Imperial Fruit: Bananas, Costs and Climate Change

The curved course of the ubiquitous banana has often been the peel…

The problems with a principled stand

In the past couple of weeks, the conservative parties have retained government…

Government approves Santos Barossa pipeline and sea dumping

The Australia Institute Media Release Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s Department has approved a…

If The Jackboots Actually Fit …

By Jane Salmon If The Jackboots Actually Fit … Why Does Labor Keep…

Distinctions Without Difference: The Security Council on Gaza…

The UN Security Council presents one of the great contradictions of power…

How the supermarkets lost their way in Oz

By Callen Sorensen Karklis Many Australians are heard saying that they’re feeling the…

Purgatorial Torments: Assange and the UK High Court

What is it about British justice that has a certain rankness to…

Why A Punch In The Face May Be…

Now I'm not one who believes in violence as a solution to…

«
»
Facebook

How Many National Party MPs Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb?

Q: How many National Party MPs does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: How can we be sure that the lightbulb needs changing because lightbulbs have been around for millions of years, and besides now is not the time to talk about this because we have so many people injuring themselves in the dark!

Sorry, that’s not funny but you know what they say: Satire one day; National Party policy the next.

I think that I could almost buy the “We’re in the midst of a disaster and now’s not the time for politics over climate change” line, were it not for the fact that a number of MPs have come out and tried to blame The Greens for the rampant bushfires. Leaving aside the obvious point that they haven’t achieved government in either Queensland or NSW, one has to wonder if the fires burning over hundreds of kilometres could have quickly been brought under control if only we’d done some preventative burning at the beginning of the fire season. You know, in Spring, during October and November. Ok, it is November. So early November before either moustaches or fuel for the fire had reached the sort of bushy growth that threatens us all.

Still there’s nothing unusual about things that a logically inconsistent. And I don’t just mean the constant use of the word “unprecedented”, while people argue that we’ve always had bushfires so anyone suggesting a link to climate change is just a latte-sipping raving lunatic who should be kicked off welfare because we all know that only country people have jobs.

No, I couldn’t help but wonder how “The Age” journalist could write that Victoria was bracing for a “one-in-110 years” heatwave that would be worse than the “one-in- 25 years” ones which we had in 2009 and 2014. By my reckoning, these “one-in-25 years events” seem to be happening more often than that. Yes, yes I know. Some Coalition MP will that we’ve always had “one-in-25 year” heatwaves and when they were younger we used have them pretty much every year. In fact, we’ll be told, the temperature used to regularly hit 100 degrees in summer and that hasn’t happened this century… Don’t bother pointing out that it’s because temperatures no longer use the Fahrenheit scale or you’ll be treated to a discourse on how the Bureau of Meteorology is involved in a conspiracy to confuse us and that they change the way things are measured just to make it look like the polar bears are melting when anyone can see that they are, in fact, as solid as they ever were.

No, don’t mention climate change because people are out fighting fires and there’s no way that politicians could be discussing this while they’re busy with thoughts and prayers, which I notice Josh Frydenberg also tweeted… It must have been in the talking points, because the Liberal guy on QandA used the phrase too. Ok, I know that some of you are about to suggest if they have time for thoughting and praying, don’t they also have time to discuss climate change? Particularly, Joshie, the colour blind Treasurer who didn’t seem to notice that the blue of the banner on election day was the purple of the AEC. Josh, after all, had time for an opinion piece in today’s paper where he talked about the problems facing the economy, which to summarise briefly are that the economy has changed since Federation and we no longer rely on sheep and that it’s likely to change again so we need to worry about debt. There was no mention of climate change as one of the potential problems, because that would be political and we can’t have politics at a time like this.

What city folk don’t understand is that the Coalition government don’t have time for politics right now because they need to stand with the people who are affected by the fires. After all, you don’t often get photo opportunities where the PM can show off the funded empathy training he received. The smirk on his face as he stood behind Gladys was even bigger than the one he had when he rolled Malcolm.

Yep, only a lunatic would be worried about the possible causes of such extreme fires in November when there’s so many photos to be taken.

Like what we do at The AIMN?

You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.

Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!

Donate Button

16 comments

Login here Register here
  1. Kaye Lee

    It’s really wrong of Josh Frydenberg to talk about debt when so many Australians are so impacted by the highest household debt in the world. Speaking about wage stagnation and job insecurity and wealth inequality would be crass politics by some raving lunatic poor people. They should shut up and be happy that the government is smashing its targets of making the wealthy even richer.

  2. Jack Cade

    As somebody pointed out, the money being pissed into ‘struggling farmers’ pockets would have revived the motor industry in this country and probably established a viable solar battery plant.
    But it happens every half a decade or so. Fcking farmers.
    I remember a lovely cartoon on the front cover of Punch; two farmers gazing at a lovely field of wheat …
    – ‘BY ‘eck, you’ll be a ‘avin’ a fine ‘arvest, George!’
    – ‘That’s easy to say; but it’s suckin’ all of the goodness outer me soil…’

    Fcking farmers…

  3. Kaye Lee

    Craig Kelly’s latest facebook post….

    ‘’THE GREENS HAVE TO COP IT, THEY HAVE BEEN OBSESSED WITH NO FIRES AND NO BURNING ‘’

    Far be it from any Liberal to engage in any nasty little politicking blame game at this time of crisis.

    Apparently, we need more logging. If you cut the trees down then they can’t burn.

    “Communities that have been on the frontline to stop logging and expand national parks are seeking refuge as fire threatens to consume their homes.”

  4. RomeoCharlie29

    It’s the old ‘walk and chew gum’ dilemma the Lib/Nats have. Can’t talk about climate change while there are thoughts and prayers to be offered. I think the poor bastard seen crying with Morrison might come to regret that photo as it gets pulled out ad Infinitum to show Scummo’s empathy.

  5. Roswell

    And let’s not talk about domestic violence while women are being killed by abusive partners.

  6. pierre wilkinson

    Q: How many Nation Party MPs does it take to change a lightbulb?
    A: None, they would rather sit around in the dark and blame Labor and the Greens.

  7. Kaye Lee

    Surely they have a donor that can give them a place to stay in with a working light bulb?

  8. New England Cocky

    Q: How many Nation Party MPs does it take to change a lightbulb?

    A: None, because that is a function that requires brains and thinking which are absent from the present crop.

    More importantly, as Kaye Lee noted elsewhere, and Hamish MacDonald asked Premier Gladly-back-flip-I-can this morning on RN Breakfast, “Why did the NSW government cut 75% of the NSW RFS funding in the 2019/2020 State Budget”?

    I am advised that today 121119 the only safe way to travel by road between Armidale, south of the fire zone and Brisbane, is via Inverell, Moree and the Newell Highway, a detour of at least 400 kms. Check the NSWRFS website for updates.

  9. whatever

    Standard talking-point for the cretins of TalkBackRadio every time there are bushfires;

    “Its all the fault of the Greens!”

  10. Carol Taylor

    Odd isn’t it that the Nats have had to find someone to blame for the fires, and who better a target than inner city “greenies”, irrespective of the fact that it’s people in their own electorates who are crying out to “do something”. Irrespective of the fact that it’s fire chiefs who have explained that the lack of burn off has been due to weather conditions – too hot, too wet or too windy. But let’s not play politics with this by mentioning climate change we’ve been told, let’s just blame greenies instead. Such is irony. If we were wanting to find a classic example of look over there in order to avoid taking responsibility, here it is.

  11. Kaye Lee

    I see Gladys denying the budget has been cut.

    From her own budget papers

    Fire and Rescue NSW, Capital expenditure: 2018-19 $80.4m, 2019-20 $51.9m, % change (35.4)
    Office of the NSW Rural Fire Service, Capital expenditure: 2018-19 $66.3m, 2019-20 $16.4m, % change (75.2)

    Their operational budgets for 2019-20 were also less by 1.6% ($12.9m) and 4.8% ($26.7m) respectively.

    6.5 Agency Expense Summary (page 229)

    https://www.budget.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/budget-2019-06/Budget_Paper_3-Budget_Estimates-Budget_201920.pdf

    It may not be a ‘cut’ in your mind but you are spending heaps less Glad.

  12. King1394

    How does ‘all the fault of the greens’ balance out against those other excuses: ‘there have always been bushfires’ and ‘climate is always changing’?

  13. Roswell

    How many National Party MPs does it take to change a lightbulb?

    None. They didn’t have lightbulbs in the 14th Century.

    I know, I know. It was weak.

  14. Josephus

    The Greens? Well no, the fires are the fault of the World Bank, the World Zionist Conspiracy, or the Martians, or all of them at once.

    What the firies are actually telling us is that dry lightning is increasingly to blame, and that the intensity of fires and duration of the fire season are unprecedented. Not to mention Venice sinking, earthquakes etc. We can build desal plants as Saudi has done, but finally overpopulation, sea level rise, drought and deforestation will catch up with us.

  15. johno

    Is it the screw in type or the other slot type lightbulb ?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 2 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Return to home page