TONY Abbott is trying desperately to maintain the solid bipartisanship from the Labor opposition on the Iraqi airstrikes against ­Islamic State terrorists as the cost of the military operation becomes a political issue. 
 
The Prime Minister yesterday praised Bill Shorten for his stand on the Iraqi miliary action and played down the issue of budget costs for the military.

But the Opposition Leader asked Mr Abbott to slap down Joe Hockey for calling on the ALP to support budget cuts to fund defence projects, the extra $630 million for security and the Iraqi action against terrorists.

In Washington, the Treasurer said the government would lay out plans to fund Defence and the Iraqi action in the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook statement due before Christmas.

“We will spend what we need to spend to defend the nation and, given that we spend tens of billions of dollars each year on defence, we have the capacity to deliver what we say we are going to deliver,” Mr Hockey said.

“It’s another good reason for Mr Shorten to immediately pass the remaining measures in the budget. Everything comes at a cost and if Bill Shorten truly is honest about his commitment to deliver bipartisan support in relation to our defence efforts in the Middle East, he’ll provide bipartisan support to pay for it.”

Mr Shorten said he was “extremely disappointed” Mr Hockey had made “the Iraq intervention a source of political point scoring”.

“Labor’s made its position on our intervention in Iraq perfectly clear.

“We have offered bipartisan support for this important work, but under no circumstances will Labor ever sign up to support this unfair budget of broken ­prom­ises and lies which hurts middle-­income and low-income Australians,” Mr Shorten said.

“Joe Hockey probably thought he was being clever, creating this political issue. Well it’s not,” he added. “I would ask the Prime Minister to correct his Treasurer because the Treasurer has made a dreadful statement which doesn’t help us in Iraq or, indeed, help rescue his unfair budget.”

Later Mr Abbott praised Mr Shorten for his support of the Iraqi intervention.

“I’ve had numerous conversations with Bill about this and he is an Australian patriot. He fully understands the threat that ISIL (Islamic State) poses.

“He wants to see Australian forces deployed in a sensible way to protect our country and to protect the wider world and I’m confident that we will continue to have strong bipartisanship from the opposition,” he said.

Mr Abbott said he accepted the opposition was “absolutely entitled to come to its own position on our budget measures”.

But he said Labor should come up with alternative savings. “My critique of the Labor Party is that having got us into the budgetary mess, they’re now obstructing measures to get us out of the budgetary mess.”

He said the costs of the intervention had to be kept in perspective: “We’re talking here about perhaps half a billion a year depending on how much ordnance is used. In terms of the debt and deficit disaster that we inherited, this is a relatively small amount.

Labor slams Joe Hockey’s Iraq link with budget cuts

Is this a public dressing down of his treasurer? Or is Tony being genuine in his praise?

When Tony Abbott calls you a patriot, then you know you have been truly insulted!

John Smith wrote on Oct 10^th, 2014 at 2:14pm:


No way.  I know Hockey seems to live in his own little bubble, but no way.

Hockey's star has fallen quite a bit since the Libs won government. It now appears the heir apparent is a toss up between Julie Bishop, thanks to her work as Foreign Minister and (for crying out loud) Scott Morrison.

Between the two Raven would pick Julie

greggerypeccary wrote on Oct 10^th, 2014 at 3:08pm:


VOTE 1 : Scott Morrison.

Neither Tony Abbott nor any Politician in the LNP have yet declared they are a Patriot.

Its easy to see why Abbott has not, he wont even become an Australian!

Patriot. A person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors: