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The Abbott Government

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Talk of a re-shuffle, and frankly something has to give.

For starters,

Scott Morrison to Communications - take the axe to Ultimo by all means, but leave the regional ABC, and Classic FM alone

Malcolm Turnbull to Treasurer - sell, sell, sell those policies

Julie Bishop doing well, stays in Foreign Affairs

Matthias Cormann doing well, stays in Finance
 
banco said:
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Turnbull has sullied himself by trying to claim black is white and white is black with regards to Abbott's statements about the ABC.
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He took one for the team, but I agree it was an ambulance pass that capped off my belief he has lost his mojo and ticker. He's just seat warming now, trying to smooth the public perturbations of a Jack in the box PM.
 
No conviction; my personal preference would of been a gaol sentence with a release date in the lead up to the next election. My utopian ideal squashed. The freedom of a very brave young girl prevailed.
reported in the free press;

No conviction will be recorded against a 21-year-old whistleblower for accessing confidential files that revealed the prime minister’s daughter, Frances Abbott, received an undisclosed $60,000 scholarship.
 
orr said:
No conviction; my personal preference would of been a gaol sentence with a release date in the lead up to the next election. My utopian ideal squashed. The freedom of a very brave young girl prevailed.
reported in the free press;

No conviction will be recorded against a 21-year-old whistleblower for accessing confidential files that revealed the prime minister’s daughter, Frances Abbott, received an undisclosed $60,000 scholarship.
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Should never have gone that far, but yet again indicates the Dickensian depths some people will go to in order to intimidate and deter freedom of information that is in the public interest.

I hope the taxation department is looking at ways of getting a slice of that $60k gift
 
Logique said:
Talk of a re-shuffle, and frankly something has to give.

For starters,

Scott Morrison to Communications - take the axe to Ultimo by all means, but leave the regional ABC, and Classic FM alone
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If the ABC has any brains they'll cut the regional ABC to the bone as that's the only part the coalition (well the nationals) care about and will make further cuts less likely.
 
sptrawler said:
Would that be for all scholarships, or only ones that are awarded to relatives of people, you don't like?:D
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Only the ones that pursue others for outing cronyism that is linked to possible corruption of chartered process. No doubt the institution involved receives some kind of taxpayer funding?
 
banco said:
If the ABC has any brains they'll cut the regional ABC to the bone as that's the only part the coalition (well the nationals) care about and will make further cuts less likely.
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I say drop the netball, the soccer, country league AFL and NRL, agri business, etc and go back to our traditional Australian roots = broadcast year old UK programs.
 
Tisme said:
I say drop the netball, the soccer, country league AFL and NRL, agri business, etc and go back to our traditional Australian roots = broadcast year old UK programs.
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I say drop the sound engineers who monitor the electronics that monitor inbound phone calls (every other network dropped them over 10 years ago), drop the twice daily mail delivery to individual desks (a practice that ceased to exist in the real world 20 years ago) and halve the inverted pyramid management structure and associated excessive remuneration and I reckon the current spotlight may extinguish.
 
Tisme said:
Only the ones that pursue others for outing cronyism that is linked to possible corruption of chartered process. No doubt the institution involved receives some kind of taxpayer funding?
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So you are saying she didn't earn the scholarship on merit? That should be easy to prove:confused:
 
sptrawler said:
So you are saying she didn't earn the scholarship on merit? That should be easy to prove:confused:
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Well apparently and overtly she wasn't as talented as some of the obvious candidates, which precipitated the mischief based on the belief of injustice of favouritism over merit .... bit like the Liberal Party preselection process really :D
 
Tisme said:
Well apparently and overtly she wasn't as talented as some of the obvious candidates, which precipitated the mischief based on the belief of injustice of favouritism over merit .... bit like the Liberal Party preselection process really :D
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When you listen to the media or read the papers, the last thing that would give you a favourable outcome, would be the Abbott name.:D

Any mischief that can be perpetrated against Abbott, seems to get a very good airing.lol
 
boofhead said:
It seems Abbott finally admitted he made the comments, https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/25602952/pm-admits-to-abc-sbs-no-cuts-comment/

Labor's fault. Seems he has issues admitting things are softer like iron ore pricing etc. which is impacting.
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But don't you remember just before the 2013 election Gillard and Swan said 500 times there would a surplus of $2 billion.....then it was an $11 billion ldeficit, then $17 billion, the $22 billion all in one week.....that was by Penny Wong, but the true figure was $122 billion deficit......How could she be out that far?.....No wonder Abbott had to break his promise of no cuts.....Grrrrrr
 
noco said:
But don't you remember just before the 2013 election Gillard and Swan said 500 times there would a surplus of $2 billion.....then it was an $11 billion ldeficit, then $17 billion, the $22 billion all in one week.....that was by Penny Wong, but the true figure was $122 billion deficit......How could she be out that far?.....No wonder Abbott had to break his promise of no cuts.....Grrrrrr
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You're ignoring what I wrote or you're irrational once the word Labor is mentioned. I mentioned a downward trend which is impacting both sides in the last few years. Things are softer and softening more than the govt is prepared to acknowledge.

Where is the $122 billion deficit figure from? I'm having trouble finding it. Are you having issues like Joyce with deficit and debt distinctions?

As for ABC - Abbott wasted PR in having ministers try to spin the cuts over the last half week or more. It reduces public trust that coalition members are trying to twist and turn rhetoric about ABC cuts then the PM eventually decides to fess up. Seems their default position is to pull the wool over the eyes of the public instead of being a man (it is a dig at Cormann's comment).

I don't understand why you're spending time trying to defend the Coalition for mistakes and PR spin. All the excuse finding and spin is wasting time and effort. Instead they could talk about the actual issues and then they can better sell cuts and changes. Abbott and co. need to focus on the job and develop policy instead of being stuck in the politics hence why Abbott looks like he is stuck in opposition mode.

We have PR losing trust and has issues with voter satisfacton then taking actions that do not help himself, his part or nation. What a waste of effort.
 
boofhead said:
You're ignoring what I wrote or you're irrational once the word Labor is mentioned. I mentioned a downward trend which is impacting both sides in the last few years. Things are softer and softening more than the govt is prepared to acknowledge.

Where is the $122 billion deficit figure from? I'm having trouble finding it. Are you having issues like Joyce with deficit and debt distinctions?

As for ABC - Abbott wasted PR in having ministers try to spin the cuts over the last half week or more. It reduces public trust that coalition members are trying to twist and turn rhetoric about ABC cuts then the PM eventually decides to fess up. Seems their default position is to pull the wool over the eyes of the public instead of being a man (it is a dig at Cormann's comment).

I don't understand why you're spending time trying to defend the Coalition for mistakes and PR spin. All the excuse finding and spin is wasting time and effort. Instead they could talk about the actual issues and then they can better sell cuts and changes. Abbott and co. need to focus on the job and develop policy instead of being stuck in the politics hence why Abbott looks like he is stuck in opposition mode.

We have PR losing trust and has issues with voter satisfacton then taking actions that do not help himself, his part or nation. What a waste of effort.
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+1
They need to move on from the rhetoric and get on with doing the job.
They just need to man up and say it needs doing, get over it. They're not winning any hearts dribbling on and trying to work with a hostile senate.
Lay out the tax and spending plan, sell it to the general public, then the Senate have no option.

The way it is going, is death by indecision.
 
Logique said:
Talk of a re-shuffle, and frankly something has to give.

For starters,

Scott Morrison to Communications - take the axe to Ultimo by all means, but leave the regional ABC, and Classic FM alone

Malcolm Turnbull to Treasurer - sell, sell, sell those policies

Julie Bishop doing well, stays in Foreign Affairs

Matthias Cormann doing well, stays in Finance
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I would say they only need to flip Joe and Malcolm.

Morrison has a great handle on border protection, leave him there, a resurgence of boats would be damaging.

Joe likes t.v and it would suit his persona.
Everyone thinks Turnbull would make a great treasurer, give him a go. It would be easily faciltated with the release of the 'white paper'.

Joe would cop a bit of flack in the media, but he's already copped heaps of that anyway, goes with the job.
 
sptrawler said:
When you listen to the media or read the papers, the last thing that would give you a favourable outcome, would be the Abbott name.:D

Any mischief that can be perpetrated against Abbott, seems to get a very good airing.lol
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I think the abbott name would give you a favourable outcome with a big liberal party donor.
 
Boggo said:
halve the inverted pyramid management structure and associated excessive remuneration and I reckon the current spotlight may extinguish.
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The problem with cuts in the public service, be it the ABC or any other form of PS, is that it tends to make this problem worse rather than better. They cut programs (by which I mean activities in a generic sense not necessarily TV / radio programs as such although they'd be in the mix in the case of the ABC) and cut staff who actually do something useful but the managers remain. End result = even fewer actual workers per manager employee, thus making the organisation less efficient not more efficient.

Even worse, with fewer staff and fewer activities to actually manage, the managers then start coming up with all sorts of weird and not so wonderful ideas to justify their own positions. In short, business complains about the amount of "red tape" imposed on them (a valid point) but the amount of internal red tape within some government departments is beyond ridiculous.

Once the cuts come in, you end up with things like staff with 25 years experience who used to manage, say, a $1 million program and who did nothing wrong now needing one, two or even three levels of management sign off in order to spend $20. And getting such approval tends to mean a written report or at least an email filled with facts and figures that takes hours to write. It then becomes impossible to actually get the job done, since what used to take a few minutes (just buy the $20 item) now takes hours or even weeks worth of time.

I'm not anti-PS or anti-ABC by any means, but the approach to cuts in the PS over the years has a been a seriously flawed one. Ask a "front line" worker in any of these places and I'd bet that at least two thirds would love to get things done more efficiently and cheaply. It's the bureaucracy and endless rules created by unnecessary managers which slow everything down to snail's pace.

What's really needed is a proper review into how these places ought to operate and be structured. Just cutting x% compounds the problem if there's no direction as to where the cuts will be targeted since those deciding where to cut internally are unlikely to put their job on the list of things no longer required.

As for the ABC, it's an important organisation and needs to remain publicly funded to a decent level in my view. That doesn't preclude efficiency, but it's one of those things that's not intended to ever be profitable as that's not its' purpose. The last thing we need is a government "commercialising" it with a view to privatisation (and with practically everything else sold off, I wouldn't be surprised if this is proposed at some point). :2twocents
 
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