So it seems the idea, judging from Cormann’s comments this morning, is to king-hit the poor and low income earners, and then … blame Labor for not allowing them to spread the pain to the upper-income echelons.
“Oh, ye poor and humble of circumstance… IT’S ALL LABOR’S FAULT we’re kicking only youse in the guts.”
They are effectively holding a gun to the head of the electorate.
“Pass our legislation, or the cripple gets it. And I’ll shoot the kids, and the Abo too. One hostage every hour until Labor caves in.”
Their modus vivendi is intimidation. They are political standover merchants. Always threatening, always dividing. Their “class warfare” allegations against Labor are the mistaken take on affairs that comes from preening yourself in front of a mirror too often. It’s they who are the wreckers.
“Nice little country you got here. Pity if sumpin’ bad was ta happen to it.”
Mark Simkin, last night on ABC TV news, put it pathetically. Tony Abbott is showing that he is prepared to make sacrifices too. What a guy! Simkin had in his eyes a look that was a mixture of outright embarrassment and ideological fire. He’s a well-coiffed, well-dressed out-and-out Abbott luvvie, but even he couldn’t disguise the disgust, mixed with excitement that he was feeling as he did his piece to air.
Good God… if they pulled this off (his eyes were eloquent) then Abbott really is a political genius. The punters would swallow anything at all if they swallowed the claptrap about how Abbott was making sacrifices too.
Yesterday was the ultimate test of chutzpah: how to break a promise and expect the public to thank you for it, after all the railing, garment renting and teeth gnashing about broken promises when they were in Opposition.
Get Kennet and anyone else handy out onto the hustings to tell us what dire straits we are in. Who knew? They believed Treasury and MYEFO. But Treasury and MYEFO were nobbled, with Treasury full of traitors and MYEFO hopelessly based on impractical, pie-in-the-sky assumptions. Trust Labor to trash and misuse the very institutions put in place to safeguard our nation’s economy.
They always put us on the back foot. There’s always an emergency, or a threat we have to react to. Under this mob there is no “business as usual”. There is only chaos and uncertainty. The Whirling Dervish of the boxing ring has made it his life’s work to cause turmoil and upset and then seek to benefit from it. He knows no other way. As they say, it’s in his DNA… anarchy. He is no happier than when the punters are restless, because in confusion is profit.
He was thrown out of the seminary because he caused too much trouble. He was in open revolt against the ruling circles of the Church and they had to get rid of him. He waged a whispering guerilla campaign of destabilization and pseudo-intellectual moralizing. God knows what he, a would-be parish priest, thought he could accomplish from it. There was no other option for the Church but to let him go.
Ever since he’s made a lifestyle out of the king-hit, the unexpected “Where-the-f**k-did-that-come from?” assault on ordinary people, from various walks of life, just trying to get on with their daily business.
Unless you understand that Abbott is never happy unless he is causing trouble, you can’t understand the way this country is headed: government by brain fart, holes punched in walls either side of innocent people, isloation and encirclement of hapless victims, threats, going the heavy, holing hostages.
Abbott doesn’t work by raising others to a higher plane. He works by flattening all opposition, then kicking them when they are down. Look at the photo above. They’re trying to hold him back. That way he comes out on top simply because he is the last man standing. Everything about him is menacing and violent because that’s the best, quickest way to rip apart the polity and put your own twisted nightmare in its place.
For a long time I’ve wondered whether Abbott was acting as if he knew he was on borrowed time – political or even existential time. His entire life has been devoted to making it through the day, by and means, fair or foul, the better to be present next morning so he could tarnish another reputation, destroy another institution or corrupt another tradition.
He will say literally anything. He set it all out in that famous interview with Kerry O’Brien: tell a lie, don’t get nailed down, seek forgiveness later. He is always testing his audience: seeing what he can get away with. Giving in to him only encourages him to go further next time.
And if they won’t forgive you, ruin them as an example of how you base your life on pure aggression, an aggression so fierce and malignant that normal people can’t be bothered fighting you. It’s just not worth it. Cut Abbott some slack and he might go away and pick on someone else for a change.
He has all the fire of a zealot, with the talent for intimidation of a gangster. Bull or bear market, Abbott takes his profit by simply threatening peace loving people with aggravation until they give in.
Previously he’s had mentors to back him up, and to guide him. But now he’s the boss and we’re seeing just what a mad dog can do when it’s put in front of the pack.
Australia has to make a decision. It needs to keep in mind, though, that there is no satisfying the Abbott’s of this world. Anarchists are never satisfied, by definition. They’re always looking for the next thuggish high, an even bigger hit to feed their habit.
Abbott has given himself three years to wreak as much irreversible damage on Australia as he can before he’s railroaded out of politics for good. Even he must realize that he’s cooked his own goose in the last 8 months. There’s no second term for him in the offing. That’s plain now.
His party is in revolt, even the cherished Murdoch newspapers are writing nasty things about him.
Speaking of Murdoch, he probably thinks he has Abbott’s measure, that he can control him. But you can never have the measure of a madman. Sociopaths like the Prime Minister see trust as a weakness, to be exploited. They don’t care if they shit in their own nests, and they certainly have no trouble with shitting in anyone else’s nest. The only thing that matters is the high they get from causing trouble and panic in others, from seeing their opponents decked on the mat, bleeding from the ears.
There are others who believe they had his measure, too. Hockey, Reith, Pauline Hansen, Arthur Sinodinos in the political sphere come to mind. SBY and the Malaysians in the geopolitical circle.
He dudded Reith and Hockey, stabbed Hansen in the back, completely outclassed Turnbull, and gave Sinodinos the Jesuit’s kiss of death by telling the poor Greek gofer boy he was his greatest admirer (sad little Arthur, now a humble backbencher, probably still thinks he can make a comeback).
As to SBY, Abbott put out some weasel words about respecting Indonesia’s territorial waters, then invaded them. He sacked the poor low-level saps in the Navy who believed him when he said he’d back them all the way.
He big-noted himself about about finding the Malaysians’ plane, made out that he was personally in charge, bragged that he had a secret that he he could only tell to the Chinese (the Malaysians must have twigged by then, let’s hope), then abandoned the search and, for good measure, will be sending the Malaysians the bill.
To Abbott, promises are just a breath of air, evanescent, temporary measures designed to get him to the next square on the big political game board.
He has made parsing his own words – always in his own favour, of course – not only a personal hobby, but a national pastime. When he says something a whole industry, from pundits to stakeholders, goes into overdrive trying to figure out the loopholes he’s left for himself, and who will be betrayed this time.
The carnival barker always lies. The mob take that for granted. So the spruiker’s job, in these circumstances, is to bet the crowd that they can outwit him. But the game is always rigged in his favour. If it looks like he might unaccountably lose out in the latest swindle, he simply packs up and walks away.
The punters, think they invested their vote – I mean, it’s only a vote, right? – a small risk. Then they are left empty-handed and bewildered. They all thought that other bloke, over there was the one being scammed, when it was them all along (or rather, all of them, all along).
Now even his own party is discovering they’ve been scammed, too. They’ve put a bull in charge of their own china shop. Abbott makes it up as he goes along. He is always confronting, testing, intimidating… not because it needs to be done, but because it give him his kicks.
He got to the top by deception and intrigue, and outright betrayal of his comrades on the way up. He places fait accomplis in everyone’s path: “Give in or I’ll wreck the joint.”
Sadly, many do give in, but they squirrel away their grudges for the day when they can get their revenge. Abbott is always embarrassing them into defending him. One day, however, someone will shout “Enough!” and start a movement to oust for good from politics, so he can’t do any more damage to them, or to – as many are now realizing – the nation.
Don’t expect Abbott to go quietly. That is not his style. He has a good deal more trouble to cause before he accepts that he’s finished. We’ve had one preening narcissist in charge of Australia from the Labor side, but at least Rudd, for all his madness, wanted to do good and even great things in among the murk and madness of the way he ran his office.
Abbott, on the other hand, has the purity of the perfect aggressor, with the added certainty of having God on his side. He exists only to dish out the next king hit on the next unsuspecting mug. His shit-eating grin is never broader than when he is causing trouble and mayhem, havoc and angst.
He tries to kid us (and may even try to kid himself) that there’s a purpose to it, but there isn’t. It’s just the way he is: a kid who grew up as a Golden Boy, who got away with everything by using charm and (if necessary) thuggery, deceit and lies.
Always protected in the past, he is on his own now, and we are seeing the full panoply of his capabilities to lie and deceive, to scam and falsely flatter. His canvas isn’t a back room at a party meeting, or a canteen at an aged care facility where he can wow the old ladies (or stare at the young ladies’ breasts). He isn’t on a bike ride anymore. He’s got a whole country to wreck now.
And Australia – you, me, our neighbours, our institutions and our values – are in his sights.
Until someone stands up to him, until someone takes him by the scruff of the neck and boots him out – like the Catholic Church did all those years ago at the seminary – it’s “Welcome to Abbott World”.
In case you didn’t realise, you’re standing in it.
THE PUB 
Someone commented on Simpkin giving Abbott the softest of soft treatment. No bloody wonder they’re both old boys of the same school.
That explains a LOT.
St.Aloyisus is Joe Hockey’s old school. Another Jesuit boy is Marky-poos.
I keep banging on about the GPS (and particularly Catholic) connection, but everyone thinks I’m over-egging it.
For what it’s worth,Tony Jones is another GPS boy, from Newington. Proddies, yes, but the sense of elitism is still there.
For the record my next door neighbour’s son was CAPTAIN of St. Aloyisus. He now works for Deutsche Bank in New York (of course), but a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal, just the same, except from afar. His Mum hates Abbott and votes Labor. Bit of tension there.
Abbott went to Riverview. Same Jesuits, but Riverview is a different school.
BB,
You’re not “over-egging ” it. The networks are real and are used.
I’ve had first hand experience of how it works in the world of money ( I wasn’t a player ) and I can assure everyone that not just in money but everywhere there are networks in action
BB
Looks like it was in the kiddies section.
http://www.phonytonyabbott.com/facts/early-life-politics
Looks like the Sydney old boys connection is keen to stuff up the rest of Aus.Why do Sydney knobs think they know best for all of Australia when they probably only fly over most of it in their way to ‘Do important things for us”
#
Abolition of funding for community broadcasting included in the CoA’s recommendations. How does this affect Australians?
To quote from the CBF website:
I’m pretty sure Simkin was the guy I mentioned last year pre-election on a News Radio report, saying that Abbott would be fighting to have his ‘moderate’ political stance accepted in the face of hard-liners in his party. It was an utter, barefaced lie. And I’m sure Simkin knew it as he was saying it. Anyone heard any moderate political language coming from Abbott, ever?
rnm1953
The reality of the “old boys” networks was hammered home to me in the early 1980’s when my school “Old Collegians” magazine gleefully reported that the entire board of the Auckland stock exchange were old boys. What good luck that all our chaps happened to be the best people for the job.
Sensational stuff coming from ICAC. former Labor member for Newcastle, Minister for Tourism and Minister for the Hhunter, Jodi McKay, was undermined by her own party because she refused to co-operate with Tinkler.
There was a Labor campaign against her – in her own seat.
Ms McKay has been in tears during her testimony after having all this treachery confirmed just this afternoon.
I’m glad I’m not a member of the Labor Party.I could not bear to belong to a party that treats decent, honest MPs in the way Ms McKay and Julia Gillard before her have been treated by some of the male party string-pullers.
If nothing else, the COA shows us just what Big Business thinks of ordinary people: milch cows.
Yes, I wouldn’t trust anything Simkin said, Aguirre. As I recall, he was one of the select Rudd Leaks targeted to keep the Gillard destabilisation strategy going. Even so, there may be some doubt that he was a Rudd lackey so much, but like Hartcher, a ‘get rid of Gillard’ tool. I have the feeling that, like Mesma, these were never more than Abbott pathway clearers who knew how to flatter and suck up to Rudd.
I’m not so sure about religious conspiracies, but I wish there weren’t so many neo-DLP types in Cabinet, and stories about Opus Dei influence are disturbing.
They have redefined the word audit”.
Wiki puts it plainly:
Thanks for your great work BB and every one else.
GD I am very disturbed by the DLP types who infest our national broadcaster who make listening to the ABC News unbearable, or have I become as intolerant as my grandfather?
How much did all these COA stooges., and the libs in parliament for that matter pay, for their Uni Education?
How many got it for free or cheap ?
Has anyone asked Tony or Joe the big question yet – the one that goes ‘How will all these cuts help you win the next election’.I’d really like an indication of just how deeply deluded the members of this government really are.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/01/immigration-detention-centre-services-should-be-reduced-audit-report
Fewer meals, less lighting, no doctors … ?
Leone they will NEVAH have my vote, but I doubt mRabbitt is capable of planning 12 months ahead let alone 3 years, athough given his longevity to date I expect to wear egg on my face
I wonder ifTom Iggulden went to Simkin’s school. They’re very similar.
About that ‘Old School Tie”…from Esquire Magazine circa 1948….by Edward Acheson.
“…In the “more advanced civilisation” (ie ; England) this bit of neck wear, ghastly as it’s colour scheme often is, serves at least a fourfold purpose. It fulfills the function of a caste-mark like the decoration of a Hindu’s forehead, the boast of a rigid and inexorable stratification. It constitutes within it’s folds a code of ethics as inflexible as Hammurabi’s . It supplies it’s wearers with an unquestioned and unquestionable philosophy of life. And most important of all, it gives to England and hence the Empire, a complete and unofficial, yet all pervading, method of government.”
Tony Windsor:
“The hungry will be permitted to eat the homeless “
Iggulden went to St Peters Lutheran College in Brisbane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Peters_Lutheran_College
London to a brick, it is LNP. policy to favour the “Old School Tie” boy over any state school graduate in positions of reward or responsibility.
tlbd
Thanks.
They wish to create a fool’s paradise….as if the wealthy person can isolate themself from the travails of the poor. As if those with opportunity can continually profiteer from the deprived. As if those with military might can rely for protection and oppression on the sons and sisters, the brothers and fathers of those they oppress.
There are no “draw-bridges” on gated communities!
And yet, I can’t help but think these pricks will still be in charge in 2017. Never underestimate the ability of these con artists to con enough of the disinterested and gullible to survive.
AJ Canberra
The disinterested and gullible will become interested and savvy when they realise that it is their hip pocket that is under attack.
Could be a 1 term Tony
joe6pack
It has been yonks since I heard “the hip pocket nerve” spoken of. Strange as it has always been the electorate’s most sensitive part.
Now In my opinion, For labor to win the next election they have to take a leaf out of Abbots play book.
Attack attack attack and hammer home the Tony Lied theme.
Don,t be nice and sit back attack him ,Hockey.
Robb all of them .
Scream he Lied and say it at every press conference,door stop media time.
Get tough like the libs did.
AJ – It’ll be a tough job for them. Don’t forget, they’ve never done anything in good faith for the Australian people, neither in opposition nor in Government. I doubt they even know how to. They can only lecture and harangue. They stole the election through a combination of confected scandals and whining about how the ALP were running things. They don’t have either of those to call on now. And that they’re still crapping on about ‘carbon tax’ and ‘Labor waste’ indicates how bereft of ideas they are.
Howard won the 2004 election on the slogan: “Who do you trust to keep interest rates low?” He got away with it because his reputation was intact, no matter what he was actually doing. It was a basic hip-pocket gambit. Can you imagine for a second Abbott getting away with anything remotely similar to that? All he had was “The ALP is worse than us” and he’s pretty much blown that fiction away in eight months. There’s no rabbit he can pull out of his hat. The Commission of Audit was basically Abbott showing his fangs; people don’t forget that.
They’ll have to start attacking the ALP between now and the next election. It’s the only hope they have. So things could get nasty again. And even then the ALP have the deeds of the Liberals to point at, concrete things rather than made-up ‘budget emergency’ rubbish. So Abbott will be on the back foot every time he tries to get on the front foot. He’s stuffed, they’re stuffed. They should have thought about how they were going to run things about four years ago and they still haven’t got around to it. They’d need another two years to put together anything that remotely resembles a proper policy suite, and that period begins once they’ve offloaded all the baggage that comes with Abbott/Hockey. And the mess they’ve made of Turnbull’s reputation.
I still think they expected a massive poll boost post-election, then a gradual erosion to about 53-47 in the lead-up to the next one. I think that’s what they planned for. They felt they had all the time in the world to get their act together, what with the ALP leadership needing to be sorted out (along with the mass exodus of talent) and all those little slurs they’d stockpiled. Hit the electorate hard in the honeymoon period and ride that bump, and then coast to 2016. Well, the polls are now 48-52 and headed south for them. They can’t coast. But they don’t know anything else.
Has Lenore Taylor had a belated change of heart ?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/01/in-abbotts-team-australia-the-weakest-players-must-do-the-heaviest-lifting
Belgian knucklehead on 7.5. Go him, Sarah!
Errr,
That is exactly how I feel. Should of closed the blockquotes earlier.
He’ll tell you nothing, Sarah.
Corflute: wtte “You’ll find out May 13”.
This little black duck
Could be some serious Kiwi on Dane competition coming up 🙂
Sarah nailed him on “when is a broken promise not a broken promise?”
John Dawe interviews HoJo
http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/clarkeanddawe/
Heartening to see Alan Kohler belling the cat on ABC News. He demonstrated with a simple comparison of graphs that the CoA had grossly exaggerated the size of the gap between expenditure and revenue as the years pass. Their “business as usual” assumption has revenue rising (slowly) during the next few years, due to bracket creep. After about 2020, their graph of revenue flatlined (when just about all taxpayers will be up to the top marginal rate, 32.5%). They make the assumption that expenditure would maintain its upward trajectory to yield the frightening deficit of $70bn., Kohler pointed out that even small tax increases would narrow – if not eliminate – the gap.
Is there any economist worth the name that supports what Your Government is doing?
Let me see now, Ducky …
Sir Sinclair Davidson, Dame Judith Sloan, Sir Henry Ergas … yes, moi is quate confident they’d be utterly in favour of what’s on the cards.
Oh wait, I overlooked your criterion:
duck
Judith Sloan perhaps?
I don’t know what is planned for The Pub tomorrow evening but I rather fancy a fifties theme – just to have the fun of those sixty years ago amidst all the ordure of this day and age.
Fiona and BK,
All my faves.
Seeing what happened to day, I think a reprise of the cartoon that cliff dug up is appropriate
http://progressivecynic.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/social-spending-cuts-cartoon.jpeg?w=594&h=432
duck
Sloan is without peer!
BK,
I agree, but I wanted to place a prick between two mildewed roses 😉
My Mum reckons Abbott and Hockey should be ridden out of town on a rail.