The Fairfax board really is going out of its way to reinforce perceptions.
For a company that boasts "we are the leaders in change" … they seem somewhat averse to any ideological change.
That would be THIS Todd Sampson:
That would be Todd Sampson, the co-creator of Earth Hour and darling of the ABC and left-wing causes.
What change?
UPDATE
In September last year I posted a piece of nostalgia from my time at 4BC - when Rudd, Swan and the gang were shovelling the money out the door (along with the nation's work ethic).
ORIGINAL STORY
She rang Joe Hockey's office to bitch about the evil Abbott/Hockey budget cuts. Joe got his staff to check up on what she gets. Here it is in the table below, the figures were assembled by Hockey's office and the story is running on the front page of The Australian today.
$55,000 PA with no tax. That's more than $1,000 in the skyrocket every single week with no tax. This country is stuffed.
JOE Hockey has condemned a “crippling” welfare culture that weighs down the federal budget, and warned that government benefits will not be treated as a right when the nation faces a $50 billion deficit.
The Treasurer told The Australian some benefits had soared to the point where it required tax revenue from three average workers to keep payments flowing to a single welfare recipient.
Predicting new burdens on taxpayers unless the payments were curbed, he urged Australians to accept there was no longer an “endless supply of money” to support government benefits. “The suggestion somehow that payments from government are a right is not correct — and governments themselves have been guilty of creating that culture over many years,” he said.
The warnings are based on government analysis that reveals some single parents are receiving $55,000 a year in tax-free benefits, including a pension, family tax benefits and study assistance. The calculations show that three workers on average salaries would pay about $17,000 in tax each to cover the sole parent’s benefits. Hitting back at claims his budget was unfair, the Treasurer countered the idea that taxes should be raised to match more than $7bn in welfare cuts so that every group carried the same share of the budget burden.
Mr Hockey said he “totally” rejected the parallel between taxes and benefits in some of the criticism of the budget, given that one took money away from workers while the other did not.
“When I increase revenue I’m taking money out of people’s pockets — and they’ve earned that money,” he said. “Whereas when you freeze the increase in the amount the government is paying, we’re saying ‘we’re just not giving you more than what you’re getting’. That is exactly what I’m trying to do.”
The remarks, in an interview yesterday, are another sign of the government’s hard line in the political fight over the federal budget when it is being urged to compromise to get controversial reforms through the Senate.
You can read the full story at The Australian newspaper, you should subscribe to The Australian, there is always more to the story there.
Click here to subscribe.
And here is a link to the broke country's Payment Finder to help deplete the coffers more speedily.
I know they are "entitled" (what a sickening word) to put their hand in our pocket to pay for their screw-ups, but it is uniquely galling to see my friends like Bob Kernohan and Kathy Jackson struggle to keep pace with a legal (not justice) system in which the baddies get everything paid for and the goodies have to mortgage their home to try to keep pace.
Rudd and his wife are worth millions and Gillard is on easy street financially as a direct result of the AWU's Bill Ludwig installing her as Prime Minister. That job was ill-gotten by her and a just society would treat the financial gains she made as proceeds of her malfeasance.
Here's yesterday's report in The Australian.
KEVIN Rudd and Julia Gillard have applied to access the parliamentary “legal aid’’ scheme to cover the cost of the high-powered legal teams they engaged for the royal commission into Labor’s botched home insulation program.
A Senate estimates hearing was yesterday told the two former prime ministers as well as former ministers Wayne Swan, Lindsay Tanner, Peter Garrett, Penny Wong and Mark Arbib had applied for “legal assistance under the parliamentary entitlements scheme’’.
Mr Rudd, who engaged two barristers including Bret Walker SC, appeared before the Brisbane hearings of the home insulation royal commission. Ms Gillard, who had a three-member legal team including silk Bruce McClintock SC, did not, but estimates heard she received legal advice.
Matt Minogue, the first assistant secretary in the civil law division at the Attorney-General’s Department told the hearing: “Former ministers are entitled under long-standing regulations governing parliamentary entitlements to legal advice and representation in relation to matters arising during their time as a minister.’’
The scheme is not means-tested, and the legal costs have not been disclosed.
It also emerged yesterday that $29 million had been paid out to victims of Defence Force abuse, and 65 matters had been referred to state or territory police for possible prosecution.
Defence Abuse Response Taskforce executive director Matt Hall said the decision was made to make payouts to 724 complainants, who were eligible for up to $50,000 for damage caused by the abuse they suffered. Of the 2400 cases before the taskforce, 1900 had been assessed.
Labor yesterday claimed the government had ripped money out of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and put it towards the cost of the home insulation inquiry.
Tony Abbott said it was common for any underspend in one area of a portfolio to be reallocated.
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And to Percy Phelps and others who asked about the Tale of the Ancient Statesman - here was the frightening end result of the new transmission.
Click here to hear the segment.
Qatar wants you to reflect your respect for its stone-age patriarchy.
Here are some ways the Islamist movement could show respect for humanity.
Not chopping off people's heads.
Not stoning women.
Not hanging gay boys.
Maybe you can think of others.
UPDATE
While decent, Sharia-abiding Islamist-folk uncover footy fans with uncovered knees, elsewhere other decent, Sharia-abiding Islamist-folk chuck rocks at a pregnant lady until she is dead.
Honour, strength and love from the Religion of Peace*.
*not a guarantee of peace for the purposes of trade practice law in Australia.
FURTHER UPDATE
Major problem for the ABC looming if the Peppa the Pig marketing team ever takes up this promotion.
I was searching for the ACTU ad that ran last night and found it online here at Unions Australia on YouTube.
But there was an ad to watch first before the unions ad. Here is what YouTube threw up for me. Maleficent. Who would have thunk it?
Reminds me of the famed Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor, Bob Katter and that bloke Wilkie session when they were given a folder with plans for each of their electorates. The "phwoar" belongs to Rob, the Macbeth lines to "the next witness".