Rudd lets Unions loose on Australian small business.

Rudd lets loose Labor Party bankers and fund raisers, aka Unions,on Australia's
small business and work force.

Tenth Australian killed in Afghanistan

Kevin Rudd: Keep Afghanistan troops or risk terrorism in Australia

By Max Blenkin, Defence Correspondent
The Daily Telegraph
March 20, 2009 05:15pm

AUSTRALIA must stay the course in Afghanistan or risk terrorist attacks on our own shores, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said today.

His warning followed news that a second Australian soldier had died in the strife-torn country this week. The unnamed soldier, a explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) specialist, died instantly as he tried to defuse a Taliban improvised explosive device (IED).

His death followed that of Corporal Mathew (Mathew) Hopkins, shot dead by insurgents in a firefight on Monday. The latest fatality takes Australia's death toll in Afghanistan to 10 since 2002. In a parliamentary tribute, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull described EOD technicians as among the bravest of the brave.

They walked straight into danger zones to clear the way of mines, roadside bombs and other suspect devices strewn by terrorists in their path, he said. Few details of the latest incident have been revealed. Defence head Angus Houston said Australian soldiers were involved in route clearance at an unspecified location when the IED was detected. In the course of dealing with the device, there was an explosion. "It is believed that the soldier, who was a specialist EOD technician, was killed instantly," Air Chief Marshal Houston told reporters. Mr Rudd said it had been a sad week for all Australians with the loss of two proud and respected soldiers.

Terrorists who killed more than 100 Australians in major attacks since 2000 found sanctuary in Afghanistan and the border regions with Pakistan, he said. "We cannot allow Afghanistan to yet again become another safe haven for terrorists who then present a threat to the security of people everywhere, including Australians at home and abroad. "The implications of this would extend well beyond Afghanistan itself to our wider region and possibly to our own shores."

Mr Turnbull said the EOD technician gave his life trying to protect the lives of others. The technicians were chosen for their calm, skill, mental discipline and, above all, nerves of steel. "They are part of a dedicated, courageous and selfless group that say to their comrades in arm 'keep your heads down and let me clear a safe way for you'," he said.

Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon again cautioned that rising casualties came at the expense of public support. "It is true that the longer you are in a campaign and the more people you lose, the more difficult it is to maintain the support of your local population," he said. IEDs, often deployed as roadside bombs, pose a significant risk to coalition troops and have claimed the lives of four of the nine Australian soldiers killed since October 2007. Other soldiers have been wounded. In November 2007, bomb disposal expert Sergeant Michael Lyddiard lost an eye and an arm in the explosion of an IED he was seeking to disarm. Another roadside bomb blast in September 2007 killed an explosive detection dog and injured his handler.

Is Kevin "I have never been a Socialist" 07 Rudd, the first Western Socialist political party leader to perhaps understand, just a little, the threat of Islam, or as the Islamic appeaser in Chief, Obama demands be described as "man caused disaster" facilitators ?
If so, I hope he is able to impart his understanding of the Islamic / "man caused disaster" facilitators threat to civilization how I wish Rudd's reported concern for our security were genuine.
Australia's Kevin "I have never been a Socialist" 07 Rudd, PM is many things, however, above all he is a shameless liar, who has even invoked the death of his father to legitimise / excuse his membership of Australia's largest Socialist Marxist funded political party, the Australia Labor Party, of which he is now the leader, his appalling slander and character assassination of those who tried to save his fathers life will go down in Australian political history as one of Labor's lowest efforts to gain office at any cost.

I agree with Rudd and his remarks "AUSTRALIA must stay the course in Afghanistan or risk terrorist attacks on our own shores" Why then does he and his party have an open borders illegal immigration policy into Australia?
I mean if you believed that the Taliban / Islamic Terrorism, aka "man caused disasters" in Afghanistan were a threat to Australia and Australian's, why would you at the same time have an open borders illegal refugee policy that allows anyone who flies by plane from Afghanistan to Islamic "man made disaster" supporter, Indonesia, then boards "refugee boats" and is then intercepted in Australian waters by the Royal Australian Navy or Australian Customs forces, not turned back but under orders of the Rudd Socialist Government, escorted to Christmas Island then under Rudd's International Socialist "humane" refugee assessment program granted residence after answering "NO" to the question of "are you a terrorist",to Taliban and Islamic Terrorism supporters aka "man caused disasters"

If Rudd was so concerned about the security of Australia and Australian's he would direct his immigration department to refuse ALL Islamic immigration into Australia, and carefully vet those Muslims already living in Australia with a view to deporting those we are able to do so.
I am sure it is amusing to the Australian Labor Party and their Islamic Multicultural / Cultural Diversity fifth column seeing Australians been shot and blown to pieces in Iraq and Afghanistan while their "refugee" policy allows the killers / potential killers and supporters of those who want to kill Australians into Australia.

Labor and their Marxist financiers, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, (ACTU) have always been supporters of any force that wants to destroy Australia and it's people, from destroying military equipment and supplies to our troops in WW2 to their monetary and moral support of the North Vietnamese,Vietcong, in the Vietnam war under the guise of the "Peace Movement"

I would ask Rudd what his policy on Iran is? given Iran is a major sponsor / facilitator of Islamic Terrorism aka "man caused disasters" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the west does lose the war against Islamic Terrorism, aka "man caused disasters" it will not be because of a lack of courage or ability on the part of those whose job it is to fight it,it will be as was the case in the Vietnam War, due to the anti west fifth column existing within the borders of the west who use the rights,freedoms and privelges, that only exist in NON Muslim, NON International Socialist Judeo / Christian Western Democracies they demand be destroyed in the name of world wide "peace, tolerance and diversity".

Australia: Labor's Green Loons training for "direct action and civil disobedience"

Greens protesters promoting rising tide of crime

EXCLUSIVE by Joe Hildebrand
The Daily Telegraph
March 14, 2009 12:00am

PEOPLE are being urged to break into shops, "disable" four wheel drives and throw pies at people by an extreme environmental group being promoted by the NSW Greens.

The group Rising Tide is planning a blockade of the world's biggest coal port in Newcastle, for which Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has held a "direct action and civil disobedience" workshop to prepare protesters.

Rising Tide claims the protest will be legal and peaceful, however it also warned participants "there can be no guarantee against arrest".

Ms Rhiannon - who will attend the blockade with her staff - yesterday praised Rising Tide but said she was unaware of its support of vandalism and did not condone it.

Rising Tide said people concerned about climate change should also "shut down" petrol stations and blockade power plants.

The suggestions are contained in a list of 64 "actions" posted on the group's website.

A spokeswoman for Rising Tide stood by the list, saying the actions were "trivial" compared to the threat of climate change.

Many of the suggestions are benign but some are clearly illegal and potentially dangerous.

They include:

* DISABLE a 4WD. (Letting the tyres down is one way - and doesn't leave you open to "malicious damage" charges, because it doesn't

damage the vehicle);

* THROW a pie at chief spin doctor at the NSW Minerals Council;

* SHUT down petrol stations;

* SUBVERTISE - distort the messages on adverts for climate criminals;

* PAINT bike lanes on the road;

* START a campaign against air flights; and

* BLOCKADE or occupy a power station."

Rising Tide spokeswoman Georgina Woods said the group stood by the suggestions, saying they were "on the scale of things, a little bit of inconvenience".

"Our group is non-violent but we feel we're facing a wide unprecedented challenge and a little bit of civil disobedience as an expression of community frustration," she said.

Green activist Lisette Salkavich, who distributed an email urging people to get involved in the Rising Tide blockade, said that while she had not done it herself damaging property could be morally justified in some circumstances and climate change was an urgent threat.

International Socialism, Kevin 07 Rudd, let loose via the Greens /Environmental movement, the Lunatics are running the International Socialist Asylum
Come on Kevin 07 Come clean.

Merauke Five : Rudd's "Fresh Thinking" Australians abondoned in Indonesian Hell Hole

Australian PM and arse clown in chief,Mr Kevin 07 Rudd.

Australians abandoned and left to rot in Indonesian Islamic hell hole
by Kevin 07's "Fresh Thinking"

Another Billion dollars plus+++++ has just been given to the Indonesian Government by the Rudd Socialist Labor Government, thats right Australian taxpayers are TAXED from arse hole to breakfast time, in order for Rudd and his fellow International Socialist's and Marxists, that are the Australian LABOR party,to prove what great noble and compassionate"world citizens" they are.
If these Australians were international Drug Dealers the Rudd government and their cabal of bleeding heart leftists apologists would have been screaming from the hill tops that these people be released and every assistance would have been afforded them by the Australian officials and "human rights" organizations at Australian taxpayers expense.
These people are not part of Comrade Rudd's "Fresh Thinking" and "Time for Change" Socialist Revolution.

Australians remain in Papuan 'no man's land'

The AGE
Ben Doherty and Tom Allard, Jakarta
March 13, 2009

FIVE Australians remain stuck in "no man's land" in the Indonesian province of Papua: no longer in detention for immigration offences but prevented from returning home.

The five Queenslanders were this week granted permission to fly home after six months in detention, following a ruling by the Jayapura High Court overturning their conviction and jail terms for immigration offences.

But local prosecutors have refused to accept the decision and have lodged an appeal. That could see the five, aged in their 50s and 60s, stuck in Papua, just an hour's flight from home, for months longer.

Last night, the Australians were still stranded in the departure lounge of Merauke Airport, where their plane stands fuelled and ready to fly but guarded by Indonesian air force officers refusing to let them board.

Prosecutors have impounded the plane, saying it is evidence for their legal challenge.

Karen Burke, one of the Merauke five, yesterday pleaded with the Australian Government to do more to help.

"We're scared to death to leave," she said.

"We think if we put a foot out the front door we could be arrested on some other charges. Our position is quite precarious."

Despite being asked to return to the town of Merauke, the five Australians are staying put, believing their encampment in the small international airport puts them out of reach of authorities.

"As far as we are concerned, we are in no man's land," said another stranded Australian, Keith Mortimer.

"We are going to stay here. Mate, they are going to have to physically pick us up and take us out of here."

An Australian embassy official is in Merauke assisting the five, while diplomats in Jakarta are helping to negotiate their passage home.

On September 12 last year, pilot William Scott-Bloxam, his wife and co-pilot Vera, and passengers Keith Mortimer, Hubert Hofer and Ms Burke, landed in Mr Scott-Bloxam's light plane at Mopah airport in Merauke in Papua, where a sporadic separatist insurgency has led to tight military control.

The Australians, who say they only wanted to visit for a long weekend to investigate tourism opportunities, did not obtain visas, flight approval or security clearance before they landed.

They were arrested and convicted of immigration offences. Mr Scott-Bloxam, was sentenced to three years in jail, while the other four were given two-year sentences.

On Tuesday, the province's High Court overturned their conviction, ostensibly allowing their return home.

But prosecutors have since lodged an appeal, meaning the five are unable to leave.

A Foreign Affairs spokesman said: "This situation is distressing for the Australians and their families, and the embassy in Jakarta is discussing with the five Australians and their lawyers the next steps towards obtaining their release and return.

"We understand that the five are no longer in detention, but are unable to depart for Australia.

"They are currently at the Immigration Office at Merauke Airport endeavouring to clarify their legal status. Our embassy consular official is also assisting them in consultation with the Indonesian authorities."

Friends and family of the five told The Age they were frustrated by the new delays and the lack of information from authorities.

Australian Politics:Election 2010 First leader to the centre wins

First leader to the centre wins
The Australian
March 12, 2009

The next election is wide open and will be won or lost on a single issue -- economic management credentials

AT the last election, the times that suited John Howard for so long suddenly favoured Kevin Rudd, a fresh face presenting himself as an economic conservative. To many voters, the then Opposition Leader was an updated version of Mr Howard -- hard-headed but with a softer heart. His promises to abolish Work Choices and make a modest start on confronting climate change seemed affordable in the afterglow of 17 years of economic growth and reform.

The 2010 election, which the International Monetary Fund says will be fought in the depths of the "Great Recession", will be a different game. Wide open, regardless of opinion polls, the victor will be the party leader who has the foresight and pragmatism to break free of the current shadow-boxing over industrial relations and other economic issues and embrace the policies that the times demand. Tired, mean and tricky as the Howard government appeared to many after 12 years, an updated version of its economic management would resonate with voters struggling with unemployment and hard times.

If Mr Rudd is to step into the centre and secure his place as long-term Prime Minister, he will need to break free of the Labor Left upon which he relies too heavily for support and in shaping government policy. As a religious, socially conservative former diplomat, policy poindexter and bureaucratic nerd, Mr Rudd won the Labor leadership in December 2006 against all odds. His ambition, energy and the party's desperation after a decade in the wilderness compensated for his lack of a party or union powerbase. Queensland's Australian Workers Union powerbroker Bill Ludwig, for instance, helped him by slamming him as "no friend of the union movement".

In order to win the leadership, Mr Rudd cut a deal with Julia Gillard and her numbers man from Victoria, Kim Carr. He harnessed the Left as well as other disaffected former Crean and Latham backers who were ready to support anybody-but-Beazley. Almost half way into Labor's first term, the consequences of the Left's dominance of so many key economic portfolios is all too apparent with industrial relations and industry policy seemingly run out of a leftist ideological handbook from the Whitlam era.

It's time, in the national interest and his own, for Mr Rudd to realign his base and rebalance his Government's modus operandi by embracing the right -- including the former Kim Beazley camp. That is Mr Rudd's natural support group and the base from which two of Australia's most successful reforming prime ministers -- Bob Hawke and Paul Keating -- modernised the Australian economy.

Nobody, except perhaps Robert Manne in The Monthly, really thinks Mr Rudd, in his essay deriding the market economics of neo-liberalism, "could actually believe deeply what he wrote". As cabinet office head in Queensland, Mr Rudd was dryer than just about anybody on the horizon other than former Labor finance minister Peter Walsh. His economic razor cut a swath through the public sector that earned him the moniker "Dr Death". It was a badge of honour.

This interview between 2GB's Alan Jones and former Howard government treasurer Peter Costello says it all, I hope Costello gets the leadership of the Liberal Party as soon as possible so he can bash Comrade Rudd and Madame Gillard every chance he gets,just as he did when he was the treasurer in the Howard government.

In talking up Australia's economic difficulties, Mr Rudd is banking on gaining electoral traction from the power of incumbency. He hopes that voters, in their insecurity, will stick with the status quo. Recognising that the Senate is likely to modify his regressive industrial relations changes and the emissions trading scheme, he sees a chance to keep faith with the Left because the modifications will be forced upon him.

In current circumstances, however, this is second-rate leadership. The futility of Senator Carr wasting billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up uncompetitive industries is self-evident. In her vast portfolio overseeing education, employment and workplace relations and social inclusion, Ms Gillard has delivered big-time for her ACTU and Labor Left comrades an industrial relations system that takes the nation back pre-Howard, pre-Keating and pre-Hawke to the rigid, centralised system of the 1970s. The past 20 years have demonstrated the propensity of labour-market flexibility to generate jobs. In the national interest, Mr Rudd must stamp his leadership on the Government by overhauling and modernising its approach before the damage is too great.

Even more extraordinary than Mr Rudd's lurch to the Left is the way Malcolm Turnbull is imitating his every action when a far simpler strategy could make him prime minister. The message the Opposition Leader should deliver every day until the polls close is that when the Liberals were in power almost every Australian grew richer, year in, year out. And what the conservatives accomplished over 12 years, Labor has undone in a bare three. It's a message Mr Howard knew how to sell when he asked whether voters believed they could trust Labor with the economy, and it is a script Mr Turnbull should memorise.

But caught up in the issues of the hour and determined to impose his own ego on the Liberal Party, Mr Turnbull shows no sign of picking up the plan that is ready-made to win the next election. Like the Government, he wants to bury Work Choices. Like the Government, he supports action on global warming. Certainly his strategy appeals to Liberals with long memories, those who hated Mr Howard during the "wets" and "dries" internal party disputes in the 80s. And it appeals to others with very short memories, who blame Mr Howard for the 2007 election loss and believe that all of his policies were poison then and are poisonous now. But in turning his back on Mr Howard's legacy, Mr Turnbull is dancing away from what can win him the next election -- the record of the Howard government.

Mr Howard's legacy to Labor in 2007 was an economy that had never been in better shape at a transfer of power. By the next election, the Howard years will look like a golden age. It beggars belief that Mr Turnbull is dancing to the Government's tune with his clumsily choreographed positions on Ms Gillard's workplace laws, which he does not like but will not fight. And it is astounding that he is tap-dancing over the detail of the Government's complex plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when he could march away from it on the grounds that it will cost jobs. Certainly the Howard government's poorly planned and presented Work Choices policy was largely responsible for the Coalition losing the last election. And Mr Howard's determination to ensure that dealing with global warming did not destroy Australian jobs was sold by Labor and the Greens as old and out of touch. But in changing course on these issues, Mr Turnbull is preparing to fight the last election, not the next one. Back then, voters listened to the Labor and ACTU message that Work Choices allowed unscrupulous employers to exploit low-skilled workers and especially young people in casual jobs.

With unemployment at a generational low, the electorate was not all that alarmed by warnings that the Labor alternative would cost jobs by reducing workplace flexibility and increasing union power. And prosperity ensured many voters were willing to sacrifice exports and economic expansion to cut back greenhouse gas emissions.

All this has changed since the global financial crisis. There is a real possibility that a million people could be looking for work by the next election, many of them young people sacked or never employed because Labor's new wages policy has made them too expensive to hire. And energy exporters, already struggling for sales, say the Government's complex ETS will cost them business. Few voters will be dazzled by these jewels in Labor's policy crown when we next got to the polls. Despite Labor's dominance in Newspoll, people are sceptical about the party. Labor came close to losing in the Northern Territory at the last election, it lost in Western Australia and it is no sure thing in the Queensland campaign. Nor are first-term federal governments guaranteed re-election. Bob Hawke's triumph in 1983 was not repeated in the closer 1984 campaign. Mr Howard's decisive win in 1996 was followed by a near political death experience in 1998 when he lost the popular vote. Mr Rudd's policy surrender to the Labor Left could yet make him a one-term prime minister because in the coming campaign, voters will ask themselves Peter Costello's question from the last one -- who can best be trusted to manage a trillion-dollar economy.

Yet in pussy-footing with internal politics, Mr Turnbull is ignoring his one opportunity -- to compare the reputations of the Labor and Liberal parties on the economy. And Mr Costello knows it, knows the next election will be fought on his issues, the economy and the need for further reform of government. Mr Turnbull must embrace the Howard agenda. If he declines to do it, the party should look for a leader who will. On either side of the political divide, the leader who captures the centre will be prime minister after the next election.

Why Kevin Rudd is SMILING in this world wide recession.

Comrade Rudd and Madame Rein
Australians would be smiling too if they were about to reap a $300million dollar wind fall due to the world wide recession and the policies of Comrade Rudd's Socialist Government.

UK deals windfall for Rein enterprise

Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent
The Australian
March 11, 2009

KEVIN Rudd's family finances are heading in a different direction from those of most people as the global recession helps to add as much as $300 million to the annual turnover of his wife Therese Rein's job-placement company in Britain.

Industry experts familiar with her main operating company predicted yesterday that its turnover would more than treble in the next three years from about pound stg. 60million ($130 million) to pound stg. 200million.

While most families and industries struggle with the recession, Ms Rein, who is estimated to be worth $60 million, is prospering because her firm is already winning new British government contracts and her chosen profession of helping the unemployed is one of the few businesses that continues to boom in bad economic times.

Ms Rein's decision to sell her Australian operations to avoid a conflict of interest after her husband was elected prime minister in 2007 has turned out to be beautifully timed because she concentrated on the British job market just as it was preparing for an explosion of private sector activity.

Her firm, WorkDirections UK, is believed to have doubled its turnover from the pound stg. 32 million it reported in June 2007, while its workforce has also doubled to more than 700.

That growth is mainly being driven by the British Government's injection of new market forces and private enterprise into the task of finding jobs for the unemployed, but the recession is giving her business a further boost.

The upturn in Ms Rein's fortunes comes as Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull stands by his claim that it is hypocritical of Mr Rudd to attack "neo-liberal" policies when his own family finances have benefited from the privatisation of government services.

Ms Rein's acumen and business success have been well documented, but the extent of her expansion in Britain is only now becoming clear.

"Selling up in Australia and turning most of her attention to here (in Britain) turned out to be the smartest thing she could possibly have done," one economic adviser to the British Government said yesterday.

A spokeswoman for Ms Rein's holding company, Ingeus, yesterday refused to comment on the firm's growth prospects, issuing a statement saying that "we are not in a position to speculate about our purchasers' response to current economic conditions (but we) will continue to respond to employment services tenders as they arise".

Labour now pays about pound stg. 1 billion a year to private firms and voluntary groups for job services but it is committed to giving them access to more of the pound stg. 36 billion that it spends on the unemployed each year.

The likelihood of a Conservative election victory next year suggests there will be an even bolder shift to the private sector, with the Tories promising to put many more job-search functions out to contract and to make heavy cuts at the Department for Work and Pensions, which has already lost 30,000 jobs under Labour.

With Britain suffering one of the deepest downturns in the developed world, the number of people on some form of jobless benefits is tipped to double to two million, prompting Gordon Brown's Government to increase the scale and pace of its shift to private-sector job placement.

One of the Government's flagship programs, the Flexible New Deal for the long-term jobless, has been expanded from 100,000 places to 300,000 and the upfront payments to job placement firms have been increased to help fund the start-up of what is essentially a new private industry.

Several experts in London said the next 18 months to two years would be difficult for the private providers as they struggled with their own structural changes and a shortage of job vacancies, but when the recession eventually eased the profits would roll in. When the economy finally began to create more jobs the job placement agencies would thrive because they would have large numbers of relatively skilled and work-ready people on their books.

Richard Johnson, a former executive at Ms Rein's firm in Britain who now heads one of her rivals, yesterday backed the prediction that she could triple her turnover in the next three years.

"If you do the numbers you do come up with a result like that and Therese has built a company that deserves that sort of success," said Mr Johnson, the managing director of welfare-to-work programs for Serco, one of the world's largest providers of privatised public services.

"WorkDirections has probably the best reputation in the country for quality and integrity. It pays its front-line staff more than other providers and something like 90 per cent of them have university degrees.

"That high-quality service is a point of difference in the market and it has been a very clever strategy because the trend now is all about basing payments on results and if you deliver better results you will be better rewarded."

The Government is offering 24 large five-year contracts to provide job services in different parts of Britain and WorkDirections is widely expected to win three or four contracts.

That would lift its turnover to perhaps pound stg. 105 million and similar results in the next two annual rounds of contracts would lift it to about pound stg. 200 million.

Professor Dan Finn, a welfare-to-work expert for the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion who has studied the introduction of such schemes in Australia and the US, said the first few years of the new British contracts were likely to have generous government funding.

"If you look at cases like the Jobs Network in Australia they tend to spend a lot to make sure it gets up and running, and then they tighten up the funding," he said.

"That is when the number of providers competing for business falls away ... and the quality operations like WorkDirections are left standing."

Ms Rein's firm has also entered the French, German and Swedish job markets but the greatest rewards have been offered by the structural reforms in Britain. Labour has already brought single parents and the disabled into welfare-to-work programs and is now flirting with the more radical step of using the huge pot of money that is normally reserved for unemployment benefits to pay job-placement firms for reducing the benefits bill.

Australia: Socialised Medicine aka.Medi - dont - Care

Cabinet delay on drug subsidy hits 1600

Herald Sun
March 10, 2009 12:00am

MORE than 350 bowel cancer patients a month are dying as they wait for federal Cabinet to approve subsidising a $55,000 drug.

Eight months ago the Federal Government's Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee approved a subsidy for the cancer drug Avastin, which costs $55,000 a year.

The decision should have cut the medicine's cost to $32.90 for general patients and $5.30 for pensioners.

But before the subsidy can be paid Cabinet must approve the committee's ruling, because the subsidy for the drug will cost taxpayers more than $10 million a year.

Since the drug subsidy was approved 1600 patients have missed out.

Just 305 patients have been able to pay the $20,000 they need to go on to a special scheme in which the drug's manufacturer Roche helps patients with the cost of the drug.

Retired teacher Jan Plummer, who was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer in March, 2007 has taken Avastin for two years.

She is urging Cabinet to act quickly to subsidise the drug.

"I can imagine how many people who are waiting to go on this drug and can't afford it," she said.

She says she could afford it because her health fund, NSW Teacher's Federation, is one of only a few that help pay the cost.

"God help those who don't have health cover or whose funds don't pay," she said.

She says she's been able to travel, swim and run while on the drug that's injected every two weeks.

The only side effect has been high blood pressure that's treated with tablets.

In March last year, it was revealed three costly treatments for Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis and renal disease were delayed.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon spokesman said yesterday he could not comment on when Cabinet might consider the drug.

Roche says price negotiations were settled in August last year.

Bowel cancer is the nation's most common cancer with more than 12,500 cases emerging every year. It is the second biggest cancer killer after lung cancer with 4500 people dying of it each year.

These bowel cancer sufferers DIE not because of a lack of money available to treat them, they die because they are not considered a high enough priority on the list of this Socialist Labor Governments worthy causes. (see link to previous post re PM Rudd's $75 million dollar gift to Islamic terrorists and their supporters)

The Australian Labor Party's love of, and support of, left wing loons,despots and terrorists far out weighs it's love of and concern for Australians.
Mr Rudd has as I write commanded Australia's Govenor General a close personal friend of his and his family, to leave next week for a whirlwind tour of Africa to seek the support of the various African despots, thugs and hoodlums in securing Australia a seat on the United Nations Security Council, Mr Rudd's other great priority.
Mr Rudd's obsession with grand standing on the world stage,rubbing shoulders with any loon and third world despotic African / Islamic thug who tells him what he wants to hear ie what a "great bloke Kevin 07 is", how much will it cost the Australian taxpayers to stroke his pathetic ego? how many more Australian bowel cancer sufferers will die whilst this prick struts around like the jumped up level 3 public servant he is, and will always be, telling anyone who will listen what a genius he is.

Kevin Rudd Gives away $75million to Gazan Islamic terrorists and their supporters

Prior to the introduction of Socialised medicine into Australia by the Australian Labor Party, Australia had the BEST health system in the world bar NONE,all the more reason for the Socialists to destroy it. see Socialised medicine

A life on hold, thanks to red tape

Peter Dutton
News.com.au
Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Imagine needing a complicated organ transplant to save your life. But the vital surgery that can save you has never been performed in Australia.

It is routinely performed overseas. Your doctors have said you will be lucky to survive another 12 months without the transplant.

You would hope and pray that Australia’s health authorities and Health Minister Nicola Roxon would do all they could to save your life.

Assess your health condition. Assess the treatment options and then make a timely decision on how you get your lifesaving treatment.

That is the circumstance that 36-year-old Sydney woman, Pauline Talty, found herself in last October.

Today – 20 weeks later – almost five months later - Pauline Talty remains in a Sydney hospital desperately waiting for an answer to her application to be sent to the United States for treatment.

She is being let down!

Three eminent doctors, Dr David Storey of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital; Dr Ross Smith, Professor of Surgery, formerly of Royal North Shore Hospital and Dr Michael Crawford, Surgical Director of the Australian National Liver Transplant Unit are all agreed that Pauline should be sent to Pittsburgh for a bowel transplant.

Their opinions were filed with the Federal Health Department months ago, but still Pauline is being asked to justify why funding should be provided for travel to America.

This is the sort of excessive red tape and bureaucracy which has brought public hospitals in New South Wales to their knees.

And it’s coming from a Federal Government which said it was going to “fix” health.

Imagine if you were in Pauline’s circumstances.

What would you feel? What would you say to the bureaucrats who hold your life in their hands?

"Socialism means equality of income or nothing...........Under Socialism

you would not be allowed to be poor.

You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught and employed

whether you liked it or not.

If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to

be worth all his trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly

manner; but while you were permitted to live,

you would have to live well."

Bernard Shaw.

Australian PM Kevin Rudd "...and his hypocrisy. Underline hypocrisy."

Comrade Rudd's great con game

SMH
Paul Sheehan
March 9, 2009

It is going to be fascinating to see how long Kevin Rudd, the greatest illusionist ever to become prime minister of Australia, can maintain this illusion of omnipresent leadership created by his energy, his ubiquity and his hypocrisy. Underline hypocrisy.

Rudd is on course to become the next Gough Whitlam, but Whitlam without the wit. Like Whitlam, he may win a second election before the electorate wakes up. At least Comrade Whitlam was stuck with a claque of criminals in his ministry - Al Grassby, Jim Cairns, Rex Connor - whereas Rudd has no such impediment.

So remember the words, uttered last night, by Rudd on Channel Seven: "Any person's job loss through no fault of their own is a lost job too many when it comes to me. I'm the Prime Minister of the country, the buck stops with me."

Was Rudd able to save a single one of the 2000 manufacturing jobs lost at Pacific Brands last week? No, the buck stopped with the workers. This is the man who increased the immigration program to the largest annual intake in Australia's history, and it is now swelling the ranks of job seekers. This is the man whose Government will, tomorrow, introduce workplace legislation which will increase the power of unions, and give pause to job creators. This is the man who has offered no structural relief to the great job-creating engine of the economy - small business. And this is the man who panicked at the first sign of danger and sprayed the entire $20 billion budget surplus he inherited up against a wall.

If Rudd wants to be Everywhere Man, then let him play the role and bear the consequences. Like most other Western leaders responding to the global financial freeze, he is making it up as he goes along, because we are in uncharted territory. Global industrial output has fallen faster in the past six months than it did at the advent of the Great Depression in 1929-30.

The response of policymakers has been to pump a massive increase in liquidity and government debt obligations into the system. But as the eminent economic historian Professor Niall Ferguson, of Harvard and Oxford, recently warned on his website: "The general assumption seemed to be that practically any kind of government expenditure would be beneficial, provided it was financed by a really big deficit."

Sound familiar? Ferguson continued: "There is something desperate about the way people are clinging to their dog-eared copies of John Maynard Keynes's General Theory. Uneasily aware that their discipline almost entirely failed to anticipate the current crisis, economists seemed to be regressing to macroeconomic childhood, clutching the multiplier like an old teddy bear.

"The harsh reality that is being repressed is this: the Western world is suffering a crisis of excessive indebtedness. Many governments are too highly leveraged, as are many corporations. More importantly, households are groaning under unprecedented debt burdens. Worst of all are the banks. Some of the best-known names in American and European finance have balance sheets 40, 60 or even 100 times the size of their capital …

"The delusion is that a crisis of excess debt can be solved by creating more debt. Yet that is precisely what most governments currently propose to do." Space precludes listing Ferguson's prescriptions but they can be found on his website, and summed up with this sentence: "The solution to the debt crisis is not more debt but less debt."

Tell that to Kevin Keynes. In opposition, Rudd opposed the GST, which in retrospect has been a tremendous stabilising influence in the economy, thanks to John Howard. During the last election, Rudd campaigned as an "economic conservative". Upon winning office, and inheriting a $90 billion financial buffer from outgoing treasurer Peter Costello, he accused the previous government of creating a dangerous inflation threat. It was a fabrication.

After the global financial storm broke, Rudd attacked the excesses of neo-liberal market capitalism even as he spent the entire $20 billion budget surplus he had inherited from the neo-liberals in an absurd attempt to claim he had kept Australia out of recession. The evolution of his economic position has been an opportunistic fraud, exposed by those on his own side of politics.

As the former Labor leader Mark Latham wrote on February 20, in The Australian Financial Review: "When Kevin Rudd lobbied me in October 2004 to become Labor's shadow treasurer, his sales pitch was straight from the neo-liberal playbook. He was enthusiastic about pro-market policies such as deregulation and reducing the size of the state. [As leader] he went to the polls as Howard-lite."

Michael Costa, former Labor treasurer of NSW, dismissed Rudd's recent attack on the excesses of market capitalism, in a critique in The Australian on February 6 as "rambling and selective" and warned that Rudd's response to the global crisis "is likely to do more damage to the economy".

As Niall Ferguson has also warned. When the recession in Australia gets worse, and Rudd's Keynesian cliches have increased the long-term cost of the government intervention, Labor will run a diversionary personal campaign against the Leader of the Opposition, simply because Malcolm Turnbull is a wealthy former merchant banker.

What, you may ask, about the multi-millions the Rudd family has made from neo-liberal policies of the Howard years? Latham had something to say about this, too: "Rudd's wife created an impressive business network and fortune from the Howard government's privatisation of labour market programs."

Rudd can trim his economic sails to pick up whatever political wind he can find because he embodies the hollowness of the pursuit of power before principle.

Alan Jones interviews Paul Sheehan 10 3 09 Americans take note

The Leader of Australia's largest Socialist political party,the Australian Labor Party, ALP, financed by the Marxist based Australian Council of Trade Unions, ACTU,has done very nicely indeed from the policies of the previous conservative Liberal Government of John Howard, he and his wife, Therese Rein (Madame Rudd?) are very wealthy and good luck to them, it was only mid 2008 that the former public servant and his partner were searching for a holiday home and were looking at holiday homes in the vicinity of 10 million dollars, Conservative Capitalist Australia has allowed them to drop the chant of "four legs good two legs bad" and replace it with "four legs good two legs better"

Who can forget Kevin 07's answer to a question during the 2007 election campaign,I believe he asked himself, "I have never been a socialist" clearly he and his wife reject totally the platform of the political party he is now the leader of.

I have never seen an Australian Labor Party leader or politician or their bankers in the ACTU, LIVE the ideology they demand be imposed upon those they despise so much,the Australian people, Mr Rudd and Madame Rudd are doing nothing any different than every other Socialist here and through out the world are doing have done and will continue to do, it's "do as I say not as I do"

Anna Bligh's contempt for Queensland voter

The following video clip is a good demonstration of the contempt that the "all wise" "all knowing" "compassionate" and "we know whats best for you" Socialist Government of Queensland has,for the Queensland people, the same people it was elected to represent not rule over.

The Queensland Labor Party leader Anna Bligh seems confused to say the least, when questioned by a voter on the campaign trail, she quickly reminded her (serf ?) that she was NOT a journalist and as such was not eligible to question her,it seems the former Union Official (ALP fund raiser) believes that only paid members of the Journalists Union (jugglers and clowns Union) are entitled to question her on matters relating to her and her Government's appalling governance of the State of Queensland.
Comrade Anna, has perhaps been spending too much time around fellow Queenslander and Federal Labor leader and Australian PM,Kevin 07 aka "I have never been a socialist" Rudd.

Australia Heads towards Recession.... the one we were told we were not going to have.

Kevin Rudd Gives away $75 million to Gazan Islamic terrorists and their supporters

Rudd hands another $20m to Gaza recovery

News.com.au
February 28, 2009 10:44pm

THE federal government will give a further $20 million to help with the recovery and reconstruction of Gaza.

The new funding is an addition to $10 million provided in January for emergency and humanitarian relief through United Nations and international and Australian non-governmental organisations.

A 22-day Israeli offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip ended on January 18 after causing massive devastation and killing more than 1300 Palestinians.

It's not funny you moron!!!!!
Please, someone tell this arse clown idiot in search of a village, Australian Prime Minister, to stop giving away millions upon millions of Australian Taxpayers hard earned money to United Nations sponsored Muslim Terrorists and their Muslim supporters.
Australians are dieing in hospitals because of inadequate treatment due to staff and equipment shortages,Australian women are delivering their own dead babies into toilet bowls alone after been told to squat on waiting room floors until they can be attended to, all this is happening in the middle of Sydney,as Labor's Medi DONT Care health system rots away before their eyes, and this GOOSE, this incompetent FOOL gives away $75 Million to people who HATE our GUTS and have sworn to eliminate "Infidels" like us, ie anyone who is not a Muslim, from the planet
God Help us!!!

See how Australian Taxpayers hard earned money is used
Rudd's Messiah President Obama has promised $900 million of US taxpayers moneyto help theses savages re arm and re supply

In a statement released by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith's office on Saturday, it was announced the new funding will be committed at an international donors conference on the recovery of Gaza in Egypt on Monday.

Assessments of damage to infrastructure in Gaza are continuing, the statement said.

United Nations agencies report widespread damage to vital infrastructure, resulting in a lack of shelter and energy, deterioration of water and sanitation services and overcrowding.

It is estimated 100,000 people are displaced and living in shelters.

The Australian government has committed $75 million to the Palestinian territories since December 2007.

More of the infamous members of the Religion of PEACE and what Australian Taxes are funding

Australia's Idiot in search of a village PM

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's overseas travel bill hits $3.4m

Steve Lewis
The Courier-Mail
February 25, 2009 11:00pm

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has splurged close to $3.4 million on overseas travel since coming to power. The globe-trotting PM has racked up one overseas trip every month on average - and spent close to one in six days on foreign soil.

Taxpayers have paid a hefty price for Mr Rudd's 15 global trips, but the PM is defending the time he spends meeting world leaders. But with the Government now forecasting a hefty budget deficit, the Opposition has slammed the travel costs as an "absolute disgrace" and branded the PM "Emperor Kevin". One 18-day trip to the US, Belgium, Romania, Britain and China cost $640,749, according to details obtained by The Courier-Mail.Australian PM Kevin Rudd (r) seen here on a visit to Japan doing his best to appear Chinese, why? because he has sold out Australia to the Chinese, after all if you are not able to make it as an Australian, why not be an honorary Chinese and United Nations lick spittle?

Five-star accommodation and meals cost just over $100,000 while the cost of commercial airfares for Mr Rudd's advance team hit $52,000. Mr Rudd took 11 of his personal staff and wife Therese Rein, along with public servants, security personnel and his personal GP. Another big spending visit - to Japan and Indonesia last June - cost taxpayers $547,000. The PM's entourage spent $32,000 on hospitality alone. Former diplomat Mr Rudd has been privately criticised by some of his own colleagues for spending so much time away.

He cancelled an overseas trip - to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and to India - in late January as the global economic meltdown worsened. But the PM, dubbed Kevin 747, has racked up plenty of frequent flyer points as he seeks to recast Australia's image as a middle-ranking power. Last night, the Opposition's shadow special minister of state Michael Ronaldson described the expenditure as an "absolute disgrace". "On several trips, he took 12 or 13 family members and staff with him. It was 'Emperor Kevin and his Manchu Court' flying off to see the world," Mr Ronaldson said. But the PM hit back, saying it was essential to meet global leaders to discuss a solution to the world's economic crisis.

"You can be part of the global response to the global financial crisis or you can sit back and watch it on CNN," a spokesman for Mr Rudd said. The Government also pointed out that former PM John Howard spent about $25 million of taxpayers' money on overseas travel while in office.

Australia's very own "community organizer" International Socialist,and United Nations lick spittle, Kevin "I have never been a socialist" Rudd, busy looking after Australia's "working families" and delivering "change" since November 2007 Australia's unemployment has risen, bankruptcies are rising, small businesses are closing down, and he has spent all of the 28 billion dollar surplus the (great Satan) Conservative Howard Government left him, Australia's "working families" code for Labor voters and Union members, are about to live for the first time in 12 years the ideology of their and their socialist pin up boys who are the Australian Labor Government led by Kevin 07 or more correctly a government and leader with the same amount of substance and depth as the bumper sticker slogans and ideology that got them elected.

Australia's Pro Hugo Chavez, Rudd Labor Government to train PRO Sharia Law Pakistani Troops

Australia's Pro Hugo Chavez, Labor Socialist Federal Government, led by Prime Minister, Kevin "I have never been a socialist " Rudd aka Lu Kewan, agrees to train Pakistani Military officers.
This is a disgrace Australian soldiers are on the ground in Afghanistan, fighting Taliban terrorists supplied and sheltered by Pakistan, Pakistan has just signed a agreement with terrorists to implement Sharia Law.

I guess Rudd and his party would see it as only fair that Australia train those we are fighting against,the best way how to KILL our Soldiers, in what PM Rudd and his feminist collective & diverse workshop of failed school teachers and piss head Union Officials,multiculturalists, who are Rudd's non sexist,non judgmental Government, would describe as "getting the balance right" or "in the interests of fairness" no we would not want too many Australian soldiers to come back uninjured and alive from Afghanistan in the war against Islamic terrorism would you? you pathetic sack of UN sponsored Socialist SHIT.

Pakistan falls to Sharia Law (or it's now official")

Smith announces more Pakistani troops

SkyNews
Updated: 17:48,
Tuesday February 17, 2009

Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith has announced a four-fold increase in the numbers of Pakistani government military officers to be trained in Australia.

Speaking at the beginning of a three-day visit to Pakistan, Smith said the decision would 'raise the numbers to 40 to 50 officers'.

With around 1,100 Australian troops already stationed in neighbouring Afghanistan, Smith also said Australia was ready to respond positively if the US asked it to provide more troops to stabilise the situation in Afghanistan.

Smith's visit came as the government in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) signed an agreement with the radical cleric Maulana Sufi Mohammad.

Mohammad is a supporter of the pro-Taliban militants fighting for the enforcement of Islamic Sharia law in Swat, located just 160km from Islamabad.

Under the deal, the government will set up Islamic courts to provide speedy justice to people and end security operations in the region.

Smith, the first Australian foreign minister to visit Pakistan in a decade, welcomed the deal.

'It is a positive development and we hope for a positive outcome,' he told a joint press conference with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Smith also flew to the NWFP's provincial capital Peshawar and Khyber pass, the historic border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

More than 120,000 Pakistani troops are fighting Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters entrenched in its lawless tribal area bordering Afghanistan. They have suffered hundreds of casualties while fighting insurgents.

Smith also said military enforcement was not enough to fight terrorism and it was important to build the capacity of the civilian government and engage moderate elements through political dialogue.

Qureshi said: 'The war against terror could not be won by military means alone and that a multi-pronged strategy was required to root out the causes of terrorism and win the hearts and minds of the people.'

Stimulus, Stimulus,Stimulus Give it to me baby!!!!!

Drunken sailor economics

By Tim Blair
The Daily Telegraph
February 07, 2009 12:00am

IT'S hot this weekend. So take off your shirt and lie down in the sun.

Join Tim Blair's blog

You'll be surprised how cool you feel.

It might sound counter-intuitive, but that's apparently the way we're supposed to do things these days. And for some time prior.

Over the past 10 years, for example, while the economy roared along, we were told to reduce credit card debt and boost savings.

Now the economy is weakening, we're told to spend like crazy.

In 2007, then opposition treasury spokesman Wayne Swan complained about families struggling to pay credit card debt.

Two years later, he's begging us to hit the shops. If, by the way, the aim of the Government's stimulus exercise was to put cash in retailer pockets, why not give it straight to retailers? Just a thought.

(Also, it's a little bold for any money-grabbing Australian government to tell us how to spend our money when they decide to give some back.

If it's such a great idea for us to buy things, let us keep the cash in the first place. We'd have a hell of lot more, too, without it being processed through the taxation department.)

People facing an increased risk of unemployment might understandably feel disinclined to spend. Moreover, even if everyone who receives their Ruddollars and Kevincents dutifully blows the lot on locally-made goods, there is no certainty that it will solve our economic problems.

That's because these economic problems aren't exclusively ours. It's a global financial crisis, after all.

Just as you can't cure alleged global warming by closing Australian coal plants, you can't repair a global money meltdown by throwing $950 at Bing Lee.

As a measure of Australia's place in global economic terms, consider that the $US819 billion in US President Barack Obama's stimulus plan represents - according to someone armed with a bible and a calculator - nearly $US1 million every day since the birth of Jesus Christ.

By contrast, the Rudd stimulus plan represents $US1 million every day since the birth of Maggie Tabberer.

Who, while admirable in the fields of fashion and publishing, is yet to surprise anyone at Easter.

Despite all of this, we're yet to feel the full impact of the ever-looming crisis.

As much as I'm a fan of extreme capitalism, to use Kevin Rudd's phrase, might it not be a good idea to hang on to some of our billions until precise needs are identified?

Instead, we're getting $4 billion worth of government-funded household insulation.

Ask elderly relatives what they most craved during the Great Depression - chances are it wasn't pink batts, which aren't exactly edible.

As a response to international economic turmoil, loading roofs with fibreglass is one of your more eccentric options. One justification is that it will reduce carbon emissions.

Which gets us back to the other great crisis of our time.

If Rudd is serious about addressing climate change, which he described as "the defining challenge of our generation'', he has the solution right in front of him.

The economic downturn, with a reduction in commerce and therefore emissions, should easily deliver a 5 per cent carbon cut. Probably more.

Instead, he's piling on $42 billion worth of emissions. We've reached a tipping point, as they say. Rudd has tipped against the "defining challenge''.

For more brilliance Join Tim Blair's blog

Malcolm Turnbull Kevin Rudd Stimulus Package

Turnbull Doorstop with Hockey - Securing our economic future, Kevin Rudd's plan to lump every Australian with $9500 in debt...

The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP
Leader of the Opposition
Fri, 6th February 2009

Subjects: Securing our economic future; Kevin Rudd's plan to lump every Australian with $9500 in debt; comparable countries using tax cuts for economic stimulus; small business.

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Well you can see the people we’ve been talking to here are concerned about debt, they’re concerned about the level of debt Kevin Rudd is proposing to run up and the fact that their children and their grandchildren are going to have to pay it off. And they can’t understand why he’s going to take us deeper and deeper into debt – $200 billion in order to fund cash handouts. What will we have to show for that?

Now Reg, you saw the last cash handout, how did that affect your business here?

MR CAIN:

It actually, Malcolm, didn’t affect us here in Gladesville a hell of a lot. We did have people come into the shop before the handout was given and said, ‘I want you to hold that fridge for us’. But they’re still coming in weeks later and still haven’t bought it. So it didn’t affect Gladesville in that sense too much.

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

And what do you think about the idea of another $11 billion being handed out in March?

MR CAIN:

Really I think he’s got to stop shooting from the hip and throwing money at everything, get some infrastructure going, something that’s going to be fundamental down the track, just instead of throwing it away.

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Well that’s right. Well I think at the moment he is giving drunken sailors a bad name, spending so much money. Look, this is all about the future of Australia. We are facing economic challenges – that’s true. Yes, the Government should act and have an effective economic stimulus but it must be one that works, that gets the maximum bang for every tax payer’s buck. That’s what we are focussed on. We are focussed on prudent investment in the productivity of our economy, investment that will create jobs.

Mr Rudd said his $10 billion cash splash in December would create 75,000 jobs, where are they? We’ve seen no evidence from the Government that it created one job let alone 75,000. And now he’s proposing to back up and do it all over again.

So we’re standing up for good economic management. We’re standing up for the tax payers, but above all we’re standing up for our children because, believe me, when he maxes out our credit card, our national credit, at $200 billion, it will be our children and our grandchildren that will be paying it off for many years to come.

QUESTION:

Mr Turnbull what would happen if you went on this tour in maybe a shopping centre in Penrith and you were talking to shop owners like you just did, what do you think the response would have been from those people and people in Campbeltown?

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Well to be honest with you from right around Australia we are… Look, when we took this stand I thought it was going to be, I still believe, it will be unpopular. I thought it was going to be poisonously unpopular frankly and we all felt we were going to get hammered into the ground in the opinion polls, and we probably will be, but we took this stand because it was right.

But I have to say it’s been very interesting just looking at the calls we’re getting, and the emails we’re getting, and the feedback we’re getting, is that more and more Australians are starting to say, hang on, this isn’t right? We shouldn’t be spending all of this money and racking up all this debet. Where’s the evidence that it’s going to create jobs? Where’s the evidence that it’s going to make our economy stronger?

So we’ll see. We will see. I have great faith in the common sense of Australians.

JOE HOCKEY:

Just to give clarity there, this is the border of Bennelong and North Sydney. So the suggestion that somehow this is a particularly wealthy area is just dead wrong. Gladesville is middle Australia. Gladesville is very middle Australia and the suggestion somehow that it’s a wealthy area or we didn’t speak to any of the people that are, you know, actually the punters out there is wrong.

QUESTION:

Well what about the elderly in Blacktown or the pensioners in Campbeltown or the people in Rosemeadow who went through what they did last month?

MR CAIN:

Would you like me to speak on say Lismore? Would you class Lismore as middle of the road, because you’ve got Nimbin and those places around it, and I own a store in Lismore and we really didn’t receive too much spending from the last throw away item, I can tell you that and I can show you facts and figures.

QUESTION:

Mr Turnbull what do you make… Kevin Rudd is in Canberra at the moment talking with businesses, unions, schools – a bit optimistic considering the package still hasn’t been passed yet?

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Well look he’s certainly entitled to talk to whoever he likes. The only person he doesn’t want to talk to or the only people he doesn’t want to talk to are us. What he should be doing is sitting down with the Opposition. We’ve reached out to him and said: let’s work together and see if we can agree on a stimulus package that we can all support. And the Australian people want their leaders in Parliament to work together, but Mr Rudd’s approach, remember, Mr Rudd’s approach was to say, ‘here it is, take it or leave it, you’ve got to pass it through the parliament in 48 hours’. He wanted this legislation passed in 48 hours.

Now because we have stood up for taxpayers, and for our children and for good economic management it’s going to go through scrutiny in the Senate. But he is not interested in negotiation; he is not interested in discussion – and in many ways Kevin Rudd is right out on a limb of his own. Now you’ll recall that we have argued that a better stimulus than another huge handout would be to bring forward the tax cuts that are already legislated for in 2009 and 2010. So they’re the tax cuts the Labor Government legislated for, they were essentially a copy of what we proposed in the last election and had complete support. Bring them forward by 18 months. Mr Rudd and his ministers have said that’s a disgrace, tax cuts have no role as part of an economic stimulus package. And yet every other country in the world, comparable country that is undertaking stimulus measures has included tax cuts. Australia is the only one that hasn’t.

So the person who is out of step with the global response to this is Kevin Rudd.

QUESTION:

Would it be worth sending the Budget into deficit if you were to give more money to small business in terms of keeping jobs, hiring new people, pay rises for those people who are already working?

MR CAIN:

Good question. Very, very good question.

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Reg, what do you think? There you go – ask a small business proprietor?

MR CAIN:

Why not reduce the payroll tax? We’ve got about 34, 35 people on the staff. We pay about $25,000 a year just for the privilege to employ people. I don’t think that’s a very fair tax. So you could reduce that. You could actually then also put superannuation on hold and that would be a fairer way to everyone to get some money back into the system instead of throwing it at people.

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Yeah and that’s why Reg what we’ve recommended as a better way to support small business is for the Government to reimburse small businesses for a period, for say two years, for a portion of the superannuation guarantee levy. Now that would put cash back into the hands of every small business. And that of course, the virtue of that is that it benefits every small business whereas payroll tax in New South Wales for example is only paid if you have a payroll that is over $623,000 – that’s the current threshold.

So that is one approach. Look we, unlike Mr Rudd, we don’t believe we’ve got all the answers and we certainly don’t believe we’ve got the only answer. So that’s why we want to sit down with him and talk about effective measures. You see what he has offered small business, the only thing he has offered small business in this package is a 30 per cent depreciation, a tax deduction in effect, for equipment purchased this year. But if you’re a small business and you don’t need any new equipment, maybe you’ve got all the equipment you need, or you’re struggling with your own cash flow problem, that actually isn’t much help at all. Whereas if you give a benefit, be it on payroll tax as Reg canvassed, or on the superannuation guarantee levy, and then you benefit every business, every small business, then you’re actually putting cash back into the small business owners’ hands and above all making the cost of employing people less.

Remember, what is this all about? Jobs, jobs, jobs. Every dollar the Government spends, every policy it undertakes has to be about creating jobs and preserving jobs. And this package is not about jobs, indeed one of the Treasury officials said last night, long term it’s not about supporting jobs. Well it should be about supporting jobs and creating jobs short term, medium term and long term. That is our commitment.

QUESTION:

Mr Turnbull what is your view of Treasury saying the Government needs all $200 billion of the money that it’s seeking to borrow?

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Well running up the expenses they are they will need to borrow $200 billion, but that’s the whole point. They’re spending too much and they’re borrowing to pay for it. What they’re doing is they’re maxing out the credit card. I mean it’s their decision to spend all this money; they are creating the debt by spending this money.

JOE HOCKEY:

Just to add there the Government has committed $66 billion of new expenditure since the last Budget, and given that it took us 10 years in government to pay of $100 billion of debt, how long will it take to pay of $200 billion of debt, let alone the fact that they’re flagging now that they’re going to have even more.

MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Thanks guys.

Video of the above door stop included in this news report