Burning the Australian Flag

[donnashuggy]

Is going a bit far isn't it?

Or is it fair enough do you think?

[**meep**]

---

@i-need-a-martini wrote:

I don't think that a couple of students halfheartedly burning 99c plastic flags outside the embassy in Australia in Indonesia is of any consequence really given that they have made no statement about why they are doing it. Sounds like a couple radicals who needed an excuse - Yogyakarta students tend to protest at anything given a slice of a chance.I suspect that this is the reason there are 400 police/miltary riot police on standby there at the moment.

What HAS gone on too far is the length of time it has taken to resolve this ridiculous situation that has caused it to become the drama it has turned into.

He can't even come up with a strategy after calling a special House of Reps meeting today to discuss the problem. Laughably, he comes out of that meeting today saying: "I want to assure the House that the government will respond swiftly, fully and courteously to the President," . Umm hello? Don't tell us, tell it to the country you are having issues with. Actually, you could have dealt with it swiftly and courteously days ago. Actually Mr Abbott!! You could have done it when speaking to the press today instead of nonsense statements with no substance.

Instead it's all the ABCs fault lol! 

What a shambles.

---

 Laughably, he comes out of that meeting today saying: "I want to assure the House that the government will respond swiftly, fully and courteously to the President."

Laughably?

Uhmmm...... Didn't that follow a statement he made regarding the receipt of a letter from the Indonesian President demanding an official explanation?

"This morning I received the letter."

"I want to assure the House that the Government will respond swiftly, fully and courteously to the president's letter,"

[cherry*135]

---

@*mrgrizz* wrote:

it's OK the USA will back us up

---

Here is Julie groveling to them. (has she got her hand on Chuck's jacket?)

Defence Minister David Johnston, left, and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, second left, greet US Secretary of State John Kerry, right, and US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel (2nd-R) ahead of the Ausmin talks.

[i-need-a-martini]

What Sheehan failed to mention is that The Guardian was not prepared to run a story without doing it's own research. And he also failed to mention that Snowdon was about to go public with this story and a pile of others related to other countries.

[**meep**]

---

@am*3 wrote:

Good points in this story.

Those who exposed spying on Indonesia have got what they wanted

.....All this would have been anticipated by the people who lit this conflagration, the ABC and the English import The Guardian Australia. The Guardian had possession of the security leak for months. Nothing happened while Labor was in power.

ABC managing director Mark Scott had a clear choice. It was self-evident that revealing these phone taps would poison the relationship with Indonesia, damage Australia's intelligence-gathering, humiliate President Yudhoyono, compromise Australian security arrangements, and ripple out to Australia's education market in Indonesia.

He decided to go all-in with The Guardian. His decision was consistent with, on his watch, the ABC's institutional hostility to Coalition policies on asylum-seekers, and its decisions such as appointing Russell Skelton as chief fact-checker despite his public record of anti-Coalition partisanship. The ABC has got what it wanted. It will now pursue the story with zeal.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/those-who-exposed-spying-on-indonesia-have-got-what-they-wanted-201311...

---

Yep!  I've read that earlier.

[i-need-a-martini]

---

@**meep** wrote:

 Laughably, he comes out of that meeting today saying: "I want to assure the House that the government will respond swiftly, fully and courteously to the President."

Laughably?

Uhmmm...... Didn't that follow a statement he made regarding the receipt of a letter from the Indonesian President demanding an official explanation?

"This morning I received the letter."

"I want to assure the House that the Government will respond swiftly, fully and courteously to the president's letter,"

---

If you read the lines following my quote it is clear my point is that he should have dealt with the issue swiftly, fully and courteously from the beginning. I was using HIS words to offer my opinion of how he should have dealt with the issue in the first place.

[izabsmiling]

 now there is an excuse for the doomed policy to fail 

[**meep**]

Hang on......Why omitting the rest of his statement?  What he was referring to?  Because it would have made sense?

You don't need to answer that.....

[izabsmiling]

---

@*mrgrizz* wrote:

it's OK the USA will back us up

---

Doesn't look like it..not publicly anyway 

21 NOV 2013 - 4:40PM

US and Australia dodge questions over spying

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and US Secretary of State John Kerry have remained tight lipped over allegations the two countries colluded to tap the phone of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. 

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/11/21/united-states-and-australia-dodge-questions-over-spyin...

Anyone remember the fuss made of similar  pics of JG with men?

[cherry*135]

Yes, I do, iza. That photo of Julie B staring into the eyes of that guy reminded me of the JG fuss.

[**meep**]

The advice has been that T Abbott should have handled it the way B Obama did.  I can't recall the events.  What was Obama's immediate response?