Whingeing with the stars.

bushfirebill Uncategorized

Whingeing Australian2

Mandy Vanstone is off and running in the New Year with a whinge about… whingeing.

“Australians used to joke about whingeing Poms but I fear we have adopted that rather unattractive trait as our own. True enough the federal Parliament, indeed most of the parliaments, did not cover themselves in glory in 2012. I am not defending that.

It is just interesting that so many people who are happy to put the boot into parliamentarians do not appear to have tried to excel in their own work. We have a new class of people who appear quite happy to just be critical of others for not meeting the excellence bar.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/stop-whingeing-and-get-up-early-to-beat-the-january-blues-20130106-2cb3k.html#ixzz2HESSRlyr “

Yes, it’s the old “Parliament is a disgrace” gambit, and no, Mandy doesn’t ascribe blame. She just has a whinge that the parliament is a joke. By parliament” she means Question Time.

But the truth comes out in her statement: “I am not defending that.”

Why would Mandy feel she owns some of the responsibility for the goings on in QT? She’s not a parliamentarian anymore, so it can’t be that.

But Mandy is still a Liberal, and it’s the Liberals who have gone out of their way to wreck QT and this parliament. No wonder she feels it necessary to – almost – apologize.

Pointless points of order (most of which are struck down); defiance of the Speaker resulting in record numbers of ejected members; heckling and all the rest of it are all played out to a bored Press Gallery, sitting in their reserved box seats like so many indolent Roman patricians, who maintain the fiction that QT is the most important gauge of governance… why?

Because they can. They have the privilege of the ringside seat, so they flog it for all it’s worth. What’s important – and pointedly, exclusive – to them, is what rates in parliamentary and political coverage.

So it’s all QT’s fault that the nation has turned into one whingeing, seething mass of dummy-spitters, says Mandy.

Wrong. It’s the trash-talk about everything – the economy, industrial relations, retail sales, and yes, parliament – that does it.

It is self-evident that a government concerned with re-election, running the country, keeping the economy on an even keel and passing its legislation through the parliament, would NOT wish to trash-talk its own efforts to maintain peace, order and good government (Can-Do Campbell, with his notable “Queensland is the new Greece” ejaculation, being the exception that proves the rule).

So who is doing all the wrecking?

It’s the side of politics that never has anything good to say, that puts out the message to do nothing – sit on your money – until they get into power, that makes up outright lies about the effect of the Carbon Tax, that threatens continuous elections just to restore us back to “Australia, circa 2007”, that says interest rates are always too low or too high, that tells us no matter how good this month’s figures are that next month’s will be the worst on record, that introduces scandal, smear and outright abuse of the Courts in shady efforts to alter the numbers in their favour, that plays with the lives of boat people just to score political points… in short, the side of politics that never stops whingeing and moaning… they are the ones to blame for the depths to which our nation has sunk.

Once upon a time there may have been a point to it. There was a chance that if they could king hit the government early, convince the independent members to switch sides or express “No Confidence” in the government, we might have had to go back to the people (who elected the hung parliament, after all) and sort it all out. That option expired by about mid 2011.

After that it was just a mindless pursuit of bad polls for the government so that their captive journo mates could write up the next election as a lay-down misere. If the result was so certain then there’s no need to talk about government policy because the government won’t be around long enough to carry it out. There would be no need to talk about Opposition policy because Oppositions don’t “do” policy until the campaign. With no need to consider either government or Opposition policy, we could get down to The Vibe, such an easy ride for all concerned.

  • Writing about The Vibe means you can just spew out whatever comes first into your empty head and pass it off as critical analysis.

  • Writing about The Vibe means you can run the next election endlessly, day after day, week after week, quoting the same polling numbers each time, saying there’s no hope for the Prime Minister.

  • Writing about The Vibe means you can fill columns with you personal political biases, your likes and dislikes, and get it into the newspapers.

  • Writing about The Vibe permits you to dismiss the government and to treat the Opposition as the government-in-waiting, or even the co-government, even though the Opposition has never won a substantive vote or passed a serious motion in the House for the entire time since 2010.

  • Writing about the vibe means you can then blame the government for all this, or at worst, not have to blame the Opposition.

Unfortunately, writing about The Vibe has a downside for it purveyors. Your readers lose faith in you, they stop buying your newspaper, you go broke. As for the wrecker-politicians, their approval ratings tank to almost unprecedented levels. The Economy sags due to low confidence levels. The nation stagnates.

The critical 5% of punters who make up the difference between a vibrant economy and one in the doldrums are too miserable to get out of bed in the morning – Mandy uses this exact “Get out of bed scenario”. They don’t go shopping, or get to work. What should have been an optimistic, energetic place to live becomes a dull ache somewhere in the backs of people’s minds.

Funnily enough, I agree with Mandy, at least half agree with her.

There does need to be a resurgence of confidence and a cessation of whingeing. But it has to come from a recognition of the causes of the nation’s ennui. Australia needs to get a grip on itself and recognize that its salvation is in its own hands.

Confidence is highly under-rated as an economic output. We talk of prices and supply, taxation and industrial relations, market forces and government stimulus, but rarely do we consider confidence as anything more than some kind of waffly feel-good/feel-bad indicator, a product of an economy.

Confidence is not just a product of an economy, it is also equally its driving force. None of the other indicators matter unless the punters have enough confidence to literally get out of bed in the morning and believe their efforts will make a difference, and that their participation in the economy and society will benefit them, their families and ultimately, their society.

When conservative politicians continually trash-talk the economy for no good reason other than political advantage, a spike in the polls, a quip they can make about Pink Batts on Q&A, and when this results in too many people taking them at their word and staying in bed, the consequences can be serious indeed. We’re seeing that now.

A media that’s suffering decline seeks to spread its own misery to the rest of the country. Conservative – Liberal and National in particular – politicians continue a bad habit of negativity whose chance of success expired years ago. Economists, congenitally conditioned to never saying “Bet the house on this” take the easy option and tell their clients and readers, “Put you money under the bed, and then lie in that bed and stay put.” Here’s why: no economist ever got sued for advising their client to be cautious, even stupidly cautious.

Sound familiar?

Our economy is among the best in the world, our dollar is a reserve currency, our life style is rated No. 1, our debt is low, interest rates, taxes and unemployment ditto, we are on the Security Council doing good work around the world, our Treasurer wins prizes for his accomplishments, our Prime Minister is lauded all over as a Boadecia-like figure in the cause of women’s rights, big initiatives – the NDIS, Health and Education reforms, the NBN, anti-tobacco measures and many more – are either in train, or planned in a professional manner with proper consultation and hard bargaining… yet we are told we may as well stay in bed because Craig Thomson looks like he may have used hookers ten years ago, or the PM had a shoe malfunction, or her arse is too big.

Sound familiar?

The commentators are continually wrong about almost everything. Their predictions are laughable, and their errors are grievous. The government will fall, Rudd will come back, the states will never agree, the money can’t be found.

Sound familiar?

It’s not just Question Time or the parliament. It’s a national malaise, infectious and malignant, spread by political and business forces that have a vested political interest in maintaining their cosy pasts, to the detriment of their own present and future self-interests.

Working an extra hour and a half a day – Mandy’s suggestion – should not be the cause of recovery from this illness, it should be the result of it. But it can only become a reality if the conservative political forces that have so far been spreading it start helping to clean it up.

And to do that we first have to face the reality of where this disease is coming from, keep the carriers and spreaders of it from office, and drive a stake through the cesspits they have in place of human hearts.

663 thoughts on “Whingeing with the stars.”

  1. you miss understood i did not mean he could not post here
    thats nothing to do with me.

    what i mean t was his blog is so big and well known
    why did he post here,,,
    i had not read the post

    so it was not a critisim at all

    it was a question

  2. Can there be a more ‘dumb-arse” approach to enterprise and national opportunity than the LNP. threatening to quit the roll-out of such a system?…..and they call themselves : “Savvy businessmen”……I’d call them something else!

    The same thought occurred to me about the ‘Pink Batts’ that the Cons continue to this day to shriek about in full-tilt high dudgeon mode as if it were some major calamity that befell this nation AND a waste of taxpayers’ money.

    How much was it calculated to have saved us all in CO2 and $ again? And that after only a couple of years in people’s roofs(mine included!). So more savings to come.

    Therefore, the next time I hear a Conservative going, “Pink Batts! Pink Batts! Pink Batts!”, I’m going to say, “Do you even know how much money they have saved people? And you call yourself a Conservative! I thought Conservatives were all about saving money!?! ”

    😀

    • Apologies am sorting out my sign ins, I use dafid1 on another blog but using the twitter name here David, which is my given name. Dafid I believe is the Welsh version. Anyway just wanted to sort it out. Re the Batts programme I have been having a to minus the fro with the childish Greg Hunt MP. I have challenged him to repeat his claims and abuse of the batts installation programme given the heat wave the entire country is experiencing. He refuses to engage which sums him up as the wimp and spineless individual have always believed he is. I guess he is traveling in similar company on the Tory front bench. best wishes with the blog BB. Hope you attract more of the good people from PB’s from time to time. eg Poroti, My Say, lovely people.

  4. That’s probably a fair cop, Tobe.

    You’lll get the hang of it eventually, William.

  6. Denese, I agree, technology is changing things for the better, including the media, we have the world at our fingertips these days I guess. I do feel sorry for people who are left behind when things change, as you said, which is why I was glad to hear that a lot of the clean energy industry is going to be based in the La Trobe Valley here, so that the towns don’t suffer when the Brown Coal power stations close (Victorians not having the forsight of Tasmanians).

  7. denese

    [it was a question]

    I’ll be posting on both. I can put up with the arrows.

    William will, I expect, be interested in what things we’re nattering about that don’t have to do with a specific poll.

    His posts on here may display a sense on humour that he is not able to deploy on his own blog.

  8. bemused is displaying all the traits of a typical bully. Keeps being spiteful and nasty until he gets called on it by someone whose authority he is unable to question or ridicule. Then promptly goes to water and assumes the submissive position that junkyard dogs do when their owner turns up.

  9. While we are talking cross-blog chat, what was the name of the PB offshoot forum a few years back, that was more on overseas politics? And are they still going? I’ve forgotten the name.

  13. For anyone concerned about Rummel – not him:

    Queanbeyan RFS CAT1 ‏@QBNCAT1
    Our thoughts go out to the RFS member who was injured and the crew next door in Yass Zone who was over run today.

    As are mine.

  14. OK, I think we can knock off the cross-commenter conversations and comparisons (and yes, I’m as guilty of it as anyone else).

  16. @margokingston1: BREAKING NEWS: Sources say the Slipper charges involve 3 lots of cab travel in 2010 and in total involve less than $1000.00.

  17. Victoria,

    The weather forecast for parts of NSW tomorrow are very concerning indeed

    They are indeed: I’ve just been speaking with my mother and they are all packed and ready to go.

  18. Afternoon all
    What say we forget about bemused,he is gone from this blog, What he does at PB is up to William.
    I have had a pleasant day with the dogs and the OH and have only recently tuned in.
    BB I hope you had heaps of visine for your eyes doing that montage at the top of the post,What a motley looking crew.
    As expected Slipper is back in the news up here after nothing since Justice Rares decision,
    And most worrying Irukandji attacks are on the rise and are moving into more southern waters as the become warmer, another person was stung at Fraser Island this arvo and is now being airlifted to Brissie,
    Lucky Bugger getting a free helicopter ride.

  20. Jeez, I read that all wrong.

    I thought Credder’s admissions were about new LNP policy of advocating Safe Injecting Rooms.

    Stop the dogwhistling!

  21. {OK, I think we can knock off the cross-commenter conversations and comparisons (and yes, I’m as guilty of it as anyone else).}
    Yes BB
    you were going to get a warning. No favors here.

  23. @margokingston1: BREAKING NEWS: Sources say the Slipper charges involve 3 lots of cab travel in 2010 and in total involve less than $1000.00.

    So NOT the Ashby allegations. They stand as process-abusing crocks of shit.

    2010 was on the Liberal Party’s watch. Clearly, becoming Speaker forced Slipper to mend his wicked ways.

  24. {OK, I think we can knock off the cross-commenter conversations and comparisons (and yes, I’m as guilty of it as anyone else).}
    Yes BB
    you were going to get a warning. No favors here.

    I have already given myself the first dozen of a self-administered 100 hundred lashes.

    It hurts soooo good, Joe! Better than a ride in a helicopter any day of the week.

  26. Yes, it’s going to be so hot here tomorrow that I went out today and bought a laptop cooler. I don’t want my baby to go kaput on me! However, when I read the bumpf it said that it has an operating temperature between 5 degrees C and 40 degrees C. As it’s going to be 45 degrees C tomorrow I’m wondering now if it’s going to work anyway!?! 😀

  31. I thought you haunted Burton/Garran, not Warrane College …

    Yes, to both, but you forget St. Pat’s Strathfield, where self-abuse attained status as an art form for the first time in recorded history.

  33. Fun Fact: An ex-boyfriend of mine Produces that program out of Queensland that is shown on the ABC: ‘Helicopter Rescue’. 🙂

  34. Fun Fact: An ex-girlfriend of mine writes turgid, intense investigative reports for the SMH.

  35. Interesting comment from Margo Kingston:

    @GardenerRob My sources say pollies who exceed cab entitlement r asked to repay Finance Dept under Minchin Protocol. It is common for pollies to do this. It appears the protocol has not been applied in this case.

    One has to wonder why?

  37. Hey, Leave Garran out of this. He was a good mate of mine.

    “I knew Sir Robert Garran. Bob Garran was a friend of mine. And you Ctar1, are no Bob Garran…”

  38. Great stuff, bushfire. I’ve always thought it a pity that your quality input was too soon drowned by the pace of PB. It sits very comfortably here.

    May I have one whinge? I love it here except when I see some who should know better using the space for point scoring against sparring partners on the other site. I particularly didn’t like that abusive comment about William. Whatever problems he has with Crikey’s moderating policy should stay over there. His posts on polls are brilliant and considered so by many good thinkers, as evidenced by the volume and quality of commentary. I like the pace and variety over there except for one or two overwhelmingly intrusive presences.

    I’m hoping that I’ll find that pbx complements rather than competes with its mother site.

  39. So, the conflating and misdirection of Mr Slipper’s Cabcharge accusations with those that Ashby alleged is in full swing by the media.
    Also, yes, it is interesting to see how they can crank up the confected outrage at the drop of a hat, when it suits.

  40. Patricia,

    I’m hoping that I’ll find that pbx complements rather than competes with its mother site.

    That’s what we are aiming for – and cross-pollination is a GOOD THING 😉

  42. BB – I have not only worked in his Office and pawed thro’ his documents but I have a wonderful framed photograph of him taken in 1924 (rightfully the property of the C’wlth, of course).

  44. I have a wonderful framed photograph of him taken in 1924 (rightfully the property of the C’wlth, of course).

    Expect a visit from the AFP. If Slipper can go down for conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth of $100 in Cabcharge fees, then lifting a pic of Bobby Garran is a capital offence.

  45. patriciawa,
    Your presence here is always appreciated. 🙂

    Anyway, I see us here at The P.U.B. as the bud which grew from the Rose and William is stuck with the thorns. 🙂

    No matter, though. For I, as you, am happy that Bushfire’s posts are now discrete.

  46. On a considerably lighter note. Apropos a discussion here the other day, I went to Coles at Westfield Bondi Junction today and I can confirm that there is a sign stating that they are running some promotion “…until Easter”!!!

  48. fiona

    [His granddaughter is a friend of mine.]

    Tell her this then:

    In the photo I have of him were visible a desk with a leather inset, a rotating reference bookshelf and a hall-stand with mirror and an umbrella and hat on it (I assume the photo was taken in Melb).

    Almost 60 years later in Cbr I located the bookshelf and hall-stand and, I think, the desk.

    You the taxpayers, paid a shitload of money for the refurbishment of those three items (a best possible Sherwood green inset for the desk).

    ‘Prosper the Commonwealth’.

  49. Bushfire Bill,
    This is the offending comment directed towards William that I think patriciawa was referring to:

    Tobe: January 7, 2013 at 12:46 am (Edit)

    P.S. Just had a look at the “head banging club”. From the crap so far I’m not sure if I can even be bothered lurking… William’s only post so far made him look like a self important arsehole. I can get the poll results faster on twitter without feeding his ego.

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