Saturday 16 May

1. Every time, when talking about superannuation, Joe Hockey says “it’s their money” I am infuriated. The 15% tax discount given to high income earners is funded by the taxpayer.

2. “Those who benefit most from taxpayer-funded education are companies who demand the highest standards. Why are they not made to pay an education levy?”

3. Tony Abbott’s promise that the GP Tax is dead is as believable as his promises before the election of no new taxes and no cuts to health. Freedom of Information documents confirm the Abbott Government is introducing a GP Tax through stealth, via its four-year freeze on General Practice. Tricky bastards.

4. Its not only dogs that seem to unsettle the Government. There is also the sick, the young unemployed, university students, families with kids over six, public servants, ABC and SBS viewers, pensioners, gays, people in the arts and human rights commissioners are just some of the people who have had punches thrown in their direction.

There is also that most villainous of cohorts: women who have just had a baby and dare to access both the government and employer paid parental schemes they are legally entitled to.

Can you think of a group – besides superannuates and tradies – which it hasn’t tried to go after?

Business as usual.

An observation:

‘Often our opinions are based on our values rather than our understanding and the difficulty is separating the two’.

Sunday 17 May

Let’s get this straight, Mr. Abbott.

1. Victoria recently had an election. Labor won.

1. A major plank of Labor policy was not to proceed with the East Link project.
2. The then Liberal Government went ahead and signed a contract in the weeks prior to the election in the full knowledge that they were likely to lose.
3. In addition they inserted a clause in the contract that guaranteed a huge payout to the builder if the contract didn’t proceed …
4. It was later found that no serious cost analysis of the project was done.

The Victorian Coalition should be facing a court of law for political sabotage.

2. A few people responded to my thoughts on “Question Time”. My suggestion: How about if Shorten boycotts it saying the rules are redundant and the speaker is biased to the point of absurdity? He announces, as policy, a panel of former Speakers to review the standing orders, insisting on an independent speaker and no Dorothy dixers.

Did you know that on Budget night Bronwyn Bishop again allowed the Speaker’s rooms to be used for a fundraising event?

3. Sorry to bore you about the unfairness of the PM’s Superannuation tax haven for the rich, but it is unsustainable. Everyone knows something will have to be done soon. The Henry tax review said so, the Murray financial system inquiry said so, and the government’s tax discussion paper as good as said so. The cost of the concessions rivals that of the pension, and it is growing more quickly. For Abbott to say that isn’t so, after saying it was so, is to redefine reality.

Monday 18 May

1. By the end of this week Ireland will in all probability have voted for marriage equality. Yet another nation making Tony Abbott look intellectually isolated. The no vote it is reported is being financially supported by American fundamentalist Christians.

2. Interesting to observe Peter Costello’s former press secretary and Journalist Niki Savva on Insiders denouncing the Government as incompetent. For one who was once a solid Coalition supporter she has certainly changed.

3. Andrew Bolt is up to his usual ABC bashing. Malcolm Turnbull makes a good fist of defending Aunty but he agreed with Bolt’s assertions that on balance journalists from all media organisations were more liberal than conservative.

Could someone name a left-wing shock jock please?

Turnbull also said he supported a softer proposal that would no longer make it illegal to “insult” or “offend” a person on the basis of their race.

“It says something about the moral sickness in an enlightened society when the right to abuse each other, in the name of free speech, needs to be enshrined in law”.

4. It’s really rather simple Joe, Tony, Mathias and others. ‘When you tell a lie you deny the other person’s right to the truth’

5. “It’s a calamitous captain’s call by Captain Chaos“. These are the words used by AMA President Professor Owler to describe the PMs decision to open a medical school in WA.

Tuesday 19 May 2015

Post budget polling is interesting. The Fairfax – IPOS poll comes in at 50/50 and the media wets itself. Particularly the ABC. Yet the same day Newspoll has Labor well ahead 53/47 and receives little Fanfare. Galaxy has Labor 52/48. Reachtell 53/47 Labor’s way and Morgan 51/49. Based on these figures one would suggest that the budget has not made matters worse for the Coalition. So a political Budget has achieved their aim. But put your own spin on it. Essential comes out later in the week.

An observation:

“The main stream media will only ever print or say whatever is in its best interests. Then it might say something interesting and truthful”.

Wednesday 20 May

1. The Essential Poll is always accompanied by a survey.

Fifty per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that the budget was “more about improving the government’s popularity than improving the economy”; 47% agreed with the statement that the budget “favors businesses over workers, 37% thought the budget didn’t do enough to reduce the deficit, while 18% disagreed with that statement.

2. Abbott called the Vic state election a referendum on the East West Link, he has refused to accept the voter’s decision, perhaps believing this will help sandbag federal Liberal seats to the east before next year’s federal election. He is risking the anger of those who don’t believe he should be interfering in state decisions.

3. Tony Abbott has come under fire after telling businesses they’ll be able to have a “try before you buy look” at the unemployed. Foot in mouth again.

Thursday 21 May

1. One cannot begin to imagine the damage the Royal Commission is doing to Catholicism.

“Religion in many ways is akin to Politics in so much as it believes that telling the truth isn’t necessarily in its best interests”.

2. Our neighbors have found some humanitarian zeal that far outweighs ours. What an embarrassment. Why is it that our Government believes it’s ok to persecute and kill people in their homelands but refuses to save them when seeking asylum at sea.

3. Cory Bernardi’s racist mouth is spewing its filth yet again. He thinks recognition of our indigenous people’s is a 5th order issue and will spearhead the no vote.

4. Watched the Prime Ministers press conference this morning and counted five lies.

A lie has three essential ingredients:

1. It communicates some information.
2. The liar intends to deceive or mislead.
3. The liar believes that what they are ‘saying’ is not true. And we call people who use these three principles blatant serial liars.

5. Why is it that people like Gerry Harvey only see the world through the prism of their company’s cash registers?

Friday 22 May

1. The Prime Minister almost on a daily basis describes ISIS as a death cult. I wonder if he would be prepared to take asylum seekers fleeing their atrocities or would they have to get in a queue. Nope, nope, nope.

Indonesia to Australia: ‘You signed the UN Convention on Refugees. Act on it’.

And I thought he “stopped the boats” to prevent people dying at sea. Perhaps I’m confused.

2. Little more than a week after its second budget, the Abbott government has made its first strategic retreat by abandoning a plan to increase charges for subsidised medicines.

The back down will blow a $1 billion hole in the budget. Their left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. Pardon the pun.

3. Centrelink has ordered its public servants around the country to drop everything and answer phones for the next two days in a desperate bid to make its performance look better.

In the wake of an Auditor-General’s report revealing that more than 26 million phone calls – nearly half the total – to the welfare agency’s lines went unanswered in 2013-14, bosses have told their officials to get every available public servant operating a phone. And the Government can’t sack our public servants quick enough.

4. The influence of the big mining companies over conservative politics knows no bounds. Remember when they told Swam and Rudd how much tax they should pay.

My foot in mouth award for the week goes to the dope who said: “Nope, nope, nope“.