Ok, it’s all very well for me.
I sit here and just blog when I feel like it. I don’t have deadlines, and my mortgage doesn’t depend on writing the sort of … er, stuff … that passes for journalism in this country. I was going to write “shit”, but then I realised that shit can be used for fertiliser so it does have some uses.
If you do a search for “Firms Eager For Direct Action Money: govt”, you’ll find a number of articles … All of which seem to use the same headline. Which is interesting as it seems many of them are just using the Government’s press release. Although, I must commend a number of the sub-editors for using a lower case “g” for government as this seems to suggest that they’re aware that the current mob could limbo dance under a snake.
Yep, it seems that many firms are eager for the money. Strange that the headline wasn’t that they were eager to actually cut emissions. “Show me the money,” as Cuba Gooding Jnr. repeated in that Tom Cruise movie which is most famous for “You had me at hello.” Similarly, it seems that the gOVERment had many firms at “Here’s some money. Take it, because a carbon tax just wasn’t putting a big enough hole in the Budget and we can’t keep talking about Labor’s Budget Emergency if the Budget actually improves … ”
Well, personally, I’m eager for the direct action money too. If you give me some of it I’ll piss off overseas for a couple of years and reduce my emissions. At least in Australia. Of course, I’m not a firm. Firms won’t do that. They’ll stay here in Australia. Unless they’re a car company.
Mm, maybe Toyota should have held out for another year, applied for some of the direct action money, then just closed down their plants here and said, “Hey look how effective we’ve been at cutting emissions.”
Still, for me, nothing beats some of the headlines about Julia Gillard and the finding that there was no evidence of criminal behaviour. The “left-wing” Fairfax Age used the comment that her behaviour as a lawyer was “questionable” as the headline for their front page story instead of pointing out that there was no evidence of criminal behaviour. Without going into an in depth analysis of the entire Royal Commission, one would have to suggest that it goes without saying that some of Gillard’s behaviour from that time was “questionable” given that she was called before the Royal Commission and questioned.
But ignoring the semantics, I look forward to similar headlines when for example, let’s presume no charges are brought against Arthur “I can’t remember what I did for $200,000 but I’m sure that they got value for money” Sinodinos, and the newspapers decided to point out that his memory must surely mean that he needs to stand down from Parliament as you can’t have someone with that sort of recall representing the people. When Bronwyn calls on the Honourable Member for Sydney and he stands up, it’ll be embarrassing because he’s actually a senator and he’s wandered into the wrong house.
I guess, I shouldn’t refer to the Speaker as Bronwyn. It’s disrespectful and one shouldn’t be disrespectful to such an important position where independence is extremely important and Bronwyn Bishop has certainly asserted her independence. Henceforth I shall refer to her as Madame DeFarge, who was also a fictional character.
As for opinion polls, after reading today that the Coalition have “clawed back support” and “narrowly” trail the Opposition, I just want someone to please point out to journalists that polls acknowledge that they have a margin of error of 3%. That means that if they move less than 3% it actually means nothing. So pointing out that this poll has a margin of error of 3% and then analysing a 2% swing either way makes about as much sense as me saying that I can guarantee tomorrow’s Cup winner: It’s between Mutual Admiration and My Ambivalent … But I want a margin of error of ten lengths.
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