Peter Dutton Still Yet To Deny He Has Shares In Coles!

Image from taipeitimes.com / Photo by EPA-EFE

All right, I have no idea whether Dutton has shares in Coles. Actually, he may have shares in Woolworths for all I know but whatever the truth, you can make a lot out of something that hasn’t happened… Still it would be embarrassing if – after calling for the Woolworth boycott – if it were discovered that he did have shares in their biggest rival.

The whole boycott Woolies thing is rather strange. Perhaps the strangest was a headline which told us that Tony Jones was upset about the lack of Australian flag paraphernalia being sold where he suggested that Woolworths should stick to selling food and not get involved in issues… I found this strange because he was upset because they weren’t selling something that wasn’t food.

There’s quite a bit to unpack with this whole “anybody who has a different view about Australia Day is being divisive and should thank their lucky stars that they live in a free country and shut up and never express an opinion that we disagree with”!

I’ve frequently suggested that rather than celebrate January 26th as the day when a whole lot of boats turned up carrying cutthroats, thieves and bullies, as well as a large number of convicts, we could celebrate the Rum Rebellion which also occurred on this date and where Governor Bligh was sent packing back to England. After all, who could object to the day when some of us said that we should decide our own head of state and we could just get rid of the one that was foisted on us by Britain? Ok, lots of people but I do think that they’re only being divisive…

Another idea I had was that we should treat it like ANZAC Day where we remember the fallen. We could have a moment’s silence where we remember all those First Nations’ warriors who perished trying to protect this country from invasion from a foreign power, just like those diggers at Gallipoli who were invading Turkey to keep us safe. We could demand a moment’s silence and get someone to play the last post on the didgeridoo… When I suggested this to someone they said that it was the most offensive thing that they’d even heard… I’m yet to work it if it was because of my total ignorance of First Nations’ culture or my total ignorance of ANZAC traditions. Whatever, I’m suggesting it because I think it’s something that could unite a whole lot of people in that almost everyone would condemn the idea and tell me that I’m making light of some deadly serious stuff!

To which I could respond by telling them all that it’s because of them that I feel that Australia is a divided nation and if only we could all agree about everything, then it would all be great but as long as I’m around, I’m liable to say at least one thing that someone objects to and thereby uniting the nation…

Anyway, back to boycotting Woolworths…

I’d have to say that, as far as good ideas go, they never go far enough to reach Peter Dutton.

There are a number of problems with Dutton suggesting this boycott apart from his condemnation of previous boycotts that were suggested by the left, and apart from the idea that a politician should be telling a company to do something that they don’t believe is in their commercial interests, and apart from the fact that people can get their flag undies and capes from sources other than Woolworths, and apart from the slim possibility that it could lead to job losses, and apart from the fact that if Woolies were to give in to him it would make him look like the sort of dictator that we don’t want running the country, and apart from Coalition rhetoric about governments not interfering in the free market because it’s better left to its own devices and … anyway, you get the idea.

No, the basic problem is the politics.

As I see it, there is a minority of people who whole-heartedly support Australia Day celebrations, just as there is a minority of people who are upset that we celebrate it on the anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet, but the majority don’t actually have a strong opinion either way. If they’re asked if they’d like it shifted, they’re more likely to think that it’s a convenient time for a day off and say no, in much the same way that if you asked them if we should shift Christmas Day because we’ve found out that Jesus wasn’t actually a Capricorn and his birth was actually in October, then they’d find probably say that they like it where it is and so what if Jesus is a Libran, Christmas isn’t about astrology anyway…

Whatever, it’s not a hot button issue for most voters and when you jump up and down and call for boycotts over something that most people don’t care about, then you tend to lose them. It’s worth remembering that one of the narratives that the Coalition are trying to push is that Albanese was obsessed with the Voice and he was ignoring the cost-of-living problems facing everyday Australians. Now, notwithstanding the idea that it may well be possible for a government to handle two things in a given year, it doesn’t do your case much good if you call for a boycott on a supermarket chain for reasons other than their prices being too high.

I mean it’s a bit like Tony Abbott suggesting that he doesn’t see why there shouldn’t be Prime Ministerial visits to Taiwan: It tends to make a mockery of the “Airbus Albo” stuff. “We think he shouldn’t be travelling overseas as much as he has but why doesn’t he go to Taiwan? Is he sucking up to China to help our exports?”

 

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About Rossleigh 1447 Articles
Rossleigh is a writer, director and teacher. As a writer, his plays include “The Charles Manson Variety Hour”, “Pastiche”, “Snap!”, “That’s Me In The Distance”, “48 Hours (without Eddie Murphy)”, and “A King of Infinite Space”. His acting credits include “Pinor Noir Noir” for “Short and Sweet” and carrying the coffin in “The Slap”. His ten minutes play, “Y” won the 2013 Crash Test Drama Final.

28 Comments

  1. Look. I am all for boycotting woolies. For all sorts of reasons. Their pricing policies. Cashless checkouts. Their theft of the $60M in funds raised for farmers through milk sales………
    If I wanted to purchase a rendition of our current national flag (complete with the concrete proof of our subservience to king chuck in the upper left quadrant), just to prove that I am as notionalistic as the average septic, woollies would not be the place to shop because it would be a piece of mass-produced shite from some slave employing sweat-shop somwhere north of the equator that costs 2c but sells for $9.95 on a plastic stick.
    I would rather buy something similar from $2bukjimmy’s around the corner for a fiver. If I wanted one at all.
    The day I agree with the dud-one, on anything, will be a very, very, cold day in hell.

  2. If Dutton, the LNP, Tony Jones & RW media claim that Woolworths is not being patriotic then they need to have a long hard look at some of their colleagues or friends grifting around UK, US and Hungary on behalf of whom, one is not sure; though does seem to be transnational ecosystem of Koch and Murdoch, with whiff of Tanton nativism or ‘great replacement’ and ‘conservative’ Christians.

    Sincerely hope none of these types become too compromised by fossil fuels, US think tanks, RW media, Russian influence and hubris…..while big noting and swanning around…..

  3. the cunning bastard might increased his coles portfolio and sold his woollies share to buy futures??
    Whatever here is another thing for teals to use, maybe the loonies but has albothe guts???

  4. You refer to the Australia Day celebration. We should call it Civilisation Day.

    The 26th of January marks the establishment of the first city in this continent’s history. A nation can only be defined as a civilisation when it builds a fixed collection of permanent dwellings that are continuously occupied. That is to say, when it builds a city. Australians (especially those like the PM Mr Albanese who ignorantly ramble on about commemorating 60,000 years of the worlds oldest continuous civilisation) really need to understand this, as it is the demands of fixed communal city life that by necessity bring about all the artificial concepts of land ownership and property and all the problems associated with and created by those un-natural concepts. It is when societies split into haves and have not, land lords and tenants and slaves, and when reading, writing and mathematics are invented to keep track of who owns and who owes what And when laws are developed to regulate the behaviour of citizens to keep the whole thing from falling apart.

    When the Ancient Greeks developed their civilisation it was rejected by some people who not unreasonably regarded civilisation as the source of all human evils. They also believed that nothing that was natural could be regarded as obscene. So they strived to live as naturally as they could. To the civilised Greeks their lives appeared to be wretched, no better than that of a dog. And so they came to be known as cynics a name derived from the Greek word for dog.

    So call the 26th January Civilisation Day so that all Australians can contemplate and come to understand the massive implications that civilisation brought to this land. By all means be rightfully cynical about it, but please recognise that it still remains an extremely important truth with which we must be reconciled.

  5. Or when Gandhi replied when he was asked what he thought about Western civilisation, he said that he was in favour of it…

  6. Uhm ….. ”so that all Australians can contemplate and come to understand the massive implications that civilisation brought to this land.”
    .
    As a political sceptic I truly wonder what the English invasion brought to this land that was better than the existing status quo. The creme of English society fresh from the Thames prison hulks for the crime of surviving in a brutal class system designed to exploit ”the lower classes”.
    .
    Rum & traitors saved only by an act of kindness en route for seven years banishment in Blighty before returning mad to dance naked down the streets of Camden.
    .
    Fifty (50) years of racist slaughter of Indigenous Aboriginal people by English ”settlers” who could not go home to England and were not punished for their genocide. And it continued well into the 20th century.
    .
    Two world wars where too many good young Australian men were thrown into industrial slaughter by incompetent Pommies unable to scratch their toffy noses while drinking tea at the Gallipoli landing on day1 as Australian troops in parade order were sniped into kingdom come.
    .
    When ”civilisation” remains silent while thousands of women & children are slaughtered in the Gaza Strip ghetto while the puppet politicians dance to the tune of the US Military Industrial Complex for the benefit of ZION@ZIS wanting to steal the lands and natural resources of Indigenous Palestinians for fresh waves of ZION@ZI colonist settlers escaping from Russian conscription, American chaos or European indifference.
    .
    Now compare Australia before the European Invasion, when about 600 Indigenous Aboriginal clans roamed the country, or worked in static farm based communities, minimising time spent ”working”, having established by hard experience the necessary behaviours and rituals for those clans to live together peacefully ….. then (European) ”civilisation” came ….. with diseases, alcohol, and rifles.
    .
    Certainly it was the end of the dancing and the beginning of 200+ years of subjugation by the basically uncaring racist Pommies.

  7. Australia Day always seemed to be a day of rest. I never thought about its meaning or waved a flag.
    So to this day, I say , what’s it all about? I know the story but am totally divorced from it. You can call me unpatriotic if you must. But I never really bought into the hoo ha. Lucky for me, born in the Riverina meant not having to swear allegiance to queen and country. Knowing the history of the place makes me totally uncomfortable. Seeing the direction it’s taking distresses me. Strangely, it is my country . Why do I can it ? Because I see all the wasted potential. It could have been…………..
    It just teaches me that malfeasance always wins in the end.

  8. I wonder if Dutton’s family childcare business chooses to continue unprofitable operations because ‘they can afford it’ in the eyes of others?

    While the holiday at the end of January is the government’s way of saying ‘right you lot, back to work until Christmas time’, the ‘celebration of all things Australian’ should be held on a day that has some reference to the founding of the Australian nation – not the state of New South Wales. Maybe the weekend closest to the day the Australian Parliament first sat in May?

  9. We have attitudes about virgin births, people rising from the dead and floating away, easter rabbit mysteries, a military defeat, a non-royal birthday, a horse race, etc. The only day for a pointless national day is January One, when we became Australia. A big heavily armed warship, ships of chained victims, redcoats, determination to thieve, occupy, humliate, marginalise, this is evil.

  10. 2353NM,

    The Spud received multimillion dollar subsidies in the late 2000’s, all above boards of course from his mates in the LNP gubmint, so if his companies (that he has absolutely nothing to with anymore) don’t the free handout anymore his businesses (that he has absolutely nothing to with anymore) can now be run at a loss for tax purposes.

    “So call the 26th January Civilisation Day so that all Australians can contemplate and come to understand the massive implications that civilisation brought to this land. By all means be rightfully cynical about it, but please recognise that it still remains an extremely important truth with which we must be reconciled.”

    Yes, B Sullivan, we were civilising them almost to point of extinction and continue to destroy the country all in the name of profit and greed…ah, I mean civilsation.

  11. Spud has vehemently denied that he has shares in Coles but happily notes that he is ‘shorting’ Woolies as is the right of any citizen in a free country.

  12. Terence, that might well be true, The Spud may not have shares in Coles, but who is to say his family trust(s) aren’t holding any Coles (and no doubt Woolies) shares in “trust” for him.

  13. Who could possibly object to –
    1. Celebrating a national day on 1 January, the day Australia became a nation, or 9 May, the date of the first sitting of federal parliament
    2. Replacing the union jack on the flag with the kangaroo and emu coat of arms
    3. Having a head of state appointed by a 2/3 majority of a joint sitting of the parliament.
    Each unifying rather than divisive

  14. I didn’t vote NO only to be told by a swill of woke bleed’ heart wankers tryin’to split the country by feelin’ sorry for a privileged minority, that I can’t show my patriotism for the best country in the world by havin’a half a dozen beers with me mates then drivin me V8 Ute with the biggest Aussie flag I can buy streaming out to majestically behind
    while I do a few burn outs in the city mall, me horn on full blast. THAT’S patriotism, mate! I mean, fair bite of the fur burger.
    I was listenin’ to a couple of tossers workin’ behind the counter In Centrelink last Monday. They was sayin’ how we should replace the Union Jack with the Abo flag if we ever become a republic!
    I mean, fair suck of the sauce bottle.

  15. wow B Sullivan, Civilisation comprising 18thC soldiers and convicts, with their racist cultureless mindset, is our history and certainly they were unable to understand anything behind the civilising experience of 50k years of developing a society attuned to protecting their environment by being part of it.
    The latter being the concern our society today. Think of Aboriginal people’s major achievements as being cooperation not posession and ordered equality not privileged power.
    Today our country, and the world, is being ruined by not having such qualities.
    Our European ‘civilisation’ destroyed, what it couldn’t understand,
    Now destruction is so profitable that our civilisation is addicted and enslaved by the money it generates. Is that not sad????
    ps
    Your post suggests you are one of millions of Australians who think the white Australia policy of 1901 was to protect civilisation. If so you are a ^@^%@#^wit
    pps
    Look at armed service sites today and their political supporters. Civilised?????

  16. Dutton for cancel culture.

    I thought the Liberal party wanted the government to focus on the cost of the living? Boycotting Woolworths doesn’t look like that.

    Hopefully Dutton and many of the Libs will be boycotted at the next Federal Election.

  17. Yes Rossleigh, curiouser and curiouser

    Oh and indeed how, could one possibly ignore in Rossleigh’s story, those civilized?

    They’ve taken Oz, and indeed the world of the west to such heights of magnificence, that the genuflecting civilians will have to worry no more, as they are lasered by the glow of the death cult they so revere.

  18. 26th January celebrates the day the developers evicted the tenants and moved into a garden of eden and they’ve never looked back.

    Hey wam, you’re starting to sound like a loonie. 😅

  19. Bligh was actually trying to clean up the incredibly corrupt military administration, whiich is why they deposed him.

    But Duttolini is becoming worrisomely confusing. I thought he objected to cancel culture?

    ps: The Last Post would sound truly awesome played on a yidakii.

  20. I’m finding P. Duddy more and more P. Dundant, a huge bore and almost obsessively one tracked about bloody ‘straya day.

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