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 
Teh Daily Mail (Murdoch) – there’s your problem!
Woofle dust, please – the link should be:
Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Plenty to consume today!
This brazen murder of an MP may represent a shocking development in the BREXIT debate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/birstall-shooting-labour-mp-jo-cox-shot-and-stabbed-in-her-office_uk_5762a330e4b08b9e3abde166?qmo8u5gb28xbw3ik9&utm_hp_ref=uk
Shorten needs to do something about the SDA!
http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/coles-nightfill-worker-takes-on-supermarket-giant-over-degrading-wage-deal-20160616-gpklzr.html
Stephen Jones unloads on his old school where sexual predators were free to roam.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mp-stephen-jones-says-sexual-predators-moved-freely-at-edmund-rice-college-in-the-1980s-20160616-gpl1s6.html
This disgraceful conduct by Medibank occurred under Cormann’s watch. And Cormann, of course, does an Arfur!
http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/medibank-accused-of-concealing-policy-changes-so-members-wouldnt-leave-accc-20160615-gpk555.html
It really was unconscionable behaviour as this example shows.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/medibank-customers-hope-to-get-their-money-back-with-acccs-help-20160616-gpkn6h.html
The AFR weighs in on Medibank “cynical and nasty” behaviour alleged by the ACCC. Google.
/opinion/columnists/medibank-cynical-and-nasty-if-the-accc-is-right-20160616-gpkhhm
Michelle Grattan on the latest evidence of shocking cruelty administered to some of our live exported cattle. Here’s a great chance for Barnably to make a fool of himself again.
https://theconversation.com/protections-for-australian-cattle-found-wanting-yet-again-61168
Our march towards the casualisation of labour continues under this government.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/election-2016-the-coalitions-employment-record-isnt-that-good-20160616-gpkwnw.html
Rob Burgess says that this disturbing trend towards “part time Australia” needs action.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/06/16/disenfranchisement-part-time-australia/
Peter Martin agrees and says that this government’s record on employment isn’t that crash hot.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/election-2016-the-coalitions-employment-record-isnt-that-good-20160616-gpkwnw.html
Will Waleed Aly succeed in goading Turnbull to appear on The Project?
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/06/16/cant-fob-aly-pushes-turnbull/
Section 2 . . .
The Liberals are scrambling in response to the uncovering of the Parakeelia scam.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-parakeelia-disclosure-failure-raises-questions-as-liberals-scramble-to-adjust-clerical-error-20160616-gpk8e3.html
Ben Eltham uses Parakeelia to call for a federal ICAC.
https://newmatilda.com/2016/06/16/parakeelia-privacy-and-the-need-for-a-federal-anti-corruption-body/
The ticking time bomb of vacant apartments.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/2016/06/14/apartment-glut-dangers/
It’s time for Shorten to aggressively play to Labor’s strengths.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/shorten-should-play-to-labors-strengths,9113
Laura Tingle thinks it’s all over for Labor. Google.
/news/politics/election/election-2016-out-of-money-out-of-puff-even-before-official-launches-20160616-gpkgra
Michelle Grattan wonders what will happen to Bill Shorten if Labor loses the election. She also wonders about what will happen for Abbott under that circumstance.
https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-if-labor-loses-what-happens-to-bill-shorten-61171
Trump has the traits of a child abuser and women know it!
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/trump-has-the-traits-of-a-wife-abuser-and-women-know-it,9115
The extreme ways through which the Russians defeated drug testing.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/2016/06/16/russia-drug-tests/
The Greens were forced to reverse its puzzling decision to preference the Fred Nile candidate over a gay, aboriginal Liberal candidate.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-sarah-hansonyoung-says-nsw-greens-decision-to-preference-fred-nile-is-a-mistake-20160616-gpkqjp.html
This Liberal candidate seems to have a class case of arseholeitis.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-liberal-candidate-chris-jermyn-may-have-broken-the-law-by-enrolling-with-phoney-address-20160615-gpjvna.html
Cracks are appearing in the solidarity of the Victorian volunteer CFA. It is possible that the volunteers’ association is fomenting the issue.
http://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace-relations/cfa-crisis-cracks-emerge-among-volunteer-firefighters-in-row-over-union-deal-20160616-gpkr18.html
Section 3 . . .
Richard Ackland has a go at serial meddler George Brandis. This interference with independence is a worrying development.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/16/george-brandis-has-a-history-of-meddling-with-independent-agencies-hes-at-it-again
Thanks Mr Potato Head for bringing up the possibility of an Abbott front bench return.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-peter-dutton-says-malcolm-turnbull-will-be-pressured-to-reinstate-tony-abbott-20160615-gpk5uv.html
Unaoil is fighting dirty over the Fairfax/Huffington Post revelations. It even went to the Murdoch press in one case.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/threats-and-spin-will-not-deter-us-from-reporting-on-unaoil-20160614-gpiztf.html
The Turnbull government appears criminally liable for Manus and Nauru.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-turnbull-government-appears-criminally-liable-for-manus-and-nauru,9114
Bob Katter – a disconnected dill!
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/16/bob-katter-orlando-shooting-watch-news
A great contribution of thanks from an expat American living here. I hope it gets syndicated through the US.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/thank-you-australia-20160615-gpjn0r.html
“Yep! Bob Katter, now is the perfect time for a pro-murder ad”, says “View from the Street”. Also he talks of Dutton resurrecting the ghost of Abbott. The odious Jermyn also comes under notice.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/view-from-the-street-yep-bob-katter-its-the-perfect-time-for-a-promurder-ad-20160616-gpkqg5.html
3AW’s Tom Elliot says we are now in the 21st century and it’s time that we ended the privileges bestowed upon religion. Google.
/news/opinion/tom-elliott/religion-doesnt-merit-privileges/news-story/cb534af156a227381db5b748e84d10e9
Section 4 . . . Cartoon Corner
Alan Moir has certainly got the government’s response to the plight of the Great Barrier Reef worked out.
Some cynical work from Ron Tandberg here.
OMG! This is a MUST SEE from David Pope about the final stage of the election campaign.
Excellent (and Appropriate) work from Mark Knight on the Bob Katter advertisement.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/0ee7b4cecc55250dd0b40cdd61f2330c?width=1024&api_key=zw4msefggf9wdvqswdfuqnr5
Just for reference here is some of the crap that The Australian and its captive cartoonist Bill Leak are up to.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/41075446da4b49a3bdc3946f68ed0604?width=1024
David Rowe and Shorten’s balls of steel.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/41075446da4b49a3bdc3946f68ed0604?width=1024
Here is the correct David Rowe balls of steel link.
There they all go, right on cue.
Laura Tingle says it’s all over for Labor.
Auntie Michelle wonders what will happen to Shorten after he loses the election.
And just for a bonus, Waleed Aly begs Fizza to appear on The Project – that wasn’t an ‘ambush’, as the New Daily claims. It was a booked, arranged interview with a camera crew and sound people and all their gear rocking up to do a live chat with Fizza on the pretext of talking about a Muslim event hosted by Fizza . Fizza needs to win over younger voters, so of course he will turn up on The Project again. It’s part of the plan, and Aly is a willing, very willing collaborator.
The MSM give me the shits. Pardon the unladylike language, a lady such as I should never use such words, but I’m cranky.
This is why Turnbull was slumming it at Kirribilli House last night.
http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/malcolm-turnbull-holds-first-iftar-dinner-for-ramadan-as-a-prime-minister-but-is-teased-on-nbn/news-story/9c2a32084efec897e4da6406dd870661
Note Waleed and his wife sitting next to Fizza. ‘Ambush’? Really?
(And of course Fizza wouldn’t know if K House has the NBN or not – he’s never there to use the internet.)
It’s clear the MSM, every member of the flock, have changed their theme. They have gone from squawking tripe about what Fizza needs to do to win and have moved on to squawling, in unison, ‘Shorten is toast’.
I’d ask why they refuse to do any policy analysis, but I already know. Fizza & Co have no policies – none that are good for the country, or will benefit the average voter, anyway.They can’t possibly talk about all the nasties Fizza and Scrott have ready to inflict on us all should the country be dumb enough to return them. Labor has policies, lots of them, more are announced every day, and they make the Coalition look very shabby and shifty. So the MSM restricts their discussion of Labor policies to ‘But where is the money coming from’.
A pox on the lot of them.
There was a lot of this in 2012 and 2013: when a win is a certainty, you don’t need to analyze policy, you just brace yourself and hope something wonderful happens.
Grattan was a major offender in this regard. I remember Shaun Carney being right up there in the winner’s circle, too.
We are certainy up against the hard edge of resistance. Chipping away at the topsoil with a mallet was OK until now, but we need a jackhammer now that we’ve hit harder rock. Doesn’t need much, just a percent or so.
Josh Frydenberg is not the only Liberal MP blatantly declaring sponsorship by real estate agents.
Kelly O’Bigmouth is at it too.
Government Ministers Are Appearing On Real Estate “For Sale” Signs
https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/for-sale-negative-gearing?utm_term=.ciL3vzpqv#.rsm6QRa8Q
Thanks to @SirThomasWynne
I told youse about Waleed Aly, didn’t I?
Yes, you did BB. I still recall Aly doing slots on ABC Radio – not sure if he ever had his own timeslot but I remember him filling in for others. Sounded like a lightweight at the time, shaking his fist at the little things but consistently bland on the policy approach stuff. He’s got a lot in common with Di Natale, in that he thinks he can get good things done by working in collaboration with the Liberals while still presenting as a maverick.
My suspicion is not so much that he’s a fanboi as that he’s an idealist who thinks that the only way to get things done is to make friends with and try to get in the ear of the Powers That Be. But that his idea of idealism is a vague and populist one. Rant a lot about what you believe in but trade it all for a bit of time siting in the big chairs.
I told youse about him ages ago too.
He has said some intelligent things, especially on domestic violence, but he has always been a right wing shill and always will be. It’s pretty obvious he’d like a political career, and it’s obvious which party he would go with if an offer was made.
Once again spot on, Leone
“I told youse about him ages ago too.”
So did I.
I tried to do the ‘Waleed is interesting’ thing to be fair, but he has lived down to my initial opinion of him.
The polls didn’t change but the reportage did. All of it. On a dime. Nah, that’s not suss, not suss at all. You can tell it’s all a sham because they’ve shifted from the micro to the macro. All the individual parts of the landscape, taken singly, look horrible for the Turnbull government. They can’t claim a win on any one issue by itself. They can’t quote any one poll and use it to say “look, we’re comfortably ahead”, The narrative is strewn with no-go areas, from NBN to Manus to Parakeelia to Turnbull’s sinking approval ratings to budget deficits to employment figures to the obvious reluctance of Turnbull to face questions from the electorate to… well, everything. So the media have just collectively shaken their heads and said, “let’s just forget all that, Turnbull is going to win and that’s all way need to know, now let’s look at the consequences of that happening.”
Head in the sand stuff.
I’m still calling it a gambit. One of those “let’s just try this for a few days and see if it shifts the polls” ideas.
Katharine Murphy is on The Guardian today and is being her usual self. Forget about decent reporting. (Where’s Gabrielle Chan when you need her? Sigh)
Here:
Seven days ago. Turnbull calling the election as a knife-edge proposition seven days ago. No polling since then has gone his way.
Fizza’s ‘Look at me, I’m just so wonderful, having dinner with Muslims’ stunt has not gone down well.
No-one, left or right, likes the fact a Muslim imam well known for his hatred of gays was invited. This is typical of the ‘he should have known better’ comment.
https://startsat60.com/stories/news/malcolm-turnbull-has-dinner-with-hateful-islamic-preacher
The right-wing nut jobs hate the whole idea. Andrew Bolt was very annoyed, and and for once, I have to agree with him on one thing. This event was staged and the seating arranged to add a bit of lustre to the tarnished Turnbull image.
At the same time Bill Shorten was attending a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting.
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/06/17/06/00/bill-shorten-throws-support-behind-lgbti-community-at-melbourne-vigil
Allegations of dirty work in Corangamite.
ABCmew24 just cut away from the RSPCA presser about the cruel killing of the cattle in indonesia to one by Turnbull and some other twat.
The RSPCA chap was calling for the suspension of the live animal trade right now and long term to replace live animal trade with frozen and chilled meat.
I know which presser I was more interested in and if the industry-friendly body like the RSPCA are calling for an end to live animal trade then things must be bad or there has been a change of direction in the leadership of the RSPCA.
The killing of the Labour politician in the UK is shocking and dreadful. I am waiting for more news as to the motive. A politician, a woman, a left winger, and or someone in the public eye should be safe from being killed. Otherwise society is broken.
My condolences to her family, friends and colleagues and to the UK parliament and people.
While there will be other contributing factors, this is what happens when “leaders” in society (political, religious etc) use divisive hate filled rethoric to further their own narrow interests… and moderates/media let them get away with it…
excellent editorial from the Guardian on Jo Cox, and the other one is along similar lines…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/16/the-guardian-view-on-jo-cox-an-attack-on-humanity-idealism-and-democracy?CMP=share_btn_tw
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/16/america-gun-laws-brexit-fear
Oops, the cattle were inhumanely killed in Vietnam, not Indonesia.
Puff
Doesn’t matter where, it should be stopped. Indonesia is expanding its own cattle industry, soon they won’t need our beef. There is more long term economic benefit in establishing more abatoirs in Aus for frozen exports. Would ensure our animal welfare standards are met and provide jobs, esp in nthn Aus.
Yes, I totally agree. I totally oppose lib\ve export, both as an animal welfare issue and on economic/jobs grounds.
Live export
I just can’t understand why we need to export live animals. I understand the need for killing to be done in ways that suit differing markets, but can’t that killing be done here, under supervision by clerics from whatever religion is needed, and the meat shipped out frozen, or even flown fresh?
Farmers still sell their animals, but we don’t have the horrors that go with live exports.
“I understand the need for killing to be done in ways that suit differing markets,”
I don’t even understand THAT. and I don’t necessarily trust fully OUR abattoirs.
Money. Easy money. Everyone along the chain makes it. Our mega cattle conglomerates with 2nd rate cattle in sparse country, bred to be lightweight on boats and fattened up or not at the other end, shipping companies, local honchos, meat processors, local meat suppliers who get their 20 divertef head of cattle from whomever right down to the stall holder. Nice big earner that.
Waffles is reallly struggling in his presser over question about the dinner. (I have not read up on it yet but it sounds like he put his foot in a pile of doggy doo again.)
Gee, Barnyard steps in to change the subject and rescue waffles. when you have to be rescued by Joyce you are doing baaaad,
Turnbull typically blames the APS …
If Fizza has felt it necessary to travel to Page, on the far north coast of NSW, with Barnaby in tow, then that tells me Barnaby and the local Nats member are both in deep trouble. Page looks like going back to Labor. It’s marginal National, Janelle Saffin lost it for Labor in 2013, but since then there has been a substantial local campaign against CSG, which should have a big effect on votes.
Having Mr Inbred Tomato prancing around the electorate with Fizza isn’t going to win many votes. He will just remind voters of the Nationals’ links to mining and gas companies.
Loon Pond is back after a brief deferment due to Malware problems not altogether unfamiliar to me in Portland. In a catch-up post she manages to give the holy Greens a well-earned kick
https://loonpond.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/day-88-of-muc-and-day-41-of-moc-and.html#.V2NR_LWPDR0
Brandis in more trouble.. its in the afr so you might need to google…
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/george-brandis-challenged-by-justin-gleeson-20160616-gpktum
And he deserves to be.
Saw this on my travels in wet Canberra today the ego of the man a slap down needed asap https://postimg.org/image/m1nxg8dg9/
Here’s one that Bilko posted over the road.
Messages seems to be: “Just get used to the sound of thr words…”:
https://postimg.org/image/itjg36r6h/
thanks BB the wider viewing the better
They are all over Tuggeranong side by side with posters of rwnj and lazy turd Zed… if I wasn’t in aps would do some “community service roadside litter removal”!
Most times both placards are together but at times, it’s only Turnbull. Shows how much faith Zed has in his chances – I’d love to see him get kicked out. I even heard that there is a vacant spot in the ACT Lib ticket for the election later this year (just in case) – but that might just be a rumour.
Every day in every way …
Liberal Party Treasurer, Waffles, knew nothing …
Tlbd
It’s like the whole party has been on a ‘I don’t recall’ training course.
Fizza, today –
“And I say again, Medicare will never be privatised”
That reminds me of this cast-iron promise.
We all know what happened next. You just can’t trust the bastards.
Malcolm looks a little vexed. As in ‘how did I end up on a stage with this dickhead’.
Leone
Loved your rant this morning, you should do it more often.
Aguirre
Talking of polls, the ‘election’ has been going over 6 weeks now, and polls are scarcer than hen’s teeth. In 2010-2013 the polls were coming at us fast and furious every day.
There’s an IPSOS tonight, apparently.
But at any rate, they can’t get away with telling us the election is all over if they have polls contradicting them every time. We seem to be getting more betting agencies than pollsters being quoted at the moment.
Over the road it’s suggested we’ll get 4 in the next 4 or 5 days.
Just reading this & a few other sites after several days away.
My sorrowful opinion is that the nation & the media will simply refuse to admit they made a really, really big mistake in 2013 & will vote accordingly. Too many of them anyway. After the all fronts debacle that’s been the last three years of government, the premature inflicting of an election on a premise so flimsy it’s difficult to recall what it was, I’m stunned to hear people talking not positively but tolerantly of this government.
If the coalition get back, then that’s enough for them. Aguirre often writes here about their almost total paucity of policy & talent for governance but they don’t care, apart from implementing their master’s wishes. Which they’ll do in order to retain their support. It’ll be like the game of Red Rover that was (is?) played in school, the ones that got across will be happy & that’s all they’ll care about.
But this doesn’t stop me hating the media. Don’t watch Sky but reckon the ABC’s worse than the commercials.
P.S.
Congratulations to those who watched Kitchen Cabinet. You’re braver than me.
Re reading my post there it seems to go against most of what’s written here- hope you’re right & I’m not.
Predominantly I think most people just aren’t interested enough in changing- the hatchet job done on Labor by Abbott & the media, mostly the media without whose aid Abbott would’ve got nowhere, was a good one. The coalition’s not liked but neither’s anyone else. Mostly the nation wants to concentrate on Masterchef.
I just hope it starts paying a bit of attention in the next week.
Oh goodness!
Another ‘we wuz so poor’ myth busted.
‘Battler’ Turnbull’s family income in the 1950s was 7 times the average
http://stopturnbull.com/battler-turnbulls-family-income-in-1950s-was-7-times-average/
Four Yorkshire men …
Friday Post