Another example of the talent in Australia's coalition government

Mathias Cormann, Liberal Party Senator for Western Australia, is another member of the Abbott government to show off his talents with his entry in the parliament's register of senators' interests.

While Senator Cormann, a product of Belgium, might have trouble getting his tongue around the lingo spoken in Australia that's no excuse for not reading what was in front of him before he signed it.

What makes matters worse is that this bloke is the Minister for Finance. You'd have to wonder whether he checks his personal cheques and bank slips before he signs them.

Samples from Cormann's register of interests appear below.

Also appearing on the Senator's register is this entry. Interesting!!??!!

Source: Parliament of Australia, Register of Senators' Interests

Australian Defence Minister David Johnston takes one's breath away

Senator David Johnston

The Australian

In which Australian Minister for Defence Senator David Johnston appears to imply that being Australian means you don’t lie and being a furriner means you do....

The Australian 8 February 2014:

Senator Johnson dismissed a report published by Fairfax Media yesterday in which Somalian man Yousif Ibrahim Fasher said he was a witness to brutality, where asylum-seekers allegedly had their hands deliberately burned. "He's not even Australian," Senator Johnson said.......

NSW Liberal Party's Peter Phelps MLC playing the fool as usual

This Liberal Party member of the NSW Parliament must hold the parliamentary record for time wasting at taxpayers' expense.

Here is a typical example..........

NSW Legislative Council Hansard 27 November 2013:

ZOMBIES

Page: 26523

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS [7.20 p.m.]: I speak about a significant development in the cultural malaise greeting the West, and I speak of nothing else than zombies. Yes, zombies. Zombies are the proverbial canary in the cultural coalmine. One might be tempted to say, "Where go zombies, so goes the nation." I speak in particular tonight about the moral menace posed by the concept of fast zombies. Frankly, zombies do not run. Zombies are lumbering; they are eternal; they are blind and brainless. They rise from the grave, but they do not run. In the 1970s, the zombie mythos was created by the great George Romero films such as the Night of the Living Dead and the Dawn of the Dead. The dead rise, but they do not run. They lumber, they lurch—you can run, but you cannot hide. You think because they are slow you can outrun them, and thereby save yourself from the apocalypse that awaits you. You can grab your shotgun, but eventually it will run out of shells. You can grab your chainsaw, but it will run out of fuel. You can grab your baseball bat, but even the strongest maple will one day splinter and break. Indeed, zombies are a powerful cultural symbol. They are a metaphor for the death that awaits us all—the strong, the smart and the brave. It does not matter because zombies eventually will be feeding on your innards.

What do we see in the current cultural crisis facing the West? We see fast zombies. Fast zombies go against the entire mythos of zombiedom. Once upon a time you thought you could run, but now you cannot even do that, because you are being chased by the Usain Bolt of the undead. Consider the current zombie shows that have been foisted on us: 28 Days Later, Dead Set, Zombieland. All these movies have zombies running faster than CityRail. All this phenomenon of fast zombies or pseudo zombies, as they should be, is a disgrace to the zombie mythos. Even I Am Legend has zombies running about and showing feelings. I will put aside the fact that the movie I Am Legend is a disgraceful attempt to steal the vampirism in the original book and then turn it into a quasi-zombie story. Movies such as Warm Bodies have zombies falling in love. Worst of all, we now have pole-dancing zombies in the movie Zombie Strippers. This is an outrage. Zombies do not fall in love, they do not dance, and they do not express feelings.

Even World War Z, which is arguably the finest zombie book ever written, has been completely destroyed by Hollywood—and how many times has that phrase been used—by making them fast. The great zombie mythos has been rewritten and it has now become the Stawell Gift of horror movies. Why is that so? It is because of the demand for instant gratification from Generation Y. They cannot wait 90 minutes for the eventual evisceration or to have your brains being eaten by a lumbering zombie; they have to have a disembowelling every 30 seconds or they are onto the iPhone and then onto Twitter complaining about how boring the movie is and running a #oldpeoplezombies. I warn the people of New South Wales, Australia, Western civilisation and the world that we will continue to decline until we get our zombies back under control and stop them from running around like a bunch of undead chooks. Merry Christmas.

Question—That this House do now adjourn—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 7.25 p.m. until Tuesday 4 March 2014 at 2.30 p.m.

An example of the talent in Australia's coalition government: Senator Ron Boswell

Ronald Leslie Doyle Boswell, who has been a Queensland National Party senator since 1983, displays his obvious raw talent and possibly the results of his private school education at  St Joseph's College Gregory Terrace in his statement of registrable interests lodged with the nation's parliament.

Looks like Senator Boswell wasn't paying attention when the S words came up in his spelling lesson.

Source: Parliament of Australia, Register of Senators’ Interests

How the "Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs"* operates

The Canberra Times 15 February 2914:

Hundreds of Aboriginal public servants drafted into Tony Abbott's department to help "close the gap" are being paid up to $19,000 less than their new white colleagues doing the same jobs.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has more than 260 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bureaucrats, brought in from the old FaHCSIA department in a plan to bring indigenous policy under the PM's control.

But while the Prime Minister spoke last week of "closing the gap" in indigenous disadvantage in Australia, hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bureaucrats were settling into their new jobs working for Mr Abbott's department on wages well below those of their new non-indigenous co-workers.

There was more bad news for the department's officials on Friday afternoon as Secretary Ian Watt told his staff that PM&C could not afford to maintain its present staffing levels and that job losses were inevitable.

In another blow to indigenous voices in the federal arena, representative body the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples says it is sacking two-thirds of its workforce, a loss of 23 jobs, after the federal government cut its funding.

The new Prime Minister's Department recruits from the old FaHCSIA department and 854 of the non-indigenous employees have been told they will not be getting the same wages as their new well-paid co-workers at PM&C and will continue to be paid their old salaries.

Wages are about on par for the most junior employees, but there are big gaps further up the pay scale with a mid-level APS6 former FaHCSIA official earning $12,000 less than their PM&C counterpart.

In junior to middle management ranks, a level 1 executive from the old indigenous department can be up to $19,000 a year worse off than their PM&C colleague.

PM&C is one of the public service's best-paid departments and among its least culturally diverse....

* “It is my hope that I could be not just a prime minister, but a Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs” [Tony Abbott, Garma Festival, August 2013]

What did we get? Nothing. Not a zack

Letter to the Editor in The Northern Star on 7 February 2014 at Page 5:

CSG verdict stinks

The NSW Government's announcement of CSG exclusion and buffer zones is a bitter disappointment.

While noting that we did not support CSG mining in any part of the shire, Ballina Council made a very reasonable request that the villages of Newrybar and Tintenbar be included in Residential Area Buffer Zones and that land categorised as 'Regionally Significant Farmland' in current planning documents be excluded from CSG mining.

What did we get? Nothing. Not a zack.

It doesn't seem to matter that the villages are part of the catchment for our town water supply or that rural industries that rely on clean, uncontaminated water are the backbone of our local economy.

The government says that CSG development in these areas will be subject to the "gateway process", not mentioning that they've propped the gate open.

It seems that nothing must stand in the way of the fossil-fuel industries and their desire to rip as much as possible out of the ground, as quickly as possible. They've spent millions on ads, think-tanks and election-campaign funding to convince us this folly is in our own best interest. Small change when there's billions to be made.

Where are our parliamentary representatives shouting from the rooftops, "not here, not my community"? No, they are mute. Meek at best, complicit by their silence.

The clear message is that it is now up to us to defend our communities. The State Government has left no effective alternative.

Cr Keith Williams

Ballina Shire Council

Australian Politics: Pastor Martin Niemöller's poem revisited

First Abbott came for the ABC, and I did not speak out - because I was not employed at the ABC.

Then Abbott came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist.

Then Abbott came for welfare recipients, and I did not speak out - because I was not disabled or unemployed.

Then Abbott came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.