Best of Hansard - Friday 3rd April 09

BELROSE WASTE DISPOSAL FACILITY

Mr JONATHAN O'DEA (Davidson) [12.17 p.m.]: So much of life is about interfaces. Interfaces cause wars, interfaces are present at the G20 summit in London this week, interfaces are caused where the city meets the bush and where suburbia meets industry. In Belrose we have a continuing interface where suburbia meets WSN Environmental Solutions, which brings the various effects of a garbage tip into suburbia.

There ain't no rainbow in the baggy whites

The Indian cricket team are accusing the Australian team of being hypocrites and cry babies for complaining about racist sledging because the Aussies are apparently known for doing it themselves. Upon which in the past the Indian team have complained.

The Australian team are outraged at the racial sledging of one of their players. Though in the past they have downplayed the comments they have delivered.

Cricket fans have been appalled with the Indian teams behaviour. Never mind that they have their own variety of borderline racist chants and epithets.

And the United Indian Association of Australia argues that "monkey" is not a derogatory term because one of the major Hindu gods is a monkey.

also:

The Japanese are accusing Australia of racism in the recent anti-whaling campaigns. Interesting this accusation didn't come under the Howard Government really. The Japanese record on these matters not being blemish free of course.

NEWSFLASH:

Shouting loudly and pointing at someone elses racism doesn't work so well if your credibility is quite low on these matters. Remember JWH? I thought so. You're all a bunch of silly monkeys. F'real.

Erection dissection

After a rather sensational drubbing on the weekend the Liberals are mid finger-pointing and re-branding already...

The Blame Game

Unfortunately this game is one pioneered by many brave souls who are now on their way out of parliament and most fingers are pointed towards the little chap who stayed at the party even though the other guests were starting the washing up in their jammies. To be fair this was probably a big factor in Bennelong, but from what I saw in Wentworth and other seats the "brand" the Libs were campaigning on was their local candidate rather than JWH.

There is some indication by Liberal supporters that people got "relaxed and comfortable" (sounds familiar?) and started taking the economy for granted. I'd love to say this is the case but I think Rudd's economic conservative mantra did in fact comfort a lot of people who then wanted to know what *else* politics had to offer except economic policy - to do the ALPies credit on this the answer involved: health, education and environment - not a bad trio. I personally suspect that there has been somewhat of a realisation of the fact that the "resources boom" actually has little to do with the Howard government but was attributable to a complex mix of geography and market forces - as far as economic management goes selling coal when pretty much everyone in the world wants it isn't exactly the equivalent of sub-zero water to Inuits.


The New Opposition:

With the Liberal opposition candidates dropping like flies I was slightly concerned that these incredible predictions were coming before their time. Now it seems they've stopped hiding behind each other and hat and gauntlet throwing is the order to the day.

Brendan Nelson is an unusual decision to say the least - a good argument about why the irrational beast of "caucus numbers" should probably be tamed. His merits as a contender have been admirably covered by another blogger far wittier than myself:
The third contender is outgoing Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, who used to be a member of the Labor Party, used to be president of the Australian Medical Association, and used to wear an earring. None of these things apply today, and in the current leadership tussle his main attributes would appear to be his unbelievably monotonous voice and his resemblance to the dad from Thunderbirds. Although history is against him as nobody has won an election by convincing the voters that he is a heroic marionette since Andrew Fisher in 1910.

Julie Bishop scares the bejeezus out of me and I'm a little nervous of saying anything negative about her as I'm sure that given she doesn't blink she can see the whole world. Julie, you're better than Bronwyn...

Alas, the combinations we might have had:

Bronwyn Bishop/Tony Abbott : The beehive & the mad-monk - they could be a postmodern folk-electro outfit
Alexander Downer/Alex Hawke: One in fishnets the other a nutty hard Righter brought together by the party they love and both being called Alex

I could go on but I'd best not.

xx

We've only just begun...

Not only does our potential to engage in, talk about and direct politics not end with our vote but I have a cunning plan:

Kevin 07
Kevin 11
Maxine 15
and then the glory years of a Bob Brown Green Government.

Pass it on...

Oh, and others seem to agree with this trajectory here.
Overly optimistic? Probably. But god, it's a damn sight better than how I've felt for the last 11 years.

For the record

Since it seems the done thing at the moment I should like to inform the Australian population that I have not been to a strip club. Although I wouldn't mind changing this..

And *bless* Bob Brown again:

"Four years ago, Kevin Rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club," Senator Brown said.
"Four years ago, John Howard, sober, took Australia into the Iraq war. I think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm," he said.

The man gets my vote and my knickers thrown at the podium.

Actually existing socialism

K.Rudd has nothing on the worker-related photo opps that Wen Jiabao pulls... This is just bewdiful:













And after raiding their lunchboxes, he pitches in to help:















Kissing babies is for pussies.

Time Machine

The Business Council of Australia warned, "You cannot support productivity growth in the 21st century while turning back the clock to a 1990s or 1980s workplace relations system." (West Australian 18/4/07)

Instead we propose going back to the early industrial revolution era before minimum hour weeks and penalty wages...

Just like fashion, politics has it's own retro movements, the nostalgic nod back to Whitlam or Keating. The fond recollections of Menzies and Joh. Just like fashion it will also continue to keep reviving moments from it's past sometimes because they are classics (the LBD/enterprise bargaining), because they are reminiscent of a more wholesome era (twin sets & pearls/hardcore censorship laws) or because they appeal to the elites (Haute couture/tax breaks for bussiness). Everyone's got to heark back to some era, i'll take the 80s and 90s ideas of workers rights and Salt n' Pepa over the alternative proposal of economic policies from the 19th Century and social mores from the 1950s.

Reasons to keep that subscription..

As a symptom of a not misspent enough youth i find myself a proud and sometimes confused member of P.Ruddy's press release email list. Most of the time it's this or that judge being appointed here or there but every-so-often the full text from one of his doorstop interviews is uploaded. We all already know that he has all the personal charm and charisma of a McDonalds Chicken McNugget but reading his thoughts about why other people can't get married is particularly hearwarming.

First he identifies a problem with the ACT civil union legislation:

The first is that it involves a formal ceremony. If you're having partnership agreements and you're registering them you don't have to have a formal ceremony which is marriage-like with a celebrant. I note that they're not requiring marriage celebrants to do it but they can do it and it provides for registration of other celebrants.

No ceremony? Sheesh, as if anyone could do the pomp and ceremony like the gay community, remember Elton John dressed as Marie Antoinette and extrapolate.

Then he dodges a question by talking to gay relationships on all fours:

Ross Solly:
Do you believe that a same-sex couple can have the same level of love for one another as a couple in a heterosexual relationship?

Attorney-General:
Well our principal concern is to - and I'm not being judgmental about relationships - our principal concern is to where we can to remove discrimination and we're seeking to do that. We don't think putting those relationships on all fours with marriage is the appropriate direction to go.

Then he tells us how he deals with his own gay friends:

Look, I understand that people can have longstanding relationships and the relationships between them are very strong and I'm not judgmental about those matters, but I don't expect them to be entering into marriages.

I pity his speech writer. Those politics and that level of charisma kill words from 50 paces.