From Dick Smith
I love this land and its people and believe I won the lottery of life being born here. 

Celebrating our national day on the date of British settlement in 1788 has never been a date that brings all Australians together, no matter how many flags we wave or happy barbecues we may enjoy. For many Indigenous Australians, the date is no holiday but a reminder of their country being taken over by others. It completely disrupted a way of life that had been undisturbed for 50,000 years.

The early British settlers considered Australia "Terra Nullius", in effect an empty place that would be subject to British law and customs and the indigenous people were, for the most part, invisible and discounted.

Fortunately, in the last few decades most Australians have changed their views on this. We now understand that the first Australians lived here for countless generations in balance with the fragile Australian environment. Using fire and moving lightly on the land, they not only nurtured the environment, but developed a rich and remarkable culture that has survived longer than any civilisation in history.

read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-truth-is-january-26-should-be-first-fleet-day-not-australia-day-20150124-12xb0x.html

 

In contrast see: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/29350

Why is this vision-impaired ugly idiotic nasty turd still the prime Minister of this fair country (OrstralyA)? How have we all sunk so low to let him be? Has social media been overtaken by "Faceboof"? Have we all taken too many silly dumb pills?... Of course, we all know that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but for our Turd-in-Chief his eye resides in his arse-holder, like a suppository.

Here I apologise to ugly people, to vision-impaired people and of course I apologise to turds, idiots and nasty people. They deserve better than being compared to Tony Abbott...

 

And I apologise to suppositories...

And I forgot he is a Catholic vision-impaired ugly idiotic nasty turd... He should be the one apologising for this one: dragging the faith into the mud with his imbecilic brains. I hereby also apologise to imbeciles and to brains for mentioning them in the same sentence as Tony Abbott.

after having charged as much as one can in one descriptive metaphor of our idiotic primal turd, a judge comes along and adds toxic and political infection to the sauce:

 

 

A Federal Court judge has slammed the Abbott government for ruling out changes to negative gearing, superannuation concessions and GST as part of its tax review, saying the entire debate is politically infected and "handcuffed" from being able to achieve any useful reform.

Justice Richard Edmonds, who was appointed to the Federal Court under the Howard government in May 2005 and has previously been critical of the lack of political will by leaders to carry out tax reform, said the Abbott government's review will turn out to be just as useless as the former Labor government's attempts back in 2009.

Former treasury secretary Ken Henry carried out a review back then, which was released in 2010 by the then treasurer Wayne Swan, but Mr Henry and his panel were restricted from including GST in the debate.

'Political infection'

 

Justice Edmonds said it was a complete waste of his time to get involved in the Coalition's review, as the white paper process clearly suffered from "political infection".

 

It had "turned septic following statements by senior members of the government since the issue of the paper, making it quite clear that a number of these matters will not be considered at any price save, perhaps, if it is 'our' political advantage to do so", he said.  "The handcuffs that are being placed on the process are as bad as the handcuffs placed on the Henry Review."

"If that is what is to happen, then I do not wish to participate. My time is too valuable to undertake a reasoned analysis in support of various aspects of reform when I know that no matter how sound and persuasive the arguments are, they have no hope of finding traction."

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey have both ruled out changes to sacred cow tax breaks of negative gearing and superannuation, or a GST rise, despite numerous submissions to the white paper saying these areas should be up for debate.

Justice Edmonds said as someone genuinely interested in structural reform of the Australian tax system, he was disappointed he would not be able to make a contribution. The bar for changing the GST was set too high, he said.

"As a lawyer, first as a solicitor, then as a member of the New South Wales Bar and now as a Federal Court judge having 50 years' cumulative experience in advising and adjudicating on issues arising under that system, I was looking forward to making a substantive and hopefully constructive contribution to the tax discussion paper," he said.

"On reading the paper, it became apparent that despite what the paper said on pages five and six under the heading 'joining the national conversation on tax reform', including statements such as, 'the Government will …rule nothing in or out' and 'you should not be limited by the issues or questions contained in this discussion paper", certain matters that need to be brought to the table for consideration and discussion were off-limits.

 

 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/abbotts-tax-review-process-is-infected-federal-court-judge-says-20150612-ghmu0g.html

 

Former prime minister Tony Abbott should quit Parliament at the next election to make way for new talent according to a majority of electors within his own safe Liberal seat of Warringah.

With Liberal MPs and supporters reading the signs of growing disunity within the Turnbull government as Mr Abbott and other malcontents continue to speak out, exclusive ReachTel polling conducted for the Australian Institute, has found most voters in the 65 per cent Liberal electorate believe the ex-PM's time has passed.

The survey has also laid bare the scale of the political challenge for Mr Abbott's replacement as prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in the crucial area of tax reform. Just 16.6 per cent of respondents are "strongly in favour" of a GST hike – which would fund income tax cuts – and less than 40 per cent overall are in favour, compared to 46.5 per cent who opposes a GST increase. Just over 14 per cent remain undecided.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-should-go-say-most-voters-in-his-electorate-poll-20151218-glqto3.html#ixzz3uhZV4muR
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see toon and article at top... and visit the north shore back then in 2012...