The Yes Vote Has Hit The Ground Limping …

…having badly stubbed its toe on rock-hard questions they continue to ignore.  We face a tsunami of ill-conceived celebrity cajoling and implied guilt from the Yes camp, but still no answers to the questions more and more Australians are asking.  And The Magpie’s question of some weeks ago also is yet to be answered: is Albo running dead on The Voice, appearing to honour an election promise while behaving i a manner guaranteed to get the majority into the No camp. One writer pins down the basic mood that the Yes people still refuse to address.

Campaigning capers … the Bulletin’s ham fisted attempt at making a predetermined outcome look like a success for a campaigning paper.

Dame Edna has gone to possum’s heaven … legendary comic genius Barry Humphries died overnight.

Crikey!! What a win for real journalism.

Fighting Fran O’Callaghan wins a big personal battle …

Some unforgettable quotes of the week, American funnyman Bill Maher comes up with a new award, one which The Magpie intends to imitate, and a bumper laughfest with our American gallery.

If you enjoy this weekly offering, you can help the Nest remain secure against the constant buffeting of current financial winds.  The donate button is at the bottom of the blog. And sincere appreciation to those who’ve already been generous in their support.

Now, onwards.

Wrecking. And Rolling

With an effective opposition in total disarray (motor-mouth Michaela Cash as Shadow A-G … Christ! that says it all), Albo is enjoying an extended honeymoon with the electorate in the run-up to the Federal budget.  Treasurer Jim Chalmers, a parliamentary leader in waiting if ever there was one, is a skilful salesman of unpopular measures as he readies for his budget. His smooth performance has taken the heat off Albo, who is showing signs of testiness when curly questions across a whole raft of issues start being fired in.  But in predictable Labor style, Albo is taking a ‘crash or crash through’ approach to many issues, even when in full retreat from traditional and founding Labor values. The closure of the Liddell power station in the Hunter Valley – which effectively reduces NSW energy output by 20% – has Bentley all fired up, he thinks it’s a sign of things to come.

Is One Thing Albo Is Effectively Wrecking The Voice Yes Vote?

While Chalmers makes the running on the budget, Albanese continues his lukewarm ‘she’ll be right mate’ performance on the indigenous voice to parliament referendum.  Using soaring phrases and what he sees as statements for posterity about principles, morals and … and … well,  and niceness, he still refuses to satisfactorily engage with the rapidly increasing number of Australians who feel they are not being told everything about the Voice. This has set the groundwork for many idiotic conspiracy theories about extreme consequences, which will increasingly circulate through social media in the coming months.  Which is a shame in more ways than one, and could easily have been circumvented but for some unexplained stubbornness to engage with the national community.  Apitch of ‘trust us, we’re politucians and indigenous leaders’ is never going to fly, and is basically insulting. One of the most succinct summaries of the electorate’ s mood  – one that Albanese should read if he hasn’t already –  popped up this week from veteran columnist Mike O’Connor.

O’Connor is one of those writers who can marshal his thoughts into easily understandable form, and the simplicity of his approach often has had more impact – certainly more than lesser lights like The ‘Pie.  So because his take on the Voice issue packages up much the national mood on a crucial proposal,  here it is, courtesy of the Courier Mail.

_{Mother always told us to say “please” when asking for something, but if the members of our political class were given similar advice by their respective mothers then they appear to have forgotten it.}

_{I’ve yet to hear anyone ask voters if they would please, when they have a moment, consider both sides of the argument surrounding the proposed Indigenous Voice to parliament.}

_{Instead of a respectful, reasoned approach, there is an ever-increasing volume of rhetoric demanding that we just do as we are told and accept it that now verges on bullying.}

_{We once regarded individualism and a healthy suspicion of authority as elements of our national psyche.}

_{But the vote Yes camp has obviously decided that these qualities have become so diluted that we can now be herded into a passive approval of something we don’t understand for no other reason than that’s what the government wants us to do.}

_{Increasingly, I feel that I’m being pushed into voting Yes rather than being asked to consider the proposal.}

_{The same mother who taught me to say “please” also despaired of that part of my make-up that ensured that if someone tried to force me to follow a particular course, I would invariably do the opposite.}

_{I feel the same urge now and the more Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Yes camp try to pressure me in their direction then the more I will push back against them.}

_{I resent the fact that corporations and sporting figures and a grab-bag of what are known collectively as “celebrities” are being conscripted to promote the Yes cause.}

_{How they came to be possessed of the absolute wisdom that empowers them to comprehend something that has not and will not have its powers and reach comprehensively defined remains a mystery.}

_{I have met many celebrities in my career and can say with absolute confidence that to a profoundly worrying degree, many did not appear to possess anything approaching a reasonable level of human intelligence.}

_{Are we thought to be so stupid and so easily led that we will accept that the ability, finely honed though it might be, to repeatedly catch or hit a ball makes that person an expert in constitutional law?}

_{If you were thinking of buying a house, would you show the contract to a cricketer or maybe a rugby league player and get them to run their eye over it before you signed it?}

_{If you answered “yes” to this question, stop reading immediately and google “Brisbane lawyers”.}

_{If the Voice is such a good idea then why the hard sell?}

_{Those who dare to question what they are being told by the government, which is essentially “trust us, we’re politicians, we know what we’re doing” are being denigrated in the most appalling fashion.}

_{There are so many unanswered questions and claims and counter claims being made by highly qualified legal persons, some of whom have no partisan view but who are concerned at the damage which could be wrought on the workings of our government that it is difficult to see how anyone can embrace it with any confidence.}

_{Never before have so many been asked to approve something about which they know so little and which is designed to benefit so few.}

_{We are being told that we’ll feel good if we vote for it as if we are so emotionally and intellectually crippled that we need to roll over and have our tummies tickled by an ever-caring government that at the end of the day, just wants everyone to “feel good”.}

_{The inference is that if you vote No, you’ll feel bad.}

_{I do feel bad, but because I see the inevitability of my country being forever divided by race if the Voice is approved with Indigenous people being accorded a special status not available to others by virtue of their ethnicity.}

_{It’s not what this nation is supposed to be about.}

_{It will split us forever and we will all be the poorer for it.}

_{It’s Anzac Day in a week’s time and the ghosts of those who gave their lives in defending our homeland will once more be visited upon us.}

A powerful argument for one side of the Voice issue. The Magpie suspects he will wait in vain for a similar closely argued response of any substance from the Yes camp

 Goodbye, Possums

Comedian and trail blazing social commentator Barry Humphries – best known for his characters Dame Edna Everage  and Sir Les Patterson, has died in hospital, following complications caused by a recent hip operation.  He was 89.

I had a brief personal encounter with Humphries  when I was working at GTV 9 in Melbourne in 1970,  but it wasn’t at the TV station. I was sitting drinking with a group of friends one afternoon on the lawn of  the Hawthorn house where I rented a room from local TV personality Helen Homewood. A car roared up and literally skittered to a shuddering halt in the driveway near us, and Barry stuck his head out and imperiously asked if Helen was about, Despite it being a blistering hot  late summer day, Barry was wearing his then trademark wide brimmed black hat and a heavy black overcoat. When we told him Helen wasn’t at home he left without a word, driving off in much the same manner as he had arrived.

Over the years I subsequently saw his shows in London (where my partner nearly got a damaged eye from a thrown gladioli) and in Sydney. In a measure of how things have changed, the line that brought the house down in London … but would result in outrage and booing nowadays …  was when Dame Edna paused mid-monologue, and looked intently at black girl in the front row and said’,  Well, goodness, we have a dusky little friend with us tonight, hello dear … I thought it was empty seat … until you smiled.’ 

But my enduring memory is that close encounter of less than a minute all those years ago.

Barry Humphries was a one-off, and marched to beat of a different drum from an early age. Disliking sport and always refusing to play anything, when ordered as a Melbourne Grammar student to attend football matches to support the school team, Barry used sit prominently in a front row … knitting.

This possum is sad that he is no more.

Was The Astonisher Being Smart … Or Just Being Outsmarted?

Federal budget season brings out the bullshit in all sorts of ways, so it was with a certain inevitability  that The Magpie watched a little campaigning caper unfold in the Bulletin in the past few days.

First on April 14, we got this strange yarn out of the blue … it promised photos of the claimed decrepitude being suffered by the boffins at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) but the paper welched on the promised pictorial and just quoted an AIMS media release, saying dire and damaging times lay ahead if they didn’t get a funding boost. ‘Mould on the walls’ was a nice touch.  But the Magpie’s bullshit alert started beeping when this OK but unremarkable story got the right royal treatment of an editorial AND a cartoon.

The odour of rodent was in the air, so The Magpie,  aware it was Federal budget time sat back and waited. There were a couple small follow-up articles about the importance of AIMS (true enough),  until we got this on April 20, just six days after the original wails for help.

You’ll note the inclusion of back referencing the previous front page, and the story told that the AIMS plight was ‘revealed’ in the Bulletin the previous week. This gave the impresion that some dogged journalistic detective work had been involved. If it did, it only extended to detecting where the fax machine was for incoming media releases.

But the relevant minister, Tanya Plibersek, bless her squishy little heart,  wasn’t going to be accused of neglecting AIMS and it’s selfless work in saving turtles, and heroically stepped in,  prompting the paper’s readers – both of them – to dab away tears of relief. In fact, apart from guaranteeing sufficient funding to keep the buildings mould-free, the coffee cupboard stocked and the AIMS boat afloat, she took to print personally in the very same issue, explaining the importance of the organisation.

So all hail the Bulletin for raising the issue in the first place, with editorial and cartoon for extra oomph in Canberra, and the swift response from the Albanese government. Right?

So the Bulletin wants us to believe that in the space of six days, and through-its own efforts, the Federal Government jumped to,  treasurer Jim Chalmers dropped everything  like whether to raise the dole, or buy a brace or two more submarines,  summoned Plibbers for a heart to heart and chucked a lazy few mill into the kitty. And that Plibbers herself took time to pen a paean of praise to AIMS just for the little old Bulletin. We are supposed to accept that an organisation that demands feasibility stuxies justv to determine if a feasibility study is feasible can move at this warp speed for an issue like this.

Pull the other one, it yodels.

A pre-arranged set-up by the government start to finish? Why you cynical reader you, we know it was all the paper’s own doing, what with its clout in Canberra ‘n all.

We don’t call it the Astonisher for nothing.

But This Week Saw A Great Win For Real Journalism

Perhaps the least surprising but nevertheless pleasing bit of fallout from the Fox train wreck settlement for defaming involving Dominion Voting by claiming the rigged the last Presidential election.

But graciousness or just keeping your mouth shut is not in Lachlan’s lexicon. He had a very different take on his withdrawal, telling The Guardian ‘I am confident I would’ve won, but I do not wish to further enable Crikey’s use of the courts to litigate a case from another jurisdiction that has already been settled and facilitate a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers and boost their profits.’

The apple doesn’t fall and all that.

Footnote: when the above photo appeared in comments, one reader asked why Lachlan always seemed to be wearing a ‘flak jacket’. The ‘Pie suggested it was just in case he met James Packer in the street.  Again.

Fightin’ Fran’s On The Mend And Up For The Fray

This from Clr O’Callaghan’s FB page.

Oh, Sorry, Donny, Our Mistake …

… and I’m Shakespeare.

Rupert Blinked

But even the World’s Biggest Media Flypaper was edged out of the spotlight in the past week, centre stage taken by  Rupert Murdoch running for cover at the prospect of taking the witness stand in the the Dominion voting machines defamation action against Fox News. Our favourite pickled walnut  coughed in his incontinence rompers at the possible revelations he would be forced to give away, and reached for the cheque book.  The money was chump change to Murdoch, and even the repetitional cost didn’t count for much, such is the deeply demented MAGA crowd aren’t for the turning. But there’s  more to come, as another voting machine company is in the judicial starting blocks … and they may decide that they WON’T settle, and  go to trial. One can only hope.

This matter was the main preoccupation of those featured in this week’s US gallery, but they also found time for the Supreme Court sybarite Crooked Clarence Thomas,  the looming debt ceiling crisis, and the Dalai Lama’s application to become a Catholic priest.

A

An Idea The Magpie Might Copy

Regular Nest favourite Bill Maher has come up with a truly worthy idea, for a much needed annual award ….

… one which The ‘Pie might make an occasional award for certain people who become subjects of interest in the blog. Maher has created an award to honour those who refuse to be bullied by the extreme woke codswallop of cancel culture that is in fact crude old bullying. 

And a few final matters to ponder …

And One For Those Who Know The Real Value Of Our Feline Friends

This one is pictured in the moment before it prevented a house fire.

………….

That’s the lot for the week, thanks for all the stuff sent in, much appreciated. The donation button, if The ‘Pie has caught you in a weak moment, is below.