Upon reflection over last weekend, I thought my two thread starters last week might have been a bit over the top.
Now I wish I’d gone in more forcefully.
Geez, what a mess! The entire nation has now become Abbott’s “chaos” scenario.
There’s even talk of Double Dissolutions again… MORE trouble. However, I think that poor Laura Tingle has been swept up in all the excitement when she claims Abbott’s not kidding. Of COURSE he’s kidding!
He just likes to throw grenades, and then to sit back and watch everyone scramble for cover. I’ve seen so many threats coming from him – plebiscites, No Confidence motions, and yes, Double Dissolutions – to know that he’s not serious about doing any of it. He’s only serious about creating confusion, because…
“In confusion is profit.”
Rule by brain fart – and, in the latest iteration, does anyone think Abbott’s paw-prints aren’t all over the touted $20 billion medical fund? – has become the basic working rule of Australian governance. Dream up something today, propose it tomorrow, drop it the day after.
Then there’s the hapless Joe Hockey, poor dumb dupe.
Joe doesn’t seem to have realized that he’s been decked by Abbott yet again. Howard did it to him, too, putting him in charge of the Industrial Relations portfolio. But for sheer strike rate, Abbott is the champion at issuing wedgies to Joe Hockey. He flattened him on the rugby playing fields of Sydney University, he sucker punched him in the 2009 leadership ballot, he sprung the PPL on him, the NDIS and Gonski, and now he’s saddled him with being the object of a nation’s hatred over the Budget. Joe just never learns. There’s more to being a Treasurer than just putting on his “grim” face and smoking cigars.
Whatever people were thinking when they elected this mob of retrograde Young Liberals, boys in suit who never grew into men, they weren’t thinking of the scenario we are presented with now.
Abbott, true to form, has betrayed everyone who voted for him. Even the pensioners have been king hit in true Abbott style. His consigliores have been trampling around the country bad-mouthing our senior citizens, telling them they’ve blown their super on baubles, that they are members of a cargo cult, that what has been their right for over a century is just an illusion, that they’re hypochondriacs who bleed the health system dry.
The techos who trusted the smarmy Turnbull, who couldn’t believe he was serious, have seen what was Labor’s perfectly presentable and up-to-date National Broadband Network, with optical fibre to the vast majority of premises, gutted beyond recognition.
In considering the dog’s breakfast that Turnbull has created, I am reminded of the investigating detective in a current Sydney murder trial. His comment upon first viewing the five unfortunate victims (who had been bashed to death with a hammer) was that he thought someone had used a shotgun on them, they were so unrecognizable. The NBN has been put through a similar mincer.
Even the Liberal state Premiers have been betrayed by Abbott. Betrayal is his signature tune.
While some idiotic journalists (cf. Michelle Grattan) claim his one great character attribute is “loyalty”, the Liberal Premiers now know better. It is THEY who will have to raise their own taxes, perhaps even beg for a widening or outright increase in the rate of the GST. This is Business’s preferred option – a higher GST – simply because “Business” does not pay it. It’s fully refundable, monthly.
Everyone is up in arms, protesting. That’s just the way Abbott likes it. It means he’s the centre of attention.
Speaking of the media, they are now busy scrambling around to find someone else they can point to as “The Media”. The ones who hadn’t signed on to Abbott’s malignant bandwagon in the previous few years (youse know who you are, shills) are busy rewriting their appreciations of what Abbott would be like in government.
“Who knew?” appears to be the predominant theme. Who knew he could so comprehensively lie, cheat and steal our heritage and way of life away from us? Who knew all his promises, and his plonkingly delivered promises to keep his promises on top of them, were a disgusting farrago of lies, weasel words and outright deceptions?
How hollow all their panel show, journo-on-journo chortling and giggling about “The Politics” sounds now? How empty were their commentaries about how Julia Gillard was running a chaotic ship of state, when presented with the putrefying mess Abbott has dumped on us?
Well, WE knew.
Ordinary voters with half a brain knew what Abbott was like. He even told us himself, and then the media went in, philosophizing about how at least Abbott was “an honest liar”.
Abbott is never satisfied with incremental change. He’s never seen a system he’s been part of that he hasn’t wanted to destroy. From student politics, to the priesthood and onto the national stage, he knows his time is always limited, because the stakeholders and gatekeepers eventually boot him out. So he goes in quickly, on a “hit hard, hit fast” basis, to cause as much permanent damage as he can before he’s removed.
Like a Brylcreemed spiv at a Bachelors & Spinsters ball, Abbott worked the national room, propositioning every girl there, assuring them of the best night they ever had, if only they gave in. He was persistent, focused and forceful. He wouldn’t take “No” for an answer. He promised them anything. He ragged their boyfriends. He picked fights. He was going to destroy the joint until he got his way.
He seemed so sure of himself that eventually, one by one, they cracked and took him on. It didn’t matter that he turned out to be a dud root. He’d added another notch to his belt. Conquest was the important factor, not pleasure… at least not her pleasure. His victims, too embarrassed to say different, told their friends he was pretty good in bed, and so the process continued.
Abbott’s obsession with his own brilliance has now infected an entire country. But this time there’s no-one to stop him, no John Howard to take him aside and show him how real politics is done. Howard tried to set him right on family benefits, but Abbott, ever the betrayer, dismissed his mentor.
His aim is to divide and conquer that country, turning young against old, wealthy against poor, healthy against sick, business against its workers. He has up-ended traditions and conventions in his quest to simply cause trouble and stress.
There’s no excuse for those who voted for him. Now that they’ve seen the real Abbott revealed in all his horrible majesty, they have to reverse their decision, and soon, if given the chance. It can’t go on this way, not for another two-and-a-half years: continual chaos, anarchy, thought bubbles, cries and alarums.
This nation wants to be relaxed and comfortable. They don’t want permanent revolution or national struggle. They want to be able to look after their kids, educate them, see to their health and then retire with dignity. They’re sick of being nagged by the ideologues of the Coalition, egged on by their crazy Tea Party cronies at News Ltd.
Murdoch’s ancient obsessions with getting revenge on “The Establishment” are no concern of theirs. Abbott’s sociopathic preoccupations with his testosterone levels and his violence cravings are not their problem. Joe Hockey’s continual (and hopeless) quest to be taken seriously is his concern. We are not a nation at war. We want to be at peace, at last. But peace is absolute anathema to the fanatics who have wrested control of the government by lies.
It was a simple Pea and Thimble trick, Bait And Switch: promise one thing, deliver the exact opposite. Have shill planted in the crowd, there to either lose or win demonstrably. The shill allows the regular onlooker to see – or think he sees – how the game works. The onlooker, by now “the mug”, steps up and puts his $10 down. It’s only $10… what harm is there in having a flutter? We can get our money back, right? We can vote them out again in three years, OK?
Which is why the scam has to be carried out quickly. Hit hard, hit fast. Get the money and then run with it. Get the vote and turn it into a phony mandate for existential change. Wreck everything up-front, so there’s no going back.
If the planted shill is a “loser” they can be almost anyone. The unemployed are a favourite. Everyone hates a dole bludger. If dole bludgers lose out, then this must be a fair game!
If the shill is a “winner”, let’s say “Business”, then we’re told that what’s good for “Business” MUST be good for the workers. Hey, this game is winners all around!
The $10 vote is placed on the table, never to be seen again. Game over.
It helps if we’re rendered numb to voting by being asked to vote on everything – Reality TV, vox pops, “unscientific” newspaper polls. That way when it comes time to vote for real, voting has become a disposable asset. No big deal. Vote, and forget about it. There’s another vote tomorrow. This poll closes in three years. Of course, the phoney, inconsequential votes are conducted by the media, as part of the scam. Poll after poll is presented to us as fact. People power is touted as the answer to everything. Opinion is lauded as being above truth. If Newspoll can solve Climate Change, why do we need a Carbon Tax?
Just as the Shell Game mug punters have been swindled, Australians have been swindled by this mob they call a “government”. They thought they were investing chump change, and that what they were getting back might be something worth infinitely more. Instead they’ve been fleeced, and it’s going to continue, in perpetuity, if Abbott has anything to do with it.
Used to wrecking and upturning everything he’s ever been involved in, he’s now got a whole country – it traditions, its conventions, its institutions and its self-image – to destroy.
Instead of being an egalitarian, fairly relaxed sort of place, we’ve since found out that Abbott and his gang are telling us we’re lazy bludgers, yearning to be bigots, too indolent to get off our arses and make money for our betters. While we see our pensions, health, education and other entitlements stripped away, Joe Hockey smokes Havana cigars. Abbott toasts the Murdoch media in a Canberra bar on Budget night. The Usual suspects – Telstra, the Miners, Big Business, Property Developers – pay millions for influence, channelled through back door money laundries, and are rewarded with tax cuts, licences to rip off their customers with sub-standard services, and dodgy infrastructure programs, which they will build, with hundreds of billions of our money, taken from us in the name of austerity.
As always with Abbott he has gone too far. As always with Joe Hockey, he is deep in it, far beyond his level of competence. Whatever we voted for, this was not it.
They promised incremental change, glued together with unity tickets. Nothing radical would be proposed unless the people had a chance to vote on it in a later election.
Instead we have trouble ahead, demonstrations, more lies in response, perhaps an Double Dissolution election (if they’re THAT stupid), stress and suffering.
It’s heroic alright, and it’s pure Abbott: a man who’s never happy unless he’s aggravating someone, anyone. It gives him a chance to show how clever he is when we forgive him, but I’m not so sure he’ll worm his way out of this particular pickle.
Stay tuned.
THE PUB 
Gee, poor Gina is suffering and no doubt is on the phone asking the abbott for assistance – Iron ore prices have fallen to $98 tonne, the lowest since 2012.
So Katherine Murphy recognises the voters don’t like being taken for mugs…..I wonder if anyone has told her that had she been more discerning and honestly unbiased in her reporting, the voters may have been able to see through the abbott’s lies and deceit BEFORE he got his filthy mitts on power. Takes the biggest mugs to persuade the little mugs to act like lemmings.
Clive Palmer’s video budget-reply speech was the best speech by far I’ve heard in the aftermath of the budget. It was replicated in his Guardian piece.
It was a classic old-Labor-style stump speech, but delivered in a unique way. A quiet, self-assured way.
It was powerfully peruasive.
The one doubt we all have about Palmer relates to his sincerity, his possible hidden agenda. I don’t blame him for a certain degree of duplicity, as all political parties share at least one common goal, which is to increase their voting share. All shares of the vote add up to 100% – that is the reality.
The hidden agenda we suspect is that Palmer is building political power primarily for the benifit of his own commercial interests.
But what if he’s not? We have to at least take that possibility into account.
Imagine if Bill Shorten had made the speech that Palmer had made. Well, he couldn’t have, for Palmer’s eloquence totally depended on 3 factors: his novelty as a new kid on the block, his reputation as a mining fat cat turned quasi socialist, and his physical demeanour, composed of fat unflappability and quiet voice.
If you could for a moment accept that Palmer is fair dinkum, you’d vote for him in a flash. That’s his appeal. It’s more than the usual populism based on shrillness and tub-thumping. It’s actually very reasonable, and agrees with all our socialist sentiments.
Is Palmer’s the way to articulate a progressive message? It certainly seems to be having an effect on many voters.
Settle down a bit, Jaycee – it aint gonna happen. Anyway, why should Labor be asked to go to reprehensible lengths to save all these stupid people from drowning in Lib filth? They had a good government and an economy the rest of the world envied but they chucked it out because they believed a lying mob of scumbags they knew were no good on the say-so of a pack of useless media sycophants lead by a crooked old man pulling the strings from afar. If they are angry and hurt and don’t want to continue to be treated as the mugs they were, then they can get out on the streets and line up to spit on the perpetrators of their pain all the way to the next election when they can vote them out. Meanwhile, Labor will do its best to protect medicare and save some crumbs of the decent policies the abbott is destroying.
foreverjanice
Hear hear! I’m sick of reading stuff by the MSM pack telling me how bad this government is and how that nasty Tony Abbott lied to us. I knew all that a year or more ago. So did everyone here. While we were making predictions about what would happen if we had an Abbott government, exposing Abbott’s lies and talking about the nasty stuff he was promising to do if he was elected Murphy and her ilk were ignoring the truth. Instead of exposing Abbott’s true nature, telling their readers about his lies and revealing exactly what he was really promising they were showing every sign of being madly in love with Tony. No matter what he did or what he said he was praised. There was never a word of criticism. No-one ever asked him about policies. No-one ever accused him of lying. None of them ridiculed his damn blue pamphlet of bullshit. Murphy and her pals – especially Murphy – acted like doting aunties and uncles, fawning over their adored Tony. Now, when it is too late, they have changed their tune. Conniving bastards the lot of them. Why should I bother reading the drivel they produce?
Dedalus,
I agree that Palmer can come across as reasonable and that he can be very persuasive when he puts his mind to it. I think Palmer will always come first with him, but I think he does have genuine compassion for the needy. I read him as having become a little bored with being ‘just a billionaire’ and wants to carve out a niche in history for himself.
I would think Palmer will attract a lot of lib voters who are more than unhappy with the abbott who has taken the party down in the sewer pits.
Leone,
Exactly. My BP rises at the mere sight of a journalist these days – if I had a magic wand there would be very few of them employed to do anything but report on cooking and sport shows.
I would not trust Palmer as far as I could throw him, and I am not taken in by anything he says. He is blatantly trying to reel in the politically ignorant, feeding them lines about not being able to trust the big parties. Just trust me instead, he says. Why should I?
The big concern about PUP for me is the quality – or rather the lack of it – of Palmer’s candidates. He will have to find better people next election, because last time his bunch were so bad they were a laughing stock. They were his own employees, dragooned into running, or disgruntled conservatives. The sad thing is some of them made it to the senate. From what I’ve seen so far PUP senators and that car hoon bloke who has allied himself with them is a bunch of barely literate nincompoops who have absolutely no idea about anything. Take that female from Tasmania for example. She has NFI about anything really, just endless ranting about the army and her personal problems. This is what will soon hold the balance of power? Heaven help us.
If Palmer is so genuine and so caring why is he so keen on digging more big holes in this country and shipping the spoils off overseas? Why does he want to see the Great Barrier Reef destroyed just so he can make more money? He wants the carbon price repeal made retrospective so he can be repaid all the tax he has paid – not that he has paid much of it – there’s this huge tax bill still hanging over him. He has not mentioned what will happen to our economy if we have to repay all the other ‘victims’ of the carbon price. He doesn’t care about that, he just wants his money back.
Palmer does not think things through .He simply says whatever pops into his head, then the next day says the complete opposite, as he did with his uni fees brainfart – good one day, bad the next. He does not think about the long-term consequences of his pronouncements, all he wants is a fast headline. He will say anything to get that headline.
If Palmer really wants free universities and higher pensions and all the other pie-in-the-sky brainfart things he bloviates about then how does he propose to pay for them, should he ever win government? Will the pixies deliver bags of money to Treasury in the night perhaps? One thing we can be sure of – Palmer does not want to contribute his money to the running of this country. That’s what the plebs do, the people who can’t afford trust funds and shelf companies and armies of accountants and lawyers. Palmer doesn’t pay his way now, he won’t in the future, but he certainly expects the rest of us to pay our taxes. Why can’t his fans see this? Palmer is in politics for Palmer. Vote for him at your peril.
I gave up trying to read Murphy’s columns a long time ago. She is up herself, bigtime.
She thought she was a player. She lectured her readers. Told them what was best for them (even when they bombarded her with letters and emails begging her to leave off). She wrote little homilies on governance and “Teh Politics”.
Then got got fired from Fairfax… and continued writing crap.
The VOTERS got taken for mugs? Only because they read rubbish like hers: self-indulgent, crawling nonsense.
I do so love the way the Media profess to having been fooled along with the rest of us. They were the instigators of it, not the victims.
In a couple of years ALP will get back into power and they’ll go about fixing up all of the problems created now.
But unless they can get maybe 3 or 4 terms to bed those things down then the Libs and their wealthy interest groups will come in and strip it all away again.
Consumer confidence down 14% in a month.
Come on Gerry open your big mouth now
Yes Leone, Palmer is all that and more and if he wants to carve out a niche for himself he will need to be more discerning about his candidates. I’m not too concerned about his presence at his point but think that if he succeeds in bending a few spokes in the abbott’s wheels he may turn out to be of some use. With a little bit of luck, the abbott and the nats might find themselves in a fight with Palmer for survival.
Janice…while the “reasoning man” in me agrees with you, the Italian in me (don’t even THINK about it!) wants “La Vendetta!”…..I don’t want MSM. wimpering, I want tears of blood!!
rnm,
Yeah, no doubt that is why the abbott is telling all who will listen that our AAA credit rating is at risk if Labor won’t pass his dirty, unfair budget.
I think we’d have to be incredibly lucky for that to happen. Remember they said the same thing about Pauline Hanson, and we all know how that turned out.
Jaycee,
I understand perfectly.
Gippsland Laborite,
True, but no harm in dreaming.
Palmer, the LNP and the MSM. are not “doing politics”..they are playing political ploys with us and the electorate…it’s all a game to them…they and theirs lose nothing or very little and have a lot to gain…we and the vulnerable are the ones getting done over….we, because of our real concerns for social necessity and equality are the only ones serious about a political outcome…Gillard tried to negotiate with the political players and the electorate…THAT was the unforgivable mistake as far as the “establishment” (LNP. ,MSM and right-wing Labor) was concerned……the golden rule of “Richo politics” is ..: first you look to enrich your own and THEN you worry about “delivering” to the people.
Palmer won’t get done over that easily….remember, he wrote some of the tactical plays for Joh,,,,,there was no better bastard!
BB
But Katherine Murphy used your ‘pea and thimble’ thing, you can pat yourself on the back, she obviously read you. 🙂
Can I say, I am surprisingly underwhelmed by the polls. I don’t know why.
The bloody hide of this lying turd has no bounds. He has just declared that Labor were vandals in govt and continuing so now – they are fiscal vandals and risking our AAA credit rating…..
This might be why Gerry is keeping his big mouth shut.
Harvey Norman stores fined for misleading customers
http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/harvey-norman-stores-fined-for-misleading-customers-20140519-38jwz.html
The ghastly reality of Australian politics is that it is a “child’s sandpit” of political discourse…that is why Joh and now ; Palmer appeals…they both play(ed) the unsophiosticated “big kid” card….but they played it with great “sophistication”….fed it to the public like an addictive drug, alternating between cunning corruption and “nieve-hick”….for the media!
The national economic problem for the wealthy is an old Marxist one…: The value of their money. there is an old saying that goes ; “when the bellhop starts investing in the stock market, it is time to quickly get out”…..ie ; when the standard of living for the majority reaches such a level of equality, the value of money as a bargaining tool and as an aspiration is dimished…..the wealthy get poorer and their status is diminished…..and that status is the raison d’etre driving their ambition.
Hell hath no fury like the rich scorned!
If Palmer wants to be PM then here’s hoping he gets some much needed scrutiny before the next election. So far the MSM are treating him like a jolly old uncle, the bloke who turns up on Christmas Day, showers everyone with expensive gifts and then falls asleep on the sofa after eating most of the lunch. Referring to him as ‘Clive’ instead of ‘Palmer’ reinforces this image.
The OZ, especially Hedley Thomas, are the exception. They have been going after him for some time and he doesn’t like it. Palmer is suing them for defamation so they can’t say much right now. That’s the Palmer solution – someone criticises you, you sue, or you threaten to sue. This brings up a question – if he is so upset by criticism that he takes legal action after every comment then what is he trying to hide? Does he intend to sue every journalist who writes a critical word about him during an election campaign?
Here’s a question – Palmer had to abstain from voting on the carbon price and MRRT repeal legislation in the reps because of his conflict of interest. He tried to spin it, of course.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/clive-palmer-to-abstain-from-vote-on-carbon-mining-taxes-20131113-2xfuh.html
So – as he instructs PUP senators on their voting and as the repeal legislation for the carbon price and the MRRT are both heading back to the senate will PUP senators have to declare a conflict of interest and abstain from voting? Palmer sometimes says all his senators can make up their own minds on how they vote yet at other times he boasts about having control of the senate and talks about how ‘we’ will vote. He can’t have it both ways. I really hope Labor has someone looking into this.
There’s a fair bit of stuff ‘we’ will do in this interview with Tony Jones, from last week, and a scandalous revelation at the end that suggests Palmer financed his election campaign with misappropriated funds. (The CITIC thing is interesting, if you need a bit of a diversion.)
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s4004784.htm
I think you’re pretty right on Palmer, Leone. At least it seems that he’s not in cahoots with Abbott and the LNP, which was one initial concern. He is, however, performing a useful foil for them in mopping up the discontented voters, while still being committed to the Big Mining mentality.
He does have ambitions on his own and will get some advantage from the unengaged, who usually respond with, “They’re both as bad as each other.” In real politics he is offering a confusing ragbag of policies, a little like a developer version of the Greens, unbothered by the restraints of getting a consensus or working out the social and economic cost of his proposals.
Like Hansonism at its peak, he may muster over 20% in Queensland, and in the high teens elsewhere in Australia for a while. But apart from some chaos in the Senate, it is hard to see it all going anywhere. The new independents, based on the examples of Andren, Windsor and Oakeshott offer a better model.
Where he does have value is that the media Abbott lackeys are seriously going after him. That is a welcome distraction for Labor and Shorten and should allow them to continue quietly reforming under the radar. It’s a chance to spell out just how much depth there was in Gillard’s policies.
Hockey on. Sounds desperate, All about what Labor has to do. ABC 24
New thread… The clockwork Budget
I find it difficult to trust Palmer. However, I think he is a better person than Abbott and some of his MPs. You don’t see in him any of Abbott’s viciousness, his hatred for Gillard, Shorten, Labor in general, and women … No obvious sign of vendetta or vengeance that marks the present govt. Also he’s no friend of Murdoch and the IPA.
foreverjanice
Heard a guy from one of the ratings companies on the radio saying Australia’s AAA rating is not threatened by the budget argey bargey as the Lying King and is mates have claimed.