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.

[pct001wine]

Thanks for posting am*3.  Scary reading.  Wonder what the Abbottphiles will make of it - probably nothing, given the way they can't bring themselves to confront the bleedin' obvious - Abbott is unfit for the office of PM.

[gleee58]

This is the first few paragraphs of a detailed article about the staggeringly hypercritical and arrogant Cory Bernadi.

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2015/02/21/inside-sa-senator-cory-bernardis-busines...

Midway through last year, an imposing figure rose within the senate chambers and gave one of the more brazen speeches the parliament has seen in recent times.

Fuelled with the knowledge journalists had been investigating his professional history, the Liberal senator for South Australia Cory Bernardi decided to go on the offensive. He talked about his experiences as a financial planner, investor, entrepreneur and sharemarket “spread betting” enthusiast, couching his ideas within an adjournment speech on the advantages and disadvantages of financial services regulations (FSR).

“The rogues in the industry were supposed to be cleaned up by the FSR reforms of the early 2000s,” Senator Bernardi said on July 7, while his parliamentary colleagues politely
looked on.

“These reforms put new regulatory and compliance burdens on securities dealers, which virtually doubled the amount of paperwork overnight.” The only solution Bernardi had found to this regulation was to “get big or get out”.

Bernardi chose to get big and get digital. While the senator was quick to denounce the “get rich at the client’s expense mentality of a small section of the planning community”, an investigation by The Saturday Paper has uncovered documents that suggest the often controversial South Australian was engaged in questionable conduct of his own, both before and after joining the federal parliament in 2006.

“We have no record of any association between Starlight Children’s Foundation Australia and Cory or Sinead Bernardi.”

Speaking under parliamentary privilege, Bernardi admitted to having “produced, sold and promoted both free and expensive investment education products” throughout his career. As a part of its investigation, The Saturday Paper has learned that these products were offered on websites owned by Bernardi’s former finance company Dallancorp, which advertised either massive or “guaranteed” returns between late 2003 and early 2006.

As one Dallancorp operation, pibusiness.com, put it: “I’d like to show you what has to be the easiest way to bank $30,000+ A MONTH on the planet.”

According to company extracts and other documents obtained from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Dallancorp was operated from a number of addresses across Adelaide from 1996 up until May 2009, at which time it was relocated to a taxpayer-funded electorate office in Kent Town, also used by Senator Nick Minchin, where it continued operations until the company’s demise in mid-2012. The Parliamentary Entitlements Act explicitly prohibits politicians from running commercial businesses out of electorate offices. 

A change of address form received by ASIC on May 1, 2009, shows this relocation was personally applied for by Bernardi, who was the company’s solitary shareholder and company secretary throughout this time.

This form was submitted just over six months before Bernardi admitted to the parliament that he still held a significant role within Dallancorp’s managerial team, in contrast to his previous pecuniary interest statements during the 2008-11 senate term.

[idlewhile]

I looked ip John Lyons today and was surprised he is a  journalist of left leanings. I looked up a lot of his past reporting and was dismayed to see his bias to the left on world happenings.

Wonder what's going on at the Australian.

[idlewhile]

I would c&p the scroller from the most disgusting and shameful speech ever made in the senate by Ludlum but I can't be bothered with the feeding frenzy going on on this thread.

I'm sure the comrades can find it and c&p it on here to assuage themselves.

[debra9275]

Sure, lol

I suggest you also read chris kenny's latest article too. Looks like murdoch's given the order on abbott.. Never thought I'd see the day I'd be in a position of wondering whether to believe abbott or the Australian

[gleee58]

---

@idlewhile wrote:

I would c&p the scroller from the most disgusting and shameful speech ever made in the senate by Ludlum but I can't be bothered with the feeding frenzy going on on this thread.

I'm sure the comrades can find it and c&p it on here to assuage themselves.

---

Senator Ludlum has spoken several times in the Senate. I've not heard a shameful one so could you be more specific, please?

[debra9275]

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/trans-pacific-partnership-whats-the-deal-being...

It has reached the point where Australia's trade minister Andrew Robb is prepared to put a date on it. "I think it could be ready next month," he says, before adding that there have been slippages before. It was meant to be signed in 2011.

[gleee58]

---

@debra9275 wrote:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/trans-pacific-partnership-whats-the-deal-being...

It has reached the point where Australia's trade minister Andrew Robb is prepared to put a date on it. "I think it could be ready next month," he says, before adding that there have been slippages before. It was meant to be signed in 2011.

---

better to drag it out than sign a dud deal

[monman12]

Interesting that you quote Paul Kelly" within this C&P  from the Australian A3.  Here is one also from the Australian (acceptable  source and date, Sept 2014) wherein it reviews Kelly's book:    Triumph and Demise: The Broken Promise of a Labor Generation

Excerpt:

The dysfunction at the heart of the Rudd-Gillard government was partly due to defective leadership. Kelly describes how under Rudd the public service was often shut out, consultation with business was flawed and the clearing house capacity of the cabinet was not used. Trying to control the media cycle failed. Gillard began to repeat many of these failings. The word “brainless” is frequently used by Kelly to explain both prime ministers and their governments.

That  "naughty "  dysfunction word again !    (did you also notice brainless?)

[debra9275]

I wonder if he'll write a book about the abbott circus too.... probably will, so much for him to work with in such a short space of time too,  what is it?? 17 months so far??

he could title it .. THE INSTANT DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF THE ABBOTT GOVT.. WITHIN A FEW MONTHS... THE MANY BROKEN PROMISES OF A LIBERAL GOVT AND THEIR PARTY ROOM LEAKS.....perhaps he's already started working on it??