Joe is getting more and more like a rabid stupid Liberal (silly ningnonggy conservative) when he's a nice teddy bear who prays to an all-forgiving benevolent god... But the rabid ultra-rite commentaries of greasy-voiced spruikers on Radio Northshore must be going to his head:

When Hockey appeared on Lateline on Wednesday and said the opposition was considering axing the Department of Climate Change, it was no thought bubble. The idea had been accepted in principle at a meeting on Monday.

The climate change spokesman, Greg Hunt, was in the middle of a charity walk around his electorate, so the submission was put forward by Hunt's proxy, Simon Birmingham.

The idea is that axing the department and folding it back in with the Environment Department would save money and the Coalition's own direct-action policy could be administered by Treasury and Environment.

A friend of Hockey's said to expect more such announcements from the big fella, especially as the economy tightens. ''It's Joe's responsibility to find the savings,'' he said. ''It's his neck that's on the line here.''

This morning, a shock-jock nut at (Joe Hockey for PM) North Shore radio was at it again. It supposed to be a "community radio station" but this station seemed to be monopolised by rabid rite rude commentariators whose sense of information is porkied to the max in favor of the rite.

First, the greasy-voiced liar was telling how he got onto Tanya Pilbersek office and wanted to talk to her to which the office had told him to speak with her press secretary who he was PROMISED would ring him back... And he waited, waited and eventually went on a tirade about suing politicians who lie... Of course only mentioning LABOR politicians... because from his fool's golden mikebooth, no Liberal (conservative) would lie, would they?... Well, sue yourself! No mention of Abbott lying far more times than there are stars in the desert night skies... No. So the rabid shockjoker wanted to sue Swan for saying that "the carbon tax would help the economy" to which concept the rabid rite shock-jockdunnydoo — who sounded a bit like Andrew Bolt with a screw loose — obviously did not subscribe...

Do the sums mate!@%$*&

A carbon tax is designed to shift moneys from a carbon emitting industry towards more environmentally friendly energy sources, while compensating users... Okay if this alone does not give you a clue, the next concept is that should we do nothing to reduce our emission, the economy would degrade rapidly from being hit for six by bigger and more dangerous climatic events leading to more and more hand outs from government and an insurance industry in freefall and other catastrophes...

Okay, I suppose you're with the Abbott "global warming is crap" crowd of nuts... Open your ^%$#*@ eyes and listen to, even, a Turnbull who invites you to trust the science of global warming... The science is solid and apart from a few variation here and there, it indicates that we're heading for a 5 to 6 degrees C warmer clime and a 4 to 6 metres higher sea level by 2100 — SHOULD WE DO NOTHING TO REDUCE OUR EMISSIONS OF CO2... We need to reduce our CO2 emissions by 60 (possibly 80 and more at the rate we're going) per cent by 2050 to minimise this increase to 2 degrees C and only a 45 cm rise in sea level. Full stop. The carbon tax is designed to help disengage our reliance on EXTRA CARBON (fossil fuel) which at present is creating this global warming... In the end, the Australian economy will benefit from this foresight.

But as I guess too you're just a blubber mouth with the attention of a rabid rite gnat on radio who does not want to understand the science of global warming because it hurts your Liberal (conservative) attitude...

From Julie Bishop

...

This fiscal position provided the Rudd government with enormous capacity to respond to the global financial crisis. In the immediate aftermath of the crisis in 2008 the Rudd government announced a stimulus program valued at $10.4 billion.

The Coalition supported this step in late 2008, but not the second stimulus of $42 billion in 2009 as we believed that it was too large, that much of the funding was poorly targeted and that it would be too deep a descent into debt. We proposed an alternative and affordable spending program.

The waste and mismanagement of Labor's second stimulus package - with its $900 cash splashes, the disastrous home insulation program and the overpriced schools halls program - has been well documented.

The Federal Opposition has confirmed a report in which leaked party documents revealed it would cost the Coalition more than $38 billion to scrap the carbon and mining taxes.

The documents were obtained by Channel Seven and claim to show that the Coalition frontbench and senior advisers had been told of the figures in four separate meetings chaired by treasury spokesman Joe Hockey.

The Coalition's plan to dump the Government's carbon tax will cost $27 billion over four years, the documents say, while plans to wind back the Government's Minerals Resources Rent Tax would cost $11 billion.

The documents also revealed plans by the Coalition to fund $7 billion to $8 billion of personal tax cuts, while it would also have to find another $37 billion to pay for its promises from the last election.

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb says it is a case of simple arithmetic and that scrapping the carbon and mining taxes would mean that an amount of revenue was lost.

Mr Hockey was tight-lipped on the leaked documents, but Treasurer Wayne Swan was quick to seize on the revelations.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-11/ditching-carbon-tax-would-cost-2427b/2835546

Australians are proud of their economy and so they should be — it is one of the strongest in the advanced world.

We have very low levels of public debt (less than a tenth of the level across the major advanced economies) low unemployment (around half the level of the US), and a massive pipeline of investments, particularly in resources.

So as people around the world watch the latest economic upheavals in the US and Europe with some trepidation, in Australia we approach this period of uncertainty in a much stronger position than other nations in the world.

When the global financial crisis hit less than three years ago, we heeded the warnings from the international community that it would extremely hard for any economy to recover from a recession that was induced by this event, and we acted to avert a recession at home.

The actions that we took during the GFC, along with the hard work of the Australian people, have earned us a strong outlook, strong job growth and a strong fiscal position. It's meant that despite the fact that we've been hit hard by natural disasters, we today sit in one of the most enviable economic positions in the developed world.

These facts have not stopped acting opposition leader Warren Truss and shadow treasurer Joe Hockey, who in moments of frenzied hyperbole, have attempted to shoot us down by comparing Australia's economic position with the crisis in Greece.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/blogs/the-dreyfus-files/stop-campaigning-against-our-economy-20110811-1inz7.html#ixzz1UikqGtEb

This essay coming from Barrie Cassidy who so far I believed was doing the opposition devil's job... But here he presents what I understand he really thinks. Having rid his show from the master porkyist Andrew Bolt, he can tell it as it is. Thank you Barrie:

The front page of Thursday's Adelaide Advertiser seemed to neatly capture one interpretation of the riots in London. Above a picture of fires and carnage was the headline: Cry For Help.

But in fact the story was unrelated to Britain. It outlined how charities in South Australia are being "swamped by people in financial distress as rising cost of living expenses start to bite".

Apparently there is an increased demand for food parcels and financial counselling.

But whether that is true or not, Adelaide is hardly Brixton, whatever the perceptions.

What are the "rising cost of living expenses" assumed by the newspaper (and just about everybody else) apart from increasing power bills?

An analysis of living standards conducted by Australian National University and published in the Herald Sun showed almost everybody - including low-income earners - are better off than they were a year ago. That's because wages and social welfare payments have outstripped price rise, borne out by the simple equation that wages grew by 4 per cent in the past year, while inflation was closer to 3 per cent.

But almost nobody accepts that. Most people believe that cost of living pressures are real and getting worse.

That perception is fanned by most of the tabloid media coverage and the self-serving shock jocks on commercial radio. It is so easy to get a rise from people - and win their support - by telling them they're doing it tough.

Opposition parties of all persuasions do the same thing.

Cheap populism takes many forms.

read more at : http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-12/cassidy-cheap-populism-and-the-doing-it-tough-con/2835438

"I don't think that Commonwealth services are consummately better now than they were in 2007," he said.

"So given that there are 20,000 more public servants now than there were in 2007, we think that through a process of natural attrition, we can reduce that number by 12,000."

Finance Minister Penny Wong says Mr Hockey needs to explain to Australians why their services would be cut under a Coalition government.

"Equally he should explain why is it that he just wants to unilaterally shut down government departments because they repudiate his economic thought bubbles," she said.

"That is clearly his agenda behind wanting to close the Department of Climate Change.

"He doesn't like the fact that that department, along with Treasury, says that his policy won't work and will cost Australian taxpayers more."

Senator Wong says Mr Hockey is not up to the job of being treasurer.

"He appears to be very good at creating budget black holes. We know that he started this electoral term with an $11 billion black hole, and all he has done is add to it," she said.

Greens leader Bob Brown has joined the call for the Coalition to explain where the savings would come from if it took government.

"Seventy billion - that's hospitals closed, hospital wards closed, that's schools being shut, that's cutbacks in Defence, and we know already it's the closure of the Department of Climate Change," he said.

Senator Brown says the Opposition Leader has lost economic credibility.

"Would not Tony Abbott's ascent to government in these circumstances put Australia into recession?" he said.

"Don't say that lightly. But we're looking at real figures here coming from the Opposition itself. What will be the impact on the nearly one million small businesses?"

Senator Wong says global financial uncertainty has made things harder for the Government.

"We've been upfront that while the Australian economy has a lot of underlying strengths, our fundamentals are sound. Obviously the international situation does make it harder," she said.

"Our budget has us returning to surplus in 2012-13. We are simply saying the international situation makes it harder but our plan remains to return to surplus as we've outlined."

Meanwhile, the Community and Public Sector Union's Nadine Flood says it is offensive for Mr Abbot to suggest cutting thousands of public sector jobs will not affect the quality of services.

"The Coalition is strident in their calls for no jobs to be lost due to a carbon tax but is quite happy to threaten thousands of public servants with the axe just to score a cheap political point," she said.

"If someone suggested slashing 1,000 jobs in Joe Hockey's electorate he'd be up in arms, but apparently if they're public sector jobs they don't count."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-12/abbott27s-razor-gang-makes-no-apologies/2836876

[T]he Liberal Party is struggling to bring in sufficient funds and donations, its federal president has admitted, casting doubts over its ability to fight a snap election.

Alan Stockdale used his speech at the West Australian Liberal Party conference to appeal for donations.

"The time to act is now, business we need your support, you need us in government and you are minimising the chances of [us] winning government if you don't provide the financial support we need to give our leadership the best chance of being elected," he said.

With a hung parliament and Labor having to govern with the support of the Greens and independents, Mr Stockdale says illness, death, or a revolt by Labor backbenchers could trigger an election at any moment.

"We do not have the resources we need right now," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-13/cash-strapped-liberal-party-appeals-for-donations/2838056

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Do I smell a trap here — a tempting trap "for Labor to exploit"... Can't find enough money to fight its way out of a paperbag?... Well, I'm sure that at the drop of a hat, humpteen rich miners and coal companies exec would plug the Libs hole in a jiffy... Though one could say if the Liberals (conservatives) are as good as they are managing their affairs, it ain't smelling good should they run the country...

Labor with some idiosyncracies is doing a good job despite Tonicchio, now parading as a loopy windmill on a stormy day, rather than being a foolish Don Quixote... One thing for sure he's consitent in his stupidity.

It is quite extraordinary that Joe Humpty Hockey and Tonicchio Abbott show a viciously populist misunderstanding of international financial matters. Total and utter ignorance — with a nasty bark like mutts that have not been fed for three days. In short, these two mongrels are attacking the government for giving money away "to rescue the Euro and Greece"... This is an amazing twisting of the fact that Australia — as it has done for the past 60 years (including during Rattus' misery-guts decade) — is lending money to the IMF regularly which the IMF repay in full with interest. The IMF does what it decides it should do with the dosh and at no time is the money exclusively earmarked for such and such project since it goes in the banking pool for many projects in which the IMF is involved. The IMF has an obligation to repay the loans as it has done ever since the IMF has been created.

Tonicchio and Humpty Joe should be thrown out of parliament for being such idiots...

As well, most of the media is spending far too much time on the Gillard/Rudd non-event and not enough on pointing out the idiocies — financial and otherwise — of the opposition led by ignorant and malicious idiots.

see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-03/imf-bailout-xenophobia/3625822

from Annabel Crabb

What's going on here?

As Leigh Sales courteously pointed out to Mr Hockey on Tuesday night, the Coalition is now asking the Government to intervene with the banks, to intervene in major industrial disputes, and is moreover opting for the most directly interventionist carbon abatement strategy with its direct action plan.

"There seems to be mounting evidence that the Coalition is abandoning its long-held belief in the free market," she said.

There is a legitimate argument to be had about industrial relations; it's just that we're not having it, because the Coalition has borrowed the ALP's policy.

Just as there's a legitimate argument to be had about the management of asylum seekers, which we're not having because the Government has borrowed the Coalition's border protection policy.

If only they could agree on a hostage swap.

Things might start to make more sense.

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Me think that this confusing state of affair at this level of "it-does-not-matter", suits Tonnicchio.. Because in the end, despite the government's good work in many areas, if an argument develops due to the opposition's rancid position about anything, most people, especially the Murdoch press, is eager to blame the government...