tithin posted:

NICE.

Saving y'all the effort for finding this poo poo, be warned, Andrew fuckin' bolt

Andrew Bolt - 18/02/16


Andrew Bolt, 01/03/2016 @ 9pm


Andrew Bolt, 02/03/2016 @ 12:26pm


It's fascinating to watch cognitive dissonance live.

Pickled Tink posted:

A new page deserves a new First Dog:

SynthOrange posted:

Apparently police found nothing suspicious about a dead body at Kathy's place.

"Pat Dodson: Labor's new Senate nominee calls for action on 'scandalous' Indigenous incarceration rate posted:

Newly nominated Labor senator Pat Dodson has called Australia's Indigenous incarceration rate "scandalous" and says it is one of the many areas in which he hopes to make a difference if he is endorsed in the casual senate vacancy left by the resignation of Joe Bullock.

"It's a national indictment and a range of authorities have got to collaborate to work out how best to deal with the matter, but in collaboration with Indigenous peoples and Indigenous leaders," Mr Dodson told 7.30.

"I realised serious decisions actually get made in the Parliament," he said.

"Laws get made about Aboriginal people, and all sorts of policies get made and strategies get concocted.

"I'm not here to make a political career as such. I'm hoping I can work across the party lines and get good results to outcomes we seem to be bogged down with."

And to achieve that, Parliament needs more Indigenous representatives, regardless of their political persuasion, Mr Dodson said.

"It's time now that Indigenous leaders stepped into the Parliament," he said.

"You've got the House of Reps and the Senate and whatever parties, but they've got to pursue the debates around the matters that concern them, where the decisions are being made."

"We've been very good at lobbying in the past, but that's because you've had responsive politicians."

"I think the culture is changing, and I think we've got to be part of the real decision-making process that a parliament engages in."
Do you know more about this story?

Mr Dodson said he had tried to create change as the founding chairman of the Council for Reconciliation and through his other roles as an Indigenous leader, but he thinks the political climate has changed.

"I had to reflect on where we're going as a nation," he said.

"I recall the first days of the multicultural policies of Australia; Al Grasby and those sort of people, the bipartisanship of Fraser and Whitlam over land rights, a whole sense of purpose that arose after the '67 referendum to do positive things in this country, particularly for Indigenous peoples.

"I don't know whether we're at that stage anymore."

Ultimately, he wants constitutional recognition for Indigenous peoples and a treaty.

"Both things aren't incompatible," he said.

"The constitution is a complex document, it has a complex procedure to change, by double majority, and of course getting wording right is a critical matter.

"But I think at this stage, most of the Australians of goodwill are wanting it to be clear what Indigenous peoples want."

Pickled Tink posted:

A new page deserves a new First Dog:

Gorilla Salad posted:

This has all the hallmarks of someone who has just been told to pull their loving head in or an axe will fall on them.

As much of a piece of poo poo as Bolt is, he just came face to face with the fact he's been defending a man who did everything in his power to protect child rapists and continue a horrific cycle of abuse which lasted decades and that must be a terrible thing to have to face. Bolt did everything he could to hide his head in the sand but the enquiry just rubbed his nose in the mess Pell left and that has to sting no matter how jaded a hack you are.


But honesty doesn't sell Murdoch papers, "white men are the real victims" does. The most charitable reading I can find is that some editor must have taken Bolt aside and reminded him why he was flown all the way around the world and given exclusive access to Pell - and it certainly wasn't to report the facts.

quote:

CARDINAL George Pell ­yesterday uttered words that will stain his reputation forever.

tithin posted:

Because he knows that he's damning himself by his defence of the man, he'll never be taken seriously again.

BBJoey posted:

haha

to elaborate, anyone who still takes Bolt seriously in 2016 will not be swayed by Bolt merely defending a pedophile enabler

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

So how many years are we going to be waiting for ScoMo and Dutton to get puled up in front of a Royal Commission and have similar bouts of dementia?

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

So how many years are we going to be waiting for ScoMo and Dutton to get puled up in front of a Royal Commission and have similar bouts of dementia?

Dude McAwesome posted:

I think ScoMo's mental faculties are already declining. In QT yesterday, he must have said "MIster Speaker" about 40 times in a couple of minutes. But I guess when you litter your speech with that, you really don't have to give a proper response.

thatfatkid posted:

HEMP, SEX and BULLET TRAINS.

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

I kind of hope it's not a DD. I want Ricky to stay on another 3 years.

Laserface posted:

The few times I worked elections and had to count, almost all of the below the line voters hosed up somewhere and it was invalid.

El Scotch posted:

Slashdot posted:

The Conversation reports that beginning next month Australian scientists and engineers face 10 years imprisonment for communicating without a government permit on biotech, robotics or manufacturing. Geoffrey Roberston QC says the laws are "sloppily drafted" and threatens research with "no sensible connection to military technology". But the government is barreling ahead, despite warnings from Defence Report it will kill Australia's high-tech economy. The law is opposed by Civil Liberties Australia where scientists are petitioning against it.

A Good Username posted:

INNOVATION MUTHAFUCKAS!!!!

A Good Username posted:

INNOVATION MUTHAFUCKAS!!!!

Goffer posted:

For you keen poll watchers out there, essential just dropped 2% and it is down to 50-50 as well.

http://www.essentialvision.com.au/category/essentialreport

Side note, essential averages the last two weeks of polling, so there may be a little more momentum in the swing than just 2% as it was previously stable at 52-48.

A Good Username posted:

INNOVATION MUTHAFUCKAS!!!!

quote:

On John Howard's big night, all eyes turn to Abbott and Turnbull
Gabrielle Chan

It began like your awkward school reunion. Old ministers of the crown, milling around looking as useless as tits on a bull, mixing it with up and comers, lobbyists, pollsters, strategists and hangers-on.

The occasion was the 20th anniversary of the election of the Howard government – a regular love-in. John Howard sashayed through the crowd, remembering everyone’s name, meeting, greeting and signing books.

The Howard cabinets posed for class photos. Nationals and Liberals were well represented. Names like Peter Costello, Tim Fischer, John Anderson, Robert Hill, Richard Alston, John Fahey, Peter Reith and so many more.

Malcolm Turnbull arrived and greeted Howard. A photo was called for. Howard – ever the uncle – suggested bringing Tony Abbott into the picture. “That’s not going to happen,” said someone from behind. Abbott lurked. Somewhere, a glass broke.

For it was a day when the new politics of the Turnbull government was derailed by the old politics. Leaks and recriminations. The old politics of Abbott. The old politics of pre-PM Turnbull. The old politics that sent the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments packing. It was sweaty in that hot under the collar-type of way. Beneath the bonhomie and back-slapping lay the bitter seeds of ambition quashed.

The former treasurer Peter Costello and the former Nationals leader John Anderson were the warm-up acts. In typical style, Costello gave a rousing speech about how he saved the world and they were all truly thankful. And don’t believe Labor about wasting rich bounty of the mining boom, he said. The iron ore price was $13 a tonne when they came to office in 2006.

“It was a big job,” Costello said. “When we were dispatched, we didn’t owe a cent”.

He joked about being thankful for Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan. “They made us look much better,” he said. It was a dangerous theme.

For all his bullshit and bravado, most eyes were on the current prime minister and the vanquished. Turnbull and Abbott sat within range but there was no interaction after the first handshake. No eye contact. It was like having the divorced parents at the same wedding table.

Turnbull did what he had to do and acknowledged Abbott’s role in bringing the party back to government. But it was Howard that Turnbull had come to praise. And by praising the specifics, Turnbull used his trademark communication skill to say two things at once.

Howard understood he was the first among equals. You didn’t.

Howard had respect for the traditional cabinet system. You didn’t.

Turnbull went further. When Howard became prime minister, he was the gold standard. Turnbull was trying to replicate it by bringing Howard’s former chiefs of staff Arthur Sinodinos and Tony Nutt into the fold. (Sinodinos is the cabinet secretary and Nutt is the federal party director.)

Using the old man as a human shield, Turnbull delivered his story about Howard urging him to staying on in politics after he had announced his resignation on losing the leadership to Abbott. At that time, leadership was the last thing on his mind, Turnbull said.

A table up the back snorted.

With his address, Howard cut through his broad church, belting heads together, reminding the parishioners it was the party of both Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill.

His government succeeded because it had a a clear philosophical view and it understood changing circumstances, he said. Its achievements were the tightening of the gun laws after Port Arthur and his policies on border protection, epitomised by turning back the Tampa in 2001. Up went the crowd.

It was perhaps, his moment of greatest applause, when he uttered the words: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

Without missing a beat, Howard raised the extreme spectre of a Donald Trump presidency or the alternative, Hillary Clinton. A poor choice. The centre is where it is at, Howard said. Australia was different to the US because the middle class had not been hollowed out. It has been one of his favourite themes – his beloved middle class, so exalted by Robert Menzies before him. The Liberal party must be careful its membership represents the “generality of those who support us”.

“All of us in this room and hundreds and thousands beyond will work our insides out to see your government returned,” Howard said.

But that may depend on Abbott, who sat mostly silent, the death’s head at the feast.

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Abbott and Turnbull sat across from each other at a Liberal party wankfest for Howard. Nothing actually happened but the narrative is winding up again!

dr_rat posted:

I'd put money on twenty years, give or take five.

Also on that Morrison will be going fine during the Commission until Dutton fucks up and accidentally says something that ends up unraveling everything and doing them both.

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Abbott and Turnbull sat across from each other at a Liberal party wankfest for Howard. Nothing actually happened but the narrative is winding up again!

Endman posted:

SPILL SPILL SPILL SPILL SPILL SPILLSPILLSPILLSPILLSPILLPSIDAPOISEDGFSDG

quote:

BIS Shrapnel's negative gearing report is 'manifestly ridiculous' by Joanna Mather

An independent think tank has described as "manifestly ridiculous" a report containing predictions about dramatic drops in real estate values and economic activity if a policy like Labor's proposed negative gearing plan was adopted. The report by BIS Shrapnel says rents would rise by up to 10 per cent, the number of new homes being built would drop by four per cent and GDP would shrink by $19 billion a year. Labor's proposal is to abolish negative gearing for established dwellings, which would prevent investors claiming net rental losses against salary income. Any number of new homes could be negatively geared.

BIS Shrapnel would not say who commissioned the modelling and on Thursday clarified that the report was prepared before Labor's policy was announced.

The Grattan Institute's John Daley slammed the report. Chris Pearce

Grattan Institute chief executive John Daley said the report and its underlying assumptions "did not pass the giggle test" and were "manifestly ridiculous". But he did acknowledge that Labor's plan was likely to reduce home prices by two per cent (not the six per cent the report finds). "Voters should be asking themselves whether a responsible government would rely on this sort of nonsense in a public policy debate," Mr Daley said. " The problem is that these for-hire economic consultancies are paid to run a model, they stick a bunch of silly assumptions into the model and everybody is asked to believe whatever comes out." Mr Daley said the most glaring errors were in the report's assumptions about how higher taxes would affect land prices. "It assumes that higher taxes will primarily affect returns on development," he said. "In fact higher taxes will primarily reduce the price of land so that returns on development are little changed."

The report predicts the loss of economic activity from a restriction on restriction on negative gearing to new properties at an average of $19 billion a year.

So $19 billion will be lost in exchange for additional tax of between $4 billion and $5 billion a year. Do the sums and that implies a loss of $3 dollars of economic activity for every $1 of tax raised. Tax theory would describe that as a "marginal excess burden" of 300 per cent, Mr Daley said. "That is plainly outlandish," he said. "To put it in context, people claim that the marginal excess burden associated with company tax is high at 50 per cent." The report also finds abolishing negative gearing on existing stock would reduce home prices by 6 per cent. Mr Daley said a more accurate figure would be a reduction of 2 per cent. "The [negative gearing] tax deduction is worth about $5 billion a year after tax," he said. "You apply a multiple of, say, 20 to convert that annual revenue into an asset value. On that basis, the net present value of the deduction is about $100 billion a year. The ABS reports that the total value of residential land plus improvements in Australia is a little over $5 trillion. Divide $5 trillion by $100 billion and it implies that the value lost from changing negative gearing rules is about two per cent of the value of residential property, not six per cent."

Then there is the claim that it will force a 10 per cent increase in rents.

"If it was going to have that effect we would have seen it in 1985," Mr Daley said. "And it just doesn't make sense. For every property that is no longer owned by an investor, there is one more property owned by an owner-occupier. Therefore there is one less renter and one less rental property. There is no change in the supply and demand for rental property, and therefore no change in rents." The 30-page document was circulated among journalists on Wednesday afternoon, just in time for evening deadlines. While the executive summary was released to some, others managed to acquire full copies of the report. An embargo lifted at midnight. But hours before that property industry bodies, who'd obviously been privy to the report's findings, were sending out press releases. The report's findings confirmed Labor's policy would "cripple" families, the Real Estate Institute of Queensland said. "Any changes to negative gearing would be disastrous in Queensland, pushing thousands of families into financial distress as rents rise as the predictable result of diminishing supply," chief executive Antonia Mercorella was quoted as saying.

quote:

Row erupts over BIS Shrapnel negative gearing report By political reporter Stephanie Anderson Updated 46 minutes ago

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has dismissed a new report on the impact of curbing negative gearing.

Key points

BIS Shrapnel report says cutting tax break drives up rental prices and pushes down house values
Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten dismisses report as "a joke"
BIS Shrapnel to reveal who commissioned research
The BIS Shrapnel report issued on Thursday found cutting the tax break would drive up rental prices and push down house values.

BIS Shrapnel has refused to say who commissioned the research but said the modelling was done over several months and was not focussed on any particular policy. The report examined the effect of limiting negative gearing, assuming that:

Established homes would be excluded from negative gearing in favour of new homes only
The policy would be grandfathered and not effect established homes bought before July 2016
It found that if these measures were to be put in place, rents would rise by up to 10 per cent a year and new home building would shrink by around 4 per cent – or 7,200 dwellings – annually. It further stated that GDP would shrink as a result - by around $19 billion per annum on average - and 175,000 fewer jobs would be created over the coming decade.

Fact Check: Negative gearing - ABC Fact Check investigates Scott Morrison's claim that the vast majority of Australians who use negative gearing earn "modest" incomes.

Last month, Labor announced plans to limit negative gearing to new properties from mid-2017 if it wins the next election. But Mr Shorten told reporters on Thursday the report was completed before Labor unveiled its policy. He dismissed it as "a joke". "The report was done and researched before Labor released its policies," he said. "The report doesn't model Labor's policies, it models a set of fantasy assumptions and then draws its own conclusions." Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen also dismissed its findings, saying it "should be treated with all the credibility of an email from Godwin Grech".

But Treasurer Scott Morrison has leapt on the report as evidence Labor's policy is flawed.

Mr Morrison told the ABC he did not know who commissioned the report, stating: "We didn't do this modelling". "It is a credible report and it shows what we said what would happen with Labor's policy," he said. "It would have a significant impact on property values, it's going to push many people into housing stress. It's going to require compensation of hundreds of millions of dollars, more than is actually raised by the policy itself."

But Kim Hawtrey from BIS Shrapnel told the ABC the report was done over the last few months, "before Labor even announced its policy". "We weren't thinking of any particular policy from any side of politics," he said. "We were really trying to consider as set of likely assumptions that somebody might propose." Mr Hawtrey said the paper was not making recommendations. The Property Council and the Real Estate Institute of Australia have both confirmed that they did not commission the modelling from BIS Shrapnel.

quote:

Since 1964, BIS Shrapnel has been helping clients gain a leading edge by sharing our extensive business database and highly regarded reports. Our reputation is built on a unique blend of three ingredients: proprietary market research, industry networking, and methodologies for forecasting that have stood the test of time. BIS Shrapnel is one hundred percent Australian owned. We are an independent company with no vested interests. Out of offices in Sydney and Melbourne, we operate globally to service clients around the world. We offer strategy briefings, policy evaluation, expert opinions, and advocacy work. We can provide a business case. Through tailored projects we provide value-added research solutions to address specific business issues.

Dude McAwesome posted:

I think ScoMo's mental faculties are already declining. In QT yesterday, he must have said "MIster Speaker" about 40 times in a couple of minutes. But I guess when you litter your speech with that, you really don't have to give a proper response.

quote:

Latest GDP figures show economy is rebalancing away from mining Thursday 3 March 2016 6:51AM (view full episode)

Spending may be a dirty word for the Federal Government right now, but it's proving to be the saviour of the Australian economy—with a rise in consumer and Government spending delivering an adrenalin shot to economic growth at the end of last year. The latest December quarter GDP figures out yesterday suggest the economy is successfully rebalancing away from mining towards services-led growth, as Australians spend more on education, health and aged care. We are, however, spending our savings to fund it.

freebooter posted:

In the event that anybody in Australia ever faces the music for the concentration camps (which they won't) it will be exactly like all the Nazi trials in West Germany in the '60s: everybody in this country knew what was happening, the facts were all there, and hardly anybody cared. But the public narrative will change to the idea that it was somehow all a high-ranking conspiracy that was concealed from us.

open24hours posted:

I don't think people will find denying any knowledge of it difficult at all.

Cartoon posted:

So let's start with what noted right wing shill sheet the AFR has to say about the BIS Shrapnel report:

Who are BIS Shrapnel?

open24hours posted:

You can do that with climate change, evolution, heliocentrism, and lots of other things. No one cares, we live in a post-modern world.