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saw this on you tube. Is he that bad ? or is this just political mud slinging.


I know some Indonesian people are annoyed with him, but I can't see this being anything to do with that.
So is it election time down under?

Where do I start?

And no, election time is a ways out. It doesn't stop Abbot from polling so bad that his own party came dangerously close to unseating him though.

I'm not even from there and I know that he is generally terrible and beyond stupid. from talking with friends and family the guys is just, ugh.

Hasn't he been using non-White Australians as a scapegoat in general? Not that I'm aware much of current affairs much there, but pretty much all I hear about him is bad. Ah, go watch an Australian podcast and see how many times they drop a line about whatever dumb thing he's done this week. =P

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Hasn't he been using non-White Australians as a scapegoat in general?

Non-whites, poor people, sick people, humanitarians, women in positions of power, people who want an education, the previous government, probably the gays, long standing members of his own party who aren't part of his clique . . .

Now now Pendix. He doesn't mind people who want an education, he just wants them to pay through the nose for it, to keep the riff raff out see?

I'll put it this way in my house he is known as captain stupid (the captain part is because he seems to like "team Australia" and captains calls.

He is the worst politician I have ever seen. He cannot think on his feet so when asked a question by the press he invariably buggers it up, which is kinda poor form when you consider that is a large part of his job. Even my father who is a Liberal party supporter has given up in despair in regard to captain stupid.

How did he get to be leader of the party then ?.
Was there no other candidates.

Isn't the state election for NSW coming up really soon anyways? Though it doesn't matter he hasn't really been that popular at all for quite a while.

He's good at coming up with a bad idea, telling everyone about it, being surprised no one likes it and then finally just backing out. It's been like his job the entire time he's been in charge.

Basically he's about 60 years too late for his views.

 Bullockist wrote:
He is the worst politician I have ever seen.

You must have been in a coma then during the Julia "Everything is Misogyny!" Gillard years.

Abbott is a terrible public speaker that probably never should have been Prime Minister (I'll take Bishop, thanks). But he gets yelled at more loudly and more prominently because he is of the (more) right wing than the Labor party, so he's "evil". That and the state-run news service is so entrenched with the left that they never give him the time of day.

Oh, and one of his most prominent ministers works to undermine him at every opportunity.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:
He is the worst politician I have ever seen.

You must have been in a coma then during the Julia "Everything is Misogyny!" Gillard years.

Abbott is a terrible public speaker that probably never should have been Prime Minister (I'll take Bishop, thanks). But he gets yelled at more loudly and more prominently because he is of the (more) right wing than the Labor party, so he's "evil". That and the state-run news service is so entrenched with the left that they never give him the time of day.

Oh, and one of his most prominent ministers works to undermine him at every opportunity.

Dayum... that sounds awfully like here in the states. O.o

Well the state media (the ABC) is often drowned out by everyone else, especially considering how the Liberal government (over here Liberal in terms of naming a government means right wing, in case that was going to confuse anyone, which leads to great phrases like "the conservative Liberal government" ha), treats the ABC. I mean it'd be hard to not lash back out at them, and at least they aren't the Courier Mail/Australian/Channel 9/the rest of the terrible news we have going on over here. Seriously, there is little difference between almost all of the news and current affair shows on weeknights. One is meant to be news, the other is trashy "what did this house owner find out when he reviewed his lease? check in at 1830 for the shocking truth!". But you'd be hard pressed to tell which is which a lot of nights.

I thought this was about our new Governor at first...

 Sasori wrote:
I thought this was about our new Governor at first...

Well, you can have him if you want. Looks like he'll be looking for a new job in a few weeks anyway...

 insaniak wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I thought this was about our new Governor at first...

Well, you can have him if you want. Looks like he'll be looking for a new job in a few weeks anyway...

Is he actually likely to be removed? I'm not to spun up on Aussie politics.

Who voted 'm in then? oh...

The thing to realise about Abbott is that he’s kind of become Prime Minister by mistake. His role in the party, and one he was very good at, was to get in to nasty fights with Labor politicians, drag as many of them as possible down in to the muck with himself. Every party has these people, and they play an important role, they’re just never supposed to end up leading the party. But politics is weird, and Abbott did indeed end up leader of the opposition. And he came in to that role at a time when the Labor government was becoming a shambles, so his very aggressive style of opposition worked very well. That led to Abbott winning government and becoming PM.

Now he’s in office and is as aggressive and confrontational as ever. And it really, really isn't working. His every instinct is to attack, no matter the issue or the size of the stakes. It's not a very effective strategy for running the country.

The other thing to realise is that it’s actually a pretty tough time to be PM. There’s a need for long term budget reform, but he doesn't control the senate so he can’t just pass his budget. So instead bits and pieces of the budget get passed, and of course it’s never the bits that save money that get passed, only the taxcuts and spending increases. So the budget is actually getting kind of worse, while at the same time Abbott has to keep talking about his overall goal of cutbacks. He ends up stuck in the worst of both worlds - pissing people off with talk about cutting spending, without any credit for an improved bottom line.

But of course, he also handled the budget very badly. Instead of offering up a balance of spending cuts and increased taxes on the wealthy, his budget was all spending cuts focused on lower income earners. It lost him any moral ground, and meant it was easy for anyone to block any part of his budget.

And that basically sums up Abbott – handling a difficult job with no skill or nuance, just aggression.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Who voted 'm in then? oh...

We vote in the party, not the Prime Minister.

Australia needed a stretch of Liberal government, because Labor were making a hash of it. But nobody expected Abbott to be so crap in the job, or to pay so little attention to what the rest of his party wants.

 whembly wrote:
Dayum... that sounds awfully like here in the states. O.o

It's pretty much how conservatives everywhere like to complain about the state of politics. The trick is in understanding it frequently it isn't actually true, it's just something conservatives like to tell themselves.


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 Sasori wrote:
Is he actually likely to be removed? I'm not to spun up on Aussie politics.

Maybe, maybe not. Hard to tell. On the one hand, PMs rarely get replaced in a government's first term. On the other hand, it did happen in the last government, and Abbott is a lot less popular than Rudd was. On the other, other hand, Rudd wasn't just unpopular with the general population, but absolutely hated among his own party and the public service - his public unpopularity was more the opportunity, not the cause.

But then on the otherest hand, politics now is really all about the leader. We don't technically vote for the leader but just for our local member, but that isn't how many voters see it. As such, the popularity of the leader is everything, which means we might be heading in to an age where parties change leaders whenever the polls turn bad.

But then on the most othery hand of them all, we're also in an age of 24 hour media, and that leaves journalists needing to find something to talk about. The speculation about leadership instability may just be people making stuff up to fill news time.


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 insaniak wrote:
Australia needed a stretch of Liberal government, because Labor were making a hash of it. But nobody expected Abbott to be so crap in the job, or to pay so little attention to what the rest of his party wants.

True. The problem is, though, that before this we needed a stretch of Labor government, because the Howard govt had lost its way. But no-one expected Labor to be as much of a mess as they were. We went back to Liberal, but we're now basically three terms since a decent, stable government (four terms if we dismiss the last Howard term).

Australians hold strong political views.

They'd be mad to replace him and Turnbull even madder to try. After watching the last Prime Minister and the other person who pretended to be Prime Minister floundering around and backstabbing one another the Libs made a good point of saying "How could anyone vote for this?"... and now they're going to do the same thing.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
... the Libs made a good point of saying "How could anyone vote for this?"... and now they're going to do the same thing.

So... situation normal for Australian politics, then.

It's only objectionable when the other party does it.

 loki old fart wrote:
How did he get to be leader of the party then ?.
Was there no other candidates.

Actually I read an interesting article on this the other day. I don't have the link handy, and I've forgotten some of the names, (so have some salt with this), but, back in the early days of the Rudd Gov, Malcom Turnbull was the opposition leader. At the time, Kev was trying to pass his ETS scheme, and Malcom, (for whatever reason), was willing to deal, and get the legislation passed. However, one of the party power-brokers was deeply against the ETS, and had enough party votes in his pocket to ensure another, popular (in the party at least) individual could unseat Turnbull in a spill. He first approached the most popular party member after Turnbull (again, cant recall the name, might have been Hockey), with a deal: "I'll give you the leadership if you kill the ETS". That person did not like the deal, so the power-broker went to the third most popular member of the party: Abbott, who was all for it. The spill happened, Abbott won by 1 vote, and the rest is history.

 insaniak wrote:
Australia needed a stretch of Liberal government, because Labor were making a hash of it. But nobody expected Abbott to be so crap in the job, or to pay so little attention to what the rest of his party wants.

People keep saying this, but it was obvious to me what a dangerous politician he was. Maybe that's just my left wing talking, but Sebster is right, he is a bully and an attack dog, and the only policies he had going into the last election were fundamentally contradictory.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
. . .and the other person who pretended to be Prime Minister

For someone who was 'pretending', she was awfully good at 'getting on with the job of government', something Abbott has vowed to do, but not shown any sign of starting. Unless being a 'real' prime minister is more about captains calls & press conferences about nothing.

Well since I started this thread, I've done some looking about. And the Indonesian's are upset because he tried to stop them executing some drug dealers. Reminding them how generous Australia has been in the past. They seem to be having a whip round to pay the aid back.
The civil rights people are upset with him over refugee children being abused. Even Russell Brand's in on the act.

 motyak wrote:
Now now Pendix. He doesn't mind people who want an education, he just wants them to pay through the nose for it, to keep the riff raff out see?

Unless they are his daughter who gets a free scholarship ...

Even though he can well afford to send her to uni and pay for it all himself (or y'know, she could be like other uni students and work as well as attend classes.)

 loki old fart wrote:
Well since I started this thread, I've done some looking about. And the Indonesian's are upset because he tried to stop them executing some drug dealers. Reminding them how generous Australia has been in the past. They seem to be having a whip round to pay the aid back.

Yeah... after our foreign minister had put in a lot of work behind the scenes talking to various people in Indonesia to try to get the death sentences on the Bali 9 'ringleaders' commuted to life in prison, Abbott took it on himself to step in and say 'Hey, Indonesia, remember how we threw a bunch of money and aid your way when you needed it? You wouldn't want to go and do something that might jeopardise our friendly relationship, here!' ... which Indonesia took about as well as might be expected.


And that's pretty much been Abbott's signature. He doesn't consult with anyone before opening his mouth... he just goes off and does his own thing, makes himself look like an idiot, and leaves his party wondering just what the hell they were thinking putting him in charge in the first place.

The civil rights people are upset with him over refugee children being abused. Even Russell Brand's in on the act.

To be fair, the issue of asylum seeker children in detention isn't entirely the fault of the current government... The current set up was instigated by the (Liberal) Howard government, watered down by the following Labor (Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government) and then tightened up again by the Abbott government. The number of children in detention is much lower now than it was under Labor... although that's not due to them being any more efficient at processing them through, or finding better ways to hold them, but simply the result of Abbott's 'Stop the Boats!!!!1!' approach to 'illegal' boat arrivals. Instead of treating them as human beings, Abbott chose to turn the boats around and send them back to Indonesia the moment they enter our waters. ie: make them someone else's problem.

And then he stood up in front of European leaders at the G20 and proudly announced how we were avoiding doing our fair share of taking in the refugees that they've been handling for a lot longer and in far greater numbers. Yay us!

 Pendix wrote:
For someone who was 'pretending', she was awfully good at 'getting on with the job of government', something Abbott has vowed to do, but not shown any sign of starting. Unless being a 'real' prime minister is more about captains calls & press conferences about nothing.

Yeah, when she wasn't whining about being a victim. Which was always. Highest office in the land, always played the victim.

And I presume that final sentence is about Kevin Rudd, who never went a day without putting himself in front of the cameras?

 insaniak wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
Well since I started this thread, I've done some looking about. And the Indonesian's are upset because he tried to stop them executing some drug dealers. Reminding them how generous Australia has been in the past. They seem to be having a whip round to pay the aid back.

Yeah... after our foreign minister had put in a lot of work behind the scenes talking to various people in Indonesia to try to get the death sentences on the Blai 9 'ringleaders' commuted to life in prison, Abbott took it on himself to step in and say 'Hey, Indonesia, remember how we threw a bunch of money and aid your way when you needed it? You wouldn't want to go and do something that might jeopardise our friendly relationship, here!' ... which Indonesia took about as well as might be expected.


And that's pretty much been Abbott's signature. He doesn't consult with anyone before opening his mouth... he just goes off and does his own thing, makes himself look like an idiot, and leaves his party wondering just what the hell they were thinking putting him in charge in the first place.

The civil rights people are upset with him over refugee children being abused. Even Russell Brand's in on the act.

To be fair, the issue of asylum seeker children in detention isn't entirely the fault of the current government... The current set up was instigated by the (Liberal) Howard government, watered down by the following Labor (Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government) and then tightened up again by the Abbott government. The number of children in detention is much lower now than it was under Labor... although that's not due to them being any more efficient at processing them through, or finding better ways to hold them, but simply the result of Abbott's 'Stop the Boats!!!!1!' approach to 'illegal' boat arrivals. Instead of treating them as human beings, Abbott chose to turn the boats around and send them back to Indonesia the moment they enter our waters. ie: make them someone else's problem.

And then he stood up in front of European leaders at the G20 and proudly announced how we were avoiding doing our fair share of taking in the refugees that they've been handling for a lot longer and in far greater numbers. Yay us!

And I though our prime minister was an idiot. Well he is, but he doesn't seem as bad now.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Who voted 'm in then? oh...

Basically, the Labor party was so busy stabbing each other in the back that people assumed Abbott couldn't possibly be any worse.

Abbott took that as a challenge.

As much as I dislike Abbott, Im slightly glad the libs won office. If the labor party had won a third term, theyd probably cease to exist from continued infighting. Gillard and most her lackeys all ragequit but you'd still have Rudd and Shorten out to kill each other.

Imagine a labor collapse, we'd be stuck with lib and greens in our 2 party system. Now thats a scary thought! I really wish Shorten was gotten rid of and labor could go back to being a functional political party.