The 45th Parliament of Australia (30 August 2016 to 4 April 2019)

Ok so as we head to the ballot box next month, I thought I’d do a wrap up and review of last government we elected. I’ve done my best to categorise each section. I’ve left out a fair bit of stuff that’s only happened in the last two months or so.

Let’s start with Barnaby Joyce. He has done so much that he gets his own category. But two more points. Firstly, there was so much rorting and corruption, that I’ll tag stuff as [RORT] if it related to some kind of rort or corruption. Secondly, there was also a lot of shit governance, chaos and mismanagement. So I’ve tagged these as [CHAOS]. Anyways let’s begin!

BARNABY JOYCE

1. High court rules Barnaby Joyce ineligible to sit in parliament, forcing a by-election in his electorate

2. Barnaby Joyce has an affair with a staffer

3. [RORT] Barnaby Joyce’s lives rent free in a mate’s house. Also gets taxpayers to upgrade the security of his house, costing us $3m.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/security-upgrade-for-joyces-armidale-love-nest/news-story/d01c69369967d9db076e311f97bed4ce

4. Rural advocate, Catherine Marriot makes formal sexual harassment claim against Barnaby Joyce to the National Party.

5. [CHAOS] After Barnaby resigns from Deputy Leader, the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has to introduce the ‘bonking ban’. To make it clear to everyone to stop rooting their staff.

6. [CHAOS] Barnaby Joyce, after being dumped as leader, causing instability in the government by saying he’ll run again for the leader

7. [RORT] Barnaby Joyce makes a shitload of money buying land that’ll pass through an inland rail project.

8. [RORT] Mining billionaire Gina Rineheart just straight up gives Barnaby a cheque for $40,000.

Source: David Pope

9. [RORT] Barnaby Joyce moves the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority from Canberra into his own electorate in Armidale. Effectively ruining the effectiveness of the department.

Ok that’s him out of the way. Let’s look at the next area.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS/SECURITY

10. Scomo thinks it’s a good idea to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to try and win over Jewish voters in the Wentworth by-election. Then later backflips on the idea after angering Indonesia.

11. Julie Bishop causes tension with NZ saying she can’t work with the New Zealand’s Labour govt over a stupid conspiracy

12. Trump and Turnbull’s horrific phone call about immigration and other issues.

13. [CHAOS] Classified materials from the PM’s office end up at a second-hand shop

14. Government thinks it’s a good idea to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, who’s been bombing the shit out of Yemen and has numerous human rights violations

15. [CHAOS] After Turnbull is dumped as PM and has resigned from the parliament. Scomo sends him to represent Australia at a conference in Indonesia

EDUCATION

16. Scomo rolls out “Gonski 2.0” and gives all the money to private schools. No money for public schools. Originally he said some of these rich schools would lose funding, but they ended up getting shitloads of taxpayer money.

ENERGY

17. With all of our Coal fired power plants starting to reach the end of their life, Scomo makes a lot of noise about using a ‘big stick’ policy for force power plants to stay open, threatening to nationalise power plants. This is a crazy insane policy, straight out of a communist state, from the ‘free market’ Liberal party. Anyways last week of parliament they backed out and shelved the legislation.

18. A whole bunch of LNP ministers come out and blame renewable energy for South Australia’s blackout. They are straight up baseless fucking lies.

19. Talking about lies, this guy Angus Taylor can’t fucking tell the truth about the fact that emissions under the Liberal government have increased. Keeps trying to say they’ve fallen which is utter bullshit.

20. Scomo brings a lump of coal into parliament.

21. Matt Canavan refers to the Indian coal mine project, Adani as a fucking little Aussie battler.

22. Josh Frydenberg gets told off by SA Premier Jay Weatherill for the Federal govt’s failure on energy policy

ENVIRONMENT

Source: David Pope

23. Environment minister Melissa Price insults Pacific Island leader, who was in the country to raise awareness of climate change. Melissa walks up to him while he’s having dinner and says tells him off, says he’s only here to get cash.

Source: David Pope

24. [RORT] Government gives an unprecedented $444m to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, without a tender, without them asking for it. Basically to avoid UNESCO from listing the reef as a danger. The board is stacked with mates linked to the Liberal party.

Source: David Pope

25. A million fish dead in the Murray Darling River. Due to total mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin plan.

26. South Australia govt’s royal commission into the mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin plan. Shows Barnaby Joyce ignored the law, made up statistics, introduced economic measures to justify draining the river.

27. Cockatoo faces extinction due to habitat loss in FNQ

28. 1 billion bees dead in NT after suspected poisoning incident.

29. Extreme heatwave wipes out a third of our flying foxes.

30. Coral reproduction falls to 89% after repeated bleaching. Over half of the Great Barrier Reef is now dead.

31. The fucking stupid Adani mega coal mine

FINANCE

32. [CHAOS] Government yields to pressure from Labor, minor parties, independents and uhh the vast majority of the Australian public and finally calls a Banking Royal Commission.

33. Then the govt fails to implement any of the recommendations from the Banking Royal Commission in this term of government. Leaves uncertainty for mortgage brokers in particular.

34. Just a reminder that Scomo voted against the banking royal commission 26 times.

35. [RORT] Liberal MP Tim Wilson uses taxpayer funds to go out on tour running an ‘enquiry’ into Labor’s proposed dividend imputation policy. Hands out membership forms for the Liberal party at government enquiry meetings. Collaborates with a family member who Wilson Asset Management, owns shares in said company.

Source: David Pope

36. The Liberals have DOUBLED OUR DEBT in the last 6 years. Completely out of control spending, fantasy tax revenue figures.

HEALTH

Source: David Pope

37. National Disability Insurance Scheme fails to meet standards

38. [CHAOS] Despite recommendations not to make it opt out, the government completely fails to roll out My Health Record, with 2.5m Australians worried about their privacy and opting out of the poorly implemented system.

39. Again, due to pressure from minor parties, Labor and independents, the govt is forced to call a Royal Commission into the Disability Sector.

IMMIGRATION/HOME AFFAIRS

Under the Liberals, more refugees just arrived than under Labor — they just came by plane rather than by boat

40. Peter Dutton revokes Neil Prakah’s Australian Citizenship without consulting Fiji

41. [RORT] Roman Quaedvlieg, head of Border Force is sacked for abusing his powers as commissioner.

42. [RORT] Roman Quaedvlieg then tries to throw Peter Dutton under a bus after getting sacked, exposes Peter Dutton’s corruption in letting a bunch of Au Pair’s “jump the queue” for some of Peter Dutton’s mates.

Source: David Pope

43. Peter Dutton reckons Victorians are scared to go out to dinner because of ‘African gang violence’.

Source: David Pope

44. [CHAOS] LNP votes in favour of a One Nation motion that says ‘it’s okay to be white’, a known white supremacist slogan.

45. Immigration department is totally incompetent. TWO YEAR delay in processing applications for citizenship.

46. [RORT] Dutton grants massive $591m contract to run Nauru to security contractor Paladin, without a proper tender process. Paladin’s HQ is a shack on Kangaroo Island. Noone yet knows who actually “owns”, Paladin. More corruption.

47. [CHAOS] Government loses a historic vote on the floor of parliament, as the opposition passes the Medevac bill to help get sick refugees the medical attention they need.

Source: David Pope

48. [RORT] Government reopens Christmas island. Scomo flies into Christmas Island for a 30min press conference, costing taxpayers over $40,000 for the trip.

Source: David Pope

49. [CHAOS] Government announces it will close Christmas Island after only opening it 3 weeks ago. A total fucking waste of $180m.

50. [RORT] Company wins $21.5m Manus Island healthcare gig, without a fucking contract. Has a poor track record of providing healthcare.

51. Australian Border Force intended to cut patrols in order to save fuel because they mismanaged their own budget.

52. Peter Dutton thought it was a good idea to a racist fuckwit, blames former Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser for letting Lebanese refugees into the country.

Ehhh.. that’ll do. These are starting to get really depressing. Moving on!

JOBS

53. Government drives down wages and wasting taxpayer funds with their amazing $4/hr internships.

54. Scott Morrison commits to 1.25m new jobs over 5 years. Only problem is that the government’s own growth figures show that by effectively doing nothing, they will achieve this goal purely due to population growth.

JUSTICE

55. ATO Whistleblower gets a ridiculous 46 years in prison for exposing the predatory practices the ATO were doing to collect debt from small businesses.

56. Witness K exposes Liberal government in 2004 had bugged East Timor’s cabinet during oil and gas negotiations

MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Source: David Pope

57. The absolute shitshow that was the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, that cost $122m and caused a spike in violence and mental health issues.

MEDIA

58. [RORT] NO TENDER, NO PAPERWORK. The govt just straight up gives $30m to Foxtel for something about support for unrepresented sports. Straight up bribe to Rupert Murdoch.

59. Coalition meddling in the affairs of the ABC

60. Mitch Fifield complains that ABC was reporting fake news. Turns out it wasn’t.

61. LNP tries to get rid of reporter ABC Emma Alberici

NATIONAL BROADBAND NETWORK

62. LNP fails to deliver on their promise to have the NBN built by their own targets. Massive cost blowout. Also completely fucked it by using FTTN instead of FTTP.

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/coalition-nbn-to-cost-41bn-miss-delivery-dates-367388

Source: David Pope

63. LNP passes a completely stupid encryption bill, claiming it needs to force IT developers to put backdoors into servers/software based in Australia despite experts saying that this will ruin the IT industry in Australia.

SOCIAL SERVICES

Source: David Pope

64. [RORT] The Centrelink Robodebt system, which inaccurately calculates debts owed by Centrelink recipients. Costs more to administer than what it gets in collections.

Source: David Pope

65. Liberal MP Julia Banks says she reckons she could live on $40 a day. Despite the head of the business council and many other experts urging the govt to lift the Newstart payments which have not been indexed to inflation so they are worth less and less every year.

66. [RORT] LNP rolls out cashless welfare card, despite experts recommending against it and past trials being a total failure. Surprise surprise, LNP has ties to the company it gave the contract to.

67. [CHAOS] Scott Morrison makes Tony Abbott special envoy on Indigenous Affairs. There’s already a minister for Indigenous affairs. WTF.

68. Malcolm Turnbull completely ruins relations with Indigenous leaders by rejecting the Uluru Statement from the Heart and recommendations. What a total waste of fucking time that was.

TERRORISM

credit: Cathy Wilcox

69. Scott Morrison’s completely distasteful press conference exploiting the death of Sisto Malaspina after Bourke St terrorist attack

MORE RORTS

70. Assistant Treasurer Stuart Roberts charges taxpayers $2,000 for home internet

71. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann charges taxpayers for a family holiday.

72. Attorney General Christian Porter “buys” a bus from former Liberal Joe Francis, then appoints Joe into a government job

Source: David Pope

73. Scott Morrison wastes taxpayer money flying around QLD on his “bus” tour

74. Liberal candidate (NOTE: she lost, she isn’t a MP!) presents a check for $127k to a bowling club that she has NOTHING to do with. It was the Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie who helped the bowling club apply the grant.

75. The Liberals created their own IT company called Parakeelia, then use their office expenses allowances to reap profits, then donates these profits back to the Liberal party

76. Media gets tip off about an Australian Federal Police raid on the AWU, leaked from a government minister’s office. Which means the AFP leaked it to the government so they could leak it to the press. Minister responsible then goes into total stupid mode.

77. The Liberal’s version of a Federal Anti-Corruption Commission is surprise, completely undercooked. Did they implement it? No.

78. Government announces environmental funding grant winners before the grants program had even opened for applications.

Source: David Pope

79. Liberal party tried to use taxpayer funds to pay for their own TV and radio ads.

80. Indigenous Affairs Minster Nigel Scullion awards $1.4m grant to Country Liberal Party president’s company.

81. This one was just the beginning, I think there was over 100 Liberal-linked appointments to taxpayer funded roles just before the election was called. This one is about them stacking the Fair Work commission with their LNP mates.

82. MP takes delegates to a restaurant for a taxpayer funded meal. Oh yeah, of course owns the restaurant.

83. Sussan Ley has taxpayers pay for her trip up to the gold coast so they can buy an investment property from an LNP donor.

84. Peter Dutton owns child care businesses that receive funding from the government. If he got referred to the high court they’d probably find him ineligible.

85. Julie Bishop’s partner is considered family for taxpayer funded travel claims, but isn’t her family when it comes to her interests register.

SHITTY GOVERNMENT

86. Defection of Julia Banks and subsequent minority govt

87. Defection of Cory Bernardi

88. Loss of Wentworth after Turnbull quits

89. No member of government present on front bench for a brief period

90. Record Question Time to avoid vote on disability RC

91. MPs go home early and government loses control of the house

92. Greg Hunt swearing at councillor

93. Bullying in LNP

94. Scomo makes captain’s call for pre-selection (women vs men)

95. Worst national Census ever recorded, huge budget blowout, complete failure of their website designed to receive responses.

96. George Christensen’s inappropriate gestures/gun signals

97. LNP minister “liked” pornographic tweet on Twitter

98. Disgraced Nationals MP Andrew Broad resigns caught using a dating website while overseas. Yep he’s a married man. And of course he called for Barnaby Joyce to resign when he was caught having an affair staffer.

99. Howard and Abbott approve of George Pell’s character

Source: David Pope

100. Scomo calls his own party “The Muppet Show”

101. Scott Morrison forces local councils to hold a citizenship ceremony on Australia Day

102. Liberal Senator Lucy Gichuhi : “$200k salary is not a lot of money”

103. Total shitshow performance on Q&A by Vice President of Liberal party Teena McQueen

104. Cancelling a Parliament sitting week

105. George Christensen and his visits to the Philippines, spends more time there than in his own electorate, dubbed Minister of Manilla.

Source: David Pope

106. $67m project for Captain Cook replicate circumnavigate Australia

https://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/scott-morrison-announces-67-million-project-to-mark-captain-cooks-circumnavigation-of-australia/news-story/caf1be341812c23c0c32673dde0e4ef0?nk=68d8aac8c8948f6d79cc64e942dcbda2-1555667508

107. Reduced parliamentary sitting weeks in 2019 calendar year

Ok that’s all for now. I think I need a stiff drink. Bring on the election.