Urbanwronski continues his clinical evisceration of Fizza’s Wunderkinder Turnbull’s ‘gummint’. Many thanks as always, sir.
In a death-defying acrobatic routine in Canberra this week, the nation’s lame duck PM performs an astonishing back-flip on the high-wire without a safety net in a Coalition Circus show-stopper before a three week break in the slow trick bicycle race that is the 45th Parliament. Pantomime legend, funny money man Treasurer Scott Morrison kids audiences along that his government is not breaking an election promise.
Breaking Turnbull’s “absolutely iron-clad campaign pledge” on superannuation law changes to suit the top one per cent at the expense of poorer retirees is just responsible government. It mirrors Tony Abbott’s “good government” which honoured his promise of no changes to health and education by delivering cuts of $80 billion after a landslide victory.
Its super backdown competes with news this week of Morrison’s failure as Minister for Immigration to notice a contractor add $1.1 billion to its tender to run the gulag on Nauru and Manus when his department suspended public service tender rules in face of our imminent invasion by waves of dole-bludging job-stealing, illiterate immigrants, as Peter Dutton loves to remind us. A confected emergency is ScoMo’s normal operating environment.
“…When you’re in government you have to solve problems, you have to work issues and you’ve got to get to conclusions and that’s what we’ve done today…” explains the Ming dynasty worthy Morrison who demolishes other considerations such as principle, honesty and integrity with effortless ease and more than a dash of self-parody. No-one mentions the massive problem his PM’s double whatsit created in the senate, Manus Island, his NBN or the four banks who hold the country to ransom under government protection. Arch pragmatist Robert Menzies would be proud.
News of Turnbull’s astonishing stunt, naturally earns thunderous applause from high income earners and is the finale to a four day extravaganza which includes omnibus billing, more flogging of dead horse Dastyari, the plebiscite dance marathon and the mother of all fool’s errands, a race to praise Malcolm’s first year as PM.
Not to be outbid in the absurdity stakes, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton pledges to take Australia’s “good UN story” on refugees to the UN next Monday. He recycles the canard that we lead the world in refugee resettlement reprising the old lie that Australia takes the most refugees per capita of any country in the world, so favoured by his idol Tony Abbott.
The lie misrepresents our role in the UNHCR resettlement programme, which takes only 1% of the world’s estimated fifteen million refugees, as evidence that we lead the world in resettling all refugees. It wilfully obscures the 1577, including children, we currently imprison indefinitely in detention centres including on Christmas Island, and the 1296 incarcerated on Nauru and Manus Island. Worse, Dutton’s lie implies that these are not genuine refugees.
“We don’t just provide a refuge, we guide people into a new life; a safe, healthy and hopefully a happy life, ” Dutton boasts in The Australian. “Our humanitarian programmes have helped tens of thousands.” The two thousand incidents of abuse exposed in The Guardian’s recent release of reports by officials on Nauru clearly don’t count.
Nor do those 30 asylum seekers Dutton has put on Christmas Island to enjoy the company of 200 of what the Border Supremo calls “some of the country’s most hardened criminals” at the discretion of the Minister who applies his character test. Two Brigidine sisters report not happiness but fear and despair on the island. “What we witnessed was a group of men utterly without hope, almost all of them broken human beings,” they tell Fairfax Media this week.
Our cruelty is not only wrong it is expensive. This week sees both a Save the Children and a UNICEF report reveal off-shore detention has cost us $9.6 billion since 2013 – more than the UNHCR’s total global budget for programs this year. The reports coincide with an Audit Office report that puts the cost per detainee at $1570 per day or enough to put each asylum-seeker up in a Hyatt hotel and pay them the pension fifteen times over, calculates Fairfax’s Peter Martin.
The Audit Office report shows that not only did the Coalition government breach public service tender guidelines, it created a false sense of emergency to allow it to dispense with proper procedures permitting the successful contractor to add an extra $1.1 billion to its bid without facing any counter-bid. The department of Immigration kept this additional premium secret from then Immigration Minister Scott Morrison who was also not told of the price per head.
Also kept secret is Malcolm Turnbull’s own donation to his party campaign war chest made in the second half of the eight week election campaign although he has volunteered that he chipped in $2 million rather than the $1 million originally reported. It is still a good investment should he last three years. Turnbull is the only PM in Australian political history to have bought his own mandate but, oddly, no-one brings this up as his greatest achievement.
Indeed, Coalition MPs appear challenged to find any achievement at all to mark The PM’s first year in office. Most instead settle on competing to tell the most outrageous lie while an oleaginous Josh Frydenberg admits his boss has been “a good friend of mine” before praising him as ” a very successful Prime Minister.”
A rising conga line of suck-holes is utterly upstaged, however, by George Brandis, a toad in pinstripes, who puffs his pal Malcolm into the equal of Sir Robert “and the great John Howard;” “one of the great Australian prime ministers”, praise so nauseatingly unwarranted, so patently untrue that even Howard The Great must set the sycophant straight.
“I think those sort of comparisons at this stage in Malcolm’s career are a bit unfair and premature,” Howard tells ABC radio. Fresh from recording his own two part ABC hagiography on his idol and fellow philistine, Pig Iron Bob, helpfully scheduled this Sunday, Howard is quick to cut Turnbull off at the knees. “The most immediate thing he can do in emulating Menzies is to successfully go to an election with a majority of only one and increase his majority.”
Ouch!. No matter how bad it gets Malcolm is still the leader, team player George Christensen ventures helpfully.
Others outside the parliamentary party also see Turnbull as a fizza. A D+ is awarded by 50 business leaders, former Liberal politicians, academics, economists, administrators, lawyers and lobbyists who grade the PM for the AFR Weekend. Turnbull has failed to translate our joyous excitement over his rolling of Abbott into any action at all. Nor has he hung on to that surge of popularity. Even Newspoll reports that what it coyly terms satisfaction levels with the Prime Minister are down six percentage points to 34 per cent since the July 2 election.
Yet there is no shortage of vacuous, self-interested puffery from Liberal MPs to inflate the PM’s party balloon this week.
“This Turnbull Coalition government has much to do and much to get on with — indeed, that is the business of government. We get on with it,” pronounces maiden Liberal Senator Jane Hume in a gesture of utter absurdity. As her 18th Century namesake David Hume advised, a wise woman proportions her belief to the evidence.
Senator Hume, a former bank manager who currently works for a superannuation fund, with absolutely no conflicts of interest, wins biggest whopper in a week of lies and desperate dissembling. The Coalition government has nothing to do and less to go on with. There is not even an agenda for the senate, Monday. Everything grinds to a halt forcing Liberal Senators to filibuster, fidget or even pedal backwards as they frantically try to stay in the saddle until Question Time.
Government senators pad out their speeches to twenty minutes to stretch things until Question Time. Bridget McKenzie back-handedly grabs a chance to call Nigel Scullion a “deep thinker” despite appearances and to praise a colleague from Tullarook but the National Senator can’t recall his name or place, “Andrew, it will come to me she says.” Party amnesiac, Arthur Sinodinos grins infectiously. George Brandis government leader in the senate is, once again, missing in action.
What follows is strangely edifying. Whilst having senators speak without prompt or preparation produces some of the most tedious, trivial if not excruciatingly inept speechifying in history, it also provides a privileged peek into a government upper house consciousness unsullied by thought, reflection or wretched talking point. In this space also, Pauline Hanson makes the second maiden speech of her career, calling for Muslims this time, to go back to where they came from. This is our country, our land our lifestyle, she says. “Take advantage of our freedom” and leave.
Greens senators stage a walkout yet Michaelia Cash embraces the One Nation leader to remind all of Turnbull’s one true legacy, a cross bench of misbegotten populist monsters. While One Nation owes its much of its revival to the PM’s double dissolution fiasco, its members also faithfully reflect the way the Liberal Party continues Howard’s tradition of gleefully dog-whistling up the bigoted, the racist and xenophobic amongst us to achieve its political agenda.
George Megalogenis in Australia’s Second Chance traces migrant bashing to 1840 when Horse Tray Yah was threatened by 4000 orphan girls, economic migrants seeking asylum from persecution and Ireland’s Great Famine. Since then it’s been the turn of other groups to be vilified and persecuted, as Annabel Crabb cheerily notes in The Age as if the idea that this too will pass may somehow comfort or compensate victims of state sanctioned abuse. Or right any wrong.
Helping any who may misread Ms Cash’s public embrace of Pauline Hanson, gorgeous George Christensen, Dawson Pauline-whisperer is quick to tell the Australian that Hanson’s views are “largely those of the Liberal Party rank and file.” It emerges that George arranged a cosy deal with Pauline not to stand a One Nation candidate against him in the last election. Julie Bishop also endorses former Liberal Hanson, cutely saying she does “not agree with all” of Pauline’s views.
Cory barnyard Bernardi is off to New York to observe the UN a body which he, too, along with One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts has called “unelected and unaccountable.” If Cory’s not in bed with One Nation, he’s smoking the same stuff.
Like One Nation Pokémon Malcolm Roberts, Bernardi fears we are “outsourcing aspects of our national sovereignty to unaccountable foreign organisations like the United Nations,” or the Chinese or else hordes of alien invaders from the planet Zorg. Bernardi will be right at home in New York where wacky is normal but surely he will need to be recalled when the party’s Turnbull experiment is blown up by Abbott’s marriage plebiscite time bomb.
Neither Bernardi nor Christensen will have to cross the floor, however, because the Labor party won’t play the game on a plebiscite which was less about seeking the will of the Australian people than about the rat cunning of a Tony Abbott desperate to defeat the do-gooders in his own party room. But what’s a broad church without a narrow, rigid and remote pontifex?
In the interim, national discourse is drowned by disingenuous drivel from right wingers who pretend that government funding to both sides is some sort of equaliser.
The same dangerous nonsense is buried in the clamour of Bernardi’s band wagon to repeal 18 C of the racial discrimination and vilification act and his crusade against safe schools. He and Leyonhjelm certainly know better although the less said about the rest of Turnbull’s freak show of a cross bench the better.
What matters is power. Funding those who already enjoy immense wealth and power is no way to promote anything but bullying and the more effective dissemmination of hate speech. Stripping away safeguards for the vulnerable, the disadvantaged and the marginalised in order to add further to the power of ruling classes is no way to achieve social harmony – or democracy. If only like the PM everyone were rich enough to fund their own campaign.
Luckily our PM has never been too shy to blow his own trumpet. Malcolm Bligh Turnbull has been quick this week to point out what an incredible asset he is to the nation with his genius for economic management. He takes full credit for rubbery figures suggesting business is booming. Like Arthur Sinodinos we must all put out of our minds all memory of the Reserve Bank lowering interest rates to boost a flagging economy or of wages flat-lining for three years at least. If we are not technically in recession we need to have a hard look at the way we measure it.
Our leaders want us to applaud the ABS. Crippled by funding cutbacks, a failure over its census, the ABS coughs up some dodgy figures about GDP being up just as it produces wildly erratic and unreliable unemployment statistics because it is pushed to report on what it can’t afford to count properly. More reliable is the news that a third of us now put off or avoid entirely going to the dentist because we can’t afford the cost.
Luckily birthday boy Malcolm Turnbull will take time out from his first anniversary and being bullied by Eric Abetz, George Christensen and other right-wing nutters who run his government to bask in the admiration of leaders overseas.
Turnbull will dazzle the world with his agile, innovative shtick, his economic trickle-down wizardry, his war on the poor and Australia’s abuse of asylum-seekers’ human rights. DIY two million dollar mandates from the one seat wonder from down under, will go over well, especially after his predecessor’s G20 talk on GP co-payments, his lecturing the UN about how sick we are of being lectured by the UN and his mad plans to invade Syria or to send Aussie troops into Ukraine.
It is Senator Jane Hume and her fatuous speech, however, who sets the week’s tone by exposing her government’s illegitimacy. Despite its overweening arrogance, triumphalism and braying inanity, the Turnbull government cannot disguise the fact that it has nothing to say. It is hopelessly and utterly seduced by the delusion that it is back on top where it belongs; all that it needs now is to talk itself into a government.
THE PUB 
I really don’t care who Bananas sucks up to in New York
Julie Bishop has met with Amal Clooney in New York City.
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/09/19/16/13/julie-bishop-meets-amal-clooney-at-united-nations-conference#P6BsTp0R28O0w5II.99
But I am a bit worried about her addiction to cheek fillers. She obviously had a top-up, a generous, one, recently. If she keeps this up her face will explode.
Before the cheek fillers –
Today –
I don’t know what she’s pumping into her face, but let’s hope it doesn’t migrate to her brain – or maybe it already has.
Pollie filler.
Amal looks bored or something, her eyes don’t sparkle
Dutton says the Nauru detention centre will last for decades.
The way things are going it’s not going to last until Christmas.
Nauru support workers to leave before Christmas after decision not to retender
Connect Settlement Services the latest contractors to withdraw from Australian immigration detention regime
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/19/nauru-support-workers-to-leave-before-christmas-after-decision-not-to-retender
Minitrue’s on the job.
First Big Bad Sam and Big Bad Labor and the Chinese Connection.
Then, oh dear, Hillary Clinton’s in trouble.
Arrrgh me ‘earties!
Tommy Steele had Arrr Fa Sixpence.
Speaking of “monketts”… Boccaccio : Decameron..:”Masetto da Lamporecchio and the Nuns”
“…she assembled all the nuns; and their and her own past errors being fully avowed, they by common consent, and with Masetto’s concurrence, resolved that the neighbours should be given to understand that by their prayers and the merits of their patron saint, Masetto, long mute, had recovered the power of speech; after which they made him steward, and so ordered matters among themselves that he was able to endure the burden of their service. In the course of which, though he procreated not a few little monketts, yet ’twas all managed so discreetly that no breath of scandal stirred, until after the abbess’s death, by which time Masetto was advanced in years and minded to return home with the wealth that he had gotten; which he was suffered to do as soon as he made his desire known. And so Masetto, who had left Lamporecchio with a hatchet on his shoulder, returned thither in his old age rich and a father, having by the wisdom with which he employed his youth, spared himself the pains and expense of rearing children, and averring that such was the measure that Christ meted out to the man that set horns on his cap.”
Any tips for code breaking the above?
Yeah learn to read something else other than “Best Bets”.
I had my turn now your turn –
“Toujours la politesse, Monsieur, s’il vous plaît. Merci beaucoup.”
Ha ha ha
And don’t spill the paint!
Think Canterbury Tales, only raunchier.
I much prefer Boccaccio to Chaucer. That could be because I was forced to study Chaucer at uni and the lecturer insisted on reading vast extracts of The Canterbury Tales in what he believed was a correct Middle English accent. He was so serious about it, and we were all cracking up and trying to hide behind our folders so he wouldn’t notice.
Boccaccio was very big among some of the young ladies at my all-female high school. I don’t think the staff knew what to do – take away the book and be accused of denying the young ladies a classic of the Italian Renaissance, or ignore it all and hope we got over it.
Like the time I was caught reading Chaucer under the desk when I was not quite 11 years old. My teacher (a real bully, but that’s a whole other story) just didn’t know what to do when he demanded to know what I was looking at and I answered ‘The Odyssey’.
.
If you have the chance to watch a recording of the 2016 Paralympics Gold Medal Final of Rugby aka Murderball, do so. AUSSIE v USA.
The best sporting match i have seen, ever.
Puffy,TMD
Got hooked on wheelchair rugby about 16 years ago.. I played rugby and some of their stuff made me wince ! Disabled my arse !! 😀
Most engrossing exciting ,match for me was the Aussie v NZ netball final at the Commonwealth Games in India. Tightest tussle imaginable with the game going in to extra extra time !
Make no mistake, this “Howard on Menzies” is no blatant putsch of right-wing attitudes, it is rather a cunning ;”toe-in-the-water” softly-softly by the conservatives, along with the up-coming “debate” on ABC with Burney / Bolt about racism/equality to create the notion that the right-wing conservatives are “open” to a civilised discussion on whatever turf to show that mean no harm to the sensitivities of the community.
It is a red herring dragged across their real intention to scale-up their eventual “legitimacy for control” of the perceived “dangerous radicals” of society…all with the by then acceptance of the well-intentioned honesty of the conservative fascists now in complete control.
I’ll repeat what I wrote the other day in my article on the https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/the-final-solution-the-lnp-and-democracy/ When the leader of the LNP, be it Menzies (Lib party) with bringing the troops to displace the wharfies to load pig-iron, Fraser to conspire with the GG. for a coup against the Labor govt’ or Howard in sending the SAS troops onto the Tampa..it was a deliberate move to claim a “Military Monarchy” of absolute rule.
It is their base belief, their perceived right, the ultimate ambition..: The born to rule class.
Guthrie’s there for a reason.
WE saw a bit of that connection tonight with the “Labor and the Chinese connection”..only Labor..as if!
Did someone mention –
Yeah me – and I reckon jaycee wants to paint it blue.
Here you go , early’…ZAPPA!!!!!!..
Oh maaan!…love that album..as smooth as a swill of Southern Comfort.
Right..headphones on ..volume up…GO!
Yeah be thoughtful of the neighbours 500 miles away.
Good evening, me ‘arties!
One of the more serendipitous events to occur on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, was the apparent victory, in a race at Randwick today, of a horse called Piracy.
Love it when the universe shows its sense of humour 🙂
Jovial Monk
Unley not Kew.
I suspect the dredging up of the Menzies “bog-preserved corpse” is seen as the “safe-bet” of the conservatives since the names of Howard, Abbott and now Turnbull are dirty money to the public, and the conservative name and reputation was going downhill fast!..They are hoping the public memory and the younger generation nous about Pig-Iron Bob and his treason has faded to grey.
No such luck!
On feature race days, on-course racebooks list feature race winners going back in time. (Cheap journalism like Best Bets excluded).
However, I would bet London to a Brick that 99% of the Australian population have never heard of the term Pig Iron Bob let alone younger generation memory fading to grey!
” I would bet London to a Brick”..You’re on!…Joe6pak…start a book!…us against early’s “brick”.
Bring it on – I have just become a shareholder in a leading city rails bookmaking licence again.
Your all on!
I’ll take a fin @ five to one..you’ll find a cheque in the mail!
Yeah and what else did you say to the prostitute.
oops!…a bridge too far early’..eee!
Long, long ago, when I was just a girl at high school, (and then a student at uni and teachers college), I had a long train trip to school or uni and the same back again in the afternoons.
Somewhere near Como (in Sydney) railway station was a big rocky outcrop which had attracted a bit of graffiti. Prominent on the rocks was ‘Pig Iron Bob’ in great big letters. It must have been done years before I started commuting. Aged 12, I asked my dad what it meant and he explained.
So twice a day, every week day, during Menzies’ time as PM, I got to travel past this sign, a constant reminder of the treachery of Liberal prime ministers. No wonder I turned into a rabid Labor voter.
How bad was Foo then?
With ‘Foo Was Here’ all over the place on public structures?
Foo was on the same rocks. Maybe he was related to Pig Iron Bob.
Poltical graffiti was quite a weapon in days past. As a boy travelling the Adelaide Hills with the family (and getting carsick, something I seemed to get over as I grew up) it was a regular visual appearance to see written large on rocky outcrops “VOTE NO”. This occurred at least as far as Mannum.
It was obviously to do with Ming’s 1951 referendum to ban the Communists in Australia, but this was about 1954 or so. They clearly wanted the message to last.
Not a good look: Outside court today, Kathy Jackson rolls her eyes at a woman’s request for the return of her dead brother’s Bible and telephone. The brother died (from non-suspicious causes) at Jackson’s home. Jackson has refused to return it.
You’d have to wonder just *why* anyone *would* refuse to return fairly innocuous items like this, wouldn’t you?
The again, in the hands of Jackson, I’m sure a phone could be a deadly weapon, what with all the text messages it may have on it, and such, and the videos, too.
I wonder if the woman to the left of Mz Jackson (audience left, that is), is Mz Jackson’s mum.
Bugger it!…it’s getting late…here’s a little tease…
The Siren’s Song.
The Siren sang her song.
Irresistible in her comeliness.
And yes..I answered..
Along with others,
But oh..;
The clues were numerous,
The seduction of her face,
The perils of her warm embrace.
Small things ; gifts and trinkets
To secure her exclusiveness.
Along with mine..
Shipwrecked upon her palliasses.
Now, behind cold glass,
I touch her face,
My fingers hesitate on lacq’d plate
Of the silvered frame.
She smiles out at me.
Again the Siren song my heart fills.
She is calling…!
She is calling…!
I cannot resist..does she love me still ?
I am falling…
I am falling…
I am falling…
“Shipwrecked upon her palliasses.”
I reckon this is the codebreaker!
Experience tells every time, early’….every time.. 🙂
And you can learn an old dog new tricks!
You can’t tell me, early’ that you have a heart so hardened that you never see “poetry” in those magnificent steeds that you “ride to the line” with your wager every time you go to the races..I used to thrill at the slow-motion replays of a champion like Back Caviar thundering to the line, her jockey riding by his heels “scrubbing it’s ears off” as they say!..and the horse’s mouth agape sucking in the air for all it was worth..and that shimmering, sweaty hide..and those rippling muscles…!
I watched Isabelle Wirth win a euro championship in dressage ;Kur..with this most magnificent horse, who , when she made it high-step ( I don’t know the correct term)on the spot, with it’s head bent down like a chess-piece and it’s oiled hide glistening and the strength of the beast in full tension..christ!..it would make the hairs stand on the back of your neck just watching such a powerful, magnificent beast!..
To go every week and place a wager on such animals without the slightest poetic acknowledgement….?…I don’t believe you early’…every gambler is a poet to their core..
No hard heart (where did this come from) here towards any animal including horses.I walk around slugs and ants on the footpath.
To quote Black Caviar I have some knowledge. A friend of mine Phil was Nellie’s track rider for 18 months and I privately knew and admired her ability 2 months before her 1st race. I have rubbed her head.
Michael Duffy ex Labor Attorney General and a friend raced and bred her sire.
One doesn’t need poetry on some unrelated subject.
Speak tomorrow.
Or codpiece breaker .
Jimmy Barnes is nearly the standout on Q&A.
Joining Tony Jones on the panel: Rock legend Jimmy Barnes; author/comedian Magda Szubanski; Deputy Nationals leader Fiona Nash; Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke & independent Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie.
A great gamblers poem…
ON THE TRAIN TO DEL MAR
by Charles Bukowski
I get on the train on the way to the track
it’s down near Dago
and this gives some space and rolling and
I have my pint
and I walk to the barcar for a couple of
beers
and I weave upon the floor–
THACK THACK THACKA THACK THATCK THACKA THACK–
and some of it comes back
a little of it comes back
like some green in a leaf after a long
dryness
and the sun crashes into the barcar like a
bull and the bartender sees that
I am feeling good
he smiles a real smile and
asks–
“How’s it going?”
how’s it going? my heels are down
my shoes cracked
I am wearing my father’s pants and he died
ten years ago
I need 8 teeth pulled
my intestine has a partial blockage
I puff on a dime cigar
“Great!” I answer him,
“how you making?”
glory glory glory and the train rolls on
past the sea
past the sand and
down in between the
cliffs.
There’s a wonderful short story about betting on the horses..by William Soroyan : “Little Miss Universe”…lovely read.
It’s not another subtle bagging is it?
No, no..I’ve “met” the guys in the story..and i have been in the same position as the narrator..it is all so human..Gambling , I believe, is a universal weakness….even God gambled on Adam and Eve…and he lost!
Bukowski wasn’t bagging, if that’s what you are referring to..He was renowned for his wild lifestyle…I loved those years of drinking and gambling..until it got too crazy for a person on my humble means….and I got hungry for a family.
Re the last page, this is my favourite wine bit from The Jerk
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-climatechange-idUSKCN11O0Q3
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/emergency-services-staff-condemn-malcolm-turnbulls-push-to-change-workplace-laws-20160919-grj9xe.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/peter-van-onselen/destructive-wa-pair-nalder-and-simpson-proved-gutless/news-story/9a2196b893c125895f7851cbe0121109 free
Isabelle Werth / Emillio ..Kur.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Lots today – including a bumper Cartoon Corner.
As far as I’m concerned Magda and Jimmy stole the show on QandA last night. Fiona Nash has become an old fogey at a young age. Magda’s ability to make a point was impressive.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/20/qa-magda-szubanski-rounds-on-turnbull-over-same-sex-marriage-plebiscite
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/qa-jimmy-barnes-sent-death-threats-after-telling-antiimmigration-groups-to-stop-using-his-music-20160919-grjwkv.html
Dave Donovan takes aim at the MSM over what they described as Turnbull’s great week.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/malcolm-turnbulls-great-weak,9493
Paul Bongiorno writes that Turnbull is under threat from dangerous friendly fire.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2016/09/19/turnbull-christensen/
These white supremacist types are nice people!
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/white-supremacist-charged-over-taree-pentecostal-church-fire-20160919-grjln9.html
After Turnbull’s pronouncement our badge of honour is really a badge of shame writes Michael Gordon.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/australias-badge-of-honour-is-really-a-badge-of-shame-20160919-grjoph.html
I will be watching this Andrew Bolt and Linda Burney exploration of indigenous constitutional recognition.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/no-fireworks-only-respect-linda-burney-and-andrew-bolt-take-on-constitutional-recognition-20160919-grjhe2.html
Europe can learn from Australia’s border protection policy – but not by listening to Tony Abbott!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/19/europe-can-learn-from-australias-border-policy-but-not-by-listening-to-abbott
Meanwhile even more harrowing accounts of sexual abuse and self harm emerge from Nauru.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/19/newly-leaked-nauru-reports-detail-harrowing-accounts-of-sexual-abuse-and-self-harm
And we give clowns like this tax breaks!
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/poisoner-brett-darren-mardon-agrees-to-pay-his-victims-32000-to-avoid-civil-trial-over-bizarre-religious-vengeance-plot/news-story/2915fb210b62a65649d55e8a47d1881b
Section 2 . . .
GDP is just a string of numbers whose blind following is laced with peril says Nicholas Stuart.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/gdp-its-just-a-string-of-numbers-20160919-grjdbd.html
Morrison says that a back down on the backpacker tax would not harm the budget.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-warns-any-backdown-on-backpacker-tax-will-not-cost-budget-20160919-grjdpi.html
What’s been happening with the government’s ill-fated shared services outfit? Fairfax is looking for a bit of whistle blowing.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/public-servants-ponder-mystery-of-missing-shared-services-boss-20160919-grjhsh.html
Jabba the Hut even has Barnaby worried!
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-last-thing-we-want-barnaby-joyce-says-he-doesnt-want-george-christensen-to-leave-coalition-20160919-grj8ze.html
Michelle Grattan writes on Barnaby’s Christensen troubles.
https://theconversation.com/barnaby-joyces-challenge-applying-the-whip-to-the-nationals-whip-65674
Jenna Price tells us that Queensland conservatives are behind the times. (Is the headline a deliberate play on words I wonder?)
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/queensland-conservatives-behind-the-times-20160919-grj9zt.html
The proportion of students studying maths at HSC level continues to fall. Not good.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/hsc-maths-enrolments-drop-to-lowest-rate-in-50-years-20160916-grhtrz.html
Our hospitals are being privatised. Is anybody paying attention?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/20/our-hospitals-are-being-privatised-is-anybody-paying-attention
More charming stuff uncovered at the CA Royal Commission.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/paedophile-priest-said-children-enjoyed-sexual-activity-royal-commission-20160918-grj80l.html
And another Marist Brother gets his time in court.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/former-marist-college-canberra-principal-facing-child-abuse-allegations-in-nsw-20160919-grjb1b.html
Section 3 . . .
A rather apologetic article on the preponderance of Catholic transgressions seen at the CA Royal Commission over the past 3.5 years
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/child-sex-abuse-restoration-of-trust-key-to-survival-of-catholic-church-20160916-grid2g.html
The Coalition is set to reveal a plan to tackle welfare dependence. This will be interesting.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/20/coalition-to-reveal-plan-to-tackle-welfare-dependence-across-generations
A half of all the guns in America are owned by just 3% of the population. A new term – gun inequality – is spawned.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/19/us-gun-ownership-survey
Nice work from the ASX as they emulated the PR prowess of the ABS.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/traders-left-furious-over-asx-glitches-market-closes-early-20160919-grjowl.html
Tell me this is not true!
http://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/sydney-psychic-advised-bby-chairman-glenn-rosewall-on-chakras-and-share-prices-20160919-grj8un.html
5000 pages of chickens coming home to roost for Kathy Jackson. Will she call Pyne and Abbott as character witnesses?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/kathy-jackson-in-court-over-theft-deception-charges-20160919-grje1c.html
And Peter Wicks has a bit of a gloat over Jackson’s appearance at court. “You’re so vain”.
http://wixxyleaks.com/youre-so-vain-kathy-jackson-and-her-vanity-face-70-charges/
DIY terrorism is the new normal.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/19/diy-terrorism-new-normal-new-york-minnesota
The Wells Fargo apology should go straight to junk mail. Google.
/leadership/management/wells-fargo-apology-should-go-straight-to-junk-mail-20160918-grj796
Given how “tasty” they are 80 cents for the punnet is probably an appropriate price!
http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/big-supermarkets-blamed-for-driving-ridiculous-strawberry-prices-20160919-grjtpt.html
Section 3 . . . with Cartoon Corner part 1
Donald Trump – a tawdry tale of two faces.
Here’s a good customer complaint string.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/woman-sainsburys-worm-in-lettuce_uk_57d80ce2e4b0614ca6be4021?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage
Take this test on food preferences to determine what your age is. I gained 25 years!
https://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/polarizing-food-age-quiz?utm_term=.xeRGw25vJR#.uml42zL5na
John Shakespeare with Mesma doing her stuff with Trump.
Cathy Wilcox with a report from the ASX after revelations of the use of psychics by the collapsed BBY outfit.
Andrew Dyson with a ripper on the two faces of Donald Trump.
Great stuff from David Rowe – a taxing backpack!
Peter Broelman unpacks Turnbull’s UN speech.
Section 4 . . . Cartoon Corner part 2
As does Chris Downes.
And David Pope also goes to the UN with Turnbull.
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/act-news/david-pope-20120214-1t3j0
Sean Leahy gets onto the backpacker tax bandwagon.
MUST SEE! – Paull Zanetti and same sects marriage.
Cathy Wilcox and last week in politics.
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/cathy-wilcox-20090909-fhd6.html
Superb work from Ron Tandberg that says plenty.
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/ron-tandberg-20090910-fixc.html
Mark Knight on the Melbourne sale.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/86786b9adeb3afb8e1173268c164e009?width=1024
Jon Kudelka and political loyalties.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/34bd87adb54297ec719a5522af7aa19f
Bk
The food quiz – I came out 30yrs younger. Shame it’s not true!
We must be young at heart!
Seems I’m 11 – 19.
I believe the 11 bit. 😀
I’m prepared to to say they don’t know my age based on my food preferences. Or this thing is aimed at the young.
Peter Broelman with upgraded road signage in conservative Queensland.
Fizza should be taken to a quiet, dimly lit room, placed in a straight-jacket and given high-strength medication to deal with his obvious and serious delusions.
Get control of your borders or face instability: Malcolm Turnbull’s advice to the UN
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/get-control-of-your-borders-or-face-instability-malcolm-turnbulls-advice-to-the-un-20160919-grj95l.html
You know, if Turnbull had said, “Get control of your borders and face instability”, he’d have been nearer to the truth. Except for the part where we never really got control of our borders in the first place.
He’s just another in a long line of conservative politicians who go overseas and say things purely for domestic consumption. When we’re under Coalition rule, we really have no place on the world stage; they’re ineffective, counter-productive and often plain embarrassing.
We’ve exchanged one national embarrassment for another.
George Christensen holding the balance of power in the reps?
FFS!
Malcolm Turnbull under threat from dangerous friendly fire
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2016/09/19/turnbull-christensen/
Jack Mitchell.
Jack Mitchell shared the family home with his two sisters after the parents passed away..none of them ever married. Not that there were ever any suggestion of dubious behaviour amongst them one way or the other, it’s just that they never married..though I was told by a person who knew him,years later that “joking Jack” was a very lonely man.
Jack was full of jokes..he would drop one every few minutes in any conversation there in the front-bar of the Seacliff Hotel..He was never stuck for a word either..He used to work as a main buyer for one of the biggest department stores in the city..:
“I just started as a youngster there in hosiery and worked my way up!”..was his usual gag if any one asked about his employment. He was always snappily dressed in smart suit and tie, no matter what the night…which was nearly every night at the hotel. Whenever Jack told a joke, you could see he was dying to laugh at his own joke..this would be bad form, so he pinched his lips together as tight as he could..but that was rarely enough and a slight splutter and a bit of foamy spittle would cover his lips after.
But otherwise, Jack Mitchel lived the life of respectable suburb-anity . There was never rumour nor outrage nor drunken disorder to place against his person or name. Jack was the personification of Menzies conservatism.
One month however, Jack with a couple of other older blokes, took a trip to Bangkok. Now, the only reason many aged men went to Bangkok in those days was for sex tourism..sex in any shape or form..Bangkok was notorious for it..so when Jack returned to the front bar after the “holiday” a couple of younger men there started to take the piss..:
“Jack!” one called out across the other side of the U-shaped bar. “Tell us Jack..; How was the hol-i-day in BANG-KOK!?”..and then followed a round of laughter..
‘Well boys” Jack began after sipping the foam off the top of his beer “ Well, boys..you know there’s an old saying that if a balding man..much like myself..was to rub his pate against that most tender and private part of a young lady’s body..then his hair would grow back..”..and here Jack took a slow draught of his beer, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and with wide-eyed surprise announced in a sudden loud voice to the lads: “Well it’s a lie!!”
This obvious admission brought laughter all ‘round.
But Jack was always a conservative voter and a ‘boss’s man’..he could be seen on some occasions in deep conference with the manager of the hotel, looking about with suspicious eyes…we believed he was the management’s watching eyes to detect and report on any young dope users and sellers in the hotel..we never trusted him..
He has passed away many years now, and according to the one young man who did have his confidence, Jack Mitchell was a very lonely man .
Sounds on the money to me.
Just watching a replay on Q&A on Iview. They’re talking about SSM.
We were away “up the coast” for the last 4 or 5 days, and stayed at a friend’s place. They are a heterosexually married couple.
My mate told me he had no prejudice against gays. He’s not homosexual himself, and homosexuality “doesn’t do anything” for him, by which I took him to mean that he’s not likely to be hopping into bed with any of his mates in the near future, and fair enough to that. Same for me. He has no homosexual friends (that he knows of). But on a general level, he has no problem with the existence of homosexuality and whatever it is that homosexuals do.
His sticking point is “calling it ‘marriage'”. He is stuck on the word “marriage” being associated with a homosexual union.
I asked him what difference would it make to him personally. He agreed that there would be nothing concrete. He just doesn’t agree with homosexuals using the word “marriage” and told me he would vote “No” in any plebiscite. He couldn’t supply me with any reasons for this. He just didn’t want it.
I asked him to reconsider his position in the light of the “How would it affect me?” test, and left it at that. I didn’t want to get into a big argument with him.
His wife took a similar position. She left me strongly suspecting she’d vote “no” as well.
These are two people who, when forced to vote in a plebiscite, despite entertaining no visceral or religiously-based prejudice against same sex unions, would vote it down if it was called “marriage”.
And that’s the problem with the plebiscite. It might well force otherwise agnostic people who are prepared to live and let live, into voting against something that they really don’t have that strong an opinion about – until they are asked. If you have to make a decision, even if you don’t care to, then the results may well be unpredictable. And this is what, I suspect, the proponents of the plebiscite are counting on: the “silent majority” that they believe exists, and which may well do so.
By the same token, I guess no-one would vote for tax increases if they were asked to vote in a plebiscite that proposed tax increases. That’s probably why we don’t have plebiscites too often: things that people agree are in the national interest are not always in their personal interest, and if they get a chance they’ll knock such proposals on the head.
I came away from our stay with our friends with the firm belief that they really do think same sex marriage will affect them. They believe that marriage is something that’s theirs – almost like a possession, or a privilege, perhaps even an advantage they have over others – and they won’t give up their privileges and advantages lightly, even though there is no real practical effect on them personally arising from doing so.
My mate has an old boat in his back yard. But you can see it up on bricks from the street. His wife has been begging him to get rid of it for years. It would not float or sail, and would require thousands of dollars and probably thousands of hours work on it to get it back in service.
Recently a passer by knocked on the door, said he’d noticed it there over the years and made my mate an offer. A few hundred dollars, plus free removal of the eyesore. My mate said “No”, refusing the offer.
When his wife asked him why he knocked back what was, in the circumstances, a good offer – the rubbish would be gone forever – he told her that the boat was his. It had cost him $10,000 to buy, and a fortune in marina fees when it was serviceable. Any price he charged for it would have to reflect his investment.
She put it to him that the boat was worthless now, and that was the basis of the offer to buy it virtually as scrap and tow it away. He was adamant. He’d put work and money into it, and until someone was prepared to offer him something for all that investment, it would stay there. He was not going to just give that boat away, even though to him it was now actually an expense to retain and ultimately dispose of.
It was a bit like his marriage, which had had its ups and downs. But he put a lot of effort into it, reorganized his priorities, let his kids grow up they way they wanted (whether he agreed with them or not), and saved the relationship and the family. I thought to myself that perhaps he was resentful about this, and didn’t want to give gays and lesbians a “free kick” or an easy path to happiness, by allowing them to call their unions by the same word as the union he had that he had had to work so hard to save.
Then again, I’m no psychiatrist.
And yes, my mate voted One Nation because he believes “the Muslims” will take over the government of our country in 20 years, because he heard an imam say that once.
I think that good old fear of change thing is also a factor. Too many people just can’t cope with change, the very idea of things becoming different to the way they have always been sends this lot looking for a nice safe hiding place or a nice safe ‘No’ vote.
This fear is why Howard managed to stay PM for so long – he was seen as a ‘safe pair of hands’ and would not bring in scary new ideas. It’s why Hanson and her ilk attract votes, they want everything to stay the way they think it was in a mythical past where Australia was white, totally British, Christian and devoutly right wing. That place never exited, but they won’t admit it. It’s why so many rural people keep on voting National. They are scared witless by the mere thought of doing something different. If it was good enough for dad and grand-dad it’s good enough for them.
It’s why referendums rarely do well in Australia.
Hang on!..isn’t that the very reason we Boomers chucked all that marriage bullshit out the window?.I remember trekking to Darwin in the early seventies along with any number of like aged folk all intent on one thing..: Getting as far away as f#ck from our conservative parents and when we got there it was : “Let the partying begin!”..so what’s with all this regressing to a dumb, stifling repressive outlook moralistic wimping lifestyle?
Pass the bloody laws and lets get on into chapter two of the journey for fuckssake!
Anyway..marriage is just some crack-arse document not worth a pinch of shit when it comes to legalities, nor loyalties , nor progeny any more…it’s no more than some sort of juvenile testament of dedication like those love-song dedications you used to hear on DJ. radio back in the sixties when The Mamas and The Papas had that song : “Dedicated to the one I Love” played over and over and over till they had to forbid it’s requesting!
My partner and I have been together “unmarried” longer than my first married relationship…it makes no difference to either the law or anything else..
just get on with it you USELESS, GOOD FOR NOTHING AT ALL , total arsewipe LNP “govt”.
BB
This is the reason I agree with Labor, say no to the plebiscite.
More delusion.
Greg Hunt aims for CSIRO to become world’s best public research organisation
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/greg-hunt-aims-for-csiro-to-become-worlds-best-public-research-organisation-20160919-grjma5.html
That aim might be achievable if this farce of a government sacks Larry Marshall and restores the funding they took away.
They’re dreaming.
I thought I’d have a read again of that Saroyan story of “Little Miss Universe” that I recommended to earlyopener last night..a sort of “catch-up”…I must have read it a dozen times at least, but that is it with some stories..they just bounce back again and again, like an old song or an old name from the past and you just have to go there to hear it one more time.
So I searched out the compendium it was in ..the : “Esquire Treasury” from the golden age of American writing..it contains a multitude of wonderful stories from the best of USA. writers of the time. I pulled the volume out from between flat-stacked books on books there in my bookshelves. It was there between Robert Burton’s three volume set of “The Anatomy of Melancholy” and Christina Stead’s : “The Man Who Loved Children”….that’s how it is in my bookshelves..no real order, but one I know like the back of my hand…It’s how I like it..it’s like treating oneself to a new discovery every time you go to the bookshelf…: “Oh!…ah!..that’s that volume on Roman Art I was looking for”..I would say to myself, like it had gone on it’s own little wandering around to visit other shelves full of books.
I have toyed with the idea of writing a fantastical poem of witnessing all my books in rack upon rack of shelving melting away and running down upon each other , the words dissolving like molten gold and disappearing through the floor in an unstoppable river lost into the bowels of the earth…all those tomes of wisdom and grace dissolving before my eyes and trickling away to disappear forever back into the earth from whence they arose……..that sort of thing.
But I don’t know..it does sound rather far-fetched.
Yes, it does, but dream about it anyway
Brian,
Gore Vidal presented an analogous but nightmare scenario in Live from Golgotha
Fiona, in my estimation, Gore Vidal ranks as one of the great essayists and one of the most interesting story-writers of the twentieth century.
That should be “…one of the more interesting…”
Brian, I am like-minded.
Bernard’s pay-walled article is up, full details later today on the Essential site
https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/09/20/essential-if-plebiscite-is-blocked-voters-want-parliament-to-sort-it/
Sep 20, 2016
Essential: if plebiscite is blocked, voters want Parliament to pass marriage equality
Bernard Keane Politics Editor
If the same-sex marriage plebiscite is blocked, most voters, including many Coalition voters, want a parliamentary vote to determine the matter, this week’s Essential Report suggests.
With the government’s proposed plebiscite bill looking likely to fail in the Senate, 53% of voters say there should be a vote in Parliament if the bill is blocked, while 29% say there should not be. Greens and Labor voters strongly support a parliamentary vote, but more Coalition voters — 46% — support a parliamentary vote than oppose one — 38%. Even “other” voters (voters other than Labor, Coalition and Greens), who tend to be socially conservative, support a vote, 53%-32%.
…………………
On voting intention, the Coalition is down another point on its primary vote to 37%, around five points down from the election and the same level as Labor, while the Greens remain on 10%. One Nation is up a point to 6% while NXT is on 4%, for an unchanged two-party preferred outcome of 52%-48% in Labor’s favour.
Not sure if this first dog cartoon about Pauline Nanson supporters has been posted
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/19/a-cartoon-about-pauline-hanson-voters-why-are-they?
So what will Fizza do? Stand on the side of the road while his staff hold a vote on whether or not he should cross the road? Wait for the plebiscite result?
This week, every world leader will use a rainbow crossing to get into the UN
http://www.sbs.com.au/topics/sexuality/agenda/article/2016/09/19/week-every-world-leader-will-use-rainbow-crossing-get-un
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/content/s4541961.htm audio
http://www.echo.net.au/2016/09/thus-spake-mungo-winning/
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32670255/turnbull-backs-barnett-in-spill/
Sorry about that, I meant to link a variety of tweets by Dylan. Anyway, see his time line for more on the WA spill.
https://twitter.com/Dylan_Caporn
I rather like it, Leroy.
SpillALot.
I went to Mittagong today, had a delicious fresh florentine, with in my eyes still the vision of a beautiful yellow tulip bed:
I shall go to the woods today,
I shall walk among the buttercups
And sing songs to the daffodils.
I shall walk till the morning sun
Is high in the sky..
You may come too…
Exactly –