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Post by geopol on Mar 8, 2017 15:10:43 GMT 10
Meanwhile the Canberra show goes on and we are treated with the usual shit and derision. I've had more than enough of these venal bastards, Either their heads need to roil or we have to tear them apart somehow or other.
ANALYSIS March 8 2017 - 1:38PM Save Print License article Cory Bernardi's $1m secret shows why the parliamentary rules are broken
Adam Gartrell Contact via Email Follow on Facebook Follow on Twitter 1,907 reading now Show comments facebook SHARE twitter TWEET email More In 2015 Cory Bernardi and his wife bought a $1 million commercial property in Kent Town, Adelaide. The building now serves as the headquarters for Bernardi's Australian Conservatives party. But curiously, you won't find any mention of the building on the now independent senator's parliamentary pecuniary interests register. Under the real estate section of his register he lists only a residential property in Canberra.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 6:39:38 GMT 10
And if that don't beat all....free enterprise gone mad...
The Turnbull government is looking to flog off Australia’s essential public services like hospital and dental services, social housing, disability and aged care, and services in remote indigenous communities to the private sector, without consulting the Australian public.
The list includes TAFE, prison services, CSIRO, the ATO, home care and jobs services: Turnbull will sell off just about anything to turn a quick profit.
The Coalition have not made a public case for this sell-off plan nor have they debated it in parliament. They haven't told the public that the services designed to support them are being sold off to companies whose main concern is their bottom line.
Tell the Turnbull Government: vital public services are just too important to be put into private hands
Here are just some examples of the society-wide costs of privatising public services:
Higher costs and decreased level of care in health, child, disability and aged care services
Lower wages, fewer workplace rights, and reduced paid benefits for public sector workers
Increased inequality in accessing critical services like dental care or social housing
When vital human services like healthcare, education or prison rehabilitation are privatised - when they are run by companies whose primary concern is maximising profit - the most vulnerable groups of our society are left behind. Privatised services will no longer follow people’s need, but rather people’s capacity to pay premiums.
Australia’s public services are the key to ensuring that everyone in this nation is entitled to a fair go. They grant everyone, regardless of their geographical or socio-economic background, access to support without privilege or prejudice.
From public good to profit margin: how privatisation is failing our communities The Guardian, 6 March 2017.
Productivity Commission calls to privatise public health and housing The Guardian, 22 September 2016.
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Post by geopol on Mar 9, 2017 14:18:59 GMT 10
The goal of the Liberals must be to destroy society and let the people tear one another apart in pursuit of profit so that 98% of us will be living in penury the playthings and slaves of the rich. How can they have such base and debasing motives and why are we letting them get away with such contempt?
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Post by pim on Mar 9, 2017 14:32:25 GMT 10
Trickle down economics, Geopol, it's all they've got.
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Post by geopol on Mar 9, 2017 15:58:48 GMT 10
And they can't seem to get up the guts to do any more than prattle about that either.It's enough to think they consider it's crap too but they'll feed it to the mugs anyway....
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 18:13:19 GMT 10
Free trade with America requires privatising of government services.
The coalition is nothing but a lobby group for business....and for these guy's national interest doesn't factor into profit driven big end of town profiteering.
Won't be long and working families will be living in tents like the great US of A.
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Post by geopol on Mar 10, 2017 10:46:02 GMT 10
So to trade freely with America we have to adopt their ideology, preferably with ardent fervour. Explains a lot about that bastard Baird in NSW and his resignation to get back into powerful and lucrative big banking business. And under the new lady there will be no reprieve on the privatisation of the Title Deeds Office. The place stinks as much as our politicians, though I am becoming impressed by someone with the interesting name,Thistlewaite(?).
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Post by pim on Mar 10, 2017 12:45:09 GMT 10
Or should that be Thistlethwaite? Good name if he lisps!!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2017 16:52:34 GMT 10
Australia exports to the US beef and sheep and precious stones....while importing from the US machinery, optical and medical goods, cars and flogged out old military hardware and overrated expensive new military gear...with the proviso written into in the fine print of the FTA that the media does not nor does the government disclose to shed a light on the FTA that any government institution that can be privatised must be privatised.
Health, Education, Prisons, Services you name it if a US company can bid on running it its on the cards.
Albeit I have mentioned it quite few times since the 2005 FTA was signed its surprising people do not know this little factoid.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 20:31:25 GMT 10
Howards foray into union rally was no accident
John Howard after walking into uinionist march
POSTED BY: EDITOR MARCH 10, 2017
Contributed by Joe Montero
Former Prime Minister John Howard’s walks into a Sydney rally of union members and it’s an accident. Hardly. He is far to astute to do such a thing. In any case, it would be hard with a full security detail on tow.
This was a deliberate act, designed to achieve ends. It is not hard to speculate on Just what they might be.
John Howard was the man behind WorkChoices a few years ago. The scheme he presided over, to effectively marginalise unions and strip down rights in the workplace. WorkChoices is now being revisited by Turnbull and company. Howard has a personal stake in this. As it stands, he goes down in history as the man who was humiliated. Not only was WorkChoices defeated by the millions of Australians. He became one of only two prime ministers who lost his seat. This is a tremendous slap down, for someone who made no secret of wanting to be remembered as a great statesman. The resurrection of WorkChoices would, in a manner of speaking, also mean his resurrection.
There is also much more to it. John Howard has never been shy to interfere in the Turnbull government. He has done so more than once and is a backer of rival Tony Abbott. He has consistently criticised Turnbull’s for not moving far and fast enough, on industrial relations and other issues. He may well have sought to provoke an incident that could be used as a vehicle for upping the ante. Imagine the coverage, if he had been physically attacked.
And this leads us to the main outcome of Howard’s little stroll into the enemy camp. He has become the story. The reason why, tens of thousands of angry workers were in the streets, is no longer the news. Forgotten is the existence of laws and an apparatus to treat a group of Australians as third class citizens, the attack on hard won penalty rates and the overall war on workers that has been launched.
It shows that much of the big media is biased, undemocratic to its core and a conscious participant in this war against workers. What tens of thousands of Australians had to say is far less important than what a former prime minister pulling a stunt. This says it all. Media impartiality and objectivity is a myth.
The good part is that the lot of them did not learn the lesson from the last time around. You start to hurt people too hard, you can’t stop them noticing. The truth seeps through. People react accordingly.
By openly siding with the most ruthless employers, Howard, Turnbull and the rest, have provided the union movement with the best opportunity to recover and build its influence. Our anti-worker heroes, may even go so far as to light the match, on a new era of militancy across Australian society. As a bonus, the drop in the numbers accessing the tabloid media may take an even steeper downward dive.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 20:33:46 GMT 10
Dave Bradley | March 12, 2017 at 8:21 am | Reply Duh of course it was deliberate move by Howard. No way his staffers didn’t know exactly what was intended to happen.
Probably the NSW police knew too but then they are the NSW police who shot more people than the loony gunman at the last big event they attended, although there were reports at the time they were then that they nobbled by Abbott wanting to play for time to maximise the politics of the situation.
Turnbull’s outrage at this poor little old man being harrassed by the union is so side splitting talking about the poor little old man who helped GW Bush destroy Iraq with an illegal invasion and wrecked the middle east destroying hope for ME peace or even world peace for decade,s and who used government power mercilessly to crush workers wages and conditions and access to their Unions and cut access to universal health and doubled the price of medicines.
As Bill Bailey said about Hitler :”the more i hear about him the less i like him”
Little old John Howard was even walking the Perth Streets spruiking the virtues of ‘the new’ Pauline Hanson who seems has more in common with him than we thought. Howard and Sinodinos love bombing Hanson!!!
John Howard, The more I hear about him the less I like him.
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Post by geopol on Mar 18, 2017 16:10:20 GMT 10
Graham Lum North Rocks Good on Jay Wetherill for giving Josh Frydenberg a well-deserved tongue lashing and telling the truth. And may the many state Labor premiers follow in his footsteps on a range of issues. Centrelink, health, and education failure facts should be yelled loud and clear at press conferences as well. Confront the federal ministers and their carpetbagger of a Prime Minister with the truth about how out of touch they are with what the majority of Australians want(From today's SMH)
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Post by geopol on Mar 18, 2017 16:12:10 GMT 10
Wendy Atkins Cooks Hill It's been a long time since a state premier stood next to a federal minister and spoke so frankly as South Australian Premier Weatherill did on Thursday, in a joint press conference with federal Environment and Energy Minister Frydenberg. It was a breath of fresh air (no pun intended) to watch on TV.(Also from the SMH)
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Post by KTJ on Jul 3, 2017 11:17:32 GMT 10
from The Washington Post....Australia's leader mocked Trump but borrows from his playbookThe prime minister, never wildly popular, has discovered that populism pays.By A. ODYSSEUS PATRICK | 6:55PM EDT - Sunday, July 02, 2017Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks at a breakfast event at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia. — Photograph: Mick Tsikas/European Pressphoto Agency.SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Australia's urbane prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is trying to revive the fortunes of his unpopular government by borrowing from an unexpected role model: President Trump.
When he removed his conservative predecessor, Tony Abbott, from office in 2015, Turnbull had made his reputation supporting the legalization of same-sex marriage, the strengthening of ties with China and the replacement of Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state with an Australian.
Representing one of the most progressive districts in the country, Turnbull is one of the most left-wing members of the center-right Liberal Party. Before he became prime minister, his signature policy was support for an emissions trading plan to fight climate change, a position that led to the end of his first term as party leader in 2009.
“He came across as a very socially progressive and cosmopolitan politician before he became PM,” said Zareh Ghazarian, a political scientist at Monash University, in an interview. “Since becoming prime minister he has to modify his approach because of very conservative elements in his party.”
Voters haven't warmed to Turnbull as prime minister, and he almost lost an election last year. Now facing what appears to be a guerrilla campaign by a bitter Abbott to undermine his leadership, Turnbull is not only copying elements of Trump's conservative populist approach, he is awkwardly buddying up to the president in person.
At a recent ceremony at the Intrepid aircraft carrier museum in New York to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Turnbull congratulated Trump after the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
“I got to say, it's always satisfying to win a vote when people predict you're not going to win it,” Turnbull told Trump from a podium. “So keep at it. It's great.”
Many Australians cringed at the praise. Australia has universal health care, a system that not even some far-right political parties want to dismantle.
To improve his popularity and placate internal critics, Turnbull is implementing heftier national security policies and beefed-up social spending. In a move perceived to be aimed at Muslims, he is making it harder for foreigners to become citizens and spending more on the intelligence services. Fewer professional visas are being issued to foreign workers. At the same time, new school and welfare programs will make it difficult to rein in a large government budget deficit anytime soon.President Donald J. Trump, left, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. — Photographs: Associated Press.One of the wealthiest politicians in the country, Turnbull was a partner at investment bank Goldman Sachs in the 1990s. The centerpiece of his last election campaign was a tax cut for business designed to stimulate the economy. Relentlessly attacked by the Labor opposition as a gift to overpaid corporate executives, the big-business component of the cut was rejected by the Senate, where the government is in the minority.
Then Turnbull pivoted and hit the five biggest banks with a large tax hike in May, even though the banks said the move would rebound onto customers. Members of Turnbull's party were privately uncomfortable raising taxes, but the measure was popular: 68 percent of Australians agree with the plan, according to an Ipsos poll published on May 15th.
Turnbull's switch illustrates how politics around the world are being upended by Trump's election and the success of other anti-elite politicians. Xenophobia, economic populism and nationalism are becoming more influential in politics, even in prosperous and racially integrated societies such as Australia, where 67 percent of the population was born locally and 87 percent is Christian or non-religious, according to the latest census.
One of the most assertive policy changes is the decision to make it harder to obtain Australian citizenship, which Australia's tea party-like One Nation party claimed credit for.
Applicants will have to be able to speak English, explicitly pledge allegiance to Australia and meet a vague test that they have “integrated” into Australian society. The criteria could include serving on a parent-teacher association or joining a surf-lifesaving club, according to the government, which hopes to make the changes this year.
Refugee representatives say immigrants will be required to have university-level English skills, which will be impossible for the most disadvantaged: women, refugees and the elderly.
“There is no correlation between English language proficiency and commitment to the Australian nation,” said Paul Power, the chief executive of the Refugee Council of Australia, in an interview. “In the long run it will be very damaging for the country.”
One Nation founder Pauline Hanson, who toasted Trump's election with champagne in front of the Australian parliament and wants to ban Muslim immigration, had pushed Turnbull in private and public to toughen the citizenship law after she was elected to the Senate last year.
“We are being taken for fools in this country by opening up our doors,” she said before the changes were announced. “It will all come to our standard of living, our way of life and our safety and security.”
Turnbull doesn't concede that he has abandoned any of his liberal principles or is pandering to conservative elements in society. “The vast majority of Australians are pleased to see we are standing up for Australian values,” he said when challenged by a television interviewer.
Recently, when he thought he wasn't being recorded, Turnbull mimicked Trump in a satirical off-the-record dinner speech. “The Donald and I, we are winning and winning in the polls,” he said, according to a surreptitiously recorded video obtained by the Nine television network. “We are winning so much, we are winning, we are winning like we have never won before.”
The leaking of the video triggered concerns among Australian diplomats that an angry tweet would emerge from the White House signaling a cooling of U.S.-Australian relations. It didn't, although a contrite Turnbull felt forced to explain to Australians why he was mocking the U.S. president. “The butt of my jokes was myself,” he told a radio show.
With the Trump-like strategy comes one other similarity: a recent Newspoll put the government behind the opposition Labor Party, 47 to 53 percent.• A. Odysseus Patrick is a contributer to The Washington Post. He is also a writer at The Australian Financial Review and is the author of the book “Credlin & Co.: How the Abbott Government Destroyed Itself”.__________________________________________________________________________ Related story:
• Why Trump's rebuke could be good for Australia's prime ministerwww.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/australias-leader-mocked-trump-but-borrows-from-his-playbook/2017/07/02/d075721e-5b4e-11e7-9fc6-c7ef4bc58d13_story.html
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Post by pim on Jul 3, 2017 13:54:54 GMT 10
KTJ reports Australian news to Australians via an American newspaper. Perhaps he believes that unless it's reported in the US media it hasn't happened. There's an expression for that: cultural cringe!
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Post by KTJ on Jul 3, 2017 14:28:14 GMT 10
Merely an alternative point of view....
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Post by pim on Jul 3, 2017 14:35:25 GMT 10
aka KTJs cultural cringe towards the US media ...
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2017 14:39:50 GMT 10
Its bad when the PM has to emulate the biggest global dickhead President Trump.
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Post by KTJ on Jul 3, 2017 15:39:32 GMT 10
aka KTJs cultural cringe towards the US media ... Tell me something....you're a retired school teacher.... When I go to a 24-hour gas station at 3:55am on the way to work to purchase the day's newspapers, if I hand over the correct change, the young woman who is usually behind the counter says, “AWESOME!” She would be in her late 20s, so possibly of an age where people like YOU could potentially have been her English teacher. So as she would have learnt to use the word “AWESOME” in reaction to receiving the correct change for a couple of newspapers while she was at school during her impressionable years, what sort of words greater in severity than AWESOME did you school teachers back then teach the kids to use when something was more AWESOME than receiving correct change for newspapers? What word, for example, would you have taught that generation of kids to use in the event of a magnitude 8 earthquake (something which is definitely a possibility in the area where I live if the Wairarapa Fault ruptured)? Is there a plethora of words of a greater magnitude than AWESOME for use in such awe-inspiring situations as an earthquake where the earth literally shakes everything to bits? Or were teachers of your generation incompetent for allowing the kids you were teaching to misuse a work like AWESOME in the way today's teenagers and young adults in their 20s (and even 30s) do? Well?? BTW....that wasn't intended as a SNEER.
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Post by pim on Jul 3, 2017 15:52:41 GMT 10
Oh I don't mind a good sneer.
I think you're trying to change the subject, KTJ. To go from your cultural cringe towards the US media and in one post try to make it all about me as an English teacher and hold me responsible for a 20 year old Kiwi girl saying "awesome" is quite breathtaking.
You always do that. Whenever you find yourself out-argued and out of your depth you go "look over there!" and try desperately to make it about something entirely different. Not that I mind! But just so that we know that your attempt at a diversion is really a cry of desperation. You're out of your depth.
But it's OK! I'll play along and have a little fun with your silly irrelevant post.
1. "Gas" station? Really? You, KTJ, use an American expression like "gas" station? I bet you say petrol "pump" too, instead of "bowser". How much more evidence of your cultural cringe and genuflection towards the United States are you going to continue to give us?
2. Re. "awesome". You blame English teachers for "awesome" as used by millennials and gen Y? What bullshit.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2017 10:23:06 GMT 10
Shorto has his strengths in having a united party although that can be shorto lived...<pun intended...in the world of politics.
The people like Turnbull but not his party of fuckwits and people are not that liking of Shorto but prefer the Labor party for not being fuckwits.
If Labor was to win....its a long way to the top to make a call....Shorto may well prove himself as a good prime minister, in being he couldn't be any worse than fuckwits.
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Post by pim on Aug 7, 2017 11:35:10 GMT 10
And there you have it: the bind you get into when you sigh for the messiah-who-never-comes and you allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.
I didn't vote for Bill Shorten in the ALP leadership ballot because I saw Shorten as a "messiah". In fact both Shorten and Albo, and it's to the credit of each of them, ran an anti-messiah campaign. I didn't vote for Shorten because I was anti Albo. The truth is that Albo is widely loved within the Labor Party. What's not to love about the guy! But where Albo presented himself as a Labor warrior, the Labor Hector who'd take it right up to the Liberal Achilles Tony Abbott, Shorten offered party members a strategy for getting themselves back as a party of goverment. And he has delivered. As for Albo, I still love the guy. He's a decent man and loyal Labor to his bootstraps. Has there been any undermining of Shorten? Has he been an effective team player? Has he accepted the result of the leadership ballot and got on with it? Albo will be an outstanding minister in a Shorten government just as he was under Rudd and Gillard. I predict one day he'll fill the office of Governor General with distinction. Maybe even the inaugural president of an Australian republic although I'd prefer that gig go to someone like Lowitja O'Donoghoe.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 14:31:53 GMT 10
Barnaby is a Kiwi citizen ....sort of explains his weird behaviour.
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Post by pim on Aug 20, 2017 23:57:47 GMT 10
Unsurprisingly, Labor has picked up support with the Government in chaos again this week .... And yet, and yet ... Bill Shorten is still behind as Preferred PM! WTF? So he's no messiah! I don't want a messiah so I'm glad he's not a messiah. And he'll make a bloody good Labor prime minister. I just want this hopeless and hapless Turnbull Government to collapse into its own incompetence and chaos so we can get on with an early election.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 18:11:36 GMT 10
People had hopes for Turnbull...I recall saying he is a conservative so he is a c**8 and just a gutless wonder.
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