Endman posted:

Ground floor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTDiC0huVDs

Mattjpwns posted:

where are the amusing OP pictures, we have standards around here

Anidav posted:

Bill Leak is a mother fucker:

Endman posted:

Am I the only person who doesn't actually mind Sarah Hanson Young? She gets appropriately cross at things that are poo poo.

Amethyst posted:

Why is Twiggy Forrest's idiotic plan to put all welfare recipients on income management getting so much press? Is this Liberal strategy? Publicize something horrible so their own policy looks mild in comparison?

Amethyst posted:

Why is Twiggy Forrest's idiotic plan to put all welfare recipients on income management getting so much press? Is this Liberal strategy? Publicize something horrible so their own policy looks mild in comparison?

Mattjpwns posted:

where are the amusing OP pictures, we have standards around here

quote:

PUP threatens to block supply over privatising states' assets

Date
August 1, 2014

82 reading now
Comments 163

Heath Aston, Judith Ireland



Clive Palmer says his Senate team is prepared to vote to block supply to prevent Treasurer Joe Hockey's $6 billion asset recycling fund, designed to pay state governments to privatise assets.

''The only recycling we would vote for is recycling the Treasurer,'' Mr Palmer said. ''Joe Hockey is the most spectacularly unsuccessful treasurer Australia has seen.''

''The government should call a double dissolution and let the public decide on things like privatisation, but they've got no guts.''

And Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said on Friday that the Abbottt government's budget had failed because the Prime Minister believed negotiating with the opposition was a ''sign of weakness''.

''What has amazed me in the 10 months I’ve been Opposition Leader is that Tony Abbott will do anything but deal with the opposition,'' Mr Shorten told ABC Radio.
Clive Palmer.

''He thinks that somehow negotiation with Labor is a sign of weakness I just think it's a sign of pragmatism.''

Mr Palmer's hardened stance against asset recycling came as Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Mr Hockey focused on infrastructure renewal and privatisation in their bid to jump-start the budget sales job.

Spruiking the merits of privatisation in Tasmania on Thursday, Mr Abbott fended off taunts by Mr Palmer to go to back to the polls to break the budget deadlock with the Senate, saying ''Australia doesn't need another election'' right now.

''We need a Parliament which respects the mandate that the government was given at the election we've just had,'' he said.

On Friday, the Treasurer batted away the threat and urged critics to take a ''chill pill''.

''Most of the budget has passed through the parliament because of the appropriations, so its important that everyone has a bit of a chill pill here,'' he told Sky News.

Constitutional lawyer Professor George Williams has cast doubt on whether Mr Abbott could take Australia back to the polls even if he wanted to, saying it was not clear whether a double dissolution trigger existed.

He said it was not certain whether the old Senate could ''roll over'' its disagreements with the lower house when the Senate renewed on July 1 and the High Court may need to get involved on the question.

The Senate rejected the Clean Energy Finance Corporation abolition bill twice before July and the mining tax repeal bill once.

''The fact that the Senate has rolled over means that there's some uncertainty with that trigger. The constitution doesn't deal specifically with that question,'' Professor Williams said.

The Asset Recycling Bill, which would strip $5.9 billion from Labor's Building Australia Fund and Education Infrastructure Fund, has been rejected once by the Senate and it is viewed by the Palmer United Party as the likely next double dissolution trigger if it comes back again from the House of Representatives.

The scheme will pay a loading of 15 per cent of the value of a privatisation to states as long as the money goes back into new infrastructure projects such as Melbourne's East West link and the Sydney WestConnex motorway.

But Mr Hockey took the unusual step this week of warning that he could bypass the Senate altogether by establishing the fund via an appropriation bill. He dared the opposition to block an appropriation bill - tantamount to blocking supply and bringing on a constitutional crisis.

It is understood the Labor Party would not block supply on this issue, while Mr Palmer has stated his readiness.

The government is likely to try again to negotiate the bill through Parliament. A spokeswoman for Mr Hockey said: ''The government is committed to the government's bill but if it has to look at other ways of funding infrastructure for the states it will.''

Mr Hockey hit the road this week, meeting crucial crossbench senators independent Nick Xenophon, Family First's Bob Day and PUP Jacqui Lambie, trying to win their support for key budget measures being blocked by the Parliament.

The Treasurer also accused Labor of tearing up its support for a budget surplus and said any shift from the bipartisan goal could put Australia’s triple-A credit rating at risk.

But Mr Shorten hit back on Friday saying Mr Hockey was ''flailing around'' trying to blame anyone for his budget mess and said the ''spectacle'' of the Treasurer trying to ''retrofit the votes to get it through'' 10 weeks later was a ''joke''.

Mr Shorten says the government needs to sit down with Labor and not the assortment of crossbench Senators.

Mr Shorten accused Mr Abbott of being so ''addicted to the politics of opposition'' that he lacked the skills to negotiate and needed to appreciate that ''the rest of us got elected too''.

with Latika Bourke

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...l#ixzz396IyqFsX

quote:

No modelling to prove Abbott's dole plan works

Date
August 1, 2014

20 reading now
Comments 39

Gareth Hutchens
Gareth Hutchens

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A Department of Employment official has admitted the Abbott government has not done any modelling to estimate how many job seekers will find employment within three months after completing its multibillion-dollar work-for-the-dole program.

That is despite the government's own data showing work-for-the-dole programs are the least effective way to help people find jobs.

Department of Employment data shows that - for job seekers in 2013 - only 19.8 per cent of participants in work-for-the-dole schemes found a full- or part-time job within three months.

That compares with 40.3 per cent of people who did unpaid work experience, 28.4 per cent of those who completed some form of work training, 25.7 per cent who were trained in job search techniques, and 21 per cent of those who did voluntary work.

In senate estimates in June, Job Services Australia general manager Moya Drayton was asked by Greens senator Rachel Siewert if the government had any estimates of the proportion of unemployed participants that could expect to find a job within three months after finishing the Abbott government's new work-for-the-dole program.

''The department does not have estimates on the number of job seekers for the under-30 measure expected to be in full or part-time employment three months after participation in work for the dole,'' the department said.

The department also said it had no idea how many people it expected would move off income support as a consequence of being referred to the government's work-for-the-dole program.

The Abbott government has stressed that recent data relates to the former Labor government's work-for-the-dole programs.

''Labor watered down work for the dole and the number of job seekers moving into work decreased under Labor's watch,'' Assistant Minister for Employment Luke Hartsuyker said.

''Our new model is less prescriptive [than Labor's] with a stronger focus on only paying providers for results. It is this new combination of incentives and services that will improve the chances of a person getting a job.''

But Senator Siewert said the government could not be confident its program would be any different to Labor's.

''Given they've done no modelling, on what basis do they know they're going to be any different?'' she said.

''The evidence suggests that work-for-the-dole programs aren't effective, and if you talk to academics and non-government organisations who are engaged with the issue, they don't think it's effective at all.''

As of March 31, there were 17,000 job seekers who were doing work for the dole.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/no-modelling-to-prove-abbotts-dole-plan-works-20140731-3cx9g.html#ixzz396JhZ9L4

Gough Suppressant posted:

Today I learnt that the ABC paid Bill Leak to paint a portrait of dead indigenous activist Charles Perkins as part of the series "Face Painting"

quote:

Tonight I wanted to address why the Australians are here. There are two reasons why we are here and I will go through them momentarily. But firstly I should say good friends visits their friends in tough times. It is easy to visit your friends when things are going well. Fair-weather friends who come and go when things are on the up and up are easy to come by. Friends who come when times are tough – they are the real friends.

Ladies and gentlemen, I was approached by a young man at the reception here at the King David Hotel on Friday, his name was Aaron, and he asked me who I was and where I was from and I said I was from Australia and he said ‘why are you here?’. And I very simply said, because Australians love freedom. And he said very simply, that freedom isn’t free, right?. And I said exactly right. The reason why the Australians are here today, the first reason, is because Australians value freedom. And we have been fighting for freedom for 114 years and usually alongside our UK friends, whether it has been in the Battle of Beersheva here in Israel, in the Second World War, or the First World War, or more recently in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Vietnam and Korea, wars that are now well and truly in the past.

Whenever there has been a congregation of freedom loving nations versus non freedom loving nations, Australia has always been prepared to be in the fight and always on the right side. And that’s how we view the State of Israel that we are on the right side. It is a story about the King of Denmark during the Second World War when the Nazis changed their attitude toward the deportation of the Danish Jews. There weren’t many Danish Jews, about 8,000 or so but the King of Denmark when the Nazis changed their attitude and said that they would start to deport the Jews, said that the Jews are Dames and the Dames are Jews.

In other words, the concerns of Jewish Dames were the concerns of all Dames. In the same way I believe, and I think most Australians believe, that the destruction or defeat of Israel is a concern for all of us around the world. Because Israel is the beacon of freedom and liberty in the Middle East and Australia likes to believe that it is in the world. We are two sister nations believing in the same thing – freedom of the press, freedom of democracy, freedom of association. It shows that Israel has existential threats that requires them to take firm action to protect those freedoms, firmer actions than Australia has had to take to protect our own existence. So that is the first reason, ladies and gentlemen, why the Australians are here. Because we regard Israel and Australia as sister countries with the same value systems and we want to show our support for that system here in the Middle East.

The second reason is more personal, ladies and gentlemen, and it goes to the question of remembering some of the crimes of the past. The great crime of the past against the Jewish people was the Holocaust. And just coming to Israel as an Australian, and landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, even in the last few days travelling El Al, just by the act of coming here, we reaffirm that we will not forget the crime of the Holocaust against the Jewish people, and we stand with the Jewish people. Simply by the act of making sure this dialogue was not cancelled when some people said it should have been cancelled because it was dangerous, the Australians and British came here, simply by that act reaffirmed that we will not forget the Holocaust.

This is my sixth visit to Israel. And it is important that we come again and again to Israel.

To say it to those in the Islamic Jihad, the terrorists – Hamas or ISIS or whoever they are – that by their actions they won’t frighten Australians into coming to Israel and supporting Israel. That is by me and my colleagues, whether they are Labor or Liberal, are here supporting this Dialogue because it proves, ladies and gentleman, it proves that freedom is winning and tyranny is losing.

Lid posted:

ELECTION NOW!

Also:


What a load of utter failures.

Endman posted:

I thought depicting the dead like that was a big "no no" for most indigenous cultures in Australia?

Gough Suppressant posted:

Not sure about Perkins particular people and their practices re: the dead, but I don't think many people would be happy about the first indigenous australian to graduate from uni in australia being painted by the guy who made this:

Gough Suppressant posted:

We thought that's what all the budget leaks were and then it turns out no that's their actual policy so

adamantium|wang posted:

Gough Suppressant posted:

You see, Gaza is a lot like Rorke's Drift.

Anidav posted:

Has Bill Leak ever been in trouble much like Andrew Bolt?