The government continues to gag any debate on the budget bills. This morning the suspension of standing orders continues to push through more legislation and to sit in Clive Palmer's inbox.

Leader of the House, Christopher Pyne is at his Cheshire Cat best this morning, taunting the former Leader of the House, Anthony Albanese.

"He is really is missing it Madame Speaker, he had his brief shining moment of power..."

The Public Governance, Performance and Accountability bill was pushed through and now the fuel indexation budget bill is getting the same treatment.

Chris Bowen rose briefly and got a few sentences in before he was gagged by Pyne.

"Has there ever been a government that is less determined to talk about their budget than this one?"

Gagged. Sit down.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/enter-clive-abbotts-carbon-tax-repeal-takes-centre-stage-politics-live

Now we are onto the Migration Amendment (Protection and Other Measures) Bill 2014.

More on that shortly.

Australia might have a better record than America when it comes to inequality, but that won't continue if it borrows the latter's policies on welfare, health, higher education and the minimum wage, writes Greg Jericho.

The undisputed number one topic of economics over the past year has been inequality. Focus on the issue was given an almighty boost with the publication of French economist Thomas Piketty's study "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", and earlier this year the IMF also released a study on the topic titled "Redistribution, Inequality and Growth". About the only people dealing with economics who seem oblivious to concerns of inequality are those in our own government.

The topic has always been near the top of the economic tree, but with the beginnings of the GFC (or the Great Recession, as those in the northern hemisphere would call it) now 5-6 years ago, economists are able to now examine its consequences across income levels.

While the success of Piketty's work perhaps rests in part on his accessibility to non-economists - given his preference for graphs and references to Jane Austen over mathematical equations - he does not eschew data; far from it. His research on the history of incomes is amazingly thorough and has withstood, with fair ease, some of the strongest attacks. And best of all, all the data he uses in his book is available online, and he has gathered other data on incomes from a number of nations on The World Top Incomes Database.

The data shows that compared to the USA, Australia's income equality picture is not too bad - but that's a bit like saying that compared to Usain Bolt we're a bit slow.

In 2010, the richest 10 per cent in Australia held about 31 per cent of all income, well below the 48 per cent held by the richest 10 per cent in America.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-25/jericho-equality-does-not-happen-by-accident/5546634

Funding cuts to the CSIRO are driven by “pure ignorance” and will result in significant damage to Australia’s economy, the organisation’s staff body has claimed.

On Thursday hundreds of CSIRO workers took part in a national day of protest against the government’s decision to cut the national science agency’s budget by $111m over four years.

The CSIRO staff association said the organisation is set to suffer an “unprecedented” round of redundancies – nearly 20% of the workforce would depart over two years.

These redundancies comprise 700 people in 2014-15, made up of direct job losses and an organisational restructure. A further 80 jobs are forecast to be lost in 2015-16.

CSIRO workers predict the public will be aghast at the programs that will be lost as a result of the cuts, including research into neuroscience and colorectal cancer, water safety and advanced manufacturing.

The CSIRO has already moved to close eight research sites across the country. Research areas such as climate change moved to different premises to save funds.

A senior scientist within the CSIRO told Guardian Australia the organisation had been “crippled” by uncertainty over job cuts. “Everyone is holding their breath to see where the axe will fall,” he said.

The CSIRO staff association said the cuts would have a detrimental impact in several areas.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/26/csiro-funding-cuts-driven-by-pure-ignorance-says-staff-association

Later in the Q&A, Mr Abbott also praised Bob Hawke for being the best leader the Labor Party has probably had.

“There’s no doubt that the period between 1983 and 2007 was the golden age of reform,” Mr Abbott said.

“Towards the latter part it was the golden age of prosperity as well. Let’s look at the authors of those reforms - Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard, Peter Costello. All of them great contributors,” he said.

“Hawke [was] almost certainly the best-ever Labor prime minister. Howard [was] certainly the best prime minister since Menzies.”

“I think all of them have got things to teach us, but as in most things I would regard John Howard as the supreme teacher,” Mr Abbott said.

To me, apart from pandering to the general hysteria about "boat people", Julia Gillard has shown to be one of the best PM in this country. She had the courage to introduce an ETS in the form of a carbon pricing that has worked far better than expected. She has also had the courage to introduce school funding and fair curriculum reforms — and the NDIS — all of which were designed to make this society fairer for all. Her government also introduced regulations for "financial advisors" and a host of other policies which maintained the decency of this country.

In some ways, her PMship was far harder than that of Bob Menzies, John Howard, Bob Hawke, mostly because she was being hammered by a stupid rabid opposition, by a slut of a media, and by her own jealous and religious colleagues. 

John Howard, like Tonicchio, was a liar, but a better turncoat. 

The Abbott government has created a hub of 37 communication and social media specialists to monitor social media and offer strategic communications advice costing taxpayers almost $4.3 million a year.

Details released in Senate documents show the ''Strategic Communications Branch'' was implemented late last year, where the 37 staff are expected to oversee media within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, including Indigenous Affairs and the Office for Women. According to the documents, staff are expected to monitor social media, offer strategic communications advice and create internal newsletters graphic design support, among other duties.

A spokesman for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten slammed the number of communications staff engaged to spin Tony Abbott's messages.

''At a time when the Prime Minister is cutting pensions and increasing taxes and cost of living pressures, nearly 40 extra staff members have been put on to try to spin his messages.''

'No amount of spin will convince Australians that Tony Abbott's budget is fair.'' The number of staff is in contrast to the PM&C under the Labor government, which had seven communications staff during its last year.

Despite this, the government maintains it is cutting the cost of public affairs staff across all departments and says the communications staff came from other departments. ''There has been no increase in the number of communications staff employed by departments,'' a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said. ''In the May budget the government announced savings of more than $43million to reduce the cost of public affairs across government agencies.'' Last month it was revealed Scott Morrison's departments employ more than 95 communications staff and spin doctors, costing at least $8 million a year.

Details released to the Senate show the departments of Immigration, Border Protection and Australian Customs have 85 permanent and 10 other staff responsible for media monitoring, internal communication and public relations.

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