Ok, I’ve realised that it’s not even worth commenting any more. I mean there are only three sorts of people in the world:
- Those who are already aware that Morrison is all about the announcement and the details can be worked out later, but they almost certainly won’t be because the devil is in the detail and he definitely doesn’t want to go round releasing the devil.
- Those who believe Scotty and, incidentally, are buying shares in my unicorn which is a certainty for the Melbourne Cup because unicorns can fly, and finally,
- Those with a vested interest in seeing Morrison succeed.
So when Scotty announced that he’d procured vaccines for everyone and that he was making them compulsory, I had to concede that he’s getting better at his distractions. After all, the compulsory thing created just enough controversy that people didn’t notice that the vaccine was yet to be developed… Or that he doesn’t have a contract, just a letter of intent, which basically means that all going well, we’ll work out something when and if they create one before anyone else does. (Update: I misunderstood that when Morrison actually said that would be made “as mandatory as possible”, he didn’t mean “compulsory”. Perhaps someone from the PM’s office can get back to me with an explanation of the difference.,, or possibly some Coalition supporter could just call me names and that would fix it!)
This is much better than the announcing that the Budget was back in surplus next year, or the notional bushfire fund, or the Arts funding that won’t happen until the Arts is back up and running again because you can’t be giving those artsy people money to develop ideas unless they already have an audience, or the press conferences where the government tells everyone that they’re putting billion or so into something even though it’s the same billion that was promised last year but hey, things change so it’s good to remind you press people that this is happening.
Yes, good old Scotty managed to take the focus off aged care and the Ruby Princess…
Actually is it just me, or does anyone else find it strange that when an inquiry finds that Dutton’s department had nothing to do with Covid-19 positive people getting into the country that he claims that it’s completely vindicated them? To compare it to what’s happening in Victoria where the papers constantly refer to the Hotel quarantine fiasco, I think we’d find it strange if the private security firm tried to suggest that they’d been vindicated if an inquiry found that they had nothing to do with stopping the guests who were leaving the hotel when they were meant to be in quarantine…
But Victoria’s a strange place at the moment. The Herald-Sun was printing stories about Sam Newman running for Lord Mayor. If you don’t know who Sam is, you’re lucky. Sam is ex-footballer who appeared to be forging a career by playing the clown on “The Football Show” but more recent years have shown that not only was he not playing, but that he probably had far too concussions to be let out in public without supervision when crossing the road… (Actually, I probably should have ended the previous sentence after the word “public”!)
And Andrew Bolt was trying to run an argument that the lockdown was unnecessary because, well, most of those who’ve died were likely to have died anyway… Some people seem to have bought this argument but you only have to stop to think and you realise that he’s deliberately framing it the wrong way round. It’s like arguing that we don’t need life guards because the people who have drowned were likely to have drowned anyway. Yes, but it’s the ones that they’ve saved that’s the issue. We don’t know how many more cases we’d have and how many healthy people would have died without the lockdown.
Yes, Scotty did well today. We’ll have vaccines for all and they’ll be free, even if there’s no such thing as a free lunch. He’s negotiated something that’s not a contract because we’d be silly to enter into one for a product that’s yet to be invented, when we could enter into a much better arrangement for something non-existent with Angus Taylor for twice the price.
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Oh dear Rossleigh, you have a very jaundiced view of the world this evening. What is it? Recognising that Scummo Sacked from marketing has less credibility than Trumpery, or realising that Australia is going nowhere too fast and is unlikely to change until the frog in the boiling water is cooked?
so sad that your previous excellent satire has become a truthful account of the doings of this farce of a misgovernment,
it is all about announcables, and looking suitably abashed/chastised/apologetic and stipulating that of course you are empathetic,
and doing nothing but plan to funnel even more funds into your mates accounts…
which, unaccountably, they are really quite good at
Actually, Pierre, I didn’t start off by writing satire. Initially I was just describing the way it was… It was later that I realised I just had to push it a little bit further. Unfortunately, Morrison got into power and thought, “I’ll fix him!”
I’m sure he has someone reading my stuff so that he can announce it as policy in the coming days… Remember, you heard about the unicorn here first!
I saw Sam Newman once in a restaurant collecting his takeaway.
Spoiled my meal but I was stunned at what a truly small man he actually is.
Seriously. He is really short.
A great piece but the guts is missing.
When it comes to the vote fear is the clincher for labor voter the fear of losing their job is paramount. Every policy of the loonies costs jobs immediately.
Whatever is true or false in that statement. It can be manipulated so that it provokes fear.
That fear cost billy the top job and gave this disgusting xstian his miracle.
‘We must counter the fear generated by lies through the process of repeating those lies and including base sledges’.
Toxic stupidity.
Labor cannot really be seen or heard as truly progressive whilst there are other progressive voices making stronger advocacy for policies of social justice and environmental responsibility.
Therefore the ALP must blow most of it’s electoral budget on trying to unseat Adam Bandt from the safe seat of Melbourne.
The neglect of marginal electorates that this will entail will probably cost Labor those seats to the united coalition, and the acrimony associated will undoubtedly alienate a large slice of more progressive voters, but the satisfaction of vendetta alone should more than pay for both the damage to any chance of ALP governance and the broader cause of progressive politics.
Go mongrel Albo!!!
”Mongrel Albo”??? How many decades is it since we have seen Mongrel Albo serving it up to the COALition??? Bring it on SOON!!!!!
Time for Labor to use the power of the Internet to circumvent the Murdoch control of MSM as happened during the Indi bye-election MIrabella.
NEC,
Call it sarcasm, call it satire, call it vocalising dichotomous absurdities to see if anyone notices.
Probably not conducive to practical progress but, in reality, participating in any political discussion on the internet is a bit like throwing a fistfull of fart into a very strong headwind.
Morrison is become more and more like Trump – big on announcements, blaming shifting and self-promotion but short on results and avoiding scrutiny by “rejecting the premise” of difficult questions.
There is still more to come on AstraZeneca, including their requested exemption from future liability for side-effects plus their corporate history of illegal marketing, product safety, tax avoidance & price-gouging.
The fact that their Director of Government Affairs is former federal govt lobbyist and John Howard Chief of Staff Kieran Schneemann is probably just a happy coincidence.
I once new a girl, grey/green skin she had, was breeding a dwarf last I heard, she lived on a mountain, Billy the Mountain, often inserting thumb applying rotation to sugar plum, dreamt of unicorns. Could she be the breeder of this unicorn? Is she labor, liberal or green? She was only 16 and new how to nasty, so maybe lnp. Jeez, the way you lefties malign my mate, the smirking shirker, scott the simp, how dare you, I mean, really, this sanctimonious father raper is god’s gift to the world, bestowed on us, via houston we have a problem, the absolute epitome of a corrupt, fascistic, authoritarian lying hypocrite. Just what we need, so, show some respect. I wonder what ever happened to that dwarf.
Kerri, did Newman have his face painted black?
Corvus et al.
Labor, like the US Democrats, will only win office by luring RW voters with standards away from their natural political environment, against their natural instincts. Although the social climate is ripe for it, US ‘registered’ voters are not ready for a Bernie Sanders (yet) and Australia doesn’t have a Gough Whitlam or a Don Dunstan (the man who talked about Australian native peoples as real people, even knew the names of their ‘mobs’ as Michael Taylor put it.) Labor doesn’t have any inspirers any more. The last Labor ‘inspirer’ Bob Hawke, was not a real Labor man in my view. So power will go to the party who can convince the sort of people who were persuaded to ditch Abbott that their savings will
not be sacrificed for the ‘good of the country’, being poured into ‘welfare’, and that the disgusting unconvicted criminals manning Morrison’s front benches are not really the kind of MPs they want representing them in government.
Jack, before he was premier Don Dunstan was standing with the Aboriginal people of South Australia.
In 1959 Don was the state’s AG. At the time, the Police Act (I think that’s what it was called) prohibited Aboriginal people from mixing with whites. They couldn’t go to the movies together, they couldn’t date etc etc. Don abolished that part of the Act.
PS: Where did you get that word “mob” from? Disgusting. 😁
Jack, if we want an inspiring leader in the Labor Party, I suggest we urge Kaye Lee to run.
Or Charlie Dixon.
Labor already have an inspiring leader: Scott Morrison!
If Morrison doesn’t inspire Labor to get its act together, I can’t imagine what would!
Michael Taylor
I got the word ‘mob’ from one of your mob.
Very recently…
Funnily enough, I have had a member of the Gumbaynggirr nation mildly chip me for using the term mob as a collective when referring to his and surrounding nations
It’s almost as if there were individual and regional variations in outlooks on identity
Then again, some African Americans happily greet each other with an anagram of ginger. yet bristle to hear the word uttered by paler lips.
Corvusboreus
Yes. It’s interesting how words are acceptable to some but anathema to others, Tim Rice, a very heavy smoker, after arriving in his NY office after a smoke-free taxi to Heathrow followed by a smoke free Atlantic flight followed by a smoke free cab, burst into the office saying he was busting for a fag, and asked where could he get one.
Just another Limey vice…
In my native Liverpool a tart is just a girl. ‘Yer gorra lovely tart there, Jack.’ Probably anywhere else you’d get snotted with a comment like that.
Jack, I was teasing you.
Correct, cb, it’s a regional thing. ‘Mob’, while the norm in one area, might be offensive to Indigenous Australians elsewhere.
In the mid-north upon encountering a stranger the question “Who’s your mob?” is rather common.
I might have been misleading in my suggestion that “mob” is used in the collective. I apologise.
If one wishes to be 100% correct then people should be referred to in the local language for the word “people.” For instance, you don’t talk about “Pitjantjatjara people,” you instead refer to them as “Anungu.”
But of course, it would be impossible to know the local word for “people” unless you know every language on our continent.
Jack Cade,
Offense caused by misappropriation of words for the purpose of insult has cost our language the only specific term for a tied bundle of kindle (faggot).
In another linguistic perversion, yank’s don’t know their arse from their ass (to be clear, one is an anus, the other an asinus).
Ps have you heard of the trendy pommy PC acronym BAME? It stands for Black, Asian and Middle Eastern. In other words, non-white.
Jack, that was funny.
You Liverpudlians have a language all of its own. Even the broadest of Scots were more easily understood than 95% of the population of Liverpool. Especially the waiter at our hotel!
But I must confess … the accents of all speakers in the UK are music to my ears. Just loved it when this old Scot was telling me about his “broon Heilin’ Coo.” (Brown Highland Cow, or “hairy coo”).
Carol and I had the most wonderful of experiences in London, around Hyde Park. We thought these people to be simply beautiful.
The first was when I was trying to order two lattes at McDonalds. Lattes were clearly on the menu above the counter. Still, the young lass taking my order had no idea what I was talking about, even though I was pointing at the menu board. So I asked for coffees instead. Still a blank look. After a couple of minutes of describing what I wanted she finally started entering my order. I felt we’d reached a consensus, until, on the little screen above her cash register, I saw … “with BBQ sauce.”
We eventually got our lattes.
Later that night, having dinner at the restaurant in our hotel I ordered a hamburger (the best thing on their menu, sadly). Anyway, I asked for an egg with my hamburger. I had to spell it out. “A hamburger. With. An. Egg. I had to repeat myself a few times before the seemingly confused waiter finally took my order.
Two minutes later the restaurant manager came out of the kitchen to see me. “Sorry, but our waiter hasn’t long been in England. He’s recently just arrived from Italy and he’s confused with your order. He wants to know what a negg is. 😀
It goes two ways though. I’m sure that there’s people all over the Bavarian states still laughing at the words I came out with.
Kerri
You think 1.9m is short?
Michael
I went to a function at Football Park, and when ordering drinks I asked for a Portergaff.
Everyone else got what they asked for, but not me. When I finally asked where my drink was, the barman said that the person I gave the order to was still trying to find the bottle. I looked over the bar and the lad was on his knees on the floor, reading all the labels on all of the bottles. I told him that portergaff didn’t come in bottles, it was stout and lemonade.
He said he came from Perth… They called it something else.
In every state and territory, we use a different word for the same thing. Devon. Fritz. Luncheon Sausage…
Schooners, middies, pints, butchers.
Jack, can I get you to send me over a stick of Tanunda Mettwurst. The one with garlic.
While you’re at it can you throw in a few Balfours custard tarts, some frog cakes, kitchener buns, a couple of packets of Fruchocs, a few King George whiting, a yiros with tzatziki sauce from that Greek restaurant on Jetty Road (near the Pier Hotel), a kilo of Charlesworth Vienna peanuts and a kilo of their sugar coated peanuts, and a couple of slabs of German coffee cake from Hahndorf (one plain, and one with apricots). Pretty please.
No need to worry about some Vili’s pies and pasties as we have plenty in the freezer.
Oh yes, and a fresh cray from Kangaroo Island.
If I think of anything else I’ll let you know.
Anyway, you have your orders … get cracking.
leefe, yep, 1.9m is small.
Well, to me it is. 😁
It’s good to see that Jack hasn’t replied. He’s obviously off getting my order filled. 😀
Michael Taylor
You can’t send toxic stuff across the border…otherwise I would.
Tanunda metwurst, especially with garlic, can be used in IEDs.
Jack, don’t let that deter you. It’s only illegal if you get caught.
Meet me at Renmark on Friday night. And while you’re there, pick me up a case of St Agnes brandy.
Make that two cases.
Michael
Tell you what, just in case I don’t make it, play safe and buy them yourself. My bike has a puncture.