Chuckling at a question on his new figure, Mr Turnbull told reporters his weight loss secret "may seem like a penetrating glimpse of the obvious, but it is an insight that most of us ignore because it is too painful".

"The way to lose weight is to eat less, so I ate a lot less for a month and lost a lot of weight pretty quickly."

Malcolm Turnbull says he is 14 kilos lighter thanks to the change.

"I certainly do feel full of energy," he said, while emphasising how simple his approach had been.

"Being less greedy I suppose than I used to."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/middle-in-the-malcolm-turnbulls-tips-to-trimness-20120208-1rcbo.html#ixzz1llZ6GatZ

I caught a glimpse of Malcom Turnbull a couple of weeks ago in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. He was sporting a light grey suit that was too floppy around him while flapping in the breeze... Malcolm was never a big man and having lost weight, from a distance, he looked like a small shadow of himself. Meanwhile he has had enough windmillery to lambaste the NBN's existence in parliament today... His view seems to be that we "should be less greedy" with out internet needs... He must be getting old..

The Prime Minister again pointed to Mr Abbott's plans to scrap the NBN if he wins the next election.

"What we will see if he is prime minister is the end of the car industry; what we will see if he's prime minister is the ripping of the fibre out of the ground and Australia falling behind the standards of the world on this technology."

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says there is no need for the new satellites.

"There is more than enough capacity on existing satellites and satellites that are scheduled to be launched already," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-08/gillard-raises-stakes-in-economy-debate/3818330?WT.svl=news0

Of course I am putting words in Julia's mouth... She's far too proper to say what I made her say in the toon but it was somewhat common sense...

She runs the country, keeps house for Our Tim and Julia Gillard is also a knitter.

The Prime Minister has given finance minister Penny Wong and her partner Sophie Allouache a small brown woolen cardigan that she knitted herself for the baby daughter they had last year.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-diary/what-a-stitch-up--julia-gillard-gets-the-needle-20120208-1rdb1.html#ixzz1ln3Ysr1i

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May be Julia should knit a budgie-smuggler for Tony, in red wool... If some of you remember the days of woollen  swimsuits, one would know what I mean... T'was like having barbed wire between your legs...

How can this be feeble? Consider our circumstances. First, the Labor government inherited surpluses and zero net debt, thanks to Peter Costello.

Second, look at the commodity windfall. The Reserve Bank runs an index of commodity prices. The Howard-Costello government produced 10 budget surpluses when the index was between about 40 and 50. Since Labor has been in power, the index has been between about 80 and 150. It now stands at about 140. In other words, this is a time of extraordinary bounty for a commodity exporter.

If Peter Costello could produce a surplus when the commodity price index was at 40, why is it so hard for Wayne Swan to produce one when it's at 140

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/for-a-few-dollars-more-20120210-1sksf.html#ixzz1m2AmglpG

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Peter, peter Hartcher!!!! You know better than go by this simple state of loose writing.... You may not remember but the world economy tanked in 2007-08, just when the Labor government took over. The world economy is still in the doldrums... and we are in 2012. The GFC was mostly induced by the US and its banking system by lending money away as if there was tomorrow... Australia benefited from this when Costello was lazily doing the books. Then came the slap in the face and Labor had to do something urgently to stop the pain... Had the Libs been in power still we would have seen the poor get poorer and the banks be given cash for bonuses like in the UK, Europe and the US... The banking system had played a silly game of derivative, and lost...

In Australia, Labor did a few good things:

First, the $900 tax rebate for middle and poorer families.... This of course irked the rich Libs.

Second, the home insulation scheme which, for all intent and purposes, was at least 95 per cent successful

      over one million home insulated, 400 or so problematic jobs...

Third, the school infrastructure program which, for all intent and purposes, was at least 85 per cent successful

Fourth, the National Broadband Network which, in all intent and purposes, still being deployed, will have an impact on faster and greater communications in this country. All the major telco have joined the bandwagon and most resent the fact that libs are poopooing the network as the Libs are stuck in the nineteenth century on this issue.

All this plus a few more programs, such as guaranty of savings, have provided JOBS which would have disappeared except for a few industries such as in mining... 

These programs protected Australia from the GFC far more than Costello's surpluses ever could... 

There was of course a few problems. First the Labor pundits knew that any programs such as these will have teething problems and the speedy implementation would be the focus of shark shonky businesses... Second, by being successful at maintaining the economy going, the other sharks from the money market have had a picnic here while raping some of the benefits. Doing so, they artificially forced the value of the Australian dollar beyond its intrinsic value of say at the moment should be 85 US cents... This puts pressure on jobs in manufacturing and other stuff like tourism... Many people are eager to see the Aussie dollar fall to a "manageable" level.

More could be said about all this, but Costello, as Keating said, was a lazy treasurer, collecting money and investing in NOTHING... Watch for that little underweight Rattus-understudy called Abbott... Ready to slash and burn, so that the rich maintain their illusion of wealth and the middle class fall through the cracks in the floor...

Further more unless there is a MINING TAX, the commodity price can be as high as the moon, it would not help the federal budget by one iota.