Parliament ended the year with a mixture of bang and whimper.

The whimper was the legislative “fight”. It says a fair bit about the way the government is travelling that the big political issue was the backpacker tax (important as it is for farmers, it is not one that should have caused such grief) and the passing of the Building and Construction Commission legislation. This has been so laughably altered from its original intent that the main issue for unions is ensuring the ABCC does adhere to the legislation – such as the requirement that the commissioner performs his or her functions “in an apolitical manner”. 

The bang was a protest that disrupted question time. 

There was, of course, a lot of hand-wringing over the protest – there always is when the left protests in Australia. After all, we had much the same response about disruption of democracy from the powers that be a couple years ago when students protested against Christopher Pyne during an episode of Q&A.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2016/dec/04/rus...

Malcolm Turnbull’s climate change record is the equivalent of an athlete running 7km instead of 42km and claiming to be the greatest marathon runner of all time. Not only is he taking shortcuts, he’s setting future generations up for a massive clean-up bill.

This is because Australia is banking its environmental and fiscal future on a climate change magic pudding.

In 2008, departmental projections estimated that we would have to cut cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases by 1,335 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2) between 2013 and 2020. This has been successively revised down to 236Mt. This makes the government’s task of cutting emissions so much easier.

According to the environment department, the projections have fallen because of lower electricity demand, the drought, lower manufacturing output due to factory closures and weaker than expected coal prices leading to lower production. In short, our underperforming economy has meant we’re producing fewer emissions than we expected.

readmore:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/05/we-cant-bank-our-f...

The saddest part in winning the Conman Award 2017 is that Malcolm himself, me, moi, I, has conned himself, me, moi, I to believe that he is worth two rabbit's farts.

Today in the SMH, there is a letter by a certain Elisabeth Goodsall of Wahroonga (a super rich suburb of Sydney — a better rich cith in rich Australia) who tells us the NDIS (national disability insurance scheme set up by Julia Gillard) is failing and is due to Julia Gillard and her Labor party... 

Well Ms Goodsall, the NDIS was planned by Julia but the implemetation was done by the rabid conservatives of which I believe you are a voice for. Before the election of the liar Tony Abbott, he promised all sorts of things including preserving the ABC budget and protecting the NDIS, education, etc. We all know what he did to everything with a stick up their bum, including the NDIS. If you want to blame someone for something not working like a Royal Charitable Enterprise, please blame Tony Abbott — even blame him for having had to be removed because he was so bad — and had to be replaced by Mr Conman Blancmange who does not know where's up and down, but is trying his best to con us like he conned himself.

The Government is backing away from its commitment to establish a banking tribunal, insisting it was only talking about a "small 't' tribunal" when it floated the idea in October.

Now a report has recommended the Government establish a new ombudsman to replace the two financial services ombudsmen that already exist.

In October Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said "what we are working towards is having one tribunal that deals with consumer complaints in a cost-effective and speedy way".

Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer told The World Today: "When the Prime Minister was talking about a 'tribunal' he was talking about a small 't' tribunal, which was a catchall for having a one-stop consumer complaints stop."

She explained the difference between a "big t" and "little t" tribunal.

"One is far more legalistic, which means it is probably less consumer friendly and that is a 'big t' tribunal," Ms O'Dwyer said.

"That makes it more difficult for consumers to engage, which is what the report has found."

Ms O'Dwyer denied a move toward establishing an ombudsman was inconsistent with Mr Turnbull's undertaking in October.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-06/government-backs-away-from-banking...

There used to be two of them... now there is only one... to do twice as much investigation...