In your interview for Justinian, you say something like "Australia does not do glorious things like the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge anymore"... I hope you have noted that both these glorious thingsters were started under Labor government's leadership... Note too, the Labor Government is pushing on with the NBN despite the annoying fracas from the party you want to be a parliamentary figure for. The scope of the NBN is quite bigger than the harbour Bridge or the Opera House though one cannot see it since it's buried underground. To some extend the NBN is far more democratic than an Opera House which only serves an elite sport, while the NBN is for all of us to exploit...

The only thing that your mob of Liberal (conservatives) did when in power from 1996 was to go to war illegally, slam the workers with an unfair work choices and slam us with a tax (GST) only a thieving grocer would be proud of.

You might argue that the carbon tax is a similar stuffing, BUT IT'S NOT. A carbon tax is actually an investment in the future of this country and of this planet. If you can't see that, then, as I mentioned before, you must think earth sciences is doing a bit of gardening... and that god will take care of the rest (yes I know it's your calling)...

Please Sophie, awake from the silly fog and lies from the Liberals (conservatives) — especially that concerning global warming. You are too smart not to see their self-inflating elistist game. Join the Labor party instead! There are plenty of catholics in the labor Party.

You'd be a shoe in, Sophie.

Bicycles in a state

During a recent stay in Brisbane, my wife and I were interested to observe the number of bicycle racks filled with good-quality machines for use. It would appear one could secure a bicycle from one rack location and return it to any other rack within the Brisbane CBD.

Once again the banana benders can show up Sydney in areas other than that done by the magnificent Reds.

Why not get the details and copy them, Madame lord mayor?

Jim Milton St Ives

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/if-youre-happy-and-you-know-it-tell-the-rba-20110727-1i08y.html#ixzz1TLYdwUSC
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Yes, mind you the program of public bicycle exchange isn't new... I know of a city in Yourp, where the program has been in force for nearly 50 years... But then again the mayor who started such an enlightened program was a socialist...

 

Raise a chardy to the elite and aware
I am so sick of commentators and vested-interest lobby groups having a go at the ''bicycle-riding … inner-city elites'' (''MP's group demands Fairfax seat for Rinehart'', July 18). Riding a bicycle is a sensible option for city dwellers. Drinking chardonnay supports an Australian industry.
As for being ''out of touch with mainstream Australia'' - what does that mean? It means we don't unthinkingly regurgitate the prejudices and fear campaigns of radio shock jocks. Mainstream Australia is small-minded, reactionary, gullible and consumed by trivia. Frankly, I'm proud to be elite.
Phil Scott Marrickville

So the Herald is a mouthpiece for vegan, bicycle-riding, inner city elites. What a small and imaginary world Cory Bernardi and his ''CANdo'' folks live in. When I walk around the harbour on lower north shore every morning, the only delivered paper I see on the footpath is the Herald.
A typical Herald reader, I'm a Cremorne-living, sedan-driving doctor who eats meat. The people who read the Herald recognise truth-telling independent journalism and prefer it to propaganda, whether from the mining industry or News Ltd selling its pre-digested opinions. Sorry, Cory, there are still lots of people who can tell the difference.
Julie Kidd Cremorne

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/audit-is-useless-when-pubs-get-the-headsup-20120718-22am4.html#ixzz210znEACw

Now let's see where we are going here....



Is this the same Sophie York, barrister, who touted our waiter-in-chief's great ability to cycle-a-thon (see toon and story at top) and is now demanding that Gina gets her three seats on the board of Fairfax just for her large butt? (image from the SMH)... I know there are more than one John Smith in the world and this could be a coincidence since the cookie in the picture is looking quite young... But since Sophie York the Barrister did try to get elected for the Liberal (conservative) Party that supports Gina all the way... I get confused...

And please note that when my old knees let me, I do cycle around town... but I drink beefy shiraz...

 

 

For those of you who don’t know, the Pollie Pedal is an annual cycling event that a number of politicians (State and Federal) take part in to raise funds for charities.

Tony Abbott was one of those responsible for starting Pollie Pedal which has gone on to raise around $2.5 million for charities.

That is certainly a commendable effort.

What isn’t so commendable is the fact that Tony Abbott (and possibly other politicians) claim expenses from the taxpayers of Australia for this charity work.

For the 2010 Pollie Pedal, Tony Abbott claimed $1,439.00 in expenses.

For the 2011 Pollie Pedal, Tony Abbott claimed $3,657.00 in expenses.

For the 2012 Pollie Pedal, Tony Abbott claimed $3,141.00 in expenses.

That’s a total of $8,237.00 in expenses ― and it doesn’t include Tony Abbott’s extremely high salary.

The expenses covering the 2013 Pollie Pedal are yet to be released, however, taxpayers will once again pick up those expenses as well, no doubt.

While Tony Abbott’s charity work is commendable, given that the Pollie Pedal event is to raise funds for charity, one really needs to question why Tony Abbott claimed expenses for the charity ride ― his charity ride.

For someone who claims that Governments must live within their means, Tony Abbott apparently has no problem taking taxpayers money for doing what for most people would be unpaid volunteer charity work.

* Editor’s note: Abbott’s monthly salary figure is simply the the yearly amount divided by 12, while the weekly is the yearly divided by 365 then multiplied by 7.

(This story was originally published on phonytonyabbott.com and has been republished with permission. For more on Abbott’s rather cavalier attitude towards his expenses, read Benjamin Jones’ recent exposé: ‘If Slipper is guilty — then what about Abbott?’)

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/tony-abbotts-dodgy-pollie-pedal-expense-claims/

See toon at top and story below it...

See also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/810#comment-27637

 

 

 

 

Tony Abbott wants to lead a government that is far less factionally driven than the one he hopes to replace and become a prime minister who gains respect even from those who do not vote for him.
Stressing that he does not take September's election outcome for granted, the Opposition Leader told Fairfax Media he had a busy first day planned should he win office.
"There's a real sense within the community that the current government is more interested in dividing Australians for its own political interest, rather than governing in the national interest," he said
"Every part of Australia matters and every Australian counts. The last thing that you'll ever see from me and from Coalition frontbenchers is dividing Australian from Australian on the basis of class, gender or whether you were born here or not."

Discussing the prospect of a Coalition victory, Mr Abbott said he would tackle the carbon tax and the continuing issue of asylum seekers as the first priorities.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbott-maps-out-first-day-in-pms-office-20130608-2nwvc.html#ixzz2VffOguMP

As usual Tony talks populist shit, that the SMH wraps up for him with a pink ribbon without challenging him about "solutions"... Despite what the media thinks, the Labor government has people in mind before themselves. That's why we have the carbon pricing, the NDIS, the school reforms and other reforms that have been devised to benefit most Australians... Sure, there is more than one way to skin a cat, but Abbott's way is idiotic, hypocritical and nasty. Cheers. G

 

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has seized on leaks from the government party room saying they show the Prime Minister is unfit to govern the country.

Tony Abbott stunned MPs when he told them he scheduled a visit to a cancer research centre in Melbourne on Tuesday so he could justify billing taxpayers for a Liberal Party fundraiser in the same city the night before.

Mr Shorten told reporters on Wednesday the Prime Minister should "never need an excuse to visit a public hospital in Australia"

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bill-shorten-says-tony-abbott-unfit-to-govern-after-entitlements-leaks-20140827-108vq5.html#ixzz3BYbEOgae

by Emma Alberici

At the Liberal Council meeting last week, Ms York said people with low IQs "don't all vote Labor" and should be assisted in supporting the Coalition with a pamphlet showing photographs of the candidates and leader to help them make a more "educated" decision.

Outside the meeting in Sydney on Friday night, Ms York stood by her comments, saying some people (in the Liberal Party) "would assume that special needs people would naturally gravitate towards Labor and I know that that's not true".

Do people really assume that?

Those words were delivered just weeks after Ms York appeared on ABC News as a representative of the anti-same sex marriage group Marriage Alliance.

In that outing she offered another hunch, telling viewers that an Airbnb campaign promoting same sex marriage with "acceptance rings" — which feature a 2.2mm gap as a symbol of the gap in marriage equality — would make some people uncomfortable and that they had the potential to become an Occupational Health and Safety issue.

Ms York had a hunch that the rings could prove dangerous if they caught on something.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-29/hunch-politics-politicians-get-awa...

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Dear Emma, don't tell me that that you really said you were "110 per cent confident that Uluru was the town in which Ayers Rock was located"? You're a f*&%$#ing senior journalist for shitsake!. You should not have to google or be ridiculed. You're pathetic. This is why pollies, including Sophie York, get away with crap. Read from top. 

Journos like you need to actually see the alternative facts as containing as much manure (or possibly less) as the "real facts" pushed in front of us at breakfast, lunch and dinner by the "news". 

This is the point. Pollies get away with manure because journos like you and news outlet let them get away with it, despite some little wraps on the wrist with interviews going nowhere. Investigative journalism is moribund because YOU and YOUR MOB accept what the government says or you twiddle on the edges.

This is why Citizen Journalism is making a dint in your "business". Daily, the merde-och media gets away with murder. Daily, even the so-called soft Leftie media of the Guardian and the "independent" right wing media of the Sydney Morning Herald, get away with peddling the official line from the governments (the SMH invited its readers to vote for Malcolm at the last elections) -- including that of Trump by NOT CHALLENGING THE CRAP IT IS, especially in Syria. In the US, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post still harp on about "Russia-Trump" connection that influenced the Presidential elections WITH NOT A SINGLE PROOF. When will your mob start to wake up? 

Time to dig deeper and see that the "Saddam has Weapons of Mass Destruction" mantra was a gigantic lie by the US government and NOT a failure of the "intelligence agencies". And so on... 

Read about Sophie York from the top...