Getting the budget under control is the central task that Tony Abbott was elected to perform, and he can't blame Labor for the decisions he makes in today's budget update, writes Chris Berg.

There was a disturbing detail in a Dennis Shanahan piece earlier this month. Describing concerns within the ministry about the performance of the government, Shanahan wrote, "It's fair enough to argue that 'getting to Christmas' is all that matters now."

"Getting to Christmas." Almost an exact mirror of the motif of the Gillard Government, that "clear air" was just around the corner.

Labor was a tired government trying to be optimistic. By contrast the Abbott Government should be - and is - a fresh new government facing many years at the helm.

Not every government is treated to as much wall-to-wall coverage of its hundred day anniversary as the Abbott Government has been. But then, not every Government has had to learn so many lessons in as short a space of time.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-17/berg-the-coalitions-budget-decisions-are-all-its-own/5160628

Meanwhile some occasional readers of the mierda-press are getting a bit fed up with the mierda:

I write in regard your editorial entitled'Comment should not be cheap', which was published at theaustralian.com.au on 4 December, 2013.

I don't read your publication much, but I feel compelled to provide feedback that is from outside your echo chamber. Let's be honest, your readers are a dying breed and your publication is looking increasingly desperate as it thrashes around in its drawn-out death.

I am not sure whether to be amused or appalled by the staggering vitriol and narcissism that you published in this piece. To be honest, it reminded me of the worst bleating from the bottom of the barrel of hip-hop rappers: self aggrandising, hyperbolic and hypocritical. For a newspaper that attempts to portray itself as serious and a beacon of integrity, it is pathetic and reeks of desperation.

The writing is on the wall and your "once-venerable newspaper" is a joke to most people under the age of 50. Most people I speak to are wise to your true position as a mouthpiece for a foreign billionaire and his interests and little more than a campaign pamphlet for the Liberal Party.

I wonder how long your particular brand of idiocy can last, with any luck the answer is "not long". If this is the best you can do then pack up your pencils and go home.

Yours sincerely,

Glenn Tweedie

Fremantle

If you read the twaddle, that this fellow is complaining about, from Paul Kelly, you might get sick in the guts... It's reheated dodgy-stodge and old bangers that have been in the bain-marie for too long in a dubious take-away shop after an electricity outage... Pity... I though Paul Kelly was cleverer than this...

Please note: I did not buy the paper... I "borrowed" it...

For weeks News Corp papers have been running a barrage of opinion pieces, often several on a single day, alleging a lack of diversity in the opinions available at the ABC.

The generally agreed thesis advanced by these opinion writers – most of whom live in Sydney and Melbourne – is that too many ABC opinion-makers live in Sydney and Melbourne, and that this contributes to their “green-left” worldview.

This “green-left” worldview, News Corp writers contend, contributes to “biased” reporting and political interviewing on the ABC and infuses its wider programming as well, including – according to Piers Akerman at least – the “weird feminism” evident in Peppa Pig and the “left sludge” he hears when he tunes in the Triple J. (Does Akerman really tune into Triple J?)

Bias is, by definition, in the eye of the beholder, but to my eye it’s more evident when I tune in to, say, Ray Hadley and hear him ask “questions” like this one during a conversation with prime minister Tony Abbott about how to handle the Palmer United party when the new Senate sits from next July:

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/21/attacks-on-abc-expose-new-corps-hidden-agenda

You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh at right-wing think-tanker Tim Wilson becoming a Human Rights Commissioner. Whatever the merits of his appointment, it’s an ace piece of industrial strength trolling by George Brandis, parachuting a culture warrior right behind enemy lines like that. As Twitter outrage reached DEFCON 1, you could almost write the Australian editorial yourself. “Noisy echo chamber… the squeals of the left… bien pensant… soy latte”... etc. But amid all the good times, there was a danger of the real punchline being lost. Because the midlife crisis-style reinvention of the Coalition as the standard bearer for ‘freedom of speech’ really does take the biscuit.

After all, the Liberal Party has spent almost 70 years as the political arm of the wowser movement, in a country so purse-lipped and censorious we used to ban films featuring topless men. That’s not a dead legacy of fuddy-duddyism either. When the Howard government was banning websites discussing euthanasia, or Baise Moi, or introducing sedition laws, most of the Voltaire fans among their number were silent.

read more: http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/richard-cooke/2013/12/20/1387513596/let-s-stop-pretending-liberal-party-believes-free-speech

Disgraced former Queensland MP Scott Driscoll is unlikely to face criminal charges over allegations he misappropriated tens of thousands of dollars from a taxpayer-funded community centre in his Redcliffe electorate.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-24/scott-driscoll-allegations-lobby-group/5174592

This article in its entirety does not mention once which political party Mr Driscoll belongs to. Plenty of details about the allegations of wrong doing, but no mention that Mr Driscoll is a LNP (Liberal/Country Party — conservative) member. Meanwhile, looking on the other side of the fence:

A court has heard former federal Labor MP and union official Craig Thomson used an alias to book escort services that were paid for with Health Services Union funds.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-04/court-rejects-bid-to-delay-craig-thomson-case/5133574

Only at the end does the article says:

The prosecution told the Melbourne Magistrates Court the full criminality of Thomson's conduct would not be able to be alleged if the case was not delayed.

But Judge Rozencwajg said he was not at all impressed and the prosecution had taken a cavalier approach to the court's time.

What does this means? It means that after two years of investigation and probing, the prosecution has not been able to prove criminality with any proper evidence. But the media's Thomson-bashing, including from the ABC, appears to be slanted against the Labor party, either by design or by just being slanted in general...