JULIE BISHOP
MALCOLM TURNBULL
RUPERT MURDOCH
DONALD TRUMP
Frydenberg on the line
AS PUBLISHED IN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA
SHOCK JOCK: Tony Abbott, great to have you on the show again, mate.
ABBOTT: Thanks mate, always a pleasure to do interviews with intelligent, like-minded people of the right, like your good self.
SHOCK JOCK: I see you had a party room stoush with Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg over the National Energy Guarantee.
ABBOTT: Josh is cranky because I am leading an internal party revolt against his plan. My pro-coal Monash Forum is a faction that opposes action on climate change and wants new coal power stations. Craig Kelly and I have flagged we will cross the floor to oppose the guarantee.
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Pauline Hanson… Burston out in tears
AS PUBLISHED IN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA
JOURNALIST: Ms Hanson, your old familiar smile has returned after your recent tearful meltdown on Sky News. You were upset, claiming your One Nation Senator Brian Burston had stabbed you “in the back” for supporting the Coalition Government’s company tax cut policy.
HANSON: Yes, I am ecstatic over that performance. It was cameo Hollywood material wasn’t it? Brian had betrayed me despite his claims to the contrary. He maintains I had been contrary on the issue. Contrariness is my prerogative.
JOURNALIST: You are ecstatic. Why?
HANSON: Since that appearance, my staff phones have been running hot in sympathy and support of me.
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Malcolm turns up the bull
AS PUBLISHED IN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA
JOURNALIST: Mr Turnbull, you are now staring at 33 consecutive Coalition Newspoll losses in a row. This surpasses Abbott’s 30 losses you used as a benchmark trigger for your successful leadership coup in 2015, does it not?
TURNBULL: Yes that’s true, but I recently expressed regret for leveraging that number 30. I won the spill and got to be Prime Minister — that’s all I care about. If you in the media think the number 30 is to be my nemesis, you are sadly delusional. I, on the other hand, am happily delusional.
JOURNALIST: Oh my God!
TURNBULL: Indeed. God willing, the Coalition would win the next Newspoll if only the public would start listening to me. Maybe they get distracted by my charisma and tune out in stunned awe of me?
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Cash for trash and the Joyce affair: System bites the dust
AS PUBLISHED IN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA
Our key instititions have failed us miserably.
Displacement looms for our wombat population as countless Australians seek out their holes to crawl into.
It is so hopeless that extrication from society seems the only option for anyone with a social conscience. Trust has bitten the dust and politicians are the major culprits.
One could have wistfully hoped that with the start of a new year, 2018 would bring just a modicum of improvement in the standard of federal government. Senator Michaelia Cash put an end to that and now we pessimistically await the next exercise in trashing our Parliamentary system.
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The fallout from the Barnaby affair
AS PUBLISHED IN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA
POLITICIANS cannot be trusted.
Tell us something we don’t know, you are saying.
Yes, it is a given, but the scandal surrounding Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and his pregnant extramarital partner Vikki Campion is about far more than trust. It encapsulates what is so wrong with our political and media modus operandi.
It is a minefield of personal failings on the part of the Nationals leader. It is a mainstream media disgrace.
Terms that have been bandied about in relation to Joyce’s conduct include inflated ego, betrayal, hypocrisy, deception, disingenuousness, cynicism, self-interest and poor self-control. We would expect that with high office comes a heightened cognisance of personal accountability. We might as well expect fairies at the bottom of the garden.
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GEORGE BRANDIS
TONY ABBOTT
JULIE BISHOP
