Tony Abbott Archives - Page 4 of 30 - » The Australian Independent Media Network

Stop The Homeless … A Moderate Proposal

November 1, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
3 Replies

When it’s all boiled down, politicians aren’t actually there to run the country. That’s what we have the public service for. It’s not that politicians don’t have the right to set the agenda after winning an election; it’s just that very few of them would have the faintest idea how to actually put their ideas into practice.

Politicians are there to argue their case, get elected and then to instruct the public service to implement their policies. The public service is there to – as far as possible – implement their policies while explaining to them the implications and problems associated with said policies.

“Yes, Prime Minister, I know that you were elected on a policy of absolutely no taxation, but you are aware that this will mean that your government has no revenue whatsoever to pay your salary. This is not a problem but it means that you’ll be running a rather large budget deficit and the following five hundred and twelve page summary of our thirty eight volume report on the consequences has been attached to this email for your consideration.”

Anyway, when Abbott and Hockey tried to say last month that they had good policies, they just didn’t explain them well, I thought that was rather like a teacher saying that he had an excellent curriculum, he just couldn’t get the students to listen to him because he hadn’t managed to engage them or even get them to turn up to class. Or perhaps a better example would be a salesman who tried to argue that they had an excellent product, they just couldn’t sell it, so it was really unfair that they were losing their job just because they hadn’t made a sale in two years.

Hockey didn’t seem to think there was any contradiction in pointing out that the way to afford a house in Sydney was to “get a better job” – in other words, earn more money – and his repeated insistence that the Budget Deficit couldn’t be fixed by raising revenue (in other words earn more money).

However, after Tony’s “Let’s really trash the memory of Maggie Thatcher by inviting the most arrogant sycophant we can find” speech, I got to thinking.

Tony seems to think that his most significant achievement is stopping the boats. Now, part of the reason that – prior to his election – people didn’t think he’d be able to stop them was the fact that they presumed that he’d actually be bound by the normal international protocols. They failed to understand that he was channeling Idi Amin.

Anyway, Abbott’s great success at stopping the boats made me think that I could start my own political party and call it the “End Poverty Party”.

Our first plank would be to end homelessness.

While it may not be a crime to be homeless, loitering is still a crime and we could round up all the homeless and send them off to detention centres in some un-named location. OK, this may cost more than actually putting them all up in a motel for the rest of their lives, we need to send a message to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place.

Some bleeding hearts will undoubtedly complain about human rights being ignored and attempt to use what’s now happening to the homeless to further their own narrow political agenda of human rights for all. To prevent this we’ll make revealing the location of the homeless or anything that happens there subject to the secrets act and therefore punishable under the anti-terror laws. (Of course, we won’t use these against journalists. Providing the journalists cooperate when taken in for questioning.)

However, if something should leak out, we’ll just simply say that we “Stopped the Homeless” and that we did out of concern for them because we didn’t want them taking the risk of sleeping rough. And we’ll point out that no deaths have occurred in the street since we implemented our policy and we’ll start lecturing other countries on how it’s done.

Now, unlike Mr Abbott, I realise there’s more to government than just having one policy. I also have a plan to end poverty by making it illegal and anyone with less than a certain amount of money would have to pay a large fine. This sort of deterrent should give people an incentive not to be poor. If they couldn’t pay the fine, they could work it off and in a scheme similar to work for the dole, we’d offer them to employers for nothing. This would promote jobs and growth, because look how many employers would hire extra people if they didn’t have to pay them. This would also rule them out of the housing market giving a much needed pause to the current housing boom. Not having homes to go to would mean that they were happy to stay at work all day and all night and Australia’s productivity would skyrocket.

Yes, it’s true that people could get around this by becoming an employer, but this is the sort of country we want to promote: One where everyone’s an employer and the only workers are those coming out on 457 visas or with some company that’s bringing its own workers because there’s a shortage of people with necessary language skills to talk to the other people working for the company.

Obviously not everyone should work for nothing. Certain people deserve to be well paid for their endeavours. People who have special skills. Like Arthur Sinodinis, who was paid $200,000 for his skills by Australian Water Holdings. But to earn that sort of money he had to put in long hours sometimes working 25 to 40 hours a year performing work so complicated that he couldn’t actually remember the detail. Or people like Joe Hockey who is now to become an ambassador so that he can use his skills to explain Australia’s position with such the same diplomacy as his poor people don’t drive comments or when he told us that Jula Gillard didn’t deserve respect.

On social issues, such as gay marriage, we believe that some should be determined by having on non-binding plebiscite on whether we should take the change to a referendum, while others should be decided by a conscience vote. And in the case of certain policies, we believe that people with a conscience would all vote the same way that I do, so I’ll just determine the policy and we’ll hear no more about it, apart from the sort of people that whinge about everything so we can just ignore them.

And finally, because three policies is surely not enough, we’ll have a fourth: we’d have a policy on climate change. We’re against it – naturally. However, if it isn’t caused naturally, then we need to do something about it. And the best way to combat climate change is to make people more aware, so we have a moral obligation to export our coal so that places where they don’t burn coal for electricity can see first hand the damage done by coal-fired power stations. Not only that, but once these places have electricity they’ll be able to get the internet and read all the articles and be better informed, so they’ll know all the facts because if there’s one thing the internet gives you, it’s access to unbiased, clear-headed information. Of course, some want a ban on coal, but what good would that do. Our coal produces just a small percentage of the world’s greenhouse gases. Any action Australia takes would be about as meaningful as a burglar ceasing to rob. It wouldn’t have any real effect on the crime statistics. There’s no need for him to change his behaviour, and there’s certainly no need for the police to investigate his crime. In fact, I’m not even sure that burglary exists and if it does, I’m not sure that it’s the burglar who’s causing it.

As you can see, I have the basis for the sort of party that’s a real threat to Turnbull. Once I launch my party, there’s a real danger that a large number of his party will defect and join it.

Abbott another Right Wing Nutter

October 31, 2015
Written by: John Kelly
25 Replies

There’s nothing quite as pathetic as watching a former Australian prime minister trying to redress a less than stellar political career. That Tony Abbott would use the Margaret Thatcher Lecture to do it, however, seems to fit nicely into his Anglophilic world view.

The event itself, celebrating a former UK Prime Minister who was far more arrogant and divisive than Abbott, seems a fitting place for him. No UK leader in living memory evoked such hatred for the way she so callously destroyed working class livelihoods.

Perhaps one should stop wasting good time writing about Tony Abbott. After devoting the last two years to his downfall and now celebrating that most joyous event, I would prefer never to pen his name again.

But after watching some of his Margaret Thatcher Lecture as he addressed that most pompous of audiences at the Guildhall in London, it became apparent that he is destined to follow another former PM and continue to embarrass himself and us along the way. It seems he is going to keep my keyboard working a little longer.

It is sad to watch someone in decline try to establish a positive legacy. It is worse when that effort is filled with such poisonous vitriol filled with such anti-human, anti-Christian values. As Alan Austin suggests, Abbott is in danger of being “consigned to the bin of foreign, right wing nutters along with Sarah Palin, Geert Wilders and Pauline Hanson.”

Margaret Thatcher, on the other hand, was the one who took on Argentina’s President Galtieri when he invaded the Falkland Islands. Against the advice from the Ministry of Defence she dispatched a Naval Task Force to reclaim them.

The Argentine invasion was a bizarre act by the ageing president in an attempt to deflect attention from his country’s appalling human rights record and its economic malaise.

The Falklands incident, however, could have been handled effectively through diplomatic channels over time. After all, it was a worthless rock in the Southern Ocean that meant little to either side. But Thatcher decided a show of force was necessary.

The result: Britain suffered 258 killed and 777 wounded. In addition, 2 destroyers, 2 frigates, and 2 auxiliary vessels were sunk. But they did reclaim their islands. For Argentina, the Falklands War cost 649 killed, 1,068 wounded, and 11,313 captured. In addition, the Argentine Navy lost a submarine, a light cruiser, and 75 fixed-wing aircraft.

As we have all witnessed recently, Tony Abbott, as Prime Minister, displayed an obsessive interest in defence and a willingness to commit Australian defence personnel to foreign conflicts. It is reasonable to speculate he would have gone further had his hold on the top job been stronger.

In his address to the English Lords and ladies, he suggested that placing boots on the ground in Syria was a necessary component to defeating ISIS. His use of the dreaded ‘death cult’ slogan was an embarrassment that, fortunately, the few who heard it, would not have understood.

But, there is little doubt that a ‘Coalition of the Willing Mark 2’, if it was gathered, would have seen Australian soldiers caught up in that conflict if Abbott was still in charge.

We are a better nation for his removal from such a powerful position. It was a strange act on Abbott’s part to make such divisive comments to a foreign audience while still a member of the Australian government. It is hard to see Malcolm Turnbull agreeing to such a scenario.

Turnbull avoided chastising him in public, but I would be surprised if that was the last Abbott heard about it. Thankfully, the address was largely ignored by the international media, but not by those were keen to satirise it.

Abbott’s term as PM is now little more than a blimp on the radar and we have regained our self-respect. This, however, does not mean to say we are being governed well. We are not. Those appalling asylum seeker detention tactics are still in play and our economy is still heading south. The latest CPI figures are a prelude to recession.

These and other issues will test the Turnbull government in the coming months. If Labor is to mount a serious challenge to counter Turnbull’s popularity, something will have to be done about Bill Shorten.

But somehow, that hurdle pales in comparison to the one the nation has already cleared. We have rid ourselves of one right wing nutter. There are still some around though and they need to be exposed for the danger they represent.

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They are not economic refugees, Mr Abbott

October 28, 2015
Written by: Roswell
127 Replies

Liberated from his stand-in job as Prime Minister, Tony Abbott is now free to impart his wisdom on the world stage.

Last night his ‘wisdom’ was on display as he embarrassed both himself and this nation in delivering the annual Margaret Thatcher Lecture in London to an audience of ‘British Conservative Party leaders and members’.

His speech left me cold.

The crux of his speech was to tell the European leaders how they should be dealing with the influx of Middle Eastern refugees. Naturally, his own views are the polar opposite to what is happening in the real world and how the Europeans are actually dealing with the human misery.

I only want to focus on one aspect of his speech, where he classed most of the millions of people fleeing the Middle East as ‘economic migrants’.

He said most of the millions pouring into Europe were not “genuine refugees”, rather “economic migrants.”

I can’t believe he said that. I can’t believe he believes it, either. If he does, then one must wonder how disconnected from reality he is.

For two years we have listened to him talk about death cults.

I’d say that most of these people are fleeing these death cults.

We know that most of these refugees are fleeing from Syria.

Shortly before his prime ministership came to an abrupt (and thankfull) end he had made the decision to bomb Syria. This is the country where families are being dragged from their homes and butchered in the streets. This is the country where you’re lucky to still even have a home. This is the country where people are randomly plucked off the streets and beheaded (before the video of their mindless murder is humiliatingly posted on YouTube).

This is the country where young girls are being raped before their lifeless bodies are dumped in some alley.

The young, the old, men and women are being mutilated.

This is the country that has turned into both rubble and a rabble.

This is the country where the super powers are possibly to soon engage in some seriously frightening engagements.

And some idiot who used to be our Prime Minister hops onto the world stage to implore the leaders of Europe to treat these miserable souls as economic refugees.

Maybe Syria is an economic mess. But there are other problems that Tony Abbott seems to forget about.

When you’re fleeing bombs and ‘death cults’ the economic stability of the country you are fleeing would be the least of your concerns.

Someone please take the microphone away from Tony Abbott.

Education, Re-education And Tony Who?

October 28, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
16 Replies

A few days ago I read that the education system was failing because one in four students don’t complete Year 12.

That interests me because back in the old days, when I was getting a secondary education, it was the kids who failed when they didn’t complete Year 12. Of course, it was a different system them and a certain percentage was mandated to fail.

When one looks at the data a bit more closely, one finds that a lot of the reasons for this are the reasons we already know. High dropout rates in remote indigenous communities, poverty, mental illness and all the other factors that encourage governments to commission reports which recommend that something needs to be done. After receiving the report, the government either buries it or announces with much fanfare that it’s a great report and they’ll be studying it carefully and when they’ve had time to read it more fully, in the fullness of time, something will indeed be done. Why, we may even restore some of the funding that we took away in last year’s Budget.

Now I’m not saying that there aren’t vast improvements that could be made to the education system. I’m not saying that teachers are perfect. I’m just making the point that every time something goes wrong, we blame the education system and then turn around and offer some half-baked explanation of what’s wrong with it.

And speaking of half-baked solutions, did you read Kevin Donelly’s article today which suggested: “Singing the national anthem at school should be compulsory”?

Kevin, you may remember, was responsible for a review into the Australian Curriculum to see how it was working. Which, of course, it wasn’t. After all, it hadn’t been introduced yet, so it’s really hard to argue that it was working. But Kevin and his mate were appointed to review it because they thought that it was far too left wing and didn’t have enough about our Judeo-Christian heritage or Anzac Day.

Surprisingly, they found that it didn’t have enough about our Judeo-Christian heritage or Anzac Day, as well as having far too much about Asia.

You remember, Anzac Day where the diggers went and fought for our right to make things compulsory.

Young Kevin begins his piece with the rather interesting rhetorical questions:

“How far should we go in accepting diversity and difference, the new code for multiculturalism, and allow immigrants to pursue their own values and customs? And to what extent should all those who live here be integrated into Australian society and accept the nation’s way of life?”

New “code” for multiculturalism? Mm, and here I was thinking difference and diversity meant something else entirely.

Anyway Mr Donnelly’s problem is that the principal of a primary school exempted a number of Shite students from assembly where the national anthem was to be sung, because they were observing Muharram, during which time they don’t participate in joyful events such as singing or listening to music.

Ok, I’ve never exactly thought of “Advance Australia Fair” as particularly joyful. I mean I can’t ever remember dancing to it, so if it’s a time of mourning I can’t see that loudly proclaiming our girtness would cheer one up all that much. And you can make your own mind up about the principal’s decision, but I like Kevin’s neat sashay round the wider question to go straight to the heart of the matter.

“All those who live in Australia, especially immigrants, should accept that Australian society is unique and that the types of freedoms and basic rights we often take for granted must be celebrated and upheld.”

So let’s see if I’ve got his position. All those who come here should be forced to accept that Australia is unique – unlike all those other countries which are all the same and just full of foreigners – and that children should be forced to sing the national anthem so that they understand exactly how freedom and basic rights must be celebrated.

Of course, he doesn’t talk about what should be done if I a person decides that their religous practices are more important and simply doesn’t sing. Should they be packed of to some re-education camp where we explain how great our country is until they understand that “multiculturalism doesn’t work”?

Yep, Mr Donnelly was probably chosen for the review of the Australian Curriculum because, like Mr Abbott, he seems more at home in that era when we were concerned that those “new Australians” were bringing in things and strange customs like spaghetti and smashing plates, and we were proud because Holden was Australia’s own and there were so many pink bits on the map which indicated countries belonging to the Commonwealth. And people who weren’t British were “the other”.

And “the other” was wrong. Our way of life wasn’t just better, it was the only way that one could live. That was the thing about the Aborigines. They couldn’t assimilate, and that was a pity. That’s why they’d died off in such numbers. As for the ones that were left, well, what can you do? They don’t fit into Australia, but if they can learn to behave like white people then they’re welcome to stay.

Ah, the good old days.

The switch to Turnbull isn’t just a change of leaders. It’s a whole change of era. During Abbott’s time (and to a lesser extent, during Howard’s), the other side was just wrong. You didn’t need to argue or explain. You just needed to say how wrong things were. You had Tony arguing against an emission trading scheme and telling us that it would be simpler to just put a tax on carbon at one point, then arguing that a tax on carbon was the wrong thing when Gillard did it. If Labor did it, it was wrong. If they’d found a cure for cancer, Abbott would have criticised them for any recently purchased chemotherapy equipment.

So we move to Turnbull and suddenly some of the things he’s saying make sense. There’s a suggestion that he might actually have opinions on some topics that are reasonable. On others, he’s clearly locked in to some policies that are hard to justify, but we seem to have an entered a world where things are being debated on their merits, rather than simply telling us that Labor was hopeless in government and therefore not entitled to comment on any of the current policies. It’s been a few weeks but I don’t remember Turnbull uttering the phrase, “the mess we inherited”… Although that could be because people would presume he was talking about the one left by Tony and Joe.

Yeah, you’re right. He hasn’t changed many of the policies, and on climate change, refugees (an example of the freedom-loving, human rights-supporting Australia that Donnelly loves so much), unions and the rest we’ve still to see any shift. But he did remove Newman as advisor and he did use the words “innovation” and “science” without suggesting that they be the work of the devil. It’s as though we’re actually looking to the future and trying to make a decent plan instead of simply harping about what Labor did, or how great it was when Liberals were last in charge.

And there’s a change in tone. He speaks as though when you disagree with him you’re simply misinformed, not evil. It’s like the difference between swearing at someone who offends you, compared to beating him over the head with a club. While, both may be unpleasant, the former is the beginining of civilzation.

As someone said, “It may be a new toilet, but it’s still the same shit.” While that may be true, I think the current appeal of Turnbull is that he looks modern enough that it’s possible that he can be flushed from time to time.

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Tony The Speaker – Weddings, Parties, Whatever!

October 24, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
47 Replies

No, not the Speaker of the House. That’s reserved for someone who can behave in a non-partisan, dignified way like Bronwyn Bishop, who I think you’ll agree, showed true grace when they removed her from the position. She never complained – not even about the splinters that were caught in her fingernails as they prised her from the chair. No, Tony has joined The Washington Speakers’ Bureau who introduce him thus:

Meet Tony Abbott

An engaging, decisive leader during one of the most turbulent times in Australian politics, Tony Abbott provides timely and candid analysis of the most complex and critical issues facing our world today.

Tony Abbott served as Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He is credited with policy implementations as early as the first day of the new Parliament, including the introduction of legislation to repeal carbon tax and to stop illegal maritime arrivals, each of which received wide public support and later passed both houses of Parliament. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Abbott’s government created over 300,000 jobs and oversaw free trade agreements signed with both Japan and South Korea. In addition, the world most notably saw—for the first time—a G20 country enter such an agreement with China. Geography alone renders Australia vulnerable to terror, and thus Abbott is able to speak thoughtfully on terrorism and security in the 21st Century, including the threat of ISIS and pervasive religious fundamentalism. With profound depth of experience, he is keenly positioned to offer unparalleled insight on leadership, the global economy, global trade, discuss a Western perspective on the future of Asia, explore the short- and long-term future of China, and provide a unique and timely political outlook for your audience.

Now it doesn’t mention that his relentless negativity was responsible for the end of four prime ministerships: Rudd, Gillard, Rudd Mark II, and, of course, Abbott himself. Doubtless he still hopes to knock of Turnbull before Christmas, but not through “sniping” or “undermining” unlike some people who’ve recently become PM.

Mr Abbott has recently had a large drop in salary, so one presumes that’s the reason for his need to take on speaking engagements for a reported minimum of $40,000 a year. It’s not clear if this includes presenting the trophies at a sportsmen’s night in his local electorate, but just to be sure, if you book Abbott, I wouldn’t let him speak.

In fact, that may have been a good rule for the Liberals over the past year or so…

Anyway, the $40,000 fee got me thinking. If people are prepared to pay $40,000 plus to have Abbott speak, what am I worth? While part of me thinks that most sane people should rather hear me than Tony, I am aware that a large part of that fee is simply the result of him once being the Prime Minister and that, well, nothing I’ve done really cuts it for that sort of money. However, on the other hand, I can pause a lot less and say twice as much in the same amount of time, so I’ve made a productivity improvement which should mean that I’m worth more. Not to mention the fact that every now and then, I actually say something worth listening to. I taught for a number of years and every decade or so, a student would come up to me and tell that what I said in class was really interesting. Ok, it usually had nothing to do with what they were meant to be learning, but still, it happened a lot more often with me than with Barry, the Accounting teacher, whose love of discussing double-entry book-keeping made the seat next to him at the Christmas party well worth avoiding.

Balancing it all out, I’ve decided that I’d be prepared to speak for a figure that had at least three zeroes behind it. Of course, if you’re not prepared to pay more than a hundred, you can count the zeroes after the decimal point, as in $10-00, but I’d expect a nice bottle of wine. Preferably while I was speaking, but if you want to wait to see if I had anything worth saying, then I completely understand.

OK, so, in the spirit of Tony’s intro:

Meet Rossleigh

An engaging, decisive blogger during one of the most turbulent times in Australian politics, Rossleigh provides timely and candid analysis of the most complex and critical issues facing our world today. Accurate? Intelligent? Well, you can’t have everything, so for this price you’ll just have to settle for timely and candid.

Rossleigh never served as Prime Minister of Australia due to a flaw in the system which demanded that he actually get elected. He is credited with no policy implementations, however, he has managed to stop many, many things, and it’s no coincidence that Tony Abbott was removed as PM on the same day that Rossleigh was heard saying, “Nope, nope, nope”. During his time blogging, there were over 300,000 jobs created and surely this can’t just be another coincidence – although the rise in unemployment had nothing to do with him. Geography alone – there are no other factors, just geography – renders Australia vulnerable to terror, and thus Rossleigh is able to speak thoughtfully on terrorism and security in the 21st Century, including the threat of ISIS and pervasive religious fundamentalism, in spite of Eric Abetz demands that we don’t refer to him as the “religious right”. (Rossleigh sees this attempt to control our language as political correctness gone mad, just like when all those people jumped on Abetz for using the term ‘negro’ when refering to an American judge. It’s not Eric’s fault he hasn’t kept up with any changes in attitude since Paris was “liberated “- or as his uncle Otto used to say “invaded” by those uncouth Americans!) With a total lack of experience, he is – like Andrew Bolt – keenly positioned to offer unparalleled insight on leadership, the global economy, global trade, discuss a Western perspective on the future of Asia, explore the short- and long-term future of China, and provide a unique and timely political outlook for your audience, as well as offering courses in mindfulness, self-actualisation and how to make money from real estate. As a late October special, he will also offer tips for the Melbourne Cup.

For a small fee, Rossleigh also promises not to sing.

I look forward to your bookings. But if you’d rather go with Tony, I understand. There’ll be no sniping from me.

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Squeaky Clean

October 24, 2015
Written by: Dr Victoria Fielding
30 Replies

Putting aside the fact that Julia Gillard was treated as a back-stabbing-murderess after she replaced Kevin Rudd as PM. Putting aside that she was labelled ‘the illegitimate PM’ even after she went straight to an election to let the ‘people decide’ and then won, but for some reason was then even more ‘illegitimate’ presumably because she led a minority government and it suited Abbott’s Liberals and their mates in the media to paint this as unstable when really it was the most productive government Australia has ever had. Putting aside the grand hypocrisy of none of these labels ever being assigned to Malcolm Turnbull when he plotted and schemed and white anted and undermined and destabilized and finally got what we all knew he wanted because he was quite openly campaigning for it: Abbott’s job. Putting aside that he hasn’t gone straight to an election and is instead intent of pretending he was legitimately chosen by the people to be PM when he quite clearly was not. Putting aside all these things which really make me so mad I could lose my mind, except that I won’t because it’s all so predictable that the Liberals would have their own leadership spill and it goes completely unnoticed by the mainstream media like a massive ‘meh’, when Labor’s leadership spill was the only thing the media wanted to talk about. For 5 years.

What I really want to discuss today is the fascinating situation of Turnbull’s Prime Ministership where he can do NO WRONG, according to the mainstream media, and anything that does go wrong in his government is, incredibly, coincidentally, conveniently, somehow painted as still the last guy’s problem. Still Abbott’s fault. Except Abbott isn’t the PM anymore. Turnbull is. How the hell does Turnbull get away with this bullshit? He reminds me of the classic quote from the classic movie, Shawshank Redemption, but replace ‘Andy Dufresne’ with ‘Malcolm Turnbull’: Malcolm Turnbull – who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side. How? How is Turnbull squeaky clean after all the crawling through shit he’s been up to?

Take, for instance, the horrific and tragic case of rape victim and asylum seeker, ‘Abyan’. Dutton is in a bit of hot water over this. That’s not to say Dutton is in as much hot water as an Immigration Minister should be who has denied an asylum seeker, a frightened young woman, the dignity and human rights any human being deserves, for political gain. But there is some criticism of the way Dutton has handled this situation, such as here, here and here. And you will notice in this Dutton-criticism, Turnbull is either given a cursory mention, or not mentioned at all. As if he’s somehow not involved in this situation.

As if he’s floating situation, detached, uninvolved, an innocent bystander. As if somehow Dutton wasn’t chosen to continue in his evil role of Immigration Minister in the new Turnbull government, and therefore doesn’t report to Turnbull like an employee reports to an employer, where the employer is ultimately responsible for the decisions made by that employee and liable for any damage done by that employee. Why is Turnbull not being held liable? How is he coming out of this squeaky clean?

Another example is the news this week that the rolling ball which Abbott started rolling in his ideological quest to eat away at the public’s ownership of Medicare by privatising some parts of it, with the ultimate goal of privatising all of it, is still rolling forward. I’m really glad there are news outlets letting us know about this treachery because it’s a really seriously important news story that all Australians would be interested in. But I don’t understand why articles about this news story, such as this one, fail to even mention the word ‘Turnbull’.

Turnbull, who we all knows likes to talk, and likes to explain, and is even well known for his particularly patronising ‘mansplaining’ tone, which he no doubt uses because he looks down on all of us since we’re all poorer than he is, is completely silent on this issue. He’s had plenty of time to comment and as far as I can tell he’s made no comment. It’s really not hard to guess why he’s made no comment. There are two reasons: a) because he doesn’t want to be splattered in the dirt of this issue, having to explain why his government is considering turning our universal health sector into a profit making machine for potentially international companies who would then ‘own’ our health records and eventually may own our entire health system. And b) Turnbull loves this idea, and hopes if he keeps his mouth shut it will more likely slip through unscrutinised. Which it possibly will. Turnbull loves this idea both for ideological reasons and perhaps because he has money invested in the companies who will make billions out of taking over Australia’s Medicare system, money which will be filtered through the Cayman Islands, un-taxed and back into Malcolm’s pocket which is bulging with cash. Of course there is a class-war, and Malcolm’s pocket is winning.

Long-time readers of my blog will recognise that the longer my sentences, the angrier I am. My keyboard will also tell you that the intensity of my fingers hitting the keyboard is a fair indication of the level of blood boil going on. So yes, I’m angry about this ‘Turnbull getting away with swimming in shit, yet still being treated like the beloved-shiny-sparkling-glistening-in-the-sun-squeeky-clean-brand-new Prime Minister who can do no wrong’. I’m terrified the squeaky cleanliness will get Turnbull another Liberal term of government and all the horrors of his political agenda will come about, unabated by any real scrutiny, just like the media did when they betrayed the country by giving Abbott such a free pass. It’s not just News Ltd this time either. It’s also Fairfax, the ABC and even, inexplicably, the Guardian. I’m not asking for these media outlets to do anything except their job and their job is not to let Turnbull get away with zero scrutiny on issues damaging to Australians. Just do your jobs people. For the love of dog, just do your jobs.

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Abbott To Be Next High Commissioner To The United Kingdom?

October 22, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
39 Replies

Image from smh.com.au

OK, early last year when I told you that Malcolm Turnbull would be Prime Minister and lead the Liberals to the next election, I doubt that anybody believed me.

So when I tell you that Tony Abbott will be the next High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, I suspect that many of you will find it difficult to believe.

“Tony?” you’ll be saying. “Our Tony giving up all that volunteer work with the fire brigade when he’s wanted to play fireman since he was a little boy? And leaving Australia for Britain where he’ll have precious few chances to wear his speedos? Impossible.”

“Besides,” you say. “He’s planning to come back. He’s probably gathering his storm troopers, putting on his Darth Vader mask and re-watching ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, all the while thinking that he can rid Australia once and for all of that troublesome republican if he can just master the Jedi mindtrick of making us all forget anything he’s ever said, like no cuts to health or education.”

“And,” you add, “what about poor Andrew Bolt. If he was heartbroken when Tony was dumped as PM, how will he cope if Mr Abbott leaves the country. His column will lose its edge and he’ll just become a blubbering, pathetic crybaby who won’t have the strength to continue his difficult juggling act of supporting Aussie values like a fair go for everyone and free speech, while arguing that anyone who disagrees with him shouldn’t be heard at all and that they’ve forfeited any rights by their refusal to join Team Australia.”

Yes, I understand. All true.

But just wait. The good wishes extended to Joe have mellowed our Tony. Even though he wasn’t there to see his old buddy’s farewell speech. Yep. Mr Abbott’s moving on to the next stage of grief – acceptance. He’s thinking how pleasant it is not to have your every move criticised. Time to lead a more sedate life as a High Commissioner.

Of course, how this will affect Margie’s business operations is a minor problem. Perhaps she can stay in Australia and he can stay in some police barracks in London. Or perhaps, Sir Philip of Edinburgh can put him up in one of the spare palaces … Whatever … Not important.

The important thing is that Abbott is going back to the mother country. As he said about his time over there in ‘Battlelines’, it’s like a homecoming.

Yes, just like with Mr Turnbull, I’m making it up.

And when it happens, it was just coincidence.

What If The Liberals Were Running Volkswagen…

October 19, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
5 Replies

Volkswagen has recently had a bit of trouble. After discovering that the steering was faulty on some vehicles a couple of years ago, they’ve recently been in the news because it was discovered that some of their cars were fitted with devices that enabled them to cheat pollution tests.

In releasing the news to the world, VW made a terrible mistake which sent their shares plummeting. They told us:

“In order to cover the necessary service and other measures to win back customer confidence, VW plans to set aside 6.5 billion euros in provisions in the third quarter.he group’s earnings targets for 2015 will be adjusted accordingly.”

Now, the Liberals know a thing or two about winning back confidence. According to the latest poll in the Fairfax Fantasies the Coalition now sit at 53% two party preferred. (No mention of the 3% error margin in that story!)

Yep, the Liberals sure know how to change perceptions. Now, if they were in charge of Volkswagen it would have gone something like this:

Meeting between CEO and PR manager.

“I’m about to issue the press release. What do you want me to say?”

“Tell everyone that we have a new grill!”

“A new grill?”

“Yep, we’ve replaced the whole front of the car. If you’ll just announce that we’ve replaced the old Abbott grill with the sleek, attractive Turnbull grill.”

“So you’re solving this by getting rid of the Abbott grill?”

“Well, we haven’t actually got rid of it yet. We’ve put it out the back till someone works out what to do with it?”

“I think the problem needs more than just a prettier front.”

“That’s not all we’ve done. We’ve replaced the Andrews bull-bar, and put the Hockey in the boot.”

“The Hockey? What’d it do?”

“Nothing much. We couldn’t work out what it was there for. It just seemed to get in the way and cause us to stall whenever we got a green light. Nah, nobody’ll even notice that the Hockey’s gone. We’ll be asking people instead to concentrate on the Morrison we’ve installed.”

“The Morrison? What’s it do?”

“It tells you that the problem isn’t that there isn’t enough petrol. The problem is that you want to drive too far.”

“That sounds like something the Hockey would have done!”

“Nah, the Hockey would have only said that poor people drive too far. The Morrison thinks everyone should just sit in their garage until they’ve saved enough on petrol to build their own roads. Privatisation, see.”

“OK, so I’m to put out a statement telling people about how much better the cars look now. No problem. But I don’t see how this gets around the basic problem.”

“What’s that?

“You were cheating on emissions!”

“What if I told you that we’ve got a new front grill that doesn’t cheat on emissions?”

“The front grill had nothing to do with emissions.”

“Exactly!”

“The problem is that people don’t trust you and it sounds like nothing you’ve done is going to fix things.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised how well people respond to something shiny.”

“Can’t you do something to fix the emissions problem?

“Hey look, we fixed the steering problem. We’re no longer veering all over the road. And soon we’ll be commencing our direct action plan that fixes the cheating on emissions.”

“How?”

“Well, we’re going to pay our engineers to produce accurate devices.”

“Isn’t that what they should have been doing originally?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

“How do we convince people that it’s all ok, and that the emissions aren’t a problem?”

“Not everybody’s concerned about emissions. Some of our engineers believe that emissions are good for humanity, and that all this talk about carbon monoxide being dangerous is just a lot of lefty greenies trying to create a world government in order to impose anarchy. In fact, they didn’t even think that we needed to replace the grill. They thought the old Abbott one was pretty damn good. But then some of them haven’t been happy since we stopped calling the things we put engines into ‘horseless carriages’. They don’t like change unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.”

“If we’re going to have any credibility, I really think that you need to fix the basic problem.”

“Not necessary. People will be so busy admiring the new appearance that they won’t even noticed that we’ve sealed up the doors.”

“You’ve sealed up the doors? Why?”

“Part of the plan with the Morrison. If nobody can get into the car, they won’t notice any of the problems. We’ll just tell that what’s inside the car is an ‘operational matter’. And if they can’t press the accelerator and that way, there’ll still be plenty of fuel.”

“But isn’t the whole idea of the car that you go somewhere?”

“Oh, we’ll unseal the doors and let certain people in. But that’s only after we’ve won back everyone’s trust.”

“This is going to be a hard sell.”

“Come on. You’ve had hard sells before, and you’ve always come through. Like when you convinced the public that those driving our biggest models were really contributing more to the company, so that’s why we gave them free fuel and servicing.”

“I’ll see what I can do. But don’t blame me if people starting buying your competitor’s cars. Even if they have that ugly Shorten as a grill.”

“Yes, our inquiry into dodgy grills has certainly put a dent in that one. The only concern now is that they use it as an excuse to replace the grill with their Plibersek or their Albenese.”

“Well then we can run the old ‘how can you trust a company that replaces its grill’ line?”

“Won’t that back-fire on us?”

“Nah. Don’t you remember that ‘it’s all about trust’ one we ran for John Howard after he’d broken just about every election promise including the never, ever GST! If you say it, they will believe you.”

“it’s not that simple.”

“It’s a well-known fact that if you keep repeating something, people believe you.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“Yep, If you repeat something often enough, people believe you.”

“Really?”

“Look, if you repeat something, people believe you.”

“I suppose. Anyway, get started on that campaign. Announce that anyone who has an earlier model with an Abbott grill, should be very pleased because that Abbott grill has just been wonderful and really one of the best grills that a car can possibly have, but next time they take their car in for a service, they’ll come out with the Turnbull.”

“Doesn’t that sort of contradict your message that it needed replacing?”

“Just spin it that we thought the Abbott looked better out the back. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

“OK. I’ll get onto it.”

“Good luck.”

Let’s We Forget! Turnbull, Turnbull, Turnull. Whoops, I Left out out a “B”…

October 17, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
8 Replies

It’s suddenly grown harder to write. Both satire AND intelligent articles.

I mean, when Tony Abbott was PM, all you had to do was quote him and you had satire.

As for Westpac’s decision to raise interest rates on Home Loans, Joe Hockey had the answer to that when Wayne Swan was Treasurer.

I can’t remember what the answer was, but it was something to do with telling them not to do it.

Anyway, Joe’s gone to America or the backbench, whichever is far enough a way that he – like poor people – can’t drive back. He’s no longer there to mock and ridicule about the fact that, even under a Liberal government, banks can do what they like.

But hey, them Liberals demanded that women got counselling before they had an abortion. Remember that, anyone?

Ah, I must be making it up. Because they sent that woman back to Nauru. She’d changed her mind. She didn’t need counselling. She’d changed her mind because she thought that she might need counselling.

Rather like Mr Turnbull who seems to be able to change his mind, but unfortunately can’t be sent back to Nauru, so that he can see that if you’re only Prime Minister to go along with the majority, you might as well just be a voter. If you’re not going to lead, you might as well follow.

OK, let me complain then, that the age of entitlement should be over and what on earth were they doing chartering a plane to send this woman back to Nauru? Why should “illegal immigrants” be given jets when when Australia’s unemployed can’t even be given free public transport?

Gee, with logic like that, I may even be able to become the next leader of the Nationals.

Sorry Barnaby, but it seems that none of the Nationals like you because, not only are you an accountant who has trouble with numbers, but you may very well lose your seat at the next election.

The Second Marshmallow

October 17, 2015
Written by: Dr Victoria Fielding
11 Replies

We need to start encouraging our society to wait for the second marshmallow. I’m not suggesting this will be an easy task, but I am arguing that the left needs to find a way to do it.

For those unfamiliar with the marshmallow test, it’s a simple study into self-control and delayed-gratification. You offer a child one marshmallow which they can eat now. But if they are willing to wait fifteen minutes, they can eat two marshmallows. Researchers found that the children who are able to wait for two marshmallows ended up with better grades in high school and better life outcomes than the impatient snatch and gobble children, therefore concluding that the ability to put off immediate rewards for a larger reward in the future is a more successful life strategy. But what does this idea mean for our whole society?

I like to generalise as it saves time: right wing voters are ‘give me the marshmallow now, hurry up, where’s my marshmallow, why didn’t I have my marshmallow yesterday’ people. Left wing voters are much more likely to wait, bide their time, invest their patience and look forward to the second marshmallow which will be to their betterment in the end. Too simplistic? Look at climate change.

All Abbott’s Liberals had to do to scare people into voting down the Carbon Price was to threaten their next power bill. Labor was asking us all to think about the future of something rather important: the continuation of our planet. But unfortunately the next power bill won out and the Carbon Price is no longer. The Liberals have done similar ‘take the one marshmallow now’ campaigns with a range of different policies, appealing to voters who can’t see further than tomorrow in their voting interests and are therefore inclined to vote in the best interests of their short-term opportunism by damaging their two-marshmallow-long term interests and the interests of their children and grandchildren. Voting is all about interests today or interests tomorrow!

In fact, when you look at Abbott’s successful 2013 election campaign and his entire narrative throughout the last 6 years, he is the one-marshmallow-man. Kill the NBN. Destroy the mining tax and your future superannuation savings. Destroy Medicare because you don’t need it today, so don’t worry about tomorrow. Slash funding for healthcare even though you will definitely need the health system in the future.

Burn funding for education, and don’t worry about the fact that our future economic growth depends on the children of today being smart enough to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow. Completely ignore the infrastructure needs of the future. Kill renewable energy and keep loving coal, which is not only destroying the planet but is also running out. Abbott liked three word slogans. He could have just gone with me me me. Or now now now. Or ‘give me marshmallow!’ Sadly this whole campaign was very effective.

I could be really smug at this point and piss off all Abbott voters, who don’t read my blog anyway, by saying that left wing voters are inherently more emotionally intelligent than right wing voters who are too easily conned into voting against their long-term-two-marshmallow interests by opportunistic tactics, such as Liberal fear campaigns, convincing them that the one marshmallow now is really their best option when it clearly isn’t. But it is not as simple as that. I can see in my own life that worrying about the future is hard when you have worries today. A perfect example is climate change. I worry a lot about climate change. I know pretty much all there is to know about the dangers of climate change which we are experiencing now, and will get worse as we continue to do nothing effective to slow it. But when I do catch myself worrying about the climate, and feeling guilty about the dangerous world my daughter is growing up in, I also notice this worry appears at times when there is nothing more pressing to worry about.

Then I wonder what is more pressing than the continuation of our planet, and the truth is, to individuals on that planet, the realities of life is that there are many things we have to worry about just to get through the day. I have a four month old daughter and since she arrived, there are hundreds of immediate worries. My husband and I have a mortgage, many bills to pay and busy jobs that keep our minds focussed on meeting short-term deadlines. For something as big as climate change, even if you are worried about it, even if you consider yourself a climate activist, there is very little, on a daily basis, you can actually do about it.

And my family is by no means poor. For those struggling to survive on welfare, or in very low paid jobs, for those living in poverty, there is no such thing as worrying about tomorrow. A recent study as proved this, by finding that ‘people who live in poverty tend to make poor long term financial decisions because their economic situation makes it difficult to focus on anything but the near term’. So we have a vicious cycle. Short-term thinking neoliberal conservative governments result in growing wealth inequality which keeps more people poor, controlled by a very few rich-Turnbullites who are happy to continue to win the class war by keeping the poor on this short-term thinking track.

All of us, particularly the poor, rely on those in power, who are in a position to look after our long term interests, to do just that. But when our own government is only interested in the one marshmallow at the expense of all of our futures, and are hording thousands of marshmallows in their own privileged little world, stuffing more and more into their mouths until they literally look like marshmallow men, it is easy to feel even more individually-powerless and less hopeful about the whole society ever seeing our second marshmallow.

So back to the start of this post. We need a two-marshmallow government. That is why people should vote for the Labor Party. The Labor Party needs to do a better job of encouraging people to wait it out for the second marshmallow and then once in power, the Labor Party must make sure the second marshmallow is worth the wait. My daughter’s future depends on it. Everyone’s futures depend on it.

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Why don’t they just go back to where they came from?

October 11, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
4 Replies

There was a protest against the proposed mosque in Bendigo.

I know this because, not only was it front page news this morning, but for the past few days various news sites – including the ABC – have been telling me that a protest was planned.

Well, estimates put the total number of protesters at about 600. And that includes the anti-racism protesters who went to protest the protest.

What other protest could get all that free lead-up publicity? Some of you lefties probably remember March in March and how extensively that was covered by the mainstream media. One can’t help but wonder why the Repulsive Right are given free advertising in the lead up to the event.

And, it’s not as though the organisers of the mosque protest were simply wishing to rid Australia of mosques. If they left their demands at “We can’t have Muslims in this country because they’re too intolerant”, I could simply say: So far, so hypocritical. But they want to silence lefties, greenies, Malcolm Turnbull and pretty much anyone who disagrees with them.

Racists we’re not racists, we hate everybody who isn’t part of our group … And even some of them are looking a bit dodgy lately.

I could say that if they don’t like Bendigo’s laws – which after due process including an appeal to VCAT – allow a mosque to be built, why don’t these people go back where they came from? But I would never say such a thing because then I’d be a hypocrite.

And speaking of hypocrites. Do you remember the whole 18C thing? At least, I think it was 18C, it was a long time ago and like most people I’ve forgotten all about it. Now what was the problem?

That’s right. Andrew Bolt had been told that just because he wrote for a newspaper, he wasn’t allowed to make inaccurate claims when suggesting that people were claiming to be black for their own advantage. Or something like that. If I’ve got that wrong, I’m sure that I’ll have the same people springing to my defence saying that any attempt to demand accuracy is a flagrant violation of my first amendment right. (OK, I know we don’t have a first amendment right – or indeed any specific rights – in this country, but if Abbott can tell listeners that he’s taking the fifth amendment on Ray Hadley the other day, then what’s a little Americanisation between friends?)

Wasn’t the basic concern with 18C? Something like, if people (even people with a Dutch heritage) had to be concerned about whether their comment was racist – or accurate – then we were shutting down free speech. And remember the eloquent George Brandis when he reminded us:

“People do have a right to be bigots you know, In a free country people do have rights to say things that other people find offensive or insulting or bigoted.”

Mm, so I guess that’s why George Christensen felt it prudent to address a Reclaim Australia rally a few months ago. To reassure them that, even though the Liberals have gone cold on the whole repeal 18C thing, they still support people’s rights to be bigots.

But not everyone has the right to be a bigot or racist it seems. According to Tony Abbott in August, Bill Shorten shouldn’t be silent where racism is apparently present.

“This Leader of the Opposition is silent in the face of racism,” Abbott told us.

And according to a leaked copy of the script we’ll be seeing this ad from the Liberals:

The couple are watching the union attack ads on TV with the man’s parents.

Father: They’re at it again

Son: Who?

Father: A ratbag union in the building industry is running racist TV ads against the Chinese. Last year Bill Shorten was attacking the Japanese

Girlfriend: I thought Australia wasn’t like that?

Mother: Most Australians aren’t, love

Father: But some unions have been running racist campaigns for years

Son: Why doesn’t someone stop them?

Father: Bill Shorten should stop them.

Yep, that’s something that a lot of people agree on. Everything’s Bill’s fault… Although, I’m having trouble remembering Shorten attacking the Japanese. He did make reference to the fact that the last time we had Japs subs they were in Sydney Harbour which sounds more like one of his famous zingers than anything. I mean, it’s not as if he was actually critical of the Japanese for their attempted World War Two invasion, it was just an observation. He may have actually been praising them for their “skill and honour”, as the then PM, Tony Abbott did.

Ah, “as the then PM, Tony Abbott”. >Sigh< Can’t wait to write “ex-PM” a few more times. By the way, did you see where he got a standing ovation from the NSW Liberals and Turnbull was heckled. And they mocked Labor, who only had Rudd working for his reinstatement. The Liberals seem to have a whole group who think that Shorten would be preferable to Turnbull.

But I digress …

Maybe instead of running a $25 million ad campaign, they should just invoke good ole 18C. Or would that be just too much of an about face?

Or is that if you tried to pin an actual racism charge on the CFMEU, you might find that trying to ensure that there’s adequate testing to make sure that jobs just don’t simply go to overseas workers has nothing to do with the race of the workers, and that the CFMEU would be attempting to ensure that they’re members were the ones getting the work even if the suggestion was that it would go to other Australians.

Whatever, I’d like someone to ask Mr Brandis whether the CFMEU have the right to be bigots or is it only Reclaim Australia and newspaper columnists?

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Money makes the world go round … which is why we had a flat earth before it was invented!

October 8, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
6 Replies

OK, Dr. Joanne Howe’s report on the China Free Trade Agreement is brilliant and extremely accurate. No, I haven’t actually read it, but not reading it didn’t stop Mr Turnbull from dismissing it or Andrew Robb as describing it as “not worth the paper it’s written on”. One doesn’t need to read something to dismiss it. Think Christopher Pyne’s proud declaration that he hadn’t read “The Gonski Report”.

I may actually get around to reading the report on the Chinese Free Trade Agreement. After all, I read just about everything. I even read the Liberal’s “Real Solutions” booklet which was mainly full of problems. In fact, it can be summarised by simply stating that the fundamental problem is that we have a Labor Government being run by a woman, whatsmore!) and the solution is to vote us in. As Tony and Joe used to say ad infinitum, “We have a plan”, and when that wore thin they developed it a bit further and said it was for “Jobs and Growth”. When it became clear that it was their own jobs and growth that they were talking about, even their own party realised that it was time for a change.

Anyway, I was reading the Fairfax Fluff this morning and apart from an opinion piece stating that it was only Muslim young people who were joining IS which completely ignores a couple of non-Muslim boys who went and joined, I was most taken with the editorial, “Trans-Pacific trade deal has tremendous potential”.

It began with an economics lesson:

“The fundamental reality driving economics, politics and public policy is scarcity – there are unlimited wants but limited means.”

So far, so Year Eleven Economics. Of course, the trouble with this truism is that, like all truisms, it often moves from the indisputable part to a justification of what the speaker actually wants.

“Not everyone gets what they wants, so you’ll just have to compromise and go and see the movie I want to watch!”

Or to use a more recent example.

“There are limited means in the economy so the well-off can’t afford to pay any more tax on their superannuation, but you need to cut your penalty rates so that businesses can work 24/7, just like 7/11!”

Similarly, the editorial jumped from this economics lesson to the rather interesting proposition:

“Most of the industrialised world has come to the conclusion that open markets provide the best outcomes for the biggest number of people.”

Now this is an interesting statement for a number of reasons. The first being that it excludes the non-industrialised world, but still has the qualifier, “most”.

However, it’s when we start to think about this in terms of the generalisation that we realise that it’s not just full of qualifiers, but a bald-faced lie. Granted that they are primarily talking about free trade between countries. Nevertheless, even the TPP doesn’t completely open the markets between countries, it just makes them slightly freer. And, as has been pointed out so many times, it makes corporations so much freer to sue governments when their profits are threatened.

Of course, the idea of “the best outcomes for the biggest number of people” is an interesting concept in itself. Slaughtering everyone in Florida and distributing their wealth equally to the people of Cambodia would also provide the best outcome for “the biggest number of people” but there are all sorts of moral and ethical issues as to why this isn’t a good idea.

But it’s the whole idea of how we perceive economics that most intrigues me. Like this particular editorial has done, we reduce it to a simple concept and then jump from that concept – whether it’s true or simply a belief – to make a whole lot of judgement calls which often move so far away from the concept that we don’t realise the journey we’ve been taken on.

We’re persistently told that free markets are the best by governments who insist – often quite correctly – on a whole range of restrictions. Why can’t I sell alcohol to ten year olds? Why can’t I start my own pharmacy and dispense medicine without all the red tape of requiring a prescription for certain medications? Guns, I’m not allowed to sell them from the back of my car. In fact, why can’t I turn my house into a nightclub and pump out loud music till the wee hours of the morning?

There’s a whole range of restrictions that we all consider reasonable before we even start to look at the ones about which there could be an argument for “freer markets”. (OK, when I say “all”, I’m ignoring David Leyonhjelm whose views seem a bit extreme when compared to moderates like Abbott and Trump).

For years we’ve been removing tariffs and eliminating subsidies in certain industries. The idea is that it’s the “best outcome for the biggest number of people”. This may well be true.

But I have a few truisms of my own. And one of them is when someone says, “Trust me, and don’t listen anything that’s questioning what I want to do, because I don’t”, it’s time to to ask for the evidence.

And when the government’s own modelling suggests that the China Free Trade Agreement will only bring about 6,000 extra jobs, claims made by Mr Robb seem a little far fetched.

Yeah, trust me. Don’t listen to those unions. They’re just racist and they’re concerned that Chinese workers will improve the prosperity of this country so much that people will realise that the unions never did anything for the workers of this country.

Looking Back At My 2015 Predictions!

October 7, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
5 Replies

The loss of Tony Abbott as PM has at least meant that the ludicrousness is over. And while he’s still making the odd appearance to remind us all of how loose his connection to reality was, the fact remains that now he appears a little more like a court jester than the king himself.

Yes, it’s true that Mr Turnbull has kept all of the policies, but one senses that his defence of some of them is a little less strident. He treats his opponents, not as some evil enemy, but as someone who could be talked round to a sensible way of thinking… If only they weren’t so lacking in intellectual fibre because anybody with the right stuff would surely see that Malcolm Turnbull is right. And while I don’t wish to defend Mr Turnbull, his decision not to reappoint Maurice Newman as an advisor to the government at least indicates that the man has some understanding that having an advisor who believes that global warming is part of some gigantic conspiracy is not far removed from having one who wears an aluminum hat to press conferences so that the left wing media can’t control his brain.

And since reading various critics of Bill Shorten I thought about asking for at least a bit of fairness for the poor man. After all accusing him of being “one of the faceless men of the union movement” is a bit ridiculous considering he’s now Opposition Leader. But then I thought that writing about Bill Shorten is a bit like writing about the fourth placed contestant in the first “Australian Idol” – nobody cares. The real problem with Shorten, I suspect, isn’t what he’s done or what he says; it’s his voice. It lacks authority and sounds whiny. Thinking back on all the PM’s, you’ll notice that some of our most popular have had deep, well-modulated voices while our least popular had voices that lacked gravitas. Compare Hawke to McMahon. Ok, Whitlam may be the exception but it’s worth remembering that he started off popular enough to win an election when the convention was that Labor should rename itself the POP or Permanent Opposition Party.

So with nothing much to say on Abbott, Turnbull or Shorten, I figured it was a good time to take a look at my predictions for 2015 and see how I’m doing. (Yes, I know that I keep reminding everyone about my scoop on Turnbull becoming PM written in the middle of last year, but I’m not going to mention that here. This is all about this year’s predictions!)

Rossleigh’s Predictions for 2015 (With Comments in bold)

Ok, my 2015 predictions! Here goes:

Abbott will be asked if he thinks that he should appoint someone else as Minister for Women but he’ll assure us that he’s the only person in his government who trully “gets women” and understands the particular problems some of them have getting pregnant – like infertility or not having a man.Comment: Not aware of it happening so let’s not count it one way or the other.
There will speculation about a possible leadership challenge from Julie Bishop and/or Malcolm Turnbull.Comment: Ok, a tick here.
Speculation will intensify when Bishop says categorically that she has no desire to be PM. Comment: Yep, another tick.
Steve Bracks will make a bid for a seat in federal politics leading to speculation about him as a future PM. Comment: Ok a cross.
Christopher Pyne will suggest that the words “hypocrite” and “inconsistent” should be considered unParliamentary. Comment: Mm, Not doing as well as I thought.
Joe Hockey will claim wages being too high is the reason for high unemployment.Comment: Given just about every Liberal is suggesting this about penalty rates, I’m going to give myself a tick so that the crosses don’t outnumber the ticks at the end.
Joe Hockey will claim a lack of wages growth is the reason for his inability to get the Budget back into surplus.Comment: Ok, I’ll give myself another tick just because I’m the one doing the ticks and crosses. I mean, if Tony Abbott can give his government high praise and suggest that he’d have “convingly” won the next election, what’s a little tick between friends?
Sources “high up in the Liberal Party” will be critical of Tony Abbott, but tell everyone that he is safe because everyone is too scared of Peta Credlin to launch a challenge. Comment: All right this one is so close to the truth that it deserves an extra big tick. It’s just that, in the end, they were more scared of losing their seats.
David Leyonhjelm will announce that we use introduce a “user pays” system when voting in elections, before asserting that if everyone carried a gun, there’d be no need for elections. Comment: Well, given he’s recently suggested that migrants could buy their way into Australia, I don’t feel like giving myself a cross. How about I do what the ABC did when assessing how many of the Liberal’s promises were broken, and just put “In progress”? Mm, that one works for Steve Bracks and Christopher Pyne too.
It will be discovered that Bronwyn Bishop is completely deaf in her left ear, and has only been ejecting Labor MPs after secret signals from the Government side. Comment: Well, I’m counting the helicopter ride. It may have nothing to do with the prediction but surely she wouldn’t have been able to hear over the noise of the chopper.
Scott Morrison will tell everyone that he has a soft spot for people who’ve been on benefits for more than a year. It will later be discovered that by “soft spot” he meant a boggy swamp where they could all be hidden. Comment: Actually this is more accurate if I change it to being about Joe Hockey.
A scandal involving the misappropriation of funds by a prominent Liberal will be headed “Labor Fail To Notice Dishonesty” in the Murdoch Papers.Comment: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victorian-liberal-party-investigating-15-million-missing-after-election-campaign/story-fnpp4dl6-1227490570041 Ok, even though the Murdoch paper didn’t mention Labor at all, I’m still giving myself a big tick for my accurate prediction on the missing funds based on nothing at all.
Rebekah Brooks will be given a job in Australia leading to some nasty comments that a couple of hundred years ago it was the ones who were found guilty who were sent to the colonies. Comment: Gee, I thought that even Rupert Murdoch wouldn’t have the hide to employ Brooks in Britain when she apparently had no idea what was going on and was apparently signing away large sums of money without asking what it was for.
One of Abbott’s ministers will be praised as one of their best performers, only for it later to be discovered that he/she has been suffering from agoraphobia and hasn’t left their home for the past year. Comment: Ok, wrong. Nobody was praised as one of Abbott’s best performers.
Barnaby Joyce will tell us that the Senate should be abolished as it’s unnecessary, a waste of money and a frustration for democratically elected government. When asked if felt this way when he was a senator, he’ll argue that back in those days the Senate was fulfilling the worthwhile role of stopping the Labor government from introducing an Emissions Trading Scheme. Comment: All right, wrong. But I’m sure Barnaby said something equally stupid. Actually, his comment that Abbott should have been allowed to step down is so ridiculous that it would be like suggested that Lord Sauron should be given the Ring so that he could destroy it himself.
Some readers will attempt to use reason and logic to argue with one of the trolls making comments, when the person making the comment clearly has a limited relationship with the real world, so abstract concepts like coherent arguments will bounce off them like bullets off Superman’s chest. (Like Superman, these trolls will often have a secret identity and feel very sure of themselves, but unlike Superman, they’ll never actually accomplish anything apart from making people wonder whether the education system is failing or whether it’s just a few Queenslanders who’ve spent too long in the sun) Comment: Yep, this definitely happend.

Ok, so as you can see I’ve done extremely well as a predictor of events. All right, I only got one or two completely correct. But as Tetlock’s work (see below) showed, just being wrong never stopped anyone from continuing to make predictions.

Or as someone so eloquently put it, “An economist is a person who is paid to explain why his or her forecasts were wrong.”

So to keep up my forecasting record, let’s look forward to the election in March. Failing that, I’m predicting it’ll be sometime later in 2015. That way, I should still have at least a fifty percent success rate.

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The terrier has fangs

October 5, 2015
Written by: Dr Victoria Fielding
25 Replies

Malcolm Turnbull would love voters to think he’s a fluffy white dog who wouldn’t hurt a fly. How can a man who adorably blogs on behalf of his dogs be anything but a harmless, gentle, kind Prime Minister? How can a man who wears a leather jacket on Qanda not be a man of the people? How can a man who wants to stay living in his multimillion dollar mansion on Sydney Harbour to be close to his grandson be anything but compassionate, socially progressive and committed to quality education and healthcare for the whole community? I’m sorry to disappoint the hopeful progressives who really want to believe Turnbull is the messiah. But isn’t it best I tell you now before you give him a chance to do a whole new term of harm? Turnbull definitely is NOT the messiah. Turnbull is a very naughty boy.

It is not entirely Turnbull’s fault that voters don’t realise how extreme his free-market ideology is. I think the problem is that voters assume that it’s OK for Turnbull to be right-wing when it comes to the economy, whilst also being sort of warm and fuzzy in a social sense. But this charade is just that: a charade. In the recent past Turnbull has been busily differentiating himself from Abbott. But when it comes to the free-market-loving part of the values Abbott and Turnbull share, Turnbull would go much harder and faster on the free-market bit, where Abbott spent more of his energy on social conservatism. Remember WorkChoices? Turnbull’s free market values means he believes this attempted assault on workers’ rights didn’t go far enough. You think Howard was scary? You ain’t see nothing yet!

If you were watching the Grand Final on Saturday, you might have missed the idea floated by this cute little terrier of a PM’s Treasurer, Scomo, that the States really should start thinking about letting private companies run hospitals and schools. Shock horror! ‘But wait!’ I hear all the supposably progressive Turnbull lovers say, ‘that’s just Scomo being Scomo and still swinging the Abbott-wrecking-ball. That’s not our cute cuddly Turnbull’. Get real people. Turnbull chose Morrison to be his government’s Treasurer. He made the decision not just because he needed Morrison’s voting block to win the Libspill. Stop the wishful thinking. Turnbull chose Morrison as his Treasurer because they SHARE THE SAME IDEOLOGY. The desired end point for people with these values, values Turnbull has been very up front about, is that the free market solves all social problem, that there should be no government intervention in the economy, including any welfare of any kind, and therefore everything becoming user-pays. In this world, the more money you have, the more healthcare and education you get. See how well this works out for the mega-rich Turnbulls of the world? Funny that. You might be thinking, it’s OK, Turnbull’s never going to get that far. But just imagine the damage he could do if he only gets some of what he wants. Imagine the wreckage strewn in that path!

Don’t be fooled by the idea that Turnbull is centre-right, or, as I’ve even heard some very mistaken lefties say, that he’s ‘left’ on social issues. The truth is, he has to be pro-marriage equality because this position isn’t just electorally desirable in Wentworth, it is electorally 100% necessary. Turnbull might say the right thing about climate change action too, but surely you noticed he never crossed the floor in Abbott’s government and helped to destroy climate action. Instead, he supported expensive and useless Direct Action, which he now plans to keep even though he’s in a position to end it. In fact, Turnbull will say and do whatever he needs to say to make himself look however he needs to look to win votes. Sorry to disappoint, but the tooth fairy isn’t real, Santa is your parents and it’s not possible to be both right-wing-pro-free-market and socially left-wing. Being socially ‘left’ means that schools and hospitals are run for the good of the people, not the good of the market. Turnbull’s free market position means he’d happily let the market rip public hospitals and schools out of the hands of the public and into the hands of the highest bidder for the greatest profit.

When progressives realise what it really means for the country to have a free marketeer in charge, and they realise it’s actually impossible to be economically-right and socially-left at the same time, and when they don’t agree with Turnbull that healthcare and education should be run at a profit, they might realise their progressive vote definitely does not belong to Turnbull. ‘Privately run’ hospitals and schools is a very steep, buttered slope towards the end of free-for-all-and-all-alike hospitals and schools, which quickly leads to hospitals and schools only available to those who have the means to pay. I assume this is not an outcome progressives strive for?

So please, I’m begging you, don’t be fooled by the smarmy exterior and the cheesy grin. Turnbull is giving Australia a hug while stealing our public owned services and workers’ rights from our back pocket. Turnbull is a Prime Minister who looks like a cuddly terrier, but when you get to know him, you see he has fangs. Please be careful with your vote Australia. Turnbull has neo-liberal-sharp-as-diamond fangs. We’ve been bitten badly enough by Abbott. Please don’t now give the Turnbull terrier a chance to bite us even harder.

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Has anything changed? Not judging by the comments

October 4, 2015
Written by: Eva Cripps
18 Replies

While many Australians, and no doubt the rest of the world, are still breathing a collective sigh of relief at the deposal of Tony Abbott, his supporters are still smarting and licking their wounds. Abbott himself is still pretending to not wreck, not snipe and not undermine, by telling his supporters he could still have won the election, while those within Abbott’s camp have conveniently forgotten Abbott’s own overthrow of Turnbull not even a decade ago, albeit as leader of the opposition.

Malcolm Turnbull is by far more popular than Abbott. A jump in the polls after Turnbull ascended to the top is a pretty clear indication that Abbott as leader was the problem. Even a commitment to retain the most odious of Abbott’s policies has not dampened Turnbull’s popularity. Likewise, Andrew Hastie’s easy win in the Canning by-election after the coup was a good indication that the Coalition’s policies were not the problem for most people – the problem was Abbott.

Despite Turnbull now giving the Coalition a fighting, and likely, chance of winning the next election, Abbott’s supporters are still coming out hard. With the Liberal party effectively split in two for loyalty, diehard Lib fans continue to fiercely support Abbott’s legacy. As a result, they are reminding Australian’s of what the Coalition stands for, regardless of leader. Consequently, Australian’s cannot forget that the same party is in charge and nothing has really changed.

On Saturday, 3 October 2015, Malcolm Turnbull (or his staff) posted a rather innocuous photo and caption on his Facebook page, to which I replied. Some of the responses to my light-hearted comment serve as a reminder of the sheer ignorance and wilful deceit of the Coalition rhetoric and propaganda.

Turnbull’s initial Facebook post which prompted my comment was not remarkable. It was rather normal and not the slightest bit inflammatory. It hardly gave the impression of aiming to boost Turnbull’s standings in the polls, nor indicated a desperate attempt to show Turnbull leading the nation as a humble servant.

The post showed a photo of Turnbull with actor Chris Hemsworth, with the following words:

“Good to meet Chris Hemsworth today – talked about the contribution of the creative sector to our economy. But a bit weird he insisted on me calling him Thor“.

My comment, intended as a light-hearted comparison to what we had come to expect was:

“I can just imagine Tony Abbott’s caption to this photo, ‘Good to meet Chris Hemsworth today – talked about the contribution of the creative sector to our economy. He told me I could be a god just like him because of my superpowers stopping the boats’.”

This sparked an immediate tirade of misinformation, absurd assertions and a litany of personal abuse. Clearly critical thought and fact checking are not considered necessary for the diehard Liberal supporters.

The obvious response, and one of the most perpetuated lies of the Federal Government was that Abbott did indeed stop the boats.

“He did stop the boats as promised.“

Granted, he stopped any boats landing on Australian shores, but he did not stop the boats. The Commonwealth has openly admitted that 20 boats were prevented from landing on Australian territory up until August 2015, and the Government has never refuted that it paid people smugglers to turn a boat around. If the boats had actually stopped there would be no need to turn them back.

Abbott cannot even claim credit for the massive reduction in boats leaving Indonesia: the credit belongs to Kevin Rudd II and his hard-line asylum seeker stance just before the 2013 election, where he declared no person arriving by boat would ever be resettled in Australia.

One response on the post demonstrated complete ignorance of Coalition policy and spending, saying:

“So you would rather pay for illegals than pay for what Australians need like bigger pensions better child care education etc etc. fix our own because no one else will, would or could!”

Ignoring the fact that it is not illegal to seek asylum, the Federal Government currently spends $1 billion a year on offshore detention. It also intends to cut pensions. Extra childcare funding is reliant on cutting family payments, leaving thousands of families worse off. New Treasurer, Scott Morrison has also announced that the Coalition is pushing for privatisation of health and education. It seems pretty obvious that the Government has a very clear intention to spend billions on arbitrary detention, and as little as possible on the Australian family.

Another poster astutely remarked:

“Eva is so far from the left she could probably fall over, let me guess your against offshore detention you probably believe in global warming. … I bet Eva is also against Christianity and private education.”

This disturbingly amusing ‘insult’ is a perfect example of the ignorance of the typical Coalition supporter. Apart from the billions of tax dollars currently used to arbitrarily detain asylum seekers and refugees, including young babies, it is laughable that someone would attempt to use the situation to cast aspersions on my character given the offshore detention regime supports rape, sexual assault, and physical abuse. A growing list of people are calling for the detention centres to be closed, on top of a Senate Committee inquiry recommending that children and families be immediately removed from Nauru.

Global warming, or climate change, is a pet hate of the Abbott supporter. With 97% of scientists agreeing that climate change is a serious issue, Australia has been criticised by a UN climate expert for its abysmally low greenhouse gas emissions targets. Despite Turnbull’s previous stance and criticism on the Coalition’s environmental policy, he has indicated an intention to retain Abbott’s laughable Direct Action. No doubt the Coalition supporters found Dutton’s recent shamefully embarrassing climate change ‘joke’ hilarious too.

It’s possible the curious comment on my alleged anti-Christian sentiment comes from the commenter’s observation of a satirical anti-radicalisation meme on my Facebook page: ‘Case Study: Jesus of Nazareth’. The meme describes Jesus as a ‘radical’ who left his loving family, was tempted by Satan, attempted to recruit followers, went against the Romans and the priests, and was ultimately hanged with thieves. Clearly the irony of this meme would be lost on most Coalition supporters, who would consider Karen, the alternative music loving, political activist, and environmentalist a genuine threat to their conservative, capitalist ideals.

Despite the overwhelming majority support of the Coalition and conservative politics within the mainstream media, Australians now source most of their news online, with a recent survey finding that 59% of people access news on their smartphones and 48% relying on Facebook. While there is no real evidence that the mainstream media in general has anything more than a ‘muted’ influence over an actual election outcome, the use of social media to access the news provides a new opportunity for all political stances and ideologies to share facts, lies, and opinions, whether informed or not.

A recent Nielson report found that approximately 13 million Australians (over 50% of the population) are active users of Facebook every month. The information also shows that on average, 60% of those that discover new information on Facebook will go on to learn more. Equal numbers of people reportedly use YouTube, with around a quarter of the population using WordPress.com and approximately 11% using Twitter.

With the rise of the use of social media, and the use of the same by the ill-informed, it is crucial that Australians who care about human rights, who believe in equality, and who deplore the dehumanisation of anyone other than white, middle-class, privileged Coalition party members and their friends, continue to speak out and demand accountability.

Turnbull’s new leadership will bring with it some changes, but not enough if Australia is to reach the standard expected of a Western democracy in the 21^st Century. Abbott returned Australia to the 1950’s with his personal ideology, and medieval times in more than one policy. However, as Abbott so kindly pointed out, “Border protection policy the same, national security policy the same, economic policy the same, even same-sex marriage policy the same, and climate change policy the same. In fact, the rhetoric is the same…” under a Turnbull leadership.

Turnbull may be popular, but the Coalition remains the same.

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Has anything changed? Not judging by the comments