Tag Archives: Malcolm Turnbull

Fundamentally incorrect government statements

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This seems very direct.

Lying is native to politics. If you did not realise it before watching the inquiry into Victorian Labor’s disastrous COVID-19 quarantine scheme, you will now. The Victorian government led by Daniel Andrews is so mired in lies that truth is a distant memory….

We heard the lie by omission, the half-truth, blame-shifting, obfuscation, red herrings, selective memory and collective amnesia. The Premier claims not to know who made the decision to hire private security staff to guard people in hotel quarantine. Labor ministers have followed suit, though most peppered their feigned ignorance with a generous serving of selective amnesia….

On August 8, the Premier told a parliamentary committee: “I think it is fundamentally incorrect to assert that there was (sic) hundreds of ADF staff on offer and somehow someone said no. That’s not, in my judgment, accurate.” However, Sky News and others reported that Prime Minister Scott Morrison personally wrote letters to the Victorian Premier urging him to accept the help of Australian Defence Force personnel in July as the number of COVID cases surged in Victoria. It was reported that the PM sent letters to Andrews on July 4, 6 and 11. In the final correspondence, the PM offered about 1000 defence personnel to work alongside Victoria Police to ensure the virus was contained, affected suburbs were locked down and contact tracing was undertaken….

When Defence Minister Linda Reynolds noted the Victorian government had rejected commonwealth offers of ADF help with hotel quarantine, the Premier framed it as playing politics. He supported the alternative version of events authored by Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp, who said he neither sought nor was offered ADF assistance with hotel quarantine in meetings on March 27-28. However, Defence records showed that from late March the offer stood. The Victorian government authorities rejected at least half a dozen offers of assistance.

And then there is this from Maurice Neuman: Nostalgia won’t protect Snowy white elephant.

Paul Broad, the chief executive officer of Snowy Hydro, has provided a solid rebuttal (The Snowy 2.0 project will pay its way) to an open letter (On every count, Snowy 2.0 is a disaster in the making), published on this page on September 18. The letter’s 37 authors cannot be easily dismissed. All have relevant expertise in energy markets, engineering and the environment.

That said, Broad is adamant that Snowy 2.0 is “underpinned by a strong business case”. He alleges that “critics have run with every falsehood under the sun” and that most arguments are “flimsy” and not warranting a response….

The project’s announcement bears many of the hallmarks of the National Broadband Network, which was a dream brought to life on the back of a drinks coaster. As predicted, it is a technological and commercial white elephant.

While there were no drinks coasters, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy Hydro 2.0 announcement in 2017 was widely viewed as a cynically timed thought bubble. Like the NBN, it had no business case but was still acclaimed as an “electricity game-changer”. Turnbull boasted, “it will increase the generation of the Snowy Hydro scheme by 50 per cent, adding 2000 megawatts of renewable energy to the national electricity market”. He made no reference to cost. However, Broad later told a Senate estimates hearing that a “very rough, top-level estimate”, was $2bn.

Rough it was. Two years later, a construction contract was let for $5.1bn….

All in all, and without allowing for cost overruns, the final investment for the entire project could well sit at about $14bn or, seven times the original indicative figure….

Whatever the reality, Australians are getting the impression that Snowy Hydro 2.0 is yet another “trust me” project where the business case has been written to reflect the announcement. It will take time for the truth to be known but, sadly, history is not on the government’s side.

The sad part is that we still live in a kind of fantasy theoretical economic environment in which government waste is believed to be good for the economy. It may well be good for those on the receiving end of all this money, but for the rest of us, it is a straightforward loss that keeps us much poorer than we would otherwise have been.

Illustrating the political divide

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My post from The Age on Malcolm Turnbull’s dealings with Donald Trump underscores the sort of far left low life Malcolm was and is. But it’s worth bearing in mind that even at the end, when the Libs finally got rid of him, he commanded almost half the party room.

To understand a bit better the mentality of the kind of people who see merit in Malcolm, it is worth having a look at the comments section on the article at The Age I had quoted from. This is the comment which was overwhelmingly selected by those who went through the comments section as “most respected”. This is the comment that, it seems, most accurately reflected the views of the people who had read through all of the comments.

It’s all part of the job, as MT would have known this before he took it on. The American people did elect a lunatic and our far right wing politicians see Trump’s behaviour as pretty good, that is, anything you can get away while still holding the treasury benches is okay. Democracy is such a lottery, anyone can nominate and when they get elected their true traits come out. In Canberra Malcolm was from a different universe, well educated and successful while so many of the career MPs have done little else since they landed a ministerial adviser job at age 25 or so. These people no nothing [sic] about dealing with ‘normal’ human beings – they see everything from the prism of the Canberra bubble. My hope is the Libs and Nats implode – what a nice thought!

What overlap is there for those of us who are supporters of the American president with people who see things this way? Unbelievably ignorant, with not an ounce of common sense or understanding of anything. But they’re there, and in large numbers too. Useful idiots to the party leaders of the left though they may be, these “no nothings” will yet doom us to perdition.

Who will guard us from the guardians?

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Not Malcolm Turnbull, that’s for sure.

I posted what you see below in February 27, 2015 just as Malcolm was about to overturn Tony Abbott as Prime Minister: I would never vote for a Coalition led by Malcolm Turnbull. It turned out that I would vote for Malcolm Turnbull when he led the Coalition, but everything else below remains unchanged. And to all this we can add this new revelation discussed by Andrew Bolt in the video above which is a revelation from Malcom’s new book: it was he who encouraged The Guardian to open an Australian edition. Why would he even say it if he wanted to have an ounce of influence on the side he once led. Only because he is an even bigger fool than most of us had already believed he is.

Going even further, more evidence that the Libs have a rotten core of funders and MPs is also highlighted in the video if one listens to Fiona Scott, a Coalition MP from New South Wales. She is barely capable of saying anything negative about Malcolm, even now, even with everything we know.

Below, however, goes back to my post from 2015 in which the only change I can think of is that my views have hardened a great deal further since then.

Andrew Bolt says that Malcolm Turnbull is about to have his final go at taking over the leadership of the Liberal Party by Tuesday, so that it is now or never to make our views known (see here, here and here).

When I used to work in Canberra, our offices backed onto the Liberal Party headquarters, and I was asked one time, even before Malcolm entered Parliament, what I thought about him. My answer was that if I was in the constituency that would decide the fate of the next election, and my vote was the one that would put him in or out, that I would hesitate about which way to go. That was then. Today I would have no doubt. The reasons.

Peter Wright For me, national security is the ultimate issue in any election. There are always international issues that matter, and they weigh heavy with me. All but forgotten today, The Spycatcher Trial was one of those moments I do not forget. Wright was an MI5 agent who set out to write a tell-all/reveal-all of the English intelligence service. Margaret Thatcher sought to prevent the publication of his book, and the final determination was in a court in Tasmania, in which Malcolm Turnbull sought to defend Wright and ultimately was successful in allowing the book to be published worldwide because it could be published in Australia. I was told then that everyone deserves the best defence and etc etc, but if Malcolm has ever said that he defended Wright even though he was treasonous scum, I haven’t heard it. I would never trust Turnbull on any national security issue, and there is nothing more important at the present time.

He’s a Warmist Anyone soft-headed enough to take in the Global Warming scam without at least some doubts is not a possessor of the shrewd, sensible, incisive mind I am looking for in a leader. He lost the leadership on this one issue at the time because there are people like me who would never line up behind anyone who believes this stuff needs trillion dollar government solutions to what is looking every day less of a problem.

He’s a Keynesian I once had a conversation with Malcolm over economic issues and mentioned something that I think of instinctively as an issue, the kind of thing Peter Costello put at the centre of his own management of the economy. His response was to walk off. Having watched and listened to him over the years, he has no sense of how an economy works. Given that when he led the Libs he was all set to follow Labor’s lead on the stimulus, and declared that the Coalition would have done much the same, in many ways he owns the problems we have right now.

Useless as a Minister He may be popular with the ABC and others like it, but this is only because he has never done anything of any use that would upset them. If he doesn’t upset the ABC, what could he possibly stand for? What issue has he carried forward as part of the government that has done an ounce of good? If the NBN is his crowning achievement, he has done nothing other than implement Kevin Rudd’s back-of-the-envelope idiocy that will cost us billions and return millions.

He Cannot be Trusted To draw a distinction between himself and the Prime Minister over the Human Rights Commission Report on children in detention not only shows the worst imaginable political judgement, but has him line up with the Government’s enemies. I am a million miles from Canberra right now, but since all and sundry report Turnbull’s treachery, who am I to doubt it. This is a government that needs to survive and win that next election. Abbott is learning how to be a PM on the job, and is actually getting the hang of it. Shame about the wasted first year, but that is now the past.

There is clearly a succession plan in place at the top of the Liberal Party. What may have begun as the second eleven is now starting to function as a very good government. And the PM does not like to lose, and I don’t think he will.

Actually, there is one other matter I should have included but will include now.

Led the Republican Movement He has no idea how we are governed nor the crucial role of the Governor-General in a Parliamentary Democracy. He prefers a system in which a single person makes the rules and everyone else follows the rules this single person has made. Utterly ignorant of the necessary constitutional restraints on a government of the day. Even though a shift to a republic was utterly rejected across the country he remains bitter about the loss. Too shallow to understand any of the deeper issues involved.

Boring beyond inanity

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Since no one seems to have mentioned it anywhere else, I can see just how uninterested anyone is in Malcolm Turnbull’s memoire which is discussed in The Oz today, exclusively: Inside Malcolm’s big-picture world of gossip and axe-grinding. This lack of interest is a clear sign of how lack-lustre he himself was, how incompetently he dealt with the events he oversaw and how dull his reflections on his time in office are. This is beyond tedious, and I only raise it here so that we are aware that the book will be available Monday. It’s the only reason I can think of to be pleased that many bookshops are now shut.

Malcolm Turnbull has sensationally claimed that Scott Morrison and the Coalition he once led didn’t deserve to win the 2019 election and delivered highly personal accounts of his relationship with the current Prime Minister and scathing assessments of his former cabinet colleagues.

In his highly anticipated memoir, due to be released on Monday, Mr Turnbull recounts his own version of events that led to his dismissal as prime minister in August 2018, while revealing the darkest days of a political career that was marked by a bout of severe ­depression.

In claims that will be hotly disputed by those he attacks, Mr Turnbull says that colleagues of Mr Morrison, including the Prime Minister’s now closest confidants Mathias Cormann and Peter Dutton, had once described Mr Morrison as a “Machiavellian plotter” who could not be trusted.

According to those who have read the manuscripts, Mr Turnbull describes Mr Dutton as a “narcissist” and “self-delusional” in his belief that he could become prime minister while revealing his personal anguish at what he believes was the ultimate betrayal at the hands of his finance minister, Senator Cormann.

If these are the highlights, cannot picture anyone actually making it through the book.

Dim bulbs

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Fresh Chicken Wholebird

 

Tony Abbott

 

 

 

 

 

They really do want to turn out our lights. First Ms Steggles, via Andrew Bolt: TONY ABBOTT IN WAR FOR THE SEAT THAT MOST DECIDES OUR FUTURE.

No wonder Tony Abbott feels hunted. The former prime minister is under savage attack because he holds the most important seat in this election.

So much will change if Abbott loses Warringah on Saturday to global-warming extremist Zali Steggall, the former skiing champion.

Global warming will become our dominant religion, the power of militant activists will soar, Liberal conservatives will be cowed and, given the swing needed, the Liberals will have lost the election.

The country will change. The Liberals will change.

And then there’s this from another within the green-side up brigade: Alex Turnbull teams up with GetUp as the voice of robocalls in key Victorian seats.

Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex Turnbull has teamed up with left wing activist group GetUp to record robocall messages urging voters in key Victorian seats not to vote Liberal in Saturday’s federal election.

In Liberal backbencher Kevin Andrews’s eastern Melbourne seat of Menzies, voters will be played a radio clip of Alex Turnbull saying the Coalition is in chaos and doesn’t deserve anyone’s vote.

In Health Minister Greg Hunt’s Mornington Peninsula seat of Flinders, a recorded message will be sent to 17,000 voters, featuring Alex Turnbull saying, “we need more people who want action on climate change.”

The apple never falls far from the tree, worms and all.

And behind it all is Malcolm

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The inanity revealed in the Coalition is something to behold: Liberal deserter Julia Banks fuels chaos in Coalition ranks. What Ms Banks thinks the major issue of our day is remains unrevealed, other than that Peter Dutton should have his eligibility to sit in Parliament tested by the courts. My only wish is that she was right to say that the Coalition had been taken over by “right-wing” forces. Meanwhile, Ms Bishop is seeking to have the National Energy Guarantee restored. Does she really believe global warming is a problem?

The only other bit of news in the story is that the election will likely be in mid-May.

And behind it all is Malcolm, whose empty and shallow policy formation remains possibly the single most destructive force in Australian political history.

Will also refer you to Andrew Bolt who writes Left Trashes Liberals, Right Blamed. Sometimes a big tent is too big if it lets all kinds of lefty loons enter a party of the conservative right.

Enemies of the people

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This is What Kerry Phelps Stands For, drawn to our attention by Max in a previous thread. These people are your enemy. And it might be noted that only on climate change does she have actual proposals. The rest are just smiley faces offering her support for any good ideas anyone else might come up with. Basically a policy vacuum. Pathetic that she has won this seat, although I would suspect her views are identical to Malcolm’s. Did people knowingly vote for this, and do these views really constitute the beliefs of the people of Wentworth?

What I stand for

Economically sensible.

Socially progressive.

Climate Change

Climate change is real. The government has NO policy for action and Labor’s policy does not go far enough.

Renewable Energy: Transition to 100% renewable energy, 50% by 2030.

Scientific Evidence: Restore a credible scientific-based Climate Change Authority.

No New Coal-Fired Power Plants: I will oppose the Federal Government spending your money on new coal fired power generation.

Oppose Adani: Stop government subsidies of new and existing fossil fuel developments including the proposed Adani coal mine and provide subsidies for investment in renewable energy sources.

Paris Agreement: Meet or exceed our commitments under the Paris International Climate Agreement.

Political Lobbying: Ban political donations by fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists.

 

Better Health for All

Health: I am committed to a viable future for Medicare and a more transparent, equitable and user-friendly private health insurance system.

My Health Record: I will advocate better privacy protections for all Australians.

Oral Health: I will champion a dental health scheme and a reassessment of private health rebates for dental work.

Aged Care: As Treasurer, the Budget papers show Scott Morrison pulled $1.2 billion out of aged care. As a Doctor, I know this is a national crisis and I fully support a Royal Commission into the Aged Care sector.

 

Strong Economy

Superannuation and retirement incomes: I will encourage stable superannuation rules for at least 5 years to generate investment certainty and confidence.

Banks:  I support strong regulators to improve the financial services system whose weaknesses were exposed in the recent Banking Royal Commission.

Business: I will encourage policies that support entrepreneurship with a focus on the ability of businesses to plan ahead and provide secure jobs.

Taxation:  I support the lowering of company tax and compliance costs along all levels of business to attract higher domestic and global investment provided that all companies pay their fair share of tax.

 

Social Justice

Inclusiveness: I will support Government creating a sense of community harmony through humane policies that respect and encourage diversity and civil rights.

Child Protection: The future of our children must be a priority. I will advocate for a clear national agenda and unified national system of child protection and recovery.

Asylum seekers: I call for an end to mandatory detention and the immediate removal of children and families off Nauru.

Live Sheep Exports:  I believe it is our moral and ethical responsibility to bring an end to live sheep exports.

Aboriginal Reconciliation:  I will continue to be a supporter of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Religious Freedoms: The Government must release the Ruddock report into religious freedoms to the public due to ongoing concerns that the report will be used to water-down anti-discrimination laws.

Education:  I will promote equitable, accessible education, fair funding for all schools, affordable early child care and restoring funding to universities and TAFE to invest in the future skills that Australia needs.

 

Local Concerns

ABC: We must restore funding and transparency to the ABC to ensure our public broadcaster is free from political or commercial interference.

National Integrity Commission:  I support The National Integrity Commission – a federal corruption watchdog as set out by The Australia Institute’s National Integrity Committee.

New Public High School:  Wentworth needs a new public high school and I will advocate strongly for the State Government to get on with building it.

South Head:  I have vowed to add my support to saving South Head as a national park and to block the proposed commercial development.

The Arts:  I support a creative Australia and I believe we need to invest in and support our dynamic arts industries.

 

Max also noted, quoting H.L. Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” I see it different. It is now the rich who are the greatest supporters of the left since half their wealth now comes from governments directing tax revenues into their pockets. And while once upon a time freedom of the press was a guarantee of honesty and balance in the media, today almost every journalist is a green-socialist of a far leftist kind who will lie and distort to help their side in the fight.

“Donald Trump is delivering on economic leadership, that’s for sure”

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It’s from Miranda Devine’s radio show but I picked it up at Breitbart: Aussie PM Applauds Trump Leadership, Says Economic Reforms Benefiting the World.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cuts combined with reforms in corporate regulation are benefiting the global economy, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.

Mr. Turnbull pointed to the International Monetary Fund’s strong predictions of global economic growth in the wake of the Trump tax cuts as testament to his economic drive.

Speaking during a radio interview, Mr. Turnbull happily declared: “Donald Trump is delivering on economic leadership, that’s for sure” before outlining his own close personal relationship with the president.

“You’ve only got to look at the IMF to see they regard the American tax cuts as being very pro-growth,” he said. “And, of course, because the US is such a big part of the global economy, that has lifted global growth forecasts as well.

He then added something that must have included a bit of personal reflection as well.

“You get plenty of criticism in public life. You’ve got to expect it. I’m sure he expects it,” he said.

Well, at least Malcolm has now come over from the Dark Side or so he says. If only his policies were more like Trump’s it would be even better.

How did we end up with such a dud for PM?

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All this is pulled from Andrew Bolt under the heading, Turnbull wrong, Abbott right: the boats must be stopped.

Malcolm Turnbull chose the wrong time to rebuke Tony Abbott on border policy – just hours before the French attacks:

MALCOLM Turnbull has delivered a slap-down to Tony Abbott for lecturing European leaders over their refugee policies as he arrived in Berlin…

As Mr Turnbull cemented his alliance with Dr Merkel – a successful conservative German Chancellor for a decade and the most powerful leader in Europe – he also rebuked Mr Abbott for criticising her stance on refugees fleeing war in the Middle East.

Mr Abbott last month used a speech in London to urge European leaders to copy his tough policies against people smugglers by turning back boats at sea and denying entry to asylum seekers who have passed through other safe countries…

Asked about Mr Abbott’s comments after his meeting with Dr Merkel in Berlin, Mr Turnbull said he would not lecture other countries about their policies.

“We had a very good discussion but I have no intention or desire to give advice on these matters to the German Chancellor,” Mr Turnbull said.

“Each country faces very different circumstances, not least of which are geographic…”

Same spin in the Financial Review:

Malcolm Turnbull has repudiated Tony Abbott over his warnings to Europe about asylum seekers, whilst standing alongside Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who has offered to take in 800,000 people fleeing the Syrian war.

Same spin before the meeting from the well-briefed Australian:

Malcolm Turnbull will break with Tony Abbott’s message on the flood of refugees into Europe after landing in Germany for talks on defence, trade and border protection…

… there will be no “lecture” to Ms Merkel about the lessons from Australia’s policy of turning back asylum seeker boats, weeks after Mr Abbott used a speech in London to declare that Europe needed to adopt the same approach.

The Australian understands the Prime Minister will emphasise Australia’s success at resettling thousands of refugees every year and note the ethnic diversity that has come from each wave of new migrants.

But now we read this:

The holder of a Syrian passport found near the body of one of the gunmen who died in Friday night’s attacks in Paris passed though Greece in October, a Greek minister said.

“The holder of the passport passed through the island of Leros on Oct. 3, 2015, where he was identified according to EU rules,” said Greece’s deputy minister in charge of police, Nikos Toskas, in a statement.

A Greek police source said the passport’s owner was a young man who had arrived in Leros with a group of 69 refugees and had his fingerprints taken by authorities there. Police declined to give his name.

Abbott today:

FORMER prime minister Tony Abbott has warned the risk that terrorists are hiding among the flood of refugees fleeing Islamic State underlines his warning on the need for tougher border controls.