The Australian's anon editorialist and will too negative Tony give the farmers the respect they need?

Every so often, it's the solemn duty of the pond to trawl through The Australian in search of raw fodder.

Now a header like Too negative, Tony is designed to catch the eye, and draw attention to the efforts of the anonymous editorialist plying his wordsmith trade for the Murdoch masthead. It's where we can mainline the thinking of editor Chris Mitchell, or at least his ghostwriter catching the vibes from 'the man'.

And the contents were even more eye-catching than the header, so much so we quote them verbatim:

In a speech to the Western Australian Liberal Council at the weekend, Tony Abbott urged Liberals to work to toss out an incompetent Labor government as soon as possible.

At the same time, federal Liberal Party president Alan Stockdale has appealed for donations as there are insufficient funds for an early campaign.

The Liberals must realise that they cannot just rely on an unpopular Labor government for victory and that both votes and campaign funds must be hard-earned. The Abbott-led opposition, mired in divisive US Tea Party-style tactics aimed at the destruction of the government through fear, negativism and obstruction has yet to prove that it's a worthy alternative. Until it can do this with new, positive and properly funded policies, voters and donors should withhold their support.

Lordy lordy, the pond fell down in a Jane Austen faint.

The anonymous editorialist and the pond at one.

Could it be?

And then we saw the attribution:

Peter Rutherford, Barwon Heads, Vic

Bummer dude. It turns out Mr. Rutherford is a regular scribbler to the rag. Here he is on August 4th:

We can thank the US Tea Party for providing a glimpse of what life would be like under an ideology-driven Abbott government.

Peter Rutherford, Barwon Heads, Vic

And so on and so forth. It seems if you write a letter to the editor at the lizard Oz, you can get yourself included in the 'on line editorials' section.

Only in the bizarro world of The Australian.

Ah well, it was just a dream, perhaps a delusion that for a moment the actual anonymous editorialist had snacked on a bit of mushroom, washed down by a little yerba maté tea.

Meanwhile, poor old Malcolm Farr's column for The Punch, Abbott's policy vacuum bites him on the bum, has been made redundant within the hour.

After celebrating Abbott's return to the policy fray, Farr's piece evokes how Abbott managed to get himself wedged between the mining industry and the farmers, with Alan Jones doing his bit for the cockies, and Abbott promising to give them the right of veto to mining companies intruding on their land. Wrote Farr:

Abbott will now have a chance to give a voice to the voiceless. The Greens are proposing legislation which would strengthen “farmers’ rights’’ by requiring a land owner’s written permission before mineral prospectors could come through the gate.

A Coalition/Greens bloc vote would easily see it through the Senate, and the cross benchers probably would back the legislation in the House of Representatives.

Well it didn't take long for the issue to bite back: Abbott criticised over CSG 'thought bubble' was just one of a number of pieces celebrating the wedge.

Even Barnaby Joyce, the alleged farmers' friend, went to water, and if Barners takes a dive, things are looking grim for the cockies.

It didn't take long for Abbott to back down, with a mealy mouthed plea for miners to be nice to farmers and show respect, and for farmers to be nice to miners, and did he say farmers have the right to say 'no', when all he meant was that the mining industry should try to give them a nicely coloured prophylactic?

You know, it's all the business of the states, and the farmers and the miners should respect each other in the morning:

Mr Abbott said land use decisions were "fundamentally a matter for the states" and said the mining industry was very important and should be "broadly supported".

"But mining shouldn't be allowed to destroy prime agricultural land and mining companies should always respect the rights of farmers," he added. (Abbott backtracks on coal seam comments).

That's what happens when you try to wear two different tea party hats at the one time, and it makes the pond look forward to a Tony Abbott-led government.

After all, if nothing else, politics is all about comedy stylings, and there should be plenty of shrieks and howls and whines and complaints as Abbott goes about the business of pleasing everyone while in the usual way ending up not pleasing anyone ...

In the meantime, how about Mr. Rutherford being given the gig as editorialist for The Australian. Stranger and worse things have happened in these weird tea party times ...

It'd be much easier to do than get Tony Abbott to lie straight in bed, or straighten up his policies ...

And so, thanks to Tony Abbott, we've decided the word of the week is "Respect", with a little help from Aretha Franklin, and the immortal Otis Redding.

And a big shout out to the farmers on the Liverpool plains. Maintain the rage, because otherwise you'll be whistling in the dark for a little respect. You won't get it from either of the major parties, or Barners, and oh lordy, your only friends are greenies.

What, you might ask, will future generations eat once the mighty Liverpool plains are destroyed by mining? Why that's easy, coal dust and all the better for a healthy carbon diet (you can drink it in a cola too).

Meanwhile, perhaps you'd settle for a ribbed prophylactic and states' rights?



Well that's the cover. How about the original? Take it away Otis. Sock us with some of that Tony Abbott respect ...