Australia has lost its lustre.

This is not the Australia I came to 62 years ago, it has changed, but not for the better. What is worse, we have reached the point of no return. And, we have people in our midst who don’t integrate and assimilate into the Australia culture and conspire to impose their culture and Sharia law on us. Our food suppliers have been conned with the exorbitant Halal registration, and this is passed on to Australian consumers.

The sentiments expressed by Renny Carter below reflect mine and, I’m sure for every true blue Australian as well. He is spot on with what he wrote.  I have written about the bloody mindedness of our unions many times before. They are to blame for the bulk of our manufacturing section and their jobs “migrating” overseas, mainly to China and other Asian countries. The only affluent Australians now are the politicians, Ex-Prime ministers, top public servants and bank and big business executives, with their exorbitant salaries, perks and golden handshakes. The rest of us mere mortals are on Struggle Street. The politicians have no compunction about increasing their own salaries, but are extremely reluctant to increase the pension by a few paltry dollars.

We are grossly over governed in Australia, and at great expense. We have a Governor General and the state governors. While Peter Cosgrove was an excellent choice for GG,   I’m asking, why do we need a Governor General, or for that matter state governors? They are expensive nonessentials loaded with perks, and their duties could be carried out more cheaply by a public servant.

The government wants to rein in costs in order to liquidate debts accrued by the previous government and, to eliminate those positions would save a heck of a lot of money.

But, more money could be saved, take Tasmania for example. They have a population of half a million; are broke and depend on the mainland taxpayer to function. Yet, they have 21 Members of Parliament, 6 state Senators, 12 federal Senators, 5 Federal Members of Parliament and 29 regional councils. (Have I missed any?) No wonder they are broke.  But there are other Australian states which are in a similar situation as Tasmania.

Two regional councils are all that would be needed to govern Tasmania and that would save us a bundle. Look at the amount of money that would be freed for worthy causes, Joe Hockey! - Werner
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Please Note!  On Saturday 4th of April at 10 am at the Fogarty Park Cairns, there is the “Reclaim Australia Rally”. Please attend if you can. See Facebook, Click here.
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Australia? She's rooted mate!
By journalist Renny Carter,
 You can say what you like but Australia is rooted folks. Completely rooted. There are some things that we cannot recover from and one of them is seven years of Labor follies and free-for-all spending. This time - unlike past times- they have simply gone too far. There's some stuff you just cannot recover from.

No Liberal Government can work miracles with what they have been left with this time. It took Howard and Costello 10 years to pay off the last Labor debt. But that was a paltry 80 billion, give or take a quid.

In the meantime, Australia has a new population of freshly 'adult' bogans who were 12 when Kevin hit the rostrum pounding out his already tired and undeliverable slogans to the 'faithful'- who are now of course unable to get a job. But able to vote Labor. You have a new raft of university students working their way through Student Councils and Socialist Alliances doing psychology and Arts degrees with no real hope of ever getting a job using them.

I spoke to a kid in our town the other day, a lovely little girl with two degrees in psychology who simply cannot get a job in anything that involves psychology - so she works as a waitress in a coffee shop for 10 dollars an hour and has done so for the past three years. It's the only work she can get despite going for a million non related jobs last year. And there are bus loads of other kids in the same boat.

As I type this, Australian icons like GM-H are being torn down in Melbourne and Adelaide. These once highly productive buildings are hitting the ground - one by one. In a few weeks, the buildings where our Nation's car was manufactured will just be dusty paddocks being salivated over by men who develop $500,000 two bedroom concrete apartments.

Even Ford, which had proudly produced Australian versions of the global brand for 90 years this year, is being pulled apart and sent to Sims the scrap metal man. Thousands of workers can never expect to get a job in the car industry again. Okay, perhaps if you are 60 - but not if you are 37. Finished. Sure you will still be able to buy a ‘Ford’ or a 'Holden', except it will be a European or American Ford and a Taiwanese or Korean Holden that is in fact a Chev.

The sad thing about this is that I am old enough to remember being driven down the High Street in my father's lime green and white Holden FB to see the unveiling of the fabled EH in 1964, which had been under a sheet in the window of Burnside and McClure for an agonising 48 hours.The whole bloody suburb had turned out. I was 10. You could have unveiled Sophia Loren giving the Italian Navy one next door and every eye would have been watching as the Actil was pulled off the mint green Station Wagon Premier. (Oooh! It's called a- a - Premier! - gasped one faint mother) its iridescent flanks gleaming as the door was flung open to reveal... leather seats! A thousand young bottoms which had only ever felt hot vinyl gasped as well.

More gasps from the faint mothers. We looked at the badges - a 179 cubic inch monster rested beneath the glassy bonnet threatening to destroy the four inch cross-ply tyres . I thought, “Wow - Australia is a great place to be”.Now imagine that happening outside a Hyundai showroom today. Nah - the dream is gone. Our dreamtime is over. We have nothing to look forward to. Even the Bogan faithful are strangely torn  - no more V8s and no more Ford v Holden punch ups. 'Loife's a bitch'.
 
There are literally hundreds of other factories too that have taken down the shingles- unable to make anything in this country anymore because margins and unbending union demands have made the fight a waste of time and a waste of whatever dough is left over. Which isn't much.

Meanwhile, the unions under Labor came back like a freight train with a dose of herpes and did as much damage as they could in seven years, which is why several have been sent to jail and the others are flat out with their lawyers trying to explain away how they needed $500k salaries and prostitutes and trips to Paris to do their jobs effectively.

And idiots like Shorten not only helped to put them in power - but backed them when the shit hit the fan. They produce nothing. They simply destroy when unshackled by a government rabble that spawned them.

New Zealand is a winner though. They work for a bit less than we do and factories are moving there and for the first time in decades they are really producing stuff. And their dollar is on the up as a result. But we will wallow in the self pity of the global crisis, which was Rudd’s and Swan's favourite two words, and blame it on the rest of the world.

Even our mining sector is slowly sinking into the unknown. Prices are down for iron ore because other countries have gotten on to the band wagon and China doesn't care where it comes from as long as it is cheap. You can even buy our gas in China cheaper than you can buy it here. Go figure! So Melbourne and Sydney aren't quite Detroit just yet.

But visit You Tube and take a look at Detroit these days and you can see the end result of things that get stuffed up by people. With no hope of a transfusion. No pulse at all. Completely rooted.

And Labor wants to get back. And there are a shitload of morons who are waiting to vote them back in too. And when asked the other day about what his dream for Australia is when he gets in - Shorten said, "Everybody is somebody”. Can you believe it? Sadly Bill that ain't gunna cut it you moron! Then he rabbited on about more university education and free university education which as I've just pointed out Bill is bloody useless because there are no friggin' jobs mate! Thanks to you lot and the bloody greedy unions and their even greedier bloody union bosses.

Like I said, brace yourself, because if these suckers get back in we are really rooted. But be comforted in the knowledge that, according to the man who wants your vote, 'Everybody is somebody'. F**k! I feel so rosy just knowing that. Worse still, it's the sort of thing that idiot Kevin Rudd would say.

There is an upside though. Clive, the man who loved to be called a billionaire is apparently down to his last 200 mil. The Titanic has sunk, the dinosaurs are out to pasture and the resort is getting a repaint. Or it has been mothballed. I get the feeling that when he runs out of the green stuff altogether, he might have trouble staying in Canberra. If only Shorten could go the same way.***
My thought for today.
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers. Nikita Khrushchev
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My French Connection.

I want to share a story from my life with you; from the time

when I was a teenager. No TVs, smart phones or other mod cons then, and life was less hectic, less complicated and more relaxed than today.  However, I was never bored as I had hobbies and was an avid reader, which I still am today. I was always keen to learn about new things to accumulate knowledge.  I was also relentless in asking questions.

There is no better way to learn than by asking questions about how and why this or that is so or done etc. I must have driven people to exasperation at times by asking them questions – however, asking questions hasn’t left me to this day. I had (I still have) the propensity to do things my way without asking whether I could do it or not. Needless to say, this was causing my parents and grandparents consternation and anxieties – and also brought me into trouble. Here is one of these stories.  I hope you find it amusing, although it was not so at the time. – Werner
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PS: There is an old German song  that starts with: Schön ist die Jugend, aber sie kommt nicht mehr zurück“. Meaning, adolescence is beautiful,  but it never returns. Thus, my thought for the day at the bottom.
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Here is my story “My French connection”.
My propensity to make unilateral decisions as a youngster often resulted in undesirable consequences. My self-assured thinking and my tendency never to ask whether I could or should, in order to avoid a negative response, was more than often a great concern to my parents and grandparents.

The time was 1945; the end of world war two, and our State was occupied by French occupation forces. We were a farming community and each farm had its own distillery to make schnapps from grapes and fruit, such as cherries, plums and apples, the sale of which brought in extra income.

Through my occasional riding around on my pushbike, I became acquainted with a French soldier with a somewhat dark complexion, who often went for a walk along the road when off duty. He conversed with me in very limited German and sometimes asked for a short ride on my bike. Perhaps, I was a bit naïve and gullible – or both – and I never suspected that there could be an ulterior motive behind his quest to befriend me. One thing was certain; I would never have trusted him in a dark alley.

One day, like a bolt out of the blue, he asked me if I could supply him with some Schnapps. "Schnapps?" I repeated with some surprise and incredulity. "What’s in it for me?" I asked myself. Hold on a second, though, we need petrol for the spray pump. "Can you supply me with petrol?" I asked him cautiously. "Yes," was his emphatic reply.

We agreed to exchange four litres of Schnapps for twenty litres of petrol. This was a clandestine operation and he suggested that he deliver the petrol in bottles so that the ‘trading’ remained inconspicuous – after all, he had to pilfer the stuff, and keeping the action quiet was paramount. Taking Schnapps from my family without their knowledge (which in the end would be to their benefit anyway) never caused me to think that what I intended to do was tantamount to pilfering – never, because I was part of that family.

We stored our distilled alcohol in big twenty- to thirty-litre glass bottles, protected on the outside with a wicker basket-like cage, and taking out a few litres of Schnapps would not have been easily detected. Since this was a top secret operation we needed a ‘drop zone’ where this covert exchange would take place, and we decided that the spot would be under a certain thicket in the nearby forest. I know it might appear that I plagiarized an episode from a popular spy thriller but this was certainly not the case.

Like a chess player, I was thinking a couple of moves ahead, and I anticipated that my family elders ultimately would have wanted to know where on earth I got that petrol from, and what it had cost. I would be ready with my answer. "I received the petrol in return for letting the French soldier ride on my bike." I already visualized the pleasantly surprised look on the faces of my parents and grandfather. On the other hand, perhaps I was just kidding myself. The thought that I might be engaging in a game of brinkmanship with unforeseen consequences never entered my mind. The desire to surprise my family with the much-needed petrol overrode my capacity for rational thinking.

When nobody was home, I filled up four bottles of Schnapps – that clear-as-water liquid which was drunk for different reasons – the most common being for medicinal purposes, such as helping with digestion, getting intoxicated to forget all your troubles, and of course at the same time killing your intestinal worms.

The bottled and corked product was now put in my long trouser legs – two bottles in each leg – with the shoe end of the trousers tightly fastened together with string. Thus I was able to kill three flies with one stroke: the secret operation stayed secret, I didn’t lose the bottles, and I could ride my bike to the ‘drop zone’ without arousing suspicion. With my trouser legs emptied of the secret cargo, and my ‘deposit’ placed in the pre-determined hiding place, my part of the contract was fulfilled. In due course, I would be in possession of my petrol. Or so I thought.

When I returned a few hours later, full of expectations to see some ‘bottled petrol’ where I put the Schnapps, I discovered to my shock that the Schnapps had disappeared, but no petrol had appeared in its place. It was a case of the nest being empty and the bird having flown. I wondered if the fellow was caught pilfering and was now under arrest or perhaps he hadn’t found an opportune moment to do the ‘bottling’, or perhaps he was just sick. Regular checks of the thicket over a few days produced the same result – nothing. I found it odd that the soldier didn’t seem to go for walks anymore, and despite riding my bike back and forth in front of the army compound never saw a glimpse of him. Asking for him was out of the question for obvious reasons. There must be a reason I thought, perhaps he had drunk all the Schnapps in one hit and not only killed his worms, but himself as well.

Gradually, however, I started to suspect a con with a capital C, when suddenly after a week or so I ran into him while walking on the road. "What happened to my petrol?" I demanded angrily. He was able to convince me with his spurious excuses that he had been sick and unable to get the petrol, but he assured me "I’ll get it for you in a day or so." Unfortunately I hadn’t yet learned to mistrust people – even a former enemy. So when he asked me once more if he could have the bike for a ride I foolishly consented, and watched him disappear out of sight. After waiting for some time for him to return the bike, I somewhat dejectedly walked home. When I hadn’t got my bike back by nightfall, I decided there was no alternative, but to tell my parents and my grandfather what had happened.

Having given some consideration to the situation I found myself in, I decided that the time had arrived when I had to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the affair. Knowing quite well my capability to pull off such capers and make decisions on my own, the family ‘executive’ was not unduly shocked, and afforded me some allowance for my good intentions. Grandfather reported the matter to the local constable who was stationed in the next village two kilometres away. The man in blue duly arrived on his bicycle at our place and asked me a series of questions, and subsequently reported the matter to the local French Commandant.

Soon afterwards, the local Commandant turned up at our home with two officers, one being the interpreter. He was really friendly and the whole matter was discussed in an amiable atmosphere. They showed me a few photos from which I identified my would-be petrol supplier. From their body language, it appeared that particular soldier had come to their attention on previous occasions. As they bade us goodbye, they offered to supply us with some petrol. We found this amazing: what a nice way to foster good relations with a former enemy. I don’t know what happened to the soldier, but I never encountered him again.

The French Commandant was not the same loquacious firebrand who gave my father a lecture for failing to remove his hat at a flag-lowering ceremony. (That is another story). Interestingly this friendly commandant, after retiring from the army, settled in the neighbouring village two kilometers away with his German wife. His hobby was bee keeping and, incidentally, so was mine. Our mutual interest brought us together again and we formed an excellent relationship. Over many cups of coffee and glasses of wine we talked ‘bees’ and reminisced about the petrol and Schnapps affair. It just goes to show how situations, circumstances and attitudes can change within a short time span – former enemies can become friends.
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My thought for today.
Time is like a river. You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again. Enjoy every moment of life. - Anon
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Why Oppose the Building of a Mosque?

Well, yes, that is a very good question, and Harry Richardson, a long-time student of Islam and author of the best seller, "The Story of Mohammed - Islam Unveiled' will answer it for you. This is an interesting “insight” and should be read by every non Muslim and true blue Australian. It is not only thought provoking, but is also very worrisome. Here is a link to the above mentioned book. – Werner
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Why Oppose the Building of a Mosque?
By Harry Richardson
In local councils across Australia, and indeed most of the Western World, applications are pending for the building of new Mosques. Until recently, these applications would have been approved with little more than a rubber stamp and a few suggestions as to local planning.

Today however, things have changed. Mosque applications have become rallying points for community anger and hostility. Demonstrations and campaigns are becoming commonplace. There appears, in each of these disputes, a three way split with the bewildered councillors stuck squarely in the middle. On the 'yes' side, we naturally have the Muslims who have purchased the land and want to build the mosque. On the 'no' side is a group of strident residents and activists who are implacably opposed to it.

Then, also on the 'yes' side are those who sympathise with the Muslims who, as they see it, simply want to build a place of worship and should have the right to do so in a free society. For convenience, I will refer to this group as the allies. In the main, the allies seem to view the protesters as uncultured rabble, motivated by racism and hatred of anything alien to their own small minded world. They consider them to be uneducated and acting from ignorance. They reason that if these protesters understood more of the ways of other cultures they would discover them harmless. They believe these protesters might then discover aspects of this culture (such as tolerance, for instance) from which they could in fact learn.

On the surface, this would seem a very reasonable stance for the allies to take, but as we start to dig a little deeper, we find that things are not quite what they seem. For a start, we soon find that the allies themselves have no knowledge of Islam whatsoever. What they do know has been successfully sold to them by Islamic spokespersons. They do not take the time or make the effort to search beyond the Islamic line. Ironically, many of the protesters have actually taken the time to educate themselves about Islam from the authentic Islamic sources and contemporary teachings. Here are some of the reasons why we find many of these teachings to be deeply troubling.

What is a mosque?
It is vitally important to understand what a mosque represents in Islam. A mosque is not like a church or a temple, it is much more than a place for Muslims to simply worship their God (Allah). Mosques are modelled on the first mosque established by Mohammed in Medina which was a seat of government, a command centre, a court, a military training centre and an arms depot. Mosque leaders today raise religious decrees, enforce Islamic doctrine, monitor conduct, punish transgressors and command actions including requirements to conduct Jihad.

A mosque is much more than a church. In light of this, we need to answer these two simple questions:1) Why are so many mosques being built? 2) Why do mosques have capacities much greater than the local Muslim communities could fill?

Turkey.
The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, understood the military nature of a mosque when he stated: “A mosque is our barracks, the domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets and the faithful are our soldiers."

Islam’s founder, the Prophet Mohammed, was not just a religious leader but a political and military one too. He raised armies and fought and killed people until he was the King of the whole of Arabia. The religion of Islam is entirely based on the example and teachings of Mohammed. Unlike any other major religion therefore, Islam is also a political and military force.

The Influence of the House of Saud.
Mohammed was the guardian of Islam in the seventh century. Today that responsibility rests with the Saudi Royal Family or the House of Saud. The two holiest Islamic sites in Mecca and Medina are under its control.The late king, Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, understood this when he wrote “The efforts of the servant of the two Holy Places support the Muslim Minorities.”The Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) is the vehicle which the late king created to establish the Islamic World Caliphate. It is Saudi Foreign Policy and Jurisprudence from the Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs.

In the words of King Fahd, mosques, educational centres and Islamic bodies like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) are all geared towards hindering Muslim assimilation into non-Muslim nations so they can act as a fifth column to bring victory to Islam. In 1965 during the pilgrimage or Hajj, the World Association of Muslim Youth or WAMY was created to work toward this end and for the non-Muslim world; IMMA or the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs was born. WAMY and IMMA were a collaboration of the Wahhabist and Muslim Brotherhood led by: 1) Said Ramadan, the son-in-law of the Muslim Brotherhood founder and, 2) Abdullah Omar Naseef, a wealthy, suspected Al-Qaeda financier.

The House of Saud and the funding of terrorism.
In May 2008, Robert Spencer’s website “Jihad Watch” reported that the Saudis had spent over $US100 billion on this project over the three previous decades.These funds were used to build mosques to fund the payroll of Imams and to build Islamic schools. They were also apparently intended to corrupt the education system through the funding of universities and the rewriting of school text books to favour Islam while denigrating Christianity and Western achievements. According to this article, the late king Fahd bin Abd al Aziz and his family had personally donated hundreds of millions of dollars to groups like Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Prince Salman, a full brother of King Fahd controlled the International Islamic Relief Organization or IIMO and directly donated to Hamas. Prince Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz was a defendant in the September 11 trials and admitted to donating $US4 million to terrorist organisations like IIMO and WAMY.

Mosque building in Australia.
Now we can answer our questions. Question: Why are so many mosques being built?  Answer: Muslims currently have over 370 mosques in Australia which, per capita, is more than six times the number of Buddhist and Hindu temples. This could well be because the mosque is intended as a beachhead for Islam, a place to plan Jihad and to implement Sharia law. Question: Why do mosques have capacities that cater for far greater numbers than those in local Muslim communities? Answer: The mosque is deliberately built to dominate the neighbourhood to show the supremacy of Islam over Christianity and all other faiths.

Mosque teachings in Australia.
What is taught in the mosque comes directly from the Qur’an, the Hadith and Sira, and the 'Reliance of the Traveller', which is the Manual of Islamic Law. The Manual of Islamic Law teaches in Law O9.0 that it is a communal obligation for Muslims to wage Jihad to establish Islam as the religion and the law. In the Hadith of Muslim, book 41 No. 6985, Muslims are told to slaughter the Jews. There are many examples of these teachings being delivered in mosques which give cause for alarm.

1. On April 27 in the Preston mosque in Melbourne, an audio tape exists of brother Baha delivering a speech calling on Muslims to engage in Jihad against Australians (in line with Islamic Law O9.0)

2. Sheik Feiz Mohammed who teaches at a mosque in Auburn in Western Sydney, is on video calling for the mass slaughter of all Jews, while making pig noises. (This is perhaps inspired by?) the Hadith of Muslim book 41 No. 6985)

3. Sheik Hilaly of the Lakemba mosque, a former Grand Mufti of Australia, defended the rape of women who were not covered in acceptable Islamic dress. There is now evidence of a rape epidemic in Europe by Muslims because Islamic Sharia law does not penalise a Muslim for raping a non Muslim woman.

What must be done?
The conundrum for Law-makers in the West is that a mosque operates under the protection of religious freedom. This is unacceptable because a mosque is not just a religion, but also political centre and a place where legal rulings are made. Some of these rulings breach Australian law and ironically also call for the restriction of religious freedoms for all non-Muslims. Our politicians, law-makers, law enforcement officers and security agencies need to acquaint themselves with the teachings within mosques which, after all, are preaching their prophet’s Sharia law which is largely incompatible with Australian law.

Law-makers and law-enforcers must now turn their minds toward recognizing Islam as a political entity and remove the current protections Islam receives as a religion. Failure to do this is likely to end in serious political and societal consequences in the future.
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My thought for today. Being defeated is only a temporary condition; giving up is what makes it permanent. Marilyn vos Savant.
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The dilemma to governing Australia.

Despite the Abbott government winning the election with a large majority and trying to reduce the crippling Labor debt it inherited, it is stymied by an obstinate senate. Some of this motley crew of opposition or cross bench senators only got elected by a very small vote – yet they hold this government to ransom. We have to realise that this financial mess left by Labor cannot be fixed in just 12 month. Former Prime minister Paul Keating called them “unrepresentative swills” and I tend to agree.

The media, in particular the ABC, and a large number of journalists are constantly agitating and trying hard to undermine Tony Abbott. Sure he made some mistakes – don’t we all? Giving Prince Philip another title was one of them, but that shouldn’t be a hanging offence. Outstanding from all this media frenzy to get Tony Abbott’s scalp and replace him with Malcolm Turnbull is a refreshingly supportive article by Miranda Devine, from The Telegraph. Not many people may get the Telegraph, so I’ll run it here.  Watch also the two videos: 1. Malcolm Turnbull’s dirty laundry. 2.  Behind the left's push to remove Abbott (a very enlightening speech from Lord Monckton) Please circulate this widely. Werner
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Toss out PM Tony Abbott, pay the price. by Miranda Devine The Telegraph. Sunday, March 01, 2015

UNLIKE a toaster, trading in your prime minister is not free of consequences. For the Liberal Party, tossing out Tony Abbott would be a disastrous breach of trust with the electorate; an ¬admission of catastrophic failure where none exists. It would vindicate the disastrous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era, and destroy the Liberals’ reputational advantage over Labor. It would cement the destructive idea that all political parties are run like oligarchies by people you wouldn’t invite into your home. And it could wreck the chances of a good Baird government romping home on March 28. Just three weeks after Abbott conclusively defeated the last attempted coup, the ongoing instability and poor sportsmanship of the plotters is lethal to the Liberal brand.

The “political bed-wetters” agitating for change pretend the transition from Abbott will be seamless because: a) the electorate won’t be surprised as his failings have been well-ventilated; and b) he is of good character and will not sabotage his successor. But it is wrong to assume voters will accept a democratically elected PM being cut down in his first term. The first question voters will ask is why? What has Abbott done wrong that such a drastic step is required? All we really have is Prince Philip’s gong. Less easy to - explain are ill-judged Budget policy formulation and complaints to do with the way he runs his office. These are serious problems but don’t justify removing him from office. It’s the party’s job to better manage its leader. But jettisoning the PM is the job of voters; no matter how often politicians say the job is the “gift” of the party.

Of course we know we’re voting for our local MP at election time, but people are not so stupid that they don’t also know they are voting by proxy for the PM, whose picture is plastered on how-to-vote cards and all over polling places. It is sophistry for a political party to pretend it can chop and change PMs without reference to voters. It can, but it will be punished. One consequence is that any new prime minister would be obliged to go to an early election in order to achieve legitimacy.

“We’ve seen that immediately after Kevin Rudd was stabbed by Julia Gillard there was enormous pressure on (her) to go to the polls,” Treasurer Joe Hockey tells me in an interview that was aired on 2GB. “Because it’s not a fixed-term parliament like NSW or Victoria there’s  nothing to stop you going to the polls, so there’d be unstoppable pressure in that regard ... even though, rightly, our party chooses the leader and deputy leader it is the nation that chooses its prime minister and it’s the nation that wants to have a say in who is the prime minister.” The government’s troubles began with the last budget and may ease with the next budget in May. That may explain the urgency of the plotters pushing for a denouement this week, spooked by a glimmer of a turnaround in the polls after an intently focused PM tried reconnecting with his base on counter-terrorism, welfare and border security.

The criticism he is copping now is as ferocious as before last month’s unsuccessful spill motion, but it is completely different. It now comes from the opportunistic anti-Abbott Left. The rest have looked at the alternatives and quietly recoiled. Hockey admits the 2014 Budget may have been “too ambitious … sometimes when a doctor sees a patient who is quite ill they can overprescribe or go to extremes to try to relieve the pain and ensure it doesn’t get worse,” he says. “Maybe we did that in the Budget. Maybe we moved too quickly in too many areas but we did so because it’s the right thing for the country.”

Hockey maintains that the intergenerational report to be released this week will justify the tilt at structural reform. “It will show the trajectory we were on before the last ¬budget, the trajectory we’re on now, and what we could have been on if we had got everything through in the Budget. People will be shocked,” he said. “We’ve come a very long way ... but there is still more work to be done if we want to fully afford our future.”

In NZ this week Abbott told of economic growth that has grown from 1.9 per cent to 2.7 per cent in a year, of export volumes up 7 per cent, housing approvals up 9 per cent, and new business registrations at an “all-time record high”.His innate humility and self-restraint mean he doesn’t blow his trumpet enough. Equally, his stubborn loyalty to his besieged treasurer and chief of staff seems suicidal. But as he stoically endures attacks from friend and foe, and fights valiantly for redemption, a grudging appreciation of his strength of character may emerge. A political leader unwilling to dump loyal liabilities to save himself is frustratingly unpragmatic, but uncommonly admirable. So, if Abbott’s colleagues allow him to survive to the next election, he will have achieved a miraculous resetting of politics, back from cynicism to virtue.

More from Miranda Devine.
This government has talent. Give them time to fix Australia!! More than a year ago Kevin Rudd was prime minister, talking to a stuffed toy in his last video message. That final act of eccentric narcissism summed up the farcical Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. It was never about the country. It was all about them. From the home insulation scheme that killed four young men to the jettisoned border protection that delivered 50,000 illegal boat arrivals, no institution was unscathed. And yet Rudd was hailed a great success in his first year, as he set in train the calamities which would saddle the nation with a $250 billion deficit.

He was the most popular prime minister in our history, so successful his party gave him two turns in the Lodge, despite his personality defects. By contrast, Abbott in his first year is slandered daily and trounced in opinion polls by Bill Shorten. Friend and foe denounce the Budget and declare their dissatisfaction with the government’s progress, as if he can magically fix in 12 months what Labor took six years to wreck.

The elite consensus is that our system of government is broken. But the Prime Minister disagrees. “It’s not the system which is the problem; it is the people who, from time to time, inhabit it,” Mr Abbott said last week.  Of course it’s the people. Governments and the market are not just machines that operate themselves.They need people of good character and competence to run them. Before we dig into the bucket of complaints about the first year of the Abbott government, consider the quality of the people on its benches. For starters, there are three Rhodes Scholars: Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and Angus Taylor.

Two more ministers have degrees from Oxford University : George Brandis QC, and Josh Frydenberg, who has the added distinction of a master’s degree from Harvard. Two other MPs also have master’s degrees from Harvard, among the seven MAs, two MPAs and four PhDs on the government benches. Two more have masters of philosophy from Cambridge.

Fulbright scholar Greg Hunt has an MA from Yale. Former WA treasurer Christian Porter has an impressive four degrees. And he’s a backbencher. Three government MPs are medical doctors, including Dr David Gillespie, a gastroenterologist who won independent Rob Oakeshott’s old seat of Lyne. He is also a farmer, one of 16 in government. There are also teachers, bankers, journalists, engineers, research scientists, economists, small business owners, a shearer, a carpenter, a wool classer, an air traffic controller and even a crocodile catcher. That real world diversity is a stark contrast to Labor benches, dominated by union officials, party administrators and political consultants.

Also on the government side are at least 30 lawyers, and five former police officers, including Jason Wood, once a detective senior sergeant in Victoria’s organised crime squad and counter-terrorism unit. Governments and the market are not just machines that operate themselves.

They need people of good character and competence to run them. So before we dig into the bucket of complaints about the first year of the Abbott government, consider the quality of the people on its benches. Luke Simpkins was also an officer with the Australian Federal Police and an army officer for 14 years. Senator David Fawcett had 22 years as an army officer and experimental test pilot, along with a science degree and an MBA. Another backbencher is Brigadier Andrew Nikolic, possessor of three master’s degrees, with wartime roles in Afghanistan and Iraq as chief of staff and deputy commander. Among numerous awards is the Conspicuous Service Cross. These are just some of the high achievers representing us on the government benches.

They could be earning a lot more money with a lot less scrutiny and scorn than they get in parliament. Like all politicians, they do it for reasons both altruistic and self aggrandising, but most express the desire to serve. Take Angus Taylor, 47, one of 2013’s record influx of MPs. The father of four is a farmer’s son from Nimmitabel, a Rhodes Scholar who travelled the world as a management consultant and started a business of his own. His role model is his grandfather, William Hudson, commissioner and chief engineer of the Snowy Mountains Scheme who, “abhorred snobbery and judged people on character and conduct, not rank.

He worked prodigiously and was extra-ordinarily humble. The Snowy was never about him.” In his maiden speech last December, Taylor said: “Some people say politics is about power. I do not agree. It should be about leadership, service and making an enduring difference to the lives of others. I hope the work I do ... makes a real difference and will one day make my children proud.” This is the quiet truth, away from the headlines about Clive Palmer or Jacqui Lambie. Galvanised by the political farce of Labor years, the Abbott government is full of people driven to revive the nation. They are serious people who will make the machinery of government work again. So before we bag a one-year-old administration full of new MPs, let’s give them a chance, as the Prime Minister says, to be their “best selves”. Judging by their CVs, their best is as good as it gets.
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My thought for today.
Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the mind. – Proverb
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