Tony Abbott a Post Turtle?

Post Turtle

Our beloved Prime Minister a Post Turtle? Well that is what he has been called in response to the news this weekend that he had wanted to invade Irak a second time.

"While stitching a cut on the hand of a 75 year old farmer, whose hand was caught in the drafting gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to politicians and their role as our leaders. The old rancher said, "Well, as I see it, most politicians are Post Turtles”. Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was. The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle." The old farmer saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, he's elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ar*e put him up there to begin with." 
(This explanation is from the Facebook page of Michael Trant  , a longer version of that found in the Urban Dictionary.)

Gonski is a hero

There are heros in Australia as well as creeps (last post) and one of them is the businessman David Gonski. 

David Gonski is the gentleman who co-authored the 'Gonski Report' on education funding.  He says that he had thought when he began his research that the bureaucracies were responsible for education problems but when he met them he realised he had been wrong.

 Watch his video.

Gonski's report highlighted the big gap in funding between wealthy and poor schools in Australia and provided a path to recovery.  Julia Gillard was very keen to close the gap but Tony Abbott's 2014 budget will result in even greater disparities of wealth between schools.

Just plain 'yuck'!

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's minders must have had their job cut out making him look like a man you could trust.  After presenting a budget that punishes the poor, the young and the sick he is getting extra scrutiny and revealing his true colours. Australians are discovering he is much worse than they had ever imaged: a congenital liar, a sleaze and just plain yuck.

We hear that at uni he was a far-right misogynist thug who took pleasure in terrorising women.
"He was a very offensive, a particularly obnoxious sort of guy," said Barbie Schaffer, a Sydney teacher who was at Sydney University with Mr Abbott.

Abbott amused by grandmother's plight

Now a video has emerged showing he hasn't changed.   On a radio show a grandmother asks him how she was going to make ends meet after July when Abbott's budget cuts come in.

She said to pay the bills she works on a phone sex line, at which Abbott winks, smirks, giggles. Then he catches the eye of a minder and tries to look serious. He tells her he is getting rid of the carbon tax but she can keep the offset she received.

Can this be a Prime Minister? Not for long one hopes.

To quote the Sydney Morning Herald today:

• " The wink video is also not the first time the Coalition has been caught up in a "footage issue" in recent days. Last week, there was much controversy about whether Christopher Pyne said "grub" or something else in the House of Representatives chamber. And then again, when footage emerged of him apparently signalling Speaker Bronwyn Bishop to shut down applause for Bill Shorten's budget reply speech."

Australia Tea Party

Australia is still in shock after a budget driven by vindictiveness and a pro-coal agenda. No wonder headlines such as this are being seen in the newspapers (though not in the pro-Abbott/coal Murdoch papers).

You read a lot about sociopaths (people unable to empathise with other people) doing well in business. Obviously they have done well in the Liberal Party too and are transforming it into an Australian Tea Party.  Problem is, they kept their Tea Party aspirations secret before the election. No wonder there is a back lash. Even the business world is rattled.

Demonstrations in larger cities are planned for tomorrow:  March in May

Dames and Sirs in Australia

Living in Australia is becoming more and more surreal. One day the Attorney General says he is changing the racial vilification laws because it is okay to be a bigot in Australia and the next day Prime Minister Tony Abbott tells us he is bringing back Imperial Honours.

There's nothing like a Dame

I wonder if Abbott expected the mirth that has engulfed the twitter-sphere? He is being ridiculed as too clever by half. Some are saying our outgoing Governor General (was she too popular?) was made a Dame to put her in a bind because she came out as a republican and her son-in-law is Leader of the Opposition.

Current Government policy does all seem to be based on  pay back.  The racial vilification laws were changed because of the Andrew Bolt saga :

"Andrew Bolt was found to have committed an offence under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. ...  Bolt had not breached the Act because he had written critically about the question of racial identification. He had breached the Act because his articles were filled with “errors of fact, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language”. (From The Monthly)

Now the interweb is alight with suggestions of who might be a dame or a sir and many have already preempted the honours list and added the title to their twitter-verse names.