Coalition snouts in the trough (again)

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pietillidie
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Post by pietillidie »

I LOL'd so hard I almost collapsed when I read this:
news.com.au wrote:PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has paid back entitlements he claimed to attend Peter Slipper's wedding in 2006.
A host of Liberal MPs attended the wedding of Mr Slipper who is himself facing charges over accusations he misused expenses, including Comcar travel to wineries.

Mr Abbott admitted today in Bali, where is attending the APEC leaders conference, that he had paid entitlements back for a "couple" of weddings seven years ago.
http://www.news.com.au/national-news/to ... 6734223895

Has there ever been a more damning revelation that points to character so soon after an election?

You can only hold back outright creepiness for so long. Two minutes at most, apparently.
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Post by Tannin »

Breaking news: Abbott claimed taxpayer money to compete in an ironman contest. This scandal just gets bigger and bigger. It's starting to remind me of the St Vomit Follies. Watch this space.
Last edited by Tannin on Tue Oct 08, 2013 2:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by David »

What I don't get is why almost all the culprits seem to be coming from the Liberal Party. Aren't Labor people supposed to do this sort of stuff all the time? Why aren't we hearing about it?
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Post by stui magpie »

David wrote:What I don't get is why almost all the culprits seem to be coming from the Liberal Party. Aren't Labor people supposed to do this sort of stuff all the time? Why aren't we hearing about it?
Considering a lot of these claims go back several years while Labor was in power and the coalition in opposition, it would indicate someone has just done an audit of some kind for these all to come to light at once. It would be interesting to see what the terms of reference of that audit were and whether they only audited coalition members or everyone.
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Post by HAL »

Is what the terms of reference of that audit were and whether they audited coalition members or everyone a movie?
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Tannin
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Post by Tannin »

Stui, get a clue. They audited everyone. So far, one (count him, one) lonley Labor member has been found to have done something wrong. Compare with the Liberal mob, so many snouts in the public trough that they need to form an orderly queue outside the prosecutor's office, all shjouting that they never done nuffin.
David wrote:What I don't get is why almost all the culprits seem to be coming from the Liberal Party. Aren't Labor people supposed to do this sort of stuff all the time? Why aren't we hearing about it?
Because, David, the Liberal Party is the party of entitlement. 90% of Liberal Party members really and honestly believe that they are entitled to all the fruits they can lay their grubby hands on. I'm not kidding mate. Most of them - ordinary members and parliamentary representatives alike - are greedy, filthy, selfish scum who would take you down in the blink of an eye and call it "good for business", people who would look you in the eye and talk glowingly about honesty and virtue on the very same day that they help themselves to things which do not belong to them, such as your money, other people's land, and their own children's future.

And if you think I'm kidding, you need to get out more. Start by looking at the scumbags they have on their own front bench. Abbot, the self-important serial liar; Bishop, the asbestos lawyer; Hockey, the buffoon; Brough, the failed conspirator and manipulator of evidence; Brandis, the hysterical accuser with his snout in the corruption trough ... the list is very, very long.
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Tannin
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Post by Tannin »

Tannin wrote:Breaking news: Abbott claimed taxpayer money to compete in an ironman contest. This scandal just gets bigger and bigger. It's starting to remind me of the St Vomit Follies. Watch this space.

Age on-line poll has a massive 82% vote saying Abbott's expenses claim is wrong and should not be allowed. 82 percent!
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Post by boofa »

C'mon now, we all know that there is two set of rules when the Tories are exposed as cheats, criminals and frauds.

Move on , nothing to see here !!!!!!!
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Post by David »

Tannin wrote:Stui, get a clue. They audited everyone. So far, one (count him, one) lonley Labor member has been found to have done something wrong. Compare with the Liberal mob, so many snouts in the public trough that they need to form an orderly queue outside the prosecutor's office, all shjouting that they never done nuffin.
David wrote:What I don't get is why almost all the culprits seem to be coming from the Liberal Party. Aren't Labor people supposed to do this sort of stuff all the time? Why aren't we hearing about it?
Because, David, the Liberal Party is the party of entitlement. 90% of Liberal Party members really and honestly believe that they are entitled to all the fruits they can lay their grubby hands on. I'm not kidding mate. Most of them - ordinary members and parliamentary representatives alike - are greedy, filthy, selfish scum who would take you down in the blink of an eye and call it "good for business", people who would look you in the eye and talk glowingly about honesty and virtue on the very same day that they help themselves to things which do not belong to them, such as your money, other people's land, and their own children's future.

And if you think I'm kidding, you need to get out more. Start by looking at the scumbags they have on their own front bench. Abbot, the self-important serial liar; Bishop, the asbestos lawyer; Hockey, the buffoon; Brough, the failed conspirator and manipulator of evidence; Brandis, the hysterical accuser with his snout in the corruption trough ... the list is very, very long.
Certainly! That is all very true. But I'd be surprised to find that Labor politicians (at least the NSW lot and their fellow travellers) are any better. I wouldn't trust them to tell me what day of the week it is. I actually expect as a matter of principle that they're rorting the system in some way.
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Post by Tannin »

If they are not better, David, they are certainly less worse. They come from an organisation which, for all its faults (and there are many), is honestly dedicated to the betterment of Australia and Australians - often wrongheadedly so, no question about that, but the Labor Party has many very genuine and honest members. To get the nod as a candidate, an aspiring Labor politician has to be genuine and honest (most are) or else fool the bulk of the membership. Some manage this, no question, and others start out meaning well but power corrupts them.

Contrast this with the Liberals, where the membership is overwhelmingly comprised of shallow, greedy slimeballs - the sort who will trick you and do you down on Friday and turn up to church on Sunday singing hymns and tellling you how holy they are. I am not kidding: these types join The Party because it is a way to meet up with others of the same ilk, and they go on the local council because it gives them the contacts they need to get their dodgy subdivision through, wink wink nudge nudge.

A very different kettle of rotting fish, the Liberal Party. Labor has mostly honest men (some good, some stupid, most a bit of both) with an unfortunate leavening of crooks and slimeballs. (In NSW the slimeballs got the upper hand for a while.) The Liberal Party has greedy self-intrerested slimeballs with the odd more-or-less honest one for contrast. We are seeing the truth of this assertion that demonstrated, yet again, right now as we discover the things they have tried to claim on the taypayer's dollar, such as flights and luxury 5-star accommodation for Abbott so he could enter in an iron man race, or (another example) his "fundraising bike ride" which turns out to have been a rort on the public purse.
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Post by HAL »

I am glad to hear that you are not kidding these types join The Party. not kidding these types join The Party is a way to meet up with others of the same ilk and they go on the local council because it gives them the contacts they need to get their dodgy subdivision wink wink nudge nudge. I suppose that makes sense.
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Post by pietillidie »

Tannin wrote:If they are not better, David, they are certainly less worse. They come from an organisation which, for all its faults (and there are many), is honestly dedicated to the betterment of Australia and Australians - often wrongheadedly so, no question about that, but the Labor Party has many very genuine and honest members. To get the nod as a candidate, an aspiring Labor politician has to be genuine and honest (most are) or else fool the bulk of the membership. Some manage this, no question, and others start out meaning well but power corrupts them.

Contrast this with the Liberals, where the membership is overwhelmingly comprised of shallow, greedy slimeballs - the sort who will trick you and do you down on Friday and turn up to church on Sunday singing hymns and tellling you how holy they are. I am not kidding: these types join The Party because it is a way to meet up with others of the same ilk, and they go on the local council because it gives them the contacts they need to get their dodgy subdivision through, wink wink nudge nudge.

A very different kettle of rotting fish, the Liberal Party. Labor has mostly honest men (some good, some stupid, most a bit of both) with an unfortunate leavening of crooks and slimeballs. (In NSW the slimeballs got the upper hand for a while.) The Liberal Party has greedy self-intrerested slimeballs with the odd more-or-less honest one for contrast. We are seeing the truth of this assertion that demonstrated, yet again, right now as we discover the things they have tried to claim on the taypayer's dollar, such as flights and luxury 5-star accommodation for Abbott so he could enter in an iron man race, or (another example) his "fundraising bike ride" which turns out to have been a rort on the public purse.
The US is been dealing with this very argument at the moment. Politics is generally dirty and thuggish, so both sides always provide cover for each other's misdeeds. But at the end of the day only one side is trying to block the provision of improved health care to its citizens like deranged zombies.

David, start with the assumption that politics is dirty and thuggish; there's no other way to get into power given human limitations, and politics attracts the shady and power hungry (Pinker gets to the gnub of the matter here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS4xVcko9qw ).

Once you start with that premise, you discover that you have to elect, inevitably, people with such limitations. If so, the next thing you look for is people pushing in the right direction as best they can despite themselves. The Gliberal Party is never ever even trying to push in that direction because it's nothing but a sham and a front for old capital and old power. The left, in contrast, is at least somewhat prone to good ideas despite the muck of politics. Hence you get Hawke-Keating's economic reforms; Hawke-Keating's multiculturalism and alignment with Asia; Mabo; the Redfern Speech; the Apology; vilification legislation protecting minorities; opposition to Work Choices; an effort to implement an NBN, carbon tax and mining tax; increased disability funding, and so on. All that on top of decades of rights, education, social security, gender, minority, infrastructure access, knowledge access and capital access reforms on behalf of women, children, average workers and the vulnerable. Only one side of politics ever pushes these things with serious conviction, while the other side jumps up and down like possessed trolls time and again trying to block them, only ever jumping on the bandwagon once history has long passed them by.

In other words, the salient point is not that politics is dirty and thuggish, which it is, but that governments committed to socio-economic development and progress, as painfully infrequent as they are, can only ever possibly come from the left. The left might disappoint most of the time, but the Gliberal Party is not even playing the right game on the right planet. The lumping of the two together by the far left might make more sense in a virulently backward country like the US, but it makes less sense in Australia, again, disappointment aside. That doesn't mean we have to lose our independence, become party hacks and talk the nonsense of politics, but it does mean the claim that there is no a material difference between the two sides of politics in most advanced democracies is false.
Last edited by pietillidie on Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by HAL »

When? Didn't I say I started already? What specifically brings not to mind?
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Post by pietillidie »

^Like clockwork, HAL!
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Post by HAL »

Enough about me, let's talk about the Pies.
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