The good news is that the First Dog calendar for 2013 arrived over the break, reminding the world, inter alia, that June 3rd, always an exciting anniversary, is designated Andrew Bolt is still not not a dickhead Day.
The joy of the double negative. And it can keep growing, as in Andrew Bolt is still not not not not a dickhead Day.
The less good news is that the calendar was accompanied by a Neil Perry cookbook - the pond has reserved a special place in one of Dante's outer rings of hell for Perry's shameless behaviour in relation to Qantas and food and using his name like a pretentious poseur. Celebrity chef? Neil Perry is still not not the pond's favourite chef.
That said, First Dog's June cartoon already has achieved relevance, thanks to the utterly gormless Jenny Macklin and her disappearing 'I can live on the dole' comment.
In his cartoon, the Dogger makes the point that at $492.60 a fortnight, Newstart is the second lowest unemployment benefit in the developed world, and tracks the tragic efforts of Fiona, an eastern Bettong (Bettongia gaimardi) attempting to get work and survive on the Newstart allowance.
A few more Dog notes: in real terms, the Newstart payment hasn't increased since 1991, and over 60% of people who receive Newstart are on it for more than 12 months.
Which brings us to the completely, totally gormless Jenny Macklin and The great vanishing act: Macklin's dole comment disappears.
Thanks to the televisual medium, the pond could actually see and hear Macklin assure the world that she could survive on a weekly pittance of $246 or thereabouts a week, the "I could" sounding out loud and clear:
But when Ms Macklin’s office later issued a transcript of the press conference, held at a hospital in the Minister’s Melbourne electorate, both the question and answer were recorded ‘‘inaudible.’’
There is a technical explanation of course. It seems Macklin's office already operates on Newstart and so could only afford an iPhone recording of the outdoor press conference and so was unable to hear those fatal words.
"The Minister's comments are a matter of public record. We provide the best quality transcripts available to us to help inform the media,'' the spokeswoman said.
"Of course the media also attend and record on high quality professional devices."
Yes damn you professional media with your professional devices, while Ms Macklin's staff must make do with their Newstart allowances, and a pitiful set of tin cans hooked up by string.
In a way it helped take the heat out of the change of policy which is now coming into effect, whereby the federal Labor government persecutes the poor in a way that even a high Tory government might envy.
But it can't hide the shame of what Macklin actually said - let's see her do a month on Newstart without any of her residual wealth or parliamentary pension to help her - and the shame of the federal Labor government's policies of persecuting single mothers and more particularly their children when they reach the grand age of eight or six or whenever they're deemed ready to dress in chaff bags.
Now the pond has some skin in this game, if only by way of memories and empathy, and the emotional cost of wearing hand me down gear to school socials and eating up when the kindly Chinese restaurant across the road send leftovers to the pitiful white trash ...
There's nothing redemptive about grinding, enduring poverty, and it's no easy trap to escape, and punitive government behaviour - get off the dole or die or starve for all we care - isn't helpful.
And that isn't always for want of a work ethic, as the pond can remember being dragged along after hours to assist in office cleaning, and mainly learning what filthy beasts some office workers could be, especially the smokers, knowing that someone else would turn up and clean up their shit.
So what do we - and more especially the lumpen poor - get from Macklin?
Why sanctimonious cant and righteous nauseating tosh of the kind you'd expect to come from any high Tory explaining why you can piss nine billion pounds against the wall on a panem et circenses Olympics, but alas after the fun, why everyone except bankers and financiers and stockbrokers and company directors and CEOs must tighten their belts ...
Ms Macklin today defended the changes, saying there was evidence this would prompt more single parents to get back to work.
“Unfortunately we have far too many people - children growing up in Australia in families where nobody is working,” she said. “The more that people go back to work, the better.
“It's better for the family, it's great for the kids to see mum and/or dad, or both, going to work.”
There is, as First Dog noted - as usual a cartoonist in possession of more facts than a Labor politician - actually scant evidence that extreme poverty prompts or facilitates a move back to work. And a good deal of evidence that turning up in a chaff bag with a desperate furtive mumbling air doesn't actually help your chances of getting on the payroll.
And what if there's no job handy in the area? Why then suffer you bastards and die in poverty for all we care, or move your family down to a fruit picking region for a little seasonal work and time in a tent, and if that doesn't get you on the upward move, why suffer and die you bastards ..
Actually the "policy" was part of a desperate attempt to balance the budget, and achieve a surplus in an election year, now a forgotten, swept aside pledge, while the detritus of suffering and punishment remains.
Yep, "get a job you bludgers" is right up there with Robert Askin advising his driver to "run over the bastards" as a response to demonstrators taking a view on LBJ's desire to bomb the shit out of south east Asia. (ah memories, in the wiki here).
Meanwhile, it's only the do gooders and the carers and the cardigan wearers who see the suffering up close who've shed a tear, as you can read in Find a job, Jenny Macklin tells single parents whose benefits are being slashed.
The measures will claw back $728 million in budget savings over four years.
“Single parents will see a cut of between $60 and $110 per week. This will have a devastating impact on single parent families and their children,” said ACOSS head Dr Cassandra Goldie.
“These families are already struggling as they live below the poverty line.
Naturally the pond looked around to see all the political activity generated by anti-abortionists showing their deep concern for children born in troubled times, but buggered if a rampaging, caring, concerted effort by fundamentalists raging against the machine could be seen.
But when it comes to voting time, the pond has a long memory, and should a representative from Jenny Macklin's office come knocking at the door beseeching a vote, the pond will be sorely tempted to run the bastard over.
Since we live in ironical post-modern times, you want irony, as noted in I could live on the dole, says Families Minister Jenny Macklin:
A person living on the dole receives $246 a week.
As a Cabinet Minister, Ms Macklin earns $6321 a week.
Not even First Dog could top that level of irony.
Meanwhile, as the federal Labor government slides off into its assigned outer ring of Dante's hell, jolly Joe Hockey has decided to stir the mud in relation to one of the pond's favourite issues - a second airport for Sydney, and not so as to remove Mascot, and not to see a second airport operate out of Canberra or Woop Woop or somewhere near the black stump, but as a way of coping with demand and building needed, useful infrastructure.
In his usual gormless pathetic, Jenny Macklin-imitating way, Tony Abbott immediately tried to distance himself from jolly Joe, who also issued a number of caveats and equivocations, but it led to this startling headline: A Hockey government will build Sydney a Badgerys Creek airport.
That's right, not an Abbott government, but a Hockey government.
Naturally it got the Daily Terror excited, as you can read in Liberals in Sydney airport dogfight, and it brought brave Bazza O'Farrell out of hibernation to explain how it was all a lot of hot air, remembering that Sydney doesn't need an airport until 2049 because Max Moore-Wilton told him so, and anyhoo, by then Canberra will be a suburb of Sydney ...
Every time Bazza gets to speak about a second Sydney airport he sounds even more excruciatingly dumb, a true dullard.
Yep, it's amazing Liberal scenes and we're only in the first few days of the year, and how astonishing that jolly Joe could be sounding like the most intelligent Liberal doing the rounds and boldly going where no state Liberal dare go ...
Oh it's going to be a grand year, and already Tony Abbott has established that in his heart and his mind there's a "no plans whatsoever" void where Dr. No is simply incapable of becoming Dr. Yes, whether it's a plan for a Sydney airport or a plan for anything at all or a commitment or a vision ...
So if there's anything going to happen after a Liberal election victory, then we need a jolly Joe government. Or a big Mal government. Or a Scott Morrison government. Or god help the suffering and the humanity, a Julie Bishop 'death star and stare' government ...
Go at it lads and lasses. Let the hounds loose and may the last one standing start building an airport.
If the world can't have a decent Newstart allowance or a government intent on creating jobs rather than punishing people or a second airport for Sydney, why the least we can expect is a Liberal dogfight.
Why it might even be more fun than explaining how pissing billions against the wall on an Olympics is jolly good while the poor must be made to suffer ... or explaining how a federal Labor government can sound like a right royal Tory tosser like David Cameron ...
(Below: and now, until you get your own First Dog calendar, a reminder of the most important day of the year. And if you're on Newstart, why take to your bed, and it will come around in no time at all).
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