so am i , when albanese gets stuck into them. its obvious from the constant references shorten scares you btw. 
Albo can open up with this
Julie Owens MP: “I don’t believe that you can call it charity work if the taxpayer is paying your salary to do it – let alone if you make a profit out of it on the back of $350 in travelling allowance a day.”
No one begrudges the blood and sweat that Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his fellow politicians have shed while riding thousands of kilometres in the annual Pollie Pedal cycling fundraising tours — or the more than $2.5 million they have raised for charities since it started in 1998.
But what distinguishes Abbott from the dozens of politicians who have ridden the Pollie Pedal rides over the past 15 years is that he appears to be the only politician to have claimed travelling allowances and other expenses for his participation.
He may even have made a profit from the event http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2013/10/25/did-the-prime-minister-turn-a-profit-from-pollie-peda...
Max Markson told The Northern Myth that if AMGEN was paying $80,000 a year to have Tony Abbott promote their brand that it was sponsorship that was ‘cheap at twice the price’.
Roll back to first light on 8 September 2013. Tony Abbott, Australia’s Prime Minister elect, emerges barefoot into the early morning light. He is in his cycling gear and squats to put on his cleated cycling shoes then walks to his waiting road-bike in that curious clickety-clack heel-bound duck walk that cyclists have when off their bike.
No-one looks cool walking in those shoes but not being cool has never bothered Abbott.
Like half the country I was nursing a slight hangover and was watching the early news from the east coast. Abbott was in neck-to-knee lyrca emblazoned with sponsors for his annual charity fund-raiser Pollie Pedal, which his office runs in conjunction with Carers Australia.
Pollie Pedal’s sponsors include Gerry Ryan’s Jayco caravans, a law firm, a book chain and three pharmaceutical companies – alphapharm, Roche and Pfizer. Running across Abbott’s chest in bright blue and down the outside of each thigh is the logo “AMGEN”.
So who or what is AMGEN?
The Australian branch of AMGEN – the world’s largest biotechnology company – has been the major sponsor of Pollie Pedal since 2007. In 2013 that sponsorship was valued at $80,000 while alphapharm, Roche and Pfizer would each have coughed between $20,000 and $50,000 as ‘supporting’ and ‘major’ sponsors respectively.
So far so good – there is nothing controversial about large companies tipping their hard-earned in to assist worthy causes. But what happens when one of those companies admits to criminal conduct and pays a large fine to settle Federal and State lawsuits in the United States? http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2013/09/13/cheap-at-twice-the-price-the-prime-minister-and-big-p...
