Recently I saw this alert on a film I was about to watch which warned me:

STRONG NUDITY

And I couldn’t help but wonder if there are films with weak nudity…

And if there are, exactly what constitutes weak nudity. Is it people who don’t have abs or pectorals? Or is it nudity where the rudest bits are hidden by appropriately placed pot plants?

Whatever, I immediately thought of this video I saw a few days ago, where Ralph Babet talked about how masculinity was under attack before explaining how the left hate strong males, and I couldn’t help but wonder if someone will ask him if he prefers strong males and we’ll have a whole lot of confusing debates about homophobia and LGTBI rights until Ralph says something which gets him even more publicity.

Words are strange things I also keep reading about Bruce Lehrmann and how he strongly and strenuously and consistently denies what is alleged to have happened…

Now I’m not making any comment about the substance of his denials because he has the right to the presumption of innocence. And if he says that he’s not guilty, well, the law is on his side. And, after all, if you can’t trust a man who’s honest enough to admit that he’s lied to his boss, about the whisky and on the Channel 7 interview, then who can you believe? Certainly you can believe Channel 7 who told us that they didn’t pay him for the interview which is true. The fact that they paid for his rent for a year or so is not the same as paying for an interview so you can certainly trust them when they broadcast the news…

When I was a teacher, we’d occasionally get an email at this time of year reminding us that we couldn’t accept expensive gifts worth more than a few dollars. I suppose I could have reminded my students of this and added that this didn’t preclude access to a holiday house or free use of a car should any of their parents want to ensure that their child received that marks that someone with such caring parents deserved…

Speaking of education, I noticed that a Senate committee expressed concern that the behaviour of some students in schools was nearly as bad as politicians during Question Time.

But back to the way people use words.

What strikes me as weird is the idea that when people are accused of crimes that the denial is strenuous or strong. You know the sort of thing, “Mr X issued a strong denial” or “Mr Y strenuously denied the accusation.”

Like I said before, are there films with weak nudity? Are there times when a media report says: “Mr Smith lethargically denied all charges”? If an accusation gets to court, the defendant isn’t asked if he or she pleads Vehemently Not Guilty, Passionately Not Guilty, Strenuously Not Guilty, Partially Not Guilty or Guilty.

I started to think about this in everyday terms. For example, if my wife were to ask if I drank the rest of the red wine that was sitting on the buffet and I replied, “No, I had a sip and it had definitely gone off so I tipped it down the sink!”. it seems a reasonably response which is quite possibly true. Either way, there’s no proof and unless she finds a way to do extensive forensic testing, then any suspicion that I’m lying is unlikely to be proven that it’s best to assume that I’m telling the truth.

However, imagine if she were to ask me and my response was: “No! I strenuously deny drinking the wine. It’s just not true. There was far too much wine there for me to drink in one sitting and I’m outraged that you’d even think such a thing!”

I can’t see that the passion of my protestations of innocence has anything to do with my guilt or innocence, so I don’t know why people have to add adverbs that have no real meaning into their statements. It’s not like we have a rating system where strenuously is better than strongly and vehemently tops them all.

The actual headline in The Australian Financial Review was

“Send miners to parliament and students to work, Gina Rinehart says”

Now, I can’t help but feel that even they found Gina Rinehart’s speech a little over the top, but it is hard to tell. Anyway, Ms Rinehart did have some pearls of wisdom in her sermon.

Apparently, “Platitudes and press releases move precisely zero tonnes of iron, copper, nickel, rare earths or any other mineral.” An observation that I found less than educational because I already knew that moving such things requires heavy machinery. However, as Gina was talking to a bunch of mining executives, it makes me wonder how out of touch they are.

Speaking of out of touch, did you happen to catch the transcript of Reserve Bank Governor, Michele Bullock’s, latest pearls of wisdom. Inflation is apparently now “domestically driven” and it’s the service industry that’s particularly showing this. To quote the RBA Governor directly:

“Hairdressers and dentists, dining out, sporting and other recreational activities – the prices of all these services are rising strongly…”

She went on to suggest that it was easier for businesses to raise prices rather than increase output. Call me economically ignorant but I fail to see how an interest rate rise will encourage dentists to pull more teeth or hairdressers to take more off the top.

Still, if people have no spare money, they may just decide not to dine out or get their teeth fixed. In the latter case, this may lead to them working less efficiently and losing their job. This would go some way of achieving Bullock’s aim of increasing unemployment to the sort of levels that would discourage workers from seeking pay rises that almost keep pace with inflation and stop them going out to dinner, going to sporting or other recreational activities, leading in turn to more lay-offs and more unemployment. While that seems like a shame, as the RBA head told us, she only has the blunt instrument of interest rate rises and she’s got to think of what’s good for us collectively…

Just like Gina who understands that getting rid of ridiculous red tape that stop people mining wherever they damn well please without having to check whether there’s some reason not to:

“Now I’m suggesting something in addition, encourage and support people from our industry, to put themselves up for parliament. We need strong people in government, not afraid to stand up for common sense, and for mining.”

She urged her audience to spend fifteen minutes a day advocating for mining. I think she could have added that they should also spend a further fifteen minutes praying to the god of production asking him to remove all obstacles to production such as politicians that she doesn’t own and laws that she doesn’t like.

Anyway, she went on to praise Peter Dutton as an outstanding leader, which is odd because all I remember him leading is the failed coup against Turnbull that led to Scott Morrison being elected Liberal leader and the current opposition. (Speaking of Peter Dutton I noticed that he recently argued that, unlike our current PM, Scott Morrison didn’t go overseas when he was needed here… Given that Scotty secretly snuck off to Hawaii during those bushfires, it does tend to suggest that Peter Dutton thinks that Scott Morrison was never needed here… or anywhere!)

She also attacked today’s youth for being work-shy.

“Too often today, youngsters who’ve been to uni don’t want to do work they think is below them, and want to jump into senior roles for instant success skipping the hard metres, perhaps with the feeling that their private education or time at uni means they should pick and choose what work they do. I think part of my success was, despite a private education and, with what was required back then, high enough marks to get into uni that this didn’t give me such an attitude.”

Now I’m sure that a part of Gina Rinehart’s success was having the right attitude. I mean plenty of people who inherit millions from their father and a trust fund worth billions don’t go on to become the richest woman in Australia. And it takes a lot of work to make sure all those politicians kiss your ring… I was going to say something about Gina working her way up from the bottom but maybe it’s the other way round.

The other day in Parliament Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton moved a motion which linked Prime Minister Albanese’s overseas trips to the rise in anti-semitism and the High Court’s decision that holding people in detention forever wasn’t consistent with the Constitution. In moving this motion, he made a speech and I’ve been searching for it on the internet but all I could find was the following which – given I found it on the internet – must be in some way accurate. Even if it isn’t I can repeat it because we have no laws about misinformation so nobody should have a problem if it’s not completely true:

Mr Dutton:

Mr Speaker, this is a time for all Australians to band together and ensure that we don’t allow the Labor Party to divide us. Labor, The Greens and those inner-city elites tried to do that with the Voice but we managed to silence them and I’m glad that we stopped something that would have been divisive but our work won’t be done until we’ve rid Australia of every person who would divide us.

Recently, the High Court made a decision and the government has failed to respond it decisively because the Prime Minister has been out of the country. If I were in charge I would have pre-empted the High Court and already had legislation to prevent the Court from making decisions that aren’t in the national interest. People need to be aware that the legislation that the High Court trashed has allowed people who are the worst of the worst to be released from indefinite detention. Their crimes include rape, murder and political activism – these crimes are made worse by the fact that none of them are Australian. Just like those African gangs that made Melburnians afraid to go out to dinner, these people are particularly scary because they’re not your average Aussie criminal like Chopper or Ned Kelly.

And we all know who’s causing the divisions in our society. It’s those people who don’t agree with John Howard. As he told us, unless people are prepared to give up this multicultural nonsense and accept that we are one nation, under God, then Heaven help us because it’s when people disagree with his vision of a united Australia all voting for the one party that we have problems.

So I call upon the Prime Minister to abandon any plans to travel anywhere and to stay at home so that he can deal with the rising antisemitism as well as the rising cost of living brought on by his failure to rein in the crippling inflation or to stop interest rate rises.

I call upon the PM to censure anyone suggesting a cease-fire because that would only help the sort of people that he’s failed to keep under lock and key just because the High Court said that he can’t. If he were any sort of leader, he’d ignore the High Court because if there’s one thing that a Prime Minister should do it’s to punish those who don’t believe in the rule of law. All lawbreakers should be locked up forever unless they’ve donated to the Liberal Party.

Rather than go to some talk-fest overseas, I’d urge the PM to call an urgent meeting of the National Cabinet so that I can complain that he’s trying to circumvent the Parliament.

This motion further calls on the Prime Minister to:

1. Understand that his role is to heal division by condemning Hamas and banning members of his government from criticising the Israeli response or calling for a cease fire.
2. Demonstrate strong leadership by introducing whatever legislation we tell him to.
3. Demand that China withdraw from the United Nations and give their spot to Taiwan.
4. Reaffirm his support for the Stage 3 Tax Cuts.
5. Cease reminding people that any on this side of the House were ever in government because it causes division.
6. Ban the Aboriginal Flag because that’s what the people voted for when they voted No.
7. Withdrew any legislation relating to misinformation because it will lead to massive job losses in the Murdoch and Nine media companies.
8. Refuse to pose for any photo shoots.
9. Appoint Scott Morrison as Ambassador to Israel to prevent any leadership challenge.
10. Agree to vote with me when I move that the member be no longer heard.

Like I said, we have no misinformation laws, so it doesn’t matter whether that’s what he actually said. Whatever, it’s close enough.

“Good afternoon, today we are fortunate to have the pleasure of interviewing, Miss Information, who works for the Proper Gander Party. First question, why do you have a problem with the proposed laws threatening to ban you from being heard?”

”Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

”Can you elaborate?”

”It’s perfectly clear that this is the government’s way of trying to shut me up. I have as much right to be heard as anyone…”

”Some people are suggesting that you never tell the truth?”

”What’s truth? I mean what you consider truth, I might consider is nonsense.”

”But certain things are facts, aren’t they?”

”That’s true but what if I have alternative facts?”

”Are you referring to Kellyanne Conway’s statement where she defended the lies about the crowd numbers at Trump’s inauguration?”

”Not specifically but that gives me a case in point. If you ban misinformation, how would she have been able to counter what the people were saying about the numbers being lower?”

”Er… she wouldn’t because they weren’t!”

”Exactly. If you banned people from making things up, then you’re giving an unfair advantage to those political parties who are telling the truth.”

”Is that a problem?”

”Well it is for me.”

”But shouldn’t political parties who tell the truth be given credit?”

”I don’t see why? Can you show me one example of the truth doing anyone any good?”

”Lies certainly don’t help.”

”Who says? I mean Tony Abbott lied about his views on climate change and that helped him get elected.”

”They may have helped him but they didn’t help the country.”

”So you’re saying that we’d have been better off with a Labor government. It’s clear where your political leanings are.”

”I just meant that we’d be better off with a government that didn’t say one thing to get elected then do something else when they were in power.”

”You mean like the current Labor government? After all, Albanese promised on four hundred occasions that he’d end the war in Ukraine and provide a yacht for every family but did he keep that promise?”

”He didn’t do either of those things.”

”But that’s the problem with the proposed law. You’d be banned from saying what you just said.”

”No, you’d be the one who’d have to justify what you said because it isn’t true!”

”Wouldn’t that be the problem? Deciding which of us had the right to speak.”

”Look, some things are clearly facts and some things are matters of opinion…”

”But isn’t it a matter of opinion what things are clearly facts?”

”Not always. If we take the cricket, for example, people can argue about whether Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal was in the spirit of the game, but everyone agrees that he was given out.”

”That’s just a point of view. I can find plenty of people who have not only have no idea about whether he was out or not, but they don’t even know who Bairstow is, and their opinion is just as good as anyone else’s.”

”But they won’t have an opinion because they don’t know what we’re talking about.”

”You’ve got an opinion and you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

”I do know what I’m talking about!”

”That’s your opinion.”

”So you would have no problem if someone were to say that interest rates have gone up every week since Labor got in and that it’s all their fault?”

”I don’t think people should be censored.”

”Even if they’re saying something that is demonstrably untrue?”

”Again, who is to say what’s untrue?”

”I do agree that that’s the question, however, some things are clearly disprovable.”

”Such as?”

“You say: ‘Peter Dutton is an intelligent man who’d make an excellent PM’ and you also say: ‘Peter Dutton has a policy of introducing slavery into Australia’, one is a matter of opinion and the other is clearly a lie.”

”Yes, but which?”

“Look, are you against misinformation laws in principle or is it just because you’re worried about how they’ll hamper you?”

”I don’t understand what you mean by ‘in principle’.”

”I see. Well that’s all we have time for. Thanks for being here.”

”I wasn’t.”

”Whatever!”

One thing that I’ve come to believe about politics is that it helps to have a strong narrative. Note that I said “strong” and not “plausible”. And the reason for that is simple. Think of all the successful Hollywood blockbusters of the past few decades. For every one of them that’s had a completely plausible storyline, then there’d be several others that fail the pub test. Even allowing for willing suspension of disbelief and accepting that a spider bite gives you special powers or that we can bring dinosaurs back from the dead or there’s a school for wizards where they play Quidditch, the behaviour of the humans in most of those movies would be completely implausible if it were not for the fact that Trump is the front runner for the Republicans or that neither Scotty nor Boris thought it would be embarrassing to be hanging out with the other one.

Notwithstanding Donald, Scotty and Boris, one has to ask why people in movies always run away from crowds instead of calling for help when being chased by the villain, or why they always make the same mistake in the sequel that they did in the first movie…

Like I said, you need a strong storyline, not a plausible one which gets me back to Airbus Albo. It’s the sort of storyline that could do damage politically because some people will buy it. However, when you’re running that line, it sort of weakens the line that you’re trying to run when some of the Liberals – like two-time loser, Shave Darma – suggest that he should be going to Israel. (Ok, Dave lost out and isn’t one of the current mob but surely they’ll give him the vacant Senate seat to spare him the embarrassment of another loss). It also dents their credibility when they’re doing it from London… After all, the most senior Liberal left in Australia was Sussan Ley and that was just because nobody’s talking to her after her recent failed attempt to muster the numbers and people are worried that Dutton will use his Border Force mates to check who’s taking the calls…

See, I just made that bit up about Ley… and the bit about Dutton actually having mates. But it doesn’t matter because it sounds plausible… Ok, maybe not the bit about Dutton having mates, but the bit about Sussan doing the numbers sounds plausible until you realise that she’s in the party that had Josh Frydenberg as Treasurer and he was only $60 billion out on his estimates.

Anyway, it seems that the Liberals have abandoned any attempt at winning the thinking voter…

Yes, I know I’m only saying that because I’m one of these elites who’s had an education and I don’t understand how the real-world works… or doesn’t work. And I should be more understanding that it’s only thanks to the Labor Party that we have the war in Ukraine and the Middle East driving up the price of oil which contributes to inflation and that interest rates will bring peace in our time…

Anyway, as I was saying, the Liberals have abandoned any attempt to win the thinking voter, and this is not to say that there couldn’t be a great pitch to the thinking voter based on what Labor are actually getting wrong. However, when behave like that Coalition MP who was complaining that the government weren’t doing enough to fix the problem with the Optus outage, you know you aren’t going to win over someone who can go: “Hang on, this is a private company and aren’t you the ones who believe that governments should just step aside and let the market fix things?”

It’s always worth remembering that Pauline Hanson was the Liberal Party candidate until she was dis-endorsed for revealing the Howard government’s strategy before the election. This, of course, raises a number of questions:

1. Why were the Liberals the sort of party that Pauline felt comfortable joining?
2. Why was Pauline the sort of candidate that they felt comfortable endorsing?
3. When was the last time the Liberals attacked anything that Pauline said?
4. Why doesn’t Pauline sue them for copyright every time they adopt one of her policies?
5. How many overseas trips has Scott Morrison had as backbencher since losing and why is there no Airbrush Scotty memes? (Sorry this one belonged somewhere else but if you want quality arguments that follow logically, you must be one of those inner-city elites that likes evidence-based writing that makes sense…)
6. The Airbrush was deliberate; don’t feel superior pointing out my mistakes. This isn’t Twitter! Neither is Twitter.
7. Can Albo trust Xi JinPing? But if he can’t, should we ask Peter Dutton if he can trust him also? And while on the subject, can Dutton trust Netanyahu not to endorse Scott Morrison as the future leader?
8. Can the journalists asking the gotcha questions trust the Liberal MP sending them the questions to arrange for their release if they get arrested for asking such a question in China?

I had several other questions but I’m having to go and prepare for the war on Christmas because apparently some people are refusing to say, “Merry Christmas”, just because it’s November, while others are attacking the Christian tradition of having hot cross buns in the shops for Halloween suggesting that they should be confined to Easter which is a violation of religious freedom…

Anyway, it’s time that Albo went to Israel so they can use the term Airbus Albo again. Or else it’s time that he didn’t so they can complain that he’s staying home…

“Good morning, Mr Howard, now before I continue I’d just like to establish that you’re a work of fiction for satirical purposes and as such I have a fair bit of leeway with what I can get you to do or say.”

“Certainly, but you’ve got nothing on George W. He could twist me into almost anything with the right amount of heat… That ‘man of steel’ comment was all about the shapes I could be bent into in order to please him.”

“Yes, but we’re more concerned with recent events. You’ve recently said that you don’t have much time for multiculturalism.”

“That’s right. I think that if someone comes here then they should be prepared to leave their old culture behind and immediately embrace Australia and its values.”

“Is that why we took so many years before we stopped singing ‘God Save The King’ and decided to have our own anthem?”

“Well, I need to pick you up on that. For most of my life it was ‘God Save The Queen’ and may I say that we were lucky to have such a fine lady as our head of state…”

“But she’s not Australian!”

“I know that. Of course she’s not Australian. I don’t understand what…”

“Back to your comments on multiculturalism. You seem to be suggesting that you feel that people don’t have a right to keep their own values and culture.”

“I don’t mind if it’s the same values and culture that we have in Australia but when you have Labor allowing the sort of people who threw their children overboard…”

“Hang on, nobody threw their children overboard! That claim was proved to be false.”

“Was it? I don’t remember any court of law that said that so the claim is entitled to the presumption of innocence.”

“That’s not how presumption of innocence works. A person is entitled to that but claims need to be proven before they…”

“Look, Peter Reith said that he had video but unfortunately he taped over it by mistake when he wanted to record an episode of The Sopranos…”

“Returning to multiculturalism, what are you actually suggesting? For example, is an ex-pat Englishman booing the Australians in an Ashes test not embracing our culture?”

“No that would be personal choice.”

“What about someone from China cheering their national team against the Socceroos?”

“Well, soccer’s a very divisive sport, but I think that if we’ve been good enough to let you in, then you should back us all the way…”

“Why the difference?”

“Ah, obviously one is a proper country that has a long history that we share, while China is communist.”

“It’s got nothing to do with your comments in the 1980s about your concern about the Asianization of Australia.”

“I don’t think that I ever used those exact words… but I did think that it was a concern that we were in danger of too many people migrating here that wouldn’t assimilate. However, I changed my mind when I discovered that many of them were likely to vote for our party.”

“So it was all about getting elected?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that but one does have to consider that unless one is in government one can’t do anything, so if we’re going to stop Labor from pursuing their agenda then we have to be in government.”

“Stopping Labor? But what about the Liberal Party’s own agenda?”

“Stopping Labor IS our agenda. As long as we can stop them, then we can let the market decide which industries to keep in Australia and which to send overseas.”

“On another matter, you’ve no doubt heard that Tony Abbott has told a gathering that anthropogenic global warming was ‘ahistorical and implausible’?”

“Quite right. I did say that my intuition told me that climate change wasn’t real and…

“You back your intuition over science?”

“Of course, when was the last time a scientist was made Prime Minister? Anyway I have a lot of time for Tony. He’s someone who always speaks his mind…”

“But how can you say that he speaks his mind after he lied when he said that he believed in climate change and that he never said that the science was crap.”

“It’s not really a lie if you say it because you have to. I mean he only said those things in order to get elected and you can’t really count them as lies. It’s like marriage vows… there’s certain things that you’re expected to say and if you were to say that you’d forsake all others apart from the odd staff person on a cold Canberra night… well, it just wouldn’t sit right, would it? I mean everyone knows who’s cheating on their partners but papers still run those happy family puff pieces. Not everyone has the same happy marriage that Jenny and I have…”

“You mean Janette?”

“Yes, that’s the one… Slip of the tongue. Ha ha…That can get you into a lot of trouble these days but once it was just the way things were…”

“But surely Abbott’s admission raises a whole lot of problems for Peter Dutton. I mean isn’t someone going to ask him about his commitment to climate change or whether he really meant it when he said that he was sorry for boycotting the Stolen Generation Apology?”

“Of course they won’t. I mean has anyone asked Tony how Margie feels about him spending all that time overseas without her? Has anyone asked those calling for an audit into how money is being spent on certain things if they’re concerned that it might find out that it was really poorly targeted while they were in charge? Did anyone think to ask Peter Dutton if he really thought that Albanese should go to Israel when they’ve been attacking him for his overseas trips? And nobody will point out that Abbott is admitting that he wasn’t committed to doing anything about climate change because we all knew that at the time and if the media stop pretending that they don’t know what’s really happening then people may ask them why they’re not reporting it… Look what happened when people discovered that Simon Benson knew about Morrison’s five ministries even though Scott hadn’t told the relevant ministers. People started rambling on about transparency and the like and nobody asked if Benson had told Bridget or whether he really did keep it to himself and if he told her then who else knew and if he didn’t… Sorry, I’ve forgotten the question.”

“I think we all have.”

Ok, for those of you confused about the situation in the Middle East it’s pretty similar to what’s been happening in the world since things began.

There was one group of people who went somewhere and did unspeakable things to innocent people, so those who identified with the innocent people got very cross and decided to teach the first group a lesson, leading to them retaliating and also doing awful things to innocent people, which meant that the first group felt justified in what they did and so they decided to do more of it, leading to the second group feeling all the more justified in doing even more things and this normally leads eventually to a shortage of people prepared to do unspeakable things instead of just ordering them, leading to some form of peace agreement.

Of course, in the case of the Middle East, it’s different. There’s a tale about a scorpion and a frog which I’ll get to later, but I want to take a few moments to tell you why I feel qualified to talk about the situation when I have no links to the area. Neither have I studied the situation in any detail.

As such, nobody can refer to me as an “elite” or “one of those academics”, and I’m therefore the sort of person we should listen to. Although I have just finished my afternoon nap, so one could say that I was “woke” by the phone call that reminded me to take the washing from the line, although I’m not sure that is actually what people mean when they refer to someone as “woke”. In fact, I’m pretty sure that most of the people using the word, don’t have any idea what it means either…

Although we did have one of the anti-woke crusaders, Mr Howard, telling us: “I have my doubts about multiculturalism, I believe that when you migrate to another country you should be expected to absorb the mainstream culture of that country!” So I guess that means that if he were to have moved to certain islands of Vanuatu, he would have renounced his suit and tie and dressed in nothing but a namba (penis sheath). Two tribes on one island were respectively named as either Big Nambas or Smol. I suspect Little Johnny would join the Smol tribe in order to absorb the culture.

Anyway, the story of the Scorpion and The Frog:

One day, a scorpion needs to cross a river but because he cannot swim, he asks a frog if he could ride on the frog’s back. “No,” says the frog, “you’ll sting me and I’ll die!”

The scorpion says to the frog: “But if I did that I’d drown and we’d both die.”

The frog considered and decided that what the scorpion said made sense so he allowed the scorpion onto his back and they began to cross. Halfway across the scorpion stung the frog and they began to sink.

“Why did you do that?” asked the frog. “Now we’ll both die.”

The scorpion replied: “Hey, it’s the Middle East, you expect things to make sense!”

As someone once said, “There are always two ways of looking at things!” which could be considered misinformation because sometimes there are more than two ways of looking at things. However, the recent proposal by the Labor government to introduce misinformation laws has some people a little concerned.

I have to say right at the outset that I do understand that concern. After all, one person’s misinformation is another party’s electoral platform.

On a side note, I do find it interesting that it’s Advance Australia that have announced their opposition to any misinformation laws. After all, they were heavily involved in the “No” to the Voice campaign. Surely there’s no connection there.

The big problem with misinformation laws is quite simple: Who decides what’s misinformation?

While it’s easy to use that concern to conjure up images of 1984 and totalitarian regimes using it to crack down on dissent, the reality would be less dangerous. Political parties would be unlikely to use it against their opponents unless they were certain of a successful prosecution. Why give your opponent all the publicity that a court case would involve only to have your case was dismissed because you failed to prove that calling you a lying scoundrel wasn’t misinformation.

Furthermore, it’s highly unlikely that Fred from Ferntree Gully’s post on the platform that used to be known as Twitter telling us that Bob Hawke was a Martian would be the subject of a major court case. In the unlikely event that he were prosecuted, it wouldn’t be the government deciding on the case but a judge and/or jury. Under such circumstances, Fred would be able to defend himself by producing all the evidence and when he produced a Martian birth certificate in Bob Hawke’s name then, not only would he be found not guilty, but his trial would have helped him to spread the truth. (Ok, I don’t actually think that Bob Hawke was a Martian, but I’m happy to consider any evidence without calling it misinformation.)

In many cases, a political party would decide that rather than trying to use misinformation laws to suppress something they know to be true, they decide that they’re better off ignoring it and hoping that nobody pays any attention to the claim. You may have heard of the Streisand effect where an attempt to suppress information has the opposite effect by drawing attention to it. This effect is named after Barbra whose attempt to stop people taking photos of her clifftop house led more people to be aware of the photos of her house. You can see the photo here. but please don’t look because Barbra wants it private. I can’t give you any more recent Australian examples here because a number of high-profile people decided to sue people rather than take this onboard.

Of course the other major concern is when does something cease to be a difference of opinion and became misinformation?

Obviously there are areas where there are professional differences and it’s generally accepted that a number of theories are plausible and, within reasonable limits, nobody has a right to shut down alternative points of view. Economists, scientists, educationalist, doctors and whole range of professions accept that people have other ideas and that they have a right to express them no matter how wrong they are when everyone should just accept that what I am saying is an incontrovertible fact and the others have been brainwashed or misled.

While professional differences are fine, there does come a point where you can clearly say that something is misinformation. For example, if I put a sign on an office which says: “Doctor Rossleigh – I can treat whatever ails you!”, one might ask where I got my medical training. If I were to reply that I had none, you’d be tempted ask what I studied in order to get my Ph.D. When I say that I’ve simply changed my name to “Doctor”, you can see that I am attempting to deliberately mislead and, as such, I could be liable for prosecution under a whole range of laws that already exist.

When it comes to misinformation laws we also have the problem of things which are factually correct but suggest something other than actual events. For example, if you say that Gerry got a Covid injection and died two days later, it might be relevant to add the fact that he was hit by truck crossing the road, so any inference that it was related to his choice to get vaccinated is drawing a very long bow… (Yes, yes, I know that Craig Kelly will tell you that it was probably the injection that caused him to cross the road without looking…)

Anyway, while thinking about all the problems of misinformation laws and how they’re going to turn us all into a Communist state, I suddenly had this obvious thought about the stock exchange.

Publicly listed companies have all sorts of rules about disclosure and timely reporting. If I tell the stock exchange that I’m in discussions with Warren Buffet about a potential merger, there’ll be requirements that I keep investors updated and I’ll be expected to publish the email from Mr Buffett which says: “Stop emailing me, you snivelling little toad, I’m not interested in your company!”

And I need to keep the exchange updated about the company’s financial situation, letting everyone know that profits are likely to be down owing to our decision to put Scott Morrison on the board. (Obviously I’m joking. No company is silly enough to employ Morrison… even the Liberal Party sacked him from Tourism Australia… Mm, makes one wonder how they could have chosen him over Dutton… Makes one wonder how bad they must have thought Dutton would be as PM)

Of course this doesn’t mean that no company has ever engaged in insider trading or tried to mislead the public; it simply means that if they’re found to be doing that, then there are legal consequences.

The point is that if we can have laws that prevent companies from peddling misinformation to the ASX, why is it such a threat to hold political entities to the same standards?

Yesterday, the Coalition called for a Royal Commission into spending on Indigenous people and child abuse in Indigenous communities.

Normally, I don’t comment on how best to solve any problems in these areas because I have no expertise… Well, apart from being an old, white male which is usually enough to make one an expert on just about anything.

But I was slightly confused because all through the Voice Referendum, we had Dutton and various others tell us that it would be wrong to “put race into the Constitution” because we shouldn’t be treating one race any differently from the others but now we need to audit how this money is being spent… Because well, it’s important to get value for money for the taxpayer and it’s not racist when you only want to audit how it’s spent in one area, any more than it’s racist to suggest that it’s only worth holding a Royal Commission into child abuse in Indigenous communities because, well, as Dutton told us:

“The depth and feeling when you speak to people in Alice Springs, as I’ve done with Jacinta Price, it is palpable. When you speak with people who are involved in community services, in policing – they are heartbroken. They are exhausted,”

Those poor people involved in policing and community services! If they’re exhausted and heartbroken we need to do something about it. And they have depth and feeling, so when people have depth and feeling we should listen to them… It means that they’re speaking from the heart and when people speak from the heart then we should take it on board.

Yes, there’s an urgent need for action and what better way to deal with something urgently can there be than to appoint a judge and let him speak to lots and lots of people and then go away and write a report which tells us all what needs to happen. The government can then consider this report urgently, but not in a rushed way, because that would be a mistake.

Yes, apparently a Royal Commission is what’s needed because – while it was wrong to waste money on a referendum – establishing a Royal Commission is an excellent use of money because at the end of the process, we’ll have a range of recommendations that’ll fix the problems just like the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody fixed everything. Or at least, it made a series of recommendations about how things could be fixed.

Or rather than waste money on a Royal Commission, perhaps we could send the army in again just like Mal “Who?” Brough did when John Howard was PM. That certainly fixed everything in much the same way that the invasion of Iraq removed all the Weapons of Mass Destruction: Once they got there they discovered that the alleged reason for the invasion was greatly exaggerated but it enabled them to say that they’d fixed the problem.

Yes, it would be a mistake to call Peter Dutton a racist. Ok, he did walk out on the Apology to the Stolen Generation but he’s admitted that was a mistake. And yes, he did talk specifically about African gangs frightening the people of Melbourne as though they were somehow more frightening than Collingwood supporters. All right, he did accuse that Biloela family of having children as “anchor babies” because foreign people who get married don’t normally have children for any other reason. And he opposed the Indigenous Voice to Parliament but lots of people did that so it would be a mistake to call him racist for that…

No, it would be a mistake to call him a racist because then we’ll get bogged down talking about how much evidence has to be there before it’s clear that they are, instead of sticking to the one basic fact that should be clear to everyone:

Dutton is adopting the same approach that Tony Abbott used where you just disagree with everything the government does and makes it impossible for them to achieve anything. Of course, this might work well in Opposition but, as Tony showed, it means that once you take charge, you have no idea what to do, because just about the only thing that Abbott did was set up a number of Royal Commissions.

Let’s start with a decision by a future Australian government to build zoos in order to ensure that biodiversity isn’t lost. This plan involves building 500 zoos in regional centres and, as part of the attempt to save threatened species, they promise a Giant Panda in every zoo.

While this would undoubtedly by attacked as a shocking waste of money by some, that’s not the main problem with the idea. I’ll get back to the zoos later but first I’d like to concentrate on their second proposal which also includes plans to get the regional centres moving by announcing that there will be at least one Taylor Swift concerts in each of these 500 centres and tickets will be $25 each with a concession for students, the unemployed and pensioners.

Again, some will be overjoyed by this decision while others will attack the outrageous waste of money.

Now let me make the point here and now that it’s very hard for a federal government to totally waste money. Of course we can argue about whether the money could have been better spent but, when it comes to governments wasting money, they control the money so it’s the equivalent of arguing that you wasted a cheque from your cheque book when you ripped it up because you made a mistake. You still have the money in your account and you can still spend it. Governments create the money when they spend it so they can continue to create it until… well, this is where it gets interesting.

Of course, it’s hard to know how much it would cost to get Taylor Swift to agree to holding so many concerts in Australia but let’s put it down as one of the costs and just ignore it because it doesn’t suit the rest of the explanation. In doing this I am following a path frequently used by economists where you ignore something which doesn’t suit your argument.

The obvious point is that – at $25 a ticket – you’ll be sold out but given you’ll have to hire stadiums or put up temporary stages as well as paying to have tickets printed and sold, employing people for front of house and security and whole range of things, it’s likely that the whole thing will be a loss making venture.

This would be a problem for anyone in private industry but let me point out something that’s frequently forgotten in this day of privatisation of government services: Governments aren’t there to make a profit!

Yes, I know. That be communist talk and if we were in America then they’d be using their Second Arm-end-meant rights to rip off their sleeves and bare their arms and deal with me... unless I was Putin who seems to be ok with a large number of US citizens these days.

But it’s true. It’s not socialism. It’s just one of the reasons we have governments: to do what isn’t profitable but seems like a good idea. It covers things like defence and once upon a time it would have even covered the Post Office because we thought the idea of being able to cheaply send things from one place to another was of benefit to society. Governments were expected to do what wasn’t profitable but helpful to the smooth running of society. (On the other hand, I did hear a Liberal politician complain a few years ago that social housing wasn’t making a profit but that’s a whole other story.)

Anyway, back to Taylor Swift concerts. there’s plenty of arguments you can raise about how the money could have been better spent but none of them defeat the basic point that it’s not wasted. All the extra work that was created as a result of the exercise has given people extra money and some of them are very glad of it. Just like with the recent Voice Referendum where some are complaining about the money spent when there’s a cost of living crisis, the argument about wasted money completely ignores the fact that some people who got a boost to their bank balance as a result of work created.

But, I hear you say, surely if the government had enough money to create all these concerts then they could have spent it on things like health or education. Or energy. We need cheaper energy costs. These are all areas that desperately need money and while I accept that the concerts weren’t all bad what about the areas of great need?

Yes, well, this is where we get back to the promise of a Giant Panda in every zoo. Currently there aren’t enough pandas in the world to fulfil that promise, so it really doesn’t matter how much the government says it’s prepared to spend. Unless it has access to some radical panda breeding program, it’ll never be able to honour that promise so it’s not about the money. A trillion dollars still won’t put the pandas in the zoos.

Which is the current problem with health and education and energy: there are shortages that can’t be solved by money in the short term. Spending money might help but fixing the problem needs a plan. And the time for making that plan is several years ago.

As someone said the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now.

Trying to find a consistent pattern to the Liberals has been difficult over the years, but I’d have to say that Dutton has raised it to a whole new level.

Let’s take their position on the repeal of 18C. Georgie Brandis asserted that people had a right to be bigots and the general position of the Coalition was that if anyone got offended by anything then that was the price of free speech in a robust democracy and we should all stop being snowflakes and just accept that people could say whatever and, as long as you weren’t saying that Andrew Bolt or Sam Newman was racist then you were allowed to say whatever you liked.

Ok, they didn’t get around to repealing 18C but the position has pretty much remained the same. Political correctness has gone mad and we’ve got to stop all these woke people from policing everything we do and say…

However when some protesters started chanting some anti-semitic things and generally being offensive, Peter Dutton suggested that they should have their visas cancelled and be deported.

Don’t get me wrong here: I’m part of those politically correct woke folk who think that people are responsible for what they say. I just find it strange that a person can go from dismissing that to deportation rather than education and/or fines for offensive racist behaviour.

Still consistency has never been Dutton’s strong point. We’re very tough on borders unless it involves au pairs or Liberal Party donors who may have had a colourful past where nothing was ever proven.

When it comes to the Voice, Dutton was against inserting race into the Constitution. Although he also said that he would have backed inserting race into the Constitution if it had just involved recognition and not the Voice. So it’s ok to have race there so long as it’s only an acknowledgment that First Nations people existed here before us, but it’s not ok if it says that we have to listen to what they say… unless they’re Jacinta or Warren in which case we should listen to everything they say.

Of course, we were told that this was Albanese’s Voice and that it was his referendum and that it was a Canberra Voice and whole lot of other things that were wrong with it. We were told that it would be a terrible thing because it was causing division and that it was all Albo that was causing that division and that he wasn’t giving us the detail and that if only he’d done this or that then Dutton and friends could have supported it because they’re not racists no matter how many apologies they walk out on or how many times they tell us that the solution to closing the gap is to send in the army.

So if – as looks likely – it’s defeated, then I’m sure we’ll hear from Mr Dutton that it was because of Labor and that Albanese should step down because…

Because the Voice was defeated?

But wasn’t the Voice a bad thing?

And if it’s Albanese’s fault then shouldn’t all those people who voted against it be giving him three cheers?

Or was Dutton’s stance against the Voice just a cheap attempt to gain a win against Labor by taking the low hanging fruit of ensuring that a Constitutional Referendum is defeated?

The recent problems in the Middle East have led a number of commentators to speculate that this may lead to higher fuel prices which will undoubtedly lead to higher inflation. Higher inflation will put pressure on the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates with a view to controlling inflation.

Now I know what some of you are thinking… how will raising interest rates help the situation in the Middle East?

Well, the simple answer is that it won’t but – as was pointed out many times when the Ukraine situation led to higher prices – when you only have a hammer then all you can do is hit things and pretend that people with a mortgage are a nail.

Part of the problem with economics is that people don’t understand how it works and the reason for that is: it doesn’t. Or to put it another way, there are many economic theories that are beautiful in their simplicity and they explain quite well the way that things would work in an ideal world that didn’t have other economists or people to stuff up the theory.

Let’s start with the simple idea of supply and demand. In theory, prices move toward a point where demand equals supply. For example, if I’m standing outside a Taylor Swift concert selling autographed photos and I only have ten, I’d be silly to charge $2 for them because I’m pretty sure that I could get more. On the other hand, I’ll have a very long evening if I try to charge $1000 for them. So – according to economic theory – I should be adjusting my price until I find the price at which demand equals supply.

There are only two things wrong here. If I’d started with a price that was too low, then I may have sold them all before they hit the top price I could get for them. On the other hand, if I started at a $1000, I may not care that I’ve only sold one and I’m happy to go home content that I haven’t had to waste a lot of time trying to work out that magical spot where demand meets supply.

Of course, when it comes to Taylor Swift we need to understand that phenomena of inelasticity of demand. Surprising as this may be to all those fans who said that they’d pay anything for a ticket, going to a Taylor Swift concert comes under the heading of discretionary spending which means that you can choose not to go… Yes, this may be a shock to a number of people, but I assure you that even people who aren’t economists will back me on that.

Various other items aren’t discretionary. For example, you can’t say to your landlord that you’re a bit short of money so you’ll only sleep in your home six out of seven nights and you expect your rent to reflect this. You only have a choice of paying your rent in full or moving into your car which is pretty tough choice, particularly for those who don’t own a car. As Joe Hockey famously told us: “Poor people don’t drive!”

So when the RBA puts interest rates up, it’s trying to reduce demand. The only problem is that when the factors pushing interest rates up are items that people don’t have a lot of choice about such as mortgage repayments, petrol, rent, energy and food then the increase in interest rates will drive down discretionary items but overall demand for rest will be relatively unchanged.

Or to put it as simply as I can: putting less petrol in your car won’t change the overall world demand for oil and it won’t drive the price down, so an interest rate hike won’t solve inflation in fuel prices. It may, however, put people out of work in other areas such as hospitality and retail which means that they don’t have to worry about the cost of fuel as they have no job to go to.

If this all sounds a little insensitive it’s because I’m talking about economics and if there’s one thing I’ve learned while reading The Australian Financial Review it’s that there’s only one thing to consider when talking about economics and that’s whether there’s money to be made. It’s one paper that tries to give you good information about what’s actually happening because unlike the rest of the media, people who lose money because they were given incorrect information get far more upset than when politicians tell you that there’ll be no cuts to the ABC, education or health. Of course, you do have to ignore the fact that many of the writers are the sorts of people who’d try to keep their parents out of aged care. Not because of concerns about the welfare of their parents but because they’d have to sell their home and the market should be making a strong recovery next year and their inheritance would be considerably more…

Anyway, the basic problem is that Australia’s inflation problem won’t be solved by the Reserve Bank. In fact, the only thing that we can really do is rely on the federal government to come up with creative solutions to the problems that inflation causes. And, of course, any creative solution will be attacked by the Liberals and the media without coming up with any other solution. It’s only a matter of time before the old “Look at the debt!” resurfaces.

I intend to address the issue of government debt at some future date and to explain how it only matters when they promise to give every zoo in Australia a giant panda, but I’ll save that for another time…

Apparently, Dan Tehan was on QandA last night. I only know this because I’ve picked it up on social media because I’ve been forbidden to watch the show for the past ten years or so, owing to my tendency to shout verbal obscenities at some of the guests and my wife convinced me that this was a) a potential problem for our neighbours, b) bad for my blood pressure and c) a serious risk that I’d throw something at the TV.

Just in case you don’t know who he is, Dan Tehan is the shadow minister for Immigration and Citizenship. Don’t bother checking Wikipedia for that because it’s not there. Apparently something like that isn’t worth updating. As for his other roles, he’s held various ministries including education where his major contribution was to change the fee structure to encourage “job ready” graduates. This meant that courses such as a Bachelor of Arts would be increased while STEM courses would be cheaper. Obviously, Tehan knows that an Arts graduate isn’t “job ready” and has few skills because that’s the course that he took at Melbourne University.

Anyway, Dan was on QandA and he made some very interesting claims such as the one about any changes to the structure of the Voice would need another referendum. While he was challenged on this, it did seem rather strange that someone who’d been in Parliament for years didn’t seem to understand how the system worked, particularly when it’s been debated at length:

“Before we agree to the Voice we want to see the detail of what it will look like!”

“The Referendum is just to establish the principle of the Voice and the actual form will be decided by Parliament…”

“Yeah, but we want to see what it’ll be like before we enshrine it in the Constitution.”

“But that isn’t what we’ll be putting in the Constitution. It’s like when it says that the Federal Government will have responsibility for defence; that doesn’t dictate how many ships and planes we have…”

And so on…

But Mr Tehan seemed unable to grasp the simple fact that the Referendum -if successful – will only embed the fact of an Indigenous Voice. How it’s established would be a matter for the Parliament and if Tony Mundine (and his second cousin) Warren have any input the composition of the Voice will be made up of the winners after several rounds in a boxing ring… Mind you, I can’t see that getting through the Parliament now that Tony Abbott is no longer there.

Whatever the end result of the Referendum, I’d have to give Dan Tehan full marks for his display. When you’re supporting a campaign whose chief message is: “If you don’t know, Vote No!”, Mr Tehan was a shining example of someone who seemed to be totally ignorant of just about anything he spoke about.

Mind you, I didn’t watch the full program. I’ve only gone back and watched bits and he may have been taken out of context… Although it’s hard to be taken out context when what you’ve said is just plain ignorant. Like when he called for Albanese to stop the Referendum a few days ago which is not within the Prime Minister’s power now that the writs have gone out. This means that either Tehan was playing some sort of political game here or else he really is as silly as he sounds.

Let me be quite clear here: Just as not all those working at Auschwitz were anti-Semitic, not everyone opposing the Voice is racist. Some were simply doing a job and following orders because they’re part of the Shadow Cabinet and, similarly, some have been told to Vote No because they don’t know and they’re doing just that. And yes, some have totally different reasons for voting No, and they’re neither racist nor ignorant.

HOWEVER…

I believe there is a special place in Hell…

(Ok, it may be a surprise that I’m talking about Hell but I saw the cover of Scotty Morrison’s upcoming book: “PLANS FOR YOUR FUTURE”, which had the subheading: “A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness”, and I thought if a Prime Minister gives the Omnipotent Ruler of the Universe a thumbs up, who am I to discount the possibility of Hell?)

So I believe that there should be a special place in Hell for those who know that they’re doing the wrong thing by siding with a campaign of misinformation that will potentially do incredible damage to our nation and just idly sit by claiming Cabinet solidarity or some sort of journalistic both sides nonsense. While it’s admirable for the media to try and be fair, that doesn’t mean that if you present information, you have to treat misinformation with the same respect.

Nobody is discussing the flow-on effect of the Voice falling to get up. If we put the Indigenous issues aside for one moment – or a few decades, as John Howard managed to do – there are all sorts of other consequences. For example, any appetite for a Referendum on the Republic will be dead for the life of this government and probably several future ones.

But whatever happens, I can’t see much of an upside for Peter Dutton. His prevarication about whether he’d support the Voice always looked phoney and, if it is defeated, it actually won’t be because people have suddenly found the ugly, racist side of Australia appealing; it’ll be because there was a lot of confusion.

We can analyse and cast blame all day long, but if we have Hanson and Bolt and various others celebrating the defeat with the sort of hyperbolic nonsense about apartheid, then it probably doesn’t actually help Dutton win support for the next election. His cunning plan may hurt Albanese, but it will also leave him in a limbo with nowhere really to go. Will he support a legislated Voice that isn’t in the Constitution? Will he support “practical solutions”? Will he call for the army to go Alice Springs?

In a few months’ time, will Dutton’s Liberals look as silly as those embracing on the floor of Parliament after the repeal of the carbon “tax”?