Andy Semple

A missed opportunity

The Gillard gov’t should have bought the HMS Ark Royal for $4.5m AUD & used it to house illegal immigrants.

In its day HMS Ark Royal carried 22 aircraft and a crew of 1,051 so it has plenty of space, especially with a few of these privacy pop bed tents on the air deck and a few of these Sleeping pots in the old crew quarters. With a popper fit out, I think you could comfortably hold 3,000 free loaders if not more.

Just anchor it off Christmas Island and let it also be a visual warning to those who choose to illegally come to Australia via a boat from Indonesia what their fate will be.

But sadly, this golden opportunity has slipped by. But for $550,000 US, why not buy these old “Whiskey Class” Submarines. Problem out of sight out of mind.

 

 

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Mother Nature at its nastiest

A massive tornado at least a half mile-wide with 200mph winds churned through Oklahoma City's suburbs Monday afternoon, killing at least 91 people including at least 20 children, flattening entire neighbourhoods and destroying a primary school with a direct hit as children and teachers huddled inside.

The Daily Mail has plenty of photos and videos illustrating Mother Nature’s nastiness.

Sadly, it didn’t take long for lefty-ecotard US politicians to use the disaster as an opportunity to promote their global warming alarmism.

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Labor’s Illegal Armada Update: Month of May on track to beat April’s record arrivals

This time last month, 2,109 illegal immigrants had arrived. So far this month 2,107 illegal immigrants have arrived.

Meanwhile, there are 105,000 Australians trapped in the cycle of homelessness says National chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society Dr John Falzon.

So the illegals get 3 hots and a cot, and yet the homelessness would be lucky to get 1 hot let alone a cot each night.

$8.1 billion is budgeted on intercepting these illegal immigrants over the next 4 years – imagine if that same amount of money was spent fighting the causes and care of the homeless then we’d mostly likely wouldn't have a homelessness problem.

I also understand that after the illegals spend around 6-9 months in detention, they manage to save approximately $10 000 in "welfare payments" from the Australian Government. They then send the money home and arrange for the next family member to come here on a boat.

This means we are actually paying for the continuous flood of illegal boat people via the welfare payments provided to them.

Well done, Labor.

 

 

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Australia’s gross national debt is far worse than what the Gov’t and the MSM are telling you

And you can squarely blame federal Labor and state Labor gov’ts from 2007 onwards for blowing the dough.

Australia’s net debt figure is almost twice the 10.6 per cent estimate you’ve been told is so comforting – the real number was around 20 per cent in 2012-13. Importantly, this has exploded off a sub-zero base in 2007 when we had allegedly no net debt.

Excising the influence of the Future Fund and “other investments”, total government net debt rises to roughly 25 per cent (see above chart).

When financial markets consider a company’s riskiness, they focus on the gross level of borrowings relative to assets. We can do the same.

In 2007, the Commonwealth and states owed about $150 billion. These were just the bonds on issue and ignore other borrowings. By December 2012 Commonwealth and state government debt on issue had more than tripled to $500 billion. That’s nearly 35 per cent of GDP and excludes government-guaranteed companies. The true gross debt-to-GDP ratio is probably circa 40 per cent. While that is still relatively low, it is not the ultra-benign image that has been projected.

Make sure you read the AFR’s Christopher Joye’s article in full.

It’s Labor that has sentenced your children and grandchildren to paying off their reckless spending. Remember that when you vote on September 14.

 

 

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Socialism in action: Venezuela runs out of toilet paper due to state price controls

Revolutions have started on less…

 

Via Rare

First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities — toilet paper.

Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the embattled socialist government says it will import 50 million rolls to boost supplies.

That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

“This is the last straw,” said Manuel Fagundes, a shopper hunting for tissue in downtown Caracas. “I’m 71 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen this.”

One supermarket visited by The Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

“I’ve been looking for it for two weeks,” said Cristina Ramos. “I was told that they had some here and now I’m in line.”

Economists say Venezuela’s shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government’s controls on foreign currency.

“State-controlled prices — prices that are set below market-clearing price — always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union,” said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.

President Nicolas Maduro, who was selected by the dying Hugo Chavez to carry on his “Bolivarian revolution,” claims that anti-government forces, including the private sector, are causing the shortages in an effort to destabilize the country.

The government this week announced it would import 760,000 tons of food and 50 million rolls of toilet paper.

 

If we’re stupid enough to leave Labor in power, it will most likely happen here too…

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Research study explains why lefty blokes like Swan and Bandt support the welfare state

Explains everything.

Via Daily Mail

Men who are strong are more likely to take a right-wing stance, while weaker men support the welfare state, researchers claim.

Their study discovered a link between a man’s upper-body strength and their political views.

Scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark collected data on bicep size, socio-economic status and support for economic redistribution from hundreds in America, Argentina and Denmark

The figures revealed that men with higher upper-body strength were less likely to support left-wing policies on the redistribution of wealth.

But men with low upper-body strength were more likely to put their own self-interest aside and support a welfare state.

The researchers found no link between upper-body strength and redistribution opinions among women.

 

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Alan Jones buckets Joe Hockey on why the Liberals will continue to subsidise Wind Farms

No friend, no favour – well done to Alan Jones for having a good go at Joe Hockey.

I am on record saying that the Liberal Party will continue to use our money to keep funding the global warming scam. Labor are foxtrot hopeless, the Liberals are just hopeless.

Listen to Alan Jones - Joe Hockey

 

 

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The UN’s flagship anti-poverty agency is more interested in getting funding than in setting up programs that make the best sense

Just another reason why the UN should be defunded and ultimately disbanded. 

Via Fox News

The $5.7 billion United Nations Development Program, the U.N.’s flagship anti-poverty agency, is poor at producing lasting results, sets unrealistic or unfocused priorities and often seems more interested in getting funding than in setting up programs that make the best sense, according to an internal assessment that will be discussed at a top-level meeting next month.

Moreover, in a sweeping examination of some $19.7 billion worth of UNDP programs between 2008 and 2012, the report says that only in “just about half” of the country-by-country efforts was the agency “likely to have made, or make, a significant contribution to the intended outcome.”

Nor is the agency very good at judging where it is going wrong, the report adds, meaning that “strengthening the efficiency of projects and programs is a major challenge.”

The sobering evaluation of UNDP’s usefulness was carried out by UNDP’s own Evaluation Office, whose director is appointed by UNDP’s top official, Helen Clark. So far, only an executive summary of the evaluation is available to members of UNDP’s 36-nation supervisory Executive Board, which holds its semi-annual meeting in New York City starting on June 3. According to a UNDP spokesman, a full version of the report will be made public next week.

…One of the biggest causes of UNDP’s incoherence and chasing after short-term or ill-planned projects, the evaluators judge, is its business model, which increasingly depends on making use of earmarked funds from its big donors.

Unlike the U.N. Secretariat, where rich countries are assessed dues — with the U.S. at the top of the donor list, contributing 22 percent of the Secretariat’s “regular” expenses —contributions to UNDP are voluntary, and increasingly come with long strings attached —in part to ensure that the donors get some specific value for their money.

The only people on the planet worse than the UN at wasting money is the Australian Labor Party.

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007 Casino Royal opening scene recreated with Lego

Very clever…

  

And here’s the original scene from the movie…

  

 

 

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Looney Budgets aren’t limited to Australia – EU to spend 20% of budget on Climate Change

European heads of state and government have agreed to commit at least 20 per cent of the entire European Union budget over the next seven years to climate-related spending.

The seven-year budget was agreed at 960 billion euros ($1.28 trillion).

That’s a staggering €192 bn or $250 bn AUD being spent on an imaginary problem.

 

 

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