The Abbott government says they are all about jobs and growth, but for who?

In 2012, unions were outraged by a decision to allow Gina Rinehart to import more than 1,700 foreign workers on 457 visas for her latest project in Western Australia.

As usual, News Limited were the only MMMM media following Abbott's racket about Xmas...

The magnitude of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's "woman problem" has been underlined in new research which shows women rate the government very poorly across all policy areas and are harsher than men in their assessment of the government's overall performance.

Female voters are also more pessimistic about the economic outlook, according to the new polling analysis.

Joe Hockey said “We are going to give economic reform a red hot go in 2015.”

Christmas and the New Year is a time of hope. Yet all this Abbott government and its media spruikers offers is fear – fear of terrorism; fear of asylum seekers and fear of the unemployed are its current playthings.

Thus Abbott tells us about terrorism ‘chatterings’, fitting well into his initial narrative of the Sydney siege as our ‘ brush with terrorism’ and the Daily Telegraph lyingly painting the hostage crisis as being carried out by the IS death cult.

Increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter; increased chatter ................

There could be an argument in favour of using the illusion of Santa Claus to jollify our lives — especially when we don't know what we're doing or what the future shall bring us. At least we can fudge things for a few moments, though for some people, Christmas can be a time of sadness and loneliness...

Milne told reporters on Monday that while Abbott was spruiking the abolition of the carbon tax, his government had undermined services to women such as legal aid in domestic violence cases and homelessness support.

“He might as well have said that by abolishing the carbon price he’s been able to give women more money to buy a new iron and stay at home and do the ironing more often,” Milne said.

If you go to Tony Abbott’s facebook page, at time of writing, you will find six threads about the Martin Place siege and one about the slaughter of innocent children in Pakistan.  Four days after its release, you will not find any comment about Hockey’s MYEFO.  That in itself should be cause for concern.

In 1964, the Brazilian military, in a US-designed coup, overthrew a liberal (not more to the left than that) government and proceeded to rule with an iron fist for the next 21 years. In 1979 the military regime passed an amnesty law blocking the prosecution of its members for torture and other crimes. The amnesty still holds.