no banker left behind

Comrades,

It is the most delicious of ironies, is it not?
A merchant banker Prime Minister is forced by his junior coalition partner, the Country Party rump, to call a Royal Commission into the filthy, thieving, cheating banks, who have developed the telling of lies into an art form.
A banker, who now has to appoint someone like a former Chief Judge of the Equity Division of some Supreme Court somewhere or another, to inquire into his own kind.
And he reportedly had to be "dragged, kicking and screaming" into opening up the can or worms.
No kidding.
Never mind that it is among the most memorable, and weakest, political back flips in living memory, or that it is fatal to his spineless Prime Ministership, a mob of country bumpkins who have a grudge against the banks over some drought loans that went awry way back when, push him into a corner to out the bean counters.
That's something that has always eluded me about capitalism - how come the bankers can make billions of dollars a year in net profits just by pushing a hill of beans from one corner of the room to the other?
Never could work out how that works.
Must be something to do with what we were taught in junior high school about "compound interest".
Or maybe it's just the simple matter of "cross-currency interest rate swaps".
I don't know, no clue...except that it produces obscene wealth for a tiny few.
And here we have Mr Trundle as the perfect example with an estimated net worth of some $140M [and that was at the time of his assumption of the Prime Ministership in 2015 - no one has done an accurate assessment since], and of course that does not count the cash in Lucy's name, or the greenbacks stashed in double-blind trusts or squirreled away for a rainy day in sunny places like the Bahamas.
Jeez, his rather nice house in leafy Point Piper is valued at approx $50M, if it were put on the market tomorrow and he moved to Punchbowl.
And he doesn't even need a nice car, because he gets one for free, with a driver, as well as the exclusive use [read: free lease with servants] of Kirribilli House, just across the harbour, whose value is inestimable.
As an alumni of Vaucluse Public School, he knows a thing or two about the value of a delightful water views.
And now the Rich Dude is confined to Pandora's Box.
Back in the day when I was knocking about in radio newsrooms and a bank story surfaced, the news editor would always say to me "Craves! Can you go and get this one, and go hard. Everybody loves bank bashing".
Little wonder, there was never any shortage of material.
Have a look at just a few, and it is just a few, banking scandals that have been doing the traps of the meejah in only the last few years: ANZ financial planner jailed for stealing $1M, Westpac charged by ASIC over market manipulation of bank bill swap rates, ANZ announces $5M refund to disgruntled customers who lost a few coins in the gutters outside their bank branches, conditions imposed the the Millionaire's Factory [Macquarie Bank] licence to operate, ANZ breaches responsible lending laws, NAB adviser banned for forging client signatures, Commonwealth Bank settles class action for $80M, ANZ admits to fleecing customers out of $30M, Westpac fined $1M over breaking credit limit laws, CBA staff implicated in $75M Ponzi Scheme, banks collectively sack 69 very senior financial advisers over five years, two CBA executives charges with bribery, NAB foreign exchange trader jailed for insider trading, NAB settles sub-prime mortgage class action for $112M, sacked ANZ traders claim a blokey culture of top-shelf alcohol, sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll is rife throughout the industry.
That'll make juicy evidence.
And that's a short list of the highlights.
We're not even putting money laundering into the scheme of things here, but even Blind Freddy can see all that, and much more, amounts to a very distinct "pattern of offending behaviour".
Crikey, if the banks were people, they'd all be locked up down at Long Bay for very long stretches.
As a bright-eyed journo I spent days, weeks, months sitting in Royal Commission hearings, and there if there is one thing about them - if you are ever called to give evidence at a Royal Commission, be afraid, very afraid.
They have tremendous powers, and they use them.
If you refuse to answer their questions, it's straight to jail you go for contempt.
If you perjure yourself, its down to the Supreme Court you go, for trial, where you will be done like a dinner.
Apart from that, it's open slather...a Star Chamber...the rules of evidence go by the wayside - there are none - and it's guaranteed the Commission will do deals to get some tidy witnesses to "roll over" for a tummy tickle.
It is going to be the lawyer's picnic to end all lawyer's picnics, no doubt about that, with scores of QC's at 10 paces.
It's not as if the banks aren't cashed up.
The list of legal appearances before the Commission will make up a volume of the report on its own.
There will be thousands of witnesses, it will take years, and the costs will be absolutely stratospheric, and oh, it will be so much enormous fun.
If only - if only - we had taken Ben Chifley's 1947 position to nationalise the banks, we could have saved us all a helluva lot of time, trouble and money.
Bye-bye Mal, we'll keep the pension, you can look after yourself.
Allow me just one verse from the classic Ry Cooder song, No Banker Left Behind:

Well, I hear the whistle blowin', it plays a happy tune.
The conductor's calling "all aboad", we'll be leavin' soon.
With champagne and shrimp cocktails, and that's not all you'll find.
There's a billion dollar bonus and no banker left behind.
No banker, no banker, no banker could I find.
When the train pulled out next mornin', no banker was left behind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxaY_mxYflg

what would Cook do?

Comrades,

I must say I have never understood Queensland politics.
Who does?
Not even back in the day of Sir Joh, when everyone was on the take and everything was clear cut - "oh, no, no, no, don't you wooorry about that..."
And Joh didn't keep the Country Party in power for 19 years for no reason - apart from being a master of the "Dark Arts", Joh had the Gerrymander down pat - everyone north of the 27th Parallel got two votes, everyone south, got one.
Simple.
Them's were the days.
On the face of it, all One Nation and the Katters did was split and fracture the Tory vote into shards, while the Pinko vote remained rock solid.
Two of the golden rules of the Miracle of Democracy right there - Solidarity Forever, and divide and rule.
By all reports, Pauline Hanson was last seen leaving the One Nation election night function clutching a half-drunk bottle of Bundaberg Black.
She must have been a bit tired and emotional.
It was very clever of the Pinko Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, to go for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - "everything tends to chaos" - in the last week of the campaign, effectively saying to the electorate, "no deals with anyone to form Government, it's me or nobody, and if you vote for any of those other bastards, our cherished stability will go up the chute and down the gurgler, and the Great State of Queensland will rapidly go to rack and ruin".
And it worked a treat.
No one likes rack and ruin.
That appalling Adani cock-up didn't raise a ripple in the bush, and the Greens went nowhere in the cities.
Labor cleaned up in Brisbane and won Townsville.
Game over.
The other main upshot is that the LNP experiment is now deceased - dead, buried, and cremated.
Their vote died in the arse something shocking - the merger of the Liberals and the Country Party was an idiot's idea from the off...god, the "wets" and the "drys" in the Liberals are about as predictable as the monsoonal seasons, and who thought they'd ever get on with the rabid hard-right farmer's lobby?
Have you ever tried to argue with a sugar cane grower?
I haven't, and I don't want to.
They used to whip Kanaky you know.
The poor ol' ABC psephologist, Antony Green, was having a very hard time of it on the live television call of the card ..."and now we come to the seat of Cook - oh, that's impossible...ah lets have a look...mmm...errr, it depends on who's votes are eliminated first here, and preferences could go anywhere, lots of postal votes, I just can't even remotely call that one...and the next seat is..."
OK then, lets have a look at Cook, Antony, if you like...it's a super-vast electorate that takes in the Torres Strait islands, and all the Cape York Peninsular right down to Skasey Town [after Christopher Skase, formerly of Majorca, now re-named Port Douglas], and out to Mareeba.
That is as FNQ as you can get.
Millions of square miles, and hardly anyone there, at a total of roughly 30,000 voters.
You could draw a 2km circle around my gaff here on the outer edge of the Inner West of Sydney and get that many electors.
And it has a long history of returning colourful Members ...Billy Gordon was the sitting MP, elected as a Labor pollie, he then became an independent after being thrown out of the Labor caucus for failing to acknowledge his not insubstantial criminal record.
During his time in office alone, Billy was the subject of an extortion threat, was falsely accused of domestic violence and fudging his tax returns to avoid paying child support for his five children, crikey - even his own mother took an AVO out against him at one stage, and then he was done for drink driving as he tootled around the Atherton Tableland.
Sensibly, Gordo decided to retire from the game at this election.
Then you can go back to the 1950's to find the wonderfully named MP for Cook - who had the seat for 16 years - Bunny Adair.
Also a Labor turn-coat who went Independent, trading off his own reputation as the publican at Freshwater.
Bunny's main claim to fame while in office was going for a short walk north of Cape Tribulation and getting lost in "impenetrable jungle", and being found by chance and rescued in farcical circumstances a week later.
Onya Bunny.
If you don't understand any of that, then you don't understand Queensland.
As everyone on the election panel kept on saying during the Tally Room count - Queensland is different and no-one else understands.
One of the anchors said "if you were wondering what's happening, we don't really know".
Mr Green was probably screaming at the executive producer "can someone, please, just tell me what the fuck is going on?"
Some boffin on the telly said "Queensland is its own machine. It operates without any need for Canberra".
Queenslanders see things that other people can't see, and they know things nobody else knows.
There is no accounting for them, and the rest of Australia is happy enough for it to stay that way, you would have thought.
Unlike Western Australia, it's a living wonder there's never been any serious secessionist movement up there.
Beautiful one day, perfect the next.

"wiser heads will prevail"

Comrades,

Not only is the result of the "non-binding postal survey" a victory for common sense and decency, it's also an outstanding endorsement of the Miracle of Democracy.
And one we didn't need to have.
Never mind that the margin in the poll was emphatically in favour of YES and it easily carried all the states, to have just 20.5% of the electorate in the "don't care" basket in a voluntary 'plebiscite' is truly extraordinary.
As the turn-out numbers were posted weekly by the ABS, and the participation rate climbed higher and higher, my daughter put it to me that perhaps it's just because Australians are so used to voting in compulsory elections, and have been educated about the importance of turning up at the ballot box [the "civic duty"] and the diligence to do it has been drummed into people from an early age, with the threat of a big bad-ass [well, really small] fine if you don't, and the stigma of being branded as a non-voter.
I pooh-poohed the idea at first, thinking "jeez, maybe I've underestimated this thing and it is a 'hot-button' issue after all", but now I'm not so sure.
And if you don't believe that there is stigma around not voting, my other daughter has a friend in her mid-20's who for some reason or another had not enrolled to vote - slipped through the cracks - and when she was urged by her friends to get on the roll for this one, she was genuinely worried that it would mean trouble, because of the fact that her non-enrollment would be exposed.
I don't know if she ever did enroll, but it was very simply - and forcefully - explained that there would be no penalty or backlash whatsoever; the Electoral Commission is a rough pub, they'll let anyone in, anyone at all, no questions asked, as long as you meet the criteria for eligibility, which is citizenship.
And, yes, you can be a dual citizen and vote.
So, the quiet grass-roots Pinko campaign to enroll as many young folk as possible through the 'social media' before the cut off date for this nonsense was supremely effective.
In less than a week before the electoral roll closed, new enrollments rose from 36,769 to more than 90,000...and you'd expect that the huge majority of those would be the people who have just turned 18.
I am now thinking, maybe they're right - they'd been taken to polling stations many times as children and been told and shown how to cast a ballot - compulsory voting is so ingrained in the Australian psyche that we just can't help ourselves from turning out in huge numbers.
We know the turn-out in general elections is generally somewhere in the mid-to-low 90 percentile [and the informal vote rarely rises above 10%], so the 79.5% voluntary roll-up for this - even the patently pathetically weak political compromise that it was - is startling.
Of course the 'campaign' was awash with bald-faced naked propaganda and there would have been instances of multiple-voting, but trying to organise it on a meaningful scale to have any significant impact on the outcome was all but impossible.
That may come, and be one of the many serious threats to democracy, but rigging free & fair compulsory elections will take some imagination.
And there has never been a serious push anytime, as far as I'm aware, for the re-introduction of voluntary voting.
Re-introduction, I hear you say?
Who knew, and pardon the little history lesson here, that it was back in 1924 that compulsory voting was enacted almost by accident - after a record low turn out in the 1922 election - by amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, which by all reports was passed on the voices in both Houses after about 15 minutes of debate?
And to think the bumbling fumbling right-wing fools missed the chance to do the exact same thing with the Marriage Act in 2017, with a minimum of fuss?
Instead there was all this gnashing of teeth and pulling out of hair for months on end for a result that was pretty much beyond doubt.
Gawd, help us.
Still, we're virtually on our own here, with only Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Ecuador, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Nauru, Peru, Singapore and Uruguay having enforceable compulsory voting, but there are exemptions in those countries for the illiterate, 16-18 year olds who may and some do have the right to vote, and the over 75's...none of which apply here.
Even the dead can vote in our democracy, until they are probated out of the picture.
Our system is for all intents and purposes unique.
High turn-outs add hefty weight and legitimacy to the well-worn hackneyed expression "the people have spoken".
I remember Joe Biden commenting before last year's US General Election on the chances of DJ Trump! winning the White House with the famous last words..."wiser heads will prevail"...but we all know the turn-out in that one was 57.9%, and some 95 million eligible voters just didn't bother to show.
Wiser heads are all very well and good, but you need to turn out the numbers, Joe.
So even though the weak-as-piss Tories have had an almighty "bagarap" keeping secret foreigners under their beds - losing their majority on the floor in the process - and are so hopelessly fractured on ideological grounds to the point were they have very little to no ideology left, the polity of Australia remains strong.
As much as the religious fundamentalist right will get themselves into a foaming slobbering lather trying to subvert the process, there is simply no arguing with this result.
"The question is resolved in the affirmative".
The electorate might be dumb, but they are definitely not stupid.
It goes without saying politicians who ignore that do so at their own peril.
In any case, everybody knows the next election will be a grand exhibition of one of our great national pastime's -- "Vote the Bastards Out!"
Vote early, vote often.
Bravo.

bánh mì in Da Nang

Comrades,

Bánh mì in Da Nang..."pâté, soy sauce, water pickles and herbs only thanks, and one with the lot for him", might have been the order.
Mr Trundle parted with tens of thousands of Dong for a couple of these excellent looking baguette.
By the look on her face, the unsuspecting woman running the trolley is thinking "who are these total ning-nongs?"

However, as can be seen here, our Great & Glorious Leader was not that impressed with the taste of the Commo Roll.
"Spare me, Jesus. Do I really have to eat this thing for the camera's trying to out-do Obama mixing with the common people?"
Next time, try not to tuck yr shirt in, mate.
And just what is that device-thingy strapped to yr left arm?

PS. From personal experience, strangely, I never did have a great Vietnamese pork roll in Vietnam, so who can blame him?
The finest bánh mì on the face of this earth without a doubt are on offer in the capital of Laos, Vientiane, best paired with the Champagne of South East Asian beers - 660ml bottles of Beer Lao, with ice.
Muddled Mal should get out more...

doing the taxpayer cold

Comrades,

I could not help but notice the uniform of the cads, bounders, shonks and shysters in Bermuda on this week's 4 Corners program, as they were looking very pleased with themselves doing the long suffering taxpayer cold.
Among the national costumes of the world, it is a very weird one.
That said, I'd be more than happy to slip on a pair for a squillion.
Scruples?
What scruples?
I'm guessing even the Prince of Wales would have been seen in them from time to time.
They are quite spiffing, wot ho?

Let's face it, who doesn't like Bermuda?
What's not to like?
181 islands to choose from, the sun shines 24/7, the palm trees sway, a warm gentle breeze blows, the ice tinkles in the glass, and there is no shortage of banana lounges surrounded by shady people to stretch out on.
Excuse my cynicism, but tax evasion has been going on since some dude thought up the brilliant idea of taxation back in ancient Roman times, and why should it be any different now?
It's been very effective for millennia, and laws are made to be broken.
Fact.
Jeez, just as a tiny example, it's all of 26 years ago now since Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer famously appeared before a Senate estimates committee and told them "I am not evading tax in any way, shape, or form. Now, of course, I am minimising my tax, and if anybody in this country isn't minimising their tax they want their heads read, because I can tell you as a Government you're not spending that well that we should be donating extra".
And that's the truth!
No fake news there.
Hyper-capitalism at its finest.
I remember one time many moons ago dropping by Kay Bros. winery in the McLaren Vale to sample some booze, and being told that egg whites were essential to the wine making process and the story of evading the "chook tax" during WWII, when there was a tax on eggs...so when the tax inspectors came to the Vale, vintners would let their flocks of chickens loose to run hither and thither through the vines so there was no chance of there being a head count to link individual birds to their owners for tax purposes, with the sneaky bastards knowing full well that their layers would return home at night to roost.
What a ruse!
While the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [who run a marvellous magazine called The Global Muckraker] will never ever reveal their sources, it would be very interesting to know just who was responsible for the herculean task of scanning 13.4 million pages of documents, everything from the most magnificent elaborate spreadsheets right down to hand scribbled notes; the biggest "leak" from the Dodgy Lawyersville, ever.
It only suggests to me why being a legal practitioner is such a dang lucrative profession in Bermuda, Belize, the Cayman Islands, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Ireland, Luxembourg, Curaçao, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Bahamas, Jersey, Barbados, Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands just to name a few.
Everybody knows justice goes to those who pay.
And all this talk about there being "paperless courtrooms" in the future, my arse.
Why do you think the legal system insists on original documents, and legal eagles have enormous industrial confidential paper-shredders for the copies?
It will be centuries before any of that goes "on-line".
Who wants the 'paper trail' to be any easier to trace?
I did think the monika "Paradise Papers" was a bit lame; how about "Champagne! Cocaine! Caviar! The full story revealed!"?
In any case, the coppers [the chronically under-funded and under-resourced ATO] are doing deals with tax evaders/avoiders/minimisers every day of the working week - just ask Paul Hogan, he'll tell you.
The modus operandi is the ATO does an audit, issues an ambit claim in the form of a Tax Assessment Notice, and then by no-fault negotiation, will settle out of court 99% of the time for a fraction of the assessment [typically 10-15%] on the time-honoured basis of legal dispute resolution - clauditis et vade aliquam - "shut up, and go get some".
Everybody's happy, the non-taxpayer gets away with blue murder, and the Govt. has more sacks of pineapples in Consolidated Revenue than they otherwise would have had.
Brilliant!
All anyone can do about it is to pity the poor working poor, who, in relative terms and without access to legal advice, carry a tax burden as big as an elephant...you know, the one that's in the room.

got it all wrong as usual

Comrades,

Just a quick update - I said "why would I have any idea?" and so I got it all wrong as usual.
It's all come together in remarkably quick time for a place that moves at a glacial pace.
Boom, boom!
Here is Iceland's new Prime Minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, chairman of the Left-Greens who has managed to cobble together a four-party coalition with the Social Democrats, the Progressive Party and the Pirate Party to gain a one-seat majority in the Althing.

She is a mother of three young boys at 41, has widespread personal popular support, comes from a long line of prominent Icelandic academics, lawyers, politicians and poets, and holds a Master of Arts degree in Icelandic Literature - so she is the full bottle on The Sagas.
Katrin is also fluent in French and English.
After being in power for a very very long time...73 years in fact [apart from a recent four-year hiatus]...the centre-right Independence Party, has now been banished to the Opposition benches.

Just another example of the Miracle of Democracy handing over the reins of power to people in their late thirties and early forties, while us baby boomers look for hippie pot-head friendly Twilight Homes to contemplate our navels and our abject failure to lead the world in any sort of direction at all, as the planet slowly returns to primordial slime.

Despite claims to the contrary, there is hope for the future.
All power to her oars.

hopelessly fractured

Comrades,

People keep coming up to me in the street and asking "what on earth is going on with the Miracle of Democracy in Iceland, Craves?".
Why would I have any idea?
All I know is it's hopelessly fractured.
After the weekend's snap general election for the 63 seat Althing [the oldest Parliament in the world est. 930AD], try and work out what these final results mean:

Bright Future: 0 seats, down 4, 1.2%
Progressive Party: 8 seats, break even, 10.7%
Reform Party: 4 seats, down 3, 6.7%
Independence Party: 16 seats, down 5, 25.2%
Peoples’ Party: 4 seats, a new party, 6.9%
Centre Party: 7 seats, another new party, 10.9%
Pirate Party: 6 seats, down 4, 9.2%
Peoples’ Front of Iceland: 0 seats, 0.2%
Social Democrats: 7 seats, up 4, 12.1%
Dawn: 0 seats, 0.1%
Left-Greens: 11 seats, up 1, 16.9%

Crikey!
It seems Iceland isn't wanting a Bright Future at the minute, and the Centre Party, formed just three weeks before the election, picked up a startling seven seats, as Icelanders drifted in on a floe from the left and right to the centre.
The scandal-plagued former senior coalition partner, the Independence Party, lost five seats, but still managed to get the majority of votes.
But forming a Govt. will be ridiculously difficult.
A two-party coalition won't cut the mustard numbers-wise, a three-mob coalition is on the cards, but the Independents hate everyone else's guts, and vice-versa, so there will be some hard bargaining and banging of heads together going down.
There's even talk of the possibility of a five-way coalition, for chrissake.
Like last time, when it took three months to sort out, Iceland's President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, will again just sit on his haunches for as long as it takes waiting for someone to come along and say "Hey there Pres. I can form a Govt.!"
It was a shame to see the anarcho-socialist Pirate Party lose four of their ten seats, after their leader, the loopy "poetician" Birgitta Jónsdóttir retired, so their chances of making Reykjavík the capital of the New World Order have been dashed for the time being.
Pinko hopes that the Left-Greens would storm ahead didn't come to pass, so it's unlikely although not impossible that Iceland will veer off to a left wing Govt. for only the second time since Independence in 1944.
The whole post-poll shootin' match will be about as inscrutable as the Icelandic language itself.
248,502 ballots were cast, which works out at just under four thousand voters per seat.
Tiny numbers, so each vote carries quite a bit of heft.
It mustn't be that hard to get elected; you could personally ring up that many people at random out of the phonebook and try to bribe them, or just ask them, to vote for you.

PS>
Going a bit off topic here, but I stumbled into a bookshop in town the other day and saw that Kevin Rudd's lavishly produced auto-biography, Not for the Faint Hearted - A Personal Reflection on Life, Politics and Purpose, was already on the remainder table at a bargain basement price of $35.
It was ten bucks cheaper than Jimmy Barnes' Working Class Man.
And what a doorstopper that'd hold anything open in a gale it is - coming in at a whopping 627 pages.
Obviously, he didn't have an editor who could say "Aw, c'mon Kev, you're not writing 'War and Peace' here, mate".
It had an extensive index too, and I'm kicking myself now for not having a closer look to see if the entry "Chinese, Mandarin", was followed by "Chinese, ratfucked".

a strict and narrow view

Comrades,

So, the High Court, unsurprisingly for mine, has taken a strict and narrow view of s.44 of the Constitution, and punted five of the Citizenship Seven.
It says what it means:
s44 (i.) "Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power."
You simply cannot be a "subject or a citizen … of a foreign power" and sit in the Australian Parliament.
The Court agreed that the framers of Constitution back in the 1890's were playing the race card, yet again, and were determined to keep bloody foreigners out of the Corridors of Power.
Nothing's changed.
That's it - by unanimous decision of the full bench.
To put it in simple and easily understood terms it is the Court saying "Righto then, off the fuck you go."
Never mind this nonsense about how can you know if you a dual citizen if you don't know.
It's incumbent on anyone standing as a candidate to find out.
Senators Canavan and Xenophon got off on technicalities - Xenophon has already decided to piss off back to South Australia where he belongs - the wowser state can gladly have Nick the Greek back, he can even be Premier if he likes and ban the pokies and close all the pubs for all I care.
Canavan survived only because the court agreed with the submission of the amicus curiae that under "the best reading of Italian law", Canavan is not and was not Italian.
Calls for a referendum to amend s.44 are a waste of time and money - there are two chances of a poll of that sort succeeding - none and Buckley's.
The people of Australia - immigrants included - are inherently racist, and just won't have it.
Yr either Strayan, or yr not.
Never mind that the country will be running without a Deputy Prime Minister in the last week of Parliamentary sittings, while B.Joyce in on the hustings in New England.
What does a deputy Prime Minister do anyway when the Prime Minister is in the country?
Absolutely nothing.
And Trundle must be delighted to take on the responsibilities of being Agriculture Minister, he'll be able to devote a lot of time and energy to the portfolio while being a Prime Minister who is flat out like a lizard drinking extinguishing spot fires everywhere.
Labor - with the Liberal/Country Party coalition now having no guaranteed majority on the floor - have sensibly decided not to move a no confidence motion, because there is little or no point.
Barnaby will breeze back into the House of Reps in the by-election, Windsor or no Windsor.
The sensible move now is to audit every last politician to find out if they have any known or unknown allegiances to any foreign powers, and if they don't pass the test, they're out.
Simple.
End of story.
It's the law.

Winston & Jacinda

Comrades,

Well, well, well...Wily Ol' Winston gets exactly what he wanted, and then some.
He's been Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of New Zealand before, but never at the same time.
Winner!
And at a lazy pace too, days after he tapped Jacinda Arden and got into bed with NZ Labour to do the deed, in order to rule.
That's all it took really, as you'd have to think that National were unwilling to give the Rt. Hon. Winston Peters the Deputy Prime Ministership - he's got form, and carries a lot of baggage with them over the eons.
And he must fondly remember Helen Clark more than a decade ago when he was Foreign Minister in her Govt. before some unfortunate business about party funding irregularities found him out.
"Hey Jacinda! Why not make me Foreign Minister as well!?"
"What a cracking idea, Winston! Who better to represent the Land of the Long White Cloud on the World Stage!?"
I really hope Ms Arden does bring Mr Peters with her on her first visit to Australia as PM - you can imagine That Mad Maori waddling down the Corridors of Power in Canberra to Julie Bishop's office for a Death Stare competition; she would have been warned.
Everyone in diplomatic circles knows that he's as the hatter, they have long memories and are top-notch experts in accommodating that sort of thing.
There will always be a free scotch for Winston on the cocktail circuit.
Who actually gets to do the puppeteering, tho', will play out over the next three years.
I'm putting my money on the Top Dog, as she's got control of the purse strings, the yoof vote, and actually cares about climate change, she'll use Winston as her eyes and ears abroad as Foreign Minister, and keep him safely outside of the country as much as humanly possible.
Home Affairs can look after itself, as New Zealand First, with their measly nine seats, get three other Cabinet portfolio's; taking care of defence, education, economic development...and oh...forestry...so they are punching way way above their weight, while the Greens are sidelined out of Cabinet altogether, stuck on the outer ministry.
And three-way coalitions are always interesting, as they have a dynamic all their own.
Especially when an ultra-nationalist racist like Winston has to sign-off on Jacinda's socialist agrarian platform in a trade-off for cutting immigration by 30,000 folks p.a., while keeping those unreformed-Trot tree-huggers who've got some wild and wacky ideas of their own over at The Greens, happy.
But, they all agree that the regions have been neglected for at least a decade, child poverty is an issue that's rarely discussed, as is poor housing, but no-one minds at all that 100% of the income tax collected in NZ is spent on social security and welfare.
When people can't afford firewood, in a joint thick with forest, that's a worry.
It looks like Labour will at long last finally fully embrace the time-honoured trope that New Zealand is fundamentally an insular rural society - most people are more or less happy with that idea - and oh my, don't they have some ruralness to go on with?
I remember driving down towards Lake Taupo there, on the way to Mt Ruapehu one time with an Australian mate of mine who'd been in residence in NZ for many years when he suddenly exclaimed "See this! The whole country looks like one gigantic farkin' golf course with sheep on it".
Give people jobs planting a million trees a year.
Winner!
And why not increase the minimum wage to $NZ20 per hour over the next few years while yr at it.
Winner!
On an issue close to my heart, I note that the Greens and Labour both support the complete legalisation of cannabis - carte blanche - as there's no point in going on with the pretence and hypocrisy, and the matter will be settled by 2020 at the latest.
Apparently, our Cuz across The Ditch are among some of the heaviest cannabis users in the world [along with us], and vast tracts of the North Island have an ideal climate for growing some frightfully powerful marijuana.
Satisfying local demand and getting a thriving export trade going in super-duper top-notch hospital-grade hooch would be an absolute financial bonanza for the Govt. in tax returns
And just think of the old hippie & pot-head tourist possibilities, with maps of tourist drives and hand-painted road-side signs in March-April-May saying "Pick Your Own Weed! $10 a bag!".
Winner!
But I have no idea where opinion polls on this are going - has anyone bothered to conduct one?
For some arcane reason I can't fathom, cannabis law reform needs a referendum to deal with.
And New Zealanders don't muck about when they cut to the chase; it's either on, or it's not.
Witness the recent referendum on changing the national flag into a beach towel, that was roundly beaten at the polls.
And who knew that SSM ceased to be an issue in 2013 when gays were allowed to marry each other to their heart's content across the Tasman while we get all het up over a non-binding postal survey?
That one only needed an amendment to an Act of Parliament, as it does here.
Or that there are about 450 local same-sex weddings every year, or that NZ has become a leading SSM tourist destination?
I was chatting with the Good Lady Wife over the dinner table about Trans-Tasman affairs when she commented in her laconic way "Old Bill, well he didn't last long then, did he?"
As it turns out, only about ten months at the helm for Mr English, after John Key literally disappeared into thin air with his very peculiar family, a Knighthood, and about $NZ60M in net worth.
Boring-as-Batshit Bill's must be one of the shortest NZ Prime Ministership's in living memory.
I did note that the Guardian [Australian edition] reported last week:
"On Thursday evening Ardern celebrated her appointment to the top job by returning to her Wellington studio apartment with partner Clarke Gayford and eating a pot of noodles."
That was a bit rude to the Prime Minister elect, for mine.
Surely by common courtesy if she has a partner by the name of Clarke Gayford, then she should at all times be referred to in the press as "Ms Arden" or by her full name.
No one would dream of addressing Trundle, Trumbler, or whatever his name is, other than as "Mr Turnbull".
She can do what she likes.
And the best of British luck to her.
All power to her oars [on some of the most polluted waterways in the world - New Zealand 100% pure, as the old tourism advertising slogan used to go?].
I sincerely hope that her Pinko agenda succeeds, seeing that she will only be 40 when she comes up for re-election.
It's all over for us baby-boomers, we're done, we had our chance and blew it, and no-one will thank us for it.
A inexperienced youngster has her hands on the Levers of Power and will learn fast, never mind that old man looking over her shoulder from afar.

PS>
The Miracle of Democracy is mighty hard to keep up with at the minute.
The Czech's get a new billionaire populist PM in Andrej Babiš [unlike Australia who have an unpopular billionaire PM], Austria drifts to the Euro-skeptic centre-right with 31-year-old wunderwuzzi Sebastian Kurz looking to form minority Govt to become the next Chancellor, The Donald's old mate Shinzō Abe gets re-elected in Japan in a landslide simply because there was no-one else seemingly available, Mr Xi Jinping Sir of China is elevated to legendary status by vote of The People's Congress - no need to ask non Party-types what they think on that one, given that's not high on the agenda - everybody seems a bit feisty and antsy over Catalonia way, and only God knows what is going on in Kenya.
Phew.

Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty

lawyer's picnic at the High Court

The epitome of "clout".

Appearances before the full bench of the High Court [sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns], Canberra, 10-12 October 2017. Re: Election of Members of Parliament and s.44 Constitution.


The Solicitor-General, Stephen Donaghue QC, for the Commonwealth.
David Bennett AC QC, for Canavan.
Brett Walker SC, for Joyce & Nash.
Andrew Tokely SC, for Xenophon.
Brian Walters QC, for Ludlum & Walters.
Justin Gleeson QC and Ron Merkel SC, for Windsor.
Robert Newlinds SC, for Roberts.
Geoffrey Kennett SC, appearing as animus curiae.

Enough said, already!
Aaaah...the Miracle of Democracy...

to the barricades children!

Comrades,


I can only say that it warms the cockles of the heart of a proud long-time member of Drinkers for Disarmament that my good friends at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons [ICAN] have won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
Not before time.
That's 8 million Kroner in the protest "war chest" and you can auction off the gold medal itself in due course for north of a million $US.
Has it struck anyone as ironic in the extreme that the people who want to rid the world of nuclear weapons forever have won a prize donated by the inventor of dynamite - who heavily invested his enormous profits in artillery and munitions manufacturing - as a sop to his own late-life regret at devising such a dastardly thing?
Or that the all important explosive yield of The Bomb has always been measured in tons of TNT?
What is TNT?
It's not at all similar to dynamite, which is really dangerous shit - although it is often confused with it - it was dynamite's natural successor, because it's as safe as houses to handle and you don't need as much TNT to blow the living' bejesus out of something or someone.
If you were a military man and you could have kilotons, nay megatons of the stuff in just a few hundred kilo's of really heavy uranium derivative, would you argue?
Nah.
It was a pretty soft choice, I'd say a no-brainer, for the Norwegian Committee this year - in a world racked and riven by internecine warfare and ethnic cleansing - after the UN adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons a few months ago [that's explained elsewhere in this bloggy blog blog thingy].
Never mind that the idea of ICAN was cobbled together by a few Pinko's sitting around a card table in Melbourne, there are two chances at the moment of Australia agreeing to the thing, let alone ratifying it - none and Buckley's.
Thailand, Guyana and the Holy See are the only lot to have signed-up and ratified the prohibition treaty.
There is a long, long, long way to go and it is vitally important to keep pursuing it.
The last genuine protest placard I made I stole the slogan from a photograph I'd seen from some protest march in D.C. that read "I Can't Believe We Are Still Protesting About This" and that must have been more than five years ago now.
[It was about retaining as public land a choice slice of Sydney real estate; the only bit of remnant Cumberland Plain forest left in the Inner West, as I recall - and yes, we're still protesting about it].
While that's by-the-by, the message applies all the same to The Bomb.
Why-oh-why so long?
It took an enormous amount of time and effort in protesting to drive nuclear testing underground...18 years to ban atmospheric testing with the Partial Test Ban Treaty, and then another 33 years for the USA and USSR to stop testing altogether with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, then another four years again before China and France finally gave the game away, but they've kept their options open, not signing up to any nuclear ban treaty of any kind.
It's been 21 years since the final significant nuclear weapons test; The Yoof of Today have no personal history of it or investment in it, so it's oh so easy to be complacent.
I was six years old when atmospheric testing ended, and they were still letting them go at Maralinga just up the road from where I lived at the time in Adelaide to the bitter end, and it took forever to get the Poms to pay the British Army the $100M+ to pick up all the 100,000+ bits of plutonium left behind - and still they didn't do a great job of it.
Secrecy surrounded British atmospheric tests going horribly wrong back in '57, you know, the "Black Mist", that sort of thing and in the end, plutonium had purposefully and shamefully been shattered to smithereens by conventional explosives and scattered over a large defined range that's now fucked-over forever, all in the name of finding out whether you could have a nuclear weapon, bomb it, and blow it up without actually setting it off.
Turns out, you can.
There was a Royal Commission into the whole gigantic fiasco, goddamit.
But I digress.
Read the report.
The really strange thing about this weird uranium gear is that nobody now can be absolutely 100% certain that the weapons will actually work at all, although there's a mighty mighty good chance they will.
Without testing, the staggeringly stupendous cost of maintaining nuclear weapons alone should have seen an end to it by now, but no, wiping out these things altogether, most unfortunately, won't be done in my lifetime, so...to the barricades children!
Everybody's talkin' about and thinks Fatboy Kim is real bad, and while the world nuclear stockpile has shrunk by about two-thirds from its Cold War highs, there are still at least 14,000 nukes on the loose [roughly 5,000 are effectively decommissioned, in the process of being dismantled and won't be replaced, about 8 or 9,000 are in some kind of rotational operational state, of those, about 4,000 are deployed, and 1500 or so are fully-armed and ready to go at a minute's notice].
And about 93% of all nuclear warheads are held in America and Russia.
I grew up with this obscene madness [MAD, the doctrine of "mutually assured destruction"] and got mad about it, still do, as you might have guessed.
Even a very cursory study of the truly awesome destructive power of The Bomb can't fail to impress, let alone the gruesome invidious nature of radiation - "the invisible silent killer" - it's all enough to put you right off it for life.
In an ideal world, it should have finished where it began in '45, as if Japan wasn't enough of an ideal test bed to see what two low yield primitive nuclear weapons can do to living breathing cities.
And we've gone way out there - thermonuclear, baby - since then.
72 years on and I'm sorry, but on this one, if you don't say NO, you're complicit in it.
There isn't any saying "I don't care" here.
Never forget.
Dream the impossible dream no longer.
Just do it.
Ban The Bomb.

Photo: Pamela Hall. 299 Park Avenue, NYC, 2016.

that "Mad Maori"

Comrades,

I rolled my eyes when that NZ "Kingmaker" Winston Peters was quoted as saying last week that he wouldn't make up his mind up on whether to cast his lot in with Labour or National to form a minority Govt. in the Land of the Long White Cloud "until October" after their recent exercise in the Miracle of Democracy resulted in a stalemate.
When it became apparent that he would hold the balance of power, he said that he "won't be testing the water with both feet" and accused all other politicians of talking "bulldust".
It'll be weeks, even months, before our Cuz across the Tasman have a Govt.
In the meantime, Boring As Batshit Bill's still running the shop as Caretaker PM and it's business as usual.
Me and Winston go back a long way.
He's been in The Beehive for 38 years - on & off - after being elected 14 times, resigning from Parliament once, and losing twice, both the subject of litigation - or something or another like that - it's too hard to keep track of this crazy.
Sheesh...I'm old enough to clearly remember working as a journo in the 2GB & 2UE newsrooms in Sydney way back when and the news editor would cast a desultory morning eye over the day's newspapers, press calls, court lists, public speeches, doings in the big end of town and the halls of power etc etc etc and start barking orders.
"Jesus!" they would shout "that fuckin' Mad Maori is in town again. Craves! [and it was always me] Go and tail the tool, and don't come back until you've got a good quote".
It was never that hard because Winston could always be goaded into saying something completely ridiculous, or spruik some wild idea that was clean outta left field at the minimum.
Winston has been the self-styled de-facto Maori political leader of the country since he was sacked as Maori Affairs Minister by PM Jim Bolger for being a buffoon in '91 and he's never looked back, eventually giving Jim the stink finger, and forming the populist centre-right New Zealand First Party.
And he's been running that party without a single public challenger for the top job for 24 years.
You have to be controversial and cantankerous and in a constant running battle with your enemies in the press to do that.
It's a very strange electoral system indeed - and no wonder there are calls for major change - when Winston can still hold the balance of power after mustering little more than a mere 7% of the popular vote and losing his own constituent seat of Northland [but was elected to the "list"] and losing two of his "list seats" to go down from 11 to 9 seats in a 120 seat Parliament [which, by the way, is way way too many anyway for their relatively tiny population].
Never mind the complete annihilation of the official Maori Party, who lost both their seats, falling below the 5% popular vote threshold.
WTF!?
You call that democratic?
Has Winston gamed the system or is it just an unforeseen quirk, a lucky break, whatever, something's seriously wrong there.
The Dude's been in coalition with both Labour and his natural home in National before now, it's been that long - he's more than happy to flip-flop when it suits him - and you can see as plain as day that he's angling for the Deputy Prime Ministership [again?!] but neither of the main party's are buying it, because, put simply, he's a nut job.
Don't get me wrong, I've got time for the bloke -- there's no doubt at all about Winston - he's got enormous amount of front and that innate ability to stop a room when he walks in by his good looks, charm, terrific facial gestures, melodious voice...just the way he holds himself...but whenever he opens his mouth he's more than likely to shoot it off.
As a former lawyer, he firmly believes in "law and order" and loves the welfare state, particularly pensioners, but most of his economic policies are way off the map and generally isolationist
And he's far right out there with the Senator for Qld Pauline Hanson; he wants to keep the Kiwi race pure, and doesn't like NZ being invaded and taken over by wogs, spics, slopes, and now muzzies...you can only really be born a New Zealander...and that's that...just don't call me racist, white boy...
"I'm putting it to you and to all of my critics, if you can find any Asian leader in any Asian country of whatever political persuasion who doesn't subscribe to the immigration views of New Zealand First, then name that person now. None of you can, all the way to Turkey."
This time around on the campaign trail he claimed "there are more foreign chefs coming into this country than New Zealand has restaurants".
He promised to apologise to Australia for previous Govts. allowing so many illegal immigrants to sneak in via the back door through NZ.
But, in a press conference after the election he asked a journalist: "where are you from?"..."Australia"..."it shows".
Enough said.
National hate him with a passion, but he's likely to go with them anyway if he gets the right deal to preserve the time honoured Kiwi tradition of maintaining the status quo, and Labour has already got into bed with the fast-fading Greens, but also still need Winston to form Govt.
At 72 years of age, Winston will most probably say that Labour's Jacinda Arden, at 37, needs time leading in Opposition to prove her fettle.
Or he might just go right outta left field once again, flip the baby boomers the bird, give the young-un a run, and see how she goes.
Unlikely, but who knows, when it comes to the Rt. Hon. Winston Peters?
However, first and foremost, he's clearly loving every minute of being back in the limelight after having been politically sidelined for almost a decade.

Photo/AP Wellington. 27 Sept 2017.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asz262IFqBA
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/watch-next-question-belligerent-winston-peters-has-press-pack-in-stitches-after-shutting-down-aussie-reporter

in the drink

Comrades,

It was a good thing I was out on Sunday afternoon enjoying myself at the Harvest Moon Festival at Cabramatta, and a very good thing for the people who scattered the www.coalitionformarriage.com.au literature on my front doorstep while I wasn't home, otherwise, if I knew they were coming, I would have opened the front door fully nude and threatened to call them names before head-butting them.
There is precedent for this, yr Honour.
There will be a mention of it, in due course, at the Hobart Magistrate's Court.
I must say the flyer headline urging you to "VOTE NO to protect your freedoms", which otherwise, if you 'vote' yes, will somehow transmute into, "political correctness will be weaponised and used to shut down free speech" quite odd, indeed, very strange insect logic right there, and the "3 WAYS GAY MARRIAGE WILL CHANGE THE CLASSROOM" pamphlet was pretty lewd, suggesting that there will be yet "more radical gay & lesbian sex 'education' in schools" [what? more!], parents will lose their rights [what! again?] and "kids will be taught their gender is fluid" [Oh God, I wish I was shown & told that in school], but it reminded me of what the Senator for South Australia, Penny Wong, said the other day "I never said I expected this not to be close. The "no" advocates know that this is their last chance".
I would not have even given them the time of day to tell them that they were wasting their stinking breath because, like most other sensible people, I have towed the bi-partisan line rock solid here big time and 'voted' YES a couple of weeks ago.
The Chief Pinko and the Prime Minister told me to, so who am I to argue, and in any case, what is it good for?
It's no-where near even close to a plebiscite - however ridiculous that would have been - this is but a "voluntary non-binding postal survey" never before attempted in the 116 year old history of the Commonwealth, coming hard on the heels of the Census Cock-Up.
The Electoral Commission isn't involved.
The Parliament, both Houses, could sit tomorrow and change the Marriage Act on a call for the voices.
Lucky that I wasn't home, because I wouldn't have been drunk and I wouldn't have missed, which may have presented me with a minor legal problem.
Just ask DJ Astro Funknukl Labe, he'll tell you.
Then I saw on a protest placard somewhere on the telly last night that read "men of quality are not afraid of equality", and the Tory stupidity of it all finally sunk in as utterly astounding.

In the meantime...in local news...seen in the mighty Cooks River over the weekend.
Another washed-up would-be cardboard-cut-out politician.
Poor Jennifer; just couldn't get the vote.

Photo: Earlwood Environment League

As a matter of record - hot off the adding-up machine down at the NSW Electoral Commission; the final count saw an undisputed result in the Canterbury-Bankstown Council Local Govt. election of three Councillors from five wards.
Labor 9, Liberal 5, Greens 1.
My neighbours here in Canterbury Ward returned the sole Green.
Gentrification creeps ever closer from the Inner West as the dirt piles up, and the tide goes in and out.

"half a skinful"

Ah, you gotta love the Miracle of Democracy when it tolerates a little known anarchist in Hobart coming up to a former Prime Minister in the form of the Hon. Tony "The Mad Monk" Abbott and head-butting him in the street for no reason at all, and no one is particularly upset about, not even the victim who is reported to have thought that he was affronted by it, but dusted himself off and continued on his merry way.

Unfortunately the anarchist in question DJ Astro Funknukl Labe did nothing for his defence for when he is dragged at some stage before the Hobart Magistrate's Court when he told the press.


"It had nothing to do with gay marriage, I'd had half a skinful, and I just wanted to nut the cunt".

A man after my own heart...

the revolution turns full circle

Comrades,

Took me a while to catch up with this, as news travels slowly from the north, but me ol' mate Mari Alkatiri has been sworn in as the Prime Minister of East Timor at the age of 67, for the next four years.
Having closely followed affairs in the country since Balibo, I was surprised to find myself dining in the same Portuguese restaurant in Dili as the dude back in 2012.
His entourage even then had to be seen to be believed - heavily armed goons in suits, lots of hangers-on, press, attractive women, even a weird westerner groupie who was not admitted - the experience was odd, strange, and a little edgy with more than a few shooters stuffed in socks ready to go...Alkatiri's charisma filled the room, and you certainly got the impression he's a man who's not to be messed with under any circumstances.
It's been 11 years since Alkatiri was last Prime Minister, running the shop right after independence through '02-'06, after making a name for himself as one of the original, best & fiercest freedom fighters there was for FALINTIL, the military wing of FRETILIN, as well as being a first class political cadre, eventually forming an East Timorese Govt. in exile in '76 at the age of 26.
But he's always been looking over his shouklder and has never had a lot of friends - when negotiations fail, he prefers to let his .44 do the talkin'.
He also just happens to be a Muslim, in a country that is 97% Roman Catholic.
Alkatiri had a falling out with Xanana Gusmão over direction and policy, and was effectively banished to the outer provinces, being last appointed as the President of the enclave of Oceussi.
But he was not happy with that, not happy at all; it's a long way from Dili.
Gusmão eventually gave up on domestic politics and took on the leading role in re-negotiating the Timor Gap Treaty that Gareth Evans shamefully signed with Ali Alitas back in '89 [while he's done some fine work at the UN on nuclear disarmament since, Gareth will never live that one down]...it went all the way to the International Court of Farkin' Justice and back and forth over the decades, and was only settled out of court in the last fortnight at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Copenhagen, on pretty good, although confidential, terms, amid much jubilation among the population of Timor Leste.
So, after almost 30 years, the proceeds of the rivers of fossil fuels in the Timor Sea, that were theirs in the first place, finally flow into the Timor Leste Govt. coffers, as they should, by right and by law.
Even though the arse has now fallen out of the oil and gas markets, they're still worth in the vicinity of $US60 billion.
If he hadn't long before now, Gusmão, at age 71, goes down in Timorese history as their greatest ever hero and now elder statesman.

Photo/Associated Press

The first thing Alkatiri promised to do on assuming office, was to "bring the people out of poverty".
Good luck with that Mari, but at least he now has half a chance with the new cash - and he'll need it.
The Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor [FRETILIN], against the odds, won the last general election, and formed a minority Govt. with the small Democratic Party - not enough to govern outright - but it keeps Gusmão's splinter group, the National Congress for East Timorese Reconstruction [CNRT] in effective opposition, so the popularly-elected President Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres, also of FRETILIN, on being offered with no alternatives other than the Party's long-serving Secretary-General, had no choice but to give Alkatiri the nod, and he was in.
And so it goes, elected unopposed.
The revolution in Timor, it seems, turns full circle.

Timorese President, Francisco Guterres Lu-Olo, signed the decree of appointment journal of Mari Alkatiri as Prime Minister of the VII Constitutional Government/Lusa

Post Inauguration of new PM, Dili, 14 Sept. 2017
Lirio Da Fonseca/Reuters


And the Miracle of Democracy has also been getting a good work-out across 'The Ditch', with Our Cuz in NZ being gripped by "Jacindamania" with the General Election slated for this weekend.
Since her recent ascendancy to the leadership of the Labour Party, Jacinda Arden has taken the Pinko's from being a lost, hopeless cause to a damn good chance of winning, with the latest opinion polls putting her 44%/40% ahead of Bill "Boring as Bat Shit" English on a two-party preferred basis.
That Mad Maori, Winston Peters, was widely expected to hold the balance of power, but his New Zealand First Party's poll numbers are falling like a lead balloon, as the electorate seems to have become more polarised.
Jacinda is the perfect candidate really, a North Island country cop's daughter who worked in a chippie to put herself through University, then landed her first job in Helen Clark's office - she doesn't talk like a politician, espouses populist agrarian socialist views, and, the meeja love her because, let's face it, she is 'photogenic'.
However, the NZ way of doing democratic things is a very curious one, with a set of "reserved seats", mainly for Maori, that are determined by "party lists", and "constituent" seats, that are decided on a first past the post basis on the popular vote in electorates.
Without an Upper House, the "MMP" is over complicated, and there is a significant push for change.
I did note that Arden was ambushed on the campaign trail mid-week while meeting and greeting voters in New Plymouth by a hundred or so folk dressed as pirates.
Long John Silver accosted the Opposition Leader and reportedly presented her with a a "piñata briefcase" and asked "Now you've promised something for everyone, what are you going to give us pirates? The lootin' and pillagin' industry is not what it used to be, you know. Profit margins are really being squeezed out here on the coast in the current climate."

New Plymouth, NZ, 16 Sept 2017.
Craig McCulloch/Radio NZ

And if that is not enough, Icelandic politics has imploded once again, over a paedophile scandal of all things.
Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson has resigned and called for a fresh election, only nine months since the last poll, on account of his father had written a character reference for a mate of his, who happened to be a child sex offender who did time and was trying to get his criminal record expunged under a quirk of Icelandic law.
The perceived sins of the father are visited upon the son.
Given that Bjanari is from the Bright Future Party and was ruling in a very shaky coalition, now is the perfect time for Iceland's anarcho-socialist Pirate Party, who already have ten seats in the 63 seat Althing, to campaign for a working majority and make Reykjavik the capital of a Brave New Uptopian World, like they promise they will.
You can only hope.
Stranger things have happened.

Photo: Iceland Pirate Party

two turds for Canberra

Younger Comrades,

Sheesh...the Post Office must be busy at the minute.
Never mind having to deliver 15+ million letters from the ABS.
It's come to this.
The horror of being officially classified as "elderly" culminates in the final, ultimate indignity - being asked to send your shit to the Govt., in the post.
First the postie drops my Senior's Card in the letter box which has the phrase boldly printed on the front of it "The holder is a Valued Member of the Community. Please extend every Courtesy and Assistance".
How do they know that I'm a valued member of the community by my age, or that I require assistance with courtesy?
Why not just say "here comes some old bastard looking for an even break"?
Then my Gold Opal Card, clearly marked with a deliberately over-sized SENIOR/PENSIONER stamp on it turns up in the post, which entitles me to unlimited public transport at $2.50 a day.
[Why not free, like the London Underground, if I'm so valued?]
But it don't end there, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Oh, no siree.
Then an eParcel [whatever that is] from Australia Post, addressed to me, marked with the ominous words AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT on the front of it ["Oh God", I think to myself, "it's a about that tax return I forgot to lodge back in '84"] lobs on my front door step, which, upon opening contains a National Bowel Cancer Screening Program Kit in a lovely presentation basket from the Chief Medical Officer, Prof. Brendan Murphy.
Oh, that's nice of him, just making sure, now that you are old, that you could give the game away and drop off the twig at any moment so we don't have to pay you the Old Age Pension.
Just making sure...nothing to worry about, that's all.
But, let me tell you, the instructions on how to do the deed are abhorrent & degrading for a newly-minted elderly gentleman not used to such things...
"first, spread a sheet of the newspaper provided on a clean floor [not carpet], drop the daks, squat, gently extrude a steaming poo emoji, get a paddle pop stick, hold your nose, scrape up a bit of the excrement, put it in the test tube provided, pop it in fridge, repeat two to three days later with the other test tube, and then take it all down to a Post Office forthwith and hand it to the Post Master saying "here's my shit, man, it's for the Govt. Make it quick".
Yep, that's right, you have to perform this appalling, disturbing act not once, but twice.
And there must have been some kind of oversight, as there's nothing in the information package for Seniors with a Plan B; in case you don't have perfectly-formed stools or just happen to have the squirts or the sprays, or, there's some bits of corn or carrot in it, or, god forbid, you are suffering awfully from a constipated log-jam and you just can't do it for love nor money, no matter how hard you try.
Then what?
If all goes well, 'tho, once it gets back to the lab and they put it through its paces, you then get another letter from the Govt. via the Post Office within three weeks that says either "Bad news. Your shit stinks" or "Congratulations. Your faecal matter has the sweet aroma of a Lady Diana rose".
However, there is some delicious irony in it I suppose; that after all those long long years as an honest toiler, a hard-working tax-payer, at 60 years of age, you get to send a couple of stinkin' steamin' turds to Canberra in the mail...but oh, the indignity!
Oh well, I suppose it's better than being boned up the arse with a very long garden hose colonoscopy-style by somebody you don't even know.
Things could be worse.
A lot worse.

sponke the monkey

Comrades,

I didn't mind being held up at the ballot box at the Canterbury South Public School hall by a couple of children who were being told by their mother what she was doing, i.e putting her ballot paper and the ballot paper of her elderly mother in the ballot box.
Young people need be shown and told about the Miracle of Democracy, in all its intricacies.
But, there was no talk as to why she was putting her mother's vote in the box.
The Electoral Commissioner's Supervisor didn't seem to mind
Nothing at all to say about making sure that Mum had voted the right way.
Secret ballot, be buggered.
Working that out comes later, kiddies.
I'd even heard mid-week that people are now offering to sell brand new unused "non-binding voluntary postal survey" forms viz-a-viz a question no-one could give a blue root about on e-Bay, so you can fill them in and send them back to the Strayan Bureau of Stats [ABS], at your leisure marked however you like.
I'd like to know how much you can get for them, as I spot a good business opportunity here as the middle-man; I could buy and then on-sell them as a job lot to whatever pressure group wants them, at the highest price, of course.
No principals involved.
What's to stop me?
Another judgement in the High Court?
But, at least it wasn't that hard to cast a genuine valid vote in the CanBan Local Govt. election - just scratch the number 1 in the box above the line for your preferred ticket out of four tickets with three candidates each, in a "ward" that sends three Councillors to council.

None of this being able to count up to at least 6 nonsense like you had to do at the last Federal Election - and still people elected Freaks to the Senate, but that's another story.
No siree, under the optional preferential Hare-Clark-McIntyre-Duckworth-Lewis system of voting being employed at this multi-member constituency election; the number one, or even a tick, or any mark at all in a box above the line would have to be considered by the scrutineers as a valid formal vote, if "the voter's intention was clear".
Simple.
It was widely expected that the Ward would vote along party lines, and that there would be a bit of a backlash vote against Gladys Berejiklian's rubbish Tory State Govt, as people are a bit antsy around these parts about the WestConnex "road to nowhere" project, as the rat-runners avoiding the new toll will clog our already super-busy local roads to a standstill and we'll pay for it, and, well, the rampant over-development of the joint is unstoppable what with the way land prices are; running dog capitalist speculators ruining it for everyone, once again.
There was some protest vote too, and a yearning for the status quo, given that the good burghers of Canterbury have been without any democratic representation whatsoever for a FULL 16 MONTHS, with the shop was being run by a State Govt. appointed stooge called an "Administrator".
Granted, the crony did put an interim stop-order on any new apartment complex DA's being approved along the Canterbury Rd there, until after the election - but he had no choice really - until they have worked out the Sydenham-Bankstown Development Corridor properly, which they haven't, and there's also been talk in the local butcher's shop [where all the good gossip is] that the ICAC is involved, and has its spies out sniffing around, asking questions and putting in wire-taps on dodgy developer's, former councillor's and former council officer's mobile phones, etc etc et al.
Some people aren't going to like it.
But, really?
16 months since the forced amalgamation of the two councils without a single elected official to complain to?
Absolutely outrageous.
But at least that's now been rectified and we did vote along Party lines, with Canterbury Ward electing Clare "Riffy" Raffan with 8,011 primary votes, with the second seat also likely to go Labor as they have 1.42 of a quota on the first count, and the third to be fought out between the Libs and the Greens on preferences.
Same as it ever was.
And then, the further out you go to the other wards, the more overwhelmingly Pinko it becomes.
It's a dead-set certainty that Labor will have a clear majority on Council.
I have no idea what kind of a voice Clare will bring to Council, but it is excellent to see her being elected, because, with those eyes, she would certainly give Julie Bishop a very good run for her money in any "Death Stare" competition.
You certainly wouldn't want to be sitting on the other side of the Council Chamber from her, because if the death stare didn't quite work, Clare would just pull out her Star Trek ray gun and vapourise you.

But the Informal Vote was the big winner on the day, as punters also displayed the usual amount of 'care factor'.
Folk love to vote in compulsory elections, but when they turn up at the polling place, they traditionally don't like being told what to do.
That's part of the beauty of it.
You are perfectly entitled to write on the ballot paper "I am sorry, but I could not give a flying-fuck about this".
The informal vote across all five wards was as follows:
26.69%, 25.66% , 24.28%, 17.63%, and 15.73%.
On that measure, at least three Informal Councillors should have been elected.
In the meantime, the Good Lady Wife drew my attention with a sniff of contempt to some really crazy weird-shit going on across the Harbour, on the Leafy North Shore, where the former Howard Govt. Minister For Everything, the Rt. Hon. Philip Ruddock, has come out of recent retirement to be elected the Mayor of Hornsby at the age of 74.
He knows he'll look good in chains.
But, WTF?
However, that's of no concern of us; at least we Cantabrians have the sense to leave the election of the Mayor and the handing out of the bling up to the elected Councillors.
We won't have anything to do with that.
Of more importance, the P&C BBQ was doing a politically correct roaring trade on the Sizzle of Democracy, offering a wide election selection including a "gourmet sausage" on a roll, with complimentary fried onions and all the sauces including American Mustard, the "Halal sausage", also yr standard "bacon & egg roll" and even a "felafel roll", hot damn, with a cupcake stall to finish.
Making a killing, they were.

It was pleasing to see that the Pinko vote was not influenced at all by the "bogus, offensive election material", which was described by local Labor MP, Linda Burney MHR, as "homophobic, racist & disgusting", being widely circulated at polling booths in the district, which strongly advised people to DO NOT VOTE LABOR, otherwise their children would start learning how to sponke their monkeys, heaven forbid - never mind that voting Labor would also turn your children into homosexuality.
Good God, can't have any of this monkey sponking business going on, otherwise it will all end in tears as the Yoof of Today suddenly start going blind en-masse.
Everyone knows what happens when the primate is poked at the polls, but hasn't teaching kiddies how to sponke their monkeys been outlawed in Govt. Schools for a long time now?
Ahh...ya gotta love The Miracle of Democracy...even pansexuals can get elected now, you know...

I did like the middle aged-bloke who appeared to be of Greek ancestry [the dominant ethnic origin of the second wave of early settlers of the district], dressed in the full regulation Saturday non-designer grey track suit pants and top, wearing thongs, sucking feverishly on a can of Solo while smoking a bunger, and having a good-natured debate with some brave or foolhardy Liberal Party workers handing out how-to-vote cards.
The only thing I overheard him saying was "look, I just can't trust you Liberal people. All I can do is pray".



Photo: Francie M. Lawson

we got the bomb

Drinkers for Disarmament,

When you aint got no mushroom cloud on the horizon to go on, it's always rather important to determine the nuclear yield when setting off The Bomb.
The latest Big One in North Korea, the fifth they've let go in about 11 years, looks like its just Fat Boy Slim being a bit bolshy.
The destructive power of the thing was generally put at about 10 kiloton's of TNT [although the estimates vary widely, with some putting it as high as anywhere between 11.9 kt and 23.7kt].
It's not easy to measure these things.
"Fat Man" in downtown Nagasaki back in '45 came in at between 20kt and 22kt.
So, Kim O'Fat Boy has let off a tiny damp squib in this day and age - and he wouldn't have any serviceable ones left - so, in the Grand Scheme of Things, it might be capable of making a right mess of a country town, if he could deliver it in a timely manner without any outside interference, but that's about it - and due to its almost complete lack of sophistication it'd be a pretty bloody dirty bomb too.
What's always got me, given that the so-called Hermit Kingdom don't pay no attention to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty [1996], is why The Boy King doesn't go in for an atmospheric test?
Now that'd cast the cat amongst the pigeons
Why the pretence of going underground, when it could look real pretty?
Still, if you want to get genuinely serious about nuclear weapons you've gotta go Thermonuclear and be talking in Megatons, baby.
'Tsar Bomba' back in '61 came in at at least 50mt.
And it could have been exponentially huuuuuger, if only they'd let it really rip.
The Americans and the Ruskies, in the highly unlikely event of either of them getting really furious, could pull a bigger and better one out of the cupboard tomorrow, and that'd be good night nurse.
Sabre-rattling and gun boat diplomacy have been around for centuries, but if yr spoiling for a fight, it's never a good idea to be messing about with nuclear weapons, Fat Boy.
People who play with these things can get their fingers burnt.
He would be well aware of the stupendous cost of building one, let alone the immense difficulty of strapping one on to the end of a rocket with no auto-pilot - miniaturisation drives technicians right out of their brains - but he don't care.
Just as long as Chinese helicopters are still dropping crate loads of South Korean manufactured Choco Pies on the Pyongyang Palace, he's as Happy as Larry.
Nobody-fucks-with-the-Fat Boy, OK?, and he's fine with that.
He knows, in order to achieve true immortality in the dynasty, you have to be dead and have your likeness up there in massive granite blocks.
Just ask his father and grand father.
Doesn't matter if the whole shebang goes up in a ball of flames, if that's what it takes to keep the family in power.
[It's interesting to note that behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms, right here, right now, Russia and the Yankies are actually reducing their nuclear weapon stockpiles, simply because they are hellishly expensive - into the tens of billions - don't keep well in storage, and have to be on constant rotation - decommissioned and re-built just to make sure the things still work. Slowly, but surely, The Bomb is falling out of favour.]
Putin isn't much interested in Korea, never has been, China wants their cheap coal and seafoods, and lots of it, and The Donald's foreign policy has been handed over holus-bolus to the might of Ike's military/industrial complex, who would never dream of a pre-emptive strike, even tho' they'd love nothing more.
The Trumpotus is entirely disinterested in the foreign policy numbers in that briefcase over there.
The UN protests in the strongest possible terms.
After all, it was only back in July that the UN adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 2017 [minor problem, none of the nuclear states have signed on, of course].
The '54 Armistice after the Korean War is still in force, and South Korea still has a Minister for Reunification.
Nothing to see here.