If stopping the boats wasn’t code for punishing desperate people ostensibly for their own good, I’m sure there’d be less argument in this country about how to deal with asylum seekers.

Acting like arseholes in order to deter people from attempting to bootstrap themselves out of miserable circumstances is not a solution, Pacific or otherwise. Sure, boats are dangerous. So is locking people up for indefinite periods, so is sending refugees back where they came from, so is living in limbo as a non-citizen in Indonesia, so is rotting in a refugee camp for years on end.

There are no easy answers, but if you’re looking for an applicable Australian Value, then “Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right” wouldn’t be a bad start.

You know how we drum into our kids how important it is to tell the truth? I’ve always thought it’s an important developmental milestone when they work out that this is in fact a big fat lie, after which human behaviour will start making a great deal more sense to them.

In the same vein, you’d think there must be some bloody awkward cocktail parties every time Wikileaks spills the beans, but in reality I suspect it merely adds one more layer of intrigue (read “bullshit” for that if you’re still in truth mode) to proceedings.

My theory on the monarchy in Australia is that everyone thinks that there are people who want Australia to be a monarchy, but in fact nobody actually does want Australia to be a monarchy. I base this on the premise that it is inconceivable that anyone could actually want Australia to be a monarchy. Eventually we’ll realise that it was all just a few people taking the piss, and immediately become a republic.

If people think that this is ruining all the monarchists’ fun, then bear in mind that I do not concede that any monarchists exist.

It is quite a poor theory I’ll admit (the bucket helps a bit) but if you don’t like it, feel free to stick your head in a bucket.