Tony Abbott pledges to scrap carbon tax if Coalition wins the next election

Abbott's plan for Australia

Climate Change is no

His plan for Hospitals is no

His plan for the Mining tax is no

His plan for a tax levy for the floods is no

His plans for infrastructure spending is no.

Am I stupid or am I imagining that so far he has said that he stands for nothing, it seems as if his only policy is to create fear.

Tony I thought you were a clever politician, surely you have some ideas that that create something...anything!

The Coalition is supposed to be the alternative government, what are you giving us to work with, nothing but a fear campaign, it does not give one a sense of a positive alternative.

Mr Abbott you are giving us nothing, if you do not show that you have positive policies what chance do you have at the next election.....mine and buckly's.

Don't treat us like children give us something to focus on, we need you to show us your metal, not this wishy washy no,no,no stuff.

IS THIS THE COALITIONS

LIST OF POLICIES

VC's not easy to come by in the British Navy"particularly if you were an AUSTRALIAN

The Gillard government has set up an inquiry to find out whether the Victoria Cross can, or should, be awarded retrospectively to Australians who served heroically in past wars.
That inquiry will examine acts of gallantry by 13 Australians who went unrecognised or who received acknowledgment long considered inadequate.

While the new Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial embraces the stories of 98 Australians whose courage under fire won them the Victoria Cross there's a strong view that some Australian heroes who should be there are missing from the line-up.

There are, in fact, some rich examples of very similar acts of heroism that were treated in wildly different ways.

Of the 98 Victoria Crosses awarded to Australians, 94 were won by army personnel and four by members of the Royal Australian Air Force.


None has gone to the navy. While the army and the RAAF were under Australian control during World War II, the navy was under the authority of Britain's Royal Navy.


Examples


1....18-year-old Teddy Sheean was a gunner aboard the Australian warship HMAS Armidale, which was attacked by Japanese aircraft.

As the corvette began to sink and its crew abandoned ship, Japanese aircraft began strafing survivors in their life rafts. Sheean, thought to be already wounded, strapped himself into a gun and blasted the aircraft. Survivors said he shot down one aircraft and damaged two more and he was still firing as the gun was going under.

2....In the early hours of March 1, 1942, Perth and an American warship, USS Houston, ran into a powerful Japanese invasion fleet in the Sunda Strait.

In the battle that followed, the two cruisers inflicted heavy damage on the Japanese.

Waller and his men fought until their ammunition was gone and their ship was sinking beneath them. Of the 681 Australian crew, only 218 survived the sinking and the years of captivity that followed. Waller went down with his ship. According to the Australian War Memorial, Waller was probably the outstanding naval officer of his generation.

Neither of these men were awarded a V C, there are series of similar incidents that require serious investigation.

VERY, VERY HARD TO COME BY

IF YOUR FROM OZ

IN AMERICA THE LAND OF THE FREE?????

Wisconsin Republicans dispatched police to the homes of absent Democratic senators on Thursday to try to round them up for a vote on a plan to strip public sector unions of most collective bargaining rights.

While the search failed to find the Democrats, it raised the stakes as Gov. Scott Walker's self-imposed deadline of Friday for approving the proposal neared.

Wisconsin has become ground zero in a national struggle over labor unions power, and union members from all over the country have converged on the state to protest the proposal.

All 14 Democrats in the Senate fled to Illinois last week to deny Republicans a quorum and a vote on the bill.

Republicans hold a 19 to 14 majority but need a quorum of 20 to vote on spending bills. The Democrats fled because they feared they could be compelled to attend if they remained.

IS THIS THE FUTURE OF AMERICA

IS THIS IS THE START OF WHAT IT COULD BECOME!!

AMERICAN POLICY,TORTURE, WHAT AFGHANS THINK THE US IS GOOD FOR

ABBOTT BAGS CARBON TAX AND LIES ABOUT COSTS--THERE ARE NO COSTINGS YET?

Mr Abbott says the Government does not have permission from the electorate to introduce a carbon tax, but refused to say if he would repeal it.

"I don't think the Government has a mandate....... if Julia Gillard] goes ahead with this tax it will look like a....... conspiracy of the Parliament against the people," he said.

Then the profound statement, power bills up by $300 a year or even more.

How can the Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt say the scheme will add $300 a year to power bills, and six cents a litre to petrol when no figures have been decided, indeed no decision will be made until next year..

"The intent is to drive up electricity prices so people suffer," Mr Hunt said.

Come on Greg have you ever seen any government deliberately cause suffering to their voters, no never.

Mr Abbott, "We will fight this every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month," he said. Is he copying a real statesman.

Few details were released beyond a timeline and a promise that all money raised would be spent on helping households and businesses and paying for climate change programs.

Agriculture would be excluded, as it was under the emissions trading model shelved by former Kevin Rudd last April.

The most contentious decisions - the tax starting price, how much it would increase each year, the amount of compensation for coal power plants and whether to include transport emissions - are yet to be discussed by the committee.

CHURCHILL LIKE, OR CRYING WOLF TO OFTEN

The mining tax "A GREAT BIG TAX"

Carbon tax "A GREAT BIG TAX"

we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence, we shall defend our land, whatever the cost may be
we shall fight on the beaches, 
we shall fight on the ground
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender to a carbon tax.

COME ON TONY WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, IN YOUR DREAMS BUDDY

ANYHOW, WERE IS THE CIGAR!

ASYLUM SEEKERS ARRIVING BY PLANE ARE NOT AS HONEST AS THOSE WHO COME BY BOAT

Boat arrivals almost all get visas

Verity Edwards: Edited by S W T Read Feb 25:2011

From:The Australian 

February 25, 2011 12:00AM

ALMOST all asylum-seekers arriving by boat in Australia waters over the past three years have had their refugee status applications approved.

The Coalition claims that people-smugglers are taking advantage of the federal government's immigration policies, they do not mention the fact that majority of these refugees have come from a war almost on our doorstep.

Figures released under Freedom of Information laws show that the Immigration Department approved 94 per cent of all refugee status claims from people arriving by boat, after initial assessments and independent merits reviews, between October 2008 and December 22 last year.

In stark contrast, the department approved only 39 per cent of protection visa requests for non-boat arrivals in the first half of this financial year, or 909 people from the 2321 people who applied.

Therefore we can assume that the wealthier the refugee who has access to air travel is unlikely to be as honest, in fact these figures indicate that a 61% are dishonest in their claims.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the figures proved asylum-seekers were more likely to be granted refugee status if they boarded a boat instead of a plane.

No Scott it does not, it proves in fact that people who have only one way out will take it, how many of these people would rather pay exorbitant sums to smugglers when a plane trips is so much cheaper, none of them if they had access to planes.

"So long as the bias remains to those arriving by boats, then the government can expect more to come and greater chaos in their asylum policies," he said. "The system bias pulls people into boats."Mr Morrison said until the federal government changed its policies, the boats would continue.

The department refused 49 per cent of protection visa applications for non-boat arrivals in the 2009-10 financial year, or 2266 people, and 55 per cent the year before, or 2624 people.

These figures prove that those travelling by air are not as honest as arrivals by boat, we need to develop better access for refugees in countries closer to their homeland, that would stop people from getting on boats in the first place.

SCOTLAND--AIR GUNS USED TO ATTACK TEENAGERS

Terror on the streets of Auchinleck as gunmen shoot pupils at random

Published Date: 24 February 2011

Edited by S W T Read: Feb:24;11.42am:2011

By Martyn McLaughlin and Mark Smith

A school lunchtime turned to horror in a small Scottish town after 11 children were injured when two hooded teenagers went on an air gun rampage.

The pupils were walking near Auchinleck Academy in Ayrshire when two young men, believed to be aged 15 and 18, began shooting at them during a 25-minute spree.

Some youngsters were forced to dive for cover as others were left with wounds to their legs and upper bodies.

A massive police manhunt was launched after the attacks, in which the gunmen appeared to fire indiscriminately at the pupils enjoying their lunchbreak in streets around the school.

Two teenagers were later detained in connection with the incident.

Of those injured, at least one required an operation yesterday to remove a metal pellet from their leg.

Others were taken to Kilmarnock's Crosshouse Hospital for treatment, many driven there by local people who had witnessed the attacks. All the injured were aged between 12 and 16.

The rampage has heightened concerns about the easy availability of airguns, and will fuel calls for gun laws to be devolved from Westminster to Holyrood.

The Scottish Government wants to introduce a ban on unlicensed air weapons. 

Peter Reith rallies Coalition-LAY A REITH ON THE DEATH OF UNIONS-YESTERDAY'S MAN STILL HATES THE WORKERS OF AUSTRALIA

Edited by S W T Read: Feb 24: 10.11am :2011

Reith rallies Coalition to brave labour market reform

PETER Reith, the Howard government "enforcer" on industrial relations and waterfront reform, has challenged the Coalition "not to be afraid" or "spooked" by a Labor scare campaign on Work Choices. He wants to turn the clock back to the good old days of confrontation.

Mr Reith says that rallying calls for vital workplace reform have "fallen on deaf ears in Canberra" with the Coalition afraid to campaign on the issue.

The former industrial relations minister and one-time Liberal leadership aspirant believes labour market reform is Australia's No 1 priority'

This means "Australia will have been going backwards for nearly a decade" by the next election he says.

"The reality today is that the industrial relations system we now have is not good enough. It will get worse.

The shortcomings may have been disguised by the resources boom, and the public may not realise the problems ahead.

Australia still needs a better system," Mr Reith will say in a speech to be delivered today in Melbourne.

He is a dinosaur, his ideas created the greatest industrial disputes in our history.

Australia is already short of skilled workers and yet his answer is to blame the workers, what sort of logic is that.

The industries in Australia haven't invested in training as they should have, it is their life blood just as important as equipment and infrastructure.

They have relied on governments of all colours to do the training, now they have to pick up the ball and run with it.

Even if they do the right thing we will still have to bring in skilled workers to fulfill our needs.

Attacking the workers is a head in the sand attitude, typical of the mentality of Peter Reith.

THE REITH EMPLOYMENT PLAN

UK Health system---Cameron can SPIN GOOD HOSPITAL JOKES

IF YOU NEVER GET SICK YOU'VE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said in April 2010 Labour would cut thousands of NHS jobs.

“They will cut the number of nurses, the number of doctors and the number of hospital beds. It does not get more frontline than that.”

David Cameron then famously claimed before the election that he would not damage NHS.

This is something he would never do....

Less than 10 months into the coalition government, the reality couldn’t be more different, with NHS cuts across the country including.

• 
  East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, which expects to shed 1,013 full-time equivalent staff from 2010-15, including almost 50 doctors and dental staff, and 270 nurses, midwives and health visitors.
• Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which is cutting 682 full-time equivalent posts between 2010 and 2013. 110 posts have already gone.
• University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust, who are currently forecasting a reduction of 1,349 full-time posts from 2011-15, which is 22.5 per cent of its entire staff.
• Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, who expect to cut 461 full-time posts by 2015 – a 16 per cent reduction, including a 12 per cent cut in nurses, midwives and health visitors.
• Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, which is cutting 1,755 full-time posts in 2010-11 – nearly a nine per cent net reduction in one year, including 120 doctors and dentists, and 620 nurses.
• Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, who plan to shed 1,115 full-time posts from 2011-14, mainly through natural turnover.

The total confirmed, planned and potential NHS staff cuts across the country currently stands at just over 53,150 posts – and that’s before a host of trusts are expected to announce staff cuts over the next four months, including all Wales’ health boards.

I'M A POLITICIAN WOULD I TELL AN UNTRUTH ?

By the way if you have excess nurses and doctors in the UK, come on down to Australia we can't get enough, so if your wasting them in hospitals send them to us. 

IS THIS THE AMERICA THAT RESPECTS WORKERS RIGHTS

Workers' protests swell in Midwest America as Republican governors attack unions and workers rights.

They want to eliminate the right of unions to have dues deducted from worker paychecks.


They also want to eliminate tenure as a consideration when making layoff decisions


Unions, which have traditionally favored Democrats, have argued that collective bargaining, a process of negotiations meant to regulate working conditions, has helped protect wages and health care, enforce workplace safety and serve as a means to arbitrate employee grievances


Wisconsin has one of the longest traditions of workers' rights in the country.
They were the first state to have workers' compensation also they were the first state to have unemployment insurance.


They were the first state to recognize public employees' right to bargain.


The Republican governor thinks all these are rights should thrown away.


These governors would feel at home in a totalitarian regime or the 18th century.

IS THIS THE FUTURE

GADDAFI THE "KING RAT" DESCRIBES HIS PEOPLE AS RATS AND COCKROACHES

Gaddafi's latest ramblings.
Edited by S W T Read:Highlights of this deluded mans speech.


"This is my country, my country"Gaddafi emphasized over and over.


Not once did he say our country, or the peoples country, he obviously believes it is his personal plaything.


He denounced the protesters as servants of the devil and described the demonstrators as cockroaches.


They were enemies of Libya who deserve to die."capture the rats," he said.


He said he would die as a martyr in the land of his ancestors and fight to the "last drop" of his blood.


He ordering protesters to surrender their weapons immediately, saying there would be a "slaughter" otherwise.


He threatened to purge Libya "house by house" and "inch by inch."


As with most leaders who cling to power for to long, he feels he owns the country and only he knows how to govern.


This is typical of the paranoia that absolute power brings, this man has lost his marbles.

THIS MAN HAS LOST HIS MARBLES

IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE MARBLES

YOUR NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY THE GAME

THE USA WONDERS WHY THE ARAB WORLD CAN'T UNDERSTAND THEM?

Israeli settlements: US vetoes UNSC resolution

The US has vetoed an Arab resolution at the UN Security Council Condemning Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories as an obstacle to peace.Continue reading the main story

Israel and the Palestinians

• Excerpts: Leaked Palestinian 'offers'
• Jerusalem's troubled geography
• Palestinian views: Anger at leaks
• Palestinians pursue 'Plan B'

The Obama administration wielded its first veto at the UN security council last night in a move to swipe down a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.

The US stood alone among the 15 members of the security council in failing to condemn the resumption of settlement building taking a place on land that belongs to Palestinians.

This has always caused a serious rift between the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority.

This once again has derailed any attempt to kick-start the peace process.

The Palestinians have made it clear that they will not return to the negotiating table until Israel suspends settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

This decision placed the US in a controversial position at a time when it is already struggling to define its strategy in a tumultuous Middle East.

The 14 member countries backing the Arab-drafted resolution included Britain and France.

The Israel lobby in the US has again shown us all who pulls the strings in the US administration.

The US administration jumps when the Israel lobby says so, all they seem to ask is how high do you want us jump.

As the leader of the "Free" world what sort of example do they set, almost everybody knows the the Palestinian question would be closer to being solved if they agreed to this resolution.

THIS BIG DOG ALWAYS DOES WHAT IT'S TOLD

IS THIS US BANK ABOUT TO ATTACK WikiLeaks

It is rumoured Bank of America has a secret plan to destroy WikiLeaks

By Jerome Taylor

Tuesday, 15 February 2011

Edited by S W T Read


A PowerPoint presentation seen by the Independent claims that a trio of Internet security companies – HB Gary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies are ready.


They are prepared to attack WikiLeaks, which is rumoured to be getting ready to release a cache of potentially embarrassing information on the Bank of America


It recommends a multi-pronged assault on WikiLeaks including deliberately submitting false documents to the website to undermine its credibility.


Pioneering cyber attacks to expose who the leakers to WikiLeaks are, then going after sympathetic journalists.


Security companies should track and intimidate people who donate to WikiLeaks.

They need to get people to understand that if they support the organization we will come after them. Transaction records are easily identifiable.

THE US WAS IMPOTENT IN EGYPT'S RE-BIRTH

THE INDEPENDENT : By Rupert Cornwell

US has been a powerless spectator in this uprising

If Egypt has exposed anything, it is the myth that Washington can make events in the Middle East dance to its tune.

Edited :S W T Read:Sat: 12: Feb:2011

The the world’s superpower has been a powerless spectator at the greatest and most momentous popular uprising in the modern history of the Middle East.

The US has been reacting to events – and then not very consistently, first supporting Mr. Mubarak, then urging his swift departure.

Then calling for and orderly transition, before finally throwing its weight unequivocally behind the pro-democracy movement.

Only at the end, it seems, was President Obama in the know.

By luck or good judgement, the crisis has worked out more or less the way Washington probably wanted.

The end of an ancient regime and the assumption of power by the military, with which the US has close ties, and of which it is a key supplier.

If the Obama administration has any leverage to exert, then it is probably under the current circumstances.

Though it is only a spectator. It has no better idea than anyone else of what will happen now, whether Egypt will indeed progress to free and fair elections.

Whether there will be a new constitution or whether reforms will be mostly cosmetic, with one military-backed strongman and his supporters ultimately replacing another.

Of course, the CIA will still be trying to divine the future, but with scant likelihood it will do any better than in the past.

There has been many complaints about how the US intelligence establishment failed to see what would happen in Egypt – just like every Joe on the street.

Perhaps the CIA's divining skills should be taken a close look at, for it to is an ancient machine also and may need a overhaul.

They have made the US look very limp and needing a dose of Viagra during this interlude.

THE UNITED STATES

WHEN ITS UP ITS UP

IN THE MIDDLE EAST

 IT'S NOT BEEN UP FOR QUITE A WHILE

THE WELL OFF SHOULD PAY FOR THEIR LIFE STYLE--NOT THE TAX PAYERS--

It's time to cut welfare payments

to the well off

In Australia by far the biggest expense the government incurs is social security and welfare. This accounts for $115 billion out of total estimated spending of $355 billion this year.

The family tax benefit system alone pays out $18 billion a year, to some families on incomes as high or higher than $150,000.

It is not only direct payments that give an unnecessary boost to the well off.

An estimated $27 billion in tax concessions are granted every year on superannuation, which give the biggest benefit to those with high taxable incomes.

And while we're at it, how about the $7000 grant for first home buyers.

It does not increase the supply of homes, it just boosts the price of baby boomer's homes, they will pocket it when they sell.

Now is perfect time for the government to bite the bullet and get back to the basic reason for welfare. The whole idea of welfare is to help those who are worse off.

Howard undermined this concept and turned it on it's head by rewarding the richest and demonising certain sections of the community.

Particularly pensioners who were blamed for not having superannuation, never mind that most of them never had the opportunity, because they were born at the wrong time.

Single mothers were also in the firing line even though a lot of them had been married before becoming single mothers.

If they are looking for cuts in expenditure, look no further.

A REWARD FOR THOSE NOT IN NEED

PULL THE OTHER ONE--TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION--

French penis-leash couple nabbed at shops

• From:AFP 
• February 11, 2011 3:40am: Edited S W T Read Feb 11, 2011 10:00 am

FRENCH police say they have arrested a 63-year-old woman who was leading her 40-year-old companion along a busy shopping street by a leash attached to his exposed penis.

The couple were detained on Wednesday afternoon in the southwestern city of Carcassonne and were due to appear in court in April on charges of public indecency.

The couple admitted to being sex addicts and said they were in the middle of a game when arrested, police said on Thursday.