You may be aware of the Frank Hardy case where he was sued for criminal libel. He wrote the novel “Power Without Glory” about John West who ran an illegal tote, fixed races, bribed police and politicians, had people disposed of, and various other crimes. It was generally thought that he was basing the character on John Wren owing to the fact that it was generally known that John Wren had done at least some of these things. However, Wren was not the plaintiff. At one point in the novel it suggests that Mrs West had an affair and it was this that was the basis of the lawsuit.

What made this a very interesting lawsuit is the idea that they could identify Mrs Wren as Mrs West when the only thing that they had in common was a husband who was supposedly behind a lot of the corruption in Victoria. Naturally, he had the good sense not to sue which meant that Hardy’s defence had problems in trying to argue that the only reason that Mrs Wren was the one suing was because if Mr Wren sued then all the things that were alleged would come out on in court. As it was, the judge was reluctant to let any of the parts of the novel that were about Mr West to be read out… Mr Wren was clearly a pretty clever man because he didn’t want to admit that he recognised himself by all the illegal behaviour of the protagonist in Hardy’s novel.

In one of the stranger moments in my life, I was at the preview of a play that Frank Hardy had written and at intermission, I started to think about how the whole defamation case would have made a much more interesting play and that maybe I should interview him and try to write a play about it. And then I wondered how I’d go about getting to meet him. A voice spoke and said, “How’s it going in there? I’m too nervous to go in.”

It was Frank Hardy!

I was so surprised that I stuttered something about if going fine and that it was good to meet him and he nodded and said thanks and moved on. If only I’d believed in signs and fate, there’d be a play about Frank Hardy in my resume…

Anyway, moving to the present day…

I don’t want to talk about Bruce or Christian here… although to some extent it’s inevitable that I mention them but just to be clear: Christian Porter did not lose his job over an accusation that was never proven and neither did Bruce Lehrmann.

The accusation against Porter was never proven; neither was it investigated. As such he was entitled to the “presumption of innocence”, as Scott Morrison pointed out many times. Porter continued as Attorney-General until he chose to take on the ABC over their reporting of the allegation, even though he wasn’t named in their reports.

Similarly, Lehrmann had left his job as a “senior adviser”, long before the Brittany Higgins interview on “The Project”, where he also wasn’t named.

Ok, I am aware that just because someone isn’t named, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be clearly identified. When they were reports of sexual misconduct by “an Australian entertainer” that didn’t clearly identify Rolf Harris… indeed, some would even argue that the word “entertainer” may have thrown a lot of people off the scent. However, when they added that he was in his eighties and the suburb where he lived, they may as well have said, “an Australian who was famous for playing the wobble-board and instantly recognisable for his beard and glasses.”

On the other hand, when the ABC talked about the accusations against a Federal government minister, I heard several people speculate about who it could be, and many presumed that it must be one who came from Sydney. Similarly, nobody I know suggested that Higgins was talking about Bruce Lehrmann, mainly because nobody had ever heard of him.

But the point I’m making isn’t about anyone specific, so I’d like to switch from reality to a totally fictional scenario…

Ok, this is not like when comedians say, “If I could just be serious for a moment…” as the set-up for a joke. I am creating a total fiction here and any resemblance between this and reality is purely coincidental, so in the unlikely event that this resembles something that you’ve done, please remember the Streisand effect and refrain from suing. And I am making this so far-fetched that everyone will know it’s a work of fiction and if, by some chance, the collective unconscious has caused me to stumble on something that’s more unbelievable than the Prayer Room at Parliament House being used for sexual encounters, then admitting you recognise yourself from what I’m saying may be worse than just ignoring it and accepting that it’s meant to be fictional. Besides, that’ll may just make you sound guilty and I’m using that as a truth defence…

Darth’s cousin, Taxi, entered politics and thanks to his connections to the Dark Side, Taxi Vader eventually became the Minister for Climate Change. As this was a ministry where neither major party does very much, he had a lot of time on his hands so he started holding parties in his office where drugs and alcohol flowed freely and through a complicated business arrangement he put these all on his expense account. When a staff member queried the ethics of this, he stabbed them with his letter opener and called a friend of his in the waste management business, Tony Soprano, who disposed of the body. Another staffer who feared for their life, reported this to the AFP who told them that unless they had more evidence, then they wouldn’t investigate.

At this point I’m trying to think of something to add so that it’s clearly fictional and not based on reality… I mean after the stuff about the Prayer Room, how can I be sure of anything?

Whatever, imagine that the staffer goes to the media and tells them the story of this enormous coverup and the media say that they can’t possibly do a story on it because Tony Soprano may sue them for defamation.

“But,” pleads the staffer, “we don’t have to mention Mr Soprano by name, and anyway, this isn’t about him; this about the coverup of a crime.”

“Doesn’t matter. We only report things about governments that are legal. If there’s any illegality being covered up, we can’t say anything for fear of lawsuits.”

“Oh,” says the staffer. “That makes sense. Well, can you run a story about how much the minister is spending on office supplies?”

“Yeah, that won’t be a problem.”

Like I said, it’s fictional, but I the point stands...

All right, I have no idea whether Dutton has shares in Coles. Actually, he may have shares in Woolworths for all I know but whatever the truth, you can make a lot out of something that hasn’t happened… Still it would be embarrassing if – after calling for the Woolworth boycott – if it were discovered that he did have shares in their biggest rival.

The whole boycott Woolies thing is rather strange. Perhaps the strangest was a headline which told us that Tony Jones was upset about the lack of Australian flag paraphernalia being sold where he suggested that Woolworths should stick to selling food and not get involved in issues… I found this strange because he was upset because they weren’t selling something that wasn’t food.

There’s quite a bit to unpack with this whole “anybody who has a different view about Australia Day is being divisive and should thank their lucky stars that they live in a free country and shut up and never express an opinion that we disagree with”!

I’ve frequently suggested that rather than celebrate January 26th as the day when a whole lot of boats turned up carrying cutthroats, thieves and bullies, as well as a large number of convicts, we could celebrate the Rum Rebellion which also occurred on this date and where Governor Bligh was sent packing back to England. After all, who could object to the day when some of us said that we should decide our own head of state and we could just get rid of the one that was foisted on us by Britain? Ok, lots of people but I do think that they’re only being divisive…

Another idea I had was that we should treat it like ANZAC Day where we remember the fallen. We could have a moment’s silence where we remember all those First Nations’ warriors who perished trying to protect this country from invasion from a foreign power, just like those diggers at Gallipoli who were invading Turkey to keep us safe. We could demand a moment’s silence and get someone to play the last post on the didgeridoo… When I suggested this to someone they said that it was the most offensive thing that they’d even heard… I’m yet to work it if it was because of my total ignorance of First Nations’ culture or my total ignorance of ANZAC traditions. Whatever, I’m suggesting it because I think it’s something that could unite a whole lot of people in that almost everyone would condemn the idea and tell me that I’m making light of some deadly serious stuff!

To which I could respond by telling them all that it’s because of them that I feel that Australia is a divided nation and if only we could all agree about everything, then it would all be great but as long as I’m around, I’m liable to say at least one thing that someone objects to and thereby uniting the nation…

Anyway, back to boycotting Woolworths…

I’d have to say that, as far as good ideas go, they never go far enough to reach Peter Dutton.

There are a number of problems with Dutton suggesting this boycott apart from his condemnation of previous boycotts that were suggested by the left, and apart from the idea that a politician should be telling a company to do something that they don’t believe is in their commercial interests, and apart from the fact that people can get their flag undies and capes from sources other than Woolworths, and apart from the slim possibility that it could lead to job losses, and apart from the fact that if Woolies were to give in to him it would make him look like the sort of dictator that we don’t want running the country, and apart from Coalition rhetoric about governments not interfering in the free market because it’s better left to its own devices and … anyway, you get the idea.

No, the basic problem is the politics.

As I see it, there is a minority of people who whole-heartedly support Australia Day celebrations, just as there is a minority of people who are upset that we celebrate it on the anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet, but the majority don’t actually have a strong opinion either way. If they’re asked if they’d like it shifted, they’re more likely to think that it’s a convenient time for a day off and say no, in much the same way that if you asked them if we should shift Christmas Day because we’ve found out that Jesus wasn’t actually a Capricorn and his birth was actually in October, then they’d find probably say that they like it where it is and so what if Jesus is a Libran, Christmas isn’t about astrology anyway…

Whatever, it’s not a hot button issue for most voters and when you jump up and down and call for boycotts over something that most people don’t care about, then you tend to lose them. It’s worth remembering that one of the narratives that the Coalition are trying to push is that Albanese was obsessed with the Voice and he was ignoring the cost-of-living problems facing everyday Australians. Now, notwithstanding the idea that it may well be possible for a government to handle two things in a given year, it doesn’t do your case much good if you call for a boycott on a supermarket chain for reasons other than their prices being too high.

I mean it’s a bit like Tony Abbott suggesting that he doesn’t see why there shouldn’t be Prime Ministerial visits to Taiwan: It tends to make a mockery of the “Airbus Albo” stuff. “We think he shouldn’t be travelling overseas as much as he has but why doesn’t he go to Taiwan? Is he sucking up to China to help our exports?”

In my change today I received a new dollar coin and it had King Charles on it which is just fine. However, those communists in Canberra have him looking to the left when his mother always looked to the right. Obviously this is some left wing plot to suggest that we should all turn left…

Ok, ok, it’s all right! I know that tradition dictates that each new monarch faces the opposite way and the idea that it’s some sort of Marxist plot is so ridiculous that not even Ralph Babet could fall for it… Although when I think about it, he’s had some pretty weird ideas.

Ah, good old Ralph. Someone once told me that it’s often stressful to be the smartest person in the room, so I guess that means that Ralph must suffer terribly if he finds himself alone.

Actually, he did say one thing recently that I agree with: “If you don’t take an interest in politics you end up being governed by your inferiors!”

Maybe the cross benchers in the Senate like him aren’t actually governing us, but still, I can see his point.

Anyway, we’ve reached that time of year when the party which believes in small government and says that it would be great if governments stopped telling people what to do, suggests that there’s something wrong with local councils not holding citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day and, if it were up to them, they’d be forced to not only hold the ceremony but it would be compulsory to wear Australian flag thongs and underwear for the whole day.

Yes, I read somewhere that these local councils were being political. Imagine that, a local council being political! Aren’t they meant to be like the ABC and completely neutral and do nothing except make sure the bins are collected and rubber-stamp any development application from a Liberal donor?

On a side note, I did read today: “There are reports of an explosion in Texas where 10 people were injured by ABC News.” Yes, I know that it’s not our ABC but I do think that the reporters sentence structure was a little ambiguous.

I guess it doesn’t help if you’re expecting consistency from people. Just look at Sky News and the Liberal Party. After years where the Right have called people “snowflakes” and suggested that we should all stop being offended and refrain from calling for things to be cancelled, up pops someone who’s terrified of a badge worn by a Qantas worker.

Harrison Grafanakis – who is apparently not part of the Liberal Party because he removed the Liberal Party connections from his LinkedIn profile after people were pointing it out – was “intimidated” by a female worker wearing a Palestinian flag badge. And he didn’t feel safe because, well, they were doing political activism and Qantas has taken money from the government and done political things in the past and, you know, it’s scary when people take money from the government and express a political opinion…

He must really need a change of underwear when Gina and the miners run ads on television, or when pharmacists go to the public gallery of Parliament and shout, if a badge can have such an effect. Poor little snowflake… Or is that nickname only appropriate if you get upset about racism or sexism.

In what can only be considered anti-semitism, the media pointed out that Harrison wasn’t Jewish. Why anti-semitism? Well, it tends to suggest that he could have been ignored if he was Jewish, doesn’t it? Or why else was this relevant?

Again I wonder why some people want to dismiss people as “activists” when they disagree with them. Well, obviously they’d prefer the opposite: people who are passive and never object to anything they do.

But there does seem an amazing turnaround for all those who complain about cancel culture and want the right to be able to do and say what they like without government interference, when they’re making the commentary, but call for sackings whenever a worker does something they disagree with.

It’s almost as funny as when Andrew Bolt complains about the “outrage industry”!

This appeared as one of those links to similar articles and, as it was written about ten Defence Ministers ago, I’d forgotten all about it. You can be the judge as to how much I got right… Ok, not very much, but I’m happy to put be judged on my inaccurate forecasts, unlike much of political commentary we hear…

It’s 2024 And Not A Royal Wedding In Sight

As one gets older, one is immediately confronted by the shock of dates… No, I don’t mean going on them… Although that would be quite a shock too. I mean, the shock of when someone says something like, “When the GFC hit ten years ago…”, you tap your watch and go, “Ten years ago, I’m sure it was just this morning”.

It’s with this thought that I am buoyed by the fact that the Federal election will be held any moment now and next year’s Hot Cross Buns will be appearing.

Of course, the other thing that age does is makes you wary of predictions. As I often remind people ninety percent of everything is very predictable, but it’s that which lulls into a false sense of security and gives us the shock when we actually have that Black Swan moment like Brexit, the election of Donald Trump or the Liberals releasing a coherent policy on jobs.

So, in spite of this, I’d like to peer into the crystal ball and annoy all the rationalists who insist that I have no psychic powers by telling them that I knew they’d say that.

A Peek Into The Future

It’s 2024 and there’s not a Royal Wedding in sight, although there’s a lot of speculation from royal watchers that Prince George may be dating. There’s also a lot of speculation from Republicans that the whole Royal Family idea has already dated, but the recent death of the Queen means that it’s too soon to mention the idea that Australia should hold another referendum on the Republic. Similarly, in Britain, there is discussion about whether the Queen’s death should result in Charlies now becoming monarch or whether they should just embalm her and wheel her out for public ceremonies as Her Majesty is still more popular than Charles.

Meanwhile, in the USA, Kanye West has become President on his platform of eliminating all mention of slavery and the promise to rename the State of the Union Address: “At The House With The Kardashians”.

Australia has just spent twenty billion dollars celebrating the tenth year of Coalition government. The 2018 election was surprisingly lost by Labor after Peter Dutton’s Border Force arrested all Labor candidates as a threat to national security.

The 2024 Budget reminded us all how many jobs had been created and how the unemployment rate had been reduced to zero with the idea that anyone who spent their time breathing could be considered fully employed. The Treasurer repeated the oft-quoted line that “the best form of welfare was not to complain too much” because complaining got you nowhere. In reporting this, no journalist mentioned that – in fact – complaining could get you quite a long way. Deportation, if you weren’t a citizen. Citizens, of course, still had the right to complain so long as they did it quietly enough that nobody reported them for Sedition.

The 2024 Budget also announced measures to counteract poor people forming companies to take advantage of the government’s company tax arrangements. After cutting zero company tax rate to minus ten percent in 2021, some poor people formed companies so that they too could be given money simply for existing. In abolishing this loophole, the Treasurer told us that poor people were only here as a cautionary tale and if they got money for simply existing, then it would encourage more of them to exist. Henceforth, only companies that made a profit would be given money from the government and any shelf companies which existed purely as a scam would be outlawed unless they could show that they were part of a multinational company tax minimisation strategy or had a history of political donations to approved parties.

 

Ok, it may all sound far-fetched, but go back just three years and tell me if you’d have believed me if I”d written Donald Trump will be President, Prince Harry will marry someone in “Suits”, Tim Paine will be Australian cricket captain and the Budget will be in surplus by next year…

 

Actually, that last one still sounds a little dodgy, but Scott Morrison said it so he’d hardly risk looking ridiculous by getting it wrong. Although I guess, he might still think that he could use the old “We don’t comment on operational matters’ that worked so well when he was Minister for Sinking The Boats.

A lot of people don’t seem to be able to distinguish between weather and climate. The climate is what happens over the long term, whereas weather is short term event. A reasonable comparison would be to consider a tennis player such as Coco Gauff. While she’s currently ranked number 3 in the world, there’s no certainty that she’ll win any individual match. However, it would be reasonable to predict that she will win several matches in the next six months and if she were to lose all of them, you’d have to say that there’s been a significant change in her form. In terms of this analogy, her ranking is like the climate while her performance on any given day is like the weather…

Of course, tennis players do find that their “climate” changes over the course of their sporting lifetime, so the analogy only works in a really limited way so if Ms Gauff doesn’t win anything in the next few months you’d have to say that the climate has changed and that it’s no longer a case of weather/whether she wins or not… which is rather like the way that certain politicians look at climate change.

Anyway, I’ve discovered that climate change isn’t really likely to be a problem, because the real problem with climate change is what it does to the weather and, after years of reading how mankind is too insignificant to affect the climate, I’ve recently learned that we can, amazingly, control the weather.

Yes, a number of people have been posting on social media that the recent storms, such as Cyclone Jasper, were much stronger owing to an alliance between the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO to push the climate action agenda by making these storms worse. Of course, I can’t see it because I’ve been vaccinated, but nonetheless, now that it’s been pointed out to me, I’m happy to surrender any plans I had to get an EV and to buy a Hi-Lux before the legislation that the Albanese government snuck through before Christmas takes away my right to pollute the atmosphere with noxious emissions…

Yes, it does seem strange to me that – after years of telling us that none of our actions could possibly affect the climate – I now find that we have the power to control the weather but I guess that’s probably just my inability to think clearly owing to all those Covid vaccinations which have changed my genetic makeup in ways that I don’t understand owing to my inability to think clearly…

And yes, it does seem strange that Ralph Puppet of the UAP is outraged that the government should bring our noxious emissions into line with the EU because it’s our god-given, 42nd Amendment right to breath in fumes that are definitely no health concern at all even if the legislation refers to noxious emissions because who is to say what is noxious?

But hey, lots of things seem strange to me. As I’ve often said, it’s reasonable not believe everything that the politicians and media tell you, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t believe anything that they tell you. For example, when we’re told that Barnaby’s time as a drought envoy cost over $625,000 we can believe it, but if Scott Morrison were to tell us that it was great value for money because of what it saved by keeping Barnaby away from the bar at Parliament House, then we should be sceptical… Note, sceptical, not dismissing the statement out of hand if He of The Many Ministries said it.

I’ve often thought that some people like to believe in conspiracy theories because they’re strangely reassuring. The idea that there’s a group of people with a secret plan controlling things is far more reassuring than this idea that it’s all as random and chaotic as it appears. Ok, they may be evil and self-serving but it’s less of a worry than the idea that people like Joe and George W and Donald and Boris and Scotty and Barnaby and Liz Truss and Vladimir and Benny and Tony and others are really in charge of things. I mean, it’s scary that Peter Dutton was once in charge of Border Force but it’s even scarier that he is the best person that the Liberals have to lead them in Opposition.

Without a shadowy cabal of people both clever enough to take charge of the world – as well as being clever enough to hide it – then this world is a dangerous place and if you know anything about quantum physics, you’d know that the whole thing could just disappear at any moment… ok, just to be clear when I say, “clever enough to hide it”, I mean from anyone who doesn’t actually go on the internet and find out that it was all exposed by the published minutes of some body or other like the UN… Sort of like that moon landing which was shot in Walt Disney’s backyard in Technicolour as a way of marketing something like Annette Funicello or Uncle Jimmy…

Mm, there’s a whole lot of stuff there that needs unpicking for anyone who used to watch the Mickey Mouse Club…

Anyway, I don’t know how we can insure for flood damage when water is a natural thing – like carbon dioxide – and it’s necessary for plant growth – like carbon dioxide – and you can never have too much of a good thing so how can too much carbon dioxide be bad for anyone? It’s like suggesting that noxious emissions are noxious…

Maybe the conspiracy theorists have something going for them, after all!

Mind you, when the nurse asked me whether I’d watched “The Matrix” and when I said that I’ve never understood why we had to learn to multiply matrices in school, she asked if I wanted the blue injection or the red one. Then I asked her if anyone can tell the difference after they’ve agreed to their particular injection of choice…

Ok, so this is just an obvious joke which you’ve probably heard:

It’s wrong to call Rupert Murdoch the Devil! I mean he may have done some pretty nasty things but he’s never been as lacking in ethics as Murdoch…

One of the difficulties I have when I look at the current state of the media in this country is working out to what extent that the particular journalist is running an agenda where they don’t care what the truth is, or whether they’re actually as stupid as they appear.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arrogant enough to think that anyone who disagrees with me is ignorant and dull-witted. And, of course, when you have billionaires and multimillionaires owning sections of the media, they will be appointing editors who share their worldview. It’s not necessary for Richie Rich to dictate to Hass Noebbels what slant to give a particular issue. Rich knew that Noebbels supports a small government, low tax, pro-MAGA agenda; he wouldn’t have appointed him otherwise. And, in case you think I’m being sexist with my pronouns there, well, isn’t that just the sort of thing you woke people would say, and that’s exactly why you’re not editing the paper…

It’s no surprise that the editors of the papers owned by the one percent are also owned by the one percent, so, as the joke goes, if Anthony Albanese were to walk on water across Lake Burley Griffin, the Murdoch headline would be: ALBO CAN’T SWIM! The idea that papers push the agendas of big business when they’re owned by big businesses is no more a surprise than if the ACTU bought out a media company that they’d appoint an editor with a pro-union background, rather than Andrew Bolt.

The surprise is that some people don’t seem to agree that the ABC should be more left leaning than media companies that are unapologetically right wing in order to provide the balance that’s in its charter. Similarly, if all the media companies were suddenly taken over by socialists, then the ABC should be more pro free market than the rest of the media. The ABC should be presenting the both the views of the rest of the media AND some alternatives.

So it’s rather strange the way ABC has framed some stories in their news bulletins…

Actually it occurs to me that it’s strange that we use the term “stories” when talking about news items and never take a step back to consider that a story is something with a narrative which is often fictional…

Anyway, the lead is frequently something along the lines of “The Government has been criticised over its announcement/decision/action.” However, when you are given the substance you find that nearly all the criticism is from the Opposition and groups affected by the decision are either ambivalent or mildly supportive. It’s not that the position of the group of Abbott disciples shouldn’t be included; it’s simply that, by making it the lead, it sounds like the government is coming under fire from neutral observers. It’d be like announcing “Breakthrough in male pill condemned as dangerous!” only to find that it was the Pope who is merely reiterating his Church’s position on birth control.

And the lack of pushback from the idea that the Voice Referendum was a “disaster” certainly demonstrates a lack of balance from our ABC. Now if it were the proponents of the Voice pushing that narrative I could understand it. However, the idea that it was failure is predominantly coming from those who opposed it. This only needs a moment of reflection to see how weird it is:

• Are they opposed to the holding of referendums? If not, why is it a “disaster” when the status quo is maintained?
• In a time when people are struggling with the cost of living wasn’t the $400 million plus cost of the referendum a good way to put money in people’s pockets? After all, where did the costs go? Workers employed by the electoral commission, printing, advertising and various other things which would have put money into people’s pockets…
• Or are they saying that it was a disaster because people listened to them and voted accordingly?

Whatever one thinks of the current government, I’m worried about the way that the ABC seems to be going along with the whole politics as a sporting contest thing. You know, we’re not analysing whether it’s good or bad policy, whether what people are saying is factually correct, all we’re interested in is who scored and who’s in front and whether the pitch will respond to spin now that the pace attack has failed to remove the minister.

While it’s not entirely true that the media never look at the veracity of claims, it’s usually done as a gotcha moment. Just like when the politician is asked the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question. A yes is bad but a no is worse, and the politician has to be on his or her toes to answer without actually saying anything. Even a question such as, “Why have you changed your mind on this?” is loaded with the implication that any human who has discovered new information and decided that a different path would be worth following is far too wishy-washy to be ever trusted, whereas a pig-headed ignoramus who never admits to being wrong is the sort of person that we need. For some reason I just remembered that Rupert has recently hired Tony Abbott…

When Peter Dutton said the quiet bit out loud about how he wasn’t interested in making it easy for Labor to govern, surely that should have been the signal that he’s not interested in working with them to improve conditions for all Australians by mitigating their poor policy. In other words, Dutton was saying that he wants to screw things up as badly as he can in order to improve his chances of being elected. While he may not be the first Opposition leader to think that way, there’s a danger with making it too obvious. You might as well say, “Yes well, this is a great idea and very much needed but we’re going to try and block it because it might make the government too popular!”

Hopefully that won’t be picked up by someone on Sky and become the story of the week… Or given that the Liberals are going to great lengths to paint Albanese as such, the story of the weak…

Whatever one thinks of the current government, one would have to say that there’s a concerted effort by certain sections of the media to attack them with whatever they can find no matter how ridiculous the beat-up.

So Samantha Maiden breaks the story that Albanese’s dog, Toto, travels with the PM on overseas trips. Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with that no matter who the leader was. I think it’s good that politicians have pets to calm them down and – even if they’re prepared to go to war and kill people who are less than human in their eyes – remind them that in any war the pets will suffer too, so I have no problem with anything that might encourage empathy… In fact, I’d have a bigger problem with Toto getting his own VIP jet or being bunged up in some fancy kennel that charges more than some hotels.

Next we have the story about Albanese tasting a $500 wine while on holiday in WA. This has somehow morphed into suggestions that he’s drinking $500 bottles of wine, and this is all paid for by the taxpayer. While I don’t know the actual circumstances of his tasting, I do know that people are often given wine tasting by winemakers at minimal or no cost. Amazingly, I once tasted a bottle of wine that was $85 about twenty five years ago… and in those days, that was enough for a deposit on a house… ok, not a very large deposit but I’m writing this story to make a point and anything misleading I can do to make my point is just good journalism!!!

I get it. The media want to make the point that politicians are out of touch and it’s only by listening to down-to-earth people like Gina and Rupert that we’ll fix this country and that people will be happy to be earning $2 a day because it’s all about getting enough experience that you can work your way to the top by kissing their bottom.

But, honestly!

If you want to attack the Labor government, then pick on them for their inability to simply say to Peter Dutton that they’re not playing his racist games when it comes to immigration policy. Or their approval of coal and gas mines. Or attack them for not raising the payments to the unemployed by enough.

Not things that are just absurd, such as when Labor were accused by the Coalition of covering up when they knew about the cover up that the Liberals did with Brittany Higgins. In the end, in much the same way that I don’t care what a surgeon does in his spare time. I don’t care if politicians are wearing Gucci or drinking expensive wines. What matters is how well they operate and whether the operation makes things better.

If the media were attacking Labor for improving relations with China when we should be doing everything possible to ensure that they stop importing our goods and sending students here, then I could understand it. If they were to suggest that their economic management was terrible because they’ve delivered the first surplus in fifteen years, then it would make sense. Or if they suggested Labor have an unemployment rate so low that it’s putting pressure on the RBA to raise rates, then there’s some logic to it.

But focusing on wine tasting makes no sense unless you compare it to every other politician’s wine tasting habits. Strangely they didn’t criticise Senator Price for actually drinking $300 bottles of champagne on the Voice was defeated.

I know it’s a lot to ask for consistency from people. Just this morning I read something on social media where a climate change denier was suggesting that Cyclone Jasper was being “manipulated” by those people that are trying to push the climate scam… The climate scam being that there is no climate change because nothing we do can affect the climate… The weather is – apparently – a different story.

Just like all those people who are suddenly concerned about marine life and how offshore wind turbines will upset whales when they’ve never worried about such things in the past. Just like people who complain that solar panels and wind farms are “eyesores” but open cut mines and the smoke from coal-fired power stations are things of beauty. Just like those pushing for nuclear power are quite ok with storing the waste while they tell us that there’ll be a problem with storing the solar panels and wind turbines once they’ve reached their use by date.

Can’t wait to see what the next exciting offering from Samantha Maiden will be. Which of the following seems most likely:

1. ALBO REJECTS TRADITIONAL PUDDING ON CHRISTMAS DAY
2. TOTO DOES NOT DENY RUMOURS ABOUT HUMPING CUSHION
3. DUTTON ACCUSES LABOR OF BEING WEAK FOR DOING WHAT HE SUGGESTED
4. DUTTON ACCUSES LABOR OF BEING WEAK FOR NOT DOING WHAT HE SUGGESTED
5. ALBO IN SECRET TALKS WITH PRINCE HARRY ABOUT BECOMING GOVERNOR-GENERAL

If you cast your mind back to the Black Lives Matter protests and remember the response from some was: “All lives matter!” and the argy-bargy about how could such a simple statement be racist.

Of course, sometimes it’s not what’s said but the context in which you say it. For example, if a work colleague tells you that they’ve just lost their grandmother, it’s not fine to say: “Yes, it’s been a terrible day all round. The left lane was blocked by road works and it took me an extra twenty minutes to get to work today.”

While what Usman Khawaja wrote on his shoes may seem innocuous enough, it’s the context that matters. I mean, it’s hard to argue that “All lives are equal” and “Freedom is a human right” are controversial statements, the fact that it’s happening at a time when the idea of a ceasefire in Gaza is being debated makes it a political statement and some people get terribly upset when sportspeople make political statements… unless, of course, they’ve just been offered a pre-selection for the party that the person who’d normally object to sportspeople doing anything more than running, jumping and catching balls votes for.

I even saw a couple of comments on social media hoping that Khawaji got a duck in both innings and I have to say that comments like that are so un-Australian that I feel that whoever made them should be deported…

Whatever it’s clear that the writing on the shoes was meant to convey support for the Palestinian people. Clearly by suggesting that all lives were equal, he’s suggesting that somehow Israel’s response to the October 7th atrocities was also an anathema and that killing people is never justified when we all know that the best way to bring peace is to kill a lot of people who’ve done something bad and – unlike you – when you kill people on their side, they are more inclined to just forget the whole thing rather than fight back.

Ignoring the whole Gaza situation for a moment, I’d have to say that I’m finding the Opposition’s recent tactics rather interesting. It seems that focus groups have told them that Albanese is perceived as “weak” by some, and so they’ve decided to hit this button as often as possible.

It may be an effective tactic.

However, there is a big problem with just constantly hitting the same button for two reasons:

1. The first is that it’s pretty easy to anticipate the tactics and have a counter strategy. If a tennis player has a weak backhand and you always attack to their backhand, then they’ll soon either work to improve it or simply run around onto their forward because they know where the ball is going. If a football or basketball team always pass it to the same player to score, then it’s easier to cut it off. If you keep saying that a politician is heartless, it’s easy to get a puff piece of how they always visit their mother on Mothers’ Day. And if a politician is weak, he simply needs to find some way to demonstrate strength… like doing something heartless which The Greens will attack.
2. The second is that it ends up lacking nuance and eventually you end up attacking something which most people support or where what you’re attacking just sounds ridiculous. You can suggest that people should do more to help themselves and that you believe in personal responsibility but when you try to suggest that someone who’s lost their leg should learn to stand on their own two feet you demonstrate the same careful thinking that made Tony Abbott an ex-PM…

All of which brings me back to Australia’s vote at the United Nations. To suggest that voting against the USA and Israel and supporting the ceasefire is weak lacks all traction when your friends in the media and you attack it. Added to that the fact that most Australians are tending towards support for a ceasefire, even if they were appalled by the attacks by Hamas.

Don’t get me wrong. Australia’s foreign policy is only partly what we decide and partly what’s decided for us. In the case of the UN vote, it may well be that we abstained a few weeks ago for fear of upsetting certain allies (such as the US), but we were quietly told that it wouldn’t be altogether wrong if we were to come to our own decision and to put pressure on Israel because the US doesn’t want to do that… at least, not publicly.

And so, the Coalition will be attacking Albanese as weak at every opportunity which gives him the great opportunity to say that he doesn’t care what they say because he’s tough enough to ignore what they say and to get on wth the job just like we’ve done at the recent COP meeting where we stood up to the fossil fuel lobby and pushed for renewables. (Ok, the reality of what we’re actually doing may not match the rhetoric but it won’t be Peter Dutton and fiends calling him out on that!!) To suggest that Albo meekly followed the rest of the world in doing something about climate change when our party is suggesting tripling nuclear energy in Australia – which means precisely nothing because three times zero is still zero – is not the winner you think it is.

As I said before, it’s all about context. You may get some traction with some people who care more about sport than politics when you say the two shouldn’t mix. And they may agree that they hope that Usman Khawaja goes out cheaply. But you might find that they don’t appreciate you cheering if he goes out in the fourth innings when Australia was nine wickets down, needing just two runs to win!

Sometimes people may get the impression that Dutton and his band of smiling assassins enjoy it too much when things go wrong.

Is a Marxist, a socialist? And If the Nazis were the National Socialists does that mean that they were left wing because they had the word “socialist” in their name? And if the Nazis are socialists, does that mean that US Republicans should despise the Liberal Party because of the word “Liberal” in their name and we all know that liberals are responsible for evils like women’s rights and books in libraries? And should we consider that Nationals suspiciously because they share at least part of their name with the National Socialist Party or Nazis?

That’s your essay topic and you need to write it in less characters than will fit on a tweet so you can inform everyone of your opinion and change their mind with a thoroughly explored, reasoned argument. (Just to explain: I saw a comment on The Platform That Used To Known As Twitter before Elon Who Used To Unknown Before He Showed Why Nobody Should Be Allowed To Have More Money Than Functioning Braincells and I know that I can no longer say that I saw a tweet because that is inaccurate and some pedantic person will point out that I shouldn’t have called it a tweet so I’m calling it an X because if Twitter had tweets then X should have Xits and clearly Elon should have an exit but… >sigh<)

Just to help:

Marxism: Surprisingly, not a series of ideas developed by Groucho Marx and John Lennon about how capitalist society was doomed and only humour and music could save it. In fact, it was developed by a German whose family was so ahead of its time that they converted from Judaism to Christianity because they could see the writing on the wall once Wagner, Nietzsche and others wrote the sort of socialist propaganda that suggested that not all men were created equal and various other things that Hitler used to create the idea that the best way to eliminate racism was by eliminating everyone who wasn’t a blue-eyed blonde. Of course, this would later lead to the expression, “You should take a good look in the mirror…”, but Adolph was immune to irony.

Liberalism: A philosophy which argues that people should be free to do anything that person arguing believes to be ok, and that people shouldn’t interfere with the rights of others unless the person arguing thinks that the person doing it has a moral right to do so. For example, I should be able to shit next to your table at dinner but your objection is an infringement of my rights and part of the whole political correctness gone made and cancel culture.

Nazism: A right-wing political movement from pre-WWII Germany which has since been redefined as left-wing because right-wing politicians espousing similar policies, didn’t like being called Nazis.

Education: Something which is meant to be occurring in schools. From time to time it does, but whatever the results, politicians and the media will say that they’re not good enough, and if only teachers stopped asking students to think and told them what to think then we’d all be ok, unless they told them to think the wrong things, in which case they’re Marxists and they shouldn’t be introducing politics to the classroom…

Ok, I saw an X the other day…

Oh, I hope I don’t have to explain the whole tweet/twitter problem again because you weren’t paying attention or because you’ve forgotten it because it was several paragraphs ago…

Anyway I saw a thing on that thing which asked (without a question mark): When did Australia become communist.

And I couldn’t help but wonder how I missed the revolution. I mean I can still remember the Skyhooks singing:

Whatever happened to the revolution
We all got stoned and it drifted away
Whatever happened to the revolution
I think it died just yesterday

Whatever happened to the revolution
We all got stoned and it drifted away
Whatever happened to the revolution
I think it died just yesterday
I think it died just yesterday

Well I remember back in Nineteen Seventy
The army wanted you and the army wanted me
There was a war goin’ on we were out in the streets
Wearin’ our badges and stampin’ our feet

There’s a hundred thousand people all on my side
We didn’t care if we lived or died
Hundred thousand people going to make it come
Hundred thousand people had the man on the run

Everybody thought we could win with a vote
So the band went home without playin’ a note
We forgot about that war but it still went on
I’m alright Jack see you round so long
I’m alright Jack see you round so long

And now today everyone’s a bit older
We’re gettin’ richer but we’re gettin’ colder
We’re lookin’ for somethin’ that just ain’t there
And it don’t mean nothin’ to have long hair
So when you’re ready to make a stand
Open your mouth and raise your hand
When you’re sick of your parties and sick of your sweets
Get off your arses I’ll see you out in the streets

Of course, it’s harder to get out in the streets these days… and I don’t just mean because my hip’s acting up. They’ve got laws that mean you can be arrested for protesting unless you’re wearing black and saying that you’re protesting to make Australia white… seems confusing to me… but I’m finding it hard to understand most things.

Like, why are some people innocent until proven guilty but anyone who was released from indefinite detention who has assaulted someone not being prefaced with the word “alleged”? Is it because we just know they’re guilty or is it because they don’t have the means to sue because they don’t have a large enough income or someone prepared to give them a blind trust…

Now, I’m going to divide you into two groups here:

1. You read the headline and were appalled.
2. You read the headline and immediately realised that in any large group it’s likely that half will be below average.*

And, of course, it’s not that those of you in the first group lack basic numeracy or statistical skills; it’s that you probably didn’t think before reacting.

This week I read a few articles about our failing education system. These were written in response to the latest PISA results. Actually to be fair, I suspect that many of them were written before the PISA results came out because the conclusions overlooked the fact that Australian 15yo students ranked ninth in the world in reading and science, but a shocking tenth in maths.

In reading the conclusions about our education system I couldn’t help remember the “Herald-Sun” article after NAPLAN results which talked about how the lockdowns had led to devastating results for Victorian students. The only problem was that in nearly every table Victorian students were first or second but in true Murdoch media fashion never let the facts get in the way of a good attack on whatever the latest thing you want to get people all agitated about.

Now let’s be clear here: Education is a complicated business with a large number of KPIs, very few of which are generally accepted by everyone. Schools will be judged on NAPLAN, ATAR, and a whole range of tests which most people know nothing about such as PISA, but then they’ll also be criticised because kids are leaving schools without the necessary skills to make their prospective employer happy. And what about these life-skills that people should be taught at school? Not to mention manners… I mean, those kids on the train last night… Then you’ll have some politician complaining that schools aren’t teaching kids values and every school will get posters of Simpson and his donkey and a list of Australian values, before a couple of years later, politicians complaining because schools are indoctrinating students and the classroom should be values free and politics should be left out of the classroom which is a problem if the subject is Legal Studies or Politics…

Yes, Sally got an ATAR of 99.4 and got into Law but she started using drugs and is now in rehab and Freddy got an ATAR of 99.2 and got into medicine but he dropped out because he couldn’t handle the pressure but they’re still a great success story in terms of the school because no school is judged on what their students do five years down the track, unless it’s one of those exceptional things that probably has more to do with the student themself than anything the school did.

The concerning thing, however, was the great divide between those with wealthier backgrounds outperforming those “less-privileged” families…

It’s a great euphemism, isn’t it? “Less-privileged”… It sort of implies that you are privileged but not quite as privileged as those who don’t have to worry about things like money, food and shelter…

Anyway, this was the cue for “The Australian Financial Review” to editorialise about how tossing money at education had failed and Gonski reforms hadn’t worked and teachers should be taught how to manage classes and go back to all the things the research shows work and it’s all really simple. I could point out that the Gonski proposal to fund all schools to a minimum standard was never fully implemented but, again, let’s not let facts get in the way of the argument we want to make. I could also point out that, generally speaking, most of the things that simplistic editorials argue schools should be doing is what schools are doing. I could also point out that – like all science – when people talk about doing what “the research tells us works”, there’s a lot of research and not all of it agrees with each other but tell me again that teachers are quite determined to ignore what works because they all like being criticised for poor results…

It’s always interesting that any so-called failures in education lead to calls for less funding, but, if the security forces failed to predict a terrorist attack, there’d be calls for more funding. Similarly, if hospitals had patients left on trolleys or not being treated in a timely manner, we’d expect more funding. More road accidents doesn’t lead us suggest that we spend too much on repairing roads and eliminating black spots. Only in education does an “unsatisfactory” performance lead to a call for cuts.

It also interesting that the same politicians who argue that money isn’t important when it comes to education, are outraged if it’s suggested that the private school they went to might be able to do without the third practice room for their orchestra.

So in a similar spirit, I offer this editorial to corporate Australia:

“While some companies have made large profits, some companies have been less-privileged. To those companies I say that the time has come to abandon what you’re doing and to go back to what research says is best for companies which is to do thing that makes you profits and stop all this following the latest fad and asking for tax concessions because just throwing money at the problem won’t work!”

*This is not necessarily always true. Sometimes there can be outliers so large that they distort the figures so that average is meaningless and the median is a much more reliable number. For example, if Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and I were all on a plane, my presence would bring down the average wealth to the point that everyone but me would be above average wealth for the duration of the journey. If Elon Musk were to step out of the plane mid-flight, it would bring down the average wealth on the plane but improve the state of the world generally.

Recently I saw this alert on a film I was about to watch which warned me:

STRONG NUDITY

And I couldn’t help but wonder if there are films with weak nudity…

And if there are, exactly what constitutes weak nudity. Is it people who don’t have abs or pectorals? Or is it nudity where the rudest bits are hidden by appropriately placed pot plants?

Whatever, I immediately thought of this video I saw a few days ago, where Ralph Babet talked about how masculinity was under attack before explaining how the left hate strong males, and I couldn’t help but wonder if someone will ask him if he prefers strong males and we’ll have a whole lot of confusing debates about homophobia and LGTBI rights until Ralph says something which gets him even more publicity.

Words are strange things I also keep reading about Bruce Lehrmann and how he strongly and strenuously and consistently denies what is alleged to have happened…

Now I’m not making any comment about the substance of his denials because he has the right to the presumption of innocence. And if he says that he’s not guilty, well, the law is on his side. And, after all, if you can’t trust a man who’s honest enough to admit that he’s lied to his boss, about the whisky and on the Channel 7 interview, then who can you believe? Certainly you can believe Channel 7 who told us that they didn’t pay him for the interview which is true. The fact that they paid for his rent for a year or so is not the same as paying for an interview so you can certainly trust them when they broadcast the news…

When I was a teacher, we’d occasionally get an email at this time of year reminding us that we couldn’t accept expensive gifts worth more than a few dollars. I suppose I could have reminded my students of this and added that this didn’t preclude access to a holiday house or free use of a car should any of their parents want to ensure that their child received that marks that someone with such caring parents deserved…

Speaking of education, I noticed that a Senate committee expressed concern that the behaviour of some students in schools was nearly as bad as politicians during Question Time.

But back to the way people use words.

What strikes me as weird is the idea that when people are accused of crimes that the denial is strenuous or strong. You know the sort of thing, “Mr X issued a strong denial” or “Mr Y strenuously denied the accusation.”

Like I said before, are there films with weak nudity? Are there times when a media report says: “Mr Smith lethargically denied all charges”? If an accusation gets to court, the defendant isn’t asked if he or she pleads Vehemently Not Guilty, Passionately Not Guilty, Strenuously Not Guilty, Partially Not Guilty or Guilty.

I started to think about this in everyday terms. For example, if my wife were to ask if I drank the rest of the red wine that was sitting on the buffet and I replied, “No, I had a sip and it had definitely gone off so I tipped it down the sink!”. it seems a reasonably response which is quite possibly true. Either way, there’s no proof and unless she finds a way to do extensive forensic testing, then any suspicion that I’m lying is unlikely to be proven that it’s best to assume that I’m telling the truth.

However, imagine if she were to ask me and my response was: “No! I strenuously deny drinking the wine. It’s just not true. There was far too much wine there for me to drink in one sitting and I’m outraged that you’d even think such a thing!”

I can’t see that the passion of my protestations of innocence has anything to do with my guilt or innocence, so I don’t know why people have to add adverbs that have no real meaning into their statements. It’s not like we have a rating system where strenuously is better than strongly and vehemently tops them all.