It’s ALIVE!

If you never hear from me again, it’s because Bushfire Bill has dealt with me for publishing this brilliant post that should have been up on Sunday.

Just because he hasn’t had time to do the pics!

I ask you!!!

Anyway, if I’m not around tomorrow, that’s why.

So, I leave you with . . .

Abbott Frankenstein 2

If Murdoch has to write letters to Abbott through his newspapers, then that means he’s not getting to him via the usual channels: closed door meetings, a quiet word, Friday night get-togethers, surreptitious visits to the New York News HQ, and so on.

Abbott seems to have gone off the reservation. He’s always had a high opinion of his own judgement and intellect, and now there’s no holding him back.

Truly Murdoch has created the monster. It has broken its shackles and now wanders the world, frightening children and shirt-fronting adults at random. Its crazy ideas, reflecting its piecemeal make up – part journalist, part thug, part priest – are being let run wild. It won’t even listen to its master now, the man that gave it life.

Only one thing can tame its excesses, and that is Peta’s sweet whisper. She is with him night and day, always at hand, just off camera, in the room at even the highest level meetings. But lately even her calming words are not being heard.

Abbott Credlin Bride of Frankenstein

Abbott is becoming used to being in charge. He’s learning that what he says goes. He’s never had this before. He’s always been the protégé, the golden boy who’s headed for great things, guided by the wisdom of a wise patron.

Well, now he’s arrived – and he’s doing to do those great things. Why confine your psyche to just inside your head, keeping counsel, waiting for The Day when you can paint a nation with your grand ideas and force even the mighty to call you “Sir”? There’s no more waiting. This is destiny. Tony’s mind has expanded, and now his canvas is a nation, but one he’s never loved for itself. It’s always been one he wanted to change to look more like where he came from, not realizing that place too has changed and has moved on.

He got rid of the schoolboy fringe he used to cover his thinning hair. He applied … something … was it Botox? Or some surgery? … to his forehead and his eyes to ease out the wrinkles. He’s combed his hair over like he’s seen real leaders do, the better to look the part. And his speech patterns have changed. He sounds more hesitant now, as if every word he utters is gold, to be taken down by adoring scribes and kept for posterity.

Sure, he can’t resist the simian swagger, and his suits are still too tight. That’s the boy in him, wanting to show off his physique. The hands are everywhere too: defensively, pushing away questions and criticism. He used to have a cruder use for his hands in his boxing days. One king-hit out of nowhere and he’d deck his opponent. But he can’t do that now. He has to settle for mugging his old punching bag, Joe; not really satisfying, but something of an outlet for his natural instincts.

Maybe he’s timed it well. Maybe he thinks he can cast off his backers in the media because the media isn’t as powerful as it once was, making and breaking kings and queens. Maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s wrong.

But he can’t cast off the ridicule. As he tries harder and harder to be ever more serious and statesmanlike, he’s the butt of more and more jokes. He believed once that cometh the office, cometh the man, but the cartoonists cruelly still depict him with those ears, those budgie smugglers, that hairy torso, those exaggeratedly cruel lips. They never show the New Tony, the one he’s always wanted to be, and was always told he could be. They laugh at him and his narcissm instead.

Abbott David 2

The man must be going crazy with frustration. It’s all fallen apart. His Macbethian plan to claw his way to the top has ended as all such progresses do: with more enemies to use as shields, no-one to trust, more blood and more dysfunction.

He thought Labor was dead. He killed it himself, didn’t he? He won so many battles against it … and still Labor lives. He made promises he shouldn’t have, and which he couldn’t possibly keep, right on election eve – and now they, like Labor, are coming back to haunt him, no matter how much he licks his lips, protests his innocence and redoubles his lies. Now he’s lying about lying. Did he say he’d never do that? He can’t remember. There have been so many lies. So many contradictions. So many speeches and interviews. Can he be expected to remember them all?

Bill Shorten just won’t play the way Tony wants him to play. Bill – boyish, quiet, considered, and intelligent, won’t come on to the battlefield and fight him man to man. Bill’s biding his time. It’s a war Abbott doesn’t like: one of manoeuvre, skirmishing, probing, even agreeing with him from time to time, avoiding a fight. With each clash Abbott loses a few more devotees he can’t replace. Volunteers and supporters are thinning out as they contemplate whether being otherwise engaged is the better option. He just can’t line up Bill Shorten for the sucker punch. He has to face it, Bill intends to go the full fifteen rounds. Until that time, Bill will dance and sting to weaken his opponent so that Abbott will be wounded and bloody when they come out into the ring for the penultimate bell.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. People have always been scared of Abbott, of his sheer naked aggressiveness, his mercilessness and of his ability, without reflection, to turn on anyone who gets in his way. He’s always liked being surrounded by bodies – friends or enemies. They’ve been his substitute for sandbags. But bodies bring blood and flies. People start to notice the stench of death around him.

The Catholic Bishops saw his temperament, and threw him out of the seminary for it. Jesus didn’t need a holy warrior to minister to a parish. He needed someone with empathy and humility, not a thug.

Australia celebrated his thuggishness, in a shameful period where they valued light entertainment because they could afford to. The nation was prospering. Vilifying Gillard was good sport. We kidded ourselves that if we called Gillard a liar over legislation then that would mean Global Warming would go away. We were on top of the world … ironically because Labor put us there while other countries fell by the wayside.

Industrial wasteland

But now, digging holes and lecturing other nations has lost its authenticity. We’re becoming a basket case state, with a basket case leader at the helm. It’s no longer Reality TV. It’s Reality. Slogans and slagging-off won’t put meals on tables. A nation that is taxed higher and suffers cutbacks to basic services simply to satisfy its government’s insane surplus fetish – when that government puts little back by way of innovation, and actually closes productive industries down – is not a prosperous nation. It is a nation that is being laid waste by its own rulers to serve their vanity.

Why did we close down manufacturing? Who cares if imports are cheaper, if no-one can afford to buy them? What’s the point of the government’s coffers being full if the peoples’ are empty? And then there’s the dollar … are imports really even cheap anymore? We have high price tags on the things we’ve taken for granted for so long, and diminishing capacity to compete with those who charge them. We’ve pissed our economy up against the wall, in favour of a few brief, nothing moments on the world stage so that Abbott can indulge himself in his schoolboy fantasy of someday growing up and being respected among his peers. He had the chance to impress world leaders with his vision for a magnificent estate, and all he talked about was how he’d tidied up the back yard and pulled out a few weeds. Not satisfied with stalking the land, the monster now stalks the world.

Abbott Biggles Price

277 thoughts on “It’s ALIVE!

  1. Pol Animal,

    I’m so glad you could comment – I was beginning to think that the site had closed to all reasonable people!

  2. I remember when I had probs with IA comments it had to do with the permissions but I can’t remember exactly what I did.

  3. BB, that will get me going for the day. Spoke to an ex-student the other day asking how was work at the auto electrical workshop he is a mechanic at. Straight off he said business has been slow ever since Abbott got in! The Abbott magic is trickling down even if the money isn’t.

  4. Good morning Dawn Patrollers.

    SMH editorial – You will pay for Abbott’s backflip.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-gp-copayment-plan-clever-politics-but-it-will-cost-you-20141209-123je1.html
    Lenore Taylor – Hobson’s choice still undermines bulk billing.
    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/09/gp-co-payment-change-brings-a-hobsons-choice-that-still-undermines-bulk-billing
    Peter Martin gets it as usual – it’s a tweak, not a termination. And it’s not over yet he says.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbotts-gp-copayments-arent-dead-its-a-tweak-not-a-termination-20141209-123ljo.html
    Michelle Gratan has a good look at the copayment change and how it is being received.
    https://theconversation.com/co-payment-compromise-puts-extra-burden-on-doctors-35264
    Mark Kenny muses on the changes.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/gp-tax-gone-again-20141209-123j0h.html
    Michael Gordon – The penny drops for Abbott.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/medicare-copayment-penny-drops-as-abbott-vows-to-listen-and-learn-20141209-123m55.html
    Rather an unfortunate headline as Mark Kenny looks at the Fisher by election in SA and what it means to the Libs.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/abbott-government-forced-into-submission-after-shock-loss-in-south-australia-20141209-123j0l.html
    Ross Gittins and the growing generational gap.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/generation-gap-keeps-growing-for-todays-youth-20141209-12349a.html
    View from the Street – another good one.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/view-from-the-street-goodbye-gp-copay-hello-new-gp-copay-20141209-123j4l.html
    How the FTAs may undermine the fight against tobacco effects.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/trade-deals-must-not-undermine-fight-against-tobacco-20141209-1233ag.html

  5. Section 2 . . .

    Tony Wright with a well aimed piss take on the language of hopeless ministers.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/when-tumbling-ministers-should-talk-less-and-look-to-cheerleaders-for-backflip-tips-20141209-123dqt.html
    The Business Spectator – Abbott’s policy muddle is taking its toll.
    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/12/10/national-affairs/abbotts-policy-muddle-taking-its-toll
    Judith Ireland outlines the vitriol that is apparent in the Hockey/Fairfax law suit.
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/joe-hockey-to-take-stand-in-defamation-case-against-fairfax-media-20141209-123dlm.html
    Now why was it again that we didn’t ever believe Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, etc?
    http://www.smh.com.au/world/enhanced-interrogation-torture-techniques-by-cia-were-far-more-brutal-and-ineffective-in-stopping-terrorist-plots-us-senate-report-20141209-123pyc.html
    The electors are going cold on Abbott’s climate change sabotage – Ben Eltham.
    https://newmatilda.com/2014/12/09/electorate-going-cold-abbotts-climate-change-sabotage
    A spectacular ad for public schooling.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/a-spectacular-advertisement-for-public-schooling-20141209-1207r0.html
    Eric Abetz’s pay offer is likely to be strongly rejected by Employment Dept employees. It’s just the beginning.
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/defeat-predicted-for-government-in-employment-dept-20141209-1236ex.html
    Some chilling hospital stats from NSW.
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/analysis-shows-more-patients-waiting-longer-for-emergency-treatment-20141209-123939.html
    And the same goes for ambulance responses in Victoria.
    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/emergency-ambulance-response-times-critically-ill-can-wait-26-minutes-20141209-123kzq.html
    This is well worth reading – our vulnerability around fuel security.
    https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/sailing-close-to-the-wind-australias-perilous-dependence-on-imported-fuel,7171

  6. Fridge

    A comment on that article –

    So agree! Private schools are the bottled water of education, they provide something at great cost which is available for free and, in doing so, divide society into little pools. They say ‘your kid isn’t good enough for mine’. So good to see these wonderful Aussie kids (and their teachers) doing the public system proud.

  7. Clive Palmer proves again that he has no idea.

    The Palmer United party leader, Clive Palmer, said Abbott had succumbed to pressure from the PUP to dump the co-payment policy.

    “The co-payment is dead and this is a victory for the Palmer United party,” Palmer said. “Low income earners, single parent families, pensioners, nursing home patients and those who are socially or financially disadvantaged were to be hardest hit by this disastrous policy.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/09/medicare-co-payment-amended-coalition

    The damn thing has not been ‘dumped’. Low income earners and the ‘socially or financially disadvantaged’ will still have to pay increased GP fees unless they have that precious concession card or can find a GP who will still bulk-bill.

    No wonder PUP’s polling is down to 2% in the latest Essential.

  8. About the NSW Schools Spectacular –
    Wonderful though it is, great show and all, talented as the performers are, much as they love taking part, don’t be fooled into believing that this event has anything to do with what is taught in NSW public schools. I’ve been associated with performing arts for a long time and the truth is that kids chosen to take part learn their skills in out-of-school classes with their local music, singing, drama and dance teachers. Classes that are nothing to do with school and paid for by their parents. These kids are seasoned performers, used to performing in concerts, many are regulars on their local eisteddfod circuits and at talent quests and other events. If you are from a disadvantaged family that can’t afford extras like singing, music, drama or dance classes then you are never going to be chosen to take part.

    Dance routines, music arrangements, whatever, are all planned and choreographed in Sydney and students chosen to take part have to learn them from YouTube videos, recordings, whatever. No school gets to do an individual item arranged by their own teachers. Costumes are also planned and made centrally, organised by a paid professional costume co-ordinator. There are no friendly local mums’ groups happily running up their school’s costumes at working bees.

    Although dances, choir items etc are learnt intitially from YouTube videos there are huge costs involved in transporting a school’s participants to Sydney and around the state for the compulsory rehearsals. Travel subsidies – a one-off payment for each student – are available, but they don’t cover the full cost. These subsidies are not paid in advance, this year’s participants will receive their payments early next year. That’s not much help when you had to get a group to Sydney in November. The subsidy per performer for this area was just $19 per person. Not much help. We had a group of dancers from one of the local high schools chosen to take part this year. They had to launch a fund raising campaign to be able to pay for the travel to the city and their accommodation for almost a week of rehearsal, performances and arrival and departure days, plus earlier compulsory rehearsals in Sydney. They also had to travel to Grafton and Newcastle for practices with other school groups. Even with fund raising their parents had to dig deep to help meet the costs.

    Teachers have to accompany and look after their performers. They usually have to meet the costs themselves or add them to any fund raising and their schools have to pay for relief staff to take their classes during their absence.

    Sorry, but this hugely expensive annual event is every bit as discriminatory as private school education. Only those who can afford to pay can take part. For a long time I have believed that the money would be better spent on providing schools with things that are of use and benefit to alll students. This ‘spectacular’ is actually a spectacular fraud.

  9. CTar1

    When Barnyabbie was gibbering about “Gold! Gold ! Gold ! for ‘Strayan dairy farmers” Fonterra chaps had already announced that dairy prices were off something like 40% in China this year. It made Barnyabbie’s outbursts make even less sense.

  10. Julie Bishop and Peta Credlin ‘like two Siamese fighting fish’

    THERE is a growing view in the upper echelons of the Coalition government that the working relationship between the Liberal deputy leader and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, has irretrievably broken down.

    “They are like two Siamese fighting fish stuck in the same tank,” one frontbencher told The Australian yesterday. He also pointed out that there was no obvious circuit-breaker to improve the situation, predicting it would continue for the foreseeable future.

    “Tony (Abbott) isn’t going to get rid of Peta and Julie isn’t going to stop.”

    A close ally of the Prime Minister added, “They are going to have to sit down and have it out — this just can’t continue”.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/julie-bishop-and-peta-credlin-like-two-siamese-fighting-fish/story-fn59niix-1227150547282

    But how will they ‘have it out’? Jelly wrestling? A martial arrts bout? A cage fight? Or just a good old screaming match? Will tickets be sold for the showdown? It could be a great party fund raiser.

  11. “Ms Credlin told The Australian yesterday she had worked closely with Ms Bishop for many years “and we continue to work in a close and collegial way …”

    “Ms Bishop told The Australian: “There is no rift between Peta and me. I have never had a cross word with her.”

    Oh yeah? That’s not the way the pictures tell it.

  12. From William’s blog on the election.

    Wednesday 11am. I should probably know better than to find anything about this count surprising by now, but that is undeniably where I stand after today’s batch of 194 postals behaved very unlike those that preceded in breaking 113-75 to Labor and putting them 21 votes ahead. As related on Twitter by Haydon Manning, today’s primary votes are 52 each for Labor and Liberal, 47 for Woodyatt, 17 for Golding, nine for the Greens, seven for De Jonge, four for Couch and nothing for Walker. By my reckoning, Labor’s two-party lead is now 10,282 to 10,261. The numbers are yet to be updated to the ECSA site, but it’s all accommodated in the table above.

  13. That piece in The Guardian about asylum seekers makes a good point, BUT –

    I really wish journalists would stop telling us the government’s policies have ‘stopped the boats’. They have done no such thing. We just aren’t being told about arrivals or turn-backs any more. If there have been more drownings at sea – and there must have been – then we can’t be told about them either becaue it would ruin the government line (and Labor’s line) that ‘we need to be harsh to stop people drowning at sea’.

    The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Indonesia, Thomas Vargas, says over 100 boats left Indonesia for Australia this year. What happened to them? We were only told about a few.

    Mr Vargas said people were still getting on boats and Australia’s policies would not stop them.
    Brown’s campaign for children
    Australian actor Bryan Brown is heading a campaign to end the practice of holding children in detention centres.

    “It’s not going to solve the problem,” he said.

    “It may, in the short term, show some boats being stopped but these boats continue to leave from various places in the region and outside of the region.

    “This policy, a unilateral policy from any government is not going to stop it.”

    He said 100 asylum seeker boats had departed towards Australia since the start of the year.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-28/unhcr-wants-australia-to-stop-detaining-children/5924108

    If th boats have stopped and asylum seekers are being processed as Morrison keeps telling us they are then why are the detention centres on Chriistmas Island, Nauru and Manus Island overflowing? Why are extensions being built on Nauru and Manus? Why aren’t asylum seekers being moved from Christmas Island, which is supposed to be a transit centre only, accommodating asylum seekers for only a short time while initial processing is done?

    Why don’t journalists ask these questions? Why the hell do they keep taking the easy route and parroting whatever Morrison says?

  14. Every time Abbott gets into bigger problems his handlers at News, the LNP, big business etc etc have to do what we all recognise is a system reboot. In theory, all your problems go away with a system reboot. Or at least they seem to. We see freezes, crashes, random behaviour and lots of other things that render our systems unusable. Sometimes we can fix them with a virus scan and removal but only if we know what the virus is and where it came from. Sometimes we try a system upgrade on existing hardware. I’m sure plenty have tried to upgrade from/to 95, Millenium, XP Home, XP Pro et al. Never works. The only thing that works is a complete overhaul of machine and software. More RAM, More speed. Better OS. Better utilities.

    That’s where Abbott’s handlers are now. It doesn’t matter now many software patches are applied or how many system re-installs are done or many upgrades are tried or how many times they try to blame the ISP, the problem remains Abbott. But what do they do? Every backflip only brings back a pitiful of the lost and disaffected and even then, they are reluctant returners. Everyone in the country can see that Abbott has done the GP co-payment thing to temporarily get himself out of today’s jam. It might fool some but those people want to be fooled. They want to believe. Same with higher education. Same with everything. The vast majority remain lost to Abbott.

    They can try to make him more family friendly. A bit tough when Margie may have gone off the reservation and at least one of the vestal virgins is now damaged goods. Even harder when the handlers’ starting point was Frankenstein’s monster. How about we try for international statesman? The mouth breathers who read the Telegraph – or write for it – and the wizened haters from 2GB- both sides of the microphone – might go for it. But no one else, least of all the internationals themselves, will. He has made a fool of himself, and the country, on countless occasions and people have been noticing for some time. Can they do something about the help? Hockey? Bananaby? Pyne?Ah don sin so, Cisco. They are parading Julie Bishop, for Christ’s sake, around as some sort of saviour. She might look all right in a Webster pack but let loose on an unsuspecting public, a plastic midget with a self described predilection for Armani wouldn’t make it across Sunnyholt Road Blacktown alive. Not that she would be seen dead outside Peppermint Grove in any domestic situation anyway.

    This is where the kingmakers are. They invented, created, nurtured and protected a dud. They are past the tipping point and they know it. However, I doubt Abbott recognises it, even though it is standing up in his porridge, right in front of him. He thinks he is just one Alan Jones pep talk from having everything fall into place for him. But when Jones is starting to peck at him, even at his his sweet bits, the game is up. When the day comes, his portrait in Parliament House should be a Rowe cartoon. He deserves nothing more. His disk needs wiping. Now.

  15. Current consumer sentiment: grim. Very grim. And no ‘merry’ in Christmas this year for retailers:
    Australian consumer sentiment sinks in Dec – survey

    Wednesday’s survey of 1,200 people by the Melbourne Institute and Westpac Bank showed its index of consumer sentiment dived a seasonally adjusted 5.7 percent in December, from November when it had risen 1.9 percent.

    The index reading of 91.1 in December was down 13.3 percent on the same month last year and the lowest since August 2011. Pessimists have now outnumbered optimists for 10 months in a row.

  16. Big mistake, Tony, taking on GPs and the AMA.

    Hidden in the bulldust about Abbott’s ‘re-booted’ GP tax is the interesting claim that the cut to Medicare rebates to GPs is being done to encourage doctors to spend more time with patients. The government wants doctors to spend at least 10 minutes with a patient. They will get the full rebate if they do this – currently the requirement is six minutes. If they don’t comply they will not get the full rebate.

    The Medicare rebate will also be frozen until July 2018.

    So GPs will have to spend more time with patients to get the full rebate, even if that is not necessary. If they don’t they will lose more money.

    Abbott’s full statement is here, it’s worth reading because the MSM still aren’t reporting the proposed changes properly. There is also some comic relief with the usual lies and shonky excuses.
    http://www.businessinsider.com.au/tony-abbott-has-abandoned-the-7-gp-payment-2014-12

  17. Fiona, all is forgiven (nothing to forgive, actually). Have redone the graphic and thereby satisfied the Photoshop Monster.

  18. Great comment Roy. Hit the nail on the head. A reboot usually means you’ve already suffer the Blue Screen Of Death.

    Perghaps that should be Blue Tie?

  19. That’s good to hear about Fisher. Obviously there’ll need to be a full recount since there’s less than 100 votes determining the outcome, plus there’s the distribution of preferences to come as well, but Nat Cook looks to be in the better position there.

  20. Another backflip – actually lots of backflips.

    Change of heart: Abbott government commits $200m to Green Climate Fund

    The Abbott government has bowed to international pressure and will commit to a global fund to help developing nations deal with climate change.
    …………………………………….
    In a statement on Wednesday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the government would provide $200 million over four years from Australia’s foreign aid budget for the Green Climate Fund.
    …………………………………………….
    In an interview with the ABC in 2012 while in opposition, Ms Bishop said climate change funding should not be “disguised as foreign aid funding”.
    ………………………………
    In an interview with the Australian in November last year, Mr Abbott compared UN climate funds to “a Bob Brown bank on an international scale”.
    …………………………….
    At a press conference later Wednesday, Mr Abbott dismissed suggestions that he had backflipped on the fund, given his previous refusals to provide money.

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/change-of-heart-abbott-government-commits-200m-to-green-climate-fund-20141210-123x0u.html

Leave a reply to leonetwo Cancel reply