Tag: ALP Stuffups

Animals Australia must be cranky.  They released footage of some sheep being mistreated in Jordan and the Agriculture Minister isn’t going to shut down the sheep export industry. All those farmers, families, workers, transport infrastructure, sales agents and others involved in the industry still have a job – not what Animals Australia wants at all.  They want the entire cattle and sheep industry closed but the difference this time is, we have adults in charge.  Unlike when the ALP simply closed down the live cattle export based on a similar video, ruining thousands of jobs and killing Australia’s reputation as a reliable, dependable trading partner, this time the Minister talks reason. Barnaby Joyce says;

“We’re going to have issues such as these which are disturbing, which need to be fixed, but it shouldn’t be the reason we shut down the industry.”

Further, Mr Joyce told a conference of beef and sheep producers and exporters in Townsville this morning that an animal welfare supervisor set up by the former government to monitor the humane treatment of live exports would be dismissed on the basis that the position was an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. Mr Joyce says his department will take over the task of implementing government policy on live exports, including the operation of the Export Supply Chain Assurance Scheme (ESCAS), previously overseen by the Inspector-General of Animal Welfare. Rational rather that emotive. I imagine Animals Australia will have ample opportunities to make similar videos in the future for as long as we sell to the Middle East, the chances of any civilized treatment of animals remains remote. However, while we have a government prepared to say “Yeah – whatever” then we can go about our business of feeding people.        

LNP to win 90 to 100 seats is my gestimate based on reading opinion polls and trends. I sincerely hope it is in that order as the ALP need to be forced to go back to basics and work out whether they are for Australia or just the unions. Rudd needs to be sent to Coventry for his repeated lying about the Coalition’s $70…$10…$0 billion black hole, particularly after Treasury, Finance and the PBO said publicly that the whole thing was a lie. He still kept on repeating it. He repeatedly lied about cuts to health and education when the Coalition quite clearly stated that was’t the case. At no stage did he tell us how he was going to fix the huge debt he is about to leaves us with but every hour, on the hour he demanded Coalition costings. He insulted us Queenslanders by resurrecting Beattie to stand in Forde.  Beattie set the state up for bankruptcy and didn’t even have the guts to face the electorate but handed over to Bligh who worked harder on our debt levels nealy crippling the state. Rudd, we remember Beattie only to well and I trust the voters in Forde remember him as well. He’s not going to win and even if he  holds his seat of Griffith he will not be ALP leader for long. Watch Shorten and see if he is still standing after the inevitable night of the long knives. The ALP brought Rudd in because he was a ‘great campaigner” even if he wasn’t a great leader.  Well it is clear now that not only is he a poor leader but he is a poor campaigner as well. He has demonstarted that he has nothing going for him and the sooner gone from public life, the better. Anthony Green predicts 89 seats to 59 but I live in hope.

LABOR has declared victory over people-smugglers after the arrival of two lightly-loaded asylum boats in the past 24 hours.

“We have broken the back of the people-smuggling trade,” Immigration Minister Tony Burke said

Wow! Only two lighlty loaded asylum boats in the past 24 hours! Oh well, thats it then – fixed…back broken! No, hang on, I seem to recall during the six years of the Pacific Solution, just 24 boats arrived carrying 1129 asylum-seekers and that was too many. Long way to go Burkie but never mind it won’t be your problem next week. You can sit back and watch the problem solved by grown-ups.

Dan Harrison The Age’s Health and Indigenous Affairs Correspondent says;

The Coalition has backed away from a pledge to spend $1.5 billion on unmanned drone aircraft and has vowed to take advice from the top brass before going ahead with the purchase Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.

No they haven’t! Abbott said they would wait until forming government should they be elected on Saturday and then take Defence advice as to whether the Global Hawke was the best option. He said defence had told them that there may be better options and that it would be ill advised to make very expensive decisions whilst the Coalition were in still opposition. That’s adult talk Dan and might I suggest you stick to Health and indigenous affairs as you can’t seem to understand plain english or Defence. I note that Abbott clarified the sitiuation with DFRBF military superannaunts. For years our superannuation has been fixed at just CPI rises which has little bearing on the cost of living and some time ago gave me an increase of $1.12 a fotnight. The Coalition, on the other hand, have undertaken to adjust the pensions of all those ex-servicemen 55 and over to the more generous formulae based around growth in the CPI, Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MATWE) and the Beneficiary and Pensioner Living Cost Index. The ALP, on the other hand, has undertaken to do something similar, but only for members over 65 and in doing so Rudd warned Air Vice Marshal Peter Criss; “Don’t bag us. If you do, we’ll pull up the drawbridge and you’ll get nothing.” Five and a wakey!

Rudd on LNP Costings

‘There is an error of $10 billion in the claimed $30 billion of savings the opposition released yesterday,” he said. ”This is based on advice from the departments of Treasury and Finance and the Parliamentary Budget Office.’

Ms Wong adds

”$1 in every $3 that [the Coalition] counted as savings doesn’t exist”.

Rudd again

”What we’re doing today is calling Mr Abbott on his truthfulness. This is a $10 billion fraud on the Australian people.”

But no, it wasn’t. In an unprecedented rebuke to their ministers, late on Thursday, Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson and Finance secretary David Tune issued a joint statement disowning the figures released in their name.

”At no stage … has either department costed opposition policies,” they said, implying that their costings were based on assumptions supplied by the government.

”Different costing assumptions, such as the start date of a policy, take-up assumptions, indexation and the coverage that applies, will inevitably generate different financial outcomes.”

So, the government gave the Treasury figures it wanted the Coalition to present and ask for costings.  They did this before the election campaign even started and the figures given Treasury had no bearing on what the Coalition has now tabled. The moment Rudd said there is a $1o billion dollar hole he lied.  He knew it, Wong knew it and Bowen knew it. They all lied and it has blown up in their faces. All this from a government that has given us a $30 billion deficit and hundreds of billions of debt and all they can find is $10 billion dollar hole that they themselves created. As Abbott says  “They’ve got all their figures wrong and now they are doing the same with ours”  

How unfair is that? Bob Ellis has to be the funniest blogger in Australia – he is trying to be funny isn’t he?

THOUSANDS of asylum-seekers could have their bridging visas cancelled and be returned to immigration detention under a tough new asylum-seeker policy the Coalition is set to announce. Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott are expected to outline plans today to deal with the more than 25,000 asylum-seekers already in Australia, but whose refugee claims have not yet been processed.

The TPVs would allow refugees to work but would prohibit family reunion rights, a feature critics of TPVs have argued creates an incentive for men to bring women and children on boats with them. One of the biggest changes proposed by the Coalition relates to refugee processing in Australia, which was suspended from August 12 last year, when the Houston expert panel on asylum-seekers handed down its report, until last month. During that time more than 25,000 asylum-seekers arrived, creating a massive backlog most in the field expected would take years to clear.

Since Tuesday, three boats carrying 252 asylum-seekers have arrived.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said the plan was simply a rehash of a discredited Howard government policy. He said boat numbers had dwindled since Labor announced its PNG offshore resettlement policy on July 19. Dwindled to three boats since Tueday!  Yeah…right Jason and I presume the “discredited Howard government policy” that actually stopped the boats is what you are referring to. Can’t lie straight in bed!  

Six months agothe Coalition talk about northern development;

The Coalition’s white paper, released in June, centred on a 20-year strategic plan for northern development and proposed reviving Darwin, Cairns, Townsville and Karratha through lower personal and business tax rates, relocation subsidies and investment incentives, as well as a water project development fund.

When Abbott announced this the ALP rolled around the floor laughing and queued up to redicule the plan Gold footpaths in Karatha…grid lock in Sydney crows Bradbury and went on to describe it as “an absolute disaster” that would “divide Australia in two” and force higher taxes for people in western Sydney. That was six months ago Since then Rudd has decided it’s a good idea and all the ALP talking heads are forced to retract and remark on the brilliance of Rudd’s thought bubble. Yep…thought bubble- that’s what it is.  Rudd is in panic mode as polls go bad for him.  Remember I said all us conservatives need is for Rudd to be in the chair long enough for the country to remember why they didn’t like him last time. Well, it’s happening.  

I’ve said it many times before – the ALP’s only possible plan is to attack Abbott as they certainly can’t campaign on their achievements. Abbott says;

“They’re young, feisty,” replied Abbott. Starting to grin, he added: “I think I can probably say they have a bit of sex appeal and they’re just very connected with the local area.

….and the ALP and media go into hyperdrive.  Rudd, who abused a RAAF flight attendant to the point of tears, thinks its terrible that Abbott should compliment a woman in a light hearted manner and Latham, ever the bombshell, says Abbott must have had his beer goggles on. Penny Wong says;

Tony Abbott’s “sex appeal” gaffe gives a glimpse into the opposition leader’s views on women.

Other than the use of the word ‘gaffe’ I tend to agree with Penny.  Like the majority of Australian’s, Abbott appreciates beauty and brains and isn’t afraid to pay compliments where due.  If the ALP and the media think that is a ‘gaffe’ and Australian’s will think poorly of Abbott  then they are mistaken. Now, back to the question.  How are you going to fix the $30 billion defecit.