The Australian, 31 August 2010

Heff thought he’d give Rob a call to persuade him the Coalition was the smart choice to govern the country. Rob’s wife answered the phone. Heff told her to tell Rob that Satan had called. She hung up. Sensing that he may have upset her, Heff texted Rob saying he thought he was talking to Rob’s kids when he told Rob’s wife he was Satan, presumably thinking this would clear up any misunderstanding. Bill Heffernan is a Senator of Australia. True story.

Update: from the pic in the Oz today, it’s pretty clear that my rendering of Rob’s wife would have to be considered somewhat inaccurate even by my own dubious standards. The Devil’s in the detail as well as on the phone I suppose. Crackingly drawn brick though.

The Australian, 27 August 2010

Apart from one small problem, I’d be quite comfortable with the fact that poker machines are voluntary taxation for stupid people. Unfortunately, poker machines are also involuntary taxation for stupid people’s families which is a little harder to be relaxed and comfortable about and people who benefit from poker machine revenue know this quite well.

Sure, I get that addiction is addiction, but if you’re going to have a fatal flaw, surely you could come up with something a bit more glamorous than feeding your grocery money into a machine that goes ping in a room full of people wearing trakky dacks? I know we’ve all got to get our kicks somehow, but pokies have got to be the world’s most pissweak form of entertainment. If you can’t get a life, get yourself a twitter account instead. You can still wear your trakky dacks, only 95% of your fellow addicts are insane and best of all it’s free.

Anyway, good luck Andrew Wilkie, but with politicians you’re dealing with the biggest pokie addicts of all.