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.
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.
THE PUB 
Excellent. Have tweeted.
Recall that a conversation with Amanda Vanstone was the spark for Laura Tingle’s quarterly essay “Great Expectations: Government, Entitlement and an Angry Nation”.
That was well responded to by Tim Dunlop at the time…
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4070316.html
14 JUNE 2012
Little surprise we’re an ‘angry nation’
TIM DUNLOP
Are you feeling guilty yet? If not, perhaps you haven’t been reading the views of some of our senior journalists who have tapped a rich and productive vein of citizen bashing.
………………….
It is telling that Tingle begins her essay with an anecdote about how she came to think about “our anger”. It seems the idea was nurtured by former Howard government minister Amanda Vanstone.
Ah, Bushfire Bill, I just love your closing paragraph. In fact, the whole article is one dear Mandy (and the whole of Oz as well) should be forced to read and digest.
Nice Photo of Mandy 🙂
Absolutely agree BB. The government of the day have no interest in creating an atmosphere of whingers. It started with the Alan Jones protest of inconsequence and has slowly spread.
As far as parliament is concerned the opposition can use EVERY question they had for a week on a flimsy smear campaign, and the MSM regard that as a “pox on both their houses”. Give me a break.
However, while I’m sure the media thought wall to wall coverage of Gillard’s fall was humiliating… I think it actually helped her… and if anything was endearing. Remember Howard was a complete klutz and it never did him any harm.
Slipper gone by the DPP.
i just read the OO Australian of the Year nomination for PMJG.
Am I asleep and dreaming?
BB
Your last paragraph reminds me of a novel by A Camus: “The Plague”.
So well said!
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/slipper-to-face-dishonesty-court-hearing-20130107-2ccgf.html
Apparently Peter Slipper has been summonsed to appear on a charge of “Dishonestly risking a loss to the Commonwealth”. No further details as yet, but I DO wonder whether the pundits will suddenly take up an interest in Mr. Slipper again now that they have something to chew on.
The offence, if proved, carries a sentence of imprisonment for up to 5 years, which would trigger his expulsion from parliament if maintained after all appeals have been exhausted.
“s135.1 – General Dishonesty (Penalty: Imprisonment for 5 years);
Pursuant to section 135.1 it is an offence:
• To do something with the intention of dishonestly obtaining a gain from a Commonwealth entity (s135.1(1));
• To do something with the intention of dishonestly causing a loss to a Commonwealth entity (s135.1(3));
• To dishonestly cause a loss, or a risk of loss, to a Commonwealth entity (s135.1(5));
or,
• To dishonestly influence a public official in the exercise of the official’s duties as a public official (s135.1(7)).
i just read the OO Australian of the Year nomination for PMJG.
Am I asleep and dreaming?
Neither. They do this to prove their “Balance”. Rudd copped an “Australian Of The Year” gong from The Australian too, and look what happened to him.
Sounds like someone at the Oz is superstitious. Kiss of Death and all that…
CTar1,
Offhand, do you know what the penalty is under 135.1(5) Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth)? (Too lazy to go hunting.)
A perfect example is the NBN. ….if ever there was a fantastic opportunity for opening up communications with the ENTIRE NATION..East to West..North to South..interior to coast..isolated to urban..yet it seems the heavy lifting in promoting this magnificent opportunity for absolute democracy is only being done by one side of the parliament!
If ever there was a reason to condemn the stupidity of the “free-market” side of politics, it has to be the threat to dismantle or hobble such a project!
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!
fiona – BB’s just stuck it up above.
CTar1 & BB,
Thanks. Bugger.
“Dishonestly risking a loss…”…..Christ!..How many reams of “Possible offences against a government official” law-tables did someone have to go through to find THAT obscure little charge!!?
Surely a simple “Jay-walking in a public thouroughfare” would have sufficed?
Offhand, do you know what the penalty is under 135.1(5) Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth)? (Too lazy to go hunting.)
Uncle Bill has already looked that up for you – up to 5 years.
Click to access Directors-Litigation-Instruction-07.pdf
In some cases, however, it may be appropriate to proceed on a charge of general dishonesty notwithstanding that the available evidence would support charges of an obtaining offence. For example, a fraudulent scheme may consist of numerous instances of obtaining property by deception each of which, when taken individually, may be relatively minor but when added together may amount to a serious fraud. In such cases it may not be possible to proceed, if the matter is to be defended, on charges which fully reflect the criminality disclosed by the evidence as to do so would overload the indictment.
Sounds like he may be being prosecuted for a pattern of allegedly fraudulent activity, any individual instance of which is trivial, but taken together may amount to something more substantial.
To me it sounds like a witch hunt, or a fishing expedition. “Risking” loss to the Commonwealth is pretty namby-pamby, and very general, if no loss actually occurred. Presumably Slipper may have a defence, in that the driver (assuming the charge relates to the taxi docket business) did not rip off the Commonwealth.
“Dishonesty” is an essential element to the charge.
I would sure hate to think that Ashby got his pound of flesh in the end, after all the abuse of process bullshit he’s put Slipper and the nation through.
fiona – It was always going to happen to Slipper. He’s been the stand out ‘push the envelope’ receiver of Parliamentary Allowances since Colston ‘left us’.
Hey!..I bet they “Googled” that charge!
Bushfire Bill,
Thank you – that has cheered me up slightly. I’m a bit “down” this afternoon, and this news didn’t help.
Anne Summers on Credlin’s interview, not a bad read:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4455364.html
Hahaha, that picture at the top of this thread looks like some sort of warped and demented Brady Bunch!
Hahaha, that picture at the top of this thread looks like some sort of warped and demented Brady Bunch!
I guess that’s a compliment. It took me two hours to find the images, crop and resize them, edit them so they had a more consistent “look”, strip out backgrounds and finally and paste them together.
so whats happening i thought the slipper thing was behind us
BB
Another excellent piece, at least three people I follow on twitter were tweeting it.
Also thanks for the info on Slipper, I hope they don’t have too much on him that would cause his departure, as I don’t want the Lying Numbnuts Party to have any satisfaction.
It is great to be able to comment on your piece, finally, after reading you for all these years.
I must say that Slipper sounded pretty confident that he’d beat the rap, when he self-published his dockets back in April-May.
To me it sounds like he has a convenient relationship with a hire-car driver for whenever he’s up in Sydney.
It’s probably frowned upon to keep the car all day “with the meter running” as it were, so you break the day’s activities into their constituent parts: “Airport/City”, “City/Suburbs”, “Suburbs/Airport” for example, with each trip having its own docket.
There would be several nervous MPs on this one. For instance, Bronwyn Bishop’s use of hire-cars outstripped Slipper’s by a factor of three.
Then again, it may have nothing to do with the Ashby allegations (or should I saw allegations made pursuant to an abuse of process in the Federal Court),and may be concerned with Slipper’s habit of taking hire cars from Buderim (his home) to Brisbane Airport.
Bushfire Bill, not a knock on your fine work more a reflection on the ugly characters in the pics.
Points to you though, 2 hours wading through pics of that lot is more than anyone should have to endure.
Talk about a motley crew.
It is great to be able to comment on your piece, finally, after reading you for all these years.
Thank Gravel. It’s appreciated.
bb
your wonderfull does mrs bushfire complain you spend to much time
copying and pasting and writing
now can you explain the slipper thing, please is this something ne w
or is the cab charge thing we have been waiting on to hear about
William Bowe has had the quality taken from his blog, with the result being the dregs are even more concentrated there.
This, from Bemused:
ShowsOn @ 296
Good to see you again Shows.
You were right about “Bullshit Bill’s Blog of Batshit Insanity”. If anything, it was worse.
The good news is that a lot of the batshit insanity is thinking of staying over there. 😆
Lovely chap, is Bemused. Ihope he enjoys his day in the sun. And I hope William appreciate what his blog is about to become.
Dare I say it, but a comment here like that by anybody, about anybody would be moderated to within an inch of its life, of not excised altogether.
bb
your wonderfull does mrs bushfire complain you spend to much time
Indeed she does, MySay.
Back from taking my sick Push Mower(0 CO2 Emissions!), to the Push Mower Doctor. 🙂
You know the thought occurred to me as I was reading your post Bushfire, that ‘The IVF Monologues’ from the Liberals is just another meta example of whingeing having become the de facto position of today’s Liberal Party member.
If you think about it, what they are saying when they complain the IVF didn’t work, and they needed Tony’s shoulder to cry on, or whatever Chris Pyne’s problem with it was, even though it appears to have been successful x 4 for him, is they are disappointed that their ‘I Want It All, And I Want It Now!’ mindset, which pervades Movement Conservatism in the 21st Century like a disease of our modern lifestyle such as Type 2 Diabetes, has faltered and failed to function in the way that they expect, nay, Demand! that it should!
So, they have an almighty whinge about it on the front page of all the Sunday Newspapers, because, as members of Alpha Team Liberal, they have the sort of access that allows them to. Also, it allows them to give the covert nudge, nudge, wink, wink, to all the rest of the nation suffering for their Reproductive Art with IVF, that, when it goes wrong for you, it’s OK to have a big whinge about it.
Which leads me to contemplate the other side of the Whingeing Coin. A mentality that can best be described as the ‘Pissing On People From Great Heights Mentality’.
It appears that the Conservatives around the world, with their anally-retentive Ayn Rand attitude, and since they believe in ‘The Individual Uber Alles’, have developed and honed a new attitude that says, basically, if I’m paying for your service, it doesn’t matter how many years of your life you have spent learning how to do, for example, Medicine & IVF, I own you, and the service you are providing to me better be 100% satisfactory, or I’ll sue you. Or, if not that vindictive, then just badmouth the hapless Service Provider to all their friends.
Or, in other words, have one almighty whinge about it. Because, that is the attitude of the Whinger…I’m going to chuck an irrational and self-centred tantrum like a 2 year old. The IVF was my toy, and you broke it by not getting me pregnant when I wanted to.
No mention of the fact that a 41 year old woman is trying to wind up a very old and worn out biological clock with the IVF key. Nope, it should have worked perfectly, and because it didn’t, Whinge!!!
Please Note Youse All: comments by William Bowe and David have been approved in the last couple of minutes. Shouldn’t have any more trouble. – BB
Hello all. From Tobe on the previous thread:
“William’s only post so far made him look like a self important arsehole.”
Perhaps, but the thought of being a bitch to DG would never have crossed my mind if he wasn’t constantly doing the same to me. He’s one of those folks who spends much of his time on PB, where he’s careful to behave respectfully enough to avoid getting banned, and much of the remainder shit-canning me and the blog in other forums. BB, bless him, knows the kind of thing I’m talking about.
BB excellent. As if with a surgeons scalpel, you have made a clean precise incision into the gut of the disease this nation suffers from, under the influence of a lazy, incompetent, unprofessional media and an equally so Opposition. It will require a major operation by an army of loyal, honest, patriotic Australians come election day to end this attempt by an Opposition and MSM that do not have the interests of the prosperity of this country and its people as their objective. The objective is power by any means, sleaze, smear, dirt, untruths, ignore, anything that will justify the means to rule at the expense of the majority.
They have form, history says have, but they should be beware these media louts and political nobodies of the once proud Menzies party. The early murmurs of concern are becoming a resounding unified voice of enough is enough. A combined concerted LNP/media attempt to destroy Craig Thomson on the flimsiest of weak evidence. The Ashby judgment and the following MSM silence on that judgment has opened a Pandora’s box. The attempt to bring down a legitimately elected, democratic Govt will not be tolerated and the perpetrators must be brought to account and answer to the nation.
Denese, yes, one of my main gripes with the media is they don’t explain the significance of something, just that they’ve “been summoned for questioning”, or “have been accused”. It would be nice if they would do what I assume to be their jobs and detail the significance and the legalities of the situation. I couldn’t tell you what the proper use of a Commcar is, and it seems the media doesn’t like to inform me or anyone else of it, just the general innuendo of “being questioned by authorities”. It was the same with the AWU matter; you could tell as you were reading the paper or the 7PM Bulletin that they didn’t actually understand what was being alleged, or why it warranted their attention, and you leave even more confused as to what’s happening.
One of the great things about lurking at PB was that people often knew what they were talking about, and thanks Bushfire for explaining it a bit, I really do appreciate it.
whats the old saying cut ones cloth, ect
why is mr bowe posting here
bemused just asked me ‘”BTW” are you a lawyer’.
Look at this grovelling sycophant, Bemused:
William Bowe@313
Bemused, I kind of have a rule where I don’t allow this site to be used as a platform for waging wars against other blogs.
My apologies William.
No intention of starting a war, but I do see now it had the potential to do that.
I actually wish the other blog every success as it nicely complements yours. 😛
bemused just asked me ‘”BTW” are you a lawyer’.
I am so glad we got rid of him. It stopped the other trolls in their tracks. They are now back at PB performing to (predictably low) expectations.
denese – {why is mr bowe posting here}
William is just as entitled as anyone else to post here as we are on his blog.
The rules that apply in each place must be obeyed.
greuhound
its like the banners out side the newsagents ect
iis to grab your attention, what they dont get, is we dont want to be grabbed. we want facts and whys and wherefores.
thats why if i see one of those banners i grab my lap top
o dear i dont know when they will catch on,
takes me back to something i said last week
oh had an above person,….
oh suggest the office staff should be trained in computers, this was now 35 years ago
above person said,,, no its just a fad.
above person got left behind
some staff then where not interested either no its a fad
ect
this is how i see the media 5/10 years ago,
not understanding we want more than a grabbed headline banner
Economist gets something right for a change, scores a congratulatory column in the SMH
THIS time last year, only one of our forecasting panel was bold enough to say the Reserve Bank would cut its cash rate to 3 per cent by December 31.
It had just cut the rate twice, from 4.75 per cent to 4.25 per cent. The equivalent of five more cuts was unthinkable, except for Steve Keen.
A cartoon of Steve Keen that appeared in August 2012.
A cartoon of Steve Keen that appeared in August 2012.
The University of Western Sydney iconoclast is famously prepared to back his judgment.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/a-keen-eye-on-the-global-economy-how-our-forecasters-fared-20130104-2c8yt.html#ixzz2HGedLgYF
Economists and stopped clocks come to mind…
geez i was only asking
Bushfire Bill,
No thank you 🙂
(I thought the montage at the top of your post was magnifique and moi is NOT a sycophant.)
david is that you fromm western aust
from days of old
It is I Denese, one and the same. Have been enjoying my time on Twitter and other blogs with similar thoughts as myself. Was very happy to see BB had started up, although did get to read his posts at PB. Was always a post on Twitter linking to him.
William is just as entitled as anyone else to post here as we are on his blog.
Correct, 100%… as long as they obey the rules, which are what Joe, Fi, C@t and I decide they are from time to time (not that I would ever think William would misbehave, ever).
Long-winded references to statements of policy, previous deliberations, fairness, favouritism and personal vendettas may or may not be entertained in these pages when moderation decisions are made.
The simple rule here is: treat other bloggers how you would like to be treated yourself.
If you are a masochist, and don’t care how you’re treated, as long as you can make trouble, you WILL be weeded out.
Apart from that, spirited arguments are welcome.
I wonder if obtaining a medical certificate because you were “pissing blood ” , yet miraculously not sick, obtaining dairy entries that are not yours and passing them onto third parties could be construed as ” dishonest”. ..and could another enterprising Labor MP write a letter to the AFP requesting an investigation?
I don’t want a fight with PB William, and I apologise for narking on a separate site (not that I can comment directly). You might have noticed since that comment that I have refrained from any cross-commentary.
But while I have your ear, IMO there is a highly repetitive group of bores who are pulling down the value of your site. And while you may have very good reasons for your first post of the year, I think it set a very supercilious, narky, and unnecessarily combative tone. In fact the first page of the year was a bad start all around.
Fair cop, Tobe.
(NOTE TO MODERATORS: Sorry about double-up here – an ancient, dormant WordPress account has come back to haunt me.)