NOTES & QUERIES.
- Day Nine of a self-imposed TV news ban. After half a century addicted to daily (often hourly) updates, this is not proving quite as difficult as I’d feared. The ABC’s appalling lack of balance is one of the Coalition’s worst legacies. Al Jazeera, SBS, and Twitter are filling the gap quite nicely, & there’s no need to wear out my ravaged old vocal cords yelling at the screen. To think, we once had a national broadcaster we could all be proud of. ☹️
- Over the past few days our normally garrulous PM has often stumbled, showing clear signs of some form of cognitive impairment, calling reporters ‘Mr. Speaker’, getting figures wildly wrong, being generally off his game. Is it mere campaign fatigue or a harbinger of something more serious? At least half the country has responded by celebrating as though it’s VE Day. The meme industry is working overtime. Let’s be clear about this: a senior public figure may well be suffering from a degenerative condition, and people are LAUGHING? The Libs have only themselves to blame. For nine years they’ve filled the land with hatred, punishing the marginalized, making the wealthy wealthier, lying & distorting & stealing. They’ve locked refugee children in prison & attacked the character of sexual assault survivors. The worst riots happen in prisons under the harshest administrations. They’ve cooked their goose, and now they must lie in it, as that great statesman Joh once famously remarked.
- Maverick Liberal candidate Katherine Devas continues her transphobic ranting, now claiming that ‘history’ teaches us that giving rights to transgender folk leads inevitably to the downfall of civilization. Her sources for this bold claim weren’t cited. Perhaps she was speaking of Transylvania? They’ll dump her soon enough. Conservatives tend to do this every election when someone extreme even by their narrow standards is shown the door. It makes them look a wee bit more progressive and, well, reasonable. Don’t be fooled for an instant. This nasty little woman’s bigoted opinions are shared by many of the pentecostal babblers who have followed Scottie from Marketing into public life. It’s just that the sharper among them realize that, if you want to stick around long enough to qualify for the sumptuous pension, it’s best not to say such things in public. Devas is not an outlier, but a standard-bearer.
- “Gotta admire that George Christensen, he’s played the buggers orf nicely.” Thus spake Old Blue, grizzled daytime occupant of the corner stool at my local. Among country folk, there’s a form of sneaking admiration for politicians who outsmart the system, even when those same politicians do absolutely nothing for their voters. They applaud the very spivs & chancers who regularly remove half the contents of their wallets! Wee George & Poorlean would by now be divvying up the loot after their shameless money grab. Is it any wonder so many of us have given up any hope of a better Australia & merely content ourselves with somehow staying ahead of the game? (Mind you, Blue’s the same bloke who keeps urging me to watch Sky News because the quote that Paul Murray follows through on all the things the woke media doesn’t want us to know about unquote. Any man who thinks the ABC’s full of socialists is probably not the most reliable guide to conduct.) Only 35 more days of this frantic electioneering. None of it means very much. Ever since Little Johnnie Howard popularised the concept of ‘core promises’ there’s no point in believing anything any of them says on the hustings. After May 21st we just might be able to mend the country, but perhaps the structural damage is beyond repair. Enjoy the rest of your week and try not to laugh at middle-aged men showing signs of dementia, Mr. Speaker
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