6 - # of Straya threads or # of times we've changed Prime Minister in a decade?

[Axver]

I wonder if that's how Ricky Muir felt when he won election, that this was a great get rich quick scheme. Unemployed one day, pretty nice senate salary the next!

And I wonder what he's doing now, apart from cursing the ground on which Turnbull and his double dissolution walk. At least Dio Wang has presumably just been reabsorbed into the Palmer corporate monolith.

 

[Axver]

Antony Green is busy live tweeting that Toowoomba byelection and that independent really is giving the LNP a run for their money.

Interesting that the ALP didn't even field a candidate.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Antony Green is busy live tweeting that Toowoomba byelection and that independent really is giving the LNP a run for their money.

Interesting that the ALP didn't even field a candidate.

I think they've given it up as a lost cause, although as I've said before Toowoomba North (the neighbouring seat) has gone Labor for extended periods.

The south is the suburbs, mostly, as I understand it (and not the older town or city core so much).

 

[Kieran McConville]

I wonder if that's how Ricky Muir felt when he won election, that this was a great get rich quick scheme. Unemployed one day, pretty nice senate salary the next!

And I wonder what he's doing now, apart from cursing the ground on which Turnbull and his double dissolution walk. At least Dio Wang has presumably just been reabsorbed into the Palmer corporate monolith.

If I was Ricky Muir, and very cynical, I'd be feeling pretty chuffed. One senate term (half term ok, half term) and the average person like you or I would be pretty well set for life, right? As long as we lived modestly (thinking of you Pauline).

 

[Axver]

If I was Ricky Muir, and very cynical, I'd be feeling pretty chuffed. One senate term (half term ok, half term) and the average person like you or I would be pretty well set for life, right? As long as we lived modestly (thinking of you Pauline).

It makes one think fondly of a senate tilt. Until you remember what's involved to campaign, for your chances of being a Muir were always vanishingly slim and now basically don't exist.

 

[Kieran McConville]

It makes one think fondly of a senate tilt. Until you remember what's involved to campaign, for your chances of being a Muir were always vanishingly slim and now basically don't exist.

It's true that the wild west days of Senate preference harvesting seem to be done, but there's always a ride on the One Nation train I suppose. Or the Greens. I could just stand for the Greens and nod and smile and then collect my fat paycheck.

 

[Axver]

I think these days you've got to play a fair bit of the political game to get yourself into an electable position on a Greens Senate ticket.

Sometimes I wish politics was still like the mid-nineteenth century, where it was considered unseemly for a gentleman to campaign on his own behalf. I'd love to just sit at home and let other people canvass for me, then enjoy my nice parliamentary digs and sweet parliamentary pension.

 

[Kieran McConville]

That's what I'm talking about. Time was it was unseemly for gentlemen to campaign or engage in commerce. Now it's all the fuckers do.

Although I'm not sure they gave much of a parliamentary pension in the olden days, that's kind of why it was the preserve of the aforementioned gentlemen. Anyhow, if called I will serve.

 

[Axver]

Yes, I do like to remind people that the reason why politicians get good salaries and cushy retirement perks is so that anybody, no matter their background, can serve in parliament - and to attract talent that would otherwise stick with the greater personal gains that can be accrued in the private sector. Fuck, you read my election blog, I probably didn't need to type that.

I recall that in the earliest New Zealand representative parliaments - and I expect the Australian ones were similar - the MPs got a modest allowance for each day parliament sat. Barely enough to buy food and accommodation. The government would often also commission a ship to convey MPs to the capital. But any other expenses? That falls on you. A wage to support your family? Ha. And good luck keeping your job, or keeping your small business or farm humming along, when you're buggering off for four or five months to legislate. No wonder men of modest means were locked out of representation.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I got that from your election blog (although I knew it anyway), yes.

But people do like to complain about 'pollies' perks', I guess they'd prefer we leave the field to men and women of independent means and great wisdom. Men and women like Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.

We should probably bring back the property franchise while we're at it. I also quite like the ancient classical Roman (republican era) rule of requiring a property qualification to serve in the army. Don't have two cents to rub together? You're excused!

 

[Axver]

Don't tell Pauline Hanson there used to be a literacy requirement or it'll be her new crusade.

Of course it will then be funny when a whole bunch of bigots find themselves falling short of the tight literacy criteria she sets, while a bunch of well-educated immigrants get the vote and turf out Dutton.

 

[Axver]

And imagine if we still declared our votes orally to the returning officer.

I'd feel so sorry for everybody stuck behind me in the queue as I go through my 116 Senate preferences.

 

[Kieran McConville]

And imagine if we still declared our votes orally to the returning officer.

I'd feel so sorry for everybody stuck behind me in the queue as I go through my 116 Senate preferences.

I'd feel sorry for the Citizens Electoral Council candidate who knows it's you who didn't vote for them.

 

[Axver]

They'll just assume I'm in hock with the genocidal maniacs at the British royal family.

I've had worse assumed about me on this very forum.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Did you know that The Queen Mother is one of the shape-shifting lizards, along with George Bush (both), Prince Phillip and the Rothschilds?

 

[Kieran McConville]

I've had worse assumed about me on this very forum.

Are you referring to the time Vlad thought you were a High Tory?

 

[Axver]

Did you know that The Queen Mother is one of the shape-shifting lizards, along with George Bush (both), Prince Phillip and the Rothschilds?

Are any royals or financiers not shape-shifting lizards? Does anybody have evidence to prove they aren't?

Are you referring to the time Vlad thought you were a High Tory?

The many times I've been called an Australian. Wait uh no what about that time...

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Are you referring to the time Vlad thought you were a High Tory?

Wait, even I don't remember saying this. There was that time recently when Ax himself said he thought others thought of him as a 'closet Tory', in a post within a conversation here I was involved in, but that's not really it.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I was having a gentle dig at you guys, it ain't no thing.

But yes, that. Hey, there was the other time when I thought Axver was Richard Dawkins.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Are any royals or financiers not shape-shifting lizards? Does anybody have evidence to prove they aren't?

There's probably an impeccable gif on one of David Icke's many sites to show that indeed, the lizards are among us.

 

[cobl04]

Sonia fkn Kruger. Christ.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Some context would be nice...

 

[Kieran McConville]

Actually no, forget it, I see now. Well that's morning telly for you.

 

[cobl04]

Nothing gets you up and about in the morning like a little bit of racism.

 

[Axver]

I could still use that nice bit of context, guys.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Apparently Sonia Kruger, the host of the Today show (whatever that is, Kochie's competitor I guess), went off on some tangent about stopping all Muslim immigration now, because stuff.

Here's a link anyhow:

https://newmatilda.com/2016/07/18/today-show-host-invokes-dead-child-to-call-for-muslim-immigration-ban/

 

[Axver]

What the hell is with morning teleivision's weird boner for xenophobia? If it's not Sunrise giving Pauline a platform, it's Today parroting her views. And I remember when Alan Jones had a regular slot on one of them; maybe he still does. Do people really want a daily dollop of hate with their cornflakes?

Also, one day I'm going to write a song called "Morning Television's Weird Boner for Xenophobia".

 

[Kieran McConville]

Morning Television's Weird Boner for Xenophobia is already taken as the name of my new (never to happen) band.

I'd have to ask who actually watches morning television. Who, outside of those forced to kill time in waiting rooms or in car service department courtesy lounges, actually watches this shit? It's trash tv for a trash mainstream culture. It'll have Jonesy and Pauline on because that is the lowest-common-denominator assessment of what 'the punters' think. If you want to know who's inside the celebrity-media-industrial complex, just check out who gets friendly profiles in the Woman's Weekly (Sonia Kruger had a baby recently, aaaawwww).

I'm actually surprised Alan Jones is welcome anywhere in polite company, but he does a surprisingly good trade as MC or guest of honour at all manner of private functions in all sorts of places. Which is remarkable for a man whose bully pulpit is a. confined to one city and b. in decline.

 

[Axver]

I'd have to ask who actually watches morning television. Who, outside of those forced to kill time in waiting rooms or in car service department courtesy lounges, actually watches this shit?

Apparently NEXT TO EVERYONE.

Seriously, fuck me dead, it's insane how many people seem to turn it on for some kind of background noise. My mother comes to stay? On goes the telly in the morning (though at least usually the ABC). I visit my father? Morning telly. Work trip where a few of us share a place? Somebody switches on the morning telly (again, fortunately the ABC). Try to get accommodation on the cheap by staying with a bogan relative? Definitely morning telly. Fuckwit in the apartment upstairs from me who puts his TV on loud enough that it vibrates through my ceiling? You better believe he likes his morning telly.

I. Do. Not. Get. It.

I'm actually surprised Alan Jones is welcome anywhere in polite company, but he does a surprisingly good trade as MC or guest of honour at all manner of private functions in all sorts of places. Which is remarkable for a man whose bully pulpit is a. confined to one city and b. in decline.

At least John Laws hasn't been a thing people take seriously for a while. But Alan Jones's continued celebrity is peculiar, especially how he tried to turn it into a Queensland electoral force.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Apparently NEXT TO EVERYONE.

Seriously, fuck me dead, it's insane how many people seem to turn it on for some kind of background noise. My mother comes to stay? On goes the telly in the morning (though at least usually the ABC). I visit my father? Morning telly. Work trip where a few of us share a place? Somebody switches on the morning telly (again, fortunately the ABC). Try to get accommodation on the cheap by staying with a bogan relative? Definitely morning telly. Fuckwit in the apartment upstairs from me who puts his TV on loud enough that it vibrates through my ceiling? You better believe he likes his morning telly.

I. Do. Not. Get. It.



At least John Laws hasn't been a thing people take seriously for a while. But Alan Jones's continued celebrity is peculiar, especially how he tried to turn it into a Queensland electoral force.

Jones is just peculiar, period. He's almost like a parody of a semi-disgraced-but-still-popular radio demagogue in some classic film we haven't heard of. And he picks the strangest things as causes celebre (the business about a certain Wagners quarry and the 2011 Lockyer floods for instance).

As for morning telly, I guess I'm slightly out of the loop, but it is depressing if true, how ubiquitous it all is. For reference, my parents are quite old and barely watch tv at all (the 6.00pm news maybe). And I will not have it on at all in the mornings. Fuck that. Triple J was bad enough, and I've about kicked that habit in favour of silence.