Nearly There, Santa

Guest Author Uncategorized

Here is another great threadstarter from Puffy. Thank you so much, Empress of the Dragons.

Only days  8, 7, 8, 5, 4,, 3, 2, 1, until it’s Boxing Day.

So in the spirit of Xmas 2017 how about pressies for our Pollies and Notable (for various reasons) Others!

To Former PM Julia Gillard.

A Gold Echidna With Bar for having the courage to set up this:

FPM Julia Gillard, The Pub is honoured to present to you:

and a big Thank You on behalf of a grateful nation.

To Bill Shorten, Leader of the Opposition.

So he can kick some more L/NP butts to the kerb in 2018. (Tones, where are you now?)

The Red Vollies. The ALP volunteers whose ground campaign is second to none.

For Joe6Pack, Fiona, Bushfire Bill and all other PUB helpers, esp BK for the Dawn Patrol

For our MSM and Canberra Press Gallery. in honour of your 2017 performance. (Note. Not all of you will fit).

For Peter Dutton MP, so he can find his heart and get the Asylum Seekers out of detention for Christmas. Put some real meaning into Xmas for all of us, Dutton. (yeah, nah, he says.)

For Pride and Perseverance, wedding bells soonest.

For Ned and Syd, who guard The PUB gates from trolls.

Whom have I forgotten? I am sure Pubsters can assist me!.

If Xmas gets you down, there is help.

And so say all of us.

283 thoughts on “Nearly There, Santa”

  1. La Trobe University’s Tony Walker says Shorten is in trouble.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/bill-shorten-labors-great-hope-is-slowly-deflating-20171221-h092oe.html

    Another desperate Kill Bill article from the hacks at fairfax.

    I suspect that when Shorten became leader the press gallery were saying to themselves “he’ll be gone in six months,” that when Turnbull became leader they said to them selves “he’ll be gone by January,” and when the 2016 election campaign started they said “he’ll be gone after the election.” It confounds them that Bill Shorten is still there.

    • Too right GL, as most of us at this blog know. Most still clutch at the straw of PPM but it is only peripheral to how ppl vote in a Westminster system. That is surely shown in voting for the Abbott-led coalition. He was never popular.

  2. We all know how Turnbull’s “good 2018” will go. He’ll be lauded mid-year for bringing the 2PP figures back from 55-45 to 54-46. After losing a couple of front-benchers to some scandal or other he’ll be lauded for claiming an ALP MP ‘might’ be’ under scrutiny. In general he’ll be congratulated for only making things worse when they could have been much worse.

    The expectations of Turnbull have been lowered a long way from when he was first installed as PM. Back then he was feted as the man who was going to turn our whole country around. Now they’re simply hoping he can keep his party afloat, and they don’t mind how many Abbottian moves he makes to achieve it.

  3. I don’t know if this has been linked already –

    Malcolm Turnbull’s pet project for 2018: Get Bill
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/12/18/bill-shorten-malcolm-turnbull-2018/

    Bongers seems to be wanting a Turnbull win, both here and in today’s Saturday Paper article.

    Because the usual suspects are all in full-on ‘Turnbull is set for a great year’ mode and none of them are mentioning all the problems ahead I’m going to do it. Feel free to fill in anything I miss.

    The mythology is official now. New England, the by-election the media ignored, was a huge win for the government and for Turnbull, despite the bleeding obvious – the National Party was never going to lose in New England.

    The mythology also says Bennelong result was a kick in the guts for Shorten because Labor didn’t get the 7% swing they wanted. Well, they did get it, in the first preference votes, but it dropped back to just under 5% in the 2PP. Nothing to complain about really, a swing that size in what was, until 16 December, a blue ribbon Liberal seat has made Bennelong marginal and if that swing is replicated in the next full election the government will be swept from office in a landslide.

    Another thing the MSM refuse to mention – until Labor decided to go with Kristina Keneally as their candidate the Bennelong result was set to be another boring by-election, ignored by the MSM, ending in a whopping huge win for Alexander. Instead Labor forced the Liberal Party to panic to the extent they spent $1 million on their campaign, seriously depleting their reserves ahead of what looks like being an election year. The panic also forced Turnbull to get out of his Point Piper bunker and do some campaigning, where he disgraced himself by telling lies so blatant that even his cheer squad journalists had to report them. Labor took charge and turned the whole thing into a showcase for KK and an opportunity for Labor to talk up their policies. As a result of Labor’s strong campaigning one in eight former Liberal voters in a very socially conservative electorate changed their habits and voted Labor.

    That’s all supposed to have been a disaster for Shorten? How?

    The citizenship thing is supposed to make Shorten crash and burn, according to the MSM. Why? Labor has two pollies heading for the High Court, unless Feeney finds his missing paperwork, in which case it will be just one, Katy Gallagher, and she seems set to be cleared on the ‘took all reasonable steps’ argument. Labor has a list of government MPs and senators who did not provide any documentation to prove their claims of eligibility to be elected. I think Labor will find a way to get those MPs referred to the High Court and some of them will lose,

    All that brings me to the state of play in parliament at the end of the last sitting week. Don’t forget, Turnbull needs the cross bench on his side in the Reps if he is going to send Labor MPs to the High Court or get any legislation passed. But –
    Turnbull alienated the lot of them in the last sitting week, even Katter and McGowan, and also the Greens. Richard Di Natale was so angry he said Turnbull was no longer fit to be PM. All this happened after Turnbull attempted to ‘negotiate’ with the cross bench.

    The MSM missed that.

    Things do not look good for Turnbull in the new year.. He won’t be able to get any bills passed without the help of the cross bench, and they finished the year feeling stroppy. Ditto the Greens. NXT is saying they won’t negotiate on any legislation in the Senate until the government lifts their game on transparency and accountability.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/21/nxt-suspends-negotiations-with-coalition-on-senate-legislation

    Turnbull is stuck, he must know it, and the knives have well and truly been sharpened, for use on the first mistake. Yet the MSM is ignoring all this and running with fake Labor leadershit rubbish and made-up garbage about Labor factional dramas. The political journalists have been dragging all their old crap about Rudd and Gillard out of the files, dusting it all off, changing the names and re-running it in the hope we will all be fooled into thinking it’s astounding new revelations. They are very, very wrong.

    • Well said, Leone. It is more than frustrating that lnp are getting away with all their lies, rorting and complete coverups, whilst they and msm media are having to make up lies and stuff against Labor. With just have to grit our teeth and suck it up until a change of government.

    • I’m over all the re-writing of history that’s going on now Lady Flo has finally popped her clogs. Most sickening was Turnbull’s tweet –

      Flo and Joh were corrupt to the core. a pair of faux-Christian bigots. Joh put his own wife into the Senate so she could be his enabler there, a move only bested by Caligula making his horse a senator (allegedly). Hasn’t Turnbull ever heard of the Fitzgerald inquiry?

      And now we all have to pay for a state funeral for the old bat.

  7. Joh’s mate was a shocker, good ol Gina’s dad.. Check out the Qld peasants on after Lang interview, feck they all spoke like Joh, don’t you worry about that !! As for lines like “they (do gooders) thought they’d civilise these savages of ours and..”

    “Lang Hancock’s solution to the ‘Aboriginal problem’ (1984)”

  9. Just another example of Turnbull’s petulant churlishness.

  10. As a qlder that spent some time with Johs special branch Im glad she is dead and am sick of all this post death worship.
    She was a mean old bitch that supported a mean old corrupt bastard.
    A state funeral should be held for my left toenail before that thing

    Dig a hole and bury the shit out in the scrub

  11. Apparently there is a yuuge difference between A and THE Rodent.

    “Liberal Senator George Brandis does not deny routinely referring to the Prime Minister as “the rodent”.,,,,,,,,,And, it must be said, in all the times this correspondent has heard Brandis use the r-word it has always been preceded by “the”, not “a”……….According to a statutory declaration signed three days ago by a former senior official in the Queensland division of the party, Russell Galt, Brandis “unambiguously referred” to the PM as “a lying rodent”, in relation to the children overboard affair at a meeting in May last year.

    http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/01/1093939000766.html

    Not only but also The Nerd and the Jock over the years…..


    .

  12. I don’t usually ask for much but could people refrain from posting vomit inducing photo’s until after Christmas please. Thanks.

  13. As a person from Victoria, (I think qld’ers call us mexicans) I could never understand the idolisation of Joh and Flo. I was visiting my Mum ages ago, cousins were down from qld, they hoofed off to Melbourne with Mum leaving us like shags on a rock. Had the temerity to ask us to post their ballot papers to a qld election. Knowing from the way they talked I could guess who they were voting for. I posted their stuff. Have to admit that at the time I was politically ignorant other than my dislike of J and F. I don’t know if I would oblige their request if they made it now.

    • It’s significant that the UK, Japan and South Korea voted for the resolution at a time like this.

      A sign that some of the USA’s closest allies are getting fed up with their crap under Trump.

    • The Turnbull government supports Israel to the extent they actually grovel to the Israeli government, they see Palestine as the enemy. So why not go all the way with Donald J and vote ‘No’? Because Turnbull is a gutless wimp, that’s why. He’s trying to sit on the fence.

  15. leonetwo

    The Turnbull government supports Israel to the extent they actually grovel to the Israeli

    There are more than a few Labor $%%#%! peasants who are just as enthusiastic grovellers .

  16. Mearsheimer and Walt have collected and quoted some of the lobbyists’ comments on their organizations’ political capital. For example, Mearsheimer and Walt quote Morris Amitay, former AIPAC director as saying, “It’s almost politically suicidal … for a member of Congress who wants to seek reelection to take any stand that might be interpreted as anti-policy of the conservative Israeli government.”[93] They also quote a Michael Massing article in which a staffer[who?] sympathetic to Israel said, “We can count on well over half the House – 250 to 300 members – to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants.”[94] Similarly they cite former AIPAC official Steven Rosen illustrating AIPAC’s power for Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of him and saying, “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States#Degr

  17. Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Let me take this opportunity to wish all patrons and other PUBsters a very merry Christmas.
    It’s a pathetically small offering today.

    Judith Ireland’s ten defining political moments of 2017.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/ten-moments-that-defined-federal-politics-in-2017-20171220-h08clh.html
    Katharine Murphy with a bit of introspection and a proposed “Tony tax” on short termism.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/22/how-about-a-tax-on-auspol-short-termism-lets-call-it-the-tony-
    In the second article of a series Dr Evan Jones summarises the issues confronting the Hayne Royal Commission, which he has been investigating for over 30 years.
    https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/the-claytons-banking-royal-commission-part-2-more-of-the-same-over-30-years,11054
    This very unattractive (IMHO) narcissist is in a spot of bother.
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fitness-model-katiusha-stepanyans-220k-bedroom-cash-stash-20171221-h08h95.html
    Peter Wilmoth on “post-aspirationals” and the Apple store in Federation Square.
    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/heres-a-concept-try-not-to-buy-a-new-apple-iphone-for-a-while-20171221-h08jtb
    The national pesticides authority may have to hire staff from overseas to make its forced move to Armidale work and avoid a drain on its skills. Nicely done Barnaby!
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/apvma-may-have-to-hire-overseas-staff-for-armidale-move-to-work-20171222-h094e9.html
    Michael West identifies two more big tax evaders.
    https://www.michaelwest.com.au/booking-com-what-the-online-travel-giant-owes-australia/
    Advocates for marriage equality have criticised Australia’s leading Catholic for saying 2017 was a ‘horrible year’ because of the same-sex marriage debate and the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/12/23/catholic-annus-horribilis/
    Next year will be very challenging for Australian charities.
    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/next-year-will-be-very-challenging-for-australian-charities-20171218-h06eku.html

  18. Section 2 . . . Cartoon Corner

    Peter Broelman on the Flinders St carnage.

    Also Mark Knight.

    Christmas at Parliament House with Matt Golding.

    Another good little video from Glen Le Lievre.

    John Shakespeare’s 2017 winners and losers.

    Mark Knight and the discovery of the 103 years old submarine wreck.

  19. BK

    Thank you for the thousands of links this year and previous years. Looking forward to more next year. Have a break and enjoy your family. Merry merry and happy happy.

  20. BK, it’s been a hell of a year both personally and nationally, and I thank you for the mammoth task you have undertaken with your usual good grace. Many a time , the only chance I have to get up-to-date with things is a scroll down your posts and it is much valued in a time-poor world. A very merry Xmas toy you and yours.

  21. Fantastic response to Katharine Murphy’s self-indulgent ‘Tony tax’ piece.

    AusPerugino 8h ago
    I think the breakdown in political and media standards may not be a matter of collusion between politicians and media where “news” is mere propaganda, although it clearly is in the Murdoch sector. Nor do I think it is inherent in the nature of the short-term news cycle. It has to do with on the one hand a loss of democratic idealism by politicians and on the other hand a failure of media in upholding the basic principle that a democracy needs a population that is informed and not conned.

    Political parties do seek to manipulate the media, Ministers bald-facedly lie and deceive the public, and media have forgotten their obligations to a system that relies on open access to information. In that sense Trump’s “fake news” meme has an element of truth in it, but he has turned it into a tool of attempted censorship on reportage of his dreadful presidency. This is a ploy that has inherent dangers for the survival of democracy in the superficial coverage that characterises much of US media and outright propaganda in the case of Murdoch’s Fox News. The dumbing down of politics and media is the precursor of the demise of democracy. That depends, of course, on other manifestations of authoritarianism that plague the Trump White House and the Republican Party, which has been undermining democracy for decades, and which are evident in the ranks of the Coalition Government.

    With Dastyari, the Turnbull Regime distracted everyone from their own issues with massive foreign donations from the same source with Goebellian efficiency. It was a brilliant ploy. It’s not just an example of politicians playing the short news cycle. Look at the legs in the story about the mowing down of Melbourne pedestrians, a horrible act. But that incident had been pre-dated 10 days earlier by a smaller but nonetheless horrific crime, for which she has been charged, where a drunk white woman deliberately drove into a handful of pedestrians in inner-city Brisbane with hardly a flutter of the national media and silence, I believe, from the politicians.

    It’s the media that collectively fail their duty in what they report and how they report it. It’s not just the attention span of politicians who so often relegate their idealism to pragmatic opportunity and their success in selling out is aided by an uncritical, populist media. The extremists among their party display outright malevolence towards democracy, which underwrites so-called neo-liberalism or neo-conservatism and even leads to fascist policies and behaviour such as we have seen in the past decade in official violations of human rights.

    And the media display a very patchy understanding – often with naivety and the opportunism of sensationalism – of the issues and the implications and consequences of politics that ought to be important to media in a democracy. Selling advertising space is an integral part of the media business but when it supplants the news objective and when ideological proprietors subvert truth-telling and the journalistic ethics that point to the democratic obligations of the business, our liberties, shaky enough in this age, are in a clear and present danger

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/22/how-about-a-tax-on-auspol-short-termism-lets-call-it-the-tony-

    I’m so tired of journalists telling us the year has been a ‘grim’ one for politics when it has been a disaster only for Turnbull and his government. I’m sick to death of journalists telling us our political system is ‘busted’ and offering no real explanation for that claim apart from ‘because I say so’. They tell us so often that our system of politics and government is broken that most Australians now believe them, if polling is anything to go by.

    They claim our system is broken because Turnbull is doing badly. They used to claim it was broken when they wanted to get rid of Julia Gillard and have Abbott as PM. They can’t have it both ways. They can’t claim the system is busted because they want to destroy a government they don’t like, as they did with Julia and their constant,gleeful leadershit rubbish, nor can they now claim it’s busted because they want Turnbull to survive. Remember when they all thought Tony Abbott was the best thing ever because with their help he was hurting a Labor government? The press mob couldn’t hold back their adoration of Abbott. Now he’s a pest and has to go because he’s hurting Turnbull and ruining his chances of staying in office. The bias is so blatant, but Murphy just can’t see it. To her it’s all because of short-term decisions made by politicians and political ‘bad behaviour’.

    Murphy and her colleagues are the problem, not our politicians, not what they do and definitely not some hypothetical busted system.

    • The Land is a Fairfax publication, as usual editorials are anonymous. That particular editorial could have been written by any of the usual Fairfax scribblers. It contains all the usual lines. Turnbull ended the year on a high, “landed on his feet”, New England was a triumph (that’s like some journalist breathlessly declaring he/she can reveal the Pope is a Catholic) and Shorten isn’t what Labor needs. All so fracking predictable.

      I rest my case, Your Honour.

  24. Dear Pubsters,

    Have yourselves a happy, merry and safe Xmas. My sincere thanks to you all for your comments and/or keeping the bar stools occupied during the difficult times we have endured all through 2017 (may Trumble and his inept team in government choke on their Xmas dinner). Special thanks to BK for the daily links, to Joe6Pack, Fiona and BB for the time and effort spent in keeping The Pub running smoothly.

  25. Instinct is a wonderful thing. Ordered our bread the other day, as Bakery will be closed for two days. Was going to leave it until this afternoon to pick it up. Decided to slip down and get it before the traffic started. Luckily, as the girls has written the order for the 31st!! Got my two farmers loaves, but if I had left it much later they would all have been gone. Grandsons love the gravy and use almost a loaf after they’ve devoured huge plate of food, and before they then have homemade (by Razz’ Mum) Xmas pudding. They eat more in one meal than Razz and I would consume in at least four days.

  26. Fiona earlier this month you asked Aguirre for his views on the level crossing replacement program

    Victorians might remember that earlier in the year the newspapers were running a campaign against replacing suburban level crossings with elevated rail tracks. the campaign was orchestrated by the Liberals. Today I looked toward the Koornang Road level crossing, it’s gorn replaced by newly retarmaced road and a neat concrete elevated track. No more hideous waits to get a right turn arrow to get into Aldi or Spotlight!

    Then I remember the heart of Liberal country into Brighton has had elevated tracks at Balaclava, Gardenvale and underpass at Elsternwick since the 1960s. The current works were completed much faster. Bye the bye Kennett wanted to close the Sandringham line in the 1990s.

    The elevated track at Balaclava is a brick and timber construction that is so old its beyond eyesore, its possibly 140 years old as that low lying area still floods in deluges. My work colleague was appalled to see teenage daughter on the front page of The Age tip toeing through the floodwaters holding her school dress up. More concerned about contents of flood water than displayed thigh

  27. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all lurkers
    Thanks Joe6Pack for hosting this site and to Bushfire Bill and Fiona for moderating it

  28. Thank you joe6pack, BB, Fiona. Thank you BK for your daily contributions and precis of headlines. Thank you to regular posters, including Kirsdarke, Leonetwo, billie11, 2gravel, in fact thank you to all the posters – everyone who makes this blog the community it is.

    I hope that those of us who have physical and/or mental health issues continue to find some comfort here – I certainly do.

    There is always something to learn, something to lift the spirits, something to laugh at, to empathise with.

    I hope everyone enjoys whatever they do for the Christmas/New Year week, and that 2018 will be a turning point in Australian politics, such that we see the current government gone, and the emergence and implementation of many positive, inclusive and common-sense ideas for our country, our people and our planet.

    Actually, if 2018 does not become a ‘turning point’, I hope at least that this bunch of political twits and incompetents doesn’t poison society and the planet any more than they have already.

    Helen

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