Much has been made of the Turnbull government’s successes in the last week of sitting in the federal parliament. Malcolm Turnbull is crowing but there is a broad understanding the hot ticket item, the ABCC legislation which passed through the Senate earlier this week, has been rendered a dud and that Derryn Hinch was played by the CFMEU to cough up concessions.
While being tricked by the CFMEU’s office bearers is hardly something anyone would want to put on their political resumes, Hinch would not see it that way. He may have his own explanation for it. I have no doubt he could spout some rationalisation at the drop of a hat. That is a talent he undoubtedly possesses.
More generally, I’d suggest voters should be leery of people like Hinch becoming representative politicians. Perhaps we should adopt a tacit rule that wherever a political party appears with the word ‘justice’ in it, that party is not worth the ballot paper it is written on. Where it appears featuring the name of a media personality before the word ‘justice’ you can put the house (or indeed the Senate) on it being a self-serving exercise in the sort of ‘look at me’ politics we have come to know and despise in this country.
Full column here:
I think Bob Carr and a few others are getting a tad over dramatic in their reaction to Trump receiving a call from Taiwan; crunchy granola Carr is getting all hot and bothered about a new cold war. No one tells the Donald who he can and cannot talk to. It’s high time we stopped tippy toeing around for the Chinese. If they didn’t make everything we own, wear and eat i’d consider boycotting their products. That’d learn the industrious, capitalist bastards.
🙂
I thought he was a steel cut oats man Milt?
When you’re paid in renminbi you dance to the (Chinese) piper’s tune.
True that; just ask Andrew Robb
yep, no need to sit up nights wondering what line the FOC, Friends of China, will take on any issue.
My most treasured memory is Carr, bagging sausage rolls as being fat within fat. I have relished the all the more since then…
one of the few examples of Carr actually being right about anything…
Properly done a delicious snack, and perfect two fingers to politically correct food. Tofu salad? Enjoy the unenjoyable.
Trumpster’s response, “We sell Taiwan billions of dollars of military hardware each year, but I can’t accept a congratulatory phone call?”
Storm in a teacup as usual.
Fantastic win by Chelsea. Scoring on the counter and even scoring Man City’s goal for them. Sadly Man C lost their rag at the end. A great game, of 2 halves!
This is a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad government.
Bald.
What does ‘bald’ even mean?
C’mon it’s Christmas! Haha
Regards, Bella
I asked once and got a cryptic reply from Rodent. I work on it is short for “balderdash”. It fits anyway.
I’ve always interpreted it as By A Long Distance, but the Bassman ain’t tellin.
Insighftful and well argued comment. You must have turned out some real world beating students………
Hey, can anyone count the “a”s in that? Ive tried a couple of times but I keep going kind of cross eyed.
Don’t do it mate! I tried and you will never be the same again!
Meanwhile in Iceland: http://grapevine.is/news/2016/12/02/election-2016-pirate-party-receives-mandate-to-form-coalition-government/
And the aye’s have it!
Aaaaaaarrrrrrr matey!
I’d insist on them turning up to the swearing-in ceremony in bandanas, eyepatches, wooden legs, cutlasses, and the rest, and with a parrot on their shoulders (wearing warm winter gear, of course).
peter ftizsimons for president i guess
Sounds better than Charles III/George VII.
Sadly, as an addendum, I see Wayne Duncan from Daddy Cool has passed away as well.
That nice man George Christensen has shocked us all Mr Insider with his latest photo shoot showing himself in a singlet and a whip! We like George, he’s a free thinker, and now its looks like he’s also moonlighting at Madame Lash’s, although I don’t know anything about that place! Ballsy effort George and am sure we can expect a big “showing” from this chap in 2017!
http://tinyurl.com/gqnl8re
I’d be very happy if George decided against giving us ‘a big showing’ next year, HB. The more acres of cotton on him the better. Come to think of it he wouldn’t look out of place in big Russ Hinze and pals hand me downs (not the get up in Jack’s pic!).
I’m sorry I took a peek.
Talk about YUK! A most unattractive man.
Undoubtedly, but he has been an effective representative fro his constituents thus far.
JTI
Not sure which thread is running – one or both.
plmo says:
December 2, 2016 at 9:14 pm
JTI,
Now that Barnaby has opted to detonate the ‘administrative nuclear option’ – known as a ‘regulatory direction – not reviewable by Parliament or the Courts; in order to move the APVMA regulatory body to his own electorate, all the deficiencies of the ABCC legislation are fixable!!
The CFMEU and their acolytes are of course equally vulnerable to any Ministerial ‘regulatory direction’ that for instance defined compliance with the post 2018 / post Hinch regime to be a ‘critical determinate’ in new tender assessment. You don’t have to comply until 2018 – you just unfortunately fail to win any tenders in next two years!!
Who would ever have thought Barnaby would be such a regulatory trail-blazer?
Certainly not me!! But then in the context of recent comments here, both Castro and Barnaby have similar penchants for the nuclear option; notwithstanding the strategic and long-term consequences!!
Shame Shame Shame never mind the Hinch. Has anyone read the proposal from John Alexander and his “housing work group” What a ridiculous proposal. No surprises. Anything to ensure sensible approaches are not examined especially if the other side suggested it first. Goodness help us.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/12/coalition-mulls-preposterously-complex-negative-gearing-suicide/
Carl on the Coast 4:57PM 2nd
You’re right and I would apologise if Senator Bensten were still around Carl, so, contrite, I must apologise to someone and I suppose it had better be Dan Kwail . Even he had the minimum of the two neurons required , both negatively charged, to understand the gravity of the disaster confronting humanity. And that was what? 1988?
I wonder how it feels to be thirty years behind Dan Kwail? Really really vacuously blissful I suppose. Just thinking out loud there!
Sorry Dan, I shouldn’t have you placed you in the same category of stupid as the modern climate denier.
(This was all before the industry came down on all the US politicians with reforming notions like a ton of bricks. I’ll link to that too if you like. )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVZo5m5uSug
PS I just don’t understand how I managed to misspell the Senators name. Odd, I admired him greatly . I do hope I have spelled Mr Kwails name correctly.
You’re a good sport to point out the errors in my spelling Carl, and I do hope you will persevere. Keep up the good work, these little things are so important.
Kind regards.
Your old mate JB.
Jean Baptiste (3/12 @12.13pm)
says: “I do hope you will persevere. Keep up the good work, these little things are so important.”
There’s a possessive apostrophe missing in your post. See the third line from the bottom. A “little thing” to be sure. Equivalent to a 3 inch rise in the sea level on a stormy day perhaps.
Let me know if you need a hint me old mate.
Given we now have a Potatoe as Immigration Minister, it’s clear his influence has spread wider than we first thought.
Have you got Dan Quayle disease Rhys 😉
That sounds nasty. 😛 Or it could be the recurring eczema-type thingy on my knuckles.
A pox on our pollies Mr Insider as while the taxpayer slaves on and many right through Christmas the pollies have all but called it a day for the year right through till early February. Yes I do understand they have to do their Electorates work etc but goodness me they are prima donna’s being paid massive salaries for minimal effort in our opinion. Hinch on $200k plus benefits not bad work if you can get it at careers end as he is. Of course many pollies already would have departed Australian shores for “fact finding” expeditions to Italy, the UK etc. We must make the dollars spent by pollies more accountable and transparent to the taxpayer. A pox on you pollies get a real job ya bastards!
With all the ‘fact finding’ missions going on by our politicians it is surprising they return home empty-handed, except for some duty free’s and presents. They’re probably best suited to sourcing truffles.
Why do the public vote for ratbags and loonies? Because the current two party system is failing.
Why is the current two party system failing? Because both parties have moved to the extremes, or have become risk averse media managers who stand for nothing. I know that is a contradiction but the liberals have moved to the right to mollify the extremists in their ranks and to keep the nationals on side, while labor taking a cue from Bob Carr have become the risk averse media managers who stand for nothing. Add to that the poisonous brew of factional warfare and blatant exploitation (all within the rules as they keep telling us) of MP entitlements is it any wonder that Joe public votes for Hunch, Hanson and any other who promises to be different.
I know I am stating the bleeding obvious but…
UQ the parties were at the extremes far more in the 70’s far more anyway than they are now. The Libs haven’t moved to the right at all they are just about to the left of where they always have been. They are certainly less to the right than under Howard. As for Labor, Gillard lead the most leftist government this country has seen since Whitlam yet she didn’t have the guts to get same sex marriage up. Shame on her!
Re Gillard and same sex marriage, you’ll probably find some faction agin it that Gillard couldn’t cross. The Shoppies perhaps. Was Mark Arbib still around? Had Bomber run Keating’s line in 1998 that the election would be treated as a referendum on the GST and Labor would not oppose it, he would have won, but allegedly the factions would not let him…
There’s one thing to get rolled by the factions it’s another to speak out against it. She didn’t even have the intestinal fortitude to at least stay quiet. She was the most inadequate PM of recent times. She simply wasn’t up to it and never had a moral bone in her body.
You just described Abbott to a T Razor & his term was deemed the slowest government for five decades.
Did you know the Gillard govt successfully passed 561 bills which is a damn sight more productive than this train wreck government whose record stands at 2.
If this whole Abbott/Turnbull circus never happened to this country, economically, socially, environmentally we’d be much better off.
Regards, Bella
My point exactly Bella. Typical Leftist ‘Big Goverment’ ideology. They have to interfere in everything.