Paul Keating Calls West Australian the Worst Newspaper In Australia

Australia's funniest and therefore best Prime Minister shuts down a bit of populist sensationalism from Western Australia's tabloid rag.

Until recently the clip was hidden deep within this lengthy piece from the wonderful Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Sadly, since this video was filmed, Rupert Murdoch's poisonous influence has ensured that The West Australian is no longer the worst, but it is still bloody incompetent, and beholden to mining interests, and you really shouldn't read it.

And that's all we have to say about that...

Here we go again! - Wellard For Gillard!

If you're reading this you may-or-may-not be familiar with my band for many years, which was Project Mayhem. Back in 2009, when hot ranga Julia Gillard was simply the Deputy Prime Minister, Deputy head honcho of the Labor Party, Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Social Inclusion and the federal division of Lalor - all simultaneously - we wrote this song...



Later there was a leadership spill and she replaced local walnut Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. She was of the centre-left, politically, so the Murdoch press relentlessly harassed her during her entire tenure.

The thinking, in the mind of the leather-skinned reptile, was that Australians were fucking stupid; that the inherent insecurity of the Australian male could be harnessed and manifested by the use of some good old-fashion sexism - and that the Australian female, not wanting to rock the boat too much, would probably allow the shit to stick.

That's what happened, plus Kevin Rudd was a cunt, so in June 2013 he caused a leadership spill and got his old job back. Then Australia went to the polls, and fulfilled Rupert Murdoch's wish of voting an absolute fucking lunatic into power who would do what was in everybody's worst interests socially while allowing big business to dig up the ground and sell it to China basically un-taxed.

And they all lived happily ever after. Especially us, because we can say we predicted the whole Julia-becoming-PM thing.

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On the matter of Abbott and the Big Business agenda.

In response to a NineMSN article entitled Abbott To Cut Australia In Half**

(image source)

This is what they mean by dog-whistle politics, I think.

Dress it up as a "development plan" - whole reports, thousands of meaningless words in length - make it seem reasonable and always deny what is really going on: a well-orchestrated pillaging of the nation's resources by a lunatic big business minority (who consider themselves an aristocracy) at the expense of working people and the nation, not to mention the ongoing criminal theft from Aboriginal people of their lands and cultures.

Hunter Thompson talked about "...the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma" that allowed convicted felon Richard Nixon to "slither into" power and we would be fools par excellance to allow ourselves to ever fall into the same trap.

Never forget what's really going on: that Rinehart is a daughter following directly in the footsteps of a man who wanted to sterilise native peoples to extinguish their very existance, let alone native title.

That he - Lang Hancock - founded the asbestos mines at Whitenoom, in the Western Australian north.

That Julie Bishop defended the Whitenoom companies in court while mesothelioma victims literally died before justice could be brought.

And that Abbott - unscrupulous and drunk with power - is happily their mouthpiece. He is a dangerous lunatic and should never be allowed to creep his way into the Lodge on a protest vote.

No. Fracking. Way.

**since retitled Abbott backs away from 'move north' plan...

The Real Douchebag: Why we shouldn't humour Bob Katter

He's been around for wayyy longer than many people realise, his head is too large for his body, his hat is essential to daily life, and it doesn't take a genius to work out that he must drink enough liquor every night to knock out an eight-metre saltwater crocodile.

He's also been part of the music scene on at least two non-consecutive occasions.

(source)

But there the similarities between cosmopolitan music industry personality Molly Meldrum and socially-backward Federal MP Bob Katter end.

Now that he's managed to wedge himself a disproportionately influential slot in Federal Parliament, Bob Katter seems to be sniffing around on the periphery of just about everything.

Last week, for example, he decided to weigh in on the Queensland State Election by running a smear campaign against conservative candidate Campbell Newman, accusing him of the heinous crime of supporting gay marriage.

Hot topic right now, of course, mainly because the majority of Australians support it. But, much to the chagrin of the entire nation, the whole thing has resulted in Bob Katter being fucking everywhere again... and his seat isn't even up for grabs.

To be clear though, the Federal MP's new novelty political party does actually have candidates running in the Queensland election, so it wasn't totally out of line that he be involved; but Australia could surely have done without the nauseating effort Katter puts into avoiding the shit out of every single bloody interview question he's asked, and the affected indecipherable lunacy that accompanies it.

It's also frustrating because it seems such a no-brainer - and that Katter is simply being a pain in the arse. Again. But like far too many conservative politicians, it's more serious. He is an opportunistic religious hypocrite who has built a career out of the fears of others. He's not quite Pauline Hanson, but at least she was upfront about what she was doing and didn't keep dodging the fucking question.

Bob Katter's rise to national influence - from a belligerent backwater irrelevance to a sought-after Federal chess piece - has revealed his archaic social conservative agenda to the nation. And naturally it's totally out of touch with the nuances of urban life. That's a fact he will happily admit.

The rest of us could probably do without it, but apparently shit flows only one way, and Bob Katter keeps turning up for work regardless.

Son of another bloody politician who had the same name as him and also appears to have also been keen on Rome's Jesus, Bob "The Mad Hatter" Katter has spent his life-long political career operating in the middle of Queensland's Gulf Country. His electorate is nearly 600,000 km² big with ~0.15 voters per km².

Hanging out with his other constituents

(source)

In other words: almost no other cunts live there, and those that do are hardly likely to be authorities on matters of social intercourse. It's a distant land that, even today, remains frontier country.

Katter and his party are having a sook because they reckon that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

The rest of the Western world have totally agreed to do that, and of that 'rest', the majority of us are all like 'hey dudes, we should let gay dudes and lesbians etc marry as well cause, if that's what they want to do, who gives a fuck anyway!?'

As has been pointed out a million times by the entire fucking Internet, marriage equality offers only opportunities for people - no disadvantages.

With the whole equality thing, NO ONE IS OPPRESSED AT ALL and nobody would take anything away from anybody else. Not rights, not money, not any of the things people care about.

Unless they're a bigot with too much pride and zero empathy.

On this issue, Bob Katter is being a total fucking bigot, seemingly just for the sake of it, and he is happy to publicly fall out with his own brother over it, but still have "family values" as a core policy and justification for his opinion. Right.

It is almost certain that the more Katter acts like a total wanker, the more votes his novelty party will get from the other socially-retarded bigots on the electoral roll in Queensland. Ultimately they pay his salary. The system works!

And indeed, history has proven the sheer number of redneck voters available and ready to go to the polls in that state to be nothing short of astounding. There is a booming market for baffling idiocy in Queensland.

Irony: Do you speak it?!

(source)

It's all a bit of a drag, really, especially for those of us left-leaning legends who were initially piqued by some of Bob Katter's other policies in the wake of last year's election - in particular, his economic outlook almost seemed progressive. What the fuck?

Initially there were suggestions that it might be amusing, even handy, to have a boorish good-ol'-uncle from the Gulf Country in the headlines, diggin' out old socialist economic ideas that nobody had the balls to talk about lest Rupert Murdoch's vicious reactionary machinery launched a relentless McCarthiest assault in their general direction. (It wouldn't be the first time!)

It is, for example, increasingly becoming apparent that the Australian community would have done better to hold onto particular sovereign assets, rather than relinquishing them all willy-nilly in a full-pelt rush to compete on global markets.

Katter's old school. He is all for standing up to privatisation, he wants a moratorium on coal seam gas (but hates the 'greenies' of course), and he's a fan of collective bargaining. He seemed to be a baffling mix of economic justice [protectionism actually] and social disruption. With a big fucking hat.

Sadly though, the novelty of Bob Katter: Flamboyant Über Hick evaporated pretty quickly once the cold reality of the man's old school settler colonist outlook became clear. It's all the wrong kinds of Jesus - and it's easy to forget that the early Australian Labor Party, with whom both Katter and his old man had links - could certainly devolve into a pack of racist cunts when they wanted to.

It's a little-known fact that the whole 'bourgeois' thing was actually an international conspiracy orchestrated from Peking by a small group of interstellar reptiles, cunningly disguised as 19th Century Chinese smack fiends
(source)

With this in mind, it's entirely possible to suggest that Bob Katter's seemingly 'progressive' return to community-based economic policy is in fact not a 'return' at all. He has all the hallmarks of a massively conservative Stubborn Fuck mentality whose ideas haven't changed since the 1940s.

Perhaps the banks, while they were swindling the rest of the world with neoliberalism, just didn't really bother going all the way out to Cloncurry to argue with people who hung out all day in 50°C heat with nothing but their cattle, their guns and their seemingly infinite hectares of infertile soil.

Or... maybe they figured they could just go out there a couple of decades later and start extracting natural gas from right underneath the farmers' noses, on their own lands, without even having to ask their freakin' permission.

But look, if we're being honest with ourselves, the economy, in whatever form, is nothing without quality of life - and that is what Katter is vigorously striving to deny others through his relentless opposition to marriage equality.

And, of course, Bob is more than happy to bandy around his electorate's truly epic suicide problems as his pet local sob-story whenever it suits him.

The Internet has done my work for me
(source)

So yeah, despite all his rhetoric about the importance of marriage and family stability, he seems oblivious to the idea that happiness and security in relationships is in fact a... oh, dare I say it - 'pro-life' stance.

By which I mean, 'pro-' the actual meanings of life. Like being happy and fulfilled and all that.

Take that shit away and the desire to live decreases. It's a fucking no-brainer. These 19th Century social mores that Katter is spruiking are inherently intolerant, therefore they decrease the value of life all round.

And, really, who gives a fuck about the economy, or anything else, if you're not gonna be happy either way?

ANYWAY folks reward yourself with this:

PS: just in case you missed it at the beginning.... BOB KATTER EGGED THE FUCKING BEATLES. And he brags about it. What a douche.

Q&A WA: Don't mention the war!

This one's an opinion piece...

The question I was handed by an anonymous source
from within the mining industry.
Source: scanned.

In November 2010, the ABC's Q&A programme came to Perth.

As I have, in recent times, been reasonably interested in What Goes On, I was particularly keen to become involved.

Eventually, after a near-miss in which I was not selected, a friend of mine came to the party with a guest pass.

It probably goes without saying that this event was intense.

On the panel was my most loathed of jerks: the enviro vandal and Protector of Big Business, the Right Honourable Cockroach, Mr Colin Barnett.

This man has an utterly infuriating position on everything.

Early in the programme he made the blanket announcement that if Australia became a republic then WA would effectively secede:

That is a distinct possibility. [see transcript]

Later, he dismissed the issue of Aboriginal incarceration in the WA prison system; going on to explain:

You know, many of the young Aboriginal people in prison are there for traffic offences, for driving without a licence in Aboriginal communities. Well, that's clearly a ridiculous situation. [see transcript]

(To be fair, he did briefly mention that leglisation would be introduced to try and combat this. Whether it ever happens is another matter.)

I tried repeatedly, in vain, to question this man regarding the loathed Stop & Search bill; which was still on the table at the time.

But it seems the show was focused on more nationally-important (I suppose) issues: the relationship between the mining industry and Aboriginal people, asylum seeker policy, and the like.

The intensity on the ground floor was insane and bizarre. It's something I won't forget in a hurry.

The weirdest part was the audience dynamic.

Now, it seems that most people are generally good people; and most of the rest are at least well-intentioned.

It doesn't take half a heart to realise that, even though I'm sure most people would probably prefer that the issue would just go away, what's going on with asylum seekers in this country is pretty fucked.

So generally, and this is just an example issue, most people in the crowd were pretty appalled by the Premier's attitude toward the issue and the vague lip service paid by the ALP's representative Stephen Smith.

Only the Greens' Rachel Siewert was willing to show some balls.

Unfortunately she is a sensible and informed, quietly spoken woman who can't really hold a candle to sensationalist questions such as this one from Gerrit Van Der Sluys:

...here in WA we are increasingly used as a perceived dumping ground for possible asylum seekers ... why is it that these people are being given more help and better treatment then homeless and impoverished Australian citizens? [see transcript]

Enter the Young Liberals.

These infuriating ideologues have to be in the highest category of 'jerk' known to man.

As I quickly learned by squabbling with them on Twitter later in the evening, they hold belligerent and dismissive attitudes towards every idea that's not based on neo-liberal post-colonialism.

They probably represented about a third, or maybe a quarter, of the audience on this particular evening. That's pretty high odds. There were heaps of them.

One of them (LYLSWA Treasurer Anthony Spagnolo) was even referred to by name by Barnett.

It's actually to the ABC's credit that these people were given a chance to speak--and they spoke a fair bit.

But it's an example of their boisterous ingratitude that they were on Twitter throughout the proceedings claiming that the "communist ABC" was censoring them and swinging the debate in the leftist direction.

If anything, these douche-bags were over-represented.

It would be disingenuous for me to claim that there isn't a place for conservative politics within the Grand Plethora. Of course there is, so long as all other angles of discourse get a look-in.

But if this is the future of the conservative party in this country then we are completely and utterly fucked.

Between Barnett--with his monarchist, protectionist, neo-liberal agenda--the steely-eyed lost cause Julie Bishop, and these kids in the audience, there wasn't one among them who came out not looking like a complete fuck head.

The only conservative who came out looking like he actually had a soul was mining industry fucko Andrew Forrest.

His attempts to give Aboriginal people large-scale employment in the mining industry are admirable, but, of course, they fail to take into account the fact that not everybody views life the same way he does.

Thank christ, then, that Marianne Mackay had managed to land herself a spot in the front row.

This relentless woman, who I'd not encountered before but have seen talk a couple of times since, pointed out fiercely that the traditional Aboriginal worldview of Country is anathema to large-scale industrial mining, and asked what the point was of employing Aboriginal people to do the one thing they didn't want to do:

If people want to help Aboriginal people get employment, don't help our people kill our land. You know, save our environment. Get on environmental protection. [see transcript]

I'm white, of course, but I'm also an environmentalist and I wish this point had been discussed further.

(It's important to note that the one Aboriginal member of the panel, Tony Wiltshire, is a successful businessman and is clearly down with the capitalist paradigm as a way forward for equality.)

But the thing I'll remember most about this whole ordeal--and it was indeed an ordeal--was the man who slipped me a piece of paper imploring me to ask his question.

He'd evidently sussed me out and desperately wanted his question answered.

"I can't ask this," he told me urgently.

"I work in mining. If I ask it, I'll lose my job."

Shit, I'll try! I thought, but I was unsuccessful in this regard.

Peering down at the neatly typed and folded piece of paper he had given me I saw the following words... written repeatedly.

Mr Premier, would you let us know whether your government has any public policies or strategies to maintain at least the current prosperity and living standards of all Western Australians, after you have send [sic] the last shipment of WA's non-renewable resources overseas? [see image above]

It shits me greatly that I wasn't quicker on the uptake.

Somebody needed to ask this question, because it's one of the most fundamental ones that Western Australian society is facing.

There's no question we're getting fat off digging up shit and selling it, but what (on Earth) are we going to do afterward?

We in WA don't exactly have the best track record of pulling off these kinds of large-scale stunts without screwing ourselves long-term... one look at the Wheatbelt should remind us of this.

As Andrew Forrest said in his final speech, to the baffled consternation of many people both in the studio and on Twitter:

I've got a number of incredibly rich friends and I can assure you they're no happier than anyone in this audience. [56:10]

Well, if money doesn't make you happy, what does? And where are our priorities? And what legacy are we leaving behind?

I do hope Q&A returns at some point, because all I was left with after this one was dozens of questions, mild confusion and a battered psyche.

NB: All unattributed quotes in this article are the author's own interpretation based on ground floor experience. It's not possible, to my knowledge, to link to old #qanda quotes on Twitter, but if it is please let me know and I'll attribute them more thoroughly. The specific Q&A episode can be streamed, and the transcript accessed, here.

Stop sitting on that wall outside KFC: Here are the plans for The Nu-Hydey

 this is what the pub looked like during the ALH era

photo stolen from: (unknown author)

I'm going to spare everybody the sentimental fucking spiel about The Hydey. It was what it was. It was good for ages, then it got shit because Paul Higgins sold it to Woolworths' subsidiary ALH. Then it was a corporate pub, not a family/community concern. It begun to smell and the beer got pretty bad, but at least heaps of apathetic kids worked there and would give me Coopers Red on my rider.

You can hear all about how cool The Hyde Park Hotel was in the new seven minute documentary called The Hydey, which was put together by local film luminaries Travis Johnson and Lindsay Hallam. I don't think you can view it anywhere cause it was a Town Of Vincent thing. They did a pretty damn good job of it though, and I believe there is a full length film in the works.

Anyway, after it was sold The Hydey was still pretty important to everybody, so when ALH made initial plans to close it by coming up with some convoluted lie about noise complaints (circa 2007), they were called out on their bullshit by a whole host of people including WAM and then- arts minister Sheila McHale.

The corporation clearly elected to bide their time and then try again, which they eventually did once the government had changed... and once everybody who used to like the place became utterly sick of watching the same five bands playing the same five shows to the same five cunts in a place that stunk (circa 2009).

So, in January 2010 it closed to live music for good, the bottle shop and bistro were ripped out and replaced with a Dan Murphy's bottle barn. The front bar was pretty much razed to the ground apart from a few walls/roofs and is being slowly re-constructed... into something that will be doubtless repulsive.

As evidence, please consider the following document:

Plans For Hyde Park Hotel Redevelopment: Amended 18 February 2009.

We were assured by various people at ALH that there would continue to be live music at the venue once the renovations were completed.

(I would reproduce the latest correspondence I had with their state manager, but unfortunately it has been lost.)

However, I really fail to see how anybody is going to be able to fit a live band onto a stage 19.5 m² that faces directly into a bar, and where the best possible viewing space is approximately the size of the old saloon bar where we [the musicians] used to keep our equipment. (See p.3 and p.5 of the PDF for comparison.)

I mean, OK, it's possible. Prove me wrong, please.

But what I can see happening is: either I'm going to walk past and Luke Steele's old man is going to be playing the blues with, like, one other old bastard, or there's going to be some douche bag with a "salmon" (PINK you fuck) shirt on w/ popped collar playing Semi Charmed Life for the third time that evening.

At least there's a beer garden though. And it's worth noting that Vincent Council were pretty good in sticking up for the mug punter by refusing initial approval due to "...loss of entertainment and change in culture of the premises" (p.8).

This is something ALH were forced to refute (p.11), claiming that the front bar "...will achieve a new lease of life." (ibid.). Hahahahahaha. These people wouldn't know what cultural 'life' meant if Don Rat walked up and punched them in the face.

In any case, the renovations to the front bar are slowly under way and it will be interesting to watch.

Meanwhile, see you at a different bar.

Further info on the ALH renovations can be found:

• in the Heritage Impact Statement (which takes the 'jazz' angle--interesting!), and;
• the council minutes (24 February 2009) (skip to p.131 of this one).

UPDATE: 18 July 2012 - the seven minute short for The Hydey documentary can be viewed here.