...welcome to the real world... the Fantasy Land of the Aspirational Bogan

In only six months the myth of an egalitarian, fair and benign Australia has been well and truly trashed by Rabbott-the-Hun and his Murdoch Mandated fellow rabble.

We now oversee the killing of refugees.

Shane,
in disgust at our Fascist government and venal, selfish society.

Shane caught in Film-Noir mood... probably...

 “…we never descended into the undergraduate and bad-mannered and ungentlemanly behaviour that Labor descended into yesterday,'' he insisted.

''[Leader of opposition business] Tony Burke needs to grow up and stop being juvenile,'' Mr Pyne, lying again, to journalists outside Parliament House.
''I know that he's about my age, perhaps a little bit older, and maybe he feels that the previous government was a manifest failure and he played a part in that.''

In Western Australia, endangered great white sharks are being slaughtered. In Queensland, dredging spoil is to be dumped on the Great Barrier Reef. In Tasmania, ancient forests – harbouring some of the planet’s tallest trees – are in danger of being stripped of their World Heritage listing.

Australians could be forgiven for wondering if the federal government they elected last September is the most conservation-hostile in living memory.

Critics warn that moves by Tony Abbott and his Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, will not only degrade the country’s most outstanding natural assets, but make Australia an international laughing-stock…

Compounding the right-wing government’s apparent disregard for Australia’s unique environment, say conservationists and scientists, is its resistance to any meaningful action to tackle climate change…

Meanwhile, US-based online magazine, Slate, has launched a similar attack, questioning whether the Abbott Government is “currently the most hostile government to the environment on Earth”:
John Roskam, Head-Coot-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a- Parallel-Universe,  (IPA)  “ …we are not right-wing, we are free-market” in response to an introduction on ABC…and then goes on to conflate his local video shop closing down with SPC’s immanent demise.

Since the election we have lost 54,000 full-time jobs in Australia, which is more than Australia lost in the entire calendar year of 2009, during the global financial crisis, under the stewardship of the previous Labor government.

We managed to save Australian jobs in the most difficult global circumstances since the 1930s, and on this government's watch already we have seen more jobs lost in less than six months than we saw in the entire calendar year of 2009, during the global financial crisis. Australia was one of only three advanced economies out of 34 to avoid recession during the global financial crisis (Chris Bowen, (Labor) Parliament)

 "Is the Prime Minister aware that Minister, Princess Fiona of Young, Senator

Nash did not disclose at the meeting of the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council, that the Minister chaired in December, that her chief of staff (Duke Alasdair Furnival of Red Bull) held a shareholding in a food industry lobbying firm, notwithstanding that conflicts to be declared were on the agenda?
"Why hasn't the Prime Minister taken any action in accordance with his own ministerial code of conduct?"
Princess Fiona of Young said "all information around her chief of staff" Duke Alasdair Furnival of Red Bull, was given to the Prime Minister's office "in accordance with appropriate timing".

But Senator Wong called that answer "dropping the Prime Minister's office in it".

Senator Nash says Labor is pursuing the matter to avoid debating substantive policy issues. (Heeeee.Heeeee, Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)

Yet, under questioning by Labor Senate leader Penny Wong on Tuesday, Nash blithely asserted: “There is no connection whatsoever between my chief-of-staff and the company Australian Public Affairs.” That was simply untrue. And the Prime Minister’s office knew it was untrue because full details of Furnival’s involvement with the company had been canvassed in the vetting process before his appointment.

That process had been overseen by Tony Abbott’s chief-of-staff, Peta Credlin, and Tony Nutt, once John Howard’s shrewd political fixer. Aware of the risks of employing someone with a lobbying background, they had looked at his business affairs very carefully.
The public servant bullying, Duke of Red-Bull has resigned… and senior Public Servants now know the lie of the land apropos unentitled advisors… or do they?

As one government job falls vacant, two others have been filled. Howard government finance minister Nick Minchin will be Australia’s consul-general in New York, 10 days after Peter Costello was formally appointed chairman of the Future Fund.
When there was pressure for the former treasurer to get the job two years ago, Minchin — co-founder of the fund with Costello — said it would be a very bad idea.
“The fund must be, and be seen to be, independent, professional, completely above politics,” he wrote in a letter to The Australian newspaper. “Appointing a former politician, even one of Costello’s stature, as chairman would therefore be most unwise.”
As speculation mounted about Costello’s appointment this time, however, Minchin was silent, leading a Liberal MP to suggest there was only one explanation.
“Nick must be lined up for New York,” he said.
That is a most uncharitable view. Minchin himself says he has simply changed his view, “given the length of time Peter has now been in the business world and away from politics”.
Environment minister Greg Hunt is set to grant himself retrospective legal immunity against potential claims that he failed to consider environmental advice before approving key mining projects.
The legal fraternity has accused the Abbott government of undermining the rule of law through retrospective legislation to prevent court challenges to the approval of mining projects where conservation advice is ignored.
A Senate committee has given the green light for Environment Minister Greg Hunt to introduce protections that would effectively sandbag him from legal action against all approvals he has made or will make.
Those include permission for Clive Palmer's giant coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin that will ship its product through the Great Barrier Reef, the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal and a fourth coal-seam gas plant at Gladston Harbour.
Mr Hunt told Parliament the law will ''ensure that past decisions are not put at risk. This will provide certainty for industry stakeholders''.
Greens senator Larissa Waters criticised Labor for supporting the bill and said it was a sign of the Abbott government's ''anti-science, anti-environment agenda''.
For too long, people have been too nice, too forgiving, tolerant and willing to discuss when it is painfully obvious the other side isn’t interested in listening. Note Emma Alberici last night constantly pulling Timmy W. back to the point as he mentally meandered around his new little frolic (worth $330,000.00) or the lobbyists/ “Advisors” (of no legal standing) harrassing senior public servants to get what they need for their real clients.
Time to change game plan and play a bit of “Hard-Ball”.
If you don't stand up now then you will never know what you could have achieved if you had.

I didn't write this I collated it...  
Shane ... with shame