Piers Akerman, shock horror censorship, and Hansard for your bedtime reading in the asylum

(Above: here back in February, and now Halloween draws near).

Poor dear sweet Piers Akerman is getting tremendously agitated about censorship and the evils of Chairman Rudd's Orwellian regime.

The turning point seems to involve a major scandal about the despatching of copies of Hansard to constituents, as outlined in Big Brother antics mocking openness:

Under the new rules, MPs could even be barred from sending constituents complete copies of the daily proceedings of Parliament as reported in Hansard.

This might sound like a claim from a conspiracy theorist but it was made by the Secretary of the Department of Finance and Deregulation, David Tune, and supported by the legal affairs manager in a Senate estimates committee. Worse, Senator Ludwig attempted to defend his department’s censorship role. The ramifications of this sort of censorship are extraordinary. Every citizen should have the right to read a full and accurate report of the proceedings of the national parliament.

A conspiracy theory from Akker Dakker? No, say it ain't so.

And Hansard on bits of paper, killing whole forests in the process, so we can wade through the verbiage from the bear pit?

Well I know Akker Dakker doesn't believe in climate change, but won't someone think of the trees. Better still, won't someone think of suffering humanity, with Hansard stuffed in their letter boxes (as for the children, well suffer little children, suffer, it could be your first Dick and Jane learn to read primer. See funny Kevin, see how he shrieks, see funny Malcolm see how he freaks).

The Rudd Government, through its minister, Senator Ludwig, disagrees.

The public servants responsible for conducting the censorship, Messrs Tune and Taylor, attempted to evade the issue when they were questioned on the possibility that MPs would be barred from sending out Hansard but their weasel words could not camouflage the enormity of their new power.

When asked by Tasmanian Senator Stephen Parry whether he could send out a complete Hansard of one day’s Senate proceedings, Mr Tune responded: “It would depend.”

Mr Taylor then interjected: “It would depend on exactly what was said in it, just because ... “

As South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi remarked: “This is a travesty of democracy, minister. That is what this is.’’ Senator Ludwig attempted to defend the Rudd Government’s new censorship regimen but there is no plausible excuse for a law which bans the distribution of the official record of the nation’s parliamentary proceedings.

Senator Bernardi is correct. It is a disgrace that the Government believes in barring the distribution of Hansard to the Australian people.

Huh? If I could be fagged to go fetch and read Hansard, all I'd have to do is click here for copies of the last sitting days in pdf format, and then if I wanted to really blow my mind by wandering through the hen house and listening to what the chooks had to say, I'd take a look at the past three years, here.

At that point, having been made clinically insane, I'd book myself into an asylum so I could catch up on Akerman's back catalogue of columns.

It's part of Akker Dakker getting upset about the censorship of communications from MP's, little understanding how upset the average Australian gets receiving communications from MP's.

In this locale, every so often Carmel Tebbutt and her spouse Anthony Albanese send us communications telling us how lucky we are to have a NSW Labor government, and a Federal Labor government.

Whenever I read this sort of nonsense about the NSW Labor government, I fall into a deep depression, a deep blue black dog mad funk only matched by the thought of Jeff Kennett. I roam about the house screeching at the ghosts, then go outside to howl at the birds. You can imagine the impact this has on the neighbourhood, especially the dogs next door.

The only solution is to ban any communication from any MPs at any time. We'll meet occasionally in the media, and then I'll speak in the only meaningful way at the ballot box every three or four years. The idea of MPs using my taxpayers' money to send me communications that (a) all is well with the world, and splendid initiatives are being taken even as I read, or (b) that all is wrong with the world, and things are likely to fall apart next Friday, is exactly the sort of nonsense with which I will not put up.

Poor old Akkers gets himself into a tremendous twist about the attempt to muzzle the MPs and their words:

It is easy to see why the Government has acted so swiftly to bar MPs from communicating the full picture of its multiple failures to ordinary Australians.

It is - to use words that the censors have blocked from MPs communications in the past month - “dreadful’’, disgraceful”, “inept”, responsible for “mismanagement’’, “reckless’’, guilty of “incompetence’’ and “irresponsible’’.

I can publish those words here but they were all blacked out from newsletters that were prepared by NSW Senator Marise Payne and Victorian MP Jason Woods.

Well they would say that, wouldn't they, but not on my dollar. And not on my dollar do I want communications telling me that the current government is wonderful, graceful, ept, responsible for management, and guilty of responsible competence.

But not for Akker Dakker, who continues to froth and foam in a fair old tizz:

The Rudd Government’s media partners, the ABC and the Fairfax press, have been notably silent about this muzzling of MPs. Its actions are more in line with those of the totalitarian governments it wishes to join in the councils of the United Nations than of a Western liberal democracy. As usual, the voices of the Left are silent.

Last weekend, Mr Rudd was rubbing shoulders with regional leaders at an ASEAN summit in Thailand at which a human-rights commission was inaugurated. Australia is not a member of the 10-nation body but the Rudd Government’s new rules on censorship would have delighted the leaders of Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

If Australia is to play a leadership role in our region, it should not be in a backward direction toward the suppression of information and truth, but forward into the light.

Well it's left to the comments section for a few posters to note that the real issue with the Rudd government is its plan to censor the intertubes under cover of saving the children, at a level unmatched anywhere else than a few choice spots like China and Iran.

Up against that remarkable plan, stopping a few mendacious bits of nonsense from gibbering loon MPs almost feels like a public service.

Yet Akerman remains remarkably silent about this threat, as does much of News Corp. The only stout hearted reporter has been Asher Moses in the Fairfax media. As usual the voices of the right are silent when it comes to muzzling voices they don't like (pornographers) in the standard way approved by totalitarian governments.

Or some such thing.

Meanwhile, Akerman has been stoutly opposed to the national broadband network, and the opportunity to get the citizenry so wired they can collect the complete Hansard in pdf form, instead of using them as door stops - at least until they decide their inbox is better dedicated to spam selling Viagra.

Yet the NBN is coming at a price, a catch, a dud set of steak knives, and that price is Conroy's censorship scheme.

Come to think about it, it's been awhile since Conroy's filter trial was supposed to be revealed to a breathless and hushed world. An epic piece of stupidity a year in the making, and still no word, and no persecution from the News Corp hacks for this excursion into censorship on a national basis, which would have brought gasps of admiration from Goebbels (okay, another dollar in the Godwin's Law swear jar).

Go figure.

The trouble with Akerman is that he's such a loon and a gherkin that you almost feel like you might be better off reading Hansard. And at that point, in the distance I can see the doors to the asylum swinging open and kindly Nurse Ratched gesturing for me to step inside. How does it go again?

"Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, briar, limber lock
Three geese in a flock
One flew East
One flew West
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest."

(Below: oh dear, 2008 edition. And we're still waiting for the 2009 edition. Will somebody tell Akker Dakker that he can't see the wood for the trees, or hasn't he heard about the dire need to ban Hansard from the intertubes because it constantly mentions child pornography and will likely get caught up in any sensible filter determined to eradicate the clucking of chooks from the intertubes).