| Australia's Journal of Political Character Assassination | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | Next Issue: 27 May 2000 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 4 Number 10 |
Corruption Comes Naturally to Australian Liberals Dr Evil Wooldridge showed his cynical, smug, contemptuous face to Parliament yesterday (Libs must be born this way), because he knew John "corrupt to the core" Howard would not ask him to resign. Howard decided, way back with Warwick Parer's indiscretions, that corruption was better than having no one at all on the front benches. For the number of Howard Ministers who should have resigned by now must be a record. And the one's who did, back when Shonky John was still touting his Ministerial Guidelines, must be furious. The simple truth is that radiologists were able to suss the meaning of Woodridge's words at the infamous May 6 meeting. Only an Australian Liberal would try to deny that the following rush order of 33 MRI machines had no connection. If we are not a nation of stunned mullets, why do we continue to put up with this rubbish? No one in Howard's Gang has the slightest shred of credibility left. Their elitist refusal to comprehend the difference between right and wrong literally amounts to treason, because they are laying waste to the well-being of every Australian man, woman and child with a criminal abandon. If the Governor General cannot demand the dissolution of this government, the people should demand it. Australia cannot afford another 18 months of these legislative Visigoths. HH Will eleven year old Sophie Gosper become the ultimate symbol of Australia's corrupt 2000 Olympics? Her character will be sorely tested in the years to come, though possibly not in the posh private schools she will attend throughout her adolescence. Her schoolmates, steeped in elite privelege, will likely dismiss the ramifications of father Kevans "polite suggestion" that Sophie be given the role of first Australian to carry the torch in Greece. Young princesses all, they would have expected the same from their fathers. But if, by some quirk of fate, this girl has a conscience--and the odds are long, for her father is a prominent supporter of the Australian Liberal Party--she will be forced to deal with his flagrant nepotism. Against even the advice of his corrupt cronies, John Coates and Sandy Hollway, Gosper engineered the removal of Greek-Australian girl Yianna Souleles, who had been selected to be the first runner back in April. Because torch bearers must be 12 years old in Australia, Gosper's only chance was to get Sophie in the Greek section of the relay. Why? Because " ... in my heart I felt it was intended to be," said he. The Gods had spoken to Kevan! The Hellenic Olympic Committee, headed by Lambis Nikolaou, who hopes Gosper can get him a seat on the IOC executive board, agreed. And why not? Keeping on the Gosperado's good side may also save them from losing the 2004 Olympics because of organisational incompetence. That is, of course, if Gosper is still around then. But not to worry. Like 18th century aristocrats and most Australian Liberal Party sympathisers, Kevan Gosper appears to be above the law. We have seen John Howard's ministers caught red handed, Michael Wooldridge being the most recent over the Scan Scam, but they are neither required to resign or be tried in a court of law. Gosper himself is under investigation for untoward activities concerning Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics. It seems his family ran up a considerable bill, which was paid by Olympics organisers. Salt Lake won the games by a mile. The results of this investigation are due on Monday next, but you can bet they will either be in Gosper's favour or as substantial as a wet pancake. It is indeed a sickening display from this ambitious man who would be the new Samaranch, that is, the head of one of the richest, most unaccountable organisations on earth. For all his commanding physical stature, Kevan Gosper is a very little man. HH Deliver Us From Non-Core Magoo The Four Corners edition on Pornography, "Deliver us from Evil," (8/5/00) revealed the polarisation in Australia between the living and the dead. On the side of the dead were the elderly Senator Brian Harridine (constituency about 10,000), who equates cunnilingus and fellatio with sexual deviancy; the Member for the Wireless generations, the woodenly inanimate and very frumpy De-Anne Kelly, expressing her contained moral outrage that anyone could possibly enjoy viewing others having sex or, for God's sake, having sex themselves with the lights on; the fascist Arch Bishop George Pell, whose priests have been raping children for centuries; and Senator Richard Alston, who consistently lies through his teeth when he says that a "majority" of Australians want censorship. The opposite is of course the case: less than 20 per cent want the iron hand of totalitarianism to protect them from themselves. The "majority" Alston was referring to is in fact a minority, but because they all vote "Liberal" they become a magical majority. Caught in the middle was poor Attorney General Daryl Williams. A man who could have earned respect had he not been associated with the innate corruption of his party, Williams had to accept the humiliation of the wowser cabal which overturned his non-violent erotica (NVE) bill at the last minute. That the NVE may have been splitting hairs was a moot point, but it would have seen to the banning of some extreme videos, something the Kelly-led naivetes were unable to comprehend. Now those extreme videos are still for sale. On the other side, were moderator Matt Brown; David Marr, heroic advocate for an open society; and Eros Foundation campaign manager, Robbie Swan. Swan's book-in-progress, "Moral Hypocrisy"--which intends to list those priests and politicians who express moral outrage for public consumption by day while indulging in outrageous morality for private consumption by night--has indeed outraged the outraged. The ABC's Web site discussion afterwards drew hundreds of comments, the overwhelming majority being against any form of censorship. But then, net heads are rarely fogies, young or old. Brown, Marr and Kelly were on hand to field questions. De-Anne's response to a comment suggesting that there be strict classification and no censorship was revealing of a mind-set common to conservatives. She said: " . . . the question is about governing for every one not just pandering to the sophisticated tastes of a morally superior few." The resentment is palpable. They really hate us, don't they? They cannot stand the idea of people having a broader view of what it means to be alive, or of caring or knowing more about a range of things than they do. They don't want to know and they resent anyone who does. They are the Lilliputians who revere the lowest common denominator and we are Gullivers who are unable to contain our desire to know more. They are always in the majority (because their governments refuse to fund their education) and sometimes, with the aid of a John Howard or, in extreme circumstances, a Pol Pot, they triumph in spades (no pun intended). But while Kelly speaks of "governing for every one" (remember "For All of Us"?) she is quite definitely excluding those she erroneously regards as "superior", that is the people for whom life is more than being the servants of corporate masters whose chump channels relentlessly numb the mind. Most insidious of all, she is unwittingly acting for those who regard themselves as truly superior, the corporate elites who back the Australian Liberal Party, who want it all for themselves, who want to keep everyone else--especially National Party constituents--scuffling for basic services at a wage level near survival. It's a terrifying thought that the Labor Party, when it routs this, the worst Government in Australia's history, may not act to right the insidious, anti-intellectual wrongs perpetrated by Howard and his frenzy of fools. HH This McArthur Should Fade Away, Pronto Monbulk State Liberal MP Stephen McArthur, like most Liberals, would have grown up in a philistine-saturated atmosphere where Percy Faith was considered to be cool and Andrew Lloyd Webber is regarded as a master. That's why he has no idea what "personal space" means, a term, or at least a concept, familiar to everyone else. Or at least he claims not to know what it means. Being an Australian Liberal (this qualification of "Liberal" is necessary because Australian Liberals are the antithesis of the meaning of the word), it is quite possible that he has never had genuine contact with those beyond the larval stage. For the edification of McArthur and those Australian Liberals who may be reading this, "personal space" is that relatively slight area surrounding one's person that, by cultural convention, is not to be breached unless by invitation or by circumstances beyond one's control, such as overcrowding on trams, trains, etc. To his credit (in so far as he really does understand what the phrase means), he said that he may have gotten too close to the invaded Labor MP, Lynne Kosky in Parliament, while traversing the corridor to vote. The accusation is that McArthur would not permit Kosky to pass him in that congested space. He is further alleged to have said to her, "You're a disgrace. You don't deserve to be here." There are witnesses from both parties. McArthur defended himself by saying, "I can assure you I didn't assault her or make contact with her, or anything like that." But of course that would be a step beyond invading her personal space. It must really anger the Australian Liberals that they are not in power, because as every God knows, that is where they belong. After all, they represent our best interests, if only we'd roll over and assume the supplication position required of us. They were certainly never meant to stand aside for scum, especially female scum, who belong to parties other than their own. As for the women in their own party, well those women are either genetic males or The Walking Dead, devoid of compassion or character or scruples. They are all Thatcher clones. Thus, they are accorded the same respect as male Australian Liberals. We can only hope that this incident is not allowed to pass into oblivion with nary a scratch or hand slap. (Based on an article by Meaghan Shaw, The Age, 5/5/00.) HH Kennett's Legacy: Needy Hospital Bypassed For Votes Dimboola District Hospital was deprived of funds because Rob Knowles, Kennett's final Wealth is Health Minister, manipulated a funding priority list to favour a nursing home in his electorate. Labor Aged Care Minister Bronwyn Pike has announced funding of $3.3 million to improve aged care facilities at Dimboola, citing that it was the second worst in the state. She said that the hospital in Daylesford, the one that received Knowles fix, "on no objective view needed those resources as urgently as Dimboola did." Pike cited a ministerial briefing note from the Department of Human Services in October 1998, which included a handwritten note from Knowles saying "Note the amended priority over page." Using two arrows, Mr Knowles indicated the Daylesford home should move up the list to get funding for the 1999-2000 financial year, while the Dimboola home was pushed down to the 2000-2001 financial year. Said Pike: "Because Dimboola was a safe national seat, because (the Kennett Government) took Dimboola for granted and, of course, to coincide with election timing . . . the funds were taken away and they were given to a facility in the then minister's own electorate . . . a marginal electorate." Sure the Labor party has committed these breaches of public trust before, but not nearly as often or as callously as the Australian Liberals have. (Based on an article by Meaghan Shaw, The Age, 5/5/00.) HH Magoo + ManagementMan = Their ABC Non-Core Never-Ever's appointment of Jonathan Shiers as managing director of the ABC has been a source of anxiety for months. Now that the "modern management theory" guru has finally taken over, that anxiety has transmogrified into gobsmacked incredulity. You couldn't have predicted in your wildest nightmares that Shiers would force veteran television programmer, Hugh McGowan to take a five-hour personality and I.Q. test in order to assess his suitability as head of television. And that it be given by a young, faceless psychologist. (Even psychologists joke about their field as a step below Astrology.) It beggars belief that the kind of test given to university graduates new to the world of employment would be given to a man with a proven performance record. (It has become apparent that Shiers never took such a test to get Little Johnny's approval.) Clearly it was a ruse to be rid of McGowan. Sinisterly, it followed many hours of enthusiastic discussions between the two men about restructuring and revitalising the ABC. Using standard tactics employed by the Nazis, Shier convinced McGowan that all was well before leading him to the slaughter. "Faced with what he calls the 'insane' test, McGowan baulked. 'I fooled around with it,' he says. 'They presented me with a graph of apple and pear production against apple production. I didn't take it as seriously as I should have.' "The test involved answering agree or disagree--to varying degrees--to a number of statements that McGowan believed could not be answered simply or out of context. They were asking for absolutes while McGowan's mind was pondering the phrasing of the question." In other words, Shiers, with the backing of Howard, wants to turn the ABC into a one-dimensional field of unreflective, facts-not-issues, infantile dreams, to be enjoyed by the herd who routinely tune in the chump channels, 7, 9, and 10. Will it be long before shows like BackBerner are replaced by propaganda events touting the wisdom of the racist Howard Government? BackBerner has taken a lot of flak, most likely because it is often too angry to be funny. But it remains the only show that relentlessly satirises the goons in power. It is to be hoped that remaining ABC staff refuse to take this test, the darling of dreary management the world over. Managers have neutered and greyed every vibrant institution they have touched. Universities are the worst example of their philistine priorities. The art of educating is slowly becoming lost in a swamp of bureaucratic time wasting, with "performance indicators" having nothing to do with intellectual appraisal and all to do with world's best practice in paper clip distribution. SCATT continues to hammer home the point: The Howard Government is unfit to govern and should be removed as soon as possible. (Based on an article by Amanda Meade, The Oz 4/5/00, Oz editorial, 5/5/00.) HH Corroboree 2000: All Walk Away Smooth-talking, silken-toned Senator Aden Ridgeway is nothing if not an Australian Democrat. His measured tones in condemning Patrick Dodson for turning his back on Corroboree 2000 perfectly invoke the flaccid Democrat ideology of making sure that no matter what the Government proposes, be it tax reform or the ritual slaughter of dole-bludging single mothers, some compromise is reached. It may be beyond the Michael Jackson of Australian politics to understand that Dodson is turning his back on this worthless Prime Minister and his covertly racist government. It doesn't take a crock of scientists to comprehend that Reconciliation has to wait for a change of government. And when that happens, let us hope that the Democrats go too. HH |
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