Taken at the Flood?

Guest Author Uncategorized

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.

Dollars

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.

The Frog That Jumped

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.

SIEVX

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.

Fairfax

“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…

Al Jazeera

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.

Finnigans

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.

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490 thoughts on “Taken at the Flood?”

  1. ABC Classics FM have just dedicated Fauré’s Requiem (just starting) to Orlando, FL.

  2. I am wondering how much the terrible shooting in Orlando will the LNP exploit.
    I fear they will try and make this another Tampa/children overboard issue.
    National security issues will no doubt ramp up from tommorow.

  7. Hayden Dalziel for New Matilda –

    Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the 2016 Mardi Gras. Malcolm Turnbull Is Trying to Turn Queerphobia Into Islamophobia

    The worst aspect of Turnbull subtly stoking the fire of Islamophobic sentiment is the sheer hypocrisy of such a man continuing to sell himself as a Queer-friendly Liberal

    https://newmatilda.com/2016/06/13/malcolm-turnbull-is-trying-to-turn-queerphobia-into-islamophobia/

    Hayden Dalziel is a queer artist, writer and Co-editor of Pelican Magazine at the University of Western Australia.

    • One of the first things The Rodent did and my mein got has the effect lingered ever since was stack each and every government board and body with the “right” people. Even the GG were !!! at the degree he went to. abo should return serve for sure. Take no prisoners

  9. We are currently governed by a Malarchy .

    Malarchy n. Rule by Sydney Harbourside mansions.
    adjective. Malarcky [məˈlɑːki] .informal meaningless talk; nonsense

  12. Feline report from Rotorua in Maoriland. Rotorua is geyser, mudpool central and most houses uses the thermal energy for heating. Heck drive along the roads and you will see steam coming out of cracks in the road. Oh and an alt. name is “Rottenrua” . The hydrogen sulphide pong is pervasive and smellable withing 50km ……at least.

    As soon as winter kicks in a neighbour’s cat beats the cold weather by sitting outdoors on the thermal heating pipes.”

    • ‘The problem with the Howie hagi|og¦raphy re his gun laws is that Australian gun deaths had been on a downward trajectory for decades Post the laws the trajectory continued .

  17. in sa we are just seeing the start of qanda on abc. bill just put jones back in his box and totally ignored him to answer straight to the audience member.

  18. Oh Dear!

    Federal election 2016: Shock poll result for Kelly O’Dwyer. Is Higgins the ‘Indi of 2016’?

    Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer is under siege from Greens candidate Jason Ball in the once-safe Liberal seat of Higgins, with the latest poll revealing her primary vote has collapsed to just 44.1 per cent

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-shock-poll-result-for-kelly-odwyer-higgins-looms-as-indi-of-2016-20160613-gphv3z.html#ixzz4BSf1LFGz

  20. It’s going to be bloody hard for me to watch this program ever again after this evenings offering!

    Bill Shorten has gone so far up in my estimation after this, it’s not funny.

    Go Labor! Piss off Tony Jones!

  21. Come on you bastards, and you Jones bastard, hit Bill with what you have got, go the full bodyline. He will do you like a burnt sausage.

  22. Puffy, thank dog it’s not just me that’s gone close to catching fire at the shockingly biased moderation of this by Jones tonight.

    They have no shame these bastards! Not only that, they don’t seem to care either. Their protection against any potential blow-back must be so well guaranteed by the RW conservatives that they couldn’t give a rats what the likes of us think about their support of the LNP.

  23. Bill has really grown into his position. I used to think that anyone that took over from Julia would have a hard time filling the shoes that she wore. Not any more.

  25. Has anyone kept count of the number of Tony Jones’ interruptions? If someone watches a repeat it would be a worthy subject of investigation:
    Research Design: Number of interruptions; total time devoted to TJ interruptions; total time Bill Shorten spoke; number of questions answered; time taken by questioners. Supplementary question: How many (and what proportion of Shorten’s answers proceeded without the moderator’s intervention?

    Excellent performance by Shorten, confirms why Turnbull doesn’t want to go head-to-head with him in front of a live audience.

  26. JFC, did Bill totally pwn Jones or what!

    Almost called him a government stooge and did call him a gotcha merchant.

    The audience was generous with its applause.

    Next week it’s the turn of whatshisname.

  27. Goodness how you can be so constrained, Puffy after watching that.

    I was shouting out words beginning with that naughty “F” word & I am sure they could hear me over the road.

    Either the likes of Jones think we don’t notice their shocking bias, or they just don’t care, is something that is not easily explained!

    But it makes me catch fire. Bloody ABC!

  28. Jones would have used about 2 minutes saying “let’s move on” when just asking for the next question would have done.

    Any decent human being would have been shamed by Bill but not Jones, insensitive little toad so up himself.

  29. How The Guardian told me to steer clear of Palestine

    I have decided to make my frustrating encounters with The Guardian public after reading the diatribe it published last week by Daniel Taub, Israel’s ambassador to the UK. Taub uses a quotation attributed to Golda Meir, Israel’s prime minister from 1969 to 1974, to hit back at aid agencies who accuse Israel of impeding Gaza’s reconstruction: “We will only have peace when our enemies love their children more than they hate ours.”

    The inference that Palestinians hate Israelis more than they love their children is a racist caricature brilliantly demolished by Rafeef Ziadah in her poem “We teach life, Sir.” Yet, according to Taub, Meir’s words represent a “bitter truism.”

    The Comment is Free section of The Guardian, where Taub’s nasty rant appears, is now overseen by Jonathan Freedland, a liberal Zionist. I contacted Freedland to enquire if he approved Taub’s article for publication.

    Freedland referred my message to the paper’s “media enquiries” unit. A spokesperson, who did not give his or her name, replied by email that Comment is Free “hosts hundreds of discussions every month on a wide range of topics across the entire political and ideological spectrum.”

    “We receive a huge amount of submissions for articles and aim to publish a plurality of voices from all over the world,” the spokesperson added. “Naturally, not all of these voices reflect The Guardian’s own editorial position.”

    https://off-guardian.org/2016/06/12/how-the-guardian-told-me-to-steer-clear-of-palestine/

    • A very ABC-type response, in the days I used to bother complaining.

      I have no problem with their posting stuff like Fredman’s but they do need to put front and centre what he is.

    • Not the first time he has used that. I wonder why!

      Rhinohide totally ignored it and kept on interrupting.

  31. The Theft of Innocence: Voluntourism and Child Sexual Abuse:

    The cases involving Durham, Wood and Harris all raise a number of questions regarding “voluntourism”, access to vulnerable children in non-Western countries, the automatic trust possessed by foreigners from the West and the role of governments in each story.

    In the case of pilot Simon Wood, British Airways allowed him to access vulnerable children despite being aware of the allegation against him involving indecent assault of an 8-year-old girl in the UK. Simon Harris was known to British authorities for years yet was able to travel to Kenya unmonitored. In Durham’s case, he was able to leave Kenya and travel back to America following his confession. Surely Kenyan authorities should have acted as soon as they were notified about the charges?

    Furthermore, no extradition application was made in any of these cases, a failure on the part of the British and Kenyan Governments (and, in the case of Wood, the Ugandan and Tanzanian authorities too for failing to make British Airways act).

    Another question is whether all three men benefitted from “white privilege”. Did this contribute to them having access to vulnerable children and obtaining a level of trust which delayed the discovery of their crimes? In many non-Western countries foreigners from the West, particularly those that are white, experience privilege through receiving preferential treatment in public places such as hotels and restaurants and being given priority over members of the local population.

    https://mediadiversified.org/2016/03/10/the-theft-of-innocence-voluntourism-and-child-sex-abuse/

  32. Tony Jones was truly awful…. and rude.

    The one that stuck in my head was when Bill said he had a list of spending measures. Jones said, “It looks like a long list.”

    Shorten replied “I’ll get through it quickly.”

    Jones said, “No. Just read the top few.”

    No “please”, or “can I suggest”… he just barked out an order to Shorten. Jones would not DREAM of speaking like that to a Liberal leader, and if he did he would probably be censured for it and forced to apologize on air.

    The tone of voice that Jones adopts lately shows that he really does think he’s better than his guests or his audience. The hubris has exploded his head.

  33. Bill took all Jones’s crap in his stride.

    His background as a negotiator is truly awesome: he could chew up Jones and spit him out as I would a date.

  39. eJames,

    That is a really interesting question. Unfortunately, I will have to postpone consideration until after tomorrow’s exam.

  42. Landmark boycott victory as G4S says it is leaving Israel

    G4S, one of the world’s biggest security and imprisonment firms, has announced it plans to end all its business with Israel within the next 12 to 24 months.

    Palestinians are welcoming the news as a major victory and a sign of the powerful impact of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

    But they also warn that pressure on the company must continue until it has actually ended its role in Israel’s violations of the rights of Palestinians, especially thousands languishing in Israel’s prisons.

    The announcement makes G4S the latest multinational company – following transport and municipal services firm Veolia, telecom giant Orange and construction materials conglomerate CRH – to head for the exits in the wake of sustained campaigns by the BDS movement.

    https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/landmark-boycott-victory-g4s-says-it-leaving-israel

  44. Last night’s terrorist worked for G4S:

    Mateen, whose parents are from Afghanistan, was born in New York but lived in an apartment in Fort Pierce, Florida, more than 100 miles from Orlando, officials said. Officials said today he purchased two weapons, a handgun and “long gun,” just in the past few days. Law enforcement sources said the weapons used the attacker were a Glock 17 handgun and an AR-style semi-automatic rifle.

    Officials said Mateen had two firearms licenses — a security officer license and a statewide firearms license -– both set to expire in September 2017. Mateen worked for the security firm G4S since 2007, the company said, adding that it is cooperating fully with law enforcement.

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/omar-mateen-suspected-orlando-night-club-shooter/story?id=39790797

  46. G4S Says Omar Mateen Was Subject To “Detailed Screening”:

    As we first reported yesterday, one of the big surprises to emerge from the background of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, was that he was an employee of UK’s G4S, the world’s largest security company (by revenue), whose corporate logo is “security your world.” As we further reporter, a curious observation here is that according to Judicial Watch, the very same G4S had been the company contracted by the US Department of Homeland Security to transport “Other than Mexican” illegal immigrants away from the Mexican border, onward to Phoenix where in many cases they would be released without proper processing or the issuance of court appearance documents.

    While G4S’s role in facilitating illegal immigration – with the encouragement of the US government – is yet to be probed, overnight G4S released a statement according to which the gunman “was subject to detailed company screening when he was recruited in 2007 and re-screened in 2013 with no adverse findings.” This explains why despite his various encounters with the FBI, and potentially with US jihadists, such as the first US-born Syrian suicide bomber, he managed to buy weapons just last week, prompting many to wonder just how ineffective the US gun purchasing background check system may be.

    Here is the full statement from G4S:

    Omar Mateen was employed by G4S at a residential community in South Florida and was off-duty at the time of the incident. Mateen was subject to detailed company screening when he was recruited in 2007 and re-screened in 2013 with no adverse findings. He was also subject to checks by a U.S. law enforcement agency with no findings reported to G4S

    G4S is providing its full support to all law enforcement authorities in the USA as they conduct their investigations.

    Meanwhile, a skeptical market has pushed the stock of G4S plc down 5.5% in UK trading, perhaps anticipating a firestorm of Congressional hearings in which the company will be forced to explain just how this could happen.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-13/orlando-shooters-employer-says-he-was-subject-detailed-screening

  47. Frustrations of Telling the Truth — Paul Craig Roberts

    Some examples: If I criticize the Israeli government for abusing Palestinians and stealing their country, the Israel Lobby accuses me of being an anti-semite who wants to repeat the holocaust. In the same batch of emails, anti-semites denounce me for being too easy on Israel and covering up for the Jewish conspiracy against mankind.

    When I write about the One Percent using the government to loot the economy, I receive emails blaming me because I worked for Reagan “who started it all by cutting tax rates for the rich.”
    These people have no conception of supply-side economics, its purpose, success, and the way it prepared the way for Reagan to negotiate the end of the Cold War. At one point in their lives they read a left-wing screed against Reagan, and that is the extent of their understanding. But they are full of blind hate.

    When I write about Washington’s crimes against other countries, I receive emails asking me where I was during Iran-Contra and Grenada. Apparently, they think that a Treasury official can run the State Department and Pentagon. Some of the readers are so confused that they think Reagan overthrew Allende in Chile. Alllende was overthrown in 1973. Reagan was inaugurated in 1981. It is dispiriting that there actually are people this ignorant and so proud of it that they will accuse me of helping Reagan to overthrow Allende.

    When I point out the dangers of the reckless folly of Washington’s aggressions against Russia, China, and the independent Muslim world, superpatriots denounce me for being anti-American. There is a stratum of the US population that thinks that it is a criminal act to disbelieve the government or to question its judgment and motives. “You are with us or against us.”

    When I document the death of the US Constitution and the rise of the American Police State,
    “law and order” conservatives admonish me that the police state only appies to terrorists and criminals and does not apply to law abiding citizens. They are convinced that Snowden and Assange are traitors, and no amount of evidence or reason can convince them otherwise. Neither can they be convinced that in the 21st century, law has become a weapon in the hands of government and no longer is a shield of the people. The Rule of Law in America is dead.

    All of my life I have confronted the vast bulk of humanity living in a false reality created by self-serving powerful interest groups and the government that they control. People believe the lies that define their reality, because they lack the education and the emotional and intellectual strength to confront the obvious lies.

    Every truth-teller confronts this barrier every day of his or her life. Every truth-teller wishes he/she could force red pills down the throat of the population. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE7PKRjrid4

    In American today there is nothing true that you can say that does not result in a heaving of abuse. The safe course is to repeat all the lies that come out of Washington and the presstitute media.

    To go against the Matrix, you need all of the superpowers of The One.

    I have a few of them. If readers will support their site, it will continue.

    http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/06/11/frustrations-of-telling-the-truth-paul-craig-roberts/

  48. Bill did well last night when pitching to his base. But one element of the event disturbs me. It’s Bill’s response to questions from the small biz sector.

    When one questioner remarked that there are many husband and wife operations with a turnover of above $2m, it was apparant to me that the term “turnover” is causing massive confusion to small business, and all those others who are listening to this debate from the sidelines.

    Turnover is NOT the amount of gross money going through a business’ cash register. It is the the gross pre-tax profit, ie profit AFTER normal operating expenses. After paying these normal overheads, a business makes a “profit”, which is then subject to tax deductions of all sorts, and then, finally, tax itself.

    Bill let this muddling understanding of what constitutes “turnover” completely slide by.

    He should have pointed out also that a large proportion of small businesses aren’t subject to any tax cut at all even under the liberals’ plan, since these cuts only apply to incorporated entities.

    He should have pointed out the many benefits in Labor’s small-biz offering that aren’t matched by the libs: such as the help being given to small biz operators to incorporate, the National Business Names registration service which removes requirement for small biz to register in multiple jurisdictions, the online standard reporting plan, the streamlined credit reporting plan for biz to access their credit information, the Australian Small Biz Advisory Service to help small biz talk to banks and prepare loan applications, the instant asset write off, the tax loss carry back, the plan to help sole traders incorporate..

    For entities with gross profit up to $2m, Labor’s small biz policy is actually the superior package. I’m sorry to say Bill missed an opportunity here.

    • Turnover is an accounting term that calculates how quickly a business collects cash from accounts receivable or how fast a company sells its stock-in-trade. It can also be the percentage of a portfolio sold in a particular period.

      The term is also largely used to represent “sales” or “takings” in a particular period.before expenses.

  49. Not able to watch Q$A for many years, just happened to ‘channel surf’ onto it tonight and was quite transfixed by how well Our Bill was doing. Jones will have to work hard with Turdball to not look biased, methinks.

  50. So glad to read here that I wasn’t the only one a bit wowed by Bill last night. Also swearing at jones must have been happening in many homes. Even the audience applauded when Bill pulled him up a couple of times. I found most of the questions were chosen to try and trip Bill up, but he left most questioners satisfied with his response.

    I made myself stay awake to watch, and so pleased I did. I can make up for it next week with not bothering to watch q&a again for a long time.

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