In case you haven’t guessed, I read a lot…

Of course, this probably disqualifies me from holding a cabinet post in the United States and various people will attack me as being one of those out of touch academics who has no experience in the real world… which would be fine if only I’d been more successful at school and didn’t waste so much time doing things in the real world in my final year of schooling… or when I did tertiary studies, come to think of it.

In fact, when I moved from secondary to tertiary studies, I couldn’t work out how I didn’t score as well as those “mature age” students who were seven or eight years older than me… It was in my final year that I realised it was partially because they went and did the recommended reading and didn’t try to whip something up based on a lecture and a couple of tutorials…

Anyway, one of the books I’ve started reading lately is Rick Morton’s “Mean Streak”, and I’d strongly advise you all to go out and buy a copy, even if you’re not a reader. I mean, Christmas is approaching and you could give it to that relative who spoils Christmas by telling everyone how Labor is ruining the country by spending billions on renewables but won’t accept that Peter Dutton should reveal the cost of nuclear and the whole argument gets sidetracked just as you were about to say something about the problem with the duopoly of Australian politics because pudding is served and Auntie Flo asks everyone not to spoil her last Christmas…

While I haven’t finished the book yet, it’s the sort of book that shouldn’t need to have been written. I mean that in the same way that we shouldn’t have books written on the rise of Hitler, Trump’s victory and any biography about Kim Kardashian and her importance. Basically, the fact that these and Robodebt were even a thing is part of the whole failure of the system…

As to whether it’s the Westminster System, the capitalist system, the public service or the whole idea of Karma, I’m not sure. However, one thing is certain, when you give some people a job to do, robodebt demonstrates that some people do the task at hand without looking at the bigger picture. And, by bigger picture I mean such things as ethics, morality and legality.

It’s a bit like the Reserve Bank at the moment where the subtext is: We can’t lower interest rates because not enough people have lost their houses and/or their jobs because if do and inflation goes up, we’ll have made a mistake and we’ll look sillier than our predictions about interest rates not going up until 2024 or the one where we said that inflation wouldn’t fall below 3% for a long time and Treasury’s Budget assumption is wrong...

At one point, Rick Morton compares the whole thing to the Milgram experiment. This is the famous experiment where subjects were instructed to give another person electric shocks by an authority figure and a surprisingly high number (a majority) were prepared to keep going even though it was supposed to cause the death of the person being shocked. Of course, in the Milgram experiment, the person being shocked was a confederate who was only pretending to be in pain. While the Milgram experiment is widely regarded as being unethical, robodebt hasn’t caused as much controversy because the people being shocked were actually given real pain by people who were more concerned with their own advancement than…

I should pause and consider something I read from “Humankind: A Hopeful History” by Rutger Bregman. At one point he pointed out that the problem with looking at Nazi Germany through contemporary eyes is that we overlook the fact that the people doing horrible things all believed that they were doing the right thing, the moral thing, so it’s not completely fair to judge them because if they did anything but what everyone around them thought was right then…

Mm, I may be sounding unfair to Rutger Brennan, because he actually raised some good points. It’s just that when I summarise them they sound like the sort of justification that went so badly at the Nuremberg trials… although it seems to have gone over a treat at the Royal Commission… Oh wait, no it didn’t. Apparently, there was a whole sealed section that was larger than the ones in Cleo which were all about effectively fucking people. While the whole robodebt fiasco was all about that very thing, the point of their sealed section – as I understand it – was to ensure that criminal prosecutions could take place and not to allow the NACC to ask certain people if they felt that S & M would be too painful for people who’d indulged in SM activities…

All of which brings me to Scott Morrison and his role…

From what I remember at the Royal Commission, Scotty was badly let down by his department and he threw them all under the bus… which is ironic because – as the man who didn’t hold a hose – that’s the most manual labour he’s done!

When I opened my computer I had a plan to do something important like pay a bill or check my emails or … Whatever, before I did that, I decided to check Facebook and I got a wee bit distracted. Post after post seemed appropriate to some of the things I’ve been thinking lately, and each one was equally brilliant. Posts of quotes from great authors from years gone by, posts of this; posts of that. They all said exactly what I’ve been thinking lately and there wasn’t a Ralph Babble quote in any of them.

I know. You don’t need to be the smartarse who tells me: It’s the algorithm…

Al Gore Rhythm…

Coincidence?

Yeah, probably… But once you’ve seen it, there’s evidence everywhere. Confirmation bias is a real thing… I know, everything I’ve seen proves it…

Confirmation bias is – just in case you haven’t come across the term, or have had it poorly defined – our tendency to see the evidence which backs our prevailing view while ignoring any contradictory information. For example, when a skateboarding teenager accidentally knocks you down, you spend the next few days complaining about the youth of today and ignore the fact that a group of teenagers helped you up, ensured that you weren’t seriously injured and walked you back to your car even though it was out of their way.

Or, imagining that Peter Dutton says something intelligent that you agree with, your confirmation bias would have you wondering for days what he was up to and who told him to say it and why he agreed to do it.

Actually, the fact that you just said that you couldn’t imagine Dutton saying anything like that is probably an even better example of confirmation bias, but I’d have trouble arguing that you didn’t have a point…

Anyway, the terrible danger of the internet is that it doesn’t allow for nuances in debate. You’ll tend to be directed down rabbit-holes of people with similar beliefs to yours because the algorithms are designed to keep you online.

You clicked on this story about how badly Meghan and Harry have been treated by the Royal Family? Well, how about we see if you’ll take the bait and read the one where Princess Di is really still alive and living happily with Michael Jackson but they live in fear because King Charlie has threatened them if the story ever leaks… No, well, what about the one where Camilla is really her twin sister? No? Mm, there’s a great story about how nobody believes anything they read on the internet anymore and… yes, that’s a great story and before you go, we have one on the gullibility epidemic and how a town in the US is introducing a law against it…

Don’t get me wrong. I think that there is still a lot that’s good about the internet and I don’t just mean the photos of cats and dogs. However, the way in which it’s being exploited by evil geniuses for money and power makes the typical Bond villain seem benevolent by comparison.

I don’t know what the solution is, apart from trying to listen to people’s stories and to show some empathy and to understand that it really doesn’t help to scream: “You voted for that psycho, you moron!” I mean, you may have a legitimate point, but stupidity is like a gaping wound; merely pointing out that a person is bleeding to death is unlikely to change the situation and it needs someone who is capable of attending to their wounds till they get better…

Of course, the problem with that analogy is that – politically speaking – some people just yell, “Look what the government has done! I’m voting for the opposition because they’ve promised to end these oppressive bandages and they’ll rip them off and let me bleed freely as God intended!”

Whatever, let’s end with some inspiring quotes:

“For every complex problem, there’s a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” H.L. Mencken

“Keep your faces towards the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you.” Walt Whitman

“Most of the quotes attributed to me were made up after my death.” Albert Einstein

There was a famous saying about how people who live by the sword, die by the sword… which is ridiculous on so many levels apart from the fact that you have to infer so much meaning that the saying makes no literal sense…

I mean, if you said those who live by the river, die by the river, it might make sense because if you’re living by – or beside – a river then there’s every chance that you’d be swept away by a flood eventually. Surely even those who argue that climate change isn’t man-made because we’re too small to affect the weather, even if the Democrats caused those hurricanes with their weather controlling machines…

To cut to the chase and not be distracted by all sorts of proverbs, I’d just like to share something that I read today about how Elon Musk’s StarLink had some sort of link to the voting machines and this is why in states where the Democrats won all the other elections of the day, Trump held sway…

Now, I’ve never believed most conspiracy theories… although the one about how the rich and powerful have made up all sorts of structures to not only allow but also justify their oppression of the people who don’t seem to notice the structures that oppress them, does seem to have a certain authenticity about it in historic terms. These days, of course, the rich and powerful are all about draining the swamp and stopping oppression. Just ask Donald and Elon!

However, I say, in a voice that suggests I should be using capitals, if the Trump supporters believed that the last election was stolen just because he said so, and he convinced them that the voting machines were rigged so that we didn’t get a real result, then why should the non-Trump supporters not also believe that the whole thing was rigged?

No, no, no! I’m not saying that it was rigged. I’m not saying that there was something suspect… I’m just saying if you alert the people to stand down and stand by and convince them that the vote was rigged and then some of them – without encouragement from a leader of the free world – launch an insurrection all by themselves, why won’t at least some of the people who were told that the vote couldn’t be trusted last time, find it easy to convince the vote can’t be trusted this time?

The whole thing about any political system is that it relies on faith. Once people stop believing in it, the crumbling may be slow but it’ll be inevitable. Only the belief that the king is really the king makes the coins with his image worth their stamped value. Only the belief that you live in a democracy and that your vote is being counted makes it worth voting. Only the belief that the bank really has your money stops a run on the banks. Only the belief that the people running the show are actually smarter than us stops the revolution… Mind you, I should add that some of the people running some of the shows are obviously smarter; one only has to listen to the confused attempts to repeat what someone has told them from Vox Pop interviews with various people to conclude that!

There are two big fears about Trump 2.0. The first is that he doesn’t do most of the things that he promised and that’ll lead to some people saying, “See we told you that you had nothing to worry about!” and nobody will notice how insane he is until he does something really, really strange and dangerous. The second is that he does do the things he promised and that’ll lead to the destruction of the USA as we know it… Still, I guess it’s often better to face your fears.

Odds on the way Trump’s presidency ends:

• Trump standing down after four years 10-1
• Trump dying in office from heart attack while dancing at a rally 5-1
• Trump being pushed down some stairs by Melania 2-1
• Vance declaring him incompetent and taking over. 25-1
• Trump and Musk taking space flight together and rocket exploding after the earth rejects their return. 12-1
• Military Coup 2-1
• Trump choking on Big Mac after speaking while eating: Even money.

I guess all we can do in the mean time is have a good old fashioned sing along! (Lyrics below clip!)

… See a clinic full of cynics
Who want to twist the peoples’ wrist
They’re watching every move we make
We’re all included on the list

… The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum

… No nuclear the cowboy told us
And who am I to disagree
‘Cause when the madman flips the switch
The nuclear will go for me

… The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum

… I’ve seen the faces of starvation
But I just can not see the points
‘Cause there’s so much food here today
That no one wants to take away

… The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum, take away my right to choose
The lunatics have taken over the asylum, take away my point of view
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum, take away my dignity
Take these things away from me
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
The lunatics have taken over the asylum, take away my family
Take away the right to speak
The lunatics have taken over the asylum take away my point of view
Take away my right to choose

Last election I voted for Monique Ryan but I certainly won’t be at the next federal election and I’ll explain the reason later but it would be remiss of me to ignore the obvious event that’s probably affecting the mood of so many people…

Trump won.

It’s really quite amazing on so many levels but, as I’ve been a glass half-full sort of guy most of my life, I’d like to remind everyone that this has certain positives which it’s tempting to overlook when the left were preparing to celebrate the election of the first female…

As I write that, I have to explain my assumption that it would only be the left who would celebrate the election of a female. It’s quite simple, the right are blind to things like gender… which is why they never see the woman raising her hand in the board meeting or the job application from the woman who didn’t go to the same same sex school that they did…

Same same sex school… mm, there’s a whole thesis for someone there but probably not from someone from the same same sex school that I went to…

Ok, the positives:

• Trump has shown that you don’t have to live by the narrow restrictions that the Religious Right demand because they’ll forgive you if you just pretend to like them.
• Once any accusation that you were in collusion with Russia would have been enough to destroy your political aspirations in the US. Now, that’s fine and it’s the Democratic Party who are communists in spite of their capitalist leanings. Forcing people to have health insurance so that a trip to the doctor doesn’t cost an arm and a leg is the sort of communism where they should be happy to sacrifice their arm or their leg by not going to the doctor and losing either or both…
• Trump has assured us that he’ll stop the wars and who can doubt the word of a man who’s been married so many times?
• This is a slap in the face to all those who say untrue allegations of sexual assault can destroy a man’s career… Of course, true allegations of sexual assault are a different matter and they may destroy a woman’s career which I can legally say owing to a recent defamation case in Australia…
• Trump may get sick of Elon Musk and have summarily sent to Guantanamo Bay.

Ok, there are a few negatives and these include the strong possibility that some of his policies may lead to economic problems and further inflation. Of course, this is only speculation and for all I know adding large tariffs on imported goods may actually lead to a severe drop in prices, followed by a complete collapse in trade which would reduce the emissions from goods being transported from one country to another.

Ok, ok, I get the fact that it’s a very depressing idea for some of you but I try to take the long view… if Keating hadn’t won in 1993, would we have had a decade of John Howard; if Obama had lost in 2012, would we have ever had Trump; if Germany had won WW1, would we have had Hitler; if I’d played for Collingwood in 1970 would we have been behind at half time so when I was taken off, would we have won?

So if we take the long view what is likely to happen?

I’m reluctant to make predictions on the grounds that they’ll probably be wrong, but even more worrying is the fact that some of the most ridiculous ones will turn out to be right. Anyway:

• Musk will convince Trump that his legacy can be – like JFK – winning the space race and with a mere commitment of several trillion, the USA can have a colony on Mars before the end of the decade.
• Robert Kennedy will attempt to ban all vaccinations on the grounds that they cause people to believe that fluoride in the water doesn’t lead to chemtrails. Malcolm Robert will invite him to speak in Australia, but the invitation will be refused on the grounds that Australia doesn’t exist and he’ll fall of the end of the world.
• Trump will say something that even JD Vance can’t explain but he’ll attempt to distract people by saying that he’s working on a prequel to “Hillbilly Elegy” where they show his conception and how it was done immaculately. Yes, Vance will tell us, there will be a role for the stars of the first movie because as they say, “Keep Glenn Close, but keep your enemies closer.” Of course, nobody will understand that but it will distract everyone from Trump’s comments about how he was responsible for winning Wordle War 3 and his refusal to admit that he actually meant World War 3 even though it hasn’t happened.

Notwithstanding all this, I promised to explain why I’m not voting for Monique Ryan this time… Well, they moved the electoral boundary. I’m no longer in Kooyong. Otherwise, I’d be voting for her because I’ve decided that we need more independents in parliament because the trouble with parties is that they end up doing the sort of things that lead to the sort of trouble that we now face where it’s not the person who actually stands for anything that ends up leading. Yes, more independents may make the governments more unstable but isn’t that what people want these days?

The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight. His goading remained gentle. “Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so.

Nately squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, forever is a long time, I guess.”

“A million years?” persisted the old man with keen, sadistic zest. “A half million? The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with it’s fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as the… frog?”

Joseph Heller ‘Catch-22’

There was a meme about whether Liz Truss could last as PM as long as the lettuce in the photo. There is no actual photo of the lettuce on the day that Liz resigned/was pushed/gave up, so we don’t have verification but the general consensus is that the lettuce lasted longer…

I hope it doesn’t sound sexist when I refer to that failure of Prime Minister as “Liz” when I don’t refer to other male leaders by their first names. For example, I don’t call Trump “Donald”… I usually just refer to him as that pathetic piece of shit…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because these people have conservative views that upsets me. I respect their right to hold whatever opinion they choose because isn’t that what freedom is all about? It’s their total inability to stick to anything that could be considered an opinion.

If I sound a little bit harsh it’s because I can’t understand the rhetoric from the media…

For example:

• Kamala Harris has to battle precedent because the US has never elected a female, let alone a black one… (I presume that PPOS will allow me to refer to her as black ever if she’s not allowed to call herself that!)
• On the other hand, nobody points out that Trump has to defy precedent because no convicted felon has ever been elected… no person of his age… no person who “allegedly” tried to mount an insurrection… no person who’s been caught on tape taking about sexually assaulting women (yes, it was just “locker talk” even though there wasn’t a locker in sight)…

I could go on, but I may find myself getting distracted from my original point about taking the long view.

There are many times when we get distracted about how events affect us personally. The result of the US election will undoubtedly cause a lot of grief for people, but will it be good for other people in the long run? After all, if Marie Antoinette had actually let the people eat cake, maybe the French would still be oppressed by unelected rulers and if the British hadn’t beheaded Charles the First then maybe Charles the Third (say that with an Irish accent) would still be in charge and they’d be doing more about climate change… We don’t know about the long term.

Whatever happens in this coming election, it’s pretty clear that the orderly transfer of power where everyone accepts the result because the United States isn’t one of those countries where dictators rig elections is now gone…and once you no longer believe in the idea that elections are free and fair, well, you don’t know what to believe and you’re victim of whichever demagogue can convince you to die for them so that they can rule you in a fairer way than the guy who didn’t care whether you lived or died, so die for me because I’m the one who will mourn you!

While I’m pretty sure that the USA won’t last longer than the frog, I suspect that it will last longer than a lettuce. However, Trump is possibly taking the proverbial lettuce out of the fridge and that means that it may not last as long as it could have.

Perhaps, I should have called this: “TRUMP AIN’T KISSING NO FROG BECAUSE HE DON’T NEED NO PRINCE”!

It’s interesting what constitutes a scandal these days compared with just a few years ago.

For example, sending people debt notices illegally for money they didn’t owe only got a passing mention. Paying ten times the price that land was valued at was ok. Giving millions to a firm whose office was a shack in Kangaroo Island received a raised eyebrow, but let’s congratulate them on not wasting money on plush offices.

Now… perhaps it’s because of the anti-corruption commission which is allegedly looking into things and deciding that most of them may not be worth investigating… but now, we have all sorts of scandals involving the PM.

For example, he bought a house and paid a lot more than the vast majority of Australians can afford. Admittedly, there’s no suggestion that he did anything corrupt, but it was what’s called “poor optics” and that’s far worse than simple corruption.

And just recently it’s emerged that Anthony Albanese received upgrades for flights from Qantas. We know this because he declared them in his register of interests. They are different from the upgrades that Peter Dutton received because, according to reports, the PM asked for them, whereas Dutton was upgraded due to concern for the poor people in economy seats who’d be forced to spend the flight near him.

This is much, much worse than when a certain Liberal minister forgot to pay for a family holiday from “Hello World” and they forgot to charge him. I guess that is what happens when you ask the head of the company for help with your booking. They’re not used to day-to-day things like charging for airfares.

There is a further allegation that Albo didn’t declare the upgrade for his ex-wife but because she was also a politician some have suggested that she would have/should have declared them on her own register of interests. This overlooks the fact that a man is responsible for all matters of business and a woman couldn’t possibly be considered an independent entity responsible for her own…

Ok, ok, there are obvious problems with our politicians receiving anything for free from any business because of the potential conflict of interest. Certainly, there’s a case that if Albanese was soliciting free upgrades in return for certain decisions he should be referred to the NACC and the whole thing looked at.

HOWEVER, we are talking about his time as Transport Minister so it was it a long time ago and – I suspect – that the Senate won’t want to examine it by questioning Alan Joyce because some bright spark might ask if any other Minister ever personally asked for an upgrade.

Whatever it does seem like there’s a definite campaign against Albanese and that it’s not just coming from the Labor side of politics.

If that sounds like I’m a rusted-on Labor supporter, that’s just not true. There’s a quote about how if you’re not a socialist at twenty there’s something wrong with your heart, but if you’re still a socialist at forty there’s something wrong with your head. While it’s true that many people become more conservative as they age, I am starting to think that it’s the Australian political scene that’s changed. When people call the Albanese government “socialist”, I am confused as to what they think socialism is.

As I see the parties these days when compared to the 1960s:

• The Labor Party is closer to what would have been a moderate Liberal government.
• The Greens are closer to what Labor once was. A lot of idealistic policies but they don’t think they’ll win government any time soon so they don’t have to worry about the practicalities.
• The current Liberal Party is now the DLP who were basically a combination of religious fundamentalists and people worried about China and communism.
• One Nation is closer to your average 60’s country football club committee without the committee’s ability to organise the weekly raffle for the meat tray.

The recent Queensland state election is going to cause a lot of frothing at the mouth from political commentators and we’re probably only a few days away from leadership speculation and a headline “HOW CAN ALBO HANG ON?” This will be followed by amazement that he’s still there when it’s been discovered that he has a habit of taking pens from the office and using them as though they’re his own and not the taxpayers’.

Of course, Peter Dutton will complain that – if only Labor weren’t so insistent that they had a right to make decisions because they’re the government – we could have a bipartisan policy on things like nuclear energy, harsher sentences for protesters, and war with China. This will be backed by an opinion poll indicating that Dutton is more popular than he was at some point when he wasn’t, and there’ll be another round of articles about Labor changing leaders.

The Greens will consistently repeat their line from the Queensland election which I found confusing in the extreme. According to Max Chandler-Mather, Labor lost because they keep “fighting with the Greens” while simultaneously the Miles government adopted a lot of Greens policies which is why they did so well, even though they lost. I have a lot of trouble with the concept that you are “fighting” someone while you are doing what they think is good policy.

Ah well, at least the election won’t cause the same sort of civil war likely to break out in the US after the elections next week… at least, I presume it won’t!

As with every state election there are no implications for the next federal election. I know this because everyone who doesn’t like a particular result will tell you this and those who like the result are too busy celebrating to tell you anything.

However, I can’t help but wonder about the rhetoric around the idea that federal Labor is in trouble in Queensland and this could have terrible consequences for the upcoming election. I mean if the swing in last night’s state election were repeated then it would mean that Labor would lose somewhere between zero and one seats to the LNP and they’d possibly pick up a seat or two off the Greens, so all up, it would make no difference.

Of course, I am only talking about Queensland because the various commentary has been treating it as a special case and suggesting that Labor really needs to do something to win over our northern cousins. Given that Labor has only one seat that the LNP could reasonably target federally, it seems like their efforts would be better spent winning over NSW by passing laws that allow State of Origin matches to be decided by popular vote.

If the swing were repeated nationally on a uniform basis, then Labor would be in trouble. In saying that, I’m not suggesting that it would be repeated because, well, swings are never uniform and there are always things that mean that various electorates may defy expectations. This can be caused by such things as a popular local member or the fact that one party has certain plans for it that the electorate don’t actually like. I’m not going to suggest that some electorates may not like having a nuclear plant built there without consultation because I may be accused of being an ABC journalist who has an agenda and there was plenty of consultation about where those nuclear plants were going… it just wasn’t with any of the local people until after the decision had been announced. Besides, there was no need for consultation because, as Mr Dutton said, how does anyone know that they’d be against it?

The other interesting thing from last night’s result was the performance of the Greens. As yet nobody has come out and said that there are no federal implications for the next federal election and the fact that Max Chandler-Mather lives in the seat they lost won’t mean that he’s under threat but I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time before someone from the Greens says that it was Labor’s refusal to negotiate with them that led to the change of government…

And speaking of no seats, Pauline Hanson’s One Notion Party seems to have recaptured its past irrelevance. Yes, one has to respect Pauline’s principles. While it was the Liberals that started the process which saw her spend time in jail, it’s Labor that she’s said she’d never support. She’s a forgiving soul. Anyway, again, no federal implications and I expect Pauline to be returned to the Senate where she can point out how much taxpayer money is being wasted because it doesn’t go to her.

So, what happens next? Which will be the first promise broken or will Crisafulli surprise everyone by keeping his promises? On what day will the new government say that the Budget’s a mess and we can’t keep those 50 cent fares. As for changes to abortion laws, we said that we had no plans to change them and we still don’t but the Katter Party wants a vote and it’s the sort of thing that needs a conscience vote and we still have no plans but, as Robbie Burns, wrote “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a-gley.”

And even though there are no federal implications, what will happen on Insiders when people start to speculate about the implications?

Whatever the future holds for the Albanese government, I’d suggest that this is a terrific result for them. At last they have a mainland state government that they can blame for what’s going wrong in that particular state without worrying about the terrible look of a party fighting amongst itself.

A few years ago I wrote about this elective class I taught called “Oral English”. It consisted of students making short speeches, having debates and discussing various issues.

Now when I say “discussing” what I actually mean is getting louder and louder until the various opposing forces were shouting at each other at which point I would stop them and remind them that they needed to discuss their differences at the sort of volume that wouldn’t have the principal concerned about the riot going on in my class. Eventually, I put forward a simple idea:

“Has anyone ever changed your mind by shouting at you?” I asked.

“No,” was the general consensus.

“Then why do you think you’ll change someone else’s mind by shouting at them?”

“We don’t,” said one girl at a slightly lower volume than was her usual want.

“Then why do you do it?”

“It feels good,” she replied. A response which got approving nods from most of the class.

I shrugged and told them to shout away, because who was I to stand in the way of progress. After all, this was before social media where it has become customary to insult, belittle and abuse anyone with a different viewpoint.

Which, of course, brings me to Lidia Thorpe and the various interperations of her… um, assertion… protest… assault…lack of understanding that wearing fur may attract a protest…

Anyway, her “Chuckie ain’t my King!” has a certain resonance with a lot of people.

Now before I show myself to be a representative of the colonial forces which have done so much damage, I’d like to say that my thoughts on the matter have a very limited perspective and I’ll certainly need to be educated on all the things that are wrong with my limited perspective.

Notwithstanding that, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Sam Newman’s statement that he was going to boycott the AFL grand final because of the “Welcome to Country”. Nobody cared…

Ok, some people cared. I mean the people who have the same views as Sam all agreed with him and…

Yeah, I suspect that people who agree with Lidia are all going, “Yeah, not my King. Great! Well done…”

And, as Lidia Thorpe said in an interview, “I don’t need votes…”

Which raises an interesting question about what she hoped to achieve because, well, I’ve given up the idea of a revolution so if you don’t hope to get votes how are you hoping to enact change?

Being old enough to remember the Republican debate I remember the argument Phil Cleary (and others) put forward, which I can simplify as if we reject this, then we can regroup and get the model we want… Mm, awesome Phil… who are you these days and why don’t the monarchists give you a forum any more?

Mm, not my king, except that he IS our king. I mean, I can say that accept the fact that as the Constitution stands he is the King of Australia and he can sack our governor-general and install himself… except for the precedent that British monarchs don’t do anything…

Ok, that’s a little unfair because they spend a lot of time shaking hands and opening things and it’s more work than some people have done… particularly those who only have to turn up to some Murdoch media outlet and pretend that they have something original to say about all the things that the others in the same outlet agree on…

I must say that I’ve found it difficult to write about Lidia because I agree with a lot of what she says but did she need to say it there and then because… and yes, once we start arguing about the most appropriate way to say it and the appropriate forum and where and when we can say that outrageous things are just not acceptable without spoiling the cucumber sandwiches, the battle for diplomacy has been lost and we might as well start ducking because those serving the cucumber sandwiches will always win…

It’s just that I can’t help but think of my time as teacher when I hear Senator Thorpe say that she only promised allegiance to the “hairs” and not the heirs.

It sounds clever and you can amuse your friends but – in the end – the people with the power don’t care and you haven’t exactly rocked their castle!

The ABC is meant to be unbiased…

Well, it’s meant to be even-handed and to present a diversity of views… on some things, anyway. I mean, if we have a news item about a house burning down, nobody expects the ABC to interview someone about what a great opportunity this is for Harvey Norman when the family have to purchase new appliances…

So I have been quite shocked by the terrible bias the ABC have shown against the Coalition. For example, when Peter Dutton was holding a press conference recently, an ABC journalist had the temerity to ask him: “How do you know the vast majority of the public in Collie support the plan?”

Quick as flash, Dutton responded with: “How do you know they don’t?” which reminded me of my younger days when I’d hit my primary school colleagues with a witty insult and they’d reply with, “I know you are, but what am I?” It’s really hard to counter something like that.

Anyway, Mr Dutton went on to point out that the journalist could have an advocacy position but not when she was asking him questions which were difficult to answer and when she showed her bias by indicating that she’d spoken to people in Collie but he hadn’t been prepared to meet them. This is not the sort of neutral journalism he’s come to expect from the rest of the media who show no bias by asking even-handed questions like, “Is it too early to expect any detail on this policy?” or “How do you take your coffee?”

Clearly the ABC has been running an agenda to make the Coalition look atrocious for some time now. Just look at the number of times they quote exactly what Mr Dutton has said. It’s obviously an attempt to make him look bad and to get the audience to a point where they just wish the man would go away. This is the sort of thing that happens with elected leaders: the constant pushing of their face on camera and their endless photo ops make the public wonder if that other guy – what’s his name, the one who’s taken over from the previous leader when they lost the election – that one – he could be a breath of fresh air and how bad can he be? (A question that Tony Abbott answered so quickly after being installed as PM that his own party got rid of him…)

Not content with trying to ruin Mr Dutton’s chances with endless quotes, they’ve also tried to sabotage the National Party by inviting Barnaby Joyce as a guest on any number of programs. While the publicity shy Mr Joyce accepts these invitations as a public duty, I’m sure that the other MPs in the National Party would rather that the public isn’t reminded that Mr Joyce is still a sitting member. Barnaby lost a little bit of credibility when it was discovered that he was so much in favour of family values that he’d started a second family.

At least, Scott Morrison had the good sense to ban Craig Kelly from appearing on QandA before he could show us all the depth of his belief in the latest conspiracy theory. I should add that this was before Kelly added all the Covid conspiracy theories to his collection. It was also before he left the Liberal Party to become leader of the UAP, as well as being before he joined and left One Nation. I have not confirmed the rumour that Mr Kelly wants to ensure that he sets a record by joining even more political parties than Mark Latham.

Anyway, if the ABC wants to ensure that people see them as fair and unbiased then they have to stop pointing out factual inaccuracies and to avoid putting to air any Coalition MPs who may demonstrate a lack of attention to detail and/or a complete lack of understanding of any aspects of the topic beyond what they were briefed on in the minutes before the show went air. This, of course, leaves Angus Taylor and most of the front bench with plenty of time on their hands so maybe they could take it in turns to ensure that nobody spends too much time at the Parliamentary bar.

A few days ago, my wife and I had lunch in a Fitzroy pub. She happened to comment that the problem with living in a place like that would be that you’d never get a park. In spite of the fact that we had – in fact – just got a park, I agreed. Then, in a strangely serendipitous moment, we walked past a two-storey terrace house with parking for two cars. Naturally I looked up the price and it was only a touch over two million…

“Let’s buy it,” I suggested.

“We haven’t got two million,” my wife pointed out, leading me to do some quick calculations and point out that, after selling our home, we’d only need to borrow a figure significantly less than a million dollars. And, while my wife was of the opinion that having recently paid off our mortgage, she didn’t want to go into to debt in order to buy a house which had more room than we needed.

Anyway, we did a list of pros and cons:

I suggested the following pros:

• It had off-street parking
• It was only a matter of metres from the pub.

She suggested the following cons:

• It added thirty minutes to her journey to work every day.
• It added thirty years to her working life in order to pay off the mortgage.
• It was only a matter of metres from the pub.

In any event, we’re not buying the house even though compared to Mr Albanese’s it was very cheap at less than half the price. I mean, what was he thinking? At $4.3 million his purchase may be more than Malcolm Turnbull paid for his house… although Malcolm purchase his some years ago. Anyway, it’s worth more than the apartment that Peter Dutton sold for $3.7 million last year, so while we can praise Mr Dutton for selling such an expensive property, Albanese stands condemned because…

Well, it’s not that he’d done anything corrupt. It’s just the optics, isn’t it? When people are suffering because of a cost of living crisis, then it doesn’t look good for the PM to be splashing money around and it’s all about how things look, isn’t it? Phil Coorey even went as far as to suggest that this was Albo’s “Hawaii moment”, comparing the house purchase to an attempt to hide the fact that Morrison was on holiday while Australia was burning… Ok, maybe just the east coast but that’s the important bit that contains the Canberra bubble, Sydney and Melbourne…

Take the recent budget surpluses. Labor have been using them to retire debt. This has attracted a certain amount of criticism because they shouldn’t have a surplus when so many people are struggling… Of course, if they were to spend the surplus helping with the cost of living, they’d attract criticism because the spending is putting pressure on inflation thanks to more people being actually able to afford things and the RBA has been raising interest rates in order to discourage people from buying things due to higher house repayments and not having a job any more.

While I do think that Labor could be using the money more effectively, I am aware of the conundrum that Labor always face. If they have a deficit, then it’s because they can’t manage money while any Coalition deficit is the result of the previous Labor government. On the other hand, if they have a surplus, the Coalition would have had a a bigger one because they wouldn’t have wasted money on unspecific things, and anyway, shouldn’t they be helping people by giving them tax cuts instead of having a surplus?

In a rather interesting development, the Queensland Labor government was accused of plagiarism by the Greens. A number of policies introduced by Steven Miles were policies that Labor had argued against when Anna Palaszczuk was Premier, leading Max Chandler-Mather to argue that this is why a Greens MP was needed, which is strange because surely Labor can steal their policies even if they’re not elected. Jarrod Bleijie, the LNP deputy agreed, telling us: “They have pinched a Greens policy that the Labor Party in parliament voted against not long ago!”

I guess this sums up the change in the Greens over the past few decades. When Hawke was elected and he saved the Franklin River, nobody complained that this was Greens’ policy. Now, even when Labor pinch their policies, instead of saying that Labor have done the right thing for once, they complain that this was their idea as though the thing shouldn’t be done unless they’ve been given credit and a release of copyright.

I mean when Labor approves coal or gas mines or when they fail to raise the rate of Jobseeker nobody in the Coalition complains, “Hey, this is what we do!”

Although they do complain when the Labor PM buys an expensive house without once using the phrases “class warfare” or “politics of envy”.

There’s a bit of a tall poppy syndrome in Australia where we shoot down people more successful than ourselves, so I must say that I find it odd that people should mock Liz Truss who, after all, did manage to become Britain’s PM for a whole two months… Ok, it wasn’t quite two months but it was certainly closer to two months than two years and I think we have to all admit that none of us have been Prime Minister of any country for that long…

So, let’s hear it for Liz and give her a big slap on the back and congratulate her for taking it on the chin and not going into a foetal position. She’s out there giving advice on how Australia can avoid making the same mistakes that Britain made… no, not the one about letting her take over from Boris… and no, not the one about making party boy Boris the leader… and no, not the Brexit one.

No, none of those. The one about getting too woke because we all know that it’s this woke thing that keeps us awake at night when we’d be better off sleeping like Britain seems to have done since it ruled the waves…

For those of you unfamiliar with our history, Britain once ruled the sea. The waves doesn’t refer to those Mexican ones that have been banned at certain arenas. A thing that happened before Trump told us how bad Mexicans were. In fact, the original second verse of our national anthem goes:

When gallant Cook from Albion sail’d,
To trace wide oceans o’er,
True British courage bore him on,
Til he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England’s flag,
The standard of the brave;
“With all her faults we love her still”
“Britannia rules the wave.”
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance, Australia fair.

For reasons that are probably part of that woke agenda, we deleted that. (Note to self: let Sky After Dark know so they can launch a campaign to have it restored!)

Anyway, for those who are unaware:

• Cook is James Cook who was a seafaring man
• Albion is an alternative name for Britain. I don’t know why Britain needed an alias, but it may have been so people didn’t associate her with past crimes. Possibly that’s what’s being referenced in the line “With all her faults we love her still”!
• The word “still”, I presume, refers to the fact that we haven’t changed our minds, not a device for making moonshine… Although the early convicts probably did love anyone’s still.
• I don’t know the difference between “British courage” and the regular kind but if someone can find out I’d be grateful.
• I also find it confusing that he raised the flag of “Old England” and not the newer British one, which suggests that there may be some confusion about the whole claim and we may need to test this in the High Court.

Whatever, I guess it’s lucky that Liz is here in Oz so we can pose some of these questions to her. Looking forward to her answers…

One thing you have to admire about Greg Sheridan is that – like Donald Trump – he sticks to his ideas and doesn’t allow them to be influenced by reality.

Of course the whole reality thing is subjective… so much so that people can hold one view on a topic while holding a totally contradictory view on a different topic.

Take the concern about people waving Hezbollah flags at a recent demonstration. They shouldn’t be doing this because Hezbollah is a banned, terrorist group. What determines who and isn’t a terrorist group? Well, there are many different views on this and some people would tell you that the United States is one, but such people have no official status and it’s government’s who have the power to determine which ones are worth banning and which ones are able to bomb people with impunity.

I don’t have a problem with this because we can’t let groups who are aiming to cause mayhem and who are spreading propaganda trying to radicalize people just have a free hand. And I was all for banning swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

However, it seems that some people who are calling for Albanese to be tougher and insist that the police prosecute these people are also the same ones who have a serious problem with any sort of misinformation laws.

Now, I’m not asking you to agree to letting terrorist flags fly or to agree to a totalitarian government shutting down all dissent as misinformation. I’m just pointing out that there IS a bit of a different reality going on when you warn of the dangers of too much government power while insisting that the government prosecute certain people for waving a flag.

Take Peter Dutton. Please. I certainly don’t want him and I’m pretty sure Australia doesn’t need him as PM when he doesn’t understand the basic principle of the separation of powers which means that while the government may make the laws, they’re not the ones who are in charge of enforcing the laws. When you don’t have a separation of power the path to corruption is pretty obvious: “Yes, it’s true that the Minister misappropriated several million dollars but we’re not prosecuting because he’s in our party and anyway he’s the brother-in-law of one of our biggest donors. Besides it’s not like the recent prosecution of the Leader of the Opposition who fraudently removed a pen from Parliament House without permission!”

Given he was once a policeman, it’s probable that Dutton does understand the separation of powers and he just that he finds them an unnecessary impediment to the administration of “justice”. Of course it’s also likely that any criticism of Albanese is just to make a political point and not because he actually thinks that government should be telling the police who to charge… And, as I wrote the other day, that’s the trouble with politics today: too much focus on making the other guys look bad and not enough focus on trying to find solutions.

I mean I recently saw a post from Dutton which said that we needed a STRONG leader in these troubled times. That seems self-evident because I can’t think of a time when anyone needs a weak leader, but there was no extra information about what this strong leader needs to do. I seem to remember that when Tory Tony was Opposition Leader, we had a lot of similar rhetoric about needing a strong leader because Julia was PM and, obviously a woman, so we needed someone who could strip down to their speedos and fight a fire but Dutton is a little less clear on the need for strength…Exactly what is required for this strong leader to do? Apart from be strong, of course. Do they have to lift weights or arm wrestle? Or is he talking about mental strength and suggesting that he’s exactly the sort of leader that we don’t need.

Whatever, that’s the problem lately. Even when the Greens say we need to make changes to negative gearing, they’re not suggesting a specific change, so it means that Labor doesn’t want to negotiate because they’re afraid that, if they agree to any change, the Greens will say either that it’s good and it’s all thanks to us OR it doesn’t go far enough and we’re going to vote against it… leaving the door open for Dutton to say that if we had a strong leader like him, there’d be no agreeing to anything and he’d stand firm and insist that he was right and everyone should just agree… which, according to some, is what Albanese is doing, except in his case, he’s just being stubborn.

It would be nice to think that politicians of all sides could get together and admit that nobody has any simple ideas about how to solve particular problems and we should be thrashing out possibilities until we come up with something worth trying.

And yes, I am ignoring Matt Canavan in saying that. He has lots of simple ideas!

David Littleproud was spruiking the idea that the excise on beer should be frozen… unlike those English bastards we like our beer cold so just using the words “frozen” and “beer” should have been a vote winner. However, it seems that this was just a thought bubble from the Nationals leader which had no support from the rest of the Coalition, even if a couple of them praised the man for actually having a thought, which is quite an achievement for a Nationals MP.

It was interesting that they shut down the idea without further discussion. Although when I say “interesting”, I actually mean typical of the goings-on in Canberra lately. It was Otto Von Bismarck who said that politics was “the art of the possible”…

Actually the full quote is: “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” This leads me to believe that – like much of what happens these days – Otto had just been rolled and that he had to adapt his plans without looking too much like a loser…

Whatever led Von Bismarck to say that, I suspect that he wasn’t having as bad a time as the Labor Party recently.

The Coalition grew concerned that the changes to Reserve Bank would enable Labor to stack the interest rate setting part of the Bank with their mates because, after all, that’s what the Liberal Party would do. Why would it be terrible to have an interest rate setting group composed of Labor sympathisers? Well, we politicians all agree that interest rates are putting pressure on households and that they should come down but if you had too many comrades making decisions then they might come down before the election and then Peter Dutton would have no hope of being able to win, even with his promise to bring down power prices once he gets his nuclear plants up and running in 2035.

There was the suggestion that Labor could negotiate with The Greens but this is even harder than trying to work with the Liberal Party. Lately the tactics of The Greens seems to be to announce that they won’t let something through because it’s a bad policy but, in spite of it being a bad policy, Labor should negotiate so that they can claim credit if people like it. Their most recent tactic is to add something that is almost impossible to do but sounds good.

For example, the demand that Jim Chalmers override the RBA and lower interest rates has a number of problems. First, it completely undermines the independence of the Reserve Bank. This is a problem because they make decisions without considering whether they’re popular or not and this has its advantages even if they occasionally get it wrong. Secondly, if the Treasurer did use his power to lower interest rates, he’d have a political problem because the next thing would be that he’d be attacked for doing it, as well as being attacked for not doing it sooner. Yes, this is illogical but you only have to remember that, in 2019, Bill Shorten’s policy on negative gearing was going to raise the price of houses for buyers and lower the price for owners. Finally, if he lowered them once, there’d be speculation after each RBA decision whether he’d do it again which would mean that economists would be interviewed even more often and I think that we can all agree that the less we see of economists the better…

To be perfectly fair, there are some good economists but I can’t think of many because they rarely get interviewed. I mean, I often wonder what’s the point of interviewing a disciple of the free market capitalist economic theory when all they’re going to tell you is that the market knows best and there’s no need for any government interference. If that’s right, then why do we need the economist to advise us when we can just leave it to the market?

Whatever, I think that we need an election so we can get a boost to the economy from Clive Palmer’s advertising spending.