Liar Liar, Incendiary Trousers

The main thing that's prompted me to write after such a silence is a phenomenon I've been noticing for some time, but which seems to be more prevalent during the election campaign.

It seems that many politicians think that by saying something in public, it becomes true, even when it is common knowledge that the utterance is a complete load of sloblock.

The most recent example of this was from the Family First candidate in the Queensland seat of Leichhardt (aka Voss). My knowledge of this comes entirely from the ABC so I can't claim to be a first-hand eyewitness to the event, but neither can most people.

The FF candidate called for the Lib candidate to tell the electorate if she's a lesbian or not. Now, I don't want to get into a discussion about the relevance of sexuality to candidacy (my thought is that it's not relevant at all) or the fact that the very homophobic Liberal party has managed to attract someone who may be homosexual. What interests me is the follow-up.

Having been told in no uncertain terms that he was out of line, FF candidate issued an apology which included the following line:

"he regrets making the comments... [and] they do not reflect the views of Family First"

Excuse me?? Last time I checked Family First was even more homophobic that the Libs, they actively campaign against gay rights and anything that 'threatens traditional family values'.
It's as though by saying publicly that Family First isn't anti-gay, it suddenly makes the reality disappear and everything's ok.
Interestingly enough, though, I would expect most of FF's followers to prefer it if the comments did reflect the views of FF (which they do).

The other classic example trotted out recently (and regularly) comes from the PM himself. When Labor were going through all their dirt troubles with Kev, and he kept shifting blame, the PM tried to tell the Australian People (or Working Families if you prefer) that KRudd is a bad man for doing that, and that if something goes awry on the PM's watch, he takes full responsibility for it.

Oh! Like he did for AWB, Children overboard, Siev X, no WMD - to name but a few.

Does he really think that just by saying he takes responsibility, people will believe he does?

There are, of course, many more examples from both major parties, and many of the minor ones too. Tony Abbott is particularly fond of this technique, especially in relation to Christian Values.

All I can say is that if people believe this kind of bare-faced economy with the truth, they deserve everything they get.

Disenfranchisement is us!

Well, folks, it's election time in Australia, and has been for some weeks now.
I've been following it as best I can from the other side of the world, which is actually pretty easy these days, what with video, audio, and print media all online.
I even watched the announcement live!

Which reminds me... in his election announcement the PM said that the writs would be issued on Wednesday the 17th of October and the Electoral Roll would close on the 22nd. The interesting thing here is that those were the OLD rules. Under the current legislation (introduced by the current govt. in a bid to stop young people from voting for the other team) the Roll closes at 8pm on the day the writs are issued.
Sure enough, when Wednesday 17/10 rolled around, the headline news item was: Electoral Roll closes tonight!

So what happened here? Did the PM get it Wrong?
Did not one of his mindas point out this enormous mistake in his speech?
But more importantly, why did no-one in the media pick up on it? or even on the other side of the house??
It's not like this legislation has had widespread, or even bi-partisan support!

Oh well. I suppose the PM got it wrong and hushed it up and the AEC stuck to the legislation.
So all those nearly 18 year olds and recent migrants, who neglected to sign on before the 17th will have to find another way to fulfill their democratic responsibility.

Maybe they can kick him in the pants on one of his morning walks.

Apology

I would like to offer my most sincere apologies to those who were hoping for the ACC tour journal. Once I started editing it got a bit dull and turned into a 'then we went here and sang in such-and-such a church' Kind of thing. If you want to know where we went, check the ACC website.
Suffice to say there were some transport issues along the way, but we all survived.

From now on I'm hoping to write some more and keep y'all procrastinating.

Tinkerty tonk.