Michael Taylor, Author at - Page 11 of 16 » The Australian Independent Media Network

Author: Michael Taylor

Michael recently retired from the Public Service and is studying law in his retirement. His interests are politics, media, history, and astronomy. Michael holds a BA in Aboriginal Affairs Administration, a BA (Honours) in Aboriginal Studies, and a Diploma of Government. Michael rarely writes articles for The AIMN these days, but is heavily involved with the admin team.

Website: https://theaimn.com

An open letter to Colin Barnett

November 13, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
28 Replies

Dear Mr Barnett,

You must be proud of your state. Western Australia has so much going for it. Per head of population it is the wealthiest state in Australia and is rapidly becoming one of the wealthiest states in the world with more than $170 billion worth of mining related projects still in the planning stages. No wonder you boasted the state “is doing pretty well” and saw fit to travel to China recently promoting WA’s strong economic relationship with the Asian superpower. It is without argument that no other state in Australia would benefit from Tony Abbott’s planned free trade agreement with China than your state.

Yes, Western Australia certainly is doing pretty well, as the above links testify. It’s a healthy state and it is about the grow even healthier over the next couple of years. And right now they are having money thrown at them:

Taxpayers will be stung with a hefty bill to fly WA-based ministers and Liberal MPs, spouses and children to Canberra on a luxury RAAF jet for next week’s opening of Parliament.

It’s nice that they can send the kids too. All that money with nothing better to spend it on, than to spend it on luxuries. But what about kids back home in hospital? Isn’t that a bit of a shame? Surely they could do with some help. Some families get treated to luxuries by your government whereas other kids and other families are subjected to the razor gang which your government sent in last year. Two of Perth’s largest hospitals were advised to cut $28 million worth of services despite the warning this had the potential to have a “disastrous” impact on patient care and clinical standards whilst another had been advised to shed 200 full-time jobs, including those of doctors and nurses. Again, it was warned that this would put patients at risk.

I’ve searched the internet and uncovered numerous press releases about cuts, warnings and risks over the last 12 months. You’re probably aware of the criticism. But there are some stories that don’t make it into the public domain. Those are the stories of children suffering and dying in a state that is “doing pretty well”. In a state, that with all its wealth and resources, takes money away from its hospitals.

Yes, people have suffered because of your cuts. I doubt you’ve heard from them. We have, and here is what they had to say:

From Kate

The scandal surrounding the new children’s hospital in Perth is beyond a joke. They have already cut 100 beds. The health care for children in WA shocking. Young children having chemo in corridors because there isn’t enough beds or chairs in outpatients. Children admitted for blood transfusions because of severe infections and then put coughing and spluttering into a cancer ward with kids undergoing chemo. Parents of the cancer kids pleading that the mother of the child needing the blood transfusion, stop her child coughing. Again because there are no beds. Kids getting shipped interstate because we don’t have enough specialists and equipment in WA. Emergency surgeries canceled because of no beds. Long waiting times. Yet we live in a so called rich mining state. My own son has been in and out the children’s hospital for 4 yrs. We are in crisis where pediatric health is concerned. Yet the WA government sees fit to give a $35 million discount on a piece of land that was sold by the state to Mr Packer, as just one example. So much money misspent or squandered. Yet much essential equipment for the hospital is provided by parents fund-raising. It is a scandal of epic proportion when you start to read what is happening to sick WA children.

There was another case today, poor 7 yr old girl has been fasted every day since Thursday for her PICC lines to go in and it has been canceled every day. So she has been without food and stressed waiting for the procedure only to have it repeatedly canceled. Everyday she is in a hospital bed means somebody else turned away. It’s shocking.

Wow, is that right about Mr Packer? He sure must be short of a few bucks for you to help him out to the tune of $35 million. Sorry, for the state’s tax payers to help him out.

Anyway, we continue:

From Clare

I am pro-extra beds for PCH as a concerned parent of a child with a life long blood disorder. Ellie was diagnosed at 2 1/2 with Hereditary Spherocytosis. We rocked up to Emergency after the GP didn’t like the urine sample we’d taken in but, after a barrage of blood tests and lots of serious doctor faces we were admitted to Ward 3B. No formal diagnosis was made until 2 days later. Ellie’s red blood cells are extremely fragile and the wrong shape so they break down in her body much quicker than normal. The byproducts of this cause her to ‘yellow’ – jaundice, become lethargic, dark yellow/orangey urine, swollen spleen and sore tummy. On that occasion we escaped a transfusion but when Ellie next got a virus her body went into overtime breaking down her red blood cells at an even faster rate. She was admitted and we went through the first transfusion – a traumatic experience for all. Suffice it to say that each time Ellie gets sick with a cough, cold, virus or infection she is likely to need a new influx of blood to helper body recover. The concerning flip side is that the beds we need to use are in Haemotology which share its beds with Oncology- the children receiving chemo – ward 3B. Dilemma – is Ellie sick enough to warrant us exposing all those immuno suppressed chemo kids for whom a cough cold or virus could, and do, kill them!!! Ellie got pneumonia in March and on our overnight stay were in a shared room with 3 kids having chemo. I will never forget the look of pleading in the eyes of a tired mum of a very ill child next to us receiving chemo, asking us to please stop Ellie from coughing. If only we could! Staff always try to get us in isolation rooms but only 1 visit in 4 has one been available. My husband and I have spent nights on the ward in sit up kitchen type chairs in order to stay with our toddler as even chairs are often all being used. We are in dire trouble if the same amount of beds are provided as the numbers of children are increasing on both sides of the ward. I find it unacceptable that I have to delay going and getting treatment for Ellie’s lifelong battle to be well because of the effect it may have on other children. Overcrowding at its best.

From Chris

We are working with a small group who are trying to raise awareness about the importance of including more mental health beds at the new PCH. You may be aware that there are only going to be 20 psychiatric beds available at the hospital, and it will become the only hospital that admits adolescent psychiatric patients. A number of these beds will be in a secure ward – so less than 20 beds available to our young people who are in desperate need. The most recent statistics I have been able to find tell us that 23% of the total burden of disease and injury experienced by Australian children and young people aged 0 – 14 years was due to mental disorders, the largest burden of disease for this age group. We also know suicide is the leading cause of death in people under 25. Twenty beds is not enough.

My personal connection with this issue began when my daughter was sent home from PMH due to lack of beds, and due to a ‘short stay’ policy – even though she clearly stated that she didn’t feel safe enough in her mental well being to return home. That night she took an overdose and we nearly lost her.

I have had experience personally with the state run mental health system. Unfortunately my daughter has needed admission on a number of occasions as she suffers PTSD, depression and anxiety.

She has been admitted to PMH adolescent psychiatric unit (ward 4H) and Bentley adolescent unit (BAU).

In our experience we have found staff committed and caring, but completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the mental health crisis that exists. We found that there were rarely the same staff members in consecutive admissions, so it is always a matter of repeating information to new nurses and doctors.

The 2 most distressing things that we have had to experience as a direct result of the mental health system are as follows:

Firstly, when my daughter was 13 there were no beds available in 4H so she was sent to BAU. BAU is a secure facility (so young people are locked in for their own safety) My daughter has no issue with drugs or alcohol, and her mental illness is a direct result from trauma. She is amazingly strong and resilient but has found great difficulty in coping with her distress at times. Being in BAU meant that my daughter was in secure care with males and females up to the age of 18 with serious psychological issues, as well as drug and alcohol issues. It is a terrifying experience, and my daughter was only exposed to this because there were no beds in 4H, which would have been an appropriate facility for her. During this time she saw many young people experiencing psychosis and saw a girl try to kill herself.

Secondly, on another occasion my daughter was sent home from 4H after clearly expressing that she didn’t feel safe and in control of her mental health. She asked that they allow her to stay but the doctor insisted she go home. There was no bed available. My daughter came home and shortly after took an overdose. We nearly lost her as a direct result of her being sent home.

I have had other young people share similar stories. A friend of our family lost their daughter after she was released from hospital, after clearly stating she was not safe to leave – the young girl left hospital, walked out and committed suicide by walking in front of a train.

Another young person has told me that she has friends who have been turned away from the hospitals, although they are in dire need, and others who have spent up to a week sleeping in the emergency department because there are no beds available (while I know personally of people who have not been admitted in times of need I don’t know anyone who has slept in ED for extended periods – I only have reported evidence of this).

Here are three other stories as told by parents

My brave little man Joshua fought Stage IV Neuroblastoma like a little warrior for two long and agonising years. During our time at PMH, Josh was waiting in outpatients, sharing rooms and being infected with other children’s bugs and moved around due to lack of space. During a mega dose chemotherapy and stem cell rescue Josh got too sick to open his eyes or speak to me. My Josh has since died.

My Julia was sent home from emergency 6 times after an undiagnosed stroke due to lack of availability for an MRI. The subsequent strokes stole her ability to walk and talk, and very nearly took her life as well.

Having spent 3 years as Aid Worker in the Romania Orphanages I find unbelievable that this is happening in Perth.

From A

I am a nurse who currently works at PMH and regularly experiences the vented frustration of parents of paediatric patients due to waiting time, theatre delays, etc. My ward should have been renovated just prior to the approval of the new Perth Children’s Hospital being given; but instead has had only minimal, cosmetic improvements made since the decision to build the new hospital came about. Let us not have missed out in vain, please!!

Our ward is amongst the busiest in the hospital and we regularly have to discharge our patients in a hurried manner, to quickly accommodate the next. This is mostly done flawlessly, however it puts an enormous amount of pressure on the amazing nursing staff – who are at the forefront of patient care and as previously mentioned, are often on the receiving end of parent and patient frustration as a result of the bed numbers available to the children of Perth currently.

It would be such a wasted opportunity to continue caring for Perth’s sick and injured kids in this fashion, (despite the aesthetically pleasing value of a new facility) when we do actually move.

As much as it is suggested that other floors may be added when the State Government’s budget allows, the inconvenience for all hospital staff involved, as well as the disruption to patient care during such an extension would be enormous!

Perth’s population is growing at a staggering rate and paediatric hospital admissions have increased accordingly.

It is utterly beyond comprehension how only an extra 27 beds are meant to accommodate such demand for treatment amongst the children of Western Australia.

You can read more stories here from parents fighting for better quality care for their children. Please brace yourself before reading these stories of young children dying in a state that’s doing pretty well. So well, that you can take money away from the services to treat them. This is Western Australia’s shame. It is your shame. I’m sure you’ll feel the same sadness in your heart when you read those stories as I did.

It is damning for you that people should take their plea to the internet over such an important issue and one that you appear to have ignored. How can you ignore sick, dying children in your own state? Change.org has also taken to the internet, petitioning you for 2 new floors and 100 more beds for the new WA Children’s Hospital. Here is what they say:

With the aging Princess Margaret Hospital already at capacity WA needs a new children’s hospital to serve our growing state.

But the Barnett Government is only delivering 27 new beds. Doctors and parents all agree that the new hospital needs 2 new floors and 100 more beds to serve our growing State.

Send Colin Barnett a message; our growing state needs a children’s hospital where doctors can properly treat our sick children now and in the future.

What’s the use of building a brand new children’s hospital without enough beds?

Let’s future proof our new Perth Children’s Hospital by adding two new floors.

Please listen to this. Please do something about it. Australia is watching.

And in the meantime … children are suffering. Mr Barnett, you have to power to do something.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Taylor

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We told you things would be bad (part 2)

November 8, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
35 Replies

Some things just slip under the radar, such as this piece of news which was “concealed” on the website of the Department of Human Services this week:

The Australian Government has committed to abolishing the Schoolkids Bonus. On 24 October 2013, the Government released an exposure draft of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013 that includes abolishing the Schoolkids Bonus. This legislation will be introduced into Parliament on 13 November 2013.

What did we tell you before the election?

If you have school-aged children…

Under Labor you would receive the Schoolkids Bonus of $410 a year for each child in primary school and $820 a year for each child in secondary school.

The Coalition would axe the Schoolkids Bonus.

It’s apparent that if you want to know what the Government is up to you’d need to scour their department’s web sites. But really, who would have thought to look up the draft MRRT bill on the Treasury web site to first learn about the fate of the Schoolkids Bonus?

Yes, I say again: We told you things would be bad.

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We told you things would be bad

November 8, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
36 Replies

I can’t disagree with this comment on The AIMN from Geoff of Epping:

The Coalition voters around Australia, are, mostly sane, hard working people who through no fault of their own have been cruelly duped by Abbott’s softly softly campaign, and will, in a very short time realise that they are not uppermost in Abbott’s mind. They were a means to an end, they have served their purpose.

But I might add that we told you so. We told you things would be bad.

We learn today that the government is coming under fire over its decision to scrap super payments for low-paid workers. Here’s the gist of it:

The Government is continuing to come under fire for its decision to scrap a superannuation payment for low-paid workers, after announcing yesterday it would also abolish a proposed tax on super earnings for the better-off.

The Coalition also wants to scrap the low-income super contribution, also introduced by the previous Labor government as part of its mining-tax package.

It gives up to $500 a year to help those earning $37,000 or less save for their retirement.

More than 500,000 sales assistants, checkout operators and food and hospitality workers will pay more tax under the Abbott Government’s plan to scrap the Low Income Superannuation Contribution which will mean 3.6 million low paid workers will lose a yearly tax refund of up to $500.

We told you this was going to happen in our post “Your vote might just be worth something after all”, where we wrote that:

If you’re a low income earner…

The Coalition would abolish the low income super contribution, which pays people who earn $37,000 or less per year up to $500 each financial year to help save for their retirement.

But to those Coalition voters around Australia, who are, mostly sane, hard working people who through no fault of their own have been cruelly duped by Abbott’s softly softly campaign, all I can say is . . .

… You voted for it.

We tried to tell you things would be bad.

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What is the Minister for Women’s Affairs going to do for women in this country?

October 24, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
25 Replies

Since forming government we’ve heard a number of Coalition Ministers speak about, or take action on their portfolios. For example, Environment Minister Greg Hunt has shut down the Climate Commission, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, has determined that asylum seekers were now to be referred to as ‘illegals’ and has done his utmost to demonise these poor people, Treasurer Joe Hockey keeps raising the debt ceiling (and his level of stupidity) whilst blaming it on the previous government and Christopher Pyne, the Minister for Education has threatened to overhaul the higher education system and turn public schools independent.

I, and most readers here as well as a large percentage of the wider community have been horrified by their announcements but at least we do know what they’re doing. Not so with the Minister for Women’s Affairs, Tony Abbott. He appears, on the surface, to be as distant from any of the the issues as he is from a probing question.

The Coalition’s September 2013 Policy for Women tells us a little more. Five whole issues fill its pages, being:

Relocate the Office for Women
A Real Paid Parental Leave Scheme
Help Make Child Care More Accessible and Affordable
Take Further Steps to Reduce Violence Against Women
Increase the Annual Target for Women at Risk Visa Grants

It’s not a real lot, is it? And it is safe to assume that only a small percentage of the country’s women will benefit from any of these policies, if indeed they are initiated.

There is nothing for the majority of women, or more importantly the disadvantaged women in our society that don’t rate a mention in the above policy document, such as these:

Female workers

The pay packet is always smaller and the gap between what men and women are paid is still widening, according to the latest workplace survey figures. A study carried out by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) found a $266 a week overall difference between what men and women in full-time work earn. There are also proportionately fewer women in key positions in the Australian workforce.

What will the Minister for Women’s Affairs be doing about that?

Mental illness

Women are more likely than men to experience anxiety disorders (18% compared with 11%) and affective disorders (7.1% compared with 5.3%) and are more likely to have anxiety and affective disorders in combination.

What will the Minister for Women’s Affairs be doing about that?

Homelessness

Over 40% of homeless people in Australia are women.

What will the Minister for Women’s Affairs be doing about that?

Lesbian couples

Thousands of lesbian couples in Australia want the opportunity to marry their partner.

What will the Minister for Women’s Affairs be doing about that?

Underemployment rate

In August 2012, the extended labour force underutilisation rate was higher for females than males (15.2% and 11.3% respectively). Not to mention the 350,000 Australian women that are looking for work.

What will the Minister for Women’s Affairs be doing about that?

Indigenous women’s health

Aboriginal and Torres Strait women experience poorer health across all health areas compared with non-Indigenous women.

What will the Minister for Women’s Affairs be doing about that?

Poverty

A 10-year study has found Australia’s most disadvantaged are more likely to be, among others, women.

What will the Minister for Women’s Affairs be doing about that?

All of these are issues that should be a priority for the Minister for Women’s Affairs … if he cares.

My views on the self appointment of Tony Abbott to the Women’s Affairs portfolio are well known, which are based on his out-dated attitudes to women and a complete disregard of their place in modern Australia. Here’s a recap of what I published earlier:

“I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.” Tony Abbott Four Corners 15/03/2010.

“While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it’s inevitable and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework.” Tony Abbott Herald-Sun 06/08/2010.

“I won’t be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated [for cervical cancer], maybe that’s because I’m a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won’t be.” November 9th, 2006

“I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question . . . [their virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly, that’s what I would say.” January 27th “The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience.” 2010

It has been revealed that after having being defeated by Barbara Ramjan for the SRC presidency, Tony Abbott approached Barbara Ramjan, and after moving to within an inch of her nose, punched the wall on both sides of her head. news.com.au 09/09/2012

‘I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak’ cited 23/08/2012

Gaining momentum across everywhere but the mainstream media are allegations that Opposition leader Tony Abbott inappropriately touched Aboriginal author Ali Cobby Eckerman in an Adelaide cafe last March. First Nations Telegraph 20/06/2013.

Tony Abbott urges women to save their virginity for marriage and reveals mixed feelings about contraception in a new interview. The Australian 25/01/2010.

And who can forget his behavior: standing in front of people as they hold signs calling Julia Gillard a bitch or a slut; rubbing shoulders with people after they’ve said on air that Julia Gillard should be dumped at sea; supporting members of his party who suggested Julia Gillard should be kicked to death. He also failed to reprimand those in his party who said Julia Gillard needed a bullet.

He can’t even address a female by name; it’s either ‘her’, ‘she’, ‘it’ or someone with sex appeal.

I could best describe his elevated appointment as ‘token’. He may prove otherwise, but as the above problem areas suggest he has a lot of work to do to prove it. If not, 100,000s of women in this country will remain disadvantaged and quite frankly, I believe that’s the way it’s going to stay. Unless of course, Abbott’s Number One policy of relocating the Office for Women turns out to be the most social and economic reforming program ever enacted in this country.

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Climate change questions and answers

October 14, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
80 Replies

Anyone who has read Andrew Bolt, The Australian, or listened to any shock jocks such as Alan Jones recently would have been overwhelmed with the number of rabid claims that climate change is a hoax, a left-wing conspiracy theory, or that any change stopped over a decade ago. Sadly, this is the view held by our mainstream media and even more sadly, our new government. Neither seem interested in the facts.

Just over a week ago the the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) published Questions and Answers: climate change where they addressed some of the common questions raised about the changing climate and the science involved in studying it.

The media ignored it. The government ignored it. And as a result, you probably don’t know about it. After all, it was nothing more than a collection of facts: facts that contradicted what the media and government would want us to believe.

Below, I have reproduced a condensed version of the CSIRO’s discussion:

What is climate change? (natural & human-induced)

Human-induced climate change, represents a raft of new challenges for this generation and those to come, through increases in extreme weather events and other changes, such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification.

Climate change will be superimposed on natural climate variability, leading to a change in the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme events.

Climate risk profiles will be altered and adaptation will be necessary to manage these new risks. Adaptation includes new management practices, engineering solutions, improved technologies and behavioural change.

How has climate changed in the past?

In Australia, surface temperatures on the land have been recorded at many sites since the mid to late 19th century.

By 1910, Australia had a reliable network of thermometers and the data they produced have been extensively analysed by the Bureau of Meteorology and scientists at CSIRO, Australian universities and international research institutions.

This reveals that since 1910, Australia’s annual-average daily maximum temperatures have increased by 0.75°C and the overnight minima by more than 1.1°C.

Since the 1950s, each decade has been warmer than the one before. We’ve also experienced an increase in record hot days and a decrease in record cold days across the country.

Why do sea levels change?

Average global sea levels have been rising consistently since 1880 (the earliest available robust estimates) largely in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the consequent changes in the global climate.

There are two main processes behind long-term sea-level rises, which are a direct result of a warming climate.

Firstly, as the ocean has warmed the total volume of the ocean has increased through thermal expansion of water.

Secondly, water has been added to the oceans as a result of melting glaciers and ice sheets.

Sea levels began to rise in the 19th century and the rate of sea-level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the average rate during the previous two millennia.

Global-average sea levels are currently (between 1993 and 2010) rising at around 3.2mm per year, faster than during the 20th century as a whole.

How else are the oceans changing?

The heat content of the world’s oceans has increased during recent decades and accounts for more than 90 per cent of the total heat accumulated by the land, air and ocean since the 1970s.

This warming increases the volume of ocean waters and is a major contribution to sea-level rise. Ocean warming is continuing, especially in the top several hundred metres of the ocean.

Sea surface temperatures in the Australian region were very warm during 2010 and 2011, with temperatures in 2010 being the warmest on record. Sea surface temperatures averaged over the decades since 1900 have increased for every decade.

How is the composition of the atmosphere changing?

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere in 2011 was 391 parts per million (ppm) – much higher than the natural range of 170 to 300 ppm during the past 800 000 years.

Global CO₂ emissions are mostly from fossil fuels (more than 85 per cent), land use change, mainly associated with tropical deforestation (less than 10 per cent), and cement production and other industrial processes (about 4 per cent).

Energy generation continues to climb and is dominated by fossil fuels – suggesting emissions will grow for some time yet.

How is climate likely to change in the future?

With greenhouse gas emissions continuing to increase, we expect the warming trend of the past century to accelerate throughout this century. We also expect changes to rainfall patterns and to the frequency of extreme weather events like cyclones and droughts.

Average temperatures across Australia are projected to rise by 0.4 to 1.8°C by 2030, compared with the climate of 1990. By 2070, warming is projected to be 1.0 to 2.5°C for a low emissions scenario, and 2.2 to 5.0°C for a high emissions scenario.

Australians will experience this warming through an increase in the number of hot days and warm nights and a decrease in cool days and cold nights.

Climate models show that there may be less rainfall in southern areas of Australia during winter and in southern and eastern areas during spring. Wet years are likely to become less frequent and dry years and droughts more frequent.

Climate models suggest that rainfall near the equator will increase globally, but it’s not clear how rainfall may change in northern Australia.

Australia will also experience climate-related changes to extreme weather events. In most areas of the country, intense rainfall events will become more extreme.

Fire-weather risk is also likely to increase and fire seasons will be longer. And although it is likely that there will be fewer tropical cyclones in the Australian region, the proportion of intense cyclones may increase.

What is extreme weather and how is it changing?

The natural climate variability that underlies all extreme weather events is now influenced and altered by the effect of human-induced warming of the climate system.

Future climate change impacts will be experienced mostly through extreme events rather than gradual changes in mean temperature or rainfall.

Heatwaves, floods, fires and southern Australian droughts are expected to become more intense and more frequent. Frosts, snow and cyclones are expected to occur less often.

Extreme events and natural disasters place a huge burden on individuals, communities, industry and the government and have an enormous impact on Australia’s economy, social fabric and environment.

What are the impacts of climate change?

Australia is expected to experience an increase in extremely high temperatures, extreme fire weather, extreme rainfall events, tropical cyclone intensity, extreme sea levels, and droughts in southern areas.

A decrease in the frequency of extremely cold temperatures is expected, along with fewer tropical cyclones.

These changes will pose significant challenges for disaster risk management, water and food security, ecosystems, forestry, buildings, transport, energy, health and tourism.

For example, many animal and plant species may decline or become extinct, water resources are expected to decline in southern Australia, agricultural zones are likely to shift, coastal erosion and inundation is expected to occur more often, energy demand is likely to increase, snow cover will decline and heat-related deaths may rise.

Is the science settled?

In climate change science, robust findings include:

clear evidence for global warming and sea level rise over the past century
changes observed in many physical and biological systems are consistent with warming
due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO₂ since 1750, ocean acidity has increased
most of the global average warming over the past 50 years is very likely due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases
global greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow over the next few decades, leading to further climate change
due to the time scales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries even if greenhouse gas emissions were to be reduced sufficiently for atmospheric concentrations to stabilise
increased frequencies and intensities of some extreme weather events are very likely
systems and sectors at greatest risk are ecosystems, low-lying coasts, water resources in some regions, tropical agriculture, and health in areas with low adaptive capacity
the regions at greatest risk are the Arctic, Africa, small islands and Asian and African mega-deltas. Within other regions (even regions with high incomes) some people, areas and activities can be particularly at risk
unmitigated climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt
many impacts can be reduced, delayed or avoided by mitigation (net emission reductions). Mitigation efforts and investments over the next two to three decades will have a large impact on opportunities to achieve lower greenhouse gas stabilisation levels.

It is incredible that this information has been unreported and I would assume, largely ignored. Instead, we will continue to be inundated with claims that rabid claims that “climate change is a hoax, a left-wing conspiracy theory, or that any change stopped over a decade ago.”

It is an act of gross negligence that our media fails to accurately report the reality of climate change. It is also an act of gross negligence that our new government fails to embrace the challenges.

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What beat up?

October 10, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
30 Replies

Andrew Bolt is not happy.

Not only is social media attacking his pin-up boy, the newly elected Prime Minister (over a dozen justifiable issues) but there is now, in Andrew’s words:

… this beat up over Abbott’s expenses …

Andrew has mellowed. He never used to tolerate misuse of taxpayer’s money. Last year he asked Peter Slipper to justify the reason why he had billed the poor tax-payers for cab fares amounting to a few cents over $80. He aired this request publicly, devoting a whole article:

In February, I asked Peter Slipper to explain these taxi fares he charged to taxpayers.

And he also asked:

… where was Finance Minister Penny Wong in this, with so many people raising concerns over this spending of our money? What happened to the investigation by Special Minister of State Gary Gray? Who was minding the till?

Wow, I’m glad you’ve mellowed on matters pertaining to the public purse, Andrew. I’d hate to think how you’d attack Tony Abbott if you hadn’t.

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Independent media: the sleeping giant and the MSM’s response

October 7, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
33 Replies

Paul Sheehan’s recent attacks on the hugely popular Facebook site Tony Abbott – Worst PM in Australian History are not isolated incidents of the mainstream media (MSM) publicly airing disdain towards the social media.

Ferocious, and to some, persuasive attacks by the MSM have become rabid from the moment the independent media (the Fifth Estate) and voices in social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter) became even the slightest of threats to their diminishing integrity. And why wouldn’t their integrity be diminishing when the direction we’ve seen in the MSM leans towards, especially in the last few years, are stories that are trivial, narrow, shallow and sensationalist? And often untrue. My recent article, The facts versus Andrew Bolt offered an example of the of the fabricated sensationalism so evident in today’s media.

It was a couple of years ago that I first noticed the MSM unleash an attack on the independent blog sites. A couple that I read from the Murdoch media exhibited a sort of ‘xenophobic’ hatred. Christian Kerr, a political journalist with The Australian, savaged the blogosphere with more zeal than I’ve ever heard him attack incompetent politicians, writing that:

It’s also worth noting that the`blogosphere’ supposedly outraged is the small incestuous clique of self-identified lefties, with readerships composed mostly of themselves, who were more than happy to out other bloggers a few years ago with whom they disagreed.

That last bit, for the uninitiated, is a reference to the modern dull and doctrinaire Crikey and its very own Adrian Mole, barrister-blogger Walter Jeremy Sear, and his role assisting The Sunday Age dissect the corpse of the spectacularly snarky site The Spin Start Here that offended sensibilities for years until it reached its logical conclusion and ripped itself apart. Sear was happy to help with an outing then.

The whole thing smacks of naivety and self-righteousness.

And naivety and self-righteousness seems to define the vast majority of the Australian blogosphere. That and whining conspiracy theories.

Quite remarkably, Christian’s little dummy spit was shadowed by the editorial of another from the Murdoch empire, the Townsville Bulletin, which announced to North Queenslanders that bloggers are cowards:

When reporter James Massola “outed” an anonymous blogger in The Australian newspaper last week, he received death threats and a torrent of personal abuse.

How dare someone in the mainstream media name one of these increasingly puerile bloggers, self-appointed guardians of righteousness and all that is wrong about society and, in particular, newspapers.

Grogs Gamut was named as a Canberra public servant and the reaction from his mates was as predictable as it was boring.

Those who hide under the veil of anonymity, taking cheap shots to satisfy their trendy social agenda, don’t like it when they are thrust into the real world.

The great thing about newspapers is that, love us or hate us, we’re the voice of the people. We represent the community, their views, their aspirations and their hopes. We champion North Queensland’s wins and we commiserate during our losses.

Oh how high and mighty they are, being the acclaimed “voice of the people”. And true to from, jumping in on the act the aforementioned Andrew Bolt screamed that the outed blogger, Greg Jericho, be sacked from his usual job. Indeed, let’s punish this new media.

There is no doubt that all forms of dialogue in the social and independent media have profoundly influenced the nature of modern communication and obviously this doesn’t sit well with the traditional media. The above references are indicative of their opinion that the new media produces public discussion that falls well below their standards. I, however, disagree. News stories these days are nothing more than opinion pieces to which nobody is held to account.

New media is now holding them to account and this sits very uneasily with them.

In a few short years the new media, blogging in particular, has become a global phenomenon and it has reshaped our view of journalism. It is in the political sphere, that the impact of blogging is being nurtured.

In an essay titled The Influence of Political Blog Sites on Democratic Participation, ShariVari wrote that:

A computer-mediated environment may make it easier for citizens to express their feelings about political candidates and allow them to speak more candidly than if they were in a face-to-face situation. The diversity of the internet gives citizens access to a wide variety of opinions and information that they may not have access to otherwise, and this may play a role in changing or shaping an individual’s political views. After disregarding any blog sites that have a corporate financial objective or are engaging in political agenda-setting, political blog site users can begin to discuss their personal view points with peers.

I find this essay to be rather heartening. As a blogger and a social media user who has lost all faith in the MSM it was good to know that we can indeed have an impact, albeit small at this stage.

ShariVari concludes that:

All of the research shows that increased opportunities for participation can only encourage democracy . . . This research means that citizens are increasingly turning to and trusting the Internet for accurate information, using it as a platform for participatory democracy, and becoming more knowledgeable about political information in the process. A Spiral of Silence is less likely to exist where citizens have only each others’ opinions to evaluate in terms of their own civic participation and lack status cues such as gender, race, and socio-economic status. Blog sites definitely are increasing the ways in which citizens can participate in their democracy.

The above article, although American and a couple of years old, aptly describes how independent media is now evolving in Australia.

Independent media are better suited to provide the diversity which is often ignored by traditional journalists. Both independent and social media advances the opportunity to expose doctored or omitted facts from mainstream media and point out the bias by particular reporters who do not provide such opportunity for his/her readership to give voice to alternate opinions.

Independent media also encourages contributors and readers to think objectively and ask the probing questions that might often be avoided by the MSM, particularly if they are working to a different (or hidden) agenda. Further, social media gives people the opportunity to analyse and disseminate the news and opinions thrown at them from the established media and as a consequence social media is awash with a more objective and factual analysis. Where, for example, would you find corrections to false or misleading statements from the current government exposed? Not the MSM. Not the MSM as they operate under a different agenda.

But if the MSM was objective, impartial and committed to providing a quality service then there may not be the thousands of social media groups the MSM are now taking a disliking to.

Had we a balanced and analytical media, there would be blogs and social media groups, certainly, but at the extremes of the political spectrum although their popularity would have been limited to those that simply agreed with them. Now we have people turning to the new media because they know they cannot expect the truth out of the old media. If the MSM did their job better they wouldn’t need to be so capriciously attacking social media because, quite simply, they wouldn’t be competition.

Sheehan’s recent attack, as mentioned earlier, is not an isolated incident. David Donovan of Independent Australia has also been targeted. David innocently tweeted:

Forgive if I recall incorrectly, but didn’t Abbott promise to spend his first week as PM in an Indigenous community?

It was a fair question. If it wasn’t bad enough that this pre-election commitment was washed aside by the MSM, then the insulting attack on David by Samantha Maiden, the national political editor of News Corporation’s Sydney Sunday masthead, the Sunday Telegraph was. The attack was personal. I encourage you to read David’s account of it.

What on earth is wrong with the MSM? Not only is the credibility of their professionalism crumbling but they attack the independent media for introducing the credibility that they themselves lack. Independent media are asking the questions that should be asked. Independent media are exposing the falsehoods that should be exposed. And in doing so, incur the wrath from the MSM who people, traditionally, have looked to for balanced news and opinion.

Margo Kingston – a former journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and now a leading figure in social media – summed it up rather succinctly in an interview with The AIMN:

It’s scary that the media are not doing their job. Many journalist friends have expressed the same concerns; they don’t feel as though they are traditional journalists anymore, they are simply writing what the powerful want them to write . . . And there are journalists in the traditional media who secretly admit that the new, independent media is the way of the future.

Some, however, are obviously frightened of it. They can persist with their attacks, but like their news stories they are shallow as rossleigh proved when he spoke to the creator of the Tony Abbott – Worst PM in Australian History Facebook group; the one that Paul Sheehan fabricated stories about. It was a glaring example of story being made up to attack the independent media. It’s not a good move. The Fifth Estate is a sleeping giant. It’s starting to wake up and my advice to the old media is not to provoke it. It is going to consume you. We are no longer passive observers. Margo adds:

We need to build a bridge between the new media and journalists who see the corruption within the mainstream media. We need to collaborate and work together. We can do this by luring traditional journalists into the new media and free them of their shackles. If we do this, one day we in the new media will look back and be grateful for the decisions we make today.

That would be ideal, however, even if ‘traditional’ journalists prefer to ignore the freshness that the new media can offer, there has already been an emergence of ‘new’ journalists in the Fifth Estate to fill the void.

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The facts versus Andrew Bolt

October 3, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
80 Replies

I don’t know how many times I’ve read Andrew Bolt’s claims that global warming stopped 16 years ago. Announcing the claim, on one of many occasions he recently asked:

How many more years of no warming before global warmists admit their theory is broken?

New data released two weeks ago shows the pause in global warming has now lasted 16 years.

Now, where did he get that information from? Maybe he read it in a newspaper. Maybe this one:

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released … and here is the chart to prove it.

Note the dates. Bolt’s article was published 18 October last year, the British article on 13 October: five days earlier. In between, on 16 October the MET Office* disputed the claim:

Met Office denies claims that latest data shows global warming slowdown.

Reports suggesting that global warming stopped 16 years ago are “misleading”, the Met Office said yesterday.

Why do Andrew Bolt and many right-wing commentators prefer to rely on misleading media reports to push their ideologies? I’m of the opinion that there is no crime in denying climate change – you can believe in it or not – but if you are going to publicly argue for or against it, it would be a good idea, for a start, to know what you’re talking about.

In my opinion, Andrew Bolt doesn’t. But it hardly deters him from attacking climate change believers with his poisoned pen whilst continuing to maintain his discredited argument that global warming had ceased. He was overjoyed at the sacking of Tim Flannery and the Climate Commission, writing:

New Environment Minster Greg Hunt made only one mistake yesterday when sacking Tim Flannery and junking his Climate Commission.

Hunt actually thanked the alarmist for his work.

Thank Flannery? Hunt should instead have asked Flannery how much of his $180,000 a year salary he’d refund after getting so many predictions wrong.

He should have told Flannery it was disgraceful to even now claim global warming was increasing, when atmospheric temperatures have failed to rise for 15 years.

No sooner had the ink dried on his article when world renown environmentalist David Suzuki appeared on the ABC’s Q&A and Bolt was at it again:

Oh. My. God.

David Suzuki on the very first question is revealed as a complete know-nothing. His questioner tells him that the main climate data sets show no real warming for some 15 years.

Suzuki asks for the references, which he should have known if he knew anything of the science.

His questioner then lists them: UAH, RSS, HadCrut and GISS – four of the most basic measurement systems of global temperature.

Suzuki asks what they are.

Anyone interested in global warming should know right there that Suzuki has absolutely no understanding of what he is talking about.

In my opinion he is a phoney.

Here, for Suzuki’s information, is the GISS measurement.

Bolt’s rant was backed up with a number of charts he had obtained from the link he provided to climate4you.com. I took a look at the site. It was overflowing with charts contradicting Bolt’s argument. His claim that “atmospheric temperatures have failed to rise for 15 years” is rebuked on the very site he referred to. Here’s a typical chart showing global monthly average surface air temperature since 1979, according to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), USA:

It doesn’t look like Andrew is good at sourcing information, does it?

I think I can do a better job than him. Here’s something from the Los Angeles Times for a start: 2012 was among the 10 hottest years on record globally. Here’s what it says:

The average global temperature in 2012 was among the 10 hottest since official record keeping began in 1880, with most of the world — from North America to far northeastern Asia — experiencing higher-than-usual temperatures, according to related reports issued Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Speaking of NASA, they have this on their website:

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner.

Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gasses produced by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.

According to the IPCC, the extent of climate change effects on individual regions will vary over time and with the ability of different societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change.

The IPCC predicts that increases in global mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones in others. Net annual costs will increase over time as global temperatures increase.

“Taken as a whole,” the IPCC states, “the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.”

Below are some of the regional impacts of global change forecast by the IPCC:

North America: Decreasing snowpack in the western mountains; 5-20 percent increase in yields of rain-fed agriculture in some regions; increased frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves in cities that currently experience them.

Latin America: Gradual replacement of tropical forest by savannah in eastern Amazonia; risk of significant biodiversity loss through species extinction in many tropical areas; significant changes in water availability for human consumption, agriculture and energy generation.

Europe: Increased risk of inland flash floods; more frequent coastal flooding and increased erosion from storms and sea level rise; glacial retreat in mountainous areas; reduced snow cover and winter tourism; extensive species losses; reductions of crop productivity in southern Europe.

Africa: By 2020, between 75 and 250 million people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress; yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent in some regions by 2020; agricultural production, including access to food, may be severely compromised.

Asia: Freshwater availability projected to decrease in Central, South, East and Southeast Asia by the 2050s; coastal areas will be at risk due to increased flooding; death rate from disease associated with floods and droughts expected to rise in some regions.

Not a bad source to reference, in my opinion. Far better than referencing a journalist whose claim was almost immediately shot down in flames. And while I’m finding all these facts here’s one from our very own Bureau of Meteorology who arguably, know a little bit more about our weather than Andrew Bolt. From their article Australia’s warmest 12-month period on record, again: Australia’s warmest September on record comes these Bolt defying revelations:

Australia’s record for warmest 12-month period has been broken for a second consecutive month. This continues a remarkable sequence of warmer-than-average months for Australia since June 2012.

September 2013 was easily Australia’s warmest September on record. The national average temperature for September was +2.75 °C above the long-term (1961–1990) average, which also sets a record for Australia’s largest positive anomaly for any monthly mean temperature. The previous record of +2.66 °C was set in April 2005.

The mean temperature for Australia, averaged over the 12 months from October 2012 to September 2013, was 1.25 °C above the long-term average. This was also 0.17 °C warmer than any 12-month period prior to 2013.

The previous record, set over September 2012 to August 2013, was +1.11 °C above the long-term average, and the record preceding the current warm spell was +1.08 °C, set between February 2005 and January 2006.

Temperatures for the calendar year to date (January to September) have also been the warmest on record, at 1.31 °C above the long-term average, well above the figure set for January to September 2005 (+1.07 °C). 2005 currently holds the record for Australia’s warmest calendar year.

The past 18 months have been characterised by widespread heat across Australia. The mean temperature has been above average over the entire continent.

In the past 12-month period a large number of mean temperature records have fallen across Australia including:

Australia’s warmest month on record (January)

Australia’s warmest September on record

Australia’s largest positive monthly anomaly on record (September)

Australia’s warmest summer on record (December 2012 to February 2013)

Australia’s warmest January to September period on record

Australia’s warmest 12-month period on record (broken twice, for the periods ending August and September)

Indeed, Australia’s warmest period on record for all periods 1 to 18 months long ending September 2013

Two significant daily maximum temperature records were also set this year:

Australia’s hottest summer day on record (7 January)

Australia’s warmest winter day on record (31 August)

The periods inclusive of September 2013 have also resulted in numerous State and Territory mean temperature records including:

Warmest September on record for South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory

Largest positive monthly anomaly on record for South Australia and Queensland (September)

The warmest January to September period on record for South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and the Northern Territory, and also for Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide

The warmest 12-month period on record for South Australia, the Northern Territory, and southern Australia

In addition to these records, and those set during the heat events of January and autumn, many individual stations have set records for early season heat or September record highs.

Generally above-average temperatures have persisted with few breaks since September 2012. The period has been characterised by long periods of warmer-than-average days and a distinct lack of cold weather. Nights have also been warmer than average, but less so than daytime temperatures.

Every calendar month since September 2012 has recorded temperatures at least 0.5 °C above average, with eight of those thirteen months topping 1.0 °C above average including January, April, May, July, August and September of 2013. Widespread record warmth has also been recorded in the oceans around Australia.

I am sure that none of this will be of interest to Andrew Bolt. I’m also sure we’ll keep hearing that global warming stopped 16 years ago despite evidence to the contrary. But we have one thing to be thankful for Andrew Bolt for whilst he keeps writing articles denying credible evidence and supporting discredited sources, and continuing to promote a raft of fallacies which add a sweetener to his bitter hatred, this can only be good for the growth of independent media. When people stack the truth up against Andrew Bolt … they’ll see that the truth wins.

*The Met Office is the UK’s National Weather Service.

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Give Tony a chance! You’re kidding me!

September 22, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
154 Replies

I quite like the Sydney Morning Herald journalist with the acid wit, Mike Carlton. He’s one of the only journalists left in the country in touch with us common folk and besides, any journalist who refers to Andrew Bolt as Melbourne’s village idiot is worth listening to.

Yesterday he asked that we give Tony Abbott a chance to prove himself as Prime Minister. Suggesting that Tony Abbott entered the job the least credentialed of any in living memory he reminds us that:

. . . history shows that the prime ministership can sometimes have transformative powers, elevating those who attain it. Bob Hawke abandoned his boozy larrikin ways to become Labor’s most electorally successful leader. Paul Keating, with no formal education beyond the age of 15, rose to a dazzling command of the policy heights. John Howard, like Abbott also once seen as unelectable, was the towering conservative figure of his generation for nearly 12 years.

It seems only reasonable to wait and see what Abbott makes of it.

It’s a valid point.

I’ve waited four days. He’s the same idiot. Even the Irish have recognised four days of failure with the Irish Times reporting:

Australia’s new prime minister Tony Abbott spent the last past three years destabilising the Labor administration at every opportunity, saying it was the country’s “worst government ever”.

For a thousand days there was no respite from the Abbott attacks, which made it seem like the longest election campaign to date. But when the actual campaign began, Abbott suddenly shifted gear.

The tough campaigner who said the Labor carbon tax would ruin the economy (it didn’t), and whose scare tactics warned of Labor’s “debt and deficit”, accused Rudd of being “so negative”.

The Australian public could have been forgiven for saying, “Mr Pot, let me introduce you to Mr Kettle”. But they didn’t notice, or were way past caring.

Days before the election, the “budget crisis” Abbott said was Labor’s legacy was forgotten. Knowing the election was in the bag, he backed away from his promise to balance the budget within one term. Now it was “within 10 years” (by which time the Liberal-National coalition will be on its fourth term of government if it is still in power).

Having secured victory with a 32-seat majority, Abbott and his cabinet were not sworn in until 11 days after the election. The supposed budget crisis was now just a memory and the asylum-seeker boats he had pledged to stop from day one of winning power kept on coming. Seven of them in fact, containing more than 500 men, women and children from Iran, Afghanistan and other troubled regions of Asia.

But the Liberal Party chief has been true to his view that climate change is “crap”. The climate commission, an independent body set up by the previous government “to provide reliable and authoritative” information has been abolished.

Former chief commissioner Prof Tim Flannery is disillusioned: “We’ve just seen one of the earliest ever starts to the bush-fire season in Sydney following the hottest 12 months on record,” he said.

Not only an idiot but a powerful one.

But let’s not be candid. Give Tony Abbott a chance and he’ll do what?

In his election victory speech, Mr Abbott promised no surprises. He’s had the chance to prove his word is true but that has already been broken to the detriment of at least one set of disadvantaged Australians. He has also broken his word by not following through with his pre-election commitment to Indigenous Australians.

But it is even more frightening if he doesn’t break his word. True to his form will he succumb to the wishes of the IPA and:

Lower the tax-free threshold from $18,200 back to $6000. This will drag more than one million low-income earners back into the tax system. It will also increase the taxes for 6 million Australians earning less than $80,000.

Save families $300 dollars a year of Carbon Tax but cost them $2,300 per year in reinstated tax.

Privatise Medibank.

Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme.

Privatise Australia Post.

Privatise the SBS.

Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function.

Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport.

End all public subsidies to sport and the arts.

Privatise the CSIRO.

Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built.

Abolish the means-tested Schoolkids Bonus that benefits 1.3 million families by providing up to $410 for each primary school child and up to $820 for each high school child.

Abolish the Baby Bonus.

Repeal the mining tax.

Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.

Repeal the Fair Work Act.

Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it.

Repeal the marine park Legislation.

Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Abolish the low-income superannuation contribution.

Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling.

Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784.

Abolish the Clean Energy Fund (done already).

Repeal the renewable energy target.

Introduce voluntary voting.

End mandatory disclosures on political donations.

End media blackout in final days of election campaigns.

End public funding to political parties.

Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency.

Abolish the means test on the private health insurance rebate.

Repeal the Alcopops tax.

Means-test Medicare.

Cease subsidising the car industry.

End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.

Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia.

Remove anti-dumping laws.

Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification.

Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced ‘.

Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law.

End local content requirements for Australian television stations.

Eliminate media ownership restrictions.

Give Tony Abbott a chance and he’ll also risk the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. According to The Huffington Post:

“Australia is facing a hard choice right now whether to make a quick buck from coal exports or whether to preserve an economically, long-standing national treasure.

” . . . Tony Abbott could overturn all the steps that have been taken domestically to protect the environment, to instead fast track coal export developments and drastically weaken environmental laws that were created to protect the country”.

Give Tony a chance! You’re kidding me!

Mike, it’s insulting to Hawke, Keating and Howard to be compared in some small way with Abbott. Even Howard waited a few years before unleashing his hunger for power and his pandering to the big end of town. Those three men are intellectual giants compared to our new Prime Minister. They also believed, rightly or wrongly (with the exception of Howard on occasions) that most of their actions were in the best interests of the country. Give Tony Abbott a chance and he’ll show us the complete opposite.

Mike, I also think it’s irrelevant if the prime ministership makes a good man out of Tony Abbott. He won’t be remembered for it. Instead, he’ll be remembered as the bloke we gave a chance to run this country and who blew it. Spectacularly.

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Defending my right to say what I did about Tony Abbott

September 20, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
149 Replies

I copped a bit of flak for referring to Tony Abbott as the ‘circus clown with the big ears’ in my previous post, and probably rightly so and I apologise to those who were genuinely offended. Under normal circumstances, I would have considered it indeed an offensive comment and would not have included it, however, these are not normal times.

They were before Tony Abbott seized leadership of his party over three years ago.

“But should have I deleted it?” I asked. I thought long and hard about that until I recalled the tone of political debate in this country and how Tony Abbott had engineered it.

Tony Abbott introduced the gutter politics of the American Tea Party into our fair country and the adoring media seized upon it with filthy lust. Both they and Tony Abbott, as a glaring example, denigrated former Prime Minister Julia Gillard in a manner that makes my “circus clown with the big ears” comment appear a very limp attack on the man by comparison.

During her term as Prime Minister, she was ruthlessly ridiculed for such menial things such as having red hair, a long nose, a big bum, a Welsh accent and her unmarried status.

We witnessed hatred inspired by the shock jocks, hatred inspired by Tony Abbott, and witnessed the denigration of Parliament by Tony Abbott’s Opposition.

We heard cries from either the Opposition or the media that she should be kicked to death or tossed overboard and saw placards littering the countryside that she’s a bitch or a witch.

Tony Abbott stood in front of those signs and smirked.

One media empire even fabricated a story that she engaged in criminal activity.

And don’t forget how tens of thousands of rabid right-wingers used to lap up Pickering’s pornographic portrayal of Julia Gillard.

Offensive and insulting not just to Julia Gillard, but to all women.

Now to Tony Abbott himself. I will use words that I’ve written before, so I apologise to those who are familiar with them.

I used to think that John Howard was a mean-spirited, nasty piece of work, but in comparison to Tony Abbott he appears as kind, caring and compassionate as Mother Teresa.

Tony Abbott is far, far more mean-spirited. He demonstrates this in the way he ignores human misery and the way he belittles those who are suffering from it. He is, in a nutshell, nasty to the core.

Stories surface that he’s been inherently nasty for as long as people have known him, but it wasn’t until 2005 that some of the public first took notice of his extreme level of nastiness and lack of compassion for human misery when it was hoisted onto the national stage.

It came only hours after the NSW Leader of the Opposition, John Brogden, had attempted suicide. The Age reported at the time that:

The day after Mr Brogden was found unconscious in his electorate office with self-inflicted wounds, Mr Abbott publicly joked at two separate Liberal Party functions about the disgraced leader’s career-wrecking behaviour . . . Mr Abbott was asked at a fund-raising lunch about a particular health reform proposal and reportedly answered: “If we did that, we would be as dead as the former Liberal leader’s political prospects.”

Nasty. To the core. And to a mate.

He also claimed that Bernie Banton was a mate. Not that he acted like one.

When Tony Abbott was the Minister for Health, the dying asbestos disease sufferer Bernie Banton obtained a petition containing 17,000 signatures of those who supported the listing of the mesothelioma drug Alimta on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

This petition was to be presented in person to Tony Abbott. If it wasn’t disrespectful enough to snub the petition, then his verbal response certainly was.

Yesterday, Mr Abbott was quick to dismiss the petition. “It was a stunt,” Mr Abbott said on the Nine Network.

“I know Bernie is very sick, but just because a person is sick doesn’t necessarily mean that he is pure of heart in all things.”

He loves making fun of dying people. Does he expect we’ll all laugh along with him?

He even has a go at deceased people. Margaret Whitlam wasn’t even in the grave before Tony Abbott used her death to score cheap political points.

The death of Margaret Whitlam caused such an outpouring of saddened fondness that comments by the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, linking her passing with the sins of the Whitlam government appear to have struck an extremely wrong note.

He said she was a ”woman of style and substance” and ”a marvellous consort to a very significant Labor leader and an epochal Australian prime minister”.

”There was a lot wrong with the Whitlam government but nevertheless, it was a very significant episode in our history and Margaret Whitlam was a very significant element in the political success of Gough Whitlam,” Mr Abbott said.

Nasty. To the core.

And let’s not forget the role he played in the jailing of Pauline Hanson. After One Nation shocked the Coalition by winning 11 seats in Queensland in June 1998, Abbott was determined to dig up every piece of dirt he could on Hanson. In his own words, on her demise he boasts this was:

“All my doing, for better or for worse. It has got Tony Abbott’s fingerprints on it and no-one else’s.”

And of course, there’s the now famous Barbara Ramjan incident.

His nastiness was contagious to the Liberal Party and many of its members and supporters have been affected under his leadership. It is a point that I and many others have expressed, but I do like what Dave Horton had to say some time ago, which I often refer to:

“In effect all shock jocks and populist politicians are painting targets on people who do not share their views. In Australia the people who said the Prime Minister was a “witch” or a “cheap prostitute whoring herself” who should be “drowned in a sack” or “kicked to death” were inviting violence in a way that should not be permitted in a civilised society whether applied to the prime minister or the unfortunate woman who was the partner of Car Park Man.

Bullying, in home, school, workplace is rightly taken very seriously these days. And it is clearly recognised that verbal bullying can cause as much distress and psychological damage as physical actions.

Yet we facilitate, protect, applaud, the bullying and incitement to bullying that takes place every day in our media. Target after target of helpless and/or vulnerable groups (Aborigines, gays, single mothers, unemployed, refugees, public housing tenants, environmentalists, unions) are chosen day after day by bully boy and bully girl shock jocks and politicians. And day after day there are attempts by the same people to denigrate, delegitimise, degrade, political and philosophical opponents. Day after day words are twisted, lies told, rage consequently incited.”

If you need reminding of how hateful the media has been, here it is in an early article Pedlars of Hate.

Dave Horton summed up the landscape of the last three years and those of the right-wing have, as Dave notes, applauded it. Am I right to assume that it is those same people who now take offence at me referring to Tony Abbott as the “circus clown with the big ears”?

Yes, it was inappropriate for me to use those words, and although I won’t resort in future to such wording, I defend my right to have used them.

For over three years the left has been subject to the most hysterical attacks of personal abuse and if those of the right now object to such behaviour being fired back in return, then all I can say is … deal with it.

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Introducing the Minister for Women’s Affairs

September 19, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
337 Replies

This is not a joke. Tony Abbott himself has taken primary responsibility for women’s issues. I’m lost for words so I’ll keep this post brief.

Mr Abbott had stunned us a year or so back with his comment that women should stay home and iron, or something to that effect. He has never retracted that comment, which suggests he still carries that ideology.

Now let us remind you of his qualifications for the plum roll (and his ideologies):

“I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.” Tony Abbott Four Corners 15/03/2010.

“While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it’s inevitable and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework.” Tony Abbott Herald-Sun 06/08/2010.

“I won’t be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated [for cervical cancer], maybe that’s because I’m a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won’t be.” November 9th, 2006

“I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question … [their virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly, that’s what I would say.” January 27th “The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience.” 2010

It has been revealed that after having being defeated by Barbara Ramjan for the SRC presidency, Tony Abbott approached Barbara Ramjan, and after moving to within an inch of her nose, punched the wall on both sides of her head. news.com.au 09/09/2012

‘I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak’ cited 23/08/2012

Gaining momentum across everywhere but the mainstream media are allegations that Opposition leader Tony Abbott inappropriately touched Aboriginal author Ali Cobby Eckerman in an Adelaide café last March. First Nations Telegraph 20/06/2013.

Tony Abbott urges women to save their virginity for marriage and reveals mixed feelings about contraception in a new interview. The Australian 25/01/2010.

And who can forget his behaviour: standing in front of people as they hold signs calling Julia Gillard a bitch or a slut; rubbing shoulders with people after they’ve said on air that Julia Gillard should be dumped at sea; supporting members of his party who suggested Julia Gillard should be kicked to death. He also failed to reprimand those in his party who said Julia Gillard needed a bullet.

He can’t even address a female by name; it’s either ‘her’, ‘she’, ‘it’ or someone with sex appeal.

His self appointment as Minister for Women’s Affairs just has to be a joke. It’s akin to having Andrew Bolt as Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

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Tony Abbott: a man whose words mean nothing

September 18, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
22 Replies

From the moment Tony Abbott emerged as a possible leader of this country the mainstream media went silent on his inability to keep his word. Instead, they echoed his claims ad nauseum that his opponent for most of that time, Julia Gillard, was a person who could not keep hers.

Her promise that “There will be no Carbon Tax in a government I lead” was upheld, yet it was distorted to present her as a dishonest politician. While all the time, Tony Abbott flip-flopped his way through the political landscape with verbal twists and turns and counter statement after counter statement.

They were repeatedly overlooked by the old media.

It appears they still are. But not in the independent media. The old media were happy to announce yesterday, without question, that:

Tony Abbott has put investment and free trade at the centre of the Coalition’s agenda to reignite economic growth by warning that other countries would “build walls against us” if the nation cracked down on foreign capital.

I say ‘without question’ because it was an announcement that blatantly contradicts everything Tony Abbott stood against when in Opposition and planning the ascension of his party. The article continued with:

In a news conference to announce his government frontbench, Mr Abbott said: “I want people here and abroad to understand that Australia welcomes foreign investment. It’s got to be the right foreign investment, which is in our national interest, but one thing we can’t do is build walls against the world.”

Without hesitation, they believed him. But only because they offer no scrutiny. They ignore that in August last year in their own discussion paper:

. . . the Coalition proposes the sale of farmland and agribusinesses be examined particularly closely, suggesting the Foreign Investment Review Board scrutinise all foreign acquisitions of agricultural land valued at over $15 million. The current threshold is $244 million.

As an aside, the wording in the ‘supportive’ Murdoch media at the time was a bit misleading. See if you can spot the difference.

. . . the release of a Coalition discussion paper that suggests slashing the foreign investment threshold to $53 million from $244 million for offshore buyers wanting to acquire agricultural assets.

Maybe the Murdoch media needed to leave out a ‘minor’ detail in order to sell the proposal, which, incidentally, will save the country from the great ruin the Gillard Government has deviously planned for us. Please try not to laugh at this from the above link:

South Australia’s food supplies will be increasingly at risk unless Julia Gillard adopts the Opposition’s new measures on the sale of farms to foreign investors, farmers warn.

Yes, the sky was going to fall in.

Yet most people think the sky was going to fall in on this proposal. Take, for example, the views of David Farley, the chief executive of Australian Agricultural Company:

“The Coalition partners, the Nationals, should actually study agriculture a bit more closely and understand what is needed to develop the industry in Australia.

“I am concerned that it is shouting out a xenophobic view rather than an informed view about what is best for the local industry,” Mr Farley said.

Mr Farley said there were was “plenty” of capital available to invest in Australian Agriculture, both through the trillion dollar domestic superannuation system and foreign investors.

“There are already enough hurdles to agricultural development in Australia, why put further barriers in place?

“If the pathways for Australian capital into agriculture are not attractive enough we definitely need to make sure that it is for international investors.”

Mr Farley said that as a major agricultural producer Australia had “big job to do’ over the next 20 years to meet the food needs of a global population tipped to reach nine billion people.

It did appear to be policy on the run. Populist policy at that. Just another thought bubble policy. A policy so bad that not even Joe Hockey could defend it, let alone explain it.

As at 2010 foreign ownership of agricultural land in Australia was a mere 6 per cent. If the Gillard Government didn’t do anything about this then the good folk of South Australia would have suffered from the effects of malnutrition and possibly scurvy. First only Whyalla was at risk. Then it was the whole state.

And all along the Coalition had been predicting that the Mining Resources Tax (MRT) would deter foreign investment in Australia. And isn’t it a surprise to learn that the mining industry in Australia is 83 per cent foreign owned?

What isn’t surprising is the Opposition’s hypocrisy.

On the run, they were producing policies that were promoted with the prediction that the country will be ruined if foreign ownership isn’t controlled, yet they opposed Government policies that they predicted – unfounded – that will deter foreign ownership.

Now we read that Tony Abbott wants to attract foreign investment.

I’m sorry, but hypocrites and policies don’t marry up too well.

This latest announcement simply reinforces that Tony Abbott is a man whose words mean nothing. He could possibly be offering this new policy with honesty and sincerity and if he is, it means that everything he said about this issue in the past was, in a word, bullshit.

Why can’t journalists in the mainstream media pick up on these obvious contradictions? Or better still, expose him as a liar?

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The job losses Tony Abbott didn’t want to tell you about

September 16, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
19 Replies

Tony Abbott’s pledge to cull 12,000 jobs from the Public Service went down well with the electorate. From the time John Howard took over as Prime Minister, and even slightly before given his pledge to trim the PS in the lead up to the 1996 election, public servant bashing has become one of the Liberal’s favourite election weapons.

There is now a perception in the community that public servants are over paid, under worked, and more importantly, not needed. Nobody seems to care if there are 12,000 less of them.

Defenders of Abbott’s decision argue that nobody will be losing their job as the 12,000 places will be vacated by natural attrition. That still means though, that there will be 12,000 less jobs to be filled from the ranks of the unemployed.

But it is worse than that. ACT and Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew Blyth explains the effect in Canberra alone:

About 4500 of the 12,000 redundancies are expected to be in Canberra, although figures are yet to be finalised and the government has said the cuts will be achieved through natural attrition.

Mr Blyth quoted ACT Government figures in his letter to Mr Abbott by stating it would cost the territory economy between $350 million and $650 million.

”A recent chamber survey found a majority of respondents believe both the ACT and national economies will be weaker over the next 12 months,” he said.

The Australia Institute has predicted a plunge into recession for Canberra and up to 5500 job losses in the city’s broader economy if planned Coalition cuts to the public service go ahead.

So that’s a further 5,500 job losses to add to the promised 4,500.

Prior to the election I suggested – and it is worth repeating given the Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s warning – that Tony Abbott’s promise to get rid of public service jobs was nothing more than a vote-winner without considering the consequences. When Howard won office in 1996 he murdered the Public Service in Canberra. The effects were devastating for our capital city which subsequently went into a recession.

But here’s the scary bit: this time, it won’t be confined to Canberra. From the CPSU website we learn that Townsville and Newcastle face the same uncertainty. In Townsville:

One in five Commonwealth public sector jobs and $87 million in wages could disappear from Townsville under a Coalition government, an analysis by the Community and Public Sector Union shows.

The CPSU analysis found 406 of the 2,015 or 21% of Commonwealth public sector jobs were at risk in Centrelink, Defence and Tax.

The CPSU based its calculations on the following:
– Tony Abbott’s policy of cutting at least 12,000 public sector jobs nationally by imposing a hiring freeze which would equate to a loss of 185 jobs in Townsville.
– Broad cuts to public spending needed to fund the Coalition’s election commitments would take another 69 jobs out of the economy.
– And a Commission of Audit to enable the outsourcing/offshoring of public sector work such as payroll, administration and IT which would see a further 152 jobs go.
– By taking the estimated salary for an APS employee of $76,821, the CPSU projects Townsville stands to lose $87 million cumulatively over three years.

CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood said: “We have already seen what a Liberal government is doing to public services and jobs in Queensland; the last thing that Townsville needs is more cuts under a Coalition government.”

“Remember Campbell Newman promised Queenslanders they had nothing to fear from him when it came to cuts in public sector jobs and services. And then he unleashed savage cuts. “Tony Abbott says he will cut at least 12,000 jobs but those are the ones that we know about. He doesn’t want to talk about the rest because he knows that a vote for the Coalition is a vote for job cuts.”

“The community is going to be hit hard on a number of levels. If one in five jobs go that means there will be hundreds of families living in Townsville with mortgages, kids and commitments who won’t be getting a regular pay cheque.”

“The drop in staffing levels is also going to hit services which will come under increasing pressure to meet the demands of the community,” Ms Flood said.

While in Newcastle:

Nearly one in four Commonwealth public sector jobs and $132 million in wages could disappear from Newcastle and the Hunter region under a Coalition government, an analysis by the Community and Public Sector Union shows.

The full scale of the cuts across the Hunter are laid bare in a report by the CPSU which based its calculations on Coalition policies such as the imposition of hiring freezes, and the launch of a wide-ranging review into the provision of public services. The CPSU analysis found 609 of the 2,551 or almost 24% of Commonwealth public sector jobs were at risk in Centrelink, Defence and Tax, spread across the city, the Hunter Valley and Lake Macquarie.

The CPSU based its calculations on the following:

Tony Abbott’s policy of cutting at least 12,000 public sector jobs nationally by imposing a hiring freeze which would equate to a loss of 217 jobs in the Hunter.

A Commission of Audit to enable the outsourcing/offshoring of public sector work such as payroll, administration and IT which would see a further 392 jobs go.

By taking the estimated salary for an APS employee of $76,821, the CPSU projects the Hunter stands to lose $132 million cumulatively over three years.

CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood said:

“The community is going to be hit on a number of levels. Over 600 jobs are to go, almost one in four Commonwealth public servants could be out of a job; that’s hundreds of families living in the Hunter with mortgages, kids and commitments who won’t be getting a regular pay cheque. By our calculations the region stands to lose $132 million in wages over three years.”

“The drop in staffing levels is also going to hit services which will come under increasing pressure to meet the demands of the community.”

The CPSU’s report follows a similar one launched in June by the Public Service Association of NSW which estimated that under NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell 1600 state public sector jobs will be lost.

Ms Flood said: “Given the depth of cuts under the O’Farrell government the last thing Newcastle needs is more cuts under Abbott.”

It says something when the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a union agree on the same issue.

It could be even more frightening if the jobs are made redundant through the cancellation of services. While researching for a Public Service report a few years ago it was discovered that for every Public Service job lost when a program is cancelled or completed, up to three private sector jobs are at risk. Tony Abbott’s promise to cut public spending fires a warning shot that this might very well happen.

These are the job losses that Tony Abbott didn’t want to tell you about.

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Murdoch hasn’t finished yet

September 11, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
37 Replies

Did you notice anything during the election campaign? I noticed that the ferociously rabid Murdoch media unleashed itself as the most persuasive and effective media in the country for promoting the discourse that Tony Abbott had evolved into something worth promoting. And of course, protecting. I have no doubt that their murderous attack on the Labor Government and its leader, coupled with the elevation of Abbott to the status of living god, was enough to swing the election. David Donovan of Independent Australia summed it up succinctly:

There is no doubt whatsoever that Murdoch gifted the Coalition several per cent of the vote on Saturday and, when you consider the weekend’s result was far away from being a landslide, there is little doubt Murdoch, in effect, gifted Abbott the prime ministership.

But now the aftermath. Tony Abbott might have been gifted the prime ministership but he will fall short of his ultimate goal; control of the Senate. The minor parties took a big chunk away from mostly Labor, but also the Coalition and it means Abbott will have to show his negotiating skills, which are already proving to be zilch as he’s promised to go to an early election at the beginning of next year if he doesn’t get his way. News Limited has jumped to his cause quickly with “Welcome to your nightmare” as minor parties claim Senate seats and Abbott will have to deal with them. It is the first attack by Murdoch – of many to come – to engineer an early election to attempt to get full power for his puppet. The Australian – Murdoch’s premier broadsheet – with their usual scare tactics yesterday chimed in with:

Business and state governments have warned that the economy faces a multi-billion-dollar drag if Labor and the Greens block Tony Abbott’s plans to repeal the carbon and mining taxes, amid fears an obstructionist Senate could keep the carbon price in place until 2015.

After the prime minister-elect instructed his department on Sunday to begin drafting the legislation to abandon the carbon-pricing scheme, business groups lined up to urge parliament to respect his government’s mandate.

So according to the Murdoch media, the Senate is obstructionist.

The Senate’s role is basically a check on government by scrutinising bills, delegated legislation, government administration, and government policy in general. A government that does not have a majority in the Senate, and therefore do not always have easy passage of legislation is subject to negotiation and consultation with minor parties and independents, as well as with the Opposition of course. In a democracy, the Opposition party may have sufficient support to have the Senate reject or, more democratically, amend government bills.

The last time a Government had control of both Houses was in 2004. Remember how this gave Howard’s draconian WorkChoices an easy ride as it was rammed through Parliament at the horror of a stunned electorate?

The behaviour of the Murdoch media in the few short days since the election suggests that it is not happy with purely elevating the Coalition into Government. They want it to go further. They want Tony Abbott to have unbridled control over this country, for whatever reason. Many have been speculated. Some are frightening.

The manner in which a large number of the electorate succumbed to Murdoch’s wishes on September 7 leaves me fearful that they may just as willingly do the same if a Double Dissolution election were to be called, as promised by Abbott if he does not get his way with the Senate. In the meantime expect Murdoch to attack the Senate as not only obstructionist but one that is detrimental to the economic security of this country.

It has already started. Expect it to go feral.

Thanks to Mobius Echo from Café Whispers for his input into this topic.

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Meanwhile, in other news

September 5, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
11 Replies

I can’t help but notice how lazy many of the political journalists in the mainstream media have been during this election campaign. It is evident (to most outside their profession) that they exhibit no desire to ask questions, seek answers or do a bit of simple research. And as far as sources go, they have sunk to new levels of laziness. That we are seeing ABC journalists interviewing News Limited journalists and masking that as news is one case in point. Lately, however, they’ve been racing to less credible but easily accessible sources: Twitter users. Every couple of days we are now seeing stories built from what a person has said on Twitter. I’m not talking tweets from frenzied Twitter users like Kevin Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull, or for that matter Mark Scott, but tweets from everyday ordinary folk like you and I.

And oh how they spin them. All of a sudden one person’s tweet, and a few replies – and only those that are negative towards the government – is a scoop about the mood of every living and breathing Australian. It then becomes the major Labor bashing story of the day.

Well two can play that game.

I have grabbed a few random tweets, and in News Limited style present these as the biggest news items of the day.

Here is the first:

Tony Abbott to feel wrath of housewives

Twitter has gone into meltdown following claims that most housewives won’t be voting for Tony Abbott because of his inability to whip up a good Bearnaise sauce. With the election only a matter of days away, this is a huge blow for Mr Abbott as he tries to win a few last minute votes.

Liberal Ministers have been quick to defend Mr Abbott since Twitterer Blacksheep tweeted this damning claim:

https://twitter.com/sheepofblack/status/375365040485842944

“He’s the first person to put his hand up to cook the barbie at party functions and he does a damn good job” boasts an unnamed source, adding “he hasn’t lost a sausage yet”. His daughters also lept to his defence, proudly announcing that “Dad has always been able to pour his own milk on his Wheeties”.

However, this tweet indicates what has been suspected for a long time by many, that Tony Abbott has serious problems connecting with women’s issues.

One of our correspondents has recently been contacted by a source close to the Liberal Party with allegations that Tony Abbott has been witnessed swearing at a can of peas. He was observed, and I quote; “lost it” when battling unsuccessfully with the can opener before hurling the half opened can at the kitchen wall.

Clearly a person who cannot open a can of peas is incapable of being Prime Minister of this country.

Tony Abbott is reported to have blamed this misadventure on the carbon tax but was unavailable for comment. However, to a packed media, Peta Credlin – sporting an apron – issued the following statement: It was Labor’s fault.

And on it goes.

Here’s a second article:

Prominent Cardinal slams Tony Abbott’s Christian values

Catholics from all corners of Australia, including those of the highest authority in the land have been seen burning photos of Tony Abbott following suggestions by Twitterer Lyndel Darling that his misplaced Christian values should come under heavy scrutiny. In response to a tweet from Clinton McRobert, Lyndel tweeted:

@FunHoleNo_5 Tony Abbott needs challenging on his Christian ethics. Jesus would turn over his table

— lyndel darling (@lyndeldarling) September 5, 2013

The backlash is sure to be a blow for Mr Abbott in the closing days of an election campaign in which he hoped to shore up the conservative Christian vote. A prominent Cardinal, who refused to be named, supported Ms Darling’s suggestion that “Jesus would turn over his table”.

Senior Ministers have dismissed the allegations, with one suggesting this has all been a misunderstanding: “Just because Tony likes to see struggling families throw all their money into poker machines, supports wages of $2 a day for those employed by the mining magnates and is happy for boat people to be sent back to their country of origin and face possible death, it doesn’t mean to say that he has abandoned his Christian values. For Christ’s sake, people, he goes to Church on Sundays”.

Despite their loyal support, some party faithful admit that this will cause a massive swing against the Liberals at the election.

A spokesperson for the Government suggests that Mr Abbott “Needs a double dose of confession”.

In a rare gesture of solidarity, Muslim clerics have united with Christians in condemning Mr Abbott’s ungodly behaviour, reminding our correspondent that he has a history of displaying disrespect for their religion too.

Tony Abbott is reported to have claimed that this has been a misunderstanding which he blamed on the carbon tax, but was unavailable for comment.

And on it goes.

Here’s a third article:

Thousands ready to take baseball bat to Tony Abbott

Australia’s best kept secret is out! Nobody likes Tony Abbott anymore. Twitter DavidW2035 summed up the mood of the electorate when he tweeted that Tony Abbott should be shaking in his boots because people from all walks of life were lining up to punish him for his sins.

In 2050 when Abbott is dribbling in an old age home thousands of people will storm the joint to string him up #indirectinaction #auspol

— DavidW2035 (@DavidW2035) September 5, 2013

Whilst DavidW2035 nominates a date sometime in 2050 as the moment of Mr Abbott’s reckoning, sources within the Government suggest that the date could actually be much earlier. Twitter has exploded with similar suggestions.

This is a massive blow to Mr Abbott’s electoral chances as he was hoping to shore up the redneck vote before Saturday’s election and an electoral wipeout is expected.

Mr Abbott has gone into hiding and it is believed that this was the reason behind his decision not to appear on QandA this week alongside the Prime Minister. When pointed out that this tweet appeared three days after Qand A was aired, this was vehemently disputed by several prominent Liberals. A spokesperson who claimed insider connections with the Liberal Party has said that Mr Abbott would be happy to appear on the show in 2051 if mentally and physically capable.

It is worrying to the party faithful that DavidW2035‘s tweet has hit a raw nerve with so many. One senior Minister bemoaned that: “We knew Tony would be screwing the country up good and proper and send it rocketing back to the 1950s but we never expected people would actually hold him responsible for it. For Christs sake, even women who should be at home ironing are marching in the streets. It’s like a witch hunt out there”.

Meanwhile, sporting good’s stores contacted by The AIMN confirm that they have sold out of baseball bats.

It is understood Tony Abbott complained that the reason he is so unpopular is because he couldn’t stop the carbon tax.

And on it goes.

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