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.
@polksaladallie wrote:
@am*3 wrote:The Circus - Wed 25 Feb
Photo- Mike Bowers for The Guardian
It seems there is a bad smell there. Or a threat of girl germs?
from twitter: From the left. PM, Dep PM, Galoot & Unemployed.
I've copied the entire letter here:
Ten to 30 years ago, I frequently took part in public debates, but the years have gone by and I now rarely participate. Yet disgust at the level to which our national politics has fallen lures me out in defence of the Human Rights Commission.
I knew Gillian Triggs slightly in academic legal circles; I didn't get excited when she was appointed chair of the Human Rights Commission. However I soon realised that there was something I had missed beneath the conservative demeanor.
I was not surprised by the independence, scholarly professionalism, or the poise and dignity. But I was not prepared for the courage and passion and directness with which she spoke out for the vulnerable whose interests were trampled on by both political parties in the rush to pursue popular objectives like border security.
Nor was she prepared for the Government's reaction to her work. My heart went out to her when, on television, I saw her anguished surprise at the self-centred bully boy reaction of the then Minister and Secretary for Immigration in response to her concern for the condition of detainees in the Nauru and Manus.
For her it was all about improving standards of care. For the Minister and his Secretary it was all about the fact that they had been implicitly criticised, something that could only be done for base political motives.
A similar narcissistic reaction came from Tony Abbott in response to The Forgotten Children Report, accompanied this time by a vicious, ignorant, insulting, and unjustified campaign against its author. I don't know if any members of the Government have read the report; some of them proudly boast that they have not.
If they did read it, they would discover - surprise, surprise - it is not about politicians but about children in detention. Politicians are a necessary backdrop because they make the decisions. The Report treats them accordingly – descriptively, impartially and unemotionally. It is because the facts speak for themselves, not because of any attack in the report, that many will read it as an indictment of politicians, both Coalition and Labor.
This would inevitably be true whenever the Report was written, presented or published. Gillian Triggs’ attempt to keep it out of an election campaign could not alter that.
There is not much to choose between the main parties. Labor must find it hard to believe its luck that Tony Abbott has elected to treat the Report as an attack on his Government. If he chooses to tell the world that all the flak is directed at him, Labor can just keep its head down and let him cop it.
It is an own goal that must rank with his knighting of Prince Phillip and his calling up of the tsunami aid in support of the Bali Two.
Once again Mr Abbott has proved a loose cannon, but this time his wild firing threatens grave pain and injustice to a courageous and honourable public servant, and the undermining of a much needed national institution, as well as obscuring the terrible effect of detention on innocent children.
So, Professor Rob Moodie, please add my name to your open letter to the Prime Minister – not that he is likely on past form to read or understand it.
Emeritus Professor Hal Wootten AC QC is a former Supreme Court judge, Royal Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and Chair of the Australian Press Council, and was founding President of the first Aboriginal Legal Service and Foundation Dean of Law at the University of NSW. In 1991 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia for services to human rights, conservation, legal education and the law.
@am*3 wrote:
@polksaladallie wrote:
@am*3 wrote:The Circus - Wed 25 Feb
Photo- Mike Bowers for The Guardian
It seems there is a bad smell there. Or a threat of girl germs?
from twitter: From the left. PM, Dep PM, Galoot & Unemployed.
She cannot be Deputy PM, that has to be a National, the next will be red-faced Joyce.
they're good those little videos Glee, i always have a look at them, good article
Today in Parliament Julie Bishop said that Gillian Triggs had not been offered a job or an inducement, but a role.. an international role.... did she mean a trip to Alaska or a salad roll?
Treasurer Joe Hockey is under fire for launching a taxpayer-funded public relations push to sell the need for tax reform.
Treasury bureaucrats have revealed Mr Hockey personally directed that a public relations strategy be devised to accompany the imminent launch of the Coalition's tax white paper process.
So far, $650,000 has been spent on focus groups and devising a slick communications strategy to "convince people of the need for reform", a Treasury official told a Senate estimates committee on Thursday.
The Australian Financial Review revealed on Friday that a public information campaign, including TV commercials, will accompany the intergenerational report and the government recently came under fire for spending $8 million on an advertising blitz to promote its proposed higher education reforms
joe must be still trying to tighten his belt 
I did see that article about the "Hopeless' poster debra...
the government recently came under fire for spending $8 million on an advertising blitz to promote its proposed higher education reforms
Waste of money, especially as it wouldn't have changed many/any peoples mind about those dud proposals.
