Tony Abbott is at his best when he has something to fight. Ask Kevin Rudd. Or Julia Gillard. Or Malcolm Turnbull. Abbott vanquished them all with brutal efficiency, mainly because he had a devastatingly clear line of attack. "Great big toxic tax based on a lie," or something. Sure, that's more a mash-up than a quote, but with these eight words, Abbott destroyed three leaders. Even in power his best moments have come as he has seized upon an enemy, whether a Russian "bully" or an Islamist "death cult". 

Tony Abbott’s claim that no one would get a better rate than defence workers appears to be disputed at Senate estimates hearing.

Some public servants are getting a bigger pay rise than defence personnel, despite Tony Abbott’s assurances to the contrary.

Who could have predicted what a hash a Coalition government would make of its first budget? If Joe Hockey wants to lift his game in 2015, as we must hope he will, there are lessons the government - and its bureaucratic advisers - need to learn.

If Denis Napthine had an extra $20 billion to spend he might have fared a little better over the weekend in the Victorian election. That's the size of the war-chest mooted by the NSW Liberal government as they head to the polls early next year, pledging to privatise the state's electricity networks.

"If you dress police officers up as soldiers and you put them in military vehicles and you give them military weapons, they adopt a warrior mentality. We fight wars against enemies, and the enemies are the people who live in our cities—particularly in communities of colour." —Thomas Nolan, criminology professor and former police officer

The entire Australian political establishment seized on the tragic deaths of 298 people in the crash of MH17 in Ukraine to ratchet up the escalating US led provocations against Russia.

For a man who had taken a stunning electoral blow two weeks earlier, Barack Obama completed his Asian trip with an air of unperturbed leadership of the world - whatever the Republicans at home thought about who was in charge of what now will happen in the United States.

In my view, the ABC is not ‘our’ ABC, nor is it ‘our beloved’ ABC. It certainly isn’t an ‘impartial’ ABC. It is up to its armpits in defending capitalism. Sometimes it questions aspects of capitalism, but more often it seems to be pushing a conservative agenda.

from Crikey …..

Defending the Abbott government’s decision to cut more than $300 million from the public broadcaster budgets yesterday, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the Prime Minister’s election eve commitment to make no cuts to the ABC or SBS must be taken in “context”.

Here at Crikey, we agree. Below is just some of the context we found while searching online this morning.

“Russia reinforced what Western and Ukrainian officials described as a stealth invasion on Wednesday [August 27], sending armored troops across the border as it expanded the conflict to a new section of Ukrainian territory. The latest incursion, which Ukraine’s military said included five armored personnel carriers, was at least the third movement of troops and weapons from Russia across the southeast part of the border this week.”