This morning, Minister for Human Services Alan Tudge outdid even himself in the stupidity stakes when he admitted that he had released the private data of a Centrelink client to “a small number of journalists,” and that the information “was not released more widely” than that “small number of journalists.”
One hardly knows where to begin unpacking this utterly facile statement, and perhaps one won’t bother wasting one’s valuable life trying. Perhaps it is more useful to reflect on the fact that it issued forth from the mouth of a Minister of the Crown and a member of our government, not that old wag One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, from whom one might more likely expect such codswallop.
Then we have Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who yesterday took to the airwaves to lacerate Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews for “permitting the closure of the Hazelwood power station.”
Everybody knows Hazelwood was closed by its owners Engie and Mitsui & Co (who bought it from the Kennett government, by the way). Turnbull is cogniscent of this minor detail, as he demonstrated just a few days ago with this observation:
Perhaps one ought not to blame the government for assuming its citizens are equals in stupidity: after all, it was elected, albeit with a majority of one.
I can’t decide if Turnbull and his gang of foot- shooters are attempting bad imitations of US President Donald Trump, or if they’ve attained a state of collective desperation in which they no longer care what they say because the swamp water has risen to their necks & there’s nothing left for them to lose: they’re going under.
If the former, someone should tell them it is not possible to do a bad imitation of President Trump. President Trump has the market cornered. Unless you’re Alec Baldwin, you should leave imitating Trump alone because you can only ever sound like a loser wannabe.
Oh, wait! It’s the Turnbull government I’m talking about (laughs like Samantha Bee).
Meanwhile, it was revealed this morning that the proposed Adani coal mine intends to send only high ash/low quality coal to India,and that’s fine, according to Minister for Resources, Matt Canavan, as the Indians are used to crap coal and anyway, if we don’t sell it to them somebody else will. Plus, our soot is superior to the soot India currently breathes so what’s the problem?
We are a wonderful country. It’s a tribute to us that we keep on keeping on, despite our farcical overlords.
But wait. I understand British Prime Minister Theresa May today threatened to start a war with Spain, so take heart. It could be worse.
No Place For Sheep 
I read that April Fool’s Day was cancelled this year because every day is Fool’s day with the current state of politics. Seems fitting.
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Alternative facts are easy – Trump spruiks “clean coal, really clean coal” and that makes it so. Even though it doesn’t exist.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/30/clean-coal-myth-trump-carbon-capture-energy-no/
April Fools’ Day has actually been extended from November 2016 until further notice.
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ReTudge
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/03/reasonably-clear-alan-tudges-office-broke-law-in-centrelink-case-says-labor-legal-advice?CMP=share_btn_fb
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I wonder if AFP will ignore this as they have ignored so much else.
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Of course.
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Yes DQ, all my favourite men are dying, Clarke was too young to go, at least Leonard Cohen was over eighty, and dear Bob Ellis was well into his seventies….
Miss them all…
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No, they’ll wait until an election comes around and then raid the QC’s offices.
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Interesting how much the media avoids these days, also the police, Marilyn tweeted an observation about how timid they have all been in following up on James Ashby when much evidence seems contradictory concerning what he professes about his various antics.
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Ashby presented as the innocent ingenue who was a victim of attempted seduction by Peter Slipper. His subsequent history and track record suggest very strongly that Slipper was set up by a devious agent provocateur. Ashby is someone we don’t want anywhere near the levers of power; and one who should be better suited to the inside of a prison cell.
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Hard to think of a slimier piece of work, isn’t it?
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Now I understand the reference to Cowdroy elsewhere.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/03/details-of-australias-asylum-seeker-turnback-operations-released-in-foi-battle
The conscious perversions of logic are straight out of a black mass.
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“I told just 1 journo who promised to keep it secret”. Tudge probably used to tell his girlfriend he would ‘only put it in a little bit’. that is how stupid.
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wondering if kennett’s sale of hazelwood to the company that closed it down was concurrent with the purchase, the infamous purchase which got Mrs Kennett into trouble because it was done in her name, of shares in an electricity company in China.
kennett govt lost election by 1 seat, which was lost by 17 votes, which was Ms Henderson. Sara H just had public relationship bust with exLNP Pres SimonRamsay also exPres of VicFarmers federation. a big swirling boulliabaise which graphs for us that the system in Vic is nothing to do with the actual voter IMO
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2012: shares in the Chinese Guangdong company were discovered to be owned by Felicity Kennett. Guangdong Corporation – one of the directors of which is the biggest poker machine operator in Victoria. He accepted an invitation to buy highly sought after shares in the company (again in his wife’s name) at about the same time his Government released another 5000 Poker machines onto the market.
http://loveforlife.com.au/content/08/09/04/jeff-kennett-ex-premier-victoria-caught-crime-corruption-and-other-illegal-dealings
“I met my partner, Simon Ramsay – now a Victorian Member of Parliament – during the 2010 Corangamite pre-selection. We are a great team” maiden speech also referred to her 7-y-o son.
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/geelong/liberal-mps-sarah-henderson-and-simon-ramsay-separate/news-story/
daughter of Ann Henderson, who was a member of the Victorian state parliament for Geelong from 1992 to 1999 when seat lost by 17 votes
**
sorry about all that but the internet lets us see that corruption is not just in Indonesian courts but all over our Victoria as well.
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Wherever there is money on offer far beyond the pay-grade of officials, there will be corruption. An alternative way to corrupt officials is to embroil them in illegal/immoral conduct, ie blackmail. Greed, guilt, or both will do it every time.
We are fortunate here in Australia, where corruption is generally low by international standards:
http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016
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Vale John Clarke.
He shone a light on the cockroaches of the political scene – all Parties and all players were fair game.
He will be missed.
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Pity how it seems only the good die.
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Mr Paul Walter esq. The good die young because they got no stamina! They are pretty goddamn useless in every other department. No staying power Like snowflakes they melt in the first blast furnace of heat!
People like Trump and me – we go the full hog! We keep on keeping on, wearing down the weary, the lame, the stupid and the dumb. Trump in the last week of his campaign did about 4 or 5 rallies a day! That’s 4 or 5 rallies a day conducted by a 70 year old man! That’s staying power. I honour that kind of commitment. Hillary could only do one gymnasium rally a week and she needed four people to carry her up three flights of stairs before she passed out. The good die young because evolution designed it that way. Same with Muslims interbreeding amongst one another and producing genetic spastics. Gee, how did that ever happen? Get the picture?
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In the long run we will all be dead, even bonobos like you and Trump.
In the meantime you will provide us with entertainment.
Speaking of which, where are you Jennifer?
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Yes DQ, all my favourite men are dying, Clarke was too young to go, at least Leonard Cohen was over eighty, and dear Bob Ellis was well into his seventies….
Miss them all…
PS, sorry, my post somehow landed in wrong place…above.
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Turkeys like Trump and bastards like Murdoch will probably annoy us for years to come, unless . . .
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AUSTRALIA SLEEPWALKING TO ‘ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON’
Click to access 20170407_Economic_Armegeddon.pdf
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Just read it and glad of it. It explains why I wasn’t really upset about my computer being shut down for a week, for it explains why politics has become a big turnoff, like watching ABC 24.
It is hard work conjuring with the stupidity of the modern human.
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