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And The Wheels Of The Bus Go Round And Round, But Scottie Morrison Doesn’t Notice…

“The wheels on the bus go round and round,
round and round,
round and round.
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
all through the town.”

Scott Morrison has been doing his best to help Victorian Liberal Leader in the election campaign by spending his time travelling round Queensland on a bus and avoiding the southern state altogether.

Of course, when I say travelling on a bus I mean that he spends some time on the bus but only to get from A to B. However, letters such as C,D,E, etc are another matter. In order to get from say, Rockhampton to Townsville, he takes a VIP plane.

You may have heard the interview.

JOURNALIST: Prime minister, you’re on the bus tour. Why are you flying?

PRIME MINISTER: Well the bus is going all the way up to Rockie and that’s where it was always planning to go. I mean, it’s a big state and I need to cover as much of it in four days as I can. So we were never planning to take the bus to Townsville, we’d always planned to take that last leg up to Townsville by plane because that was the most effective way to get there and to spend the most time there with people on the ground. I mean, these visits aren’t about sitting on a bus. They’re about actually engaging with small businesses and our supporters and the people of Queensland and listening to them.

JOURNALIST: Then why have the bus?

PRIME MINISTER: Because it gets me from A to B.

JOURNALIST: Will you be taking the bus to Rockhampton from here?

PRIME MINISTER: Yes. The bus will be going to Rockhampton from here. That’s right.

JOURNALIST: With you on it?

PRIME MINISTER: I’ve got to get there earlier than the bus tonight.

JOURNALIST: So you will be flying to Rockhampton?

PRIME MINISTER: I’ll get into Rockhampton tonight and I’ve got a programme tonight in Rockhampton and the bus can’t get me there quick enough so I’ve got to fly.

JOURNALIST: So you’ll be flying to Rockhampton and the bus will catch up with you and then you’ll fly onto Townsville?

PRIME MINISTER: I’ll be flying onto Townsville. And your point is what?

JOURNALIST: I’m just interested in the point of the bus if you’re not on it.

PRIME MINISTER: I am on it, I just got off it. I’m on the bus right now.

JOURNALIST: But not onto Rockhampton or Townsville?

PRIME MINISTER: Yeah well it’s a practical thing. I want to spend as much time on the ground with Queenslanders, and when I can be on the bus and go from place to place on the bus, that’s great. But I’m not going to sacrifice time with Queenslanders, listening to them and hearing them and talking to them about what’s important to them, just to satisfy the media’s interest in the timetable for the bus.

At this point, I feel that I really, really need to emphasis that this is not one of my made-up interviews. This is a fair dinkum, ridgy-didge interview with our Prime Minister. If you catch the video, you’ll notice that not only does he sound absurd but he has the sort of look I’d have if I were just appointed head of BHP: I know that I’m not meant to be here, that it’s some sort of accident, but, gee, I’m having a lot of fun saying stupid things until this whole mess is rectified.

Now, there are a few things in this interview that are really worth exploring. For a start, why does a politician do a bus tour? I could be wrong here, but I would have thought that the whole point is so that one can travel round the particular area and stop every few kilometres or so and talk to people. Or, if one is more cynical, pose for photos. It sort of defeats the whole purpose of a bus tour if one is not actually on the bus except when one is picked up from the airport.

Ok, when he’s says, “I’m on the bus right now”, in response to the question about the point of the bus if he’s not on it, one can say, well that’s his picture at the back of the bus, so clearly there’s no time in this journey when our PM is not actually ON the bus. On the other hand, I find, Scottie’s understanding of the words “taking the bus” to be rather more problematic. His answer of: “Yes, the bus will be going to Rockhampton from here” seems to suggest that he thinks the fact the bus is following him to his destination means that he’ll be “taking” the bus. However, if I told you I was “taking you to Paris”, I doubt that you’d expect me to fly on ahead while you made your own way there.

But I find Promo’s understanding of almost anything to be problematic. For example, his comment about children on Nauru, “You’ll find yourself on your knees, you’ll find yourself in tears, you’ll find yourself wrestling with this tough stuff”, before telling us that he’d literally he’d been in tears on his knees over these issues. He, of course, didn’t want Border Force to keep pulling dead children from the sea. No, far better to tow the boats back to Indonesia waters where someone else can pull their bodies from the water. No, far, far better to have them starve themselves to death on Nauru where they can act as a deterrent to those who would seek to come here by boat. And let’s not forget, Australia has a history boat people causing trouble going all the way back to 26th January, 1788.

Still, it’s good to know that Scott Morrison doesn’t find it easy to waste billions keeping people on Manus and Nauru. It’s good to know that he occasionally gets down on his knees and cries about all the money he’s wasting every time he goes to Court to prevent an asylum seeker coming here for medical attention. After all, treating them might actually keep them alive and where’s the deterrent factor in that?

Besides, if one shows weakness on asylum seekers, what’s next? Concern about the planet? The sharks would soon be circling… and I don’t mean the ones at sea. Those sharks that swim in the Canberra bubble.

Ah, that song has become an ear-worm. I keep hearing “The Wheels of The Bus”:

The wheels of the Party keep falling off,
Falling off,
Falling off
The wheels of the Party keep falling off,
All through the year.

The Right of the Party keeps counting votes,
Counting votes,
Counting votes,
The Right of the Party keeps counting votes,
Till Tony’s resurrection.

11 comments

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  1. David1

    If it wasn’t true, your article would be an excellent example of political satire, great effort

  2. Frank Smith

    Great article Rossleigh! What a farcical situation the country is in. Yet I have neighbours who argue black and blue (no, almost entirely just blue) that Scummo is doing a great job and are so relieved that he has replaced Turnbull as that will now deny that Union thug Shorten his ambition of occupying the Lodge. Logic???

  3. Kevin O'Dea

    Clarke and Dawes would have had a field day with this one. God, I miss those guys. RIP John Clarke.

  4. DrakeN

    Between Rossleigh and the Guardian’s First Dog on the Moon we get a more accurate illustration of the true state of our political affairs than from any other resource.

    The are both reduced to reporting facts with a wry twist, just as Tony Abbott was outstanding at producing material for the likes of John Clarke and Brian Dawes et al.

    “Goodbye cruel World, I’m off to join the Circus…” lost it’s significance when the Circus came to dominate the world with even more cruelty.

  5. Rossleigh

    Yes, Frank Smith, I’m still trying to work out how having a “union puppet” like Shorten who’ll just give them everything they want, will lead to greater union unrest and strikes!

  6. DrakeN

    Yes, Ross.
    The ‘spin’ makes me quite dizzy.
    But it seems to work on so very many people.

  7. helvityni

    Love your version of The BusSong Rossleigh…

    Scotty’s travels are totally confusing, is he up there in Queensland to promote pies and sugary drinks… not a good role-model for our kids when it comes to healthy eating; is there hoping that his job as PM goes the same way as his job in Tourism…?

  8. Pat Miller

    The best line so far – our of Nick Feik’s ‘The Monthly’ Sunday reads – “It’s going down like a turd in a well,” one Coalition MP said.

  9. Adrianne Haddow

    I agree with DrakeN.

    I never miss a piece by Rossleigh or a cartoon by First Dog for a truly accurate rendering of the week’s news.

    Both keep me sane, and it’s good to know I’m not the only one flabbergasted by the absurdity, and cruelty, that is the LNP government.

  10. Bronte ALLAN

    Great article, as usual Rossliegh! The trouble with Slo mo is that he is as thick & useless as ALL the other so-called “liberals”! So he gets a bus to drive around Australia (or wherever) & then flies everywhere! WTF?? And I see where he is even more unpopular than Talkbull was, going by the polls this last week. Time to go you lying, inept, flat earth, happy clapper so-called “religious”, idiot!

  11. Andrew

    Leader of the free world seems like a tautology

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