Friday, 21 November 2014

Julie Bishop says Barack Obama wrong about climate change threat to Great Barrier Reef

Julie Bishop says Barack Obama wrong about climate change threat to Great Barrier Reef

JULIE BISHOP MAKES A FOOL OF HERSELF AGAIN ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE.

SHE'S A MEMBER OF ABBOTT AND CO IDIOTS BRIGADE.

Julie Bishop says Barack Obama wrong about climate change threat to Great Barrier Reef

Date: November 21, 2014 - 6:52PM

Latika Bourke and Peter Hannam

EXCLUSIVE

Scientists bemused at Bishop's reef comments

Australia's leading coral reef
scientists say Julie Bishop's remark that the Great Barrier Reef is not
in danger from climate change flies in the face of even the Government's
own reports.

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New York: Julie Bishop has rejected Barack Obama's
assertion that the Great Barrier Reef is under threat from climate
change in a further sign of the Australian government's displeasure with
the US President's speech that overshadowed the G20 in Brisbane.

But world leading scientists have rejected
Ms Bishop's claims, pointing out that rising temperatures threaten the
reef with mass bleaching, while fragile ecosystems will suffer due to
increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the oceans.

The Foreign Minister had previously gently chided the US President, saying
she personally briefed the United States about potential threats to the
reef just days before Mr Obama's address last Saturday, but in an
exclusive interview with Fairfax Media in New York, Ms Bishop went
further and directly contradicted the President.

Climate change a threat to the Great Barrier Reef: US President Barack Obama's University of Queensland address. Photo: Reuters

In his speech, Mr Obama warned "the incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef" is threatened by climate change.

"Because I have not had time to go to the Great Barrier Reef
and I want to come back, and I want my daughters to be able to come
back, and I want them to be able to bring their daughters or sons to
visit. And I want that there 50 years from now," he told an audience at the University of Queensland.

But on Friday Ms Bishop said the Australian government was
already acting to protect the reef from its greatest threats, which she
stressed did not include climate change.

Climate change a threat to the Great Barrier Reef: US President Barack Obama's University of Queensland address. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

"It's not under threat from climate change because its
biggest threat is nutrient runoffs from agricultural land [and] the
second biggest threat is natural disasters, but this has been for 200
years," she told Fairfax Media in New York.

However, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the University of
Queensland's Global Change Institute, backed the US President, saying Mr
Obama was "right on the money".

"We have one of the jewels of the planet in our possession
and we should care a lot about climate and he wasn't getting that from
our leader [Prime Minister Tony Abbott]," Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said. Peer
reviewed research by Dr Hoegh-Guldberg says that even global warming
limited to 2 degrees will be devastating to the reefs.

Julie Bishop: Obama overstated climate change threat to Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Reuters

Charlie Veron, a former chief scientist at the Australian
Institute of Marine Science, went further, saying the Abbott government
was downplaying the dire future facing the Great Barrier Reef and coral
reefs everywhere.

"In the long term, that is the whole of this century, we are
going to have the Great Barrier Reef slaughtered," said Dr Veron, a
world authority who has scientifically named about one-quarter of all
known corals.

"There's no doubt about that at all, if carbon-dioxide emissions keep on tracking as they are."

Ms Bishop defended the government's efforts to protect the
reef, saying it was stopping agricultural run-off, had stopped mining
exploration was banning the dumping of capital dredge waste.

Ms Bishop said she did not have an issue with Mr Obama
raising climate change on the sidelines of the G20 summit but was
"surprised" by his direct reference to the reef and doubted it would
have been made if the President had been briefed properly on the message
she had relayed to US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell.

"We're not angry, I was just surprised about the reference to
the Great Barrier Reef, that's all and that's the only point I've made.
Had I not given the detailed briefing on the Thursday I would not even
have mentioned it.

"I truly believe that had the White House known about the
briefing on the Thursday I don't think it would have been in his
speech," she said.

Australia is currently awaiting a decision by the World
Heritage Committee on whether the Great Barrier Reef will be added to
the "endangered" list, and Ms Bishop has vowed to "advocate strongly
against that".

In a separate climate issue for the government, the United Nations Environment Programme released its annual Emissions Gap Report 2014 in
New York, citing Australia as one of four countries "likely to require
further action and/or purchased offsets" to meet pledges on cutting
carbon emissions.

Australia's replacement of the carbon price with an Emissions
Reduction Fund will likely increase projected emissions for 2020, the
UN report said.

Instead of reducing annual carbon emissions to 555 million
tonnes by the end of the decade, Australia is likely to increase them to
between 685 million and 710 million tonnes, it said.

Other nations on course to fail to deliver on their pledges are Canada, Mexico and the US.

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Monday, 17 November 2014

What Abbott actually said - The AIM Network

What Abbott actually said

November 16, 2014
Written by:
Victoria Rollison
98 Replies

Weird and graceless. Shorten’s description of Abbott’s G20 address
to world leaders was spot on. We all know that Abbott doesn’t perform
well at public speaking. And we never expected him to say anything
inspiring, intelligent or even informative at the G20. It’s not like he
was going to admit he’d been wrong about climate policy and could Obama
and Xi Jinping please help him to fix his faults. No, what we expected
was for him to be uninspiring, unintelligent, and to say not much at
all. Like he usually does. Because let’s face it, we’re used to three
word slogans repeated slowly, spread out amongst ahh, err, arh, urms ad
nauseam. But that’s not what we got from Abbott yesterday. Surprisingly,
we got worse than this. Which is why it’s worth taking a closer look at
what he actually did say.

The closest I’ve seen to criticism of the speech from the mainstream
media, who surprisingly unwrapped Abbott from his Teflon coated bubble
wrap for a millisecond to give him some negative feedback, was that the
speech was more suited for a domestic audience than a meeting of world
leaders. This is true, but was by far the least worst thing about what
Abbott actually said. As a member of that domestic audience for whom the
speech was apparently targeted, I found it highly offensive. Not just
partisan, immature, whingey, unbecoming of a Prime Minister, badly
delivered and embarrassing to the country. Look at what he actually said and I think you’ll be offended too:

‘Two issues in particular that I lay before my colleague leaders:
we have tried to deregulate higher education, universities, and that’s
going to mean less central government spending and effectively more fees
that students will have to pay. We think that this will free up our
universities to be more competitive amongst themselves and more
competitive internationally but students never like to pay more.’

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Pyne’s argument was that deregulation of university fees would make fees less expensive? Pyne has also argued that his policy is a ‘good deal’
for students, although this was clearly never the case. How is it a
good deal to be paying more for something and having to pay interest you
previously didn’t pay, whilst getting the exact same product you used
to get? But the point is, Abbott’s government always argued that this
policy was about improving the university sector – not about balancing
the budget. Yet yesterday, Abbott was using this policy failure (let’s
call a spade a spade that has failed to get through the Senate) as one
of the reasons he’s finding those revolting peasants in his kingdom so
terribly hard to force into line. Because students ‘never like to pay
more’. Apparently Abbott’s budget woes are nothing to do with his and
Hockey’s incompetence and are instead apparently all university
students’ fault and their sense of entitlement that they should be able
to get an education without taking out a mortgage on their future. An
education, by the way, that benefits the long term economic success of
Abbott’s precious economy. Not that Abbott seems to be able to put two
and two together in this way. Abbott hadn’t finished yet though, because
it wasn’t just the students who were to blame. It was also the sick.

‘The other reform that has proven very, very difficult for us is
to try to inject more price signals into our health system. For a long
time most Australians who went to see a doctor have been seen at no
charge and we would like to see a $7 co-payment for people who are going
to see the doctor. In most countries this is not unusual. In most
countries, this is standard that the doctor can charge a fee, but it is
proving to be massively difficult to get this particular reform through
the Parliament.’

Those pesky sick people and their sense of entitlement that they
should be treated in a health system that they pay for through their
taxes that was set up to look after all Australians from cradle to the
grave. How dare these revolting peasants think they should be able to
see a doctor for free when they are sick! But at the heart of this whole
argument is that a ‘price-signal’ (you know, like the carbon tax was a
price signal to reduce carbon pollution) will reduce visits to the
doctor, and will therefore reduce the cost of this universal health
sector, which is funded by Australians through our tax system. The only
way this could ever possibly be the case is if Abbott believes that
Australians aren’t really sick and are actually just whingey
hypochondriacs who need to be put off from their whingey hypochondria
through a price signal. Or, his government believes that poor people who
can’t afford the $7 co-payment should put up with being sick and
shouldn’t be treated for ailments that could become much worse if not
treated, such as lumps that can become a range of life threatening
cancers or a heart problem that could easily be treated before it
becomes catastrophic heart failure. Perhaps Abbott would prefer the poor
just died without costing his budget any money. See why I felt
offended? I was also frustrated that Abbott forgot to mention that his
great-big-GP-tax was not actually going to be used to fund a budget
surplus. It was being used for a $20 billion research fund
for use by the private research sector. At the same time as Abbott is
cutting the apparently wasteful CSIRO. Funny the small facts Abbott
chose to leave out of his grand whinge.

But ultimately, if you were really listening, you’ll have heard that
it wasn’t just the students and the sick and hypochondriac Australians
who are to blame for Abbott’s inability to fulfil one of his apparent
four core promises to ‘get the Budget under control’. Because right up
front, Abbott said this:

‘…it doesn’t matter what spending programme you look at, it
doesn’t matter how wasteful that spending programme might appear, there
are always some people in the community who vote, who love that
programme very much’.

Get that people? It’s all of us voters who are so stupidly in love
with government spending on programs that are just a complete waste of
government spending. It’s all our fault that Abbott can’t balance his
books! Us stupid voters refuse to let him send a wrecking ball through
our civilised society that we have spent generations building! How dare
we block his wrecking ball!

So yes, I was offended, as a member of the domestic audience that was
the true target market for this speech. But once I had calmed down and
thought about it for a moment, I realised that I was also incredibly
proud of Australians. Abbott can blame us all he likes. But the fact of
the matter is that the worst of Abbott’s budget – the parts that hit the
most vulnerable hardest – like the GP co-payment, like Pyne’s assault
on the higher education sector – are being blocked by our
democratically elected leaders in the Labor Party, the Greens, various
independents and low and behold, the Palmer United Party. So we might be
dumb enough to elect Abbott in the first place, but I hope the world
leaders, and those across the world who may have been tuning in, can see
we’re not dumb enough to let him wreck the place, no matter how hard he
might be trying.

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Sunday, 16 November 2014

TONY ABBOTT AND HIS LIES AND DECEIT FACTORY and their MINIONS: View from the Street: Abbott was told the G20 was ...

TONY ABBOTT AND HIS LIES AND DECEIT FACTORY and their MINIONS: View from the Street: Abbott was told the G20 was ...: View from the Street: Abbott was told the G20 was about international matters, surely? View from the Street: Abbott was told the G20 was ab...

Saturday, 15 November 2014

The Importance of Being abbott

Posted on November 15, 2014 by archiearchive FCD

The G20 is a meeting of the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world.

Australia is one of those countries, ranked at No 20 in terms of population, N0 18 in terms of GDP.

We scrape in by virtue of our geographical position and our ethnography. That, and our extreme quarryishness.

The leaders of the big two countries, the USA and China, have spoken about matters of earth-shattering importance.

Or, perhaps, Earth-saving importance.

In the face of irrefutable evidence of Climate Change and the dire
consequences of doing nothing at all, they have come to an agreement to
reduce their emissions over the next fifteen years.

China agreed to slow and then stop (the increase in) its
emissions by 2030 while the US said it would reduce emissions by up to
28 per cent by 2025. Australia has committed to a 5 per cent cut in
emissions by 2020.

China has even explained that this will mean a slowing of their economy.

In addition US president Barack Obama has pledged $US3 billion to a global climate fund.

What has been the response of our little country to the challenge of this high-powered meeting of minds?

Australian
Treasurer Joe Hockey says G20 finance ministers from the world’s 20
largest economies have committed “to use all policy levers” to generate
growth and jobs – including a $1 trillion European stimulus – as a draft growth plan warns that lack of combined action means they will fall short of their 2 per cent growth commitment.

Despite the acceptance by China that slowing emissions means a slowing of economies.

Australian Prime Minister tony abbott has confirmed my opinion that
he only deserves small letters with his amazing address to the other G20
leaders.

He preened himself on the fact that he had “removed the Carbon Tax”.
He spoke proudly about how he had increased the cost of education. He
whinged that the electorate did not want his surprise $7 health
co-payment.

So much parochial in such exalted company.

Bill Shorten said Mr Abbott had “missed the opportunity to show why
Australia should be considered a world leader. Instead he boasted of
taking Australia backwards on climate change action, making it harder
for Australians to go to university and pricing sick people out of
getting the healthcare they need.”

“Tony Abbott is showing what a small-minded and insignificant player
he is by whining about domestic politics instead,” Greens leader
Christine Milne said.

With Australia right on the bottom of the G20 membership, should we re-elect abbott and his crazies in 2016 (I predict the election will be Jan 2017) then by 2018 we will no longer have an economy worthy of being included in the G20.

Either 2016 sees the last of abbott or a shrinking Australia will see the last of the G20!

abbott, aided by his crazies, is taking us all to Hell in a Handbasket.

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Friday, 14 November 2014

How a shirtfront became an own goal

By ABC's

Barrie Cassidy

Updated
Fri at 8:53amFri 14 Nov 2014, 8:53am

Photo:
How Prime Minister Tony Abbott would now like to erase history and start again. (Dean Lewins: AAP)

The opportunity to rub shoulders with
global leaders usually gives the prime minister of the day a boost. Not
this time, writes Barrie Cassidy.

Only now are the
political negatives from Tony Abbott's threat to Vladimir Putin
blindingly obvious, and "shirking the shirtfront" as one television
newsreader put it, is only part of the problem.

For the past week,
the Prime Minister's appearance at APEC - and probably at the G20 in
Brisbane still to come - has been traduced and cheapened by a media
obsession with the undiplomatic overreach.

These opportunities to
rub shoulders with global leaders don't come along often. When they do,
they usually give the prime minister of the day a boost.

Not this time.

The
reporting, the photographs and especially the cartoons, have reduced
serious diplomacy to high farce. For that Abbott has to take a large
slice of the blame.

The hysterical reaction from parts of the
media to the presence of Russian ships in international waters off Papua
New Guinea only served to underscore how ridiculous the whole episode
has become.

This, they would have you believe, is all a result of
the Abbott threat. "The Reds are Coming", the Herald Sun announced,
presumably because the Russians want to show Australians just how
powerful they are.

How Abbott would now like to erase history and
start again, allowing himself to present as a mature leader nudging and
cajoling the world's most powerful towards important global solutions.

But
in the whole scheme of things, even if this passes as a momentary
blunder, there is a more worrying trend for the Coalition. There is
evidence that the shift from domestic to foreign policy, from the budget
to national security, will not be the permanent game changer the
government had hoped for.

Newspoll had the Coalition in front two
party preferred 51 per cent to 49 per cent just before the budget. After
that, the Coalition slumped to 47s, 46s and even 45s before the
emphasis on terrorism related issues brought them back to 49 per cent.

But since then - through October and early November - they have slumped again to 47s and 46s.

Tony
Abbott's approval rating has gone down the same path. In terms of
negative ratings - the approval rating minus the disapproval rating - he
started at -7, slumped to -30, and recovered to -11 only in recent
weeks to slip back to -15.

This has happened even though the
government got rid of the carbon and mining taxes, put its direct action
plan in place, cut some important budget deals, stopped the boats and
changed the conversation to national security.

If that won't do it, what will?

The
global challenges - and particularly the conflict in Iraq - should be a
plus, especially with the opposition offering bipartisan support. The
polls suggest the public is behind them. But research also exposes a
fear among many that the Australian commitment will inevitably grow and
that achievements will be few and far between. The request from the
United States this week for more help - and the immediate response from
the Iraqis that they don't need it - gave a sense of how quickly that
can go awry.

At home, there is a growing realisation that the
country does indeed have both a spending and a revenue problem, no
matter what Coalition frontbenchers said in opposition.

As
recently as April, this year, Tony Abbott re-iterated that Australia is
"dealing with a debt and deficit disaster". Yet in the first three
months of this financial year the net debt has increased from around
$200 billion to $220 billion. The deficit is on the same trajectory.
There are excuses. Commodity prices are falling and the Senate is
preventing the government from reversing some of Labor's spending
initiatives. But when a party speaks with such bravado and conviction in
opposition, excuses don't offer much shelter in government. Reality is
starting to bite.

Now the dramatic commitments from the United States and China on climate change has added fresh pressures.

Before
mid next year the Abbott government has to commit to targets out to
2025. According to the Climate Institute, to match what the United
States has done, Australia will have to reduce emissions not by 5 per
cent, but 30 per cent. Even if that was their inclination, how would
they do it? And at what cost? Abbott has already said that even if it
becomes clear the 5 per cent target cannot be reached by 2020, he won't
be allocating any more money.

On top of that, because of where China says it's heading, there is now a question mark over coal exports.

The
one breakthrough over coming days will be the trade deal with China.
But again trade deals are not created equal. There is give and take.
Until the details are released and digested, it's impossible to predict
how the public will respond.

Against that challenging background,
Tony Abbott could have done with a hassle-free APEC and G20 to build on
his status and credibility. An own goal robbed him of that.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. View his full profile here.

Topics:
federal-government,
government-and-politics,
abbott-tony,
bishop-julie,
hockey-joe,
trade,
foreign-affairs

First posted
Fri at 7:05am

British bulldog Tony: Australia’s white supremacist Prime Minister

Natalie Cromb 14 November 2014, 5:30pm 6

Discrimination Indigenous Australia Politics

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Australia's possible dual British citizen PM Tony Abbott
today described Australia as “nothing but bush” before the arrival of
the First Fleet. First Nations’ representative Natalie Cromb responds.

Australia is a focus point in international politics this week as it plays host to the 2014 G20 summit in Brisbane. International diplomats, representatives, staff, security and media have descended amidst a climate of tension and drama pertaining to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s threats to “shirt-front” Russian President Vladamir Putin.

In this context of heightened international interest, speaking at the International Infrastructure Business Breakfast in Sydney this morning, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, in front of British Prime Minister David Cameron, took the opportunity to perpetuate the lie of terra nullius by describing Australia prior to colonisation as [IA emphasis]:

“… nothing but bush … the Marines, and the convicts and the sailors … must have thought they’d come almost to the Moon…. Everything would have seemed so extraordinarily basic and raw…”

Granted, these comments come as little surprise to the Indigenous population of this nation given he has previously credited British people with the first

“... foreign investment … [in] the then unsettled or, um, scarcely settled, Great South Land…”

and stated that

“… the First Fleet was the defining moment in the history of this continent.”

While not surprised by his comments, I am outraged.

I am outraged that a man of this unashamed racial intolerance holds the leadership position of this nation.

I am outraged that he uses this platform to manifestly attempt to rewrite history and decimate any progress made historically towards closing the gap, self-determination and reconciliation.

I am outraged that his entire platform of economic policy was based on scaremongering without any substance.

I am outraged that he so grossly underestimates the intelligence of
the Australian people and that such underestimation, for a large portion
of people, is well founded. How else can the fact he was elected be
otherwise explained?

I realise it is facetious of me to expect the self-proclaimed “Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs” to consider the gravity of his words as they may be received by his alleged
constituents — after all, a man holding the highest position in this
land cannot possibly be expected to speak in a measured an accurate
manner. Can he?

Of course not! He has proven time and time again that he is a simple man ‒ albeit an avid liar
‒ who has absolutely no sense of social justice. He has used his
platform of leadership to decimate Australia in every capacity —
socially, culturally, educationally, economically and environmentally.

Let me be clear, I do not hold Tony Abbott in high regard intellectually. I am not outraged at the views of a simple bigot.

I am outraged that we live in a country that has such an affinity
with his views that he was elected into power to perpetuate his racist
ideals with real policies that we, as Australians, are required to live
with. These policies have real consequences and will reverberate for
many years to come.

Australia is a racist country (cue gasps of horror and indignation). Are all Australians racist? No.

Let me explain.

This nation is one built on the lie that is terra nullius and the fact that there has been no meaningful attempt at reparation for the theft
of an entire continent from the original inhabitants (“owners” for
those of you who require capitalist terminology) demonstrates that we
remain a racist nation.

At times, covert — but still racist.

Not only was an entire race of people dispossessed from their land, but they were subject to brutal massacres,
slavery, disease, political policies of genocidal proportions and to
deny this history and continue to benefit from it is the crux of the
issue.

There is a wilful ignorance of many non-Indigenous Australians to the
perspective of Indigenous Australians when it comes to discussing this
history. There is a glazed look when this topic of discussion gets
raised because there is no means in to empathise and there is a common
misconception that Indigenous people want them to give up their homes
and make claims that would directly impact them. This is not the case.

All too often you will hear discussions of this very issue and there are always comments of varying degrees of the same message:

“It was in the past…. I didn’t personally do it, it was my
ancestors …. get over it …. it’s not my problem …. I can’t be held
responsible for events of the past …. haven’t we moved on?”

A large part of the destruction of Indigenous culture did occur in
the past, however, the destruction continues today. The current
generation Australians benefit from the actions of previous generations
of Australians (and British) and continued denial of this fact
perpetuates the myth that the damage was done and remains in the past.

This denial of history and the effects rippling through modern
Australia is the accepted perspective of a large portion of the
Australian community. A portion of the community that elected a leader
so blatantly racist that he uses his leadership platform to dispense
with covert methods and go straight to telling anyone who will listen
about British superiority and our obligation to give thanks for
“creating” Australia — all the while denying the truth of the Indigenous
history of this nation.

I am aware that being so blunt as to label Australia as a racist country is tantamount to setting the cat amongst the pigeons, but spare me the outrage; having lived and experienced this racism first hand, this is just plain honesty.

So while Adam Goodes (who happens to be Australian of the Year) gets lambasted
for speaking the truth in relation to Australia’s sordid history, I
will undoubtedly get my share of vitriol, Tony Abbott is free to send a
clear message to the world that Australia is, was and always has been a
British colony (truth is irrelevant).

You can follow Natalie on Twitter @NatalieCromb.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Wednesday, 12 November 2014

Broken Election Promise No. 48: Tony Abbott Didn't Stop The Boats After All | newmatilda.com

Broken Election Promise No. 48: Tony Abbott Didn't Stop The Boats After All

By Chris Graham

Russian warship Movska… heading for an Australian beach near you.

Keywords:

tony abbott

vladimir putin

mh17

g20

As
Russian warships steam towards Australia, Tony Abbott is preparing to
shirt front one of the world's most powerful leaders. How in the hell
did we end up here? Chris Graham has no idea either.

Well. That escalated quickly.

Tony Abbott came to power promising to ‘stop the boats’. And yet this
evening, a small fleet of Russian warships is steaming towards
Australia.

Not, it should be noted, to start a war. That would be quite silly.
Their mission, we assume, is to simply send a clear message to our Prime
Minister.

That message is something along the lines of, ‘That’s not a navy. Thiiiissss is a navy’.

That or, ‘So, how about that shirt fronting Tony? Still up for it?’

All of this, of course, is predicated on the notion that any of this
is true. It has been reported in the Australian mainstream media, so,
you know... it might not be.

But assuming it is, Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly has,
in the past, sent naval vessels to accompany him on overseas trips. It
makes sense – he’s one of the world’s most powerful leaders, and having a
bit of military might in the background is not always a bad idea.

But this is something else altogether. And while it may seem alarming
– and let’s face it, it is alarming – the arrival of Russian warships
in international waters just outside Australia is more embarrassing than
anything else.

Because we’re not going to attack them, and they’re not going to
attack us. And that’s simply because if we do, they’ll kick our arse.

Apparently, we’ve sent an Anzac Class Frigate to keep tabs on them.
Awesome. That should go well. Shame about the billions we’ve spent on
those Joint Strike Fighters which still aren’t ready.

And if all that doesn’t work, maybe Abbott could convince his mates
at the Manly Surf Lifesaving Club to kit up and start heading north.
Numbers count, even if they’re half naked.

The wash up is that tonight, Abbott looks like a meek fool. For all
his strutting, his budgie smuggler wearing chest puffing, he’s been
called out for what he is – a small-time bully with a big-time mouth. A
minnow.

Thus, Abbott has several options before him.

The first is to do what he’s done to all the other boats that came
since he took office – bully them into submission, and then ‘send them
back where they came from’… or at the very least, jail the occupants of
the boats without charge. For the rest of their lives.

Admittedly, beyond getting an awful lot of people killed, that might
cause a bit of an international incident. It’s one thing to demonise
people who can’t defend themselves. It’s another thing altogether to
take on one of the world’s most powerful armies.

So option one is pretty much off the table.

Option two is to do nothing. We could just pretend they’re not there.
Warships? What warships? That’s probably our safest option. Although
Abbott has to spend several days with Putin in Brisbane this weekend.
It’s going to be painfully awkward, but at least it might de-escalate
things.

Option three is to apologise for his ‘shirt front comment’, and then
shut his f**king mouth. There remains no evidence that Putin or Russia
had anything to do with the downing of MH17. If you’re going to accuse
people – in this case a world leader – of mass murder, best to have a
bit more than American intelligence, given their shady past.

Option four is to let Tony Abbott speak, and just see what happens.
That would be in-line with the great Australian passion for two-up and
gambling. Of course, it’s what got us here in the first place, but if
we’re in for a penny, we may as well be in for a pound.

Option five is for Abbott to try and use this to scare people. It's
worked on lots of other stuff, although generally Abbott has only tried
to ramp up fear and loathing against things that are unlilkely to
actually hurt us, like Ebola, Muslims and asylum seekers. So not the
best option.

Option six is to retreat to an area you know well, in this case three
word slogans: 'Stop the Russians'. Or, if we choose to placate them,
'Vodka is awesome'.

The seventh and final option, of course, is for Abbott to resign
before the weekend, so that he doesn’t have to wet himself in front of
19 other world leaders while trying to stare down a smug, smiling Putin.

That’s obviously not going to happen – there’s nothing Abbott, in his
own words, wouldn’t do for the Prime Minister’s job, and now that he
has it, putting an entire nation at risk, again, is unlikely to shame
him.

Which doesn’t get us very far. So we’ll all just have to watch and
wait and see how Tony gets himself out of his latest mess. Which on the
upside, should be very entertaining. And on the downside, is no
long-term solution at all.

For just as Tony Abbott was a wrecker in Opposition, he’s proved to
be perhaps the greatest wrecker The Lodge has ever seen. And he’s only
been in a year.

Imagine where we’ll all be in another two.

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The Shirtfront Chronicles

Bob Ellis 12 November 2014, 10:00am 29

International Politics

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It is worth noting how big a fool Abbott has made of himself
with his ‘shirtfront’ threats and the harm he has done to his country.

He has accused a world leader of complicity in a mass murder and asked him for money in recompense for it. Though it is unlikely Putin knew of the incident before it happened, he has asked him to take responsibility for it, and, in effect, pay a fine – if he is a good fellow – though he has not spoken of any consequences if he does not.

This was after he threatened to ‘shirtfront him’;
then, backing off a bit, ‘have a robust conversation with him’, and
then sat beside him for an hour avoiding his eyes and not saying a word
to him, showing palpable fear of one who is, after all, the most
powerful man in the world.

If the ‘compensation’ he has asked
for each dead Australian, or Australian resident, was, say, $450,000
the money that Putin would be then said to owe the 298 victims’ families
is $134,100,000. This is greatly in excess of the $800 Australia pays
for a wrongly killed child in Afghanistan, but let us imagine this is
the total owed.

But is it Putin that owes it?

He supplied weapons to an insurgent force, as America did to the Contras in Nicaragua,
who killed, inadvertently, some innocent people in the path of their
advance, just as they supplied weapons to the secret force that killed Che Guevara, but they have not yet paid a fine for this wrongdoing to anybody

And Abbott wants not only money but an apology.

He asks no apology from the Malaysian airline official, and the EU
official, who guided the plane into a war zone, but he wants an apology
from Putin, who had nothing to do with the accident that followed.

And if he doesn’t get the apology, he will do ... nothing.

‘Laughing stock’ does not come near the way he is thought of by the
wide, wide world this morning. He has accused a powerful man of being an
accomplice in mass murder and asked $17,100,000 for it, and an apology,
and threatened him, if he does not comply, with … nothing.

This, after showing palpable cowardice in his presence.

It is likely, though not certain, that Putin will have a press
conference, or issue a statement. He will say he has evidence the
Ukrainians did it. He may cut off trade with Australia. He may forbid
Qantas to fly over Russia. He may ask Abbott to apologise for so
accusing him. It certain he will not ask him to pay a fine.

How serious a blunder is this?

Well, it has shown that, after the acclaimed majestic tact of Bob Carr, our foreign policy has been executed by boofheads. Bishop railed, on camera, at the Chinese. Morrison dumped refugees on Indonesia, invading their territory. Abbott said the Scots were unworthy of the freedom Australians have. Dutton refused qualified doctors, who wanted to go there, to the Ebola stricken countries of Africa.

And now this. It gets worse, of course.

Putin, next week, will be in Brisbane, imperfectly protected and
journalists will come after him. And he will, at some point, say
something. He will accuse Abbott, humorously perhaps, of being ‘not the
full quid’.

And the wide, wide world will agree.

And so it will go.

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ABBOTT AND CO FOREIGN AFFAIRS DISASTERS

Friday, 21 November 2014