(Above: the Fairfax subbies play a cruel joke on Gerard Henderson, using this photo of Tony 'death stare' Abbott practising his top Darth Vader look on Julie 'death stare' Bishop, as an example of Abbott's employing senior women on his personal staff. Did they consider a shot of a python contemplating a feed?)
Now that the Danes have delivered a fat tax - you can already hear fat lovers shrieking about the 16 kroner a kilo assault and the food police coming to get them - the time has come to consider a tax on the saturated, sugary, simpering, salty, bloated offerings of the commentariat.
In the author's view, Abbott has been reliant on "a series of older male mentors throughout his life". They include, wait for it, "his father, who once hoped to become a Catholic priest". Shame. Then there are the Jesuit priest Father Emmet Costello, John Howard, Cardinal George Pell and the late political activist B.A. Santamaria. All except Howard are Catholic.
Yes, yes, but we know all that, and we fondly treasure that famous moment during the 2004 election campaign when on Lateline, Tony Abbott disremembered meeting George Pell then suddenly remembered meeting him (The two Tonys and George Pell). We like to think of it as part of Abbott's "Peter" moment, though the cock didn't really crow at all ...
The fact that many of the old DLP supporters were able to find a home in the Liberal Party indicates how it widened its appeal, at least in terms of religious background. Most senior players in the federal Coalition today were educated in the Catholic school system - the leader, the manager of opposition business, the shadow treasurer, shadow attorney-general and finance spokesman.
Costello then goes on to single out Barnaby Joyce for his DLP tendencies - trust Costello to pick out the easiest target, the runt of the litter so to speak - but there's also more than a broad hint that Abbott himself is something of a DLP policy splitter ...
Three leading Coalition figures - Abbott, Andrew Robb and George Brandis - have had some relationship with Santamaria and/or the DLP.
Costello also mentions three others educated in the Catholic school system - Christopher Pyne, Joe Hockey and Barnaby Joyce. Yet there is no common position among this lot on economic or social policy. Some are ardent economic reformers - Robb and Hockey come to mind. Others are quite liberal on social policy - for example, Brandis and Pyne. Moreover, Santamaria was a protectionist and a social conservative who attempted to talk Abbott out of becoming a Liberal MP.
Uh huh. Tremendously diverse, showing the complete policy chaos in the Liberal Nationals alliance.
According to Costello, the "DLP was good on defence and the Cold War but not up to much on economic issues". Fair enough. But the DLP was also the first parliamentary party to oppose the White Australia policy and its principal influence on social policy was to achieve government funding for non-government schools which, in time, benefited the families of both Catholic Abbott and Protestant Costello and many more besides.
Abbott's political success has surprised many commentators. The key to understanding the Opposition Leader is to play down ideology. Mitchell's sectarian rant obviously excited Burnside. But it is unlikely to have much long-term effect.
Let's just re-word that a little:
Now that the Danes have delivered a fat tax - you can already hear fat lovers shrieking about the 16 kroner a kilo assault and the food police coming to get them - the time has come to consider a tax on the saturated, sugary, simpering, salty, bloated offerings of the commentariat.
According to a hastily devised pond rating system, that means Gerard Henderson's piece this morning, Sectarian rant against Abbott is full of holes, despite QC's excitement would attract at least a twenty kroner super tax.
Put simply, Henderson could have used a single ingredient as his theme - Tony Abbott is a wonderful human being, and kind to women to boot - but instead spends the entire column whipping up a frothy, enticing offering , featuring Tony Abbott with a choc chip topping and a creamy, caring, rich raspberry jam centre.
It will come as no surprise to regular readers of our very own Polonius that his very favourite word of abuse is "sectarian", usually with a solemn reference to history, as when erecting fortifications to guard against Susan Mitchell's recently published assault on Tony Abbott:
Mitchell's 196-page tome is essentially an anti-Catholic sectarian rant of a kind prevalent in Australia a century ago.
Uh huh. It would seem that drawing attention to Abbott's Catholicism, or the peculiar theologies and social philosophies at work in the church, should be off-limits, or you risk being labelled a whiskery old sectarian reliving the Irish Catholics versus the Masons wars:
Mitchell's message is that Australians should not elect the Coalition led by Abbott because he is a conservative Catholic who has "never left the Catholic Church". Mitchell, who did not attempt to interview Abbott for her book, presents the Opposition Leader as a "mad monk" and an immature "zealot" who is ingrained with "sexism and misogyny" and who does not acknowledge the separation of church and state.
Yes, yes, but we already know all that. What's the real point Mr. Henderson?
In the author's view, Abbott has been reliant on "a series of older male mentors throughout his life". They include, wait for it, "his father, who once hoped to become a Catholic priest". Shame. Then there are the Jesuit priest Father Emmet Costello, John Howard, Cardinal George Pell and the late political activist B.A. Santamaria. All except Howard are Catholic.
Yes, yes, but we know all that, and we fondly treasure that famous moment during the 2004 election campaign when on Lateline, Tony Abbott disremembered meeting George Pell then suddenly remembered meeting him (The two Tonys and George Pell). We like to think of it as part of Abbott's "Peter" moment, though the cock didn't really crow at all ...
It's of more than passing interest that Tony "climate change is crap" Abbott remains fondly attached to the Pellist heresy, and that the Cardinal is a leading proponent of climate change denialism - as charted in Cardinal Pell damaging the reputation of the Catholic Church and Cardinal Pell embarrasses himself and perhaps most amazingly outlined in The Bureau of Meteorology fights back, which features exchanges between Pell, Senator Ian Macdonald and Dr. Ayers of the ABM.
Now it might well be that Pell is simply a meddlesome priest, boxing out of his depth in the matter of climate science, but it's simply not good enough to deliver a flurry of accusations of sectarian bias of a kind that was common a hundred years ago, and dismiss the alarming way that Pell and Abbott continue to row the same climate boat in tandem.
Heck, almost a hundred years ago, the church was taking a vigorous stand against conscription in the first world war, and who could argue with that? But these days the church is in the grip of an arch-conservative with peculiar views of science, and it takes the singular skills of Henderson not to note or even mention this baleful influence.
Instead, Henderson gets terribly agitated - in a sectarian way - and delivers unto others some broad satirical flourishes, because you see Tony Abbott gets on terribly well with Julie 'death stare' Bishop, and Bronnie 'kerosene baths' Bishop, and has employed a number of senior women on his personal staff:
The evidence suggests that, unlike Mitchell and Burnside, many voters do not regard him as a dangerous misogynist intending to create a Christian theocracy in the Antipodes.
Indeed. Especially women, because it's more common to see them ironing rather than attending to politics, thanks be unto Abbott for that insight, and when it comes to no, no doesn't mean no. (Oh no no).
Indeed. Especially women, because it's more common to see them ironing rather than attending to politics, thanks be unto Abbott for that insight, and when it comes to no, no doesn't mean no. (Oh no no).
Speaking of 'no', there's plenty of evidence that when in his Dr. No phase, Tony Abbott is tremendously good at negativity, but has bugger all in the way of actual policies to deal with matters such as an effective response to concerns arising from climate science. For that we get instead the humbuggery and disingenuous nonsense of the Pellists, who are seemingly intent on creating a Christian theocracy in the Antipodes.
But wait, there's trouble at mill, or on the home front, or whatever other metaphor you might dig up to describe Peter Costello's sectarian rant, Liberals must protect values of freedom and choice, of a kind which was apparently common a hundred years ago.
The fact that many of the old DLP supporters were able to find a home in the Liberal Party indicates how it widened its appeal, at least in terms of religious background. Most senior players in the federal Coalition today were educated in the Catholic school system - the leader, the manager of opposition business, the shadow treasurer, shadow attorney-general and finance spokesman.
Costello then goes on to single out Barnaby Joyce for his DLP tendencies - trust Costello to pick out the easiest target, the runt of the litter so to speak - but there's also more than a broad hint that Abbott himself is something of a DLP policy splitter ...
Oh dear, Peter Costello and Susan Mitchell together, the unlikeliest peas lurking together in the sectarian pod, and guaranteed to send Henderson into a defensive sectarian frenzy:
Costello also mentions three others educated in the Catholic school system - Christopher Pyne, Joe Hockey and Barnaby Joyce. Yet there is no common position among this lot on economic or social policy. Some are ardent economic reformers - Robb and Hockey come to mind. Others are quite liberal on social policy - for example, Brandis and Pyne. Moreover, Santamaria was a protectionist and a social conservative who attempted to talk Abbott out of becoming a Liberal MP.
Uh huh. Tremendously diverse, showing the complete policy chaos in the Liberal Nationals alliance.
Oh wait, Gerard didn't mean that. Of course they all sing from the same song sheet, he was just using a figure of speech to suggest that instead of robots, they were free-thinking individualists. All of like mind ...
If it weren't sectarian to do so, it could be noted that there is one common thing amongst them. They're all Catholic, and educated in the Catholic school system, which would make their views on the current bizarre federal funding of private schools dedicated to scientology, fundamentalist Christianity and fundie Islam something to hear.
And it's even more sectarianly surprising that Henderson should be so busy putting out sectarian fires started not by Mitchell, but by Peter Costello, and which sees - of all things - Henderson defending the valiant policy positions of the DLP:
Why there's your answer right there, on the matter of schools and funding, because the many more besides includes the Church of Scientology and the Exclusive Brethren, amongst others peddling creationism or skimming the taxpayer funding (Malek Fahd Islamic School 'fees' funding Australian Federation of Islamic Councils).
Oops, that's sounding dangerously sectarian. Why shouldn't the taxpayers just shovel money down the throats of eccentric religions so that they can nurture their young and maintain their eccentricities for generations to come? Why soon enough we'll have a whole flock of little Pellists peddling his routines on climate science ...
And so to the rousing Henderson finale - perhaps worth a five kroner super 'fatty adoration' tax:
Abbott's political success has surprised many commentators. The key to understanding the Opposition Leader is to play down ideology. Mitchell's sectarian rant obviously excited Burnside. But it is unlikely to have much long-term effect.
Let's just re-word that a little:
Abbott's political success has surprised many commentators, including an envious and jealous Peter Costello. The key to understanding the Opposition Leader, if you happen to be a Catholic commentator like Gerard Henderson, is to play down theology, and dismiss anyone who raises it as an issue as a sectarian ideologue.
Costello's sectarian rant obviously excited Henderson, but he'd prefer to take on Susan Mitchell while making a stand for the DLP and its policies. But this whole sectarian storm in a tea cup is unlikely to have much long-term effect, especially when it comes to climate science and the mad theological musings of the Pellist conspiracy, and its alarming influence on Tony Abbott ...
Or some such thing. You see accusing others of sectarianism is no simple 'get out of real policy discussions free' card, especially when it comes to an opposition leader inclined to furtive meetings and memory lapses ...
(Below: who can remember a meeting with Cardinal Pell, such an unremarkable man?)
Well, of course one of the problems with Tony is that many of us former cattletick school kids would not ever vote for a ex-seminarian under any circumstances. We've seen too much of how their nasty little minds work, and frankly they are a rather presumptuous bunch...
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