Owar guvenment iz torking to Britush pollytishun and skools minista, Nick Gibb, about fonnex. Apearently, in Britun, kids ar givun a test on may dup werds to see wich of them dozent undastand fonnex…

Ok, I’ll stop now. If you’re interested in what’s wrong with the British model, there’s a link at the bottom of the page. But I’d just like to make two points before I leave the absurdity of Australia buying this program from Britain and move onto even more absurd things:

1. Most of the spelling mistakes that I’ve come across are actually students spelling things phonetically.
2. Schools already teach phonics. I’m yet to speak to a primary teacher who says that they’re school doesn’t teach kids to sound out words. However, it’s just one (or should that be wun?) strategy in the process of teaching reading.

However, I realise what a topsy-turvy world we now live in by looking at the front page of today’s “The Australian”. I didn’t read the whole article because there’s a limit to how much you can read before the person in the newsagency asks if you intend to buy it, but I was taken by the way they framed Bill Shorten as being “isolated” in his opposition to the Adani project. Apparently unions are for it, councils are for it, local people are for it, kangaroos are for it and only Bill Shorten opposes it!

Which would be something that surprises a lot of you! Because you thought that you opposed it too! However, my reading of Bill’s comments suggested that he wasn’t opposed to the mine, just “lending” Adani the billion to build the railway, interest free.

“The Australian” also had a companion piece on the front page – which I didn’t read, because I may have been asked to buy the paper and my wife doesn’t like me swearing in public… or in private, for that matter, but hey, fuck it, when someone suggests you buy anything that helps out Rupert “Burns” Murdoch, what else can you do but utter obscenities? Anyway, the heading was enough: “Shorten Resorts To Left-wing Fanaticism”.

Now, let’s just slow this down for any One Nation supporters who may have seen their name in title and  strayed here. Bill Shorten is opposed to giving a loan to a company to help it out and thinks that it should be able to raise its own finances in the market and that’s now left-wing. Yep, refusing to subsidise companies is fine if they’re into renewable energy. Reducing money for the CSIRO is ok, because they should be commercially viable, but Mr Adani, hey, he’s just fine by us and we should give him anything he wants. Water, yep, native title, gone, you need a billion as a loan, fine, just pay it back when you can, what else can we do for you, back-rub? Oh, right, you want your back scratched and in return, you’ll scratch ours at some future time when coal has removed the caste system in India…

Bill Shorten, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, with their left-wing fanaticism are just destroying the joint…

And speaking of left wing fanatics, have you heard One Nation’s threat on the ABC?

Pauline’s blames the ABC over her trip to Afghanistan being cancelled, Malcolm Roberts thinks the ABC are an affront to democracy, and Senator Burston informs us: “I’ve contacted Mathias Cormann and said One Nation wants the ABC funding reduced by $600 million over the forward estimates. If they’re not forthcoming in reducing funding to the ABC as part of their budget repair we’ll have to seriously consider what budget repair options… that the Liberal Party puts forward. It’s about time we apply a little bit of pressure on the government to do something about the left-wing, Marxist ABC.”

Which, of course, puts the government in a bit of a dilemma. They could cut funds to the ABC and say they were always going to do it. But that wouldn’t stop One Nation trumpeting their ability to bark orders at the Turnbull (or whoever’s PM by Budget Time), and trying the same trick on all sorts of weird policies. Or they can say no to them and try to negotiate with the other senators. Or they could even negotiate with Labor. But, of course, that would be impossible because, while you need to take into account the views of the party that got about four percent of the vote, you can just ignore the party that got a higher number of votes than the Liberals themselves. (I’m not including the Nations, in that figure, but even if I did, the point is still valid)

It’ll be interesting to see how that one plays out. Will the government stand up to One Nation or take the Turnbull option and just pretend like they’re still in charge?

Link to Phonics Article