Opposition leader blames carbon tax for EU debt crisis

Tells protest rally pipe smokers to be worst hit

Canberra, 18 May 2012

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has stepped up his campaign against the government’s carbon tax by linking it to the faltering European economy and the retirement of three founding members of the Wiggles^©.

Arriving at Channel 9’s Sydney studios dressed as Dorothy the Dinosaur^©, Abbott told reporters that the Gillard government’s carbon tax had inspired successive governments in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal to accumulate unserviceable debts that now risk plunging the world into recession.

‘The evidence is clear, these big-spending Mediterranean types were so excited at the Gillard government’s assault on business that they embarked on an orgy of irresponsible spending’, said Abbott fingering a set of rosary beads at the mention of the word 'orgy'.

With the carbon tax due to come into effect on 1 July, Abbott said that time was running out for ‘ordinary Australians to save the European economy, save the world economy, and save every Aussie home with a backyard blast furnace by dumping the Gillard government.’

Speaking later to a protest rally organised by Australian Fulminators and Pipe Smokers Association, Abbott said that David Cameron and Barak Obama had ‘fallen for Julia Gillard’s trap’ by foreshadowing similar legislation in Britain and the US.

‘This two-man troika has swallowed the big spending, high taxing, high unemployment, large government, foreigner friendly, pro-euthanasia, anti-business, anti-pipe smoking propaganda peddled by Julia Gillard to sell the idea that a tax on carbon is good for ordinary Aussies.'

'Well, its not!’ said Abbott to a raptuous smoke enveloped crowd.

‘Just look at the latest casualty of the carbon tax! The Wiggles^©! If the retirement of Jeff, Murray and Greg isn’t proof that the carbon tax is a recipe for disaster then I don’t know what is!’

Abbott urged to crowd to write to their local MP’s demanding they support ‘all practical measures’ to ensure the carbon tax is scuttled.

He also stressed the need for a grass roots letter writing campaign targeting Wiggles^© management to avoid the possibility that they will annoint a green Wiggle and to ensure the auditions exclude gay marriage advocates.

Abbott was supported on stage by mining magnate Clive Palmer, the soon to be endorsed Liberal candidate for the Queensland seat of LIlley currently held by federal Treasurer Wayne Swan.

After a slight delay caused by the need to smother him in olive oil so that he might be more easily pried from the rear of his limousine, Palmer told the crowd that the carbon tax was an attack on freedom.

‘If this woman thinks she is going to stop me from smoking my pipe when I like, where I like and with who ever I like then she’s got another thing coming!’ roared Palmer before a paroxystic attack toppled him from the upturned milk crate that had provided access to the microphone.

Demetriou tipped for Greek PM role

Melbourne and Athens, 16 May 2012

The AFL is set to lose its most senior administrator after a deal between authorities in Athens and the Australian Football League paved the way for Andrew Demetriou to run for the role of Prime Minister at next month’s Greek elections.

After six months of political uncertainty caused by country’s worst economic crisis since the outbreak of the Greco-Persian wars in 449BC, the announcement of Demetriou’s candidacy has stabilised international markets spooked by the prospect that jaded Greek voters would turn to a left-of-centre candidate. 

Economists were especially concerned at the rising political fortunes of Syriza, a populist party headed by serial leadership challenger Achilles Ruddopolous.

Known in Greece as ‘The Saganaki King’ – a reference to a family fortune based on a chain of fried cheese outlets and a unique personal aroma  - Ruddopolous has vowed to reject tough economic austerity measures, remove Greece from the Euro-zone and introduce the Chinese Renminbi as the basis of the economy.

The AFL supremo, who is of Greek-Cypriot heritage and can trace his family back to the obscure pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus who first articulated the holding the ball rule, is said by family and friends to be delighted at the prospect of leading a small Mediterranean nation.

However, VoteSmart understands that the decision to approach the AFL and request an early release from Demetriou’s contract was made only after the preferred candidate, Ange Postecoglou, turned down a similar offer to take up the senior coaching role at Melbourne Victory.

A spokesman for Greek President Karolos Papoulias office acknowledged that an ‘informal approach’ had been made to Postecoglou but that Athens was ‘delighted at securing Demetriou’s services.’

Events reached a critical point late last year when the Greek government cited complications caused by the 2011 National Draft to retreat from a promise to hold a referendum on the EU100 billion economic rescue plan.

‘Several key economic advisors, including the head of the Treasury, received letters saying they might be placed on the Greater Western Sydney rookie list. We had no idea what this meant and it got us all confused,’ he said.

The head of AFL Operations, Adrian Anderson, has told Vote Smart that GWS coach Kevin Sheedy had targeted several dozen senior Greek administrators but denied that this was a problem.

‘The growth of the AFL is inevitable. We have commitments to local and international stakeholders including broadcasters, catering monopolies and the Classical Civilisations Re-enactment Society, which was recently purchased by Spotless Catering.’

‘I think most sport-loving Aussies would agree that the health of the European and global economies is secondary to the well being of our game,’ he said.

However international anger at the AFL’s role in destabilising the global economy by sowing confusion in Greek politics could be assuaged if Demetriou wins next month’s poll and manages to steer through the EU-brokered austerity package.

‘If Demetriou can do this, and clarify the National Draft concessions given to GWS and this mad issue of players sliding into packs then he will be the toast of the Mediterranean’, said 77-year-old Greek political power broker Nana Mouskouri, National Secretary of the Federation of Folk Singers and Bouzouki Players.

Albania adds voice to budget criticism

Tirana and Canberra 9 May 2012  

The Albanian government has added its voice to the growing chorus of criticism of Wayne Swan's fifth budget.

In sharp contrast to the praise heaped on Swan's national economic vision for the next financial year by the Governor of the Central Bank of Greece, Albania's Minister for Finance and Root Vegetables, Flamur Scrötal, lashed out at the Treasurer's failure to allocate additional funding for infrastructure projects in the cash-strapped post-communist state.

Echoing criticism by the Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu and the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who have lambasted the federal government for re-allocating funding earmarked for Victorian infrastructure projects to New South Wales, Scrötal said that Swan's decision not to fund the Tirana Abattoir District Rejuvenation and Beautification Project was 'a slap in the face to the entire post-Communist world.'

'Yet again we have a case of the Labor Party looking after its Macedonian mates in the Trade Union movement at the expense of small business and honest hardworking Albanians.' he said.

And tensions are likely to escalate further after revelations late today that the government would look to fulfil its promise to reduce the cost of Medicare by cutting the rebates available for cosmetic genital surgery.

Responding to a question from the Manager for Opposition Business, Mrs Chirstopher Pyne, Swan admitted the government aimed to shave over $23 million dollars per annum from the cost of Medicare by reducing the rebates offered for what are euphemistically called 'designer vaginas' and 'natty nobs'. 

Pyne, who refused to be drawn on whether she had undergone such a procedure in the past, warned the move would result in widespread humiliation in the nation's more fashionable and up-market gymnasiums and bath houses.

However the move will also add to anger in Tirana which had hoped to capitalise on the rejuvenation of its century-old abattoir district and targeted tax breaks to attract investment in the cosmetic genital surgery industry.  

Scrötal said that his government hoped to carve out a niche market in the area but that last night's budget had left the dream 'in ruins.'

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National 'toot-a-thon' another headache for Gillard

Cabbies' support for Slipper could topple government

Canberra, 25 April 2012

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's political woes are set to worsen after a decision by the nation's taxi drivers to mount a campaign in defence of Peter Slipper.

The move follows allegations in today's News Ltd papers that that her star recruit and the new foreign minister, Bob Carr, is a kleptomaniac and is suspected of stealing the Singaporean parliament's ceremonial mace.

The move might also prove the final straw for maverick independent MP Andrew Wilkie who today threatened to support an Opposition no-confidence vote if he is unable to secure transport to a séance scheduled for next Tuesday evening.

With Rob Oakshott hospitalised after contracting a golden staph infection following a home vasectomy and fellow independent Tony Windsor awaiting trial in Nicaragua on poaching charges, Wilkie's threat would deliver Tony Abbott and the Coalition enough votes to topple the Gillard government and force an early election. 

Speaking exclusively to VoteSmart, the National Secretary of the Taxi, Omnibus and Rickshaw Drivers Association, Mr. Mohendra Singh, said that more than 90 per cent of his 10,000 members had voted in favour of industrial action designed to restore Slipper to his role as Speaker of the House of Representatives with unrestricted access to cab vouchers.

'If  Mr. Slipper is not waiting on his Sunshine Coast doorstep with a voucher for his weekly round trip from Pacific Paradise to Canberra at 8.30am next Monday morning then we will initiate a 'toot-a-thon'', warned Singh.

Asian welfare plan excites elderly

National incontinence emergency following Hockey's speech

London and Canberra, 23 April 2012

A speech by Opposition Treasurer Joe Hockey on reforming the Australian welfare system has triggered an outbreak of excited incontinence among the nation's elderly and sent shares in the rubber hosiery sector to record highs.

Addressing the annual conference of Overpaid Undertaxed Financial Sector Executives Association in London late last week, Hockey told delegates that Australia could no longer afford to maintain a traditional needs-based welfare system and committed a future Coalition government to introducing 'Asian style' welfare reforms.

'Our vision is of a Pyongyang in the Pacific where pensioners are looked after by their children, the unemployed are re-integrated into the working population through skills learned in the military or prisons, and the disabled are shunned', said Hockey.

In a speech that also foreshaddowed significant tax cuts for the wealthy and a reduction in government expenditure on health and education, Hockey told his audience that the days of 'a free ride' were over and that Australia could not continue 'mollycoddling bedwetters, bludgers and loonies'.

'When we look to our north we see how well our Asian neighbours are faring and we believe that it is their traditions that we need to emulate in the twenty first century.'

Hockey's vision drew imediate support from the grand dame of Conservative politics, the 108-year-old Bronwyn Bishop.

On hearing news of the speech Bishop checked herself out of the Dame Margaret Guilfoyle Home for the Mentally and Bladder Challenged and arrived at the Shadow Treasurer's North Sydney residence holding two suitcases and a rubber hemorrhoid ring.

Hockey defended his decision to have the police use capsicum spray and taser guns to remove Bishop after the world's oldest politician chained herself to the family Lexus.

 'She's not my mother,' he said.

Salvos and Telemarketers latest to shun HSU

But opium dens and illegal body organ traders stay true ... for now

Sydney, 5 April 2012

Turmoil within the nation's largest union representing healthcare workers deepened yesterday when the Salvation Army's Chief Rabbi and the President of the Australian Serial Nuisance Telemarketing Association (ASNTA) announced they would no longer solicit donations or discounted energy supply agrements from officials in the Health Services Union.

The announcements come as a further blow in a week when Fair Work Australia announced that it had referred its report into union practices to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions and the ACTU moved to suspended the union from.

The Salvation Army's Swami Frank de Groot told VoteSmart that a meeting of the church's elders had decided that the HSU seemed to operate within a culture 'even more evil than a safe injecting room' and that the organisation could not in good conscience continue to accept donations from any member of the union's administrative wing.

'While we will continue to accept gifts from ordinary members, I'm afraid that contributions from their officials will no longer be countenanced,' he said.

Pressed on the issue de Groot, 57, bald and a stutterer, conceded that over the past few years the bulk of contributions from the HSU executive consisted of soiled bed linen, half consumed cans of expensive foie gras, and 'elborate glass Middle Eastern smoking pipes', none of which assisted the Salvo's charity work.

An additional blow was delivered by Charles Kingsford-Jones, ASNTA's National President who announced yesterday afternoon that Telemarketing bosses had bowed to wishes from their employees not to telephone any member of the HSU executive.

'I think I am safe in saying that this is first time that telemarketers have taken the initiative to place individuals on the Do Not Call List without any incentive on their part,' said Kingsford-Jones.

He added that the move would impact mostly on Chinese-based firms selling herbal viagra and penis enlargement medications.

 'In the past they have not really embraced discounted energy deals or targeted mbile telephone plans but they have been active tele-consumers in the area of adult entertainment', he said. 

Foot and mouth outbreak decimates Nationals

Queensland poll in doubt as Bligh considers cull

Gympie, 19 March 2012

Health department officials have quarantined the leadership and several high profile National Party candidates after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

The move threatens to undermine efforts by the Nationals to hold on to their meagre parliamentary representation so that they might again wield disproportionate influence within a future coalition government.

It has also thrown into doubt the outcome of next Saturday’s state election with the CSIRO and state agriculture officials forced to round-up and quarantine several high profile Liberal-National candidates.

An official from the Queensland Department of Bovine Diseases told VoteSmart that the opposition’s erstwhile leader Campbell Newman remains free to graze in southern electorates but that officials where monitoring his health by thrice daily stool samples.

However embattled premier Anna Bligh has said that she will not risk the health of the entire Queensland agriculture sector by allowing infected opposition members free range and that if the disease continued to spread she would authorise a cull of infected candidates.

The highly contagious infection was discovered at a campaign meeting in the Queensland town of Gympie after Nationals leader Warren Truss started foaming at the mouth and biting his tail.

Several hours later his deputy, half-brother, uncle and second cousin and step-son, Barnaby Joyce, starting mooing at traffic on the Bruce Highway before leading police and state government veterinarians on a three hour chase through bushland.

Senator Joyce was eventually cornered in a used car yard before being shot with a tranquilizer gun.  He is currently resting at the Arthur Fadden CSIRO Quarantine Station and is expected to make a full recovery.

Tumut Shire Council to suspend 30-year Speedo ban for Abbott

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has used a visit to the flood affected town of Wagga Wagga to again blame the Gillard government's proposed carbon tax for the recent spate of natural diasasters and to promise to personally fund reconstruction efforts.

Abbott told a crowd of several hundred that he would raise the money needed to repair damaged homes and infrastructure by swimming the length of the swollen Murrumbidgee River.

Speaking from a pontoon towed behind a speed boat driven by the federal member for Riverina, Michael McCormack, Abbott said he would commence his swim-a-thon as soon as local councils issued the relevant permits.

The Opposition Leader rejected claims that asking Australians to sponsor his swim contradicted his promise to personally fund rebuilding projects, saying that the government's planned carbon tax left him little choice 'but to take to the muddy Murrumbidgee.' 

'Under an Abbott government big business would contribute to the cost of post-flood reconstruction through the imposition of a 'freestyle and backstroke tax' which would see them pay $3.77 for every 100 meters that I travel with the current and $5.39 for every 100 meters I travel against the current,' he said.

'But due to the Gillard government's obession with the carbon tax I am forced instead to ask ordinary Aussies to sponsor me.'

Abbott said that Coalition members of parliament and candidates for the next federal election would soon begin door knocking every home in their electorates with sponsorship forms.

Early concerns that the proposal would founder on neighbouring Tumut Shire Council's long-standing ban on Speedos proved unfounded when Mayor Reg Lindsay promised to temporarily lift the ban so that Abbott could complete his swim.