Aussie MSM Political Summary Article: "Year drags on ruled by Reptiles"..!

[jackovesk]

NEXT year is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, a creature with the head of an ox, the muzzle of a donkey, the eyes of a shrimp, the horns of a deer and the body of a serpent covered with fish scales.

Leave out deer horns and you have a description that fits a majority of the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Thus 2012 is their year and as the nation contemplates yesterday's leftovers and the credit card bills yet to come, it could be forgiven for despairing that the year will be any better than that which has all but passed.

The past 12 months have left, I would suggest, a bitter taste in the mouth of the electorate. It has watched and listened as its politicians have piled lie upon lie, ranting and finger-pointing on the 6 o'clock news, accusation and self-justification flying across the chamber in equal quantity.

The vitriol has flowed like a river, the hate and detestation glowing like green lava as it snaked between the government benches and oozed across the chamber.

If there were those who thought that out of the marriage between Labor and the Greens would come a progeny that displayed the best attributes of both parties, they have been deeply disappointed.

The Rudd-Gillard ego show has become a farce, each side guilty of showing contempt for the voters as they have used the political system from which they have so handsomely benefited to pursue their personal vendettas.

Bob Brown, voted into the Senate by a handful of Tasmanians - about 36,000 compared with the quota of about 300,000 required for a Queensland senator - has shuffled in and out of the Prime Minister's office, each time emerging with a smirk and another concession from a woman prepared to maintain her precarious grasp on power at any price.

Assurances were given and broken with nary a blink and if a politician's word was worth little in January, it's worth considerably less now.

The massively expensive National Broadband Network has been forced on the population, its operations clothed in secrecy, the take-up where it has been rolled out falling pathetically short of the trumpeted forecasts.

When it finally rolls past your door, two things will be certain. It will be expensive and become more so every year and it will have been made obsolete by wireless technology.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard got the carbon tax she was never going to impose and tried desperately to justify what was a political rather than policy and science-driven agenda by claiming other countries were following her lead.

The Durban climate change talks, in particular, were hailed as a justification for our carbon tax. Not a word was heard from the PM's office when Canada announced a few weeks ago that it was reversing course and pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol on limiting emissions.

The big emitters such as China, India and the US agreed in Durban to act but Australians were left wondering how an agreement by the big boys to talk for another four years, with a view to coming up with a system that would apply in another nine years, was a victory.

What emission restraints will China accept for 2020? We don't know. Meantime, from July we carry the burden of the highest carbon tax in the world.

Peter "The Rat" Slipper showed we have the best politicians that money can buy when he pocketed considerably more than the traditional 30 pieces of silver and leapfrogged into the Speaker's role, the cloud of his suspect expense claims settling over the Speaker's chair like a pall.

As the year drew to an end Labor MP Craig Thomson, accused of using a union credit card to pay for prostitutes, submitted a report based on research he had allegedly conducted during a government-funded, 42-day tour of Britain, Ireland, France, Spain and the US which cost $23,899.

He was four months late in handing in the report - surprising given that more than two-thirds of its 33 pages were found to have been plagiarised from internet sources without attribution, including parts of speeches by International Monetary Fund and European Commission officials.

Thomson's report was sub-titled "Lessons Learnt and Future Expectations".

The electorate, if asked, would answer "None" on both counts.

Gillard has said Thomson enjoys her full support.

How nice.

Then there was the end-of-year pay rise in a decision hailed as giving parliamentary salary increases "transparency", that word so beloved by our elected leaders.

Greens leader Brown said if the Government continued to sack public servants to save money, then MPs should take a pay cut and Greens Senator Larissa Waters confessed that she felt uncomfortable with the extra money. At the time of writing, not one politician of either house has said they feel so uncomfortable with the extra money that they are donating it to charity.

The posturing and name-calling will continue into 2012. It's the way business is done these days in Canberra; hypocrisy, lies and deceit the common currency, truth a daily sacrifice on the altar of ambition and expediency.

Good men and women are among their ranks, but what lonely souls they must be. In all, a year that, in a political context, is best forgotten.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/o...-1226230254005

PS - That about sums up the type of year we've had Politically Down-Under..!

...not often do I agree with the MSM, but this article is just about as accurate as it gets...

[modwiz]

Great report and summation Jack. I was wondering what that horrible stink was. Silly me, I thought it was Wash. D.C.

[jcocks]

Posted by modwiz (here)
Great report and summation Jack. I was wondering what that horrible stink was. Silly me, I thought it was Wash. D.C.

Surely you've seen how pally-pally JuLIAR and Barack are when they're together?? Both their governments stink just as much.

Actually, I wish, if nothing else, they would take back Obamas peace prize next year and GIVE IT TO SOMEONE WHO DESERVES IT! He couldn't even be bothered accepting the award in person!
I hate to say it, but the guy is just as bad, if not worse, than the asshat that came before him.

And Juliar? Noticably worse. The problem with Australia at the moment, is that we don't have a credible replacement for her....

[Enquiring1]

And Juliar? Noticably worse. The problem with Australia at the moment, is that we don't have a credible replacement for her....

..........and oddly enough thats excatly the same reason John Keys got voted in here