Hence his discomfort under Sales' questioning about Olympic Dam, when the comment of BHP Billiton's Marius Kloppers on tax was put to him. Kloppers said the South Australian and federal governments and all the agencies ''that have worked with us to make this a reality have been absolutely wonderful partners to have''. Asked whether the issue of tax had come into the judgment to hold back, he said the decision was almost wholly associated with capital costs - the tax environment for this project hadn't changed (the mining tax doesn't cover the minerals at Olympic).

Abbott went to earlier comments from the company about tax. But he came off second best - no wonder he doesn't front up too often on that and similar programs.

Abbott has been extraordinarily successful as an opposition leader. This week, however, brought a sharp reminder of a vulnerability which has previously been a strength - his absolutism.

Michelle Grattan is political editor.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/is-abbott-on-thin-ice-absolutely-20120823-24oyz.html#ixzz24Pc7twGB
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Yes Michelle... Isn't it about time YOU did your job and got stucked into the little shit as well?... It's good for you to point out Leigh Sales catching Abbott with his pants down (and yesterday Abbott admitted he'd read the report before the interview with leigh Sales, but "decided" to ignore it and thus lied about not having read it) but you should have done the SAME F%$#@&G inquisition about Abbott's crap a long long time ago... about all the issues he's stuffed up and is ignorant about, including climate change? Come on do your effing job, Michelle...

 

Abbott is not on thin ice... He's been floating in a barrel of hypocritical shit since the day he entered politics...

 

The 18 hours or so between 7.30 pm Wednesday and just before Question Time on Thursday was one of the wildest rides in federal politics for a very long time, one that seriously tested the mettle of the two political leaders.

Politics of course is a long game and for that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott should be mightily relieved, because without question he came off second best during that frantic period.

The cacophony of activity started when Abbott tied himself in knots on almost every issue that Leigh Salesraised with him on 7.30. The first of them was his claim that the carbon tax and the mining tax were largely responsible for BHP's decision to shelve the $20 billion Olympic Dam expansion.

He seemed to have no idea that BHP boss Marius Kloppers had said the Federal Government, the South Australian Government and all the agencies "that have worked with us to make this a reality have been absolutely wonderful partners to have," and that the decision was "almost wholly associated with capital costs".

The tax environment for this project, he said, hadn't changed.

When Abbott was challenged on that, and asked whether he had even read the BHP report, he said, "No."

Then the next day he said he had read the report and when he said "no" he was responding to something else. If that is true, then he has a serious problem with concentration and comprehension.

But he wasn't the only one to slip up during that 18 hours of madness.

The Australian had to apologise after wrongly claiming that Julia Gillard, while working for Slater & Gordon 17 years ago, had set up a trust fund for her then-boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, a former union official.

The newspaper had previously apologised for making the same claim and in fact let go Glenn Milne, the columnist who wrote it.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-24/cassidy-gillard-abbott-hours-of-maddness/4220582?WT.svl=theDrum

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For too long Little Shit and Turd co (see toon at top) has had a cream bun or a dream run in the Merde-och press... But what do you know... The Merde-och press is still trying to give this duo undue praise while still trying to bury Gillard as a witch... who forced them to apologise for writting something wrong (crap) in its newspapers... What about the free press and the freedom to tell porkies? I ask you? Do you think that the attacks on Gillard will stop? Do you think the Merde-och press will stop its praise of Little Shit Abbott? Not on you nelly... The porkies will be written with more vigour and relentlessness than ever before... Be sure of that...

 

 

To: Tony Abbott

 

From: Prospective employer, aka the Australian electorate 
Issue at hand: Mastery of detail during interviews
Many job seekers are afraid of being rejected by potential employers. And this situation can cause interview performance anxiety (IPA).
We understand. The job market for national leaders is tight these days. You are not alone. IPA is perfectly normal.
But, Tony, these fears can be controlled providing you remember one simple rule: prepare well for the questions and expect the unexpected.

Forgive our back-to-basics advice, as, you see, we are concerned that for the second time in a couple of days you have gone down like Sopwith Camel over the Western Front in a television interview.
First you became confused on the ABC’s 7.30 and told presenter Leigh Sales you hadn’t read BHP’s stated reasons for delaying the expansion of the Olympic Dam mine.
Let’s be frank, it wasn’t a good look when Sales pointed out that BHP’s statement cited just about every OTHER factor under the sun - and the dirt - but the carbon and mining taxes as contributing to the shelving of the $30 billion project for now.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/memo-to-tony-abbott-20120824-24qm4.html#ixzz24Rl9263X       

 

 

But in the end, if you were an employer, would you employ Tony Abbott, knowing that he knowingly lies?... Would you be ready to place your firm's reputation in the hands of such pathological liar?... Unless you were running a shonky business, you might consider his skill at selling snake oil and second-hand chinaware... But you still would have to watch your back anyhow and keep a gun in the top draw of your desk in your office...

 

In the case you run a prime honest business, there is no chance you could afford to let him in on your team... Soon he's find ways to boot you out and replace all your lovely dedicated staff with his crooked cronies... Sure the business might go gangbusters for a couple of minutes, but soon, once you're in the street and he'd sold off your assets, you'd rue the day you'd let him in... 

 

Abbott is a snake oil merchant idiot... see toon at top.

 

 

''As far as I am concerned, the Prime Minister's problem is not that she may or may not have been a dodgy lawyer. The Prime Minister's problem is that she has been an incompetent and untrustworthy prime minister,'' Mr Abbott said. Earlier, in an interview on Nine's Today show, Mr Abbott admitted that he had not read the transcript of Ms Gillard's news conference.

''I haven't had a chance to compare what precisely has been stated, or is known to be a fact with what the Prime Minister said about it.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbott-vague-on-gillard-allegations-20120824-24s4m.html#ixzz24VzdA7SL

JULIA GILLARD has slammed the opposition as pathetic after it insisted she still had questions to answer about her past life as a lawyer, but could not suggest any.

However, by the end of the day, the opposition was distancing itself from the Slater & Gordon affair, saying Ms Gillard's conduct as Prime Minister, not as a lawyer, was what mattered.

At the same time, Liberals MPs started expressing concern about the leader, Tony Abbott, who had an awkward week and had another stumble on television yesterday.

Ms Gillard, on the front foot following Thursday's media conference in which she sought to exhaust questions about her time as an industrial lawyer, hit back when the opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne said there were still questions to be answered. He said Ms Gillard should make a statement in Parliament where there are penalties for misleading the House.

Ms Gillard labelled this ''pathetic''. ''I've been in question time four days this week. I've taken dozens of questions from the opposition and not one about this matter,'' she said.

''They had the opportunity to ask questions and didn't use it.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbott-backs-off-attack-as-gillard-returns-fire-20120824-24rr0.html#ixzz24W0y3lLs

Dodgy is the middle name of the Little Shit: Little Dodgy Shit... Abbott is an idiot.

 

Kerry Chikarovski, Natasha Stott Despoja and Cheryl Kernot told The Hoopla that the PM’s speech was “courageous” and it was time that misogynist behaviour in politics was recognised and denounced.

They also said personal attacks against her made it increasingly difficult for those seeking a role in public life.

Ms Gillard called the news conference to answer questions surrounding her role as an industrial lawyer at Slater & Gordon in the early 1990s when acting for an Australian Workers Union branch run by her then partner, the allegedly corrupt Bruce Wilson.

Ms Gillard rejected claims she had acted unethically or illegally:

“In terms of the people who continue to circulate these claims — will the misogynists and the nutjobs on the internet continue to circulate them? Yes they will…. they will continue to pursue these claims for motivations of their own which are malicious and not in any way associated with the facts.”

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/the-sexist-smear-campaign-against-our-female-pm/

from stephen mayne …

Why Gillard's union baggage deserves attention

The saga of Julia Gillard's crooked former boyfriend Bruce Wilson has been getting a run in certain sections of the media lately and the issues around union governance, corruption and cronyism are certainly worthy of public discussion.

After Andrew Bolt, Glenn Milne and Mike Smith over-egged their initial run at this story, it largely disappeared because then News Ltd CEO John Hartigan cravenly caved to the PM's implied threats of both defamation action and a fully-fledged Leveson-style media inquiry.

If you go back now and read this edition of the The Mayne Report from last August, it explains why the story is of genuine public interest and how some of the players have mis-fired in their attacks.

Sure, the likes of Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and The Australian have been partisan players on some issues seeking to destroy Gillard but this recent half hour session that the Parrot did with sacked 2UE presenter Mike Smith is the best summary of the scandal produced to date.

I was very surprised that Crikey, The Age, The SMH and ABC radio largely kept away from the story as The Australian's Hedley Thomas broke a number of new elements in recent weeks.

It was Mike Smith who did much of the research heavy lifting over the past year after his credibility took a hit when Fairfax ordered him not to broadcast an interview with former AWU boss Bob Kernohan and then sacked him over editorial differences.

As independent observers pondered what was going on with Andrew Bolt threatening to resign, Glenn Milne being boned as a columnist and John Hartigan ordering craven apologies to Gillard, the matter seemed closed when The Australian's gun investigative reporter Hedley Thomas produced the following story last September which included these important lines:

The Weekend Australian has examined thousands of pages of documentation and conducted numerous interviews to test long-standing allegations, referred to in last year's statutory declaration, that Ms Gillard – as a junior partner at the Melbourne law firm Slater & Gordon – was involved in wrongdoing by her then boyfriend, Mr Wilson.

None of the material examined is capable of supporting the claims that Ms Gillard was a beneficiary of ill-gotten funds or that she knew at the time that Mr Wilson was involved in alleged fraud.

On the material available, the most that could be said is that Ms Gillard and Slater & Gordon provided legal advice to Mr Wilson at the time and that she was unaware he was simultaneously involved in alleged fraud.

Kernohan's own credibility was damaged when it was revealed that former Pauline Hanson adviser John Pasquarelli had helped author the affidavit which Smith was talking up so much.

On reflection, this Hedley Thomas story seems to be more about defending the craven decision taken by John Hartigan who also unleashed his mate David Penberthy with this savage attack on Andrew Bolt last October.

In hindsight, it was an extraordinary of the PM to try and extract an under-taking from Hartigan that no News Ltd paper would ever refer to the AWU corruption issue again after Glenn Milne made a couple of small and largely inconsequential mistakes. Despite its obvious newsworthiness, the issue was never raised by the mainstream media during Gillard's first year in The Lodge.

The detailed responses to Media Watch questions from the now departed News Ltd spindoctor Greg Baxter are worth reading again. Especially this passage towards the end:

The Prime Minister sent us a draft of the apology with a demand that we publish it in The Australian and on The Australian websites and other News Limited websites. The draft sent to us from the Prime Minister included the following words: "The Australian will ensure these claims are not repeated in its newspaper or on its website or in any publication of any form under its control."

AND

"News Limited will ensure these claims are not repeated in its newspaper or on its website or in any publication of any form under its control."

Given that the Prime Minister refused to tell us which particular claims concerned her, the demands contained in the two passages quoted above amount to a demand that no News Limited outlet would publish any information related to any of these matters at any time in the future. Not surprisingly, we did not agree to publish these passages as part of the apologies that appeared in The Australian and on News Limited websites and we do not agree to these demands in any terms.

It is now clear why the PM went so over the top in her denials and bullying of media outlets to suppress this story. Based on what we now know, she has much to be embarrassed about. She was indeed forced out of Slaters as the transcript of her exit interview and Peter Gordan's leaked draft statement confirms.

Apart from a basic issue of the PM's trustworthiness, here are some other reasons why the issues are relevant today.

Firstly, Gillard is totally dependent on the so-called AWU faction to remain in The Lodge as Peter Hartcher explained in March after Rudd's failed challenge.

Secondly, Gillard seems to have learnt nothing about the need to crack-down on union frauds by her tardy approach to matters related to Craig Thomson and the HSU. Indeed, Mike Williamson's daughter Alex didn't depart until July 27, after spending 5 years in the PM's office. How much evidence did she need that the Williamson family had benefitted from inappropriate dealings at the HSU over many years. Whilst Alex herself may have had nothing to do with it, it's still a terrible look given the nepotism and cronyism which has long sparked cynicism about the NSW Right. If Gillard was "young and naive" during the Wilson fraud, surely as Prime Minister she would be all over union rip-offs.

And speaking of cronyism, the Gillard Government's decision to appoint her former Slater & Gordon mentor Bernard Murphy as a Federal Court judge last year was another interesting move.

When the $500,000 Bruce Wilson fraud emerged in the mid-1990s, Murphy and Gillard both resigned from Slater & Gordon. The departures were connected with the Wilson fraud - plus the so-called Smith-Harris case - as we now know thanks to former Slaters equity partner Nick Styant-Browne.

Gillard and Murphy never publicly admitted that they let Slaters down during this period and now Gillard's government has appointed her old mate to the Federal bench, even though he has never been a barrister.

The appointment was effective on June 13 last year, just weeks before the whole Bruce Wilson issue blew up.

Given that sacked Attorney General Robert McClelland re-ignited the whole issue with his recent speech in Parliament about the importance of union governance reform, you have to wonder how he felt about Gillard assisting in Murphy's appointment to the bench, a lucrative life-time paying gig that will deliver many millions in salary and pension benefits in return for 14 years of decision-making on the Federal Court until he hits the compulsory retirement age of 70.

It is well worth reading this full transcript of Murphy's ceremonial swearing in, where the Gillard connections are observed, as is the rarity of appointing judges without any experience at the bar.