Today’s Guest Contributor is This Little Black Duck, with a photo essay of his March in March in Canberra (and yes, PM Blood Oaf, we knows it’s St Pat’s day – so what was your mob doing marching yesterday? Can’t read a calendar yet?).
Mille remerciements, Monseigneur le Duck …
MARCH IN MARCH – THE CANBERRA EXPERIENCE
(What’s even better – it happened on Saint Patrick’s Day …)
THE PUB 
I have Hockey muted, I have no idea what the clown is on about, but I have a question. Is Joe Hockey wearing a corset? He’s looking very cinched-in today, in his tightly buttoned jacket.
The old boiler in the speakers chair is getting worse!
Bronwyn Bishop, just said that Ministers are “not obliged” to answer questions in Question Time.
As a Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop is a disgrace.
More words of wisdom from Madame Speaker – Ministers are ‘not obliged’ to answer questions during QT.
Don’t tell me Abbott finds Turnbull hilarious. Rictus on display.
They are re-opening the live-animal trade with Egypt, the b’tards. Poor animals; I have no problem with farmed animals being slaughtered for food. However, this should be with the least possible discomfort and in modern controlled facilities working under our standards of animal welfare.
This is a terrible decision.
A red tie is not a good choice for Barnaby.
Someone do a cartoon of Abbott hiding under Bronnie’s skirts.
Sorry to the voiceless.
Once again, we have Dutton and his daily spin. When is he going to tell us what he intends? Why the need to put the boot into Tanya each day? She is NOT the shadow health minister.
Same every QT.
Tanya Plibersek is a powerful ALP woman. That is reason enough for Dutton et al to attack her daily.
Another debate on Sinodinos Upper House. Wong leading.
Shorten moving suspension of standing orders re whens PM knew about Sinodinos..
Puffy, trouble for Dutton, her replacement is just as strong and I suspect powerful.
Time for shadow health minister, to spend the next question time asking Dutton numerous questions. Has always been weak on health issues, in spite of being shadow for six years.
The madam has not been game to stop Shorten today, Made no effort at all. Neither has Pyne.
I noticed, that Abbott has followed Gillard’s action, by not staying in the house.
I wonder if these “objects” are suspicious at all. Another stunt by Abbott?
gigilene
The report was not a stunt but Abbott turned it in to one all about him. Check out these two headlines.
kk
My point is that these objects may be easily identifiable as some odd parts of anything but Abbott prefers the mystery to linger.
For all we know the ‘objects’ could be the recently surfaced wreckage of an old Chinese submarine, last seen off the Victorian coast on 17 December 1967.
Of course Crikey’s not upset – not at all at all …
leone
Exactly.
Awwww!
Leone & Gigilene,
Indubitably.
gigilene
From what I saw of the search presser they can only say that the debris cannot be ruled out of being aircraft debris. So basically it could be anything.
fiona
I saw a nice wombat doorstop in a shop one day (of course not as nice as the real one) but it was quite heavy so I left it in the shop. Pity because I simply adore wombats.
That’s the one; anyway very similar:
Yes indeed:
Gigilene,
I’ve been a fan of wombats all my life. One of my earliest memories is clambering up the back of a chair to reach and switch on the Bakelite radio on the mantelpiece so I could listen to The Muddle-headed Wombat on the ABC’s Children’s Hour program.
Charm.
I see that Tony has been talking about “on water” issues today! Now that’s a change.
Yet another – and very good – piece on MIM and the lack of mainstream media reportage, this time from Wixxy:
http://wixxyleaks.com/2014/03/20/two-sides-politics-the-press-and-the-forgotten-side/
Al Palster,
In-water matters?
I’ve noticed a bit of talk around the place about how SA should have a Tasmanian style PR system in the lower house. So out of curiosity, I’ve made a sort of simulation of such a system.
First up I divided SA into 7 seven member electorates for a total of 49, basically consisting of 7 current seats in Adelaide and 6 current seats in the rural areas. These are SA Rural North, SA Rural South, East Adelaide (covering the Adelaide Hills suburbs), South Adelaide, North Adelaide, West Adelaide and Central Adelaide.
The results were significant in the strong Labor areas in West and North Adelaide, where Labor currently holds all 7 seats in those areas. While in a PR system, the Liberals would hold around 2-3 each. On the flip side, Labor would have won a seat or two in the rural areas where previously it wouldn’t stand a chance apart from Giles.
So the total seats were:
Liberal – 25
Labor – 19
Green – 2
Family First – 2
Independent – 1
In that scenario, it would be a narrow Liberal majority government.
I might have another go at calculating once the results have been finalized, since not all seats have the same amount of votes counted yet.
Anyway, yeah, that was kind of interesting. I might do another PR simulation for other elections later. Like the 2010 election that the Libs were “supposed” to have won.
Liberal fundraiser linked to Joe Hockey repays $22,000 in political donations from Australian Water Holdings
From the search area. Interesting that the US ley an ABC reporter on board.
LMartinezABC luis martinez
ABC’s David Wright phoned from aboard P-8 poseidon that radar is getting “hits of significant size” “all indications something down there”
About one hour ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Favorite Retweet Reply
The Liberals certainly come up with some interesting reasons for junkets.
Canberra Liberals on prostitution study tour
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-liberals-on-prostitution-study-tour-20140320-353oo.html
Kaffeeklatscher,
Now we know what all this budget slashing and cost cutting is for – more bleeping lifeboats.
Cost of Abbott government’s orange lifeboats to tow back asylum seeker trebles to $7.5 million
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/cost-of-abbott-governments-orange-lifeboats-to-tow-back-asylum-seeker-trebles-to-75-million-20140320-355ci.html#ixzz2wTnOGUmQ
Of course they did – she’s a black cat:
Abbott is a bit irresponsible. These debris are now giving hope to the families of the missing ones. But Abbott doesn’t care so long as he gets his stunt.
Just heard it for the first time…
“a company linked to Arthur Sinodinis….”
!!!! Sounded good!!!
Fiona
Wow. Nice pic. Wonder if any ABC journos were let on to “our” planes ?
I suppose Indonesia will keep these orange boats. They don’t seem to be complaining about them. They must have come to some agreement with our govt.
Kaffeeklatscher,
Pure luck that I checked my twitter stream at that moment.
I do so wish I’d seen this earlier in the week:
What they found.
The idiot has jumped the gun regarding MH370 announcement.
There are plenty of shipping containers floating around the oceans that are about that size.
Unless he has some definitive info he is not sharing he is just speculating.
This news is worldwide on all major networks so if false, he will just look like the idiot that we know he is to the rest of the world.
Kaffee
That looks like the same one from the Chinese satellite last week.
So dexterous, yet without fingers:
http://english.people.com.cn/98649/8572243.html
2gravel
Click on the pic for a closer look. It is different. The pic was linked by an ABC reporter as being one just released. by the “Australian authorities”.