Friday 29th of March 2024

lying with conviction...

lying with conviction...

 


getting rid of the source of the symptoms...

source

Scott Morrison has pulled back in front of Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister, and Morrison has recorded a slight improvement in his approval rating as the coronavirus has dominated the headlines, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

As the government moves to finalise its stimulus package, the latest survey finds Morrison is preferred as prime minister by 40% of the sample and Albanese by 35% – a five-point rebound.

The prime minister lost his lead on the head-to-head preferred prime minister measure in January during the sharp voter backlash over the catastrophic summer bushfires, and the slump was sustained. Last month Morrison and Albanese were level pegging on 36%.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/11/essential-poll-sc...

 

 

What can you expect in this lovely fair country mostly populated by the descendants of convicts, Irish Catholics, pickpocketeers, goldfish with three-seconds attention span, wombats, wogs and queue jumping refugees? We all want a fair go at doing our part of this Scomo government's glorious surplus — even if we can't survive on Newstart...

the sport of scomororts...

Scott Morrison has sidestepped a question about whether changes to a spreadsheet of sports grants on 10 and 11 April last year – including a change sought by his own office – were made with proper legal authority.

The former sports minister Bridget McKenzie reignited the sports rorts controversy late last week by insisting she made no changes to the brief and attachments outlining successful projects funded under the sports grants scheme after 4 April 2019.

The Australian National Audit Office told Senate estimates last week the prime minister’s office had requested a last-minute change before the documents were sent to Sports Australia at 8.46am on 11 April, which was the day parliament was prorogued for the 2019 election.

But another set of changes were made later that day, and the material was resent to Sport Australia at 12.35pm and 12.43pm.

“For example, when I referred to one project coming out and one project coming in, in terms of the 8.46am version, that was at the request of the prime minister’s office,” Brian Boyd, the ANAO’s performance audit services group executive director, told Senate estimates last Monday night.

“But of the changes made later that day, for the 12.43pm version, none were evident as being at the request of the prime minister’s office rather than the minister’s office making the changes.”

In her statement issued last Thursday night after parliament rose, McKenzie suggested that any changes made to the material after 4 April were done without her knowledge.

But she accepted ultimate responsibility for the decisions. “I was the minister for sport and therefore ultimately and entirely responsible for funding decisions that were signed off under my name, including and regrettably, any changes that were made unbeknown to me.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/11/sports-rorts-scot...

 

 

Read from top.

the more he believes, the less we believe him...

It is getting harder by the week to believe a word uttered by the prime minister of Australia. And no one has done more to undermine Scott Morrison’s credibility than the man himself. This harsh judgement is shared not only by his political opponents in the Labor Party but also by all but one of the six crossbenchers in the house of representatives.

Had Morrison not “miraculously” managed to secure a bare majority of one on the floor of the house, he would have – to quote Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s attempted censure of him – “[been found to have] repeatedly and deliberately misled the parliament and the Australian people about the corrupt sports rorts scheme”.

Queensland maverick Bob Katter, as is often the case, wasn’t in the chamber for the vote. But the three centre-right crossbenchers, Zali Steggall, Helen Haines and Rebekha Sharkie, who all hold traditionally non-Labor seats, voted with the opposition. They found the prime minister’s obfuscation and his refusal to answer questions unconvincing. And Morrison’s dig at Labor, where he claimed his government “is going to focus on the issues that seriously matter to the Australian people”, also failed to impress the triumvirate. Morrison nominated the coronavirus, the bushfire crisis and the drought as evidence of his commitment to serious issues. But even here he has failed to recognise that his claimed focus has attracted wide criticism for being inadequate.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2020/03/07/scott-morri...