Sunday, September 06, 2009

Piers Akerman, the Sunday bash, the tentacles of NSW Labor, Della Bosca and sex in the city



(Above: what does that man and these women know? What can they advise you on? Yep, no need to read on, unless you want to understand sex in the city).

It wouldn't be Sunday for some without Piers Akerman, for others it's always a good Sunday without reading a word of Akker Dakker.

That way they miss out on a monomaniacal relentless rant about the ALP, and an Akker Dakker in strident good form. How's this for an opener for Labor's flawed federal model?

The Rudd Government will have to do more than bar a few dud NSW MPs from entering the federal sphere if it wants to convince voters that NSW Labor’s problems don’t have a bearing on the federal Labor Government.

The federal Labor Government is, if not a clone of the NSW Government, the love-child of the NSW ALP, conceived with the help of the Victorian Left.


Never mind that it's a Queenslander who's actually the PM, and they've been winning the State of Origin with astonishing regularity for years, it's all the fault of NSW power brokers. Which makes me wonder why these powerbrokers - if they've been so successful in winning the federal polls for so many months - have managed so dismally in NSW?

Well Akker Dakker throws around some names - Bob Carr's ex-staffers Bruce Hawker and David Britton, apparently responsible all on their own for the astonishing success of the Morris Iemma and Nathan Rees governments - and now it seems they have swung their weight behind Chairman Rudd, and guided him with an influence little short of Darth Vader helping the emperor.

Well with NSW Labor heavyweight Senator Mark Arbib also thrown into the mix. Governing NSW and Australia is heavy lifting, even for a couple of likely lads.

As for the evidence? Perhaps we should consult the files?

It’s that the Rudd Labor Government, with few exceptions, has lifted the NSW model of government by spin and obfuscation and inflicted it upon the nation.
The past week alone provides enough examples to make a dive into the files unnecessary.

Oh okay, no need to dive into the files, because Akker Dakker has all the talking points in his head, and so he can seamlessly swing into his standard diatribe about the comprehensive failures of Laobr.

There's state housing issue and the huge backflip on the award-modernisation policy and there's the education revolution and there's the wasted stimulus package - lordy even the Greens could do better:

Having wrung $50 million from the federal Government in return for support for its package, the Greens rejoiced in announcing that $40 million would be spent on bike paths, and $1.8 million would be spent to "recruit, train and employ greenhouse auditors’’ and on work experience jobs in the building industry.

Oops, sorry, of course I meant worse, way worse. Out of the $42 billion, they're going to spend $40 million on bike paths, so that loons can cycle around pretending they're getting fit and saving money on petrol, when really they'll only be getting in the road of motorists intent on doing the right thing by petrol companies, middle eastern fundamentalist ratbag suppliers, and the arrival of peak oil.

But won't the bike paths get them out of the way of motorists, you plaintively ask, showing how very little you understand about the stupendous, enormous astonishing wastage happening under Labor. Because at some point these bicyclists will happen upon a main road, and the ensuing catastrophic disaster will be all the fault of the Greens, who happen to be the love child of Senator Arbib and Nathan Rees.

Well truth to tell I'm not sure of the exact parentage, but put it this way, you'd want to be an orphan than have the Greens and Labor as parents. Given the way they can spend 1.8 million on knick knacks and make work jobs.

So what about a rousing finale for the column?

The Rudd Government has even hit a snag with its plan to use every school as an election advertisement, with the Australian Electoral Commission ruling that boastful signs outside schools receiving building funds are in breach of the law and will have to disclaimer stickers attached, be moved or possibly covered up to comply with electoral law.
In each of these examples, spin has dictated the Rudd Government’s policy, not substance.
That spin has kept NSW Labor in office for 14 years, but it is now running down. Australians in other states should look at NSW and ask themselves whether this is the model they think should govern the nation.


Yep, watch the magician, watch the hands. Didn't see it? Happened too quick? Chairman Rudd is Nathan Rees, or vice versa. So how come NSW keeps losing state of origin with monotonous regularity?

Here's my tip. Ask ten people in SA or WA who's the premier ponce in NSW, and I'll bet you get a lot of dud calls. If Akker Dakker thinks smearing Rudd with Rees will work in other states, he's picked the wrong, irrelevant dude. Why not just have a go at Chairman Rudd directly?

Well I guess it's another day, another column, another round of Labor bashing, another dollar in the kitty, but really I felt a little short-changed.

Can I recommend we follow up for dessert with Sorry state of affairs may excuse adultery, Akker Dakker's slightly bizarre take on the John Della Bosca scandal, which is to say a consenting older man having an affair with a consenting younger woman on the assumption of privacy.

Akker Dakker is tormented. He'd really like to nail Della Bosca, but at the same time:

In political terms it is really quite extraordinary that a mere affair has seen an end to a ministerial career in 2009.

Though there has been an upsurge in the number of Australians marrying, taking the numbers to a 20-year high, and though divorce has hit a 17-year low, Australians have generally been prepared to ignore the sexual peccadilloes of their politicians and in some cases - former prime minister Bob Hawke comes to mind - they are even applauded for their sexual conquests.


What follows is some bizarre speculation on the affair, including the notion that the Sex and the City generation subscribe to a more fundamental sense of morality than the entertainment industry believes (so please explain why the show's a runaway hit) or that the woman was so smitten by a politically powerful figure that Henry Kissinger's notion of power being a powerful aphrodisiac must apply (being the Minister of Health in the failing NSW government is a power aphrodisiac? Lordy, what strange times we live in).

And so on, down through narcissism - the pet word for the month - to Della Bosca's motives through to the conclusion that he isn't a rodomontade.

Now don't be alarmed, it's only a cheese eating surrender monkey word for someone given to vain boasting or bluster or bragging speech, but it leads to the best insight of all:

And, while not known to be boastful, if his trysting partner is to be believed he could not help taking her to an office in Parliament House and engaging in the obligatory trophy sex act on the ministerial couch.

Anthropologists would have a field day exploring the origins of this mandatory display of conquest, prowess and power.

Adultery is as old as Moses, indeed, it is startlingly commonplace if one believes the surveys conducted by condom manufacturers.

The deception inherent will always bring a degree of heartbreak to those involved and their families.

Della Bosca has acknowledged and apologised for his “poor decisions” and the embarrassment he has caused the ALP and his family.

He is not the first man to have fallen on his sword.

Oh dear, let's hope that's not the awful pun it seems to be, but after all this, after all the insights from Kissinger through anthropology and Moses to an attempt to dress up the Terror's scandal mongering as in the public interest because Della Bosca missed a plane to Tingha and allegedly helped his girlfriend evade Parliament house security, what's left?

... given the paucity of talent within the NSW Labor Party it is unlikely that he will stay on the backbenches, if he stays in politics after the next election.

That's it? All the talk of Sex and the City and Henry Kissinger and anthropology and Tingha and Moses and trophy sex, and it's all for nothing?

If he hangs around, he'll be baaack ....? And not even a mention of how Della Bosca is responsible for the state and shape of the federal Labor party? Well at least until he got outed.

So it goes, and who will be the boogeyman next week? Which Labor chef intent on ruining the nation with a dastardly mix of union pickles and socialist yak butter will reign supreme? Only Akker Dakker can tell, only Akker Dakker knows ...

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows ... Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh ...!"

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay.... The Shadow knows ... heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh!"



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