Tony Abbott has that rare ability to be incredibly stupid

Image from thenewdaily.com.au (Photo by AAP)

Tony Abbott keeps raising the bar of stupidity.

His speech last night at a timber industry dinner lauding timber workers as “the ultimate conservationists” brings home the gold medal.

Corinne Grant provides a wonderful take on this superb performance:

It’s pretty much standard for politicians to suck up to their audiences.

If they’re talking to mining magnates, they tell them they’re the backbone of Australia. If they’re talking to farmers, they tell them they’re the backbone of Australia.

If they’re talking to factory workers they tell them they’re the backbone of Australia (and then they tell them they earn too much).

But when Tony Abbott told a room full of loggers that they were the ‘ultimate conservationists’, even that audience must have been reaching for its sick bag.

Seriously, people who cut down trees are saving them? As what? IKEA furniture?

Just brilliant, Corinne.

But while this latest example (of what are affectionately called “Abbott’s brain f*rts”) has anyone with an IQ over 25 picking their jaws up off the floor, this medal-winning performance of stupidity has been matched with an equally brilliant display of hypocrisy.

In last night’s speech Abbott also announced that:

“We don’t support, as a government and as a Coalition, further lockouts of our forests,” Mr Abbott said. “We have quite enough National Parks, we have quite enough locked up forests already. In fact, in an important respect, we have too much locked up forest.”

Mr Abbott said his government was pushing ahead to delist a world heritage listing of 74,000 hectares of forest in Tasmania. “Mr Abbott said the area – which was protected under Tasmania’s forest peace deal – was not pristine forest and was too degraded to be considered a sanctuary“. (I guess they aren’t trees of calibre. Their ‘breeding’ shouldn’t be encouraged).

Tony Abbott’s hypocrisy is breathtaking. Do you remember this?

Tony Abbott believes he can fight climate change with a $3.2 billion plan to plant 20 million trees . . .

Mr Abbott said planting 20 million trees by 2020 at a cost of $5 a tree would create “urban forests” and green zones in regions and along highways.

To lull the Australian electorate into believing he had genuine concerns and a genuine plan for climate change he conjured up some fabulous idea of planting a tree on just about every square inch of spare piece of dirt. Cities, suburbs and sidewalks would no longer be concrete jungles. He would have promised urban forests in Alice Springs, Adelaide, Bendigo, Brisbane … everywhere. Everywhere, now, but Tasmania. This year they head to the polls so he declares to the axe-happy loggers that he would prefer to see Tasmanian trees chopped from the landscape.

Tony Abbott has that knack of being able to mix a classical brain fart in amongst some blatant political opportunism. He really has that rare ability to be incredibly stupid. In the same week we saw the Minister for the Environment promoting the green army Abbott talks about clearing heritage-listed forests. How does he do it? If I were the Minister for the Environment I’d be locking myself in a sound-proof room and screaming.

But hey, don’t we all feel like screaming?

 

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About Carol Taylor 31 Articles
Carol is a former teacher (ed psych) and a disability advocate. Carol also studied law at SCU. Although Carol has written a number of articles for The AIMN, she is mainly involved in admin and promotion. She maintains a strong interest in politics, social justice, history, and the arts.

90 Comments

  1. The forestry industry don’t want the world heritage listing revoked because it’s too hard to sell the timber from previously protected areas

  2. Albanese has just told Jones, on Latteline, that he is not the spokesman for the government.

    Albanese really challenges all that Jones is trying to say.

    Albanese for once, has control of this interview, Jones a little taken back.

  3. Still nothing before the house. Today, MP still giving an address in reply. Albanese refusing to go along with Jones hypotheticals.

  4. Most of the script on Mad as Hell was made up of using actual words uttered by the Abbott government. Yes, it came across as pure comedy.

    This is not funny. It is terrifying.

  5. Trees is almost dead wood so why not just hasten the funeral. T. Abbot

    Carve up the land; rip down the forests; out fish the oceans; cloven hoof the soil, Monsanto the farms; kill off the manufacturing; screw the health care; bugger the refugees; destroy the ABC: cut the work conditions; reduce the wages; kill the unions; lock up the teenagers; cough out the carbon; piss on the poor; Newstart the mothers; disable the disabled; give to the miners; subsidize the farmers, rig the history; work the aged; God squad the education; piss of the neighbors; kill of the cars; sell off the hardware; borrow the money; rig the books; lie the misspoken; suck the Murdoch sav; hug the Gina blob; suck up the Generals; pay off rich mums; sell off the hardware; one eye the speaker; oh god I just can’t stop someone heeelp me I am drowning in a mountain of shit.

    It’s awright mate it’s just your imagination.

    Thank God for that.

  6. Would it be easier and a damn lot cheaper, for this government to give councils grants to do this work? Why is the Green Army necessary.

  7. ……..Up to 200 more public servants at the Environment Department are set to lose their jobs as the government strips the agency of funding and responsibilities.
    The department’s environmental assessment division will be almost wiped out with the survivors acting as a rubber stamp for state environmental approvals in line with the Abbott government’s policy of cutting “green tape”.
    The department’s boss has told staff that 25 per cent will be slashed from the budget over the next four years with most of the cuts coming in staffing numbers, a move that could reduce departmental numbers to fewer than 1700 – from 2300 last year – in coming years.
    Advertisement
    Do you know more? Send your confidential tips to ps@canberratimes.com.au
    A call for voluntary redundancies is expected at Environment in coming weeks for a second tranche of cuts after 143 jobs were lost last year through redundancies.
    Senior staff at the department were……

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/up-to-200-public-servants-to-lose-jobs-in-environment-department-20140304-345lv.html#ixzz2v5fAO86k

  8. Reblogged this on In my own opinion and commented:
    TA is by far the most ingenious, lying, and deceitful PM ever to sit on his throne and shit the speak downtown, down into the sewers!

  9. I try really hard to make thoughtful comments without resorting to name calling or vitriole. Mr Abbott is making that really, really, really difficult.

    What a ?¥£#%&g w+&#}!

  10. Why does every interview Abbott hasd, ends up bering about him?

    …..10:34am: Tony Abbott spoke with the 2GB host this morning.
    Jones began the TWENTY FIVE MINUTE interview thus:
    “Great speech last night. Goodness me, not even I knew that! Your maternal grandfather was a shipwright!”
    Abbott replied:
    “Yes indeed, Alan. He was.”
    Upvotes:4 Downvotes:10 Copy Link
    10:32am: Now, in the speech, the PM talked about his grandfather being a “marine carpenter” or shipwright.
    “My carpenter granddad recruited me to help build a workbench for the new family home when I was in year seven.
    He joined me in building a timber canoe which I paddled around the Lane Cove River National Park in year 8 …”
    In year 9, Abbott helped him build a “large timber shed” and in year 10, his grandfather gave the future PM a toolset.
    This provided a handy jump off point for an interview with Alan Jones…

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/the-pulse-live/politics-live-march-5-2014-20140305-3461x.html#ixzz2v5iQ3JAY

  11. It is a shame, his grandfather did not teach him manners, or how to behave as an men.

    …………..10:32am: Now, in the speech, the PM talked about his grandfather being a “marine carpenter” or shipwright.
    “My carpenter granddad recruited me to help build a workbench for the new family home when I was in year seven.
    He joined me in building a timber canoe which I paddled around the Lane Cove River National Park in year 8 …”
    In year 9, Abbott helped him build a “large timber shed” and in year 10, his grandfather gave the future PM a toolset.
    This provided a handy jump off point for an interview with Alan Jones……..

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/the-pulse-live/politics-live-march-5-2014-20140305-3461x.html#ixzz2v5inLnke

  12. yes, constantly. But seriously, my fellow Tasmanians – a vote for Will Hodgman and the Liberal team is a vote for Eric Abetz running the state at the behest of the PM. DON’T DO IT. This is our one and only hope of stopping this maniac from destroying our state – he is already destroying most of the nation but we can STOP him. Think about it, REALLY CAREFULLY.

  13. How does one lose a toolbox in a flash flood, as Tony claims, Must not have had too many tools in the box his grand dad gave him. Did not know that most tools float.

    Must have been a toy one, made of plastic, but he did say he used it to do chores around the house, that is expected of most men.

    Maybe that is also only in his imagination, as one has to be home now and then, to do so.

  14. War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength…and now-Old Growth loggers are Conservationists.

  15. The Tasmanian Forestry Industry has been haemorraging jobs for the last 25 years, even whilst the volume of wood extracted continued to increase-yet still they need millions of dollars in government hand-outs to survive. Why not allow Tasmania to grow hemp & fast growing timber plantations? Makes more sense than destroying high conservation value forests!

  16. As has been said more times than I care to think about. This “man” is an embarassment to men everywhere.

  17. Ah the old floating tool box story !!!!!! Lets hope the green army find it when they are clearing the creeks !!!!!!!…sadly the whole country is going up the creek in the barbed wire canoe that is the only thing this government is creating …………and by the way he reason that every interview ends up being about him is because he is a complete narcissist .

  18. Actually, if your only environmental concern is climate change, Tony’s comments actually make sense. The logging industry, if done sustainably, is actually a very good way of reducing atmospheric co2. Fully grown trees aren’t actually much of a carbon sink, but while they are growing, they suck the co2 out of the air to turn it into trunk, branches and leaves. Once they’re grown, loggers chop it down and replace it with new trees.

    Basically the logging industry turns atmospheric co2 into wood and paper.

    It took years to convince Tony that climate change is a problem and though I’m not sure he fully understands, at least he realises now that he has to pretend to get it. We should therefore not be surprised that he thinks that is the only environmental concern he should pretend to have.

    Or maybe I am giving him too much credit even still…

  19. Wayne T,

    Thanks for that link to Ludlum’s speech. best thing I have heard in a loooong time. Someone with some ticker at last!

  20. There is a state election coming up in Tasmania: Abbott has shown before that he is prepared to say anything and do anything to achieve the result he wants.

    He once said that he would do anything to become Prime Minister except “sell his arse”

    He was lying !

  21. There’s nothing wrong with what he said. The Greeny loons that have ironically destroyed Tasmania’s hope for a prosperous, wealthy future are all hyperventilating because a politician doesn’t think displacing a few hundred trees to make a road is a bad thing. The logging industry’s best interests are to ensure it…has actual logging and contracts to make, so completing wiping the forest out like you despots are suggesting it wants to do demonstrates the sheer stupidity and revolutionary reactions of the extreme environmentalist left. Tasmania could do with a strong logging industry right now, because the state is dying. This collectivists approach to parks has contributed to the downfall of the state. No one wants to chop the forests down. The analogy he used was that you take a tree, you knock it down, you give it new life as something else. It’s a mutual respect. But I wouldn’t expect you morons to understand or see that. Go have a cry next your tree, idiots.

  22. Perhaps someone could send Actors Equity membership forms to the entire LNP. front bench….after all, if they are going to “perform comedy acts” they ought to join the union.

  23. IC-1101…..I see..you do not see…please go to Easter Island…there, people like yourself cannot see the forest for the LACK of trees!…and you call us idiots….”stupid, stupid boy”.

  24. IC-1101

    You talk of mutual respect but apparently it only extends between old growth forests and pulp mills? Calling people loons and idiots and morons is hardly “mutual respect” and it detracts from any argument you may be trying to make.

    We are talking specifically about delisting 74,000 acres or world heritage forest because less than 10% of it has been logged. The forestry industry said they don’t want the world heritage listing revoked because it’s too hard to sell the timber from previously protected areas.

    It’s political bs.

    “This brings us to the question of the real underlying motives. The Coalition government’s extraordinary move makes little sense on heritage conservation grounds. At the same time it seems contrary to the interests of the timber industry. The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania has said it does not support the excisions, which would undo the recent securing of a non-contentious timber supply under the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.

    We are therefore left with a strong sense that the move is purely political, based on the strong anti-green sentiment of a large proportion of rural and regional Tasmanians. The promise to revoke the world heritage extensions may have been a key factor in helping the federal Coalition win several Tasmanian seats last September.”

    http://theconversation.com/why-electioneering-is-at-the-root-of-tasmanias-forest-furore-22773

  25. Read comment a while back, quote “there must be an asylum out there somewhere who has lost an idiot” unquote, says it all!

  26. The idiots who elected this cretin as the head of the Libs must wish he’d just shut up and sit down. He’s so much more likeable as a human being when he’s not there. Or here. Or anywhere else. The reason these stories always turn to the subject of Abbott, I think, is because everything he says is either inaccurate, inept, insensitive, insulting or unbelievable. Therefore, P.M. makes speech becomes speech makes P.M. look sssooo stupid. Much more worthy of discussing than the , what was the subject again? Um. Ah.

  27. Kaye Lee

    It is 74,000 hectares : over twice the area.

    No point in responding to IC-1101: it’s computer generated input from Liberal Party HQ you can tell by the garbled grammar.

  28. C’mon Tassie, you like us here in WA, have the chance to really hurt the liberals in the senate. Please, please DO NOT VOTE LIBERAL!

  29. IC-1101, you could be right. Just one question, how much it would it be employed, as the numbers have fallen dramatically over the last few years.

    Also, how many visitors would be interested in coming, to look at clear fell landscape, were once forests stood. Not many I believe. Yes, and what do you think would be happening on that land now?

    It is a well establish fact, that when one clears land in this country, leads to great erosion and destruction of land. That is something that was apparent, and I was taught in school back in the late 1940’s. I knew the pictures in my Social Study book was spot on. Know how I knew this. It was the scenery around the home I lived in.

    Yes, and I believe most of the wood, cleared in Tasmania, end up as paper.

    There are more less damaging and efficient way of producing paper, then cutting down heritage trees.

    Must say, we are seeing the Shorten this morning, that many have been demanding.

  30. An aside. One needs to keep in mind, if and when Abbott and Co claim credit for the improving economic figures today;

    The country is now benefiting from the fall in the dollar.

    Yes, Australian business is becoming more competitive.

    It is moving on from the negatives, that the high dollar created for many years.

    Yes, not about the MRRT or so called carbon tax. Yes, the culprit is indeed that high dollar. High dollar caused by super profits in the mining industry,

    There is a long way to go, as out and the world economies are still in a fragile state.

    At least Hockey is hinting, that he might not be cutting as planned.

    Then one cannot count on what Hockey says, as Abbott has shown, he is willing to override his ministers, at will. Not even bothering to tell them first.

    House back to replying to some distance address. I think it might have been the GG’s. This is not the norm. It only fills in time.

    There was a short debate on any IR bill.

  31. Yes, he is indeed claiming credit. Only trouble is, we still have that so called tax. NO, it is the falling dollar.

  32. I love the way, they are talking about this morning’s bill, as if it is law. Still has to be passed in the upper house. Unlikely to go anywhere far, I suspect. Well, at least without amendment.

  33. Pyne now complains about bad behavior. Threats by the chair.

    Are we going to see the showdown that must come.

  34. Does business really follow or even support this ridiculous PM. What will he talk about, if the so called carbon tax is gone. Dutton once again up, talking about Tanya and her GP Super clinics. Still no word of how he is going to fix the problem.

    QT once again reinforces how bad and stupid this government is.

    More, if one is not sure.

    …………No, Treasurer, this is what’s holding us back
    Rob Burgess6 hours ago 39
    PoliticsNational AffairsClimatePolicy & Politics

    Historians will wonder in years to come how a fourth or fifth order problem for businesses and consumers came to dominate politics in Australia for so long.

    An ‘unprecedented’ joint statement from four industry lobby groups yesterday calling for the current Senate to back Tony Abbott’s carbon-tax repeal legislation was revealing — not so much for the content of the statement as for the group that was not asked to join the united front against the tax.

    That group is the Council of Small Business of Australia — the umbrella group that represents 34 other groups with a deep and broad knowledge of their own SME memberships.

    Those groups include the National Independent Retailers Association, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, the Real Estate Institute of Australia, the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporter Association and Master Grocers Australia, just to name a few (see the full list below).

    COSBOA executive director Peter Strong told Business Spectator this morning that he had not been approached to back the joint statement.

    The reason is obvious. Strong has long argued that while the carbon tax is an issue for some businesses, it is very low on the list of priorities for his organisation’s lobbying efforts.

    He went even further today: “No small business has gone bust because of the carbon tax.”

    So what are the problems facing the ‘backbone of the economy’ that his member groups are worried about?

    Strong names four issues, all of which are more important to small businesses than the portion of their energy bills due to the carbon tax (and the lion’s share of recent power price rises are due to other factors — ‘gold plating’ of energy grids, and a complex myriad of state and federal subsidies for things such as roof-top solar).

    Strong’s list is:

    Competition policy (particularly around Coles/Woolies market power)
    Fair contract laws
    Workplace relations (particularly around penalty rates)
    Access to finance
    These issues are on the Abbott government’s agenda, and Strong’s group is actively lobbying on all of them to expedite change. The difference is they do not dominate political debate in the way the carbon tax does.

    It is not only at the small end of town that the carbon tax issue is blown out of proportion. Yesterday, Qantas released a statement saying the carbon tax was “among the most significant challenges we face”.

    A week ago, the airline said the opposite: “Qantas’ current issues are not related to carbon pricing.”

    So which is it? Here are a few facts to help readers make up their own minds:

    — Qantas put its carbon tax liability for 2012-13 at $106 million.

    — In its 2012-13 final results Qantas put its operating expenses, excluding fuel, at $9.273 billion, with the fuel bill being $4.243bn.

    — Qantas’ carbon tax liability was 0.78 per cent of its operating expenses.

    — Over the course of the 2012-13 financial year, fuel prices increased from $2.81 to $2.94 per gallon, and at January of this year were at $3.29. If those prices hold, Qantas’ fuel bill this year (which does not affect its carbon tax liabilty) will be in the order of $700m to $800m more than in 2012/13.

    — Qantas intends to strip $2bn a year from operating expenses, aided by 5000 job cuts.

    It should be obvious to any numerate person that the effect of the carbon tax on Qantas’ business is not ‘significant’ when compared to its other cost blowouts — mainly wages, fuel bills, and the losses incurred by slashing fares to compete with the Virgin Blue-led ‘capacity wars’.

    Both Virgin and Qantas say they cannot pass on their carbon tax liabilities to customers. Really? My last trip to Perth cost $485 return (thanks, capacity wars!). Based on Qantas figures, the carbon tax would have added $3.80 to that fare.

    At both the small and big ends of town, the carbon tax is a small impost that is virtually irrelevant to Australia’s continued prosperity.

    Why it became a national obsession, and prompted four of our five major business lobby groups to issue a joint statement yesterday, will have historians scratching their heads for years.

    And how Joe Hockey could repeat the tired assertion during his national accounts press conference yesterday that it was the carbon tax holding back the economy (with data showing the economy returning to trend growth), will puzzle them even more.

    The Treasurer has enough numerate staff at his disposal to calculate the costs of penalty rates, unfair contracts, uncompetitive markets and the cost to the economy of the 200,000 small businesses that Peter Strong says are currently denied access to finance to grow their businesses and create jobs.

    He should put those numbers alongside the hyperbole of the carbon tax rhetoric, and get on with the real job of growing this economy.

    The paid-up members of COSBOA, as they appear on the group’s site, include:…..

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/3/6/national-affairs/no-treasurer-whats-holding-us-back?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=603075&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt=

  35. — Qantas’ carbon tax liability was 0.78 per cent of its operating expenses.

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/3/6/national-affairs/no-treasurer-whats-holding-us-back?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=603075&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt=http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/3/6/national-affairs/no-treasurer-whats-holding-us-back?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=603075&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt=

    Will let this speak for itself.

    When is this government going to be pulled over the coals, for daily misleading the parliament, in both houses?

    Repealing the carbon tax, will not and I not able to deliver what Abbott promised.

    Turnbull is up once again, doing his daily comedy act.

  36. You know it is a damn good thing that Abbott was not the PM when 11 September happened. He would have been urging JW to nuke the bastards. I am sure. He is insane.

  37. The rabbott is just a smarmy smarty not intelligent but smart. The ploy is to destroy Labor in Tassie by further polarisation of a polarlised state. He shoring up his vote and sending moderate laborites to the greens. Little billy is helpless and has no recourse but to attack the man’s character as an uninformed power hungry bully or languish as a minority opposition in Tassie and, probably, reduced to a netball team in SA.

  38. I have reached my limits on comments regarding Abbott and his destructive Abbottoir .

    Every day, the Abbottoir further distance themselves from basic empathy of humans and other earthly inhabitants.

  39. Yes, it is all about divide and rule. About wedging one’s opponent.

    With Abbott, his obsessions have taken over, and he is forgetting about the ruling. Yes, governing and good governance is not a part of his vocabulary.

    When are they going to focus on governing, rather than keep telling us how bad the previous government.

    We have seen three years of Abbott in election mode while in opposition. It appears we are going to see three years of him in election mode while in government.

    Trouble is, he is doing it at the expense of good governance.

    In fact governance does not appear to exist.

  40. More evidence of stupidity.

    ……There’s unlikely to be a law banning percentage-based financial advice fees, but if the industry was serious about professionalising itself and being fair, it would head that way, writes Alan Kohler.

    In my open letter to Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos this week, in which I called on him to pull back from repealing key parts of the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) legislation, I wrote: “There should be a lot more reform … but FoFA is a good start.”

    Financial advisers, horrified at FoFA and lobbying Senator Sinodinos to get it changed, might be wondering what that meant, if they had read that far into the letter. So let me explain.

    In my view the big racket in the financial advice industry, hiding in plain sight, is percentage fees.

    Sales commissions and other………

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-06/kohler-advisers-should-ditch-percentage-fees/5302814?WT.mc_id=newsmail

  41. Quote of the day. From Mr. Hockey and his talk with Mr. Joyce. Yes, it appears that Mr. Joyce did not believe the carbon tax was a great problem. Yes, it appears a low level person put out misleading information on behalf of Mr. Joyce, A low level person, not one that has the responsibility to do so. Yes, and Mr. Hockey has also seen some pigs flying over. He did not pressure Mr. Joyce to change his story, as well.

    Still the facts does not back up Joyce;s new statement. It appears that 106 million tax amounted to something like 0.7 of expenditures. An amount that Mr. Joyce did, but even think was worth putting a levy on each ticket, of around $3 to recoup.

  42. Stupidity describes the electors, cupidity is the word for this government and its advisers and promoters. I read 1984 but it is really 2014 that scares me.

  43. More stupidity of this government. They say Medicare is unsustainable. If so, why not just raise the Medicare levy. For some unknown reason, he wants a green army to tidy up the environment and plant some trees. Would it not be simpler, more efficient and cheaper to make grants to local councils to do so. After all, this is their role.

    Then there is Better Schools. We have had an in-depth inquiry lasting up to six years in education, by a team, that is no way left wing. They have identified the problems and what the ear is needed to fix education. Our new minister, Mr Pyne cannot even be bothered reading the report. No, is setting up his own investigations.

    Why?

    One can go on, mentioning the stupidity of this government in every area. Not one action makes sense.

  44. It is sad and sorry to see that in a country so rich as ours,and that is not meaning monetary wealth,that between a lot of voters and a voting system such as ours,and a MSM that cannot produce an article resembling any sort of balance to inform ignorant and easily led populace that a person of such poor credentials can end up in the highest job in the country.

    His ignorance is a reflection of the selfishness and ignorance of much of the population along with their willingness to trust those who ” WANT ” power. Why is it that so many people in this country now have more in common with the DODO bird and an OSTRICH rather then a Kangaroo and an Emu, neither of which can take a step backwards
    But very soon they will learn that their trust was severely ” Misplaced”

  45. I want to add a worst case scenario regarding the prospects for the timber industry in Tasmania under the LNP –

    I’ve had confrontation over the idea of jobs in Tasmania and the logging industry. I say this – Imagine mobile camps of overseas FIFO loggers on 457 visas (Fly in – fly out, as does a good bulk of the WA mining workforce) – , with state-of-the-art logging machinery.

    This would represent the total backstabbing of the 1% of Tasmanians in the logging Industry.

    Forests clear-felled in months and absolutely no benefit to local economies. Could we put it past LNP to do this?

  46. Abbott is so arrogant that he is unaware of how woefully stupid he is and how appalled the electorate is to see that.

  47. pappinbarafox, he is amoral because his religion is all powerful in his mind therefore everything he does is right.

  48. G’day All

    Sue Lofthouse
    March 6, 2014 • 11:47 pm

    “Abbott has become an international laughing stock:”

    Thought you would like the past tense correct. 🙂

  49. I see that Qantas have now confirmed (reconfirmed) that the carbon tax has had no impact on their bottom line as they passed the cost on to customers by way of a levy.

    Again, Mr Abbott has been guilty of misleading parliament as he did with SPC (employee’s excessive benefits: denied by SPC), Toyota (carbon tax again: denied by Toyota); there really needs to be some accountability in our parliament.

  50. OMG Terry, surely you don’t mean the George Pell’s darling boy has told a mis-speak? I wonder what was happening to Peta at the time? Maybe that’s where Joe Hockey went. And Kwistoffer Pyne (but only to watch of course).

  51. We have heard much about Abbbnoot, especially his early years. We hear he was along the way he was a journalist. What we do not hear is what type of journalist he was, or what he produced during that time.

    All I have come across. Is his attempt to explain his life in the seminary, and why he left.

    I have no idea of any other how he operated as a journalist. None at all. What did he write about. What was his interest. What were his great stories.

    I have many examples of what he did after he left journalism, and become a party hack.

    Would love to know what his achievements were , as a manager, of that cement factory he run for a few months. What did the workers there think of Abbott.

    Did anyone come across him, when her was a parish priest, in Emu Plains. How did they find him.

  52. I ask the above questions, as there must be somewhere in Abbott’s life, where he has been a success. A success in more than kicking heads and demolishing all in his path.

  53. ABBOTT IS AN IDIOT. ( I don’t really think he is an idiot, he is very focused on something and it has nothing to do with us. What is he up to? )

  54. You can’t really blame the voters there was just NO choice. Julia would have got my vote but Labour didn’t.

  55. Abbott has not made his mark in anything he has attempted.

    He resigned as Plant Manager at Sydney Concrete in Silverwater.
    He resigned as a journalist at The Bulletin and also The Australian at a different point in his non-career.
    He dropped the priesthood,
    Dropped out of one marriage.

    He may have an education. He does have a degree in Arts (pffffft…as does every other waitress and barista these days)
    His Education seems to have had little or no effect on his intelligence.
    His greatest admirer is himself.

    He’s as cunning as a sewer rat, likeable as an open festering wound, smart as a box of rocks, walks like an ape, holds views that would have done the Inquisition proud, is best friends with only those who can assist him up the ladder of success and is ruled by greed and self aggrandizement.

    He is a consummate liar, obfuscates with ease, gives non answers when asked, walks away from hard questions like a sissy, as does he leave hard decisions to others to reveal.
    Is tactless, partisan, bullying and common.
    He refuses to accept responsibility for any unfavourable news, and grandstands when the spotlight is turned on.
    His language is vain, empty rhetoric.

  56. G’day All,

    pappinbarafox
    March 7, 2014 • 1:47 pm

    Silly me, I thought that was a description of his reputation. 🙂

  57. pappinbarafox….
    Perhaps I should have been more to the point….so you could more clearly get a grasp of what I was saying.
    Or maybe my words were too difficult for you….maybe next time I should use three word slogans so you will get it.

  58. pappinbarafox….
    if I misinterpreted your response to my comment, my apologies. it appears at first to be a veiled insult to me, but on further reading and a cursory look back at your comments I think we are on the same side.

  59. Yes Indeed Geoffery – I was being ironically ironic (see a double irony) coul dbe read as saying he is so bad that even that description would not hurt his reputation but rather improve it. you may have been too kind. But I did enjoy your rejoinder to me – stating the obvious sometimes goes under people’s heads too!!

    The other irony is to interpret it as Shaun did.

    no one is libel to see anything libelous here. Move along folks!

  60. The banal or downright cringe-inducing nature of so much of Abbott’s public utterances leave voters concluding that for the first time we have a PM not overburdened with simple nous. He may be psychologically complex -the habit of repeatedly telling implausable whoppers is itself surely worthy of a study–but he comes across like somebody promoted beyond his ability. Blinkered by ambition, convinced of his own superiority to other holders of the office, he assumed he could ‘wing it’ once the glittering prize was attained. Wrong.
    His attitudes seem foreign to Australian politics, coloured as they are with religious notions of blame, guilt and retribution. He would have been at home in authoritarian political systems of the past, where the church he so publicly identifies with worked as equal partner to government. Franco’s Spain, or the ‘Austrofascism’ of Englebert Dollfuss, perhaps.
    He seems frustrated by democratic process. Tony Windsor famously attested to Abbott’s blunt refusal to negotiate in the jockeying after the 2010 election. Is the art of negotiation, practised in parliamentary systems world-wide, beyond him? He will forever be associated with three-word slogans. Perhaps they simply reflect the extent of his knowledge of the subject!

  61. He will forever be associated with three-word slogans. Perhaps they simply reflect the extent of his knowledge of the subject!

    More likely that they reflect the extent of his supporters knowledge of the subject!

  62. …a two-pronged attack on the Australian people: the demonisation of asylum seekers so we become fearful of them and a stripping back of those things provided by Government to enable us to live a decent life so we fear for our very standard of living.

    You are probably onto something there…

    A new Newspoll indicates that voters are putting Labor ahead of the Coalition when it comes to managing climate change (29% to 25%), industrial relations (40% to 32%), and unemployment (30% to 34%).

    But the Coalition demolished Labor on the “issue” of asylum seekers (only 19% for Labor against 43% for the Coalition). Looks like the voters are quite keen on the way it is being handled under the current government. So… I assume we’ll be seeing more of the same…

  63. They, the LNP, have already sold our Gold reserves and all our Airports, Medibank will be sold to US owners. The HECS debts are about to be sold to Debt collecting agencies. The CSIRO is going soon; and yet they will still give some $ 10 billion in subsidies to miners like Fat Gina by not collecting excise on Diesel fuel, same for truckers and farmers.
    The H R Nicholls Society members sitting in the Cabinet have the numbers to now control the LNP government.
    The H R Nicholls Society supports the deregulation of the Australian Industrial Relations System, including the abolition of the award system, the widespread use of individual employment contracts and the lowering of minimum wages. The Society only believes in limited labour market regulation, as it believes that excessive minimum wages and job security lead to higher unemployment and lower productivity.

  64. They, the LNP, have already sold our Gold reserves and all our Airports, Medibank will be sold to US owners. The HECS debts are about to be sold to Debt collecting agencies. The CSIRO is going soon; and yet they will still give some $ 10 billion in subsidies to miners like Fat Gina by not collecting excise on Diesel fuel, same for truckers and farmers.
    The H R Nicholls Society members (including Erich Abetz nephew of the Nazi Governor of Vichy France during WWII), sitting in the Cabinet have the numbers to now control the LNP government.
    The H R Nicholls Society supports the deregulation of the Australian Industrial Relations System, including the abolition of the award system, the widespread use of individual employment contracts and the lowering of minimum wages. The Society only believes in limited labour market regulation, as it believes that excessive minimum wages and job security lead to higher unemployment and lower productivity.

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