The Adventures of QueerPenguin

Lies, Damned Lies and Howard

So Howard the Duck breaks yet another pre-election promise and weasels his way out of admitting he lied (again) to the electorate by whining: "No no no, I only ever said there were no plans for an increase of troops." Oh, okay then. So it's the truth until you decide to change your mind, therefore all promises - especially pre-election promises - are in fact promises* (* - assurances and pledges made that we're most likely to break as the mood takes us, after we've won the election).

Another day, another golden shower from the Libs. I've gotten to the point that I almost couldn't be bothered washing them off before another burst of liquid sunshine spills onto me. The reality is Howard, his ministry and his backbench can lie, abuse their positions of power and completely disregard parliamentary procedure and voters, and not only will they get away with it unpunished, more people are likely to vote for them as a result. Here's a Hall of Shame list that only back-tracks to 2001, of Liberal players who should have been sacked on the spot for their lies, corruption or gross incompetence, but somehow are still infecting our parliamentary system, making it the swollen pussey boil it is today.

Bill Heffernan: 2002 - abuses parliamentary privilege to level made-up accusations of paedophilia against Justice Kirby. Further, Daryl Williams abandons his constitutional obligations to come to Heffernan's rather than Kirby's defence. Heffernan is still a senator; Williams remained a Howard minister until his voluntary retirement.

Wilson Tuckey: 2003 - writes a letter in parliamentary letter head paper, in blatant contradiction of the rules, to try and heavy the SA Government into overturning his son's traffic fine. STILL EMPLOYED.

Trish Draper: 2004 - moral rights crusader takes her casual fuck-buddy on a taxpayer-funded "study tour", claiming him to be a spouse despite the fact they never lived together and she had another boyfriend at the time. Her guilty-as-sinniness is confirmed by her desperate attempts to gag Today Tonight from airing the scandal and then re-paying back the $10,000 (wonder why you'd do that if you knew you'd done nothing wrong?) STILL EMPLOYED.

De-Anne Kelly and Jim Lloyd: 2004/2005 - both accused - and I'd say look pretty guilty as hell - of big-time pork-barelling with the "Regional Partnerships"Fund - aka "Regional Slush" fund, using government money to procure goodies that will help them keep their marginal seats. BOTH ARE STILL EMPLOYED.

John Anderson: 2004 - most likely uses a go-between to try and bribe independent MP Tony Windsor into not contesting the seat of New England before the last election. STILL DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER.

Amanda Vanstone: 2005 - minister overseeing a mentally ill Australian woman being wrongly incarcerated at Baxter Detention Centre as an illegal immigrant. Orders the inevtiable inquiry to be private rather than public for "the sake of Cornelia Rau's privacy", despite Rau's own family insisting the inquiry be public, and momentarily forgetting the importance of Rau's privacy long enough to go on television and tell the world how Rau was at one point smearing her own excrement on the walls at Baxter. STILL IMMIGRATION MINISTER.

Robert Hill: 2005 - Claims flatly and uneqivocally that no Australians have interrogated Iraqi prisoners, but when a former weapons inspector provides details of the interrogation by Australians of a former Iraqi minister, back-tracks, saying the Iraqi was merely "interviewed". STILL DEFENCE MINISTER.

Pope Tony Abbott III: 2005 - OK, this one is only speculative, I can't definitely prove he should be sacked for it, but give this a shot: The Catholic rotweiler, itching to slash Medicare funding for abortions, suddenly "discovers" - at exactly the same time as the unnecessary resurgence of the abortion "debate" - the biological son he abandoned 27 years ago. And Liberal lackeys posing as Murdoch columnists point out how wonderful this is and how it could only be happening because Daniel O'Connor's mum put him up for adoption rather than having an abortion. OK, it's a bit conspiracy theory, but I would put nothing past the Pope, especially given this convenient plea for adoption.

I might add to this list as the year progresses, just because I'm sure it will only get bigger and bigger and bigger, while the lists of sackings remains infuriatingly stagnant.

posted by Sam @ Wednesday, February 23, 2005