Friday 29th of March 2024

no gossip joe...

 

joe is not talking...

Today Mr Hockey said the Coalition risked repeating the mistakes made by the Labor caucus under the previous government.

"Everyone's entitled to a view, but I would just say to people we do not want to become a carbon copy of a bad Labor government, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government," he told reporters in Sydney's far west.

"We need to focus on doing the job at hand, which is making Australians richer and creating more jobs."

Mr Hockey was questioned about why some backbenchers believe the Prime Minister is struggling to connect with voters.

"I will leave that to commentators," he said.

"I resolved this year... not to engage in commentary or gossip.

"Please let me try and keep that resolution."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-30/hockey-warns-federal-colleagues-complaining-about-abbott/6057484

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why tony has to go...

Waleed Aly analysis of the Abbott situation is quite simplistic. This is what he says:


Of all the conclusions to draw from the Abbott government's current predicament, perhaps the most erroneous would be that it is simply a  product of Tony Abbott's idiosyncrasies. Sure, it's hard to resist amid the cosmic weirdness of this Prince Philip saga. But there's a difference between a trigger and a cause. Knights and Dames - even ones as bizarre as Sir Phil - don't topple Prime Ministers. That sort of thing only matters when your government has torched every last bit of its political capital. That happened around budget time last year, but in truth, the story goes back even further. This process was set in motion before Abbott was even Prime Minister, and was visible from his very first day in office.  

You tend not to see such things when you're guzzling victory champagne, but the 2013 election was an underwhelming one for the Coalition. The nation had just evicted an unelectable mess; a government whose supporters were disillusioned and whose opponents hated it viscerally. Yet, in an election where Labor and the Greens together lost nearly 8 per cent of the vote, the Coalition - the only major alternative - gained a mere 2 per cent.  A win, sure. But more of the Steven Bradbury variety. The country never truly voted for an Abbott government, so much as against the debacle they'd been enduring.

 

That matters because it makes the governing bit much harder. It means Abbott never had much capital to begin with. His clearest mandate was to be someone other than Rudd or Gillard. Once that was fulfilled, Abbott had nowhere to go: nothing to do with his power. 

Consider the rules he laid out as non-negotiable tests of government legitimacy: no broken promises, no leadership changes, no new or increased taxes, no budgetary blowouts, and no policies (like, say, a carbon price) that would increase the punters' cost of living. Oh, and no cuts to anything somebody likes - health, education, public broadcasting, defence. We'll cut government spending (which is wasteful), but when asked we'll quarantine just about everything from those cuts. This is a mass of populist contradictions. 

That made Abbott a devastating opposition leader. But as he destroyed Rudd and Gillard, he was also destroying himself.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/the-pms-woes-st...

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Gus respond:

Waleed Aly analysis of the situation is very simplistic. It basically eliminates the media out of the political equation. The media has a huge responsibility in making sure that political fairness applies. But the media in this county is hugely unbalanced towards supporting the ning-nong, aka Tony Abbott for profit. Tony had a dream run in the media. In the merde-och press which controls 70 per cent of printed news and influences about 70 per cent of other news outlets, Tony Abbott was the darling goldilocky boy, even when he pissed on people. Especially when he pissed on good social ideals...

The rest of the media did not do its job.

Murdoch allied with Abbott one hundred per cent, but also "allied" with Rudd in order to topple Gillard. Rudd believe he was supported by Murdoch, but as soon as Gillard was out of the way, Murdoch dropped Rudd like a smelly sock. It was on the card... We predicted it..

 

I agree with Waleed that Tony's problems started long ago. But way further back than Aleed is prepared to dig out. It goes even further back than Tony's tumultuous university days — when he was "toying" with the idea of going with Labor or the Libs... I think the Labor mugs of the time saw through Tony's irrationality, misogyny, Santamarianism (religious Catholic former faction of Labor which Labor hated), short fuse and bullying. The other side accepted him reluctantly at first, but they love anyone who wants to join as long as the newcomers idolise cash. This was never a problem with Tony who married the quite disparate beliefs in A B Santamaria's strict social ideals and gold. By 2005 we all knew Tony was suspect and loony at best and rotten at worse. 

 

But we did not count on Rupert. 

I believe, Rupert Murdoch made a fun "impossible" challenge for himself: make Tony Abbott palatable to the electorate — or at least "electable".  Many of Tony's idiosyncrasies were swept under the carpet and I trust Murdoch had a few sleepless nights working on this entertaining pet project of his.

 

Tony Abbott on his own would not win against Julia Gillard. NEVER.

The merde-och press had to create or use a situation that it would make fester to divide the Labor party. Cleverly, Rudd was propped up all the time. Julia Gillard was poo-pooed all the time. Especially when she was doing well. Murdoch made sure Rudd was leaking like an old incontinent sieve and would be rewarded for it... Thus the "public" never forgave Julia for ousting Kevin... This idea was manufactured and dumped on the public by the media, repeatedly. "Hey don't forget, SHE's the one who knife Rudd" was the message every second week. No need to mention that Rudd did not want to go to a spill, as it was his right to fight. No, Rudd just caved in and cried... because he knew he would have lost 100 per cent. His colleagues could not stand his irrationality and explosive anger.

 

Presently, on the other side in 2015, in the CONservatives, "someone" has to find the courage and sense to politically knife Tony Abbott... Or Tony has to go to a spill... But he knows he's got his mates by the balls... So the conservative are all pissing in their pants at this prospect... They are led in the wilderness by a crazy mad monk and they still hope he will turn to be Jesus Christ... The role of Catholicism in the Australian political process should not be ignored as well, as it defines a lot of factions in the political parties on both sides.

Rudd was going nuts. He had to go. Abbott is going nuts (has been nuts since day one but no-one paid attention since Murdoch wanted us to believe that Abbott was sane). HE HAS TO GO. But because the media played the duplicitous, hypocritical game to get rid of Julia, now everyone is at a loss on how to get rid of the idiot, apart from placing polonium in his tea cup... or blame his controller, Madam Credlin...

We believe what we are told by the media... Well not really. There is only a small proportion of voters in the middle of the political spectrum. no more than 15 per cent who change their political minds. All the efforts by the media is thus to influence that 15 per cent into believing one thing or the other. With well targeted media campaigns, a large proportion of people in this unthinking swinging "middle" can be made to believe the earth is flat. Murdoch believes the earth is flat and rectangular like a greenback.

 

We got lucky that the complicated senate numbers is poised. But we could have a simple silly switch by a senator or two and the full folly of Abbott's policies could become laws that would stuff up this country for years.

 

We have to stop him and not so strangely, he is the one helping us stop him by being hugely ARROGANT with knighthood (he'll learn from this "episode" he tells us — yeah, my granny is still alive and turning 165 tomorrow), sneakily STUPID and scientifically illiterate in general. 

Abbott is not to be trusted. We can't afford his style of doing things.

 

He is a vengeful destroyer. With Pyne, he is taking his revenge on the equitable university system for his loss to a woman then, when he sought leadership of the student union to turn it into his little fiefdom of conservatism or whatever — as long as it was HIS.

 

Tony destroyed the only chance Australia had to deal with global warming.

 

Tony further destroyed Australia's very thin credibility on human rights by making defence break international laws.

 

Tony does not care about you. He cares about digging holes and about his mates who make cash out of digging holes.

 

Tony does not care about the environment. But he will spruik his inexistent credentials on this subject to humour you.

 

And the media so far has help him sustain this idiocy as a way to govern this country. It's crap. The media is crap.

 

Waleed, it's time for you to tell us fair and square that Tony Abbott is crap without going around the bush. Because whenever you are beating around the bush, Tony has already moved on to another pile of crap. 

 

Now, most of the media, as usual, is providing Tony with excuses for his crap... or give him yet again more time for him to make amends... Unbelievable. Hit him on the cabooche! Boom! He's got to go... Simple, not simplistic.

 

 

punch, punch... a left hook... and a right kick below the belt

 

Tony Abbott's leadership has suffered a series of devastating body blows, with a former cabinet minister colleague weighing a leadership tilt, Queensland state government counterparts suffering an electoral bloodbath and a disastrous new poll showing he trails 57-43 in the two-party-preferred vote.

As counting began on Saturday evening in the Queensland poll it quickly became apparent that Liberal National Party Premier Campbell Newman would be booted out of his inner-Brisbane seat of Ashgrove.

In addition, the LNP's hold on power rested on a knife edge after less than three years, with a hung parliament in prospect.

Fairfax Media revealed on Saturday that former Howard government cabinet minister Mal Brough was being urged to challenge Mr Abbott for the prime ministership.

Such a challenge would effectively see Mr Brough act as a stalking horse for an alternative leader such as Julie Bishop or Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Brough did not deny approaches had been made to him when contacted by Fairfax Media. He said only that: "Clearly people are talking to each other because we are all interested in doing what's best for the nation."

A tilt would act as a leadership circuit-breaker for government backbenchers, who are furious with Mr Abbott for a series of recent missteps and misjudgments, culminating in the decision to knight Prince Philip last Monday.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/tony-abbott-reels-from-triple-blow-mal-brough-queensland-and-new-poll-heap-pressure-on-pm-20150131-132x5u.html