Just read the new release from WHO, Australia is number one in cases of Cancer with NZ second.

Thanks to our politicians over the years we have had atomic testing on our soils and in our waters, all around us in the Pacific and now we have the Japanese reactors leaking.    I have started a new Thread under Health about this news if anyone is interested.

Not only is it sad, but irresponsible that the Politicians back in the 50s didn't feel the need to protect the generations to come.  Fancy letting the British use our soil to test their weapons.  Not only that look at the French dropping bombs around the once pristine waters in the Pacific.

This news makes the situation of plastic anaemic in comparison.

PM defends tweet suggesting drought is 'necessary evil' to cut bottom 10pc of farmers

By National Regional Reporting Team's Anna Henderson

 Scott Morrison says the video calling the drought a "necessary evil" is another perspective on the drought.(ABC News: Matt Roberts)

Labor has demanded an explanation from the Prime Minister, after he authorised and tweeted a feedlot operator's suggestion that drought could be considered a "necessary evil" that helps "cut out the bottom 10 per cent" of farmers.

Our PM's Christianity doesn't spell the end of democracy

 

All people bring their worldview to work, and no politician is untainted by ideology. Rather than fearing Scott Morrison's Christianity, we should ask him to be the best Christian possible in his role as Australian Prime Minister, writes Simon Smart.

Mr Morrison tweeted the video from his Prime Ministerial Twitter account last night beneath the caption "another perspective on the drought".

The video included comments from Michael MacCue, from the Wilga Feedlot at Bellata in the North West region of New South Wales.

"In a way a drought's a necessary evil. It can help cut out the bottom 10 per cent that probably shouldn't be there anyway," Mr MacCue said.

At the end of the short film, which focused on drought preparedness, an authorisation was provided confirming the video was made on behalf of "S. Morrison, Liberal Party, Canberra".

Shadow agriculture minister Joel Fitzgibbon told Parliament such a comment would not have been promoted by former Coalition prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull or Tony Abbott.

"Why is it that at the same time Australians are making an extraordinary effort to help our farmers in drought, the Prime Minister is promoting material that dismisses those farmers hurting most?" Mr Fitzgibbon asked the Prime Minister.

External Link: Scott Morrison retweet of feedlot operator video

Initially Mr Morrison said the "matter" was of "no recollection" to him and he would be "pleased" if Mr Fitzgibbon provided him with the details.

"I'll be happy to review it," Mr Morrison said.

After Question Time the Prime Minister returned to the Lower House chamber to provide a further update.

"What the post refers to is comments from operators from the north-west of NSW, Michael and Sandy, who are explaining what the drought means for them," Mr Morrison said.

"The way our Government is responding to the drought is to go out there and listen to what people in rural and regional communities are saying to us.

"I'm going to listen to their views, not censor them."

He said Labor, which he described as the "red red party" might want to "close their ears to the voices of the bush, but the Liberal-National Government never will".

Also during Question Time, Agriculture Minister David Littleproud made comments about the importance of Government assistance, equivalent to the unemployment benefit, for farmers struggling to pay their bills due to drought pressures.

"In a way a drought's a necessary evil. It can help cut out the bottom 10 per cent that probably shouldn't be there anyway," Mr MacCue said.

This is the slap in the face which many farmers needed to come to their senses and to stop blaming others for their poor management. I've had enough of political posturing for comercial gain. If a farmer needs taxpayers money to keep their stock in good condition because they dont want to sell, then that assistance should be provided for all businesses regardless of the type of stock. 

When Morrison put his arm around Turnbull he made me feel ill such a slimey bastard he and reminded me of  Judus

Here's the Shark's no.1 fan with man of the match. 

Adrianus ......... "when Tony is not up north in his work boots helping the indigenous" ............

It has been mentioned many times by the media -  that  Abbott rarely (if ever?)  got out of a suit when he was supposedly "helping" them .......... prog. "The Drum" and "Insiders" both mentioned that in the past couple of weeks .........if you think he helps them (or anyone but himself) you are living in "la la land"!!

 

Foxy this is his PHOTO OPPORTUNITY  last time he had this job for the Indigenous people -- look at the little bloke putting out his hand to shake Abbott's -- this sickened me Abbott did not give a darn --

 

The Guardian - Back to home

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Guardian Subscribe Sign in / Register Search News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle Columnists Cartoons Indigenous Editorials Letters    Opinion Australia news Tony Abbott in Arnhem Land: a display of farce and cynicism John Pilger

Australia’s prime minister took his government and the media to the NT to better understand the needs of Indigenous Australians. We’re already awash with that knowledge

Fri 19 Sep 2014 11.09 AEST Last modified on Wed 14 Mar 2018 04.33 AEDT

‘He beams, as if incredulous at the success of his twin stunts: “running the nation” from a bushland tent on the Gove Peninsula while “taking the nation to war”.’ Photograph: AAP

There are times when farce and living caricature almost consume the cynicism and mendacity in the daily life of Australia’s rulers. Across the front pages is a photograph of a resolute Tony Abbott with Indigenous children in Arnhem Land. “Domestic policy one day,” says the caption, “focus on war the next.”

Reminiscent of a vintage anthropologist, the prime minister grasps the head of an Indigenous child trying to shake his hand. He beams, as if incredulous at the success of his twin stunts: “running the nation” from a bushland tent on the Gove Peninsula while “taking the nation to war”. Like any “reality” show, he is surrounded by cameras and manic attendants, who alert the nation to his principled and decisive acts.

But wait; the leader of all Australians must fly south to farewell the SAS, off on its latest heroic mission since its triumph in the civilian bloodfest of Afghanistan. “Pursuing sheer evil” sounds familiar. Of course, an historic mercenary role is unmentionable, this time backing the latest US installed sectarian regime in Baghdad and re-branded ex-Kurdish “terrorists”, now guarding Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil, Hunt Oil et al.

  Read more

No parliamentary debate is allowed; no fabricated invitation from foreigners in distress is necessary, as it was in Vietnam. Speed is the essence. What with US intelligence insisting there is no threat from Islamic State to the US and presumably Australia, truth may deter the mission if time is lost. If yesterday’s police and media show of “anti-terror” arrests in “the plot against Sydney” fails to arouse the suspicions of the nation, nothing will. That the unpopular Abbott’s various wars are likely to be self-fulfilling, making Australians less safe, ought to be in the headlines, too. Remember the blowback from Blair’s wars.

But what of the beheadings? During the 21 months between James Foley’s abduction and his beheading, 113 people were reportedly beheaded by Saudi Arabia, one of Barack Obama’s and Abbott’s closest allies in their current “moral” and “idealistic” enterprise. Indeed, Abbott’s war will no doubt rate a plaque in the Australian War Memorial alongside all the other colonial invasions acknowledged in that great emporium of white nationalism – except, of course, the colonial invasion of Australia during which the beheading of the Indigenous Australian defenders was not considered sheer evil.

This returns us to the show in Arnhem Land. Abbott says the reason he and the media are camped there is that he can consult with Indigenous “leaders” and “gain a better understanding of the needs of people living and working in these areas”.

Australia is awash with knowledge of the “needs” of its First Peoples. Every week, it seems, yet another study adds to the torrent of information about the imposed impoverishment of and vicious discrimination against Indigenous people: apartheid in all but name. The facts, which can no longer be spun, ought to be engraved in the national consciousness, if not the prime minister’s. Australia has a rate of Indigenous incarceration higher than that of apartheid South Africa; deaths in custody occur as if to a terrible drumbeat; preventable Dickensian diseases are rampant, including among those who live in the midst of a mining boom that has made profits of a billion dollars a week. Rheumatic heart disease kills Indigenous people in their 30s and 40s, and their children go deaf and suffer trachoma, which causes blindness.

When, as shadow Indigenous health minister in 2009, Abbott was reminded by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous people that the Howard government’s fraudulent “intervention” was racist, he told Professor James Anaya to “get a life” and “stop listening to the old victim brigade”. The distinguished Anaya had just been to Utopia, a vast region in the Northern Territory, where I filmed the evidence of the racism and forced deprivation that had so shocked him and millions of viewers around the world. “Malnutrition”, a GP in central Australia told me, “is common.”

Today, as Abbott poses for the camera with children in Arnhem Land, the children of Utopia are being denied access to safe and clean drinking water. For 10 weeks, communities have had no running water. A new bore would cost just $35,000. Scabies and more trachoma are the result. (For perspective, consider that Labor’s last Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, spent $331,144 refurbishing her office in Canberra).

In 2012, Olga Havnen, a senior Northern Territory government official, revealed that more than $80m was spent on the surveillance of families and the removal of children compared with just $500,000 on supporting the same impoverished families. Her warning of a second Stolen Generation led to her sacking. This week in Sydney, Amnesty and a group known as Grandmothers Against Removals presented further evidence that the number of Indigenous children being taken from their families, often violently, was greater than at any time in Australia’s colonial history.

Will Abbott, self-proclaimed friend of Indigenous people, step in and defend these families? On the contrary, in his May budget, Abbott cut $534m from the “needs” of Indigenous people over the next five years, a quarter of which was for health provision. Far from being an Indigenous friend, Abbott’s government is continuing the theft of Indigenous land with a confidence trick called “99-year leases”. In return for surrendering their country – the essence of Aboriginality – communities will receive morsels of rent, which the government will take from Indigenous mining royalties. Perhaps only in Australia can such deceit masquerade as policy.

Similarly, Abbott appears to be supporting constitutional reform that will “recognise” Indigenous people in a proposed referendum. The “Recognise” campaign consists of familiar gestures and tokenism, promoted by a PR campaign “around which the nation can rally”, according to the Sydney Morning Herald – meaning the majority, or those who care, can feel they are doing something while doing nothing.

During all the years I have been reporting and filming Indigenous Australia, one “need” has struck me as paramount. A treaty. By that I mean an effective Indigenous bill of rights: land rights, resources rights, health rights, education rights, housing rights, and more. None of the “advances” of recent years, such as Native Title, has delivered the rights and services most Australians take for granted.

As Arrente/Amatjere leader Rosalie Kunoth-Monks says: “We never ceded ownership of this land. This remains our land, and we need to negotiate a lawful treaty with those who seized our land.” A great many if not most Indigenous Australians agree with her; and a campaign for a treaty – all but ignored by the media – is growing fast, especially among the savvy Indigenous young unrepresented by co-opted “leaders” who tell white society what it wants to hear.

That Australia has a prime minister who described this country as “unsettled” until the British came indicates the urgency of true reform – the end of paternalism and the enactment of a treaty negotiated between equals. For until we, who came later, give back to the first Australians their nationhood, we can never claim our own.

www.johnpilger.com

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep

Meanwhile Kerryn Phelps, the first female head of the Australian Medical Association, will put civil rights and action on climate change at the forefront of her bid to claim the federal seat of Wentworth as an independent

 

God help us if this loonie gets elected

And I thought we were a democratic country and everyone's vote mattered!

Silly me, we have been voting for Murdoch all these years.

 

I thought you would be interested in this story I found on MSN:   Turnbull was warned Rupert Murdoch was trying to remove him as prime minister   http://a.msn.com/01/en-au/BBNxnmL?ocid=se

 

A reminder of what Scotty did, place of honour on the PM's desk Thank you Scotty!

Scott Morrison refused to allow asylum seekers to attend the funerals of loved ones. What sort of Christian would do that?

 

Good this bobblehead is leaving, all she does in question time is bob, bob, bob. Hope they fill her spot with some intellgent female (or male).

I see Morrison is spending money -- on PRIVATE schools -- -- throwing his weight around and walks off when he does care to answer questions --

Also saying there is NO bullying -- I am sure there would not be so many complaining if there was none --

He is nothing but a dictator -- and God help us if he remains in

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before the massive whinge about private school funding..it might be worthwhile considering this..

First of all.. many parents struggle to pay for their child to attend a school of their choice..that is their choice and I don’t see how it can be anybody else’s business. These parents also pay taxes in addition to  school fees. Why on earth shouldn’t their schools benefit from the taxes they pay? Why should private school parents  be penalised because they prefer to send their children to schools that provide strong ethical values..and before anyone slings an arrow..one only has to read the daily news to see how state schools are failing many children..

Money has also been “thrown” at public schools under Gonski and the system is still BROKEN. It must be remembered that it is the States that fund the public schools..where did they go wrong? Perhaps there should be a greater focus on education itself and old family values..yes..there is a lot going for old values. Too many use the blinkered approach and choose not to see the mismanagement of the public school system.

The Government’s assurance is this new funding will be primarily spent in rural, regional and drought affected areas. 

In my humble opinion..it is great to see fairness restored to the school system. For those who pay taxes and send their children to non government schools this is surely a great outcome.