Fight Club, Wolverines and Swinging Dicks – is this what we call “grown-up government”?
When Young Liberals in Chris Hartcher’s Terrigal electorate were inspired by Brad Pitt’s Fight Club to head out late at night on what they called “Black Ops” to tear down opposition election posters, one could perhaps, despite the illegality, dismiss this as kids going a bit too far. The fact that Liberal hopeful Aaron Henry signed his email call-to-action as ”Tyler Durden” (Brad Pitt’s character) shows just how juvenile this crowd were.
But when one of them then tried to destroy the career of Sydney Water chief Dr Kerry Schott via an anonymous email detailing a false complaint to the NSW ICAC, they moved from silly kids to dangerous.
Carrying on in the same vein, there is a parliamentary group who call themselves the “Wolverines”, a nod to the 1984 Hollywood film Red Dawn, about a team of high school football jocks thwarting a Soviet invasion of the United States.
The group, who boast about their preparedness to ‘speak out against China’s expanding power’, includes Andrew Hastie, backbench MPs Tim Wilson and Phillip Thompson, along with Senators James Paterson and Labor’s Kimberley Kitching, and they are identified by stickers featuring wolf claw marks on the entrances of their parliamentary suites.
The AFR’s James Curran put it well when he said “It is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at this kind of juvenilia from some of the nation’s elected representatives. But we are where we are.”
Once again, we could dismiss this as silly kid stuff except Andrew Hastie has recently been promoted to Assistant Minister for Defence and, replacing him as chair of Federal Parliament’s powerful Parliamentary Joint Committee for Intelligence and Security, is James Paterson.
As background, Hastie was the commander of an SAS troop in Afghanistan who cut off the hands of dead people. When he saw what was going on, he asked another SAS member to find out if the practice was permitted under Defence rules and regulations. In the subsequent inquiry, Cpt Hastie is quoted as saying, “My gut instinct was okay, that’s a strange practice.” Another SAS member said, “There’s no uncertainty. I wouldn’t cut f***ing people’s hands off, sir.”
Paterson’s pre-parliament experience was as an unpaid political intern followed by a stint at the IPA where, at the ripe old age of 24, he co-authored the infamous 75 radical ideas to transform Australia, a document that was all about profit, privatisation and deregulation at the expense of society.
These two self-titled Wolverines were both denied visas to enter Beijing for a planned study tour in 2019 because of their ham-fisted outspoken attempts to bully China.
In a climate that requires nuanced diplomacy, who better to head our security committee than these two Liberal backbenchers who have already pissed China off, thinks Scott Morrison. Apparently.
Then we hear from former Liberal MP Sharman Stone that a group of men in parliament who called themselves the “swinging dicks” blocked Liberal MP Julie Bishop’s leadership aspirations.
Seriously. Dick-swingers is a disparaging term that women I know use to describe men who try to cover their inadequacy by bullying. The fact that this group called themselves that shows how entitled the Liberal boys club in Canberra believes themselves to be.
Fight Club, Wolverines, and Swinging Dicks? So this is their idea of “grown-up government“?
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Harry Lime -
Vikingduk -
Win Jeavons -
DrakeN -
Michael Taylor -
New England Cocky -
Jon Chesterson -
Andrew J. Smith -
g -
Michael Taylor -
Jack sprat -
Marilyn Tsinidis -
Kaye Lee -
Phil Pryor
Return to home pageIt might be just me,but the sight of some of these born-to rule wankers makes my skin crawl,much the same as those extremist ‘religious’ nutters,you can sense it immediately.There’s an instant repulsion…take the Liar, for example.
So, when hastie was asked for a hand, he actually took it literally? Wow, unfortunately he didn’t know jen then, couldn’t ask advice. Does he swing dicks as well as wolverining? They all appear to be a pack of self righteous jerks, full of themselves as they embark on their crusade for god, queen and country. Stand back, let us men take charge, we know what’s what, who’s up who and whose paying the rent. Keep clear, important bullying to be done, sneers to sneer, our born to rule will must be done.
Delusional dropkicks with power. Got to end in tears.
I suspect an ever patient deity would appalled! One of these horrors looks EXACTLY like a Hitler youth.
Grown up Government?
Not since the “Adult(erer)s are in charge”
Any person with a sense of dignity should feel ill after reading this post.
The simple description is ”Unfit to govern”.
An alleged christian swinging dick on the right – Now isn’t that an oxymoron or just plain malicious hypocrisy – Perhaps he/they think Liberal MPs are entitled to rape their staffers too? They have fallen terribly silent on this one. Got to wonder why.
Are we looking at a neophyte, newborn Alexander Lukashenko?
Coincidentally, the Fight Club character or ‘Tyler Durden’ moniker, is also used by writers at Zero Hedge, a far right libertarian financial blog based on the Austrian school of economics (same as channeled by the IPA), described as ‘renegade’.
From Wiki: ‘Over time, Zero Hedge expanded into non-financial analysis, including conspiracy theories and fringe rhetoric associated with the US radical right, the alt-right, and a pro-Russian bias.’
For example Putin/Trump good and Obama/Merkel-EU bad, and a bit of China bashing too.
From RationalWiki: ‘solution actually mirrors the antagonist in Fight Club: Tyler wants, per Austrian school ideas, to lead a catastrophic market crash in order to destroy banking institutions and bring back “real” free market capitalism.’
Here’s an oldie but still gold –
Q. Why does one take an instant dislike to James Paterson?
A. Because it saves time.
I’ll pay that one, g. 😂
Could you get two more archetypal looking private school boys . Too much god queen and country instilled in them by their expensive sectarian education. Tales of biggles , empire and exceptionalism gets you these two twerps rattling their sabres at china. If it comes to blows with these red communist devils these two wolverines should be the first ones send to the front ,thus turning it on its head the adage that in war there is a worker on both ends of the bayonet. When hastie was in Afghanistan he led from behind the lines leaving his troops free in the field to commit all sorts of atrocities.
I really, really want to know which MPs referred to themselves as ‘Swinging Dicks’. Why can’t they be exposed as the wankers they are? Everyone in Canberra seems to know. We, the hapless voters, deserve to know the character of these self-important morons. Julie Bishop, with all her years of service as a Deputy Prime-minister and heading Foreign Affairs was undone by this sorry lot! As for the ‘Wolverines’ they actively promote their stupid antics.
Marilyn,
According to Crikey,…
The group name was first outed in 2009 by The Australian’s Glenn Milne. Members reportedly included Christopher Pyne, Steven Ciobo, Greg Hunt, Peter Dutton, Jamie Briggs, Mathias Cormann, Michael Keenan and Morrison.
The swinging dicks, or perhaps, stinking shits, or perhaps grinding grubs, or perhaps perennial perverts, or perhaps conservative constipated cerebrums, or perhaps the bowelbrained incestuous ids, or perhaps the furbelow fuhrers, or perhaps the congested colons of conservatism, or perhaps the appalling anuses, the braindead beasts, all together, a blot, a blemish, a bleeding pile, a poxed pestilential perverted plague on our public life and deserving of a wall, a squad, a mass grave of anonimity to help us forget the egotistcal extremes of this SHIT. From Morrison down, a haemorrhoidal bunch of grapelike grotesque grubby glans graters…