Nick Dyrenfurth, and why it's time to start a sausage sizzle for a NSW Liberal government, but not near a supermarket ...

(Above: First Dog on the rise of the greens, and more First Dog here).

Whenever a sentence like the one that follows crosses the desk of the pond, it's time for dancing in the streets:

The Greens are unlikely to govern in their own right any time soon, yet political crunch time is looming. It is one thing for the party to secure the ballots of a narrow band of far-leftist anti-Israelis, Newtown vegans and Julian Assange supporters but the mainstream centre-left electorate is not likely to warm to such an extremist message.

Oh dear, not mention of coffee? Nor a sprinkle of chardonnay?

Meanwhile, meat eaters like me can safely read on, knowing that ill-mannered abuse, in the manner of an inner western rugby league thug will be front and centre:

For all its imperfections, the forbidden fruits of social democratic Laborism are likely to remain a continued source of temptation.

What? Like the NSW Labor party? Just point on the path to the nearest ballot box, and I think I'll be able to manage the rest. I think I'll be able to fill out the slip of paper the right way, and it won't involve a continuing source of temptation ...

Yes, you've guessed it, it's another battle scarred, battle hardened warrior, albeit of an academic kind, fighting for the hearts and souls of the Labor sheep who've strayed into the den of iniquity the Greens, and somehow ended up as a mish-mashed caricature of Assange loving Israel hating do gooders - as opposed to say, the Labor party's ongoing CIA loving, Islamic hating ways ... (well we're not obliged to offer insight or truth or justice when offering intemperate words).

Nick Dyrenfurth, in Greens starting to show true political colours, manages to sound just like a hardened factional warrior of yore, and reveals a startlingly myopic view of what might produce a political victory, as he finds strong historical parallels between the Greens and Hartley's Victorian ALP of the pre-1970's, and never mind that one was a biggie party, and the other much smaller:

At times "Baghdad" Hartley's extremist grouping resembled more a Trotsky-ite cult than a mainstream political party, favouring militantly leftist policies, including a rabid anti-Israel strategy of forging close links with Arab dictatorships.

Not only did the Hartleyites make state Labor unelectable, their actions repeatedly cruelled federal Labor's electoral hopes. Following a close-run 1969 poll, ultimately lost because of a poor Victorian showing, Gough Whitlam finally convinced the ALP national executive to move against the recalcitrant branch, clearing the way for his famous 1972 triumph.

Yea verily brothers, if you smite your factional foes mightily, the path to electoral glory will be yours. Just remember to leave Arthur Calwell in the outhouse ... but hang on, didn't old Artie himself almost have a famous victory in a close-run poll in 1961? Ultimately lost because those bloody Queenslanders voted for Jim Killen in Moreton, and it only took a hundred and thirty of them to do the dirty deed ...

No you see, this bit is just a dog whistle to lovers of Israel, haters of Trotsky (ice pick time), and haters of Arab dictatorships. Hiss boo, take that Saudi Arabia ...

Ah yes, the electorate cares truly rooly deeply about Labor party factions when it comes to a vote. But back to Dyrenfurth, and never mind the policies, let's play the man, or if you must the person:

On Monday, Greens leader Bob Brown was roundly condemned for his demand that coal mining companies be forced to pay a super profits style tax in order to fund the Queensland floods recovery effort.

According to Brown, coal barons were responsible for the climate change-induced natural disaster and soon-to-materialise "severe and more frequent floods, droughts and bushfires in coming decades". Presumably Gaia herself will collect the new levy.

Uh huh. A Gaia joke. Hey, that's right up there with Barnaby Joyce, and maybe Nick Minchin.

Here's what Brown actually said in his press release Coal barons should help pay for catastrophes - Brown:

The full tax on excess profits by the coal mining industry, as recommended by Treasury, should be imposed with half set aside for future natural catastrophes in Australia, Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Hobart today.

"It is unfair that the cost is put on all taxpayers, not the culprits," Senator Brown said.

"Burning coal is a major cause of global warming. This industry, which is 75% owned outside Australia, should help pay the cost of the predicted more severe and more frequent floods, droughts and bushfires in coming decades. As well, 700,000 seaside properties in Australia face rising sea levels."

Uh huh, so that's how you get yourself compared to factional warlord "Baghdad" Bill Hartley, along with talk of "soon-to-materialise" severe weather, and a bonus Barners Gaia joke.

Or was it this line by Bob?

"A Goldman Sachs study found that the reduction in the mining super tax agreed by the current Labor government (the coalition opposes the mining tax) would cost Australians $35 billion in forgone revenue to 2019-20."

Uh-oh, spaghetti-os, that's a bit below the belt Bob, noting the emperor, or empress if you will, barely has a stitch of clothing, and it deserves a stern response:

One day we might discover that climate change indeed played a role, but Brown's ill-advised attempt to extract political capital out of a still-unfolding disaster is signal evidence that the Greens are simply another political party scoring cheap partisan points for electoral gain.

Indeed, so allow me, Nick Dyrenfurth, to score some cheap partisan points, presumably for electoral gain, starting with "one day we might discover ..."

Why one day we might discover that in 2010 the climate was inclined to be a tad turbulent. Oh wait, we already have: 2010 the planet's wettest year and equal hottest.

Professor Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, said it was likely the floods were partly related to climate change. ''What we can say about the Queensland floods is there is a strong La Nina, which tends to give this heavy rainfall, but in addition to that there are very high sea surface temperatures.''

And he said that around January 14th. Who'd have thought that one day in the future was actually yesterday ...

Never mind, it's now time to demonise, so let's get on with the demons:

Of course, all parliamentary parties are born into original sin: compromise, pragmatism and sometimes sheer opportunism inexorably result as a party, whether Left or Right, is cast out of its ideological Garden of Eden.

The only real surprise is how long the Greens have managed to portray themselves as non-political, and thus above criticism, all the while playing politics with a ruthlessness to make the most battle-hardened Laborite or Liberal blush.

Oh yes, the Greens are vicious. They'll knee you in the groin, poke out your eye, these lost souls cast out of the garden of Eden, while the genteel mamby pamby Laborites get together with their Liberal colleagues and have a nice tea party in a quiet corner of the playground ...

Oh sure it's only pretend tea, and mud pies, but it's so much more civilised than those rough, crude, vulgar greenie boys ...

And yet Brown's cynical rhetorical overreach should come as no surprise. During the previous parliamentary term the Greens, whose raison d'etre is to tackle anthropologically caused environmental damage, refused to support Labor's ETS legislation; thus preventing Australia taking necessary, prudent action to tackle climate change.

Say what? Everybody knew that the Labor party's ETS legislation, rather like it's watered down, degutted super profits mining tax, was a hopeless, useless dog's breakfast of a policy, one born of mindless, weak-kneed, lily livered factionalism, compromise and gutlessness ...

Well speaking in the manner of a political party scoring cheap partisan points for electoral gain. Now can I have that with a dash of paranoia puh-lease ...

Greens opposition ostensibly arose because of Labor's allegedly meagre carbon reduction target. However, a more cynical motivation could be discerned: stealing votes from Labor's left wing at the next election.

Actually a more superficial motivation could be found. Namely Labor's actual meagre, hopelessly compromised and completely useless - and not allegedly - carbon reduction target, and more to the point, the completely hopeless implementation strategies proposed, and the costs attached thereto.

Further alarm bells ought to have rung when in the election's immediate aftermath, where they indeed won over many disaffected Labor supporters, senator Sarah Hanson-Young unsuccessfully challenged Christine Milne for the party's deputy leadership.

Hanson-Young should be applauded: ambition is the defining feature of any politician worth their salt. But the secrecy surrounding the vote suggested a party desperate to peddle the myth that it wasn't really a political party.

Which actually evokes images of the Labor party desperately trying to peddle the idea that the Greens are really a political party in the hope that some of the mud currently sticking to them will instead stick to the Greens (a bit like the way the mud stuck to Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour).

But does anyone, including the Greens, actually believe it isn't a political party? Only in Nick Dyrenfurth's fevered imagination, because unless I'm mistaken, the last time I went to cast a vote I saw signs for a Greens political party urging me to cast my vote in the direction of their political party ...

Talk about myths and mythologising ...

If further evidence were required to prove the Greens are themselves capable of political bastardry, then witness billionaire Wotif founder Graeme Wood's $1.6 million donation to party coffers, the largest single political donation by an individual in Australian history, despite Brown's previous denunciations of such largesse.

Yes, dammit, and why didn't he give it to the bloody Labor party instead! Gnashing of teeth, off stage right please ...

But speaking of acts of political bastardy as we are, how about the bastardy of the Greens entering into a formal alliance with the Australian Labor Party in the Tasmanian Parliament to keep that government in power, and even worse denied Tony Abbott by signing a formal agreement with the minority Gillard Labor Government to give it power ... The bastards ... and I thought they weren't even a political party ...

Perhaps these events might finally shatter the mythology surrounding the Greens' Pocahontas brand of politics and force progressive Australians to examine their policy proscriptions more seriously.

And vote in March for the NSW Labor government? Well that's the best joke of the day ... almost as comical as labelling the Greens' policies as Pocahontas and suggesting progressives should examine their policy proscriptions more seriously, when (1) what's wrong with native Americans, especially the plucky, winsome star of Disney movies, and (2) why do pundits now embrace the use of the hideous American term 'progressive' while simultaneously denouncing sweet, caring, Christian-converting, loyal and loving Pocahontas?

Ah well, so it goes. By the way did we mention there's an election coming up in NSW? Surely it's time for a little state based Green bashing?

Particular attention should be directed towards the NSW Greens. At its December State Delegates Council, the party decided to officially support the anti-Israel boycott, sanctions and divestment movement.

The Greens-controlled Marrickville council, in Sydney's inner west, quickly moved to implement party policy by officially backing the counterproductive and potentially anti-Semitic boycott in its entirety.

Potentially anti-Semitic? Is that like being half pregnant, or potentially half pregnant?

The good burghers of the inner west are now compelled to boycott Israel. Will the homes of Marrickville Jews be searched for illegal products? We shall await with bated breath the council's replacement of Israeli-designed Google search engines, Intel processors and other technology. Perhaps carbon-neutral homing pigeons will be recruited to fill the communications void.

Yes, yes, and we'll wait for the Australian Labor Party to do something about a genuine middle East policy, instead of finding itself maintaining its bold martial posture in Afghanistan, and its routine Barry Cohen tugging of the forelock to the Israeli lobby and the United States.

Sheesh, and I think Islam's a joke, but really ... was it so long ago Israel was using Australian passports to assist in the targeted assassination of an enemy on foreign soil? Well I guess it's easier in that context, and when confronted by a wall which puts the Berlin wall to shame, to make cheap jokes about carbon-netural homing pigeons and dog whistle the Jewish vote ...

The behaviour of the adjoining Greens-run Leichhardt Council also verges on the absurd. For instance, a proposal to build a Thomas Dux outlet (a scaled-down Woolworths supermarket) in Annandale was recently rejected, no matter that the venture would have created hundreds of jobs and produced an environmentally friendly option for residents who typically drive to Broadway or Leichhardt shops.

Uh huh. It's just a scaled down Woolies supermarket, and no one would have driven to it, including the people of Leichhardt. Instead they'd have caught the wonderful NSW Labor government's public transport ... Is it time for the standard routine about being rolled down the aisle like a laughing Jaffa?

Well perhaps they can drive to Erskinville instead where Clover Moore and her team have given the nod to ruining the village, while a perfectly serviceable couple of supermarkets lurk just around the corner ... (here).

But okay, let's not indulge in petty politics or nimbyism of the typical local kind, where locals tend to lobby councils to try to keep their area under control, especially as a rampaging Labor government, in bed with any developer passing in the street, insists on high rises building up urban density ...

Let's get down to a serious discussion of local politics:

Even more farcically late last year the council shut down a community sausage sizzle ($1 from each sale was being donated to local schools) run by an Annandale delicatessen because smoke was allegedly drifting into nearby shops.

The council then graciously allowed the sizzle to continue on a six-month trial basis providing the meat was pre-cooked on an electric barbecue inside the delicatessen.

Uh huh, but did the move come out of thin air?

After running a community barbecue out the front of his Annandale shop for three months Village Providores owner Brian Scott was recently told to shut it down.

“A council ranger came and said there had been complaints about the smell and smoke,” Mr Scott said.“I was surprised, I had no idea a sausage sizzle was anything out of the ordinary.”

... Owner of the neighbouring MFC Supermarket Sam Assaf was among those who objected to the sizzle. (here).

Those bloody supermarkets. Damned if you support them, and damned if you don't, can't live with them, can't live without them, and can't write about them coherently because you don't have a clue.

And yet this bit of local argy bargy between shop owners is transformed by Nick Dyrenfurth into part of some kind of satanic Green plot:

The man responsible for this policy adventurism is Greens mayor Jamie Parker. Using his mayoral credentials, he has also intervened in the Barangaroo development controversy despite Leichhardt bearing no geographic proximity to the area in question. Parker is the Greens candidate for the seat of Balmain at the March NSW state election and has faced allegations that his council spent $50,000 on a slush fund to pay for "major issues"; code for advertising Greens-friendly protest meetings.

Actually the man responsible for this policy adventurism is the supermarket owner:

“It would be three metres from my shop. All day the smoke would go over my fresh fruit. The next day you go to pick up an apple and it tastes like meat,” Mr Assaf said.

While Mr Assaf said he welcomed the restrictions he was sceptical they would work.

“If he can do this without smoke and the smell then, we can see,” he said.

Mayor Jamie Parker said the outcome was the best for all involved.

“Obviously we would prefer it if everyone could get along with each other rather than needing council to mediate,” he said.

Hint Jamie Parker. Don't go running this fiendish line that the community should try to just get along. The Labor party and its hacks are genuinely worried about Balmain, and they're going to throw everything at you, from Barangaroo to slush funds to sausage sizzles ...

But I can thank Nick Dyrenfurth for reminding exactly why hell will freeze over before I'll vote for the NSW ALP, and why, despite the right wing fundamentalism lurking in the Liberal party, suddenly a government led by Barry O'Farrell suddenly seems okay.

Hell, he couldn't do any worse in terms of obfuscation and misleading rhetoric, absent policies, mud slinging and mindless jibes ...

(Below: Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour, showing how a green should be treated. And never mind if they like it ...)