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Sunday, September 8, 2013

The Ocker election disaster



"It’s been bad enough under Gillard and Rudd. If Tony Abbott is elected, the natural wonders that distinguish this nation will gradually be rubbed away until it looks like anywhere else: a degraded landscape and seascape, supporting just a few generic exotic species.

The country will be run exclusively for the class to which Gina Reinhardt, Clive Palmer and Ivan Glasenberg belong: the one per cent of the One Per Cent. Forget the pious rhetoric and nationalistic bombast. Abbott’s policies are really about removing the social and environmental protections enjoyed by all Australians, to allow the filthy rich to become richer – and filthier."

George Monbiot despairs at Abbot's success.

10 comments:

Armchair Critic said...

The good news is that last Saturday was Tony Abbott's high point. It's down hill from here for foot-in-mouth Tony.

robertguyton said...

And the environment too, sadly.

Armchair Critic said...

Lucky for Australia they have a bicameral parliament, and that will slow the damage.

robertguyton said...

And lucky its a big country - that'll spread it.

Armchair Critic said...

Meanwhile in NZ the Maori Party and Peter Dunne's Future have decided they might find some of their principles, in order to have the appearance of holding the government to account. The victims are:
Amy Adams, her rising star is no longer and the delusions of competence some on the right had regarding her are shattered.
The idea that the National caucus is united. Someone has chucked a colleague under the bus, and that doesn't happen in a united caucus.
It strikes me as bizarre that National should try to rewrite the principles of the RMA when they are so bereft of environmental principles.

robertguyton said...

Bizarre?
Entirely expected.
Poor Amy! She seemed such a useful sycophant.

Armchair Critic said...

Fair enough. Perhaps "galling" would have been a better word. I have no sympathy for Adams at all.
As you know, these reforms have been in national's legislative agenda for years, literally, and they have failed repeatedly to progress them. This failure tells us a lot about the value of the reforms.

Paranormal said...

Funny you should think the gnats are bereft of environmental principals AC when it was the gnats that brought in the dogs breakfast that is the RMA in the first place.

Armchair Critic said...

Sure, paranormal, the colour of the business cards remains the same. The names of the people have changed, and along with that has come a change of ideas.

robertguyton said...

The RMA is not a 'dog's breakfast', despite paranormal's insistence. It's been extremely valuable since its introduction, in protecting the under-fire environment. It can sustain some reshaping, but what National, through Adams, proposed, was shameful. Their anti-environment actions have failed, for now, but as AC points out, rusty old Tories never sleep.