Tuesday 11 November 2014

From a population of under five million, 417,000 enlisted, 332,000 served overseas, 152,000 were wounded and 61,000 never came home – Former Prime Minister, John Howard at Remembrance Day 2014

Tuesday 11 November

Lights, Camera, Brisbane. 

While, not the most exciting place in Australia – all eyes on Brisbane as talks of the G20 begin.

The Story 

Brisbane’s been rolling out the red-carpet for the world leaders as the G20 gathers the leaders of the 20 highest economies, and brings together to talk some shit out (aka. MH17, ISIS, Ebola etc). This week brings together these leaders at APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation), L20, B20 and then the big – G20 Summit Meeting. Yesterday they had APEC and,

The Scoop

–  Tone’s wants to “shirt-front” Putin, Putin says “nah“, Tone’s backs-down

– Obama wants to have a small chat about getting more of those troop-people in Iraq or summin, summin …

– Erry’one wants a more free trade in Asia

Things that happened far, far away 

BERLIN

The Story 

Yesterday marked the 25th Anniversary of the coming-down of the Berlin Wall. An event that marked, more than any other, the end of the Cold War. In commemoration of this day, 7000 illuminated helium balloons traced the course of the barrier that once divided the city slicing streets, families and graveyards. The balloons were set free following the celebrations to commemorate the hoard of protesters in 1989 who tore down the Berlin Wall.

The Scoop

– The Berlin Wall was bulit in 1961 to stop East German’s fleeing to the West

– At least 138 people were killed trying to escape West Berlin

NIGERIA

The Story 

A suicide bomber has killed 48 students and injured 79 students, as they gathered for their assembly at school in the North-East of Nigeria.

The Scoop

This comes in the wake of 276 female Nigerian school students kidnapped and killed by Islamic extremists in Nigeria – as they believe that females should not go to school.

Repeat After Me

What’s a synonym for “hyopcrite?”

Parliamentary MP’s! Former MP’s have made a submission into the Senate inquiry’s arguing that they should keep their taxpayer-funding perks including the Gold Pass Scheme which allows them to have free travel. The Association of Former Members of Parliament of Australia argued that this would be “unconscionable” and “unconstitutional”. The submission was uploaded on Friday and taken down on Monday hours after the West Australian reported on its contents.

What’s the world watching now?
Israel. Palestinians have become violent in widening violence which have been stoked over a Jerusalem holy site in Israel. Various incidences have happened around the holy site, where biblical Jewish temples once stood. The first incident, in which a Palestinan stabbed and critically wounded the soldier at a Tel Aviv train station made people pretty pissed off, including bloodshed around the city. An Israeli woman was later stabbed to death near another holy site in Alonh Shvut Jewish settlement. Further violence around the country including Arab-Israeli’s throwing stones at police officers on the weekend due to the police shooting of an Arab. This is not looking good. 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 16 April

Boston Bombings

Just as America seems to be getting on track, 2 bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It was around 3 pm local time when 2 people died and countless injured from the bombs. Two more explosive devices were found nearby, but, detonated safely – thank-you bomb squad! Obama has pleged to “get to the bottom of this” – Onya

I give a Gonski

The Gonski Reforms proposed by Julia Gillard may actually be given the go-ahead

Do I give a Gonski? Well, that depends. The Gonski reforms are an education reform for state schools around the country, ensuring Australia get the best education with well-regarded teachers and the most up-to-date technology. However, the funding for this reform will come from cuts to University funding making them not-happy-Julia’s.

Win for Legal Aid

Victorian Legal Aid has agreed to give it’s employees an 11% pay rise over the next 3 years.

Why does this matter? The Coalition Government cut a hefty $3.1 million from Victorian Legal Aid (as well as cutting Tafe, hospitals and school funding – where are your priorities?)  This meant cuts to workers including solicitiors and lawyers, and with a recent increase in Legal Aid demand, it ain’t lookin’ good.

 American Gun Laws 

Senate votes this week on gun laws, if passed it will be one of the most significant changes to the precious legislation. The supporters are on fast-foward, rushing about trying to secure last minute backing on the legislation – and now they have got a new supporter. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (preety self-explanatory), a major gun rights group, has tore away from the NRA to agree with the bipartisan compromise, their sister-partner the Second Amendment Foundation said “we decided to back it because it’s the right thing to do” – at least they’ve got their morals in place.

Sorry, I’ve been living under a rock, what new gun laws in America? Oh dear, well, following the Sandy Hook Massacre in December last year, Obama pledged sweeping new gun law restrictions for America. These included greater gun checks to anyone who purchases a gun in any circumstances (currently, its just for purchases made from licensed gun dealers). However, the new compromised legislation includes background checks for the now exempt online and gun show sales but not for most other private transactions. It also includes beefing up the background checks to include mental health records, and other convictions currently missing from the database.

The Golf gets interesting

No really, it does. Golfer Adam Scott is the first Australian to win the Masters and that awkward fitting green jacket. But that wasn’t all the excitement – Tiger Woods nearly got disqualified for placing the ball in the wrong place (yup, that’s right, there’s rules about that), the New York Post gets a laugh, headlining “Tiger puts his balls in the wrong place again.” Oh, and a 14 year-old played, proving that the Masters knows no age.

Don’t judge your bus driver

Nicolas Maduro, a 50-year-old bus driver, was declared the winner for Venezuela’s presidential election yesterday – recieving 50.7% of the votes. He follows in the footsteps of the late Hugo Chavez and vows to carry on the socialist revolution. Unfortunately, not everyone’s so excited, the opposition leader Henerique Capilers says “the result does not reflect the will of the country.” While, this may look like a case of the green-eyed monster thousands of opposition supporters have taken to the streets, burning rubbish bags and chanting “fraud.” Professor Avalos of the Central University of Venezuela said the country is in a “very delicate situation” with “such a thin difference in a country that is so extremely polarized” it’s hard to deal with.

Iiiiiiiit’s FRIDAY!

“Pride goes before the fall” David O’Brien’s warning to Captain Roberts of the Salvation Army

Number one rule … Don’t piss of the ‘big guy’ 

James Hird certainly didn’t follow this rule. WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) is angry at the Essendon Football Club.

Humiliating AFL Football teams seems to be all the rage this seasons. While, it began with the players being suspected of injecting illicit drugs. Like those of a magical potion, the drugs included “the first milk from a mother cow” and “a peptide extracted from a pigs brain.”

This made the players turn into the Hulk, and won every match.

Now the coaches get the limelight. Dr Reid (who sounds more like a character of Grey’s Anatomy in my opinion) provided drugs within the coaches box to prevent anxiety and to increase concentration. They did this through an IV, which is illegal under ASADA (Australian Sporting Anti-Doping Agency).

Denial is one of the best traits of the Catholic Church … besides covering up.

The Salvation Army (a stem of the catholic church) has had “473 complaints of abuse in it’s Victorian children’s home and spent $20 million so far settling them” however, seemed to deny that there is any sort of ‘culture’ of abuse within the Salvation Army – hmmm….

What to say when people ask what you love about Australia … forget the Great Barrier Reef, it’s the car industry!

BHP Billion Chairman Jac Nasser has criticized the Australian public for not being more patriotic about maintaining a local car industry. Apparently, Australian’s are not “emotionally connected” to the car industry therefore, causing it’s demise.

Because it couldn’t be the rising Australian dollar, lack of workers, wage prices and the GFC causing the car sales decline … I think there’s too much oil going to Nasser’s head.

Tuesday 9th April

“Being powerful is like being a lady, if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t” (Margret Thatcher)

You know you’ve made it when … the Queen calls your family with her condolences. The “First lady of girl power,” Margret Thatcher has died following a stroke.

Britain’s “Iron Lady” became the First Woman Prime Minister between 1979-1990 winning 3 elections – not bad for a green grocers daughter. Her steadfast belief in neo-liberalism inevitably led to her demise as she was forced out of office by her own party after refusing to comprise either on her policies towards Europe or on a property tax that led to mass non-payment and violent riots.

Who knew…  Afghanistan accepts refugees. As one of the least stable countries, it seems crazy that anyone would want to settle here, however ironically these 70 refugees are pretty keen on staying. They may actually be the unluckiest refugee’s in the world, but hey, as long as there not being persecuted, right?

What do you say when you buy a car.. A Holden, Thanks.

Why do we care? Holden has announced that are slashing 500 jobs from Australian plants. Despite, the 2 billion hand-outs paid by the government over the past decade, it’s obviously not enough to keep Holden stalling on, as it undergoes a “structural shift” due to the rising Australian dollar and cut-throat competition from international rivals.

What do you say when your accused of using frauding taxpayer-funded taxi vouchers… “Wasn’t Me!”

Former parliamentary speaker Peter Slipper is taking on a ‘Shaggy’ approach, by entering a plea of “not guilty” to allegations that he used taxpayer-funded taxi vouchers for personal use. He is alleged to have used the card for $1000 worth of trips to wineries and restaurants outside the ACT.

Monday 8th April

 

Gillard in China

Our red-headed leader is on fire at the Asia conference, although her speech was a hit-and-miss, being out shinned by New Zealand PM John Key, with his car-sales-man-like-skills, sold New Zealand “like a pro.” Yet, it was reported that it was what happened behind closed doors that was red hot. Australia secured the dollar to be directly converted to the Chinese Yuen (only 2 other countries hold this privilege; US Dollar and Japanese Yen) which means we now don’t have to dumb down to the US standards before converting to Chinese currency, we are holding an Australia fair in Shanghai to promote tourism and trade opportunities in Australia. On’ya Jules. 

Why do we care? If you work in business you do – Australian currency means a little cheaper trading. Cheaper tourism, because our dollar is stronger than the US – which is always a win! But besides that, just more Asian tourists, which is always good for the economy.

Update: North Korea

Kim Jong-Il has ensured that that the cease-fire is abandoned, and has declared a “state of war” on South Korea and it’s allies (which means by de facto, Australia). They have also now lost their own and only friend, China as president Xi Jinping condemns North Korea for declaring war out of “selfish gains” at the Bo’ao Conference in China, while, he didn’t mention North Korea specifically, it was preety much implied.

Bob is ‘The Mole’ … as one of the only grown-ups left in the Labour Party, after the March spill. However, recently WikiLeaks unveiled that he was a source of United States diplomats seeking information about the Whitlam government during the mid-70’s – no wonder he has such a keen interest in the US Alliance.

If Labour doesn’t do it Liberal will… these are Julia’s threats to the Australian public. The word Superannuation shouldn’t be messed with – but if it is it’s a sure way to loose an election.

What’s going on? Labour wants to place a higher tax on those who have over 2 million dollars in their superannuation and take out over 100,000 dollars at a time. 

Liberal are having a fit. The mining giants are having a fit. And the rest …. well, they don’t really understand what’s going on.

And what’s Labour on about? Acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan has released a Facebook campaign said that if Liberal gets into power they will slap on a tax to those of the lowest paid (around 3.6 million Australians). Now that’s a scare campaign if I’ve ever seen one. 

 

 

 

 

Friday 5 April

North Korea’s Missile

Lil Kim has turned even uglier, with all eyes on North Korea as they move their missile to the firing range to hit South Korea and again, everybody’s taken his tantrum quite seriously. The US announced they will be moving an advance missile defence system to Guam, China has reconsidered ties with North Korea, and for something different, Australia decided to get involved too by issuing a stern warning to North Korea to end this “provocative behavior” –  Nice attempt, Bob Carr. However, in true Hearld Sun style instead of reporting on the impending attack, they decide to give neat facts about our boy Kim including his keen interest in 80’s pop music.

 

 

Just in case Rupert Murdoch was afraid that he wasn’t getting enough media attention… protestors “rampaged” his car last night outside the 70th anniversary of the right-winged Institute of Public Affairs, one holding a placard with the Aerosmith lyrics “Eat the Rich” – I don’t think we’ll be taking you up on that offer.

 

 

Light at the end of the tunnel

What happened: The Victorian government is aware that the public transport system sucks and therefore, in another hopeless effort to make it better has asked for a metro rail tunnel mirroring the Metro in London. Now since Team Gillard and Team Abbot are back in battle for the golden prize of Government which will be decided in September of this year. In an effort to out-do each other the Gillard government has backed the tunnel while, in Abbot fashion, Abbot has criticized Gillard and backed the east-west road link (some other road similar to that of East-Link linking the East-Link and the Western Ring Road). 

 

Why do we care? Well, we don’t really because it being just another attempt to out do each other at election time, we’ll see if any of the promised funding is given to us.

 

 

Jill Meagher Case

What happened? Adrian Ernest Bayley, 41, has been accused of murdering and raping an ABC Employee, Jill Meagher in September of last year. He is now pleading guilty to the charge of murder and the three charges of rape – meaning that the wicked man will be placed in a cell for a long time, even quicker.

 

Who did the Wicked Witch of the West turn into after Dorothy melted her…  well, Matthew Guy of course.

 

Who is Matthew Guy? He is the Victorian Planning Minister who has became best-buddies with many of the planning developers around Melbourne by, and charging $3000 to have dinner with him and have a lil “chat”

 

And, why do we hate him? After giving himself extensive powers to control most of the planning with the CBD as well as the rest of Victoria, he has taken it upon himself to create Melbourne into a “developer-run” town, by signing off anything that comes in front of him, including a 388-meter sky scraper (90 meters taller than the Eureka and 100 meters more than the Port Phillip Council regulations). He has delved into the leafy cities of Stonnington by approving many more developing requests and he has many more grand ideas of expanding the sky-scrapers to all across the land, so that evil-developers can continue to rule. As Matthew Guy said “what I can get done in two days took years in opposition” – A Guy who clearly enjoy’s power.