As the parliamentary year ends, the Gillard Government is where few pundits predicted it would be two years ago. Not only is it still in office, but it's presiding over a growing list of reforms - from carbon pricing and plain cigarette packaging, to paid parental leave and the National Broadband Network.

This week saw four of the Gillard Government's most significant reforms join that list - the first of the Gonski education bills, poker machine restrictions, the Murray Darling Basin plan, and an emblematic Labor reform, the National Disability Insurance Scheme. And although its reliance on the independents was expected to leave the Government vulnerable, even precarious, it is yet to lose a vote on the floor of the Parliament.

Minority government was not meant to be this easy. And, for Tony Abbott, it has not been. The knife-edge election result of 2010 was difficult enough for Abbott to accept, but the independents' protracted decision to support the minority Labor government has been almost unendurable. So close and still, two years later, so far.

Abbott has shown extraordinary discipline in pursuing the single-minded, single-focused strategy that he believed would quickly deliver him government. Parliamentary chaos and unworkability would see a short-lived 'Gillard experiment', with independents crossing the floor, an election, and the return of government to the Coalition. It was a brash, politically intense strategy and it was expected to quickly succeed.

The problem for Abbott and the Opposition is that it has not succeeded. Even more remarkable is that there is no plan B. The longer the Government has remained in office, with legislation passing and the once dire opinion polls shifting, the more intense the parliamentary destabilisation has become.

The Opposition appears wedded to an increasingly unpopular negative campaign of denunciation and denigration that is now starting to play against them. The reluctance to focus on policy, even to engage in critical parliamentary debates, was nowhere more apparent than with Abbott's absence from the House during the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This long overdue critical social reform received an ovation from the public gallery, yet the Opposition saw fit to absent its senior leaders from the House. By handing to the crossbenches the crucial policy negotiations required of minority government, the Opposition is at risk of appearing irrelevant.

This week we saw the remarkable spectacle of the Opposition devoting every Question Time not to any of these critical policy matters, but to revisiting 17-year-old claims against the Prime Minister. The basic and repeated errors in much of the media reporting of the key event at issue - the incorporation of an association for which Gillard gave legal advice to her then-boyfriend 20 years ago - has left the media as tarred by this episode as it has the Opposition.

Once again, in question after question the Opposition demanded that Gillard prove her innocence of claims of increasingly Delphic obscurity, aided by media reports that at critical junctures proved incorrect. By the week's end, with no smoking gun, much less proof of any wrongdoing, in sight, the Leader of the Opposition ramped up his claims dramatically, publicly accusing the Prime Minister of criminal behaviour.

Speaking on national television, Abbott claimed that Gillard had made 'false representations' to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission in order to ensure the incorporation of the association. Abbott appeared to base his extravagant claim on an equally extravagant Fairfax report that morning that had all but accused the Prime Minister of fraudulent behaviour, a conclusion drawn by misquoting a document it had in its possession.

How extraordinary that those same media that had repeatedly demanded that the Prime Minister explain actions and recall meetings from 20 years ago had been unable to correctly describe a document that was right there in front of them.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4401340.html?WT.svl=theDrum

See toon at top...

Tony Abbott's plan to create one million jobs in five years is a political promise rather than an economic forecast, writes Greg Jericho.

Last week Tony Abbott released a book which apparently gives us an insight into what an Abbott Government would look like. As it is just a collection of his speeches, there is little new content save the foreword in which Mr Abbott announces: "Within five years, I am confident that our economy can create at least one million new jobs."

The claim is similar to that made by Mitt Romney during the US presidential campaign to create 12 million jobs in four years - a target which was based on some pretty spurious research and which in any case Moody's Research claimed would be achieved regardless of who was in office.

So how "ambitious" (to use Warren Truss's words when introducing the book) is Mr Abbott's target?

Now firstly, any desire to create jobs is to be applauded, but when throwing around numbers, it is always good to get some context. For instance, creating over a million jobs over a five-year period is not an unusual occurrence. It occurred first during the Hawke government and again during the Howard government. It has also occurred during the period of which the Rudd/Gillard Government was largely in power - from March 2007 to March 2012, 1.002 million jobs were created...

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4407638.html?WT.svl=theDrum

Nothing new, but more bullshit on the Abbott front.. See, come the Liberal ball-wreckers like Newman and O'feral... especially Newman in Queensland, where unemployment has soared since he took office and sacked people for doing their job... Expect the same from Tony Boy since he wants to make sure, like his political daddy, John Howard, that the public service is cut through to the bone, that people who deserve welfare are thrown out and that workers rights are destroyed.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is getting a trucker's view of the Pacific Highway upgrading project as he spends two days driving from Brisbane to Terrigal, on the New South Wales central coast.

Mr Abbott drove the truck out of the Rocklea markets in Brisbane earlier today and will head down the coast on the highway he says is still a "goat track" from the 1970s.

He has told the ABC he has had a truck licence for more than a decade as part of his work with the local rural fire brigade.

"Last year I upgraded to a heavy combination, partly because that would help me to drive the bulk water carrier at the local fire brigade but also partly because I thought that it would be useful to be able to highlight the parlous state of our roads," he said.

"If this Government gets re-elected, the carbon tax will go on heavy transport. So, I guess it's politically helpful and also socially useful."

Mr Abbott says he wants to highlight the state of the road and the economic cost of neglecting such a critical piece of national infrastructure ahead of the Christmas tourist season, when traffic loads double on the highway.

He is promising a Coalition government would provide more than $5.5 billion to complete the dual carriageway on the Pacific Highway.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-05/abbott-gets-a-truckers-view/4409438?WT.svl=news1

Updated 9 hours 25 minutes ago

Tony and Margie Abbott wish all Australians a merry Christmas and pay tribute to those whose sacrifice helps keep us all safe.

-------------------------------

What is she doing here at the ABC official greetings?... Are we voting for her?... Has she got a parliament house seat that we don't know about? Is this a family thingy, thus Tim, the PARTNER of our Prime Minister does not count because "they live in sin"?... Is this the polishing of Tony Detritus' image with some Margie Brasso and a bit of elbow grease?... Where is the dog?... And the the cat?...

Meanwhile, we are told that Abbott is a big boxing cheese in values, by Paul Kelly at the Murdoch Oz...

Labor has accused Tony Abbott of trying to jack up his standing with female voters after his top adviser, Peta Credlin, gave an unprecedented interview defending her boss against sexism claims and talking about her own IVF treatment.
Ms Credlin, who is Mr Abbott’s chief-of-staff, has taken the unusual step of speaking to women’s magazine Marie Claire, describing her boss as deeply supportive of her efforts to have a child through IVF with her husband, Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane.

The Liberal Party research must be showing that Mr Abbott does have a problem with women, and that he is trying to do something about it. 

...

Which brings me to the Opposition.

Tony Abbott fronted up to the National Press Club two days after the Prime Minister on Friday 1 February.

Amazing, I know, but not one mainstream media journalist commented on his “new look”.

Having worked in the fashion and beauty industry for many years, I am only too well aware when someone has had a makeover. For 20+ years, I used to teach young women and men body image, life skills and how to improve their presentation for employment: makeup, hair, clothing, etiquette and speech. I know the tricks of the trade of makeup to highlight eyes, cheekbones, and so on.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/tony-abbotts-makeover/

See toon at top...

Whether he becomes Prime Minister, or whether he fades away after losing the unloseable election, the Tony Abbott that was: the bumbling, aggressive anachronism from 1950s Australia – will never be seen again.

But we shouldn’t get excited — he hasn’t been replaced by an upgraded, superior model. He has been replaced by Tony the automaton. Tony the political functionary for vested interests. Tony the hollow man.

It all happened during Tony’s marathon run for political office.

Credit where it is due, for more than three years Tony has chanted the same slogans, he’s spruiked his talking points and walked away from the media before questions could be asked, he has kept his aggressive temperament in check, and he most assuredly has not said what he really thinks on just about any subject. That takes extraordinary political stamina.

The problem is the trek to the prime ministership has been so arduous it has utterly effaced Abbott’s identity. He has so completely given himself over to the discipline imposed by his advisors that any vestiges of his core beliefs have long since gone.

He has become the hollow man of Australian politics.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/new-tony-the-hollow-man/

See toon at top...