Scott Morrison worships at a church that deems homosexuality as a “broken-ness”, something that can be fixed with conversion therapy.

When the country overwhelmingly voted for marriage equality, Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce, the men who lead this country, both abstained despite their electorates instructing them to vote in favour.

When Israel Folau insisted that gay people would go to Hell, Scott Morrison said “He’s a good man. Good on him for standing up for his faith.”

In fact, Morrison made it his “signature” legislation to enshrine the right of the religious to vilify and actively discriminate against the queer community.

Tonight, we are going to hear how upset Jen and the girls were to hear Scotty called mean names by his colleagues and how unfair that was to read those texts out in public.

Well, Jen, how do you think gay/trans kids feel when your church preaches from the pulpit that they are an abomination who will burn in hell forever unless they give up their evil and unnatural ways?  How do you think that affects gay people of faith?  How must it feel to have your very identity debated by strangers?  How do you think it feels to have parliament vote on who you are and what you can do?

If your husband stopped condoning and facilitating such persecution, it would do a lot more to improve his standing than cooking curries, playing the ukelele (badly – seriously whose idea was that), and shoving his wife and kids in front of him to say ‘please like me’.

Like everyone else, politicians have private lives.  Unlike everyone else, increasingly they have been sharing these with us during the course of their work.

Brittany Higgins made a powerful statement during her address to the National Press Club about Scott Morrison’s response to allegations that she was raped in a minister’s office.

“I didn’t want his sympathy as a father… I wanted him to use his power as Prime Minister. I wanted him to wield the weight of his office to drive change.”

Scott’s concerned dad persona wasn’t going to cut it.

No-one could have failed to be touched by Labor MP Stephen Jones when he shared the story of his nephew and son and the harmful affect that the debate about religious freedom has on kids.  Surely it doesn’t take having a transgender child to realise that?

Whenever voluntary euthanasia is discussed, we hear politicians recount stories of the passing of an elderly relative regardless of which side of the debate they are on.  This is something that everyone faces and everyone’s story is individual.  This should be about choice, not competing stories of what happened to every politician’s nan and pop.

Discussion of the NDIS causes the same thing – they tell us about someone they know.  Whilst hearing about someone else’s struggles might make people realise they are not alone, it does nothing to assuage the despair that so many carers are feeling.  There’s no room left to hear the story of someone who can easily afford to pay for the support they need and the connections to access it.

Sadly, when it comes to domestic violence or sexual harassment or bullying, too many politicians also have personal stories to share.

Should this be necessary?  Is it even helpful?  Do you have to be personally affected to be able to deliver fair and just legislation?  Does using your platform as a politician to tell your own story raise awareness or does it take over?  Is listening to individual stories more important than hearing expert advice?

Empathy is great but what we need from politicians is action.

But where the line really gets crossed is when politicians deliberately use their families for image making or political campaigning.

As with everything, Tony Abbott was openly crass in the exploitation of his daughters.

‘If you want to know who to vote for, I’m the guy with the not bad-looking daughters.’

Scott Morrison’s daughters are much younger.  Like many young kids, they often seem excited by the cameras and the attention, though I am sensing less so as time passes and they get to the ‘you’re embarrassing me’ stage.

Photos of dad building cubby houses and chicken coops are one thing.  Sharing poetry on a very important day when the whole country is listening is another.  It’s great to be proud of your kids but it is a parent’s job to also protect them.  Morrison’s constant stream of family photos on social media is, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, a shameful disregard for his daughters’ well-being in pursuit of political advantage.  Every time he drags them into the spotlight to try to soften his public image, he risks them copping the consequences of his unpopularity.

I cringe in anticipation of Sunday night’s hard-hitting episode of Karl at Kirribilli where Jen and the girls save the day for the celebrity PM before he gets kicked off the island.

This campaign is not going to be good for anyone’s mental health – perhaps best to leave the families out of it and stick to the issues.

Journalist Karen Middleton, writing for The Saturday Paper, has penned a remarkable analysis around The Lodge Occupant’s apology to those who suffered abuse in parliament. That the first, last and only consideration of The Lodge Occupant is politics should come as a surprise to precisely no-one. However, this is something special.

Delegation and Evasion: The Lodge Occupant and Responsibility

This topic also needs little introduction: recall the phrase ‘I don’t hold a hose, mate’?. But this is just delicious. Middleton reports that

Scott Morrison intended to leave his abuse apology to the presiding officers.

For clarity, ‘the presiding officers’ refers to The Speaker of The House and The President of The Senate. So the original plan was for The Lodge Occupant to delegate responsibility for a change. To give full context here, there had been an agreement between all sides (LNP, Labor, Greens and Independents) on February 3rd that the Presiding Officers would deliver the apology. It was the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Albanese, who first considered making a personal address on the subject. There was back and forth between their two staffs, with The Lodge Occupant insisting that the original order be observed. Mr Albanese’s decision to speak regardless of what The Lodge Occupant did forced the latter’s hand. Not wishing for Mr Albanese to upstage him, he was forced to say something. Great: not wanting to be upstaged, rather than actually, you know, addressing the issue was his motivation. Clown.

The Lodge Occupant’s Speech

The speech itself deserves some attention, for there is a gem in here demonstrating The Lodge Occupant’s utter lack of self-awareness. He said, in part

“Over many decades, an ecosystem, a culture, was perpetuated where bullying, abuse, harassment and, in some cases, even violence, became normalised,”

“We don’t shy, nor have we sought to silence the valid and just complaints of people, because there is fear about electoral consequences. I am sorry. We are sorry.”

The first part is quite true, and valid. Parliament was, for a very long time, a ‘boy’s club’ dominated by men. When women became employees (and eventually members) a culture was in place that did not treat women as equals. Fair point. By contrast, the second part must surely ring hollow in light of reporting about Grace Tame receiving a threatening phone call to ‘not say anything damning’ about The Lodge Occupant before the 2022 Australian of The Year Awards. Never sought to silence valid and just complaints? Spare me.

Another Little Gem: Higgins and The Advocates for Change

A second little gem around this speech, as Middleton reports, is the fact that

The advocates’ presence in the chamber was also a late addition. They were initially not invited to watch the apology. Independent MP Zali Steggall facilitated their attendance at the last minute, as her guests, accompanied by one of her staff.

They were not intended to be there? Let us do a brief summary of what we have so far. The Lodge Occupant essentially had to be goaded into saying anything at all, and when he does decide to say something, it takes an independent MP to even have the advocates for change brought into the Chamber. It truly never ceases to amaze how a man so seemingly obsessed with marketing and optics can be so terrible at it.

The Lodge Occupant’s attitude to having to make the address is neatly summed up in this photograph, from Middleton’s piece:

Indeed is all I have to say to that.

A Horror Week for The Lodge Occupant, Part One: The Abuse Speech in Context

Between this issue and the breakdown of the Religious Discrimination Bill, this parliamentary week has not been kind to The Lodge Occupant. Middleton reports that he is feeling the heat too. She writes

The prime minister’s desperate tone would be explained two days later, when Peter van Onselen revealed that the night before, Morrison had been rolled by his own cabinet. The prime minister had put his leadership on the line over his religious freedom bill, trying to persuade his own MPs not to cross the floor against it by proposing to put legislation for a national integrity commission before parliament as well.

But his cabinet colleagues overwhelmingly rejected the strategy.

The Lodge Occupant evidently lacks the ability to read a room. Offering to bring forth the federal ICAC bill to persuade his own troops not to vote against the Religious Freedom Bill? They do not want such a bill anyway! Senator Cash (through a representative) said earlier this week that there was not enough time to debate the bill before the election. This effectively killed the bill. The point is this was not going to mollify the party room.

A Horror Week for The Lodge Occupant, Part Two: Back to What Brought Him to The Dance

A useful illustration of the utter chaos that is this government is found in what happened when the Coalition partyroom meeting continued after Question Time on Tuesday. Middleton reports that The Lodge Occupant said

“If we fail to agree on this, the mountain will be made higher. You will experience opposition – not a place you want to be. I appeal to you to come together.

Interesting, is it not? From conciliatory to issuing threats in mere hours? He must get fired up after Question Time. Instead of attempting to bribe his party room with a bill that was already dead, he was now threatening them with ‘opposition – not a place you want to be’. So, if the party room did not fall in line, they would lose the election and be in opposition. A big threat to a born to rule government. This next point may be coincidence, but is it not interesting that The Lodge Occupant said ‘you will experience opposition’ rather than ‘we will experience opposition’? This suggests either that he thinks he will lose his seat, or he is trying to blame the party (because nothing is ever his fault) for electoral defeat.

Shovels to Earthmoving Equipment: The Lodge Occupant Keeps Digging

This incident offers detailed insight into the chaos going on behind the scenes with the government, and specifically its so-called leader. The Lodge Occupant is no longer using a shovel to dig his political grave; he has brought in a backhoe. The sheer instability of the current regime means that the focus is on themselves rather than governance. The election is not far off, and it remains unclear whether the current Lodge Occupant can survive politically. As my gran used to say, fight you buggers I hate peace.

Spud pulling the wings off butterflies – “I think I will, I think I won’t…”.

You’ve got to feel for der Gruppenfritter. Well, no you don’t – the bloke’s what an arsehole would be if arseholes had an arsehole, or in kinder parlance he’s a fully cooked unit, so rather let’s just have a chuckle at his dilemma – will he deploy an IED or will he hold off hoping Scooter goes full Campbell Newman.

Spud can smell the blood in the water. Herr Shickletuber is no doubt delighted at Scooter’s travails; according to Bob Carr going so far as chucking a grenade down the hallway in the form of a public airing of a scathing text assessment of Scooter’s character as a “fraud” and “complete psycho”.

The potato wedge (someone had to say it).

The minister who shared the text with van Onselen and gave permission to use it was Peter Dutton. If PM Morrison has one more week in free fall the prospect of a leadership change pre-election is real. Party rules don’t count if most MPs think you will lead them to defeat.

— Bob Carr (@bobjcarr) February 6, 2022

Usually immune to embarrassment Scooter’s rapid-fire eyeblinks semaphored his discomfort at the National Press Club when publicly confronted with such an accusation originating from a member of his own cabinet and at his “good friend”* St Gladys’s contribution to same – “a horrible, horrible person more concerned with politics than people.”

*Author’s note: not his good friend.

I can imagine Spud’s excitement at these public humiliations of his foe – a facial tic, a slight flaring of the nostrils. If he possessed eyebrows perhaps he may have lifted one as another indication of his arousal. I’d never given any thought before to the notion of synchronised boners with Spud but in watching the opprobrium build on Scooter I displaced my hot Milo and Scotch Finger from my lap to the carpet due to a phenomenon that’s as rare as a Tory’s kept promise. I felt a fleeting bond with hairless Hitler. Chubby buddies!

Scooter’s messiah complex is evident in his smarmy arrogance and self-regard and his shamelessness but, like his deity, he’s got a vengeful, thin skin – those barbs would’ve stung. Scooter is incapable of introspection and is inclined to retribution but he’s powerless to act on his instincts to undermine his tuberous nemesis so as per the playbook his response was to deny and distract. A photo-op was called for.

In a desperate attempt to divert attention and recover some palatability with pissed off women in particular the self-styled marketing whizz concocted a bizarre mash-up of the shower scene from Psycho and Patrick Swayze’s reach around on Demi Moore in Ghost by washing an innocent woman’s hair.

Image: Some clever clogs on Twitter

Creepy yet hilarious; fondling an unknown woman’s head was Morrison’s attempt to offset his misogynist reputation FFS! Touchy pervy with the vibe of a subliminal baptism – surely a sign this bloke cannot read a room or that some in his inner-circle of image wranglers hate him. Perhaps both.

In watching the unravelling of the Tories as a whole and Morrison’s smirkathon in particular one is inclined to optimism that this unapologetically corrupt and shambolic regime is shortly to be assigned one-way tickets to Dignitas. The opinion polls are promising, independents are threatening once blue ribbon seats, their fuck-ups are affecting the politically disengaged and internal warfare is rife.

Tory cheersquadders Janet Albrechtson from Murdoch’s Daily Riefenstahl and the oleagenous Andrew Bolt on Melbourne’s Hun have both voided on Scooter. The scrotum squeezed through a shirt collar that is Rupert Murdoch does not like backing losers. Likely there’ll be Scomo+Jen hagiographies scheduled for regular release but if Murdoch’s faecal finger of fate points Scooter to the exit he’s in big strife.

We’re in for months of the worst behaviour possible from the desperate Tories. They can and will get dirtier – the prospect of a grilling by counsel assisting with consequent spooning from Bubba on the lower bunk lends itself to fear and panic. We can abhor the coming ugliness while enjoying the thought of their collective puckered sphincters.

Scooter’s god will be on speed-dial but his mendacious, genocidal deity requires careful handling. Tithing and prayer circle schmoozing of his celestial sponsor won’t keep the Tubermensch at bay. In the traditional, unambiguous sign that he’s circling Spud told morning TV he’s “100% behind” Morrison. He would’ve gained new friends if instead he’d said “Scooter is my Prime Minister and I’m ambitious for him.” Will there be a Spud spill? Doubtful, but the prospect is heartening.

Twitter again

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

By Andrew Wicks  

Scott Morrison might well undermine it, but let’s remember the apocalyptic summer he left us to navigate and later lied about.

Ahead of the 60 Minutes puff piece that will apparently save his job, we got a taste of what to expect, as Scott Morrison has hit the internet playing a ukulele.

Get you a Prime Minister who can do both (sing the same verse of April Sun In Cuba twice) pic.twitter.com/AQ8at4Gzpb

— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) February 11, 2022

The subtext is obvious. Man plays tiny Hawaiian guitar, undermining one of the most notorious scandals during his tenure, when he famously buggered off to Maui on holiday, while exasperated fire officials have reconciled to hold a crisis meeting with themselves as the Prime Minister lied about it.

But, I’m reminded of another song. David Bowie’s album The Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars opens with the end. The first song, Five Years, articulates the hopelessness the average person feels when they realise doomsday will occur in their lifetime.

The song came to mind as the state caught fire. As the sky turned black, we struggled to comprehend what we were seeing. We’re equal parts furious, guilty, and clueless. Yet, at the top, we’re steered by official delusion, as the man who held the power was powerless, as he famously, couldn’t hold a hose.

At the height of the haze, I crossed paths with an angry older man on the phone, voice wafting through the bushfire smoke, yelling at whoever was on the other end, saying that this wasn’t acceptable, and how he shouldn’t have to put up with it.

It’s fair to say that we’ve taken climate change seriously but from a place of comfort. Some tethered themselves to Queensland bitumen, others have constructed a platform to yell from. The scientists told us it was serious, and our politicians told us it wasn’t. The media sat on the fence. We knew we had to do something, so we got together to elect Scott Morrison, a man who brought a lump of coal into parliament.

But I’d wager it took fire as big as Sydney itself to truly understand. Suddenly, the sun was pink, respirators appeared on the street and our previously safe suburbs were on fire lists.

In Bowie’s world, the knowledge arrives via an oddity from elsewhere, the eponymous Ziggy Stardust. In ours, you could argue that Greta Thunberg is our Ziggy, a soothsaying otherworldly interloper, offering truth and fielding criticism.

News guy wept and told us,
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet,
Then I knew he was not lying.

As far as apocalypses go, the average Sydneysider navigated it with the power of denial. I found myself at a roundabout, stuck behind a person who decided a catastrophic fire day was the best time to take his Sea-doo out for a spin.

On the radio, two identical glossy voices vibrantly spoke about being unable to buy a mask, before cueing up Sade, before giving props to the ‘smooth operators’ who would make a ‘motza’ selling them to those who missed out. When I got home, I was greeted by the genial wave of the elderly babu next door, who was blithely hosing down his property, as the pink sun angrily shook its fist through the blackening pall above.

I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour,
Drinking milkshakes cold and long.
Smiling and waving and looking so fine,
Don’t think you knew you were in this song.

As far as I can see, we’re split into two camps. The angrily worried, and furiously inactive. You could probably place me, and every other journalist, writer and whoever, in the latter column. This piece serves no purpose. It’s telling us what we already know. We know that 11 times the safe range is not normal. We know that politicians should have listened. We know that we’ve placed greed over money and we know that Scott Morrison is lying to us.

But to those who want to boot Morrison out for dereliction of duty, we should note that his opponent toured the Queensland fossil fuel belt in order to keep his job in three years’ time. I don’t know what that change looks like, which is the problem. Fossil fuels are indelibly linked to the kings and the kingmakers of this land, and true change results in either the tearing down of democracy, or a significant wounding of it. We’re relying on those in power to bow to the polluters, before removing their heads. We’re relying on a significant part of the country to suddenly change their minds. We’re leaning on people to make the correct choice, one that directly impacts their own personal experience.

We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot. Five years, that’s all we’ve got.

While some minds have figured the tipping point to be 2050, or sooner, it’s fair to say that we’ve had enough warnings. We may not be at the hopeless crossroads Bowie found himself at, but we’re not far off. I fear that we’ll readily squander the freedom of this window by our angry inaction and indeed, the hope of a better day in the near future, one where those in power who ignored us before will suddenly listen and do something.

I fear we’ll only truly have this conversation when it is too late, and the only thing left to do, as Bowie noted, indulge ourselves and turn to the binary of common violence.

This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.

It was August 2014 when then assistant defence minister, Stuart Robert, took a “private” trip to Beijing to oversee a mining deal involving a major Liberal donor and meet a Chinese vice-minister.

Robert had a shareholding in Metallum Holdings, which had an interest in Paul Marks’ Nimrod Resources.  The Liberal Party declared Mr Marks donated $250,000 as an individual and $500,000 from his company Nimrod Resources in 2013-14.

Robert did not inform anyone in the government that he was going, later insisting he was there in a private capacity.  Apparently, he didn’t tell that to the Chinese as detailed in the Guardian: 

A media release issued by China MinMetals Corporation said Robert had extended his congratulations “on behalf of the Australian Department of Defence” and had presented “a medal bestowed to him by Australian prime minister in honour of remembrance and blessing”.

This was followed by a meeting with the Chinese vice-minister of land and resources in the reported presence of Nimrod Resources the next day.

This was far from Robert’s only dealing with influential Chinese.

In 2013 he hosted a dinner in his Parliament House office for Chinese businessman Li Ruipeng, Tony Abbott, Ian McFarlane and Paul Marks after which Li gave them all Rolex watches valued at about $250,000.  After “advice from the clerk”, the watches were returned.

And Robert isn’t the only one with close links.

Two years after clinching a historic free trade deal with Beijing, in October 2016, it was announced that former trade minister Andrew Robb had joined the Landbridge Group, a Chinese company which had been granted a 99-year lease on Port Darwin in 2015, as a “high-level economic consultant”. It was reported that Robb had accepted the $73,000 per month position before leaving Parliament. Landbridge Group is chaired by Ye Cheng, a billionaire with links to the Communist Party of China.

ASIO warned the major parties about taking donations from two Chinese property developers because of links to the Chinese Communist Party.  The warnings have been ignored.  One of these men donated $50,000 to Andrew Robb’s campaign financing vehicle, the Bayside Forum, on the day the Free Trade Agreement was signed in 2014.

To underscore how ridiculous Peter Dutton’s baseless claims about the Chinese wanting to instal Anthony Albanese, and the whole reds under the bed scare campaign, Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund, has millions invested in a Chinese state-controlled weapons manufacturer.  We also host survival training exercises for Chinese military personnel in Queensland and the NT.

I know you are auditioning for the top job, Peter, but this is weirder than your bikie joke and scarier than when you tried out smiling the last time you were undermining a leader.

STEVE BANNON, sometime White House Chief Strategist in the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump, coined the term “flood the zone with shit”.

This strategy, succinctly identified by Bannon though not created by him, involves disseminating masses of disinformation intended to seed public mistrust and erode the public’s ability to determine what is true. Overwhelmed by disinformation, it becomes impossible to identify one coherent narrative and the search for truth becomes too exhausting to pursue.

When the public is exhausted, the zone has been flooded with shit. There is confusion, anger, insecurity and fear, and having concluded that there is no knowable truth in politics, people instead yearn for an authoritative leader, someone who appears to cut through the shit for them, as the only feasible alternative.

In Australia we are desperately dog-paddling through the shit-flooded zone, trying to keep our heads above the solids. With a Prime Minister who is recognised as a liar internationally and domestically and a Government that is prepared to support him despite his mendacity, thus participating in it, we have no hope of determining what is true in the political narrative they currently dominate.

With a largely captive media who no longer act as gatekeepers speaking truth to power, we have lost our most important defence against the deceit and duplicity of those for whom power is the only goal.

The need for clicks is a primary determinant in what is published and how, to an extent inconceivable before the internet and social media. Add to this the flagrant preferencing of the Federal Government by the majority of the mainstream media and you have the perfect conditions in which to flood the zone.

There are still voices that speak the truth in a valiant attempt to outswim the tsunami of lies, but they are too rarely in the mainstream.

And so it is that in a time of pandemic, when we are fast approaching a Federal Election, the outcome of that Election is likely to be determined not by the neglect unto death of elderly people in aged care facilities and not by the catastrophic failure of the Federal Government to manage the pandemic and its effects, but by leaked text messages and the scandals of personal betrayal.

Why? Because leaked text messages and the soap opera of individual psychodramas get more clicks than policies, even when those policies have been proven critical failures with horrendous consequences. These scandals offer titillation, light relief from the futile daily struggle to determine what is true and the despair that comes with being overwhelmed by lies.

The scandalous can make us laugh, albeit bitterly. It is amusing to mock the powerful who control our future and in the mocking, we can forget for a moment that however ridiculous, brutal, amoral and unethical they are, they still control our future.

We are only human and we must forgive one another, declares Prime Minister Scott Morrison who, over a long political career, has shown not a moment’s concern for anyone’s interests other than his own while overseeing brutal policies that have brought death and despair to Australians and refugees alike.

That Morrison’s efforts to humanise himself and his colleagues have accelerated in sync with the scandals is telling. We’ve all made mistakes so we should be able to forgive them in our leaders, is his spin. No matter the incommensurate nature of those mistakes and the power differential between them and us. We all screw up. It’s human to err and to forgive is divine. You can read this as another level of shit flooding, in which corrupted power tries to fool you that we’re equal.

To some degree, however, everyone is complicit. When the ruling class floods the zone with irresistible scandal, of course we’re going to pay attention and they know this. It’s the equivalent of throwing us cake for an immediate sugary fix, as opposed to providing the more substantial bread we need to survive. We become so hooked on cake that bread doesn’t satisfy our cravings, even though without it we will weaken. It takes an effort of will to resist the cake and demand the bread, and we’re already dealing with a pandemic.

The flooding strategy is intended to produce a maze of narratives and counter-narratives so complex and confusing that we have neither the time nor the energy to find our way through them. A pandemic offers the ideal opportunity for this manipulation.

This article was originally published on Independent Australia.

By 2353NM  

On Christmas morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had a traditional start to the day. His family gathered around the Christmas Tree to exchange presents before heading off to church. They were all hoping for something extra from Santa because they have all had a rough year living through the resignation of Gladys Berejiklian, COVID and the large number of slurs and insults directed at the ‘head’ of the household.

When they settled and made themselves ready for the photograph that would inevitably appear later in the day on social media, they began to open Santa’s presents. Morrison’s wife, Jenny, was absolutely delighted with her new Pandora necklace with a label showing the gift was purchased at a jeweller’s shop in Engadine. His daughters realised the possibilities of what will be when they can travel to Queensland and use the 3 day passes to Seaworld and Movieworld that were found in their Santa sacks. Our illustrious Prime Minister found a lump of coal in his Santa Sack.

While he has used a lump of coal to belittle the opposition in Parliament, as you can probably understand Morrison was particularly unimpressed by the present. So, being a man of action, he got on to the phone and rang the President of Finland and asked him for Santa’s contact details. Soon afterwards, Morrison rang Santa and demanded to know why he received a present traditionally reserved for those that had been very naughty.

Santa, being rather tired and irritable after a longer than usual trip around the world (those QR codes and travel restrictions did his head in) told Morrison in no uncertain terms that the Elf on the Parliamentary Shelf had reported a litany of bad behaviour over the past 12 months. Morrison, not being used to getting a dressing down by anyone, objected. Santa decided that he had better things to do with his life than argue the point for hours with the unrepentant Prime Minister of Australia so began to list off items in the reports from the Elf on the Shelf.

Santa started with Morrison’s claim that he never called former Senator Sam Dastyari ‘Shanghai Sam’ when it was recorded on video, suggesting if Morrison had to lie over something that is reasonably trivial, what chance is there of truth when it really mattered?

Despite Morrison’s objections, Santa went on to discuss the justification for Morrison demonising electric vehicles at the time of the 2019 election and making them a large part of the unconvincing road to zero emissions by 2050.

Santa went on to ask Morrison how he could justify the wasted job keeper payments which, if redirected to Jobseeker, would have kept the payment above the poverty line for five years. Morrison didn’t answer.

And the pork-barrelling you presided over was even worse, said Santa. Regardless of the claimed capability of the individual member of Parliament, how is it possible that adjoining electorates receive 46 times the funding based, it would seem, on the political party the Representative belongs to? And while the first one was funny, Santa told Morrison he was concerned when a number of children wrote to him claiming to live in a marginal electorate to get better presents as it shows the country is aware of the problem.

Then Santa went on to tell Morrison that letters from the Attorney-General to the Prime Minister can’t ‘be lost’, rather someone seems to be trying to hide the legal information the letter contained about the administration of the community sports program which has also been called ‘sports rorts’.

About now, Morrison finally picked himself off the floor and bleated that it was highly unfair that he was not only fighting the Labor Party but a number of well financed independent candidates in the seats he would usually win. To make matters worse, these independents are well funded but not disclosing where every dollar of funding is coming from. Santa shot back that the most secretive political party in Australia when it came to funding was Morrison’s Liberal Party, so his point is what exactly?

Morrison decided he didn’t need to hear any more and hung up in Santa’s ear. From his home in the not so frozen north (climate change is a thing – apparently), Santa decided to keep an eye on Morrison for the first few weeks of January to see if there had been any improvement. He asked Michael Pascoe, one of his trusted helpers in Australia, to prepare a report. The report wasn’t pleasant reading.

• The COVID testing system has been blown up
• The Prime Minister’s monumental clanger of preferencing “the private market” for RATs over public health advice is hurting badly, with even the Australian Financial Review running multiple negative stories
• The overall RATs debacle is being sheeted home to the federal government for delaying the tests’ approval for use here and then failing to move on supply until there was already a shortage
• Businesses and individuals are increasingly suffering from a spreading voluntary lockdown as Omicron runs riot under the “let it rip” policy championed by Mr Morrison
• Stories are leaking out of hospitals failing their own care standards as cases jump and staff contract the virus
• About 2000 aged-care homes are short staffed, existing somewhere between a permanent state of fear of imminent disaster and the actual disaster of solitary confinement lockdowns
• Governments changing definitions to obtain less embarrassing outcomes are not fooling many
• And there is that ongoing problem of Mr Morrison “being economical with the truth”, to put it mildly.

Santa was unsurprised, but bitterly disappointed.

What do you think?

There are some things that strain credulity. There are the dubious accounts of virgin births. There are the resolute flat earth theorists and denialists of the moon landing. To this can be added the environmental stance of Australia’s Scott Morrison and his ministers, one resolutely opposed to the empirical world. We are now at the phoney stage of an electoral war, and, with the government in more than a spot of bother, you can start expecting some rather extravagant promises of public spending.

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the single most remarkable natural structures on Planet Earth, home to 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc, is not one that has been spared. Politically, the Environment Minister Sussan Ley has denied that its health is failing, citing Australia’s superior reef management skills. The Prime Minister, late last month, promised that his government would “invest an additional $1 billion in protecting the Great Barrier Reef, while supporting 64,000 Queenslanders and their jobs which drive the Reef economy.”

The coupling of both the expenditure and the “Reef economy” illustrates the narrow, ballot-driven focus here. Environmental considerations are subsidiary matters; what does matter is the electoral thrust and spin: the jobs, the Queenslanders in industry, votes.

Morrison does little to disabuse us of this. “We are backing the health of the reef and the economic future of tourism operators, hospitality providers and Queensland communities that are at the heart of the reef economy.” So the Reef better get its act together quickly to enable such communities to flourish. After all, we are told that it is the “best managed reef in the world.”

In substance, the new funding package stretching over nine years will cover water quality issues (remediate erosion, reduce nutrient and pesticide runoff); aid reef management and conservation; fund further research into the use of reef resilience; and modest funding for community and Traditional Owner projects.

The government is also mindful, at least in a fashion, of wanting to remain in UNESCO’s good books. Last year, moves were afoot to place the Reef on the list of world heritage sites “in danger.” UNESCO had recommended doing so in June 2021, claiming that targets for the improvement of water had not been met. “The recommendation from UNESCO,” Richard Leck, Head of Oceans from the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia stated at the time, “is clear and unequivocal that the Australian government is not doing enough to protect our greatest natural asset, especially on climate change.”

The response from Ley was indignant. “Clearly there were politics behind it; clearly those politics have subverted a proper process.” Why, she insisted, was Australia being singled out, given that there “are 83 natural World Heritage properties facing climate change threats”? China, as the chair of the World Heritage Committee, was looked upon as being a deciding, prejudicial factor. Ley warned that this process risked “damaging [the] integrity of the World Heritage System.”

Due and proper process are not strong points for the Morrison government. But politicising procedure certainly is. Ley proceeded to screech and lobby against the move, leaving behind a hefty carbon footprint in convincing countries that Australia had been wronged. At the general assembly of the UN’s World Heritage Convention, Australia’s representatives claimed that any such decision might not be reversible.

The central concern here was a lack of clarity on how any change could be possible given the need for a more global approach. “What, in particular,” asked Australian government representative James Larsen of the general assembly, “is the route off the ‘in danger’ list for a single property if the dangers concerned are global developments that require global solutions?” The Australian effort was successful enough to convince 12 of the 21 voting members to refrain from changing the status of the Reef. Environmental vandalism had again won through.

Such funding promises as that of the Morrison government are decidedly narrow, the stuff of spreadsheet wonks and committees. These are almost always doomed to failure. Throw money at the problem in isolation, tinker with that deficiency, and ignore the more calamitous, expansive picture. John C. Day and Scott F. Heron, both of James Cook University, summarise the point: “While the new funding is meant to address other threats to the natural wonder and may improve its resilience, failing to address the climate threat is both disappointing and nonsensical.”

The picture painted by Day and Heron is bleak. In December 2021, the ocean temperatures on the Reef proved to be the warmest on record. The risk of a fourth mass bleaching event in this decade was very much a serious proposition.

Both the Commonwealth and Queensland governments have also shown an appetite for approving new coal and gas projects, which bring with them a greater expansion of ports and increased shipping. This is despite warnings stretching back years, including a 2013 declaration by concerned scientists about industrial development of the Great Barrier Reef coast. “As scientists, we therefore are concerned about the additional pressures that will be exerted by expansion of coastal ports and industrial development accompanied by a projected near-doubling in shipping, major coastal reclamation works, large-scale seabed dredging and dredge soil disposal.”

To date, compliance with such restrictions as fertiliser runoff that find their way into the Reef system and attempts to limit agricultural and clearing activities in reef catchment areas, has been uneven. Improving water quality, Day and Heron write, is not merely a matter of disbursing more funds, but more effective spending. But a de facto election campaign is underway, and climate change and coral bleaching can wait – so the voters are being told.

Election diary No 10. Wednesday, 9 February 2022.

1 In one of the most insincere acts of contrition ever in Australian politics, Barnaby Joyce apologises to the Prime Minister for saying nasty things about him when he was on the backbench. Things he meant, but later under different circumstances, when he became leader of his own party again, found him more likeable.

Mr Joyce said he commented in a text last year when he was a backbencher and had no working relationship with the PM. He now does and has found the PM to be a man of his word.

Kevin Rudd, the recipient of some name-calling himself, was right onto this hypocrisy, tweeting that:

“Barnaby’s claim that he barely knew Morrison before last year is ridiculous. They’d spent 8yrs together in either cabinet or shadow cabinet – including in the pressure cooker of the expenditure review committee.”

In the leaked text, forwarded to the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins by a third-party Joyce said he did not “get along” with Morrison:

“He is a hypocrite, and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time,” Joyce said in the message, dated March last year.

“I have never trusted him, and I dislike how earnestly [he] rearranges the truth to a lie.”

The Guardian reported that:

“… it was the second time private text exchanges, critical of the prime minister, have been leaked in a week. On Tuesday, Morrison was blindsided when the Ten Network’s political editor, Peter van Onselen, used a televised question and answer session at the National Press Club to reveal private criticism of Morrison.

Van Onselen told Morrison he had a record of a text message exchange between a party colleague and the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian. She branded the prime minister a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy.

“The minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and ‘a complete psycho’,” van Onselen said. “Does this exchange surprise you? And what does it tell us?”

Van Onselen later said the conversation was between Berejiklian and a federal minister.”

Barnaby Joyce was due to appear on Insiders last Sunday. Guess what? He declined the invitation. The home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, took his place. I’ll leave that to your own thoughts.

A Sunday night bombshell:

The minister who shared the text with van Onselen and gave permission to use it was Peter Dutton. If PM Morrison has one more week in free fall the prospect of a leadership change pre-election is real. Party rules don’t count if most MPs think you will lead them to defeat.

— Bob Carr (@bobjcarr) February 6, 2022

I expect his tweet to be splashed all over the front pages the following morning, but there was nothing. I can only find a note from a friend saying Dutton has asked for the tweet to be removed.

@bobjcarr's tweet is baseless, untrue and should be deleted.

— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) February 6, 2022

It was the subject of some discussion on ABC News 24 but nothing much else I. What it does highlight, however, is the infighting within the Coalition if it’s not about the future of renewables versus coal, its leadership or revenge.

It seems there is more discussion about politicians’ welfare than the peoples’.

Whether Bob Carr is exploiting an already sick situation for Morrison and the Coalition is unknown. Is it just his opinion, or does he know for sure? We shall have to wait to find out.

2 Now at the risk of repeating myself, let me talk about the voters, the ones who decide who governs us. Their opinions are reflected in the numerous opinion polls that are regularly published, but we cannot be 100% sure. Polls are often wrong.

The great majority of people come together every three years to vote unthinkingly for the party their parents voted for. As bad as they have governed, they wouldn’t betray the party.

There are others who, from election to election, glibly take little notice of the affairs of the state. They stand by dispassionately, wondering why politicians are paid so much to do so little.

I would also think that a fair proportion of voters wouldn’t even know who is standing for election in their electorate. Many wouldn’t know who they might vote for until they close the curtain on the booth.

There will be those who will decide based on the scantest information; however, given the lifestyle they live, that’s of little surprise. A modern lifestyle leaves little time for thoughts on politics.

Yet, another group changes their vote according to what’s in it for them. “How will your policies benefit me?”

By far, the largest growing group are those who have opted out of the system altogether, saying a pox on both your houses.

Smack in the middle is a cohort of non-aligned thinkers who put all else aside, placing the country’s good at the top of their priorities. They are called the swinging voter.

This group was estimated at 10% of voters long ago without research. It is now thought to be around 20%. Well that, as I recall, was John Howards figure. However, polling shows that older voters generally support the right and the younger ones the left.

Today’s voters have been subjected to (in my view) the worst governance of any period I can ever remember. The reader should assume that I don’t have a high opinion of the average voter. However, why people continue to vote for a failed party in the face of abject negligence is a mystery.

Then I turn my attention to Labor and wonder about its prospects. At the moment Albo is sitting back, allowing the Coalition to dig its own grave. Since being elected as leader he has restored some of Labor’s traditional ideology but with a modern take. There is far less importance on unions and a concentration on fairness and traditional left values like equality.

Those who want to apply the first rule of politics – obtaining power – must realise that the electorate has had enough of far-right ideology. Many are disgusted with the methods used to acquire power at all costs and its retention. Better to gather the trust of the people with good honest politics.

The door has opened for Labor to fix the many wrongs perpetrated by this undemocratic conservative bunch of unscrupulous lawbreakers full of people with little regard for the constitutional dignity of the parliament.

With scant regard for empathy, fairness, righteousness, compassion, equality of opportunity, it is prepared to go to any end to retain the power it has. A power they say they were born to rule with.

But right now the government is falling apart… let’s hope the voters are paying attention.

There is nothing like an election campaign to forcibly ram home how desperately disappointing politics has become.

Ridiculous photo shoots, leaked texts, pork-barrelling, character assassination, gotcha questions, drum beating and distraction – this is what we are dished up when we are asked to judge the performance of our government.

Legislative priority is decided by perceived political advantage rather than good governance.  How else could you explain trying to bring on a severely flawed religious freedom bill before enacting the recommendations from the Aged Care Royal Commission?

Our aged care system is in crisis and yet @ScottMorrisonMP has put the Religious Discrimination Bill ahead of a Bill to implement some of the Aged Care Royal Commission recommendations. The Senate rarely gets to Bills listed for Thursday. His priorities are totally wrong! #auspol pic.twitter.com/YTRbfFOHLd

— Rex Patrick (@MrRexPatrick) February 5, 2022

Money is thrown around with gay abandon.

$222K per carpark is hardly value for money. But I guess when you’re buying votes with taxpayer money @JoshFrydenberg, any price is a good price, especially when it’s your own electorate. #FederalICAC now! #auspol #unethical https://t.co/F6zhv0FTyb

— Rex Patrick (@MrRexPatrick) February 6, 2022

Outright lies are deliberately told.  Before the last election, a misinformation campaign that Labor had an agreement with the Greens and the unions to introduce a 40% death tax went viral.  The source was our very own work experience Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a thoroughly dishonest media release titled DEATH TAXES – YOU DON’T SAY, BILL!

In response to the current leaked texts fiasco, Coalition politicians are dismissing it as a media beat up, that everyone sends nasty texts after a bad day, it’s normal to disagree sometimes.

What rot!  There is nothing normal about the whole business and it underlines just what a toxic workplace culture exists in our parliaments.

Blowing off steam to a partner or close friend might be one thing – nasty name-calling in print sent to people who live by leaking to the media is not how any management team should behave.

So why do our politicians do all this?   Because their staffers and media advisers think it’s a good idea?

The marketing approach is delivering increasingly worse results in terms of personnel and outcomes.  Politicians can’t be experts at everything but they could listen to people who are.

How about we leave the hairdressing to hairdressers, get rid of the personal photographer and image consultants, and get some policy experts on board instead.

The Prime Minister’s National Press Club address

No, it isn’t the most straightforward job on earth. The hours are horrendous, and the expectations unimaginable. No one would take it on thinking it was a piece of cake. That’s why people are paid an enormous sum. Some do so for the power it gives them; others are genuine in their desire to create a better place. Whatever it is, you must accept the responsibilities that go with it.

Sometimes when things go pear-shaped, a leader has to stand before his distracters and confess his wrongdoings. Scott Morrison went partway in doing just that when he addressed the National Press Club last Tuesday. Did he show enough contrition equal to his deplorable governance? Well, opinions might vary, but for me, he showed little that would match his inability to govern with any quality of leadership.

His speech wasn’t an apology, nor was it a confession that he had made many mistakes and shown little foresight in confronting the issue of COVID-19. It was a grim speech, never mentioning climate change and produced little to excite a nation worn out by the invading pandemic and its variants.

Morrison had his back to the wall. One could cut a knife through the suspense. There was an expectancy on his part that the audience would be understanding of the difficulties of governing. He toyed with a self-desired sympathy for his efforts that weren’t forthcoming.

Then he suggested that the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. The Coalition was still the better money manager, and their born to rule right still applied.

For me, many factors explained his unpopularity. Before giving his address, I believed that the media in general only attributed his handling of the virus to his recent bad polling. After question time, I concluded I was wrong. The journalists were ruthless in their cross-examination of the Prime Minister, covering a wide range of subjects of a controversial nature.

The air between them and the Prime Minister was as thick as I have experienced. Maybe they were sick of being lied to.

The Guardian reported on one of those ruthless questions:

“Laura Tingle (not exactly a favourite of the PM) asked Scott Morrison if he was going to apologise for ‘the mistakes he has made as prime minister’, citing the Government’s handling of the pandemic but also Morrison’s holiday to Hawaii during the black summer bushfires in 2019 and cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).”

He didn’t directly answer the question but did admit that:

“I haven’t got everything right. And I’ll take my fair share of the criticism and the blame… We’re all terribly sorry for what this pandemic has done to the world and to this country.”

An excellent example of not answering the question.

Defence involved in rollout of vaccine

The Prime Minister didn’t say sorry; he did say that if he had his time again, he’d have done the vaccine rollout differently:

“If I had my time over, I would have put [the rollout] under military operation from the outset, and not later in the year,” he said.

“As we went through those early months and we had the challenges that we had with the Health Department… I took the decision to send in General (John) Frewen and change the way we did it.

“[We] set up a change in the command structure, how logistics were managed, how it was planned.

“And it worked but I wish I’d done that earlier, and that’s a lesson.”

“Mr Morrison also said the confusion around whether and when aged care patients could be taken to public hospitals was another issue that proved challenging during the outbreaks in 2020.”

Lieutenant General John Frewen was responsible for the oversight of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Safety in Parliament

The Prime Minister was asked what changes had been made to make Parliament and its political offices safer this year than last year.

Morrison answered that the most crucial difference this time around was the independent complaints body that was in place for anyone who was previously too worried about coming forward.

“That, I think, assists everybody who works in that building,” he said. “Not enough,” l thought.

Unemployment rate

Mr Morrison was exuberant when talking about the difference in the unemployment rates between now and the last time he addressed National Press Club a year ago.

“Unemployment is at 4.2 per cent. When I stood here a year ago, it was 6.6 per cent,” the Prime Minister said.

I find the unemployment figures being thrown around at the moment almost unacceptable, including folk who work one hour a week as in full-time employment totally inappropriate. A new method of measurement needs to be found.

Cost of living

When asked about what his Government would, or could, do to ease the rising cost of living for millions of Australians. Mr Morrison’s answer was an off the shelf one:

“That is why good economic management was more important than ever.”

The truth is that the cost of living will be a significant item in this election.

When asked a standard stock question on how much a loaf of bread, a litre of petrol and a rapid antigen test cost, Mr Morrison replied that:

“I’m not going to pretend to you that I go out each day and I buy a loaf of bread and I buy a litre of milk.”

“The point is that I do my job every day to ensure that those things are as affordable as they possibly can be for Australians every single day.”

In any campaign, an answer is essential, and candidates should know it off the top of their heads. Indeed, he drives past a servo in his travels.

How do you know if he is telling the truth?

A long line of journalists asked further questions about the public anger with the PM, a few on aged care, a royal commission question on COVID-19 to which Morrison gave a non-committal answer.

Samantha Maiden asked about government members claiming expenses when staying in their own homes. He was okay with it so long as they weren’t breaking the law. David Crowe queried the availability of RATs.

Andrew Probyn asked why the prime minister thought he was the best person to lead the country. Still, the most controversial was by Peter van Onselen about tweets concerning the former Premier of NSW Gladys Berejiklian. It caused a bit of a stir that forced the Prime Ministers eye blink rate into overdrive. I’m sure there is more to come on that one.

All in all, it was a most unsatisfactory performance by a Prime Minister with his back to the wall. His Ministers, who would remain much the same if he wins the election, need shoulder much of the blame. It is as well the National Press Club address isn’t a viewing highlight of the week for the general population. They would have been very disappointed.

To those who say Albo doesn’t have charisma, I ask which of the following. Did:

John Howard, Julia Gillard, John Hewson, Bob Hawke, Gough Whitlam, Bill Shorten, Kim Beasley, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Fraser, Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison?

There are three, and they are all Labor.