All let us reJoyce What’s a deputy prime minister to do? You’ve spent most of your time in public life opposing even the inadequate and failing targets your government has put in place, despite the destructive effects climate change is already wreaking. But now the IPCC report has landed and made an un-ignorable case for swift and radical action on emissions. If you’re Barnaby Joyce, you respond with a customary cocktail of bluster and bewilderment.
On RN this morning, asked by Fran Kelly why the Nationals were so implacably opposed to net-zero emissions by 2050, Joyce was a picture of passivity: “The reason is no one has told us what the plan is.” Kelly asked if maybe he, as a member of a government that is in power, might have a part to play. “We don’t come up with the plan,” he countered, arguing that was the role of agencies like the CSIRO. Later, continuing the theme of not knowing how government works, Joyce added: “If the Labor Party feel so reverently about this, they can legislate it.”
Black comedy OK, sure, the senior leadership of government doesn’t appear to have any thoughts on how to slow the ever-quickening approach of the apocalypse — but that’s not going to stop those wags in the ACT Young Libs from having a laugh.
The conservative tots raised, reportedly, $2600 auctioning off a lump of Adani coal at a fundraiser. And if the recent past is anything to go by, we can look forward to this bunch being voted in for five consecutive terms 20 years from now.
The Drudgery report Member for Dawson and habitual line-stepper George Christensen didn’t so much push the boat out yesterday as sink it. Going a step beyond his usual array of bells and dog-whistles, Christensen rose in Parliament to out-and-out say that masks and lockdowns don’t work. It was enough to get the Parliament united in condemnation.
But not everyone was horrified. John Ruddick, who ditched the Liberals for that Aldi of conservative parties, the Liberal Democrats, showered Christensen with praise. Could he be looking to add Christensen to the deck of loose-unit former Coalition members alongside Ross Cameron and Campbell Newman?
Moreover, Christensen, as spotted by our friends at The New Daily, has set up a predictably unhinged Drudge Report– style news site, so far collecting COVID scepticism and mass-shooting conspiracy theories. This might be the last thing anyone needs, but take heart — one of Christensen’s most relatable traits is his string of abandoned projects; remember that podcast he did for a bit, or that sporadic newsletter, or VERBUM, the Christian YouTube talk show he announced and then did like two episodes of?”
Effluent neighbourhood According to Reuters, scientists at a South Korean university have created a toilet that can convert human waste into cryptocurrency. The eco-friendly toilet converts faeces into gas and manure that help power the building in which it’s housed. Students who use it get 10 Ggool, a virtual currency they can use to buy, say, a coffee. Please, hold off on your “I always knew cryptocurrency was a pile of shit” jokes.
Tuning out Just as The Chicks jettisoned the associations “Dixie” brought with it, popular UK indie band British Sea Power has changed its name to simply Sea Power to avoid connotations of colonialism. This will come as a shock to Melbourne indie band British India, who can now not be resupplied via Suez, leaving them exposed to the Russian bear during recording of their seventh album. Crikey warns the tsar…
we need those gun emplacements at Queenscliff brought up to scratch at once; get those Victorian Volunteer Rifles back in action ASAP!!!
Oh Cousin Jethro, as your Uncle Jed used to say “You’re a f-wit!”
The conservative tots raised, reportedly, $2600 auctioning off a lump of Adani coal at a fundraiser. And if the recent past is anything to go by, we can look forward to this bunch being voted in for five consecutive terms 20 years from now.
Maybe not. At the ACT election last October the Libs and Labor both lost two seats each to the Greens. Previously the ACT Assembly had 12 ALP and 2 Greens forming government with 11 Libs in opposition. Now there are 10 Labor and 6 Greens forming a coalition government and 9 Libs in Opposition.
During the ACT election campaign the Libs engaged in a range of juvenile stunts. At the last federal election there was a strong campaign to Put Zed last on the Senate voting card. And of three HoR seats and two Senate seats four positions are held by the ALP.
So the ACT Young Libs may continue to win one Senate position into the forseeable future but I doubt their future promises any more than that.
“Crikey warns the tsar…”
Nice one!
SOooo, Furious George is after a gig in the Twilight Zone then, is he? Seeing his online identity has gone the same way as his floor-xing. Move over Angry Al & the Blot.