In the brouhaha about sexism and misogyny, the passing of legislation to reduce single parent payments to the Newstart allowance when a child reaches the age of eight has gone comparatively unremarked.
The government will save some 700 million dollars through slashing up to one hundred dollars a fortnight off payments to about 150,00 single parents,the majority of whom are women.
With no evidence to support the theory, the government believes that forcing single parents into poverty and charity handouts will increase their ability to find work.
At the very least, one would expect that before taking this drastic action the government might have commissioned a study, an inquiry, a report, a something into what actually happens to people when you take away what little they already have. Off the top of my head I’d guess it makes them desperate. I’d guess it makes them depressed. Neither are states of mind conducive to taking charge of one’s life and neither are states of mind conducive to the best parenting.
Common sense would suggest that the way to get single parents off benefits and into the workforce is not to first reduce them and their children to crippling poverty. The “we will make you and your children homeless and hungry and then you’ll get a job, won’t you” approach is punitive, classist and I believe sexist.
I have no idea what the ALP stands for anymore. I have no idea what kind of a feminist Julia Gillard is when she delivers passionate speeches about misogyny and sexism while at the same time making life so much more difficult for some of the most vulnerable women in society.
If ever we were to plead “Somebody think of the children!” then now would be the time. Because it will be the children of single parents who will suffer most as a consequence of the Gillard government’s cuts.
So Ms Gillard can make as many fancy speeches as she likes about misogyny and sexism, while she’s willing to condemn women and children to living on a Newstart allowance that almost nobody considers even remotely adequate, just to achieve a budget surplus, her words are little more than a noisy bell and a clanging cymbal, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.
No Place For Sheep 
Hmmm I find this a hard one….mainly because I was a single parent for around 8 years and for 8 months of that I was on single parent payments and receive no child support payments from the children’s father….he took off for England.
Part of me thinks this….the youngest child will be 8. That’s gives 3 years to find at least part time work before the payments are reduced.
I don’t like to harp on the back in my day but back in my day I worked full time and by the time I paid rent, got food and paid the $150 a week for my children’s child care I had $20 a week left over…it took me 2 months to save for a fridge, But I made it and I was DAMN hard.
Let me give you another example….I know of a lady with 4 children. The youngest is 6. At the moment she receives approximately $1200 a week, YES week, in support payments and government support….that is over double my income. She lives in a 4 bedroom house which cost $240 a week. So has around say $700 a week for food etc. Could she afford to lose $100 a fortnight….probably.
But this is the problem with Government decisions….they can’t be made on a case by case basis….there are some mother’s like me when my kid’s were small who that reduction WOULD send to the edge.
I also don’t think you need to be at home during the day if you have no children home….but again it may not be possible to get work especially for the hours needed to accommodate school hours.
I know it’s possible to bring up children and do all the household chores as a single parent and work full time….hundreds of thousands of us do it every day. Whether that should be a “choice” you can make is the hard part.
One other thing this decision may do is to encourage women to have more children so they can stay home (just like I know some young girls who got pregnant for the baby bonus) It’s not common but it’s also not rare. Look at towns like Wangaratta.
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Very few welfare recipients manage to have a reasonably easy life on benefits. And just because some use the system is that a good reason to penalise single parents who are just trying to get by the best they can?
To endanger the ability to give good parenting?
Furthermore, the job market is shrinking and shrinking. Making single parents look for jobs that just aren’t there is a pointless, stupid waste of time.
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Continuing on from love-coach, I guess when those who milk the system ( and there are some) are weeded out ,it may create a better ‘façade’ for the real battlers.
Whether single parents like it or not there are deliberate breeders placing pressure on the system, and giving the legitimate cases bad names.No thanks to the media for their attitude,either.
The pay to breed thing on top of an overpopulated world, straining at the fringes, is obscene.To hear Gillard at the UN saying we need more aid and not less people was too predictable to me.
That attitude is a death sentence to millions.But she aint alone in that perverse view.
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Thanks for that thoughtful comment. I also worked and brought up children alone,but I was equipped to do so with a good job, and shared care with their father. Even so it was a hard and lonely job.
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Only for Sheep.
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Jennifer,
You are absolutely 100 percent spot-on, dead-set correct to raise this spectre.
True!…while all this wild and and emotive rhetoric is bandied around parliament and disseminated by msm, the real issue is pushed to the margins.
I echo your sentiments, in that how is it representative of a modern social democracy that values equality and the role of nurture and guidance in our society to penalise those, mainly female, parents who are struggling to make ends meet as things stand?
How is the Gillard government able to present themselves as the last bastion of feminist ideology when they are cruelling women and children to save money?
Not surprisingly, it is well to recall in the modern era that it was the Clinton government who nobbled social welfare in the US, and not the dastardly Republicans…it seems that the same thing is occurring under the auspices of Labor in Australia, resting solely on a disingenuous tenet that work outside the home is apparently where the first responsibilities of sole parents lie.
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You are assuming that feminism was designed to benefit women generally, it isnt and never was, Taking a step back its about empowerment, and that implies power over someone or group of people. Guess who the leaders of feminism over time wanted power over? Think about it, lets hit the patriachy girls, lets empower ourselves to make our choices, lets this lets that….it sounds like a religious gathering, a fanbase for a football club or worse an Amway rally. The evidence is out that with increasing freedoms won by women by historical feminism there were considerable losses too. Incarceration of women for crimes has dramatically increased since they are now equally considered in the eyes of courts to be capable of misdemeours and worse. Going back further historically was it really such a win to break the mens club of the six oclock swill, keeping women out of bars. As any father of teenage girls knows the dangers of heavy drinking among our youth (but in this argument particular female teenagers) is a hair raising worry – girls will party hard, drink too much and who knows what type of advantage can and does get taken of them? There is also the insidious berating of women by leading feminists for being stay at home mothers (and not a successful outspoken leading feminist like narcisistic me!) and what mother needs that? Its already a tough enough job. I could go on with many many more dubious wins with significant downsides for women but I think I have illustrated my point. Feminism is a dated crock of nagging sometimes repeated harping on goals already attained (like equal wages – check the legislation!) True freedom to me invites the possibilities of happiness, peaceful living and real choice not pressure from all sides to conform the the feminist rule book. How can anyone call that liberation? Fortunately many women are educated and enlightened enough to not need to cling to its mantras and live great and interesting lives.
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A lot to agree with.
It’s easy to see it simplistically as certain personalities within the the movement bullying others to take control.
Kind of dethroning a male despot and replacing with a female one.
A quick review of many feminist hard core blogs and debates will see how willing the participants can be over even the age old chestnut, “who gets to call themselves a feminist.”
Look at what happens when anyone dares question or expose the BACWAs feminist cred.
They have Trojan Horsed themselves in, and there are many claiming the feminist label, who have no idea whether they belong there,or how to get them out.
Political movements ( at least the activist part) often walk all over peers to increase individual relevance/power and control. Quite often the walking wounded (pawns) are the very people they claim to represent.
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Yes, spot on. A truly nasty change that will impact women far more than men. But Gillard is a puppet of the right and this is their work.
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Sometimes you have to laugh.
A few days back there was a chorus of coalition muppets bleating,
“Abbott should not apologise for Jones and his campaign of hate against Gillard, words etc”.
And yesterday we had the same gimps saying Gillard is responsible for Slippers texts.
Idiots.
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If it can be argued that cutting the funds for this is just a churlish act of penny pinching of and by itself then it is obviously a lousy thing to do. But if it tuns out that there are working poor who don’t get this allowance and thus wind up effectively suffering for their industriousness that would seems doubly wrong to me. I’m not familiar enough with the machinations of the welfare system to comment in more detail than that but I think the question needs to be raised.
Just talking in general one of the things I question about the way that the welfare system works is that it appears, on the surface at least, to be the case that if young women coming more or less straight out of school into motherhood and are treated inordinately favourably in terms of having made that life choice then doesn’t it tend to dissuade them from making other, perhaps more empowering, life choices? Are we losing some of the best and brightest or even a number of average women represented throughout a broader spectrum of society and in positions of influence if this occurs. And is it not true that, no matter what side of that question you take, you’re going to be accused of social engineering?
I’m just asking, because it seems to me that if we want a welfare system designed to keep women barefoot and pregnant then I’m sure there are still a few people out there in politics willing to deliver it for us.
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I don’t think so….some of us have managed to have babies and still be part of the youngest and the brightest 😉 though now a bit older and faded 🙂
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I hope so. 🙂 But it’s a worry.
I spent some time working at a place where we found ourselves lunching in the shopping strip of a fairly depressed area where there were a disproportionate number of welfare mothers. Was I wrong, am I being politically incorrect to notice this? I wondered whether these girls, for that’s what they mostly were, were happy and had not missed out on opportunities because of their circumstances. I’m sure some were very happy, and most were obviously great mothers, but with so many in one place one begins to see patterns and to wonder.
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I suspect HG that many of them were never told that they could do more, achieve more. There have been studies done on this recently. If I can remember where I saw them I will provide links.
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Is it a prerequisite to be told you have choice?
Do they not know?
I find that quite laughable actually,because there are many women/girls who ‘choose’ to have children, regardless of any established secure home environment.Winging it at the detriment of maximum opportunities for living children should be avoided at all costs,shouldn’t it?.
A study you say, Mindy?
I am sure there is.
As I am sure there is probably a counter study.
And then there is the actual lived experience.Which in my opinion is a type of study where children end up in the petri dish of life.Many of whom become perpetuaters of the same negative cycle,whereby dolls become babies,babies become commodities.
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Thanks. I’m always interested to learn more. It seems like common sense to believe that this might well be the case.
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HG,
Here and there over the years I’ve heard the statistics oft quoted that the great majority of sole parents aren’t from the unmarried teen age-group, but include older women whose partnerships have broken down.
I’m with Jennifer, when $100 a fortnight can mean the difference between paying bills or not, it’s a pretty tight place to be in. Why inflict this on (mainly) women who are already taking sole responsibility for their children’s day to day well-being.
It’s all very well to admire a work ethic, but, as many women know, the equally sound ethic of wishing to be there for their children in the formative years is a powerful instinct.
All in all, it’s an extension of the modern penchant to water down social democracy, to shift what were crafted (in the idea of a good working model for social democracy) – public responsibilities to the private sector. The housing bubble that burst in the US in 2008 was related to the ease of credit offered to the working poor as the government sought to shift them into private housing. They employed the same mantra, appealing to personal pride and a sense of betterment, while jettisoning the government’s responsibility to provide housing.
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Hello Poirot,
Thanks for your reply. I’m really not sure of the statistics not am I unaware that my impressions can be mistaken in the same way as we’re all apt to be fallible in seeing patterns where they may not exist.
I feel your mistaken if you think I’m not with Jennifer on this. If anything I’d be arguing for funding to be increased to help women not just subsist but to further their opportunities for building bigger roles for themselves in the community. Part of that may well be that for many employment provides dignity, for others so does motherhood.
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HG,
Sorry for implying that you weren’t with Jennifer on this.
Just remembered a searching article by Tony Judt on social democracy – thought you might be interested.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/dec/17/what-is-living-and-what-is-dead-in-social-democrac/
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Millionaire mums get paid to stay home and low paid women and parents get tax benefit A if they go to work and have kids.
http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/centrelink/family-tax-benefit-part-a-part-b/ftb-a-payment-rates
So the better off with kids get $110 per teenager while those on benefits get cut backs.
Makes no sense. Did we see the result of this sort of thing on 4 Corners just last month or not?
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I heard only belatedly about that episode of 4 corners, which I’d missed. So I can only speak to what I know.
I take the view that $110 per teenager is a token amount that I wouldn’t begrudge, but also that because it is such a token amount that it probably only makes a slight difference to those who are at a real subsistence level. What it certainly wouldn’t do is empower too many people to get a leg up so to speak. I’m critical in that sense simply because I think good people are kept down by circumstances more often than not.
But there’s also a group in the middle who are neither millionaires (if that term’s even meaningful these days? What with median metropolitan house prices where they are), nor are they on subsistence. I think that the ranks of the working poor are accentuated by things like the mining boom and our two speed economy. Many of those with their plans on the backburner because money isn’t coming in since wages in many industries have fallen behind inflation have had to dip into their own savings to balance their budgets. And they’re raising kids with all the health and education expenses that entails as well as working and trying to parent. Should we spare a thought?…
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Yes but single parents are raising kids too and they are having the same pittance for kids cut.
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Which seems unfair on the surface of it, but I guess one has to ask whether it is meant to be the parent or the child that benefits and how.
If the intent of the benefit is to ensure that kids are adequately provided with health and educational needs above and beyond a level of mere subsistence then my guess is, and it really is only a guess, that the answer could be counter intuitive. If there’s food on the table and two breadwinners in the house then the benefit gets treated as such, and as such the benefits do flow to more directly benefit the child’s upbringing. If on the other hand the family is existing at the level of subsistence there’s a benefit to helping them make ends meet that probably means that the intended benefit to the child is hardly realised at all.
And I guess it has to be said that if you have the worst possible scenario of a parent who doesn’t have their act together, who drinks, gambles or worse then clearly no amount of money fixes the problem. So the questions I’d raise here while probably unwelcome in some quarters in others will be too important to leave unasked.
It seems to me that we tend to frame this aspect of the welfare system on the assumption that parents will always act in the best interests of children. I’m not sure that this is so manifestly true that we don’t somehow we have to balance matching outcomes of funding kids with benefits to kids and those for parents separately.
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Not so sure about that Jennifer. I’d like to see more details about the measures first. It may be necessary to take this step before increasing the Newstart allowance which is ridiculously low, sentencing medium to long term unemployed to poverty and much reduced employability.
Just as Labor and Gillard get some traction on this fucking opposition is no time to go haring off on a crusade like this.
And you might recall that the alternative is to go from the frying pan into the fire.
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Yes lets sanitise it.
Keep the truth on hold.Why hold both sides to account.
Wake up DQ,Many of Labor’s woes are self inflicted.
The MSM scum are no help,but Labor know that and yet continue to f*ck up.
Wait for Abbott and Howard to steal the show in Bali and all that clawed back Gillard ground will be gone.
Abbott probably got his imminent ‘suck speech’ speech written by Germain Greer.
Truth be known, Howard is a factor in the Bali bombings happening in the first place,Remember his side by side unity photo-op with GWB?
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Can I refer you to thelionthatroared’s post just below (Oct12 9.39) for a little dose of reality?
SBS News totally ignored Tony deadmanwalking’s presence in Bali. As they should.
As for holding to account, I know all about Labor’s shortcomings – I’ve heard them shouted from every newsstand, news program and self-opinionated current affairs thingy for several years.
You must pardon me for seeking to even up the score a little, considering that it is a Conservative article of faith that “no welfare is good welfare” and that removing all of it would be good for everyone : tough love and the marketplace and private philanthropy and all that shit about trickle down.
Tear down Labor under Gillard at your own risk.
There really is noplaceforsheep.
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“Tear down Labor under Gillard”
I know both our mantras are predictable DQ, but can you really see no problem actually coming from within the current morph of faux Labor, which is accelerating the inevitable?
I cannot believe, even those with one eye cannot see the stupidity of sacking an elected PM.
Why the fucking hurry to install Gillard?
The female PM experiment will be seen as a failure, and no thanks to that total brain dead move, of shafting Rudd based on a MSM poll.
Labor broke Labor.
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Because Rudd was a dud. They removed him as soon as they possibly could, that is as soon as the polls started to slip. They could have suffered his dictatorship and fits of abusive temper for a few months longer, and his meltdown would have been apparent to all; but “’tis better ’tis done quickly” and it was.
And Gillard is no experiment, but an excellent Prime Minister.
.
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You tsunami of blind faith and mega-optimism just drowned and engulfed my pathetic idealism,and washed it across the globe…………
Remind me.I guess the appointment of Slipper was somehow someone else’s fault,too.
Labor broke Labor.
Fancy sacking an elected PM, for teetering polls.(And keeping Gillard with teetering polls)Fancy sacking Rudd for standing up to the factional bullies.
They had in him their sights the secnd he elected a cabinet on non-factional terms.Nothing less.They used low polling as an excuse.Gillard was a token female to suit their end.
That my friend is true misogynism.Setting a woman up to deliberately fail in this once in a generation opportunity.A puppet,but a willing one.Politics 101.
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No,you are not listening.
Listen now :
Rudd was only still there because the polls were good. Newspoll was the only thing which kept him PM after about the third month. he was a total disaster to all but a few supporters in the Labor Party caucus, and a largely ignorant public.
Got it? Good.
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As one of those who obviously falls into your largely ‘ignorant’ public, DQ, I gotta say this.
Bullshit.
Labor broke (and continues to further break) itself.
The decisions (yes the fuckups too) since Rudds demise have been hers.No-one elses.
Got it?
No?
Didn’t think so.
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Yes, I agree.
It takes a while to make a great Prime Minister. There are slip-ups and snafus along the way.
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Now let me see?Ponder,ponder,ponder…..
Nope.
I think I’ll take the highway.But thanks all the same,DQ.
My relocation trip to NZ is now officially cancelled.
I have decided to stay back and watch the post election bloodbath,which should make the NY blood bank look like a gnat with a blood nose.
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No, Hypo!
What about Baaabara, and Amaaaanda, and poor Baaarrrruuuce?
They’ll be heartbroken!
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He was a leader, not a moron like Gillard.
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I wish I could remember the link to the study but the great paradox in all this is that the wealthiest nations on earth are those that have as part of their economic fabric a decent welfare system. It is the natural dividend in well run countries for growth in both private wealth and working towards a decent standard of living with good working conditions, well run industries and a fair taxation and distribution system. I think Australia fails on these parameters and unfortunately has had cheap and nasty thinking for a long time in the Parliamentary Halls of power from both major parties. It’s sad. This doesnt argue for an open chequebook approach to welfare but does argue for a decent regulatory system where wealth once acquired and taxed then finds its way to those needing assistance (and reducing other social ills that come from poverty like crime rates, hospital sickness queues and the like). Privatisation is a thinly veiled arguement for looking after those with capital, doesnt necessarily work in all cases and handpasses responsibility for running truly community responsibilities to a few. There is really no sound basis for clinging to that ideology in so many cases. The question merely needs to be asked what should a government be expected to fund and provide versus what doesnt belong on the taxpayers expense list. I am always surprised that this question is largely ignored in public discourse. It’s like as soon as you get a lobby group, apply for a grant funding or the creation of Department its somehow automatically legitimised.
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I will still be voting for my Federal ALP member with whom I am well pleased!
I’m lucky enough to be in an electorate where the member still holds to Labor principles.
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Lucky you – I’m stuck with the useless Robert McClelland. So pathetic that I’m tempted to vote for the Silly Party candidate, preference the Sheep Fuckers Party and then anyone else.
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Lucky you..I have Sophie Mirabella…she treats her electorate the same way she treated Simon Sheikh…she looks down on us with a look of disdain
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And, Sophie Mirabella. I’m…so sorry about that 🙂
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Mirabella is a bit of a LOW-life herself, how can she even look DOWN….?
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I know a few people who have worked within Centrelink for last 20 years and they’ve said that this legislation is not actually anything new. The ‘until your youngest is 16’ cut off has not been the benchmark for up to 15 years. It was then staff were trained in changes to make it ‘youngest at 12’. Presumably since then, the cut off was lowered to 10 years, which gets us to where we are now. I am a single parent. My son is now 3. When he was born I was told I “had eight years” until I had to be back at work. Apparently staff/Govt worked under the ‘unspoken rule’ that unless a parent could provide medical reason/child had special needs, they were to be moved on once you best child was 8. It wasn’t ‘official’ because Govt told them it would be unpopular with public (funny that). I do wish a Labor PM (and yes, a female one) would head more supportive changes for single parents and their families, on principle. I do find it interesting though that the system has long been changing ‘on the sly’ and I think it’s therefore unfair to suggest Gillard has just halved the age limit (the impression some media gives). Absolutely, this change could have been reversed/ignored, etc. I wish that, too. But it is really the official call on a Howard change. Surplus, smurplus. I want Gough.
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Julie Bishop has just proved that I was wrong in thinking that Abbott was a misogynist.
According Julie he has good relationships with: one wife, three daughters, one sister, one mother, and of course Julie Bishop herself. That adds up to seven in total…I don’t know if any of them are single mums.
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Bishop is FOS and part of the problem.She was Lightfoots other half for fecks sake.
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LOL!! No there are no single mothers in that group, plus he’s brought his girls up to believe their virginity is their “most precious gift” so…
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Must admit the same contradiction occurred to me- the legislation is real Tea Party style junk and worse still from a supposed moderate, Jenny Macklin.
Not that Abbott’s crew had the wit to point it out, they were too busy trying for a beat up on issues inconsequential to say the least and if they had their way, would probably do away with pensions altogether, in search of more tax cuts for the Rinehart-rich.
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Julie Bishop mounted the “He’s always been a good boy, and he’s never raped his mother” type defence used as character evidence in rape trials.
LOL doesn’t begin to cover it.
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And on the same day they passed through the senate papers to allow women and children who have fled the taliban to be forcibly ejected and jailed on Manus Island without any law in place, with malaria and rabies rife, with out legal rights or human rights and in defiance of a blast from the boss of the UNHCR that it is all illegal.
Some times it is so embarrassing to listen to the girls who work in the sex and sin porn capital of the world whinging about sexism in the 21st century.
I reckon not allowing gay marriage is pretty fucking sexist.
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I suppose another aspect lies in the economics mediated through its crossover with ideology, say involving social conservatism and neo liberalism, as well as inputs from AG’s Defence etc, eager to avoid cuts in their bailiwicks.
We are told there is another recession on the way, spending must be cut to keep the credit rating high to borrow more cheaply.
Welfare seems always the poor relation in these bargaining shoot-outs, who will those little strumpets on welfare vote for any way?
The cuts offer a subtle dog whistle to the mortgage belt of course. Next to “queue jumpers”, the “undeserving poor” feature very high on Mr and Mrs Perfect’s hate list, along with ethnic “others”, be they Muslim or Aboriginal.
As for gays, those nasty people… what about the children?
No.
All this is about is setting the stage, framing the issues, clearing the decks and creating the right ambience for an election year, with its swinging marginal seats in Xtian suburbs against economic circumstances that the press will use to bludgeon out the government.
Single parents and their kids, along with asylum seekers and several other smaller groups face becoming collateral damage, but the politics is harsh just now, the atmosphere gravitates against sweet reason.
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In a milder political landscape and while staring at Milo, I sometimes imagine a scene whereby the government of J.Gillard is actually getting some praise here and there. I mean local praise and I mean from the opposition.
Is civility and normal behaviour so far gone that people on the other side of the floor cannot accede and graciously give credit for some of the good things that have been achieved? I don’t expect T.Abbott to cross the floor and shake hands with Gillard on the achievement of getting the carbon tax through or kiss Roxon on her plain packaging of cigarettes world first milestone legislation. But for Australia to have survived the economic downturn, the persistently low unemployment figures, the unbelievable low debt levels, a compliment or a friendly nod of approval could be nice and not ‘out of order’ as is so often shouted around the chamber.
There is Greece with unemployment rising to over 25%, Spain on 20 % with both suffering almost unbelievable debt burdens, junk bonds, credit ratings of minus zero and rivers of despair seeping down the mountains. Millions doing it rough in the US, living in trailer parks, soup kitchens and bearded desperadoes and vagrants with torn blankets and dulled eyes… munching on scraps.
No, in Australia praise is not forthcoming and I don’t understand how people as humans cannot be big enough to sometimes give it freely, just like that and without rancour or cynicism, just a spontaneous ‘good on ye’, well done Julia, or that’s been great ALP… Could someone in the opposition sometimes say something of praise?
It’s just not there is it?. . Perhaps that’s politics but it’s not very uplifting.
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I praise the Rudd government for getting us through the GFC in one piece, I praise Roxon for the tobacco plain packing, and various other measures.
But to undo all the good by persecuting the poorest of the poor does not cut it I am afraid.
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Funny on that Gerard, you remind of some stuff I read today concerning some thing called “Eurogendfor”, a huge squad of anti riot police dreamed up by the Nobel-winning Eurozone a few years ago, that has been sent to Greece, on a virtual news black out.
For all the ALP’s faults, at least Australia hasn’t descended to the level where foreign powers send in Gestapo style thugs to beat up resistance to an imposed Great Depression style of thing.
Not enough people give Labor credit for those things it does do right. I’d say, come next year’s election time, people think twice about throwing out the baby with the austerity bath water represented by Abbott and his big end mates.
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If only, Gerard. They are all trained to sing from the same songbook : the truly appalling, truly negative one written by Mr Dead-man-walking.
A change of opposition leadership may see a new paradigm.
We live in hope.
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Abbott “kiss Roxon on her plain packaging”.
That would be show stopper.
Careful Gerard,you might get a gig, speech writing for a certain CFMEU ‘comedian’.
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There are several things going on here.
First is the attitude that a single parent of school age children spends their day lazing in front the telly watching episodes of Days of Our Drearies and should be “encouraged” to get off their lazy arses and do something constructive…like low paid drudgery in a factory or scanning groceries in supermarket or cleaning toilets in a nursing home.
The 18 hours, often hectic, between 3pm & 9am when the parent is solely responsible for the health and well-being of her children is not regarded as REAL work. Nor are the times when she is grocery shopping, paying bills, cleaning the house, nursing sick children, volunteering at school or any of the other multiple things that need doing during school hours are seen as REAL work.
And because it is not real work then she is not entitled to spending a couple of hours relaxing in front of the telly, on facebook, or socialising with her friends at shopping centres.
How dare the single mother actually enjoy some leisure time while so many wage earners doing REAL jobs slave away at their desks
.
Yes, these days there are more men single-handedly raising children. But these are all suffering heroes. They give up careers & nights out at the pub & slog through long days and nights doing women’s work.
Women doing the same are just sucking off the system.
Not good enough! Get back in the dole queue, girl! How dare you expect more of a hand-out than any other dole bludger!
You have low self-esteem. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be a stay at home parent. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be single. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have gotten pregnant outside wedlock in the first place.
Never mind, we have the solution. We are clever smarter more intelligent … see we have high paid cushy jobs (REAL WORK) so we know we’re superior to dumb belle single parents. So get out there and get a job.
Work Will Set You Free!!!
Ever notice there is rarely anything said or done about helping people work from home?
It’s not only single parent getting shafted by this govt.
There are new criteria for Disability Support Pension (what used to be called Invalid)
Anyone applying and anyone under the age of 36 is evaluated for their eligibilty using the point system tables. And the way they are applied means people who should be receiving DSP are finding themselves rejected only to end up being continually hassled on Newstart.
People who have high medical/equipment/service expenses that are already unaffordable in many cases are being reduced to inhumane conditions. On Newstart it becomes a choice between life-saving medicine or eating a couple of times a week. And if your wheelchair has a flat tyre you can’t get to your job centre appointment with the resultant breach meaning total loss of any income. If your doctor says “Rest” and this conflicts with job centre worker’s timetable, guess whose opinion gets priority.
And again, work from home options are never counted as valid. Work is only REAL if you commute and have a boss.
And again we’re told this is in the best interests of people with disabilities.
Work Will Set You Free!!!
(in Britain the govt is actually using this phrase. and our govt has been ongoing chatting with the same UK govt advisors)
.
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Julia,
I get the whole motherhood is real work argument, and I agree that any of us would perhaps be rightly frustrated to be so undervalued. But if we’re looking to value you things we have to understand how the scales are balanced so to speak.
Many people who feel that having a boss is the worst thing that could happen to them actually shirk the greater responsibility of running their own business. From experience neither are a bed of roses. We each have a different perspective on how we value our own labours, but seldom when we’re hard put to make ends meet do we have an overly generous perspective towards others’ struggles.
There are counter arguments that have to be considered to the effect that mothering is work done on behalf of their family not my own so that as a taxpayer there’s a limit to how much I’m willing to carry their burden if that involves my own family making sacrifices.
The argument that some people shouldn’t have children that they can’t afford is always an unkind one in hindsight, but in some proportion of cases if turned on its head it has to be fair to say that a society which says people should always be able to afford any number of children no matter what the cost will find itself living beyond its means. It may be unpleasant to say it but I think most mature societies do see sense in setting some limits. Perhaps not the limits Jennifer is addressing in this particular case, and nor have I argued should the limits we set be geared to keeping young women effectively barefoot and pregnant.
It doesn’t help that the bureaucracies people have to deal with are always going to suck. These people put systems in place to help them try to deal with the emotional impact of the churlish policies they’re paid to enact. It also doesn’t help that the system successfully divides and conquers by categorising people into minorities whose interests are seemingly pitted one against the other for a welfare dollar.
But what really doesn’t argue this kind of case effectively is to simply assert that unfairness exists in the world. Most people know that already as it applies to their own lives and see no real need on that basis alone to take ownership of other people’s sense of being disadvantaged. What I think is really needed is a standard by which are able to reliably say that as a society we look after the least of our members well enough, and if not to say that the system should not be acting churlishly in our name.
In other words the political point has to be made very clearly and effectively if it is not to be drowned out in the background of compassion fatigue we’re often faced with from multiple quarters.
P.S. I think working from home is a great idea and may have legs. Perhaps for many though coming together in communal workplaces that don’t necessarily serve any single employer would be even more socially supportive.
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I lived in a place, where there many young families. as many of us were from overseas (no grandparents or other family support) or from other states in Australia, we became each other’s shelter so to speak. We babysat for those needed it, we could go to movies or shopping and know that the kids well looked after.
None of us were single parents,and all husbands worked…we had lunches and and get-together with kids, so there was plenty of happy social interaction, even so, when the last one of my kids went Kindergarten and i could start working ,even only part time, my life changed, I loved working again, earning my own money, only adult company, and I enjoyed the kids even more after some all grown-up time…
Each to their own, and even I do think working from home is better than not at all, I was happy to be away from there as well, I felt more stimulated, more useful…
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My closing comment comes from the experience of having both worked from home and away from home intermittently over the years. Even more before the advent of the internet as we know it today I think working from home has some real disadvantages in terms of social isolation.
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I think that all women should go return to work once their kids reach a certain age – not just the economically vulnerable. And if they don’ -t I think that they should lose tax incentives that support being a stay at home, non-working mum or accept a tax burden for doing so.
I definitely don’t want to economically support it until their child goes to university. And I think we should stop targeting just the impoverished who rely on the single parent’s pension to get by and make it apply to ALL women. If you believe in this then it is fair enough that you should at least believe in this for all women not just the unmarried, divorced or partnerless ones. Now if we stop subsidizing everyone we can and should afford to pay single parents a better income that will help out with babysitting and further study because single parents and children of single parents deserve every chance to get a helping hand out of poverty.
The real Gillard hypocrisy is not cutting off welfare for single parents, but not making it universal that all parenting subsidies for middle class parents also end at the same time.
And I also think that the money saved by the government should also go towards paying for childminding so that women’s wages aren’t sucked up by childcare costs.
Stop freeloading…..cause the 20% of women in Australia who are working fulltime jobs and certainly not getting big pay packets for it…this teeny minority of Australian women that are working fulltime….shouldn’t be giving other women their work pay at all. …because that 60% of women working part time or at home being a mother instead don’t ALL need to be there and I think that’s a fair thing to say.
It would help if more women were paid more and had more work opportunities and there was mandatory gender quotas and workplaces were more gender friendly because I don’t think that many women are fleeing the workplace so that they can vacuum and clean toilets at home for no reason at all. Workplaces aren’t all that rewarding for women – particularly when you have to go home and ‘work’ the second job of motherhood and your partner may not contribute equally to shouldering that workload.
Julia is heading in the right direction, but there’s so much more that needs to be done.
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That is an astute observation by Suzieq@hotmail.com.
“The real hypocrisy is not cutting off welfare for single parents..but not subsidies for middle class parents also end at the same time”.
It goes back to this split right throughout parliament, on both sides, as to morality and welfare, with social engineering involved, to the extent that an integrated child care, then educational system, is delivered economically.
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That sounds very much like the old fashioned kick them to the curb crap suzieq.
Under the constitiution of this country every person is guaranteed the right to welfare when required.
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Papua New Guinea
“The Government of Papua New Guinea in accordance with article 42 paragraph 1 of the Convention makes a reservation with respect to the provisions contained in articles 17 (1), 21, 22 (1), 26, 31, 32 and 34 of the Convention and does not accept the obligations stipulated in these articles.”
Article 17 1 – the right to work.
Artilce 21 – no housing
Article 22 – no right to education
Article 26 – no freedom of movement
Article 31 – they are allowed to punish refugees
32 – they can expel refugees
34 – no naturalization
Not this gem of human rights is what Gillard has designed for hazara women and kids.
Anyone see the similarties to their treatment as non-humans in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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I think if we were to write of the entire hypocrisy and back flips of the incumbents,(since the Gillard substitution racket) we would see a substantial library develop quick smart.The refugee issue would form one part of that shady and opportunist collection of evidence.
Not only should Gillard have stood up for herself against Abbott, her beliefs/Labor’s beliefs and possibly women’s beliefs, but she should have stood up for and as herself.
She can’t.She has no idea who she is or what she stands for, simply because she is not the one who has/will write her destiny.She is walking payback.
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A sheep shagging joke DQ.
Is that all you have?Really?
How baaaaa naaaaaaal.
Ironic, really.
Especially coming from a member of the ‘Gillard at any cost’ flock.
It is (IMO) also the absolute height of arrogance to assume that those who don’t swallow the ‘ordained’ pseudo-Labor mantra, are mere ignorant Australians.
Those who dare think for themselves are ignorant?
How it sits with the infamous ‘we decide who comes here’ speech you gave I have never worked out.
I guess it proves that little Johnny would be the only one higher on your pedestal than Gillard and faux Labor.
Strangely somehow others are not smart enough to pick policies or principles but you have it nailed.
That is bizarre.A lot.
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Well, if you will make a silly post, expect a silly one back. You take yourself way too seriously, Hypo.
We the people of Australia do decide who comes here – like it or not.
And indeed I do have it nailed; nearly everyone thinks that his or her own opinions are the correct ones, but in my case it is usually true. LOL
.
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Just this moment read an article from the current Crikey from Bernard Keane, entitled
“RBS now controls the economics of next year’s federal election”.
Worth a read. For those of us who remember the early 1970’s, it is some thing familiar, for others it will be a moderate reality check.
But it should begin to explain some of the politics from Canberra, of late.
Think carefully.
It can get worse..
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Well I guess I must be double ignorant,because I say that the voters will ultimately decide,and they will live with whatever we dish up.
I won’t be dishing up Gillard (and I doubt Labor will,either) or Abbott.
I cannot find a word strong enough to describe the arrogance of those running around demanding a vote for Gillard simply based on ‘she’s not Abbott’ or ‘Labor is the only choice’.
And those who are, will be the ones who appear to be most ‘vulnerable’ emotionally.
The only real question now is one of election dates.And Wilkie may play a hand in that.
He may come back to bite Labor’s arse, and again,it is fully deserved.They lied to him as well.
Sure it can get worse.But it can also get worse under this faux-Labor,which some people are genetically programmed to NOT accept.
Learn to adapt.You will need to.
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Arrogance? And you don’t think you know better?
“Learn to adapt.You will need to.”
Careful Hypo, or you will belie your nom de plume.
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Fat chance.I vote on principle and a fair go.
The opposite of Howardite mentality,if you like.
Speaking of Howard.Did you see Gillard from our Afghanistan killing fields?
She practically stole his ‘war justification’ speech word for word.
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Gillard doesn’t have an original thought in her head. That’d be her ‘people’ telling her what to say, wouldn’t it? But to backtrack – that speech Gillard gave – the one that galvanised ‘feminists’ would have made me cringe if I wasn’t so outraged about her blatant opportunism, etc etc.
It really was high school standard rhetoric. I’m simply amazed that so many ‘academics’ praised it.
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Marilyn will tell you what Gillard thinks about children,including female ones.And a Labor leader who panders to the NSW madmen and Howes,Ferguson et al, and sells uranium to a country next door to Pakistan,(the favoured destination of the worlds highest ranking terrorists) is nothing coming close to Labor, nor approaching the term ‘leader’.
This decision will of course add $$ to her mining tax and leave less egg on her/their face as the faux-Labor team struggle to balance the books,in their pursuit of an idealistic surplus.
Their is so much hypocrisy in pseudo Labor and Gillard,it’s hard to know where to begin?
Perhaps the end is the place to start?
Enter Craig Thomson.The man who may go down in history as the one they call, The Final Nail.
The sad thing is this political disaster was totally self inflicted by Labor, and Gillard is a willing pawn.
Had they not been so ‘greedy and desperate’ Labor may have had several terms,done so much.
The poison has seeped deep and will last long.
BILLBOARD
Tony Abbott, proudly brought to by the ALP.
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What a foolish post. You obviously did not see the speech being delivered. Don’t comment about something you haven’t seen.
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Can’t think why you would assume I didn’t hear the speech. Because I am not impressed – as you are?
She was really working on that indignation, I’ll give her that. Just a pity it wasn’t directed at something that really matters.
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No, she was genuine- fed up with being bullied or cornered by lying, hypocritical sods like Jones and Abbott.
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Teresa, you don’t think it really matters that there is a concerted campaign of slurs, innuendo, defamation and harassment directed at whoever gets in the way of Abbott’s ambitions?
I refer readers to Anne Summers’ article :
http://annesummers.com.au/speeches/her-rights-at-work-r-rated/
Read it and then tell me it doesn’t really matter.
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Teresa, there you go again; no one but YOU can be a real feminist, no one can write a speech as well as you….
Insecure much?
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Double YAWN
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Double fuck off. And don’t come back.
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I’m sorry.
I thought the purpose of a blog was to have an open forum? Must have misunderstood. I guess you have been granted permission to decide which comments are accceptable – because you’re so balanced.
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Apology accepted. Behave more rationally in future.
LOL
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Well said JW. I too noticed that while the embedded media claimed a `feminism` blow by Joolya, as the Leaders of the duopoly did their screeching. The pension cuts were made by the duopoly. I am not sucked in by this as this will hurt the poorest of women and children, some feminism heh? The Liberals don`t represent small Aussie businesses. Labor no longer represents the worker. They should rename their parties `Lipton` and `Dilmah` as both are trying to be the best Tea-Bag party they can be.
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Well Gillard no longer needs to channel Howard.The metamorposis is complete.Today she became a cricket tragic.She is Howard.
While espousing the joys of all things cricket surrounded by the same class of children she would willing refuse refugee status simply by choice of transport.And just as a back up plan she jumped on her other distraction aka hobbyhorse, education.
Yes Julia,faux Labor ‘should’ ejjakate our kids.To vote for a tea party, I guess.Either residential one will do.
Faux-Labor or Coalition Maximus.
I notice the unfair dismissal laws are being tweaked to appease big business.
How Labor is that you ask?
It aint.Nor are most of their recycled policies.Including importing cheap slaves for Gina,at the cost of local jobs, and or retrained genuine refugees.
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A red-letter day!
Watching 730 Report, the Big Thug reduced to abject cringing in the towering, burly presence of “Bam-Bam” Yudoyono. No aggressive, strident talk of “Turning the Boats Back”, this time.
Instead, we were offered the delicious and long awaited spectacle of Uhlmann, no less, demolishing the racist braggart and all at sea apologist Morrison, floundering on behalf of the great Warrior Who’s Legs Went to Water at the First Whiff of Grapeshot.
I’ve waited an eternity to see the opposition finally hung to dry for its fence-sitting hypocrisy on asylum-seeker policy.
Too clever by half, letting others take the blame for their smug obstructionist opportunism, that so contributed to the impasse that exists, till disintegrated in an unexpected collision with reality, in the form of an unamused Indonesian government.
How Abbott must have wished the Indonesian President was a woman to be stood over.
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The last time Abbott was exposed like this, a few days later he was availed another avenue (ala the ABC I think) on another topic to readjust the damage done.
He regained all lost ground.
Unless the blows are consistent and often, (which they should be) don’t get too excited.I hope this is the start of his end,But it remains to be seen.
These ‘opportunistic community-cohesion destroyers have friends in high places.
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I got the sense of another whitewash upcoming, viewing Alberici’s promo for tonight’s Latteline.
Is it possible to detest a species of life (journalists) even more than politicians?
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PW .. ” Is it possible to detest a species of life (journalists) even more than politicians? ”
Absolutely Paul. If the actually did their job and held to account those with power, told the public the truth/facts and didn`t merely act as a megaphone for the elite, we would be better off, and they would be too.
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Morrison was sliced and diced by Emma Alberici and Labor had its stubborn habit of privatising detention centres to keep at arms length, come back to haunt it again with a grim story of an ill inmate subjected to a beating by oafs employed by Serco.
One all in the final of the world shame-bringing champonships.
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Just came across this article by John Pilger on Online Opinion..
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14235
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Labor (the current morph)
“a numbers-crunching machine long bereft of principle that has betrayed Australia’s most vulnerable people, especially women.”
Spot on Mr Pilger.
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absolute cow pucky. Put it around the vegie patch.
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thanks for that … i just tweeted it
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It’s tricky here. I initially side with some of Gillard and Labor’s more enthusiastic supporters, including high profile feminists who have called for the “fair go” as far as Gillard and Gillard Labor are concerned. This started with an outrage that I shared, concerning Allan Jones’ and others despicable, personalised sledging and slanders, then relief at the counter attack by Gillard when cornered, on the attack on Slipper, which lacked any ethical credibility, as well as the general tone of the Abbott opposition.
This led to the further unmasking of Abbott opposition hypocrisy yesterday, concerning Abbott’s callous meddling over asylum seekers backfiring under pressure from the Indonesian President.
Clearly the pro-Gillard forces were acting out of alarm, that something too similar to the American Tea Party could end up running Australia; also out of a justifiable feeling that Gillard herself has not been afforded a fair go.
There’s no doubt that Gillard’s supporters have been soft on Gillard, Roxon and co on the suite of human rights issues John Pilger mentions.
But, in a sense, this balances out the daily crucifixion of the minority Labor government by an MSM collective mouthpiece desperate to have a hardline, overtly pro-business austerity and social conservative government in place- with the instigation of policies not easily reversed.
These claim that Labor has been “too soft” rather than “too hard” on the issues Pilger mentions and yesterday’s performances from Rob Morrison, etc, exemplify their idea of a prospective and abhorrent alternative.
My heart supports Pilger’s politics. I dislike Labor’s resort, too often it seems, to expediency-driven measures on issues that should be decided on principle.
But I understand that there are political realities that drive Gillard Labor to the extremes it is driven to (eg, as with Indonesia and Abbott yesterday), that Pilger and others can too easily overlook. I therefore understand these things against the then included context of national and global politics and the current state of play of politics in the real world.
What Pilger aches for is normative politics, he can’t understand the need for all the violence and greed and it sickens him. But in current times pragmatics suggests that some times the best to be hoped for is survival, the avoidance of regression to something even worse, that its ok to hedge bets.
I take his essay to be palliative, to encourage the public not to place overly high expectations on Gillard and her government, but to remain alert, sceptical and refuse the extension of the murkiest of the policies.
It has been said in the past, “The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance” and there is no reason that I can see that this should not also be applied to all the current crop of politicians, given that the world is the way it is.
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No way.
Pilger is not being palliative.
Gillard is being tea party2.
We can all go round in circles with this,but a lot of Labor voters are off.Off to vote Green most likely.
This may not be showing up in polls by MSM pollsters etc,but come election day,I think Labor will haemorrage and the obvious beneficiary will be the greens.That is how it should be.Labor has jumped on little Johnnys bandwagon, and the greens have moved to fill the gap.The glacier may have moved slowly,but faux Labor has now found itself on the same page as Abboott on many things.
Here we are,often arguing about asylum when in fact Labor is processing offshore ( can you not remember what rhetoric they USED to slam the coalition with on this issue???) simply to appease rednecks who would never vote for them anyway.Or are you happy to have ALL the coalition wish lists/policies installed by a Labor replica? A proxy Liberal Party??
The rusted ons will keep voting Gillard et al, but the bacon is beyond saving.
The mantra of, anyone but Abbott is way to simplistic and insults at least 50% of the population.
Pilger is pointing out some bitter facts.Nuancing what he has said,to somehow apologise for Gillard/Labor is for deniers or optimists.You need to read it again,PW.
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For the fiftieth time, Hypo, in a virtual two-party system, give me a realistic alternative!
Now, take my seat of Adelaide. The member is Kate Ellis. Adelaide is a difficult seat, because of the deterioration of state Labor.
Given the penchant for SA Liberals to come up with religious right bods like Minchin and Bernardi, or eccentrics like Pyne and Downer, who do you propose I vote for this time?
I’m not going to see a Greens candidate get up, but the seat may come to down a handful of votes.
The Senate is different.
Depending on the prediction for quotas, I might vote Green or Labor. Should I choose to fill in the entire senate paper, either way I will disregard the Labor how to vote card that suggests I put Sen Farrell before Sen.Wong.
Since I left my magic spanner back in the Tardis, what else would you realistically have of me?
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Do you have a pen shaped like a magic pen?
Do you have an array of friends and contacts?
Do you have an access to the internet?
Do you know how to lobby,whinge and moan far and wide about what damage Labor has done to itself?
Do you know how to use the voting system?
Do you accept mediocrity?
Is apologising for Labor going to make them change?
You can do what you want,pw.The one thing you can’t do is blame me for your actions.
So for the 51st time you can have whatever it is Gillard Howard is trying to sell.It makes me vomit.And as I have repeatedly said,up until a few months into Gillards term,I have always voted either Labor,or Labor Green.
If I have to vote for a One Legged Dog Party to avoid the majors getting a bees dick of my principles I will.
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EDIT
Pen shaped like a magic spanner.
(To be used for letting your local member of her imminent obsolescence.Cc the rest of the impostors)
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Well, its some rant. I presume its intended be insulting and an attempt to ignore any points I’ve previously made by embarking an an adhominem.
Speaking of principles, why don’t you put your name to your posts instead of hiding behind a sock puppet?
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And you call that response, a non ad hom.pw?
You rant pretty well yourself my friend.
As for my anonymity.Get stuffed.
You asked, I answered.
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Sorry, who am I talking to?
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Guffaw,chuckle,hahaha.
Your dummy needs a clean.
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Hop under the shower then.
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There,there,Pauly,
Is this clean enough for your ‘butter-preserving’, cranial orifice?
http://www.photo-dictionary.com/phrase/1570/dummy.html
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Hypo .. ” I think Labor will haemorrage ”
I think you are right on the money Hypo.
The voters in my family and many of our friends are really wanting to vote for an independent or green next time round and are hoping our electorates have one or the other, utterly sick of the duopoly.
And those noise polls the embedded media bleat regularly about might actually be worth shit.
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Grabs fishing rod and attempts to reel the thread back to the TOPIC which is whether or not you agree that women who have children aged 8 and over should go onto the Newstart allowance if they are receiving Government benefits.
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Instead of bleating about the fluidity of the conversation on the thread Jackie, make some arguments why you support Joolya`s pension cutting or why you support Joolya`s feminista flavor. Or not.
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Obviously your rudeness is surpassed only by your inability to read….I made the first comment on the topic
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Obviously my reply was directly related to your comment and Linked correctly. Obviously my plain speaking is not rudeness. Obviously I comment on blogs using only one identity.
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Hi Jackie,
I linked to Pilger’s article because it referenced the plight of single mothers relating to the actions of the Gillard government. Obviously a government’s line of progression is not isolated to one action, but follows a pattern of ideology…..people here are commenting on that.
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Yes, you wonder what hope the neoliberal cancer being treated. Long term the prognosis is not entirely bright, as to the major parties. And yes, that’s being optimistic.
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…and his observations were accurate,astute and untainted by partisan apologia.Too much for some.
Whenever the Pilger’s of the world hit the nail on the head(tread on toes) the offended generally play the man.
Assange could tell you how that feels, no doubt……
OK replace fingers in ears, Gillardians, and start lalalalalala-ing again.
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Gosh Jackie@voodoo, you are a dead ringer for another poster who has visited recently; lovecoachaustralia. The resemblance is singular; run into each other and it would be like looking in a mirror.
It’s already been agreed on that the legislation is poor. What’s happened since has been to do with fleshing out why the situation is as it is, as to “context”.
Context is all.
The back ground includes factors mentioned by folk such as myself, include a looming recession against the need to maintain the sort of high credit rating that enables the country to cope better, against an electoral climate that includes a hung parliament, reactionary opposition and a public fed on ACA/TDT/Alan Jones type denunciations of welfare recipients as “undeserving poor”.
It was absolutely a political decision as we have said, but the stakes are real enough: the continuation of a relatively less vicious Labor government in the longer term against the possibility of an Abbott “austerity” government and what that could imply for people on welfare, as you will recall from the previous thread comments you have read.
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I thought when I posted originally i did it via twitter which is what I selected this time…apparently I used my word press account but I am the same person and never said I wasn’t.
I’ve made my comment….I’ll just leave it at that. Thanks
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Perplexing, the interactions between WordPress and Twitter, isn’t it? Here was I thinking I was simply posting a link on ‘Sheep’ to one of my tweets, and look what happened: https://noplaceforsheep.com/2012/10/15/flexing-my-mussel/#comment-50548
It is me in each case, I assure you.
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PENSION REDUCTIONS DISCUSSION – 17 October 2012
During 2008 the Rudd-Gillard government looked at issues of discrimination against the gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV (GLTH) communities and found 85 items of legislation which they thought to amend, thus calculating that they would be able to lock in GLTH votes – up to a point – but not providing complete equality because very few in the Australian Labor Party want same-sex marriage and this was an issue where there was enough party support for them not to waver.
The compromise was to state that the ALP would recognize same-sex relationships as de facto, and treat same-sex de facto couples the same as hetero couples in terms of pension entitlements.
This meant that millions of dollars would be saved in pensions where previously same-sex couples each received single pensions but as de facto couples they would receive the “married” pension rate, in other words, reductions for those couples were on Centrelink pensions and would have to register their same-sex relationship with the federal government by 1 July 2009 in order to continue to receive pension benefits.
At the beginning of 2009 GLTH groups around the country started campaigning for the federal government to grandfather the same-sex relationship bill because for most of their lives, many members of the GLTH communities had struggled with homophobia and discrimination in the community and had had to work very hard to make themselves financially secure for their retirement years.
Lo and behold! The federal government refused to countenance grandfathering the legislation and warning same-sex de facto couples that Centrelink would have the right to investigate pensioners to discover whether people were living in de facto relationships and must therefore receive “marriage”-rate pensions.
At the time of this change in legislation my partner and I had been in a same-sex relationship for 16 years. Our ages at the time were 86 and 82 respectively. Everybody knew of our relationship because we had been activists for many years and were therefore in the public arena. We registered our relationship with Centrelink by 1 July 2009 and our pensions were immediately reduced so that we each lost at least $100 per fortnight.
We were in a better position than many GLTH people with whom we were acquainted because we owned our place of residence and we had a life-style which was not one of great extravagance in any way.
However some couples were in the position where one was still working and one may have been on a disability pension, which, on declaration to Centrelink of their status would mean the disability pension would immediately cease because one of the couple was earning money from full-time employment.
Other couples had all sorts of related difficulties.
Ultimately, what this all meant was that same-sex couples on government benefits had their incomes considerably reduced, and the federal government had its incomes considerably increased, showing that the government’s ruthlessness was not going to be confined to indigenous welfare, single-parent welfare, “New-Start” benefits and other reductions while the stinking rich capitalists gat richer and richer and had more and more tax exemptions provided to them by an ALP government at an even better rate than they had been getting from the previous conservative government, proving there was no difference between them.
All this talk of Gillard and misogyny and feminism reminds me of those previous women leaders who showed they were able to outdo their male counterparts in ruthlessness – Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi, a previous Sri-Lankan president, Angela Merkel, the Philippines ex-president, Gina Rhinehart, and many others.
I am now 86 and my partner is 90, and I suppose this is a bit long-winded to get to the point I wanted to make, which is that whether Gillard is there or Abbott is there, the outlook for those of us on benefits will get worse and worse over time, while they all sit with their fat packets in Parliament getting regular increases – because “their expenses increase all the time with their responsibilities!!! “ – just like all those CEOs of the big companies who get such fantastic packages on being sacked or promoted! It is all so obscene!
Mannie De Saxe, Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Melbourne
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Mannie,
Thank you for a most informative post. I have often wondered as to the perceived benefits of ‘marriage equality’ to the presumed-to-be ‘beneficiaries’ of such change. In at least one respect, even if only prospectively transitionally, you have shown such benefit to be a negative one.
It has now made me wonder as to whether the decision to deem the pension status of persons in a claimed or deemed same-sex relationship to be that of the members of a defacto married couple for Centrelink purposes would have stood up to a challenge as to its validity on Constitutional grounds. Stated differently, is the push for ‘marriage equality’ a smokescreen for as-yet-unannounced proposals for constitutional change tacitly recognised in and around government as being needed to retrospectively validate rulings of the like that saw you lose $100 per fortnight?
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Yes Mannie’s post identifies PRECISELY the tendency that drags New Labor down, a sort of backsliding.
The price of a Blairite Labor government must always be eternal vigilance on the part of the public- they are like little tiny tots constantly drawn to the expediency highway outside the front gate, like magnets
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Still against it, we at least have some sort of basic social security system up and running in Australia.
Even in the USA and parts of Europe the soc sec system has been mauled by post melt down austerity neo liberalism and billions of people in the world have no social security, at all.
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To Forrest Gump : no possible unconstitutionality there. The Commonwealth is paying out money in benefits, and can do so on whatever basis it thinks fit, within the legislation. The Constitutional powers are quite broad. (s51 xxiii and xxiiiA)
Talk of “losing $100” is loose terminology for what is simply a reduction in benefits.
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Translation.
“The new Labor world.
Not only do we decide who gets to call themselves a refugee,we get to get to call who is poor,broke or destitute.
Aaagh the compassionate right.Up you Jack,I’m alright.
Unless you have a job,or can speak fluent English, fuck off.
Nice work.”
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Do I detect a smidgin of hostility, Hypo?
You might consider, before apparently putting me on the right, that I would favour nationalising the entire resources sector and the banking system tomorrow were it possible.
You might also consider that I favour an immediate increase in unemployment benefits to the level of the disability pension, not the other way around.
There are other issues where I am hard left; it’s just that there really isn’t any point in pushing them in today’s political climate.
That is where we differ : I see Labor under Gillard as the best result possible at the present.
You seek for the best possible result, and you risk cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If you succeed in getting Labor cut down and Abbott installed as PM, and then plan to fuck off to NZ, I will have some seriously nasty words to say about you.
In the meantime give me some credit for a realistic position on these issues, and back off the hyperbole.
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I already told you I am not going to NZ.
Perhaps if those so intent on accepting current Labor,(‘just for now) were to contemplate actually communicating to Labor that they are at risk?
Or do you intend to blame ‘all’ those who have woken up with the inevitable?
How many wake up calls does Labor need?
Can the spin doctors read?
Did they not see the QLD result?
Hostility?
More like shock and awe, and a bit of WTF thrown in, as I tune in to an endless chorus of “it’s OK,old Labor will come back as soon as we rid ourselves of Abbott”.
Sure thing.
Gillard_Howard is not the saviour you think she is.And she is as ‘in control’ of the party/govt as much as a battery hen ‘is in control’ of its cage.
Oh and speaking of hyperbole;
“If you succeed in getting Labor cut down and Abbott installed as PM”
Why thank you immensely, DQ!
Just explain to me how I would single handedly do that (even with the willing assistance of the politically suicidal cast and crew of New Labor) ?
.
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You underestimate your influence, Hypo. Why, Rupert was saying to me just the other day that “Some of Hypo’s posts will be very useful in the upcoming campaign.” LOL
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MISTER Murdoch to YOU!
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Doug Quixote,
Thank you for at least engaging on this one. I hadn’t intended using loose terminology when I used the expression ‘lose $100 per fortnight’ in the concluding line of my post of October 18, 2012 at 3:24 pm above. I thought I was simply reflecting the terminology used by Mannie De Saxe, in his post of October 18, 2012 at 1:15 pm, where he said:
“… We registered our relationship with
Centrelink by 1 July 2009 and our pensions
were immediately reduced so that we each
lost at least $100 per fortnight.”
I see Mannie also used the evidently politically-correct term ‘reduced’ in that context, so I apologise for not having given it its proper anodyne prominence in my response. I am glad that Mannie was able to see a way, at the time, of making the sudden receipt of less benefit a less painful experience by using the right word to describe it himself.
Interesting that you thought I was referring to placita (xxiii) and (xxiiiA) of Section 51 of the Constitution with respect to my questioning the possible unconstitutionality of legislation or regulation deeming theretofore single-pension-rate same-sex recipients sharing accomodation to be equivalent to a defacto married couple. I had in mind placita (xxi) and (xxii) as being the possible areas of Constitutional conflict that might invalidate that legislation or such administrative decisions as saw the like of Mannie’s pension reductions.
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Marriage? And divorce and matrimonial causes? WTF? You must be joking! “Marriage” is whatever the legislature cares to say that it is, within reason.
There is not the slightest shadow of a Constitutional case there, I assure you.
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Welcome, Mannie and many thanks for this post.
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Thank you, Jennifer, for your welcome. This particular post has had some very interesting discussions going backwards and forwards, and I look forward to many more.
Best wishes from Mannie De Saxe
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Is this Abbott pre-emting the airing of another skeleton in his closet,which will be the final blow to his leadership?
Smells like it.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-18/abbott-reax-to-rudd/4320702
We live in hope.
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Abbott at his most sociopathic.
The little boy who throws the king hit and then sits back and, “wasn’t me”, dobs to teacher the other kids fighting because of the scrap he started, all so angelic-faced.
Hand us a barf-bag.
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2 New developments from both Tea Parties.
Abbotts mouthing off about making Nauru victims wait a long time will actually make more people get on boats to try to get here before he gets the reins.In effect the increase in boat arrivals are accountable to those wanting to arrive under a Labor version of Howard’s laws.
Australia is now a member of the gang who sets the rules,so we can literally help ourselves to the moral high ground on indigenous and refugee maltreatment.
Aint Julia Gillard-Howard a noice lady.
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Another real Gillard_Howard hypocrisy,neatly corralled.
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/land-of-the-fair-go-takes-refuge-from-the-helpless-20121018-27ts7.html
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Aaagh.
More levity.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-20/pakistan-resumes-culling-australian-sheep/4324258
Our status has really sky-rocketed since we became a UN dude.
(No coincidence that Pakistan back flipped on this cull decision,mere hours after Australia bought its security council seat)
Lets see the live exporters and the desperadoes in govt defend the trade,now.
The only problem with the initial Ludwig ban was it was too little,too late and too narrow.
This will be another political hot spud.Meantime the animals will suffer, as usual.
Can anyone see a pattern?
Who will stop the boats Tony?
You?
Julia?
Good luck with either tea party,when trying to find any moral high ground while dealing with Indonesia or Pakistan, on any humanitarian issue.
WE know what the movers and shakers in these places think of us ( ‘us’ being a US ally and sycophant) and yet our govt and exporters deny it and hopes it will somehow go away.
__________________________________________
Does our government (and opposition) really think it is a coincidence that Indonesia condones the use of a ‘sacred’ area as a car park and urinal?
Or that Pakistan is using inhumane methods to slaughter Australian livestock and then throw them away,while their citizens really want these healthy animals for food?
Well if you DO believe that…..I suggest,you…………….
File under :
“I drive better when I’m pissed”
“No more taxes”
“I won’t come in your mouth”
and
“my wife doesn’t understand me.”
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A FEW POINTS OF CLARIFICATION – 20 OCTOBER 2012
I am against marriage of any sort – hetero, homo or any variation and combination which exist at any given time. I was in a hetero marriage for 31 years and have been in a homo relationship for the last 20 years.
What we worked for in our campaigns leading up to the 85 pieces of “equality” legislation in 2008-2009 was actual equality, not “virtual” equality. What we had in mind was that all pensioners should get the single pension, once we were turned into same-sex de facto couples – and look how much money the government has made from us in the last 3 years!
Marriage as an institution was something that the ALP was quick to support the Howard government with in 2004 over the marriage act story with marriage being “between a man and a woman for life” ho ho ho!!! And ongoing support being provided by someone who is an unmarried atheist being dictated to by the religious voters whose votes she and her party desperately rely on.
Political hypocrisy knows no bounds and I would not vote for any of the major parties except at the point of a gun or bayonet! All this business of misogyny and other hate speeches is just a red herring to hide parliamentarians’ homophobia, discrimination, and, as Christine Milne said a few days ago, parliament behaves as if it was an all-male preserve, and the males will NOT have their rights taken away from them.
We have a long way to go, and in that sense, there is no difference between the ALP and the Coalition. One always thought that the ALP was more “liberal” in its social policies because it had the support of the union movement, but Labor is not supportive of labour (and don’t forget the stories behind the stories of the HSU which are still being played out) and the Liberals are not liberal so the answer is to vote for others or to spoil one’s voting papers. In the end, what actually IS the difference between Gillard and Abbott?
Mannie De Saxe, Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Melbourne
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Hear,hear.
What I have been saying.
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Are you Mannie De Saxe? This is the “they’re all the same” bullshit you sometimes repeat, much to my annoyance. You really ought to know better.
Like it or not, there are only two parties capable of becoming the government, and you must – must – choose one or the other. If only on a triage basis : which will do the least damage and be the lesser evil.
To not choose is a cowardly abdication of responsibility.
So which will it be? The blackshirts, or the dark grey?
And once you choose, try to ensure your choice gets up. Try not to shoot your own feet. What other sane course is there?
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Doug Quixote,
This should answer you question: http://twitpic.com/b5ysc0
The first entry on page 1 of the Google search indicates the likely connection between userID ‘redjos’ and Mannie De Saxe.
I would have thought the persistence of the identical avatar beside both userIDs appearing here on ‘Sheep’ would have indicated the same user. Does anyone know whether once a particular avatar is used on ‘Sheep’ by one poster, that any other poster will be blocked from using that particular avatar here?
I note that in the ‘Leave a Reply’ dialogue a choice is offered between WordPress, Twitter, or Facebook logins, and can well imagine how a different userID can show up here on ‘Sheep’ according to how one’s login has been effected, but I don’t pretend to understand exactly what actions trigger what variations.
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I was facetiously asking Hypo if he was Mannie, Forest.
Couldn’t care less who he actually is, or redjos either.
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No he is he, and I am I.
Getting paranoid are you,DQ?
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You were, too. I should have noticed the indentation that should have told me so. Misidentified the target of your post by the changed userID appearance of the post before the post before yours, and the several instances of questionings as to who may have been who that had preceded it in the thread.
Gosh, I’m starting to sound like one of the Two Ronnies!
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Well, Hypocritophile, if the ACT election held against a backdrop of increasing economic uncertainty is is any example, Abbott is still in business- you may yet get your way.
There was recorded a 2% swing against Labor, but the Greens suffered a 4% swing against them.
Why the Greens and why to the Tories rather than Labor?
Are the people running scared and why would they vote for austerity?
Or is it that there has been too successful campaign in msm against non-right parties?
The Greens have suffered for the early retirement of Bob Brown, the apostle of science, rationality and ecology, the man of the clear signal and clear alternative as they’ve drifted into a nebulous, subjective glad bag of emotion-driven policies that actually serve to defeat their original purpose and reinforce the unpleasant and illogical economic rationalist agenda.
You thought it was going to be easy; all that needed to happen was for someone to flick a switch, the people would see the light and all would live happily ever after?
No, in abandoning rationality and ecology the Greens deserted their most obvious evidence of their bona fides as a genuine alternative.
I guess as public insanity reaches fever pitch and the electorate votes for US and European austerity, for propping up the rich at their (the public’s) own expense, you will notice the survivors lie low, shaking their heads in wonderment at the stupidity of their fellows, but glad they were not overrun by all the emotionalism; to face new times with at least a cool head in the cold dull glow of the morning after the night before.
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Agreed, Brown was a beacon of sanity and common sense in an otherwise rather loony collection of ratbags : Milne, Hanson-Young, Rhiannon, Bandt and other misfits.
A good balance for the mirror-image misfits on the Right, Katter and the like, too silly and too marginal to bother naming.
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And numerous.
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“you may yet get your way.”
This is why YOU should post anonymously.
You can’t read.
You and Gillard apologists are expecting to accept any form of labor -no matter how toxic it is.So in the end,my naive friend,
YOU may get YOUR way.
New Labor and its most devout followers(swallowers) have licensed Labor to be Liberal.Nothing less.
Canberra may well be the litmus test.It may also be a blow off valve.
But as far as electoral predictions go,I would use Canberra as a guide, like I would use Anthony Mundine as a media adviser.I bet you and DQ were salivating right throughout the ballot results.Enjoy the spoils of victory.I am sure Canberrans are happy as pigs in the proverbial.I can tell by that decisive result.
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OH NO!!!!
Where will the sun rise now?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/pm-julia-gillard-stitched-up-kevin-rudd/story-fndo317g-1226499866236
JULIA Gillard is a control freak who manufactured a leadership crisis to become PM in a “classic stitch-up” of Kevin Rudd, according to a new political memoir.
Former star Labor recruit and ABC broadcaster Maxine McKew has delivered the blistering assessment in a new book, Tales From The Political Trenches.
Party chiefs are furious the book’s release has been timed to reignite Labor’s leadership wars in the traditional leadership “killing zone”, the final parliamentary sitting week of the year.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the book accuses Ms Gillard’s supporters of cooking up a false story to trigger the leadership crisis.
The Prime Minister had long maintained her decision to challenge Mr Rudd for the leadership was only made on the day, a view Ms McKew dismisses as a fiction.
On June 23, the day of the leadership showdown, it was reported Mr Rudd’s chief-of-staff Alister Jordan was sounding out MPs on the leadership, a clear sign he did not trust Ms Gillard’s pledges of loyalty. Colleagues say the report enraged Ms Gillard, who confronted Mr Rudd in the prime minister’s office before issuing a leadership challenge.
But Ms McKew contends it was all a fig leaf to cover the plot to seize the leadership.
“It was totally manufactured,” Ms McKew writes in her book.
“To make any sense at all the leak had to come from Gillard supporters.
“Was this a case of mock outrage by Gillard?”
But Labor MP Michael Danby has revealed for the first time that he was one of many MPs Mr Jordan spoke to and he believed the subtle soundings to be about the leadership.
“My impression was that Alister was visiting a lot of people who were critics,” Mr Danby told The Sunday Telegraph.
A senior Labor MP has also told The Sunday Telegraph Ms Gillard had been sounding out MPs and visited him on the Monday to discuss the government’s fortunes.
“Gillard was up to her eyeballs in the whole thing,” he said. “She called me around to her office on the Monday. I said we should back Rudd in. She gave me a bit of a non-response. In retrospect, it was a very strange conversation.” Ms McKew dismissed suggestions the November 1 release date was about stoking leadership tensions, arguing it was simply about pre-Christmas sales. “I have certainly reviewed the events leading up to Rudd’s removal as leader. To produce a memoir where I did not mention this exceptional event would not have been credible,” she said.
“I am aware this book will cause discomfort for some in the Labor Party. Others will welcome it.”
Labor insiders predicted the book would prove “explosive”. Some Labor officials have turned on Ms McKew, accusing her of throwing a “hissy fit” during the 2010 campaign and throwing away her prize seat of Bennelong, which she won from John Howard in 2007.
“She effectively went on strike,” a Labor source said. “Her view was she had beaten Howard and she couldn’t lose.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/sexist-labor-book-slur-says-maxine-mckew/story-fndo317g-1226499612255
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All due respect to Maxine McKew but she really didn’t have a clue.
The voters of Bennelong would have voted for Ivan Milat if he had been the Labor candidate against Howard in 2007.
She really did think they voted for her!! LOL
In 2010 they went back to normal, the toad removed. (Sighs)
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“but she really didn’t have a clue.”
And the blistering genius of faux Labors Gillard-Howard, installed Slipper.
Any Port in the storm?
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Agreed DQ, why is this claque interfering now that the party has been stabilised and the ALP is making up ground on a coalition that is showing its true face under pressure. So destructive, to what point..
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I suppose there is a time lag, between starting to write a book, say six months ago, when Rudd looked to be trying to drum up the numbers, and now when some stability is returning. Publishers make cash advances to authors, and they expect a book.
That they’d be better off as pulp is neither here nor there.
Such is life.
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Your point is?
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Hypo.
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I think my point was obvious from the first time I rejected the Gillard-Howard apologia hymns.
You can review my posts anytime you want.
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Hey, Doug Q, you know what they did yesterday.
SBS ran THE doco on “Magical Mystery Tour”, then the film itself, which I’d never seen in its entirety before.
Just past “I am the Walrus” and channel surfing during another one of their annoying ads and blow me down, if I didn’t stumble across the stomach-tearingly funny “Dr Strangelove” being run on Auntie.
How could such a thing be? Surely they couldn’t have been running culturalicons against one another to clash with each other, to killjoy on discerning viewers?
What has the world come to?
Must write a letter…
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This letter was in the Sunday Age 21 October 2012:
Sticking the boots in:
WHILE the Parliament debates which of our leaders is the greater misogynist, the real misogyny is in the government’s policy of deliberately humiliating single parents, most of whom are women, by reducing their payments and forcing them and their children deeper into poverty. What kind of people are we that we would stick the boots into the most disadvantaged among us?
PHILLIP BELL, Frankston
It seems that this is the main thrust of Jennifer’s article in the first place and the rest of the discussions are just diversions.
I would like to make the point, however, that abusing people who post to blogs is not actually making an argument and discussion, and I certainly won’t be preached to by someone who is politically still wet behind the ears.
Mannie De Saxe – red-jos – Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Melbourne
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Mannie De Saxe/redjos,
Sorry if my attempt to clarify your posting identity constituted a diversion. Its just that a like issue had seemed to have arisen a little earlier in the thread, just before your first post to it, with Paul Walter’s post of October 18, 2012 at 10:30 am re a perceived distinction between Jackie(@voodoo47)/lovecoachaustralia.
In your post of October 20, 2012 at 11:59 pm, headed ‘A FEW POINTS OF CLARIFICATION – 20 OCTOBER 2012’, speaking with respect to your campaign leading up to the 85 pieces of ‘equality’ legislation of 2008-09, you said:
“What we had in mind was that all pensioners
should get the single pension, once we were
turned into same-sex de facto couples …”
You seem to be confirming where, under the apparent bi-partisan position as to the definition as to what constitutes marriage then (and still) applying, the true pension status of a defacto same-sex couple would end up. To wit, with each partner of the couple being entitled to the single pension rate applicable to their individual circumstances. Was the effectively bi-partisan position as to the definition of marriage to have been incorporated within legislation, it is not difficult, IMHO, to see the High Court ruling that any administrative decisions adversely affecting persons not covered by that definition would be invalid whilst ever the single pension continued to exist in law.
With all due deference to Doug Quixote’s claimed knowledge with respect to Constitutional law, with a definition of marriage that excludes same-sex relationships, it seems to me that the requirement made of same-sex couples to REGISTER their relationships would have been one outside of the power of the Commonwealth to legislate. I think the GLTH community has been conned.
In your first post to the thread you opened with the statement:
“During 2008 the Rudd-Gillard government looked at
issues of discrimination against the gay, lesbian,
transgender and HIV (GLTH) communities and found 85
items of legislation which they thought to amend,
thus calculating that they would be able to lock in
GLTH votes ”
My question, not being familiar with the details of your campaign, is as to who identified the 85 items of legislation that were to be amended: primarily your campaign, or primarily the Rudd-Gillard government?
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To the best of my memory it was the Rudd/Gillard government through the then attorney-general. But that was between 2007 and 2008 so I could be mistaken, but I think not.
Mannie De Saxe
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I apologise Mannie. In 2007 I was forced(?) to vote for “the then attorney-general” – the fucking useless Robert McClelland. I tried googling him to confirm his details, but he almost does not exist.
For the best, probably.
There is talk that former premier Morris Iemma will stand to deselect him. I’m tempted to join the Party to see if that can be achieved.
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Imagine the poor bastards reading Wong or Garrett on their ballot papers.
Two walking talking manikins,with the contributory factor of cold porridge.
Oh, except that cold porridge has a few productive end uses.
I bet the donkey vote, in Labor held seats goes, through the roof at the next election.
Those two professional superannuated seat warmers make a zombie walk look like an Olympic marathon.Obviously they are placed in government to make it look like the rest of Labor has ADHD.
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As a matter of interest, Hypo, just who would you like to see on your ballot paper? Please give me a flippant answer, if you like, but then a serious one.
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Flippant = Paul Keating
Honest = someone akin to Paul Keating, but younger.
Perhaps our elected representatives needs to better reflect policy before person/party ?Shock horror.
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Mannie De Saxe/redjos,
I somehow thought that it may have been the Rudd-Gillard government that was the driving force behind the identification of items of ‘equality’ legislation desired.
The political problem the Rudd-Gillard government could see itself facing was one wherein, if it allowed persons living in same-sex relationships to continue entitlement to pensions at the single rate, was that those living within marriage relationships as conventionally defined would increasingly come to see themselves as being discriminated against whilst ever the ‘married’ pension rate was to remain less than the single rate.
One way of overcoming this could have been to have abandoned the idea of a ‘married’ rate, and allow all married recipients to be entitled to a pension at the single rate.
Another way around this anticipated political/electoral problem could have been to purport to reduce the pension entitlement of persons in same-sex relationship situations to that of the married rate, which is the one that, in the event, the government chose. It may have been that the Rudd-Gillard government sought to minimise the damage to its future electoral prospects by choosing to actually disadvantage (by way of reduced entitlement) the smaller demographic of the GLBH community, rather than allow a perception as to becoming the victims of discrimination to develop amongst the relatively much larger demographic in hetero-sexual relationship situations.
For this latter course to succeed to the maximum extent possible, it may well be that this government chose to create an impression as to the GLBH community somehow getting something in exchange for recognition of same-sex relationships beyond that of the negative return constituted by the pension entitlement reductions. Your expression of surprise as to the refusal of it to agree to any ‘grandfathering’ provision would seem to be testimony to that.
The weakness in the government’s plan would be that unless it formally legislated to redefine marriage, something which to my understanding of your posts it has not yet done, there would be no basis in law whereby it could demand that persons in same-sex relationships register with Centrelink or any other instrumentality. I think the Rudd-Gillard government has been bluffing the GLBH community as to the validity of the registration requirement in dependence upon that community being unlikely to back away from what are represented as being its ‘equality’ demands in order to call that government’s bluff.
If the GLBH community, or even part of it, successfully challenged the validity of the registration requirement, the government would then have to placate the much larger demographic of persons on the married rate of pension, and others supportive thereof, by committing to raise the married rate to match the single rate, which expectation the GLBH community had in what it thought back in 2007-8 was input into government policy formation.
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You DOUBT Doug Quixote’s expertise on matters legal?
‘pon my word sir, am beyond jettisoned…
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They can doubt if they want to, paul. They don’t pay my rent. 🙂
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That’s the spirit!
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Is this not akin to lying on one side of an election and then changing policy?
*The State Government has changed its mind on uranium mining, reversing the position the Liberal-National Party (LNP) took to the election in March.*
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-22/qld-government-lifts-uranium-mining-ban/4326912
Surely Abbott will be up in arms about this.
Tony?
TONEEEE_EE_EEEEEEEEE ?
Come on Mr Uhlmann, Ms Sales, tear them up.
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..and..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-22/letter-shows-newman-uranium-backflip/4327902
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Good riddance (hopefully)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-27/wong-loses-first-place-on-senate-preselection/4337244
I hope Garret is next.
But…
For those still in ‘gullible ville’ or ‘naive central’,a reminder. This is the new(current) Labor.
Ruthless,selfish and disrespectful of the true values of Labor before Gillard.
The extreme right wing bullies are set to dominate.
A vote for Labor is now rubber stamped as a vote for the Liberal twin,aka Tea Party2.Labor is no longer about giving the needy a leg up,it is about positioning wankers,bullies,and union thugs into a comfy retirement job.
Looks like my union membership days are over,officially.
I’ll pursue the fair go elsewhere.
Labor have eviscerated it,not unlike Howard.
That said, I doubt either party +Clive+Twiggy+Gina could afford an iron lung big enough to run Wong,let alone her AND Garrett, the jellyfish cop out.
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No-one and nothing has destroyed Labor and our goodwill as much as this toxic PM.
I hope she is totally annihilated at any election she faces.Labor is dead.They are devoid of any soul.A shallow opportunist gang of redneck Liberal wannabes.
Scum personified,playing to the racist faction in our community.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-30/legislation-shifts-goalposts-on-offshore-processing/4341310
And she just politically fellated the UN to get a seat.
What blatant gutless propaganda.Expect to see wall to wall US military presence from hereon in.
You can have her DQ, and you can have your Howard asylum policy mantra,too.
The metamorphosis is complete.
Julia Howard-Gillard is alive and well.
Abbott is starting to look human.
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Abbott only starts to appear human because he can’t actually do anything.
Give him the reins of power and see what shit hits the fan then.
Gillard is doing an excellent job under difficult circumstances.
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Whats next from Gillard-Howard?
Torpedo the boats perhaps?
Mines?
Pathetic,inhuman,Un-Australian,and racist, and it goes against every mealy mouthed pre-concocted gibberish she fed to the public and the UN in her lie about wanting to affect positive change to those less fortunate.
Not a word about cracking down on the biggest section of illegals.
Plane-people.
You need to find another person to compare to Abbott DQ.
He and Gillard have nothing separating them but Gillard-Howards ‘alleged’ female genitalia.
They are Tea Party twins.Mirror images.
Gillard shafted Rudd, and now she is lying about it.This is one hurdle she won’t get over.
Reality check:She is doing a deceptive job,in self created circumstances.
Nothing more,nothing less.
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Gillard isnt actually doing anything, not even working on the platform they were elected on, she’s in survivor mode, trying her hardest to ward off the school yard bully and meanwhile no-one is steering the ship as both sides remain limply reactive to whatever the press whats to flog them on. The media is driving the agenda, Where is fresh policy? Where are the ideas? Innovation? Not in Parliament that’s for sure. FFS they are still debating a 2 decades old thing on gay marriage,talk about past it! Sad sad sad, no leaders on either side. They are like sad old feminists that still bang on about equal wages without ever realising they were achieved decades ago….Get up to speed people! We are in 2012!
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..and she is a lying,hypocritical ‘born again’ redneck, who stabbed her leader in the back for personal narcissistic gain and now will lie and deceive the public about anything.
(If she gets close to being exposed she plays the education card ad nauseum)
Mind you she is surrounded by like individuals.They will go down as the self destroying megalomaniacs who buried Labor once and for all.
I cannot wait to see her smashed at the election.Or better shafted from within.
Survival mode at what cost?She is the mirror image of her opponents.Is she afraid they will steal from her what she stole from them?
FFS alright.
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What’s your problem? She is doing an excellent job as is the government by any objective measure. Sorry Hypo but I think you have lost the plot on this one.
The government is getting on with governing, in education reform, health and disability scheme still in the planning stages, the NBN rolling out, the Murray Darling Basin plans well under way, with improvements in our foreign aid targeting, with a seat at the table at the UN Security Council.
All the achievements and successes are hidden beneath a pile of crap, piled up by the supine media fed by Lord Rupert and his henchmen and spouted by that miserable rag-tag of an opposition.
And then there are people, otherwise intelligent who say there are no differences between them!
FFS, I call bullshit, Hypo.
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You would call bullshit,DQ.
Gillard and her gang and her supporters are fully exposed for all to see.
You support the We decide shit Howard spewed out.
I call any fucker scum who declares us an asylum free zone a racist redneck.
That’s Gillard Howard, and anyone who supports that policy.
Doubly for any spineless lowlife who hides behind the ‘we are saving their lives’ by shutting our gate crap.
I no longer know whether your greatest flaw is base gullibility or an addiction to politicians who hide their deception behind a veil of mediocrity and hypocrisy.
Either way, Gillard Howard has out red-necked Abbott, and you can’t deny it.
You fly that flag DQ.
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Single issue stuff again? Is that all you have to worry about!
The government is seeking to insure that the plane arrivals and boats which reach the mainland are not advantaged over those arriving at Christmas Island.
How do you do that, is the question. The opposition won’t agree to improving access to the legal/welfare system for the Christmas Island arrivals, so it has to be done the other way – excise the whole fucking country and make a level playing field that way.
Think about what I have written, Hypo, and then reply.
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Apologist spin.
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Well zero, your hero Abbott is not doing much , is he? Filleting fish is done by more capable people than him.
Talking about aged feminists, you sound like one yourself. And as for schoolyard bullies…were you one of those?
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Noisy here also,isn’t it?
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How you could conclude Im an Abbott supporter from my post indicates you didnt either really read it, or if you did, you didnt get its tone, Abbott is a dud, unvoteable, but neither is Gillard,As for personal insults, its a bit of stock in trade for you and indicates a weak argument, name calling wont get you far with me….tell me can you try another at least another more substantial response?
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zero, I have read what you have written about Jennifer on Bob Ellis blog, it’s there for all to see. You have written it of course under one of your many pseudos.
I found it very cruel, and I will not want to have anything to do witjh you on any blog. Please do not ever reply to any of my posts , I always recognise you as you know.
Thank god The Drum is moderated.
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Simple case of mistaken identity, you have me confused with someone else I wouldnt even know the web address of Bob Ellis blog, which side of politics is it? I only really write on this blog, send out a monthly musical newsletter and write to the family tree about recent genealogy findings, Apart from that I dont really touch the web, havent got the time. As for Jennifer, I respect her, bright, open minded, non censorious….I cant think of single reason why you think I would attack her here or anywhere else?!! I really do think you have the wrong person, but no harm done, no offence taken if all you said previously was intended for someone else. And If hat you say is true on the Ellis blog I hope they ban whoever it is…
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Yes very noisy.The sound of stampeding hypocrites and their apologists is deafening.
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What a paragon of virtue you must be.
But what are actually doing, to help the poor,that costs you anything?.
Sanctimonious one, you are, deep in the camps sharing with them their hardship, except fo the times when you
return to upbraid and lecture us backsliders?
Little Pollyanna, how perfect you arel
how we wish sainthood could come so easily for ourselves too, miserable creatures that we are.
If you are a Hypocritophobe, do you feel ill when you look in the mirror?
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Hahahaha.
That makes it alright then.
Sleep well Paul.
Now that we are a officially a ‘refugee free zone’, a Teflon destination , a get stuffed society, thanks to Labor, we can all sleep well at night.
Knowing that ‘reffos’ can ‘fuck off we’re full’, while labors big wigs go down on Rhinehart so she can import slave.
You dweeb.
Not one single comment about why you think this policy is necessary,let alone Labor values.
Not one.
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More graves to dig……more pocket pissing
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-31/gillard-flags-more-troops-for-afghanistan/4343726
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You shouldn’t call other people cowards when you haven’t even the guts to sign your name to your slanders.
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And you shouldn’t hold up Gillard-Howard as a legitimate PM or Labor politician.
As for anonymity I have told you before, over and over again.
It’s none of your business Sheriff.
If you cannot handle Labor/Gillard criticism,the house has other rooms of a more amenable temperature.
Meanwhile,while you are keeping the butter hard and cold in your pristine mouth,how about…(flashback)
One single comment about why you think this policy is necessary,let alone Labor values.And perhaps a foray into the stellar decision to kill more young Australians in Afghanistan, in a war based on pride, ego and reputation.
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Sorry, what was that about the immense pressure the Abbott opposition put on the ALP governemt to ease up on asylum seekers?
Incidentally, by taking on their share an opprobrium that that would have remained the sole burden of a Labor government otherwise, Abbott, Bishop and Morrison’s honourable conduct now ensures that the government would have no choice but to act in a bipartisan way for the benefit of asylum seekers and their sense of self respect.
The only people disadvantaged by this will be now unemployed trolls working from Menzies House trying to rescue a broken opposition by reviving asylum seekers, with Labor afforded exclusive blame.
No wonder these people don’t want us to know who they are; always be on the alert for hidden agendas.
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If you are accusing me ???? (the person behind the pseudo) of being a troll or having a hidden agenda or supporting the pro Abbott camp you are more FOS that my imagination can muster.
It’s not a surprising accusation though,considering the position the Gillard Howard supporters find themselves in.
Too proud to see reality of the Frankenstinian faux Labor.
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Your lack of respect for other people’s cognitive abilities, let alone your own imagination, has actually disappointed folk somewhat of late.
We’ll leave you Abbott Beazleyites be for a bit, methinks.
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“Any comment about why you think this ‘NIMBY-refugee’ policy is necessary,let alone Labor values.And perhaps a foray into the stellar decision to kill more young Australians in Afghanistan, in a war based on pride, ego and reputation.”?
and then…..
Silence.Plenty of it.
Sorry that my de-blinkered view disappoints you.Que sera sera.
Gillard-Howard is not someone Labor or feminists should be proud of.
Abbott is who he is and I am on the record all over this blog decrying him,but you choose to ignore it for your own purposes.Not very honest of you.And then when Gillard-Howard plagiarises anything caustic from Labor you turn away.Speaking up (against) internal Labor value disintegration is obviously not your forte.
If THIS Labor wins the next election outright(miracle of miracles) Australia will have in effect voted for Howard and all his toxic agenda,10 years after his demise.
Laughable and tragic at the same time.
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Five (5) years on from Howard, Hypo.
Since when did you ever espouse Labor values? From what I have seen of your thousands of posts you are a sometime Green with a Messiah complex, determined on ideological purity and determined Marilyn-like to occupy the high ground on your high horse.
Speaking of Marilyn, WTF is she? I miss being called names. 🙂
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Over at Pol Sword hoping the ALP should die.
This is about the latest gimmick in the population wars, designating Australia a no-immigration zone or some such silly, but of course it]s a coded message hinting at stability to voters, to keep Abbott on the mat rather than something deriving of race hatred from the government itself (altho there are a few racists in the gov, of course)
Don’t worry about the trolls. You are safe if you vote Coalition.
Doug, I keep telling them that the gridlock can only break from the Coalition’s side.
That is, only by Abbott calling for a softer regime putting the ALP into a position where it will be better for Labor to accept a bipartisan approach.
But they don’t want that- do they?
Their supporters here only want to blame Labor alone, which is why you suspect some here are Coalition trolls.
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Good idea PW you and DQ go form a gang ( maturity not) and accuse those you disagree with as trolling.
The audacity to accuse others of faults.
Labor are their own undoing.A Labor I once revered.
Pfffffffffffft
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Hypo, you are chattering like a budgie.
I will offer you a piece of cuttlefish bone, then you can have a drink of water.
Be nice and don’t go fffffffftttt at people if you don’t understand where they are coming from.
No one likes refugee issues and what goes with them.
But you appear to feel that anyone who questions points you may raise must be agin’ you.
We ask for clarification on substantial points for some idea of how you would work your goal, in a real world full of complicating factors you can’t or won’t identify or acknowledge and all you do is abuse us.
I don’t think you have a clue, any more than the rest of us,
of how to do the thing properly.
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In 2006, Mr Bowen said of a similar bill: “If it is passed today, it will be a stain on our national character”.
Labors next backflips?
Death penalty?
Ban all abortions?
National conscription?
180 degrees on anything seems entirely conceivable now.
Which values are core values?
I ask because Rudd was the last Labor leader I was a part of installing, and I presume you 2 were as well.
I think you have all the explaining to do.Not me.
And how about your clarification on the excising issue, and Afghanistan war as posed above PW?
The abuse is aimed at your seemingly unending support for Gillard-Howard,her henchmen and their destruction of Labor.Nothing else.
You seem to have no limits of your support, on how many values are jettisoned,and yet you question ME?
FFS.
Re-read the title ^ boys.
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No, Hypo.
It’s pointless.
You have, as usual, failed to respond to comments made by myself and others, therefore it is unreasonable of you to expect further comment from others until the prior situation I draw attention to is (finally) remedied.
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Did you say meow, meow.?
Ultimatums are for the coalition and the MSM .
Make your mind up.
Even Hamster has Labor pegged.You have no idea.
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Oh Dear,
Was I really Hypo-ventilating?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-01/thomson-accuses-labor-of-pandering-to-rednecks/4344984
You can expect more of this internal combustion as this faux Labor implodes.
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And here is the first comment at that story.
gough
8:03 AM on 01/11/2012
“It isn’t the first or unfortunately the last time Australia makes a decision that makes us the laughing stock of the world. Australia ! strong enough to demand a seat on the security council but unable to defend it’s shores from unarmed beggars. What a joke. Good on you Craig for voicing your disgust. Bring on the election and give Australians a chance to regain their dignity !”
Looks like I am not alone in my ‘trolling’ view PW.
And for the record at this place and time I have not put my 2 bobs worth in there(under any ID.)
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I’ve never accused you of trolling, Hypo. You and I see eye to eye on many subjects, it just seems that our points of difference keep coming up for discussion. As you may have noticed, JG Cole and I have reached a modus vivendi and peace seems to have broken out over at Bob Ellis’ blog after certain trolls (one troll?) were banned.
We’ll just have to agree to differ on the question of Gillard’s worthiness and the fact that she’ll never wear a halo as “Saint Julia the Pure of Ideology”.
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..and I shall be hoping for a wake up call within Labor’s ranks.
(Before it is too late, and that time draws near)
This Nation needs a true Labor Party more than ever.
Gillard-Howard will be dust soon enough.
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A question for DQ.
(You seem to be across this stuff)
Any substance in this?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-21/former-union-official-says-gillard-still-has-questions-to-answer/4385120
A Hypothetical.
Could you (those who continually defend the installation and political behaviour of Gillard) live with a hasty installation of Rudd and a return to traditional Labor values, and the final destruction of the evil NSW right,if it meant negating Abbott?
Or do you think this guy going to get real sick at the last minute and cream his jeans, scampering back to Malaysia?
Or is he just BS-ing?
Oh to be a fly on the wall in Howes’ (et al) bunker.
Interesting times.
Oh what a tangled web……………….
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BTW
I see NO name attached to this report.
Why is that?
Why is the ABC a repeat (repeat/repeat/repeat…) offender when it comes to not owning up to ‘who owns’ what story/what angle/what motivation.
And where is Chris Uhlmann?
Quote
“First posted 1 hour 55 minutes ago”
Yeah,but by who Mr Scott?
Who the f*ck wrote it?
Who owns it?
Who is the chaser?
Why the secret?
No pride in your journos?
Conflict?
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Not really following it, Hypo. I saw him interviewed on the street, flanked by a Gillard-hater or two.
I suspect they told him that if he wanted to come back, and was prepared to say he had dirt on Gillard, they’d seek immunity from prosecution for him in return.
I hope he gets arrested and prosecuted, even if his “supporters” then cry “foul” and “political interference”. It is a win-win for them : if he is arrested, or in the unlikely case that he has genuine evidence.
Storm in a teacup no. 386, or thereabouts.
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Storm number 387 seems to have a bot more thunder and lightning DQ.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-22/lawyer-claims-discrepancy-in-pm-slush-fund-explanation/4387224
BTW Yet a fuckinggain the ABC refuses to acknowledge who owns the story.
I’d like to think they had a single shred of credibility left which could at least be honest enough to show a simple thing like who is running/compiling/researching the story which is hounding the very leader of our country,but it appears they are as slovenly,slimy and as toxic as the MSM.
I will assume Uhlmann is all over it, being the chief anti Gillard head kicker,until I see proof otherwise.
I guess this will take the heat off the RC church.
Surprise surprise.
Fail
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This issue is starting to look like the political crucifixion of Carmen Lawrence.
The tentacles are long when it comes to the vile hate of capitalist control and the haters, on the right of the spectrum…………………
Had Labor held onto Rudd and instigated an early RCom into the issues in the Howard era.Children o/board,wheat for guns etc,this nation would have a whole new ‘real’ paradigm.As it is we are headed for decades of misery,a bunker mentality,simmering bigotry,class envy and community division.
And worse, an empty shell where the workers party once stood.
Faux Labor have no-one but themselves to blame for the mess they now wallow in.I have no idea how credible either ‘born again witnesses’, are in this Slater and Gordon fiasco, but I do know the smell of fish pervades the air.
On both sides,in fact.
Sorry DQ,but this time I am not focussing on the differences we have,just the bunny in the spotlight.
Either we have a mega-hoax,or a political funeral.Not because I say so,but because that is the dichotomy soup the MSM will dish up, and which the hungry masses will readily gobble up.
Faux Labor are halfway to installing Abbott.Voter apathy and ignorance should make up the deficit.
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As regards the latest “revelations”, a fax is a very different thing from an email; it goes to the office machine and you would not expect a partner in a large firm to see such a thing in the normal course. The paralegal involved would likely snaffle it and get on with the transaction. (But also, remember Godwin Grech! )
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With Abbott reduced to the sidelines and acting like a pantomime character : “Oh yes she did!” (Oh no she didn’t) “Oh yes she did!” and “The government has totally lost control of its borders!” (As if – ask Hamas about losing control of the borders) “Oh yes She has!”
The media and other assorted Gillard haters have had to take up the slack. Storm in a teacup no 387 may or may not have some substance, that remains to be seen.
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Just you and I awake since Thursday, Douggie. Where is everyone? Where is Jennifer? Are there no topics left to debate? Do I have to insult someone to get a dialogue going!?!
Wake up!
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Some of us are still awake – we just seem to be so disgusted with everything going on around us at the moment that we have become speechless – in a manner of speaking.
I personally sense a conspiracy theory in relation to Gillard and the latest beat-up by the media and others regarding the whole legal thing and I don’t believe anyone any more.
Unless proved otherwise – as in the HSU saga – I believe this is just another set-up in order to get Gillard to resign and call an election, and who would be pushing for this to happen?
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No surprises there, redjos.
The opposition are truly desperate now, as they see their imaginary advantage in the polls slipping away.
Expect more from their slush bucket, especially now to divert attention away from Pell and the RC Church. Tony’s mentor needs some distractions.
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Slurs on both sides are a distraction to divert attention. These dog whistles are attempts to engage less thoughtful voters and give false arguments at election time. Both are looking for a “Children overboard” media sensation to lock in those voters of a dogmatic mindset. Hence the Abbott team keep raising the Gillard AWU story. The ALP hope to link Abbott to Pell’s denialisim and his uni aggression. Tall poppy syndrome is extemely entrenched in Australia and voters will decide which greasy pole to cling to come election time. But again I ask, where is the policy? Where are the new initiatives? I don’t think either side has much in the way of integrity to be proud of, neither has made a claim to rosy popularity and the voters are left with a poor choice between the two major parties. I’m neither right nor left (nor a Democrat/Green) I vote purely on the value and quality I see in the parcel of proposed policy initiatives. Left/Right is antiquarian to me since successful Labourites (financially) often become conservative minded capitalist thinkers as they age. Work long enough, invest wisely, save, and build your career and you will eventually remove your self from siding with either of the left/right polarities. So this mud throwing doesnt impress me….sure there is a need for our parliamentarians to display a certain amount of integrity, professionalism and ethics (a vacumn!) is parliament so dull and boring thats theres nothing better to do than this shit stirring?
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And IMO the only thing which will turn this cart around is an election result where both majors sufffer dramatically, or where the Greens get large numbers and a choice to form government.
You’re right about Abbott’s involvement,but it’s the evil pricks who survive elections, and who pull the party strings or call the pipers,who ‘really run the place.And they have a flexible allegiance.Mainly to power and ego.
The current political toxic hate scenario is likely here to stay,now.The parasitic plaiting of media, money (big business)and power brokers has toxified both major parties for the long term.Economic rationalism and poll driven,reactive policies have made the two majors, twins.Joined at the arsehole,so the crap will build up till they do a Mr Creosote.In the end we will all get covered in shit, and the stench thereof.
Get your nest egg and run is a good plan,but not everyone will get that chance.That’s why it’s tragic when a socialist or workers party implodes.
Prepare for more of the same going forward,that way you won’t be disappointed.If miracle (civil government) occurs,it a bonus.
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Disagree. Abbott is dead in the water. His pantomime character sound bites “Oh, yes she did!” are the best he can offer, and try to create a distraction to the government and some fodder for the media.
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I think in a roundabout way you are saying the same thing as I am except you are saying it from one side of the fence, thanks for the comment though. Im not proferring a debate, merely stating my humble opinion from where I sit, as are you.
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Nothing “roundabout” about it. Your post states expressly ‘Both are looking for a “Children overboard” media sensation to lock in those voters of a dogmatic mindset.’
Where is Labor’s attempt to do so? It does not exist!
Abbott’s links with Pell are there for all to see, but find me one Labor minister who has even mentioned Abbott in this connection!
This is totally one-sided slush throwing, if one can throw slush.
Labor is getting on with the job, as they have for years despite all the negativity, storm-in-a-tea-cup allegations, innuendo and distractions.
Your “humble opinion” is partisan and unfair.
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Some light relief with some vocal accompaniment to unburden us from the weight of realpolitik: http://red-jos.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/asylum-seekers-i-can-do-anything-better.html
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LOST and FOUND
Lost.
The owners (authors/senior political reporters responsible,for…) of these two stories and many more.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-25/gillard-27knew-nothing27-about-awu-scandal-wilson-says/4390756
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-25/pope-elects-six-new-cardinals-to-highlight-diversity/4390628
I wonder where Mr Uhlmann is?
“Chris Uhlmann: Political Editor / Anchor
Chris Uhlmann came to journalism late: as a 29-year-old copy kid at The Canberra Times in 1989. Before that he pursued less successful vocations, first in a Catholic seminary and later as a storeman and packer and a security guard.
Chris left The Canberra Times in 1993 to help establish and then edit The Canberra Weekly, a lively, but doomed, suburban paper. He spent a year in India before joining the ABC as a radio producer in 1998. From the dawn of the millennium until December 2004 he co-hosted 666 ABC Canberra’s top rating breakfast program. In 2005 he produced Mornings on 774 ABC Melbourne before returning to Canberra and being appointed Chief Political Correspondent for radio current affairs in 2006.
Chris switched to television in 2008 and has been Political Editor for ABC News, The 7.30 Report and ABC News 24. Highlights from the Parliament years include breaking the news on the link between Godwin Grech and the Liberal Party and, with Mark Simkin, revealing that Labor was moving against Kevin Rudd on the night of June 23, 2010. He won a Walkley Award for Broadcast Interviewing in 2008.”
From
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/about.htm
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I am against the cutting of the single parent benefit. Don’t forget also in the case of family tax benefit wher one parent works and the other stays at home, that the working parents tax contributes to the pool and quite likely, the redistribution (via ftb) to the primary caring at home parent acknowledges that the latter’s work at home is ENABLING the other parent to be free to work outside it. I have been a stay at home parent, and my partner would not have been able to get as far as he has in his career if I had also worked full time in those years. It was not my original plan by the way, but I had little choice due to a range of family and personal circumstances. My own mother was a single parent and I saw what she had to do to keep us safe and sound.
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