yes John...

These are revolting people.... Total spew material...

Tony Abbott’s not the first Opposition Leader to be embarrassed by his party’s base outside federal parliament.

In 1996, Kim Beazley was caught out when a mass union rally in Canberra turned violent and CFMEU protesters smashed their way into the front of Parliament House. A bloodied union official, the CFMEU’s Davie Thomason barged onto the stage down on the lawns where Beazley and then-Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot were addressing the official rally and, waving a police shield, yelled “look what we got from the coppers”. You could see the fury on Beazley’s face as he realised how the whole day would now play into John Howard’s hands.

Tony Abbott had less excuse yesterday, except that he was let down terribly by his staff, who first with the “sh-t happens” interview and then yesterday with that foul, illiterate, misogynistic sign given pride of place behind him, have twice in the space of a couple of months failed to do the basics. They should never have let anyone hold up something like that behind their boss.

Still, this was Abbott’s crowd. He’d demanded a “people’s revolt”, a childish, offensive demand while very real “people’s revolts” were under way across the Middle East, with real massacres and real grieving. It’s his good friend Alan Jones who has been egging it on. It’s Liberal Party supporters who have organised it.

What was interesting about the crowd wasn’t so much its average age — 60, at least, meaning most of them would likely 1. be over-compensated for a carbon price and 2. never live to see the really serious effects of climate change — but its colour. If you didn’t know that climate denialism was primarily a feature of the over-55 demographic, you could explain the age thing away by saying it was a weekday rally and lots of other supporters would have been at work. But there was no multiculturalism here, and not just among the small One Nation contingent forlornly holding up “Pauline was right” signs. This was a monocultural crowd, overwhelmingly Anglo-Celtic in the old phrase.

read more at crikey.com...

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/24/placards-not-the-only-thing-on-display-as-the-denialists-gather/

In a statement Mr Abbott said he regretted abusive and hurtful language was used by a small number of the protesters and he did not endorse it.

But in the face of Government condemnation this morning, the Opposition Leader has refused to apologise to Ms Gillard over the abuse.

"When it comes to strong language, I think the Prime Minister has used some very strong language in the Parliament and there haven't been any apologies for that strong language in the Parliament," he said.

"I don't think people should go over the top. I don't think people should use disrespectful language."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/24/3172317.htm

compare the top image and the picture above...

... And Tony calls the people at the rally "a snap shot of representative Australia"... If he's right, this country has completely gone to the dogs... but I don't believe so. There were far more people inside parliament booing Tony for his stupidity at trying to make stick a small infraction from Julia that has no bearing on whatever, while HE HIMSELF was a famous proponent of lying to the public and doing somersault to blame other people for it... Shut up Tony!

Tony is so stupid he can't see the bigger picture, as if his ears are like blinkers to a horse... In the days of acid rain and ozone depletion HE WOULD HAVE DONE NOTHING. NOTHING! Not only stupid. he is dangerous to this planet, Mr Speaker...

No, Tony, no snapshot of whatever here...  Most of the people around you are the dregs of a barrel...

The television coverage of yesterday's anti carbon tax rally outside Canberra's Parliament House was every bit as bad for Tony Abbott as predicted. The pictures of crude slogans and the sound of maniacal chanting do not play well in the living rooms of ordinary, sensible people.

Not that too much damage is done by one had night's telly. It will count for little in the political scheme of things provided the Opposition Leader learns from the experience and thinks before accepting such invitations in future. And learning to apologise gracefully when things do go wrong would be a good idea too.

This morning's expression of regret that some people "went over the top" with their banners with slogans such as "Ditch the witch" and "Bob Browns bitch", would have sounded more genuine without the added comment that "But I can understand why people feel very passionate."

Richard Farmer

''They're a representative snapshot of middle Australia,'' Tony Abbott assured the TV cameras as he waded happily through the small but adoring throng at the anti-carbon tax rally in Canberra.

Codswallop. It was a Wednesday morning. Middle Australia was hard at work around the nation trying to make a buck and pay the mortgage. Most of those who had the time to be there for Abbott's so-called People's Revolt were gullible talkback radio cannon fodder, old and grey. They had been whipped to a lather and bussed to the capital at the urgings of a right-wing Sydney shock jock. Of which more below.

Then there were the organised nutters of the extreme right. One Nation, the Citizens' Electoral Council and the anti-Semitic League of Rights all turned up, with a smattering of more shadowy conspiracy theorists.

One placard held directly behind Abbott's head read: ''UN IMF global government. Agenda 21 Genocide''. That, if you are wondering, is the cry of the fruit loops who believe the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund have hatched a fiendish scheme to abolish democratic nation states, and that the UN's Agenda 21 for sustainable world development is, yes, a plot to kill us all.

Does Abbott agree with that idiocy? By comparison, the signs reading ''JuLiar Bob Browns [sic] Bitch'' and ''Ditch The Witch'' seemed almost moderate.

The shock jock behind this farce was one Chris Smith, a minor afternoon talk presenter on 2GB, but a man best known in the media trade for his disgusting social habits. Hard to forget that sozzled lunch in the Channel Nine boardroom a decade or so ago, where Smith - then working for A Current Affair - unzipped his pants and produced his penis to some startled women guests.

His big difficulty at Nine, though, came in 1994 when he was found guilty of forging a signature to have a prisoner released from the Mulawa Detention Centre for an interview. That got him a two-year good behaviour bond.

A slow learner, in 2009 he was suspended by 2GB after he was outed as ''the mystery groper'' who had pawed three women at a station Christmas party. ''Alcohol issues,'' he explained later.

This scungy past has never stopped Smith ranting about the perceived sins of others, though. He was one of those who led the charge against the photographer Bill Henson and his pictures of naked children two years ago. Wednesday's rally was his latest lunge for the limelight.

Mike Carlton

Deputy NSW Opposition Leader Penny Sharpe has been criticised for tweeting a sign depicting Premier Gladys Berejiklian as a witch and labelling her as "the Wicked Witch of the Fest".

• Ms Sharpe deleted her post and apologised after a backlash on Twitter
• Some commenters compared the incident to the 2011 furore over Julia Gillard being likened to a witch
• The sign was part of a protest over the NSW Government's new music festival rules

The photo was taken at last night's Don't Kill Live Music Rally in Sydney's Hyde Park, where protestors were rallying against the State Government's new music festival regulations.

"I was at the festivals rally last night and I posted a number of signs that were there," Ms Sharpe said.

"When I looked back about 15 minutes later and saw that I posted the witch sign, I deleted it straight away because it was inappropriate."

Minister for Family and Community Services Pru Goward called for Ms Sharpe to reconsider her position.

"I can't see that there is a place in Parliament for people who treat other parliamentarians like this," she said. 

"I'm particularly appalled that Penny Sharpe, with her long record of objecting to exactly this sort of behaviour, should now not be held to account for her own."

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-22/penny-sharpe-faces-backlash-over-...

Read from top.

These right-wing mugs like pru Goward should show a bit of unbiased character and tell Turdy Tony Abbott to piss off from politics as well... See picture at top.