The grubby tactics for power.
When Abbott broke the written agreement in regard to pairing for the state memorial of Margaret Olley he did so purely to be malicious and push his own agenda. Proving in one move that his written word, like spoken word isn’t to be trusted either.
When the next day Pyne and others came to his defence, hypocrisy was the word of the day. The excuse that was delivered was that the government is not functioning due to the Thomson crisis and that a vote needed to be taken. Yes, of course, this is the minority government that still has managed to achieve more than Howard did in his first term. Sorry, keep forgetting the Libs won’t allow facts like this to get in the way.
Labor don’t want to spend time on this. Why would they? It is damaging to them, so the statement about spending time on it is completely disingenuous. The people that have been talking about this are the Libs. A sniff of a stolen victory, for something that happened before the member was even in parliament. We wont mention “Children Overboard” which turned out to be a lie, or say, tax payers monies used on a phone card under Howard will we.
Abbott was never go to win the vote he put up. He doesn’t have the numbers. Trying to bribe Wilkie with a billion dollar hospital showed what he was willing to do to get power. Wilkie didn’t go for it then, why would he know. Oakeshott and Windsor believe in the NBN, it was the thing that got them over the line, why would they change their minds.
The result of this was that Abbott went back on his written word, stating that the situation had changed. Not unlike for Gillard when she entered a minority government, when the situation changed. It seems reasonable for Abbott to change his mind, why can’t Gillard.
Abbott is playing grubby politics for the aim of getting power. Yet for all his grandstanding, the latest Newspoll has him at Approval 36 (-3) Disapproval 55 (+3). Gillards numbers are about the same. Massive disapproval of both leaders shows that people are over it.
Even if the Libs do succeed in getting rid of Thomson ( doubtful in the next 12months ), the situation for Abbott would be no different. Why, because unless a full election is called, it will still be a hung parliament. So, a 75/75 parliament means nothing has changed, so we end up with an election. In that case the Greens will still hold the balance of power in the Senate. Abbott wouldn’t be able to pass much of the legislation he would want to regardless. Although, to me it seems most of the policies seem to be No, we will roll back, No, No, and No.
Turnbull and Crean missed out on going to the funeral of a close friend for no reason, because despite the grandstanding nothing did or was ever going to come of it. This behaviour will come back to bite Abbott. Maybe not before he gets into power though.
— Update —
Another day, and more grub. This time a combination of News Ltd, the Telegraph, Abbott and very very lazy journalists.
When Jay Rosen said on Lateline on Thursday night “A much heavier emphasis on fact-checking – calling out lies and distortions – would be a good start “, little did he or anyone else know what the Telegraph were sending to the press.
A front page article, one that Abbott, jumped on the next morning that Julia Gillard’s chief of staff called the industrial registrar in 2009 to ask if he was investigating the besieged Labor MP. Abbott predictably took the line that she knew before hand. The kicker was that lazy News Ltd didn’t even bother to check Hansard, it didn’t fit their or Abbott’s agenda. A search of Hansard proved that all the contacts were made POST the story being on the front page of the SMH, not before.
Will News Ltd run a front page correction saying, we were wrong, we were lazy. Of course they wont. Will Abbott admit that his party knew this story was a beat up and they knew over a year ago that this wasn’t the case. Of course they won’t, and people wonder why Labor and the Greens wants to launch an enquiry in to media power.
When Albanese said “Tony Abbott has not accepted the result of the last election when he lost and what we’re seeing is the longest dummy spit in Australian “, not only was he correct about Abbott, but also News Ltd, Alan Jones et.al.
This is a dummy spit that knows no bounds. One that News Ltd continues via its papers continues, facts be damned.
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Of course the Libs have all their policies fully costed and ready to go at the next election. They keep telling us that all the time. Just that small matter of a $70billion black hole to fix first.
BRILLIANT! WISH THERE WAS MORE OF IT!