Sunday, 21 December 2014

The latest and greatest from the Minister for Women - The AIM Network

The latest and greatest from the Minister for Women

December 22, 2014
Written by:
The AIM Network
10 Replies

**Image courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/MsJuliaGillard**

This is too good not to share (courtesy of Support the Honourable Julia Gillard Facebook page).

LOL! When our Minister for Women, Tony Abbott, was asked to nominate his top achievements in 2014 in his “portfolio”, he said:

“Well, you know, it is very important to do the right
thing by families and households. As many of us know, women are
particularly focused on the household budget and the repeal of the
carbon tax means a $550 a year benefit for the average family.”

Tony Abbott said he was “proud” to elevate a number of women in his cabinet reshuffle. Two women in cabinet. AMAZING, right? So praise worthy, right?

Tony Abbott also spruiked his “fair dinkum” paid parental leave
scheme, one that has been revised countless times and remains opposed by
many.

Yep – 2014 achievement as Minister for Women? More money for women by
abolishing the carbon tax – check. More women in cabinet – check. Give
more money to millionaires to have a baby – on hold / being revised /
check back later.

Apart from being too comical for words, I see that he’s still trying
to tell us that by repealing the ‘carbon tax’ families are still $550
better off a year. He’s both a comic and a liar.

I find it hard to believe that Tony Abbott simply does not know the law

In "Politics"

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear

In "Politics"

Government - what a difference an election makes

In "Rossleigh"

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Tony Abbott's 'reset' can never work because he can't 'reset' himself | Jason Wilson

Tony Abbott's 'reset' can never work because he can't 'reset' himself

Jason Wilson

It’s a popular trick for politicians to “reset” after a policy
disaster, but what happens when the problem isn’t the policy, but the
politician himself?

tony abbott — **‘In attempting to rebrand himself in the face of political difficulty, Abbott is following a well-worn path.’ Photograph: AAP**

Wednesday 10 December 2014 11.50 AEST

1,502

Comments
367

Tony Abbott’s attempt to “reset”
his terrible political situation has had a forlorn quality. His
government has been trailing in the polls almost since its election, and
his own personal standing has been consistently worse than his party’s.

His first budget has been stoking public anger for seven long months.
His own ministers appear to be briefing against him, and MPs are
grumbling about the control-freakery of his office. In the face of all
this, the best his brains trust could do was pushing him out in front of
the media to promise that he really could change, if only we would give
him another chance. This followed a speech to his party room where he
promised to scrape some barnacles from the government’s hull (an
operation which may soon require a bathysphere).

In
attempting to rebrand himself in the face of political difficulty,
Abbott is following a well-worn path, which is not trod exclusively by
conservatives. Last month, British Labour leader Ed Miliband, himself
limping in the polls and suffering leadership speculation, offered a “fightback” speech
which was meant to show his nervous colleagues that he had plotted a
path to victory. The Tories helpfully pointed out that this was
Miliband’s 10th attempt to resurrect his fortunes on the stump, each
time with diminishing returns. Like Abbott, he has failed to persuade
anyone that a change in communication strategy equates to a more
fundamental reorientation. Perhaps his failures are more forgivable: his
policies, at least, are popular, and opposition is not a place from
which it is easy to control the political milieu.

Barack Obama’s recent reset may have a better chance of at least
offsetting the problem of his own personal unpopularity. After making
the generic speech where he claimed to have listened to the electorate
(including those who had failed to vote), Obama actually did something
that may energise his base and reassemble parts of his coalition in a
way that benefits future Democratic candidates. By using his executive
powers to allow millions of undocumented migrants to stay in the
country, Obama has banked some support for the future and persuaded core
Democratic voters that some values and courage lurk under his caution
and pragmatism. Unlike Abbott, though, Obama has the freedom that comes
from not having to worry about being either replaced or re-elected.

Abbott’s reset has not changed anything – perhaps it can’t. Part of
the problem is the dilemma that while his government’s austerity
surprise package has alienated the population at large, his base in the
hard right remains unsatisfied. The kind of Abbott supporters present in
the @boltcomments
Twitter feed are motivated by a desire for social and economic revenge
against feminists, migrants, ABC journalists, and anyone else they
associate with an intolerable pluralism.

Even
if Abbott could turn back time, the unchallenged white patriarchy these
people want restored is a figment of their nostalgic imaginations. This
makes their thirst for vengeance impossible to slake: Abbott can
restrict ABC funding, but not privatise it or shut it down; he can
imprison refugees, but not expel every Muslim from the country; he can
largely exclude women from his cabinet, but he can’t erase the impact of
feminism on Australian life.

Another perennial source of support for the Liberals are wealthy
people who don’t want to pay much tax. A combination of political
ineptitude (he can’t pass the savings measures he has proposed) and his
own instinct towards a paternalistic state mean that he hasn’t been able
to satisfy them either.

Another thing that Abbott can’t change is himself. His attempts to
craft a more sober and considered persona have largely failed, and may
even be feeding into the psychological strain that led him twice to call
David Koch “Chris” in an abysmal morning television interview. The
reason that people like Kochie and Karl Stefanovic feel okay about using
Abbott for sport is that his perennial unpopularity is worsening. Those
disappointed with Obama and even Miliband can at least look back to a
time when they were capable of inspiration. Abbott’s talent — from his
pursuit of Pauline Hanson to the toppling of Julia Gillard — has always
been entirely destructive. No one — least of all women voters — has
failed to notice that he employs these talents most ruthlessly and
enthusiastically against women in public life.

But another problem with “resetting” is that the current crop of
Liberal MPs – a much more right wing collective than even the Howard
majorities were – can’t really comprehend the belief that their budget
measures were unfair. Despite Abbott’s well-known Catholicism, he shares
the secular-Calvinist presuppositions that animate his party, and
provide the core belief of the English-speaking right: namely, that just
as the rich deserve their wealth, so do the poor deserve their fate.

Code-phrases like “personal responsibility” express the belief that
those who have no job, cannot provide for their own healthcare expenses,
or cannot fund their own retirement lack virtues that more successful
people possess. Economic values – efficiency, the necessity for “price
signals” to deter the undeserving – merely give it a contemporary gloss.
It’s possible to stoke the outrage of a minority of Australians with
talk of dole bludgers and queue jumpers, but the failure of Abbott’s
attacks on the most vulnerable shows that Australia is not at heart a
Calvinist nation.

The spellbinding catastrophe that was the introduction of the
Medicare co-payment shows us all of this in miniature. The negative
response to this came not just from those who currently get bulk-billed,
but from those who are already paying more than the scheduled fee and
who were threatened with further price hikes. It also came from the
perception that this was aimed at the most vulnerable members of the
community, whom the government thought should be taught a lesson in
thrift. Rather than tossing it altogether, the government has put GPs in
charge of dishing out the price signals that they think are required to
enforce social discipline. For all the promised changes, Abbott seems
to be back where he started.

In contemplating Abbott’s deep difficulties, the left might consider arguments like John Quiggin’s
in these pages last week – electorates simply aren’t buying policies
premised on “reforming” market liberalism any more, and aren’t willing
to trade the remnants of the safety net for a balanced budget somewhere
down the track. At some point, somewhere, someone will have to say that
the only way to preserve the budget and a decent social safety net is by
raising more money through redistributive taxation. Politicians don’t
think that people are ready for this message, but Abbott’s failed reset
suggests we may be more receptive than we think.

Australian politics
Tony Abbott

Friday, 5 December 2014

Sam de Brito on Tony Abbott, our Foxtel Prime Minister

Tony Abbott, our Foxtel Prime Minister

Date: December 5, 2014 - 12:00PM

20 reading now
Comments 353

Sam de Brito

Say what you want about Kevin Rudd and Julia
Gillard but they tried to be free-to-air leaders, whereas Tony Abbott
governs only for those who voted for him. He's our Foxtel Prime
Minister, writes Sam de Brito.

The buck stops here

The PM dances, 'til he's had enough.
By Rocco Fazzari and Denis Carnahan with apologies to Michael Jackson.

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When most governments get into power there's an unspoken truce that
occurs where the new leader says something like "OK, OK, I know almost
half of you hate my guts and did everything in your power to see me
humiliated and beaten, but now we gotta pull together. I will govern for
all".

And that's what most governments do - or at least try really, really hard to seem like they do.

With
the Abbott government, we're seeing a change in paradigm, where the PM
and his office is clearly saying to the people who didn't vote for him:
"You're not a part of our plans for three years, so you might as well
avert your eyes, you're not gonna like this."

All smiles: Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey, just before the 2013 election. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Comedian Chris Rock said recently of former US President George Bush:
"He was the first president who only served the people who voted for
him. He literally operated like a cable network. You know what I mean?

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"He's the first cable-television president, and the thing liberals
don't like about Obama is that he's a network guy ... He's trying to get
everybody."

Abbott is our first Foxtel Prime Minister. If you're not a subscriber, too bad..

Say
what you want about Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard but they tried to be
free-to-air leaders. You could get service in all areas. It might not
have been the best picture, but it wasn't a blank screen.

Of
course, the Abbott government will deny this. The unfathomable sequence
of broken promises and denials that they're actually broken promises is
akin to them telling you to squint at the snow of static on your telly
while insisting it's actually MasterChef.

"See! You see that faint outline of Matt Preston's head? Awesome, huh?"

The
thing about Aussies, however, is while some of us are pretty stupid,
we're not as stupid as Americans. There are actually vast swaths of the
US that rejoice in voting against their self-interest; auto workers and
Southern waitresses convinced Republicans care about their jobs because
they also hate immigrants, abortion and evolution.

In Australia,
you might get the odd western suburbs McMansion owner, with $1 million
in the bank, who thinks Abbott cares about his smash repair business.
He'll wake up once his mum has to pay to go to the doctor every week and
he realises his nephews and nieces will never be doctors or lawyers
unless he ponies up that $1 million for uni fees.

We do
self-interest pretty well in this country - something Abbott manipulated
mercilessly while in opposition but seems to have forgotten in the last
12 months.

Right about now, I reckon our PM is feeling a newfound sense of respect for Gillard.

You
know when an assistant coach goes for a head coaching job, filled with
confidence: "It's all me, I'm doing it all behind the scenes," they tell
themselves.

Then they get the big gig and boom!

Reality.
The pressure. Injuries. Players doing stupid things in cubicles on the
drink. Salary cap. The board. Post-game interviews.

Something
like this was probably going on in Peta Credlin's office during the
last year of the Abbott government: "We beat Rudd and he smashed Gillard
(who'd already smashed Rudd) so we're golden. We'll do this on our
ear."

Now? I reckon Abbott's got a sneaky bit of admiration for
the way Gillard juggled someone else's promises (Rudd's), her own
agenda, a volatile crossbench and a bloodthirsty predator (Abbott) in
opposition.
Abbott only has to juggle his own promises, agenda and crossbench, and he's screwing it up royally.

Imagine if he also had to worry about Bill Shorten taking pieces of meat out of him every day instead of gumming him to death?

Make great TV.

You can follow Sam on Twitter here. His email address is here.

Thursday, 4 December 2014

Tony Abbott is Prime Minister of Australia - go figure. - The AIM Network

Tony Abbott is Prime Minister of Australia – go figure.

December 5, 2014
Written by:
Kaye Lee
19 Replies

Tony Abbott is Prime Minister of Australia. It is one of those
things that you know is true but remains incomprehensible. Like the
concept of infinity. It’s hard to get your head around.

In most jobs you need to satisfy key criteria to even get an
interview. To get a managerial position you must have experience and
proven expertise. Along the way your success in meeting key performance
indicators will be assessed.

Leaders should be people who inspire others, they should be role
models and protectors, they should listen and empower, they should have
good people skills and be able to negotiate, they should be trustworthy
and able to explain the reasons for their decisions.

Or you can just agree to say climate change is crap, and become the leader of the nation.

But how did Tony even become a contender?

He attended a Catholic boys school where he bemoaned the fact that he
was never chosen for the First XV rugby team. Apparently this was not
due to a lack of talent but to selectors who did not recognise Tony’s
ability.

Tony then went on to study economics/law at Sydney University (for
free) even though he never worked in either field and described
economics as a boring “dismal science”.

Tony was active in student politics, eventually becoming an unpopular leader of the Student Representative Council.

“During my term, despite my objections, the SRC,
continued to give money to feminist, environmental and anti-nuclear
groups. I never managed to have the feminist and homosexuals’ slogans on
the SRC walls painted over nor to open the ‘Womens’ Room’ to men, nor
to make the SRC more accountable by ending compulsory SRC fees.”

Contacts within the Jesuit network secured a Rhodes scholarship for
Tony to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford even though
he had campaigned fiercely against the Philosophy and Political Economy
courses at Sydney University describing them as a waste of resources and
a hotbed of Marxist feminists.

The selectors for the Oxford rugby team also failed to appreciate
Tony’s talent, dropping him after one game and suggesting that his
ability had been overstated.

When he returned to Australia, Tony entered the seminary to train for
the priesthood but quickly became disillusioned with a church who had
“lost its way” in his opinion.

“Looking back, it seems that I was seeking a spiritual
and human excellence to which the Church is no longer sure she aspires.
My feeble attempts to recall her to her duty — as I saw it — betrayed a
fathomless disappointment at the collapse of a cherished ideal.

In addition, a “cooperative” style of management ran counter to the Church’s age-old hierarchical structure.

The more they played up lay ministry and ecumenism and played down
the unique role of the priest in the one true Church, the more the
struggle seemed pointless and the more I wanted to participate in
worldly activities which were much more to my taste.

l felt “had” by a seminary that so stressed ”empathy” with sinners
and “dialogue” with the Church’s enemies that the priesthood seemed to
have lost its point.”

Of his time at St Patrick’s seminary, vice-rector Fr Bill Wright
wrote of Tony that many found him “just too formidable to talk to unless
to agree; overbearing and opiniated”.

“Tony is inclined to score points, to skate over or hold back any reservations he might have about his case.”

Tony had been writing the occasional article for the Catholic Weekly
and, when he left the seminary, he began writing for the Packer-owned
Bulletin where, interestingly, he instigated strike action over the
sacking of photographers.

“When I was at the Bulletin, ACP management one day,
quite unilaterally, decided to sack the entire photographic department
….we were all shocked, stunned, dismayed, appalled, flabbergasted – when
management just came in and said they were sacking the photographic
department. So we immediately had a stop work meeting. There were
various appropriately angry speeches made and I moved the resolution to
go on strike, which was carried, as far as I can recall, unanimously,
and we went on strike for a couple of days.”

Tony only lasted about a year before he was writing to wealthy
contacts looking for a job. Through the Jesuit network, he got one
managing a concrete plant and very quickly found himself causing a total
shutdown through his inept handling of employees.

In a 2001 interview with Workers Online Tony explained what
happened. Interestingly, some time between me quoting the article in
August and now, it has been removed. I guess we now know what all those
people employed to trawl social media are being paid to do – erase
history. It is happening to an increasing number of links but it is too
late, the information is out there.

“I got to the plant in the morning, marched up and down
the line of trucks like a Prussian army officer, telling owner-drivers
who had been in the industry for longer than I had been alive, that that
truck was too dirty, and that truck was filthy, and that truck had a
leaking valve and had to be fixed.

Naturally enough, this wasn’t very popular, and I had been there a
couple of months, and a phone call came through one morning from the
quarry manager, saying that there was going to be a strike starting at
midday.”

Tony then took it upon himself to take delivery and run the conveyer belt on his own.

“A phone call came through at 5.30 the next morning from
the senior plant operator saying: “Did you turn the conveyor belt on
yesterday?”. I said “Yeh”. He says “Right – nothing moves – this plant’s
black – like to see you get yourself out of this little fix Sonny Boy!”

I thought that there’s really only one thing to do, and that’s to
beg. So I got over there and I said to the senior plant operator. I
said: “Stan I’m sorry. I’m new in this industry. I appreciate that I’ve
been a bit of a so-and-so, but you’ve made your point and I will try to
be different.”

He said to me: “It’s out of my hands. It’s in the hands of the union
organiser.” So I said, who’s the union organiser and what’s his number? I
rang him and I sort of begged and pleaded. I said, well, look why
don’t we put the old final warning. That if I ever do this again, I’ll
be run out of the industry. And there was silence on the end of the
phone, and after about ten seconds he said: “I’m putting you on a final
warning mate, if this ever happens again you will be run out of the
industry.”

Abbott soon quit the job as it wasn’t paying enough money and
accepted a position with The Australian as a journalist. When they went
on strike over pay and conditions, Tony was by now campaigning on the
side of management, arguing in front of six to seven hundred people at
the lower Trades Hall in Sussex Street that they shouldn’t go on
strike. His speech did not meet with a particularly warm reception and
the strikes went ahead.

He continued writing at The Australian until John Howard recommended
him for a position as the then Federal Liberal leader John Hewson’s
press secretary. Tony was responsible for the infamous line in a Hewson
speech saying you could tell the rental houses in a street.

Is it any wonder that Hockey thinks that “poor people don’t drive” and Pyne thinks that “women don’t take expensive degrees”?

In 1994 Tony was gifted the safe Liberal seat of Warringah in a by-election and has been skating ever since.

He has changed his mind on innumerable things, lied and contradicted
himself countless times, and then denied lying, even changing his words
and removing online links.

He is a man whose convictions are dictated to him by polls and focus
groups in marginal seats and by marketing teams. Peta Credlin has
increasingly centralized control failing to learn the Rudd lesson.

Tony learns his script but does not bother reading actual reports,
relying on others to just tell him what to say. His Star Chamber
silence dissent, pay hacks to produce reports saying what they want to
hear, refuse to release any that may be critical or negative, while
arrogantly and blatantly rewarding their political donors.

Tony is not a leader by any stretch of the imagination.

It is not the Labor Party who is stopping this from being a decent government.

Darren Lockyer, the Pope, Tony Abbott and a school boy
were all on the same plane when the engine failed and started to plummet
towards the Earth.

They all realised that there was four of them and only three parachutes.

Darren Lockyer got up and said, “I am a sporting superstar and must
live so that I can please my fans and continue my career to beat the
Kiwis and the Poms in the tri-nations series.”

So he grabbed a parachute and jumped out of the plane.

Then Tony Abbott got up and said, “I am the smartest Prime Minister
Australia has ever had and I need to live to continue to govern the
nation.”

So he grabbed a parachute and jumped out of the plane.

Then the Pope said to the school boy, “I am old and have lived my life so you should take the last parachute instead of me.”

The school boy replied, “No, it’s okay, the worlds smartest Prime Minister took my school bag so there’s one for each of us!”

Like this:

Monday, 1 December 2014

WE MUST ENSURE THAT THEY NEVER RETURN TO GOVERNMENT

AUSSIES AGAINST ABBOTT "THE VILLAGE IDIOT"

Sunday, 21 December 2014