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Ribbon-cutting, shovel-toting regifters.

Since the Coalition government assumed office in September 2013, they have embarked on a campaign of ribbon-cutting, dirt shovelling, and photos that would have one believe they have been hard at it implementing new initiatives and funding new infrastructure – except they are regifting.

On January 17, 2014 they shamelessly re-announced the $210 million Cape York Infrastructure Package, more than six months after Labor first unveiled it.

Disgraced former Minister Jamie Briggs made a flurry of announcements. In January 2014 he spoke about the benefits of the Legacy Way road tunnel project and the new northbound lane of the Gateway Motorway in Brisbane, Ministers visited work on the Princes Highway East in Victoria and the Pacific Highway on the NSW North Coast between Tintenbar and Ewingsdale, in March Briggs was reannouncing the Midland Highway in Tasmania, and in April he re-announced the funding to duplicate the Western Highway from Ballarat to Stawell.

Ex-Nationalsshovel leader Warren Truss was busy doing the same thing when visiting the Swan Valley Bypass project in Western Australia and the upgraded Port Lincoln airport in South Australia.

Labor planned, funded and started work on each of these projects.

In December 2015, Mr Truss announced “The Australian Government has committed $9.1 million to the Ballarat Freight Hub.”

Truss said the Freight Hub is part of an economic development strategy by the City of Ballarat which is forecast to provide thousands of jobs and contribute some $5 billion to the economy.

A quick look shows this funding was announced in May 2013 in Swan’s 2013-14 budget.

Ballarat Freight Hub: development of a general freight centre in the Ballarat West Employment Zone.

Federal contribution: $9.1 million.

Senators Zed Seselja, Michael Ronaldson and even Defence minister Marise Payne have each fronted up to smile for the cameras at the opening of their local trade skill centre and Barnaby Joyce posted about visiting his only a couple of days ago. This was a Labor intitiative begun in 2008 from which the Coalition stripped $950 million in funding.

The day after Tony Windsor confirmed he would be running against Barnaby Joyce, Barnaby issued a media release saying “more than 5,700 children will benefit from the Turnbull Government’s National Partnership Agreement on Universal Access to Early Childhood Education.” Education Minister Simon Birmingham said that the National Partnership funding was just one aspect of the Turnbull Government’s commitment to early childhood education.

Except the NPA was signed by Julia Gillard in 2013.

And there was Barnaby again at the ribbon-cutting for the opening of the upgraded Tamworth Hospital even though the funding for the redevelopment was secured in May 2011.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield has been crowing about the rollout of the NBN, saying it is on target when in fact, it is only the FttP which is on target, largely due to new constructions. The FttN and MTM are woefully behind schedule in every aspect.

Then of course we have Andrew Robb who, given a deadline of a few months, concluded trade deals that had been in negotiation for years. What did those signatures cost us that all previous negotiators had been unwilling to pay?

As Tony Windsor once said, I don’t really care who unveils the plaque as long as it gets done, but these guys are taking plagiarism to a whole new level.

28 comments

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  1. Deidre Zanker

    I expect we have been sold down the drain for the trade deals which were rushed through to make Abbott look like he had achieved something other than destruction.

  2. Möbius Ecko

    They’re tax payer funded governmentLiberal Party advertsingpropaganda on infrastructure is especially galling every time it appears on TV.

  3. Möbius Ecko

    Their not They’re. Bloody smart phone posts.

  4. win jeavons

    They would steal the gold fillings from their mother’s corpse.

  5. Kaye Lee

    They would also never acknowledge that all these things they are claiming credit for – all productivity enhancing ventures – were part of the “debt and deficit” they inherited.

    Their addition to the debt has been spent on locking up asylum seekers, paying Cambodia to take a couple of refugees, searching for a missing Malaysian airliner, bombing Syria and Iraq, creating border force, storing our metdata, special envoys and commissioners aplenty, and more consultants’ reviews than you could poke a stick at.

  6. Stuart Dean

    Möbius Ecko, there can only be more ̶g̶o̶v̶e̶r̶n̶̶̶m̶e̶n̶t Liberal Party a̶d̶v̶e̶r̶t̶i̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ propaganda on everything leading up to the next election.

  7. Kaye Lee

    I just saw a mining ad. It had lots of flowers and trees showing how well they rehabilitate land and talked about jobs and millions of dollars to economy.

    The Minerals Council have obviously hit election campaign mode.

  8. Wally

    “these guys are taking plagiarism to a whole new level.”

    Given their performance or lack of in government I suspect that most of them relied on plagiarism to get through their tertiary studies. Most cheats learn something from copying other peoples work but this mob know jack shit about anything, maybe that is a side effect of keeping their snout in the trough for so long without taking a break.

  9. gangey1959

    At least in some of the cases the incoming govt saw fiot to continue with policy and funding. Shame NBN didn’t go the same way.
    PS.The top photo in the article says it all. Everyone else is doing whatever one does at events like this.
    Our illustrious deputy pm is thinking “Ooooohhhh. Preetttyyyy colourrr.”
    Can someone just piss on him? PLEASE?

  10. Fiona

    Wally,

    There’s a big difference between plagiarism and paying someone else to write your essays, even sit your exams.

  11. diannaart

    Taking credit for achievements they tried to oppose…. who does that sound like?

    Thanks Kaye excellent work.

  12. Max Gross

    Well, they are LIEbrals, after all. Not an “innovative”, “exciting” policy or outcome in sight, but humbug, soap and bullshit without limit

  13. Sam

    The local Coalition member in Eden Monaro pretty much took credit for the new local hospital, even though it was a Labor initiative.

  14. Jane Pullenvale

    The greens are getting pretty good at claiming their success for initiatives and changes which were Labor’s. Getting pretty sick of them actually.

  15. Jagger

    It still a mystery to me that roughly 50% of the population will vote for these LNP parasites.

  16. z

    embarking on campaign of ribbon-cutting, dirt shovelling, and photos that is LNP senior official are good at. remember Robert Stuart who even made private trip to China to participate in such activity? what else you could expect they do ?

  17. z

    It still a mystery to me that roughly 50% of the population will vote for these LNP parasites.? it is very much doubt-able poll

  18. Kaye Lee

    Barnaby Joyce risks becoming the first deputy prime minister to lose his seat at an election, according to a Newspoll which reveals a two-candidate swing against the Nationals leader of 16 percentage points in his rural NSW seat of New England.

    The special Newspoll, taken on Saturday exclusively for The Australian, shows Mr Joyce is neck-and-neck with Tony Windsor on the primary vote but the independent former MP would win back the seat by 52 per cent to 48 per cent based on preference flows.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll/deputy-pm-in-danger-of-wipeout/news-story/360d853fd376fc379ecfb52e7fc6a088?utm_content=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=EditorialSF&utm_source=TheAustralian&utm_medium=Twitter

  19. Michael Taylor

    Maybe Barnaby needs to be parachuted into another safe seat. Either that, or the mother of all smear campaigns is about to begin.

    Oops, it already has begun. 🙁

  20. Kaye Lee

    Oh it has well and truly begun. Their facebook pages are open warfare. Tony is being vilified by a few very persistent posters all of whom say exactly the same thing. “You sold us out to Gillard” forgetting that his other choice was Abbott, and “you sold your land to a coal mining company”, land the family had owned for decades that adjoined an existing mine, and that could probably have been appropriated through the courts anyway as we don’t own the resources found under our land. They seem to conveniently ignore the two properties in the Pilliga that Joyce bought in the last ten years, speculating on gas deposits or inland rail construction. They are calling Windsor a traitor and a hypocrite and saying Barnaby is on the side of the farmers. But the people who actually LIVE in the electorate are not so easily fooled by the retail politician. Windsor’s achievements for his electorate cannot be denied. Barnaby, on the other hand, is claiming credit for a whole heap of things that had nothing to do with him. It is very difficult to find anything he has achieved.

    Barnaby isn’t too bright and relies on hyperbole whereas Tony knows exactly what’s going on in his electorate. A debate would be more like watching Tony eating him for breakfast.

  21. townsvilleblog

    I understand that it is old news but http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-17/almost-600-companies-did-not-pay-tax-in-2013-14/7036324 is still current and our revenue is down because at least 579 corporates have paid nothing since at least 2013, with others paying minuscule amounts like 5% or less. Shorten should announce that a Labor government would put a floor under what these corporations could pay, say 15% tax on every cent they make, if their long list of deductions takes them below that floor, then they pay the 15%, it does not seem harsh to me who, when I worked 2 jobs always paid in excess of 25% tax, surely something needs to be done on the revenue side after so many years of these parasites driving on the roads that “we” pay for?

  22. Kaye Lee

    Speaking for my own business, that would make me immediately bankrupt and the people I employ unemployed. You must at least allow deductions of stock, wages, rent etc. Stop deductions for financial transactions, lending to another version of yourself at exorbitant rates, taking advantage of currency fluctuations and tax regimes. but don’t disallow the normal cost of doing business expenses.

    I would prefer to see tax incentives for employing people, or using sustainable practice, or skills training, or genuine research and development, or transparent timely compliance or all those behaviours we want to encourage.

  23. diannaart

    I know shouldn’t do this, but…

    Dear Jane

    Regarding your claims about the Greens who are not in any position to take much credit seeing as they are not in power.

    FYI

    Barnaby Joyce is leader of the Nationals who are in coalition with the Libs, which currently are in Federal Office.

    Glad to be of help.

    😉

  24. Möbius Ecko

    Oh this is just so hypocritical, but what’s really pitiful is this government will get away with it solely because it’s the Liberals doing it.

    A senior government minister has stated that there will be a government increase in tobacco excise in the May budget exactly to the amount Labor proposed and claiming the exact same revenue Labor claimed.

    As it was so short a time ago how could you not remember when the Libs canned this policy by Labor as an attack on working and lower class Australians plus the revenue claims were bogus as people would give up smoking so revenue from it would plummet? It was supposedly just another mining tax that raises nothing.

    A quick search through the MSM aggregates and it doesn’t take long to find the Murdoch media and others savagely attacking Shorten’s tobacco tax idea. Bet they will be mum or in praise of it now, but will frame it as a Liberal idea.

    Here’s the ABC at it: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-25/barnes-labor's-tobacco-excise-plan-bad-politics,-bad-policy/6971434

  25. Kaye Lee

    Speaking of hypocrisy, as Malcolm Turnbull condemns union officials for misuse of their members’ funds, and berates Clive Palmer for job losses and unpaid entitlements at his nickel refinery, he is busily recouping his own investment in a failed venture as workers and other creditors go unpaid. His son, who is a hedge fund manager in Singapore, made a deal with Nick Greiner so you can be sure the Turnbulls won’t lose out.

    http://www.afr.com/news/politics/playup-pm-malcolm-turnbull-got-money-out-staff-missed-super-and-pay-20160309-gnf5xg#ixzz42ql85Vp7

  26. Zathras

    The Snowy Mountains Scheme was gleefully opened by Menzies after coming to power, despite his vigorous opposition to it while in opposition.

    It was the equivalent to today’s NBN but at least wasn’t sabotaged to please various interest groups.

    Governments take all credit for everything good but always shift blame when things go bad.

  27. Zathras

    Jagger,

    “It still a mystery to me that roughly 50% of the population will vote for these LNP parasites.”

    Consider how dumb the average voter/person is.

    By definition, half of the population is even dumber than that.

    Solved.

  28. Pingback: Turnbull gives in to the tin-foil hat brigade; loses all authority and credibility. – Urban Wronski Writes

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