So, apart from the hyperbole, insults and anecdotes... Are you going to actually address any questions asked?

There are problems, sure, what's the solution? What has Abbott done to provide you with the confidence that you appear to have?

I can join the ALP, by the way, I'm already a member of another party as of today.

no i think delivering the carbon tax to only 500 companies is discrimination...

no i think delivering the carbon tax to only 500 companies is discrimination...

Australia going the carbon tax alone is discrimination against out economy. Until the yanks, china and India introduce it it's just an unfair burden on one of the developed world's smallest polluters. And don't give me that "per capita" shit, it's our actual impact on the world that matters.

Edited by thupercoach: 30/3/2012 03:36:22 PM

[size=6]NSW premier dragged into Star scandal [/size]

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has been drawn further into The Star scandal, with explosive texts from his communications director suggesting the then opposition leader said the casino should be given a "wake-up call".

At a hearing of the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA), lawyers for The Star have revealed a number of texts between Peter Grimshaw and his partner which said Mr O'Farrell wanted to "smash" the casino.

Mr Grimshaw gave evidence all day on Monday into the sacking of former Star boss Sid Vaikunta, denying claims he and his partner, both former employees at the casino, had orchestrated a campaign against the casino.
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At the hearings in Sydney, Alan Sullivan QC, for The Star, read three texts from Mr Grimshaw to his partner, which discussed The Star and Mr O'Farrell, who was then the opposition leader.

At the time Mr Grimshaw still worked for the casino, but he left soon afterwards because of a restructure and ended up working for Mr O'Farrell.

The first, sent on August 21, the day of the 2010 federal election, August 21, said: "I just told Barry what a dick Sid is. He said we might all have to give Star a wake up call when I leave."

The other two, on November 8, read: "Barry just texted me. He is at the Leonard Cohen concert.

"Not even sure why he texted. Just asked me if I was out yet. I think they are going to smash Star."

Grilled about the texts, Mr Grimshaw repeatedly said he did not recall the messages or sending them.

"That's another convenient answer, isn't it Mr Grimshaw?" Mr Sullivan asked at one point.

"It's the truth," Mr Grimshaw replied.

"Did Mr O'Farrell say to you words that led you to believe on November 8, 2010, he or people associated with him ... were going to smash Star?" Mr Sullivan asked Mr Grimshaw.

"I've no recollection of the text or those comments," Mr Grimshaw said.

Earlier in the day Mr Grimshaw admitted to not liking Mr Vaikunta, labelled "Mr Nasty" in some text exchanges with his partner, but denied mounting a campaign to have him toppled as the casino boss.

His partner, whose name is being protected by the inquiry, is one of two women to accuse Mr Vaikunta of sexual harassment.

Asked about the "Mr Nasty" texts, Mr Grimshaw told the hearing, "It represents us being flippant with each other."

"We were mucking around," he said.

In March, Mr Grimshaw was stood down as the premier's communications director for forwarding to his partner an email from Mr O'Farrell unrelated to The Star.\
http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/nsw-premier-dragged-into-star-scandal-20120402-1w8ep.html

How would you react if that was an ALP premier sending those texts, Finky.

How would you react if that was an ALP premier sending those texts, Finky.

It hasn't actually been proven that Craig Thompson did anything wrong,well not yet we have only been waiting 4+ years but he will be found guilty i reckon PLUS he wasn't an MP at the time - doesn't that kind of ruin that accusation?NO

As opposed to the LNP MP that was actually convicted of shopliftingShe ended up being diagnosed with a mental disorder recently and allowed to retain her endorsement by one Tony Abbott.

I think I might spend my lunch hour doing a side by side comparison of your demonstrated double standards.

Watch this space.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/release-the-fair-work-report-says-opposition-20120404-1wbly.html

I'm not given to conspiracy theories, incompetence being so much easier to imagine, but one thing gives credibility to Clive Palmer's otherwise nutty CIA phantasm about US influence in Australia.

It is Julian Assange, a story that hinges on the uncomfortable relationship between truth and power.

We expect truth-telling from our four-year-olds but not from our politicians. In the case of Assange, truth is actively and repeatedly punished.

This implies that, as you move up through society's power strata, there's a point where morality flips.

A sort of moral inversion layer, beneath which the rules apply but above which they're reversed.

The modern Labor Party seems to illustrate this as well as anyone.

It seemed rather a giggle last year when, after their electoral drubbing, NSW Labor felt the need for ethics classes to learn how to be "honest with ourselves and … the people we represent". But prolonged electroconvulsive therapy might have been more in order, for whichever thread you pull, the last decade of Labor emerges like an episode of the Jason Bourne film franchise.

Start anywhere. Say, at Mark Arbib. Arbib, then a Labor senator crucial in deposing a first-term prime minister and crowning Julia Gillard, was later revealed as a secret US government source. He also owned a beachfront apartment in Maroubra, built by a Labor donor developer, as did Labor's former NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal, both in the very same block where Moses Obeid, son of Labor MLC Eddie, also resided.

For two years Arbib stayed in the Canberra apartment of Alexandra Williamson, staffer to Gillard and daughter of the embattled HSU boss Michael Williamson.

I tell you, it's the Philippines out there. When Craig Thomson popped up as an electoral contender the ALP must have kicked his tyres, seen his dodgy log-book and thought, yep, he's one of ours. Bring him in.

I mention all this not just to illustrate that high-level grubbiness is so normal we almost expect it, but to highlight a more sinister possibility; that we, like the Philippines, are a puppet US state, where truth comes second to power.

This kind of talk I've always resisted. Yet it is now undeniable that, at US behest, Julian Assange stands to lose his liberty, indefinitely, for telling the truth. And the very same Labor Party, with its CIA-assisted PM and its concern for truth re-education, lifts not a finger to help him.

It's quite clear that Assange is not guilty - not of rape, not of treason. As Malcolm Turnbull, responding to Gillard's "illegal" claim, told a Sydney University law school

audience last year, it is prima facie clear that Assange has broken no Australian law.

In words of one syllable, the Australian Federal Police agrees. There has been no breach of our law.

Christine Assange says when she began investigating this, it was like slipping through a wormhole into another, shadowy world where the rules do not apply. Australian lore sees her son as a cult-outlaw in the time-honoured tradition, a modern folk hero, wrongly maligned for helping us to see into that wormhole.

Assange has been under house arrest for 15 months. His family are in hiding and governments all over the world vilify him. A US sealed indictment could deliver decades in prison, or worse, his lawyers claim. Yet he has not been charged. Not with rape. Not with terrorism. Not with hacking. Not even with condomless sex.

The man is an Australian citizen in fear of his life, victim of a massive miscarriage of justice. But our government does nothing.

Were it anyone else - even on a genuine charge, formally laid - Gillard, Roxon and Carr would be over there, holding hands, pressing buttons, making tea. But because it's Assange, and because he's been telling inconvenient truths about Big Brother, he is guilty until proved otherwise.

The sex charges are clearly ridiculous and the Swedish justice system so convoluted as to be, if you'll excuse the pun, impenetrable.

Yet the Sweden-US bilateral extradition agreement requires neither charge nor evidence. The minute he lands in Sweden, Assange can be locked up in solitary, incommunicado, and indefinitely without charge.

Or he can be shuffled straight onto the US extradition plane and, under sealed indictment, into the secret horror of a grand jury. There will be no judge, and no defence materials. Just a jury drawn from the most militarised area of the US - Alexandria, Virginia.

This is weird. Assange didn't do the evil stuff. He exposed it (names redacted).

But join the dots. Over the same period, Karl Rove has been advising the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, known as ''Sweden's Reagan''. Julia Gillard, flipped into power by CIA-friendly Mark Arbib, describes herself rhythmically as "a true mate" to the US, "an ally for the 60 years past … an ally for all the years to come". And in our Parliament a raft of sinister legislation has appeared.

Labor's special amendments to the Extradition Act allow the same, proofless ''streamlining'' of extradition from Australia. Its so-called "WikiLeaks Amendment" allows ASIO to spy, at the Attorney-General's discretion, on known supporters - despite the AFP's view that no law has been breached. And its controversial Cybercrime Security Bill allows routine collection and surveillance of private emails, texts and other personal data.

As Gillard told Barack Obama last year, "you can do anything today". Assange's story will make a great film, in years to come; Jason Bourne with a dragon tattoo. But it's not fiction. It's real. We may yet be forced to recognise that Gillard's ''anything'' may include totalitarianism by stealth. And this is Labor.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/truth-of-assange-is-stranger-than-fiction-20120411-1ws4o.html#ixzz1rnGWeilA

Reports that Bob Brown has resigned as leader of the Greens.

Always thought that Brown was a moderating force in the party. Milne is a radical, ex-communist party member. Hopefully she will be more radical than Brown and alienate the Greens from Australian voters.

Always thought that Brown was a moderating force in the party. Milne is a radical, ex-communist party member. Hopefully she will be more radical than Brown and alienate the Greens from Australian voters.

You do realise that once all these young moderate lefties are turned off the Greens they will go straight back to Labor?

what difference will that make??