Diary of our stinking Govt.

[boris1gary]

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.

[debra9275]

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop echoed her leader's line, saying while the win was welcome, the Labor government had failed to articulate what it hoped to achieve.

"There is a limit to what can be achieved as a temporary member on the United Nations Security Council," she told ABC TV this morning.

"Of course, the ultimate test will be in terms of success, what we have achieved for the benefit of the Australian people after two years on the Security Council as a temporary member."

Ms Gillard said she was disappointed by the Opposition's reaction to the seat victory.

"I think it is disappointing that the Opposition today hasn't had the generosity of spirit to say this is a great day for Australia. It is," she said.

[debra9275]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-19/gillard-praises-rudd-over-un-seat-win/4322810

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said one of the "most obvious" benefits of winning a seat on the council was the potential for stopping asylum seeker boats from trying to make it to Australia.

"I, like everyone else, welcome Australia getting a seat for the fifth time on the UN Security Council," he told reporters in Sydney.

"Maybe now the United Nations will help us stop the boats."

[debra9275]

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@debra9275 wrote:

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@debra9275 wrote:

 a little bit of past history

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-21/swan-named-best-treasurer/2908654

Swan named world's best treasurer

Treasurer Wayne Swan has been awarded the prestigious finance minister of the year award for his handling of the Australian economy.

The award is judged by leading European banking and finance magazine Euromoney on advice from global bankers and investors.

Each year the award honours the finance minister, treasurer or central bank governor whose decisions "have directly benefited both the performance and perception of their country's economic and financial achievements".

Australia survived the global financial crisis without suffering the recession that crippled most Western economies and has registered strong growth during the latest downturn which has hit other countries hard

how VERY odd  that there are NO   AUSTRALIAN LNP TREASURERS on this list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromoney_Finance_Minister_of_the_Year

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 has someone made a mistake do you think? 

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[monman12]

2012    (2012?)

"Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said one of the "most obvious" benefits of winning a seat on the council was the potential for stopping asylum seeker boats from trying to make it to Australia."

Obviously the Circus under Poor Me and Rudd, preferred their somewhat disastrous, and fatal,  non Pacific Solution, solution.

Oh gosh is the forbidden history period now de rigueur?

[monman12]

Now for the real world, it is there, outside of the Sandpit and the cathartic political twaddle herein.

Will the XJO  reach 6000?    Mar 25 - Close   5,973.30

Will CBA reach $100?  Commonwealth Bank of Australia  95.86 0.77(0.81%) my favourite financial stock.

The malodorous share price history (2 years) within the "on the nose" "Govt" reign for the above entities:

[debra9275]

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@am*3 wrote:

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@debra9275 wrote:

I hope Joe doesn't expect to be named treasurer of the year   

it will never happen

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More likely WORST Treasurer of Australia ever.

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I can't argue with that Am 

[debra9275]

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-government-resists-us-moves-against-coa...

The Abbott government has again put itself on a collision course with US President Barack Obama, this time over government funding for coal-fired power plants.

After adopting a contrary position to the US on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, about which a final decision is expected within days, the Abbott government has been leading international resistance to White House moves to strip back subsidies for fossil fuels.

A leaked briefing paper, obtained by Fairfax Media, shows the government is using an international forum to frustrate efforts by the US, the United Kingdom and France to wind back export subsidies for new but environmentally harmful coal stations in third world countries.

[gleee58]

Q: You used to talk about a debt and deficit disaster before the last election. Can you just clarify what you were talking about - were you talking about the 40-year projections – and do you regret that rhetoric now?

Tony Abbott.

Well, let me start at the beginning, Mark. As some of you know, I’ve been a reasonably long serving member of the Davidson rural fire brigade. And you can have a terrible fire which is threatening homes, threatening communities, that is an emergency. The instant the fire brigade turns up, the emergency starts to ease.

(Let’s think this through as a matter of logic. Does a fire start to ease when the firepersons turn up, or do they have to do something first. Like, I don’t know, dousing the flames?)

The Guardian 

[debra9275]

[cherry*135]

Joe's Budget 2014

The budget is more than a political failure, it is a fiscal disaster

March 16, 2015

AFR

At some point pretty soon, the 2014 budget is going to have to be called for what it is: not just a political disaster, but a budget disaster.

That is, a medium-term disaster for the process of actually fixing the federal budget.

The Abbott government's spectacular backflip on Monday on its higher education funding cuts – originally forecast to raise more than $3.2 billion over five years – adds to the growing list of policy reversals that now leave a gaping hole in the budget, which everyone seems to be rather politely ignoring on the basis that the government may, one of these days, still pursue these reforms through the Parliament.

...Yet we all know that is not going to happen

LEGISLATIVE RECORD

Consider the government's legislative record for 2015. It is not good.

It has passed just one piece of legislation through both houses of parliament this year, the well-known and just a tad audacious Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People's Recognition (Sunset Extension) Bill 2015.

On all its major reforms, its lack of political capital now renders the government impotent in the Parliament.

There are more time bombs sitting there, too. Remember the government resorted to reintroducing $2.2 billion of petrol excise indexation via regulation rather than legislation?  That will eventually have come back to the Parliament as well.

Beyond the $80 billion of cost shifting the federal government whacked on the states, there are virtually no large savings that the government is likely to have legislated before Parliament reconvenes to hear the 2015 budget speech on May 12.

Despite this, all the tough talk about tough budgets last year have made the political and economic landscape in which the 2015 budget will be delivered much more precarious than it was in 2014. That means the government is even less able to act to get major budget cuts through the Parliament than it was last year.

Last year's budget started with a relatively small bottom line impact in 2014-15, but the savings measures were supposed to escalate in 2015-16. But these savings will now not be there to produce a better starting point for the coming budget, or be escalating quietly away in years to come.

In the meantime, the government has been committing to more spending: on Monday $150 million to restore scientific research funding; last week, a backdown on car industry assistance likely to cost between $100 million and $200 million, defence pay rates, another $200 million. If the government were to actually succeed in getting the Senate to agree to fee deregulation (without the offsettings savings), it would cost the budget $1 billion.

Disaster is not too strong a word. And that is before we get to the impact of such utterly incompetent politics on the reputation of important debates like the deregulation of our universities.

http://www.afr.com/news/policy/budget/the-budget-is-more-than-a-political-failure-it-is-a-fiscal-dis...