Turnbull’s death-defying back-flip

Guest Author Uncategorized

Urbanwronski continues his clinical evisceration of Fizza’s Wunderkinder Turnbull’s ‘gummint’. Many thanks as always, sir.

Jay Chou; News Limited

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.

606 thoughts on “Turnbull’s death-defying back-flip”

    • Yep.

      Typical of this government. They take something that was working brilliantly – the CSIRO, the NBN, everyone can add to the list – then they destroy it, then they tell us how fabulously wonderfully well the destroyed version is working and expect us to fall about in admiration.

  2. John Oliver Used His Emmy Press Conference To Call Out Australia’s Immigration Record

    The comedian was speaking to the press following his win for Outstanding Variety Talk Series when Bishop made reference to their interview on last year’s Emmy Red Carpet, in which Oliver tore into the then-freshly ousted Tony Abbott and seemed to dismiss the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency.

    What a difference a year makes, eh?

    Oliver responded with a laugh, reminding Bishop that Trump hasn’t been elected yet. “Have some faith, Angela” he said, before adding that she should “maybe check on the state of your own country’s immigration policies before you steer it too hard at this one.”

    Touché, Oliver. Touché

    http://junkee.com/john-oliver-used-emmy-press-conference-call-australias-immigration-record/85608#wmQ6uPhc6pr0diwf.99

  3. for some inexplicable reason, this has me more outraged so than anything else T has said or done..

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/19/donald-trump-upsets-les-miserables-song-rally-cameron-mackintosh

    Donald Trump has upset Sir Cameron Mackintosh and co-creators of the stage musical Les Misérables for playing one of their songs at his Miami rally.

    Mackintosh, a leading British theatre impresario, is to make his objection felt in a joint statement with Alain Boublil, the musical’s librettist and others who own the copyright.

    A copy released to the Guardian said: “The authors of Les Misérables were not asked for permission and did not authorise or endorse usage of Do You Hear the People Sing? at last [week’s] Trump rally in Miami, and have never done so for any of the songs from the musical for this or any other political event.”

  5. On those God-bothering leeches –

    First we learn that the Marriage Alliance, sure to get some of the $&.5 million to be handed out for the ‘No’ case against marriage equality, is pretty much a branch of the Liberal Party.

    Now we learn just who has been pouring money into the ACL, also sure to get a hefty slice of those millions.

    Money and mining men behind the shadowy Australian Christian Lobby
    http://the-pen.co/money-mining-men-behind-shadowy-australian-christian-lobby/

  6. If Turdball or Abbott has done this, the media would have been all over it immediately, telling us what a good bloke they are… but for Doug Cameron (who’s in melb supporting the CUB workers)…. crickets

  7. Just caught the questions to Christian Porter at the National Press Club

    He seems across the detail of his portfolio and very open about the data mining of welfare recipients data like health and tax records.

    Not sure I like his thrust of talking about the large meaningless numbers. Why doesn’t the bigger create jobs rather than punishing the vulnerable

    Anyone born after 1967 will have to wait to age 70 to get the and pension. Let’s hope you can access superannuation at a younger age than that

    I think Christian porter will be next Liberal Prime Minister

    Your thoughts . . . .

    • I’m hoping there won’t be a ‘next Liberal Prime Minister for decades.

      Porter certainly sees himself as an heir to the throne, it would have been his whole reason for moving to federal politics.

      I don’t like what I’ve seen of him, I don’t like his hard-line welfare bashing, and the thought of him being Minister for Social Services sends a chill right through me.

    • “I think Christian porter will be next Liberal Prime Minister”.

      Porter will furiously agree with you. He had WA premiership whenever he wanted but FIGJAM Porter had eyes for bigger things.

    • Too lacking in empathy in my opinion, but you could say that about most Liberal leaders, I suppose.

  8. Click to access Essential-Report_160920.pdf

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/20/marriage-equality-poll-finds-majority-support-for-a-free-vote-if-plebiscite-blocked

    http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/leadership-spill-defeated-after-cowper-calls-motion-20160920-grk75l.html

  15. Hmmm – has anyone seen these two together in the same room?

    Just put a blond wig and some lipstick on Bookshelves and ……

  19. Rodent’s new journo career not being well received..

    Porter’s speech also doing the lead balloon thing, but achieved something positive, its got Paul Keating tweeting again. My twitter feed is full of people condemning Porter…

  20. The Patience of the Predator.

    Back in the days of my callous youth, when I would go hunting rabbits with my trusty .22 repeater rifle, I soon learned the basic rudiments of the predator vs. the predated. For instance, if I came to a section of bush that showed all the signs but none of the movement of quarry, instead of waltzing out to the middle of the clearing and announcing my intentions to all and sundry, I would stand dead still, and breathe quietly and listen carefully…the intent of course was to place the opportunity of mistake on to the quarry, for as long as either of us remained quiet and still, neither would be discovered..But if one moved…and with myself being in the dominant position of power… this is where the nous of the hunter is put to the test..if there is one thing the predator must have in spades, it is patience.

    If you but observe the tactics of a cat…with the experienced hunter, it is usually the quarry that loses patience first..and then…

    “The leisure-class canon demands strict and comprehensive futility, the instinct of workmanship demands purposeful action. The leisure-class canon of decorum acts slowly and pervasively, by a selective elimination of all substantially useful or purposeful modes of action from the accredited scheme of life; the instinct of workmanship acts impulsively and may be satisfied, provisionally, with a proximate purpose. “

    The managerial middle-class has perfected the principle of the patience of the predator. The impulsive nature of the ‘producing class’, with it’s need and or requirement of immediate results, lures it into rash decision and opinion making..such impulsiveness will often lead the general collective of this class into an economic or political trap..The managerial authority has , through proven historical experience adopted the hunter’s prowess of seek out and destroy through a waiting game, that which denies their uninterrupted governance. This is best achieved by adopting the methods learned down through the ages of strategy and cunning used in many diplomatic and military exploits, and then passed on through the filters of education to those selected out and best suited for such invidious managerial pursuits.

    “As it finds expression in the life of the barbarian, prowess manifests itself in two main directions—force and fraud. In varying degrees these two forms of expression are similarly present in modern warfare, in the monetary occupations, and in sports and games. Both lines of aptitudes are cultivated and strengthened by the life of sport as well as by the more serious forms of emulative life. Strategy or cunning is an element invariably present in games, as also in warlike pursuits and in the chase. In all of these employments strategy tends to develop into finesse and chicanery. Chicanery, falsehood, browbeating, hold a well-secured place in the method of procedure of any athletic contest and in games generally.”

    Well may it be attributed to the Upper class of England to claim that..: “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”..

    Of course all this may just be passing trivial information except for the current political games being played by the Right-wing of the conservative LNP. to search out and control the recognized opposition that will cause them the most bother in the years to come..They have learned the sorry way the mistake of charging out into the clearing and spraying bullets all around and hitting no particular quarry except perhaps their own mates..a blue on blue!..Now they wait..they are playing the long game..they are drawing out the quarry with strategy..; they propose debates with all the appearance of reasoned logic..”Why not let the people discuss?”…”Why not encourage the unemployed to help themselves?”…” What is wrong with securing our borders ?”….discuss.

    With cunning they recruit marginal commentators to push their points by way of “free speech”…”the other side of the debate”, “ The right of another point of view”..But these are just strategies of playing the waiting game. Waiting for the first to blink, to break-cover and panic..and then…their “dogs” in the MSM. go for the throat , selecting the one vulnerable group or person, cut them out, they marginalize them, demonize them and hold them up as example of justification for the action taken. Just like the stalking procedure of the big cats..lying in wait for their pre-selected victim.

    “The habitual employment of an umpire, and the minute technical regulations governing the limits and details of permissible fraud and strategic advantage, sufficiently attest the fact that fraudulent practices and attempts to overreach one’s opponents are not un-forseen features of the game. In the nature of the case habituation to sports should conduce to a fuller development of the aptitude for fraud; and the prevalence in the community of that predatory temperament which inclines men to sports connotes a prevalence of sharp practice and callous disregard of the interests of others, individually and collectively. Resort to fraud, in any guise and under any legitimation of law or custom, is an expression of a narrowly self-regarding habit of mind. “

    The practice of the patience of the predator is used by the managerial class throughout all walks of society as a method of control of those considered “out of control” or “unstable” ..every strata of skilled management utilizes the “pause, wait and see” strategy to give as much time as required to destabilize and unsettle the victim..waiting for the first false move or mistake and then once off-guard, they pounce!

    “The astute man, it may be remarked, is of no economic value to the community—unless it be for the purpose of sharp practice in dealings with other communities. His functioning is not a furtherance of the generic life process. At its best, in its direct economic bearing, it is a conversion of the economic substance of the collectivity to a growth alien to the collective life process—very much after the analogy of what in medicine would be called a benign tumor, with some tendency to transgress the uncertain line that divides the benign from the malign growths. The two barbarian traits, ferocity and astuteness, go to make up the predaceous temper or spiritual attitude. They are the expressions of a narrowly self-regarding habit of mind. Both are highly serviceable for individual expediency in a life looking to invidious success. Both also have a high aesthetic value. Both are fostered by the pecuniary culture. But both alike are of no use for the purposes of the collective life. “

    Thankfully, they can be easily identified by their lack of real creativity or inventiveness in any given situation..They are totally predictable.

    (All quotes are from Thorsten Veblen : “The Theory of the Leisure Class”..)

  21. Saw a quote from kiwi PM and Labour great Norm Kirk about Piggy Muldoon today that could be adopted for some of today’s mob…

    Rob Muldoon has a head for money and a slot where you put the coins in”

  23. Bolt’s arguments are puerile and childish..he has no depth of comprehension of the Indigenous time-lapse of occupation..I doubt he even has an understanding of his own background and origins.

  24. According to the abysmal Alan Tudge (I struggle with his name, I keep typing ‘Sludge’) there are hordes of lazy teenagers staying home from school to act as carers for sick parents. These kids are supposed to be a burden on the welfare system and if they are not forced back to school by lunchtime tomorrow they will all be welfare-dependent for decades.Or something like that.

    Tudge is just babbling, throwing out ‘facts’ without any back-up figures. He and Porter have NFI what families have to do when a parent is seriously ill. I find the implications he is making grossly offensive as well as incorrect.

    http://www.3aw.com.au/news/the-federal-government-announces-new-changes-to-australias-welfare-system-20160920-grkl1f.html

    Tudge needs to go here –
    http://www.youngcarers.net.au/
    and see just what these young people are doing and what help and support is available for them. He might be surprised.

    • First Dog is the goods.

      Some may hard to read his stuff, but, he says succinctly what few of us can.

  27. Christian Porter’s dad was a Joh Bjelke Petersen gubby minister.so as Monty Python said .Say No More !!!

    • Aside from brokering White Shoe Brigade deals and brown paper bags, Joh’s ministers were not all that bright. Russ Hinze really was one of the sharper ones. But even by that standard Chilla Porter was pretty dull and not well liked into the bargain. Christian, despite a better formal education, seems to be of the same ilk.

  28. The Liberal MO is so frigging obvious. They introduced the idea of cutting into welfare – especially the one about not paying Newstart for the first four weeks – ages ago. It got roundly slammed, so they just waited a while and tried again. New face, same old ideas, it sounds fresh because it’s coming from a different voice. It’s the way they do all these things. Keep bringing up these unpalatable ideas until they wear people down just enough to squeeze them through. They get their talking heads out there – the ABC are more than happy to take them these days, it seems – going on and on about what great ideas they are, and just don’t give anyone the chance to mention the obvious deficiencies. People do eventually go, “Oh, what the hell, everyone’s talking about it so it can’t be that bad.”

    There’s no science or logic to it. Just doggedness and the complicity of the press gallery. Maybe a new selling point, a slogan or some such.

    It’s not just welfare. They’re out selling our appalling AS policy now too. It’s been totally discredited and Nauru appears to be falling apart. But they don’t care. They just pretend it’s a resounding success and dare anyone to contradict them. Try it and you’ll suffer the scorn of Murdoch.

    What’s most depressing is that their social engineering pranks are going to cost us a lot of money. They’re promoting inefficiencies in the main, in the name of class warfare. We’ve seen with the NBN how happy they are to throw money down the drain just to get one up on the ALP (by preventing the system the ALP introduced, and nothing more than that).

    So now we’ve got three more years of falling behind in every measurable standard, which is going to set the country back who knows how many years? We could have had a national broadband network, a proper climate change policy with carbon pricing, and a really workable education system by now. And health. And a functioning economy. We’ve got none of that, and no prospect of getting any nearer to it. Just ridiculous brainfarts, most of which aren’t even new ideas, just the old recycled ones, and the prospect of more hardship for more people. Happy times, eh?

  29. Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Quite a pot pouri on offer today.

    Did Turnbull clear this through George Christensen?
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-to-take-central-american-refugees-as-malcolm-turnbull-pledges-to-do-more-at-obama-summit-20160920-grkcq9.html
    Ross Gittins on an alternative road funding proposal.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/ministers-suggestion-of-new-road-user-charge-may-seem-outrageous-but-it-makes-sense-20160920-grk1bc.html
    Privatisation and deregulation strikes again?
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-fire-certification-to-undergo-a-total-overhaul-after-damning-review-20160920-grkh5k.html
    This looks like a substantial breakthrough on mobile data delivery.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/telstra-trials-5g-mobile-network-the-next-quantum-leap-in-technology-20160920-grkhh7.html
    Remember JonBenet Ramsey?
    http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/cbs-documentary-the-case-of-jonbenet-ramsey-points-finger-at-brother-burke-20160920-grkr84.html
    This superannuation shakeup proposal may have merit.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/turnbull-government-considering-national-default-superannuation-scheme-to-save-15-billion-20160920-grkej9.html
    The NSW Legislative Council slams Pauline Hanson.
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/pauline-hansons-swamped-by-muslims-claim-condemned-by-nsw-legislative-council-20160920-grkirv.html
    And our Race Discrimination Commissioner comes out and criticises Hanson for “stoking division”.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/21/race-discrimination-commissioner-criticises-pauline-hanson-for-stoking-division
    Peter Lewis on how to manage the Hanson phenomenon.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/21/progressives-can-attract-hanson-supporters-but-not-by-insulting-them
    Michael Gordon examines a potential new option that Turnbull has for Manus and Nauru detainees.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/the-american-solution-could-malcolm-turnbulls-promise-see-an-end-to-manus-and-nauru-20160920-grkgyo.html

  30. Section 2 . . .

    In a stoush made in heaven Michael Lawlor takes on Michaelia Cash by way of legal action. Google.
    /national-affairs/industrial-relations/michael-lawler-launches-action-against-michaelia-cash/news-story/212bddcbe934b71fb8e2eeaa9629db63
    Greg Jericho has another look at the disturbing trend to casualisation and underemployment.
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2016/sep/20/sure-unemployment-is-down-but-plenty-of-people-would-like-to-work-more
    Shorten is keeping the pressure up on the plebiscite.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/bill-shorten-tours-his-own-miniplebiscite-on-marriage-equality-20160920-grkc1w.html
    Michelle Grattan explores what will happen in the (likely) event of there being no plebiscite.
    https://theconversation.com/if-no-plebiscite-settle-same-sex-marriage-in-parliament-poll-65754
    Plebiscite or bust – a Coalition folly.
    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/plebiscite-or-bust-a-coalition-folly,9495
    A moving account for Adam Giles MP on the day in Parliament with children and their same sex parents.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/andrew-giles/i-cried-in-parliament-house-because-i-am-ashamed/?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage
    Stephen Koukoulas advises year 12 students to not take that gap year – it’s far too expensive!
    http://thekouk.com/item/405-year-12-students-don-t-take-that-gap-year-it-s-expensive.html
    Should age be relevant to the right to die with dignity?
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/should-age-be-relevant-to-the-right-to-die-20160920-grk9hi.html
    Michael Pascoe is unimpressed with the compromise omnibus bill. He says there are still lots of opportunities to assist in budget repair.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/labor-and-coalition-agree-to-keep-tax-lurk-20160919-grjzsp.html
    Heads are starting to roll after the census debacle. Google.
    /business/margin-call/heads-roll-after-census-debacle/news-story/b67ae5a2f0fce39dc874e4d3a91e0e3a

  31. Section 3 . . .

    The SMH in its editorial says the government has three years to get its new welfare policies into shape whilst maintaining fairness.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/welfare-reform-fair-enough-if-design-right-and-needy-get-support-20160920-grkbmg.html
    Stephanie Peatling on the two favourite pantomime villains governments love to target.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/in-politics-the-show-must-go-on-and-governments-have-two-favourite-pantomime-villains-20160920-grk4fi.html
    ASIC signals that it will investigate the ASX trading failure last Monday.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/asic-confirms-investigation-into-asx-trading-failure-as-outrage-mounts-20160920-grkm68.html
    The technical capabilities of the ADF are being severely run down.
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/striking-public-servants-target-new-submarines-20160920-grk4gr.html
    Another IR negotiation collapses at Parliament House. Perhaps a Michaelia Cash hug might fix it.
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/parliament-house-staff-bargaining-collapses-20160920-grkffg.html
    The big banks are taking some pre-emptive action on “bad apples” before they front the standing committee next month.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/banks-tighten-advice-standards-ahead-of-parliamentary-grilling-20160920-grk5j7.html
    The mounting case for a Royal Commission into banks and insurance companies.
    https://newmatilda.com/2016/09/20/the-mounting-case-for-a-royal-commission-into-the-finance-sector/
    Anna Talbot puts the drive to change 18c into perspective. Greg Barnes also contributed to the article.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/relax-gang-s18c-of-the-racial-discrimination-act-does-not-need-to-be-changed-20160920-grk8z7.html
    What do Trump, Howard, Abbott and Turnbull have in common?
    https://newmatilda.com/2016/09/20/what-have-donald-trump-john-howard-tony-abbott-and-malcolm-turnbull-got-in-common/

  32. Section 4 . . . with Cartoon Corner part 1

    It must be a genetic thing with the Trumps.
    http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-election/donald-trump-jr-faces-backlash-after-comparing-syrian-refugees-to-deadly-skittles-20160920-grks5r.html
    Trump has form when it comes to shady money movements.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2016/sep/20/donald-trump-refugees-skittles-hillary-clinton
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/09/20/trump-won-tax-breaks-while-donating-tens-of-thousands-to-corrupt/?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage&utm_hp_ref=au-homepage

    David Rowe with Christian Porter’s Welfare Pensione.

    Rowe’s done one on the side on Duterte’s addiction.

    Alan Moir and Turnbull’s ideas boom.

  33. Section 5 . . . Cartoon Corner part 2

    Ron Tandberg and the believability of Dutton.

    David Pope with the war on extremism.
    http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/act-news/david-pope-20120214-1t3j0
    Ron Tandberg is right on the money with Howard and Menzies.
    http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/ron-tandberg-20090910-fixc.html
    Mark Knight on Hinch’s drinking admission.
    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/9d03171e882145eb92793414453417f7?width=1024
    Bill Leak really has problems.
    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/3bca820d318c4120445d006ec7c8aa0e

  34. Fizza’s ‘generosity’ in New York is a sham, a total farce.

    Let’s get the truth out there.

    Fizza says we will increase our humanitarian intake to 19,000. Big deal! The Coalition government cut Labor’s intake from 20,000 to 13,750 when they took office, and have kept it at that lower figure until now. It’s an election promise Tony Abbott managed to keep.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-23/abbott-plans-to-reduce-refugee-intake/4387948

    Dutton announced a year ago that humanitarian intake would stay at 13,750 throughout 2016/2017 and then gradually increase to 18,750 for 2108/2019.
    http://www.minister.border.gov.au/peterdutton/2015/Pages/restoring-integrity-to-refugee-intake.aspx

    So Fizza’s ‘generous’ increase is still below Labor’s 2013 level. He damn well knows it, and is putting on one of his fake ‘look how wonderful I am’ snake-oil salesman grins to try to make us believe he is doing something generous and decent. The MSM, of course, are drooling over Fizza’s ‘substantial’ increase. What a bunch of fools!

    By the time those Central American refugees get here they will be eligible for an age pension if the time taken to get those 12,000 Syrian refugees here is any indication. So far, only 3000 have arrived.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/only-3000-refugees-so-far-from-syrian-war-but-pace-increasing/news-story/7bbe1f4c6303016872d7f3899b88c704

    The ‘extra’ $130 million for resettlement is also dodgy. I’d like to see the small print for that agreement.

    In February this year Julie Bishop promised $830 million over four years to refugee resettlement at a conference for Syria donors. Is the $130 million part of that promise, or is it new money? I suspect it’s part of the $830 million.
    http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/foreign-minister-julie-bishop-defends-australias-aid-pledge-to-syria/news-story/0b46390aa1048027d39a06b5c8c4ccfb

    If we had journalists who were able to go back through their files and look at things they wrote about no so long ago we might be told the truth instead of fairy tales about the kindly and concerned Prince of Point Piper.

  35. Just for comparison with Fizza’s fake increased assistance, here’s the policy Labor took to the last election.

    http://www.alp.org.au/asylumseekers

    If you have the time and the interest this, from 2014, is good background information. It’s a shame the ladies and gentlemen of the press haven’t bothered to use it.

    A comparison of Coalition and Labor government asylum policies in Australia since 2001
    http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/AsylumPolicies

  37. Some unsurprising news.

    Half of all Australians want to ban Muslim immigration: poll

    …………………………..It came as an Essential Research poll released on Wednesday found 49 per cent of Australians support a ban on Muslim immigration, including 60 per cent of Coalition voters, 40 per cent of Labor voters and 34 per cent of Greens voters.

    The most common reasons for wanting a ban were fears over terrorism, and a belief that Muslim migrants do not integrate into society or share Australian values. The poll was first conducted in early August and then repeated to ensure it was not a rogue.

    “It’s too a big a number to say it’s an unrepresentative rump that should be shunned from polite society,” Essential pollster Peter Lewis told Fairfax Media.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/half-of-all-australians-want-to-ban-muslim-immigration-poll-20160920-grkufa.html

  39. Imagine the fun” if Twitter had been around in the 90’s.. PJK’s is ability to nail an issue or skewer a deserving liberal/rwnj with few words has not diminished with age..

    • I just had a very quick look. I’m not impressed.

      I’m absolutely in agreement with Steve Biddulph on the lowered starting age. It’s a very dangerous idea. What is needed is proper preschool education for at least a year before little kids start ‘big school’. At four and a half a lot of kids are not even ready for preschool, forcing them into school at that age will most definitely cause problems later on.

      Sadly too many parents want to force their kids into school at a young age for a stack of reasons, all of them selfish. This plan just panders to that attitude.

      The high school thing –
      If truancy is an issue that tells me the schools are not keeping the kids interested and challenged and are probably not providing a wide enough range of subjects. Looking at vocational education would be a good idea. I know a college here that is doing a brilliant job in that area. The students still finish Year 12, but their education is based on work skills and training, not on academic subjects.

      The whole thing is completely the wrong way round. Forcing kids into formal schooling at a younger age won’t help. Instead the Tasmanian government should be trying to work out why so many kids leave high school far too soon.

      Better school results come from better teaching, better teaching comes from good teacher education and on-going training and support. All that requires putting money into those things. Better results don’t come from shaking up the system when the same lack of teaching skills will still be there, it doesn’t come from making threats about truancy either. It might have been good to look at why kids stay away instead of taking the easy option of making threats and imposing more penalties.

    • I agree. Don’t send the little ones to school. They are usually not ready. As for truancy, it’s also due to family problems and in many cases poor health due to many reasons.

    • I am not Leone but

      Steve biddulph is the author of a popular series of books about rearing boys so his comments about delaying school starting age are probably pertinent

      People who leave school before completing year 12 in Tasmania have more employment options than Victorians without training

      On Melbourne radio I heard a program that said Tasmanian families resist education so that the kids stay home, ie they don’t migrate to the mainland

  41. NZ starting school at 5 has been the norm since well before I was born. No real dramas. Compulsory from 6 but 5 is the norm.The early childhood education and school starting age set up there is as below.

    Early childhood education

    Children can take part in early childhood education (ECE) from birth to school entry age. ECE is not compulsory but around 95% of children go to an ECE service. All ECE services in New Zealand plan learning using the national curriculum Te Whāriki.

    Between the ages of 3 and 5, a child can go to an ECE service for 20 hours a week for free. This funding is called 20 hours ECE.

    Primary and secondary schools

    Schooling is compulsory from age 6 to 16. Your child can start school on the day they turn 5 years old (they do not have to wait until the start of a new school year).
    http://www.education.govt.nz/home/education-in-nz/

  42. Bernard Keane has written a cracking good piece on Turnbull’s phony refugee promises.

    It could be a free article, but I’ll post it all anyway.

    Turnbull is not your refugee hero — he’s making Abbott’s cuts permanent

    Far from increasing our refugee intake, the Prime Minister has announced overnight a permanent cut to the level the government inherited from Labor.
    Bernard Keane — Politics Editor

    Don’t be fooled by headlines proclaiming Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is increasing Australia’s refugee intake. He is instead confirming that the Abbott government’s cut in Australia’s humanitarian visa intake will be made permanent.

    Turnbull, in New York to participate in a global talkfest about refugees — in particular Syrian refugees — has made much of increasing our refugee intake. Or, more accurately, committing that it wouldn’t be cut in the future. This is what he said in his media release overnight:

    “[The government will] maintain our Humanitarian Program at the increased level of 18,750 places from 2018-19 onwards. This is in addition to the 12,000 places we have committed for refugees from Syria and Iraq.”

    Sounds good, right? Except all he’s said is that the government is going to keep the 18,750 level beyond 2018-19. That year is significant because when Tony Abbott agreed to accept several thousand Syrian refugees just days before his ouster last year, it was intended to be in addition to the existing 13,750 intake — but it would only be temporary. The idea was — although Abbott never explicitly said this — that since we’d done our bit in resettling 12,000 Syrians (appropriately selected to avoid Sunni Muslim men), our intake would return to its “normal” level after 2019.

    So at best, all Turnbull is doing in keeping the temporary increase that Abbott announced.

    Let’s go back slightly further, to 2014. That year, Abbott (backed of course by his cabinet, of which Turnbull was a part) cut our refugee intake to 13,750, from 20,000 — a cut of nearly one-third. Labor had increased our humanitarian intake when it was in government from 13,750 to 20,000 — in line with the argument of the Houston-Aristotle-L’Estrange report that we should reduce the incentives for asylum seekers to come by boat and increase the incentives for refugees to come here through formal resettlement processes.

    Labor’s decision would have begun fixing a long-term blot on our humanitarian record — even though we’ve taken in more refugees per head than nearly any other Western country, it was laughable that a country as large and as rich as Australia should take in less than a suburban footy ground each year in refugees.

    Abbott and then-immigration minister Scott Morrison’s decision to cut the intake back to 13,750 was disgraceful and grubby — and totally unnecessary given the success of their boat turnback policy. It was an act of wanton callousness directed at punishing the very people they purported to cherish — refugees prepared to come to Australia via formal processes rather than trying to come here by boat.

    Turnbull’s “decision” doesn’t even reverse this shameful moment for Australia. The level Turnbull is parading as “[playing] a leading role in global efforts to assist refugees” leaves the level below 20,000. If he were serious, this would be a first step toward a long-term increase in resettlement — growing toward 25,000 at least. As it is, it’s the political equivalent of offering a discount on an artificially inflated price — if the government were a corporation and tried that sort of stuff, it’d be off to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

    https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/09/21/turnbulls-refugee-courage-cut-in-intake-to-be-made-permanent/

    • One of the reasons our media keep demonising Muslims is to drum up support for this damned eternal bombing.

      They are NEVER going to question it.

  49. This isn’t going to end well. It’s another Turnbull cock-up by the looks of it.

    The people-swap is being denied by Fizza’s henchgoons. Not very convincingly, really.

    And at last some criticism of Fizza’s measly refugee offer.

  50. CK Watt

    Thanks for the New Rules and other interview, we desperately need someone like that here. Like most of us here, I could feel the angst that they are going through, we have been there and done that, and are still there watching on helpless while these thugs are ruining our country.

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