POOR MALCOLM

I feel for Ross Gittins. 

In this morning SMH (15/2/2017 – Sydney Morning Herald) Ross laments the fact that he had trusted Malcolm Turnbull and got disappointed. Poor Ross. He thought Malcolm was a better man than I ever did. What follows are only my fleeting impressions. I could be wrong but I doubt it.

I met Malcolm a few times in the 1980s, on the social circuits, when Malcolm did not know if he was “Martha or Artha” politically, unless it was a deceitful attitude to test the waters, but Mal was as ambitious as hell is burning in religious circles.

On other social circuits (I don’t know why, but I’d become a ring-in fake member of rent-a-crowd) I met people like John Gorton who was a fabulous honest bloke with the scarred-face of a tough mafia hit-man as his head had been reconstructed from various pieces after I believe a nasty aircraft accident during WWII. Next to Gorton would often stand the tall man himself, Gough, who would call me “comrade” like he called everyone else. Gough would tell a lot of past anecdotes in which genuine hope for a better society had been the key point of his policies. Next to him stood the misunderstood Australian Simone de Beauvoir – no, not Germaine Greer – but Margaret Whitlam. These were genuine people. 

Malcolm was never genuine. He goes and went with the wind where the money goes and went. At the moment it’s not the wind but coal. There he was: who would make him the best offer? The Libs (KONservatives) or Labor? Malcolm believed he was destined for great heights despite being a short man – somewhat shorter than Napoleon (who was not short, by the way, but was called short by the Brits who wanted to belittle him), but with more burning desires. Narcissism is an understated position in regard to Malcolm. Putin is in the same boat, but his social views are more genuine: he wants the best for Russia. Malcolm wants the best for Malcolm. His views are in tune with “social order” in which he and his mates, the rich, are “at the top” rather than “a better society” which Gough had been working for.

Malcolm had a bit of cash of his own. He had invested in destruction of rainforests in the Solomon Islands “possibly for the better good” of whatever -- as Malcolm seems to always find the better good when whatever is there is utter crap. When he was “Minister for the Environment” in 2009, he sort of dismissed a claim of the “illegal” destruction of the Indonesian rainforests as a local problem. He could not say much more could he?

Remember: “it has never been a better time to be Australian”… To tell the truth times were better under Julia, but don’t tell him that, because he would go into a boring tirade with fiddled facts and rubbery figures why it was not -- while happiness is a feeling, totally independent of fiddles and rubber dongs.

As a Lawyer and a journalist he had co-written a book called “Spycatcher”. This was about Peter Wright autobiography of a senior spy who spilled the beans on MI5 – basically a whistle blower who made Malcolm famous for standing on the side of truth. Malcolm never stood on the side of truth. He stood plumb in a neat controversy that would bring him some cash and fame. Nothing else. If he really stood on the side of whistleblowers, he would give a golden pass to Julian Assange to come back to Australia. 

To me, Malcolm is basically a conman. An unprincipled conman. But he hides it well. I saw him a few years ago, after his $5,000 diet of special Chinese tea that could have come from Peter Foster the conman, but came from Shukan Liu, a Chinese doctor. Malcolm after his “diet” looked like a miniature “rake” floating in the middle of a grey suit that was too big… I made a toon about this… His tailor had not worked his full magic yet, it seemed – or our Mal had lost more weight after the previous adjustments. And “Rake” he appeared too, like the loony lawyer on the famous TV series (Rake), but without the warped sense of humour nor the joviality of the character. Same flipperiness, same slipperiness, but most boring demeanour. I did a toon with Freud falling asleep while analysing what Malcolm says (zzzzz... zzzzzz.... zzzzzz...) …

Lucy Turnbull is and was a rabid rightwinger. She might have been the clincher who pushed Mal to join the party of ratbags, the Libs (KONservatives). See, Lucy, Malcolm’s wife, is the daughter of ultra conservative Tom Hughes who was Attorney General during the ill-fated Liberal (KONservative) era of John Gorton, who as mentioned earlier was an honest man. Considering the cabinet was divided equally on Gorton’s proposed reforms, Gorton, the Prime Minister of Australia, voted against himself. He though there were too many loonies in his cabinet. 

From my observations, most Libs (KONservatives), if not all, hated people on welfare, hated Aborigines, hated multiculturalism and so forth. Except John Gorton. Yesterday, when Malcolm proudly recounted the story of the Aboriginal family whose land had just been returned to after a 27 year court battle, one could see the others Libs (KONservatives) on parliament benches twisting their mouth as if sucking on bitter lemons, unless it was my imagination or my memory of times past. Here, one has to also know that Malcolm had disbanded yet again the Aboriginal body in which the Aboriginal people look after their own affairs – a body which already was a shadow of what used to be after having been disbanded by John Howard and then Tony Abbott. Gnawing and belittling is the name of the game.

So Ross Gittins is dismayed that Turnbull has backfliped, done a piked-somersault with a twist and a reverse pedalling on his 16-speed bike, all at the same time on climate change. And Malcolm the debonair gets away with it. To a point. 

Here the Murdoch press is in a quandary. Murdoch loves the Libs (Konservatives) but never liked Turnbull, even if Murdoch turns up to Malcolm’s Regal soirees at Kirribilli house. 

It’s more for show. Murdoch never rests on his laurels, especially after having unleashed the Trump on the world stage. Uncle Rupe smiles a lot these days and this could be due to having his new squeeze, Jerry, by his side. But be sure that Rupert is plotting a way on how to bring back his protégé, the young Tony Abbott, to the fore and depose Turnbull. It’s delicate surgery. Murdoch is used to perform this kind of brain-operation in the public’s mind. He did Trump, didn’t he? The Russians? Balderdash!... Bring back Abbott is why Uncle Rupe has Peta Credlin commenting in his papers -- the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph. This is why he has Devine and Bolt having a bit of a tiff on radio… to maintan critical “exposure”…This is why he supports the denialists against the scientific consensus on global warming. This is why Turnbull has changed camp. It’s easy. One day “you know” that global warming is real and the next day “you believe” it’s crap. Turnbull has played the same trick over and over on other issues. Take marriage equality for example. Last year he was the darling of the Mardi-Gras. This year, after having twisted like the mind of a bi-polar schizophrenic, he is not welcome. 

Look at the “republican movement”. In 1999, when Howard defrauded the question for the vote in opposition to what the public wanted, Malcolm led a duplicitous ridiculous model of the republic which always was going to fail the voters. His Republican model was elitist to the extreme. Imagine YOU could not join HIS republican movement unless YOU were invited to join. YOU could not apply. This was the summit of disdain. 

Meanwhile, on the social circuits, gallery openings and other artistic events one could meet Lucy Turnbull’s uncle, the great Robert Hughes, the ferocious art critic. I could not claim to be an artist without being shot down in flame for being an impostor… I have been a bullshit artist all my life, and though I could bullshit with brilliance about art, I could not match the clarity and erudition of Robert Hughes. It always took me several days after a repartee to think of a good line. By then the conversation was as cold as Antarctica. 

So in terms of bullshit, I know a bullshitter when I see one – and Malcolm is right bang in middle of the sting. He is the ringleader of Ocean Eleven and the instigator of The Great Train Robbery. Thereafter he will piss on his mates. 

The title of Madam Annabel Crabb’s book on Malcolm says it all; “Stop at Nothing”

It’s an expose of Malcolm’s flaws and achievements, we are told by the blurb, including writing stuff with our old now dead mate Bob Ellis, and being a wing man for Kerry Packer, then pissing on them furiously later on. Despite this, Bob Ellis had a deluded view of Malcolm being a honorable man. Bob was also deluded about Rudd... Crabb explores how Turnbull has “changed” as if “he has improved”… She’s deluded to the hilt like a fence-sitter with a sore arse. Turnbull never “changed”. He changes all the time. Change is the consistent character of Malcolm. He is change incarnate,. Change itself. Not for the better, but to favour Malcolm.

So Malcolm now talks shit about coal. Malcolm now thinks it’s convenient and the easy solution to a problem that doesn’t exist and never existed despite having made noises to the contrary before this.

Global warming is crap. But in order to make coal palatable to the morons like me out there who still think global warming is real, let’s mention “clean coal” and “creating jobs” by giving one billion dollars to Adani. It’s deceitful. Malcolm is deceitful.

Next problem? Let’s hammer the poor to help the disabled after having already damaged the disabled policies.  

This one is not a backflip but a consistent policy in the Liberal (Konservative) Party. This is “social order”. We’re at the top, you’re at the bottom. This is not a benevolent society, though charity and religious beliefs are tax exempt. They should not. These tax exempt enterprises (usually run by KONservatives) are robbing the public good in favour of private endeavours in which Konservative brainwashing is at the core: “Me on top, you at the bottom. Let’s keep it this way.”

Turnbull has no principles, unlike Tony Abbott whose principles are ugly but on the table. But after so many twists, backflips and turn around, may be, and I say may be, is there no place left for malcolm to go, except to backtrack and become a bit more honest? Uncle Rupe might come to “like” Malcolm, despite the history between the two men, during the Kerry Packer era. All the twists and turns now have Turnbull in the ultra-right loony camp. The return of the prodigal son (Tony Abbott) could be too hard to contemplate. When I say “like” I mean Murdoch taking Malcolm as convenient for the moment. It can never be love. 

And when Malcolm insults Shorten, the press thinks this is an assertive move but it only diminishes Malcolm. Sure Malcolm can swim. If he does not, he will rob you of your life-jacket.

I would not say any of this should Malcolm take this country on the right (here I mean CORRECT) path. But Malcolm and his bullshit are taking Australia into the dark murky waters of fake hopes and destruction. This is unnacceptable.

These were my impressions. I could be wrong but then I’m not a politician.

And no-one important reads this raving lunatic, Gus of Gustaphianaland (La-la-land for the intimate and the inmates)’s posts.

So I feel for Ross Gittins. He is a journalist who has to be “balanced”. I don’t have this dilemma. Ross got tricked by the Malcolm. I never did.

Gus Leonisky

No longer a fake member of rent-a-crowd, for being too decrepit, drunk and being called an outspoken “Kommunist” when I am only an atheistic futurologist thinker. Good night.