Australians need to be very careful on polling day, writes Barry Everingham, because if Tony Abbott becomes Prime Minister the fabric of our society will change dramatically.
TONY ABBOTT’S thought bubbles illustrate very plainly why he is totally unfit to become this country’s Prime Minister.
For him to say, without any equivocation whatsoever, that his front bench will remain intact in the event of his elevation to The Lodge is surely one of his scariest predictions ever and must send shock waves throughout the thinking sections of the once great Liberal Party.
Does he really believe Julie Bishop could represent Australia at world forums like the United Nations? Julie Bishop at Westminster or the White House or the Élysée Palace or the Kremlin? Julie Bishop receiving top officials visiting this country and holding intelligent conversations with them?
Perish the thought. I don’t think so.
As for the other Bishop ‒ Bronwyn, of the metho kerosene baths at nursing homes fame ‒ the only role that would interest her would be Speaker of The House.
Any party opposing an Abbott Government would be silenced by this ancient spectre, whose pre-selection should have been denied (at least) two elections ago.
She would be relentless.
Her hatred of the Prime Minister has reached paranoid levels, and it must never be forgotten she sided with the disgrace and disgraceful Alan Jones when he made his remarks following the death of Ms Gillard’s father.
And while on the subject of those who are disgraceful, let’s never forget Cardinal Pell’s Parliamentary representative Kevin Andrews — a man who personifies the lack of humanity which runs through Abbott’s acolytes.
He was responsible for the heartless treatment of Dr Muhamed Haneef — treatment which cost the Australian taxpayer millions of dollars in legal fees and eventual compensation.
Then there’s the chief clown of the Australian Parliament, the hissing and mincing Christopher Pyne — whose only redeeming feature is his support for an Australian Republic.
He has wasted more Question Time than any other politician in Australia’s history, with totally irrelevant points of order — most of which are ignored by the long suffering and patient Speaker.
Pyne recently outed himself as an anti-Semite, by his tasteless remarks equating the Gillard Government to the last days of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
As though that wasn’t bad enough, the lack of comment from senior Liberals following the remark was deafening. It’s little wonder that a close Jewish friend – a leader in his community – once remarked to me that decent Australian Jews would find it difficult to vote for a conservative government.
“Sure,” he said,” we contribute to their appeals for cash, but in the secrecy of the polling stations it’s another story!”
“The spectre of that arch German conservative, Adolf Hitler, is never far from our thoughts,” my friend said.
The dreadful Sophie Mirabella must surely hold the record for the number of times an MP has been kicked out of the Chamber, after she waddles up to the Despatch Boxes and asks arrogant and useless questions to either the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, or her opposite number on the Government front bench.
Her appalling performances on TV or at public meetings would surely earn her the sack from a savvy Opposition leader — and it should be remembered that Malcolm Turnbull wouldn’t have a bar of her.
Mirabella is admired by David Flint, who holds her up as an icon of those wanting to retain the moribund constitutional nonsense we are currently bound to.
Over in the Senate – or as Paul Keating so eloquently described it, “that unrepresentative swill” –Barnaby Joyce is a clone of Christopher Pyne, but with humour and humanity.
It’s hard to take Barnaby seriously but ‒ God bless him – he’s always good for a laugh.
The indefatigable commentator on things political, Mungo McCallum, once correctly described Barnaby as
“…the only spokesman on fiscal matters who has to remove his trousers to count to 21.”
Not so laughable is Senator George Brandis, who under an Abbott Government would be Attorney-General — and who, more than likely, would act to diminish our individual freedoms.
The likes of Andrew Bolt would have free reign to voice his hateful racist opinions on Aboriginals, asylum seekers and those on the margins of society.
Australians need to be very careful on polling day; if Tony Abbott becomes Prime Minister the fabric of society as we know it will change dramatically — he admitted as much when he heaped praise on Gina Rinehart.
Surely, that says it all.

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34 Comments
Barry, another great article, love your work
The problem is that the entire LNP live in a fantasy land where truth, facts and reason are whatever they decide they are, and have no correlation to reality.
Ad Astra wrote about it in his latest piece, on TPS, and I have just posted my poem “The Abbott of Oz” , taking a satirical look at the LNP
http://truthseekersmusings.wordpress.com/
Keep up the good work
Cheers
Ask anyone who the Deputy P.M. will be if Abbott wins.
Hockey or Turnbull, they will probably say.
Tell them it will be Warren Truss, until he is replaced by Barnaby, of course.
They will then see the true horror that awaits the nation.
From Mr Abbott’s comment, it appears the principal criterion for a place in his front bench is a safe seat, since he presumes none of them are going to be voted out. Surely he could have learned from the 2007 election that (indirectly) gave him his chance at the leadership – even the safest Liberal seat is able to be taken by a sufficiently charismatic ALP candidate, particularly when the seat is held by someone who has managed to make themselves particularly “on the nose” to the Australian public.
Clearly we the voters don’t count for beans in this whole business.
If Abbott genuinely cannot see that those has-beens are past it he’s even more stupid than previously thought.
The LNP front bench has taxed my brain for a long time. I look at Parliamentary Question Time and see the LNP line up of dills, proven incompetents and extremists and it makes me think of some sort of weird Shakespearean comedy from some parallel universe. Problem is it is our unfortunate reality!
I’m just hoping that as with Romney in the US, voters will look at these LNP nutjobs and say ‘No thanks.’
Ms Sophie Mirabella – oxygen (amongst other things) thief.
Three words – Senator Arthur Sinodinos. No, wait, four. Add Obeid.
Barry I have to correct you. It was kerosene baths in age care homes with Bronwyn Bishop in charge of the portfolio. Metho is pretty benign compared to kerosene on your skin, especially old peoples thin skin.
Every time I see her with her hairdo I have to laugh and the media can find fault with PM’s glasses.
Sadly Julie Bishop is no Hillary Clinton and certainly not a Bob Carr.
Hopefully, someone will give her a good atlas.
It is now official I have switched off the ABC, and will now only watch it when Dr Who is on. Never in my life did I think that it would come to this.
Articles or even posts critising statements and outlandish political commentary on the right wing Drum do not get through their fascist moderator system anymore. Only the rusted on LNP supporters are permitted to make erroneous, boorishly ignorant and insulting statements with free abandon.
I would have thought the ABC could have waited until Abbott became PM before emulating Stalin’s Pravda or the censoring techniques applied by our own scream radio hate jocks. I am no longer a friend of the ABC as it is a lost cause. Good riddance! I will applaud when Abbott sacks a lot of them and keeps a LNP faithful skeleton team to pretend that we have an objective news outlet.
As for Prissy Pyne’s shrill statement (given repeated airing on ABC24) comparing Gillard’s Government to Hitler’s Bunker that is an insult to the millions of people killed in bombed out cities (the razing Warsaw after the failed 60+ day uprising of 1944 springs to mind), the 6 million Jews plus the many millions more killed in mass executions, concentration camps, massacres and battlefields.
Pyne offends not only Jews who were targeted for total extermination, but all Europeans, including most Germans. For the MSM to not even pull him up, and for me not to be able to condemn him in a post to the ABC’s ‘The Drum’ is starting to scare me. The Abbott et al and huge sections of the MSM have whipped up such an irrational hatred of Gillard and her Government that one would think this country has gone to the devil. Particularly, when this Government has increased pensions, health spending, education spending, fairness in employment, infrastructure building and maintained a strong economy.
Like any out of touch organisation, the current Coalition have remained insular, inward looking, hidebound, moribund and particularly oppressive.
Look at the Catholic Church as a case in point.
Like the Coalition they have no regard or understanding for any one else except their own self preservation.
Like the Church they stifle debate, ignore science, and suppress debate. They refuse advice from those they call the “elite” but who the rest of us call educated or specialists in their field.
They are masters of hypocrisy, lying to achieve ends, and above all, devoting all their time and OUR resources toward self enrichment.
A more detestable bunch of sacks of flesh I’ve not seen for a long time.
They make John Howard look like a card carrying communist compared to their extreme crap.
Be truly careful at the next election. I am absolutely certain that Abbott is a sociopath wolf in sheep’s costume.
Before the 1996 election Paul Keating warned Australians that changing the government would change the country. How very true that turned out to be. I hope we don’t make the same mistake again.
I too am concerned about the ABC. It used to be my main source of gathering news and considering the views of others on The drum.
Now I am disgusted at the lack of comment and discussion about the Opposition, and the way that they are allowed to say the most appallingly incorrect things without challenge. The way Craig Thomson was hammered but Mal Brough and the Ashby Slipper debacle never gets a mention. Also the way Lyndal Curtis is repeatedly saying “and another sign that the government is in trouble” on their station promos makes me want to scream. when will the Opposition get proper scrutiny, I despair.
I saw on ABC24 this morning that a couple of Reporters from Fairfax had resigned and moved to The Guardian. A good article there about abbott from Simon Crean.
I clicked their feedback. I mentioned we got the truth from Independent Australia and hoped they would give us the same about abbott and the Liberals and what they have been doing to get rid of the PM and Labor. Told them what we want to read not stuff from Murdoch.
I hope you will click on too and tell them what you think.
Anne
Pyne an anti-semite? He is in the backside of the Israeli ambassador.
Why Australia is so obsessed with that non country of racist murderers though beats me. What on earth has Israel ever done for us?
I guess about the only thing we have in common is some of them are Europeans just like us, they are racists like us, land thieves like us and torturers just like us.
Apart from that Israel is not a country, nor a state, nor anything but a collection of squatters in the country of Palestine.
Anti-semitic? Pyne certainly is but because he hates arabs and muslims.
From the Politicians’ Retirement Village comes John Howard with a puerile attempt to create division in the Labor with his pitiable effort to cajole Rudd into challenging Gillard to a spill before the September election.
He must have neglected to take his morning walk – not sufficient oxygen to the brain this morning.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/john-howard-says-kevin-rudd-may-challenge-for-labor-leadership/story-fn59niix-1226575206554
I wonder why the frigging media in this country all start every second story claiming that some member of the LNP says something.
AnneM I’m on to it. I got a letter printed in the SMH this morning surprise surprise since i sent them a seething letter by e-mail condemning them for supporting Abbott and party. It was to do with an article in their on line newspaper. I have written so many in the last weeks I just can’t remember them all. I also had one published last weekend and the replies I received by the ones the truth must have hurt even from the” Age” any way Anne M I will check your info out.
I watched Q Time today too. very impressed with the PM she is on the ball. so are all the others that spoke today and the way Julie Bishop got caught yet again. They can have Rudd. Cheers.
The ALP should pay to have this mob of vicious, deceitful clowns taken everywhere across the country. The mobile shadow Cabinet, to appear everywhere.
The if the country votes them in we can say it less a case of insular inattention and compliance with Murdoch – and more a case that the country
Please ignore that post above. The computer has a mind of its own; like Abbott’s.
I will try again.
The ALP should pay to have these nasty fools paraded across the country. That way, if they are voted in we can be more sure that it is a national madness; rather than just inattention and gormless obedience to the Murdoch message.
ABC Drum – Stripey yellow tie attired person giving political analysis… Guest astronomer talking about LHC and the nature of matter in layman’s terms – brilliantly. Stripey tie asks astronomer question re ‘dark matter’ and is told very politely that it is poking him in the eye. No critical thinking from stripey tie, he didn’t even bother to listen – as was hilariously evident from his question.
AnneM The comment to the ABC news24 on the Fairfax staff going over to the guardian is closed. I will look up the UK guardian tonight and see if the news info is on there in the World page. They have published mine before , to join their comments list Anne just put your password in and it comes up automatic.cheers Age is no barrier you are dead right. Good work Independent Australia. Just One thing Mr Donavan are you in touch with the Guardian Uk.
more the merrier.
Barry,
An excellent summary of the likely front bench, which is very frightening. Perhaps it is only humor such as the quoted description of Barnaby’s numeracy that makes it all bearable.
Over at Poll Bludger, poroti came up with a fascinating anagram for the name of George Brandis as
Raging Bedsore.
Struck me as pretty astute.
Abbott & his front bench are a pack of immoral, mean, fascist, dumb, bigoted & racist nasties.
Abbott & his horrors reflect the greed, corruption & criminality of the ruling elites that they represent & work for.
If the electorate votes for these degenerates this country will be fucked.
Just been reading the Guardian World UK, and found the information on the “media Guardian Australia “new recruits, Lenore Taylor, from the SMH and Katharine Murphy ,they have given you all the information you need for posting comments for publication you have to mark it clearly for publication. TO contact the Media Guardian news desk the e-mail is media@guardian.co.uk and the rest is ,or phone 020 3353 3857 or 020 33532000 for the main guardian switchboard.
To get to the latest media news to your desktop or mobile follow media guardian on twitters and facebook.
I just thought you folk might want to write a comment at some stage and the info would have been taken away tomorrow’s edition.
No doubt this is old news by now but just in case.
Im not so sure about Lenore Taylor, she changes sides like the wind, and Katharine Murphy is also another one who goes with the wind.she didn’t publish my comment last week so I’m still out on her. She is suppose to be unbiased, I’m still pondering.
What are your opinions on these two new recruit are they ok or not.
I do hope the SMH knows about these new appointments .
I watched Q@A tonight and had a few laughs with the young lady comedian sitting right next to Old George Brandis He would do well in another episode of Dad’s Army.
Nice to see the Courier Mail , today carry an article titled
Timid Tony Abbott tenders tiny target
spot on , worth a read
As much as i detest Christopher Pyne, naming him as an anti-semite is a cheap shot and sloppy journalism at best.
One only has to watch the Q&A episode where arch zionist Sandy Callow teams up with Pyne to shut down all rational debate about Israel. Pyne delivers antiquated one liners about “jews and gentiles” and unthinkingly holds up the jewish state as a bastion of equality and democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f5DpjeCxjk
Pyne’s recent remarks, comparing the Labour government to the last days depicted in the film Downfall, has only one similarity with the above mentioned incident – attack dog unthinking sensibility.
It ends there. Pyne is an arch conservative, resplendent with jibing cocksure posing, and as a result supports the conservative ideologies of the day – Isreal, by extension the Jewish people.
(Ironically Pyne would consider himself “a friend of the Jews” by making a comparison of the government of the day to a depiction of Nazi Germany. )
In truth we should discern the differences between all these incidents – and thus by extension, between Jewish identity and Isreali occupation.
Sadly Barry Everyingham’s remarks do not do this, conflating differences to score a cheap political point.
But for the rest of the character assassinations of the Liberal front bench, they are most accurate, which is of course, of grave concern.
We must complain loudly about Q&A which I now cannot watch.
Yet again on Monday a ‘fellow’ from the IPA- this is outrageous. No think tank gets to promote it’s views and so vocally on the ABC as the IPA (in addition to it’s appearances in Fairfax & News).
This is outright propaganda and breaches the ABC Charter. A pox on Tony Jones whose smugness has become irritating but also meekly fronts a program that is biased towards the right wing.
Abbott No Popery here!
Jones is nothing but an ABC arsehole!
Kimcarsons, Hitler presided over the destruction of much of the European continent in terms of property and lives. Some people (including Pyne) forget that the massive suffering inflicted during WW11 was not exclusively Jewish. So, my post about Prissy’s comparison to Downfall (a movie about the last days of the Third Reich, arguably the history’s most evil and destructive force) pointed to the indecency of it for those of us who consider themselves as reasonable human beings who wish to learn from the evils recorded in human history.
No Australian Government should be compared the evil Nazi regime, and nobody should be offended by the flipant belittling of the evils of Nazism by some prancing dickhead wanting to score cheap political points. Prissy’s apology was qualified by accusing Dreyfus (himself a Jew, apparently) of offending the Jewish Community by having two years ago stated that the Opposition were inspired by Goebbels propaganda techniques. Well anyone, who studies propaganda theory will be conversant with the Goebells technique of spreading lies and hate, and not be accused of treading on the sensibilities of Jews and many others, when making comparisons of current promulgation of propaganda material. This has nothing to do with what the Nazi propaganda accomplished. While a comparision to the Nazi Regime (as per Prissy’s infantile and very mean spirited statement)or to Attila the Hun, or Ghenhis Khan, or Stalin, or Pol Pot could be construed as offensive to many. I was offended.
Ron,
Pyne’s statement are stupid and offensive. agreed. My point, though is conflating his comments comparing the Labour Party with the filmic depiction of the last last days of Hitler as anti-semite is also stupid and offensive.
Justifying an attack on Pyne by labelling him anti-semite is exactly what the Israeli progaganda are doing to anyone who are critical of Israel. Just look at the scholarship of Norman Finklestein, the Jewish American, who lost his parents to the Holocaust, to see how the Holocaust is itself used for political purposes, and how any critic of Israel is labelled a “self-hating-jew”
In this instance, Pyne is actually a supporter of Israel, but has stupidly, for cheap political points, compared the Labour party to “a scene from the movie Downfall”. And Yet Everyingham cannot see that this is a cheap, wildly inaccurate shot, in of itself an injustice to the memory of the Holocaust. It is offensive in so far as any mention of the Nazi party in whatever context somehow inexplicably and immediately makes one an anti-semite. This is Israels chief political propaganda tool – Finklestein refers to it as part of the Holocaust industry, and what the piece of journalism shows is the unthinking reflex action of falling into the trap of the instant “anti-semite” label, can be justified on any attack on the memory of the jewish people in Nazi Germany.
n.b. when i say “(this) is a cheap, wildly innacurate shot”
i am referring to Everyingham’s labelling of Pyne as anti-semite.