Federal Labor has again called into question Bronwyn Bishop’s impartiality after allegations the Speaker used her parliamentary suite for fundraising purposes.

Bishop reportedly hosted a Liberal party fundraising event in her suite on the night of the 13 May budget. Labor says if the claim is proven, Bishop should stand down.

“If this is true, her position as Speaker is no longer tenable,” the manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, said.

He said the Speaker’s office was meant to be owned by the parliament: “It’s not a venue for hire.”

A spokesman for Bishop said she had not broken any electoral laws by holding the fundraising dinner. No taxpayers’ funds were used and all costs associated with Bishop’s private functions were charged to her private account.

“The Speaker does from time to time have private functions at parliament, as do many other members and senators,” the spokesman told News Corp.

Labor has previously questioned Bishop’s “serious partiality” in her rulings and it unsuccessfully moved a motion of no confidence in her in March.

On that occasion, Labor had attempted the first vote of no confidence in a parliamentary speaker since 1949, declaring Bishop biased, incompetent and failing in her interpretation of the standing orders.

Labor brought the vote on after the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, was “named” when he called out “Madam Speaker”. Being named requires him to leave the chamber for 24 hours, rather than the usual one hour under the standing orders.

The Labor motion charged the Speaker with serious partiality in favour of the government; a failure to interpret the standing orders, and gross incompetency in parliamentary procedure.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/25/labor-again-questions-bronwyn-bishops-impartiality-as-speaker

 

See also: not even in russia: the aussie speaker of the house loses the purpose of democracy...

 

 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s cycling group was involved in a biking accident this morning after hitting an oil slick on the road.

Several cyclists fell off their bikes and hit the road hard.

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said one of the cyclists broke a collarbone.

The Prime Minister was unharmed.

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“Aside from a collarbone, all are fine, and it was simply one of those things,” the spokeswoman said.

The accident first hit social media after Glenn Druery, a keen cyclist, who is known for his work organising preference flows for minor parties, posted that his group had hit a diesel slick first and that then Mr Abbott’s group had also fallen foul of the hazard.

“Sunday ride .. one of our group just hit a diesel slick and crashed. Minutes later, Tony’s group came round the same corner and his pack hit the deck hard hard,” he wrote.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/tony-abbotts-cycling-group-in-biking-accident-mate-breaks-collarbone-20140525-zrnl1.html#ixzz32hRiswLN

Bugger... Tony the slick was the one pollie targeted by the slick left by a discontented person PROTESTING about the price of fuel... Missed again, foul fuel man!... 

 

 

From Amanda Vanstone:

Recent street protests by students should give us all pause for thought. As much as many in my generation may harbour a special place in their hearts for Gough Whitlam, in our heads we retain memories of the economic shambles his government became.

Whitlam is remembered fondly by many as the man who introduced free university education. The principle that anyone who is capable of university education and wants to pursue it should be able to do so seems universal to me. But the implementation was a disaster.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/memo-to-uni-fees-protesters-stop-being-selfish-thugs-and-bullies-20140523-zrm0j.html#ixzz32lSeczri

 

 

Yes la Vanstone is telling it straight into your fracas... The implementation was a disaster: full disasters like Pyne, Abbott, Julie Bishop and Brandis who got their degrees for FREE and can't we see a complete goof up from Gough here!... Yes, the result of this free education here is for all of us to see... Pampered liars who did not have to work to pay for their lousy degree in the art of political fiducation and educporkationing... Woha!... Help me here, I need more new words to describe this complete fudge!

Anyone harping on about the students' protest shall have their head examined by Dr Gus. A country like Australia can afford to provide free tertiary education, should the miners pay their fair share on the value of the dirt they sell to the Chinese. Sure not everyone can learn at university on "merit", though most people are able to follow a course at TAFE which has also been decimated and is not free per se. And if a few morons get degrees when they should not, it's like when cars need to be recalled. Nothing's perfect...

In the 1950s, Russian university students were paid a wage to study. Most of them were not learning airy-fairy subject such as law and politics, but hard-core engineering and heavy mathematics (not heavy lifting alla Joe), plus theoretical physics that most (if not all) of the ning-nongs leading this country to austerity disaster would not have a clue about. 

Now, under Hockey's new regime of arse tightening fidulatry — forcing some degrees beyond $100,000 — unless you have rich parents, can get a free pass to private school degrees like Frances Abbott, you'll have to sell sex or ice cream on street corners to pay for a degree — or be content to have your head filled up with religious mumbo jumbo about the glorious humility of being poor from primary school onwards, while you clean wind screens on Parramatta road. Nothing wrong with doing this (washing windscreens on Parramatta Road — I've done it on my first few months in this fair country) but it should not become a vocation, if you see what I mean.

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

This from Crikey:

After students took to the streets on Wednesday to protest against the deregulation of university fees, Education Minister Christopher Pyne told Alan Jones on 2GB yesterday that they “should be buying a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates and visiting a home near them where they know someone hasn’t been to university, knocking on the front door and saying, ‘thank you very much for paying for my education’”.

The minister was defending the government’s plan to completely deregulate university fees from 2016; Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he can’t guarantee that fees won’t double for many courses.

Perhaps Pyne should head down to the florist as well, considering he gained his bachelor of laws from the University of Adelaide in 1988 for free, a degree that now costs $40,300.

According to a Crikey investigation, most of Tony Abbott’s cabinet should also be thanking the taxpayer for their higher education, completing their degrees between 1974 and 1988, the golden years of free higher education. University fees were abolished by prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1974 in order to increase the number of people getting a tertiary education. Courses had previously been funded by fees or a fixed number of scholarships under the Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme.

Prime minister Bob Hawke reintroduced university fees under the Higher Education Contributions Scheme in 1989, meaning that Treasurer Joe Hockey paid for two years of bachelor of arts and laws from the University of Sydney, with two years paid by the taxpayer. The five-year course now costs $7453 a year, meaning Hockey would be up for $37,265 for the full degree.

The HECS system, designed by economist Bruce Chapman, was intended to continue access to higher education without the ballooning costs of free higher education. In the original system, students paid a flat fee of $1800, which could be repaid later through taxes, while the Commonwealth picked up the remainder of the bill. HECS was adjusted by a new Howard government in 1996, with fees rising and a new tiered system introduced to reflect the value of different degrees. Now students contribute 40% of their course costs through HECS, while the government pays the other 60%.

Before the Prime Minister was a Rhodes scholar, he completed a bachelor of economics and laws at the University of Sydney in 1981. If Tony Abbott started now, he’d finish with a HECS debt of $49,550. Like Christopher Pyne, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop completed a bachelor of laws at Adelaide University, graduating in 1979. Attorney-General George Brandis also got a free education, graduating with a bachelor of arts and laws at the University of Queensland, a course that costs current students $35,084.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull paid one year of fees before 1974, graduating with a bachelor of arts and laws from the University of Sydney in 1978. As a current student, his debt would be $29,812 (for four years of a five-year course). Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce paid one year of his bachelor of commerce at the University of New England after HECS was introduced, a course that now costs $10,080 annually.

It’s not just government frontbenchers who should be buying flowers for taxpayers; while the Labor Party cut $900 million from universities in an efficiency dividend last year, many on the opposition frontbench also benefited from a free education. Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten studied for a bachelor of arts and laws at Monash University, followed by a master’s degree of business administration at the University of Melbourne. The double degree at Monash now costs students $41,750, but Shorten studied most of his degree under the HECS system after 1989, graduating in 1992.

Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Penny Wong started to pay HECS partway through her bachelor of arts and law at the University of Adelaide, owing just one year of the course, worth $10,075. Labor’s higher education spokesman, Senator Kim Carr, graduated from his undergraduate degree in 1977, his diploma of education in 1978 and a master’s degree in arts from the University of Melbourne in 1984, meaning as a current student his debt would be more than $70,000.

Opposition transport spokesman Anthony Albanese completed a free bachelor of economics at the University of Sydney, a qualification that now leaves students with a debt of $28,326. Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen completed his degree after HECS was introduced, as did Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus is one of many parliamentarians with a combined bachelor of arts and laws, graduating from the University of Melbourne without paying any fees. The combined degree is no longer available, with Melbourne Uni students now completing an arts degree followed by the juris doctor, totalling $132,948 for both courses (although for this cost current graduates leave with a higher post-graduate qualification). Opposition defence spokesman Stephen Conroy also benefited from a free education, studying a bachelor of economics from the Australian National University.

Unlike many of her colleagues in the major parties, Greens leader Christine Milne studied most of her tertiary education before the abolition of fees, completing the honours year of her bachelor of arts in 1974 at the University of Tasmania.

Fewer ALP frontbenchers benefited from Whitlam’s abolition of fees, but this is mainly because the cabinet on the Left side of politics are, on average, younger than their counterparts on the other side of the House. Crikey hopes you’ve all got enough vases for the flowers about to come your way …

 

 

No Right to make your case

• GERARD HENDERSON
• THE AUSTRALIAN
• MAY 24, 2014 12:00AM

Since my days at university, I have supported police who are confronted by radical students, and their somewhat older cohort of revolutionaries, who present themselves as modern day followers of Leon Trotsky.

The Bolshevik Trotsky murdered Russian sailors at Kronstadt in 1921. And today’s Trots seem to delight in attacking police, who tend to comprise the remnants of what was once called the working class.

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

"The Australian" of course is the place where most of the flying pigs of Australian politics breed... They breed with the fury of rabbits on heat while the artificial grass is still green on their side of the fence. Here we have Gerard Henderson telling in not so many words how he would have ratted on his fellow students to the police... In his student days, he was the president of the university DLP in Melbourne, the DLP being an horrible concoction of religious fake "socialism", inspired by B A Santamaria... In the same way as Tony Abbott's slid into destructive muck, this Santamariasation of the soul has led many an opportunist to shift the gears into ultra-right wingnuttery. 

And as the Telegraph points out: Tony feels for you... If you believe this crap, you're more a dork than I think I am... 

Note: Tony only feels the opinion polls, NOTHING ELSE.

 

 

If Amanda Vanstone thinks the "billions of dollars in HECS debt left unpaid" is a problem now, then what exactly does she expect will happen when university fees inevitably rise under the proposed deregulated fee system  ("Memo to uni fees protesters: stop being selfish thugs and bullies", May 23)? 

Surely logic would dictate that a loan that costs twice as much will take twice as long to pay back and hence result in the government facing double the unpaid debt for twice as long as it does at present. The only way the government could possibly reduce the unpaid debt would be to reduce the number of HECS-supported places. I suppose that would be one way of getting rid of the protesting riff-raff.

Stephen Bakopanos Alexandria

 

Amanda Vanstone has put the issue so eloquently and compellingly. I went to university in South Africa in the 1960s. No HECS and all fees paid each year in advance. Most of us did not have parents who could afford to fund our studies so we had to earn money and scrounge loans and bursaries. In my case my debts equalled three times my gross annual salary and I was fine with that. I felt privileged to have gone to university at all and emerge with a degree. 

These student protesters seem to only think about themselves. As an undergraduate I can recall that our protests were about academic freedom, police brutality, the 90-day detention law and the unfair treatment of non-white people.  In a number of cases protesting resulted in jail time or deportation if the student came from another country. 

Today's students should find more worthy and less selfish causes to fight for. With the energy they are putting into opposing possible fee hikes they could change the world. 

John Whiteing Willoughby

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/christopher-pyne-should-remember-the-benefits-of-a-uni-education-20140526-zrok3.html#ixzz32srTaWNZ

Yes, Mr Whiteing, the strudents (strident students) are using their energy to change the world by showing how duplicitous and dishonest, the Liberal (CONservative) regime in this country is... Totally worth it!
And when you went to university in Suid-Afrika, I believe blacks were not allowed into the same system of education... I have no idea. this last question is only for someone to tell me.
But the students are not thinking just of themselves in Australia... They are protesting to alert the dozing public out there that all of us are being taken for a ride by the lying bastards...

 

 

Annabel's strange case against student demonstrations
Judy Crozier 29 May 2014, 7:30am

Politics

 

Popular media personality, Annabel Crabb, admits being a little "snarky" with her 'Hey hey! Ho ho! those 70s demos have to go!' piece on recent student 'rabble-rousing' against the Budget. Judy Crozier reports.

 

BACK IN 1381, English peasants hit the streets in a very big way under Wat Tyler. They had some major grievances against the king. The Chartists drew together another great rally in1848, because they thought the vote should be universal.

Well, at least for men.

Astonishing numbers marched against the Vietnam War during the moratorium days of the late 60s and early 70s, here and of course overseas.

There were many marches, rallies and protests before 1381, no doubt, and certainly countless numbers between then and now.

More recently, we’ve had rallies against Kennett, against Howard’s union bashing, against Australia’s insertion into the Iraq war, against the sum of Abbott’s attempts at Right Wing Social Engineering.

Last week, we’ve had (finally!) some vocal, energetic and public protests by university students. They upstaged the smaller protest by pensioners — whose action may have been less attractive to cameras because they didn’t include running pell-mell or sitting on hard streets. Getting up again might have been an issue. Perhaps they’ll bring cushions next time.

The point is this. The tradition is an important one — public protest is a right we hold to ourselves. The more people try to prevent us from protesting publically, the more passionately we hold it to ourselves. This right of ours.

‘Public’ is the salient word here.

It is no doubt the very thing that makes commentators who have clearly had a cossetted existence quite nervous, such as Annabel Crabb. Now, I have nothing against Annabel. She is witty and can make the odd telling point, though frankly, like many, she misses a lot by evading discussion of realpolitik.

It may be that there is even sympathy for students there, and she just thinks noisy rallies and marches will only work against the demonstrators viz a viz public relations and all.

This is to completely misunderstand the point. Firstly, good luck with telling 20-somethings how to vent their anger. Or anyone else who is cross enough.

Good luck telling truckies not to gather in their vehicles at Parliament House; good luck preventing farmers from protesting fracking in New South Wales.

Secondly … not only is a rally or march a public event that shows to everyone what you feel in a personal, visible way, but it is also a show of strength. This in itself is a unifying factor to participants, and an encouragement to all those others witnessing the display who believe as they do. Further, protestors are all taking to streets that are familiar to them, and, in a way, laying claim to them, albeit temporarily.

In a way, protestors are saying:

“This is where we live. This is our life.”

They are saying:

“We are taking our view right up to you. You must acknowledge us, because here we are.”

1. 
   

1. Jim @clifford336
2. After a few days thinking about @annabelcrabb's protest article, I'm disappointed. She was one of the 1st political commentators I read

Annabel Crabb        ✔@annabelcrabb

@clifford336 Hi Jim - thanks for your thoughts. Appreciate them. Think you're right about the tone. I could have been less snarky. AC10:03 AM - 28 May 2014

• Similarly, slogans and chants are traditional to almost any crowd, and serve to convey both a simple message to anyone watching and also link the participants. Not to mention chanting gives them something to do.

Annabel has a problem with typical student rally chants, as well. She must have had a very dull youth.

There’s a lot in having a rally with attendant march, old-fashioned though Annabel may claim it to be, and I’m afraid making a meaningful film or doing a power-point demonstration just wouldn’t be the same.

Annabel’s is a strange argument against student protest in the streets that arises, perhaps, from a couple of decades of public mutedness in general, and among both commentators and students in particular.

John Howard succeeded in shutting down the expression of opinion in print and elsewhere with his denigration of the ‘chattering classes’. 

Somewhere, somehow, commentators blanded themselves out and started claiming there is no Left or Right anymore.

 

Well, the Far Right is here now, and is quite recognisable. And it isn’t just students who are angered and frightened by its agenda.

But let me finish with this: back in the day, when I was first at University and a regular at rallies and marches, I recall, certainly, the older folk who complained about such things.

But I also recall those who applauded the passion of young people.

That’s where I am now and, frankly, I’m pleased and proud that the student body is, at last, awake and active.

 

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

 

For those people who are interested in my beef with Roger Scruton please note:

 

Scruton first embraced conservatism during the student protests of May 1968 in France. Nicholas Wroe wrote in The Guardian that Scruton was in the Latin Quarter in Paris at the time, watching students overturning cars to erect barricades, and tearing up cobblestones to throw at the police. "I suddenly realized I was on the other side. What I saw was an unruly mob of self-indulgent middle-class hooligans. When I asked my friends what they wanted, what were they trying to achieve, all I got back was this ludicrous Marxist gobbledegook. I was disgusted by it, and thought there must be a way back to the defence of western civilization against these things. That's when I became a conservative. I knew I wanted to conserve things rather than pull them down."[5]

 

See:  are we there yet?

 

Gus: had Scruton bothered to study what was happening at the time and what had happened to motivate the revolt — including half of the French population — he would have discovered what all are still seeking then and now: a sense of purpose while being removed from one by the political system. Democracy is not easy. That is why Scruton takes the easy option of old-fashioned ruling class taking the dumb masses to their destiny. 

It was a year later (1969) that the regime of General de Gaulle fell. He had tried one trick too many, spying on the French population and this did not wash... Look at where we are now with the NSA and the pommy outfit as well... From intelligent dummies, we've been turned into sheep, slowly being fattened up for the abbottoirs.

Students at the Australian National University (ANU) have vowed to ramp up their opposition to the Government's proposal to deregulate student fees.

More than 200 ANU students in Canberra marched against the proposed deregulation of student fees.

The controversial policy was announced in the Federal Government's budget earlier in the year, but the proposal is yet to pass the Senate.

Organisers of the protest warned university fee deregulation would disadvantage students from lower income areas.

The protesters targeted Education Minister Christopher Pyne and Prime Minister Tony Abbott, but also the ANU vice-chancellor Ian Young, for supporting the proposed policy.

ANU student organiser Geraldine Fela has warned an uncapped university system could lead to degrees costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"Our vice-chancellor Ian Young, who's also the chair of the Group Of Eight universities, has been championing fee deregulation from the beginning," she said.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/students-march-against-fee-deregulation/5684172

 

See my beef at top...

A protest against Prime Minister Tony Abbott at the University of Adelaide turned violent last night, with several people injured and a teenage girl taken to hospital after mounted police were called in.

Hundreds of people had gathered to express anger about issues including planned changes to university fees, policy on asylum seekers and marriage equality, while Mr Abbott delivered the Sir John Downer oration.

After several hours of peaceful protesting some people pushed over a fence that had been erected around the lecture theatre.

Mounted police were brought in to push the crowd back.

Protester Byron Stone says he was knocked to the ground by one of the horses.

"I didn't think they'd try to go through us like that so I stayed, and I got knocked over," he said.

"I fell down and then I was pretty scared.

"I ended up curling up as much as I could, but I couldn't curl up quick enough to get my left arm in, so it got trodden on.

"I've got some horse prints on my arm... and my friends say I have another one on my shoulder."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-21/protesters-breach-police-lines-at-abbott-oration/5687980

There seems to be a new age of activism rising. From Occupy Wall Street, to the “Stop Watching Us” march against government surveillance, to the Moral Monday protests, to the People’s Climate March, to the recent nationwide protests over the killings of men and boys of color by police, there is obviously a discontent in this country that is pouring into the streets.

And yet much of it confounds and frustrates existing concepts of what movements should look like. Much does not fit neatly into the confines of conventional politics or the structures of traditional power.

It’s often diffuse. It’s often organic and largely leaderless. It’s often about a primary event but also myriad secondary ones. It is, in a way, a social network approach to social justice, not so much captain-orchestrated as crowd-sourced, people sharing, following and liking their way to consensus and collective consciousness.

If there is a unifying theme, it is at least in part that more people are frustrated, aching for a better America and a better world, waking to the reality of the incredible fragility of our freedoms, our democracy and our planet. It is a chafing at grinding political intransigence and growing political corporatism. It is a rejection of the obscenity of economic inequality. And it is a collective expression of moral outrage over systemic bias.

The suspicion of bias, in particular, is what the most recent protests have been about. They are about a most basic question concerning the nature of humanity itself: If we are all created equal, shouldn’t we all be treated equally? Anything less is an affront to our ideals.

Bias in the system often feels like fog in the morning: enveloping, amorphous and immeasurable. But individual cases, like the recent ones, hit us as discrete and concrete, about particular unarmed black men killed by particular policemen — although those particular policemen are representative of structures of power.

These cases make easy focal points for rallying cries, and force us to ask tough questions about the very nature of policing, force and justice:

When is the line crossed from protecting and serving to occupying and suppressing? When do officers stop seeing their role as working for and with a community and start seeing that role as working against and in spite of it? If bias exists in society at large, how do we keep it out of, or at least mitigate the effect of it on, every level of the criminal justice system, from police interactions to prison sentences?

There is a thin line between high-pressure policing and oppressive policing. Heavy hands leave bruised spirits, and occasionally buried bodies.



http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/opinion/charles-blow-from-eric-garner-and-michael-brown-to-the-ballot-box.html?_r=0

 

See toon and articles from top...