In May 2017 Trump lumbered across the international stage dragging his knuckles in the dust

This is Donald Trump front and centre at every NATO photo opportunity……

This is how he gets there…….

Did Trump just shove another NATO leader to be in the front of the group? pic.twitter.com/bL1r2auELd

— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) May 25, 2017

Trump putting his right hand on the right arm of Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic and pushing himself ahead.

Not content with a single display of adolescent dominance Trump went for the gorilla grab with French President Macron......

À Bruxelles, unis avec nos alliés de @NATO. pic.twitter.com/7nyaoI8hki

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) May 25, 2017

These bully moves perhaps reflecting his reaction to the cool reception his policy stance received……

Politico, 26 May 2017:

In Europe, where he’s attended group meetings with other world leaders — first in Brussels at the European Union and NATO and now at the G-7 summit in Sicily — Trump has appeared less at ease.

While he avoided any major gaffes or serious diplomatic breaches, Trump’s lack of rapport with European leaders raises serious questions about his ability to effectively team up with critical U.S. allies.

“Like when there's a new strange kid in the class nobody likes,” said a senior EU official who was briefed on the closed NATO meetings in Brussels. “You behave civilly when teachers [media] watch but don't spend time with him in private because he's so different.”

Raw Story, 25 May 2017:

President Donald Trump on Thursday delivered a speech at NATO headquarters in which he did not explicitly endorse Article 5, which outlines a policy of collective defense among all members of the alliance.

While this might seem like a small oversight to casual observers, Brookings Institute fellow and top foreign policy scholar Tom Wright said Trump’s refusal to endorse Article 5 has rendered his entire foreign policy trip a “failure.”

“The White House told the NYT yesterday Trump would finally endorse Article 5,” he wrote on Twitter. “The fact that he did not is astonishing and shows that someone in the White House or [Trump] himself took it out. This will come as a huge shock to NATO members.”

Wright went on to say that Trump’s trip can now be considered “close to a disaster” unless he explicitly fixes things by endorsing Article 5 later on Thursday. He also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “will be thrilled at Trump’s refusal to endorse Article 5,” which he described as “unimaginable under any other president.”

The New York Times, 25 May 2017:

Instead of stressing an Article 5 commitment, Mr. Trump used his remarks at the NATO headquarters to criticize the other leaders assembled behind him for not contributing 2 percent of their countries’ gross domestic product to their defense. The allied nations have agreed to do so, but have often fallen short.

“Two percent is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats,” Mr. Trump said. “If NATO countries made their full and complete contributions, then NATO would be even stronger than it is today.”

The president said he had been “very direct” with the leadership of NATO about what he said was a failure on the part of many nations to pay their fair share. “Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying,” he said.

Earlier, Mr. Trump, a blunt critic of the European Union during his campaign for the White House, received a chilly reception from his European counterparts as they began meetings in Brussels, clashing over trade, climate and the best way to confront Russia.

The Washington Post, 26 May 2017:

During a meeting Thursday with European Union officials in Brussels, Trump allegedly said, “The Germans are bad, very bad,” according to Germany’s Spiegel Online, which cited unnamed sources in the room. He continued, the outlet said, by saying: “See the millions of cars they are selling in the U.S.? Terrible. We will stop this.”……

Asked about Trump’s alleged comments, Germany’s deputy government spokesman, Georg Streiter, said in Berlin on Friday that “a trade surplus is neither bad nor evil; it’s the result of the interplay between supply and demand on world markets.”

Yahoo! 7 News, 27 May 2017:

Taormina (Italy) (AFP) - A summit of G7 leaders on Friday failed to make progress on narrowing differences between the United States and its partners on climate change, hosts Italy said.

With President Donald Trump still reviewing the US position, Washington is resisting intense pressure to commit to remaining within the framework of the 2015 global accord on curbing carbon emissions.

"The question of the Paris climate accord is still hanging," Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni told a news conference after the leaders held talks on the issue.

Gary Cohn, Trump's economic advisor, said the president had told his colleagues that he regarded the environment as important.

"His views are evolving, he came here to learn," Cohn said. "His basis for decision ultimately will be what's best for the United States."

The optics in Israel were not good…….

he's just not there. there's nothing going on in that head. pic.twitter.com/dvUDznjvae

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) May 26, 2017

An obviously puzzled Israeli Prime Minister as Trump exits.

Even his ceremonial visit with the Roman Catholic pontiff did not appear to go well……..

The Wall Street Journal’s Carol Lee, the White House pool reporter documenting the scene, noted that the initial mood at Wednesday’s meeting seemed “stiff,” and that the pope appeared “rather stone-faced.”

Sick and tired of having religion forced down your throat in a secular democracy? Want the third tier of government to remain neutral? You're probably not the only one

Once again Clarence Valley Council is making a mockery of the separation of church and state.

Not content with the affront to secular democracy by having an ‘opening prayer’ read out at the start of each council meeting, in recent years the council has frequently imported ministers of religion to read this prayer.

Have they never noticed that not everyone in the visitors section will rise for the prayer?

A prayer which is somewhat humorously referred to on occasion as being “non-denominational” – although it is often so packed with Christian imagery that one wonders if the council understands the meaning of the word or the fact that there are literally hundreds of non-Christian religions and belief systems in existence.

Now the current set of councillors want to formalise this affront to genuine democracy by including that prayer in the Code of Meeting Practice.

Did they never ponder the fact that organised religions are not benign, disinterested parties – they are major players on the political stage. For centuries right down to the modern era they have made or broken both kings and governments in an effort to assert social control.

Are councillors not aware of the low repute of established religions due to centuries of institutionalised child abuse and misogyny inflicted on their followers, including abuse victims now living in the Clarence Valley local government area?

Do they not recall that a certain minister of religion was a Clarence Valley councillor who supported the Opening Prayer during his time on council - frequently reciting this prayer himself at the invitation of the mayor. He was later implicated in evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse concerning failure to report such abuse and was defrocked in 2015.

Have they never observed that 22.3 per cent of people living in Australia answered they had “no religion” to the optional question on their 2011 Census forms? Or that the Australian Bureau of Statistics expects that percentage to rise in the 2016 Census results.

What on earth were these nine eight elected men and women thinking when they resolved to include that amendment and impose their personal religious world views on an entire electorate?

Such arrogance quite takes my breath away.

Clarence Valley residents and ratepayers have until 4pm on Friday 9 June 2017 to send religion out of the council chamber and out of local government politics.

How much longer is the Turnbull Government going to keep playing these silly, divisive blame games?

This was the Minister for Human Services and Liberal MP for Ashton, Hon. Alan Edward Tudge, speaking to $300-a-head luncheon guests on 26 May 2017 as they dined on slow-braised osso bucco and blueberry fruit tart washed down with wine courtesy of their host, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) and Multinational sponsor Serco:

“welfare has become a destination, not a safety net”

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, four weeks earlier, in April 2017, 728,500 people were unemployed and looking for work across the nation.

Of these 508,200 were looking for full-time work and 220,300 were looking for part-time work.

Half of all these people will be off unemployment benefits in 4 months or less and only 18.33% of the total number had been unemployed for 12 months or more.

That’s not a bad achievement in a marketplace where the ratio of unemployed people to job vacancies stands at roughly four to one.

Somehow this doesn’t look as though Australians think of living on Centrelink unemployment benefits as a desirable destination rather than as a short-term, below the poverty line safety net.

Which begs the question – just how stupid does Alan Tudge think voters are that he continually spouts such nonsense and expects to be believed.

Would believing Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt's denials be the height of foolishness?

Along with making home-owning aged pensioners pay for their Centrelink/Vet Affairs pensions by way of a debt against the value of their houses, it appears as though funding private hospitals at the expense of public hospitals may be on the Liberal-Nationals-Murdoch-IPA Coalition wish list.

A list voters never actually get to see unless the Liberal and National parties are re-elected to government - at which time its contents are usually presented to the electorate as fixed policy.

Here it is. Minister claims to 'rule out' hospital funding overhaul but taskforce continued to meet. You can't trust Turnbull with Medicare. pic.twitter.com/3THdSs3kkx

— Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) May 29, 2017

Basic outline of unsubmitted recommendations of the
Global Access Partners (GAP) Taskforce on Hospital Funding

Via Twitter

The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 2017:

Health department bosses have described their radical proposal to remake hospital funding as "future gazing" after the Turnbull government declared it would never adopt the controversial policy.

The private health insurance rebate would be abolished, consumers would be charged more for extras cover and the states would be forced to find more money for public hospitals under the plan.

As revealed by Fairfax Media on Monday, the nation's most senior health bureaucrats – Department of Health Secretary Martin Bowles and his deputy Mark Cormack – are members of a secretive taskforce formed to develop the policy around a "Commonwealth Hospital Benefit" (CHB).

Health Minister Greg Hunt immediately ruled out adopting the policy.

"Not government policy. Won't be government policy. Will never be government policy," Mr Hunt said.

Mr Hunt said the taskforce – funded by the department but run by a private think tank called Global Access Partners – pre-dated his time in the portfolio and he had already told bureaucrats he was not interested: "I've rejected it once. If it ever comes forward, I'll reject it again."

Officials attended a GAP meeting that explored the proposal just four days after Mr Hunt apparently told them not to pursue the idea in March.

And Mr Cormack met with members of GAP as recently as May, two months after they say Mr Hunt ruled out the proposal…..

They insisted there was nothing secret about the taskforce even though it was never announced, never released anything publicly and branded its material – leaked to Fairfax Media – as "confidential".

Mr Bowles insisted the taskforce was fully independent – even though the government paid for it with a $55,000 contract…….

Under the plan, the Commonwealth would "pool" the approximately $20 billion it currently gives to public hospitals each year with the $3 billion it pays to private sector doctors and the $6 billion it spends on the rebate to help people pay their private health insurance premiums. 

It would use the money to pay a standard benefit for services regardless of whether they are performed in a public or private hospital, or whether people choose to be treated as public or private patients.

While the Turnbull government struck a three-year hospital funding deal with the states last year, it has flagged it wants a more long-term, less ad-hoc agreement – and a CHB proposal could fit the bill. COAG is set to revisit the issue of hospital funding next year to set the course for a post-2020 agreement.

News.com.au, 29 May 2017:

He told Senate Estimates yesterday it was his job as head of the department to look at the future of health funding.

He confirmed the department had entered into broad policy work on the proposal.

However, it emerged he did not put the $55,000 contract for the consultancy work to tender.

Mr Bowles said he gave the work to Mr Peter Fritz, the head of GAP, after they met in 2016 and told the Senate it was possible for him to award contracts for work costing less than $80,000 without a tender process.

Senator Watts probed Mr Bowles about connections between GAP and the Australian Health Research Centre which is funded by a number of large health insurers.

Members of the AHRC attended taskforce meetings, he revealed.

However, Private Healthcare Australia which represents insurers has raised major concerns about the plan.

“I’m genuinely stunned,’ Private Healthcare Australia chief Rachel David said when she was told the work had been paid for by taxpayers.

“It was a dramatic overhaul of the health system that totally changed the role of private health insurance, eliminated the difference between public and private hospitals and wold have put doctors on salaries,” she said.

“It would have been inflationary, there was no demand management,” she said.

This is what Global Access Partners Pty Ltd (formerly CSD Pty Ltd estab.1969) says of itself:

Global Access Partners (GAP) is an influential network that initiates high-level discussion on global issues, encouraging the sharing of knowledge, progress and policy change. Through its events, GAP promotes Australia’s capacity to find solutions to the challenges facing the worldwide community, and translates these solutions into business opportunities.

It appears to have been founded by:

Peter Fritz - who besides being GAP Chair & Group Managing Director of TCG Pty Ltd also chairs a number of influential government and private enterprise boards - and Catherine Fritz-Kalish currently GAP’s Managing Director.

Its offices are at 71 Balfour St, Chippendale NSW 2008 Australia.

GAP sees its participation in health public policy to date thus:

* The Australian National Consultative Committee on Health (formerly known as the Australian National Consultative Committee on e-Health) was established as a result of Global Access Partners’ 2004 Forum on ‘Better Health Care through Electronic Information’.

The ANCCH represents the major ICT industry players and other stakeholder groups. The Committee contributes to the debate around the public and private health agenda in Australia with a view to promote and realise better patient health outcomes through the application of changes to process, and the interaction of technology to improve efficiency, safety and productivity.

The group also provides a forum for public-private partnerships in order to promote improved execution and industry development.

The Committee  raises issues of national importance, influences government policy and supports the interests of its members. Its four broad areas of interest are agency coordination, chronic disease management, connectivity and infrastructure, and change management.

The ANCCH initiatives in the area of health and wellbeing over the last seven years have ranged from discussions of national health policy to the problems of implementing an Australia-wide e-health infrastructure and the potential applications of genetic testing in drug therapy to the management and long term funding of chronic "lifestyle" diseases in an ageing Australian population.

* GAP Taskforce on Government Health Procurement (2015-2016) is a cross-sectoral multidisciplinary group established by Global Access Partners to analyse Australia’s public health procurement and offer practical proposals for reform (see final report). The Taskforce considered the impact of procurement processes on the age and reliability of medical equipment, service levels, innovation and competition. Its final report highlights some of the inefficiencies of current health government purchasing  and calls for a more rational tendering process to reduce costs and waste in the system, while improving the quality and safety of care.

First in series Clarence Valley Council "roundtables" to discuss a special rates variation is to be held in Iluka on Thursday, 1 June 2017

Clarence Valley Council, media release, 30 May 2017:

Rates roundtables kick off on Thursday

THE first of a series of “roundtables” where people can discuss a possible application by the Clarence Valley Council for a special rates variation is to be held in Iluka on Thursday (June 1).

Council is considering making an application for an 8% rate rise each year for three years (cumulative impact of 25.9%) but is keen to consult with the community to see if there are other proposals that would help it meet the NSW Government’s Fit for the Future financial benchmarks. If adopted, the rate increase would apply only to a portion of people’s total rates notice.

The first of the roundtables is to be held at the Iluka Library from 5:30-7:30pm on Thursday.

Further roundtables will be held at the Maclean Council Chambers from 5.30-7.30pm on Friday, the New School of Arts Neighbourhood House South Grafton from 4-6pm on Saturday and the Treelands Drive Community Centre Yamba from 11am-1pm on Sunday (June 4).

To help council with staffing arrangements, RSVPs are required. For Iluka, RSVPs will be required by 3pm Thursday. All other RSVPs will need to be submitted by 3pm Friday. Contact Karlie on 6643 0200 to register.

People with questions about a possible special rates variation or who cannot make a written submission can call 6643 0230.

Release ends.

As utility bills get harder and harder to manage for those on low incomes, this comes as a slap in the face

In roughly five to six weeks time electricity prices are expected to rise for many people in Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and Tasmania.

Households are expected to pay up to $300-$400 more a year, with the rise in wholesale electricity prices making up est. 45 per cent of a domestic supply bill.

As low-income renters, pensioners and the unemployed struggle this winter with the choice of trying to stay warm without heating or face an impossibly large electricity bill, they might like to remember that all this was very avoidable.

First Prime Minister Abbott and then Prime Minister Turnbull (along with all their MPs and senators) had the chance to keep energy costs lower - but blinded by ideology they refused to do so.

This was The Sydney Morning Herald reporting the Turnbull Government's failure on 8 December 2016:

The Turnbull government has been sitting on advice that an emissions intensity scheme - the carbon policy it put on the table only to rule out just 36 hours later - would save households and businesses up to $15 billion in electricity bills over a decade.

While Malcolm Turnbull has rejected this sort of scheme by claiming it would push up prices, analysis in an Australian Electricity Market Commission report handed to the government months ago finds it would actually cost consumers far less than other approaches, including doing nothing.

It finds that would still be the case even if the government boosted its climate target to a 50 per cent cut in emissions by 2030.

Depending on the level of electricity use and the target adopted, modelling by Danny Price of Frontier Economics found costs would be between $3.4 billion and $15 billion lower over the decade to 2030.  Costs would be $11.2 billion lower over this time assuming average electricity use and the existing climate target.

Just one more thing that is fake about Donald Trump

It’s not just his 'orange' tan or his self-reported degree of personal wealth which is fake - it seems Donald J. Trump’s Twitter numbers are not what they seem either.

At least 12.9 million fake followers last week and 14.7 million followers without a pulse this week. 

Wonder how long it actually took the White House 'communications' team to amass that many proofs of his social inadequacy? Creating an extra 1.8 million little Twitter bots to boost that king-sized ego must have his minions' thumbs working frantically.

twitteraudit.com:

Each audit takes a sample of up to 5000 (or more, if you subscribe to Pro) Twitter followers for a user and calculates a score for each follower. This score is based on number of tweets, date of the last tweet, and ratio of followers to friends. We use these scores to determine whether any given user is real or fake. Of course, this scoring method is not perfect but it is a good way to tell if someone with lots of followers is likely to have increased their follower count by inorganic, fraudulent, or dishonest means.

TwitterAudit is not affiliated with Twitter in any way.