That’s “Psycho” Morrison for ya:
A Liberal upper house MP is resigning and a Northern Rivers mayor has gone to the Governor-General over concerns about perceived favouritism in the allocation of federal flood assistance.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week announced extra financial support would be available immediately for people in Lismore, Richmond Valley and Clarence Valley local government areas (LGAs), which all sit in the Nationals-held seat of Page.
The neighbouring flood-affected LGAs of Ballina, Byron and Tweed – all in the Labor-held seat of Richmond – have not received the extra $2,000 per person support.
…This issue of additional emergency disaster funding has been the catalyst for North Coast-based Liberal MLC Catherine Cusack to announce she will leave Parliament.
“The idea that being a flood victim in a National Party-held seat makes you more worthy than a flood victim who is in the Richmond electorate … is probably the most unethical approach I have ever seen,” she said.
…”I can’t defend it and I’m outraged by it.”
“The whole Northern Rivers should have been given funding according to their need, not according to their LGA, it’s unprecedented.”
Come now. Labor voters are going to hell anyway. Why get in the way of that.
In fact, why have any decency at all?
The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has taken a swing at Rupert Murdoch’s national broadsheet the Australian, declaring it is “extraordinarily disrespectful” to use the appellation “mean girls” to describe “strong, articulate, principled women” like Penny Wong, Katy Gallagher and Kristina Keneally.
The blast followed the publication on Wednesday of an article chronicling alleged internal disagreements between members of Labor’s Senate team and the late senator Kimberley Kitching, who died suddenly of a heart attack last week at the age of 52. The article claimed the disagreements left Kitching feeling isolated.
…“It was sudden,” he said. “It was not expected. Her funeral isn’t until Monday. Can people be a bit respectful at this point in time?”
Asked whether there was cause to investigate whether or not the Labor party had a “mean girls” culture, Albanese said: “Seriously, have a bit of respect. The funeral is on Monday”.
And lie, lie, lie:
“When the rest of the world is applying sanctions to Russia and seeking to impose a heavy price on them for their violent and aggressive actions, China actually relieved trade measures,” Mr Morrison told reporters in Perth.
But questions about gaps in Australia’s own sanctions regime against Russia have arisen since Mr Morrison first announced his intention to keep in “lock step” with international allies’ financial penalties on oligarchs.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said that, to date, sanctions have been imposed on 460 individuals and entities linked to Russia.
But conspicuously absent are two prominent Russian oligarchs, with mining interests in Australia, Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg.
That is despite both men being the subject of sanctions from the United Kingdom. The two were last week named as part of measures which also targeted the billionaire owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich.
Squatters occupied Mr Deripaksa’s multimillion-pound London mansion this week, in a show of protest against the billionaire’s close ties with Mr Putin.
The Liberal Party itself is sickened to its core:
NSW Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells wrote to branch members on Tuesday telling them the court action centred around Mr Morrison’s temporary intervention in the NSW state executive earlier this month to install three sitting MPs as candidates.
…“I believe that the “manufactured” delay in selecting candidates was deliberately designed to avoid plebiscites and trample on the rights of members,” she wrote.
…“There is now a serious question as to the legality of the processes that the federal executive has ‘imposed’ on our division,” she said.
“Mr Matthew Camenzuli, member of the NSW state executive, has therefore commenced a set of proceedings in the Supreme Court to uphold your rights and challenge the validity of the committee’s decision to impose candidates in NSW.”
“Psycho” Morrison’s mental illness ruins everything that it touches.
