Overnight there was another coup in Australia. The aptly named Malcolm Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott from the position of Prime Minister abetted by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. This will mean a turn around in policy in Climate Change, Gay Rights, republicanism, defense contracts and economic policy and loss of position for a number of prominent politicians. It may even mean the breaking of the coalition as the National Party is unimpressed by the sudden change in leadership. Revenge is undoubtedly sweet as Abbott had previously taken the leadership from Turnbull when he was opposition leader. We will now see if Turncoat is capable of winning an election as the Australian electorate doesn't like these turncoat politics. His first words in the parliament were I won't change anything, watch this space
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-1...orn-in/6775962

The cult of personality has taken over from the cult of reason, they even did this on the eve of a byelection. This what you get when the leftist media play the endless polling against an elected Prime Minister. We should call them the clueless clucks clan, chirping away

Turnbull drinks the Global Warming Kool-Aid. Abbott didn't .He's a Chris Christie like centrist...the equivalent of a RINO . He will be the media darling there until they get a chance to turn their knives on him in favor of the Labour leader . He is the Aussie version of speaker Bonehead .
Turnbull was also managing director at Goldman Sachs for a time ,so I'm guessing he's one of those revolving door corporatists like we have in our government . I consider this a set back for Australian conservative leadership .

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Turnbull drinks the Global Warming Kool-Aid. Abbott didn't .He's a Chris Christie like centrist...the equivalent of a RINO . He will be the media darling there until they get a chance to turn their knives on him in favor of the Labour leader . He is the Aussie version of speaker Bonehead .
Turnbull was also managing director at Goldman Sachs for a time ,so I'm guessing he's one of those revolving door corporatists like we have in our government . I consider this a set back for Australian conservative leadership .

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Yes Tom it is a setback for conservative leadership, this fellow is a libertarian in the full sense of the word, and even a one time member of the Labor Party, he is an opportunist, and friend of Packer, an Australian billionaire media baron. Murdoch has endorsed him so I don't know what that tells us. Turnbull got rolled for endorsing an emissions trading scheme when opposition leader, so he will be cautious before doing it again, he will wait until after Paris to shift party policy. He is not the assie version of Bonehead, he is much smarter than that, much more given to concenious politics. This is the smart lawyer who beat the Thatcher government in the courts. He is the darling of the polls right now but the media is already saying what we now have is Hobson's choice. He has already made the statement that it doesn't matter how you achieve emissions reduction, just as long as you do it and his cabinet office has already leaked against him. Not a popular choice, just a survival choice

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He is not the assie version of Bonehead, he is much smarter than that, much more given to concenious politics.

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Assuming you mean consensus politics . Don't let speaker Bonehead fool you. He may have the rhetoric of a uncompromising partisan . But his performance speaks a different story . As majority leader he rolls over whenever the emperor tells him to ,and takes the public whipping whenever the emperor needs a fall guy. He and Senate majority leader Mitch "Yertle the Turtle " McConnell are bigger ASSetts for the emperor than Pelosi and Reid ever were .

I don't know much about Turnbull except the fact that he and KRUD were more than willing to sell the people of Australia down the hole over phony AGW theories .

Turnbull was leader of the Liberal Party back in the Krud/Gillard days, rolled by Abbott by one vote for supporting an ETS. Oddly enough even Howard supported an ETS back in the days when it was popular, but the Australian people have had experience with that now and they don't want it. They are willing to reduce emissions but not willing for the cost to come out of the household budget. What we have now is the tainted union leader and the tainted silver tail. Turnbull doesn't know much about the common man but he is smart where it counts, lawyer, merchant banker and politician an interesting combination of skills. To understand Turnbull you have to understand his electorate, he is the member for all the arty/farty types in upper class eastern Sydney. An electorate full of gays, avante garde and money. He may be more capable than Abbott of doing deals with the independents like Palmer and very adroit at playing from the shadows. He may step back from being the mouthpiece for everything. What will be interesting will be how he weilds the knief to the old cabinet, there are a lot of favours to be paid off

Things have taken a turn for the seriel; The tax white paper, an examination of taxation reform has been suspended, the rhetoric has changed and the federal government is taking an interest in domestic violence, I wonder if we will see an intervention, he can't line Scott Morrison up for that one he has already given him Treasury and the immediate conclusion, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem, I mean; doesn't everyone? That's why governments are funded from deficits so with no new information, and the education minister talking up trade training rather than allowing the universitys to set their own fees there must be some confused people out there as we dumb down higher education. I expect the next change will be immigration policy with a change to offshore processing in the wind after the failure of the Cambodian solution or perhaps the ABC will be back in vogue. Aunty is much loved by the folks of the Turncoat electorate

The latest complaint to arise is that we are deporting Kiwi at too fast a rate, it seems Kiwi are overrepresented in our detention system for visa overstayers and other undesirables and the Kiwi are upset that we should have the audacity to send them back. Kiwi, being flightless birds, we cannot expect them to go back without a push. The thing that might be fueling this is that Kiwi are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits leading to desperate measures. For those who might be unaware Kiwi(NZ) is the larger source of recent migration since our borders are open to them, and they make up a larger proportion of those who seek employment on mining sites so a downturn in mining means only one thing

Now we have the TPP, the forth trade agreement in as many months and interestingly it includes some nations we already have trade agreements with; US, Chile, New Zealand, Japan so I'm wondering, if the new agreement represents 40% of world trade and we already have agreements with the principal players, just exactly how do we derive the vast value of the agreement that is touted? Sugar appears to be one item, Rice another

there is an unfortunate element here in the US in the conservative ranks and nut job populists like Bernie Sanders, and the businessman from NY with the hair , who think 18th and 19th century mercantilism is a good idea. It is rooted in the same group that brought us Smoot-Hawley ,which helped propel the world economy into a global depression. Multilateral and regional trade deals are a good thing. I don't hear you belly aching about Aussie's participation in the future Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

One at a time Tom, we are already part of Asean and the AANZFTA we had to work hard on this one to prevent our pharmautecal benefits scheme from being eroded, the US drug companies hate it, but the US rarely ever gives in on something worthwhile, so why are you bringing it up, it gives us inroads to India and China you don't have but you haven't said anything about your own assualt on other economies TTIP

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Originally Posted by paraclete

One at a time Tom, we are already part of Asean and the AANZFTA we had to work hard on this one to prevent our pharmautecal benefits scheme from being eroded, the US drug companies hate it, but the US rarely ever gives in on something worthwhile, so why are you bringing it up, it gives us inroads to India and China you don't have

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I'm into trade deals to reduce tariffs and barriers . Nothing else is acceptable . I want China in these deals so they will conduct business under some agreed upon uniform code of conduct. TPP excludes China and the idiot Trump says there is a back door for their entry . I say why not ?

All you are into is multinational rape of the planet So we have a deal with China and you don't, sour grapes

Give them time and eventually the plan will emerge, 15% GST is now on the table and Turncoat was heard to say I'm still in favour of a republic but it is not a priority, I seem to remember that a change in the GST wasn't a prioroty either, and what happened to keeping the current policy settings?. The Change in the GST would be accompanied by a reduction in income tax which of course means the high end pays less tax because the low end taxes aren't that high and there is a threshold of $18,000. This idea means the low income people pay more tax under the guise of being "compensated". The last time we had GST imposed it meant growth in the economy, a tax led growth? as structure changed but it didn't mean more employment. Now if we could get real and ensure that the corporate sector paid the tax as well instead of just collecting it, that would be real change. I predicted a turn for the worst when this started and the sting in the tail will not be long coming.

As an aside there will be another change to the honours system with Knights and Dames abolished again in keeping with our new republican views, damn I'll just have to settle for an OAM