Sydney-siders have been told by the PM that the lockdown of their city is the result of nasty protesters who have been banned from the no-go zone. Yet while some protestors are forced to apply to the courts for permission, my old Young Liberal pal John Ruddick and his Aussies 4 ANZUS crew have been given the kind of access other protesters can only dream of.

John was featured on Lateline the other night. He was a right-wing Young Liberal who stood three times for the presidency of the NSW Young Liberals. He also worked (when he decided to turn up to work) as a staffer for former Federal Parramatta Liberal MP Ross Cameron. In fact, we were always surprised Ruddick managed to get that Cameron job in the first place.

Most Young Libs remember Ruddick as a hard-drinking chap who wasn’t known to be an early riser. It was only when we found out he’d received a glowing reference from the Mufti of the NSW Right David Clarke, that we understood why Cameron hired him.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2007/09/05/need-apec-access-just-be-a-liberal-candidate/

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Note that Chris Downy for example is the President of the Liberal (CONservative) Party in New South Wales... Apparently, he is also the CEO of the gambling industry body... But what is also quite stupefying is that many Liberal (CONservative) MPs are also Lobbyists for various industries... 

First the new Prime Minister gaffes big time over a free trade agreement with China with his “whatever we can get” kowtow. Now the new Treasurer is promoting old Australian growth figures from the International Monetary Fund as fresh bad news for the economy. The L plates are being worn large this spring.

Overnight the IMF got around to adopting the existing Reserve Bank and Treasury forecasts for Australian economic growth, which is what it routinely does. In cutting its forecast for Australia's 2013 GDP to 2.5 per cent, the IMF was catching up with what the RBA was saying five months ago in its May statement on monetary policy. Treasury took a little longer to revise its more optimistic budget night forecasts, but by the August monetary policy statement and Treasury economic statement, the numbers were all aligned and pretty much what the IMF produced two months later.

Treasurer Joe Hockey didn't treat it that way, issuing a statement to tell us the IMF had downgraded its expected growth rates for the Australian economy by 0.5 per cent. More bemusingly, the Treasurer said: "Worryingly, the IMF forecasts Australia's unemployment rate to rise from 5.6 per cent in 2013 to 6.0 per cent in 2014.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/joe-hockeys-lplates-are-there-for-all-to-see-20131009-2v752.html#ixzz2hDTllSHN

Treasurer Joe Hockey has reiterated that increasing Australia's debt ceiling will be a priority for the new parliament.
Speaking in the United States, where President Barack Obama's administration is battling to lift its legislated allowable level of government debt, Mr Hockey said Australia faces its own deadline.
"We will have to increase the debt limit to prevent Australia breaching the debt limit before Christmas," the treasurer told Sky News on Sunday.
A bill to raise the national debt ceiling beyond $300 billion is expected in parliament's early sitting days, which are not yet scheduled.

Mr Hockey said debt would near the current limit in December.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/debt-an-early-issue-for-parliament-joe-hockey-20131013-2vfzz.html#ixzz2hZ7FJriN

If one watch TV news or current affairs or morning shows on the "entertainment" box, one would have seen Joe Hockey pontificating about the US debt ceiling... Of course Joe told us the American debt would have to be raised so that blah blah blah... Joe of course would single-handedly convince either Obama or the Tea Party to make the deal if he could have a clue about anything...

Yes Joe.... Two bags full Joe... We know that the USA is a financial bastard-case that gave and still gives the subprime clap to the rest of the world... But for years, Joe, you've bashed our ears about having a budget into surplus as an utmost necessity by being a scrooge... But I guess this does not apply to the most profligate country in the world that has spend its way into becoming the lavish wasteful Empirium... by conning us.

The banks too are actually squeamish about the ceiling being too low... this low set up could stop them from borrowing more than they can chew... It will harm the banks sure, but the bankers will still get their bonuses and Bahamas holiday palace... Meanwhile the Tea Party rubbish rich people who have no clue about anything, are hell-bent on getting what they want even if it means to cut their own dicks. But they want to hurt the little people like you and me... We don't deserve to be properly paid beyond a slavery existence... It's a stupid stand off in which, either way, ceiling up or down, the world is going to suffer — unless the rules of capitalism are completely rewritten with the protection of the environment of the planet as the utmost first rule... At the moment this does not even rate a funny light bulb in it. Sure some banks may indulge into funny lighting but they would only do it so they can save a few bucks to inflate the head banker's bonuses...

Welcome to the rich idiots ruling the world... Joe is only trying to show he knows... He is an ignoramus idiot as well....

The Treasury has decided to keep its advice to new treasurer Joe Hockey secret, despite the same document having been released in part after the 2007 and 2010 elections.

Treasury has advised that the “blue book” – one of two documents prepared during an election campaign by each department for each of its possible incoming ministers – will not be released under freedom of information laws.

In 2007 the Seven network obtained the “red book” from several departments prepared for the incoming Rudd government under freedom of information.

Subsequently the now finance minister, senator Mathias Cormann, congratulated the secretary of the finance department for releasing the red book.

“Talking about the red book I just first want to congratulate on your decision to release it. I assume that that followed an FOI request, did it?,” senator Cormann said during a Senate estimates hearing.

In 2010, when both major parties were negotiating with the crossbench to try to form a government, both the blue and the red books were posted – in a redacted form – on the Treasury’s website.

But Treasury now assesses that releasing its blue book prepared for Hockey would “inhibit the Treasury’s ability to provide effective and comprehensive briefs in the future”.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/18/treasurys-advice-joe-hockey-secret

Many of the official costings the federal government has used to justify its budget-tightening credentials are unreliable.

The Parliamentary Budget Office has estimated the budget impacts of a range of government policies, and says billions of dollars it has identified in government savings are only of a ''low'' or ''medium'' reliability.

The office does not assess the policies themselves, but their budget impacts, based on available information. Last Friday, Treasurer Joe Hockey hailed new post-election analysis by the budget office of government policies and their likely costs, which found the Coalition would improve the budget bottom line by $7.1 billion - $1 billion better than the Coalition forecast before the election.

Five days later, Mr Hockey responded to Australia's ballooning credit card bill by almost doubling the borrowing limit to half a trillion dollars. But buried deep in the report are revelations that many of the budget office's costings of Coalition policies are of a ''low'' or ''medium'' reliability. These include costings for the paid parental leave scheme, about $4 billion worth of savings proposed to offset the non-collection of the carbon tax, and the estimated $5.2 billion saving from cutting the public service by 12,000.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/federal-belttightening-figures-deemed-wobbly-20131026-2w8q3.html#ixzz2itarJP63

The Coalition has blown a $3 billion hole in the budget after announcing it would abandon or amend a suite of tax initiatives that would have cracked down on wealthy superannuants, multinationals and those who claim large ''self-education'' expenses.

Announcing the latest measures, Treasurer Joe Hockey said the budget position would deteriorate even further when the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook is released at the end of the year. ''The budget has deteriorated, of course it has. And we are methodically and carefully going through every cupboard,'' he said.

While the mid-year outlook would show the extent to the problems, the May budget would '''offer the solutions'', Mr Hockey said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/treasurer-joe-hockey-blows-a-3-billion-hole-in-budget-20131106-2x1su.html#ixzz2jtYLfzX6

Reprising Labor's argument from its time in office, Mr Hockey says the Government also needs a buffer of between $40 billion and $60 billion.

But the Opposition wants the Treasurer to release his department's budget update, the Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO), before it will approve any more than $400 billion.

Labor's Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen says Mr Hockey is "behaving like a B-grade actor trying to confect this crisis".

"This is a Liberal Party which campaigned to bring down the debt," he told RN Breakfast.

"They want to increase the debt cap by 67 per cent - $200 billion - and they haven't justified it.

"They should release their economic statement and until they do it, we would only approve an increase of $100 billion, which is more than enough - certainly to get them through this year."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-14/hockey-warns-of-us-style-shutdown/5090722

See image at top... I believe that the libs (CONservatives) want to repay the "carbon tax" receipts to those who had to pay it (big polluters and RICH users of energy who missed out on the rebate). This, they hide in that extra budget debt they demand... They are rabid rat bags and the mediocre mass media should wake up and start to bring these morons down, in the sewer where they belong.

And then there was ABC Radio on Thursday: “If Labor prevents an increase in the debt limit there is no choice but to start having massive cuts to government expenditure, because the government is running on borrowed money.”

Asked whether he was “seriously threatening to shut down government services,” the Treasurer replied: “There is no choice.”

Of course it takes two parties to be as stupid as US politics have become, but it is the Treasurer who has jumped right into the loony bin, raising a genuine question of whether he has abrogated his oath. Certainly he is not putting service of the people first.

The opposition is enjoying a bit of the boot being on the other foot, a little reaping of what has been sown, but it's not threatening supply, not threatening to cut services.

There is nothing statesman-like in forcing the government to come back for a further increase in the ceiling later. It is all rather petty, silly and unnecessary, as Peter Martin has explained.

But shadow treasurer Chris Bowen's game is not beyond the bounds of what has been played in recent years.

If Hockey is prepared to damage Australia's reputation for sound government, to take us down to the US level, to hurt people dependent on federal services, just to avoid a little political embarrassment down the track, well, you see why I have found it hard to believe – that he would so quickly earmark himself as unfit for his position.

It also makes you wonder what his offsider, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, was doing visiting all those Tea Party types in Washington. It looks like he was there to learn from them, not about them.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/joe-hockey-goes-a-step-too-far-20131115-2xll6.html#ixzz2kgbjwX7Q

The Coalition's characterisation of Labor's economic management as "reckless" and "wasteful" is a big lie that is going to be hard to revise, writes David Hetherington.

One day, they'll write textbook case studies about it. Political genius, they'll say - a master class in strategy, messaging and discipline. It worked a treat and delivered government to the Coalition.

I write, of course, of the Big Lie - the myth created and propagated by the Coalition that the Australian economy is in the mire as a result of what Joe Hockey calls "Labor's economic and fiscal mismanagement".

The Big Lie was a cornerstone of the Coalition's political strategy over the last three years.

At every turn, Coalition MPs railed against Labor's "reckless", "scandalous" and "wasteful" handling of the economy

The choristers within News Corp Australia played their part to perfection, with a daily drumbeat of opinion pieces echoing profound concern.

That the Big Lie ran counter to all economic fact mattered not a bit. Its communication was so successful that many in the electorate came to believe it.

However, the sting may be in the tail. For the government, the challenge of the Big Lie is dealing with its legacy.

Having won government, the Coalition finds the economy is - surprise - in the same good shape it was before. Low unemployment, low inflation, steady growth, a triple-A rating.

As this reality sits uncomfortably with the Big Lie, the Coalition must navigate a delicate political shift and manage the inflated expectations of its supporters.

Mr Hockey has already begun this task. On his return from IMF meetings in the US, Mr Hockey commented:

There is no doubt that everybody is looking to [Australia] to provide leadership in the world economy next year in G20.

There's a recognition that Australia has, for a long period, been prepared to deliver economic reform, so there's a high level of anticipation and excitement.

Hardly the stuff of reckless economic management, then. The shift is showing up in the new government's policy too.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/hetherington-the-coalitions-big-lie/5098544

For someone who believes in small government, Joe Hockey has found his job as Treasurer in an ideologically divided Government all too often involves interfering with the markets, writes Annabel Crabb.

Can there be a trickier job in politics at the moment than Being Joe Hockey?

In his fevered dreams of 2009 through 2013, tossing uncomfortably on the opposition benches, Mr Hockey must have pictured a future Government of sunlit uplands, in which as Treasurer he would flit about quietly and efficiently deregulating things, bringing spending under control, squirting a little market force here and there to lubricate the economy's creaky bits, being heartily congratulated by corporate Australia, and generally setting things to rights.

Instead of which, he has woken up screaming in a hellish Kafkascape of not-quite-rightness, in which he is obliged to reject foreign investment, raise the national debt ceiling to half a trillion dollars, pay wealthy ladies to have babies, remove taxes while keeping the compensation for those taxes, and dismantle market mechanisms to replace them with complicated subsidies.

Oh yeah, and toy publicly with the partial renationalisation of Qantas.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-29/crabb-against-the-grain-hockeys-big-government-horror/5124816

Yes Annabel... All it shows is that Joe is a BIG liar — a liar who seriously said one thing in his previous lifetime and now is doing the opposite... It's called pissing in your own pool... See toon at top.