YES/NO
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Posts Tagged Herald Sun
A Poll
May 12
Scary Wary Kevin Wudd
May 12
The Herald Sun really do have editorialising on the front page down to a fine art, don’t they?
TAXPAYERS will foot an extra $2 billion foreign aid bill because the Government feared the consequences of upsetting Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd.
Ballooning aid spending in Africa and the Caribbean, where Mr Rudd is chasing votes for a seat on the 15-member UN Security Council, is also causing alarm within the Government
“Ballooning”!? I will have to “foot” an “extra” $2 billion! All because they’re scared of Kevin Rudd?!
Even the figure of of $2 billion is misleading. Because according to their own story from yesterday aid spending is increasing by $500 million next year, and is expected to grow by $1.9 billion in the next four years. Which is 0.35% of Australian GNI, leaving Australia well short of their commitment to lift foreign aid to 0.5% of GNI by 2015.
Increased foreign aid spending, which has bipartisan support, could have been deferred, but the Government opted against asking for cuts similar to the $2.7 billion from the Department of Defence.
Ooo… we’re cutting money on defence but giving money to foreigners… I see what you’re doing there.
Labor MPs feared asking Mr Rudd to trim his expanding budget would cause an internal fight despite having to find other savings which had hurt families.
My heart bleeds for the families on a combined income upwards of $150k. How dare those poor people living in absolute poverty with no access to education and clean water take money away from the Allardyces?
The bottom line of this story is that Kevin Rudd wants to keep this commitment to increase Australia’s foreign aid budget to 0.5% of GNI by 2015. He is apparently using his remaining political clout to lobby the government he is a part of to implement a policy he feels strongly about. So really, it’s an absolute non-story.
Besides, support for increases in foreign aid are bipartisan. Let’s hope it stays that way tonight.
Brown people: expensive
May 9
The Herald Sun is being outraged at brown people again:
Taxpayers to shoulder Julia Gillard’s ‘Malaysian Solution’
Taxpayers will fork out more than $50,000 for every refugee the Federal Government plans to bring to Australia from Malaysia under its new plan to stop illegal boat arrivals.
But they will have to pay more than $90,000 for every asylum seeker the Government now rejects.
I’m already have one cost cutting suggestion…
Sue Bolton from the Refugee Action Collective has another,
The costs of processing asylum seekers could be reduced, Ms Bolton said, by allowing some low-risk applicants to live within the community while they are assessed rather than mandatory detention.
So let’s say 5000 asylum seekers arrive by boat, 90% are accepted so 500 are found not to be refugees. Using the Herald Sun numbers if we just let to 500 found not to be refugees stay in Australia anyway, I just saved the Australian government $20,000,000. I imagine another several million could be saved by allowing asylum seekers to live in the community while being processed too.
Economic management!
Of course Scott Morrison was available for comment,
“Labor’s open borders and rolling detention crisis is consuming staff and resources at an insatiable rate, with taxpayers forced to write a blank cheque to underwrite the Government’s failure,” said Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison.
This was, and never will be, about money, Scott. I don’t believe in hell, but if I did I am sure the deepest, darkest circle of it would be reserved for you.
And Gillard is spending money to stop Asylum Seekers coming to Australia! (Outrage, etc…)
Australia is using Prime Minister Julia Gillard to spearhead an international advertising blitz with the slogan “don’t do it”, telling people smugglers and passengers in Indonesia, Afghanistan and Pakistan about its new plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia, where there are 93,000 people already in the queue.
The PM’s warning – “the truth is if you spend your money, you get on a boat, you risk your life, you don’t get to stay, you go to Malaysia, and you go to the back of the queue” – has been translated into Farsi, Dari, Pashto, Arabic and Bahasa Indonesian, and already broadcast.
As fellow Groupthink-er, Brides said on Twitter this morning,
 |
s_bridges Looked for the back of the immigration queue down the back of the couch. Found 20 cents and a crust of toast. 9/05/11 11:01 AM |
And don’t forget the poll:
YES/NO
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ILLEGAL REFUGEE, YOU FUCKING IGNORANT AND/OR DISINGENUOUS ARSEHATS!
In Herald Sun, Julia Gillard just can’t win. She spends money to stop Asylum seekers coming and she is criticized. She spends money on allowing them to come, she gets criticized.
This isn’t about money, it was never about money. If it was about money Tony’s plans to drag boats back to wherever they came from would have caused more outrage than anything. This is just the Herald Sun using not-so-subtle racism and xenophobia to play dirty politics.
And all the while the public debate in Australia forgets that there are real people, with real lives and genuine fears for their life fleeing to Australia in the hope of a new life.
This is a fight the ALP can’t win. Torn between their progressive base and the conservative votes they need to win seats in NSW and Queensland. No matter how “tough” they talk on “illegal immigration”, Tony Abbott can (and does) talk tougher. No matter what crazy, expensive and inhuman scheme Gillard concocts to discourage asylum seekers traveling to Australia via boat, the News Ltd tabloids find a negative way to frame it as being too soft on Asylum seekers, or too expensive to the tax payer.
With the terms of the debate being set by Tony Abbott and the News Ltd outrage machine, Gillard doesn’t stand a chance.
But the alternative is to present a vision which cuts through the agenda driven ‘journalism’ of News Ltd, which seeks to inspire and educate. N0t to just cater your policies to the lowest common denominator of Australian society, but to present a compelling and persuasive vision that can win the hearts and minds of voters.
And I gave up on Australian politics providing anything like that a long time ago.
The Herald Sun has run a story that even by it’s own standards is much ado about sod all.
Under the shocking headline “Julia Gillard won’t be attending the Melbourne Cup” the story reads:
THE race that stops the nation won’t stop Julia Gillard’s most important overseas meeting so far.
While the focus will be on Flemington for the 150th running of the Melbourne Cup on November 2, the PM will be in Jakarta for high-level meetings about regional and global challenges with Indonesian politicians, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Ms Gillard has instructed her staff to keep her regularly updated about events at Flemington while she holds talks about asylum seekers and people smuggling, security and anti-terrorism co-operation, the economy, environment, trade and education.
Ms Gillard leaves Australia next Friday to attend an Asian leaders summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, and has decided to squeeze in important meetings in Malaysia and Indonesia on her way home so she does not miss any sitting of Parliament.
Fair enough. The PM misses the Melbourne Cup to attend high level talks in Asia. Nothing wrong with that – so why does the Herald Sun then invite readers to comment with the following question: Should the PM be at the 150th Cup? Tell us below – despite the fact, as the story later points out that “No PM has attended the Melbourne Cup for many years.”
So what is the point of this story or the question posed to readers, apart from perhaps to provide an opportunity for people to take cheap shots.
Big red rock
Jun 29
Write a story about boobs, Aboriginals and a big red rock and you know only our wisest intellectuals are going to be qualified to comment.
As many of you are well aware by now, a French woman has gained publicity by tastefully stripping on Uluru in order to “pay her respect”. Or something. Some Aboriginal people are unhappy with this because the Uluru is sacred to them, but, you know, Aboriginal beliefs are all made up and not worth five cents in this country.
So naturally, the scourge of the modern media, The News Commenters, came out in full force to give their expert opinions on everything Aboriginal:
Please note – all spelling, grammar and opinions are 100% unedited.
Kellie sagely notes that Aboriginals have been holding bachelor parties on Uluru for years:
Kellie of Melbourne Posted at 8:41 AM June 28, 2010
Dont watch the video if your upset, dancing on Ayres Rock…so what. Are we saying that only the aborigines can run around naked and dancing in the outback. Double standards.
Robin H prefers deeply thought out beliefs:
Robin H of Locksley Posted at 8:57 AM June 28, 2010
What hypocrisy. Aboriginals in their traditional ceremonial attire wear no more than this lady did. Just shows how shallow these indigenous beliefs are.
A common theme is the ownership of the rock. Who wants to pitch in and send male strippers to Andrew Johnson’s house?
Andrew Johnson of Melton, Vic Posted at 8:57 AM June 28, 2010
Let’s get real. I think it is great. It isn’t their rock. It is Australia’s rock. Get over it you PC clowns.
Since when have white people stolen anything from the Aboriginies?
dave wood of melbourne Posted at 9:00 AM June 28, 2010
and when you look at how little clothing most of the aboriginals wear as traditional you have to wonder why they are so petty and trivial about uluru…it’s not as if someone is gonna pinch your goddamn scummy rock now, is it? for crying out loud get a life and stop being nit-pickers over every bloody thing you wish you owned or was aboriginal!!!!!!!
I can’t actually work out what this means:
Atheist of friom the high ground Posted at 9:05 AM June 28, 2010
How dumb!!! Fancy thinking that any piece of matter is more important than any other .The equation E=MC2 is the same through out the cosmos .And the practice of not talking about those that have passed before! Well if you don,t want to have history and to improve your life style that,s one way to keep your potential back
White Aboriginals? Where have I heard this before?
David of Tassie Posted at 9:32 AM June 28, 2010
Ayers Rock !! I do not call it Uluru, just another bit of BS plolitical correctness. Please, it is a ROCK !! I imagine lots of things more SHOCKING have happened there over the years. I think the White aboriginies that are the main drivers behind all this crap should get a life. I am sure if you asked the real aborigines about it they would not give a rats. But then again, ooohhh another thing someone can say sorry about and not really mean hey Kevvy …
Elbo disputes the entire concept of traditional ownership.
Elbo of Wodonga , Vic Posted at 9:41 AM June 28, 2010
Grow up. it is just an f’ing rock. And it belongs to me as much as any “traditional” owner. I say she is welcome to perform on it.
Yeah! People walk on graves all the time! They probably dance on them too! Better call MTR and whip up some outrage!
Mchael of Melbourne of Melbourne Posted at 9:46 AM June 28, 2010
She is welocme and good don her. Only the silly aboriginal groups looking for more freebees would carry on about this. People walk on other peoples graves unwittingly every day in Australia’s cemetries, where’s the uproar there? Getting sick of these bludging indigenous peoples. It’s Ayres Rock to me too!
The concept of black people owning things remains morbidly unthinkable for Rob:
Rob of Melb Posted at 10:26 AM June 28, 2010
What offends me is that I am an Australian and I have pay to see a rock that was there before any aboriginal was around. The nude chic should stay as she also paid to see the rock.
Final comment goes to Daffyd of Sunbury:
Chin up…at least she shaved.
After reading all the comments Molesworth was left to wonder how many of these city dwellers claiming ownership of Uluru (sorry, Ayers Rock, the real name it had for a little over one hundred years of its million year history) also dispute the mining tax? Uluru belongs to everyone but minerals belong to the mining companies, apparently. One wonders how long it will be before mining companies claim to be the “traditional owners” of Australia’s mineral wealth.
(To be fair, there were many comments pointing out how far she’d go if she tried stripping in the Vatican but what they don’t realise is unlike Dreamtime beliefs which date back tens of thousands of years, Catholicism is completely real and certainly not made up 2000 years ago.)
Remember the @SourceBottle twitter account’s call for mortgage-stress families in the wake of an interest rates rise? Well, here’s today’s @SourceBottle call in response to the government’s decision to cancel the building of promised childcare facilities:
As @Jen_Bennett noted earlier this afternoon, after a @SourceBottle call on behalf of the Herald Sun for “anyone refusing to celebrate ANZAC Day”:
I’m thinking Source Bottle is rapidly becoming an excellent place for pre-emptive journalistic embarrassment.
Word.
Yesterday’s Herald Sun carried the lurid headline – “John Howard’s Revenge”. Unfortunately, the former PM comes off as a ‘funny uncle’ masquerading as a hardened culture warrior. That’s what happens when you’re over the hill and you believe your own hype.
Two of Howard’s claims — the the Rudd government has engaged in “symbolism” and high-spending, are entirely true. The problem for Howard, however, is that there is nothing wrong with symbolism per se. Moreover, if Howard had been in power during the GFC, the recession in Australia would almost certainly have been worse. Workchoices would have exacerbated current problems of unemployment and underemployment. Even the current Federal opposition does not deny that it would have spent money of a stimulus package, but rather, merely quibbles about the amount.
Howard is particularly critical of the stimulus package: “Mr Rudd will say he had the global financial crisis to handle. Well, courtesy of us, he was well endowed with money in the bank.”
Actually, it was courtesy of Howard and Costello that Australia was left with a structural deficit in the budget, in effect making budget surpluses dependent upon record (and unsustainable) revenues from mineral exports. That’s the real Howardian ‘legacy’ – casualisation of Australia’s labour force, and ‘fiscal prudence’ predicated on a unique, temporary and entirely contingent set of economic circumstances.
So there you have it. Howard is predictable and completely ineffectual in any debate without a team of News Ltd trollumnists behind him. And the Herald Sun can’t even do Sunday sensationalism like it used to. Until the Sunday Hun can let us know which strip joints Howard attends, the man should be wheeled back out to pasture.
Slippery slope
Nov 3
Whatever could this strange appearance on the Herald Sun front page mean, and what does it signal for the future of News Ltd papers in Australia?
We all know that Rupert Murdoch is very keen to expand his empire into China, but how does replacing “am” with the Chinese language equivalent help his cause?