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Apr 29, 2024 09:43
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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I'm still giggling at the thought of Turnbull shoveling one and three-quarter million dollars of his own money into the election and squeaking in by a single seat
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Feb 2, 2017 03:00
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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tony_abbott_death_is_certain.gif
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Feb 5, 2017 23:03
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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My mate and I were in the Catholic system growing up, I went to Marist and he went to Patrician.
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Feb 6, 2017 08:09
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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https://twitter.com/DavidParis/status/829465431630942208
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Feb 9, 2017 00:12
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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quote: Liberals to put One Nation ahead of Nationals in unprecedented election deal
Adam Gartrell
The Turnbull government is defending an unprecedented preference deal that could see the Liberals put One Nation ahead of the Nationals in Western Australia, with a senior frontbencher saying Pauline Hanson's party is more "sophisticated" than it was in John Howard's day.
Arthur Sinodinos says One Nation has "evolved" in the 16 years since his former boss, John Howard, decreed that the Liberal Party always put One Nation last on their how-to-vote cards.
"The One Nation of today is a very different beast to what it was 20 years ago," he told the ABC on Sunday.
"They're a lot more sophisticated. They've clearly resonated with a lot of people. Our job is to treat them as any other party.
"So when it comes to issues of preferencing and the like we have to make decisions - in this case it's a state decision, not a federal decision - based on the local circumstances," he said.
The alliance between the WA Liberals and Nationals is reportedly at breaking point as a result of the deal, which could keep the conservatives in power but also deliver One Nation the balance of power.
Under the terms of the deal detailed in the Sunday Times newspaper, the Liberals would preference One Nation above the Nationals in the upper house country regions in exchange for the far-right party's support in all lower house seats at the upcoming March 11 state election.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made it clear he would not stand in the way of such a preference deal during a speech to the National Press Club earlier this month, calling it a state matter.
His stance comes amid increasing concern in Coalition ranks that it's bleeding votes to the far-right minor parties.
The Liberal National Party in Queensland is also grappling with how to treat One Nation ahead of the state poll due there later this year, with the latest polls giving Ms Hanson's party almost one-quarter of the vote.
The Liberal Party's Victorian branch is also considering dumping its long-standing policy of putting One Nation last.
Labor has taken a different approach, with Bill Shorten instructing the federal ALP not to do any preference deals with One Nation.
Senator Sinodinos says the Coalition's job is to get voters back from One Nation in the years ahead.
"There are a lot of people out there who are just mad as hell and it's going to take some time for policies to seep through to them and convince them that the way of One Nation is not the way to go."
He pointed out: "The bloke who came up with their 2 per cent tax policy years ago has just gone bankrupt."
The WA Liberals want to avoid what occurred in 2001 when Richard Court lost power after putting One Nation last. But the Nationals are furious over the deal, which could cost them several seats.
Preferences are expected to play a major role in what is tipped to be a knife-edge election.
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Feb 12, 2017 04:17
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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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.
These cowardly fucks
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Feb 13, 2017 07:25
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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I doubt NXT will want to wear it.
They don't.
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.”
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Feb 13, 2017 09:23
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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https://twitter.com/KJBar/status/831327235307040768
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Feb 14, 2017 04:53
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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https://twitter.com/kerrinbinnie/status/832433432252686336
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Feb 17, 2017 05:25
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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First Dog:
https://twitter.com/BLeakEksplayned/status/833436755151962116
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Feb 19, 2017 23:08
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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quote:Pre-election coal advertising funded by money meant for clean coal research
By Stephen Long
The coal industry's multi-million-dollar advertising and lobbying campaign in the run-up to the last federal election was bankrolled by money deducted from state mining royalty payments and meant to fund research into "clean coal".
The mining industry spent $2.5 million pushing the case for lower-emissions, coal-fired power plants in the run-up to last year's election — a cause the Federal Government has since taken up with gusto.
The source of the funds was a voluntary levy on coal companies, originally intended to fund research into "clean coal" technologies, which coal producers could deduct from state mining royalties.
Instead, some of the money raised paid for phone polling, literature and TV ads that declared "coal — it's an amazing thing".
The funds were channelled through the Australian Coal Association Low Emissions Technology Limited (ACALET), formerly owned by the Australian Coal Association and now part of the Minerals Council for Australia.
Queensland Government documents list "the COAL21 levy payable to Australian Coal Association Low Emissions Technologies Ltd (ACALET)" as an eligible deduction against royalty payments in the state.
A "coal research" levy in NSW is also deductible against coal mining royalty payments, under a deal signed off by the disgraced former NSW Labor minister Ian Macdonald, who was charged with criminal offences after an ICAC inquiry.
But it was not clear from the ABC's research whether the NSW money funded the body behind the coal industry's campaign.
Coal21 was launched more than a decade ago, with the aim of creating a $1 billion fund for research into "clean coal" technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS), but only a fraction of the money was raised or spent.
With a lack of research projects to finance, the levy was suspended in 2012. In 2013, the coal lobby changed the mandate of Coal21 to downplay research and allow its funds to be used for "coal promotion".
Critics 'outraged' by industry's use of funding
Funding the industry campaign from money that otherwise would have been paid to state governments as mining royalties has outraged the Federal Opposition and the coal industry's critics.
"It is a huge shame that Coal21 funding, which was mean to go into genuine CCS research, is now being used to finance advertising and political campaigns," Labor's environment spokesman Mark Butler said.
Australia Institute chief economist Richard Denniss said it was "scandalous".
"Every dollar spent on advertising as part of the coal industry campaign was a dollar that should have gone into consolidated revenue," he said.
"Citizens funded a propaganda campaign with money that would otherwise have gone into public revenue to fund schools and hospitals."
NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham said it was "an outrage that royalties that should have gone to funding police, schools and hospitals had instead gone into propping up the clean coal myth and the PR campaign of a dying industry".
In a written statement, a Minerals Council spokesperson said:
quote:"The Coal21 Fund's coal levy was nil between July 2012 to June 2016 for all contributors in Queensland and nationally. Contributors to the fund are not entitled to a deduction from coal royalties in other states.
"Therefore ... contributors to the Coal21 fund would not have claimed any deductions against their coal royalties during this period."
However, critics dismissed this as a red herring, because the coal industry's advertising and lobbying campaign was funded by money accumulated when the levy was in place.
In the wake of the coal industry campaign, the Federal Government has embraced the push for lower-emissions, coal-fired power stations and is intending to use considerable public money to fund the technology.
It wants the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), established to fund zero or very low carbon emissions technology, able to fund coal projects.
That will require changing the CEFC's current mandate which prohibits funding technology that reduces emissions by less than 50 per cent and excludes funding of coal carbon capture and storage.
The office of the Federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg has been contacted for comment.
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Feb 20, 2017 08:51
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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quote:The Secret Iraq Dossier
A newly declassified report obtained by Fairfax Media reveals Australia's role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq was undertaken solely to enhance our alliance with the US. David Wroe investigates.
On the night of April 12, 2003, Australia’s military commander in the Middle East, Brigadier Maurie McNarn, was woken by a phone call telling him that a RAAF Hercules would soon fly into Baghdad airport to deliver medical supplies for the Iraqi capital’s looted hospitals.
The caller was his boss, then Chief of the Defence Force General Peter Cosgrove. Nevertheless, McNarn protested, saying the airport was not secure and there was no safe way to distribute the supplies to 40 hospitals across the crumbling capital. Cosgrove, now Sir Peter, the nation’s Governor-General, told him to make it happen. It was being announced to the press in 30 minutes.
Operation Baghdad Assist went ahead and became a media triumph for then prime minister John Howard and Sir Peter amid a deeply unpopular war. The Hercules, carrying three journalists and 13 commandos to provide protection, was the first Australian plane to land in Baghdad after the invasion a month earlier.
But the medical supplies never made it out of the airport. They rotted. A second planeload was diverted to the city of Nasiriyah, whose hospitals were already relatively well stocked. McNarn would go on to dismiss the whole thing as a “photo opportunity”. Special forces commander Lieutenant-Colonel Rick Burr, who learned of the operation on CNN, was equally upset, writing in his diary that the operation made “a mockery of our approach”.
It’s one of many startling revelations in a 572-page, declassified internal report on the Iraq War obtained by Fairfax Media under freedom of information laws. Written between 2008 and 2011 by Dr Albert Palazzo from Defence’s Directorate of Army Research and Analysis, it is by far the most comprehensive assessment of our involvement in the war. Originally classified “Secret”, it was finally released last week after more than 500 redactions.
The report concludes that Howard joined US president George W. Bush in invading Iraq solely to strengthen Australia’s alliance with the US. Howard’s – and later Kevin Rudd’s – claims of enforcing UN resolutions, stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction and global terrorism, even rebuilding Iraq after the invasion, are dismissed as “mandatory rhetoric”.
Howard and Sir Peter, facing domestic political pressure, ensured that Australian lives were exposed to as little risk as possible. The result was a contribution that was of only modest military use and, in many cases, made little sense. Politically, delivering the right force was “secondary to the vital requirement of it just being there” but it led some American military officers to grumble that Australia was providing “a series of headquarters”.
It was managed from the top with a keen eye for the politics and the public relations, yet frustrated commanders often asked what they were doing in Iraq and many took to writing their own mission statements. One commander wryly summed up his time in Iraq thus: “We did some poo poo for a while and things didn’t get any worse.”
The report, which Defence says is an “unofficial history” that represents the author’s own views, is the product of three years’ work and includes more than 75 interviews with military figures, correspondence with other sources, and full access to classified documents.
Palazzo planned it as an unclassified book to be published by the Army History Unit, aimed at teaching junior officers about the Iraq War, but it grew into a larger, classified project that Palazzo hoped would be distributed internally, including to senior Defence leaders.
That did not happen. Instead the report was shelved.
Its release comes as Australia once again ponders the US alliance in the era of Donald Trump, with Australian troops back in Iraq, and with the Pentagon poised to release a new game plan to defeat the Islamic State terror group that could involve asking for more help from Canberra.
More at the link.
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Feb 24, 2017 23:19
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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https://twitter.com/Drag0nista/status/835274927435476992
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Feb 25, 2017 08:26
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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I don't understand. How can Shorten have both a higher "satisfied" and a lower "dissatisfied" than Turnbull but then somehow Turnbull wins as preferred PM?
https://twitter.com/jonathonio/status/835798377308704771
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Feb 26, 2017 22:22
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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He'll switch sides before then.
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Feb 26, 2017 23:23
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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He was boasting about it too
https://twitter.com/AlanTudgeMP/status/835619955013902336
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Feb 27, 2017 10:03
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- Adbot
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Apr 29, 2024 09:43
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- adamantium|wang
- Sep 14, 2003
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Missing you
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https://twitter.com/inthehansard/status/836484288249913344
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Feb 28, 2017 08:59
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Feb 1, 2017 22:35
