Operation Fortitude F***ed Up Farce Friday

Fiona Uncategorized

The press release, then the Twitter storm.

(Image Credit: Police will have ‘particular focus on people travelling to, from and around the CBD’. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP)

From Formidable Fortitude to Farcical Force

(Image Credit: About 200 people protesting against the Australian Border Force operation block the intersection of Flinders Street and Swanston Street in Melbourne on Friday. Photograph: Melissa Davey for the Guardian)

has me wondering how soon it will be before a few “leaders” – you know, the ones whose family names start with a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a, *duh1*, and quis quaed – become

(Image Credit: Okokchina )

Most annoying – moi was really looking forward to being dragged into the paddy wagon dressed something like this:

(Image Credit: Styloss)

(and I would, too.)

What’s (and who’s) next for this flock of imbeciles?

(Image Credit: Pinterest)

505 thoughts on “Operation Fortitude F***ed Up Farce Friday”

  1. L2

    “Obviously people at the low level will make comment from time to time but we have a good engagement with my counterpart, with counterparts at an official level and our discussions are ongoing.”

    Apparently the ‘low level’ person is an Army General working in Cambodian immigration.

  2. Saw shadow Attorney General Dreyfuss on ABC24 earlier, he does look like a PM should look like, he also is articulate and smart.
    The ALP are going to the Governor General to have Heydon removed.

  4. muskiemp

    The ALP are going to the Governor General to have Heydon removed.

    Only if they can get a majority vote in the Senate.

  5. ABC radio have a poll on whether Dyson Heydon did the right thing or not- straight after his decision it was running roughly 70% saying no. roughly about 300 votes Then it rapidly began to change- it’s currently running at 82 %yes and 1500 votes.

  8. Media polls are pointless. Whenever the government looks like losing one they call in the troops and deluge the site with votes their way.

  9. Dutton said he was sick in bed on Friday and all weekend and was not able to comment.

    I think ‘hiding under his bed’ would be closer to the truth. And ‘waiting to get instructions from Peta’.

  10. Only if they can get a majority vote in the Senate.

    Ctar1
    Let’s hope hey get the numbers.

  11. I am quite happy that Heydon is staying on. Anything he says or decides from now on will always be tainted with the perception in the general public of at least a bit of bias. Whatever report he tables will also have that odour of bias wafting around it.

  12. PA

    I thought your animal story interesting last night, particularly the instructions you gave on how to approach a dog. For the kiddies though it’s a bit difficult given that they tend to be spontaneous.

  15. Political Animal
    It is at Angas Plains Wines in Langhorne Creek at 1230 on Thursday.
    I can vouch for the reds!

  16. In full

    All asylum seeker children should be removed from the Nauru detention centre because the centre is “insupportable” in its current form, a Senate inquiry has found.

    The Nauru regional processing centre is marred by widespread allegations of child abuse, violence against asylum seekers, deprivation and sexual assault, and the Australian government does not know what is happening on the island, a five-member cross-party select committee into abuse on the island reported on Monday.

    “Nauru is not run well, nor are Wilson Security and Transfield Services properly accountable to the commonwealth despite the significant investment in their services,” the majority report says.

    “The committee believes that the shortcomings of the current framework offer no reassurance that the department is fully aware of events on Nauru.”

    All asylum seeker children should be removed from Nauru, new laws should mandate reporting of sexual assault and violence allegations, and workers on the island should submit to daily drug and alcohol tests, the committee’s report recommended.

    Women and children – there are now 87 in detention – were particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault, because they could not be removed from the island, or moved anywhere safe on Nauru, the committee argued.

    The committee also found that Australia – not Nauru – is legally responsible for the abuses in Nauru detention centre, because it has “effective control” of it.

    Australia’s justifications that problems on Nauru are a matter for that country’s government are “a cynical and unjustifiable attempt to avoid accountability”, the committee said.

    “Australia created the regional processing centre in Nauru. It is Australia’s responsibility and in its present form, it is insupportable.”

    The committee condemned the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for its lack of control of the centre, and the absence of any reporting mechanism for staff “to disclose allegations of mistreatment, abuse or to make complaints”.

    “The department has been unaware of serious acts of misconduct by staff of contractors, as those contractors have not adequately fulfilled their reporting obligations.”

    The committee said the government and its contractors had attempted to hide information about what was happening on Nauru. “The committee remains of the view that the government in particular has sought to avoid the full accountability to which the Senate is entitled.”

    The report found that running the detention centre on Nauru has cost Australian taxpayers $1.333bn since it was reopened in September 2012 – about $37m a month.

    On average, asylum seekers spent 402 days in detention on Nauru.

    The Senate inquiry follows last year’s report by the Australian Human Rights Commission, The Forgotten Children, into children in Australian immigration detention.

    That report found that more than 300 children committed or threatened self-harm in a 15-month period in Australian immigration detention, 30 reported sexual assault, nearly 30 went on hunger strike, and more than 200 were victims of assaults.

    The government will respond to the Senate report after consideration of its recommendations. The office of the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has been contacted for comment.

    The Liberal party senators on the committee, Linda Reynolds and David Johnston (who replaced Cory Bernardi), presented a dissenting report, arguing that the government of Nauru was responsible for the running of the centre and that much of the inquiry was politically motivated.

    “The government has a determined and successful policy of ending the illegal trafficking of people into Australia and this policy is politically unacceptable to some senators,” they wrote. “This inquiry has sought in many respects to advance the political perspective of those opposing senators.”

    The government senators said many of the allegations of abuse were untested and reliant on “unsubstantiated hearsay”. They said the number of children in detention on Nauru had decreased significantly under the government and said all of the committee’s recommendations were “redundant”.

    The Greens’ immigration spokeswoman, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who was spied upon by guards when she visited Nauru on an official visit, said the detention regime was damaging children. “It can’t be made any clearer that locking children up with the guards on Nauru is exposing them to abuse,” she said.

    “The government’s head-in-the-sand approach to mounting evidence of systemic child abuse is causing immeasurable harm.”

    The Greens tabled additional recommendations including: the reinstatement and compensation of 10 Save the Children workers who were sacked on untrue allegations of coaching self-harm among asylum seekers; a royal commission into children in detention, and; an Australian federal police investigation into spying allegations.

    Hanson-Young also called for the termination of Transfield’s contract to run the Nauru detention centre on the day the government indicated it wanted to negotiate with Transfield for another five-year deal.

    When questioned about the inquiry’s recommendation that journalists should be allowed to visit the Nauru detention centre, Dutton, the immigration minister, said he would not dictate migration matters to another sovereign country.

    “It’s an issue for the Nauruan government,” he told Sky News.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/31/all-children-should-be-removed-from-nauru-detention-senate-inquiry-finds

  19. ABC Radio poll was at 1800 when last I looked, most of their polls manage between 200-400 votes. I am thinking they might use it as justification that he was right not to resign. Biggest poll number previously was about Bishop gate and manage about 900 votes..

  23. http://delimiter.com.au/2015/08/31/turnbull-calls-in-nbn-contractor-to-help-with-canning-by-election/

    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/abortion-protest-buffer-zones-to-get-green-light-20150831-gjbqgd.html

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/the-science-show-celebrates-40-years/6726302

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-31/former-premier-denis-napthine-retires-from-victorian-parliament/6735950

    http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/wes-craven-horror-maestro-dies-818806

  24. I find this sort of study – and Dyson Heydon’s proud IT illiteracy – baffling.

    Study finds older Tasmanians not keeping pace with shift to internet
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-31/study-finds-older-tasmanians-not-keeping-pace-with-shift-to-int/6738152?section=tas

    I suppose I qualify as ‘older’ seeing as I turn 70 in a few months. I am an enthusiastic internet user, have been for 20 years or so. This house and the home we had before it have been littered with computers and IT gear since the kids were old enough to use an Atari and a Commodore 64. Now I can’t imagine my life without the internet. I get twitchy if I can’t be online every day. I rely on the internet for so much – news, banking, communicating with my family and friends, information and much more. I am a world class online shopper and an enthusiastic user of Skype. None of it is hard, nothing is too challenging for an ageing brain, Why are so many old people so stuck in the 19th century?

    I think the oldies uncovered in this sort of study who rely on newspapers and TV for their ‘news’ would have been fogies when they were young, the sort of people who don’t read books, watch trashy TV instead of the news, take no interest in the world around them and listen to talkback radio devotedly. You can be younger and still be an uniformed, disinterested ignoramus.

    I get annoyed by stories about local oldies who have ‘discovered’ the internet through special seniors-only classes that teach them about emails (maybe Heydon should join one of them) and Facebook. Why do you need classes for this sort of thing? What have they been doing for the last 20 or so years, that they have never bothered with email until now? How can you live in 2015 without being IT-literate enough to at least handle email and read the news online?

    I just don’t understand. The stupidity/ignorance/lack of interest shown by so many people amazes me in a bad way. No wonder we have an Abbott government, if this is the sort of intellectual desert people people are happy to inhabit.

  25. I feel I am ignorant because I don’t know any programming languages, although I have a bit of an idea how Java works. Using the computer and accessing the internet is like putting on my shoes. I don’t even think about how I do it.

  28. Dyson Heydon probably rang Abbott & said, “I’m in a bit of a tricky spot here boss, what should I do?”

    Abbott probably said, “just lie your head off like I do, it always seems to work for me!”

  29. Scorpio,

    I doubt Dyson Heydon would ever call abbott “boss”.

    Heydon probably had difficulty uttering the words “Chief Justice” to or in connexion with Gleeson CJ and French CJ.

  30. I don’t think Heydon and some others in high office realise the depth and intensity of the ridicule they will have to endure on social media because of their hubris that has them believing they are above all that.

    Christ!..is he ever on a steep learning curve.

  31. Jaycee,

    Heydon – allegedly – is computer illiterate. So the ways of social media are unknown to him; what’s more, he almost certainly regards social media with utter contempt.

    Hubris reigns supreme, and he will most likely never ever change his mind. Because he is so very intelligent, special, select, elect, and born to be superior.

  35. ” So the ways of social media are unknown to him; …” ..maybe, but he is surrounded by others who are saavy and would read the derision levelled at him..so would have to either hide it from him or repeat it behind his back ..which would inevitably create an “air of suspicion” between himself and his staff .

  37. I’ve been a pretty vocal critic of the ABC and 7:30 in particular but credit where its due tonight.
    Sabra Lane actually conducted a fair and quite probing interview with potato head Dutton.
    Not hard i know but she made him look pretty stupid.
    I wont hold my breath but hopefully we see more of it in the future.

  38. You don’t have to try too hard to make Dutton look stupid, he manages to do a fantastic job of that all by himself.

    It’s too easy to work out what the top government talking point is for this week, and next week, and the week after that, and the election campaign. Say ‘CFMEU….union bosses…..Labor…..corruption’ over and over again, in any chosen order. Talk about over-egging the pudding. It’s Day 2 of this rubbish and I’m already sick to death of hearing it.

    bored by the trite, pointles speeches and pressers of government ministers? Try counting how many times they say ‘CFMEU’ or ‘union bosses’ or….you get the drift.

  39. Fiona

    The chap has no contempt for social media. If and it is a big IF his email claim is true then social media would be a total Rumsfeldian unknown unknown for him .

  40. L2

    I gave up counting Abbott saying “union bosses” after the count hit twenty eleventy back in about 2010

  41. kk
    They are really ramping it up now that TURC has fallen in a heap.There has to be a reason to keep pouring money into a witch-hunt. Abbott and his puppet masters believe if they yell ‘CFMEU’ at us a zillion times a day they will win our votes.

  42. Tonight on 7.30 Dutton said this –
    “I think everybody needs to pull in the same direction because the Government has a good track record. We have a lot of good things that we’ve achieved over the course of the last couple of years”.

    Why is this rubbish never challenged. Why doesn’t one brave interviewer say ‘Give me a list, and forget the ‘we stopped the boats and axed the tax rubbish’. No matter what minister it was they would be left sitting there saying ‘Um…..er…..” because this government has done nothing.

  43. One of the hallmarks of the Abbott government has been carrying on with the script even when the circumstances have entirely discredited it. The planning was for anti-ALP hysteria to be at its peak about now, with the TURC revelations dovetailing in with the Four Corners hatchet job on Shorten. It was all nicely planned so that Shorten’s appearance at TURC would scupper the ALP conference and have the whole country talking about Shorten’s connections with corrupt unions.

    It never worked out the way the Liberal dirt unit timetabled it, but nevertheless the plan for this week was to underline all the union-bashing of the past couple of months with wall-to-wall anti-union/anti’ALP sloganeering. It can’t cut through because of the unholy mess the Liberals made of things, but by Jove they’re going to carry on with it anyway.

    Watching the government front bench desperately try to get things back on track in QT, by trumpeting TURC findings right alongside deflecting questions about Heydon’s conflict of interest, was quite ghoulish. They actually thought they were scoring points with it. They don’t seem capable of appreciating just what a joke TURC has become, and how little stock anyone puts in whatever findings it comes up with. it’s currently about as credible as the Commission of Audit last year, which destroyed the 2014 Budget so thoroughly that most of it still hasn’t passed the Senate. People just assume TURC is flawed and compromised, so advertising its findings won’t achieve a thing.

    It’s more evidence that this term has been planned as a public relations job with the focus only on getting back into power. Manipulate people’s perceptions with a rolling series of sensational claims, and they’ll forget things like the economy and employment and health and education. Pity that the public are a bit smarter than that.

    It’s the main reason why I can’t see an election campaign going in Abbott’s favour. The whole term has been run like an election campaign, and it’s been a monumental failure. More of the same will only make things worse for him.

  44. The Commission of Audit is the main piece of evidence I’m relying on for my Abbott-government-as-PR-job theory. The CoA was specifically set up to sell the 2014 Budget. That was its job. They put a team together supposedly to investigate economic conditions and make recommendations, but the recommendations were handed to them at the start, and their brief was to make their findings fit the recommendations. It was a marketing job designed to give some ‘weight’ to the Budget by putting a few ‘independent’ names behind what it was doing.

    But the giveaway came early, when Tony Shepherd was asked on the ABC why they had made the recommendation to slug us $7 per doctors visit. His explanation demonstrated no research done into the topic at all. He got all his facts wrong, and ended up admitting that his idea that Australians visited the doctor too much was just a vibe he had. That one moment showed clearly that the entire CoA was a con job, something for Hockey to point at when he delivered a set of IPA requests as his first Budget.

    This whole term was planned to be a series of dirt-digging RCs and recommendation panels set up as fronts for an ideological economic regime. The Abbott government is all front, no substance. They wouldn’t know how to run a small business, much less a whole country, and that’s the way the business community like it. As long as they keep selling the message.

  45. Thank you to the indefatigable pub commentators. I have just caught up with to-day’s posts, and particularly enjoyed Leone’s observations. You were on fire, Lioness!
    Dyson Heydon’s presumptive hubris was beautifully summarised by the great Cambridge economist, Professor Joan Robinson (who metaphorically sat at the feet of J.M. Keynes):
    Orthodox economists are as unaware of their bias as they are the smell of their own breath.
    The events of the past week bring to mind Tom Lehrer’s reaction to Henry Kissinger’s Nobel Peace Prize, when he decided that actual events had overtaken satire, and he would have to cease the half of his career that had provided such wonderful entertainment.

  46. So why isn’t TURC doing an investigation into 7Eleven? After tonight;s 4C, who could deny a RC is needed into business practises?

    And when are we going to see people doing porridge and having all their assets seized for thekind of stuff 4C uncovered in its report tonight?

    My observation? That if these workers had been able to join an Union, this could not have happened. This is what happens to a non-unionised workforce.

  49. Good morning Dawn Patrollers.

    The Fairfax editorial says that with Heydon staying everyone loses.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/dyson-heydon-stays–and-everyone-loses-20150831-gjbic1.html
    Damien Murphy says Heydon has given himself the kiss of life. Some nice prose amongst this article.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/trade-union-royal-commission-dyson-heydon-saves-his-own-skin-20150831-gjbv1t.html
    Michaela Whitbourn examines Heydon’s reasoning.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/trade-union-royal-commission-dyson-heydon-finds-fatal-flaw-in-unions-argument-20150830-gjbbl9.html
    Ben Eltham gets down and into the reality of bias in the running of the TURC.
    https://newmatilda.com/2015/08/31/outside-dyson-heydons-court-trade-union-royal-commission-looks-political-ever
    Of course Bob Ellis has something to say about Heydon’s decision.
    http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2015/08/31/the-heydon-decision/
    Adele Ferguson follows up on 4C and tells us that 7-Eleven is fooling nobody.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/7eleven-head-office-is-not-fooling-anyone-20150831-gjbr0p.html
    And 7-Eleven goes into panic mode.
    http://www.afr.com/business/retail/fmcg/7eleven-panics-launches-buyback-in-wake-of-wage-abuse-scandal-20150831-gjbw8r
    Peter Hartcher posits that the creation of Border Force is a transformative event for Australia. His last paragraph is a good one!
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/putting-the-muscle-into-border-enforcement-20150831-gjbxaj.html
    More from Hartcher as he looks at where the Border Force might be heading.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-border-force-to-have-up-to-6000-officers-most-trained-in-use-of-force-20150831-gjc0tx.html
    Richard Flanagan on how we got to where we are on border protection.
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/31/australias-treatment-of-asylum-seekers-was-bound-to-lead-to-something-like-border-force

  50. Section 2 . . .

    Nicole Hasham explains the eight ways in which the Border Farce spin was all crook.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/border-farce-sorting-fact-from-fiction-out-of-government-and-bureaucratic-spin-20150831-gjbfl3.html
    The institutionalised end of financial year spending by the APS is huge! What will it take to get the government, any government, to at least scratch the surface of this problem?
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/everyone-except-the-government-knows-about-the-public-services-endofbudgetyear-splurge-20150828-gj9pvr.html
    The fallacies of the government’s efforts on public service pay and conditions are exposed in this article.
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/productivity-commissions-mostly-sound-industrial-relations-advice-falls-short-on-public-sector-pay-20150827-gj9j20.html
    Why the government could face a political wipe-out in South Australia.
    http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/08/31/why-the-government-could-face-a-wipeout-in-sa/
    The Senate inquiry says that all children should be removed from Nauru. Of course the government says that the report is political crap and that it’s all down to the Nauruan government.
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/31/all-children-should-be-removed-from-nauru-detention-senate-inquiry-finds
    Mike Kenny on the parliamentary push to push Heydon out.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/trade-union-royal-commission-unions-weigh-appeal-as-labor-shifts-dyson-heydon-attack-to-parliament-20150831-gjbw4n.html
    Abbott says Hockey has his “full confidence”. So that’s it for Joe then?
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/prime-minister-tony-abbott-says-treasurer-joe-hockey-has-his-full-confidence-20150831-gjbki8.html
    More from Peter Martin on how we are sleepwalking into bad economic times.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/get-ready-for-a-recession-every-decade-experts-warn-20150830-gjb9kw.html
    Hockey’s flawed argument for growth.
    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/hockeys-call-for-cuts-to-income-and-corporate-taxes-to-fuel-growth-is-a-flawed-argument,8113
    Stephen Koukoulas on the explosion of debt under Abbott.
    http://thekouk.com/blog/debt-explodes-under-the-abbott-government.html

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