OH GOD! NOT THIS AGAIN!

Well, as they say, what comes around, goes around.  Here comes the Coalition campaign against the wicked Moslems all over again. Remember? They’re all terrorists, they never wash, they wear funny clothes, the women all look as they’re going to a funeral, the young ones are all multiple rapists or pedophiles and they shout from the roof of their mosque at five o’clock in the morning  when the decent members of the community are still sleeping off last night’s hangovers.
Howard and Ruddock were right.  Let ‘em drown, the lot of  ‘em!
Of course, all those lies and all that cruelty got Howard re-elected, and it’ll surely do the same for big bold Malcolm.

So far I’ve only heard one member of the Coalition criticise the Howard policy.   That was a courageous back bencher who got so little coverage that his name escapes me.
Apart from him, it was all being recited from the same script:
“We told you so; they’ll do anything. they’ll even chuck their kids overboard. We’ve got pictures to prove it. They’re going to come down here by the thousands. We’ll be swamped by filthy Moslems in filthy boats.  They’ll steal our belongings  rape our daughters or wives, or sons for that matter,  and it’ll all be Kevin’s  fault! “
I can hear  David Oldfield on Sydney Radio2GB spewing out  poison into the night for all his receptive insomaniacs to pass onto their kids and neighbours.

Of course they’ll never mention the fact that there are wars in Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Afghanistan which have hundreds  of thousands of pathetic, innocent people whose lives are in constant danger who are willing to go anywhere to save their own lives and those of their children. Thousands of them are going all over the world. 30,000 to Italy, 30,000 to Spain, wherever a seaboard they’ll go.  Australia has a very large seaboard, but one very dangerous to get to by old, leaking tubs run by unscrupulous crooks who don’t care how many refugees get to their destination as long as they pay.
The present Government is doing whatever is humanely possible to prevent them from coming.  They are patrolling our borders and processing any refugees that make it to see if they are acceptable ans migrants.  That is what the Howard Government basically set out to do.
It became a shameful  system of deterrence by brutality gave Australia a  reputation all over the world which will take us years to live down.

Does the Coalition really want a return to the Howard, Ruddock  system in which the asylum seekers (not “illegals” as the Coalition called them) were either allowed to drown, or incarcerated  in Detention Centers in  which children attempted to commit suicide or saw such dreadful things being done to their parents that they’ll be traumatised for the rest of their lives ; where the  inmates were brutally beaten by the guards in the remoter centers far away from the public gaze.
And that was the Australia to which Turnbull & Co wish to return.
Nice one, Malcolm. Is there anything you wouldn’t stoop to to become Prime Minister?

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AND THE WINNER IS………….!?

You know, there’s something awfully embarrassing about Malcolm Turnbull’s hurry to become P.M.
Safe in his  position as the moderate leader of a reformed Liberal Party, Malcolm used to even agree with some of the Government’s policies, even its proposed new IR laws , on the grounds that the public gave the Government a clear mandate to ditch the mean Howard Costello efforts.
But that all changed  when Peter Costello began to have shorter lunches, play less golf, and appear in the House now and again.  Now we have the tough, no nonsense Malcolm who’ll show these Socialists a thing or two.  Where he was going to pass the new IR Bills  Malcolm,now taking a leaf out of Peter’s book, decided that there wasn’t a mandate at all. So his Party found all kinds of nits to pick, and it was left to the Greens and Senators Fielding and Xenophon to reap the glory leaving Malcolm to reap the facial eggs.
Funnily Peter was nowhere to be seen in Parliament House. He had an urgent speaking engagement in Melbourne and was no doubt carving another little picture of a top hat next to the others on his desk.
Oddly enough, although he’s now topping Malcolm in the opinion polls, one can’t help feeling, going on his past record, Peter would make a lousy leader.  Imagine him now if he were PM facing the hard decisions PM Rudd has to make on a daily basis?  And don’t forget he hasn’t got Geo. Dubya’s coat tails to hang onto. No man of steel, now.  Just a ham faced, spoiler without his smirk and no ticker to speak of.
Maybe ‘honest John’ was really being being honest for a change.

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AH, THE GOOD OLD DAYS!

Probably most people have forgotten the hanging of Ronald Ryan in Victoria in the 1950’s.  He was the last man hanged in Australia.  It is an event which I will never forget.  How could anyone at the time. In the weeks leading up to it, the media went into a feeding frenzy the like of which is seldom seen. There were endless items about wretches, unable to walk to the gallows because of their terror, being dragged there by a couple of burly warders; about death watches by warders, The last meal, the procession to the place of execution lead by a priest reading extracts from the bible (always omitting the bit about “thou shalt not kill), the springing of the trap, and the twitching body being examined by a doctor.
There were photos of the relatives involved being chased by eager paparazzi, and members of the public, some of the “he had it coming-ites”, some expressing disgust, and some old dears quoting “appropriate” passages from the good book.
The reason the memory still sticks in mine, is that the night before the hanging I had a dream, probably one of the most vivid dreams I have ever had.  I dreamed I was in the death cell, waiting to be hanged the next morning.  I dreamed it all, from the fat, friendly guard trying to cheer me up by telling my weak jokes, and the last meal of Wiener schnitzel and potato salad being wheeled in on a tray. I remember that I couldn’t eat any of it, and gave it to the guard who ate it with gusto. I tried to sleep but the light was on so I buried myself in my blankets. Then the head warder came in with a priest and asked me if I was ready.  I stood up and suddenly it hit me. I was about to die. I remember the cold terror that came over me a I staggered along the corridor accompanied by a banging  of tin mugs and people shouting things like, ” keep your chin up, they’ll do it for you soon!!) Then we went through an open door and there were the gallows—– and I woke up, bathed in sweat, shivering, terrified and ALIVE!
From that moment on, I have been a firm opponent of the death penalty.  I wouldn’t even support executing Eichman, or Hitler, or Genghis Khan for that matter.

So imagine my surprise when in the Sydney Morning Herald of  March 14, I came across an item headed “FEDERAL LAW AIMS TO STOP DEATH PENALTY.” aimed at stopping the states from reintroducing capital punishment. It appears that, while capital punishment was no longer legal Federally, it was still on State Statute books although no further hangings took place in Australia after Ryan’s. The last state to abolish it was NSW in 1985.
After, and the Bali bombing in 2002 and the 9/11 bombing in the US, John Howard, ever the political opportunist, suggested the Liberal  opposition parties should make the reintroduction of the death penalty an election issue.

There always seems to have been an almost sadistic streak in the minds of the Conservative side of Australian politics.  This is perhaps best brought out in a book by David Marr and Marian Wilkinson. Titled”DARK VICTORY”
it describes the almost insane measures by which the Howard Government, helped by some of their thoroughly politicisation public servants, attempted to keep out asylumn seekers arriving in Australia by boat.
Beginning with the story of the TAMPA, it tells of some of the SIEV boats, and how their unfortunate passengers were treated, on Government orders, by a reluctant navy and army.

The refugees, having committed no crime, were labelled “illegals” and were towed back into Indonesian waters with their ancient, leaking boats sinking beneath them.  Terrified of being sent back to Iraq or Afghanistan, they sabotaged their boats’ engines so eventuallythe navy had to pick them up.  According to DARK VICTORY some of the sailors were crying during these operations.
Get DARK VICTORY, It’s a bloody good read, and it’ll give you some idea of the monsters that we sometimes elect to govern us!
Oh! In case you were wondering, despite what Peter Reith said, there never were any “kids thrown overboard”.

Doesn’t anyone else ever get bored?

Another day, another issue of a weekend magazine devoted too sportsmen. This time its the one in our Australian which celebrates the 20th anniversary from a predictable selection of these muscle benders and hitters or kickers of balls of all shapes and sizes.  The main muscles these worthies exercise is the buttock muscles of the couch potato brigade, who watch their exploits on ever increasing sizes of television sets which dominate their living rooms until there’s hardly anywhere to sit. One wonders if there’s anyone else doing anything worth while in Australia.  Writers, scientists, medical researchers, stage actors, writers, painters and a dozen other categories don’t seem to exist in these magazines.
One wonders if anyone reads them anymore and if so why?.

Bugger the hospitals, what about thse really in need!!!

The other day I gave a donation to Hornsby Hospital towards a new anesthetic machine which it badly needed.  Recently I spent two weeks in the hospital and got some idea of what a tremendous job its staff was doing on a chronic shortage of funds.
Hornsby isn’t the only state hospital in the same plight. They are all short of funds.That’s why you read about babies being born in toilets, and overworked nurses and doctors making mistakes.  But not to worry.  When there’s a need, the State Government has the cash.  Take the badly needed Catholic Youth Week which cost us $140m.  Now there’s an organisation which needed help.  It must be terribly short staffed, what with a lot of the clergy in goal, and all the compensation the church has to pay for their peccadilloes.
And now the Government is about to show more of its generosity to another vital cause. When  all the lobbyists came knocking on its door, the Premier took a look at all their torn jeans and scuffed sandshoes and gave them a tiny $30m towards a racetrack for  some V8 races at Homebush Bay.  Sure there’ll have to be a lot of trees taken out, and the people living nearby will need new eardrums, but hell, think of the money it’ll make Channel 7!  And think of the donations, not to speak of the jobs we’ll get!

What was that about the light on the hill?
Dunno, I was still on a garbage run when it was all going on.

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IF YOU WANNABE PM,FOR GOD’S SAKE STAY AT HOME!

Of all the nonsense that’s going on in our political scene at the moment, surely the silliest campaign is the one which is leveled at the PM’s trips overseas. Loudest amongst his critics is our shiny new leader of the Opposition.  Fresh from a nice holiday in the Venetian sun, and totally devoid of any ideas (except that he’s desperate to be PM), Malcolm Turnbull has joined the fray.
Naturally the loudest and most irrational of Rudd’s critics, is the talk back herd.  A typical example of this mob of air-heads, is Sydney 2GB’s midnight to dawn host, David Oldfield, the ex adviser and friend of Pauline Hansen and ex Member of the NSW Upper House,  where he seemed to represent nobody except himself.
As with virtually all 2GB “hosts”, Oldfield seems to be dedicated to getting rid of our present Federal Government by foul means or foul.  Amongst his other targets are Moslems, Sudanese and any other races which annoy some of his mob of adoring bigots.  He usually opens his remarks with a run down of whatever happens to have been in today’s Daily Telegraph, which seems to be his main source of information, and any dirt from any other source he can lay his mouth on.
What preoccupies me, is why these windbags think that Australia’s Prime Minister shouldn’t travel overseas to meet with other world leaders to discuss these difficult times, and the problems arrising therefrom. Or is it just Labor PMs who are supposed to stay at home.  Is the PM supposed to deal with these matter on the phone, or by emails. It appears that our national inferiority is still alive and well on talk-back radio.
Probably the most significant thing about this, is that all these complaints are aimed at a Labor Prime Minister.  Nobody complained when the saintly Bob Menzies sat around at Lords watching a test match or two on the Australian tax payer, or when John Howard went to Washington on numerous occasions to brown nose the intellectually challenged Geo W Bush, and agree to send Aussie troops to a war founded on a lie, and which was none of our business, anyway.  And, of course, as with Saint Bob of the Pig Iron, John the Man of Steel, had to have  the mandatory visit to  Lords.

Which brings me to the subject of talk-back radio.  This medium wasn’t around when I was a kid.  Commercial radio at that time put on some decent programs.  They weren’t all highbrow stuff.  That was left to the ABC and some on 2GB.  The commercial stations put on some serials, both before and after dinner, some classical music – and 2GB and 2UW put on a weekly live, hour long play, which was performed in front of a studio  audience. On 2CH, good old Bob Rogers played the kind of music he still plays. At that time the station belonged to the Anglican Church, and 2SM belonged to the Catholic Church. 2KY belonged to the trade unions and, as far as I can remember, broadcast a mix of music and other non offensive, non ear splitting music or 24 hour a day horse races. I particularly remember 2UE because their popular breakfast announcer, Gary O’Callaghan  spent time talking to Sammy Sparrow, a character he invented and which the public loved. Gary lived next door to us and every now and then I got a friendly roast from his bird.  It was all good fun.The ABC consisted of Stations 2BL, which  was the highbrow station broadcasting a great deal of classical music, and 2FC which catered for a more general audience. The ABC didn’t broadcast any advertising material.
2FC had a children’s session with an “Argonaut’s club” to which children contributed items.
It was the ABC which taught me English.  Having arrived here in 1939 as refugees from Nazi Germany, we had no radio, so every afternoon I went to a kindly neighbour who encouraged me to participate with contributions.

I know I seem to have digressed, but I wanted to give some idea of what was on offer then, and the commercial loaded crap which is al that’s available on commercial radio now.  The most obnoxious of all that is talk-back.
Alan Jones, 2GB’s breakfast announcer is the most influential talk-back host.  He is also by far the most intelligent of them.  He is, in my view, also the most dangerous since he seems to wield a great deal of political influence which, having had close ties with the Liberal Party, he uses accordingly.  However, 2GB appears to have only right wing talk back announcers ranging from Jones to the pathetically transparent  Oldfield.
There are several problems with this format.

* Firstly, the announcer controls the content.  When one calls, one is usually (but not always) asked what one wants to say.  This is put on the announcer’s computer.  If the views you express are not favoured by the announcer, he can cut you off, and answer you once you can’t reply.  This is particularly undesirable  at election time, since anything political put to air  by an anonymous caller does not have to authorized by any Party

* Secondly, because the callers only have to give their christian name, they can slander anyone they wish or say what they want about any racial or religious group and any group wishing to reply can only do so if the announcer allows their call to go to air.

All in all, it seems that  some sort of Legislative control on talk back radio is long overdue.  Most of it lowers  discussion to the level of the lowest common denominator of society, and is entirely controlled by the talk-back gatekeeper who has the power to skew any discussion in any direction he wishes.

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AND THEN THERE WERE ALMOST NONE

What a wonderful awakening! Iemma gone to pursue a career as an ex Premier, Costa gone, Sartor gone , Reba Meagher gone,  and a brand new, squeaky clean Premier with a solid, working class background.  He even worked as a garbo, which will look good on his CV. And he was a left winger but he’s declared that as Premier, he’ll not belong to any faction.  Better still,  he doesn’t even speak Italian or Lebanese!  The only blemish on our new Premier’s record is that he’s got an Honours Degree in English literature, but a year or two as a garbo will have taught him to talk the talk.  Oh, by the way, his name is Nathan Rees.
I’m particularly happy to see that Messrs Costa, Sartor, and Ms Meagher have become back benchers or left politics altogether.

I find it amazing that Costa told the citizens of NSW just how bad the situation of our finances really is after he’d been sacked, rather than when he was still treasurer. As it was, it all just sounded as a case of the boy who cried wolf.

Various suburbs of Sydney are truly relieved that Frank Sartor has left us.  Under his ministry, no piece of land which didn’t already have multi-storeyed flats on it was safe.  The rationale was we’ve got to make room for the umpteen thousand people who will come to live in Sydney in 20 years. The problem is that if Sartor had had his way, nobody would want to live in Sydney.  I only hope that his replacement is less bulldozerish and will recognise that all the world’s great cities have their garden suburbs, medium density suburbs, and high density suburbs.  There’s a town in Czechoslovakia named Brno.  It was built in Communist times, and it consists of a large area of multi-storeyed flats and nothing else.  It rises in the barren landscape like some futuristic film set.  It is absolutely horrible – sort of Sartoresque, as it were. Now that Frank has been forcibly retired, he might take a study trip there, sometime. Or maybe he already has.

Reba Meagher is the most pathetic of the retirees.  Her first claim to fame was that she toured her working class electorate in a BMW.  It was reported on unfavourably when she was first elected, and she’s silly enough to still do it. She lives in the Naremburn, Cammeray area, a safe Liberal seat miles from her electorate and her performance in the Health Ministry was studded with disasters which were mostly somebody else’s fault.
Joe Tripodi who, for some reason seems to have escaped the axe, will miss Reba. He’ll have to find somebody else to celebrate Christmas with.

I thank God that I won’t have to vote Liberal after all.  Most of the uglies are on their side, now.

What a Stingy Government!

One wonders how Prime Minister Rudd can hold his head up when he sits down with various world leaders at their various meetings.  I mean he must be aware of the fact that they’re all thinking that, because of his meanness, our male Olympic swimmers didn’t get ONE Gold medal. A few Silver and a few Bronze but that’s chicken feed. The great Australian nation brought to its knees because their PM was too stingy to give its elite enough funding to win every medal.  I mean, how could the boys train and eat the right foods and have the occasional night out at the Cross on a lousy two hundred and fifty million bucks?  It’s hardly enough to cover their bail.
Sure the girls got a few gold medals, but it’s not the same. I mean they’re easy on the eyes.  That’s what they’re there for.  It’s a man’s job!

As for those armchair whingers who scream,”What about the schools, or the hospitals or the arts, or whatever irrelevancies they can think of?” Well, they can go and get stuffed. If they don’t like it, they know what they can do.  They’re probably Moslems anyway.
Seriously, Mr Rudd, don’t let the country down.  Give the boys a chance to show the world that we’re the best!

Another Good Bit of Planning?

People who can’t wait to see the ugly foreshore of Sydney Harbour covered by tasteful multistoried residential buildings with their three square metre balconies and concrete lawns and gardens twenty storeys up from street level will be delighted to read that the Minister for Development, Frank Sartor has appointed his former chief of staff, Robert Domm to head the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority which controls billion of dollars worth of real estate.

It is to be hoped that, before Minister Sartor begins to invite his developer mates to one of his $1000 a head “Getting to Know your Minister” dinners, he takes the time to consider what’s going on about foreshore land across the Tasman. There the Auckland Regional Authority is buying up all foreshore land when it becomes vacant, so that it will eventually form a park for the general public to enjoy.
If Mr Sartor finds this an acceptable alternative, the developers will have a nice dinner, and the public will have a nice park.

God Save the Queen, for Nothing Will Save the Iemma Government

I bet the first thing Maurice Iemma does when he gets home, is to kick the dog! The poor bugger can’t do a thing right (Maurice, not the dog). Prodded on by his domineering treasurer Eggs Costa, he’s sticking to his plan to sell off the electricity industry, a move which is almost as unpopular with the public aswas the Howard Government’s sale of Telstra.

Now poor old Maurie is faced by a revolt. It’s taken a long time. His Government has been revolting for years now. Among aspirants for his seat, are a reluctant John Watkins, Nathan Rees (who?), Carmel Tebbutt, and developers’ sweetheart, Frank Sartor, who was so sure his new “streamlined” planning laws would lose, that, with the help of such luminaries as the Shooters’ Party bloke, got them through at two in the morning!
Sartor and Costa are in hot competition for the title of the most unpopular Member of the worst Cabinet of the worst Government New South Wales has ever had.
With Sartor’s  new planning laws, people living in the suburbs will no longer able to maintain that their home is their castle. With these new laws, nobody will know what their “mums and dads” neighbours have planned with their million dollar extensions until the bulldozers arrive.
With him as Premier Barry O’Farrell and Opus Dei will romp home. They’ll probably romp home anyway.

Any way, vale Maurice Iemma, as the old saying nearly goes, “If you go to bed with fleas, you’ll wake up with dogs.”