(Miscellaneous debris)

[Gozu]

The American far-right get their own TV station:

"Even Fox hides behind a small degree of shame: No, really, you guys! We’re fair AND balanced! Right Network is just the logical conclusion to an absurd equation first etched by Murdoch and Ailes. Take a huge corporation (Comcast,) add crazy (teabaggers,) subtract any shame that might inspire a network to report facts without spin, and watch the propaganda grow."

http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/20 ... ibilities/

[Gozu]

"Peter Garrett is exonerated, nobody cares":

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/04/23/pet ... ody-cares/

[Gozu]

"Preventative health lobby inflicting serious damage on our freedom":

So we all hate smoking, right? And tobacco companies — vile people. And their cheeleaders in the media — the IPA was straight out of the blocks today to predict dire consequences from the packaging requirements.

But what’s this actual policy intended to achieve — other than get the shelving of the ETS off the front pages?

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/04/29/pre ... r-freedom/

[Gozu]

"The Addy refuses to run Sex Party's Abbott ad":

News Limited’s Adelaide tabloid The Advertiser has refused to run an Australian Sex Party advertisement that featured a photoshopped version of opposition leader Tony Abbott clinging desperately to the leg of a woman in fishnet stockings.

The image, which is an advertisement for the Sex Party’s stall at this weekend’s Sexpo event, has the young woman saying to Abbott: “No Tony, I’m going to Sexpo. You can do the ironing.”

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/05/14/the ... abbott-ad/

[Gozu]

The Government's disgraceful welfare quarantining in NT which they plan to role out nationwide to everyone on unemployment & single parenting benefits continues to blow up in their faces.

"Income management isn't working and Macklin's twisting the truth":

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/05/17/inc ... the-truth/

[Gozu]

"Does Macklin's office have no shame? More on the income management study...":

This email landed at Croakey today. “Macklin’s office really has no shame!”

My correspondent* was commenting on the response from Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin to a study published today in the Medical Journal of Australia showing that the federal government’s income management policy is not making an impact on tobacco and healthy food sales in remote community shops in the NT.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2010 ... mgt-study/

[Psyber]

Health related issues - quoted from a medical web site - a link won't work as a secure log in is required:

There’s no spending like faux spending 9-Jun-2010 By Paul Smith at the AMA Annual Conference, Sydney, May 2010

The Federal Government’s $7.6 billion cash injection into the health system is “faux new spending”, an Access Economics report warns.

Commissioned by the AMA, the report said the pledges under the government’s National Health and Hospital Network reforms would see a total net increase in spending over the next four years of $6 billion because of a move to claw back about $2 billion, mainly from the PBS budget. With federal health spending rising by more than 8% per annum since 2001, the report said the budgeted increase in federal health spending in 2010/11 was close to the trend of recent years. “The $6 billion in new spending commitments is best understood as faux new spending — the new spending you need to correct for the bias and the error in the [government’s previous estimates of its health spending]. “If all it does is bring total health spending back to trend, then it is essentially remedial.”

Access Economics’ report stated the budget resulted in “very little money dedicated for two of the most neglected areas in health” — Indigenous and mental health. Nor was there any new money for rural and remote area health needs or health research, the report claimed.
But it said the budget measures were attempting to address workforce issues and infrastructure, particularly by increasing GP numbers.
“When the problems rest in the lack of access to GPs and specialists, shortages of nurses, not enough hospital or aged care beds, any measure that adds to demand (by increasing subsidies to patients) can make the problems worse in the short term,” the report said.
“The emphasis on workforce measures and infrastructure takes the [health system] in the right direction,” the report concluded.

‘Apartheid’ health system'

The Federal Government’s plans to improve mental healthcare have been dubbed the “ugly bit” of its national health reform program by Australian of the Year Professor Pat McGorry. Speaking at the AMA conference, he said the four million Australians with mental health problems had been “locked out of the reform process”. “It is extremely difficult to be positive about mental health,” he said. “Mental health was identified as an area of urgent action. Everyone knows it’s at crisis point.” He said the mental health lobby had put up “specific 21st-century models of care” to the government, but they had been largely ignored. “We are still functioning in an apartheid system in health. Only one-third of mentally ill health patients get access to care, which is often of a variable quality ... that seems like a case of ... justice denied to me,” he said.

[Psyber]

Here is an interesting snippet - I'm not sure whether it belongs under Politics or Economics, but they seem to be closely related fields in Australia at least:

16 June 2010: The Chief Executive Officer of Qantas Airways Limited, Mr Alan Joyce, today announced the appointment of Mr Gareth Evans as Chief Financial Officer of the company.

[Gozu]

"Parental leave open to abortion rorts: Fielding":

Family First Senator Steve Fielding has been condemned by other senators for suggesting women might have an abortion after 20 weeks to try to claim paid parental leave.

The paid parental leave legislation, which is being debated in the Senate, allows for women who have stillbirths to claim the payment.

During debate, Senator Fielding raised concerns that some "drug addicts" or "welfare cheats" could deliberately fall pregnant, then have an abortion after 20 weeks and rort the system in order to be eligible for payments.

"Drug addicts and welfare cheats can go out there and get themselves pregnant and then after 20 weeks have an abortion and still pocket the Government's cash," he said.

However, the Government says women who choose to have an abortion are not eligible for paid parental leave.

Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce was angered by Senator Fielding's comments, accusing him of a "base form of politics" by bringing abortion into the debate.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... ion=justin

You know you're pretty crazy when even Barnaby Joyce thinks you're too extreme. Fielding is a disgrace.

[wycbloods]

"Parental leave open to abortion rorts: Fielding":

Family First Senator Steve Fielding has been condemned by other senators for suggesting women might have an abortion after 20 weeks to try to claim paid parental leave.

The paid parental leave legislation, which is being debated in the Senate, allows for women who have stillbirths to claim the payment.

During debate, Senator Fielding raised concerns that some "drug addicts" or "welfare cheats" could deliberately fall pregnant, then have an abortion after 20 weeks and rort the system in order to be eligible for payments.

"Drug addicts and welfare cheats can go out there and get themselves pregnant and then after 20 weeks have an abortion and still pocket the Government's cash," he said.

However, the Government says women who choose to have an abortion are not eligible for paid parental leave.

Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce was angered by Senator Fielding's comments, accusing him of a "base form of politics" by bringing abortion into the debate.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... ion=justin

You know you're pretty crazy when even Barnaby Joyce thinks you're too extreme. Fielding is a disgrace.

FAMILY FIRST what a disgrace they are to Australian Politics.

[Gozu]

"Vote Last Steve Fielding:"

There’s never been any doubt Steve Fielding is a prize idiot. His idea of senatorial behaviour has chiefly revolved around ludicrous stunts, apparently random voting and trying to inject himself into any debate going, frequently on the most offensive terms.

Yesterday, however, he managed to reach a new low beyond buffoonery, reaching into malice and gender hatred that appalled even right-wingers in the Senate.

Quite how people in prison or on welfare or in marginalised employment are going to get access to parental leave wasn’t something Fielding offered to explain.

Not, apparently, for Fielding, who happily equates working women with prostitutes and prisoners.

Even strong pro-life advocate Barnaby Joyce (who, unlike a lot of conservatives, takes his pro-life convictions seriously enough to be a dogged opponent of the death penalty), was outraged

We don’t know what Stephen Conroy thinks of Fielding’s efforts yesterday. Which is a pity, because Conroy, in particular, and the Victorian Labor Party more broadly, are the Dr Frankensteins responsible for this creature, stitched together in 2004 from half-baked political smart-arsery and anti-Green sentiment.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/06/17/vot ... ve-debate/

[Gozu]

I thought this Top Ten on Letterman Tuesday night was pretty funny, "Top Ten Questions on the BP CEO job application":

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

[Gozu]

A good expose on the lunacy and sheer hypocrisy of the Tea Party movement from the US Rolling Stone:

After Palin wraps up, I race to the parking lot in search of departing Medicare-motor-scooter conservatives. I come upon an elderly couple, Janice and David Wheelock, who are fairly itching to share their views.

"I'm anti-spending and anti-government," crows David, as scooter-bound Janice looks on. "The welfare state is out of control."

"OK," I say. "And what do you do for a living?"

"Me?" he says proudly. "Oh, I'm a property appraiser. Have been my whole life."

I frown. "Are either of you on Medicare?"

Silence: Then Janice, a nice enough woman, it seems, slowly raises her hand, offering a faint smile, as if to say, You got me!

"Let me get this straight," I say to David. "You've been picking up a check from the government for decades, as a tax assessor, and your wife is on Medicare. How can you complain about the welfare state?"

"Well," he says, "there's a lot of people on welfare who don't deserve it. Too many people are living off the government."

"But," I protest, "you live off the government. And have been your whole life!"

"Yeah," he says, "but I don't make very much.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... how_page=0

[mighty_tiger_79]

ill post it in here cos this is where it belongs

Labor will lose next state election locally and federally

possibly other states will go liberal as well

god help the country when AWAs come back

[GWW]

I'm not sure they'll lose the next Federal election, but I think the people of SA will have learned their lesson and vote Rann's mob out in 2014.

[Gozu]

"Gillard must do more than make up the numbers":

Serving in post-invasion Iraq was bad, but, for Peter Khalil, seeing Alexander Downer was worse.

The Australian Defence official had just spent a rugged nine months in Iraq working to help put the country back together again. But his most depressing experience was returning to Canberra and briefing the then foreign minister.

It was 2004, and Khalil had been in Iraq helping the provisional government set up the country's new Ministry of Defence and its army and police forces. Khalil recalls his appointment with Downer in his office in Parliament House: "We tried to engage him in some of the strategic issues but he wasn't interested. He had his feet up on the desk, he was very uncouth with swearwords flying all over the place, and all he wanted to talk about was the private lives of the US commanders and other gossip."

Even more disconcerting was that the minister apparently suffered from some sort of crotch itch or discomfort which he occasionally tended in front of Khalil and a second official, an Australian army colonel, Mike Kelly.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/ ... 16bwi.html

As PJK once said, "the idiot son of the aristocracy".

[Psyber]

Interesting article that one above. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/ ... 16bwi.html

I sat in Alexander's office and talked to him over issues several times during the late 1990s, and never saw any such behaviour.
He was always civil and polite even when we disagreed.
Does the SMH, or its writer, have an agenda here?

[Ronnie]

Interesting article that one above. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/ ... 16bwi.html

I sat in Alexander's office and talked to him over issues several times during the late 1990s, and never saw any such behaviour.
He was always civil and polite even when we disagreed.
Does the SMH, or its writer, have an agenda here?

I'm bemused as well. I've never heard of Downer behaving as Peter Hartcher describes it.
Hartcher wrote a particularly poisonous piece on Downer a couple of years ago. It went beyond the normal criticism and robustness politics gets into.
It made me wonder what is the personal history with these two?
Despite what some Stalin loving lefties have to say, Downer is no idiot.
A bit of old fashioned pig ignorant class prejudice on the part of a very small number of Australians makes him a bit of a favourite target as well.

[Gozu]

"Bidding farwell to our worst Foreign Minister":

That Downer was our worst foreign minister of recent decades goes without saying. Possibly he was our worst ever, but that’s a matter for foreign policy PhDs.

But he was more like his predecessor Gareth Evans than either would wish to admit — long-serving foreign ministers, both with grotesquely over-inflated conceptions of their world influence, both somehow encapsulating the very worst of their parties and therefore, automatically, capable of inspiring loathing in opponents. But let’s be charitable — if nothing else can unite the divided citizens of Cyprus, maybe five minutes with Alex will do the trick.

The wilful failure of accountability and the intellectual dishonesty of Downer’s response upon discovery — along with that of Howard and Mark Vaile — turned even the Howard Government cheerleaders at The Australian against him.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/07/02/bid ... -minister/

Even small l Liberals think the guy was a joke.

[Psyber]

Even small l Liberals think the guy was a joke.

I don't think anyone who has actually met and talked to him does.
His problem under John Howard was that rare thing in Politics - Loyalty.
He had promised his support when JH became leader and stuck to his word, whether he like where it was going or not.
This is understandably a difficult concept for the lefties, or even the ALP centrists.


Another interesting snippet is this discussion between GPs on a medical forum about ALP health policy - the Mental Health Nurse Incentive program.
I've replaced the names with locations only for privacy reasons:

Qld GP: I didn't touch that program. $1000 in the PIP Quarterly (plus rurality) didn't seem worth the effort of a) getting a nurse trained or b) employing someone with the right training...
Or have I missed something in the fineprint??

WA GP: You did - the bit about a large bore proctoscope used in the audit process without benefit of vaseline

Another Qld GP: As far as I can see, it's a fine way to make it look that almost non-existent public mental health services are being farmed out to general practice, where the services will be patchy if at all available.