Club Politique by Che Tibby

If you’re wondering why I’m posting twice a week now, it’s because I’m in the final throes of the thesis and am positively bubbling with ideas I need to vent. The tricky thing about writing one of these things is that you can absolutely guarantee that absolutely no-one will read the damn thing.

Sure, your supervisor(s) will read it, but they’re getting paid to do so. And paid to do so again, and again, and again. Before I come over to New Zealand for a well-earned holiday in November I’ll hand a copy to ‘the boss’ and she’ll get that look like ‘here we go again’.

For this reason I am eternally grateful to you all for reading me. Now this assumes three things. One that someone is actually reading this stuff, two that they’re doing so voluntarily, and three that they’re doing so more than once. But hey, its better than spending six years writing something you have to bribe people to even pick up and look at.

Much of the ranting I do in this blog is the product of those years of thought (unsurprisingly), so as I say, you lot are the only ones ever likely to actually read the results. Sure, a few years from now you may find a grizzled looney shouting ‘I am the brain child of Will Kymlicka and Iris Marion Young. Hear my words and repent!’ on the corner of Cuba and Manners Mall, but until then I’ll try to keep a lid on it.

To try and escape this intellectual marginalisation I’ve been firing off Op-Ed and journal pieces to various editors and chiefs trying to get access to that lucre I know is lurking out there somewhere in media-land. With any kind of luck I’ll strike the right formula at some stage and open that door to Uncle Scrooges vault.

What am I aiming for I hear you ask? Actually, it wouldn’t be too bad to assume the status of ‘blogerati’, an exalted position above ‘blogger’. If there’s something above blogerati, something mystical and unknown, then I’m game to find out. And if it means I get something akin to rock-star fame then I’m up for it. The name seems to help, the housemate called me an ‘Irish revolutionary’ the other day.
I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment.

Actually, the name is a good story. Apparently I was called ‘the boy’ for the first six months till ‘the Man’ made them name me. Damn hippies…
They reckon my first gig was Elton John and I was wearing tie-dyed nappies. Which would explain why I can’t wear nappies to this day without cringing.

Hmmmm… I think I’d like to be blogerati so I can finally impress someone enough into marrying me. And yes ‘ladies’, that does mean I’m single. When I was in my twenties there wasn’t such a rush, but these days my ears are starting to get really, really hairy. Combine this with the two caterpillars I call eyebrows and I’m quite a sight.
So ‘ladies’, if you’re happy hitching your wagon to a suspected mogwai, I’m your man. I’m cuddly, dip me in water and I reproduce, but Sundays adventure proves the sunlight doesn’t seem to effect me. It’s a quandary without explanation.

This brings me to the question of what in the hell to write about to secure this exaltation. I’d like to think that explaining how Kymlicka's theorisation of the complementary positioning of individual and society within liberal ideology will do the trick, or that Young’s discussion of 'association' being the primary impetus for a cohesive civil society will make some heels kick up, but I’m guessing that will limit my chances.

As it is, a statement like ‘biculturalism is a majority acceptance of immutable minority difference, and the cooption of that difference to secure minority participation in their own governance’ usually results in quiet whisper’s of “Shazza… was what he said English?” and then they try and slip me a roofie.

I should have learned to play the guitar.

I hauled my sorry arse out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4.30am yesterday to get to a little town called Hastings out on Western Bay. The housemate bought me a gift voucher to go on a charter boat called Blue Magic, and we were due to cast off at 6.30am. Seen as I've been out of bed at 6.30am almost everyday for the past six months to get the last few chapters of the thesis finished on time, it wasn't toooo much of a systems shock. But damn it was cold.

It being 7 degrees was forgiven once we were out on the Bay though. There's honesty and peacefulness out there. It's hard to say what it is, maybe its something about the greens and greys of the shoreline in the distance, the smell of the ocean water, the sounds of gulls, watching the skipper kill a 2m Gummy Shark with a rubber mallet.

Pity I don't eat shark (too many heavy metals, those things should be classified WMDs).

It was a bit early in the season though and we only brought in one snapper, but I'll be back out on the water again in the New Year when the numbers have picked up. As it is the skipper gave us an extra four hours on the water just because he's a good natured bloke, but sadly the only thing I brought home was a sunburn like no other.

And, it kind of only covers half of my neck/face/behind my ear/one arm? Normally I'd be writing this at small block, a great place over on upper Lygon Street, but today I'll have to make my own coffee so my apoplexy doesn't scare any children.

Despite the disappointing lack of fish, certainly not the fault of Blue Magic, the day was good if not only because of the chance to forget about reading angry bloggers and commentators harping on about the election. I've decided 'that's it'. I'm going for political agnosticism.

Most of the past week has involved persons from either end of the spectrum exchanging fairly useless barbs about the 'triumph of conservatism', the theft of the election through fear, whether it was a mandate for Howard's Iraq policy, and exactly how much of a reaming the unions are in for (although Howard has promised to not forget the little people).

Probably the only really useful find during this reading was a site called troppo armadillo, who seems to present an obviously left, but fairly balanced assessment of current Australian issues.

I also enjoyed that the spend-a-thon only lasted four days before the Treasurer was talking about their viability being in doubt. Four days! Electorate? Suckers...

The thing about all this reading, besides only slightly getting in the way of finishing the final chapter of the thesis’ to first draft, is that it's just plain annoying. I know that partisan commentary is what politics is all about, but if I have to read one more self-referential hawk crapping on in retrospective justification of Iraq I'm buying a sniper rifle myself.

My final word on this partisanship has to be to Janet Albrechtsen, who gave us this wonderful little quote on the rise and rise of Howard.

While our left-wing cultural warriors in the media are crying foul and wanting to elect a new people, the rest of Australia dispatched a powerful message on Saturday. Conservatism is cool.

Bad news Janet, conservatism may be many things, but it certainly isn't cool. Conservatism is like a rubber. Something we both put up with to help us get to the fun stuff.

Reading all this partisan prevaricating has had a few interesting outcomes though. For starters it has exposed balanced commentators like Hugh McKay, a social researcher who seems to have called the election months beforehand, around the issue of the economy. Unfortunately, my web searching over the past week hasn't turned up any statistics to back up my opinion of his opinion, but it seems that economic stability was the key factor in the election result.

So despite the apparent wailing and gnashing of teeth, barely heard over the sounds of triumphal grandstanding, we'll have to wait till the polls come in and we can make a rational assessment of the results.

If it was the economy then the election result brings into question the whole 'left-right' split we seem to have become so used to. Once upon a time politics could be characterised as pretty simple, the left represented 'the worker' and the right represented 'business'. But as the seasoned commentator Paul Kelly indicates, things just aren't cut and dry any more. The classic example being used here is timber workers cheering Howard.

Much like the situation in New Zealand, the incumbent Government is largely there because they're the ones delivering the consumer goodies, and the opposition can't seem to get enough traction in issues to dislodge them (even taking into account leadership issues and the way this discredits a party).

The curious thing is the way that New Zealand and Australia are in essentially the same economic position, but have different types of government that would have been at different ends of the spectrum under the old system. It appears that being a good economic manager is the key prerequisite for governance, even if that economic success is actually the result of globalisation, but if you have it you can then sneak your social policy in as a rider?

And leaves me wondering, who in the hell wants to live in a world run by economists?

It could be worse though, the other interesting development is the rise of the Family First Party (FFP). Although them gaining space in the Senate seems to have been mostly the product of a glitch in 'the system'. I heard on TV that only 2% of the party’s votes were directly for them, the remainder being through Australia's weird proportional representation rules.

Having recently seen a documentary called With God on Our Side about the Evangelical movement in the US, the most famous member being George W. Bush, I was a little alarmed at the prospect of this party getting into the Senate.

This was however till I heard, heard mind you, that the party enjoys fairly progressive policies on things like Aboriginal reconciliation, asylum seekers etc. So, this would suggest that they aren’t strictly ‘right-wing’. Suggesting that the old split is again, irrelevant.

They've also been favourably compared with the United Future Party in New Zealand, so the only question will be how they'll fair without a political mover and shaker like Peter Dunne at the helm. Time will tell.

As it happens, only a few minutes ago I found out that the Coalition may be heading for the first outright majority in the Senate since Malcolm Fraser. With the (rumoured) two FFP members, Howard is tipped to have almost unprecedented power to reform pretty much whatever he wants.

Yup. Political agnosticism. Can’t bear myself to back ‘the winners’, and too scared to stick up for ‘the losers’ in case I’m ‘discredited’ for dissenting from the big boys.

As I may have gloated a few times already, Melbourne isn’t such a bad place to live. It was a healthy 32 degrees yesterday but chilled after a night-time cool change to a comfortable 20ish, meaning today I got to stroll around and enjoy the final demise of winter.

You may have guessed that this was a consolation for not currently living in the commie, pinko leftie police state of ‘right on’ that would have ensued had Labor carried the day. On the walk home to day through what was so nearly almost Stalinist-Russia-on-the-Yarra I was reminded of a story that may cheer anyone here up, even those under the indelible impression that we live in a police state.

A friend of mine over here, lets call him ‘Greg’, is a bit of a fan of chemicals. For a party he was throwing awhile back he decided that making some nitrous would be a grand idea. He put his partially-taxpayer-funded B.Sc to good use, and started sourcing the required chemicals to knock up a few balloons full of the old harmless laughing gas. Now, there’s every reason he could have done what most normal people do and just buy a stack of those soda-stream bottles and get his jollies that way, but no.

You see, ‘Greg’ is what you call a ‘genius’. Seriously. So being a genius he likes to do things the difficult way. He also has a history of mental illness. But that just confirms the whole genius thing.

Anyhow, to make all this fantastic gas you have to have some kind of source for all the nitrogen, and the best is apparently ammonium nitrate. Ok, so don’t quote me on the nitrate thingie, how the hell would I know with my awe-inspiring BA (pol.sci). The catch is though, Ammonium nitrate doesn’t just lie around waiting to be converted into party-starters by itinerant genius’, you have to buy it from the appropriate, regulated outlet.

Where ‘Greg’ got this stuff I don’t know, but the interesting thing is that you can’t buy it in 50g lots, which is apparently all ‘Greg’ needed. Instead, it comes in 20kg sacks. Now, for those of you without the prerequisite B.Sc that is potentially enough nitrous to knock your whole house over.

The next really interesting thing is that to fund the remaining part of his education ‘Greg’ designs and constructs stills for sale on the interweb. These things are easy to assemble, simple to use, and produce very, very strong alcohol for those with a predisposition to oblivion. As you may well have guessed then, the party was to involve huge amounts of nitrous, even huger amounts of home-made moonshine, and was held in the somewhat smoky environs of “the garden”.

I was up to my armpits in a restaurant sink on the night and missed the action, but it was apparently a riot. My housemate ended up bringing home ‘Greg’s’ housemate ‘Denson’, a vocal but hilarious Kenyan bloke over here studying journalism.

Apparently the only reason the ‘Greg’s’ third and final housemate missed out on getting action is that he wandered too far into “the garden” and couldn’t find his way out. Probably the fact that he likes to wear camo gear contributed to this problem as well (as does ‘Greg’. Again, refer to the genius thing).

‘Denson’ was a real laugh, except when you talked to him about something like the Al Qaeda bombings in Nairobi, he hated to be associated with any of that kind of stereotyping of foreigners that goes on.

The final thing you need to know is that the guys lived out in a reasonably conservative part of West Melbourne called Williamstown, and there’s not always a heap of things to keep a bunch of guys interested besides smoking while “gardening” and manufacturing alcohol.
To solve this problem the genius decides to construct a few paint-ball guns, meaning that they can get loaded and have mock-battles around the streets in which they live, and in the park a few streets over.

Were the guys has happy as sandboys? Throw in a bit of playstation and some TV, (not to mention a pub down the road featuring scantily clad young ladies). You bet.

Do I hear you asking where all this is going?

Remember this is only last year, not so long after Bali and 911.

And surprisingly, Williamstown isn’t exactly replete with camouflage-wearing, loaded, face-painted, gun-toting freaks (and skinny Africans) on some kind of weird training mission. So when that 20kg sack of ammonium nitrate, the kind of chemical that gets used to make bombs like the one that levelled the building in Oklahoma City, is correlated with a complaints to the police about the ‘ruckus’ these young men are making, alarm bells start ringing.

Before you know it the boys have “The Boys” turn up in full black anti-terrorism gear, whereupon “The Boys” find not only a genius with a troubled past and a history of mental illness, an obviously dodgy African bloke (“wasn’t that Al Qaeda thing in Kenya?”), a large quantity of potential explosives (ammonium nitrate), bomb-making equipment (the still manufacturing gear), terrorist training equipment (camo and paint-ball guns) and “the garden”.

The genius was required to do some fast talking that night, while the African freaked and pretended he couldn’t speak English, and the other guy just tried to fade into the background.
The three of them are on a terrorism watchlist to this day.

So why do I find this reassuring?

If this was Iraq these guys would have electrodes on their gonads as we speak.

I suppose there's no point getting all misty-eyed about Saturday night. Pretty early in the piece we decided to switch off the volume and sit down to dinner and cheap wine instead of anticipating that sudden swing to Labor. The fact that the bookies were paying $4.50 to see Labor get up was a good indication that Latham's gamble hadn't paid off.

All I really need say is that considering the loss of the Senate to the conservatives, any old-style Lefties or modern liberals better brace themselves for a wave of reform designed to cement Howard's view of reality. God forbid that Israel and the US ever take umbrage with Iran over the latter's willingness to build nukes, because there will be Australians there fighting out of American bases in Iraq.

Newspapers here, and 'right' blogs all over the interweb are crowing about the 'greatness' of Little Johnny and the new Australia that's to come, so if that's your disposition there's plenty around to satiate your need for self-congratulation (as there would be on the left had Labor carried it). There's also plenty of wariness amongst those preparing to be once and for all marginalized from mortgage-belt middle class politicking.

In other words if you're gay, black, Asian, poor, a single parent or non-Christian and currently have a stable income/lifestyle, don't make any sudden moves until you suss out the political winds of change. John "The Leveller" Howard is about to begin a new 'social consensus' around a solidly conservative benchmark.

The one alarming development of the election that has numerous commentators raising eyebrows is the rise of the Family First Party. Although they constantly denied their links to the Assembly of God, an evangelical church, no one really thinks they're anything but a front for religious conservatives and their values. Fortunately or perhaps more accurately, hopefully, what they don't represent is a form of religious orthodoxy or fundamentalism. Again, hopefully. The truth be told, no one I've listened to is sure, but as they say, "actions" and "words".

What Saturday has been represented as is a triumph of conservative 'good economic management', and the inability of Labor to capture the middle ground of ‘prudent spending’. In reality, the Coalition spending spree and simultaneous scare campaign on interest rates in a very heavily indebted Australia is more likely to have been the winner on the day.

This representation of economic managers as good governors is a very dangerous furphy, because while economic management won the election, the implementation of a little debated social agenda is going to be the outcome.

To be honest, this is what really scares me. If the past few years have been any indication, the ability of Howard to sideline a democratic mainstay called dissent in favour of his own personal projection of Australian society and social issues will only be cemented with the support of Family First. Pundits are already talking about the apparent mandate the public has given him, though the win was through another set of issues altogether. Maybe the suburbs voted for the economy, but homogeneity and xenophobia are in that Trojan Horse.

‘Sure’, I hear you say, ‘make a big fuss, but wasn't Tasmanian Brian Harradine pushing a similar conservative agenda in the Senate a few years back?’ I would answer, without doubt. But. Harradine wasn't operating in an atmosphere of slowly growing hysteria and fear. An example is a guy called Andrew Bolt.

If you can picture David Irving writing for a major metropolitan newspaper, you have a glimpse of many of Bolt's columns in the Herald Sun. I really dislike this guy. Even though his opinions can at times be incisive, the fact that it's filtered through rabid conservativism makes it somewhat jaded.

For example, on a commentary show post election Bolt used a phrase that went something like "Labor will be conducting a jihad over blah blah blah...". Now this is drawing a fairly long bow, but isn't the correct word crusade? Personally, I'm of the opinion people like Bolt use these oblique references to deliberately draw emotional responses from their insecure audience.

In this environment of fear it is becoming increasingly easy for people of Bolt's ilk to depict thinkers and commentators on 'the left' as ideologues and 'utopian' compared to 'right' pragmatism and 'common-sense'. A current example is bloggers talking about the death of Derrida. Right-wingers I’ve spoken to in the past who crap with criticism of artsy-fartsy philosophies like post-modernism or deconstruction often don’t understand them.

All I have to say is this, the truly great theories are really, really, hard to understand. Once upon a time there were only two people in the world who understood the theory of relativity. Einstein, and some smart-arse.
These days everybody knows that if you send a clock into space at the speed of light when it gets back to Earth it’s only advanced five minutes while society has advanced a billion years. Or something.

Which makes me think that conservative philosophy must be in a space-ship right now.

Truth be told, much of the right-leaning theories I’ve read in the past few years often boil down to “fuck or fight”, such as the increasingly-popular ‘clash of civilisations’. And a quick browse of right-leaning webogs is a good indication of the kind of hairy-chested hysteria used on that side of the spectrum.

What I worry about is that the left will have to outbid the right with even greater fear to win elections, instead of trying to use rationality.
Iraq is a good example. There's little point in harping on about the justifications provided to nail Saddam, but what the media campaign can be reduced to is a battle between reason and belief. Did you know Saddam had WMDs, or did you believe what you were told?
This type of cleave between left and right has to become increasingly important as the post-911 world develops.

In the context of the Australian election, I’m trying not to lose my objectivity when I state that deliberately generating fear in consumer-culture middle-class Australia took the place of explaining policies. Sure those who follow politics closely know what the Coalition’s agenda is on social policy, but I watched this election closely, and the Coalition was not selling their ideas to the public, only scaring them off Latham and Labor while simultaneously offering ‘incentives’.

The threat then is that the voters have effectively given a ‘mandate’ to Howard to enact some pretty nasty policy, but think that what they have chosen is a good economy. The case of the logging union that reacted to Latham’s bungled forestry plan is a good example. What are these guys going to do when the trees are milled for pulp and gone? Who will they come bitching to about their lack of employability? Already the Coalition is getting ready to bring in some sweeping industrial relations reforms. Bye bye union.

Again, short-sightedness and ‘belief’ wins out over rationality and thinking.

My foolish adventure this past weekend was a foray into designer lifestyling. Living in a rental property usually means you can't live out your full home renovation fantasies, but if you're really sneaky it's not too difficult to make small adjustments that the landlord might like.

A few months back for example I converted half of the front garden into a small patio with a few old red bricks I found out back behind the shed. It was like a spider combat zone out there, but once I convinced the more poisonous, evil little bastards to make for the darkness and recovered the essential resource everything was honky-dory. You know what they say, those desert-country spiders are the more dangerous ones.

Anyhow, the patio is nifty, Mr De Fazio actually thinks it looks good to, and it complements the mint I've let go nuts in the remaining garden nicely (when its 28 degrees at 8pm you can water the mint and it lets out a great cool-air smell, heartily complementing the aroma of "stale Carlton Draught" in the recycle bin). But, I'd better be careful about adding more stuff in case he puts up the rent.

Ignoring my own good sense, and seen as the view from my office is the much sought-after "grey paling fence" neglected by the advertising in the latest IKEA catalogue I thought I'd better spruce the place up with a few well placed pot-plants. The next stage involved me sagely noticing that a down-pipe from the guttering over the kitchen empties just there, and if I dammed it right I could use the rainwater for the wee herb garden I potted. Very clever methinks.

Removing the spouting already there, I find some stray PVC piping and knock up a shorter vertical down pipe, with a horizontal bit that juts out at a 95 degrees to carry the water across to where the reservoir is going to be. I fix this piping to the paling fence with some old wire left over from when I rather badly restored an old HQ (3kgs of bog, and still it wasn't enough... a story for another day).

Vua-la. Now I have a system to catch rainwater without damaging Mr De Fazio's house. I set up a pot to hold the water, but notice that the vertical pipe is too short, and confirm this with a test of water tipped in at the top. If there's too much it overshoots the pot. Too little and the trickle will fall short. The answer? I jury-rig some corrugated iron in the pot to as a splash-guard.

Feeling very proud of myself I retire to watch a DVD and await the first rain, so I can put some fish in there to keep the mosquitoes down.

On Monday I was reading the papers online, and upon glancing out the window noticed it was raining very lightly. Success! The first of the water was gently coming from the down pipe with the sound of... a tinkle.

I've built a urinal sound effect 5 feet from my workspace.

Excellent.

Personally I'm blaming this screw-up on globalisation. Damn Japanese and their smart-alec koi ponds. If I wasn't so concerned to be all green and 'cosmopolitan' I would have let the run-off be wasted and water my coriander out of the town supply. In fact, it wouldn't even be coriander. It would be more mint. Or parsley, and not some fancy-schmancy Asian herb.

Yeah... globalisation... Who the hell are these people who turn up here with their newfangled ideas and delicious food tempting me away from good old traditions like mint and new potatoes? Or minted peas. Or mint-sauce and roast lamb.

I reckon the good news about globalisation could be that it's the perfect scape-goat. The bad news is that it's also so easy to ignore. The one thing it hasn't been in the current election campaign is useful.

Watching the Insiders special on the lead-up to Saturdays poll last night on the ABC was very interesting indeed. They interviewed the leaders and Howard was running the usual scare-campaign interest rates and the death of the economy should Labor get up, but Latham was having none of it and continued to try and draw the focus back to education and his new policies of Medicare Gold.

What immediately grabbed my attention to Latham many months ago his was labelling the Liberals a "conga-line of suck-holes" because of their staunch pro-American policy. I laughed so hard at the time I almost feel off the couch. But he might have a point. For example, allegations were made on Dateline last night that Halliburton is now supplying many of the Australian defence contracts, while many local companies didn't get a look in. Surprise, surprise. Giving him the Labor leadership was a bit of a risk, but if he can get rid of Howard it will all be worth it (and Crean was never really a contender).

To try and be completely objective, Howard is a really good leader. He's a wily political figure and shrewd reader of the public mood, he has been a good Prime Minister and a more than able financial manager. His grabbing of the political middle-ground and ability to appeal directly to the man in the street is consummately Australian in the tradition of Menzies and Hawke. It's just a pity that he's a conservative, "big end of town" son of a bitch.

What has annoyed me most about this election cycle is the emphasis on interest rates as the key point to scare the horses. Interest rates, interest rates, it's a mantra the Coalition has been using since day one. The frightening thing? If Labor gets up we'll apparently have double-digit interest rates again.

Much like the 13% rates Australia had when Howard was himself Treasurer.

What both sides seem to have to conveniently ignore is that it's an era of low interest rates globally. The implication? No matter who's in Government, interest rates are highly unlikely to spiral out of control, unless the Government in question goes completely nuts on spending and forces them up themselves. Much like the Coalition is threatening to do.

Now, I'm the first to admit that I know far too little about economics to make more than a gut call on interest rates, but you can't argue with these guys.

Mind you, with Howard's long-standing willingness to try and discredit any expert who doesn't strictly agree with him, and that's any expert, from medical doctors, to intelligence spooks, to defence chiefs, to academics, to former diplomatic staff, there's a chance that these economists don't actually know what they're on about. After it, it's the economy, and these guys are only economists right?

While Howard is bandying about these scare tactics, Labor can't really say that it's a 'global thing' without making themselves seem economically impotent and therefore less able managers than Howard. Catch-22.

All this criticism aside, I am going to begrudgingly admit that Howard is likely to carry the day, though by an incredibly slim margin.

The factor that finally put it in Howard's pocket is likely to have been this weeks preference deal made between Latham and the Greens over Tasmanian forests. I'd like to think that Latham was just acting rationally in the convicted manner he tries to project, but there's a good chance that it's a blunder.

What's going on in Tasmanian is that a number of key marginal seats there, but also in Victoria and NSW, have large numbers of chainsaw-happy blokes all too willing to turn ancient trees into woodchip. We aren't even talking about making nice expensive wooden furniture. We're talking pulp for photocopy paper, the kind of stuff every office in Tokyo throws out by the tonne.

Latham's plan is to stop the logging and try retraining all these blokes to do something useful instead of driving machinery. The term he used was 'value-added' employment. Personally? I think it's a good idea. But so, so, poorly handled. Latham and the Greens bunched up in the middle, leaving enough room for Howard and co. to go way around the outside with the line of "jobs or trees"?

What Howard is proposing to let them keep chipping trees, but permanently reserve areas that couldn't be logged anyhow, such as ravines or cliff-faces. Environment groups are in a lather about it as green expediency.

The trade-off is apparently a large, large number of Green votes on the mainland potentially going to Labor. They may loose the Apple Isle and all the loggers, but gain the disgruntled and guilty suburban green voters.

It's the kind of move that will either be lauded as 'genius' or 'foolish' depending on which way the undecideds (apparently up to 20%) jump on Saturday.

The tricky thing is that this forestry issue, along with the interest rates thingo, is exactly the kind of 'big issue' politicking that escapes the electorate. Interest rates are a global issue these days, and not the exclusive preserve of the Treasurer. And the environment is not as simple as jobs vs. trees. But how the hell do you explain that to a button-pusher in Tasmania?

I mean, I only kind of get the big picture because I have time to sit here and navel-gaze to the sound of pee-pee.