The question relied on a report in the Courier-Mail revealing the LNP in the sunshine state had arranged an International Women's Day event for Friday at the "men's only" Brisbane Tattersalls club – of all places.

At any time in the past few months, such smart-alecry might have brought a tightening of the well-defined prime ministerial jaw before some good old-fashioned vitriol. Shorten's pivotal role in "knifing" and "back-stabbing" the first female prime minister would be sure to get a mention.

But, no, Abbott doubled down on Shorten's faux light-heartedness, by boasting to the House about what a "broad church" he led. "Obviously they've now broken down the last barrier and they've made the men's only club admit women!" Abbott railed, his fist pumping the parliamentary air in mock victory (cue more laughter but this time from Coalition MPs).

"And they've done it on International Women's Day … good on the Liberal National Party, smashing the glass ceiling yet again! I say congratulations and thank God that bastion of old-fashioned chauvinism has finally collapsed like the walls of Jericho at the trumpet cry of the Liberal and National Party."

This was an overreach of a different kind. Deliberate, mocking, and delivered with more than a hint of irony given his own party's even deeper conservatism north of the Tweed.

The new lightness of touch marked the return of Abbott, the free-wheeling parliamentarian, rather than the controlled and excruciatingly defensive impostor who mostly shows up for question time. And with the emergence of the old Abbott's "mojo" came a palpable lift in his government, as well.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/bruised-and-battered-but-more-genuine-tony-abbott-has-lightened-up-20150305-13vki0.html

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Get rid of Tony please...  He's annoying and dangerous, especially when he feels good... See toon at top...

The Federal Government is under increasing pressure to reverse millions of dollars in funding cuts to legal aid and community legal centres around Australia.

All state and territory Attorneys-General have written to federal Attorney-General George Brandis, warning the Commonwealth's current funding plan for legal assistance will set the fight against domestic violence and Indigenous disadvantage back decades.

Last year's budget cut $15 million from legal aid commissions and $6 million from community legal centres.

"There are certainly places in Australia where there are centres that may have to close," Michael Smith from the National Association of Community Legal Centres (NACLC) told ABC's AM program.

"There are centres that don't know whether they'll be able to stay open and whether those lawyers will be able to continue.

"Even if centres are able to open often those community lawyers are seeing 300 or 400 clients a year, so that's a lot of people who are going to miss out if those services aren't there.

"Certainly demand for assistance around family violence is growing like we've never seen before."

The current national partnership agreement for legal assistance services expires at the end of June, and the state and territories are asking Senator Brandis to set out their proposed future funding no later than the end of March.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-07/states-territories-unite-in-fight-against-legal-aid-funding-cuts/6287604

By cutting legal aid, this Turdy/Brandis government is basically encouraging domestic violence and aboriginal disadvantage... The Minister for femme fatales, Tony Abbott — the denigrator of feminism with an LNP (CONservative) trumpet (see article at top) — the male chauvinist pig who told us that "women do the ironing" — the closet misogynist who hates women being better than he is — the destroyer of sciences through political blackmail and lies — the school yard catholic bully who has not understood any of his faith's commandments — the usurpator who is still cruising in Canberra with a British passport (as far as we know) contrary to the law of the land — the frustrated poltroon warrior who sends more troops "to help" where $35 billion and 10 years of American help" has failed — the scourer of unfathomable oceans to find a lost aeroplane at the cost of social and scientific funding — wants to penalise those who already are in deep shit, often through no fault of their own.

Removing or reducing legal aid is a bastard's work. Kick Abbott in the budgies. Get rid of him.

The prime minister has called for an urgent national approach to tackle domestic and family violence and yet crucial services for victims are being cut. The loss of support services is causing alarm, especially in regional areas where victims are already isolated. Hagar Cohen travelled to Broken Hill and Mildura to investigate.

read and see more: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2015-03-08/6277930

Removing or reducing essential services is a bastard's work. Kick Abbott in the budgies. Get rid of him. Get rid of Baird as well. He wants to sell your crown jewels...

Gus...I want to thank you for your absolute and true description of the bastard whom acts out his fantasies of being El Supremo of all Australia . The man is mentally incapable of showing any decent thoughts or acts to anybody other than his cronies in the Party he leads and the wealthy people and businesses that are his followers . Birds of a Feather flock together and become inbred . They have lots in their bank accounts but Vacancy Signs in their brain boxes . Their Greed is their Creed and they do not have one ounce of kindness in their entire  collective bodies . One only has to overhear or listen in on a conversation between a couple of them and eventually it is abundantly clear that the almighty Dollar is their pride and joy . Like Abbott they lie to get advantage and that is why they favour him . He is a sleeze and is easily spotted by those whom have been hard done by in life by people of his ilk . It is the highest honour to be Primeminister of ones Country , but as we see everyday on the NEWS from around the World so many Countries are suffering from appointing the wrong Party and the wrong Leader to steer them to a better livelihood. Those that are at War take no consideration of the population . Someone tell me which Leader or Party of any Country that commences Warfare on another is doing so for the benefit of a better outcome for the sick , the poor , the aged , the disabled , the mentally disturbed (excluding the protagonists ) , the children , the workers , the unemployed , the untrained ,  the teachers , the doctors , the nurses , the police force , the pensioners , and the helpless and homeless souls that are the least considered . Australia needs a truely great Leader , but I cannot envisage finding one amongst the likely candidates that would put their hand up . That goes for both Houses and all Parties currently screwing everything up .The Last Laugh before I finish is the hilarious Intergenerational Report . WTF are they wasting precious time and money on such bullshit when they still haven't got last years Budget organised and the mini Budget for May gets no mention as yet . Budgets are just Lies and they know it . Pulling the wool over is a better Title . But Abbott will be in his glory congratulating his Treasurer for his great efforts in preparing such a wonderful false statements of downright lies . Both men will have Pants on Fire .

Yes Graham, Turdy Tony is dangerous and idiotic:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has backed a WA Government proposal to close a number of remote Indigenous communities, saying it is not the taxpayer's job to subsidise people's "lifestyle choices"

.....

"It has the potential to change the complexion of this city in particular over the next decade.

"I would ask him where that fits within the Government's policy on closing the gap? Because it is just so important that regional culture is retained and sadly it begins to shrink when it's in capital cities."

Laverton Shire president Patrick Hill said there was too much uncertainty at the moment and people were extremely worried.

Mr Hill said he had not been told if the three Aboriginal communities surrounding his shire would be closed or where those people would be housed within the small northern Goldfields town.

"In Laverton we've got three communities - the Mulga Queen, Cosmo Newberry and Mount Margaret and we haven't heard if any of those will be closing yet," he said.

"The biggest thing we're concerned about is closing down these communities and moving the residents into the regional centres like Laverton, Leonora or Kalgoorlie-Boulder without housing.

"Where do these people get moved to after the communities close and what happens to them? What resources are going to be provided to them to move?

"We don't want them all camping out underneath the trees around the town, they are going to need housing and that's our concern.

"We don't want people moved out of the areas that they've come from."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-10/pm-backs-decision-to-close-wa-indigenous-communities/6295296

From Bob Ellis...:

Yesterday was a "tipping point moment" in Tony Abbott’s career, and in Joe Hockey’s also, compounded by a Newspoll prefiguring a loss of forty or forty-two seats next year, and this month, probably, New South Wales.

Joe is suing Fairfax for noting the obvious: that property developers paying $22,000 to eat with him want something back from him he probably, one way or another, will consider – only consider – giving to them.

Tony is an area of craziness all his own.

He is asking that the United Nations praise him for "stopping the boats" and not go on, the way they do, and did yesterday, about it being wrong to torment, imprison, or ‘torture’ children.

It is worth looking into the logic behind this argument, which is being tirelessly repeated by his awed assistant ministers on Sky News and commercial radio today.

He – and they – are saying that by torturing some children we save other children from drowning. We traumatise toddlers with confinement, and eight-year-olds with anal rape, in order that other children, whom they will never meet – and we will never meet – be deterred from taking the voyage they have survived, and drowning on it.

What he, and they, have failed to note is what the "saved" children are going back to. In Sri Lanka, some may be killed; others may have a life of limited opportunity, or whoredom, or drug dealing, ending in early death. Some may become Test cricketers — or suicide bombers. The Tamil Tigers invented suicide bombing; it is for them a proud tradition.

But it is a life in their "home country" that many would gladly risk drowning to avoid.

Abbott has further, it appears, refused to investigate the murders, beatings, trade in sexual favours, years of delay and buggery of children the UN hints at in its report. Reza Barati’s twelve murderers are still free. Some may be still employed, and menacing witnesses of his murder. The three young men cyber-bullied by Morison into burning themselves to death, one unsuccessfully, will achieve no "closure" either.

Nor will the 90 years the children "freed from detention" will hereafter spend on Nauru be investigated for its justice as a punishment for getting on the wrong boat in the wrong year. Is being "no longer in detention" freedom if it is spent, exclusively, on Nauru? Is this "freedom"? Is this 90 year sentence a child saved from torture? Really?

Four Corners last night showed what battle trauma does to a human soul. Fear and confinement has a similar effect on children, and a ship sinking, and seeing one’s father attempting to hang himself in a grimy dwelling in a strange country.

Yet Abbott says we Australians are "sick and tired" of hearing about these things, and want the UN, the world body, to pull its head in.

He is increasingly, as the saying has it, "in a world of his own". He seems crazier and crazier, and enjoying, by the look of him yesterday, some form of medication.

There is actually no precedent for this "tipping point" in our history. Our leader seems more and more like a South American dictator, wanting to hear only good news, and garrotting his critics and those bureaucrats who speak to him uncivilly. Tiberius in his last years behaved similarly. So did Herbert Vere Evatt, who had early Alzheimers.

In other nations, what happened yesterday could presage an army coup. It is hard to imagine what will happen here, where that is less likely.

A Foley victory in New South Wales, probably, and then a federal spill, and Morrison or Bishop or Turnbull elected by acclamation after Abbott agrees to "spend more time with his family"; or go, perhaps, to the House of Lords.

That, at any rate, is the least frightening option.

What else he and Credlin have in store for us is, at the moment, beyond imagining.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/bob-ellis-abbotts-tipping-point,7462

more shit

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's glee at mocking and sidelining women on International Women's Day should alarm and disgust us all, says Lyn Bender.

The paternal grandfather I never knew prayed each morning, thanking god that he was not made a woman.

If there were a god I would thank her daily that I was not born a man. Not because I do not love and admire many men, but I am thankful that I have not had the legacy and burden of the many masculine stereotypes. These include a compulsion to appear invulnerable, tough and dominant. These attitudes have been linked to male’s consistently lower life expectancy compared to women. Males are, tragically, three times more likely than females to commit suicide. 

The absurdity of the disrespect and contempt meted out by our Prime Minister for women: Tony Abbott is undisguised. He has assumed this portfolio as the self confessed “junk yard dog”, guarding territory in which he's decided no interloper shall set foot. Certainly, no woman shall venture there.

My grandfather prayed in pre-war Poland. His education had been limited and religious. I am attached to his memory. I can forgive him for is unknowingness, but Tony Abbott, whose ideas about women are close to medieval, is unfit to hold the highest office in this land. He governs for far less than half of all the people and, in particular, not for those under his special ministries of Indigenous affairs and women. He is a blatant sham and cynical pretender; barely concealing his "ha ha gotcha" scorn. Abbott is the man who will say anything to gain and cling to his political position and the leadership of his party. He laughs last; after pleading, he is given yet another chance. He betrays those he has sought to deceive with false promises.

read more: https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/hey-mr-minister-for-women--i-am-woman-hear-me-roar,7470

See toon at top and above...

The sad and despicable part is that the MMMM (the mediocre mass media de mierda) lets Tony Turdy get away with it... The media would have thrown out anyone else at the first sign of crap. But Turdy? Sure, "they chastise" him a bit... But he is a "protected" abominable species of cavemen remnant, still too common in our society...

For example:

This image taken from a SMH website link... The article is a bit more biting and adds "insensitive, destructive" to the headline... What the article is trying to show yet again that the Prime Minister is a bit wrong, by explaining Aboriginal culture to him and us, when they should actually burn Turdy to the stake for saying massively stupid things. There is a difference: It's a bit like the people of New York:

"Over on Melrose Street in Bushwick, some people had decided they had had enough. All the dog messes had been spray-painted bright gold."

We should not be doing this with Tony Abbott. We should be placing his nose in his own caca, kick him in the butt and throw him out. Too many messes linger behind his arse. He himself is a dag, according to his daughters...