Category Archives: Politics – Australian

Help solve a mystery

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As anyone who has read my views over the years would know, Malcolm has never been my cup of tea, but when it came to the election last year, I was all in for the Libs. After the by-election yesterday, he will now lead the Libs into the next election and I am good with that. Surround even a very faulty Prime Minister with the right sort of party and things can work out. In politics, you pick the side you prefer and hope for the best. Perfection in everything is not to be expected. You are lucky to get a 51-49 for most of what is up for grabs, and often enough you are choosing 40-60 in preference to 30-70.

But this time I am coming back to a question I raised yesterday in an oblique sort of way. This is what I ask for an answer to. I know there are #NeverTrumpers and #AntiTrumpers out there but what exactly could they have expected to have occurred instead had Hillary or someone else been elected? To me it remains a mystery. What were they looking for and why is Donald Trump not at least about as good as one could have hoped for in an American president at the present time, with the political and media ebbs and flows being what they are?

ONE OF THE ANSWER FROM THE COMMENTS: This was from Peter which is how I look at things but not how everyone does.

“What were they looking for……….”

To be honest I am sure they do not know themselves. The Left has become seriously detached from reality. Reality is not a part of their design or to out it another way reality is not a part of their personal reality. They are into symbolism, rhetoric, political correctness, ideology and narratives. They wanted Hillary to be President for much the same reason they wanted Obama. He was a black man and that was enough. Therefore he could do no wrong even though clearly he was one of the worst Presidents ever and she is a woman and a symbol and therefore could do no wrong even if she turned out (as I am sure she would) to have been the most corrupt President ever.

Trump on the other hand was old, male and white. That is all they needed to know about him and was enough to condemn him in this time of insanity and hatred of western civilization. One small example. Hillary and Obama set the middle east on fire. Then they fiddled while it burned. Trump came to power, and in his first year in office was responsible for wiping out ISIS. The Left must hate that as nothing better personifies the failure of their ideologies and the hopelessness of Obama and Clinton.

My sentiments almost to the “t”. Truth to tell as far as I can work it out, for the left it’s tribal and all anti-this and anti-that. What they are for, other than fantasy, I am unable to tell. I cannot talk policy with such people since they never tell me the route to what they wish to achieve even when the can find the words to tell me what outcomes they seek. They just want things that are completely contrary to human nature as it has always been and ever will be.

The only thing Obama ever said I can wholeheartedly agree with

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From The Australian via Andrew Bolt:

It’s one of former ambassador Kim Beazle y’s favourite White House stories: the time Tony Abbott met Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

“I was deeply worried,” Beazley told an audience gathered for a superannuation conference in Sydney yesterday. “It didn’t matter if it was social policy, or environmental policy, whatever it was, Tony Abbott had a totally different view to Barack Obama.”

Beazley diligently prepared briefing notes for the visiting PM, but Abbott wasn’t interested.

“It’s all bullshit. Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to use any of this stuff,” Beazley recalled Abbott saying.

So in they went to the Oval Office to find Obama, vice-president Joe Biden, secretary of defence Chuck Hagel, secretary of state John Kerry and national security adviser Susan Rice.

“I thought, ‘My god we are in for a belting’.”

Obama opened: “Courteous, erudite, pointed,” Beazley recalled, dreamily.

Then the president handed over to Abbott. Perhaps you might like to say something?

“Well, Mr President, I don’t actually have a list of complaints,” Beazley recalled Abbott opening. “I know most people who come to this office have a list of complaints. I’ve got nothing to complain about to you. Others come with a list of things that they want from you. We don’t want anything from you.”

Tony Abbott and Barack Obama
Tony Abbott and Barack Obama

Beazley recalled Abbott continuing: “But I want to say one thing. I think you’re about to get into a lot of trouble in the Middle East. And when you do, I want you to understand this. We are going to be with you and we are going to be with you in numbers.”

Our former ambassador still remembers a sharp intake of breath along the line of Americans.

Australia’s 28th prime minister certainly made an impact.

Beazley said for months after that encounter, it was reported back to him that whenever Obama was frustrated by his various opponents, domestic or international, he would say: “We need more Tony Abbotts.”

“Trusting the ABC was a rookie mistake”

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An interesting article about the hysterics at the ABC and their fellow hysteric our interim Prime Minister: Four Corners stopped truth from ruining its ripping yarn. It’s about how nothing has come of the Royal Commission after “the ABC’s Four Corners announced to the world that the Northern Territory ‘tortured children’, and engaged in ‘barbarism’ in facilities such as Don Dale”. Here’s how the article ends.

During conversations with Four Corners, I sought and repeatedly was given assurances that the highest ethical standards were being applied. In the opinion of other news outlets, trusting the ABC was a rookie mistake. That trust was why it was given the ­extraordinary access.

Those ethical standards can be found in the ABC’s Code of Practice under the heading Impartiality and Diversity of Perspectives. I believe Four Corners failed all five guidelines.

The ABC is a federally funded public service organisation. It withheld information from a Prime Minister and based on partial information the Prime Minister made a call to spend $50m. Since that time, the ABC has declared its footage unavailable; attempted to suppress evidence before a royal commission; and, when asked, has refused to investigate itself. Even an ABC journalist referred to it as a “hatchet job”.

If the royal commission report does not deliver scalps or, worse still, fails to even recommend criminal investigations and prosecutions, it will be because the information that led to its establishment was deeply flawed and misleading.

“Deeply flawed and misleading” – given the way it operates I thought that was already the first item on the ABC’s Code of Practice in how it presents the news.

Look Malcolm just Get-up and go

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It’s from The Saturday Paper so they are obviously not trying to help the Libs, but it wouldn’t be the first time they got something like that wrong. The story is titled: Turnbull sought GetUp! help before spill. Via Tim Blair who has his own take on all this: GETUP! AND GO TO HELL which you might consider worth a look. But first read this:

The request from Christopher Pyne was simple but unexpected. Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership was in trouble, and he was hoping GetUp! might help do numbers for him.

It was the last Saturday of November in 2009 and the phone call was to Simon Sheikh, then national director of the activist group.

“He complained that conservative organisations, particularly the Australian Christian Lobby, were contacting MPs to advocate support for Abbott,” Sheikh says. “He asked if I could organise for people to email or call MPs in support of Turnbull.”

Pyne had specifics in mind. He offered to provide GetUp! with a list of about 10 undecided MPs, whose votes might be swayed by a lobbying campaign. Given the events of this week, it seems particularly curious in hindsight.

Sheikh and Pyne had established a reasonable relationship, although the MP had expressed his frustration that GetUp! did not sufficiently distinguish between moderate Liberals such as himself and the party’s conservatives.

My problem is that I can barely distinguish between what Pyne thinks of as “moderate Liberals” and the ALP.

You would think they would hope we would all forget

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From today’s Cut & Paste in The Oz:

We gave him a hard time in 2007? We gave him our endorsement. The Australian’s editorial, November 23, 2007:

Mr Rudd has spoken of recapturing some of the reform zeal of the Hawke and Keating years … We recognise that no change is free of risk, but we recommend a vote for Mr Rudd.

The Australian preferred Kevin ’07 to John Howard! Why would you bring it up? Have you no shame!

This will be THE major issue at the next election

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Greens, Labor sink Peter Dutton’s citizenship crackdown:

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s overhaul of Australian citizenship laws have suffered a major setback with his reforms unable to pass the parliament ahead of a Senate imposed deadline — an outcome hailed as a “major victory” by Labor and the Greens.

The proposed shake-up would have increased the permanent residency requirement for citizenship from one to four years and imposed a tougher English language requirement on aspiring Australians.

The changes — which would also have required applicants to demonstrate they had integrated into Australian society — were due to take effect from the date of their announcement by Mr Dutton on April 20.

Mr Dutton said the government remained “committed to strengthening citizenship”, and flagged that negotiations would continue with crossbench Senators, although no-timeline has been set on the passage of any revamped package.

“It’s a shame that Bill Shorten is so weak that he has to capitulate to the hard left of the Labor Party against the national interest,” Mr Dutton said.

And from the comments. The top 20 and not one supporting Labor and the Greens:

According to Green Senator Nick McKim “Peter Dutton tried to tear down multicultural Australia and remake it in his own hateful image.” Why is improving the quality of immigrants by showing they are willing and able to integrate “hateful”? Interesting that the Green’s loyalty is to foreigners over Australian interests. If the Greens had their way, by about Easter we would be overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands from the worst societies in the world and Greens would celebrate this apocalypse and victim factory as “compassionate”. Deranged.

Yes I can see why Labor and the Greens would not like the proposed citizenship test. You might actually need some intelligence and education to pass it.

Labor and The Greens working for Get Up!/ George Soros. Dumped files show influence of George Soros on Western politics

“Hailed as a “major victory” by Labor and the Greens.” The message here? Labor and the Greens get into power again its open borders and more boats. Its like ground hog day.

More damage done to this country by the left-leaning unrepresentative swill.

Just shows that if Labor get back into power it will be refugee-a-rama. Non stop boats from all directions.

When I applied for citizenship it was dependent on four or five years permanent residence. I believe that persisted throughout the Howard years. Presumably the one year requirement was another “progressive” move by the comrades.

There’s something strange and quite disturbing about Labor and The Greens show more allegiance to foreigners than they do Aussies. It’s an absolute disgrace.

FFS! Whose side are labor and greens on? Ours or some militant islamists?

The ALP/Greens veto of Dutton’s law changes is outrageous and my real thoughts to this bastardry would be unprintable. Beyond contempt.

Australian citizenship is a privilege, not a right. 1 year of residence is not enough to earn this!!

May as well call an election and get it over with. Labor and the Greens are already using the Senate to control the country.

The dreaded dysfunctional Senate strikes again. Making it very hard for the Government to Govern. Time to dispose of the Senate once and for all.

& the One Nation vote just jumped another couple of percentage points!

Labor and the greens will open borders and destroy this country. A big loss for Australia

What is so very wrong with what Dutton is proposing. I support him 100%. There are those in the Senate without a brain cell between them, and they usually vote as a bloc, so I guess we get just what we vote for.

Labor and the Greens consider Australian citizenship cheap.

People smugglers in Java will be checking that their boats are fueled up. (Seaworthiness not a consideration.)

This Bill Shorten is really a piece of work. The average Aussie supports Dutton on this as we have had enough of mass immigration and poor quality immigration. Bill you have it wrong big time!!!!

Labor and the Greens celebrate the continuing abuse of Australia. They will do absolutely anything to try and get the ethnic vote

We know all about the Greens but it’s now abundantly clear Labor doesn’t care about this country. It’s all about power at any cost. We have an energy crisis that will only get worse and it’s a threat to the health, wellbeing and lives of millions of Australians but Labor would rather play cheap politics than work towards a long term solution. Massive growing debt – don’t look to Labor to help resolve it. Now Dutton tries to sharpen up citizenship laws and Labor says no to that too. They are despicable.

Might also mention that Dutton has the right idea on climate change as well.

The same-sex survey is not anonymous

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We have just received our survey form and on the ballot itself there is a bar code and the bar code is different for my wife’s ballot and mine. So far as I can tell, how I vote will be known to someone at the ABS, and perhaps to many many others. The accompanying letter does not give me confidence:

Your response is confidential, by law. It cannot be connected to you. The ABS will destroy all information after the survey is collected.

My assumption was that I would get two envelopes, the first to put my absolutely untraceable ballot into, and then the second to put the first envelope into that I would mail off. That way, my ballot would arrive at the ABS, someone would check on the first ballot that I am a registered voter and, having done so, throw the second envelope unopened into the pile with all the other ballots. It is these second envelopes that would be opened and my vote counted only then. That way, no one could possibly know how I voted, either before, during or after.

This way, I cannot tell who will know how I voted nor how that information might be used.

‘I’m fine, Tony’s here’

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Possibly the most misunderstood person in politics today: Hunter Valley Bushfire: Hunter Valley homes at risk, Tony Abbott joins fire fight.

Tony Abbott has been hailed as a hero after saving a house from ember attack while battling a bushfire burning near his Sydney northern beaches electorate of Warringah.

This afternoon embers from the Beacon Hill bushfire ignited local resident Barry Cafe’s fence.

Mr Cafe told local paper the Manly Daily that it wasn’t every day that a former prime minister saves your home.

“I told everybody, ‘I’m fine, Tony’s here’,” he said.

“He’s a top bloke … We couldn’t do without them (the Rural Fire Service).”

So good at wastefully spending other peoples money on illegally arriving foreigners

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The main reason to read The Oz nowadays is for the comments after the stories. So there is this story, Victoria to help asylum seekers cut off by the Turnbull government, where this is the first para:

More than 100 asylum seekers will receive help from the Victorian government for food, housing and basic living costs after the Commonwealth cut off its support. Under Turnbull government changes, about 400 asylum seekers living in Australia for medical treatment will be transferred to final departure visas and expelled from Australia.

For myself, the issue of illegal immigration will be decisive at the next election, present polls or no polls. So these are the latest comments, in order from the most recent down:

To summarise, we will shut down Hazelwood and let our elderly freeze and workers lose work, we will put bollards up when refugees kill us, and then we will mock the very border policies that protect us with hand outs for illegals. The beauty of becoming completely unaccountable aka safe schools, euthanasia and billion dollar pay outs not to build a tunnel, is that eventually people cease being surprised. Victorians have been dulled into a stupor and think, well of course he would do that.

Yeh Mr Andrews, you support people who are using the system, lawyers to stay here when they don’t deserve to be here. Some are abusing our generosity and you support that. Mr Andrews, you are so wrong on this along with the CFA, CFMEU support and West Gate tunnel that I am amazed that you have anyone who supports you.

That’s it. I am old enough to say ” A Pox on all our governments” What ever that means!

Labor can no longer get voters on board with their policies. In order to get their support base up, they resort to rewarding those who rip off the system and those who take the taxpayers for a ride. I’m sick of Labor splashing our money around to support illegal immigrants. Imagine if the homeless started robbing Andrews personal bank account? I bet my last dollar he would be up in arms over people stealing from him. Just imagine how the taxpayer feels!

Here we go again. You just can’t trust the ALP when it comes to border protection. What is this guy thinking? Every people smuggler around this world knows about it by now. They never learn!

What is wrong with their silio ethnic grouping supporting them?

What about the homeless people who abound Melbourne CBD, will you do the same for them Premier?

He is just a modern politician pandering to his voter base. They are all the same.

Spot on!

Oh Mr Daniel Andrews, exactly what is holding these illegal arrivals up from leaving Australia? It surely doesn’t take them 6 months to get to the airport for their government paid flights back to their home country. It is good to see that the Andrews government is so good at wastefully spending other peoples money on illegally arriving foreigners who refuse to leave Australia after they have blown all of the their own money to arrive in Australia illegally. Really, this is classic socialism 101, whatever way you look at it or try to write about it. Yet the arrogant Daniel Andrews persists to angrily look down on all others for criticising him for his wasteful spending habits and policies. If only we were all privileged enough to wastefully spend huge amounts of others peoples money!

As Australians we help people that need help. Unfortunately our right wing government wont even help. Potato Pete uses his cruelty to persecute these refugees and when a state government helps the rightwhingers come out. People below are saying cant help our own and charity starts at home. Shame your government have cut them off too.

@John These people do not need help. After all they had sufficient funds to pay people smugglers. What is wrong with their ethnic communities supporting them?

It’s not about anti immigration. It’s about anti illegal immigration.

What part of that don’t you and Red Dan understand, John?

OMG the bleeding heart Andrews shows his moral superiority whilst the majority of Australians know these opportunist are playing for mugs !

“We’re making sure these families will have a roof over their head, clothes on their back and food on the table.” And then they’ll never leave. They are illegal.

Stop putting the sugar back on the table. Besides, there are advocates out there moral posturing how they would give anyone on Manus or Nauru a bed at their house…Let them step up

If you want to give even more money to illegal immigrants Dan then pay for it out of your own pocket not Victorian taxpayers.

Show pony and grandstanding. How predictable. Minority rights over the common good.

Don’t forget to provide a Safe Schools Programme for their kids, in their own language of course.

Charity should start at home, Dan. So many needy in Melbourne

Not Andrews money, it’s mine and I’m not happy.we have bigger problems than this pr stunt.

Do not fear @William. Andrews has proven himself to be one of our States worst leaders. He won’t survive the next election. Will be glad to see him go as will most people living in regional Victoria.

So we go out of our way for illegal people but can’t help Australians. Well done Andrews.

Peter Your government wont help them either all they do is take things away.

Mr Andrews, can you also help Victorians who are homeless, others who cannot pay their power bills???

But, will they have electricity for lights and gas for cooking and warmth, Daniel?

Not guaranteeing the electricity, Mr Andrews?

Dear me, what about our own homeless. I believe there is a man just started his walk to Canberra from Melbourne to help the homeless. Help them too, Mr Andrews, please!

No soup for them

I knew they were out to lunch …

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… but had no idea how truly out of it they are. From the front page of today’s AFR.

Liberal MPs despairing at the mounting crises plaguing the government are starting to question the political judgment of the Prime Minister’s office and whether the Coalition can win the next election.

They must live in the tightest, most self-contained bubble ever constructed.