MP Stuart Robert has ducked questions regarding possible dodgy dealings with an offshore business, adding another blemish to his chequered political career.
Maybe the Liberal Party has fallen victim to the biggest conspiracy theory this side of the Pacific in the last 20 years by believing the hype around Scott Morrison, generated by the same Scott Morrison. They sadly haven’t realised their gullibility yet as demonstrated by mostly voting against the censure motion brought to the House of Representatives when the real adults in the room. The ALP, Greens and Independents called his behaviour out for what it really was – a messiah complex combined with a confidence trick.
The snake oil salesmen of the early 20th Century would be proud of him.
For many Liberal Party members, guilt by association with the Morrison years will forever remain a dead weight they must lug around with them for the remainder of their political careers, writes Belinda Jones.
This actually amuses me to no end: serves you right, you bastards. You were so determined to serve the wealthy that you could not see the forest for the trees. You were so obsessed with growing their (and your own) investment property portfolios that you could not see (or simply did not care) that you were creating what is now known as Generation Rent. It is no wonder these people will not vote for you: you utterly screwed them out of the so-called Australian Dream of owning your own home. Your policies around negative gearing, tax cuts for the wealthy, superannuation concessions and so on – these tongue-baths to the rich have created a generation (and beyond) of serfs with iPhones. That, Spud, is why they will not vote for you!
Peter Costello’s CH9 and The Age tried to make out the ALP’s “political machine” won them the election in Victoria. It’s a total distraction from the fact that the LNP were never fit for the job either Federally or State wise and that will be proved in the next NSW election when the voters yet again won’t be manipulated but will choose who they want to employ as their next government.
The Liberals seem to talk to themselves, about themselves, and defend their actions rather than face reality, Julia Banks writes.
Scott Morrison’s historic censure over his multiple ministries and his ‘sorry not sorry’ defence speech played out this week on the back of a disastrous Victorian election result for the Liberal Party.
Morrison’s speech will be an endpoint of his legacy – a trail of destruction of the party forever linked to a man who abused his power and undermined our democracy.
Embattled former Coalition minister Stuart Robert is facing a new investigation into meetings he took as a minister with a business associate and their Canberra firm who he had previously advised on their bids for IT contracts worth tens of millions of dollars.
Another shining star of the LNP who’s great mate Scott was a dog
Once again, this week the MP for Fadden, Stuart Robert, has been the subject of media allegations of impropriety based on a series of leaked emails. Belinda Jones reports.
What’s a promise or, more specifically, an election promise? Is it a guilt-edged set-in concrete commitment made during an election campaign? What if the circumstances change after the campaign making it impossible to fulfil? Is a promise a legal commitment? Is it nothing more than just a proposal? Tony Abbott said this about promises
“It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards. Nothing could be more calculated to bring our democracy into disrepute and alienate the citizenry of Australia from their Government than if governments were to establish by precedent that they could say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.”
That is an unambiguous promise that one couldn’t take any other way than how it is written or spoken.
Yet:
“The day before the 2013 election, Tony Abbott said there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to the pension, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS,”
Democracy depends on transparency, reliable information, nonpartisan systems and trust. The failure of the corporate media to adhere to that tradition is a critical attack on the ability of voters to select their next government in a responsible fashion. The Victorian Liberal Party’s attempts to suppress discussion of their gradual takeover by the religious right is deeply problematic. Victorians need to know that a “Liberal” vote is becoming increasingly neither liberal nor conservative.
America’s flawed electoral processes have compounded the crisis of trust. It is critical that we don’t follow them into that chaos. Dan Andrews is correct: we don’t want that Americanisation of politics here.
It’s been the same here in Australia. Morrison did it in the hope of political gain with Deves. Pentecostalists have entered Politics and are spreading hate. The only reason we haven’t seen a mass shooting is because of our gun control laws and the level of tolerance and inclusion due to multiculturalism in this country. The LNP have simply tried to Americanise our politics and will continue to do so if Peter Dutton is an indication. He went straight to America after being nominated Opposition leader in parliament.
AOC is right. This entire year has seen Republicans and their media agitators and MAGA supporters develop horrific conspiracies against the LGBTQAI+ community in order to gain political power. Revving up the hatred against “the Left” who only want tolerance and welcoming for all people.
With Murdoch and Costello’s assistance, they aren’t who they say they are
Among other deceptions, Deputy Leader of the Victorian Liberal Party David Southwick has been sprung using his staffers in promotional videos as “local constituents” who claim they’d back him, writes Megan Jane de Paulo.
It’s election time in Victoria and the corflutes have spontaneously sprouted to adorn the gardens and fences of constituents.
Curiously, Southwick’s corflute sign – unlike those of most Liberal Party candidates – doesn’t feature a Liberal Party logo (or even the word “Liberal” in an easily legible font). It’s almost, despite being Deputy Leader of the Victorian Liberal Party, as if Southwick’s embarrassed to be associated with it.
One could argue that he’s lurked around long enough for us to know who he is — but Dan Andrews is arguably more recognisable and he, helpfully, has Victorian Labor logos splashed all over his campaign bus.
The Tasmanian Liberal Government continues its wilful ecocide, as old-growth forests are decimated and dissidents, such as Dr Bob Brown, are arrested. Managing editor Michelle Pini reports.
Distraction and Deflection away from Dutton’s Public Question Time gaffe. Mainstream media followed
The recent Labor “bullying” claims are just another publicity stunt to add to the great Liberal gaslit bonfire of bullshit, writes managing editor Michelle Pini.
The Victorian Liberal Party’s in-house lawyer has resigned, sending a damning email saying she could no longer work with the party’s campaign leadership team, who she accused of ignoring her legal advice that some of their decisions may have broken the law.
The Commonwealth has settled with Rachelle Miller over complaints she first made in 2020
Ms Miller, a former staffer, claims she was bullied and harassed while working for Alan Tudge and Michaelia Cash
Mr Tudge and Senator Cash deny the allegations
A former Coalition staffer who claimed she was abused while working for the former government has released details of her settlement, as she writes to the new parliament.
When in Opposition the LNP can be relied on being far more Socialist. The “cost of living” for ordinary Australians suddenly becomes foremost and not the cost of labor weighing down the economy.
Forget the past. The problems start now and they lie with Labor and the blind promises they made when not knowing what the LNP had kept hidden. Hidden for the seeming sake of their “integrity” and openness in tact. Susan Ley and Peter Dutton keep talking about electricity prices but not that report about their increase well hidden and buried 6 months before the last election. Now that’s the price we bear for her “integrity”
Yep, I think that about covers it. Ignore the past, don’t have talkfests to talk about the future, act without consulting, build nuclear reactors to bring prices and emissions down sometime before 2050.
And remember that John Howard is always available to promote his book and to remind you that the Liberals believe in the free market so they’re prepared to spend vast amounts of government money to ensure that the free market works effectively.
The former government froze the Medicare rebate for six years, ripping billions of dollars out of primary care and causing gap fees to skyrocket,” Butler said.
On its way to electoral oblivion, the Morrison government kept the dollars flowing to select beneficiaries, in defiance of the 70-year-old parliamentary “caretaker” convention, writes #Mate.
Instead of preparing for a state election in just over 100 days, and impressing on the voters their readiness to govern, Liberals are scouring their own ranks for the source of a catastrophic leak while also fighting off an insurgency from religious extremists who threaten to convert the Liberal Party to the Illiberal Party.
A Federal Police warning to the Coalition government over the conduct of one of its MPs was kept secret until it was too late for his constituents, writes Rex Patrick.
It seems Matthew Guy is twisting what was initially reported. He agreed to the corrupt proposal and a contract was drawn up between Caitlin and the unnamed donor. However, the contract was reported to have been rejected by the said unnamed donor, and not by Matthew Guy or Caitlin. Everyone knew that the contract constituted a transgression of the rules, and whilst it didn’t eventuate the conspiracy nevertheless did. The unsigned contract remains evidence of the intended corruption. Guy should stand down. Conspiracy to commit a crime is a crime no matter if it didn’t occur.
A question remains who leaked the email to The Age, why, and just how divided and corrupt is the current Victorian LNP?
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy says his former chief of staff never signed a contract with any donors to provide funds in addition to his taxpayer-funded salary.
The LNP has a distinct lack of imagination and policies so they simply follow others
After the recent release of census data noted the decline in Christianity, Peta Credlin wrote in The Australian (paywalled) in full Orban mode warning of “the centrality of Christian inspiration to Western civilization.” She defined an Indigenous Voice to parliament as “anathema to the fundamentals of Christian faith” and obliquely blamed Chinese and Indian immigration for the crisis.
The combined forces of the radical right – whether Christian Nationalist in intent, or in bigoted fear of a Great Replacement, or cynically deploying culture wars – all have the capacity to distort our civic debates as they are doing at all levels of government in America. The outcome in America is catastrophic.
It is critical for Australians to watch the international right forces filtered through to our democratic project, directly from the opponents of democracy, or filtered through the American role models so central to our “conservatives.” They are not defeated here, but regrouping.
Rugby League Rorts: how Scott Morrison funnelled millions from Commonwealth grant programs into Rugby League
Brisbane Broncos.
One grant contributed $21.3m of the $23.7m. Initially the “Beyond the Broncos Girls Academy” received $8.8m for a 27-month period, a small variation decreased the amount by $200,000 after 11 months.
A second variation then added $13m and extending the contract by 24 months. The initial grant and variations were not allocated by a tender process, instead they were direct non-competitive grants.
The 1936 S23(i) Tax Act making sporting clubs tax exempt still apply to the Brisbane Broncos (Income from non-members are taxable)
Brisbane Broncos is a publicly listed company
News Corp owns 69% of the Brisbane Broncos.
News Corp owns the broadcast rights for NRL
News Corp is foreign-owned and often pays low or no taxes here.
The Texas attorney general has signalled his willingness to take a law making homosexuality illegal through to the Supreme Court should he have the chance. A Republican candidate in South Carolina’s primaries recently called for LGBTQI Americans to be pursued for treason, and executed. He received a quarter of the vote.
The Texas Republican Party platform, launched this Pride Month, named LGBTQI lives “an abnormal lifestyle choice.” Approximately 340 bills targeting LGBTQI existence have been introduced across America this year. The leader of the Christian Fascist organisation Protect Texas Kids tweeted, “Let’s start rounding up people who participate in Pride events,” and other figures on the Right have begun imagining a world where it is legal to hunt LGBTQI people.
In Australia, the Right faces different challenges to impose minority rule. It sees its best chance to regain power and reinstate the steps it had been taking to break our democracy in culture wars. These “moral” panics are distractions meant to disguise the fact that the Right can’t win on a platform of tax cuts for the rich and deregulation.
The new campaign to attack schools for being “woke” as signalled by Dutton, Sky News and the IPA’s Class Action campaign signal their intent to replicate the American crippling of schools and silencing of teachers. The IPA, like the American equivalents, is largely funded by fossil fuel figures who naturally do not want students taught to understand climate science. The harnessing of traditionalists scared of change, combined with radical Religious Right Christian Nationalist bodies, offers the LNP a new base that might offer electoral success.
“Marxist” teachers are teaching our kids “absolute leftwing rubbish”. NSW Senator, Hollie Hughes, Shadow Minister for denying climate change and promoting fossil fuels, moonlighting as Opposition national curriculum cop, reads from the Republican playbook’s false alarmism about critical race theory and gender whispering being taught in schools. The Coalition sideshow is pumping now Dutton’s obsessed with vetting what goes on in the classroom because it works for right-wing politicians in the US. Marx?
No-one’s sure if she’s talking about Groucho, Harpo or Karl. Having lost the plot long before it lost power, the opposition will struggle to hold Labour, or anyone else to account, but at least it can do some public good by holding itself up to ridicule.
The IPA Murdoch and the Menzies Institute gave him and then removed his training wheels as they did Tim Wilson and others. More will come as it’s the IPA’s goal to be much more than just a think tank.
How did you get your big break? I’ve had many. Tom Switzer first published me in the Spectator Australia as a university student, which led to Nick Cater inviting me to write for The Australian and John Roskam to hire me at the IPA. They may regret it now but ABC’s The Drum had me on many times when I was first starting out and helped hone my media skills. Then a casual Senate vacancy arose unexpectedly in 2016 when Michael Ronaldson retired from the Senate and 450 Victorian Liberal Party members chose me from a field of nine candidates.
Favourite movie of the past decade? Top Gun Maverick.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? The good Lord helps those who help themselves.
The overturning of Roe v Wade in the U.S. has reminded us all of the importance of women’s rights everywhere.
This article from 2021 by Labor MP Graham Perrett examines how the Morrison Government was biased against women and set women’s rights backwards in Australia.
Peter Dutton lurched around like Barnaby at closing time, barging straight into a narrow, electorally irrelevant topic imported directly from the US Republican playbook. This mantra was repeated a few weeks later by a hyperventilating Sen. Hollie Hughes who told a questioner at the Sydney Institute who asked where the Liberal Party had gone wrong, that essentially it was all the fault of the “Marxist school teachers”.
Barilaro was appointed to a $500,000-a-year job less than a year after quitting state politics in a move that has outraged Liberal ministers and backbenchers.
Morrison with the help of Peter Dutton has seen us drop 9 places on the Peace Index from Very High to High. They bragged about our AAA credit rating but stay silent on our Peace and Corruption ratings. Should we be surprised at all surprised the nation threw them out?
Australia’s combative relationship with China and plans to purchase nuclear submarines have helped push it nine spots down the Global Peace Index, an annual assessment of nations’ pacifist records.
Defence Minister Richard Marles has scoffed at suggestions that the Coalition was anywhere near agreeing to a compensation package with France after Australia abandoned its submarine contract last year.
New opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie has questioned the size of the compensation being paid to France, saying the outgoing Morrison government had been aiming for a significantly lower figure.
“That’s just not true,” Mr Marles, who is also deputy prime minister, told Sky News’ Sunday Agenda program.
“What we are seeing from the Coalition weeks into their time in opposition is that they are just making stuff up now.”
Richard Marles scoffs that the Coalition was anywhere near agreeing to a compensation package with France after Australia abandoned its submarine contract
The con: Is the delay. It is in and money to be made in distracting the transition to a more rapid closure of the fossil fuel industry even if the case for renewable clean energy has been proved. If you can’t beat the argument’s direction of progress then delay it for as long as possible. Just as the LNP, IPA and Murdoch are a coalition for the defense of fossil fuels and will now continue to be, while declaring they are on board with reducing emissions and profiting from their efforts.
the Institute of Public Affairs, a rightwing group with a history of climate science denial that is supported by fossil fuel and mining interests, released what it described as polling showing people were open to the idea of nuclear energy. News Corp newspapers ran its arguments uncritically.
Why does the case for nuclear energy persist?
There is an assumption by some people, including Coalition MPs, that renewable energy cannot do the job, despite the expert advice that says otherwise. These critiques rarely address that advice head on.
But there is also a long history of nuclear energy being used as a delaying tactic for acting on climate change in Australia, including by fossil fuel interests.
Morrison took Trump’s highway to the election WA told him to piss off and Qld didn’t cry welcome. The current leader of the now Opposition a Banana Bender lost 50% of the small margin he had. Heads will roll in the back office.
The Election delivered a severe blow to the project of consolidating far-Right politics through electoral processes. The Liberal Party is hopelessly split due to the ruling class divisions over climate change. It has effectively lost its base in the upper middle classes of the cities. The far-Right minor party vote largely did not eventuate.
Goebbels and a would-be Hitler Importing the American Republican New Dream of the total Re-eduction of Australia.
Now, let me be quite clear here: I’m not being overly sensitive to Peter Dutton’s recent comments because I’ve spent a large part of my professional life in schools. Ok, I’m a teacher and, according to our new leader, I’m an extremist… Wait, that’s right. Peter Dutton isn’t our new leader. The Liberals didn’t win…
As Pleasant Pete said: “…If it was limited to just environmental issues or just to climate change, it would be bad enough… extremism is some of the teachers and the language they use, the approach that they take, it’s across a broad range of public policy areas and I think the national curriculum, the values argument is going to be one of the big debates over this parliament and I think you will see a big difference between the policies we take to the next election compared to what Labor will. Labor is completely and utterly dominated by the union movement as you know and the teachers’ union is one of the strongest voices in the ALP and not in a good way!”
That’s the actual quote so if it seems to be a little disjointed that may be because he had to stop and remember that he’s a nice man now that he doesn’t have any of those nasty portfolios that demand you drag families out of their beds in the middle of the night or tell rape victims that they can’t have an abortion because we will decide who comes into this country and the circumstances, etc.
But it was his comments on history that demonstrated exactly how much he’s changed. He said that he didn’t want teachers “teaching a different view of history”. Teachers should stick to the actual facts of what happened.
Now, this is a perfectly reasonable demand for a leader to make. After all, that’s the idea that Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and various other strong leaders had. There are certain facts and you stick to them and if you seem to think that there aren’t we can educate you at the re-education camp.
Yes, not teaching a different view of history begs the question: “Different view from who or what?”
Politicians of the Liberal kind have no real fundamental principles other than maintaining the economic interests of their donors. However, they do believe the 24/7 news cycle enables them to become chameleons change and like a laundromat have their histories erased but little else. There is no such thing as a fresh Dutton Taylor, Robert, Cash. There is no such thing as a Liberal Party whose interests are all Australia’s
Australians should be deeply concerned that Peter Dutton – the man who proudly marched out on the Apology to Indigenous Australians – stands unopposed within the Liberal Party as its alternative prime minister.
While his emergence as Opposition Leader has renewed scrutiny of his motivations back in 2008, this was just one of many troubling chapters in Dutton’s three-decade career that expose his serial failure to empathise with anyone he perceives as different.
Recovery plans designed to prevent the extinction of almost 180 threatened species and habitats, including the Tasmanian devil, were scrapped by the Coalition in one of Sussan Ley’s final acts as environment minister.
How welcome will this sabre rattler be in those “outer suburbs” like Dandenong after his Hansonite attacks on the Lebanese Muslims Africans and Chinese? Dutton has always been the man from the Monkey Pod room driving the LNP to the bigoted right. The Queenslander who helped Howard steal Pauline Hanson’s space in Australian politics. Nothing has changed except he’ll now be competing with the Nationals in the regions and allowing those Liberals with independent and singular community concerns go. Dutton was always right of Abbott never left of the mad monk.
As soon as Defense Minister Dutton was gone from the government China announced it would drop its security plan for the Pacific region, and has specifically said it was prepared to work with Australia. But it simply wasn’t prepared to work with any government prepared to simply use it them as a political tool for their domestic politics or one supported by Murdoch’s Sinophobic divisive Media.
Outer suburban voters and small business owners will be Peter Dutton’s target to rebuild the devastated Liberal vote as the Coalition shifts away from big business in a pitch to “forgotten people” and towards what it calls sensible action on climate change after years of division.
Australia’s Shame – AG Michaela Cash took lessons from the Steve Bannon playbook. Control the Bureaucracy. Wasn’t that Lenin’s playbook?
Just before ousted Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the election, his Attorney-General Michaelia Cash stacked the Administrative Appeals Tribunal with a host of Liberal Party mates. Political appointments are out of control and the AAT needs to be killed off, writes Greg Barns SC.
The current high approval rate for offshore VET sector student applications from Nepal could raise more risk of colleges focused on selling “work visas” rather than education, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.
MOST AUSTRALIANS would be surprised that over the last two months, Nepal was Australia’s leading source of overseas students, overtaking both China and India.
Sky News is prompting that the Liberals need to move even further right than the nationals to create an identity distinct from Labor. That alone tells us their only attention is to themselves and not the nation or the common good. Some among them even seem to regard Neo Nazis as too left-wing. We’ve seen how Angus Taylor knows how to strike water deals with Barnaby, haven’t we? It’s all in-house and with taxpayer money.
Project backed by the National party is expected to top $162,000 per megalitre if cost recovery is pursued
Busted!! The LNP strategy of putting LNP supporters in charge of Government Departments is straight out of the Steve Bannon, American GOP Republican and Leninist strategies. The LNP was intent on dismantling the Public Service and has been doing it for the past 13 years.
Agency’s statement, which triggered last-minute scare campaign from Liberals, prompts increasing questions about its independence
Australian Border Force did not issue press releases about any of the five boat interceptions it made in the four years prior to its controversial election-day announcement that a vessel had been detected near Christmas Island, prompting further questions about the political independence of the agency.
The ABF is investigating its election-day conduct, which the acting prime minister, Richard Marles, has described as a “disgrace”.
The agency issued a press release as voting was under way, warning of the interception of an asylum-seeker boat off Christmas Island, precipitating a last-minute scare campaign warning voters to maintain border security by voting Liberal.
Outgoing energy minister Angus Taylor rejects suggestion delay was political and regulator says it was necessary to include ‘most recent network costs’
Private consultation was promised to be cheaper, more efficent, allowing money to be spent elsewhere.
Since the Coalition took office in 2013, contracts awarded to the big four accounting firms have risen by 209%, or by $70 million per year on average, from $309 million to $936 million in 2021.
The major difference is clear Morrison is offering no support, “use your own money and the banks”. It’s all private your money your risk your debt. We’ve seen the consequences of that in a fluctuating market. Debt enslaves the citizenry in a Capitalist Economy. Governments are regulators ensuring it’s not diminished for Housing, Education, Health, and even Welfare. They brought in Robodebt your mistake, not theirs. The LNP housing policy is all for the benefit of those with incomes up to $200,000 effectively cutting out those with the least income and creating a middle-class welfare system.
Labor is offering a publicly funded scheme and assistance as shareholders to partner the lowest income earners with qualifications. A far less inflationary and pork barrelling scheme than the LNP one.
So which has the most honest intent of helping it’s certainly not the LNP’s. So all Barnaby Joyce can do is play pitbull, and bark at Tanya Plibersek so the differences between the two policies remain unspoken about on Morning TV? When your not offering anything of benefit just bark and distract.
Sunrise presenter Natalie Barr intervened in a fiery on-air clash between Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce and Labor front-bencher Tanya Plibersek.
olddogthoughts 
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