Free at last,free at last,thank God Almighty we are free at last.
Great Scott,they wouldn’t dare
In the lead up to becoming prime minister,John Howard famously said “the times will suit me” and was proved right.
Up until recently these times also suited Scott Morrison,but these times they are a’changing,and he is not changing with them. This is most obvious when it comes to his flat-footedness in handling what is no less than an uprising by Australian women on half-a-dozen fronts at once.
By way of a small example I offer the fact that even in the midst of matters of great moment of highly delicate sensitivities,the PM consistently refers to Brittany Higgins and Christine Holgate as “Brittany” and “Christine” respectively,just as he refers to Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins as “Kate”.
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Why? He is not friends with any of them and the use of their first names comes across as paternalistic. It would be such an easy thing to fix,to treat them with the formal respect they deserve but he either refuses to do it or – as I suspect – it’s just not in him.
You don’t agree? Well,would any of them refer to him as “Scott”?
Would it be ok if they did,or outrageously presumptuous?
I rest my case.
One other thing on his language,while I’ve got you.
According to the PM,we went to Afghanistan to fight for “freedom”.
Really? Americans carry on about “freedom” as the be-all and end-all of every military action,but we Australians have always been a little more nuanced. And if freedom was our real motive,PM,why aren’t we invading Xinjiang province to free the Uighurs? Why aren’t the Americans?
Joke of the Week
A man walks into an antique store and starts looking around. Suddenly,he gazes upon the most stunning bronze statue of a Siamese cat. He asks the store owner how much he wants for the statue. The store owner replies:“It’s $200 for the statue and $2000 for the story that goes with it.”
The man replies:“I really don’t care about the story,but I do want the statue.”
By the time the man walks out of the shop,two cats are waiting for him at the doorway,and 10
are there by the time he makes it to the other side of the crossing. He goes several more blocks and,at another crosswalk,looks behind himself again. This time there are about 50 cats sitting looking at him.
The man starts to get a little nervous and picks up his pace when the light changes. By the time he reaches the pier at the end of the street,he has now been running for several blocks,and there are 200!
Frantic,he gets to the end of the pier,pursued by 300! He does the only thing he can,and throws the statue into the water,whereupon every single one of them goes in after it! Racing back to the shop,the shop owner sees him and says,“I knew you’d be back for the story!”
“To hell with the story,” gasps the man,“Do you have a statue of a politician?”
Tweet of the Week
Me:“Onion rings and a bottle of wine . . .”
Waiter:“White or red?”
Me,trying to impress my date:“Whichever onion the chef prefers.”
@desukidesu
Quotes of the Week
“The simple truth is,I was bullied out of my job. I was humiliated and driven to despair. I was thrown under the bus so the chairman of Australia Post could curry favour with his political masters. But I’m still here and I’m stronger for surviving it.” - Christine Holgate,on her experience as chief executive of Australia Post woman to the Senate Environment and Communication References Committee.
“Enough prayers. Time for some action.” -US President Joe Biden,promising to bring in some sane gun laws to diminish his country’s endless gun massacres.
“What’s the matter with these people? Can’t they see what is good for them?” - Prince Philip after the Australian republic referendum failed in 1999,recalled this week in the lead-up to his funeral yesterday. Oh,do calm down. The source was the Queen’s biographer Robert Lacey. And as long ago as 1968,on a solo trip to Australia,The Canberra Times reported of his speech to the National Press Club,“If Australians decided they preferred a republic to the present constitutional arrangement,he said,there would be no ‘perturbation’ in Whitehall. ‘It should be settled by negotiation,not by insult’. The basic issue was what best suited the Australian people.”
“The only jab delivered successfully by Scott Morrison was the jab to get rid of Malcolm Turnbull.” -Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese taking aim at Australia’s extraordinarily slow vaccination roll-out,which sees us ranked at 104th in the world,just between Bangladesh and Lebanon.
“The systems,processes and people let Jack,Jennifer and Olga Edwards down,for that I am sorry. We have to take responsibility for their deaths.” -NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller saying that the force must take responsibility for the shooting deaths of Jack and Jennifer Edwards at the hands of their violent father,John. Edwards shot Jack,15,and Jennifer,13,with a legally owned and acquired Glock pistol at their West Pennant Hills home in north-west Sydney in July 2018. Then he drove home to Hornsby and turned the gun on himself.
“At this stage there’s no change to the planned restart of our international flights,we’ll continue to have dialogue with the government.” -A Qantas spokesman saying that the airline’s plan to restart most of its international network later this year has been thrown into doubt by Australia’s delayed vaccination program,which threatens to leave its international border closed beyond October.
“It’s bizarre. Other businesses would have just gone,‘Mate,it’s not tenable’. I offered to resign at the start[of the war crimes scandal] and they said,‘Nah’.” - Ben Roberts-Smith,a senior executive of Seven West Media,reveals in a legally made recording,his disdain for the business he helps run,his dislike of his fellow Seven executives and his incredulity that he is still running the company’s Queensland operations despite being at the centre of a war crimes scandal.
“Today,30 years after the[Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody] report was tabled,those words still hold such force. Self-determination for First Nations people is still lacking in this country. This unfinished business cannot be separated from anything else that is done to try to prevent the deaths of First Nations people in custody.” -State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan.
“There is a market for crazy.” -Malcolm Turnbull,referring to News Corp outlets and the damage he said they and other right-wing outfits had done to American democracy,culminating in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6.
“I have long admired Fred’s courage in speaking up for the truth under some of the most vitriolic and irrational opposition and I feel honoured to be given the opportunity to continue being such a voice for NSW and our nation.” -Lyle Shelton,a self-described culture warrior,anti-same-sex marriage campaigner and former Australian Christian Lobby boss,who will now take over Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party seat in the NSW upper house as Nile retires. Shelton was director of the “No” campaign during the 2017 same-sex marriage campaign,and unsuccessfully contested the 2019 federal election for Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservative Party,garnering – dot three,carry one,subtract two – 5533 votes.
Twitter:@Peter_Fitz
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