This appeared as one of those links to similar articles and, as it was written about ten Defence Ministers ago, I’d forgotten all about it. You can be the judge as to how much I got right… Ok, not very much, but I’m happy to put be judged on my inaccurate forecasts, unlike much of political commentary we hear…
It’s 2024 And Not A Royal Wedding In Sight
As one gets older, one is immediately confronted by the shock of dates… No, I don’t mean going on them… Although that would be quite a shock too. I mean, the shock of when someone says something like, “When the GFC hit ten years ago…”, you tap your watch and go, “Ten years ago, I’m sure it was just this morning”.
It’s with this thought that I am buoyed by the fact that the Federal election will be held any moment now and next year’s Hot Cross Buns will be appearing.
Of course, the other thing that age does is makes you wary of predictions. As I often remind people ninety percent of everything is very predictable, but it’s that which lulls into a false sense of security and gives us the shock when we actually have that Black Swan moment like Brexit, the election of Donald Trump or the Liberals releasing a coherent policy on jobs.
So, in spite of this, I’d like to peer into the crystal ball and annoy all the rationalists who insist that I have no psychic powers by telling them that I knew they’d say that.
A Peek Into The Future
It’s 2024 and there’s not a Royal Wedding in sight, although there’s a lot of speculation from royal watchers that Prince George may be dating. There’s also a lot of speculation from Republicans that the whole Royal Family idea has already dated, but the recent death of the Queen means that it’s too soon to mention the idea that Australia should hold another referendum on the Republic. Similarly, in Britain, there is discussion about whether the Queen’s death should result in Charlies now becoming monarch or whether they should just embalm her and wheel her out for public ceremonies as Her Majesty is still more popular than Charles.
Meanwhile, in the USA, Kanye West has become President on his platform of eliminating all mention of slavery and the promise to rename the State of the Union Address: “At The House With The Kardashians”.
Australia has just spent twenty billion dollars celebrating the tenth year of Coalition government. The 2018 election was surprisingly lost by Labor after Peter Dutton’s Border Force arrested all Labor candidates as a threat to national security.
The 2024 Budget reminded us all how many jobs had been created and how the unemployment rate had been reduced to zero with the idea that anyone who spent their time breathing could be considered fully employed. The Treasurer repeated the oft-quoted line that “the best form of welfare was not to complain too much” because complaining got you nowhere. In reporting this, no journalist mentioned that – in fact – complaining could get you quite a long way. Deportation, if you weren’t a citizen. Citizens, of course, still had the right to complain so long as they did it quietly enough that nobody reported them for Sedition.
The 2024 Budget also announced measures to counteract poor people forming companies to take advantage of the government’s company tax arrangements. After cutting zero company tax rate to minus ten percent in 2021, some poor people formed companies so that they too could be given money simply for existing. In abolishing this loophole, the Treasurer told us that poor people were only here as a cautionary tale and if they got money for simply existing, then it would encourage more of them to exist. Henceforth, only companies that made a profit would be given money from the government and any shelf companies which existed purely as a scam would be outlawed unless they could show that they were part of a multinational company tax minimisation strategy or had a history of political donations to approved parties.
Ok, it may all sound far-fetched, but go back just three years and tell me if you’d have believed me if I”d written Donald Trump will be President, Prince Harry will marry someone in “Suits”, Tim Paine will be Australian cricket captain and the Budget will be in surplus by next year…
Actually, that last one still sounds a little dodgy, but Scott Morrison said it so he’d hardly risk looking ridiculous by getting it wrong. Although I guess, he might still think that he could use the old “We don’t comment on operational matters’ that worked so well when he was Minister for Sinking The Boats.
Keep close to your friends, but hold your enemies closer…..
Wasn’t Turnbull a disappointment, donated to his own party, previously he had helped up end NBN and fast regional internet, helped gut the ABC which informs the bush (& offshore esp. RN), feigned ignorance as a piece of coal was passed around the house LNP MPs etc.
It’s an indictment of Australia’s real elites and wealthy middle classes who follow orders or give up….. not sure what Turnbull had to lose by opposing dumb backward policies?
Do they really lack self esteem and need the approval of other top people and feed their narcissism?
What a run we had from 2013 to 2022, a conservative cloacal coga line of utter self fixated analities, bowel boys boasting, bothering, bleating, blaming, blurting, brainless brats posing as human, educated, civilised, when in fact they were malicious, deluded, defective, onanistically off the course, the track, the way. To satisfy the drives of a yankee turd, Merde Dog, the Big Actor whom Freud would have avoided as worthless and beyond repair, these three Hamigos, Abbott the Abyssmal, Turnbull the Terrible Termite and Morrison the Maddest Maggot of all, have put Self up top and Australia and US down low, the rubbish to be offloaded, betrayed, while sheer ego and swollen poxy personality swelled in search of immortality in books and conservative lore. Never ever trust a perverted, corrupted egofixated fame seeking conservative criminalty craving crapeating crook. Oh, for a constructive, progressive, community minded coalition of educated minds and hearts…
The sacked, the losers and albo?
The vulture scheme sacked, for a huge winning loser the rabbott,
the religious lemon sacked for an athiest and vice versa
the loser sacked for the copperman who is expected to lose
How the &#@^@ did labor lose??
Turnbull sacked for another religious twit this time a handclapper with no chance of winning
but little billy franked himself out of the office in the mistake of the century.
Albo should have been the leader after rudd but labor wasted so much time with little billy and torpid tanya. sad sad sad
Ahhh … Rossleigh ….. it is unlike you to miss the scoop story of the decade ….. gg David Hurley of Headingly Boat Races fame, making the Royal Appointment of Scummo of the Secret Seven Ministries to the rank of first elected Dictator of the Commonwealth of Australia ….. NOT for the traditional thirty pieces of silver but a mere few pieces of old silver lying about in the Yarralumla back garden shed.
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Now what was the consideration to Hurley?? Something about $xx MILLIONS for ”leadership training”?? I would have thought that a former senior Army officer would have encouraged aspiring leaders to join the Australian Army and learn their leadership skills in the service of their country.
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Oops!! Silly me!! That is not the Menzies (and Liarbral$) way … better to avoid war zones by resigning your commission on the first day of WWI conflict, then make a career out of sucking up to Europe’s most dysfunctional family at any expense to our Commonwealth.
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My question remains, ”When will the current LABOR government take action against these self-serving traitors to Australian voters and be held accountable for their actions???”
@ Andrew Smith: Certainly our ”elites and wealthy middle classes who follow orders or give up” are a nervous lot unwilling to take any entrepreneurial chances in case there is a successful outcome. Better to maintain the status quo and keep the workers poor & hungry.
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But it is a little unfair to cast Turdball into the mire. Surely his successes against the Thatcher government in the Peter Wright Spy Catcher case have merit (”ços whipping the POMS in anything is always acceptable), his banking career under Neville Wran’s tutelage and displacing Peter King (apparently Peter Costello’s father-in-law) from the Wentworth electorate count for something.
@ Phil Pryor: Alas, I fear your dream ”for a constructive, progressive, community minded coalition of educated minds and hearts…” is unlikely because the unelected political hacks who control pre-selection & promotions in major parties only want malleable candidates who will trade obedience to the wishes of corporates ”political donors” to the party for access to the rich-for-exploitation Parliamentary Allowances Scheme. Think Beetrooter, the adulterous, alcoholic, misogynist representative of the NOtional$ in New England.
@ wam: Agreed. Albanese was the people’s choice in 2019.
NEC,
Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder, nearly forgot;
Turdball, the man the party hated, and eventually everyone else. From turncoat of convenience and beguiling schmooze to perennial whinger. A legend in his own Potts Point hubris, such a determined nice guy. Never staying put, tarting around seeking fame and importance, as long as it did not lead him far from his Midas aspirations. Like a rat with a gold tooth. Not the rising star, more like a comet with a trail of ex-friends behind him, he had to buy his way into the top job.
Spy Catcher – a lay-down misere. NSW bar assn wanted to disown him. Merchant banking – the messy man of junk bonds and the panama club. The NBN wrecker and Snowy II charlatan.
What a legend! Perhaps he should borrow from Musk, and start a podcast series called ‘X’
Andrew Smith, Turnbull is not a smart guy. His only claim to fame is in conjuring up deals and taking a cut. When he became PM, we all thought that a smart man was in charge. Alas, he was found out.
The way he meticulously screwed up Fraudband should be a warning to any idiot who has no technical knowledge. And he did it with a level of glee. Can somebody stuff up the fibre feed to his house please. I want him to come down to our level of crap service.
He was no match for howard or abbott , and that says a lot about his fortitude. Willing to do what ever fucketry required to get to the top. He was PM but was like a dog who catches the car wheel.
I had to laugh the other day, Tim Wilson was in the paper saying he was humbled by his defeat. What are his new policy positions? Same as before. Seriously these brain dead verbal photo copiers need to take some serious lessons on what it means to be trully humbled. Like having no roof over your head and only $1500 a month to live on. Seriously now, we all know that Tim is gay yet he is so engrossed in a party that hates his sexuality. Stockholm syndrome? I do believe he used to work at the IPA. A sad line in anyone’s CV. You have to say they are dogs with a bone. When your ideology has holes as big as the sun, you dont sit down and learn why, you double down of coarse.
There is a state election in Queensland during 2024 and one of the odd curved balls to confront the LNP has been the spate of weather related emergencies from cyclone Jasper in the North to intense storms and flooding in the South.
These natural disasters have brought down power lines and cut power supplies to thousands and they have been repaired and reinstated by the state owned electricity distributors (Energex and Ergon – Energex is a state government-owned entity supplying electricity to customers in South East Queensland. Ergon Energy is a government-owned corporation which supplies electricity to customers in regional Queensland) . Their efficiency, coordination and commitment have been exemplary and of course they are directly accountable to the government and the people of Queensland.
So how does this affect the LNP chances in the state election ? Well, one of the LNP’s stated policies is to privatise all power distribution as soon as they get back into office. They have been a little coy in pushing this in recent times as the last thing we need in Queensland is a privatised (probably overseas owned) power network. After what we have seen in Qld in recent months the one constant has been a power grid and workforce that is responsive to the needs of the population and is owned by the people.
On the other hand we have Telstra and Optus privately owned entities that don’t really give a dam. We have a Telstra landline that went down in Jasper and has still not been reinstated and as we are in a mobile blackspot that landline is a lifeline to us (we have satellite internet). Oddly, Optus is owned by Singtel, the Singapore government telecommunications provider.
Power to the people !
Andrew Smith: “not sure what Turnbull had to lose by opposing dumb backward policies?”
Turnbull’s ultimate aim was always to be PM, what he had to lose by not bowing down to the neanderthals in his party and the nationals was to be not the prime minister and even that did not work as they rolled him for Morrison, that must have hurt his ego.
He could have done a great deal as PM if he had the bottle to stand up to them all, but then he would not have been Turnbull.
Kerry Packer once quipped to a friend that Turnbull frightened even him. (He told the same person he would never stand between Turnbull and a bag of money.).
His one time business partner, Nick Whitlam describes him a “a prick”.
The piece “Raging Turnbull” in the SMH on 16 September 2014 is interesting reading.
Urg! What a horrible thought, Abetz the holier than thou useless arsewipe is going to try and get into state politics…gag…choke…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-07/eric-abetz-seeking-liberal-endorsement-tas-state-election/103291250
Abetz, a deep fried turd inside a coating of conservative excrement, cored with hard metal merdey muckiness, A huge WASTE.