Hahahahahahaha suck shit Barnaby. Government hangs by the support of that Cathy McGowan woman. Clearly sheâs an idiot for supporting any government that contains tony Abbott.
This is a complete mess and farce and really puts in doubt much of the governments legislation.
Hopefully Barnaby faces some stiff opposition in the byelection and suffers a major swing against him. Heâs a clown.
Although, given that I am from a town in that electorate (but not registered in New England), I could realistically see him going back in. I know the type that would vote for him.
Yes, I suspect heâll be returned comfortably. The country folk seem to like him.
Tony Windsorâs main point of difference is that heâs generally in favour of a reduction in carbon emissions, landowners rights and building up better services for rural Australia (e.g. NBN), but on social issues heâs quite conservative (supports death penalty, opposes same sex marriage).
So Matt Cavavan that Malcolm Turnbull kicked out of Cabinet because of this is OK to stay but the two who he kept because he was âabsolutely certainâ the High Court would find eligible to stay in Parliament are out! Incredible misjudgment.
Some questions - what happens to legislation that was passed (or rejected) with just a one vote majority in the lower house and by narrow majority in the Senate? And what happens to pay and entitlements?
Not as bad as Turnbull saying that he had full confidence the High Court would rule in favour of Barnaby, Nash and Canavan in Parliament. Arrogance and recklessness in equal measure.
What a fucking disaster week. Next Newspoll will quite possibly be disastrous.
Disqualified senators Bob Day and Rod Culleton both had their Senate salary debts to the Department of Finance waived by the government. That precedent should mean that the five disqualified today will be allowed to keep their pay.
Ms Nash, who held a swag of portfolios including rural health and regional development, was declared a British citizen who was ineligible to be elected, ending her 12-year parliamentary career.
All 12 years during which she was ineligible & so not validly elected.
His return to the resources portfolio is good news for the controversial Adani coal mine, for which Senator Canavan has been a tireless advocate, including promoting a $1 billion government loan for an accompanying rail line.
When he resigned in July, he said it had been âsuch an honour to represent the Australian mining sector over the past yearâ. âAnd I might be back!â he quipped.
What a disgrace; he may have been lucky with the Italian law, however sadly it seems his loyalty isnât with Australia but with multi-national mining companies.
While Malcolm Turnbull cannot be blamed for the Nationalsâ slap-dash vetting procedures going back decades, his ill-judged bullishness in response to the citizenship questions once they arose was all his own work.
âThe leader of the National Party, the deputy prime minister is qualified to sit in this house and the High Court will so holdâ, he decreed during a raucous question time on August 14.
The High Court held no such thing. And it held no such thing, unanimously.
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Understand this. Joyce, a big-time player in the government, has never been a validly elected member of Parliament. Not once over five federal elections since he arrived in 2004 as a kind of a quasi-independent Nats outsider, and leaves now as a parliamentary stranger. An outsider all along.
Can we please have a refund for all the salary paid to this ineligible wanna-be-MPs?
I wonder how many others remain to be discovered.
âŚthe bigger problem for the Nationals is how furious the Liberal Party is with the whole sorry mess.
I canât imagine why!
Queensland Nationals [sic] were busy squabbling over the Inland Rail plans in the week they knew their party could lose senior figures.
Despite that record, the Nationals are already making demandsâŚ
They want to have a National leading the country when Malcolm Turnbull goes overseas.
Pathetic; Iâd think an acting PM would have to be an MHR not a senator, but regardless the Nats really should just shut up until Joyce is properly elected.
The Nationals are also keen to retain Fiona Nashâs New South Wales Senate spot, but Liberal candidate Hollie Hughes, who was next on the ticket, is expected to take up the job.
How dodgy is that, trying to circumvent the constitution & now the voting system.
Itâs interesting to remember that was a double dissolution election because of the right-wing insistence on idiotic policies including the ROC which resulted in the Employment ministerâs trouble this week.
I guess they just canât help themselves.
PS (12:15 AEDT):
And a good analysis piece from Katharine Murphy on how the LNP shot themselves in the foot & why:
Perhaps the Coalition â now at the end of the worst week it has yet suffered in office â could deal with its problem by trying to govern in sober and steady fashion.
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Because when the next election rolls round, voters are not going to give a stuff about the AWU giving money to GetUp, they are going to vote for the political party which they think has some answers, and an agenda which speaks to real-world problems.
The Saturday Paper has an article alleging that Turnbull asked GetUp for help in 2009. So this just keeps getting worse and worse for the Liberals and especially Malcolm.
Malcolm alleged in Parliament that it was Labor who were the suck-ups to big business. Now we know that was projection on his part. He was sucking up to GetUp for support.
Itâs quite amazing how Malcolm continually shoots himself in the foot whenever he opens his mouth in Question Time. Earlier this year he said that the High Court would rule in favour of the Citizenship Seven, or at least Joyce, and he was dead wrong about that. He then also alleged that Labor sucked up to big business, when the reality is he was sucking up to progressive movements for support. He really has become a useless leader.
And this whole AFP raid because of a donation to GetUp by the AWU is demonstrating that the Liberals are shitscared of any significant political movement which doesnât support them. Theyâve grown so used to political activism being inherently tipped in their favour, thanks to right-wing think tanks, Murdoch press and talkback radio, that they simply cannot stand that an organisation is rising up to challenge their narratives.
I donated $5 to GetUp yesterday because fuck the Liberals and their slimy bullshit.
Mark Lee works as a media adviser to the Fair Work Ombudsman but also does work for the Registered Organisations Commission - the Turnbull government body which ordered police raids on the AWU over 10-year-old donations to activist group GetUp!
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Now it has emerged that Mr Lee - who knew about the raids several hours before they occurred - was due to replace Mr De Garis in the media role in the coming weeks, as he moved to a different job in the office. Given the controversy, those plans have now been cancelled.
