The Consistent Narrative Of Barnaby Joyce And Dorothea Mackellar
Perhaps the speed of the 21st Century really has taken away people’s concentration span, but I keep coming back to the same point. While a clever brain can hold two points of view simultaneously while working out an answer, lesser minds usually seek a logical consistency that means they don’t frequently swing from one thing to the other without some attempt at a fig-leaf of an explanation.
You know the sort of thing:
“Yes, I am on record as saying that I don’t support violence in any situation but that guy I just punched must have really deserved it because I’m such a pacifist.”
OR
“Yes, the economy does seem to be running into some headwinds, so isn’t it lucky that you have me in charge because Labor have showed they couldn’t manage an economy in recession by doing all they could to avoid one when we had the GFC.”
So, I’m having a lot of trouble putting together the narrative of the Barnaby Joyces of this world.
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We’ve always had bushfires so it’s nothing to do with climate change. Dorothea Mackellar wrote about “droughts and flooding rains” in her poem over a hundred years ago, so this nothing new.
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No, the bushfires are not worse. They’ve been worse in the past.
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These bushfires are particularly bad because in the past we had hazard reduction burns but thanks to lots of red-tape like not burning on days when the fire is likely to get out of control, we have a build-up of fuel and without that, we wouldn’t have a problem.
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No, it’s not unprecedented. Didn’t you hear me? We’ve had worse in the past.
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Yes, it’s because of the fuel. The past fires were easily brought under control because we didn’t have all those greenie restrictions.
And so on…
While it’s possible to mount a strong argument against each point, it because impossible to defeat the moving target. It’s very reminiscent of against the There is no climate change/Of course the climate is changing because it’s changed in the past so it’s nothing to do with emissions.
When it was just climate change and the bushfires, it would be bad enough but the thinking seems to be seeping into other areas too. How else can the PM stand there and say that he has a report; he can’t show it to you because it’s confidential but he can tell you what’s in it? The absurdity of this is the failure of people to call out its absurdity. I wish some journalist would ask Morrison if he’s breached the official secrets act by revealing the contents of a report which can’t be shared!
In the past few years, I’ve made some very accurate predictions like removal of Abbott for Turnbull, and Scott Morrison impersonating Steve Bradbury to beat Dutton. (At this point, I should point out that Bradbury’s Olympic triumph was not solely luck. He concluded that he wasn’t one the fastest three skaters, so his best chance of a medal was to hang back and hope that some of the faster skaters got knocked over. It was a deliberate strategy which relied on others making a mistake, whereas Morrison… Come to think of it, it was exactly the same strategy!) Anyway, my capacity for prognostication relies on one simple idea: pick the most absurd course of action and imagine it happening.
Which, of course, brings me to Barnaby Joyce. I could predict that he’ll attempt to sell himself as a man who believes in family values so strongly that he started a second family, but that’s not absurd enough for the man who made the Christmas Eve video where he told us that he wanted less government in his life.
No, my prediction is that Barnaby will make another tilt at the Nationals leadership and unless his colleagues decide that they have to make him happy by giving in, Joyce will take the rebels and form a new party, arguing that they’re getting back to their roots by reclaiming “The Country Party” as their name because they’re going to stick up for the little guy in the bush by backing mining, fracking and less government, unless it’s a subsidy to buy non-existent water or a coal-fondling lobby group. “We are no longer ‘Nats’!” Joyce will tell us, but stop short of giving his rebel colleagues the name that the rest of the Coalition will be calling them.
This strange turn of events will embarrass the government in House of Representatives with several votes being lost when Joyce announces that they’ll be abstaining until the government agrees to put a new coal-fired power station in every city and to legislate to restrict the amount of wind and solar which can be allowed into our nation.
Faced with possible humiliation of the floor of the House, Morrison will decide that this is his chance to get rid of the pesky Nats – and others – once and for all. He’ll call an election, content in his conviction that miracles do happen for him on a regular basis. Not only was he made PM, but he was actually elected by voters. Why not a third sign that he is the chosen one?
Content that the sports rorts and the disinformation about Labor’s policies did him no harm last time, he will begin his campaign by telling people that anyone in a marginal electorate will be given ten thousand dollars so they can start their own sporting club providing that they’re not a member at the time of signing, and attacking Labor for their policy of compulsory vasectomies for any male over the age of eighteen. He’ll try to win the female vote by announcing that Labor intend to charge you extra tax based on the number of children you have, presuming – like Tony Abbott did as Minister for Women – that the only thing a woman cares about is having babies.
The Murdoch press will ignore everything that he puts out and back him on the grounds that, as we’ve fallen into recession and the long-awaited surplus hasn’t eventuated, we need a government prepared to make the tough decisions. Various editors will attack Labor for their plans to actually spend some taxpayer money on the taxpayers when it could be better spent by ensuring that newspapers had enough money to continue operating.
Ok, it might not all turn out like I’m suggesting, but given the last few years, would anyone be surprised?
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15 comments
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Paul Davis -
whatever -
RomeoCharlie29 -
Kaye Lee -
DrakeN -
Geoff Andrews -
Henry Rodrigues -
king1394 -
Sir_Scotchmistery -
Michael Taylor -
New England Cocky -
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whatever -
wam -
Peter Mackay
Return to home pageMichael McCormack on Insiders today. This inadequate dolt leads a political party? Trouble is those he ‘leads’ are equally compromised by a lack of intellect and ineptitude or are just plain corrupt. Perhaps they could have their centenary knees up at an abattoir and the stun gun could be put to good use.
Joyce seems to be willing to have Littleproud installed as (puppet) leader.(He ain’t so proud, you know.)
Poorly-educated bogans are easily fooled. Channel 7 Sunrise has been caught-out trying to spread anti-Chinese hysteria with a map showing air-travel movements from the Coronavirus region. The map, however, is part of an aviation study from 2010.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/14/sunrise-wuhan-travellers-coronoavirus-news-corp-miranda-devine
So, suppose Bananaby has another tilt at the leadership and this time gets up that will mean two miracle men leading the COALition but then, Scummo, gets a blinding flash of reality and doesn’t give The beetrooter a portfolio recognising what half the Nats don’t, that the stumblebum from New England is actually very unpopular and widely regarded as a fckwit. I know the Nats are guaranteed four ministries but their allocation is surely Scummo’s? That would throw a very large cat among the pigeons. However not gunna happen, not because Scummo probably thinks the New England family man is a good retail politician, I.e. believes the bullshit beetrooter’s few Mates put around, but because he is either too stupid, gutless or gullible to actually confront Bananaby’s brain-dead cohort of climate denying coal fondlers.
Alternatively, of course, the beetrooter could try again, lose, spit his dummy and retire from politics. Oh frabjus day, kaloo kalay what a day that would be.
Barnaby will never retire willingly. He wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for his own bar tab.
If he left Parliament, he wouldn’t have access to the cheap booze provided in-house, either.
Whatever,
you say “poorly educated bogans are easily fooled”
Voltaire said:
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Seems that it’s always been thus but not restricted to the poor ol’ bogans.
This red faced, constantly inebriated fornicator, is just there for what he can get out of politics, the parliamentary lurks and perks and to accept whatever the slob from the west is prepared to pay for his continued strident vociferous advocacy of the coal industry.
He really is the arch typical bastard, he doesn’t care what people think of him, as long as his mistress keeps his bed warm and his ego massaged.
Why do people who have clearly not read and comprehended the poems, keep referring to MacKellar’s ‘My Country’ and Banjo Patterson’s ‘The Man from Snowy River’ as the last word on climate change and feral horses in the Kosciusko area .
I have arrived, after much thought at a conclusion vis a vis the country party, that based on the members I live near, Joyce really is that stupid. Hard to believe I know but there it is. He really is as dumb as we thinking folks think he is.
I frequently wake in the night and turn on ABC News Radio to check he hasn’t died as a result of forgetting to breather, either whilst asleep, or astride the mother of his new children. Sadly, I’m always disappointed.
A local farmer suggested to me the other day that I may be a bit of a bastard for suggesting that if he sat down, I’d be happy to spend 2 hours teaching him to tie his laces, since they were threatening to trip him, as he walked across the road, carrying a rifle, threatening to fix my arse after shooting one of his dogs for coming on my property in the middle of the night.
So, apologies folks, it is the case, that country party voters, are all, oxygen thieves.
You still have your wit about you, Scotchy. 😀
Rossleigh, I fear that your prognostications may come to pass and that the amoral, adulterous, alcoholic, bigoted, croney favouring, deceptive, egomaniacal, misogynist will become the full time Prim Monster of Australia ….. and THAT is a conservative view from within the New England electorate!!
When the Country Party name changed to “National$” at the Armidale Conference in 1976, 500/600 delegates resigned from the Party as they departed the building. Since then the Nat$ have imported paid booth workers into the New England electorate because they cannot get sufficient volunteers to man the booths at any elections.
Tamworth women supporting adultery support National$ ….. to the detriment of everybody.
@Paul Davis: Mick Muck is a former racist, misogynist, homophobic newspaper editor before moving into the plush green dollar fields of politics.
@whatever: Little-to-be-proud-of presently holds the seat of Maranoa in SW Queensland (where the family water thieves are) that was coveted by Barnyard Joke when a Senator for Queensland, but denied by the previous Member Bruce Scott delaying his retirement to prevent Joke from being nominated for it. Thus Barnyard was thus upon New England to exploit the unexpected and unfortunate early retirement from politics by Tony Windsor (INDEPENDENT).
It is likely that the reportedly adulterous Little-To-Be-Proud-Of would be a Barnyard puppet, by intent or lack of political nous, because both politicians share a desire to promote themselves by exploiting the water situation, especially water marketing to foreign owned multinational mining corporations currently dominating the water market-place by paying extremely high prices for available water, thus excluding agricultural enterprises from the market to the detriment of the production of food and fibre.
@RC29: We live in hope in New England … but sadly too many Tamworth women supporting adultery support National$.
@king1394: Why is Mackellar relevant in this discussion?
@Sir Scotchmistery: Yep!! Barnyard is dumb as inspected!! Worse in person!! Now there are two bastards to perpetuate the problem.
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$400,000 grant to nursing home in National Party seat of Nicholls. It closed down last week.
This occurred as part of the last Federal Election “spendathon” in Coalition seats.
I imagine that we will soon see evidence of similar bribery and questionable financial arrangements in regard of “Drought” payments.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/17/unprecedented-400k-grant-given-to-aged-care-home-operator-in-nationals-electorate
Most of us inept thinkers are good at rationalising how we are not wrong. This makes us less responsible for our mistakes
Some rationalise as a brash bully, others in a gentle elucidation but all try to vindicate and divert. If the mistake resurfaces then ameliorate.and divert. Then if the bell rings for the third time confess and divert.
Till barnaby, bandt have had their day
as docile as a spaniel waits
until my stress abates
I hope my life hasn’t run away
ps Whatever there may be heaps of little indivual handouts and big gifts our education minister gave $5m to a school in sept which was ‘sold’ the next year??
I realise that there is no point in attempting rational argument with irrational people but it occurred to the other day, as it probably has to others, that there is a basic question that can be asked of those who espouse the ‘climate has always changed’ argument,
The simple question is ‘how do you know?’
If it means that ‘you’ are not 5000 years of age or more, then possibly ‘you’ are depending on scientific analysis, as opposed to personal experience, In which case, as ‘you’ do not accept science that disagrees with what you choose to believe then you, sir or madam, are probably unable to dress yourself unassisted.