Value CPAC CPAC Australia, the annual convention for culture warrior conservatives ranging from the merely right wing to the right out of their damn minds, has been brightly announcing its 2023 line-up for weeks.
It includes choices both obvious (One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson, former prime minister Tony Abbott, former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce) and inevitable (newly independent Victorian MP Moira Deeming) as well as just plain questionable, such as long-time US conservative political activist Matt Schlapp, trailing as he is a series of scandals.
And if all that somehow isn’t enough, CPAC is offering a near-50% discount to attendees to snap up a membership with the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).
It will cost you $55 bucks to help support the only think tank willing to do what really matters: total up every time the ABC used the word “Murdoch” to make some kind of point, and help take a bit of pressure off Gina Rinehart (Crikey understands the institute runs on what she finds down the back of her couch). Money well spent, no doubt.
The history of Australia in 10 Scott Morrison abrogations “I played no role and had no responsibility in the operation nor administration of the robodebt scheme,” former prime minister Scott Morrison has insisted, talking about a disaster of which he seems to consider himself the primary victim. It occurred to us that you could write a fairly detailed history of our times via disasters that Morrison insists were not his fault and jobs he insisted were not his to do.
On top of the former social services minister’s shrug over robodebt, Morrison’s denials cover off on the following:
- Australia’s tendency to knife its leaders midterm between 2007-18: “I was not the one who sought to change [the party leadership].”
- Australia’s hardline policy towards refugees: “It’s not my job to be an ethical theologian or any of these things. It’s my job to do a job, and my job was to stop the boats and that’s what we did.”
- Australia’s inaction on climate change: “I don’t hold a hose, mate.”
- On rape and sexual harassment: “Well, that is a matter for the police. See, I’m not the commissioner of police.”
- On COVID-19, part 1 — Australia’s insufficient vaccine supply: “The simple explanation is that … 3.1 million vaccines never came to Australia“; the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisations “had been very cautious and that had a massive impact on the rollout of the vaccine program, it really did. It slowed it considerably and put us behind — and we wish that wasn’t the result, but it was”; “It’s the pandemic, that’s the reason why these things are happening, and happening not just in Australia but in all places around the world.”
- On the crisis in aged care: “We regulate aged care, but when there is a public health pandemic … then they are things that are managed from Victoria.”
- On COVID-19, part 2 — secretly appointing himself to several ministries: “Had I been asked about these matters at the time at the numerous press conferences I held, I would have responded truthfully about the arrangements I had put in place.”
Have we missed a major policy area for which Scott Morrison has abrogated his responsibility? Let us know.
A walk on the Woodside Woodside Energy boss Meg O’Neill’s beachside mansion in Perth has allegedly been “invaded” by at least three protesters The Australian reports. Two men and a woman have been charged. Protest group Disrupt Burrup Hub put out a statement insisting the protest was “peaceful” at the time that counterterrorism police — who it says had been “lying in wait” — intercepted them.
O’Neill disagreed: “This was not a ‘harmless protest’. It was designed to threaten me, my partner and our daughter in our home. Such acts by extremists should be condemned by anyone who respects the law and believes people should be safe to go about their business at home and at work.” Which is fair enough, but if O’Neill is worried about lawless greenies outside her house, just wait until she gets wind of what rising sea levels are going to do to it.
Kristol clear Just as there is no greater apologist for Fox News than someone who works there, there is no more scathing critic than someone who used to. Bill Kristol, the neocon who spent a decade at Fox News after serving as chief of staff to then-VP Dan Quayle, has written to US watchdog the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), calling on it to reject the broadcast licence renewal application for Fox Corp-owned television station FOX 29 Philadelphia (WTXF-TV).
Proving what a bipartisan affair hating on Fox has become, Kristol’s is a joint informal objection with former PBS president Ervin Duggan. This is in support of advocacy group Media and Democracy’s formal petition earlier this month, which argued Dominion Voting System’s defamation lawsuit against Fox proved the company breached the FCC’s policy on licensee character qualifications:
The adjudication of the Dominion case unequivocally established that Fox News channel repeatedly disseminated false news, and the Fox cable channels and its broadcast ones are clearly intimately linked, as Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch hold the authority for decision-making over both. The commission should follow the well-established legal framework and conduct a hearing to fully consider the fitness of FOX and the Murdochs to continue as licensees of the public air waves.
It must be a particularly bitter blow for Rupert to hear Kristol talk this way — he helped finance Kristol’s conservative publication The Weekly Standard in the early ’90s and gave him regular air time on Fox for a decade to spruik basically any war the US might care to involve itself.
That’s a fine list of things for which Morrison insists he is or was not responsible. Perhaps he has a point; surely everyone can agree Morrison is irresponsible?
Perhaps Morrison would get a little more sympathy for his stance if he returned all the salary he received during all those years when he was being not responsible.
A fair point Rat. If he was not responsible , then was he being paid for his humour?
“Had I been asked about these matters at the time at the numerous press conferences I held, I would have responded truthfully about the arrangements I had put in place.”
On the subject of numerous ministries, this has to be the favourite. It was really the fault of the media, the Cabinet, colleagues & all Australians in general who failed to put the right question to him. Entirely our fault apparently &, inexplicably, we were shocked & angry when the facts came to light. We also should have thought to ask if he cheats at cards.
Shades of the scene from the Blues Brothers film where, to escape the murderous threats of the woman who is about to kill him, Elwood blames everyone else for whatever happened, then when she goes all starry eyed, he drops her in the mud and scuttles off.
But that was a Musical to entertain, Morrison was supposed to be running a mid level Nation. 😉
– You miserable slug! You think you can talk your way out of this? You betrayed me.
– No I didn’t. Honest!
I ran outta gas!
I had a flat tyre!
I didn’t have enough money for cab fare!
My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners!
An old friend came in from outta town!
Someone stole my car!
There was an earthquake; a terrible flood; LOCUSTS!
It wasn’t my fault!!! I swear to God!
It was Jake that said that, wasn’t it?
But it does fit in with Smirko taking a part in Oliver! as The Artful Dodger, a role he played as a child on a church production of such.
Early on The Artful Dodger then such in jobs and in politics
With his spells at Tourism NZ and Tourism Australia, being”let go” from both concerning deals about advertising et al.
These together with the skullduggery that landed him in the Liberal seat of Cook, when he lost decisively on the ballot on preselection 8- 82 to Michael Towke.
It was then Liberal Party apparatchiks launched a campaign to discredit Towke and put Smirko in as the candidate.
“They were only secret because you didn’t know about them. If you’d asked about the secret ministries that you didn’t know about, I would have told you about them and then you’d have known all about them”
That the IPA is in such desperate straits is heartening
Such was indicated by John Roskam way back in 2021, after his 17 years as executive director
He was bemoaning a lack of voices on the conservative side of politics to defend free speech and traditional values against the growing influence of “cancel culture” and ”
Apparently 80% of the IPA’s funding came from big business when he started, but that has shrunk to less than 5%!
The IPA was a major force in the founding of the LP and as as John Roskam, former executive director of the IPA stated, “Big business created the IPA”.
This because the IPA assisted in the formation of the Liberal Party was to keep the Australian Labor Party out of government in Australia.
Assisted by the Agrarian Socialist Party( the National Party in all its iterations) it succeeded.
Aided also by the DLP it was able to hold onto power for well over 20 years under Menzies, who managed to survive by adopting ALP policies more or less wholesale.
DeSmog have analysed and developed an excellent profile on the IPA, not to forget some US donors in ’80s or ’90s who come under the US umbrella of Koch or Atlas Network.
Includes the US Olin and Bradley Foundations which under the radar of local media at the time; also coincidentally highlighted by NY’er journalist Jane Mayer via her book ‘Dark Money: Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’
https://www.desmog.com/institute-public-affairs/
Ta to all above, Drew!
Woodside IS the Western Australian government
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Key8y1yg2yQ&t=2s
Maybe all you good Melbourne folk should take up the IPA discounted offer and join. This approach works for Stephan Mayne, it gives a chance to ask awkward questions, and imagine the horror of Gina when she discovers she’s been branch-stacked.
Beware of joining as the voting members, who decide on matters are distinct from the general membership.
They are have set up such so that no one can seriously question the organisation.
Why would anyone join to be a non voting member?
Non-voting membership is open to the public, with membership fees ranging between $22 and $249 as of July 2018. Membership has increased since 2010, when there were 826 members.