Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison apeing his hero......

“Scott Morrison has been Prime Minister for less than a month, but he couldn’t help himself when faced with a giant Mack truck near Canberra on Thursday.

He insisted on clambering into the cabin and hunching over the steering wheel, making excited faces, as if he were flying down a country highway with a country music song turned up loud, instead of sitting in a stationary machine.

And he was wearing a suit.

Just like Donald Trump.”

Words fail me.....

Political Cartoon of the Week

Cathy Wilcox 2018

Ways the twitterverse tells Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison it cares.....

Belinda Jones has compiled a list of ‘nicknames’ for the Australian Prime Minister found on Twitter in the last three weeks:

#slomo

#shoutymo

#scummo

#morriscum

#ScoMo

Shouty McShouty

Fozzie Bear

Pastor PM

Preacher PM

Fatman ScoMo

Skid Toryscum

Skid Muppetson

Prime Muppet

Pissant Muppet Morrison

Two koalas return to their home range in the Clarence

Clarence Valley Council, Media Release, 18 September 2018:

Mayor: Jim Simmons LOCKED BAG 23 GRAFTON NSW 2460

General Manager: Ashley Lindsay Telephone: (02) 6643 0200

Fax: (02) 6642 7647

Miss Starry in the fork of a tree and Ashby David is a little reluctant to go from his washing basket transport.

Coming home to the Clarence

Clarence Valley Council natural resource management project officer, Caragh Heenan, said Miss Starry was picked up by a WIRES carer and assessed by a local vet, then sent to Australia Zoo’s Wildlife Hospital where she was also treated for chlamydia – a serious and potentially fatal infection that causes blindness and internal infections if not treated.

Ms Heenan said her last few weeks were at the Friends of Koala Nursery in Lismore where she had been regaining strength for her release.

Another koala was released the same day; ‘Ashby David’ was found on the ground in Ashby and was sent to Currumbin Wildlife Hospital for treatment for chlamydia.

Ms Heenan said Clarence koalas were under threat from fire, cars, dogs and disease.

“WIRES carers play a big role in caring for injured animals, and koalas need your help too,” she said.

“With funding from the NSW Environmental Trust, council is running a project to support our koalas.

“Register where you’ve seen a koala at http://www.clarenceconversations.com.au and help us plan for Clarence koalas into the future.

“With the public’s help we can help koalas remain safe and healthy for the long term.”

Release ends.

Only one Liberal female federal politician was brave enough to stand up and publicly name an alleged political bully

Image: 9News

This was the Liberal MP for Gilmore Ann Sudmalis according to Hansard on 17 September 2017:

To date NSW Liberal MLC Gareth Ward has not specifically denied Ms. Sudmalis' detailed allegations. 

Instead saying he was "too busy" to have conducted a campaign against Sudmalis, suggesting it was all a case of "sour grapes".

Shoalhaven councillor, Andrew Guile, described her speech as an appalling abuse of parliamentary privilege. 

As is becoming usual for the current Prime Minister, he still refuses to publicly admit there is a culture of bullying in the Liberal Party.

But make no mistake the Liberal Party has mobilised and, Morrison is now making sure that Ann Sudmalis is incapable of anymore spontaneous truth telling over the next five parliamentary sitting weeks, by appointing her as the Coalition member of a two-member Australian delegation to the United Nations until the end of 2018.

After which she will be further neutered by the early December to start of February long parliamentary break and subsequent est. twelve weeks between when Morrison announces the federal election date and the return of the writs in May 2019.

Indeed after her New York sojourn at the United Nations we will probably never hear from Ann Sudmalis again.

Sometime Australian Prime Minister & MP for Cook, Scott Morrison, is the protector of religious freedom? Don't make me laugh

This was Australia’s most recent Liberal prime minister quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald on 17 September 2018:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will enact "preventative regulation and legislation" to shield freedom of religion from future enemies, giving his strongest hints to date about the government's intentions regarding "religious freedom" laws.

What a load of codswallop, manure, dung, heifers dust, cowpats, meadow cocktails – what ABSOLUTE BULLSH*T!

The Liberal Member for Cook Scott Morrison already knows that the Australian Constitution without qualification guarantees religious freedom in this country at federal level:

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT - SECT 116

Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion

                   The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. [my yellow highlighting]

As the Australian Constitution is the highest source in the land on this issue, one can only suspect that:

a) Scott Morrison has never read the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (as amended up to 1977); or

b) Scott Morrison is shamelessly pandering to his far-right, ideologically blind & bigoted supporter base, in the hope of being re-elected in 2019.

He appears to forget that Australia has also ratified a number of UN resolutions which directly or indirectly protect religious freedom and these have been upheld by the courts.

While he ignores the fact that Tasmania has had a religious freedom provision written into its state constitution since 1934 and Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, the Northern Territory as well as the ACT have passed legislation prohibiting direct and indirect discrimination on the ground of religion. Only South Australia appears to have no legislation specifically covering religious freedom to date.

Morrison also forgets that whatever legislation he forces through this parliament, or whatever regulations he imposes, can all be undone in the first instance by subsequent federal parliaments and in the second instance by the minister of the day.

If he really wants to genuinely strengthen existing religious freedoms he would call a referendum to change the Australian Constitution.

Even a callow first-year-in-parliament politician knows that when state law is in conflict with federal law it is federal law which usually prevails and, if either is in conflict with the Constitution it will be the Constitution which prevails.

Having well and truly politicised his own faith Morrison may in fact be creating his own "future enemies" - he has all but guaranteed that someone will take his legislation and regulations to the High Court of Australia - where every word, phrase and punctuation mark will be studied closely.

State of Play Australia 2018: 11 per cent of the workforce is unemployed and 8 per cent underemployed

Roy Morgan, media release excerpt, 13  September 2018:

Australian employment has grown solidly over the past year however the faster rate of overall growth in the Australian workforce due to more Australians looking for work means unemployment has increased to a two-year high of 11% in August.

The latest data for the Roy Morgan employment series for August shows:

* 11,940,000 Australians were employed in August, up 255,000 over the past year;

* The workforce which comprises employed and unemployed Australians is now 13,416,000, up 407,000 on a year ago;

* 1,476,000 Australians were unemployed (11% of the workforce); an increase of 152,000 (up 0.8%) on a year ago and the highest level of unemployment for over two years since March 2016;

* In addition 1,071,000 Australians (8.0% of the workforce) are now under-employed, working part-time and looking for more work, a fall of 170,000 in a year (down 1.5%);

* The increase in employment was driven by an increase in full-time employment which was up 323,000 to 7,761,000, while part-time employment fell 68,000 to 4,179,000;

* Roy Morgan’s real unemployment figure of 11% for August is more than twice as high as the current ABS estimate for July 2018 of 5.3%.

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source October 2005 – August 2018. Average monthly interviews 4,000.

Full media release can be found here.