My earliest political memory was my father railing against Prime Minister Menzies. He often referred to him as Pig Iron Bob in honour of him providing Imperial Japan with iron and steel, even while knowing they were bent on military expansion. And now we have our very own Yellowcake Johnnie planning to sell uranium to nuclear rogue states. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
My father gave me the impression that the Liberal Party’s fundamental principle is looking after your business mates – everything else is secondary. Howard and Downer supported the invasion of Iraq on the merest suggestion that Hussein was planning to make nuclear weapons, and yet here they are planning to sell uranium to India and Russia, who both have form, under circumstances which make it likely that Aussie yellowcake will one day end in the hands of Rogue States and The Axis of Evil. But hey, no problem, we’re making a buck out of it in the finest of Menziean traditions. Or maybe it’s just Howard’s way of ensuring that we’ll always have terrorists to fight, say in ten years time when the Liberals are back in power. Nothing like long-term planning and forward thinking.
So what better timing in the news cycle to distract the punters’ concern for the latest of Howard’s shonky deals than the news that four years ago a journalist dined and wined Kevvy and lured him to a New York strip club. You gotta give it to the Liberal media machine – it’s a class act.
Meanwhile the world’s greatest Treasurer Peter Costello threatens that if the States can’t regulate the shonky practices of sub-prime lending he will take over. And do what, exactly? Sub-prime lending is a result of global private equity looking for a quick and easy buck. Since when has it been the business of a free-market Treasurer to propose regulating the affairs of bankers? As if he could anyway. Just like he can control interest rates, I suppose. Since when has Liberal Party had any interest in getting in the way of hucksters and their constitutional right to never give a sucker an even break? I would have thought sub-prime lending was the kind of entrepreneurial spirit much admired by the Liberals.
Fraudulent, morally corrupt shysters the lot of ‘em. Election now, please.
Filed under: Australian values, History, Politics
