The Grubs, Guns and Gooses Party
Here’s a thought: let’s start a new political party in Australia. Let’s do something for all those political hopefuls who get nominated for election by one of the known parties, then get kicked off the ticket for some indiscretion past or present.
It seems such a waste of talent — talent for the absurd, perhaps — to have these people available and all hyped up to serve their country, only to let them slip into the political waste basket.
Our new, radical party would give automatic membership to every would-be politician dumped by the established parties. This nation-building enterprise should be approached in an open, democratic manner with entry guaranteed, whatever the perceived failings of the candidate.
The organisation should have an all-embracing name like the Idiots, Morons and Knuckleheads Party for racists, bigots, loonies, conspiracy theorists, flat-earthers, air-heads, homophobics, fascists and sleaze merchants. Though the Grubs, Guns and Gooses Party might be snappier.
On current indications it has a big future. It appeals to a large slice of the voting public and could quickly become a challenge to the traditional big-hitters, Labor and the Libs.
We must get cracking if we are to get it under way this election, as we’re only days away from polling. But let there be no panic. All these abandoned candidates are already nominated and on the ballot papers. If you vote for them it’s perfectly valid and legal.
Here are some prospects you may consider for May 18:
Dumped Liberals: Victorian Jeremy Hearn, who believes Muslims are plotting to overthrow democracy in Australia and install sharia law; Jessica Whelan, a Tasmanian, who also has a pronounced down on Muslims; Victorian Peter Killin who is so liberal in his distaste for gay people that he’s given homosexual Liberals colleague Tim Wilson a serve; and most recently, another Victorian, Gurpal Singh, who resigned after criticising a woman who said her husband had raped her, opining that the husband was the real victim. Oh, and he had already conflated same-sex marriage with pedophilia.
Dumped Labor candidates: Victorian Luke Creasey, who made rape jokes and looked at a bit of porn when he was young and silly, then also when he was not so young but seemingly just as silly; Territorian Wayne Kurnorth, who has the interesting notion that a secretive society of Jewish lizards runs the world. (Opposition Leader Bill Shorten made it thoroughly clear what he thought of Luke’s juvenile excuse, snorting: “Stupid is stupid is stupid.”)
There’s no doubting who should head up this talented team. Steve Dickson is a no-brainer. Steve survived being sacked by a distressed Pauline Hanson when he made a goat of himself over guns and racist remarks in his first venture into international affairs. But you can’t keep a good grub down. He raised Pauline’s blood pressure to dangerous levels when it emerged that his good-will tour of America also embraced a visit to a strip club, where Steve displayed his hands-on style in personal relations.
Steve and his team should keep an open mind about other possible recruits to the party. There are some outstanding prospects who should not be ignored just because they haven’t yet been ditched by their parties. Yet.
Brendan Bunyan, a Katter candidate in Queensland, could take over several ministries if Steve ever got to form a Cabinet. Bunyan is anti-Muslim, sexist and racist, and thus would have strong credentials for the Immigration, Women’s Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Arts/Culture portfolios.
Ross Macdonald, the One Nation candidate for the seat of Leichhardt, would also come into contention. His Facebook page reveals a fascination with big boobs and the word “Yummy”. With that background he just might pip Brendan for the Arts/Culture gig.
And let’s not forget Malcolm Roberts, a former senator who had his gig cut short by the High Court and who now, as a true-blue Australian citizen, is head of Hanson’s Senate team for Queensland. Malcolm, who takes pedantry to its irritating zenith, is perhaps the nation’s leading conspiracy theorist on climate change.
Whatever happens on May 18, Steve and his crew shouldn’t be discouraged. There are limitless opportunities ahead. He could call on all Australians of his ilk to form one monstrous party embracing his team, One Nation, Clive Palmer’s gang, Bob Katter’s mob and any stray loose cannon, such as the belligerent Fraser Anning, who would be a moral for Defence when the Three Gs came to power.
Now, there’s a terrifying thought.
UNCLE CURMUDGEON (A gratuitous advice column)
Dear Bill: Don’t get your knickers in a knot over the Daily Tele story about your mother. Of course, you know more about your Mum than they do. You say they’ve hit a new low by publishing the odious beat-up. Don’t fret, Bill: if that’s the best they can do, you’re home and hosed. We assure you they can go much lower than that.
Dear Israel: You’re really good at shooting yourself in the foot, mate. You’re telling us that all “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters” are headed for hell unless they repent. Most Australians would fit into at least one of the categories you mention. At one time I could have ticked five or six boxes. And I can tell you, we all resent being told to repent. Please let us go our sinful way to hell and concentrate on your game. You’re one helluva good footballer and you give a lot of people a lot of pleasure.
Dear Bob & Paul & Julia & Kevin: You remind us of that ground-breaking, mate-swapping movie about the loosening of sexual ties in a marriage — Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. If we rightly remember, each of the four proponents was happy to have an extramarital fling but, after initial grumbles, eventually came to accept equality of opportunity for their partners. They end up hand-in-hand. Curmudgeon congratulates the four of you and urges you to keep up the good work — in a chaste, platonic way, of course.
Little Aussie battlers
The United Nations has issued a report which makes the dire prediction that human beings will kill off a million species of all kinds — mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, plants, marine life, terrestrial life — at an alarming rate unless we wake up to ourselves and do something to protect our planet. It says life on Earth is in peril.
Even if the ecologists are only half-right it’s a grim outlook, one that we must heed unless we accept that we are selfish bastards, unconcerned about our children, their children and so on.
So, it’s mildly heartening to know two of our threatened small creatures are fighting back.
The black-throated finch, a tiny bird, has thrown a spanner in the works of the giant Adani coal mine project in Queensland. A few thousand kilometres away on that land of sorrows past, Christmas Island, the blue-tailed skink is fighting for survival with some human help.
When it comes to sturdy little battlers, Curmudgeon’s mind always turns to Ira Gershwin’s classic lines …
David was small but oh my
David was small but oh my
He shot Goliath
Who lay down and dieth
Little David was small but oh my.
They’re from the Gershwin brothers’ wonderful all-black opera, Porgy and Bess, which argued …
The things that you’re liable
To read in the Bible
Ain’t necessarily so.
The environmental battle over Adani’s Carmichael project is being fought on a biblical scale. Adani has already thrown heaps of money into project without quite getting a starting date.
The green movement is mobilised to fight Adani’s money to the last ditch. Carmichael’s fate might well depend on who wins the Federal election.
If ScoMo gets up he will be under immense pressure from the die-hard Right of his government to get the monster mine under way quick smart.
A Labor victory would demand that Shorten scuttle it. He has campaigned strongly on climate change. He would owe his prime ministership to the young vote, three-quarters of whom see global warming as their overwhelming concern.
Labor’s argument that the development of renewable sources of energy is both feasible and essential was given a momentous boost by the announcement that Britain has just gone seven days without coal-powered electricity generation, using wind, gas and nuclear plants to produce all the energy it needed.
The case of the blue-tailed skink on Christmas Island is mysterious. The skink disappeared almost overnight about 10 years ago. National Park staff scurried to collect 86 little skinks from the rain-forest floor before wipe-out. Kent Retallick, a senior reptile keeper, said the decline was so dramatic they would have lost the species if they hadn’t taken swift action.
They’ve have bred 1,600 of the little lizards in captivity and will release them when the time seems right.
The Christmas Island rescue demonstrates that near-extinction can be undone by willing environmentalists. But it also highlights how difficult it will be to counter the massacre of so many species.
Saving any species hinges on the ability of people to take an overview of the world. It’s just too easy to say to yourself: “Oh, it’s just a worm, or a skink, or a mushroom. There are plenty of worms, skinks and mushrooms left.”
Say that to ourselves often enough and suddenly we are fresh out of W, S and Ms. But it ain’t necessarily so!
IT’S A JOY! OR IS IT?
You’ve got to give it to the Poms: they sure know how do nostalgia and stoic indifference to reality, fiddling as the ship goes down.
Their nation is facing existential failure — it’s called Brexit. The union of four small countries into the United Kingdom, achieved over several centuries, is facing disintegration. It is likely to fall apart, either gradually or spectacularly once it stands alone and friendless, the odd one out, in Europe.
Yet it blows the trumpet, cracks open the champagne, rings the bells when a woman named Meghan Markle gives birth to a baby boy. Never mind that none of them had heard of Ms Markle three years ago, that she is an American who would have been flat out getting noticed in the birth notices in her former life; she is now a duchess, so these escapees from reality gather in force outside Windsor Castle in their funny hats, badge-heavy coats, wearing their vacant smiles, gibbering on about how nice it all is, And how lovely to see that happy father (Prince Harry) also jabbering in the wide-eyed, idiotic way of new dads, “It’s a boy.”
Now Curmudgeon has no quarrel with Meghan, who seems rather sweet, or Harry, who has breathed fresh life into the Windsors, but isn’t it time to call a halt to this royal farce?
The truth is that the Brits are living in a time bubble of their own making; they may have watched too many old war movies — The Dam Busters, or Reach for the Sky — or recounted once too often the heroics of Captain Lawrence Oates in the Antarctic when he sacrificed himself to save his comrades. Oates, you might recall, stepped from the British expedition’s tent into a blizzard, murmuring: “I’m just going outside, I may be some time.” The sort of thing, that’s terribly-terribly British, where a stiff upper lip is what matters, win, lose or draw.
And, while we’re at it, let’s have an honest look at the newspapers which made this natal event front-page news. Paper after paper in our capital cities came up with that tired old headline “IT’S A BOY!” … as they did when Prince Harry was born, and as his brother William arrived.
If they have to be saccharin sweet, why not IT’S A JOY!
What’s in a name?
Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. What do we make of this? Well, first up, we give thanks that it’s not another George, Henry, Richard, Edward or any of the traditional kingly monikers usually foisted on a royal baby boy. Once again Meghan and Harry are refusing to be tied to tradition.
Breaking the name down to its component parts, we have Archie, a comic book character; Harrison, perhaps a tribute to Harrison Ford, the Hollywood star of Star Wars and the prototype of other tough guy heroes of the silver screen; Mountbatten, a nod to the Queen’s consort, the independently minded Lord Mountbatten, who has made a career of ignoring political correctness; and Windsor, the family name the royals adopted years ago to hide their German Battenberg roots, of which Mountbatten is a literal translation.
In a brief public airing of the newborn, Meghan gushed: “It’s magic, it’s pretty amazing, I have the two best guys in the world, so I’m really happy.” Curmudgeon is pleased for her and Harry. We’re even more pleased that the kid has been tucked away in cold storage, hidden from any further displays of flummery.
We hope young Archie remains in happy obscurity until his 18th birthday.
