"I'd just say that it is time for Bill Shorten to become a responsible leader of the opposition and start showing some restraint instead of being all complaint." Joe Hockey said.

The chairman of a Sydney design college has insisted he had no part in awarding a prestigious scholarship to Frances Abbott, the daughter of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, but conceded he "probably" mentioned she would be a good candidate for it.

Les Taylor, a noted Liberal Party donor and long-time friend of Mr Abbott, is the chairman of the board of governors of the Whitehouse Institute of Design.

We learn a lot from a new government’s first budget. Strategic priorities, previously existing only in verbal form, are given concrete expression; promises are sorted into the various categories of core, non-core and empty; scores are settled and favours repaid. But the thing we learn most from the first Abbott government budget is about the Liberal Party and who owns it.

from Crikey …..

Well, hold the phone and smack me upside the head, this government is dumber than I thought!

There is growing evidence that Joe Hockey is the dumbest Australian politician ever …

Last week, ICAC heard John Caputo, a key campaign fundraiser for both PM Tony Abbott and NSW Premier Mike Baird, has been allegedly passing dodgy donations to disgraced NSW Liberal MP Chris Hartcher that were subsequently laundered. Peter Wicks from Wixxyleaks reports. 

Australia - From Le socialisme sans doctrines To A Corporatised Client-State

by George Venturini …..

from Mike Carlton …..

The Commonwealth Bank has been forced to reopen its compensation process for victims of shoddy financial advice provided by two of its planning businesses.

The 2014 federal budget asks all Australians to take one for the team and tighten their belts. And by 'all' we mean the poor, students, the sick, scientists, and anyone in the arts, writes Ben Eltham.

Joe Hockey’s much-leaked first budget promised wholesale surgery to the Australian body politic.

“Pain all round” will be the rallying cry of the night. Joe Hockey says this first budget - tonight - will hit everyone from high earners to politicians to Australians too poor to pay to see the doctor. All of us will have to “contribute budget repair”.

Except that we won’t.

Governments are not like businesses. They provide services because the citizens demand them, not because delivering them is profitable. They collect taxes from citizens, not charge prices from customers. While a business has a legal responsibility to maximise the dividends it pays its shareholders, it makes no sense for a government to generate a surplus from its own citizens.

Members of a secretive fund-raising body associated with Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey are being invited to pay $3000 each to be part of an exclusive budget day event attended by his most senior staff and key ministers.

The Abbott government faces another conflict of interest scandal after it was discovered that an adviser to the Indigenous Affairs Minister, Nigel Scullion, held a majority financial stake in a business that operated within the minister's portfolio.