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Category Archives: Rossleigh

The Strange Cases Of Kate, Dutton And The Man On The Moon…

As I often remind everyone, the trouble with conspiracy theories is that they start from two central truths of life:

  1. You can’t trust people in authority.
  2. Always look carefully at the evidence.
  3. The Illuminati is controlling everything.

Now my more astute readers will have noticed that I listed three things when I said that there were two truths. I could tell you which of the two are true but I’ll leave it work it out for yourself but please, for the safety of both of us don’t write in the comments that it’s number three!

Anyway, I must confess that I wasn’t taken too much notice of all the conspiracy theories surrounding the Princess of Wales. I mean, whatever you think of the Royal Family, it is pretty far-fetched to believe that she’d turned into a zombie and was eating their brains, even if there are less and less of them appearing in public. After all, a lack of brains never stopped them in previous generations so why should they go all sensitive about that now…

Yes, it was only in the last few hours that I felt the need to put my sharp investigative skills into the strange case of Kate’s photo. I call it strange for a number of reasons that haven’t been canvassed yet:

  • Media organisations decided that it was digitally altered and didn’t publish it. This is only strange because many of the same media organisations have been publishing digitally altered photos for years.
  • Prince Will wasn’t in the photo which would lead one to presume that he took the photo.
  • Kate admitted to digitally altering the photo… Of course, when I say that Kate has admitted to doing that I simply mean that she tweeted that she’d done it after several media outlets said that it was altered. Of course, she explained that she’s an amateur photography who takes photos of herself and her children which makes one wonder where Willie was if he wasn’t the one taking the photo… And when I say that she explained what I mean is that there was a tweet from the account of The Prince and Princess of Wales which one presumes is from her because it ended with a capital “C” because her name is Catherine and William doesn’t use the “C” word at the end of his tweets. Although when I think about it the “C” could stand for a lot of things, including “Counterfeit”, “Contrived” and … anyway, let’s move on!

Speaking of Peter Dutton, I’d have to say that his nuclear policy is one of those times when I’m totally onboard with the conspiracy concept. What’s the Coalition being doing for the past ten years? Delaying the rollout of renewables and extending the life of fossil fuels. What would introducing nuclear do? Delay the rollout renewables and extend the life of fossil fuels!

It’s not hard to put two and two together and actually get four this time. Let’s take the policy seriously for a moment and presume that it’s a damn good idea. The first thing that’s wrong with it I’ll explain with this apocryphal story.

Imagine my wife and I want to go on a holiday at the end of the year. She decides that she’d like to go to France and I say that it’s too far away and they don’t speak English. She counters with the idea that we can learn enough French to get by and use Google translate for the rest and I counter with: “What about when the Internet doesn’t work at night!” and she replies that I’m an idiot and we get nowhere. However because it would be good to go on a holiday I propose that we go on space flight instead, but instead of discussing this with her and trying to reach consensus, I announce at a dinner party in front of friends that my wife has this silly idea of going to France and that she totally rejects the idea of a space flight because she doesn’t accept that the technology is completely safe and she thinks that it would cost more than France but if you people will just vote for me, I’ll have the space flight thing all organised sometime in the next decade.

Apart from anything else, you can probably presume that our end of year holiday won’t be happening.

So, in terms of Dutton, if he were really serious about nuclear energy then surely it would be good to be working on a consensus with the government rather than; “We’ll make this an election issue because power prices are too high and nuclear will help with that sometime in the very near future because it should only take 3-5 years to build a small nuclear reactor on every corner. Look at our success with the NBN rollout where we used the existing copper wires and we can do the same with nuclear reactors by putting them on the sites of defunct coal-fired power stations.”

Naturally there are some little holes in his plan. That is, if you presume that his plan is really to build them and not to merely keep Gina happy. Let’s look at the best case scenario for nuclear:

  • Dutton wins election
  • Dutton announces task force to draw up plan for SMR
  • Task force investigates for six months and hands report to Dutton for consideration
  • Dutton holds press conference to announce his intention to draw up a plan
  • Press reports on rumoured location of SMRs
  • Dutton tells media that no decisions have been made
  • Coalition announces that they’ve contracted out the investigation of potential sites to a company which nobody has heard of but has an office in a shack on Kangaroo Island.
  • Directors of said company go overseas to research the countries with SMRs operating.
  • Directors return and announce that as there were no such countries we need to develop our own.
  • New contract is drawn up giving Liberal donors lots and lots of money to build SMRs just as soon as they’re viable.
  • Dutton is defeated in a spill and the new PM announces that he (this is the Liberal party, after all, so no need for a he/she there) will be getting nuclear back on track.

Like I said, the trouble with conspiracy theories is that they start with something perfectly reasonable. However, as someone once observed, when you have a choice between a conspiracy and a stuff-up, pick the latter. You’ll usually be right!

 

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Peter Dutton’s New Clear Vision…Oh, Sorry Nuclear Fission!

Peter Dutton has a vision for our energy future. Personally, I think that’s great. One should have a vision particularly if one is a political leader…

Like Jeff Kennett. Being a Victorian, I clearly remember how Jeff shared his vision of a privatised energy market where choice and the market would bring down prices and lead to the sort of efficiencies that would mean that we could be confident that power prices would be lower but unfortunately it didn’t work out like that. Still, one shouldn’t hold it against him that his vision didn’t work out quite as he described it; one should only get stuck into Labor leaders when they promise that electricity prices will come down by $275 by 2025 even if we’re still in 2024… Or in the case of Tony “Marty McFly” Abbott stuck in the 1950s!

Pete was very clear. The sun doesn’t shine at night, wind turbines at sea are likely to interfere with nature and he’s always been keen on nature, and batteries haven’t been invented yet. Yes, he actually said words to that effect. On the other hand, we can put a small, modular nuclear reactor in lots and lots of places just as soon as someone invents one and we find the several billion dollars to pay for it…

Don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s good that Dutton is thinking long term! Far too often leaders only worry about the short term and I sort of find it inspiring that Peter is so optimistic about the future when any reasonable analysis of the Dunkley by-election would have the party changing leaders before anybody had time to count the numbers.

“Let’s elect the new guy from Cook.”

“Simon Kennedy?”
“Yeah. He has to be better and the public don’t know him yet!”

I should point out that the Liberal candidate for Cook hasn’t actually been elected yet, but that didn’t stop News.com.au from declaring him the winner. I mean, I know there’s pressure on to be the first media outlet to declare an election win, but I’m old-fashioned enough to think that we should wait until after the electorate have voted. Still, he did win in spite of the fact that the moderate faction wanted a woman, as did John Howard, but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, he’s a winner because he managed to defeat the moderate faction which shows he should fit in quite nicely in the Canberra party room. And he also defeated John Howard which is pretty easy to do, given he’s the only living PM to lose his seat in a general election.

Of course, Peter Dutton’s new clear fission… sorry nuclear vision… has a few hurdles to get over.

The first is that someone is bound to ask for more detail. Naturally, he can say that we’re just outlining the general idea and we can work out the detail later. This should be enough because, after all, it’s not like the Voice to Parliament because it’s his idea so surely we shouldn’t ask for any more than the broad strokes.

The second is that once he starts to become specific about where to locate the plants, then we’ll undoubtedly see the NIMBYs coming out, and while Dutton supports farmers who don’t want powerlines in their back yard, this is different. It’s sort of like fracking where people should just suck it up… Not the gas. That wouldn’t be good. This problem might be solved by only putting reactor in Labor electorates, but then it makes it hard to win government because they have more electorates than he does.

The third is that, while it’s good to have the vision thing, it doesn’t actually solve the immediate problem. After all, if you’re sleeping in your car, you don’t appreciate being told that the solution to this is a new government initiative where you’ll be trained in building and given a low-cost loan, tools and a free block of land to build your own home, even if it would potentially solve your long term accomodation problem. Similarly, while my solar panels have made me ok with my electricity consumption, I find my gas bill annoyingly high and I’m not going to say, “Nuclear in ten years time. Wow, thanks Pete, I’ll just have cold showers till then, but I hear that’s likely to extend my life… at the very least, it’ll seem longer.”

So let’s have three cheers for Peter:

  1. One for having a longterm vision
  2. Two for his optimism in thinking that he’ll be leader by the time the next election comes around. (I’m presuming that News.com.au is right and we already have the winner of Cook. I’m also presuming he lasts that long, so one cheer for me here too!)
  3. And, finally, for actually being the first Opposition Liberal leader to announce a policy.

All right number 3 may be a little unfair because Tony did have two policies: The first was to undo everything that Labor had done and the second was a rolled, gold paid parental leave scheme.

Whatever. Here we go: Three cheers, hip, hip…

Oh, that’s not very nice. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

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Michaelia Cash Argues Against Democracy!

Last week Senator Cash tweeted the…

Is it still correct to say “tweet”? I mean now that it’s X, should it be “Senator Cash Xed…”?

Whatever, Senator Cash put out the following message on the social media platform that was once Twitter but is now X:

“Australians should be able to choose what car they need for their family and their work – not the Prime Minister.”

So Australians should able to choose what car they need but they shouldn’t be able to choose the Prime Minister? That’s outrageous!

Yes, of course, that’s not what she meant; it’s just what she said. And yes, she was just trying to make a point about the government trying to impose more efficient vehicles on people when they want to waste money on less fuel efficient ones.

The Opposition have seized on this to complain about how this will make some vehicles more expensive while ignoring that a large number will actually be cheaper. I guess it doesn’t make a good scare campaign to suggest that most of you will be better off but those who want to waste money on a fuel guzzler may be given the opportunity to waste money up front by having to pay more for their car.

Still, the scare campaign has apparently worked a treat in the Dunkley by-election where the Liberal candidate achieved a magnificent swing of approximately 3.75%. The Liberals were overjoyed with this because if this was repeated in the general election then they’d repeat the result of losing Dunkley by less than they lost it at the previous election.

Personally, I couldn’t quite understand how they could be so happy with the result when they had so much going for them:

  1. Peta Murphy had a significant personal vote which would go a long way to explain why Labor’s primary vote was lower. Unfortunately for the Liberals it wasn’t. The fact that the primary vote held up should be the signal for a lot of soul searching in the Liberal Party, and if they actually find someone with a soul, then it’d be a great start!
  2. Scott Morrison was no longer leader and there was supposed to be a Morrison factor that went against the Liberals in the 2022 election… Mind you, in 2018, Morrison’s colleagues decided that they preferred him to Dutton, so the change in leadership may not be actually be the plus that commentators think!
  3. Anthony Albanese had just recently become the first Prime Minister to break an election promise and we can’t trust him… All right, he may not have been the first one to break a promise given Abbott’s paid parental leave and no cuts promises, John Howard’s “Never ever GST!”, Morrison’s Integrity Commission that he couldn’t introduce because Labor disagreed, but Albanese was the first one to admit that he was breaking one and that he was sorry.
  4. Australia has the highest rate of inflation of all the countries in a list of countries that excludes all the ones with higher inflation. The increased prices and the interest rate rises have caused a cost of living crisis because we only have crises when Labor is in power. When the Liberals are in power we have problems or difficulties or concerns.
  5. Similarly there is a housing crisis which is all Labor’s fault because when people couldn’t afford a house under a Liberal government, they just need to follow Joe Hockey’s advice and get a better paying job.
  6. Immigration is too high. Dan Tehan told us all on “Insiders” that it was too high but wouldn’t be drawn on what figure would be about right. No matter how many times David Spears asked, Mr Tehan couldn’t be tricked into revealing a Liberal policy because that’s against their strategy. Of course, he insisted that they have plenty of policies but none that can be released until closer to the election… In the past they’ve often waited till very close to the election date and by very close I mean a few days after they’ve been elected.
  7. In a by-election which won’t change the government, there’s an opportunity for a protest vote to let the government know that they better get their act together.

Yet for all this, the swing was merely consistent with what you’d expect in a by-election. In sporting terms, it’d be like saying that our team was expected to lose by 37 points and we did, so isn’t that a great result?

 

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I’m Not A Racist Butt…

It’s interesting how quickly things change!

I mean wasn’t it just yesterday when Morrison and his fellow Liberals were telling us that people were innocent until proven guilty and, if anyone hadn’t been convicted, then they were innocent. Of course, this legal concept doesn’t apply to people who have been charged with a crime because we now keep hearing that criminals shouldn’t be out on bail while awaiting trial because we all know that they’re guilty.

And just last year, Anthony Albanese was being attacked for holding the Voice Referendum by the Coalition. Even though it was an election promise, he never should have proceeded with it unless he had bipartisan support. This year, he’s a liar for not keeping his promise on the Stage 3 tax cuts even though the changes have bipartisan support.

When it comes to the tax cuts the Liberal position is quite clear: “Albanese never should have changed them but now he has we’re voting for them because people need help but they need help now and the tax cuts that should have stayed the way he promised don’t come in until July and that’s far too late for something that we argue shouldn’t have happened at all!”

Anyway, if someone didn’t support the Voice that didn’t make them a racist. I know this because we were told over and over again that this it wasn’t fair to label someone a racist just because they didn’t want the Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

Of course, some people didn’t get the memo because they now argue that 70% of Australians voted against a Welcome to Country, having any sort of Indigenous body advising Parliament, changing the date, a Treaty, Closing The Gap, Linda Burney and truth telling.

Perhaps it’s just me but when someone gets outraged about truth telling, it does make me wonder exactly what they’re suggesting: “We don’t want any of that ‘truth telling’ round here! Lies were good enough for my parents and my grandparents and I’m sick of these people trying to wreck our traditions.”

Speaking of ‘lies’, it’s interesting that a broken election promise is somehow more worthy of examination than politicians lying on a daily basis. For example, when Dutton said that our interest rates were higher than all the G7 countries, this would be an easily verifiable fact were it not for the minor problem that it just isn’t one. Only Japan had lower interest rates at the time he made the statement, so either he was making it up, speaking off the top of his head or unable to read a simple table and work out that certain numbers were higher than others. All things that I would have thought worthy of examination by the media.

Similarly, the so-called tax on SUVs, utes and tanks has been a source of outrage from the Coalition of the Dulling. Inflation seems have grown worse here than our current rate of 4.1% because “Labor’s carbon tax” on new vehicles went from $10k one day to $15k a few days later to the $25k where it now sits until we learn that by the year 2087 it will cost over a million dollars to buy a jet thanks to Labor’s new tax.

Ok, some of you may be trying to defend the proposed emission standards by pointing out that it’s not a tax or by pointing out that we’re one of the only developed nations that doesn’t have one or by asking what’s wrong with emitting less noxious gases when we all know that the amendments to the American Constitution give all drivers the right to poison others by driving the vehicle emitting the most toxic fumes. However, you’re missing the logical flaw in the line of attack: Surely nobody can afford a new car under Labor!

It seems to me that there are a number of areas where Labor can be criticised, such as not increasing payments for the unemployed by more, inadequate support for the homeless, more urgent action on climate change and others. But when Angus Taylor attacked Labor for “spending too much” the other day, it sounds rather silly when they’ve produced the first surplus in fifteen years. It was even sillier when Gussie Taylor told us that Labor “spent an extra $209 MILLION dollars since they came to power. That’s $20,000 for every Australian household.” Mm, by my calculations that means there are only 2090 households in Australia… No wonder the Liberal Party couldn’t deliver a surplus!!

Ok, he clearly meant billion but it’s easy to get your billions mixed up with your millions when you have no idea what you’re talking about… Like when Josh got his sums out by a mere $66 billion but it was in our favour, so what’s carelessness matter?

While some criticisms of Labor by Dutton and his band of merry misfits are just not true, most of the others aren’t likely to make much of an impact on the swinging voter. For example, when the Coalition failed to support the motion on Julian Assange it argued that Australia shouldn’t be interfering in the legal processes of another country which is strange considering that I don’t remember that same argument being raised when China prosecutes our citizens. Whatever, I can’t see that being a position that’s liable to appeal to anyone who doesn’t already intend to vote for Voldemort…

Yes, I know people tell me that I shouldn’t call Dutton by that name. It has been pointed it’s upsetting and cheap and commenting on a physical resemblance that he can’t help is not fair. However, I simply reply by reminding people that Voldemort is a fictional character and therefore won’t actually be upset by the comparison…

If you look at the position Dutton takes on just about any issue, it’s worth asking who is actually going to be swayed into voting for him based on what he’s said.

 

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Ok, So This Is A Boring Post… Or Should I Say A Boring Read?

Gloria Sty, bud Iyam riting this coz I wanna mayk sum poynts bowt reeding and fonnix…

You probably read that first sentence more slowly than usual and some of you will have just ignored it, but your probably able to read it, if you read it allowed.

Of course, you probably read that second sentence much more quickly and only some of you will notice that it used the wrong homonym. It should have read: You’re probably able to read that just fine if you read it aloud.

More importantly, you were able to read the first sentence because you were able to use phonics to decode the sentence. For most people that made it much, much slower than the way they read most things.

To use an imperfect analogy, think of reading like learning to drive: It’s very important to learn how to use the brakes. And the steering wheel and the accelerator. Once you’ve learned where all those things are, then it’s time to start concentrating on where you’re going and what’s around you. You may still be a poor driver and have no sense of direction, but only a small number will need a refresher course on where the brakes are. In this analogy, think of knowing how to use letters to sound out a word as the breaks and knowledge as the accelerator. Sometimes you’ll neither be able to use either of those things to make meaning, so you might swerve around them with the steering wheel and continue in the hope that what you avoided isn’t a problem later.

Ok, it’s an imperfect analogy. I admitted as much myself. Of course, just like with driving, it’s a lot more than knowing where the brakes, accelerator and steering wheel are. You have to know where you’re going and – even though you’ve been driven to Grandma’s house hundreds of times – when you’re driving you may suddenly become aware that you don’t actually know which road to turn down and you need someone to direct you, or else you need to put on the brakes and look up the route… (Yes, I’m ignoring the possibility of using a GPS because it doesn’t fit the analogy…)

Reading is not simply a matter of decoding words with phonics any more than driving is a matter of knowing where the brakes are. In both cases, if you have to use them every few seconds, you’ll never get anywhere. Reading requires knowledge which Daniel Wllingham explains rather succinctly in this article: “School time, knowledge and reading comprehension”.

When I say knowledge, I’d don’t just mean a knowledge of vocabulary. While a rich vocabulary is extremely important in understanding what one reads, one needs a wide general knowledge to pick up the inferences in what one reads.

A sentence such as: “Albanese took the wind out of Dutton’s sails by agreeing with him!” requires not just a knowledge of Australian politics to appreciate the implications of the sentence, but unless one is familiar with the phrase “wind out his sails” then one might be left confused. Similarly the following paragraph needs the reader to make a number of inferences that aren’t present in a literal reading:

She thanked David for the lift and asked him if I’d like to come in for a coffee. “Won’t your husband mind if we wake him up?” he asked. “No,” she replied, “he’s away at the moment, so we really don’t have to worry about him at all!”

A literal reading would have the reader believing that David was concerned about the sleep patterns of the husband, whereas most people would suspect that there was a subtext to the question as well as the answer.

When the Grattan Institute’s report was publicised last week, I couldn’t help but notice that the media used the failure to success anecdote by talking about an individual school who had made a dramatic improvement after adopting the recommended strategy. The trouble with the failure to success model is that it doesn’t tell you what’s going on elsewhere and, in this case, I’d suggest that most primary schools do have a structured approach to teaching kids how to sound out words. There may be room for improvement but when you are talking about the failure to success model, you aren’t looking at what’s happening in most places.

To explain what I mean as simply as I can, I’ll move away from education and use healthcare to illustrate by way of a fictional example:

Jonestown Hospital had one of the worst fatality rates in the state, then a new chief of staff, Dr Smith, instituted a policy of sterilisation. Dr Smith insisted that instruments were sterilised after each use and mandated the washing of hands between surgical procedures. “Surgeons had been instructed to save soap and water by only washing their hands at the start of the day but once we washed before every operation, the infection rate went down dramatically!”

If only other hospitals were to adopt these simple measures then we may be able to reduce fatalities to zero.

Yes, the reason that Jonestown hospital was able to improve was that it wasn’t doing what nearly every other hospital does. That’s why it had such a high fatality rate.

Now to drag that back to education, it’s obvious that if one poorly performing school isn’t doing something that most other schools are doing and they start doing it, then they’ll likely improve but that’s not an indication that all the schools who were doing better than the previously poorly performing school has something to teach them. In fact, it may be the opposite.

Every time the media report on education they have a tendency to report on the failures within the system and present some solution as though it’s the panacea for everything, while overlooking the fact that some of the reasons for poor performance are known to everyone and ignored. For example, why does NAPLAN compare like schools? Well, everyone knows if we compared all schools with all schools and didn’t take into account socio-economic factors, we’d find that socio-economic factors were the biggest element in the difference in ranking.

 

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Labor’s Problem With Renewables, Reneging and Reading

Before you wish congratulations to Anthony and Jodie on their engagement, let me alert you to the fact that it’s only a distraction!

I know this because I’ve been reading people’s comments on social media. Apparently a number of people who were concerned about taxpayers being charged for Jodie Haydon’s travel on the grounds that she wasn’t the PM’s wife, are now sure that he only did it to distract from the fact that Labor released over a hundred criminals because the High Court ordered them to.

Some people are attempting to argue that the reason they were released was because they’d served a sentence and – with no prospect of deporting them – it was inconsistent to hold them indefinitely when other people who’ve committed crimes are set free once their sentence was served. This overlooks that these offenders belong to a class of people that the Coalition objects to: foreigners! Let’s be clear here criminals fall into categories as far as the Liberal Party is concerned those who should be locked up forever and those who we can enter into contracts with. (I’m presuming you heard about criminal connections linked to some immigration detention contracts.)

Anyway, I’m sure that any fair-minded person would understand that there was no reason for Albo to propose on Valentine’s Day apart from the need to distract people from all the problems associated with his government at the moment. For example, unemployment has just ticked over 4% which nobody apart from the Reserve Bank wants. The RBA argued that unemployment would have to go higher before interest rates could start falling but what would they know?

And, of course, in Victoria we had that terrible problem with renewable energy after a spell of nasty weather. Matt Canavan referred to it as a “renewables blackout” because the coal-fired power station was off-line after the wind blew over the transmission towers. All right, I was a bit confused about how it’s renewables that are unreliable when it was the coal-fired power station that was offline but then someone explained that a large number of houses were without power because trees had blown over and knocked out power lines and trees are part of the renewable greenie agenda and if we didn’t have trees then there’d be nothing to blow over… apart from powerlines, of course.

Then we have the problem of Labor reneging on their promise to keep the Stage 3 tax cuts exactly as they were when they were legislated by the Morrison government five years ago. Reneging on a promise is a terrible thing and the fact that most people think that the new arrangement is preferable to the previous one shouldn’t make any difference. The Liberals have never broken a promise in spite of what Mr Macron thinks about submarines. That, I should point out, wasn’t a promise – it was a contract and a contract is different from a promise because Scott Morrison told us that he made it clear to the French President that the contract wasn’t worth the paper it was written on because we’d changed our mind.

I’m still intrigued by the assertion by the Liberals that the government promised on “hundreds” of occasions that they weren’t going to change Stage 3. Saying that you have no intention of doing something is not the same as a promise that you won’t do it. For example, I have no intention of having lunch with Taylor Swift this weekend, but if you see a selfie of us at a restaurant somewhere I don’t think anybody will be accusing me of breaking a promise.

A few days ago, the Grattan Institute gave us the breaking news that one third of Australian students didn’t read as well as the other two thirds and that this was costing the economy billions of dollars. They had a report from which the media took various quotes and told us that the Grattan Institute report had the solution which was structured phonics lessons in all schools.

Now don’t get me wrong here. There are definitely students who need help with their reading. And teaching students phonics in their early years is a good thing. Both of these ideas are worthy of more time than I can devote in a few paragraphs… just like the media who manage to present the problem and the solution in a few paragraphs during one bulletin. Without getting bogged down here I would like to point out a few points that the news item didn’t think worthy of mentioning:

  1. The figures were based on NAPLAN results so it wasn’t a new discovery.
  2. When a report says that X number of people are “below expected level”, it’s always worth asking how far below the expected level they are. For example, there’s a big difference between having a below average wage and not being paid at all.
  3. The idea that “all schools” should be delivering structured lessons on phonics made me want to ask if it included all students in secondary schools.
  4. The report was compiled by someone who studied economics. I have nothing against economists but I wouldn’t want one to be diagnosing my illness and writing my prescriptions or performing surgery.

Whatever, it seems that Labor is having so many problems that Albo felt it necessary to propose and increase his chances in the Dunkley by-election because I’m sure that’s the sort of thing that’ll be foremost in people’s mind when they enter the polling booth.

 

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Barnaby Launches A Spill!

Ok, you’ve all seen the photos/video of the ex-Deputy Prime Minister demonstrating his skill in answering a phone while prostrate… It’s not as easy as it looks.

There have been comparisons to Sir Les Paterson by some, while others are using the cheap joke that this is unfair on poor Sir Les who managed to remain upright.

Let’s be clear here, we shouldn’t be making jokes about someone who’s so pissed that they can’t stand up. Alcohol is a serious problem. We need to acknowledge that. As Barnaby himself said:

“You have to be honest about the source. About 40 to 50 per cent of the problem is alcohol. If you don’t want to call it that then I don’t know what you want to say. It’s fairies at the bottom of the garden, it’s the alignment of the planet. No, it’s people chasing grog…

Well, he was talking about Alice Springs but I think he does make some very valid points.

Just like when he called himself a “dead f@cking c#nt” while talking to his wife on the phone. I’m adding the symbols because I’m quoting directly from a couple of the papers and I don’t want to be accused of misquoting the man. Anyway, according to his partner, Vikki Campion, he “likes to self-flaggelate”… which goes a long way toward explaining his presence in Parliament when he asserts that he’d rather that government just get out of our lives.

She was also quoted as saying: “I’ve been with Barnaby when we have found a man in the same state on the street and rather than take a video and sell it to the media, he picked the guy up and took him home.”

Now, while I have no wish to disparage the couple’s Good Samaritan act, I don’t know that a federal politician and their partner filming someone lying in the street and trying to sell it to the media is the sort of thing that’s liable to lead to favourable media coverage, so it’s not really an option.

Just for clarity, I should explain that Barnaby’s predicament was caused by a simple accident where he wasn’t concentrating and walked into something he didn’t see: the ground. Once there, he decided that it was better to continue to talk on the phone rather than get up because, as anyone with a degree in Psychology knows, multitasking is a myth.

Now there have been a number of reactions from his colleagues but basically they’re saying that it’s a reflection on modern society that the person filmed it because whenever they find Barnaby self-flagellating on the ground their first reaction is not to reach for their phone and film it; their first reaction is to offer assistance… I presume that’s assistance in standing up and not in the flagellating department…

This whole incident just shows how unfair society is. Anyone else would have probably been given free accommodation in a police cell while poor Mr Joyce was left to fend for himself in the cold Canberra night.

We need to remember that Barnaby is “one of the best retail politicians” in the country so I’m sure he can be forgiven for a misdemeanour like this and I’m sure that he’ll be back to campaigning in no time…

Not in Dunkley, obviously because the Nationals won’t be standing a candidate there, and so the Coalition will have to do without the unique skills of Mr Joyce who recently called wind farms “filth” asserting that they’re not farms but factories, prompting most people to wonder if he considers coal-fired power stations farms or factories.

Even without Mr Joyce, the Liberals are still a good chance of being able to spin the result in Dunkley favourably. After all, after a week of Dutton and his cohorts telling everyone that Albanese’s broken promise would finish him, Simon Benson managed to write an article about how Newspoll had stayed the same and the tax cuts hadn’t given Labor a bounce in the polls.

Similarly with Dunkley, at this moment in the electoral cycle with the cost of living issues, the lack of rate relief from the RBA, the loss of a personal vote for Peta Murphy after her death and the broken promise attacks, you’d have to think that anything less than a win would be bad news. However, I suspect that any swing away from the government will suddenly be perceived as a massive plus for Dutton and we’ll hear something like one of the following from Bridget McKenzie’s partner:

“Excellent result, Dutton managed to get something like the average swing for a by-election and that’s hard when you have by-election caused by a tragedy like this.”

Or, in the unlikely event that Labor increase their majority, we’d get:

“Great result under the circumstances when you have a government throwing money at the public! They’ve obviously been blinded by the bribe of tax cuts and it’ll take a while for the government’s dishonesty to bite in the suburbs.”

Whatever, in three weeks’ time we’ll have Samantha Maiden and/or Phil Coorey on “Insiders” telling us that Labor’s refusal to announce any plans on negative gearing is enabling the Coalition to frighten people with a scare campaign about Labor’s plans for negative gearing and so they’d better say something that we can say that people won’t believe them so they’d be better saying nothing rather than giving Dutton ammunition by saying something!

 

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Peter Dutton’s Unequivocal Position!

Apparently, we should all be shocked: There is a liar in the Lodge!

Now, I know that some of you are thinking that – after the years from Abbott to Morrison – it’d be a much bigger shock to find that there wasn’t a liar in the Lodge, but that’s not what I’m finding so perplexing about the latest attempt by the Coalition to gain some political traction.

It’s the fact that they want us to be so shocked about it when they’ve just spent the past couple of years telling us that we couldn’t trust Labor and that Anthony Albanese lied to the Australian people because he told us 295 times that power bills would come down by $97… Or was it the other way around.

And, of course, there was the broken promise not to touch superannuation and then Labor increased the tax on superannuation accounts worth more than $3,000,000, making it harder than ever for those on the minimum wage to pay their fair share of tax.

Not to mention all the other broken promises…

And yet, now we’re supposed to be shocked. It’s almost as if the Coalition weren’t serious about all the other times they said that Albanese was lying.

Of course we all know that there are times when it’s ok to break an election promise. Here are some examples:

  • Tony Abbott’s no cuts to the ABC, Health or Education
  • Tony Abbott’s maternity leave scheme was completely affordable in Opposition but too expensive in government
  • Scott Morrison’s promise that the Budget was back in surplus next year
  • John Howard’s non-core promises
  • Abandoning the net zero commitment would have been just fine and some Coalition MPs have been urging the government to do that
  • Similar, it was a terrible mistake for Albanese to hold the Voice Referendum even though that too was an election promise.

The list is potentially much larger but you get the idea.

Anyway now that the government has abandoned the Stage 3 tax cuts we’re discovering some remarkable things. For example, while it was wrong to change them, the changes are terrible because they don’t come into effect until July 1 and people need help now. This is like saying we didn’t think that you should call an ambulance for Jerry but now that the ambulance is on its way, aren’t you concerned that he’ll have to wait in the emergency room and shouldn’t you have fixed the hospital system first!

We’re also told by Peter Dutton that the changes are “bad policy” but he’s going to support them because the Coalition “won’t stand in the way of families doing it tough”, even if it’s “bad policy”. And they won’t be reversing the changes in government but they’re not “absolutely not” walking away from the “principles of Stage 3”. So to paraphrase, we’re completely committed to something that we’re not going to do in government and not going to oppose in opposition. For some reason this makes me wonder why I never watch “Married At First Sight”…

He told us: “We had stage 3 there, which was fully funded … they have taken the money from the stage 3 tax cuts and they have applied it to their own policy.” Their own policy being giving more of it to people earning less than $150k. How dare they!

I’m still unsure about what “fully funded” means when one is talking about tax cuts. I mean if you’re talking about a plan for something like nearly a billion dollars for a rail upgrade in a seat facing a by-election, fully funded means we’ve put aside money from the budget to pay for it. And the revenue from the budget comes from taxes. But when you fully fund a tax cut, does that mean you’ve put aside the money that you were going to spend on something like say Health or Education?

And if there’s any serious criticism that can be mounted about the changes it’s that they don’t go far enough with the redistribution. People earning less than $100k probably need more assistance than they’re getting, and even some up to $150k may be finding it harder than a year ago, but that’s not a criticism that you can make while being “committed” to the principles of Stage 3, which was politicians like us earning more than $200k a year should get a whopping pay cut and bugger anyone not paying enough that they can donate to our re-election fund.

Dutton went on to remind us that when someone is a one-hit wonder that pretty much means that no public appearance can finish without them trying an encore of that hit. He suggested that, even though the Referendum on The Voice was last October, the detail that Albanese had promised was still not forthcoming… Now maybe it’s just me, but I would have seriously doubted the Prime Minister’s sanity if he’d stood up and said, “Here’s the detail of the legislation that we’re not proposing owing to the Voice being defeated. We’d like you to examine this before we don’t vote on it in Parliament. There are several pages outlining who won’t be eligible to part of the Voice which are now irrelevant because, owing to its defeat, nobody is eligible to be part of the non-existent body, but please read this anyway as we’ve spent quite a lot of time and energy working on it so it’s a shame if people just ignore it.”

Whatever, the tax cuts are going to be waved through because the Liberal Party are the party of lower taxes and they have to vote for this broken promise because if they don’t then Labor would be the party of lower taxes but now that they’re voting for the Labor change, then the Liberals are still the party of lower taxes… Not sure where this puts the National Party.

 

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Empathy And The Unfortunate Few Who Own Your Home…

I’ve been thinking about empathy lately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so on.

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Schrodinger’s Cat, Trump And Tax Cuts

Most of you have probably heard of the famous thought experiment proposed by Schrödinger where there’s a cat in a box and a vial of poison. If the poison has escaped then the cat is dead, but if the vial is still intact then the cat is alive. Consequently, the cat can be thought of as both alive and dead at the same time.

Of course, those of you who aren’t physicists aren’t so sure that a life trapped in a box is really a life although the philosophers among you may argue that we are all trapped in a box, but whatever, it’s only a thought experiment and, like the square root of negative one, the cat doesn’t actually exist, so there’s no need to call the RSPCA.

I couldn’t help but think of Schrödinger’s cat when someone started talking about Trump’s hold on the Republican Party the other day. According to rhetoric from Donald, he’s an anti-establishment outsider and that’s why Washington politicians are so opposed to him and why Deep State is working against him. However, like the cat, this hasn’t killed his sway with the Republican Party where, almost without exception, those in Congress back him to return as President. This is reminiscent of Reagan’s “Government is not the solution, government is the problem”, which could be considered a confession from someone who’d been a governor and a President, but I don’t think that was what he was trying to convey.

Similarly, Trump is both concerned about the lawlessness of various groups, while openly showing contempt for the legal system. Interestingly his argument in a number of cases is not that he hasn’t broken any laws; rather that the President has immunity. A point which his supporters consider to be both true and untrue – the cat again – because they simultaneously agree with this, while calling on Biden to be tried for corruption, treason, stealing an election and being a couple of years older than Donald…

All of which brings me to the tax cuts which Sussan Ley will wind back in government but also not wind back in government. Apparently, Labor are spreading a lie by repeating her exact words… A statement that can be true and untrue, because if her statement was a lie and Labor are spreading it, then they ARE spreading a lie, but if she wasn’t lying then Labor aren’t…

Ah, these tax cuts have caused the Coalition a bit of confusion. For example, David Littleproud has made the assertion that $190,000 a year is not a lot. This would be a good time to ask him if he thinks the payment to the unemployed should be raised. Notwithstanding that, David reminds us again that a cat can be both alive and dead, by going on to tell us that the tax changes are class warfare. Perhaps it’s just me, but if those on $190,000 aren’t earning a lot, how is it class warfare? I mean class warfare isn’t the poor against those not earning a lot as far as I’m aware.

Whatever, I expect that the Coalition may decide to wave the Stage 3 changes through, rather than hold them up and make them something that people focus on. Too much attention and people may become aware that the poor people on $180,000 are still getting a tax cut of $3729. Ok, it’s not as much as they were going to get, but when someone on $60,000 who’s only getting $1179 hears that someone earning three times as much is getting more than three times the tax cut and they’re the ones complaining, well, that’s when you will have a bit of class warfare happening…

I could be wrong. Just because it’s the sensible thing to do doesn’t mean that Peter Dutton will do it. Actually, when I think about it…

After all, Peter Dutton did say that he thought that big corporations like Woolworth’s should stay out of politics, so I guess this means that he’ll be asking his party to ban political donations from any large corporation because surely donating to a party is getting involved in politics.

It’s really quite interesting when you look at all the people who shouldn’t be involving themselves in politics. We have big corporations. Also, unions shouldn’t be involved.

There’s another example of Schrodinger’s political situation right there: Last week Liberal senator, James Paterson, was suggesting that the Albanese government was too willing to do the bidding of big business. Of course, this man is from the same party that regularly suggests that it’s the unions dictating Labor policy.

And, of course, there were suggestions that local councils were “being political” by not holding citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day and this was outrageous because local councils shouldn’t be political because politics is all about people who put forward positions and get elected which local councils don’t… oh wait!

Teachers also shouldn’t discuss anything political in the classroom. However, they should teach about the benefits of mining. Teaching about any problems with mining would no doubt be political, as would climate change or explaining how science works…

As for students, well they should be in school, not attending protests or writing letters to MPs or even thinking about anything but the 3Rs… And they shouldn’t think about the 3Rs too deeply or they may wonder why only one of them actually starts with an “R”.

And universities shouldn’t really get into politics either. Unless it’s some study that backs up Gina Rinehart’s desire to be the richest person alive.

Charities too shouldn’t be political. The Coalition passed legislation forbidding charities from getting political. Pity Josh Frydenberg didn’t understand that it also referred to people from the Guide Dog Association endorsing him. He thought it only applied to ones critical of the government.

Churches also shouldn’t get involved with politics unless they’re endorsing the Coalition. Any of this bleeding-heart lefty nonsense isn’t a position that a church should involve itself in.

So the list of people who shouldn’t be political includes ABC presenters, the Public Service, big corporations, unions, teachers, local councils, charities, students, universities…

Oh, and Marxists.

Yep, the only people who should involve themselves in politics are the people who agree with what the Murdoch papers are telling us…

 

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Labor’s Broken Promise! Here We Go Again!

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

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

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

“What are you doing?”

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

“But he’ll die if you move him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Trump Grants God An Audience!

“Well, I got a call from God the other day… not so much a call as a… he spoke to me and he said we needed to schedule a meeting and I said…you know, we’re both busy men… me with all the fake witch-hunts and the election and you with all the… God things… and anyway he was insistent that we needed to talk and so I squeezed him in and we met and He thanked me and I said, ‘So what can I do for you?’

“Well, He’s very old you know, he’s even older than Sleepy Joe Biden… I know, I know, that’s hard to believe, but unlike Sleepy Joe, God’s still loves America and wants to do what’s right… So I asked him what He needed to speak to me about… We don’t waste time, we get down to business and get things done…

“So God said to me that He was getting tired and that He’d probably need someone to take over in the next few years… I could see where this was heading, so I cut him off and… And said that I’d be pleased to help Him out because that’s the sort of thing that… but… I did wonder… so I said, ‘What about the kid? I mean I always thought that he’d be… you know… that you’d be… you know, handing over the reins to him…’

“And God said, “Let me stop you right there.”

“And I said, “Nobody stops me…”

“And then we both laughed and laughed because… well, I don’t know… but it’s true… a lot of people said ‘They’ll try and stop you, Mr President’ and I tell them I know that they stopped counting the votes and… where was that… we were in front and they stopped counting the votes and just declared Biden the winner… Mm, oh we were behind when they did that… They claimed that Biden had won that state and they stopped counting because they couldn’t find any more votes, but I’ll bet they could have found some if Sleepy Joe had asked them…

“After we stopped laughing, God went on to say how Jesus was never as popular… the ratings for my show were so much larger than the Sermon on The Mount which was, apparently his biggest… what did he call it a parable, no that was something else… Jesus was never as popular as me and that he spent his time on Earth hanging around with the wrong sort of people and God needs someone who’d drain the swamp just like I did with Washington… Jesus couldn’t even organise enough food and he had to borrow some loaves and fish from one of the supporters and that would never be enough to satisfy all the people who come to my rallies which are really, really big and they’re doing something that’s really important and that’s why God wants me to take over…

“He really liked my Make America Great Again slogan and thought that I might be able to come up with something like that for Him. I said that I thought Capitalism Creates Calm Kids would look nice on a cap and He nodded and told me that I was His greatest creation and that He had no idea when He created the Heavens and the Earth that it would turn out so well and that there’d be someone like me as a result of what He’d done…

“And I said, ‘Thank you, sir!’ because I am respectful and modest. In fact… I may be the most modest person God has ever spoken to… I don’t know but I just might be…

“But I had to go because I can’t spend all day just talking to God who, by the way, nobody ever voted for… but that’s all right, because He wasn’t a Democrat and He knew that they’d find a way to crucify Him if He stood for President because he wasn’t born here just like Barrack Hussein Osama who never showed me his birth certificate but he allegedly had one if you believe the Fake News, so God never stood for election which is why He admires me so much because I didn’t have to but I decided that someone had to save the country from all the criminals and woke people trying to say… what are they trying to say? Well, who knows? Nobody understands them and nobody cares because they’re dangerous and when I’m in charge we’ll build another wall like the one I built which was really good as far as it went but it didn’t join up at the other end so those Democrats just waved in all the terrorists and drug dealers and Latinos… When I’m President I’ll build a wall and put all the woke people behind it and we can have democracy again because we’ll be left with only people who believe in it and me because we’re Ameri-CANS not Ameri-can’ts… I said this to someone the other day and he said that he was Ameri-can’t… a very merry one… he meant someone by that but… I don’t know…”

“So, I’m off to court tomorrow where that hateful judge is going to try and stop me speaking but I’m on first name terms with God so nobody can stop me and… I don’t know… hopefully there’ll be some other judge there because the one who told me that I could speak to the jury while the woman on the stand just making up lies… he showed who he was voting for… and who voted for him. Maybe a bolt of lightning will hit him or something… “

“God bless America and all of you!”

 

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When Defamation Blinds Us To The Main Issue!

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

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

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

It was Frank Hardy!

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

Anyway, moving to the present day…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, that won’t be a problem.”

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

 

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Peter Dutton Still Yet To Deny He Has Shares In Coles!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, back to boycotting Woolworths…

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

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

No, the basic problem is the politics.

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

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

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

 

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Look What Those Marxists Have Done To Our Money!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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