And you have the Greens doing deals with the Libs lol.

Topsy turvey week.

-PB

Had to laugh about all this Emissions Intensity related stuff, could tell as soon as Bernadi opened his mouth that Malcolm would be backflipping by the end of the week.

-PB

News Break

Turnbull Makes Quick Call To Cory Bernardi Before Settling On Which Tie To Wear Today

Saying he wanted to avoid a messy backflip later in the day, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull got on the front foot this morning and rang South Australian senator Cory Bernardi before choosing his tie.

It follows an embarrassing blunder earlier in the week when Mr Turnbull came to work in a blue striped tie, not realising that a plain blue tie would play better in Mr Bernardi’s constituency. He said it had taught him it was always good to double check.

The Prime Minister denied his tie policy was being held to ransom by a small section of his party, saying instead it showed he was listening.

“As leader I’m happy to listen to a range of views and then put Cory Bernardi’s into action,” he said. “That’s what being a member of a mainstream party is all about”.

OMG LOLOLOLOL!!!!!

''Jobs and Growth''

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/government-rules-out-socalled-stimulus-spending-to-boost-economy-20161211-gt8ioq.html

Geez the ol LNP has never seem so fractured before.

-PB

Somehow its labors fault. Im sure. 

I don't know how anyone could vote for either of the major parties at this point in time.

They're both an absolute shambles intent on passing meaningless legislation to appear to be 'doing work' and slandering each other.

It's beyond pathetic.

Yup.

Upcoming state elections will be very interesting.

-PB

I think this is why we've seen such a rise in minor parties and the small margins in elections of late. I'd imagine hung parliaments will become the norm rather than the exception with how the major parties sit at the moment.

Interesting to watch young Matt Renshaw tear Pakistan a new one in the test match today

He looks like a young George Christensen

Its a pity Australia is only a few kms away from these wankers.

Must be a strange sensation just buying a 800k apartment as a spur of the moment thing lol

-PB

Between this and the Centrelink debacle... It's been another typical week for this incompetent government.

The Centrelink "debacle" is a systems upgrade which has made applying for the Age Pension and other social security entitlements simpler and quicker. It makes it easier for social security recipients to update Centrelink when their circumstances change, which has been a nightmare to do in the past. It also makes it easier for Centrelink to catch people being paid benefits which they are not entitled to. Most of these people have not knowingly claimed benefits which they were not entitled to so they are simply being asked to pay the money back.
I would say the vast majority of Australians do not know/understand how their entitlements are calculated and make mistakes regarding what they need to disclose to Centrelink and when the information needs to be disclosed. And on top of that, most employees at Centrelink do not understand the information being disclosed to them (financial information).
So in saying that, it is understandable that people would be upset when a mistake is made but this is not something new. The automated system is just working more efficiently than the previous system and the media has created a story out of nothing.

No the debacle is the completely unsatisfactory algorithm they've put into their system to go after people that potentially have been overpaid benefits. It's all well and good to make the system more efficient and people should be paying back any extra money they received but the way they've gone about it is horrendous.

Even on the government's claimed 20% appeal rate, that number is ridiculously high and completely unacceptable. I wonder how many people here have access to their last 6 years payslips? I've changed jobs a number of times and they're all stored online in systems I no longer have access to.

Throw on the Census and other pretty bad IT fails as well lol

-PB

Online payslips suck.  My wife has just had her workplace bought out by another company, she had access to all her online payslips for the previous 5 years. The new mob took over.  No more access. Now they are told they should've been printing them every week.
On the other hand my boss only does handwritten payslips which are utterly useless to government or if i were to buy (another) house etc. 

I would hate for us to be in the situation many people are finding themselves in. 

I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was killing 2 birds with one stone and buying it while she was there for official business.

I was wrong. This is the worst kind of thing imaginable. A government telling us all to tighten our belts and she's using our (being the countries) money to buy apartments. If you waste tax payer funds like this you should lose your job and all rights to a pension.

She's just been stood down while an investigation takes place lol

-PB

I don't know why you are getting emotional at the Liberal party because of Centrelink being incompetent. Centrelink have always being incompetent. I've been dealing with them for the last 11 years and there incompetence has been pretty consistent regardless of which major party was in power.

I agree with you that the current algorithm is unsatisfactory and I believe that it can definitely be improved upon. But in saying that, the new system is better than the old system and is an absolute necessity is our social security system is to be maintained.
I know things like having to retrieve 6 years worth of payslips is a huge pain but this is not a new requirement from Centrelink and is not something that has been introduced by the Liberal government. At least now, with the new system, you can upload your information from home without having to spend the day at Centrelink.

And replaced with Arthur Sinodinos :hehe:

I agree Centrelink have a lot of issues and it happens with both majors in power. Personally I think there is far too much focus on "dole bludgers" and other "welfare cheats" and it ends up costing a lot more to administer the system than what they save with the bureaucracy they have in place. It's no coincidence though that the party that is most ideologically opposed to social security are in power while this bungle is happening and being defended so vigorously.

I've been fortunate enough in my life to have mostly avoided Centrelink but I do currently use their site and app for the Child Care Rebate (another overly bureaucratic system that must cost a fortune to administer both at the department level and the individual child care centres but we'll save that for another day). It's a piece of shit from a usability perspective and like most things with Centrelink, it's like they are actually trying to make things difficult for people rather than easier. The reliability issues I can sympathise with, as a software engineer, I understand how challenging a system like theirs with the sorts of loads they have to keep it stable.

Stood down? So she's rorted the system over 2 years (if not longer who knows) and she gets to sit back with full pay?

She should be sent to the gaol for her BS actions. She 's a part of a government attacking vulnerable members of society (Centrelink).

She doesn't give a shit as well, no remorse, openly said that stepping down while it is investegated is not an admission of guilt lol

I'm sure I read stood down without ministerial pay, I wonder if that means she still gets base MP pay? 

But any investigation by the sitting Government into a sitting member of that government usually finds nothing to answer 

Yeh she's foregoing ministerial pay but I highly doubt she's sitting back with no coin coming in.

She constantly claims that her trips were within the rules. Clearly the rules are broken. Also just because you can do these things doesn't mean you should.

And yet the majority of you vote Liberal or Labor.....

And now Dutton and Co are in trubs for going to Malcolms sick NYE party haha

-PB

One Nation brah.........

I donkey vote 9/10