…and just to complete the Gallbladder Box Set

Sunday Telegraph, 1 August 2010

A leaky story in the Sunday Tele today with Alexander Downer claiming the Libs suckered Rudd into being their bag man. Rudd points out that Mr Things That Batter would say that on account of his hating what remains of Kevin’s guts and who are we to believe under the circumstances? I think there’s something in that for all of us.

A lot of gall

It says a lot about this election campaign that the most interesting player so far has been Kevin Rudd’s gallbladder. Okay, it’s wrong to be doing jokes about people going to hospital, but come on, the metaphorical knifing, the sneaky leaker, a spray from Mr Angry Pancreas Mark Latham, then an operation to remove an organ that stores bile? There’s probably a cartoon or two in that.

The Weekend Australian, 31 July 2010

The Hobart Mercury, 31 July 2010

How about we just stop talking about the boats for a bit?

One of my all-time favourite cartoons is by Leunig from one of his earlier collections. It’s got two people roasting marshmallows around a campfire and one is saying to the other “What do you mean the acoustics could be better? What the hell are you talking about?” …or words to that effect. It’s funnier when you see it and comes to mind whenever Julia and Tony start banging on about boat people.

Refugees coming here by boat isn’t an ideal situation. I couldn’t agree more. Nonetheless, shit happens, and in the scheme of things, whatever you think about giving refugees a fair go, stopping the boats (or as is more likely, not stopping the boats) is going to have very little effect on our quality of life.

However, as details on stuff like climate change, health, education, industrial relations and the economy are a little abstract for a tasty sound bite, I’m sure we’ll be hearing lots more about boats in the weeks to come. We get the government we deserve, I suppose.

The Australian, 27 July 2010