THE "RESIGN, JEFF!" REVIEW |
RJR 7 | 12 May 1994 | Melbourne, Victoria |
Dear 3LO: Ranald Macdonald Must Go So, it turns out that the man who can ruin your breakfast lunches regularly with Jeff and the Boys. Now we know why Ranald Macdonald is unable to ask those thorny questions of the Premier. Of course we always suspected Ranald of bias; anyone with half a brain would. But it is nothing short of scandalous for a supposedly objective radio announcer to be hobnobbing with a group of politicians and businessmen, all of whom are Liberal or worse. Dugald Jellie (The Age Green Guide, 28/4) quotes the station manager of 3L0, Steve Ahern, as saying that "the station prevented its broadcasters being members of political parties, but there could be no such policy on with whom they dined." But this is not just the occasional luncheon, it is a well planned, highly selective, monthly get together for businessmen who are associated, not with all political parties, but with one political party. Jellie says, "How, for instance, could Macdonald interview his luncheon associates, such as Premier Kennett, with complete open-mindedness, knowing he will be sharing wine with him next week?" The answer is simple. The Premier enjoys open slather on Ranald Macdonald's show. Rarely are Ranald's questions more than convenient Dorothy Dixers, obsequious springboards for the Premier's rhetorical turpitude. Contrast Mary Delahunty on the 7:30 Report, who gently carves the phat off all and sundry; Jeff's afraid of her. But there is more to our 3L0 plea than Ranald's privileged association with Jeff and the Rumor Tank. (Would a more suitable name be the Disinformation Tank?) There is the hotly debated question of Macdonald's talent as a radio announcer. Some enjoy his style, but to us that style--anomic, non-fluent dithering, with major word finding problems and atrocious interviewing skills--is unnerving, especially at breakfast. (How many listeners have found themselves suddenly choking on their muesli as they lunge for the radio dial the moment AM finishes, determined to protect their ears from even one syllable, lest they turn into human pretzels in the agonising wait for Ranald get the next one out!) Furthermore he has a problem with perceived status. It seems that he cannot help rolling over and showing his belly to anyone he perceives as having a higher position. It's not only Jeff Kennett he bows too, but anyone who has done something worthy of adulation. Thus, he can only look down on the weatherman and the hapless people who call in to express their opinions. How many times have we heard him unnecessarily interrupt and then finally cut them off? Why does he do it? Not so much from rudeness as ineptness. It's as if he suddenly loses the plot, all concentration gone, his mind jumping like a monkey from tree to tree, racing on, racing anywhere. Finally, he has a woefully undeveloped sense of humour. When Ranald Macdonald laughs, the whole world goes numb. Such lofty concepts as integrity and probity have been endangered species for some time. But with the advent of the Kennett Government, they are becoming extinct. No one chooses the way of honour any more. The Premier was caught red handed in the KNF affair, but thumbed his nose at justice. Neither he nor his cronies give a damn about being seen to do the right thing. And dear old right-wing Ranald, who cannot help his drive for status by association, has also become blind. Perhaps he shouldn't leave the Rumor Tank just because, as he says, "one of its members became Premier," but he should leave 3L0. PRO VICTORIA Shane, Shane, Come Back, Shane! Watching Jeff Kennett's swaggering ridicule of John Brumby in Parliament over the last year calls to mind the bad guys in old Hollywood Westerns. The Premier is the perfect image of the villain who controls everything and everyone by fear and intimidation. Why, there's Black Jeff now, sitting in his office above the Jeff Kennett Saloon, twirling his slick moustache as he talks things over with his Gang of 61, slobbery sneers punctuating each genetically weak face, six guns just itching to commit the foulest deeds for fear of his wrath. Trouble is, there's that last patch of land--still owned by the Widow Victoria and her frightened children--standing between him and his dream of glory. All he has to do is have her rubbed out and he'll own the whole territory...and won't he just call it "Gibbsland!" "Now then," he says, "here's what I want you to do..." And so the story went in that old movie, the Gang of 61 riding in one night with torches ablaze, whooping and hollering as they burnt the poor woman's property to the ground, unaware that she and the children had escaped to find help. And so the story goes, even in our time. Indeed, it must be secretly shameful for Liberal voters old enough to have seen those movies to realise they've grown up to align themselves--not with the good guy, who eventually comes to avenge the Widow Victoria--but with the bad guys, the evil one's prepared to sacrifice anything and anyone to get what they want. Heil Jeff! • STOCKDALE'S BUDGET INVITES VICTORIANS TO GET LOST. A budget is a budget is a budget. They come around with depressing monotony and rarely do the right thing by ordinary people. Furthermore, with the economies of every nation and state dependent on the whims of the anal-retentive financial markets, treasurers are hobbled at the outset. Add to this Alan Stockdale's fabricated State Debt crisis, and it's not surprising that his budget has been forged to aid the few and to hell with the many. 150 people are leaving Victoria every day (research needs to show us what their economic demographics are). Unemployment is 11.5 per cent, and to blow this out even further, Alan is going to sack 3500 more public sector workers. The current account surplus is predicted to be $421 million in the next financial year, but the State Levy will remain. Road funding will rise while public transport is being left to rot. Nothing has been set aside for the Grand Prix; in fact Jeff and Alan have admitted that taxpayers will foot the bill. And so on, ad nauseam. At least Jeff and Alan have got their priorities right with $9 million set aside to renovate the building that houses their offices. Someone's got to win. • THE STUDENT UNION FIASCO. Make no mistake, the State Government's interest is not in the democratic aspect of voluntary association, but in simply getting rid of another UNION and the rights it protects. The idea of people organising to protect themselves strikes fear and hatred into the hearts of the rights-trampling right. Especially when members of those organisations are students still young enough to throw eggs and tomatoes at them. Unions are usually compulsory because people are too blase to look after their own interests. In keeping with the times, many students are for opting out in order to save the fees. The fact that they will also lose their rights, such as the right to appeal potentially unfair faculty decisions made against their own welfare, is of no interest to them. As we have seen so often with the Kennett Government, the concept of Democracy is being used here to destroy Democracy. • 20¢ CHARGE ON TIMETABLES: HOW LOW CAN THEY GET? Not since the three hour pass was reduced to two hours has wretched Alan Brown's PTC so unwittingly embarrassed themselves. The meanness is breathtaking. It smacks of a government wildly out of touch with an electorate it despises. There is no doubt that public transport in Melbourne is being wound down in favour of petrol-guzzling automobiles; the same mistake made in Los Angeles over 40 years ago. Dumb? Don't overestimate the Kennett Government: stupidity and ignorance rule. It is sacrificing once beautiful and peaceful Melbourne every chance it gets. And now, after the insulting and unworkable two hour pass (which has caused honest citizens to hurry, worry and cheat), we have to pay 20 lousy cents for a timetable that is mostly meaningless. What other company in what other state in what other nation charges for timetables? The mind boggles. (Based on an article by Peter Mickelburough, HS 28/4.) • SCHOOLS OF THE FUTURE: BRAIN-LESS AND BRAND-LOYAL. The rise of corporate sponsorship in schools fits with the Coalition's policy of reducing education to a breeding ground for consumer obedience. Forget Philosophy 101. It's replacement--Maximum Returns through Competitive Edge Mammonism--is surely more pertinent to every Victorian's desire for greater lump sum roll overs when the time comes. The complex richness of intellectual investigation--what a waste of time!-- is at last to be replaced with every philistine's dream: filthy lucre. Well, what else are poor schools to do? The Government has better things to do with the money it used to give them. Let business take over education; a little downsizing of consumer brain power can only help the private sector. (Based on an article by Sue Hewitt, Sunday Age, 1/5.) • TRICKY DICKIE, RUMDUM RONNIE AND OUR OWN BULLYBOY JEFF. Terry Lane (Sunday Age, 1/5) says it all about the man who sent the National Guard into Kent State University. Richard Nixon, the consummate politician, hadn't a noble bone in his body. If he had, he would have retired into obscurity after Watergate. He should have done so after his Checkers speech in 1951. But integrity and lust for power are concepts he never allowed to meet. Directly or indirectly, he had the blood of millions on his hands. And so does Ronald Reagan. Between them, they represent the nadir of Free World leadership. Visionless and mean, they promoted the same narrow minded ideologies as our own Jeff Kennett. The frightening thing is that Jeff is far more unprincipled and dangerous. Fortunately for the world, he may never get to bathe in the blood of innocent millions, but he'll do the next best thing--reduce Victorians to paupers. Let's hope Terry Lane does an article on Reagan and Kennett. Before they die, please. • ALP BRANCH STACKING ITS WAY TO THE HEART OF DARKNESS. Talk about clueless stupidity! Here is the party that brought Jeff Kennett to power, and now, through pathetic internal finagling, is going to insure he stays there. And maybe he should, if all the opposition can do is look after its own unworthy hide. Maybe the ALP doesn't know it, but for Victorians, the only realistic hope of remaining a somewhat civilised society resides in its defeat of the Coalition next election. Sad to say, the Labor Party may have already thrown in the towel. It's time the Liberal Party took a new name, one that honestly reflects its policies and politicians. Having moved further right than the proverbial Genghis Khan, this once proud party has degenerated into a rabble of obstructionist reactionaries who have no idea what liberalism means. To continue insulting that concept amounts to abject cynicism. After a Hard Day of Voodoo John likes nothing better than to relax in the comfort of his own laboratory with a few pins and his Brian Burdekin doll. And let's not forget the well-punctured, featureless dolls representing the whingeing Victorian hordes. As for all those retards and schizos, they're under his feet, along with the sobbing scum who looks after them. |
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