Tag: Tony Abbott

Simpletons …

From the very outset of Gillard’s government, she and her ministers have seen Tony Abbott as an easy target. Let’s face it, he’s stiff and he’s religious, nerdy. It obviously seemed like a good idea to play the man not the ball. Everything was blamed on the AbbottAbbottAbbott. Even the famous misogyny speech was an ad hominem attack … the ball, for those who lost sight of it, was Mr Slipper.

Tony turns out to a bit like an onion. As the attacks took off layer after layer it revealed a fresh, juicy, wholesome interior. Is he a simpleton? How many simpletons were Rhodes Scholars? He graduated with a Master’s degree from Queens College, Oxford. A whole bunch of other things weren’t obvious on the surface, years of voluntary work with aboriginal projects and with the Rural Fire Brigade. He’s the misogynist with a female chief of staff!

You’d think they’d learn. Someone once said “No publicity is bad publicity”, to which Brenda Behan added ” … except your own obituary.” Mr Abbott can thank Julia and Penny for giving him plenty of publicity and as they have done so their standing has fallen and his has done nothing but rise. They are writing their own obituaries.

So desperate are they to land a telling blow on Mr Negative they have not paused for a moment to consider the counter punch. This last jibe is a gift to Abbott, a free kick and fifty meter penalty … Abbott is an economic simpleton, Abbott is a wrecking ball. This from an outfit that had the luxury of being elected with a budget in surplus and have run up a massive debt, and with modestly declining income are determined to spend vastly more. They did promise to get back to surplus and as with all their promises they’ve got nowhere near keeping it.

Do you remember this little interview ... ?

JOURNALIST:  If you don’t make a, get the Budget back in to surplus in 2012-2013, this is a question to both of you, the cameras are on – will you resign?

PM:  (laughs) The Budget is coming back to surplus, no ifs no buts it will happen.

JOURNALIST:  So that’s a ‘yes’?

PM:  Matthew, I know and you know like these questions during campaigns but the Budget’s coming back to surplus.  There’s no credible analysis on our economic plan that it won’t come back to surplus.  I haven’t added a cent to it during this election campaign.  The figures are plain, they’re transparent, they’re from the Budget.  They’re there from the Mid-year Fiscal and Economic Outlook, they’re there from the Pre-Election Fiscal and Economic Outlook.  The figures are there for all to see.  

The figures are there for all to see, simpletons …

Pass the yonnies …

As the ABC is to the BBC so Fairfax is to the Guardian.

The BBC just lost its head because its Newsnight programs rushed to judgement in the case of an alleged paedophile. The case was put that an unnamed peer was guilty of sexual abuse. Unnamed but instantly recognisable, especially after George Monbiot, a Guardian journalist, tweeted it to the world. Lord McAlpine called his lawyer. George wrote his apology, full of self-serving twaddle, but nonetheless probably the only thing he’s written that’s worth reading.

Meanwhile, back in the colonies, Fairfax offers this …

<Brisbane Times>

So now the man responsible for all the governments mistakes is also guilty of all of the sins of the catholic church.

Maybe Mr. Abbott should also call his lawyers.

Julia goes viral …

The video of Julia lambasting Tony Abbott in the House yesterday has, it seems, gone viral. Feminists everywhere are thrilled, it is featured by the Guardian no less, has been widely praised and is set to knock off GangNam Style in the popularity stakes.

Outside our shores, and outside its context, it can take on a life of its own. Feisty woman yells abuse at man in suit. Advanced abuse, multi-syllables. Colour and movement, flaming hair, etc.

Enjoy.

But remember, this virago is our Prime Minister, this tirade is in defence of a man who has shown himself to be devoid of respect for women by his language and behaviour but who is useful to the government. The abuse is aimed at the leader of the opposition who she says hasn’t done enough to distance himself from comments made not by him, not by a member of the parliamentary Liberal party, comments that Mr. Abbott has said he disagrees with, comments in stark contrast to his own words of condolence said so recently in the House. It is utter hypocracy, and it failed, Mr. Slipper had sufficient decency to resign.

It is not so long ago that this woman said “Game on.” It’s a game she’s losing badly …

… and what a sore loser she is

Slip up …

Shame, really …

Julia made an impassioned attack on the AbbottAbbottAbbott for his misogyny in her passionate defence of the nice Mr. Slipper. The government stood firm at her back, the filthy AbbottAbbottAbbott must go, the nice Mr. Slipper must return. The usual independents agreed.

You’ve got to feel sorry for the lovely Julia, attacked for nothing more than being a woman.

And admire the way she came out swinging … the defiant victim of sexism taking back the night … and the nice Mr. Slipper.

Oh, Mr. Slipper has resigned.

I guess that’s what happens when you flex your mussel … instead of your brain.

Monoculturalism at your ABC …

Gerard Henderson thinks the ABC guilty of group think …

“The Journos Forum” on 702 yesterday starred Mike Seccombe and Ian McPhedran and Mia Freedman.  Mike agreed with Ian who agreed with Mia that Tony Abbott’s comment that the Mineral Resource Rent Tax and the carbon tax were factors in making Australia less attractive for mineral investment – including the now stalled Olympic Dam project in South Australia – was hopelessly wrong.

According to Mike, Abbott was “wrong quite frankly”.  According to Ian, Abbott was attempting a “total scam and talking nonsense”.  According to Mia, Abbott’s approach was a “disaster”.  No other view was  heard.

And if in fact they are guilty as charged the party line seems to have been set on the 7.30 report the other day …

LEIGH SALES: You were pretty loose with the truth today, weren’t you, when you said that BHP’s decision to put the Olympic Dam project on hold was partly due to the Federal Government’s new taxes?

TONY ABBOTT: Not at all, Leigh. For months BHP have been warning that the carbon tax and the mining tax are making Australia a less competitive place to invest. And Marius Kloppers himself said back in June that the carbon tax and so on are all conspiring to turn Australia from a low cost to a high cost environment.

LEIGH SALES: Well let me read you exactly what Marius Kloppers had to say today …  But, today, if you’re right, then why does it say nowhere in the BHP statement that there’s anything to do with the Federal Government?…

TONY ABBOTT: And, Leigh, they didn’t need to say it today because they’ve said it so often in the recent past.

LEIGH SALES: Well they listed everything else that was to blame.

TONY ABBOTT: You’re not seriously – you’re not seriously telling me, Leigh, that the mining tax and the carbon tax have made Australia an easier place to invest in.

LEIGH SALES: I’m going on the facts that Marius Kloppers said today …

I wonder if the ABC will take note of what Mr. Kloppers said subsequently.

”What I am seeing on the eastern seaboard in Australia is that the coal industry has been very heavily impacted by lower prices, higher operating costs, carbon taxes and increased royalties.”

NDY …

Yes, I am still alive, the thought police did not come for me. The reality was much more prosaic. With the furniture piled in the middle of every room in the house, so that the painters could make the walls respectable, the lead wouldn’t reach the power point. So no blogging. No blogging at a time when the fan was distributing the crap at an enormous rate. Oh, how could I not be blogging. But because I wasn’t blogging the prime minister could not have been talking about me …

Julia Gillard: Well, I am not going to get into a circumstance where we’ve got people blogging malicious nonsense and we’ve got some of this penetrating to the media. I am not going to get myself into a circumstance where I’m going to spend my time dealing with these events 17 years ago when the people who are asking me questions about them are unable to even articulate what it is that they say I did wrong. This is just nonsense and a distraction from the important work I’ve got to do as Prime Minister and the important issues for this nation’s future.

What a shame she couldn’t answer a few of Paul Kelly’s questions …

And not blogging when Tony Windsor had this to say regarding Tony Abbott’s endeavours to become prime minister. According to Windsor Abbott said  …

“I will do anything, Tony, to get this job; the only thing I wouldn’t do is sell my arse.”

which, I thought, draws a nice distinction between the two Tonys.

Cheap and cynical …

TONY Abbott has outright dismissed the Federal Government’s plea for compromise on asylum-seeker policy, a move described by Labor as “cheap and cynical“.

If you wish to know the meaning of cheap and cynical the person to ask is, of course, Mr. Wilkie. For the opposition to clear the “Malaysia Solution” on the notion that at some later date Labor will keep a promise to look at Nauru and temporary protection visas would be foolish. They could, like Mr. Wilkie, end up looking like well-meaning jellyfish.

It’s worth remembering that the Howard solution worked, that the Malaysian solution is for just 800 people (smuggled people are currently arriving at about 800 per month) and that the High Court have already ruled against it.

And anyway when did Labor last keep a promise?