Labor; the ALP believe community attitudes have changed but is very apprehensive about how the debate would go if boats showed up.

No question, this is rocky for Bill Shorten. The government attack is ferocious, full of exaggeration and scaremongering.

Indeed. So which un-nuanced Morrison message will the smugglers hear? That the policy has been trashed – or that the borders are being fortified?

There is also the danger, which some critics have highlighted, that in its rhetoric about numerous alleged criminals on Nauru and Manus, the government could make the US more reluctant to take people (it has only accepted 456 so far – the deal was up to 1,250).

Grattan on Friday: What does “reopening” Christmas Island actually mean and why do it?

The Immigration Flip-Flop Heard Round The World

The Immigration Flip-Flop Heard Round The World. 63408.jpeg

via The Immigration Flip-Flop Heard Round The World

There are better ways to “stop the boats” than by destroying people’s lives – » The Australian Independent Media Network

via There are better ways to “stop the boats” than by destroying people’s lives – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Trump offers socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian

‘America will never be a socialist country,’ Trump said in his State of the Union address.

To a conservative mind, socialism is getting something for nothing. Yet this is what the president promotes for the wealthy

via Trump offers socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian