Or that we feel the need to legislate the relationships of consenting adults?

It is just sickening how backward this country can be.

Joe Hockey's fighting spirit encapsulates all that is wrong with the Abbott government

December 12, 2013 - 5:03PM

Is there anybody left for this government to disappoint, to betray, or just to piss off?

It has been a remarkable 100-plus days, culminating in this week's cage fight with General Motors-Holden; a ham-fisted brawl, shirts ripped, faces bruised and knuckles bloody. But completely one-sided. With the snarling Joe Hockey throwing haymakers in the air while demanding Holden put up or shut up.

The Abbott government proved, yet again, that it is incapable of mature and nuanced responses to the sort of political and economic challenges that are entirely predictable

Watching on from Detroit, the company bosses declined to climb into the Octagon with Hockey, quietly saying, "We'll just shut up then, thanks."

In one sense, but only one sense, it is unfair to Joe to blame this on him.

Australian governments of all persuasions have been managing the death throes of the automotive industry in this country since John Button's car plan of the 1980s.

There are monstrously deep and powerful economic forces running against the survival of the domestic car industry. But that just makes the stupidly aggressive performance of the government this week all the more perverse and damaging.

Perhaps Detroit would have pulled the plug anyway in a couple of weeks.

Perhaps Holden could have struggled on for a few more years, cutting a deal with the unions for increased productivity and with the Abbott government for an assistance package that would have been modest in comparison to the handouts routinely provided to the mining industry. We'll never know.

In the end, the Abbott government proved, yet again, that it is incapable of mature and nuanced responses to the sort of political and economic challenges that are entirely predictable in their inevitability if not in their specifics.

It is becoming apparent that, while they were an excellent opposition, the years of reflexive, unthinking negativity, of framing all arguments in soundbites and all outcomes as crude win-loss scenarios have not well prepared Abbott and his colleagues for government.

Whether bullying East Timor, picking fights that they can't win with Beijing, humiliating themselves over Gonski or mugging childcare workers while debauching their own travel allowances, they approach the governments of the Commonwealth with all the witless hysteria of amateur night in a Chechen bordello.

Sometimes it's embarrassing. Sometimes amusing. And sometimes it's just a tragedy.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/blogs/blunt-instrument/joe-hockeys-fighting-spirit-encapsulates-all-that-is-wrong-with-the-abbott-government-20131212-2z8ys.html#ixzz2nFoRpuVN

Just back on the whole Turnbull blaming Labor for blow-out and failures of the NBN...how is that possible when the LNP abandoned the entire Labor project in preference to their own dud system?

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Job losses 'likely' after review finds Coalition's NBN plan to cost billions more
By science and technology reporter Jake Sturmer and Anna Henderson

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull says job losses are "likely" at the NBN Co after a review of the Government's broadband plan found it will be billions of dollars more expensive than the Coalition had promised.

The strategic review revelations come as it is confirmed that current Vodafone Australia boss Bill Morrow will start as the new chief executive of the NBN Co next year.

The review, conducted by the NBN Co, states the Government's proposed fibre-to-the-node-based network would require around $12 billion more than estimated in the Coalition's April 2013 policy.

Speaking after the analysis was unveiled, Mr Turnbull said jobs would have to be cut following downgrades to the company’s profit forecasts.

"I think the report makes it very clear that the size of the organisation was established to cater for a business that had much higher revenues and a much higher rate of deployment," he said.

"I think it is reasonable to assume from that, given that this document is one that has been approved by the board, that some right sizing is likely to occur. These are all matters for the management."

The Drum: The inconvenient truth for the Coalition's NBN


The Government now faces an uphill struggle to deliver a functionally limited NBN that will already be outdated by the time it is complete, writes technology journalist David Braue.

Mr Turnbull said his policy assumed NBN Co was doing better than it actually was.

"We assumed they would be able to meet their forecasts a year earlier than has been assumed in the study," Mr Turnbull said.

The minister added the Government would not pay any extra to the NBN Co.

The original figures were announced under Labor and NBN Co chairman Ziggy Switkowski has criticised the way they were calculated.

"The original corporate plan underestimated the costs, overestimated what are the real world experiences of revenues and what households are prepared to pay," he said.

In Parliament, Labor's spokesman Jason Clare questioned the independence of the document, because one of NBN Co's executives, J B Rousselot, co-owns a boat with Mr Turnbull.

But Mr Turnbull shut down questions about the boat, saying: "If you think that's a big deal, I'm sorry, let's move on."

He says Mr Rousselot is doing an outstanding job.

Policy promises 'very unlikely to be achieved'

The Coalition's policy promised to give most Australians the option to connect to a 25 megabit per second network by 2016, but the review found that was extremely unrealistic.

VIDEO: RMIT lecturer Mark Gregory criticises Malcolm Turnbull over NBN 'con job' (ABC News)
It found less than half of the country would have access to those speeds by 2016.

The Coalition's policy also promised to have 50mbps available by 2019 and the review supports this, with 91 per cent of premises expected to have access to those speeds.

The report also found Labor's fibre-to-the-home approach would cost an extra $29 billion in capital expenditure and take an extra three years to rollout.

The review found the current corporate plan had "blind faith" in the achievability of the targets.

"The independent assessment concluded that ... it is extremely optimistic and very unlikely to be achieved," the report said.

It also canvassed a scenario looking at the cheapest possible fibre to the home option, which was still assumed to be $20 billion more expensive.


VIDEO: Malcolm Turnbull speaks to 7.30 (7.30)
Mr Turnbull told 7.30 the Coalition's election commitments were issued with "a very clear caveat".

He said the NBN's forecasts had become "increasingly unbelievable" during the Labor government's term.

"We certainly didn't trust their numbers but we didn't have any other numbers to rely on," he said.

"The fact is that the NBN Co is a much bigger mess than even we had thought it is.

"We've got to have a new era, and the new era is one of telling the truth ... where the people who work at the NBN will not have to feel that they have got to say whatever the Minister wants to hear."

New NBN Co chief Bill Morrow says role will be challenging

Speaking to the ABC, incoming NBN Co chief Mr Morrow said it was too early for him to say if the current NBN targets could be met.

"I've not had a chance to meet with the employees, to look at the detailed plans, to interface with all of the third party suppliers and partners," he said.


VIDEO: Bill Morrow says he's ready for NBN Co challenges (ABC News)
"I have no idea at this point. I've not seen any of the details."

Mr Morrow says he is confident that politics will not get in the way of the rollout.

"It's so important to the country that naturally there's going to be a lot of strong opinions on this," he said.

"I trust that Malcolm Turnbull, along with Ziggy as the chairman of the board, are looking to bring together all of the thoughts, all of the perspectives to be sure that we set out on a trajectory that's the right one."

He says he took on the job because of its financial and political challenges.

"I look at any assignment, any endeavour - it's not what it is today it's what you can do with it," he said.

"So all of those challenges are real and they're very serious."

Meanwhile, the Government has appointed former OECD economist and outspoken national broadband network critic Henry Ergas to its panel of experts for the NBN cost benefit analysis.

Professor Ergas joins former Victorian treasury secretary Michael Vertigan, Australian Industry Group director Alison Deans and regulatory expert Tony Shaw.

The review will report to government within six months and investigate the value of increased speeds.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-12/coalition-nbn-plan-to-cost-billions-more-than-promised/5152246

Edited by Joffa: 12/12/2013 10:57:35 PM

Yup, he replaced them all with people who know what the Minister (ie, himself) wants to hear, and are perfectly capable of spewing that level of bullshit on their own.

How is the NBNCo going to tell the truth when the LNP Doesn't even know what they want that truth to be yet?

]


I wonder if he is prepared to remove the veil of parliamentary protection and publically name these 'liars' and non truth givers, or is he quite happy to cast doubt on everybody at NBN's credibility.

"Unknown" quality Telstra copper 4-6x costlier than FTTP: NBN Co

http://www.zdnet.com/unknown-quality-telstra-copper-4-6x-costlier-than-fttp-nbn-co-7000024200/

How do they not know the quantity of cable needed? What the fuck are they being paid for?

Professional family faces deportation to Bangladesh by Australia because their autistic son would be a 'burden to taxpayers'

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/12/13/family-be-deported-because-autistic-son

Qantas: Tony Abbott hints foreign takeover might be allowed

Prime minister suggests Australian majority share rule could be relaxed as airline argues it needs overseas finance to compete

theguardian.com, Saturday 14 December 2013 18.40 AEST

Tony Abbott has backed releasing Qantas from restrictions on foreign investment, saying it is not an unreasonable request for the Australian airline to be allowed more than 49% overseas ownership.

"Where we can be helpful we will certainly try to be helpful but as I understand it, what Qantas wants is to be unshackled [from the 49% restrictions]," he told the Financial Review newspaper. The prime minister had previously said "the Australian economy would be a stunted impoverished thing without foreign investment", while ruling out the government subsidising the airline or acting as a guarantor for its debt.

The Qantas Sale Act 1992, under which the airline was privatised, limits foreign ownership to just under half. The Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce, has said the airline is not competing on a level playing field, with competitor Virgin receiving a $350m injection from its foreign owners Etihad, Air New Zealand and Singapore Airlines.

Qantas has announced it plans to shed 1,000 jobs, impose pay freezes and make cuts across the board as it confronts the prospect of massive losses. Its credit rating was downgraded to junk status by Standard & Poor's after it unveiled half-year losses of $300m and said it needed to cut $2bn from its costs over the next three years.

The independent senator Nick Xenophon has challenged Joyce to show one dollar of profit since setting up Jetstar Asia and other offshoots. "If the CEO Alan Joyce and the chairman Lee Clifford go, that will transform the airline because they have presided over monumental strategic mistakes including the failed Jetstar experiment in Asia where they have burned hundreds of millions," he told AAP.

"The airline is now vulnerable to a private equity takeover because the share price is so low. The private equity buccaneers are now circling the airline."

The Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite backed the restrictions in the Qantas act. "Given what happened to private equity in the global financial crisis you could probably fairly say if we didn't have the Qantas Sale Act … Qantas would not be here today," he told Sky News.

The Liberal Josh Frydenberg MP said Qantas was an iconic Australian brand that should survive and proper. "It would be negligent of us not to investigate the various ways we could help Qantas," he told Sky News.

"Ultimately if you were to change the ownership restrictions, that would be an issue for the Australian parliament."

Chris Bowen, the Labor shadow treasurer, has said the government could intervene to support Qantas but argued that relaxing the foreign ownership restrictions is not the answer. Its problems accessing capital needed to be minimised and "if there's a role for government to constructively play we would lend our support to the government of the day to do so".

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/14/qantas-tony-abbott

The blame game: when will it stop being Labor’s fault?

By the time Joe Hockey tries to pin on Labor the numbers in the mid-year economic statement, the voters may not be buying it

Lenore Taylor political editor
theguardian.com, Saturday 14 December 2013 12.43 AEST

Like a Christmas cracker, or a New Year party popper, to use similes pertinent to the season, the trick used by new governments of blaming former governments for bad stuff they need to do only works once.

Bang! Shock! It’s all their fault, and regretfully we have to implement these nasty measures to clean up the mess we’ve inherited.

Peter Costello used the tactic quite effectively after the 1996 election campaign when everyone knew the budget was in deficit but pretended to believe it was in surplus. Howard and Costello then ''uncovered'', with suitable gasps of feigned surprise, the $8bn ''Beazley black hole'' and used it as cover to do some serious, and necessary, cost-cutting in the 1996 budget.

Rudd started to use the same ploy in 2007 when he declared a “war” on inflation, which he said was a “genie” the Howard government had released from its bottle. But then the global economy started to melt down and Labor shoved many of its planned spending cuts back into the bottom drawer for fear they would exacerbate the domestic downturn.

Now Hockey is lining up to use the same strategy with next Tuesday’s mid-year economic statement, into which he clearly intends to load every bit of economic bad news to create a big bang “scary” deficit figure, all the fault of Labor’s chaos and mismanagement, which will, of course, require the new government to make very big budget savings and allow it to deflect criticism if it takes quite a while to return the budget to surplus.

But too many bangs, too many thundering denunciations of the heinous incompetence of the other side, and voters get wise to the jig.

That’s why Hockey’s pitch is in danger of being cruelled by colleagues – clearly in a mood of ideological celebration – using the blame game to justify all kinds of things.

Education minister Christopher Pyne, for example, tried briefly to blame Labor for the government’s cuts to schools funding because the ALP had returned money to general revenue when it failed to do deals before the election with some of the states. That cracker backfired so badly Pyne now has to find the money in savings from his own portfolio.

Assistant employment minister Luke Hartsuyker said the government was disallowing a $1.2bn wage supplement for poorly paid aged care workers because Labor had been using it to impose “unionism by stealth” (a requirement that recipients be part of an enterprise bargain), thus justifying as all Labor’s fault a decision that means workers lose a pay rise of between $29 and $45 a week.

Assistant education minister Sussan Ley redirected at least $235m in pay rises for child care workers for similar reasons.

In a tit-for-tat blame war, several ministers claimed Labor was also to blame for Holden’s decision to close its operations, due variously to the carbon tax (which the company said was not “irrelevant” but also not raised by Detroit as part of the decision to close), the pre-election FBT changes (which the government did not proceed with and which the company said were irrelevant), or due to the general Labor-inflicted parlous state of the economy.

The Coalition has also announced a royal commission into the first Rudd government’s home insulation program, which was a terrible failure and which did lead to an explosion of business in a poorly regulated area, contributing to four young mens’ deaths, but has already been reported on by federal, state and coronial inquiries.

In between all of this the Coalition has been struggling to maintain voter outrage where they need it most – to recast the economic debate and over the carbon tax.

Valiantly they bowled up Dorothy Dixer questions about businesses struggling with higher power bills, the kind that worked so well when they were in opposition, but it was hard to hear the answers over the general disinterested chatter.

Any incoming government takes over policies it doesn’t like or intends to change or repeal. In many respects it may be justified in pointing out that what it has inherited is not, from its point of view, ideal.

But voters have a pretty firm view that when they elect a government they want it to get on with governing. They have limited patience for endless tirades about the mess the last lot left behind. It doesn’t take long for the blame game to run out of pop.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/14/the-blame-game-when-will-it-stop-being-labors-fault

It's Labor's fault the Liberals are so incompetent. If Labor had been more competent the LNP would never have been allowed anywhere near running the country :lol:

Not sure why you're laughing about this. Labor were so incompetent and disunited and that they allowed TONY ABBOTT to become PM. I mean wow. Good job Labor. Way to go losing the golden ticket to power.

Labor were not incompetent.

They may have been backstabbing morons who slaughtered each other so badly that Abbott could waltz into being PM (with a big assist from Rupert's media empire) but they weren't incompetent at their primary job, which was running the country.

clearly delusional...](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

Edited by batfink: 15/12/2013 09:13:37 AM

Australian PM calls Indonesia ‘singularly unhelpful’

Australian PM urges Jakarta to resume collaboration on the stream of asylum-seekers
AFPPublished: 14:15 December 15, 2013

Sydney: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott rounded on neighbouring Indonesia on Sunday, accusing it of being “singularly unhelpful” by suspending cooperation to combat people-smuggling due to a diplomatic row over phone-tapping.

Abbott called on Jakarta to resume collaboration on the stream of asylum-seekers transiting through the Southeast Asian nation, in critical remarks little more than a week after a fence-mending visit to Indonesia by his foreign minister.

Indonesia halted cooperation to stem people-smuggling last month after reports — based on leaks from intelligence fugitive Edward Snowden — that Australia had tried to bug the phones of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and members of his inner circle in 2009.

The revelation sparked one of the worst diplomatic crises between the strategic allies in years, with Indonesia recalling its ambassador to Australia and suspending military and immigration collaboration.

“There’s no doubt that the suspension of cooperation by the Indonesian authorities has been unhelpful, it’s been singularly unhelpful,” Abbott told reporters at a press conference to mark his first 100 days in office.

“Given that people-smuggling is a crime in Indonesia, just as it’s a crime in Australia, I think it’s high time that that cooperation was resumed.”
Politically sensitive issue

People-smuggling is a politically sensitive issue in Australia and one of Abbott’s key promises before his September election victory was to “Stop the Boats”, the majority of which originate in Indonesia.

Abbott’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop travelled to Jakarta last week to smooth ties after the espionage row, expressing “regret” and agreeing to a bilateral code of conduct to restore trust.

Bishop’s counterpart Marty Natalegawa said cooperation between the nations would resume when the code of conduct was finalised.
“In the end”, Abbott said Australia accepted that “what Indonesia does is a matter for Indonesia and what Australia does is a matter for Australia”.

“We absolutely respect Indonesia’s sovereignty, we expect Indonesia to respect our sovereignty. As far as we’re concerned, these illegal boats that are coming to Australia are a sovereignty issue.”

Hundreds of asylum-seekers have died attempting to make the perilous voyage from Indonesia to Australia on rickety and overcrowded fishing boats — most recently on Monday when a Bangladeshi and two Myanmar citizens, including a toddler, died in a sinking off Java.

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/australia/australian-pm-calls-indonesia-singularly-unhelpful-1.1267254?

Tony Abbott's report card: The first 100 days
Date
December 15, 2013 - 7:42PM

Mark Kenny

ANALYSIS

Tony Abbott was typically generous. "We've made a strong start," he opined through successive early morning interviews.

The end-to-end chats with the chief correspondents of all the major mastheads were designed to spruik the Government's achievements, approaching the otherwise meaningless 100-day mark.

Abbott is prey to a raft of situational factors of his own making

It's been a rough 'ton' beset by problems such as the MP's entitlements furore, the Indonesian spying allegations, the vetoed GrainCorp take-over, the education funding row, and big troubles for Holden and Qantas.

What Abbott's rave review lacked in objectivity, it made up for in enthusiasm.

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Far more influential though will be the assessments of the financial markets, his parliamentary colleagues, and of course the voters.

Already, more people back the Opposition than the government. The last Newspoll and Fairfax Nielsen polls put two-party support for Labor at 52 per cent to the Coalition on 48.

It is still a long way to the next election and nobody believes that result would be replicated even if an election were held now.

But the sharp collapse in government enthusiasm is remarkable nonetheless - a reminder perhaps of the new volatility in politics as the big voting blocs of Labor and Liberal continue to fray.

These factors aside, Abbott is prey to a raft of situational factors of his own making.

First, there is his low popularity - he is the only prime minister in the contemporary era to be elected with a negative net approval rating.

Then there's the very live question of expectation management. Here, Abbott faces a deadly foe: an earlier version of himself, still strong in the voters' memories. Abbott the opposition leader, was the ultra-priest of political cut-through.

Complex policy challenges were reduced to cartoonically blunt goals such as stop-the-boats, axe-the-tax, end-the-waste, repay-the-debt, and balance-the-budget. Their strength was their simplicity, their memorability, their unadorned straight-forwardness.

Once in government however, those same qualities make the promises very difficult to resile from. In short, voters remember them.

It turns out, 'cut-through' cuts both ways.

Retro-fitting nuance into election slogans which had only masqueraded as policies, is seen for what it is - dissembling.

Witness the storm when Christopher Pyne claimed the government had not promised to keep Labor's Gonski school funding but rather just the school funding "envelope".

Voter reaction was scathing. Abbott was made to wear his election-eve declaration that he was on a unity ticket with Kevin Rudd on school funding, like a crown of thorns.

Retreat was inevitable. And costly.

Abbott to his credit, has since turned the failed deceit on schools into a kind of personal catharsis by reframing it as a prime ministerial lesson on the value of keeping your word - both in letter and in spirit.

Among the other explanations for the Government's surprisingly swift descent into unpopularity is the sense that the government is not what it said it would be. The Opposition has hammered this for all its worth but then, why not?

After all, Abbott came to power promising to restore trust, put the adults back in charge, run an open government, and end the inveterate profligacy of Labor.

Yet his response to problems as they have arisen has tended to assert the opposite. When the MP's entitlement stories emerged for example, Abbott refused to act. The promise of attacking dishonesty, of rooting out waste, of being open and accountable, evaporated. By his refusal to impose a new standard, Abbott sent the opposite message - that as Julia Gillard had with Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper, Abbott would put his MPs ahead of voters, even if they were wrong.

Ditto for the alleged debt crisis. An Opposition waging a war on debt suddenly became a government looking to double the credit card limit. Of course it's not that simple, but when your entire policy fiscal policy was reduced to axe-the-tax, repay-the-debt, and end-the-waste, you can hardly cry foul when you are marked against such rudimentary benchmarks as well.

Abbott couldn't axe the taxes because he couldn't control the Senate - he knew that before the election. Now we find out he couldn't simply pay down the debt because it will keep growing even past this term. Again, he must have known this. And so it goes. And as for openness, his Border protection minister has been a monument to arrogance.

Going into 2014, the fortunes of the Abbott government will rest substantially on Treasurer Joe Hockey's ability to communicate a new more complicated message while stimulating a slowing economy. Abbott and his team have found out that governing is complex and that slogans might get you elected, but they are no substitute for policy.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/tony-abbotts-report-card-the-first-100-days-20131215-2zf6p.html#ixzz2nXVxQ4qR

Wtf abott . It's called diplomacy.You don't insult your neighbor and then ask for help

http://theshovel.com.au/2013/12/15/abc-comes-clean-mr-squiggle-was-a-puppet/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-16/federal-government27s-myefo-statement-to-reveal-2450-billion-/5158116

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2013/dec/15/compare-internet-speed-worldwide

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-16/cory-bernardi-calls-for-turnbull-to-stop-advocating-gay-marriag/5158842



How far away do we think Cory Berdardi is from having his very own feature on http://gayhomophobe.com/?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/dec/12/cattle-abuse-gaza-video

Thank goodness we resumed live cattle exports.

In the game of politics, that makes you incompetent. When you're more interested in your standing in the internal pecking order than you are in running the country, that makes you incompetent.

I still can't believe the shit that comes out of Abbott's mouth - First he insults Indonesia then he demands that they become more co-operative? It's almost like he thinks they care what he thinks :lol:

[youtube]kxq__3z9zGM[/youtube]

Edited by db-pgfc: 17/12/2013 12:03:32 AM

:lol:

:lol:

=d> =d> =d> =d> =d>