The screaming goat assisted with tonight’s titles, and the audience was 100% Labor supporters – typical.
With the election 6 months away, Shaun feels as excited as Kim Jong Un preparing to launch a nuclear missile. And if the Korean war starts again, surely Channel Ten will use that as an excuse to replay M*A*S*H again. But Shaun loves Channel Ten, especially their programming department.
Even China thinks North Korea are being too militarily aggressive, and the “peace mission” headed by Dennis Rodman and the Harlem Globetrotters seems to have made things worse. Being a western democracy is the best bet, even if the UN or Amnesty are criticising your social benefits or treatment of asylum seekers… like Australia has been.
And in a practice launch for the September doomsday election, WA went to the polls and the Liberals came out as the victor. Political correspondent, Ronnie Hazelhurst, spoke to Shaun from the Perth studios, but most of the interview time involved waiting for Ronnie to think or realise there was a problem with the link – or possibly a problem with Ronnie.
Shaun’s hero from the WA election was Henry Heng, who had produced a [real!] campaign video with a “very catchy” campaign. And even though he was beaten, Shaun think’s the lessons here could be transfered to the federal campaign – “Tony, Tony, let’s all vote for Tony….”
But politics really can be a “shitty business”, as detailed on the Victorian Government’s coat of arms. And with that, Victorian Premier Ted Bailieu was replaced this week with Dennis Napthine, despite Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey both saying “there is a world of difference” between this and the replacement of Kevin Rudd; instead of being knifed in the back, Ted may have fell on his own short sword after being pushed.
Victorian teachers have been locked in industrial action against the Victorian government over high pays. Esther Korg, Vice President of Australian Education Union, is upset that she has to organise 500 placards to be changed, not to mention the difficulty of making plays on the word “Dennis” instead of “Ted”.
Later, Shaun will talk to a representative of Health Minister Tanya Plibersek on the ongoing argument between the states and federal government over health; specifically the blame game – what it is, who’s playing it, and who’s to blame.
Politics is about getting down and pulling voters out by the grass roots. Julia Gillard did just that during her week in western Sydney – she even knew that a car was a good start to reducing the road congestion. Clancy Lanyard is a Psephologist who isn’t Antony Green, and has highlighted the electorates where Labour is in trouble – all of them.
The show was interrupted by a party political ad for the Labour party, or more accurately, a re-work of the old Whitlam It’s Time Ad… Time for enertia, time to do nothing (Did anyone spot – Marty The Monster, Shane Jacobson, Red Symons, Mark Holden, Tim Rogers, Elise Platt). An ad for the ABC Shop peddled anything that was remotely related to the ABC.
Shaun got a call that running a pro-Labour ad was against the ABC charter, so had to balance it out. He gave the phone back to Anthony, who Instagramed and Facebooked the whole thing, walking away so intent on his mobile that he got hit by a train on the footpath?!
Periodontist Humberta Meule is running for preselection for the Liberal party for the seat of Hennesy, and spends so much time in people’s heads, she knows what they want – to be rid of Labour. She. But Humberta feels the whole interview is full of ABC bias, and when the Liberals get in, they will shove the bitter pill down our throat without the sugar coating – then she went to drown some kit’s tens.
Australia’s population is getting older, and Jennifred Stoles summed it up as “old people are getting older, and that costs money.” Casper Jonquil, a regular talk back listener, thinks any amount of money sounds like a lot of money. He’s even contacted the council over the pot holes; and the school kids who come and go as they please. Simply, but he agrees to disagree. Perhaps the answer is to raise the retirement age, so that people will pay taxes to afford their own pensions. Shaun then made Jennifred feel uncomfortable by giving some old film references.
Japan’s solution is to tell old people to “hurry up and die”, but with such a huge trade deficit do they have any credibility. But the world has a bull market at the moment, so Shaun spoke to George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life (ie. Shaun impersonating Jimmy Stewart). When the conversation became dull, Shaun deferred to Ricardo Goncalves from SBS who illustrated how a graph goes up and down, and Jennifred simplified it further.
All of this sounded like News from Countries other than Australia. The Vatican put a chimney on the Sistine Chapel for the election of the new pope, in a fuck-you to global warming. In Syria, the rebels are still fighting government troops, but managed to take down a statue of the leaders father – a major blow to pro-government pigeons.
Later on Shaun will talk to the MAH Chinese correspondent about the resignations of Wen Jiabao (When?) and Hu Jintao (Who?) in a Who’s on First style conversation – the whole thing took 5 hours.
Finally, Julie Bishop said during the counting of the votes in WA that if Julia Gillard had campaigned there, it would have been a full 15% swing. But Liberal strategist Callista Spurntable thinks the federal election will be close – however, quietly she thinks they will win by a long shot, but can’t express that to the electorate, because the voters will turn against them.