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.

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.

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

We are currently experiencing a massive natural catastrophe such as Australia has never before experienced. The Northern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef are dying. Much of the coral cover over thousands of square kilometres of the reef has turned as white as bone china. Even the fringing reefs are dying.

Professor Terry Hughes of James Cook University recently flew over 660klm of the northern reaches of the reef and estimated that 60% of the reef was entirely bleached. Many of the most famous dive sites on the northern reef have been reduced to barren ghostly white wastelands. Soon algae will discolour these lifeless coral skeletons and they will begin to crumble. As will the local tourism, diving, and fishing industries.

If you hop on any number of the dive or charter boats available in Port Douglas and motor out over the reef for several hours you will come to the famous Agincourt Reef system. Or at least you will be in the vicinity of where it used to be. In today’s Guardian you can see pictures of this natural wonder of the world bleached as white as coral sand. The same thing has happened to most every reef between Cairns and Papua New Guinea.

Meanwhile on another planet entirely, in Canberra, our government has been summarily recalled to debate vitally important business. In an action which has no modern precedent our PM has recalled  parliament so as to sit for a few days to reconsider matters that are of such dire consequence that normal conservative practice and tradition must be set aside.

As I write I am listening to the leader of the opposition moving for the business of the house to be suspended so that they might all discuss the banking ‘crisis’. This motion will fail. The Turnbull government will then use this extraordinary meeting of parliament to prorogue parliament and call a Double Dissolution election.

The government has not been able to get its extraordinarily repugnant economic agenda through the senate. Many of the 2014 budget cuts are still delayed. And despite the fact that even the government has turned away from many of the more obnoxious of these proposals, this is now a ‘crisis’. Moreover: if we don’t suddenly reinstate a home-grown FBI built just for unions involved in the building industry then the whole of the Australian economy is under threat (apparently).

Under normal circumstances the artificiality of our politicians and their views is somewhat masked by the gravity of the issues they consider. However in this instance, for this week, there are only artificial crises being considered.

Nobody in our country really believes that the passage of the BCCC Act is a first order problem. If it had wanted to negotiate an outcome on the BCCC Act then the government could have done so. Many cross bench senators may have been willing to negotiate a reasonable outcome, if only the government had not already rammed through alterations to the senate voting procedures that will wipe them all out at the next election, and then recalled parliament using a long dormant constitutional manoeuvre so as to manufacture a double dissolution election.

Six months ago it may have possible to still keep a straight face while calling DD and arguing that it was because there was a policy agenda that was being thwarted by senate intransigence, however after six months of political inertia it is no longer tenable. For the last six months the government has done nothing but rule things out. When Turnbull was raised to the throne all of Australia chanted ‘yes’ ‘yes’ ‘yes’ in unison. The ‘Party of No’ was at last going to pursue a middle of the road conservative agenda. Then ever since Turnbull has done nothing but say ‘no’ ‘no’ ‘no’.

So while six months ago Turnbull might have been able to call a DD and be pretty sure to get elected on the basis of all his wonderful aspirations for our country, now it’s not a sure thing. The longest election campaign in Australian history is in prospect. And while very few Aussies know what the BCCC is, most every one of them is fairly attached to the Great Barrier Reef.

Unfortunately for the Turnbull incumbency he is leading the wrong political party. All of Australia was backing him on the hope that he would be able to lead us out of a wilderness of political rhetoric and bowing and scraping to vested interests. Aussies largely agree with his stated sentiments regarding climate change, keeping manufacturing in our country, addressing long term unemployment, providing decent education and health services, and knowing that there will be a secure pension available at the end of a working life.

However every time Turnbull has voiced anything that might possibly be construed as being in line with any of these stated aspirations he has been immediately beaten up by right wingers before backing down. It is becoming more and more apparent that Turnbull is entirely captive of his own Praetorian Guard. He is up on the battlements playing a sweet fiddle, but nonetheless Rome continues to burn.

So while six months ago Turnbull would likely have won an election comfortably, now it seems the worm has turned. It is going to be a long cold winter for Turnbull and the LNP. The bookies are still offering reasonable odds against a Labor victory. Maybe it’s time for a flutter?

Also by James Moylan:

The ongoing News Limited ‘reality show’

Likely arguments in Day v Regina

Why we need to be intolerant of climate science fools

Campaign coping strategies

‘The modern and wonderfully diverse 21st century Australian democracy®’

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

Election 2016: Media Groundho

We are all in for three months of non-stop, 24/7, stage-managed outrage, reaction, over-reaction, retraction, retraction outrage, non-retraction outrage, etc. Gala headlines slagging-off individuals, unions, politicians, dole bludgers, corporate bludgers, or the whole of Europe will be mere wallpaper behind arguments that we will all wish we had never had or heard. Once again our press will run amok. Once again we will endure truckloads of fascicle nonsense dressed as political discussion. For weeks at a time confected outrage will blanket every waking moment of our communal awareness. Instantly we will all know a great many things that we never wanted to know and never knew that we didn’t want to know. But this time it will be different. It will stretch away into the far distance for day after day after day.

Every one of you have to WAKE UP RIGHT NOW. Realise that you only have a few precious hours left in which to sketch out some definite plans. Drastic measures are warranted. We are all moving out of our social comfort zone and into the unknown.  For fifteen weeks a dark pall of continuous election coverage will descend upon our nation. It is probable that not all of us will make it out the other side in one piece. Those of us who have a handy checklist or coping strategy prepared beforehand are far less likely to suffer significant psychological or emotional damage. If you are already feeling a bit thin then I am afraid that, in this instance, blind panic may be the only appropriate response.

Any minute our entire social landscape will once again be overrun with celebrities pretending to be journalists and journalists pretending to be celebrities. Our meek and mild journalists will all instantly be transformed from fearful and careful arbiters of truth into no-nonsense, hard-hitting, pencil chewing assassins, all looking to metaphorically rip the leg off any handy candidate and use it to bludgeon the truth out of them. Suddenly bland candidates, who had no discernible view about any subject at all during pre-selection, will start to emulate ‘the most interesting man in the world’ and begin passing out pictures of their debauchery in a tent during a lion hunt in South Africa.

And at every turn there will be candidates, events, conferences, debates, passion, and gallons of justifiable outrage, plus ever more BANNER HEADLINES. For FIFTEEN WEEKS! But do not despair. There are tried and true ways of coping with this sort of widespread social mania.

A holiday might work. If you feel you have a book in you then now might be just the time to lock the study door and begin scribbling. As for the rest of us? More plebeian coping strategies are also available. First and foremost don’t forget those simple things like alcohol, drugs, extreme sports, yoga, hiding away in dark cafés, and/or paragliding. (Some more distressed individuals may even want to employ several of these strategies simultaneously).

One emergency coping strategy is to simply assess every bit of election coverage in terms of its raw comedy potential. After all, for anyone interested in satire, or improvisational, or skit comedy, then a modern election campaign in Australia is a gold mine. So when the coverage starts to become so unbearable that you feel on the verge of mowing the lawn (again), or even moving to someplace where politics might make some sort of sense, then why not try one of these ‘Election Campaign Considered as Comedy Coping Strategies’.

#1. Pretend the Press Conference you are watching is actually a comedy impro session and try and work out what the comedian was told to do.

i.e. You are a politician at a press conference and:

1. you are there to announce that you are going to release a policy but you are not allowed to tell anyone what the policy is or when it will be released,
2. you are lying but you are a bad liar and so everybody knows you are lying,
3. you have to praise someone that you hate so badly that you find it difficult to mention their name without wincing,
4. you only called the press conference because you are in a really bad mood and wanted to argue with someone but you don’t actually want to say anything about anything,
5. you answer every question you are asked with a well crafted answer to an entirely different question.

Etc.

#2. Pretend you are a journalist and you are able to ask the candidate just one question on behalf of everyday Australians before the ‘Absolute Truth’ force-field shuts down. What do you ask?

i.e.

1. Who do you really work for?
2. Are you a closeted and repressed homosexual?
3. Are you acting on the advice of your tax accountant?
4. How much stuff have you really got squirreled away?
5. What do you really think?

Etc.

#3. Mentally replace any party name mentioned with the ‘crazy loonies’, or the ‘moss-hugging sycophantic cry-babies’, or the ‘very very very silly party’ or any other vacuous and insulting title you might be able to dream up. Simultaneously it assists if you mentally re-label every topic mentioned as ‘talking point one’, ‘talking point two’ etc. This helps in firmly categorising nonsense as nonsense and getting it out of your consciousness fairly efficiently.

#4. Try and compose the teletext that would be running on the little title bar under the press conference/event if the person doing the typing was both drunk and being brutally honest.

#5. Work up a list of Stereotypical Federal Election Campaign Events and when you see one of them you can mentally tick it off your list and then score the participants on a scale of 1 to 10 on their ability to slavishly adhere to the stereotype.

i.e.  Look for standout performances in:

1. Standard Campaign launch with PM.
2. Campaign launch with ‘Our next Prime Minister’.
3. The ‘Error in the costings’ attack by Ministerial tagteam press conference.
4. The get your head into the media re-announcement of a vague policy idea in a badly attended conference.
5. The categorically wronged and totally misrepresented but I am now pulling out of the campaign and retiring to my garden anyway press conference
6. The hugely overproduced and overly long party campaign launch in the second last week because we are drowning in public event.
7. The lame political attack ad.
8. The lame political counter-attack ad that gets pulled really quickly.
9. The PM in a fruit shop photo op.
10. The mall walkthrough and mingle.
11. The journalist becomes the story story.

Etc.

We are embarking on a long journey through unmapped territory and many of us are entirely ill-equipped for the many weeks of Turnbull, Pyne, Lambie, Leyonhjelm, Ricky Stewart, and Bill Shorten that stretch ahead. People will wake up screaming in the night. Young children will wonder at the distress of their parents. Pets will be disturbed and a great many marital arguments will cause otherwise great men to sleep in uncomfortable positions in odd locations. All for no actual reason. So in the coming weeks, in your travels, be nice to a stranger. Pat a dog. Comfort one of our sobbing children. Remember we once lived in a happy prosperous land where people were nice and everyone was not always snarling at each other and complaining.

But most importantly you must immediately grasp this opportunity to plan for and brace yourself against the coming onslaught. Prepare for our long dark disheartening electoral winter. Do some emotional push-ups. Write out a list of things you pledge to utterly ignore. Lay in a massive stock of comedic interpretations. And become prepared to laugh at everything and anything, at the drop of a hat. Then you may yet survive the coming communal emotional maelstrom.

Personally I doubt if I have even the faintest chance of emerging as anything less than a blubbering mess. Fear is warranted. A massive and seemingly eternal election campaign has broken out and has begun to blanket the known earth with its baleful gloom. Woe betide the citizen who is ill-prepared. May God help us all.

Now that the door to the Senate has been closed to anyone who is not a party apparatchik, it’s hard to be optimistic about where our politics is headed. After their recent ‘Meg Lees’ moment the Greens will soon fade away to being just a rump and we will be a two party state. Just two right wing parties backed by two right wing media conglomerates, two large commercial retailers, four big banks, four big mining houses, and any sectional interest with a big pocketbook. Welcome to the modern and wonderfully diverse 21^st century Australian democracy^® – brought to you by Chevron, Adani, and Coke!

Way back in the beginning Australia became a prosperous nation because we were egalitarian. The common bloke had a stake in the good life and so worked hard for a chance to own a small but adequate slice of the pie. The common bloke worked hard because it was easy to be optimistic. Society was conceived of as being relatively equitable. Nobody was too grossly rich nor were they too poor, and nobody was going to be left too far behind. Yet even while reality rarely lived up to this ideal; at least optimism was warranted and widespread. So what happened?

Up until the eighties our parliament was wildly diverse. In the 1930’s the same Federal Electorate that is now represented by George Christensen sent a card carrying communist off to the Federal House of Representatives. This was because once upon a time local constituencies sent known representatives to parliament to do their bidding (I know it is hard to believe but this was actually the case). And not only were local constituents allowed to have a say in who their representatives were, they also got to have a say in what was going to be talked about in the parliaments of our land. This is because in days gone by the order of business in our parliaments (in other words what was going to be talked about and in what order) was largely controlled by the clerks of the parliament. So any member could post a notice of motion, and so lot’s and lots of topics were talked about. Also, way back then, parliaments actually got together and talked about things more often then just every other fortieth Tuesday in a leap year.

But of course things were not as well organised in those days. Back then political parties did not have minds of their own but rather were made up of like minded representatives, and since there were quite a number of different parties, and movement from one party to another was not infrequent, it was considered more appropriate for a politician to move to a party that matched their views on a matter rather than betray the trust of the constituents. How quaint.

These days our politicians are far more expensive, far less significant, and utterly owned. Over the last forty years the two big political parties have slowly increased their grip on the groin of our political leaders until they absolutely rule those who rule us. These party bosses stand above the law, adhere to no cohesive moral or ideological code, feel free to deliberately mislead, and take no heed of the views of the majority.

Who will deny that we have now reached the point where it does not really matter what any individual representative in our parliament might think about anything? This is because unless ‘the party’ and ‘the mainstream media’ both think the same it simply will not happen. Likewise it doesn’t really matter what any particular area in Australia happens to think should happen, if one of the two major parties (i.e. their corporate backers) do not want it to happen, it will not even be discussed. No longer do local constituents get a free reign to choose their local member and once elected to parliament representatives cannot discuss what they want to discuss, or freely vote in a manner they think is best for their constituency. If there are one or two rogue (independent) members in the house it hardly matters. They are outnumbered 50 to 1.

The political parties and their right wing media backers own the agenda because they own the media. They are the ones who tell us who we can vote for, what votes will matter, what we can talk about, what points of view are acceptable, and how grateful we should be. It’s a neat two-card trick. The big political parties do the bidding of big media, big business, small business, the mining industry, the banks, the insurance industry, the unions, and every other ‘interest’ except for the public interest. We lose faith in them and start voting in droves for independents and small parties. So they simply change the rules to make it perfectly legal for them to throw away the votes of anyone who disagrees. Hmm?

But if you disagree you can say so in the ‘alternative or social media’. Even though we all know that the new-age free press available online is just a load of people complaining about a whole bunch of stuff that is completely irrelevant. We know this because we hear it every day, in the mainstream media.

Yet still social media booms because there is always such an awful lot of irrelevant stuff to bitch about. But even so there is no doubt that the optimism of earlier times has long since been painted over with a thick coat of despair and general despondency. Which is understandable considering the circumstances. After all we should have seen this coming. It’s not as if our politicians have even been pretending to ‘do the will of the people’ for a very long time. Governments in the modern age long ago turned from serving the people to instead telling them in exhausting detail exactly why it is simply not possible to do what the majority wants. Regarding virtually anything you might want to name.

Most Australians (and the High Court) agree that we should not be spending a quarter of a billion dollars a year on enabling proselytising evangelical Christians to have access to our schoolchildren on a regular basis. So our parliament guts an eight million dollar a year anti-bullying campaign because it might offend a few people who want to be able to continue bullying certain already demonised segments of our population. Most Aussies think cannabis should be decriminalised and medicinal cannabis should be widely available for those who need it because we all know it to be a relatively benign herb. So our politicians continue to spend billions of dollars in an attempt to eradicate the herb and incarcerate its users. All the while our newspapers and television stations continue to tell simple homespun lies about how illegal drugs will send your budgie and child mad even while carrying endless advertisements for alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and sugar bomb foodstuffs packed with all the wholesome goodness of transfat, sodium, and fourteen artificial colours and flavours. Most Aussies would like to see less bushland cleared and more national parks declared. So business interests are hurrying to open hostels in remote parks and massacring as many acres of Queensland scrub they possibly can before anyone notices or Labor gets back in. Most Aussies are worried about climate change. But about half of our politicians and half of our journalists, plus all of their employers, just know that the majority are wrong. So we have been encouraging our biggest polluters to continue to pollute by handing them huge wads of cash from the public purse. We have scrapped the carbon tax. Government has ensured that the renewable energy sector will be crippled for years by investor uncertainty, and having thoroughly investigated whether or not wind turbines kill people, we continue to encourage new coal mines to open up all across our land and subsidise the search for new deposits. Most Aussies find it easy to agree that large corporations and multinational concerns should pay a reasonable amount of tax. Most Aussies like Medicare. Most Aussies think that super is too generous to millionaires, that housing prices are far too high, that education should be affordable, and that fracking is a disaster.

However it has long been apparent that it does not matter a jot what most Australians think or want. But now at least the charade is over. Our political parties have at last written us out of the picture. From here on in, if we vote incorrectly, they will simply throw our vote in the bin. Welcome to the modern and wonderfully diverse 21^st century Australian democracy^® – brought to you by Chevron, Adani, and Coke!

Don’t fret. We still have the right to remain silent (at least for the time being).