Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne have cancelled a planned visit to Victoria's Deakin University on Wednesday, citing fears about their safety during the national day of student protests against higher education cuts.

The prime minister and the education minister’s visit to the Geelong campus to open a research facility coincided with nationwide demonstrations organised by the National Union of Students.

Students are protesting against the government’s budget plans to cut the public funding of university courses by 20% on average and deregulate fees, allowing universities to charge as much as they wish.

“The advice from the Australian Federal Police was that they were concerned about the safety, particularly of innocent bystanders, because [Wednesday] is the students' national day of action, so-called, where they're protesting against having to contribute more to their own education,” Pyne told the ABC’s Lateline program.

“So the prime minister made a decision, and his office, that it would be wiser to not go and create that tumult at Deakin University, so students can get on with their studies unmolested by the Socialist Alternative, which seem quite intent on shutting down democracy in Australia.”

Pyne said the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, and the former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella had been targeted by protesters at universities recently. He said people should be free to express their opinions without being "molested or assaulted".

"It's a great shame of course in the modern era that this would be the case but since the Q&A show about two weeks ago it's been clear that the Socialist Alternative students are trying to make a point and shut down other people's opinions in the debate, which is a great pity."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/tony-abbott-and-christopher-pyne-cancel-university-visit-amid-safety-fears

Er... What debate?... I though we were being shafted, full stop. 

But wait some pigs are more equal than you, swines...:

Tony Abbott’s daughter Frances received a “chairman’s scholarship” for a degree costing more than $60,000 from the Whitehouse Institute of Design where an Abbott donor sits as chairman on the board of governors, Guardian Australia can reveal.

The revelation raises questions for the prime minister over whether the scholarship should have been declared on his interests register.

The Coalition government is also under pressure over changes to higher education funding announced in the budget.

Frances Abbott undertook a bachelor of design at the Whitehouse Institute of Design in Sydney from 2011 to 2013. Guardian Australia has confirmed that she received a scholarship during her time at the institute.

“Frances definitely was a student with us and received a chairman’s scholarship,” Leanne Whitehouse, director of the Institute told Guardian Australia. She declined to detail how many times the “chairman’s scholarship” has been awarded previously, but the institute’s website makes no references to the scholarship and states the institute “does not currently offer scholarships to gain a place into the Bachelor of Design”.

Members of parliament are required to disclose gifts above specified threshold limits with additional requirements for ministers where a gift is retained.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/tony-abbotts-daughter-did-not-have-to-pay-for-60000-design-degree

I won't go into the details of Joe having found that the articles by the SMH about "treasurer for Sale" was repugnant to him... That's for their lawyers to discuss over a beer in a court pub, though my feeling is that should the North Sydney Bizo Club of fund raising for Joe had organised for some people to pay cash to be at the preview of the budget release with discussion, then Joe should address his repugnancy towards his North Sydney mates if they did not tell him what they were doing, basically selling front seats and access to him. Access to the treasurer for sale? For sure. 

But where I find Joe, the treasurer for hitting pensioners on the head, far more repugnant than he could even muster to refuse to be called "for sale" which his mate were doing, is that he had the outrageous temerity to challenge Tony Jones about whether his $7 co-payment to visit the doctor was a tax or not... He even argued that it was coming out the tax payers pocket, the idiot. No, Yes, No, Yes, Joe is taking us for fools, as if we did not know a tax when we saw one.

He and his his mates Tony and co were the repugnant experts telling us about the "carbon tax" at every street corners when the blither was set up like an ETS-enforcement to make heavy "polluters" in CO2 emissions cough up, and the heavy users of air conditioning on the North Shore pay up... I did my bit. I could have claimed for the rebate but did not though I was entitled to it. I did my duty to the future.

And Joe has the gall not to call his $7 flat tax a tax because it "does not go to consolidated revenue"... Yes it goes to a con job — a fund for medical research possibly invested in a portfolio in which cigar making companies might figure prominently...

Get a life Joe, you're making ours a yellow belly-laughing misery.

You always know politicians are desperate when they start talking about CCTV cameras on street corners. It usually happens towards the end of election campaigns, but on Friday Tony Abbott reached for this most micro of populist issues at the end of a week that left his macro budget sales pitch in tatters.

Travelling to Campbelltown in western Sydney to re-announce the “safer streets program” – it was an election promise and already included in the attorney-general’s portfolio statements in the budget – the prime minister said this tiny spend ($6.4m for NSW and $50m nationwide from a budget that cut total spending in net terms by more than $15bn over the next four years) was important because it showed it had been “a budget for building as well as for saving”.

But voters are not buying the message. For good reason.

In a gently self-deprecatory speech announcing a press gallery journalism award this week (boy, he must have really felt like doing that), Abbott noted that journalism was one of only a few professions held in lower esteem that politics, and then joked: “Some might say I am contributing to closing that gap.”

But it is precisely because of the budget’s broken promises, on top of the underlying general scepticism about the truthfulness of all politicians, that his budget sell has been so spectacularly unsuccessful.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/23/the-verdict-is-unequivocal-the-budget-is-inequitable

Actually, the whole thing about politicians and journalists is a furphy... One of the major problem has been that in both profession (if one can call politics a profession) is that some spruikers, liars and opinionators infiltrate the space and destroy the dedicated professional ideals... This is why, someone like Alan Jones denies being a "journalist". But people still think of him as an important source of news — albeit coated with his brand of crap.

Opininationing is not journalism, but this slanted version of the news commentariat has usurped the role of journalists in reporting the "reality". In the commercial news reporting, the slant is spread thick like butter on toast. In the public broadcasting news report, the journalists are obliged to mention opposing views even if those views are complete rubbish, especially as demonstrated by scientific evidence.

In politics, clever idiots like Tony Abbott are masters at telling fibs. And they have no remorse for telling lies. Despite their claimed religious beliefs which should limit their propensity to lie, they hover very close to psychopathic hypocrisy. The difference between these imbecilic snake oil merchants who are taking over the political spectrum and the slanted opinionated spruikers who are taking over the journalist profession is that the lying politician constructs ways to control and affect your life in a hard-wired way. The opinionators can be dismissed by either not listen to them and/or telling them to piss off.

Dangerous politicians like Tony Abbott become encrusted in your lounge room without you having any means to protect yourself from them, but to throw them out every three years or so — or until the next time you give them another chance because they told you new porkies you will trust despite your better sense of kicking the bastards in the arse.

Bad politicians are actually below the bad journalists. Bad politicians are turds at the bottom of the barrel. They can affect your life far more than a rotten spruiker of crap. Bad politicians will inflict you with pain... Tony Abbott is a bad politician, a turd, though clever at getting to the surface of the broth.

Good journalist are as good as good politicians. They are both honourable professions. But they are, unlike engineers or doctors, inclined to be infiltrated by far too many artful dodgers and lying turds... Pity.

FORMER “first bloke” Tim Mathieson has launched an extraordinary attack on Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s wife, Margie, saying she is not doing enough charity work.

...

“I’m disappointed that she is not doing any charity work,” Mr Mathieson told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“What is she doing? Because I did 60 charity events. She has not contributed to any of them.”

But the Prime Minister’s office hit back, releasing details of the gifts and corporate hospitality afforded to Mr Mathieson when his partner, Julia Gillard, was PM - including valuable sporting memorabilia and tickets to major sporting events.

A spokeswoman for Mrs Abbott outlined a host of charity and community, health and education events she had attended in recent months.

http://www.news.com.au/national/former-first-bloke-tim-mathiesons-bizarre-attack-on-margie-abbott-over-charity-work/story-fncynjr2-1226930687030

-------------------------

Gus as Tony Abbott, her husband, is planning to destroy fair education for all and proper health services, the first lady, Margie Abbott, is going to be busy like a fly in a jar, doing extra charity work... Unless this is the real plan by the little turd. Kill off education and health government services so that private charities can take over these gigs...

The American expression is, “Will it play in Peoria?” turning on the notion that what the people of Peoria, Illinois think is a great indication of what Middle America thinks, so you need to frame your politics accordingly. Now, I am not saying that Mangrove Mountain is our Peoria, but I tell you what, it is wonderful heartland Australia, generally conservative, and as I grew up there – and have been up and down every highway and byway as a kid, helping Dad hand out How to Vote Liberal cards – I know it well. Mum was even a prime mover in getting the Mangrove Mountain Community News started in the early 1970s. And here’s my point. The last edition of that august journal carried this well-known joke.

A fellow arrives up at the pearly gates and is going through his screening by St Peter.  He could not help but ask St Peter why he had all those clocks on the wall behind him. St Peter said: “My son they are lie clocks. They register every time you tell a lie. Take this one for example, it never once moved. It is Saint Teresa’s clock. Here’s another interesting one. It is the clock of Abraham Lincoln. It moved twice which means that in his whole life he only told two lies.”

Our man was intrigued and asked: “St Peter, where is Tony Abbott’s clock?”

“Oh, Jesus has it in his office. Uses it as a ceiling fan.”