No need to critique the government when we can sit around attacking Tony Abbott

WHEN Barrie Cassidy wants to chat with the Insiders panel, there's only one thing on his mind

Summaries on the website of the panel discussion on ABC1's Insiders yesterday:

BARRIE Cassidy and the panel discusses the media's treatment of Tony Abbott's comment in Afghanistan.

The panel discuss Tony Abbott's demand to direct foreign aid funds to rebuilding Australia after floods and Cyclone Yasi.

The panel discuss claims Julie Bishop and Tony Abbott fought over opposition budget policy.

Eventually . . .

ANDREW Bolt: We have spent all this time talking about a little barney between two people over which program maybe they'd cut if ever they get into office. We've said absolutely or close to nothing about the consequence, what it means, that the government this week has abandoned what it claimed was the greatest reform since Medicare of the health funding system, one more government program to collapse and we are talking about the opposition?

Cassidy: Just to help that along Andrew, here's Tony Abbott on the very point that Andrew just raised and then we'll hear more from you.

Abbott: This is the biggest surrender since Singapore. It really is. Compared to what Kevin Rudd was promising this is an absolute complete and utter wipeout.

Cassidy: Andrew?

Bolt: Look, again.

David Marr: [cutting in] All you had to do was wait a bit.

Bolt: No, no, I don't! There is a government in power that is the most incompetent that I have seen, I don't know since when, and all the focus seems to be on the opposition and you say it's self-inflicted, I say we're not looking at who's actually making the calls that are leading to this disaster, this turning back of a big government program, the abandonment of so many green programs, the trouble with this carbon tax that seems to be a broken promise, it goes on and on.

Cassidy: More of our panel shortly but now here's Mike Bowers.

Bowers: I'm Mike Bowers. I'm talking shit this morning with chief photographer for Fairfax Andrew Meares. Welcome to the program.

Meares: Hi Mike. [Silence]

Meares: Come on, you're not saying anything Mike.

Bowers: How did Tony turn the story into THE story?

Back on the couch . . .

BOLT: To continue my theme, and I know you've got to throw to the next program so cut me off when you do, the abandonment of Rudd's big program, health reform, marks a litany of failure that is unprecedented in any three-year term, the green car program, the solar program . . . cut me off, I don't care . . . the whaling initiative against Japan, the refugee program . . .

Cassidy: To be continued. To the Good Weekend magazine with Christopher Pyne on the cover . . . "Is this the most annoying man in Australia" is the headline . . .

John Van Tiggelen in the Good Weekend magazine last Saturday:

DENIALIST movements affect public safety. Here's a top five, arranged for no particular purpose other than to press the point that creationists, hippies and Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph columnist Andrew Bolt have more in common than they think.

Last year and the past decade were the equal warmest and the warmest on record. Such minor details won't sway climate change denialists from their objectives, says Professor Peter Doherty, an Australian Nobel laureate. Says Doherty, "In science, once you leave the field, you become redundant very fast. You can remain generally supportive of science and back the consensus, that's the dignified way to go. Or, you lose your relevance, you miss being up there in the public swing of things, and the only way to get people talking about you again is to take up a contrary position."

Is Doherty missing the spotlight and what does he know about climate change? From his CV on Melbourne University's website:

PROFESSOR Peter Doherty shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1996. He was Australian of the Year in 1997. He is the first person with a veterinary qualification to win a Nobel prize.