7 August 2016

PM promotes Seselja to junior ministry

| Charlotte
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Zed Seselja

Commentators’ tips that ACT Liberal Senator Zed Seselja would score a junior ministry in progressive Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s post-election reshuffle – apparently to appease angry conservative elements in the Federal Coalition – have proven correct.

The prime minister this afternoon promoted Senator Seselja to his front bench, appointing him assistant minister for social services and multicultural affairs.

Senator Seselja’s successor as ACT Opposition Leader, Jeremy Hanson, was quick to congratulate his former boss this afternoon.

“Zed’s appointment means for the first time the Canberra Liberals will be represented in the Federal Ministry. It’s great news for Canberrans and I look forward to working with Zed, as I have over many years, in delivering for Canberra,” Mr Hanson said.

“Having been leader of the Canberra Liberals for two local elections before entering the Senate, Zed is well acquainted with Canberra’s needs and he’ll be well placed to lobby for the ACT as part of the Federal Ministry.”

But when RiotACT asked ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr earlier this month what he thought of the news that Senator Seselja was tipped for promotion he was vehement in his response.

“Amongst the hard right conservative element of the Liberal Party, he would be one of the more coherent people for that philosophy,” Mr Barr said.

“I fundamentally disagree with that philosophy and the fact that that part of the Liberal Party has such a vice-like grip over Malcolm Turnbull, and certainly over the Canberra Liberals themselves.”

Labor has reacted swiftly to Senator Seselja’s appointment at a Federal level, with Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multiculturalism Michelle Rowland issuing a statement tonight expressing concern that the Prime Minister would appoint an “anti-18C campaigner” to the Assistant Multicultural Affairs portfolio.

“Senator Seselja’s views on the Racial Discrimination Act are out of step with community views,” she said.

“Section 18C of the Act has served the nation well for 20 years and should not be changed.

“It is extremely alarming that one of the few people who wants to water down these protections against racist hate speech has been appointed to this portfolio.”

Senator Seselja was widely tipped to land an assistant ministry, with commentators and colleagues describing him as a rising star and indicating that the conservatives in Federal Coalition had been pushing for his promotion since the election.

The ACT Senator openly supported former prime minister Tony Abbott on the way into and out of the Liberal leadership ballot last September, and his promotion is expected to appease supporters of Mr Abbott.

The former ACT Opposition Leader left that role and his Legislative Assembly seat of Brindabella after the last ACT election to controversially oust then Senator Gary Humphries as the Liberals’ number one Senate candidate.

While it is true that Senator Seselja is the first Federal Liberal representative for the ACT to sit on the front bench on the Government side of the chamber, he has a way to go to match the success of former ACT Labor representatives Ros Kelly and Bob McMullan, who each served as cabinet rather than junior ministers under two prime ministers (Hawke and Keating and Keating and Rudd respectively).

All three of Senator Seselja’s current fellow ACT representatives, Labor Senator Katy Gallagher, and MPs Gai Brodtmann and Andrew Leigh, currently serve on the Opposition front bench.

It’s been a big day for conservative reshuffles in Canberra, with next generation representatives also landing promotions in the ACT Legislative Assembly earlier in the day.

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devils_advocate10:04 am 22 Jul 16

Mysteryman said :

pink little birdie said :

devils_advocate said :

Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

Seriously – what do you think would happen if a drop-out from Priest school got into a physical confrontation with a highly trained KGB agent?

Abbott has both a height (reach) and age advantage on Putin, and has some practice in striking from his days as a boxer. He’s also arguably maintained a much higher level of cardio endurance but depending on the match-up that might not be a decisive factor.

Granted Putin would have the superior ground game, but if UFC has taught us nothing else (and it hasn’t) it’s that strikers with superior reach always have a ‘puncher’s change’ against a grappler. Strikers usually have around 30 seconds to throw shots from the outside which can sometimes be decisive, before the grappler attempts to shoot for the takedown.

So now I’m genuinely interested to know – what do YOU think would happen if a drop-out from Priest school got into a physical confrontation with a highly trained KGB agent?

Well, now I want somebody to match them up.

Frankly, Abbott’s training wouldn’t even see him past the rawest KGB recruit, let alone a veteran like Putin. He wouldn’t get anything like 30 seconds to try to land anything. Unless Putin wanted to draw it out.

Well I’m assuming our Valodya won’t actually get to bring polonium into the octagon with him.

justin heywood said :

Tenpoints said :

Tea Party Logic. Utter genius.

We don’t have a Tea Party, genius. If you’re trying to use derogatory terms, you’d best find some that apply here in Aus.

That’s a non-sequitur. Rupert Murdoch is behind Fox News, Fox News marshalls the “thinking” of the Tea Party, and The Australian and its local friends such as Tony Abbott and Ian MacFarlane take their cues from there to promote their economic mis-management, NBN vandalism, and “climate change is crap” nonsense.
That’s where the Tea Party logic comes in.
Normal Australians are having trouble voting for a Party that is 50% Tea Party-friendly, so The Australian is pushing the idea that Turnbull needs to give more airtime to the Tea Party-friendly nutters that have infected the Liberals.

pink little birdie said :

devils_advocate said :

Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

Seriously – what do you think would happen if a drop-out from Priest school got into a physical confrontation with a highly trained KGB agent?

Abbott has both a height (reach) and age advantage on Putin, and has some practice in striking from his days as a boxer. He’s also arguably maintained a much higher level of cardio endurance but depending on the match-up that might not be a decisive factor.

Granted Putin would have the superior ground game, but if UFC has taught us nothing else (and it hasn’t) it’s that strikers with superior reach always have a ‘puncher’s change’ against a grappler. Strikers usually have around 30 seconds to throw shots from the outside which can sometimes be decisive, before the grappler attempts to shoot for the takedown.

So now I’m genuinely interested to know – what do YOU think would happen if a drop-out from Priest school got into a physical confrontation with a highly trained KGB agent?

Well, now I want somebody to match them up.

Frankly, Abbott’s training wouldn’t even see him past the rawest KGB recruit, let alone a veteran like Putin. He wouldn’t get anything like 30 seconds to try to land anything. Unless Putin wanted to draw it out.

dungfungus said :

Very good Zed .
Good luck with that as I can’t see Malcolm Turnbull lasting too long.

He’s on the nose.

Malcolm Turnbull procrastinates more than kevin Rudd but what makes it more distasteful is that he has a silver spoon tone to his demeanour and his rhetoric is meaningless.

It seems that he got where he is today by other people doing things for him and then takes the credit. he doesn’t seem to be a take charge type person .

Malcolm Turnbull would pee his pants if he was told to shirt front Vladimir Putin.
Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

How is Turnbull “on the nose”? Who is a suitable alternative to him? The only reason why the LNP won the election is because they got rid of Tony Abbott, who was a massive liability. Conservative estimates had them as standing to lose nearly half their seats if the leadership had not been challenged. Turnbull is a proper politician; whether you like that or not, he plays the game intelligently rather than running off with his mouth and then getting surprised that people were listening. He made poor decisions, did not take accountability for his captain’s calls, and continued to blame the opposition years after it was clear that he was the loose cannon. The LNP does not have a viable alternative to Turnbull at the moment. Also, he won the election. It was close, but they’re a majority government.

For what it’s worth, the “shirt-fronting” comment was horrendous. How can the Prime Minister wax lyrical about the problems with violence, particularly among men (I’m thinking of the one-punch assault cases that lead to the lock-out and an attempted changing of terminology with Federal backing) one week, then turn around and say he was going to physically assail the President of another country the next?

I compare Abbott to Julia Gillard. For years we were told that a female PM would be so much better. More tolerant and level headed, under a woman there would be no wars, etc etc. Well a woman had her go and we all know what happened. It was an experiment that nobody would want to see repeated.

For years the Murdoch newspapers and the shock jocks told us that a hard line conservative leader was the answer to all our problems. No more budget deficit, no more welfare bludgers, no more boat people and no more political correctness. Well we all know how that turned out as well.

The fact is that a centrist and more progressive approach is the only formula that works in politics. Pandering to fringe elements marginalises the majority and is not a recipe for longevity in government and electoral success.

Tenpoints said :

Tea Party Logic. Utter genius.

We don’t have a Tea Party, genius. If you’re trying to use derogatory terms, you’d best find some that apply here in Aus.

devils_advocate12:40 pm 20 Jul 16

devils_advocate said :

Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

Seriously – what do you think would happen if a drop-out from Priest school got into a physical confrontation with a highly trained KGB agent?

Abbott has both a height (reach) and age advantage on Putin, and has some practice in striking from his days as a boxer. He’s also arguably maintained a much higher level of cardio endurance but depending on the match-up that might not be a decisive factor.

Granted Putin would have the superior ground game, but if UFC has taught us nothing else (and it hasn’t) it’s that strikers with superior reach always have a ‘puncher’s change’ against a grappler. Strikers usually have around 30 seconds to throw shots from the outside which can sometimes be decisive, before the grappler attempts to shoot for the takedown.

So now I’m genuinely interested to know – what do YOU think would happen if a drop-out from Priest school got into a physical confrontation with a highly trained KGB agent?

Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

Seriously – what do you think would happen if a drop-out from Priest school got into a physical confrontation with a highly trained KGB agent?

Did you miss the bit where Abbott and Putin ended up in the same room in QLD and Abbott didn’t say boo?

This is yet another illustration of the wilful delusion that is absolutely compulsory if you want to support Tony Abbott, his ludicrous lack of ideas about economic matters and his denial of climate science.

dungfungus said :

How is Turnbull “on the nose”?

Here’s how it works – the Australian Tea Party nutters managed to get Tony Abbott in as PM. This failed, of course, Abbott being even less suitable for the position than my last year’s dandruff.
So now these nutters have to manufacture a reality wherein Turnbull needs to pay more attention to the Tea Party nutters in order to stay in government – hence he needs to give jobs to the likes of Abbott and Seselja.

If you don’t understand how this works, just read The Australian – this political pamphlet runs stories every day of the week where they explain how important it is for the Liberal Party to veer much further to the loopy-Right in order to repair the electoral damage that resulted from the Liberals having veered to the loopy-Right in the first place.

Tea Party Logic. Utter genius.

What an example to the world our gov is. Turnbull, Pyne, Morrison, Joshua whatever and Barnaby Joyce all pathetic examples of men let alone leaders. God help Australia if people think these are typical Australian males. I guess they would seem ok next to Trump or Hillary Clinton. Should all work well together.

Very good Zed .
Good luck with that as I can’t see Malcolm Turnbull lasting too long.

He’s on the nose.

Malcolm Turnbull procrastinates more than kevin Rudd but what makes it more distasteful is that he has a silver spoon tone to his demeanour and his rhetoric is meaningless.

It seems that he got where he is today by other people doing things for him and then takes the credit. he doesn’t seem to be a take charge type person .

Malcolm Turnbull would pee his pants if he was told to shirt front Vladimir Putin.
Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

How is Turnbull “on the nose”? Who is a suitable alternative to him? The only reason why the LNP won the election is because they got rid of Tony Abbott, who was a massive liability. Conservative estimates had them as standing to lose nearly half their seats if the leadership had not been challenged. Turnbull is a proper politician; whether you like that or not, he plays the game intelligently rather than running off with his mouth and then getting surprised that people were listening. He made poor decisions, did not take accountability for his captain’s calls, and continued to blame the opposition years after it was clear that he was the loose cannon. The LNP does not have a viable alternative to Turnbull at the moment. Also, he won the election. It was close, but they’re a majority government.

For what it’s worth, the “shirt-fronting” comment was horrendous. How can the Prime Minister wax lyrical about the problems with violence, particularly among men (I’m thinking of the one-punch assault cases that lead to the lock-out and an attempted changing of terminology with Federal backing) one week, then turn around and say he was going to physically assail the President of another country the next?

Very good Zed .
Good luck with that as I can’t see Malcolm Turnbull lasting too long.

He’s on the nose.

Malcolm Turnbull procrastinates more than kevin Rudd but what makes it more distasteful is that he has a silver spoon tone to his demeanour and his rhetoric is meaningless.

It seems that he got where he is today by other people doing things for him and then takes the credit. he doesn’t seem to be a take charge type person .

Malcolm Turnbull would pee his pants if he was told to shirt front Vladimir Putin.
Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

Tony was quick to say he’d shirtfront Putin, but then didn’t follow through.

Malcolm Turnbull would pee his pants if he was told to shirt front Vladimir Putin.
Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

That was an example of meaningless rhetoric.

Very good Zed .
Good luck with that as I can’t see Malcolm Turnbull lasting too long. He’s on the nose.

Malcolm Turnbull procrastinates more than kevin Rudd but what makes it more distasteful is that he has a silver spoon tone to his demeanour and his rhetoric is meaningless.

It seems that he got where he is today by other people doing things for him and then takes the credit. he doesn’t seem to be a take charge type person .

Malcolm Turnbull would pee his pants if he was told to shirt front Vladimir Putin.
Tony shirt fronted Vladimir Putin on a reflex action .

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