Carlo Sands

So if the government's bill excising the entire Australian mainland from the migration zone is passed in parliament, I guess we will all be unAustralian. That is one insult used by politicians to describe anything they don't like will now lose its force. Forget Aboriginal people protesting on Australia Day, logically there can surely be no more unAustralian act than legally declaring Australia unAustralia.
It is that time of year again, when a bunch of Norwegian politicians decide who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize with an apparent disregard for any involvement in actual wars. This year, the European Union was declared the winner. Coming just three years after the Norwegians gave the gong to US President Barack Obama, the decision is actually beginning to make me wonder if they have ever even heard of a place called Afghanistan. Perhaps we should all chip in for an atlas.
The Daily Telegraph slammed those so-called asylum seekers once more on October 11 in a hard hitting front page expose by Gemma Jones entitled “Sell house and sail away to better lives”. Jones wrote: “Sri Lanka's navy revealed that most of the 2279 people arrested leaving on 52 boats this year from 24 locations were 'economic migrants' looking for a better life in Australia.”
Responding to a new book by former Labor finance minister Lindsay Tanner, which said the Labor Party had lost any sense of purpose, foreign minister Bob Carr said: “I think it is getting a little too easy to bag the Labor Party.” Carr said: “If I were in retirement … it would have been a pushover to have polished off another book, number 20, on what's wrong with the Labor Party.”
“In any war between the civilised man and the savage, support the civilised man. Support Israel, defeat Jihad.”
Controversy is swirling around David Marr's Quarterly Essay article, which details Tony Abbott's time as a right-wing student activist on Sydney University. It describes Abbott as having been a violent, misogynist, homophobic thug who once punched a wall to intimidate a female opponent. Abbott's response has been to categorically deny he ever hit a wall. Sure, he may promote vicious anti-gay and anti-women policies, but Abbott wants to make it clear he has never engaged in wall bashing.
Another week, another round of killings in Afghanistan. Three Australian soldiers were killed on August 29 by an Afghan solider, just days after two US soldiers were also killed by a member of the Afghan army the occupiers are supposed to be helping. That takes the death toll from the so-called green-on-blue killings this year to 45.
OK, nobody panic or anything, but it seems another key plank in Gina Rinehart's plot to destroy the Earth has been given the green light. Gina Rinehart's multibillion-dollar Alpha coal mine and rail project in central Queensland has been granted federal government approval, ABC.net.au said on August 23.
Congratulations to Tony Abbott on becoming prime minister. We all know how just badly he wanted this job, and he didn't even have to sell his arse. Or worse, support nominal action on climate change. His rise to the nation's top office was marked on August 15, when his government passed his asylum seeker policies, with the opposition — Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie — voting against.
Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) Premier Campbell Newman said Queensland voters were “thankful” for his government's savage cuts to jobs and public spending. This, presumably, is in much the same way you'd be thankful if you had crossed a mafia don and he only broke your legs.
Despite some complications, oil giant Shell is confident it will get to work drilling for oil in the Arctic this year. This just goes to show how things usually have a way of working out. Here we were worrying peak oil was just about upon us. But thanks to global warming caused by burning oil, the Arctic ice melt opens up more and more oil for the oil giants to burn.
The obvious question posed by Labor's recent attacks on the Greens for being dangerous extremists is: who the hell keeps asking Paul Howes for his opinion?