on 29-03-2014 07:38 PM
Well done LNP,
for the 123 broken promises, lies & deceptions
http://sallymcmanus.net/abbotts-wreckage/
http://theaimn.com/2014/03/28/tony-abbott-stuffs-it-up-again/
Cuts welfare payments to orphans of soldiers
Cuts hundreds of jobs at the CSIRO
Reopens 457 visa loophole to allow employers to hire an unlimited number of workers without scrutiny
Pays hundreds of indigenous workers in his Department up to $19 000 less than non-indigenous workers doing the same job
and cuts the budget for the representative body the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples causing two-thirds of the staff to lose their jobs
Scraps food grants program for small farmers
Unemployment rate jumps to highest in more than 10 years
Cuts the wages of Australian troops deployed overseas by almost $20 000 per solider
Withdraws funding for an early intervention program to help vulnerable young people
Starts dismantling Australia’s world leading marine protection system . .
.
on 12-04-2014 11:10 AM
The environmental stuff is extremely worrying because a lot of the damage wont be fixable.
Removes the community’s right to challenge decisions where the government has ignored expert advice on threatened species impacts – 9 December 2013
Downgrades national environment laws by giving approval powers to state premiers.– 9 December 2013
on 12-04-2014 11:11 AM
@freddie*rooster wrote:If Tone's arms fell off he would be a mute.
his eyesight might be safer though.
on 12-04-2014 11:15 AM
on 12-04-2014 11:26 AM
@just_me_karen wrote:
So might women in his life.
Boris have you mentioned how he has begun dismantling the fishing protection zones? 20 years of research thrown down the drain, to our future detriment.
Yes, see post 69.
on 12-04-2014 11:33 AM
Does anyone else think it was a little premature of our PM to announce in China that we're very close to finding the missing plane?
after he announced that, it was announced that the 'pings'were not from the plane's black box (which has now ceased to work)
I sincerely hope it is found along with the rest of the world, but in that big ocean with no black box pinging, it's not going to be easy.
a lot of families are desperate for information & will be hanging on every word .Many of the families are from China I hope we have not given them any false hope.
on 12-04-2014 11:55 AM
on 12-04-2014 12:47 PM
@spotweldersfriend wrote:
Is the de-listing of a heritage site by this party a world first?
I don't know Spot but it does seem to be.....
The 21 countries of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meet in Qatar in June to consider the Abbott Government's plan to axe Tasmania's old growth forests. This will be the first time a government has ever sought to delist a World Heritage area when its heritage values are still intact
below is a link to a petition to protect our precious ancient forest.
https://www.getup.org.au/tas-forests
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2013/10/tassie-forest-heritage-listing-could-be-revoked/
It is unprecedented for Australia to actively seek to remove World Heritage protection from a site of recognised natural and cultural importance. “Countries generally fight to stop the World Heritage Committee listing their nation’s sites as World Heritage In Danger, as Australia has done with the Great Barrier Reef ,” says Tom. “This is the reverse of that normal situation; the Government is actively seeking to delist forests in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area so they can be logged.”
The areas the government wants to delist were part of 170,000 hectares of tall eucalypt, old-growth and rainforest that in June last year were added to the 1.4 million hectare Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Mr Hunt declined on Monday to say whether he had personally seen the forests in question. Wilderness Society Tasmanian campaigns manager Vica Bayley said: ''To be blunt, he appears to have very little understanding of his decision.''
Mr Bayley said the World Heritage Committee understood the true state of the forests, knew they met the criteria for listing and had repeatedly asked for them to be protected. ''We're confident they would rebuff this,'' he said.
The green groups said in the case of the bitterly contested 7000-hectare middle and upper Florentine Valley - part of the area proposed for delisting - only about 150 hectares had been logged.
Environment Tasmania spokesman Phill Pullinger said less than 11,000 hectares of the 170,000 hectare extension was recovering from logging and these areas were included to ensure integrity of the entire boundary. He said the areas targeted for delisting were recognised by the World Heritage Committee as part of a unique tall eucalypt ecosystem.
''These are the southern hemisphere's equal to the California redwoods,'' Dr Pullinger said. ''We're asking the Commonwealth government to drop this backwards approach.''
Tasmania's timber industry confirmed that it opposed the delisting. The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania said the 2013 extension was integral to a forest peace deal.
The government's proposal was lodged last week with UNESCO for distribution to the 21-member nation committee.
A backwards step
Just when Tasmanian forestry is looking to the future, the Abbott government seems intent on dragging the industry back to a past which customers don’t want and won’t buy. But the Liberals have not presented a viable Plan B to the forests agreement.
World Heritage logging will be destructive in net economic, environmental and social terms. So it seems the Liberals' motivation is more political. Perhaps an obsession to undo achievements predating their election? Or, part of an anti-green strategy to crowd out the Palmer United Party at the 2014 Tasmanian election?
Regardless, Mr Abbott should reconsider and provide national leadership, upholding Australia’s international legal obligations. He should rule out World Heritage delisting and logging – not help hardline Tasmanian Liberals breach international law, tear down past achievements and wage forestry war for political purposes, despite market realities.
Meanwhile, iconic World Heritage Areas in Queensland, the Wet Tropics and the Great Barrier Reef, also face multiple threats.
These include:
Then there’s cane toads and the latest Ranger uranium mine spill in Kakadu.
If we don’t fulfil our international duties of care for our World Heritage Areas, what chance is there for Australia’s lesser known environmental assets?
Take action and tell Greg Hunt to protect the places we love.
on 12-04-2014 12:57 PM
on 13-04-2014 09:06 AM
Abbott to break ABC 'no cuts' promise
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is poised to break a key election promise by cutting funding to the ABC, with the key question now being how much money should be cut.
In a pledge his colleagues are now wishing he never made, Mr Abbott said on the night before the 2013 election: “No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.”
on 13-04-2014 07:25 PM
Now this list is long and it is from the woeful Institute of Public Affairs, it's 75 things they would like to see Abbott do, now they say themselves that they don't expect tones to do all of it, not even most of it - but a few would do...any look familiar. This was written before last years Federal Election. Looks like the LNP governments shopping list.
1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don't replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.
2 Abolish the Department of Climate Change
3 Abolish the Clean Energy Fund
4 Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act
5 Abandon Australia's bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council
6 Repeal the renewable energy target
7 Return income taxing powers to the states
8 Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission
9 Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
10 Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol
11 Introduce fee competition to Australian universities
12 Repeal the National Curriculum
13 Introduce competing private secondary school curriculums
14 Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
15 Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be 'balanced'
16 Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law
17 End local content requirements for Australian television stations
18 Eliminate family tax benefits
19 Abandon the paid parental leave scheme
20 Means-test Medicare
21 End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education
22 Introduce voluntary voting
23 End mandatory disclosures on political donations
24 End media blackout in final days of election campaigns
25 End public funding to political parties
26 Remove anti-dumping laws
27 Eliminate media ownership restrictions
28 Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board
29 Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency
30 Cease subsidising the car industry
31 Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction
32 Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games
33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books
34 End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws
35 Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP
36 Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit
37 Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database
38 Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food
39 Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities
40 Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools
41 Repeal the alcopops tax
42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including:
a) Lower personal income tax for residents
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
c) Encourage the construction of dams
43 Repeal the mining tax
44 Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states
45 Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold
46 Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent
47 Cease funding the Australia Network
48 Privatise Australia Post
49 Privatise Medibank
50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function
51 Privatise SBS
52 Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784
53 Repeal the Fair Work Act
54 Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them
55 Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors
56 Abolish the Baby Bonus
57 Abolish the First Home Owners' Grant
58 Allow the Northern Territory to become a state
59 Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16
60 Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade
61 Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States
62 End all public subsidies to sport and the arts
63 Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport
64 End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering
65 Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification
66 Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship
67 Means test tertiary student loans
68 Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement
69 Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built
70 End all government funded Nanny State advertising
71 Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling
72 Privatise the CSIRO
73 Defund Harmony Day
74 Close the Office for Youth
75 Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme