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arise, sir gus de leon y Die Kartoffel...

arise sir gus

Wanting to distract and deflect, as well as punish and shame his Opposition counterpart, Tony Abbott abruptly came up with his plan to ennoble Quentin Bryce, writes Bob Ellis.

IT MAY WELL BE THAT NO-ONE, not even Abbott, knew of the new knighthoods until 3.10pm yesterday.

Shocked by a Shorten motion on the money he was taking from the kids of dead soldiers, and wanting to avoid that headline; wanting also to punish and wrong-foot Shorten for so shaming him and shrinking him, he ennobled his mother-in-law.

A nice Jesuitical wriggle, he will have thought. But the results have been, already, calamitous.

For if Malcolm Fraser is not the next on the list, three million Liberals will be affronted. If Julie Gillard is not also, five million women will. If Hewson, Peacock and Kennett get no gong, and Cathy Freeman, and Ricky Ponting, it will be noted.

It is reasonably certain Rupert Murdoch is on the list (the Queen, who hates him, has refused him two knighthoods thus far), and it is payment for past help. It is clear, as with Lloyd George, that some with billions will buy, with the odd stray million, knighthoods hereinafter.

It is certain Sir Alan Jones will be tapped on each shoulder with a boomerang, or whatever, by 2016.

It is certain Sir Tom Uren will cast off his new ribbon with disgust.

We have seen these distractions before.

Just as the Hobart Labor Conference in 2000 unveiled its education policy, Howard said no lesbian could have children by IVF because it was better a child not be born than live without a father. Menzies, facing electoral slaughter, announced in parliament that Evatt’s secretary was a Russian spy. Abbott, facing electoral slaughter now in Western Australia, is pulling this headline rabbit out of his top hat, white tie and tails.

But what he doesn’t get, I think, is how much money this will cost him.

Capitalists craving knighthoods will curse him for not ennobling them and minimise their donations. Singo, Hadley, Grattan, Clive James (dying, deserving, monarchist), John Bell, Ita Buttrose, Jamie Packer, Gina Rinehart, Jeannie Little, will be in a snit. Abbott’s confessor Pell will be enraged. Nick Greiner, twice accused of corruption, will see it as betrayal.

Friends of Victor Chang, Fred Hollows and Slim Dusty will demand it be posthumous. Friends of Cathy Freeman and Adam Goodes will want an Aboriginal quota. Janette Howard will be on the phone already. Philip Adams will be asking, on LNL, why Gough Whitlam, Noel Pearson, Germaine Greer weren’t made the offer. Les Murray, who launched Tony’s book on the monarchy, will be very puzzled.

All the Australian Nobel Prize winners will find it illogical they were not considered. All the VC winners. All successful paralympians. The four-a-year rule will seem more and more stupid.

Still, Tony got what he wanted: a headline that overwhelmed the news that he was thieving two hundred and fifty dollars a year from the kids of dead and mutilated soldiers. He managed that, at least. He seemed less like a persecutor of children.

And more like Don Quixote de la Mancha, the knight of the woeful countenance, off on a quest for past chivalry that never was.

And after this, the deluge.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/tony-abbott-bill-shorten-and-dame-quentin-bryce,6315

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From now on, Gus-the-cartoonist, pre-eminently ordinary with the lead-pencil, shall be known as Sir Gus de Leon y Die Kartoffel for service to this fair country for exposing the ludicrousness of government, politicians, shock-jocks, priests and the MMMM — with the same blunt pocket knife he used to engrave the old wooden school desks of Gustaphian gulags, where carved kartoffel were used to make fake seals for fake papeire.

 

malcolm is too naive to see the dark side of the little flip...

 

Malcolm Turnbull has gently mocked the return of knights and dames as a step that is in keeping with the honours system of esteemed republics such as Peru and Guatemala.

Speaking at a TV launch at Parliament House on Wednesday night, the Communications Minister and avowed republican told the crowd the move had merely taken Australia back to 1983, the last time that knights and dames were appointed and the year that Daryl Somers won the Gold Logie.

 

'Is it really so long ago?'' he asked.

Mr Turnbull, who in a blog post urged republicans not to lose sleep after Tuesday's surprise announcement by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, was more tongue in cheek on Wednesday, declaring 2014 ''an interesting time to see knights and dames coming back''.

''It's good to see the broad acceptance of it in the community today,'' he said to much laughter.

The Communications Minister said that reinstituting the honours should not be seen as a "monarchical move".

''After all there are many distinguished republics that have knights in their honours system – Guatemala for example, Peru, Argentina, Brazil,'' Mr Turnbull said.

''France and Italy, I mean they are two of the most distinguished republics.

 


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-like-esteemed-republics-peru-and-guatemala-malcolm-turnbull-gently-mocks-reintroduction-of-knights-and-dames-20140327-35jof.html#ixzz2x783L1DS


Bugger that... I don't care about other countries honour systems but I doubt the veracity of Dames and Knights in most republics unless the title is attributed to "grand drinkers of the good drop" like in being "a knight Templar of the Tastevino". But the subtle — well as obvious and as light as a lead balloon on take off — way in which Tony Detritus shoved this caper on this fair country WITHOUT ANY CONSULTATION WITH ANYONE is designed to destroy the republican ideals and promote the tour of the 145th next in line for the throne upcoming tour with bub in tow.
And Malcolm the Debonaire sees no malice in the deed. One must be aware that the republic was a shoe-in until Malcolm and his group of elitist republicans highjacked the process and got conned by John Howard... Now Malcolm is getting "conned" by Howard's heir... Not surprised. I always believed that Malcolm, by not seeing "he was being conned by Howard", was in fact a sub-agent designed to sink any proper concepts of a republic. 

 

Sir Gus 

Your local republican expert

a knighthood he would refuse...

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard has disagreed with the decision to reinstitute knights and dames into the Australian honours system and said it was ''unlikely'' he would accept an offer of a knighthood should it be offered.

The Australian Financial Review reports that Mr Howard stood by his long-held view that such a move would be considered ''somewhat anachronistic'', even by conservatives.

Mr Howard indicated that, because of his views, and the fact that he never entered politics to receive honours, it was unlikely he would accept a knighthood should one ever be offered.

As Mr Abbott spent much of Wednesday defending what appeared to be a unilateral decision, Mr Howard, a staunch constitutional monarchist, told The Australian Financial Review that his views on dames and knights, which he formed in 1996 upon taking power and which he articulated in his autobiography, had not changed.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/john-howard-disagrees-with-move-to-reintroduce-knights-and-dames-20140327-35jcu.html#ixzz2x7GFtry7

spending millions on a search for scrap metal...

Bob Ellis highlights a tragic week or mishaps, mistakes, pratfalls and disasters from the Abbott Government.

WHAT A WEEK in Australian politics. A week of woe for the Abbott Government.

Abbott, who will spend more on his sea-search for scrap metal than it would have cost to save five thousand Qantas jobs or keep Holden in Australia.

No price is too high for Australia to pay to find this watery grave, he’s said:

“We aren't counting the cost; we're just doing what needs to be done to try to get to the bottom of this mystery and that will go on.”

But, as we reported, it’s very likely, no matter how much money is thrown at the search, MH370 may never be found.

Attorney-General George Brandis green-lighted school bullying when he affirmed, last week, our right to be bigots. 

 

Even NSW Liberal Premier Barry O’Farrell knows that’s a bad move.

Abbott with his knighthoods made second class citizens of every Australian of the Year, while Brandis made Adam Goodes a second class citizen by licensing the bigotry he hates and fights and suffered in childhood — saying his bullies had a right to bully him.

Adam Goodes is Australian of the Year.

Howard rejecting his knighthood means no others can be offered, by Abbott, to anyone.

In Britain, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron applauded Britain’s first gay marriages.

Meanwhile, if Malaysian Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim jumped bail and came to Australia by boat, he’d be locked up in Manus for the rest of his life — in PNG, homosexuals are gaoled.

Abbott’s contempt for gay marriage is affirmed.

Scott Morrison has three murderers still on his payroll and is unfazed by this, thus proving he is insane. Covering up a murder, as he apparently wants to do, is a crime.

Hockey thought it smart to say: “The age of entitlement is over” just as the age of titles returned.

He also thought it was smart also to promise a million new jobs while cutting tens of billions in government money from programs that created new jobs or maintained old ones.

Abbott thought he’d make friends by announcing two knighthoods, but he repelled five hundred party donors who now for sure won’t get one.

What a week.

You can read more by Bob Ellis on his website Table Talk.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-week-of-woe-counting-the-cost,6336