Tony Abbott

Minister for Defence Richard Marles has made it clear that whatever happens in the Asia Pacific region, Australia will remain a loyal ally to the United States. William Briggs reports.

In a world of Donald Trump, climate change and the threat of World War III, we need a laugh and quick — before it is too late.

So Green Left Weekly has put together what should be an electrifyingly funny evening in Sydney on September 22. It even features a couple of well-known, if not exactly well-loved names with Donald Trump and Tony Abbott making an appearance on stage (via the impersonation skills of Jonas Holt)

The federal Coalition government has dropped further in the polls following the knifing of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Nevertheless, both new Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the hard right Peter Dutton/Tony Abbott faction in the Liberal Party seem determined to take politics even more to the right.

Deposed Liberals Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described the factional implosion in his party as “a kind of madness”. It sure looked like it — and there may be even more “madness” ahead.

Vice-chancellor of Australian National University (ANU) Brian Schmidt released a long statement on June 5 explaining why the university had ended negotiations to partner with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. He said it was because the centre wanted “unprecedented influence” as part of the deal.

Blackmail charges brought against Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) leaders John Setka and Shaun Reardon were dropped by Victorian prosecutors on May 16 in a major embarrassment for the federal government’s trade union royal commission, police and prosecutors.

There is a real estate billboard on the Hume Highway in Sydney that declares: “Un-see this!”. Despite ASIO having seized the Cabinet Files from the offices of the ABC, the glimpses we have had of their contents will remain a reminder of the insidious agenda of successive Coalition governments and ministers.

We can’t “un-see” the evidence now.

The emergency on Manus Island has sparked a renewal in the refugee rights movement, with large numbers of new activists coming to their first demonstrations. It has also inspired a range of creative direct actions, including acts of civil disobedience, which have complemented the large protests in the major cities and significant protest actions across regional towns and centres.

In public debate “the thin end of the wedge” — the notion that once made, any penetration of the status quo will inevitably be followed by something greater — is an idiom invoked almost exclusively in the negative. It is an insufferable refrain of the perpetually fearful, the racist, the homophobic, the xenophobic, the Islamophobic, and the climate change-phobic.

It is one of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s favourite lines.

Tony Abbott reckons a bit of global warming could be a good thing, especially if it comes with capitalist prosperity.

He’s checked a few pics of his local Manly Beach and has seen no signs of sea level rises (the islands that have already disappeared beneath the South Pacific being, conveniently, beyond the horizon).

It doesn't take much to set off Tony Abbott and his right-wing shock-jock chorus, does it?

When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull referred, in a speech in London, to the historical fact that Robert Menzies went to great pains back in 1944 to not call his new political party “conservative”, but rather the Liberal Party, Abbott and crew started howling.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has re-launched his verbal war against his successor Malcolm Turnbull, with obvious relish.

In recent speeches, Abbott criticised leaked internal Liberal Party moves to bring forward a bill for marriage equality; called for an end to all new spending except for national security and infrastructure; and advocated freezing the country's — already inadequate — renewable energy target.