The Concatenate

Allow me a momentary whinge.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is playing with a very straight bat at the moment and pointing out that John Howard is still the Prime Minister until the GG waves his magic wand.

That’s fine, so where do we go to get our new online revolutionary PM’s media? Well the PM’s site directs us to the content free Kevin07 zone.

Which means we’re having to rely on the SMH for the news.

AND HOLY MOLY WHAT A WRECKING BALL HE’S LOBBED AT JULIA!

I mean when you’ve got an ambitious and popular deputy it’s important to keep them in line and the best way to do that is not to be seen to be doing it.

So making her the Minister for Arts, Sport and Territories probably wasn’t going to be a good move.

Instead, Oh My, instead he’s loaded so much on her plate that it seems certain she’ll fail and bog down the hardest parts of his policy platform until after next election.

Julia is going to have to shoulder the Deputy Leadership, Education, Employment and IR. She’s going to have to manage merging departments as a novice minister while trying to direct the two broadest policy agenda areas of an incoming government.

Don’t tear up your AWA just yet, it’s going to take a while for the dust to settle on this mess.

It’s lucky she doesn’t have any kids.

Newsradio is reporting that the first part of our anticipated Dalek Liberal Diarchy, Brendan Nelson, has been given the nod to lead the Liberal Party.

Who’d have thought the Liberal backbench lacked the guts to take a chance on Turnbull?

(You have only to ask the question to see the answer).

Now if Chris Pyne can just get up it’ll seriously be time to EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

UPDATED: No luck with the Dalek, instead we got Chancellor Palpatine! (That would be Julie Bishop for Deputy Leader)

[Chancellor Palpatine]

“In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the First Galactic Empire! For a safe, and secure, society.”

[Julie Bishop]

Maybe Brendan’s voice was a droid, and not a Dalek after all??

You may have noticed recently there has been a lot of talk about the election – perhaps even more now the whole thing’s over.

However, there has not been all that much talk about the Senate and there was even less before polling day.

Unlike 95 per cent of Australians, I feel obliged to vote below the line in the Senate, if only to actually get MY choice of preferences rather than who some party thinks I might like to vote for.

Previously I have voted in the ACT where, with only about 16 candidates standing, this task is not too strenuous. Also, the Canberra Times used to profile each of the Senate candidates, the same way they did the House of Representative ones.

This year I voted in NSW where there was 79 candidates.

Quite apart from having to keep track of where your vote is up to, it turned out that with that many people vying for my number 1, I had no idea who most of them were.

In fact, I’d only heard of less than half of the 20 or so groups in my ballot paper and only a vague idea of what anyone other than Liberal, Labor, Greens, Democrats, CDP and One Nation stood for (and I’m not certain I even know what One Nation really stands for any more).

I read the Sydney metros, the Australian and my local daily, the Illawarra Mercury, every day and there was no discussion before the election of who the Senate candidates were, let alone which parties were fielding candidates.

The only parties I heard from regularly via my office’s generic press release email address promoting their Senate candidates were the CDP (with the well-branded Paul Green, who is also a relative local), Family First (though they never returned phone calls or emails) and either One Nation or the Pauline party (I didn’t quite work out which was which).

While the Senate may not be as exciting since it doesn’t contribute to who forms government, we have seen in the past few years just how important its makeup can be and how having a decent number of minor party or independent Senators can be vital to the big parties not just getting every single thing they want.

It seems to me that the current voting system favours the major parties and if the media does not play its role in creating informed citizens, this major party bias in increased tenfold since people will probably not vote for someone they’ve never heard of.

I think the below the line voting should be changed to make it easier and to encourage people to think for themselves a bit more. Perhaps you could say you have to number at least 15 candidates in order and then it’s up to you how far you go on after this. Surely that would give enough data to be able to get six seats and not put people off by saying you to write 1 to 23,584,932 in order on this bit of paper (and then wrestle into a small enough shape to fit in the ballot box…)

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News from the Liberal leadership stoush suggests that Brendan Nelson is looking very strong for leader and the former teenage toecutter, Chris Pyne is mounting a strong bid to be deputy leader.

The only man who can lead the Liberals back into power in 2010 is Malcolm Turnbull. I’m not saying he will, I’m saying he can, and in that he is unique.

However Malcolm is a hard man to like whereas Brendan is a tireless networker, heck he even pretended to pay attention to *MY* name the last time we briefly met.

He’s also got a peculiarly metallic sounding voice. You might have thought that was just the recording equipment last time you heard him speak on the telly or the radio, but trust me he sounds like a bad intercom when he’s three feet away.

Chris Pyne’s hysterics on matters of public health are the stuff of Concat legend but it’s his clipped and shrill delivery which really makes him a star.

In fact I reckon they both sound like the legendary Daleks.

What better way for the Liberals to present their one track xenophobic agenda than with the voices of the greatest TV villains of all time?

Kerces and I both confessed that when we got into the polling booth we couldn’t resist voting for “None, of the above” which appeared on our Gilmore ballot thanks to the man formerly known as Geoff Richardson who went all the way to a deed poll to give us what we want on a ballot paper.

Amusingly it turns out that the returns for our polling place only record two votes for him in our little town.

So there we are, our votes recorded and presented for all to see. They counted, but changed nothing.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

It’s rare that the day after an election rivals the day before for news value.

The ABC informs us that The Australian’s Matt Price has succumbed to brain tumours today, having just held on long enough to see the end of the Howard Government.

Just 45 years, but he lived them pretty large.

The astronomical hangovers in the Press Gallery just got a lot darker.

Well I might have got the election result badly wrong but last night I did predict Costello wasn’t much hope of leading the Libs despite everything Downer and Howard had to say on the matter.

The SMH now reports that he’s packing up his bat and ball and going home. What sort of career in business he hopes to have given the non-existent value of Liberal Party connections across the nation will be interesting to see.

His political career effectively terminated 12 years ago when he lacked the ticker to run for the Liberal leadership. The headless chook just kept on running longer than most.

Well it’s a big congratulations to the Labor team as they head to a handsome victory.

We say goodbye to a Government populated by some very disturbing characters and can only dream that the ALP will prove better. Certainly they are better intentioned, let’s trust they aren’t paving the road to hell.

Watching the results come in I have to wonder if the Liberal decision to go so negative in such a buoyant economic climate wasn’t a ghastly mistake (with the wisdom of hindsight).

Julia on the ABC alluded to the mixed message of “things are great” and “watch out for trouble ahead”.

Sadly the future holds content free election campaigns with actual candidates for seats an afterthought.

On the plus side negativism has had a major setback.

And for a pundit the result is wonderful, Mr Toad’s Wild Ride here we come!

As for the Liberal leadership. Costello is now damaged goods with large sections of the party sure to blame his handover process for the loss. Mal Brough will be lucky to hold his seat and Tony Abbott has done nothing to improve his chances.

Step forward Malcolm Turnbull.

Google News has good wrap of the global media firestorm caused by very senior Liberals handing out fake Muslim pamphlets extolling the virtues of the ALP’s terrorism loving ways.

Outgoing MP for Lindsay, Jackie Kelly, has even gone so far as to try and say the leafleteers, including her husband Gary Clark, were just indulging in a Chaser style lark after a few beers.

Because after a hard day’s work and a few beers I know I mass produce leaflets and hit the street to hand them out.

Frankly I don’t believe that an MP’s spouse and Jeff Egan, a member of the Liberal’s NSW State executive were acting in this way alone.

The interesting thing is that if this was planned the media are, right now, doing what was intended.

In every bulletin there’s “blah blah politics blah counterclaim blah LABOR SUPPORTS TERRORISTS”.

They’ll be arguing about the impact of this one for years.

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As Las Vegas’ solitary contribution to rock and roll The Killers are everything we’d expect.

They’re a solid, but not spectacular, band wrapped in musical glitter, fired out of a cannon over an impoding skyscraper with 100,000 drunks cheering in the new year.

And this new album of B-sides and rarities mostly strips back all the bling and leaves you with a merely adequate band.

Brandon Flowers’ voice, at its best, has an edge, a tremour. It screams out panic and desperation. It’s a quality he shares with Robert Smith of the Cure.

The album’s new song “Tranquilize” which opens proceedings is a corking classic Killers track with lines like “I got this feeling that they‘re gonna break down the door / I got this feeling they they’re gonna come back for more / See I was thinking that I lost my mind”

[Tranquilize Lyrics]

The video is also well worth checking out for Lou Reed’s eery performance.

But after opening with a song that could have been a hit single on a main release they’re off on a weirder frolic with covers of Dire Straits, Joy Division, and Kenny Rogers, to say nothing of various remixes and reworkings of popular Killers songs.

(The only big Killers songs not getting the works are “Somebody told me” and “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine”, possibly to avoid the exercise turning into a best of)

The strange thing is that while the stripped down and re-worked versions of their hits give every sense of striving to add credibility they serve only to highlight the mere adequacy of one of the world’s great bands (when playing at full tilt).

When Flowers is singing fast the narrative of his songs is like the hungover fragments of a hard night out on the tiles.

Slowed down and stripped back we’re left wondering what the point was (quite a lot like a night in a noisy club drinking red bull and gin really).

For the merely curious Sam’s Town remains the one Killers album you need to own.

This is strictly one for the fans (aside from Tranquilize which is one for the books and well worth the $1.69 on iTunes).

Three and a half stars.

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Well in a first for me I’ve registered with centrebet and put $100 on the coalition which will pay out $450 if I’m as right as I think I am.

On the day I plan to vote for the local Labor candidate because I like him personally. But I don’t think he’s had enough time to build the profile he needs to beat Jo Gash (who is also very likeable).

Spread incumbency over the 16 seats Labor needs to win and combine the usual undercount of conservative votes in polling and that’s why I’m betting the result will go against my vote.

As for the Senate watch for the CDP’s Paul Green in NSW. He’s unusually likeable and very young for the Christian Democrats. If you haven’t heard about him it’s because you don’t hang out at the happy clappy churches springing up like mushrooms where, trust me, he’s got a big profile.

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He’s gained national notoriety by comparing Muslim immigration to bird flu.

As luck would have it I actually spoke to him at a dinner not long afterwards.

I was very curious as to why he was opposed to Muslim immigration when the Muslim community is almost unique in agreeing with the CDP’s social policies on everything else.

Anti drugs and alcohol, anti homosexual, pro family, anti contraception.

So why not unite with them to crush the rest of us louche decadent wastrels? (I asked in not quite as many words)

“Because they don’t believe in the resurrection of Christ” he said. (I kid you not).

Australia’s environmental footprint is certainly going to be well reduced if he gets his way and drives out everyone failing that test (including a fair number of priests in my experience).

So, lovely bloke that he is, Paul won’t be getting much of a vote from me as I laboriously number my tablecloth Senate ballot.

The Age is reporting that 27 miners are trapped deep underground after a cave-in at Lihir Gold’s Ballarat Goldfields mine near Sovereign Hill.

It’s sounding on initial reports as if it’s a relatively minor incident with high hopes all 27 will be rescued shortly.

But there’s certainly a fair chance this could be the ALP’s Tampa, especially if miners start grumbling about safety under WorkChoices.

UPDATED: Well a three hour rescue was not enough to de-rail the whole election and the safety precautions working well has largely defused the story.

It’s nearly over!

The strange thing is that while we’re presented with two quite atrocious choices from the major parties there are serious upsides.

If the Liberals lose then we’re shot of a tired Government increasingly riddled by power hungry hacks and ever stranger loonies from the religious right.

And if the Liberals do lose we can be sure it will be decades before anyone listens to business groups like the ACCI. They got John Howard into this mess with their push to strip worker entitlements and rights. We can be sure his successors in the Liberal Party do not forget it.

On the other hand if Labor loses we’ll probably be rid off the odious small target strategy.

Politicians without ideology are simply power seekers and should be excluded from it wherever possible. (In this case both sides of politics are equally afflicted which is why I recommend fully exercising your preferences and putting the major parties near last).

At the moment the same journalists who predicted a Mark Latham win are happily dancing on the grave of the Coalition, as they have done every three years since 1996, or possibly since Menzies founded the Liberal Party in 1943.

Out here in the somewhat marginal seat of Gilmore we’re watching a very good ALP candidate facing a beating for a lack of support by the party.

While the Liberals are pumping a minister into the electorate every fortnight to sing the virtues of Jo Gash we’re yet to see any Labor front benchers darken our doorsteps.

In metropolitan electorates, where Labor is strongest, this might not make much of a difference, but in regional (not to be confused with rural) areas a big name from out of town gets the message on the front page and leading the bulletins.

Word on the street runs along the lines of “I’m sick of John Howard and I like Kevin Rudd but I’m voting for [the Liberal] Jo Gash.”

The problem with Kevin’s strategy is that he’s only appearing on the ballot paper for the seat of Griffith and while he will no doubt win a swag of seats The Kevin Show is going to struggle in a lot of places he needs to win Government, for lack of properly supported candidates.

As always John Howard isn’t pitching his messages at the chattering classes who deride (as they always have) his campaign. The Liberals aren’t trying to win seats, they’re trying to hold onto enough. It’s important to bear than in mind as we try and make sense of the coming week.

For mine the war on drugs became a farce in my early twenties when I came into contact with a large body of people who I respected greatly, who got up every morning and worked hard for their wages, and who took staggering volumes of drugs in their own time because they liked them.

But the farce that chemicals have inherent morality rumbles on among the fearful and ignorant despite the widespread medication of school children with amphetamines commanding hefty street values.

Just the other day while doing some research I came across this passage in the wikipedia’s entry about water:

Water may also be chemically induced into the bloodstream to give a slowed-down feeling that many ruffians from the south-Canadian border enjoy thoroughly.

And then we have the recent Bindeez furore where a batch of kiddies suspected of taking hardcore party drugs were found instead to have been guzzling modelling beads with a dodgy Chinese substitute chemical forming an array of exciting drugs in the stomach.

So what makes these *evil* drugs? Some of them just grow in the ground, some are the result of time honoured water purification methods, some are just a method of using water, some of them are children’s toys, most of the rest are chemical processes so simple they can be done in garden sheds by the dregs of society.

I particularly loved the claims of a minister that a black market in Bindeez would be bizarre when her own laws have created the massive and widespread black market in psychotropics.

Getting tough on people who cause harm to others sounds like a great idea, without excuses.

Ruining the lives of otherwise decent people causing no harm to anyone seems like bad policy, but where fear, ignorance, and good old beating up of anyone a bit different is involved it seems to be vote winner.

Anyone want to explain any benefit from ongoing drug prohibition other than encouraging lawlessness and keeping corrupt police in business?