This is from the always worth reading Kaye Lee at The Australian Independent Media – I hope she will forgive me for reblogging without her express permission (and I note that several Pubkateers have commented already).
(Image Credit: Daily Fumes)
An excerpt from They Thought They Were Free – The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer:
What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.
What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your ‘little men,’ your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?
To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.
Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late.
You see, one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’
And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.
Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.
Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.
Note: Thanks to mars08 for this chilling reminder
THE PUB 
Community affairs. Call centre benefits
The Fib chairthing just Bagged Jenny Macklin; no doubt to “encourage” the witness.
Totally disgusting.
What a disgrace!
Department: “Wait till I get my riding orders from Credlin”.
JFC!
Sorry, a little slow, I have all the sites on media player. . I just move from one to the other. Sometimes I lose track.
The bragging of the previous government is a new happening. Early in the piece, PS were careful not to. Another convention gone down the drain,
Wonder how many heads of departments have been replaced?
Do not remember seeing Dept heads defending their ministers, as had happened today on more than one occasion.
The evil that Your Government, to due process and to us, is beyond belief.
I’ll rephrase some of that – “is what I expected”
You have seen nothing yet.
Someone check out Kafka and Blair (not Tony, dummy!).
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/under-tony-abbott-political-principles-reach-an-alltime-low-20140225-33ffk.html#ixzz2uWVKsDy4
All witnesses, departmental heads included, have to give facts.
Opinions, in a law of court, would be be dismissed unless explicitly asked for from expert witnesses.
Ross Gittins a must read,
That Black Wattle is making me mis-typing. I blame the Carbon Tax.
“Wonder how many heads of departments have been replaced?”
I believe the expression “sufficient unto the day” is appropriate.
St Matthew added “is the evil thereof” and who am I to argue!
Some seem to be having problems knowing what the facts are. I get the impression, that many are not having contact with their ministers. One depart kept saying they were following what is in MYEFO. No directions from minister, That was Dutton, so it would not surprise one.,
I also notice, even after this time, they are still trying to work out what they are responsible for. Abbott, if one remembers merged depts in a way that made little sense. Was evident today in DFAT.
There does just not seem to be much happening. That is shown up by the lack of legislation in this session of the house.
“Wonder how many heads of departments have been replaced?”
Only the “unsound” ones.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
It seems like the toys soldier has form when it comes to political cover ups.
https://newmatilda.com/2014/02/27/operational-security-charade
Another government appointee whose independence is beyond reproach.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/consultant-investigating-manus-insists-independent
A showdown between Qantas and the unions will fill Abbott, etc with joy(ce).
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/qantas-union-showdown-is-on-20140227-33mhp.html
Fighting words from Telstra. And entirely justifiable.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/telstra-warns-of-legal-action-to-protect-its-mobile-network-20140227-33mcx.html
Greg Jericho on Hockey’s budget cuts.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/feb/27/australia-needs-austerity-like-hole-head
The petty politics of local government.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mayor-takes-avo-out-on-fellow-councillor-20140227-33mnm.html
This mother examines the rationale of religious schools.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/for-gods-sake-school-segregation-must-stop-20140227-33m4v.html
More from the Royal Commission – if you can bear to read it!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/royal-commission-girls-stuck-themselves-with-needles-and-pins-at-parramatta-girls-training-school-20140227-33kyz.html
Lenore Taylor says the government’s dithering on Qantas puts it in a bad light.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/qantas-dithering-government-bad-light
Peter Martin on the collapse of business confidence.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/business-investment-collapse-after-coalition-election-victory-to-cost-jobs-20140227-33mgm.html
Rebekkah Brooks uses the “only half pregnant” defence.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/i-sanctioned-payments-to-officials-exmurdoch-editor-rebekah-brooks-20140228-hvfgy.html
A senior NSW judge comes out swinging against Abbott.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/judge-ruth-mccoll-warns-gains-on-gender-threatened-by-aboutface-on-diversity-20140227-33mfv.html
Section 2 . . .
Section 2 . . . (try again!)
What is it with Fiona Nash? Lack of confidence, arrogance?
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/assistant-health-minister-fiona-nashs-failure-to-meet-with-public-health-bodies-labelled-strange-20140227-33m12.html
These blatant intrusions into our privacy are well beyond a joke.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo
Chief Scientist Ian Chubb piles in against Abbott and his hand-picked cronies regarding climate change. Bernie Fraser agrees with him.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/27/abbotts-advisers-at-odds-climate-change
It’s not going to be a smooth passage for Abbott’s reverse affluence tested PPL welfare policy.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/nationals-mp-john-williams-threatens-to-oppose-paid-parental-leave-scheme-20140227-33krm.html
WOW! Richard Ackland on Morriscum and us returning to the dark days of the White Australia policy.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/welcome-back-to-white-australia-20140227-33m4w.html
This farmer from Wyoming lines up the charming Peter Reith on the subject of coal seam gas.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/coal-seam-gas-industrys-solution-to-underground-pollution-is-to-bury-the-proof-20140227-33m4t.html
Alan Moir has Popeye Abbott and Hockey reflecting on how easy it was in opposition.
Pat Campbell gives us a seat card from a Qantas plane.
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/opinion/cartoons/pat-campbell-20120213-1t21q.html
David Rowe on board Qantas. Look at the legroom.
http://www.afr.com/p/national/cartoon_gallery_david_rowe_1g8WHy9urgOIQrWQ0IrkdO
And from the Land of the Free –
The weekly collection of upchuck articles on religion.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/02/27/weekly-upchuck-shocking-religion-news-last-week/
The Tea Party in Arizona is at the extreme edge.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/02/26/arizona-tea-party-group-anti-gay-bill-first-amendment-protects-practice-christian-faith/
A disgraceful example of poor police work in Florida and the pathetically weak consequences.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/02/26/punishment-fit-crime/
The Catholic church in Minnesota shows how it is done. Disgusting!
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/church-blames-mother-after-pedophile
Vote rigging in Ohio.
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/stealing-election-2014-ohio-gop-kills
Harry Reid unloads on the Koch Brothers.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/26/1280668/-Harry-Reid-doubles-down-on-Koch-nbsp-criticism
It appears the general is a public servant
https://newmatilda.com/2014/02/27/operational-security-charade
In a sane country Abbott’s hypocritical ‘why should we do for one what we can’t do for all’ line would have been greeting with deafening laughter the first time he said it. After all, this is the man who gave Cadbury $16 million and then refused to help any other business. Even his excuse ‘but it was to create jobs’ is ludicrous. Abbott has no qualms about refusing assistance to a growing number of companies, meaning tens of thousands of jobs will be lost, but he thinks creating a few positions for tour guides at the Cadbury factory is an achievement.
So do we hear that laughter? Do we hear even snigger? Of course not. The media are silent on this lunacy, protecting their boy to the last, no matter what. Howard gave millions to his brother to get him out of a financial hole and then refused to help anyone else in a similar predicament. Abbott, in his quest to return us all to the Howard years has done the same. He doesn’t have an incompetent brother, but he does have a greedy friend with an agenda, a friend who managed to sweet-talk Abbott into a donation to Cadbury. I bet SPC, Ford and Toyota, Holden and Qantas and all the other companies and businesses shafted by Abbott now wish they had had consultants or executives invited to Pollie Pedal with the PM. It seems the only way tio get money out of this government is to hop on a bike.
It really IS all falling apart, isn’t it?
General Motors, Alcoa, Toyota, SPC, Sensis, Telstra, Qantas… all shedding workers like autumn leaves.
And Abbott is enjoying it. He has the look on his face of a reptile, basking after a big feed.
Unionists are workers. Let’s make less workers. And then we’ll have less unionists.
It must all seem so simple to his lizard brain as he sits on his rock, digesting 10,000 jobs lost, and counting.
Abbott has always been a destroyer. It’s his thing to pull down everything about him and leave himself as the Last Man Standing. He achieves greatness (in his own mind) by destroying others, and by wrecking their accomplishments. When everyone of his enemies is gone, who’s there left to love? Only Tony.
They have no plan, and no clue about how to get one. They have only ideology, a naive faith in the inevitability of success if only they get their thinking right.
Problem with the Human Rights Commission? No biggy. Appoint a man who is bitterly opposed to the Commission… as the Human Rights Commissioner! Bonus points if he’s a person who has publicly called for his own organization’s demolition. Which he has, of course.
Problem with Climate Change? Meh. Appoint climate science deniers to every key post, including the ones that determine how we will respond to… Climate Change. Brilliant!
Got a problem with junk food killing our kids? Easy-peasy! Appoint a Junk Food industry lurk merchant to oversee Healthy Food policy. Then let him close it down on its first day Oh, and give his firm $16 million to make even more junk food. Abbott tried to say the money was for tourism. $16 million? For tourism? At that price you’d need to wear a tiara just to get in for the guided tour. Abbott’s “explanation” made the money sound all the more like an outright lump of pork in a barrel.
In a pickle over secrecy and cover-ups regarding asylum seekers, even torture allegations? It’s a breeze: call the ABC traitors, un-Australian. Threaten their funding. Call it “efficiency.” Beat the drum, fly the flag. Remember Anzac.
Want to embarrass the previous government? Start a Royal Commission into confidential cabinet deliberations. Problem: they’re not supposed to be released for 30 years. It’s a convention. Solution: WE invent conventions. We can un-invent them.
Economy going OK? Well, we can’t have that. Let’s wreck it. Talk it down at every opportunity. Every time you front the press, have a big sulk about the Carbon Tax. Look like you’ve just come from a funeral. Stand by while good companies go to the wall. Shrug your shoulders. Blame someone else. That’ll get confidence back up. Things can only get better. They’re so miserable now.
(I wonder whether Abbott and Hockey realize it’s their job to talk up the economy, not trash it? It doesn’t seem that they do.)
We are watching the slow destruction of the Australian economy, supervised by ideologues (ideologues on a good day, that is, hopeless wreckers on most other days), hangers on, spivs, urgers, rent boys, right-wing barrackers and new money boofheads.
They are carving it up before our eyes, apportioning bits and pieces of it here and there to their mates and fellow travellers. The rest of us can go to hell.
Five months is all it has taken to shed all those thousands of jobs and to shut down those companies. Any hope that new industries might take over where those old outfits left off was blown up by the cancellation of the NBN and the withdrawl of anything to do with Green Industry stimulus.
The wasters, the firms who poison our kids, the companies that dig holes and flog-off the dirt remain untouched, even rewarded. Alan Joyce, who has destroyed Qantas, is lauded, praised for his sterling efforts in throwing thousands out of work.
The only ones who may still have hope are the “Women Of Calibre”, but even their expectations may be dashed. Joe Hockey redefined the handing out of full salaries to our most highly paid mums-to-be as a “Workplace Entitlement”.
A bit embarrasssing, that.
“Entitlement” has become a dirty word. “Workplace” even dirtier. A “Workplace Entitlement” must therefore lie down somewhere near the seventh pit of Hell in the eyes of true-blue Liberals.
Australians, even the dopey ones who swallowed the soothing Abbott snake oil, don’t deserve this level of mismanagement and incompetency at the highest levels of government. We’re seeing our parliament trashed. We’re seeing our economy trashed. We’re seeing our institutions pulled apart, one by one.
And what for?
They didn’t have a plan. They never had a plan. They put a psychopathic liar and wrecker in as their leader and he doesn’t know what to do, except keep on wrecking, and lying. His lizard brain knows only when its hungry for more destruction and anarchy.
And it must be sated. Who, or what will be the next meal?
On which cheerful note, mum and I are heading off into the wide blue yonder.
If you are wondering what the Coalition strategy is read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine , it’s not a pretty read.
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
Fixed that for you 🙂
The collapse in business confidence and investment is in some ways unsurprising given the decisions being made by this government.
There’s a word for the economic state when inflation is increasing at the same time as unemployment is rising, particularly in a weak economy:
Stagflation.
It’s not a term I’ve heard used about current economic conditions since the 1970’s – yet it’s cropped up in a couple of articles already this year.
Stagflation in the 70’s was largely a result of the oil crisis.
Wayne Swan as Treasurer managed to keep inflation within the Reserve Bank’s target band, allowing the Reserve Bank to continue to drop interest rates to stimulate the economy and attempt to bring down the relatively overpriced AUD.
The actions of the Coalition government in the past few months seem designed to push us right over the edge into higher unemployment and higher interest rate territory, while deliberately driving down business confidence and investment.
.
Once on that path, it’s going to get worse – a lot worse – before it gets better.
Well-fixed, Socky – BB.
Fiona and mum enjoy your trip through eastern Victoria
Have a lovely time with your Mum Fiona. I have travelled the Great Ocean Rd but not the Alpine and envy you both.
What is Martin Ferguson up too??
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/former-labor-minister-martin-ferguson-backs-tony-abbotts-planned-changes-to-fair-work-act-20140227-33mgp.html
oops, forgot to close the blockquote after the first sentence, if a mod has time to fix that 🙂
msadventure2
Doing his masters bidding. Look at the mob he is chairman of. Right from the start of negotiations for CPRS etc he was pushing back and running lines helpful to the fossil fuels sector.
http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/fears-of-landslide-at-hazelwood-mine-after-thousands-of-litres-of-water-used-to-fight-blaze/story-fnii5sms-1226839830382
http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/mp-geoff-shaw-is-key-to-tax-hike-on-pokies/story-fnii5sms-1226839852369
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-28/fresh-pressure-on-paid-parental-leave-scheme/5289764
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-28/qantas-boss-joyce-to-meet-with-unions-over-job-cuts/5289746
Marn Ferguson is doing what his employers tell him to do. These days he is involved in the oil and gas (coal seam gas, that is) industry and he also works for Kerry Stokes.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/former-labor-minister-martin-ferguson-signs-up-with-seven/story-e6frg996-1226730132546
He is on the board of the BG Group, an oil and gas company investing in coal seam gas projects in Queensland.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/13/bg-board-ferguson-idUSL6N0JS1C920131213
And he is Chairman of APPEA (Australian Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association) Advisory
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/13/bg-board-ferguson-idUSL6N0JS1C920131213
Ferguson has become another Richo, a Labor turncoat willing to do and say anything as long as he gets paid for it. Marn has always liked making ‘controversial’ comments. He never cared what damage he did to Labor governments by calling for an end to bans on uranium mining, going against his own party’s policy at the time.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/martin-ferguson-calls-on-newman-to-reverse-uranium-ban-vow/story-fn59niix-1226393545864#
Let’s not forget Marn’s part in Labor’s defeat. He was Rudd’s chief supporter. Marn has never been a Labor hero, he’s always been in it for what he could get. Nothing has changed.
Leone,
Well said. Marn is just doing what he’s paid to do (and say) but naturally the pro-abbott media are not about to mention that Marn is no longer a Labor spokesman, nor is he a “union man” any longer. He ditched all those principles in favour of 30 pieces of silver.
One of the few times I’d agree with Richo for a whole aricle. Worth googling the title to get around the paywall to see it all.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/next-task-at-qantas-to-bring-forward-5001st-job-cut/story-fnfenwor-1226839952185#
Next task at Qantas to bring forward 5001st job cut
Graham Richardson The Australian February 28, 2014 12:00AM
THE one thing I can say that is in any way complimentary about Alan Joyce is that he possesses a hide so thick it is beyond belief. As I listened to his words in yesterday’s press conference, I felt profoundly sad. Here was the chief executive of a great Australian company calmly announcing a dreadful set of numbers. The true story of how and why Qantas has descended to the very bottom of the aviation pit was not even mentioned in passing.
Joyce takes no responsibility. There was no apology for a failure of leadership on a grand scale. The massive losses made by a series of hopeless mistakes in Asia are not part of the public discourse. If this was an exercise in demonstrating to the government that Qantas was getting its house in order so some form of largesse could be distributed, I sincerely hope that it meets the most ignominious of ends.
Whatever happened to the concept of honour and dignity as it is applied in business? Very few chief executives can boast they have succeeded in driving down profits to historic lows and driving down the share price to levels no investor could have ever contemplated. This bloke has presided over a corporate disaster, but acts like he is a man of courage.
If Joyce had any real courage, he would have announced his resignation. If Leigh Clifford and his fellow board members had been prepared to admit that they had backed every dud idea their CEO had put forward, they, too, would have fallen on their swords.
Ferguson was only a ‘union man’ because he went straight from uni to working as a union officer for the MWU. From there he worked his way up to president of the ACTU. Like Kathy Jackson, he made a living from the union fees of lower paid ‘real’ workers’. Then he went into politics.
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=LS4#personal
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/victorias-morwell-coal-mine-fire-crisis-intensifies/story-e6frg6nf-1226840394887
no paywall
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/assistant-health-minister-fiona-nashs-failure-to-meet-with-public-health-bodies-labelled-strange-20140227-33m12.html
He rarely agreed with Julia Gillard’s policies. Always had something else in mind or somebody else.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-139411-Polar-bears-join-natural-wonders-at-Google-Maps
“”Understanding global warming, and its impact on polar bear populations, requires both global and regional benchmarks.””
Apparently a fire broke out on one of the Collins submarines not long after it had just finished maintenance.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/submarine-fire-navy-personnel-taken-ashore-20140227-33m9l.html
It’s really starting to get beyond a joke now. And they want to keep them until 2030.
Marn is described by Massola as a “Labor Elder Statesman”.
And just like that I threw up in my mouth a little.
In passing through a shopping centre yesterday, I overheard a chap with a delightful Irish brogue turn to his mate as they passed the newsagents and say, “I’m really sorry about Alan Joyce. We should have shot him years ago”.
I’m also seeing more and more shops in centres boarding up and quitting. When asked why they are closing, most of the staff are saying “… no one is spending money. Things are getting tight since September. Don’t know what’s wrong …”
Talk about being blind for not seeing!
Housework done, showers done, going out clothes on, waiting arrival of Fiona and her Mum. Can anybody tell we are just a little excited to put faces to names?
Housework done, showers done, going out clothes on waiting for Fiona and her Mum to arrive. Can anybody tell we are a bit excited about putting faces to names?
Sorry about double post, must be the excitement.
Labor MPs would be wise to dump a truckload of ordure on Ferguson ASAP to put a stop to the inevitable ‘Martin Ferguson says…so why won’t the Labor Party…..’ tactics the government will now leap into. Ferguson knew exactly what he was doing when he gave that speech, he knew what opportunites he was giving the government. Get in early, Bill Shorten. Say the man is employed by those with an interest in shafting workers, say he has never agreed with Labor policies. Marn took great delight in dumping on Julia Gillard and her government, he did all he could to make trouble back then, trying to get his little buddy St Kevin back into the top job. Shorten now has the opportunity to pay back that treachery in truckloads.
http://www.thelocal.de/20140227/glass-spheres-could-heat-houses
“If The Local’s German of the Week is successful, giant marbles could soon be heating the country. Andre Broessel has invented a way of harnessing the sun’s power through a glass sphere, and is gearing up to go into production.”
This is so true.
leonetwo,
Jason Hand @jasonrhand · 59s
@AustralianLabor Can someone have a word in Martin Ferguson’s ear and tell him to STFU!
2gravel
Have fun. It really is very exciting to put faces to names.