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.

THANK GOD THEY’VE GONE.

Well, thank god they’ve gone.  All those gorgeous clerics with their green and gold and scarlet and white dresses and caps and heavy golden jewelry,  the  motorcades and the ute done up as the pope mobile – all gone. We can have our city back, no more kids screaming prayers and singing pop songs and waving flags from god knows where, no more parsons on TV, trying  weasel word excuses for some of their colleagues caught with their -er – some youngster’s – pants down.
Poor old Jesus hanging around in the cold winds at Barrangaroo in his jockey shorts and crown of thorns surrounded by warmly dressed clerics and thousands of youngsters, tears in their eyes, watching the act as if it was for real.   There’s no doubt about it, the church sure got our money’s worth.

But there was one inaccuracy in the crucifixion of Jesus. He should put down his cross in Hyde Park and turned over the tables selling appalling holy junk for appallingly unholy prices (“it’s the cost of petrol, you know” ) in the marketing section.  A great opportunity for the second coming missed!

There’s one thing that few people seem to comment on though, and that is that Jesus certainly traveled considerably more cheaply than his representatives on earth.  I haven’t seen a donkey fitted out with a bedroom,sitting room, bathroom, kitchen  and lounge, let alone secretaries and chefs, mentioned anywhere in the bible.  Maybe the authors couldn’t spell Boeing or Airbus.  Nor did poor Jesus travel in a motorcade of Mercedes Benz cars with the Pope sitting up in a utility truck (Mercedes. of course) fitted out as a pope mobile, waving signs of the cross at the screaming multitudes.

It’s a sad fact of life that all those who govern us, whether spiritually or on earth, are obviously of the opinion that the things they preach don’t apply to them. (DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??!!)  One wonders, as the Pope preaches compassion for the poor and the importance of caring for the environment,  how many of the starving masses could be fed by just one Mercedes, let alone a motorcade of them.  And how many tons of carbon went into the atmosphere to transport one old man and his entourage half way around the world and then around Sydney.
No practicing what we preach, there.

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.”

BRENDAN’S CLIMATIC CONFUSION.

Can anyone tell me what the Coalition’s policy on climate change or carbon trading is?  It seems to be important.  That’s what they all say. The PM seems to understand what it’s all about, although he hasn’t let us into the secret yet.
As for Opposition “leader” Brendan Nelson – Well, various versions of his vies are spattered all over the political landscape.  One thing is for sure, he reckons it’s a great field for shabby political point scoring.  At present  he seems to be sticking to the Howard line (remember Howard?  he lives somewhere in Waverton with his political advisor).  Anyway the Howard line involves doing nothing until we’re all done to a crisp or died of thirst and at last report, Brendan thinks that’s a good idea.  He didn’t the other day.  At that time he and all his mates thought big Kev’s approach was a good one, but then he thought better of it. After all, they WERE the Opposition.
So now the story is, Australia shouldn’t be the first in the pack.  Wait until a few other bestir themselves. After all, we’re not the world’s worst polluters, let’s hasten slowly.  He forgot about all the countries in Europe who are already up and racing…..Oh yes, but the US isn’t!
Neither’s China….neither’s …er….anyway, a lot of others.  Oh, and 2010’s much too soon.  We wouldn’t be able to start until at least 3010,  That’ll give us time to…er…work out the best plan.

Garnaut……Never heard him……have you heard of him, Malcolm?  Eh? Oh you think it’s a restaurant in St Kilda, oh, OK.  Thanks.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, PRIME MINISTER?

It might be an idea, Prime Minister, if one day during your busy schedule, you took the time to go on radio  and television, all the channels at once, to explain to us exactly what’s involved in carbon trading.  So far in the “debate” nobody has told us exactly how one can buy and sell something which, to most of the public at large, is a complete mystery. This, Prime Minister, is your job.  Not Professor Garnaut’s, not Laurie Oakes’, nor somebody’s on the ABC. Yours!
Which brings me to the point that, because of his training as a public servant, his electors hardly know him.  Most of his exposure to the public is in the form of TV and radio interviews, newspaper articles or behind a lectern with a background of flags. It’s all very impersonal.  It would be far more effective if he took a leaf out of Franklin Roosevelt’s book and introduced a kind of weekly fireside chat which he used so effectively to explain what his government was doing to soften the effects of the great depression and other matters of importance to the US electorate at the time.  PM Rudd’s delivery is too formal and too cold.  While I realise that he’s a very hard worker, and he’ll find it really hard to spare the time to do this on a weekly basis, but the public’s reaction to their Prime Minister, is what keeps him in office (or out of it),  and  one can see by the Coalition’s cheap, shallow, political approach to the climate change debate that we can’t afford to have a disorganised rabble such as this running the country in these perilous times.

Never mind the crims. Check the T shirts.

Well now, here’s a rum thing.  The cops have found a new crime. Woe betide anyone who’s wearing a T-shirt which might offend the “pilgrims” who are going to flood the city from all over the world.
Of course the police are going to need a multi lingual squad versed in such languages as Swiss, Belgian, Dutch German, French, even English (which might give a few of them some difficulty). Then there’s going to be all the Scandinavian countries, and, of course, most of the African countries as well as Chinese,  Malaysian, Indian, probably Japanese, and, of course, Hansonese (Straylian). That’ll be a mighty lot of T-shirts to check

And of course, there could be unexpected problems such as the arrival of Jesus,  who might come down and turn over the tables in the marketing section of Hyde Park as he did some years ago in another place.
What I’m trying to say is that,  judging by letters to the papers and talk back radio there’s nothing that can be printed on a T-shirt which will cause as much offense to the public at large, Catholic or others , than the fascist laws passed by our dangerous Iemma Government, laws which will do nothing but harm to World Youth Week which will become a national joke, not because of  the festival per se , but because these laws are an anathema to all Australians who will probably demonstrate their anger in any way they can.

However, there is a bright side to all this, what with the Youth Week fiasco including the $140million which we taxpayers are expected to cough  up, the $30milion which the Government wants to spend on a V8 racetrack around the Showground, the Iguana Affair, the developer friendly planning laws Frank Sartor  forced through Parliament in the dead of night etc etc,. All these outrages are nails in the coffin in one of the most dangerous inept governments NSW has ever had. It will make even rusted-on Labor voters like me vote Liberal for the first time in my lengthy life.

But then, it isn’t really a Labor Government, is it?

HOLY SMOKE!!

I find it amazing that  Sydneysiders aren’t out in their thousands protesting about the inconvenience and damage proposed to be done to our city, let alone the hundred and forty million dollars of taxpayers money  we are expected to pay, for the visit of an aging German cleric, and an Italian corpse in good condition.
Once again the police will be out in force searching for bible bombs. Once again the barricades will be up for days, and citizens who have the misfortune to live in a Randwick suburban street will not be able to drive in or out of their own driveways for a week. A large section of Hyde Park will be reserved for pilgrims, while another will be set aside for merchandising.  Here’s your chance, Jesus! why don’t you celebrate your second coming by dropping in and turning over the tables!

I remember, years ago, when we visited the holy shrine of Fatima in Portugal, where the holy virgin appeared before a couple of kids who naturally fell on their knees and subsequently became nuns. What a way to recruit staff! They didn’t even have to rub a lamp. However, I suspect that some clever marketing man started a firm, probably called  something like “Fatima Solutions”, and bought all the rights to the roadsides within a couple of kilometers  of the  holy place.  On these he erected hundreds of stalls  and leased them to  all his mates who filled them full of the most god almighty religious junk to sell to the gullible and the curious. There were endless cameos and pictures of a bloke who looked exactly like Osama Bin Laden, but who, I was assured, was the Saviour himself. As well as that there were literally hundreds of picture and statuettes of a lady holding a baby.  Both mother and baby wore halos, so I assumed they were both virgins.  And those things were only a small sample of the literally thousands of celestial junk on offer.  I bought a set of rosary beads which glowed in the dark and gave it to some catholic friends in case they were taken short, as it were.
Although we passed quite close to Lourdes I’m sure we could have sampled another lot of holy bric-a-brac, but we decided to give it a miss.

One holy pilgrimage was enough for us.

A PM’s job is a 24 hours a day one, a public servant’s isn’t.

Congratulation’s Kev! In a few short words you lost the vote of every public servant, State and Federal, active and retired.  Not a bad effort, wouldn’t you say?  A few more bits of public arrogance like that and you’ll join the short list of one-term prime ministers.
Maybe if you quietened down a bit and leave the public appearances to some of your more balanced ministers like, say, Lindsay Tanner or your very able deputy, the public might forget your gaffe.
Go to the park for a day. Spend some time with your family.  Take Therese to a movie. Sit in the church for an hour or two and read what the bible has to say on humility.  Do anything but for all our sakes keep your boyish features off the television!  We can afford to lose you, but we can’t afford another Coalition Government for a while yet. Get the message from the latest public opinion poll – the public still likes your Government, but the don’t like you as much as they did before.  We don’t mind the end of the honeymoon, but we don’t want and end to the marriage.