What do you know?
What do you think you know?
And how are you going to react?

EDIT by SuziH
I have merged an old thread on stem cell research with the newer one, hence the weirdness of the dates

Not Nearly Enough.

Not very much...except that if I or one of my family had some disease or other that may be cured/assisted bu stem cell research I'd probably beat John Howard to a bloody pulp if that's what it took to get it happening.

To what?

I continually change my mind. One doc will tell us about how research will cure many fatal illnesses and I'm all for it. Then some other doc will say that tiny feotuses will be mutilated and I am adamantly against it.

Yeah, from your nose.

Seems we've all been doing a little research of our own.

Quoted from cactus

Yeah, from your nose.

Seems we've all been doing a little research of our own.

Now it's Abbott's turn to put his foot in his mouth (not unusual for him).

Abbott withdraws ethnic 'slur'
February 28, 2006 - 4:18PM


Health Minister Tony Abbott has been forced to withdraw comments after asking whether there were any Australians left in the Australian Labor Party.

Opposition MPs booed and jeered in Question Time after Mr Abbott referred to Cambodian, Vietnamese, Spanish and Greek Labor party members - then asked where the Australians were.

A day after defending multiculturalism in a newspaper column, Mr Abbott questioned the ethnic branch-stacking in the Victorian Labor party, where several sitting members in safe seats are facing preselection challenges.

Opposition Pacific Islands spokesman Bob Sercombe today pulled out of the preselection race for his seat of Maribynong, conceding he could not win.

Six other MPs also face challenges, including former leader Simon Crean who is under pressure from union boss Martin Pakula in the Melbourne seat of Hotham.

"Mr Pakula may be very appealing to Cambodian speaking people who are just two per cent of the electorate of Hotham but they're 30 per cent of the Labor preselectors of Hotham," Mr Abbott told parliament.

"I'm reading in The Australian last Friday, he's (Mr Crean) still got the Greek branches but he's lost the Spanish branches and he's lost the Vietnamese branches as well as the Cambodian branches.

"And I couldn't help but think - are there any Australians left in the so-called Australian Labor Party today?"

Opposition frontbencher Anthony Albanese, whose inner-Sydney electorate of Grayndler has a large non-English speaking population, immediately objected.

"My point of order, Mr Speaker, is for the minister to withdraw that extraordinarily outrageous slur on every Australian who doesn't have an Anglo-Celtic name in this country," Mr Albanese said.

"We've heard the dog whistle from this mob one after the other, but this minister as usual has gone too far and I ask him to withdraw it."

Speaker David Hawker said he did not find the comment offensive.

"Well Mr Speaker, I did and 46 per cent of my electorate will find that offensive as well," Mr Albanese said.

Mr Abbott withdrew the comment but accused Labor of pigeonholing people by their race.

"I'm happy to withdraw anything that's given him offence but I say this - I think the Australian people are entitled to reject the way the Australian Labor Party constantly puts people into ethnic - you know - that's what they're trying to do to people," Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott's comments come after Prime Minister John Howard described the Muslim burqa as confronting and Treasurer Peter Costello said radical Muslims should move to another country if they wanted to live under sharia law.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/abbott-withdraws-ethnic-slur/2006/02/28/1141095727342.html

As far as I am concerned, once it's said you can't take it back.

It appears Liberal party is going to erect its dream fortress(the formula to stay in power forever) on the graves of Ethnic minorities in Australia. First it was Prime Minister then it was Donna vale, after that it was would be Prime Minister (Costello) and now the sacred Christian at heart Mr Abbot who want woman not to get rid of unwanted pregnancies so that Anglo people won't become minority 50 years from now in the British Queen's own territory left in Asia-Pacific.

Blame it to the lack of agenda and poverty of thoughts to target multiculturalism and ethnic Australians or threat-perception of Mr Abbott it would not going to help him in the long run nor his party. But will certainly weaken Australia by making people insecure, dissatisfied and angry.!!

Quoted from SuziH

As far as I am concerned, once it's said you can't take it back.

I agree. Sometimes people let their guard down and show their true colours.

What does it take for senior politicians to be sacked??

John Howard - responsible for an illegal invasion of another country - should have been SACKED!

Alexander Downer - had knowledge of illegal bribes being paid by the AWB to Iraq, the same Iraq that we invaded due to the regime being corrupt and cruel - should have been SACKED!

Dana Vale - made a racist statement contributing to the spread of Islamophobia - should be SACKED!

Tony Abbott - made an obviously racist comment (in gest or not this is not acceptable for an MP) - should be SACKED!

These 4 should have been sacked for their crimes or misdemeanours! And that damn liberal friendly speaker should also be sacked for not finding what Abbott said offensive.

This country cannot afford to have racists in Parliament.

I heard that he has really bad breath too <-picture of me.

I too think everyone who ever makes any kind of mistake in Public Office should be sacked immediately!!. . never mind the voters who put them there. .    

<<<Sarcasm>>> . .just in case you wondered.

Where is the accountability??

Why are politicians above the law? At the very least Howard and Downer should be sacked for BREAKING THE LAW!

Voters cannot be held accountable for politicians when they break the law.

Quoted from x452

Voters cannot be held accountable for politicians when they break the law.

Voters are fully accountable for who they vote for!. . who else is to blame?? . . some of these crooks are 'ratbags' from their teens and people know it . . it is the 'compulsory' voting system that 'forces' people to tick boxes of the names of candidates in their electorate . .  you may not know or even like the local member. . but you vote for them based on 'party preferences' you believe in.
Local election in 2 weeks are a joke . . Libs promise to revert speeds on side streets from 50 to 60. . sounds OK. . but they plan to sack 4,000 public servants too. . so we will get no service for necessary business we need to do.  (some choice!)  

When asked why the fox ate the frog he was carrying across the river to safety from a flood. . .  he simply replied . . . "Don't be surprised . . I'm a fox. . that's what I do!" . .  

Now you know why I don't vote. . the candidate of my choice has been omitted from the ballot paper. . when he can be listed. . I will vote for him.

Quoted from Gizmo

Voters are fully accountable for who they vote for!. . who else is to blame??

Voters only have one option, and that is to vote a Government out of office if they are not happy with them. Voters make an informed (or uninformed) decision to vote for politicians and put their trust and confidence in them. They are not and should not be responsible for a Government if they break the law or behave unacceptably while in office.

The role of an unbiased governor general should have been to vote 'no confidence' in john howard after he LIED about children overboard. And the excuse "that was the information that was presented to me" is not good enough. If you're the PM and you are sent a memo saying 'refugees are throwing their children overboard', you may want to ask 'really?', 'I'd like more information about the matter', instead of believing whatever nonsense you are told.

However, we all know that howard knew these were lies and went along with them for his own political purposes. Just as he's doing with the AWB scandal, evidence this morning shows that the cable alerting to dodgy business dealings by the AWB was sent to howard by the Canadian Government 6 years ago, but of course he's going to say he never saw it and had no knowledge of the issue. Which again is an out-and-out lie as Downer has already admitted to knowing about the warnings.

There must be a system where senior politicians cannot use the defences "that's the information that was presented to me" or "I haven't been made aware of that information" for serious matters. Because they (Howard in particular) use these excuses to get out of any indiscretions!

The bottom line is politicians should be accountable for the failures of their own staff or department. They should not be able to shift the blame. It's the only way to (try and) keep these pr*cks honest!

Imagine if the defence minister was sent a memo by the Indonesian Government warning of an impending attack by Jamaah Islamia, and he didn't see or act on it and an attack on Australian soil was carried out? And his excuse would be I get thousands of memos everyday and I don't have time to go through every one of them. It seems like something this extreme has to happen before even a shred of accountability is required from a politician. And even then I doubt that Downer's head would roll, he'd just weasel out of it like they always do and throw up a smokescreen and blame evil terrorist muslims that hate our way of life.

Quoted from Gizmo

When asked why the fox ate the frog he was carrying across the river to safety from a flood. . .  he simply replied . . . "Don't be surprised . . I'm a fox. . that's what I do!" . .  

If only that frog was a cane toad ...

Abbott remains unconvinced of stem cell benefits

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott has challenged supporters of therapeutic cloning to explain what has changed since the issue was considered by Parliament four years ago.

Liberal Senator Kay Patterson is developing a Bill to overturn a ban on therapeutic cloning, and the Prime Minister says he will allow a free vote on the issue.

Mr Abbott has told the ABC's Insiders program that despite the findings of the Lockhart review on stem cell research, he does not think changes should be made.

"What we are seeing at the moment is a lot of peddling of hope, but no great evidence that these new and radical research techniques are actually going to produce the breakthroughs that some of the more evangelical scientists are claiming for them," he said.

Mr Abbott says therapeutic cloning is a "slippery slope" to human cloning.

"Creating potential human life not to give life but to give the scientists a bit more of a leg-up is fraught with danger," he said.

The Federal Opposition has accused the Minister of deliberately misleading the public on the issue.

Labor's health spokeswoman Julia Gillard has told Channel Ten Mr Abbott's remarks are inappropriate.

"I think Tony Abbott as Health Minister has actually got an obligation to keep the debate calm and keep it focused on the facts," she said.

"Instead he believes it is his job to run in with the most inflammatory language he can think of.

"No one in federal Parliament is advocating human cloning, that is, the complete reproduction of human beings.

"For Tony Abbott to talk about that as sort of Dolly the sheep cloning, which is the kind of terminology he's used, is calculated in my view to misinform the public."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1719247.htm