Galaxy has produced a poll of federal voting intention in Queensland shows the Coalition leading 52-48, representing a swing to Labor since the election of 5%, with further detail presumably forthcoming courtesy of the Courier-Mail. UPDATE: The primary votes are 33% for Labor (steady since February, as is the two-party result), 41% for the Coalition (steady), 7% for the Greens (steady) and 12% for Palmer United (up one). The poll also has a surprisingly high 48% in support of the GP co-payment with 50% opposed, 46% and 48% for increasing the GST, and 25% and 72% for raising the pension age to 70.
In other Queensland news, it today emerged that a state by-election looms in the inner Brisbane seat of Stafford following the resignation of Liberal National Party member Chris Davis. This neatly coincides with a ReachTEL automated phone poll of 687 residents in the electorate, which did not canvass voting intention, but found Davis’s recent dissident activity had made him considerably more popular in the electorate than the Premier. The poll also furnishes rare data on opinion concerning campaign finance laws, finding 60% opposition to the government’s removal of caps on political donations with only 22% in support.
Before Vanstone got the cushy job of drinking wine where it was produced, she was receiving Chinese lessons at the expense of taxpayers.
At the time I called her aMandarin. No well else seemed to get it, did not seem to get that she was getting a LOTE education off the back of taxpayers – cos she was expecting a lucrative post in Beijing.
And when she got the Ambassadorship to Italy, no-one batted an eyelid about the WASTE she had incurred.
I think it was something like $14,000 had been expended on her Chinese lessons up to that date (could have been $40,000 but can’t remember).
And, bugger me dead, here’s aMandarin ‘Drink a Couple of Bottles of Plonk Everyday over Dinner at Taxpayers Expense’ Vanstone, hopping on a plane, renovating her Italianate mansion, at taxpayers expense, and living it up like a good old Calabrian.
That’t the way to do it. Money for nothing and the drinks are free.
With licence.
Re psyclaw @386: just imagine if a Labor ex-Minister was appointed to a sinecure did that. The Daily Telecrap would set its photoshoppers onto to it and it would occupy the whole fron page.
Be kind to Ms Abbott. We’ve uncovered the second Liberal Women with Merit. That’s something.
“unemployed have no right to hold out for a dream job”
Maybe true. but they do have a right to hold out for a job that:
pays enough for them to live on, given their circumstances.
is a reasonable travel time away so they aren’t spending half their wage on transport.
is a job they can actually do. If someone offered me a job slaughtering cows all day i’d turn it down. It would do my head in.
Abbott is trying to worm his way out of his budget mess by trying to convince people he stands for simple fairness. Problem is that people in that situation, or whos kids are in that situation have actually LIVED it and know its not always that simple.
By the way. have any of the Libs actually explained the why of the 6 months on / 6 months off dole payment proposal??
To be fair. Mandarin is pretty difficult.
Amanda doing her bit of ‘heavy lifting’ for her country.
Lifting being the operative word.
‘I think it was something like $14,000 had been expended on her Chinese lessons up to that date (could have been $40,000 but can’t remember)’.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/speaker-bronwyn-bishop-under-fire-for-hosting-liberal-fundraisers-in-her-parliament-house-office-20140524-zrn5n.html
Why do Galaxy bother?
Obviously Galaxy is in a race with Essential to the bottom of the pollsters ratings.
Bugger me, the Coalition don’t have a cabinet, they have a collander
Imacca’s
I reckon the Tories went for six months on six months off Newstart because not even the heartless Kevin Andrews they could get away with a 12 month cycle.
imacca:
That dream job remark was a totally dumb-arsed thing for Abbott to say, not just for the reasons you highlight, but because it makes him look like an elitist who is so far removed from reality. If he was still volunteering his time every month in a remote indigenous community he’d know there are people living in those communities who’d give their left eye for any job, dream job or otherwise.
Plus, if the economy tanks and unemployment rises, I’d imagine plenty of folk lining up to rub those words in his face. And not in a good way.
Abbott doing the apparently fashionable LNP stream-of-consciousness ramble that makes no sense but hits key ‘power phrases’ … or something:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/24/tony-abbott-talks-double-dissolution-in-fight-over-budget
He has summoned the spectre of 1975, but apparently doesn’t know what actually happened in 1975.
He has raised DDs again, but him calling a DD makes no sense at all at the moment.
But hell, if he suddenly – improbably – decided to start sticking to his promises it would be deliciously funny if he stuck to this promise.
Joe’s telling fibs about his education, too.
[Sally Newell
v@johndory49 Do you like Joe’s uni digs? Home was across the water Hard times Finished his degrees ’88- HECS ’89 pic.twitter.com/lARLSqmylJ ]
imacca
[“unemployed have no right to hold out for a dream job”]
except for Tony Abbott
He’d just bummed out of his seminarian job. He thought most of his cohorts were poofs and layabouts. And he was probably right.
But his parents were paying through the nose for his ability to study as a seminarian and at a seminary.
You don’t think the good old Catholic system of vocations (even when directed by God) comes about through poverty. Not on your nellie.
A vocationalist parents had to pay for it. And, as an acceptance to that Godly vocation, the Church assumed, nay demanded, your family had to pay the novitiate’s share of any inheritance.
That’s the meritocracy Abbott understands.
So when he went and threw it all away because he couldn’t control his manhood, he needed another job. That’s where Greg Sheridan came to the rescue and offered him at job at the Bulletin.
The rest is history.
Abbott’s parents got out of giving the Catholic Church much of their hard-earned. No such luck in my family, when the Vatican received a fifth share of my grandparents estate, which threw our family into immediate poverty.
We didn’t have shoes, except hand-me-downs, for five years after my grandfather’s demise. We wore hand-me-down clothes, we barely subsisted, all because my family had to pay out the Vatican for my uncle.
There were no excuses. No surprises. All of our family went without to give the Catholic church its due.
[ That dream job remark was a totally dumb-arsed thing for Abbott to say, not just for the reasons you highlight, but because it makes him look like an elitist who is so far removed from reality. ]
Fess – He is dog whistling, talking to those who think the unemployed are bludgers – sure its dumb and he is trying to get people to think about anything but the budget – almost two weeks and still doing them damage.
Parliament back next week for a couple of weeks – and it will all be in the spotlight again.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/lib-adviser-repays-43m-tax-20140523-38ufq.html
Paraphrased slightly
[ Michael Hintze, who is connected to the British Conservative Party a …. London-based billionaire appointed by Joe Hockey to advise on Australia’s financial regulations runs companies that have repaid tens of millions of dollars after exploiting tax loopholes.
…has a reported personal wealth of $1.8 billion.
Sir Michael, known in the British press as the ”godfather of Tory donors”, has a reported personal wealth of $1.8 billion. His financial empire, elements of which have also utilised tax havens such as the Channel Islands and the Cayman Islands, reportedly generated $154 million in 2011, but paid an apparently modest $55,000 in corporation tax.
Sir Michael is one of four international business leaders appointed by the Treasurer in March to provide additional advice to the Abbott government’s Financial System Inquiry.]
Nice fella, just the man for the job.
[Abbott said he was confident the government would get the budget through the Senate in the end, because the alternative would be a double dissolution election.]
How can he know this such that he can make these emphatic statements? The incoming Senate hasn’t even taken their seats yet, much less the current Senate even begun debating the budget bills, and we’ve got this hysterical OTT prime minister out there making sweeping predictions of what the future will hold.
He is so erratic, so reactive, and so not the calm, steady head needed in such an office.
dave:
Maybe, but it was still a silly thing to say regardless. Akin to Howard’s ‘Australians have never had it so good’, only Abbott’s comments were made outside parliament with vision aplenty for future adverts if the need arises.
So I go away for couple of hours and all hell breaks loose again?
@Confessions
This is why the parties in Opposition should not deal with that man at all.
He is an elitist parasite.
Fluvio
Mafioso & Liberals
Following a few links you finish up here… with names not suppressed … probably the same characters …
” In 1992, when homicide detectives asked the fruitshop owner Antonio Madafferi what he thought of Liborio Benvenuto, the undisputed Mafia godfather of Melbourne, he replied: “A very good man. Very honest and he was respected everywhere.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/crime-and-banishment-20090222-8erb.html#ixzz32cOTX2Vi
Jackol
[“Because let’s face it, there have been many governments over many years that have had to negotiate budgets through the Senate.”]
Really, Mr Abbott.
What about your solemn commitment before the election not to do deals with independents or minor parties under any political movement you lead?
Have you forgotten your pledge from August 2013 so easily?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN3CpLRWwz8
What a politically expedient LIAR.
In fact, let’s call a spade a spade, Mr Abbott.
You are a LIAR. Full Stop.
415
[The Financial System Inquiry, headed by former banker David Murray]
A shyster and an ideologue. Par for the course.
The Australian electorate, like an alcoholic, sometimes has to descend to its lowest point of degradation before it drags itself up from its self inflicted gutter.
The Liberals, running the electorate’s nose in it, might represent that lowest point.
Someone else has already said that that insolent wink was the turning point. I agree.
The shyster being the aforementioned Tax Haven Man. Not that i’m suggesting David Murray isn’t as well. I simply don’t know.
Zoomster
[…Hockey’s net rating went from minus-9 one week out, to minus-14, with 50 per cent of voters disapproving of his performance and 36 approving]
Abbott’s way of dealing with rivals.
Give them a job that sounds important but with working parameters that will make the unpopular with the Public.
Talc, now Hockey.
Julie Bishop must be pleased she’s been parked in the relatively safe haven of Foreign Affairs, where her performance has been competent, if nothing more. If Abbott falls, she will be the successor, and she’d make Turnbull Treasurer.
Psephos:
You don’t fancy Scott Morrison as the next Liberal leader if Abbott’s leadership is shanked?
I’m sympathetic to predictions of JBishop being the next Lib leader, but still remembering those Big Swinging Dicks which clearly have taken foothold in the partyroom if the current Cabinet make up is any indication.
[ How can he know this such that he can make these emphatic statements? ]
That would be because he’s a moron.
Sorry, kezza, but I can’t see how that was the fault of the church.
Your uncle was entitled to his part of the inheritance. What it was spent on was up to him.
Psephos, and her demonstrating such competency is best exemplified by what?
[her performance has been competent]
Something of an achievement for the current government.
Psephos
Some with turn them to pillar of salt stare wouldn’t be picked
No blackspot fix confirmed:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/12/nbn_co_has_no_plan_to_prioritise_blackspot_builds/
“Addressing blackspots, he’s said repeatedly, is a social justice issue and those without broadband must therefore be the priority for NBN Co, the government-owned entity building the network.”
“That response will be far from satisfactory for those living in blackspots, because it again does not address the “to the extent commercially and operationally feasible” clause, leaving open the possibility that blackspots, or pockets of blackspots, will not be prioritised or could even be shelved for a time due to expense or complexity.”
Another lie, another day.
Kerry Chikarovski was better than Peter Collins
mesma has been very quiet – but would have asbestos come back to haunt her if should had the PM’s job fall into her lap.
Then there is the issue of competence – but coming after abbott she might look like a star in comparison.
I haven’t been that intimate with either to be competent to make that judgment, Shellbell …, perhaps you have?
A tory sent me this email. The pics were hilarious!
[Tony Abbott asked the Queen,
“Your Majesty, how do you run such an efficient government?
Are there any tips you can give me?”
“Well,” said the Queen,
“The most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people.”
Abbott then asked,
“But how do I know if the people around me are really intelligent?”
The Queen took a sip of champagne.
“Oh, that’s easy; you just ask them to answer an intelligent riddle, watch”
The Queen pushed a button on her intercom.
“Please send Prince Charles in here, would you?”
Prince Charles walked into the room and said,
“Yes, Mummy?”
The Queen smiled and said,
“Answer me this please Charlie.
Your mother and father have a child.
It is not your brother and it is not your sister.
Who is it?”
Without pausing for a moment, Prince Charles answered
“That would be me, Mommy.”
“Yes! Very good indeed.” said the Queen.
Tony Abbott went back home to Australia.
He decided to ask Joe Hockey the same question.
“Joe, answer this for me.”
“Your mother and your father have a child.
It’s not your brother and it’s not your sister.
Who is it?”
“I’m not sure Tony,” said Hockey.
“Let me get back to you on that one.”
He went to his advisors and asked everyone,
but none could give him an answer.
Frustrated, Hockey went to the toilet, and found Clive Palmer there
Joe Hockey went up to him and asked,
“Hey Clive, see if you can answer this question.”
“Fire away Joe.”
“Your mother and father have a child and it’s not your brother or your sister.
Who is it?”
Clive Palmer answered,
“That’s easy, that would be me of course!”
Joe Hockey grinned, and said,
“Good answer Clive, I see it all now!”
Joe Hockey went back to find Tony Abbott.
“Tony, I did some research, and I have the answer to that riddle.”
“It’s Clive Palmer”
Tony Abbott got up, stomped over to Joe Hockey, and angrily yelled into his face,
“No! You bloody idiot! It’s Prince Charles!”
…AND THAT MY FRIENDS IS PRECISELY WHAT’S GOING ON IN CANBERRA!! ]
Psephos labels J Bishop “competent” but provides no evidence. I cannot think of one competent action from her, other than she hasn’t poisoned the water supply at the UN… err… yet.
Mal Brough is a Liberal MP who has been very quiet. Nary a word since he was re-elected last year.
He’d have to be someone hanging on the sidelines watching the stuff ups from his ministerial colleagues and biding his time waiting for the inevitable reshuffle.
Psephos
Bishop 2 days ago talking about Thai cop up that isn’t…. total goose!
Heard US commentator when asked about Juile…. ” naive ” was his verdict
Bishop quote…
‘That is a positive sign even though there wasn’t any agreement,’ Ms Bishop told RN Breakfast.
‘Our embassy in Bangkok reported to me that the military yesterday were continuing efforts to use the martial law to resolve Thailand’s political impasse. So they are saying it is not a coup and to date the impression they’re giving is that they are trying to resolve the political situation.’
‘The caretaker government was represented , there was a number of ministers present, the party leader of the opposition Democratic Party was there, the pro-government Red Shirts were represented, the anti-government People’s Democratic Reform Committee was there. The Senate, the secretary-general of the election commission, the police commissioner and the like. So I think we have to see that as a positive sign.’
All this without the aid of a crystal ball or any intelligence… Yes a good pick to replace Abbott
[Abbott said he was confident the government would get the budget through the Senate in the end, because the alternative would be a double dissolution election.]
Abbott would love a DD. It suits his tactic of nagging us and wearing us out with politics until we give in.
Just to shut him the f**k up.
[Psephos
Posted Saturday, May 24, 2014 at 6:15 pm | PERMALINK
Julie Bishop must be pleased she’s been parked in the relatively safe haven of Foreign Affairs, where her performance has been competent, if nothing more. If Abbott falls, she will be the successor, and she’d make Turnbull Treasurer.]
Julie Bishop is an incompetent nincompoop. There’s no way she’d be considered as the next Liberal leader.
She couldn’t even get her head round interest rates, for example, as Shadow Treasurer.
She may have mastered a lawyerly turn of phrase as an ideologue, but she is no match for the expected graciousness nor nuance of a leader.
I suppose she could be considered leagues above Abbott. But then that’s not hard.
Turnbull. What a bloody disgrace he is.
I would no more want him as Treasurer than Hockey.
Neither know what they’re doing in terms of the national interest, although both have excelled at ripping off the taxpayer.
Turnbull through claiming living away expenses in his wife’s condo in Canberra – at taxpayers expense.
And Hockey charging for a colleague to live in his garage. And Nelson claiming living away from home allowance off the taxpayer.
All legal, but a rip-off nevertheless.
Who’d want either of these shonks, these wealthy individuals, in charge of Australia’s budget?
Not me.
Dee
Bravo!
That Thai meeting organised by the military reminds me of the time some police force in the US wrote to the last known address of people for whom they had warrants informing them they had won a major priZe in lotto and arranging to meet with them to deliver it …
[ where her performance has been competent, if nothing more. ]
Seriously? I thought you were actually on the same planet as the rest of us??
Dee @ 436
That just sums it up beautifully.
Numbskulls Incorporated.
Whatever did we do to deserve this?
Julie Bishop had wonderful advice for those thinking of travelling to Thailand – take out travel insurance.
Is she brain dead or just stupid.
kezza
[Whatever did we do to deserve this?]
God alone knows!
Psephos@425
Noted.
And on another level of gullibility, I heard on the news (abc I think) that the parents of the journo held prisoner in Egypt believe the Aus. govt. is doing all it can to get him out.
FS
Given the situation in Egypt except for public condemnation I think the parents are right. For a simple reason. Their is sweet FA Australia can do when neighbouring Arab countries are helpless