| Neville,
Tony Abbott was this week ruthlessly undermined by someone close to him. In fact, really close to him. In fact, it was him. This week there was sharp bitter debate between Tony Abbott and Tony Abbott.
BEST:
1. On Monday Parliament sat for only a few hours to honour the memory of former Prime Minister the Hon. John Malcolm Fraser AC. As Bill said “For some, Malcolm Fraser was a hero who became a villain. For others, he was a villain who became a hero. But neither of these simple sketches are fair, and, in time, history’s judgement will be kinder than either.”
2. On Tuesday Bill and Jenny Macklin launched Labor’s ‘Mr Abbott Don’t Pocket Our Pensions’ campaign, calling on the Government to reverse its unfair pension cuts. Please add your voice.
3. On Wednesday Bill and Stephen Conroy released Labor’s policy for Australia’s new fleet of submarines, which would see them built, maintained and sustained in Australia, supporting thousands of jobs to 2050.
4. In the New South Wales election the Liberals have been sending out recorded phone messages from Malcolm Turnbull. Bill ridiculed the Libs saying: ”What is interesting is that the New South Wales Liberal Party think an automated Malcolm Turnbull is better than a real Tony Abbott.”
5. Peter Greste was welcomed into the Public Gallery during Question Time on Thursday. Bill stood up with the words “Peter Greste, Welcome Home!”. Every single person in the chamber burst into spontaneous applause.
WORST:
1. If you said something that was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of Australians, filmed by half a dozen cameras and recorded by at least 50 journalists, would you stand up a few days later and deny you ever said it? That’s our Prime Minister. People talk about this being a Prime Minister from the 1950s. That can’t be true, because there was television in the 1950s and this character thinks he can erase his own words.
2. On Monday we saw another split in the Government, this time between Julie Bishop and Joe Hockey. Joe was joking about the Expenditure Review Committee, commonly known as the Budget Razor Gang. Sitting behind the Treasurer, Julie Bishop was clearly not impressed and was caught on camera rolling her eyes and shaking her head, openly mocking the Treasurer, and it worked! The Government ruled out more cuts to foreign aid – having cut $11 billion so far – but refused to rule out more cuts to pensions, families, universities, schools or hospitals.
3. Joe Hockey wasn’t having a very good week with his colleagues. There was also a split between him and Tony Abbott. Joe said a ratio of debt to GDP at about 50 to 60 per cent, which Tony Abbott says is “pretty good result”, would in fact put Australia’s AAA credit rating at risk. Australia achieved a AAA credit rating from all three major ratings agencies for the first time in our history when Labor was in Government. We can’t afford to lose it under Joe Hockey.
4. This wasn’t picked up widely, but in an early morning television interview on Monday Scott Morrison confirmed he still wanted to see big cuts to social services in the next budget. This means more cuts to services supporting Australians who need help the most.
5. On Tuesday Nick Champion was kicked out of Parliament for asking Bronwyn Bishop:“Why don’t you ever kick anyone out from the other side?” Then after letting Scott Morrison call us “hypocrites”, Bronwyn stopped me from calling the Government hypocrites. Now, I’m sure there’s some hypocrisy somewhere…
The #5and5 will be back in May for the Budget.
Until then,
Tony
PS: Remember Status Quo? I don’t really remember them much either. But these lyrics are perfect. This week’s #5and5 song of the week is dedicated to Tony Abbott for this lyric: “I didn’t mean to say what I said when I said I didn’t mean it,” here’s Status Quo with “I didn’t mean it.“ |
