Barnaby Joyce: Abbott Is Like Churchill, Kennedy

Nationals comedy relief Barnaby Joyce has claimed prime minister Tony Abbott is a lot like Winston Churchill and John F Kennedy. Sorry if that made you spit coffee all over your screen.

The Australian Financial Review treats this claim by Joyce with the respect it deserves, by running the Winky Abbott pic on the story:

From the Australian Financial Review:

"I'm not going to get too grandiose about the budgetary situation, but if you look back through history to the people we admire, they're not the ones who were initially popular but the ones who foresaw a problem and dealt with it," Mr Joyce said.

"You look at the Churchills or if you look at the Kennedys, you look at the people ... as people of great worth.

"They're the people who made hard decisions ... not the people who sort of oscillated and sort of rolled around in the paddock like political tumbleweed."

A 'political tumbleweed'. He's probably going to regret putting that image in peoples' minds when they think of Tony Abbott.

'Abbott like Kennedy' is almost as absurd as the time Andrew Bolt declared Peter Costello was "the people's Messiah".

Almost.

Meanwhile, Abbott has demanded Liberal Party MPs get out there and do a better job of selling the most hated Budget in four decades. Good luck with that:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called on his coalition colleagues to step up their defence of the budget.

The government has faced public demonstrations, angry talkback callers and a drop in opinion poll support since the release of its first budget last week.
Coalition MPs have also publicly and privately expressed concerns about aspects of it.

"It is the job of every coalition member and senator to level with the Australian people and listen to them," Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

Rumours abound that Treasurer Joe Hockey hates his own budget, and that many of the harsher financial attacks on pensioners, the elderly, the disabled and the unemployed were 'forced on him.' Well, of course he would want people to think that. He still believes he could be Liberal Party leader, or even prime minister, one day.

But it is interesting that most Australians, and the media in general, seem to refer to Budget 2014, as 'Abbott's Budget' not 'Hockey's Budget'.

Hockey is no doubt very happy that is the case.

The Sounds Of Early Morning Barnaby

Barnaby Joyce conducts a radio interview on the phone while also, fluuuuusssssh, on the toilet. And why not?

Or does he?

Crikey investigates and Barnaby's people reveal it wasn't a toilet flushing, it was instead an early morning garbage truck.

Or was it?

More Here

I sense a Walkley is already being engraved.


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Cat Plunges Nation Into Debt

Yes, the illustrations for Kevin Rudd's first children's book look innocent enough....



But while Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is fussing over his cat, outside two children are waving frantically to stop an ice-cream van, or perhaps a debt truck, from running them down :



Does Rudd notice? No he does not.

The book is not about those children, it's about Rudd's cat and dog's secret life as pro-Union Jack flag rescuers :

The Prime Minister's trusty four-footed patriot friends, of course, save the day. ''Quick Abby!'' said Jasper. ''You nab Chewy and I'll save the flag.''

In a curious piece of politically pointed satire, Senator Barnaby Joyce writes his own dialogue for Rudd's dog and cat :

Jasper – Well Abby, if we have to plan for our future we have to build on what provides for us cats now. For instance where do we cats catch mice, rats, frogs and other cat food? Where do us cats hang out and get down and dirty with other cats?

Abby – Generally derelict buildings!

Jasper – Spot on Abby! So I have been building a whole new portfolio of future useless buildings, some buildings that aren’t even needed today, so our kittens will never be short of food again. I have put them in schoolyards so they can fill up with scraps of food and old mats and furniture – and mice!

Abby – You crazy cat, you really are revolutionary. Your kittens will be so fat.

You sort of get where Senator Barnaby Joyce is coming from, and then think '.....What in all fuck? This is the shadow finance minister!' :

Jasper – I am a pretty major cat, Abby. You should see my plane and have a gander at my passport. I hang out with all the major talent and will fly anywhere in the world to do it and for absolutely any reason. No party is complete without me. You should pass by my alley and have a look at the photos.

Abby – But how did you pay for all this you crazy cat?

Jasper – Simple! Just borrow the money. I have borrowed more money than any other cat in the history of this alley, and I have made sure that we have stimulated the growth of the local tip with the purchase of a whole range of crazy cat consumables such as flat screens and toys and other electronics so if the school halls burn down we can head back to the tip.

Abby – You revolutionary cat! By the way what is the debt on the poor suckers account?

Jasper – About $120 billion and rising fast, but this cat is not the one paying for that. There’s no easier, more guilt free way to spend money, than by spending some other cats money on other cats!

Always blame the cat.

Conga Line Of Hilarity

By Darryl Mason

Mike Carlton takes his well-sharpened scythe to the new Opposition front bench :

That egregious drongo Kevin Andrews is the Coalition's new shadow minister for families, housing and human services, ha ha.

The rebarbative Senator Eric Abetz gets workplace relations, haw haw. Bronwyn Bishop, aka Attila the Hen, will be "working with seniors", tee hee.

Philip Ruddock, the whited sepulchre, returns from the dead; a backwoods Queensland bean counter, Barnaby Joyce, is given the finance portfolio and, most hilarious of all, Senator Nick Minchin will handle energy and resources. Chortle, guffaw.

Never let it be said that Tony Abbott is without a sense of humour.

Oh, he's a comedic genius. The grimly determined straight man to Barnaby 'Fuck China' Joyce.

Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull sits back, enjoying the show as much as the rest of us, probably more, and bides his time. Let the reanimated Howard-era remnants take the floor for a while, let them spout their 20th century ideas and ideals to a nation that has mostly well and truly moved on. Let them frighten away the few still willing to dump some cash into the Liberal Party coffers. Let them lose the next federal election and lose their seats in the process. Then the rebuilding of the Liberal Party can begin.

If Turnbull can still be bothered by then, that is.

But the question for now is, how will Tony Abbott deal with what are expected to be the very regular mopping up sessions before the media after Barnaby Joyce relieves himself with a grin? How many times will Abbott jam his hand into a plastic bag to quickly disappear yet another moist, warm Joyce deposit on Econogeddon before he just fucking snaps?

And what does Abbott think about the stories drifting down from North Queensland on how Barnaby has been boasting to some locals that the Liberals need him far more than he needs them? That soon enough the polls will reveal he is a more popular choice for opposition leader than Abbott? And that he could one day, if he really wanted to, even have a fair crack at becoming prime minister?

After getting rid of Tony Abbott, that is.

A fresh slogan for the opposition they can have for free :

The Coalition 2010 : Please Stop Laughing.

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Barnaby Joyce : Smash The Banks, Prepare For Econogeddon

The new Australian Opposition finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce, does not believe the threat of total global economic collapse has passed, and is demanding the Australian government prepare for the day when, or if, the United States defaults on its debts and an angry China cuts off the credit supply.

From The Age :

(Joyce) proposed that the Federal Government should introduce laws allowing it to break up the assets of the four main banks - and use them to force banks to hold down interest rates.

...Senator Joyce said he did not want to alarm the public, but there needed to be a debate about Australia's ''contingency plan'' for a sovereign debt default by the US or even by an Australian state government.

''A default by the US means complete economic collapse around the world and the question we have got to ask ourselves is where are we in that?'' he said.

''The Federal Government has $115.7 billion in debt, Australian government securities, notes and bonds on issue, and the states have another $170 billion in debt.''

Joyce said if the United States failed to repay its $2 trillion debt to China, the yuan could replace the US dollar.

''If America collapses there will be no more sale of Chinese products to America and therefore very little purchase of Australian resources by China.''

''The whole pulse of trade is compromised because people say, 'Why would I trade with the US when it might not pay its debt back?' ''

Joyce said to prepare for an "economic Armageddon" Australian should ensure we have "the capacity to feed ourselves, the capacity to provide the fundamentals in medicines and basic fundamental requirements for our nation.''

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

(Joyce's) warning came as the Rudd Government ramped up its attack on Senator Joyce as an economic extremist by highlighting his strong opposition to Chinese sovereign investment in Australia.

The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said it was a cause for concern that Senator Joyce had been elevated ''from the reactionary fringe of our economic debate to the second-most senior economic policymaking job in the alternative government''.

Read The Full Story Here

Barnaby Joyce : "If I'm Not Barnaby Joyce, Then Who Am I?"

The ABC's Virginia Trioli on Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce :



Barnaby Joyce :

"Maybe I am crazy. Maybe this isn't parliament but an asylum. And if I'm not Barnaby, who am I? And then, who is Barnaby? If I am crazy, it would explain a lot about this place."

I'd like to hear more from the Existential Barnaby Joyce.

Virginia Trioli and Barnaby Joyce on Insiders in 2005 :

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Barnaby....Kim Beazley, the Opposition Leader, mentioned to me on Friday that he thinks you're a spent political force, that you've been bought off left, right and centre.... How do you respond?

SENATOR BARNABY JOYCE: I respect that he would have a very good position to make a judgment like that.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You're learning, mate, you're learning!

They've been sparring, happily, for years.

Barnaby Joyce uses the controversy kicked off by Trioli's unprofessionalism to good effect in this piece published at The Punch :

If You Think I'm Crazy, Take A Look At The ETS

Virginia Trioli apologised to Joyce yesterday (or begged for his forgiveness), and apologised on ABC 2 this morning.

@craigreucassel, on Twitter :

"(I admire) the way Virginia Trioli helps the hearing impaired understand a Barnaby Joyce interview."

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A Poultry Kind Of Psychopathy

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce is now the politician most likely to supply Canberra's press gallery with something highly quotable, and funny. He struck gold this morning when commenting on Kevin Rudd :

"The guy's a psycho chook.

"Who in their right mind gets onto a plane and because he doesn't get the right colour birdseed has a spack attack?''

I don't think I've heard 'spack attack' used by an adult since Kylie Mole went off the air, and Barnaby Joyce totally owns 'Psycho Chook' as far as Google is concerned.

Howard-era Liberal Party lingerer, Tony Abbott, also had a bit of a go at Rudd :

"People who know him have always thought that the Milky Bar Kid image was a bit confected," he said.

Get it? Oh, come on! That's genius. Milky Bar, confected, confectionery....nothing?

Ah, forget it. Abbott's multi-layered humour is obviously too deep for the average Ostrahyun.

Joyce Unveils .1% Dissent Against Liberals

They tried to make Barney believe in global warming, but he said, "No, no, no."

Senator Joyce said the Nationals did not always vote with their Liberal partners.

"About 99.9 per cent of the time, or more, we vote for the Liberal Party and I can't understand why people get their noses so out of joint when that's not the case,'' he said.

Even in a marriage, couples don't agree all the time, he said.

"I don't ... and no one says that's the end of this relationship, they just say that's the way relationships go.''

Yes, but the aggrieved partner may also seethe quietly while plotting wicked revenge.

Carbon trading, and the carbon tax, might be delayed for a year or two, but it's not going to fall into the "Forget About It" pit anytime soon. Most Labor and Liberal politicians want it, some of Australia's biggest businesses are demanding it, and Rupert Murdoch stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars from it, even if he lets a few of his columnists, for entertainment purposes, rage against it.

Barnaby Joyce could ride an anti-carbon tax movement to even greater election success, unless pensioners and the poor actually get paid cash by the Rudd government because they emit less carbon in their lifestyles than the rich, which is probably exactly what is going to happen to smooth over its introduction.

Joyce Refuses To Goose Step Around Liberal Party Offices

Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce is not a disciple of Al Gore. Climate change is, according to Joyce, basically bullshit, and the emission trading system is a scam to introduce a crippling new tax, on everyone (he's not far wrong there). But don't go thinking that these beliefs put Joyce at odds with Liberals leader Malcolm Turnbull in any way at all, or that a clash of their beliefs will cause yet more chaos for the coalition.

Hell, no :

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has played down suggestions of a rift in the Coalition over climate change.

Joyce voiced strong opposition to the Government's proposed emissions trading scheme, labelling it as nothing more than a "new tax" and adding: "I think that is a load of rubbish to think that Australia is going to change the climate."

Cue Malcolm Turnbull with plenty of buckets of cold water for all the other Nationals and Liberals who think Joyce is spot on :

"The Coalition's position on this issue is very well known - it's the same that we had in government," he said.

"We're very committed to action on climate change that is economically responsible and environmentally effective."

Joyce :

"[Does] one has to sort of fall into a lock step, goose step, and parade around the office ranting and raving that we're all as one?"

Yes, according to Turnbull, one does :

Mr Turnbull says the Coalition will be responding with "one voice" when the Government releases its legislation for the scheme in the coming months.

Joyce is convinced that there are plenty of votes out there for politicians who will stand up to The Green Terror (of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair fantasies), and that the overwhelming number of Australians who backed Rudd on climate change policies are now dwindling away as the economic sleeper hold begins to take effect.

Joyce may be right about climate change true believers peeling away, but there's not a lot of poll proof to back it up. Yet. Regardless, a very public and extended clash between Turnbull (poncy inner city Lefty-friendly, Green religionist, disguised as a Liberal Party leader) and Joyce (Bloody Rational Nationals, mate!) certainly seems to be on the cards.

Rudd will let them brawl out their climate change differences in public, while intricately analysing the public response, and will presumably change his climate change policy accordingly. That is, enough to ensure a second term in office if Joyce's A Great Climate Change Swindle manages to become a bigger issue of concern for most than, say, not having a house, or a job, or reliable sources of food.

If there is a great, unrecognised mass of Australian voters who believe carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and thinks trying to stop climate change is more of a risk than letting it happen, Joyce will no doubt find them.

But if they're there, Rudd will no doubt find a way to reach them, and win them over, once Joyce has pulled them from the shadows.

But for Rudd, 2008 was a warm-up. In 2009, the RuddBot will joined by Ruddzilla. Well, hopefully, if covering politics in even a distracted and half-hearted way is going to be any kind of intriguing entertainment. I've seen circling flies fall asleep, mid-flight, when Rudd speeches are were droning out of the television last year.

Barnaby Joyce already believes he would make a damn fine prime minister, and that most Australians harbour an affection for him and his straight-talking ways (probably true enough), and perhaps Joyce smells the blood in the water over Turnbull's abysmal polling in the past few months. Turnbull didn't exactly have Rudd, or Julia Gillard, on the ropes in the second half of 2008, did he?

Let's face it, the Liberals-National coalition isn't exactly brimming over with credible leadership choices right now. They've got Turnbull, Joe Hockey and Barnaby Joyce, and that's about it.

Unless, of course, they all come to their sense and bring back Brendan "We've Lost Your Son's Body" Nelson.

Howard Already Whining Like A Loser

Depression In The Coalition Ranks Seals Their Fate

Howard And Friends had Mark Latham on the defence for most of the 2004 election. Every time he announced new policy, or held a press conference, he spent valuable time answering questions about a host of orchestrated lies and accusations that flowed like a river from Howard's team.

Kevin Rudd is very successfully laying out the issues that Howard is then forced to comment on, or react to. Now it's Howard's turn to constantly be on the defence. And he's not very good at it.

He looks sulky, he sounds whiny, and has the presence and demeanour of a man already in opposition.

Witness his reaction yesterday to Kevin Rudd's remarkably effective campaign launch speech.

Howard seemed shocked that Rudd had the gall to declare The Reckless Spending Must Stop :

Mr Rudd savaged Mr Howard as a selfish big-spender, prepared to risk inflation and land Australian families with higher interest rates to buy his way back into office.

...the Opposition Leader put economic conservatism at the centre of his political case for power, offering $2.3 billion in new promises and contrasting the spending with Mr Howard's "irresponsible spending spree" of $8.5 billion of pledges at his campaign launch on Monday.

"Mr Howard spent nearly $10 billion on Monday trying to buy his way out political trouble," Mr Rudd said.

"Unlike Mr Howard, I will not place in jeopardy households already struggling with mortgages.

"I don't stand before you with a bagful of irresponsible promises that could put upward pressure on inflation ... I am saying loud and clear that this sort of reckless spending must stop."

You can almost imagine Howard choking on his cup of tea and shouting "Son Of A Bitch!" at that.

Howard knows Rudd outspun him, and did it with gusto, and it's clear Howard is furious that most of the media brought the line that Rudd proved he was an "economic conservative" by announcing spending of 1/4 to 1/3 of that announced by Howard on Monday.

Howard is a defeated man, and acting like he has already lost will now finish him off :

John Howard last night accused Kevin Rudd of being "deceitful" by painting himself as an economic conservative, saying voters should look beyond Labor's campaign launch spending because overall the Coalition had promised to spend less than Labor.

The Prime Minister, campaigning in Townsville, said economic conservatism should be judged by the "aggregate of your behaviour - it's not just how you behave in an election campaign".

"Mr Rudd is being deceitful in his cost comparisons," he said.

"He wants the public to compare the cost of the announcements he has made in his launch with the cost of the announcements we made in our launch as if they are the only announcements that have been made by either side ... It's the total cost of commitments that matters."

He described Mr Rudd as an "arsonist claiming responsibility as a firefighter", saying the Opposition Leader would in fact hurt the economy with his plans to rip up Work Choices.

"On the score of economic credibility, Mr Rudd went missing today," Mr Howard said.

Maybe so, but few noticed. The headlines and lead news stories were virtually all in Rudd's favour. Another set of nails were banged enthusiastically into Howard's coffin.

Most of the Howard team has given up trying to win the election by praising the man who has ruled their roost for 11 years. Their coasting to defeat, and barely putting up a fight. Most of the senior Howard ministers are probably too busy lining up their new jobs, outside of politics. Leave it to Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce to cut to the core of what's now happening inside the Coalition. Depression is spreading like a flu virus through their ranks :

Coalition MPs are getting depressed and frustrated over their parties' poor performance in opinion polls, which are uniformly pointing to a Labor landslide, Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce has said.

Senator Joyce last night said the Coalition's election campaign might be faring better if it had made a big infrastructure announcement to capture public imagination.

“There is a sense of depression about it. If the polls are the reality we're not going to lose, we're going to get annihilated,” Senator Joyce told Sky News.

He blamed the trend on voter ambivalence about a change of government. “It's frustrating for us, obviously.

“I see it like you're in a perfectly good marriage that's been going for 11 and a half years - would you get divorced just to see what it was like?”

“We're working on the premise that there are a lot of people out there who are still making up their minds.”

He expressed some admiration for Labor leader Kevin Rudd's campaign strategy - which has been derided as a "me-too" plan to win office.

“Mr Rudd has done a very good job of neutralising any form of division between the two parties.”

The Queensland senator said the Coalition may have erred by focusing much of its attention on the economy, health and education.

“These are dry topics which people really have to really read through the paper to understand. It's a hard thing to sell in a pub on a Friday night.”

Joyce is right. Most of the punters don't want to read about it. They just want to government to do it, fix the problems, and shut the hell up.

Howard and the Coalition are not announcing Big Vision strategies. As others have noted, we are a wealthy nation, with huge surpluses, so where are the grand infrastructure projects that make jaws drop and get people excited about the future?

Howard seems only to be patching up holes in health and education, which leads many to ask, cynically : "Why now? He's been there for 11 years. If he has to spend so much to fix the problems, what's he been doing all the years to let education and health fall into such disarray?" Blaming state governments simply isn't cutting through.

Rudd has effectively echoed a lot of the Friday night pub talk that Joyce is talking about, hitting on themes like these :

"Howard only cares now because he's about to lose"

"Howard had years to fix all this stuff and he didn't do it"

"Howard's been there long enough. It's time for something new."

"I'm really sick of hearing Howard and Costello and Downer waffling on and on about how awesome a job they've done, but now they tell us how much there is to fix up."

Let's hope the action in this election campaign picks up next week. If not, it won't be an orderly change of government. It will be a thoroughly boring change of government.