THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT OF AUSTRALIA – A NEW PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

I solemnly swear,
This pledge of loyalty to our government, to whom I humbly offer my devotion.
This pledge of loyalty to you, Our Leader, to whom I humbly offer my adoration.
And this pledge of loyalty to our Great Party, to whose unerring authority I shall always yield.

I swear that, from this day forth,
What Our Party believe to be true I shall uphold as truth.
What Our Party believe to be right I shall uphold as forever right.
And that our truth, and our righteous path, shall be an inviolable truth, and our path sacred.

I swear that, from this day forth,
No matter what enemies may assail us, or transgress against us,
That no “facts”; no “evidence”; no “opinions”; and no other truths,
Shall sway me from Our One Truth, Our One Faith, and Our One Glorious Destiny.

There shall be no criticism. There shall be no dissent.
Let us confound our enemies with silence. Let us crush those who oppose us with whispers.
Let us speak not of the poor. Let us speak not of the crippled or of the ill.
Let us cast not our eyes to the homeless who soil our streets, or the needy who will always need.

We are the One True People. We are the One True Party.
I hold Our Truths to be inalienable. I pledge to consecrate my life, my body, my soul to their service.
I pledge to uphold our Authority as absolute. We shall not be defied. We shall not be questioned.
It is Our Land to shape. Our Land to conquer. Our People to rule.

This is my solemn pledge to you on this day.

May God Help Us All..

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

I see the children are still throwing sticks at one another.

They’ve all been found guilty of farting in the classroom, and now a competition has begun to decide whose fart stinks worst.

Meanwhile, in Talking Head-Land, the talking heads are sitting around talking about not very much at all because nobody’s talking to them, and our tabloid scribes have been far more interested whuppin’ ‘emselves into lathers of clammy-palmed speculation over whether or not Prince Harry might pork one of Prime Minister Abbott’s two “hot” daughters.

Maybe both of them. Right there on the lawn of The Lodge.

Phwoar. Eh? Phwoar.

… A calm has settled across the land, a gentle and cooling breeze has blown the dust from our eyes and the tumbleweeds from our markets, Australia is “open for business” once more, and the national sorrow and shame that once hung heavy about our hearts and did so soil our souls has now lifted, and our eyes cast toward the heavens in hopeful anticipation of the shower of beneficent blessings that shall no doubt soon be ours forevermore…

Ross Gittins, Sydney Morning Herald  … “What a to-do list: sack econocrats guilty of having worked with the enemy, pass an edict against climate change and discourage all discussion of it, stop publicising boat arrivals, build more motorways, move to a cut-price national broadband network and take science for granted.”

It’s early days, of course, and there’s more, but not a whole lot more: abolishing the onerous tax on our impoverished global mining companies, getting rid of red and green tape (translation: making it easier for big business to get its way without delay) and beating up the Tax Office for being too diligent in making small business pay its tax.”

… Come, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters of the land are we all on this journey together to peace and prosperity.

Let us talk no more of “boats”, of “crises” and “emergencies” and “bad times”.

Let us speak not ill of our neighbours …

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, June 2011 … “We know how to treat people well. I don’t think there can be any similar guarantees about people being taken to Malaysia, put into a centre and then tagged.”

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, October 2013 … ”I offered an act of contrition, if you like, to Prime Minister Najib for the way Malaysia got caught up in what was a very intense and at times somewhat rancorous debate in Australia.”

Let us speak not of the past, but only of the future …

Jay: Wait a minute. You just flash that thing, it erases her memory, and you just make up a new one?

Kay: A standard issue neuralyzer.

Jay: And that weak-ass story’s the best you can come up with?

Let us speak not of the witchery of the weather or the confusions of science, but let us, we humblest of men, instead feel like kings in our own cars, and our women, queens in their kitchens, where all is as it should be and the world in which we live is just a big, comforting, marshmallow cushion of valium-scented mellowy chill.

“Steady-as-she-goes.”

I live in a country full of halfwits.

The domestic political narrative that has been spun out over the past three years, and the bulk of mainstream media reporting that carried it, much like a mischief of plague-rats, was pure bullshit, TMZ-style gossip and rumour, the raucous rattlings  of power-driven and simple, single-minded men, the sole purpose of which was to scare the living shit out of all the stupid people any which way they could …

WHOLE CITIES WILL BE WIPED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH!!

… And so, thus encouraged, the stupid people did embrace their inner stupid with squealing girly enthusiasms, a drunken orgy of stupid, a staggeringly successful binge of vacuousness, a mirror-ball and cheese-on-a-stick celebration of pants-pissing bogan idiocy; they barked at the moon, they hollered at phantoms, and they spun about in ever-decreasing tight little circles ‘til they all crawled so far up their own collective arses, their navels flapped every time they drew breath.

Forrest Gump: That’s all I have to say about that.

That’s all over with now.

It’s almost as if it never happened. Did it? Did any of it happen?

Was it all … a … dream?

Forrest Gump: My Mama always said you’ve got to put the past behind you before you can move on.

Meanwhile, in other startling news, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan has discovered that, on the internet, sometimes people say nasty things about other people, and that’s why Paul Sheehan and newspapers are so much better than the internet.

So there.

TICKING BOXES, LITTLE BOXES, TICKING BOXES FULL OF TICKY-TACKY

The last time I voted – 2010 – it was not until I was in the booth, ballot paper before me and pencil in hand that I decided who I was voting for …

Labor in the House of Reps, and The Greens in the Senate.

… Julia Gillard became Prime Minister with the support of independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott and The Greens, Kevin Rudd crawled off to punch some kittens and plot his revenge, and Tony Abbott spent the next couple years stomping about the country wearing helmets and kissing fish and wailing like a child …

Nuts.

Now, Rudd’s back in the ring again, the Big Top is closing, and he’s looking and sounding more and more like a harried carnival barker, his hands and arms wildly slashing and stabbing at air, all frenzied enticement to come see the One-Man-Band, come see the show, a fringe-flick here, a fringe-flick there, while Tony Abbott looks and sounds just like Tony Abbott, walking and talking from his testicles as usual, saying one thing one week, the opposite the next and getting away with it all because the press are too busy fame-fucking his two daughters on the front pages, courtesy of Rupert The Bony-Arsed Coot, and his knee-dwelling acolytes of tits ‘n’ arse/smear ‘n’ scandal hackery at News Ltd.

They’re pulling old-time vaudeville acts where most of the rest of us have fucked off to the IMAX for some 3D surround-sound adventure.

And I’m expected to vote for one of these dickheads? ….

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

Barry Jones , former ALP National President …

“Despite Australia’s high formal levels of literacy, politicians are increasingly dedicated to delivering three word slogans (“stop the boats!”) – now degenerating even more to the use of one word, repeated three times (“Cut! Cut! Cut!” or “Lie! Lie! Lie!”).

There is an exaggerated emphasis on “gotcha!” moments – Tony Abbott and his suppository, Kevin Rudd and the make-up lady, moronic candidates in swinging seats. In the last months of Julia Gillard’s period as prime minister, in two separate incidents, sandwiches (vegemite and salami as it happens) were thrown at her at schools, for reasons which have never been clarified. The incidents became big news stories, so much so that they crowded out major announcements about the Gonski reforms that she was planning to make.

 Often politicians acquiesce in the trivialising, for example Kevin Rudd and his availability for selfies, Tony Abbott gyrating at a boot-camp, and his “dad moments”. We should have a minute’s silence to reflect on the contribution of Julie Bishop, Warren Truss and Clive Palmer to the campaign.”

I’d rather not.

I grew up listening to men like Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke and Paul Keating talk intelligently about very important things, big things, and I would’ve liked to have heard Julia Gillard do the same if anyone had given her the fucking chance instead of banging on and on about her fucking marital status and fucking fruitbowls and fucking jackets and the sex life of her partner.

Comedian Adam Hills …

“ … says coverage of the federal election in the UK has reinforced the British view that most Australians are “hopeless hicks”.

He argues Brits are bemused to see so much infighting in Australian politics given the economy is doing so well.

“(Also) the British press like to reinforce the view that Australians are hopeless hicks who don’t know what we’re doing, so any gaffe, any funny moment in Australian politics is going to be reported on the news over here immediately,” he told reporters outside Australia House.

Hills values his vote more than ever “because I’m concerned about the way Australia is seen overseas”.

“I’m genuinely distressed at the state of Australian politics at the moment,” he said.

“We as Australians deserve better. That’s why I’ve come out to vote. What I said today to both parties was ‘Come on, grow up’.”

Fat chance of that, if interviews of this calibre with the current Prime Minister’s wife are still any indication …

JOHN LAWS: A lot of people say – why isn’t she Therese Rudd?

THERESE REIN: Really?

JOHN LAWS: Yeah.

THERESE REIN: Well, why isn’t Kevin, Kevin Rein?

JOHN LAWS: (Laughs). No, I can’t accept that. We’re talking about tradition. Why do you choose not to be Therese Rudd.

THERESE REIN: Kevin and I got married at the end, on the week that I finished doing my thesis; I’d just completed my honours degree. My qualifications were in my name and I’m an independent person.

JOHN LAWS: But it’s kind of a traditional thing – I don’t want to make a meal of it – but it sort of is a traditional thing, isn’t it, in English-speaking countries that you take your husband’s name.

And in Australia, this is what we call a “newspaper” …

… I call it a comic book, and I’d be embarrassed to be seen even reading it, let alone buying the fucking thing, but, apparently, this is how Rupert Murdoch thinks Australians like their news, and, as it still sells well enough (though not quite as well as it once did) maybe he’s right …

… We are a nation of bumpkin hicks. We are a “lucky” country of simple minds obsessed with simple pleasures – a meat pie, flags to wave, faces to paint, balls to kick and beers to drink, getting’ shitfaced on a Saturday night, gettin’ money from the gummint for havin’ a poke and makin’ a baby, a night out at the pokies, you can win a meat tray, punch-up after optional.

Or, as Julia Gillard might say “We R Us.”

This is what we wanted. This is what we’ve got …

“What’s in it for me, and how much am I getting, and why are you giving them more than me and why are you giving that mob anything at all? I’m scared, all these dark people on boats. People on 150K per annum are not well off – We have pool maintenance to think of, how dare you slug me with a levy of $2.50 a week here and a couple bucks there, and THE CARBON TAX! THE CARBON TAX! THE CARBON TAX! The country’s stuffed, the economy is in ruins, we’re screwed.”

Well Australia, have we got the candidates for you …

A sulking brat who thinks he’s a movie star, and a disingenuous thug whose answer to every question asked of him begins with a string of “Um, um, um, er, er, er’s”, as he attempts to conjure his latest simple-minded slogan for the benefit of a tabloid hit.

A letter from The Sydney Morning Herald …

“It is a mystery that our two major political parties have seen fit to focus so heavily on their leaders, given how unappealing and lacking in credibility both men are. Each has energetically spent the past parliamentary term trying to destroy anything good that might have come of it, not for the national good but out of overweening personal ambition; for their sake, not ours.

Now, with their fake smiles and condescension, their endless repetition of pre-digested talking points and three-word lies, their transparent attempts at reinventing themselves, the thought bubbles that crystallise into bad policy, their oh so clever evasions and non-answers, do they think they have gotten away with fooling the electorate?

My guess is most people would rather see them exiled than elected. Voters of Griffith and Warringah, please do your country a favour and vote for someone other than the sitting member. We, the Australian people, deserve someone better to lead this nation.” – Judy Maynard, Rose Bay

I’ve never cast a vote for a political candidate or party because of what some pack of dodgy cunts have written in a political fanzine masquerading as a newspaper. Same with political advertisements and so-called “expert commentary”.

Yet, there are those who do and have, and will continue to do so.

They’re the ones who think people like Alan Jones or Ray Hadley, Andrew Bolt or Piers Akerman, and Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest and Rupert Murdoch have only the best interests of the country and its people at heart, the dear hearts and gentle folk that comprise the working-class commonweal, the ordinary, average little guy, the constant “battler”; they’re the ones who express gratitude and thanks, backslaps and handshakes, huzzahs all ‘round to these brave and benighted souls who, whenever they have the temerity to express their sincere and selfless concerns about, and ideas for the country, are slapped down by the snotty cognoscenti of the inner city elites, the latte sippers and chardonnay socialists who would, if they had their way, let anyone across our borders; who would conspire to tear down the glorious Judeo-Christian foundations of civilised Australian society to replace it with Earth worship and paganism, you can marry a goat or your sister, and buy drugs at Woolies, have sex with a hamster in a gallery and call it “art”.

They talk of “tough times”, and calamity and disaster and waste, and they say things like “I don’t know what this country is turning into”, or “I don’t even recognise Australia anymore”, or “It’s not like what it was when I was a kid”.

It’s all bullshit, but it sells by the 100kg hessian bagful.

Some of us may deplore the embarrassing state of politics now, and over the last several years; we may deplore the shallow superficiality of its contestants, and their willingness to whore and parade their families at us every opportunity to prove “they’re just like everybody else”; we may deplore policy as populist brainfart and cringe every time we see one of these fuckwits waddle through a factory with a hardhat and vest to look meaningfully at a box of nails, or stare with awe and wonder at a bag of beef; and we can scream and cry and howl and complain forever and forever and forever about the state of political reporting in mainstream commercial print and radio and television, its mindless partisanship and obsession with sleaze and scandal and rumour and “gotcha” moments, but it plays with the folk at home, and it rattles their minds and gets ‘em all worked up and a’feared.

It works.

And if it works, how can anyone possibly claim the Murdoch media and its ilk are an “insult to all Australians”.

It’s a C!E!L!E!B!R!A!T!I!O!N!.

Tomorrow, this pissed off 54 year old will be voting The Greens, both houses, straight up, and I’ll be picking my own damn preferences, thank you very much.

The Kev ‘n’ Tony show can go fuck itself with forty sticks. You too, Rupert.

Salud!

FARTLEBERRY FINN

Whenever I hear one political party or politician accuse another of “pulling stunts” or “playing politics” I am, in an instant, removed to a faraway time filled with humid memories of a series of dark, dusty and morbid rooms; little boxes, all characterless, and coloured pelican-shit grey that lay within the red brick walls of the late 20^th century Brutalist stalag that was my high school during the 1970’s.

It was a place where boys gleefully gambolled and strutted and chattered their way toward eventual manhood, their minds for now still hovering between the simple life of a child and the complexities of adult existence, hovering within the clammy and indecisive recesses of adolescence, where hitherto unthought-of dark and dirty desires were ever-present, and sudden, dangerous impulses lingered whose potential consequences were never considered of import.

Within these rooms were we taught, on little wooden chairs at little wooden desks, how to correctly answer questions that would one day be asked of us, and how to answer those questions to the satisfaction of those asking, so that we may one day be judged whole and receive grateful permission to proceed to the next level of our game.

Within these walls did we not-quite-children whisper naughty things to one another; we giggled at fart noises and threw erasers across the room when the teacher was out and called each other names. We were teased and tormented and we teased and tormented in return, in accordance to our pecking order in the tribe – Ralph or Jack, Piggy or Simon or Sam – young, apprentice savages studying hard the harsh lessons of survival; by day we pushed at each other, by night we mostly pulled at ourselves, our bodies having been gripped by lustful fevres that had no thought of place, time or propriety, slaves to the spurting cream seizures of fuck.

Within these walls did we also imagine Grand Worlds for ourselves – Where We Could Be Heroes, If Just For One Day – the lofty heights we would attain, and the treasures we would accumulate – whether they be by talent or Machiavellian appropriation – Grand Utopian Worlds of societal perfection and order, where neat and tidy people lived neat and tidy lives in accordance with the Righteous Will of an Anointed One, a Grand Master of Beneficence and Mercy, and that person would be us, imagined only as every piece of Teenage Wildlife can, fuelled by hormonal narcissism and an unshakeable certainty in their own infallible judgement and immortality, as they are.

I do not often think of these days, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of high school, as my memories of them are not fond, and hold nothing of value to me.

I was glad to leave it all behind, happy to leave all those childish things best left to childish people, and move into the wider world of adult life, and it is in this world I still reside, with no desire to whisper naughty things to another or call a workmate names or throw erasers at them, no desire whatsoever.

And yet, whenever I hear a political party or politician accuse another of doing something they have themselves done, or would do; whenever I hear one call another a name, or conjure some slogan or soundbite they believe bless’d with biting wit or daring comedic invention – which they never are – or whenever I hear one refuse to answer a direct question with a direct answer in the manner of a child refusing to eat its vegetables with a quivering-lipped “Because!” as its only reason, I am toss’d back through time to these musty days of high school and its horrid memories of horrid children behaving horridly whilst thinking they’re funny and clever, which they weren’t, and I do wish not to be reminded of such things …

It Giveth Me the Willies and It Maketh Me Want to Scream.

SEEN BETTER DAYS

It speaks for itself …

BAH, HUMBUG

The popularity of Kevin Rudd has me flummoxed.

It had me flummoxed the first time ‘round, and I’m flummoxed still …

The 7.30 Report, June 7, 2010 …

KERRY O’BRIEN: David Marr, you’ve observed that after two and a half years in office, three and a half from when he became Opposition Leader, after millions of words written since he emerged from the Labor pack, as you put it, Kevin Rudd remains hidden in full view. What do you mean by that? …

DAVID MARR: Well I think the answer is because he very carefully disguises that real person and the real person is a very angry person. Now, anger doesn’t disqualify himself from high public office, but I think he’s driven by very old angers, and when they’re released – and I seem to remember you saw a little of this recently …

… When you see the – when you know of the fact that behind closed doors there is a lot of rage in his office, that there’s a lot of – there’s a lot of cold rage and hot rage in his office. When you look at this pattern of his life, when you look at the kind of angry determination from the time he was a kid, from the time he was 15 or 16, to rescue himself from this predicament that, you know, the bad hand that had been dealt him and his mother and siblings back then, you see this kind of implacable determination. And what makes sense of it is anger. What makes sense of the way in which it’s personal, implacable and pursued relentlessly? Anger makes sense of it.

The unpopularity of Julia Gillard and the almost visceral fear and loathing she seemed to inspire in people during her term as Prime Minister also has me flummoxed …

“Sadly Julia Gillard got herself an ill adviser a Scotman,he doesn’t understand Australians Mentality.Now she pay the price but her Legacy are NDIS and Gonski” – Wendyv, July 01, 2013, 7:24AM

… the bit about the “Scotman”?

Flummoxed.

“The damage was done when she knifed Rudd and the majority of the public never forgave her. Any achievements by JG amounted to nought, they may as well been drafted in blood. Rudd and his backers read and understood the publics mood. Every bit of white anting by Rudd and his backers were backed by the public. And this is evidenced in Labors bounce in the polls. Gillards mysogynist speech was not welcomed by the majority of the public, If anything, it highlighted her ruthlessness. The perception is she unsheathed another knife to extract blood. Nothing was going to save Gillard, her Women for Gillard and her knitting fiasco was the final nail in her career. Gillard would undoubtedly would have been treated differently by the public if she didn’t knife Rudd in the first instance. The aussie notion of Fair Go, Mate is witnessed in this Australian tragedy.”  – Bob, sunny coast, July 01, 2013, 7:38AM

… Blood. Sheaths. Knives. Nails? How very dramatic.

Flummoxed.

Perhaps I should simple myself down, and frenzy myself up as I appear to be way out of step with the general “mood” of the nation.

This mood appears to be not so much a “glass half-empty” attitude as opposed to “half-full”, but more of a “SOME GAMMY CUNT’S PINCHED THE FUCKING GLASS ALTOGETHER AND SMASHED IT TO FUCKING PIECES AND NOW WE’RE ALL GONNA FUCKING DIE!”

In 1996, I was flummoxed when John Howard was chosen Prime Minister over Paul Keating.

I recall Keating saying just prior to his defeat that he had “great ambition for the nation”, which pleased me, and Howard saying he just wanted everyone to be “relaxed and comfortable” about the future, after which he preceded scaring the shit out of as many people he could with all manner of boogeymen, from Weapons of Mass Destruction, to the Native Title “threat”, to dark people on boats coming here to force feed us falafel and dates and drape our women’s heads with tea-towels.

And it worked! For 13 years!

Flummoxed.

I can offer no explanation or analysis to any of this.

It’s got me buggered.

I am, however, assured of one thing very, very much …

My judgement on matters political is up to shit .

I’M AN AUSTRALIAN, GET ME OUT OF HERE!

If former Prime Minister John Howard was sometimes referred to as “the unflushable turd”, will that now make current PM Kevin Rudd the “smell that will outlast religion”?

Will Julia Gillard now be consigned to the doggie-poo dustbin of HiStory, forever trying to scrape and scrub his psycho stalker-stench off, having slipped and slid her way the last couple years from banana-skin farce to cake-in-the-face slapstick and straight into an episode of “JackAss”? …

Waleed Aly in The Sydney Morning Herald …

“But after the incessant focus on whether or not this would happen, we’re left with the question so many Labor MPs couldn’t answer while they were vainly denying anything was going on: what exactly was that about?

It certainly wasn’t about integrity. Julia Gillard’s magnificent concession speech revealed the person the public so rarely saw, but that her loyal colleagues clearly knew. This is very much unlike Rudd’s axing in 2010, which we now know was mainly about Rudd’s impossibly dysfunctional style of governance, which led much of the caucus to detest him. Gillard’s colleagues like and respect her, but in the final act simply couldn’t abide her diabolically bad polling. No doubt the data reflected her constant political missteps, but they also reflected Rudd’s constant undermining of her. Now the man who contributed so much to making her prime ministership impossible, who has done so much to put Labor in this catastrophic position, has been rewarded with the leadership. He held the party to ransom, and ultimately got paid.”

… Illusions of honour, propriety, sombre murmurings on the necessity for civility, on questions of ethics, and steadfast fealty to one’s comrades, just that, mere illusions wrapped in Roman robes hanging heavy with the weight of cloaked daggers …

You’d have to be twelve types of cut-snake crazy.

Which makes the choice before us now very clear …

The angry narcissist with the Messiah complex, or; Mr. Manifest Destiny, Gina’s Rhinehart Cowboy.

Twelve types of cut-snake crazy.

There’s a board outside the newsagent with a banner headline from “The Australian” of today …

RUDD WON’T
“TURN  LEFT”
ON BOATS!

C’est la vi.

C’est la guerre …

… and repeat after me: “Moving forward … ”

ANaL GAZING

A few months from now, various individuals from the worlds of traditional Australian print and broadcast media will gather together in sombre occasion to hold “frank” discussions – for the benefit of us all – about what role the media played in the outcome of the upcoming September 2013 federal election, and whether this role had been fair to the current Prime Minister or foul.

A question that will no doubt be posed is, “Do you think the media’s obsession with polls and the politics of personality came at the expense of serious policy debate or analysis?” …

Conduct an opinion poll, declare a leadership “crisis”, talk about “simmering tensions” within the “party” for another week and then demand of the Prime Minister this “wrenching confusion” be resolved once and for all for the sake of the nation and its hard-suffering peoples.

And a front page for Rupert.

Another question that will surely poke its curly little head into these discussions will be, “And what of the Rudd factor?” …

The Rudd Factor being that anodyne, confected political pop star whose every visible move and utterance so obsesses our media (for reasons I, for the life of me, simply cannot fathom),  that they insist – no, really, insist –  we all share the object of their obsessions, its minutiae, day in, day out, night and day, under the moon, no matter how trivial these movements and utterances may seem to those of us who dwell out here in the real world.

Andrew Elder, former Liberal Party member …

“Kevin Rudd is nowhere near getting the numbers to knock off Julia Gillard. This has been true every day for the last three years. Just because Rudd’s supporters lack the sense and wit to stop crying wolf, it does not mean that broadcast media outlets privileged to take up space in the press gallery have a right to squeeze out other issues. Advocates trying to get stories up on defence procurement, climate change or any number of really important issues are fobbed off by the sort of people who commission Julia Baird articles – but those same people can’t get enough Ruddmentum, running warmed-over stories from eighteen months ago.”

Nicholas Stuart in The Sydney Morning Herald …

“Rudd remains utterly convinced of himself and his ability to turn everything around. He believes the voters’ love for him overwhelms everything. He proclaims he’s learnt from his mistakes. He needs caucus to admit their mistake in dumping him and beg him to return on his own terms despite having hung Simon Crean (and others) out to dry the last time the leadership was in play.

Every time Rudd has challenged it’s been a shocking blunder. He brought the first challenge on too early (before the Queensland election), didn’t engage in the second one, and now expects everyone to welcome the messiah. For a former PM, Rudd has atrocious political instincts and no sense of timing. Is it any wonder his colleagues baulk at his return? Is he serious? …

… The media has a great time focusing on leadership. It’s an easy story to write. But it’s not real.”

Not real?

Mark Kenny, Sydney Morning Herald …

“A third push to reinstall Kevin Rudd as Labor leader was in disarray on Monday evening as it emerged its singular strategy of forcing pro-Gillard ministers to take the initiative and ”tap” the Prime Minister on the shoulder had come to nothing …

… The Rudd camp, which continues to say its man must be drafted, is uncertain of its next move, unable even to say if he would nominate in a ballot, or do as he did in March and sit on his hands.”

Not real. Aw, gee shucks. Not that that’s stopped anyone before, and not that it will again. I’m sure Mark Kenny & Co. have at least another half-dozen pieces in them about all the stuff that ain’t happenin’ that we need to know about.

A recent editorial from The Age demanded …

“It is time for Julia Gillard to stand aside as leader of the federal parliamentary Labor Party, as Prime Minister of Australia, so that vigorous, policy-driven democratic debate can flourish once again. Ms Gillard should do so in the interests of the Labor Party, in the interests of the nation and, most importantly, in the interests of democracy … ”

Because there will be riots in our streets if she don’t, and dancin’ if she does and sunbeams from Jesus all ‘round.

It continues, quite hilariously …

“Australians deserve a representative Parliament of diverse ideas. They deserve authoritative and inspiring leaders, who command with compassion and respect for all. They deserve a government that can clearly describe a future Australia of which we can all be proud – not one that will divide, marginalise or exclude.”

You can’t make this shit up.

The following day, a number of responses, among them …

“The Age crossed the line from being a newspaper to being a party political broadcast. Amazingly, the editorial praised the Gillard government while demanding the Prime Minister resign ”for the good of the country”.

So what has the PM done to deserve this? Acted corruptly? No. Been incompetent? Not according to your editorial. No, she should resign because she is unpopular. And why is that, exactly? It wouldn’t have anything to do with three years of unremittingly negative newspaper coverage would it?

The editor then claimed that the problem was that the leadership race was preventing the media from covering the issues. Surely the editor decides what goes in your paper, not Gillard. Newspapers do not get to decide who is the PM.” – Greg Young, Murrumbeena

Yes, they do. Fairfax’s Mike Carlton thinks so …

“Prime Minister, it’s time. Time for you to quit. As this Parliament draws to its close, it’s time for you to recognise that, for all your achievements, you are leading your government and your party to an electoral defeat of unprecedented disaster.

As painful as it must be, it’s time for you to stand aside for the good of your colleagues, for Labor people everywhere, and for the nation itself. The plain fact is that Australians are no longer listening to you.

Kevin Rudd is the most popular politician in the country, far and away better liked and respected than Tony Abbott. For all his many faults, he alone has a fighting chance of keeping Abbott out of The Lodge. Every opinion poll shows that you do not. Better to go now, with dignity, at your own chosen speed, than to be flung aside by your party and the people …

But there is no choice. It gives me no pleasure to write this, Prime Minister. The decision is yours.”

Over to you, Jules. Whaddayareckon? …

“Why yes, my reporter friend, now that you’ve put it like that, I should stand down immediately. As Prime Minister, I sit around all day contemplating whether journalists think I should run the country and after The Age told me to resign last week, I thought ‘bugger it’. Who needs a democracy where people vote? We should let the media run the place as some sort of benevolent dictatorship where all we talk about is what other journalists talk about.”

If you wanted a couple fine examples of Oz media’s motley crew of pontificating, presumptuous, pretentious, self-important, pedestal-preaching from-up-on-high twats talking total fucking twaddle, you’d be hard pressed to find better than Carlton’s and The Age Editor-in-Chief’s contributions.

Who the fuck are these people, these so-called “journalists” who imagine themselves wise seers and noble sages in selfless service to our country’s political figures, proffering, as they do and have, fashion tips and career advice to its Prime Minister on an almost daily basis, and why the fuck am I expected to pay them any attention? Any of them at all. Why?

Why is anyone?

Would you all like to talk about your falling circulation figures and declining advertising revenues, because I’m part of the reason that’s happening, as I sure as shit won’t pay money to read this crap in print, and I double sure as shit won’t, and would not – ever – pay for it behind a paywall, and reading it for free is barely worth the effort, because it’s the same damn “news” every goddamn day, and all it makes me want to do is shoot the groundhog.

Media disconnect?

I’m it.

TONGUE OF THE DAY

Julia Gillard, it’s all your fault. If you had been married instead of partnered, we would not have disrespected your relationship. If you had partnered someone who was not a hairdresser, we would not have made the obvious conclusion about his sexuality. If you had not deposed Kevin Rudd, we would still have a person in a blue tie in command. If you had not managed to keep a minority government going the distance, we would not have had to resent a woman being in power all this time. If you had been decent enough to resign in abject apology for doing so badly in the polls, we would not have had to hound you. If you had not repulsed Rudd’s two attempts to replace you, we would not have had to abuse your dead father. If you had not changed your mind on the carbon tax, we would not have had to call you a bitch. Let’s face it, Julia. It’s all your fault. Just as it is the fault of the ”slut” who is gang raped or who brings out the basest instincts in us men. Just as it is the fault of the rape victim who wore provocative clothes and was out alone at night. It’s all your fault for being a woman. – Tom Perfect, Richmond

Perfect, Tom.

DICKTATORHEAD

Now …

Federal education minister Peter Garrett has been banned from visiting Queensland schools, with the Newman government saying it will not allow kids to be used as “props in a political campaign”.

On Tuesday night, however, the office of Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek sent Mr Garrett an email informing him he was not welcome at the two schools.

It is the latest salvo in a bitter dispute sparked by Queensland’s refusal to sign up to the federal government’s school funding reforms.

Queensland insists some of its schools will be worse off under the Gonski plan.

A spokeswoman for Mr Langbroek said the decision was made after Ms Gillard visited a primary school in Bracken Ridge and ‘‘did nothing but criticise the government’’.

‘‘We have had enough of Queensland schoolchildren being used by the Federal Government as props in a political campaign,’’ she said.

‘‘We will not allow Queensland schools to be the venue for the Gonski media roadshow. If the federal minister wants to come to Queensland and discuss Gonski, he is welcome to make time to meet Minister Langbroek.’’

Previously …

SCHOOL students will be asked to learn about Campbell Newman‘s Queensland Plan in a move the union says squeezes an already crowded curriculum.

In a letter to all MPs obtained by The Courier-Mail, the Premier has revealed how his Government’s 30-year vision for the state would become a study topic for students.

In-class activities, including lesson plans and contests, will be introduced to ensure the plan is seen by more than just politicians and public servants.

Teachers have questioned whether there is enough room in the curriculum to allow time for Queensland Plan lessons and whether teaching a document produced by a government is appropriate.

However, Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek yesterday insisted the initiative was no different to the former Bligh government involving students in Queensland’s 150th anniversary celebrations.

Campbell Newman, Mr. DicktatorHead.

Hypocrite doesn’t quite cut it.

WIRTSCHAFT IST TOT!

I am paid a slightly above average wage for sitting on my backside in front of a computer all day poring over spread-sheets, signing bits of paper, attending interminably dull meetings and scrolling through emails full of obtuse riddles written by gasbagging, dead-eyed, swollen-jowled corporate fuckwits who could drive a single-cell organism to suicide by repeatedly hammering out weasel-word phrases like “We are pursuing savings through a more holistic approach to our strategic sourcing and procurement activities.”

What that means is “You must justify your request for a new box of paperclips in writing to your immediate manager who will then pass your request to their immediate manager who will think about it for a while and, if approved, pass the request to the Stationery Supply Officer for fulfilment.”

I don’t save any lives.

I mend no minds.

I educate no children.

I keep no peace on the streets.

I do not carry the smashed and bloodied corpses of young women or men or newborns from crumpled cars.

I administer no medicines, dress no wounds, nor do I change the soiled clothes and sheets of the frail, the elderly, the infirm, the dying.

I put out no fires.

I provide no counsel to those in need; the broken-hearted, the broken, the mad, the desperate, the hungry, the homeless.

I do not have to view the vile images of the vilest of predators seeking clues as to their identities so they may be brought to justice.

I see no violence beyond movies or television, nor do I have to deal with its consequences; the bruised, the battered, the raped, the dead …

“TASMANIA’S public servants have been put on high alert with job cuts a major component of the Tasmanian Liberals’ alternative Budget.

The Opposition has vowed to remove 500 full-time equivalent jobs from the state’s public service during the next two years.

… [Opposition Leader] Mr Hodgman said the Liberals would do the work the State Government had failed to do by cutting 1700 jobs from the public service 500 more than Premier Lara Giddings has managed so far …

… “You can’t cut 500 jobs without impacting on services whether it is the closure of Service Tasmania shops, fewer Parks and Wildlife officers or engineers designing our roads,” she said.

Ms Giddings said in order to achieve the forward estimate savings targets contained in the alternative budget, hundreds of jobs would have to be slashed in the first year, which is virtually impossible without forced redundancies.”

And …

“THE public service and the regulations they enforce will be slashed if Tony Abbott wins Government, the Opposition Leader has announced.

Mr Abbott outlined a plan to attack excessive spending to be led by a Commission of Audit which under a Coalition Government would test all cost reduction options.

Mr Abbott pledged at the 2010 election to cut the Commonwealth payroll by 12,000 jobs but his economic policy outlined today could see that number increased.

Major targets will be the Health Department, Education and Defence Material Organisation while the Department of Climate Change would be abolished completely.”

Precisely what is it we are being enticed to vote for here? Or, rather, against?

Our own self-interests?

With every election, be it state or federal, political leaders, our “representatives”, and their heel-snuffling acolytes hustle with unseemly enthusiasms, excitedly flapping reports at cameras, babbling and barking at us as if beset by dark fevres most horrible that they, those who are government, or would like to be government, cannot afford themselves, and nor can we, so government should be “cut to the bone” …

… Government by grave skeletal warriors, the Hydra’s teeth from which they spring hand-sewn with grudging charity by the political leaders of our preference, the ones prepared to make the “tough” decisions, the ones urging “restraint” and “responsibility”, the ones who most convincingly (!) talk of “practicable” measures to address the multiple “crises” that clamour about our heads and shrink our sphincters with fearful anxiety; and, of course, let them all talk of “sacrifice”, at which our spines will stiffen, and our chins point stoicly in the direction of some future grand horizon, the “promised” land that shall only ever be delivered unto us through “sacrifice”, our “sacrifice”, your “sacrifice”, warriors are we all, in a war we know nothing about.

Throw another chicken on the altar.

Then a teacher, a nurse, a community case-worker, a cop, or an ambulance officer …

“Ambulance officers in NSW have suffered greatly over the past 10 to 15 years and now receive less remuneration than most of their interstate colleagues (”Ambulance case vital to future of the unions”, February 26).

They have been ”upskilled” gradually with no thought given to improved wages and have, in fact, suffered a reduction in working conditions all as a direct result of inaction and/or apathy by the Health Services Union. A classic case was when they lost their lunch hour 4½ years ago – yes, that’s correct, they do not get a lunch hour any more.

There are many other instances of problems as a direct result of the HSU doing very little. Small wonder they are fighting hard to form their own industrial body. Good luck to them.” – Stuart Greenshields, Wentworth Falls.

Tough luck.

Witschaft ist tot!

In Campbell Newman’s Queensland …

“To date the LNP has announced 14,000 public sector redundancies,  cuts to community funding and training programs, and removal of job security for public servants.  Aged care homes and hospitals are being closed or plumped for sale. With no upper house to dilute any legislative excess, the LNP has used its huge majority to simply trample any opposing voice in Parliament.”

… sick one day, dead the next.

You can play golf with dinosaurs, maybe buy a cask of wine at 6am, or plump fifty bucks a button into a fruit machine, but if you’ve been stabbed between the shoulder blades sometime on a Sat-day nite in this City of the Dead, you’d be better off asking a random stranger for a clean rag and a splash of spirit on your wounds than trying to get into a hospital for treatment.

Well may we ponder how the peoples of North Korea can be conned decade after decade into believing anything their “dear leaders” tell them, but our gills seem no less greener …

“Tony Abbott– “But thanks to Labor’s poor management over five years, there is now a budget emergency.”

No, there isn’t. According to Moody’s:

‘The size of the deficits is such that the gross debt of the Commonwealth government will rise only slightly from its currently estimated 19.3% of GDP to a peak of 20.6% in 2014-15. On a net basis, the peak will be 11.4% of GDP, and the government’s long-term forecasts have this figure falling to zero early in the next decade.’

And …

“Tony Abbott – “This government has [made your life harder] with its … skyrocketing debt.”

Australia’s borrowings, according to virtually all independent analysis, are at the right levels for the times. New York-based Moody’s international credit rating agency reassessed Australia’s economy following last week’s Budget.

“Consolidated government debt is still low compared to other AAA-rated countries at well under 30% of GDP,” Moody’s stated. “Australia’s relatively low level of government debt has been one of the factors supporting the AAA rating.”

Only ten wealthy nations reduced debt to GDP in the last year. Australia’s reduction by 2.2% was only bettered by Iceland and Norway. That is not “skyrocketing”.”

And …

“What of claims that the public service is too big and inefficient? Last year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published an international Value for Money report. This report describes Australia’s public sector as comparatively small and says ”Australia is an example for the other ‘Value for Money’ countries”, including the Netherlands, Denmark, New Zealand and Britain.”

“Comparatively small.”

Down under that’s blackwhite for bloat; up is down, wrong is right; everything’s fucked, the country’s broken; a busted-arse brown-as-shit banana republic, the pit-toilet of the Pacific, where a blighted people wander a blighted land eking out the most precarious of desperate livings –making necklaces from dried corn cobs or sandals from banana leaves and flogging them to rich Asian tourists in deckchairs on our beaches; whole generations of dinkum Oz families living in mouldy squalor within discarded storm-water pipes ‘neath highway underpasses, bathing in mercury-polluted creeks, and eating tadpoles.

Can a single day, a single blessed hour perhaps, go by without an “emergency” being declared, or a “crisis” announced, where a “panic” does not “sweep” the nation, or “outrage” consume us, where “the state we’re in” is not “perilous”, where simple criticism or disagreement is not an “attack” or an “assault” or a “smackdown”, where a couple dozen damp bastards on a leaky boat does not constitute an “invasion” of our sovereignty, where fear does not always “grip” us, where disaster does not always “loom”, and “drastic” measures need not always be spoken of in the dourest of terms as if our daily states of being are forever held under siege.

Stage left, a government that couldn’t sell a fuck with Scarlett Johannson to a stranded man, ten years on a desert island.

Stage right, an opposition whose policies come in spurts, a series of jerking spasms climaxing in an uncoordinated spume of excitable brainfarts largely unexamined by the party-partisan fartleberries of the mainstream media and enthusiastically lapped up by their browsers in three-word slogan servings.

Who thought scaring the shit out of stupid people could ever be so easy?

Just gather the aging relics of “traditional” media stage centre, and leave them flounce about in their faded, tatty circus tent of glories past – the smell of newsprint, STOP THE PRESSES, the overflow of ashtrays and always a quick, drunken grope of the office girl on a Friday afternoon – and leave ‘em a-hollerin’ an’ a-howlin’ about whatever grabs their fancy and whatever they insist should grab ours …

Flying sandwiches perhaps? …

“PRIME Minister Julia Gillard says she’s treating a sandwich attack at a Queensland school as a laughing matter”.

766 words. By four journalists and AAP.

The movie will be directed by Tim Burton. Johnny Depp is the sandwich.

The Australian federal election on September 14 will be won by those best able to capture the hearts, souls and mindlessness of The People by promoting what are now their most profoundly primal fears and national obsessions …

Debt, Dark People, Science, Dark People, Debt.

… “I’m on drugs. I’m, uh, I mean, you know what it is. What’s the deal, man? I like to get small. It’s a wild, wild drug” …

It will be won by those best able to promote meanness as a virtue, as “tough love” to help those less fortunate than ourselves – ourselves, of course, having attained our lofty heights of success solely by our own hard labours, and not by accident of birth or heritage – to self-sufficiency.

It will be won by those best able to promote the concept of collective cultural and social sacrifice as necessary for the future strength and security of Unser schönes Vaterland for us all.

It will won by those best able to promote fear of “the other” as an affront to traditional Australian values, a vile diminution of, and muddy racial threat, to our purest of stock, our lebenskampf, our fight, our war, we can be warriors or we can be sklaven, we can choose to lead, or choose to die.

It will be won by those best able to promote “belief” and “faith” as unshakable conviction, wisdom and certain knowledge that will free us from the tyrannical strictures of “evidence”, of “science” and its darkly cackling and conspiratorial minions in their mountain lair laboratories.

It will be won by those who know we need hard lessons be learned, and most assuredly, they will teach us what these lessons are, and yes, we will learn them.

It will be hard won.

Hospitals will close. Schools will be sold. Universities dismantled.

Welfare will cease.

Something must be done.

It will be a battle fought on our fields, and on our farms. It will be fought on our shores, and on our glittering beaches. It will be fought on the land, and on the sea, and from the skies.

And, from unsere Kämpfe, our toils, our sacrifice, our sacred duty to the Vaterland …

Gebert Einer Nation!

Ein herz! Ein geist! Ein Gott! Ein Letbild! Ein Fleisch! Ein Blut!

Under Tony Abbott.

Fulfilling what he always knew would be his, from childhood visions on lofty Alpine peaks so many, many years ago … His Manifest Destiny to Lead Us All.

And on that day, September 14, 2013, I shall know, with unarguable certainty, that I live in a country full of halfwits.

SO, YOU WANNA BE A PRIME MINISTER?

Seriously?

TONY Abbott has been advised by his staff to cut a controversial budget cut from a key speech to be delivered today, in favour of trying to convince the media to like him.

Under pressure today from the Government to reveal the Coalition’s policy agenda, the Opposition leader was expected today to set out his agenda for the election year.

However, an email exchange within his inner circle, including his wife Margie, obtained by The Daily Telegraph online, has revealed that Mr Abbott appeared more concerned with making friends in the media and convincing them to think he was a “good bloke”.

In an email entitled “First draft for NPC speech”, Mr Abbott asked his “team” to provide feedback on a draft in which he outlines his desire to be liked.

He appeared to dismiss the need for policy content, claiming it contained enough to stay “on message” with the release a campaign booklet last Sunday which contained no new policy.

But then he suggests that the speech contained enough personal stories “that’s personal for the commentariat to say…yes he is a good bloke, and yes he is more fair dinkum..”.

Backpfeifengesicht.*

*German: A face badly in need of a fist.