proven redneck formula

One of the best from the Chaser... Libra-L

misterabbitt talking about the kettle

I just heard Tony Abbott on the telly accuse the *Labor Party* of running a fear campaign during this election!

The man who wants us to believe that we are about to be overrun by a tidal wave of boat people, even as we drown in a sea of government debt as a result of our sinking economy! While he stands up for 'realection' and promises to cancel everything and return us all to the dark ages.

I hope I get to see this lying little ferret buried at the polls on the weekend.

... and in the meantime, I'll content myself with watching him squirm as he tries to avoid Kerry O'Brien's questions on the 7:30 report. What a sleazy, untrustworthy dog. I don't know how O'Brien can stand to listen to his lies and waffle... I feel like grabbing his throat thru' the tv screen! :-P

time warp

Funny stuff from the ALP:

back to the future

Would anyone really be surprised that Tony Abbott isn't 'across' broadband? After all, they didn't have that in 1950! He can protest that he's not a 'tech' head, but he can't deny he's another type of 'head' :-P

smoked out

I have GOT to stop paying attention to election news, no matter how hard it is to avoid, or my blood pressure is going to explode.

Now I find out, from Tony Jones on Lateline (which I wasn't even planning to watch, but it just cleverly started up on the tail of Yes, we Canberra!), that sleazebag Abbott is in bed with the international tobacco lobby to overturn the plain packaging legislation on cigarettes. Apparently, the budgie-smuggling 'action man' of Australian politics doesn't care how many other lives he helps to ruin if it gets him a little more in political donations or a few more votes.

And btw, just how stupid do the big British and American tobacco companies think we are, to imagine that they can bankroll an organisation that purports to represent the interests of Australian retailers, when it is clearly just a lobby group for the tobacco-murder industry? Give me a break!

no means no Abbott

It's clearly been a long campaign already for the Mad Monk.

Julia has at least had the chance to escape her minders and campaign as her 'real self', and it's a vast improvement.

No such luck for Tony. As his own daughter once famously said, he's a "lame, gay, churchy loser" (and doesn't her choice of language say heaps about her own upbringing?).

Only the most desperate conservative would vote for the real Tony Abbott, so he has to keep a tight lid on that side of himself and make sure that he only shows his campaign persona for the cameras.

It's inevitable though, that at times, his real thoughts and feelings are going to show through.

What sort of moron would attack his political opponent by using a well-known catch-cry related to rape and the abuse of women, with no apparent understanding of its sub-text? Maybe the same sort who gets a woman pregnant (or thinks he did) and then absconds and leaves her 'carrying the baby'.

This man is a moral midget, who has no empathy or understanding of the modern world, and would take us back 100 years if he gets the chance.

I'm not a fan of the current government, but I'll vote for anything that keeps Abbott away from political power.

loose Abbott sinks boats

TONY Abbott is promising to reopen the two Nauru detention centres and restore temporary protection visas within weeks if he wins the August 21 election as part of his strategy to ''stop the boats''. The Age 3 Aug 2010

When I read crap like this, it makes me want to get on the first boat out of this country.

Liberal party polling has apparently discovered a deep vein of fear and ignorance in enough parts of the country that they expect to be able to get more votes than they'll alienate by taking this stance, and Abbott dutifully mouths the platitudes, and whistles to the dogs. Nah, he's not whistling now; he's shouting to the ignorant dogs of 'middle Australia' to join him in sinking innocent victims of war trying to find a safe haven in this country.

I feel sick to the stomach thinking about Abbott and his swinging bigots; I mean, swinging voters.

I like to believe that the majority of these troglodytes are located in the backwards parts of Queensland, WA and western NSW, and that a majority of Victorians and other educated people in south-eastern Australia share my revulsion of the insularity and hysteria whipped up by the northerners.

Victoria has a long, proud tradition of small 'l' liberalism and social conscience. Being bound to the ignorant masses of the north and west makes me wish at times that there was a way out of this federation, so that we wouldn't have to have leadership candidates from, especially, the far right-wing of the NSW conservative parties (Abbott, Howard) foisted on us at election time.

p.s... and thanks to the Age for providing a neat image for me to borrow today (4/8!)

a glimmer of humanity

It was delightful to read that not one, but two councils have volunteered to host a refugee processing centre in Australia.

It made me especially proud that they are both Victorian communities that have taken the lead in attempting to demonstrate some humanity toward people who risk their lives to escape oppression or death in their own countries, only to arrive here and be treated like criminals by politicians of both major parties, as they vie for the votes of the ignorant and bitter, but vocal, minority.

Both Abbott and Gillard should be ashamed of the hysteria that they have, respectively, whipped up and bowed to in regard to the tiny number of refugees that reach our shores. Sure, crack down on people who profit from the misfortune of the refugees, but stop further punishing people who are already victims of substantial injustice in their countries of origin.

Congratulations again to the people who have taken a lead in trying to demonstrate some humanity and decency to these people.

no laughing matter

I'm going to have to stop reading the election news for a few days, for the sake of my blood pressure, but I just have to note that the possibility of a future under Tony Abbott and his bitter minions is enough to make me think about killing myself already!

private school rorts to grow

At the same time as he promises to cut funding for important infrastructure programs, the mad monk of conservative politics is promising to make private school fees tax-deductable!

I was so disgusted when I read this, that I almost stopped breathing for a few seconds!

Federal government funding arrangements for wealthy private schools is already one of the biggest rorts left over from the Howard Government days. It's an outrage that taxpayers are forced to contribute so much to support these bastions of wealth, privilege (and shop-lifting), while chronically under-funded government schools are left to struggle, and their students are forced to endure sub-standard conditions.

To think that idiot Abbott is prepared to further feather the nest of his privileged constituents at the expense of the rest of the country by making fees for these unnecessary private schools deductable just defies belief.

My vote goes to any candidate who promises to stop government funding of private schools, or better yet, to 'nationalise' them and make them available to all Australian kids, equitably.

maybe not all boat people are scary, Tony?

aBelieve it or not - Tony Abbott scabs a free snack from a former boat person!

And a bit more fun with the anti-Marx party.

in defence of public spending

Memo to Tony Abbott: I'm a working wage slave, not wealthy enough to avoid tax, so I pay every cent of taxation that I'm supposed to.

I don't like paying tax, but I understand that it's important, and that it's the means by which this country funds services and programs that are essential to all of our people.

Public spending is not a bad thing.

I do not want your budget cuts; I don't even want a permanently in-the-black budget.

Governments should use to debt to fund essential programs in times of need, just as the Rudd government recently did to get this country through a severe recession that savaged other countries around the world.

The last thing Australia needs now is a bunch of witless, economic zombies cutting into important and progressive programs that may benefit the whole country, all in the name of bringing an unnecessary surplus to the national budget.

Australia is a country, not a business. We're not here to make a profit for the conservative parties to sit on and boast about. Every cent raised from our taxes needs to be re-invested and used to progress the nation, not sit in the Reserve Bank to impress foreign usurers.

Your social and economic policies would bring misery and disgrace to this country, in the same way as your mentors in the Howard government did. Please... go away and spare us all!

nightmare's edge

What kind of world do we live in where a man like Tony Abbott can be so close to becoming Prime Minister? This must be what Germans felt like in 1933. Howard was regressive enough; I don't want to live anywhere where Abbott's in control.

things that scare the cr@p outta me

... that a narrow-minded, economic rationalist, climate-sceptic, church-going, extremist bigot weasel like Tony Abbott can come anywhere near the corridors of power in this country. That's the stuff of nightmares.

While the Federal Government looks at ways to improve our public health system, Abbott's answer is to hand it over lock, stock and barrel to the private sector... what he counter-intuitively calls 'handing it back to the people'!!

Whose people?? The right-wing rationalists who put a monetary value on every element of our lives, including our children's education and our health?? The people who will make a great health service available to all.... who can afford to pay for it??

We don't want or need the American solution to a health system. Healthcare must stay out of private hands; only through Government management can we ever hope to provide a fair and equal service for all citizens.

And while we're waiting for that day, we can only hope that Abbott and his ilk are long retired before the next change of Government.