Tag Archives: barnaby joyce

If I’m Mad, So Is Obama

27 Nov

More Barnaby brilliance.

From Farm Weekly (emphasis added):

QLD Nationals Senator, Barnaby Joyce, has given US President, Barack Obama, another good reason to laugh and smile during his visit to Australia, following his presidential address to a special joint parliamentary sitting in Canberra yesterday…

As he exited the chamber afterwards, President Obama shook hands with many of the Federal MP’s and Senators who jammed the chamber for the hour-long event, including Senator Joyce and other Nationals, such as Shadow Agriculture Minister, John Cobb.

If given an opportunity to get within earshot of the President, Nationals NSW Senator, John Williams, promised to make known his views on the US government cutting its Farm Bill in response to domestic spending pressures, to improve export trade conditions and opportunities for Australian farmers.

But while the exchange between President Obama and Senator Joyce didn’t deliver on the National’s Farm Bill demands in pursuit of liberalised trade, it did produce a typically colourful and poignant moment, albeit brief.

According to sources close to Senator Joyce, he told the US President as they shook hands, “Barnaby Joyce, you might remember me from WikiLeaks. I hope you read it all.”

Senator Joyce was referring to diplomatic cables exposed through WikiLeaks in August, which focussed on comments from the US Ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich.

The cables were written when Tony Abbott took over as Opposition leader in 2009 and suggested the QLD Senator’s appointment as shadow finance spokesman at the time threatened the Coalition’s economic credibility due to his “protectionist views” and the National Party’s reputation for pork barrelling on behalf of rural constituents.

Mr Abbott dumped Senator Joyce from the role after four months giving him water and regional development.

Despite perceptions the QLD Senator struggled in the finance role and may have been too outspoken or more suited to a portfolio that focussed on specific rural issues, rather than broader economic policy, not everyone agreed with the reasoning behind the decision.

Too bloody right!

In particular, Senator Joyce was widely mocked in December 2009 after warning the US government could default on its debts.

But he was vindicated earlier this year sparking no surprise from his supporters, when renowned credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s placed the US government on notice to introduce policy measures that would reduce national debt and budget deficits, or risk losing the country’s AAA credit rating.

“The joy of vindication on the prospect of a US government default is bittersweet; I was right, Wayne (Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan) was wrong,” Senator Joyce said in a recent opinion piece in The Australian newspaper.

“To those sucked in by the Treasurer, placing wishful romantic theory above clinical reality, then saying “you wouldn’t cut it with the Bloomsbury group if you talk like that at our soiree”, I suggest this, get real.

“A year and a half ago I implored the government to prepare contingency plans for the threat of a US default stating the prospect was “distant but real” but if it eventuated the fallout would be a financial Armageddon making the GFC look like a mere preamble.

“US President Barack Obama also used the term Armageddon in the past month, so if I’m mad, so is he.”

As this blog has documented loud and long since the days when he was Shadow Finance spokesman …

… Barnaby is right.

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Barnaby: Quagmire Just Got Deeper

26 Nov

Senator Joyce writes for the Canberra Times:

Quagmire just got deeper

The Murray-Darling Basin is often viewed as a network of inter-connected garden hoses, where if you drop a litre of water in at Toowoomba, and wait long enough, it will eventually all run out at the Lower Lakes in South Australia.

The reality is that it is more in the nature of a big old dry carpet laid flat on your back lawn. If you tip a bucket of water at the top end it is highly unlikely to wet the feet of someone standing in the far lower corner. For an example, the town of St George is over 1,500 km from the mouth of Murray yet it is only 200 metres higher than sea level. You can only move water across a carpet if it is saturated.

The virtual release of all but the actual draft to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan appears to be dire for my area of St George and many other agricultural towns. Showcasing the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s aptitude for inclusive consultation, ABC’s Lateline has got a copy before the people of Renmark, Mildura, Deniliquin or Dirranbandi.

There are 2.1 million Australians who live in the Basin, and many of its towns were built to produce 40 per cent of our agricultural output, helping to feed the nation and export produce to support our standard of living.

So it will be interesting to see how much water will be actually delivered to the political pressure point of the Lower Lakes. It will only be a fraction of what is so called “returned to the river”. Along the way how many towns, without any discernable connection to the Lower Lakes, will be economically butchered and how many export dollars lost to be replaced with even further imports by Labor’s latest fiasco, the draft Plan for the Murray-Darling Basin.

Last year the government released the Guide to the draft and it was recognised by all, except the Greens, as an economic and social disaster for regional Australia. Canberra is in the southern basin and, under the Guide last year, it would have had to live with permanent stage 3 water restrictions. Canberra is spending over $300 million on Cotter Dam but it would not have been able to use the water in it.

The government announced a House of Representatives committee. It made 21 recommendations, the government has accepted one.

The Guide proposed to reduce the productive use of water in the southern Basin by 2,322 gigalitres. By the leaks we have so far, the draft proposes to reduce water use by 2,290 gigalitres.

For all the sound and fury of Mr Windsor’s committee, for all the government’s assurances that it would listen to communities, the current plan is 98 per cent of the previous plan. If the Guide led to virtual riots, it is not clear how the draft will lead to peace in our times.

Even worse, reports suggest that the Authority has not bothered to develop a detailed “environmental watering plan”, which would clearly define the areas and times when frogs and wetlands are more important than people. Who would be crazy enough to reduce our capacity to feed ourselves without clearly knowing why? The same people who are trying to reduce the temperature of the globe from a room in Canberra, the Labor party.

Like the carbon tax, the Greens will drive the agenda. The mortgages on houses for those living in Basin towns, well they are just collateral damage as they strive toward their goal of returning water, removing commerce and replacing Australian food with imports. The shutting down of agriculture means Australia is even further reliant on mining in our “one string to the bow” economy. Food inflation will sky rocket when the dollar depreciates, and at some stage it will, if we are insistent on shutting down our food producing regions as we are doing in this so called plan.

It appears the plan for Australia under the Green-Labor-Independent alliance is to shut down manufacturing with a carbon tax, shut down agriculture with a Murray-Darling Basin Plan and shut down our access to funds with massive debt. They are the most negative because they are the most incompetent government in history. The result for urban Australia is you are about to pay a lot more money, for everything.

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US Credit Rating Imperilled Again – Barnaby Was Right

25 Nov

From Bloomberg BusinessWeek:

Reducing the $1.2 trillion of discretionary spending cuts set to begin in 2013 may have “negative rating implications” for the U.S.’s top credit ranking, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The deficit reductions are to take place over 10 years and were triggered by a congressional panel’s failure this week to agree on alternative cuts of the same amount. Moody’s, which didn’t change the U.S.’s Aaa rating after the committee failed to reach agreement on Nov. 20, has a “negative outlook” on the country’s debt.

“If they were to eliminate that process or reduce that amount significantly, that would definitely be a negative for our thinking about the rating,” Steven Hess, senior credit officer at Moody’s, said today in an interview. “A change in that would increase deficits and therefore the debt over time and would definitely be negative.”

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Another Labor Fiasco For Christmas

24 Nov

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 24 November 2011:

What a surprise another Labor fiasco for Christmas?

On the eve of the Murray-Darling Basin plan it has been revealed that the biggest infrastructure program in the Basin, the northern Victoria food bowl project, has been beset by special deals between Labor mates and riven with conflicts of interest. This must have been the Labor theme for the day.

This is a very ominous sign on the release of the draft Murray-Darling basin plan. On a day they endorsed the character of a member of Opposition, above any of their own, to be speaker of the House, shows that they are truly a dysfunctional, Pythonseque aberration, stumbling head over heels and sinking. For us, unfortunately, the future of all Australians is their responsibility.

Labor can’t install ceiling insulation without setting fire to hundreds of homes, they can’t build school halls without billons of waste, they disposed of their Prime Minister, and if we search between the lines, we find that they have disposed of their own Speaker, they refused to endorse the character of any of their members to the premier high office of Speaker, the position that greets the Queen, preferring instead the Liberal-National member for Fisher, and they have sent our nation hurtling towards its third debt ceiling as they are now $217 billion in gross debt. [TBI: see chart below]

This is the same Green-Labor Independent alliance that 2.1 million people will have to rely on to protect their socio-economic future as supported by the Murray-Darling basin plan. How can people trust them? In fact, how can we even believe them anymore?

It’s been almost five years since the last Coalition government announced its plan for the Murray-Darling. We put aside almost $6 billion for priority investment to upgrade Australia’s irrigation network.

Instead, Labor has spent over $1.5 billion on non-strategic water buybacks and only $250 million on investments in infrastructure that actually deliver more water for the environment and communities in the Basin.

For every 1 bucket of water the government has saved through investment in infrastructure they have bought back 24 buckets.

Over $2 billion has been allocated to projects which have nothing to do with delivering water to the environment, including over $200 million for the bureaucratic expenses of its water manager and the expenses of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, and $8 million for an advertising campaign on the Murray-Darling.

More information – Matthew Canavan 0458 709433

Commonwealth Government Securities On Issue | Source: Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM)

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Loss-Making Tax “A Complete And Utter Fiasco”

24 Nov

The gummint has passed its Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) through the Lower house.

But only after “negotiating” deals with the Greens and Independents that … incredibly … actually render this great big new tax a net loss-maker for the government bottomline.

More on that in a moment.

But first, we bring you the brilliance of Barnaby Joyce’s well-justified mockery:

SABRA LANE: This was supposed to be the so-called “sunshine parliament” but a deal done last night to secure the Green’s support in the Lower House to pass the mining tax has the Opposition claiming dirty deals and the Green’s leader Bob Brown sounding sorry.

BOB BROWN: I apologise to people in the media and in the public who want to know about this but that’s the nature of the arrangement we have with the Government. And it will be, the details will be forthcoming and the Government’s got good reasons for not wanting to reveal it.

SABRA LANE: The Greens are still reserving their rights in the Senate, prompting the leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, to go on the attack this morning.

BARNABY JOYCE: Every time we see the Labor Party do a deal, this tune starts going through my head and goes something like this: Da da dada da da dada… because we’ve got – it’s Monty Python.

It’s Monty Python. It’s Monty Python, it’s The Life of Brian.

We’ve got Bob Brown, Bob Brown who is like leader of the Judean front. “What have the Romans done for us?” What has the mining industry done for us? What have the – oh aqueducts, kept us out of recession, supported our standard of living.

You know, “What have the Romans done for us?” We’ve got Terry Jones, you know, Terry Jones is obviously Tony Windsor. “It’s not the Messiah, it’s just a naughty boy.” You know, he’s out the front there.

They’re not the Messiah, they’re just naughty boys.

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Senator Joyce. Senator Joyce, could I just remind you to refer to senators and members by their correct titles.

BARNABY JOYCE: Okay and of course, you know, we’ve got Mr Rob Oakeshott, the Member for Lyne, who reminds me of Eric Idle. He’s always looking on the bright side of life, no matter what’s happening.

Graham Chapman, well that’s obviously Andrew Wilkie. And Michael Palin is Mr Adam Bandt.

But see the problem is it’s just a fiasco. We have no idea who’s running the show. It’s a complete and utter fiasco. In fact as we speak I look at a quote from Senator Bob Brown: “We’re very disappointed when the Government reached an agreement with Andrew Wilkie.”

Well we can’t have someone usurping his position as being the nuttiest person in the palace. No, that’s all his position.

Barnaby is right.

It’s a complete and utter fiasco.

Here’s what Alan Kohler (ABCTV News Finance) had to say about the MRRT, in Business Spectator (reproduced in full, emphasis added … and h/t Twitter follower @John_Poelwyk):

Mourning Gillard’s mining disaster

Australia’s effort to levy extra taxes on mining companies has been an unmitigated debacle, capped by the passage early this morning of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax with a further last-minute compromise.

It is one of the great lose-lose outcomes. We can only hope the Senate knocks it back.

To get the vote of Andrew Wilkie, the Member for Denison, a seat about as far from mining as it’s possible to get, the government increased the profit threshold at which the tax kicks in, from $50 million to $75 million.

This is now a deficit tax – it will cost more in concessions to get it passed than it will raise in new revenue. That gap widened by about $100 million last night with the Wilkie amendment.

There are two big problems with the MRRT: state mining royalties can be offset against it and an increase in superannuation has been shackled to it.

A resources rent tax was proposed in the Henry Tax Review of 2009 as part of a package of measures designed to deal with the pressure the resources boom was putting on non-mining industries.

The idea was to replace ad valorem mineral royalties on mine production volumes with a rent tax on profits because governments weren’t sharing in the big increase in commodity prices that increased the terms of trade and therefore the currency.

There was, and is, a fundamental disconnect between the terms of trade boom that was killing manufacturing and tourism and the tax revenue governments were getting from it because royalties are levied on volume not price.

The Henry proposal involved a 40 per cent extra resources rent tax and a reduction in company tax to 25 per cent, plus a series of depreciation and capital allowance benefits for manufacturers and other small businesses.

The last time there was a sustained terms of trade boom in Australia, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a result of gold, wheat and wool exports, the policy response involved regulating wages through the Harvester Judgement and then imposing a tariff on imports to protect manufacturing. This so-called Australian Settlement had the effect of insulating manufacturing from the terms of trade and its effect on the currency but led to a gradual, disastrous decline in competitiveness.

It’s worth pointing out that the United States had the same terms of trade problem 100 years ago but chose not to protect manufacturing, with the result that it became the great manufacturing powerhouse, only eventually destroyed in the 21st century by China’s currency manipulation.

In the 1970s and 1980s Australia removed tariff protection and centralised wage fixing, so that the new terms of trade boom – ironically resulting from China’s defeat of America’s manufacturing supremacy – leaves Australian manufacturing entirely exposed to its effects.

Former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry had been banging on about the two-speed economy problem for years, and the Future Tax System review that he chaired contained his solution: a resources rent tax to be spent on reducing company tax. Without wage regulation and tariffs there is no other way to protect manufacturing from the effects of the mining boom.

But the Labor government has managed to completely mess it up.

First the Resources Super Profits Tax was plucked out of the Tax Review by Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd and dumped on the miners by surprise. They revolted and won.

Then Julia Gillard negotiated a lower tax on iron ore and coal with BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata so that only the smaller companies with smaller advertising budgets would complain. As part of that, she was forced to allow existing mineral royalties to be deducted from the tax, which totally negated the idea of replacing ad valorem royalties from a tax on profits.

And then, to make the whole exercise completely pointless, she tied it to an increase in the superannuation guarantee levy from 9 per cent to 12 per cent.

That increases manufacturing costs instead of reducing them, and vastly increases the cost of the exercise to the federal budget.

According to Brian Toohey in this morning’s Financial Review, the cost to the budget of the extra superannuation tax deductions will be $4.2 billion in 2019-20. The total cost of the concessions connected to the MRRT will be $9.4 billion in that year – less than a third of which is paid for by the revenue to be collected from the MRRT.

In the 2012-13 financial year, in which the budget is supposed to return to surplus, the net cost of the MRRT package – revenue minus giveaways – is $1.7 billion.

It is, in short, a joke. Everybody loses. It was an idea designed to help Australia deal with the terms of trade boom that has been bastardised by politics into a complicated impost on mining that achieves nothing at all and in fact worsens the position of everyone involved.

Business as usual then, for the Green-Labor-Independent comedy show.

Comedy?

Why not.

This show really has gotten so bad that if you don’t laugh you’ll …. ?

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Barnaby: Who Is Running The Show?

21 Nov

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 21 November 2011:

Well I have just watched my nation’s Parliament at work. Not in the Cabinet or the Chamber but in the Senate Courtyard rolling press conferences.

The result of the Mining Resource Rent Tax vote was that it was off  because of some stumbling Windsor position on CSG when in reality, as he always does, he was going to rollover for Labor so as expected he had a chat then he changed his mind and it was back on, then Oakeshott said that he was sort of where Windsor was with something random about the Henry Tax Review, then Wilkie said it was on but different and then Bob Brown said it was off if Wilkie’s different position was on.

Yes we can run a country like this, this is totally politically sane. After another two years of this chaos the best we will be able to say about our government is that it is very entertaining.

Very similar to: What is your surgeon like? Well there are a fair few of them and they argue a lot about what they are going to cut off but they are very, very entertaining.

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“Nation Bankrupting Network” A Big Success

21 Nov

From Day 1, Senator Joyce has pilloried the Government’s mega-dollar NBN as a “Nation Bankrupting Network”.

And just as with his other big calls … the ever-rising US debt level, and carbon trading being “The Greatest Scam On Earth” … Barnaby is right.

From Smarthouse.com.au:

NBN A Flop As Consumers & Business Reject Fast Broadband

Early indications are that the NBN is struggling to attract customers with only 11% of homes signing on to the $36 Billion dollar broadband network where it has already been rolled out. In some places the take up rate is less than 6%.

According to new information only one in nine homes have taken up the service in towns like Armadale [sic] NSW which is Tony Windsor’s electorate of New England.

Late last week Senator Nick Xenophon was told that the sign up rate in Brunswick, Victoria was only 5.5%.

“What we are seeing now is that the cost benefit analysis that should have been done, is now being done in actuality and it’s showing the back of the envelope calculations done by Communications Minister Senator Conroy is not worth the paper it’s written on said Senator Barnaby Joyce.

SingTel Optus Boss Paul O Sullivan has also waded into the debate claiming that the NBN could become a “huge” failure unless the Company rolling it out NBN Co is far more transparent.

NBN Co and Comms and Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy have defended the early take-up rate of NBN services claiming the poor use of the service was not a relevant issue. “People need to finish their existing retail contracts now before they migrate over to the NBN,” the spokesman said. “But eventually, because of the Telstra deal, all of its customers will be migrated over to the NBN.”

The Australian newspaper recently revealed that a survey of company directors showed that 55 per cent disagree with the National Broadband Network, compared with 35 per cent in favour. Those who strongly oppose the NBN (32 per cent) more than double those who strongly support it (15 per cent).

Previous warnings have come from The Economist, the internationally respected magazine whose intelligence unit has compared broadband projects around the world.

It described the NBN’s price tag as “exorbitant” and noted it will cost taxpayers 24 times more than South Korea’s network, for a tenth of the speed. A later audit found Australia’s plan the most expensive of all the countries surveyed, including Greece and Qatar. It described the NBN as an example of “extreme government intervention” and noted it involved less competition than schemes in China.

Senator Conroy’s response has been to dismiss criticism as “ideological dogma”.

The Nation Bankrupting Network.

It’s Labor’s first big success.

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And You Thought Barnaby Tells It Like It Is!

18 Nov

The EU is going to the dogs.

And with the recent dumping of Greek PM Papandreou for daring to offer the people a choice, the dumping of Italian PM Berlusconi also without elections (sound familiar Australia?), and the replacement of both with unelected bankers, democracy has died in its cradle.

And once again, up steps the UK Independent Party’s Nigel Farage to tell it like it is (h/t ZeroHedge):

Nigel Farage needs no introduction: the famous Euroskeptic is one of very few men who has had the temerity to question, often in an abnormally high decibel fashion, the stupidity of the Eurozone leaders from day one. Now that he has been proven correct, he has every right to gloat, which he does to everyone’s delightful amusement in the European parliament. The look on the unelected von Rompuy’s face, especially as he watches his decade-long bureaucratic nirvana crash and burn every single day, is quite priceless.

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Barnaby: Labor Downplays Debt Like It’s Only A Little Melanoma

18 Nov

Good for his word. That’s Senator Joyce.

He pledged to never relent in reminding Australians that “if you do not manage debt, debt manages you” (Feb 2010).

Check out his latest and greatest attack on Labor’s melanoma-like growth in debt, in the Canberra Times (my emphasis added):

Forever in debt and Labor still ignores cost cuts

The Labor Party did something remarkable last week: it actually paid back some money after borrowing $11billion over the six weeks before. Our gross debt is now at $215billion. Unfortunately, Labor will probably borrow more again this week.

Recent statements by Penny Wong about cost-cutting and by the secretary of the Treasury, Dr Martin Parkinson, seem to accord with my fears of two years ago that we were taking on too much debt.

On October 21 , 2009, Australia’s gross debt accelerated through $100billion. This was before my unfortunately spectacular and brief tenure as Australia’s shadow finance minister. I was deeply concerned about the trajectory of our debt but it was very hard to find somebody else in government or the fourth estate that held similar concerns.

I remember the date well as I put out a media release at the time which concluded, ‘‘There are lots of ways you can try to pay debt but closing your eyes tightly and crossing your fingers has proven lately to be completely ineffective.’’

Leading the caravan of opprobrium against me was Treasury, acting as an arm of government. Repeatedly, it said Australia had no problems. It avoided that it was not the size that was the concern, it was the rate of growth, a very small active melanoma. We fell into trap of saying we are in a better position than others because our melanoma is tiny compared with theirs.

In a speech last week, Parkinson said ‘‘efforts to reduce government net debt should be the immediate focus’’. I’ll give him a tip, it would have been easier to control back in 2009. It has taken a couple of years, but now Parkinson and I appear to be on the same page.

You can see Australia’s gross debt grow almost every week, like a Chia Pet, by visiting the front page of the Australian Office of Financial Management website. I imagine it is there because the people we borrow from want a fully transparent view of exactly how much we have borrowed. If you start hiding it they get very, very suspicious.

Everything is moving into unfortunate focus as we approach at a rapid rate our third debt ceiling under this Government’s watch, and Europe and America come to the realisation that the problem is debt.

To understand debt ceilings you must understand gross debt. On March 10, 2009, Treasurer Wayne Swan increased our debt limit from $75billion to a ‘‘temporary’’ level of $200billion. According to Swan, we needed this increase because China and India were going to ‘‘slow markedly’’ and the mining boom was ‘‘unwinding’’.

The mining boom didn’t, but we not only hit our new debt ceiling but it is now at $215 billion, or over $17,000 for every Australian taxpayer. Our next ceiling is at a quarter of a trillion dollars. This debt does not include state government debt (heading towards $250billion), the debt of fully owned government entities, such as the National Broadband Network, or the debt of local governments.

To make a budget based on blue, sunny days is not only fraught with danger, it is naive. It is the old adage of keeping money aside for a rainy day. School halls and ceiling insulation are not the only reasons we now have so much debt, it is generally just poor day-to-day cost management. Labor talks of budget cuts now but why did they ignore people such as Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks and former Reserve Bank board member Dr Warwick McKibbin, who both said Labor should have been cutting spending two years ago?

Those with the purse strings either don’t have the strength, or don’t have the competency, to remain within our means. Labor’s cabinet is lacking the real business experience where what you bill or sell is what you earn, and the cheques you write over the long term better be less than that.

What happened to the $11billion that Labor borrowed in six weeks? Are there new aircraft carriers in Sydney Harbour with the Australian ensign fluttering? Is there a big new freeway somewhere that I am not aware of? Are there big new dams in Northern Australia delivering water to vast new agricultural areas to feed the world?

If you were to go searching for this money, the place I would humbly suggest you start looking is Canberra. Not the people of Gungahlin, but generally to the ministers who are in charge of departments that are just not controlling costs.

Barnaby is right:

Commonwealth Government Securities Outstanding | Source: Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM)

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How Do You Spell Sycophant? L.I.B.E.R.A.L.

16 Nov

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Libs angered by Nationals going alone on policy

Liberal frontbenchers and MPs were angry yesterday when the Nationals leader, Warren Truss, and the Senate leader, Barnaby Joyce, ridiculed a free-trade pact entered into by Australia, the US and other nations at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Hawaii.

The Liberals support free trade and the proposed partnership and were dismayed yesterday when Mr Truss rubbished it as a ”thought bubble” by APEC leaders, including the US President, Barack Obama, who arrives in Australia tomorrow for a 26-hour visit.

”It is simply inconceivable that the United States would agree to remove trade barriers in what is an election year,” said Mr Truss, a former trade minister.

I agree with Mr Truss.

And loudly applaud his having the testicular fortitude to say so.

Although I’d go even further. The USA has form. It is inconceivable that the United States would agree to remove their trade barriers at all.

Despite Mr Obama announcing at last year’s APEC in Yokohama, Japan, that he wanted progress on the partnership when leaders met next in Hawaii, Mr Truss said the announcement on Sunday was designed ”to make a conference look like it was useful”.

The Nationals believe the deal could have an adverse impact on sectors such as agriculture.

Mr Truss’s comments were at odds with Coalition policy and comments by the deputy leader and foreign affairs spokeswoman, Julie Bishop, who believes the partnership needs to be encouraged.

Privately, Liberals were furious. ”It’s a US initiative and we should embrace it,’‘ one said.

Ahem!

We should embrace an “initiative” because it’s a US initiative?!?!

That’s the kind of “logic” that got us wasting billions of dollars … and far more importantly, priceless lives … in Iraq and Afghanistan, dancing to the tune of the bankers’ rhythm-and-blues smash hit, Warring About My Endless Profits.

It’s the kind of “logic” that has our banking system buried under $16.8 Trillion in derivatives … with the galactically bigger carbon derivatives scam still to come.

And it’s the kind of logic that prompted our World’s Greatest Finance Minister to use taxpayers money to buy up $20 billion worth of “financial weapons of mass destruction” known as Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS).

Not familiar with that word “sycophant”?

That’s ok.

Here’s a synonym.

“Brown-noser”.

Now, while “brown-noser” is essentially identical to “sycophant”, it is spelled a little differently.

“L.A.B.O.R.”

And that, dear reader, is a huge part of the problem in this country.

Two “sides”.  No essential difference.

Like “brown-noser” and “sycophant”, one is just a cruder version of the other.

And the truth is, both are always trying to insert something up your @$$.

It’s time for the Nationals to really go it alone.

The whole hog.

I’d actually consider (cough, splutter) joining if they did.

Provided one of their independent policies, was to never again be a party to sending other people’s kids off to die as part of a bankster-enriching Coalition Of The (S)Willing.

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