Sharks never bite of more than they can chew:- Fact: Sharks pretty much only bite men. Here's why

This is not a news story, men have known for years that women bite back?

Fact: Sharks pretty much only bite men. Here's why:



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What we can't eat has become a growth industry. What's next, the mind boggles!

What we can't eat has become a growth industry. What's next, the mind boggles!

Carcinogenic bacon: Ignoring expert diet advice is an Australian tradition - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):



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Tony Abbott's Maggy Thatcher lecture sort of. Part of.

A few of my modifications to John Grace's article
in the Guardian.(Sorry John)

G’devenin everyone.

(My border policies might stop me returning to Australia)

It’s great, you know, thing to have been asked to give the second annual Maggy Thatcher talk here in London, England. As most of you will know, Mrs T was a sheila(although some say she was a bloke).

Anyhow, she managed to rise above that disability and she bombed the shit out of the Argies and took back the Falklands for Great Britain while managing to piss off most of Europe by doin it.

She was the kind of leader every country needs. As far to the right as she could go.

Some people here – those of you who have some idea of who I am – may regret that I only got to be the greatest Prime Minister Australia has ever had for two years.

Well, let me tell you I was, I'm bloody proud of what I achieved for Australia in those two years. Bibles and onions for all school kids and a knighthood for Prince Philip. What country could ask for more?

Now let me tell you'se this. When I was prime minister I didn’t tell you guys how to run their international relations I just lectured Australians on the subject continuously.

But hay, I’m now at a bit of a loose end and I couldn't pass up the opportunity of a free flight with free onions to watch the Wallabies give the Kiwis a kick up the arse in the rugby World Cup final?

Anyhow do you know why Australia is so good at rugby? Well mates let me tell ya.

It’s because we closed our borders on every damn illegal immigrant who came within 100 metres of our shore even if it was a sandbar.

Yep,every foreign bludger who turned up pleading persecution in their own country was sent back to somewhere else, actually anywhere we could send them, I mean anywhere!

Now if you Brits want to get good at rugby again you’re going to have to learn to do the same thing.

Now here’s the problem with Europe. You’re just a bunch of wankers and pussies. You’re too bloody nice to foreigners. Every time a loser turns up at your borders whinging about how hard their lives are, you fall for their sob stories. Let me tell you straight. You gotta be mean and man up, before it’s too late.

Jesus himself once told me in person, if you don’t look after number one then everyone else will just take advantage of you. Always put yourself first like the bible says.

Anyhow sometimes you’ve gotta be cruel to be kind. Once hundreds of thousands of them die they will realise they were better off dying, don't matter where they came from.

Now it may take some getting used to and gnaw at your conscience if you unfortunately have one, but take it from me, you’ll soon get over it.

The problem wasn’t that the west created too many wars, but that it didn’t create enough. We should have taken out every country in that part of the world while we still could. Bomb, bomb, bombety, bomb.

I love England you know, bloody hell I was born here. I'm here to tell you, if your short on leadership, I'm available.

The Abbott virus we escaped. Have we developed a cure or are we kidding ourselves?

I HAVE A CURE FOR ABBOTTISM

'TURNBULLISM'. IT IS THE VIRUS OF THE FUTURE

The Abbott virus was damaging to our collective soul, making us feel bad about ourselves, hitting us between the eyes with the bullet made of fear.

Nearly everything Mr Abbott did left people in despair:

• His first budget
• His onion eating
• His reintroduction of knighthoods, giving one of them to Prince Philip
• His winking
• His endless broken promises
• His hyper-masculine attitude
• His craven use of national security
• His national-flag obsession every time he had a press conference
• His instinct to treat opponents as enemies
• His instinct to divide the nation
• His inability to articulate anything remotely like a vision for the country.

Otherwise he was a great leader???

Now we have Turnbullism, is it contagious or is just a similar virus that is not so aggressive? 

Tony Abbott:- One of the “world’s greatest minds”.??????

What was that flying through the sky, was it a plane, was it a bird

No, its Super Tony one of the “world’s greatest minds”.

Based on an article by Paul Osborn.
Australians may be wondering, is this our Tony, the same Tony who's foot so often ended up in his mouth.
Well apparently the Washington Speaker Bureau thinks so?

Journalist, monarchist, prime minister and now one of the “world’s greatest minds”.

Tony Abbott has joined the global speakers’ circuit, represented by the Washington Speaker Bureau.

The former Prime Minister is open to speaking for just “travel and expenses only” or a fee of “over $40,000”, according to an order form on the bureau’s website.

The bureau’s slogan is “Connecting You with the World’s Greatest Minds”.

Mr Abbott, who is due to deliver the Margaret Thatcher Address in London next week, joins the likes of John Howard, Tony Blair and George W Bush on the speakers’ list.

His biographical note on the bureau website says: “Abbott is able to speak thoughtfully on terrorism and security in the 21st century, including the threat of ISIS and pervasive religious fundamentalism”.

“With profound depth of experience, he is keenly positioned to offer unparalleled insight on leadership, the global economy, global trade, discuss a Western perspective on the future of Asia, explore the short and long-term future of China, and provide a unique and timely political outlook for your audience.”

Australia's social security system Centrelink:- Is it deliberately blocking users ability to use its services

The number of calls to Centrelink that have gone unanswered has increased by 61 per cent to 22 million calls a year, with bureaucrats trying to blame smartphone dialing apps.

The number of "blocked" calls, when callers receive an engaged tone, is up from 13.7 million calls in the 2013-14 financial year.

Centrelink said it was an issue the agency had been attempting to manage. This is the same answer the gave at the last years Senate hearing. Managing the problem has resulted in 13.7 becoming 22 million.

They are blaming new technology with people calling at peak demand times."

So now we hear that 13.7 million has now swelled to 22 million, are they seriously trying to fix the problem, I think not.

It appears that Centrelink has no interest in taking further action in driving down the worrying statistic.

The Government is happy to paint pensioners and people on income support as 'dole bludgers', having infrastructure in place that clearly can't cope with demand shows it is the governments intention to do nothing because these people that try to use the system are considered second rate citizens.

Australian Senate estimates hearings: SIR HUMPHRY RIDES AGAIN(Is this a repeat)

Before one estimates hearing, a particular department was informed of what questions a senator would be asking so they could be prepared and provide answers.

We the public are lead to believe through the media that this is true scrutiny of government.

Senators are of the belief that they will get real answers to their questions, they are delusional.

"Bureaucratise" is a practiced art-form. Here's just one example of an answer from a public servant to repeated attempts to find out whether there would be an increase in the price of medicines for people with a health care card:

I think that is the important thing. I appreciate that there are multiple opinions on this at the moment. We see certain extracts of data and we have a different perspective being presented here. The important thing to acknowledge is that, under the Sixth Community Pharmacy Agreement, we are going to get that data and then we can have a conversation about whether what we had anticipated and what we were seeing from extracts of data is translating under the agreement or whether there are other areas that we need to be concerned about. Importantly, we are having an independent review of remuneration within the first two years of the agreement to assess that.

What the hell does that tell us???

Did you know that some public servants undertake expensive training to help them manage the process of (not) answering questions about what they do with taxpayers' money.

Yes, we pay for the training, why god only knows!

It's certainly an entertaining sight to watch a battalion of bureaucrats struggling to lug giant folders of information into committee rooms and yet they're often unable to answer basic questions about what they do. It seems the bigger the folder, the less information is in it.

This is how democracy works, governments come and go but the Sir Humphry's of this world live on for ever, Yes Prime Minister

If it smells like fish it is fish, if the lid on the rubbish bin is left of we'll all smell it."Its beginning to smell just like Christmas".

Nova Peris denied access to Christmas Island detention centre in her electorate.

Australian Border Force officials blocked Northern Territory senator’s visit to the detention centre despite being given the green light from Serco
Northern Territory senator Nova Peris. Christmas Island is in her electorate. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

Australian Border Force officials denied Labor senator Nova Peris access toChristmas Island detention centre, despite the facility being in her electorate.

Peris, who represents the Northern Territory, sought access to the centre from Australian Border Force officials on 8 October, when she was already on the island, but was denied. She had applied via the centre’s management company, Serco, before arriving on the island, and had been given the green light from them.

“The Department of Immigration and Border Protection facilitates visits to detainees by their families, friends and other individuals for the purpose of providing social and familial contact,” the rejection letter, seen by Guardian Australia, said. “Visits by individuals for research, education and other purposes are not consistent with this principle.

“Given the scope of your request, we regret that we are unable to facilitate this visit,” it said.

The truth is hard to find. Somali refugee flown out of Australia denies saying she declined termination | Australia news | The Guardian

Secrecy continues for detention centers, this is why stories like this continue to happen.

If we had openness to the press and the people that work in detention centers were not threatened with the law if they tell us what is happening we wouldn't have to try and guess what is happening.

When the truth is hidden from us, that is when conspiracy theories appear.

Somali refugee flown out of Australia denies saying she declined termination | Australia news | The Guardian:



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Four year fixed terms: The time has come for Australia, let us move into this century for all our sakes!!

Yes its about time we gave our Federal government the time to govern and to deny them the right to call elections when ever they feel like it!

Based on an article by Mike Steketee

Increasing the time between elections to four or five years would be common sense. Please help!

At present three-year term is a misnomer, given that the average time between federal elections in Australia since federation has been about two-and-a-half years.

That only gives a government the time to do some governing in the first year before it starts thinking about how to win another election in the next 18 months.

In federal politics, four-year terms of parliament have always been the bridesmaid but never the bride. Recent prime ministers and opposition leaders have supported them.

Voters are more than happy to have less politics and fewer elections. But the idea has never quite made it to the political altar.

In Australia, every state and territory parliament has managed to introduce four-year terms with the exception of Queensland and now their Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has asked a parliamentary committee for a report on the issue and the Opposition already has drawn up a draft bill to implement a fixed four-year parliament.

At the federal level, we don't have much to lose, given that, with a revolving door of prime ministers, a towering budget deficit and a struggling economy, we are taking on some of the characteristics of a banana republic.

A longer time between elections at least creates the opportunity for an improvement. Governments can concentrate on governing, even if that seems a novel idea in an era of unstable leadership, wall-to-wall opinion polls, 24/7 social media and an addiction to pandering to populist sentiment.

When elections are held every four years on a fixed date, it provides greater stability and certainty and takes away the advantage of the governing party in determining the timing of the election. That would increase the average time between elections by 18 months and would save money, with the last federal election costing $198 million to stage.

Campbell Newman biography: Brisbane shop bans book over axing of Premier's Literary Award - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Newman was a loose cannon that fired in all directions at once(a bit like Abbott) and now he wants us to pay good money to read the same drivel that he espoused while premier.

He should do us all a favor and disappear, at least Abbott does useful things in his spare time.

What the hell does Campbell do?

He writes a whole book of toilet paper, Sorbent is better value.

Campbell Newman biography: Brisbane shop bans book over axing of Premier's Literary Award - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):



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Good news or bad news? Trans-Pacific Partnership was nearly finalized overnight to establish the world's largest trade deal.

The TPP, we are told its such a good deal.The devil is in the detail.Details that we have not been allowed to see.

The deal is done sort of, its not finalised!

The US congress has to pass it and it has to pass through parliament in Australia.
If it manages to do both these things we'll have a deal. A deal that so far has been done in complete secrecy.

The Australian people have been kept in the dark, we hear a lot of superlatives praising the benefits of such a deal, however we know very little.

The TPP has been the work of both Coalition and Labor and neither party has seen fit to keep the people informed of the detail.

Am I skeptical, yes, and why wouldn't I be, (if it quacks like a duck its a duck) and this smells like a deal between multinationals rather than a deal between countries.

We have all heard the term 'in confidence' which is so often  wheeled out by large companies and often of late by governments when someone wants to examine a contract, this has the same smell about it.

Perhaps we will learn more as it progresses through our parliament, if we are allowed to see the detail, I just hope that we the people are properly informed before it is signed off on.