You may be wondering, like I am, who is running the country.
It certainly isn’t the prime minister.
One could pose a forlorn argument that it is the executive, the cabinet calling the shots but that, too, doesn’t pass scrutiny. On Tuesday, Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull were strident in opposition of a Royal Commission into the banks. It would not happen they said. Not on their watch. The commitments lasted less than 48 hours.
Tuesday’s titans have once again become Friday’s flotsam.
So who is running the country?
Sam Dastyari thinks the Chinese might be in charge, if not today then at some point in the not too distant future. Wealthy Chinese businessmen with strong links to the Chinese government imagine Australians as their drinks waiters and golf caddies of the future so with a gleam in his eye, Shanghai Sam has got out of the blocks early.
“The Chinese integrity of its borders is a matter for China. Seven iron, Mr Huang?”
Full column here.
I still think Turnbull could/ could have been a great PM. He will always be remembered for not governing via his beliefs, not taking on The Hard Right and the Un Nationals. As hack after hack says, there is no other real leadership contender. He should bring the refugees home, embrace renewables, embrace climate change, SSM and everything else he supported before he took the 40 pieces of silver. He has nothing else to lose. His numbers could not be worse than they are now. What really amazes me is listening to Bolt says he is a leftie. How could he be when he still has all of Abbott’s policies in tow and some of them even from the 2014 horror budget? The reason the Looters are where they are now is simply because they have gone too far to the right as Howard has said.
30 pieces of silver. Everything else in the bible is in 40s though. Judas got ripped off.
I see the Apocalypse of James has been found in original Greek. It was not accepted at the 330 get together to decide what would and would to be part of the story. No room for the secret advice and prophecies Jesus gave his brother, James. Why would that be?
God only knows 🙂
Inflation Bald.
Yes, if he had done as your first couple of sentences suggest Bassy and stuck to his principles. (Never quite sure if it’s al or le. Couldnt be bothered to check)
TA got rid of Rudd twice and Gillard. He is soon to get rid of Turnbull too maybe. He’s having a good go at it at least.
Put him in against Shorten when the time comes.
Abbotts backers got rid of Rudd and Gillard. They dumped him once the dirty work was done. He was a useful idiot who occasionally manages to mimic gravitas.
Obviously a man of the people Bassy
Refugees – 70% on side
Renewables – people sick to death of rising electricity prices – probably the majority
SSM- delivered what he promised – a plebsite
His problem is he cannot deliver the message to the people and he appears not to be able to control his party.
Stop listening to the hacks.
…and you my son….stop singing to the choir!
With my hearing it is classical orchestras only.
It is harder to recognize the distortion 🙂
O’Sullivan and Entsch are Nationals Bassy………
Love em both
The only way to keep the lights on is to get rid of this coalition catastrophe.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/why-coal-and-gas-plants-should-pay-solar-and-storage-for-back-up-71647/
Yep – we can all go back to kerosene lamps
JS.Kerosene kept QLD powered last year when the coal fired plants broke down. Seriously man do you know it is 2017? mot 1917? Are you capable of digesting the latest data research innovation and technology or are you just to scared to admit you are WRONG. With all your resistance and that of people like the rest of the world have found better cheaper less polluting ways to power the world. Get with it or get out of the way.
When renewables get their prices down to 6c a kwh I will Dismal.
Yep. It’s the price. It’s piquant and poetic that the inventors of the monkey jar trap designed to catch monkeys too determined to hold onto the prize at any cost will go the same way.
We are trapped, we need to keep pumping sulphates into the atmosphere now or contend with a catastrophic and sudden rise in temperatures.
That’s what happens when you poop in your nest.
What are you using Dismal?
As for the banking Royal Commission-lite, it’s probably lucky for the banks that it won’t be looking into possibly one of the most important things of all: is it desirable and necessary for four large banks to have such a large proportion of the market between them and be involved in so many markets as well, the role of the government guarantees and insurance in all of it, and what are the risks if (Gods forbid) if one – or one of their subsidiaries – somehow topples over, what risks are there that it might take the rest of them and the economy with it/them, and the roles of the smaller banks, credit unions, building societies, and the rest as well. Just keep it away from being another vicarious way of getting after the Coalition’s political opponents, i.e. the union movement, like most of the Abbott-Turnbull Gubbermint’s inquiries, by going after industry super.
The ALP could do this, and would probably need to account for their own role in reducing competition in the sector as a lesser evil during the GFC to one of the Big Four getting into trouble like they did in the early 1990s.
Add to that the role of mortgage insurance and a flat rate fee regardless of the risk. It must be the only insurance business in the world with NO competitor and never having weigh specific risk against possible payout. They just rake in billions.
Not like you to fire off an ill informed comment Razor, but here you go. Try a few facts.
The leading LMI insurer in Australia is Genworth, a publicly listed company. It’s last year profit was $186 million on several billion dollars risk exposure and $1.6 billion capitalisation. It has 35 % of the market, there are plenty of competitors. It is an incredibly capital intensive business, which puts many underwriters off.
Flat rate premiums because they have to, but different products exist for different risk profiles. LMI Insurers underwrite every loan presented to them, even though lenders have already assessed them.
Most importantly, lenders are obliged to use LMI for loans with LVRs over 80%. Without this cover borrowers simply wouldn’t have access to finance, which of course would be thrown back in the faces of those bad banks. For a case history, go look at the financial crisis in the USA and hat happened to Mortage Insurers. We don’t need a GFC for them to cop a belting here.
I can’t quote Yes Prime Minister for some reason…
Apparently the blue pencil app objects to a certain widely used four letter epithet that describes the human mammary glands…
Jugs? How odd.
Starts with T ends with S, with IT in the middle
Disgraceful.
Superb appraisal of PM Turnbull’s situation, Mr Insider. If I were in his Liberal Party I would be fearful of what is to come for the “team”, there are no leaders to be seen, there never have been. Abbott was a total failure and they followed this up in desperation by appointing the noisy at the time Turnbull who recited Abbott having lost 30 consecutive negative Newspolls. No 24 about to appear for sweet Malcolm. Meanwhile his list of “achievements” bear close reading bloggers should you have 10 seconds to spare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeRQDyqsvEU
Somehow, sadly, I think Turnbull limping on as a political Zombie for the next year or so is almost the least worst option for the Coalition in terms of electability and the possibility of even superficially quarter-decent public policy. Tony Abbott is as busted a flush as anything bar a toilet in a hotel room occupied by Keith Moon (I am aware that it is a poker metaphor, however) – even more so than Malcolm Turnbull – and Peter Dutton seems to mask his manifest incompetence and unsuitability for being anything other than a potato impersonator by being arrogant, authoritarian, and utterly malignant.
I’m not entirely certain that, say, Julie Bishop would be up to whatever the job entails these days. Let alone any of the other Liberals (or even Nationals) on the frontbench of the House of Representatives.
Lastly, an interesting historical fact: Turnbull’s father-in-law was the Attorney-General in the Silly Billy McMahon Government.
Who is running the country? Simple all of the bureaucrats, public servants and departmental heads.Thesecare the people that always run the country…e.g. what does Morrison know about finance, what does Nobody Payne know about Defence? It has been proven on many occasions here and overseas things run just as well when politicians are nowhere in sight…..could be a bloody good thing.When Turnbull is gone he will take the Gestapo excuse “I could not follow my heart because they would have cut me down”.
Still on this:how can telling somebody their phone may be tapped is an act of treason AND A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY. Bloody hell Phillip Adams, Bob Gould, heaps of lefties over the years have spoken about their phones being tapped.The looters are brilliant at linking EVERYTHING to ‘national security’.The best example of that is their demonising of refugees as terrorists.
It sounds like the word is out that Shanghai Sam has to be defended Bassy.
He should go along with Cash
You can’t possibly be that obtuse. Trying to hide the contents of a meeting with a foreign national from whom he has already received undeclared largesse, apparently in return for spruiking the defence interests of that person’s government, in defiance of his own government and party? Just a poor, harmless victim of those awful tories?
What he did was not treason – it doesn’t fit the legal definition. A threat to national security? Well, considering he’s spoken out in ways that are not, and were not when Labor was in power, in accordance with our national governments security policies it is a bit stinky, if not outright illegal.
But the more pertinent point is, despite his good-natured protestations to the contrary, he doesn’t seem to have learned a goddamned thing about what is expected of a federal MP. He’s as straight as a pretzel, genuine as a three-dollar note and makes two short planks look like a super-computer. He needs to go.
With your indulgence Jack, the lyrics to Queens “I’m Going Slightly Mad” highly applicable in the circumstances, ‘‘tis the summer of our discontent
When the outside temperature rises
And the meaning is oh so clear
One thousand and one yellow daffodils
Begin to dance in front of you – oh dear
Are they trying to tell you something?
You’re missing that one final screw
You’re simply not in the pink my dear
To be honest you haven’t got a clue
I’m going slightly mad
I’m going slightly mad
It finally happened – happened
It finally happened – ooh oh
It finally happened – I’m slightly mad
Oh dear!
I’m one card short of a full deck
I’m not quite the shilling
One wave short of a shipwreck
I’m not at my usual top billing
I’m coming down with a fever
I’m really out to sea
This kettle is boiling over
I think I’m a banana tree
Oh dear, I’m going slightly mad
I’m going slightly mad
It finally happened, happened
It finally happened uh huh
It finally happened I’m slightly mad – oh dear!
I’m knitting with only one needle
Unravelling fast its true
I’m driving only three wheels these days
But my dear how about you?
I’m going slightly mad
I’m going slightly mad
It finally happened
It finally happened oh yes
It finally happened
I’m slightly mad!
Just very slightly mad!
And there you have it!
Coincidentally last night I watched Queen live at Wembley back in 1984. It was a stunning performance from Freddie. It got me thinking that maybe the band stands as the greatest stadium performer of all time. There are plenty of challengers but Queen were spectacular and Freddie’s extraordinary vocal range and stagecraft put them in the highest company.
Yes that was a great concert…BUT…when i drove nearly 400 miles from the bush to see them at the Entertainment Centre in Sydney in the 70’s they were hopeless. Freddy could not make the notes. Most of the time it was just guitar bass and drums…a VERY thin sound for a band known for its thousands of harmony and instrumental overdubs in the studio. At one point they used tape backings which is a BIG no no amongst musos (Hey remember when ELO’s tape cracked up in Sydney?) This band has always been about PRODUCTION with a capital P. When they walked out I said to my mate “There is no way these blokes are gonna reproduce the sound they do on record”. The Aussie support band that was on blew them away. I forgot who they were but the lead singer and lead guitarist was Ray Burton who was in The Executives (“My aim is to please you babe etc”) and who wrote I Am Woman for Helen Reddy. Ditto when I went to see The Troggs. The Aussie support band New Breed blew them away. The Wembley concert was their pinnacle…no doubt about dat. We, along with many others left early.
Was never lucky enough to get tickets to see them, really regret that.
They often performed at the Westfalenhalle in Dortmund when I was at Uni which would coincide with my holidays when I went back to Germany for Christmas but my dad was always late to get tickets from the RAF ticket office, I suspect he was never in a hurry to get them in the first place.
Don’t forget your footy tips.
Saw them at the Myer Music Bowl c.1985 and they were fantastic.
Tracy, thanks for that, despite the lyrics , a bit of sanity in this mad world. Listening to Freddie Mercury (a little bit each day I should add) makes me appreciate the good things in life. Did anyone see that fabulous video of the crowd waiting for Green Day’s tribute to Queen singing Bohemian Rhapsody? Spine tingling stuff….
Freddie Mercury, the ultimate showman and much missed………same can’t be said for the mob in Canberra.
You’ve obviously not seen Liberace at a pool party, Tracy.
Milton! Just the man. Explain this joke to me, I don’t get.
Liberace is standing at the piano about to play when another entertainer, (I have heard several versions of who it was so this might be apocryphal) asks “would you like me to push your stool in?”
Thanks.
“Not on their watch. The commitments lasted less than 48 hours.”
Good one, Jack. Turnbull’s watch isn’t even right once, let alone twice a day.
As for the RC banks, by the time that is finished our prime minister will most likely be an as yet known contestant in next years Bachelor/ette or My Kitchen Rules.
By the time Turnbull is done, well when it’s official, McMahon’s term will be looked on fondly as our salad years.
What uninteresting times we live in!
On ssm, vale Jim Nabors/Gomer Pyle. Back in his day there were rumours that he was to wed Rock Hudson whom would have become known as Rock Pyle…
Can we find someone through Manpower, Inc or other temp agency?
How about a Reality TV programme: Who Wants to Be Prime Minister?