I would blow Dane Cook posted:

quote:

Malcolm Turnbull ties billions in NDIS funding to welfare cuts

The Turnbull government has upped the ante with the Senate over billions of dollars in welfare cuts by making funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme contingent on the cuts being passed.

A week after the government introduced a budget omnibus bill that tied its long-stalled child care changes to the passage of welfare cuts that have been stuck since the 2014 budget, it announced on Monday that the leftover savings - about $3 billion more - would be quarantined for the NDIS in 2020.

If the Senate blocks the bill, then the NDIS would have to be funded by tax increases or budget cuts elsewhere, while the child care changes could stay on hold.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said the planned return to surplus would not be affected because the money was going to go to general revenue anyway and would then be spent on the NDIS.

Now it goes into the special NDIS fund.

"Every dollar that is in that bill that is realised...will result in more funding for child care for hard working Australians and their families and provide even greater assurance about the future of the NDIS," Mr Morrison said.

Labor's families spokeswoman Jenny Macklin called the threat disgusting, callous and uncaring.

The Greens, too refused to budge, saying the disabled should not be held hostage to welfare cuts.

Under the budget bill, almost $1 billion to be saved from ending carbon tax compensation for welfare recipients, was already earmarked for the NDIS. By allocating the remaining $3 billion, that means $4 billion for the NDIS is now contingent on the bill passing.

The omnibus bill ends $4.7 billion in Family Tax Benefit supplements and implements the childcare reforms that were to be funded by ending these supplements.

It also contained billions more in welfare cuts that have been on the books since the 2014 budget and have nothing to do with funding childcare.

These include removing payments for pensioners, making the unemployed wait longer for the dole and ending carbon tax compensation for future welfare recipients.

To woo the crossbench, the government increased the Family Tax Benefit – available to families earning up to $80,000 a year – by $20 a fortnight. This will cost $2.4 billion.

The taxpayer-funded paid parental leave scheme will be increased from 18 weeks to 20 weeks. If a mother has an employer scheme of fewer than 20 weeks, she will be entitled to a total of 20 weeks with the public scheme acting as a top-up. This will cost another $700 million.

The net saving to the budget over four years is about $4 billion. But this is more than $2 billion less than the original budget savings because of the cost of the increased FTB payments and the paid parental leave, both designed to satisfy the crossbench.

The government informed Senate crossbenchers, Labor and the Greens about its new plans for the rest of those savings on Monday.

Solemn Sloth posted:

Not a fan of the NTNews' newfound subtle approach

adamantium|wang posted:

These cowardly fucks

You Am I posted:

Not enough crocodiles for my liking

adamantium|wang posted:

These cowardly fucks

Recoome posted:

The WARC peeps are weird because the reaaaaaallyy don't like LGBTI people and seem to have TERFs

e: the rally was great, we didn't get a lot of people but the anti-abortion march brought in people from all over QLD, so that was weird. I want to start a grassroots campaign in my area to bring people's attention to Christian Rowan's anti abortion stance

E2: the anti abortion people were extremely aggressive towards us, it was insane

adamantium|wang posted:

These cowardly fucks

Recoome posted:

The WARC peeps are weird because the reaaaaaallyy don't like LGBTI people and seem to have TERFs

gay picnic defence posted:

A Shooters, Fishers and Farmers rep just joined the fishing forum I'm on , what would be the best way to troll him. He's already claimed that having guns is the only thing stopping the socialists from banning fishing.

hooman posted:

Lifejackets while rock fishing.

EDIT: Why are socialists anti-fishing? Surely they'd want people fishing in order to share the fish around, right?

ewe2 posted:

I doubt NXT will want to wear it.

quote:

Nick Xenophon has warned the Turnbull government against pursuing “dumb policy and dumb politics” by linking future funding of the national disability insurance scheme with billions in welfare cuts.

Xenophon’s warning followed a decision by the government on Monday to ramp up pressure on the Senate crossbench to pass welfare cuts associated with its childcare package by announcing that $3bn of the proposed savings package would be allocated to a special account to fund the full rollout of the NDIS.

Xenophon – who is the critical undecided Senate player with the childcare and omnibus savings bill package – told Guardian Australia on Monday “as negotiating tactics go, this is about as subtle as a sledgehammer”.

He said the government “should not pit vulnerable Australians currently receiving family tax benefit against another group of vulnerable Australians wanting to access the NDIS”.

Xenophon said the move potentially complicated his support for the childcare and welfare savings package, and linking the two issues was “not only dumb policy, it’s also dumb politics.”

adamantium|wang posted:

gay picnic defence posted:

A Shooters, Fishers and Farmers rep just joined the fishing forum I'm on , what would be the best way to troll him. He's already claimed that having guns is the only thing stopping the socialists from banning fishing.

hooman posted:

Lifejackets while rock fishing.

TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:

I hope that story about Turnbull having a solar battery installed at home while he rails against renewable energy is real.

gay picnic defence posted:

A Shooters, Fishers and Farmers rep just joined the fishing forum I'm on , what would be the best way to troll him. He's already claimed that having guns is the only thing stopping the socialists from banning fishing.

Periphery posted:

Troll him at election time. Ask him for proof that he's who he says he is (photo with the date and forum username or something like that). Document it. Then just casually ask a bunch of questions bout stuff and document all the horrible poo poo he says. Then at election time dump his horrible responses on twitter or anonymously to the media.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

What is going on with Ross Cameron?

adamantium|wang posted:

These cowardly fucks

adamantium|wang posted:

They don't.

Cartoon posted:

Apparently Big Clive is suing Michaelia Cash for deformation over comments she made about his Nickle mining venture. The only reports I can find are from News Corpse and cite a letter from Palmer to Cash as the evidence so not linked, could be a beat up.

Cartoon posted:

Apparently Big Clive is suing Michaelia Cash for deformation

quote:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/closing-the-gap-malcolm-turnbull-indigenous-progress-not-enough/8268736
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has tabled this year's Closing the Gap report, which again shows slow progress to improve the health and wealth of Indigenous Australians.

Some of the targets covering health, education and employment have stagnated and others are going backwards.

But Mr Turnbull said he would continue to talk about the strengths of Indigenous Australians.

"Being an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian means to succeed, to achieve. To have big dreams and high hopes," he told Parliament.

Mr Turnbull said despite having successive state and Commonwealth governments committed to closing the gaps faced by First Australians, there was much more work to do.

"We have not come far enough," he said.

More than 61 per cent of Indigenous Australians aged 20-24 had completed Year 12, up from 45 per cent in 2008, Mr Turnbull said.

Mr Turnbull said the literacy target was "narrowing and achievable".

But only one of the eight literacy and numeracy benchmarks was being met by Indigenous students, the report said.

In a concerning update, progress on decreasing Indigenous child deaths appears to be plateauing.

For the first time in several years, that target is marked as not on track, Mr Turnbull said.

"We are also reminded of the fragility of life and the heavy burden of families, communities and governments," he said.

"I am very saddened and disappointed that the target to have the gap in Indigenous child mortality is not on track."

The Government's target to halve Indigenous unemployment by 2018 will not be met, but the Prime Minister said it would be re-evaluated in partnership with Aboriginal organisations.

At a Closing the Gap breakfast in Canberra, National Congress of Australia's First Peoples co-chair Jackie Huggins told the Prime Minister it was another round of disheartening news.

"Respectfully your disappointment will not compare to our old people and what they feel at the repeated news that our lives are still shorter sicker and poorer than other Australians," she said.

"We have seen many reports and inquiries over the years make important recommendations — 400 in fact — without the required attention or response from government."

The National Congress of Australia's First Peoples — a member-based Indigenous representative organisation — this morning hosted a breakfast at Parliament House and delivered its blueprint for change to the nation's political leaders.

Mr Turnbull, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Greens leader Richard Di Natale all attended.

The Congress urged them to support the Redfern Statement, an 18-page manifesto released during last year's election campaign.

"That's about resetting the relationship, working with us, acknowledging that we have the solutions and value our experience and our expertise within our service organisations and within our communities," Congress co-chair Rod Little said.

"We are looking for a renewed relationship."

The Redfern Statement calls for dozens of changes, including reversing Abbott-era budget cuts, adding a Closing the Gap target aimed at reducing imprisonment rates and establishing a standalone department for Indigenous affairs.

Cory Bernardi distances himself from 'totally inappropriate' Q Society comments posted:

Cory Bernardi has distanced himself from homophobic and anti-Islamic comments made at a Q Society event in Sydney last week, describing remarks from former Liberal MP and Sky News commentator Ross Cameron and cartoonist Larry Pickering as “totally inappropriate.”

The outspoken former Liberal senator, who last week split from the Turnbull government to form a new conservative political movement, spoke at a separate Q Society event in Melbourne on Friday.

Bernardi said on Sunday after reading accounts of the interventions at the Sydney event, he spoke to the function organisers to make it clear he thought the remarks were “totally inappropriate.”

The Q Society is a rightwing advocacy group that describes itself as a not-for-profit civil rights organisation with the goal of informing Australians about Islam. The events last week were part of the group’s “Halal Choices” campaign.

During the Sydney event, Cameron said, among other things, that the Liberal party was “basically a gay club” – adding: “I don’t mind that they are gay, I just wish, like Hadrian, they would build a wall.”

According to reports of the event, Pickering said not all Muslims were bad because some “do chuck pillow-biters off buildings.”

“Let’s be honest, I can’t stand Muslims,” Pickering was quoted as saying. “If they are in the same street as me, I start shaking.”

Bernardi distanced himself from the remarks during an interview on Sky News on Sunday, describing the behaviour as “an own goal from some of [the Q Society’s] supporters.”

“I said it was totally inappropriate,” Bernardi said on Sunday.

He said the anti-halal certification campaigners at the Q Society were already “marginalised, and I think unfairly”, and they didn’t need more obstacles put in their path through ill-disciplined or inappropriate outbursts.

He said Pickering’s intervention was indefensible because what’s going on in some corners of the world is “no joking matter.”

Bernardi said he spoke to Ross Cameron in order to understand the context of his intervention “and he explained the historical nature of his comments, but in reading them, I don’t think there’s anything funny about them.”

“They did some damage.”

Bernardi said he remained a strong supporter of free speech, and would call out examples of “bad speech.

He said free speech advocates invested their confidence in people to do the right thing. “When bad speech comes forward, it’s up to good people to drive that out and denounce bad speech and bad ideas.”

On Sunday, appearing on Sky News, Cameron said he had apologised for his intervention, and he acknowledged he’d “contributed to a loss of narrative” at the Q Society event.

Bernardi’s public interventions on same sex issues have also landed him in hot water over the years.

He was labelled a homophobe by the opposition leader Bill Shorten last year after he led the charge by conservative MPs opposed to the safe schools program, an anti-bullying initiative established by the then Labor government and launched by the Coalition in 2014.

He said the program was linked to gender-fluid advocacy for children.

In 2012, Bernardi lost a front bench position in the Abbott government because of remarks he made about legalising same sex marriage, characterising marriage equality as the thin edge of the wedge.

“The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society – or any other type of relationship,” Bernardi said during parliamentary debate in 2012.

“There are even some creepy people out there... [who] say it is OK to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals.”

Bernardi has consistently denied he holds homophobic views and responded to Shorten’s intervention by dismissing it as name-calling. “It was Bill Shorten’s Latham handshake moment – unhinged and character illuminating.”

Jonah Galtberg posted:

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