Original image: smh.com.au
Scott Morrison is not my favourite person. I'm not alone.
"Mathias (Cormann) regarded ScottMorrisonMP as emotional, narcissistic and untrustworthy." - Malcolm Turnbull
"An absolute arsehole” - former Justice Minister Michael Keenan describes Morrison.
One year after Scott Morrison's purchase of the election with hundreds of millions of dollars of stolen money Australia's Covid death toll hit 100 when great-grandmother Fay Rendoth succumbed to the virus at the Newmarch Home For Sitting Ducks. Did any Tories celebrating the anniversary of Smuggo's election artifice give Fay a second thought over their celebratory flutes of Pol Roger Brut and mascarpone sprout canapes with black truffles, smoked sesame seeds and wine salt? How many dead grannies and nurses does it take to dampen the self-congratulatory party mood of born-to-rule Tories? I suspect it is many, many multiples of 100.
Over in the RWNJ's Randesque nirvana of neo-liberalism, the USA, the death toll is quickly heading to 100,000.
On a percapita basis that is:
Aus: 1 person in 260,000 has died.
USA: 1 person in 3,280 has died.
At this point in time an American resident has 80x the chance of dying from the virus as does a resident of Australia. Eighty times!
While Australia's infection rate has trended downwards the rate of infection in the US continues to climb so that inevitably the contrast will become even starker.
There are, of course, many variables that account for the stunning contrast - not least being the bloated, syphilitic, dysfunctional, gibbering rapist and crime boss that is the US's Individual 1 (Septic Tank 1 if you prefer).
Despite superficialities and our embrace of much of their culture we're not like Americans, and so we're not in thrall to a discoloured, deranged degenerate - a souless sinkhole of avarice, a mangy, yellow cur, a cartoonish effluvium of every flaw and vice whose positives are limited to his syphilus test results, a globular travesty so ridiculous as to be unimaginable as a fictional life form.
In Oz we're lucky that our goverment is merely corrupt, incompetent and ideologically bankrupt. Our own imbecilic madman Friar Abbott and his personal monkey trainer Cruella DeVil had their Trumpish attempts to fuck over the country rudely interrupted by the realisation that no, we are not as susceptible to blatant fuckwittery as are the Yanks. And so by happenstance we now find ourselves with a smug, Machiavelian liar and charlatan at the helm, someone who cannot default to an insanity plea should karma prevail and he finds himself fronting a corruption enquiry.
Smuggo's standing on the shoulders of far more capable state leaders as he struggles with concepts that are typically anathema to himself, his party and their paymasters - the helping hand, social cohesion and looking after everybody is what has saved us from the worst affects of the contagion and the worst excesses of the herd-thinners. Could it be that while Flim Flam Man seeks to hide his true self from scrutiny he is capable of self-reflection and understands his own significant limitations and unpalatability after his contemptible behaviour during the fires? It seems that the public is prepared, so far, to give him a pass on that basis.
In the face of a crisis that cannot be dismissed with spin, a slogan or a smirk and that cannot be lamely blamed on Labor has Smuggo changed? Has the L/NP? The new and improved ScoMo, wartime leader? FFS! And lonely Jen, sans her self-pity coach, locked away in iso at The Lodge where the butlers and the maids can't hand deliver the hot towels. Behind the media puffpieces they're all still there - complaining about the bald kids in wheelchairs getting priority in the queue at SeaWorld, the seal clubbers, the granny killers, the grifters and the shonks.
The cult of the profit t/a the Coalition have been as busy as Barking Barmy Joyce's designated driver - there's a national crisis to monetise. The Tories are not returning to type. They never changed, as evidenced herewith.
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The worthy unemployed and the unworthy unemployed - JobKeeer and JobFinder. Only the twisted brain of a Tory could conceive such punitive poppycock.
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Snapback - the return to a trajectory that flew us into this building in the first place. "There's not enough money - people will have to starve" so that the money can still be shovelled to the mates, the family interests and themselves. Why shouldn't nurses cop a paycut to cover the cost of the L/NP cronies' lobster lunches?
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CO2 is good for you. Senator Concertina Ferrari-Wheels is the homophobic Duttonista from Wollongong who uses her tits as a travel pillow and who was barred from her pilates class when the other members kept checking the velcro on their gym shoes every time she did a squat. But you can't keep a good nutter down - Connie has been speculating on how more verdant her coriander, bok choi and lemon basil would be if we pumped even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Perhaps she was chosen to be the champion of CO2 by her fellow vegetation.
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It's always a crowded field when it comes to nominating Tory whack-job of the month and always in contention are fellow yokels Barking Barmy Joyce and Gorgeous George Christensen, both opining on the appropriate ways to keep China in line. No doubt Gorgeous thinks that his familiarity with the seedy dives of dodgy Filippino neighbourhoods equips him with the diplomatic skills necessary to bloody the noses of the Chinese Communist Party but his belief that Lapland and Poland are S.E. Asian nudie bars probably disqualifies him from further consideration as our next Minsiter for Foreign Affairs.
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The ability to fuck up everything you touch seems to be one of those Essential Skills on many a Tory MP's job description. So, step forward Stuart Robert, Minister assisting the Pime Minister for fusterclucks. Robodebt fiasco - check. MyGov DDoS attack that wasn't - check. Autistic kids waiting hundreds of days to access NDIS - check. Outrageous home internet bill - check. Shares in a trust linked to the mining company of a Liberal donor - check. Gold Rolex - check. Sacked from the ministry for dodgy Chinese trip - check.
Brother Smuggo: "Brother Stuart, praise the Lord - how's the rollout of the BigBrother app going? Spud wants to know when he can get to insert a backdoor so he can track those lefty journalists and the 14 y.o. terrorists from Extinction Rebellion."
Stuie: "FUBAR!"
(Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition)
What Stuie needs is a different app - let's call it e.coli. To tell him how shit he is.
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These are but random examples of recent Tory dysfunction and nastiness that come readily to mind. We could fill a book if we tracked every example - including such disasters as Greg Yorrick Hunt ordering huge batches of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment following Deranged Donny's grasping at poisonous straws and the millions of wasted dollars paid to Lib pal Twiggy Forrest for useless PPE.
It's the standard, expensive Tory farces from the "better managers".
Much of this will be forgotten, as Smuggo believes it will. The lumpy carpet in the PMO covers Fingers Taylor and his #grassgate, #watergate and the doctored documents scandal, Bam Bam McKenzie and the sports rorts scandal and the PMO's piracy of Malcolm Turnbull's book etc etc etc.
We've been lucky with the Covoid virus so far and we've seen some stirling leadership from the state premiers. Smuggo is back to his smirking self, fronting the media with his freshly crafted persona of man-in-charge while stealing the limelight but pirouetting and exiting stage left when subjected to uncomfortable questions.
We are confronting a climate catastrophe of far greater consequences than COVID-19 yet we have a collection of disaster capitalists who seem determined to accelerate it. Smuggo hasn't changed, the Tories haven't changed and the RWFWs of the IPA monkey typing pool, the Murdoch propaganda machine, the MCA and the BCA haven't changed. They are using the cover of COVID to sneak through climate wrecking legislation, worker exploitation, evasion of scrutiny and accountability and erosions of our freedoms.
The main thing that is changing is the climate - polluted and vandalised and monetised by the Tories who are not a part of the cure. They are the disease.
Also publsihed on the AIM Network.