Jenny, you start by referring to the Abbott government's brief honeymoon with you. If the Morgan poll figures are accurate you are not alone.

You finish with an assumption that Abbott has actually learned something (about science) in the past five years. That is an heroic assumption. This morning's SMH has a front page story on how staffing levels at CSIRO are to be slashed.

We really are heading back to the 1950s with a vengeance.

Yes, our Tony, his mind transfixed by the 'Vision Splendid' of John Howard, is in charge and is riding his bike backwards into the past.

The rich are applauding already. The poor, well who cares about them anyway?

Yes, as Abba sang, 'It's a rich man's world'.

James, get your facts correct before posting please. The current situation at CSIRO started during the reign of the previous government. About one third of its funding came from sources other than government. This market has waned. There has been no reduction in funding to the CSIRO by the new government.

What a tawdry article. First we have the tired argument about one woman in the cabinet. That was done to death a monthe ago.

Just because a particular subject isn't in a ministers title doesn't mean the areas are not being managed.

"The climate commission which had given independant advice on climate change" The author can't be serious. Was this the commission that was lead by a mammologist whose predictions included massive sea level rises and then went and purchased a waterside property?

Then we have a collection of groups stating Australia by adopting cuts to our emmisions. If Australia cut its emmissions to zero it would have no impact on either it's or the worlds temperatures.

Cutting foreign aid? Here's an idea for the author. She and all her friends at Sustainable Population Australia, Climate Action Monaro, and ASPO Australia can mortgage their houses or take out loans to make up what they see as the perceived shortfall. Well that is what they would have the government do.

And for the finale. Auatralia is vunerable to "peak oil" because we don't have a minister for resources or energy. Oh pulease....

OMG. What a pile of 'politically correct' Leftist nonsense.

We went back to the past under the last 6 years of Labor-Green government. Arguably the most incompetent government the country has ever had. They rolled back industrial relations reform by 30 years, they unwound the successful Howard border protection laws and regulations and what a disaster that was. They've spent like drunken sailors in unproductive policies and handing out money to buy votes.

It's going to be a very long repair job to get us back to moving forward again as we were doing before Labor was elected in 2007.

What a disaster. And what hypocrisy to say that this government, after just a few weeks in office is taking us back to the past.

Why do these lefty fools write publicly, articles like this? Anyone with half a brain can see this type of heavy duty spin just aggravates anyone not a rusted on one eyed lefty. Do they desire the praise of other lefties so much that they can't help themselves, & don't care the damage it does to their cause.

Most readers won't respond, they will shrug their shoulders, perhaps groan a little, & wright the left down just a little lower. Why they persist in such an unproductive activity, I really can't imagine.

But wouldn't it be wonderful if Abbott could take us back to the 50s.

The days of people expecting to work for a living, but could support the wife & kids at home on one wage. Yes the day when every worker expected to be able to buy their own home. When home interest rates were just 3.75%, & the average wage earner paid only 7.5% tax.

Yep I'd reckon Tony was the Pied Piper of Oz, if he could lead us back to those easier, & happier times when the shops shut at 12.00 on Saturday, & every one went off & played sport together. How much better than working until 6.00, then sitting exhausted watching some over paid professional playing sport for us on TV.

You may not have been able to get a heart transplant, but you had a much better chance of keeping the one you started with, healthy & working.

If Jenny was a science teacher in the 1970's she could well of been one of many teaching the kids that their would be no more oil by the mid 90's, we were heading for an ice age and that feminism was a good thing. Now she wants to tell Abbott how to run the country after the dismal failure of the Rudd and the feminist. We certainly don't want to go back to the past of the last 5 years as the voters let everyone know. Another one possessed with Abbott, Abbott and Abbott. Get used to it and just enjoy a little competence after 5 years of the opposite.

It's significant that when the Climate Change Commission got the sack the ex-members grasped instinctively for what they had not got, and sought to pretend they had it it by tacking it on to their name. 'Climate Change Authority'? WHAT authority, and derived from whom? A worse case of false advertising would be hard to find.

<<Back in 2008, at the Sydney Writer's Festival...>>

Was that the same Sydney Writer's Festival (crowd) that lauded and fawned upon David Hicks as if he was some kind of folk hero?

"but at least [Labor] paid lip service"

Wow, that's what matters, eh!

I don't really see what any of this has to do with the 1950s.

Why are the 1950s such a boogeyman to the Left?
Is it because it was the last time Australia was truly Australian?

One woman in cabinet?
I fail to see how having a vagina is a required "skill".

Just thought I'd post this for the benefit of anybody who wishes to know what is happening regarding the stand off between Australia and Indonesia on the latest boat.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesia-australia-in-asylum-seeker-boat-stand-off/

It's interesting that "these days" Mr Morrison is seeking to suppress the information he so gleefully bandied around when in opposition.

Never mind, what he doesn't tell us the Indonesians will.

(Whodathunk that in 2013 our govt would resort to censorship of this kind... a slippery slope indeed)

Time to order our boats to stop at the border of Indonesian search & rescue territory.

If the Indonesians are not going to cooperate with our efforts, time to tell them to do the whole damn lot themselves. If they let their citizens carry passengers on these boats, it is their responsibility to rescue them when in trouble.

must be horrible with egg all over your face Poirot. Abott Abbott Abbott already showing up how incompetent the sisterhood were.

runner,

Far be it for me to question the vast wisdom of little runner who darts about the forum making smart-arsed comments of the most vacuous kind.

He's like a mozie that you really want to swat, but just keeps popping up with his whiney zing ad nauseam.

On the contrary, my misgivings about Abbott and his cohort of Murdoch acolytes have been borne out. Not only does Abbott studiously avoid pressers, but when the media are graced with his presence, his rhetoric is juvenile and stilted...did you catch him today when he went into automatic rewind with "Stop the boats!"?

There is no egg on my face, runner.

This government is dangerously rabid.

They will overplay their hand.

They store all their discipline in toeing the IPA line - none left over to stay their hand on implementation.

Too much too fast.....

I'll meet you back here at the end of the LNP's "one" term.

We'll see who's wearing the smirk then, shall we?

'There is no egg on my face, runner. '

you obviously put on a mask or don't look in the mirror Poirot. Your Abbott hysterics is a source of entertainment. Keep it up.

P,

I will be around at the end of the first coalition term, and when Labor loses again, I will be there to rub your nose in it. The last Essential poll shows the coalition improving their position.

Great article Jenny, showing great insight. Don't be put off by the troll - how can a lobbyist understand that the planet is finite when his livelihood depends on not understanding it?

Climate Change Commission? All it did was to spend a zillion dollars of taxpayer money creating a new building in Canberra for a new government department staffed by Labor supporters, and create a column of carbon dioxide a hundred miles square with their overseas travel to climate change gabfests. Their recommendation was that the government should tax us more with a "carbon Tax" (actually, a "public servant tax") to pay for their empire building, their five star hotels in Brussels, their wages, and their superannuation. No wonder they are filthy at Abbot for ending their gravy train.

Abbot wants to take us back to the fifties, does he? Do you mean when our streets were so safe that we had practically no gun laws? No boatloads of third worlders lobbing on our shores to declare their undying allegiance to the Australian social security system? No Arab areas of Sydney where there are two or three shootings a week? No burqua clad zombies wandering our streets and scaring the kids? No ambulances demanding police protection to enter ethnic no go areas? No "Australian" terrorists in jail for wanting to mass murder Australians? No Labor politicians giving working class Australians the finger while sucking up to ethnic minorities to buy their votes, and wondering why Australians won't vote for them anymore?

LEGO, does that mean you support dropping the current immigration rate of over 238,000 people per year, to under 90,000 people per year, with no 457 visas, just like in the 1950s?

Yours is such a sad article.
There are thousands of Australians out there who think just like you do. They can't believe that the majority could elect a Roman Catholic, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, happily married man with three loving daughters and a loving gay sister, who is praised for the good works he does in the community raising money for a battered women's refuge, who is ridiculed simply because he helps out at the local surf club while wearing speedos; and all the time people like Kevin Rudd is swearing at his staff, abusing people he works with, undermining his leader while he sits in his office planning some other wacky venture; while Bill Shorten is still trying to think of ways to differentiate himself from the Obeid, TRipodi, roosendale influence of the NSW right, the stupidity of the NSW left, the criminality of certain union leaders.
Are you and those others, out of your minds? If you can't accept majority rule, you can't live in a democracy. I suggest you go and live in Libya or Syria or Iran where if you don't agree you can start a revolution.
You say Abbott is takings back to the '50s? Bring it on. What a joy. Literacy rates 300% higher, full employment, men had trade skills; children were well looked after.....
Take me home, country road, to the place I was born.'

Yes please Ruth.

And also bring back the White Australia Policy so that we can import people who can be integrated, do not want to blow us up, and who do not create ethnic ghettoes with high levels of drug abuse, criminal behaviour and welfare dependency.

Sydney home prices are now through the roof and an out of control immigration policy is the cause of it. Sydney's streets are choked with traffic and they will only get worse until the only way to move is to get on a tollway

From the author's website:

10, 11 October 2013
The Shine Dome, Gordon Street, Canberra ACT 2601
Register here! | Conference program here!

More Conference Information

Keynote Speaker: Professor Paul Ehrlich

Other speakers include Suzanne Cory, Hugh Possingham, David Lindenmayer, Chris Dickman, Bob Birrell, Mark O’Connor, Jane O’Sullivan, Michael Lardelli, Ian Dunlop, Sharyn Munro, Simon Michaux, Rhondda Dickson, Michael Jeffrey, Gary Jones, Ian Lowe, Michael Raupach, Tony McMichael, Paul Collins, Haydn Washington, Kelvin Thomson, Julian Cribb and Roger Short. Richard Denniss is after-dinner speaker.

What a sorry pack of elitist fools. As I say to other women living in the West and who agitate against their society, stock up on burqas ladies!

Cohenite, interesting list, but ironically they are all family, i.e. connected to Tony Abbott by choice, how?

Sustainable Population Australia, like Ehrlich, have links to the John Tanton anti immigration network in the USA which in turn receives funding from the Scaife Foundation, whose Richard Scaife is the Vice Chair of Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees...... and of course Abbott gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation 2012.

http://www.latinorebels.com/2013/05/12/coud-the-scaife-foundations-of-heritages-vice-chair-be-key-to-groups-immigration-extremism/

It seems Tanton, Abbott and SPA all have the same objective?