First rule of politics: Don't mock those who elect you.

Second rule: Especially when you're on camera.

Third rule: Especially not grandmothers.

Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott is not having a good week.

Battered in the polls and facing street protests after a first budget that seems to have been badly misjudged, he's now been caught on video laughing at an angry and distressed voter on a radio phone-in show.

The woman, who's a grandmother, called in to ask the prime minister how she was expected to survive financially in the wake of tax increases and cuts to public services.

She told him she worked on an adult sex phone line to try and make ends meet.

At this point Mr Abbott can be seen winking at the ABC host, smirking and trying to suppress a laugh.

He then appears to glance over at an adviser and quickly tries to adopt a more concerned expression.

It doesn't look great.

I've written before that sometimes Mr Abbott's so-called 'gaffes' may actually in fact be calculated to add to his "blokey" appeal.

But in a week where he's already been heavily under fire, I suspect this wasn't the case this time.

His Treasurer Joe Hockey has already come across as arrogant in the eyes of many.

First: when he was caught smoking Cuban cigars in the days before delivering his "age of entitlement is over" budget.

And secondly: when it emerged Mr Hockey had danced to the song"This Is The Best Day of My Life" just moments before announcing thousands of job cuts.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27498215

It has been my reliable information from impeccable sources (as long as you believe in impeccable in the liberal party) that Tony won't get through winter unscathed... May the god of detritus hear you my son... In some circles, Malcolm is 5 to one, Joe is 25 to one and Pyne a trillion to one. The dark horse is Brandis.

Indigenous groups say Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy may as well be written on the "back of a beer coaster" after the Abbott Government's budget decision to scrap an independent council.

The warnings come as the Council of Australian Governments Reform Council releases its final report, which shows that after five years of government spending on Closing The Gap there have been promising gains in education but the unemployment divide is getting wider.

There are few policy areas more vexed for the major parties than Indigenous affairs and leading Aboriginal figures say the independent reports that the COAG Reform Council provides are vitally important.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda, is concerned about the Federal Government's decision to scrap the council in June.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-23/closing-the-gap3a-gains-made-in-indigenous-education2c-unempl/5472408

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Road-toll Shepherd?... Yes, Tony Shepherd — the "architect" of this budget of horrors — is famous for building tunnels and road tolls... see:  the narrow sectional interests are bloody large...

I believe people are not as happy in Aussieland as they used to: tony abbott helped this country down the ladder...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fPXkUXXFoCw

Tony Abbott never understood much about anything, apart from wrecking the joint I believe... We've see the man in action... It's very ugly so far. The amount of Tony's lies has reached sky high and there is no limit. Though I detailed them somewhere in my piddley writings here, I forgot exactly why I called him a turd but I think I did it for good reasons. Be assured too, nepotism is not a dirty words in the Liberal (CONservative) party...

Now, there are small hints of "double dissolution" floating around because Tony is having a quiet plotted war-room tantrum while trying to get away with butchering the fair economy of this country — and trying to con the other side of politics to acquiesce to his folly, by taunting it...

But beware, it will be a hard punch up — though necessary — as one will have to fight tooth and nails.

The merde-och press, already feral against Labor, will go apeshit against anyone who is against the Liberals (CONservatives)... The fanatical spruikers will use all the dirtiest smart tricks in the book, not so much out of enlightened convictions that promotes fairness and equality, but out of spiteful rabid convictions that promote their rich mates opportunism to the hilt... 

The sad part here is that many small businesses, very much helped by Labor through the tough time of the GFC — the same businesses now more or less shafted by Abbott's silly May budget — will carry on supporting him because he is "in the same camp" of idealising cash as an end, not as a means. Idiots.

As well, most of the Liberals (CONservatives) rabid right wingnuts refuse to see the reality of our ruthless ways that have had strong impacts on nature and on the planet, including the warming of atmosphere...

In regard to global warming, records after records are broken daily: Floods in Serbia (the worse since record started there, record temperatures in May in Sydney, Australia and many more "changes" to come. Global warming is real. Pricing carbon is one of the better ways to help reduce out emissions sooner than later, without destroying the joint... Tony has no clue. He does not want to know.

Get rid of Tony Abbott. Maintain the rage.

Alan Austin updates IA's running tally of hypocrisies and broken promises by Australia's most mendacious ever prime minister — Tony Abbott.

The one positive to emerge from the most destructive budget in Australia’s post-war history is that it has silenced all those claiming Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are honourable men.

No-one can now claim they are governing in the nation’s interest. No-one can assert they tell the truth. No-one can deny that they have broken multiple promises.

As recently as 3 May, Rupert Murdoch’s mendacious national paper The Australian ran a story headed

‘Abbott didn’t break any promises’.

Here at Independent Australia, however, 25 specific broken commitments weredocumented in early February.

The Murdoch media have now changed tack: Okay, Abbott and Hockey have broken a few dozen promises. But who cares?

They are pushing this line quite openly now, with headlines such as ‘Our futile fascination with broken promises’ in the Daily Telegraph.

On the positive side, Fairfax publications have broken ranks with Murdoch and are calling the shattered assurances for what they are.

So, what is the official IA tally of broken promises and blatant hypocrisies?

The first 13 were documented in November.

The next 12 were detailed here in February.

1. There have been no broken promises

2. Respecting a government’s mandate

3. Freedom of information

4. Toowoomba Range bypass plan

5. Reporting the budget position

6. Justifying the debt ceiling

7. Reducing the nation’s debt

8. Returning the budget to surplus

9. The UN Security Council seat

10. Foreign minister’s first trip abroad

11. Relations with the region

12. National broadband network

13. Stopping the boats

14. Spending his first week with the Yolngu

15. Open and accountable government

16. Cuts to pensions

17. School attendances

18. Government job for Sophie Mirabella

19. No deals with the Greens

20. ABC and SBS funding

21. Subsidies to industries

22. Monitoring whaling

23. Increased funds for aid agencies

24. Entering Indonesia waters

25. We will not tow back the boats

That list has been expanded with several bizarre decisions, some Abbott took with no consultation with cabinet colleagues.

26. No knighthoods for Australia

In December 2013 Abbott ruled out reinstating the archaic regal gongs, saying:

“I just don't think that's realistic in this country.”

Thirteen weeks later, Abbot reinstated knighthoods.

27. No public servants to be forced out of work

Abbott was explicit before the election: “no forced redundancies”.

In Parliament, however, it was disclosed that Department of Industry employees have been forced out.

28. Incarcerating children offshore

In 2012, Opposition shadow treasurer Joe Hockey – now treasurer – actually wept in Parliament over this outrageous idea:

“I will never ever support a people swap where you can send a 13-year-old child unaccompanied to a country without supervision — never! It will be over my dead body. How dare people!”

Now in power, the Abbott Government is sending children, including those with no family, into imprisonment at Nauru and Manus Island.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told a November 2013 press conference:

“… it doesn’t matter whether you’re a child, it doesn’t matter whether you’re pregnant, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a woman, it doesn’t matter whether you’re an unaccompanied minor, it doesn’t matter if you have a health condition, if you’re fit enough to get on a boat then you can expect you’re fit enough to end up in offshore processing.”

The list of smashed promises expanded substantially when last week’s budget broke Abbott’s few remaining pre-election pledges:

"No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS."

29. No cuts to education

The promise was explicit: that Labor’s funding under the Gonski reforms would be matched and “no school would be worse off” over the next four years.

In the Budget, however, school funding rises by just $54.1m in 2017-18, which effectively freezes school funding at the 2017 level in real terms.

30. Raising university fees

Education Minister Christopher Pyne was adamant on Sky News in November 2013:

“We’re not going to raise fees. I’m not even considering it because we promised that we wouldn’t.”

The budget slashed funding for university courses and exposed students to huge debt increases with the removal of caps on fees universities can charge.

31. No cuts to health

In August, Abbott said:

“I am giving an absolute commitment that the overall levels of health funding will be maintained."

The budget announced, however, that hospital funding agreements with the states and territories under Labor will be wound back from 2017, cutting a massive $50 billion over eight years.

32. Closing Medicare locals

Before the election, Abbott was explicit in response to a direct question:

"We are not shutting any Medicare Locals."

The budget announced that the entire network of 61 community health centreswill be scrapped.

33. Funding on direct action

According to Climate Spectator, the budget shows annual funding allocations from 2014-15 to 2017-18 for the government’s centrepiece climate change program

'... are $1.4 billion lower, or less than half, what the Coalition had promised before the 2013 Federal Election.' 

34. Consultancy spending to be cut

Abbott in opposition repeatedly promised to cut spending by

“... vastly reducing the number of consultancies ...”

The May budget allocates a staggering $91 million to pay consultants from the top end of town for their advice on the sale of Medibank Private.

 

35. Aboriginal land rights

At the Garma festival in north-east Arnhem Land last August Abbott promised to

“... do whatever I humanly can in government to bring this [improved land rights for Aboriginal people] about."

As funding for research and for legal aid for land claims across Australia is critical, all Aboriginal land claimants were looking expectantly at the May budget.

They got nothing.

36. No new taxes

The deficit levy imposes an extra 2% tax on all income above $180,000 a year.

37. Using the state of the economy as an excuse for breaking promises

Melbourne ABC Radio host Jon Faine challenged Abbott directly on the likelihood he would blame the state of the economy for changing his policies after the election.

Abbott denied this possibility point blank:

"It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.”

Yet after the election Abbott has done precisely that. Forty times.

38. This will be a government of no surprises

The New Daily:

The one secret they didn’t tell us before the budget is that the Federal government plans to save $80 billion over the next ten years by giving the states less money to run our schools and hospitals.

The other big surprise in this budget is that, over the government’s first four years, it makes hardly any net savings at all. 

39. The burden will be shared evenly

 

Tony Abbott: You Don't Have To Lie To Get Elected But It Helps Play Video

 

Abbott and Hockey repeatedly said that the heavy lifting would be shared across the community.

All reliable analysis shows that, in contrast, the poor are hit hardest – losing as much as 10% of their income – while the rich are barely slugged at all.

40. Families should be off limits in politics

Abbott and his wife shamelessly exploited their three daughters through the 2013 election campaign to construct the perception that theirs was a functional nuclear family.

Now, with daughter Frances in the spotlight over what appears on the surface to be corrupt payments for her degree, Abbott declares:

“I think family should be off-limits when it comes to party political contention."

That’s 40 broken promises and blatant hypocrisies. In just 37 weeks.

Questions arising include these:

Has there ever been a government in any modern democracy with a record of duplicity this extensive so soon in a term of office?

What do Abbott’s colleagues make of this tawdry performance? How long before Abbott is challenged by Malcolm Turnbull or another ambitious starter?

Meanwhile, what does it do to the nation’s moral standing and sense of pride and confidence to have a proven liar and conman as elected leader?

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/pm-abbotts-top-40-broken-promises-and-blatant-hypocrisies--so-far,6512

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Paul Sheehan writes in The Sydney Morning Herald

"I'm determined to learn from all of this," the Prime Minister said of his self-immolating lapse in anointing the Duke of Edinburgh with an Australian knighthood, which compounded the adverse impact of the anachronistic, self-indulgent, zero-upside honours system he introduced in his first year.

Abbott is unlikely to learn from this, other than to become even more cautious and robotic. You cannot learn what you refuse to know. He is a bulldog who will not let go of a course of action which, without an end to his bunker insularity, and a change in his relationship with the electorate, will see him removed either before the next election or at the next election.

His party is already moving. The phones are running hot. They will not turn to the deputy leader, Julie Bishop. It will be Malcolm Turnbull.

The seeds of this unnecessary damage were sown a long time ago. Why did Senator Nick Minchin, the senate opposition leader who engineered Abbott's elevation to the party leadership, step down as senate leader within months of Abbott becoming leader? Minchin would leave politics altogether a year later, for a variety of reasons.

Without Minchin, Abbott would never have been leader. Without Minchin, or the gravitas of a Minchin equivalent, Abbott is not going to survive his present course.

Why has the likeable, knockabout Abbott turned into Gillard II? The public never bought Julia Gillard's robotic prime ministerial persona, or the manner by which she took power, which guaranteed her demise long before it happened.

read more

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-has-much-bigger-problems-than-...

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Up until the paragraph previous to mentioning Julia, Paul Sheehan was cooking Tony nicely... Suddenly his stove blew up and he started to compare Abbott and Julia...

Hold on Paul, whether you liked Julia or not, the media poured hell on Gillard for taking Rudd on, a Rudd who did not have the courage to go to a Labor ballot and fight: he knew the results. 0 for him and 100 for Julia. He knew that. Thereafter the media (all the MMMM under the guidance of all the spruikers and News Limited) AND Kevin Rudd got in bed to damage Labor and Julia Gillard as much as possibly. They were horrible to her. And she survived well, despite all the crap that Tony was throwing at her. She managed to hold back the destructive onslaught on the social fabric of this country from the "business" "community" who made sure that Tony was a shoo-in NOT Malcolm. Another vote that was useful in Tony's leadership ascendancy was that of SLIPPER... who as we all know was shafted by Tony Abbott for placing his hands in the travel allowance cookie jar while Abbott himself did that 30 times over.

Overall, Julia Gillard may have been a thorny rose... but Tony Abbott is a lying heap of shit. NO COMPARISON ALLOWED. And by the way, the media has been sucking to Tony Abbott for so long, the media forgot to investigate the turd. All the Tony melodrama is self-inflicted... Boom!

See toon at top...