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It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world

In the months leading up to the last election, the mainstream media lost the respect of many people. Murdoch headlines became stories within themselves. All news seemed to be about Labor’s leadership tension and polls. Scrutiny such as we are seeing now from some sections of the media was sadly lacking and many of us turned to online sites such as The AIMN.

Whilst I have learned a great deal here, it must be acknowledged that many of our articles are inspired by information in the MSM, or from source documents quoted in articles we read.

In our disgust with Murdoch, we rejected MSM and decided they had no journalists worth listening to, but that has never been the case. Tony has been extremely successful in perfecting the ‘look over there’ technique. Well, I am sure it wasn’t Tony, but people more schooled in the art of mind manipulation through the media who decide what we will be told and how.

Throughout this time journalists have been providing us with information, but it gets drowned out by the sensationalism being directed, presumably, by Credlin and Loughnane.

In light of the horror budget of all time I would like to remind you how tough Tony is doing at your expense, courtesy of just a few stories from the MSM. The thing that struck me as I put these few articles together was the secrecy, lies, and detachment from whether something is right or not, just whether he is “entitled.”

Canberra Times

Staff in Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office have blocked the release of information on the year-long restoration of The Lodge, fearing “negative comments” about the $4.45 million project.

Last week’s federal budget included more funds for maintenance and the refurbishment, but the total amount was deemed commercial-in-confidence.

Taxpayers forked out $65,000 in lease-termination fees in April after it was revealed Mr Abbott wouldn’t use a $3000-a-week rented home in Forrest chosen by the PM&C during the pre-election caretaker period.

Daily Telegraph

John Howard’s unprecedented decision to live in Kirribilli House citing continuity for his children’s education cost the taxpayers $18.4 million in flights between Canberra and Sydney.

news . com

“Tony Abbott has spent more than $120,000 overhauling Kirribilli House since winning the election – including $13,000 on a family room rug.”

news . com

The Abbott Government will seek a truce with media outlets and taxpayers so it can buy or lease larger VIP jets to fly politicians, officials and journalists overseas on the same aircraft.

According to senior government sources the new plan would involve aircraft such as the Airbus A-330 or Boeing 777 that can fly hundreds of passengers over long distances with fewer stops.

The Boeing 777 and Airbus A-330 each cost about $250 million and both can carry in excess of 200 passengers in VIP configuration.

Sydney Morning Herald

The top-of-the-line Holden Caprice was recommended by the Attorney-General’s Department in 2012 as the preferred option for a fleet of nine specialised blast-proof VIP vehicles to be used by the Prime Minister and other dignitaries, according to confidential government documents.

The revelation appears to contradict reported Abbott government sources as saying Holden had not even submitted a bid in the tender because the car-maker simply ”was not interested”.

The report also cited government sources revealing the multimillion-dollar contract to replace the ageing fleet of Caprices, was about to be filled with ”off-the-shelf BMW High Security 7-Series vehicles” worth $525,000 each.

news . com

SOME OF TONY ABBOTT’S EXPENSES:

Derby Day with family travel November 2012 – $2271.61

AFL Grand Final with family travel September 2012 – $2150.89

Coffs Coast Cycle Challenge, Coffs Harbour August 2012 – $1002.24

Hervey Bay surf life saving pier to pub swim April 2012 – $2372.81

Charter jet to Tamworth Country Music Festival January 2012 – $8800

Australian Open Men’s tennis final Melbourne January 2012 – $1639.82

Tour Down Under Adelaide January 2012 – $2174.82

Pier to Pub swim Lorne January 2012 – $1444.24

Port Macquarie Ironman November 2011 – $1290.10

AFL Grand Final with family travel September 2011 – $5663.58 (flight Bris-Syd included in the fare for Melbourne return)

Melbourne Cup November 2010 – $2154.40

news . com

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has again defended claiming a travel allowance from taxpayers for a charity bike ride.

Over the past few years, he has claimed thousands of dollars in allowances for overnight accommodation and flights for the time he’s participated in the Pollie Pedal fundraising bike ride through regional areas.

Three years ago, Tony Abbott said of Kevin Rudd’s response to the GFC:

“He has saddled us with years of higher interest rates, higher taxes and higher debt to avert a disaster that never was.”

Apparently the GFC was not a disaster but our recently reaffirmed AAA credit rating portends doom for the nation unless something drastic is done right now. The situation is so dire that the politicians have agreed to forego a pay rise they weren’t being offered.

In comparison, the Sydney Morning Herald informs us:

“We find that people on benefits do the heaviest lifting. An unemployed 23-year-old loses $47 a week or 18 per cent of their disposable income. An unemployed lone parent with one eight-year-old child loses $54 per week or 12 per cent. Lone parents earning around two-thirds of the average wage lose between 5.6 per cent and 7 per cent of their disposable income. A single-income couple with two school-age children and average earnings loses $82 a week or 6 per cent of their disposable income.

Compare this to the $24, or less than 1 per cent of disposable income, paid through the deficit levy by an individual on three times the average wage – close to $250,000 by 2016–17. High-income couples could together bring in up to $360,000 a year and not contribute an extra cent.

These calculations are conservative. They do not take into account the proposed abolition of the ”schoolkids bonus” because this is not a new budget initiative. They do not deduct rent or childcare. Nor do they include increased costs of health care and fuel or changes to education.”

But never fear … we have jets, lots of jets … or at least we might have, sometime in the next decade, so we will just sit on those billions until they are ready.

“The $12.4 billion cost of the RAAF’s 58 new Joint Strike Fighters plus another $12bn to keep them operational is not new money” Tony Abbott says.  The Prime Minister said the money had already been provided for in the budget as “money which successive governments have carefully put aside to ensure that our nation’s defences are strong’’.

We will also sit on the $20 billion raised by our co-payments for medical services.  Why we aren’t using those billions to reduce our debt or to make Medicare and pensions sustainable is something only Mr Hockey can explain.

It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

 

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23 comments

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  1. Wayne Turner

    That’s Rorting LYING Abbott for you.Abbott was promoted to get in all by our pathetic excuse for an MSM.

  2. Billy moir

    Sad but murdoch’s minions are already tired of anti the rabbott and writing shut up and let the rabbott continue to lie little billy has very little time to produce such facts on the commercial networks before he lies again and blames labor note the pinkbatts and anti union stuff has overshadowed the budget all in less than a week. Get advertising on TV before it is too late flood people like penberthy, Ali Clarke in the advertiser flood the Facebook pages with short moments on the nastiness of the rabbott.

  3. Sir ScotchMistery

    Some days ago, in fact, the day before the budget from memory, Christopher Pyne placed an excusable word into the national mouth.

    Short, to the point and in terms of its use in the twittersphere over the same period, elegantly economical in terms of letters when one thinks in terms of 140 characters.

    I don’t propose to use the word here, but I am entranced by it being suddenly okay, within the twittersphere to use it.

    I have used it in that forum, extensively. Every time the opportunity arises, I use it. I have used it so often that the pre-suggestion system on my phone, which of course reads my thoughts since it is a Galaxy, puts it in place as soon as I use the word Pyne. Or education. Or Dame. Or @TonyAbbotMHR, or @JoeHockey.

    I feel emboldened.

    I sneakily popped it into a cup of tea with she who must be obeyed, and received in response a raised eyebrow and a request to “pass a Sao please dear”.

    I used it this morning at work, and no raised eyebrows, but there was a moment, where a trainee emboldened by my release of a verbal fart in a lift of conversation was momentarily permitted to let fly.

    All because we have a grub posing as an “education” minister.

    Almost as rude a joke has been played on the electorate, as that played on London in the form of that screwed up ponce, Alexander bin Alexander, well known (and frequently done) scion of the parliamentary classes, (reminiscent of the chocolate snuggling in the juniors common room at Geelong Grammar).

    Christopher is no more deserving of “honourable” in his title, than Alex ever was in truth, hence my refusal to adhere to the normal protocols when talking of such creatures.

    Mindless toss-pots, with no more idea of being men, than they have of being “honourable”.

    Grub indeed.

  4. Sir ScotchMistery

    @Wayne Turner – Abbott was voted in because the left let the bucket and spade slide. We forgot that many Australians don’t think before they vote. They just vote. Usually the way they have always done.

    What happened to Australia, happened on our watch. We have as much to be apologising for as anyone. The MSM are just the puss in the infection we call Rupert Murdoch and Limited News.

  5. Rob Alan

    That Australian taxpayers are giving Lockheed corporate welfare support for a lemon aircraft is a cracker. You’d think that would be an American taxpayer responsibility.

    In any search engine deposit thus, ‘Lockheed corporate welfare’. It’s not a secret apparently.

  6. Wendy Fulwood

    I always wondered why Abbott’s refusal to live at the Lodge was not widely reported.
    Now I know.

  7. edward eastwood

    Sir Scotch Mistery; I think that should be ‘pus’ in the infection and not ‘puss’. Oh hang on… puss is a truncation of pussy which can also be used as a synonym for er… ‘grub’, so you’re probably right in the first place.

  8. Kaye Lee

    I think it’s only fair that if Tony is giving up a pay rise he wasn’t going to get, I should contribute a tax cut I wasn’t going to get. Are we square yet in our heavy lifting?

  9. Sir ScotchMistery

    Well picked up Edward.

    I would like to apologise to any cats who were offended when I said “puss” and murdoch in one sentence.

  10. jasonblog

    From Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974)
    Rhonda Cutforth-Jones: Have you ever balled another chick, Mrs Everage?
    Auntie Edna Everage: I may be old fashioned, young woman, but lesbianism has always left a nasty taste in my mouth.

    Hmmm… the Abbott government is quite humorous once you appreciate all they want to do is undo the liberating experience of the Whitlam stuff.
    It really is as simple and unnecessary as that. Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, Gerard Henderson & the ghostly BA Santamaria sure can hold a grudge when it comes to their Catholic fascist sense of entitlement to patriarchal authoritarian rule.

    This article by Kaye Lee is correct about the MSM (whatever the f that is) and a sense of disillusionment with last year’s political coverage.

    However, as Kaye Lee notes, the MSM does have some fantastic stuff. And not just Australia, but the International New York Times is well worth checking out, too. As are all the international papers, & also the New Yorker, New Statesmen, LRB, and the list is endless.

    The truly sad thing for Australian media would be the loss of The Australian. I personally stopped buying it long-ago because of its cheerleading for the Iraq War. However, it was otherwise a decent paper that absolutely fantastic special features and serious long length journalism. It did have a significant arts & culture coverage that was second to none. I haven’t bought the Weekend Australian for a long time, but I will be buying a copy this weekend – along with my Age and Saturday Paper – because Australia needs a diverse media and Australian writers and journalists need support.

    Even if it is critical support to fire discussion that challenges the shitty status quo (and let’s face it life has never actually been so good. Australia is a more equitable, tolerant, and diverse place than it ever was – there is much to celebrate about Australia. We seem to be forgetting that.)

    The great mistake that the Murdoch Media / The Australian has made in the past – in my opinion – is that they conflated “news” with “opinion”. Sadly the average Australian reader doesn’t seem to know the difference either. That’s how they got away with it.

    I enjoy the AIMN and long may it grow, but may it come to recognise the niche that it fills and appreciate its limitations.

    The AIMN filled a cathartic role for myself last year and I came to it seeking a community who was also disgruntled with what was happening to Australia.

    Perhaps, it is time for the AIMN to regather itself and direct its energy into more productive pursuits than simply wailing against the “MSM”.

  11. xiaoecho

    “The Abbott Government will seek a truce with media outlets and taxpayers so it can buy or lease larger VIP jets to fly politicians, officials and journalists overseas on the same aircraft……………..” WTF is that supposed to mean? “Please keep secret the fact that we intend to spend half a billion to fly ourselves and our propagandists at Newscorpse around the world in luxury”????

  12. Terry2

    Tony Abbott is at pains to say that he is not in favour of increasing the GST or broadening the base to include health, education and fresh foods: so that’s alright then isn’t it ?

    NO ! a thousand times NO !

    Tony Abbott is fully aware that a federal government cannot increase the GST or change its basis of application without the unanimous support of the states and Territories.

    Abbott’s advisers want the GST changed so the strategy is to rip $80 Billion out of education and hospitals which are administered largely by the states. The states have very limited Constitutional means of raising money: they can’t collect income tax and they can’t charge petrol excise and, in theory at least, they were meant to forsake sales tax and stamp duties etc when the GST came in; in practice of course they didn’t in the latter case.

    So, the states are being set up as a patsy by Abbott.

    You will fairly soon see the states and territories (ACT have already caved) calling for more money from the Commonwealth which ultimately will mean that they are effectively pleading for the GST to be broadened and increased. When that occurs, a very reluctant, hand-wringing Mr Abbott will say that he is all about reducing taxes but the states and territories have put him in a difficult position and he will have to give in to them.

    Peta Credlin sure is a smart woman.

  13. Stephen Tardrew

    Terry2

    Tain’t smart. Too blatant for that. Smart is not what the LNP do. Caught with their pants down and hands in the cookie jar. They just lost all credibility having given a great heap of ammunition that will invariably last to the next election. Suddenly people are wising up to this crowd. Viscous nasty egotists eventual fall on their own deceits. As Abbott to Credlin; as monkey to master; as garbage to refuse they all stink. Vainglorious fools one and all.

  14. Bacchus

    Tony Abbott is fully aware that a federal government cannot increase the GST or change its basis of application without the unanimous support of the states and Territories.

    Well actually Terry, that’s another of those ‘lies oft repeated‘ – this one started by Howard / Costello… It would be politically stupid to do so, but all it takes is a change in legislation – if a government can get legislation through the parliament, it can change the GST…

    http://www.factsfightback.org.au/could-a-future-federal-government-override-the-states-on-gst-changes-check-the-facts/
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/fact-checker/is-kevin-rudd-right-that-gst-could-be-changed-without-the-states-20130813-2rthd.html

  15. Terry2

    Hi Bacchus

    The Intergovernmental Agreement which forms part of the GST legislation requires that any changes to the GST are agreed unanimously by the states, Territories and Commonwealth (see Sections 31,31,32 & 33).
    The Ministerial Council can implement changes but it is made up of the sates, Territories and the Commonwealth (S. 40):

    http://www.coag.gov.au/node/75

    I stand to be corrected but, ‘unanimous agreement’ seems fairly clear to me and whilst any government can reverse or repeal legislation unless it is constitutionally entrenched, it would take a very courageous government to try and go against these express provisions.

  16. Bacchus

    Wasn’t that what I said Terry? “It would be politically stupid to do so, but all it takes is a change in legislation

    Did you read the links I posted? I would guess not 🙄

    From the 1st link:

    The Coalition has said that if it wins the election any tax initiatives outlined in the proposed White Paper would be taken to a subsequent election. But at any time governments can change the GST legislatively. There may well be political challenges for a government wanting to change the GST, but if it can get legislation through Parliament it can make those changes.

    And from the 2nd:

    But all of the constitutional experts PolitiFact has spoken to say it has force only until a new law is introduced removing it. An old parliament is unable to bind a new one. If it could, there would be not much point in elections.

    Here’s how the 19th century British constitutional lawyer AV Dicey put it: “Parliament has the right to make or unmake any law whatever”.

    University of NSW constitutional expert George Williams says the only way a parliament could partially bind a future parliament would be to change the constitution. That’s difficult, and it’s only happened eight times.

    Sydney University expert Anne Twomey points out the Commonwealth also has a signed agreement with the states not to change the GST without their consent, but says it’s “a political agreement, not a legally binding contract”.

    Kate Carnell, who was a chief minister when the agreement was signed, has told PolitiFact she knew at the time “it wasn’t legally enforceable”.

    Speaking of signed agreements between the states & commonwealth – did I hear someone mention “Gonski” or “NDIS”?

  17. RidgeyDidge

    Thats awesome if Tony gets a 777, Im hoping he gets one just like the one that went missing. Lets hope Hockey, Pyne, Andrews and that god awful woman Bronwyn Bishop are all firmly seated and tucked in with their seat belts fastened and let them fly off into the sunset where everyone I know wishes theyd STAY. I reckon all the politicians should be flown in dodgy 777’s.. Make them “feel” a little more humane.

  18. corvus boreus

    The main problem with the murdoch “press”, in my view, is that it is nether a vehicle to inform with facts, nor even to directly profit, but a vessel to influence the political landscape through misinformation. The telecrap is handed out for free at public venues(particularly junk food outlets), and sold at unprofitably low prices at selected workplaces. The headlines are routinely inaccurate or deceptive,and the corrections hidden within, with the consequence that it’s fabrications permeate the public consciousness without the consumer even picking it up to read it.
    The deceived and brainwashed public vote accordingly, and the cradle snatching yank benefits through legislation. That “grub” will end up owning our (to be privatised)ABC, and then we can kiss a collective goodbye to our public broadcaster, and with it any balanced, non-corporate media outside our deliberately retarded internet.

  19. Sir ScotchMistery

    @Ridgeydidge, my days begin with prayer. “god of liberals, if you get an opportunity we would appreciate you take care of the plane of the prime mincer and his friends. Something sudden would be appreciated”

  20. Kerry Charlton

    Cheers, Kerry

    >

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