Let's sing a song of the political body electric ...

(Above: as well as the body electric, let's sing the song of Australia).

Every so often, the pond thinks a musical called Antipodean political follies would be a sure fire winner in the world of b.o. (it might even do some box office).

One leading player would surely have to be Bob Carr.

After prematurely threatening New Guinea publicly with sanctions - if the NG government delayed elections - Carr is now showing the result of shooting his mouth off prematurely.

Sure enough the New Guinea government has delayed elections for six months, but at a time when Carr could have privately warned them of the dangers, and threatened them with the big stick of sanctions, all he can do now is splutter Sanctions on PNG premature: Carr.

Carr shows all the signs of being as inept as Alexander Downer, and without benefit of stockings ...

As for a second Sydney airport, come on down Barry O'Farrell, we want to admire your dumb intransigence.

This is the man who talked up the need for a Sydney infrastructure revolution, and now thinks that the way to improve Sydney's infrastructure is to export it to Canberra. O'Farrell is such a goose that he thinks a fast train to an expanded Canberra airport will serve as Sydney's second airport.

This has been a pet theme of Canberra airport bods, who seem to think it will be just "possibly" a fifty minute junket between Canberra airport and the heart of Sydney town, disremembering the number of times Canberra airport is shrouded in fog (the absent lord knows how many hours the pond spent circling in the sky waiting for the plane to run out of fuel before it landed and absent lord be praised, the pond and bureaucrats could be as one in endless meetings).

Well as the crow flies - isn't Australian a great language - the distance between Canberra and Sydney is about 250 clicks, and by road some 287 clicks, but the distance between Narita airport and Keisei Ueno in Tokyo is a mere 64.1 kilometres, and the N'EX will move you into the heart of town at Tokyo station in only 59 minutes.

Now one thing's certain - if a Japanese railway person gives you a schedule, it's a schedule.

Japan understands fast trains - and trains in general - in a way that's been forgotten or never understood in Australia, so what does this tell you about Barry O'Farrell? Yep, he'll go on fucking up Sydney infrastructure in a style worthy of a state Labor government ...

Now people can write as many intelligent commentaries as they like - go on Lenore Taylor, scribble Airport chaos imminent but the cockpit's vacant - but confronted by dumb political intransigence and a fucked up attitude, will it make a jot or whit of difference?

Intelligent commentary about the need for a second airport in Sydney has been scribbled since the days of the Whitlam government, and the result?

Barry O'Farrell delivering yet another round of small-headed, fucked-up NIMBY-ism of the most parochial kind, as if his main intent is to make Anthony Albanese look like a far-sighted futurist and statesman (and by golly that takes some doing, eh Albo?)

Okay, okay, but if you wanted to do a musical about the Three Stooges, you need a third clown, so who can help out Stiffy and Mo? (That's Moe and Curly to Americans).

Come on down Tony Abbott, we'd like to admire your ongoing stubborn intransigence.

There are some deluded possums out there who think the news that Tony Abbott's sister has come out will somehow change the style of the nattering nabob of negativity when it comes to gay marriage, as if Bob Katter gave a flying fuck about the damage he's done and continues to do to his half-brother's sense of self. Why worry about your half-brother when you've got a homophobic ad to run?

Gays hail Abbott's sister coming out, the headlines read, and what is offered up by Abbott as a response?

Mr Abbott's office said he declined to comment yesterday, but he told The Weekend Australian that he had kept his sister's confidence for four years.

He kept her confidence for four years! While at the same berating the concept of gay marriage up hill and down dale as unhealthy, unholy and unnecessary! Some confidence.

And otherwise he declined to comment, because a hot potato is a hot potato in any language, and he'll go on doing what has to be done, and bugger his sister.

Yet some delusional people think that somehow Abbott will seize the moment to transform himself:

"It gives us hope that there is someone at the Abbott dinner table putting the case forward for same-sex marriage.''

Here's hoping his sister lives with him, and so routinely turns up at the dinner table on a 24/7 basis, because there'll need to be an incessant chin-wagging, but the notion of Abbott allowing a conscience vote before he gets into power is as deluded as imagining Genghis Khan was also gung ho for conscience votes. As for doing anything about it ... did anyone talk to Dick Cheney to discover what he managed to do for his daughter over eight long years in power?

Fuck over a couple of countries in dirty wars ... but let people get married?

Abbott is shameless, and if you want a close parallel to his political philosophies on the matter of homosexuality, look to today's report by Michael Lallo on the way fundamentalist Christians do over gays with guilt, in Ministries preying on gay shame.

Abbott's stance against gay marriage, and people being out and proud, and in a personal committed relationship testified to in public, is on a rough par with the Christians who think gays are better off disavowing their intrinsic human nature.

It's usually about this moment in a pond rant that we have to stop and wipe the flecks of foam from the keyboard, and remember that we're supposed to be penning a light hearted award-winning musical about political follies.

And then we read War analysis 'doctored':

Australian officials have rejected an expert report critical of conditions in Afghanistan, demanding that it be rewritten to match upbeat government claims of dramatic progress and improved security.

It's like John Howard's lying, cheating government never left the building.

Enough of this.

We were hoping that there'd be the usual Chris Berg column for The Age, you know the usual libertarian clap trap about freedom and a free society, and yet nary a word about the lack of transparency in the Institute of Public Affairs, and its closed attitude to its patrons, who fling it money to do comments for cash in a way that goes as close to commentariat prostitution in these days of corporate shilling, lying, conniving, duplicity, thievery, roguery and corruption as can be imagined ... but perhaps it's just as well, because the pond might have taken to him with a verbal tomahawk or a cut-throat razor, and then where would the award-winning musical be?

Oh okay, you're right. Sweeney Todd the musical provides a way forward, and it's better we stop now, or we'll end up sounding a grumpy, resentful Sydney Anglican.

Now let's get stuck into some lyrics - we'll think of actual roles for Bob Carr, Barry O'Farrell and Tony Abbott later:

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
and the vermin of the world inhabit it
and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit
and it goes by the name of Australian politics.

At the top of the hole sit the privileged few
Making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo
turning beauty to filth and greed...

I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders,
for the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru
but there's no place like Australian politics!

Bah humbug. We're off to partake of a pho in Cabramatta, as good a way to celebrate Easter as any. Perhaps you should write your own Antipodean musical follies ...

(Below: you might think Bob Carr, but the pond thinks with a bit of white face that Tony Abbott would be a shoo-in).