Coalition members have nothing to crow about

The next time Coalition members go sounding off about education standards in Australia they might do well to stop and have a good close look at themselves.

An examination of Members' interest statements is quite enlightening.

Here are some samples of the work of Coalition members Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop, Greg Hunt, Ian Macfarlane, Teresa Gambaro, Warren Entsch and Alex Hawke.

 Spot the school boy/girl howlers.

Prime Minister Abbott decides to second guess the court and medical profession

  

The Telegraph on 4 October 2013 reported that Prime Minister Tony Abbott has decided to second guess the court and the medical profession with regard to an itinerant Australian citizen with a serious psychiatric disability:

Mr Abbott yesterday said government had to keep working with people to determine if they had some capacity to return to work.

He said he would seek advice on the case of Leon Ahern who won a case in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to keep receiving the pension indefinitely while on spiritual retreat in India.

Details of Mr Ahern's case were revealed by News Corp Australia this week.

The tribunal decided India "was home" to Mr Ahern who said attending spiritual teachings of Brahma Kumaris had allowed him to manage his schizophrenia.

He was permitted to claim the DSP indefinitely while living in India instead of being subject to a 13 week limit on claiming pensions while overseas.

"The question here is, is this guy legitimately entitled to a pension and he has got to be seriously incapacitated and that's the issue I think ought to be looked at here," Mr Abbott said....

Julie, Teresa, Barnaby, Scott, Stuart and Tony join George in the parliamentary entitlement rort corner - will more MPs follow?

Hot on the heels of Australian Attorney-General George Brandis being outed in the media for having inappropriately claimed attendance at a 2011 private wedding as a expense arising from duties as a member of Parliament, he is joined by the Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Brisbane MP Teresa Gambaro, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, Assistant Minister for Defence Stuart Robert and, serial offenders Nationals Deputy-Leader Barnaby Joyce and Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

The Sydney Morning Herald 7 October 2013:

On Sunday, Fairfax Media revealed that three Coalition MPs - Julie Bishop, Barnaby Joyce and Teresa Gambaro - had claimed more than $12,000 in travel expenses to return from a lavish wedding in India where they were guests of billionaire Gina Rinehart.

Mr Abbott also confirmed he repaid $1095 spent in travelling to the wedding of former colleague Sophie Mirabella seven years ago. The return of the money was prompted by media inquiries last week.

The Attorney-General also attended the Mirabella wedding The Australian reported on 7 October:

Attorney-General George Brandis is checking his records to see if he claimed taxpayer-funded entitlements to attend former colleague Sophie Mirabella's wedding...

However, he later asserted that he had made no travel claim for that wedding.

Then Liberal Party MP for Makin Trish Draper and Liberal Party MP for Farrer (and present Assistant Minister for Education) Sussan Ley attended the 250 guest Mirabella wedding on 11 June 2006, but it is as yet unclear whether they claimed travel expenses. 

Liberal MP and intended Speaker in the House of Representatives Bronwyn Bishop was another Mirabella wedding guest - Ms. Bishop stated she paid her own expenses.

In what can only be described as a politically dark twist the Prime Minister, who as Opposition Leader relentlessly pursued the then Speaker Peter Slipper in relation to alleged parliamentary entitlement rorts, has admitted claiming travel expenses as a minister in the Howard Government for attending Slipper's 12 August 2006 wedding:

TONY Abbott has quietly repaid $609 in taxpayer-funded entitlements he claimed to attend the 2006 wedding of one-time colleague Peter Slipper.... 

The then Federal Treasurer Peter Costello was also one of the 200 plus guests at the Slipper wedding and claims that he was reimbursed for travel expenses as he had official business in Brisbane during that period. While fellow guest the then Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock is firmly stating that he has no intention of repaying expenses claimed as Slipper was a work colleague.

Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Scott Morrison at first flatly denied he had claimed travel expenses to attend the the wedding of WA Liberal MP Steve Irons, but soon had to join Assistant Minister for Defence Stuart Robert in repaying money for that particular 21 October 2011 event.

Stung by the public reaction to these disclosures, Coalition Government members are busy ferreting though the expense claims of the Labor Opposition and, thus far it has been relatively slim pickings. 


* Cartoon by Alan Moir

UPDATE

In November 2012 Liberal Party Member for Canning Don Randall and a family member flew from his home state of West Australia to Cairns in Queensland on unexplained "electoral business" which may have been connected with his investment property there - billing the taxpayer $5,259  for this trip and apparently charging multiple associated taxi fares to the public purse as well.

On 18 October 2012 thewest.com.au reported that Don Randall will repay more than $5000 of taxpayer money he used to fly him and a family member to Cairns where he had bought an investment property and that;The latest coalition directory shows Mr Randall employs his daughter Tess as an "executive assistant". Fellow WA Liberal, Senator Chris Back, employs his wife Linda as his electorate officer and media assistant. The couple are in New York as part of a three-month taxpayer-funded delegation to the UN.

The Sydney Morning Herald on 20 October 2013 reported: Federal politicians have repaid taxpayers more than $20,000 in the three weeks since Fairfax Media first revealed two of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's top ministers had claimed thousands of dollars in entitlements for attending the wedding of close friend and Sydney shock jock Michael Smith....
But many MPs have refused to repay money for questionable spending, including Mr Abbott, who has - according to a Fairfax Media analysis - claimed more than $23,000 on trips associated with the 2012 Coffs Coast Cycle Challenge, the 2011 Bathurst V8 Supercar Race, the 2010 Melbourne Cup, the 2010 Boxing Day Test at the MCG and the 2011 Birdsville Races.


The West Australian on 8 October 2013 reported: WA Federal Liberal MP Steve Irons was forced to repay almost $11,000 in wrongly claimed airfares and car transport fees this year....

The West Australian revealed this year Mr Irons spent almost 130 nights in Melbourne and 20 nights in Adelaide over a two-year period, despite being a member for what was then the marginal seat of Swan.....

Travel records show one of the nights Mr Irons spent in Melbourne coincided with the debut AFL match of his son Jarrad for Port Adelaide in round one of the 2011 season. 

ABC News on 6 November 2013: Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce says he will not repay thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money he spent going to rugby league matches last year.

The ABC has calculated Mr Joyce claimed $5,312.57 for flights, travel allowance and government car costs to attend State of Origin II in Sydney on June 13, 2012, and NRL finals matches on September 14 and 30 later that year.

His expense claims say he was on official business, something Mr Joyce reiterated today.

"Because you're an official guest. You've been officially invited by the National Rugby League, the National Rugby League has every right to have access to politicians," he said.

Under the guidelines, official business "is limited to properly constituted meetings of a government advisory committee or task force, or functions representing a minister or presiding officer".....

International Day of the Girl Child 2013

On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. For its second observance, this year’s Day will focus on “Innovating for Girls’ Education”.

The fulfilment of girls’ right to education is first and foremost an obligation and moral imperative. There is also overwhelming evidence that girls’ education, especially at the secondary level, is a powerful transformative force for societies and girls themselves: it is the one consistent positive determinant of practically every desired development outcome, from reductions in mortality and fertility, to poverty reduction and equitable growth, to social norm change and democratization.

While there has been significant progress in improving girls’ access to education over the last two decades, many girls, particularly the most marginalized, continue to be deprived of this basic right. Girls in many countries are still unable to attend school and complete their education due to safety-related, financial, institutional and cultural barriers. Even when girls are in school, perceived low returns from poor quality of education, low aspirations, or household chores and other responsibilities keep them from attending school or from achieving adequate learning outcomes. The transformative potential for girls and societies promised through girls’ education is yet to be realized. [United Nations 2013]

How Asia sees the Australian Abbott Government?

The Standard (Hong Kong) 2 October 2013:

Gaffe-prone Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been accused by the opposition of “back-pedalling at 100 miles an hour'' on his hardline asylum-seeker policies during a diplomatic visit to Indonesia this week.
Abbott, who is presiding over an anemic economy and rising joblessness, visited Jakarta promising to “Stop the Boats'' a center piece of his campaign.
His policies, which include turning people-smuggling boats back to Indonesia, pre-emptively buying up rickety fishing vessels and paying villagers for intelligence, were coolly received in Jakarta, and Abbott appeared to waver on the key points after talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, AFP reports.
Striking a more conciliatory tone, Abbott insisted Australia had never said it would tow boats back to Indonesia but “turn boats around when it is safe to do so'' and his vessel buy-up “was simply the establishment of some money that could be used by Indonesian officials working cooperatively with their Australian counterparts.’’
“The important thing is not to start a fight, but to get things done,'' said Abbott.
He was criticized by center-left Labor, with interim leader Chris Bowen saying it showed “ill thought-out sound grabs from opposition are proving unsustainable in government.’’
“Tony Abbott is now back-pedalling from his ridiculous buy-the-boats policy at 100 miles an hour, as he should,'' Bowen told the Australian Financial Review.
“However, it is embarrassing for Australia that it took Indonesia to tell us that it wasn't on, and Tony Abbott didn't just realise himself that it was a ridiculous policy.''
Separately, Abbott was criticized in Indonesia for barring local journalists from his major press conference during the trip and restricting entry to Australian media.
Umar Idris, from the Alliance of Independent Journalists, said it was the first time he was aware that such an exclusion had been made.
Abbott's government has come under fire at home for limiting the release of information about refugee boats to a weekly briefing, even when a vessel sank last week off Indonesia, killing at least 39 people. 

Joke of the Year

Liberal Party apologist Tim Wilson (far right) is a freedom fighter with the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs?

George Brandis has a book or two

"Attorney-General George Brandis has defended as within his rights spending nearly $13,000 of taxpayer funds over the past four years on his personal library....
A Fairfax Media analysis of Senator Brandis' expenses, following a report from blogger Stephen Murray, shows that he has spent $12,808.35 on publications between July 2009 and December 2012."

The mainstream media refer to Senator Brandis' growing library as a personal one.

Personal it most definitely is as Brandis declared it (for what appears to be the first time) as a private asset, along with his own car, in his 2011 Statement of Registrable Interests:

Readers will notice that he declares the library to be a professional one. Presumably tax deductible in some form or other at the end of each financial year.

Perhaps the good senator is amassing an apparently extensive range of taxpayer-funded books to add to this library in anticipation of consultancy work once he retires from Parliament?