Of Lame Ducks and Other Things

Couldn't resist this, gentle reader. The line at 2.24 is a doozy.

Somehow ducks are becoming a recurring theme.

It's completely beyond my control.

President Abbott

Image courtesy ramblingsdc.net

Our Prime Minister has been going around saying things like – “The electorate voted for me as leader to end the chaos of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor governments".

Now this statement would be true if we had a presidential electoral system. We don’t – so it isn’t.

The only “electorate” that voted for Tony Abbott were the voters of Warringah. Just to state the bleeding obvious, the Liberal Party elected Tony Abbott leader, and he was commissioned by the Governor General to form government.

Now this meme by Abbott is no big deal - he often talks rubbish - except that not only does he put it forward ad nauseum, but it seems to be largely accepted by most Australians, led by the mainstream media.

I venture to suggest that it comes from the same place as pattie cakes being called cupcakes, aeroplanes being renamed airplanes, and biscuits metamorphosing into cookies. I swear that if I had somehow done a Rip Van Winkle and woken today after a fifty year nap, I would have difficulty believing that during that time we had not been invaded by the US military and annexed as the fifty-first state.

Language wise, we might as well have been.

Now don’t get me wrong – the US of A is a great country. But it is not my country. I don’t appreciate my lingo being mangled. Nor do I appreciate the public's understanding of my system of government being carefully and deliberately  subverted, even if it is to construct a political meme.

We’re on a slippery slope to becoming a fully-owned subsidiary of the US of A, fellow Australians – assuming there are any of you who continue to identify as such.

Project Boring Update (5)

See it here.

Queensland – Perfect One Day, Amazing the Next……..

Pic courtesy Brisbane Times

 Political pundits are still in the process of wiping egg from their faces after last weekend’s events.

That is not really a surprise. Queensland is and always has been different, especially when it comes to political trends. Generally, as voters, we lead. We don’t follow.

What threw the pundits was the preference flow. They hadn’t predicted the fairly disciplined flow of preferences from the Greens to Labor, and the further display of discipline from Labor, Green PUP and other voters to put the LNP last.

Mind you, this putting the LNP last in many cases must have been a simple protest, irrespective of what the How to Vote cards were saying. There was more to it than following instructions.

I must admit, my money was on an LNP with a reduced majority, and Newman getting the boot in Ashgrove. With a member of my extended family, most of whom live in or around metro Brisbane, sacked by Newman, this result was almost inevitable. Plenty of public servants and their extended families live in Ashgrove.

You don’t get my extended family offside – they are fiercely loyal, and some who had not been vocal prior to the sackings became very active. What had affected one individual suddenly mobilized an extended family whose members totaled about thirty voters. I reckon there were many other families with sacked public servants as members who reacted in the same way. Blood is thicker than water.

As my nephew, whose dad was sacked after thirty plus years of hard work and loyal service said – it had become personal.

Anyhow, now we have a very interesting situation. It’s not inconceivable that the Borg might corral the Katter boys, and Peter Wellington into a minority government, especially if they end up having a by-election in Ferny Grove, because, apparently, the PUP candidate couldn’t read a form.

The Borg and the Katter boys speak the same regional dialect, after all.

Annastacia Palaszczuk, despite all the sexist commentary that has already been thrown at her, is smart and competent. The little bit I had to do with her as a member of the Regional Disability Council when she was Minister for Communities in the Bligh government reinforced that understanding.

The important outcome is that the corrupt whiteshoe influence has largely been flushed from Queensland politics. It remains with a toehold on the Gold Coast (little Baghdad on the Nerang), but has been mortally wounded.

Peter Wellington is on a mission for transparent government. Good luck to him. Given the position he now occupies, he has a good chance of success.

Commissions directed against defeated governments are suddenly all the go. Let’s have one inquiring into the connections between the Newman government, mining companies, real estate interests and disaster recovery contracts.

Come on, Peter, go for it…………

Our To-Do List

My bride wrote a message on our to-do board in the kitchen last week.
Looks like Queenslanders were watching............