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Ninety Percent Of Turnbull’s Front Bench Have Poor Numeracy Skills, But The Other Half Are OK!

Turnbull must be thanking his lucky stars that Trump was elected! No sooner does one of his front bench suggest an answer to the question how inconsistent can you be and still not have the people rise up and say that this whole democracy thing is rather dangerous, than the Trump Show manages to make it all somehow look sane by comparison.

By the way, I understand that Trump is now dismissing any protests on the grounds that they’re being organised by people who don’t support him… but that’s a whole other issue.

No, I’m trying to work out how a government who for years has avoided scrutiny on some outrageous things by saying that they won’t comment due to “privacy concerns” can suddenly turn around and release the details of Andie Fox, in order to set the record straight and show how it was Centrelink that was being unfairly criticised. Interestingly, it was given to a journalist at that bastion of Marxist ideology, the Fairfax group! I say, interestingly because I’m starting to find politics rather boring.

I mean, when Kevin was undermining Julia, we had all sorts of people being quoted “off the record”, but these days the Liberals just keep telling us what’s going in public so there’s no fun in speculating whether it was an actual leak or whether the journalist had a deadline and just made it all up. These days, when Tony Abbott throws the toys out of the cot, Peta Credlin goes on SkyNews and says what can one expect because nobody’s fed him and his nappy needs changing. And Turnbull says that Tony strategically planned his complaints to coincide with an opinion poll and – seeing as how we all hung on every word that Tony says – that led to a massive difference in the result. Personally, had I been asked, I would have tried to find the way to express my support for everything that Turnbull is doing and I would have complained that there was no section that allowed me to say that Turnbull was the greatest leader since Alexander the Great, but then I heard Tony say that we needed to become more conservative and I thought, no, that Alexander the Great was a bit of a lefty and failed to stop illegal immigrants sacking that library which had all the books. Or something like that.

I could look it up but we don’t have highspeed internet yet and I wouldn’t be able to press publish until I’d waited for the NBN to be installed sometime in 2016 like the Liberals promised… And there’s a lot of fake news suggesting that it’s already 2017, but I trust Tony.

And then I thought, it’s true, what that Tony guy said. We need to bring energy prices down.

Of course, stopping companies from selling our gas overseas would be one way to do it, but that’d be terrible because it’d stop jobs somehow.

And then, I realised that jobs and growth are very, very important. Jobs… They come from growth… And don’t jobs create growth? So if we can just one then the other will follow like… Well, love and marriage… they go together like a horse and ah, um… that thing behind a horse. I mean, you can’t have one without the other and that’s why we need a tax cut for people already making a profit…

Let’s see, how does it go? Company profits have grown and wages have gone backwards so if we can just give companies those tax cuts, they’ll decide that they have enough money now and start sharing it with their employees.

And speaking of jobs, wasn’t the reduction in penalty rates going to lead to more jobs? So why is Turnbull suggesting that it should be brought in slowly? Surely it would be better to speed it up as it’s going to lead to some sort of turbo charged economy! Wouldn’t it?

No wonder I find politics boring; it’s just too confusing. Maybe the next PM will be better at explaining things! Maybe when Scott Morrison takes over next week, he’ll be able to explain.

Of course, I could be wrong about Scott Morrison taking over next week… It might be Peter Dutton. Apparently he’s hoping not to be remembered as the worst Health Minister in history, and he thinks that by becoming the worst PM in history, we might forget…

Whatever, in the stakes that began when the US elected Ronald Reagan and we saw their Ronald and raised them John Howard. George W. OOOh, we said…. you win. But then, we decided to try and win by sneaking in Tony Abbott. We’ll see your Abbott, they said and raised us Donald Trump. Ha ha, we said, we changed to Malcolm Trumble while you weren’t paying attention. Really, they said, we can’t tell the difference.

So, in the game of “Who Can Pick The Most Ridiculous Leader And Still Not Have A Revolution?”, Peter Dutton is the obvious choice…

But maybe we should just stop playing and, instead of voting, randomly select the PM from everyone on the electoral roll and then pick someone else at the end of each month… Ok, it’s not much different to now, but at least we could all breathe easier knowing that nobody was silly enough to actually vote for the current leader of our country!

15 comments

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  1. pierre wilkinson

    the headline alone had me laughing… thanks

  2. Kate Ahearne

    Thanks, Rossleigh. Lovely. And yes, wonderful headline,

  3. olddavey

    What annoys me is that this bunch of right wing comancheros can pull the excuse that because Andie questioned them they believe that they can discredit her and they will be vindicated.
    If only all those who had been screwed over could be persuaded to vent their spleen in the MSM imagine the law suits that would follow.
    Seriously, the LNP are a disgusting pile of detritus, and I’m being kind because one or two of them may actually have some compassion.

  4. MichaelW

    No point in me making a comment you’ve said it all….

  5. Keitha Granville

    Can you say all that please ? to someone in parliament ?
    Hilarious, but frighteningly true

  6. Mallee Boy

    Rossleigh, what a hoot! It brightened up an otherwise dull morning, but the sad thing it’s all ‘real’. Keep up the good work

  7. Sir Scotchmistery

    I spoke at a privacy gathering last night and opined that the correlation of the Abbott meanderings and the arrest of the fellow in Young seems somewhat timely.

    But what would I know? I think there was a channel 7 camera with the AFP /LNP police as well.

  8. Alan Baird

    Yeah, it is like that: perfect script for Monty Python. ‘Cept they’re serious.

  9. etnorb

    Love the headline Rossleigh! Another funny & pertinent article, again highlighting just how inept this lying so-called Liberal mob really are! And it gets worse by the day, bugger!

  10. DiverDan

    An amusing read. The LNP are a constant source of material, with the RWNJs being accused of being the primary source.

    I am interested in knowing who these RWNJs are, as they are the current custodians of Mal’s balls.

    Who are they? How many of them are there? Are they in the majority?

    Some are known – Abbott, Abbetz, Andrews, Barnyard, Cash, Christensen, Dutton, Hastie (god love him), Kelly, Tudge.
    Some have gone – Bernardi, Bishop B, Mirrabella.

    There’s 161 Libs in the Federal Government – so who are the nutbags who can hold the Party to ransom with their looney ideology?

    I can assume that most, if not all, Nationals are RWNJs. Are there any exceptions?

    I cannot find a definitive list anywhere on the interweb.

    Name and shame them AIM.

  11. Sue

    Freethinker, that was an interesting speil by Barry Jones. Imagine if half of all MPs had that kind of depth, this nation might be moving forward in a progressive manner. Seeing someone in that condition at age 84 is uplifting. Thanks.

  12. Freethinker

    Sue, I agree with you, many years ago, when Barry was active in Canberra I use to talk with one member of the security services in the parliament and he told me that many politicians of both parties were avoiding having a conversation with Barry about deep issues to not be embarrassed by their ignorance.

  13. Sue

    Freethinker, that’s a funny image to start the weekend with – MPs, suspecting that they might learn something if they engage with an independent thinker, running for cover as Barry approaches.

  14. Rossleigh

    It’s one of the tragedies of the way the media works that they’d rather have someone like Malcolm Roberts on most programs than someone like Barry Jones. While I accept that the bleedin’ bloody ignorant have a right to their opinions, it’d just be nice if we could hear more nuanced understandings than the simplistic stuff that most politicians give us.
    It’s an indictment on our society that more Australians read “The Art of The Deal” by Trump than “Sleepers Wake” by Jones.

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