Let’s start with a decision by a future Australian government to build zoos in order to ensure that biodiversity isn’t lost. This plan involves building 500 zoos in regional centres and, as part of the attempt to save threatened species, they promise a Giant Panda in every zoo.

While this would undoubtedly by attacked as a shocking waste of money by some, that’s not the main problem with the idea. I’ll get back to the zoos later but first I’d like to concentrate on their second proposal which also includes plans to get the regional centres moving by announcing that there will be at least one Taylor Swift concerts in each of these 500 centres and tickets will be $25 each with a concession for students, the unemployed and pensioners.

Again, some will be overjoyed by this decision while others will attack the outrageous waste of money.

Now let me make the point here and now that it’s very hard for a federal government to totally waste money. Of course we can argue about whether the money could have been better spent but, when it comes to governments wasting money, they control the money so it’s the equivalent of arguing that you wasted a cheque from your cheque book when you ripped it up because you made a mistake. You still have the money in your account and you can still spend it. Governments create the money when they spend it so they can continue to create it until… well, this is where it gets interesting.

Of course, it’s hard to know how much it would cost to get Taylor Swift to agree to holding so many concerts in Australia but let’s put it down as one of the costs and just ignore it because it doesn’t suit the rest of the explanation. In doing this I am following a path frequently used by economists where you ignore something which doesn’t suit your argument.

The obvious point is that – at $25 a ticket – you’ll be sold out but given you’ll have to hire stadiums or put up temporary stages as well as paying to have tickets printed and sold, employing people for front of house and security and whole range of things, it’s likely that the whole thing will be a loss making venture.

This would be a problem for anyone in private industry but let me point out something that’s frequently forgotten in this day of privatisation of government services: Governments aren’t there to make a profit! 

Yes, I know. That be communist talk and if we were in America then they’d be using their Second Arm-end-meant rights to rip off their sleeves and bare their arms and deal with me... unless I was Putin who seems to be ok with a large number of US citizens these days.

But it’s true. It’s not socialism. It’s just one of the reasons we have governments: to do what isn’t profitable but seems like a good idea. It covers things like defence and once upon a time it would have even covered the Post Office because we thought the idea of being able to cheaply send things from one place to another was of benefit to society. Governments were expected to do what wasn’t profitable but helpful to the smooth running of society. (On the other hand, I did hear a Liberal politician complain a few years ago that social housing wasn’t making a profit but that’s a whole other story.)

Anyway, back to Taylor Swift concerts. there’s plenty of arguments you can raise about how the money could have been better spent but none of them defeat the basic point that it’s not wasted. All the extra work that was created as a result of the exercise has given people extra money and some of them are very glad of it. Just like with the recent Voice Referendum where some are complaining about the money spent when there’s a cost of living crisis, the argument about wasted money completely ignores the fact that some people who got a boost to their bank balance as a result of work created.

But, I hear you say, surely if the government had enough money to create all these concerts then they could have spent it on things like health or education. Or energy. We need cheaper energy costs. These are all areas that desperately need money and while I accept that the concerts weren’t all bad what about the areas of great need?

Yes, well, this is where we get back to the promise of a Giant Panda in every zoo. Currently there aren’t enough pandas in the world to fulfil that promise, so it really doesn’t matter how much the government says it’s prepared to spend. Unless it has access to some radical panda breeding program, it’ll never be able to honour that promise so it’s not about the money. A trillion dollars still won’t put the pandas in the zoos.

Which is the current problem with health and education and energy: there are shortages that can’t be solved by money in the short term. Spending money might help but fixing the problem needs a plan. And the time for making that plan is several years ago.

As someone said the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now.

Trying to find a consistent pattern to the Liberals has been difficult over the years, but I’d have to say that Dutton has raised it to a whole new level.

Let’s take their position on the repeal of 18C. Georgie Brandis asserted that people had a right to be bigots and the general position of the Coalition was that if anyone got offended by anything then that was the price of free speech in a robust democracy and we should all stop being snowflakes and just accept that people could say whatever and, as long as you weren’t saying that Andrew Bolt or Sam Newman was racist then you were allowed to say whatever you liked.

Ok, they didn’t get around to repealing 18C but the position has pretty much remained the same. Political correctness has gone mad and we’ve got to stop all these woke people from policing everything we do and say…

However when some protesters started chanting some anti-semitic things and generally being offensive, Peter Dutton suggested that they should have their visas cancelled and be deported.

Don’t get me wrong here: I’m part of those politically correct woke folk who think that people are responsible for what they say. I just find it strange that a person can go from dismissing that to deportation rather than education and/or fines for offensive racist behaviour.

Still consistency has never been Dutton’s strong point. We’re very tough on borders unless it involves au pairs or Liberal Party donors who may have had a colourful past where nothing was ever proven.

When it comes to the Voice, Dutton was against inserting race into the Constitution. Although he also said that he would have backed inserting race into the Constitution if it had just involved recognition and not the Voice. So it’s ok to have race there so long as it’s only an acknowledgment that First Nations people existed here before us, but it’s not ok if it says that we have to listen to what they say… unless they’re Jacinta or Warren in which case we should listen to everything they say.

Of course, we were told that this was Albanese’s Voice and that it was his referendum and that it was a Canberra Voice and whole lot of other things that were wrong with it. We were told that it would be a terrible thing because it was causing division and that it was all Albo that was causing that division and that he wasn’t giving us the detail and that if only he’d done this or that then Dutton and friends could have supported it because they’re not racists no matter how many apologies they walk out on or how many times they tell us that the solution to closing the gap is to send in the army.

So if – as looks likely – it’s defeated, then I’m sure we’ll hear from Mr Dutton that it was because of Labor and that Albanese should step down because…

Because the Voice was defeated?

But wasn’t the Voice a bad thing?

And if it’s Albanese’s fault then shouldn’t all those people who voted against it be giving him three cheers?

Or was Dutton’s stance against the Voice just a cheap attempt to gain a win against Labor by taking the low hanging fruit of ensuring that a Constitutional Referendum is defeated?

The recent problems in the Middle East have led a number of commentators to speculate that this may lead to higher fuel prices which will undoubtedly lead to higher inflation. Higher inflation will put pressure on the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates with a view to controlling inflation.

Now I know what some of you are thinking… how will raising interest rates help the situation in the Middle East?

Well, the simple answer is that it won’t but – as was pointed out many times when the Ukraine situation led to higher prices – when you only have a hammer then all you can do is hit things and pretend that people with a mortgage are a nail.

Part of the problem with economics is that people don’t understand how it works and the reason for that is: it doesn’t. Or to put it another way, there are many economic theories that are beautiful in their simplicity and they explain quite well the way that things would work in an ideal world that didn’t have other economists or people to stuff up the theory.

Let’s start with the simple idea of supply and demand. In theory, prices move toward a point where demand equals supply. For example, if I’m standing outside a Taylor Swift concert selling autographed photos and I only have ten, I’d be silly to charge $2 for them because I’m pretty sure that I could get more. On the other hand, I’ll have a very long evening if I try to charge $1000 for them. So – according to economic theory – I should be adjusting my price until I find the price at which demand equals supply.

There are only two things wrong here. If I’d started with a price that was too low, then I may have sold them all before they hit the top price I could get for them. On the other hand, if I started at a $1000, I may not care that I’ve only sold one and I’m happy to go home content that I haven’t had to waste a lot of time trying to work out that magical spot where demand meets supply.

Of course, when it comes to Taylor Swift we need to understand that phenomena of inelasticity of demand. Surprising as this may be to all those fans who said that they’d pay anything for a ticket, going to a Taylor Swift concert comes under the heading of discretionary spending which means that you can choose not to go… Yes, this may be a shock to a number of people, but I assure you that even people who aren’t economists will back me on that.

Various other items aren’t discretionary. For example, you can’t say to your landlord that you’re a bit short of money so you’ll only sleep in your home six out of seven nights and you expect your rent to reflect this. You only have a choice of paying your rent in full or moving into your car which is pretty tough choice, particularly for those who don’t own a car. As Joe Hockey famously told us: “Poor people don’t drive!” 

So when the RBA puts interest rates up, it’s trying to reduce demand. The only problem is that when the factors pushing interest rates up are items that people don’t have a lot of choice about such as mortgage repayments, petrol, rent, energy and food then the increase in interest rates will drive down discretionary items but overall demand for rest will be relatively unchanged.

Or to put it as simply as I can: putting less petrol in your car won’t change the overall world demand for oil and it won’t drive the price down, so an interest rate hike won’t solve inflation in fuel prices. It may, however, put people out of work in other areas such as hospitality and retail which means that they don’t have to worry about the cost of fuel as they have no job to go to.

If this all sounds a little insensitive it’s because I’m talking about economics and if there’s one thing I’ve learned while reading The Australian Financial Review it’s that there’s only one thing to consider when talking about economics and that’s whether there’s money to be made. It’s one paper that tries to give you good information about what’s actually happening because unlike the rest of the media, people who lose money because they were given incorrect information get far more upset than when politicians tell you that there’ll be no cuts to the ABC, education or health. Of course, you do have to ignore the fact that many of the writers are the sorts of people who’d try to keep their parents out of aged care. Not because of concerns about the welfare of their parents but because they’d have to sell their home and the market should be making a strong recovery next year and their inheritance would be considerably more…

Anyway, the basic problem is that Australia’s inflation problem won’t be solved by the Reserve Bank. In fact, the only thing that we can really do is rely on the federal government to come up with creative solutions to the problems that inflation causes. And, of course, any creative solution will be attacked by the Liberals and the media without coming up with any other solution. It’s only a matter of time before the old “Look at the debt!” resurfaces.

I intend to address the issue of government debt at some future date and to explain how it only matters when they promise to give every zoo in Australia a giant panda, but I’ll save that for another time…

Apparently, Dan Tehan was on QandA last night. I only know this because I’ve picked it up on social media because I’ve been forbidden to watch the show for the past ten years or so, owing to my tendency to shout verbal obscenities at some of the guests and my wife convinced me that this was a) a potential problem for our neighbours, b) bad for my blood pressure and c) a serious risk that I’d throw something at the TV.

Just in case you don’t know who he is, Dan Tehan is the shadow minister for Immigration and Citizenship. Don’t bother checking Wikipedia for that because it’s not there. Apparently something like that isn’t worth updating. As for his other roles, he’s held various ministries including education where his major contribution was to change the fee structure to encourage “job ready” graduates. This meant that courses such as a Bachelor of Arts would be increased while STEM courses would be cheaper. Obviously, Tehan knows that an Arts graduate isn’t “job ready” and has few skills because that’s the course that he took at Melbourne University.

Anyway, Dan was on QandA and he made some very interesting claims such as the one about any changes to the structure of the Voice would need another referendum. While he was challenged on this, it did seem rather strange that someone who’d been in Parliament for years didn’t seem to understand how the system worked, particularly when it’s been debated at length:

“Before we agree to the Voice we want to see the detail of what it will look like!”

“The Referendum is just to establish the principle of the Voice and the actual form will be decided by Parliament…”

“Yeah, but we want to see what it’ll be like before we enshrine it in the Constitution.”

“But that isn’t what we’ll be putting in the Constitution. It’s like when it says that the Federal Government will have responsibility for defence; that doesn’t dictate how many ships and planes we have…”

And so on…

But Mr Tehan seemed unable to grasp the simple fact that the Referendum -if successful – will only embed the fact of an Indigenous Voice. How it’s established would be a matter for the Parliament and if Tony Mundine (and his second cousin) Warren have any input the composition of the Voice will be made up of the winners after several rounds in a boxing ring… Mind you, I can’t see that getting through the Parliament now that Tony Abbott is no longer there.

Whatever the end result of the Referendum, I’d have to give Dan Tehan full marks for his display. When you’re supporting a campaign whose chief message is: “If you don’t know, Vote No!”, Mr Tehan was a shining example of someone who seemed to be totally ignorant of just about anything he spoke about.

Mind you, I didn’t watch the full program. I’ve only gone back and watched bits and he may have been taken out of context…  Although it’s hard to be taken out context when what you’ve said is just plain ignorant. Like when he called for Albanese to stop the Referendum a few days ago which is not within the Prime Minister’s power now that the writs have gone out. This means that either Tehan was playing some sort of political game here or else he really is as silly as he sounds.

Let me be quite clear here: Just as not all those working at Auschwitz were anti-Semitic, not everyone opposing the Voice is racist. Some were simply doing a job and following orders because they’re part of the Shadow Cabinet and, similarly, some have been told to Vote No because they don’t know and they’re doing just that. And yes, some have totally different reasons for voting No, and they’re neither racist nor ignorant.

HOWEVER…

I believe there is a special place in Hell…

(Ok, it may be a surprise that I’m talking about Hell but I saw the cover of Scotty Morrison’s upcoming book: “PLANS FOR YOUR FUTURE”, which had the subheading: “A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness”, and I thought if a Prime Minister gives the Omnipotent Ruler of the Universe a thumbs up, who am I to discount the possibility of Hell?)

So I believe that there should be a special place in Hell for those who know that they’re doing the wrong thing by siding with a campaign of misinformation that will potentially do incredible damage to our nation and just idly sit by claiming Cabinet solidarity or some sort of journalistic both sides nonsense. While it’s admirable for the media to try and be fair, that doesn’t mean that if you present information, you have to treat misinformation with the same respect.

Nobody is discussing the flow-on effect of the Voice falling to get up. If we put the Indigenous issues aside for one moment – or a few decades, as John Howard managed to do – there are all sorts of other consequences. For example, any appetite for a Referendum on the Republic will be dead for the life of this government and probably several future ones.

But whatever happens, I can’t see much of an upside for Peter Dutton. His prevarication about whether he’d support the Voice always looked phoney and, if it is defeated, it actually won’t be because people have suddenly found the ugly, racist side of Australia appealing; it’ll be because there was a lot of confusion.

We can analyse and cast blame all day long, but if we have Hanson and Bolt and various others celebrating the defeat with the sort of hyperbolic nonsense about apartheid, then it probably doesn’t actually help Dutton win support for the next election. His cunning plan may hurt Albanese, but it will also leave him in a limbo with nowhere really to go. Will he support a legislated Voice that isn’t in the Constitution? Will he support “practical solutions”? Will he call for the army to go Alice Springs?

In a few months’ time, will Dutton’s Liberals look as silly as those embracing on the floor of Parliament after the repeal of the carbon “tax”?

With the resignation of Dan Andrews, Victorians can once again go to coffee shops and cafe owners will undoubtedly be offering free coffee in celebration… Strangely the little bit of Sky News I watched didn’t even go to them, but chose to interview journalists about how they found the Premier combative and evasive as he stood there refusing to give them the answers that they were after, particularly during Covid lockdowns when he failed to acknowledge the fact that Gladys had been unfairly treated by the ABC when she was merely canonised when she should have been deified…

Of course, I have to admit that all those people who predicted that Dan Andrews would stand down were right, even if they got the timing wrong by something like two years. I know how frustrating it is when my wife won’t accept that when I say there’s no need to water the garden because it’s going to rain that I was right because it did rain… Ok, all the plants are dead because it’s three months after I predicted it, but I was basically correct, even if the timing was a little out.

All right, I should just stop and acknowledge that whatever else, Andrews did a lot right as Premier. Nobody’s perfect and during his time as leader, Victoria has done a whole range of things that I thought were too progressive for any government to risk. From assisted dying to safe injecting rooms to laws preventing protestors from harassing women seeking an abortion to attempting to improve public transport to… Well, there’s been a lot which is why he’s upset so many conservatives and pretend conservatives who like to feign outrage and complain about the fabric of society being destroyed while they demonstrate their commitment to family values by only having an affair and not breaking up the family.

Of course, there were a number of articles this morning about what a shocking job he’d done and how the voters were just idiots who didn’t know how oppressed they were. Phil Coorey who is best remembered for his article on how Gladys saved Australia wrote in this morning’s Financial Review that his government came “stone motherless last on every metric in terms of handling the pandemic”. Interesting that the paper he writes for was also critical of Mark McGowan for closing off his state and streeting the rest of Australia in every metric and lost very few people to Covid meaning that he can’t be accused of being stone motherless last. Surprisingly, Coorey was terribly impressed with Gladys in spite of the Ruby Princess, the untested chauffeur setting off a wave and various other things that one would have thought rivalled any alleged mistakes that Andrews made.

Credlin, Bolt and various other Murdoch commentators seemed to be genuinely aggrieved that Dan had managed to leave on his own terms, rather than being dragged out by the ugly mobs marching on the Victorian Parliament and strung up on the gallows that someone had erected.

Rachel Baxendale, journalist for The Australian, was on the ABC telling viewers that Andrews avoided scrutiny by ignoring the media. Strange that she should forget that, during the pandemic, Andrews fronted the cameras day after day, answering the questions that she managed to skillfully read from her phone without ever letting it slip that they were from a prominent Liberal.

How dare Andrews use social media and speak directly to the public, is the subtext of Baxendale’s complaint. It must be frustrating for these people who, in days gone by, would have been the gatekeepers of information and carefully filtered what we got to see and hear. Well, yes, they still try to do that but these days, you can also read what I have to say. And not just me, there are lots of other people who can blog, post, tweet… sorry X, or whatever takes their fancy. And, by and large, they’re unfiltered…

Which, of course, raises the obvious question: Does information filtered through a respected media that people just presume is telling the truth represent a bigger threat to democracy than unfiltered information from unverified sources that don’t follow any rules?

And, of course, that would be an interesting question to pursue were it not for the simple fact that thanks to the advent of the Murdoch media, there is no longer any concern with rules or the facts or fairness. “Fair and balanced” was only adopted by Fox News after it was realised that “Fair and Right” made them sound a little too much like the Nazis.

As Steve Bannon said: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real enemy is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

Next time Peter Dutton announces on Sunday that he’ll hold another referendum if elected, only to say that he won’t on Thursday, or Dan Tehan tells us that Albanese should call off the referendum (which can’t happen without the approval of Parliament which won’t sit before the vote), then ask yourself if they haven’t decided to take Bannon’s advice.

P.S. I wonder if Dan Andrews thought about making a comment about how Rupert Murdoch quit before he did.

“Beer?”

“Thanks”

“So what you been up to this week?”

“I went on a march to support the No Campaign.”

“Really, why?”

“Look there’s no need to attack me just because I don’t support apartheid in Australia and I want to stop aboriginals being given my house.”

“I wasn’t attacking you, I just wondered why you were marching when you’ve never been political before.”

“Yeah, well, most political causes rely on you knowing what you’re talking about and some smart-arse will tie you up in knots, but this time it’s great because the whole case behind No is about knowing nothing. They said: “If you don’t know, vote No!” and I thought that sounds like me, so…”

“I just worry that some of the people who were telling us to us to “do our own research” during the pandemic are now telling us that we shouldn’t do any and just vote accordingly…”

“Look mate, there were a whole range of different people marching. Men, women, black, white, old, young. There were all sorts.”

“Nazis?”

“Yeah, like I said, there were all sorts.”

“It doesn’t worry you that you’re on the same side as the Nazis?”

“Why should it? I mean we didn’t invite them and if they choose to come and march with us, why can’t they. It’s a free country.”

“Yeah but doesn’t it worry you that you’re on the same side as them.”

“Nah, you got that wrong. It’s them who are on the same side as us. We don’t support their views, they just happen to support ours.”

“I don’t really see the difference.” 

“Look, if someone’s walking down the road and you start going in the same direction, then you’re following them, but if you start walking before they do, then it’s them that’s following you…”

“Yeah but if you’re both going in the same direction, isn’t that a worry?”

“Nah, why should it be?”

“Well, if you don’t wonder why you’re both going to the same place… I mean, it’d worry me if I was in a group and I found that we were all going to line up to get tickets to a Rolf Harris tribute band…”

“Is there a Rolf Harris tribute band?”

“No I was just… Anyway, let’s change the subject. Did you hear that Tony Abbott’s been appointed to the News Corp board?”

“Yeah, great move. Whether you agree with him or not, he’s a man who always says what he thinks. He was one of the few leaders to tell us that this climate change stuff is all crap.”

“But he said he didn’t say that!”

“Well, he had to say that to get elected, didn’t he?”

“You just said that he was a man who always says what he thinks and now…”

“You can’t always say what you think when you’re in politics, but I always knew what he was thinking.”

“I never he knew when he was thinking.”

“Ha ha. No Tony was one of those who really stuck it to the inner-city elites who keep trying to tell us what to do.”

“How exactly?”

“Well, by becoming Prime Minister and pissing them all off by stopping all that politically correct, cancel culture nonsense.”

“And then the Liberal Party cancelled him, followed by his own electorate.”

“Yeah, that’s the trouble: people don’t know what’s good for them.”

“So they should be told what to do?”

“Yeah!”

“But not by inner city elites. I see.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Look people get sick of being told what to do by people who think that they’re superior. Take Sam Newman. All he said was that people should boo the welcome to country and all these virtue signallers said that he was an old fart who’s had too much botox and it’s gone to his brain. I mean who are they to tell Sam what to do. He’s got as much right as anyone to come out and tell people to boo. That’s the trouble with the country today people who think that they’re always right and feel that they should be able to dictate to others and I don’t think that it should be allowed!”

“But you’re just contradicting yourself. It’s like all those people who complained that Russell Brand is innocent until proven guilty and that they know that all the people making accusations are part of some giant conspiracy.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, if Brand has the right to the presumption of innocence, don’t his accusers have the same right?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re probably guilty.”

“But… Never mind. Do you want another beer?”

“Nah, I better be getting back to work. I’ve got an opinion piece to write on how schools are dumbing down the curriculum and making our kids stupider.”

“Ah, are you for or against?”

“Against. How could anyone be in favour of people being dumber?”

“Yeah, I wonder that myself sometimes.” 

Lately I’ve started reading a book called, “The End Of Reality” by Jonathan Taplin which has the tagline: “How Four Billionaires Are Selling Out Our Future.”

While the book has been interesting so far, there was a section about Elon Musk which grabbed my attention. He was driving Peter Thiel, his partner in PayPal, to a meeting and demonstrating “the awesome acceleration” of his $150,000 McLaren sports car when he plowed into an embankment. Apparently Musk told Thiel: “You know, I read all these stories about people who made money and bought sports cars and crashed them. But I knew it would never happened to me, so I didn’t get insurance.”

Musk had the controlling interest in the company at the time and he wanted to drop the name PayPal in favour of X.com, even though there was some suggestion that sounded more like a porn site and it was likely to confuse existing customers.

Of course, the money men were a wee bit concerned about Musk’s erratic behaviour, so they forced him to step aside as CEO and, as we know, PayPal still exists as PayPal and the only things that have the name “X” are one of his children and the site that used to be known as Twitter.

Musk resembles a child whose parents won’t let him name their pet “Fartin’ Martin”, so he grows up and names his first child that to show that he’s now an adult and he can do what he likes, so there!

For anyone who’s noticed how business normally works, it’s pretty usual to try and keep your customers happy and if you have a recognisable brand and name then it’s a good idea to keep it. Frequently the reason people change the name of a business is so that unsuspecting people won’t realise that it’s the same company that has been annoying their friends and family.

And speaking of Brands, you’ve probably heard about Russell’s troubles…

Well, I want to make it clear here that I support the concept of the legal process which includes the whole we need presume innocence until guilt is proven.

HOWEVER…

I would just like to point out that it’s rather strange when people start down the path of the whole innocent until proven guilty thing, only to then start to suggest that various other people are guilty of various other misdeeds.

For example, when someone asks why they didn’t report it at the time, it shows not only a misunderstanding of how intimidating it can be to report a crime and how it may take time to process what’s happened and to summon up the strength to see it through. Add to that the fear that they may not be believed. Strangely that last point is dismissed by the very people who are doubting the person who has come forward.

The other strange idea is that this whole thing has been manufactured because good old Russell is presenting alternative views and has upset certain people and that it’s all part of some conspiracy. Well, of course there is a possibility that certain people have been upset by some the things he’s said and they’re more than happy to let the story run. But again, this sort of makes it sound like Mr Brand has only just lately started saying the sort of things that upset the powers that be and that this is how they’re going to shut him up.

Notwithstanding the idea that everyone has a potential influence, it would be easier to shut someone up by not giving them any airtime, the fact remains that something like this is more likely to give Russell Brand an audience than no publicity at all. This gives him the perfect platform to announce that he’s being stopped from speaking in much the same way that Andrew Bolt frequently uses his colon to complain about censorship. (The “colon” was initially a spellcheck error but it sounds more appropriate than “column” so I let it stand.)

Of course Russell has previously had the support of Elon Musk: “I watched some of his videos. Ironically, he seemed more balanced & insightful than those condemning him! The groupthink among major media companies is more troubling. There should be more dissent.” We’ll probably find Musk tweeting… sorry, Xing, something that will give an even bigger boost to Russell even though they may have seemingly different political philosophies.

In some ways, they don’t differ all that much. Musk espouses an anti-government libertarian philosophy and some of you may remember a number of years ago when he was guest-editing “The New Statesman”, Russell Brand announced that he didn’t vote because the system was ineffectual and encouraged others to do the same, because by not voting then politicians would somehow feel the pressure and lift their game.

It seems to have worked a treat because in the intervening years, the British have had Conservatives elected a number of times and the Brexit referendum passed. It’s easy to say that the other party are no better when you’re not the one relying on the government to actually provide funding for your wheelchair. Those Communists in the British Labour Party may not have the same enthusiasm for lining the millionaire up against the wall as we’ve come to expect in the 20th Century, but they still spend a touch more on things like Health and Education.

And, devotees of Russell’s Revolution not voting in the United States may have helped Trump to become President where he managed to appoint enough judges to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe versus Wade.

Even if you don’t like the alternatives being presented, simply not voting isn’t really likely to change the system. If enough people turn up and vote for the “Let’s Have A Party” Party or the “May The Fourth Be With You” Party, then, at the very least politicians will start to wonder what ideas they need to steal from them.

But like I said, let’s not presume guilt just because a handful of women who don’t know each other all make a claim against someone. After all, it could be that Big Pharma is so upset that Russ is complaining about them and they regard him as so influential that they feel the need to make up this whole thing instead of just having him arrested by planting drugs on him… which being Big Pharma, they could manufacture quite easily…

For years, we’ve heard the Murdoch Malevolents complain about the bias of the ABC and, when anyone suggests that they themselves are biased, the response is: “We’re a private company; we’re allowed to be biased.” The ABC, on the other hand, don’t have that right and the Murdoch press complains that it presents a different point of view to them so therefore, it’s far too left-wing.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed the odd comment about how the Labor government is showing a bias towards the Voice and how dare they not be impartial when it’s there’s an upcoming Referendum…

Let’s stop and think about that for a moment.

A political party showing bias. You know, actually have a point of view and not being impartial. Why that’s unheard of. It’s outrageous. I can’t see why the Governor-General doesn’t sack them and install the army to rule…

Of course, the people complaining about the bias of Labor on the Voice aren’t the slightest bit concerned that the Liberal Party have adopted a position. Neither are they concerned about the National Party’s decision to oppose it. Or Pauline Hanson’s One Notion. Or…

No, it’s only the government who are meant to be unbiased.

Let me be clear here. The complaints weren’t that the government was funding one side and not the other, or that the Yes case was first in that little booklet that we got and that the No case was on the opposite page. No, the complaint was that members of the government were expressing an opinion. 

How dare they? Senator Neville Bonner would be turning in his grave because, as George Brandis, assured us, the first Indigenous Liberal senator would have been dead set against a Voice to Parliament, and if there’s one thing that the Liberal Party has shown over the years, it’s that they are in the best place to speak for people who can’t speak for themselves like women and other minority groups… Yes, well women may not be a minority group in the general community but that one woman in Tony Abbott’s first Cabinet must have felt like real progress was being made when he made one of the biggest percentage increases when it went up by 200% with another one added!

I guess Senator Bonner went to Canberra in order to say nothing because he was so against this “Canberra Voice” being proposed by Anthony Albanese who isn’t listening to the everyday Indigenous people like Price and Mundine… Mundine organised the recent CPAC so there’s no way you could think of him as being part of the elites.

There haven’t been many referendums that have successfully changed the Australian Constitution. Successful ones have generally had bipartisan support and even that doesn’t guarantee success. Peter Dutton’s opportunism to have the Liberals oppose it was an attempt to gain the low-hanging fruit of scuttling its success and making people think he could actually achieve something, even if that something is actually nothing. It should be a slam dunk and we shouldn’t even think that there’s a chance of success. And that’s before all the misinformation, disinformation and attempt to play on people’s fear of change.

Now I’ve prattled on for years about this, but we have to accept that either the media is just this passive receptacle which just reports everything without filter or else we have to understand that everything is an active choice and part of that active choice is saying, “Actually, Mr Smedley, I don’t know that you can assert the idea that the Australian Constitution has been declared null and void by the High Court without producing some sort of evidence… and no, it’s just not fucking true that the evidence you have has been suppressed by Putin acting in concert with Obama and the Chinese who had this all planned from the time they managed to get your granny to put out the good china when you came over for afternoon tea…” 

The media have a role to educate… but I guess that’s hard for them when they’re populated with people who don’t know very much beyond the fact that if they make people angry then they’re more likely to engage with them the next day because it’s easy to get people to come back out of anger than to come back to learn something new…

If you don’t know, come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you more things that I don’t know and you can get very, very angry about the fact that one of those people who aren’t you are trying to take my Jaguar that I’ve worked hard for and you can have one too if you just agree that I should have it and not someone who’s angry about something else and part of the outrage industry which is… Oh, yeah, well, it’s wrong to suggest that I’m part of an outrage industry even though we’re perpetually outraged…I’m outraged for good reason and don’t we need to agree with that property developer, Tim Gurner, who said that the workers are getting a bit uppity and a dose of unemployment will put them back in their place where they need to say, “Please sir, can I have some more?”, so we can bundle them off like Oliver Twist was along with all those unions in the glorious days past!

Yes, it’s getting very strange. I was out walking my dog and whenever he does his business, I give him a little treat. I guess that’s the business model of Murdoch. Whenever Andrew Bolt or whoever puts out some shit, they get a little treat.

The Australian Financial Review was supportive of the ex-Reserve Bank Governor, Phil Lowe, telling its readers that he was the “scapegoat” for Albanese and Chalmers “their foolish promise to lift the wages and living standards of ordinary Australians without any plan to do so”.

Poor Phil, he was a man who had the impossible task of trying to fix inflation and it wasn’t his fault and he didn’t do anything wrong and it was all those nasty politicians that spent too much during the pandemic and anyway, it wasn’t a promise to keep interest rates at their current levels until 2024 so anyone who took it as a guarantee only has themselves to blame…

The final point sounding suspiciously like: “You knew what I was like when you married me so how can it possibly be my fault that I said I’d do something and then didn’t?”

Whatever the fairness or otherwise, it does strike me that those who worship money are quick to forgive the transgressions of their fellow travellers while being quick to tell the poor and downtrodden that it was just their lack of enterprise/work ethic/personal quality which found them on struggle street.

Now I don’t mean to be too harsh here but there is something rather strange about a situation where the governor of the Reserve Bank, who has the task of ensuring that inflation is kept under control and that the economy is kept from any shocks, decides that it’s necessary to make a prediction that is so far into the future that anything might happen, argues that it’s not his fault that his prediction was wrong and anyone who listened to him was rather silly because he was just thinking out loud and nobody was meant to take it as a definite thing and the only reason that he did it was so that people had some idea about the future.

Putting aside his unfortunate attempt at fortune telling, the fact remains that, if one of his jobs was to keep inflation under control, then one would have to say that he failed at that rather spectacularly when it’s been necessary to raise interest rates so many times. Of course, the counter argument was that the inflation was nothing to do with Australia and that there was nothing he could do… which sort of suggests that he was just putting up interest rates because he needed to do something and that was something, so he did it even though it was only going to make some people less able to afford to eat, while others reaped the benefit of more income from their savings… which is potentially inflationary.

Some people were saying that Lowe has been proven right by the fact that inflation is starting to come down. This is wrong for two reasons. The most obvious being that if it wasn’t his fault that inflation took off, then how can it be his actions that brought it under control. Once the horse has bolted, you can’t claim credit for shutting the gate and then firing shots at the horse in the hope that you’ll either scare it into going back to the stable or kill it… which makes it easy to catch but any hope of a soft landing for the horse is out of the question. (Just to be clear here for anyone taking the analogy too literally and wondering how it can get back into the stable once the gate is shut: The horse is the economy and the soft landing is the lack of a recession.)

The second is that it’s generally conceded that the inflation wasn’t caused by excessive demand, but by costs and supply problems. Therefore suppressing demand would have had minimal effect on it. I mean, I can say that I sacrificed a virgin chicken every full moon in order to appease the gods of inflation and I was successful because now inflation is retreating. The only real difference between that and Lowe’s strategy is that his didn’t involve cruelty to animals… just mortgage holders, but the RSPCA doesn’t care about them.

Anyway, Lucky Phil has gone and 2023 is the year of good-byes. We also say good-bye to Alan Joyce and we can once again look forward to Qantas only cancelling flights that exist. The incoming head, Vanessa Hudson, has announced the novel idea that she’d be working on improving customer service and that this would actually work to help their main aim of boosting the share price so that the outgoing CEO’s package would be worth more.  A source told me that Qantas are developing a radical new concept where people’s luggage will be put on the same flight as they are but this may take some time as it will involve a whole new business model.

In breaking news, Senator Marise Payne has announced that she will be resigning from the Senate at the end of the month. This came as quite a surprise to many as she’d been so quiet lately that most people presumed that she’d quit at the 2022 election.

Whatever, her colleagues wished her well and heaped praise on her achievements even if they couldn’t actually remember about any specifically. Opposition Leader (surprisingly, he is that even though the media report his thoughts on just about everything), Peter Dutton said: “For more than 20 years, Marise has not only been a wonderful colleague, she has also been a dear friend – someone who engages in the battle of ideas in the great Liberal Party tradition.” This being code for: The outgoing senator was argumentative and didn’t always agree with me, even though I’m always right!

The rumour is that Tony Abbott will replace Payne in the Senate, but I’d ignore it because the only person spreading it is Tony himself. Scott Morrison said that he was up for the job, before changing his mind when someone convinced him that he couldn’t be a member of both houses, even if he was five ministers in the previous Parliament.

There’s also a rumour that Scott Morrison will quit Parliament as soon as he gets another job, so that’s not likely to be any time in the life of the current Labor government.

Today I saw a book entitled “Everything You Need To Know About The Voice.” Needless to say it was supporting the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

It got me wondering if there’s a book coming out soon by Peter Dutton “Everything You Don’t Need To Know About The Voice” which is filled with blank pages.

I shouldn’t be too hard on Dutton. It must be difficult knowing that when you went to all the trouble of organising a spill against Turnbull that your colleagues preferred Scott Morrison… And it must be even harder knowing that you’ve basically been put in as leader while they try to find someone who can match Albanese for charisma.

So Mr Dutton is adopting the Abbott strategy of opposing everything and making it as hard as possible for Labor to succeed at anything. The big difference is that Abbott had the advantage of Labor’s leadership woes but – in spite of a few likely problems about Qantas – Albanese looks pretty safe.

Speaking of Qantas, I found it interesting that their support for the Voice was called “virtue signalling by certain people. Isn’t a virtue something good? So logically in order to “virtue signal” you have to be doing something that’s positive and right. Yep, some of the No supporters are actually suggesting that it’s a virtue to show your support for Yes.

All right that mightn’t be what they actually mean, but they are a confused lot. After telling us that it’s not clear that all Indigenous people are supporters and that it’s the First Nation “elites” and “activists” who are pushing it, they were quite outraged that the AEC was spending money getting Indigenous people to enrol to vote. “The AEC is trying to help the yes vote!” they bellowed, which sort of undercuts their argument about it only being the “elites”.

I’ve always been confused by the use of certain words as an attack. Elites, for example, are people who are superior in some way so surely they’re worth listening to. Ok, I realise that it’s being used ironically to suggest that these inner city types only think that they’re elite. Of course, it was strange when the monarchists were arguing against a republican and calling its supporters “elites”. After all, how much more elitist can one get than becoming the head of state by virtue of the fact that you’re a member of a special family.

And, of course, there’s the attack on all those “woke” folk, which makes me wonder what the critics consider what the opposite is. I mean the dictionary lists words like “asleep”, “hypnotised” and “mesmerised” as opposites so if you’re not woke are you hypnotised by someone else’s power?

Andrew Bolt: You are all getting sleepy, your eyelids are heavy, my voice is like a warm blanket, wrapping around you and soothing you. As you listen to me, you become more and more relaxed. Your body is becoming heavier and heavier, sinking into the chair. Your eyes are becoming heavy, too, and you can feel yourself drifting off to sleep… You will reject political correctness and believe me when I say that black is white and you will read the Murdoch papers and believe them. When I count to three you will seem to be awake but you will never be properly woke and you will tell everyone how I’m the only one making sense…

Putting the Voice aside, Mr Dutton has his best chance for some time to take the shine off Labor thanks to the cosy relationship with Qantas. While it’s annoying to have a flight cancelled, it’s even more annoying when you find out that the flight didn’t even exist at the time you booked it. Even though this isn’t the fault of Labor, it doesn’t help when you’ve just knocked back Qatar airline’s request for extra flights citing a number of different reasons for the decision apart from the actual one which was: Qantas didn’t want us to.

There’s a lot of potential ammunition for the Liberal Party over this so why do I feel that – yet again – they’ll end up using it to shoot themselves in the foot one more time?

I said something really clever tonight to my wife and I said, “You should probably write that down…”

She did agree that it was clever but she seemed to think that I should be the one to write it down because after all I was the one who said it…

However, now that I’m trying to write it down…

It was something like how we can do all the big picture stuff and all the “this is a successful school because its data says this and I’m feeling like a bit of a failure because the school I spent so much time and effort into making great just went down the shit after I  left (not just because I left but...) and I can feel like I didn’t make a difference but that’s just wrong because I made a difference to the people who were there when I was and that’s possibly enough for them and…”

As you can see, it was more succinct when I said it the first time and possibly even had meaning outside my brain…

Which brings me back to the trouble with education. Something that sounds good when someone says it may not make that much sense a bit later on when someone tries to work out what it actually means in practice.

I want to make it clear that I’m one of the first to challenge teachers and suggest that maybe what they’re doing isn’t working all that well and that it might be worth trying something else and seeing if it works better…

HOWEVER!!

It’s always a worry when some politician announces that they have the answer and if only teachers would start doing this or that then all are problems would be solved and the promised land is just around the corner and if we can just get those teachers to stop what they’re doing and do what I tell them then we could fix all those literacy and numeracy problems and teach the lame to walk.

Often stories will be accompanied by a school which “turned things around” and went from being unsuccessful to showing great improvement once they all adopted the same strategy.

Of course the problem with this is that it’s like your average biopic. If you look at a winner then it’s pretty clear that what they did was a winning strategy but it doesn’t alter the fact that fifty thousand other people may have done the same thing and just fallen flat on their face. I mean “Billy Elliot” is a great example of triumphing in spite of everything around you suggesting that you should put your dreams to one side because they’re just ridiculous. Notwithstanding this, nobody is going to make a movie about me attempting to become a great dancer only to give up at the age of fifty after failing to show even a basic sense of rhythm and it just not working…

As for the school where the strategy worked, you need to have a look at what they were doing previously. To use an analogy here, if a football team hadn’t won a game for two years and nobody was turning up to training then adopting a strategy like holding a barbecue with free beer after training may actually lead to greater participation and an on-field improvement. However, even if the team starts a winning streak I doubt that many AFL coaches will be adopting it and throwing their sports science out the window.

The next big thing in education is what’s called “explicit instruction”. In simple terms this is a teaching method that breaks down complex skills into smaller, more manageable steps and provides clear and concise instructions on how to complete each step. It is a teacher-directed approach that involves modelling, guided practice, and feedback.

To put this into some sort of real-world situation. Imagine you’re going to teach someone to drive. I would think that this would involve a lot of explicit instruction before you let them turn on the engine and start driving. At the very least, you’d want to ensure that they knew how to steer and where to find the brake and accelerator and that they clearly knew the difference. I doubt that you’d throw someone the keys and say, “Take off and see what you can learn.” Swimming, on the other hand, may involve a bit of play to get them used to the water. Or, as someone once said, “I learnt to swim by being thrown into the lake… It was quite easy once I escaped the sack with all the rocks in it…”

As you can see there’s absolutely nothing wrong with explicit instruction. There are only two problems with a political push to introduce it into schools: The first is that it’s not appropriate for ALL learning. Learning to be an independent learner or learning to work cooperatively in groups can’t solely be taught by explicit instruction. (Although a good teacher can still offer feedback and guidance.) The second is the suggestion that somehow teachers haven’t been using explicit instruction at all. Of course, they may have been using it ineffectively or poorly but this idea that educators have embraced a whole range of other things and no longer ever explicitly instruct students is just a long way removed from what’s happening in nearly every Australian school.

By the time you read this, I expect that the date for the Voice Referendum will have been announced and it provides a great example about advantages and limits of explicit instruction. The Australian Electoral Commission have reminded us that we should write “YES” or “NO” in the box but if we do something else then it will be at the discretion of the presiding officer to decide if the intention of the voter was clear. A person who had a clear YE followed by an indistinct squiggle almost certainly is voting “YES” while a person who draws a Swastika may have intended to vote No, but it may just be that they’re making a comment on compulsory voting.

When it was announced that ticks may be considered a “YES” but crosses wouldn’t be a “NO”, Peter Dutton was outraged that this longstanding practice would be followed and accused Albanese and the AEC of trying to rig the vote. Apparently he’s concerned that in spite of the explicit instruction, the modelling and the examples many of the people intending to vote “NO” can’t actually follow what’s being said to them and will – in spite of being told in writing – to write their intention in words, that they’ll still put a cross.

It’s almost as if he thinks those voting with him are incapable of listening and understanding…

He may have a point.

Voice Over: There’s no doubt that this leader has had more than his share of detractors but tonight we’re going to visit Adolph Thatcher in his own kitchen where he’ll be himself for several minutes while we unpick his brain and he’ll show you that he, in fact, does have a heart which he keeps in the pantry in the freezer. Tonight we’ll see what makes him tick. Apparently it’s because of his undiagnosed PSTD…

As you see I’m making a dessert of hard toffee with extra sugar because, if there’s one thing that this episode will need, it’s extra sugar.

OPENING CREDITS: KITSCH UND CABERNET with SHELLY CLAWS

CANDID SHOTS FROM SEVERAL DIFFERENT ANGLES OF SHELLY ARRIVING AND BEING GREETED AT THE DOOR MAKING IT LOOK NATURAL AND NOT LIKE THE CAMERA CREW HAVE BEEN THERE FOR AGES SETTING UP AND WORKING OUT WHERE TO SHOOT FROM.

Shelly: Hello, Adolph. lovely drive.

Adolph: Thanks. I’ve been criticised a lot for it, but it’s just my way of ensuring that things get done in a muscular sort of way…

Shelly: I meant the drive to here. It’s a beautiful spot.

Adolph: Ah, yes, right.

Shelly: And the view.

Adolph: Which one? My view on law and order or my view on why Victorians shouldn’t be allowed to vote?

Shelly: No, the view of the property…

Adolph: Ah, well, that’s what I love about this place. It’s over a hundred years old and we’re renovating…

Shelley: Are you a hands on renovator?

Adolph: Well, only in terms of knocking things down so someone else can rebuild…

Shelley: Sort of like your party

Adolph: Um…Shall we go inside?

Shelly: Thanks. 

SUDDENLY THEY ARE IN THE KITCHEN WHERE THERE JUST HAPPEN TO BE SEVERAL CAMERAS ABLE TO SHOOT BOTH MEDIUM SHOTS AND CLOSE-UPS.

Adolph: This is the oven.

Shelly: I know, I’ve seen several before.

Adolph: Yes, well, I just thought I should point it out so people know that am aware of what an oven looks like and I’m not confused by the fact that it says, “SMEG”, which must be some foreign name for an oven…

Shelly: So what are you making for me?

Adolph: Well, I thought that a seafood chowder with crab would be appropriate.

Shelley: Lovely.

Adolph: I’m just going to turn on the oven.

Shelley: Better turn on the oven before it turns on you…

Adolph: Sorry?

Shelley: Just a little joke about the way Morrison managed to get you to challenge Turnbull only to use that to take over himself.

Adolph: Are you suggesting that Morrison is an oven?

Shelley: No… Actually do you really need an over if you’re going to use the stove top to cook the…

Adolph: Do you want to take over? I know what I’m doing. I said that this was an oven didn’t I?

Shelley: No, no, it’s fine. Look how about if we show a few shots of you cutting up food and then we’ll go for a walk and you can tell me something that humanises you.

Adolph: I could do that while I cut up the vegetables. I am capable of multitasking, you know.

SHOTS OF KNIFE SLICING THROUGH POTATO.

Shelley: So you were the eldest and your parents got divorced…

Adolph: Yes, I always think that it’s hardest on the eldest. There was time when I blamed them for getting divorced and all the money problems that followed…

Shelley: And this is why it took you so long to be able afford a house?

Adolph: Yes, I bought a house at 19 but it took years to pay off…

Shelley: I understand that you have undiagnosed PTSD…

Adolph: Yes, I’ve witnessed some terrible things. Like there was that poor family that I had to refuse dental treatment for their two-year-old… and I had to look at files from a thirty year old case.. and some of the things that happened to people I took back to the cells…it’s been horrible…

Shelley: Have you thought of getting professional help?

Adolph: No, well, when I was younger you just sucked it up and got on with it.

Shelley: What about now?

Adolph: Now? But I’m… that would make me… I don’t need…

Shelley: Why don’t you show me where you mediate?

Adolph: Ah, yeah, I think there’s enough shots of the food till we eat it.

WALK IN OUTDOORS WITH LOTS OF ENORMOUS TREES

Shelley: Wow…

Adolph: This just shows that I’m in touch with my soft side. I meditate here.

Shelley: What about when you’re in Canberra?

Adolph: Then I don’t meditate, but I do say my mantra.

Shelley: What’s your mantra?

Adolph: It’s just a single word.

Shelley: Ok, tell me what it is.

Adolph: No.

Shelley: Is that because it’s private?

Adolph: No, that’s because my mantra is “no”!

Shelley: Oh, right…

CUT BACK TO MEAL TABLE WHERE THEY CAN JUST IMPROVISE BY TALKING ABOUT FOOD AND WINE AND STEER CLEAR OF ANYTHING THAT MIGHT BRING AN ABRUPT END TO THE SHOW.

I am reading “Wifedom” by Anna Funder which is about the way George Orwell’s wife, Eileen has been given so few words in the biographies. Indeed, even in his own memoir about his experiences in Spain, “Homage To Catalonia”, Orwell scarcely mentions her.

Let me begin by saying that her basic view is completely sound: Women have been written out of most significant events, or reduced to the support role when frequently they were just as – or in some cases – more important than the man who is credited with the discovery, the art, the invention or whatever.

However, while reading Funder’s book, I couldn’t help but wonder if there might be a reason that Orwell left out her significant work apart from male vanity. In fact, I even wonder if it was on her insistence that she was reduced to “my wife” and that much of the action involving her was passively described in terms of the event without mentioning who was involved.

It’s easy to write about the distant past with detachment. If I confess to this or that or write that my housemates were all involved in shady activities, or, even worse, that I once voted for the Liberal Party, I am liable to suffer little consequence beyond a reader thinking less of me. “Homage To Catalonia” was written and published just before Chamberlain returned waving the agreement with Hitler and saying, “Peace for our time.” It’s entirely possible that Eileen and/or George decided that describing all the work that she had done fighting the fascists could have put her life at risk from a range of sources such as Fascists and Stalinists, the latter regarding those fighting against Franco as Trotskyists and therefore an enemy.

While I was wondering about this as a possible reason for leaving out her important work dealing with all sorts of correspondence and propaganda and keeping certain things away from the spies that were all around them, an alternate theory came to mind.

In the book, Funder describes how bravely Eileen sat on the bed to conceal the passports hidden under the mattress while the room was searched by the authorities, it occurred to me that this is not something that was independently verified. Then Funder describes how Eileen bravely waited for Orwell, even after her friends and associates were arrested, fearing that she too might be taken at any moment. She courageously went to the police to get visas stamped even though it may lead to her arrest.

And while I accept that she may have been all that Funder describes and that there’s no way of knowing this: What if she ratted them out in order to save herself and George?

It would make some sort of sense for someone who’s needs to wait till their husband returns, who’s in danger herself and who knows that there are spies all around her so there’s virtually no way that people didn’t know what she was doing to weigh up the options and make some sort of deal in order to enable her to escape.

And it would certainly make both her and Orwell think twice about describing her activities in any detail in “Homage To Catalonia”…

Ok, it’s not a hill I’m prepared to die on, but it’s always worth considering other alternative views… Unless you’re at CPAC where all the Conservatives agree that cancel culture is terrible and nobody should be woke… and  certain books need to be banned because they encourage both those things!

Anyway, read Anna Funder’s book and make up your own mind. It’s certainly one of the more interesting books I’ve read.

True!

Just listen to David Littleproud on “Insliders” telling us about all those “mum and dad” pharmacies that’ll be in trouble thanks to Labor’s changes allowing 60 days worth of prescriptions to be dispensed. I mean, what have the Coalition got against pharmacists who aren’t mums and/or dads?

And when they talk about landlords and negative gearing changes, they always mention that heaps of property investors are low income “mums and dads” just trying to put something away for their retirement.

I fully expect them to say that many of the people involved in the PwC leaks were also mums and dads who were just trying to help out other mums and dads in companies that felt that they were paying too much tax if they were asked to pay more than their fair share which – after careful calculation – is none at all.

To be fair, there’s a lot of politics of envy in this country and some people who make sacrifices to send their kids to private schools have the sort of income that means that they have even less taxable income than a multinational company but with careful budgeting they manage to afford the $100k in schools from their meagre income of $38 for the financial year.

Anyway, they’re the sort of mums and dads that are having a go and getting a go because if there’s one thing that the Liberals admire it’s people who have a go unless they’re workers demanding the sort of living wage that’ll add to inflation because if a worker can’t make ends meet then they’ll just have to cut their cloth to meet their suit or whatever the saying is, but if an employer can’t make ends meet they’ll go out of business and we’ll all be in trouble so price rises are just the fault of those greedy workers wanting to eat and heat…

Unless, of course, we’re talking about a landlord who has used negative gearing to ensure that they don’t make a profit because if their property starts to be profitable they need to buy another one to ensure that they aren’t paying tax and that they are still making a loss because that’s the way that some of these mums and dads have a go…

So I’d like some interviewer to ask the Coalition frontbencher – after they talk about mum and dad pharmacists/landlords/investors/meth lab syndicates – why they hate the childless people so much.

Ok, yes, all right, I know. The phrase “mum and dad” is emotive and it makes one think of nice, middle-class people struggling in a way that words like “father and mother” or “sire and dam” don’t. It doesn’t make one think of King Charles and the mother of his children, Princess Di. Neither does it make one think of Tony and Carmela Soprano and their mum and dad waste management business.

And, before someone points out the lack of inclusion here, what about the “mum and mum” or “dad and dad” parents that can now marry and have children…

On a side note here, but did anyone else think that it was strange that one of the arguments people made against same sex marriage was that children should have a mother and a father and same sex relationships denied them this. What I find most confusing about that is the fact that same sex relationships where the couple have children already existed and denying them the right to marry didn’t solve the alleged problem of children not having a parent of both sexes. It just took away the legal security that a marriage can provide. Reminds of me of some of those people against the Voice who simultaneously argue that it’s a risk because Parliament will decide its form and we don’t need it in the Constitution because Parliament could set one up tomorrow without the need for Constitutional change…

Now let me make it clear that I have nothing against people being in business and making a buck. After all, this is a capitalist system and  I’m not going to suggest that those benevolent employers who only exist to give people jobs should be the first to be lined up against the wall and shot when the revolution comes. However, it does strike me as a little inconsistent when businesses argue that they’re the ones taking the risks and so they should be entitled to great rewards, only to turn around and say that the risk didn’t work out so someone should do something because life shouldn’t be this unfair when they’ve taken the risk and started/taken over/inherited a business. We all remember how some businesses took the JobKeeper money and kept it, even though they made a profit and there was no obligation on them to establish that they lost revenue during the pandemic. They didn’t even have to prove their parental status.