Apparently, thanks to Mr Abbott, “shirtfront” has just been named word of the year. This is in spite of the fact that the National Dictionary director admitting that it was hard to define after Tony used it to refer to his intentions for Mr Putin.
Still, I guess that seems appropriate for the current government, as nothing they say seems be clear, particularly the statements they make in an attempt to clarify their changes to their unchanged positions. For example, the $7 co-payment no longer has to be paid up front. Or at all. It’s up to the doctor to decide if he or she want to be paid $5 less, so you can see that it’s something that doesn’t concern the Senate at all, so why should they vote it down, because it hasn’t even been taken there.
Another thing that doesn’t need any up front payments is your university fees. I saw an ad in a bus shelter which said that thanks to HECS, you paid zero upfront. Sort of like when you put something on the credit card where don’t pay now, you pay enormous amounts later – but that analogy only works when you’re talking about Labor governments.
But I don’t want to get all political here. I’m just trying to make my contribution for word of the year for 2015.
Just as “doing a Bradbury” came to mean someone who came from behind to win when everyone else fell over, I feel that we can add the following to our lexicon. Or whatever the word is. If Tony can use “shirtfront” to mean, have a private meeting where I tell the Russian leader that I’m very grateful that he saw me so I could pretend that I spoke harshly to him, then I can misuse the odd word without the pedants crawling out the p(ed)antry. (Ants/ pantry – it’s a pun, ffs!)
Anyway, henceforth the following definitions apply:
To do an abbott – To loudly protest and complain and announce one’s intention to do all manner of things, only to meekly change one’s turn after being criticised.
To do a pyne – To argue that the only way to resolve this is to look at the facts, and then proceed to proclaim a large number of things as factual when they are either a matter of opinion or just plain wrong.
To do a hockey – To proclaim that in order to prevent a particular thing one has to do that very thing. For example, in order to reduce the country’s debt we have to eliminate the debt ceiling and borrow more money. Or in order that the standard of living of Australians doesn’t suffer, most of us will have to live in a cardboard box while people with no qualifications from third world countries come over here to work in jobs that we’re not qualified to do.
To do a sinodinos – to be able to do something while receiving a large amount of money for whatever it was that one was doing even though one is not quite sure why one received the money but whatever the question was one can’t recall the answer.
To do a bronwyn* – to impress all with one’s capacity to be able to recite the rules backwards, and to apply them in the same way.
To do a turnbull – to be consistently beaten on everything you supposedly believe in (from the Republic to an ETS) but still publicly support views of the people who laugh about you and humiliate you. You do this because you believe that it’s better that you’re working with the side that doesn’t resemble your actual views, because one day they’ll ask you to be their leader because they like the fact that you never win.
*To clarify this is a quote from when Bronwyn Bishop was made Speaker. I presume that the Ms. Bishop being quoted is Julie, because surely Bronwyn wouldn’t show this much bias… Surely.
“So we believe that Bronwyn Bishop will be an outstanding Speaker,” says Ms Bishop
“She knows the standing orders backwards as has been evident during many occasions during Question Time but she’s also a very gracious woman and I think she’ll bring a great deal of dignity to the House of Representatives.”
