Summary: SomethingWonky explores a tough week for the government, as their friends turn on them THE FOCUS GROUP Liberals Are Doing It To Themselves Coalition cheerleaders turn on the government - the IPA publishes ads in the Australian attacking the government, Bolt tells his viewer to support the libertarian senator and the fringe religious nutcase from FundiesFirst, and even David Flint’s “Conservative Action Network” manages to attack the government four times in its weekly email rant. Abbott’s own party registers website calling him a liar, with abbottlies.com.au registered by the Liberals immediately before launching their Budget, and breaking satire forever. URL links to liberal.org.au, thereby providing the most accurate route into that site ever. the IPA’s Chris Berg calls for a “reboot”, a mini-budget Right-wing figures from the business community call for a new election to get Hockey’s terrible budget through The AFR points out that since Hockey’s budget attacks rural Australia, the Nats’ heartland, the Libs might be about to get some pushback from the Nats - if not the MPs, the party itself Young Liberals expose their colleagues being feral on Facebook with some spectacularly misogynist rants against prominent women. Meanwhile Honi Soit explores the world of non-faction factions and nepotism that makes up the Young Liberal movement Conservative DLP senator from Victoria John Madigan says Joe Hockey’s budget will increase crime: “If we attack those people with the least, I believe we’re going to have more domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, vandalism, mental health problems - and what’s the cost going to be to mop that up?” Senator Madigan said. “It’s bad enough now - it’s out of control a lot of these problems. I’m not suggesting that we can eliminate these things, but I can tell you what, this budget, I believe, will exacerbate all of these problems, and more.” Coalition MPs like Alex Hawke and Craig Kelly tell Fairfax they have serious concerns over the Coalition’s data retention policy Cory Bernardi tells his email readers that he supports crossbencher Bob Day over his own party. Yet Tony still has friends. PUP senator Jacquie Lambie tells the media she feels sorry for Joe Hockey and blasts his colleagues for abandoning him And the Oz is out there to portray Abbott as a superhero - I kid you not, they illustrated him as Spiderman having apprehended Putin - and dubbed him “Leader for a dangerous world”. Backdowns Christopher Pyne says that he’ll be prepared to back down on the adding interest to uni debts scheme, although only if the Senate rejects it. However, in the meantime, Pyne is insisting on lowering the repayment threshold still further, hitting poorer students hard. After an embarrassing interview on The Project, Eric Abetz withdraws his “abortion causes breast cancer” line from last week, but not his support for the conference at which it will be spread. Tony says he feels “sheepish”. New Matilda points out that it’s bullshit for the government to suggest that it only backed off on its idiotic 18C changes because of the muslims. Meanwhile Christopher Pyne wants praise - “a tick for listening” - for the backdown on 18C. Things you’d think should be backdowns, but aren’t yet Joe Hockey suggests a fuel tax hits the rich harder than the poor because “the poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases” Government has begun the process of breaking up and selling off the Department of Human Services Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs asks businesses to help him fight to remove penalty rates Workers’ wages going backwards, as inflation outpaces wage growth Clive’s sending mixed messages on Medicare copayment, reminding us not to rely on him for anything. PUP’s new leade
