| A Squiz at Australia's | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | 5 March 1999 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 1 Number 3 |
The Howard Government: An Oligarchy Out Of Control Australia is truly in the hands of a vicious, medieval government. They deserve to be removed at once, and the Governor General would do the future of this nation a service by doing so. Of course he won't, because he is an honourable man who believes in the right of democratically elected governments to run their course. And the Labor Party won't push it because, for all their failings, they are not quite up to the skulduggery the Liberal Party so easily adopted at the time of The Dismissal. But here, using Macquarie's exhortation that "government is necessary to the existence of society," is one compelling reason why the Howard mob, beholden not to society but to business, should be dismissed. They have submitted to the Remuneration Tribunal a seven page request for a 40 per cent pay rise for top federal bureaucrats while simultaneously putting forth a 500 page argument against an $8 a week wage rise for workers earning less than $23,000 a year. This is the behaviour of an-ethical sociopaths who wish they could wear wigs and cavort like pooncy lords from the middle ages. Sealing the case for dismissal, they have refused to grant FoI requests by The Australian newspaper and the ACTU to make these seven pages public because, 1) disclosure might expose the workings of government to "ill-formed or unfair criticism without adequate explanation," 2) "it might disclose a Cabinet decision and was against the public interest," and 3) it might have a "substantial adverse effect" on the tribunal. This is from a government elected with 47 per cent of the popular vote and who snickeringly doublespeaks the gullible populace on fairness while squeezing the poor in order to inflate the lifestyle of bureaucrats already earning more than $100,000 a year. And what do these bureaucrats do for that money? Surely even the meanest, most simple minded among us know that they are lapdogs who work "by fixed routine without exercising intelligent judgement!" And at the helm of this deceitful government is the mealy-mouthed moralist who campaigned "for all of us," a turnip of a man who made pre-election promises and then divided them into core and non-core after he was elected. This is a man who thinks we are as dumb as he is. It is a disaster for Australia that journalists are not free to vigorously criticise politicians for their bastardry without fear of litigation or sacking by editors-in-chief beholden to plutocratic overlords. Instead, we have to read between the lines of self-censorship. With the exception of very few columnists, we are fed lines such as, "John Howard's policies on education, health, etc, may be, ahem, somewhat suspect, but don't get me wrong, he has high principles!" He has neither principles nor scruples; he is, in short, a textbook Tory, and the elite view of Tories has not changed for centuries. HH As charitable as bend-over-backwards journos try to be, they surely know in their hearts that humanity's Right Wing is the single biggest contributor of evil on this planet of woes. The Right seems to live only to thwart human evolution, with its vistas of possibility no broader than the thumbnail of a used car salesman, that twentieth century icon of philistinism. Who can forget Edward G Robinson as proto-salesman Aaron, speaking for the business community in DeMille's Ten Commandments, when he exhorted Moses' followers to worship the Golden Calf and forget the long term. Although prophecies have pointed to the AntiChrist as an individual, in fact it's all of 'em, all the pinch-faced bastards Jesus threw out of the temple and all their sons and daughters ever after. The AntiChrist is the worldwide collective of corporate privateers, their wannabe's and the politicians in their pockets. And they are legion. HH DISMISS WHERE'S ME TABLETS! Beware Jeff's SS (The Super Squad) Plans are under way in Victoria to form a multi-purpose strike force from the following existing police units: dealers, stolen vehicles, organised crime, crime operations, gaming and vice. Says George Davis, the assistant commissioner for crime, "We want to target the criminals, not the crime. Instead of arriving with a small group of specialist investigators after the fact, we want to be intelligence-driven and attack the criminals before they commit the crimes." (italics ours). Sounds good if they stick to crime. In reality, ain't it a nifty way to SWAT dissent. Especially with a network of informers: the TV variety, comprised of ex-crims who get paid for piece work, and a new burgeoning group extracted from the silent majority who inform out of vengeful patriotism. It's been said before: all Jeff needs is an army. Now he might just get the next best thing. GS A core aim of the PPF is the restoration of a government which does not act against the people it represents. Especially governments whose anal retentiveness amounts to charting each and every defecation (social service outlays) as a loss. Master Kennett and his Minister for the Efficient Retention of Bowel Production, Alan Stockdale, have chosen to sacrifice the well-being of Victorians in order to fast-track a AAA rating. Standard & Poor's restored it in April last year, but rascally Moody's is still holding out. And what will happen when they finally get it? Nothing. There will be another anti-grail to search for...perhaps as the government with the highest budget surplus in the world! Meanwhile they are breaking the backs of the rest of us. What Moody's calls "prudent fiscal strategies" are no more than a reduction in services and the standard of living of the very people whose spending makes for a successful economy. The Kennett government belies an obsessive, Scrooge-like mentality which starves the spirit to fatten the spreadsheet. GS Meg Lees Nails The Pinheads: They Want Absolute Power Remember Richard Alston's infamous comment on PM (21 August 1996)? "This is not the end of democracy as we know it, but an adjustment...." Clever Dick's portent has gone somewhat beyond the adjustment phase since then. Of this Meg Lees says, "When Coalition MPs talk about government, they mean the Prime Minister, his ministers and themselves having all power and making all decisions, irrespective of the Parliament. The House has been captured by the executive. The executive, however cannot capture the Senate, so it seeks to discredit it before attempting to dismantle its powers." Indeed, the House is merely a rubber stamp for decisions made by the cynical triumvirate of Howard, Reith and Costello who got the Liberal Party into power, not by popular vote, but by manipulating marginal electorates, thus rendering all other electorates superfluous. The leader of the Democrats goes on to talk of the inequalities of voter representation under the current electoral system, and her sound solution, based on the British Jenkins model. For details, we refer the reader to The Age, 23/2/99, and The Australian 24/2/99. GS Is Slippery Jeff Squirming Over The Casino Tendering Process? Don't worry, he'll get out of it. He's got the taxpayer's wallet in his hands to mount as many technical delays as his lawyers can come up with. And even if he is found to have interfered with the bidding process, nothing will happen. For Jeffrey, Lord Kennett is above the law. Is it not written that he did speak unto his new flock of victims, er, Victorians, on election night, 1992, and did say unto them: The Jeff giveth and The Jeff taketh away. I am The Jeff. And don't you forget it. GS Glen Milne writes in The Australian that the Coalition is dissatisfied with what it perceives to be journalistic favouritism of Labor at the Coalition's expense. And how right they are. As mentioned in our editorial, journalists are not allowed to get downright honest about the politicians they write about, but that doesn't mean they don't know a two-bob watch when they see one. Anybody with half an intellect could only write disparagingly of the factory seconds that make up the Coalition front and back benches. How much more interesting their jobs would be if the conservatives had developed brains. In the meantime, Labor and the Democrats provide the only intelligence in town. GS Last year, in a feat of double dip ignominy, Paul Keating simultaneously sued John Pilger for the latter's allegations of a cover-up on the extent of the Dili Massacre, while on the same day visiting his old mate Soeharto. GS |
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