In the article, Steve (via Susan) trots out all of the lines he’s being spewing into the media recently about looking at both sides of the story, the science not being settled, and pretty graphs presenting arbitrarily-selected data proving something or other (Tobias covers this in more detail over at Pure Poison.) But the most brilliant moment of deluded madness is this:

I briefly met Mr Gore at a breakfast in Melbourne attended by more than a thousand people. He was aware of the important role Family First plays in the senate and was keen to catch up.

After a series of phone calls I was met with a stonewall of resistance. I offered to meet Mr Gore at any place at any time but had no luck. Here we had the former Vice President of the United States, a self proclaimed climate change preacher running away from me over a few simple questions.

Don’t you know who I am? I am the leader of a Party of one that on the basis of 50,000 votes is holding the Upper House of Australia’s Parliament to ransom in a futile effort to get myself re-elected in 2010.

Steve’s just pissed off that he paid for dry cleaning for nothing.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding has made up his mind on global warming – there’s not enough evidence that it’s real.

If only the AGW model was proposed in a collection of 2000-year-old texts of dubious authorship. That way there would be enough evidence.

In other news, Steve recently started taking the anti-swine flu medication Tamiflu because his sister-in-law contracted the virus. Poor old Steve copped a hard time from cynics who declared it was a stunt, detractors who thought it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, and even his own son who loves a good practical joke.

Steve was forced to write a post on his blog, defending the precautionary use of Tamiflu.

There have been plenty of reports on swine flu coming to Parliament House as though I am some form of carrier pigeon from Victoria. First of all I have no symptoms.

Like everyone else I have been told I am no more likely of contracting swine flu than the average Joe from Melbourne.

The truth of the matter is my sister in law was in quarantine at my family home over the weekend as she was quite ill and had no where else to go.

I have been told by doctors and the parliamentary nurse that I am of little risk of contracting or carrying swine flu.

This whole issue has been blown out of proportion and wasn’t a stunt like was reported in The Australian online.

Reporters at a press conference earlier today suggested I was being selfish by being in Canberra this week.

But given the advice I have received by doctors, telling me I am at no more risk than the average Victorian, I thought it best I go to work given the important climate change legalisation before the Parliament.

I’m currently taking a precautionary course of Tamiflu.

But this is only a precaution.

Commenter Gaz was relieved.

Well, Senator, I hope you manage to avoid swine flu and that if you are infected that the Tamiflu works properly.

Fingers crossed on that one, of course. After all, it was designed by scientists using computer models.

But I do hope you don’t succumb to the virus, otherwise you won’t be able to apologise to the Australian people when the temperature sets new records and you realise how gullible you have been.
Comment by Gaz on 24 June 2009 at 02:59:02 PM

Fielding: pwned.

Only 500 years ago, people believed Earth was the centre of the universe and the sun and planets revolved around it. Anyone who dared challenge this idea was denounced as a heretic and punished by imprisonment, torture or in some cases even death. Public debate on this issue was strictly prohibited. It is only on account of people such as Copernicus and Galileo, who dared question the “indisputable science”, that we now know these assertions to be false. For me, these events are in many ways reminiscent of the present debate on climate change. Though thankfully we do not persecute those arguing against the idea of human-induced global warming, a blind acceptance of only one perspective has meant that proper debate on this issue has essentially been stifled. Opponents of the popular opinion that global warming is a direct result of carbon emissions, a group that includes many notable and distinguished scientists, are often derided and quickly dismissed.

It is for this reason that I headed to Washington this week on a self-funded trip to look at the science and facts behind global warming. I am neither a climate sceptic nor a climate extremist. What I am, however, is open-minded.

As an engineer, I have been trained to listen to both sides of the debate in order to make an informed decision about any issue. Any scientist worth their salt will tell you that in order to form a conclusive view about any topic, you need to properly explore all available possibilities.

I look forward to Steve turning his eagle eye and open mind to the evidence-free faith that informs his decisions to oppose abortion, voluntary euthanasia, gay marriage and the rest of his religious policy platforms.

But came to a quick conclusion about the term’s meaning.

And now it’s entered Fielding’s everyday vocabulary.

Senate Estimates are really milf!

The chicken korma at the APH cafe is totally milf.

Coco Pops for breakfast. They’re totally milf.

Susan just snapped at me, told me to stop referring to myself in conversation as “Family First”, that my name is “Steve” … Told her to chill out, that’s everything’s milf.

Milf is the new black.

Federal MPs are exploiting a loophole to employ wives and other family members on taxpayer-funded salaries.

[...]

Even Family First leader Steve Fielding is keeping it all in the family, hiring his wife – Susan Head – as an adviser.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding defends putting his family first.

Steve’s latest ploy has been to link divorce to climate change.

“We understand that there is a social problem (with divorce), but now we’re seeing there is also environmental impact as well on the footprint,” [Fielding] said.

“Mitigating the impacts of resource-inefficient lifestyles such as divorce helps to achieve global environmental sustainability and saves money.”

Brilliant! Fielding thinks that divorce is bad because the Church thinks divorce is bad, but most Australians accept it as a necessary part of life, so Fielding tries to link divorce to something that most Australians do think is bad. Those Family First strategy meetings must be fascinating. And it’s not only me who thinks Steve’s nutty pronouncements are worthy of ridicule — he’s been reported in overseas newspapers as the “oddspot” overseas political nutbag.

Oh, Steve. Does nobody take you seriously?

However, ABC incorrectly identifies Family First Senator Steve Fielding’s account as fake. I’ve been carefully watching Steve on Twitter since he bumbled into the murky Web2.0 world early this morning and he’s definitely for real.

Initially he encountered technical difficulties.

Joined Twitter. Can’t work out how to add picture. Checked Bible but no help.

So he went looking for help.

Called Danny Nalliah to see if he knows how to add picture to Twitter. No help.

Checking Torah for clues on picture uploading.

But then things started to go wrong.

Damn! Torah in some squiggly language that I don’t understand. I hope it’s not Muslim.

Ran in tears to Susan. She assured me that I won’t catch Arab from accidentally reading Muslim.

After that traumatic episode Steve turned his attention towards ensuring he has support at the 2010 poll.

Have started phoning each person that voted ‘1′ for me in 2004. Should be finished on Friday.

Phew – hard work. All supporters are busy either homeschooling their kids or playing bingo in their nursing homes.

But there was a little speed bump.

Called supporter. Accidentally said, “Hi, it’s Steve Fielding from Fitness First here.” Embarrassment much?

Two other Tweeters replied to Steve’s amusing anecdote. @parissite said “Don’t worry – I’m pretty sure that you have said “Family Fist” to your other supporter on more than one occasion”, and @Pollytics said “2yrs ago had a door knocker with thick accent say “I’m So & So from Family Fist.” I couldnt stop laughing, poor bloke.” Confused, Steve asked for more information.

@Pollytics @parissite I don’t get it. What’s so funny about the word “fist”?

And then the wheels fell off.

Looked up “fist” on Urban Dictionary. Teary again. Susan wrapped me in blanky for cuddles and hot Milo.

After such a horribly emotional and traumatic day it’s rather insensitive of ABC News to accuse Steve Fielding of being a fraud. For shame.

Steve’s latest blog post contains YouTube video of his self-declared “impassioned” speech in Parliament about the government’s proposed stimulus package. Fielding reckons the speech is impassioned because it’s full of the faux-emotion employed by the second speaker for the negative in a grade eleven debate, except even grade eleven debating students know not to do fake tears because it’s just one step too far and a bit embarrassing.

However, Fielding’s speech about the stimulus package is a pretty good stimulus for a drinking game. Press play on the video, open a bottle of vodka, and take a shot every time Steve says any of the following.

• “having trouble sleeping at night”
• “war on recession”
• “casualties of the war on recession”
• “sure as heck”
• “go into bat for my fellow Australians”
• “deadset serious”
• “kid from Resevoir”

Still sober?

But seriously for a moment, why does Fielding feel that his single seat in the Senate (built on about 50,000 primary votes) means that the government should do everything he asks for? What a stunning sense of entitlement this man has. And he accuses the government of playing politics — because Fielding would never play politics. And then he says he’s “not in anyone’s pocket”, which is probably true if you don’t count the Pentecostal Church.

So if I had to give the fillum a star rating I’d probably give it one star, Margaret. One star because I laughed at the graphic that declared Fielding to be the “leader” of the Family First Party. Leader of one.

But this, while being totally expected, just bejokens a joke of a man to brand new depths of jokeness.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding wants hardcore pornography and fetish material blocked under the Government’s plans to filter the internet… But asked to specify the categories of content that Senator Fielding would like blocked by the mandatory first tier, a Family First spokeswoman indicated the party would want X-rated and refused classification (RC) content banned for everyone, including adults.

Who. The. Fuck. Does. This. Guy. Think. He. Is?

How dare Steve fucking Fielding fucking try to tell me what legal content I can and can’t download on my Interweb? What sort of (dare I say?) God complex has taken hold of this man? I mean, Steve Fielding — apart from attempting to seriously curtail my personal freedom — is suggesting that the government compulsorily block my access to about 95% of the Internerds (the other 5% is lolcats.)

Fuck you, Steve Fielding. And the 1.8% you rode in on.

Got that?

So anyway, Steve knew that he was going to be on the telly yesterday so he went to his wardrobe after morning prayers, selected his best suit, his cleanest shirt, and the most hideous fancy dress tie the world has ever seen.

The Channel Seven camerman claims that Steve’s tie is responsible for his camera’s image-sensing chips failing

When I visited my Grandma’s house as a young child, my cousins and I would dip into her huge collection of dress up clothes and do plays and stuff. I swear to Ceiling Cat that Steve’s tie was in that collection.

ALP ears found Fielding’s pitch perfect today

Some say I should not use my vote in the Senate because I had a low primary vote when I was elected. Let me put that in context. I received more primary votes in Victoria than Communications Minister Senator Steve Conroy and Senators Judith Troeth and Julian McGauran. And Family First received more than a quarter of a million votes in the last election.

(Article in ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ — no link available)

You slimy little bastard, Steve. Of course you received more primary votes than those Senators you named because they appeared down the list of candidates on group tickets that received over one million above the line votes each, while the shameful excuse for a Party, for which you were the lead candidate, received barely 50,000 votes.

And let me put something in context, Steve. Lead Greens candidate, David Risstrom, received more than a quarter of a million votes at the 2004 election and was denied a seat in the Senate by a man with less than a quarter of his support. And that’s in one state and one house; your “quarter of a million votes in the last election” figure takes in all states and both houses.

Total, complete and utter twat.

Senator Fielding, 47, said in a wide-ranging interview that he believed it was a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

“Some of these issues are never yes and no,” he said. “I’ve always said it is informed consent.

“It’s a very difficult decision. In the end it’s their decision.”

Action.

Yesterday Mr Swan said the pension rate was totally inadequate but he ruled out increasing the payment until a Treasury review reports back by February next year.

Senator Fielding says it is not good enough and the pension should immediately be boosted by $70 a week.

“We’ve had pensioners ringing our office and tell us that they’re living on dog food,” he said.

The most economically-priced dog food at Coles is Coles Smart Buy Dog Food Meat 1.2kg at $1.41 per can. This would provide about three disgusting, repetitive and nutrition-and-vegetable-free meals for an aged person on the pension. At 47 cents per meal (or $6.58 for a fortnight’s worth of dinners) it sure is a bargain, but the taste surely leaves a lot to be desired. Not to mention the long term health consequences.

Delicious AND nutritious (for Fido, not Granny)

Is Fielding seriously trying to suggest that there are no other non-doggy options in the supermarket for a similar price? Well I’ve had a look around.

Let’s start nice and simple. Fourteen meals of Coles Smart Buy Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce 400g, individually priced at $0.52, costs $7.28 — only 70 cents more than dog food over a fortnight. Not exactly a nutritionist’s dream but it can’t be much worse than dog food.

Moving up the gourmet scale a pensioner could combine Coles Smart Buy Pasta Sauce 700g at $2.17, plus Coles Smart Buy Pasta Spaghetti No.1 500g at $0.64, to make three dinners for the total cost of $2.81. That’s $13.16 over a fortnight which is less than double the cost of the dog food.

And at the upper end of the lower end of the food scale, a pensioner could purchase cans of ready meals — dog food for humans. Coles Smart Buy Canned Meal Beef & Vegetable 400g costs $1.89 per can, while Coles Smart Buy Canned Meal Beef & Onion 400g costs $1.94 per can. A bit pricey at around $27 for a fortnight’s worth, but reasonable if you were to only eat a can now and again as a treat.

Let’s compare two sample menus.

MENU A (The Fielding Diet)
Day 1: Dog food… $0.47
Day 2: Dog food… $0.47
Day 3: Dog food… $0.47
Day 4: Dog food… $0.47
Day 5: Dog food… $0.47
Day 6: Dog food… $0.47
Day 7: Dog food… $0.47
Day 8: Dog food… $0.47
Day 9: Dog food… $0.47
Day 10: Dog food… $0.47
Day 11: Dog food… $0.47
Day 12: Dog food… $0.47
Day 13: Dog food… $0.47
Day 14: Dog food… $0.47
TOTAL: $6.58

MENU B (The GrodsCorp Diet)
Day 1: Baked beans… $0.52
Day 2: Spaghetti and sauce… $0.64
Day 3: Baked beans… $0.52
Day 4: Spaghetti and sauce… $0.64
Day 5: Baked beans… $0.52
Day 6: Spaghetti and sauce… $0.64
Day 7: Canned meal, beef and vegetable… $1.89
Day 8: Baked beans… $0.52
Day 9: Spaghetti and sauce… $0.64
Day 10: Baked beans… $0.52
Day 11: Spaghetti and sauce… $0.64
Day 12: Baked beans… $0.52
Day 13: Spaghetti and sauce… $0.64
Day 14: Canned meal, beef and onion… $1.94
TOTAL: $10.79

So for $4.21 extra a fortnight an Australian pensioner can eat food designed for humans and enjoy a little bit of variety. It’s still not exactly haute cuisine, and it would still give a nutritionist conniptions, but it’s a shitload better than dog food. $4.21 — that’s only five pulls on a poker machine.

Shut up, Steve Fielding. Perhaps when you fail to get re-elected in a couple of years you could work for Today Tonight.

Angry pensioners and a Family First senator have stripped off and stopped traffic on one of Melbourne’s busiest intersections in a protest against a lack of support for seniors in this week’s Federal Budget.

[...]

Mr Fielding stripped off his shirt in support of the protest, while two elderly women wore only their bras.

Several men also stripped to the waist after the protesters walked from the steps of Flinders Street Station into the intersection with Swanston Street.

Aargh! My retinas!

Fielding flagged this hideous act in one of his notorious home videos last week, but I honestly couldn’t see him going through with it. And the irony of it all is that Fielding baring his chest to a handful of bemused pedestrians in Melbourne’s city centre won’t help one bit in getting him re-elected. Face it, Steve: you and your Pentecostal mates are headed for the political dustbin of history and no stunt on Earth is going to save you.

Steve’s been taking camera lessons from Brendan Nelson’s media people

Check out one of these rubbish quotes.

I’ve just stopped a couple of people here, I don’t know them. What are your thoughts about having a five cent or a ten cent recycling on the bottles of recycling?

And remember Steve’s Parliament House bong stunt? Well here is Steve telling us all about his Cash For Hash proposal.

Steve displays a plastic bottle about to be recycled into a bong

ps/- The page title of the talking rubbish clip is “Steve says hold your horses hear (sic) comes Family First”. What?

UPDATE (5.30pm): This image was just emailed to me by one Mr A. Rogenous, although I’m having trouble working out how he’s altered the original.

Perhaps this is the ‘after’ recycling shot?

Steve Fielding arrives at Parliament House dressed as a bong to highlight his party’s policy of a 10 cent bong recycling scheme.

Family First Senator Steve Fielding says the Federal Government should reduce the impact of further interest rate rises by cutting the tax on petrol.

[...]

“People are struggling to make ends meet,” he said.

“Petrol has fuelled inflation for the last couple of years. Now this is a significant problem, and it’s about time the Rudd Government really got a handle on this issue by cutting petrol tax.”

But do you know what the truly amazing thing about that story is? Fielding didn’t use the word “family.” Not once.

So there’s no doubt that Kevin Rudd and Labor strategists are willing to try almost anything to secure Fielding’s vote in the Senate to ensure the smooth passage of their legislation. But isn’t it a bit rich to simply implement one of Family First’s policies (PDF)?

Family First: FAMILY FIRST believes that, as a first step, we should filter the worst sites at the ISP level

ALP: [ALP] Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.

Family First: FAMILY FIRST proposes a system that allows adults who want pornography to ‘opt in’

ALP: Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service.

There is so much wrong with this absurd policy that I don’t know where to start. Most of these things have been covered adequately in other places around the (currently un-censored) intertubes so I might just focus on two things:

1) How dare the government try tell me what I can and can’t look at on the internet? And even if I get on the phone to my ISP and demand to be removed from this ludicrous scheme, how dare they slow down my internet feed even more than it already is because everything needs to get checked against a massive blacklist of “inappropriate” sites?

2) The filter will block arbitrarily chosen websites on a static government blacklist. (Who decides what’s “inappropriate” anyway? Oh, that’s right — the Pentecostal Church.) Despite the fact that no blacklist in the world can ever contain every website that contains a single pornographic image, will the filter block Google to stop kids from clicking on this? Will it block Flickr to stop kids from signing up for a free account and searching for this? Will it block websites that aren’t pornographic but are dangerous to the minds of all sane and free-thinking humans?

Basically the filter will cost massive amounts of money, will slow down everyone’s internet feed, and won’t stop kids from seeing pornography. But it will make Steve Fielding feel all good and righteous and encourage him to return the ALP’s favour sometime later this year.

I hope Steve Fielding enjoys his three years as de facto Prime Minister because in 2010 he and his disgrace of a political party are going to disappear from the Australian political scene forever. They’ll make One Nation look mainstream.

Hi there Mr Editor,

I was at the ANZAC dawn service earlier this year and in between trying to act accordingly at such an event this tosser next to me going by the name of Steve was talking into his camera and recording himself during the last post. He did at least 100 takes and kept mentioning some wankers called Family First. He really pissed me off, and I mean really pissed me off and I was about give him a straight right to the jaw when my mild mannered friend suggested we take a photo of Stevo ruining the sounding of the last post. So we did. I have cut myself out of he photo… but suffice to say the look on my face spoke at least 200 takes.

Of course, Steve Fielding would never do anything like this.

First negative: John Surname

“And God said, let there be light! And Lo, there was. The Lord was very pleased with this new invention, because now he could get a suntan. But he wasn’t finished yet. He knew he would have to find something to fuck up his creation. It was too perfect for the humans he was yet to create. The Lord stood to his full height and thundered “LET THERE BE POLITICIANS!”

Good morning distinguished guests, bloggers and assorted riff-raff. I am John Surname and for the next 600 words I’d like to present the negative side of this debate.

You see, what Magic Bellybutton knows and essentially ignored is that God is the original politician. He is the ultimate politician. You can protest. You can demand a recount. You can even vote for the Greens, but He has declared himself President-For-Life and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. Just like John Howard, God believes in the illusion of choice. We can vote Labor, and we can vote Liberal, we can even vote for God’s favourite party, Family First but it doesn’t make any difference as He is still calling the shots as leaders from all parties are too pathetic and lowly to reject Him.

God not only believes in capital punishment, He invented it. If you tried to pull any shit in His time he would smite you with a thunderbolt from the sky. God also invented Homophobia, and hasn’t that one lasted? In fact, many of our laws today derive from His parchment, The Best Little Whorehouse in Sodom (later renamed the Bible).

My esteemed opponent chose to imagine what life would be like if politics were controlled by a fake religion. That is rubbish. Scientology will never be in control as He wouldn’t allow it. Instead of making up fake hypotheticals, let’s see what good religion has done in politics:

1. Tony Abbott.
Tony Abbott is not only one of Australia’s finest politicians, he is one of Australia’s finest men. His loyal devotion to the Lord, and opposition to RU486 (known by God as Satan’s Pill) has earned him a special place in Heaven. The Lord believes that we should all strive to be more like Tony Abbott, and less like 50 Cent.

2. The Crusades.
Although the Crusades weren’t always successful, the Lord thought they were awesome and absolutely supported their aims. Even though they never took back the Holy Lands, the Crusaders got the last laugh as they are in Heaven, and the Muslims, like all Muslims, are burning in Hell.

3. The Iraq War
The Iraq War was an excellent piece of foreign policy that tops the achievements of the glorious Bush Administration. Bush has been reported as saying that God told him to do it. My source tells me this is entirely true.

4. Family First.
The Lord thinks Family First are, quote, “Lyk totally genius man!”. His favourite part is the clever way they hide their religious beliefs under the banner of “families”. God thinks this is hilarious because He doesn’t give a shit about families, Hell, he even allowed his own son to die. The truth of the matter is, Family First are a prank played on us by Steve Fielding (in consultation with God). I mean, how to do you think Steve Fielding wound up in the Senate? You can’t tell me there wasn’t more than a little divine intervention there!

In concluding, it frankly doesn’t matter what you do or who you vote for, as the moral standards He set down thousands of years ago still govern our lives today. He is President-For-Life and will remain so until the Sun swallows the Earth is a spectacular lightshow that we will all miss, but he will enjoy quite thoroughly.

First affirmative: Magic Bellybutton

When I said “be gentle” I didn’t mean give me the easy argument – I meant let me win regardless! Never mind. What is done is done.

My jejune competitor is going to try to bamboozle you with ghetto talk and fake personal ads, to cover up the lack of veracity in his arguments. He’ll probably try to pull the old “religious people are liars as are politicians ergo they belong together” trick. That’s a pathetic ruse. I would never resort to cheap gags to win my argument.

Let us take one religion and apply it to the Australian parliament.

Dig, if you will, the picture of Scientologists in charge of our country. Contrary to what those of us who are grounded in reality know, Scientology is a religion. Yes my friends, aliens are among us, and what better place for them to be than in Parliament.

Well, no actually. See, the basis of Scientology is that our souls come from the Galactic Confederacy and a megalomaniac alien named Xenu bombed the living shit out of them (no doubt ’cause he didn’t like the colour of their skin).

The remaining bits are known as thetans and they are what have infested the human beings on this planet, causing harm. Blah blah blah, hand over thousands of dollars and allegedly reach enlightenment (control the rouge thetans or something. I don’t know the details, sue me. It’s not exactly an interesting story.)

Basically, the country would be run by a bunch of people who think they are really from another planet and they only need to keep giving money to their church, become enlightened, then move beyond the physical plane, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Not really operating in the best interests of the general public, is it?

Imagine before each cabinet sitting, the PM forcing the ministers to watch Battlefield Earth. Surely voters would see that no one deserves that – not even politicians.

Instead of Senate enquiries, people would be “audited”. Before voting on the newly introduced bill to allow gay marriage (the person who introduced it sent off to be re-educated), Senators would be required to disclose whether nor not they’d ever had homosexual thoughts, and the new Senate rules would prevent them from casting a vote because they have biased points of view. Hell, Bob Brown and Penny Wong wouldn’t even be allowed to run for Senate!

Required reading for all schoolchildren would be the entire oeuvre of L Ron Hubbard. Mmmmmm… thrilling. Before running for office you’d have to take “parliamentarian tests” to ensure you know your Hubbard. You could guarantee that only the most dedicated Scientologists would be running for office.

The PM wouldn’t be voted for by the members of the ruling party either. Oh no. As an OT III or above, you would automatically be in the running. The higher the OT level, the more likely you are to become PM. When Hubbard eventually returns to earth (all Scientologists know that he will), he will automatically become PM. Theocracy at work!

Once they’ve taken over the government, they’ll move into your home. Criticise Scientology – your family will shun you and you be sent to a detention centre to be re-educated. You’ll spend the rest of your life working to pay off your time spent there because the extensive mandatory “auditing” will have to be paid for by you.

Spending on public health would be down – all anyone needs to fix most ailments is some sunshine and a nice big smile! All that extra cash would be used to build training centres and fund the Fair Game policy that allows for the church to discredit anyone who is critical of their practices. All for the good of the country, you understand.

Just think – Tom Cruise for PM. Kirstie Alley as Deputy. (She’d need to be Health Minister. Make sure all those people who believe they are depressed just get out and get some sunshine. Round up all the psychiatrists before they start WW3.) James Packer would be Treasurer. He’d run the place just as well as he did One-Tel.

Aliens. Imaginary friends. One True Way. In short, religion makes people crazy. Do you want your country run by a bunch of nutbags whose sanity is holding on by the thinnest of threads?

Summary
Everyone knows what happened thanks to tonnes of proper election analysis in the MSM and the blogosphere so I might just mention a single point that especially makes me smile: Family First have gone from strength-to-strength with their national primary vote climbing -0.04% to the massive total of 1.97%, while their nemesis, the “extreme” Greens, grew their vote by 0.4% to 7.59%.

Suck shit, Steve Fielding. There’s now absolutely no doubt that once that stain on democracy is removed from the Senate in 2010 we’ll never have Family First make either chamber look untidy again.

How the candidates went
Let’s check out those aspiring politicians to whom GrodsCorp paid attention during the campaign (all figures are from AEC website at 5:50pm, 26 November 2007.)

Stuart Ulrich, independent for Charlton, scored 2.29% of the primary vote which he can partly attribute to scoring first place on the ballet (sic) paper. (Read this if you want to understand the “ballet” joke.) Still a not-totally-shite result despite the donkey vote.

Jemma Tribe, Family First for Cunningham, polled half a percentage point less than her party’s national average with 1.48% of the primary vote. If she was Steve Fielding, and with numbers like that, she’d be sitting in Parliament right now.

Stewart Glass, independent for the Senate in South Australia, has built a solid base for another tilt in 2010 with 65 votes, or 0.01% of the primary vote. Maybe his campaign was a hammer and the election was a wood screw? (As John Surname said when he saw Stewart’s YouTube video: “Buy a screwdriver.”)

Zane Alcorn (AKA MC Doc Fruit), Socialist Alliance for Wills, scored 0.73% of the primary; Margarita Windisch, Socialist Alliance for the Senate in Victoria, managed 0.08%.

Philip Nitschke, independent for Menzies, gathered a respectable 3.91% of the primary vote in a blue-ribbon Liberal seat against the (ex) minister for immigration, Kevin Andrews. Here’s hoping he can boost that percentage up to 4% with absentees and postals to get his deposit back.

Lachlan Connor
Look, I’ll be honest with you. We were all ready to shoot two episodes of Lachlan Connor, Independent during the GrodsElectionParty but when things started to go oh-so-right we started to get oh-so-drunk. There was no chance that we were going to tear ourselves away from the telly long enough to turn the camera on, and even if we did get the camera turned on we probably would’ve pointed it the wrong way and forgot to put a tape in. So Lachlan will appear in an epilogue episode this week and that’ll have to do.

Disgraceful behaviour
Some of you may be aware of the allegation that Kevin Andrews tore down the posters of an opposing candidate on election day. Andrew denies that he committed this offence with a spokesperson from his office saying, “It’s not true, it’s absolute rubbish.” Well, I can say that I was rather closely involved with the whole incident on Saturday and I have no choice but to declare that Kevin Andrews is a lying liar who lies.

The Liberal Party
Decimated. Pure and simple. I hope with every fibre of my being that Tony Abbott is elected leader so that it implodes just a little bit more.

In conclusion
John Howard, you are a national embarrassment. May you never have another chance to fuck this country up in any capacity ever again. Good riddance.

In this installment of Uncle Steve’s home movies we meet a mother holding a baby who has been doorknocked by Fielding in suburban Melbourne and, magically, agrees with everything he says. Reduction in petrol tax? Yep. Increase in baby bonus for third child? Yep. You see, it’s all about “families”, or “for the little one’s future” as the doorknockee says.

However, I can’t help but wonder what the poor lady would’ve said if Steve was upfront about Family First’s real policy agenda. Total abolition of women’s right to choose to have an abortion? Ummm. Ostracism of homosexual people? Ummm. Creationism taught in schools? Ummm. Total alignment of Australian public policy with the values of the Pentecostal Church? Ummm.

I can’t tell you how much I hope Steve knocks on my door next week.

Senator Fielding launched Family First’s campaign from an abandoned petrol station at Lower Templestowe yesterday to emphasise the party’s key election policy of a 10-cent cut in petrol taxes.

(I still fail to see the connection between an abandoned service station and the cost of petrol tax, but anyway…)

Fielding reckons that the Pentecostal Church party’s policy of a 10c per litre reduction in petrol tax to ease the “burden” on families would cost $2.8 billion.

In a completely unrelated statement, Steve Fielding called The Greens “economically reckless.”

Family First leader Steve Fielding has told the party’s campaign launch in Melbourne that a vote for Family First is a vote for common sense and balance in Parliament.
(source)

I was driving down Manningham Rd in Lower Templestowe today and saw a huge group of people standing around in white Family First t-shirts with Family First balloons and a trailer decked out with Family First posters. Steve Fielding was prominent in the group. But here’s the thing — this whole thing was going on in the forecourt of an abandoned service station! What kind of point were they trying to make with that choice of location? Something about the impact of petrol cartels?

Try as I might, I can’t find any kind of God connection, although there was some guy standing up the back wearing a long flowing robes, crown of thorns, and a luxurious beard…

It was also revealed on Insiders that Family First in Queensland having been discussing a preference deal with Pauline Hanson which raises a very interesting question: is Pauline Hanson a Pentecostal?

And in a non-Steve Fielding aside about Insiders, Piers Ackerman said the Kyoto Protocol was “so 1990s” which was hilarious in the context of the 1970s haircut, shirt and jacket that cloaked his toad-like body.

Come and get me, laydeez

Never accuse Family First of being unable to deal with criticism.

UPDATE (25/10): After reading this post and being confronted with his free speech-hating ways, Josh Reid has deleted the two fawning comments on the video from Family First staffers.

I’m a bit confused about whether Jemma’s standing for the lower or upper house because she says she’s the candidate for Cunningham (lower house seat based around Wollongong) but keeps referring to the need for Family First representation in the Senate.

UPDATE: I should be careful what I wish for. I bitch about director Josh Reid’s failure to use page-turn transitions and BAM! he comes through with page-turns, star wipes, and every other hideous transition known to the human race.

UPDATE II (25/10): Josh Reid has disabled embedding of the video because Family First can’t hack the criticism. Click here to watch it instead.

Plumridge is so desperate for media coverage he has just performed one of the most bizarre acts of media tarting I have ever seen.

Trying to cash in on the euphoria of the Cats huge win, Plumridge has just announced his support for a giant football monument in Geelong to immortalise the win.

“Everyone is so excited that Geelong is on the map. We talk a lot about boosting tourism and if Geelong had something like the big football, families would travel to see it.”

Time for a GrodsPoll then.

Vote early, vote often.

You simply must.

Steve capture’s (sic) the excitement at the Swimming Championships

The World Swimming Championships are underway in Melbourne but if you missed out on tickets you can share in Steve’s excitement as his son wins the day for his House at their School Swimming Championships .You (sic) won’t get a much more excited bunch of kids as they cheer on their House Captain in the final race. A proud moment indeed for any parent. Congratulations to Blue House!

Please, I implore you, click on this link and watch one of the most cringeworthy political video efforts ever. What begins as an innocent home movie of a kids’ swimming race turns into a pathetically setup and politically shameless example of amateur-hour with a flick of Fielding’s wrist.

GrodsCorp sez: Why bother? Put 1 in the ALP box above the line and let dirty Labor preferences elect unrepresentative nutcases from loopy organisations such as Family First and the DLP.

The Democratic Labor Party sez:

GrodsCorp sez: Not even the DLP webmaster would’ve believed that claim when he typed it into Microsoft Frontpage.

Blissfully ignorant of any DLP policy before 4pm this afternoon I have spent some time navigating through their Lachlan Connor style website. I’ve now come to suspect that the DLP is actually a front for the Extreme Family First and may be directly connected to Steve Fielding and the Pentecostal Church. Check out these DLP policies:

* An end to radical-feminist affirmative action policies whose primary social and economic effect is the disemployment of male breadwinners and the youth. Freedom of occupational choice for full-time homemakers and removal of the tax penalty on one-wage families that virtually conscripts the homemakers into outside employment, consigns their infants to be minded by strangers and deprives their school-age children of the parental care and supervision they need in the after-school hours. (Women belong in the kitchen. End of story.)

* Abolition of the dishonestly named Family Court of Australia, exposure of its destructive ideology and its harm done to children through easy divorce and the court-instigated break-up of their families and recision of all court rulings that serve to undermine marriage or degrade it by conferring on homosexual, lesbian and transsexual pairings equivalent standing with marriage. (Poofs aren’t allowed to belong to families.)

* Statutory recognition of the principle that no child should be conceived to be borne and reared deliberately deprived of a father as in the cases of single women and lesbians accessing artificial reproduction technologies including IVF. (And they’re not allowed to start one either.)

* An acknowledgement in all legislation affecting families of the need to preserve and protect the institution of marriage and of the need to maintain the moral, social, legal and economic support of the traditional family unit as the most effective (including cost-effective) means to safeguard children from the harm of exploitation, violence, pornography, drugs and crime. (Because no child raised in a nuclear family has ever been in a fistfight, read Playboy, smoked a joint, or burgled a store.)

* Establishment of an Australian Family Theatre Company to promote alternative avenues for artistic training and expression and provide opportunity for sponsorship and promotion of quality family entertainment. (There’ll be queues around the block for that.)

* All free-to-air television programming until 10.30pm to come within classifications suited for family viewing. (I belong to a family and I want to watch South Park at 8:30pm. I will defend this right to my death.)

What about these DLP principles:

* The sacredness of human life, from its inception until natural death, as the fundamental basis for all human rights. (Anti-abortion.)

* The historical indispensability of the family as the primary guardian of personal freedoms. (Family, family, family. Blah, blah, blah.)

And these DLP objectives:

* To establish, under Almighty God, the political, legal, social and economic foundations for a just, free and democratic society and for a self-reliant and secure Australia. (But we’re not a religious party, we promise. Oh, and that bit about freedom only applies to people who want to do things we plan to let them do. Forget the freedom to be in charge of one’s own body by having an abortion.)

* To advance the rights, welfare and status of the natural family, founded in traditional marriage, as the primary provider in the nurturing, rearing and educating of the young and in the care of the infirm and the aged. (Pay particular to that bit about “natural” families. That means none of you filthy poofs.)

And finally, this small policy snippet is particularly ironic right now:

* Fair elections with proportional representation at all levels of government.

Of course they support proportional representation. It’s the only way they could possibly have been elected. Oh, and with the help of the ALP, of course.

Four points:

1) The Greens have won, according to whichever estimate you choose to believe, two, three or four seats in the upper house. A gain of two, three or four respectively. They have gone from being a minor party with no Parliamentary representation to a Party with potentially equal upper house representation to the Nationals. By the next election The Greens will have significant Parliamentary experience with all the benefits that come with Parliamentary offices and staff, along with a swathe of experienced candidates with voting records and legislative histories.

2) Although the vote is still too close to call The Greens have come within a bee’s dick of snatching the lower house seat of Melbourne from the ALP. If it wasn’t for the mother-of-all-scare campaigns run by the ALP in the dying days of the election there is every chance Richard Di Natale would’ve drunk champagne by now.

3) The Greens received double the Nationals’ first preference votes and nearly triple the extreme Family First’s. If it weren’t for the National’s highly concentrated vote resulting in eight lower house seats The Greens would be the undisputed third force in Victorian politics.

4) No other Party has ever had to deal with such a concerted and sustained fear campaign run by a major media outlet.

I think The Greens should be proud of their result over the weekend and feel safe in the knowledge that it provides an excellent platform for improvement in 2010.

Upper house:

At a few minutes past 9am on Jon Faine’s ABC774 program, caller Michelle spoke practically verbatim from this (PDF) Family First press release. She started by saying (I’m paraphrasing) “John, I’m disillusioned with the major parties and I was thinking about voting Green until I heard their candidate say something that I found really offensive to families.” She then read aloud the three-year-old quote from Greg Barber contained within the press release before crapping on about about how this anti-suburbs attitude is anti-family. Her speech was littered with the word “family” which was always emphasised. My suspicions about Michelle’s Family First connections were confirmed when she concluded her call by reading out the last paragraph of the press release almost word-for-word.

I can’t wait until my post-election blog on Sunday morning when I can crow about Family First being rejected wholesale by the electorate. I can see the headline now: Family First rejected by families.

Democrats A-
Family First F
The Greens A
ALP D
Liberals C+
Nationals C
People Power C

However, if these A-E gradings are based on current Victorian school report criteria (also known as The Nelson Method) then the Libs and the Nats are doing just fine, the Dems and the Greens are ahead of the pack, and the ALP needs to try harder. There’s no ‘F’ grade possible in Victoria but joke Parties deserve joke grades.

If, as is more likely, the grades are based upon the traditional A-E system and you care about public transport then you know what to do on Saturday.

MEDIA RELEASE
19 November 2006

EXTREME GREENS REGARD ORDINARY FAMILIES WITH CONTEMPT

The extreme Greens insult ordinary Victorian families while FAMILY FIRST proudly represents them – the families of the outer suburbs and regional and country Victoria.

Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber, who was raised in Glen Waverley, now insults the suburb he grew up in, saying in an article: “It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.” (The Age, July 31, 2003)

The way the Greens see it, families in the outer suburbs – like Caroline Springs and Werribee, Melton and Fawkner, Thomastown and Epping, Frankston and Dandenong, Cranbourne and Mordialloc, Mitcham and Lilydale, Knox and Croydon, Ringwood and Ferntree Gully – are second-class citizens.

The extreme Greens do not understand ordinary Victorian families and do not care about them. They look down on them. In fact, the extreme Greens think living in the suburbs is a joke.

FAMILY FIRST wants to give a sense of hope and opportunity to these families yet the Greens message is they’ll never make it. The Greens are completely out of touch with the lives of ordinary Victorian families.

Raising a family is hard work and families need all the help and support they can get – not insults from the extreme Greens.

FAMILY FIRST promotes policies that will really help families, such as removing pokies, cheaper petrol, more doctors and police, improving our schools, supporting carers, helping families be more environmentally responsible and building new roads and new dams.

GrodsCorp press release:

EXTREME FAMILY FIRST REGARD ORDINARY FAMILIES WITH CONTEMPT

The extreme Family First insults ordinary Victorian families while The Greens acknowledge and represent all of them – the many types of families found in all corners of this state, not just the inner suburbs of Melbourne.

The extreme Family First believes that a family can only grow from “heterosexual relationships between men and women” who enjoy a “stable and loving relationship and are faithful to each other.” So bad luck if you’re in a loving homosexual relationship, or a loving de facto relationship, or having a few marital problems that you’re working through. And bad luck even if you’re a single parent because the extreme Family First demands that a child must have “both a mother and a father” before they are in a family.

The extreme Family First do not understand Victorian families that don’t fit their narrow world-view and do not care about them. They look down on them. In fact, the extreme Family First, believing that they are doing God’s work, think these families are living in sin and are heathens.

The Greens want to give a sense of hope and opportunity to all families yet the extreme Family First message is they’ll never make it. The extreme Family First are completely out of touch with the lives of ordinary Victorian families.

Raising a family is hard work and families need all the help and support they can get – not insults from the extreme Family First.

The Greens promote policies that will really help families, such as removing pokies, more doctors and police, improving our schools, supporting carers, and helping families be more environmentally responsible. The extreme Family First, in their narrow world-view and policy making from the hip pocket, want to price petrol below market cost and commit blindly to building more roads and dams.

ALP: Carlo Carli MP
His campaign mailout arrived in my letterbox this morning betraying his fear of a Greens win by emphasising (in a seemingly random use of bold and underline) the danger of “protest votes.” Apparently the Greens can only “carp around the edges” because they’re not in government, while the Liberals will cut jobs in hospitals, schools and police stations to pay for their “extravagant campaign promises.” Amusingly, the letter says “Labor has action plans* on sustainable planning, transport, energy and water.” Presumably the asterisk is supposed to lead the reader to said action plans but there’s not a single corresponding asterisk to be found anywhere on the letter.

Carlo has a half-decent blog with an amateur-hour YouTube broadcast to attract the yoof vote. He has some respectable tertiary qualifications to back up his policies about transport and planning.

The Greens: Cyndi Dawes
Cyndi’s official web page tells us that she has a background in education and the union movement and that these areas remain her passion. I heard Cyndi on ABC774 with Jon Faine a couple of weeks back talking about a gambling venue rort she had uncovered where money earmarked for community needs was sneakily pumped back into pokie venues by their operators. She came across well.

It would be interesting to meet her at a campaign stall and have a chat to learn more about her ideas.

Liberal: Vince Arborea
Vince works as a building inspector and surveyor and has worked for local councils and the private sector. He lectures on these subjects along with drafting and construction. There is little other information about Vince on his official web page apart from a declaration of his support for the Liberal plan to build more technical colleges and information about his membership of the Veneto club.

People Power: Christian Astourian
Christian maintains an extensive website with an amazing amount of detail about his values, ideas and vision. With a focus on health and education, both generally and for the disabled, he goes into a reasonable amount of detail about the reform he intends to fight for. The site suggests passion, intellect and drive. I feel that I have a better insight into Christian’s personality than any of the other candidates.

Family First: James McDonald
With only five days until the poll, I will let a screen grab of James’ web page tell the story.

James is blue, large and dresses in Times New Roman suits.

I can’t help but notice the similarity in the level of detail provided by Family First about their candidates, their policy, and their church affiliation.

Socialist Alliance: ?
Couldn’t even find the candidate’s name.

The verdict
The only change in my voting intentions after putting on my Google Detective hat this afternoon is that I will now preference People Power much higher than planned. The Party’s policy platform and grab-bag of principles has failed to move me so far but Christian Astourian strikes me as a worthy candidate.

The only real conundrum I now face is who do I preference last: Family First or the Socialist Alliance?

UPDATE 21/11: Vanessa Hearman from the Socialist Alliance has left a comment with details about the Brunswick candidate — her!

1) Lachlan Connor, Independent
We successfully shot six more episodes of LCI: Preston (as Billybob has started to call it) last Saturday, managing to rope in Greeny and a very hesitant mate of J,The’s to fill new roles. J,The’s mate was concerned that he had never acted before and would look a fool. We simply showed him the first six episodes and he felt much better. Because of this uni work the new episodes won’t be edited until next Wednesday (with a massive hangover, I’d wager) so episode seven, due Tuesday, will be delayed a day or two. Tony T. of After Grog Blog will be well pleased with episode seven. Head over and peruse his blog to find out why.

2) Climate change and Howard’s hot air
It’s been interesting to watch the Howard Government desperately scrambling to change their line on global warming over the last couple of weeks. Times like these are a reminder that maybe John Howard’s not such the smooth political operator he’s often painted to be, caught once again in a half-snooze somewhere between public opinion, his personal, outdated ideology, and secret dreams of quiet afternoons at the retirement home in front of the telly with a blankey and a warm malted milk. Unfortunately, I despair that the overwhelming majority of Australians who say they are in favour of moving to renewable energy sources will have a sudden change of heart when threatened with higher energy prices.

3) Victoria Decides ‘07
God, I hate it when the media calls elections “[insert region] Decides ‘[insert year]“. Anyway, the Victorian election is shaping up to be an absolute fizzer in the lower house with the only real question being what minor change will be made to Bracksy’s majority. Ted Baillieu is about as interesting and engaging as… well… something that is really, really uninteresting and unengaging. There was a brilliant story, I think in the paper the other day, where Ted jumped on a train to get to a policy announcement and apologised to some passengers for the media intrusion. A lady said to him, “That’s okay, we’re just trying to figure out who you are.”

Priceless.

The upper house will be interesting to watch with a wide open race for the minor parties and control. I fiercely desire any outcome except for anything to do with Family First. If Steve Fielding’s band of sneaky, duplicitous morons take balance of power I’m moving to Adelaide. At least I can vote for Kate Ellis there.

I love elections and usually get nerdlingerly excited about them but this one mostly makes me want to go back to writing my honours for the 12th hour in a row.

4) $90 million for school chaplains
Attention: Kim Beazley. Your job is to provide voters with an alternative to the government. There is so much wrong with this policy that I thought even a bumbling fool such as yourself couldn’t screw it up. At least you could’ve waited a couple of minutes after Howard announced it to give it your unconditional support. Extra big Christmas card from John and Janette this year, Kimbo.

The other seven million Australian families are waiting with anticipation to benefit from Fielding’s media changes.

The Pentecostal Church has written a sternly worded letter to Steve Fielding demanding an explanation.

1) The 56,372 Victorians who voted for Family First
2) Every Australian “family”
3) The Pentecostal Church

My money’s with option three, although I can’t see how this latest stupidity is in the interests of any of them. But whichever way you look at it Steve Fielding is revealing himself every day as more and more of a total goose. He makes Lachlan Connor look like Bill Clinton. Here’s hoping Family First’s influence in Federal politics is short and inglorious, remembered as a footnote in Australian political history right next to One Nation.