(Image Credit: Muck&Brass)
To quote the (then newly appointed) editor of the SMH, Darren Goodsir, in 2013: “Hold the front page! Hartcher Has Spoken!”
When political savant and genius commentator Peter Hartcher opines profoundly about the Abbott Budget, the nation sits up and listens. So what was Pete’s Delphic Saturday SMH pronouncement in the on The Budget?
“It’s too early to abandon hope.”
You DO have to laugh, don’t you?
He then goes on to discuss, po-faced, one of the main reasons why Tony Abbott would not promote Turnbull to the office of Treasurer.
Abbott’s jealous.
So let’s let Joe “Misery-Guts” Hockey stay in charge of it. There’s years of trash-talking in him yet: how bad debt is, how they’re going to strip away benefits, lifter, leaners and, of course, “It’s all Labor’s fault!” THAT’ll get the punters back into the empty aircraft hangers they used to call “Harvey Norman” (been to one lately?), and let’s not forget Joe’s “glum” look and that special “cranky” one he saves up for important occasions… all this with the added benefit that Joe has been absorbing king-hits from Abbott since Tony first decked him on the rugby playing fields of Sydney Uni.
Hartcher today is back to his old tricks: writing-up restaurant gossip about leadershit. He even admits it was the drink talking. A group of Ministers, in their cups, sipping Scotch, reckon Joe should go, in favour of Malcolm Turnbull.
The Abbott government is already doing so brilliantly on Foreign Affairs and international diplomacy (says Perspicacious Pete), now all they need is Turnbull in as Treash to fix up the economy and they’ll surge ahead in the polls. The Nation will breathe a sigh of relief. Consumer confidence will soar.
He doesn’t tell us who’ll take over Communications after Mal’s bumped upstairs. That’s a shuddering thought if ever there was one. Bronnie, come on down!
And here’s the kicker: when all is said and done, Pete tells us, “It’s not gunna happen.”
Yes, it’s deep, deep, deep analysis from the International & Political Editor of the august Sydney Morning Herald. Youse can see why they pay Peter Hartcher the Big Bucks.
What next? Maybe he’ll whip around to the back alley and go through the skip? Then he can tell us what the Anonymous Senior Liberal Power Broker was doodling on his paper napkin. Maybe he can even suss what the fortune cookie said?
Thank God we have the likes of Hartcher to guide our thinking. Mr Goodsir was right: whatever Big H writes, Goodsir will print and say, “More please, sir”. There’s plenty of it, too. Goodsir’s Editor Of Many Things writes everything that everyone tells him. Oh, the insight! Celebrate the context! Praise the profundity!
The poor man has a desperate need to be relevant. To show he’s still connected and gets the good goss. Forever an insider etc., etc. And to prove it, he peddles plutocratic piss-talk from out the back door of the Greasy Spoon. “I am a camera,” says Peter (and he doesn’t mean “Box Brownie”).
Pity for Pete, he supported Rudd. That kinda cruelled the ground for later Liberal licks. He’s shut out now. Maybe he thought they’d thank him for the regular Ruddstoration Routine? Sadly, all the advice he’s offered Abbot on how to deal with everything from travel rorts to Oriental potentates has been ignored. Cassidy doesn’t even invite him onto the show anymore (has he ever been on it? Even when he was there?).
Look what his Rudd Love did for him and the country. Abso-bloody-lutely nothing. Rudd’s “triumph in the polls” lasted all of, oh, about a fortnight, and now Pete’s relegated to passing on Chinese whispers and leftover noodles from a Liberal doggy-bag.
It’s a shame that nobody – either in politics, or on the receiving end of it – takes any notice of Peter Hartcher.
Then again… thank God they don’t. His only fan, Darren Goodsir, should take the hint.
THE PUB 
Hand her a stubbie and see what she does.
“Tony!..bend down and tie up your shoe-lace and I’ll give you a beer!”
I love that Christensen-BOM thing. There’s absolutely no motivation at all for the BOM to falsify records, there’s nothing in it for them. What, do they have shares in renewables or something? But the man with the party with the ties to the polluters who are causing the climate change, he’s got something to lose. So the compromised guy is telling the people with no vested interest that they’re biased. Right.
JBish has got some competition:
http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk03100&num=2025
Bish’ jnr. might lack a mirror, but she is over serviced by cognitive dissonance on what she has or has not benefited from feminism..
my regular posts are going to “hold”..it seems.
Bish’ Jnr. has yet to realise or be told..she has no talent…no talent at all…if it wasn’t for the demand for equal representation that feminists demanded in the workforce, she wouldn’t even be the only woman in the front cabinet…
Lovely, upbeat headline from front page of the printed version of the Daily Telegraph:
The Daily Telegraph, soothing the waters of a sea of troubles
Too late now, Shorten should have thought about all this BEFORE he helped Abbott pass these laws.
Bill Shorten has second thoughts on terrorism laws that could mean jail for journalists
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/30/bill-shorten-second-thoughts-terrorism-laws-jail-journalists
The Idiot presented his science awards last night. He opened by asking the assembled throng if his government had ‘passed muster’ over the last 12 months and received only ‘ smattering of applause’ in response. It didn’t get better after that.
Scientists give Tony Abbott’s record a lukewarm reception
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/30/scientists-tony-abbott-record-lukewarm-reception
Loon pond has it all covered.
http://loonpond.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/another-day-in-buffoon-land-where.html#.VFFjucnm7AO
The way I feel at the moment leaves no room for sympathy for journalists. I wouldn’t mind seeing most of Murdoch’s blinkered mob be jailed for a decade for their biased, warped and stupid reporting since 2007. Even in the face of their boy’s new terrorism laws, they are still backing him.
If he had done so, the media would have run with “Labor soft on terrorism” headlines.
No, better to let the laws pass and have the media sweat bullets a while. Now that the penny has dropped and the outrage stories have been published, they’re more likely to back Shorten on this than their “mate” Abbott.
I dare say Bill Shorten had his strategy worked out.
Jaeger,
Did you get a load of the F111?
Fiona commented recently on Dick Hamer and on how there were once Deakinite Liberals who did a lot of public good. This review by Judith Brett, herself an informed supporter, is here
http://insidestory.org.au/how-hamer-made-it-happen
After what we have experienced, federal and state, over the last 20 years, it almost seems inconceivable that once there were caring conservatives but it is true. In SA, its longest serving Premier Tom Playford was not a Deakin type in enlightenment, being of rather wowser sentiment, but he was strongly committed to the greater public good. He nationalised electricity, created the nations best public housing, and committed strongly to public infrastructure in transport, water and sewerage, power and education.
It seems a legacy which has now passed. The tories always had a balancing problem with big business backers, but the ablest leaders like Menzies, Playford, Bolte-Hamer, managed to balance that against the public purpose. The Deakinites, led mostly by Peacock and McPhee were ultimately vanquished by Howard, leading an alliance of developers, religious nutters and rent-seekers. There seems barely a trace of them now, and the leadership, to the extent that it has any ideas on governing at all, seems merely to have some vague Reagan-Thatcher thought that the market will sort it all out for us.
It is a disturbing position for our future, especially with Labor having its own structural and factional problems and at present seemingly not wanting to move further than focus groups suggest.
Gorgeous Dunny,
I have a lot of time for Judith Brett, and thought that a particularly good article.
Bitchop, the iron heifer, accuses Shorten of ‘playing politics’ with national security. She seems to have taken it upon herself to attack Shorten and Labor at every opportunity and one wonders whether she feels unicorns are needed to distract from the coalition’s foot and mouth disease.
Has Brandis, sc,DH got a dispensation to drop the mandatory blue tie? The big fix is on re Shorten’s concerns re journalists. With a bit of luck these smartarses will submerge themselves deeper and deeper in the merde created by their own mal-functioning brains and mean, nasty characteristics.
Ah, Julie Bishop: attack heifer.
We must be heading for a hot day. Paddy arrived at the door at 10am begging to be allowed inside. Forecast is for mid to high 30s so well out of Paddy’s comfort zone. as well as mine I might add.
A must-read from Jenna Price:
http://m.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/whats-made-julie-bishop-so-afraid-of-feminism-20141029-11dpw6.html
And Alex Ellinghausen’s photographs are doozies!
janice
Here is a true iron heifer in eight pieces welded together …
It wins in the head-to-head.
Magnifique, Gigilene!
I did – thanks TLBD!
I remember trying to get a shot of their high speed run low over LBG for the VE-day(?) celebrations. Gone before you could react, even after knowing what to expect from the day before.
An interesting video; the footage doesn’t include the latest lava flow, but gives a good overview of what may happen.
What to Expect Lava Flows in Puna:
So much for all the ‘Clive Palmer has saved the ETS’ rubbish from the MSM.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/emissions-trading-scheme-never-coming-back-in-any-form-under-coalition-says-greg-hunt-20141030-11dzhh.html#ixzz3HaUc8Dgi
Gigilene,
That aint no heifer, that is one magnificent young cow in early lactation. I would love to have her standing in my garden!
Mesma is no heifer. She’s more your old cow.
http://www.thelocal.ch/20141029/nestl-to-employ-robot-clerks-in-japan-stores
Leone,
Ms Bishop is technically a heifer, being deliberately barren.
She is also a shining example of old cow dressed up as veal.
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/10/27/belgian-chocolate-company-is-latest-to-decide-isis-might-not-be-such-good-name/
What are we celebrating today? I see some red ribbons/flowers on suits. And B Bishop is in red.
I wonder why Hunt is so angry. I thought he just had a victory.
Gabrielle is in good form again today.
Mesma is so, so stupid. Here she’s been, putting up her leadership credentials and acting all statesmanlike (she won’t mind the gender-specific term, she’s no feminist) and above it all, and what does she do at the end of it?
1. Allow herself to step into the thankless attack-dog role on Shorten so Abbott doesn’t have to do it
2. Get herself embroiled in the feminism wars with statements intended to bait and nothing else.
Sure, she’ll get rewarded within the party for it. She’ll get a pat on the head and a “good girl” from her ‘peers.’ Like she did when they had her get all snarly harassing Gillard over the Slater and Gordon stuff. But her wider support for leadership will nosedive. She walks right into the little beartraps her party set up for her, because she’s so eager to please her men.
I don’t suppose any of you saw her little turn at the North Melbourne Grand Final breakfast – not many people did, really. It’s a chance for politicians and others to do a little light-hearted stuff about footy and whatnot in front of the blokes. Shorten gave a dull little speech about Melbourne being a football city or something. Bishop went the full bitch. She paid out on Gillard, Rudd and Shorten, all with that little self-satisfied smile on her face. Real catty stuff. At the end of it, they crossed back to the studio, and the guys there were all like, “Well, she really had the claws out there, haw haw haw.” You could feel everyone at the place thinking, “Gee, I’m glad it wasn’t me she was having a go at, what a little cow!” Amused, but not taking her in any way seriously.
She takes that sort of reaction with a lot of pride. She’s revelling in the male attention, and a little smug knowing they all listened to her. And she really has no idea that her status is devaluing right in front of her. No self-awareness, and no real inkling that she might be able to get by on achievements and hard work, that it might be a more substantial achievement that way.
She’s no feminist all right. She’s much closer to a geisha. She wants to please men.
The red ribbons etc are for tomorrow’s Day for Daniel (an event organised by the family of Daniel Morcombe).
Foreverjanice
“The way I feel at the moment leaves no room for sympathy for journalists. I wouldn’t mind seeing most of Murdoch’s blinkered mob be jailed for a decade for their biased, warped and stupid reporting since THE BEGINNING OF TIME. Even in the face of their boy’s new terrorism laws, they are still backing him.”
Fixed it for you…
I should mention that the speeches often do contain little digs at people, but they’re meant to be jocular, harmless, light-hearted, something the victim can laugh along with. Like at a roast. Liberal politicians have a really hard time getting their heads around that concept. You don’t get personal, and you don’t do it with spite, that’s a real turn-off at these things.
Gravitas. She lacks gravitas, that’s the word I was looking for. Her whole personality is pitched a bit too high.
It seems we have a competition between Brandis and Morrison to see who can achieve the most individual legal authority in the country. Who cares about the people I want the power !
“She’s much closer to a geisha. She wants to please men.”
And she is paid to do that. Which could make her more a whore than a geisha. Being a geisha is an honourable profession which requires many skills and years of training. Very different to being the token female in Abbott’s ministry after being a loyal handmaiden to assorted incompetent Liberal leaders. No skills necessary.
leone
Just realised it myself, listening to Sorten’s touching thought for the Morcombes.
Of course
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2014/oct/30/bill-shorten-rethinks-security-laws-that-could-mean-jail-for-journalists-politics-live#comment-42948393
ABC 1 is on the Senate today. So I’ve been stuck with Cash and the Mute button. Not the usual show of claws but thankfully they cut short to allow me to see Paradise. And it is Paradise after having to endure parliament in either house.
Gabrielle:
GD
I enjoyed Paradise. I’ve only read 2/3 Zola novels. This is more optimistic than some of his work generally, imo.
Suggestions for a caption for this Ellinghausen pic from QT today ?