Patron of the Under ten Newton’s. Match plan and strategy of recent game converted to mathematical code.

Dear reader, bored of the election already? Then something to nourish the soul, this match report from the GIJFC U 10 Newtons v Th Gladitors. They played against St Mary’s on the weekend. And though it remains unclear as to whether they triumphed over their adversary, the skill in writing, description and flourishes of sheer brilliance both on and off the field, suggests that the spirit of REAL people is alive and well in Suburbia. Not much can be said for the politicians however. They remain firmly detached. Cleverly, the P.M, Mr Malcolm Abbott has converted, (a sure sign of the “Ideas Boom” at work), a three word slogan into an economical and inspired two word slogan. ‘Jobs and Growth’.

The other great Newton.

We’re in safe hands though, the Under ten’s have chosen none other than Isaac Newton as their patron. Isaac would not feel alone on this field of valour, and remains an inspiration that the ‘Ideas Boom’ is nurturing younger minds to make this nation ‘Great’.

The Kleptocracy at work. Great leaders demonstrate the “trickle down effect”.

Forget the environment. Forget about the yawning inequities and hooray to all those good folk from China recently arrived who top the list of Australians most likely to require the services of Panamanian tax havens. It’s Australia. And in the end, It’s footy season. Nothing else makes sense really.

So refreshment awaits. Here’s the Newton’s match report.

GIJFC U10 Newtons 2016

‘We arrived in dribs and drabs and with several stunned looks as Stonnington and Boorondara were left well behind and we made the journey to Greensborough. This was deep into hostile territory and into the clutches of hardman footy heartland- the Diamond Valley. Coach Strauss had been nervous about this one, there was no way to let the boys know what they were in for in just words alone. It was a rite of passage that each boy would need to experience themselves. These blokes ate concrete and trees for breakfast and wanted nothing more than to demolish us and grind us into the mud before sending us scuttling off in our leather seated cars back to warm double shot lattes and hydronic heating. It wasn’t personal, they just hated losing and weren’t about to do so. The adjacent Plenty River subsided enough to allow the ground to be exposed and the game to take place. There were enough patches of mud and turf amidst the casual water to allow a firm enough grip on the ground for the umpires to call captains to the centre and for teams to take to the field. A penetrometer reading would have come in at a Heavy 10 with racing possibly abandoned. The instructions were clear from Straussy- kick it long, don’t bounce it and muscle up in defence. “Stick to them like glue on a blanket”.

If you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got a federal election. It’s gonna be on for the next eight weeks. In Australia we have one on average once every three years, it’s dull and boring.

There are two principal parties, Liberal (who are in coalition with the Nationals) and the Labor party. They are not much different.

‘Artful Arty Sinodinos”. Upholding Liberals core principles.

The Liberals, (conservatives) think that we’ll all do well if we close down the vehicle industry saying it’s too expensive, whilst spending billions on a few submarines. The Liberals think it’s right to give the few remaining local industries and the vast majority of overseas owned industries big kickbacks. They believe in the trickle down effect that allows wealthy people to get a taxpayer subsidy for buying more properties. The Liberals would like to kill off what’s left of the public safety net, health, education and science and sell it to their mates in BB. They also like property, and their mates in the Property Council want us to all have a big mortgage, and that’s what they want to leave the banks alone, because they’re mates. They look after their mates; like Arthur, who managed to squirrel way four million from developers, before some pecksniff in the electoral commission, quarantined it.
The Liberals HATE Unions, So much they’ll call a double dissolution to confect an outrage against the unions. Who account for a mere 13% of the workforce.

The Liberals, HATE renewables and the environment. Liberals are happy to kill off the Great Barrier Reef for a few coal mines. They are happy to sponsor really horrid industries because they represent growth and employment. Liberals believe ultimately, (the vast majority) that earth was created in six days, womankind is the downfall of humanity, and expansion of prisons and detention centres, (concentration camps) are a sign of a burgeoning democracy.

The Liberals are NOT liberal.

Labor is not much different from the coalition, cept they have recently discovered, that they could have a few principles exhumed after being dormant for years. Labor also believe women are valid as a sub-species, and equality of opportunity and fairness may have some cachet with the electorate. They would also like to stop the tax payer funding for wealthy property investors, and are not too keen that the underperforming, company sector need another tax break. They would like us to believe that they’re keen on restoring funding to health education and science. They are also mates with the banks, and property developers, provided they donate their funds, up front and open in a round- about sort of way. Labor has nothing to do with people who use their hands in physical work, that is ‘old labor’. New labor is about professional politicians who steadfastly avoid what used to be termed ‘Work’. They share this with the Liberal party, having, networked, interned, and featherbedded to the top.

‘Both Labor and Liberal love Anzac day and marching’.

Both Labor and Liberal like the idea of incarcerating all first australians. Because it’s good for business, and judging by the lack of response, the electorate is pretty keen on the idea. The same applies to refugees. Both Labor and Liberal love Anzac day and marching.

There is a third party; the Greens. The Greens are pure. They’re pure in everything until when push comes to shove they’re less than pure. Greens are happy to throw core principles aside in order to gain ground. The Greens pretend to worry about the environment, though recently seem more concerned about gender issues.

Then there is the electorate.

Increasingly what the electorate thinks is irrelevant. Big business knows what’s good for the electorate, and occasionally, the electorate may get to choose a new flag, a new anthem, or the colour of a new stamp. However after the ‘Boatey McBoatface’ fracas, the government can’t trust the electorate to not ‘act the goat’ and make a principled stand on the crumbs of governance that are offered it.

‘women folk of breeding age are compelled to offer up their babies, to be kissed by politicians’.

Unsung heroes. In recognition of their ‘stand in the glorious upholding of the Anzac Spirit enshrined by the nobility of sacrifice to God, King and Empire in the maintenance of Civilisation’. The Donkey is accorded special status, and is often crucial in determining the election outcome.

Most of all the electorate is supine, browbeaten and insecure and women folk of breeding age are compelled to offer up their babies, to be kissed by politicians. So that we may be SAFE! Incidentally this is the only time of the electoral cycle the politicians are allowed out of the cocoon that is Canberra. Babies in pushers and prams are vulnerable, and many promises made, which are invariably broken. The electorate expect this. They know only too well the calibre of those who pretend to represent them. Within the electorate their is a small constituency who vote for Donkeys.

This makes no sense, but indicates compassion for those who are not on the electoral role, donkeys, goats, endangered species and the planet.

Daer reader, this one was sent yesterday, at the time of writing there was a sense of palpable excitement as the entire  nation stood poised on the brink of an election surprise. A complete surprise!!  For the first  in really really trenchant analysis, we turn to our oracle from the ossuary Paddi-O, who’ll give us the ‘dinkum oil”, as they say at Camp Gallipolli.

And now from Paddi-O

‘the priest washing the feet of 12 men representing the twelve apostles’ . Something for the children:(Find the priest).

In the Catholic ritual of Easter, Holy Thursday commemorates the last supper and has a special mass with the priest washing the feet of 12 men representing the twelve apostles; Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion – no mass that day, just distribution of communion kept from the day before, and on Easter Saturday nothing happens until midnight when the mass of the resurrection can be celebrated. For the pious Easter Saturday is a bit of a non-day (for the rest of us its an AFL feast of football).

Today feels like an Easter Saturday. In the phony war of the current election cycle we are supposed to be unaware that Malcolm Turnbull will visit the Governor General tomorrow and declare his resurrection as saviour of the nation – or will he? Last week showed how brittle his leadership is. The budget fell flat; a huge funding commitment in tax cuts was embarrassingly exposed; as was the ignorance of Malcolm and his would be successor and treasurer. Meanwhile in a calm, measured and increasingly convincing tone, Bill Shorten asserted a credible opposition case, in a budget reply speech that mixed election manifesto with a call to core Labor values. The only thing missing was a humanitarian approach to asylum seekers (of that more later), but the rest was there: Action on equality for women, action on climate change, commitment to universal health care, to public education, to infrastructure, and to fairness.

Shorten despite his part in destroying two Labor leaders has a kind of certainty that can only be created by no-one else wanting the job, and a leadership arrangement bequeathed by Kevin Rudd (of all people) that makes it hard to depose him. And remarkably this has let Labor focus on policy – a huge competitive advantage when after three years and two Prime Ministers the coalition has none to show. Compare this to Turnbull: Captive of the right, lazy in his media performance, increasingly displaying the kind of arrogance that Australians hate, and oozing condescension. Polls suggest we still prefer him as leader, but incumbency means a lot in that number, and the palpable sense of disappointment is huge.

Harold Wilson, the plain man in the raincoat.

Overall Labor is gaining, but possibly concentrating strength in its own seats. Queensland and NSW will be critical and South Australia the wild card. All of this can change and it is a very, very long campaign. The election is eight weeks away, anything can happen in that time. In political mythology the patrician Harold Macmillan when asked what he feared most replied ‘Events, dear boy, events’. So here are four events that are likely to happen over the next eight weeks, each of which could turn this election on its head.

George Costanza, (Sinodinos)

Uncle George and the Property Developers George Sinodinos hangs around Malcolm’s neck like the proverbial albatross. Turnbull can’t get rid of him, that would be admitting guilt and betraying a numbers man, and he can’t embrace him, as the stench of corruption is too rank. Any revelation from an independently minded IBAC or Election Commission that even reinforces suspicion of links between George and the purveyors of fine negative gearing opportunities will create even more havoc in a divided NSW Liberal Party and threaten to derail their part in the campaign. Even without that event, the party is still $4 million short in it’s funding due to the refusal of the party to reveal the names of donors to the Freedom Foundation. Watch this space.

U.S sub prime housing bubble. It’ll NEVER happen here!!!

That deflating feeling. The decision by the Reserve Bank to reduce interest rates in the face of lower than expected inflation is copy-book management, but a political headache. Stagflation, no growth in value, is the worst outcome for a government which has demonstrated a commitment to efficiency by replacing wasteful three word slogans with a two word slogan – jobs and growth. Lower interest rates immediately reduces the value of the dollar against other currencies and while this helps exports and arguably builds growth and a better inflation rate, for the ignorant the drop in the dollar is an affront to national pride (and an annoying increase in cost on that trip to Bali). But it has a far more sinister effect. Passed on by banks ever more rapacious to sell mortgages it fuels the overinvestment in housing, encourages the negative gearing brigade, and thus further heats an overheated market. The Reserve Bank Board meets mid-way through the campaign. If the numbers demand it they will reduce the interest rates, blowing apart the government’s assumption in its budget and drawing unwanted attention to the negative gearing debate. Watch this space.

Huge Fires in Canadia. Its just too HOT in Canadia these days.  Where the hell is Canadia?

It ain’t half hot Mum The election is all but scheduled for 3 July. Winter. Well it should be. As I am writing this at 5 in the afternoon it is 24 degrees. I have both my front and back doors wide open. I have yet to get the doonah out of the cupboard. And it is May, round 7 of the AFL, and its not even cold. The bush is drying out, Tasmania is parched, the coral is bleaching on the Reef, and Koalas in Queensland are facing extinction. In South America mass die off of fish and whales are littering beaches, in Alberta Canada an entire city has been evacuated surrounded by terrifying fires – in Spring! The environment is a big issue in this election and while it should be good news for the Greens politically, in the end increasing anxiety about Global Warming should sway votes to a credible policy that addresses the issue and a party that can form government. And that is not to be found in the Liberal-National Party coalition. Watch this space.

Exporting the Australian Dream. Typical ‘Ideas Boom’ real estate subdivison. ‘Newhaven’, a landmark Property Council of Australia development now selling on Nauru and Manaus Island.

Out of sight – out of mind Manus Island and Nauru are supposed to be remote. Distant. Places that we can ignore and forget, like the asylum seekers we dump there and that Peter Dutton and others call illegal. But they just won’t go away. Papua New Guinea has declared Manus unconstitutional and wants to close it. Dutton thinks we can strong arm our way out of it, but that won’t happen. Nauru will continue to fester, and the mendicant government there cannot be expected to contain the despair of the refugees and detainees it has care of on our behalf and at our behest. And the High Court is hearing a case to declare the continued detention of the people on Manus as illegal on the basis of torture. That decision will be handed down in the course of the campaign. Should the Justices support the case, it will throw what is left of the tattered bipartisan cruelty into the bin, leaving both parties with an excruciating dilemma. Peter Dutton has nowhere to go, the right wing to which he belongs, runs the policy; a smart Labor response could mark a turning point. It is exquisite in our democracy that those yet to have a vote may have such influence. Watch this space.

Harold Wilson, the plain man in the raincoat, did say ‘A week is a long time in politics’ – eight weeks is an eternity and plenty of time for lots of events. Events, dear boy, events’.

Today’s wonderful offering has been presented to us by Lord Atney of Rozelle

Originally dispatched on 18 May 2014

Tovarichi,

From my dad’s anecdotes:

SEP.’07- Not all that long ago dad was having one of his sessions and kept coming up with his now habitual rather negative opinions. This caused his daughter in law (of whom he is rather fond) to remark: “Well, you know Mark: every silver lining has its dark cloud”. Touché! Dad chuckled and acknowledged that she was right.

Tony Abbott’s election campaign included a pledge that he’d be the ‘Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs’. In previous Dispatches it was pondered whether Misterrabbit’s undertaking to spend a week in an Aboriginal community for each year he was Prime Minister was a promise or a threat. Should we erect another Rabbit Proof Fence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLGfhn0eLIg

Jenny Macklin’s assimilationist Empire was handballed to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Northern Territory’s own Senator Nigel Scullion was put in charge.

Some years ago Nigel Scullion suggested that removing the permit system would allow free enterprise to flourish and for example “we could get Vietnamese market-gardeners to establish themselves on these communities”. Need I say more?

On page 15 of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s ‘Workplace Diversity Strategy 2011-2014’, in the column headed ‘Action Plan” there is:

“Incorporate acknowledgement of traditional owners at all PM&C public events.”. In the column headed ‘Responsibility’ it has: “All Staff”

All correspondence received from the Department of the PM&C and/or its agents has the following:

“The Department acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures and to their elders both past and present”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYbs_O_iMfU

Yes indeed R-E-S-T-E-C-P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klz6IVHfHpY

Such acknowledgements have memefied. Examples abound:
“I would like to acknowledge that daily I live, work and play on larrakia land. I pay my respects to larrakia elders, both past and present.”

And like all silver linings they disguise a dark cloud.

The recent Australian Budget had an incredible month long lead up of rumours, leaks, discussions, political wedging and propaganda with a compliant press that fails to acknowledge one of the reasons the printed media is losing circulation is that the papers are (generally) incredibly boring! German has a word that describes what the printed media suffers from: Kreislaufschwäche (look it up if you can be bothered).

I acknowledge that the geniuses in charge of running the country quite correctly identified the plethora of ‘programs’ dealing with Indigenous Affairs to be a case of too many cooks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X3ArmLyXoE

They just weren’t delivering the assimilationist outcomes they sought. Their Gap kept on widening.

So what is proposed? In their wisdom they propose:  A new “Indigenous Advancement Strategy” comprised of five programs within PM&C. The consolidation according to the Budget will result in savings of $534.4M. Thus from over 150 cooks they’ll cut back to just 5 cooks. Brilliant!

To every dark cloud there is a silver lining. Whereas Aboriginal Legal Aid Services and The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples (virtually the only national Australian Indigenous representative body) have had their funding severely cut, we must acknowledge that remote Aboriginal Australia can look forward to $200M of funding for additional Police Complexes (“community safety”) and School Attendance programs. We can’t wait!

No hidden agenda there, not even behind a dark cloud, it is blatant forced Assimilation  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKbTqdZQwwU.

We must acknowledge that many (both black and white) have been bedazzled by the silver linings. They believe ethnocide is both inevitable and desirable.

It is colloquially known as a ‘double-whammy’. On Tuesday 13^th May the Federal Treasurer delivered the Budget. The next day, the NT Minister for Education released: “A Share in the Future-Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory” Recently I was given a book “Colloquial French”. I didn’t have to consult it, the colloquial French word that immediately sprung to mind was ‘merde’ (also the Argentine colloquial phrase: ‘Hijos de puta’).

On page 34, commenting on consultations and received submissions the report acknowledges: “ …Many respondents stated strongly held views on bilingual education….There was also extensive commentary on the role of first language in education….”

Another silver lining on page 20: “The review supports the teaching of literacy in first language…” followed by the inevitable caveat “…where feasible”

The teaching of literacy using a foreign language (English) is not qualified with a “where feasible” in the report. The feasibility of children to learn to read and write whilst being addressed by a teacher that has gobbledygook emanating from his or her mouth, isn’t questioned.

On page 11 an even brighter silver lining: “The review acknowledges and supports the role of student’s first languages in education….”

And then there is the inevitable dark clouds:

Page-11- “The review does not, however, support the position argued by some respondents that first language is the only or best means of access to English, or that the curriculum should be predominantly taught in Indigenous languages.”

Page 35- “It is also important to acknowledge from the outset that this review has made a pragmatic decision to focus on the skills and knowledge that underpin success in the western education system…..and that this will not be achieved unless there is rigorous and relentless attention to learning English and gaining the skills that support participation in a modern democracy and economy.”

The NT Department of Education has already pre-empted its intention to be guided by this review when formulating its policies.

Seems to me that they’re not satisfied with having mortally wounded bi-lingual education some years ago. They now intent to cremate it and scatter the ashes so it can never again be resurrected.

If the assimilationists have their way Australia stands to lose more than is realized. A language is not just a means to gain the skills and knowledge that underpin success in the western education system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmLVxRS_Sxs  A language is much much more than that.

I now have come to realize why when acknowledging traditional owners and elders past and present, no such acknowledgement is extended to future traditional owners and elders.

If they have their way there will be none left to acknowledge!

Merde!
Doz vitanya
Франклин   

Everyone is calling out for Peace, no one is calling out for Justice…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stuNZeCenS0

Amen to that.

Michaelia Cash, demonstrating just how to enthuse young folk in embracing the four dollar an hour regime.

Dear reader cast your mind back to 1980.

Way back then, I was an arts student looking for some extra coin. Found a job at ‘Phantom India’. My girlfriend worked at ‘Rajah Sahibs’ in Bank Place. The first two Indian restaurants in Melbourne. For four bucks and hour I learnt everything I know about Indian food and indentured labour.

Four bucks wasn’t much then, but as an extra, you got to scrape the plates as they came in from the dining room, and scoff the stuff that some rude bastard hadn’t put a ciggy butt in. As an added bonus, cos of the tax scheme in those days, the restaurant was chocka block at lunch, cos lunch, (on business of course) was entirely one hundred percent tax deductible.

I multi skilled, being dish washer and toilet cleaner. I learnt everything about what the Federal Government proposes to do with its new training scheme. I agree with Michaelia Cash, it’ really tricky doing the dishes. These are skills kids need to be rigorously trained in. Cleaning the dunny, is way over the top. We MUST have to indenture little buggers on the dole so they can be multi skilled like I was. Endure a proper training regime to learn how to do the dishes, wipe the tables and clean the dunny. And, I almost forgot, stack the industrial dishwasher, and keep those pots and frypans spotlessly clean.

bidi’s

Learnt about Hygiene also. Always wiped the tables, dried the dishes and wiped the toilet with the same cloth. It was both Hygienic and economical. The cooks, all who were southern Indian. Didn’t seem to are much about hygiene. I spose that’s an upper level skill you need to go to uni for. They’d leave the half-cooked Prawns out in the laneway to marinade with the local rats and mice. Same for the yoghurt and cheese, sort of left on the rack, but we never had any probs from the health department. We sort of inspected it ourselves when we’d go out for the odd smoke on a bidi. Those funny little cigarettes that look like tea leaves.

New opportunities exist for internships in ‘Ideas Boom’ orientated businesses

Learnt a lot about Indian culture also. I was the only sahib on the job, and there was a sort of informal caste system. The boss was a brahmin, I think that’s top dog, and al the staff, were shudra’s. The boss was a reasonable sort of bloke, but his brother was a complete fucking bastard. He displayed all the chippiness of the bugger who shares in the profit but never built the business. Best example of why we need a wealth tax now. He was the bugger who paid us, and it was all cash. You’d have to ask too. Cos if you didn’t he’d piss off and you’d have to wait till the next week. And a sort of post colonial caste system was at work. I endured numerous practical jokes because of what “we” did to the locals during the Raj. No thanks for civilising the poor bastards I thought.

Malcolm. as a younger man. A internship of sorts.

Eventually the restaurant got into a bit of trouble with the union and the tax office. The boss had all the staff indentured and living in his garage in Kew. The union was all over it, so was the health department. I put up my hand, but as the token local, was told more or less, “ piss off back to uni you long haired wanker” which I did. Later the boss was the architect most recently of a chicken processing scandal. Where as usual the staff were underpaid and cruelly exploited. I laughed, ‘He’s at it again and just like ol times’ I knew he’s get slap on the wrist and move on, doing the same ol.

Same checks and balances to ensure compliance.

When the federal government tell us that this high level training scheme will not be rorted I laugh, And I know why. Cos all the pollies in government now, never ever did a mundane job. Don’t think Malcolm Abbott ever cleaned toilets. With the skills I learnt I got a job with Metro Cleaning. Cleaning toilets as a “professional” and windows from 3.am till midday in Central Melbourne. My skills base just grew and grew. I learnt that those who never toiled in toilets, literally always bang on about how important it is for others to enjoy the ‘nobility of work’. There’s an irony in that. Think it’s lost on Malcolm though.

The average american demonstrates the bounty of working for nothing.

In hindsight I learnt another thing. I’d knock off at about midnight and make my way on foot by Carlton to Fitzroy. (Our three bedroom terrace rented at fifty dollars per week. Could’ve bought it for seventy thou). By the time I turned into Nicholson street, my bowels would be straining under the weight of ‘Kabulli Channa’, ‘Lamb Madras’, ‘Prawn Balichow’ and Samosas mixed with copious amounts of rice. I’d just make it home. Breathlessly fumble the key in the lock, race upstairs to the loo and fulminate all over the bowl as my internals erupted to the delights of exotic food. This was clearly a precursor to the ‘Ideas Boom’. Glad they’re de-funding real education. I like to think that in this respect I was a pioneer. Hence my clarity of exposition on the subject of four dollars an hour.

And all I did, was spend a penny.

Mr and Mrs Thurston Howell 111. Amused that the Australian Government gives tax incentives for plutocrats to amass property portfolios paid by the taxpayer.

 The verdict of Barrie Cassidy after Scott Morrison’s first budget was damning with very faint praise. The headline said it all ‘the election will be won and lost elsewhere’.

Winner 2016 Mr and Mrs Thurston Howell Look- alike contest.

Elsewhere is the place vision, ideas, action and equity were, as a do-little fiscal plan was released to a non-engaged electorate. Meanwhile Malcolm Turnbull, ever more resembling Thurston Howell III in his pastel shades and silver fox tan, is quietly confident that the budget will lead him to victory. Declaring that Labor is simply interested in class warfare, his kind of warfare is limited to guns that fire empty canisters. Meagre funds for education, a tiny $50 million to act as some kind of incentive for infrastructure, a cap on how much the very rich can salt away in superannuation, and an increase in tobacco excise.

Treasurer admires Marcel Marceau stunt pulled off by P.M Malcolm Abbott

It reminds me of the old TV commercial of a fake Marcel Marceau walking a dog when you don’t have a dog, tying a dog when you don’t have a dog, and pouring a drink when you don’t have a drink. It’s a Clayton’s budget. With just enough of a whiff of the policies that Labor has proposed, it is supposed to anesthetise the electorate on the economic future of the country, ignoring the real threat of a housing bubble where the price to income ratio in Sydney is now 12.2 times the median salary and in Melbourne almost at a multiple of 10. In Ireland, on the eve of the GFC it was at a factor of 8, while in the USA where the crash was arguably more dramatic it was 5. No action in the budget on what is now readily identified by everyone but the Property Council of the prime cause: Negative gearing. Even the government’s own member for Bennelong, John Alexander, calls the housing market a Ponzi Scheme. But according to Thurston Howell III Labor’s reforms would send the housing market into drastic decline, devastating Mum and Dad investors, nurses, mechanics, teachers and the rest.

No action either on Climate Change. That is not an issue for this government or apparently for Thurston. His deputy, Barnaby Joyce, fulminated in the house on one environmental issue, infecting European carp with a herpes virus to eliminate the menace, and made it clear he would, if he could, apply the same approach to the opposition and voters who oppose the coalition. Christopher Pyne in his sailor suit ready for the submarines that he hopes will save his sinking fortunes chimed in. Forgive me, but the thought of Christopher and Barnaby giving fish herpes makes my skin crawl. And as for Asylum Seekers? Well in that odious way that he has perfected Peter Dutton has now accused those who agitate for reform as the cause of the second self-immolation on Nauru. The total absence of any sense of shame in making such an accusation leaves no hope of redemption for this government.

The photograph captured by Alex Ellinghausen of Dutton says it all.

Dear reader, after a string of unfortunate incidents which were on the whole unfairly characterised in the press, we have worked tirelessly to assist the erstwhile member of Indi, Ms Sophie Mirabella in finding a new career.

We all agree that Ms Mirabella combines a formidable ambition, some intelligence and intensity of character that would be suited well to a career in corrections, deep space exploration, defense, aged care, and the vexed arena of aboriginal affairs. We need her expertise if Australia is to realise its potential under the ‘Ideas Boom’. As the P.M Malcolm Abbott stated, ‘ it’s an age of incredible promise and limitless opportunities limited only by our national imagination’. Sophie proved herself to be imaginative and calculating in her rise to the shadow front bench. We say; ‘Hide no longer your light in the shadows. Let your brilliance shine’. We’ve sifted through the job ads, and handpicked a few which we believe Sophie could turn into a promising and lucrative career path.

Position: Regional and Rural Specialist Outreach Residency Placement Manager

‘ Initiate creative solutions to long term care’.

Administering aged care is fraught, and special skills are required to manage aged care estates. We seek an innovative leader to provide creative solutions to both accommodation and estate management. Your role is to outsource and ensure that the prohibitive costs associated with aged care are contained. Initiate creative solutions to long term care. Upgrade of sheds, and sleep outs in the back paddock will be a core responsibility. Specialist skills in redrafting of wills and elevation of operatives to role of specialist executors and enduring power of attorney, remain as core function. The position is well remunerated with opportunities for travel and outstanding professional development.

Position: Commander Mission to Mars

‘We require a single minded, and determined individual to lead the first ever Mars expedition’.

We require a single minded, and determined individual to lead the first ever Mars expedition. The crew of five will be under your command. In the event of failure of propulsion or life support systems, as commander you are entrusted to select which crew member will be eaten or jettisoned. Preferment will be given to candidates who display an absence of compassion and psychopathic tendencies. Upon arrival on Mars you are to claim it on behalf of the Property Council of Australia. Exploit your crew as indentured labourers and you will share (for outstanding service) a percentage of windfall development opportunities

Position: Outreach Border Security Enforcement.

Despite turning the boats back, and prolonged detention, there is still a trickle of illegal immigrants desiring access to Australia. Your task is to visit communities in waiting and deter them from considering Australia as a ultimate destination. Your task is to communicate with these groups and impress them with the futility of their task. Individuals who display proven sociopathic tendencies are preferred. Destroy their will to live. Subject them to intimidatory and coercive manipulation and demonstrate a proven capacity for lack of empathy, and interest in subjects. The position is well remunerated and operate from our reception centres at Nauru and Manaus Island. Opportunities to travel to Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan to advance Australia as dispassionate, uncaring, isolationist and bloody minded.

Position: Aboriginal affairs, Regional leader ‘Dutton-Ville’

Plans are afoot to transfer indigenous corrective services (with entire prison population) to Mars after detailed analysis by the Minerals and Energy Council

The federal government seeks group leaders to maintain and direct the amalgamation of aboriginal outstations into one unified administrative and management hub. Dutton-ville, demonstrates the federal government’s capacity for moving forward, and ensuring that lifestyle choices of first australians are contained and administered according to world’s best practise. As manager your responsibility is to ensure that the entire male population is incarcerated, and the current ratio of up to twenty NGO’s per individual is raised by another twenty five percent. For establishing such efficiencies, you will be rewarded with a percentage of royalties after exploitation of recently vacated lands on behalf of the Minerals and Energy Council.

Position: Senior Fundraiser Manager Free Enterprise Foundation

ambitious, self serving, functionary to encourage funds transfer for the property sector into the Liberal party coffers

Exciting opportunity exists for an ambitious, self serving, functionary to encourage funds transfer for the property sector into the Liberal party coffers. Secrecy and discretion an advantage. Formidable talent in bullying, berating, and bludgeoning potential donors into acquiesence. Successful applicant needs to be resolute, single minded, and display narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies. Remuneration will be performance based, and new avenues of funding to be secured from aged care sector, and superannuation funds management.

Postscript We hope that these represent just a fraction of the many exciting career paths that now lie open to Ms Mirabella after politics. And trust in the fullness of time her talents will establish her as an exemplar in this exciting new era of the “ideas boom”

‘I’m feeling so inner urban. Being cared for by a VCE student in a two storey terrace close to the beach, close to the city’. (Cecil Poole)

Dear reader, there is light in a lightness of touch. Enjoy this reflective piece from the esteemed Cecil Poole as he transitions from being  ‘country boy’ from the ‘Paris End’ of Tolmie to being the gadfly of Melbourne’s inner ring. And in  doing so he draws the circle fully round  the vexed issue of what to do with the electorate of Indi, post Mirabella.

Read on… (and for the children and infirm we promise no images of the erstwhile member for Indi)

‘I’d brushed most of the hayseeds out of my hair and off my clothes’. (recent daguerreotype of Cecil in rustic attire)

I’m feeling so inner urban. Being cared for by a VCE student in a two storey terrace close to the beach, close to the city. I have the ‘Mistress’ bedroom. To myself. Sadly. Vegan breakfast this morning, of course. Well almost vegan, honey and yoghurt probably not proper vegan, but fresh fruit, pawpaw, pear and passionfruit. My carer headed off for school and I crossed the road for a yuppy at the yuppy, taking the puppy with me. Sorry, should read a latte at the cafe. Checked the newspapers and the mums. And the slack professionals and unpaid writers, artists and actors.

Cecil transformed. “I was dressed in almost black, more grey really, still, super cool despite my tan shoes’.

I was dressed in almost black, more grey really, still, super cool despite my tan shoes. I’d brushed most of the hayseeds out of my hair and off my clothes. I’d come down from the country after drumming up support for our local independent MP, Cathy McGowan, the one who defeated the narcissistic Sophie Mirabella. Sophie is standing again, and, due to her despicable behavior, her party now think of her as her opponents do, which is to say, not highly.

archetypal village idiot.

I’m thinking of holding a ‘Sophie’s Going Away Party’, where everyone brings their favourite photo or story. I’ll let you know when it is on.

‘Well spoken, conservatively dressed and oh, so excited to be part of the democratic process’.

Oh, I almost forgot, we plan to launch our Greg Mirabella Support Group at this party. And we are wondering what Sophie will do next. Cathy McGowan has double the number of volunteers helping for this election than she did previously, however she is promising to “turn Indi (her electorate) orange”, which some of my friends suggest will cost her the Irish Catholic vote. Cathy talks of jobs, growth, local control, and has done a job respected by many in her electorate. She consults and listens with a fine ear, and acts with purpose and conviction. And she has demonstrable results. Where Sophie walked out of Parliament during PM Rudd’s Apology speech, Cathy made it her priority to offer her own apology to the nation through parliament.

The people supporting Cathy are just the nicest people, very much like me and the general Passive Complicity readership. Well spoken, conservatively dressed and oh, so excited to be part of the democratic process. We may not make waves, but we will certainly make ripples. We will talk of fairness but probably not of the unfairness of negative gearing, funding for private education and the inherent racism in the ineffective Intervention. We hate the banks but are wary of supporting Labor’s call for a Royal Commission. In fact if I want Cathy to tackle these issues then I need to show her that a number of people in her electorate want them tackled. That means I’d have to do some work. And really, I quite like the life here in Inner Urban Melbourne. Maybe I’ll just order another latte and grumble about democracy going to hell to whoever will listen.

I’ve got the time for that.

Cheers

Ed. We promise to publish a special edition in tomorrow’s post on helpful suggestions for the erstwhile member for Indi. All in good taste we assure you, but we have an inkling that she is destined for immeasurably greater things in a life beyond politics.

Dear reader, an update from ‘Paddy-O’, on where were going, the ‘Shape of things to come’ and more in the great traditon of “Kleiner Mann – was nun”?… and Noddy. (subtext) ‘The infantiilisation of Australia’.

‘In 1870 the Australian Journal began publication of a series called ‘His natural life’ by Marcus Clarke. Researched and written while he was supposed to be working as sub-Librarian at the Melbourne Public Library, the story drew on the recent and bloody history of convict settlement in Tasmania and Norfolk Island. Improbable in its plot, melodramatic and gothic in its themes, the serial became a best-selling book by its better-known title ‘For the Term of His Natural Life’. Its success relied on the fact that it was based in history, a recent past that many would have preferred to forget as a new society took shape.

‘Mike, Foxtrot,Delta,Oscar’; Names of first four merde class submarines to be built by the French Government for Australia. Secret submarine bunkers to be poitioned on Manaus Island as forward defense network. Disguised in its current use as a detention centre. (Concentration camp)

Second rate accommodation to be closed on Manaus Island.

Clarke was writing at a time of optimism, where gold and a new democracy was allowing hope for a better world – the past he was evoking seemed very far away. Sadly the dehumanising, brutal, isolating world of the convict system is very much still with us, only now we call it Border Protection. The decision by the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea to declare the Manus Island Detention Centre unconstitutional has left Border Protection, 850 detainees and the bi-partisan stop-the-boats policy in a hideous limbo. The declaration by the Immigration Minister Peter Dutton that under a Memorandum of Understanding the fate of the detainees is in the hands of Papua New Guinea is in fact a veiled threat to the significant (but inadequate) aid provided by Australia. The people of Manus don’t want the 400 or so detainees who have been declared refugees, and only a handful of them have tried to live in the community with one even attempting to break back in to the compound to seek safety. At the same time the Manus community has become dependent on the economic stimulus provided by the detention centre, which is allegedly owned by the PNG Government but wholly paid for by Australia.

Second rate accommodation to be closed on Nauru

New Zealand has renewed its offer to take 300 refugees, only to be refused by Australia with the insulting declaration by Dutton that this would be a back door to Australia. And in a depressing coda to the drama, one desperate refugee in Nauru self-immolated to try to bring attention to his plight and the plight of many. Airlifted to Australia he died. This much we know, much we do not know. The draconian Australian laws preventing independent reporting of the conditions at Manus or on Nauru are reinforced by the PNG and Nauruan governments’ own regulations. The activities of the navy in the waters between Australian territories and Indonesia are kept secret. We are denied any real information on how our taxes are being spent in enforcing this policy of border protection. Recent reports of two women airlifted from Nauru to PNG for abortions – a procedure illegal in PNG – only emphasises the extremities that we have reached. In a final indignity, the poor man who died from the burns he suffered from his act of desperation has been denied an identity. We don’t even know his full name, with newspapers only reporting that his first name may have been Omid.

Traditional Australian working family suffering under impact of new terrorist and border security adverts on telly

We are in an election campaign. Yes the visit to Yarralumla has yet to happen but we are definitely on that trajectory. Faced with the PNG Supreme Court decision, the Prime Minister declared unequivocally that none of the detainees at Manus would return to Australia or even to Christmas Island. He made his statement in Tasmania. He was there to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the massacre at Port Arthur. The irony of the purpose of his visit and the location of the commemoration was lost on him. He told us we should not become misty eyed. The opposition leader chimed in, only criticising the government for not anticipating the PNG court ruling.

New accommodation for illegal asylum seekers to be built somewhere in the Pacific. The installation, a product of the ” Ideas Boom” is to be called the ” Brough” and incorporate all the principles refined by the intervention. Moving forward.

The message is clear. Instead of being misty eyed we need to be fearful, and brutal, and disrespectful. In the few days left before caretaker mode we are being assaulted by government advertising including anti terrorist messages to report unusual occurrences. The cattle business S. Kidman and Co cannot be sold to the Chinese because it is not in the national interest while coal leases granted for some of our most fertile land are. We are being told that $50 billion for twelve submarines that will create more jobs in France than will appear in Adelaide is a good deal. We are being urged to be proud of our neo-colonial, isolationist, militarist, racist identity, and to vote for development at all costs. We are being invited to an atavistic nationalism, wrapped in the flag, deaf to morality or international law. This used to be the message of dog whistlers – now we hear it from loud speakers.

But on a brighter note. WAR IS CUTE and remember the sacrifice made to ensure that this nation is TIMELESS in its insecurity.

And there’s more to come’.