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It's not yet winter and thoughts are already turning to spring. Not just to the longer, warmer days and budding trees but to the spring clean. The annual ritual is an important opportunity to refresh the house and unburden it of all the useless clutter accumulated over the year.
If only federal parliament had an annual spring clean. Here's some of what I'd toss, starting with a few of the politicians. Of course, they're elected so can't be cast out on the kerb for council pick-up but they can be moved to the back bench.
First to go: shadow treasurer Angus Taylor. Poor old Gus. I really don't see the point of him. He has a good head of hair but there's no evidence of much going on underneath. After mangling his budget reply speech at the National Press Club, all he could manage during the questions after it was further confusion and a string of nervous giggles. It was painful to watch. No wonder the government goads him to ask questions during Question Time. It relishes the opportunity to shred him.
Next would be Andrew Giles, the hapless Immigration Minister. Look, he might be a nice fellow and we should remember his humane treatment of the Nadesalingams, who the world knows as the Biloeila family. But his performance since has been woefully tepid. Unprepared for the adverse indefinite detainment ruling of the High Court, unaware of the reinstatement of visas for convicted criminals, and missing in action when the media comes calling, he's the gift that keeps on giving for the opposition. Worst of all, he provides air time for shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan, whose laborious drawl is torture.
Sussan Ley. Her pointless points of order in Question Time and the interjections are bad enough. And her confected outrage is as transparent as it is insufferable. More affronted poodle than attack dog, she makes it hard to take the opposition seriously.
Speaking of attack dogs, the Greens' Max Chandler-Mather is all bark and no bite. His constant calls for rent freezes and the reform of negative gearing and capital gains conveniently ignore other factors fuelling the housing crisis. Inconvenient factors like evidence rent freezes make housing shortages worse and his own party's habitual opposition to developments that would increase housing supply. The less we hear from him, the better for the Greens. The better for us, too.
It's not just people. We could ditch a few odious practices as well.
We'd save a motza getting rid of the expensive advertising trumpeting government policy that is thinly veiled political campaigning. Doesn't matter who's in government, they all do it shamelessly - on our dime. Right now, it's the TV campaign telling us about tax cuts due to kick in on July 1 on high rotation. The money paying for it could bankroll a block of affordable housing.
Question Time itself is questionable. Too often, it's little more than excruciating amateur theatre, a Punch and Judy performance used by both sides to snag a few seconds of heat on the nightly TV news. Its only saving grace in the current parliament is the Speaker, Milton Dick. Every parent of noxious, squalling children could learn invaluable lessons from this paragon of saintly patience. My suspicion is parliamentary behaviour would improve - and Dick's job be made easier - if Question Time wasn't televised.
Cluttering up the opposition front bench himself, Barnaby Joyce mightn't like this but booze should have no place in parliament. We need our politicians to be on their game at all times, not fogged by too many chardies over dinner.
Sadly, there's fat chance of any of this happening. The cobwebs will remain well into spring and we'll have to be content getting our own houses in order.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Who from the government or opposition would you move to the back bench? Is Question Time useful or a waste of parliamentary time? Would you ban alcohol from Parliament? Should taxpayer funded government advertising that's transparently political be curtailed?Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Home Affairs officials have revealed the department has refused more than 4600 visitor visas for Palestinians attempting to come to Australia since October 7. Responding to questions in a Senate estimates hearing, public servants said they had issued 2686 visas to Palestinians since Hamas' attacks on Israel, and retaliations from Israel.
- Hospitals in remote, rural and regional NSW are "stretched beyond capacity" with demands that are "too great" says Australia's peak professional body. The latest Bureau of Health Information [BHI] data shows there were 810,201 emergency department (ED) attendances - up 5.2% from the same quarter a year earlier and the highest of any quarter since BHI began reporting in 2010.
- A massive weather system stretching 4000 kilometres from Western Australia to the east coast is set to bring rain to 80 per cent of the country. Pools of cold, unstable air from the northwest fuelled by tropical moisture should deliver falls to every state and territory during the next week, Weatherzone says.
THEY SAID IT: "A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed." - Nelson Mandela
YOU SAID IT: Warnings of distressing content and blurred and pixelated images make it easier for us to turn away from hard truths when we need to look evil in the eye to defeat it.
"We really need to look at what is happening in the world," writes Judy. "Footage from wars and scenes of injustice wake us up to reality and hopefully spur us to action. Lee Miller's photographs were shocking and profound. They did what she intended."
Brad sees it differently: "While I understand your point, I remember the initial broadcast of the World at War Holocaust episode, where the commercial station cancelled ad-breaks and advertised content warnings. A generation later, a different station repeated it and squeezed the dedication at the end to include crass network ads with loud voiceover. I guess my point is that there is a diminishing marginal returns effect when we are assaulted by the constant news feed that normalises the horror. Some media agents are tempted to push the barrier to monetise the clicks and views."
"Yes, we should all open our eyes and 'see' the cruelty and injustice that both animals and human beings are forced to endure," writes Marlene. "But there are those who like to pretend that cruelty, injustice and suffering are for a 'different class' of people. They like to feel they are somehow above the horror: that witnessing it is degrading for them. Denial is one of our biggest problems."
Emile writes: "I think a good parallel to human-on-human atrocities are the animal cruelty advertisements shown (too) frequently on SBS - they are distressing and confronting and there's nothing I can do about it - except, apparently, donating to a charity which can afford to run the ads. The news today is so unrelentingly disastrous it affects my mental elf, who was last seen cringing somewhere behind a tree. I have friends who will not watch the news any more because of this and I am close to joining them. Add that to the increasingly violent filmic offerings where 'mericans blow things up to save the world - even 'merica, it seems - and I'm ready for an oxycontin release."
"I absolutely agree," writes John. "The world seems to be on a path of whitewashing misdeeds of the past."
Erik writes: "When we can't even say 'died' and have to resort to euphemisms, it's pretty evident we have lost the plot. Your examples emphasise the lengths we go to to protect ourselves from facing reality. I remember reading The Loved One at school in the 1960s, a very clear harbinger of our propensity to avoid the truth. Sadly, I think it will only get worse."
"Congratulations for highlighting today's squeamish society," writes Grant. "We are infantilised and protected from many of life's horrors, especially our exploitation of fellow sentient beings. As Paul McCartney famously said, 'If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.' The plastic-sealed packages of animal parts on display in supermarkets bear little resemblance to the reality behind the daily bloodbath that is perpetrated against animals around the world. Just because we can do it, doesn't mean it's right."