(Above: more David Rowe here, where you'll find today's beauty).
It's a glorious day in Sydney.
Never mind the gloomy skies, for today we are blessed with a second casino, thanks to big Bazza. As for a second airport? Oh just head off to Canberra by VFT, you mugs and pie-eaters ...
Meanwhile, the pond is most perplexed. Here's the reptiles at the lizard Oz yesterday:
There was Scott Morrison saying he couldn't understand the Indonesians, and saying they showed no rhyme or reason, which is a bit rich when you consider it's coming from a clap happy fundamentalist who attends a church where speaking in tongues is the go ...
Why the reptiles were sounding almost Fairfaxian, because Fairfax were also reporting frustrations:
It seemed that the coalition was out of its depth, so what to do, what to do?
Well today the hagiographers got busy, and turned the boats, and the reporting, around:
There, that's better, much better, and it's an EXCLUSIVE too.
No need to keep reading the Jakarta Post to find out what's actually happening ...
Why next thing you know you might stumble across a story like RI rejects Australian dictated solutions on people smuggling.
Oh dear, cheeky defiant wretches. Attitude, smattitude!
They need a damned good talking to, and we know just the boofhead to do it:
Now this sort of reporting will please the average schizophrenic, because according to the reptiles at the lizard Oz, all is going swimmingly well, while the Fairfaxians report that Abbott is flashing a yellow card at the recalcitrant northerners.
Truculence seems to be the go, and readers will have noted that "get used to it" below the main story which shows truculence squared.
Followers of that splendid chap Gerard "prattling Polonius" Henderson will immediately guess the style, and see how well Hendo can can ape his master:
Before reading a word beyond the splash, the pond was entranced and was swept back to the good old days of Tamworth High School.
The headmaster (no names, no defamation) would sweep into the classroom and announce Monsieur Dubois is your French teacher, Mr Hypotenuse your Maths teacher, and Mr Bunsen Burner your Science teacher, and you'll all better get bloody used to it, or else ...
Of course some recalcitrants never did, and the French teacher had a breakdown and the science teacher got a job flipping hamburgers at a stall between the bridges and the Maths teacher was stabbed in the back while attending to the blackboard. Ah Tamworth, get used to it.
Never mind, deep down, there's really very little that's different between the hagiographic scribbling of our very own prattling Polonius in Tony Abbott is the Prime Monster so get used to it, and the Bolter scribbling furiously in No way there is disarray over Abbott boat policy.
Oh there might be a few twists. The Bolter blames the treasonous Fairfaxians, and somehow works Edward Snowdon (sic) into the story.
Oh dear, and these days you're expected to pay for subbing on a par with what you find on a hastily written blog (because all the pond can afford are NZ subbies. Or should that be "is NZ subbies"? Damn it, where are those subbies).
Because only the Sydney Fairfaxians can now be bothered to print Hendo, he can't blame them, bite the hand that allows his dullness to flourish, so inevitably, predictably, as reliably as a clock getting it right two times a day, he blames the ABC.
It occurred to the pond after last week's epic reading of Hendo - it's all about me, me, me - just how burdensome it must be to have an obsessive compulsive grinding on and on endlessly about the ABC. Even the reptiles at the Oz are gripped by wonder:
“Gerard Henderson is big enough to take care of himself, but that doesn’t stop us worrying about him from time to time. Lately it’s Hendo’s tendency to self-harm that has us losing sleep. For example, peruse the correspondence he’s published in his latest Media Watch Dog blog… There’s a part of us that just wants to ask: “Hendo, are you OK?” - James Jeffrey’s “Strewth!” column, The Australian, 8 November 2010. (Hendo doing his navel fluff gazing here).
What's interesting about Hendo's piece is the way he's already retreated to gloating about Abbott's victory at the election, reliving the glory, and denouncing the ABC and in particular Q and A (damn you blogger and your ampersand attitude), and so the whole piece ends up reading as astonishing and quaint, along the lines of "sucks boo, we won, nah nah, yah yah ...
Hendo takes swipes inter alia at Rod Cameron, Bruce Hawker, Germaine Greer, Tony Jones, and Hanna Rosin, but he can't take any comfort from that dull knife in the Hitchens' family drawer because the wretch dared to call Tony Abbott a part of "fake modern conservatism". Et tu Christopher ...
By the end of it, all Hendo is left with is that "sucks boo" attitude.
It turns out that popularity for a conservative politician is irrelevant - yep, there's another tedious irrelevant quick trawl through conservative federal victors of the past - while Hendo concludes Labor is hopelessly hopeless, and the media conspiracy is on track:
Currently Labor, with the support of quite a few journalists, maintains that Abbott's ''stop the boats'' policy has failed. Yet, according to available statistics, there has been a reduction in unauthorised boat arrivals of 75 per cent since the Coalition was elected and Indonesia has accepted two out of four boats turned back by Australia.
Which suggests that the Abbott-has-failed line is premature at best and probably based on wish-fulfilment.
But here's the rub. Surely any assessment of success is premature at best and probably based on wish-fulfilment.
Let's see how things work out in two years.
Meanwhile, Abbott came to power mindlessly chanting the slogan "Stop the Boats", while thoughtlessly insulting the Malaysians, the Papua New Guineans and the Indonesians.
This was his own doing, not that of liberals, progressives, libertarians, the Labor party, the media, or even quite a few journalists.
And now Abbott, Bishop and Morrison must show what they're made of, in terms of international diplomacy.
Cutting the rug against Q and A (damn you blogger, and your anti-ampersand ways), the ABC or Germaine Greer - or in the lizard Oz's case, berating the Fairfaxians - doesn't cut it ...
Thus far the attempts to control information, and the dealings with Indonesia have been singularly inept, and that's not the fault of anyone else apart from the coalition government.
There's no point waving a finger at the Indonesian government and telling them that Abbott is the Prime Monster so they'd better get used to it ...
Abbott is now required to be an international statesman and diplomat, and so are his ministers. They're the ones that better get used to it, and a lot more quickly than they're getting used to it at the moment.
And so should the hagiographic commentariat ...
They can keep on kicking the handy Fairfax and ABC and Q and A can down the road, but where a foreign government is concerned, with their own domestic constituency in play, Abbott should expect the can to be kicked back now and then ...
If he keeps on going the way he started out, let's hope Hendo can get used to more than a few own goals ...
(Below: oh go on, give Fairfax a hit, and help them out, just so Pope can go on being brilliant here. Look at Julie Bishop on the high wire!)
Point of order for Morrison and Abbott.
ReplyDeleteThey claim the recent asylum seekers should have been rescued by Indonesia because they were in the internationally-defined Indonesian search and rescue zone.
But so is Christmas Island! Did they conveniently forget this?