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Tag Archives: Tony Abbott

Dyson Heydon is an honourable man, says you know who

What is notable in the impassioned defence of Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Attorney-General George Brandis, and Christopher Pyne (what’s he do again?) is the choice of descriptors such as eminent, esteemed, distinguished, above reproach, honourable . . . the list is long, but you get the idea.

While Dyson Heydon may well enjoy some or all of those qualities in certain aspects of his life and personality, we ought to know by now that such attributes in no way preclude their bearer from undesirable and even unethical actions, neither do they make those actions any the less heinous.

We know this from the frequent exposure of esteemed, respected, eminent, irreproachable, honourable men (sorry, but they are overwhelmingly men) who are publicly revealed to have a darker and more dangerous side, from the eminent legal and political members of pedophile rings, to the growing list of globally renowned entertainers who’ve sexually preyed on women and children, to the irreproachable religious leaders who’ve succumbed to worldly temptations. You think we’d know by now that the words eminent, irreproachable, distinguished, honourable and so on mean, unfortunately, absolutely nothing when used in defence of men of achievement who’ve been outed as alarmingly two-faced.

And yet Abbott et al seem to believe that the increasingly desperate enunciation of these linguistic accolades will put Dyson Heydon beyond accountability, in much the same way as Abbott’s description to the court of the convicted pedophile Father Nestor as a virtuous and upright man was intended to distract from, or at the very least ameliorate, his crimes. These blokes make mistakes but they are essentially honourable men, so come on. Yes. Indeed.

It’s beyond belief that Dyson Heydon, given his experience and eminence in his profession, could be unaware that he is required to be free of all political allegiances. If by some oversight he was unaware of the nature of the Liberal Party invitation to give the Sir Garfield Barwick lecture, rumour has it that Attorney-General George Brandis was also invited to the same event some time back in April. Surely he noticed that looming conflict of interest? No?

Indeed, did no legal personage in the ranks of Liberal lawyers grasp the ethical implications of a Royal Commissioner heading an investigation into trade unions and the Labor party simultaneously giving the keynote address at a Liberal party fundraiser? Because if they are that thick, how are they making a living?

The collapse of institutions once respected and even revered has eroded popular faith in the perceived trustworthy and honourable nature of authority, simply because it is authority. Too often those who wield the power of authority have been shown to have abused that power and we are increasingly disillusioned. Or perhaps we’re on the road to a more healthy realism and self-responsibility. Like believing in the sky fairy, trusting a man because he is eminent in his profession, no matter what his field, is, sadly, a loony and outdated idea. It belongs in the era when a man’s word was binding: how many centuries ago was that?

Besides, if Abbott found Nestor virtuous and upright that tells us everything we need to know about his capacity for good judgement.

This article was first published as ‘But he is an honourable man . . .’ on No Place For Sheep.

 

An Open Letter to the Liberal Party

Dear Liberal Party

Is he worth it? Is Tony Abbott’s Prime Ministership worth it since he’s done such irreparable damage to your brand?

I have no doubt when Abbott won the election, you thought you’d done the right thing. After losing in 2007, I’m sure you were upset. But then losing again in 2010, after Abbott failed to negotiate to form a minority government, must have been torture. You must have been livid that Julia Gillard, a leader you despised, (a woman no less!), was so proficient at getting things done, developing progressive policies and negotiating to make them happen. Policies that filled you with dread that Australians might actually care about each other. I understand you’re all very confused about whether you’re neoliberal ideologues or socially conservative, and sometimes it’s hard to know what you really are because all you truly care about is looking after your business mates at the expense of workers. It makes it hard for you to have a persuasive narrative. Because some of you only care about keeping Australia backward, focussing on destroying socially progressive policies such as marriage equality, while the rest are only interested in your special brand of small-government-neoliberalism which is defined by a quest to increase the profits of those people who finance your campaigns. But you understood Gillard and Rudd, and the Labor Party, were a threat to all of you one way or another and therefore must be destroyed if you were ever going to undo all the progress they made. So you built the Abbott wrecking ball with this mission in mind. With the help of Rupert Murdoch and his flying monkeys in the conservative press, you designed this wrecking ball, this no-machine, this village idiot who spouts three word slogans like an android, in order to scare the electorate into giving the Liberal Party what you feel is your entitlement; power. And it all seemed to be going so well! That is, until the first day in the job when you surely immediately realised you’d made a mistake. And that’s why I ask whether this mistake was worth it. Maybe you’ve been too scared to ask yourself this question, let alone answer it. But now you’re heading towards the next election, surely you have to face reality at some point? How about I try answering the question for you and you can decide if you agree with me?

There are three reasons why Abbott was not worth it for the Liberal Party. He might have got you the term in government that you desperately wanted, but what has this term done to your future?

The first reason Abbott was certainly not worth it is because he’s impotent. Politically, he has achieved very little and made a huge amount of mess in the process. Yes, he got rid of the mining tax and the Carbon Price. But this caused problems for you too since revenue disappeared along with these policies. Yes, you think Abbott’s done wonders in ‘stopping the boats’. But once this promise helped win the election, what good did it actually do for your political fortune? Other than costing a lot of money to keep people locked up in a hell-hole indefinitely, and causing you to have to keep secret anything to do with boats, which you’re no doubt not happy about because you love demonising refugees so you must be sorry you’ve painted yourself into a ‘we can’t tell you what’s going on because you’re not going to like it’ corner. And then there was the promise Abbott made, which you no doubt regret, to not make any cuts to education, health, the ABC and SBS. But what is the point of a Liberal government that doesn’t make cuts to education, health, the ABC and SBS? I do understand that you have to pretend you’re something you’re not in order to get elected. It must be very stressful having to keep up this façade when all you really want to do is bring back WorkChoices. Either way, Abbott’s promises were quickly broken, so even where he has managed to make spending cuts, they’ve not been celebrated as you might have hoped, but rather accurately painted as lies and more fodder for the independents to block much of the ‘reform’ you would have liked to make. If reform is the right word for a hand-break-turn-around-and-go-backwards policy platform. This impotency is surely of concern to you.

The second reason I don’t think PM Abbott has been worth it for the Liberal Party is because he is deeply unpopular and very good at finding ways to increase his unpopularity. I don’t have time to give you the entire laundry lists of Abbott-stuff-ups that have contributed to his terrible polls, which you’ve no doubt noticed have been terrible since pretty much day one. Dodgy scholarships for his daughter, insane ‘captains picks’ such as the Knighting of Prince Philip, biting onions, shirt-fronting the Russian President, choosing only one woman in his cabinet and then making himself, a known misogynist, Minister for Women, a Speaker expense scandal and of course your own leadership spill shenanigans. Sometimes I wonder if Abbott is actually one giant satire comedy routine sent to entertain the lefty-lynch-mob on Twitter. I’m sure you’ve wondered the same thing. The bottom line is, Abbott as Prime Minister doesn’t make Australians proud to be Australian. The last poll I saw was Essential Poll which had the two party preferred figures at Liberal 47, Labor 53. And this is after Abbott’s spent most of the last few months doing his best to whip up fear about the ‘death cult’ with a growing collection of flags and tried unsuccessfully to mount a smear campaign against Bill Shorten. Is Abbott’s poll-boosting bag of tricks empty? This far out from an election and you’ve got nothing? This must be worrying for you.

The third and final reason why Abbott most definitely has not been worth it for the Liberal Party is because his incompetence in managing the economy is destroying your long-relied-on strategic mantle of claiming Liberal governments as better economic managers than Labor governments. Of course we all know this mantle isn’t based in reality. But nevertheless you’ve used it successfully to win power, along with scaring people about national security, for the past 20 years. But how can you possibly think you can keep using this ‘economic competency’ line when Abbott, and his Treasurer Hockey, are making such a mess of business confidence, consumer confidence, growth, unemployment, debt and deficit and pretty much every other economic indicator that Liberal voters apparently obsess over when deciding that they will again vote Liberal. The bottom line is, your wrecking ball, which you used so successfully to wreck Labor’s electoral fortune, has swung back and wrecked your ‘economic competence’ campaign line. What will you do without it? I suspect you’ll lose. And you may not win again until Abbott has been long-forgotten by the electorate. How long do you think that will take? 50 years? Maybe even 100?

You’re probably feeling a bit depressed now that you’ve seen my very valid reasoning as to why Abbott surely wasn’t worth it for the Liberal Party. You’re probably feeling a bit silly for being so short-sighted in your quest to get power that you’ve made such a huge #OneTermTony problem for yourselves. One term of power isn’t really enough to justify all the effort, and money, you put into getting Abbott elected. And this one term will likely ensure you won’t get another term for a very, very long time. I, however, have no sympathy for you. Like a drunk-fool with a horrible hangover, you brought this on yourself. So in the words of Darryl Kerrigan: ‘Hey. Bad luck. Ya dickhead!’

Yours sincerely

Victoria Rollison

 

Abbott, the Great Battologist

Reading Barry Cassidy’s article in ‘The Drum’ this week, I learnt a new word: Battologist, which means ‘wearisome repetition of words in speaking or writing’. Perhaps there are many of you out there who knew of this word but, unlike Cassidy, never thought to apply it to our prime minister, Tony Abbott. Or perhaps you did, but never told me.

I think it fits perfectly, particularly the bit about being wearisome. How often, in sound bites graciously granted to us by the commercial television networks, do we groan as we descend into a mediocre slump listening to another wearisome, repetitious monologue from this man?

I have often thought, while suffering through this tedious monotony, that he does it as a delay tactic, forcing us to endure this absence of interest, this mind-numbing routine, while he presses home the point.

But of late, I have come to the view that he does it to hide the fact that he really has nothing else to say; that he’s waiting for another thought bubble.

It’s something many politicians do when speaking in Parliament. I thought they did it to reward themselves for saying something they thought was so eloquent it deserved a repeat performance, or to hear themselves above all the shouting and abuse that flies from one side of the chamber to the other.

But no, Barry Cassidy has led me to see it differently. In all previous governments of my experience, there was a narrative, a clearly defined storyline that one could identify, if not agree with, that set a government apart from the Opposition. This is what gave them their mental script. But Abbott and his government have none.

They simply make it up as they go. Policy on the run, disaster management (if you could call it that) on the run, they govern for the day, the hour, even the minute, but never for the future. The future, it seems, will take care of itself.

battologyThe Abbott government really is a policy vacuum. I can just see its leading lights at the next election telling us that they have stopped the boats, got rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax and little else. It will be the mother of all negative campaigns. ‘If you don’t vote for us, you’ll get Labor’, ‘Labor will drive us into bankruptcy’, blah, blah, blah.

I doubt there will be one visionary item on their agenda. They simply don’t think that far ahead. As Cassidy so rightly points out, they have lost any initiative on the economy, climate change, employment, debt and deficit, same sex marriage and asylum seekers. The government has no teeth to bite or chew over these issues anymore.

Abbott the battologist, has reinforced this view time and time again, repeating himself constantly, but saying nothing inspiring, nothing new. Likewise his body-english betrays a cave-man element; the apeman-type rolling of the shoulders, left to right as he marches down the parliamentary corridor and the meaningless arm movements when he stands at the podium.

How I long for an orator, a statesmanlike leader, an Obama, to rise like the Phoenix from the ashes of our present mediocrity. In the absence of that, who is there that will give us an eye into the future, a vision, something to show we are moving ahead? Silly question, I know.

My alternative offering is to reverse the process. Let the people lead the politicians. Let us look again at those areas where neither party has the initiative, where neither party has the advantage. I propose we put a short questionnaire to them. They may not know the answers but it could go a long way toward starting a national conversation. We should make it simple with a yes, no, or ‘one word’ answer:

You choose your favourite subject and submit 5 questions you would like answered. The other topics are: climate change, employment, asylum seekers and national security, or you could nominate a pet topic of your own.

questMy questions below, are on the economy.

Do you believe that running a national economy is the same as running a household economy, only larger?

If the government spends more than it taxes, does that mean it has to borrow the difference?

Do you believe that when a government spends less than it taxes, that the difference is money saved for the future?

Do you believe that a sovereign government can ever run out of money?

What comes first, taxes or spending?

Perhaps asking the right questions will inject some inspiration, some life back into this wearisome, repetitious, near-carcass like animal we call government. I suspect, however, it will only show up the hollow nature of their battology.

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Tony Abbott: Verbis tribus tantum

Beginning this by saying that I think that same sex marriage is NOT what we should be discussing, and then immediately talking about same sex marriage may make some of you think that I’m inconsistent enough to be Tony Abbott.

However, I want to make the point that we shouldn’t be talking about same sex marriage because it should have been put to a vote and passed by now. The main arguments I’ve heard against gay marriage are in fact arguments against gay relationships themselves. For example, the argument that children deserve a mother AND a father has often distracted us into arguing that the children of people raised by those in a gay relationship haven’t turned out to be three-headed monsters, rather than making the simple point that – as this is already something occuring in our society – why shouldn’t these people be allowed to solemnise their relationship with a marriage?

Ok, Cory, I understand that you don’t approve of gay people, but they exist and have lives and some of them have children and and you seem to be saying that can’t stop that, but you can sure as hell, stop them getting married just to show them that they’re not normal like you. Thank god, say most of us!

Similarly, the idea that caterers or wedding photographers or printers could be forced to abandon their principles and service gay clients strikes me as slightly absurd. For a start, I’m not sure that too many people would want a photographer or caterer who had made it clear that they disapproved. And if people want to put a sign in their window telling us all that they don’t want to provide wedding services to gay people then that’s ok. Some of the rest of us could point out that we don’t want to provide services to people like them and I’ll leave it to others to boycott their business, but as far as I’m concerned they can just take their business and …

Oh, I seem to be distracted.

Anyway, I find the whole argument as strange as the one about Adam Goodes where people asserted that they had every right to boo whomsoever they liked, but nobody could call them racist because that hurt their feelings.

And as for the idea of a plebiscite, well, that sounds all very well. Unfortunately, the thing about deciding people’s “rights” to vote doesn’t have a very good history. Partly because the people who are seeking rights are often the people denied a vote. “The men took a vote and decided that there was no reason to give a vote to women!” If everybody votes that people with the surname “Murdoch” should surrender all their wealth and work as slaves, it might get through because of a certain hostility to one member of the family; for the rest of the family it may be considered a breach of their rights.

Mm, I planned to talk about Abbott’s strange love of coal and his determination that come what may we must protect our coal industry. He seems to have no similar commitment to cars, textiles or ships.

Yet I found myself talking about same sex marriage.

Strange that.

By the way, the title of this – Tony Abbott: Verbis tribus tantum is Latin:

“Tony Abbott: Three Words Only!”

It seems his motto!

 

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Abbott: The homophobe

Let us call it how it is. Prime Minister Tony Abbott is a homophobe.

Homophobe, as defined by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

“A person who hates or is afraid of homosexuals or treats them badly”.

Let’s just analyse that definition in the context of Abbott’s behaviour, language and actions.

A person.

This may be debateable in the context of Tony Abbott, but on the understanding that a person is an individual human, Abbott will likely scrape through. Of course, he appears to lack a moral compass, empathy, honesty, or compassion, but these are not prerequisites for being classed as a person.

Hates or is afraid of homosexuals.

This one is easy. Abbott has admitted himself that he is threatened by homosexuals. He believes that anything gay should be, you know, kept private, and not spoken about. He prefers a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on same sex love. He believes that homosexuality threatens the ‘right order of things’. Because everyone knows that the ‘right order of things’ relates to exactly which sexual organ goes where, and that is all that matters when it comes to love and relationships.

Or does ‘the right order of things’ really relate to his belief that women should treat their virginity as a gift not to be given pre-marriage? Or that women should remain at home, doing the ironing, while their husbands are doing the man’s thing at work? Of course, Abbott tempers his further ‘right order’ views that a woman should not withhold sex from her husband, by clarifying that men should not demand sex.

Regardless, the whole ‘right order of things’ issue does seem to have a kind of ‘sexual focus’.

Naturally, Abbott has attempted to counter his clearly homophobic attitude with the traditional defence against any sort of socially unacceptable discrimination.

‘I have many friends who are gay’, Abbott says.

Just as the racist-in-denial declares they have many friends who are ‘black’. The admitted bigotry only extends to those who aren’t friends, although Abbott is clearly happy for his friends to be treated as second class citizens when it comes to marriage equality.

Abbott’s language also provides a clue as to the depth of his fear of the homosexual lifestyle. In 2010, he reportedly told Tony Windsor that he would do anything to be Prime Minister, except ‘sell his arse’. He will do anything. Anything at all. Except compromise the sanctity of his rear. Of course this is just a standard saying, one of those commonly heard phrases that no one should take personally – just like calling a person ‘gay’ as an insult. Oh. Right.

Treats them badly.

Abbott has been loud and clear on his personal fear of people of same sex orientation. But up until this point, his personal view has not been forced onto the rest of the nation.

But now it has.

Abbott, while declaring to the Coalition that marriage equality is a ‘deeply personal’ issue, has forced his own ideological beliefs onto the rest of his party by refusing a conscience vote on same sex marriage legislation. As a result he has almost certainly quashed the likelihood of same sex marriage being legalised any time soon.

And how did he do this? By tricky, slippery means, called out by Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, as something akin to ‘branch stacking’. When Pyne is the voice of honesty, transparency and fairness in Government, there is a serious problem.

Same sex couples already have the same legal rights as married couples. Legalising same sex marriage will simply have the effect of affording all couples acceptance in the community and place them on an equal standing with every other family. All mums and dads can be married. All children have the opportunity to grow up in a nationally recognised institution if their parents so wish. All couples can stand before family and friends and say ‘I love you’, with perhaps a ring that is the symbol of a legally binding relationship. Marriage.

But no. Abbott doesn’t want that for gay people.

And he has yet to provide even the remotest acceptable reason why. Why would he force his personal ideology on the rest of the nation? A nation that has majority support for marriage equality?

Abbott has been accused of misogyny, of being sexist, of having a ‘woman problem’. But perhaps Abbott is just obsessed with sexuality. He is a man who clearly struggles to keep sexuality and physical attractiveness out of politics.

He described a female Liberal Party candidate as having ‘sex appeal’.

‘I’m the guy with the not-bad looking daughters’, he told the nation.

‘A bit of full body contact never hurt anyone’, Abbott happily told a bunch of teenage netballers.

‘You’d be the most popular girl in the place, wouldn’t you’? he famously asked a female utility worker.

And who can forget that wink and smirk when confronted by the angry pensioner who worked on an adult sex line to make ends meet.

Abbott has a penchant for prancing around in the most revealing of sportswear. Skin tight lycra, nifty red speedos, and tight running pants. Does he see himself as so insanely attractive that if same sex marriage was legalised he would be inundated with proposals? No one is asking Tony to be gay. Or even to sell his arse.

All Australians want is equality.

If anything is to come from this, at least we know this is a rare occasion when Tony is actually being honest. Even if it does ensure Australia’s same sex couples are continued to be treated as second class citizens.

 

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Vote for Tony

By opposing same sex marriage, Tony Abbott has reinforced the notion that homosexuality is “queer” – that members of the LGBTI community are a threat to our society.

By indefinitely incarcerating asylum seekers in offshore detention camps he has reinforced the idea that refugees are not victims but criminals who pose another threat to our society.

By labelling us as lifters or leaners he has reinforced the perception that those on welfare are bludgers, scamming the system because they are too lazy to get a well-paying job.

By calling women who receive maternity leave from their employer “double-dippers” who are committing fraud, he has failed to appreciate the disadvantage women face in the workplace and denied them their workplace entitlements.

By saying he wants Sydney house prices to go up – if people are buying them they must be affordable – he shows an unbelievable ignorance of the housing affordability crisis.

By his perpetual dog-whistling about imminent terror threats from an apocalyptic death cult, as well as brief flirtations with banning cultural dress, he has alienated the Muslim community and made them the target of suspicion and abuse.

By ignoring all scientific evidence about climate change and the dangers of burning more coal, he has destroyed the renewable energy industry and damaged the global effort to avoid catastrophic weather events.

By proposing the deregulation of university fees, despite receiving the benefits of a free education and several of his ministers campaigning against fees when student politicians, he is potentially saddling our children with a huge debt before they even begin their working lives thus precluding large numbers from even considering a tertiary education.

By dismantling FttP NBN, he has made Australia an information backwater, ranked 44th and falling for internet speed. While the rest of the world moves to fibre, we are paying a fortune for Telstra’s copper network.

By stripping people of their citizenship, he is breaking up Australian families and leaving people homeless.

By demonising unions he has robbed workers of their collective voice in preparation for the resurrection of workchoices and the demise of penalty rates.

By slashing over $500 million from Indigenous funding, combined with intemperate comments about uninhabited Australia and lifestyle choices, he has shown a blatant disregard for our First People, their culture, the crisis of Aboriginal incarceration, and our failure in closing the gap.

By defunding NGOs, charities and community groups, he has caused the closure of refuges, crime prevention and mentoring programs, and domestic violence support groups.

By introducing metadata retention and criminal charges for disclosure, he has sanctioned spying on all citizens and overridden the public’s right to know what is done in our name.

By refusing to release government advice and modelling, he is robbing us of the chance to make informed decisions.

By slashing funding to the States he is making it basically inevitable that the GST will go up, greatly increasing the cost of living.

By freezing the indexation on Medicare payments, he will force doctors to make up the lost revenue – a co-payment by stealth. He has also almost entirely dismantled Australia’s national preventive health system.

By slashing funding to the CSIRO and other research bodies, he has caused many promising programs to be abandoned and we are losing our brightest researchers to other more enlightened countries who understand the value of their work.

By being unwilling to undertake economic reform, he has overseen a deterioration in all economic parameters with no upturn in sight.

By insisting on captain’s picks, usually advising his colleagues via the Murdoch press, he has alienated his Cabinet, his party room, the Parliament and the people.

By abrogating our global responsibilities towards asylum seekers and credible action on climate change, combined with gaffes too numerous to mention, he has trashed our international reputation.

But hey, he gave up billions in revenue from the carbon and mining taxes and stopped talking about the boats. And IS haven’t invaded us yet. Surely that’s enough reason to want him as our leader?

 

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The stage is set for a Turnbull challenge

Malcolm Turnbull will only get one likely chance to be Prime Minister, and that chance could be offered to him within days.

Both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten have laid down his challenge.

The trigger will be Warren Entsch’s cross-party bill to legalise same-sex marriage, on which Tony Abbott has warned that Coalition front benchers who supported this bill would be sacked, should it came to a vote.

Turnbull supports same-sex marriage.

Shorten knows this, and has urged all Coalition MPs in favour of same-sex marriage to “stick to your guns”:

“We say to the Liberals like Malcolm Turnbull, stick to your guns. Stick to your guns Malcolm, stick to your guns Christopher (Pyne), Josh (Frydenberg) and George (Brandis)”.

If Turnbull has both the guts and the desire to challenge Tony Abbott he will indeed stick to his guns. I’m assuming, of course, that he does have the guts and does want to be Prime Minister.

We’ll find out.

If Turnbull votes for the bill and is sacked from the front bench then he is in the best place to launch a challenge for the leadership: the back bench.

If he doesn’t cross the floor and the cosy Liberal status quo is unruffled then he would be obviously happy to go to the election with his party facing a heavy defeat. Or he could also wait for Tony Abbott to eventually implode, but when might that be?

And let’s not forget Christopher Pyne. Knowing that he could be facing political oblivion at the next election, might he be the one who stands up to Abbott and goes on to launch a challenge? It might be his only chance at saving his political career.

Politics is about to get even more interesting.

 

Tony Abbott: is the cur taking a whipping?

This could well be wishful thinking on my part, however…

Yesterday, as I watched the anointing of the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, I could have sworn I saw in the face and body of Prime Minister Tony Abbott the sullen demeanour of a whipped cur, already plotting his devious revenge.

It seemed to me that in his petulant insistence on yet again prime ministerially exonerating ex-Speaker Bronwyn Bishop of what is potentially criminal behaviour (if anyone ever bothers to seriously direct their investigation in that direction) Abbott reinforced his profound political and emotional identification with Ms Bishop, and his outrage that for a mere mistake or two she has been so ignominiously ejected from the Chair, only to land on her corseted arse in the back benches where she can surely have very few friends.

Abbott is given to prime ministerial exonerations of his mouldy mates. Rather like the Pope speaking ex cathedra, once Abbott has written a character reference or stated in Parliament or out of it that you’re an all right fellow or gal, any formal performance of justice is in his opinion rendered unnecessary, and the courts merely unbelieving saboteurs, damn their eyes.

Bishop was Abbott’s Captain’s pick for the prestigious position of Speaker. This time Abbott was just another party member, and it is rumoured that he isn’t too chuffed about his party’s choice, Tony Smith. This must be a bitter pill for the authoritarian PM to swallow, after all, this is the second time in six months he’s been forcibly reminded that he isn’t a party of one supported by a few potentially duplicitous but for the time being supportive henchmen and women.

In other words, this is the second time in six months the PM has been put in his place by his party and as he sat in the House glowering while the new Speaker promised fairness and admitted to friendships on the other side, Abbott’s lips closed so tight I thought he’d surely swallowed them. The man has little control over his facial expressions and his body language. I’m stout of heart, but there are times when the barely repressed dark fury that emanates menacingly from his physical being almost scares me.

I am slightly heartened by Abbott’s capitulation to public opinion and the demands of his party. Another Captain’s pick for Speaker, or anything much else given the disastrous nature of every pick thus far, may well bring him entirely undone. The man has a tin ear. He is tone-deaf. He is wilfully ignorant. He has an ideological agenda, and lacks the intelligence or the desire to understand its limitations. Like every crazed ideologue, he believes he can force others to adopt his beliefs, simply by the relentless exertion of his will. He runs the country like an old-style priest runs a parish, sermonising to the flock at every opportunity from a position of steadfast denial of reality.

But reality bites, and I dare to hope it has begun to nibble at the PM’s quite remarkable capacity for obduracy. He and Bishop are a perfect match (the expressions on both faces were eerily similar, the grim, thin-lipped smile, the coldly enraged eyes) and that is no recommendation for the character of a Prime Minister. I dare to believe that the majority of the Coalition are not on the same page as either Bishop or Abbott, and that they are, at long last, prepared to take a stand for something more evolved than rampant self-interest.

But hey, what do I know? Like everybody else, I can only live in despair, mitigated by the occasional flash of hope. Hold on, sisters and brothers, and trust in hubris and the karma bus.

This article was originally published on No Place For Sheep.

 

What does ChAFTA really mean for Aussie jobs?

The Chinese-Australia fair trade agreement (ChAFTA) began negotiations in May 2005 with the agreement formally signed on the 17th July 2015, by Australian Minister for Trade and Investment, Andrew Robb and the Chinese Commerce Minister, Gao Hucheng. The ceremony was witnessed by Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott who described the signing as a “momentous day” for the Australian-China relationship. “It will change our countries for the better, it will change our region for the better, it will change our world for the better,” Mr Abbott said. He paid tribute to Chinese President, Xi Jinping whom he described as a “shrewd” negotiator and “friend of Australia”. He further toasted the deal saying “I trust that today our Chinese friends will enjoy the fine beef and the good wine that will soon be more readily enjoyed by their countrymen.”

Last year was a busy year for the Abbott government, which also signed off on the Korea-Australia free trade agreement (KAFTA) and the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (JAEPA). According to a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) report titled, Economic benefits of Australia’s North Asia free trade agreements, it will create lots of new jobs. It has estimated that between 2016 and 2035 the FTAs will lead to 178,000 jobs, at an average of 9,000 per year. Mr Robb also enthused the three FTAs job creation, saying that “Given what’s going on in the region, the extraordinary explosion of people going into the middle class, this is a landmark set of agreements, and it will see literally billions of dollars, thousands, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and will underpin a lot of our prosperity in the years ahead.”

The report also forecast an additional GDP increase between 2016 and 2035 of $24.4 billion and a boost in real consumption of $46.3 billion, equating to an increase in household consumption of nearly $4,500. This has been questioned by the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET). It said the study authors were “consultants which produced wildly optimistic estimates of benefits for the Australia-US FTA (AUSFTA) which did not eventuate.” Ten years on it’s still unclear as to what benefits the American-Australian FTA has had for Australia or even America.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is worried about how the deal will affect local jobs and unemployment levels. There is the ChAFTA and there is a memorandum of understanding (MOU) document, about an Investment and Facilitation Agreement (IFA), that was signed before the formal signing. An IFA is a project to be established between the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP), or its equivalent, and a project company. A project company is eligible to establish an IFA where:

  1. (a) A single Chinese enterprise owns 50% or more of the project company; or, where no single enterprise owns 50% or more of the project company, a Chinese enterprise holds a substantial interest in the project company;
  2. (b) There is a proposed infrastructure development project (“the project”) by the project company with an expected capital expenditure of $A150 million over the term of the project;
  3. (c) The project is related to infrastructure development within the food and agribusiness; resources and energy; transport; telecommunications; power supply and generation; environment; or tourism sectors;
  4. (d) The project company is registered as a business in Australia;
  5. (e) The project company agrees to comply with all Australian laws and regulations, including applicable Australian workplace law, work safety law and relevant Australian licensing, regulation and certification standards; and
  6. (f) The China International Contractors Association (CHINCA) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia (DFAT) have recommended the project and the project company meet the criteria in paragraphs 2(a) through 2(e).

Section four, covers the areas of negotiation for DIPB and the project company, which includes –

  1. (a) The occupations covered by the IFA project agreement;
  2. (b) English language proficiency requirements;
  3. (c) Qualifications and experience requirements; and
  4. (d) Calculation of the terms and conditions of the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT).
  5. The project company may be asked to provide additional information by DIBP in respect of its requests for concessions in the above areas. Other than the areas referred to in paragraphs 4(a) through 4(d), the grant of visas will be subject to meeting all other Australian nomination and visa requirements.

Interestingly the ChAFTA Myths versus realities released by DFAT only mentioned option 2. (b), most likely because it fits in with the infrastructure narrative. The “concessions” also aren’t mentioned but imply that the project company can negotiate a private contract with DIPB, to import Chinese workers on projects in lower skilled occupations. Though workers under the 457 visa scheme are required to be paid above TSMIT and possess a certain amount of English ability, this also looks like it can be negotiated under the IFA.

In paragraph six it states – There will be no requirement for labour market testing to enter into an IFA. The IFA is valid for four years from the date of execution and with the possibility of an extension. In the actual ChAFTA itself, in Article 10.4: Grant of Temporary Entry, it states – In respect of the specific commitments on temporary entry in this Chapter, unless otherwise specified in Annex 10-A, neither Party shall

  1. (a) Impose or maintain any limitations on the total number of visas to be granted to natural persons of the other Party; or
  2. (b) require labour market testing, economic needs testing or other procedures of similar effect as a condition for temporary entry.

Here is the ChAFTA side letter between Mr Robb and Mr Gao after the formal signing of ChAFTA, that provides more detail and states –

Australia will remove the requirement for mandatory skills assessment for the following ten occupations on the date of entry into force of the Agreement. And that the aim is to further reduce occupations or eliminate the requirement within five years.

Automotive Electrician [321111]

Cabinetmaker [394111]

Carpenter [331212]

Carpenter and Joiner [331211]

Diesel Motor Mechanic [321212]

Electrician (General) [341111]

Electrician (Special Class) [341112]

Joiner [331213]

Motor Mechanic (General) [321211]

Motorcycle Mechanic [321213]

Alan Hicks of the Electrical Trade Union (ETU) said that the Government’s decision to remove the mandatory skills assessment for Chinese workers in ten occupations was a disgrace. “For the Federal Government to come out and waive that under a free trade agreement, without any consultation with unions or employers, is an absolute disgrace,” he said. “It’s going to create significant workplace dangers, not only just for electricians, but all those people who use electricity.” Mr Hicks said China’s statistics of workplace deaths was of “genuine concern” to Australians. “Australia leads the way in electrical safety. We’ve got some of the best electrical workers in the world. A lot of countries aspire to have the same level of safety standards that we do,” he said. “We’ve got a licence system right across the country – no matter which state or territory you work in, you’ve got to be licensed to carry out the work – and those sorts of systems aren’t in place in other countries like China. Mr Hick’s also said that “And China has a woeful workplace health and safety record. They have over 70,000 workplace deaths a year, so we are genuinely concerned.”

There is also a ChAFTA DFAT factsheet that says – In order to better facilitate the temporary entry of workers associated with trade and investment, Australia and China will also increase cooperation in the areas of skills recognition and licensing, including through encouraging the streamlining of relevant licensing procedures and improving access to skills assessments.

Besides the Abbott government’s ideologies being against the work of the unions, it’s unclear as to why industries relating to the ten different occupations including employers, weren’t consulted. In the ChAFTA Myths versus realities document, it tackles untrained Chinese electrician worries, but it doesn’t mention doing away with the mandatory skills assessments or mention the total amount of visas on offer. The ChAFTA agreement also enables an Executive arm of government power that goes against the parliament’s 457 visa bill in 2013, where employers, are expected to conduct labour market testing.

The Chinese government’s response to ChAFTA through correspondence with Mr Robb is clear – I have the further honour to confirm that my Government shares this understanding and that your letter and this letter in reply shall constitute an integral part of the Agreement. What any of this means in the long term, in regards to state and federal industrial laws remains to be seen. But it does look like an overreach by the Abbott government in regards to executive power, with the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, deciding matters without employer input, let alone employees, the opposition or workers. It also has the faint scent of Work Choices, an unpopular set of federal industrial laws brought about by former Prime Minister, John Howard in 2006. Taking the power away from workers, over employers in your own country is one thing but taking on China’s is another. The IFA seems to enable these features, and how this will impact on local employment in Australia, also remains to be seen.

Either which way, training needs to be involved, and concessions made solely by Mr Dutton, is not enough to allay justifiable fears from the Unions and Australian’s looking for jobs in the areas of – Food and Agribusiness; Resources and Energy; Transport; Telecommunications; Power supply and generation; Environment and the Tourism sectors. The other question is, if it’s just a matter of training Chinese workers in Australian regulations etc; who is providing this training and how long does it take? And lastly, is there options for Australian’s who have the skills but don’t speak Mandarin and so on?

This article was originally published on Mel’s blog Political Omniscience.

 

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The election: hope versus fear

Abbott is gearing up for an election. First he wants to ensure he will be the leader who takes the Liberal National Coalition to an election, and this is by no means a done deal. And then he is convinced that he can sloganeer away the poll deficit he needs to win a second term. Or rather, his strategists are convinced they can come up with effective slogans to take Abbott to victory, and Abbott is happy to believe them.

As reported in the Guardian this week, Lynton Crosby of campaign strategist firm Crosby Textor, is confident he can use the Liberal staple of simplistic messaging around ‘economic competence’ to convince a not-very-interested-in-politics electorate to forgive everything Abbott’s wrecked with his wrecking ball, and to have permission to fire up an even bigger wrecking ball in a second term. But the question is, will the electorate fall for what basically comes down to a dirty, negative, fear campaign again? Because that’s what Crosby really means when he says Abbott needs to rely on a simple message focused on economic competence. He really means that Abbott needs to scare the electorate into thinking they’ll lose their jobs, they’ll lose their homes, they’ll be destitute and on the street if they don’t do what they’re told and vote for Abbott’s Liberals. It really is as simple as that apparently.

But are Australians going to fall for this again? Are the Turkeys really going to vote for Christmas? Will Australians again drink up ‘Great Big Tax’, ‘Axe the Tax’, ‘Stop The Boats’ and more recently ‘Jobs and Growth’ – the bogan slogans that make Abbott sound like a 2-year-old whose just learned a new word and wants to wear it out on his parents?

This is where I pause from typing and I sit back and worry. It doesn’t make rational sense that Australia would be so gullible to fall hook-line-and-sinker for such an obvious, shallow, implausible slogan to scare them into making the second biggest mistake of their lives after their first mistake elected Abbott in the first place. But there is nothing rational about politics. Especially when you mix irrationality with fear, a fear that experts like Crosby and Textor are very good at whipping up. This is why the re-election of Cameron in the UK sent chills down my spine. Cameron was just as unpopular as Abbott and resided over just as big an austerity-caused-badly-managed-economy with high unemployment and barely any growth. Yet he still was given the keys to the country again to wreak more havoc on not just the UK economy, but also to hammer the UK health system, education and social welfare system. But Crosby and Textor helped the very-easily-frightened electorate to forget about all this havoc and they’ve given Cameron a mandate to make the situation even worse. Fear really does make people do stupid things.

It seems like a simple problem to solve, however, it’s not. If you were working as a campaign strategist for Labor, you would think you could just point out to voters how utterly hollow Abbott’s ‘economic competence’ slogan is, how unfounded in reality, and how dangerous it would be to let Abbott’s economic incompetence continue to hurt the economy and to destroy jobs. The statistics are easy to quote – Abbott’s unemployment rate of 6.34% is the highest in 13 years, growth is stagnant and even Abbott’s favourite stick to beat Labor with – government debt – is up $100 billion since Abbott took over the job. The ironic thing is that Australia’s debt and deficit wasn’t even a major problem when Abbott turned it into a vote-winning-slogan, and yet he’s gone on to make this debt even larger. Yet still his strategists feel confident that they can run a fear campaign based on the strongly held electoral perception that Liberal governments are better economic managers than Labor governments. Even after Labor saved the country from a recession during the GFC, a GFC the Liberals claimed never happened, which Labor says didn’t happen to Australia because of Labor’s good economic management, which the Liberals now say is the reason the Australian economy isn’t strong – because the world economy still hasn’t recovered. See how irrational politics is? Facts are irrelevant when it comes to emotional responses to fear campaigns. Labor strategists have hopefully worked this out.

But what’s the answer then? If you can’t convince the electorate that Abbott’s claims of economic competence are as baseless as all the promises he made during the election, which have now been broken, how does Labor ensure that Abbott doesn’t win a second term?

I suggest Labor should learn from Abbott’s success and forget about quoting facts. Facts are really good at convincing people they are right when they can use them to back up their own preconceived, emotional beliefs. For instance – I know Abbott’s the most incompetent and unproductive Prime Minister Australia has ever had, and this article gives me the facts to prove it. A swing voter, on the other hand, doesn’t care about such analysis. So what Labor needs to do is forget about facts and appeal to emotions. In doing so they have two options: the first is to use the dark-arts of Crosby and Textor by scaring people about the prospect of an Abbott second term. This should be relatively easy. The very thought of such a thing terrifies me and although I know I’m not your average swing voter, surely Abbott has done enough scary things in the last two years for Labor to be able to convincingly show how things could get much scarier if Abbott has another go? And surely he’s given enough hints about what he might do in a second term – such as his promise not to increase the GST this term or to make any industrial relations changes this term – to scare people off living this reality?

The second option is to rise above the negative fear campaign of what an Abbott second term would look like, and to appeal to a much more savoury emotion – hope. Labor’s ‘hope for the future’ campaign could focus on all the things Abbott is interested in wrecking that Labor wants to invest in. Jobs of the future. Technologies of the future. The educational needs for jobs of the future. A safer environment for the future. Energy needs and industries of the future. I love the idea of a ‘rise above’ campaign, but I also recognise it’s naïve to think the electorate is ready to put long term progress ahead of short-term Abbott-opportunism. So really there is a third option; a little from column A and a little from column B. Simplistically it looks something like this – ‘Abbott will wreck everything, so vote Labor for a brighter future’. Sounds good doesn’t it. If only it was so simple.

 

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When Abbott Commits, You Can Be Sure Of . . . Something

From the Prime Minister’s website:

“As Prime Minister, Mr Abbott has promised to spend a week each year living and working in an indigenous community. In recent years, Mr Abbott has spent time working as a teacher’s aide in Coen and as a truancy officer in Aurukun as well as participating in Bush Owner Builder indigenous housing project near Hopevale on Cape York. Last year, Mr Abbott and a team of business leaders spent four days helping to refurbish the library of the local school at Aurukun.”

So, that must be coming up soon, I thought.

In fact, this very month according to this ABC story, Tony Abbott to spend week in Torres Strait, Northern Peninsula Region. But then the story is from the ABC and who can believe the ABC? After all they tell us in that article that:

“Last September, Mr Abbott ran the country from a tent during a week-long stay in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.”

While I may sound a little pedantic here, I seem to remember that he cut trip short, leaving on the Thursday to farewell troops to going to Iraq, but promising to return on the Friday. Unfortunately, due to “terror raids” he had to stay where he was, because, apparently, the security forces couldn’t manage without him.

Still, he did make the commitment and that means that he intended to do it. Intending to do something is the same as doing it? Isn’t that right?

Like his commitment to the Paid Parental Leave Scheme, which can be considered something that he did, because it was only scrapped when he decided that it would be better to make a commitment to improving childcare, and now that he’s committed to improving childcare, well, we can all feel better already and mark it down as one of the great achievements of the Abbott government like reducing the deficit and stopping the boats. Although some silly people tried to suggest that the fact that a boat made it to Western Australia the other week meant that we hadn’t actually stopped all the boats, they ignore the fact that this boat was stopped, and the people sent back to where they came from, like that SBS show has been suggesting for three seasons now.

Like those submarines that the Liberals promised would be built in Adelaide. The people of Adelaide didn’t seem to show any gratitude for the promise and seemed to think that by putting the process out to tender that wasn’t the same as actually building them there, which seems to rather harsh. To placate those ungrateful South Australians for presuming that just because there’s already a draft announcement awarding the contract to the Japanese that the decision not build the submarines there has already been made, Mr Abbott has now promised to build ships there instead… Sometime after the next election, but he has brought it forward to his next term in office so that he can ensure it starts, because if Labor get in, they may stop the project because Labor is anti-jobs, anti-Australian, soft on borders when it comes to “illegals” and too hard on borders when it comes to foreign investment and overseas workers.

And six months, Mr Abbott promised that good government would start that very day, which is another thing he should be commended for thinking and saying, even if he didn’t actually produce anything that could remotely be considered good government.

Although we did have Mr Turnbull telling the Australia-China Business Forum:

“While the unions will advocate for what they believe to be in their members’ interests – and the fact is that the vast bulk of 457 visa holders choose not to be union members – the Labor Party is supposed to be a party of Government, and that brings with it the responsibility to stand up for the national interest.”

Not only do they choose not to be union members, a large number of them choose to work for below award wages too, and enjoy being exploited, which is their choice and good on Mr Turnbull for saying so. Mr Turnbull is showing the sort of “good government” Mr Abbott was talking about back in the days when Joe Hockey was still prepared to come out of the house occasionally.

So, now that we know that Mr Abbott will be running the government from an Indigenous community in August. That should mean that we won’t see him going straight to see the Governor-General on Monday so that Bronwyn doesn’t have the chance to move a spill motion in the party room.

Gee, I hope there’s no emergency that’d make him cut his visit short this time. Still, we can rest assured knowing that Mr Abbott says something, he considers it as good as done.

Even if he never actually does it.

 

This is Australia – um … isn’t it?

Australia – the land of a fair go, of mate-ship and of lending a hand. I’ve always believed that. But under Abbott, is this changing? When I hear the line “This is Australia” from the well known GANGgajang song, Sounds of Then (This is Australia) this is how I feel.

This song resonates with me. When I hear this song, I feel the sounds, smells, the beauty of our country and our mateship are unique to Australia. They are ours and it is something to be proud of. It makes me feel grounded. Something I heard on the radio on Wednesday night made me think; “This is Australia … um … isn’t it?”

On Wednesday night, one of the members of GANGgajang, Graham “Buzz” Bistrup (ex-Angels, GANGgajang and one of the masterminds behind the best ABC show ever “Sweet and Sour“) was a guest on radio show The Musical Chair. He was discussing GANGgajang, his work on the ABC’s 80’s iconic Sweet and Sour and the good work of the Jimmy Little Foundation. Buzz is the CEO of the Jimmy Little Foundation.

The Jimmy Little Foundation is a not for profit organisation who aim to improve the quality of life for Indigenous Australians and to provide health and nutrition education and to strive for excellence in health care for Indigenous Australians. They do this through music and video. Jimmy Little was a celebrated and beloved Australian Aboriginal musician, actor and advocate whose career spanned six decades. A Yorta Yorta man, he was raised on the Cummerangunja Mission in New South Wales.

The Jimmy Little Foundation runs a great program called the “Thumbs Up – Healthy Tucker for Life” program. The program advice on the website states that this is a “Schools Program aimed at Indigenous children aged 5-16. A creative environment using music and new media workshops in schools and community concerts is employed to promote healthy eating education and information in partnership with local stores and local health services.”

It was on this radio segment I found out that the Abbott Government has cut funding to the Jimmy Little Foundation’s Programs. Once again the Abbott Government reinforces that they are not serious about funding Indigenous programs or services in Australia.

The Jimmy Little Foundation has released this statement:

Our organisation was previously funded by the Federal Department of Health but the current Government has ceased funding our programs. Our venture is to raise enough money to keep our office open with a skeleton staff for 12 months so we can “stay in the game”.

Through this blog post, I encourage everyone who reads this to donate whatever they can. Even if it is a small amount. Every bit helps. So please donate to “Start Some Good” Crowd-funding to keep these wonderful programs going. Please Tweet, Share, Re-Blog so people are aware that another savage cut by Abbott affects the people who need it most and money can be raised for this very worthy cause.

Please…Start some good and donate now:

Originally Published on Polyfeministix

 

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Abbott in trouble again as Leadership speculation re-surfaces

As one pores over the plethora of MSM articles written by a number of political editors since the Bronwyn Bishop resignation, one gets the feeling that Tony Abbott might be facing another leadership spill motion before Christmas.

It would be fair to say that his performance since his ‘near death experience’ in February has been less than stellar, no doubt exacerbated by the experience itself and the realisation that he is being watched very closely.

The Bronwyn Bishop issue has been a public relations disaster for the government and Abbott in particular. It has highlighted once again deficiencies in his judgement and that since the February spill motion there has been no discernible improvement in his performance.

But overriding all of that is the consistent negative polling, a fact no Liberal party member is ignoring, one that clearly shows that both Abbott and his government are looking very shaky.

The Liberal Party has a history of showing no mercy to leaders they view as poor performers or who consistently show they are unable to lead in the polls. Right now, we can be in no doubt that Abbott is currently viewed as a poor performer.

So the question arises as to how long the parliamentary team will give him to turn the corner. Thirty nine of them were prepared to tip him out in February.

It would only take another eleven or twelve to seal the deal. That spill motion in February did not have the support of the cabinet and no alternative leadership candidate was prepared to raise his/her hand.

We can surmise that opinions have changed since then.

With an election little more than twelve months away, time is not on their side. Many now will be taking a keener than normal interest in their own seats, particularly those who came into the parliament for the first time in 2013.

There will be no fat superannuation payout for them. They will be looking to the brains trust deep inside the bowels of the party machine and asking what can be done to win back dis-affected voters.

It may be that the only answer is to find a new leader.

The recent announcement concerning future shipbuilding contracts for the Defence Department might give us a clue. It was, on the face of it, a poorly thought through gesture toward the good people of Adelaide who hold the fate of Christopher Pyne’s political career in their hands.

The very thought that such a high profile government member could lose his seat must send a shudder through Liberal party corridors. They would quite rightly be wondering if he were to lose his seat, how many others would be in the same boat.

But the promise of new contracts being let to the Adelaide shipbuilding yards will only revive memories of the broken 2013 election promise to build submarines there. South Australians are not that naïve.

Self-preservation in any setting is a strong motivator and when the clock is ticking, watch out. Anyone who thinks this is pure speculation should watch this interview with political editor Peter Hartcher at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Hartcher confirms talk within the party about Abbott’s future as leader, about the possibility of an election later this year and that even without an alternative candidate, “they are contemplating getting rid of him anyway.”

One can only guess what might be the number of late night phone calls by leadership contenders assessing their chances.

 

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Out of the Taxpayer’s Pockets

The following is a short extract from Ted Mack THE HENRY PARKES ORATION 2013: It was a widely acclaimed lecture about the state of our governance.

“Over the last 30 years there has been a plethora of minor and major scandals, misuse of most forms of parliamentary allowances, interstate travel, overseas travel, telephone allowances,comcars, taxis, air charters and stamp allowances in addition to the revelations of major Royal Commissions. It seems that almost anything can and has been rorted”.

And it continues. Take a look at the expenses claims of Tony Abbott both as Opposition Leader and Prime Minister over the past few years. As Opposition Leader his office cost much more than the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

2010 $925,806

2011 $1,105,304

2012 $1,000,635

2013 $1,218,625

2014 $1,765,880

A total of around 6 million dollars and as one of the highest paid leaders in the world he earns $507,338. That doesn’t include housing or transport. I’m not sure about personal grooming.

The Prime Minister has been the major rorter of the system for many years. All others pale into oblivion. It should have been fixed many years ago. Three million people didn’t vote in the last election and a recent Essential survey found that only 16% of people trusted politicians. Given the appalling performance of this government it’s safe to say even fewer will vote next time around. And my tip is late this year or early next.

 

 

Mr. Abbott – These People Had a More Difficult Day Than Bronny

This afternoon, Sunday 2nd August, 2015, Bronwyn Bishop, resigned as Speaker of the House, after public pressure over an expense scandal.

Tony Abbott, Prime Minister, told Australians that “it had been a ‘very difficult day’ for Mrs Bishop.” I’d like to take this opportunity to share with Tony Abbott the range of people who have also had a ‘very difficult day’ today because of the cuts and broken promises and poor decisions of the Prime Minister and his Government.

  1. Asylum Seekers on Manus Island and Nauru living in squalor in detention indefinitely.
  2. The young person on Newstart who will starve for a month because they have no welfare income.
  3. The young person in Regional Australia who has run out of petrol and is stranded, because the only service station that takes a Basics Card is closed.
  4. The Single Mother who is waiting until Wednesday to buy milk and bread because her payments have been reduced.
  5. The person with a disability who has been transferred to Newstart who has to decide between eating and petrol, because if they don’t go to their ‘obligated inhouse training’ they will get cut off.
  6. The woman Asylum seeker who is so ashamed she is crying because she isn’t allowed a sanitary napkin, because the Guard said she can’t have one.
  7. The low- and middle-income earner pensioner who is stressed and upset about their future after pension cuts.
  8. The woman with postnatal depression who no longer can go to her counselling sessions because she can’t get childcare because she isn’t working or studying.
  9. The jobless Australians worried that work if even further from their reach because of your China Trade Deal.
  10. The chronic pain sufferer who is going without and living in pain due to increases in medication.
  11. The Federal Public Servants you sacked who are worried they will lose their home because they can’t find another job.
  12. Indigenous Australians in Remote Communities because you have denied them basic essential services and who will have nowhere to live because you are closing remote communities.
  13. Sexually Abused women and children Asylum Seekers in detention because you failed to act on abuse claims.
  14. The homeless person on Newstart stressing they won’t be able to eat when they get cut off, because their personal life barriers are a hindrance to applying for 20 jobs per month.
  15. The Jobless South Australians who could be employed building submarines but they are still jobless.
  16. The Mother who is worried that she can’t afford to take her child to the doctor because the bulk-billing centre is full and you have put up Medicare through the back door.
  17. The 756,100 jobless in Australia.
  18. Young unemployed people in Regional Australia doing twice as many hours of slave labour with no workers comp protections under Work for the Dole.
  19. The Bushfire and Cyclone victims whose lives will never be the same because they didn’t qualify for disaster assistance after your changes to disaster assistance criteria.
  20. Everyday Citizens in local communities who no longer have access to services or maintained roads due to your cuts to Local Councils.

That is just a list of 20 examples of people who don’t just have a difficult day, they have a difficult day every single day whilst your government is hurting everyday Australians. Please call an election. It’s not just the Speaker who needed to go. Your entire Government needs to go.

 

Originally published on Polyfeministix

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