Typing Commentary #2: The Debate

Gillard's opening statement and she's had a little laugh at moving forward and the worm is dippin. I can't believe it. 60 Minutes has two worms, a male and a female. This already makes me feel dumb. How are the other stations covering it? Oh, Channel 7 have three fucking worms! A female, a male and the white one is a ring worm. All Channel 7's worms run together when Abbott speaks. On 9, contrary to popular media relief, the female worm has a full on crush for Tony Abbott, especially when he says he wants schools run by parents or something or rather.

Obviously I'm not listening to a word anyone has to say because neither are saying anything.

Chris Uhlman asks if they have the courage to stand out from the mob. Julia talks up My School and some OH&S policy. Boring subjects but at least she's talking more about her term in office rather than a vapid future. Abbott in a deft move whacks in with his paid parental leave policy. Kills it.

Now Laura Tingle pulls Abbott up on how the Libs championed a rise in population policy during their term and killed it today by half. He stands by it and all 5 worms on both networks love him for it. Gillard points out her policies are exactly the same. Worms love her more for it, especially when she points out she stopped the flow of overseas students. Amazingly, in his feeble attempt of attack, throws Gillard a Dorothy Dixer asking about the connection between her policy and immigration. Worms thank him for it.

Laura Tingle points out that governments may need to avoid striving to surplus. Will she? In two minutes of this and that, she doesn't answer it.

Several minutes have gone by. I'm not enjoying this. I've looked at Twitter. Everything Bob Brown tweets gets retweeted hundreds of times. Maybe he should have been asked to attend. But then again Chas Licciardello is getting retweeted a lot too. Maybe he should have been invited too. But seriously, Bob Brown should have been invited to come on. It would have shook things up a bit. Oh, and it would be nice if someone actually answered a journalist's question.

Gillard is rubblish on an ETS and Abbott does alright again.

Laura Tingle asks about troops to Afghanistan. Abbott calls them heroes but doesn't answer the question. Same with Gillard. More troops? Less troops? Exit? No answers from both.

This debate is sucking the life out of me. Nothing I type is entertaining. It's a bumper to bumper low speed car accident, nobody gets hurt, but both cars get wrecked. 

Winner?

Neither Gillard and Abbott.

The female worm was on top all night.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 4

So the Heraldsun are running a tweet of the day thing and I think it was today they gave their gong to Therese Rein. She certainly can pack some pretty attractive language into her 140 characters.

I've given her 3 points today for this:

Should explain that "Aaarghhh!!!" is written-down semi-strangulated sound. Onomatapaeic. Useful shorthand for expressing frustration.

Read into it what you will.

And 1 point to the always angry, MayneReport for:

Richo signs with Seven for political punditry, that ends a 20 year connection with 9 and reflects Packer sale. No one should pay that bloke.

Ooohhh Sir!

LADDER

KRuddMP       4
Therese_Rein  3
IanMartin        3
msstox             2

mariekehardy  2
ChasLicc         1

MayneReport  1

Arrogance or Bias?

This is Kerry O'Brien's introduction to his interview last night with Joe Hockey.

"After interviewing Julia Gillard on Monday, we were hoping Tony Abbott would be available last night or tonight to balance the scales."

"Mr Abbott couldn't make it tonight. He's on another television program called 'Hey, Hey, It's Saturday' with Daryl Somers on their Red Faces segment, so his Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, is here now to fill the breach."

"I understand you were complaining today about Labor trivialising this election campaign, but before we get to that, are there any Paris Hilton lines you want to share with us tonight?"

While it's no doubt amusing and I mostly agree what he said, the Libs would have a good case for calling Kerry O'Brien out on bias with this. O'Brien has been in terrific form in the past couple of months but (cliche locked and loaded), if he had this time again he'd write the introduction differently.

Or not.

This morning on ABC's AM they played the introduction in full. Real proud of themselves, that ABC bunch lately, see what we did there we made Hockey look like an amateur, we made him look stupid hurumph hurumph.

Hockey can do that pretty well himself without all that.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 3

Like our cricket team, Australian Twitterers put in a pissweak performance today.

3 points goes to the always brilliant Brit, IanMartin (you MUST visit his website, Martian.fm)who wasn't even talking about our election campaign with:

'We're modernising your ass by dropping some dope traditional Dickensian shit like the Office of Tax Simplification' #LOLthatisSOCoalition

And 1 point to The Chaser's ChasLicc for one of the only good ones I read about Abbott on Hey Hey It's Doomsday.

Poor old Abbott: the things he has to do to avoid being asked about Workchoices. #heyhey

Suppose everyone was in too much shock to type.

LADDER

KRuddMP       4
IanMartin        3
msstox             2

mariekehardy  2
ChasLicc         1

In Case You Missed Tony Abbot Judging Red Faces

There were dancing poodles too.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 2

Today's a dead heat.

Two points each go to:

mariekehardy  'He was once asked to leave the cricket, not for being drunk but for singing too loudly'.Mr. French, I fancy you. http://tinyurl.com/29chlmf

msstox  Have abandoned #insight. A young single mum who was struggling in education listed her biggest issue as national debt. So she's voting Lib.

Well done, ladies.

LADDER

KRuddMP       4
msstox             2

mariekehardy  2

Hey Julia, Why Be Afraid Of The Past?

Labor's Moving Forward safe tedium spew tactic is an adequate foil against cries of backdowns, waste and buggering of insulation, Budwhadever Eduwhatsits Revolution and the ETS, but it does only that.

It's okay to talk about the good stuff. Yeah, you can even sound like you have vision talking about the good stuff. Pity Gillard's election opening speech didn't shopping-list like this:

"I am also very proud of our government's achievements, such as the apology to the Stolen Generations, repealing Workchoices, increasing aged, disability and carer's pensions, the National Broadband Network, and huge additional investments in health and education."

"More than anything else, though, I'm pleased to have played a role in averting deep recession and soaring unemployment that emerged from the global financial crisis in many other countries."

Doesn't that sound neat? It's straight and clean. No mentions of the bad stuff, nor a bleating of a cliche and there's almost, when you hear it altogether like that, a glimpse at what Labor stands for.

Best of all, this speaker isn't afraid of the past. Neither is he afraid of the stuff that made his party and Leader, until a few months ago, of the most popular in history.

Where does the quote come from?

Lyndsay Tanner's goodbye letter to his Melbourne electorate, that's where.

Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League: Day 1

Each day of the election I will judge the best election tweet from the people I follow. Best tweet gets 4 points, and if there's a draw between tweets, I'll share them out. You get the general idea.

Winner of the Drover's Dog 2010 Election Tweeting League will be sent a trophy. And before you ask, I don't follow any fakeblahblah tweeters because I find the whole fakeblahblah thing tedious.

Now to announce the Day 1 result. Envelope please. Today's winner gets the whole 4 points and it's.....

KRuddMP!

for this touching little tweet:

Back to being a parent today. I drove Marcus to school. A minor miracle that I still know how to drive. KRudd

The Ladder

KRuddMP    4

Moving Forward, Vuvuzelas And Imbeciles

I'm not going to bother putting too much effort into complaining about the whole Julia Gillard Moving Forward cliche spew attack.

Writing an article about the phrase is as original as writing something about how annoying vuvuzelas sound.

The subject is best left to my clear writing, eloquently ranting, superhero, Don Watson who told the Herald Sun:

"It is the cliche of our times. When she started trotting it out I walked away after five minutes. I couldn't stand it any more."

"I don't know why they think it's a winner. And if it is a winner, then I'm even more dumbstruck. It's hard to imagine what the alternative to 'moving forward' is. I don't know - moving backwards? I suppose that's what she's trying to establish"

"People think the only way you can make a political point or persuade people of an argument is to treat them like imbeciles. It's like training a dog."

"She may as well go and stand on a hill and send up a smoke signal. That would have more meaning."

Enough said.

Typing Commentary #1: Julia Gillard On 60 Minutes

Watching the Julia Gillard Charles Wooley 60 Minutes flirt piece giggling condescension interspew and I'm having second thoughts about writing about this election.

Oh no, Charles has got sombre and Julia has joined him, talking in down voice about Afghanistan. It's only getting worse. Bravery, bravery, bravery, honor and staying the course.

Now Charles is going for asylum seekers and she's staying sombre voice. Charles has mentioned Latham and racism and Julia "can understand why people are concerned and how having those concerns isn't racism." She's getting rid of labels and we ask, what is "political correctness"?

Charles wants to ask about Julia stabbing Kevin. Charles didn't enjoy Kevin's tears. Julia was "concerned for him". But she's the PM. Julia won and she's moving forward.

Charles says Australia sheilas are tough in such a fricken a woo woo woo way. He's speaking to her like she's an idiot. I want to punch him.  He's asked about her partner, Tim because that's his job. It's a flirt piece and this is terrible.

What do we learn?

Nothing.

Just it's gonna be an awful five weeks.

We're Back, 2010 On Again

I'm going to cover the 2010 election.

This election we have a fresh PM with blood from the previous PM's blood still dripping on her hands and a smarmy swine for an opposition leader.

And it looks like the election will be fought on immigration policy.

Yes, I'm going to have a lot to rant about.

Stay tuned.

Before You Get Too Excited About The Election Result, Stop Everything And Listen To This

Listen to this Sydney PEN lecture by brilliant Melbourne writer, Christos Tsiolkas about tolerance which was aired on Radio National's Book Show last week.

You know him. He wrote Loaded, the book which was made into the infamous but way awesome Alex Dimitriades movie, Head On.

What a lecture.

Spicy.

Biting.

Aggressive.

And an exact explanation why I can't stand either of the political parties and why I'm so disappointed with the left.

Spot on.

Wow etc.

By the way, Tsiolkas' 2005 novel, Dead Europe is a ball tearer, one of the most confronting yet beautifully written things I've read in years.

The Story Of The Entire Campaign Told By The Giants Of Oz Rock/Pop!

Men and women of Australia, behold some of the lamest election analysis ever attempted.

I'm Dog Tired And On Deadline So This Is The Best I Can Do Right Now For Intelligent Political Comment

It's not only Rudd's popularity that's waxing and waning.

Game On Moles

Let the shithouse game begin.

Boy Bashed To Death And Then The Election Campaign Gets A Whole Lot Filthier

On a day when dunce Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews should be answering questions about 4 Corners’ Liz Jackson interview with Dr Haneef, he instead throws up a despicable wedge.

Citing the bashing murder of 18 year-old Sudanese boy, Liep Gony in Noble Park, Andrews back-announces a cutback in immigration from war torn African countries because…wait for it…

"Some groups don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life."

"I have been concerned that some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope and therefore it makes sense to put the extra money in to provide extra resources, but also to slow down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan."

But Andrews' stupidity and desperation gets worse.

The alleged attackers were not African.

Two Noble Park men, David Rintoull, 22, and Dylan Sabatino, 19 have been charged with Gony's murder. A girl, 17, is facing other charges.

For this it’s simple. Andrews must now resign from public life.

Not just him. His spokeswoman connected the attack and her department’s plans to cutback on taking in Sudanese just doesn’t get it. From the Herald Sun:

"It's more anecdotal (evidence)," she said, citing media reports of some serious crimes involving Sudanese. "A lot of people from African regions need extensive trauma and torture counselling."

No shit. That is your department’s responsibility, not reason to hit them some more. And it's a tough but ultimately worthwhile gig. Just listen to the incredible Late Night Live interview with ex-child Sierra Leone soldier, Ishmael Beah and you'll start to get a tiny idea of how hard it is on children who've grown up with war and how difficult their recuperation can be.

Phong Nguyen, chairman of Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria has it nailed, making the point to The Age that any refugee programs should be based on need and that,

"Selecting refugees on perceptions of their capacity to integrate borders on racism."

"It is simply inhumane for the Australian government to close the door on these people based on perceptions that some African refugees are not integrating into the Australian community," "As with all refugees, their initial settlement period will face challenges and the Australian African community is currently facing discrimination and racism."

Violence in Noble Park isn't new.

I know the place well.

My own German migrant grandparents, Oma and Opa lived there for many years. I hung out and grew up on the weekends in those streets in the 80's with Croat, Viet, Italian, Greek and German local kids and yep, some of them were thugs. There's always been bashings and stabbings there but we all mucked around together at the local pinnie joint, playing Frogger together no matter where we came from. Once we gossiped about a kid down the creek who got stabbed in the neck. Johnny and Tommy, the Crows next door knew him well, but weren't too concerned because a homemade bomb was found under their mum's car a week before.

What's the hard to make out camera photo? Something I saw a week before all this flared up. As I was already in an emotional Grand Final week state, this scene almost made me cry. A bunch of nine to eleven year-old Sudanese and Ethiopian kids on the Rathdowne Street housing commission estate playing Australian Rules football. Watched them for ten minutes and boy, they were REALLY GOOD. Drop punts, torps, baulks, marks and a cry of DIDAK!!! Watching, I felt dizzy and proud.

Bunch of despicable arse, the African kids aren't integrating.

Once Off Special Never To Be Missed!

As seen on the specials pile at Readings, Carlton.

Nuff said.

Melbourne: Relaxed And Comfortable

Meet Rathdowne Street, Carlton in Shadow Finance Minister, Lyndsay Tanner's safe Labor seat of Melbourne. Every election, pundits get carried away saying the seat could go to the Greens but it never happens and never will.

Even now with the always irritable Dean Mighell (pronounced Mile but gee, MIG-HELL is an awesome Commie name!), and his Electrical Trades Union funding a big bit of Greens' candidate Adam Bandt's campaign, they don't have a chance.

$20,000 is bugger all really, barely funding a mailout, a billboard or a free beer bbq. Labor will probably spend at least 10 times more on that seat alone.

Besides, the area is under constant demographic change: spinach and hollandaise has become in four years caramelized onion, blackberry and truffle oil jus the area's standard cafe breakfast side dish. Apart from the planned destruction of the lovely vistas pictured, house and apartment prices have soared since last election and it's almost impossible to rent a one bedroom hovel for under $350 a week.

Melbourne's voters are 'relaxed and comfortable' and as a pundit, it's my duty to generalize. Sticking issues will be interest rates, Work Choices, new Rudd, childcare, taxes, Work Choices and interest rates. Not forests, the war, Haneef, uranium and climate change as the Greens claim.

And Mighell's grudge donation won't stick. The Greens will never be a credible and listened to voice on workplace laws.

The Liberals won't bother with the seat and will send in a potato with eyes held on with toothpicks as their candidate.

My tip for the seat?

Collingwood by 38 points.

Remember Those "We're Acting" Ads On Late Night TV For Some Dodgy Film And Television School? The Government's New Work Choices Ads Are Way Crappier.

I was going to whine about the horrible new Work Choices television ads but the hot, nice smelling and pretty haired kids at Lucky Boris Yeltsin Is Dead used their fiendish powers of charm, wit and dogged enthusiasm to READ MY MIND.

And they did so in a list.

The Top 5 Reasons The Workplace Authority’s “Two Mates in a Pub” Commercials are Unconvincing, Uncompelling and Downright Stupid:

1. Two guys walk into a bar. We keep expecting this joke to get funny. It doesn’t.
2. A pub, two “mates”, a basket of chips and two glasses - sounds reasonable…even pleasant. But there is no beer in the glasses. None. Could it be that with their spanky new AWA’s they don’t have enough coin for the next shout? Or the Australian Government could see fit to spend our taxes on shamelessly political commercials masquerading as information campaigns, but was too tight to pop for two schooners of XXXX Gold. Who knew?
3. There are no sodden coasters. There are some car keys on the table. The mates’ pants appear to coordinate with their shirts and do not appear to be pulling uncomfortably across their bellies. Have these people ever been in a pub?
4. The pub is not playing Shannon Noll.
5. The mates are talking about WorkChoices, rather than tits.

I hate everything about these ads.

The dialogue stinks of malformed leaky arse, the acting is limper than Australian Idol's Rock Night and the blokes' glowing anecdotes are so staged and unbelievable even the minister, Joe Hockey wouldn't have kept himself from guffawing himself wet when he handed over the cash to the ad agency.

Oh, and for government 'information advertisements' they're a little bit um.... FARKEN TEN TIMES TEN TO THE POWER OF TEN PARTISAN!

One star, Margaret.

Liberals Give In To Hard Drugs In Gutter Wedge Shot

Howard gives up. Gets back up. Downer holds focus groups. Every cabinet member gets onto their favorite journo and has off-the-record panic attacks. Big meeting. Costello wimps out. Howard goes on. Howard says he might retire. Libs now a TEAM.

So what's the TEAM's first play back from the huddle?

Go low. Wedge hard. Beat up on the weak. Get populist. Shit on the weak. Go back to war. A no brainer war for the no brainers. Bank on outrage. Make it outrage Rudd will have to agree with. Keep the outrage simple for the stupids.

D R U G S

Story three, straight after a couple on the leadership pant-wetting on last night's PM, a committee headed by the eternally-foul Bronwyn Bishop recommends demands that the Federal Government move its ENTIRE DRUG STRATEGY away from harm-minimisation, to harm prevention.

According to the PM report Bishop wants ALL funding pulled from treatment services that don't have the express aim of getting users drug-free; which could include needle exchange and methadone programs.

Here she goes...

"It means that the aim of the program, or the body that is getting the funding, that they must have the ultimate aim of the individual becoming drug-free. Not that they can perpetually be on drugs, and that's OK."

Predictably the government's edict will be low on modern thinking but HIGH on ad-spend. MORE SHOCKING TV ADS! But now with more violence, fear and gore than ever before.

The committee also want to change language. The brief demands HARM must be replaced by tougher, more tabloid friendly, but obviously misleading words like DAMAGE, DESTRUCTION and DANGER. Reefer Madness anyone?

And if you're on drugs, BRONWYN WANTS YOUR BABIES! Yes she does. She's invented a world where there's drug addicts out there letting their babies crawl on ceilings just like in Trainspotting and all the state run child protection agencies DO NOTHING TO STOP IT.

"There is this entrenched attitude in the bureaucracy, anti-adoption, and it really has to be overturned. And when we say default option, we mean that the obligation is then on DOCS and in conjunction with the parent to make the case why adoption is not an option."

Christ, the shitbird media won't want to resist this but let's hope they don't buy their drug lines from Bronwyn. AM spoke to CEO of the Family Drug Support organisation, Tony Trimingham, whose son died ten years ago from a heroin overdose.

Bronwyn's committee's recommendations only appall him.

"I could have actually cried this morning when I read the recommendations and some of the report. And they've ignored the pleas of families who have said, we need to keep our children alive, we need to keep them supported until they can turn the corner that they eventually need to turn.

What happens if the recommendations become government policy?

Says Trimmingham:

"I think there'll be more deaths, more disease, more crime."

"I think families will be more sidelined. You know one of the things that we face, and we stressed this in our submission to the committee, is that we face isolation and shame and stigma."

Let's hope Rudd, The Drover's Dog doesn't 'me too' to this wedge for the sake of one or two marginals.

But he will.

It's election time.