And so this is Christmas and what have our politicians done? More importantly, have they been naughty or nice?
It’s probably more of a northern hemisphere cultural contrivance that those who have been naughty are destined to receive only a lump of coal for their dastardly deeds in the preceding 364 days.
Down in the southern hemisphere a lump of coal is the only thing Scott Morrison wants for Christmas. In fact, he wants more than one and what Santa can’t provide, he’s hoping Adani can. The downside is it might cost the rest of us a billion dollars and counting. Scott needs some coal for props in the parliament and others to use as paperweights in his office. He will continue to do so until the black lung kicks in.
Santas take many forms. Even in Australia, Santas vary from outrageously jolly with luxurious thick beards to those wearing crappy polyester bristles with the elastic showing, a cushion wedged up their guts and smelling vaguely of alcohol.
In Japan, where just 1 per cent of the population is Christian, they love santa-san and they think he flies down from the moon every year to hand out gifts, which probably makes more sense than the North Pole.
A solid argument could be made that our federal MPs already have their own type of Santa who flies down on his sled from Beijing. This Santa comes in the form of generous businessmen bearing party donations. The really good thing is he comes more than once a year. In fact, pretty much whenever he likes.
My favourite of all Santas is the Amish type, Belsnickel. Belsnickel is a bad-tempered version of Santa. Dressed in rags, he turns up at your home uninvited, bangs on the front door and demands to know if children have been “impish or admirable”. Like George Christensen he carries a whip but unlike George Christensen, he is not afraid to use it.
I’ve always thought our Santa was too soft. Sure he can terrify very small kids by his sheer size and through the shocking ghastliness of his lurid outfit, but the rest of us can sidle up, leap into his lap and make demands without fear of rejection. Our Santa has to listen. Belsnickel, who looks like and really is a kind of an angry, old homeless guy, does all the talking.
So Belsnickel it is for our federal parliamentarians and have they been impish or admirable?
I’ve been checking the list and I’ve been checking it more than once.
For reasons of space, not every MP getting a gift is listed here because let’s face it, most of them aren’t that interesting.
Sam Dastyari: A job.
Tony Abbott: A job and some dignity.
Malcolm Turnbull: What do you give the amorphous blob that has everything? An endoskeleton, of course.
Bill Shorten: He’s not sure but he’s put in a call to the CFMEU to see what they’d want him to have.
Julie Bishop: She does not want Malcolm’s job. He’s performing well under great difficulty. No, she is quite satisfied with being deputy and foreign minister. Really. Wait. How many Newspolls was that again?
Bob Katter: How can we celebrate Christmas when every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in north Queensland?
Pauline Hanson: Just a card, thanks. In fact, lots of cards. Maybe give James Ashby’s printing business a bell?
Kevin Andrews: I hate to be critical of a person’s appearance but let’s be honest about Kevin. The man looks like Fine Cotton on race day. For Christmas he needs a professional colouring job on that bonce of his. Maybe some blonde tips. Maybe the full Milo.
Adam Bandt: A vegan turkey with all the organic trimmings washed down with lashings of decocoanated cocoa.
George Christensen: Malcolm Turnbull’s head on a stake or he’ll resign. He means it this time. He’s not kidding around anymore.
David Feeney: A real estate portfolio, a map and a passport.
Barnaby Joyce: The Deputy PM’s list didn’t pass the High Court. The good news is he makes a perfect Christmas decoration. Just stand him right next to the tree. No batteries required.
Eric Abetz: A 1962 desk calendar for the Tasmanian senator’s desk. It won’t actually be 1962 but he can close his eyes and pretend. Ah, the good old days.
Cory Bernardi: Nothing. The Liberal Party is his gift and it keeps on giving.
Belsnickel is coming, folks, and unlike Santa, he does not mess around.
This article was published in The Australian 15 December 2017
Tim Xu – who was in the room during that fateful bugged meeting with Sam Dastyari – was recently pictured handing out how-to-vote cards in Bennelong for the Liberal Party’s John Alexander. How odd.
Mistaken identity Dismayed – don’t forget they all look the same
Only to baby boomers. Xers and on are much more “enlightened.”
You mean their brains are lightened? Less cells?
yep, thumb print ID cards here TV.
The yellow peril , I remember those bastards mate because Bob Menzies told us kids all about them .
And reds under the bed Bill.
While begging them to buy our wheat?
Razor says: December 17, 2017 at 9:34 pm. Seriously man you are off the planet. Every bit a data shows the adani scam to be an expensive white elephant. There are more jobs in Renewable projects in QLD at the moment than Fossil fuels. Some idiots up in QLD still want to build more coal fired generation even though once again every piece of data shows that will actually send prices UP. Domestic solar alone will provide more power than any new coal fired plants in the next 10 years. 2 of your coal fired plants only run at 40% anyway mainly due to mechanical failures when stressed. AEMO have already stated the biggest threat to power this year is failing coal fired plants. Last week over a THIIRD of the nations coal fired plants were BROKEN down. Wake up to yourself man you are embarrassing yourself. No surprises.
Where are the non construction jobs?
Some people up here in Qld are having an oilfield reunion at Jondaryan woolshed next year in March. Why don’t you come along? That would be interesting.
I’d love to see the result Mack!
Drillers only?
Here you go Trivalve it looks lie all are welcome. Been a while since I worked onshore. There is a good Well Control school in Toowoomba though.
https://www.jondaryanwoolshed.com.au/events/oilpatch-reunion-2018
Hmm. Scouted a seismic line past the woolshed a couple of years back, just a test line. We picked a different location but don’t tell Alan Jones about it.
Nope, you’d be invited Trivalve, oilfield trash are oilfield trash!
Info on the link says all welcome.
https://www.jondaryanwoolshed.com.au/events/oilpatch-reunion-2018
Reckon there will be plenty of drilling going on in the bar!
More wells drilled in the bars than known to mankind. Mostly by roughnecks or cementers who have never touched a brake.
Sounds boring.
MTK, really? Why? so I can continue to school all you Qlder’s? HAHAHA. do you seriously think out of the potentially hundreds of people that may show up you could pick me out? Then again I would be one of the few not carrying an extra 20kg or so. HAHAHAHAHA.
On the contrary. I think it would be easy to pick you out
After about 15 minutes Boa just look for the fool everyone wants to punch in the head.
Huh! You fishing for an invite Boady?
Here ya go.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=hot+oil+rig+workers&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjft6Cx9JrYAhWLWrwKHcUtDKgQsAQIKA&biw=1366&bih=623
Just to bide you over.
How presumptuous of you my dear boy, why on earth would I want to pick you out?
Although if you do go, at least wear a t-shirt with “I’m Dismayed” printed on the front so I can spot you 100m away, and give you a wide berth. Oh, and on the back have printed “QLD SUCKS BIGTIME” That will ensure lots of friendly inquisitive locals will want to meet you and engage you in spirited conversation at the bar. Merry Xmas.
I still have my old rig pig t-shirt and another that says rigs are the life
dope comes in 50 pound buckets,
joints are 30ft long,
your boss is a pusher and
you are guaranteed a trip a week.
Drop in at the Jondaryan pub while you’re there Mack. The bloke that runs it is an ex Qld state of origin player from the ’95 series which we won 3-0.
Just 20 kilos. What! I didn’t hear about the famine in Queensland.
So where are all the cons complaining about Education cuts? Last week when WA followed on with Barnett’s funding changes you were all screaming. Now silence? Hypocrites. No Surprises. Now I know why the last time we had coalition in SA we got a one way freeway, FFS A one way freeway for all your one way traffic. It took a labor government to duplicate the road. No surprises.
As someone who you consider a Con I don’t remember screaming about WA funding cuts. I actually do not recall anyone ‘screaming’ about them last week. I may have missed them of course, particularly if you were commenting.
Razor short term memory loss or your selective memory is No Surprise from you. I see you are congratulating hillsong Morrison for taking debt to 19.2% of GDP. The PEFO at the time of the 2013 election stated debt under Labor’s setting would peak at 13% of GDP thn drop . Net debt under labor during their last year grew at $500 million a month. Net Debt under your cons has risen at $3.5 Billion per month. A massive difference. Spending under the last 3 years of Labor was 24% of GDP Spending under your cons coalition has been above 25.5% of GDP since they took government. I know you struggle with the basics but FFS man open your eye.
And the screaming about the WA education funding cuts? Or was that just a blatant lie?
School of the air all you cons were pissing and moaning because the WA Labor party are going ahead with the funding changes put in place by Barnett’s coalition. Next week I will remind you about what you said this week. No Surprises. HAHAHAA
No. Could you refer me to my comments please from last week.
It is so nice living here in Penang where there is a large population of British expats. The amount of times my husband has said to friends of ours over the past few days “ wanna talk cricket” is getting embarrassing.
I have two very British cricket loving colleagues at work Penny. I know you hubby’s glee!
I know what you’re saying Razor, but I think it must be a guy thing. Women are much more mature about things like that…lol
It is a boy thing Penny. That’s why we need more women running the world. We might be half a chance then. Testosterone gets in the way of so much clear thinking.
Well, well, well this is interesting. Why would they be doing this I wonder?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/getup-contradicts-itself-on-foreign-donations-ban/news-story/6fe4b8751518f86061c87562ff38bdb0
Instead of wondering why don’t you just read it, or source report where they explain precisely why they don’t support the proposal in it’s present form?
I did and again it shows their duplicity.
How?
The sooner George Soros leaves this life the better.
Charming.
From Get Up to G. Soros and you hoping he dies? Get off the XXXX it has rotted whatever deluded grey matter you ever had. No Surprises.
Far be it for me to convey bad news, Mr Insider, but a Barry Crocker is a Barry Crocker and PM Turnbull has recorded another! Yes No25 consecutive negative Newspoll has just rolled around. He is now just 5 away from the “Champeen” the lately very silent ex ousted PM Tony Abbott. Turnbull is now right on the “bumper” of Abbott and choking in his “exhaust fumes”.
https://tinyurl.com/y7pf6lvu
And vat ve have here students is der classic example of zer Pavlovian response to an external stimulus. Once zer pattern is established the subject will respond in precisely zer same manner each time in zer expectation of a reward which is not coming.
Bless you dear Mr Baptiste where would this blog be without your insight on every subject. See my email to NASA above dear lad requesting the info you want. Cheers may 2018 be a top year for you
Thanks Henry, you are too kind. No you’re not. Just a tip though in order that you might further enhance your otherwise very entertaining repartee, I have chosen as you see to regard that as a direct question, you may have meant it to be a rhetorical question, but in either case it should finish with a question mark or in the case of a rhetorical question an exclamation mark will do, and the latter may even be more effective than a question mark for the purpose.
Cheers old boy, I do hope NASA doesn’t feel too much pressure in light of your email.
Don’t set your hopes on a position that involves your proximity to an electrical switch , buttons or levers of any kind.
Looks like England are better off making less than 400 in their first innings in overseas Tests. They’ve lost by an innings the last three times in the space of a calendar year doing so.
They might as well incorporate that as a strategy.
Curious. Must be the bowlers.
Could be something in it tho. Of course the Captain would like a right dill declaring at 2/390 and still losing.
Razor says:
DECEMBER 18, 2017 AT 3:23 PM
Are you have a joke with us all Raze? I don’t know what Morrison is crowing about because much of his budget improvement is to do with the iron ore price and cutting $2.1billion from universities…oh and of course the usual Looter high taxes. Each $US1 a tonne change in the iron ore price is worth about $1.7 billion to the budget bottom line. Iron ore is now tracking some $US10 to $US15 a tonne above budget time estimates. Lucky man!
Morrison is also getting close to being one of the highest taxing governments on record. Tax to GDP: 2012-13 21.4% (Labor) 2020-21 23.8% (Liberal) Only 5 years in history has the tax to GDP ratio been above 23.8% and all under the Looters!!
Morrison further embarrasses himself by adding we are “Turning the debt ship around”. Must be the Titanic…$273billion when they took office…heading for $720billion gross according to his figures. Adults my arse!Morrison delivered his first budget in 2016, the deficit forecast for 2018-19 was $15.5 billion. Today it’s $20.5 billion according to Morrison’s own numbers released today.
BRADMAN:-DONE! It wasn’t the ball of the 21st Century coz it hit a crack. He had divine help.
Although he’s having a day in the sun this week, I get the impression that Morrison is the least visible treasurer since Noah was a pup. Wonder if he’ll get shifted today?
God you’re easy to hook Bassy. You don’t even smell the bait just go right in there and gobble it up.
Cheers and merry Xmas mate.
Love your work….just stating the facts…stick with the data.
The $2.1billion cut in funding for higher education by Morrison is disappointing. The Looters have never seen education as an investment in our future unless it is for one of their own little rich kidz. The amazing thing is they received most of their degrees per courtesy of Gough for free! Compare the Looters with New Zealand where they are doing a Gough on university education. The money is there…I am sickened by that superfluous ad that keep coming on during the cricket about the Looters spending $200billion on war toys that will not arrive for 30 years-how about some nation building stuff please. According to OECD figures, we rate 32nd out of 37 developed countries in terms of our expenditure in this area. As one of the richest countries in the world, this is pathetic but reflects Sloppy Joe Hockey’s statement on 4th November 2014 when he said
“We’ll find any way we can to take money out of universities”.
God you go on with some nonsense at times, Bassman. Menzies established “free” education for those with the smarts and no money. That’s how Les Murray went to uni with a gifted cohort. Alas it took a while for him to finish it (later on). And it was a labor govt that put an end to it. All that they have to offer now is “free” food and lodgings in detention centres (that Keating introduced).
Personally I think a good number of people are wasting their time and becoming indebted on courses that will neither enlighten or employ them. Artisans and apprentices are what we need more of. And I think Keating put a stop to some of those apprenticeships and other tyoe of education besides Uni.
What rot. The number of people who qualified for a Commonwealth scholarship compared with those who were eligible under Gough’s education reforms are infinitesimal. I could not get a C. Scholarship but I got 2 degrees via Gough. You don’t get it. The Looters don’t want kids of workers in the universities, they’d like it to be as it was before the sixties, an exclusive preserve for kids of the wealthy helping to keep the professions free of working class kids.
That is just class warfare rot Bassy. Heaps of Federal Coalition politicians today are from working class backgrounds.
Class warfare! Ripper, where, when?
Crap Bassy!
I got one – and was from a very working class family.
I think there were about 3 others in a class of 20.
Many went through on a Teachers Fellowship which of course committed them to a time teaching.
While I was serving in the class war.
Les Murray? Is that the sum total of your disaffection Milton? You are technically correct about Menzies. Gough got rid of the scholarship requirement. At this point, I’m not too worried about the history. I’d like to see state and federal governments support universities and TAFE better. It’s appalling what they have done and continue to do.
Not disaffection, merely providing an example of a known identity (Poet not commentator) who received tertiary education via Menzie’s scholarship, who contrary to Bassman’s reply was from working and definitely not wealthy stock. Bassman seems to have a chip on his shoulder re this as he didn’t get the scholarship.
Milton=Delusional. The cuts to apprentices under the coalition in the last 5 years have been drastic. Man open your eye. Seriously how do you make it out of your front yard. The rubbish you come up with is reason enough to increase education funding. It is clear comprehension is something you never quite got.
You sound like you’re afraid to leave your bedroom, poor dismayed what with all yourselective cut and pasted doom and gloom. A shame that all ewe lefty sheeple have been brainwashed by ideological dogma and are consumed by fear, loathing and paranoia. Walk tall and look the world right in the eye…
No need to reply old son, Jean Baptiste has your behind.
Milton=Delusional. you like most cons have short term memory loss. I have spent more of the past 25years outside of the country than in it. Have had a pretty good go at “look the world right in the eye…” You are projecting exactly what is wrong with you and most cons. What you term “Doom and Gloom” is the reflection of the worst government this nation has seen the coalition you blindly support. Wake up to yourself. Each and every comment you make highlights the what is wrong with the country and why continued cuts to education area bad idea. You have obviously lost the ability to learn if you ever had which is most unlikely.. No Surprises.
Actually the reduction in the last 5 yrs can be partly attributed to young people not wanting certain apprenticeships. University is all the rage, trades and TAFE are very much looked down upon.
Right and the funding cuts has nothing to do with it. FFS you talk a lot of rubbish. Open your eye.
Apprenticeship numbers are falling because the nature of trade work has changed. I have just bought a retirement house, and the frame was rivetted together by labourers. The frames were pressed from galv steel in a factory and delivered on a truck. No chippies required. Try and find an auto-electrician. They are as scarce as hen’s teeth. Wiring looms are laid up by machines in factories and simply plug into the car electrics. If part of the loom fails, ditch it and buy a new one. It’s cheaper than tracing the fault and repairing the old one. Lights don’t have bulbs. Bricks are laid by machines, or walls are erected in cast concrete panels. Cabinetmakers are machines now. A design is entered into a computer and a piece of furniture rolls out the factory door.
Cars are 90% assembled by robots from throw away components. No-one repairs a torque converter. If they fail they are junked and a new one installed. Cylinder heads are now throw away parts. Crack detecting and welding has gone. Brake rotors are not machined because the thickness variation interferes with anti skid brakes. Soon cars will not have engines but electric motors. They will drive themselves, and diagnose themselves.
The car killed off saddlers and coachbuilders and wheelwrights. Technology is killing off many of the trades that are left. I employed many apprentices over the years but stopped when I could no longer see a future for motor mechanics.
The first time I tuned a car with a laptop, I made a decision not to apprentice any more youngsters into a trade that is vanishing. Advancing technology is killing off trades, not government policy.
aaahhh…breathe deep the aroma of facts..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4SSvVbhLw
“They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical
thinking.” How true JB.
I think the Teachers Union have a lot to answer for, same with the ridiculous incursion of post modernism into our education stream – top down. And whilst postmodernism is a French thing, the French take education seriously and ensure their students can walk before they run. The “stars” of postmodernism, including critical literacy, were extremely well educated people(mainly men), Lyotard, Baudrillard etc, and they, and the French system had no intention of dumbing down the basics, awarding those that fail and so on.
btw George Carlin made a mozza exploiting the very people and in the system he ridiculed. Good on him, who doesn’t like a rich hypocrite?!
Don’t know that I agree with you there Milton. I taught quite a lot of undergraduate students in Morocco who were a product of the French system. They were taught by rote and had to be persuaded that having an opinion and disagreeing with the professeur (politely of course) was an OK thing to do. The teachers unions in Australia, although reasonably powerful, don’t decide on curriculum either and teachers are looked after waaay better than they are in the US. There’s a lot I disagree with about education in Australia, but there’s an awful lot I do agree with and the fact that students in University really do have a sound knowledge of the basics makes them a lot easier to work with.
Merry Christmas Milton and I look forward to sparring with you next year.
The Teachers Union determine education policy?
It’s interesting how you selectively use the term “exploiting” when it suits you.
Carlin earned his money by providing a service part of which examined and explained the true nature of a system loaded heavily in favour of the establishment that deliberately and persistently hoodwinks and exploits the labour ordinary working people.
That’s an honourable occupation, and earns it’s reward.
Your comment does however have great value in underlining the paucity of instruction in critical thinking in the system.
And the same to you and your crew Penny. Could 2018 be any worse, politically speaking? Let’s hope so!!!
Quite so Bella. And it’s working. I’ve always been suspicious that teaching tiny children to believe in Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, The Sky Fairy etc etc is a dirty capitalist plot to set them up for a life of believing whatever load of bollocks they are told.
Give ’em heaps.
Yep you might be right.
Right now I just see Christmas as a bad habit we’ve been willingly or unwillingly subjected to prop up consumerism. 😝 Over it.
Hear Hear JB Hear hear, Hear.
Looks like the adults have changed the budget situation around with Moodies particularly effusive in their praise. A great result after the profligate spending of the RGR years.
Delusional. Spending still above 25.2% of GDP. Resources prices have already come off where they were. By the time of the budget these numbers will look ass delusional as your comments are. this coalition government have done nothing but lift the rate of debt above anything labor ever did. Open your eye.
Unemployment down. SSM in. Shanghai Sam consigned to History’s dustbin. Ructions in Labor regarding electricity Bill. Pretty successful finish to the year really.
Oh my. Unemployment down. do you know where the bulk of the jobs come from??? Try the NDIS. Well Done Ms G. The rest of your bile proves again you cons only have attack dog mentality and NOT the national interest at heart. Your hypocrisy is blinding.
Now the NDIS has been funded………shame she never introduced SSM, being the progressive warrior that she was.
Moody’s said nowt like that …not true