NSW: The parliament that keeps on giving

I have to admit to not paying a whole lot of attention to the scandal-in-only-three-days surely-that’s-a-record Matt Brown affair, but thankfully an article in the Herald on Friday set it out all nice and neatly, and it really does merit quoting at length:

Beleaguered Labor MP Noreen Hay has been dumped as a NSW parliamentary secretary by Premier Nathan Rees.

The move comes after the member for Wollongong was caught up in the scandal surrounding disgraced police minister Matt Brown’s drunken romp at a post-budget party in June.

Mr Brown was sacked for lying to Mr Rees about dancing in his underpants in his office, where he was alleged to have straddled Ms Hay’s chest and called out to her adult daughter: “Look at this, I’m tittie-fucking your mother!”.

Now, I had quite a lot of fun at my election night party, downing three bottles of champagne and screaming “Say it in Mandarin” every time Kevin Rudd appeared on screen, but I’ve clearly got to start getting invited to budget parties because they’re obviously a much wilder affair. Although really, at any kind of politicks related shindig, “I’m tittie-fucking your mother!” has got to be right up there with among things you don’t want to hear, along with “John Howard retains Bennelong” and anything to do with Peter Costello.

I have to say, too, that this is the kind of thing that Noreen Hay could have done with years ago. Having lived for many years in Wollongong, and only now finally discovered what the old bint looks like, I would eagerly have moved the four blocks south that would have placed me in the Wollongong electorate just to vote Our Noreen.

I mean, Australia’s First Ranga might be the one that all the gay boys are ready to turn for, but MP Hay really is one hot piece of representative snatch:

Rebranding Sydney

Morris Iemma has apparently decided to give up on actually making Sydney a liveable city, and decided to concentrate his efforts on simply rebranding the collection of multi-lane traffic jams and poor planning decisions currently passing for a global city.

Iemma: “The Sydney brand will deliver a consistent message to international audiences that will define Sydney as a leader in business, culture,tourism, events and education.”

A Brand Sydney Project, to be chaired by the head of Events NSW, John O’Neill, will produce a new logo for the city, which is expected to be launched in the middle of next year.

I, for one, am very excited about this, and would like to offer the following brands for the Project’s contemplation:

• “Communism” (it’s working very well for Beijing at the moment)
• “Singapore Airlines”
• “Pringles”
• “Catholic Paradise”; alternatively combine with Star City Casino for “Catholic Pair-o-dise”
• “You’ll Love Coles”

Farm of fools

Just when I was starting to doubt John Howard’s environmental credentials, it’s reassuring to see him come out and say that we won’t be paying farmers to close down farms that have been rendered unsustainable by a drought that has nothing to do with global warming. Why? Because farming is “part of the national psyche”.

Yes, just like Gallipoli, it’s part of the Australian mentality to keep stubbornly backing lost causes despite overwhelming evidence that they are indeed lost causes. I couldn’t have put it better myself, and I’d say much of the nation’s head-in-the-sand approach to agricultural policy has about as much chance of success as the Gallipoli landing.

What I don’t understand is why we’re always going to “lose massively from an economic perspective” if we do something about climate change. Let me see if I’ve got this right. It would actually be a better idea not to pay farmers to close down environmentally unsustainable farms, than to pay them to keep trying to get blood out of a stone. Surely it makes more sense to just go and buy water intensive crops like rice from countries where it actually fucking rains once or twice a year?

I know anti-intellectualism is also part of the Australian psyche but really, this is getting a bit much. And I’m really not sure I believe Howard’s argument that “We would lose something of our identification as Australians if we ever allowed the number of farms in our nation to fall below a critical mass.” How does this hold up in a country where 85% of the population lives within 50km of the coast?

And what the hell is a critical mass of farms?

All the animals needed to sing Old MacDonald?

Enough salt-of-the-earth types for the cover of the Terrorgraph for the next 6 months?

Enough small children who have never seen rain (although this has nothing to do with climate change)?

Enough drover types to recite “The Man from Snowy River” in every National Party electorate?

Spare me.

Conspiracy cuisine

 

I found this in the annals and realised I’d forgotten to upload it. Just pretend it’s still August.

Another helpful bit of international geopolitical dialogue from Old W:

US President George W Bush has tightened airline security and said a plot foiled by Britain to blow up US-bound flights was a “stark reminder” the United States is “at war with Islamic fascists”. The suspected plotters were “a couple days from a test, and a few days from doing it,” according to a US intelligence official. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the plan would have involved coordinated multiple suicide bombings.

“A couple of days”…  “A few days”…  “Doing it” … Please. They’re totally pulling this out of their collective backside. It’s so “I trusted my government and now I glow in the dark” I can barely breathe.

Perhaps I just read too much Russian literature but why does the general population not find these sudden “discoveries of plots” and vague talk of arrests with no names given that take place under the cover of darkness just a little WORTH LOOKING IN TO?

I love this game, but it’s getting fucking old.

Never one to be outdown, Little Johnny Me Too has to weigh in with this:

Commonsense tells you that if people take explosive liquids on board an aircraft and they’re going to become suicide bombers and they’re going to blow a hole in a pressurised cabin, you can imagine what a horrific loss of life there would be.

Methinks Howard is not one to be relying on “commonsense” with comments like that. Surely they become suicide bombers before they get on the aircraft? I mean it’s not like it’s just the meal choice:

“Would you like the chicken or the beef or the jihad?”

“I’ll have the chicken.”

“Oh I’m sorry sir we’re out of chicken.”

“Really? Oh, well, in that case just give me the jihad.”

Canine cuisine

 I think Kim Beazley needs to spend more time working on his metaphors/enrol in the UTS creative writing program:

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says the Nationals should vote with Labor.

“Tossing a few more cans of Pal into the dog’s breakfast will not in fact make decent law,” he said.

Possibly the most depressing thing about our one two party state is watching our two leaders try to out-anti-intellectualise each other in their race to the bottom.

Come back Paul Keating, your country needs you.

Lan Lan

This was the first thing I saw this morning and it is so adorable I just wanted to get back into bed and cry.

 

This is Lan Lan and her newborn. I cannot deal with how much pathos these animals have.

Would you like conservative dogma with that?

There’s nothing really new in the idea that in their respective shifts to the right, Australia’s two political parties are becoming harder and harder to tell apart. But this week’s outburt of “mateship”/”Australian values” hysteria adds a nice slant of surrealism to that whole debate. Both Howard and Beazley published opinion pieces in the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday, both discussing mateship and Australian values and what prospective migrants should or should not be expected to sign on to. It’s almost hard to work out that they’re even disagreeing with each other. Don’t believe me? Try and identify the author of each of these lines from the Herald pieces:

1: mateship is uniquely Australian.

2: [mateship] is the great equaliser in Australian society.

3: Australian values belong to all Australians.

4: manipulate values for what he perceives as political gain

5: we value our prosperity, our tolerance and our compassion.

6: mateship is treating people equally, regardless of race, gender, creed or religion.

7: we believe in equality, irrespective of race, religion, gender or national origin.

8: we should never shy away from reaffirming what makes us uniquely Australian

9: we are … ever ready to provide help wherever it is needed.

10: mateship is extending a helping hand when another person is down on their luck.

11: we have always sought to integrate our new immigrants into the mainstream of Australian life.

12: true national leadership demands that Australian values are reinforced.

13: our commitment to shared values is our social cement.

Spooky, n’est-ce pas?

And don’t even get me started on this. Just when you think the level of Australian public discourse and debate couldn’t get any more stupid:

The Prime Minister, John Howard, said yesterday a discussion paper on the new citizenship test, to be released tomorrow with an accompanying advertising campaign, would propose quizzing aspiring citizens’ language skills as well as their grasp of Australia’s history, culture and values. Asked if the history component would include questions on cricket, Mr Howard was prepared to consider it. “You never know. I think to understand the history of this country I think you might have to do that,” he said.

I hate this fucking country.

Simulacra ate my will to live

Just when you think the runaway freight train that is American liberal democracy (sic) couldn’t possibly reach dizzy new heights of surrealism, it suddenly turns out that it can. Yes, that’s right, some genius has come up with the idea that what the families of Marines serving tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan need most isn’t a promise to bring the troops home, but LIFESIZE CARDBOARD CUTOUTS of their absent loved ones.

John Goheen of the National Guard Association says “It’s a novel approach”.

It sure is John. Althought I’m somewhat disturbed by the fact that the prints only depict family members from the waist up. What kind of horrible portents of doom are these things going to turn out to be when the families’ loved ones have their legs blown off in yet another failed encounter with the Iraqi insurgency? Perhaps the National Guard Association were just trying to save on laminating costs and figured if they lopped the torso off at the waist they wouldn’t have to worry about all those desparate housewives/teenage girlfriends trying to get it on with their posters and complaining that they weren’t wipe clean afterwards.

My favourite comment though, is from one lady, Mrs. Kay Judkins, whose husband, Jim, is a minesweeper mechanic in Afghanistan: “I prop him up in a chair, or sometimes put him on the couch and cover him up with a blanket, The cat will curl up on the blanket, and it looks kind of weird. I’ve tricked several people by that. They think he’s home again.”

What kind of FUCKED UP PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS is that woman on? And how blind are her friends? Surely they can’t fail to notice the fact the Jimmy appears incredibly emaciated after his tour of duty? Does she blame his inability to talk or MOVE A SIGNLE FACIAL MUSCLE on post-traumatic stress disorder?

Not content with using her cardboard husband as a cat blanket, Mrs Judkins has to up the stakes a bit by declaring “He goes everywhere with me. Every day he comes to work with me.” I bet he’s a real riot in the dentist’s office where she works. Imagine the hilarity when all of those patients wander out of the surgery room high on nitrous oxide and wet themselves laughing.

In fact, not only does her cardboard husband provide her with emotional support, he’s helped her channel her war angst into some much needed consumer activity. “I just bought a new table, and he sits at the head of the table.” You can just see her dragging her half a cardboard torso around Ikea asking it which birch veneer table it thinks would go well the kitchen curtains.

When all is said and done though, this is clearly the future of Armed Services relations. Perhaps someone should give Cindy Sheehan a lifesize cardboard of version of her son and she might stop all that pesky grassroots organising and candlelight vigils outside the President’s Ranch. Or perhaps Little Johnny could pass one on to Terry Hicks – I’m sure it’s the least he could do considering his inability to ensure all Australians access to the rule of law.

Shine on you crazy wino

Proving once again that the comedy value of Bob “No Child in Poverty” “Tiananmen Square Weepies” Hawke is very likely to outlast him, Hawkie has weighed in with the one of most prescient pieces of political commentary seen in this country for a good while:

Former prime minister Bob Hawke predicts the Australian Democrats will soon lose all its power.

Clearly the man isn’t quite as sharp as he once was, but he’s probably still more on the ball than say, an ibis pulling a used sanitary pad from a bin in Victoria Park. Even the Party’s own revolving leadersip have clearly realised the Democrats’ days are numbered. And not that I’m one to drone on about sincerity and tact, but Don Chipp isn’t even in the cold cold yet, but Hawkie – presumably in a last ditch attempt to demonstrate that he is less irrelevant than the Democrats – has still jumped in with a call that pretty much everyone worked out weeks ago:

“I don’t think it’s anything too much to say that there is a coincidental timing almost between the passing of Don Chipp and what I think is the death throes of the Democrats,” he said.

More (unsuccessful) letter writing for the revolution

So, John Howard says he accepts that most Australians oppose the sale of the Snowy Hydro scheme, but he still believes it is the right decision. (Snowy sale’s no scandal, says PM). Hang on. In Dublin, just a few days ago, wasn’t Howard justifying his stance on same-sex marriage by saying that the majority of Australians don’t want it? Assuming Howard’s claims are correct, why is he willing to do the ‘right’ thing in the name of the Snowy, but not in the name of social equality?

Oh, that’s right. He’s a hypocrite.