Do I hear the rumble of the Tumbrils?

Shane in new hallway

G'day Petals,
more pics from the Otways and  summation of Oz's slow descent into fascism and penury.

In a surprise move, the Australian Federal Police announced that due to their exhaustion after raiding multiple Labor pollies analysing the failed NBN, Union offices, refugee advocates, civil liberty activists and sundry socialist-leaning charities that they have neither the will nor the energy to raid any of the Banking executives, financial advisers or shonky accountants who are being revealed in the current Royal Commission as stealing hundreds of millions of dollars  from their "clients".
Spokesperson for the AFP, Senior Sergeant Plod also advised that in not having the authorisation the minister, The Harpy, Cash who is hiding because of her continual stuff-ups, it would not be seemly to act unilaterally in raiding major donors to the ruling rabble no matter how culpable or how tainted the donors offerings are.

Apollo Bay

Kelly Shaddupa-yo-Face, O' Dwyer, faux financial services and revenue minister caught with her pants down, drivelled on about ASIC actually been given teeth  and desperately tried to take a positive slant on the RC she and her gang of neer-do -wells had argued against for years.

With a curiously short time frame for a royal commission whose parameters were actually written by the banks before prime miniature Truffles would accept  its inevitability, his brilliant "tin-ear" for politics means that  the commissioners findings will co-incide with Barnyard Joyce's ultimatum about his leadership.

Otways

What a fun time.

Otways

Adding to the Ruling Rabble's sense of levity, Craig Crackers Kelly ( no relation to Shaddupa Yo-Face but of similar intelligence) having returned from a junket to Azerbaijan defended the "democracy" of the said country even though their electoral commission had accidentally released the results of the presidential election the day before the vote!
Crackers said he was reluctant to criticize them as Australia's system was not too "ridgy-didge" either. 
He should know being a member of the ruling rabble.

Otways

Journalist Phil Coorey  fantasized that Dodo Dutton was the closest facsimilie the ruling rabble had for a statesman. He didn't announce whether this was an audition piece for the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Comedy capers abound at the local ruling rabble branches as they fight each other over who has the least amount of ethics.

Not Kelly O' Dwyer's Mouth

Well pleased with destroying the car industry Truffles has announced that rather than employing Australians to slaughter sheep on home soil,
$146,000,000.00 has been found to instead fund workers in Vietnam.

The Herb Garden's Fence

Author Richard Flanagan  rhapsodised eloquently at the National Press Club  t'other day.  Accurately nailing our current ruling rabble as a mob who have…"no moral legitimacy" and  "…a black comedy pregnant with a collapsed imagination and yearning for the chasm to overwhelm us…."
Flanagan outlined a vision of this country rarely espoused publicly. 
It was a moving and passionate address which was obtusely treated by one journalist, Sarah Martin (from the Ugly American Murdoch's West Australian) who told him he was "dissing" our democracy… he politely but bluntly disabused her of her fake news diversionary tactic. 
Later, on The Drum, panellist Ming Long responded to his speech in a truly middle class, air-headed, hand waving fashion praising his language but admitting she was not sure what he was talking about…sort of like talking about the frame around the Rembrandt and rather proving Flanagan's most salient points.

See it here….. it's worth a look and listen.

https://iview.abc.net.au/programs/national-press-club-address/NC1811C013S00

Hooroo Possums,
Shane. 

Trips lost in Translation.

G'day Possums,

the last fortnight has, it seems, been a little marine. 

First, a return to Point Cook and playing "Biggles" in a Tiger Moth and then later the next week Mrs Wombat and I wandered down to Geelong Art Gallery to have a look at their wonderful Fred Williams in the You-Yangs, exhibition.

The last time we saw a collection his work was five years ago and where I blogged it as http://shanewombat.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/searching-for-fred.html

Geelong

This show coincided with the Geelong Acquisitive Print Awards too, where much to my surprise and pleasure (for it's always joyful to see people maintaining their art practice) I came across the work of an acquaintance from college days, Ben Fennessy. His woodblock print "Tower Hill Inside 1 and 2"  was a powerful statement not only of an ancient land but also of its intense environment.

 

TowerHill Inside 1 and 2

Interesting, too was Rew Hanks extraordinarly fine linocut, "The Battle of the Wills" which presented like a Victorian newspaper illustration the clash of cultures still apparent with indigenous people playing "the white-man's-games" as sadly evidenced by Adam Goodes' response to his calling out overt racism.

 

The Battle of Wills

Ben Rak's  screenprint, "No Way (safety at sea: Manus Island) points to the current bi-partisan federal hypocrisy of lauding "Aussie values" and the reality of our ongoing cruelty to asylum seekers.

 "No Way (safety at sea: Manus Island)

Good works in this prize show but I must admit I found the winner of the printmaking residency a bit, too, too "Breaking Bad," conceptually and banally trite in thought.

 

You Yangs111, 1963

The Williams show which had many print works and watercolours and gouaches as well as oil and tempera was inspiring. We returned three times, each time finding things anew and stimulating with the juxtaposition between etchings, drawings and the final result illuminating as to his process.

You-Yangs (second series)

Illuminating too, but in a completely cynical way was Senator "Look-at-Moi, Look-at-Moi ", The Show-pony Xenephon's bailing out of the federal sphere prior to his anticipated removal by the high court.

Wishing to save the world from Adelaide by taking over state politics, this most loquacious and apparently dictatorial, proto ruling rabble apparatchik had the misfortune of having one of his selected candidates severely embarrass himself and blot his copy book by shooting really asinine selfies exposing his lack of political credibility in a wax works by molesting the dummies!

Trotted out from The Show pony's stable the twerp in question will probably have no difficulty joining a real ruling rabble after getting a suitable reference from "Slit-her-Throat" Ciobo.

Geelong Art Gallery

Asbestos Jules our peripatetic foreign minister has again been revealed looking like she's fiddling the public purse by attending the AFL grand final instead claiming that "...this internationally renowned sporting code invited me to attend to have a chat.."

Less certain of appropriate government business was her quadruple attendances at her sisters birthdays!

Express 1842

And then Craig Laundy the new owner of an $8,000,000.00 apartment is resisting having flammable cladding removed from buildings echoing his master Truffles opinion that banning the importation of these dangerous materials is scaring people.

I'm sure he meant it was scaring the developers who donate so munificently to the ruling rabble in NSW.

Truffles is allegedly "keenly aware" also of the pain and disappointment people are feeling at his "less-than-Kenya-quality" cock-up of an NBN... although I suspect that the chill breeze of incrementally losing office is really what he is experiencing ....which is not really empathy is it?

And let's finish with the hapless Kelly, Shaduppa-Yo-Face O'Dwyer's mangled attempt on 7.30 to explain why forcing industry superannuation funds to be less productive and as inefficient as private and banking ones for their members is a good thing. The Gel in question gets quite excited when union bashing... almost as much, although thankfully, not as Cockatoo strident as her colleague the Harpy Cash.

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane

PS  A person some think of as a troll on FB sent me this after he said I should publish something he wrote.. well here ya go... Brian Sanaghan Yeh...You do that...make sure it's about me...  You know one thing I've learnt in politics pilgrim. .Get the narcissists to write shit about me...then let your readers decide to vote for me because they hate you so much...Now..Go ahead...make my day...lol

....playing Biggles.

...on the Slippery Slope

G'day Possums,

When Mr Hockey brought down the 2014 budget, the 2017-18 deficit was forecast to be $2.8 billion. When Mr Morrison delivered the budget last month the budget deficit had blown out to $26b. what went wrong?

....Measures blocked in the senate account for only $4b of the $23b blow-out.

Stephen Koukoulas.

Company profits are down11%

Business investment has fallen 28%

Unemployment is up (real figures estimate at 20%), real per capita incomes have fallen 3%

Growth  is the lowest on record

Government debt is up by $113b

What went wrong?

 

Myrniong

COMMONWEALTH Bank boss Ian Narev raked in $12.3 million this year or  $260,000.00 per week,  at the same time he held back about $226 a year from a million mortgage customers. The nation’s biggest bank last week handed down a record full-year cash profit

#QandA  22-8-16.   Listening to Brendan O'Neill who "... loves hearing hate speech..."     I realised this mongrel thinker was just a sophist who luxuriates in the noise he makes.... that  right-wing academic Erin Watson-Lynn  was not so much out of her depth but never got into the water... and as for Mitch "NBN Raider" Fifield, nothing was learned about anything except that the "Party-Line" is to be adhered to no matter how stupid it is.

One of the most horrifying elements of the LIarbrils is the cancerous role of the IPA in the ideological stupidity of both  Ruling Rabble's  Mk’s, 1 and 2.
How is it that there is never disclosure and never media questioning  of the Liarbrils during a campaign that it is the agenda of The-Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe that the deluded are really voting for?

Myrniong

It is also a question for Flopsy Frydenberg as to whether it is true as Dr. Michael Borga (ex CSIRO) and Prof. Isaac Santos (NationalScience Centre, Coff’s Harbour) allege that research into CSG emissions is being stalled, stymied and blocked and that one of main reasons for the gutting of the climate change section of CSIRO was the NSW Minerals Council?  All of which also neatly falls into the IPA agenda of selling off CSIRO!
And then one asks. 
Who are these Liarbril mongrels governing for?

 Jeebus ... both O'Dwyer  and The Harpy Cash make a right mess of different  interviews: Drongo O'Dwyer on "Insiders," failing to answer questions on Superannuation or if answering, not to the question put. Always light on detail and always lighter on facts.

The Harpy interviewed on Sky by David Speers,  made a dogs-dinner of trying to explain which parts of  the EBA wanted by the Fire-fighters Union  is causing so much angst amongst the RWNJ's . Screeching her emphatic, over-enunciated  "answers" at Speers, Cash failed miserably to show that she knew anything at all about the EBA or why the Ruling Rabble Mk2 wanted to change the fair work act. 

Both interviews therefore presented the normal Liarbril Kafka-esque, spin-on-the-spot drivel.

 

Pyke's Creek

Australian Federal Police have raided the Parliamentary offices of Stephen Conroy, opposition shadow minister for Communication. Much like breaching the "sanctuary" of a church, this act which Truffles-In-a-Muddle has denied was his doing (to protect himself from the fact that he has completely stuffed up the NBN)  is the most blatant breach of Parliamentary Privilege  most can ever remember.  It also brings  new meaning to Copper to the House.
That Truffles-in-a-Muddle is not a particularly savvy political operator has become painfully apparent since he assassinated Rabid-the-Hun and these raids have all the hallmarks of political desperation and the clumsy finesse of the Godwin Grech farce of 2009.  Instead of silencing a whistle-blower, Truffles and the NBN co. have highlighted the very mess they wanted covered up: the fact that Truffles' and Rabid's nobbling of the NBN to satisfy The Ugly American, Murdoch is resulting in a 3rd rate service at more expense than the original Labor, Fibre-to-the-Home model. 

It seems too, that few believe Truffles and many like myself, wonder why the AFP seem to act with such alacrity against Labor figures and then effectively "drag-their-feet" in investigating  an admitted criminal like ChickenThighs Brough and his accomplices Ashby and Pyne-the-Whyne. Or why they haven't moved with more speed on known fraudster Kathy Jackson. 

Corrupt?    What other explanation is there?

So what does all this mean?

It means Democracy is being eroded and the supine public are taking little notice....

 

Pyke's Creek

The ABC is about to take money for its overseas broadcasts thereby weakening its "Public Good," and ultimately leaving itself in a position for this to be extended into normal broadcasts where the argument will then be put by the IPA that it really should be sold.

Welcome to Australia, One Media, One Party Rule, One Police State... hello Fascism

Oo-roo petals,

Shane

Around the traps the madness continues

Hello, you two…this week it's all 

Wombat Droppings

Shane with Mandolin

 

P.M. “Big-Red” Gillard’s lousy timing was on show again trying to increase public funding to pollies election funds. Mr “Rabbott” agreed (in writing) with the deal until his party, miffed at not being consulted, revolted and forced an about-face.

Lesson’s ?  1/ political nouse, 2/ what’s a signed agreement worth? 3/ the Liarbril’s are revolting.

Senator George (Hissy-Fit) Brandis (Deep North Liarbril) had a lovely time saying over and over and over again, “look, look over there…a rabbit!”

Indonesions tell The “Rabbott” that they will not accept any refugee boats he turns back… Rabbott ignores that and blames Labor!

Kelly (Shuddupa-ya-Face) O’Dwyer ( Liarbril Motor-Mouth for Higgins) manages again, on TV to turn a discussion into a ranting monologue.

Sophie (Pit-Bull) Mirabella was seen in Ballarat with a carcass of meat. 

Make that two carcasses. 

She was possibly demonstrating what Australian manufacturing might finally look like if the Liabrils win government.

Photo: Moorabool News, Ph: H. Tatchell

Sophie "Pit-Bull "

 Joe (Oh-What-a-Feeling) Hockey says ''we must return to stable, predictable and honest government to Australia''. But will not release the Liarbril’s budget costings, policy or plans…..“look, look over there…another rabbit!”   

Blackwoods, Wombat State Forest

National Parks in the Tardis State (Where-all-goes-Backwards) are now up for 99- year private leases. Pretend Environment minister Ryan (Dodo) Smith said that this “….will give investors more certainty and a stronger incentive to develop high-quality proposals in our national parks.”
Hmmm … like Coal Seam Gas mining? The chance of being shot by a gun wielding 12year old? Being trampled by some bovine masticating native Heath and other endangered wildflowers? Or being run down by a raging 4WD?

Conservation? Nah….. it’s just not profitable.

Liarbril imagination!

Threats to the survival of the Leadbeater's possum are being compounded by recent Tardis State (Where-all-goes-Backwards) government changes to survey methods and reservation strategies that will result in the habitat of the species being logged and setting back the development of much-needed new habitat by at least 120 years. The new changes are seen as so retrograde that the international journal Science reported that the Leadbeater's possum will be one of the world's first deliberate, government-sanctioned extinctions of an endangered species.

Liarbril imagination!

Louise (Dozy) Asher, Minister for Innovation (Liarbril) has cut funding to a youth service which helps employ troubled young people in hospitality in Melbourne.  The Heat program has been told it would lose $220,000 in funding and its restaurant will be closed. The program has an 80 per cent employment rate for participants. Emma Crichton, from the St Kilda Youth Service, says it has been a successful program and the Napthine Government should reconsider the funding decision. "We run this program on the smell of an oily rag. We are probably the most inexpensive youth service in the state of Victoria," she said. "It is just so efficient how we work this program and it's so important. It's vital that it remains. "Ms Crichton says the participants learn about more than just hospitality. "We also teach them about life and self-esteem and discipline and working in teams," she said. (Source: ABC radio 774)
Which probably balances the cost of Ex-Premier, Big-Bird (Silvertail Incompetens) Baillieu’s  perk of a new car and driver!
Ms “Dozy” seems unavailable for comment… zzzzz….zzzzzz….zzzzz!
Liarbril imagination!

A Napthine Rant

Pretend Premier Napthine,(Inutilus Rusticus) has decided that he didn’t swear at Opposition leader Daniel Andrews in the corridor of Parliament house in front of Andrews’ six year old child.  He has also not admitted that they were arguing over the price of a taxi fare as we all will soon have to do or that the “robust discussion” was about sharing of said taxi.

Police were not called as they were busy with two others apparently getting a bit willing in a political domestic in the same building.

Liarbril imagination!

Matty (What’s-a-Greenwedge / Backhander) Guy has said because the developers paid memberships to a Liberal Party fundraising club - a figure of $10,000 a year - they did not pay on the night, so it was not a paid fundraiser. "Team 200 like the 500 Club for Liberal, is a group where you pay your membership fee and you have certain speakers, there is nothing different in this," he said. He said it did not break the ban because "it wasn't a fundraiser where people paid money to attend". "Go back and tell me where I have made a decision that is an advantage to anyone," he said. 
ROFL moment
Mr Guy's attendance at a fundraising dinner attended by property developers will not be investigated by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission as they have already poo-poo-ed that idea, “What our Matty, corrupt? Balderdash!
ROFL moment, 2
Sniff, Sniff… the stink of the Tardis State(Where-all-goes-Backwards)

Ex Liarbril, Geoff(Fiddles)Shaw thinks (whilst still waiting to see if police charge him for allegedly rorting his Govt car allowance) that back-bench pollies need more than $150,000 a year….. more like $400,000…. and this just after the pollies have voted themselves a pay rise!  
ROFL moment, 3

Liarbril imagination!             

Sniff, Sniff… the stink of the Tardis State(Where-all-goes-Backwards)

Cardinal George Pell uncomfortably fronted the enquiry into child abuse and seemed to have a modicum, a glimmer of understanding that the matter was actually serious for the victims and not just the finances of the church.

It really is a great pity that Henry 2 didn’t sort it out properly in the C12th.

And, anyone reading about the “Rat-lines” run by the Vatican for the benefit of the fascist mass murderers of WW2 should really have a look at Bishop Hart’s and Cardinal Pell’s demeanour in these hearings to have perhaps an inkling of how vile “good men” can be. Men who would tell you what morality, justice and ethics are.

The Collingwood F.C. board probably thought Eddie McGuire’s fine sense of history during the indigenous football week and replication of the manners of a 13 year old female supporter was no reason to sack him. 

Ahhh, Collingwood. What taste, what timing!

What’s next for a Collingwood fund-raiser …. the team in a B/W Minstrel Show?

Wind Farm, Waubra

Sarah Laurie who likes to be described as a medical expert investigating health problems at wind farms but has never been called as an expert witness in any official inquiry into wind noise is stirring up opposition to wind farms on King Island.       Academics Simon Chapman and Fiona Chrichton have discovered in their separate research that the power of suggestion has been an extremely potent weapon in the wind energy debate. Their conclusions were that wind turbine syndrome was most likely caused by scare campaigns.

Cheers Possums

Shane

The Australian Index