I’ve been thinking about empathy lately.

You know, empathy. That capacity to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and wonder how they can possibly walk with heels that high.

I’ve decided that there’s a distinct lack of empathy from some politicians and it’s this lack from the Coalition that’s one of the possible reasons why – in spite of all the criticism they’ve copped – that Labor are still in front in most polls.

Yes, I know that you’ve probably read many articles about how they’re slipping in the polls and, if I were a political adviser, I’d be suggesting that they do something to try and arrest the slide. I mean, they can’t rely on media outlets giving them a boost by interviewing members of the Coalition front bench. When people start to wonder why they voted Labor up pops Peter Dutton/Angus Taylor/Sussan Ley/Jane Hume and most people go: “Ah, now I remember!”

Of course, if you were one of the few people who managed to sit through the first episode of “Nemesis”, you’d have been reminded about how Abbott lost 30 opinion polls before being replaced by Turnbull. You’d have also been reminded that when a spill was first called by Abbott, nobody stood against him so his opponent was an “empty chair”. Now, I don’t want to make it sound like the chair was unimpressive in its attempt to lead the Liberal Party, but I take the fact that it received over thirty votes, to be more a reflection on how the party felt about Credlin’s leadership than anything that the chair did.

When the time came for Turnbull, he managed to turn that around and win a few polls before people realised that he had managed to convince certain factions that he wouldn’t be doing the sort of things that Tony did. In fact, he’d be happy just having the title PM and an office window where he could stare out and wonder whether if this is how dogs chasing cars feel if they ever catch one. It didn’t take long before Turnbull had the government behind in the polls and, after scraping back in 2016 thanks to a shock result in Chisholm, there was a general expectation that he’d lose the 2019 election. Peter Dutton put his hand up, telling people that if anyone was going to lose the 2019 election it’d be him and, after successfully causing Turnbull to take his bat and ball and go home, Peter opened the door for Scott Morrison.

I bring all this up to remind everyone that, in the end, people are reluctant to change the government. When it’s polling day, they’re much more likely to go, “Mm, things aren’t really that bad, maybe I shouldn’t risk the other mob because who knows what they’ll do?”

Which is why the Liberals are running so hard on the idea of a broken promise and the idea that you can’t trust Labor. If you think back to the last time that the Coalition won government from Opposition their strategy was similar: Labor lied about the carbon tax, Labor have us in a budget crisis, and we’ll stop the boats and bring a stronger economy thanks to Jobsandgrowth. Their main positive policy was the paid maternity leave which they scrapped without it being broken promise because, well, we just couldn’t afford it and that’s not a broken promise because… Look, no boats!

However, as Heraclitus said: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

The essential problem with trying to jump into the same river for the Liberals – apart from Peter Dutton looking even worse in speedos than Abbott did – is related to their lack of empathy for anyone but the fortunate few.

Abbott managed to create a lot of concern about a “carbon tax” which was “great big tax on everything”. While anyone with an understanding of the issue understood that not only was it not on everything, it wasn’t even a tax, the fact that this broken promise might make things more expensive was a concern to people. However, I suspect it’s going to be much harder to get most people worked up by telling them that they’re getting a tax cut thanks to Labor changing their mind on Stage 3. Similarly when Keith from Kew complains that he’s only getting $3729 instead of double that, we’re hardly going to have people joining him in street marches or contributing to his GoFundMe campaign to help him manage with school fees.

And lately, the Keystone cops of the shadow cabinet have been demonstrating their empathy for landlords by suggesting that we can’t trust Labor and that negative gearing will next to go, along with franking credits. Why negative gearing and franking credits?

Well, I suspect that in their minds, it played out well in 2019 when Shorten lost the election after proposing changes to these. Of course, the trouble with elections is that when people vote they don’t add something about the reason they voted that way. This enables people to create all sorts of narratives which suit their particular agenda even though nobody has any real idea why Susie from Sunshine and Barry from Berwick voted for a particular party.  I’m sure that if you could capture the thoughts of all the voters at the time of voting as well as the rusted-ons and the carefully considered swinger, there’d be a number who’d be thinking something like:

“I’m not voting for that candidate because they look like my ex.”

“I think I’ll vote for Jim because he got a grant for the footy club to build the clubrooms.”

“Mm, that one wears glasses so he must be intelligent.” 

“I’m not voting for the government because they’re too woke and they want women as candidates.”

“I met our local member at a barbecue and she agreed with me on most things so I expect that’s her party’s policy.”

“Gee, I should have taken one of those how-to-vote things. Is it the highest number for your favourite candidate or should I put a one beside him.”

“My dad said that he hates liberals because they’re commies so I guess I better vote for someone else. Mm, communists are red so I guess I should vote for the Green Party.”

And so on.

As far as 2019 is concerned, I strongly suspect that a number of people didn’t think about negative gearing or franking credits or electric vehicles because these things weren’t part of their immediate concerns. However, those “Back In Black” mugs gave the impression that, even though the Liberals were heartless, cigar-smoking bastards who thought that you weren’t entitled to anything, they at least knew how to manage the economy and all the pain of Abbott, Hockey, Turnbull, Morrison and company was for a purpose and they deserved to be given another term.

So if they try to re-prosecute the 2019 election, the run the very real risk of people going: “Wait a minute, you promised the budget would be back in the black and it wasn’t…”

Not only that, but it’s harder to get renters to empathise for the poor landlord who just put up their rent by more than their promised tax cut, and it’s hard to get someone struggling to buy their first home to be upset that changes to negative gearing may force some poor landlord to sell two or more of their ten properties.

As far as the franking credits go, most voters didn’t really understand what was being proposed… Certainly a large number of Liberals didn’t based on what they said, because if they did, what they said would have been a lie and we all know that it’s not in their DNA to lie… Labor weren’t taking away franking credits; they were simply proposing to close a loophole where if you paid no or very little income tax you could convert the taxed part to a refund. Franking credits were to stop people being taxed twice, but under the change that Howard made, some share income isn’t even taxed once.

It’s not true that the Liberal Party don’t know how to show empathy. The trouble is that they’re giving too much of their empathy to landlords, self-funded retirees and those with incomes over $150,000, rather than the unemployed, the homeless and those struggling who’ll be glad of the Stage 3 changes. Nothing wrong with that, but I suspect it’s no way to win an election.

There are two sorts of broken promises. Here is an example of each:

1. I borrow $500 from you and promise I’ll pay it back next week even though I have no intention of paying it back and you deserve to lose your money for being such a fool as to lend it to me.
2. I promised that I’d drive Barry to the airport this weekend but I don’t because he’s now in intensive care in a hospital and his trip has been cancelled.

In the latter case, I’m sure that keeping my promise is probably not something that I’ll be praised for.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m unhooking all these tubes so I can get Barry to the airport like I promised…”

“But he’ll die if you move him.”

“Sure, but a promise is a promise and I can’t let a little thing like his life stand in the way of me keeping my word!”

I’ll leave you to decide whether Labor’s broken promise on tax cuts is an example of the first one or the second one…

I do want to point out, however, that Labor went to the election promising not to make changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts. After the election they were often asked if that promise still stood to which the reply was always something like: “We have no plans to make changes,” or “We haven’t changed our position.”

Now that changes are proposed, these will be regarded as weasel words and, while it’s impossible to prove that they were always going to make the changes, the media is putting forward the idea that Labor promised on a number of occasions that there’d be no change even though all they said was that they had no plans to make changes. It may seem a pedantic point but anyone who listens to politicians of all persuasions should hear the silent “at this point” at the end of that statement.

Of course this begs the question: Why did journalists keep asking a question that had been answered hundreds of times?

If I were to give my answer to that question it would be that it was because just about everyone knew that the Stage 3 tax cuts were a silly idea because they were unaffordable, they were inflationary and they benefitted people who were already well off.

Naturally when I say “everybody” I don’t mean actually everybody. I just mean everybody who was part of the media group asking the question. After all, if you thought the tax cuts were just fine and dandy, why would presume that it was necessary to check with the government that they hadn’t changed their minds? Surely you’d be better off asking a question where you didn’t know that the answer would be: We haven’t changed our position on that.

If I were cynical, I might suggest that Labor were always going to find a way to tweak the tax cuts and that waiting until now and calling the MPs back early because something needs to be done about the cost of living “crisis” makes it easier to argue that they really didn’t have any plans and that it’s just something that happened… sort of like Barry’s accident… and it would be wrong to keep the promise and that it’s a sign of strength that they’re prepared to do the right thing even if it’s hard…

At what point did the cost of living become a “crisis”? It’s interesting. I mean we had a budget “crisis” when Australia’s debt blew out to almost $300 billion but then the Liberals were elected to fix things and it was no problem after that. It was no problem even when it grew to three times that.

Similarly, the cost of living and housing is always a crisis for the people who can’t afford to feed their families or put a roof over their heads. It’s interesting to try and work out at what point does this become the sort of problem that always has “crisis” attached to it when the media talks about it. Maybe it’s as soon as we’ve had a Labor government for more than two months…

So how will this broken promise/change of circumstances/help for struggling taxpayers play out?

Well, the Coalition will oppose any change, and The Greens will argue that the changes don’t go far enough. On past form, the Coalition will block it whatever, while The Greens will try and extract some change to make the point that there’s a point to them having a large number of Senators.

The Coalition will run hard on the idea that governments should never break promises and hope that nobody remembers that they promised to introduce a federal integrity commission which they argued that they couldn’t do because Labor didn’t agree with their proposed model, conveniently overlooking the fact that there are many things that they did without worrying whether Labor agreed or not. And they can hope that nobody will bring up the fact that they were the party that introduced the term “core and non-core promises” because it’s just so last century, like the “never, ever GST”…

If Labor can’t get the legislation through, it could be a trigger for a double dissolution down the road. While it seems unlikely that they’d want to go to an election on the basis of not being able to pass legislation that enabled them to break a promise, it’s hard to know how popular the proposed tax changes will be.

Personally, I suspect that a large number of people will decide that they only care about broken promises when it hits them personally and, while they’ll support the idea in principle that promises should be kept, they’ll agree that circumstances change and one of the things that helps them understand that is the idea that the change in circumstance is that they need the money more than someone earning more than they are… although it could be argued that that’s not really a change.

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…