Finally conceding that he has broken his pre-election promise not to cut the budgets of the ABC and the SBS, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has given as his reason for breaking that promise: “things move on.”
The Prime Minister needs to explain to the electorate just exactly what has “moved on” since he made that promise a mere fourteen months ago.
While of course some things do move on, we do need to know precisely the changes that have caused the Prime Minister to go back on an undertaking he made quite specifically on the eve of the 2013 election.
“Things move on” is in no way an adequate explanation for the breaking of such a significant promise. This is yet another example of Tony Abbott’s paternalistic refusal to inform the citizens of this country of what he’s doing, and why. It is arrogant, it is ignorant, and it is completely unacceptable that a Prime Minister of this country has the audacity to believe “things move on” is an adequate explanation for the deceit he’s engaged in with the Australian public over the ABC and SBS.
Things do move on, Prime Minister, and Prime Ministers also move on. Leaders who treat citizens like mushrooms can move on pretty damn fast. Tony Abbott urgently needs to explain what has changed so significantly over the last fourteen months that justifies him “moving on” from his pre-election undertakings. If he can’t or won’t, he’s going to continue to look like a liar who lied to win an election.
No Place For Sheep 
You have voiced your disapproval before he was elected the majority of Australian then did not share your view
I still do not share your view but I will say he is riding a wave that my dump him if he cannot track back on line
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I remember very well the incredulity that existed around the time of the election. With Rob Oakeshott’s statement (of the century) that Australia clearly isn’t ready to have a female PM ringing in our ears, voters were faced with a choice between someone who had already shown themselves to be something akin to a seemingly kind and affable nursing home director who was in fact fleecing his clients behind their backs, and this (yes) lizard of a man who appeared to be completely shameless in obfuscating what he was really about – which the majority of Australians apparently didn’t have the wit to see – but who had given some pretty solid indications that he had some fairly radical, ultra-conservative and ultra-paternalistic tendencies.
For people given to thinking in the short term it might not have seemed like a no-win situation… but how on earth anyone could be surprised that Abbott’s got himself into this mess is beyond me, and I rather wonder whether the (what I think of as somewhat disproportional) level of anger directed at him is a result of the projected and re-assigned self-loathing of the people who feel duped into voting for him.
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Good point in the last para, Sam. I don’t hate him anymore than I did before he was elected, but I can imagine how duped I’d feel if I’d voted for him. Incomprehensible to me that anyone could have done that, but there you go…
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The attack on public brodcasting is solely ideological, and reflective of a mindset that cant abide exposure or questioning of its actions and motives.
Corman’s comment about an efficiency dividend is both ideological claptrap abdfundamentally anti rational economics, also a cynical exercise in avoiding responsibility for consideration of the necessity of objective news and current affairs, quality drama, comedy and satire that examines contentious human behaviour. We need a bridgehead to an appreciation of reality, for a would-be “clever country”, not more Big Brother and Murdoch lies and morbidity.
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Is anything the LNP wants to do not fuelled by ideology I wonder
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Good speech by Albo on these things today, or as good as you’ll get from most of our politicians on these matters today..I enjoyed the wit.
Btw, scrolling down, I think the issue gets beyond detesting Abbott and a good few of his colleagues, After a bit it becomes a bit more interesting trying to figure their psychology and personality and there is almost a sense of unexpected pity to be dealt with when I begin to consider them in a dispassionate way, although it becomes clear after abit that they dont really do much.
I just realised, I cant hate a specimen of arachnid or someother crawly in a lab, it is just a creature that cant really know better’. Its attempts at biting are just reactive and it is safe to contemplate it provided it is not accidentally loosed on the surrounds, in which case it might be easier just to squish it, for the sake of safety.
They have no value beyond their value as curiosities and exotic species, but it may be interesting to study them to understand how they work and develop some sort of antidote or Skinnerist conditioning as to their antics for the future, for self preservation.
I should feel more for a supposed fellow human or humans, I suppose, but until I can understand a creature like this, I can’t really move on to more satisfying task because of the bafflement; it reaches the stage where you’ll find it difficult to convince me that they are anything but just another species of creature that ought to be on the other sid e of the fly screen door.
Perhaps I need to feel more like this about large sections of the electorate also. ‘Nuff for now..all a bit sad.
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“Time to move on” has worked well enough for just about everyone who has tried it. The Lizard has plenty of minders to suggest a similar exculpation.
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