Tony Abbott, Chairman Rudd, and forget the world, stick to your own backyard

It might be perverse - come to think of it deeply perverse - but you have to admire Tony Abbott's willingness to bang on about nothing much in his weekly column in the Daily Terror.

Debate with Tony is the cry to curry up the readers, but how do you debate desperation and fatuousness, as on show in Kevin, try solving Australia's problems first?

What to say about a piece which disingenuously argues for xenophobia, parochialism and a 'let's all stay in our own back paddock' view of the world.

This requires careful subtle nuanced massaging to arrive at a vision of Chairman Rudd 'grandstanding' by going overseas and speaking, talking - why in fact, in just acting like a PM. It's a charge leveled at sundry PMs whenever they've gone overseas (in fact the term overseas is one of those peculiar notions only available to island states where water looms in the mind and saturates the brain).

It reminds me of the severity of punishment dished out to renegade crow eaters who fled Adelaide to go 'eastern state' and forever forsake their birth right.

It is of course also mildly ironic when coming from a party once led by John Howard, who as a 'man of steel' regularly strutted the world stage. How to handle this? Well perhaps to hint that Howard waited to get his cowboy spurs fitted, unlike the preening, vainglorious, arrogant, rooster strutting peacock Chairman Rudd:

In the second half of his term, John Howard was a regular and influential participant in global gatherings. He had the humility to wait until he had proven himself as a domestic prime minister before trying to project himself as an international statesman. Perhaps these times are more urgent than those and it would therefore be negligent of the current prime minister not to make the biggest splash he can for our country.

You see? One had humility, the other ... well you do know the opposite of humility, don't you?

Of such threadbare and patchwork textures Abbott weaves his cloth. Now how about another bit of snidery?

On the other hand, the former public servant in Kevin Rudd might feel more comfortable telling other people how to do their jobs than getting on with his own. Making common cause with the leaders of America and Britain and giving good advice to the leaders of India and China is pretty heady stuff for an Australian PM; as well, no one can really hold him accountable the way they might if he failed in a bid to get the states to fix their public hospitals.

Oh it's a double whammy. Abbott nails Kevin Rudd as a bureaucrat who likes to be bossy - one of those faceless clowns who make our lives miserable - while slagging off public servants in general as bludgers who slack off at work while telling others to clock on.

But does Abbott realize - as an MP and therefore a servant of his constituents - that he's also one of the people he so casually defames? A servant of the public. And that perhaps instead of scribbling nonsense for the Daily Terror he might be more usefully employed turning the Liberal party into a decent opposition? Instead of doing the usual moaning about international junkets, which all politicians deep down love and which will never go away.

By the time you get to the banal ending of Abbott's piece, you might wonder the how and the why of being able to get to the end of this piece of feather-weight flummery (which some contend is an early form of blancmange):

Mr Rudd should do whatever he can to nudge the world in the right direction but there are plenty of problems back home that he could try to fix all by himself.

Well I don't think you could arrive at a more bland conclusion, while at the same time wrapping it in an inherent stupidity. Like "he could try to fix all by himself". What, without the support of the Liberal party in the Senate, or failing that, the support of the independent Senators?

It's a tough job sitting in opposition, and Abbott does his best, getting out and about and trying to take the battle up to Chairman Rudd. But what if stupidity prevails in the argument? What then?

Well then you get at the start of the column a standard kind of disclaimer:

It’s good that the Australian prime minister is taken seriously at important international meetings such as the G20. As the world’s 14th largest economy and as a significant military power, we should never underestimate our potential to influence global change for the better. After all the Australian economy, in terms of GDP, is roughly equal to the combined economies of the ASEAN nations and we certainly take those countries seriously.

Uh huh, so we have a role to play and participation is useful. So why have I wasted my life reading the rest? Well because I still haven't got the full value of the innuendo:

Prime Minister Rudd undoubtedly has a role at these meetings but they’re not his main job. He has influence at world gatherings; he has authority in Australia. He can ask for things to happen overseas; he can make things happen in Australia.

Subject of course to the Senate, subject for example to the opposition sorting itself out and working out just how it can cope with its own internal contradictions on all kinds of policy matters, such as the issue of climate change, and subject to how much rogue ratbags like Wilson Ironbar Tuckey can run spoiler.

It’s good that he is so interested in telling other people how to solve the problems of the world. I suspect that world leaders are often genuinely grateful for his advice and encouragement. I suspect, though, that most Australians might be on the verge of hoping that he could be more interested in solving the problems of Australia. The quest for better global financial governance and for an international agreement on CO2 emissions is quite possibly more inherently exciting than trying to solve the problems of the Australian public hospital system, for instance, but our PM has far more real power over what happens here than he does over what happens elsewhere. So why isn’t Mr Rudd focusing more on the things he can change rather than on those he can’t?

Well I guess we'll have to wait until after Copenhagen to see how the world changes, but the idea that we shouldn't participate or have an opinion on what are increasingly global matters and issues - as if we didn't sneeze when the United States caught the flu - is such a feeble stick that it's a wonder Abbott bothers to flail away with it.

At least Piers Akerman is straightforwardly antagonistic - he hates Rudd, he doesn't believe in global warming, he loathes the UN, he dislikes and fears much of the world. In fact there's not much he likes ... or understands.

The sub-text for Abbott's piece is the same, but being a deviant, devious politician he doesn't have the gumption to come out with it, but prefers mealy mouthed hints and sly innuendos.

Well I always thought it was right for the man of steel to travel, even if it took us into a couple of useless, hopeless wars - and without false, mock humility - and so now it's also right for Chairman Rudd to travel, though god knows what that might also get us involved in. End of story, move along people, no need to put on your thinking cap here.

Oh wait, perhaps one suggestion for Abbott. He missed an easy mark: how about this?

On the other hand, the Mandarin speaking former public servant in Kevin Rudd might feel more comfortable telling other people how to do their jobs than getting on with his own, in much the same way as the Chinese rulers in Beijing feel free to lord it over the people of Tibet.

You see? It could have been a triple whammy. And how about this?

Mr. Abbott should do whatever he can to nudge Mr. Rudd in the right direction but there are plenty of problems at home in the Liberal party that he could try to fix all by himself.

You can of course blog with Mr Abbott this morning, but I think I'll make myself busy by whipping up a blancmange.

(Below: oh well, at least it took me back to the deadly days of the blancmange when the creatures threatened the earth. You can read that sketch here with a link to other transcripts, though there are many such sites on the web, with blancmange much more popular than Tony Abbott).

CHARLES: Yes. So these blancmanges, blancmange-shaped creatures come from the planet Skyron in the Galaxy of Andromeda. They order 48,000,000 kilts from a Scottish menswear shop ... turn the population of England into Scotsmen well known as the worst tennis-playing nation on Earth thus leaving England empty during Wimbledon fortnight! Empty during Wimbledon formight ... what's more the papers are full of reports of blancmanges appearing on tennis courts up and down the country - practising. This can only mean one thing!

VOICE OVER and CAPTION: 'THEY MEAN TO WIN WIMBLEDON'

CHARLES: They mean to win Wimbledon.

Jarring chord.

Cut to commentator in his box at Wimbledon.

COMMENTATOR: (E.I) Well, here at Wimbledon, it's been a most extraordinary week's tennis. The blancmanges have swept the board, winning match after match. Here are just a few of the results: Billie-Jean King eaten in straight sets, Laver smothered whole after winning the first set, and Poncho Gonzales, serving as well as I've never seen him, with some superb volleys and decisive return volleys off the back hand, was sucked through the net at match point and swallowed whole in just under two minutes. And so, here on the final day, there seems to be no players left to challenge the blancmanges. And this could be their undoing, Dan: as the rules of Wimbledon state quite clearly that there must be at least one human being concerned in the final. (we see a three-foot- high blancmange being shepherded onto a tennis court by a Scotsman) Well the blancmange is coming out onto the pitch now, and (suddenly exalted) there is a human with it It's Angus Podgorny! The plucky little Scottish tailor ... upon whom everything depends. And so it's Podgorny versus blancmange in this first ever Intergalactic Wimbledon!