Tag Archives: Liberal Government

Please Sir…Can I have some More? Mooooree?

February 9, 2017
Written by: Trish Corry
30 Replies

It is very clear to us now that Malcolm Turnbull knows his place and we should all damn well know ours. Through his attack on Bill Shorten yesterday, he let us all know that only the ‘real’ rich kids get to sit at the table with other ‘real’ rich kids. If you are the poor kid who gets that invitation to go to the cool rich kids party, then you better not show up, cos the rich kids are waiting to slap you down.

Please Sir Can I Have Some More?

In question time yesterday, Labor Leader, Bill Shorten loudly objected to the Turnbull Government’s harsh cuts on families, pensioners and the poor in general. For those who continuously state that Liberal and Labor are the same; please take note of this stark contrast between the two and please press the buzzer and get off this bizarre unicorn led school bus you are riding.

You know, the cuts that mean sausages and mince some nights and peanut on bread the other nights.

Cuts that mean that even if your kid is a bloody star and you are so proud of them, they have to just miss out, because you can no longer afford footy fees or singing lessons.

The cuts that mean pensioners cannot afford to keep cool or keep warm because it is a choice between meager amounts of food or electricity.

Cuts from an uncaring Government who are threatening jail to disability pensioners, whilst their leader smiles as he protects the big banks and big companies.

Liberals always tout their very loud support for the low paid casualised labour, abolition of penalty rates and high childcare fees. This means that most families need to rely on family payments to simply make ends meet. Yet Turnbull decides it might be fun to cut that too.

The Liberals very vocal advocacy of making it really super easy to sack people, like their mate John Howard did, forces many families to work for next to nothing. They never rise up, stay complacent, never complain. This means a dream of a fair days work for a fair days pay is just a dream. Full time work is not even in the scope of reality. Yet Turnbull decides to cut the one thing that makes up the gap for these struggling families: Family Payment.

Bill Shorten – Real Leadership

Shorten had enough so he rightly attacked the Government and stood up and spoke up for every single parent, child and even the family dog that these cuts hurt. Shorten insisted that these pensioners and families, to please sir, have some more.

Moooooreeee????

Just like in Oliver Twist, when he asked “Please Sir, Can I have some more?” Turnbull, just like the big fat custodian of the workhouse, bellowed at the orphaned worker “Moooorreeee?”

Turnbull yesterday moved through classic literature in one very angry rant. Moving from the Workhouse boss in Oliver Twist and then transforming into Flashman from Tom Brown’s School Days. Shouting at Shorten, “How dare you, you poor person sit with the rich kids!” While Flashy’s mates stood around him smugly laughing.

It is a wonder Turnbull didn’t yell at Shorten:

“You’ll be fagging for me by the end of term, BOY!”

As Rhys Muldoon summed it up yesterday:

I thought Turnbull came off like a school prefect telling a scholarship student he doesn't belong.

— Rhys Muldoon (@rhysam) February 8, 2017

Morphing yet again, we have Barnaby this time, in the background. Barnaby is Turnbull’s main Droogie from A Clockwork Orange. He has made his way to parliament yesterday straight from the Korova Milk Bar, where he overdosed on some horrorshow Moloko.

(If you don’t understand any of these examples, I suggest you lobby the Liberal Government to start re-funding the Arts).

Destroying the Liberal Ideology in One Rant

So there we have it. Turnbull destroyed the Liberal Party ideology in one big fat childish rant. The Liberal ideology that tells people who “If you work hard enough, you will make it.”

The way they always tell us that “Everyone is born equal and it is up to you to be all the way up here with us! You can do it. We did!”

The sniveling privileged born to rule ideology that insists that if you haven’t made it, it is all your fault and you should be ashamed.

The stigmatising and derogatory ideology that points to anyone on welfare as a criminal and a cheat. That is while the Liberals sit there and destroy the economy so there are no jobs to be had!

The main point of Turnbull’s rant yesterday was that even if you do work hard like Bill Shorten and end up earning $400,000 a year, and become the leader of a major party, you will never, ever, ever be a real rich kid. The rich kids will be here to push you around to remind you just where you have come from.

Turnbull made the very big point that if you start even hanging around with the rich kids, we will make sure we let the other poor kids know, that now you are rich you have lost your values and you are now one of us. You know, the rich kids who hate and ridicule the poor kids.

It speaks volumes that a strict conservative like Cory Bernardi has jumped ship. Conservatives may have twisted values, but one thing they loathe is uncouth clowns like Turnbull who cannot hold it together.

Just Two Things

Malcolm Turnbull like all self entitled right wingers do when they are lost and backed into a corner did. He spurted a great big lump of psychological projection. As a poor kid of the 70s and 80s, Turnbull only said two things to me yesterday:

Only the real rich kids belong at the table with other rich kids
Rich people never, ever understand poor people. We loathe them and we simply must punish them, so they never ever join our circles.

Considering Turnbull is both in abundance, how is it possible that he can Govern for more than one percent of our people? The truth is, he does not.

For the Common Good

I will end this article with some more of Shorten’s words to show that it will not matter how many rich people he dines with (even if they did die eight years ago), he has stayed true to his Labor values. This is Shorten on why Labor fights to help people with a disability.

As a poor kid of a Father with a disability, these words mean a lot to me, as it is how Dad used to explain it. “On the invalid pension, you never ever get a chance to get ahead. You are punished until the day you die.” he would say.

This is the alternative Prime Minister telling his story behind his involvement in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

This is a narrative you will never ever hear from the Prime Minister Turnbull, even if he is angry and shouting as loud as he can.

Nerds Who Get Stuff Done Unite!

The media are hailing Turnbull a hero for berating the man and attacking the man. They must get super excited over right-wing nut job trolls on Twitter!

That night, the Policy Nerd Shorten smiled through yet another Sales interview on ABC 7.30. Instead of asking more about Shorten’s concerns, Sales tried to excuse Turnbull’s right to have his pointed personal attack on ‘the man.’

The current state of politics as described by the media is:

Angry shouty born to rule elites devoid of policy, just so they can wear a crown and destroy the country?

Hell Yes!

Policy Nerds who quietly get stuff done in the background. Like say, a national scheme to assist people with a disability. You know, stuff that really matters….

Boring! Bah! Boo!

What Turnbull did yesterday was what every single LNP or nationalist nut job on Twitter does, day in day out. Yells, Screams and personally attacks people because they cannot understand, nor articulate policy. Yesterday, Turnbull was like a real life Twitter Troll come to life. It was incredible to watch.

Heads up to the Media. This is NOT leadership.

Turnbull is right to worry about a stab in the back. He should worry some more. There are literally thousands of idiots on Twitter who do the same ranty personal attack diatribe every day and some are very skilled at it. With Hansonism, every idiot in a clown suit thinks they can now be Prime Minister.

Tick. Tock.

A dirty deal to drown out our inner voice

February 27, 2016
Written by: Trish Corry
349 Replies

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” Steve Jobs, 2005

Voices, opinions and narrative shape a society in a free democracy. This is a crucial underlying construct of our ‘Australian Culture.’ It is one of the essential freedoms we enjoy as a country. Our voices, my voice, your voice shapes us.

The right to use our voice to protest. The right to use our voice to use social media and other platforms to speak up loudly for or against issues. The right for journalists to report on sensitive issues and to criticise the Government. The right to nominate as a voice in our parliament and the right to vote for that voice.

Sometimes debate in our country is a lovely, manicured clear pathway and sometimes our debate is a thick forest with bruising scrub, dry arid land, harsh conditions, thorns that cut and grab and where we have to step around snakes with fear and angst.

However, it is our inner voice which allows us to block out the loud opinions of others and look up above that noise to the wisest of owls who will guide us out, beyond the snakes and to the other side to a place of peace and tranquility.

Every single person’s landscape of peace and tranquility is not the same. Some will find that peace in a conservative landscape, an authoritarian landscape, a socialist landscape, a (small l) liberal landscape or a libertarian landscape. For some people, depending on the issue at hand, they might find they have unfolded their deckchair and soaked up the sun in different landscapes over time. For example, some may sit in the socialist landscape for worker’s rights, but will also sit in the punitive and conservative landscape to advocate for the death penalty.

There are also some people who don’t fight through harsh scrub and snakes, they have no wise owl to guide them to their landscape, they are trapped forever in a 70’s disco doing ‘The Shrug’ to the tune of ‘meh, meh, meh, meh, meh.’ Sometimes they might reach out and take a few steps down the easy manicured path of debate, but you will never get them near the forest.

Sadly, today, there are still many loud voices which drown out the opinions of those in minority groups who are suffering from harm. More and more people look to the wise-owl of their inner voice, to guide them and set themselves down in the landscape of the minorities in solidarity and that is a good thing, because it is so important that these voices are the loud and heard.

I do not support the argument that the only voices we should have in our parliament are the Independent voices and that the parliament would be better without the major parties.

I do not believe a parliament of independents is the panacea to some of the issues we have in parliament today. There are only so many frames of political ideology and to have the necessary legitimate and at times coercive power, blocs would be formed, representing that ideology.

The theories which explain power in relationships and politics are complex. Power can see people struggle over finite resources, some have the ability to use referent power, some can use power to make other’s dependent upon them and some can use coercive power. A party of Independent MPs or Senators is not the nice walk down the manicured path, some believe it to be.

What I strongly advocate for, is that all citizens should have the freedom to vote for a party who has either a solid platform they agree with, or a vote for an independent voice, which may take a myriad of conflicting positions.

My strongest argument is for informed voting. Although I am not a supporter of the Liberal party, I would prefer to see a voter vote conservative/LNP who has a truly informed conservative position they align with. They are informed and fully understand the damage that this party’s ideology and policies will do to certain groups of people, how their authoritarian nature will aim to suppress our voices and that they favour punitive measures above all else. I support that this voter is comfortable with being a bastard and owns it and wears it on their sleeve with pride.

I would rather this than just voting because of the aesthetical appeal of an individual politician, or they find a slogan catchy, without knowing what that party or person is really about. I want to turn the music off at the “Meh, meh, meh” disco and fill the disco full of owls to be followed right out of there.

I argue strongly for this, because this is critical in shaping who we really are. The voices who end up on the other side of power (whomever that may be), end up battling through the forest and/or sitting in solidarity with groups of minorities. They know their collective needs to grow stronger and their voices need to be more persuasive and louder. This enables robust debate and shapes our country. This is important as we do not want to just stretch out on a deckchair and catch a few rays in our ideal landscapes, but to build a house on it for life.

In the debate of democratic voting, the majority of people have built their house on the landscape of democracy. The Greens, the Xenophon party and The Liberals want to knock down our democratic houses. They have done a dirty deal to silence the voices of the independents in the Senate. They are essentially forming a bloc on this issue to use legitimate power to drown out the inner voices who sit in their landscape and in solidarity with the Independents.

The Greens, the Xenophon party and the Liberals want to knock down your house of democracy by relying on the voters who are bopping away to “The Shrug” to the tune of “meh, meh, meh, meh.” This is the key to their success and the key to suppressing the independent voice.

Bill Shorten’s Labor is sitting in solidarity in the Independent’s landscape of democracy.

As a member of the Labor party, I am glad that this is where my party sits, as it is where I would be sitting regardless.

I will end this article, not with my own conclusion of why this is so wrong, but I will leave you with a must watch video of Anthony Albanese speaking out against the changes to the Senate Voting system. I hope that the voice in this video, encourages you speak up against these voting reforms with your pen on election day.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRnHSZsiKfc&w=560&h=315]

Originally posted on Polyfeministix

Roll Up, Roll Up, Rolex Robert Rides Again!

February 17, 2016
Written by: Rossleigh
16 Replies

Unlike Ian Macfarlane who feels that he’s just wasted on the backbench … Mm, perhaps I should rephrase that as it may be a little ambiguous. What he actually said that he didn’t want to be a “passenger” by just sitting around on the backbench. Which sort of makes one wonder about his opinion of all those fellow MPs who’ll never be anything more than backbenchers.

Anyway, unlike Ian Macfarlane and others, Bronwyn Bishop is apparently happy to be a passenger, as is the recent ex-minister Mr Stuart Robert. One could say that it’s surprising that Mrs. Bishop would be happy to stay a “passenger” when her preferred method of transport won’t be allowed, but I guess Bronwyn knows that she isn’t going anywhere, so she doesn’t need to worry about things like that.

Stuart Robert, on the other hand, must be happy being a passenger. Or else he must be hoping that, after a suitable period of penance, he may once again rise like a phoenix from the ashes. After all, just look at Arthur Sinodinos. He was promoted, even before ICAC anounced that he had no case to answer because well, nobody could remember anything that he’d done in his job at Australia Water Holdings, let alone anything he’d done wrong. Whatever, he was returned to the ministry in spite of the fact that, not only had he demonstrated an inability to retain information with his testimony at ICAC, he was still to be cleared.

So, maybe Mr Robert may be of the view that, once we’ve got that little matter of the election out of the way, he may be given a more important job when the next minister stuffs up. Perhaps, some of the trolls will jump on me and suggest that I should have written, “if another minister stuffs up”, but, let’s be real here, folks, this is still a ministry where Christopher Pyne is one of the top performers, and, well, Barnaby Joyce … Need I say more!

After all, as many on the Coalition suggested: it’s not like he did anything wrong. I mean all he did was go over to China on a private trip – a holiday, really – where he wasn’t acting as minister and as a private citizen he met with various government officials which is pretty much what anyone going on a holiday overseas does.

However, it’s the whole Rolex thing that strikes me as rather odd.

From time to time, students have given me the odd gift at the end of the year. Occasionally, it’s been chocolates. Sometimes a bottle of wine (never Grange!). But none of them have ever given me a watch. Not even a fake Rolex … And I’ve never thought of these as anything more than an expression of gratitude, because generally they’ve come from students that I’m unlikely to teach ever again.

However, if I were to receive a present at the start of a year – even something as trivial as a fake Rolex, worth a mere $300-$500 according to those who received them – I’d feel that it was an attempt to bribe me and I’d feel obliged to say that it was inappropriate.

Actually, when I think about it, even ignoring the bribery implications, I’d be concerned about accepting a fake Rolex watch from a student, because I’d be sending him or her a message that it was OK for these people to rip off Rolex by making imitations. How would I explain the difference if I caught the student plagiarising someone else’s work?

I guess, though when you’re in Opposition you don’t have to worry about things like someone bringing a load of fake watches. I mean the borders are to keep out people, not watches!

Mm, did Li Ruipeng pay import duty, I wonder. Possibly not, because from what I’ve read, there’s quite a few things that he hasn’t paid in China, like his creditors and his employees.

But no worries, that’s just a matter for him and the Chinese officials who’ve described him as “still on the run”. I’m more concerned that he just handed over Rolex watches worth more than a quarter of a million to people he expected to soon be Australian government ministers.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Their election prospects may have had nothing to do with it. Mr Li Ruipeng may just be a generous sort of man … After all, he gave watches to their spouses as well. Why he even gave one to Peta Credlin and she was just a simple worker in the Opposition leader’s office! I wonder if he also drops coins in beggars’ cups or sponsors orphans. He must be the sort of man who adopts stray kittens.

Whatever, I just hope he paid import duty on those watches because it’d almost be enough to eliminate the need to raise the GST …

Yes, I know, Malcolm has taken the GST off the table …

Although actually, he hasn’t said that they won’t introduce it. He just said, and I quote directly:

“the Government will not be taking a proposal to increase the GST to the election”

Later adding:

“After you take into account all of the compensation that you would need to ensure the change was equitable, it simply is not justified in economic terms.”

But nowhere did he say that they wouldn’t do actually raise it – just that they wouldn’t be taking it to an election. and that it wouldn’t be justified in economic terms after all the compensation to make it “equitable”. So, if he says, screw equity, we won and we’re implementing the promise we made, not the one you thought we made, it wouldn’t be without precedent.

So, getting back to what to what we’re meant to take from this little saga: It’s OK to accept a fake watch, so therefore it must be OK to accept a pirated copy of a DVD. Or illegally download music …

Or will someone argue that they only thought they were fake, and the fact that they were real means that they’ve done nothing wrong and should be congratulated for handing them back.

>sigh<

Yeah, it’s one of those confusing ones all right. Sort of like the Intervention, where we sent in the army because of the violence and sexual abuse in some aboriginal communities and we were told we couldn’t stand back and do nothing and strong action needed to be taken. However, now that there’s violence and sexual abuse on Manus and Nauru, not only are we meant to stand back, but it’s an offence to even report it. And doing something about it would just give hope to all those people smugglers to start the boats again and then we wouldn’t be able to turn them back like we’ve been doing because suddenly they’d have hope and with hope they’d be able to slip past the navy ships we have patrolling and sail straight into Sydney Harbour.

Like I said, it’s confusing.

Anyway, just in case, the AFP arrive on my door wanting to confiscate the chocolates and wine, I’d like to put on record that I personally have never received any presents and I was making up that example for the purposes of illustration!

If that doesn’t work, I’ll try the Arthur Sinodinos approach …

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Malcolm Turnbull – Would You Buy A Used Government From This Man?

February 4, 2016
Written by: Rossleigh
10 Replies

In the 1960 US presidential elections the Kennedy camp used a photo of Nixon with the caption, “Would YOU buy a used car from this man?” to great effect. It implied that he was sleazy and full of tricks, just like those dodgy used car salesmen.

Ok, ok, before I get all the used car salesmen commenting that they’re completely scrupulous and how dare I, etc, let me just say that I’m just reporting how a popular perception of the time was used to cast doubt on Nixon. And while it may seem like shameful, negative politics, Nixon’s role in Watergate suggests that they may have been onto something.

Anyway, I couldn’t help but think of Malcolm Turnbull and his corporate takeover of the Abbott government. (Yes, yes I know that some of you are going to say that it was already run by business, but corporate takeoever ARE companies taking over other companies.) This is not a new government as the media are encouraging us to think of it – this is the rusted out engine of an old car, put in the body of something not showing the signs of wear and tear so much. “Come on, just look at the leather interior and the dash… No need to look at the engine! How could a car with this sort of shine on the duco be a lemon?”

I think that the line that he’s just Abbott in an imported suit has some resonance, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to be his lack of conviction that gets him. Or to put it another way, most people prefer a strong government to an indecisive one, even if they don’t like what it’s doing.

When Turnbull was first elected, I felt a little relieved. I didn’t actually think he’d change much, but I thought that at least he’d be pushing back against the barabarians. Yes, he’d had to keep his views on certain issues on the back-burner, but we knew that he had them, right? I mean, he’s a staunch republican, a supporter of same sex marriage and a believer in the need for strong action on climate change. Why, didn’t he consider joining the Labor Party at one stage?

Abbott, on the other hand, I always felt had a fervent desire to go further. It wasn’t just what he was saying and doing; I always worried that he was a man to whom compromise was just something you told people that you were doing when you’d lost. Abbott was a conviction politician with a dangerous agenda, but, Turnbull, well Malcolm was more like a leader. He’d draw a line in the sand, and we wouldn’t have the same level of absurdity. We wouldn’t have the Nationals invited to the party room meeting, or non-appointments made to positions just to eliminate potential opposition.

Lately, I’m remembering a relieving principal at a high school where I taught. As one of the union branch executive, I was at a meeting where we went through a list of grievances. He acknowledged the validity of our grievance in each case, before pointing out that he was only there till the end of term and it would be wrong to set up a potential conflict with our actual principal or to break precedents. (Although he had no trouble breaking a precendent with something later in the term, when he disagreed with it!) After we’d left one of the others commented on how reasonable he was. “But we haven’t changed anything,” I protested.

“Yes, but he was so much more agreeable than Boris#!”

Turnbull is starting to make me wonder if there isn’t an element of that in what he’s doing. We like to think that he really believes in climate change, but now he’s actually leader, then his only change is to stop attacking renewables with quite the same gusto.

On a side note, I know that there were plenty of memes juxtaposing open cut coal mines with wind farms after Joe and Tony’s complaint about how ugly wind turbines were, but I’d have really liked someone to ask either of them if they found electrical poles beautiful and, if not, why not we start putting them underground?

Anyway, back to Turnbull…

While some may think that he’ll ignore his Faustian pact with the Ridiculous Right in the Liberal Party once he’s legitimately elected, I very much doubt it. I suspect that he’ll still be too constipated with the fear that they could easily replace him with Tony Abbott. Forget the reality. Turnbull has hardly admitted that anything was a problem with the government except having the wrong leader.

We still have no replacement for Elizabeth Broderick as Sex Discrimination Commissioner – we’re told that it’ll happen soon, in spite of knowing about the position becoming vacant over a year ago. Nor do we have replacements for the members of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency whose terms expired, so it seems that it’s still his plan to abolish the agency.

And his statement in Parliament yesterday about needing off-shore processing so that we can allow persecuted minorities in from Syria suggests that, not only is it bad luck if you persecuted and part of a majority, but that the only asylum seekers likely to receive any benefit from the change of leader are those whose case is so compelling that it receives a public outcry.

So, while the current popular narrative is that Turnbull is a foregone conclusion for the next election, there are number of factors that make this something less than a certainty. As Yogi Berra said, “Making predictions is hard, especially about the future”.

The GST is a potentially a great big tax on everything if it was applied to fresh food, education and health. In reality, it is a great big tax on nearly everything. While there seems to be a collective amnesia about the fuss the Liberals made about the carbon tax, if they ever get to the point of spelling out the detail of a GST increase, I’d be prepared to make a guess that it won’t lead to a jump in support.
If the priorities of the Abbott era were so unpopular, will the shine wear off Turnbull as it becomes clearer that not much has changed and that rather than being a strong leader, Turnbull is more in fear of his back-bench than the Australian electorate.
The media is making plenty over the approval ratings of the various leaders, and while it’s true that Toxic Tony was having a strong negative effect on voters, it’s worth remembering that he was elected with a poor personal approval rating. In fact, it’s rare that the Opposition leader ever leads the incumbent as prefered PM or Premier. The more significant figure is the two-party preferred, and while some have the Liberals leading by as much as ten points, others have it much closer, suggesting that the electorate is even more volatile than usual.
Notswithstanding point 3, nobody is considering what might happen if Shorten was replaced. Kevin Rudd’s plan to ensure stability in the leadership by having a popular vote of the membership may be the reason that Shorten will be there at election time, but it’s also possible that nobody with an eye to being PM actually wants the job at the moment. Continued poor polling and the Labor Party may actually decide that they need another “save the furniture” moment. If that happens, they’d be foolish to go through the rigmarole of last time, I suspect there’d only be one candidate, elected unopposed. Until Turnbull’s ascension, it would have been impossible to replace Shorten without Abbott pointing out that Labor haven’t been able to stick to a leader for more than a couple of years while he’s been Liberal leader since 2009. Turnbull can’t make any claim to Labor’s leadership tensions, particularly if they had another “drover’s dog” moment, like the switch from Hayden to Hawke.
There’s little doubt that the most recent good unemployment figures are the result of an anamoly in the way that the figures are being calculate. If this should correct itself in the coming months, we could have the appearance of a sudden spike in unemployment. Combined with the global economic turmoil and the massive increase in Australia’s current account deficit, the idea of the Liberals as good economic managers could take a bit of a beating. Granted a large part of this wouldn’t be their fault, but as Labor discovered during the GFC, the captain who gets the praise is the one who steered the ship on the flat waters, not the one who successfully guided it through the storm.

So, while we have Malcom “Shiny Shoes” Turnbull threatening a double dissolution over secret documents, most people suspect that he’ll wait till the second half of the year before going to the polls. That’s not only plenty of time for the public perception to change, that’s a whole Budget away. And even without any of the other possibilities, a Budget can do a lot to change public opinion.

Just ask Tony Abbott.

#Not his real name. Although when I think about it, he did have more than a passing resemblance to the actor Boris Karloff who played Frankenstein.

P.S. After writing this, I read about the CSIRO slashing about 300 jobs. I guess the Turnbull government wants to put the money into Innovation.

Australia To Be A Republic by 2015 thanks to Royal Visit

December 22, 2013
Written by: Rossleigh
12 Replies

“AUSTRALIANS may get a glimpse of future king Prince George after confirmation that Prince William and Catherine will visit Australia next year.

Prince George will be eight months old when in Australia – a month younger than Prince William was when he headed Down Under with Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1983.”

Now, I’d always hoped that we’d become a republic. It seems to me rather anachronistic that the fact the person who gives the final tick to our laws needs to be appointed by some person in a faraway land whose main contribution to Australia was sending a few loads of predominantly criminal boat people.

But I’d always expected that one day, Australia itself would make the decision. Now, I’m starting to wonder if it’s not more likely that we won’t, in fact, be thrown out of the Commonwealth by the Royal Family!

After all, Prince Charles is a greenie from wayback. He certainly can’t approve of our current “let’s develop clean coal, and while we’re at it, let’s get rid of those dirty windfarms” policies. But, of course, the Royals have just silently sat back and let Parliament have its own way, ever since someone said, “There’s no need to lose your head over this Charles”! (That, of course, was Charles 1, who didn’t listen and who did end up losing his head.)

You see, Prince William and Kate will be visiting next year and I fear that it may go something like this:

“Ah… Welcome to the future monarch of England and his feisty young bride. Although I don’t know if I should be calling her that. They have been married quite a while now. But… ah, in spite of the rigours of childbirth and raising a baby, I must say that Kate still has plenty of sex appeal, and as she clearly likes men who are slightly thinning on top, I’d just like to say, William, if you’re busy at any time, I’d be happy to show her round. I also welcome, young Prince George. The youngest future monarch to ever visit Australia, which occurred under my government.

“I, too, know something about what it’s like to go through pregnancy, as I was Opposition Leader for nearly four years, so I have some idea of the relief when you had the wonderful outcome of a baby boy. Something that I only thought I’d experienced but which was cruelly taken aware from me, by an ABC sound recordist, who like all the ABC misrepresented the situation. I suppose that I shouldn’t compare an election campaign to childbirth, because one is painful to everyone, whereas childbirth is only bad for the mother, and it is, after all, something that she is singularly equipped for.

“Unfortunately, Prince George is a bit young for my daughters, who aren’t bad looking. In fact, Kate, you’re lucky William didn’t meet one of them first. We may have had the first Australian Queen.

“So, please enjoy your visit to Australia, and while I never comment on security matters, let me assure you that neither the Australian Government, nor Mr Murdoch, will be hacking your phones. We’ll ensure that the paparazzi are kept away, and let me assure you that we have much better drivers than they have in Paris, so you have no worries there. Once again, you can treat this country like it’s your own, and we’re all at your service. Anything you want, just ask. Particularly you, Kate.”

No, you’re right. Our PM would never be that insensitive. He’d never refer to that time where he thought the ABC sound recordist was his son.