Whenever it Snows

Tex, Don and Charlie are playing Whenever it Snows and just as they start the line about complaining about “roaches and rat, cicadas and cane toads and flies, and snakes in the dunny and dogs on the bed weren’t the only things that you despised”, Home Affairs Minister Dutton begins a press conference in Townsville. I didn’t bother to unmute the TV because listening to legends of music is preferable to a failed aspiring Prime Minister who got rolled by an ad-man and probably won’t hold his seat in the next election. Speaking of which Scomo just started in Victoria. Let’s see what he has to say.

$153million for tourism and infrastructure for Geelong and The Shipwreck Coast. Why we have live crosses to nothing announcements perplexes me. Do the cross when the questions are being asked. The only people that give a shit about the announcement are those with a vested interest in whatever is being announced whereas the questions address what really concerns the broader public.

Now Tom Waits is singing Anywhere I Lay My Head as a story about my old mate Trumbull going to Bali on behalf of The Government that rolled him in order to lose their majority in Parliament. What I love about this whole farce is that all of those in his own party who wanted him gone and The Nationals, who were never fans, are blaming him for doing what he always said he would if he got stabbed as PM. It’s hilarious seeing a politician actually follow through on a promise and the only people that criticise him for not doing so are other politicians from his own side. It must have been liberating for young Malcolm to finally be able to make a decision as PM and be able to bring it about without having to placate the lunatic fringe of his party and their country cousins.

Later on, after Cricket Australia releases a report and says they’re only going to accept some of the recommendations, Bill Shorten comes on to discuss Labors’ Foreign Policy and successfully embarrasses himself by attempting to educate a room full of what he called a knowledgeable audience. At least he bothers to say Labor will put The Pacific “front and centre”, whether he pulls a Turnbull and follows through remains to be seen. If Australia bothers to elect him, I’ll be holding him to account on that statement. Because if we don’t they’ll all end up living here anyway when their islands are consumed by the Ocean that surrounds them. Not that that’s a bad thing, Pacific Islanders are friendly people and it’ll be good for the rugby at least but it’d shit for them to lose their homes because of a shit load of coal we burnt and sold to be burnt.

Don’t think this is a rant against coal. Without shame I acknowledge that I am from a mining family. Coal clothed and fed me after the family returned to Australia from being fed and clothed by the copper mine in Bougainville where the locals had been expressing their displeasure at the big hole in the middle of their island. Conveniently The Cruel Sea Orleans Stomp starts playing as I write this. Cruel Sea, very apt, and New Orleans knows what it’s like to be flooded. Once again, the music speaks to me. What I’m saying is that there is fuck all we can do about things that have already happened. Coal, as The Coalition are fond of saying, will be part of the global energy mix going forward purely because we can’t build a replacement energy source overnight, but it isn’t comforting to those who are about to be swimming to Australia that the current government are not only dismissive of climate change but are considering investing in burning more coal.

Which raises an interesting point. What happens to The Asylum Seekers and Refugees imprisoned on Nauru and Manus when the respective islands flood? It is my understanding that assurances have been made to multiple Pacific Island Nations that Australia and New Zealand will rehouse significant numbers of Pacific Islanders if and when they go under the waves and The Chinese build military bases over the top of them. Will we finally let them be resettled or just leave them floating there like we first found them, only to be rediscovered by The People’s Liberation Army when they come to stake their claim over “traditional” Chinese waters. They may have a fight on their hands though. I can’t see The Japanese letting an opportunity to set up whaling stations in humpback breeding territory slip them by.

And I think on a fitting note I’ll leave it with Martha Wainwright telling me the truth – Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole.