Joyce Brandis claim cost of smear at shock jock wedding

Posted by admin in Crime, Politics on 30 September, 2013 8:20 am
independentaustraliadotnet

The new Parliament hasn’t even sat down yet, but already senior Coalition frontbenchers Brandis and Joyce have been caught with their hands in the till. Senior correspondent Barry Everingham reports. (Images by Gee.)

Murder on the Dance Floor 1 THERE’S ONLY ONE thing worse than a National Party politician being caught out with his snout in the financial trough and that’s a sanctimonious Liberal who when caught out says he thought what he did was OK.

This weekend, the public get its first glimpse of what is in store from members of the new Abbott government — and we got the news from the Fairfax media; obviously it was too sensitive for the Murdoch press to handle.

Some background here, to get things in perspective.

One of Sydney’s more egregious shock jocks ‒ Michael Smith ‒ was shafted by the right wing Radio 2UE.

His sin?

Murder on the Dance Floor 2Strangely enough, he was trying to get to air false allegations surrounding Julia  Gillard’s past relationship with a trade union  official and alleged misappropriation of funds.

This “scandal” was  the bread and butter of the likes of Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman — none of whom could get it off the ground, but that didn’t stop them trying.

Smith went over the top and the rest, as they say, is history.

But over in the Senate ‒ that unrepresentative swill, as Paul Keating so aptly named it ‒ a senior Liberal and now Attorney General, the rotund and balding George Brandis QC (he insists his legal ID is used all the time) was as usual blackening  names under the privilege of Parliament.

As well as Gillard, Brandis had the hapless Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson in his sights. And man, did the QC go to town, especially on his fellow Queenslander, Slipper, who was under investigation for allegedly misusing  travel allowances.

Murder on the Dance Floor 3Back to the top of this yarn and Michael Smith.

Brandis was a guest at Smith’s wedding and, to get there, he spent $1,700 on air fares and $143 on hire cars — oops, correction, he incurred those charges and expected the taxpayer to foot the bill.

Now read what the chief law officer of the Commonwealth of Australia had to say as he extracted  his fingers from the till.

Oh, I regarded the  wedding as a chance to foster collaboration over Smith’s work on covering Ms Gillard and the Craig Thomson scandal and was ‒ wait for it ‒

    “…therefore primarily a professional rather than social engagement.”

Oleaginous Michael Smith went a step further, telling Fairfax there were 10 media people at the wedding and George used the occasion to mix with as many journalists as possible.

Murder on the Dance Floor 4For God’s sake, I ask you!

But here we go again.

The aspiring leader of the Nationals, the financially illiterate former Senator Barnaby Joyce was also networking the wedding and, of course, saw nothing wrong in having his snout in the money trough too — though in his case only to the sum of $500.

His justification? There were, he said, no doubt lots of people (at the wedding) involved in politics and it was one of those things where you are noted more by your absence than by your participation!

As a star graduate of the National Party’s famous Joh Bjelke-Petersen School of Communication and Elocution, Barnaby always leaves people scratching their heads wondering what the hell he was just talking about.

And like dodgy businessman everywhere, Brandis now says the cheque is in the mail to pay his ill-gotten gains back to Treasury.

As for Barnaby? Well, he is a Nat, so don’t expect much.

SEE ALSO: The Brandis Canon.

wouldn't be surprised if that was happening Thebas - plenty of palms being greased

also heard on the radio this morning that some in the government there are saying they should support the boats leaving as a get farked to Abbott for his attitude and approach

not sure why people here seem to think Indonesia should be taking responsibility for all these people, they don't want them in their country just like most don't want them here

Interesting thing today will be Morrison accepting what the asylum seekers say about the military driving them to the boat but saying they are lying about calling for help on Thursday - can't have it both ways imo

very good question AFL - the others are who went to the AFP re Slipper??? Was it Brandis???

Morriscum..mug

let em drown they said... 

its interesting that some members of the public think that our Rescue Service makes a phone call to Parliament House each time as asks if they can start a rescue and at at what time are they allowed to do this

otherwsie some members of the public are suggesting our rescue services just sit idly by waiting for a few hours before mobilising

i believe our rescue servies are heros ... risking their own lives to save unfortunate others ... and believe them unlikely to be indolent as suggested whether by their own activities ... or being told by Canberra to sit on it a while

are we even allowed to sail directly into Indonesian waters ... have they given us carte blanche to sail in when we feel it is appropriate ?

http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/bn/2012-2013/boatarrivals

from 1999 to 2008  the number of people arriving in australia as asylum boat people = 12,625  in 9 years
from 2009 to 2012  the number of people arriving in australia as asylum boat people = 44,156  in 3 years

The current Coalition Govt have inherited a policy mess from Gillard's Labor ... let's hope there is some solution available soon

interesting to here SBY last night talking about the burden asylum seekers are on Indonesia - imagine if they decided to try the impossible and close their borders, where would they all go then???

my tweet re Julia last night

P A ‏@tnsprofpunter 12h

Decided not to watch Julia as it was always going to be an interview that highlighted her many strengths but ignored her weaknesses #auspol

I watched Big Brother instead, much more entertaining

I did watch Q and A with Albo and Bill on though - I'm enjoying the idea of the members of the party having a say in electing the leader.  Either will take it right up to Abbott from day 1

hard to know with Abbott .. is there something strong there or not ..

i'm not a fan of any political rhetoric ... but there is a theory that ... if you want to confront an issue then you PRE-EMPT it with a large huge overblown statement ... designed to shock (ie  buy boats, control fisherman etc) ...

with the real intention only being to induce proper bilateral dialogue ... that might solve the situation

maybe i'm reading too much into this ... but i gagged on my cornflakes when our PM first said he would involve australia "internally" in the sovereign operations of Indonesia

this can't be true i thought ... but maybe he has "caught their attention" and the 'real play' to resolve this can now begin

I think this answers it ........


Liberals and Conservatives — they really are different

Posted by admin in Health, Politics, Science on 30 September, 2013 6:30 pm
independentaustraliadotnet

Research shows conservative and progressive brains are physically different, with rightwingers being much more susceptible to fear. Anthony Element comments.

I LOVE TECHNOLOGY. It gets me from here to there really, really fast, it lets me carry my library in my pocket without tearing my trousers and, yes, it’s finally proven that conservatives and liberals have physically different brains.

BrainRyota Kanai, in a paper published in Current Biology, found that

    ‘…greater liberalism was associated with increased grey matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, (ACC), whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala (RA).’

I’m guessing that each side has always suspected that those folk over there with the whacky ideas really are a different species. Turns out they were right.

A large ACC is associated with such things as:

    tolerance for uncertainty;
    effortful, deliberate reasoning; and
    acceptance of change.

Whereas a dominant RA is associated with:

    quick, efficient, and low effort thought processes;  and
    fear as a dominant emotion.

In other research, conservative and liberal  test subjects all responded well to positive messages, but conservatives responded more powerfully and more sensitively to negative messages.

Feels right, doesn’t it? It also goes a long way to explaining Tony Abbott’s strategies.

In the last three years, we’ve had the cost of living crisis, the productivity crisis, the retail slump crisis, government debt crisis, the emergency low interest rates crisis, the threat of sovereign risk crisis, the carbon tax catastrophe crisis, the budget emergency crisis.

Not one of which is or was an actual crisis — but Tony never saw an amygdala he didn’t want to terrify.

Oh, and I should add to the list, the perennially popular border protection crisis.

Liberal thinkers (that is, progressives — largely Labor and Greens supporters) say:

“We need to stop people from drowning at sea. But these folk are genuine refugees and we have international obligations to think about, so we need to tread a careful path.”

Meanwhile, conservatives (largely Coalition supporters), being collectively RA dominant, say:

    “They’re illegals. Be afraid, be very afraid.”

See, they’re not really mean and insensitive, it’s just their amygdalae talking.

Same with climate change.

Liberals talk about complex science and how we face a huge problem that will take decades to solve.

The RA dominant simply say:

    “Global Warming is crap.”

I’ll say this for being RA dominant — it makes life easy.

For a while anyway; until the reality becomes inescapable.

So it is with our new government’s refugee policy. We have an Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, who exhibits classic RA dominant symptoms and who’s sung the scare me song for three years. Now he’s in power and the reality that he can’t stop the boats has hit him —hard.

His RA took one look at the situation and said:

    “Don’t think about it. Deny, deny.”

And what do we get? Suddenly boat arrivals become secret. The perfect RA response.

Is this a beautiful piece of research, or what?

So the next time you want to chat someone up, here’s what you do: you just figure out if they’re a Labor or Greens supporter or a Coalition supporter, and then either make them think, or scare the life out of them.

Piece of cake.

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Ahh the .......  "JULIA CRISIS"  is that what you are talking about, or is it your amygdalae doing the hating?

^ ETS

Who said these lies?

I believe in MAN MADE Climate Change

Climate Change is cra p

Who said these 2 statements?

Which one is the LIE?

Why don't you post the whole statement she made?

Ok Thebas ....i've had a discussion with my anterior cingulate cortex, (ACC)

And I apologize for the hate reference.

Tony Abbott shuts out local reporters from Indonesian press conferences

Posted by admin in International, Politics on 2 October, 2013 3:11 pm
independentaustraliadotnet

Tony Abbott has offended Indonesians by excluding the host country’s journalists from his press conferences in Indonesia.

From today’s Jakarta Globe:

    abbott29

    (Cartoon by John Graham / johngraham.alphalink.com.au)

    Despite Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s push to strengthen ties with Indonesia during a meeting with business and government delegates on Tuesday morning, a press conference following the breakfast was restricted to the Australian media.

    Local media, including the Jakarta Globe, were not allowed to attend the press briefing that saw Abbott and Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, speak with Australian media.

    Umar Idris, the chairman of the Jakarta branch of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), said it was the first time he had heard of a case where local journalists had been excluded from a conference, and condemned the move.

    “Australia has good press freedom and so they should practice that in Indonesia as well,” Umar told the Globe. “Tony Abbott’s visit is important for the Indonesian media, and journalists should be granted open, equal access.”

    The move comes as the Australian government has enforced a media blackout where it will now only hold one press conference a week for Australian media on asylum-seeker issues.

Read the rest of the story on the Jakarta Globe website.




Abbott is a swaggering  insult waiting to happen.

What was he afraid of?  A hard question?  Well he doesn't get any of those through the Aus MSM.

He actually RAN AWAY FROM AN INTERVIEW the other day.

They have footage of him running away.

Imagine if this was Julia, it would have been used relentlessly to ridicule her by Murdoch the MSM and shock jocks.

Hardly a peep out of them about that .....and this. 

So no doubt they will avoid this story and promote how he has had a good trip and is now a Diplomat as well.

i hear ya boys .. gonna be a long three years maybe

but let's have a look at the bigger picture from an impartial standpoint ... re the indonesia/asylum issue currently at hand

----

this is very encouraging imo ... but we will see whether abbott has the skill or team skills to pull it off

http://www.theage.com.au/national/indonesia-concedes-on-abbott-demands-20130930-2up0r.html


The Indonesian President has made a significant concession to Tony Abbott's demands on boat people in talks in Jakarta on Monday, agreeing that Indonesia would need to make direct deals with Australia to try to solve the people smuggling problem.

Until now Indonesia's position has been that any potential policies should be dealt with at the multilateral forum, the Bali Process, and many of Mr Abbott's policies - from boat tow-backs to establishing transit ports for asylum seekers on Indonesian soil - have been considered a threat to Indonesian sovereignty.

But after meeting Mr Abbott late on Monday, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono agreed the countries needed to work one-on-one.
 
"Indonesia has striven to overcome this issue, but it would be much better if the co-operation was at the bilateral level," he said.

The statement opens the door to Indonesia making more concessions to Australian demands, though Mr Abbott and Dr Yudhoyono left the tricky details for later. Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and his Indonesian counterpart, Djoko Suyanto, will meet soon to thrash out details.

PittburrghPhil...........
He looks like a wabbit in the spotlight a lot of the time ... I reckon he's sh1t scared ... seriously sh1t scared ... of any scrutiny that might expose his complete lack of anything resembling a clue.


This statement would very accurately describe Paul Keating when he was first in the position of Treasurer.
A government website that is an interesting read.......
http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/keating/before-office.aspx

Do you actually watch that show bigted??

Stewie not impressed by Brian's Gay cousin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCY4Uz6Zp5I

um-tz um-tz um-tz