Current mood, 7:54 am:



(with apologies to doug rr)

I'm at work and these idiots are seriously pissing me off. Hold off till 2:15 please Liberal bastards.

And now it’ll go on for another day at least. Muppets.

Midday meeting and I'm now preparing for more breaking news. Seems there'll be a new PM this afternoon but will it be Dutton, Morrison or Bishop? The Morrison and Bishop camp may shoot themselves in the foot by splitting votes handing leadership to Dutton.

And with Turnbull saying he'll resign from parliament, is a by election or federal election around the corner?

Labour has moved a no confidence motion in the senate calling for a snap election.

Come on Spenno, that's funny!

I don't know: Albo has alright taste in music, and also seems like a decent guy, but that post seems rather too cynical in taking the opportunity to present himself as a "relatable" leadership alternative to the Gen X demographic.

Of course it's not necessarily a binary choice, but I'd prefer my representatives to be competent, ethical and sensible than share my tastes in alternative rock (I also think it's silly when people bemoan that [insert politician here] can't name an AC/DC song.)

Anyway, what a dispiriting and downright bizarre week in politics. Dutton, Abbott and their cronies are so immensely foolish, selfish and destructive.

I don't understand how any left wing person can argue for compulsory voting and use Australia as an example.

I admire Wong so much. Her poise is inspiring.

Our former Deputy Prime Minister having an absolutely normal time:

Not strictly a "political" topic, however the High Court decision regarding Catholic Cardinal George Pell is due this morning.

I don't believe he should have been convicted and agree with the dissenting judgement in the Court of Appeal hearing, so I'll be following with interest.

Following from the above, acquitted of all charges:



I don't know whether Pell is a pederast however the evidence in this case seemed incredibly threadbare, quite shocking and troubling that he was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt by two Victorian courts.

Probably a bad day to be reading Twitter comments.

Idiot strikes again

Politics related.

If Mississippi can get it together to change their 100+ year old flag and remove the "general Lee" symbol thing I wonder if it isn't time to seriously revisit moving Australia Day away from the 26th?

And I say that as one who loves Aus Day. But I don't need it to be on the 26th.

I actually asked a lot of the aboriginal kids I coached at hoops about this over the last few years and all of them feel it should be moved. None of them were particularly OTT about it, but all mentioned hurt and division in some way when asked "how do you feel about Australia Day being the 26th of January?".

In the end I appreciate that the date causes a great deal of hurt for a not insignificant portion of our population. Why not change it? It would give some form of "result" to our own BLM protests perhaps.

What's the significance of the date?

It was the day that the first fleet (convict settlement) arrived in Sydney Cove.

I honestly hope that the next government is a Labor government and they call for another republic referendum. Once we break from the UK/monarchy we can establish a shared day to celebrate. Make it around mid to late January (NOT 26th) and it remains the end of summer holidays public holiday we have now.

We can also piss the union jack off of our flag while we're at it.

If you get rid of the Jack people will be able to tell the difference between our two flags though - we don't want that

Fuck it. Let's join up and take over Feb 6th.

Why not? Waitangi Day here is a great day to get a bit of culture

These are two entirely separate issues.

Support for the monarchy has grown significantly since the 90s, I think it would be a massive blunder for any near-future government to revisit the issue (Turnbull was wise to leave it alone during his term).

I had presumed there was a groundswell of support for changing the date of Australia Day (and originally reflected this in my post), but I can't find anything that bears that out. A Guardian/Essential poll in 2017 found 70% of Australians still support retaining 26 January as Australia Day.