What Can You Do At This Point?

These Are The Intellectual Runts We've Got In Government

Okay, first up is Barnaby Joyce who admits his staff changed the Hansard Records.

The Hansard record had been changed to correct an error Joyce made on Monday 20 October regarding the government’s drought assistance package. In the speech, Joyce referred to “over” 4,000 people applying for drought assistance. His office changed that to read “nearly” 4,000. They also added a qualifier line that wasn’t originally in the speech, saying that “recipient[s] of the Interim Farm Household Allowance” would also receive the assistance. 

Joyce set the record straight in parliament after question time on Monday, saying the “minor edits were made to Hansard by my staff without my knowledge. My staff have been counselled. Consistent with standing orders, I have asked that the changes requested by my office be removed from Hansard before Hansard is finalised.”
It’s not unusual for Hansard records to be submitted to MPs’ offices so staff can check names, spelling and other small facts. But the manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, said the changes went beyond the normal alterations made by politicians and their staff members. 

“Of all the things that you can do in this parliament that carry a penalty, the greatest gravity is reserved for deliberately misleading the house,” Burke said. “Whether it was him or his office, somebody appears to have deliberately doctored the official record of what was said in parliament.” 

The matter has been referred to the powerful privileges committee.

Of course, the Privileges Committee feature one Bronwyn Bishop, Speaker of the House who is the most one-sided, partial Speaker in the history of Speakers dating back to the British Parliament. And there have been a whole bunch of Speakers in that Parliament. In other words, we are asking one set of shameless people to adjudicate on another bunch of shameless people about shameful acts. How's that going to work out for us?

Are we vomiting yet?

This Guy Doesn't Care About The Law, He Thinks He's Above It

Scott Morrison seems to just do what suits his own rhetorical position. It's crazy, but true. He ignored departmental advice and refused permanent visas for boat arrivals found to be refugees.

The minister for immigration personally ordered protection visa numbers be capped for 2014 – to avoid granting permanent protection to any boat arrivals – before his action was ruled unlawful by the full bench of the high court. 

Overruled by the judiciary, Morrison has since employed a previously unused “national interest” clause in the Migration Act to issue unchallengeable “conclusive certificates” to refuse visas, but this is also being contested in court. 

Lawyers for the minister are back in court in December. 

Documents before the high court show Morrison was told on 15 January, in a brief from his department, that his policy objective of never granting permanent protection to boat arrivals could not be achieved “in the medium to long term” but that he could “delay being forced to grant” visas in the short term. 

The departmental brief is confidential, but sections of it are reproduced in submissions before the high court. 

Talk about crash or crash through. Just imagine Sir Humphrey Appleby getting ignored in 'Yes Minister' after offering his expert advice. I don't know if Sir Humphrey had any more superlative-ironic descriptors than "courageous". It's worse than Dutch Courage or something worked up in the trenches with the help of alcohol; we're talking about the kind of courage that lets people bungy jump with a faulty cord or skydive without checking their kit.

It makes you wonder if Scott Morrison ever watched a single episode of 'Yes Minister'. And if not, why the hell is he a minister-of-anything in the English-Speaking world? Incredulity aside, when in the hell is justice going to prevail and send this guy to prison? Shouldn't there be an arrest warrant for this man at this point? Or is there some kind of Parliamentary privilege for breaking the law? 

Laugh Of The Day

Without reference, I offer you this:

"That is my hope," he told Parliament, "that just for once it might be possible for us in this Parliament, one side and the other, the national government and the state and territory governments to have a mature debate rather than a screaming match."

That would be our Prime Minister Tony Abbott speaking. 

To which even Mark Kenny said this.

The man who coined such high-rotation gems in the political lexicon as "python squeeze" and "wrecking ball" and "hammer blow" in relation to the carbon tax is hardly well placed to expect meek co-operation now that he's in office himself.

Yes, it does seem rather hypocritical to be treated like an adult after you've behaved like a five year old for five years. As Moon Zappa famously intoned, "gag me with a spoon!"