This is almost too funny.
Open Thread – Weekend 25 Nov 2023
- Hydrocarbons are not dispensable
- Open Thread – Weekend 7 Sept 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 5 Sept 2024
- Report on Russia and Ukraine
- Open Thread – Mon 2 Sept 2024
All Bruce wanted to do was enjoy a little snow time and get his end wet. It is a tragedy.
A gift, most likely, to be returned unopened … duuuuh!
Tongue. Eeeew
A journey in numbers FOUR months away… TWENTY-THREE countries: Mauritius, South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde, Las Palmas, Greece, Tunisia, Malta,…
Podium! Hello from off the coast of Thailand, where it’s only 830pm, thus allowing me to get the drop on sleeping Cats.
Awake,not awoke.
Numéro deux. Greetings from WA, “The Police State” as our numberplates tell us.
Good morning from Melbourne the capital of the “broke” state.
Thank you Dan!
Back home at Casa Pedro after a few weeks of dragging a chaser bin around after a header being operated by a deranged maniac determined to break the land speed record in a wheat paddock.
Sat in the seat of the header for a couple of hours then chucked it in. To quote Clint, “A man’s got to know his limitations”.
Headers are white man’s magic.
Anyway, nice to catch up with the Cat commentary again, and best wishes to those going through tough times lately.
Lucky number 5!
Hmmm. Was thinking of going to see Napoleon on the big screen, but the reviews – and yes shatterzzz thanks – are not looking good:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/napoleon_2023/reviews?intcmp=rt-what-to-know_read-critics-reviews
se7en
Plucked from Old Fred, frozen, buried in a time capsule, dug up, and reanimated:
Why do you think there’s been so many bushfires lately.
(goes googly eyed)
It’s cuz THEY are burning all the trees to make sure there isn’t enough wood to make all the pikes we’re gonna need!
It’s allllll connected, maaaannn.
JUST IN: An initial group of 13 hostages have been released, the Israeli prime minister’s office says, as a truce between Israel and Hamas — the first in weeks of fighting — appears to be holding.
Separately, 12 Thai nationals who were held by Hamas have also been released, Thailand’s prime minister said Friday.
timed of Israel live blog
Hamas Breaks Ceasefire with Israel 15 Minutes After It Started
Zatara
Nov 25, 2023 3:03 AM
If true, I wouldn’t be surprised, it’s their nature.
Haha. Johannes Leak.
Mark Knight.
David Pope.
Christian Adams.
Michael Ramirez.
Chip Bok.
Henry Payne.
Thanks, Tom!
Colonel Crispin Berka
Nov 25, 2023 2:13 AM
Of the Austin variety?
He’s such a leftist prick. And dumb too.
Iowahawk tweets about turkeys overnight.
Many lols.
Funny as. I just got followed by Musk on X.
Musk posted/recognized a tweet by Non-Zero Hedge saying that X has more traffic than Facebook and Instagram combined.
I suggested;
Approx 30 seconds later I’m told Musk is following me.
Lord, I hope he takes my advice. He should also issue a warming that anyone who leaves for political reasons will no longer be allowed to advertise on the platform again. Lesson leaning experience and makes them think twice.
Gerard Henderson in today’s Paywallion on the ABCcess:
gerard hendersonConsidered people of left call out ABC’s hostility to Israel
GERARD HENDERSON
25 Nov 2023
On Thursday, the ABC celebrated the 100th anniversary of its inaugural radio broadcast on what is now called ABC Sydney 702. The previous evening, Jess Malcolm reported in The Australian that some 5000 ABC audience members have signed an open letter to the public broadcaster’s leadership and editorial team expressing “grave concern” about “the ABC’s portrayal of the Israeli-Hamas conflict”.
What’s of special interest in the ABC letter turns on the fact that one of the signatories is Ramona Koval. Currently an honorary fellow at Deakin University in Victoria, Koval is well known to ABC listeners for her role in presenting The Book Show on Radio National, The Ramona Koval Program on Radio 774 in Melbourne and more besides. Also, she was the ABC staff elected director on the ABC board from 2002 to 2006.
It is normal to hear political conservatives criticise the ABC being a conservative-free zone. But Koval does not belong in this camp and it is fair to portray her as a considered person of the left. Put simply, Koval and her thousands of supporters believe the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster has not been balanced in its reporting of the Israel-Gaza war, which commenced on October 7 when Hamas broke a ceasefire and invaded southern Israel.
Israel retaliated shortly after with the aim of defeating the Hamas dictatorship that has ruled Gaza since 2007. In sections of the Western media, Israel’s retaliation in what is a just war has been publicly opposed by not only Arabs who support the Palestinian cause but by many Muslims and the green left.
In Australia, this has led to the worst-ever examples of blatant anti-Semitism, as I documented in my column last week.
As Michael Gawenda, a long-time member of the Australian left and a former editor of The Age newspaper, pointed out in his address to The Sydney Institute last Monday, the leading media outlets in Australia have been broadly hostile to Israel. He named The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and, yes, the ABC.
Gawenda told his audience: “I am an Australian Jew. I am a lifelong Australian social democrat. I edited a left-liberal newspaper for seven years. But let me tell you this. Every morning I read The Australian and nowadays I thank goodness for it.”
Koval told The Weekend Australian the ABC is “very slow” to make corrections. She added that it “jumped immediately” on the allegation that the al-Ahli Arab Hospital had been bombed by Israel, which “turned out to be an own goal by Palestinian Jihad”. Koval also commented that the public broadcaster exhibits a reluctance to believe information from the Israel Defence Forces but shows “no reluctance to broadcast Hamas claims”.
And then there is the recent meeting of more than 200 ABC journalists who objected to its coverage of the war. The majority of the staff collective that is the ABC expressed the view that the public broadcaster was not sufficiently critical of Israel. Koval urged ABC reporters to decide whether they want to be journalists or activists.
Gawenda also said he found this meeting disturbing in that journalists demanded “the ABC change the language” used to describe what is happening in Gaza. The attempt was to get all ABC journalists to use such charged words as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” as criticism of Israel.
Gawenda was surprised that ABC executives said at the meeting they would have another look at the guidelines. His position was that David Anderson, the ABC’s managing director and editor-in-chief, should have said that no such guidance as to word usage was going to be mandated and that journalists should stick to their basic job of reporting. In the event, the request was rejected. Gawenda’s point was that this should have been done on the spot.
ABC management is wont to go into denial with respect to criticism. It says, for example, that the public broadcaster is attacked by both Coalition and Labor governments – but fails to acknowledge that ABC journalists tend to criticise both governments from the left. However, when the likes of Koval and Gawenda are critical of the public broadcaster’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, responsible management would be well advised to look at what they have to say.
And then there is the case of Josh Szeps, who announced on Wednesday he would be stepping down as presenter of his successful ABC Radio 702 Afternoons program.
Like Koval and Gawenda, Szeps is no political conservative. He has described himself as follows: “I’m a misfit. I’m a child of refugees but I’m a white Australian. I’m a gay guy but I hate Mardi Gras. I have Holocaust survivor grandparents but I’m conflicted about Zionism. I’m an ABC presenter but I don’t like kale.”
Apart from his current ABC contract, Szeps is a semi-regular guest on The Fifth Column podcast in the US, hosted by Michael Moynihan and others, which has a libertarian inclination. Szeps also has his own podcast, Uncomfortable Conversations, which is crowdfunded through the Substack website.
As mentioned in my Media Watch Dog blog on October 7, Szeps told Moynihan recently that an unnamed ABC journalist had complained to ABC management about his use of incorrect language. His resignation followed not long after.
On Wednesday, Szeps said he loved the ABC, but added that he was “too spicy” for the public broadcaster and “having truly national bullshit-free conversations about controversial issues is too risky these days”. He declared he does not “want to be at a Christmas lunch where everyone talks in ways that are designed to reassure everyone else that they are on the correct side of worthy issues”.
And that is the essential problem. The ABC was established by Joseph Lyons’s conservative government to report news and not advance causes. Over time, many conservatives have come to recognise it is not complying with its charter. And now the criticism has been embraced by members of the left.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.
GERARD HENDERSON
COLUMNIST
timed of Israel live blogsee that Hanna Katzir was released after the liars said she had died. Where are all the children?
Vikki Campion on the government priority after the referendum defeat:
Forget Albo, for he knoweth not what time of day it is because of his supreme idiocy.
Bowen is the most destructive parasite in office right now.
Lots of reports that military aged men have tried to flood north to rejoin hamas.
Idf wasn’t having any, warning shots and tear gas.
Naturally reported at just innocent civilians just wanting to check their homes.
Also a story about an elderly woman and her intellectually disabled daughter being abandoned in the north, found and looked after by idf.
That’s more like it Vikki.
Talking to a couple of Norwegians in the breakfast room a couple of days ago – they were complaining about the huge cost of living spike there.
My only comment – Australia is the same. Resource rich, not “allowed” to use its resources to enhance its population’s lives, utterly compromised and hypocritical over the climate scam.
She looked at me as if I was mad. He grinned over her shoulder and winked. The same pattern everywhere – women fearful of the Dreadful Heat (even when it’s minus 8 outside and a bit of warmth wouldn’t go astray), men going along to get along.
It’s ridiculous.
Today in No Evidence of Election Fraud, this from Georgia 2020:
“ At least three individuals involved in a recount that occurred in the state after the election identified 148,000 ballots that appeared to have been created by a machine and to be fraudulent. Fulton county and state are still preventing access to these ballots even though the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs have the right to audit these ballots.
In addition, a separate audit of voting machines was initiated after the 2020 Election which was finally released years later which showed that the systems used in Georgia had security issues and bad actors could hack into them and change the results of an election.”
Rosie, thanks for all your hard work bringing the Israel stories to the blog.
I thought they’d promised to release 50 hostages. So far, not that many.
Which poses the inevitable and horrible question – are there any left alive to swap?
a little Israeli propaganda
released Palestinian child
Peter Tatchell is not Owen Jonesing.
True to form, the BBC is celebrating the release of “Palestinians” who were held in Israeli jails due to having been found to be criminals.
The Beeb is keen to stress the equivalence of hostages and criminals. They are “all human beings” and all have families who will be overjoyed to see them again.
Never mind that taking hostages is quite clearly a major offence, while jailing criminals is normally regarded as fair and reasonable.
another terrorist booster Gigi Hadid.
Well done and well said Vicki.
Dunno why the conservatives dont shitcan ‘net zero,’ subsidies to the ‘grifter renewable leeches’ and mitigate the lawfare used against oil, coal and gas.
The retards that will protest never vote conservative.
Rosie,
the ugly old bat in your Israeli propaganda link looks like our own Green Farooki.
I hope the child is recovering well in the arms of her family.
Also, many thanks for your herculean work sifting through the cesspit of the internet to bring us the links.
Are you serious JC?
Kudos.
Gigi Hadid has a good rig, but I always thought she was weird looking.
Her sister Bella, was stunning, but then butchered her face with surgery.
Combined IQ of 100.
Their parents or grandparents were cousins, keeping up with the traditions of their culture.
Pogs, the “ugly old bat” is missing all of her fingers and part of her face. What happens when you’re dumb as pig sh*t and try to set off a car bomb.
No doubt she can thank Israeli doctors for her facial reconstruction and probably her miserable life as well.
I’m impressed with these precocious bearded “children”. Have the Israelis been feeding them hormones? /sarc
This is from Vikki Campion’s piece, I have been saying the same for yonks. Subsidies only make sense in the initial stage of development and is more of an investment on which returns are expected when the invention becomes profitable. If the invention is not profitable decades down the track and needs more and more subsidies then it has become a vehicle for corruption. Everyone knows it’s not working as advertised but performing wonderfully in transferring money from taxpayers to preferred recipients.
Very cool.
Unlike the chap who’s sub got turned into a pancake.
A hedge fund exec is funding hunts for treasures in shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean
https://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-fund-exec-funding-hunts-treasure-shipwrecks-ocean-marshall-wace-2023-11?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Bowen is the most destructive parasite in office right now.
Yes you’re probably right but there’s some strong competition- ‘Dr’ Chalmers, the O’Neil abomination, the old Scotch boy who’s minister for immigration, Blubbersack with her assault on salmon farmers etc etc
I have read about Gigi’s sympathies even before the October 7 attacks and have made a decision never to buy anything she advertised.
A bit of education for the brain dead schoolies who lap up lies of Palestinians. Next Thursday 30 November is the day to commemorate the expulsion of Jews from Muslim lands. More Jewish refugees were accepted in Israel and from further afield than the number of Arabs internally displaced close by and still within their Syrian province.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_to_Mark_the_Departure_and_Expulsion_of_Jews_from_the_Arab_Countries_and_Iran
.
After a couple of thousand years of residence, beginning centuries before any Muslims ever existed, Jews were ethnic cleansed from Muslim lands because the Muslim armies disgraced themselves in their failed genocidal slaughter of the re-established Jewish state.
Very reminiscent of the Whitlam government from 1972-75, hopefully just as short lived.
Lord I hope so Crossie- it’s a full on attack on our economy and society. Evil people.
Over four days. Don’t know if the extra Thai workers are included in the 50.
The one with the missing fingers said she was just carrying gas canisters and it was an accident.
Naturally her health issues are caused by a lack of proper medical care in Israel.
They all appear to be full on terrorists, mostly from the west bank.
We’ll see how they go.
The Thai workers are a separate apparently no strings attached deal.
Hamas promised children, only four this time, hopefully they will release some tomorrow though they claim not to know where 10 of them are.
It’s all sickening.
It is possible that additional hostages will be released after the four days, in groups of ten, if the ceasefire holds.
A lot of people may have felt uncomfortable having Disney advertising appearing on their Xwitter feeds.
It ain’t your grandparents’ – or parents’ – Disney anymore.
another alleged hijab grabbee.
No there is footage of her trying to stab someone.
Back home on break from the NT. Getting stormy oop thar. Trusting all Cats are doing well in the Socialist Republic of Australistan.
Morning all. Forte has just kicked in, day surgery yesterday. At least I can have a beer tonight. 2 weeks light duties so no work for me, good as the drilling season is pretty well much at an end anyway.
Cool moist morning but not enough to break the dry. Frustrating as 150km inland west are getting a lot of storm activity that evaporates by the coast. Bons mentioned how dry north eastern Queensland was the other day and he’s not wrong.
I’ll take what I can get with the rain but there is a very monsoonal pattern attempting to build across North WA, top end & NQ which is strange with the MJO being over Africa atm and Rosby wave not impacting Qld. It is a tad early though for an el Nino year though. SST temps north of St Lawrence are now enough to form or sustain Tropical Cyclones.
Still think this season won’t be an atypical el Nino wet season though.
“men going along to get along “. Not this man.
… they’re building new city underground for us proles.
Amidst this shit fight and the horrors, the IDF shows it’s real metal. These stories have to get out. Great to hear of this rosie , thanks. You would expect nothing less from the moslem animals though.
and another one. Attacking border police is a legitimate act of war and Israel should take no action against them, insurmountable terrorist logic.
Amazing that our intelligence agencies think freedom loving grandmas are a terrorist threat, meanwhile we literally have a full blown Nazi Party – the Greens – wielding inordinate political power.
If the Greens can’t bring themselves to admit solidarity with Western values (and let’s face it, they can’t) then how can they be in parliament?
Of course the gutless Libs treat them with kid gloves. Everyday they should attack Bandt and his rape and terror loving Nazis for being the rape and terror loving Nazis that they are. Instead they pat them on their heads and try and reason with them.
Four days of hostage release. After day two Hamas will probably delay the third day of teasing Israel. If they do, Israel should say the deal’s off and slam into them again.
No surprises
Consanguinity and reproductive wastage in the Palestinian Territories
Rockdoctor @7:37
The massive volcanic eruption near Tonga in 2022 is still having an effect on weather in the southern hemisphere.
In the Palestinian territories.
link
Calli,
I had noticed the burn scars and the finger stubs. I still believe if you add a pair of specs, you have Farooki. The evil disfiguring on the inside of that hag shows on the outside.
Everywhere the Greens show their evil visage, people shouldn’t bother with counter-protests, they should simply carry placards with “Baby Butchers”, printed on them. As the Greens are at the forefront of full and post term abortions, it is not surprising they have absolutely not a skerrick of sympathy for butchered Jewish babies. As far as the Greens are concerned, it is a bonus.
Weak men.
Vicki Campion via BB.
More like ” …pro wind, pro solar head gobblers…”
I thought they’d promised to release 50 hostages. So far, not that many.
The deal is for the entire release(s) to be phased over 4 days .. thus giving HAMAS time to regroup/re-arm/whatever …..
Can’t believe that the Israelis agreed to NO arial surveillance as part of it …
Spend a month winning then give far too much back .. sure, folk will be returned but why give away so much when your winning …..
Personally, I’d of dun a Putin/Xi type “deal” .. FREE ’em ALL or 100 prisoners a day starting with women & kids executed until ……! ..
but that’s me .. far too sweet and good natured to run a war …….!
It would be nice to have trusted scientists analysing the climate on our behalf. Instead we have a cabal of lazy, incompetent public servants at BOM charging us nearly half a billion dollars a year to play politics with the weather.
This delivered a piece of paper that said “peace in our time!”
Also never underestimate what men will put up with, if there is a possibility of a root.
those ancients knew a thing or two …
Winged phallus wind chime found at Viminacium
Matrix,
I love the comment beneath that article, “To whom the Ball Tells”. Lol.
Like mass production:
Earliest systematic weapons production dating back 7,000 years found in Israel (22 Nov)
And aerodynamics!
Freed hostages who were taken to Hatzerim base arrive at hospitals for family reunions
By Jacob Magid
The 22 freed hostages who were first taken for checks at the Hatzerim airbase upon returning to Israel have been airlifted to several different hospitals around the country where they have arrived and are being reunited privately with their families.
The 11 freed hostages from Thailand and the Philippines have arrived at Shamir (Assaf Harofeh) Medical Center in Be’er Yaakov for evaluation by medical staff.
Danielle Aloni, Emilia Aloni, Doron Asher, Raz Asher, Aviv Asher, Keren Munder, Ruti Munder and Ohad Munder have
arrived at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva.
Two other freed hostages were taken directly to hospitals upon returning to Israel.
Other hostages have arrived at the Ichilov, Sheba and Beilinson Hospitals.
Over four days. Don’t know if the extra Thai workers are included in the 50.
No, the Thais are separate deal ironed out between Thailand & Iran, apparently ..
Rumour has it that Thailand said Thai hostage release or no more rub ‘n tug for mussos visiting Thailand ………..
From MT’s link
Want to keep purple haired feminism from your house? Just hang one of these at the door.
ha, I missed the comment!
thought the link was appropriate for the whole ‘men going along to get along” thing
sort of like … and this is what happens to men who don’t “go along”
you’ll need one in each outer opening
including the chimney
Tintinnabula
I like the way int sounds
wiki – Onomatopoeia is the use or creation of a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia
“Want to keep purple haired feminism from your house? Just hang one of these at the door.
132 and Bush,
I reckon the purpled haired will steal the Tintinnabula. You would have to buy a gross of them just to keep up with the demand. 😀
Nah, hang a cross and watch them shrink back in horror.
Indeed Siltstone, we had some of the 10 cubic km of ash over NQ. It also put an estimated 146 megatons of water into the Troposphere & Stratosphere. Seems to be seems to be sudden swings between a typical el Nino and a normal season build up already this year. Be interesting to see how it affects the normal tropical summer activity and steering wind flows this year.
While I’m here shout out to Mater Townsville, clean, efficient and the nurses were good. Last public hospital I was in had dirt and cobwebs everywhere, that was Victoria.
Tom
Nov 25, 2023 8:17 AM
Still think this season won’t be an atypical el Nino wet season though.
It would be nice to have trusted scientists analysing the climate on our behalf. Instead we have a cabal of lazy, incompetent public servants at BOM charging us nearly half a billion dollars a year to play politics with the weather.
Tom,
I don’t think any Federal, State/Territory, Local Government sttaff are ever at work – all are “Work from Home”
After my Friday last week being refused at 4pm to be put through to the North Sydney Council Planning Dept to ask a simple question
Youngest Daughter was at Warringah NSW Service Office for Car Ownership change
at 1100
Last time I was there before Covid, there were approx 21 service points all staffed –
Yesterday – still 21 Service Points, but only 4 manned – with minor problems took 2 1/2 hours to complete
I wake up to read that 24 hostages have been released, which means that there are still over 190 Jewish men, women and children STILL being held in Gaza by the Nazis. I suspect Hamas does not know where all the hostages are.
Anyway it is good news, I’ll take what I can get. If I focus too much on the hostages and the events of 7 October 2023 I get very, very upset. I suppose we should be grateful.
Now back to Australia, where double standards and verminous hypocrisy reign supreme, aided and abetted over the years by spineless and very craven Liberals and Nationals. Yesterday, that skank, that slag, that grub, that despicable Jew hater, a woman born in Pakistan, a woman who hates this country, a woman who, as Pauline Hanson quite rightly said, should piss off back to the goat f*cking paradise called Pakistan, was pictured at yesterday’s “school strike for Jew haters” in Sydney in front of a sign with the words “keep the world clean” and underneath was drawn an image of a Star of David in a rubbish bin. Well, well, well, Goebbels would have liked that image. And that stinkingly offensive image was proudly held aloft by a teenage girl. Gosh, her parents must be so proud, her school must be so proud. So, we Jews are once again compared to garbage. As I’ve written here before, Hitler is smiling from heaven. Faruqi is pictured smiling in front of the image, of course she’s smiling, she approves the image. The Greens are now so far down the rabbit hole of Jew hatred that voting for them, or even preferencing them at election time is like voting for/ preferencing Adolf Hitler in 1933.
Now, of course, imagine if Faruqi was a right of centre politician and was pictured in front of an image which displayed Palestinians as garbage. We all remember the confected outrage when Abbott, over a decade ago, was pictured in front of an image that depicted Gillard as a “witch”, a comparison I always thought was a tad unfair to witches but I’m sure you all remember the howls of outrage that went on for weeks.
Will we see similar howls of outrage from MSM outlets? The Oz has reported it, and the Daily Mail (which I now read everyday, yes it has a lot of rubbish in it but it is on the ball with current stuff). You see, here’s a fact, standing in front of a picture that unashamedly calls for ridding the planet of people like me is infinitely worse than being pictured in front of an image that depicts someone like a witch. And I don’t recall that image of Gillard the Witch calling for the planet to be cleaned of witches. I now wait for the Liberals and Nationals to censure this despicable Greens skank, you know, like joined in to censure Bettina Arndt. Remember that? Or will the useless Liberals do what they’re always good at, just put it in the too hard basket and so, in regards to the Pakistani born skank, give absolution to a call for genocide?
No no no.
She was innocently frying some felafels in her car
when the Zionist Entity made the gas bottle to explode.
Or something.
My only comment – Australia is the same. Resource rich, not “allowed” to use its resources to enhance its population’s lives, utterly compromised and hypocritical over the climate scam.
We are allowed to make our own determinations but we deliberately choose not to. Instead we elect morons who live in a vacuum and believe that destroying our way of life somehow makes them virtuous.
We can never get out of the cycle because we have bred the morons who cast the votes and we allowed the hijacking of the education system which turned them into morons…
for BoN … sexy rock-slingers
(no Rabz … you read that wrong)
Not all GEORDIES try out for MENSA ….. LOL!
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/south-shields-man-set-firework-28169072
dammit, that link was a meant to be a whole series of sling shots
go to youtube, enter “sling stone throwing” and then click on the “shorts”
No talisman is going to save us from feminism.
Don’t be needy.
Don’t recoil or patronise neurotic rants.
Call out woolly headed toxic maternalism.
If you don’t know about Faruqi’s instagram pic, now deleted, you arent a journalist.
She should be binned.
In large part, clearly the result of our wonderful Marxist education system. Whose graduates blossom into voting adult f*ckwittery in such numbers that we are held hostage by these grifters and grubs who confiscate our hard earned to fund these vanity fantasies.
Matrix,
the third clip down in your link is also worth viewing.
I agree Cassie, I’m very suspicious about the fates of many hostages but if you believe in the sanctity of live every single return is cause for celebration.
I remember the video of dancing orthodox men when Ori Megadish was rescued.
Please keep them coming.
Faruqui is a font of hate and poison. Why is she here?
I suspect a bona fide miracle will be required.
rosie
Nov 25, 2023 8:46 AM
If you don’t know about Faruqi’s instagram pic, now deleted, you arent a journalist. She should be binned.
rosie,
Sky News has the post & the image
Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi deletes anti-Semitic post as Liberal Senator demands explanation for ‘disgraceful’ message
Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi has deleted an anti-Semitic picture from the pro-Palestine protest march in Sydney, with one Liberal Senator now demanding an explanation for the “vile” social media post.
Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi has deleted a social media post which contained an anti-Semitic sign from the pro-Palestine student protest in Sydney on Friday.
In the post, Senator Faruqi is seen standing with six students who attended the march, five of whom are holding hand-made placards.
While four of the signs bear messages of support for Palestine, the fifth instead depicts a figure placing an Israeli flag into a trash bin alongside the words “keep the world clean.”
The New South Wales Senator had captioned the post: “courageous students will lead the way for justice for Palestine, even when their Labor government won’t.”
Senator Faruqi was contacted for comment on the picture, which was deleted shortly after it was first posted on Friday evening.
Responding to the post, shadow education minister Sarah Henderson told Skynews.com.au the Greens Senator “must unreservedly apologise” for contributing to the spread of anti-Semitic content.
“This sign constitutes vile antisemitism,” she said.
“The Greens Senator must explain why she posed for a photograph with a protestor displaying such hatred for Jews.
“Senator Faruqi must unreservedly apologise for her role in spreading this disgraceful antisemitic message.”
The opposition has been highly critical of the Greens’ response to the conflict in the Middle East, accusing the party of promoting hate speech and spreading misinformation about Israel.
They had also earlier claimed the student protest should not be allowed to go ahead amid concerns about students skipping class to take part.
That view was also shared by New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, who told Sky News Australia on Friday he was “concerned” about calls for students to strike against their own schools.
“I would prefer kids stay in school. At the end of the day, if you want to change the world, go and get an education,” he said.
Kids skipped school to become ‘useful idiots’ for activists: Rita Panahi
Students in Sydney marched out in droves today to protest the “only real democracy” in the Middle East, says Sky News host Rita Panahi.
“High school and university students were marching against a nation defending itself against the barbarity of Hamas,” Ms Panahi said.
A man attempting to enter the student demonstration holding an Israeli flag was arrested by police to prevent a “breach of the peace”.
Ms Panahi says “disturbing and sometimes comically clueless antics” were also seen at the pro-Palestine protest in Melbourne on Thursday.
“This is why I wrote this week that Premier Jacinta Allan failed a test of leadership on this issue.
“The Victorian Premier should have been clear in stating that students should not be taking part in divisive, ill-advised political rallies during school hours.
“Children shouldn’t be skipping school to become the useful idiots of political activists.
“Good leadership requires strength and moral clarity, and on this issue, Premier Jacinta Allan has displayed neither.”
Now that the Filth have outed themselves as just a bunch of professional agitators peddling racist hate against Jews, I’ll be watching their primary vote closely at the next federal election.
OK, most Filth voters are junior government bureaucrats dedicated to the revolution and bludging off the system, but I’m tipping some of them will have their stomachs turning after what the Filth has done since October 7.
Then again, I’m an optimist and I’m probably dreaming.
Citizen Free Press
@CitizenFreePres
Irish head of state Leo Varadkar condemns anti-immigration protesters in Dublin:
“They’re afraid of you. Afraid of your violence and your hate and how you blame others for your problems.”
Yes, it does most especially here –
Citizen Free Press
@CitizenFreePres
This goes for essentially every Western government.
A bit of breakfast reading for those interested. Dr Janet channeling Bettina.
‘Sickness in the left’: Journalist union backs Israel ‘scepticism’
Journalists, editors and senior figures from ABC, the Guardian and Nine media have signed an open letter calling for journalists to apply the same “professional scepticism” to information from the Israeli government as it applies to Hamas.
Former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger has slammed journalists and media figures over signing the open letter.
“This is like saying a generation ago we treat the British and America and the allies’ commentary on World War 2 the same way we treat information coming out from Gestapo,” Mr Kroger told Sky News host Rita Panahi.
” This is really a sickness in the left in the Australian media that is extremely concerning.
Nine’s editorial leadership team has banned any reporters who sign the letter from reporting on the conflict.
‘I did not have sex with her’: Lehrmann denies allegedly raping Brittany Higgins
A Thai woman held hostage has given birth in Gaza.
Where is she?
where is Bipin Joshi who has been identified as the man being dragged through the shifa foyer
Given his proclivities he may need to avoid any tall buildings.
Nothing to do with actual health. Climate tyranny.
Over 200 medical journals call on WHO to declare immediate emergency: ‘We’ve got to act with thought … but also with haste’
EU Digital Identity: Eurocrats want to create a regime in which citizens are increasingly controlled by Brussels
Registering a new car last year the carsales made a spelling mistake with my name. Toytown couldn’t cope. All the other details were correct. Had to get the carsales to change the spelling. Bureaucracy gone mad.
!En fuego.
Stuff takes time.
Hope he’s given time.
Australia Continues Down the Drain!
‘Wake up call’ for offshore gas companies in Indigenous heritage row
Elouise Fowler Reporter
Santos’ plan to extract gas from the Timor Sea faces a formidable opponent: the traditional owners of the tiny Tiwi Islands, 2½ hours by ferry or 80 kilometres north of Darwin.
The energy giant’s Barossa project will rely on a 262-kilometre pipeline connecting the offshore gas field to the existing Bayu-Undan to Darwin pipeline.
At its closest point, Bathurst Island is just 6km-7km from the gas export pipeline corridor.
When Federal Court Judge Natalie Charlesworth handed down an 11th-hour urgent injunction against laying the pipe on November 2, she remarked the ship hired to do the job was in the court’s line of sight docked in the Darwin harbour.
The pipeline to the $5.8 billion Barossa project is on hold until the court can hear the claims brought by Simon Munkara, a Bathurst Islander and traditional owner, next month.
They argue the pipeline skirting Cape Fourcroy on Bathurst Island, one of the two inhabited Tiwi Islands, will “desecrate” ancient burial sites, marine life, and ancient songlines.
A songline is a route through a landscape which features landmarks relating to events that happened during the dreamtime.
Mr Munkara’s lawyers, from the Environmental Defenders Office, told the court Santos should not be permitted to build the pipeline until it revises its environment plan to address risks to underwater cultural heritage.
It’s not just Santos’ pipeline caught up in the middle of a heritage fight.
Woodside Energy’s Scarborough gas project is up in the air too until the court can determine whether traditional owners were sufficiently consulted.
This suggests that the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority, which issued conditional approval to all three projects, no longer has the final say in their future.
This novel litigation by Indigenous groups, assisted by environmental lawyers, has tapped a previously unused appeals process over the past 18 months to achieve several Federal Court victories to suspend work on new offshore gas developments, and now twice in Santos’ case.
This is part of a global trend sparked in North America where environmentalists and farmers have teamed up to halt fossil fuel projects and pipelines.
‘Wake-up call’
“There’s not a lot of law around offshore cultural heritage or the spiritual connection to offshore areas,” said Gavin Scott, a resources partner at Norton Rose Fulbright. “But it’s growing.”
In a landmark ruling of the full Federal Court in November 2022, Tiwi Islander Dennis Tipakalippa cruelled Santos’ attempt to begin drilling work on the Barossa gas project in the Timor Sea. Mr Tipakalippa successfully challenged NOPSEMA’s regulatory approval for the Barossa project because the oil and gas giant failed to “adequately” consult the traditional owners over their connections to sea, the court found.
A year later, Santos hasn’t been able to start drilling.
These cases underline that proper consultation and engagement needs to occur to prevent legal action, Mr Scott told the AFR Weekend. “Companies need to spend time investing in building strong and sustainable relationships with Aboriginal groups, and that takes dedicated effort, and sometimes years of work to form that relationship.
“It goes beyond just pushing an approval through a government regulator.
It goes to social licence to operate – because the key part to coexisting with a First Nations group is to really listen and form a good relationship … I think the Tipakalippa case was a wake-up call to all people dealing with offshore regimes.”
The gas industry is winded by the legal challenges
Australian Energy Producers, the lobby group for gas producers, says the economic and energy security of Australia is at risk..
“Regulations that provide clarity and certainty for industry while maintaining comprehensive and meaningful consultation with stakeholders are urgently needed,” said Australian Energy Producers chief executive Samantha McCulloch. “The ongoing lack of clarity is continuing to put at risk major projects.”
‘Connection to country’
During court hearings in November, Mr Munkara’s lawyers told Justice Charlesworth new evidence on the effect of the pipeline on underwater heritage areas had arisen, sparking a last-minute injunction ahead of the pipe-laying ship departing.
The court extended a partial injunction on November 15, which means Santos can start laying the pipeline to its Barossa gas project in the Timor Sea but only in the northernmost area, away from the Tiwi Islands.
Justice Charlesworth will preside over the hearing in mid-December to decide whether Santos must resubmit the environmental plan.
Mr Munkara’s lawyers told the court the contested sea country to which Jikilaruwu have profound spiritual and cultural ties constitute integral aspects of their identity and beliefs.
They argued the new evidence before the court showed the pipeline would affect connections to the water, which relate to their ancestors and the submerged land they lived on, which includes sacred burial sites. The area also hosts dreaming and ancestral spirits, such as Ampiji and Yimunga, which are central to Tiwi culture.
Stories and songlines, notably the Jikilaruwu songline Wiarprali which is about the Crocodile-Man, run through the pipeline area, Mr Munkara’s lawyers submitted to the court.
The final element of Mr Munkara’s claim is that the pipeline is close to areas enriched with marine life and animals, vital for sustenance and totemic importance.
A totem is a natural object, plant or animal that is inherited by members of a clan or family as their spiritual emblem.
Beyond Juukan gorge
“If you think about Native Title and impact on cultural heritage, you usually think about onshore issues – think of Juukan gorge, sacred sites, rivers and ridges,” said Mr Scott, referring to Rio Tinto blowing up ancient rock shelters in the Juukan gorge in 2020.
But offshore spiritual connections to history and culture can be understood in the same way that creeks and ridgelines form storylines onshore, he said. “So there isn’t really much of a difference between onshore and offshore.
Even though the pipeline is deep underwater they need to consult on that basis of connection to country.”
Santos still plans to extract gas from the Barossa field and transport it to an LNG facility in the Northern Territory.
The oil and gas giant had hoped to begin laying the pipeline in November to keep the Barossa project on track for its first gas target of 2025, while waiting for the regulator, NOPSEMA, to approve an updated environmental plan related to drilling.
In light of Mr Munkara’s claim, Santos is vigorously denying its environmental plan should be resubmitted, arguing there is no new evidence to support the claims.
Santos told the court there was no specific new evidence of cultural sites near the pipeline and that the installation of the pipeline is expected to have minimal impact on the seabed for several reasons: no activities will actively remove sediment or material from the seabed during installation, the pipeline is not fixed to the seabed, and it won’t sink into the sediment.
Moreover, Santos claims the pipeline’s presence is unlikely to significantly increase the current disturbance levels in the area, given the historically high traffic of commercial shipping lanes and regular seabed disturbance from trawling and commercial fisheries around the Tiwi Islands.
Santos boss Kevin Gallagher railed against the uncertain regulatory environment in Australia, which he said on Wednesday needed to be fixed by the federal government, otherwise investment in offshore oil and gas projects would simply dry up.
“Nothing will drive investment away from Australia faster than this environment,” he said at the group’s investor day.
Meg O’Neill, Woodside’s boss and the Australian Energy Producers’ chairwoman, appears to agree; she said on November 5 that changes were needed to provide more clarity on who represents a relevant person that needs to be consulted on offshore projects.
“I think what we see from the EDO is they are going to challenge everything associated with Barossa and Scarborough, unfortunately,” Ms O’Neill said.
Everyone else, from gas producers to activists, is holding their breath for the Federal Court’s decision.
“We have a number of offshore clients that aren’t Santos,” Norton Rose Fulbright partner Mr Scott said. “They are looking and thinking, ‘I wonder how that’s all going to end?’.”
An experiment in Haiti is making once-arid lands fertile, and poor farmers into money-makers
I agree Cassie, I’m very suspicious about the fates of many hostages but if you believe in the sanctity of live every single return is cause for celebration.
I remember the video of dancing orthodox men when Ori Megadish was rescued.
Please keep them coming.”
Nicely said rosie, which is why Israel has agreed to a ceasefire. Judaism and its daughter Christianity believe in the sanctity of every single human life. As the great Talmudic sage, Rabbi Hillel, wrote two thousand years ago…
“And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.”
Mohammad copied this six hundred years later when he invented his religion. He was a complete plagiarist, fabulist, fantasist and genocidal maniac.
Rabbi Hillel also wrote the following…
Where there are no men, strive to be a man
A clarion call to men to BE men.
When do we reach the point of simply saying NO?
Kamala Harris Flaunts Her Gas Stove as Democrats Contemplate Total Bans
A “threefer” for you
“The failure of wind, then solar, and also batteries, in three stories”
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2023/11/24/the-failure-of-wind-then-solar-and-also-batteries-in-three-stories/
And in comments at SDA the other day –
“People who eat bacon are statistically, much less likely to blow themselves up!”
What American Conservatives Can Learn From Argentina’s Javier Milei
Leading Report
@LeadingReport
BREAKING: Newly-elected Argentinian President Javier Milei confirms he is shutting down the Central Bank of Argentina, saying “it is non-negotiable.”
I hope he has good security.
Breakthrough Discovery: Neurosurgeon Unveils Shocking Link Between COVID Vaccine and Brain Damage & Cancer Risk
I see Oscar Pistorius has been granted parole. Should be still in the clink
Russell Norman, the chef who made small plates and no reservations cool, dies from cardiac arrest at 57
The jury is out on whether he even existed. Tom Holland blasted holes in the whole construct of this vile cult.
“Very reminiscent of the Whitlam government from 1972-75, hopefully just as short lived.”
Quite so, however, the vile, ignorant, malicious, authoritarian offscourings that currently occupy the Treasury benches, leave the incompetent Whitlam Cabinet in the shade.
The ridiculous importing of migrants that hate us, was started not by Labor, but by Malcolm “life wasn’t meant to be easy” Fraser.
Even though the advice given to him by his Departmental Secretaries was:
“DON’T DO IT!”
Similarly, it was not Labor that signed Australia up for the Nation destroying
“Net Zero”. No, that imbecile was none other than Scummo, the Minister for Everything, funder of the oppression by the dross in the state capitals 2020-2023.
Without that funding, Andrews, Palushrek and McGowan could not have trampled our civil rights.
The LNP hate you just as much as Labor.
It’s like professional wrestling, they try to convince you that the LNP is different and will support Australians. There is not a cigarette paper between them.
Well, the LNP were in office for 9 years, how did that turn out for Immigration, ABC, Health, Infrastructure, (dams in particular-none since 1980 & population has doubled), Defence, Energy, Social Security, etc.
Do you think the majority of Australians are happy with this situation.
Labor don’t care, the LNP dont care, ……, because, you don’t matter.
A songline is a route through a landscape which features landmarks relating to events that happened during the dreamtime.
Very interesting to find a solid definition of “songline”. It’s not what I would have thought.
Do I remember that Bruce Chatwin was an OG Bruce Pascoe, and imported the hitherto unheard-of “songline” meme wholesale from PNG?
Conor McGregor: We Are Not Losing Any More Women & Children to Twisted People Who Should Not Be in Ireland
the very definition of simping
If you don’t know about Faruqi’s instagram pic, now deleted, you arent a journalist.
She should be binned.
The pix is available on Rita Panahi’s twitter feed ………..
Chief Nerd
@TheChiefNerd
NEW — NY Appeals Court Reinstates Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Power to Enforce Quarantine Camps
“It allows the Dept. of Health to pick and choose which New Yorkers they can lockup or lockdown without any proof that you’re sick, without any proof you’ve been exposed to a communicable disease. There’s no time limit so they could lock you up or lock you down for days or weeks or months. There’s no location restriction. They can put you in any facility they want…And then once you are locked up or locked down, there’s no procedure in this regulation that says how you get out of quarantine once you’re in there.”
Revealed: King Charles secretly profiting from the assets of dead citizens
With wanna-be terrorists who incompetently fail to kill themselves, Israel should adopt a policy of providing the necessary immediate assistance, then convey them by ambulance to the nearest Pally hospital, for further treatment.
Most would probably die under the treatment received (or be put down as a waste of money that could be used to buy weapons).
Now Big Brother wants to control the gas pedal in your car
There’s a lot wrong in the world at the moment but we’re best served by fixing the mess we have created or are about create right here at home.
Apologies for the length. An excellent analysis of the recent GOP candidates debate on NBC. From Zerohedge:
. Yes the Andrew Neil nuclear option.
IIRC Andrew Neill, chairman of Spectator when supermarket chain The Co-op said that, after something like 70 years, it would no longer advertise with the Spectator because of views about transgender BS (a decision made by some HR f**wit) Andrew Neil put out a statement that the Spectator would NOT take any advertisement in the future from that company. The head honchos didn’t even know the decision was made and it was sorted immediately
universal suffrage was a slow moving catastrophic tsunami
Who is this “we” kemosabe? None of my children or grandchildren vote Green or Labor. You need to change the second and third “we” to the moneyed classes. We tried our best but were outnumbered by those who imagine themselves as intellectually superior but have simply switched off their bullshit detectors.
That view was also shared by New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, who told Sky News Australia on Friday he was “concerned” about calls for students to strike against their own schools.
“I would prefer kids stay in school. At the end of the day, if you want to change the world, go and get an education,” he said.
Ho Chi Minns runs NSW schools so instead of ‘preferring” kids attend why didn’t he condemn the “absenteeism” and demand a full explanation for any absences with subsequent penalties (whatever,they are) for truants ……….
On the Irish riots:
https://pjmedia.com/kevindowneyjr/2023/11/23/enough-dublin-responds-after-immigrant-stabs-5-including-young-girl-n4924188
Take away points from the facts some being omitted by the MSM:
– Seems most of the buildings attacked housed migrants in hotels or hostels.
– An unknown percentage of the looters may be opportunistic thieves (https://twitter.com/breeadail/status/1727808557624574265).
– Elsewhere Algerian stabby bloke still hasn’t been charged, not even 1 charge.
Put weather forecasting up for tender. There are commercial bodies that could bid.
Include penalty clauses for errors.
If the BoM loses, pay out the staff and cancel future budgets.
Bloody hilarious – a woke bimbecile explores the concept of “culinary privilege”.
DUBLIN—While the Gardaí Commissioner blames “lunatic hooligans” inspired by the “far-right” for the protests, tonight, he and his forces are nowhere to be seen as foreign nationals loot stores.
Irish citizens follow, confronting a few.
WTF is this songline shite? Never heard of it until just now.
Of course it’s rubbish but a very useful tool to use on gullible dickheads who are intent on turning Australia back to pre 1788.
Time to break out one of the great Valentine’s Day poems of our time, then:
Roses are red
Violets are glorious
Never sneak up
On Oscar Pistorius
Dolly Parton opens Dallas thanksgiving appeal with pizazz. Dolly is 77 years young.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/11/dolly-parton-steals-thanksgiving-halftime-show-dallas-cowboys/
The BBC were perplexed.
On a related note, here’s a chap who I suspect – in a roundabout way – may have been making a point (the Courier-Mail):
And:
And:
There just has to be a great backstory to this.
Cassie at 08:34
The standards of that joint sure have gone downhill.
He and OJ should make a movie together.
Alec Baldwin can direct.
Songlines sound a bit like ley lines, but without the scientific basis.
ABC featuring a medical student, one Fahad Khan from western Sydney, who grew up in a housing commission flat with a mother on a pension and 12 years of free education, all courtesy the tax payer, complaining of disadvantage because his suburb is 10C hotter than those in the eastern suburbs and is on the wrong side of the “red rooster line”. Apparently this explains why he had to sit his medical entrance exam 3 times and didn’t get into UNSW.
Count your blessings, son; you wouldn’t have come this far back in Pakistan.
The infernal choice behind the hostage deal
Melanie Phillips, Nov 24, 2023
Israel is in this terrible situation principally because of America
With all the sad things surrounding us at this time, I give you Chevrolet’s totally “unwoke” Christmas commercial for this year.
I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did o this rainy, gloomy Saturday morning.
And, I also had to break out the tissues. Enjoy. 😀
Ditto The Australian & The Daily Mail.
Frank the Barber – what a legend:
“Don’t tell all your li’l girlfriends about this, OK?”
Comment, from the Oz, on the Mehreen Faruqi article.
It’s all over twitter.
Faruqi isn’t walking away from it just because she deleted it from instagram.
Biden’s administration has certainly done it’s best to live up to Bernard Lewis’s warning that the US too often acts in ways that make it appear “harmless as an enemy but treacherous as a friend.”
The Australian has a number of powerful opinion pieces on the political shitshow in Australia.
Sheridan, long but worth reading if you can, outlines the extraordinary moral and practical foreign policy failure of the Albanese Government (scathing about Labor’s treachery in Australia’s response to Hamas) – almost as if he’s been reading the Cat over the past weeks.
Paul Kelly sums up:
True enough regarding noxious seat of Australian antisemitism.
However, the auxiliary point is that the exact same groups advocating for the destruction of Israel and happily terrorising the Jewish community (or, at best, standing by) are also leading the charge in the general destruction of Australia as a functioning and coherent society.
Israel is a litmus test. It’s not someone else’s problem…
I’m not sure you should underrate Israel’s capacity to end hamas, even taking into account limitations caused by the ceasefire.
From the Hun.
First Obama’s and now Biden’s policies have emboldened Iran. China’s constant meddling has also had it’s effect. The problem is that this Administration is so woke left politicized and chock full of green fkwits and neocons, the policy output is a comedy of disasters. Chaos, debt, invasion and division internally as well as the disasters accomplished abroad. All home made and coming home to roost.
Top Men running top schemes which of course are watertight. Hun:
Wouldn’t mind knowing who were among the 854 applicants that weren’t pursued for repayment. No doubt maaates.
And a spokesperson sez the state is on track. If he/she means on a train track in the face of an oncoming locomotive, he/she is correct. Otherwise just meaningless drivel. FMD
Fowl news.
Gangster Bird ‘Turkules’ Finally Captured After Evading Authorities—but NJ Mayor Pardons Him (23 Nov)
Too tough to bother eating I suspect, especially if tranquilizer darts just bounce off him. Meanwhile some turkeys sit down for lunch courtesy of PETA:
Totally owned in the community notes! Turkeys are cool birdies.
marxism is the gun
feminism is the trigger
post-structuralism is the chambered round
intersectionality is the hollow point
and “WTF is going on?”
… was your last thought
Faruqi isn’t walking away from it just because she deleted it from instagram
Of course not rosie. It’s who these people are, it’s who monty is.
A majority of Australians just saw off an attempt to divide us by race in perpetuity.
NZers have also rejected identity politics.
Along with other significant developments abroad, these may be indicators that identity politics, which is nothing but an adaptation of Marxism to fit the post-1989 world, may have already reached its high water mark.
Red Rooster Line.
As through you are forced to buy it.
It’s halal and they only open franchises where there is demand.
I wonder where the the KFC line is.
Or where the halal snack pack line might be.
Songlines sound a bit like ley lines, but without the scientific basis.
Songlines are just like welcome-to-country & smokin’ ceremonies another cash grab by the 251 grifters ……….. surprised the boomerang return flight proving grounds haven’t had a work-out yet ………
In 2006 Israel was against Gaza holding an election. Bush in the US pushed for it. The result is Hamas in charge.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/24/gaza-election-hamas-2006-palestine-israel/
And the bastard offspring of feminism, “queer” theory is the finger trying to pull the trigger
Just awesome. Thanks. Let’s hope it’s a bellweather, that the pendulum is slamming back to the sensible Right.
The senate sits for another seven days before Christmas recess.
I suggest Cats email their state senators over the weekend to express their concern.
And amusingly in Jan 2005 the Palis had an election in Ramallah and elected Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently serving the 18th year of his first 4 year term in office.
Palis seem to like elections, but only once.
The government’s not in control and voters are not listening
Labor BlackOut Chris Bowen’s energy changes show the government still has fresh ideas on things that will affect voters. But will they notice?
Laura Tingle Columnist
The prime minister posted a picture on social media this week of his cabinet meeting in Parliament House. “Starting the week with my team in Canberra,” Anthony Albanese’s Instagram account reported.
It seems a long time since we have actually seen a picture of this cabinet – or, for that matter, any cabinet – all present and at work in the same room, let alone the Cabinet Room in Parliament House.
Government for the past couple of decades has become such a transitory business. Cabinet ministers, as often as not, work out of their home towns. These days, Canberra is a place you only come to when parliament is sitting.
Since the time of John Howard, prime ministers have been stuck in a world of permanent campaigning, which means that they are forever on the road to locations around Australia to meet and greet potential voters.
There is an annual political complaint-fest about prime ministerial travel overseas during what is known as summit season. But it is the constant domestic travel – and geographic separation of the government as an entity – which is arguably a much bigger concern. Not because of cost, but simply because people don’t get to sit down in the same place and consider things in any sort of unpressured way.
As often as not, it is the capacity to have broader, casual conversations – rather than necessarily just ones about whatever is on a formal meeting agenda – that is important.
The significance of the government’s proposals hasn’t really been understood outside the energy and climate change nerd belt.
It feels very olden days to remember the days when quite a few ministers actually spent a lot of time working, or even living, in Canberra.
The change has knock-on effects, too. Ministerial staff and offices were once firmly based in Canberra. Apart from anything else, that increased the likelihood of senior staff – and their policy experience – being seconded from the Canberra-based public service.
Teamwork in Canberra
Posting the photo seemed to suggest the PM’s social media team knew they needed to get it out there that the government “team” was hard at work.
This week marked 18 months since the last election – technically the halfway point for the parliamentary term, even if the next election date is never set in concrete.
Things have not been very pretty for the government post-referendum.
Most recently has been the apparently chaotic response to the High Court’s decision on indefinite detention. After the repeated rollovers to the Coalition on a legislative response to the decision last week, the government was confronted with an immediate High Court challenge to the legislation, even before the court has published its reasons for the original decision.
The government might hope that both sides of politics are seen as the authors of a legislative response which was under challenge so quickly, but things rarely pan out that way: governments always get blamed.
But the government is dealing with an economic situation it doesn’t really control: the main day-to-day to narrative about how government policy in the broad is affecting individual voters is being driven by Reserve Bank decisions.
The highly fraught situation in the Middle East has also been weaponised in domestic politics, and has required political leaders to tread a delicate path through the sensitivities of various communities in Australia.
One way or another, the result has been a growing sense that the government is not in control of events.
There have been big stories undermining confidence in all sorts of institutions that are not of the government’s making, but which it nonetheless has had to respond to – like the Optus outage.
A barrage of announcements
When you are halfway through your first term, there tends to be a build-up of reforms, reports and reviews that you commissioned early on in government coming home to roost. By then, people have moved on a bit and can’t remember what the issue was about in the first place.
The results of these reviews are being launched into a political landscape cluttered with current crises.
A series of announcements have been made recently, either to remind voters about what the government is doing about the cost of living, or just because the end of the year is approaching and things need to be released.
The impression left, though, is of a government throwing out lots of chaff, as they say in the military – that is, small clouds of metal countermeasures designed to confuse incoming guided missiles.
It’s unfortunate, because some of these reports are important and worthwhile subjects for serious discussion.
In this week alone we’ve seen reports on overhauling secrecy laws and on cybersecurity. There have been new plans for e-safety, the odd breakthrough on the government’s omnibus industrial relations legislation, and a Productivity Commission blueprint for reforming the childcare and early education sectors.
Exhaustion with energy politics
Possibly most significant has been the release of the government’s plans to massively expand its underwriting of green generation and storage: plans that require the states – which were in discussions in Perth on Friday with Labor Climate Change and Energy Minister BlackOut Chris Bowen – to sign off.
The exhaustion with energy and climate change politics, no matter how vital they might be to the electorate, seems to have meant the significance of the government’s proposals, and the shift they represent, hasn’t really been understood outside the energy and climate change nerd belt.
The important thing to know is that the proposed underwriting tender for new energy does offer the prospect of overcoming a market failure – for want of a better term – where potential investors in new generating capacity hesitate until they are confident other forms of investment (like coal and gas) are coming to the end of their life.
The underwriting gives investors the confidence to know they will be covered if prices crash because of extra supply coming on line.
The design of the scheme also gets around an intractable problem of different states having conflicting views on the role of coal and gas in the energy transition.
Plenty of problems remain, of course, in the design of our energy market. But the proposal seems to be the most significant breakthrough – at least in expediting clean energy capacity – that we have seen for some time, and at a time when the energy transition has been floundering.
Next week will be the year’s last full sitting week for the House of Representatives.
Even more reports will be added to the pile as parliamentary committees hand in their work: everything from electoral reform and transparency to the delivery of job services.
Whether any of them will get much oxygen amid the turmoil of a political landscape that seems to be dominated by populism, let alone an electorate that doesn’t seem to be listening, is anyone’s guess.
Will do just that.
Fiscal mismanagement not confined to Victoriastan. Kylie Lang in the Courier Mail:
been doing quite a bit of work for a certain upmarket hotel chain
management is 100% the queer mafia
meritocracy works differently for them
The Chev ad not woke?
“Happy Holiday”
Shorter sanctimonious Tingle: “Where are the re-education camps for these unwashed?”
I’m not sure you should underrate Israel’s capacity to end hamas, even taking into account limitations caused by the ceasefire.
I don’t doubt Israel’s resolve over destroing HAMAS but do wonder how may IDF will pay the ultimate price for the 4 day ceasefire …..
Never, ever negotiate with terrorists ………… the reason for bit by bit release is, fairly obvious, the 2nd, 3rd & 6th times HAMAS be asking for more and more one-sided concessions …!
Tingle is a nasty piece of work. That’s being polite. Ugly to look at too.
At Alan’s Snackbar of course.
But, but our Jim tells me Queensland is the most dynamic part of Australia!
‘Most dynamic part of national economy’: Jim Chalmer’s high hopes for Queensland (Sky News, 24 Nov)
Maybe by “high” he means something other than altitude.
‘Democracy is like a train. When you reach your destination, you get off.’
– Erdogan
Do you think contacting the Greens Senators will do much good?
Remember when there was outrage about the AusPost CEO handing out a few watches?
So nice to see Craig Thomson (former Labor MHR for seat of Dobell ) has now pleaded (or is it pled lol?) guilty to crossing more invisible lines. Albo could use a man with his qualifications. Is he still a party member?
Haha, this one is for Rabz, Roger and other rockers on the Cat.
Candid snap of crowd reveals rock band’s brutal fail at Aussie gig (25 Nov)
Some fun photos!
Perhaps some of them have a conscience that has not yet been seared by a hateful ideology.
Let them be judged by their response.
Never heard of them, Bruce.
I don’t think I’ve listened to any new bands since c. 1990 apart from Radiohead.
Bill P,
I saw the “Happy Holidays” at the end also. I refuse to let it get me down. Besides, The Yanks have been using that stupid term since the fifties, it’s pretty much ingrained in their psyche.
Perhaps due to the Jewish population?
May be extra relevant at this time
Ok somebody has to ask.
What did he do for a living before singing?
Roger – That’s the year they formed in San Francisco, so you just missed them!
total waste of electrons trying to reason with them
everything you say to them will sound like evidence of your apostasy
Too sloppy. They should have had a flash back with the old dear and her hubby shredding a burnout down the driveway. That 8 sounded good though.
From the article in the Australian about the journalists signing the open letter asking for more Hamas in the reporting of the situation.
Seems some shitstains are harder to dislodge than previously thought.
Open letters are pretty passe by now, time to come up with some new agitprop.
Well there you go, one of history’s grate mysteries.