The Unshackled Waves Ep. 130 Barnaby Joyce Resigns, Abbott on Immigration, Child Protection and Moves Against Guns
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The news stories from last week continued to play out further. To discuss those and other developments we were joined in person by Deputy Editor of The Unshackled and Host of Front and Center Podcast Emilio Garcia who is in Melbourne for a special Unshackled Editors meeting.
Barnaby Joyce announced on Friday afternoon he would be resigning as Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals Leader. He had been under pressure to step down ever since the story broke that his former media advisor Vikki Campion whom he had an affair with was now pregnant with his child. Questions had been raised about the appropriate use of taxpayers’ funds since Campion was moved to various Nationals MPs’ offices, also the fact he was staying rent free in an apartment owned a business friend with Campion and had previously sold himself as a social conservative was also frowned upon. The Liberals appear to have got their wish to be rid of Joyce and the National Partyroom looks set to elect Michael McCormack as their new leader.
Tony Abbott in a speech to the Sydney Institute proposed cutting Australia’s annual immigration intake from 190,000 to 110,000 for economic, infrastructure and integration reasons. His speech was not well received by his Liberal colleagues with even conservative Ministers all pouring scorn on his proposal. Abbott in his proposal should have focused more on immigration coming from our humanitarian intake which is where the social problems are arising.The government continues to be behind in the polls which is the reason Abbott feels justified in speaking out on these issues.
The most horrific story of the week was the alleged rape of a two year old Aboriginal girl at Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. We learned that child protection in the Territory had received 21 calls about problems at the property where the child was raped over a two year period and that after the child had been released from hospital they were returned to their mother at the same property. Authorities are clearly more worried about creating another so called stolen generation and demonstrating blind adherence to the family preservation policy rather than actually protecting at risk children.
The main story in the United States is still the aftermath of the Florida school shooting which killed 17 students. The tide would appear to be turning against guns with President Trump announcing a ban on bump stocks, introducing instant background checks and raising the age of purchase of firearms to 21. After so many mass shootings it is quite strange that this one is now seeing the gun control movement in the ascendancy. The movement is being led by the surviving students whom the media is eager to promote despite them not having expertise on the issue. The problem is of course more complex than simply introducing as much gun control as possible which is what the left secretly desire.