From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …
Target Mirabella. Former Coalition frontbencher Sophie Mirabella was jostled by a post-budget mob of angry protesters during a lecture on Australian politics at the University of Melbourne (she’s a public policy fellow there) and had to be rescued by security staff and escorted from the room, clearly shaken. You can watch the footage here. Come on, people — Mirabella is not even in government, and physically intimidating anyone like this is counterproductive. Protest all you want, but keep your hands off MPs (and former MPs). That should go for Gillard (remember the shoe incident?), for Julie Bishop, for Mirabella. What do others think? Post your view in the comment thread on Tips online.
Military pension anger. A tipster reckons the Coalition has pulled the wool over people’s eyes on how military super pensions are indexed:
“Big fanfare in March 2014 with Coalition announcing the changes to military super pensions (e.g. DFRDB) indexation arrangements from the normal CPI indexation to ‘align with age and veteran pension indexation arrangements’ that are normally indexed in line with male AWOTE [average weekly ordinary time earnings]. Really deceitful because at the same time they were crowing about their generosity to the vast majority of retired military individuals, they were drafting the budget that CUTS the age and vets pensions indexation arrangements to align with CPI not AWOTE. How deceitful it that!”
To put that in laywoman’s terms, the tipster is claiming that the Coalition made a big fuss about changing the way military personnel’s pensions are indexed to be more generous, then in the budget the government quietly changed back to the old system. And we thought Tony Abbott was selling himself as the soldiers’ friend.
March in May. Yesterday protesters took to the streets for March In May — the more focused cousin of the March in March event. Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all managed respectable turnouts, although 90 minutes of pre-march speeches thinned out the Brisbane crowd pretty fast. By all reports, the crowds were diverse — hardly the mob of “ferals revolting” as reported in The Daily Telegraph. The signs and placards were equal parts outraged and witty. Here are some of our faves, gleaned from social media:
(Melbourne, via @thecrossy)
(Melbourne, via Mitch Alexander)
(via @drspacejunk)
(via icantdrawgood.tumblr.com)
Missing: one Dennis Shanahan. Every Newspoll in The Australian, out rolls Dennis Shanahan, regular as clockwork, to put the best possible spin on the result for the Coalition. Well, today’s Newspoll is an undeniable disaster for Tony Abbott — and there’s no sign of Shanahan. He’s written not a word on the poll crash-and-burn. That task has been left to the Oz’s Canberra bureau chief Phil Hudson, who plays a straighter bat than Shanahan. Ms Tips’ Murdoch sensors were tingling. Perhaps this poll result was just too terrible for Shanahan to swallow …
No, it turns out; Shanahan has gone on holidays. Shanahan leaves our shores, Coalition plummets in the polls … coincidence?
Abbott on the nose. A Crikey reader snapped this pic of a sign nailed to a tree in the NSW electorate of Paterson. The photographer reckons pensioners put up the sign. Good to see the over-65s getting into the revolutionary spirit.
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If what happened to Bishop and Mirrabella was as bad as we are lead to believe by Christopher Pyne then all those protesters and demonstrators should be publicly flogged and put in stocks for the entertainment of the far right. Alongside them of course should be the current speaker of the House of Representatives Bronwyn Bishop and her erstwhile friend the Minister for education one Christopher Pyne.
For as long as I have had an interest in Australian politics and the running of both houses (some 50+ years) never have I seen or heard such disrespectful, demeaning, offensive, abuse as Pyne spewed forth with, directed at the leader of the opposition Bill Shorten.
For Pyne to come out so soon after and castigate those with whom he disagrees politicly for acting in a far more considered manner than he had in the House is galling in the extreme. For the speaker to claim she did not hear what was said is absurd, given how often she hears words not even spoken by those on her left.
It concerned me when it appeared that Tony Abbott would become Prime Minister, those concerns were well founded. There are few members of the Abbott cabinet that can hold their heads up and claim to be doing what they are paid by the taxpayer to do, other than the select few whose financial backing they both accept and expect.
Both Mirrabella and Bishop have never been hesitant to throw abuse when they felt inclined, some would call it “Karma” I guess. Pyne has been doing nothing other than to try and direct attention away from his disgusting and appalling outburst resulting in even more distaste for this most distasteful creature.
I think it is counterproductive.
Frustrating as it is, people can make up their own minds, some take longer than others to come around to some views – in the mean time they don’t like to be pushed.
I don’t think you can hurry the process of the degeneration of this government’s image. They’re doing that job themselves, in their own sweet time.
To try to speed it up, more often than not, generates sympathy.
Er no, I don’t regard student (or other) protesters ‘jostling’ members of the ruling class as counter-productive or unfair. Their policies have caused and will cause actual deaths and illness. Why should they be allowed to speak freely anywhere?
Ms Tips, not sure how old you are, but I can remember being *very* angry around 1975.
“Maintain your rage” was a fairly catchy slogan back then.
For me, it’s actually taken till budget night 2014 for that degree of anger to return.
Expect to see more of it.
Not nice and not much fun for the participants.
But the reality of a bunch of sociopaths who are *NOW IN POWER*, as opposed to just throwing faeces from the opposition benches, means that a whole heap of people aren’t going to politely accept the lies they’ve being spun.
Stormy waters ahead.
Re the last image. Gillard was labeled Julair. It’s time for something similar for Abbott. Surely he’s broken enough promises to qualify? C’mon media/cartoonists, Tony needs a suitable nickname.