ABC, stay brave

Tony Abbott takes aim at the ABC

It is without a doubt that the Abbott Government is intent on curtailing as much scrutiny of itself as possible.  Step 1 is the ABC, with step 2 doubtless being the alternative and social media.  However, for the moment it’s the ABC.  Recent events include:

Tanya Plibersek:

“Tony Abbott’s comments today show he’ll blame everyone – including the media – for the promises he continues to break,” she said.

True enough Ms Plibersek, but more importantly – as broken promises are there for all to see – is the intention to deny the Australian public the chance to form their own opinion.  There shalt be only one opinion and his name shall be Murdoch.

It cannot be denied that the overwhelming bias since 2007 and before, has been pro-conservative and anti-most of everything else.  As an example, such was the success of the anti-Climate Change agenda, that the mainstream media sent Australia back a decade in terms of finding solutions.  A survey at the time (during Kevin Rudd’s 1st year at Prime Minister, but this is just from memory) provided that of all the Murdoch stable, only Melbourne’s Herald Sun provided anything near a balanced approach, and this was around 67%.  For others, the figures were far worse.  A balanced approached?  Unbiased?

Clearly, if you want to get the message out who does Tony Abbott run to?

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has fired a verbal warning to Jakarta…

Did he pass on his displeasure to Indonesia? No. Did he do it by way of a media press release? No. Did he pass the job onto his Minister? No.

The article tells us – wait for it – that . . .

Mr Abbott told radio station 2GB.

Specifically, Alan Jones’ Breakfast Show.

Clearly buoyed by his success in “accurately” enunciating his foreign policy intentions via shock-jock radio with a sure certainty that (of course) senior Indonesian officials have similar enthrall with Australian talk-back radio, Abbott has now turned to that other well-known broadcaster Ray Hadley, likewise at 2GB.  At least on this occasion Tony Abbott had at least a miniscule chance that someone/anyone from the media might listen to Ray Hadley, plus take it seriously.

Abbott’s interview with Ray Hadley is quoted below – this one should note, is the same Ray Hadley who was recently ordered to pay a woman $280,000 as compensation in a defamation case. “Acting Justice Henric Nicholas described Mr Hadley’s attack on Carlingford fish and chip shop owner, Kim Ahmed, as an ”unbridled tirade … spat into the microphone for the consumption of the audience”. Note: damages will be paid by the Macquarie Radio Network’s insurer.

“Meanwhile, people’s reputations are under question because of the ABC’s reporting of this matter, so I trust that the ABC will do the right thing.”  Ms J. Bishop was of course not speaking about the victim of Hadley’s defamation case.

However, undeterred by providing this interview to Mr Hadley and whilst knowing of Mr Hadley’s recent conviction of only a little over a month ago (and if not, one should ask why not), Tony Abbott then proceeded to shed crocodile tears about the naughty ABC not being on his side.

“A lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everyone’s side but Australia’s,” he said in an interview with Ray Hadley on Sydney radio station 2GB.

“I think it dismays Australians when the national broadcaster appears to take everyone’s side but its own and I think it is a problem.”

It lacks ”at least some basic affection for the home team”.

Translation: the ABC has criticised me, and is therefore unpatriotic. I am, I am, I am, the Australia.  Tony, your ego is once again on display for all to see.  Tony, there is no home team; Tony Abbott currently heads one of the major political parties and the one which currently happens to be in power.  Tony, you are not “the home team”, Australia and the well-being and benefit of all Australians is the prime concern of all, irrespective of voting preferences.

Does Tony Abbott expect a robust critique of himself by appearing on shock-jock radio talk-back shows?  Or is this avoidance?  A token gesture so that he doesn’t cop the criticism of being entirely invisible.  Look at moi, I’ve been on Ray Hadley . . . duty done regarding “communication”.

Abbott’s crusade continues, to politicise the armed services, who as per the ABC are apolitical and who are sworn to adhere to basic practices.  Abbott’s awkward attempts to cosy up to the Navy in particular is nothing more than political opportunism.  By the way, Abbott if you are so concerned about Navy personnel, why this?

“Navy personnel carrying out border protection were quietly stripped of some workplace safety protections last month . . .”

So much for concern about “the home team” . . .

Well said by Wendy Harmer,

And what of the other national state-funded outfits he (Abbott) is, by inference, comparing with our ABC ? Russia Today, France 24 , those in Laos or the “baddies” North Korea? Their aims are clear: to promote the current government (or regime) in a favourable light and to vilify the opposition. To be a mouthpiece for those in power. To cosy up to governments and vested interests in affectionate embrace.

Is it any coincidence that certain ABC journalists have been threatened with “services no longer required” should they dare write a critique which might be unfavourable to the current ruling classes?

It is no secret that the NBN is being canned due to Murdoch:

The biggest fear for pay TV is advertising dollars being sent elsewhere as online services offer more affordable advertising rates than pay TV or free-to-air TV can offer.

The next stage on the path to control of what we see and what we know is our ABC is control of all dissenting opinions.

Malcolm Turnbull (this comment rapidly taken from the front pages, but still available via this link as I write):

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has strongly defended the ABC’s editorial independence in the face of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s attack on the national broadcaster, which he says ”instinctively takes everyone’s side but Australia’s”.

Mr Turnbull defended the Prime Minister’s right to critique the ABC but, in comments that could be interpreted as resistance to Mr Abbott, he said the ABC was rightly accountable to its board of directors, not politicians.

Further from Turnbull:

Mr Abbott told radio 2GB that Australians wanted ”some basic affection for the home team”, but Mr Turnbull said the broadcaster was more constrained by rules around editorial fairness than its competitors in commercial media.

Without putting words in Mr Turnbull’s mouth, this might be interpreted as, “Abbott, what on earth are you raving on about? The ABC is “more constrained” than anything and anyone in the the commercial media.”

Kevin Andrews:

Speaking at Canberra airport on his way to a cabinet meeting, the Social Services Minister said that in a robust democracy, the media should be scrutinised as much as anybody else.

Indeed Mr Andrews, and we all look forward to your critiques of the unsubstantiated rumours, false information, and opinion dressed up as fact as is currently presented to us by the mainstream media.  Surely, if your boss desires to continue to give patronage to such things as shock-jocks, the requirement should be that these persons must come under the same scrutiny as the ABC.

An anonymous constituent:

Coalition senator Ian Macdonald vigorously supported the Prime Minister’s criticism of the ABC on Thursday, noting that constituents asked him, ”when are you going to get rid of the ABC?”

Here we arrive at the crux of the matter, Tony Abbott wants the ABC to be his own personal cheer squad, as if we don’t have enough of that already from the Murdoch media and it’s associates.  However, this is a mere side issue on the road to the silencing of all dissenting opinions, the inability of Australians to read alternative views.  This is of course quite suitable to the Murdoch media who currently languishing behind paywalls,  who wants opposition silenced, or as much as possible in a semi-democratic society – first step, procure excuses to cut the ABC’s funding . . . next step . . .

We are therefore placed with a Prime Minister who believes that “the home team” is the only team that one is allowed to barrack for.  However, when he stated that “Test cricketers occasionally drop catches, great footballers occasionally miss tackles and, regretfully, there were a couple of occasions when this mistake was made – but it won’t happen again.”.

Labor’s communications spokesman Jason Clare said the study was ”all about providing an excuse to cut the ABC’s budget”.

“The night before the election Tony Abbott said there would be ‘no cuts to the ABC,” he said.

“If Tony Abbott cuts the ABC’s budget it will mean he is a liar, simple as that”.

This issue might have conveniently disappeared for the moment, but watch out come budget time, it is likely that B1 and B2 will be hocking their ‘jammies.

When the Institute of Public Affairs starts talking about the irrelevance of Australia having a national broadcaster, then we should be doubly fearful.  I wonder if having nobbled the ABC via budgetry means that there will be any “takers” to fill the shoes of the ABC in providing news transcripts for the blind?  Not much money in that one for Murdoch, so I can’t see it happening.

If there was ever a case for a taxpayer-funded state broadcaster, it doesn’t exist today. Australians have at their fingertips access to more news from more varied sources than ever before. Online, every niche interest and point of view is well covered. And as private media companies continue to struggle with profitability, the continued lavish funding of the ABC only serves to undermine their business model further.

Sorry, but I’ve changed my mind. I was paid to.

Image courtesy of http://www.sortius-is-a-geek.com

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In October Malcolm Turnbull announced the appointment of former Tesltra boss Ziggy Switkowski as NBN Co to lead a three-person board overseeing the national broadband network.

In his inaugural appearance at a senate estimates hearing, Switkowski said Telstra’s copper network is ‘robust’ and has been well-maintained for decades. Concerns expressed about the network not being up to being the basis for a FttN NBN, he added, were “misinformed”. He stressed that:

The copper network has been in place for a long time. It’s constantly being maintained, remediated, upgraded.

Readers here will be all to well aware of the criticism of the government’s plan to provide the NBN through Telstra’s copper network; an antiquated alternative to Rudd’s NBN, the future of which is now in doubt.

But it’s remarkable to hear Switkowski’s glowing praise of the copper network when compared to what Telstra had to say about it in 2003 while he was chief of the telco:

Telstra will replace its century-old copper wire phone network with new technology within the next 15 years, saying the ageing lines are now at “five minutes to midnight”.

Telstra executives revealed the problem at a Senate inquiry into broadband services on Wednesday.

Go figure.

I guess it’s easy to change your mind when the government pays you lots of money to do so.

(Thanks to Kaye Lee and Bacchus for this post).

So this is what everyone’s been laughing about

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The social media has been going viral about “80 years in Tasmania according to Abbott” and I had no idea what anybody was talking about. A quick Google search with a few key words soon enlightened me. Here it is:

In a forum in Launceston last night, Mr Abbott made the ridiculous claim that it would take 80 years for the NBN to be fully rolled out across the state.

“Malcolm (Turnbull) reckons that at the current rate of rollout it will take 80 years before the whole of Tasmania has broadband rolled out under this Government.”- Tony Abbott, Sky News Forum, 25/7/2013.

Knowing what it was about, I too can laugh.

Really, where did he get that one from? If he had have said something like five or ten years then I might have found his statement somewhat credible. But 80 years! Come on, who does he think he’s fooling? And where is someone from the media asking him to back up this latest brain fart?

How does that saying go? “In your guts, you know he’s nuts”.

With statements like the one above, how could you possibly argue with that saying?

How to make a perfect meal

Pick a subject. Any subject. Then get Tony Abbott to talk about it.

Then listen to him make a perfect meal of it.

In the last couple of weeks we’ve been treated to a couple of absolute gems to add to what has become a mile long list of ignorant or stupid statements. Each one more ludicrous than the last. The laughter from his revelation that Malcolm Turnbull invented the Internet in Australia had hardly died down when we were treated with this:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has poured scorn on Labor’s new plan to move to an emissions trading scheme one year early, describing an ETS as ”not a true market”.

”Just ask yourself what an emissions trading scheme is all about. It’s a so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one,” he said, when addressing reporters in Camden, in south-west Sydney, on Monday.

Unbelievable. But true to form. He should have learned back in July 2011 to keep his mouth shut after this ground-breaker: “It’s actually pretty hard to do this because carbon dioxide is invisible and it’s weightless and you can’t smell it.”

Science clearly isn’t his forté. Here’s my all-time science favourite: “Climate change is a relatively new political issue, but it’s been happening since the earth’s beginning. The extinction of the dinosaurs is thought to have been associated with climate change”.

I love these Abbottisms. A brief search of the internet reveals many more of them (and I’m sure whatever I find you’ve probably seen before anyway) but regardless of what you find I want you to consider what Penny Wong had to say yesterday: “I’d ask you to just pause for a minute and imagine Tony Abbott at an international meeting . . . “.

Think about it. Think long and hard about it.

Can you just imagine Tony Abbott with a microphone to the world? We’d be the laughing stock of the entire planet if we had a Prime Minister who made a perfect meal of everything he tried to talk about on the international stage. Abbottisms might be funny. Incompetence isn’t.

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All of a sudden everybody loves Malcolm

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I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve argued (literally) that the LNP should replace Tony Abbott with Malcolm Turnbull. It’s not because I like Turnbull, but because I dread the thought of Abbott leading this country. I won’t go over my reasons; they’ve been given currency on this site enough over the last three years.

Just recently there has been similar talk all over the social media about replacing Abbott, albeit because the polls have turned pear-shaped for him. There are serious concerns about him leading the Coalition to victory in September and unsurprisingly, Malcolm Turnbull is touted as a genuine replacement. Now the mainstream media, for so long content to guide Abbott into the Lodge, have come to the realisation that they might have been holding the wrong hand. From The Age this morning comes Liberal Party’s best bet: switch to Turnbull. I’ve picked out a few telling sentences:

Tony Abbott now looks an even bet to emulate his former boss John Hewson (Abbott was Hewson’s media adviser), who in 1993 lost what was widely considered an unloseable ballot against Paul Keating.

In their own self-interest, the Liberals would be wise to at least consider replacing Tony Abbott with Malcolm Turnbull. It has long been clear the two leaders Australian voters would like to choose between are Rudd and Turnbull.

But the pivotal assessment is which leader would maximise the Coalition’s prospects of winning office. Many Liberals must be thinking their chances of winning a seat or holding on to one would be better were Turnbull reinstalled in the position he only lost by one vote to Abbott, primarily because Turnbull supported a market-based system to put a price on carbon emissions.

Once the election campaign proper begins, it is hoped there will be increasing focus throughout the community on policy rather than politics, and on ideas rather than ideology. Abbott has excelled in opposing, but has not inspired voters with policy ideas.

So, if Abbott is to win this election, he will need to convince voters he has the policies that will improve their lives. A large part of that will be determined by the substance and detail of the policies. But much, too, will depend on sales skills, and it appears Turnbull cuts through better than Abbott. Outside of the corridors of Canberra, people like Turnbull. There is a lingering, almost intangible, hesitation about Abbott, if the polls are to be given credence.

Elections are won at the margin; they are decided by swinging voters in tight seats. I suspect there are many who will not vote Liberal with Abbott at the helm but who would readily support the party were Turnbull leader.

This prospect might well become increasingly enticing should the Coalition continue to see polls telling it that it may be poised to lose an unloseable election primarily because its leader lacks appeal.

There is an X-factor in political leadership. Turnbull has it. Rudd has it. Julia Gillard lost it. And Abbott probably does not have it.

Well, I certainly agree with most of that. Do you?

Malcolm Turnbull (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the eve of a Coalition policy announcement

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The release of the Coalition’s broadband policy is imminent, with some speculation that it may be released as early as tomorrow. That gives the Murdoch media only 24 hours to soften the way by condemning the Government’s NBN with all guns firing.

And haven’t they been busy? What the Coalition’s policy will contain is irrelevant of course. It’s assumed it will be faster, more endurable and of course cheaper than what the Government has provided. Well, cheaper anyway.

Which makes now a good time to go after the cost of the NBN.

Apparently it’s going to cost $90B and this fits nicely into this headline “The Ninety Billion Nightmare – the real cost of the NBN rollout“. We learn that:

The final cost of the NBN rollout could more than double and exceed $90 billion by the time it is finished, according to a new analysis contained in the Coalition’s broadband policy.

So, it’s according to the Opposition.

The Coalition’s estimates of the real capital costs suggested they would be more likely to reach $71 billion, not the $37.4 billion claimed by NBN Co’s most recent estimates. The overall cost to the taxpayer, including overly optimistic revenue targets, would more likely reach $94 billion, the 12-page costing document claims.

What else has the Coalition waffled on about that the Murdoch press has been eager to build a story around? How about this: “Government urged to release ‘true cost of NBN’”

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy appears to have made a false claim about the National Broadband Network as he tried to defend the project over allegations it faces massive cost blow outs. Senator Conroy told ABC Radio this morning that the Coalition was a “fact-free zone” but he appears to have wrongly claimed the NBN’s corporate plan was audited by the Auditor-General as he attempted to justify its price tag.

The coalition estimates the final price tag of the NBN could more than double to $90 billion-plus, and that it will take an extra four years to complete.

The claims are made in the coalition’s broadband policy, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, which opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has promised will be released soon.

Yes, it’s another one of those “the Coalition says  . . .” scoops. Please ignore the fact that it was denied by Senator Conroy, the prime Minister and the Auditor General. Goodness, as if they‘d know.

Meanwhile, Rob Oakeshott, who chaired the Federal Parliament’s committee investigating the NBN has:

. . . lambasted the Coalition for its claim that the real cost of Labor’s National Broadband Network project was likely to be up to $90 billion, pointing out that the treasury and finance departments disagreed with the Coalition’s estimate.

The Coalition has not yet published any document to verify its claim, but this morning the Daily Telegraph reported that using modelling from key telcos and finance industry analysis of the NBN Co’s 2012 corporate plan, the Coalition had estimated the project would take four years longer to finish and potentially cost an extra $45 billion to complete. The newspaper claims to have seen sections of the Coalition’s policy analysis in the area.

However, Rob Oakeshott, the outspoken independent MP whose backing for the NBN helped put the Gillard Government in power back in 2010 and who chaired the Federal Parliament’s committee investigating the project and holding it to account, has a different view. “If today’s Daily Telegraph was true on NBN costing $90 billion, the INDEPENDENT Treasury/Finance boffins would have it on-budget,” Oakeshott said on Twitter this morning. “They don’t.”

Oakeshott further added in comments to some of his followers: ” I am being kind. Let’s see what they produce this week. This is a very big test for Tony Abbott to get his NBN policy right … rate of return, rate of return, rate of return. It is everything in business, and infrastructure – public and private.” And then, referring to the Department of the Treasury: “I’d trust their judgement over politicans/media any day of the week. Apolitical,qualified,and focussed. If not them, then who?”

The Coalition’s $90 billion claim this morning is not the first time it has claimed that the NBN would cost dramatically more than the Federal Government’s estimates. Over the past few months, senior Coalition politicians such as Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull have repeatedly publicly claimed that the NBN could could cost as much as $100 billion to build, despite the company’s own estimates showing that it will require around $37 billion of capital injection from the Government and eventually make a return.

Now why wasn’t that reported in the Murdoch media? Maybe it can be traced back to this:

“The Murdoch media has been leaning to the right since the Whitlam days but the anti-Labor meme was really ramped up just before the 2010 election. The catalyst was Murdoch’s luncheon with Tony Abbott, where the NBN (National Broadband Network) must have been the main talking point as the very next day Abbott publicly announced that he’d rip up the NBN”.

“He pissed a few of us off by jumping too soon, thinking that people might tie the announcement to the meeting with Murdoch, which luckily they didn’t. The NBN will effect Murdoch’s profits, and let’s be very clear on that, so the reason to back Abbott was clearly motivated by money for the media empire”.

How nice to provide us with a bit more evidence and, significantly, on the eve of a Coalition policy announcement.

Libs to axe Abbott after poll shock

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Following the success of his article of the same name on Independent Australia, Alan Austin has kindly offered it for publication at Café Whispers.

Today’s horrific opinion polling for Tony Abbott has forced moves to replace him as federal Opposition leader.

“We have no choice,” a prominent Coalition power broker told journalists in a private backgrounder. “We must act now. Going to an election with Tony would be suicide.”

Newspoll today shows Abbott’s personal approval still only 39 per cent despite having risen 11 points since December.

This continues the run of negative poll results since Abbott narrowly beat Malcolm Turnbull for the Liberal Party leadership in 2009. That vote was 42 – 41.

Turnbull’s approval remains above 60 per cent.

“Tony’s numbers are disastrous,” a senior Liberal Party strategist admitted. “Never been above 40 per cent. And that’s with all the media constantly pumping him and bagging Julia.”

The strategist concedes that on current polling the Government would win the September election if Abbott remains Opposition leader. “Keating won in 1993 from a worse position than Gillard’s now,” he said. “And the little lying rodent won in 2001 from even further behind.”

“Abbo is a nice bloke,” said a Coalition frontbencher who declined to be named. “He got Fairfax in lockstep with Murdoch by promising whatever media laws they want. And the ABC is giving us an incredible run. God knows what he promised them. So kudos to Abbo for that. But we can’t expect the media to conceal the fact forever – the guy has no policy clue.

“Sooner or later, someone’s going to read his book,” the frontbencher said. “Talk about falsehoods and fantasy! I don’t know who wrote it. But he didn’t get a fact right.”

“If Laurie Oakes or Paul Syvret found it, they’d rip it to shreds. We’ve begged him to take it off the website.”

A source close to the Shadow Treasurer agrees. “If you think Joe Hockey is an economics moron – don’t quote me on that, will you? – just look at what Abbott says. I mean, everything about tax is wrong, everything on growth and productivity is wrong. It’s like he’s never read a briefing paper in his life.”

“Eventually someone’s going to notice the economy,” the source said. “We can only lie about that for so long. Reality will dawn – Australia’s books are the best in the world. By a street. The media all keep trying to credit Costello. But the punters won’t buy that forever.”

A National Party shadow minister in a marginal country seat confirmed the move is on. “Gotta face it,” he said. “We can’t win with Tony. He’s not just a policy buffoon but a compulsive liar. Switch now, and we have a chance.”

The frontbencher said the continual falsehoods were a central problem to conservative rural voters. “Like when he denied meeting George Pell. Stone the crows! And denying he organised the anti-Pauline Hanson slush fund. Geez, that’s going to bite us on the bum. His crazy claim he won’t do deals to gain office. Strewth! His lies about the carbon tax. His insane idea that China’s CO2 emissions would increase 500 per cent. His stupid porkies about why he didn’t visit the troops in Afghanistan with Julia. The ridiculous claim that BHP deferred Olympic Dam due to taxes. His absurd insult to all our allies that ‘the rest of the world was not going anywhere near emission trading schemes.’ Calling asylum seekers ‘illegals’. And his lies about Government spending. Fair dinkum! They just keep on coming.”

“Tony’s a good mate,” the shadow minister said. “Just no integrity. This is all off the record, by the way.”

According to another Coalition insider the move could come as early as next week. “We are just waiting for Tony to go overseas. Like the Country Libs in the Northern Territory.”

Asked if he believed the switch to Malcolm Turnbull would be a positive, the insider said, “Anyone but Abbott. But you didn’t hear it from me.

“Look, we gave him a go. Got in front in the polls for a while. But let’s face it. There’s only one reason for that – the media continually concocting stories about the Gillard Government with fabricated quotes attributed to anonymous sources.”

Alan (pictured below) is an Australian freelance journalist currently living in Nîmes in the South of France, but who returns to Australia regularly. His interests are religious affairs, the economics of development and integrity in government and the media. He has been published in many print outlets and worked for eight years with ABC Radio and Television’s religious broadcasts unit. He has also worked as a journalist with the aid agency World Vision and the Uniting Church.

The conspiracy is well and truly unplugged

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Three days ago I posted Revealed! The media conspiracy against the Government, the basis behind this conspiracy being that:

“The Murdoch media has been leaning to the right since the Whitlam days but the anti-Labor meme was really ramped up just before the 2010 election. The catalyst was Murdoch’s luncheon with Tony Abbott, where the NBN (National Broadband Network) must have been the main talking point as the very next day Abbott publicly announced that he’d rip up the NBN”.

My post raised a few eyebrows as well as attracting a number of sniggers, as one would expect. However, the appearance of this brilliant piece by Kieran Cummings the very next day, Why Murdoch’s media is gunning for your NBN got to the heart of the matter. The article kicks off with:

It seems a day doesn’t go by where articles are being posted to News Limited (Murdoch) websites with nothing but negative spin for the NBN. Most, if not all, are founded on poorly constructed arguments that ignore technology & the reality. They all seem to point to one solution: anything the Coalition are saying they’ll deploy.

While this does reek of patent bias amongst Murdoch’s Australian arm, I feel this goes a little deeper than just wanting a Coalition government, but a fear of becoming obsolete in the age of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television).

And yesterday evening, anybody listening to Radio Nation’s Drive program would have heard the Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband, Malcolm Turnbull say that because of the likelihood of change of Government in September, the NBN Co should not be entering into any further contracts.

It’s all coming together, isn’t it?

Gutless

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I’ve been thinking just how gutless members of the Opposition are.

Just a few examples: Peter Costello resigning the day after the 2007 election loss following years of bleating that he should have been Prime Minister (or the PM in waiting); Tony Abbott running away from tough questions; Tony Abbott not having the guts to appear on QandA; the whole party being too scared to vote against Abbott on same-sex marriage; Turnbull for not having the guts to stand up to Abbott; not having the guts to face up to criticism via social media; not having the guts to admit when wrong; not having the guts to tell the truth and so on and so on and so on.

I thought I’d throw this one open. What examples can you think of?

Don’t be invisible. Be stupid instead.

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It was only a couple of days ago that I posted The Invisible Man in response to Tony Abbott’s hide and seek political ploy. It appears Tony has since drank some of the magical fluid that makes people visible again and he wants the whole team to gulp some down.

This is after telling them last week that they also had to go and hide. Yes, even the popular Malcolm Turnbull was ordered into the closet.

And now:

Mr Abbott told colleagues at a meeting in Canberra this morning. “Be ready, be visible and be in Australia.

“Each one of us has to be a person of the people and for the people in the lead up to polling day.”

This is a good thing as we might see more of this: