575 thoughts on “Family Portraits Friday Evening”

  3. Al Palster

    Which is why I get cross about the use of ‘LNP’ instead of ‘Coailtion’. Idiots – and idiot journalists – no longer understand that there are two parties in the Coalition.

  6. I thought Abbott was not going to undermine, white-ant or destabilise, I just heard on ABCnews24 that Abbott unloaded on Hockey over who said what when.

    I hope it is a sign of things to come.

  7. Al Palster

    Also, they claimed they had the first woman defense minister and they didn’t. I also think their was another claim of a first in Treasury department which is also wrong. But there you go, no fact checking, whereas Leone shows us all every day how to fact check, and does a wonderful job.

  10. Still on hols and had the “pleasure” of watching Sunrise briefly – very briefly! No wonder the general public are so dumbed down about what is going on – Malcolm – self made man, trusted with economy, blah blah blah. Best I get back to work soon!

  11. So, Mighty Mal is going to have a mini-budget while his sugar hit and his polls are high. In other words, he plans to make hay while the sun shines and his rightwing nut jobs in the party are still reeling from the demise of their failed leader. After that he will be flat out playing catch-up to try and match Labor’s policies. That is when the fights within the government will be big and dirty.

  12. Interesting to see some govt.MPs are ditching the blue tie bit. Now there are pink ones, pretty yellow ones and even dotted red ones…yet they all look just the same.

  13. they claimed they had the first woman defense minister and they didn’t.

    The ‘Minister for Defence’ can be considered the person with that exact title and who sits in Cabinet meetings.

    The others mentioned are Parliamentary Secretaries ie assistant ministers and subordinate to the Minister for Defence.

  17. Of course there will be an early election. Turnbull won’t want to wait until after next year’s budget, because it will have to be a grim one and a vote loser.

    If he’s going for a mini-budget in October then that makes an early election even more likely. The question now is when will he go. Turnbull’s dilemma – whether to strike now, while the polling is good, or wait and hope it doesn’t go down again.

    There’s also the problem of a possible stack of by-elections coming up as sacked Abbott ministers and Abbott himself, maybe, spit their dummies and resign form the parliament. A smart PM would call an election ASAP, validating his leadership and allowing drastic policy changes and as a bonus have a good clean-out of the back benches at the same time.

    Meanwhile the disaffected rump on the backbench keep on sniping and leaking and throwing tantrums.

  20. Interesting – more about Turnbull’s close friend Senator James McGrath.

    In Malcolm Turnbull’s “new look” “21st Century Cabinet” he has appointed Qld LNP Senator James McGrath as his Assistant Minister. Senator James McGrath is known as a tobacco apologist. Senator McGrath’s promotion comes just days after Senator McGrath denounced the recent hike in the tobacco excise, legislated by Labor but enacted by the Coalition as “cover for fiscal recklessness”.

    Senator McGrath also denounced Labor’s plain packaging laws, which the coalition supported, as “nanny state laws”. “it is an attack on free speech and the intellectual property rights of law abiding business and should be condemned” said Senator McGrath. He then quoted at length from discredited reports commissioned by the tobacco industry to argue plain packaging had failed

    http://realnewsone.com/2015/09/22/turnball-places-tobacco-apologist-at-the-centre-of-his-21st-century-cabinet-as-assistant-minister/

  21. If Turnbull goes the early election it’ll be really interesting. That kind of move focuses the minds of voters quickly. He’s proving (somewhat) populist, but he remains an unknown quantity, and going to an early election – depending on how early it is – will come across as opportunist. it won’t lose him a lot of votes, but then he doesn’t have a lot of votes to lose judging by the polls we’ve had so far.

    I personally think the longer he holds out the better he’ll look. It’ll project confidence. The minute he calls an election is the minute the electorate says, “Ok, well we’re glad he’s not Abbott, but now we’re talking about three more years of him, so we’d better find out what we’re in for.” The more he’s made his case, the better placed he’ll be to convince the electorate. But can he make his case? That’s a question he’ll be asking himself. Will things get better or worse for him over time?

    I keep thinking of Baillieu for some reason. Inoffensive rich cipher, not a threat to Victoria, but he just got less and less liked as time went on, until he was replaced.

  22. Just watched q&a. The first half hour was almost a waste of time. All Tony Jones wanted to focus on was TURC!!! Most of the questions from the audience were same with the odd variation thrown in. Jones’ constant interrupting was exasperating to say the least. I don’t think all that many people were particularly interested. Shorten handled it all with ease and sat Jones back on his bum a couple of times.

    The second half was better, more interesting questions on the problems of now. That didn’t satisfy Jones, he was getting more rude and frustrated as Shorten was getting nods and applause.

    The woman with her whinge about wind farms was none too impressed that Shorten got applause after his response, and Jones acted quickly to cut than and any other applause short.

    All I can say is ‘Well done, Bill.’

  23. 2gravel
    I second that.

    Jones tried and tried to get Bill to change what he had said to TURC, probably hoping for a big scoop by nagging Shorten into admitting he had taken bribes or whatever. He got nowhere.

    I noticed Jones moving in to end the applause time after time.

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