The Blowfly

What the hell is our Prime Minister thinking?

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:30:00 +0000

Many of you, including The Blowfly, have been wondering what our Prime Minister is up to.

While many around around her appear to be pouring water on her she is digging in for the not-so-long-haul-----less than 100 days-----as the Opposition leader tells us each and every single day!

The Blowfly admits that it has taken him a while to get inside her red-head but recently he cracked the code.

Let me share the fruits of The Blowfly’s code-cracking with you.

There are a number of things on her mind.

Firstly there is Kevin. She knows that he would be an absolute disaster-----not only for the country but for the ALP as well! She considers it to be one of her life’s purpose to keep his forever-waving-to- the-populace’s hands from the levers of power. She knows that a leopard never changes his spots. Every red-head knows that. And she knows that a swearing Christian can never be trusted! And that anyone who finds his own ear-wax enticing will be a disaster.

She also knows that if Kevin returned many of her compatriots in the party would simply depart. They could not work with him and his megalomaniac personality.

The public appear to love Kevin. However that is only because they are ignorant. They don’t have to work with him. They only see his ‘kissing babies’ side and him coming out of church on Sunday. They have never see , first-hand, his tantrums nor his excruciating micro-management of national issues.

So she is offering herself up as the ultimate sacrifice to the Australian people on this matter.

Then there is the issue of Tony! Dear ‘ole Tony!

She realises now that she made a strategic error in this regard. She fought him in the gutter----and it was his gutter! He tried to tear this Parliament down because he failed to convince the Independents that he was a better prospect for PM than she was. He set about doing what he knew how-----just like university days! He bullied her! He taunted her! He spewed forth his lies! He stooped to new lows in terms of parliamentary behaviour.

She should’ve risen above it. She should’ve conducted herself more like Quentin Bryce has. But it’s hard to fight off constant negativity! Especially when it comes at you over the despatch boxes every day! Wearing a blue tie!

Deep in her heart she that the greatest legacy she can leave for the Australian populace is to find a way that neither Kevin nor Tony can inflict themselves on the running of our country.

She realises that she is more advanced in this objective with Kevin than with Tony.

So now she has to start playing some of the cards she has been saving for this moment.

At a ‘Women for Gillard’ meeting Julia plays the gender card. She starts the process of causing women to think about whether they are really equal and whether Tony Abbott is really a ‘reformed being’ in this regards. She knows that her peers will question her judgement but she is thinking of the big picture---a country free of Kevin and Tony! And blue ties!

She puts it out there and waits for destiny to play its hand.

Blow me down! Within the week the Universe and Mal Brough serve up a sexist menu at a fund-raising dinner. This gives some traction to proving her point that Abbott is sexist.

More traction is required but you get the flow of it. And then a group known as the “Jedi Council’ within the Australian army make sure that sexism and women are forever stamped on our minds.

Miraculously a shock jock asks her about Tim’s sexuality and places the icing on the cake.

She is still reeling from her good fortune but realises she is on a roll. She’d better make the most of it!

Julia rings the President of Indonesia and calls in a favour. Would he be able to issue some new instructions to his Navy and coast guard people? Tell them that if Mr Abbott turns the boats around and sends them back to Indonesia he will consider ordering his navy to turn around the vessels transporting our live cattle to Indonesia. If we turn around the asylum-seekers he will turn around our live cattle. The President cackles quietly at the audacity of a red-head, wonders why he never thought of it before, and agrees immediately.

Then Julia rings her friend, Barack. Now fully aware as to what the NSA’s intelligence -gathering capabilities is she requests ‘help’ in respect to her mission not to inflict either Tony or Kevin on the Australian people. She suggests that the NSA focus on the Slipper affair and especially what Tony, Christopher Pyne and Mal Brough knew and did!

She also suggests that if the NSA’s archives are capable of shedding more light on the role Tony Abbott played in the demise of Pauline Hanson, a fellow red-head, that would be helpful.

And to stretch the friendship a little further would Barack be able to provide all the information they have relating to the calls and emails between members of the Opposition and Kathy Jackson and Michael Williamson of the HSU.

She ain’t finished yet!

Now Julia rings Clive Palmer. She tells Clive that she has a plan to use his ‘Titanic’. In conjunction with the Greens, she is going to reverse our present approach to the refugee problem after the election. She recognises the mining industry is going to struggle for the manpower it needs to fulfil its aspirations. She is planning to introduce a Northern Australia visa and she wants Clive’s ‘Titanic’ to become a floating processing and transportation centre. The business model of the people smugglers will be broken once and forever. If she and Tony Abbott could get into Australia for 10 pound so should refugees be able to! As a quid pro quo she needs Clive’s party preferences. He is chuffed and promises to expedite the ‘Titanic’.

Then she rings the ACTU President Ged Kearney and tells her of the grand plan. Julia also tells Ged that each Northern Australia visa will only be issued upon the applicant joining a union. Ged is overjoyed and immediately rings Paul Howes to pass on the good news. Paul immediately endorses her leadership in the media.

Now comes the most delicious call of all!

Julia rings Gina Rinehart and tells her that she’d like to meet with her secretly ‘to discuss a few issues’. She tells Gina of her initiatives to supply the mining industry with ‘more appropriately-priced labour resources’. As well she is going to appoint Gina, Twiggy, David Gonski, Alan Kohler and David Koch to head up a sovereign wealth fund along similar lines to Norway. The notion is to preserve and invest a portion of the national wealth flowing from our mineral resources for future generations.

She also tells Gina that she will nominate her for a knighthood for her services to the mining industry. Gina falls for it and immediately makes a donation of $25 million to the ALP. ‘Baroness Rinehart’ has a certain ring to it don’t you think?

And along the way Julia decides it will do her no harm to share a stage on climate change with Arnold Schwarzenegger who just happens to be in Australia on a lecture tour. He reassures her that if she needs him in the election campaign then “I’ll be back!”

So you see that our PM has a few cards she can play yet.

And the Universe still has a few more tricks up its sleeve no doubt.

Above all however she is dedicated to the notion of sacrificing herself for the good of our nation. What more noble task could she dedicate herself to?

Most commentators have said that they can’t see a solution to the political situation she finds herself in.

But she can!

In the words of Jean Guitton, in her renowned “Essay on Human Love”:

“Sacrifice remains the solution of that which has no solution”

Tony Abbott: The Possibilities Behind the Illusion!

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 23:30:00 +0000

The Blowfly is well aware of the illusions of daily life.

In behind most of the things we see, and the events we experience, is a reality that is quite different.

And so it is with Tony Abbott!

Most of you see the person who turns up at businesses seemingly every day to make biscuits with the workers, drive a semi-trailer or pack fruit.

You also see the man known as ‘one-trick Tony’ who appears to have little else by way of policy other than he is going to repeal the carbon tax.

You also know him as the Opposition Leader who had the required amount of gall to be able to label the Prime Minister a criminal on the last day of Parliament without the evidence to back it up.

For most people his behaviour is strangely bizarre and offensive.

So The Blowfly has taken another tack---- and suggests that you might do this too---in order to make sense of this apparent buffoon who, if the Australian people let their guards down, may one day become our Prime Minister.

In order to allow illusions to reveal themselves fully one has to be bold with one’s imagination because the reality behind an illusion can be spectacular.

Here are some possibilities that may explain Tony Abbott’s existence and behaviour ----for you to consider!

1. Tony Abbott is being paid by people unknown to distract Australians from the real issues facing our nation.

In this scenario he is simply on the payroll of the ‘old world order’ and doing the bidding of the last wealthy person, red-neck or Catholic bishop he speaks to. This explains his response to the wealthy miners who want him on their side so they do not have to share our sovereign wealth with us. This also explains his opposition to pricing carbon. The old money is making a financial killing out of selling fossil fuels and polluting the planet and would have to spend huge amounts to convert to clean energy. During earlier sessions of Parliament he tried to distract Australians away from the over-investment in electricity infrastructure by blaming the increases in electricity prices on the carbon tax.

And in the last week in Parliament he distracted Australians away from asylum seekers and the PM being out of step on the recognition of the Palestinian state. He did this by organising his deputy to run the ball up regarding the AWU slush fund issue for which she appeared to have no evidence.

He still has work to do regarding this scenario. The Royal Commission into the abuse of children is starting shortly and he will really have to be on his toes if he is to succeed distracting Australians in this regard.

But no doubt there will more boatloads of asylum-seekers and possibly some starvations, lip-sewing and facilities-destruction to put the Royal Commission back a few pages in the daily rags.

2. Tony Abbott is an Australian crusader for a new global movement dedicated to the abolition of political hypocrisy

We all know that the best way of ridding ourselves of morally reprehensible behaviours is to expose them to the wider public so that they may be reviled and future children are taught to avoid those behaviours. With this in mind a new moral movement dedicated to truth is being set-up by the Quakers.

It will be known as ‘Political Hypocrites Anonymous’ and will be run on similar lines to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Abbott knows he has a sickness in relation to hypocrisy and he has been unable to beat it. When he was a student at St John’s College at Sydney University he was first introduced to hypocrisy and he found it addictive. He also knows it is inconsistent with being a Rhodes Scholar and the general teachings of the Bible.

He initially tried to treat it by spending long hours in the confessional with George Pell but found that it was impossible to lose his lust for it and indeed found his need for it heightened in the company of his confessor.

The most recent incident which demonstrates that the ‘demon’ hypocrisy has him hooked was his calling into question the Prime Minister’s character regarding her unproven involvement in setting up a so-called Union slush fund.

This involved considerable hypocrisy by Abbott given his efforts setting up a slush fund to ensure that Pauline Hanson was removed from the Australian political scene. Undoubtedly he reasoned many young voters would be ignorant of his role in that one and the older voters will have forgotten it anyway.

3. Tony Abbott is an envoy from an alien race in a faraway galaxy sent to make the human race question their sanity.

He is not alone here on Earth. Others who are also part of this inter-galactic mission in Australia are Piers Ackerman, Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones.

Most people think that the human race will experience some increase in awareness and consciousness when the Mayan calendar runs out on 21 December 2012.

Most people except Piers Ackerman, Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and Tony Abbott that is!

They are dedicated to ensuring that ignorance reigns and points of view that can only be described as ‘dumb as dog shit’ prevail.

In a faraway galaxy there is a race of aliens that have set up a curious experiment/demonstration here. When they saw other inter-galactic civilisations breeding with us to improve our intelligence they placed a bet on their own ability to foil this push.

Initially they sent us the gospels, which they planted in caves in the Middle East, which resulted in any number of religions and then missionaries to convert the heathens.

Then they sent us Adolf Hitler and his offsider, Goebbels to demonstrate the power of propaganda and that lies repeated often enough can be transformed into the truth in the minds of most human beings.

Now they have sent us Tony Abbott in an effort to bewilder our sense of integrity, good manners, logical thinking and moral virtue. We find it puzzling that a good little Catholic boy can be so absolutely bereft of a moral compass and so absolutely endowed with an unrestrained capacity for hypocrisy and bare-faced lies.

Yet we have produced him! Our society! Our country! Our civilisation!

And he has been able to climb the ladder of our political system to within an inch of being PM.

Scary isn’t it?

Good work aliens---- wherever you are!

Nice experiment! Nice demonstration! Very nice!

4. Tony Abbott is collaborating with Clive Palmer to ensure that Australia is at the forefront of political humour globally.

Although they have had their stoushes it won’t surprise you to know that Clive and Tony have much in common.

Labelled as the ‘Mad Monk’ by his peers at University and later in his early days in politics he has taken a very similar pathway to Clive in his later years. Building the Titanic 2 and claiming that the CIA run the world may indeed seem to be fanciful but as usual there is always ‘method in madness’.

Abbott and Palmer have a striking ability to mimic the turn of phrase made popular by George W Bush.

I’ll bet most readers are not able to differentiate the authors of the following quotes:

• “They have miscalculated me as their leader”

• “…we just can’t stop people from being homeless if that’s their choice…”

• “You only have to go back to read the Church report in the 1970s and read the reports to US Congress which sets up the Rockefeller Foundation as a conduit of CIA funding,”

• ''I know that it's not possible that this child could be mine.''

5. Tony Abbott is the brainchild of a Silicon Valley start-up in the field of advanced robotics.

In this scenario Tony Abbott has suffered a fate similar to the ‘Stepford Wives’. He was hijacked when he was last in the US by a budding young robotics scientist from Stanford University.

This young entrepreneur figured that the quintessential promotional strategy of his new advanced humanoid start-up was to have one of his robots become the Prime Minister of Australia.

Some of you may think this is a bit way out but it would explain Abbott’s capacity for athletic endeavours and his decidedly awkward-looking gait.

It might also explain why he appeared to have a brain-fade in that interview with Mark Riley where he could not speak for what seemed like an eternity. It was probably a short-circuit or battery problem.

What this young entrepreneur plans to do next is a mystery.

But the rumour-mill is suggesting that Christopher Pyne is also part of the venture and is being groomed for a slightly different market segment.

6. Tony Abbott is actually an eccentric amateur physicist who has taken it upon himself to educate us about the existence of parallel universes and quantum physics.

We have known for some time about parallel universes. And the proposition in quantum physics that a particle can be in 2 places at once is mind-boggling to mere mortals and blowflies.

But it is possible that in another universe there is a Tony Abbott and he has chosen another pathway or response to the hung parliament.

The other Tony Abbott decided that the hung parliament was an opportunity to govern from Opposition. He was extremely creative and was able to garner the support of the Independents to push through a range of legislation that he believed were crucial for his government after the next election in 2013 where he was elected without much difficulty.

In the parallel universe the other Tony Abbott found he could be quite civil to the Prime Minister and had no need to be offensive towards her at all.

Now if this scenario is plausible many of you will want to be in that parallel universe.

But before you get too excited please be aware that in that parallel universe there will be no Julia Gillard-misogyny speech because Tony Abbott was behaving as a gentleman should behave and he and the PM were still flirting a little as they used to in the old days.

7. Tony Abbott is actually on the payroll of the Union movement with a mission to ensure that the ALP is re-elected in 2013.

This scenario exploits the tension that is within the ALP regarding Malcolm Turnbull resuming the leadership of the Liberal Party. Unfortunately for the ALP if Malcolm does gain the leadership they will have no choice but to return the Kevin Rudd as their leader.

This would be a fate worse than death.

Many of them would vomit at this prospect and it would make the next parliament unbearable. Kevin would know no bounds and would simply run amuck because there would be absolutely no way, after all the furore last time, that the ALP would have the courage to remove an elected Prime Minister.

So the Union-up-and-coming Paul Howes suggested some time ago that the best chance the ALP had of winning the next election was to keep Tony Abbott there.

He dug deep into the slush funds that abound in that quarter and was able to find a simple way of black-mailing Abbott and greasing the way for his alignment with this course of action.

Tony, of course, was interested because he was quite insecure. As leaders of the Liberal Party before him have experienced you can never be quite sure whether you have Rupert’s support. So a man needs a little security to pay off his big mortgage and pay for his daughter’s weddings.

8. Tony Abbott is a paid puppet of Malcolm Turnbull

This scenario starts with the proposition that Malcolm Turnbull is the true leader of the Liberal Party both financially and spiritually. And he can afford to pay Abbott what he demands. Behaving as the most obvious bastard presently in Australian politics does not come cheap.

Malcolm is much too clever to get involved in smear campaigns after the failures of the ‘Godwin Grech affair’ and Kevin Rudd’s ‘utegate’.

Initially prepared to sell his arse to become PM and then to build a hospital in Andrew Wilkie’s seat at a cost of $1 billion, Abbott has the sort of mongrel in him that Malcolm despises ---and yet lacks!

He has entered into an arrangement with Abbott to run the ball up to the Government in the most offensive fashion possible and then as the 2013 election is called Turnbull will take over. Abbott will be appointed as Ambassador to the Holy See and spend his remaining life confessing his sins and hypocrisy at the highest possible level.

Turnbull is quite comfortable that Abbott will honour the arrangement because both Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop witnessed it and they are sharing in the bootie.

9. Tony Abbott secretly has lusted for Germaine Greer from the moment he saw her raunchy nude photo and wants to stimulate sales for her reprint of ‘The Female Eunuch’ to curry favour with her

The Blowfly knows that no illusion can be fully credible without a bit of sex. And while it really stretched his minute brain to find a sexual angle the effort was worth it.

It works like this.

Tony saw the photo several years ago. He became quite besotted. He tried to meet with her several times but she refused his advances because he was too old for her. She prefers much younger men.

So Tony set about overcoming her predilection and subsequently the ‘budgie-smugglers’ were born.

But even that has not worked.

So he decided to try out the ‘shock-treatment’ on her. He devised a plan!

The notion was that if he adopted misogynistic behaviour in respect to Australia’s first female Prime Minister then Germaine would certainly notice him and perhaps, just perhaps, join him in a quiet moment of intimacy in a confessional somewhere off the beaten track.

This has not really worked but when Tony heard that her signature book was to be reprinted he saw his opening.

If he could simply have the women of Australia devote more of their thinking to ‘what bastards men are’ and how ‘they are all under the thumb and deserve more’ then Germaine would be suitably pleased and that much-imagined- dalliance in the confessional would be nearer.

Tony did not figure on the PM’s misogyny speech going viral and that has really increased his internal tension and expectations.

The last time he felt this excited he had to punch a wall!

But rather than going a little more steady and playing the patience game he decided to up the ante.

That was why he called the PM a ‘criminal’ in parliament last week.

If anything gets Germaine’s attention before Christmas it will be that! Surely!

10. Tony Abbott is walking evidence that the Creator has a sense of humour

The Blowfly will admit to being interested in spiritual matters and just had to appease those from the ‘Mind Body Spirit’ brigade.

It was Einstein who left us with the quote

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

That the Creator would seek to endow us with Tony Abbott, in The Blowfly's minute mind, is the most spectacular evidence that this universe, and our lives, are indeed not meant to be taken seriously

This topic is undoubtedly a work in progress because if we took this subject too seriously many of us would be prone to a panic attack.

So we should all take a little dose of Christmas cheer and hope with all our hearts that Australians will truly get what they deserve when the next election occurs in late 2013.

Oh God! What have you done to Australian politics?

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

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The Blowfly, at the risk of seeming supercilious and irreverent, would like you to imagine that you are God.

A God with an extreme sense of humour!

A God with a sense of mischief!

A God with an enduring sense of the ridiculous!

One of your greatest joys is getting up the noses of the ‘true believers’.

You have been working for ages on the most delicious plot of your eternal life.

Hopefully it will prove to be the most intriguing and the funniest.

The foundation of this twisted joke on the ‘true believers’ is a simple ‘hung parliament’.

This little beast has allowed you , as God, to taunt both sides of politics in a delightfully obscene fashion.

Initially you demonstrated how terribly painful and pathetic a devoted Catholic, totally consumed by his own disappointment, could be.

But lately it has provided the most wonderful insights into how women are viewed in politics and, for that matter, by our society.

Most people now know what the word ‘misogyny’ roughly means .In the pubs around Australia the term ‘misogynist bastard’ has become a term of endearment as men affected by alcohol stumble home to their dearly-beloveds in the evenings.

You have also been able to demonstrate the power of social media, a new invention of yours, in a most fascinating way.

Initially a media personality ,who thought he was clinging to your back as a self-pronounced Messiah, was brought to heel by the people. His large sense of self had been established as a highly successful Rugby Union coach who had moved onto speech writing and then onto the fantabulous world of ‘shock jocks’.

You were also able to make a slow talking red-headed female Prime Minister a YouTube hit when her verbal execution of a taunting Opposition Leader went viral.

Additionally you have created some wonderful tensions in the Parliament where the unashamed hypocrisy of politicians could be played out on a daily basis for all to see.

You have also been able to illustrate the true extent of the humanitarian natures of politicians on both sides. You sent asylum seekers by the boatload to goad them into doing anything but being humanitarian. In doing so you have boosted the economy of Nauru. This has been struggling ever since the supplies of bird-shit were depleted.

But you have also set up the most delicious potential confrontation with Indonesia by having the Opposition suggest that they will turn boats around.

You are particularly proud of the internal duelling and tensions you have created.

One strategy you employ is to pit Catholics against each other.

In the Coalition you have neatly organised a subtle, seemingly eternal sparring match. This is between an IT luddite and Jesuit-infected former monk who has a Cardinal as his proclaimed mentor and a wealthy, seemingly well-mannered, IT literate giant-killer who once took on Kerry Packer and won.

Presently you are seeking to develop a rather tantalising sub-plot involving the Catholic Church and paedophilia. You have engineered revelations that many priests have caused catastrophic mental harm to young men and the Church has been successful to date hiding these transgressions. There are now calls for a Royal Commission into this matter. But if the Coalition wins the next election you have created a potentially intriguing new drama wherein the Catholic Church will be resisting a Royal Commission and the Coalition will be led by a Catholic one way or another.

Another strategy you have employed is to develop a range of distractions.

One that you particularly enjoyed was positioning a well meaning, but forgettable, Liberal politician for the fall of his life. After he was elected Speaker, in a seemingly brilliant move by the Government, you then placed him at the mercy of a young gay staffer who seemed to have the knack of drawing out the worst in him. And by text as well so that Rupert Murdoch’s papers could publish them!

Recently you have taunted the ‘true believers’ with the opinion polls.

This is a great sport.

You manipulate these so that the true believers, deep in their hearts, begin to see that, although their party looks shot to smithereens, they still have hope.

But just as the red-head gets 10 points ahead in the popularity stakes you again dash their hopes.

A demoted leader who was once touted as the politician most likely to follow your son’s career as the Messiah is able to get one through the cracks with a book written by a former ABC journalist. Most ‘true believers’ thought that she was a ‘true believer’ and they are now doubly shaken to the core. You can hardly stop yourself laughing when you ponder that one.

As the next election looms you are contemplating your next moves.

Some of the vast panorama of options you are considering in order to entertain the voters and keep them from taking politics too seriously include the following:

· The lady who had the privilege of having the Opposition Leader, in his student days, punch holes in the wall on both sides of her head is now suing a Liberal heavy for defamation. You are considering how you might translate this case into a full expose’ of the Opposition Leader’s student exploits and have many other women come forward to attest to his aggressive misogynist behaviour

· Reveal that a secret meeting has taken place between Kevin Rudd and Bob Katter wherein they have discussed joining forces at the next election to throw a spanner in the works to both sides of politics in Queensland leading up to the next federal election.

· Have Tony Windsor beaten handsomely by the former speaker of the NSW Parliament, Richard Torbay, for the seat of New England. Torbay then goes on to assume the leadership of the National Party from Warren Truss and he and Malcolm Turnbull lead our nation towards the new decade of prosperity in Asia.

· Craig Thomson never gets to court because it is revealed that the brothel he is charged with having frequented is actually owned by Joe Hockey and was not declared on Hockey’s pecuniary interests statement. The powers-that-be conspire to get Joe off the hook. At about the same time Hockey is embroiled in a controversy about exam cheating at Sydney University. It turns out that Hockey had cheated in several key Economics exams. In your heart you know that many will not find this funny because it will explain much.

· Early in the new year the PM announces that she is pregnant and the baby will be born just before the election. She confides that after nursing Penny Wong’s baby several times she started to feel ‘clucky’. This causes a major problem for Tony Abbott who knows that the populace will not tolerate him talking to an expectant mother in anything but respectful tones. It also provides her with the necessary ‘experience’ to frame a budget around some reduction in the middle class welfare, such as the baby bonus, that Howard handed out to win votes.

· Mark Latham turns his very insightful pen to comedy and writes a very funny play that exposes the inside workings of the ALP. Set in the days when Rudd was the PM it shows the chaos that existed around him and the rich fabric that joins the union movement to the ALP. The play becomes a bigger hit than ‘Keating’ and Barry Humphries comes out of retirement to play Tony Abbott.

· Angry Anderson gets to win his seat in the new Parliament and rather than give us a boring maiden speech he decides to sing it. In reply Peter Garrett modifies the original words of ‘Beds are Burning’ and sings back. This sets such a beguiling precedent that many other former singers announce that they will stand for Parliament. John Farnham would be the first cab out of the ranks, followed by Lee Kernaghan who says that he will stand against Barnaby Joyce, another entertainer.

I guess, if you were God, your imaginations could think of many more quite delicious scenarios that could be presented to the Australian people to stretch their senses of humour but this fun has to end somewhere.

And , in parting, The Blowfly needs to remind you of the words of George W Bush:

“It will take time to restore chaos and order”

More than 40 days and 40 nights The Blowfly suspects! Much more!

The Day Gillard Finally Snapped----and it's about time!

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly posed the question "When will Gillard finally snap?" in a post in early April. Yesterday The Blowfly had goose-bumps as he listened to the PM. She had finally done it. She let Abbott have his just desserts. This post is published again simply to provoke reflection on the present stae of politics in Australia.
................................................................................................................................................................
Early April 2012

The Blowfly has often pondered the delicate line that Tony Abbott is treading in his pursuit of Julia Gillard.

Admittedly it is a difficult tightrope and most mere males would struggle with it!

But consider this!

Most women I have known in my time have a point somewhere in their psyche that draws an invisible line in the sand.

They cannot be pushed beyond that line!

Once there they simply decide that no man will get the better of them.

At some stage, and real soon, Julia is going to reach that point.

This may occur in a number of ways.

One possibility is that she will conclude that she will lose the next election and that she may as well leave her mark on Australian society.

She will then pull out the really big guns and go for broke.

Abbott won’t know what hit him.

She, for instance, could decide to back a couple of the really exciting new technologies that are lurking around that have the capacity to revolutionize our economy AND REPEAL THE CARBON TAX.

At the same time she could make herself a real saviour of the working classes and DOUBLE THE MINING TAX.

This would allow her to make a significant cut in company taxes and thereby reduce the impact of the mining sector’s vibrancy on the Australian manufacturing sector.

Another possibility is that she will simply determine that Abbott is the last thing she wants to inflict on Australians and she will set out to undermine him----but in a female kind of way!

She will do him slowly! Over a barbecue.

For instance she might start wearing a smart frock rather than the suits.

She will use her feminine wiles to side-swipe him and make Malcolm Turnbull look good.

She might even find a way to make Joe Hockey appear to be a talented economist.

And slowly she will whittle him away.

To nothing!

She did it with Kevin Rudd! And she can do it again.

More ‘Bob Carr’ moments!

No budgie-smugglers or scare tactics will save him then. Not even George Pell or Gerard Henderson will be able to save him. Nor Janette Howard!

The ultimate weather vane will have disappeared forever.

Someone else will have to run up the flag for political hypocrisy.

The Slipper affair may still be an illusion---and even more delicious!

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:59:00 +0000

After the events of yesterday The Blowfly revisited some thoughts he'd had about the Slipper affair back in April 2012. These insect-driven thoughts are posted to stimulate further reflection on this matter ...................................................................................................................................................... From April 2012 The Blowfly has been pondering the current state of politics in Australia.

He is a big-picture sort of insect.

The Blowfly is a keen reader and recently came across a quote from Galileo .

" Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought : the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new."

It also neatly aligned with The Blowfly’s recent re-discovery of the notion of illusion in our lives.

You might recall that George Bush and John Howard went to war in Iraq because they had ‘evidence’ that Saddam Hussein had ‘weapons of mass destruction’ at his disposal. This proved not to be the case.

Financial collapses are often born out of illusion. The figures show one thing but when you get in behind and understand the reality another scenario is revealed.

Magicians are working with illusion all the time. They cut people in half and put them back together again. They pull a rabbit from a hat. A coin from behind their ear. Illusion was Harry Houdini’s bread and butter.

And politicians work with illusion too!

Many people see the current situation with the Speaker as being a failure of Gillard’s judgement in trying to retain some semblance of advantage in a hung parliament.

Others see it as the result of a successful campaign by an Opposition leader who sees it as his divine right to become Prime Minister.

But it is possible that there is a deeper more complex agenda playing out behind these obvious facades which fill our newspapers, TV’s , radios and web-pages.

Let me speculate for a moment.

Let’s say that you were a purveyor of oil. You have wells, refineries and service stations all over the world. Your turnover might well exceed that of many sovereign nations.

A small nation then passes legislation to introduce their populace to the benefits of ‘clean energy’. They want to wean them off fossil fuels and provide them with potentially cheaper sources of energy. The Sun is one such source. Muon-catalysed fusion is another. Not to mention geothermal. And waves in the ocean.

Your revenues would in the long term be decimated. In the short term they would also take a hit because you are going to have to spend huge amounts on research and development to stay competitive. You will also have to spend huge amounts on public relations to ridicule the need to move to a ‘clean energy future’.

The value of your shares will most likely fall as you face these pressures. The wealth of your shareholders will decline considerably.

Now let’s say your shares were tightly held by only a few families. And let’s say that the banks who funded you were also fairly tightly owned by only a few families.

Would you expect that these families would move to protect their positions?

Absolutely!

Where would they start?

Well with the country who has passed the legislation.

That’s because a ‘clean energy future’ might catch on. You would have to stop it before it gets on a roll. Other countries might come to see the benefits to their populace of cheaper energy and emulate the initiative.

So what you might do is to start to undermine the parliament of the country that has passed the legislation.

After all this is not rocket science. This country has managed to get this legislation through a hung parliament. Just imagine how more swiftly it would’ve occurred had they had a substantial majority. Other nations have such majorities.

So you devise a cunning plan.

You have the Opposition leader in place. He’s a good one because he is a conservative and a Catholic to boot----with a strong relationship to a Catholic archbishop! (Remember that it was the Catholic Church who managed to delay the populace understanding the remarkable discovery that the planets revolved around the sun rather than the other way round. So why would they not move to support their interests given their real estate holdings and their revenues).

You have some strategic alliances in place too! This government has also had the audacity to suggest that the people of this particular nation should be entitled to a greater share of the non-renewable mineral wealth under its soils. Wealthy miners are lining up to support you.

You could organise something similar to the Charge of the Light Brigade.

But you are more subtle than that!

You start with the institution of government. A simple undermining strategy!

You manage to exploit a situation where a beleaguered female Prime Minister sees an opportunity to get an advantage to pursue her social agenda.

You put in place a debonair, disenchanted Liberal with a slightly exaggerated sense of his role to play and you set him up beautifully.

Firstly with some simple Cabcharge dockets. And then you raise doubt in the populace’s mind as to whether this disenchanted Liberal might be gay. He is the moderator of behaviour in the parliament and he can’t possibly do that if he is gay! In the UK maybe---but not here where real men are bronzed and muscled.

There are other tricks that you have up your sleeve to scratch this government out of existence too. They are even more subtle!

But in due course this government is wiped out at the next polls and your Opposition leader becomes PM and repeals the legislation with his huge majority.

The populace of this country are saved from a clean energy future and they have the pleasure of remaining dependent on fossil fuels for the rest of their days.

Your wealth is retained.

All you have to do is to keep on funding the research that says reliance on fossil fuels is not causing our planet to heat up to the extent that it will become uninhabitable. This is a minor impost to your profits. That’s because many of your allies are scientists who are funded by the public purse via universities and government grants.

Boy, these illusions are fun! Even for blowflies.

The Arduous Search for Reality in the Opposition's Rhetoric

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly is a curious insect and finds some satisfaction searching for the realities in his pitiful life.

For some time now the carbon tax has been on the political agenda and in people’s thoughts.

It first happened during John Howard’s reign over the hearts and minds of Australians.

But it was the ALP who got to run with that hot potato.

Our present PM thought that it was deserving of bipartisan support and that taking it forward without the support of both sides of politics would be divisive and damaging.

She let it be known, after she called the last election, that she stood by that view and her policy was not to proceed with a carbon tax during her time as PM.

However she did not get the majority she sought from the electorate and in order to form a government she had to bargain with the Independents and the Greens.

Out of this process came a changed policy position-----the Greens would only support her if she initiated a carbon tax.

The Opposition Leader, one Tony Abbott, seized on this variation and was able to label her a ‘liar’.

The Blowfly’s Oxford dictionary defines a lie as ‘a statement the speaker knows to be untrue’.

The reality of this situation is that when Julia Gillard set her policy on the table she was committed to no carbon tax during her reign. This would be consistent with her previous views and advice to Kevin Rudd on this matter.See also http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/taxing-the-truth-why-we-must-not-let-abbotts-dogmas-lie-20120706-21mlz.html#ixzz1zzQ5wJd

However, a clever Rhodes Scholar, very familiar with the work of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels since his university days ,was able to turn Gillard’s change of direction into a ‘lie’ and by simply repeating it often enough, many Australians have been encouraged to label Julia Gillard as a liar. And with the assistance of Alan Jones many Australians now taunt her as ‘Juliar’.

Then there is the reality of the promoter of this line.

Tony Abbott has access to a dictionary and would’ve used it on a few occasions during his tertiary study.

It is, by The Blowfly’s reckoning, Tony Abbott who has told the lie and is the liar.

He has either promulgated a statement about Julia Gillard that he knows to be untrue OR he does not know the difference between what is a lie and what is the truth.

If he is a Rhodes Scholar we would need to give him some credit for being able to use a dictionary.

So is it possible that our Opposition Leader does not know the difference between what is a lie and what is the truth?

The Blowfly humbly submits there is some evidence for this.

Let’s return to the carbon tax.

Abbott has maintained that the carbon tax will be the death of our economy. He has visited all manner of businesses around Australia pushing this line. His shock-jock ally Alan Jones has supported this claim.

Abbott has said that Whyalla will be wiped off the map. He has talked in terms of a ‘cobra strike’ and a ‘python squeeze’. His oratory has been indeed colorful.

But all the time he has been saying this we have the Treasury telling us that it is going to be insignificant.

As time goes on it is apparent that the carbon tax will not cause the sky to fall in and that Tony Abbott has been filling our heads with ----dare I say it---lies.

The Treasury estimated the impact of the GST accurately and there is no reason to believe that they would get the carbon tax wrong.

But for some reason Abbott has taken a position at odds with Treasury and has been able to promulgate this view widely in the community---with the help of his shock-jock friends!

If Treasury is wrong then I suppose we could acknowledge that Abbott had not lied to us.

But Treasury appears to possess a better reputation and track record for predicting these things than politicians of either persuasion. Sure Treasury is not perfect, but overall, we would have some level of confidence in them to get these matters right.

So, to my simple brain, the reality seems to be that Abbott has promulgated a lie and may therefore be called a liar.

…………………………………………………………….

Abbott has also been known to say that ‘this is the worst government ever’.

He repeats it just as Goebbels would’ve. The theory is that if you repeat it often enough then people might start believing it. His shock-jock friends also repeat it frequently.

But here we have a minority government that has passed approximately 380 pieces of legislation since they came to power!

Now you don’t do that if you are the ‘worst government ever’.

If you had a majority like Campbell Newman, has in Queensland, where getting legislation through is a fait accompli, then you might have all the circumstances necessary to become ‘the worst government ever’.

However when you are a minority government you have to garner the support of members outside your party to get your legislation through the Parliament.

This the Gillard government has done.

Weaving a pathway through the views and interests of the Independents and the Greens means that the legislative program has obtained wider cultural support than a majority government would’ve needed.

The reality is that the process of government has had to be truer to democratic principles than probably ever before in Australia’s history.

And as Steve Bracks has pointed out recently this governmenthas got some significant reforms across the line. These include

· The establishment of a national broadband network with a view to being a leader in world-wide connectivity

· Pricing carbon emissions with a view to moving Australia towards a more sustainable economic future

· Reallocating the proceeds of our mineral wealth around the community

· Rehashing the mechanisms and formulas for funding education so that Australia might generate the skills it needs for a growing economy

· Creating a national disability insurance scheme

Now while it is true that not everyone in the community might support these reforms the reality is that they have come into being through a hung parliament.

It is reasonable to say that this government must be quite a reasonable government in that it is able to muster the parliamentary support it needs to pass its legislation.

That is the reality!

Again we might then observe that Tony Abbott is a liar.

He is making statements that he knows to be untrue.

……………………………………………………………………

We then revert to the future of our country.

Tony Abbott has continually described our economy as weak ----except when he travelled to the UK.

The reality is that our economy is quite strong.

Now here is the rub.

Abbott is continuing to troll the line that everything the government proposes would ruin our economy but everything the Opposition does will strengthen it.

The Government rightly or wrongly has committed to balancing our budget quickly.

In order to do that it has sought to make some savings in the Defence area.

Abbott has criticized these as not being in the national interest.

Again The Blowfly’s simple brain figures that in the event we are not at war with any nation we might re-allocate some resources to some of the areas where we are otherwise at war----especially economic war!

We need more skills to man our mining industry. We need to find ways of supplying the growing Asian economies. We need to find ways of developing new technologies that we might be able to sell to the rest of the world. And we need to do all this with an ageing economy.

As well we need to be able to deal with the enormous costs of using fossil fuels as our energy needs double and treble and our population increases.

But Abbott last week “committed an Abbott government to restoring defence spending back to 3% real growth per year, subject to improvements in the budget.”

The reality is that his promise does not mean a thing.

The Opposition, in reality, has not got a clue as to how they will fund all the promises Abbott has made.

And in any event he can ditch those promises “should budget circumstances dictate”.

The reality is that Abbott is simply doing and promising what he can to get votes.

He is hoping that Australians are, in the majority, dills.

Abbott is hoping that we are not good at deciding what is reality and what is fantasy.

…………………………………………………………………..

And now for one of the finest lies of all!

Abbott continually refers to asylum-seekers who come by boat as ‘illegal immigrants’.

Jon Faine on the ABC has challenged him on this. Julian Burnside QC has challenged him on this. But he continues in this vein.

The reality is that it is not illegal to seek asylum.

The Opposition leader also talks about this problem in terms of ‘border protection’.

This term is normally associated with invasion.

Remember the bombing of Darwin. We needed border protection there.

Do these people come bearing arms? No!

So again the reality is that it is the Opposition leader who is promulgating a lie.

And he knows exactly what he is doing.

He is trying to change the perceptions of numerous realities that Australians face in order to get our votes.

We might be a bit dim (as Barry Jones once inferred), but hopefully not that dim!

That reality would indeed be unacceptable.

Even for an insect!

Barnaby Joyce: The Purveyor of a Fine Illusion

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:30:00 +0000

The Blowfly is continually amazed by the capacities of Queenslanders to create illusions.

Bob Katter has created the illusion that he is a saviour of the State and quite capable of preserving all the inherently beautiful things associated with a world where telephones were the most effective form of communication.

Kevin Rudd managed to fool the ALP and the Australian public into believing that he was the Messiah and could lead Queenslanders from the wilderness.

And not to forget Joh Bjelke-Petersen who was able to create the illusion that he knew best----until the brown paper bags and other minor corruptions turned up!

And now there is Barnaby Joyce!

Keen to obtain a seat in the lower house of Federal Parliament our Barnaby has managed to capture the debate about the sale of Cubbie Station and turn it into an election campaign for himself.

The illusion is that he cares about who owns this farming property and whether it would be in the national interest to sell to Chinese and Japanese interests.

The illusion is that he cares about the local community.

But that is the best part of the illusion!

The Blowfly loves rotting carcases. They are dead. The only activity is that of maggots. No sign of economic activity however!

And so it would be with Cubbie.

If it is left to rot then the employment it creates will be lost.

The purchasing in the local community of supplies will be lost.

And all the economic flow-on effects!

As well farmers have been told for yonks ‘to get big or get out’.

So Cubbie is big. Very big!

Too big for any Australian business to buy with a view to profit.

So Barnaby suggests it may be an option to break it up and make it smaller and less viable.

And this comes from an accountant!

And he says he knows best what is in the national interest.

Wrong!

Barnaby knows what is in his interests.

He knows that to portray himself of the saviour of rural Queensland will ensure that he gets the support he needs to enter the House of Representatives.

The Coalition is quite happy to see interests in non-renewable mining resources sold to overseas interests but not renewable resources like farms.

“Oh dearie me “, as my late grandmother used to say, how hypocritical.

And then we have the Liberal Party wimpering at the sight of Barnaby doing his thing.

Abbott disagreeing with Barnaby but not flagellating him.

Hockey flagellating him but not landing the knock-out punch!

The truth behind the illusion is that they want Barnaby in because he will ensure the Queensland vote.

The Coalition is not stupid.

They just look stupid.

Still another illusion?

The Challenges of Being Tony Abbott's Guardian Angel

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly would like you to stretch your minds and imagine that you in a peculiar sort of purgatory.

You have had many past lives and you are presently serving time as a Guardian Angel.

This involves guiding and nurturing and, sometimes, an unbelievable wincing as your charge goes completely against a universal law or a simple principle that you managed to get implanted into their brain by a well-meaning intermediary-----perhaps a mum, a school teacher or even a parish priest!

As a Guardian Angel you are also aware that being stretched by your charge is also part of the game.

You are still learning as are they.

But presently you are really up against a wall.

You seem to have inordinate difficult teaching your charge that he should not tell lies.

As background, The Blowfly can advise that your charge is possessed of a strong Catholic background.

There was a time when you would’ve happily delegated lessons on telling the truth to the nuns.

But your charge mystically seems to have been insulated from that lesson.

You were hopeful that in high school his Catholic surroundings and a gentle introduction to the views of the Jesuits would’ve started the delicate shaping of his mind in the direction you had planned.

But still your charge maintained a remarkable ability to insulate himself from the benefits of telling the truth.

At University your charge excelled academically but showed even more resistance to the value of telling the truth. He also developed a few other traits which caused you concern.

He showed an interest in politics.

This was particularly troubling because you knew that if he ventured in this direction his appreciation of the benefits for being truthful would never eventuate.

You breathed a sigh of relief when he chose to join the priesthood and serve the Creator.

At last you felt there was a hope that he might amount to something and possibly also contribute to the betterment of mankind----and for that matter Australia!

You did wonder how he would trim his interest in women and his tendency to treat them with disdain. You were also a little concerned about how he would deal with his streak of bully-boy which had developed in his latter years at university.

But hell, this is a loving Universe, and it works in mysterious ways, and after all as a mere Guardian Angel what would you know!

Then your plans for him started to unravel rather unfortunately.

He left the priesthood and started a career in journalism.

It was then that you became suspicious that other powerful dark forces at work in this Universe were interested in your charge.

You came to understand that this other force was countering all your best efforts.

This other force was not to be trifled with.

You became aware that you may’ve lost your charge to the dark forces but you never gave up.

You saw your charge get a Federal seat, become a Minister and then become Leader of the Opposition.

Then one day he found himself as the leader of an opposition in a hung parliament.

His day had indeed come!

Your charge became very effective as the Opposition leader by keeping it simple.

He was able to take changes in circumstances and portray them as lies. He used 3-word slogans very effectively. He massaged the media with aplomb.

He was on track to become Prime Minister.

And then your day came!

The day when you would be able to seize your charge from the clutches of the dark forces.

Your charge went one morning to confession in St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney.

He found himself extremely troubled.

“Father, father I have sinned”, he began.

“My son’” the priest said, “what could possibly be troubling you so much?”

“Father, I have lied to the people of Australia for my own political gain. I told them that the carbon tax would cause the Australian economy to be decimated.”

“In my heart I knew that it would not be because I knew that Treasury would get the calculations right and that no public servant would let any reform through that would decimate the economy because their jobs would be on the line.”

“And, father, I just don’t seem to be able to stop with this lie.”

“Power prices are going up and I’m blaming it all on the carbon tax. I know that is not the reason.”

“And I’m starting to look like a straw man because my own energy minister and Malcolm Turnbull have both effectively caught me out.”

“Oh dearie me, father, what am I to do?”

You as his Guardian Angel know that this is your moment.

You use your best telepathic powers to get the correct response into the priest’s head.

It was going to be along the following lines:

“The Creator forgives all sins, my son, providing you are repentant and you work within the light going forward. You will need to commit yourself to telling the truth from this point on. Because once you tell a lie you will find that you have to tell another to cover the first one up. And so on and so on.”

At that point you experienced a great degree of static and you realized that the dark force was also in the priest’s head.

The words that came from the priest’s mouth were not yours.

“My son”, said the priest, “you will find that you will be able to cover up the truth for a long time.”

“If you want to have the levers of power you should persist with your current strategy-----but you might have to make the lies bigger!”

It was then that you, Tony Abbott’s Guardian Angel, realized that the embrace of the Catholic Church had not been of benefit to your charge.

For some reason the Dalai Lama came into your head and that thought has been there ever since.

Your charge, bless his soul, needed more Dalai Lama and less George Pell!

But, as we all know, life is a bitch, and we don’t always get what we need!

Or do we?

If Kevin Rudd is the answer, what is the question?

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Sometimes The Blowfly likes to keep his minute brain active.

An opportunity presented itself during the week to do just this.

A journalist was waxing lyrical in some tome or other about the perennial question of Kevin Rudd and his leadership aspirations and intentions.

The journalist posed the question: If Kevin Rudd is the answer, what is the question?

It caught The Blowfly’s eye and stimulated a brain cell.

In order to distract himself from the misleading statements and lies of Tony Abbott, the superciliousness of George Brandis , the light-weight and often-repeated clichés of Joe Hockey, the piercing shrill of Eric Abetz, the repeated propaganda of Greg Hunt and the totally annoying demeanor of Christopher Pyne yours truly turned his brain cell to this task.

It turns out there are many, many questions for which “Rudd” is the answer.

Here are just a few.

1.Which politician would we have to re-elect to ensure that the painful term “Gotta zip” becomes enshrined in the Australian vernacular?

2.Which politician would we need to see returned to power to ensure that Therese Rein becomes the most tolerant, long-suffering heroine-political wife of all time?

3.Which elected ALP member of the House of Representatives , upon assuming the mantle of Prime Minister again, could we safely predict would pay lip-service to the institution of the Cabinet as a governance body and when an excuse arose would again jettison it?

4. Which former Leader of the ALP might lose his seat at the next election if the Government is defeated?

5. Which Federal Labor MP is rumored to have undermined Julia Gillard during the last election thus ensuring that the ALP were forced into a hung Parliament and had to do a deal with the Greens and Independents to achieve office?

6. Which ALP former leader, if re-elected by the Party to lead them would ensure the resignation from senior positions of Swan, Conroy, Roxon, Gillard and Tony Burke and ensure that the Party entered a new realm of vitriolic, revengeful infighting?

7.Which former PM has Mark Latham described as ‘a foul-mouthed, ill-tempered egotist’?

8. Which so-called Christian ALP member of the Federal Parliament caused the administration of the Federal Government to become so dysfunctional that his colleagues successfully removed him?

9. Which former PM made a promise to support a state premier, Morris Iemma, in regards to privatization of the power generation industry in that state and then left him to rot?

10. Which Federal Labor MP has no factional base in the party room?

11. Which former leader of the Federal ALP has a leaked YouTube video doing the rounds that demonstrates his bad temper and petulance and would be a perfect election campaign TV advertisement for the Coalition to attack his reputation?

12. Which Federal MP would David Koch of Channel 7 most like to be re-elected as PM?

13. Which former MP of the ALP , if his Party elected him again would ensure the antipathy of the public servants who he pulled from their beds at unearthly hours and kept them waiting while he pontificated with others in meetings about his high level of knowledge on every topic imaginable?

14. Which Federal MP forced his Communications Minister to travel with him on his jet as the only time available to discuss a proposal for a national infrastructure project that has the potential to leap-frog this country out of its productivity dip?

15. Which former PM ,if entrusted with that role again, would be most at odds with Ronald Reagan’s famous delegation style and would be totally bemused by Reagan’s view that “hard work never killed anybody but, hell, why take the risk?”

16. Which of the following famous Queenslanders has been mooted as having aspirations to lead the ALP : Bob Katter, Kevin Rudd, Barnaby Joyce, Peter Slipper, Campbell Newman, Mal Brough, Clive Palmer, Grant Kenny?

...........................................................................................................................................................................................

The Blowfly found it wasn’t that difficult to come up with these questions and he believes he has just touched the tip of the iceberg.

He does wonder why more journalists have not asked these questions because, if they did, The Blowfly believes much of the anticipation about Rudd’s return would evaporate.

The Blowfly recalls the words of Andrew Peacock: “Politics is a bit like a revolving door and you’ve got to make sure you’re in it.”

Except you Kevvie! Except you!

Gotta zip!

The ultimate despising of the Opposition leader who 'cried wolf'

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly's small brain is a two-edged sword!

If it was bigger it would be able to deal with more complex issues

But being small sometimes it can distill out the simplicity.

During the week The Blowfly concluded that Australian politics is probably simpler than most people perceive it to be.

I was alerted to this by a distant friend.

He, being distant, can often garner more clarity on things than I who is close to to the action.

I had shared with him The Blowfly's tendency towards feeling forlorn about the next Federal election.

Half the population think that Labor is struggling to govern but they dread Tony Abbott being Prime Minister.

Why is the populace so negative?

On the one hand we have a reforming ALP government who is really making hard work of it-----but making headway none-the-less!.

Theoretically it is backed by a trade union movement which should be to it's advantage. Bob Hawke was able to deliver his economic reforms because he made the union movement stakeholders in his programmes. And they , by and large, went along with Bob.

Today the union movement is also , by and large, going along with Labor's reforms. This takes a high level of trust in the Government because 2 of those reforms (carbon tax and minerals rent and resources tax) according to the Opposition, will decimate jobs in this country.

If the union movement believed the carbon tax and MRRT were bad for employment then they would revolt-----not follow blindly!

The Opposition has been extremely good at playing to the fears of the populace with a very negative message.

The Government on the other hand has been pitiful at selling it's message and rationale for reform.

And the union movement has not helped the Government by exposing its very own problems with governance and greed for all the populace to see. That a union leader could be paid more than a prime minister is paradoxical to most Australians.

And the apparent popularity of Tony Abbott with the pollsters is deeply puzzling to those who simply want what is best for this country.

Should Abbott succeed in becoming PM a new chasm will be excavated in our society.

Abbott has practically told every lie there is to tell about the state of our economy, the impact of the carbon tax, the need for the MRRT, the motivation of the PM and the roles that his own team have played in making sure that the hung parliament is anything but a 'gentler polity'.

The chasm will emerge because ,should he become PM on the basis of such a negative approach and supported by a propensity to tell such huge porkies and misrepresent economic matters, the Australian populace will know that he is a liar and he will lie to them again----and again!But when?

Abbott will be simply despised!

No-one will know when to trust him and when not to trust him.

He will be the political equivalent of the 'boy who cried wolf'.

He said the sky would fall in but it did not. In fact new economic opportunities opened up to those who pursued a clean energy future.

He said the mining industry would be decimated but it was not. In fact new investment was undertaken.

He said the Australian economy would be crippled but it was not. It grew even stronger.

He said his policy would stop the asylum seeker boats but it did not. In fact his policy just caused problems with Indonesia. And the real reasons the boats kept coming during Gillard's reign were that the asylum-seekers expected a harder time getting asylum under Abbott. Perverse isn't it!

He said he had nothing to do with the Slipper affair and he knew nothing of it. But we all know deep inside ourselves that he has a way with words and this was not the 'gospel truth'.

He said he supported a 'gentler polity' but he has done his best to upset the equilibrium of the Parliament and reduce it to a place of bitter conflict, demeaning personal insults and farcical stunts like running from the chamber when Craig Thomson caught them on the hop.

Nonetheless over 300 pieces of legislation have found their way through the 'farce'.

I suggested to my friend, the clear thinker from afar, that Labor seemed like 'the lesser of two evils'.

He replied that the situation could better be described as 'the evil of two lessers'.

And at that point The Blowfly recalled the old saying: "The obscure we see eventually, the completely apparent takes longer".

Abbott's use of Nazi propaganda techniques

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly has been hanging around the Prime Minister this week seeking to understand how our No 1 redhead is thinking.

It has all been rather frantic trying to sell the carbon tax and matching Toxic Tony.

She wont listen to The Blowfly. I have been sending out telepathic signals to her to not even attempt to match him. He simply cant be matched! He is in another dimension.

A dimension where it is okay to tell lies and mistruths and treat human beings just like Joseph Goebbels did for Hitler.

And on that note The Blowfly was happy to see the PM reading the rather illuminating article by Ian Robinson in last Saturday's Fairfax papers. Ian is the president emeritus of the Rationalist society of Australia.

"Taxing the truth:why we must not let Abbott's dogmas lie" is a wonderful little tome on the methods that the Coalition in general, and Abbott in particular, is using to distort the reality of the political debate in Australia.

Although the PM says she is not that interested in the polls, because she has her eyes firmly on the end game, she is neither deaf nor blind.

She can hear the commentators opine that Abbott has the Government with its back to the wall and that he is a certainty to be our next PM.

This has surprised her a little----to say the least!

She thought that the three word slogans were used by Tony simply because that was all he could remember.

She thought that the way he misrepresents her apparent commitment to 'no carbon tax' before the last election was just sour grapes because his offer to build a $1 billion hospital for Andrew Wilkie was not taken up.

But according to the article these tactics are all propaganda strategies enunciated by Hitler in 'Mein Kampf' and used by his trusted assistant Goebbels to manipulate the thinking of the unsuspecting German people.

The PM was so intrigued by this article that she got out her trusty iPad and looked up 'Nazi propaganda' on Wikipedia. This is what she found.

Julia highlighted some of the points she thought were relevant .

"Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter VI:

"Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood."^[5]

As to the methods to be employed, he explains:

"Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula."

The entry on Nazi propaganda in Wikipedia is worthy of review by anyone curious about the propaganda methods used by the Nazis. The Blowfly commends it to anyone who is interested in the truth and the foundations for manipulating the thinking of voters.

But back to the PM!

As she absorbed the material on Nazi propaganda methods a serenity seemed to come over her as she realised what Abbott was up to.

At least when you fully understand what your opponents are up to you have a chance of winning.

And so instead of resorting to Goebbels she pondered the words of George Bernard Shaw: "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."

And then she put her head back, clasping her iPad to her breast, and pondered the future.

A future where Tony Abbott has to explain to people why the carbon tax did not cause the sky to fall in.

A future where voters realise that the Minerals Resources and Rent tax is one of the few ways that Gina, Twiggy and Clive get to genuinely share their wealth with the people who own the minerals.

A future where the NBN allows Australia to be competitive in a global economy.

A future where Question time is used constructively to ask questions rather than be bastardised with censure motions.

A future where there is a genuine civility in the Parliament.

A future where refugees are welcomed as a building block of our nation.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Poor dear! She dozed off while thinking about what this country could be.

The Dreams of Clive Palmer

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly has resolved that he will stay away from rotting mushrooms in the future.

During last week he hoed into a stack of mushrooms that were left over from the Parliamentary Ball and had been thrown into the garbage tins underneath Parliament House.

They produced a tummy ache and some rather unusual dreams.

Let me try to share the essence of those dreams with you because they were really freaky.

Firstly Clive Palmer featured heavily (not a pun!) and had become the spiritual leader of the Liberal Party.

This had something to do with the fact that he was the only person from that side of politics who had some creative thoughts about how to solve the asylum-seeker impasse that brought politics to a standstill last week.

Clive reckoned, in the dream, that we should get the asylum seekers onto planes and bring them to Australia cheaply and safely.

Presently asylum seekers are paying around $6000 to $8000 of their very, very hard-earned dollars to get on boats which certainly don’t look seaworthy by Australian standards.

In the dream Clive had a grand plan.

He knew that the expansion of our mining industry was contingent upon the availability of labor and he reckoned allowing asylum seekers to come here cheaply would solve 2 problems.

Firstly it would break the people smugglers’ business model.

No one would get onto old, leaking fishing boats rather than fly Qantas. The people smugglers would go out of business.

And then there was all the hoo-haa about Gina’s Enterprise Migration Agreement and the 1700 workers she was going to bring in for the Roy Hill project.

Clive figured we’d be a lot better with the asylum-seekers who would really appreciate our country ----especially the remote mining sites in WA and QLD!

Now that was the other bit of brilliance in Clive’s plan!

The asylum-seekers would only be allowed to settle in the mining areas of those 2 states. It would be a condition of their ‘Special Northern Settlement Visas’.

Many of these workers would need training but Clive had worked out that he could tap into the under-funded TAFE resources in Victoria. While they were closing down courses and relieving our society of the burdens of highly trained TAFE teachers Clive could utilize them profitably.

Now there was even more largesse to Clive’s thinking.

Some of you might know that he has plans to build the Titanic 2 in Asia.

Well Clive is no mug and what he did (in the dream) was to use the Titanic 2 to up the ante and bring asylum-seekers in 1500 at a time----in style!

He’s old fashioned and he knew that if they were treated right they would never go back---no matter how badly we treated them!

In the dream he’d even thought through the logistics of processing such large numbers of asylum seekers and refugees.

They would be processed on the Titanic 2 as they came out.

And the Titanic 2 was going to land them in Gladstone and Kurratha and Dampier because if you brought them through the capital cities they would get distracted and want more from their lives.

So that was one dream.

In the other dream Clive had actually became the Leader of the Federal Opposition.

Clive had neatly positioned himself as the ‘ideas-person’ in the Liberal Party.

This wasn’t all that difficult because Tony Abbott had grid-locked the political system by saying NO to everything so anyone in the Liberal Party who thought for themselves really stood out.(Malcolm Turnbull could think for himself but when he admitted that they would not pull the NBN down when they came to government Tony Abbott banished him to the boondocks for heresy----after consulting George Pell as to what heresy was)

Anyway, in the dream, there was a well-organised handover of power to Clive.

I wasn’t quite able to discern or recall from the dream why Abbott capitulated to Clive but I do have this faint recollection of Mal Brough and Peter Slipper, in the dream, and a person with a wig on----so it may have had something to do with that illustrious peace of our history.

So you will understand why The Blowfly will never, ever tackle rotten mushrooms again----and that is the ‘gospel’ truth!

However….

The Blowfly has often been told that dreams are to be watched closely because they are very revealing and offer subtle guidance.

Interestingly enough I sense that Tony Abbott has also had a premonition about Clive taking over from him.

You will notice that Tony Abbott has been extremely adamant recently that “no government he leads will have a carbon tax”.

The Blowfly believes that, although Tony is a polished hypocrite and mis-representer of the facts, he can make that statement about the carbon tax with a straight face because he knows he is going to be rolled by Clive Palmer before the next election.

I hear you all say: “In your dreams, Blowfly, in your dreams!”

What will Abbott do when the sky doesn't fall in? Watch closely.

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly requests that you stretch your collective imaginations for a while and imagine that you are the carbon tax.

Your moment of birth is about to arrive.

You have been looking forward to that moment for what has seemed like an eternity.

You’ve had a curious conception and gestation.

Initially you were wheeled up to the Australian public by the conservative side of politics by none other than John Howard. But he lost that election and nothing happened.

Nothing! Until Kevin Rudd decided that you would be part of his impact on mankind.

You were looking good at one stage because the Opposition actually collaborated through their leader Malcolm Turnbull to assist with your conception.

They were then talking about an emissions trading scheme but you have to be born before an ETS can get off the ground.

Any way in due course the conservatives did Malcolm over because they decided to confuse the issue by linking it with climate change. And besides many of their constituents are totally tied into fossil fuels and would have to change their economic models if clean energy was preferred.

There is some debate about what you should be called.

Some call you a carbon tax.

Others call you a carbon pricing mechanism.

Some say you are not a tax at all.

You are a bit different to your long lost cousin the GST.

The GST will raise about $48 billion next year and every consumer pays that.

You on then other hand, will only raise about $7 billion next year and only the top 500 polluters or emitters of carbon will pay you.

Even the circumstances of your conception were different.

John Howard announced the GST on national television before telling his party about it. He was the master of unilateral decision-making.

But after the initial heart attack he caused his Treasurer he fought an election on it to make it ‘legitimate’.

In your case both sides of politics had talked about you and there seemed to be some consensus that you were necessary but………..politics got in the way! As it often does!

Your fertilization occurred as a result of a hung Parliament.

A Prime Minister, intent on forming government, did a deal with the Greens to get you moving. It could’ve been worse! Tony Abbott might’ve paid $1 billion to give Andrew Wilkie his hospital and/or sold his backside to other Independents to get into power. You way you see it is that you saved his backside----and the electorate!

Abbott has been pretty sour about the circumstances of your conception. He says that your mother lied to the Australian people. But she just did what she had to do to secure the support of the Greens.

The Opposition has almost staked its future on you being the cause of all manner of destruction.

Tony Abbott has indicated that your arrival will cause the sky to fall in.

He has also indicated that many industries will be decimated and even whole communities will be wiped out. Whyalla is one such community.

He has been a recurring feature on our television screens for a couple of years visiting businesses that he says will be diabolically affected by you.

You get blamed for increasing electricity prices as well. Even though the increasing prices are mostly due to the need to renew the poles, lines and generators.

Ridiculous questions are also asked in Parliament about your impact. So-called intelligent people such as the shadow Attorney-General George Brandis have even insinuated that you are the cause of the 1900 people losing their jobs at Fairfax.

But next week we will begin to see what you will look like and how you will affect our lives.

Probably, like all children, there will be some sleepless nights for your parents when they first bring you home.

However you will gradually settle down, just like the GST did.

Treasury correctly estimated the impact of the GST on the economy so there is a fair chance they will be right about carbon pricing as well-----despite Tony Abbott and the Opposition spokespeople knowing better.

The big question that remains for you to consider is:

What will the Opposition do when the sky does not fall in?

Tony Abbott has given a ‘blood oath’ that you will be repealed. You suspect that this was just part of his scare campaign and he was using words from his Catholic schooldays to indicate that he was a committed little catechism-learner.

You have also considered how you would be repealed or ‘unborn’ and you wonder how this could possibly happen. The birth canal looks pretty narrow from the inside but when you bend your mind to coming back into the canal from the outside it just does not compute.

Tony Abbott has promised a lot of things with gay abandon and you suspect that this is one of those things.

As well Tony Abbott would need a majority in the Senate to repeal the legislation. He probably would not have this.

He has threatened a double dissolution election but mostly incumbents lose seats at these elections and you are not sure he would want this.

In addition to this the Parliament may go for another 15 months.

Some in the business community may by then be moving to adopt a ‘clean energy future’ and they wont want their incentives taken away from them.

And the voters may be getting used to it as well----just like they did with the GST.

So your birth is going to tell us a lot about the Opposition!

They have purposely set out to put the fear of God into the Australian populace about your birth.

Some of you might remember that over the last 20 or 30 years there have been a number of cases where a charismatic religious cult leader has predicted the end of the world. Their followers have carefully prepared for that event----some even took their own lives!

But the key point is that the cults are no longer around and neither are their leaders. When the end of the world does not occur their credibility is fatally tested.

How will a Rhodes Scholar deal with this one?

Let me speculate about the possibilities:

· Tony Abbott will say that he was advised incorrectly by a firm of accountants in Perth about the impact

· He will tell us that the Australian people are a resilient lot who roll with the punches and they have adjusted amazingly well to this big new tax. So much so that they have been able to overcome the deficiencies of a very, very bad government

· He will say that the world will end on 21 December 2012 and you just wait and see

· He will be abducted by a strange craft which appears at night regularly over Canberra and be whisked off to a far away galaxy where people appreciate scare tactics and lies

· He will do what he should’ve done years ago and seek a meeting with George Pell as to whether he might serve mankind better by being a priest

· He will ring Rupert Murdoch and ask him what to do next. Rupert will tell him that as News Ltd is already a carbon-neutral company he is grateful for the efforts but his new boss is Gina and he should look to her for guidance. Or Alan Jones. Or Andrew Bolt.

· Resign because he deliberately mis-led the Australian public

Has anyone got any other predictions?

Dirt files lead you to the political hypocrites

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly has been particularly bemused by the excitement about ‘dirt files’ this week.

Blowflies love dirt files.

The surprise would be that there was a politician who was not deserving of a dirt file.

For some strange reason the notion that politicians are unlikely to have dirt files is part of the illusion of politics.

Let’s take the PM for starters.

She is an unmarried woman living in sin. Besides her present partner Tim she has been in a previous relationship with Craig Emerson, one of her Cabinet colleagues.

In addition during her lawyer days it appears that she may have had other relationships.

You don’t get to be PM by joining ballet classes and enrolling in home economics----especially if you are acting for the Union movement.

Let’s take Tony Abbott.

He was a swash-buckling , young, aspiring Liberal at Sydney University who was learning how to be a Liberal. You don’t become a Liberal by going to bible classes and mixing with computer geeks.

And even take Kevin Rudd. He is now doing a good act of trying to be a ‘goody two shoes’ and going to church each Sunday but, as a public figure, his warts in due course got into the public arena thanks to a wonderful essay by the journalist , David Marr.

And even a goody two shoes such as Andrew Wilkie was found to be vulnerable simply because of something that was done at Duntroon yonks ago. He was involved somehow in bastardisation.

But hell, its Duntroon!

These guys and gals are going to be in the front lines looking at bullets coming at them and having their throats slit. You don’t need wimps in the armed forces.

Politicians, unlike blowflies, are human beings!

They do things that other human beings do.

The only question is whether they do things that voters might take offence at.

And as we voters allow our moral boundaries to move it becomes a little harder to offend us.

However if another politician can stumble upon something that voters might take offence at then it might allow a political advantage.

And we voters are so damned gullible!

More than half of us are inclined to believe the lies that Tony Abbott utters and be receptive to the 3 word slogans that emanate from his lips.

If somehow, just somehow, our politicians were perfect we might have politicians like the Rev. Fred Nile.

And that would be just as offensive to our parliamentary processes as the current crew. They would be bombarding everyone about how we should live our lives, what we should and should not read and whether we should believe in god etc.

That would be hell! On earth!

Dirt files are simply a necessary part of the balance between the political forces.

The major purpose of dirt files is to allow the hypocrites to be revealed.

Now that is what the really fun part of watching politics is all about.

So when Tony Abbott creams the Government for creating dirt files we should fall out of chairs laughing.

This guy is the most shameless hypocrite that The Blowfly can recall.http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/the-cracking-of-the-abbott-monolith/

His lies, his misrepresentations and his misleading comments know no bounds.

But he is just doing his job!

He is preparing his Party-–and the Coalition—for government.

Tony is the ball-runner. The one who takes the ball up to the other teams line of defence and, just when has almost penetrated it, he slips a pass to a flashy, side-stepping inside-centre who dances his way over the try-line.

And there is another use for dirt files.

The dirt files are of valuable use inside your own party.

When you most need to nobble an aspiring colleague you pull out the dirt file and show it to him. As they splutter indignant words of repudiation you tell him or her, that ,unless they pull their heads in you will either leak it yourself or lend it to your opponents.

That’s why Malcolm Turnbull is sitting pat.

He knows that the work is being done for him----mostly by his colleagues----who simply could not bear to have Abbott lead them in forty directions at once --with his weather-vane capacities to be populist at all costs.

What Australia needs now is a strong, focused principled leader----not a Howard or an Abbott!

And the Liberals know that!

And so do the Nats!

Ain’t it delicious?

Tony Abbott's Parallel Realities

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:30:00 +0000

The Blowfly shifted garbage tins recently and found that , for a little while, politics was not as important.

However changing ‘homes’ has provided a new perspective on many aspects of that part of our daily lives that politicians fill.

The Blowfly has mentioned before the likelihood that these daily happenings are simply an illusion because in behind ,in space and time, is another reality.

We may discover this reality in due course and we may not.

But it is always there! Taunting us! Deceiving us! And leading us to believe that what we see is what we get.

One person who is aware of this is Tony Abbott.

He has a parallel reality and he is very aware of it.

From the perspective of most mortals Tony seems to have done all the right things to move this Government firmly to a position where it as perceived as being on the ropes.

And, more importantly, Tony is seen to be a shoe-in to be our next Prime Minister.

But Tony trained for the priesthood. He was made aware of the illusions that surround us. The Catholic Church has been responsible for many of those illusions. Remember the one about the Earth being the centre of the Universe? The one that was sustained for centuries due to the efforts of the church?

Tony knows that a parallel reality is that at any moment the cards could crumble against him.

For instance, a well-meaning and unusually vigilant reporter may string together a more substantial series of actions and events tying our former Minister for Industrial Relations into a web of intrigue with the Craig Thomson affair. There are several stories already circulating about the unusually close relationships between some of the key individuals and Tony.

Another possibility is that a vigilant journalist (could there be two vigilant journalists in Australia I hear you asking?) manages to put together a robust chain of events tying the Opposition into the undermining of Peter Slipper.

And what about his closest allies, the troops in the National Party?

What would happen if they suddenly found courage and decided to rejuvenate their party so that the interests of the people in regional Australia were genuinely looked after?

The Coalition agreement has always been taken for granted.

But it was not always so!

Many people in the bush don’t really appreciate a political leader who is simply a weather vane.

That’s because they know that the wind could turn against them at any stage.

It used to be called “economic rationalism” and it tore the heart out of many regional communities. Schools closed. Subject choices diminished. Telstra offices closed. Road grant allocations declined.

That’s why Windsor has championed the NBN.

He knows it is one way that the playing field can be leveled between city and country communities.

And Abbott wants to tear it down!

Tony’s parallel reality (and one that he is creating) is quite extensive.

He is out there expending a huge amount of energy talking the economy down (when we have one that is the envy of most other countries).

He is also telling us that the ‘carbon tax’ will totally stuff our economy (just like the ALP did with the GST when John Howard sought to introduce it).

Abbott also told us he wanted a ‘gentler polity’ (but just in case you haven’t watched Question time for a while, he is setting about destroying the integrity of the Parliament).

He makes much of Gillard’s broken promise not to implement a carbon tax (but has been exposed as doing anything but sell his backside to form government himself). Presumably if he had formed government there would’ve been a few substantial broken promises as well.

Abbott by any measure should be well ahead in terms of popularity.

But he is not.

And many of his party are concerned by this!

They see the illusion.

But they are prepared for him to sacrifice his energy, treat the Australian populace with disdain by uttering his three-word slogans, tell lie after lie and to suffer the greatest indignity of all-----to be replaced when the election is called---- by the true Messiah!

After all, in the words of Bill Hayden, ‘a drover’s dog’ could lead the Coalition to an election victory now.

Surely!

Or is that another illusion?

Politics is an illusion: Don't take it too seriously!

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly had the good fortune to recall the words of George Bernard Shaw during the week.

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.”

And so it was in Australian politics last week.

Shakespeare could not have set up a more hilarious plot. Nor Bob Hope’s comedy writers!

A beleaguered government, trying to prepare for the delivery of a budget, was under attack because of allegations that it’s Speaker has sexually harassed a male staff member and rorted the travel system.

This was followed by revelations that this staff member sought counsel from non other than Mal Brough, the Liberal stalwart who is seeking to take the Speaker’s seat at the next election. And to add slightly more intrigue the Opposition-heavy Chris Pyne admits to a late night drinking session with the sexually harassed staff member only one month before the complaint was made.

Tony Abbott, the Opposition leader, gives a TV interview saying, in words carefully chosen, that he new nothing about these events. Nothing! Nothing!

Out of left field comes one of Australia’s richest men, Clive Palmer, to announce his intention to enter parliament. Clive has previously told us about his conspiracy theories and now delivers a promise to build a new Titanic.

And in a seemingly unrelated incident Rupert Murdoch was declared an unfit person to run a media empire by a committee of the UK parliament.

What has happened to the world ?

Is all this stuff about 2012 and the world ending finally coming to fruition?

This scene of comedy-sketch proportions provoked The Blowfly to consider another illusion that seems to dominate our existence.

Ponder this!

Lets say you were a purveyor of newspapers.

Your revenue streams consist of sales of printed matter to the populace and advertising from businesses.

Recently you have been struggling with your revenue streams because of the new technologies that are able to leverage this beast known as the internet.

You bought into My Space a couple of years ago so that you could learn more about this phenomena and get the march on your competitors. You paid about $900 million for it and you sold it for less than 10% of that only recently. It was a costly lesson in understanding people’s emerging needs.

It seems the populace has this overwhelming desire to share information about each other with each other.

And they want to do it for FREE!

Oh dearie me! How are you going to build your wealth if people are going to share information for free.

Twitter and Facebook are aiding and abetting this.

And Twitter has been responsible for the acceleration of some social movements such as the ‘Arab spring’. You fear it because using Twitter decimates the need for people to buy newspapers. Ordinary people can become reporters and disperse reports quickly about incidents, injustices and scandals.

You’re damned if you can understand Twitter so you poke your toe into the water with it. You express your views as everyone else seems to do on Twitter.

You tell people , on Twitter, that the ALP government in Australia needs to go.

This ALP government is also developing something called the National Broadband Network. It will allow Australians to communicate with each other faster AND………..with the rest of the world!

Your business model would really come under pressure if this happens.

You find other allies to align with to prosecute your cause.

Climate change has been a controversial topic in your country of birth. But it seems to sell quite a few newspapers! Especially as you have been able to motivate crowd-pleasers such as Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones to keep spruiking their scaremongering.

And Tony Abbott falls in behind quite easily. Just as your editors know that the populace only reads the headlines as they rush past the newsstands, or listen to the 20-second grabs on TV so does Tony. He is a master of the three-word slogan and creating fear in the hearts and minds of voters. He studied politics as a Rhodes scholar and he knows you have to keep it simple and destructive.

It is in your interests to use the full resources of your empire to preserve the full resources of your empire.

Your timing is perfect.

Your interests and those of the conservatives glove together neatly.

They have committed to pulling down the NBN. This means you may be able to preserve your newspaper revenues longer.

They have committed to repealing the carbon tax. This means you wont be penalised for cutting down the trees to print your newspapers.

The status quo will largely remain.

That is, after all, why they are known as conservatives.

In the meantime you have been fighting a rear-guard action trying to maintain the revenues of your existing economic activities----newspapers!

You worked out ages ago that the best way to do this is to create headlines.

Politics is usually good for this.

Politicians tend to take themselves seriously and believe that they can make the world a better place.

This fits perfectly into your mode of operation providing they are taking the world where you believe it should go.

Politics gives you much scope for headlines.

When politicians tell the truth your newspapers can tear them apart and invade their private lives because anyone who tells the truth is likely to be a homosexual or philanderer.

When politicians tell lies your newspapers can damn them because no other person ever tells lies and there must be no moral fibre in a society that produces liars.

Sometimes however the news gets a little slow and newspaper sales flatten out.

In order to create more fodder for your reporters you get up to mischief. A little phone tap here, a little bit of scare-mongering there, and not to mention a good sex scandal-----especially with a homosexual angle!

And that, my friends, is the illusion!

Many believe that politicians pull the strings of our society and that politics is to be taken seriously as an altruistic endeavor.

There is another reality that would save the populace from a lot of anxiety.

Politicians only think that they pull the strings.

But like a good old-fashioned puppet show it is simply a distraction that should be perceived as entertainment of the highest order.

As any blowfly knows, it is the puppeteer that is actually pulling the strings.

The Slipper affair could be an illusion

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly has been pondering the current state of politics in Australia.

He is a big-picture sort of insect.

The Blowfly is a keen reader and recently came across a quote from Galileo .

" Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought : the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new."

It also neatly aligned with The Blowfly’s recent re-discovery of the notion of illusion in our lives.

You might recall that George Bush and John Howard went to war in Iraq because they had ‘evidence’ that Saddam Hussein had ‘weapons of mass destruction’ at his disposal. This proved not to be the case.

Financial collapses are often born out of illusion. The figures show one thing but when you get in behind and understand the reality another scenario is revealed.

Magicians are working with illusion all the time. They cut people in half and put them back together again. They pull a rabbit from a hat. A coin from behind their ear. Illusion was Harry Houdini’s bread and butter.

And politicians work with illusion too!

Many people see the current situation with the Speaker as being a failure of Gillard’s judgement in trying to retain some semblance of advantage in a hung parliament.

Others see it as the result of a successful campaign by an Opposition leader who sees it as his divine right to become Prime Minister.

But it is possible that there is a deeper more complex agenda playing out behind these obvious facades which fill our newspapers, TV’s , radios and web-pages.

Let me speculate for a moment.

Let’s say that you were a purveyor of oil. You have wells, refineries and service stations all over the world. Your turnover might well exceed that of many sovereign nations.

A small nation then passes legislation to introduce their populace to the benefits of ‘clean energy’. They want to wean them off fossil fuels and provide them with potentially cheaper sources of energy. The Sun is one such source. Muon-catalysed fusion is another. Not to mention geothermal. And waves in the ocean.

Your revenues would in the long term be decimated. In the short term they would also take a hit because you are going to have to spend huge amounts on research and development to stay competitive. You will also have to spend huge amounts on public relations to ridicule the need to move to a ‘clean energy future’.

The value of your shares will most likely fall as you face these pressures. The wealth of your shareholders will decline considerably.

Now let’s say your shares were tightly held by only a few families. And let’s say that the banks who funded you were also fairly tightly owned by only a few families.

Would you expect that these families would move to protect their positions?

Absolutely!

Where would they start?

Well with the country who has passed the legislation.

That’s because a ‘clean energy future’ might catch on. You would have to stop it before it gets on a roll. Other countries might come to see the benefits to their populace of cheaper energy and emulate the initiative.

So what you might do is to start to undermine the parliament of the country that has passed the legislation.

After all this is not rocket science. This country has managed to get this legislation through a hung parliament. Just imagine how more swiftly it would’ve occurred had they had a substantial majority. Other nations have such majorities.

So you devise a cunning plan.

You have the Opposition leader in place. He’s a good one because he is a conservative and a Catholic to boot----with a strong relationship to a Catholic archbishop! (Remember that it was the Catholic Church who managed to delay the populace understanding the remarkable discovery that the planets revolved around the sun rather than the other way round. So why would they not move to support their interests given their real estate holdings and their revenues).

You have some strategic alliances in place too! This government has also had the audacity to suggest that the people of this particular nation should be entitled to a greater share of the non-renewable mineral wealth under its soils. Wealthy miners are lining up to support you.

You could organise something similar to the Charge of the Light Brigade.

But you are more subtle than that!

You start with the institution of government. A simple undermining strategy!

You manage to exploit a situation where a beleaguered female Prime Minister sees an opportunity to get an advantage to pursue her social agenda.

You put in place a debonair, disenchanted Liberal with a slightly exaggerated sense of his role to play and you set him up beautifully.

Firstly with some simple Cabcharge dockets. And then you raise doubt in the populace’s mind as to whether this disenchanted Liberal might be gay. He is the moderator of behaviour in the parliament and he can’t possibly do that if he is gay! In the UK maybe---but not here where real men are bronzed and muscled.

There are other tricks that you have up your sleeve to scratch this government out of existence too. They are even more subtle!

But in due course this government is wiped out at the next polls and your Opposition leader becomes PM and repeals the legislation with his huge majority.

The populace of this country are saved from a clean energy future and they have the pleasure of remaining dependent on fossil fuels for the rest of their days.

Your wealth is retained.

All you have to do is to keep on funding the research that says reliance on fossil fuels is not causing our planet to heat up to the extent that it will become uninhabitable. This is a minor impost to your profits. That’s because many of your allies are scientists who are funded by the public purse via universities and government grants.

Boy, these illusions are fun! Even for blowflies.

Turnbull the Messiah: Preparing for the Second Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Today The Blowfly is astride the shoulders of Malcolm Turnbull.

Malcolm is out for his early morning walk across Sydney Harbour.

One of the advantages of being a Messiah is being able to walk on water!

As he walks across the Harbour he spots some fishermen close by.

Their faces are forlorn because the fish are not biting.

Malcolm calls out to them: “Throw your lines over the other side.”

That is another advantage of being a Messiah------you know where the fish are biting.

And when you are a Messiah you also have a very strong sense of your own destiny.

You know you are born to lead. You know you can be patient in respect to your divine right.

You know that that the pragmatists in the Liberal Party are simply mortals who are ignorant of the workings of the Universe.

You are the Master!

You know about information technology because you made your fortune out of it.

You know about the dynamics of the financial world because of your work with Goldman Sachs.

You know about water because you were the minister for it in the Howard Government.

And you know about Sydney because your wife was the Lord Mayor.

In fact you know about most things.

Except you are not sure how you came to be rolled by your Party for the leadership! And by one vote! You ponder whether it was Peter slipper's vote.

Being a Messiah, you are the bearer of the conscience of the Liberal Party and your destiny, so you think, is to return the pragmatists and ideologically uncommitted to true Liberalism.

The conscience of the Liberal Party was passed to you in a dream by the spirit of Sir Robert Menzies some years ago. You were holidaying in the Bahamas and sipping expensive champagne.

Whilst it is that you are presently experiencing a sort of purgatory because you are not totally in the limelight you are also aware of the illusion that is being created by your ‘leader’, Tony Abbott.

He thinks he is in charge.

But you smile a wry smile. You know who is in charge, don’t you?

You whimsically dismiss the little voice in your head that says, “George Pell”.

You suspect that George Pell at least has a shoe-in because you and Tony are both Catholics.

But after watching Q and A recently you think you might prefer to listen to Richard Dawkins.

“Life is full of mystery”, The Blowfly thinks.

Labor:Finding new ways to lose elections.

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:48:00 +0000

The Blowfly decided he needed to know what was going on inside our Prime Minister’s head after the blow of the Slipper allegations.

He found her in the ante room of her Parliament House office alone with her thoughts. She was preparing for her trip to Singapore and Gallipoli.

I gently settled onto her shoulder and tuned into her innermost thoughts.

She was flagellating herself.

“Oh dearie me……… whatever was Albo thinking when he came to me with this bright idea?…………. what a fool I was……….redheads all over the world will be writing to me telling me that I have shamed them……….Abbott has outsmarted me again……..no wonder he didn’t look that surprised when we pulled it off…….he and George Brandis must’ve known about it all along…….it’s so hard to read Tony……he always has that dumb look on his face!”

Then she started a different line which The Blowfly found rather beguiling.

Ever the positive thinker the PM turned the whole situation around just as Warren Buffett would’ve done. Or for that matter Edward DeBono!

“Could we do a better job of losing the next election?”

“Could I surpass Kristina and Anna in the seat-losing stakes?’

“I wonder if we are able to find some more ways of handing the next election to the Coalition on a plate?.........rather than making us look bad maybe we should try to make the Coalition look good?...........what are the possibilities I wonder?...........could we get our spin doctors to make Tony Abbott look as though he has principles and a consistent policy ideology?.........could we make Joe Hockey appear to be a first rate economist?......(she chuckles to herself)…….could we perhaps make Christopher Pyne sound like a rugged individualist with a distinctly positive bent?.......is there any way we could promote Julie Bishop as being more knowledgeable than Bob Carr in respect to foreign affairs?.........what about we help Scott Morrison portray himself as someone who has a very innovative and compassionate solution to the asylum-seeker problem?.......or maybe we could help Greg Hunt make the Coalition’s ‘Direct Action’ policy on climate change sound more compelling and responsible than our Clean Energy Future ?..............(she sits in silence for a few minutes)……..I know, I know………let’s see if we could find a way of making Gina, Twiggy and Clive look like altruistic Australians who are not interested in their personal wealth……………….”

In silence she ponders further.

Then her moment of reflection is broken by her darling Tim.

“Come on Jules, we’ve got to get moving. Gallipoli awaits!”

“Mmmmmmm!” she thinks, “the ANZACs might just be the inspiration I need”.

Hockey and the Coalition's welfare manipulation

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:30:00 +0000

There is nothing so grand as the way that the Coalition manipulates the welfare system to their own ends.

The Blowfly is never surprised by anything Joe Hockey says. His thought bubbles abound.

But his latest foray telling Australians that they are too well looked after with welfare is part of a softening up process that has been used by the Liberals before.

The strategy is this.

By announcing that welfare cheats abound and that Australians are too well looked after appeals to a particular section of the voters.

It also makes the Coalition look like tough economic managers.

And then when you have reeled in the spending and bashed the crap out of the welfare cheats you leave it alone for awhile.

Because you then have it up your sleeve for later on. Just as John Howard did!

And when you need the votes from the middle class and the swinging voters you then start extending the welfare again.

You free up the guidelines. You extend the thresh-holds. You hand out a little here. You hand out a little there.

You do it strategically.

Apart from that , of course, the Coalition has a major issue getting their budget into surplus.

They will have to slash and burn to save face.

At least with the ALP you know that they are blatant about welfare.

That's what they stand for!

Moving wealth from the rich to the poor.

But the Coalition is duplicitous about welfare. They use it to attract votes when they need to and to improve their reputation when they need to.

Hockey's latest thought bubble is one of many that will emanate from his head in the lead up to the next election.

And that will create an intriguing dynamic between him and his leader!

Abbott being restrained. Not wanting to be a target. Not wanting to lead with his chin.

And Hockey wanting to be controversial. Getting headlines. Attracting interest.

The Coalition hasn't won the next election yet.

There is still plenty of room for them to self-destruct.

It is compelling viewing.

Rudd and Twiggy: The deal that thankfully never was!

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:54:00 +0000

The Blowfly can only cackle at the revelations that Kevin Rudd was in the process of pulling a rabbit from a hat in respect to the minerals rent and resources tax just before he was rolled.

Here you had the 'elected PM', who was supposedly everyone's darling working on a deal with one of the wealthiest men in Australia to conclude an alternative deal that would apparently result in an 'infrastructure boom'.

So much for the Cabinet decision-making process!

From one perspective it shows how much Rudd was the 'odd man out' in his party.

Devoid of factional support he was isolated from the realities of his ALP grass roots.

What next was he going to negotiate alone?

We already have a 2 speed economy that is putting the screws on manufacturing.

Did Rudd really consider this when he was negotiating woth Twiggy?

And when was Treasury going to get involved and , for that matter , Ken Henry?

There is no doubt Australia does need a boost to it's infrastructure.

Sydney needs new roads and railway lines. Melbourne needs needs new roads and railway lines.

Peter Costello put aside huge amounts into 'funds' because they knew that the surpluses could be spent on new infrastructure but if they did pull out the cheque books the economy would go crazy.

We didn't have enough tradesmen because the mining industry was already causing shortages in the skills areas.

How were we going to spend billions on infrastructure with causing inflation to accelerate?

Did Rudd not think of this?

Even Kochie could've told him!

And can we even start to believe that Twiggy was negotiating with Kevvie 'in the national interest'?

Not likely!

It is sad to think that Kevvie was such a maverick.

At least this sort of thing will never happen if Abbott gets the levers, you might say.

Liberals do it differently, you might think.

But look at what Howard did on GST and the expenditure on the Murray Darling Basin.

Where do politicians get off not using Cabinet processes to run our country?

When will Gillard finally snap?

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly has often pondered the delicate line that Tony Abbott is treading in his pursuit of Julia Gillard.

Admittedly it is a difficult tightrope and most mere males would struggle with it!

But consider this!

Most women I have known in my time have a point somewhere in their psyche that draws an invisible line in the sand.

They cannot be pushed beyond that line!

Once there they simply decide that no man will get the better of them.

At some stage, and real soon, Julia is going to reach that point.

This may occur in a number of ways.

One possibility is that she will conclude that she will lose the next election and that she may as well leave her mark on Australian society.

She will then pull out the really big guns and go for broke.

Abbott won’t know what hit him.

She, for instance, could decide to back a couple of the really exciting new technologies that are lurking around that have the capacity to revolutionize our economy AND REPEAL THE CARBON TAX.

At the same time she could make herself a real saviour of the working classes and DOUBLE THE MINING TAX.

This would allow her to make a significant cut in company taxes and thereby reduce the impact of the mining sector’s vibrancy on the Australian manufacturing sector.

Another possibility is that she will simply determine that Abbott is the last thing she wants to inflict on Australians and she will set out to undermine him----but in a female kind of way!

She will do him slowly! Over a barbecue.

For instance she might start wearing a smart frock rather than the suits.

She will use her feminine wiles to side-swipe him and make Malcolm Turnbull look good.

She might even find a way to make Joe Hockey appear to be a talented economist.

She might even wink at him over the despatch boxes! And smile her knowing smile.

A little flirting maybe!

Slowly she will whittle him away.

To nothing!

She did it with Kevin Rudd! And she can do it again.

More ‘Bob Carr’ moments! Plenty more.

No budgie-smugglers or scare tactics will save Abbott then. Not even George Pell or Gerard Henderson will be able to save him. Nor Janette Howard!

The ultimate weather vane will have disappeared forever.

Someone else will have to run up the flag for political hypocrisy.

Tony Abbott: A great source of fun for the Universe!

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

When The Blowfly identifies something extremely funny in the universe he has this overwhelming compulsion to share it.

Some blogs ago I referred to the karma that Tony Abbott was creating by his aggressive stance and posture in the Parliament.

All those censure motions that he has staged will undoubtedly come back to haunt him.

This week Tony got a couple of serves from dear ole karma.

Firstly, it appears that his softening of the capacity to bring criminal charges against union officials and unions when Howard was trying to make Work Choices more palatable is actually a stumbling block in Abbott's attempt to crucify Craig Thomson and have him kicked out of Parliament.

Oh how sweet it is!

And then we have the phenomena of Tony's sister announcing that she is in a same-sex relationship and expressing her hopes that he will change the Coalition's position on same-sex marriages.

Oh sweet mystery of life. How can the universe contain itself?

The Blowfly wonders what will happen next to poor ole Tony.

Will George Pell announce that Tony is his love child?

Will one of Tony's daughters stand for Parliament at the next election for the Greens?

Will Tony's household be substantially better off when the carbon tax comes in?

Will Speedo stop making 'budgie-smugglers' because Germaine Greer thinks they are inappropriate?

Will the constituents of his electorate make public submissions to him to support the NBN because they don't want to be disadvantaged in a digital world?

For those of you who are keen students of karma and, for that matter, hypocrisy please do not hesitate to draw The Blowfly's attention to the many gems that abound the life of Tony Abbott.

Tim Mathieson, the PM's bloke : Crucified by Germaine Greer!

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Many Australians will be feeling sorry for Anna Bligh this week after her blitzing by Campbell Newman .

But you wont be surprised to know that The Blowfly has reserved his sympathy for another dear soul.

Tim Mathieson! Julia Gillard’s partner. Her bloke!

Germaine Greer has set him up for a crucifixion.

On Q&A she strongly suggested that the PM’s bottom was big and the PM should change the style of her attire to make this feature of her anatomy more becoming.

Can you imagine Tim’s predicament?

Each morning, undoubtedly, after Tim has had a crack at her hair, the PM would don her attire for the day, parade it before him, and ask innocently: “Tim, does my bum look big in this?”

Prior to Germaine Greer’s inappropriate outburst every man knows the answer to that question.

Can you see where I am going with this?

Julia is just as likely to say: “I want you to tell the truth, Tim. I heard what Germaine said on Q&A. And I also heard what Tony Abbott said. Tell me the truth, Tim!”

Tim thinks. And he thinks again.

He knows he is dead meat!

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how Tim might best deal with this situation?

Germaine Greer: For or against feminism?

noreply@blogger.com (Ian) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Blowfly has always had a rather healthy respect for Germaine Greer.

Not that he has ever read ‘The Female Eunuch’!

The respect has emanated from her provocative statements on any subject you could care to mention.

She is a stirrer supreme!

But she is associated with the women’s liberation movement. In fact she would seem to be the symbolic founder of it to present day women. Most have forgotten Emily Pankhurst and her struggles to obtain the rights for women to vote!

Women’s liberation is all about equality. And rights! And respect!

Some years ago Germaine stirred the pot by posing nude. And she produced a coffee table book of young beautiful men.

So when she advised Julia Gillard to change her style of dress what should mere mortals make of it?

Our Prime Minister would seem to be a keen proponent of women’s liberation.

Unmarried. Living in a relationship. Unapologetic about it. Devoted to a career. No apparent plans for children.

What else could Germaine look for as a symbol of women’s liberation?

So why would Germaine turn on her own gender?

To tempt Tony Abbott to make an off-the-cuff remark that would provide a further opportunity for him to explain the difference between the ‘truth’ and the ‘gospel truth’. We all need a good laugh from time to time!

Or to see Tony Abbott apologise? If only he’d apologise for all those 49 failed censure motions that have wasted Question Time!

Or to reveal that Germaine is yet another hypocrite that roams our planet?

As a women’s libber you might have expected that she’d have more to say about Tony Abbott’s budgie-smugglers than Julia’s coats.

Or to kill off the women’s liberation movement altogether because it has gone far enough?

Women have achieved the highest offices in our country and now women know that they can do it nothing will stop them.

Or maybe Germaine wanted to draw the attention to some of the woeful male outfits that male politicians adorn themselves with daily. Sort of like a reverse compliment.

Or maybe her involvement in the “Grumpy Old Women” series on the ABC simply got to her and she decided that any tall-poppy female is fair game.

Or maybe, just maybe The Blowfly thinks, she is the victim of Pudder’s Law : “Anything that begins well ends badly.”