on 20-04-2014 10:21 PM
As it's more than 100 days now, it has been suggested that a new thread was needed. The current govt has been breaking promises and telling lies at a rate so fast it's hard to keep up.
This below is worrying, "independent" pffft, as if your own doctor is somehow what? biased, it's ridiculous. So far there is talk of only including people under a certain age 30-35, for now. Remember that if your injured in a car, injured at work or get ill, you too might need to go on the DSP. They have done a similar think in the UK with devastating consequences.
and this is the 2nd time recently where the Govt has referred to work as welfare???? So when you go to work tomorrow (or tuesday), just remember that's welfare.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-20/disability-pensioners-may-be-reassessed-kevin-andrews/5400598
Independent doctors could be called in to reassess disability pensioners, Federal Government says
The Federal Government is considering using independent doctors to examine disability pensioners and assess whether they should continue to receive payments.
Currently family doctors provide reports supporting claims for the Disability Support Pension (DSP).
But Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews is considering a measure that would see independent doctors reassess eligibility.
"We are concerned that where people can work, the best form of welfare is work," Mr Andrews said at a press conference.
on 23-04-2014 11:20 AM
It seems to be comedy day, so a little humour is in order..............
Me: [knock, knock] Hello.
Senator George Brandis, Australian Attorney-General: Who is it [from behind the door]. This had better be important. I'm on the last chapter of "Still Not Sorry" by Voltaire.
Me: It's important. I wouldn't have come all this way to your alternative universe for nothing.
GB: [opens door]. Well come in, come in. Take the weight off your… arghhh! What's that in your hand?
Me: A mobile phone. But never mind that. I can't join you in there, but I do need to talk to you. I've come about that interview you gave the other day. The one where you said climate change deniers were being... what was it… "excluded from the debate"?
GB: Yes. Rather good I thought, especially that bit where I called some of those climate believers "medieval". What about it?
Me: Well, I think that you might have got your two universes a bit transposed. That restaurant where you gave that interview… it's actually in the real world.
GB: It's WHAT? I'm always so careful with my universes. What makes you think I mucked up?
Me: There were a few clues. There was that bit when you were banging on about how climate change was something people "mock at your peril" and how deniers were excluded from the argument. Well, you know about News Corporation, right? They've got something like 70 per cent of the newspaper readership. I mean, practically all their main writers are....
GB: Never heard of them.
Me: That's because you're standing in there in your alternative universe and I'm out here. There are contrarians everywhere at News Corp. Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Terry McCrann, Tim Blair. And the deniers are all over commercial radio too. And let's not get started on the blogs.
GB: Well I have heard that radio show with Alan Jones. He's in and out of here all the time. Reckons all that climate change stuff is witchcraft.
Me: Right. OK. And then there was that bit where you said that "one side" wouldn't engage with climate deniers intelligently and how science is about being sceptical.
GB: Yes... all perfectly correct.
Me: No, no, no. Correct where you're standing right now maybe, but not out here. I mean yes, science is about being sceptical… that's obvious. But there are almost no proper scientists left who reckon we don't cause climate change. The scientists have been sceptical about climate change. They've studied all that stuff about there being a new ice age coming or that it's just all natural. They've looked at it all, they've been researching all that for decades.
GB: Hang on, hang on. What do you mean proper scientists? I know a proper scientist when I meet one, thank you. They're always writing columns in The Australian about how climate change is all overblown rubbish. That's what proper scientists do, write op-eds and work for think tanks. They devote their lives to trying to understand the complexities of getting stuff in The Australian and avoiding peer review. I'm not saying they're right, of course.
Me: Really, this idea that climate change deniers are some sort of poor repressed group just doesn't stand up out here. They're not so much repressed as bleep everywhere. Oh, except in science journals. They're not really there.
GB: Ah.. that's because they're repressed.
Me: Then there's your boss. You have met Tony Abbott's top business advisor, right? Maurice Newman? You know, the guy who reckons climate change is a "scientific delusion"… hang on, who is that behind your modest-sized bookcase?
GB: Maurice, come out from there.
Me: Is Tony's renewables policy adviser there too? [movement behind bookcase] Dick, I can see you there you know.
GB: Hey, you know you really shouldn't keep using that word denier. You're just doing that so that people associate me with homeopathy denial.
Me: Listen, Senator. I just… I just can't talk to you while you're still in there. But before I go, you were right about one thing in that interview.
GB: Oh yeh, what was that?
Me: When you said that sometimes people who question the science are in danger of being mocked. That does happen. I mean, it's happening right now. Here, where I'm standing. I'm mocking you, but I promise to stop if you come out.
GB: Bigot.
on 23-04-2014 11:30 AM
http://theaimn.com/2014/04/16/you-cant-make-a-silk-purse-out-of-a-sows-ear/
Abbott, action on climate change.................
“If you want to put a price on carbon, why not do it with a simple tax?” – July 2009
“The argument is absolute bleep. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.” – December 2009
“”The carbon tax is socialism masquerading as environmentalism…” – May 2012
“It’s a market, a so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one,” – July 2013
”Well I think the official in question (head of the UN’s climate change negotiations, Christiana Figueres) is talking through her hat, if I may say so,” – October 2013
“We have quite enough national parks. We have quite enough locked up forests already. In fact, in an important respect, we have too much locked up forest….When I look out tonight at an audience of people who work with timber, who work in forests, I don’t see people who are environmental vandals; I see people who are the ultimate conservationists” – March 2014
on 23-04-2014 02:05 PM
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-23/un-on-asylum-seekers/5405688
Asylum seeker boat turn-back questions going unanswered by Government, says UNHCR
The United Nations refugee agency has asked Australia to prove it is not breaching the Refugee Convention with its policy of turning back asylum seeker boats.
Speaking in Jakarta, the UNHCR's regional representative says the Australian Government has not responded to the UN's concerns about the policies.
The request for information was made in January.
on 23-04-2014 02:11 PM
don't really need all those working class people going to uni anyway..............
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-23/federal-government-considers-uni-funding-shakeup/5405252
University funding: Student fees may rise as Government considers major shake-up
Students may have to pay much more for their degrees, with the Federal Government believed to be considering a major shake-up of the nation's universities.
AM understands the Coalition is privately discussing ways of deregulating higher education funding.
23-04-2014 03:11 PM - edited 23-04-2014 03:12 PM
.....DIARY OF OUR STINKING GOVT......the 'boawt' is full of holes.....it may make it as far as the Southern Ocean but
on 23-04-2014 03:11 PM
and some are proud of this............
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/sleepless-nights-until-the-manus-nightmare-ends-20140422-zqxq2.html
Sleepless nights until the Manus nightmare ends
In my day job in the construction industry, I specialise in alternative dispute resolution in the thriving gas pipeline sector in Western Australia. By night, I get to follow my true passion as a human rights advocate. I work with the men, women and children interned in the Manus Island, Nauru and Christmas Island detention centres. I speak with them daily, organise lawyers to represent them and co-ordinate complaints on their behalf (complaints are taken more seriously if an Australian lodges them). I sometimes put them in touch with journalists.
More than half of the people I work with have suffered torture and/or trauma before seeking asylum in Australia by boat. They are then detained indefinitely, without having committed a crime, in conditions unduly harsh for even the most despicable murderer or paedophile; conditions that lead about a third of asylum seekers to attempt self-harm and/or suicide during their time in detention.
They can’t believe that we do this to pregnant women and newborn babies. But we do.
Those who speak with me send me photos and testimonies and beg me to have them published. They tell me they are under constant threat of reprisals: from locals who taunt them by making the sign of slitting their throats, and guards who they allege encourage them to commit self-harm. Many feel a return to their homeland and the prospect of being killed there is better than the uncertainty of indefinite detention and possible death on Manus Island.
I’m now working closely with the UN, human rights advocates and non-government organisations to take the next steps to shame Australia for its actions at the international level. I am working with journalists around the world to make sure their readers and listeners know what our government does to people who ask for our assistance. Because when people hear the truth, they are outraged.
They are aghast that Australia has institutionalised mental torture on a massive scale, and facilitates the physical abuse of asylum seekers by sending them to places with inadequate medical facilities and an unacceptable risk of contracting malaria, dengue fever, cholera or infectious diarrhoea. They can’t believe that we do this to pregnant women and newborn babies. But we do.
on 23-04-2014 03:15 PM
Labor and Greens call for report on Manus violence to be released immediately
Labor and the Greens have called for the immediate release of the federal government's report into the fatal violence on Manus Island after graphic images surfaced showing Papua New Guinea guards attacking asylum seekers.
The footage, obtained by Fairfax Media, showed security guards attacking a group of asylum seekers who had absconded from the centre after being told they had no prospect of being settled outside PNG if their claims for refugee status were eventually recognised. The footage was taken 24 hours before Iranian asylum seeker 23-year-old Reza Barati died on February 17.
Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles said the revelations were "deeply disturbing".
on 23-04-2014 04:27 PM
@boris1gary wrote:
don't really need all those working class people going to uni anyway..............
You're right about that. Erica is arguing against the need for students to stay at school until year 12 in Tassie. Says they should be allowed to leave early and take up menial physical labouring jobs like their grandfathers. He is afraid they'll wake up to his scams if they get better educated.
on 23-04-2014 06:47 PM
on 23-04-2014 06:59 PM