Monthly Archives: February 2014

Nothing is what it Seems

It is a bit like a spy novel.  Nothing is what it seems.  We are promised no surprises.  We naively expect no surprises.  What we didn’t see coming is that if you have no information, you cannot be surprised.  No broken promises, just a different path to the same end.

Turn back the boats seemed simple enough.  But which boats?  Seems we are turning back the lifeboats we bought and gave to people smugglers.  How long before the people smugglers repaint them in a camouflage paint job and set sail for Christmas Island?  The creativity is sensational.

We are promised an end to middle class welfare.  Problem is we have no definition of who makes up the middle class.  Maybe it is the inhabitants of middle earth.  I don’t know.  And what is ‘welfare’ anyway?  Could it mean we will not pay unemployment benefits to the dwellers of the middle kingdom if they are over 900 years old?  There is lots of scope to interpret promises.

Then we have the yet to be deciphered comments from Fiona Nash that her adviser had no connection with the food industry when he was a director of a lobby group for the food industry.  I think we need to focus on the word ‘connection’.  Perhaps ‘connection’ was interpreted to mean ‘to be attached by glue to the Nestle factory’ or ‘connected by rope to Cadburys’.

Titles need to be earned.  For example the title “Australian Icon” is not awarded lightly.  What you need to do is to put off thousands of workers (not managers obviously).  Qantas is going for gold this week and by Friday should be awarded the title.

Being an ‘Australian Icon’ has special privileges.  For example, it will likely get government guarantees and legislative changes to make it more internationally competitive.  Virgin could never be an “Aussie Icon’.  Too mixed up with those nasty foreigners.  As for Cadburys, well it is the old country.  Supported them in the war and will support them in the chocolate factory.  Not only did we give them money, we sent them Alexander Downer as well.

So rejoice Australia.  We don’t have a government that cannot be trusted as some people say.  We have a government that is brimming with creativity.  We have a government that thinks outside the square – Tienanmen Square I believe.  We have a Prime Minister who talks slowly and deliberately because he wants us to remember his new take on history.  We need to understand that what we thought happened, never happened.  We are just not smart enough to understand the real meaning of what we are being told.