Humble servant of the Nation

Hinch shows damage of good intentions mired in egomania

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hinchMuch has been made of the Turnbull government’s successes in the last week of sitting in the federal parliament. Malcolm Turnbull is crowing but there is a broad understanding the hot ticket item, the ABCC legislation which passed through the Senate earlier this week, has been rendered a dud and that Derryn Hinch was played by the CFMEU to cough up concessions.

While being tricked by the CFMEU’s office bearers is hardly something anyone would want to put on their political resumes, Hinch would not see it that way. He may have his own explanation for it. I have no doubt he could spout some rationalisation at the drop of a hat. That is a talent he undoubtedly possesses.

More generally, I’d suggest voters should be leery of people like Hinch becoming representative politicians. Perhaps we should adopt a tacit rule that wherever a political party appears with the word ‘justice’ in it, that party is not worth the ballot paper it is written on. Where it appears featuring the name of a media personality before the word ‘justice’ you can put the house (or indeed the Senate) on it being a self-serving exercise in the sort of ‘look at me’ politics we have come to know and despise in this country.

Full column here:

414 Comments

  • Dismayed says:

    If only the coalition were not cutting funding to the CSIRO due to their ideological or is it theological distrust of science. There could actually have been some innovation and agility,. But when the Resources Minister is a climate change denier what hope does the Nation have.
    https://theconversation.com/australians-can-have-zero-emission-electricity-without-blowing-the-bill-69869

  • Malcolm Roberts says:

    Climate Change does not exist except in the minds of fools and the easily led.

  • Carl on the Coast says:

    Jean Baptiste (5/12 @ 6.12pm)

    says: “Kind regards. I love your work.”

    You’re much too kind JB.

    Re the sea-level question, my apologies for trawling over already chartered waters. However, its interesting that you consider my enquiry to be a “red herring” while our learned friend and fellow poster, The Outsider (5/12 @ 8.32pm), sees my abiding interest in AGW in terms of anthropods v crustaceans.

    Seems a bit fishy, are you two in cahoots me old mate?

    • The Outsider says:

      Carl,

      “The Outsider (5/12 @ 8.32pm), sees my abiding interest in AGW in terms of anthropods v crustaceans.”

      Carl, I do believe you’ve created a new hybrid classification that neatly categorises certain evolutionary phenomena first posited by Tony Abbott (the Human Barnacle), Marvel Comics (Spiderman) and many others.

      Full marks for originality and we applaud your contribution to animal taxonomy!

      • Carl on the Coast says:

        The Outsider

        says: ” Full marks for originality and we applaud your contribution …'”

        TO, I’m humbly moved to respectfully request that your erudite goodself, together with me old mate JB, kindly cease and desist lest I get meself a swelled head.

  • Jean Baptiste says:

    Carl on the Coast 10:20PM

    Oh lordy lordy, you’re washing the bag out of it now Carl! You’d have to ask Dr Carl, I can only speculate but it seems obvious he is referring to the paid prostitutes of vested interests criminally obfuscating on behalf of some of the worlds richest who simply don’t care about the future of ordinary human beings.

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-koch-brothers-dirty-war-on-solar-power-20160211

    Yvonne 3:18PM

    Could be, could be! Also redolent of that try hard Failed Comic’s hideous torture of a subject to squeeze or wrench a gag out of it. Hmmmn, now I’ve got myself thinking………….
    Yourself 6:25PM . If the Green Army had been a Labor initiative you’d be hearing about it fifty times a day! The “shocks” would be in paroxysms of indignation and rage. The usual scammers will be making a motzah one expects.

    Dismayed. Various informative links.

    Adani is a sitter for creative acronyms. I’m too lazy to make the effort, but it could begin “Another Devious” and ending in “India” or “Innocent.”

    Go hard fella. They don’t like it up ’em you know.

    jack 9:35PM

    Talk about washing the bag out of it.

    Here, knock yourself out. NB Thomas Hobbes.
    https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_legal.html

  • Dwight says:

    Great investigative journalism: http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/tobacco-smugglers-get-richer-as-cigarette-prices-rise-20161201-gt1uw4.html

    What was it Jack, 2010 when the Congressional intelligence committee reported on this?

    • Jack The Insider says:

      I saw the report. It was a good story. And now we have to spend millions on enforcement for all of this.

      • Robin says:

        Long time ago JTI my wife smuggled cigarettes into an Asian country that had severe restrictions on imported tobacco products. She was working with customs agents to do this and was making a small fortune until the government wised up and dropped the restrictions.
        There are more tobacco addicts in this country than heroin addicts and if the returns are big enough enterprising people will supply the goods much cheaper than the local shop. It has come to a point where tobacco pricing has risen to a level where the people will go to a smuggler than to the local shop

      • Uncle Quentin says:

        Wasn’t there a news story recently about a tobacco executive saying the future is in vaping? I’ve been saying this for years; nicotine though highly addictive doesn’t cause the damage that is down to the tar and other chemical shit they put in the ciggies. I like the smell of pipe tobacco but as with smoking it and ciggies and cigars it has the nasty effect of making everything taste of tobacco. Chewing is just revolting and I don’t recommend snuff, unless you want it down the back of your throat flavouring everything and in your stomach making you nauseous.

        Vape away!

    • Milton says:

      A bloke I know just came back from a month in Victoria and offered me a Chinese ciggy (pretty good actually -hints of mushroom and subtle dark chocolate notes). $10 a packet of 20, $100 a carton, no tortured organs or appendages to be seen and an attractive box and stick. I think they were called Lungshsao. As they’re advertising goes ” A billion Chinese comrades can’t be wrong!”.

    • Rhys Needham says:

      I gather some of the AQ-linked terrorist groups in North Africa made their fortunes from the Sahara smuggling trade, including tobacco, too.

  • jack says:

    darren,

    it just isn’t true that an understanding of and knowledge of the law is restricted to those who have completed a degree and been admitted to practice.

    There are countless numbers of people out there who know a lot about the law, especially those who have had the job of enforcing it, or reporting on it, or avoiding it for that matter.

    of course there are plenty who don’t understand the law that well too, and quite a few of them do have the degree and are practicing lawyers.

    • Robin says:

      So true Jack. Listening to legal advice is a sure way of going broke

      • SimonT says:

        I would agree mistaking legal advice for commercial instruction (a mistake made by bad lawyers and inexperienced clients) is a sure way to go broke.

    • The Bow-Legged Swantoon says:

      I had to walk away from this one for a couple of days, jack. There’s only so much BS a man can take.

      Back when darren of Brentford was writing like a revolutionary first-year poli-sci student, telling us old folks that a new age was coming and that we’d better get out of the way, I used to joke about his back-of-the-cornflake-box law degree.

      Somehow in that space of maybe six years he’s evolved into a crusty, world-weary senior barrister with immense experience who has overseen the professional development of lawyers who have become Supreme Court judges and who sees himself as the Gary Ablett of law.

      There are just some arguments not worth having.

    • Razor says:

      My my you lefties are getting frantic about this aren’t you. I’m having a giggle personally!

      • Dismayed says:

        Michael West a Lefty? Your pathological dishonesty is showing as usual anyone who does not follow you and the rest of the sheep is a lefty? I note you have nothing to counter the information except from your usual weak attempt to label anyone who is not a right wing fruit cake like you a lefty. The project is not viable and will not produce the jobs, tax returns or even be able to recover the money already put into it.

      • The Outsider says:

        Jobs for jobs sake doesn’t seem to be much of a plan, Razor.

        • Razor says:

          It does when you’re an unemployed kid in North Queensland trying to get your life in track. They don’t have the luxury of having to think on it over a beer after work. Think drugs, think crime, think suicide.

          • The Outsider says:

            A billion dollars could save a lot of lives in a hospital.

            There’s opportunity costs for all policy interventions. The best one can do is to objectively assess the costs and benefits of policies and not go ahead if the numbers don’t stack up. This one doesn’t seem to stack up.

        • smoke says:

          and if it is job substitution from one state to another?? NSW wotcher gunna do?

  • Failed Comic says:

    Weird juxtaposition in me reading about Islamic moles infiltrating western security agencies and almost at the same time seeing the surgical face of Labor, Elect. Bill sporting his new mole free visage.

  • JackSprat says:

    So Turnbull has not learned from Labor.

    Going to bed with the Greens is politically terminal – well in his case it will just accelerate it.

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