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John Passant

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My interview Razor Sharp 18 February
Me interviewed by Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp on Tuesday 18 February. http://sharonfirebrace.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/18-2-14-john-passant-aust-national-university-g20-meeting-age-of-enttilement-engineers-attack-of-austerity-hardship-on-civilians.mp3 (0)

My interview Razor Sharp 11 February 2014
Me interviewed by Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp this morning. The Royal Commission, car industry and age of entitlement get a lot of the coverage. http://sharonfirebrace.com/2014/02/11/john-passant-aust-national-university-canberra-2/ (0)

Razor Sharp 4 February 2014
Me on 4 February 2014 on Razor Sharp with Sharon Firebrace. http://sharonfirebrace.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/4-2-14-john-passant-aust-national-university-canberra-end-of-the-age-of-entitlement-for-the-needy-but-pandering-to-the-lusts-of-the-greedy.mp3 (0)

Time for a House Un-Australian Activities Committee?
Tony Abbott thinks the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is Un-Australian. I am looking forward to his government setting up the House Un-Australian Activities Committee. (1)

Make Gina Rinehart work for her dole
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Sick kids and paying upfront

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Save Medicare

Demonstrate in defence of Medicare at Sydney Town Hall 1 pm Saturday 4 January (0)

Me on Razor Sharp this morning
Me interviewed by Sharon Firebrace this morning for Razor Sharp. It happens every Tuesday. http://sharonfirebrace.com/2013/12/03/john-passant-australian-national-university-8/ (0)

I am not surprised
I think we are being unfair to this Abbott ‘no surprises’ Government. I am not surprised. (0)

Send Barnaby to Indonesia
It is a pity that Barnaby Joyce, a man of tact, diplomacy, nuance and subtlety, isn’t going to Indonesia to fix things up. I know I am disappointed that Barnaby is missing out on this great opportunity, and I am sure the Indonesians feel the same way. [Sarcasm alert.] (0)

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Tag: Abbott

Shit sandwich anyone?

Here is photographic ‘evidence’ of my view that the problem isn’t who is selling us the shit sandwich. The problem is the shit sandwich.

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Apparently Abbott the grog monster can do one thing well

Here is a  20 second video of Tony Abbott, a grog monster (his words) and Australia’s Prime Minister,  doing one thing well – being a  grog monster. Says it all about Australia today. The glass is fully empty.

Abbott still wants cuts

Abbott may be on the ropes, but we need more strikes, protests and grassroots resistance to fight the Liberals’ agenda and finish him off write the Solidarity editors.

The Abbott government’s bounce in the polls

Given Labor’s bipartisanship (read capitulation to Abbott’s rabid jingoism, his warmongering and his cult of fear) as well as its neoliberalism, my guess is that the Liberals and the National Party will be ahead in the polls by about mid April.

Day one of good government: competitively analysing the sinking submariners

Here is a Prime Minister who has lied to one of his own about a $20 bn Government submarine contract to help keep himself in power. That no doubt is what good government is all about.

If he lies to his own party backbenchers, imagine what he does to us?

Me? Instead of wasting $20 bn on submarines, I’d use the money to fix public hospitals, public schools and the health system. Throw in the $24 bn on fighter jets and we could end homelessness too, improve public transport and move towards 24 hour child care facilities. With that sort of money we could easily make higher education free as well. We could even begin addressing a very real threat, climate change. I guess however good government is about priorities.

Abbott says good government starts today. Seriously?

The essentially social democratic desires of the majority of the Australian people are in conflict with the needs of capital. At the moment the political consequences of this are what seems like the eternal roundabout of Labor and the Liberals. The Labor Party attacks us for 3 years to be replaced by a Liberal Party that attacks us for 3 years to be followed by a Labor Party that attacks us for 3 years. That at least appears to be the current cycle.

Even most of the Liberal Party don’t want Abbott

Can we survive 19 more months of rabid neoliberalism, of overt and covert attempts to shift more wealth from labour to capital and of a thoroughly neoliberal Labor Party waiting in the wings with the same goal? The Australian Council of Trade Unions has called nationwide demonstrations on 4 March to defend our rights. Let’s make this the first step in destroying this weak Liberal and National Party government and putting some social democratic spine into Labor. We need mass mobilisations to throw Abbott and his motley crew out and to move Labor to the left or to create a new left. Demonstrations and strikes are the way forward.

Please keep Tony. Please!

Leaders matter. What the ruling class wants and needs is not only a political leader with a program to continue and intensify the wealth shift from labour to capital but also to be able to implement it, and do so in a way that plucks the working class goose with the least hissing. Abbott is not that plucker.

Abbott might be a buffoon but he is their buffoon

I wrote an article about Abbott back in August 2012. Recent events seem to confirm my analysis. Here is a snippet. The bosses will welcome an Abbott victory. Buffoons can make good leaders for them, as Ronald Reagan and George W Bush showed in the US context. But Abbott’s instability, his thought bubble approach to policy, his climate denialist base within the extreme right of the Liberal Party and the looming economic crisis in Australia all make for a possible tumultuous period of rule for the leader of the Opposition and his by and large unremarkable front bench if they win, as they will, the next election.

Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, John Howard and …. Tony Abbott?

The choice is clear. One of the likes of Abbott, Turnbull, Bishop, Shorten, Albanese or Plibersek leading the neoliberal attack on our jobs, wages, freedoms and social spending? Or us as workers defending jobs, wages and conditions and fighting for and winning better social services, better public health, public education and public transport, justice for aborigines and asylum seekers and a managed decade long transition to renewable energy?