Will you please just give up the keys to the Lodge and fuck off?

Just like people who aren’t satisfied with one birthday a year and have to have 13 of them, the unceremoniously dumped former Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, can’t accept that it’s over. His grand farewell tour of the world rolled on into its sixth month with another farewell gig in Sydney last night.

In his speech, to party faithful in Sydney last night, Mr Howard also said that despite the “propaganda” of the Labor Party, his government had been kinder to the poor, the underprivileged and low-income earners than the Hawke and Keating governments before it.

[…]

Mr Howard was speaking at a tribute dinner organised in his honour to raise funds for the NSW Liberal Party.

I’m not even going to comment on that.

But here’s a bit of unintentional hilarity from Annabel Stafford at The Age.

The 1200-strong crowd, which included Liberal heavyweights (sic) such as Dr [Brendan] Nelson…

LOL!

Remember John Howard’s trademark niggling over those pesky words such as “sorry”, “regret”, “apology” and “responsibility”? Here’s Johnny on indigenous reconciliation.

JOHN HOWARD: “I committed the Government to pursuing reconciliation the night that the Government was re-elected in October of last year. I believe that this resolution will make a huge contribution towards the cause of reconciliation. It does not, as a resolution, impose a blame or a guilt on present generations for past misdeeds. But it does recognise the truth about Australia’s history.

MATT PEACOCK: It doesn’t say sorry.

JOHN HOWARD: No, well…

MATT PEACOCK: Is that important?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, no, what is important, Matt, is what is positive out of what was passed yesterday. I am not, like Aden Ridgeway, I am not going to get hung out about, hung up about this or that word or this or that expression.

And here’s Johnny on interest rate rises.

Well, I said I was sorry they’d occurred. I don’t think I actually used the word apology. I think there is a difference between the two things … I think we’ve been through that debate before, haven’t we, in the context of something (else) … I very much regret the interest rate rise. I’m sorry it’s happened. This word game about apologies and sorry has been invented by the Labor Party to divert attention from the fact they don’t have an economic policy to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates.

New Liberal leader (sic) Dr Brendan Nelson has clearly taken lessons in the Howard art of word manipulation judging from this effort on the topic of inflation.

The fact is that we do not have an inflationary crisis. What we do have is an inflationary challenge that needs to be addressed and it needs to be faced.

Oh, I see. It’s a challenge and not a crisis. But why then, Bren-doc, does this challenge need to be addressed and faced? That sounds like a crisis to me.

There’s no inflationary crisis but clearly there’s an inflationary challenge that needs to be addressed. And in addressing that inflationary challenge it’s important that we take into account that our economy is slowing. We’ve had two official rate rises from the Reserve Bank since November last year. We’ve also had increases in interest rates from the banks outside official movements. We’ve got the full impact of the global liquidity crisis yet to affect and wash through the Australian economy.

Whoa! Settle down, Brendan! It’s a global liquidity challenge, not a global liquidity crisis.

Well, well. Aren’t NewsLtd in a snit this evening. As the main newspage says rather sulkily:

Wills honoured, John snubbed

Yes, it’s the story about Prince William receiving “one of Britain’s highest and oldest honours tonight - being made a Royal Knight of the Garter.”

Petulant phrases abound, such as:

There has been feverish speculation since the beginning of the year that former prime minister Mr Howard was the Queen’s personal pick for the honour.

But Buckingham Palace today put the kybosh on that, announcing that Prince William would be joining other members of his family as a Royal Knight of the Garter, the British Press Association reported.

Kybosh? Gosh.

Did you know that “appointments are in the Queen’s gift, without advice from government ministers”?

Which means apart from Prince William, everyone else, John included, got passed over by the Queen. Ouch. So much for defending the monarchy from the evil republicans back in 1999.

NewsLtd also bore us with details about the archaic routine following the announcement:

The knights meet at Windsor Castle every June, where new members are inducted.

A spectacular lunch is hosted by the Queen before the knights, wearing long blue velvet robes and black velvet hats with white plumes, attend a service at the historic St George’s Chapel.

Each of the knights is required to display a banner of their arms in the chapel, along with a helmet, crest and sword plus an enamelled stallplate.

I bet David Flint would like to play dress ups if that’s what a Royal Knight gets to wear.

Another great GrodsCaptionComp with the judging tough as usual. Let’s cross straight to the podium.

In third place is Albi with a filthy-yet-funny creation.

John Howard demonstrates his previous government’s dealings with big business - “Being fucked up the arse is fine, as long as they reciprocate with the reach around”, he told the excited opposition leader.

Albi wins a Fleshlight used and autographed by John Howard.

In second place is Ross Sharp with a frighteningly accurate depiction of the end of Howard’s career.

Current opposition leader Brendan Nelson and other Liberal Party faithfuls attempt to convince former Prime Minister John Howard to relinquish his spare set of keys to Kirribilli House.

Ross wins a replica key to Kirribilli and a replica Jeanette Howard.

But in first place is Dave from Albury with this pearler.

Nelson - “That’s so funny Warwick, make the dummy say ‘Fuck’ again.”
Parer - “That’s nothing, someone get me a glass of water”

Congratulations, Dave! You win the corpse of John Howard with which you can perfect your own ventriloquism skillz.

John Howard last night spoke to a gathering of Liberals in Brisbane, providing this awesome opportunity for a caption competition. Entries in comments; competition closes COB Wednesday.

Albeit briefly.

Former Prime Minister John Howard has resurfaced, this time in Brisbane at some Liberal Sycophants Party shindig on Monday night. This gathering, costing $150 per head for members and $250 per head for non-members, was to celebrate his political life and career.

Celebrate?

Yeah, apparently. But we all remember how that political life and career ended, don’t we? Glorious, glorious!

“Yes, we are out of office federally and we don’t hold a state office but we have to keep a sense of balance and of perspective of what our party has contributed to this nation … and what it has a capacity to do for this nation in the years that lie ahead,” he told a Liberal Party fundraiser in Brisbane.

Keep a sense of balance and of perspective of what the Liberal Party contributed to this nation?

Yeah, but look at how all those “contributions” unravelled at a terrifying speed! In the end, whatever those contributions were, they amounted to nothing.

Mr Howard told the gathering, which included Dr Nelson and a number of his federal and Queensland colleagues, that he was there to help.

It would have been cute if he had said, “Hi, my name is John, I’m from New South Wales and I’m here to help”.

“Being in opposition is difficult,” Mr Howard said.

“Brendan does have a very difficult job as leader of the opposition.

“I will do everything I can in a quiet way to help you. I think former prime ministers should give quiet assistance.

“If there is any way that is consistent with that quiet role and quiet goodwill in which I can help you, I certainly will.”

You certainly can help, Johnny Boy. Tell the Liberals to keep WorkChoices or similar economic “reforms” as part of their policy platform. Please. Just be sure to do it quietly.

I’ve been sitting on a GrodsExclusive for a while now, which I’ve been reluctant to post for reasons that will soon become apparent. However, a recent comment here by Dave From Albury convinced me to break my silence:

[…]
Do you understand how debasing it must be to put your name to the kind of shit that Andrew Bolt has published? The man deserves the Grand High Medal of Rupert for his efforts.

The fact is that Andrew Bolt has been rewarded for his efforts over the past few years, as have several of his News Ltd stable-mates — not by Rupert Murdoch, but by the man who holds the biggest place in his (and their) heart(s): John Winston Howard.

A News Ltd insider emailed me a few weeks ago and revealed, under the condition of anonymity, that shortly after Howard’s ignominious defeat in the 2007 federal election, the former prime minister personally sent a special gift to each of his most sycophantic lickspittles strident supporters in the press; a touching memento of their faithful service over the course of his time in office.

Say what you will about John Howard, but there’s no denying he knows how to look after the people who so vigorously looked after him.

Oh, the hilarity.

The Federal Opposition wants Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to use his upcoming meeting with United States President George W Bush to lobby the US to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol.

Bwah! Ha, ha, ha!

Mr Rudd arrives in Washington this morning… Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt said Mr Rudd should… urge the US to follow Australia’s lead and sign Kyoto.

“When George W Bush came to Sydney they forgot to raise climate change,” he told Channel Seven.

“They” forgot to raise climate change? “They”? Is this “they” the ALP who were then in opposition and completely powerless to implement policy? And Greg Hunt is criticising them for not discussing Kyoto with Bush last year? (Actually, maybe Hunt was at the time all too aware that his joke of a Party were dead in the water come November.)

Is this the Greg Hunt that is a member of the party that was in power for eleven long years and never once put the word on the USA to sign Kyoto despite the close personal relationship between its leader and the US President?

Besides from being a Herculean backflip this is just further repudiation by the Liberal Party of everything that John Howard stood for and his policies driven by personal ideology.

The Editor, John Surname, Ant Rogenous, Chuck A. Spear, Keri and Craig discuss:

* Let’s Cook! With Craig
* Mardi Gras
* John Howard
* Gay marriage
* Kevin Rudd’s razor gang
* Carers’ allowance
* Joe Hockey’s arse
* Young Liberals
* Left wing bias in education
* Christopher Pyne
* Nick Minchin
* Andrew Laming
* Brendan Nelson
* Hire A Hubby
* Masculinity
* SNAGs

** Because there’s still a blockage in the (inter)tubes use only the “Play in popup” link or the “Download” link. **

 

 GrodsThink 7 (11/3/08) [30:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Ant reported earlier on Andrew Bolt’s ejaculative response to John Howard’s Irving Kristol lecture in the USA. Since then Bolta has added a few updates to his text, closing his second update with this sentence.

Missing him already.

Get a room, you two.

I’ve been having a read of the full text of Howard’s speech and it’s quite interesting to see how much hubris and arrogance this man has despite spending eleven years in office telling us he has none of either. Oh, and he’s still a dickhead.

Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Bolt, pants fairly bulging with admiration, has posted an item about John Howard’s first major post-crucifixionelection speech, given today in Washington.

Howard, who you may remember as only the second Australian prime minister in history to be turfed out of his own seat during an election, has used his Irving Kristol Lecture for The American Enterprise Institute (a neo-conservative wankthink tank) to take what Bolt describes as a “well-deserved swipe” at the new Rudd government.

The Australian reports:

Mr Howard also made two key criticisms of the Rudd Government, which swept him from office in November last year, saying Australia should not withdraw its combat troops from Iraq and should not roll back his government’s industrial relations reforms.

“That will be a mistake. It will be the first time in 25 years that a major economic reform in Australia has been reversed,’’ he said. “In particular, bringing back the old unfair dismissal laws will stifle employment growth amongst small businesses.”

Bolt foams with indignation whenever Paul Keating points out the mistakes of the government that succeeded his. Worst of all, suggests Bolt, is that Keating’s comments insult the voters who saw fit to remove his government from office and hand Howard the mandate for his many controversial reforms.

You’d therefore expect the ever-reasonable and balanced Bolt to be equally critical of Howard’s petty self-indulgence, right? Well, you’d be wrong:

Howard may in time prove a more fearsome critic of Kevin Rudd than Brendan Nelson. For one, he’s sticking to his guns.

I’m beginning to think Andrew Bolt might be a bit of a hypocrite.

Poor old Malcolm Turnbull. Made his millions in the “big end of town” and is now forced to dump on said end of town.

SHADOW treasurer Malcolm Turnbull has turned sharply on the Business Council of Australia, discounting its criticism of the former government’s budgetary record by saying it is just representing the “big end of town”. He said the BCA in its budget submission was “speaking on behalf of its own constituency”.

And then poor old Malcolm is forced to utter this utter lie and pretend he believes it.

Mr Turnbull said “you’ve got to remember the BCA… speaks for big business, the big end of town… . And it objects to the fact that a large part of that bonus from increased profits from the corporate sector was redistributed by the Howard government to the battlers, through lower taxes and through family tax benefits.”

“Redistributed”? That sounds positively Marxist, Malcolm. Too many lattes for you. And that’s on top of the fact that taxes rose in real terms under John Howard and family tax benefits are completely non-means tested middle class welfare.

Oh, and then there’s this.

LOW-paid workers are slipping further behind those on higher incomes, fuelling concerns about growing inequality in Australia.

[…]

In industries such as hospitality, wages grew 3.3%, while in retail trade they were up 3.5% and in basic clerical positions and sales the rise was 3.6% over the year to last September.

That compared with a 4.2% increase across all occupations for that period.

Over the past decade the gap has continued to widen.

[…]

Minimum wage recipients are now on about 54% of overall median weekly earnings, compared with about 62% a decade ago.

Just remind me again who was in government over the last decade?

Say what you like about Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 summit but it’s great that Australia’s children will have a chance to participate in the discussion about this country’s future.

Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard has invited all schools to participate in the proposed 2020 summit involving 1000 of Australia’s best and brightest minds in April.

[…]

“Today’s school students are the adults of 2020, and it’s vital that we harness their energy, ideas and vision in any discussion about this nation’s future,” Ms Gillard said.

“They will be the parents, the business owners, the farmers, the educators and the leaders of 2020, and it’s crucial that we hear their views about the kind of Australia they want to live in.”

Children have strong and valid views about current affairs and the world in which they live, yet we all too often ignore them or patronisingly nod our heads and smile. Giving students a structured environment in their schools with teacher facilitation to get a conversation going, along with the knowledge that their voices will be heard by the government, validates kids’ opinions and is also an excellent educational opportunity. But according to Andrew Bolt this is just another way that “Chairman” Rudd is indoctrinating our yoof with leftist ideology. Bolta lists a couple of other events that he incorrectly attributes to Kevin Rudd (the NSW and Victorian governments’ “order” for schools to force students to watch Rudd’s Stolen Generation apology; and a call by Australia’s chief scientist for school kids to plant trees, despite the fact that Julia Gillard has openly resisted mandating as such) and asks a question.

This is as bizarre as it is utterly offensive. Had John Howard tried this…

…I might have liked him a bit more.

Some people will say anything to secure a more lenient sentence.

MEMBERS of a Melbourne-based terrorist group discussed killing John Howard while he was prime minister, the Victorian Supreme Court was told today.

Shame on them.

In this episode The Editor, John Surname, Billybob, and Craig discuss the following:

* “Sorry”
* Brendan Nelson
* Warren Truss
* Andrew Bolt
* Education
* Bogans
* Ray Martin
* John Howard
* Russell Crowe
* Chris Johnston
* Scientology

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