Well well.  After trying his best to destroy the credibility of the ABC when he was the Chair, insisting they buy ang screen a film that denied global warming this dangerous fool, a senior advisor to the Prime Court Jester, is now informing the Government and the Australia people that the IPCC is corrupt and the climate change "lobby" is a money making venture by a criminal gang.  

If this wasn't all happening it would be a laugh but the continuing move to make Australia backward is actually gathering pace.  Newman was appointed a Special Advisor by the generally clueless Abbott based on his solid Conservative credentials.  I'd love to hear what he is good at.
He has advice to give on working arrangements too.  He looks back fondly to Work Choice and he will no doubt have advice on how to reimplement it with a different name this avoiding, in his tiny mind, the problem of the smell associated with it last time.
Let's get this lot as far away as possible from the governments of this country before more damage is done.

​Here we go into the silly season of bubbles and cheer.  It might also be a time for reflection.

For Australians, hopefully, it will be a time to think - what have we done.  Here is a short list:

The planet's most vulnerable people the global refugees are now untouchables and unmentionables.
Climate change policy has been reversed while China, Brazil, the US and all of Europe have measures in place.  The Shanghai carbon exchange opened with a huge day of trading.
Our lowest paid workers got their super removed while Clive Palmer got mega dollars to open the biggest greenhouse gas emitting coal mining and distribution centre in the world.
Greg 'Minister for telling lies' Hunt closed the marine parks by press release on a weekend.  He continues to do damage even though he knows what he is doing; that is more evil than his puppet-master who has no idea what he is doing.
The ABC and SBS are in danger of being sold off to please Rupert, the ultimate puppet-master.
Joe Hockey confects all sorts of outrage while going further into the debt he once derided.  But it's not his fault.  He doesn't have a clue how it works.  Like Abbott he knew how to snarl, bark and bite but don't get him into the area of policy.
Confused about the NBN?  You should be as the lies they told prior to the election are catching up here too.

It's all a sorry state of affairs but as Matt has argued below one that we needed to realise how well we were doing.  As usual it is the most vulnerable that will pay while the top 2% of wealth owners will get richer and fatter and eat up more of our atmosphere.  Their wealth belongs to us but they paid Abbott and co to convince us that taxes for mining, in place in most mining territories in the world, would be VERY BAD for us.

While we are going backwards here and the awful Greg Hunt in the service of the even more dreadful Tony Abbott think that their turinig back the clock on climate change has some validity check out this piece pointed to by cousin Larry from the New York Times. You see Greg and Tony this is not a fight between the political parties for power - it is an urgent call to action for all of us.

Yesterday between twenty five and thirty thousand people of all ages gathered in Treasury Gardens to express their dismay over the changes to the arrangements on carbon pricing.  Not that you would know about this from reading one of our increasingly irrelevant print media - the Age had the (Age sponsored) fun run on their front cover and the Murdoch rubbish had a small item about a small crowd in Sydney braving the rain to demonstrate their support.

Tim Flannery, Adam Bandt and Greg Butler spoke - the evil Greg Hunt was invited but declined to appear.  The attack dog Pyne just moments ago gagged debate in the House on the issue.  This is the democracy we now have and deserve having elected this mob.
I don't know personally anybody ho admits to voting for them but I wouldn't.
It still is a terrible indictment of our media when no mention is made of something so important and made much of all around the country by so many.
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STOP buying or reading their propaganda.  Don't give them the oxygen.  Let's work together to make them just an aberration, a footnote in our history

That superannuated and self confident ex PM of Australia, John Howard, has been lecturing the British, straight out of the Merchants of Doubt handbook.  It seems yhat even though he went to the 2007 election with a carbon trading scheme this was because of pressure from the electorate and no because he believed in it.  Now he can reveal that Tonee Abbot won the last election in part because of his fervent denial of global warming.  Let's hope that those two rats are the first to drown when the seas rise.

To add to the irritation I saw Smokin' Joe Hockey on 7:30 report last night looking confident and friendly as he insisted that with repeal of the carbon pricing mechanism there would be an instant 9% drop in electricity prices.  If that were to happen it might point to a massive conspiracy between electricity generator/distributors and the then opposition.  The electricity crowd meanwhile came out publicly and said it was more complicated then the repeal issue and it would take some time o flow through.
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Minister for telling lies and the Environment the awful and light weight Greg Hunt appears on tv every night seeming reasonable and unburdened by the facts about anything and smiles into camera and reassures us that the green lobby "lies" are jut that, so don't you worry your pretty little head about it. 

For a much more balanced and intelligent piece on the role of the media in bringing down a PM read this piece in the Conversation by Dennis Muller who has been an Age person and used to work with Irving Saulwick on the Saulwick polls. Isn't it amazing how the media that were baying for the downfall of Julia Gillard and wanting to replace her with St Kevin suddenly have pieces about her great legacy and how dysfunctional he was and possibly still is.
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Meanwhile for something much more uplifting and sane Google for President Obama's climate change speech at Georgetown University.  Direct, factual and impassioned.  "we don't have time for the flat earthers".

So much has happened in such a short time politically speaking with a back to Kevin07 while we are assured that he has learnt his lessons and will be a more collegiate leader this time around.  Time will tell.  If all that comes out of this mess is that some Labor seats are saved from the landslide many were expecting then will it have been worth it?  Not for me.

I read an ex Age scribe in the Conversation today continuing to heap vitriol on Ms Gillard - where has Mr Carney been hiding and who does he think he is fooling?  As I have written o n numerous occasions Julia Gillard was one of the best PMs seen in this country post WWII and I thank her for all she achieved and managed under very difficult circumstances.  Even if she had control of both Houses the achievements would have been outstanding and memorable.

Now it is up to each and every on of us to make sure the landmark achievements of her time at the head of government are not filtered off and discarded.
Getup have a campaign going on the issue of carbon pricing and letting the MP's and Senators know where we stand.  

Unlike what we read in our media, the fact is that the majority of Australians want carbon to be priced and want our government to have a policy that addresses climate change. It is up to us to make sure that our reps know this and know that it will inform the way we vote and act.
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Rudd dropped carbon trading last time around and in two speeches  extolling the contributions that Ms Gillard made didn't mention the passage of either the carbon pricing or the minerals and resources rental tax.  This made me uneasy.  Come on Kevin - if you want to stay there get it right and soon.

​When I started this site the aim was to write about books and to share opinions with readers and writers.  With the advent of reality I have found myself writing more, and reading more, about the issue of the day, month and year; what we are doing to our planet and what the planet is doing to adjust.
The most curious response comes from those who willfully deny the reality that confronts all of us. And why?
There are those, and many of them, who have just bought into the paid for denial put out by the many credible looking but not credible on close examination like the buffoon Monckton and our very own Professors Carter and Plymer neither of whom have relevant expertise.
Ranged against these truly evil men are the 99% of climate scientists who are in heated agreement (pun intended) that what is obvious from all the scientific data is that the globe is warming faster than was thought by the IPCC even a few years ago and that we are now beyond tipping point and into the phase of coping strategies.
In the case of the cynical political Right these are made up again of the don't get it (Joyce, Bernardi) and the short term opportunists (Abbot, Hockey).
As there are now protocols following the various examples of war time atrocities in the 20th Century will we see an equivalent in the 21st Century for the crime of climate denial?  Because that is what pretending that we are not on the edge of an abyss amounts to.  And if you have political power or desire it then it is incumbent on you to be direct, honest and not self-serving (in the short term) to enable solutions.
In the real world much is changing without governments and to a degree with governments.  Residents and businesses are cutting their demand for electricity and changing the ways they do things like the lighting they employ and generally being more aware of their carbon footprints.  Interestingly as the demand for electricity goes down the price goes up so what we are seeing is the paradox of less demand and more price gouging which in Australia is more fuel for the liars to blame carbon pricing as the driver for these increases. How much damage will need to be done to our lives, environment and being before some sense is brought to bear on this question?
Our media must carry as big a responsibility as our nakedly ambitious and stupid politicians.  Print, radio and TV push the line that there is an active debate with two sides - is climate change real?  The perpetrators of this idea of "news" as entertainment should be the first in the dock or at least at the same time as the pollies.
Then there are the self interested big polluters who not only don't care about the rest of us but also don't care for their own children and grandchildren.  They want to own the Titanic but not travel on it.  Sorry guys, not possible.

Everybody is expecting an Abbot victory in September and the media have already anointed him - the old saying that a week is a long time in politics should remind us all that only in places like Fiji can be taken for given. 

With the media going LibNat full time and full tilt it is up to us in the electronic media to show some balance.
Elections are rarely lost in the part of the cycle we are in.  
Australia's economic indicators are among st the best in the world with unemployment low.
The historically high dollar has hurt exports and the decline in mining revenues are factors but not ones that are credited by any of the chattering class.

Meanwhile we have had one of the most productive governments in recent history with a slew of legislative and policy triumphs against a background of negativity, sleaze and possible corruption.  The Slipper matter has a long way to go but has already implicated Mal Brough and it would be a massive act of will to not see Pyne and Abbott in the equation.

While the government had delivered social programs like the dental and disability schemes, environmental programs like the mining resources tax and the carbon trading arrangements they have been opposed by not just a negative opposition but one that willfully spreads disinformation and mis-truths that are eagerly reported by a slavish press without comment or demurral.  "Australia is going it alone" when in fact 5 billion people live in jurisdictions with carbon trading and the US would if President Obama could get it through the Republican House.

What is lost in all of this is a discussion that is informed by science.  Science that informs us of what is happening in the real world and not what can be spun from the offerings of vested interests or paid mouthpieces of the fossil fuel industry. Our media likes to debate the issue as if there are two sides with valid claims. News and information as entertainment not as a report on reality.
The reality I find beyond the pale is one I hope will not come to pass.  An Abbott government with all the destruction he promises in public let alone what he says he will do behind closed doors in promises to his wealthy mates.
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There is still time - a week can be a long time.

​We all know about the pink batt scandal don't we?  A government putting up a ridiculous program at massive cost to put silly PINK (OMG) batts in people's roofs.  What a blatant waste of cash at the tax payer's expense and further evidence (if it were Needed) to show up the incompetence of the Labor Government.  This is at least the conventional wisdom repeated over and over by the baying hounds of the right and unquestioned by a supine and grovelling Press.
The real story is very very different.  As part of the stimulus package that helped Australia keep jobs, drive the economy and make an environmental difference, the government gave subsidies to households to insulate them and thus make warmer (in winter) and cooler (in summer) environments thus allowing them to use less energy for the same result.  I have yet to see any figures that show the outcomes.  The idea was sound and a great deal of insulation went in
Some unscrupulous installers took advantage of the ready funds and used untrained personnel to do (in a very minute number of cases) a shoddy job that resulted in some fires and even the death of installers.
These practises were and are unacceptable and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
HOWEVER equating bad behaviour with a bad scheme is like saying that a government that builds roads should be held to account for bad driving on those roads and be responsible for the deaths and accidents that happen there.
Every murderer in state prisons went to school and so the schools should  be closed down immediately.
The easy sound bite has replaced civilised debate and discourse.  It is easier and more memorable to insult, deride and slander than to really engage in debate with knowledge and research.
I witnessed a doctor interviewing a patient today and while she was thorough and patient she didn't have access to all the patient records she needed to do her ob properly.  She rang the GP who had referred the patient but that part of the practice was closed already.  With the NBN and a national medical register all would have been accessible in a moment instead of the now multiple visits, letters and phone calls and the delay in treatment.
Mr Abbott assures us that with HIS plan for broadband we will (most of us living in big cities) be able to watch four different HD TV programs at the same time in a family home.  Malcolm Turnbull., singing from the same song sheet, was smart enough to know that there is more to broadband than watching TV.
Wait and see what the impact is on what used to be called programming.
Yes, it's a long time to September; long enough for the Pretender to be exposed countless times and for Australians to learn who is looking after the store.