mr no goes to work...

screwer in chief

Realpolitik is less about policy than it is about messages, and sometimes messages are best delivered visually.

That's why politicians stage media stunts like visiting small businesses in the outlying industrial suburbs of Canberra, and, yes, Tony Abbott, I'm looking at you.

For months now the Opposition Leader has sought to lead the daily agenda, and get his face on the nightly news, by dragging gaggles of shivering (and sometimes even whimpering) journalists to fishmongers, glass pane purveyors, you name it, in order to emphasise the evil, world-as-we-know-it-slaughtering nature of the government's imminent carbon tax.

By Gus Leonisky at 17 Jun 2011 - 5:57pm
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abbott the denialist

The AWU's WA branch secretary Stephen Price hit out at Abbott, saying he would not let the opposition leader "drag him into a public debate" with other AWU leaders.

"It's clearly a deliberate path that they're taking to go out to our workplaces and try to rev the troops up with a bit of fearmongering to be honest," Price told AAP.

He said the WA branch's position was consistent with that of the national AWU.

National secretary Paul Howes announced last week the union's support for the carbon tax would be withdrawn if one job was lost.

While Abbott highlighted the impact on Austal, the world's leading designer and manufacturer of high-speed aluminium vessels, the company's chief financial officer Richard Simons said he could not say whether jobs would be lost.

"We don't have the detail of the tax to be able to comment on what the actual precise impact would be," Simons said.

http://www.industrysearch.com.au/News/WA-union-leader-tells-Abbott-to-back-off-over-carbon-tax-50979

Gus: of course far more jobs will be created at Austal should global warming kick in fast and furious.... We'll need more boats to stay above water... Get it?... Abbott doesn't get it...

By Gus Leonisky at 17 Jun 2011 - 6:05pm
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don't be so modest, tony...

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the Labor Party's unpopular policies are to blame for its dramatic slump in the polls.

Popular support for the Federal Government has fallen to its lowest level in 39 years, with a new Nielsen poll putting approval for Labor at only 27 per cent.

Nearly a year since Julia Gillard took over as Prime Minister, her personal approval rating has collapsed and the poll shows 60 per cent of Australians would rather former leader Kevin Rudd was in the Lodge.

But Mr Abbott says Labor's leadership is not to blame for its unpopularity.

"The problem is the Labor Party's policies. That's the problem," he said.

"If the Prime Minister wasn't trying to hit Australians' cost of living with this big new tax of everything, if the Prime Minister hadn't completely lost control of our borders, I think that the Prime Minister's position would be much stronger.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/18/3247266.htm

Well, well well...Tony, Tony, Tony... The slump in the Labor Party polls is actually mostly due to your rabid and — I will concede well calculated — antics designed to make sure nothing appears to stick and that you would do a better job. We all know all you would do would be screw everyone except your rich friends, make a mess of the place and claim it smells of roses... How can this be possible?... Well, the Labor Party has a few too many holier-than-thou members who have a lousy understanding of applied pragmatism, sure, but most of the flack Labor gets is your relentless silly attacks that are picked up, by a too willing ratbag ritewing media, as gospel. The farmers have a drought? Blame Labor for building dams upstream... The farmers have floods, blame Labor for not building dams upstream... and so on and on and on...

Julia has to implement a few unpopular policies but necessary policies. And she will do it, no matter what, getting flak from all over the place — from the Greens compaining the policies are not going far enough, to the Liberals (conservatives) who complain like you, Tony, the policies are going to far... A few to many in the Labor party have different views but no practical solutions. The media is not willing to properly study the long term dynamics of these policies and only aim to rattle the short attention span and emotions of the riff-raff with porkies and repeat of silly mantras.

Tony, you are the screwer-in-chief and brilliant at the bullshit. In the long run, should you succeed, Australia will be far far poorer for it... But my guess is, come July one, you willl be on your arse...

By Gus Leonisky at 18 Jun 2011 - 11:33am
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stunts of the screwer-in-chief...

Not a day goes by without another stagey media gimmick from the Leader of the Opposition.

Goodness me, there he is, jaw-boning solemnly with the President of Nauru. Gosh, now he's shovelling sand into a concrete mixer. Whoops, look, he's got an apron on, poking a pizza into an oven. Yes, he's ironing a shirt! And, gee, is that him over there demanding a plebiscite on the carbon tax? Sorry Mr Abbott, missed that; do it again for us, please, would ya?

Queanbeyan, conveniently close to Canberra, provides the most common backdrop for the display of Tony's talent to amuse. There cannot be a shop, office, school or factory there he hasn't visited in this unending quest to get himself into your lounge room.

The sorry thing is that television news editors go along with this nonsense. It's not news, not in a blue fit. It's stunt after stunt after stunt, choreographed by back office gnomes who know exactly how and what to feed the voracious maw of the so-called news cycle.

The plebiscite was as shonky a piece of political conjuring as you are likely to see. So dodgy, in fact, that even silly Steve Fielding, the retiring Family First senator, wouldn't have a bar of it. And it collapsed beyond absurdity when Abbott was forced to admit he wouldn't be bound by the vote if, somehow, it went against him. At a cost of just $80 million, too.

But, as he reportedly told Tony Windsor when a hung Parliament was in the balance a year ago, he would do anything to become prime minister.

And say anything. Last month, you might remember, Abbott was all shouty about the government waging "class war" on the "forgotten families of Australia". Budget cuts to family tax benefits on people earning more than $150,000 a year were "the politics of envy". On Wednesday, the opposition waved the cuts through the House of Representatives with barely a peep. And not a word from the stuntman himself.

By Gus Leonisky at 25 Jun 2011 - 9:01am
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mr no goes to work...

abbott the denialist

don't be so modest, tony...

stunts of the screwer-in-chief...

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