EXCERPT FROM THE ARTICLE BY By Andree Withey and Kym Agius
Updated about an hour agoMon 9 Feb 2015, 2:19pm Lawrence Springborg and Annastacia Palaszczuk Photo: LNP leader Lawrence Springborg (left) and Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk (right). (AAP/ABC) Map: QLD
Queensland could have a Labor government by the end of Wednesday, with Labor Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk saying she will seek permission from the Governor to form a minority government with independent Peter Wellington.
A small number of seats are undeclared, but Ms Palaszczuk said Labor was on track to win the two it needs, Ferny Grove and Maryborough.
Counting wraps up on Tuesday, with the seats expected to be declared by the evening.
"I will be speaking to the Governor, and I would expect Campbell Newman to do the honourable thing and resign his commission," Ms Palaszczuk said.
This is nothing more than a sneaky arrogant and hungry grab for power when the will of the Queensland people was clearly delivered. Labor frontbencher Jackie Trad
"I am confident over the next few days Labor will be able to form government.
"What we've seen in the last 24 hours is an arrogant attempt by Lawrence Springborg to cling to power."
It is unclear at this stage whether a by-election will be called in Ferny Grove after a candidate was disqualified.
Palmer United Party candidate for Ferny Grove Mark Taverner, who has so far received 1,000 votes, was found to be an undischarged bankrupt therefore ineligible to run in the seat.
The Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) announced on Sunday it would refer the northern Brisbane seat to the Court of Disputed Returns after the seat was declared.
The court will then determine whether to order a by-election.
Labor MP Jackie Trad, tipped to become deputy Labor leader, said it could take up to six months for a court determination.
She called on the LNP to relinquish control as caretaker government by Tuesday evening, which is the deadline for postal votes to be received.
She said the LNP did not have the numbers. READ MORE = http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-09/labor-calls-on-lnp-to-relinquish-power/6079022
Queensland Labor has called on the Liberal National
Party (LNP) to relinquish power, with the state election result possibly
hanging on a by-election in a pivotal seat.
The Electoral
Commission of Queensland (ECQ) has announced it will refer Ferny Grove
to the Court of Disputed Returns after a candidate was disqualified.
The court will then determine whether to order a by-election in the northern Brisbane seat.
The
LNP's parliamentary leader, Lawrence Springborg, would not give up
caretaker government during such uncertainty and accused Labor of being
power hungry.
But Labor MP Jackie Trad, who has been tipped to
become deputy Labor leader, said it could take up to six months for a
court determination.
She has called on the LNP to relinquish
control as caretaker government by Tuesday evening, which is the
deadline for postal votes to be received.
This is nothing more than a sneaky arrogant and hungry grab for
power when the will of the Queensland people was clearly delivered.
Labor frontbencher Jackie Trad
She said the LNP did not have the numbers.
"This
is nothing more than a sneaky, arrogant and hungry grab for power when
the will of the Queensland people was clearly delivered," she said.
"It
is clear that Campbell Newman as the caretaker premier will not have
the numbers in parliament to provide a stable government or to pass
legislation, which is the primary responsibility of politicians."
When
asked if Labor would seek Governor Paul de Jersey's permissions to form
a minority government, Ms Trad did not answer outright.
"Labor,
as soon Campbell Newman as caretaker premier resigns his commission,
will engage in all of the conventions necessary to make it clear that
the Queensland parliament should be reconstituted," she said.
"When
it is reconstituted, it will be reconstituted with Annastacia
Palaszczuk able to rely on 45 votes, the LNP cannot make that claim."
It is wrong for Labor or anyone else to run around tripping
over themselves to snatch the keys of the executive building when the
result has so far to go to actually be clearly determined.
LNP parliamentary leader Lawrence Springborg
Palmer United Party candidate for Ferny Grove Mark Taverner, who has so far received 1,000 votes, was found to be an undischarged bankrupt therefore ineligible to run in the seat.
The ECQ was due to refer the seat to the courts once it had been declared.
Labor was on track to win 44 seats, including Ferny Grove, and the LNP 42.
With the support of independent Peter Wellington, Labor would have 45 seats, enough to form a minority government.
For
the LNP to win power, it would need to secure Ferny Grove in a
by-election and the support of two Katter's Australian Party MPs.
LNP won't give up caretaker role for now
Mr Springborg said no party had a clear majority and results would not be known by the end of the week.
He said the LNP would stay on in caretaker government until an outcome was more clear.
"That is at least what we have to do for the next few days," Mr Springborg told 4BC Radio.
"The Governor then will consider what options are available to him.
"It
is wrong for Labor or anyone else to run around tripping over
themselves to snatch the keys of the executive building when the result
has so far to go to actually be clearly determined.
"People
shouldn't jump the gun. You could have the possibility of a government
changing in the next few days, then changing again in the next month or
so.
"Labor - there is almost an indecent hate and expectation from them that they should grab the keys of government.
"This needs to be properly done."
While
the LNP remains hopeful of winning, former premier Rob Borbidge and
deputy premier Joan Sheldon have been hired to review the party's
disastrous result in the election campaign.
Key independent says no need to wait for Ferny Grove
Mr
Wellington said Ferny Grove could face a by-election after a court
hearing or the court may decide that the preferences were so
insignificant that a by-election is not necessary.
He said it
could take over 12 months and it is unreasonable to expect Queensland to
remain in a state of limbo until the outcome is known.
"It is
farcical for the new leader of the LNP to seek to hold on to power until
then leaving the Newman appointed senior public servants to govern the
state," Mr Wellington wrote on his Facebook page.
"The Governor
has the responsibility to hand the reins of government to whoever is
able to deliver the 45 seats and should not be drawn into hypothetical
scenarios involving the future of the electorate of Ferny Grove."
Mr Wellington helped former Labor premier Peter Beattie form his first government in 1998 after Labor won 44 seats.
Mr Beattie said Mr Wellington and Ms Palaszczuk would get along well.
"It will be a very workable stable government," Mr Beattie said.
"It
was stable when Peter Wellington supported my government, it will be
stable when Peter Wellington supports Annastacia and the Labor Party in
government."
You can trust Rupert Murdoch's Brisbane tabloid to always get it right Australia’s newspapers now effectively admit the alternative media were right and they were wrong. Seventeen months too late. Alan Austin reports.
THAT FOUL SMELL is not coming from the Liberal Party. The stench of
hypocrisy, worsening by the hour, is from Australia’s mainstream media —
newspapers and electronic media run by Fairfax, Murdoch and the ABC.
Those "news" outlets are now telling their customers what alternative
publications have been saying for years — that the Federal Coalition does not have the leader, the team, the vision, the policies or competence in economics to govern.
Since December 2009, when Tony Abbott beat
Malcolm Turnbull for the Liberal leadership in a tawdry display of
opportunism, the alternative media has sounded warnings. Those were
based on solid information available at the time.
Articles here at Independent Australia documented the history of Abbott’s callous treatment of people he should have cared for, his misogyny, episodes of obstructing the course of justice, expenses rorts, the long string of embarrassing gaffes, and the many blatant lies by both Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey.
Lenore Taylor wrote in The Guardian, before the September 2013 election:
‘Abbott wants to be a prime minister known for both truthfulness
and economic management. But he's busy making promises that bring the
first intention into direct conflict with the second.’
New Matildawarned of ‘the economic fantasy-land inhabited by the Coalition’ and noted that
‘... the Coalition struggles to separate partisan politics from sound economic policy.’
‘... because we are looking at a litany of instances of lying,
deception and bad behaviour over a long period of time, he [Abbott]
simply doesn’t have the essence of character which is one of the main
ingredients in the recipe of leadership.’
The mainstream media, in contrast, ignored the evidence and spread the lies their wealthy backers wanted voters to believe.
The ABC deployed Fairfax chairman Roger Corbett to tell the opposite of the truth, just three days before the election:
“I think he will probably be a pretty good PM because he's a very
sincere, nice type of human being and I think he will be very
dedicated, focused in the job. And we certainly need in the economic
times we're about to go into some really clear and good leadership.”
‘The Coalition under Tony Abbott deserves the opportunity to return trust to politics.’
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph was more gung-ho, with the huge front page banner: ‘AUSTRALIA NEEDS TONY’.
Now, at last, they admit they all got it wrong.
The Daily Telegraph and Melbourne sister publication The Herald Sun ran Laurie Oakes’ analysis on Friday of:
‘... a deep feeling of hopelessness among Liberals about the hole the government finds itself in under Abbott.'
Much of ‘Abbott’s plight’, Oakes now laments,
‘... is due to his own bungles and misjudgements, but his
Ministers bear some responsibility. Members of Cabinet’s Expenditure
Review Committee had a big hand in producing a shocker of a Budget.’
Exactly. But if you are so astute, Laurie, why did you not predict this earlier?
On the Coalition’s lack of vision, the mainstream media before the election failed utterly to report the obvious.
‘If Abbott has a successor, that person has to give this
government a clear, agreeable organising principle ... It needs an
overarching story of the world that makes sense of the pain we're being
asked to wear.’
On economic management, the mainstream media praised fulsomely the Coalition’s credentials.
An Australian Financial Review election eve editorial soothed:
‘A strong mandate at the top, especially for a government getting
a grip on its own finances, will lift business resolve. That by itself
is a good reason for The Australian Financial Review to conclude
Australia’s prosperity would be better served by a Coalition
government.’
‘Abbott’s campaign shows a party and a leader advancing
confidently and with calm authority towards power. A Coalition win on
Saturday should immediately lead to action, especially by providing a
shot in the arm for business and investment ... But the men and women
who are best able to deliver it come from the Coalition.’
Well, suck it up, sweetheart. Totally wrong. The new media got it right.
Crikeywarned before the election that the Coalition could not
‘... resolve the tension between Joe Hockey’s insistence on
fiscal rigour and Tony Abbott’s “everyone comes out ahead” magic pudding
approach to the budget.'
Independent Australia alerted its readers to the specific risks:
‘There are seven compelling reasons why handing the economy over
to Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey will almost certainly see a dramatic
deterioration in Australia’s fortunes.’
Six out of those seven threats to Australia’s economic wellbeing have
come to pass. Already. After just one budget. (Fortunately, the global
recovery has continued and Australia has not slipped into recession —
although growth is now slowing alarmingly.)
Here, also, the mainstream media are grinding their gears into reverse. Friday’s editorial in The Australianconceded:
‘Joe Hockey’s first budget is in tatters, drained of blood and
purpose in the Senate, a casualty of political sloppiness, poor
preparatory messaging and internal inconsistencies. The Treasurer is
neither a skilled policy expert nor a fierce advocate, so has struggled
to make the case to voters or the business community about the
government’s overarching fiscal strategy.’
On other policy matters, the alternative media belled warnings for years which the mainstream denied.
‘The Medicare co-payment has gone through a series of rapid and
bewildering changes. The government may have to sacrifice the lion’s
share of the savings promised by its higher education package if it is
to secure fee deregulation ... The result is a sense of confusion and
policy backlog ...’
What happened to a ‘fair go’ in this country? It has long gone, writes Jack Gleeson. So who is to blame?
Above all else, Australians value a fair go for everyone. We expect
our governments to put regulatory frameworks in place that ensure this.
A fair go demands equal and unbiased treatment for everyone.
We believe that all Australians are equal before the law and are
entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law and
the agencies of our government.
We believe in equality between men and women. We reject any
legislation, policy or procedure that has the effect of discriminating
against either gender.
We believe that our leaders should focus on making an equitable
society rather than widening the gap between the rich and the poor. We
reject foreign ideologies designed to give advantage to the privileged
few and/or facilitate laissez faire capitalism.
We live in a society, not an economy.
We reject government policy based on simplistic financial profit and
loss. We demand that our leaders take everything into account when
setting macro policy. Even though many of us don’t know the term itself,
the concept of the triple bottom line measuring economic value, social
responsibility and environmental responsibility strikes a chord with us.
We expect our governments to invest in research to develop proactive
solutions rather than trying to fix problems with reactive bandaid
solutions.
We want Medicare and the PBS strengthened and retained.
We expect education and training opportunities for all our kids based on merit – not on ability to pay.
We won’t tolerate attacks on the most vulnerable in our society.
We expect that our senior citizens and those with disabilities will be looked after by governments.
We want job security. We expect that the Australian government will proactively seek to ensure this.
We further expect that if we are unfortunate enough to find ourselves
unemployed the Government will provide effective user-friendly support
services to assist us to find a new position.
We expect corporations and the mega-rich to pay their way, not to be
given a free ride by governments. We expect the Treasurer, the
Australian Taxation Office and other government agencies to ensure that
they do so.
We expect that Government agencies will be properly staffed and
resourced to enable them to fulfil the role the Parliament assigns them.
We expect a fair return to the public purse for allowing our publicly owned resources to be exploited by the private sector.
We demand that full-time workers receive a living wage. A fair day’s
pay for a fair day’s work. We support the Australian Conciliation and
Arbitration system. We are not fooled by ideologically motivated attacks
on the unions that represent many of us.
We value Australia’s role as a responsible member of the
international community. However, we expect our leaders to put
Australia’s interests first.
We do not support free trade deals that don’t benefit ordinary
workers and Australian industry. What we want is fair trade for
everyone. The so-called level playing field.
We do not support unrestricted sell-offs of Australian land, companies and residential properties to foreigners.
We are comfortable with State ownership of key assets in a mixed
economy. We don’t want our public assets sold and the revenue streams
from them forgone forever.
We strongly support our Defence Forces but not politicians getting us
continually involved in other people’s wars. We expect that our
veterans will be looked after by the government.
We expect our leaders to ensure our security, but not to use
“national security” or “law and order” as an excuse to suppress our
civil liberties.
We expect that our leaders will ensure that Australia’s technological infrastructure remains on par with the rest of the world.
We expect that our environment will be protected and managed in a sustainable way.
As well as these policy areas it is increasingly clear that
Australians don’t care for politicians with a sense of entitlement
fattening themselves at our expense whilst simultaneously stripping us
of public assets and the revenue stream that is derived from those
public assets.
We do not accept that being elected to Parliament is a ticket to
enrich yourself and your mates at the public’s expense. Especially if
accompanied by the simultaneous grinding into the dirt of those who can
least afford it.
Being elected to Parliament is not a carte blanche to do
what you want without convincing us first that the proposed course of
action is both necessary and reasonable. We do not take to blatant liars
in our governments, especially after Mr Abbott’s relentless sustained
derision of Julia Gillard over a single instance.
Which of course brings us to hypocrisy: We especially don’t like
politicians who attack their opponents only to do the same things
(themselves) later. Nor do we like arrogant dismissive leaders who think
power means they never have to explain or account for their actions.
Finally, endless wars of words don’t impress us. We don’t
particularly care who comes out on top in the verbal jousting in
Parliament. You will only gain long-term respect and support by
effective action in line with the above principles.
'Medical tourism' plan revealed: Australia leads top secret push for globalisation of healthcare
EXCLUSIVE
Trade Minister Andrew Robb. Photo: Sanghee Liu
Need a new liver? Why not head to France. A hip replacement? Japan could be the place for you.
According
to a leaked document, the highly secretive Trade in Services Agreement
(TiSA) negotiations that will resume in Geneva on Monday will include
discussion of wide-ranging reforms to national public health systems to
promote "offshoring" of health care services.
Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have been saying
that healthcare expenditure is unsustainable, but Andrew Robb is quietly
engaged in negotiations that could potentially see scarce healthcare
dollars going overseas
But health unions and trade experts say the
negotiations, which are being led by Australia, the US and the European
Union, could lead to massive growth of "medical tourism" to the
detriment of investment in Australian public hospitals and local
healthcare.
The leaked discussion paper – published by the
non-government organisations Associated Whistle-Blowing Press and Public
Services International – has for the first time revealed TiSA countries
including Australia are actively discussing measures to boost the
"cross-border delivery of health services".
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"Thanks to the secrecy that's surrounded these talks, we haven't
known what is being negotiated in our name, and the Australian public
haven't been aware of the potentially huge health implications," said
Michael Whaites, NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association organiser and
spokesman.
"Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey
have been saying that healthcare expenditure is unsustainable, but Trade
Minister Andrew Robb is quietly engaged in negotiations that could
potentially see scarce healthcare dollars going overseas," Mr Whaites
said.
"You can ask whether the government is working in a
co-ordinated manner, and indeed what is their real intention on the
future of Medicare?"
The leaked "concept paper on health care
services within TISA negotiations," reportedly tabled by the Turkish
government in negotiations in Geneva last September, argues there is
"huge untapped potential for the globalisation of healthcare services,"
creating massive business opportunities from what is a $US6 trillion
($7.7 trillion) per year industry.
The proposed regime would
involve health professionals authorising patients to be treated in other
TiSA countries (for reasons including long waiting times in the home
country or inadequate expertise for specific medical problems); and the
patients's costs being reimbursed through their home country's social
security system, private insurance coverage or other healthcare
arrangements.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and
Trade, a further TiSA negotiation round in December 2014 made "good
progress" in dealing with issues that included "facilitation of patient
mobility".
However, Professor Jane Kelsey, an expert on trade in
services at the University of Auckland, warned that
health-service-exporting countries such as Australia would find that
qualified staff are diverted to health export services "that often have
better pay and facilities, eroding the personnel base for public
facilities and perpetuating inequalities in the health care system".
Education
and training investments may also be diverted "to benefit foreign
healthcare users, rather than local citizens and taxpayers".
Fifty
countries including Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the
EU (representing its 28 member countries) and the US are engaged in the
TiSA negotiations, which began in 2013.
Mr Robb said the TiSA
will "strengthen job-creating services" and that the Australian
government wants an agreement "that supports each party's right to
protect public health".
"As is common practice with many
negotiations on international treaties, draft negotiating texts of the
TiSA are not public documents," Mr Robb wrote in a letter to the nurses
and midwives' union.
“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members” – Ghandi
When George Brandis, in one of his first actions after coming to
power in 2013, sacked Disability Commissioner Graeme Innes and replaced
him with the IPA’s Tim Wilson to be the Commissioner for bigots, we were
given a frightening example of the blatant cronyism that has become a
hallmark of the Abbott government.
Graeme Innes was Australia’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner
from December 2005 to July 2014. During that time he has also served as
Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner for three and a half years and as
Race Discrimination Commissioner for two years.
Graeme is a Lawyer, Mediator and Company Director. He has been a
Human Rights Practitioner for 30 years in NSW, WA and nationally.
As Commissioner, Graeme has led or contributed to the success of a number of initiatives. These have included the Same Sex: Same Entitlements inquiry, which resulted in removal of discrimination across federal law; the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and its ratification by Australia.
Graeme was also crucial to the development of the National Disability Strategy and the Disability (Access to Premises – buildings) Standards2010; as well as the establishment of Livable Housing Australia.
He has also been an active high profile advocate for the
implementation of cinema captioning and audio descriptions and, as Human
Rights Commissioner, undertook three annual inspections of Australia’s
Immigration Detention facilities.
Graeme has been a Member of the NSW Administrative Decisions
Tribunal; the NSW Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal; and the Social
Security Appeals Tribunal. He has also been a Hearing Commissioner with
the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
He was Chair of the Disability Advisory Council of Australia, and the
first Chair of Australia’s national blindness agency, Vision Australia.
In 1995 Graeme was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). In 2003, he was a finalist for Australian of the Year.
Tim Wilson, on the other hand, has no qualifications or experience to
recommend him for the job. He worked at the Institute of Public
Affairs for seven years, serving as Director of Climate Change Policy
and the Intellectual Property and Free Trade. He was a vocal critic of
the Human Rights Commission and during his time there the IPA called for
the abolition of the commission. Apparently his criticism of the HRC
faded away when he found out how much he would be paid.
Tim Wilson now has a total salary of $389,000 plus vehicle and
telephone expenses after the Remuneration Tribunal approved a travel
allowance of $40,000 and a “reunion allowance’’ of $16,800 in addition
to his base salary of $332,000 — back dated to February 17 when he took
up the job.
This becomes even more obscene in light of the subsequent treatment of the disabled by the Abbott government.
Just under half of Australians with disabilities live at or below the
poverty line. For the 30% who can work, poverty wages are the norm. The
quality of life of Australians with disabilities compares very badly
with other developed countries; in fact, it ranks as one of the worst in
the OECD.
Some employees with disabilities are paid as little as 9% of the
minimum wage – or 99 cents/hour, $8/day, $40/week – including some who
work for government-supported Australian disability enterprises.
Over the last five years, some 10,000 employees with intellectual
disabilities have sought to be paid more by pursuing a class action
lawsuit. According to the federal and high courts, these employees have
been illegally underpaid in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act
for more than a decade. They are entitled to be compensated by the
federal government. Instead, the government has done everything it can
to block that effort.
In November, the federal government brought a bill before the Senate,
designed to thwart the employees’ class action to recover their back
pay. It was unprecedented; under the proposed law employees could accept
half of their back pay in exchange for giving up their right to recover
the other half. If they didn’t accept the offer, the government made it
clear that it would continue to resist and delay the back pay claim in
the courts for years.
The government lied to the crossbenchers in the Senate, claiming the
employees would only recover half of their back pay in court after
deductions for legal fees (false: it’s a pro bono case) and income tax
(false: mostly the employees come under the income tax threshold).
Jacqui Lambie, then still a PUP senator, parted ways with her colleagues
and together with John Madigan and Nick Xenophon voted against the
bill, which was defeated by one vote.
Within hours of the vote, Mitch Fifield resumed his lobbying of the
crossbench senators, advising them that he would reintroduce the
government bill in February 2015.
A few days before Christmas, the federal government cut funding to
disability advocacy groups hoping that no one would notice. It did so
shortly after reneging on its commitment to reform multinational
corporate tax avoidance, a multi-billion dollar industry.
Groups which lost funding include the Australian Federation of
Disability Organisations, Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia, Blind
Citizens Australia, Brain Injury Australia, Deaf Australia, Deafness
Forum of Australia, Down Syndrome Australia, the National Council on
Intellectual Disability, Physical Disability Australia and Short
Statured People of Australia.
All up, these funding cuts are said to have affected around 140 groups who deal with about 200,000 individuals.
The cuts also hit groups working with homeless people, including
National Shelter, Homelessness Australia and the Community Housing
Federation Australia.
This, too, will exacerbate existing problems. According to the most
recent data, an estimated 105,000 Australians are homeless while some
254,000 used homeless services in the last year.
From the beginning of this year, those applying for the disability
pension will have to be assessed by a government-contracted doctor
instead of their own GP. Regular doctors will no longer be allowed to
approve new DSP applications.
If the government doctor finds they’re not completely unable to work
they could be put on the dole instead – which is about $160 a week less.
Instead of fixing a legitimate problem, ACOSS chief executive
Cassandra Goldie says the end result will be a modest budget saving at
the expense of greater poverty among those with disabilities who are
already doing their best to find work in a “really tough” and
discriminatory job market.
“We need a proper job strategy to open up job opportunities to reduce
discrimination against people with disability and we would like to see
the Commonwealth lead that charge,” Ms Goldie says.
Eligibility for the DSP had already been tightened under the previous
Labor government, including tougher impairment tables and job search
requirements. Over the past decade the proportion of working age people
receiving the DSP had remained relatively constant.
Last financial year, the Department of Human Services investigated
411 people for dishonestly claiming DSP, which clawed back $9.5 million.
However social security fraud represents about 0.02 per cent of payments.
Meanwhile, Kevin Andrew’s $20 million marriage counselling voucher
scheme is to be scrapped because, of the 100,000 vouchers on offer, only
a few thousand were taken up.
The appointment of “tough guy” Scott Morrison to the Social Services
portfolio does not auger well for the vulnerable in our society.
Dubbing himself the “Minister for Economic Participation” the man who
‘stopped the boats’ declared he will now ‘stop the bludgers’.
As they ramp up the attack on the most vulnerable members of our
society it is incumbent on all decent Australians to raise their voice
in protest and help defend the rights of those who are unable to defend
themselves.
There
could be no starker signal of this government’s intentions than the
appointment of Tim Wilson as the Human Rights Commissioner for ‘Freedom’
at the expense of disability commissioner Graeme Innes. In opposition,
Senator Brandis was prepared to publicly criticise Mr Innes for
advocating on behalf of Australians with a…
“Once
a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of
opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to
all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in…
Tony Abbott is on the ropes Tony Abbott crossed the line last week and his brief reign as Australia's prime minister is about to end.
Until now if anybody asked who was the worst prime minister Australia ever had, most would say Billy McMahon.
Now Abbott's name will appear in Australia's history as the leader
who could not lead; a man who is untrustworthy, unreliable and
dishonest; who shamed himself and the country he should never have been
allowed to lead because he was totally unqualified by birth and by incompetence.
No sensible Australian believed his argument that Labor had left a debt crisis in its wake, that the budget cuts he demanded were ever necessary.
Actually, Labor had achieved a great deal more
than was generally recognised, the truth buried in an unfortunate set
of leadership changes, seen by a majority of the party as necessary at
the time but punished by an irritated electorate.
The election of 2013 was the result of shameful dishonesty, shared
between the Murdoch newspapers and the claims the Liberal-Nationals used
ruthlessly in their pre-election desperation and then in their post-election incompetence.
Tony Abbott, maintaining his obsequious relationship with Rupert
Murdoch, over dinner in December, allegedly blamed bad advice from his
communications staff for the failings of the Government Murdoch himself
had installed.
That's when Murdoch said: get rid of them — including Peta Credlin.
Abbott took Murdoch's orders and overhauled his media team, including dumping his press office director Jane McMillan and appointing the ABC's Mark Simkin in his place
But Abbott demurred on Credlin and tried to save her. Murdoch allegedly took to phoning Abbott demanding Credlin's head.
Abbott refused and so Murdoch used Twitter to reinforce his demand.
Predictably, this unleased the dogs of war and
his sycophantic retinue of hacks for hire immediately took up their
master's call.
It is easy to forget that when Labor was in office, Australia achieved triple A financial ratings on a level with Germany, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland — and even better than the USA at that time.
When the Abbott Government took power, Australia had one of the lowest levels of government debt in the western world. The debt is still relatively low, though the Abbott and Hockey financial team managed to double the debt in their first six months in power.
In 2008, the Labor Government under Rudd allowed the Budget to go
into deficit because of the global financial crisis. This immediately
stimulated the Australian economy, kept us out of recession and maintained a record high employment level.
The simple truth is that in 2014 Joe Hockey deceptively inflated Australia's debt level
to produce panic. His Budget projections raised the deficit peak of $68
billion, when Labor's highest level had actually been $54 billion.
Under Labor, spending growth was locked at less than two per cent per
year, the lowest in 23 years.
At the same time, Labor maintained one of the lowest tax takes in the western world, at just 22.5% of GDP, compared with John Howard's average rate of 25%.
Put more simply than the figures above,
Australians can now accept that their country has been subjected to a
government that lied its way into power — and now seems intent on lying
its way back to oblivion.
