Gillard and 457s
JULIA Gillard is facing dissent in the cabinet and caucus over her attack on 457 visa rorts, with critics claiming the crackdown is damaging the government’s credentials with business.
The government has credentials with business?
Author: Kev
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.
Complaining Princess
AUSTRALIA’S defence force has knowingly neglected abuse victims, according to a senior army officer who has revealed he was the target of a gay-hate campaign by colleagues.
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Morgan told the ABC’s 7.30 program last night that the failure of Australian Defence Force management to adequately deal with his complaint was indicative of how poorly many victims were treated.
“Every officer in my chain of command, every colonel and general all the way through to the current Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison, systematically failed their duty in relation to the management of my complaint.”
Way to go Paul. That will guarantee you will lose all support amongst your peers and superiors. The Army’s Chain of Command for complaints goes up to and stops at Chief of Army– it doesn’t include ABCs 7:30 program.
ADF chief General David Hurley told the ABC he rejected Colonel Morgan’s claims of widespread inaction on abuse allegations and said numerous programs had been put in place to support victims.
How come Paul is still in the Army?
Deja Vu Gillard
CRIMINALS face the seizure of luxury cars, houses and cash assets under a national blitz to fight gang-related crime.
Julia Gillard today announced a new taskforce to crack down on gangs as she searches for a political circuit-breaker.
I could be wrong but I thought criminals already faced such seizures. Admittedly I think the seizures are state based but are we expected to believe that this will work given that it sounds like another beer coaster plan.
The Prime Minister called Premier Barry O’Farrell last night to inform him of the formation of the taskforce
Same for the NSW Police Minister;
”I got a phone call last night … my Queensland counterpart got a phone call very late last night. I don’t think the Victorians even got a phone call,” he said.
Mr Gallacher said $64 million wasn’t a lot when spread among the states and territories over four years.
Mmm – a lot of coordination and planning has gone into this one. The political circuit breaker we really need is 14 September and these thought bubbles and McTernan’s diversional therapy tactics are not going to help her.
Why would you believe her?
1971 Springbok Tour
FORMER Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen brokered secret deals with police in the lead up to the controversial Springboks tour of Brisbane more than 40 years ago, according to a new book.
Fearing riots and public violence, Bjelke-Petersen told the powerful Queensland Police Union that officers would “not be penalised for any action they take to suppress” the demonstrators during the tour in July 1971.
Then Police Commissioner Ray Whitrod attended the Sydney match between the Springboks and NSW a few days earlier and saw demonstrators hurling smoke bombs, fireworks, fruit, beer cans and balloons onto the playing field. About 100 people were arrested, raising concerns the same mayhem would descend on the Sunshine State.
I was recently back from Vietnam when they played on 31 July 1971 at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground, Brisbane, defeating us 14-6. As the players were just that, rugby players and not politicians, I had no problems with the tour other than they beat us. Joh and Ray Whitrod did what they should have done- protected the citizens of Brisbane and our sporting visitors.
I did however have a problem with rioting anarchist leaders of the anti apartheid demonstrations.
From Solidarity Online
The mostly white student left, Aboriginal activists and the union movement united to make the Springboks unwelcome and to disrupt the games as best they could, given the massive police mobilisation by State Liberal governments. Henry Bolte, the Victorian Liberal Premier, declared the protests a “rebellion against constituted authority”.
Fairly easy to organize- just redirect the anti Vietnam War pro-communist mob to anti South African sporting teams for a month odd and use the same anarchist tenets. Get the anti then Liberal government unions to close down society with strikes everywhere and anarchy rules.
At first, there were only very small committees organising in the early and mid-1960s against Apartheid in sport. After the struggle against the Vietnam War took off, racism in Australia began to be more seriously challenged.
Solidarity – commo bastards – they stand for everything I stand against. It wasn’t racism they were seriously challenging – it was our liberal democracy they really hated.
Gillard stalking Abbott
TONY Abbott will commute daily to western Sydney next week during a tour that is set to coincide with Julia Gillard’s Rooty Hill-based stay in the area, and which one Labor MP has labelled “stalking”.
Michelle Rowland, Labor MP for Greenway in Sydney’s west, today said the timing of Mr Abbott’s visit was a stunt and accused him of “stalking” the Prime Minister.
He says that like it’s a bad thing. Abbott has visited the western suburbs about three times as often as Gillard so maybe she is stalking him.
Get used to it Julia.
Carbon Tax costs Virgin and Rex $30 million
Virgin Australia (VAH) has felt the cost of the carbon tax, announcing a net profit after tax of $23 million, down $28.8 million on the same period last year.
The company estimates the impact of the carbon tax at $24.4 million.
But not to worry says Combet, the business is still profitable;
AUSTRALIA’S aviation industry is profitable and will continue to grow despite Virgin Australia’s complaints about the carbon tax, federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says.
Virgin on Tuesday announced a drop in interim net profit and its chief John Borghetti said a competitive market meant the $24.4 million cost of the carbon tax could not be passed on to passengers.
Combet says just pass it on to consumers but Virgin say intensifying competition in Australia’s domestic travel market drove down ticket prices and stopped it from passing on the carbon tax to customers.
Rex Aviation has felt the cost of the carbon tax as well, announcing a 36% drop in profits and they lay the blame squarely on the Gillard government’s carbon tax.
I wonder how many years it will take and how many billions of dollars will be lost before the ALP accept the carbon tax is poisonous.
How bad can it get?
Another day in hell for Julia as The Australian front page details all her troubles. The ALP must hate them for regularly pointing out how hopeless they are and whilst in denial, they waste time blaming the messenger.
Mumbles has a piece on how they have always got their leadership selection wrong over the last decade and this comment caught my eye;
I don’t know why, but I picture a footy coach holding a magnetic whiteboard, rearranging all the positions and hoping for the best. He looks at the bench & just shakes his head. His trouble is that it is 3/4 time and Labor are 40 goals behind. Abbott is starring at full forward and has kicked 15 goals so far. They can’t blow the final siren soon enough!
Noifsorbuts on Mumbles blog
With everything the ALP promise being compromised by Wayne Swan’s panic over the inevitable impending huge deficit they are just bouncing off the walls of public opinion. With Gonski, NDIS, the billion dollar Business Plan announced as fact but unfunded and with boat people ramping up more unplanned debt and the poorly designed MRT stuffing up forecasts it is only going to get worse.
And then, the UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office, but said it would need to last “30 to 40 years at least” to break the long-term global warming trend.
Bolt has been going on about the haitus in temperature rises for yonks and has been ridiculed by the Chicken Littles of the over-zealous Greens and other useful idiots – maybe now they will shut up but don’t bet on it. Pachauri is correct when he says it would need 30 or 40 years to break the trend but I would suggest that could be extrapolated to thousands of years to allow scientists to take into account Solar and planetry cycles that may have my great great great etc grand kids freezing their appendages off.
But really, I don’t think the current debate being about the existence of Climate Change is the problem -changing climate is a given. What concerns me is Gillard and the Greens thinking that a tax that severely disadvantages Australian industry and her people is the answer.
In an attempt to tie up the religious vote a parliamentary inquiry has suggested that Religious organisations running schools, health and aged-care services will not be exempt from Labor’s new anti-discrimination laws under recommendations that could see them sued by people who disagree with church ethos.
In a majority report, Labor and Greens members of the Senate legal and constitutional affairs legislation committee had found “no organisation should enjoy a blanket exception from anti-discrimination law when they are involved in service delivery to the general community”.
In moments like this I tend to think ‘Well you voted for ’em – now cop it’ but I worry about how much damage they can do before September and how difficult will it be for the adults to wind back the social engineering.
Poor Julia can’t catch her breath as problem after problem that she or Swan have created comes back to bite her. She hasn’t even had time to confer with McTernan and invent more lies about Abbott. No achievements to speak of to brag about and her ‘Abbott is an evil misogynist’ speech tossed into the waste bin of public opinion, she has nothing left.
The media are talking about leadership spills and how many seats they will lose,Paul Howes brings public scorn on himself and his union mates by suggesting Gillard is a great leader and Grahame ‘Whatever it takes’ Richardson, ex ALP heavywieght’ says Go Julia, before you completely destroy the ALP.
All this without a mention of the theft of public monies by Craig Thomson and Eddie Obeid.
Pass the popcorn – a tragedy of Shakespearian proportion beckons.
Kloppers’ demise due to setting standards
News.com seem to think Kloppers’ demise is due to an authourative set of rules that the company issued 2 years ago.
Staff at BHP were outraged when the company under Mr Kloppers issued an incredible 11-page missive banning office staff from eating smelly lunches at their desks, sticking post-it notes on their monitors and keyboards and placing jackets on chairs.
Many employees were outraged by the elaborate dossier, which stated:
- Food must not be eaten at workstations
- No food emitting strong odours are allowed
- Mobile phone ring tones must be kept at low volumes
- Post-it notes are to be removed from monitors and keyboards at the end of the day
- Workers are warned to watch the tone and volume of their voices
- In meeting rooms, all whiteboards are to be cleaned, equipment turned off, cables put away, chairs pushed in and cups and bottles thrown away
- iPods and MP3 players must not be brought into work
- Small bags must be stored under work stations during the day
- Clothes must be put in “designated storage areas”
Can’t see the problem – I’d have to agree with all those points. Every company has rules, or should have, that allow people to work together in harmony and in the interests of the company.
Outraged? Go work for someone who doesn’t have standards.
If it’s true that Kloppers’ demise is partly due to this memo then I fear for BHP Billiton.
Greens have dummy spit
The Greens and the ALP are undergoing a trail separation. Christine Milne says, amongst other things, that the ALP have put the interests of Evil Big Mining ahead of the country. I think she’s talking about the ALP’s decision on the Tarkine reserve. Bourke decided to base his decision on jobs rather than endangered species, not for any altruistic reasons, but to protect another endangered species closer to his heart – Australian job seekers who may vote ALP.
Conservationists say the Tarkine is the second largest intact stretch of rainforest in the world, and is home to more than 60 rare, threatened, and endangered species.
Name them!
By mid-afternoon, and with government figures lining up to embrace the split, Senator Milne appeared to backtrack.
Asked by David Speers on Sky News if the agreement was dead or not, she said: ”It’s in place on paper, yes, but our signatures are on it and that means something. Whenever I have signed an agreement to give a government confidence and supply, they can rely on the Greens’ word.”
That’s great news – we can rely on the Greens word – something that hitherto has never occurred to me.
So news of the marriage split now seems to be exaggerated with Julia still allowed in the marriage bed. Maybe it’s just a lovers tiff or one of a party positioning themselves in the eyes of their kids (read voters) before September when hopefully, they both lose their share of the house.
“Good riddance to them,” said one Labor MP, who criticised the Greens for their “self-righteous” attitude to asylum-seekers, support for death duties and “obsession” with gay marriage
And, can I add, for their negative attitude to anything that provides jobs for Australians.
Nauru is working
Illegal refugees are sewing their lips together in Nauru. Apparently they are disappointed that they didn’t progress straight to a life of social security wealth. Pity we couldn’t talk some of the Human Rights spokespeople into doing something similar, or at least shutting up about our unwanted trespassers.
Others are on a hunger strike.
Yawn!