This morning’s 50-50 Ipsos poll is being trumpeted about the land as a soft landing for Tony Abbott. After the trials and travails of earlier in the year, he is now within striking distance of an election comeback. At least that’s how the story goes.
Australia, the battered wife, after enduring the ups and downs of its females of child-bearing age being classed as people you’d have to climb over Abbott’s dead body to help, to being “women of calibre” fully entitled to everything the state could throw at them, to being rorters, double-dippers, “union mates” – and worse… public servants – has forgiven Tony who, it seems, they believe knows best.
Huddled pensioners, stung by the steady erosion of their purchasing power, ADF soldiers, sailors and airmen losing their payrises, the unemployed who were waiting six months for their pittance of dole, the sick in defunded hospitals, the kids needing to be educated in antiquated schools, important industries pulverized to dust with an ideological hammer, those waiting haplessly for the NBN, families suddenly stripped of thousands of dollars in child support rebates and so many more that have been variously bashed and flattered and then bashed again by the Abbott government have once more taken him at his word.
Filling the coffers of Big Mining, Big Construction, wealthy superannuants, negative gearers and foreign multinational tax avoiders proceeds apace. With obsessive, near corrupt attention paid to their every whim, perk and wish list agenda item, they continue to be alright, Jack. They are Tony’s fancy ladies, the bit on the side of the Abbott government. They receive the free lunches and the glittering prizes, while at domus nostra…
Back home, the wife, her name’s “Australia”, goes to work, has the dinner on the table by 6 o’clock, looks after the kids and day-to-day drudgery, then allows herself to be fucked-over whenever hubby comes home and decides he needs to let off some steam.
She’s never good enough for him. She thinks she’s entitled. She thinks she has rights. She wants a fair go. She craves respect and a little affection. She wants recognition of her efforts. She wants to be treated decently.
But if she speaks up she gets a talking to. Or she has her housekeeping cut in half, maybe taken away altogether.
If she continues to be defiant, or just to insist on getting what’s hers and the kids’ by rights and custom, she is vilified and bashed, told she’s a bludger and lazy. It’s for her own good, of course. Someone has to be in charge, to have convictions and to carry them out.
She loved him once, willingly said “I do”. He keeps reminding her of those golden days, when they were young and setting out on an adventure together. He tells her it can be like that again, if only she behaves herself. He hates hitting her, he really does. He agonizes over “the hard decisions” he has to make. So what if sometimes he has to dish out a little discipline? It’s no more than she deserves.
He can be so charming. He has a way with words. He can distill the most complicated ideas into slogans of three words and clever catchphrases. He can remind her of all the good things he does, like letting her off getting punished for one night, and forgiving her. He’s so clever. He has an answer for every accusation she throws at him. He makes it all seem so reasonable, she has to forgive him. This time it’ll be alright. This time he’s telling the truth. He’s a new man, from today. He sounded so sincere.
He pulls her emotions one way and then the other. He contradicts himself, but somehow it all makes sense. Other people tell her that she’s imagining things. He’s a good bloke. His mates all like him. They like him at work, too. She shouldn’t worry about the bashings. It’s all part of domestic life. anyway. He said he was sorry, didn’t he? Brought her roses, right? Gave her some spare change out of his own pocket, remember?
He found out she’d been talking to his mates once. They asked her what she thought of him, and she told them.
That night, when he came home, he reserved a special punishment for her. He told her she was a double-dipper, a fraud and a rorter, and if she didn’t like the bonus housekeeping money he’d promised her – but never delivered, of course, he never delivers – then she could make more babies without anything extra from him. That’d teach her to reveal her opinion of him to others. A little bit of vindictiveness goes a long way when she runs off the rails.
The grand irony of Australian Of The Year, Rosie Batty’s domestic violence agenda receiving one-tenth of the funding that the War On Death Cults has received, when actual deaths due to domestic violence far outstrip all deaths from terrorism by an order of magnitude – even in the first few months of one year – is cripplingly sad. It’s as if the Devil himself is writing the script in this Reality TV la-la land we live in.
It might sound petty of me, but as soon as I heard Deborah Lee Furness – a mate of Tony’s – didn’t get the AOTY gong and that Rosie did, I thought “Hullo… Rosie’s going to cop it now.” It was Australia Day, the same day that Phil the Greek received a knighthood. Everyone was laughing at Abbott. He doesn’t like to be laughed at. He never forgets it, ever.
He sent out all the usual suspects to tell us that Prince Phillip helped the Scouts once, and that he was patron of those thingmy-bob awards. He deserved every honour heaped upon him for these magnificent efforts alone, it was said. But it didn’t wash.
The nation, the battered wife called “Australia”, could finally have a belly laugh, and this time there was strength in numbers. Stifling his anger he promised to give Batty a few baubles, and made some clucking sounds about looking after the kids, but it wasn’t enough. Australia kept laughing. Even his mates at work couldn’t stop chortling, and then their amusement changed to anger. It looked serious there for a while.
So he told them all he’d reform. The media picked up the story and it was all framed around the “reform” angle. Pretty soon it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The political commentators can never be seen as wrong.
The Budget was pre-announced as “boring”. And so it was declared to be by the media, even before it came out. Boring. Boring. Boring. What a surprise when it turned out to be so benign! They’d been telling us it would be, and it was. Tony’s Tradies received a tax concession on capital purchases, and this became the story. No matter whether they actually had a lazy $20,000 to spend, or not. It was the thought that counted. There’s no-one left at the ATO to audit the purpose of the purchases, so they could buy anything they liked and get an immediate write-off. Mag wheels, leather seats… one enterprising art gallery even suggested paintings, to decorate the office walls (in place of the ZOO Weekly posters, I presume).
And like the good little spouses they are, it appears that the Australian people have swallowed it, at least in the short term. Despite all the lies and the bashings, the wedges between one demographic and the other, the about-faces and the broken promises of the past, they’ve put their faith, or some of it, back in Tony once again.
Then the whole cycle can be repeated: Captain’s Calls, spin, culture wars, wowserism, Death Cults, flag-waving, Reality TV as a substitute for reality. And baubles for the mates. There’s always the mates, the donors and the moguls that have to be kept happy.
One of the TV channels is running a promo for an episode of some nameless soap opera they’re telecasting at the moment. The voice-over guy, who sounds like he has actually swallowed the microphone, whispers loudly into our ears… no-one talks like that. He should see an ear, nose and throat specialist. It sounds like something’s wrong with his larynx. “This is the One Must-See Episode of the year,” he gasps. Someone’s having a baby and her husband is in jail… I think. Will she, or won’t she? Can he, or can’t he? Will they, or won’t they?
I never watch these things, but I do ponder to myself whether the punters really fall for this crap. There have already been at least a dozen “Must-See Episodes Of The Year” already, and it’s only May. Do they forgive the networks for lying to them so blatantly? Do they actually understand that it’s not a real baby, and that Dad’s not really in any jail, anywhere? That it’s just a confection, cobbled together to a formula and spruiked like a packet of soap powder, by a bloke who has perfected a way of making you wish you could hack up whatever’s in his throat for him?
Do they understand too that Tony’s Transformation is a chimera, a mirage? That he’s the same vindictive bully he’s always been, the same anarchistic weather vane out for personal retribution and glory? That’ll he’ll lie, cheat and steal? He’ll go through their purses and take whatever he wants? That he’ll give with one hand and take with the other, and then demand we love him for it? That he utters so many untruths it’s almost impossible to know where to start debunking them? That to forgive him is only to encourage him: the man who said its “better to seek forgiveness than ask permission”?
The latest Ipsos poll, and the way it is being written up – as a battered nation letting bygones be bygones and knuckling under to Tony’s flood of contrition, pathetically grateful for the meaningless trinkets he has thrown their way – answers “Yes” to that question.
Sure there was a Newspoll. And sure it was worse than last time. And sure Newspoll is supposed to be “The One”. But even The Australian wrote up Ipsos instead. It was an absolute first: Newspoll’s proprietors promoting their rivals. They consoled their readers by telling them there was a better poll over at the hated, socialist Fairfax.
It’s crazy. It’s unprecedented. We’re in La-La Land. We’re about to sit down to the Must-See Episode we’ve already seen a thousand times. The nation is vegging-out in front of the telly once again, grateful simply that the pain has stopped for a brief moment.
I do wonder sometimes whether it’s worth anyone’s while worrying about them. They keep putting up with the abuse, convincing themselves that this time it’ll be alright.
They are the battered wives who keep coming back for more. And we all know where that leads.
Just ask Rosie Batty.
THE PUB 
Raining. No gardening for me today:
Janice
The credit card surcharge – which I didn’t know about – would wipe out any of the savings you might make at Aldi. From what I’ve seen in their junkmail the ‘savings’ are an illusion anyway, you can do just as well if not better by shopping at IGA and Colesworths.
Indonesia is fed up with Abbott and his ‘Nope, nope, nope’.
Indonesia to Australia: ‘You signed the UN Convention on Refugees. Act on it’
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/indonesia-to-australia-you-signed-the-un-convention-on-refugees-act-on-it-20150521-gh6u58.html
22 May 1982:
HMS Ardent, abandoned yesterday, sinks.
3 Commando Brigade and two Para Regiment battalions all ashore and firmly established.
The Harriers do surface attack both on Argentinian ground positions and shipping.
I’m hoping Shorten/Plibersek/Marles will say something about the plight of the Rohingyas, but I suppose the topic is too delicate.
gigi
To say they’re timid on this is an understatement.
Gutless, I’d say. They won’t say a thing because they have to keep to the line they started – ‘No-one who arrives by boat will ever settle in Australia’. To say anything different now would be written up by the MSM as a huge backflip.
Who cares?
I say Labor should change policy, do it now while there is a good reason for a softer approach, but there’s no chance that will happen.
Shorten has already indicated a Labor government would go harder on asylum seeker policy, trying to out-bastard the bastards now in government.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bill-shorten-signals-harder-line-from-labor-on-asylum-policy-and-boat-turnbacks-20150505-1na6d0.html
His ‘I live a little better each day backing policy that stops deaths at sea’ statement two weeks ago was so disappointing, it put paid to any hope Labor would be more compassionate and humane in government.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/may/04/bill-shorten-lives-a-little-better-each-day-backing-policy-that-stops-deaths-at-sea
Some focus group or other has told Labor’s policy people that there are votes to be won by locking asylum seekers up in off-shore hell holes for ever, and votes to be lost by treating desperate people with compassion. Labor has its policy, based on these sort of reactions, they won’t change. It’s about votes.
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-insulting-australias-intelligence-on-asylum-seekers-bill-shorten-20150522-gh7996.html
I se Dutton is giving a presser an trying to wedge Shorten on asylum seekers and boats. I knew that would happen.
Also the media’s trying to get leadershit up and going again
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/no-talk-of-replacing-bill-shorten-as-labor-leader-anthony-albanese-20150521-gh74jl.html
Dutton doing his best to muddy the waters by saying we ‘can’t resettle every displaced person in the region’.
Who has suggested this?
CTar,
Dutton may find, once sea levels really start rising, that we won’t have much choice. They will come and the RAN will be overwhelmed by their numbers.
That sound you all hear is Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser turning in their graves. We have become so low and craven. Yuk.
The face of conscious, deliberate, gleeful evil:
Fiona,
Captured and captioned beautifully.
Al Palster,
Thank you, but how I wish it wasn’t necessary.
leone
It looks like Shorten is full of contradictions. Unless it’s poorly reported. The evil nope seems to be clearer.
Massola’s article in SMH claiming Shorten is moving to a hard-line position on refugee policy is a complete beat up.
The first two paragraphs contradict each other. What a joke. Paragraph two begins with the word “But”.
Whenever anyone says anything which is flimsy and non-substantive, as he does in paragraph one, then immediately continues with a “but”, you can be sure the whole thing is a cock up.
Shorten has been verballed. But what else is new.
Fiona
Yep.
What’s wrong with his right hand? Has he been in a fight? And with whom? Or are these warts?
Someone should rub his warts with a cane toad.
No one has mentioned the issue of the new ‘free labour’- the policy is that unemployed people will be asked/told/ encouraged/forced? to work for the same Newstart pittance + $1.50 extra a day- and the policy is employers can have them for 4 weeks at a time and pay nothing. How many will they take ? How often? Who will they sack? Is anyone’s job safe? Do we support treating the unemployed so shabbily?
I would like to think that many unemployed will try to get some sort of Tafe course to avoid slavery. But then, would they have the means?
I don’t think Shorten was verballed. Look at what he had to say that day, listen to him speak and decide for yourself.
Here’s Bill, answering questions at a doorstop before his pre-budget speech at the McKell Institute, 4 May 2015, refusing to answer questions on Labor’s asylum seeker policy.
http://billshorten.com.au/category/transcripts/page/3
After which the journalists present abandoned that topic and moved on to something else.
Bill Shorten, later that day, on asylum seekers – transcript and audio.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-04/shorten-defends-asylum-seeker-policies-during-pre/6444268
That answer mightn’t satisfy you but it makes me live a little better each day
Very weak and disingenuous.
Really, I think it is past time that we had a referendum on what Australians want to do about asylum seekers. This issue needs to be taken out of the hands of political parties and put, fair and square, into the hands of the voters of Australia. As it stands at the moment, we have abbott and his mob using these unfortunate people as political footballs just as was done when they were in opposition and throwing grenades at every move Labor took to try and resolve the problem.
Politically, Labor is hamstrung by the threat of being turfed out of office on the say-so of a mob of hardline ratbags and their media backers. Australians need to be forced to decide whether it is OK to torture and vilify people seeking asylum, or whether they would prefer a humane approach where we have an orderly intake of displaced persons that is in numbers which our capacity allows, short detention to allow for health checks and facilities in the community to aid their permanent transition to becoming permanent citizens.
Forcing Australian voters to decide will, I think, take the politics out of the issue and pour some cold water over the heads of those who agitate for hardline tactics and then turn a blind eye to the mistreatment that goes on out of sight. This country needs a protocol that is down in writing (as with a constitution) that every single Australian is aware of and abides by, so that the asylum seeker issue is no longer a vote gain/loss in any political campaign.
janice
What about if the majority want “hardline tactics”?
I believe if a referendum were held om asylum seekers the majority would vote for blowing them out of the water.
Puffy,
Yep,yep,yep.
puffy
Wouldn’t that depends on how it’s phrased?
First, I believe that Shorten does believe what he is saying about deaths at sea. I heard him explain it on Tuesday night, at Politics in the Pub, It sounded like a genuinely held belief to me.
Second, there is nothing the Opposition can do for asylum seekers, That is the harsh truth, The ALP IS totally wedged on this issue. The time to do something about this was when Rudd refused to accept that boatload of AS and went off on the People Smuggler rant, The ALP is emasculated on this issue and they know it.
I am completely pessimistic about this issue because I think the people of Australia agree with the LP’s policies.
Whoever or whatever it is that can change the circumstances of AS it will not be the ALP Opposition. The aim should be, imo, to change the public’s attitude to AS. i just do not think it is possible, though.
Another Whitlam or Hawke – someone extremely charismatic and flamboyant.
puffy
You are so right – most Australians would just shrug and say ‘blow them out of the water’, my own brothers-in-law included.
This is why Labor went so hard-line, re-opening Nauru and Manus Island, swearing no asylum seeker who arrived by boat would ever be allowed on the mainland, handing over administration of detention centres to people who would make Goebbels blush and ignoring all the stories of abuse and rape that resulted from that. We all know the whole sorry back-history. There are votes in the current policy and more votes in making it worse.
We as a nation have been brainwashed into believing asylum seekers are queue jumpers, illegals, economic refugees and all the other lies. This despite the bleeding obvious – we are all, every single one of us not of indigenous blood, descended from or are ourselves people who came here from somewhere else, looking for a better life, often fleeing here to save their life. You might expect we would be the most understanding and compassionate of nations, not the most xenophobic and hate-filled.
Well. I don’t believe the majority would vote for hardline tactics. I think all the noise and racist, hateful stuff comes from ignorant bullies, who’ve never been taught to consider anyone but themselves and I think their numbers are much, much smaller than we’re led to believe.
There is a big percentage of voters in this country who take no interest in politics because they prefer to take the easy way out and leave it to ‘someone else’ to make decisions for them whilst they enjoy their sports or whatever entertainment gives them pleasure. These are the people let down by the fact that our education system which, for some reason, does not teach our kids about the country’s political system, how governments work, how revenue is distributed and what the hell the yearly govt.budget is supposed to tell us. and this is the prime reason why these same people are so easily conned into electing incompetents like abbott into positions of power.
In my mind the asylum seeker issue won’t ever be sorted whilst it remains a political football, just as the drugs issue will never be tamed until such time as the prohibition is lifted and the money taken out of the hands of drug pushers and criminals.
Well, I have never met anyone in the shopping queue who says, ‘those poor boat people. we should save them. and bring them here.”
I hear the opposite sometimes though.
Hi everyone.
After spilling some tea on my laptop, I’m offline at present apart from my visits to the library. My main inconvenience is that it was a Macbook Pro, beautiful to operate, and it contains all of my writing. Quite a bit is in Word for Mac, which is easily transferable to any machine. A fair bit of my earlier stuff is in the Apple Pages format, which will be my first challenge.
The tech said he can replace the corroded parts at a cost of about $389 but the risk is that the corrosion from the moisture might still be extant and the whole thing could go again. He thought the most expedient thing would be to buy a cheapo used or reconditioned. He can save the hard drive, which means that it could be transferred onto another Mac.
I’m working on Ebay at present. The catch is that getting one of the original vintage (2012) is going to cost a lot more than the $400 I’ve set aside for it. I’ll probably have to settle for an older model and hope that I can transfer it OK.
I’m in the running for a couple that might fit the requirements, but it might take another week to win one and get it delivered. I can stay in occasional touch via Sim’s PC or the library ones.
Regards
Hi Puffy
Funny you should say that. At Tuesday night’s Wollondilly Branch meeting, a really fine individual, Michael Pilbrow (failed candidate in Hume, 2010), ran a motion which passed without dissent by the members.
Make no mistake: there are plenty of Michael Pilbrows in the Labor Party, and I’d wager that the above motion would go through without dissent at any ALP branch meeting.
Leone,
It rather saddens me to see you being so disenchanted on the refugee issue. I honestly think you are not wholly correct in your assessment.
Sure, there are a lot of xenophobes in the country. But you discount the silent majority, who, if this was a single issue, the ONLY issue, would come down quite strongly against the existing policies.
IMHO, obviously.
What you condemn as xenophobia would be more accurately decribed as apathy. That’s partly what prevents voters turning against the government. They’e too apathetic (or caught up in their own lives, if we’re being charitable), to disentangle a lot of issues, maybe because a lot of issues get tangled up with each other when they’re put through the wash.
I still believe that most people are decent, and would see the virtues of a more humane policy on refugees. But the politics of it are the work of the devil, and yes it’s aweful hard to beat that bastard.
gigilene
Touche and allez!
Amazingly Denis Shananana has come up with one of the best ever descriptions of Abbott when he speaks without a chaperone or spoon fed lines. After Abbott spoke to A jones saying he thought there should be an iron ore enquiry Shananana was not happy about Tones’ off the cuff opinion. Apparently wrote of it,
georgous dunny
I highly recommend subscribing to Dropbox. There is s free version if you do not want to take up too much space with photos. Once you have it set up. your writing will automatically upload. you can reach it from any computer. but even better it automatically updates the version on your own pc next time you turn it on. So you are always working on the latest update of your doc.
https://www.dropbox.com/
Raffle Night