In boardrooms across our nation the CEOs are ‘tut-tutting’ and shaking their heads. Stock and insurance brokers are taking long lunches. Some are drinking too much. Bankers are fearful, secretaries are worried, and most right wing think-tanks have taken the phone off the hook.

The corporate and ruling classes arranged an election, much the same as all the elections they’d arranged in the past; yet this time neither of their authorised political parties had won! This time, fully half of great unwashed citizenry voted for someone other than one of the official, genuine, ridgy-didge, authorised, time-tested, corporately controlled and funded political parties.

So now what? Nobody knows what to do. The peasants are revolting!

It’s something that has never happened in our country before. Or at least not since our current crop of corporate owners took over a couple of generations ago. In fact it hadn’t even occurred to most of the members of our ruling class that the citizenry might even have an opinion of their own. But now, out of the blue, apparently the great unwashed masses seem to not only have their very own opinions, but want to talk about them, in public, and in our parliaments! It’s outrageous. This has never happened before.

Corporate Australia is losing sleep. It’s understandable. The potential for total chaos, economic meltdown, social disorder, godless communism, and a flood of all things our mothers warned us about, is palpable to our leaders. After all: if our country allows the barbarians to storm the citadel – then all of the proud and venerable political traditions of the two parties will be trashed. What about corporate tradition? What about trickle down economics? What about business incentives? Or corporate tax breaks? Superannuation? Private schools? Private hospitals? F’r chrissakes; who will be left to wash the Volvo?

So while the majority of Aussies see the election results as being a demonstration of democracy in action: our ruling classes see it as a slap in the face. If one of their political parties goes into partnership with one of these unruly independent mobs that are springing up all over the shop – it could very well mean the end of total corporate control of the political process. And with ‘unqualified’ people in control who knows what might happen?

If the ‘people’ get to set the agenda then corporate Australia might even see some of their greatest fears realised. Climate change science rather than partisan politics might lead to a lot of ‘negative’ economic outcomes. Workers might demand a piece of the corporate pie. Executives might have to justify their salaries. Bankers may have to assume responsibility for their own advice. Corporations might even lose their special ‘amoral’ status so executives and decision makers may have to adopt a personal as well as a corporate liability for their decisions.

Oh dear!

No wonder our ruling elites are in a tiz.

Right now Australia is on the verge of engaging in unrestrained democratic negotiation regarding who will run the country and so assist in setting the agenda for our parliaments and so our democracy. This is a dangerous new precedent. Our politicians are currently getting so confused and disoriented they are stabbing each other in the chest! On live teevee. And they’re running out of people to blame.

Mediscare, Unions, Get-up, and the campaign are certainly to blame. So is Tony Abbott. Especially the Peta Credlin part of Tony Abbott. Plus general moral decay, the teaching of transgender Marxism in our primary schools, and a whole bunch of other things that are entirely apart and distinct from any policies that the LNP might have taken to the election.

Of course the bloodletting and blame game is mainly being played on the right side of politics. Yet the craziness of our right wingers is only the most apparent of the delusional responses on display.

In the days following the poll the Labor Party have also constructed a small and well appointed reality of their own, and have spent all the time since cruising around visiting all the scenes of their purported ‘triumph’. Of course the rest of us have been looking on in mild amazement at this ability to not only walk past a graveyard whilst whistling, but to also apparently entirely miss the fact that there is a graveyard there at all.

The Labor party have been typifying their lowest primary vote since Whitlam was knee-high to a Tory as being proof positive that they are actually beloved by the huddled masses. So the antics of the left have been no less delusional than those of the right – just a little less hysterical. And for as long as the focus is on the ‘other mob’ then their ‘narrative’ will remain largely unexamined.

Of course the press have been dutifully reporting on the antics of the little ALP circus as it has criss-crossed the country yet have refrained from pricking their balloon. This unholy alliance is explained by the need for the press to also propagate the same illusion as the ALP, namely that there are only two viable choices available to the voting public. The MSM will continue to typify every vote for an independent as an invalid and wasted vote being cast for a weirdo by voters who have been either wilfully reckless or tricked into wasting their vote.

It doesn’t matter if Jesus Christ and Stephan Hawking are on the same ticket. For the MSM in Australia, if they are independent, they are losers. So even a loss, with the lowest recorded primary vote in their history, is continuously reported in our mainstream press as being a triumph for the ALP.

So we do not know who is running the place while all the potential members of any probable government, a government that will need a positive vote from every member on every bill presented to it, are all currently fighting like dogs and cats. Yet while the right-wingers are baying at the moon, baring their chests in public, and engaging in fits of public flagellation, the Labor party are also just as delusional. Only a little less hysterical.

We certainly do live in interesting times. Our professional politicians all look like they are deluded or neurotic. Our MSM seems to be reporting on an entirely different election campaign entirely, and the public are wondering if they will ever see anyone form an actual government.

Yet I can offer no comfort except to observe that this whole process has had a corroding effect on both the body politic as well as my own morality. Over the last few days I have at times been overcome with scurrilous and evil fits of glee whilst watching the right wingers in our midst tear each other to pieces on our television screens.

Yes our democratic process might be at the crossroads. Yes both of our major political parties and all of the MSM might be off in la-la land. But even as the whole edifice threatens to fall atop of our collective heads we can all take a little time out to thoroughly enjoy the misfortune and current suffering of those that we dislike.

It was positively refreshing to watch a whole episode of the Bolt Report (or whatever it is called) and be entertained all the way. Yes it is possible to see this election as being a really positive thing for all those who think in a reactionary or progressive manner. But don’t let that stop you from also doing a bit of spiteful gloating and revelling in the discomfort of others. It might not be healthy but it is a whole lot of fun.

Also, having lived a long life, I know that these moments of righteous political retribution are as rare as a pay rise in modern Australia. Very soon the politicians will once again be the ones making us suffer. So enjoy it while you can.

Turnbull suffers a massive loss, the election result is on a knife’s edge, and so the afternoon after the election the Australian press is full of questions about Bill Shorten and his leadership.

WTF?

All the while not a single one of our mainstream press agencies has devoted any time to trying to work out why they all got the whole election so very wrong. Think back on the last eight weeks of coverage in the light of the result. Then think about what the polls have been telling us (and the pundits) all this time. The predictions of the mainstream press were universally wrong. The narrative (the liberals will cruise home) was wrong. Their predictions regarding the way in which the pre-poll and the postal votes would break was wrong.

It’s a wonder that any of them got the date correct.

However, even so, not a single one of our mainstream ‘news’ agencies has bothered to apologise to the Australian public for being so ignorant of the actual state of opinion in Australia. For the entire length of the election campaign. For the third election campaign in a row. Problem? What problem?

And it seems that Aussies have even given up being exasperated. We now seem to just expect our press to get it wrong and then get it wrong again. To the extent that it isn’t even mentioned anymore. This morning it was immediately obvious that none of our press agencies was willing to acknowledge that everything they had said for the three months up to about 9.30 pm the night before had been complete and utter bullshit.

Nobody, in any paper or on any channel, bothered to observe that the majority of consumers might have actually been better served if they had simply asked a local tradesman or butcher, or had a conversation with their hairdresser. Instead all I found was instant, universal, collective, amnesia.

I suppose that pretending that they always actually knew what they were saying is the best option. Instantly there is no need to apologise to the 30% of Aussies who voted for a small party or an independent candidate for totally ignoring them and their interests for the entire length of the campaign. Instantly there is no reason to apologise for actively ignoring all the published poll data pointing to a hung parliament and instead substituting their own ideological whimsy.

The reality is that if we want to fix the Australian political system we have to start with reforming our mainstream press. There has to be some rules. The mainstream press agencies need to be owned by local corporate entities that are subject to ethical and editorial controls. A newspaper needs to label news as news and opinion as opinion and fearlessly and unambiguously report on all the events and issues of importance to a community without fear or favour. We don’t have that in our country.

The Fairfax and News Ltd behemoths are no longer engaged in providing news to the Australian population. If any ‘news’ is imparted to the consumer of one of their products it is entirely a by-product of what they are doing. It is most certainly not what the owners of these corporations want from their investment. The bosses who run our news corporations see them as being Public Relations companies who happen to handle news. They see these corporations as being designed to provide favourable publicity for the ideas and interests that the owners of these outlets want to see promoted. As far as the executives in charge of our media companies are concerned, these corporations have long since ceased to be ‘news’ outlets in everything except in name. Media outlets in Australia are first and foremost purveyors of influence and political favour.

So until we have rules to force the divestment of all of the major papers and television stations in our country into local hands then we might as well give up on trying to reform our politics. Currently our media outlets simply have no morals or even a comprehension that ethics and reporting need have any relationship. In the modern age our media establishments have become an impediment to progress. One of their reasons for being is to impede progress towards realising any social goal that the owners of these media behemoths do not want to see realised.

So we come to the juncture where the only reason we cannot get a great many things done that are both popular and also in the public interest is simply because our mainstream press, and their corporate backers, will simply not allow us to even discuss the possibility of change. Nor will they allow our politicians to talk about change.

Who will deny that our media barons lead our politicians around on leads and slap them down whenever they bark the wrong tune. Our media forces all of our politicians to pretend that they are living in a 1950’s Sunday School where cannabis will kill you, coal is good for humanity, tax breaks for corporations will make you better off, wind turbines will make you ill, and public support for private hospitals and schools will help make poor people healthier and so much better educated. Our politicians are in a straight jacket designed by our corporations and fitted by our journalists.

It is our press that will not let us reform our drug laws. Or address climate change. Or increase taxes. Or tax corporations effectively. Or reign in the banks. Or pull the plug on all the perks. Or tax resource extraction. etc etc The population may be in favour of it, and in most cases our politicians would do it if they could, but when it comes to almost every progressive issue facing our society our mighty corporate press overlords will not even allow us to discuss the matter in our own media or within our own parliaments.

If any unwanted conversation does break out then it will be immediately howled down and demonised. The person speaking will be labelled a radical, immoral, wide-eyed, dangerous, crazy, or a danger to our society and/or our kiddies. Then the whole thing will never be mentioned again in the mainstream press except to belittle the idea or the proponent should they ever dare resurface in public.

Of course ‘the tyranny of the Australian press monopoly’ is a subject that will never be mentioned in our press. Talking about the need to foster a plurality of voices and owners amongst our media organisations is simply a thing of the past. The whole conversation has been obliterated. Even knowledge that we once thought and talked a great deal about this topic has now been wiped from our collective memory. Orwell said something that is likely to be pertinent here – however a recollection of exactly what it was seems to have slipped away.

So while all of our press got the whole of the election hideously wrong, and spent the entire length of the election campaign telling us how the Turnbull government would be, and should be, returned with an ample majority. In the modern age this failure really does not matter. The veracity of ‘news’ is no longer important. After all; there is no need to be accurate when you have no competitors. And what the hell use is a ‘news’ organisation if you can’t use it to wield incredibly disproportionate amounts of power and influence on behalf of the owner? If it takes a few lies and a bit of misinformation then so what? It’s not as if there are any rules to stop them.

So the biased, inaccurate, and simply wrongheaded nature of the majority of the mainstream reporting of the whole of the election campaign – will be entirely ignored. We will suffer the same again next election.

Instead of navel gazing and seeking to work out where they might have gone wrong our journalists are all back at work today doing what they get paid to do. Today that means focussing on whether or not the members of the Labor Party, after winning a historic victory over all the forces of corporate nastiness, will all suddenly want to begin a catfight amongst themselves for no apparent reason except that it might make a really good post-election story. (You know – something that fits in nicely with an existing narrative.)

They will continue to learn nothing. There is nothing for them to learn. They are all doing their jobs brilliantly.

There has been a lot of talk about the possibility of ‘privatising’ Medicare recently. Unfortunately very few commentators have bothered to drill down into how the word ‘privatisation’ is being used by the various protagonists.

Just what the term means when used by a conservative politician, as opposed to a progressive politician, is revealing. It explains a great deal about the dynamics of the current debate. It explains why both sides seem to be talking at cross purposes. It also explains why the Labor Medicare ‘scare’ campaign is considered by most to be both true, and false, all at once.

The conservatives amongst us usually describe ‘privatisation’ as being the packaging and then sale of a government service so it can then be run as a for-profit private entity. So the selling-off of Telstra, or Medicare Private, or a power station, might be presented as being an example of ‘privatisation’. And of course in purely semantic terms this is correct. To your average economist ‘privatisation’ is all about transferring government services into private hands so that they can then be run as a stand alone ‘business’.

However to a progressive politician and most Aussies the selling-off of government services is just a symptom of ‘privatisation’. For most of us ‘privatisation’ simply describes the tendency to consider the provision of government services in purely economic terms. For most of us the idea that aspects of the Medicare ‘back office’ might be farmed out to private contractors is definitely an example of ‘privatisation’. Contracting out the keeping of our medical records to private a contractor is also an example of ‘privatisation’. As is the idea that any Aussie might have to take out private health insurance just to ensure that they have access to the full range of government services that are available.

Whether or not a piece of government infrastructure is being sold off, or a private business is being manufactured to take the place of a government service, most Aussies still regard the creeping commercialisation that has been infiltrating our Health Care sector as being ‘privatisation’. It is simply ‘privatisation by stealth’.

Yes most of us understand that what the LNP say they want to do with the Medicare system is not strictly ‘privatisation’ as an economist might use the word. But it hardly matters. The LNP still want to gut Medicare. We all know that. They have always been ideologically opposed to the whole idea that everyone in Australia should have equal access to all health care services irrespective of their financial or social standing. When it comes to health care the trick is to look at the actions of the LNP and the conservative side of politics rather than listen to what they have to say. Aussies know this. Most of us didn’t come down in the last shower.

Ever since its inception Aussies have watched the conservative forces in our country do everything within their power to undermine or dismantle the system. It was introduced by Whitlam, abolished by Fraser, reintroduced by Hawke, and then watered down to an acceptable level by Howard.

Under Howard the conservative forces, upon realising that they could no longer be blatant about their resistance to the idea of a free health care sector, decided that they would force the introduction of a special health care sector just for rich people. Moreover they would even force the public purse to subsidise this separate system that would be used by only the richest. After all: if the Labor Party were going to force the introduction of a ‘universal system’ then the rich would ensure that they also got their snouts into the trough – even though they would never be caught dead in a public hospital (pun intended).

So for the last fifteen or so years the conservatives have been using weasel words to hide their true intentions. We all know they still want to dismantle the whole system and start again, however in the meantime they are happy to play along, as long as they still get preferential access to all the best services available, subsidised by the public purse, and still don’t have to mix with the commoners.

So the average observer looks at the ‘privatisation’ debate in a nuanced fashion. They think the Labor Party is both right and wrong. And they think the LNP is both right and wrong.

Yes the Labor party is right but it is hard for most of us to take anything the Labor Party says seriously. They seem to have given up on believing in anything that can’t be argued against with a big enough wad of cash. So it is hard to take them at their word when they say that they will stop being bastards and will now try to keep the other bastards honest.

We have all watched as the Labor Party has rolled over, again and again, to let the rich tickle their tummy with bundles of notes, before allowing for the creation of a parallel rich person’s health care system, or special tax breaks, or a special superannuation system (etc, etc, etc). Time and again they have allowed our assets to be transferred into the pockets of the richest fraction of our society just so they could buy the ‘respect’ of rich citizens and the self-interested business community. All despite the wishes of the majority, the best interests of the poor and marginalised, and their own oft stated ideologies.

So now we have a ‘Labor Party’ which is both in favour of ‘privatisation’ as well as being against privatisation. A semi-socialist Labor Party that is half-pregnant regarding economic rationalism. They accepted all this economic gobbledygook when they sold-out during the Howard years, yet now they are bleating that the public won’t take them seriously when they point to the very real threat that the LNP represent for the Medicare system?

Suck it up Labor. The fault is as much with you as it is with the everlasting intentions of the LNP.

The public do understand that the LNP is hostile to Medicare. But to hear the Labor Party bleat indignantly about the growing inequality within our society is sickening. The stench of hypocrisy is almost overpowering.

Regarding censorship

Are our politicians now allowed to use the police to clear a venue of any possibly contentious questioners before they arrive?

My mate Michael Balderstone, President of the HEMP Party, was removed from a venue today by a police officer. The only reason I can possibly conjure up that could possibly motivate this manhandling of a social justice campaigner was that he might possibly be about to ask an awkward question. The thought that Mr Balderstone might pose a threat to any individual, or public order, is simply silly.

Anyone who knows Mr Balderstone, even for the briefest of passing moments, will instantly recognise a cultured, good-humoured and well-educated fellow. He’s instantly appreciated to be a mild-mannered middle-aged cannabis advocate – not a bikie. So I simply cannot believe he was removed because he represented a danger to anyone.

In fact, Mr Balderstone ran for the Senate at the last election and is doing so in this election. Did the police think he was about to launch himself bodily at the PM? Did they think he might be about to start screaming abuse? Or baring his buttocks? All of these possibilities must be viewed as being fairly remote at best. So why was Mr Balderstone removed from the venue even before the PM arrived? The only possible reason I can think of is that he might have been about to ask a difficult question. That is utterly unacceptable. In so many ways.

I was sad, horrified, and angry when I saw the picture of Michael being led away like a common criminal by a policeman. I am still furious.

Yes, Mr Balderstone is a man of firm ideas and is never afraid to ask a question whenever the opportunity arises. So Mr Turnbull has the option of either not attending the venue, or ignoring or not taking a question from Mr Balderstone, but he does not have any right to have a nice jumper and sandal wearing public advocate evicted from a venue.

The police have no official interest in the social discourse at an election time. Either you abide by this injunction or you can resign as a police officer. If the police officer was acting on his own initiative then he must be disciplined.

If this action was directed by the Turnbull camp then questions must be asked about why Mr Turnbull thinks it is appropriate to use the Police as an ideological shield against unwanted questions. On its face this is illegal and unacceptable behaviour

Or have we simply decided to accept that one of the fruits of being in power is that you can now manufacture an Australia of your own choosing by sending the coppers ahead of you to remove anyone who might ask an uncomfortable question?

Apparently Mr Turnbull doesn’t want to be bothered by petty matters (like the suffering of sick Australians, or people still being gaoled for using a relatively harmless therapeutic herb or seeing all of us continue to spend millions of dollars each year in a fruitless and inane attempt to ‘eradicate’ cannabis in our country). This is understandable! Especially with a lot of reporters about. And most especially not in an election campaign.

So Mr Turnbull has every right to not talk about these matters. But he does not have a right to have the Police remove people from a venue who have been identified as capable of asking him an awkward question. And the police have no right to do so. Yet still it happened with journalistic eyes actually watching, so it cannot simply be dismissed as being unimportant.

At the very least Mr Turnbull owes Candidate Balderstone a fulsome apology.

Regarding cannabis

The only way in which cannabis is talked about in our mainstream media, and by our politicians, is as if it is a dangerous drug that needs to be ‘controlled’. This is factually incorrect. Cannabis can be described as being a therapeutic herb or a recreational drug but it has been acknowledged by even the circuit court in Washington DC that most every other drug or therapeutic agent used in our society is more dangerous.

Since I do not think we should have laws designed to protect us against imaginary perils or moral hazards, cannabis should not be considered by the criminal law at all. Most other Aussies think much the same. It is all just a huge amount of hullaballoo about nothing.

If the current laws weren’t harming so many people it would be simply ludicrous instead of tragic. After all, paracetamol, aspirin, Coca-Cola, playing in the sand, surfing, fishing, driving a car and simply walking down the road are all far riskier. All of these things result in the deaths of Australian citizens every year.

Yet Cannabis kills nobody. Ever. In all of recorded history. But if you can get a serving Aussie politician to simply acknowledge this fact in public, I will buy you a green cigar.

Thousands of people die each year from abusing alcohol, yet we do not outlaw the substance nor do we require those that use it as a recreational aid to obtain a prescription. That would be silly. Yet our political class are proposing that the best way to increase the availability of this relatively harmless therapeutic agent for people who really need it – is to manufacture a huge number of additional restrictive laws.

The idea that we need to set up a huge new bureaucracy to oversee the licensing and distribution of prescription cannabis is, at its heart, preposterous. It is as ill-judged and stupid an idea as making cannabis illegal in the first place.

The best way to ensure that sick people have access to cannabis, is to legalise the use of cannabis. So let’s end the silly charade and start spending our money on policing crime instead of morality. We need to scrap our cannabis laws entirely and start again with a clear eyed and scientifically informed appreciation of the risks that attend the use of the substance. We can put the money we save into better supporting and assisting those people in our society who are suffering from using far more dangerous substances like methamphetamine, oxycodone, alcohol, and sugar.

The Safe Schools Program certainly has the Godly and Righteous in a lather. I would have thought by now they might have realised that they look more like a Monty Python skit than they do a group of concerned citizens from the 21^st century.

For months rabid right whingers have been gathering in little digital packs and braying at this subject online. That the rest of the population continues to studiously ignore their antics just seems to further inflame their joint indignation. At the end of each article about how the Safe Schools project is variously turning our kids into gay transgender lesbian Marxist greenie communist traitors who hate god, there is a long thread of responses from furious and indignant readers who are utterly freaked out about the looming social sexual apocalypse. It’s a hoot.

To call this pack of right-wing conspiracy theorists mere ‘nutters’ is to entirely discount how spectacular and awe-inspiring their delusions often are. These are much the same group of people who might also argue that there has been no actual warming of the globe for about two decades, and that the world is only six thousand years old, and that miracles not only do frequently occur but that ‘my friend Margery’ saw God ‘so there’. So they also display the same amazing kneejerk propensity to ignore the need to proffer anything even resembling actual evidence. Instead, they simply assemble arguments out of obvious assertions based on obvious god given facts. Obvious facts like ‘all communists want to kill us all’. ‘Children are naturally Christians’. And that hundreds of classrooms and their local teachers are very easily controlled (via some sort of Atheist Radio-wave technology) from Heathen HQ at La Trobe University.

Yes, in the beginning, some of these protestations in the threads did seem to bear some passing resemblance to actual arguments. However, in recent times the ‘Safe Schools Conspiracy’ has progressed so far beyond being mere ‘news’ it is now best described as being an ‘all singing, all dancing, right wing, conspiracy extravaganza! Ta Da!’

Remember we are talking here (in the real world) about an optional anti-bullying program where teachers (daringly) ask students to imagine that they might be standing in someone else’s shoes. Using role play and age-appropriate discussion materials the project asks students to not only imagine that they are of another gender, but then to consider what the world might look like when considered from this ‘other’ person’s point of view. Racy stuff, eh?

Yet while the Safe Schools project material, and virtually all the teachers who are teaching it, say the project is dedicated to reducing the number of incidents of deliberate and explicit bullying, and to also assist in fostering an intolerance of incidental attitudes and behaviours which are oppressive and exclusionary. The right wingers know better. There seems to be no doubt in the minds of both the journalists and the readers of the Australian, and among the hosts and listeners to virtually every right-wing talkback station in the country, that the Safe Schools project is actually a fifth column infiltration, directly into the hearts and minds of our children, being undertaken by Marxist communist traitors.

As they say, you just couldn’t make this sort of stuff up.

This comment by ‘R’ in today’s online lynch mob summarises a common-sense viewpoint that Marxists should be (at the very least) crucified in the public square: When did parents become accountable to a Marxist who was able to take advantage of a mindless state government and a university only too eager to fall over itself to accommodate political correctness (aka social engineering), regardless of the wishes of those parents, the majority of the public and the consequences for society, in particular future generations?

Image from smh.com.au. Illustration by Matt Golding

Setting aside the obvious reality that in our pluralist democracy we are supposed to set aside the fact that we might individually be a Marist, a Keynesian, a Marxist, a lesbian, or a transgender accountant, and also setting aside the obvious irony that at its heart this is what the Safe Schools Project is all about, the instant and obvious response to ‘R’ (and the majority of these commentators) is: ‘What planet are you on?’

For example, consider this comment directly from the heart of the cold war (yet published today): Marxists are at least as dangerous as Fascists so should be banned from public office and influence. Marxism has been responsible for millions of political deaths over 100 years and its adherents should have no place in our public life. Just imagine for a moment if this had been the work of a closet Nazi. It almost is.

It makes you want to shuffle your feet and look away. Somehow, in the minds of this small segment of the Aussie population, an anti-bullying class, being conducted by the teachers at your local school, has been captured by an underground clique of Marxist academics (led by a childless short haired white cat stroking international communist femme fatale going by the name of Roz). One reader even helpfully provides a short psychological profile: Ros Ward is a pseudo-academic with serious problems, at best. No way should she be teaching children. For a start, has she got any children of her own? And if so, let’s have a look at them. What’s her own background? It’s relevant if she’s teaching our children. They know nothing of Marxism or the untold millions it’s killed.

Yup. At the end of such a statement you are left in no doubt that right now you are shoulder to shoulder, in a trench, with comrades in arms, even while the culture war rages on around you. In the digital threads of the Australian there are very few who would dare to argue in favour of this obvious attempt at ‘mind-control’ on behalf of Communists. As one says: Prof Mitchell needs to understand that The Australian is a pivot around which sensible people in this country seek to reclaim the education of their children.

So no compromise is possible. Empathy is the enemy. It is righteous and warranted to be bigoted against gay and transgender children, and to label children as good, bad, and/or corrupt. Otherwise all that is Godly and Righteous will crumble. This is why we refuse to teach our children drama! Or allow them to read corrupt and godless literature. Such practices will invariably lead to children experiencing empathy. And empathy will lead to a tolerance of heathens. So anti-bullying is anti-God.

So in the trenches on the frontline of the culture wars the language is triumphant. They might be a tiny chosen few, surrounded on all sides by the seething mass of the ungodly and satanically inspired. Yet they will prevail. In fact. Some of the conspirators even hint that any minute now the tables will turn and the godly will rise and march forth to reclaim the world from ‘these people’. After all: These people seem to always be out there, milking the system with little standing in their way, busily attacking our freedoms. Perhaps it is time that the Right started fighting back harder and played just as nasty – publishing the addresses of where they live, holding raucous protests outside their offices and so forth.

So all of us Gay-luvin heathens have to watch out. The mob with pitchforks and flaming brands is very nearly at our door. The power of our Marxist mind-control conspiracy is about to be broken. Any minute now I will begin to build some protective battlements (based on plans borrowed from the Middle Ages). I promise.

As soon as I can get up off the floor and stop laughing so hard.

I am a political tragic. I am one of the few who habitually votes beneath the line in the Senate. I even carry in a list that I prepare beforehand. But I fully understand that most Aussies are hardly as careful.

During the course of the last few election cycles I have been intimately involved in grassroots political campaigning on behalf of small parties and issues and in doing so I have travelled the length and the breadth of the country. In these travels during the last electoral cycle, whenever in an extended conversation with a punter, I have invariably ended up asking two stock questions: Do you think our electoral system is any good? and How and when do you make up your mind about who to vote for?

The answers are generally pretty vague and in the main a bit depressing. Only a very small segment of the Aussie population are politically engaged and ready to change their vote in any circumstances. Even those who say they are ‘undecided’ are generally fairly sure which side of the political spectrum they will probably support. They just don’t like talking about it.

Traditionally only about one in five Aussie voters will ever change their voting habits at any stage over the space of any six elections. With more than 70% of those votes being cast for either the LNP or Labor, or one of their affiliates. So we are, traditionally, a conservative and staid electorate.

However in recent years the voters have been getting uppity. Lots of people have been voting for individuals or parties that are not aligned with one of the two major factions. At the last election more than one in five first preference votes were cast for an independent or for a member of a minor party. This really spooked the big parties.

Suddenly Senate obstructionism (especially when it embarrassingly reflected the opinion of the vast majority of the population) was akin to treason. How dare a Senate (so conveniently) block so many draconian impositions! Blahdy-blah-blah. We all know what happened.

So the major parties decided to outlaw the minor parties. And since all that was required was to convince the politicians involved to side with their own self interests above those of the general public – we are now voting with a new set of rules. One designed to lock out all those silly individuals and smaller parties.

But what if the LNP has miscalculated? There is a possibility that the widespread political dissatisfaction evident in the community, in combination with this new senate voting system, might actually cause the big parties some unexpected grief.

Remember at the commencement of this ramble I noted that I am one of the very few political tragics in our nation who actually fills in the huge senate sheet below the line. Most Aussies simply pencil in a singe ‘1’ above the line and then fold it up and plonk it in a box. In the main I get the feeling that this does not reflect a disinterest in the political process but simply a pragmatic acceptance that numbering every box below the line takes a heck of a lot of time. So they vote above the line. It’s easier.

But now everyone has to choose at lest six parties, even above the line. Moreover they have rate them 1 to 6. This has never happened before. Everyone now has to fill in six preferences. And the big parties in Australia are betting that most electors will simply vote the way that they have always done in the past. But what if they are wrong?

This has never happened before. These sort of preference considerations have been entirely restricted to small lower house ballots – never to parties and issues. When given a choice between a host of issues as well as parties – what will happen?

What if one in five of those voting above the line decide that they will not vote for one of the major parties at all? This is realistic as it matches with the actual way in which voting occurred at the last election. Many of these votes will now be thrown away (‘exhausted’) but some will land on a pile that will also be supplemented by those who alter their way of voting. I do not think that the politicians in Australia really understand how much they are on the nose. When forced to choose between a host of options, and then number them 1 to 6, a lot of Aussies will likely put a 6 next to the symbol of a major party and then go shopping.

I think that the major parties are underestimating the level of anger and resentment that is simmering in our community. They are asking all Aussies to rate their performance on a scale of 1 to 6 and expect they will get terrific marks. I think most senators are there precisely because Aussies have found it easier to avoid having to number their ballots. Now they are being forced to number at least six boxes I think that many politicians in the big parties might be surprised when they find out what Aussies really think.

How will you vote now that you have to choose at least six political parties and or issues? Now consider that every other Aussie also has make the same choice. All of them. They can no longer avoid rating at least six parties. In a DD election where a candidate can get elected on half of the normal quota (or 8.3% of the vote).

So in addition to the existing 20% of the vote that will likely be cast in a deliberately seditious manner, I would not be surprised (yet I would be delighted) to see another 10 – 15% without a first preference vote for a major party. If that happens then we will see more independent voices, not fewer, elected to the Australian Senate. Which would be a wonderfully ironic result.

So be prepared: this time it will be different. Make sure that you think about what you will do before you have to cast your vote. The only sane thing to do if voting in Queensland is to vote for me (of course). But remember that now you also have to make a decision regarding a second through to a sixth choice.

Where do you think the majority of Aussies will put the major parties now they are being forced to choose?

We certainly do live in interesting times.

DO NOT PANIC. The Labor Party might want to destroy our way of life and utterly debauch all of the maidens in our midst but DO NOT PANIC. I am here to provide some entirely impartial and unbiased advice that may or may not be paid for.

I want to talk in an impartial and entirely unbiased way about the really really nice people at the Property Council of Australia. They are almost saints: each and every one of them. This is simply a fact. Working tirelessly for the public good all the people at the Property Council simply seek to ensure that Australia can remain a country in which we are all happy and free and can all have kittens and fairy floss. Hardly any of them are multi-billionaires.

So, of course, we all know the Property Council is as an entirely unbiased observer that would never ever ever tell anyone a fib. It’s right up there amongst our most respected institutions. At least as respected as the Church and the Media.

So you really really should listen to their entirely trustworthy and dispassionate advice when they say that even if we just think about removing negative gearing in Australia it will likely lead to widespread famine, plague, a loosening of the moral fibre, and probable damnation for all of eternity by an all powerful omnipresent creator.

At first I was somewhat sceptical of these claims. So your intrepid and impoverished reporter, who might or might not have been looking for a good story to objectively report on for money, decided to give the Property Council a ring. After answering a few simple questions about my favourite colour and approximate net worth I was instantly transferred to someone who couldn’t help me. Instead they pointed me to the work of Dr Credibility of the Australian Cash in Large Denominations Institute. Then yesterday I was provided with a sneak preview of his all his work. Including his most recent research. It was an enriching experience.

It seems that Dr Credibility, who describes himself as Australia’s foremost Economically Rational & Theologically Acceptable Social Scientist, is the source of many of the recent flags that have been run up the public flagpole. While waiting to interview him I was provided with a rare opportunity to flick through and consider some of his recent work (after surrendering my phone, signing a few inconsequential documents, and being patted down very politely).

Light bulbs went on as I leafed through ‘How Marxist Terrorists Likely use Gay and Transgender Children to take over Schools’. Then after considering several papers devoted to the current scurrilously low level of our GST, a small installation in the corner caught my eye. It was called ‘Rationalising our Education Spending’. It seemed to rate all of the schools in Australia according to parental income? After a few minutes spent fiddling with the controls I still couldn’t get it to show any public schools but I was assured that this was just a glitch in the software.

After only a very short conversation with Dr Credibility I was absolutely convinced that he was a diligent and credible scientist. His small brown paper bags are utterly convincing. His charts and graphs are also quite professional. Plus there is no doubt his big foldout ‘build-your-own-diorama’ featuring ‘Bill Shorten Massacring the Innocents’ will keep kiddies occupied for hours. (Apparently the Telegraph is showing interest and although I was initially a bit sceptical, the Doctor was quick to assure me that some Telegraph readers are actually allowed to use scissors. They really have come a long way.)

One quick glance through a big book on a golden stand labelled ‘The Negative Gearing Heresies’ was enough to convince me that, if anything, that the Property Council are currently understating the probable impact of this silly, dangerous, evil, inequitable, selfish, foolish, misguided, anti-working-mums-and-dads proposal. At the very least it will lead to the end of civilisation as we know it. Perhaps the end of the world, maybe even Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and several other close celestial neighbours. And it will certainly kill Christmas. That is just undeniable.

It’s a complex and sophisticated argument. All of Chapter Four of the good book describes how negative gearing was originally part and parcel of the original commandments that were handed down to Moses. Apparently it was removed by Liberal Heathen Popish Barbarians in the middle-ages. A close reading (of original manuscripts from Salt Lake City) shows that the original final commandment actually read: ‘Den theleis epofthalmioún tis foroapallagés ton gerónton sas.’ Which roughly translates to mean: ‘Thou shalt not covet the tax breaks of your elders/betters.’

This new science of Econotheology is wonderful stuff. Dr Credibility also has some entirely plausible arguments regarding the identity of the Messiah but that will have to wait for another day. Also he has an entirely new translation of the ‘Blessed are the poor,’ verse. Apparently the poor are entirely unlikely to inherit anywhere near as much as they once thought. Who would’ve guessed?

Hard-hitting cutting-edge political commentary goes right to the heart of an issue. The best practitioners carefully sieve and weigh competing ideas, contentions, and stories. They present lots of facts and figures. Also they use lots of long descriptive passages unleavened by punch-line or explosion. It can’t be helped. Political commentary is serious stuff. If you want gripping drama then turn over to Game of Thrones.

So modern political commentary is, at times, boring. Perhaps even deliberately boring in places. It can’t be helped. It’s just not appropriate to slip in a gag when discussing the deficit. It tends to diminish from what is considered a suitable gravitas. Harrumphing and long winded responses are considered appropriate. After all, there are acres of newsprint and hours of television to fill. So our political columns are full of boring ‘facts’ and ‘policies’. Apparently it’s what editors’ want and demand. Therefore we all suffer endless similar long boring interludes just jam-packed with reasonable people being reasonable about a whole bunch of entirely unreasonable ideas and things.

This does not reflect the general consensus. Just think back on any one of your most recent discussions with a fellow citizen regarding a politician or politicians in general. Disregard all the simple slander and outright abuse and you are left with a lot of far more directed and pointy questions than any being asked in the press.

In our private lives and on the streets most Aussies are carrying around big studded metaphorical baseball bats and are ready to instantly bash the metaphorical shit out of any passing metaphorical political figure. We are not only expecting to be further disappointed, most of us believe we are currently being lied to by virtually all of our politicians regarding most issues. We jointly expect that each of the major parties are ready, at the drop of a hat, to abandon any of their pre-election pledges and do whatever is pragmatically in their own best interests. We all expect our politicians in general have a whole bunch of far more important priorities than the ‘public interest’. We also expect them to put their personal interests in front of ours. In the main Aussies simply do not hold politicians in high regard.

So while there are important and significant questions being discussed that are well-deserving of serious consideration, there are also lots of other not-so-important but still bleeding-obvious questions that are usually getting asked as our attention drifts from the page or screen. Sometimes they are simple and naïve queries like, ‘Does Julie Bishop know her default setting is ‘death-stare’?’ Or ‘Why doesn’t someone tell Bill Shorten a shiny blue suit makes him look like an insurance salesman?’ Also it seems that nobody can explain Christopher Pyne? For example my brother winces just on hearing his name. When I asked ‘why’ he explained ‘It saves time.’

But there are mainly lots of not-so-funny questions that seem to be asked urgently of friends and family. Usually in an exasperated tone. Questions like: why does our PM have a whole bunch of bank accounts in an overseas tax haven in the first place? Why do our politicians want to talk about reducing carbon emissions and then take lots and lots of money from carbon emitters and then approve every coal mine ever proposed, all at the same time? Is there really any reason for a DD apart from Turnbull’s numbers going down? Why do most of the press like Turnbull and most of his colleagues hate him? Is Barnaby Joyce really our Deputy Prime Minister? What happened to a budget emergency? Who will take over from the next PM halfway through their term? Why are we opening new coal mines when the Great Barrier Reef is dying? And why is everyone is talking about what the tax take will be in 2026?

These might seem like irascible and somewhat argumentative questions but that is the current mood of the Australian electorate. How long since you last heard someone exclaim: ‘Do they really think we’re all idiots?’ Or ‘I just don’t want to think about it.’ Or ‘What did [he/she] just say?’ All while gesturing in a futile sort of half-waving and half trying-to-throttle-someone sort of way.

This is, of course, apart from the compulsive fits of swearing.

Swearing, like spontaneously muttering bleeding-obvious questions, is also a natural by-product of any recent Australian election campaign. Swearing serves a different function though. It’s just the sound of an existential pressure-valve hooting while it releases pent-up pressure. In most instances a fit of quiet and private swearing is just the ticket. We’ve all seen what it does if you resist the urge! Look at Ruddock and MacFarlane fr’crissakes.

So it’s simply best to just let your pressure valve do its thing, then as soon as the red fog fades and you can consciously concentrate on conjuring up a picture of a field full of kittens, or some other suitable calming image, you can get up and make yourself a nice cup of tea.

In an office or in public this can all be a little embarrassing, but during an election period, for the most part, we all become familiar with encountering someone staring off into the middle distance, or at their shoes, whilst quietly muttering mild obscenities as they try and regain some sort of a grip on what is currently passing for reality. In most cases it is just dismissed as being yet another symptom of ‘Election Campaign’. So we give each other a break. After all, the only perfect cure for this particular social malady is to take a deep breath, swear quietly under your breath, and then close your eyes and ears for about 80 days.

But still nobody ever seems to ask the obvious questions! Or even interesting ones. Mind you it doesn’t matter what questions are asked, politicians all seem to just tell you what they want to tell you regardless. But why does Scott Morrison always look as if he just remembered he left the stove on? Why does Albo dress like he’s about to go to work as a pit boss in a casino? Does anybody really watch Andrew Bolt? And who really cares what Peta thinks? I suppose we will never know.

I might go and ask the wife. Or I might just go and make a nice cup of tea and then maybe close my eyes for a while.

‘Beware the great union comeback’ is the actual name of an actual article. On the front page of the Australian this headline was coupled with a dire warning that ‘Unions are using their ALP influence to make a comeback and it won’t take long for the public to understand the ramifications.’

It all seems to hint at a looming communistic overthrow of our local shopping centres and industrial parks, any moment now. Apparently, for writers and readers of the Australian, the word ‘Unions’ now stands in for all the corruption, thuggery, oppression of the masses, and failed business ventures, that have ever occurred, all across recorded history.

Right from the outset our intrepid journalist Mr Robert Gottliebsen so obviously wants you to shiver and be scared. The Unions are once again coming to kill off any possibility you might become stinking rich! The Unions are coming to kill your dreams! It’s well known that Unions just want to eat up all your well deserved prosperity. Unions eat prosperity and kill dreams. That’s what they do.

(sigh)

What can you do when presented with this sort of pap but to turn away and let a shiver run up your spine? Yet even as you turn the page you know you are likely just turning from one batch of pap to another, but you, like most every other Aussie, will persist regardless. This is what ‘reading a newspaper’ has become. Unfortunately, looking for news in our newspapers is now a hit and miss affair. Sometimes you can decode what really happened. Sometimes the veil of political smear and spin is simply too think to be able to work out what actually happened.

Our modern multi-media, all-singing-all-dancing, ideological extravaganza has shifted so far away from traditional reporting that the Daily Telegraph can boast, on its front page, a picture of Scott Morrison pictured as a Superhero labouring to save the working man; with no irony intended.

It’s hard to put a finger on exactly when the role of political commentator transitioned from acting as a reporter to being an ideological warrior, but now it is so blatant that many political hacks don’t even bother to try and join up the dots. It’s become both sad and scary.

There is nowhere left to go. Our political commentators, as a professional category, have jumped the shark. We all know that. In fact at times you have to put on an ideological filter just to be able to read the newspaper without being blinded by the apparent absurdities.

Newspapers like the Telegraph and the Australian have now moved into another realm of ‘reporting’ entirely. One where it is impossible to out-ludicrous the actual text. A part of our press where any attempt at parody appears to be a mere washed out imitation of reality. It might even be life threatening. It makes you want to guffaw and vomit simultaneously.

Which of course brings us back to how obviously nasty and horrible and despoiled and thuggish and naturally not-nice all unions are: Mr Gottliebsen addresses the situation of fire-fighters in Victoria.

He laments that: ‘Premier, Daniel Andrews, wants firefighting in the state to be controlled by the union [i.e. the fire-fighters]. Under the plan agreed to by the Premier and the fire union, members of the union [ie accredited fire-fighters] need to attend every fire.

There are some 60,000 volunteers available to fight fires in Victoria via the CFA and they are one of the best fire fighting organisations in the world [i.e. because they are all highly trained accredited fire-fighters]. Under the Premier’s plan volunteers will be controlled by members of the union or somehow unionised [i.e. will continue to be unionised].’

Obviously this is a recipe for disaster. The Victorian fire-fighters are going to remain unionised despite the obvious and pressing need for us all to become ‘aspirational, patriotic, working men and women of Australia’. Apparently they have not suddenly woken up in the middle of the night realising, in a fit of existential humility, that they simply cannot organise the fighting of fires without first consulting Adam Smith and their local LNP branch.

The model that the fire-fighters and the Government in Victoria have settled on is so obviously perverse that it cannot be in the public interest. It includes only the people who are funding the activity and the people who are engaging in the activity! All without any business being involved? It’s a total and outright travesty! No wonder Gottliebsen is getting annoyed. It’s the thin edge of the wedge.

The takeover of the fire-fighting capacity in Victoria by the people who are actually fighting the fires is downright anti-commercial. What next? Socialistic free water? Communistic free roads, rail, sewage, and telephone services? Free electricity poles? All without an added layer of commercial activity making it twice as expensive?

It’s absurd. Because Scott Morrison is a working class hero and Greg Hunt is a defender of the environment. And unions are bad because unions are bad because unions are bad.

Just a bit more than seven weeks to go before we vote and then get to enjoy another two months of non-stop political speculation and hoopla.

Whooopeeeee!

I better stop typing now. I’m feeling just a tad queasy.

Part one: the consumer

We have been all been sold a pup. And a coat rack. Also an extensible walking stick with a built in LED light. Plus wine, soap, cereal, funerals, alien abduction insurance, thirty dollar packets of cigarettes (discretely of course) and endless acres of inflatable mattresses. And of course the chance to attract ever more semi-naked women. If you are a modern living breathing human being of any age, shape, or habit: you have been sold endless ‘stuff’. ‘Up Up and Away.’

The great democracy that is portrayed in our advertising is not Australia. Most of us understand this (if we ever bother to think about it at all). We know that when we are being targeted as a consumer we are not being ‘advised’ impartially. Advertisements are generally seen to be all about trying to get you to do or buy something. So when we are being addressed by an advertisement we don’t expect a deep and meaningful message. Consumers expect (and distractedly demand) instant answers to simple questions. ‘Things go better with Coke.’

The key is that advertising is consumed automatically and distractedly. Advertising is experienced as a lived reality (as opposed to being sought out and rationally considered). So while our modern 24/7 multi-media commercial extravaganza does certainly provide a hundred and one wonderful ways of advertising opportunities to buy expensive goods that you might not otherwise know you need – it also has significant consequences for the way in which we consume all other sorts of information. ‘Aveagoodweekend’.

Despite rumours to the contrary our modern commercial marketplace is not a ‘democracy of ideas’. Where the Jesuits say they need to instruct a young and growing mind for seven years before being assured of their eternal devotion, our modern advertisers manage much the same invisibly, thirty seconds at a time, in an eternal drip-feed of background advertising. We grow up constantly bathed in a background radiation of commercial imagery and inducement. We become accustomed to instantaneous satisfaction being defined and seamlessly delivered, all the time, everywhere. In the advertising world there are no complex insoluble, irrational, or non-commercial answers. ‘A diamond is forever’’

We know consciously that, in the main, advertisers do not give a damn about the validity or quality of information. They are solely focussed on promoting a particular response. Validity and quality of information are merely aspects considered in the light of how persuasive a message might be. So anything problematic will be dismissed, but more significantly, if no problem exists then one will be instantly invented. ‘Put a tiger in your tank.’

So our days are just crowded with a thousand and one messages that sometimes relate to very real problems, but sometimes just advertise wonderful answers to invented problems. In fact, in the ‘advertising world’, we expect that anything can and might happen. We expect a ‘super-reality’. And we are always ready to suspend disbelief at the drop of a hat. While we know we are being ‘sold a pup’ most of the time, we all still pay passing regard to the fleeting parade of images – just in case. This is because while most advertisements are so obviously selling the wrong breed of puppy in the wrong way at the wrong place at the wrong time. We also know that every now and again we just might see a dog that we might want to buy.

In this way, from preschool until pension, we are all exposed to a hundred and one invented problems and we become aware of their immediate and apparent cures. Even while we semi-consciously screen out the majority of advertisements and simply dismiss the ones that are telling a story we don’t want to know, we are becoming entirely familiar with the ‘common-sense’ of our commercial world. Advertisers tell you that you are bald, tubby, unattractive, smelly, sick, bored, tired, overworked, exploited, and drive the wrong car to the wrong suburb to sleep in a badly renovated and decorated home with a dysfunctional family. Then they offer you an instant cure for any one of these problems. ‘But wait: there’s more!’

We all know (as an intellectual and academic fact) that behind the seemingly random and chaotic flood of advertising images we are exposed to every day is a massive industry that is devoted to identifying every emotional quirk and habit that we are ever likely to experience. We know that half of what we are being told is total BS but we brush it off as being mere commercial flim-flam. Yet this knowledge is something we have to dredge up and consider. It is the sort of thing that we only really acknowledge when we are consciously considering one or many of the eternal flow of advertising images and inducements that float in front of us during every one of our days. ‘Beanz meanz Heinz.’

So why have I commenced this article with such an extensive tour of the bleeding obvious? We all know that when we consider carefully our relationship with all of the commercially driven information providers in our society that a lot of the stuff we are being told is nonsense. However in the process of learning to live in an information and advertising saturated world we have all also become habituated to many aspects of ‘commercial common-sense’ that are downright nonsensical. ‘Big bubbles: no troubles!’

In the commercial world complexity is entirely masked and ethical questions are represented as simple economic equations. Stereotypical imagery and generalisations abound. And the right answer is always likely to be a simple and inexpensive answer. So we have been taught from the time we a very small to mistrust complexity and expense. The modern Australian electorate over the last two decades has been conditioned to think and react as consumers. We have been educated to expect simple answers to difficult questions. ‘A Mars a day helps you work rest and play.’

So we come to the end of two decades of continuous pandering by our politicians to our commercial sensibilities. And what is the result? The Australian voter has been transformed from being a citizen into a consumer with an investment in an economy. To facilitate this change many of the old ways of talking about being a citizen have been jettisoned and our political world is now saturated with new phrases that stand for our new modern ideas. They are mainly ways of thinking that have been borrowed from the advertising and commercial marketplace. Now econospeak is used to excuse and justify behaviour that cannot be talked about in open and stark terms. ‘Have a nice day.’

Part two: econospeak

Econospeak is used to mask and justify inequity. It enables euphemisms to be coined to stand in for long discredited ideas and to hide that you are actually advocating on behalf of apparently objectionable outcomes. Econospeak is simply a social code that has been developed to propose that the economic interests of a very few rich individuals in our society are identical to those of the public at large. It’s as much a ‘vibe’ as it is a series of catch phrases. It is a way of speaking that presupposes that we are all first and foremost self-interested and economically rational beings. In other words; it presupposes that we are all greedy bastards.

For example the term ‘aspirational voter’ actually refers to a class of voter who is so heavily invested in the current boom that they see their commercial self interest as outweighing all other considerations. ‘Tax cuts’ or ‘tax relief’ or ‘addressing bracket creep’ all variously stand in for the objectionable concept of ‘trickle-down’ economics. ‘Rationalising’ means cutting benefits, services, and complexity. ‘Hard-working Mums and Dads’ is shorthand for ‘indebted working consumers’. ‘The economy’ means all of the important parts of our society. ‘Common-good’ means fiscally expedient. Etc.

For twenty years our politicians have simply refused to grapple with any of the really big questions that face our country over the longer term. Rather they have decided to simply pander to our commercial sensibilities and mask their expediencies with econospeak gobbledygook. For five years we surfed the wave of a renovated economy, then for another ten we lived off a mining boom. Now our good fortune has largely evaporated. We have gradually exported all of our economic capacity and so now the mining boom has dried up our property market is the only part of our economy left standing.

When viewed from the outside there is no denying that Australia is on a sticky wicket. Our banks have borrowed trillions of dollars and then leant it out to hundreds of thousands of overextended borrowers at historically low interest rates to pay hyper-inflated prices for property at a time when our terms of trade have gone south and economic activity in our country is on life support. Then the response of our political class has been to simply not look at it. I mean what could possibly go wrong?

Now we’re all collectively so deep in a hole that we are obliged to keep digging regardless. There are no other readily apparent options. So econospeak is used to support the pretence that we are not actually in a deep hole, but instead we are all enjoying sweet economic sunshine, and that all of this activity is socially beneficial anyway. In fact, we all need lots of very deep holes for the public good. In other words econospeak is the stuff we whistle to make us feel better as we walk past the graveyard.

Like a frog in a pot over a flame Australians have become so deeply invested in the illusion that everything is absolutely and completely hunkey-dory that it looks like we are entirely unlikely to leap out of the pot until we are deeply scalded. Understandably our political class has decided they also will simply pretend that house prices can and will continue to rise forever.

Part three: Gravity is hereby suspended until further notice

Yes it might actually be ludicrous but it is easier and less painful in the short term to simply pretend that we can all forever float high above the ground, and move ever higher, instead of planning on returning to earth, or even thinking about the possibility that we might all jointly ‘plummet’ together. After all Australia is an island. Different rules apply!

So jointly we get together in our media and pretend that having a wildly overinflated housing bubble instead of ‘houses’ is actually a good thing. Moreover for the period of the coming election campaign we will all once again wear a false grin and argue that it is perfectly normal to be spending a million dollars plus on a house when you earn one tenth of that amount per year (before tax). Nothing to see here.

A suspension of credulity is required. It’s obviously too late for any sort of remedial action. Many hundreds of thousands of Australian family’s are now so massively indebted, just to live in a suburban house, that any downturn in the market will tip them into bankrupt. Everybody is now exposed to the whim of the marketplace. Any aware individual with even the slimmest facility with basic mathematics has to suspend credulity just to remain relatively free of existential angst. It’s emotionally safest to simply nod at the continued assertions that black is white and up is down – for the good of us all.

Anyway, for the very first time in the history of capitalism, houses might just forever go up in value. Just this time. Here in Australia. There is at least as much a chance of this as there is that pigs might fly and I have seen pictures of flying pigs. So maybe?

So it goes without saying that nobody serving in our parliaments today could possibly advocate that we should all back away from the huge Ponzi scheme that is the Australian property market. Our country, as a whole, is now so heavily invested in property that a recession would likely see several of our banks fall over, and half of the ‘on-paper’ wealth in our country evaporate instantly.

So certainly no federal politician can afford to even mention a bubble. Especially since the same econospeak ideas that they blithely and endlessly repeat are also endorsed as realities by our corporately owned and controlled media. The idea that everyone in Australia can own a million dollar house, and aspire to owning lots and lots of stuff, and that those who own lots and lots of stuff are happier, are all truisms in our press.

So no politician or pundit will point out that our banks are ludicrously overextended and that the majority of the investment funds across the world are now short selling Aussie bank shares. Most of all nobody will admit that the whole trickle down mythology of the last twenty years is bankrupt and has led to a massive growth in inequity and social and environmental damage. Even as we approach the edge of the cliff, at speed, no politician in our land will advocate a need to reverse direction. In fact, any that did campaign on a platform of raising taxes and slashing the price of housing probably wouldn’t even get pre-selected.

This is because the assertion that if we cut taxes it will stimulate the economy persists in our social discourse as a social fact. Despite it being plain wrong in every way imaginable. So this caustic and socially destructive mythology underpins and promotes the ongoing debasement of social responsibility by the political class in virtually every western world country. Yet still the idea of trickle down economics rules in the minds of our politicians and in our press.

The simple idea that cutting the tax of a corporation or individual will lead to the money that is ‘saved’ being ‘reinvested’ in a socially beneficial manner is not just incorrect; this prescription for ‘growth’ has caused economic chaos wherever it has been implemented. In country after country it has prompted greater inequality, greater social indebtedness, housing booms and major busts, and extended periods of austerity and hardship for the poorest and most disaffected in the community. All throughout the world. All for no apparent benefit except for further helping to enrich a very few of the already wealthiest individuals.

Over the last twenty years in Australia we have seen a slow dismantling of the social democratic contract that once existed. We have allowed our politicians to reform what government means. They have been allowed to pretend that our society is now nothing but an ‘economy’ and that the good of the many is reducible to the financial health of the few – and we have been gullible enough to buy it.

Top marginal and corporate tax rates have been massively reduced and at the same time the cost of living has soared. The cost of housing has ballooned and has swallowed up all of the spending money that Australian workers once had to spend, and then a bit. Paradoxically, the higher the housing market has soared, the less money we have all had to spend, and the average worker has had to work ever harder and longer just to enjoy a reduced quality of life. Why?

The top ten percent of Australians are now living an incredibly luxurious lifestyle while everyone else is working ever harder just to support their jet-setting habits. We have come to a place where our Prime Minister can have an undisclosed amount of money in a series of secret overseas accounts, in a tax haven, and it is considered to not only be acceptable, but unremarkable.

We have collectively sold our soul to a marketplace blind to both the environment and the long term interests of our society. We are all far more indebted. Our future no longer appears as rosy as it once did. We were the lucky country yet perhaps that might be fading? Certainly history is betting that our housing bubble will burst sooner rather than later.

However our common exposure to this looming threat is as much our own fault as it is that of our political masters. We were the ones who bought simple answers to complex questions because it was far easier than thinking for ourselves. We have been provided with political masters that will pander to what we want to hear.

In America the housing bubble burst when the average price of a house got to five times average yearly wages. In Ireland it burst when it reached eight times.

Think about how much the house you are in now is worth on the current market. Then divide that sum by what you earned last year. It’s not a difficult sum to do. The bankers and money men throughout the rest of the world have done that very same piece of arithmetic. That is why they are short selling our banks.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Poor fellow my country!

Near the end of August in 2013 Tony Abbott launched the Liberal Party Campaign with a rousing speech full of pithy one-liners and simply jam-packed with heartfelt promises. But so much has happened in the last 31 months that most people have entirely forgotten the raft of promises that were made and the sense of anticipation that we all felt on the change of government.

Of course we were all destined to be disappointed.

In the intervening 31 months Tony Abbot was unceremoniously dumped from office and a new and shinier incumbent has been installed. But does this obviate all the promises made before the last election? Does a change of leader mean that all the prior promises are suddenly off the table?

Certainly we normally take the promises made before an election with a degree of scepticism but at the last election the feeling of scepticism within the community was palpable enough to cut with a knife. All of us were dead sick of political chicanery and we were united only in our wish for a stable government that would do as it promised and would not be constantly enveloped in a permanent sense of crisis and disorder.

So the Abbott opposition was all about promising that the tenor and ethic of government would change, as well as the policies. Everything would be different. Cautiously made promises would be fulfilled in their entirety. No excuses would be entertained. The adults would be back in charge.

Yet while we all suspected that some of the promises that were being made would likely be a little difficult to accomplish – very few of us anticipated a train wreck.

However, since the Liberal Party in opposition spent so much time decrying the dishonesty of the Labor incumbency, and was so eternally ready and willing to make heartfelt promises regarding how their efforts would be so different, I thought it might be informative and enlightening if we all took a trip down memory lane to remember what it was we bought when we elected the LNP government.

Before the election the Liberal Party promised us all that:

• We’ll scrap the carbon tax so your family will be $550 a year better off.
• We’ll abolish the carbon tax so power prices and gas prices will go down.
• We’ll abolish the mining tax so investment and employment will go up.
• We’ll cut the company tax rate because, as the former Treasury Chief has said, the main beneficiaries will be workers.
• We’ll move the workplace relations pendulum back to the sensible centre, restore a strong cop-on-the-beat in the construction industry, and hit dodgy union officials with the same penalties as corporate crooks.
• I want our workers to be the best paid in the world and for that to happen, we have to be amongst the most productive in the world.
• And the motor industry will be saved from Mr Rudd’s $1.8 billion tax on company cars.
• The Australian Building and Construction Commission will be running again, and the true state of Labor’s books will be revealed.
• The NBN will have a new business plan to ensure that every household gains five times current broadband speeds – within three years and without digging up almost every street in Australia – for $60 billion less than Labor.
• By the end of a Coalition government’s first term, the budget will be on-track to a believable surplus.
• And the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be operating in large parts of every state.
• We won’t shirk hard decisions.
• There will be no new spending under a Coalition government that’s not fully-costed and fully-funded.
• That way, we can be confident that the budget will return to surplus as quickly as possible.
• By the end of a Coalition government’s first term, working with the states, teacher standards will be rising and teaching programmes will be improving.
• People who are capable of working will be working, preferably for a wage but if not, for the dole.
• And there will be a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme in place, because factory workers and shop assistants deserve to get their actual wage while they are on leave – just like public servants do.
• There will be two million more jobs, in manufacturing as well as in agriculture, services, education and a still buoyant resources sector.
• Public schools and hospitals will have far more freedom to be as good as their private rivals.
• Childcare will be more affordable and more available to families who need more than one income and who have to cope in a 24/7 economy.
• Within a decade, the budget surplus will be 1 per cent of GDP, defence spending will be 2 per cent of GDP, the private health insurance rebate will be fully restored, and each year, government will be a smaller percentage of our economy.
• You could trust us in opposition and you will be able to trust us in government.
• You don’t expect miracles; just a government that is competent and trustworthy and a prime minister who doesn’t talk down to you.
• And I’m confident that your expectations can be more than met.
• An incoming Coalition cabinet will respect the limits of government as well as its potential and will never seek to divide Australian against Australian on the basis of class, gender, or where people were born.
• When I look at workers and managers, I don’t see people trying to rip each other off but people trying to get ahead together as a team.
• When I look at the benefits that all Australians rightly enjoy such as Medicare and good public schools and hospitals, I don’t see “middle class welfare” but the hallmarks of a society that gives families a fair go.
• This election is all about trust.
• Who do you trust to reduce power prices and gas prices?
• Who do you trust to get debt and deficit under control?
• I make this pledge to you the Australian people.
• I will govern for all Australians.
• I want to lift everyone’s standard of living.
• I want to see wages and benefits rise in line with a growing economy.
• I want to see our hospitals and schools improving as we invest the proceeds of a well-run economy into the things that really count.
• -I won’t let you down.
• This is my pledge to you.
• The last time Mr Rudd was prime minister, his own party sacked him.
• When a desperate party put him back, one third of the cabinet resigned rather than serve with him.
• So my question is this: if the people who’ve worked with Mr Rudd don’t trust him, why should you?
• We can’t go on like this.
• As you know from bitter experience, if you reward bad behaviour, you get more of it.
• If you reward failure, you just get more failure…
• To Labor voters wondering why your party has sold its soul to the Greens; to Green voters wondering why your party has embraced socialism over environmentalism; to independent voters wondering why your MP has sided with a bad government, to everyone who has been let down and embarrassed by the circus in Canberra,
• I say: give my team a chance.
• I’m confident that our best years are ahead of us, but not if we have another three years like the last six.
• Choose change, and the last six years will soon seem like an aberration.
• Choose change, and we’ll send a signal to people in authority that we can forgive honest mistakes but not persistent incompetence and deception.
• Choose change, and there are few problems that cannot be improved.
• But the only way to choose change is to vote for your Liberal and National candidate.
• We have the plan, we have the team and we are ready.

And of course all of these aspirations were garnished with:

• “no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS”

So how do you think the Liberal party has fared?

How many of these promises were fulfilled?

Can we ever again trust anything that any professional politician might ever say?

Should we?

In recent years it seems that every time a politician has promised the Australian public the moon, all they have delivered are moon-shadows. So maybe this list of promises is as much an indictment of the gullibility of the Australian voting public as it is of our facile political leaders?

But then it does seem a bit harsh to blame the voting public for the woeful quality of our politicians of recent years. After all it’s a hard to imagine what we could all have done that could be so outrageously wrong that we could possibly deserve the sort of political leadership we have been provided with during the last two incumbencies.

Anyway: here we go again…

Liberal Senator Eric Abetz is reported to be in favour of drug testing welfare recipients to ensure they are ‘job ready’. An idea originally raised by the Tasmanian MP Brett Whiteley.

But this is hardly ‘news’. That the slack and feckless amongst us (ie welfare recipients) should be drug tested is an article of faith amongst the far right wing. The idea resurfaces every now and again for just long enough to cheer up the party faithful before once again being ruled out due to commie-pinko-civil-rights.

Last time around the idea was floated by George Christensen, then Abbott. Before being passed on to Kevin Andrews who considered it for a good long time and then ruled it out. Of course Senator Jacqie Lambie also indicated that she also thought it was likely a good idea.

It seems almost churlish to argue with such an illustrious group of moral philosophers.

Predictably Senator Abetz wants to go even further than just drug testing welfare recipients; he recently floated the idea of widespread random drug and alcohol testing on Australian building sites. For the safety of the workers. He was quoted as droning that: “Safety is a paramount consideration on construction sites. It is simply an unacceptable risk to the health and safety of employees and the public to have workers affected by drugs or alcohol on construction sites.”

So why does this dead horse cop such a flogging? Eternally. After all: the Health and Safety advice is that legal recreational and prescription drugs are the ones that are doing all the damage in the workplace, on our roads, and in people’s lives. Every day 15 people die and 430 others are admitted to hospital just due to the abuse of alcohol. When you add to this the people who are dying from tobacco abuse, and from abusing prescription drugs, that accounts for 98% of drug deaths in Australia. When you add up all the columns, for every death due to the use of an illegal drug in Australia there are at least forty-one deaths due to the use of a legal drug. So why the focus on illegal drugs?

One of the bedrock assertions motivating this proposal is the assertion that welfare recipients are morally weak individuals who are therefore more likely to use and abuse illicit substances. How true is this proposition?

The available research comes to the astonishingly logical and obvious conclusion that really poor people don’t actually spend a lot of money. While many of our politicians like to constantly intimate that all the Australian unemployed habitually engage in drink and drug fuelled satanic orgies until late in the night – it appears that this is not the case. Apparently the unemployed simply can’t afford to spend a lot of money. Who could have guessed?

It also seems that in the real world testing welfare recipients for illicit drugs costs a lot of money but does not seem to catch many welfare druggies. In those forward looking and progressive states in the US where the drug testing of welfare recipients has been tried (Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Florida, and Missouri) it has failed to catch anyone much despite it costing a fortune. After a year of drug testing in Tennessee welfare assistance was denied to around 30 people – out of 28,559 welfare applicants. Last year a report on the website Salon indicated that: ‘Out of 38,970 welfare applicants, 48 people got positive drug tests in Missouri. Utah blew $64,566 to catch 29 people who did illegal drugs. Arizona found 3, and Mississippi just 2.’

So why do people like Abetz, Christensen, Abbott, Andrews, and Lambie seem to remain forever immune to comprehending any of this factual information? Yes everyone agrees that illegal drug use can have deleterious effects. But surely it is impossible to accidentally ignore the actual proportion of welfare recipients who are harmed by illegal drugs, in comparison to those who are harmed by legal drugs as there is a huge avalanche of factual data available?

Unfortunately for all the rest of us the theological argument is undeniable and unequivocal. It makes absolute sense in a superficial and fascicle manner. To the rabidly religious folk in our federal parliament it is apparent that, because those who use illegal drugs are morally decrepit, and those who are on welfare are also morally decrepit, then those who receive welfare must be more likely to use illegal drugs than are ‘normal’ Aussie citizens. It doesn’t matter what the facts might say. This is a religious belief so facts do not matter.

So while the rhetoric of the drug war warriors may sound shrill and largely incoherent to the majority of the population their dedication to their nonsensical arguments is undeniable, as is their air of desperation. This is because currently our drug laws represent the last moral cannon left in the legal armoury of those who deem themselves to be our moral superiors. All the rest of our laws are now designed to stop Aussies from getting harmed. Our drug laws are the last laws left that are based on protecting our moral rather than our physical health. So in the modern age the far right wing are fast running out of moral ‘outrages’ to be outraged about in public. Just about every other ‘moral outrage’ has become legal. Without the ‘drug laws’ the morally superior among us would be largely bereft of a weapon to use to bash the ungodly with. Therefore they clutch at their arguments despite the evidence and regardless of the obvious harm inflicted on individuals and the society at large.

In every other way except for in our drug laws we have largely ditched our victimless ‘crimes’ and excepting for those on the far right we all feel so much better for doing so. In the Australian context it now feels positively vulgar to even think about protesting against providing gays with the same suite of rights as any other member of society. Prostitution has long been decriminalised almost everywhere, and pornography seems not only ubiquitous but even rather passé. Plus virtually everything up to and including Satanism is now recognised as an acceptable lifestyle choice. So unfortunately for those who really want to get outraged; most of the good old legal snubs have slowly ebbed away. The only morality laws left standing are our drug laws.

Criminal laws are crafted to protect people while morality laws are crafted to control them. So of course Abetz, Christensen, Abbott, Andrews, and Lambie all remain immune to any rational scientific evidence regarding drugs. For these individual this is a moral question: not a scientific or social one. The attribute they all share is a belief that they are all duty bound to look after our moral health. They feel they are obliged to outlaw anything that fails to accord with their spiritual beliefs. They also have another thing in common – they have all been failing to keep us ‘pure’. So they continue to fight for their drug laws despite any amount of evidence.

Their sense of desperation can be explained by the growing gap between the opinions of the political class and those of the majority. It’s becoming ever more difficult to deny that the sole reason that illegal recreational drugs remain illegal is because our politicians continue to wilfully refute the evidence in front of their own eyes. So despite all the evidence and against the oft stated wishes of the majority, Queensland is currently doubling down on the drug war by increasing the penalties for using cannabis to the same as those for using heroin. Similarly our federal government is currently in the process of setting up a huge bureaucracy to protect us all against the evils of anyone taking cannabis for recreational rather than medicinal purposes. It would all be laughable if it was not so tragic.

Until we finally confront this ‘third rail’ of Aussie politics nothing will change. Misinformation will continue to be paraded about as apparent fact. Citizens will continue to be demonised and their lives destroyed for no rational reason and for no apparent social benefit.

If we must have fools in our parliament then at least let us have honestly misguided fools rather than the wilfully ignorant. Individuals such as Abetz, Christensen, Abbott, Andrews, and Lambie have every right to preach from any pulpit in the land, but when they do so in our parliaments they do our democracy a gross disservice.

Our Prime Minister may have as much as 200 million dollars stashed away in an overseas tax haven. He admits to being worth at least 200 million dollars – but why have secret offshore bank accounts unless you are hiding money?

So for the sake of argument let’s say he has another 200 million dollars squirreled away. I may be wrong. It might be as little as 80 million; but unfortunately you and I will just never know. (I will immediately apologise if he gives me access to his overseas accounts for just long enough to add up all the columns).

You and I are being asked to believe that a man who once owned his own bank, his own Law Firm, dozens of companies, was a full partner in Goldman and Sachs USA, who owned and sold Ozemail, and represented Kerry Packer, is worth far less than Clive Palmer? Scepticism is the only rational response.

But regardless of the exact dollar sum that is deposited in these offshore tax-havens: how is it possible we can we allow someone who is so grossly conflicted to run our country?

Surely no-one who has half a brain would dare assert that having millions of dollars in an overseas tax-haven will not influence an individuals opinions regarding taxation and corporate governance? But this is exactly the argument that Aussie voters are being asked to accept. While our press regularly take us all for mugs; this is plain insulting.

We are being asked to believe that PM Turnbull has such a depth of character that he is able to run our country on behalf of the average taxpayer even though he has a massive fortune hidden away overseas in secret bank accounts.

We are being asked to believe that Mr Turnbull will be willing to crack down on those who are avoiding tax – despite the fact that any such crackdown will have direct personal implications.

We are being asked to believe that Mr Turnbull will be willing to force our banks to abandon their habit of ripping off their customers despite having made much of his fortune while running an international trading bank that was at the epicentre of the Global Financial Crisis.

We are being asked to believe that Mr Turnbull will force industry to be more respectful of our environment even though he made a fortune in the 1990’s as chairman of Axiom Forest Resources, which was responsible for conducting clear-felling operations all across the Solomon Islands.

We are being asked to believe that Mr Turnbull will be willing to manage the NBN on behalf of all Aussies despite having made millions of dollars as the owner of several private telecommunications companies.

How can it be possible that our PM is allowed to continue in his role despite being so obviously conflicted? Perhaps it’s because Australia is owned and controlled by big business.

In most comparable first-world economies the corporate sector was tamed following the great depression. In America (for example) anti-trust laws were introduced to ensure that no corporate entity could become ‘too-big-to-fail’ or so large that it might be able to corruptly influence legislatures – and although this does not seem to have stopped the American Banks from wreaking havoc on the global economy, there is no doubt that the Government of the USA is in charge of the American economy. While in Australia the Government is just another department of Big Business.

Australia is the land of the government enforced monopoly. Our country is run by our politicians on behalf of four banks, two giant retail outfits, three massive mining houses, and two large corporate media conglomerates. Aussie voters simply do not matter.

While many readers may protest that this sounds a little strident; just have a look at our recent political history and ask yourself: ‘Whose interests are the government serving?’

A carbon tax? Abolished. (Obviously a threat to the power and profits of our rulers).

A mining tax? Abolished. (Cannot be allowed as it will reduce profits).

A banking Royal Commission? Ruled out immediately. (Dangerous because it will destabilise the economy).

Instead we get a Royal Commission into the Unions on the basis that the Unions are holding the Australian economy to ransom?

How long is it since you have seen or heard anything in our press about reducing the monopoly ownership of our Press Barons? Twenty years ago this topic was a vital concern worrying everyone in our political class. Today it is not even discussed. Which is understandable. After all; if any Aussie politician did decide that the monopoly ownership of our press was a topic that might be in the public interest to discuss – then the issue would not even make it into our Press. However any politician who was so rash as to raise the issue would certainly be pilloried on our television screens and in our newspapers, and would almost certainly lose their pre-selection. Which just demonstrates that it’s plain stupid to criticise the boss in public.

Am I overstating the case?

Consider that during the last two weeks the Courier-Mail in Queensland has just about refused to even mention that 94% of the Northern Barrier Reef has experienced bleaching and that more than 40% of the reef will die due to the bleaching. A group of 56 scientists have even had to pay for a full page advertisement just to be able to get the issue into the paper at all. Does this look like a media that is acting on behalf of your average Aussie?

Consider that half of our media is constantly banging on about how Climate Change is a myth – despite the vast majority of Aussies believing that we urgently have to address the fact of climate change. Does this look like a media that is acting on behalf of your average Aussie?

Consider that while the vast majority of the readers believe that we need to reduce our coal exports – virtually all of our media are constantly telling us that if we don’t continue to export coal then thousands of starving people in the third world will have to go without light, heat, and cooking facilities. (Even though the Indian government has been loudly vocal about its huge stockpile of 94 million tons of coal and the fact that they intend to eliminate all coal imports within two years). Does this look like a media that is acting on behalf of your average Aussie?

We have lost control of our politicians and the recent changes to the Senate voting rules were enacted so as ensure that the Australian population cannot once again regain control. From here on if you want to get elected to government in Australia then you have to be a member of one of the big political parties, the very same big political parties that are owned lock stack and barrel by big business and other vested interests. So if you have 200 million dollars hidden away in a tax-haven then you are more than welcome to join the ruling class. But if you are an average Aussie dependent on an average wage then forget about it.

In Queensland the political class is currently planning to double down on Richard Nixon’s ‘war on drugs’. The Queensland State Parliament has decided to change the penalties attaching to the use of cannabis to make them the same as the penalties that apply to the use of heroin and other illegal narcotics. So while all around the world most politicians are doing their best to try and repair some of the damage caused by seventy years of drug war madness – in Queensland they are opting for more madness.

It makes you wonder if Queensland politicians can forever remain impervious to facts and common-sense? Don’t these politicians understand that they are simply doubling down on a lie? Can’t they see that their actions make them look like sad relics from the past? Don’t they understand that they are simply perpetuating lies that were originally promulgated by some of the most evil individuals of the 20^th century?

Twenty-two years ago a reporter tracked down John Erlichman, Richard Nixon’s Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, to ask him about the ‘Drug War’. He was asked what it was that had prompted President Nixon to launch his all-out crusade against cannabis and other drugs. Was it because the President was convinced that these drugs were dangerous? Erlichman’s honesty was refreshing.

Having been convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury and other charges resulting from the Watergate scandal, Erlichman had served eighteen months of a four year sentence before settling back into well deserved obscurity. So by the time he was finally tracked down by (Harpers Magazine) journalist Dan Baum, in 1994, he no longer had any reason to lie. There was no legacy to defend and there were no political cronies left to protect. So for the first time one of the architects of the ‘war on drugs’ was happy to tell the truth about their motivations.

‘The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that’ Erlichman explained, ‘had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did’.

These shocking admissions should have led to the dismantling of the whole drug war edifice immediately. But Erlichman and his cronies had created a monster. By the time these admissions were made the ‘war on drugs’ had already become a worldwide self-perpetuating militaristic phenomena. By this stage a host of right wing and populist politicians across the world had so embraced the drug war they were utterly committed to its survival; regardless of any nasty ‘facts’.

And still now, some twenty-two years after Erlichman’s admissions, the right wing continue to clutch the ‘big lie’ that cannabis is a dangerous drug tightly to their chest. It has become a right-wing article of faith. So unlike virtually every other public issue, when it comes to cannabis law reform, science or medicine simply does not matter. Our drug laws were originally (and continue to be) based on moral rather than on medical considerations, so medical and scientific proof is entirely beside the point. When it comes to cannabis; facts do not matter.

This has always been the case. Ever since the birth of the ‘drug war’ and up to the present facts and evidence have been beside the point. After all, any moderately well-informed doctor will happily inform anyone that asks that it is simply impossible to die from using cannabis. Or even injure yourself in any lasting manner. They will also likely point out that in clinical terms aspirin, sugar, paracetamol, and water are all far more dangerous than cannabis. But this also has always been the case. The facts haven’t changed. This is just a demonstration that the case for the ‘drug war’ is not based on facts. It never has been.

The longer you consider the phenomena that is the ‘drug war’, the more it becomes apparent that Erlichman was simply telling the unvarnished truth. His admission explains why it just does not seem to matter what science, medicine, or reality might have to say about cannabis: the bottom line argument for the anti-cannabis campaign, and our politicians, has always been that cannabis has to remain illegal because it is ‘evil’. The medical, scientific, and social facts regarding cannabis therefore have no bearing on any decision to make it illegal or to keep it illegal. Cannabis has to remain illegal, according to the drug war warriors, because the people who use it are ‘bad’ people. It is illegal because we have to stop ‘badness’ from spreading.

These same drug war warriors will also likely tell you that even if it is demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that cannabis is totally harmless, it still has to remain illegal because making it legal will send the ‘wrong message’ to society.’ Also, blah, morality, blah, think of the kiddies, blah, evil drugs, blah, God, blah, Church, blah, blah, blah.

This decision by the Queensland Parliament to further criminalise cannabis simply demonstrates how detached from reality the politicians in Queensland are. It is apparent that they simply do not think that ‘facts’ matter. That there are no derelict cannabis users living in shelters in our capital cities or filling our hospitals does not mater. That people are not dying or being hurt by cannabis does not matter. That cannabis users are not holding up service stations or beating up their partners, or going blind, or committing crimes to support their habit, does not matter. That the most dangerous thing about cannabis is the chance that you might get arrested, does not matter.

Once again the politicians of Queensland demonstrate that they are not fit to run a chook raffle. So after doubling down on the drug war what’s next? How about reintroducing witch-trials to protect us from sorcerers? Or laws to protect us from alien abductions? Or why not declare a holiday from gravity once a fortnight? After all every one of these propositions makes at least as much sense as outlawing cannabis so as to protect the health of the citizenry.

Also by James Moylan:

The Emperor fiddles while Rome burns

The ongoing News Limited ‘reality show’

Why we need to be intolerant of climate science fools

Campaign coping strategies

Yes, we do need to talk about the spurious nonsense being taught to children in our schools

Election 2016: Media Groundhog Day