Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies.
Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.
Qantas has revealed the recent
industrial dispute wiped $194 million off its bottom line in the first half of 2011-12
To be expected. Elect a Centre-left government in debt to unions and just wait for the obvious result.
It’s not over yet with Qantas and the Unions have plenty of campaigns running and in the pipe line, whereby they can really drag down the country.
There is positives abound with the new political order. We have off-loaded Slipper with all his baggage and set up a clear path for Mal Brough to reenter the fray in the next parliament.
Gillard expects us to believe that she knew nothing untill 7:30am yesterday. Some will but some swinging voters won’t and they will add to the tally of Australians just sitting waiting for a chance to sack her.
The Left and rusted on ALP supporters are all over the LNP “shooting themselves in the foot” over Slipper. Tell me, what were we to do with him? He was a lead weight, confused about his loyalties and without any sense of economy or justification for his travel and phone expenses.
Why would we hang on to him when we have winners of the class of Brough waiting in the wings. He was never going to be a LNP team player.
I say good riddance and good luck to Julia. From experience I know you need luck to survive a hand grenade with a loose pin.
If I was an ALP true believer I wouldn’t be feeling all that secure with grenades labelled ‘Peter Slipper’ and ‘Craig Thomson’ rattling around the bunker.
Locals at Margaret River, WA are
furious with Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) and they should be too. Who, in their right mind still has burn-offs functioning in mid November. I come from that area and generally speaking ‘Hot and windy’ defines November, December and January weather.
I’ll be furious as well if these fires slow down next years vintage. I’ve become quite fond of Margaret River reds.
Gnarabup man Peter Ryan said: “I’m bewildered as to why you would be burning off at this time of year. Questions will have to be asked.”
Indeed.
Harry Jenkins has resigned as Speaker of the house and Peter Slipper appears to the ALP’s preferred replacement. Having Slipper in the chair would give the government the additional vote of Jenkins.
Yony Abbott comments;
“It is a remarkable thing for this parliament to witness out of the blue the resignation of the speaker,” he said.
“One must assume that’s something extraordinary is happening in the Labor party at the moment for the speaker to resign his office,’’ he said
This will be interesting.
UPDATE: Slipper confirmed as Speaker which, coincidentally, most probably presages Mal Brough’s return to the federal arena.
Colour me skeptical but with the ALP gaining two votes with this maneuver I am going to take some convincing that the whole thing isn’t part of a plot driven by the need to gain a clearer majority in the House, rather than Harry’s sudden burning desire to join the debate on the floor.
GREENS MP Adam Bandt has been named Australian
politician of the year by men’s magazine GQ.
I’ve never read GQ and I’m definitely not going to start now if they or their readers think Brandt is the best there is.
Mr Bandt was unable to attend the award ceremony at the Sydney Opera House because he was engaged in last-minute talks with the Government screwing the government and Australia out of $200m as the Greens price for supporting the ALP’s mining tax legislation.
From
News.com
THE Federal Government has been forced by outrage over an extraordinary secrecy pact to reveal details of its multi-million dollar deal with the Greens to get a law passed.
It will defer concessions for foreign banks to get $20 million a year in revenue the Greens wanted spent on public facilities.
When will this debacle end?
A ROGUE Afghan National Army soldier is on the run after
shooting Australian instructors at a remote base in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan Province.
BRENDAN NICHOLSON says Attacks on Diggers by rogue Afghanis threatens withdrawal strategy
Fourteen Australian soldiers have now been shot by members of the Afghan National Army’s 4th Brigade they were training.
Four have died since May and 10 are being treated for serious wounds.
This is a terrible outcome but it is war after all.
Brendan is not alone in mentioning the withdrawal strategy as many are now calling for our withdrawal because of these rogue attacks. It is reasonable to debate our presence in Afghanistan but not to call for our withdrawal just because we are taking these sought of casualties.
I too have feel threatened by allies and can recall telling a Vietcong
Chieu Hoi that if he lead us into an ambush I would shoot him first.
He behaved himself.
The Army will have already changed tactics and protocols to deal with this but the aim of the mission needs to be maintained; not changed because the degree of difficulty increases.
Only the ALP/Greens coalition could come up with a plan that will adversely effect our economy and not help the environment and then brag about it.
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet told the ABC’s 7.30 program the climate change package was a Labor reform, not a Greens’ victory. “When you are successful in something, there are a lot of people who claim authorship,” he said.
Yeah – right.
Senator Bob Brown thinks “even the heavens are clapping” and that “it’s a great day for the human race and planet earth”.
It’s a pity that it’s not a great day for Australia! Sure as night follows day, if the Greens think it’s good then it’s catastrophic for the economy.
Piers Akerman likens it to Year Zero of the Australian economy and tend to agree.
Treasurer Wayne Swan labelled the vote as historic, claiming the reform would be a “victory for the optimists and it will be a defeat for the deniers.” He still doesn’t get it. He is suggesting that people only fall into two categories; those who believe in the ALP’s carbon Tax or climate deniers. He is forgetting the majority of people who recognize climate does change but don’t think the ALP have the answer. He will be reminded of that fact at the next election.
I am on the board of
Street Swags, a registered charity that raises money to make swags to distribute to homeless street people. Head office is in Brisbane but we have expanded to the NT, NSW, WA and Victoria. So far we have distributed 17,0000 swags Australia wide.
On Saturday
12 November we are holding a concert at the Brookfield Showgrounds to help us raise funds for this most worthy of causes.
You can book tickets through
Tickertek
Hope to see you there.
[youtube]FyV4dRCEHik[/youtube]
From the
Australian/Wall Street Journal;
QANTAS hopes to have the first of its flights back in the air by 2pm (AEDT) today after Fair Work Australia early this morning stopped the carrier’s planned lockout of workers.
After 12 hours of deliberations, the tribunal’s full bench announced early this morning in Melbourne that it had upheld submissions by the Gillard government and Qantas to have the bargaining period terminated.
‘Bargain period terminated’ is what Qantas wanted so the sentence
Fair Work Australia early this morning stopped the carrier’s planned lockout of workers. could just as well stated
…forced the unions back to work.
News Ltd puts it better;
QANTAS planes are set to fly again after Fair Work Australia ordered an end to union strikes and the airline’s grounding of its fleet.
All in all, the decision vindicates Joyce’s strategy. Bring the dispute to a head rather than face a slow bleeding.
QANTAS has locked out international pilots, baggage handlers and engineers, essentially bringing its operations to a halt.
It has grounded all its entire domestic and international fleets indefinitely from 5pm AEDT.
The airline announced minutes ago it was locking out all members covered by the industrial agreements currently being negotiated with the Australian Licenced Engineers Union (ALAEA), the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian and International Pilots Union (AIPA).
As I figure the Qantas board runs the airline, not the unions, then that’s fine by me.
The ALP, the gift that keeps on giving. Albanese believes Qantas should have talked to him earlier. Maybe he should have spoken to his union mates earlier. Why should Qantas put up with strikes that are costing them millions of dollars daily as the union fight to get the power back they had under Hawke.
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