Hundreds of quality articles were published on The AIMN in 2014. Which ones were the most popular with our readers?

Unsurprisingly, each of the Top 5 have something to do with Tony Abbott, his government or their policies.

The Top Five is based on the number of views only. It does not take into account the number of comments, the post’s popularity with other online media sites such as Facebook, or whether they are actually the best posts written all year. What they did tell us is that people like reading alternative (from the mainstream media) articles about Tony Abbott.

Here are the Top 5 (based on number of readers):

Number One: An Open Letter to Frances Abbott by Victoria Rollison.

Excerpt:

At the end of the day, this hasn’t really been about you, but it has affected you. You’ve been caught in your father’s web of perceived hypocrisy and you’re a victim of your father’s terrible decisions just as the rest of Australia is. When your father leads a government who asks that everyone does the heavy lifting, you must understand that it’s really important that the members of that government do the heavy lifting too. And when this quite clearly hasn’t happened in the case of your education expense, it’s only fair that we all get a chance to know whether our Prime Minister is willing to do what he’s asking all of us to do too.

Number Two: The facts about ‘boat people’ – The government and media are lying by Glenn Murray.

Excerpt:

The fact that most people don’t know this stuff is testament to the dishonesty of our politicians and the brainwashing by or media.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s all fact on public record. Look it up. It’s another instance of the government and media distracting voters from real issues by pointing the finger and finding a common enemy.

That’s why the Coalition built its 2013 election campaign on the ‘Stop the Boats’ line. And why they changed the name of the immigration department from “The Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship” to “The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection”. And why they even changed the processing label applied to asylum seeker boat arrivals from “Irregular Maritime Arrivals” to “Illegal Maritime Arrivals”.

None of this is accidental.

Number Three: The less they know the better by Kaye Lee.

Excerpt:

The Age of Entitlement may be over for pensioners, students, sick people and the unemployed, but it is alive and well for our fearless leader.

Aside from his salary of $507,338 a year, Tony Abbott has claimed $628,736.33 in expenses for the first 6 months of this year.

Number Four: Seminary similarity by Kaye Lee.

Excerpt:

Recently I came across an extraordinary article published in the Bulletin magazine (reproduced at nofibs) written by Tony Abbott in 1987, six months after he left St Patrick’s seminary.

Before I go any further, I realise that is 27 years ago and that people change or “grow” as Tony likes to put it. The disturbing aspect of this story is how much it reflects the Tony we see today. All quotes come from the article Tony wrote, and an article published in response a week later written by Bill Wright, a priest and church historian, who was vice-rector at St Patrick’s whilst Tony was there.

From the start, Tony was a controversial figure at the seminary. Whilst some seemed to admire him, others found him “just too formidable to talk to unless to agree; overbearing and opiniated”. After the heady days of university, “Tony was not, on the whole, impressed by his companions”.

In his article, Abbott blames the church for not living up to his ideals.

Number Five: So let me get this straight by Kaye Lee.

Excerpt:

If we keep the carbon tax and the mining tax and cut all the above wasteful expenditures then we will be a long way towards cutting the deficit without ME having to foot the bill for your decisions which, might I say, show you have absolutely NO idea about spending priorities. I doubt any of you have ever had to work to a budget before because you are making a god almighty mess of it and if I am going to pay to get us out of trouble then I want a say on how it is spent.

All great articles, but I can add another 200 to the list from all of our authors.

2015 has started with a bigger bang than 2014 and our articles have maintained the great standard from last year.

Tony Abbott – while he remains in the job – certainly remains newsworthy.