The pond was delighted to read in Crikey (paywall limited) of the demise of "knewz", and immediately had to rush off to visit the corpse, the first time that the pond had ever paid any attention to the phenomenon.
There, along with required "who knewz?" jokes, the pond was astonished to discover that "The U.S. Sun" was supposed to be a thing.
Naturally Crikey trotted out the old line about the Murdochians managing to turn MySpace from a $500 million-plus purchase into a $35 million asset, but it's a good line, and the pond gets a laugh every time it hears it ...
What else before getting down to a serve of reptile stew?
Well the pond knows absolutely nothing about soccer, and cares even less, but was pleased to see Italy get up, if only (a) because Boris would otherwise have been intolerable for months, and (b) because what's plucky England doing in a Euro cup? Surely they should by now have organised a fancy set of free soccer trade agreements under the title of the little Englander cup?
It's as bizarre as Australia turning up to perform hideous pop songs in something called Eurovision ... yes the pond knew it existed, but only because some crazed friends watch it ... and what's the bet that the little Englanders will still want to have a go at Eurovision too? Dammit, did the Italians win that aural waste of space as well? Is there no end to BoJo suffering and pond delight?
Never mind, there's all sorts of pleasures in the world for those in search of people riding the snake of pride down the board, from Conor McGregor to the Murdochians breaking a "knewz" ankle ... and so to today's top of the page effort and sure enough ...
Yes, there was former Chairman Rudd smirking like a villain from a comic opera, and there was Killer Creighton doing his usual thing.
But this time the comparison between California and Florida was so inane and futile and Killer stupid, in terms of relevance to the island situation of Australia, or what gold standard Gladys is currently achieving in NSW, that the pond decided to leave Killer alone in the killing fields, and go looking beneath the fold for inspiration ...
Sheesh, what a pitiful effort.
The pond could write that Dame Groan column in its sleep, except for sleep being a better paid job, and more the sort of work the pond likes ...
So the pond turned to the lizard Oz editorialist, on the defensive back foot, as the reptiles often are these days ...
Ah, the reptiles couldn't resist joining the pond in a cheap joke about a European championship... and naturally they were very agitated by the Ruddster's performance, because, you know, Scotty from marketing has been a stunning success, and everything is going swimmingly well in NSW, and apparently the lizard Oz editorialist doesn't understand that a jibe about a Mrcus Rashford penalty kick is about as funny as Killer Creighton being handed the policy guidelines football ...
He shoots, he kills ... and now, what word to use to describe SloMo's remarkable performance? Astonishingly inept? Compellingly stupid?
How about "unfortunate", a very good Yes Minister piece of verbiage ...
Sir Humphrey: Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple, and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts, insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated, is such as to cause epistemological problems, of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
Hacker: Epistemological — what are you talking about?
Sir Humphrey: You told a lie.
Hacker: A lie?
Sir Humphrey: A lie.
Hacker: What do you mean, a lie?
Sir Humphrey: I mean you… lied. Yes, I know this is a difficult concept to get across to a politician. You… ah yes, you did not tell the truth.
Sir Humphrey: The Minister's daughter is to be...that is to say, she will not be...
Hacker: Come on Humphrey, make a clean breast of it!
Sir Humphrey: An unfortunate turn of phrase, Minister.
Must we leave Sir Humphrey to get to the reptiles' unfortunate use of 'unfortunate'? The pond supposes it must ...
And the reptiles have the duty of exposing the country to Killer Creighton's insights, so that more might die in the name of reptile freedom! And Yes Minister must return, so that the lizard Oz editorialist can obtain suitable employment for a gentleman scribe as show runner and chief writer ...
And so to duty, and only because Dame Groan has her avid readers ...
The pond doesn't actually have anything to say about Dame Groan, which is a considerable relief, except to note, in a Freudian way, the bee that keeps buzzing around in the Dame's noggin. Her fear of furriners has become more and more obsessive compulsive, splendidly encapsulated in that line about heading in the direction of Greece ... (oh you filthy Spartans with your lank, oily hair and certain tendencies) ...
No doubt there are arguments to be had against a big Australia, but Dame Groan is so clearly motivated by the thought of a plague of pesky non-Anglo furriners that they get lost in a cloud of xenophobia ...
Just as the pond sometimes wishes it had a dollar for every time the Bjorn-again one runs his line about the need to do research, the pond would love a dollar for every time Dame Groan rehashes old and tired arguments. Does anyone in the lizard Oz read what she scribbles these days? If they do, do they think, "oh that's just the old Groaner having another good old groan, let her get on with her groaning in peace..."
How pitiful does it get? Well the pond suspects it's the point where the Groaner gets to groaning about selfish Australia ... "there's something deeply unethical about attempting to lure the cream of the crop among workers from developing countries."
Oh as if we give a flying fuck about developing countries ...
Given the state of the planet at the moment, there were other things that Dame Groan might have banged on about like a dunny door in a Tamworth gale, but perhaps they're best left to the infallible Pope ...
But as Dame Groan has raised the matter of developing countries, the pond thought it might take a look at Australia's most recent splendid efforts in that direction ...
Say what? A dark hour when we leave allies to their fate?
But Dame Groan has scribbled that it would be deeply unethical to lure the cream of the crop here. They must stay in Afghanistan, and enjoy life under the Taliban, and if there's a killing field or three, why it's just in keeping with Killer Creighton's vision of death for the world ...
Of course it's ludicrous, but did you really expect anyone to care? We are, after all, a country that cheerfully organised spying on a developing country to get a good deal on oil, and then when Lord Downer was exposed, cheerfully screwed the whistle blower and his lawyer, a couple of decent and honest souls who thought it an appalling, disgusting and shameful exercise ... apparently unaware that Lord Downer was an appalling, disgusting and shameful politician ... to use an 'unfortunate' turn of phrase ...
Uh huh, and so to the final gobbet and a punchline, or perhaps to have a chug a lug from an artificial leg in celebration of dinkum success ...
A Churchill and a Ramsay?
How about a SloMo and a Barners, because if ever you wanted a pair to sell you down the river, you couldn't do better ... unless you wanted to bring back Arthur from the Minder series ... and besides, what would Dame Groan think if the odd helper from Afghanistan turned up in Australia? She'd have a Freudian brain explosion ...
So enough references to old television, it's on to the Rowe of the day, with more Rowe here, and with Rowe conjuring up the sort of help we might all expect ... sorry, helpful Aghan people, they're not really here to help, they just have the goalkeeper's fear of the penalty ...
I dunno about Groany's "fear of furriners" but I do wonder if there's any thought that goes into Australia's immigration program at all - other than the wonderful idea that every additional 'New Australian' increases the national GDP by about Au$75,000 - that being the current GDP per capita amount. And that having a large number of 'New Australians' every year for the past 20-something years is why Australia managed 23 consecutive years without a GDP recession. Though we have had 3 GDP per capita recessions since 1991: Sep+Dec quarters 2000, Mar+June quarters 2006 and Sep+Dec quarters 2018.
ReplyDeleteBut what's the fundamental idea ? Are we trying to build up some 'ideal population' and we'll stop when we reach it (ie immigration goes to effectively zero). If so, what is that 'ideal population' we're after ? 50 million ? 100 million ? 200 million ? And how long will that take ? And how will we keep it going when climate change really hits and instead of part feeding the world, Australia has to import significant amounts of food and there's not a koala or an emu left alive on the continent and GBR is just a white skeleton of what once was home to billions of corals and anenomes and so forth.
And in the meantime, what about the additional infrastructure needed - roads, trains, trams, buses, airports, houses, apartments, schools, hospitals, shopping centres, theatres, pubs, cafes, playing fields, sporting clubs etc etc. Melbourne, for one used to have a plenitude of all that, but no longer. I can't see that Melbourne will be "the world's most livable city" ever again with the rapidly growing traffic jams and very long, and inconvenient, transit times.
So please, just a idea of what it's all about and why we must keep on doing it.
J Winston Howard was fairly cunning with what became - to give it its long title - “An Act about a goods and services tax to implement A New Tax System, and for related purposes “.
ReplyDeleteWe were told it was to ensure that everybody, but EVERYbody, would have to pay some tax, just to live. That was being fair, Koala Bear. Then, in a great show of coming to an accommodation with the fickle Meg Lees, he conceded that some people might be allowed to eat without contributing to Commonwealth revenue with every bite of food. He appeared conciliatory, generous even, and got most of what his business backers wanted. Meg Lees got her picture in the morning papers, after dining at Kirribilli. It was the high point of her otherwise wretched existence.
With all that going on - very few folk noticed (and those who claimed to write on ‘business’ and ‘economics’ in major media did not bring it to their attention) that a wide range of ‘services’ were just never rounded up in the ‘New Tax System’ - being subsets of financial services. But the ‘deserving poor’, and those who chose to live lives not in a state approaching peonage to large corporations, would pay tax. Just see if they don’t.
And yet, and yet - the Dame can claim that many migrants won’t pay any tax at all.
I guess it was too difficult for her to find the site on the internet for ‘ABS’, and to see that, for year 2019-2020, personal income taxes gathered in $231 billion, while GST added another $64 bill.
She would rather continue to worry at the Intergenerational Report, like a dog with a fake bone made of spongy plastic. Which implies that she is thinking in terms of nett tax. In which case, let’s open up a bit more, and consider how the entire tax system - the very old one - encourages a whole range of business entities to accumulate capital assets by deducting all manner of ‘costs’ from their initial tax obligations. As many in the legal and accounting professions have said - often in their retirement - for a wide range of businesses in Australia, paying tax is entirely optional.
But, butt Chad, even before the GST we had sales taxes and some were a bit more than 10% IIRC. Oh, the days before we got organised by that great politician - only the second ever Australian PM to lose his own 'safe seat' in a landslide electoral defeat - John Winston Howard. And aren't we so glad to revere him now.
DeleteAlso glad you recalled Meg Lees, the lady who destroyed the Australian Democrats because, for some completely unfathomable reason, she thought she had political appeal. I notice she didn't make it into Ms Represented and I'm sure Janine Haines would have if only the grim reaper hadn't taken her all too early.