There’s been a bit of a backlash to David Hardaker’s Crikey article about recovered memories just because the man has no qualifications in the area and no first-hand knowledge of the person he suggests may have relied on recovered memories to make her allegations. Some people are even cancelling their subscription because they feel that they have a right to impose their own values on what they choose to read. Don’t they understand that it’s only when you’re a government MP that you can suggest that ANZ be boycotted for refusing to lend to unviable coal projects without it being “cancel culture”?

The call for journalists to actually know something about the subject before writing about it could set a nasty precedent. Imagine if you couldn’t speculate and make up something more interesting than what the public already knows. Suggestions of leadership spills and ministerial reshuffles would be unpublishable until they were likely to actually happen. We’d be left with interviewing doctors and professors about things like vaccines and there’d be no place for asking Betty from Blackburn exactly why the Covid-19 vaccine will enable us to be tracked by Bill Gates using nano-technology. Instead of interviewing someone from the IPA whose expertise is based on the fact that they’ve read almost everything they’ve ever written on the subject, we’d have those elitist academics who think that research and a PhD makes them qualified to speak.

And all these future articles would never see the light of day:

• All Science is Crap by Tony Abbott
• How To Use Charm To Win Arguments by Kyle Sandilands
• Thinking by Joe Hildebrand
• Working In The Mines by Matt Canavan
• How I Made Myself Successful With No Family Connections by Alexander Downer
• Christian Right, Jesus Wrong by Lyle Shelton
• Understanding Constitutional Law by Pauline Hanson
• Family Values By Barnaby Joyce and Alan Tudge
• What It’s Like To Be A Woman by Andrew Bolt
• Reducing Your Internet Bill by Stuart Robert
• Taking Out The Trash by Mick Fuller
• Celebrating International Women’s Day by Bettina Arndt
• Bowling A Cricket Ball by John Howard
• How To Spark Joy By Getting Rid Of Those Things You Never Use OR Donating Your Brain To Science Before You’ve Died by Sam Newman
• Transparency, Loyalty And Hard Work by Scott Morrison
• Quantum Physics Is Silly Because Nobody Knows The Future by Malcolm Roberts

Thanks to the backlash about a simple article it’s highly likely that some of those highly entertaining and informative articles will never see the light of day. Just like the report that Morrison commissioned to find out if he, or anyone he speaks to on a daily basis, knew anything about the alleged assault in the Defence Minister’s office, we are highly unlikely to ever be able to read them… actually, imagine how surprised the PM will be if the report discovers that he actually did know and was told about it at the time? Why, the shock might be enough for him to ask Jen what he should do about his lack of recovered memory.

Just to put politics aside for one second, we need to wish all those ministers and ex-ministers in the Morrison government who are suffering from ill-health a speedy recovery. It must be unprecedented for three to all be on sick leave at the same time: David Coleman, Christian Porter and Linda Reynolds. While I know that many of you are cynical, I have to say that I rang Reynolds’ cardiologist personally but apparently, it’s a breach of their privacy to discuss a patient’s condition even when you explain that you’re the PM or a journalist. Makes one wonder exactly what Scotty discussed with him.

Anyway, I got the feeling that Linda… I can call her Linda, can’t I? I mean, women get first names and men get Mr or Senator from our PM so I want to copy our leader and get it right. Whatever, Linda’s condition took a turn for the worse after the “lying cow” comment was leaked to the press and I believe that she has to resign for health reasons and to enable a man who doesn’t have a heart that’s liable to trouble him to take her spot.

Christian Porter, of course, needs a lot of time to get his head right and his story straight so he’ll be off for as long as it takes but he won’t be resigning even if he’s away as long as David Coleman or George Christensen, because that would cause a by-election and the government would slip into minority government till that was held.