ABBOTT TO REAP WHAT HE SOWED

Journalist George Megalogenis predicted a few years ago that the job of government in the era of the 24-hour media cycle was going to be tough and get tougher. He foresaw a succession of one-term governments until somebody got the formula right.

Tony Abbott hit on what appears to be a stunningly successful tactic for opposition: oppose everything and flood the airwaves with constant rhetoric about how bad the government is. 

In his budget reply speech last night Bill Shorten intimated that he would be taking his cue as opposition leader from Abbott. As things stand, the GP co-payment, the single-parent tax benefit cut, the pension changes and the restriction of unemployment benefits to only 6 months in every year are unlikely to see the light of day, given that they will be opposed by Labor, the Greens and the Palmer United Party. Whether these opposition forces can be as effective as Abbott was remains to be seen.

It also remains to be seen whether Abbott can translate his effective opposition style into a way of governing. At this very early stage, with Shorten, Greens leader Christine Milne and Clive Palmer emphasising Abbott's pre-election dishonesty and declaring their unwillingness to compromise, it appears more likely that the prime minister will be forced to reap what he had earlier sowed.

RUSSELL MARKS

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/18/tony-abbott-voters-should-have-expected-my-budgets-sweeping-cuts

 

Thousands of people have gathered in cities across Australia to protest against the Federal Government's 2014 budget.

Protesters angered by the announced budget cuts to Government services - including health and education - crowded streets in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth today, as part of the nationwide March in May rallies.

Take a look at some of the photos you shared on social media.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-18/your-pics-march-in-may-rallies/5460482

when the mob of hypocrites in the Abbott regime tell you, "they have to take or make the HARD decisions", it is only a euphemism for shafting you (their heart bleeds) so that they and their rich mates get away with the loot (their heart bleeds)... And as usual it's always the fault of someone else... Bastards!

 

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Tony Abbott has conceded the government is cutting a hospitals funding agreement with immediate effect, contrary to his weekend claim that the cuts did not take effect for years.

On Sunday Abbott said: “We’re not talking about next week or next month or even next year; we are talking about changes in three years' time”.

But Abbott now agrees the national partnership agreement on public hospitals, which begins on 1 July, has been cut. Budget documents say it has been cut by $1.8bn over the next four years.

The prime minister says the reductions should be blamed on Labor because the former government had previously revised the agreement.

“There was a national partnerships agreement which the Labor party hadn’t funded on [hospital] beds and we have decided not to renew it, but this is a Labor cut, it is not a Coalition cut,” Abbott told the ABC.

But the budget document is clear that money has been cut by this government, stating: “The government will save $1.8bn over four years from 2014-15 by ceasing the funding guarantees under the national health reform agreement 2011 and revising commonwealth hospital funding arrangements from July 2017.”

read more : http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/19/hospital-cuts-begin-july-tony-abbott-admits

 

 

Newman and Abbott discuss budget dispute en route to cattleman's funeral

By Melinda Howells

o

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and Prime Minister Tony Abbott have discussed the federal budget "one-on-one" during a flight to Rockhampton.

Mr Newman and Mr Abbott travelled together to attend today's funeral of cattle industry figure Graeme Acton in central Queensland.

The Premier says he believes Mr Abbott has listened to his concerns about ongoing federal funding for health and education.

Yesterday, Mr Newman was one of the state and territory leaders who met to form a united front in condemning federal budget cuts to schools and hospitals.

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This funeral raises a couple of questions... 

has Tony Abbott gone at taxpayers expense as representing "the Government" for a rich grazier's funeral or as a friend of the family? Both raise questions. Was Mr Acton having a state funeral or a private funeral? Was Mr Acton's funeral more important than that of my local shopkeeper, Multa Consumalotedes, who was by and large a very generous person. Is importance measured to the amount of stuff one gives to this or that political party? Or one's ability to generate lots of cash by raising cattle? Or ride a horse? Or be generous?

Second lot of questions: Why is Newman and Abbott discussing the budget "privately" on their way to a funeral, leaving the other Premiers out of the loop?... Fair question. Is it divide and conquer tactics? We all know about these, don't we?... Is going to a funeral the right place to discuss a crooked budget?

Our sympathy to the family of Mr Acton, who I never knew existed till he died. But then I had not been told yet that:

 

Indeed Mr Acton has been widely praised for his role in advancing the sport of campdrafting and the beef industry.

For more than 150 years the Acton family has lived on the land and run a herd of more than 150,000 cattle across about 1.4million hectares in central and north-west Queensland.

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/leader-who-stood-tall-for-many-graeme-acton/2255137/

 

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THE FAMILY of charismatic cattleman Graeme Acton has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Service or the Royal Flying Doctor Service in his memory.

People can go to http://www.campdraft.com to donate online.

The Central Queensland cattle baron died in hospital on the weekend after a freak horse accident the weekend before.

The funeral service will take place at his home of Paradise Lagoons, at Fairy Bower, near Rockhampton, at 1pm on Monday.

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/help-rescue-icons-graeme-acton-helicopter-rescue/2259221/

 

Condolences...

 

When Tony Abbott compares the public response to "his" budget being similar to the public response to that of the first budget by John Howard, don't be fooled. John Howard's was a relative hit. Tony's has been received like a lead balloon full of crap...

 

PM is write-on

There are pressing issues for the book industry. Ensuring booksellers are competitive demands the imposition of GST on offshore online retailers. Fair remuneration for copyright creators and creators across all platforms is imperative if Australian writing is to continue to flourish. However, capturing the attention of the government of the day is never easy for the cultural industries. The announcement of the continuation of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards is therefore welcome (‘‘Tony Abbott chooses conservatives to judge the Prime Minister's literary awards’’, smh.com.au, May 24).

Book people aren’t generally conservative in their voting preferences so credit is surely due to both the Prime Minister and Minister for the Arts for attending the Australian book industry’s “night of nights”. No shoes were thrown as the Prime Minister addressed the 400 attendees, nor were there mass walkouts as somewhat breathlessly predicted. If Tony Abbott’s legacy is to be known as the Prime Minister for Books, that can only benefit Australian writers and readers.

Louise Adler President of the Australian Publishers Association, Carlton (Vic)

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/christopher-pyne-should-remember-the-benefits-of-a-uni-education-20140526-zrok3.html#ixzz32rckE7KR

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Tony Abbott has been called plenty of things in recent weeks, but he is not a misogynist, according to his publisher and the woman chosen to judge the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

Louise Adler, publisher of Mr Abbott's book Battlelines, has defended the Prime Minister, saying they are not at all like-minded, but he's no misogynist either.

''We speak to one another across the ideological chasm,'' she says. ''But he was terrific to work with. He couldn't be a more courteous, grateful author. And he actually responded to editorial suggestions.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-no-misogynist-says-his-publisher-louise-adler-20140525-38wv8.html#ixzz32rd7xzud


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The search to understand Louise Adler produces two lists. The first is composed of her supporters and admirers, who highly rate her intelligence, enthusiasm and vision. It's a group of people who are happy to stand up and be counted in the name of Adler.

The second list is slightly more problematic. They are the critics of Adler, and while many acknowledge her capabilities, their issues are with the way she works, her style, if you like. This list is largely in the shadows, for as is the nature of these things, few are prepared to put their names to their appraisals.

It is also fair to say that the second list has grown since the events of last August and September, when the Adler-led board at Methodist Ladies College oversaw the departure of much-loved principal Rosa Storelli. This was a very Melbourne stoush that shook the inner eastern suburbs establishment, which loved Storelli and trusted the education of their daughters to her.

...

Maxine McKew, the journalist turned Labor politician, is in the pro-Adler camp. Adler published McKew's Tales from the Political Trenches, her account of Labor in power.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/publisher-be-damned-20130329-2gyzt.html#ixzz32rdcFoJn

 

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Gus: It is unfortunate that Louise Adler, a very clever person in publishing in this country has taken upon herself to support Tony Abbott who is basically and exclusively dishonest. Tony Abbott lies. Tony Abbott is a despicable person.
How Adler can support this intellectual midget who is presently reducing support for the arts, thus intellectual thoughts, is beyond me. But Adler has always been her own "conservative" person — interested in publishing conservative thoughts. I respect her for that, though it is rather limiting. But most avant-garde publishers in this country have now gone conservative, while the old guard of revolutionary commie writers in this country have died off. Authors have become somewhat bourgeois and Adler and her publishers clique represent this shift — in which religious beliefs have played a very strong part, Adler being the chairperson of a Methodist college amongst other occupations. 
Lucky, the social media, though somewhat loopy at the best of time, is not yet completely overrun by this conservative disease. WE can still publish contrary avant garde intellectual discourses that should be done by publishing houses. 
McKew is also a very religious Catholic person. This is one character who of course supported the other Catholic, Rudd, despite Rudd being all over the place (and sometimes very rude) — against the atheist Gillard. Gillard may not have been the best at all time but she still was a thousand times better than Rudd and Tony Abbott. Of course Adler supported Abbott against Gillard in the misogynist war... Gillard of course was correct to attack Tony on his (closet) misogynist views. 

PM Abbott is off the planet and definitely not write-on...

A whole shoe-store of shoes should have been thrown at Abbott on the night of publishing nights, and most authors in the room would have been at their publisher's table. It would have been bad manner for them to leave the room, especially with the mind of authors focused on survival and possibly imagining "wrongly of course" that their "generous" publishers might cast them adrift for showing some revolutionary traits and leave the room... Authors are usually shy people who can shut up.

Adler is wrong...

 

 

This time, as that same PM passed him his award, he said it would all be going to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

"The lesson that my father took from the POW camps was that the measure of any civilised society was its willingness to look after its weakest. Money is like shit, my father used to say. Pile it up and it stinks. Spread it around and you can grow things," he said.

Flanagan said words were the first beautiful things his father knew, and he wanted to help close the Indigenous literacy gap.

"If just one of those children in turn becomes a writer, if just one brings to Australia and to the world an idea of the universe that arises out of that glorious lineage of 60,000 years of Australian civilisation, then I will think this prize has rewarded not just me, but us all," he said.

Bob Graham, who won the Children's Fiction Award for Silver Buttons, a tale of a boy taking his first step, said he was giving some of his prize money to asylum seekers.

"I like to think that after the book is closed that he will grow into a man who will have empathy and understanding and compassion for what he sees out there," he said of his character.

"And it's in this spirit that I would like to donate $10,000 to the asylum seeker resource centre here in Melbourne."

The Prime Minister used the night to announce the creation of the Book Council of Australia, conceding the arts were too often viewed as the province of the left.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-09/richard-flanagan-wins-pm27s-literary-award3b-gives-away-prize/5953222

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Of course, right-wing art often looks like Hitlerian mausoleums decorated with butterflies resembling F-11s. In most right wing writing, history becomes fiction and the introspection of the soul is left to hand-written drug-prescriptions from psycho-analysts in Double Bay.

Right-wing art is basically vacant in the loft department, unless one adds zealoted faith from the stained glass windows in high churches and the festooned expensive caskets at funeral parlours.

For Tony to try to redress the challenging and questioning demands of art is pitiful, though I guess his vision of "art" could extend to endless gilded-framed-repeated landscapes of one Eucalyptus tree shading a cow on the right hand side of course, in front of a sprawling countryside full of sheep.

See story above and toon at top...

 

 

Controversy continues to swirl around the prime minister’s literary awards with poet Les Murray criticising Tony Abbott’s “nasty” intervention to share a top prize between two authors.

Abbott presented the $80,000 prize for fiction to Steven Carroll for A World of Other People, and Richard Flanagan for The Narrow Road to the Deep North in Melbourne on Monday. It later emerged that Abbott had stepped in at the last minute to overrule the judges, who wanted to award the prize to Carroll alone. 

Abbott has final say over who gets the prize, according to the rules of the award: “The prime minister will make the final decision on the awarding of the awards, taking into account the recommendations of the judges.”

On Thursday, Murray, who was a judge on the fiction panel, labelled Flanagan’s novel about the Burma railway as a “pretentious and stupid book” and expressed his anger that Abbott “went behind the scenes and worked a swifty.”

He told the Australian the judges had no idea of the change until the night of the awards, and that a majority of the panel had “rejected” Flanagan’s book.

Murray told the Sydney Morning Herald it was “deeply offensive” to ask if politics had played a part in their choice.

The prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Abbott’s intervention.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/11/australia-still-constructive-in-climate-talks-despite-julie-bishops-rhetoric

I believe that Tony Turdy had not read any of the books when he awarded "the prizes". The decision seems to have been done on political values alone. Who knows with this idiot? Always shooting from the hip with silly blanks in all directions to the right.