It was nice of former prime minister John Howard to let us know he was still alive and spending his politician's pension wisely by flying to Britain to give a talk insisting the threat of climate change was “exaggerated”.
Howard gave the keynote address at the Global Warming Policy Foundation on November 5. The foundation was set up by climate “sceptic” and former chancellor in Margaret Thatcher's government Nigel Lawson.
Carlo Sands
Prime Minister Tony Abbott had a really busy time last week, running around fighting fires before rushing back to his office to slash funds to those affected.
Between volunteering with the Davidson Rural Fire Service brigade to help fight the fires near the Blue Mountains and tightening eligibility requirements for bushfire victims to deny funds to those cut off from their homes, the poor guy must be absolutely exhausted.
I recently had the misfortune of being granted an audience with Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and was unlucky enough to conduct an interview with him. I include the transcript below.
* * *
Well, thank you very much, prime minister, for agreeing to this interview.
Well, I am always very happy to be interviewed by my good friends at the Daily Telegraph.
Yes...
You’ve moved offices I see. Nice Che Guevara poster!
Yes... Can I get you something to drink? I’m having a beer.
You don’t have any Bollinger do you?
“We'll pretend we've stopped the boats and the conditions under which we pretend they've stopped,” seems to be the motto of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's government.
“I am a gay, Irish, Catholic, alcoholic Pogue who is about to die from cancer — and don’t think I don’t know it,” Philip Chevron, who passed away on October 8, told the Irish Daily Mail in June. The 56-year-old Chevron was best known as the guitarist for legendary Irish folk punk band The Pogues. However, his music career goes back to the founding of The Radiators From Space in 1976 — described as Ireland's first punk band.
Tony Abbott was officially sworn in as prime minister on September 18 at Government House in a ceremony that seemed to involve the ritual blood sacrifice of public servants.
Featuring the sacrificial slaughter of three top public servants that day, the ceremony appears to have enabled the new PM to commune directly with the Dark Lord Margaret Thatcher from the deep fiery pits of Hell where the baroness demon has presumably dwelt since April.
Well, turns out some bastards won the federal elections. I knew some bastards would win. I said it beforehand, I said: “Some bastards are going to win this one, you wait and see.”
I was right. I even tried to put some money on some bastards winning, but no bookies would give me odds.
You may have heard of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and US army private Chelsea (formerly known as Bradley) Manning, who both leaked large amounts of secret US government information, and wondered what all the fuss was about. Well, not much, if you ask Australian attorney-general Mark Dreyfus.
Rupert Murdoch upset a few people by using the media outlets he owns to campaign for the Coalition in the federal elections, with his Daily Telegraph going so far as to greet Labor PM Kevin Rudd's announcement of an election date with a front page urging readers to “KICK THIS MOB OUT!”
I was very glad to read about the US military exercise that involved bombing the Great Barrier Reef, because let's face it, climate change is just taking too damn long to kill the thing.
At time of writing, the new date for the federal election had not yet been set, but we already know who won: Pauline Fucking Hanson.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a policy so driven by irrational racism that even Hanson could only have fantasised about it ever coming true: no asylum seekers who arrive by boat will ever be resettled in Australia, instead dumped in Papua New Guinea.
You know, some people knock Rudd's achievements, but he's just made Philip Ruddock look like a great humanitarian, and that takes real skill.
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All this outcry over Queensland Premier Campbell Newman's plan to award state politicians a 42% pay rise is a bit rough.
The rises would result in MPs getting an extra $57,000 a year, ministers an extra $90,000, and Newman's pay would rise by $117,000 to $398,000 a year.
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