The Call

Swan: Hey Bowen

Bowen: Make it quick Swan I'm having breakfast.

Swan: What are you having?

Bowen: I said quick Swan.

Swan: Okay, well, you know how I'm acting Prime Minister?

Bowen: No one gives a shit.

Swan: But I am right?

Bowen: (sigh)….yes.

Swan: Okay, cool. And you're aware of this Malaysia thing we've got for those boat guys.

Bowen: Dimly.

Swan: You serious?

Bowen: No I'm not serious numb nuts, get on with it.

Swan: Alright, so we've got this shitty Malaysia thing right?

Bowen: Sure do.

Swan: But no one likes it.

Bowen: Nup

Swan: Do they?

Bowen: No.

Swan: Why?

Bowen: Does this have an ending Swan?

Swan: Yeah, okay, alright. Well, do you remember that shitty policy Howard had? Moro
or something?

Bowen: Nauru.

Swan: Yeah, sorry, I was thinking of the chocolate bar.

Bowen:…Anyway, Nauru yeah, the Lib policy.

Swan: Well what if we had our crappy Malaysia thing AND their shitty Nauru thing? Everyone would be happy right?

Bowen:….what?

Swan: It'll be win-win.

Bowen: Wait…who's going to win?

Swan: Us.

Bowen: I don't fucking think so.

Swan: Well who will?

Bowen: Abbott you fucking idiot. This is madness. Are you on the cold tablets again?

Swan: No I've moved to Echinacea, it really is ver…

Bowen: Shut the fuck up Swan…just….FUCK.

Swan: What?

Bowen: You want to give Abbott his policy; Howard's policy?

Swan: And ours. We'd have ours. We'll both have something, that's a solution.

Bowen: It's not.

Swan: It sort of is.

Bowen: Not really.

Swan: I can't really see any other solution than everyone having what they want.

Bowen: There's a reason for that.

Swan: What?

Bowen: Nothing. How will this work? The policies are in conflict.

Swan: But we're settling the conflict.

Bowen: No, they have parts that are mutually exclusive.

Swan: …

Bowen: It means you can only do one or the other.

Swan: This is my decision.

Bowen: To make no decision?

Swan: Well, that's sort of a decision.

Bowen: (sigh)

Swan: Julia said I'm in change.

Bowen: Charge.

Swan: Yes, charge. I was thinking of the coins, you know the one in you poc…

Bowen: SWAN! Fine, look, fine whatever, both policies, we'll do both policies. When are we doing this?

Swan: Well, you're on ABC News Breakfast in five minutes. Just, you know, hit it out of the ball park. You know, a hole in one?

Bowen:…

Swan: Bowen?

Bowen:…

Swan: Bowen?

Bowen:…

Swan: Are you there Bowen?

Bowen: Yes.

Swan: The phone went funny, the Libs really did a hash job on Telstra…

Bowen: Shut up Swan, just shut up. I've got to go.

Swan: Seeya mate, have fun! Can you call me back when you're done?

Bowen: -click-

Swan: Must have been disconnected.

Ode to Harry

Harry Jenkins was cursed with being really good at a really shit job. So good was he at this job, that when he last tried to resign the very people who spent the majority of their time making his job shit wouldn't let him. They even went to the extent of trying to make his job not shit for five whole minutes; they said nice things, they were polite, they flattered, and then they went back to making him want to kill himself.

But cursed he is no more. This morning he successfully tricked somebody into accepting his resignation with no backsies. He's done, and he's managed to serve the Coalition a shit sandwich in the process. But that's not the most important thing for him, the most important thing is: he's not the Speaker anymore.

The amount of patience required to be the Speaker in the House of Representatives, particularly this current House of Representatives, is on a plain of existence few of us can reach. I don't know if Harry meditated, got frequent massages, or had the occasional wristy release behind the big chair, but whatever he did: it worked. How he never stood up and screamed at Pyne to shut his pompous pie hole I will never understand.

How many censure motions did he have to sit through? How many ridiculous and childish question time spit ball fights did he have to adjudicate? Remember, most MPs can just sit back and ignore this stuff when it gets too much, or better yet, leave the chamber. Harry though, not only had to listen to all this shit but because of the peculiar nature of debate in parliament, it was all addressed to him. "Mr. Speaker, I believe the Member for Lyons is talking through his hat Mr. Speaker, and Bob Brown is the Prime Minister Mr. Speaker, and I've spoiled my trousers Mr. Speaker." Literally like a bunch of annoying five year olds telling you about their most recent bathroom adventure.

He sat through all that, and yet he still managed to be funny, withering and to not go completely bat-shit insane. That is probably the greatest single achievement of any elected official during this term of parliament: "Successful maintenance of sanity while babysitting group of contemptuous fuckwits." That should go on his resume.

His replacement will be Peter Slipper, who counts among his many achievements falling asleep in parliament and dressing himself. Parliament will soon resemble that episode of the Simpsons where Ned Flanders takes over as Principle. Rob Oakeshott will be suspended in a cage above the floor of the House of Reps meekly complaining that his waterbowl is empty; Joe Hockey will squirt tomato sauce on his naked torso and happily exclaim that he is forgetting stuff he used to know. In short, parliament will descend even further into a debauched freak show exhibiting the baser elements of the human condition.

We will miss you Harry.

Democracy is Dead. Long Live the Death of Democracy.

The world has ended. Quite clearly the walls of our reality have collapsed and we are left floating in void of nothingness enclosed in the air tight sphere of taxes and environmental fascism. Democracy; long dead after a majority of elected representatives decided to form government, cannot save us now. They've defeated freedom, they took our jobs and we're rooned. They've passed the carbon tax.

Or half passed anyway, but it will pass the senate because God hates you or something. For a country in which democracy is supposedly dead, the voting on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme [because that's what it is actually fucking called] was rather polite, orderly and yes; democratic. Sure Sophie Mirabella got kicked out for talking, but I'm sure that happens to her daily in her own home.

Such a relatively orderly passing of what has been branded the most controversial bill in recent political history reveals how ultimately shallow opposition to the bill is, at least in parliament. I have no doubt that if he was given the opportunity after the last election, Tony Abbott would have given an ETS, a CPRS or something like it to win government. He would have. The Opposition's position on carbon pricing is a strategy to destroy the minority arrangement, and that strategy is halfway to failing. Once the CPRS is in, it's staying, that much is clear. 'Blood' pledges or no, bullshit is bullshit.

And what will the mentals do then? They cannot keep up the doomsday predictions once the scheme is in place. Unless our economy immediately implodes in an orgy or self loathing, they will do nothing. They will move one to the next 'death' of democracy, not knowing what it is yet, but probably something to do with native title, or funding cuts for private schools, or giving free jobs to economic losers who don't want them. Something anyway. They hate something.

What will Tony Abbott do? What will he rail against? All dressed up with his election winning lead and nothing to do. All this blood, and nothing to pledge it on.

What will he do?

What?

Eddie's Football Corner

Football is a simple game. The objective of the game is to set up a 'team' and surround it with a 'club'. To qualify as a 'club', you have to get your 'team' to kick (or pass, it doesn’t really matter) a bladder around against another 'club's' 'team'. Once these simple tasks are complete, you are ready to begin playing football: Football involves putting machines in your 'club' which people put their money into for fun. Once the people have successfully put their money into the machine, the game is over, and the 'club' wins.

There will be some sad individuals who insist on watching your 'team' kick (or pass, I said it didn't matter) the bladder around. Don't worry, these people are harmless, but they have an addiction. It's best to just ignore them and stick with the people putting money in the machines, you know, to set a good example for your kids.

There are some strange 'clubs' in Western Australia who do not play football, they merely kick (or pass!) the bladder around. It is sick, and reveals just how depraved some sections of our society have become. There needs to be reform.

Can't we just play football anymore? Football is not about bladders, or teams or silly kicking (or passing) games. It's about collecting money from the populace with machines that make obnoxious noises, and claim to be related to poker. Let's just put your money into machines for fun. It's FUN!

Kicking (or passing) bladders is not fun, it's socially destructive.

And now the Government and Andrew Wilkie want to tax football because some people are having too much fun. TOO MUCH FUN! How can you have too much fun? Some people have so much fun playing football that they lose their house and family. These people are amazing footballers and should be congratulated, not punished. They should be allowed to keep playing so that 'clubs' can keep winning.

And winning

And winning….

Shit Sandwich

On Monday morning, the ALP was presented with shit sandwich and they had two choices: they could refuse to eat it (because you know, it’s made of shit) or they could do what they have always done with this particular type of sandwich, which is to eat on stage in front of twenty TV cameras, lick the plate, ask for more, and then complain about the taste to their friends and family afterwards. And you know what they did? They ate the fucking sandwich. And the only explanation I have as to why is that they’ve finally got used to the taste.

On Monday morning the ALP had an opportunity to part ways with a strategy on asylum seekers that has never worked and never will. A strategy that started as mitigation of an impending disaster at the 2001 Federal Election, but has turned into a weird permanent half-policy that MPs seem to think they have to keep to hold on to marginal seats. The opportunity was there and it was squandered.

When it comes to the refugee issue, the Federal ALP is in a perpetual mitigation strategy against a mythical electoral annihilation that is constantly on the horizon. 'Electoral annihilation' is the repeated excuse for a refugee policy that is out of step with the progressive, activist wing of the party i.e. the wing that does a majority of the legwork. You would think now that electoral annihilation is actually on the cards for an entirely different reason (ironically one that involves the party actually standing on principle and not populist sentiment) their mitigation on refuges would become moot. They would drop the bullshit and write a policy that befits the party’s progressive tradition and its base.

But they didn’t. And they won’t. And it’s sad.

On Monday Cabinet sat down to decide on a new asylum seeker policy, except they didn’t because they just went with the old one. They then took the same rubbish to caucus. The Left faction fought against it, and pushed onshore processing as a new policy, but they lost, because they are the Left. Meanwhile Tony Abbott is able put down his pitchfork and attempt to take the moral high ground. Seriously, when Tony Abbott is coming at you from the left, you are in extremely dubious moral territory.

Despite Abbott's empty platitudes on the inhumanity of the Malaysia Solution when compared to his inhumane plan, the Federal Government is now going to legislate with the support of the Coalition to overwrite the High Court’s decision on offshore processing. In doing so the ALP has officially ceded the refugee issue to the Coalition. Immigration is now a conservative owned issue (if it wasn't already), for as near to forever as is imaginable. Labor has lost the argument twice by attempting to play both sides, all so they can hold seats in Western Sydney. Do I even have to ask if all the compromise and mitigation was worth it?

It clearly wasn’t.

The Hazards of Followship

The Malaysia deal is over, sanity has prevailed, and what's more, it's prevailed in a way that should give many people comfort that there is still judicial oversight in this country. It gives me comfort, but it is completely soured by the knowledge that no one will learn anything from this whatsoever. On immigration, the Gillard Government will continue to fall, continue to walk the low road, and continue to drink the poison milk suckled from the breast of internal party polling in the seat of Lindsay.

Nothing, it seems, will stop their inexorable trajectory towards complete moral oblivion. Not even this international level embarrassment will convince them. It's taken less than a day for someone to mention a legislative response to the HC's decision, like that will somehow improve the Government's standing. What's hidden within that suggestion is that the Government will have to legislate WITH the Opposition on immigration, because the Greens will certainly have no bar of it. That would be the ultimate humiliation, the ultimate defeat and the ultimate betrayal of progressive politics.

There's also mention of a return Temporary Protection Visas and of course, Nauru. It would be funny, except that it's not.

There is, of course, the possibility that the Court's decision will hamper all offshore processing, but we'll have to wait for better legal minds than mine to assess the judgement before we know that. If legislation becomes the only avenue to persist with this nonsense, I have no faith in cooler heads prevailing.

The only positive, and I presume that it will be a small percentage of people that will view it as a positive, is that the Government will still have to take the 4000 refugees currently located in Malaysia. This, combined with the Court's decision, is actually a fantastic result: The intake from Malaysia will come by plane, so I suppose by some sort of punch drunk logic that will make it acceptable to the boat hating residents of this nation. It makes no sense, at least to me, but whatever.

By now, the Government must know they are going to lose the next election. It is only a matter of by how much. Isn't it time to just dump this political folly and fight against the 'prevailing' view on asylum seekers? If you're in an arsehole contest with Tony Abbott, you will lose, so why even participate? I for one am sick of this chicken-shit kowtowing to opinions based on myth and fear. If this government had spent the political capital they had in 2008 to educate the public and work to change opinions they would not be in there current mire, at least not on this issue.

That is the lesson. Don't follow, lead.

But that is obviously too much to ask.

A Continuous End of Days

So, the world is ending or something.

The tin-foil hat squad are storing bottled water and salted beef in an uncompleted underground bunker they've been digging since the 1980s. The US is apparently dead, even though it isn't, and the revolution has apparently been fought on the streets of London with hoodies and bad dialogue. A revolution based on free sneakers and X-boxes, the revolution will not have fallen arches; the revolution will pwn noobs.

This same but different set of news events has sent many opinion writers scampering to their screens to explain the crisis and to lament our inevitable doom. That's fine, it's actually rather engrossing if you get into the spirit of it, but does it achieve anything? Well…, no, not unless making people scared and/or depressed can be counted as a result. Hand wringing is great, I've wrung a few hands in my time, but it's ultimately self-indulgent and pointless. Nothing is more ineffective against a riot than writing 'moral decay' on an imaginary piece of paper. You cannot house people by saying 'moral decay', neither educate nor employ them. You cannot write policy with the words moral decay. You can however, fill column after column in papers around the world and on the internet with end is nigh hyperbole and get a lollipop from your editor.

This is all fine as long as it's only journalists participating; when politicians get involved in the collective navel-grazing about a perceived cultural decline, strap on your concrete worry boots. When this happens you see the introduction of ground breaking social policy, such as convicted rioters being evicted from social housing, because there's nothing that benefits disaffected youth like homelessness to go with unemployment and their parents' smack addiction. "Where are your sneakers now you chavvy fuckwit?"

You get British Prime Minister David Cameron pining for the lack of grounded father figures. That's right, all the rioters were clearly fatherless, quite obvious in fact. Solution? Here’s your government appointed dad (business hours only), complete with pipe, slippers and an after-hours hug machine. That will quench the local youth's near limitless thirst for sneakers and smashing in a bus shelter.

All this of course rests on the notion that the riots were conducted completely by some shadowy underclass, disconnected from mainstream Britain, and ignores the fact that many of the convicted looters have middle class backgrounds. It also ignores what started the riots, which was that the police shot someone that they maybe shouldn't have and that the media did the rest giving the riots 24hr coverage. By convincing everyone that the world has gone mental led people to the obvious conclusion: "Let's go mental."

It's pretty obvious that there are numerous causes, and that different actors had different agendas. To boil the riots down to no dads and moral decay is bullshit, and it serves no one but the people spouting it. The fact is that there's probably no solution, or if there is, it would be completely unacceptable to the current structure of western society. This is a by-product of our lifestyle, we might just have to live with it, or move into a nice bunker.

War of the Semantic

The refugee swap deal with Malaysia has been sealed, and for the life of me I cannot see what this achieves. In what way was this necessary? It's as if the Government has engaged this process purely so they can win the semantic argument. The refugees are not 'boat people' 'because we've swapped them for people who will presumably arrive by plane. It's not a return to the Pacific solution because Malaysia is not in the Pacific Ocean, and it's not a solution because it's a one off. Basically, because 'The Indian Ocean One-Off Swap Thing' does not roll off the tongue, and is too long for headlines, it is thought that it will not take on the ignominy of the more pithy Howard-era policy title.

But really what is the point of winning the semantics game? It does provide your ministers with answers for hard questions, but those answers immediately make it sound like the minister in question is either dodgy or simple. Sure, a dodgy answer is better than a near soundless groan followed by mild infrequent drooling on Chris Uhlmann's shoes, but only marginally.

And what about the public, whose whims based semi-detached attention to the 6 o'clock news provide the basis for national policy directions? Is 'The Indian Ocean One-Off Swap Thing' enough to sate the wild cry of 'IMMIGRANT' in their subconscious?

Well….no.

Why would it?

This is not all about boats; you know…actual boats. People like boats generally I think. The dislike of boat arrivals is merely a cover for a broader mistrust of refugees. It's easier, and perhaps more ethically defendable, to ask "Why to they have to come by boat" than it is to ask "Why do they have to come at all?"

One thing that struck while watching SBS's 'Go Back to Where You Came From', was the need of the participants to interrogate every refugee they encountered. The tone of this interrogation was always of the 'Was it really all that bad?' variety. The subtext being; "Did you really have to come here?" This interrogation was not restricted to individuals who arrived by boat, but to those who where 'properly' processed at UN refugee camps as well. This reveals a broader problem of attitudes toward immigration in general. If individuals who simply have nowhere else to go are accommodated under such sufferance, then what of attitudes towards people who migrate for economic purposes or simply because they want to?

Playing the semantics game will not change attitudes or make problems go away. Let's say, for the sake of argument, this policy works, no more boats arrive here ever, and Australia simply takes it's refugees from an increasingly overextended Malaysia. What will happen?

A different problem.

Different argument.

Different, but the same.

No Experts Thanks; We're Australian

As the Carbon Tax 'debate' slowly drowns us in the aural quicksand of repeated one liners and 2 second clips of irate tax-rage munters, it has become almost impossible to comment on it. I mean, how can you really? There is no change, no development, there are no new arguments, it is simply a contest of campaign media strategies: the bout to knock the other guy out, the search for a line that will resonate with a group of people unwilling to consider the detail, trialled by endless repetition on Channel 7.

How many times has Tony Abbott said 'this toxic tax', or Julia Gillard uttered the phrase 'our plan to tax polluters'? Barnaby Joyce has run out of fingers and toes to work it out. If they have said anything else, we haven't heard it, because the media would not dare play a grab longer than five seconds lest we fall asleep accidentally.

This has led to a situation where two thirds of the electorate claim to be against the Carbon Tax at the same time that 80% admit they can't describe what it is. It's not about the detail; it's about the media war. It's about who the public want to tell them what the carbon tax is. Shades of grey are not allowed and experts can get fucked.

I don't know what it is about Australia these days. I can say, on a personal level, there is nothing more engaging than listening to someone who really knows what they are talking about speak at length about an issue. All the nerds who watch 'Big Ideas' on a Saturday morning know what I'm talking about. Experts are useful; they know things about stuff. It's impossible for someone to know everything about all things, so why not specialise and share it around? That sounds perfectly reasonable, which it is, but yeah…no…fuck that.

The hatred of experts in this country is completely unbelievable. Not only do we refuse to listen to them, we actively resent them for having the audacity to claim that they know more than us about something. "If you're so smart then why can't you stop my shoes from hurting?" Next comes the accusations that such individuals 'live in ivory towers' (which any expert in engineering will tell you aren't really built anymore), and are not part of 'the real world', like all academics are millionaires and have their bills paid by some cashed-up intellectual deity.

I've got news for you, if you work on a mine; you earn more than they do. Calm down, it doesn't make you better than them but at the moment, you are the one who does not live in 'the real world', whatever the hell that is. The new 'ivory tower', if there must be such a thing, is the desert donga.

So yeah, sit on that.

'Where's My Carbon Money?'

Now that the carbon price has been released, and most of the tax architecture and associated rebates announced, the foci of arguments around the issue has shifted from economy-ending doomsday predictions to the alarming pettiness of thinly veiled greed. Complaints are no longer the half screamed nonsensical panic of 'Won't someone please think of the economy', as they have switched to the far more common 'What do I get and why can't it be more?'

The first salvo in this new paradigm of whinging was the banner headline at that bastion of baseness News.com.au. Accompanying a large photo of a 20 cent piece, it read 'For Most, this is what the Carbon Tax is Worth'. Yes, according to News, under the Carbon Tax many will only be 20 cents a week better off. Oh the shame of it. You mean it won't affect me whatsoever? A tax reform where I don't come out miles ahead? Where if someone hadn't told me it existed, I wouldn't even know it was there? Treason.

Remember when this tax was meant to make middle-income earners take on third jobs as Dickensian era chimney sweeps? Remember when the end was nigh? When cats were laying with dogs and jaguars were falling from the sky?

Now it's: '20 cents…bit stingy.'

Completely without irony.

It's as if there has been a conscious forgetting of all that came before this announcement. No one has appeared to click that the past six months of debate on this issue has been an orgy of what ifs based on exactly no information. Much of that is the Government's fault, as there wasn't any to go on however, the seamlessness of the switch from blood curdling cries of impending poverty to slightly perturbed bean counting is astounding. There has been no collective 'phew'. No relief. Nothing. Just collective furrowed brows at the national even steven.

Tony Abbott has continued on his merry way. Being in opposition, things he says one week to the next do not need to match up anyway. This morning he's staked his political future on defeating the tax. How he will do that I'm not sure, but I am sure that if the parliament passes the tax he won't be resigning. It certainly looks like passing at parliament as well, with the independents and the Greens deeply involved in the decision making, it would take mass public revolt to force a change of position, and once it's passed, that's the ballgame. By the time of the next election, the tax will have been in place for more than a year, which will make it pretty much immovable.

Much will now rest on whether the Gillard Government has the stomach to resist the whims of the polls to pass and implement the tax without falling in a wobbly heap. Judging by the polls of the last two months, they have pretty good stomachs.

Collective Introspection

For some reason, introspection has once again become the fashion in Federal politics, because…well, you know…everyone's depressed about Federal politics. Panel shows are popping up with topics such as: "Is Democracy Broken?", "Why Can't We Talk About Policy" and "Let us All Stab Ourselves." The Australian Labor Party, with poll numbers plumbing the depths of an existential sewer, is once more arguing over their internal structures, like it's the process of how they vote on things that's the problem and not the actual things they vote on.

While the ALP's polls are a giant turd, disapproval is up for both parties, revealing a general sense of malaise towards the entire freak show. When this happens, the MPs blame the media for only reporting the personalities, the media blame the politicians for cultivating that situation for votes, and the public think that using a mobile phone during Masterchef is dodgy and thus don't know if they believe in anything anymore.

Seriously, the public do not cop it enough when it comes to this stuff. It's all very well to whinge about the state of political discourse in this country and say politics isn't worth your time, but if the majority of people spend all their time obsessing over reality shows pissed into the collective mainstream chamber pot by soulless, asparagus eating TV executives, then politics and the media will reflect that fact. If the media organisations thought they would make money by reporting the issues and fostering debate, trust me, they'd do it. They're interested in making money, not in making me depressed, they just happen to accomplish both.

Do you know why spin is used in politics? - because if you don't use it you will get fucked over, by the media AND the public. If you say what you think – you're a dissenter. If you toe the party line – you're a robot. The media will report it that way, and the public will soak it up like a giant filthy grey water sponge.

Everyone goes on about how no one talks about policy, yet as soon someone actually does they are drowned out by mindless cries of "BORING" and "Why can't this be a celebrity cooking show?" If everyone is obsessed with mindless gossip and the illusion of drama via modern editing techniques then why is everyone surprised that this attitude has invaded House of Reps as well? MPs want your votes, and the media organisations want your money – and this is how they get it. No one will change anything until this strategy stops working.

But it won't change, because nothing ever fucking changes unless it is to something utterly catastrophically bad. If last night's Q and A panel of Gen Y plebs is truly representative of what the future holds, then this place is doomed and I have lost the will to live.

Well maybe not completely, but I certainly won't enjoy it.

Q and A, Go Away

Is Q and A even worth it anymore? Does the Australian political discourse really need another meaningless back-and-forth that makes people want to kill themselves? I admit that it may have been somewhat charming at first, but it exponentially eroded any good will I had for it the moment it became a place for Federal politicians to 'appear.' You know, to do the rounds, spruik something, and be a dick.

The show's main contribution seems to be the addition of the now ubiquitous 'live' twitter feed on screen, which is made less appealing by the fact that it is 'moderated'. It's slightly better if you have your laptop next to you with a clean feed of tweets, until you realise you are the very modern model of a fucking stupid Gen Y loser.

Q and A has simply become a place for variously placed MPs from all sides to have a shill off and constantly get into arguments over semantics. Sometimes there's as many as one person on the panel who is not politically attached and hence speaking in human talk, but they're usually also an idiot, so it is of no benefit.

As a result the questioning has become increasingly grandstanding in nature; questioners don't seem to be looking for information but rather to get a clap after completing whatever drivel comes out of their mouths. Then there's the always awful question-that-is-actually-a-statement ramble-athon which almost drowns surrounding audience members in the smug spittle of indignant wankery. It is appalling.

Currently serving MPs, other than at election time, should be immediately banned from future broadcasts. Let's have some policy wonks, some academics, and sure, let's have Janet Albrechtsen occasionally so we can witness true soulless evil, but two MPs with intractable party lines to service are not going help anyone. Once they're finished in politics; then yes, get them in, it's infinitely more entertaining. Everyone seems surprised when a former MP goes on the TV and is actually quite likeable, there's a reason for that and it's the letters that have been removed from the end of their name.

Q and A's format needs re-tooling, and by that I actually mean de-tooling. Until that happens I'll be staring at a flickering fluorescent light on Monday nights, softly muttering.

The Questions Not Asked

Tony Abbott is having an unprecedented good run as Opposition Leader. It's not that he's hitting everything out of the park, because he's not doing that. It's not because his vision for the nation is outshining the Government's, because he doesn't seem to have one. It's unprecedented because Tony Abbott is doing all the things bad Opposition Leaders usually do; things that get them swiftly knifed and consigned to a life of slightly squinty "don't I know you?" looks from the general public; and doing them to public and media acclaim. It appears that talking shit, engaging in needless obstructionism, spreading deliberate misinformation and possessing a paucity of policy is in vogue.

All the negativity, the nay-saying, the fear mongering, and the smug defence of the status quo; all that is backed up by a stained wet piece of paper with nothing written on it. What would a Tony Abbott lead government do? Who the hell knows? There is no basis for knowing.

The only thing approaching a policy position is not even a well outlined one. Abbott's 'Real Action on Climate Change' policy is a non event, a floating turd in a shallow pool of bilge water. The basic gist is that an Abbott Government will pay polluters not to pollute, at a cost of God knows what for God knows how long. In the biggest debate of this term of parliament, the biggest the country has had on a single issue in a long time, the Opposition is coming to the table with a hessian sack full of low quality hot air, and getting away with it.

In all the media Abbott has done trashing the Carbon Tax, he is yet to be truly questioned as to how his policy is better, how it will be less of a financial impost, and how it will result in any reduction in emissions at all. Why are those questions not being asked? Are there even answers to those questions? The subtext of course is that there are none, because under an Abbott government the issue of climate change would float away in haze of self indulgent opulence. The under-lying message is that there is no need for change, so why do it.

Abbott is getting a free, unchallenged run by a media obsessed with gotcha stories and the ratings of their network's respective cooking show.

And the public is lapping it up.

Joe Hockey is another example. On the rare occasion he actually received a tough question about his very shaky budget reply, he accused the journalist of being in collusion with the Government. What? What the fuck are you talking about Joe? Answer the question, or at least pretend to answer it. Isn't that what your job is, pretending to answer questions? Yet you go for "This is a conspiracy. Is it because I is Liberal?" Absolutely pathetic.

Can you imagine what would happen if Julia Gillard or Wayne Swan accused a journo of being fed questions by the Opposition. There would be a shit-storm of epic proportions, they would be a laughing stock. Joe on the other hand got a rebuke in a tweet from the ABC that no one read, and a hanky from News LTD to wipe his bitter tears away.

As I live and breathe…

The Centre of Nowhere

Today's poll is an absolute dog for the Government; a rancid fish slap across the countenance. It's a very long time until the next election, more than two years, and just how bad this can get is anyone's guess. This is what a Government gets for crapping out on many of the policies that were central to its last major electoral victory. Only on the economy can it still claim the moral ground, but they can't even claim credit properly. Wayne Swan gets a bullshit question on ABC radio and he drops his water glass. They constantly play defence, and lose, so they play more defence.

This all started when Kevin Rudd shelved the ETS. The bottom fell out of the numbers, and there has been a long slow roll towards the abyss ever since. After the ETS decision was made, the Government has not set the agenda and has been dragged around by the opposition, the polls and its own inaccurate interpretation of what the electorate wants. Sure, when you're in government it helps to have the public onside, but it also helps to be making decisions you actually believe in, and they just aren't. This government is not being the government it wants to be simply because it is scared.

Look at what they're actually doing. Refugees are going to be sent to Malaysia. Malaysia. Why? What made the pacific solution shit was not the fact that it was in the pacific. Gillard seems to think that she can get away with doing essentially the same thing because Malaysia is in a different ocean, therefore avoiding the 'Return to Pacific Solution' headline that would cause the Labor caucus to commit seppuku on the parliamentary lawn. That is just disingenuous bullshit.

They wimped out on the mining tax, environmental policy, and welfare. They dropped the ball on education and rooted their own health reform, all because that can't hack getting bitch-slapped by Kochie on Sunrise.

It's said that to win elections you must win the centre, and this is for the most part is true, but you have to have a base vote on either the left or the right of the spectrum to begin with. Labor has alienated the left, and has no chance of winning the right. All that's left are the mercenary; mortgage saddled swinging voters, who spend the pre-election period totting up the proposed tax benefits of both parties on their iPhones before they decide who to vote for. 30 pieces of silver and a 10% increase to the Family Tax Benefit Part A.

There's almost no way back from this. They've got to stop playing the keeping everybody happy game, because it's obviously not working. Let's just have some proper progressive policy and fuck the polls. If you're going to lose, lose for doing something you believe in, instead meekly having your arse handed to you because you stand for nothing.

Bludget

Budget night used to be pretty simple; what am I paying more for and what am I paying less for? What gets given and what gets taken? For many years we just got stuff, as Peter Costello trod the boards of the parliamentary chamber, tossing tax benefits and franking credits to his beloved serfs. Some people didn't get stuff, but generally they couldn't afford televisions, so they were therefore none the wiser. These days it's harder to pick the winners and losers, give with the right hand, take with the left. A melange of cuts, additions, levies, offsets, delayed programs, new programs and token leftovers leave most at a loss as to where they are in a sea of economic dribble.

The ceremony of the evening has also dissipated, as the week before hand has become a government leak-athon, just so no one can claim to be surprised. In addition to this, some analysts have claimed that MULTIPLE budgets are written just in case one of those strategic leaks dies in the arse. Asides from this being completely demented, it pretty much ignores the principles of what good government should be about, and leaves you with a whole bunch of shitty populist cuts and middle class panders that don’t achieve anything.

Take for example the cutbacks in welfare payments to up to 11000 teenage single mothers. It's obviously been too good for too long, because too many people are honking on to that sweet single mother coin. How much will this deliver? Not much, a piddling amount in truth, but it will make those losers in suburbs happy to know they aren't 'paying' for some teenager to have kids for money. They'll be so happy in fact that they will literally skip to the bank to receive their baby bonus without irony.

As discussed in earlier pieces, the unemployed will also cop it in the name of national morale. The long term unemployed will now be forced to volunteer 11 months of the year as opposed to six. Wait. Forced? Volunteer? Is this like when you get in trouble at school and the teacher makes you 'volunteer' to pick rubbish out of the sandpit? Let's just call it what it is: pointless busy work designed to make people feel so horrible they'll either take the nearest shit-shovelling job on offer or top themselves. Hey, maybe an increase to the suicide rate will save us some money.

I'm sorry if that's a bit extreme but I'm sick to death of people hammering the welfare state once, and only once, they've reached a position of comfort in life. As soon as someone lands a good job, gets a house and whatever else is supposed to make you happy, it's a countdown to when they pay out on the 'bludgers'. The populism of the current political environment has only elevated this trivial bullshit, and it's about time someone got called on it.

So if you've never been unemployed, if you've never taken Austudy, if you've never received a low income tax benefit, if you've never got a baby bonus or family tax benefit parts a or b, if your parents didn't take them either, if you've paid in full for your entire education up front and your parents did the same then by all means look down your nose snootily at those who have taken advantage of the welfare system. By all means sit down tonight with a glass of merlot and decry the bludgers 'living' off 'your' tax dollars. It doesn't change the fact that you are an arsehole, but at least you're coming from a coherent ethical and ideological position.

However, if you have done any of those things then you can cram it with walnuts ugly, because you are the very thing you claim to hate.

Osama's Legacy

Everything Julia Gillard had planned for this week has quietly been taken back to the policy shed for later release. Since all that was planned was to take several hundred more hits over the carbon tax and to make an education announcement involving Peter Garrett, it's probably not a bad thing. The death of Osama bin Laden will rightly dominate the news for at least the rest of the week, and it will give the Government a nice little breather before the Budget next Tuesday, which by all accounts, will be another mishandled shit-storm.

The significance of bin Laden's death for the United States and the western world cannot be underestimated, and certainly there are many who believe that this one event has secured Barack Obama's re-election. Certainly the punchy-ness of the 'Obama got Osama' slogan already scrawled on hundreds of hastily created signs suggests that this is the case. However, it is worth noting how the reaction to the news, late on a Sunday night (US time) was evidence as to how the US has changed in the last 10 years. Changed in a way many find disturbing.

On the evening of September the 11th 2001 I was watching Rove Live. Why I was doing this, I don't know. It's certainly rather embarrassing to admit that now, but watching it I was. Across the bottom of the screen came a news ticker with a line about a plane crashing into one of the World Trade Centre towers. This was an unusual direction for Rove I thought, I couldn't see how his audience of bland 18-35 year-olds could cope with this form of world shattering 'gotcha' humour. However, it kept scrolling, and the host seemed completely oblivious; well more completely than he usually was. I began to think about the depth of Rove's new found edginess. How far can he take this? What's the punch line? Certainly "Say hi to your mum for me" would not be an appropriate 'out' for this piece of sophisticated humour. I eventually came to my senses and switched channels and was promptly frozen in front of my television until 3 o'clock in the morning.

I watched what you watched, there's no need to recount it, but there was one image in particular that I remember which for me confirmed that if there was not a war in the Middle East by September 12, there would be one very soon. Late into the night, both of the Towers long collapsed, bin Laden officially blamed, and CNN were talking to Tom Clancy. That's right, Tom Clancy. They cut the interview short to show pictures from Gaza, where in the streets were people. Young people, and they were celebrating. It was not unbridled joy, but it was celebration. It was a show of the 'we like that this happened' variety. Of course, this made a lot of people angry.

Nine years, seven months and 20 days later I saw the same sort of celebration. Young people in the streets of Washington showing not unbridled joy, but saying 'we like that this happened', and it's going to make a lot of people angry.

The similarity of the two images is troubling. Extremism can breed extremism, and the celebration of death, even of one man, is extreme in my view. However, if you have grown up with one individual cited as the bogeyman to end all bogeymen, in a climate of fear and threat, how would you react to the news that he is dead? The answer is troubling, but not surprising.

Perfect Storm

It's hard to think of another time when a government has had to fight so many battles, on so many fronts, at the same time, and seem to be losing all of them. Julia Gillard only appears to enjoy being PM when she's overseas, and it's for good reason. Being Prime Minister of Australia, and being in Australia at the same time really fucking sucks. I mean REALLY sucks. I don't know why anyone would do it to themselves. And if, on top of that, you're a Labor Prime Minister, then shit gets real.

It's particularly bad at the moment. You know it's bad when Bill Shorten is seen to be snapping at your heals for the leadership. That's right. Bill Shorten. If I have to hear him say something like "We're getting on with the businessly business of being a business government" again I'm going to suffocate him with his own bomber jacket.

Immigration is an issue again, like it ever went away. If Australians get overcharged for milk twice in a row you can pretty much guarantee immigration will become an issue. "I just payed $4 for 2 litres of semi-skimmed, so fuck those idiots who've lost everything and are burning their makeshift prisons in a justifiable act of pure frustration. Send them back to their war-torn 'nations', or somewhere that's not here, to ease my milk-based expenses/existential despair." As always, this is a no-win situation for Labor and true to form they are not-winning the shit out of it.

The Carbon Tax has become the one of the worst sold policies in recent memory. It's like they wrote 'Carbon Tax' on a big piece of white construction paper and asked Tony Abbott to fill in the gaps. I'd try to defend it, but I don't know what it is. Rest assured the Australian public wouldn't want it anyway, even if it was good, well thought out policy. They do not have a history of that.

Wayne Swan is preparing for the most cutting budget of all time. Lindsay Tanner has written a book saying Julia Gillard dyes her hair. Peter Garrett just said something. Q and A is having a Royal Wedding special. Another State Labor MP reasoned that looking at child porn is good for career advancement. The only joy Julia Gillard is getting out of her job at the moment is going to China and saying 'Human Rights' 700 times.

You think the 2010 election was bad? 2013 is going to be off the hook. Set your baths to warm and your wrists to slit, we're not waking up after this one.

Where Will We Be...?

It's morning in Australia. The Prime Minister awakes to his breakfast of GU Rochtane Blueberry energy gel and two Electrolyte Rehydration Shotz tablets. He neatly slips into his lycra body suit as he watches Sunrise and listens to Sydney's most recent talkback abomination simultaneously. He notes Kochie's ever changing face; that laser surgery did not go well.

He's off, out on his Merida carbon fibre road bike; very light, lighter even than a small starving child.

As always his ride is enjoyable, although he pines for Canberra and the world record sized velodrome he had installed on the recently drained Lake Burley Griffin. People complained, but it's a man-made lake, so who cares? He wanted a man-made velodrome. Same thing.

Canberra had recently found a firm place in his heart; the scene for so many of his victories. Juliar gone, knifed by that bloke in the bomber jacket on the back of constant opposition sniping. Heavy Kevie, fleeing to the UN in a self important rage, furious at everyone's inability to catch on to his obvious hints. And of course good old Wayne Swan, living underground with the Green insurgents, in love with a fat man his deranged mind believes is a beautiful woman.

Canberra; scene of his historic "You're Welcome" statement to Indigenous Australians. He still remembers that sunny day in February, Andrew Bolt standing there, tears in his eyes, holding aloft a picture of the newly animated corpse of Rupert Murdoch.

Canberra; where he completely destroyed the progressives; both real and pretend. They litter the courtyards of parliament, vanquished by a combination of hubris, ineptitude and the habit of speaking unpalatable truths. They disgust him. Carbon taxers, welfare apologists, public healthcare evangelists and gay marriage sympathisers. Irrelevant, everyone of them, to his new nation of the individual. Autonomy reigns, safety nets are banned and the die is cast.

The boats are gone, turned away in their hundreds. Many sunk, but no one cares, for we are now alone. And Empty.

Empty to the core.

What's Good for the Goose...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece on Tony Abbott's segue into welfare bashing; a bashing that was particularly focused on the long term unemployed and those on disability payments. Abbott's sudden topic change has been put in context today, as Julia Gillard is set to release what sounds like a similar policy. Abbott was clearly in the know, and thought it best to pre-empt Gillard so that everyone will think that kicking the unemployed and the disabled was all his idea. Because you wouldn't want to miss out that title would you? You know, Nation's Biggest Bastard.

It would be remiss of me if I didn't give the same pasting to Gillard that I gave to Abbott for what I believe is a cynical attempt to smooth over other cuts to the Budget with the general populace. Obviously the Government believes that it cannot make the big cuts it needs to make to achieve next year's promised surplus without throwing a bone to those morons who think people on welfare are living it up playboy style. You know the guy they're thinking of; he's fat, he has a beard, smokes weed, plays Xbox all day, goes for a swim in his Olympic size swimming pool at his beach house AND IS FICTIONAL. He is fictional. He doesn't exist. The real guy on welfare may have a beard, but he's probably eating dog food and swimming in a puddle outside his sharehouse. It's not that ritzy stuff like My Dog he's eating either, I'm talking about that stuff that stays can-shaped when you tip it into the bowl. He lives off $250 a week, how is that even possible? That guy is MacGyver.

Anyway, as was stated in the previous piece, the long term unemployed are hardly a budget drag. They account for roughly 15% of the unemployed population and there has been a steady reduction over the past ten years. The supposedly ubiquitous 'Welfare Cheats' are another piece of misdirection. Focusing on fraud is not going to balance your budget, forcing people on disability pensions 'who can work, but don't want to' out into the workforce won't do it either. It will however, smooth it over for people who will be affected by the 'real' cuts.

Services will be cut. Funding for research will be cut. There is surely to be cuts to middle-class benefits (maybe that's hoping too much), and perhaps to education. People will be mad, but not as mad as they would be if you didn't also go after that 'bong-smoking hippie in a wheelchair living next-door watching his big screen TV all day.'

This is all for nothing as well. This is so the Budget can be in surplus next year. Why does it need to be in surplus next year? The answer is this: it doesn't. It 'needs' to be because the Government said it would be. It has no material affect on anyone, but for some reason people cannot stand the Government being in debt. They would prefer they cut everything rather than spend another day in the red.

I've tried to understand it, but I can't. Personal debt is through the roof, people live well beyond their means. Why do you care if the Government has to borrow more money? I certainly don't.

Mind you, I'm caring about less and less these days.

Hot Slots

Poker machine reform has been talked about on and off for years now, but it has never seemed to get off the ground. With sports gambling, on the internet in particular, becoming more and more pervasive, it looked as if the pokies would take a back seat when it came to gambling reform. The intrusion of betting into people's homes, with odds constantly thrown at them as they watch their Saturday football, where they don't even have to move to make a bet, seemed a more likely target. However, it's back on the table and it's all because of Andrew Wilkie.

Being from Perth, pokies are essentially alien to me. They are banned here, even the ones at our casino take a bit longer to play and involve an actual game of poker. Our pubs are free of them, there's no dingy back room populated with one aged pensioner and the local masturbator. We don't have them in our RSL or Leagues Clubs, because we don't have any RSL or Leagues Clubs, well we have RSLs, but nothing happens there. In fact we never leave our houses. If you've got mineral wealth we'll take you for all you've got, we'll even disenfranchise large communities just to get it, but we haven't based our economy on ripping off people who can't afford it.

From my position poker machine reform is a no-brainer. I find the large scale defence of poker machines to be utterly staggering. I cannot believe that anyone, particularly MPs, can be in favour of the current situation. I find the Liberal's position absolutely ridiculous. They are in favour of full welfare quarantining for Aboriginal People in the Territory, where people are registered, given cards and forced to shop at Woolworths, but try to make someone do something far less onerous so they can throw a pre-determined amount of money away in Sydney and they scream nanny state. Bull. Shit.

Clubs Australia, the association of clubs that rely on pokies for revenue, has launched a multi-million dollar campaign to sink the reforms. Obviously, they believe that allowing people to pre-determine their potential losses will lose them money, enough money to blow $20million on advertising without blinking. This is as clear as an admission that they primarily make their coin off people losing more than they intended. Claiming that the money goes back into the community is not a defence, you could argue the same thing for a community run heroin dealer, it doesn't make it right. Feeding off misery is feeding off misery.

Andrew Wilkie has come out this morning and stated that he has received death threats and attempts at blackmail over this issue. The response from Clubs Australia almost immediately was to essentially call him a liar, ask him for proof and feign outrage at an accusation he hasn't made. Their CEO Anthony Ball stated that there is no way this came from one of their members. Really? No way at all? I mean, Clubs Australia is probably a pretty tight ship, there's absolutely no possibility at all that one of their 4000 members didn't read the 'No Death Threats or Blackmail' memo in the bimonthly newsletter. There's no way that someone might take the law into their own hands. That never happens.

This is a passion project for Andrew Wilkie. He made it part of his deal to support the Government, so I suppose it's a passion project for them too now. It will be a hard road. Certain State Governments make millions in taxes from these machines, and Tony Abbott's position has more than a whiff of hoping that cultivating opposition to this may get him into the Lodge.

An opportunist to the end.

The Question

When an issue gets done to death and everyone's sick of it; there's always the leadership question. When there's column that's nearing deadline and the thought of talking to Wayne Swan about the Budget makes you want to crack skulls and feast on the goo inside; there's always the leadership question. When someone goes on Q and A, performs well and the audience's shoes stay on; there's always the leadership question. Whenever there's nothing to ask or if the answer would be so boring that it amounts to the same thing; ask about the leadership.

When you've got to write something, but can't think of anything, play the leadership card – but you can only use it as much as you like.

Not only does it get you out of jail for one story, it creates heaps of other stories as well. There's the follow-up article where you get some shifty looking guy to say 'That's ridiculous, I fully support someone'. If you can wait long enough for a new poll to come out – so, you know, 24 hours, you can get another story like "Leadership Tensions Reflected/Not Reflected in Latest Whatever". Even if the poll's main numbers don't say what you want them to say you'll be able to find some obscure question or interesting dichotomy that you can again throw at that shifty looking guy from earlier.

By now some friends have probably jumped on the band wagon and your away; you'll now have some filler next time you've got half a story – You: "Does the issue with the Budget/refugees/angry senate/carbon tax/NBN/something have anything to do with the ongoing leadership tensions? Shifty guy: 'That's ridiculous'. You: 'Do you fully support…?" Shift guy: '…Someone, yes." His darting eyes and innate sweatiness will take care of the rest.

This fundamental practice of political journalism was on show yet again this past week. Kevin Rudd goes on Q and A, and all of a sudden he's popular again. "Hey, remember that guy we really hated a year ago? He's pretty awesome." So of course, some wise arse asked the question everyone loves to ask politicians: "Do you want the leadership?" The reason this is everyone's favourite question is because no matter what the situation, no matter what side of politics they're on, whether they're in government or opposition, the answer is always yes. Watching a politician answer it while trying not to sound like some destabilising rabble-rouser seems to be some people's idea of a good time.

Getting an honest answer is not the intent of the question. Shit stirring is the intent of the question. Think about it; divorced from politics the question is: "Do you want a promotion that could possibly/will lead you to the very pinnacle of your profession, and provide you with a place in history forever?"

How much thinking time would you need? The answer is obvious, the questioner just wants to see him squirm and try to hide his pants bulge of ambition.

Does want to be Prime Minister again? Hells yeah. Will he do anything about it is the question that is important. He probably won't, but if he was gifted the opportunity it would be wacko the diddli-yo and sucking sauce bottles all over again, I guarantee it.

The Lament of an Armchair Commentator

Somehow I ended up watching Q and A last night. Something which I usually avoid because screaming at the TV is apparently only acceptable during the final moments of vaguely consequential football matches. Every time Tony Jones said that it was time to move on and another subject was raised, I audibly groaned and writhed in my chair, like a depressed toddler with irritable bowel syndrome. There was not one topic that I could bear to listen to without flying into a rage. I commented to a friend that I couldn’t decide what crushingly depressing issue to write about today. I still can't, so I think I'll just be crushingly depressed.

I have expressed my dislike of Q and A in past pieces; the smug questioners, the applause for the obviously flawed populist statement from someone who only half knows what they're talking about, the questions that turn in statements, the increasing frequent party plants reading their questions scrawled on their inner forearms. It is consistently infuriating.

But recently I've found everything infuriating. The constantly polled electorate, consistently inconsistent with everything: We hate Julia and like Tony, we hate them both, kinda middling on Julia but starting to dislike Tony, like Rudd again, hate Julia middling on Tony, love Turnbull, we want Turnbull and Rudd at the same time because 2009 was kick-arse, the carbon tax is good but it sucks and will destroy us. Do people really change their minds like this constantly? Has everyone just become pure id?

Mark Latham has done away with the pretence of being a conniving, manipulative bastard and has just become pure bastard. Julia Gillard has obviously received some polling that she's seen as too close to the Greens so has therefore decided to call them names; because, well because…they're smelly and dobb on her all the time, I don't know…maybe 5 year olds will buy it and vote for her in 13 years.

I don't think I like anyone in politics anymore. The week before last I watched the full coverage of the NSW Election, just to feel something. I ended up sitting on my couch in the dark giggling softly at some Labor guy saying "It's a big loss, I'm not going to lie." He should have lied; it would have made for better TV. Only the ridiculous claims that the entire result was due to the carbon tax could get me going and yelling 'Bullshit' to no one in particular, but it was fleeting.

The media is too obsessed with the political soap opera for there to be any real debate about policy. No wonder no one knows anything. The public just seem to have vague notions of things, like they fell asleep in front of the TV and it made them dream about something Ross Garnaut said. I know 'the media never talks about policy' complaint is an old chestnut spouted by wankers like myself when no one agrees with me, BUT IT'S TRUE.

I know this blog usually attempts to be funny, and maybe Steve Fielding will say something ridiculous on the weekend and we'll get past this. But until then please take a moment to consider just how well and truly fucked we all are.

Poll Bludger

Yesterday, Tony Abbott took a mid-carbon tax argument segue to the issue of welfare reform/total destruction. Many took it as a welcome break from the current climate focussed vague-a-thon, but at a time when the cost of living is at the forefront of people’s minds, this was actually all about the carbon tax. Once again Tony Abbott is wetting his dog whistle and is off to the park with his shit scooper.

Welfare resentment is one of those things that seems to be higher at the lower end of the economic spectrum, and all that’s required to get it going is a little push with some cynical political footwork. Tony Abbott is well trained at this sort of manoeuvre, learned through his years of boxing and stomping on cute things. As those in the working and lower-middle-classes struggle with increased costs, there’s nothing that gets the hackles up than being told that THEY are paying someone to ‘slack off’. It gets even worse when they’re told that welfare fraud in particular is a major drag on the public purse.

Now of course, that is bullshit. While the complexities of unemployment and why people some people stay unemployed is probably something that should have a lot of money thrown at it, in terms of the budget it’s small potatoes. The long-term unemployed represent a small proportion of total unemployment, and in recent years there numbers have dropped dramatically, from 3.7 percent in 1993 to 0.9 percent in 2005. Which is perhaps a suggestion the welfare system is working just fine.

Of the billions spent per year on social security and welfare the vast majority goes towards the baby bonus, childcare rebates and the family tax benefit, which the most of those up in arms about ‘dole bludgers’ accept without irony. Of course that’s not what Abbott wants to draw attention to, because lots of those lovely swinging voters get those benefits and those guys are sensitive. Best to have a crack at the mythical, bong-smoking, couch laying arse picker living it up on $250 a week and that arrogant prick on disability. Those bastards are the real problem.

The current pressures on personal finances bring the need for political scapegoats and the long-term unemployed are an easy target for Abbott. They receive little sympathy or defence, have no lobby groups, and the myths surrounding them frustrate working people struggling with the current financial climate. Without mentioning it, Abbott has indirectly made people think of the financial effects of the carbon tax. All while pushing an ideological barrow and being a populist turd sock. This is the sort of evil genius reserved for James Hardie board meetings and Nick Minchin bathroom mirror monologues.

I’d like to say the electorate will see through this and call Abbott on his shit, but I’m not on crack and neither are you.

Demolition Unspinable

This Saturday past, the State of New South Wales took out the trash. It removed a government so decrepit, so past its use-by date that it spent most of the election campaign apologising for even having an election. It had been coming for a very long time. The NSW public decided to kick them out about 10 minutes after Morris Iemma completed his victory speech on election night 2007.

The 2007 poll was a victory for hopelessness and ennui. No one liked Iemma and no one liked his government. They had been on the nose basically since Iemma took over from Bob Carr, because Morris Iemma is the very definition of mediocre, he is a glass of tepid water. The reason people voted for him is, well…there was no other option. Peter Debnam had to work hard just to be called mediocre, his standard response to questioning was to shuffle some papers in front of him, look nervous, apologise and promise to have the figures next time. During the election campaign his costings were hours late to a press conference “because of the photocopiers.” Morris Iemma was incredibly lucky. You only get one Peter Debnam in politics, that’s because most of them sell insurance or Amway.

Then came the scandals varying in content from corruption to paedophilia, Iemma’s resignation after being rolled at the ALP State Conference, a new Premier who had only been an MP for two years and would have struggled to inspire water to flow downhill, resignation after resignation after resignation, a Labor run council linked to property development sex favours, another new Premier, and the sale of a state asset at nearly 25% of the price that was offered a few years before. This government was not only an embarrassment; it was an ultra slow motion car crash on national TV. The polls have been rancid for years and there was not one person in existence who did not see Saturday’s massacre coming.

Surely then, this is an election that needs no real analysis. A party does not lose 31 seats because of one issue, or even from a bad campaign. People were just over it. Everyone. How can you spin this? Either side. Barry O’Farrell didn’t need to say anything. He could have changed his party name to the Hitler Youth and started habitually urinating in an old lady’s dog purse at Circular Quay, people would have voted for him. He didn’t need to have policy; he just needed to attend.

Yet the Federal Coalition has the temerity to suggest that the result was due to dissatisfaction with the Carbon Tax, something that has been thrown up in the last two months. Put down the crack pipe please. For God’s sake, THEY HAD TWO UNELECTED PREMIERS, A MINISTER WAS A CONVICTED PAEDOPHILE, PEOPLE LIED TO THE CORRUPTION WATCHDOG, THEY SOLD THE ELECTRICY NETWORK FOR SOME MAGIC BEANS AND A WRISTY BEHIND THE BIKE SHED. This wasn’t a government, it was one of those late era Benny Hill specials were most of the jokes were stolen from Italian TV.

But no, Tony Abbott thinks his ‘Big New Tax’ line and some bullshit about ‘real action on shit we don’t believe in’ had enough traction to deliver the biggest electoral landslide in Australian History. Get your hand off it.

Carbon Poll Polution

So apparently Julia Gillard should just give up; should in fact resign in disgrace because according to the latest Newspoll and analysis of said Newspoll she is: "Prime Minister in name only.” Which is an interesting observation; because it seems to me that it is the name that counts. Power doesn't just disappear because Newspoll says it has. Newspolls do not elect governments, and the day they do is the day I'll be living in a tin shack south west of nowhere, muttering to myself and reading old newspapers. Polls can however, control Governments if they let them.

The poll also stated that 53% of people are opposed to the Carbon Tax, which given the fact that no one knows what that actually is yet, what it will affect, and to what extent it will affect it, that should probably say 53% of people guess that they will be opposed to the Carbon Tax when they find out what it is. It seems that it is never too early to have a poll about something the people are yet to be properly informed about.

Q. "How to you feel about a carbon tax that: may cause a rise in grocery prices, may make fuel unaffordable and may ultimately cause modern civilisation to crumble; leading to the establishment of a series of shanty towns warring with each other over the use of the last iPad, or may not, we're not sure yet. What do you think?"

A. "Strongly opposed."

Useless, but this is what you get when you announce a policy where a large amount of the detail is still unknown, and this is what the Government have done. In August last year I said that Gillard would struggle with the conservative independents on one side and Greens on the other, and while she has avoided a lot of confrontation in the first 6 months, we're beginning to see fissures. The Government largely went too early on this policy because of a combination pressure from the Greens for a carbon tax and pressure from everyone else for an environmental policy of some kind. The result is the announcement of impending environmental policy, but with no detail and no nuance. There is a title, and a vague framework, but nothing else because the work is still to be done. Meanwhile, the Opposition can say whatever they want to demonise the policy, because there is an information vacuum to fill. Tony Windsor came out last night and said that the Government has made a mistake. No shit.

I'm not saying the policy is wrong (how could I anyway?), but the strategy certainly is. The Government cannot not ditch this tax now; if they do, they're finished. There is nothing the public hate more than a Government that cannot make up its mind, and this one has already spent a lot of time dithering. They've gone too early, and they'll just have to eat the bad polls until they have something concrete, which needs to be soon.
In the meantime, we'll just have to put up with more polls on how people think they will think about things they haven't yet thought about.

Probably forever.

Sticky Mandate

In Australian politics, the word mandate can be both a shield and a weapon. It can be a single sentence defence of a complex or controversial issue in government and it can stone hurled back by an opposition when circumstances change. It is also vague. There is no direct measure of what entails a mandate. Generally if a party gains a majority in the House of Representatives, then they institute their policy plan, because they have a mandate from the Australian public to do so.

That is rather simplistic though. It assumes that if you vote for a party you agree with its entire platform. Policies are not voted on individually, it's all or nothing, so the mandate defence can generally only be used for policies that were front and centre during the most recent election. Oppositions however, will use the mandate attack whenever a government does something even slightly different from what they said they would do.

When it comes to close elections, everything becomes vague.

In 1998 John Howard took the GST tax package to an election. He won, just, so he claimed a mandate and introduced the tax. But did he actually have a mandate? Howard received 49.02% of the two-party preferred vote to Beazley's 50.98%, but had won more seats. In other words, if there had been a referendum GST (which was the central issue of the campaign), on those numbers it would have been voted down. That however, is not how Australian politics works, and the tax was implemented. Rightly so. He was in government, so he did it even if claiming that the Australian people had 'spoken' was a bit rich.

The current situation involving Julia Gillard's reversal on a 'carbon tax' is a bit different, but the issue probes the same grey area as to what a mandate actually is. Julia Gillard said that if she won the election, her government would not institute a carbon tax. The thing is, she didn't really 'win' the election in the traditional sense. She is currently leading the government with the help of another party and independents who were not party to her election platform. She cannot be expected to institute her entire program 100%, because the 'Australian people', like some unconscious hive mind, decided that any government would have to be tempered by the Greens and four mostly agricultural gentlemen. Basically, a hung parliament means that it is open season on policy, and crapping on about mandates in this situation is ridiculous.

After the government was formed, Gillard invited all parties to join the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee to discuss a national response. This is what they came up with: Carbon Tax. The Liberal and Nationals refused to join that particular committee, and thus missed an opportunity to have any input. Why? Because to do so would have been participating in the process of governing, and the Liberals are so obsessed with pointing out the 'illegitimacy' of the government that they dare not take part in anything that would actually acknowledge Gillard's leadership. Tony Abbott is scaling new heights of hypocrisy. It was only a few months ago that he was decrying this government's lack of mandate, now he's bitching that they've had to turn around on one policy. His demand for an election on this issue reveals his complete inability to accept that he is not the Prime Minister.

If Labor had a majority, then maybe they'd still be pushing for an ETS straight away, rather than having a carbon tax first, but they don't have a majority. They have to negotiate policy across the political spectrum with other parties and individuals. They will have to make many alterations to promises made at the last election. In a lot of cases we are going to see better policy. This is what politics is: Negotiation and compromise. Particularly in hung parliaments

It's going to happen a lot this term and it's time to get used to that.

Splitsville, Population: Everyone

Roughly six months after the collective shrug of the hung parliament and the creation of the patchwork Gillard Government, federal politics has once again tread new grounds of confusion. There are splits everywhere; in Cabinet, in the opposition leadership group, in the senate, and in Barnaby Joyce's top ten head voices.

In Cabinet, there is a near continuous fire sale of Kevin Rudd's programs and policies. Disaster rebuilding has provided the perfect excuse to dismantle much of his legacy, and Rudd is noticeably and justifiably pissed. He recently stormed out of a cabinet meeting, but quickly got his staff to book a plane that he would be late for, just in case anyone asked why.

In general, Government policy is fluid. A bill to appropriate money was passed without its consent, to avoid a constitutional crisis they meekly acquiesced and amended their own bill, setting an appalling precedent. Health reform is now whatever the State Premiers will sign. Thus the agreement entitled "Hey, do you want free money for shit?" was enacted. The Premiers looked as if they had tripped over bag of unmarked non-sequential $100 bills on there way to their car that morning, the PM looked like a senior citizen who hands out lollies to children just to get attention.

The Opposition meanwhile, smell blood in the water, but they can't decide what to do about it. They cannot decide whether they should be overtly or covertly racist, whether to blow a dog whistle or commit the political equivalent of a hate crime. Andrew Robb cannot decide whether he can stand the sight of Joe Hockey for another two years, Joe Hockey can't decide whether 'humanity' in politics is a good thing or not, Abbott is unsure whether Scott Morrison is a just a dick or a portrait of Machiavellian brilliance. Julie Bishop is just unsure, but she sure can stare at things.

The upshot of all this is that we can't decide what to make of all this either, the nation is currently split exactly 50-50 on two-party-preferred. Does anyone care? Probably not. To paraphrase one of the world's great fictional drunken cynics, maybe we're just hoping that when we flip the coin it will explode and kill us.

Towards Rock Bottom

The refugee issue has long been tagged a hoodoo for the Labor Party. That’s pretty much correct. It’s a wedge issue, and a particularly sensitive one as well. It neatly bisects the educated left wing voters and the traditional Labor base of the blue-collar working-to-lower-middle class. This situation is made particularly difficult because the issue generally splits the MPs themselves from their constituents in the traditional base. So it’s a divisive issue, and Labor is still spooked by it. The Liberals know this, so they bring it up a lot.

This has gone on for so long that it is becoming a problem for the Liberals as well. When it comes to parsing comment on refugee issues, the Libs have become caricatures of themselves. Every Liberal MP who has taken a stint as Immigration Spokesperson, whether in government or in opposition has instantly become an arse. Off the leash, and desperate to keep the issue alive, they will take any opportunity to make Labor talk about it. Even if this includes the sort of deplorable comments usually reserved for boozy BNP Christmas lunches and NRL season launches.

The more Labor has felt the need to compromise itself and its principles on the issue, the more the Liberals have moved to the edge, desperate to maintain an unattainable air of unreasonable bastardry. Scott Morrison’s reprehensible politicisation of the funerals of asylum seekers killed in December’s Christmas Island boat tragedy is a prime example. His mean spirited bitching about close relatives being flown in at government expense to attend these funerals, including those of two children aged 3 months and 8 months, is the latest low for a party blinded by a policy to be ‘tough’ on asylum seekers. ‘Tough’ should never equal ‘cruel’, but the Liberals are way past thinking logically.

Joe Hockey has spoken out, calling for the party to retain its humanity, it’s astonishing it has taken this long. Humanity is something that has been missing from the Liberals on this issue for ten years, but unfortunately it will take more than the calls of a moderate leadership aspirant to soften the majority of the Liberal caucus who are desperate to ‘keep’ an issue with which they have so much traction. At least Hockey finally has taken a stand on something, and shown that he is more than an empty suit.

Nothing will change until they hit rock bottom, and finally cop a backlash from the public for the shit they’ve been spouting. You’d think Morrison’s latest escapade would do it, but you’d be wrong.

In the Gutter, Shit Happens

Yesterday, Tony Abbott's office received a request for comment from Channel 7 with regards to something he said in Afghanistan last year. They agreed to an interview and two and a half hours later, on the grass outside Parliament house Mark Riley, that shining beacon of fair reporting, pulled out his metaphorical knife and began practice-stabbing.

The result was one of those moments that every politician dreads, when a journalist says: "I've got some footage I'd like you to watch." Riley produced edited footage of Abbott in Afghanistan, uttering the phrase "shit happens" while talking about the death of an Australian soldier, Riley then bluntly insinuated that he (Abbott) was making light of the situation. Abbott said it was out of context (it was an edited video after all), Riley proceeded to ask what the context was and the result was: silence.

Silence.

Abbott appeared to be in a trance. Rocking back and forth, quietly willing Mark Riley's head to explode. From the angle Channel 7 aired he appeared to have had a stroke, but from Riley's point of view it was the death stare to end all death stares. It was a combination of embarrassment, speechlessness and unrelenting fury.

I don't have a lot of time for Tony Abbott. I think he's a cynical, opportunistic bastard with a bit of a nasty streak. His position on asylum seekers makes me sick. Post-election, he has acted with supreme arrogance, like he leads the Government in exile. He is a Howard zealot, and if he ever becomes Prime Minister I will strongly consider leaving. But, this is bullshit. This is a beat-up and Mark Riley should hang his head in shame.

His hypocrisy is astounding.

"Hey Mr Abbott, do you think the widow will be offended by this video WE'VE shown? What do you have to say to the widow who will be offended by this video WE'VE shown and are now insisting you talk about? Will you apologise? Because you've clearly offended her…via us of course, but we're only reporting on the video we dug through and edited after waiting months for an FOI application. It wasn't what we were actually looking for, but we saw this part and thought 'Hey, do you think the widow might find that offensive? Let's ask her and see if she does.'"

Abbott phoned Jared MacKinney's widow and apologised. She accepted his explanation and said there is no issue. If she doesn't have a problem then nor should you.

What I suspect will be most damaging to Abbott is not the comment, but the stare. That aggro, deathly stare will haunt him forever. His judgement will be questioned, as will that of his staff. Mark Riley will sleep soundly of course, satisfied that he has made the world a better place.

ManipuLatham

Mark Latham will now truly do anything to get a headline. He will lie, manipulate, say deliberately offensive things to smear his subject, grandstand, ambush and spew bile all while pursuing a vicious personal vendetta against those he feels have wronged him. No wonder Channel 9 hired him as a political commentator. He's perfect.

His comments regarding Julia Gillard's lack of empathy due to the absence of miniature, half-breed versions of herself can be taken for what they are – garbage, but we must take notice of the reasons why Latham said what he did. Firstly, Mark Latham does not believe that if you don't have children you don't have 'much love in you'. He is not Bill Heffernan. He said that because he wants to hurt Gillard, and hurt her in a very manipulative back-door sort of way.

Some will believe that because of the outrage at his comments, his plan has backfired and achieved the opposite of his intention. It didn't and it hasn't. Latham's intention was not to make everyone think that Julia Gillard is brutal fembot whose emotion chip is on the fritz, but rather to remind everyone that Julia Gillard is not performing the 'traditional' role of her gender and that she is different in that regard to many women in Australia. Outraged or not, every person who read or heard of Latham's comments was reminded that Gillard does not have children and that she is not married, closely followed by the fact that she is an atheist. Mark Latham does not give a shit about any of that, but he knows that there are some people out there that do. He made it as offensive as possible to make sure he got the headline, and the effects are still playing out.

The article was timed with commentary on Julia Gillard's performance in the aftermath of the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi. Gillard did what any PM would do really, she let Bligh (who was actually in charge of managing the crisis) do her thing and offered as much Federal help as possible. The appearance of the Prime Minister in such situations is purely for background support, it was not her place to pull 20 hour days and direct the troops, if she did so she would have just got in the way. The public however, clearly expected a rougher, more emotional response from the PM.

Obvious comparisons were made between her performance and Anna Bligh's, who managed to turn an angry mob of haters into a bunch grudging admirers. The consensus seemed to be that Gillard was not emotionally affected enough by the disaster, she was dressed too neatly, and she didn’t cry. The Australian public and media are still getting used to having a female national leader and such issues are not usually in focus when male leaders deal with disasters. So Latham's article was timed perfectly to add a kick to this sort of analysis. Just when the media and the public are contemplating how a female PM should behave in such situations, he makes sure everyone knows that Gillard doesn't 'fit the mould' as far as a 'woman' goes in this country. In doing so, he hints that the reason Gillard 'performed badly' during the crisis, is that she is out of touch with the values of 'middle Australia' (i.e. all of Australia). He has turned a natural disaster into an opportunity to point out Julia Gillard's marital status and 'wasted' womb; to blow a dog whistle for people he would usually punch in the face.

Offensive, opportunistic, bitter and…pure Latham.

Flawed Levy Stress

In 1996 the Howard Government, in response to the shocking massacre at Port Arthur, introduced a gun control policy that banned semi-automatic firearms. To assure that those who owned such weapons were not put at a financial disadvantage, Howard offered a 'buyback' scheme, where gun owners would sell their soon to be illegal rifles to the Government who would then destroy them. Howard had decided to use the political will of the moment to quickly introduce reform, a poll put national wide support of this action at around 90%.

The buyback was estimated to cost in excess of $500 million, the Government was in debt (as they kept telling us, remember 'Labor's black hole'?), and half a billion dollars back in the mid nineties was a lot of money (roughly 5% of the overall debt). They didn't want to pay for it, because they'd spent so much time whinging about debt and how they didn't like it. So if they borrowed money they'd look like what they were: hypocrites. So what did Howard do? He introduced a one-off levy, or more correctly he increased the Medicare Levy for the 1996-97 financial year to cover the cost. Aside from a bunch of farmers in North Queensland, clinging to the M16s they regularly use to blow a rabbit's arsehole through its face, there was a relatively low amount of bitching about the policy and the tax increase. Why? - Because it was a good cause, and a relatively small amount of money.

In 1999, Howard did it again, finding it necessary to increase the Medicare Levy to bolster the nation's defence budget for the upcoming excursion to East Timor after its independence vote. This time the increase levy would bring in $900 million. In both of these cases the opposition agreed almost without question.

Back to the present, and the Gillard Government is faced with an estimated $5.2 billion rebuild of infrastructure in southern Queensland. That cost is in addition to the millions already spent on emergency cash for flood victims and the rescue effort. The Government is in debt, and has spent a lot of energy saying they will have it paid off soon. So, like Howard, they've decided that a one-off levy in addition to the rollback of programs is in order. For some reason though, this has set everyone off, this has apparently never happened before and is some sort of shocking travesty. The Opposition isn’t playing ball either, instead preferring to drag out their same tired lines and score some points. Clearly Australia's collective memory has been pissed away on that rock at the back of Dave's house, during his last annual meat, beer and misogyny party.

The first issue raised is people who have already contributed to the various victim charity funds. "I've already given money (I'm awesome that way), so why should I have to pay more?" Well, you gave money to the victims of the flood (good on you by the way) BUT the cost of the flood to the victims is a drop in the ocean compared with fixing all the roads, rail, sewers, power, pipelines and other general infrastructure damaged by the flood. That's what the Government wants your money for, not for getting all the mud out of Nanna's kitchen. People have actually said they want their donation back, and to them I give a big middle finger…right in your eye you heartless prick. Charity is not conditional, either you give or you don’t. Do not swan around like you now own the place. You are not the messiah and your family secretly hates you.

The second issue raised is the financial heat on tax payers and a negative affect on consumer spending. I've got two words: bull and shit. If you earn $50 000 a year, admittedly not middle of the road, you will pay $1 dollar a week or around $52 extra tax for the year. So instead of the $9050 you would usually pay in tax (if you don't have a HECS debt) you will pay $9102. If you earn $100000 a year, you will pay roughly $5 a week or $260 extra for the year. So instead of the $26950 you would usually pay in tax (if you have private health), you will pay $27210. If that piddling amount reduces overall consumer spending for the whole year then we're already in deep shit.

The third issue raised is that the levy shows poor planning on behalf of the Government. Well…it perhaps shows a lack of flexibility in the budget and there is a reason for that. The implementation of such levies reveal how terrified Governments are of going further into debt, because some people hate Government debt so much they would rather sell every public asset in existence before the nation borrows fifty cents. The fixation on surplus in this country borders on the insane. People seem to think that if the Government is in debt, they will soon be living in a failed state. Like they think Government borrowing is the bureaucratic equivalent of failing at life. This view is juxtaposed with the fact that most Australians cannot wait to get into debt themselves by purchasing an over-priced monstrosity of a house, situated only 20 minutes from the middle of nowhere.

The Government had three choices after the flood: Borrow more money, cut $5.2 billion worth of Government services, or issue a levy. Given that the fist option is just plain unthinkable, they went with a combination of options two and three. Was that the right decision? Was it justified? All things being equal, the answer is no, but things are far from equal. This is politics.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie Annoy-oi-oi-ing?

The flags are out. The clichés are flowing. Obnoxious, witless (yet rhythmic) chants dominating the first two rounds of the Australian Open. The lamb ads are set to intolerant. Just like End Times, Australia Day will be here shortly.

People with a sense of history will understand why nationalism can be bad, and there's probably no need to go into what seemingly innocent national pride can turn into. That doesn't mean that all nationalism is systematic of something darker, just that it can be disturbing to some people who have seen it in other contexts. Of course there are many ways in which people express nationalism, some of them harmless (demurely supporting your national sports team), some of them harmful (wearing your nation's flag as a cape and walking the streets in groups of 5 or more), and some of them creepy (waking your children up at 12.01am on Australia Day to sing Waltzing Matilda in hushed tones while worshipping a plastic idol of David Boon). Look you get the idea, you can like your country, just don't be an arsehole about it.

Many people like Australia Day, and well yeah…that's fine. I don't begrudge people a national day, but I just can't help but feel that this particular national day (i.e. January 26th) is somewhat tainted.

Now I know what you're thinking: "He's going to crank out the phrase 'Invasion Day', I'm going to roll my eyes and head over to Cracked or Failblog or somewhere else where funny stuff happens, not preachy leftist bullshit . I don't need this, what did I do? I don't even put flags on my car, who does that? I'm not the fucking Prime Minister. Yes, yes, yes colonialism, very bad, many indigenous people killed/dispossessed/disenfranchised/forgotten etc. I've been to uni and I've drunk that particular brand of Coolaid before."

Before that series of thoughts play out to completion, please take note: for once I'm not attacking anyone. All I'm saying is that if we're going to have a national day (and why not I suppose), why don't we have one which is inclusive and that does not actively alienate large swaths of the population. Let's have a day to mark the birth of a modern western democracy which still trying (well, some of us are trying) to right the wrongs of the past, present and future, instead of marking the arrival of English colonists with a bunch of rapists and murderers in tow who would later claim to have only been convicted of stealing bread. Many would have us believe that there was an epidemic of bread-stealing in that late 1700s, as opposed to the stuff that was actually happening.

Anyway, I for one think that the main reason that Australia Day has not been moved is that Federation (you know: the actually significant date for Australia's nationhood) occurred on New Years Day 1901 and there is no way in hell we are going to let them double-dip on a public holiday. Social awareness is good, but work days sure do suck a whole lot of arse.

The only solution appears to be to become a republic, and then to not be so stupid as to do so on any existing state or federal holiday. That day will become whatever we decide to make it, based on a date without historical baggage. Will it get rid of the flags? Will it rid us of the vile insular nationalism that has been creeping into the Australian consciousness? Will it finally make all your progressive friends shut their pie holes and have fun for once? Well, maybe not, but it would be something right?

Come in Spinner

The frankly indescribable floods in Queensland, while far too serious a subject to be discussed in this 'forum', have presented a rather surprising turn of events: praise, and yes even fondness for Anna Bligh. It is of course, thoroughly deserved. Bligh has provided exactly what was needed in the face of impending and ongoing disaster: honesty, heart and information. What is surprising about it is that if Queenslanders were asked to list Anna Bligh's attributes a month ago, the exact opposites of those three words would have been used. Anna Bligh was gone, she was seen as disingenuous and incompetent, and people were pumped to vote her out. They were looking forward to it.

So what was different about the way Bligh presented herself over the last few weeks? Number 1: She was not thinking about how she was presenting herself. Number 2: The media were not thinking about how she was presenting herself and Number 3: No one in Queensland was concerned at all with anything to do with that sort of bullshit. What we witnessed was Government working without spin, the media reporting without spin and everyone being better off for its absence.

We must realise however, that there is a reason for that: The situation dictated it. Anna Bligh and the media did not just learn simultaneously that this is what people like. It is because that for once there is enough 'news' occurring to satisfy the 24 hour cycle, and that has simply removed the more speculative news journalism. Just like that, away goes the spin and the pseudo-psychological over-analysis of your local journalistic crumb-bum.

It's a common misconception that it is solely politicians and the corporate sector who deal in spin, but in fact it is the media itself who is the true master of the dark arts. Spin was invented by the media, and it has since leaked into every orifice of public and private bodies. Long gone are the days when an event happens and somebody reports on it. There are many 'phases' now to major news stories that tend to blow things out. They are: the 'pre-event speculation' phase, the 'event is about to start, I wonder if the speculation was right' phase, the 'event has started' phase, the 'event is continuing' padding, the 'approaching the middle of the event' further padding, the 'middle of the event' rest and recap, post-middle discussion, continuing post-middle, nearing climax, climax, post climax, repeat of what happened at climax in case you just joined us or were in a coma, nearing end, end, analysis, end of year montage preparation. These 16 phases must be filled with a narrative of some sort or the audience will get bored and turn over to Two and a Half Men or My Kitchen is Pretty Good to blast away their feelings of inadequacy with food, tears and quasi-humorous misogyny. If there's no actual narrative, you spin one. It's that easy!

Anyway, the point is (I think): if we like our politicians to be straight-forward, honest and to tell it like it is, if we like them to be rough around the edges and free of those greasy PR types, if we want them to speak like real people, then why aren't they like that all the time?

Why?

Because if they were, the news cycle would destroy them. The media would be more likely to punish them for it than praise them, and so would we. If it wasn't during an event of the magnitude of these floods, where people feel uncomfortable talking about something so debauched as politics, then we would punish MPs for exhibiting these qualities.

Making flippant remarks, being glib, wrong tie, looked funny, looked bored, was laughing, wasn't laughing, looked asleep, bad hair, no hair, fat, not fat enough, ate a burger, ate the wrong burger, mixed up the red heads, stumbled on a community leader's name, actually stumbled over a community leader, stepped in dog shit, drank a foreign beer, looked awkward hugging someone, hugged someone they weren't meant to, kicked a football badly, hit a kid in the nuts playing cricket, has an ugly family, has a hot family, has a second family, has one of those rat dogs, plays badminton, referenced a slightly daggy musical act, eats cheese…in bed, is one of those people who thinks the phrase 'rocket surgery' is still funny, drinks, doesn't drink, in middling on drinking etc. These are all the things that get jumped on when there is not enough real stuff going on to feed the media beast.

If you want to know why your representatives look like robots, and say the same keywords five times over every time someone shoves a camera in their gob, then there's your answer. The only thing that fights spin is more spin, with some repetition to boot. The less you say, the less interpretation there is, and the less bullshit you read about yourself tomorrow morning.

You have to go robot, just don't go full robot.