(Image Credit: Vote1Julia – courtesy of Mrs Vote1Julia)
‘Now, everyone say “entitlements” . . .’
I’d been musing about this evening’s thread; then one of Vote1Julia’s brilliant pics turned up in the email (by the way, doesn’t the bridegroom look like a prize dork?). So that decided it: even though this saga has been around for three weeks, it ain’t going anywhere soon.
(Image Credit: Vote1Julia)
‘Choppergate – how it all began.’
The cartoons have been wonderful, some of the commentary insightful. For example, Andrew Elder:
Bishop, as with most politicians, knows that you have to put yourself about if you want to build and maintain your base. The reason why the rules on parliamentary entitlements are like that, and why they won’t change much, is because politicians from all parties agree that you have to travel a lot to maintain your base.
To most people, there is a clear delineation between work and social events. The social events that political parties stage as fundraising events are designed to be social for those contributing money. For the politically ambitious, they involve all the performance-indicator aspects of work with the addition of social skills like seeming pleasant, knowing who to chat to (and if they’re really important, how to chat to them) and not drinking as much as you might at a purely social event – particularly if you’re going to many such events in a day.
For most people, a golf course is unambiguously a social place, different from Bishop’s workplace in the green room under the hill in Canberra. Bishop regards her job as going where her job requires: Collaroy, Launceston, Ottawa, wherever. She has been in politics so much and for so long that she is genuinely astonished that turning up to a fundraiser might lie outside a reasonable definition of a politician’s “work”.
And Jennifer Wilson:
In case you are still in any doubt about what matters and what doesn’t to the Anglo-Saxon hegemony think on this: white Speaker of the House of Representatives and Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s personal pick Bronwyn Bishop remains in charge of the House, in spite of decades of financial abuse of taxpayer funds, the obscene details of which are unfolding daily before our disbelieving eyes. The only thing that keeps her in her job is Abbott’s support, because while the Prime Minister cannot actually sack a Speaker, there’s little doubt that if Abbott pressured her to get on her bike, she’d be mad not to obey.
. . .
Prime Minister Tony Abbott, normally a man with an opinion on everything no matter how irrelevant, remains conspicuously silent on both matters. Ms Bishop’s shenanigans with helicopters and luxury limos have left rotten egg splattered all over Tony’s face, an ungracious response on her part to the man who, when he won government, rewarded her with the prestigious job of Speaker. Getting rid of Bronwyn will cause Tony to lose egg-splattered face, as it will be an admission of his lack of judgement of a woman he’s known for decades, and indeed, has been heard to refer to as his “political mother.”
But as Freud would have it, an adult man must at some point cut ties with his mother, and this could be Tony’s moment to sever the umbilical cord.
Ever since Choppergate broke, this theme – with an obvious name change – has been an almost constant earworm for me:
As for dame kero’s “apology”
Too little too late.
As always in public life, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover up that does the damage.
(Image Credit: Vote1Julia)
A huge thank you to Vote1Julia for letting me use his pics!
Heigh ho, let’s have a flaunting extravagant Friday. Enjoy The Pub’s delightful ambiance, enjoy the comestibles, crank up the jukebox – and if anyone is curious about the origin of the title to this thread . . .
(Image Credit: Amazon)
THE PUB 
Just some trivia – Abbott lives in Bronnie’s electorate.
Murdoch defeated…Social media won this fight…will win others..The MSM. did it’s best to keep the lid on the scandal…social media played a blinder!
Goodbye Murdoch et al !
BB’s resignation is not the end of Choppergate. Did she sign her travel claims as those being on Parliamentry business? These are criminal matters, which the AFP needs to investigate, just like with Peter Slipper. Slipper had the decency and respect for his office to stand down immediately whilst being investigated. BB otoh has taken almost three weeks. No decency, no respect, just pure greed and contempt for the Office of Speaker.
Fairfax attacked her relentlessly – wonder if it was because of Hockey’s defamation case?
Poor madam chopper has been knocked off her pedestal and reduced to sitting with the peasant class – how humiliating!
l2 – The Peter, Paul and Mary is one of my favorites.
Until a few years ago the urge to ‘go’ and have a first hand look was strong.
Noe happy here.
Abbott looked very frightened, very insecure, like a trapped animal.
Gigilene,
So he is – trapped by his own duplicity.
ding dong, the bat is gone
Talk about walking into your own political propellor!
And Shorten gets a scalp!
Check out the thread
https://twitter.com/hashtag/putyourwalletsout?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-02/bronwyn-bishop-stands-down-as-speaker/6666172
puffy
His FIRST “scalp”… There could be a second one …
The new Speaker will be another party hard liner who will carry on in the Bronnie tradition.
leone
Do you have someone in mind? Elders has mentioned a couple. I still go for Ruddock but he probably doesn’t want the job.
I shudder to think what kind of biased ideologue Abbott will put in the chair now…
I’ve been finding the site very slow to load, particularly coming back from BK’s links. Here’s what I did to improve things.
I downloaded an add blocker program called “Add Block Plus”.
Just google for it. It will install on firefox, chrome, internet explorer, etc. Very simple one-click install.
Once installed, the program has a big ABP logo which looks like a red stop sign and it sits itself permanently on your browser bar. When you click on it, you are taken to a basic menu where you can configure various options to add blocking filters. It comes preloaded with a huge list of sites already blocked.
Let’s say you have just loaded the Pub. When you click the ABP logo, a menu appears containing, among others, this item:
“Disable on pbxmastragics.com”
DON’T click this: it’s merely telling you that ABP is blocking ads etc on the current page, which is the Pub. You want ABP ENABLED for your page.
Just to clarify, you basically don’t ever even TOUCH the red logo. ABP does its job without any oversight by you. The menu is just for customising its filter lists.
I’m still tinkering with adding advertising sites to the main filter list. Using the firebug extension on firefox, I can see that there is a whole SHITLOAD of unwanted advertising sites loading in with The Pub. That’s why it was taking me 58 SECONDS TO LOAD the PUB FULLY.
With addblock plus, this has improved noticeably. Yippee. It’s gone from being a pain in the butt to a mild annoyance.
ABP is a free open-source program. It’s apparantly the most used addblocker on the web.
Recommended.
gigilene
I have no-one in mind. I wouldn’t give any of the government members the job, none of them are up to it.
dedalus\
thank you, ABP added.
ABC 24 – Australian Story.
Bradmans grand daughter couldn’t make it as an opera singer because her grandfather was a cricket player?
FMD. The family are full of it.
dedalus
I’ve been using Adblock for Chrome for a while, after changing from Firefox and their Adblock Plus. Both are excellent.
Clive Palmer for speaker.
NEW THREAD
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