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….
Monday, September 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, August 15, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, July 25, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, July 18, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, July 11, 2011
'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.
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.
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