Lid posted:

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce boasted of lobbying the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to support his friend Gina Rinehart's National Agriculture Day months before he received a $40,000 personal cheque from the mining billionaire.

Documents obtained by Fairfax Media under Freedom of Information laws show Mr Joyce wrote a personal letter to Mrs Rinehart in April 2017 in which he said he "had made a direct representation to the Prime Minister expressing my strong support for this [National Agricultural and Related Industries Day] proposal."

Two months later in June 2017, Mr Joyce's own department donated $60,000 to the event on behalf of the Australian government. It was staged in November that year.

An audience at the event's gala dinner was shocked when Mr Joyce accepted the "champion of farming" cheque from Mrs Rinehart. He said he was "humbled" and was going to use it fix up his farm, but later returned the cheque following a public backlash.

meteor9 posted:

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsAust/status/1003838031059550210

Taskforce loving Integrity, ah haha ha. Can confirm they've sent out scary mails to everyone in these suburbs:



(Man i am glad looking for info on how to do simple things on this website is such a crapshoot, hopefully this embeds)

edit: (Oh okay sure, it works just not in the preview, why the gently caress would that ever work)

JBP posted:

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Oh good it's turned into a trainwreck already.

Lid posted:

Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition has many challenges but none of them is shooting itself in the foot with remarkable talent and monotony. And in order to maintain its toe-bleeding KPIs, the Turnbull government dispatched as its representative to Q&A, the Liberal senator from Western Australia, Linda Reynolds.

Reynolds was keen to emphasise that the government may well do the very thing almost nobody in Australia wants it to do, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of younger members of the Liberal Party federal council at its weekend conference.

Jones had offered Reynolds what amounted to a free kick on the fraught political debate of the moment.

"Is it a valid debate to privatise the ABC?"

Smart answer: Perish the thought!

But Reynolds, eyeing her own goal and blitzing it, replied: "It's a valid question and I think it's a good thing for all of us to debate where our taxpayer money goes."

And this:

Jones: "Are you saying it's legitimate debate within the government, whether or not the ABC should be privatised?"

Reynolds: "Absolutely."

It was at this point the viewer imagined Bill Shorten falling to his knees in gratitude, even as his own poll ratings suggest the government would best just shut up and let Shorten trip over on his fruitless search for charisma.

muel posted:

I don't actually watch Channel 7 news, but i'm subjected to a lot of their preview headlines when watching The Chase.

"Children left in tears as refugee protestors storm state parliament" - close up of white Australian kid's tears.

Nevermind the tears of actual refugeee children who have parents locked up in off-shore prisons.

oh, and everybody is described as a thug, union thugs, gutless thugs, thugs thugs thugs.

Channel 7 Nightly Thug News.

Lid posted:

Primary schools across Australia have begun sending letters about the video game Fortnite to parents, warning of its “negative effects” on students.

Several schools in New South Wales and Victoria have issued newsletters about the popular multiplayer game, which is played by an estimated 40 million people worldwide.

Sydney’s Bondi Beach public school told parents there had been “a noticeable change in some behaviours in the classroom and in the playground, that are directly linked to Fortnite”.

The Before Times posted:

I mean the only reason Hinch ever ran for parliament was so he could read out the names of pedophiles under parliamentary privilege (note this is bad primarily because it can make their victims or families easier to identify, which for privacy reasons you don't want to happen).

Megillah Gorilla posted:

I'm not bothered by red meat being a potential carcinogen, what worries me is the supermarkets putting shitloads of sugar into sausages and other meat blends.

The last thing anyone in this country needs is more carbohydrates. Especially, hidden ones.

Mattjpwns posted:

spuds are gonna spud

this broken hill posted:

meanwhile the old white guy who murdered his wife, his daughter and her four autistic children was a great man, a really top bloke, he just had a bit of a rough trot is all

Dude McAwesome posted:

Family court. Where he will complain about not seeing his children that he’s a terrible father to before verbally abusing every woman in the room and then going to a UPF rally.