Prime Minister,
On 18 September 2013, you were made Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. You set in place certain policies and practices.
On 17 February 2014, I, Reza Barati, from Iran, prisoner on Manus Island, died from beatings by prison guards and Manus Islanders.
On 22 June 2014, I, Sayed Ibrahim Hussein, from Pakistan, prisoner on Nauru, drowned in the ocean.
On 5 September 2014, I, Hamid Kehazaei, from Iran, prisoner on Manus Island, died from untreated septicemia.
On 29 April 2016, I, Omid Masoumali, from Iran, prisoner on Nauru, died when I killed myself.
On 11 May 2016, I, Rakib Khan, from Sri Lanka, prisoner on Nauru, died from an overdose
On 2 August 2016, I, Kamil Hussain, from Pakistan, prisoner on Manus Island, died swimming.
On 24 December 2016, I, Faysal Ishak Ahmed, from Sudan, prisoner on Manus Island, died from untreated seizures.
On 7 August 2017, I, Hamed Shamshiripour, from Iran, prisoner on Manus Island, died when I killed myself.
On 2 October 2017, I, Rajeev Rajendran, from Sri Lanka, prisoner on Manus Island, died when I killed myself.
On 2 November 2017, I, Jahingir, from Bangladesh, prisoner on Nauru, died hit by a car.
On 22 May 2018, I, Salim Kyawning, stateless Rohingya, prisoner on Manus Island, died when I killed myself.
On 15 June 2018, I, Fariborz Karami, from Iran, prisoner on Nauru, died when I killed myself.
You failed in your duty of care: you killed us.
In that time, you have taken more than one million dollars from Australian taxpayers. Is eighty thousand dollars sufficient reward for each of the twelve lives?
We feel so sorry for your God.
THE PUB 
BK
I cannot imagine a morning without The Dawn Patrol. I peruse the links first and then start going through them, starting with the cartoons. By the end of the day, I have gone through them all and have a much better knowledge of the news than reading all the newspapers, not that I buy even one of the fags.
Thank you very much for your excellent service. Merry Christmas to you and your family. Have a good one.
Puffy.
Hear! Hear,!
Merry Christmas all
Thanks, me old china!
Where I come from, this is Little Christmas Eve.
Tomorrow night, our family, close family, all thirteen, will hoe into ninety-nine percent of what the billions could not imagine.
Right now, I feel so embarrassed and a lesser person.
May your gods go with you!
Dear Ducky,
You are never a lesser person, and I am sure you and your family will do what you can to help families less fortunate.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers. Not unexpectedly it’s a bit of a slow news day today.
Will Joe Biden give the US its first ever presidential battle of the septuagenarians?
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/third-time-lucky-how-joe-biden-at-76-will-shape-democratic-race-20181223-p50nyg.html
Greg Jericho says that come election 2019, wage growth will matter more to voters than a surplus and the government will find it hard to argue that people are better off now than five years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2018/dec/23/come-election-2019-wage-growth-will-matter-more-to-voters-than-a-surplus
When a student petitioned Anglican schools over the rights of LGBTIQ young people, it led to a face-to-face meeting with the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies. They did not see eye-to-eye. Here is an excellent account of the meeting from the student involved.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/my-audience-with-the-archbishop-a-student-s-plea-for-sexual-equality-20181223-p50nyr.html
The UK Guardian reassures Britons with “Don’t panic! Don’t panic! You need not spoil your Christmas by worrying that Britain is walking the Brexit tightrope without a safety net because the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, has announced that the armed forces are on standby.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/23/bluff-blackmail-brinkwomanship-why-a-no-deal-brexit-is-still-on-the-cards
Amanda Vanstone defends the paucity of parliamentary sitting days.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/maybe-parliament-should-sit-less-instead-of-more-20181220-p50nis.html
Now it is a spiralling drama over the autonomy of the US Federal Reserve that frazzled investors must cope with as stocks lurch toward a bear market. What else can Trump f**k up?
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/rattled-markets-would-erupt-if-trump-fired-fed-chairman-powell-20181223-p50nzx.html
And we reckon WE’VE got it bad! One of Britain’s biggest providers of agency carers has been fining staff who phone in sick £50, raising concerns that frontline employees are being forced to turn up for shifts when they are not fit for work and risk spreading illnesses to vulnerable patients.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/23/british-care-company-fines-workers-50-for-calling-in-sick
Sean Kelly ponders over what might lie ahead for MP who will defenestrated or left languishing in next year’s election.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tis-the-season-for-coalition-mps-to-contemplate-life-after-politics-20181221-p50npq.html
The New York Times says that many countries are trying to recalibrate their relations with Trump, who views traditional allies as competitors.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-s-global-disorder-drives-us-allies-to-seek-brave-new-world-20181223-p50ny9.html
But the US congress has issued an extraordinary declaration on the importance of the Australia-US alliance to reassure an anxious Canberra of its enduring commitment to its “special relationship” in the wake of the resignation of Donald Trump’s Defence Secretary, Jim Mattis.
https://outline.com/kBKqd6
This remarkable decision by the US Congress to reassure Australia reflects growing alarm about Trump’s treatment of allies.
https://outline.com/sz7wZL
The US stumbled into the holiday season with a sense of unravelling, as a large chunk of the federal government ground to a halt, the stock market crashed and the last independently minded, globally respected, major figure left in the administration announced he could no longer work with the president.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/23/donald-trump-government-shutdown-syria-mattis-mcgurk-yemen
The AFR tells us about the unstoppable force of clean energy transition not controlled by government policy.
https://outline.com/TVGJRS
Robert Gottliebsen has written an open letter to Shorten and Bowen about franking credits for retirees.
https://outline.com/xHyev5
Colin Cook writes that broad-based taxes are often designed to guarantee wealth concentration, not to mitigate inequality.
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/broad-based-taxes-drive-economic-inequality,12221
Solomon Lew has picked a good fight with shopping centre landlords.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/stop-whingeing-over-rents-retail-landlord-tells-solly-lew-20181210-p50lbo.html
Andrew Taylor examines the rise and fall of the holiday home.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/nsw/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-holiday-home-20181217-p50mrw.html
Kevin Rudd was PM. An election loomed. Tony Abbott was ahead in the polls and Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers were furiously crusading for Abbott when Rupert’s media empire was presented with a tax refund of almost $900 million. Michael West reports on corporate tax refunds.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/hidden-billions-ato-forgot-to-say-corporations-get-tax-rebates-too/
Nicholas Reece wonders when and how kids become so smart they confidently assert the non-existence of a supernatural creator?
https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/my-daughter-is-an-atheist-who-also-believes-in-santa-claus-20181221-p50nno.html
Yet more trouble inside the troubled Victorian Liberal Party.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/state-mp-launches-defamation-action-over-polling-booth-assault-claim-20181223-p50nzk.html
Today’s nomination for “Arsehole of the Week” goes to this guy – and all of his ilk!
https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/john-of-god-s-australian-followers-in-shock-after-sexual-abuse-scandal-20181220-p50niy.html
Carton Corner – and it’s slim pickings!
Matt Davidson.
Zanetti and China’s intentions in the South Pacific.
Nice work from Pat Campbell.
Jon Kudelka with the signing of the declaration of Independence (2018)
https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/429030243da849fa2129360f38dccc8a
BK
Thank you for everything you do for us all. Best wishes to you and yours for Christmas.
Thank you BK for so many massive contributions from day to day.
Seasons greeting to you and to all those who continue to sit around the bar in the Pub.
It costs more to buy a burger at Hungry Jacks than they pay their holiday staff/interns for an hour’s work. Just think on that for a minute.
FYI – https://www.aussieprices.com.au/food/fast-food/hungry-jacks-prices/
Is FauxMo trying to look like Turnbull with his new glasses?
You decide.
He’s even going for the turned-up collar look!
Like father, like son; major eruption of Anak Krakatau in Indonesia the most likely source of tsunamis that have killed at least 200 people in Indonesia:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/rockyplanet/2018/12/23/surprise-tsunami-hits-indonesia-killing-hundreds/
BK
Isn’t it wonderful that Australia gives you a holiday on Xmas day so you can sleep in and not have to find all those fantastic links for us Pubsters. May you, and all at The Pub, have a safe and happy time.
This government seems to have a policy of cutting funding to community groups just to see what will happen, and then restoring part of the funding when those running the service scream.
We saw this with the cut to Foodbank, with funding restored temporarily.
Now it’s happening with the Community Visitors scheme, something I had never heard of until today.
Older Australians ‘betrayed at Christmas’ after changes to visitors scheme funding
Fears vulnerable people will be isolated after cut to groups which connect volunteers with those in residential or community care
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/24/older-australians-betrayed-at-christmas-after-changes-to-visitors-scheme-funding
Funny how these things are announced quietly, at times when it is presumed no-one will be paying attention, yet yesterday FauxMo called a presser to announce the good news – a drug to treat MS, but only in some patients, will at last be available on the PBS from 1 January.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/23/multiple-sclerosis-wonder-drug-mavenclad-to-be-subsidised-under-pbs
Funny about that,too, the drug was approved for a PBS subsidy back in August, just days before FauxMo knifed Turnbull, but we are only hearing about it now via a special press conference with a chap in a wheelchair dragged along for extra emotional appeal.
https://msra.org.au/news/mavenclad-cladribine-approved-reimbursement-pbs/
With regard to Robert Gottliebsen’s letter to Bill Shorten on franking credits it says
Some of Boo’s mates are on government pensions and will get their cash franking credits entitlement.
My sister who worked for ATO says she pays income tax on her pension.
If the refund of excess franking credits is abolished, we will both pay tax of $10,500 on our $35,000 taxable investment income. If we were still earning personal income (pre-retirement) of $35,000 each per annum our tax liability would be $3500 each — the difference in tax liabilities ($7000) is not a retirement tax. It is a retirement SUPER TAX!
Boo and his wife have $700,000 work of shares. if they can become eligible for a $1 of Aged pension they can keep their franking credits ie less than $500,000 in shares
https://outline.com/xHyev5
From the jaws.
Thanks TLBD
Boo and his wife EACH have $700,000 in shares
For heavens sake! All these well-off oldies whining about missing out on a government handout make me sick. Don’t like Labor’s franking credits plans? Well, don’t structure your retirement income to depend on those credits. Find something else. It’s not compulsory to set up your retirement nest egg in that way.
Many of these whingers would also be the same people who complain bitterly whenever an increase in Newstart is discussed, or who get snarky about sole parents being given priority for daycare places, or the same people who circulate nasty, lying memes about all the goodies refugees allegedly “get”. Which, of course, they don’t get at all, but try explaining that to one of my sisters and her husband, who are eager circulators of this filth.
If I hear much more of “I’ve paid taxes all my life and this is how you treat me” then I might do something i’ll come to regret. First – no-one pays taxes “all their life”. You paid taxes all your working life.That helped pay for the schools and universities and TAFE colleges you attended, maybe for free, if you went to uni before Hawkie reinstated uni fees. It pays for the roads and railways you use, for the pensioner fares that allow you almost free public transport, for the health system you use, for the aged care you will soon need, the concession price prescriptions you take and and for all the freebies you gladly claim via that Commonwealth Seniors Card that even millionaires are able to use.
Sometimes these old people make me ashamed to be the age I am. All I seem to see is greed and a gimmee gimmee mentality from those who are doing very, very nicely.
‘Stop whingeing’ over rents, retail landlord tells Solly Lew
I agree Solly Lew is struggling to sell his tat in markets exposed to Uniqlo Zara and H&M
I think the spam monster is swallowing posts
On Xmas eve 50 years ago some humans did not follow orders and this iconic photo was taken.
Apollo 8’s Earthrise: The Shot Seen Round the World
“Hey don’t take that, it’s not scheduled,” Commander Borman said. Then, like good humans, they grabbed cameras and clicked away.”
https://outline.com/A9fgGT
Found in the clutches of the Spam Monster.
a comment from “Come election 2019, wage growth will matter more to voters than a surplus”, The Guardian
Today’s reading is from the Epistle to the Arsholians, ch 9.
v1 This be an account of that which did occur in the remote province of Ostraya, in the year 2018.
v2 Now a wealthy merchant had died, bequeathing great riches, so that scholars might study Western Civilisation.
v3 And those into whose hands were given these great riches, said one to another, “we must first consult the Simian Primate in this matter.”
v4 For a Simian Primate there was, clad in a red loincloth, which lived in a monastic enclave atop a tree.
v5 And mighty was its ignorance throughout the land, so that it shone like unto a dead mackerel.
v6 Then those who had been given the great riches did hail the Simian Primate saying, “verily, we know thy wit to be flat an it were a plate of stale piss. So we beseech thee, speak unto the great centres of learning with thy leaden tongue and it is meet we supply thee raw onions for thy delectation.”
v7 So the Simian Primate did agree and came down from its tree.
v8 And on the day appointed, did mount its unicycle and rode off to address the scholars regarding Western Civilisation in a great city by the sea, yclept Wollongong.
v9 Yet scarcely had the Simian Primate begun its address with the words, “uh, look, uh, I think, uh, uh,….”than the scholars there assembled fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.
Here endeth the reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2018/dec/23/come-election-2019-wage-growth-will-matter-more-to-voters-than-a-surplus#comment-124051788
From The Guardian Australia –
A fair dinkum flip-flop: a mashup of Australian politics for 2018
With it comes a quote from an opinion piece Kathrine Murphy wrote on Saturday. She does the usual journalistic thing in her article, saying “politics”, “the political class” and “the political system” when she really means (but can’t bring herself to say) “the government’. All the bad things she lists have happened to or because of the current government, yet she just won’t say that. To be fair, she does end on a positive note for Labor, which may well be the first time a journalist has done that since Rudd was on track to win in 2007.
The full article, if you haven’t seen it.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/22/australia-is-lucky-thats-why-the-ubiquity-of-stupid-in-our-politics-is-so-infuriating
Hmmm
Video available here –
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2018/dec/24/a-fair-dinkum-flip-flop-a-mashup-of-australian-politics-for-2018-video
Still OK on YouTube. Dunno why it won’t work here.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish every pubster a safe and happy christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year.
Special thanks to BK and Leroy for the hard work they do to keep us informed all year. Also TLBD, leonetwo, fiona and Joe6pack for bringing us this fantabulous site that maintains our sanity in an insane world (donald trump is potus, tell me that’s not insane).
Thanks to all and Happy Christmas.
This is the seventh Christmas at the PUB.
Compliments of the season to all.
Is it really? How time flies. Are we having a 7th birthday then?
Can’t believe that…..PB was going into recess if I remember correctly. Brings back memories of the Friday Raffle.😀
We should have a 7th birthday party with Raffle! Wottabout this coming Friday?
A Birthday Raffle sounds OK to me.
Have yourselves a lovely and safe Xmas everyone, and may you all enjoy seeing the end of this woeful Govt in the New Year. My sincere thanks to you all for keeping me informed and sane.
Yippeeee a 7th birthday party raffle, count us in.
I think the first one was 2012 so it’s sixth birthday.
Oh, does that mean we can have another one next year to celebrate the 7th year of the raffle.
From an occasional commenter and a major league lurker I’d like to wish all PB tragics a very safe and merry Xmas and new year. Take care everyone and if you can’t be good be careful.
A not at all merry Christmas for some Sydney people –
Sydney Olympic Park residents evacuated amid concerns building may collapse
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/opal-tower-residents-evacuated-after-concerns-building-may-collapse-20181224-p50o4b.html
People on twitter are saying it was built on swamp land, and that door were jammed and had to be forced open. This is a christmas these people won’t forget.
I don’t know how old this building is or any other factor regarding this issue but I can say one thing – This is what the so called “Red Tape” that is stifling industry is there to prevent. So think about that all you RWNJ’s before you complain.
At least the US Government shut-down has not spoilt one of my favourite sillinesses of Christmas Eve.
NORAD Santa Tracker is still operational.
Christmas is not a particularly happy time for me (too many sad things happened), but the fact that air traffic controllers around the world contribute to this little bit of “magic” makes me feel a little happier about the whole day tomorrow, and it looks like it might only get up to 33C – a great relief in some ways.
Swamp and a toxic tip.
Waste dumping, controlled and uncontrolled, around Homebush Bay transformed the once bountiful wetlands into ugly tips and polluted waterways. Sydney’s rapid expansion in the 1950s and 60s and the start of the “throw-away” society meant people and industry needed more space to put their waste. By 1970 Wentworth Bay no longer existed and by 1978 most low-lying land had been filled.
By 1988 there was an estimated 9 million cubic metres of waste and contaminated soils spread over 400 hectares within the 760 hectare site. The waste was not homogenous and included petroleum waste, unexploded ordnance, potential acid suphate soils, illegally dumped wastes along the waterways (including persistent organic pollutants, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc), dredged sediments, municipal waste in managed tips, industrial waste (including rubble, power station fly ash, gasworks waste, asbestos) and contamination from site activities (burning pits, chemical leaks and application).
https://www.sopa.nsw.gov.au/About-Us/History-and-Heritage/Site-Remediation
Merry Christmas
Just dropped off my sister after picking up from the airport. On the way to my nieces place she told me of a mortifying moment at work a long time ago. Lucky for her the internet social media thing was not so big back then. I reckon it had great viral potential these days, especially as the audio would be easier to get out there. Well it tickled my funny bone.
The scene .A Coroners court in an un-named city , a murder case, very serious atmosphere, an un-named police officer read on to record the police findings, this police officer ran two words together that were close on the page as they moved on to detailing the finding of the ‘Vaginacologist’. Cue extremely awkward atmosphere , wide eyed family, jaw dropped coroner and a lot of people trying to keep a straight face, un-named police officer doing a Barnaby complexion impersonation. She later received several applications from within the police force for the ‘new position’ at the coroners. The ‘whoops ‘ lovingly recorded on tape for posterity to boot 🙂
joe6pack
Merry Xmas to you and your family. Thank you for this site. This Little Black Duck tells us we are celebrating 7 years on this site. My how time flies when you’re having fun.
P.S. There is no comment box on the new link. 😦
Well, Merry XMAS to all the Pub’s patrons and of course the Pub and its management.
Merry Christmas to all the Pubsters, looking forward to Friday night
Oooh nice one Joe.
CK Watt
I read that it was only four months old in a news item this afternoon.