"a darker shade of battleship grey"

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and his wife Jenny, visit Bishop Epalle Catholic School in Honiara, 3 June 2019. Photo: Darren England/AAP.

Comrades,

By complete chance late on Monday afternoon I found myself tootling along Art Gallery Rd with a couple of out-of-towners in the motor who somehow knew the Chinese navy was in town. I didn't know. Sydney didn't know. We weren't told. I wondered aloud "d'ya'reckon the RAN fired a few warning shots over their bows before giving them clear passage thru' to Woolloomooloo Bay, y'know, just for the fun of it?". As we swung around Mrs Macquarie's Chair, past the flock of Chinese tourists taking selfies with the sun setting behind The Bridge, there they were. Tied up front and centre at Garden Island. The dude next to me remarked "they're a darker shade of battleship grey". And in very good nick too, they are, compared to a couple of our rusting old hulks that'd been shoved up the dock's runter to make way. While the Govt. explained it away as a "routine reciprocal visit", there were some mutterings about the very peculiar timing. Was it a none-too-subtle warning to the 27 thousand Chinese students who were given permanent residency here in a "captain's call" by RJL Hawke in the wake the Tiananmen Sq. Massacre 30 years ago that...WE ARE STILL WATCHING YOU...?

So now it all made sense. Our Great and Glorious Leader tapped on the shoulder by the Grand Poo Bah of the Dept. of Prime Minister & Cabinet and told "Foreign Affairs says you're off to Honiara!" - on his first trip abroad as a properly elected Prime Minister. ScoMo turns up with $250M in cash in the cargo hold of RAAF One in what another confidant described as "shame money" for doing jack shit in the South Pacific for so many decades. And it's taken until now for Straya to prick up its ears only because China is spending billions, not millions, on 'soft power'. The fact that it's taken eight years for a Prime Minister of any stripe to show up and review The Royal Solomon Islands Police Force's finest on parade is empty symbolism at best, but make no mistake, these things are noticed in the Islands, even tho' rare appearances are the norm. While we're now busy sinking money into roads and bridges instead of health and education, there's nothing in it for places like Tokelau [just as an example of many] where global warming is already a catastrophe and they will soon enough cease to exist as their islands sink beneath the waves. What happens then to the thousands of "climate change refugees"? Swim? With the Hon. Mr Penis Head Dutton currently in Sri Lanka holding up a big banner saying "Stop The Boats", that's just about their only option.

When I was last in Vanuatu two years ago and Samoa last year there was a robust debate going on in both countries about Chinese aid and investment, which locals freely admit to being conflicted about - the plain obvious benefits, as well as the significant downside of sinking further into what they already largely have - a "dependent economy". It's a fraught business. At the risk of repeating myself, the obvious problem with Australia's attitude to the South Pacific is that it is still deeply rooted in colonialism, of which the Islanders, with good reason, are very leery. Foreign Affairs seems to forget most of these joints have been independent for 50 years or more [with the glaring exceptions of New Caledonia and West Papua], and are perfectly capable of determining who's money is going to do the talking. Besides, there's no votes in what we do in Paradise, but there certainly are in fear, in this case, the rapacious Yellow Peril.

So of course, after his token cash splash-down in the Solomons, ScoMo's next port of call was, you guessed it, The Heart of the Empire - for an audience with The Queen. No doubt Queenie would have asked "What's shaking in the Solomon's, Scott? Me and Phil haven't been there since we cruised through on the Royal Yacht Britannia, back '74? They were rock'n'roll times, weren't they?". They would have talked of nothing else. Just like Australia, The Queen remains head of state in the Solomons, with the Guvna-General, Sir Frank Kabui, her man on the ground there. All very appropriate. ScoMo gave the Queen an autographed copy of the biography of the racehorse Winx [rrp $44.95], while ScoMo got a ukulele so he can bang out those Hawaiian toons he's so fond of as one of his party tricks from Manasseh Sogavare, who's now into his fourth non-consecutive stint as the Solomon's PM. All very appropriate.

It's been a big week for the 93 year old; hosting a State Dinner at Buck Pal for the Trumpotus would have been utterly exhausting in its excruciation, and then The Donald's best buddy ScoMo turns up for tea. "God", she would have asked her Private Secretary, "what on earth next?".

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, does his best cat's arse impression for Queen Elizabeth, London, 3 June 2019. Photo/Getty Images.

vote for the funny guy!

Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, mobbed by supporters outside the Badung Market, Bali, last week. Photo: Bryan Denton/New York Times.

Comrades,

If you think some crazy bat-shit went down in The Wide Brown Land last weekend, it's perhaps worth taking a passing interest in the brave beserking that's been shakin' with the Miracle of Democracy in other parts.

It was pleasing to see Jokowi re-elected to a second term as President of Indonesia. What's not to like about a youngish moderate technocrat with a penchant for heavy metal on the stereo? It's ironic that his victory was announced 21 years to the very day since mass pro-democracy protests toppled Suharto. There's been some argy-bargy on the streets of Jakarta with a bit of isolated rioting here and there, but the local cops say that's down to a paid rent-a-mob, and six violent deaths in a day is small beer in a town of well over ten million. In any case, it was, according to international observers, a "free and fair election", and with the Electoral Commission declaring Jokowi a comfortable winner over Prabowo Subianto [who was once married to Suharto's daughter] with about 85 million votes to his name, there's no room for any serious challenge to his authority.

To his credit, Jokowi's been on the education and social welfare case as well as pouring mountains of infrastructure cash into the provinces, and he's even started work on the decades overdue Jakarta Underground [and conveniently opened the first 16km of track just before the election], while talking ever-so wistfully of moving the capital out of Jakarta to a purpose built city. Yeah, right, mate. Never mind that the "very fast" train from Jakarta to Bandung will now be a "medium fast" train, after realising the scope and complexity of the project was beyond them, even with the injection of Chinese billions. Jokowi was sensible enough there not to set himself up to fail. He's on a mission to produce a thoroughly modern Indonesia and the world's 4th largest economy by 2030, and his push for the acceptance of cultural and religious diversity has of course seen him labelled as a "secret Christian". So, it was a very smart political move to pick the elderly and most revered Islamic cleric in the country, Ma'ruf Amin, as his Vice Presidential running-mate. All bases covered.

However, Jokowi has at least one thorn in his side that won't go away - West Papua, and his point blank refusal to do anything about it. The Free West Papua movement is not a sexy subject, but the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN Committee of 24 (Special Committee on Decolonisation) have finally lost patience. The Indonesians were taught very well in the ways of Imperialism by their former colonial masters, the Dutch. The occupation of East Timor was as plain as day for all to see, and Portugal and Australia were not only compliant, but complicit by default in it, and after 29 years of war, and 16 years of independence it still deeply haunts the joint. I have never been to an 'edgier' place in my life. The West Papuans, of course, haven't been as militant as Fretilin, as they know they've never been a match for the Indonesian military, so without intervention, they're snookered. Good luck to UN Secretary General António Guterres - who's just done a swing through the South Pacific Islands - telling the ni-Vanuatu he'd like to go visit their Melanesian brothers and sisters in West Papua and have a snoop around some day. The last outsider to do that was a Polish dude, Jakob Skrzypski, who snuck in there under the radar for a look-see last year, and is now doing five years in an Indonesian jailhouse. As it stands, West Papua is simply off limits to the outside world.

In India meantime, the Himalayan avalanche-style of a landslide re-election of Narendra Modi will be an terrible tragedy for the country, as hard-line Hindu nationalism will continue to be given a free ticket to ride, at the awful expense of the Muslim minority and the Untouchables. It will set the jewel of the East back decades, despite Modi bringing electricity to virtually every village in the country that wants it for the first time. There's votes in that. There are dire warnings that the unique Islamic Indian traditions and institutions will be destroyed and their history will be erased, as the mob shouts "if you don't love it here, fuck-off to Pakistan". There's even an anti-intellectual back-lash against the English speaking bureaucracy, and the highly educated classes of young professionals are leaving the country in droves as fast as they can, as they see no future for them at all in a Modi India. Don't get me started on their attitude towards women. Any dreams India ever had of being a significant player on the world stage are now gone, cactus. There's troubles ahead on the sub-continent.

meantime, up there in Japan, the Prime Minister has changed his name. From now on he is to be known as Abe Shinzo, not Shinzo Abe...restoring the Japanese tradition of putting the family name first. With a new monarch on the Chrysanthemum Throne, an emeritus Emperor, and a new name for the next Royal dynasty, you have to fear it's another continuation of the return to Japanese nationalism, that will make the country more insular than ever. They've got real demographic problems as time marches on, but they're in denial - no worries, a bit of myth and ancient magic will do the trick.

And over in the Ukraine, the TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, best known for his portrayal of a fictional President, is sworn in as the real President after campaigning on a platform of VOTE FOR THE FUNNY GUY! and some vague promises to rein in corruption, after winning in a veritable landslide at the polls. Populist politics gone mad. Good luck with that, son. Old mate Vlad The Impaler in the Kremlin will be as happy as Larry dealing with a feather light-weight, knowing that his annexation of the Crimea is now complete and unchallengable - speaking of imperialism.

Oh, and in late breaking news, it seems the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Telfon Tessa, has been given the tap on the shoulder and told the game's up. How she survived this long is anyone's guess, as the British continue to get themselves tied up in untanglable knots over casting themselves adrift somewhere in the direction of Iceland. Isolationism at its finest. And who's next for No.10? The Turnip Man, Bonkers Boris?

So, in the grand scheme of things, the inevitable navel gazing and factional infighting in the ALP to find a new leader pales into insignificance and is both inane and utterly and totally predictable. DJ Albo will get the Opposition Leader's job for the time being. He can cast himself as a Miracle Victim, and get to work on the only hobby he lists in his Who's Who entry - "beating Tories". As much as I love Comrade Albo to bits - a seasoned veteran in the Dark Arts and a number cruncher par excellence - I am truly sorry, but that bobble head, that face, and especially that voice...oh dear...simply un-electable. That said, and in Albo's defence, the nation in its infinite wisdom has voted ScoMo back in, and his dial is very plainly less than attractive on the "fuckability" scale, his balding bonce actually benefits from a baseball cap and you have to shove a foaming frostie in his gob to stop him yabbering on in tongues. With the amount of grog he knocked back on the hustings, soon enough, Scotty will take a leaf out of the Albo Ale book and get his own Scomo's Sherbet Suds, with a flatttering portrait of him on the can. Albo'll take the Poisoned Chalice for the time being, because he might not get another chance, but he better watch his back - in fact he better be constantly pirouetting around in circles 24/7 looking over his shoulder for lurking danger, otherwise, ten months out from the next election he'll get knifed by Tanya. The Tories have set the precedent, and the Pinko's are just as brutal as that other mob, don't you worry about that.

Australian Labor Party factional war lord, Anthony Albanese, following election defeat. Photo: Dean Lewins/AAP.

people hate change

Comrades.

You can say all you like about a golden opportunity squandered, an election stolen by a hyper cashed-up classic blanket campaign of dirty money, spreading lies and disinformation designed to sow fear and loathing among the populace, how the Opposition unwittingly made themselves a slow moving target, how gerrymandered-to-fuck western and far northern Queensland snapped the rough end off a pineapple and shoved it clean up our unsuspecting collective arse, and bang on and on and on; but when it all comes down to it in the final paralysis...people, hate, change.

Hate it, with a passion. They will do anything at all to avoid it. Fuss is the last thing they want. People have a primal urge to stay the same. What? Me? Out my comfort zone? Forget it. So when the ALP party machina came up with the [now inexplicable in hindsight ] late campaign slogan urging the punters to "Vote for Change", they were asking for trouble. No one will vote for change. "It's Time" never asked anyone to change. As PJK famously said "people will always back the horse called Self Interest". So we went through five weeks of dirty low down shakin', and all that happened was this great Commonwealth of Federated States of ours voted for the status quo; vote Saturday, wake up Sunday, and nothing has changed, absolutely nothing. When all the autumn leaves have been swept into the gutter and burnt, and the gigantic abacus is finally put away you will find that, give or take a seat or two, the Parliament will remain exactly the same as it was. And so will the Govt. They won't change. They've promised not to.
The born-to-rule know they will never get the numbers to govern in their own right and I hear the Country Party apparatchiks bark from the sidelines "it was The Regions who came to save us". People have always underestimated the country-city divide, big time. Anyone who has ever lived for a time in the bush will tell you it is an utterly different planet out there. After doing two-and-a-half hard long years west of the Divide, it scares me. The romantic myths are just that, myths, and there are many adjectives you can use to describe the joint: parochial, insular, opinionated, self-interested, reactionary, prejudiced, bigoted, etc etc et al, but there's always one word that comes to mind - 'backward'. They might be dumb, but they're not stupid, they've got clout at the ballot box and they know how to use it. At this election, Country Party voters showed more solidarity than any bunch of lazy fair weather Pinko's in town. And that shits me to tears.

Only the bookies are laughing, all the way to the bank, about the opinion polls being way off the mark - they never forecast DJ Trump! or Brexit, because they use all the wrong out-dated metrics and assume the unassumable. Even a cursory study of the algorithms on yr SoShul Meejah would tell you a helluva lot more than ringing up random punters on an old fashioned telephone to ask them which fib they like to tell about their voting intentions. When RJL Hawke came to power back in '83 it was another world altogether. 36 years ago was a primitive epoch, never mind the future. In any case, the miracle in the Miracle of Democracy is you can never predict it. As Honest John was fond of saying "the only opinion poll that counts is the one on election day". A tired old truism if ever there was one.

There was a rare final moment where I agreed with Christopher Pyne; he was right when he said "I feel very sorry for Bill Shorten", and it is an unexpected blow and disappointment to us old Trots [rtd], but one thing is for certain, the days of the good old union men have gone away - forever. In this age of the 'gig economy', did the Labor movement die with Bob Hawke? The Pinko's could take a decade or more to re-invent themselves as the party of the Left, with genuine political muscle, or they could even fade from view into obscurity. The fundamentalist right-wing extremist take over of the Liberal Party is now complete, and unchallengable. The middle has gone missing in action, and if the Greens had any sense they'd go back to their roots and again become a single-issue party - climate change. As it is, young folks are being told the rich get richer the poor get poorer and to be a real Strayan it's now Us v Them, and it's every man and woman for themselves. Bugger the rest of them.

That hoary old chestnut "people get the politicians they deserve" couldn't ring truer this time around, but I'll leave it to the psephologists to rake over the smoking ruins, the Libs to count the dead, Labor to bring in the casualties, and the pundits to proffer profundities on the action, as I've already booked my one-way ticket to French Algiers. For three more years. And I'll lumber the final say with Uncle Bill...in his own eulogy..."thank you, and good night".

Photo: Mike Bowers/The Guardian.

"a simple, but elegant solution to Australia's political difficulties"

Comrades,

With RJL Hawke gone, and the outcome of the Campaign now a fait accompli ["one for the true believers"] there's not much point at this late stage in contributing any further to the felling of acres of old-growth forest that have been rolled into newsprint to cover the hostilities.

As my dear departed dyed-in-the-wool Tory father always used to say before going to the polls on Election Day "I'm just going down to strike my blow for freedom". And so should you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1LLsw1lcuA

As that Commanding General of the Campaign Trail, the Great Silver Bodgie once said "you'd be out of your cotton-pickin' mind if you don't vote Labor" - to the barricades, Comrades. The enemy are at the gates!

Vote early, Vote often.

R.I.P. Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke

Comrades,

R.I.P. Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke. Australia's longest serving Labor Prime Minister 1983-1991. Died at Sydney, 16 May 2019 aged 89. A statesman, consumate politician, charismatic leader, national icon, history maker, showman, , scholar and gentleman. Legend and folk hero of the Australian Labor movement. Vale, Bob. You did us right. You will be remembered as you wished "I love Australia, and Australians."


Prime Minister, Bob Hawke and visiting General Secretary, Chinese Communist Party, Hu Yaobang arriving in Whyalla, South Australia, 1985.Photo: National Archives of Australia No.A8746, KN23/4/85/21.

Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke (r) in Moscow on an official visit to the Soviet Union to meet General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1987.Photo: Australian Broadcasting Commission.

Bob Hawke, during the 1983 Election Campaign before being elected to the first of four consecutive terms as Australian Prime Minister. Photo: Fairfax Media.

Former Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, in 2018 aged 87. Photo: News Ltd.

"this is not free money"

Comrades,

Found myself watching the morning news on the telly today to see how goes the battle, when I was alarmed to hear Our Great & Glorious Leader promise that the long-suffering tax payer will pick up the bill for young folk's mortgage insurance in a desperate bid for the Millennial Vote. The clown has clearly gone barking mad, as it sounds like a misguided socialist policy for mine. "This is not free money". Really? Under Scomonomics, a 5% deposit on a million bucks is still fifty grand. In Sydney, that wouldn't buy you much more than a broom cupboard, and no Millennial I know has that much in lazy cash to stuff under the mattress. And in any case, the thieving banks won't have a bar of it. Back to square one. Perhaps ending more than a decade of wage stagnation might be another way?

"After taxing you to death, Labor wants to reduce the value of your home. Across the board". I have a simpler way to do it, ScoMo. What if I came around this week and sat on the front lawn of your place down in The Shire? That would instantly reduce your property value, by plenty. Guaranteed. No lie.

In the meantime, the pre-poll voting places are abuzz as the rusted-on and the Too Busy On Saturday wander in and out in dribs and drabs to cast their ballots, but the word on the street is that everybody wants your vote.

As an example, just in the inner-west of the Emerald City, you can see what I mean here:

And remember, for democracy's sake, vote early, vote often.

ScoMo the BoZo

Comrades,

What a week it was on the campaign trail!

ScoMo hasn't been having a great time of it, with our Great & Glorious Leader being marked down at 0-3 by the Official Adjudicators in the Great Debates. And didn't they get on to some truly bizarre topics to captivate the nation, with the Tongue Speaker in Chief at one stage banging on about how good Big Mac's are for the economy [although, perhaps not so great for the bowel movements]. Everyone's been waiting for the "defining moment" on the hustings, but who would have thought the Tories' coup de grâce would come that most unlikely of quarters - Old Mate Rupes in NYC. News Ltd's bald faced blunder to go for Uncle Bill's jugular by delivering a way below-the-belt low blow to his dead mother was a classic example of a Dirt Unit bereft of dirt. What were they thinking? Unless yr a filthy sleazebag or a kiddie fiddler, the Australian voter does not like nasty personal politics, doesn't like it all.

And that's after the party apparatchiks had wheeled Uncle Bill out onto Q & A, with strict directions "Shut up Bill. If you have to talk, for goodness sake try to sound human and don't go off piste. And whatever you do, don't be yr old union leader self and start haranguing them - as soon as you do that, people will never listen". He did OK with his Instructions from Trades Hall.

So, as it stands, the Pinko's are a dead-set shoe-in, with the Poll Bludger currently giving Labor an 15 seat majority based on a scientific analysis of the latest opinion polls down to the third decimal point, and Uncle Bill is a raging red-hot odds-on $1.14 favourite [ScoMo $5.50] down at the books to become the next PM.

Never mind Solidarity Forever, everybody loves a winner, so take the tip from this traffic light control box seen yesterday deep in Commo Country down in Enmore:

the importance of lunch

Who's the odd man out, then?

Comrades,

The opening salvo's of the campaign didn't amount to much, just the usual skirmishing, no defences were breached on either side, especially with not one, but two ceasefires being called to mark the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Our Glorious Dead. Both sides are sitting in the trenches hoping for a flaming torch issue to come along to captivate the hearts and minds of the natives, before the real stoushing begins. Better still, a stupendous gaff or humongous blunder that kills your opposition stone dead. Given the fever-pitch excitement elicited among the general populace by the opening Great Debate, it might as well have been scored as a nil-all draw. Bring back The Worm, I say.

For the first time, probably, the youth vote matters and it will be of real interest to see the way it swings. And its another era; it's not back in the day when party platforms for election campaigns meant policy, now it's the side that best manages its 'platforms' to speak to the Yoof of Today. The image of ScoMo with a lump of finest black coal in the Parliament has been memed endlessly and will come back to bite him on the arse with the millennial vote. There's always a chance young folk could be sucked in by lies, damned lies and statistics, who knows? The term 'fake news' now "calls out" blatant propaganda, when it used to just mean rabid rumour, wild speculation, and scurrilous scuttlebutt.

But in the final paralysis there's no beating the joys of retail politics. One of the marvellous attempts at small talk made by Uncle Bill on the hustings was when, on introducing himself to a clearly elderly gentleman, he asked "so, how have the school holidays been treating you?", to which the smart arse bludger replied "Doesn't affect me". The commentariat on yr SoShul Mejeeh held the Opposition Leader up to be some kind of eejit for asking that question, when for all they know the poor old bugger might be suffering under the yoke of being forced to look after his grand children all day long for no pay, and no thanks. The Senior Citizen could well have replied "Shithouse, thanks mate". Uncle Bill could have then reminded him of just how little childcare workers actually get paid, and point to the injustices of it all.

That's the way, go with the flow, roll with the punches Shortman, but whatever you do don't rock the boat or upset the apple cart, watch out for incoming artillery and keep your head low. At all times remember the proverb about the Drover's Dog.

The Country Party are of course desperately trying to avoid heading towards being a Parliamentary rump on their way to oblivion, and things were not helped when former leader Barnaby "Mad Rooter" Joyce, the former Minister for Sleaze and Officially Sanctioned Water Theft said "I am absolutely confident that I did absolutely nothing wrong" viz-a-viz the deaths of millions of fish that washed up on the banks of the mighty Murray-Darling. Them's is fine words coming from a joker who's done wrong plenty. All the Pinko's are calling for is a Royal Commission, and why not? It seems we are going back to the heydays of lawyer's picnics back in the 30's & '40's anyway, when there were Royal Commissions into bloody everything. And folks forget South Australia has already had a Royal Commission into the joint New South Wales/Victorian threat to build a bloody great dam at the border, and be buggered with the lot of ya downstream. The learned judge came down hard with a finding that the whole shooting match is a hotbed of waste & mismanagement, corruption, stealing, vandalism, skulduggery and worse The radical vegans would have Barney the Ol' Rooter stitched up on charges of fish murder, nay, endangered species genocide, for which you go to the jailhouse with no possibility of parole. They're probably all wearing Cubbie Station cotton. Sensibly for the Tories, the Inbred Tomato has been told the only thing he needs to worry about is New England. My oh my, some crazy batshit goes down west of the Divide.

Forget Clive "Jabber the Hutt" Palmer and the $30M he's given away to conventional commercial media [the fraudulent fucker's Twitter account is utterly incomprehensible and the dead-head won't know what WeChat is], the size of the cross-bench won't change all that much. There's always been that 10-15% of voters who wouldn't have a bar of the two-party Westminster System, and would never cast their ballots for either of the big two.That's it. It's just the nature of the beast, and the only thing that will happen is the stripe of the 'independents' will likely be different, again. The Pinko's only need to hang on to the heartland of the greater west of the Emerald City because that's where all the people are. They've got the vote, and they like to back a winner. The Eastern Suburbs returning Doc Phelps and the Northern Beaches sending exulted Olympian Zali Steggall to Canberra tells you more about those places than anything else. There will be nothing like a hung Parliament or a balance of power this time around.

Perhaps the best splash of the week was the exclusive in the Sunday fishwraps about some contretemps going on with the French, who are building our brand new Shortfin Barracuda $50B fleet of submarines in a dockyard in Adelaide. Remember that one? The one that a Defence Minister of not so recent past recommended highly..."I wouldn't trust them to build a canoe". Seems like we are having a touch of trouble with the contractors in regards to the uncouthness of Australians in general being incapable of comprehending the importance of lunch. Unlike Strayan public servants, who are happy enough to have a ham sandwich or a sausage roll in a bag with a squeezie of sauce while hunched over their typewriters, the Frogs, quite rightly, for their déjeuner demand plat du jour [which in my experience used to be a legislated maximum of €18 for entrée, plat, followed by entremets or cours de fromage]. Do they have any idea how long it takes to work your way through a three course lunch every day? The other gripe about punctuality for meetings in the afternoons goes out the window after a glass or three of Bordeaux. Surely a nation of piss artistes who are well used to pouring over the gin-soaked plans like us should understand that. Cultural confusion? Get used to it. It's included in the multi-million dollar contract 'variations'. The average punter would read that story and chafe about the endless opportunity for waste & mismanagement on the Gravy Train to Davy Jones Locker, and move on. Heard that one before. I hear the whistle blowing and it plays a happy tune.Toot! Toot!

Being a resident of a very solid Pinko electorate, I don't get much election material dropped in the letter box except from the sitting member Linda Burney who's been saving up on her Postal Allowance. However, I was surprised to find some literature from the Australian Democrats in there the other day. Ah, the fond memories...Cheryl Kernot and Gareth Evans immediately sprang to mind [OK, the mental image of those two on the workbench is not particularly pretty, I'll grant you that] but really you have to go back to the Year BBB...before-Bob Brown...to find the Democrats labelled as the "third force" in Australian politics. Printed on the front of the brochure in bold font is ol' Don Chip's famous saying "Keep The Bastards Honest". I thought that's quite clever of them to retain the copyright, but on closer inspection, the words were accompanied by a small symbol ™. That's where they lost me.

And remember, it's to the barricades, comrades, as pre-poll and postal voting opened yesterday for the rusted on - so as they say in the classics...vote early, vote often.

Shortfin Barracuda Block 1A Variant (artist's impression)

Bobby Three Sticks

                                           Robert S. Mueller III, at his 74th birthday party in August last year.


Legal Eagles,

Well fuck my brown dog, Harold - there's some law in here...

448 pages of it, reduced by data-search-magic to seven.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-pdf-takeaways.html

Like the links to the report itself; e.g why they didn't get The Donald in a small room with a stack of telephone books. A sound basis in law not to call the chief witness: they already had more than enough on him...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html#g-page-225?smid=tw-share

There's seven bits of case law quoted on that page alone!

Ripped the shyster to shreds has Bobby Three Sticks. Torn limb from legal limb by a top-notch prosecutor who don't do no chicken shit. As you would expect after a two year probe. Nowhere to hide, now, DJ!

As he quotes the Trumpotus himself "I'm fucked".

Go you good thing.

"I love it when a favourite wins"

Comrades.

Election Special! Read all about it! Election Special! Read all about it!

It was most pleasing to see Our Great & Glorious Leader finally hop into Z-Car No.1 for the short trip from The Lodge to Yarralumla to get his His Excellency the Gumnut-General to prorogue the Parliament, get some flunky to fire off the starting cannon on the rolling manicured lawns, and officially pronounce "tallyho! race on!" for a mercifully short five week campaign. Although, ScoMo was a bit rude for mine, as it took just eight minutes out of his precious day, when he could have paid some courtesy to Gen. Sir Pete Cosgrove by allowing him the chance to offer a polite cup of Vice Regal tea. Protocol people, where are you?

Trust the Minister for Reffo's, the Hon. Mr Penis Head - or just Duddo to his mates - to kick off the campaign in style by mocking the crippled. He accused the unidexter ALP candidate for Dickson - who has some difficulty getting around with her peg-leg despite being a champion out-rigger canoeist - of being too lazy to pull up stumps and move into the electorate proper at short notice. Surely that's on a par with knocking the Zimmer Frame out from underneath some old dude on the street and shouting "Get a haircut! Get a Job! Ya bludger!" at the crumpled heap on the footpath. That was fine words coming from a bloke who was within a whisker of becoming PM in the party room pustch, failing only because of the last minute Anyone But Dutton push. And all that comes on top of the Govts' call the week previous that we all must respect and show more thoughtful consideration for the dignity of the halt and the lame. Not that it matters all that much in the grand scheme of things, given that Duddo is a dead man walking, and will soon exit stage right from the theatre of politics and back to the obscurity from whence he came. The same can be said for Half Term Tony, as the Mad Monk's rantings of late seem to have departed the planet and entirely lost the plot and drifted off somewhere into meaninglessness. The man must be on drugs. Although it is good know it has dawned on the Budgie Smuggler that Little Free Libraries actually exist, after seeing one in his own electorate, when there are approximately 75,000 of them in 88 countries around the world.

Taking a peeky at energy policy - who knew that Uncle Bill has the time it takes to recharge an electric car at his fingertips? That's clever. I had no idea that the next wave of tech will pump all that beautiful coal-fired electricity into your sparkly new Tesla Model S hatchback or Nissan Leaf in about 8-11 minutes. According to the Tories, we might as well all go back to steam driven vehicles, because if you believe ScoMo, the Pinko's are coming after all your money, and your ute, and your SUV, and probably your wife. Never mind the gas-guzzling Rolls Royce or the Ferrari in the garage at home. You'll be able to pick up some high-octane leaded petrol on the black market to keep your motor running when the time comes, don't you worry about that. Climate change be buggered.

Going down a different garden path, the Tories have a long history of preselecting dunderheads as candidates in unwinnable seats, so it came as no surprise that three Liberal wannabes have withdrawn from the race over suspicions that they might be closet dual citizens. Scomo The Fixer has it all in hand though. "We are looking at it, and we've fixed it". To think, these people could be citizens of Chad, Chile or China without even knowing it? That's very low in nous factor when the High Court came down hard on the side of the race card in s.44 of the Constitution, ruling "There shall be no foreign scum in the Parliament."

On the megaphone front...the ALP's current advertising on the telly is straightforward enough, but for greater clarity they should drop the references to tax loopholes, greedy multinationals and thieving banks, and just do "Hello. I'm Bill Shorten. MAKE THE RICH PAY. Vote Labor on May 18. Thank you". No need to add "Solidarity forever!", that'll do in this day and age when most people have the attention span of a gnat. And 10 second ads are alot cheaper than 30's.

Of course, the Pinko's mantra in this battle is SHUT UP BILL...everyone knows a drover's dog could win the forthcoming election, and all Uncle Bill has to do is not open his mouth and put his foot in it or make fundamental blunders, let alone get himself involved in any fatal clusterfucks. Just tow the party line on the stump, Bill. But, he has to be on-guard at all times, as there's some very shady and crafty Masters of the Dark Arts working in the Liberal Party Dirt Unit, and that means lips are sealed. Uncle Bill's made a good choice in former NSW Premier and un-elected Senator Kristina Keneally to be his "Bus Captain" and wingman on the hustings; then he can let Albo and Wongsy off the leash as his attack dogs, while Tanya can deal with policy.

The Opposition Leader can only be helped along his way by ScoMo's idea of campaigning in the Pentecostalist old school style - speak in tongues, frighten small children, wear alot of those baseball caps of the moment, drink a shitload of beer, gobble up pallets of pies, roll up the sleeves on yr cheap shirts, and say hello in Chinese to Korean women while stabbing yr chop sticks, bogan-like, into a dim sim and eschewing the soy sauce before stuffing it in yr cake hole and pronouncing with all the bilateral multiculturalism that you can muster "yum, yum, pig's bum".

And who knows? Our Great & Glorious Leader might even pick up a dose of giaradia or cryptosporidium brushing his teeth in contaminated rural water while campaigning in some god-forsaken outback town in Queensland, and as a result...finds that he's shat himself, violently.

Perhaps the highlight of the skirmishing of Week One was ScoMo being parachuted into the Members Enclosure at Royal Randwick to go faux-delirious with some swells over the millionth win by Winx, while television footage captured Uncle Bill on the Pinko Bus watching the mighty mare salute the judges for the very last time on a mobile telephone screen, and reacting with a little whoop and a small gesture of a solidarity fist, before saying with a smile on his face "(guttural noise) I love it when a favourite wins".

Anyone wanna a selfie with ScoMo? Anyone? Picture: Supplied.

the free-wheeling miracle

The Solomon Island's Prime Minister's palatial residence, The Red House, on Vavaya Ridge in Honiara.

Comrades,

Jeepers. The Miracle of Democracy is getting out-of-control world wide at the minute. After more than two years, the rest of the planet has finally given up taking any interest in what is happening in the US of A, because only God knows what is going down in D.C. The Trumpotus, after being let off by Bobby Three Sticks, with in his own tautological words "complete and total exoneration" [he might as well have put "utter" in there for emphasis], the steam has gone right out of it as The Donald continues to slide effortlessly into international irrelevance as he disappears up his own not inconsiderable arsehole. Over recent months, the New York Times has quietly stopped reporting DJ Trump!'s "Twitter storms", simply on the grounds that they are no longer news. The US has forfeited it's hard won status as the leader of the Free World, and no one cares, least of all the Chinese.

A television comedian with no political experience best known for his role as The President in a slapstick soapie is elected as the real President of the Ukraine, on an anti-corruption platform. Go figure. Let's see how he takes on Vlad the Impaler of the Kremlin, who had no trouble blatantly thieving all 27,000 sq km of the Crimea off them in a "don't argue" five years ago. Good luck with that.

There are two rival Presidents of blighted Venezuela, after blatantly rigged elections, but that's now turned into a classic Mexican Standoff, as the people who used to live in poverty after the Glory Days of the Hugo Chavez-era ended, now eke out an existence in total misery. The poor, poor bastards. Little wonder they are fleeing the country en-masse.

That hard-bastard strong-man who's running Turkey after surviving a coup d'état in 2016, Recep Erdoğan, got a very good whack from voters in municipal elections in Ankara and Istanbul, appearing to accept defeat one day, then contesting the results on another. But, he'll still run the joint as an autocrat, and that will be a very small thorn in his side.

The largest and most fractured democracy in the world, India, is set to go to the polls next week as that Hindu fundamentalist nationalist Narendra Modi seeks another 5 years in power from the 879 million voters on the books, who are being bombarded on Facebook in an astonishing fake news deluge produced by the Govt. - "the likes of which has never been seen before, world-wide". One of the many things the Indians do have down pat is the twisted manipulation of yr "Social Meejah". Just the voting in the Indian election will take five weeks, given the mind-boggling logistics involved. So the scope for electoral fraud is enormous, not that Modi will particarly need it.

In a fortnight, our nearest neighbour Indonesia is also set to easily re-elect President Joko Widodo, who's known nation wide simply by the contraction of his name, Jokowi. After four years in the job, he's got approval ratings in the 70% range due largely to his impressive spending on creative world-class infrastructure, and will win in a casual canter. Also, to his credit, Jokowi, at age 57, like many Indonesians, is a huge heavy metal fan, and the sounds of Metallica, Led Zeppelin, and Napalm Death can be heard emanating from his office at the threshold of pain, when officials start jibbering on at him about shit he don't want to hear.

In Thailand, the Miracle of Demorcay is all but dead after the latest election, which is entirely objectionable to say the very least. The Govt. refused to release the results at first blush, as they feared they might lose to the Red Shirts, which they did - technically. But it doesn't matter, the pro-Army party - who's sole platform is to maintain the current status quo of the military running the shop - will get the nod, as the Army appoints the majority of the members in the Senate, anyway. I did note that former PM Thaksin Shinawatra wrote a furious letter to the New York Times from his current hideout in Hong Kong, which the NYT editor saw fit to publish, decrying the fact that the vast population in Isan - the area in the north and north east of Thailand and home to the 'Red Shirts' - would easily win every fair election hands down through sheer weight of numbers and because they turn out to vote. To counter this, there were reports of widespread ballot stuffing in Bangkok, with some electorates reporting a turn-out of 200%. But, as Thaksin well knows much to his chagrin, there is no beating the Thai Army or the Bangkok Elite, and if you run foul of the Royal Family, then you are toast, plain and simple. So, in the Military Kingdom of Siam, it's same, same, only not very different. Isan will continue to be fucked-over for their support of the wildly popular Thaksin, who is still a hero in those parts, despite being hounded into exile in 2006 over his unfortunate habit of accepting bribes that should have gone to the State's coffers. But that's small beer, when Thaksin gave them free primary school education and a fair, regulated price for their rice.

And if all that wasn't enough, then there's elections tomorrow in the Solomon Islands, where a slew of Independents will win most of the 50 seats in the Parliament, and then it's a matter of furious horse trading as to who will become Prime Minister. After Chinatown in Honiara was trashed during riots after the 2006 elections, a total liquor ban has been imposed 2-6 April; public drinking is banned, all bars are closed, and there's no take aways, so the local wino's will be beside themselves. I encountered a weekend booze ban in Bangkok some years ago during a half-Senate election, but Mekong Whisky was being served in tea cups, and the few bars who had "arrangements:" with the cops were charging three to four times the RRP for beer. I asked a shopkeeper why he wasn't allowed to peddle the drink, and he simply replied "alcohol and guns don't mix". Fair comment.

In the light of all of the above, the New South Wales State Election pales into insignificance in comparison, especially as the good burghers of NSW voted for the status quo. Nothing happened, nothing changed. Never mind the poor campaign run by Labor, and Uncle Mike forgetting his numbers in the final Leaders Debate, and being caught out by the Govt's Dirt Unit the week previous. The Tories ended up losing six seats, but still hung onto power, with only two of them going to the Pinko's, the rest to right wing extremists. The commentariat has been saying that voters west of the Divide were waiting with baseball bats at the ballot box for the National Party. It was more than that. Much more.They were waiting with fully-loaded double-barrel pump-action shot guns, with a fairly firm uniform swing of 20% against the Country Party, with all those voters switching allegiances directly to the Shooters Farmers and Fishers Party, who picked up three lower house seats in various Hicksvilles. [I have often wondered if they had a schism with the folks who hunt with dogs? The Pig Stickers Party would no doubt be very popular in certain parts rural] The message for the Pinko's is simple enough - they have to be very very careful in maintaining their heartland in the vastness of Sydney's West - that's where the numbers are, and if they want to win Federally, then that has to be locked up and nailed down flat. No leaking of votes to the Populists and Fascists. Solidarity in the nation-wide poll in six weeks time is more important than ever for the workers. Of minor concern is the election of the extremely strange former Pinko Mark Latham - a rat in the ranks if ever there was one - on the One Nation ticket to the NSW upper house. Here's hoping that sometime in the not too distant future, the fat weirdo will be struck down with another bout of pancreatitis, and bow out disgracefully once again; his nose is looking a bright shade of vivid red and the conker is more bulbous than ever; so there's no doubt he doesn't mind a drink in a crisis. The only saving grace is that no one ever pays any attention whatsoever to anything anyone ever says in the NSW Legislative Council. The bad news is the electors didn't have a chance to toss out that freak The Rev. Fred "God Hates Fags" Nile, who's still got another four years to run on his term, by which time he'll be 88. A prime candidate to die in office, with any luck.

And then there's nothing like an Election Budget, due to be handed down tonight. The Tories will have a massive campiagn war chest at their disposal, and if the series of well orchestrated leaks from the budget papers are anything to go by, then the Pork Barrel will be the biggest, fattest and greasiest in living memory. Free money for everyone! Happy days! But not even that will be enough to save ScoMo, who by all reports has been the subject of scurrilous viral fake news on the "Meejah" this week along the lines that he "shat himself, violently" in the Engadine McDonald's after the Cronulla Sharks lost the 1997 Super League Grand Final to Brisbane.

I want to believe.

the race card

Comrades,

Hands up anyone who knows there is an exercise in the Miracle of Democracy in New South Wales this weekend? No-one? Who could blame you.

Last week I stumbled into the Athens of the South just in time to see hundreds of multi-coloured ribbons tied to the gates of the Catholic Cathedral and hear that that buggerin' priest Georgey Pell had been sent down to the jailhouse in what my Learned Friend described as a "near-perfect judgement - no appeal points on sentence there". Then the long-time Chief Steward of Formula One, Charlie Whiting, pops an aorta in a great town to die in, then a report filters through on the bush telegraph while I was on the No.11 Melbourne tram of a "mosque shooting" in NZ [uh, oh - checking the time difference - it's Friday Prayers], that quickly turns into a massacre, in earthquake de-populated Christchurch of all the god-forsaken places, and that before we even got to the opening Grand Prix practice sessions. Then Dear Old Edmond Capon, 33 year long director of the Art Gallery of NSW, gives the game away and shuffles off this mortal coil after suffering though another long, bitter London winter, the day I get home. So you can see why the lack-lustre NSW election campaign for this Saturday's poll has struggled to be even a blip on the news radar, and remains all but unknown to the rest of the Wide Brown Land.

Little wonder with the two main competitors, the Tory Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the Pinko's leader Michael Daley. They're those kind of people who you see at Xmas every year, but you just can't place them. They both look and behave like Strange Auntie Glad and well-meaning boring ol' Uncle Mike. No one has made any major gaffs or stumbles on the hustings, or ranted any fatally stupid stump speeches, so that also accounts for the lack of hard news.

The only thing of any note in recent days has been the inevitable playing of the race card. Strange Auntie Glad wants immigration to Sydney cut by 50%, or 100% or whatever number she thinks of - turn them back at the gates, and send them all bush. But Uncle Mike has been busted by a covert video taken at a politics in the pub meeting last year before he became Opposition leader in the Blue Mountains, of all places, saying that the yellow peril are coming here to steal all our jobs. Yep, anyone of any stripe can appeal to the "fuck-off-we're-full" lobby as a vote winner. Forget white supremacy for the minute, oddly enough, some of the most xenophobic people in Sydney are the Hong Kong Chinese who came here pre-1997, and now all have voting age children. They are Tory to the bootstraps coming from the last bastion of the British Empire, and the Triads they bought with them are not to be messed with under any circumstances. And they hate the mainland Chinese immigrants more than anyone else. Go figure. In the country's multi-cultural capital, that's just one example of the real ethnic tensions that the pollies are very keen to exploit in any way they can. Fear campaigns always work, plain & simple. As PJK used to say "always back the horse called Self Interest". But the fact is that way more than a thousand people come to Sydney every week and never leave, and there's nothing anyone can, or should, do about that. Crikey, the No.1 issue surely must be that housing, transport and crumbling infrastructure in this heaving metropolis of five million is way, way off the pace, and has been decades.

A short back story might be required here for out-of-towners. Strange Auntie Glad came to prominence as Transport Minister under the ill-fated Mike Baird [he of attempting to unilaterally ban greyhound racing] Govt. and put in a shocker. A common commuter cry on station platforms became "where's me farkin' train, Gladys!". Then, on becoming Boss Cocky, she presided over the stupendous mess that is the vast multi-billion dollar road tunnel WestConnex project that she was hoping would be finished by now as an election wining showpiece, but it's still years off completion. Then there's the Tram to Nowhere, that's now officially running $500M over budget and 16 months behind time. A world class example of how not to do it; the multi-million dollar "variations" are the subject of Supreme Court cases, because they started building the tramway from the start instead of from the finish, then working back towards Central, learning by their mistakes along the way. The contractors are virtually on strike. As far as cluster-fucks go, it takes the biscuit hands down. And Don't get me started on the Metro Rail dream.

But all that really matters not a jot, as the election will be won an lost west of the Great Divide, due to the infinite wisdom of the Surveyor-General putting most of the really marginal seats out in the rural badlands. Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong are more or less carved up along class lines. The folks in the bush could simply not give a single blue root about whatever cockups are happening in Sydney. It's no concern of theirs; only to the point that they're also paying for it. The rise of conservative Independents in marginal rural seats, and the gathering support of the ult-right Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, who are attracting disaffected Country Party voters in their droves, is certain to cast the cat among the pigeons. If that's not enough, never mind the beserkers who will be elected to the upper house. Apart from three years in a failed tilt at the Senate, that 84-year-old god-botherer, The Rev. Fred Nile, has been sitting in the Legislative Council for 38 years now - and that's some pretty crazy shit right there. NSW has a long and proud history of voting out-and-out wack jobs in and in, again and again. It will be a schemozzle of a poll, uniform swings have gone out the window, and my favorite psephology website The Poll Bludger has Labor leading 50.6%-49.4% on the two-party preferred. That's knife edge if ever there was a sharp blade. I fear for NSW if, as expected, the Tories slip into coalition with a mob of loons to form a Minority Govt. for the next four, long years. It's NSW party policy for the Pinko's to not go so far as to even consider coalition with anyone. Labor has always stood its own here in the heartland, and always will. As it should be. And they continue to be the only party of the left, as the Greens become increasingly irrelevant, what with all their continual in-fighting, "toxic culture", and their problem of what to do with the unreformed Trots.

God only help the poor, long suffering voters of NSW if they stuff this one up and produce a Minority Tory Govt. But, that's the Miracle of Democracy for you. Voters always get the politicians they deserve. Strange Auntie Glad will have no hair left on her head as she pulls out great tufts; just ask Julia Gillard what it's like - she'll tell you. And if Labor don't get up in the current climate of a filthy bad taste in the mouth created by the Liberals and Nationals in general, then they've only got themselves to blame. It certainly looks like one of the three Chinese curses has well and truly arrived in the Year of the Pig - "may you live in interesting times".

Remember...vote early, vote often. And vote the bastards out.

a picture's worth a thousand words

Comrades,

I was just lounging here and wondering how on earth I was going to write a lazy thousand words on the 'sudden' impending retirement of the Chief Clown of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Christopher Pyne, back to the Rustbelt where he belongs, and decided that it was no use.

What is there to say about the fully-qualified Master of the Dark Arts, court jester & fool, ratfucker, crafty numbers man, bald-faced liar, shifty snake, treacherous leaking toad - the most ridiculous Defence Minister the country has ever seen - and all-round world-class all-singing all-dancing freak show?

After 26 years in the Halls of Power, the good burghers of Sturt who in the spirit of the Miracle of Democracy, elected him time and time and time and time again will be sad to see him go, and there will no doubt be some MP's who will miss his absurd antics; DJ Albo for one. But what else is there to say? Eh, Christopher?

On interview after he leaked word of his departure to the meejah, he started off with the blatant howler "I am not retiring because I don't want to go back to Opposition" [displaying total confidence in ScoMo to pull rabbits out of hats and win the next election], then his throw-away-line about that little contretemps with Honest John "I was frozen out for a bit...I did learn a lot in ten years on the backbench". Whiney Pyney then went on to conclude "you can't always get what you want in politics...I am happy that I rose to No.5 in Government". Is that all you can say for yourself, Christopher? Is that all you've got? After all these years? Nothing else? Is he trying to con us into believing he's some kind of try-hard? What? From the man who will forever be known as "The Fixer"?

I've had enough, and I know that I would've bored you lot shitless with tales of his low-down dirty-shakin', and then I remembered that they say a picture's worth a thousand words. So I stole some of the negatives. Enjoy.

The Hon. Christopher Pyne, MHR.

the nuclear powered death stare

Comrades,

It's always a shame when former Foreign Ministers decide, or have it decided for them, to leave the political arena, and no more so than Julie Bishop - she of the nuclear powered "death stare" and the "power suit", both of which she deployed to impressive effect. The NatCap will be less of a place without the Hon. Member for Curtin, after 21 years in the bullring. All power to her oars.

She ended up being much more than just another "bloody Adelaide lawyer" who married well and moved to the Golden West. Bishop assiduously worked her way through the Liberal ranks, in what was and remains a Man's World, while denying the very existence of anything like a "glass ceiling". She's opposed any gender-type "quota's", and once said "feminism is not much use to me". She knew from the off, that if yr in the boys club you have to play by the boys rules. Obviously, lasting 11 years as the Tory Deputy Dog, Bishop was always thought of within her own party as a "good 2IC", and nothing more. When she volunteered to go abroad, she became acutely aware of the clout Australia has on the world stage, where it's seen as a post-colonial outpost somewhere in the South Seas of no particular interest to anyone, but she made damned sure she punched above her weight while all the while towing the party line. Never deviated. Not once.

It's odd that Conservative Foreign Ministers are just about the only Tories I've ever had much time for. Dries, all of 'em. Unashamed staunch Conservatives to their bootstraps, all of 'em. You have to grudgingly respect their entirely unshakable faith in capitalism, and how the wealthy will always fight to the death for it. And there hasn't been many non-Pinko's to hold the Foreign post in living memory. Before Bishop, Alexander Downer was a badly advised sharp blade with a brief comical history as Opposition Leader, before he transmogrified into a half-way decent diplomat who was in the job 11 years - throughout the long, hard, Howard era - right to the bitter to the end, when he was punted in the Kevin '07 Pinko rout. Alexander certainly had the right plum in the mouth for the job, but whenever I ran up against him in person as a reporter, or saw that peculiar visage on the telly, I always used to wonder what the diplomatic corps thought when the dial of the Hon. Downer was looming up at them in the distance for the umpteenth time. Was there some disheveled eye-rolling? Who knows. Never mind following his father's footsteps toa four year residencey at Australia House, Downer's best work came later, when he all but resolved the "Cypriot Question" during his five year stint as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Cyprus, where he very much enjoyed the national drink; Cypriot brandy and local lemon cordial, with a dash of soda. Stirred with a silver spoon. Like Bishop, more "old Adelaide money", right there.

Before Downer, you really have to go way way back to find another one, in that "international playboy" Andrew Peacock - another who didn't mind a drink in a crisis - who liked to trade on the scurrilous rumour that he was popular with the Ladies on the diplomatic cocktail circuit. By all accounts he acquitted himself well during his five years aboard the Gravy Train and was more than happy with the Toot! Toot! arrangements that existed back then, when he was Foreign Minister between the ages of 36 and 41. And he was a good mate of Billy Sneddon, who as everyone knows, breathed his last on the work bench in Kings Cross. A good ol' Melbourne boy, and you can't get any more Tory than being the Member for Kooyong. However, that is truly frighteningly ancient history now. Peacock turned 80 last week and lives happily with his third wife of 15 years, Penne - a diplomat and "former Texas Beauty Queen" - in Austin, Texas. You can't get much sweeter than that, and he knows it. Before Peacock - Christ on a bicycle - I'm old enough to remember Paul Hasluck, who was knighted for going through no less than four Prime Ministers as the Minister for External Affairs, and Hasluck's been dead 26 years.

But, I digress. For all I know, Marise Payne could be MIssing in Action (MIA).They say Hanoi's nice at this time of year.

Bishop could see that she would have nothing at all to do in Opposition, been there, done that, and who'd be bothered with campaigning for certain losers anyway, when the current Prime Minister thinks you're a hard-faced bitch of the highest order who tipped you out of the Foreign Affairs portfolio only because you were - as the Mad Monk once described her - "that loyal girl"? That was her only sin. Loyalty to the Rich Dude, one of her own kind. Why would you go into bat for a baseball-capped sausage sanger-eating, beer-drinking bastard buffoon, when he did you like a dinner at the last leadership spill? How quickly folks forget that after Trundle was ruthlessly knifed in the back, Bishop threw her ring in the hat for the top job, but still it fell to ScoMo by default as the party Grand Poobah's decided that that power-hungry hypocrite Mr Penis Head was just as unelectable as Mr Malcolm. By failing to even remotely seriously consider her as a "compromise candidate", the Tory eejits very wrongly assumed that 'resting bitch face' is also unelectable. Bishop may/may not have given Uncle Bill a run for his money in the upcoming election, but at least she most likely would have saved the Conservatives from the now inevitable electoral catastrophe. Who knows? No use wasting time over spilled Scotch. Don't know that she'll hold any grudges, but at least Julie knew what she stood for. And it wasn't for fundamentalist tongue-speaking filthy lucre-grubbing right-wing hardliners. She's a self-confessed "Menziesite", and she knows what a forked tongue looks like.

Vale.

the return of the Good Ship Tampa

The Rt. Hon. Stanley Bruce, The Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, 8th Prime Minister of Australia.


Comrades,

The Chief Clown of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Christopher Pyne, has excelled even his extraordinarily high standards this time, by referring to the Govts. recent defeat on the floor of the House for the first time in a vote that mattered since 1929 thus:

"What the Opposition and the crossbenchers have done today… is decided that they don't care about the Australian constitution...they don't care about the Westminster traditions that form the basis of our constitution and our parliamentary system...and I would remind the House that the English fought a civil war over this matter."

Yeah right mate, whatever you say. Not too sure that The Roundheads and The Cavaliers would have been all that worried about some poor sick reffo's who've been locked up in the cruel tropics with no recourse to justice for years on end and have come down with berri-berri, for all I know.

ScoMo could do worse than to take pause and reflect on the experience of the 8th Prime Minister, The Rt. Hon. Stanley Bruce, The Viscount Bruce of Melbourne - the last Tory to lose a vote on the floor.

Stan came from a family of rich dudes - spawned by Old Melbourne Money and leaders of the Squattocracy - and he moved in the most Conservative of circles, competing in the 1904 Boat Race during a tragic yoof, before getting a schooling in The Law and heading up the choicely named Nationalist Party-Country Party Coalition [some things never change]. Stan found his way to the Prime Ministership essentially by default [just like our current Glorious Leader] back in '23 at the age of 40. He then proceeded to flood the country with Pommy immigrants for cheap labour, borrowed money hand over fist anywhere he could, imposed hefty tariffs, and produced Australia's first in-defecit budget in '27. He also finished off building Canberra, for which he should probably never be forgiven. Perhaps his proudest moment was being awarded Life Membership of the Royal Melbourne Golf Club.

More to the point here tho', the Pinko's were causing Stan a whole lot of trouble, with the rabid Waterside Workers Union turning the docks into a bloody shit-fight, and he outraged the general public by attempting to impose a "bread and circuses tax" which caused an outcry in the entertainment industry at the back end of The Roaring Twenties when they were all living like there's no tomorrow; never mind that trade barriers were beserk and debt was through the roof. But in the end it was the Maritime Industries Bill 1929 that got the bastard. Bruce declared he would consider losing the bill on the floor of the house as a vote of no confidence in the Govt. The bill went down in a screaming heap. He called a snap election, and on Saturday 12 October 1929 copped a gigantic tusk up the runter from the electorate - a complete rout, an explosive flameout. Not only did the Nationalist-Country Party mob lose half their seats in the Reps [there was no Senate election], but Stan lost his own seat as well - a feat that wasn't repeated by a serving PM 'til Honest John in 2007, and the Pinko's triumphed with that Commie Jimmy Scullin moving in to take over the reins. [Jimmy was one of the very few who had for years predicted the coming of the Great Depression - the Wall St Crash happened just two days after Jim was sworn in as PM - no surprise he didn't last long]. The Miracle of Democracy was pretty robust back then.

Apologies for dusting off the li'l history books there, but all of those things are potential possibilities right here right now in 2019. It's difficult to pinpoint a Govt that's been more on the nose with the poor suffering taxpayer in living memory. Anyway, history repeats, generally like a very off fart. All ScoMo can really hope for in the already-begun election campaign is for the Good Ship Tampa to loom up on the horizon again, and then he can personally throw some children overboard just to prove his point that people are so desperate to get into Australia by boat, when the vast majority of illegal immigrants go by air - sneaking in on tourist visa's at Kingsford-Smith Airport in their tens of thousands and never leaving. Campaigning on a "Fuck-Off-We're-Full" platform won't wash with an electorate who are getting wise about the Stop The Boats mantra while still having absolutely no idea why ScoMo is PM in the first place. None. Clueless.

Perhaps the best sight - apart from Whiney Pyney frothing at the mouth - during all the horsetrading was that of the quintessential Pinko numbers man Anthony Albanese chewing the ear off Dr. Kerryn Phelps on the crossbenches, reminding her that you've gotta get the vote. Uncle Bill can count his lucky stars that he's got DJ Albo shoving the cogs in the gearbox and whirring the abacus for him to make sure the numbers stack up. For a man who lists his only hobby in Who's Who as "beating Tories", Albo is working in the safe and sure knowledge that with a thumping Labor majority in the next House, all the Independent wackjobs and loonbags who will get elected and tip hard-line right-wingers like Half-Term Tony out of their seats, won't matter a twit. Because, he'll have the numbers and there will be no balance of power. Cop that.

Albo & Phelpsy on the crossbenches, 12 Feb 2019.

rats leaving the sinking ship in the Land of the Long Weekend

Comrades,

If the Pinko's think that the next election is a fait accompli then they better watch out for rats in the ranks, of which they have a very long and dirty history. You just never know where they are in the woodwork.

Of course, one they don't have to worry about is PM ScoMo's latest best buddy Warren Mundine - a rattus rattus of long standing - having quit the ALP Presidency, and then the party altogether to become chief of the Mad Monk's ill-fated and toothless Indigenous Advisory Council, that never appeared to do anything at all, and was abolished a year ago. So it was only a matter of time until Mundine fell into the clasping clutches of the Tories as their candidate in the seat of Gilmore, the most marginal Lib-Nat seat in all of NSW. Great idea. Parachute in a Pinko turncoat, against the vote of the local Tory caucus who'd already endorsed a local real estate agent. Good one ScoMo, taking a leaf out of Mad Tony's playbook and making a Captain's Call par excellence [wasn't the Aberrant Abbott's last master stroke giving one of those short-lived and now rare Australian Knighthoods to Phil The Greek?] As some rabid Pinko in an uncharitable mood said to me mid-week, Mundine, "like much of his family", is a "self-aggrandizing self-promoter". He is, after all, an uncle of that well known loud-mouth Anthony "Choc" Mundine; not that you should suffer guilt by association with yr family or anything like that. Oh no. Not by any means. But the skipper's pick remains shrouded in mystery.

As he chugged on beers and stuffed endless sausage sangers into his gobhole under a red, white and blue bucket hat, ScoMo had a great Straaayaaa Day Long Weekend as all of a sudden no less than three Ministers of the Crown cashed in their chips, deciding they had better things to do with their lives like "spend time with the family". Really? They could all see that dreadful day of judgement coming from a long way off, and having got well used to lording over their respective Departments, did not fancy the idea of returning to Opposition and sniping from the sidelines. The Minister for the Poor, Sick, Weak, Old, Halt and Lame, the Minister for the Unemployed and Dead-Beat Layabouts, and the Minister for the Aborigines are all now fed up to here and have left our Glorious Leader to fend for himself. Rats, alright. Soon there will be no one on the front bench left to quit in a fit of pique. In the wake of the Mundine call, it's ironic that the gun-toting former mackerel fisherman and Country-Liberal Party Senator for the Northern Territory, Nigel Scullion, hung on to the Indigenous Affairs portfolio through no less than three Prime Ministers, simply because nobody else wanted that particular poisoned chalice. Anyone want it now? Nigel doesn't.

Never mind public image or anything so superficial; the Govt. is literally falling apart - its shit stinks so much that the rats are leaving the sinking ship, while another notable rodent backs the wrong horse and jumps on board. Go figure?

If all that wasn't bad enough for the ruling classes, it was pleasing to hear Zali Stegall referred to in the press as a "barrister and former Olympian" [Albertville, Lillehammer, Nagano, Salt Lake City] when she made clear her intention of making an independent run for Warringah, voluntarily putting herself forward to head up the well-established "Get Tony" ticket on Facebook. All power to her oars. In the current mood, the electorate has had more than enough of Half-Term Tony. The world has passed you, and yr budgie smugglers, by, son. At long last, all washed up on Manly Beach at age 61 come May.

I was once again mortified at being so rudely brushed for Straya Day honours yet again this year; it hurts, and let's face it, what more do they want me to do? And there was also something quietly disturbing about Olivia Neutron-Bomb effectively being made a Dame of the Realm, as the Companion of the Order of Straya is generally regarded as the colonial equivalent of a knighthood/damehood, while Our Kylie (Minogue) was only made an Officer of the Order at age 50 to add to her 2007 OBE. Cruelly snubbed, she was. To be fair, tho', both could also mount good cases for being appointed joint Strayans of the Year. [Just please don't get me started on Peter Reith and Warren Truss, OK?]

In any case, all this nonsense will come to an end soon enough when King Charles the Turd assumes the Throne and Crown and they "change the date" from January 26 to January 1 [which I have always advocated as Australia's National Day, being the date of Federation in 1901 and a celebration of the Miracle of Democracy]. That way you can have two public holidays at New Year, the 1st & 2nd, then you could roll the old Straya Day, Anzac Day and the Queen's Birthday into Easter for an enormous, huge, massive, tremendous, bloody bewdiful Mighty Mega Long Weekend - no less than five public holidays in a row to celebrate the world renowned and undisputed luckiness of the Land of the Long Weekend. Put that to a vote and see it romp home. You know it makes sense.