Saturday 27 February 2016 Never in the history of this nation have corporations, rich individuals, and the Government that supports them, been so openly brazen. The Australian Tax system is absolutely riddled with rorts for corporations and the privileged. The Abbott/Turnbull Government has shown an insensitivity to the common good that goes beyond any thoughtful…
ANALYSIS: The eruption of the Safe Schools crusade in the right-wing of the Liberal Party is the last thing Australia, or Malcolm Turnbull needs, writes Ben Eltham. On the face of it, you’d think a program that helps address bullying in high schools would be something all politicians would support. Adolescence is a wonderful butMore
Source: Incensed By Its Irrelevance, The Coalition’s Far Right Is Running Riot – New Matilda
You have to laugh when you look at the economic record of this government. Either they just can’t win a trick or they really are economic imbeciles. I’m backing the latter because no one with an ounce of credibility could get it so wrong, so often. The latest faux pas has become evident in the…
Source: A Government of Amateurs – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Today is a tale of two houses. In NSW’s Parliament House, MPs have gathered for an apology. In 1978, 500 people met in Sydney’s Taylor Square in support of gay rights, a watershed moment that gave birth to the city’s now iconic Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and fuelled a political movement that helped wind-backMore
Election sloganeering becomes a cottage industry at election time. How well we remember, moving forward, who do you trust, go for growth, hope reward opportunity, a new way, stop the boats, real solutions and on it goes. If you like them, hang on to your hats because in the coming months there will be more.…
Source: The Neo-liberal Juggernaut Rolls On. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Unlike Ian Macfarlane who feels that he’s just wasted on the backbench… Mm, perhaps I should rephrase that as it may be a little ambiguous. What he actually said that he didn’t want to be a “passenger” by just sitting around on the backbench. Which sort of makes one wonder about his opinion of all…
Source: Roll Up, Roll Up, Rolex Robert Rides Again! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
This morning’s newspapers made it look as though the Coalition was running a sharp, unified media strategy. The Fairfax papers, as well as the Australian, carried stories marking the end of speculation about any GST changes. The death of this particular reform was extensively justified, with quotations from Treasurer Scott Morrison and modeling from Treasury to back up the government’s argument that “the [budgetary and economic] risks are very great and the rewards are very modest”.
Source: Power games | The Monthly
From memory John Howard was the first to say, “Disunity is death” when referring to political parties, although just about everyone in politics says it now. And, as it happens, the Liberals have buckets of it. If you read Mike Seccombe’s column in the The Saturday Paper this week you will get some idea of…
Source: Disunity is death and the Liberals have it in Buckets – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It’s a fierce contest, but here are the Coalition MPs who outdid themselves and their miserable party in 2015. Who made the cut and who missed a nod?
Source: The Definitive Coalition Poop-List: 13 MPs Who Broke The Government In 2015 – New Matilda
Jamie Briggs resigns over a late-night incident involving a female public servant, while embattled frontbencher Mal Brough stands aside.
It’s been a bad week for probity in the Liberal Party, writes Ben Eltham.
Source: After Going Hard On Union Corruption The Liberal Party Now Has Problems Of Its Own – New Matilda
It’s not the Aussie way to boast about how much tax you pay, but perhaps we’d be better off if it was.
Source: No need to envy Malcolm Turnbull and the well off, as long as they pay their fair share
Scott Morrison is a formidable politician, a leading contender to replace Tony Abbott, and perhaps the anointed successor to Malcolm Turnbull. But Treasury is hardly an easy stepping-stone to the Lodge. Of the 38 treasurers before Morrison, only six went on to be prime minister.
The Education Minister confirms the Turnbull Government will be shelving the controversial university deregulation plan.
Sophie Mirabella has won preselection for Indi. Does she deserve a second chance? When Tony Windsor was leaving politics, he said on Insiders that Mrs Mirabella was the person he would miss least in politics, bestowing upon her the “nasty prize”. Sophie said that they’d had little to do with each other other than exchange…
Source: She’s back – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Every government does it, and every opposition rails against it. Appointing political fellow-travellers and ex-colleagues to government boards is common practice in Australia.
Source: Coalition government appoints its political friends and colleagues to boards
Tony Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin was the victim of a sexist attack for being a strong woman, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has said as he fired a shot at “gutless” Coalition MPs who have blamed Ms Credlin for the government’s woes.
Source: Peta Credlin’s treatment by government MPs was sexist: Bill Shorten
Social media users hit their meme-makers in support of ‘Karen’, the fictitious indie music fan held up as an example of violent extremism in a new Federal Government booklet.
Give us a sign Malcolm. You’ve made promises to the Nationals and to the right wingers….how about some promises to the Australian people? Something….anything that reassures us that we haven’t just swapped the word nope for the word hope.
Just to reinforce that we have not had any change of thinking with a new leader, Christopher Pyne rolled out his “new curriculum”, endorsed by state education ministers yesterday. There is to be a greater focus on Western civilisation and our Christian heritage. Indigenous issues have been cut from parts of the curriculum, and students…
Source: Haven’t they sacked Pyne yet? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
‘This guy has got to go, and it has to happen before Christmas,’ Malcolm Turnbull said of Tony Abbott a month ago in conversation with colleagues.
Source: How it happened: Inside the Malcolm Turnbull leadership coup
It looks increasingly likely the Prime Minister will face a leadership spill before the year is out.
This government and this country need to think long and hard about what it means to say “no more Muslims”
Source: If you turn your back on Syria’s Muslims, forget about ‘Team Australia’
Comment: The delays and cost blowouts have been much worse under the Coalition.
When Tony Abbott addressed the nation with his job application in 2013, he made a lot of promises about his “positive plan to restore the hope, reward and opportunity that should be your birth right.” “We have the plan, we have the team and we are ready.” He promised to “end Labor’s big waste –…
Source: Tony’s report card – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Tony Abbott has more to lose from the Canning by-election outcome than Bill Shorten, but both men have stooped to either whipping up foreigner-anxiety or appeasing xenophobia in order to maximise their party’s vote.
Source: Leaders whip up foreigner fear to win Canning – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Border Force is the contrivance of a knot of ambitious bureaucrats whose aim is to militarise Immigration.
Saturday August 22
1 The process is more important than the individual. That is why Dyson Heydon must step down. When arguing that it puts the future of the commission in doubt people forget that the findings to date could have always been pursued through existing law enforcement bodies. That’s what made it a political…
Source: My Thoughts on the Week That Was – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“Intellect combined with common sense, compassion tempered by realism, ideals shaped but not dimmed by experience, some grasp of the nobility and waywardness that contend in every man: these, in my view, are some of the qualities which Vice President Lawler will bring to the demanding and often lonely life that lies before him.”
July 2015, Smh:
Employment minister Eric Abetz is under increasing pressure to act in response to complaints about Fair Work Commission vice-president Michael Lawler’s nine-month absence on paid sick leave.
Mr Lawler has publicly supported and legally represented his partner, embattled former Health Services Union leader Kathy Jackson, during her Federal Court appearances over allegations she rorted $1.4 million from the union.”
The Abbott Government’s gradual destruction of our civil liberties is not something…
THE turbulence around Speaker Bronwyn Bishop’s $5000 helicopter flight has exposed some unsettled conditions within the Government and the Liberal Party.
Mrs Bishop and Prime Minister Tony Abbott will today continue to make clear they intend to reject criticisms of the Speaker’s spending patterns — including reports of two more chopper jaunts, $1000-a-day limo rides and a whopping $800,000 expenses bill — and will hope they fade before Parliament’s return in three weeks.
The PM today declared Mrs Bishop was on “probation”, which apparently means she will be in trouble should she take any more $5000 helicopter rides on the taxpayer’s tab.
As a punishment, this doesn’t mean much, except that Mr Abbott won’t push the matter further.
However, the Government already has been damaged by the controversy in ways it will find difficult to overcome, no matter the Speaker’s fate. The affair has exposed sensitive matters.
ABBOTT IS BEHOLDEN TO BRONWYN
The Prime Minister is a prisoner to his debt to the Speaker. Mrs Bishop has looked after Mr Abbott’s best interests at the local level, covering their neighbouring electorates of Mackellar and Warringah. She rules that Liberal domain.
And Mrs Bishop helped rouse the numbers to make Mr Abbott Opposition Leader in 2009.
One of his final public events before polling day at the 2013 election which made him Prime Minister was with her. It was a sign of how close they are.
This means Mr Abbott could be blocked between doing what is best for a longtime, loyal colleague and what is good for the Government and the Parliament.
BISHOP DOESN’T LIKE HOCKEY
The two have been fierce rivals within the NSW Liberal Party with Mr Hockey heading the moderates and Mrs Bishop prominent within the right faction. They have not been chummy for years.
During the 2009 leadership set-to Mrs Bishop worked as hard to block Mr Hockey as she did to elevate Mr Abbott. So when Mr Hockey agreed in a radio interview the helicopter flight didn’t pass the “sniff test”, it was on again between the Treasurer and the Speaker.
“Joe says some funny things sometimes doesn’t he. I think he said poor people don’t drive cars or something,” Mrs Bishop said on Saturday through a smile that carried no hint of frivolity.
This feud won’t heal quickly.
IT’S BRONWYN TIME
Mrs Bishop is a woman of remarkable resilience who has returned from serious career obstacles, but this might be her last chance to stage a come back.
It must be remembered that when she was a senator she was rated by many commentators as most-likely to become Australia’s first female Prime Minister. However, when the Coalition returned to office she lasted just five years as a minister.
John Howard dropped her as Aged Care Minister in November 2001 and it looked like that was it as far as senior office for her. The rise of Tony Abbott and the Coalition’s 2013 election victory reopened her options.
She wanted a ministry but was made Speaker instead, and tried to expand that job internationally by standing for president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union last October, campaigning on the theme it was time for a female leader.
Mrs Bishop is nowhere near planning a retirement from elected politics, but if she lost the Speaker’s job, her famed comeback ability would be cramped. And she would know this.
THEY NEED HER AS SPEAKER
Mrs Bishop’s tendency to wander into partisan territory — attacking human rights commission Gillian Triggs and supporting Government legislation, for example — angers Labor a lot more than it riles her Liberal colleagues.
Mrs Bishop, who has a track record of booting Opposition MPs from the chamber, has helped the Government in some tight parliamentary spots, according to her reading of Standing Orders.
In May last year, one such moment was caught on video. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was being applauded for his Budget reply speech.
Education Minister Christopher Pyne is seen signalling Mrs Bishop to rise in her chair, forcing the acclaim to stop.
A similar service might not be forthcoming from Father of the House (longest serving MP) Philip Ruddock, or the Nationals Bruce Scott, both possible replacements for Mrs Bishop.
AUSTERITY STANDARDS
It will be more difficult for the Government to force through financial cuts on others when one of its own members is not bothering to heed austerity priorities.
Tony Abbott’s insistence MPs were doing it tough along with other Australians facing cutbacks looks ridiculous against the itemised accounts of Speaker Bishop.
This could make it harder for the Government to stop benefits to job “shirkers” and those it claims are rorting the welfare system when one of its own appears to be spending excessively.
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison could be the minister most affected by Mrs Bishop’s example.
As the situation on the island deteriorates, Australia has continued its vital financial contributions to the nation. Max Chalmers reports.
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