Yeah nah. Jones is a funny animal :confused:. Prior to the last Queensland state election he was ranting about Newman in a very non-Liberal fashion. Mates of mine were getting all enthusiastic, but to me he's a very loose cannon. After listening to one of his pre-election rants/broadcasts (on a car radio while I was waving a sign :\) I was left confused as to what he actually stands for. He's kind of Lib, kind of Nat, occasionally kind of DLP...I guess he stands for Alan, and good luck to him if a network gives him airtime to do that. Certainly the 'Jones effect' is a factor in state and federal politics (about 3% if you believe the stats nerds:8), but after half an hour I couldn't figure out just what he wanted to achieve with it. He struck me as being the angry lunchroom guy who disagrees with everything (particularly rational debate) but with a national audience rather than a few people eating their sandwiches. At least you can turn the radio off...
The ol' welfare / subsidy debate :zzz:. Like John Farnham and the Rolling Stones it never quite goes away. From what I've seen, the only point of difference is whether said scheme is introduced by a Labor or Coalition government. :suspect::}

IMHO Alan Jones is an influential voice for sale to the highest bidder.

I find Jones annoying in the extreme, but in this case, (last night's interview with Scott Morrison), I have to agree with him. His idea that child care should be tax deductible in exactly the same way as a typist or a PA is along the same lines as the suggestion made here that a husband/wife should be able to 'employ' his/her partner (or anyone else) as a child carer.

I find the whole Liberal approach to subsiding everyone for the cost of child care far too 'Big Government' for me. We see (possibly fanciful) posts about young women being turned into 'baby factories' to keep the government welfare flowing in, and we've seen the ACA segment from Adelaide about the Somali immigrants rorting the child carer allowances with families swapping children so everyone becomes a paid-by-the-taxpayer child carer.

There will have to be a total re-think of how the government approaches assistance to families to put a stop to this - and if what Scott Morrison was saying last night is the Libs' new plan, the Libs definitely haven't achieved that.

Like every thing else, its a trade off of positive and negatives.

Sadly having children these days seems more like an obligation that your just a life support mechanism until they can go out on their own.

No longer is it an expected right, that the raising of the children and their values will be the parents rights. For most of the years where they can be most influenced, their values will be dictated by some "outsider".

A very socilist idea, gives a potentially very homogenous set of values, dictated as whats right or wrong by humanities departments of universities.

In essence, we have replaced the church with something else, and potentially far worse.

Christine Milne has resigned as leader of the Greens. Thought I'd be first with something for a change.

We can be thankful for small mercies... De Natali rather than SHY as the new boss.

Now my Italian is very sketchy, but doesn't 'de natali' translate loosely as 'of the infant'? (If not, maybe 'of birth'.)

If so, how incredibly apt.

Di Natale is at least a former doctor, one which ought to earn him more credibility than the majority of the politicians that populate Parliament House.

He's already proved himself a fruit loop. Just declared that the Greens are the natural home to progressive mainstream voters.

He's either that out of touch its not funny, or the vast majority of Australians are neither progressive or mainstream.

I agree rh200. He also said he also said he is going to fight for the rights of boat people. A complete fruit loop.

As father of a disabled child, who can only get is own accommodation, if we buy him a house, I would like to see someone fight for the rights of Australians for a change.

No disrespect intended here but I'm not sure what you mean?

Why not put your son on a boat and send him off to Iran to claim asylum there, if you want to make a point?

Chuey ... that's crass.

Perhaps... but then again so is making generalisations about the intentions of asylum seekers - which was my point.

Besides, is there nothing the NDIS will do for SOPS?

chuboy

I'm afraid the ethics and credibility of the medical profession are currently being trashed in the reporting of the hearings of the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

Then there's IS's latest poster boy.

Or any number of Current Affairs exposes into incompetent surgeons.

Need I go on?

Judge a person by their actions.

Di Natali is a politician of the Victorian Green (Watermelon?) persuasion. Nothing more, nothing less.

Time will tell whether or not he makes a positive contribution to Australian life.

But interesting to see SH-Y being pushed to the sidelines by her colleagues.

The reality of modern life is, we are slowly but surly pulling our heads out of our @rses in regards to particular mythos. Doctors like anyone else are human, as such can be , crooked, pedophiles, murders, rapists etc. All it is, is a distribution of a grouping of how many in what profession does what.

Building mythos up around things helps in some cases to build confidence in something, on the off side it can be used to hide bad things. Its sad when your image shatters, but thats life.

I generally have as much respect for the garbage truck driver as a doctor etc. until I know otherwise. In fact, up until we threw off the shackles of our base belief system I would probably give the poor more trust and respect.

Its simple, they are looking at the changing demographics of society and are trying to make their move. In effect they want to become mainstream and make more than two major parties. Standard wedge. If they are smart they will try and get some from the conservative side, and large chunk from Labor.

The end effect if they are successful, will be to decimate the labor party vote. If he's smart operator it will take a few elections.

Chuboy, the intentions of asylum seekers is generally without question because amongst other things, they fear persecution in their own lands, but genuine asylum seekers are few and far between.

The majority of people getting onto rickety boats are self selecting economic immgrants. They are unwilling (or too lazy) to improve their lot in their own country and look to 'the West" for lifestyle and benefits, as well as family reunions aided and abetted by preceding self selecting economic immigrants.

When they take the easy way out, they've condemned their countrymen to ongoing problems which only makes the West's problem greater. Africa is a basket case because of corruption, poverty and lack of birth control. While they continue to breed at a much faster rate than "the West', there will always be a need for UN aid, a third of which is wasted, another third is stolen, and the rest will feed the population explosion.

The cycle will perpetuate while the UN and the huggy fluffies prevail.

I was going to quote the dictionary definition of 'mainstream', but I'm sure you know what it means. It would seem, in your view, that anything that doesn't agree with your insular opinion simply can't be the opinion of the general public. I have news for you champ, you and your far right mates are in the minority. Deal with it.

Chuboy, I think you misunderstood what I meant, but thats ok.

PD: a succinct, precise, truthful and accurate observation.

One I observed first hand when visiting, working in the Middle East, a little of Africa in the early 90's. My observation then was the African population would pack their meagre belongings in plastic bags and attempt migrate anywhere particularly Europe. Along the way many would die however, many were going to die anyway!

Any country which does not fully protect it's borders will lose it!

Human migration has been going on longer than any history can record and I dont expect it to end anytime soon. Accept that and make provision for the inevitable.

Yep, in another two hundred years, everyone on the planet will look like Tiger Woods.