WHO SAID IT?

Our prime minister, Tony Abbott, sure is a piece of work. Sometimes the things he says are so outrageous it's hard to tell whether they're really quotes from the elected leader of our nation, or from a far-fetched fictional movie character.

That's how we came up with the idea for this quiz. How many of these quotes you can correctly attribute to their source: Prime Minister Tony Abbott, or feisty proto-feminist icon and heroine of Canadian literature Anne "Of Green Gables" Shirley? The results may surprise you!

WHO SAID IT: TONY ABBOTT OR ANNE SHIRLEY?

 

1. "Most of the people who are coming to Australia by boat have pass through several countries on the way, and if they simply wanted asylum they could have claimed that in any of the countries through which they'd passed."

2. "We just can't stop people being homeless if that's their choice."

3. "Would you please call me Cordelia?"

4. "Climate change is crap."

5. "You know something, Diana? We are rich. We have sixteen years to our credit, and we both have wonderful imaginations. We should be happy as queens."

6. "I think your Gilbert is awfully bold to wink at a strange girl."

7. "I would not want to see any relaxation of the law prohibiting human cloning."

8. "Once people come to Australia, they join the team."

9. "The smart way to improve broadband is not to junk the existing network but to make the most of it. It's to let a competitive market deliver the speeds that people need at an affordable price with government improving infrastructure in the areas where market competition won't deliver it."

10. "He called me Carrots!"

11. Faith is important to me. It's important to millions of Australians. It helps to shape who I am."

12. "Go away Marilla. I'm in the depths of despair."

13. "I think that marriage is, dare I say it, between a man and a woman, hopefully for life and there are all sorts of other relationships which should be acknowledged and recognised, but I don't know that they can be recognised as marriage."

14. "Mrs Hammond told me that God made my hair red on purpose and I've never cared for Him since."

15. "Whyalla will be wiped off the map by Julia Gillard's carbon tax."

16. "I don't see any need in being civil to someone who chooses to associate with the likes of Josie Pye."

17. "I also think that if you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?"

18. "Why isn't the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy approaching the scale, say, of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community?"

19. Well, again Kerry, I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks."

20. "Please, Matthew. You need help. We've got to get a doctor."

Haha! Almost unbelievable how similar they are, isn't it? How did YOU do sorting fact from fiction?

Hyper-Auto-Repellence: A Personal Plea

What should we make of Christopher Pyne?

Some kind of glovepuppet?

This week Australin politics farewelled a titan in Gough Whitlam. Many people voiced opinions on this, ranging from Prime Minister Abbott's opinion that Whitlam wasn't the best PM ever, to Julia Gillard's opinion that he was actually so great he was a lot like Julia Gillard, to every News Ltd columnist's opinion that he ruined everything for everyone and it's a good thing that finally his ring has been cast into the fires of Mount Doom.

But, Abbott's somewhat faint praise notwithstanding, most of the tributes from actual parliamentarians were quite complimentary and very respectful. Even Philip Ruddock said some pretty nice things about him, and Philip Ruddock dug his own soul out of himself with a rusty lino knife when he was eight. 

But Pyne...well, Pyne made a jolly little speech in which he noted that when Whitlam was dismissed, his mother cried, and "I have to let you in on a secret, she was crying out of joy"

It was a delightful moment

Now, of course, that is an insight into the life of the young Pyne that opens up all sorts of questions. For example, does Christopher still watch Adventure Island, or now that he is in his forties does he prefer Mr Squiggle?

But it's not so much the substance that I want to dwell on: the fact that Christopher Pyne has been forced to spend his life coming up with a dazzling array of excuses to explain away the fact his mother was constantly crying whenever he was around is neither here nor there. What I want to examine is the psychology that caused our Honourable Education Minister to think to himself, "Hmm, Gough Whitlam is dead...this might be a good time to tell the country how much my family hated him".

What process produces these thoughts? Is there a process even taking place?

Evidence is so far inconclusive

The real problem is that Christopher Pyne, despite a respectable upbringing. an expensive education, and Amanda Vanstone cooking all his meals, seems to have developed a pathological need to be the most hated man in every room he is in. It's actually quite a rare psychological phenomenon: hyper-auto-repellence. In other words, he can only be satisfied by making others loathe him. Obviously this has been an advantage to him in his rise through the ranks of the Liberal Party, but at this point in his life is it becoming a liability?

It's not that I hate Christopher Pyne. I mean, I do, but that's not the important thing here. The important thing is that every word out of his mouth, every action he takes, every step in his life up to now, has seemed perfectly calculated to force me to hate him. And frankly, though I hate the man, I also worry about him. When a fellow is so desperate to be disliked that he stands in parliament to merrily spit in the face of the old man who just died, there is something quite concerning going on behind his smooth, shiny facade.

Very very concerning

I don't know if Christopher reads this blog - no idea why he wouldn't - but if he does, I'm here to say: Christopher, I am no longer enabling you. I will write no more about how awful you are, now that I realise it's just feeding your addiction. Instead, I urge you: get help, Christopher. Don't be afraid to reach out.

You might think you can't be happy, Christopher, unless you're being hated. But believe me: you CAN. With a caring therapist and a good support system at home, you might even find a way to derive pleasure from being liked.

And I promise Christopher: when you do, we'll all be a lot more relaxed.

There is no U in Team

You know, a lot of people come up to me and ask, "Hey Ben, this Team Australia stuff - what's it all about?"

And to be honest, I find these people intrusive and presumptuous. But still, I attempt to answer their questions as best I can, because if there's one thing you know about Team Australia, it's that we try to help our teammates no matter how inadequate we find them as people.

Team Australia is, essentially, a state of mind, a philosophy that says, look, we're all on the same side here, let's work together to achieve our goals.

After all, we all love to feel like we're part of a team. Look at this happy fellas:

Yes, Team Australia is a lot like the 1982 Parramatta Eels. The government is Peter Sterling and Brett Kenny in the halves, controlling play, organising the team and orchestrating the big moves that produce results. The taxpayers of Australia are the forwards in the engine room, Ray Price and Geoff Bugden and of course good old Johnny Muggleton, doing the hard yards that are necessary if we're ever going to let our outside backs do their job: the outside backs in this case being mainly Cate Blanchett and Silverchair. 

The point is that just like a great football team, Team Australia has all its disparate parts performing their designated function in pursuit of the same aim - a strong, prosperous nation. And that's the genius of Team Australia - it uses the powerful imagery of sport, something all Australians understand, to illustrate a point. No wonder Tony Abbott was a Rhodes scholar - that man sure knows a thing or two about using sports words to say things about things that aren't sport!

It's an effective technique. That's why the accessibility of sport permeates our public affairs nowadays. For example, the government is now moving to implement a "red card" system for hate preachers. Why red card? Why not just a "stop hate preachers" policy? Because red cards are sporting, and Aussies love sports! Admittedly red cards are more of a soccer thing, but let's be honest: it's the ones who like soccer we need to be keeping an eye on.

And this is why I hope people don't feel scared or alienated by Team Australia. After all, would you feel scared or alienated by this?

Of course not! Those guys are having a great time! Because being in a team is just fantastic. And we're all in the best team of all - Team Australia. 

Naturally Team Australia requires vigilance. After all, if you're playing cricket you can't just sit idly by and let the batsman hit you for six. Team Australia is all about taking precautions. As a country of course we need to send fielders to the boundary to keep the run rate down. As a country we do have to, at times, bowl a dry line outside off stump. Sometimes we might even need to pitch it outside leg into the footmarks. That's just the nature of Team Australia - a responsible government must be prepared at times of crisis to come around the wicket. Ben Chifley knew this.

Because the fact is, being Team Australia is just as much about responsibilities as it is about rights. Sure, when you're on a great team like Team Australia you get to take the speccie in the goal square, but you also need to make the smother on centre wing, you need to punch from behind and get men around the stoppages. Some people think it's not important that, as citizens, we rush the odd behind, but those people probably don't understand the fundamentals of foreign policy.

You can't stop terrorism with this:

Sometimes you need this:

And that's what I tell those irritating people from the beginning of this article. I tell them, Team Australia is about security, about safety, about prosperity, about democracy, about freedom, about hard work, about togetherness, about patriotism and about justice.

But most of all, Team Australia is about creating a better future. I know that's hard to see sometimes, but maybe it'll be easier to understand if I put it like this:

When you're down six goals in the final quarter, sometimes it's necessary to roll the dice. You don't get over the advantage line by going sideways before you go forward, you need to make sure your scrum is solid before you start worrying about the corner posts. It's easy to get caught offside when you don't keep your eye on the ball, but the one thing we all know is true is, nobody ever scored a goal sitting on the bench. And it's by sitting on the bench that we miss our opportunity to jump the net. Hurdles are natural in life, but you can take the rebound more easily when you hit the training track hard and keep your shape. It's great to play your shots, but a sound forward defensive is the foundation of a flowing cover drive - getting the ball in the right areas is how you tempt the opposition into mistakes. And it's those mistakes that will keep this country out of the bunker, and in the onion bag, for many years to come.

That's what Team Australia means to me. So please: don't be terrorists OK? Because national security is a trophy we can all win.

Seize The Defeat

So, an offensive menu was printed up for a Mal Brough fundraiser. And we are, naturally, in quite a flap about it.

And yes, fair enough. It was gross. It was sexist. It was nasty. It was a shitty joke, and it wasn't even original.

And look, I have no problem with anyone asserting that Mal Brough is a sleazebag. There's the whole James Ashby affair, and oh yeah, that little thing called the NT Intervention. Believe me, I need no convincing that Mal Brough is a first-class dickferret of the very highest purity.

But here's the thing about menugate, or quailgate, or big red boxgate or whatever bullshit it's being called:

Tony Abbott will still win.

It has been blindingly obvious for some time now that the Labor Party is going to go down in flames in September. And yet somehow, the True Believers keep seizing on moments like Brough's menu, claiming that this time,. THIS time, the Coalition's goose is truly cooked. The voters simply won't stand for such appalling misogyny, the True Believers squawk. Women won't be treated like this anymore, they scream. Now that the Liberals have shown their TRUE colours, Julia Gillard's dignity and toughness and determination will win the day and all will be well.

I am sorry, True Believers: all will not be well. And every time you say that THIS will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, a new batch of polls come out and show that the camel is doing a buck-and-wing all over Labor's expiring corpse.

The reason we keep going through this is that the True Believers, justifiably appalled as they are by Tony Abbott's appalling character, cannot conceive of any other explanation for Labor's subterranean popularity than that the electorate simply doesn't UNDERSTAND how bad the Opposition is. Once they do, the story goes, everything will turn around.

Once again, I am sorry to be the one to break it to you: they know. Everyone knows. They've all seen him, they've all heard him, they've all read about him. And they either don't care, or see what you think are character flaws as virtues.

When someone you hate does something you disapprove of, it's seductively easy to assume that this will cause everyone else to hate them too, because you've been hating them all along. It's seductively easy to assume that everyone else thinks the way you do, and the only reason they disagree with you is they don't have all the facts.

Sadly, sometimes people have all the facts and still think you're wrong.

Sadly, sometimes people are bastards, and they like it when other bastards are in charge.

Sadly, Tony Abbott is going to be prime minister, and whatever miracle it might take to prevent that is going to have to be a hell of a lot more volcanic than a shitty sexist joke on a menu of murky antecedents.

And given that fact, why should we keep on making excuses for Julia Gillard's hapless Washington Generals of a government?

The fact is, Gillard ain't all that. Her asylum seeker policy is brutality embraced in the name of expediency. She made a mess of the mining tax in her haste to cave to big business and get the issue off her desk. She is continuing our pal Brough's racist intervention. She gave a nice big smack to single parents the same day she electrified the world by bawling out Abbott in parliament. Her stance on marriage equality enrages pretty much all her staunchest supporters. And her government has done many good and admirable things, she is singularly bad at turning them to her advantage, which, whether it be the media's fault, or Kevin Rudd's, or Abbott's, is nonetheless a fact.

So why should we on the nominally "left" side of politics be as eager as we have been to gloss over all that?

Well obviously it's because, for all her faults, Gillard is better than Abbott. No doubt about that. Though Labor has done some stuff badly, the Coalition will be ten times worse, and we have to fall in behind Gillard to stop Abbott getting in at any cost. Wise words.

But the fact is, Abbott IS going to get in. So what's the point of being "better than Abbott" when you're not going to win anyway?

While Labor had a chance, it made sense to bend our energies to supporting them, to keep the Liberals at bay. But that's failed. The Liberals have stormed the parapet. The shields are down. Labor is dead in the water.

So trying to keep Abbott out is now a lost cause. And any attempt to downplay the failings of Labor in the interests of realpolitik is no longer a brave stab at bringing about the lesser of two evils, but rather an exercise in futility that simply continues the relentless lowering of standards in political discourse.

Consider: if you are backing "crappy" because it's better than "crappier", when "crappy" has no chance of winning, you're not staving off "crappier", you're just ensuring that "crappy" becomes the best we can ever hope for.

So why not stop standing up for "crappy"? Why not starting calling out bad behaviour, bad policy, bad government, no matter which party is engaging in it? The partisan battle is over, let's redirect our energies into demanding better from ALL sides of politics. Let's make it clear that we want to raise standards.

Most of all, let's rediscover our integrity and commit to standing up, in all circumstances, for what we really believe, for what we think is RIGHT, rather than desperately trying to rationalise support for better-than-Abbott.

And hey, we've got preferential voting. We'll be putting better-than-Abbott ahead of Abbott anyway. Don't worry, as long as better-than-Abbott has a lower number next to it on your ballot paper, you've discharged your responsibilities to the temple of low expectations.

But when we're out in the world, fighting and arguing and debating and lobbying and tweeting and blogging and emailing ministers, let's stop shouting our disapproval of "them" while we whisper our disapproval of "us". Let's make clear that right is right, and wrong is wrong, and while political realities obviously have always to be recognised, we're not going to support any politician who flat-out reverses the two.

Right now, my fellow travellers on the Lost Bus Of The Left, we are down. We're outnumbered and outgunned. But even at this moment we can be heard, and we can make clear what we want. Even with our worst enemy in the Lodge, we can articulate how we want this country to be better.

And when the worm turns and we find ourselves up and about again, we can make sure that those who would represent us know that we want them to fight for what's right, not just for what's slightly less wrong.

We're about to get beaten. But if we can stand up, we don't have to be broken as well.

LET'S GET THIS COUNTRY BACK ON TRACK

None Like It Hot

Climate change is a serious issue, and it needs serious people to solve it. Is Bob Rumsden interested in solving it? No, Bob Rumsden is interested in only two things: making you afraid of it, and hot-air ballooning. Well I say the Australian people deserve more in a prime minister than a fictional American in a balloon. Australian people deserve a PRO-ACTIVE prime minister who will FIX climate change through the magic of community togetherness.

In my latest video I demonstrate, thus:

Experimenting

Piggybacking off a Twitter conversation, I just want to ask some questions about the carbon tax. They are hypothetical questions I am interested in the answer to. Also, they are hypothetical questions about YOU. What would YOU do? This is quite important to remember - it's always annoying when you ask hypothetical questions and people say "Oh it's not really like that though!" These are my hypotheticals - just go with them! I just want folks to think about the way they think.

Question 1: If you were a prime minister, and you'd promised not to introduce a carbon tax, and then discovered that only by introducing a carbon tax could you actually hold on to government, what would you do?

Of course this question is all about the desire for power. As prime minister, you've probably worked pretty hard to get in the position you're in, and holding that position is fairly important to you. Having achieved your absolute ultimate life goal, would you be willing to give it up for the sake of not breaking a promise?

Question 2: Repeat the situation in question 1, but add the detail that the alternative government is one you honestly believe to be terrible.

Here the question of power takes a nobler turn. Would you happily give up power for the sake of your reputation, if it meant sacrificing not only your own ambition, but the good of the nation? If you were sincerely convinced that your losing government would be disastrous for the country, would you be happy to relinquish it because it would be "more honest"?

Question 3: If you were prime minister, and had promised not to introduce a carbon tax, because you thought the country did not need one, but later became genuinely convinced that the country DID need one - either by reading some new literature, or hearing a new argument from a fellow politician, or just through reflecting on things and having an epiphany - what would you do?

Here we see competing notions of "what's right". Is breaking a promise wrong? Maybe. But what if breaking your promise is the ONLY way to achieve what you see as a necessary outcome? Would you see keeping your promise as more important than acting in the country's best interests, as you saw them?

Question 4: Let's run question 3 again, but once more add a detail about the opposition. What if you not only believed a carbon tax was necessary, but were convinced that if you didn't introduce one right away, it would kill the chances of one being introduced for some time? That is, because you knew that waiting for electoral approval would see you lose government, and you knew the opposition would not allow a carbon tax, and you knew that once they were in government, the policy would be dead and buried on their side, and on yours because of the fear of future defeat? What would you do? Would you "do the wrong thing" for the sake of "doing the right thing"?

Question 5: If you were prime minister, and you'd promised not to introduce a carbon tax, but you WERE intent on introducing an emissions trading scheme in future, but you discovered that thanks to vagaries of politics, there was no way of achieveing an ETS in the future without first bringing in an effective carbon tax - what would you do? Would you refuse to introduce the carbon tax on the principle of promise-keeping, even though it would sabotage your actual policy, which you HAD always stuck to?

Question 6: You know the drill. Would it change your answer to 5 if you knew that abandoning the carbon tax and keeping your promise would scupper, not only the tax, but any chance of a trading scheme or price on carbon in the foreseeable future? If you knew that the opposition was intractable, and believed their policy was antithetical to what the country needed, would you hand them power knowing that what you fervently believed in would be buried?

Question 7: Would you rather go down in history as "the do-nothing with integrity", or "the deceitful high-achiever"?


And finally, just for a chuckle:

Question 8: If you had a policy that was not a tax, but had many aspects which functioned in a tax-like manner, why would you be so mad as to stand before the public and tell them it was a tax when you didn't have to?

You can answer or not, but do have a think about it, ok?

How Carbon Tax Made Me An Idiot

(NB: this piece is dedicated to Erin Riley)

For a while now, I’ve been increasingly convinced of the need to have an opinion about various subjects such as politics, in order to be a normal thinking human being. But I was torn: my belief in thoughtful, sober reflection and reasoned argument as a path to enlightenment made me lean towards having intelligent opinions, while my love of reading tabloid newspapers and listening to talkback inclined me more towards the gibbering imbecile end of the spectrum.

It was a difficult decision, made more so by the enormity of the consequences. I knew that whether I decided to be smart or stupid could determine my future career prospects, the course of my intimate relationships, and how loudly I could talk on trains.

But with the announcement of the carbon tax, the decision was made easy – the only possible response was to become unbelievably stupid.

To be honest, to call it a “decision” is almost a misnomer: the announcement of the carbon tax really leaves those of us who desire to avoid the unexamined life with no option: it is a compulsion, a calling, and yes, a duty, that we transform ourselves into morons, for the good of our country.

It happened almost without my noticing it: I was just toddling along the day after the carbon tax announcement, and suddenly I realised that for the last three hours I’d been telling people that the tax wouldn’t decrease temperatures by a single degree. Not just like that, of course: what I’d actually been saying was, “Did you know the so-called carbon tax won’t lower temperatures AT ALL? Do you? Do you know? So much for ENVIRONMENTALISM!” Sometimes I’d poke them in the chest.

And it felt liberating. I knew I’d followed the correct path. If I’d decided to be intelligent about the carbon tax, how could I ever have derived the deep emotional fulfilment that can only come from inserting “(dioxide)” into sentences? You have no idea how satisfying it is to do this – you should try it. If you thought it was fun complaining about the carbon tax, you will be practically orgasmic once you start complaining about the carbon (dioxide) tax. That’s why Terry McCrann always seems so happy.

Quickly I began to expand the scope of my idiocy, exploring the creative possibilities of using the word “socialism” in as many disconnected contexts as I could possibly think of. I found that once you get into the swing of things, “socialism” can mean anything, really. Pricing carbon, taxing the rich, giving money to the poor, taxing the poor, giving money to the rich, preferring market mechanisms to a command economy, being a woman – all these and more are socialism, once you make a true commitment to stupidity. I’m hoping that in time, I’ll be able to call every policy of every political party socialist without even breaking a sweat.

Of course it’s not that simple, being an idiot. You can’t just scream “socialist” and expect to be taken seriously in the stupid community. You also need to say things like, “the carbon tax will completely destroy our way of life” and “we need an election NOW to get rid of the worst government since Federation” and “I am the shadow Treasurer”. If the carbon tax really riles you up, you can go the extra mile and start delving into advanced mental degradation, for example: “Carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant it is a necessary element for life on earth”. Not that you want to over-reach. It’s wise to warm yourself up, stretch your stupid-muscles with some thank-god-for-Tony-Abbotts and we-shouldn’t-move-before-the-world-doeses before you go the full Thank-God-we-have-Andrew-Bolt-to-stand-up-to-the-Green-groupthink.

Not that you have to stick to an anti-Green line. That’s the beauty of the carbon tax – it gives us scope to be idiots in any direction we choose. You can call up 2GB claiming that Bob Brown wants to put 90 percent of Australians out of work, or you can call up 3AW claiming that the carbon tax will create six million new jobs in geothermal energy and Great Barrier Reef curating. It’s up to you! As a matter of fact you can do both of those things – it’s the advantage of choosing stupidity over intelligence, you don’t need to be consistent at all (refer to discussion of socialism, above).

And so I’ve found that the carbon tax has really allowed me to be me, to free the spirit within, to release the latent intellectual atrophy that had been inside me all along. Much like a baby bird who, taking its first tentative steps out of the nest, suddenly finds itself able to swoop and soar and slam headfirst into windows, I am finally able to express myself as nature intended. To leap like the salmon, to run like the gazelle, to ride a tractor like Bob Katter. I am free to stand on the rooftop and cry to the world, “Yes! I am stupid, and I am proud! Furthermore the earth has not warmed for 12 years!” I am free to write letters to newspapers. I am free to refer to wealth distribution without even the slightest sense of irony or shame or basic understanding of reality. God, life is sweet when you’re a dullard.

It’s only been a few days, of course – barely time to form an opinion on the carbon tax at all if I weren’t so stupid – and I foresee a lot of strong, enriching dumbness permeating my life moving forward. I see myself poring over graphs and declaring “see? It’s a myth!” I foresee writing pompous and lengthy political analysis pieces about the government’s inability to sell its policy. I foresee tuning into Channel Ten on Sunday mornings a lot. I foresee quoting Ian Plimer. I foresee feeling powerful pangs of sympathy for people earning over $100,000 a year. I foresee saying “Ju-LIAR” and spending the next 20 minutes touching myself with pride at how witty I am.

It is indeed a golden age for the idiot, and I’m grateful to Julia – oops, I mean Juliar, ha ha! – for allowing me this opportunity to realise who I really am. Stop this great big new tax, remove this illegitimate government, STOP LYING, and up with morons. Join me, stupid brethren, and together we will make this country a true paradise for all of those of below-average intelligence and below. It’s time to stand up against this unjust tax and the people of normal intelligence who want to discuss it. Jump on board, idiots!

We can start in the comments of this post.

Questions!

Today Julia Gillard reveals the detail of her Carbon Tax and Economic Destruction Laser Policy, under orders from her boss Bob Brown. It is very important to have the detail so that Tony Abbott can decide whether he is in favour of it or not in a rational and fair-minded way and not at all go running around screaming like a meth addict on fire.

And before we decide what we think, we need ANSWERS. To some QUESTIONS.

Questions LIKE:

1. What is a carbon tax?

2. Could you repeat that I didn't catch it?

3. Fuckin' carbon, how does it work?

4. If you tax carbon, isn't it true that Coca-Cola will be illegal?

5. Why do you call it a carbon tax when in fact it is a carbon dioxide tax and also why do you call it a carbon tax when in fact it is a Nazi plot?

6. Isn't it true that we need carbon dioxide to live and if we had lots more we would all be sexy giants?

7. Bob Brown is gay, right?

8. How often will the carbon tax be cleaned and checked for woodworm?

9. Under a carbon tax how much will it cost me to eat a cake?

10. Under a carbon tax how much will it cost me to milk a cow?

11. Under a carbon tax how much will it cost me to build a submarine?

12. Why institute a carbon tax when every day China builds a new volcano?

13. How often will the carbon tax indecently assault my daughter?

14. Why are the Greens in charge of the country when nobody likes them?

15. What sort of compensation will be available for me since I only eat jam sandwiches at the moment and am very cold?

16. Why do you hate coal? It is good. Don't you know that?

17. Under a carbon tax how much will it cost me to become an astronaut?

18. Who is hotter, Sarah Hanson-Young or Kate Ellis?

19. Wouldn't it be better to have a policy of direct action like for instance we could buy a really big air conditioner?

20. Isn't it true that under a carbon tax steel will not be a thing?

21. How many carbon taxes will there be per household?

22. If I have solar panels, what the hell, am I right?

23. Why do we even NEED a Great Barrier Reef?

24. Under a carbon tax, how many members of my family will be stoned to death in the annual lottery?

25. Is it true that Julia Gillard is a woman?

26. I have a rash. Why?

27. Under a carbon tax, how much will it cost me to bake a strudel?

28. Under a carbon tax, how much will it cost me to have my genitals surgicaly enlarged?

29. Have you heard that the Greens carry ceremonial daggers everywhere and are swornd to defend the honour of Ahura-Mazda?

30. Under a carbon tax how much will it cost me to suffocate deer?

31. Why does the government want to turn our great country into this:





ANSWERS NOW, PLEASE JULIAR

How To Carbon Tax, Or Else Not

Hello, how are you? I am here to talk to you about carbon taxes and other things of that sort which are good for saving the environment or possibly destroying the economy if that's what you're into.

What is a carbon tax? It is a tax on carbon, if that's not too complicated.

What is carbon? According to Wikipedia it is the chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. Scary? Perhaps or not. Not much is known about carbon except that it is necessary for life and also kills people. So what to do? We must put a price on it.

Why must we put a price on it? Because we have capitalism and if we do not put a price on it we will not have capitalism, and that is called kibbutzes. Do we want to live in kibbutzes? Probably, but on the other hand no. Consider the fact of glaciers. Not convinced? Go to Tuvalu. You can't, it's dead. See? Indeed.

But just because we accept that we are all going to die doesn't mean that we are agreed on the best way to go about it. Should we solve the problem by ignoring it? That usually works. But will it in this case? Probably. So let's do that. But no! We can't! Because of economics.

Economics demands we take action! ACTION! But should this action be direct or indirect? There are pros and cons to say the least.

DIRECT ACTION: This means action will be direct, which means Tony Abbott will give lots of money to lots of people who will promise to be good. It is like prostitution, except instead of sex people will sequester carbon. If you ask a prostitute to sequester carbon she will but it costs extra. But it won't cost extra to get business to sequester carbon it will just cost a lot. The advantage of direct action is that it will cost a lot. The disadvantage is that it will be so direct it might hurt, like being kicked in the neck. OUCH!

INDIRECT ACTION: This means action will be indirect, or "passive-aggressive". Under the government's plan, carbon will be persuaded to commit suicide through a system of rumour and innuendo. Is this the way to go? Certainly it will be cheaper, but also it will be more expensive, so what is the man in the street to think? We asked him:



Clearly emotions are running high. How are we to know who to trust? Should we trust the scientists who want us to stop climate change, or should we trust the scientists who want us to increase climate change until we all burst into flames? The answer of course is yes, but how? Perhaps Cate Blanchett has the answer.

But can we trust our future to such an unstable and luminous person? Shouldn't we trust our future to someone like this:




So in the end it comes down to whether we want our planet in the hands of a psychotic woodland monster, or a bionic man. It's a hard choice but one we must make unless we don't, in which case our children will have a horrible life unless everything is wrong in which case they won't, although they still might, since they may just be bad people. You should have raised them better.

But let's not quibble. One thing we can all agree on is that climate change, for better or for worse, is definitely possible if we accept the word of someone or other. If we don't then the opposite might be true though this seems unlikely doesn't it? No, not really.

THIS IS FINISHED

Liberals: The Hidden Tragedy

This post was inspired by a tweet I happened to tweet not that long ago. Many people wonder, just what is wrong with the Liberals? I think I have the answer.

The answer is this: they are bad people.

When I say this, many people think I mean they are "bad people" in the way Hitler was a "bad person", or Eddie Leonski the Brownout Strangler was a "bad person". But no, I make no such judgments. I simply mean they are "bad people" in the way that Eddie the Eagle was a "bad ski-jumper" or Coco the albino gorilla was a "bad harpsichordist".

That is, they are bad at being people. They try hard, but they lack the essential skillset for being a human being. It's not really their fault: it's a lack of basic training. It's a little bit embarrassing watching them trying to be people, really: they come to it with such gusto, but they fumble and stumble and flail about and make a total hash of the job. It's hard to watch, isn't it? It reminds me of the time I tried to swim the 50-metre breaststroke at my school swimming carnival. At least I had the good sense to get out of the pool at the halfway mark, after everyone else had finished and I'd spent 25 metres bumping into the lane ropes. Unfortunately these Liberals and their supporters, they just keep bumping into the lane ropes, hoping against hope they'll get the hang of it. It's sad, really.

So please, don't be too hard on them. Don't judge them or harangue them, don't curse their barren ethical sensibilities, their shattered moral compasses, or weaselly little faces. Be kind, show some understanding, and make a generous donation to the Association For The Advancement Of People Skills For Liberals, which raises money to provide training programs so that Liberals can learn to be human beings like the rest of us. Without urgent action, the future is going to look like this:



PLEASE! Take action now! Give till it hurts. Because it's going to anyway.

IT IS NOT THE AUSTRALIAN WAY

Floods? Oh yeah, we're happy to help. It's what makes Australia great, our willingness to band together when our fellow countrymen are in trouble and put every hand to the tiller to help out. It's mateship, it's the Australian way, it's what makes us unique among nations, our eagerness to help, our can-do spirit, our indefatigable love of pitching in to see our friends through a rough spot.

So absolutely we'll help. We'll work as hard as we can, we'll give till it hurts, we will do everything that is humanly possible to help you poor buggers get back on your feet again. 'Cos we're Australians, and Australians lend a hand when times are tough. With you all the way.

Oh great! Then would you mind perhaps just paying a little bit extra tax for a short while?

HOW DARE YOU WHAT A DISGUSTING NOTION THAT IS COMPLETELY UN-AUSTRALIAN GO TAKE SOME MONEY FROM SOMEONE ELSE LEAVE ME ALONE YOU GREEDY BASTARDS

Gracious

Goodness me, I can be a bit lax with blogging at times. It is, sadly, a function of the necessity to write great whacking reams of stuff all over everywhere else, that blogging can be neglected. Hopefully you're still following my adventures at The Drum, where my thrice-weekly election analyses will come to an end on Friday, but my weekly wraps on all things current will continue post-election.

And hopefully, you will at least mull over the idea, if in Melbourne for the Writers' Festival, of heading in to the salubrious surrounds of the Toff in Town for Liner Notes on September 4, featuring the songs of Fleetwood Mac, Charlie Pickering, Clare Bowditch, Hannie Rayson, Emilie Zoey Baker, Sean M. Whelan, Alicia Sometimes, Michael Nolan und mich - gunna go off guys, for serious. If I recall rightly, details are in the events listings to the right.

But ah, the election. Just three more sleeps till the AEC comes down our chimneys and leaves a new prime minister in our stocking! Aren't you EXCITED? It really is thrilling, the whole country is consumed by punditry, commentary, anticipation and generalised disgust.

At the aforementioned Drum you can see how I handle the issues, and how a whole bunch of other people do too - like Crabb (be still my beating heart), Uhlmann, Berg, Eltham, Hardy (be still again), Milne, Ellis (wacky!), et al.

But you can see more all over the shop. The journos, the bloggers, the analysts and the nutbags are out in force and the commentariat is full to bursting. I recommend Crikey (specially the blogs of Possum and Pure Poison), Larvatus Prodeo, A Nonymous Lefty, and of course Antony Green, the thinking woman's irrepressibly unnerving sexual fantasy.

(the unthinking woman's irrepressibly unnerving sexual fantasy is me)

ALSO! Check out http://gatheraround.me for podcasts re: the election. Better yet, join the Gather Around Me Facebook group, and subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an instalment! It's so easy, with the power of interconnected tubes!

I guess what exercises ME about the election is the terrible uncertainty of it all. In 2007, everyone knew Rudd was going to win, and by 7.30 the night of the election it was all over. In 2004, Latham threatened a few months before the poll, but by the big day we realised Howard was going to romp it in. Same in 2001 - 9/11 made it a clear cakewalk. Maybe 1998 was different, but that's ancient history. This year feels, if boring and appallingly predictable in every other detail, at least fresh and original in its closeness and difficulty to tip. It looks like counting will go all night, and we might not even know who won by Sunday morning.

And if we do, if somehow one side somehow crushes the other beneath its boot, that will only be all the more surprising for defying the predictions of squeaking tightness.

So I cannot wait till election night, when I shall rug up nice and warm, channel-surf like a madman, and twitter like the obsessive-compulsive attention-junkie that I am. Hope I'll see you passing by.

And we shall finally find the answer to the question that has bugged us so long: Will people REALLY vote for Tony Abbott? Like, really? Seriously, dude? Tony ABBOTT? Really?

Hooray for democracy!

Commenting on comments

You may have noticed on my latest ABC article that there are quite a few comments. Do take the time to trawl through them - diamonds they are. Anyway, having (belatedly) become smart enough to avoid arguing with stupid people who hate me, I'm going to muse on some of the comments here.

For example, "shane" writes:

"Anybody who follows Jesus as Lord & savoir according to the bible are saints"

Kind of a low standard, isn't it?

"If you pray to dead people this is called necromancy"

You mean like...Jesus?

"fed up" writes:

"Well i dont find this funny at all"

Damn...I've failed with a key demographic here.

"how sarcastic.
mr. Rudd has been going to Marys Chapel for some time
WHY O WHY ARE THE ABC PICKING ON OUR P.M.
SO MUCH ARE YOU ALL SERIOUS

CAN YOU DO BETTER AT COPENHAGEN I SUGGEST YOU CATCH THE NEXT PLANE
mary has anwered many a prayer for me you may laugh but i hope you dont need to prayer her soon for something that comes in your life.
i am fed up of the abc taking the mickey out of every one that does good in this country in couding out p.m TALL POPPY SYNDROM ITS ABOUT TIME THIS COUNTRY GREW UP
of course you all write this rubbish but then do you move on to the next thing without reading what we saY.
I WOULD SUGGEST TO OTHERS AND MYSELF NOT TO BOTHER BECAUSE I DOUBT YOU READ WHAT WE SAY.
AND IF WE DID NOT MAKE COMMENTS THEN THERE WOULD BE NO DRUM SO FROM NOW ON I AM NOT COMMENTING"

Now that my career has been destroyed by the mass grassroots "no commenting" movement, I guess I have some free time. So yeah, I WILL get on the next plane. And I will give those pollies a talking to, "in couding out p.m."

Hopefully the plane doesn't run into trouble, or I might have to prayer Mary MacKillop for something that comes in my life.

And then there's "Dazza":

"First of all God does not make mistakes, it is our fallen world that has caused all of this."

I wonder, when I hear someone express this sentiment, if you put the person in a nice quiet room and just left them there, without interruptions, for an indefinite length of time...would they eventually figure out what's wrong with their picture?

"ElijahThomas" chips in:

"like all anti-religion arguments yours demonstrates a woefully inadequate (even theoretical) understanding of God.

look at your own language...

"A God who knows the future is powerless to change it."

what of an author who has planned the end of his book? are they powerless to change it?"

Powerful, powerful analogy, Elijah. Now if you'd just step into this nice quiet room...

"DocMercury" changes the subject:

"One of the cures for cancer is known to be preventive rather than responsive, such as making it a habit to ingest or inhale zero dosage in toxins, avoiding aldehyde in the liver and benzene in the air.

So we're told, now that gambling excise more than makes up for lost nicotine excise, and the ethanol consumption remains constant."

Good point, Doc. You've really, er, cut to the heart of the article...um, there...

Last word goes to "John":

"Abbott will make a fine prime minister and I will be first in the queue to vote for him. Thumbs up!"

And you can NOT argue with that!

A Brave New World?

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, this is the first of what will, it would seem, be a series of weekly articles for the ABC's new site, The Drum (or The Drum Unleashed, or...something). Go check it out! I deal with Copenhagen, Rudd, Obama, Abbott, Joyce, and of course Mother Mary MacKillop

This does NOT mean I am leaving newmatilda - I remain the resident satirist at NM, long may their hit-count multiply. In that spirit, also go check out my end-of-year column for newmatilda, in which I look back at 2009 and make some bold predictions for 2010.

Also, keep looking out on newmatilda for another piece by me, part of the site's summer series. Maybe you should subscribe (for free!) so you NEVER miss a piece I write? Just a thought.

A Quick Quiz

My latest newmatilda article...and comments.

Now, having read said article and said comments, a quick quiz for readers to take, to win big!

1. In what sense can "motherlode" (however you spell it) be construed as a religious reference?

2. What is the average IQ required to grasp the difference between ridiculing someone who IS a Catholic, and ridiculing someone for BEING Catholic, with no other reason?

3. Is there any particular reason anyone's religion should be immune from ridicule?

Highest scores win a specially autographed essay on the links between anonymous abusive internet warriors and virulent anti-Semitism.