Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has turned down appearing on the ABC's Q&A, after Victorian MP Alan Tudge pulled out over the Zaky Mallah saga.
Mr Turnbull denied there was a coalition government boycott of the show following last Monday's appearance of Mallah, a former terror suspect and convicted criminal WHO SHOWED US ALL HOW STUPID HE WAS. Malcolm has started of a review into events leading up to the live broadcast.
"They actually approached me and asked if I'd go on, and I declined also," said Malcolm as he stood alongside Mr Tudge, the prime minister's parliamentary secretary, in Melbourne.
Malcolm, Malcolm have you become just another ordinary gnome, I have always thought of you a special gnome, a gnome that would withstand the huffs and puffs of the big dog.
My faith has been shattered, mind you, you could redeem yourself once you have reviewed the so called 'fact finding mission' and found it all to be a storm in a tea cup.
Remember errors of judgement have been common among the ordinary gnomes on both sides of the house on the hill. Yet no gnomes have been hung lately and some have almost committed a mortal sin, 'a leak'.
The ABC is our friend, like all friends we have tiffs, this is not worth the huge aggravation.
There are many unhappy gnomes on the right side of the house on the hill
Federal funding cuts have forced the closure of an essential disability support service that has linked millions of people with inclusive travel and recreation.
Nican close its ACT-based office and phone and email service last week, after almost three decades supporting people with a disability.
The closure followed the federal government's decision in 2014 to cut funding to specialist disability information services.
Nican office in Mitchell has shut its doors for good after federal budget cuts. Marketing manager Craig Wallace and executive director, Suzanne Bain-Donohue packing up. Photo: Melissa Adams
Nican provided a national database and information referral service linking people with a disability to more than 3500 accessible accommodation, recreation, transport, equipment and other services.
Nican marketing manager Craig Wallace said the loss of the national service would cause a "huge gap" in support and information, at a time when it was needed most.
"For people with disabilities like me, travel is a really anxious experience, you have to plan it like a military expedition," he said.
It was described as the only major comprehensive national source of information and advice of its kind.
Nican also offered a concession card for those travelling with a carer, giving a 50 per cent discount.
Mr Wallace said "Our other mood is one of surprise and bafflement, because we expected with the NDIS coming, there would actually be more need for information," he said.
Nican's website had five million hits per year.
It also delivered a highly cost-effective service.
The funding levels, about $161,000 per year, had remained unchanged since it was launched by Hazel Hawke in 1988.
"They're going to need to reinvent us when the NDIS rolls out what's called tier two services in 2016," he said.
Another senior public servant from the Agriculture Department has been shown the door in the wake of the sacking of the department's boss, Paul Grimes.
One of the department's deputy secretaries, the highly regarded Rona Mellor, has been told by new secretary Daryl Quinlivan that she has no future in her job.
This move against Ms Mellor comes despite the senior bureaucrat being awarded the Public Service Medal just two years ago, partly as recognition of her work for the department on Australia's border bio security which I thought was one of Barnaby's pet projects.
Perhaps Barnaby is unable to take advice from anyone who ideas that differ from his own.
Unlike Mr Grimes, who was summarily sacked by Prime Minister Tony Abbott after the breakdown in the relationship between the well-respected bureaucrat and Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, Ms Mellor has not been sacked yet.
It appears Mr Quinlivan who I think was appointed by Barnaby is wanting to bring an executive of his own choosing probable people who say yes to often.
Ms Mellor was also responsible for the department's human resources, service delivery, regulatory reform and compliance approach.
The forcing out of Ms Mellor, a highly regarded leader, means more instability at the top of a department still reeling from the sacking of its popular boss.
Apparently no-one at the Agriculture Department would be interviewed for this story and the department's publicity unit refused to answer questions,I wonder why???
Telstra has lost up to $90 million on its deal with the Commonwealth to run Centrelink's phone lines, according to insiders, and there is no end to the pain in sight with at least two more years of the agreement left to run.
Insiders have told Fairfax that Telstra lost $30 million a year for the first two years of its $474 million phone hook-up with the giant Department of Human Services, with the losses expected to continue at a similar or greater rate for the foreseeable future.
But another source close to the contract said the internal criticism of the deal was "harsh" indicating the telecoms giant was willing to absorb losses at the front end of the contract period in order cement its hold on the government work.
Telstra has not responded to the claims, with repeated requests to its publicity department for comment going unanswered.
The reported red ink means the losers from the deal are piling up; callers to Centrelink phone lines, who have seen services grow worse since the deal was signed in 2012, taxpayers who have seen little value from the outsourcing and Telstra's army of shareholders who have not been told of the losses.
Long term they see a huge profit by locking in departments to the deal. It will prove very expenseive for them if they wish to leave Telstra in the future.
Telstra knows that departments grow under all governments.
Attack on best performing super funds, why, its politics!
Abbott government reforms aimed at forcing industry superannuation funds to have more independent directors is not about oversight, its about trying to hurt Labor. These15 not-for-profit, low fee industry super funds deliver the best returns.
Surprise, surprise the finance sector welcomed the changes to Australia's $2 trillion super industry.
The new laws would require super funds - excluding self-managed funds - to have at least one-third independent directors on their boards and an independent chairman.
Union and employer representatives would have to make way for new board members. The fees directors on union-backed funds earn flow back to unions and the Labor party as well as to employers.
These funds have delivered superior returns to workers and employers for three decades.
It appears the Abbott government just obsessed with tearing into unions. The trustee governance structure, which shares board positions equally between employer and employee representatives, has been proven as the most effective model in Australian superannuation.
Industry Super Australia said it was being targeted when the focus should be on governance problems it had avoided - the consumer losses and scandals that had engulfed banks and wealth managers.
It is astounding that anyone would be seeking to interfere with the governance model of the all profits to members super funds that have driven two decades of strong returns, Nearly two per cent higher than for-profit funds."
Our obsession with anti-terror laws, should they be tempered by a Federal Bill of Rights.
My take on an article by Fergal Davis
In Australia are we ‘hyper-legislating’ are we obsessed with anti-terror laws. First the Parliament enacted the Foreign Fighters Act to enable the prosecution of those who fight with terrorist organisations overseas.
This week we have the right to revoke citizenship to tackle the same problem. We seem to be addicted to the thrill of enacting these laws. These laws are often draconian and unnecessary.
Between 2001 and 2007 the Howard government enacted 48 anti-terror laws. Labor managed a further 13 anti-terror laws. Then in 2014 the Abbott government enacted a further three “tranches” of national security laws. The speed with which anti-terror laws are adopted, amended and superseded is astonishing.
Uniquely in the Western world, Australia does not have a Federal Bill of Rights however a Bill of Rights is no magic bullet.The absence of such a bill means Australian governments are uninhibited by concerns about the courts striking anti-terror legislation down. Our High Court of Australia has upheld indefinite detention and the retrospective application of criminal law.
The legal framework to give the government pause for thought when it considers how to balance the need for anti-terror laws with human rights is nonexistent. Australian politics is divided into two main blocs, it prevents adequate scrutiny of anti-terror laws.
To avoid being accused of rolling out the red carpet for terrorists opposition parties can quibble with the detail of legislation but ultimately are compelled to back the proposals.
In Australia, backbenchers don’t revolt. They toe the party line. On national security the party line of both parties is the same – so the voices speaking out against any proposals are marginalised.
So are we ‘hyper-legislating', probably so, because it is politically advantageous to the party in power. Making Australia safe is powerful mantra and both sides of the political spectrum use it.
Any concessions made to this latest bill can be traced to Malcolm Turnbull’s statement: “Well every law has to comply with the Constitution.”
Therefor a constitution with no Federal Bill of Rights always leaves the door ajar for less scrutiny.
First there's no legal queue. The facts Australians get wrong about asylum seekers
Based on an article by Robert TicknerTalking about refugees and asylum seekers in some circles can be a dubious endeavour. Words like “illegals” and “queue jumpers” are ricocheting back at you, and you’re entangled in an angry debate.
The good ol’ welcome mat has yet to make it out the front doorstep for the small number of refugees and asylum seekers who arrive in this country. As the debate spirals on about the motives and choices faced by this vulnerable group, facts often lose out to fiction and speculation.
The public is pretty misinformed on some basic facts.
It’s not a crime to come to Australia by boat without a visa and ask for protection
Seven out of 10 people believe it is. We found seven out of 10 people believe it is thanks to the propaganda of both sides of politics. They have demonised refugees to the extent that the smugglers seem to be no longer the main problem, although without them supplying the means, we would not have had deaths at sea or a so called refugee problem.
The truth is that it is not a crime to arrive here by boat without a valid visa and ask for protection. In almost 100 years working with people affected by migration – most of those who do so often feel it is their only chance of finding a place where they’ll be safe from persecution.
It is not illegal to flee persecution, to cross borders without documents or passports in order to seek asylum – people have been doing it for centuries. Everyone has the right to seek asylum from persecution, which is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights are basic freedoms and protections that everyone’s entitled to. We should be very grateful that as Australians we have never been faced with choosing to flee our country to a country that deals out such harsh treatment to refugees.
There’s no official queue for people coming to Australia seeking a safe place to live
Six out of 10 people think there is.
The United Nations process of resettling refugees in other safe countries doesn’t operate like a queue. It’s not a matter of lining up, waiting for your number to come up – this is not the supermarket deli counter. The resettlement system operates as a discretionary process, based on changing criteria. It’s more like a lottery than it is like a queue.
If this mythical global queue did actually exist, based on the number of refugees there are in the world, people joining the end might wait 170 years.
Only 1% of the world’s refugees is likely to be given safe haven in any given year
Six in 10 people don’t know that.
Only a small group of countries offer resettlement through the UN system. Need consistently far exceeds supply and in any given year about 1% of the world’s refugees is likely to be granted safe haven in another country – in fact the UN says fewer than 1% of refugees will ever get a resettlement place.
What is Magna Carta's greatest achievement?Is it being ignored in Australia.
It placed the king under the law.
"No ifs and buts, it did that.
"The king's view was that the king is above the law,(a bit like our PM)he derived his authority to rule from God, he was answerable only to God and then, of course, only on the Day of Judgement; he was not answerable to you lot, the hoi polloi.(otherwise known as servants or today, the voters)
"The other view, of the theologians, was that the king was below the law, the law was natural law, it was God's law. And if it was God's law, then the king must be below it; he must obey the law himself, as well as enforce it.
Our present king(Tony Abbott) obviously goes along with things as they were before the Magna Carta.
"Those were the two rival points of view. In England, Magna Carta settled that debate once and for all." This is not so in Australia, because our present leader still lives in the past, in pre-Magna Carta times. As the Omnipotent one he is above the law, not like us mere mortals, his government is also above the law because he says so.
Beef exporters are terrified that the government is jeopardizing their businesses by treating Indonesia's sovereignty with contempt. Remarks such as, Indonesia is not able to control its people smugglers without any regard for how hard it would be to do so with the number of islands that make up Indonesia is is petty. Abbott says people smugglers are dastardly criminals for taking money from refugees. Now it appears it is us who are paying these same dastardly people? If this is true it is a stupid move, even more so because apparently this particular boat wasn't aiming to come to Australia, they were heading to Kiwi land. This government is making us look like idiots, they do not think anything through, with the result, they cause trouble for themselves and their citizens. Even that old drovers dog would be able to tell that this a was a rotten dead rabbit and would not have brought it home. Now we have one smart dog(the Foreign Minister) and a not so smart dog(the Immigration Minister) being forced to bark at shadows. These doggies have been left with this rotting rabbit and they don't realise it was given to them by the top dog(Tony Abbott). This smells like a top dog call(Captains call) because this top doggy has proved that he'll do anything to keep his big bone and he doesn't care if he damages the other dogs. In particular he doesn't mind hurting the smart dog because this little dog is more popular than him.
Wind, how awful. Coal is the future says The Abbott of Australia, this our futuristic visionary leader?
Based on an article by Sarah Martin.
Tony Abbott says the government has done its best to slow the growth of wind power, but has to continue subsidising the sector because of the dastardly Senate.
These wind turbines as “visually awful” and noisy, says Abbott the government wanted to further reduce its support for the renewable sector. Why because Smoke stacks and CO2 are better for us????
“What we did recently in the Senate was ... we reduced the number of these things that we are going to get in the future,” hooray for us he told 2GB radio.
“I would frankly have liked to have reduced the number a lot more, but we got the best deal we could out of the Senate, and if we hadn’t had a deal … we would have been stuck with even more of these things.”
So now we can have more coal powered power stations??????
Costello says Rudd had nothing to do with saving us from the GFC it was all done by China's growth. Dream on Peter what planet are you on?
The IMF now tells us how Mr Costello's 2003 budget and the budgets between 2005 and 2007 were Australia's most big spending in the past 50 years. They were expensive and the inequitable tax cuts force the RBA to increase interest rates at the time and guess what they caused Joe Hockey's current budget deficits.
The guru Costello caused most of the problems we now have today, in other words we are paying for his extreme generosity.
Our economic problems are inextricably linked to the decisions made by Mr Costello back when the economy was booming. His halving of the capital gains tax is playing a major role in the current housing boom.
The tax concessions for superannuation is costing the budget tens of billions of dollars. Not to mention his subsidies for mining companies, that poured fuel on the mining boom fire and pushed up the dollar, driving manufacturing offshore.
His version of history relies on magic, he directed the focus elsewhere while he pulled something out of his sleeve. He had the public to focus on the existence of any budget surplus no matter how small this distracted us from the real issue of the size of that surplus.
No doubt Costello delivered surpluses, yet the IMF makes clear that his enormous and inequitable tax cuts were unaffordable and that his surpluses weren't big enough given the strength of the boom he was riding.
There are people, like Mr Costello and Tony Abbott who believe that good things happen to good people and that booms are the reward for voting liberal?
Costello left us something alright, a lead weight and this present government is terrified, terrified of doing what is required, they must get rid of Costello's largess Australia cannot afford it!
La, La land
Mr Costello seems to genuinely believe that had he remained treasurer there would have been no GFC, no massive slowdown in the world economy and no budget deficits.
Why aren't Australians allowed to know what is being done in their name, the major parties seem to be at war, with each other, one trying outdo the other in toughness. Commonsense has long since left the battle field. Meanwhile our reputation as a fair country is being trashed. The boat saga has has turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of secrecy, we Australians are being portrayed as harsh uncaring people. Now the caring people who work in the detention centres are being gagged, both parties should be ashamed.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from such secrecy is that these places are hell holes, they probably are not, however if everything is kept hidden how do we know.
These secrecy laws are self defeating and damaging to Australia.
Doctors working at any of Australia’s off-shore detention centres can't tell us about injures or conditions for fear of being jailed for two years if they ever speak.
Both Labor and the Coalition passed a newly-enacted law which has made it a criminal offence for ‘entrusted persons’ to record or disclose information from these centres in certain circumstances.
There are exceptions, but members of the legal profession have warned they do not go far enough.
The law passed through parliament quietly and almost secretly on May 14, only the Greens opposed it. Doctors are not alone many other personnel risk prosecution. The secrecy provisions could apply to consultants or contractors employed at a detention centre.
“The effect of these provisions will be to deter individuals such as doctors, counsellors, and others who have voiced publicly their concerns about conditions endured by asylum seekers in detention centres from collecting information about those conditions and then raising their concerns in the community via the media and other fora,” the Australian Lawyers Alliance said in a statement.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott during his visit to a shopping centre in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Whenever Tony Abbott's prime ministership wobbles, talk of the need to change the senior staff in his office quickly follows.This time however it shows us how unprofessional he is. The sign in the window could be directed at him.
But while the Elite Meats counter certainly had a suitable array of dead meat for sale, no one is talking about the PM's shopping prowess, but does the dead meat indicate Abbott's chances of being there for the next election.
Do we really care what Joe says anymore, can we believe him.
First he frightens us to death, we are in dire straights, now he is telling us he was a clown a few months ago.
(mind you I believe his description of himself)
The March GDP figures released yesterday showed growth in the first quarter of this year was 0.9% in seasonally adjusted terms and a slightly more sober 0.6% in trend terms. Joe Hockey, as a treasurer must, talked up the figures, suggesting they were “a terrific set of numbers”. He also suggested that those who believe there are “dark clouds” ahead for the economy are “clowns”.
Bishops and Archbishops are blindly backing their mate,is this a wise move? They risk tarnishing themselves and the church if any mud sticks to Pell.
Australia's most senior Catholic clergy have endorsed George Pell's handling of child sex abuse cases during the middle of a royal commission.
Seven Catholic bishops and archbishops have signed a statement backing Cardinal Pell, saying he was one of the first bishops in the world to set up a response to abuse in the church.
"He is a man of integrity who is committed to the truth and to helping others, particularly those who have been hurt or who are struggling," said the statement, signed by two NSW bishops and five archbishops in Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, Hobart and Canberra-Goulburn.
Attack on best performing super funds, why, its politics!
