Malcolm Turnbull recently did an interview for The Guardian.
Now for those of you who don’t keep up with politics, Mr Turnbull is our current Prime Minister and if the name seems familiar, he’s the same Malcolm Turnbull who was once part of the republican movement. For those of you who are thinking that he’s not the same Malcolm Turnbull, let me just remind you that as leader of the republican movement, Turnbull took an issue for which there was majority support and still failed to achieve the result that most people wanted, ensuring that it wouldn’t happen for many, many years. See! He did for marriage equality what he did for the repbulic. He’s still same old Malcolm.
Although to be fair, while there are similarites, Turnbull was hamstrung on the plebiscite because of the five conditions he agreed to when he took over from Tony Abbott:
1. Maintain the Abbott position on the plebiscite.
2. Maintain the Abbott position on climate change.
3. Maintain the Abbott position on cuts to welfare.
4. Maintain the missionary position during Cabinet meetings.
5. Ask himself what would Tony do, before making any pronouncements, and should he get it wrong, quickly reverse his position.
Malcolm Turnbull – or as I like to call him, “MT” (that’s in reference to his initials, not his promises) – did an interview with The Guardian, and he talked about the recent poor growth in GDP. Actually when I say “poor” I mean, none at all, because the economy contracted in the last quarter. Now many would have thought that a government whose mantra is “jobs and growth” would have been a wee bit apologetic when one half of their economic plan was found to be negative. You know, a bit like ordering fish and chips and only getting the fish when you paid for both. Or possibly more like only getting the chips and a fishing line and being told that it’s not their fault that you live an hour from the nearest fishing spot.
No, Empty… sorry, MT, bloody autocorrect. Anyway, MT saw it as a wake-up call. To quote the man directly:
“GDP was a real wake-up call, a reminder – it was a wake-up call for those, particularly in the opposition, who seem to think you can talk about economic growth and have literally no policies that would support it whatsoever.”
Now one could speculate that by “the opposition” he wasn’t referring to the Labor Party and that he meant his front bench. Unfortunately, the rest of the interview made it clear that he still seemed to believe that a company tax cut would boost investment and lead to an improvement in the Budget bottom line. I was hoping that he’d be asked about this, as well as how cutting the tax on a business that was profitable would help those that weren’t – which apparently is not just those struggling to attract customers, but also some of those multinationals with billion dollar turnovers. However, it seems that it must be a condition of interviews that our PM is never asked about anything he can’t mansplain. Like when he talked about how immoral and wrong Labor was in talking about privatising Medicare when the Liberals had no intention of doing such a thing and had decided against it when they weren’t discussing it earlier in the year, nobody asked him whether that was even more immoral than when he used a fake email in the Utegate affair a few years ago. Of course, Mr Turnbull’s defence would obviously be that he didn’t know it was fake and he just assumed it was true because a person like Godwin Grech, who was prepared to regularly leak information to the Liberal Party, was clearly trustworthy and there was no need to check the email’s authenticity.
Instead he was asked about his priorities for the coming year. Malcolm informed the paper: “Continued delivery of our economic plan…”
Mm, so the reduction in GDP must have been a successful part of the plan, if he’s suggesting that his intention is continued delivery.
He then added: “We have our business tax cuts to deliver, obviously continuing to roll out our big programs, the NDIS most notably, the big infrastructure projects including the NBN.”
Yep, that’s the trouble with Labor. They don’t have any policies to support economic growth. Not like “our big programs” the NDIS and the NBN. Gee, why didn’t Labor come up with things like that when they were in office?
Oh, what do you mean? How could Malcolm be calling them “our” when Labor actually commenced them?
Wouldn’t that be dishonest?
Poor old Malcolm. In the wrong Party at the wrong time. He must surely be painfully aware that it was John Howard and his attack dogs, Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin that were the main architects of the monarchist campaign and other nastiness including traducing their own profession and spreading lies about the Constitution and reserve powers. Malcolm knows he was doomed in 1999 (and now) because if he was on the other side people like Abbott and Minchin would’ve been excoriated and their manifest lies would’ve been exposed. You can’t be a Lieberal MP let alone a Lieberal PM and be a credible spokesperson for the APM.
Did I understand it correctly when it was reported that MT has taken out a loan from the IMF recently? The report (can’t find the reference) said the loan was for a $100 BILLION each year, for 3 years. Its purpose was to ensure the funding of services by the Australian Government. Given that the IMF was bankrupt, and now owned by Lord Jacob Rothschild and associates, it would be nice to know what the interest rates are?
Maybe this could be the catalyst for all the baby boomers with Australian birth certificates to start invoicing the Australian Government for royalties. Has the Australian Government committed the Australian people as collateral for the IMF loan repayments? I would propose a fee of $1,000 per week for each birth certificate holder as reasonable. Some people are already proposing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) along similar lines.
Have you got any trusted links to back up your claims re the IMF & Lord Jacob Rothschild and associates Davidbruce?
Turnbull is pathetic. And everything he says is pathetic. Saw reports of his passionate” speech about the republic – as a Toastmaster I suppose Im more critical than some, but really and truly, anyone who is truly passionate about a subject, does NOT need to read from notes, most especially at the beginning of the speech.
Davidbruce I second the call to provide some ‘links’ to the claims made (and there’s quite a number in just a few sentences). I know I’m not up with the ‘post truth’ world where ‘beliefs’ trump facts every time, but perhaps you can indulge me a little.
Ps, are you sure we don’t lend money to the IMF and not the other way around?
Whilst I,d agree with the rest of your article, the assertion that the spineless one adopts the missionary position is difficult to accept. I’m told instead that whenever tony enters the cabinet room that mt bends over the nearest table!
It’s very ensuring to have a PM ,who ensures us that everything will be happening later on, much later, when he’s gone…when the Queen has passed away, when that naughty Bill Shorten has been replaced…
Empty MT has to have something to fill the large hole in his credibility so why not claim all the things that the Labor party should be acknowledged…oh yes…I forgot that they are nasty party that caused the budget emergency. Good on you Empty MT for doing such wondrous things for Team ‘straya.
Re the claim:
True, but it depends on definition and the precision required. Certainly he’s the titular head who appears at ceremonies, celebrations, parades and the like. Yes he even gets to star in the land of Dorothy Dix for the odd hour or so when Parliament is in session but as even casual observers know, he no power when it comes to things that matter.
The Turnbull reign is like that of the Emperor in Feudal Japan. First, we have the daimo – the powerful families which include the Murdochs, the Packers, the Reinharts plus a number of multinational companies which determine the ‘common sense’ boundaries in which any debate will occur.
Second, we have the warlords, the shoguns and their warriors the samurai . You know who they are – best recognised by just their first names: Barnaby, George, Kevin, Tony, Erica, Cory, and Peter. The magnificent seven, all determined that Emperor Mal, striped of his dignity, will walk naked among us, never even casting a shadow on the political landscape.
Yes Mal will go down in History. As a ‘hollow man’ – a figure of fun. A PM who wasn’t.
Try ‘stripped’.
Pathetic really, to see a man destroy himself before your very eyes. Surely he must know what the country thinks of him, what about his wife and poor children
He can redeem himself – but it will mean a gamble that is most likely to leave him dismissed as pm (lower case intended) however it could make him, or cover him in glory.
But it takes a man to do that?
A simple read with wry(rye) smiles at how anyone could leave empty free from ridicule with the morning shows gagging for a controvesy on leadership or on anything but I support little billy’s reticence to stir the leadership pot for he has been there and done that twice already. Perhaps he could fire up plibersek on the rabbott she has often offended him.
ps
I wrote a LTTE, calling myself an onamastician:
TA = travel allowance – thanks – (anyone else love palmer’s “bye bye tony bye bye”)
MT = empty words
BS = bullshit
wm = waste management
When I got to Tanya Plibersek, it began to be scarily meaningful and I stopped.
pps
Sorry keerti since the table dancer btoke the rabbott’s table they put trunbull in the barrel
ppps HTF did pauline hanson get elected???
Malcolm Turnbull has been outraged with Bill Shorten’s alleged lies and how this makes him unsuitable for leadership. Turnbull’s principle complaint is the Labor campaign against ‘creeping privatisation’ of our universal healthcare
system : Malcolm says that is a lie !
if you have been to your local GP recently I suggest that you will have noticed a change in how you are billed. With the government freezing the GP rebate since 2013 and now out to 2020, most GP’s are charging a co-payment.
On a recent visit to my GP, an extended consultation came in at $101 of which $29.30 was payable by me as the patient and $71.70 was refunded by Medicare : that, my friends is how a private insurer operates and what was previously a bulk-billed service under a universal healthcare system is now partially privatised.
The prescription I took to the pharmacist was not covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and evidently has been sitting on the table for some years with no approval, so no subsidy : I paid full price of $150.
So, whenever you hear Malcolm talking about the Labor Party’s disgraceful campaign, bear in mind that we are in a ‘Post-truth’ environment where Turnbull’s outrage is framed on a premise that is not supported by fact and is repeated ad-nauseam as a government talking-point to which factual rebuttal is ignored.
Bill Shorten is correct, Medicare is being privatised by stealth. The next move, perhaps already underway, will be the outsourcing of the services – claims settlement principally – to an operator who has greater capability in claims management : a private insurer of course.
Be alert folks !
We need more Lerts 🙂
Shogan – I don’t have any sources from the main stream propaganda to support those claims, surprisingly? But I subscribe to newsletters and references from GATA Group, Port Philip Publishing (Money Morning, The Daily Reckoning etc), the writings and reports published by Hugo Salinas Price, the Abel Danger network, and Ainslie Bullion. One of my 12 projects involves the systems of money, gold and means of exchange. I am still learning!
Mmmmm, borrowing money (how effing much again?) from the IMF. Sounds a bit Khemlani to me.
Keep sleeping…zzz…
terry2 an example of nothing till it happens to you. But the reality is worse when the service stop dealing with centrelink-medicare and charge full $101 instantly out of your bank then you go to centre to claim the $71. This could take a couple of days??? I sent it to little billy and torpid tanya but it probly went to spam.
I volunteered to help prepolling and had a pair of clp women with a hastily made sign negating billy’s mediscare lie. I had a laugh about privatising.
Got a shock when I got home and sent this to nt labor:
dear hannah,
if you read this you need to know that i am NOT an old age pensioner.
Then, secondly, when i got home I found a letter telling me that from friday week, my diabetes plan podiatrist will no longer bulk bill and be charging me $69 up front.
Even worse, they will not charge me the $16.05 gap and then they claim from medicare. No, the office will no longer DEAL with medicare and I pay $69 or go without.
$69 not insignificant for anyone, but for a pensioner, the $69 cash is a lot of money to disappear from the bank?
—–Original Message—–
From: Hannah MacLeod
Sent: Mon, Jun 20, 2016 4:21 pm
Subject: Re: Help
cheers Billy – on Wednesday