Urban Wronski has again agreed to be The Pub’s Guest Author with, once more, an incisive analysis of the week that was. Many thanks!
Wading around deep water in Launceston last Thursday were Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman and federal Liberal MPs Andrew Nikolic, Brett Whiteley and Eric Hutchinson, who turned up to ensure that the PM did not spoil his visit to the Onion Isle by getting out his depth on climate change and rashly linking global warming with the devastating floods.
Turnbull rebuffed Bill Shorten’s shrewd offer of a bipartisan visit. Launceston was thus blessed with two successive media circuses, although they visited different flood-struck areas. Yet, despite the mud and the wheel-churning, it was spared the impression that Shorten was Turnbull’s equal. Or an alternative Prime Minister.
The PM was resolute. Bugger the pre-election caretaker convention of equal access to information and consultation on important decisions. It was only day 34. There was an election dance marathon to be won. Policy to be got out.
As both major parties waltzed around the elephant in the room of the coalition’s bogus climate policy, the PM spoke up to stop anyone joining any dots between the disaster and climate change, before anyone brought up the clear global trend of increased Intensity of rainfall with climate change.
They were too late. In response to one journalist’s question that we would see more storms of this nature with climate change, Turnbull generalised and obscured the link. “Larger and more frequent storms are one of the consequences that the climate models and climate scientists predict from global warming.”
If only we could get rid of those models and those scientists, we’d be OK. (The Coalition’s working on it.)
“. . . you cannot attribute any particular storm to global warming,” the PM continued arrestingly, obscuring the point the reporter was making, “so let’s be quite clear about that. And the same scientists would agree with that.”
Encouraged by his PM’s form of words, but picking up on only some of them, embattled member for Bass, Andrew Nikolic, a highly vocal climate sceptic in parliament who enjoyed a key role in the slashing of our Renewable Energy Target (RET) went further. No-one would be “silly enough to try and link a single event to climate change.”
No-one is arguing for simple causation
Of course they are linked. No-one is arguing for simple causation. Climate Change Council scientists warn that global warming and rising sea levels are major contributing factors to the kinds of storms that recently caused so much damage to the East coast of Australia.
All extreme weather events have a climate component. A warming atmosphere has a greater capacity for carrying more moisture resulting in more intense rainfall and floods. Accelerating sea level rise also increases the impact of storms in coastal areas as witnessed recently at Collaroy.
Professor Lesley Hughes explains the heavier rainfall. “These east coast lows, while they’ve also been around for some time and often deliver intense rainfall, are occurring in an atmosphere that has about 7% more water vapour than it did fifty years ago. This increases the risk of more intense rainfall.”
What should be bipartisan is an understanding that our only choice is to stop burning coal and embrace renewable energy. This election is the last chance we have to get serious about our climate change policy. Yet there is nothing to see here from either major party in this Clayton’s election campaign, despite some urging from the sidelines.
Some ratbags will got to any lengths to spoil a disaster zone media opportunity even with our beefed up national security and metadata retention laws, including the Border Protection Act 2015 which makes it illegal for professionals to speak out about conditions in detention centres, a law which some doctors have chosen to defy.
And so it proved in Sydney later that day. A British television crew ambushed the PM as he left the American and Australian US Studies Centre tenth annual benefit dinner, a black-tie function in Sydney where Turnbull had been insulting the intelligence of his audience by repeating the lie that he had to call the election because of vital ABCC legislation blocked by the senate which his government needs to restore the rule of law.
“Australia’s actions were illegal..”
Jonathan Miller, Channel Four Foreign Correspondent, wanted to know if the PM was alarmed by the recent spate of self-immolations by asylum-seekers on Nauru and whether he agreed with observers that Australia’s actions were illegal under international law. The PM is reported to have stone-walled the BBC reporter.
He would have been just as forthcoming had he been asked about the government’s position on PNG, a failed state whose PM enjoys our loyal support despite evidence of considerable popular unrest and unconfirmed reports of police shooting protestors. The ugly spectacle of our support for a corrupt regime because our government needs desperately for Manus Island detention centre to at least remain open is one which with bipartisan agreement seems to be swept to one side. Just as with the gulag on Nauru.
Nothing to see here. As in the days of the Tampa crisis, when John Howard refused point blank at a press conference to reveal the source of his categorical assurances to the Australian people that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters and that the drowning of 353 people was somehow someone else’s responsibility.
Turnbull had just come from praising John Howard as the gold standard in his own cabinet government and singled out Arthur (Amnesiac) Sinodinos for his architectural virtues in two governments. A pillar of the Howard government, Sinodinos, he said is “a flying buttress in mine.”
Perhaps this curiously phrased praise will cause a restorative flow of blood to Arthur’s head and enable him to recall the answers he was unable to provide the ICAC concerning his role in setting up The Free Enterprise Foundation which was established to permit property developers to make illegal donations to NSW Liberal Party funds.
The NSW Electoral Commission continues to withhold $4.4 million in public funding from the NSW Liberals until it formally discloses who donated $693,000 to the party via the Free Enterprise Foundation before the 2011 election. If Sinodinis is Turnbull’s flying buttress, however, in foreign policy the US is Australia’s anchor, the caretaker PM declared dipping into maritime analogies on Thursday, despite Malcolm Fraser’s view that it was a ball and chain.
…a strategic captive of the US…
John Howard, set up the US Studies Centre, according to Turnbull on Thursday because he ‘…understood that the United States is the irreplaceable anchor to the global rules-based order, an order built upon shared political values and common economic and security interests.’ Yet for Malcolm Fraser in his book Dangerous Allies, ours is more of Stockholm syndrome relationship. Australia is “a compliant partner, a strategic captive of the US,” in Fraser’s view.
To those perverse few who still see Malcolm Turnbull as a type of enlightened and progressive rationalist, a “small l” Liberal, his sycophantic embrace of Howard and the US Alliance in Sydney this week may be a rude shock. On the other hand, the latest Reach-Tel suggests a 2 point increase in Turnbull’s popularity which will, no doubt, be taken as a vindication for his release last Sunday of a brief Facebook video which asks us to accept him, perhaps even to let him lead us, because of his poor, deprived childhood.
“How poor was my childhood” could be the start of some competitive bidding from other political hopefuls and millionaires although it could be argued that Gina Rinehart, a major backer of the IPA which is enjoys an extraordinary influence over Liberal politicians both in and out of parliament, has already set the gold standard.
Her ABC Australian Story documentary appearance in 2015 reinvents her father, Lang Hancock, as a noble and heroic Aussie battler and devoted father. His stoic and selfless determination to fly out on endless self-punishing mineral prospecting odysseys over the Pilbara enabled him to reap obscenely large profits from the sale of minerals extracted from lands far below which did not belong to him, as if this were somehow his just reward. It was an astonishing piece of hagiography even from a loving daughter.
Similarly, the Turnbull video is ostensibly a tribute to Bruce, a father to whom he owes everything. Yet below and even on top (- a part of the surface gloss) is a calculated bid for our sympathy from a politician whose ruthless ambition is well documented.
… see the mythic reinvention as a quest…
The spin is defended by Karen Middleton and others who see the mythic reinvention as a quest to present a more authentic Malcolm to his adoring fans. Besides, her argument goes, Bill is doing the same type of thing.
True, there are images of Shorten’s mother, a former teacher, in some publicity material canvassing us to vote Labor because education matters but it is a long way from the PM’s recent desperate pitch in which he reinvents himself as some sort of ordinary battler. It’s an ill-judged bid for sympathy and the women’s vote which Turnbull’s been advised he will need.
Some offer a blunter appraisal; if you have to make a video like that, you are admitting you are in serious trouble. The feminist bid just smacks of desperation and will backfire when it is measured against the poverty of the PM’s achievement on behalf of women.
Coming out as a feminist is not a new thing in recent Liberal prime ministers, but it still has some novelty value. Turnbull the feminist was unleased on an unwary electorate this week, raising some very awkward questions about a Liberal Party leadership which as Annabel Crabb notes, only the men are feminists, because the women don’t want any label which might get some of the unreconstructed males still left on front and back bench offside.
…where there is a war on women…
The nation now awaits Turnbull to respond to the promptings of his feminist sensibility and release all those women imprisoned on Nauru where there is a war on women. If he really wants to be a leader, he will bring home all the asylum seekers and refugees immediately. At home, he will pushing for equality in workplaces. The gender pay gap of $277 per week between women and men’s average weekly earnings will vanish at one stroke.
What is increasingly apparent, however, at least to some in the Labor camp, is that the caretaker PM is content to “run down the clock” to the election. He is just playing a dead bat, happy to sacrifice ten marginal seats if it brings him the office of elected Prime Minister that he covets. Or that Bruce would have wanted for him. Certainly his failure to turn up at a Sky News Peoples’ Forum debate on Wednesday, a “long-standing invitation” made him look flaky. Or scared. Or both. Or perhaps, he just couldn’t be bothered.
Sky News showed its displeasure sending presenters Paul Murray and Andrew Bolt out to condemn Turnbull for his snub. Sky is, however, getting great value out of the Liberals and ought not to be so churlish, especially when recent recruit, Tony Abbott’s former boss Peta Credlin’s stellar performance is taken into account.
Voters don’t like Bill Shorten and don’t trust Malcolm Turnbull according to Credlin’s piece in The Herald Sun on Saturday. Abbott’s former chief of staff has let the nation know that Turnbull is not doing enough to win over uncommitted voters and that the result could be chaos in the senate.
Credlin has a way with words and her freely dispensed advice is doubtless as powerfully motivating to the PM as any desire to prove worthy of the memory of his father’s sacrifice. She has homed in on an arrogance which is perhaps a key part of the caretaker PM’s campaign strategy so far. In her view, Turnbull’s “superannuation changes still tell the Liberal base you don’t really matter because you have nowhere else to go.”
In the campaign so far, the PM has avoided anything of substance while challenges that clamour for real leadership, such as climate change, closing the gulags that are our offshore detention centres, or providing a fair and just society for all Australians, issues which might truly define a worthy political leader lie well beyond his grasp.
His opponent, for all his affinity with the workers and all his rhetoric appears just as imprisoned by the corporate state – a compliant partner, as Fraser would have it, in an abusive and mutually demeaning relationship.
THE PUB 
My first question is: How are we going to extricate the nation (and ourselves) from that compliant relationship with
fascism(check the definition) corporatocracy?It’s disappointing to see Karen Middleton’s unoriginal rubbish soiling the pages of the Saturday Paper, which in other respects remains a lighthouse of sanity in a (MSM) world gone mad.
The MSM world is not so much mad as bad, corrupt, self-serving and sycophantic, The MSM would not recognise good journalism or integrity if they were choking on them. The lot of then are traitors who collude with fascists to transform this country into a corpocracy.
Where is everybody lately? If you are lurking or are only a lurker, please add a comment or two. I love the interaction with you, and to have you share your thoughts with us.
I know Winter is busy and the days short with a lot to do, and maybe you only have the time to read, but please when you want to have a rant, have it with us. And damn the spelling, grammar and sentence construction.
And I mean the above comment for me too. I must get on with that header post i am working on.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-labors-big-internet-play–faster-nbn-broadband-same-price-range-20160612-gphcrm.html
As a university lecturer a decade ago, I was forced to mark assignments at work where there were fibre because the dial up line was to slow to upload marked assignments
When I was applying for Victorian school teaching jobs I had to get ADSL because the job applications had to be submitted on line and the Peoplesoft application had massive upload requirements
I know programmers who work in Melbourne for European companies sorted fast internet
Hear I am Puffy in the dark witching hours
Door knocking yesterday threw up more dissatisfied progressive leaning traditional Liberal voters than rusted on Liberals. They are not ready to vote Labor and in fact 1 admitted he won’t vote for a loser
I am pleased we identified the incumbent’s mum eavesdropping and shut down numbers type conversation as it started
Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
America shows once again what a wonderful nation it is.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/orlando-florida-nightclub-shooting-multiple-people-being-held-20160612-gphea8.html
It looks like the shooter was mentally unstable.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/orlando-shooting-exwife-of-gunman-says-he-was-violent-and-abusive-20160612-gphhnk.html
Of course Trump is a great help!
http://www.smh.com.au/world/orlando-shooting-donald-trump-says-he-was-right-about-radical-islamic-terrorism-20160612-gphhq7.html
Labor’s preference nominations should not really come as a surprise.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-labor-to-preference-votes-to-the-greens-20160612-gphhk1.html
Nick Xenophon will retaliate massively if the major parties gang up on him says Michelle Grattan.
https://theconversation.com/xenophon-threatens-massive-retaliation-against-any-lib-lab-deal-against-him-60919
Today is the day that the NBN comes onto the election table. And so it should! They should out the icing on the cake and indicate the differences in running and maintenance costs over and above the headline establishment cost.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-labors-big-internet-play–faster-nbn-broadband-same-price-range-20160612-gphcrm.html
Here’s Michelle Grattan on the NBN.
https://theconversation.com/labor-would-upgrade-nbn-to-fibre-to-the-premises-60921
Jess irvine laments the fact that the economy is front of stage in this campaign.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-biggest-lie-of-the-campaign-economy-management-does-not-trump-all-20160612-gphaw8.html
The AFR says Turnbull must really step up quickly and explain “Jobs and Growth”. Google.
/opinion/editorials/turnbull-must-lift-the-urgency-in-selling-growth-agenda-20160609-gpfxtw
Why low interest rates have failed to spur business investment. It’s demand that drives investment more than the cost of money.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/why-low-rates-failed-to-spur-business-investment-20160609-gpf15a.html
Abbott’s “chaotic, dangerous” MH17 plan revealed – and it’s not pretty.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/tony-abbotts-office-floated-sending-australian-troops-into-ukraine-conflict-defence-expert-claims-20160612-gphbab.html
Section 2 . . .
Will this potential Presidential candidate “do a Nader” on Trump?
http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/libertarian-gary-johnson-spoiler-could-stop-donald-trumps-path-to-white-house-20160612-gph8nq.html
Surely this will give a good read on the value of the modern donkey vote. The bloody anti-vaxxers snag the top NSW senate paper spot.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-vaccine-sceptics-land-first-spot-on-nsw-senate-ballot-paper-20160612-gph8f6.html
James Massola lets fly at Di Natale’s hypocritical dummy spit.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016-opinion/election-2016-greens-dummy-spit-over-preferences-as-unedifying-as-it-is-hypocritical-20160612-gphaqu.html
Tom Switzer writes on changed attitudes towards the US.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-is-changing-it-tune-on-its-us-partnership-20160610-gpgjyu.html
Let’s ditch the Queen’s Birthday holiday for something that matters.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/ditch-the-queens-birthday-for-a-public-holiday-that-matters-to-australians-20160610-gpghun.html
The BREXIT poll is a scary exercise in democracy.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/british-poll-a-scary-exercise-in-democracy-20160609-gpfk0j.html
“View from the Street” on the ballot paper ballots, Oakeshotte’s return, Barnaby Joyce and the troubles for some Liberal candidates.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/view-from-the-street-election-2016-reaches-the-swearingnbrothels-point-20160612-gphcb3.html
Andrew Bolt goes troppo over what Turnbull said about the Tasmanian floods. Google.
news/opinion/andrew-bolt/malcolm-turnbull-warms-to-left-agenda/news-story/dd5067e53593e68f03ed36c20283690d
Urban Wronski says that Turnbull was wading around in deep water in Tassie.
https://urbanwronski.com/2016/06/12/turnbull-wades-around-deep-water/
Will Trump’s presence lead the US into a new wave of liberal renaissance?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/11/trump-cant-win-election-america-political-earthquake
Section 3 . . . Cartoon Corner
Pat Campbell and the Rio selection committee.
Mark David gives us the Transmogrification Nation.
Mark Knight on the terror of the major parties.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/3b0f89748eac7b7fd6ff9f8995a74d55?width=1024&api_key=zw4msefggf9wdvqswdfuqnr5
Bill Leak just can’t help himself these days.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/27c3ed3cde96fc3d6f2285d20ef98824
Good chilly morning everyone
How did you guys last night find out who is running in your electorate? I’ve been looking at the AEC site and can’t find a thing.
Disappointed Labor are preferencing Greens in nearly every electorate over some of the better Independents that are running in that msm report.
http://www.aec.gov.au/election/candidates.htm
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-captains-call-a-bid-to-sink-the-greens/news-story/3ecee28149c6dcd50ed317d515ea5342
Federal election 2016: captain’s call ‘a bid to sink the Greens’
The Australian
12:00AM June 13, 2016
Sid Maher National Affairs Editor Canberra
Sarah Martin Political reporter
The Liberals and Labor have moved to lock the Greens and Nick Xenophon out of the House of Representatives, with preference decisions that will deny crucial support to minor-party challengers in key seats, particularly in Victoria and South Australia. As Malcolm Turnbull revealed the Greens would be placed below Labor on Liberal how-to-vote cards across the nation, Labor revealed it would not direct preferences to the Nick Xenophon Team ahead of the Liberals in South Australia.
The Prime Minister’s captain’s call gives a vital boost to Labor as it faces a Greens challenge in the inner-Melbourne seat of Batman, held by embattled frontbencher David Feeney. However, it will allow the Prime Minister to campaign against a return of a Labor-Greens-independent alliance and will avoid the risk of angering the Coalition’s conservative base that selective preference deals with the Greens would have posed.
The decision assures Labor of winning Wills, and the inner-city NSW seats of Grayndler and Sydney held by Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek.
Labor’s decision to essentially run open tickets in South Australia where a rampant Nick Xenophon Team has up to four Liberal seats under siege could prove decisive in Mayo, Sturt, Barker and Grey.
The Liberal Party has also indicated that it will run open tickets in safe Labor seats where Senator Xenophon is also hoping to be able to leapfrog the incumbent on the back of preferences.
A senior Liberal said neither party wanted to give Senator Xenophon the opportunity to “play the victim” by actively preferencing against him.
“If all we are doing is exactly the same as what he is doing, it would become an enormous level of hypocrisy if Nick opposed it.”
Labor will also provide preferences to the Liberals ahead of the Nationals in three-cornered contests in Murray, in Victoria, and O’Connor and Durack in Western Australia.
Mr Turnbull’s decision infuriated the Greens and Senator Xenophon warned that a deal between the major parties could see his team preference against incumbents.
Mr Turnbull said his decision had been made “in the national interest’’.
“The big risk at this election is that we would end up with an unstable, chaotic, minority Labor-Greens-independent government as we had before,’’ Mr Turnbull said.
“You’ve seen some of the old band are trying to get back together. Tony Windsor’s running. Rob Oakeshott’s running.
“You have got the Greens obviously snapping at Labor’s heels trying to pull them to the Left — and succeeding, I might add, in pulling them to the Left with higher taxes, weaker border protection, a more anti-business agenda,’’ the Prime Minister said.
Bill Shorten, making a health announcement in Townsville, said he was “chasing every first preference I can for the Labor Party’’.
“Australians today again see the difference between Mr Turnbull and myself. He’s talking about political deals. I’m talking about reducing waiting lists for Australians sitting at home in pain,’’ the Opposition Leader said.
ALP national secretary George Wright said Labor had been open to talks with Senator Xenophon “about how we could make sure we protect Medicare in South Australia from privatisation, how we stop Liberal cuts to SA schools, health and jobs’’.
“But he has refused to come to any arrangement to achieve these outcomes,’’ Mr Wright said.
“There is no deal from Labor to preference the Nick Xenophon Team or the Liberals. The approach Labor has taken to preferences is exactly the same approach that Nick Xenophon has. So I find it hard to understand why he would have a problem with it,” Mr Wright said.
Greens Leader Richard Di Natale attacked Mr Turnbull’s decision and called on Mr Shorten to apologise for Labor “lies’’ of a deal between the Greens and Liberals on preferences.
Senator Di Natale demanded the withdrawal of Labor campaign material in seats including Batman alleging a preference deal between the Greens and Liberals.
“Don’t for a moment believe that there’s any point of principle here,’’ Senator Di Natale said.
“I mean, Malcolm Turnbull, for goodness sakes, says he doesn’t want chaos and instability in government. This from a government that came to power promising no cuts to health and education, and then introduced the 2014 budget, the disaster unleashed on the Australian community, and we see a Prime Minister not make it two years in government.
“We see a change in prime minister, a Coalition in turmoil, internally divided.
“We heard Malcolm Turnbull say he wanted to take the party in a new direction, but on every issue, whether it will be marriage equality, there he is, backing in the Abbott conservatives.’’
In the wake of Mr Turnbull’s decision, the Greens are now less likely to run open-preference tickets in key Victorian seats such as Bruce and Chisholm in a blow to the Liberals chances in those Labor seats where long-time MPs are retiring.
Senator Xenophon said his team was maintaining its position to run open tickets for all seats, but reserved the right to revisit that position if the major parties did a deal.
Labor sources told The Australian that there was little appetite to preference Senator Xenophon’s candidates, given he was waging a campaign against the major parties and painting himself as the “anti-politician” candidate.
“His entire strategy to win lower house seats has been to assume that Labor will give him preferences, and yet even if we preferenced him, he would still find some way to attack us,” one Labor MP said.
There was also anger that Senator Xenophon had indicated he would run open tickets in a range of marginal seats, including in the Liberal-held seat of Hindmarsh, which Labor’s Steve Georganas is hoping to win back from the Coalition.
Unbelievable.. Abbot’s best mate Greg Sheridan has got an AO in the Q’s bday honours list. If tony was stil in charge he probably would have got a bloody knighthood!
And there’s the irony of many scientists and people from the arts receiving gongs from this govt..
A few weeks ago I bought a multi-tool similar to a Leatherman at a ‘Sports Authority’ store in Honolulu. The walls behind the counter were filled with rifles including semi-automatics, the counter I was served on was filled with pistols. Somewhere in The USA there is a nice guy just
Ile the one who sold me my purchase who has to live with the knowledge he sold the gun that caused the death of over 50 people.
I have a crusade going, in alliance with my kids, because too many people think a how-to-vote paper is an instruction from the party you support, and must be obeyed. We are going to say this sort of thing over and over again, to everyone who wants to talk politics.
No-one has to follow any party’s how to vote instructions. Make up your own mind. Who gives a frack how any party allocates their preferences. Adults who are considered mature and intelligent enough to vote don’t need ‘advice’ from any party.
Just do your own thing.
Couldn’t agree more, Leone. I always do my own thing with preferences – have done for 50 years.
I think you and your kids should encounter some interesting expressions of surprise, disbelief and disinterest. Every new person who actually starts to think about it is one less apathetic voter.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/13/labor-pledges-to-fix-nbn-mess-and-link
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/12/exclusive-greens-to-preference-labor-in-over-90-of-seats-including-marginals
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/tony-abbotts-office-floated-sending-australian-troops-into-ukraine-conflict-defence-expert-claims-20160612-gphbab
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-gay-pride-la-weapons-20160612-snap-story.html note, this narrowly averted anti-gay massacre is completely unrelated to the Orlando one, and would have been for different motives
http://www.wired.com/2016/06/orlando-massacre-shows-isis-outsources-terror/
Here we go again – Fizza on the Orlando shooting – ‘they hate our freedoms…..’ ….. ‘it’s an assault on every one of us’ and more ‘they hate our freedoms’.
FFS! It was a lone nutter with a gun, a nutter who may or may not have had links to a terrorist group, but most likely just hated gays.
Fizza is blowing it up into a major terrorist attack.
The US needs to stop clinging to a part of their constitution that allows everyone the right to have a gun (or ten). That constitution was written in the 18th century, when every rural man needed a gun to hunt for food, to protect his home and family from marauding criminals. City people needed guns too, because there was no police force to protect them. Things are a bit different now, no-one needs a gun, unless they want to take up shooting as a sport, and for that there need to be strong regulations. It’ time for change.
good morning pubsters
That shooting in the USA is not an Islamist crime it is a gay-hate crime.
Exactly.
When did a simple fact ever stop a Liberal prime minister using a tragedy to whip up fear and loathing?
Turnbull’s comments, and the same statement on the Liberal Party website, deliberately exclude any mention of LGBTIQ. the apparent reason for the shooting. It’s all about terrorism and ‘they hate us’.
Using a tragedy for political purposes – despicable.
https://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2016/06/13/statement-orlando-attack
I am not surprised nor shocked by the Orlando massacre. It is just the price Americans are willing to pay for their right to walk around with guns.
Those lives are just the normal, periodic sacrifice to the gun god.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-wife-of-suspected-orlando-shooter-he-beat-me/2016/06/12/8a1963b4-30b8-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/orlando-club-shooter-ar-15-rifle-newtown-article-1.2670739
https://delimiter.com.au/2016/06/13/new-policy-labor-dump-fttn-fttp-keep-hfc/
Bill carrying on with more ‘terror attack’ rubbish, but at least he gives the LGBTIQ community a mention.
He walks a fine line there, Turnbull is just waiting to pounce on any hint of Bill missing a step in the National Terror Dance
‘Maladministration’ of the NBN – snerk!
Bill Shorten identifies the Orlando shooting as an act of terror, attacking our freedoms, and a crime against the gay community, specifity condolences to LGBTI community and USA people.
Now kicking MT in bollocks over NBN.
That is clever wording, take out an ‘and’ or so, it becomes an act of terror against our freedoms to be who we are and who we love wtte.
Bill is toeing the terror line but segueing into LGBTI.
Gravel,
Gee, you’re going to have fun deciding who to put last:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/guide/gipp/
Jennifer Wilson calls Turnbull out on his response to the Orlando massacre:
https://noplaceforsheep.com/2016/06/13/the-word-that-turnbull-dare-not-speak/
Bill and Jason stuck the boot into Malfeasance.
Turnbull talking about his chat with the American ambassador about the Orlando shootings. Looks desperate – John Berry is gay, and married to a man. Turnbull tried hard to avoid any mention of any of that, and had a bit of trouble getting out the words ‘his partner, Curtis’. Then he had to go on and talk about the ambassador having many friends who were affected by the tragedy. Oh the embarrassment!
Turned him off.
I notice that in his address at UWS, Bill Shorten has referred to the Orlando massacre as a “terror attack” rather than a “terrorist attack”. It seems to me that the distinction is that the former denotes a random act of terror (like our Lindt cafe episode) done by a single deranged person perhaps with inclinations to a terror group but no links while the latter is a planned operation by a terrorist group such as ISIS.
Jason Clare –
“If there were gold medals handed out for stuff-ups and blow-out, Malcolm Turnbull would be on his way to Rio right now.”
har har Malcolm Turnbull invents a new word. Shortnocs,long on plans – short on economics. While he waffles about how great his Fraudband is.
Malcyamen says he has connected more premises in the last few months than the ALP did while in office.
Well, dickhead, have you never heard of preparation? You build more of the house just before it is finished than when you start by preparing for the concrete slab.
He sounds a bit desperate in this presser.
Turnbull seems to be holding in a lot of frustration and maybe anger, about the Coalition Cities Policy question, I think it was about the Townsville stadium. he had that rictus grin as he tried to explain something.
Oh the new word is Shortnomics. clever. Clever as a lizard sunning himself in the middle of the highway.
Turnbull cuts and runs. Fast, gone in the blink of an eye.
brianmcisme
Thank you so much, I promise, I looked and looked and didn’t see that lot there.
Much much later after I wrote the above which I didn’t post……
Fiona
Thanks, I had a look at the site brianmcisme posted, I wrote down two, then gave up, so now I’ll look at your link, but I think I’m going to have to put Greens and National higher than I wanted to. As I’ve said, it won’t really matter how we vote in the reps as we are in deep National Party territory.
I am much more concerned about how to vote in the Senate which could count, as I have to admit I don’t really understand how it works. I’ve always only voted above the line and trusted Labor to know what they are doing. Any suggestions from anyone would be a great help.
Puffy
I don’t think it will ring any bells with anyone, what a stupid ‘word’ to use.
Shortenomics? Bill could take that and run with it.
How about “Malanoma”?
TLBD
‘Malanoma’
Gold Star
Nice title from Agatha Christie’s book.
Hopefully, we can have some of her other titles, such as After the Funeral , Curtain(3 July) and Nemesis.
Nice one!
“Is Lucy going for the Kath and Kim vote with that outfit?”
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2016/jun/13/australian-election-2016-labor-announces-more-funding-for-nbn-politics-live#comments at 12:29.
This says plenty about the US.
A simple message about the NBN “If it’s copper it’s shit – and always will be!”.
while listening to this:
Just beautiful.
Glenn,
It is a truly haunting aria.
Bill Shorten is on Q&A tonight.
2gravel.
May I recommend that you take a look at this link (it may have been published at the Pub already). Kevin provides a detailed analysis of how to achieve the best use of your vote and the pitfalls associated with personal attempts to play funny buggers. Note, he addresses himself to all voters, that is how someone preferring any of the contenders will maximise their preferred likely outcome, and minimise unintended consequences.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/how-to-best-use-your-vote-in-new-senate.html
I’m taking up Puffy’s encouragement to post rather than lurk.
I guess at my advanced age I shouldn’t be surprised that Australian voters are gullible to simple messages. Yet it seems that even fifteen seconds reflection would find holes in the Turnbull/Morrison “plan” for the economy. “Where’s the meat” was Ronald Reagan’s devastating and fraudulent challenge to his Democrat opponent, Walter Mondale. It applies with absolute force to certain blue booklets.
How the coalition can profess to be providing future economic growth and jobs, when they’re gutting research (especially CSIRO), given how little Australian business undertakes research on its own account, is risible.
Equally it challenges logic that they can claim to have any regard for the future of the economy, when they are so blatantly disadvantaging the majority of students with their inadequate funding of education, which is then further tilted so blatantly against public education. That is before even considering their defective policies for further education – both university and TAFE.
I’m more interested in sport than may be considered healthy or appropriate. However, I find some compelling insights from the world of sport. A grave insult to any sports player is to announce that “He (she) talks a good game”, with its implication that the person under discussion fails to perform. The contemporary Liberals and Nationals represent a classic case of this phenomenon. The hopeless failure of the MSM (with some rare honorable exceptions) to call them out on this fatally weakens our democracy.
Good comment. Agreed
Someone needs to pdf this site before it disappears – the Liberal Party’s first statement on the Orlando shootings, in which no mention is made of the sexual orientation of the victims.
https://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2016/06/13/statement-orlando-attack
(I linked it earlier.)
The Liberal Party website has now changed their statement, after much criticism from just about everyone, to this –
https://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2016/06/13/statement-mass-shootings-orlando
The original is now available only through links posted earlier today, like the one here and the one at The Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2016/jun/13/australian-election-2016-labor-announces-more-funding-for-nbn-politics-live?page=with:block-575e1138e4b064f52e5fa15a#liveblog-navigation
It’s disgusting to think the Prime Minister of Australia was so desperate to make political points that he could not, at first, bring himself to mention the reason for the shooting. After being criticised by the MSM and by social media, and after Bill Shorten had the decency to extend sympathy to ‘people in the LGBTI community who who might be feeling additional pain’ Turnbull had to have another presser to get it right.
Fizza’s big con – promised $1 billion to ‘save the reef’, twice the amount Labor has promised, but it’s over twice the time of Labor’s plan, and it’s a loan, not real spending. It has to be paid back.
When you poke the Coalition’s Great Barrier Reef ‘rescue mission’ it crumbles
The plan will use $1bn of Clean Energy Finance Corporation funds for reef projects, diverting money allocated to fight climate change
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/13/when-you-poke-the-coalitions-great-barrier-reef-rescue-mission-it-crumbles?CMP=share_btn_tw
Not one journalist at Fizza’s presser to announce this con today bothered to ask about any of this, or about the reef. Not one.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2016/jun/13/australian-election-2016-labor-announces-more-funding-for-nbn-politics-live
In among the the Australian ‘gong’ list –
I’ve known him since I was about eight. Lost his marble’s now unfortunately.
A superb blast from the New Yorker at Trump and his comments on the Orlando shootings.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/donald-trumps-exploitation-of-orlando