She may be known in Canberra circles as the 'Queen of No', but Peta Credlin could also soon be persona non grata in parliament after Tony Abbott's chief of staff was accused of piping up yesterday from the advisers box.

While they command significant influence behind the scenes, political advisers are expected to remain silent while sitting in the chamber. Speaker Peter Slipper said any advisers heard interjecting will be banned from the parliament floor.

Credlin, who will be profiled next week for our Spinners and Advisers power list, was accused by Labor frontbenchers of joining the opposition in jeering Prime Minister Julia Gillard as she answered a question.

Well regarded in party circles as an effective manager, Credlin is said to wield considerable clout in Tony Abbott's office. She's been chief of staff to the past three Liberal leaders.

Leader of the House Anthony Albanese told the Speaker Peter Slipper:

"Mr Speaker, on a point of order, is it in order for advisers in the advisers box to interject against the Prime Minister while she is giving an answer to a question?"

Credlin was then alleged by Defence Minister Stephen Smith of continuing to interrupt Albanese during his point of order.

"In addition to the point which the Leader of the House made, in the course of the Leader of the House's contribution the person from the advisers box was continuing to interject on him," Smith said.

While he did not hear the remark, Slipper said that it was "grossly disorderly for anyone from the advisers box to interject".

He warned that if he heard any future heckling it would result in the offending individual being banned from the advisers box for the duration of his speakership.

A spokesman for Credlin's boss Tony Abbott told The Age last night:

''Opposition staff are aware of the need for decorum in the chamber at all times and will heed the Speaker's warning."

http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/power-fail/abbott-adviser-peta-credlin-warned-over-house-interjection/201202161043

 

if you're interested: http://www.ventriloquist-david-strassman.com/meet-the-puppets.html

 

DEPUTY opposition leader Julie Bishop has backtracked on her claim that Julia Gillard helped "hide" the creation of an incorporated entity set up by two union officials in the 1990s.

The prime minister on Tuesday accused the coalition of taking the word of a confessed fraudster and a former One Nation strategist as she faced a second question time almost entirely devoted to the establishment of the Australian Workers' Union Workplace Reform Association.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/coalition-will-continue-to-pursue-pm/story-e6frfku9-1226524611574#ixzz2DPyfpbWE

Urgent", "toxic", "scandalous": Parliamentary Question Time has all the drama of a television soap opera. What a tragedy, writes Greg Jericho.

This week's Question Time was built up so much you'd be forgiven for thinking it will actually matter.

We have been told that the Opposition will focus on the Prime Minister. Headlines told us that this week would be "incredibly toxic". Unusual? No, it just meant it is like every other Question Time this year.

One of the most striking aspects when you review the year's Question Time is how many of these supposed "scandals" have faded to nothing.

For example back in February Bob Carr's appointment to the Senate and as Foreign Minister was considered so outrageous that on consecutive days the Liberal Party moved that standing orders be suspended so it could be discussed.

In March the big issue for one day was the illegal importation of weapons in NSW. Tony Abbott in moving the motion stated:

"This is urgent. It should take priority over all other matters before this House".

Yes. All other matters.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4395012.html

 

The reason these allegations have hung around is the available evidence allows a circumstantial case to be built against Ms Gillard. The reason they have never amounted to anything is that there is - to date - no evidence to prove wrongdoing.

The Coalition's broader political purpose was also clear in Ms Bishop's party room speech, which linked the 17-year old affair with the recent explosive HSU scandal.

''Perhaps if your life experience is with dodgy union officials,'' she said, ''you are more comfortable standing next to Craig Thomson,'' she said.

Union misdemeanours are fair game for the Coalition. But if you are going to accuse the Prime Minister of robbing a bank, you really need to have proof.

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/bishop-bluster-loses-wind-in-an-obvious-absence-of-evidence-20121127-2a5ud.html#ixzz2DSmPxwsX

 

In regard to the HSU "scandal" with Craig Thomson, the Libs (conservatives) should be VERY VERY CAREFUL... Craig Thomson did nothing proven wrong. But there is plenty of evidence pointing in the other direction, including the links between the Liberal (conservative) party and the HSU Kathy Jackson whose faction took a dive in the last elections for HSU management.

 

Not to mention : http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/jacksonville-30-the-best-of-friends/

 

Meanwhile:

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/life/satire/bishop-meets-blewitt/

 

Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop has not denied she spoke with a self-confessed union bagman by phone, but says the call dropped out before the person could identify himself.

 

Yesterday Ms Bishop told journalists she had spoken to Ralph Blewitt once as part of her search for documents relating to Julia Gillard's work history, and that the meeting took place in Melbourne on Friday.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-28/bishop-wont-rule-out-conversation-with-blewitt/4396308?WT.svl=news0

 

The Mike Smith connection...

 

Mike Smith (journalist), now working freelance for his own website and possibly other unspecified entities, such as the Liberal (conservative) party, is quite disingenuous... He is a "barbecue" central character in the "get the PM (Julia Gillard) saga"... One cannot but ask the question if his obsession is part of a "journalist pursuit of truth" or just plain "sink a boot in the lefties" syndrome with dubious, but well-crafted, bullshitic arguments.
On Mike's web-page there is a short segment lifted from a Media Watch episode, which glorifies Mike's "journalistic integrity". So we could take this at face value... We could also accept that Smith has no connection whatsoever with the loony ritewingnuttery or say with Julie Bishop... Ahah... Humm...
But should one watch the whole segment of Media Watch (I still don't like MW though), the tone is slightly different. The gist is that amongst a lot of really crappy crummy opinionators, Mike Smith is the one with the most integrity... which does not say much. If you're the top dude in a class of stupid dummies, it does not mean you're king pin amongst Mensa members... though one could be deemed more "streetwise" — often meaning being in possession of a streak of aggressiveness to attack anything that moves and rob them of their "ill-acquired" rich wallets. There could appear a Robin Hood element to Mike Smith's enterprises, if one did not dig any deeper.
So there is a funny thing... Smith strongly argues that since Bruce Wilson went public — to give his version of event in his relationship with Julia Gillard, in which Bruce says Julia did not know what was going on in regard to Bruce siphoning funds from the AWU — then all the documentation on this affair in the hands of Slater & Gordon are now subject to be in the public domain... 
Mike Smith is not a dummy. 
He would know that under no circumstances can Slater & Gordon release any documents without compromising the firm's integrity. No one would. No one could. Not even to a judge. Thus, Smith is not fishing for these "documents", he simply is stirring — which is not a very journalistic way to be. 
Smith would guess — like most of us — that these documents would reveal ABSOLUTELY NOTHING more than what we know. But knowing these documents cannot be released, he suggest thus that they are hiding something...  He challenges the law firm Slater & Gordon to release them knowing they cannot. 
It's clearly a ploy only worth of the grubby gutter press, to tarnish the law firm's integrity... It's a ploy to tarnish the AWU beyond the single misdemeanour of Bruce Wilson and of that other felon Ralph Blewitt... It's a ploy to tarnish Julia Gillard with innuendos.
Meanwhile of course, Mike Smith features prominently in the blogs and programs of self-aggrandisement such as Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt's. On Bolt's own website, on August 27 this year (2012) Bolt announces that "Michael Smith releases the documents"... No one has seen these documents yet... Of course there, Bolt claims that Mike Smith lost his job "for asking too many questions about the AWU/Julia affair" when it is most likely he got the boot for very sloppy and nasty journalism. 
Like many Journos the Bolts, the Smiths and the Jones, don't like Julia because she can see through their bullshit, while on the other side of the fence, the ritewingnuttery loves the journos, because like them they love bullshit and biffo —any biffo... 
Even Julie Bishop, as shown at the top of this article, was introduced on the phone by Mike Smith to a character the name of which she never got because of communication drop out... Mike Smith should enlighten us as to whom he introduced Julie Bishop to, then... Was it the other man, that she had a ten minute conversation with, that self confessed fraudster, bagman Ralph Blewitt? Or was it another Liberal douche bag....? Unless it was Christopher Pyne, may be?... 

 

From Anne Summers

Peta Credlin's revealing interview at the weekend did not deserve the torrent of personal abuse it received, but it was always likely to rebound politically.

Whatever you thought about Peta Credlin's intervention on behalf of her boss Tony Abbott at the weekend, and I thought it was pretty knuckle-headed, there was no excuse for the sexist, misogynist and in some cases downright cruel responses it elicited.

Social media, especially Twitter, erupted like a volcano yesterday with abusive comments and photographs. All because Credlin, who is chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition, had given an interview to Samantha Maiden, Sunday political editor for News Ltd Publications, in which she sought to portray her boss as being less Neanderthal when it came to women than his political record would suggest.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4455364.html?WT.svl=theDrum

There are many women with different viewpoints on the Peta Credin IVF revelations... Some are discreetely supportive, some are directly in opposition to the revelations.

First we may or may not approve of IVF in general... Nature is a funny beast and if there are reproduction problems in humans, there is much to debate upon — and not for any moralistic reasons. Some of these problems can be simple such as straight infertility, which is not uncommon. General infertility is calculated roughly at one in ten couples. IVF, surrogacy and acceptance of a different partner for conception are the major solutions. Adoption is another. 

IVF has developed in leaps and bounds to treat some levels of infertility... But to say the least it is not fool-proof, it is not cheap and pregnancy after a certain age is not fool-proof either. But it is not for me to stop anyone from using the IVF technique... I know people who went with it, had a child and now are divorced... Nothing to do with the process, possibly... though IVF takes some toll on expectation and it does not work all the time... One has to be realistic about procreation. 

Morally, religiously, the catholic church is not in favour of IVF...:

“"No matter how a human being comes into existence, he or she is always a person to be loved. We should always try, however, to act in ways which respect human dignity from the very first moment of a human being’s existence. Some forms of reproductive technology fail to show adequate respect for the value of human life and the meaning of procreation.”

Thus already, the concept of IVF should not be part of Tony Abbott's repertoire should he be true to "his" religious beliefs, unless they are elastic, like his politics, to suit the moment. Thus, for him, the fertility drugs in "his" fridge may be regarded no more than a six-pack of beer, should his chief of staff be a male beer swiller in a hot and stinky Canberra. 

But at every corner, when "his" women defend him (Tony Abbott) — including his biographer/publisher Louise Adler — the other side of the coin shows that Tony Abbott is two-faced, artful, backstabbing, beguiling, crafty, cunning, deceiving, deceptive, dishonest, double-dealing, foxy, fraudulent, guileful, hypocritical, insincere, knavish, lying, misleading, shifty, sly, sneaky, tricky, underhanded, untruthful... but he makes exception for friends... and will send his former friends — such as Peter Slipper — across the rubicon in a taxi for Tony's own own promotion... 

 

From Louise Adler...

 

It would be interesting to know how the Prime Minster's intimates keep her grounded. The drawing of baths, the knitting and the exclusion from Tim's shed are equally lame gestures to "humanise" Gillard for a curious public. For now the Prime Minister is just as much a conundrum as her opposite, an unmarried atheist who nevertheless professes to value Bible stories, has chosen not to have children, is opposed to gay marriage, who was once a member of the Socialist Left. Both the PM and the Leader of the Opposition have paradoxically shown themselves too little and too much. My hope for 2013 is that this election is fought on the turf of competing policies and visions for Australia rather than contesting personality flaws.

Louise Adler is the chief executive of Melbourne University Publishing.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/enough-is-enough-its-time-to-leapfrog-from-the-personal-to-policies-20130107-2ccq4.html#ixzz2HLImdcyp


Methink that Louise has watched too many episodes of  "Julia at Home" on the ABC... And talking of pointing out personality flaws, Tony Detritus has done and is still doing more than his fair share against Julia...

Meanwhile some other person of the female gender will say:

 

 

 

Astoundingly, Tony Abbott has rolled out Peta Credlin, his chief of staff, with a sob story about IVF in a vain bid try to win over female voters. Denise Allen comments.

NOW TONY ABBOTT has rolled out his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, with a sob story about IVF in order to elicit sympathy from swinging voters for her sexist, bigoted, violent, boss Tony Abbott — because he is so spectacularly failing in the polls.

Don’t get me wrong, I have enormous compassion for any woman who has to resort to IVF in order to have what most women take for granted – to have a precious child – and I would not normally call anyone’s IVF experience a “sob story”.

But when you roll out such personal information – information usually kept private between a woman and her partner, and perhaps few sympathetic confidantes – you, Ms Credlin, should be rightly condemned for using your IVF procedures as a blatant political tool. For using this emotive issue to sway the public into sympathetically thinking your boss doesn’t “have a problem with women”, which clearly he does.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/peta-credlin-over-eggs-tony-abbott/

This is where things are getting more than Abborttesque... Why mention that the fertility drugs are kept in the boss's fridge? It is only done to make him look human... I am sure Peta could have mentioned her IVF trauma without mentioning Abbott's fridge... It would have been more inspired to the spirit of her revelations... This is where Peta is thus proselytising women for Tony... 

Should Peta have said something that would have displeased Tony, though, she would have found herself in company with Peter Slipper...

 

 

 

 

This morning Julie Bishop told Frannie on RN that the government was virtually in a caretaker mode because Julia had announced the election date... This is a lot of rubbish from this woman who claims she was once a lawyer.

The fact is:

 

In Australian political and constitutional teminology, a caretaker government is a government of Australia during a period that starts when the parliament is dissolved by the Governor-General prior to a general election, and continues for a period after the election, until the next ministry is appointed. A caretaker government is expected to conduct itself in accordance with a series of well-defined conventions that are administered by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet,[1] although there is no law compelling the caretaker government to do so.

Under normal circumstances, there is no separate appointment of a caretaker government. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caretaker_government_of_Australia

 

Parliament has not been dissolved yet and it's bum fights as usual... Either Julie Bishop is lying or she does not know the law...

 

 

The Government has accused the Coalition of trying to cause chaos by declaring that the election caretaker provisions have effectively begun, despite clear advice to the contrary from senior bureaucrats.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard took many people by surprise last week by announcing the date of the election nearly eight months ahead of polling day, although the writs would not be issued until August 12.

The Coalition has sought to use the unusual circumstance to argue that caretaker provisions are now "virtually" in place and to put itself on an equal footing with the Government.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-05/government-swats-away-caretaker-claims/4501552

The constitution is clear on this. Caretaker governments start with dissolution of parliament which has not happened yet and should not happen till August. This is a clear breach of the Australian people's confidence and trust. Tony Abbott should resign for deliberately telling HUGE PORKIES. 

 

 

THE WORDS used by senior Coalition figures in anticipation of the forthcoming Federal election demonstrate a concerning trend in our political language. That is, the notion that we are all entitled to our own opinion (brilliantly critiqued by Patrick Stokes in The Conversation last year) seems to have morphed into the idea that, in support of a political cause, we can utter whatever hyperbolic nonsense we like without consequence.

The phrase ‘protection racket’, for instance, has a specific meaning. It was unlikely that when Opposition Leader Tony Abbott described the Prime Minister as ‘running a protection racket for Craig Thomson’ recently, he intended to accuse Julia Gillard of masterminding an extortion scheme to coerce victims to pay money under threats of violence. When challenged on his leader’s phraseology, however, shadow Attorney General George Brandis dissembled, stating that Gillard ‘was for months, and indeed years, Craig Thomson’s principal political defender and protector’.

The terms are not synonymous though — protecting someone is not the same as running a protection racket, and surely communication is easier when words are used as though they have an objectively ascertainable meaning. The Opposition Leader appears to have adopted the approach of Humpty Dumpty from Lewis Carroll’s 1872 classic Through the Looking-Glass:

‘When I use a word…it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less’.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/careless-political-words/

 

See also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/25886

 

TONY Abbott has called his chief of staff Peta Credlin "outstanding" after she was caught drink driving on the night of the Opposition Leader's budget reply speech.

Mr Abbott said Ms Credlin was "an outstanding chief of staff, really outstanding".

"Yes, she has made a mistake, she has done the wrong thing, she accepts she made a mistake and will go through the ordinary process every Australian in this position goes through," Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott, who was speaking to the media after a visit to a print factory in the Sydney suburb of Silverwater today,  added that Ms Credlin had been caught drink driving "during her private time".

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/tony-abbotts-chief-of-staff-peta-credlin-caught-drink-driving/story-fncynjr2-1226646494276#ixzz2TpiSrMmS

A drink-driving charge against Peta Credlin, Tony Abbott's chief of staff, has been dismissed in the ACT magistrates court.

Magistrate Maria Doogan found the offence proved, but dismissed it without a fine or driving disqualification.

Outside the court, Credlin said she had made a mistake and the police and court had a job to do.

"I've got a job to do myself, so I'm headed back to work now," she said on Tuesday.

"I accept there's media attention ... but now the matter's resolved, you'll understand I've got no further comment to make."

Credlin, 42, was charged with low-level drink-driving after she blew 0.075 when she was tested by police on her way home following Abbott's budget reply speech in May.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/10/australian-politics-australia

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Note: ALL the people who have been caught driving while pissed with an equal to or lower level alcohol than 0.075, then charged and sentenced, should challenge their sentence and ask for a pardon or dismissal of charges equal to that of Credlin...

 

From IA

Justice doesn’t have to be done, it just has to be seen to be done,” said Peta Credlin outside the Canberra Magistrates Court, explaining the Liberal Party attitude towards the law when it is applied to them. 

I HAVE LONG SAID the Liberal Party/LNP were above the law.

Whether it was Mr Abbott’s unlawful acts committed in the “Australians for Honest Politics Trust” stitch up of Hanson and Ettridge; Justice Cole not even asking Mr Truss to appear in the AWB “Wheat for Oil” Inquiry, despite witnesses saying he knew about it;  the AFP declining to investigate the Mal Brough Ashbygate conspiracy; or the Queensland Police with the “maintain sexual relationship with a minor”charge, to wit, a 15 year old boy, by Ashby; or the “Can we throw together an official event” for Police Minister Jack Dempsey, so he could watch his son at a football carnival ohttp://www.independentaustralia.net/Wordpress/wp-admin/post-new.phpn the public purse, to name just a few.

But yesterday’s (10/9/2013) judgement by Magistrate Maria Doogan in a Canberra court is even more outrageous. Tony Abbott’s Chief of Staff, Peta Credlin,  who pleaded guilty to drink driving, got off scot free — no suspension, no fine, no conviction.

What happened was, a letter was produced from new Attorney General George Brandis, which seems to have had the same effect as a “Get out of jail free” card in the game of monopoly.  Obviously, the Magistrate was intimidated by the letter from the senior legal officer in the land.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/peta-credlin-drink-driving-charges-dismissed-via-liberal-party-immunity/

 

 

THE AUSTRALIAN
JANET ALBRECHTSEN THE AUSTRALIAN SEPTEMBER 25, 2013 12:00AM

The unheralded heroine at Coalition's heart

HERE'S a curious omission from the somewhat frenzied debate about gender this past week.
A remarkable woman sits at the apex of power in Canberra. Peta Credlin is Prime Minister Tony Abbott's chief of staff. Plenty of vocal women in the media and beyond have spent the week cryingout for more political power for women.

---------------------------
Gus note: Link is for subscribers only...
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Please, Janet, don't bring gender heroics into this subservient position.... Nothing to do with gender... Peta's role could be filled by a man... and she is not at the apex of power in Canberra...  What is the role of a chief of staff?... A chief of staff is usually a sounding board to the chief executive as well as the person who stops dissents within the ranks by picking "dedicated" staff to the master... This does not mean any cleverer ability in regard to Tony Abbott who as a rule is an idiot... Usually people employed are chosen for being no intellectual threat to the master... I believe that Peta is a smart woman but has restrained herself considerably — unless she's a mirror image of Tony with a skirt.
The Chief of Staff thus is there to improve this image (making him/Tony appear less of an idiot) and/or reinforce the prejudices of the chief executive by sourcing info that would be benefiting his/hers slanted diatribe. Tony's diatribe is low value, low intellect and low on truth (none whatsoever). The important factor thus for a chief of staff is to provide him with crap that he can dish out with serious gravitas... Crap it is though... 
To me, Peta's dedication to Abbott shows a low understanding of social, scientific and of a weird compassionate reality. Getting piss and getting away with it when caught also show there is justice for some and some are more equal than others.... Abbott is still an idiot who got lucky with Uncle Rupe... Without Rupert's support, Tony would still be in crappy nappies...

The outcry is about more clever people of the female gender in the Liberal (CONservative) ranks sitting in parliament and in cabinet. But this won't happen soon because males Liberals (CONservatives) like Tony Abbott feel threatened by clever women... This is why he took the portfolio of minister for women himself... The idiot. The male liberals (male CONservatives) only love their women in a subservient role, no matter how powerful that role is...

Justice doesn’t have to be done, it just has to be seen to be done,” said Peta Credlin outside the Canberra Magistrates Court, explaining the Liberal Party attitude towards the law when it is applied to them

 

Clive Palmer is refusing to apologise for personally attacking the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Peta Credlin, in Parliament during a debate about paid parental leave.

Mr Palmer is under pressure to apologise for saying Tony Abbott's $5.5 billion scheme was designed so Ms Credlin would benefit if she fell pregnant.

Ms Credlin has previously spoken about her unsuccessful attempts to conceive through IVF.

Arriving at Parliament House this morning, Mr Palmer said he did not know about Ms Credlin's difficulties in trying to have children, but said he would not be apologising for highlighting her case in the debate.

And he continued his personal criticisms of Mr Abbott's chief adviser, calling her the "top dog" in the Government with too much influence over MPs, and saying she was fair game because of her role in forming government policy.

"I think the idea for the paid parental leave came directly from his chief of staff," Mr Palmer told reporters.

"She's propagating [PPL] and she gave Tony Abbott his ideas, he can't think of anything himself," he said.

"As chief of staff, regardless of whether she's a woman or a man, she exercises undue influence on government policy to the detriment of many elected members of Parliament.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-03/palmer-refuses-to-apologise-for-attack-on-pms-top-adviser/5496050

 

See toon at top...

I often wonder how Peta Credlin can carry on supporting Tony, who lies without flinching... His latest statement about being a conservationist while being totally the opposite at large, would have made anyone working for him and with an ounce of honesty, resign. I know, Peta is "not responsible" for the crazy utterings of this national Turd but there would be a point at which Tony's dishonesty would become intolerable unless one was also dishonest... 

 

By chastising his colleagues and suggesting gender may be motivating their attacks Abbott has only turbocharged that resentment and the public discussion of the government’s disunity.

And of course suggesting sexism is behind the criticism also draws the obvious cries of hypocrisy, given that he responded to Julia Gillard’s famous misogyny speech by demanding that Labor stop “playing the gender card”.

‘’Just because the prime minister has sometimes been the victim of unfair criticism doesn’t mean she can dismiss any criticism as sexism or she can dismiss any criticism on gender grounds,’’ Abbott said at the time.

But the real clue to the prime minister’s defence is the other thing he has said in defence of Credlin in recent weeks, that she is “the fiercest political warrior I have ever worked with”.

He means it in a good way. But others at the most senior levels of government insist the Credlin problem stems precisely from the fact that she sees herself as the warrior defending the prime minister at every turn.

The list of complaints is long and familiar.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/12/peta-credlin-gladiatorial-style-delivered-tony-abbott-to-lodge-but-could-it-also-dislodge-him

See toon at top.... and note that Tony Abbott is a closet misogynist... He hates women who are more able than him... He makes sure ALL women stay in an inferior station than his. That this man be the "minister for women" is an insult to the gender.

 

 

"If I wasn't strong, determined, controlling and got them into government, from opposition I might add, then I would be weak and not up to it and should have to go and [need to be] replaced.

"You will want to have women like me in politics. You will want to have women like me sitting in power," she said. 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/they-dont-deserve-their-jobs-credlin-lashes-out-at-gutless-critics-20150922-gjsorg.html#ixzz3mVL2HKal
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
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Excellent. I must say that it would have been a hard slog for a weakling to control the dummy Abbott — who walked the talk like Mr Magoo. You had to be more than strong, you had to be like a bouncer at a Dee Why pub... Daily, you had to extinguish all the bush fires accidentally started by the accident-prone Chuck who also had a tendency to be a pyromaniac. Without you, Peta, in the deep trenches of headquarters, leading the charge from behind, the Abbott would have gone down earlier. 
But "GOT THEM IN GOVERNMENT?"... This is more than overstating your self-importance. Let's really give the credit where it's due, Peta: without the Murdoch Press, Tony Abbott would have been ZERO. No matter how controlling, how great, how wonder woman, you are or would have been. Without God Rupert, Tony would have been goldfish tucker-flakes. 
But even with tactics like Rommel fighting on behalf of a demented Hitler, comes a time when one needs to pack one's bags. You did a fantastic job keeping the Dummy Abbott in place for so long. The more is the pity though. He was a horrible little Abbott. Meanwhile, trying all you could to protect the ghastly Abbott, You forgot that a government is more than one person's crap. Politics and life are about relationships, not about being a brick-wall sitting in power, male, female or whatever...
Good luck finding your own voice... Stand-up comedy with real wooden puppets sounds like a shoo-in for success.
See toon at top...

 

 

The rise of the private political office reflects the sheer complexity of the political management task required of contemporary politicians - especially when in government.

And the first rule of political staff is do no harm. These back-room players exist for one purpose and one purpose only: to make the politician in question perform better - more efficiently, more successfully.

That may seem obvious, but this basic test was continuously and egregiously ignored by the erstwhile chief of staff to the erstwhile prime minister.

Indeed, the collapse of internal support for Tony Abbott can be tied causally to the persistent presence of Peta Credlin, long after she had developed a counter-productive public profile and long after she had become ground zero for dysfunction within the government and beyond.

This can be stated whether or not one believes the relentless criticism of her had merit.

Ditto for whether some or all of the complaints were conditioned - as she now claims - by a culture of sexism, which is to say, a conservative male mindset within an overwhelmingly blokey government.

In any event, the only fact that should have counted in the end was whether Credlin remaining in her job was in the interests of the government - whether her contribution was achieving that basic goal of making things better.

Every objective assessment of this question said no. Yet still she remained at her post.

Abbott was never going to let Credlin down, just as he would stand by Joe Hockey.

Knowing this made it all the more important for her to act. If she had not recognised this harsh truth by the end of last year, then she was no adviser at all. In any case, the February leadership meltdown sans-challenger, made what was implicit, undeniably explicit.

Justifiably or not, Credlin had become Abbott's dead weight.

No longer helping to solve problems, she had become one herself.

Hitting back, she says any minister who was intimidated by the chief of staff might not have been up to the job. Fair point. But equally, any political adviser who failed to recognise when his/her presence was doing more harm than good, was no help at all.

But then, neither Credlin nor Abbott saw her as in the role of an aide anyway. Rather she was, he enthused more than once, the fiercest political warrior he knew.

That was the problem. Warriors don't do retreat.

Instead, they went down together, still fighting and still blaming others.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/not-governing-fighting-peta-credlins-role-in-tony-abbotts-collapse-20150923-gjt2ve.html#ixzz3mXTFzOFL 
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

See toon at top...
Meanwhile, a spoof too close to the bone:

Ms Credlin has spoken out for the first time since Mr Abbott lost the prime ministership to Malcolm Turnbull in last week’s Liberal leadership spill, announcing that she now looks forward to a career in the far more sophisticated American political system.

She told the Women of the Future Awards in Sydney she would “sleep well at night” for her role in elevating Mr Abbott to the top job in 2013, but is looking forward to the next chapter of her life.

“Donald Trump has hired me to help guide him through his Republican nomination,”

“If all goes to plan I’ll be his Chief of Staff in the race for President as well,”
read more: http://www.betootaadvocate.com/uncategorized/donald-trump-asks-peta-credlin-to-help-make-america-great-again/

 

 

But the story of Peta Credlin is much more complex than a nasty sexist conspiracy against Australia’s first female chief of staff to a prime minister, which is the version our protagonist currently seems to prefer, judging by her exit interviews.

I hope in time she can get over that reflexive version of her experience.

I hope too we can all move past the fixation with the power myth, because by translating human frailty into urban mythology and oversized soap opera, we do ourselves the following disservice.

We see nothing, learn nothing, change nothing.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/23/bidding-farewell-to-peta-credlin-the-woman-who-broke-all-canberras-rules

 

Tony Abbott Prime Ministership was a "Murdoch experiment", no matter how Peta did her job. But her powerful performance made the Abbott/Murdoch nightmare last longer for this fair nation. Tony Abbott was contradictory bullshit and he relied on twisting reality. He lied and while the Murdoch press glorified the lies into (un)believable bullshit, someone like Peta had to make sure no-one, especially moderates, in the Liberal (CONservative) Party could challenge these lies. 

Nothing sexist, nothing about female with power... A bloke with the same ideology would have done similar, possibly with a different style, but with the same bunker-like efficiency — otherwise Tony Abbott could not survive five minutes of his own hubris. A brick wall.

But in this fair country, there are limits as to how far ideology can trump the power of people — especially when this ideology is geared to shaft most of us, who are trying to survive as we can. And when ideology — including rabid religious views — is going against the grain of natural forces, I know which one that eventually will crunch.

 

 

The talk of a divided Liberal Party is froth. There is a fundamental difference between bruising and rupture.

I've had some robust encounters with Malcolm Turnbull – which does not put me in an exclusive club – but we've also had cordial and constructive dealings. I may regard Tony Abbott as a likeable, unpretentious leader whose achievements have been widely underestimated and whose character has been unfairly savaged, but I'm not about to rage about his sacking.

Regard is not incompatible with pragmatism.

If Abbott had heeded the extraordinary warnings given to him by some of his own supporters and by his own party caucus in February, he would have removed his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, who was causing enormous internal stress, and replaced his treasurer, Joe Hockey, with his star performer, Scott Morrison. He would still be Prime Minister.

But he would not or could not and became the agent of his own demise.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/there-is-no-conservative-civil-war-just-bruising-but-no-rupture-20150923-gjt7d8.html#ixzz3mbOT9LdI
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Paul Sheehan is waxing bullshit lyrical... The rot was within Abbott — and all the people around tried to save him from himself... But eventually they could not. Had he let Peta and Joe out on their arse, his public image would have taken another 5 points hit. He would have gone earlier, despite all of the Murdoch press glory sauce.

Abbott was a child of tight-arsed Santamaria and of rabid Capitalism, both incompatible to each other as well as being extremist. And Abbott did not understand any of them either. Santamaria and capitalism? He fudged. His hesitations at times gave the impression of someone thinking deep... The reality was he just had a blank mind and/or was distracted by the feeling of a good sweat while pedalling...

 

Quotas needed to achieve gender balance

Dr Stone said she believes Mr Abbott's treatment of the women in his party contributed to his downfall, and that Ms Credlin could have done something about it.

"I think it was a lost opportunity for Peta and if she had perhaps realised the values she's now saying she has, if she'd realised those with Tony, he may have had a better prospect of remaining leader," she said.

"Women felt alienated, they certainly didn't feel part of the team.

"They certainly looked at our frontbench in the Coalition and saw the row of pale males in suits and didn't feel a part of that."

The Liberal party wants to encourage more women into its parliamentary ranks but is opposed to quotas, something Dr Stone said has to change.

"It's our own Liberal Party's fault... where we mouth off about how we hate quotas," Dr Stone said.

"That is so hypocritical... we have a quota to nearest decimal point in terms of the National Party.

"How many seats they win and how many seats they get [has] nothing to do with their own members' particular skills or interests."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-23/stone-hits-out-at-credlin-for-lack-of-women-in-parliament/6799830

 

Abetz's advice was particularly well based. In systematically canvassing his colleagues for their votes on Abbott's behalf, he found that Credlin was the "number-one complaint" among Liberal MPs and senators, and Hockey number two, as he summarised to confidants.

Abbott was deaf to the advice; by the time he lost the job seven months later, he said he couldn't recall receiving it.

Indeed, the former prime minister has claimed since losing the leadership that not one of his cabinet colleagues ever came to him to tell him Credlin had to go. This insistence bewilders his fellow Liberals.

He resisted moving against Hockey until the very last day, when a second and fatal challenge was already in train, when it was too late. And sacking Credlin, his chief of staff, was never negotiable.

The woman that cartoonists drew as a 10-foot-tall, angry Amazon in leopard-skin print was, to him, the only truly indispensable member of the government, other than himself.

"He looked at his own death sentence," says an Abbott loyalist from his conservative faction, "and decided to accept it."

A dogged loyalty, often misguided, was a motif of the Abbott government. He persisted with policies and people well beyond the point of hopelessness. With his paid parental leave policy, with Bronwyn Bishop in her expenses scandal, with some harsh budget measures, and with Hockey and Credlin.

Ultimately, though, he was persuaded to abandon all. Except the last.

An Abbott minister concludes: "This is the first time in Australian history that a prime minister has been knifed not to get rid of the prime minister, but to get rid of his chief of staff."

 

 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2015/Shirtfronted/

 

 

See toon at top: note the date (2012), way before Tony Abbott got the PMship. Re-reading all the ramblings from Gus, in this line of articles and comments, show that they were 100 per cent prophetic.

 

And if you can be bothered visit: panic in lalaland (a mere "staffer")

A new book has exposed the deep dysfunction at the heart of the Abbott government and revealed the former prime minister was warned he should dump his chief of staff Peta Credlin, partly because of a "perception" they were having an affair.

Senior government figures have come forward to give on-the-record accounts of their attempts to convince Mr Abbott to sack Ms Credlin, in order to avoid being ousted himself.

At one point, senior Coalition figure Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells is quoted as confronting Mr Abbott and Ms Credlin about rumours circulating among their colleagues that he was "sleeping with" her. Both denied it.

The accounts are published in a book by Niki Savva called The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government.

It focuses on the insular relationship between the pair, and the influence and power Ms Credlin had within Mr Abbott's office.

According to an extract published in The Australian, Senator Fierravanti-Wells went to Mr Abbott the night before the failed first attempt to unseat him last February.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-05/ties-between-abbott-and-credlin-at-the-heart-of-their-downfall/7222970

But in The Road To Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government, Savva – a former adviser to both John Howard and Peter Costello – adds depth and details to the picture of a prime minister who had ceded much of his power to his chief of staff, who was told by her he could not do his job without her, and who appeared to believe that was true.

Here are some of those stories from Savva’s book, probably more revealing than the headline-grabbing tales of colleagues confronting Abbott and Credlin over their rumoured (and denied) affair.

• In 2013, the prime minister of Papua New Guinea, Peter O’Neill, wanted to meet then opposition leader Abbott. Credlin wouldn’t “allow” the meeting. Abbott asked his international affairs adviser, Mark Higgie, if he could “convince Peta” to allow the meeting. Her response was “it’s not going to happen” and it didn’t.
• In government Abbott held a meeting of cabinet ministers in his office and one of them told an off-colour joke about submarines. “Credlin stood up and stormed out of the room. A distressed Abbott took off after her. She walked back in a few minutes later, with Abbott following closely behind her. The prime minister addressed his bemused colleagues, saying: ‘I think we owe Peta an apology.’ He turned to the towering inferno beside him. ‘Sorry, Peta,’ he said. A couple of them, including Joe Hockey, chimed in: ‘Sorry, Peta.’ Credlin then launched into an angry lecture, telling them they were the reason the government was doing so badly among women.”
• read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/07/from-family-to-foreign-policy-depth-of-peta-credlins-hold-over-abbott-emerges

The toon at top was done in 2012... This was not a foresight it was just an extrapolation from the rumours flying around Canberra and also those titbits under the radar to which a few people including Gus were privy to.

"Even those of us who thought we were insiders learnt something reading her column," says one of the key players in the Turnbull coup. 

"A few times I remember reading it and thinking, Holy shit, I didn't know that."

The MP notes that after running The Age and Herald Sun Canberra bureaus, she worked for Peter Costello and John Howard: "She knows what makes the Liberal Party tick; she knew what would get under the skin of a Liberal Party MP better than anyone else in the gallery."

Credlin and Abbott loathed her columns so much they told The Australian's editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell, to sack her.

Mitchell refused, saying no prime minister or chief of staff had ever demanded such a thing.

Alarm bells about the Abbott operation started ringing for Savva when they were still in opposition, after Liberal staffers told her his office was "constipated" because nothing could get past Credlin.

Still in touch with many fellow operatives from the Howard years, Savva became a magnet for those with unflattering tales about Abbott and Credlin. Someone even sent her photos of the pair holidaying in France.

"The more I wrote, the more people would come to me with information," she says.

"Day-to-day journalists have to maintain contacts and that means they ignore things that sometimes they shouldn't.

"I have nothing to lose. I don't have a long career ahead of me I'm trying to preserve."

Controversially, Savva didn't approach Abbott or Credlin to comment for her book - despite detailing rumours of an affair between them. She also didn't speak to staffers with a more flattering view of the pair. This has made it easy for critics to argue she wrote her account with a pre-determined agenda.

"My view was: why should I peddle their lies?" Savva says.

"I knew from bitter experience that you could not trust their version of events."

Veteran journalist and former colleague Laurie Oakes, who describes Savva as "gutsy", says it would have been "pointless" to ask them to participate. 

"I would check things with Abbott's office and be misled," he says. "One press officer even boasted openly about fooling members of the press gallery."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/niki-savva-how-journalist-went-from-conservative-darling-to-abbott-she-devil-20160307-gnc6vl.html#ixzz42C9wvJUS
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In the Sunday Muttongraph (June 9 2019) Peta Credlin, the famous disinformation official fake news operative, tells us with utter brilliant hypocrisy "Why there must still be limits for leakers". Of course, As leader of the nation — she was the puppet master behind Tony Abbott (see toon at top) now with his gloriously defuncted political career — she had a "national security clearance". Her perspective is "integrity-in-government". When did you see this "integrity-in-government" beast last? She does acknowledge that the media has the right to publish in the "public interest", meanwhile she does not shy to say "... And police raids might be necessary; not to crack down on the media, but to crack down on people with the relevant security classification who know the rules but have broken them ... This is not about the journalists. It's about people who breach security classifications facing the consequences".

 

Obviousy in this case, you will never know anything, because in order for the media to tell you the shenanigans your government is up to, someone has to break the secrecy. This is why Assange should be free. 

 

Am I rolling on the floor from laughter as Peta has a straight face? It's your call... Meanwhile many other rats at the ST go against this queen of disinformation's view point, as one of their own, Annika Smethurst, got hit on the head... At this stage I believe they are genuine, though I suspect that had ONLY the ABC police raids taken place, their sentiments might have been to bash the ABC some more — and forget press freedom. Hum...

 

Freedom of the press is a vital pillar of our society and must be defended — Peter Gleeson

 

We can't be afraid of truth — Michael Harvey

 

Prime Minister, stop covering your arse and stand up for press freedom — Piers Akerman

 

Raid outrage about brave whistle blowers — Editorial

 

Even the cartoon by Warren Brown:

 

 

 

See also: fighting the propaganda blitz... in "let them eat cookies"...

 

d-day mythology... in forgetting history.... or rewriting it according to a bad memory... or simply bad will...

 

and now she has been made foreign minster of this silly country where freedom of the press is dead...

 

killing democracy...

 

 

and plenty more where it comes from.

 

 

Read from top.

During the final months of Tony Abbott’s disintegrating time as the nation’s leader, constant critic and ultimate usurper Malcolm Turnbull concluded he was not just electorally unpopular but “crazy”.

In Turnbull’s blockbuster memoir A Bigger Picture, the former prime minister chronicles Abbott’s use of national security as a bulwark for his leadership, particularly a series of news conferences with police and military personnel standing in front of a growing phalanx of Australian flags.

The diagnosis that Abbott was crazy came from two examples of national security overreach outlined by Turnbull: a plan to send armed Australian military personnel to Ukraine following the downing by Russians of the Malaysian passenger jet and a plan to send 3500 ground troops to Iraq to work with local forces in the battle against the Islamic State.

“(The Iraq plan) was presumably designed to show that Abbott had a muscular foreign policy in contrast to what he regarded as the flabbiness of (US President Barack) Obama’s,” writes Turnbull.

“(Abbott’s chief of staff Peta) Credlin, who more often than not spoke for Abbott, had described Obama as the lamest of lame ducks to a group of journalists the previous year.

“Fortunately, senior Defence people managed to head this wild idea off, just as they’d headed off Abbott’s plan to send armed troops to Ukraine to guard the MH17 crash site.

“But it reinforced the suspicion that our problem with Abbott wasn’t simply electoral unpopularity – he was crazy.

“And was that surprising? He had, after all, been nicknamed the ‘Mad Monk’ at university.”

This is the most damning condemnation Turnbull makes of his nemesis in this political page-turner, itself full of salacious gossip, private conversations, devastating character assessments and a pervasive sense of infallibility on the part of the author.

Turnbull quotes former minister, John Howard consigliere and current Australian Ambassador to Washington Arthur Sinodinos, to back up his fears about Abbott’s mentality stability.

“Arthur, like me, believes Abbott is a dangerous prime minister, a threat to the nation and its security,” writes Turnbull of the final months of Abbott’s time as PM. 

“The question is how and when can we move him on? Not yet, but we need a change. We talked about Morrison and his relentless ambition, Arthur thinks Morrison has been anointed by Abbott as his successor and is likely to try to protect Abbott from any threats for the time being.”

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/04/17/malcolm-turnbull-memoir-abbott/

 

And not only Malcolm Turnbull...

fraser

 

Read from top. 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This cartoon by Jon Kudelka was one of the best for 2019... Read from top.

 

ABC AFP raids