Australian Politics, Mark II

[Reboot]

Tough guy Morrison only attacks the vulnerable

Kaye Lee

As Scott Morrison ramps up his new image as our strong protector, the only one with the “mettle” to save us from the evil that is knocking on our door, it is worth examining who this shouty Billy Bunter takes on in our defence.

Does he go after the big corporations and wealthy individuals who avoid paying tax and the lax rules that allow them to? No.

Does he protect the environment from those who put profit first? No.

Does he champion human rights and call out those who abuse them? No

Does he pursue and punish corruption? No.

Does he fight for self-determination for our First People? No.

Does he punish businesses that exploit their workers? No.

Does he insist on transparency and accountability in government? No.

Does he expect and enforce a higher standard of behaviour from his colleagues? No.

So who are the targets of this courageous crusader?

Traumatised asylum seekers are held hostage for years, with no options for the future, and vilified as rapists, pedophiles and murderers. We even refuse them the medical treatment that we freely give to actual criminals.

Migrants are blamed for everything – urban congestion, hospital waiting times, housing unaffordability, unemployment, crime.

People on welfare are labelled dole bludgers and leaners and pursued for old debts they don’t owe. Disability pensioners are forced to constantly jump through hoops to prove they haven’t recovered from being disabled and the unemployed are so busy trying to comply with the rules set by jobsearch that they don’t have the time or money to actually look for work.

The pathway forward suggested by the Uluru statement is rejected in favour of income management, tougher sentencing, more gaols and truancy officers.

Environmentalists are condemned as virtue-signalling job-destroying socialist dilettantes.

Children are told to stop being activists and to get back to school and leave politics to the adults – the adults who want to make tertiary education so prohibitively expensive as to be financially exclusive.

New mothers are labelled as ‘double dippers’ and have their maternity leave entitlements reduced.

Weekend workers have their penalty rates reduced because the weekend is just like any other day according to the politicians who turn up to work about 50 days a year and can fly their family to join them on the public purse.

Charities, NFPs and community support programs have their funding stripped while dubious organisations are gifted hundreds of millions in government contracts and grants with no competitive tender, oversight or evaluation.

Yeah Scott, you’re real tough – when you’re picking on the little guy.

[benfti]

China has placed a ban on Australian coal imports, the result is the Aussie dollar has taken a hit. Most Pollies coming out and saying this makes Adani more important than ever.

Wouldn’t it be more important to sell Australia mined coal from Australian companies to India?

[bigallan]

No, he meant ALP and LNP. With ALP support for offshore detention etc, the crossbenchers are irrelevant.
Same goes for foreign policy.
ALP has largely retreated to domestic policies.

[bigallan]

Helloworld chief tells ASX he did not request the meeting in Washington to discuss Embassy travel issues.
If correct, it can be concluded that Hockey ( a major Helloworld shareholder) suggested the meeeting. He also attended the meeting and reference was made to his frustrations at current travel procedures.
Our US domestic travel provider arrangements are up for tender, which would be known to all travel providers.
But what other travel providers would have access to the Ambassador and would have knowledge of his specific concerns at existing arrangements?
No surprise that the DFAT Secretary told Senate Estimates that DFAT could not confirm that Hockey had met appropriate DFAT standards.

[Bacchusfox]

Wouldn’t it be more important to keep Australian coal in the ground until it comes diamonds, and encourage India to seek more renewable energy means.

[tinhillterror]

I find it hard to believe that a tender can be awarded to a supplier that is owned by a liberal party figure/lobbyist and also a key stakeholders in Hockey can be a top 20 shareholder in the company.

Sorry, I can believe it, I just think it shouldn’t be allowed.

Also, hearing that this Burnes bloke bought a property for $7M in melbourne, and a couple of months later it was conveniently rezoned by VIC Liberal planning minister ( M Guy) shooting the value up to $20M. 300% in 4 months!!! Most people can only wish to be this ‘lucky’ once in their careers, this guy seems to have the Midas touch.

[Gwilty]

Liberal Party Asked To Spread Scandals Out More Evenly Across Month

Pointing out that it’s hard to keep up with all of this outrageous shi t when it’s all happening at once, Australians have politely asked if the Liberal Party could aim for one scandal per week, rather than bunching them all together into a single cluster-fu ck.

Voter spokesperson Lucy Grey said Australians had long ago given up on the idea of politicians acting honestly, but said a day or so between scandals would be nice.

“By all means get a travel company that’s bidding on a government contract to pay for your family holiday. But please, don’t do it in the same week that it’s revealed you refused to be interviewed by Federal Police, leaked a fake ASIO story to a national media outlet and gave a $423 million contract to a beach shack in Kangaroo Island. Taxpayers are paying good money for this sh it show – at least give us the respect of being able to follow along,” she said.

Voter Caroline Carr said it was as if the Government was following the Netflix model of dropping a whole season in one go, rather than spreading episodes out weekly. “Call me old fashioned, but I prefer not to binge watch my tax dollars being totally f ucked away. One shameless misuse of parliamentary power a week is more my kind of pace”.

Another voter said he also felt like he was falling behind. “I’m just catching up on Tim Wilson’s misuse of a parliamentary enquiry – that was eight scandals ago. At least the Nationals keep their sex scandals to just one a month”.

The Government was asked for comment. They have advised that they will reply on receipt of a large donation.

[Europhoric]

Of course it’s dodgy but both major parties do it - zero chance that anything will be done about it. The one that bothers me the most is the ex trade minister Andrew Robb getting an 800K+ job as a “consultant” with the Chinese company that bought the port in Darwin.

[Hesonlygotaleftfoot]

its 1 port lol as for adani if bill ever gets off the fence but hey the CFMEu has sent a letter supporting the mine so where does that leave bill theve also done the same in NSw so lets see how they appease the greens lol

[Albert_Thurgood]

… the Government was following the Netflix model of dropping a whole season in one go, rather than spreading episodes out weekly.

Gold!

[percebushby]

A constitution that excluded aborigines from being counted in the census and which expressly excluded the Commonwealth from making laws for the aboriginal race?

And that is the constitution we got in 1901, the one we still operate under today, albeit we’ve managed to modify some of its more distasteful clauses.

But please remember that we are talking about the Australia of more than a century ago, when the world was a different less-enlightened place, where many of our attitudes, being Brutish Empire-based, were a lot more bigoted than they are supposed to be today — although when I hear the likes of Used Johnny Howard, Rabbit, Mutton, Scummo and friends parading their outdated imperialistic attitudes I wonder if anything has changed at all, except that nowadays they use their tongues to clean the Yankee anuses more often than the English ones.

[Albert_Thurgood]

People pour scorn on the Constitution for not recognising Aboriginal people as citizens, but actually it was an enlightened document for its time. They were considered as their own people (as many still refer to themselves) so were not presumed to be incorporated holus bolus into the new country.

[bigallan]

Not counting them in the census meant that States with a higher proportion of aborigines got relatively fewer seats in the Federal Parliament and areas with larger aboriginal poulations were not represented in the Federal Parliament.
By leaving the States the right to govern aborigines, they were deprived of the many rights accorded to other citizens.
For instance, the Victorian Constitution required that education was free compulsory and secular, but it did not apply to aborigines.
And, as the States determined eligibility to be included on the electoral rolls, some States effectively excluded aborigines from the right to vote in both State and Federal elections,
Mind you, there were gerrymanders applying to others. For years eligibility to vote for the Victorian Legislative Council was restricted to matriculants ( and only those who had paid the fee for the certificate). Voting in Council elections was restricted to ratepayers.

[Bacchusfox]

Do you really mean that?

All assessments are it is a light weight poor document that ignored indigenous Australians as they were not considered to be Australians

[BLOODSTAINED_DEVILS]

Brutish Empire-based

Freudian typo??

How apt.

[percebushby]

It’s not a typo.

[Albert_Thurgood]

Quite.

I recently had an exchange with a colleague from Germany who wondered about why there was so much corruption in the Commonwealth countries compared to Germany. (Where the penalty for being found guilty of corruption is a fine of 10x the bribe that was paid).

I said that perhaps the difference between Commonwealth countries and Germany is that the British since the Norman conquest have been a kleptocracy. So they would not be - and have not been - so inclined to protect the rights of the many against the rights of the few. [I am not so familiar with details of German history through the ages, but suspect it was more a meritocracy, with various areas competing with each other until unification in modern times (the 19th century) when reason prevailed.]

Almost everywhere the British have been they have caused pain: the Empire and their criminal gangs have a terrible legacy such as the trans-Atlantic slave trade; genocidal campaigns in Ireland, Scotland, India, South Africa, etc; separation of India and Pakistan leading to decades of conflict and nuclear proliferation in the region; the Middle East disaster over many decades, including setting up the House of Saud with its fundamental view of Islam affecting the region; destabilizing the ME by drawing up random borders; and also including the recent ME chaos caused by Blair and the UK leading the charge for the illegal war in Iraq that has caused so many troubles around the world; the Opium Wars in China; etc., etc. all of which still exert a major and disastrous impact on today’s world.

Our own Tories are inheritors of this rich kleptocratic tradition and although they do not perpetuate many of the above horrors, they are callously responsible for the fate of refugees on Manus, Nauru etc, and devote their time to think only about how they can use their position to enrich themselves, as documented in many reports above.

[percebushby]

Cartoon by First Dog on the Moon, published in The Guardian.

This cartoon is dynamite !

[bigallan]

Australia Day used to be called ANA Day , instituted after lobbying by the Australian Natives Association, a friendly society which was pro republican. However, “Australian Natives” generally meant white Australian born

[chillyb]

Its a sobering thought that this piece of satire is so close to the bone. Makes you realize how much we’ve been de-sensitized/conned