The Arbib-Bitar Pre-election Show
Oh, what a show it has been!
Every chord struck as in
Some grand Shakespearian theme.
Ruddus Caesar, deep in sins,
Deftly gutted - dead easy
For these seasoned assassins.
Julia Caesar enthroned,
And right quick to election
Before her novelty’s boned.
Then foul treachery enters:
Is Ruddus the leaker or
Are there other tormentors?
As things falter, Julia
Says she is real and swears to
Stop acting peculiar.
Mad Lathamus snarls away.
Ruddus upstages again:
A timely medical play.
Julia swallows her pride,
Begs surly Ruddus for aid:
Perhaps he may stem the tide.
Meanwhile, rough Antonius,
Wannabe Caesar, prays it
Gets more acrimonious.
How all pans out in the end
Is obscure, despite wizards
Opining what polls portend.
But the show is the thing: big!
All hail the A. and B. team!
Can’t wait for their next clever gig.
The Three Amigos
The cameras roll,
They giggle and preen,
Transparently buoyed
By being thus seen;
And voice bizarre views,
In the odd conceit
That the major news
Is all about them.
Hail the Culture!
Lumbering Amigos have chosen:
Julia Caesar is now enthroned.
Antonius, wannabe Caesar,
Rallies with no docility shown.
But weightiest of all was: no one
Even dreamt of going for the gun.
Political Elders and Hate
Their hard feelings flicker like fire
Round the edges of the fishbowl.
Hawke, no secret, abhors Keating;
Keating quotably dislikes Hawke;
P. Costello loathes J. Howard,
Who responds with measured contempt.
Howard can afford to be more liberal
Craggy Mal detests almost all
(But is recently soft on Gough,
His own one-time hater-in-chief).
Mad Mark curses everyone.
And, of course, there are still Kevin
And Julia to come when they
Finally tumble from office!
Liu in Oslo
A small and sturdy nation,
Defying foreign bullies,
Mounts a grand occasion with
King and queen and exotic
Dignitaries abounding,
And brazen horns resounding.
A medal is placed with care
On a single empty chair
That silently proclaims, to
An electronic world, a
Name The Party vainly seeks
To blot out by imprisoning.
Oh, Those Clever Yankees!
My small granddaughter,
A dinkum Aussie,
Briefly attended
A Boston state school.
She now can recite,
Proudly word perfect,
The American
Pledge of Allegiance.
Another Monkey on Her Back
My name’s Slippery Pete:
I’m right fleet on my feet
As is famously shown
By my travels immense
(All at public expense)
And my slick party shifts.
But, thanks to Julia,
I’m now less peculiar:
Jumped up to high office,
Speaker, well paid and all,
Ruling parliament’s brawl
As hon’rable umpire.
Although I have knowledge
(Since long in this college),
Foul rumour implies I’ve
Little capacity
For unremittingly
Sober sagacity.
But in the next session,
Whate’er my transgression,
I’ll have Julia’s backing
For sure, I guarantee
(She’s that needy of me):
So I’m sitting pretty.
One View of Criminality
No mistaking the authoritarian mindset
Of the Socialist Revolutionary spokesman
Sounding off in the Prime Minister’s electorate:
‘It would be criminal not to voice my opinions’.
The Rudd/Gillard Years: 2007-11
All those broken promises;
Those reactive decisions
Without foresight or planning;
Those showy schemes, failing or
Stumbling expensively on;
And never any sense of
A real reforming vision.
Even Gough did things better.
Us and Our Pollies
Most of us are
Asylum-seekers,
Striving for calm
And well-fed lives.
Part of the task
To win our dream
We charge to more
Combative souls.
They claim to help;
And partial do
And partial don’t;
As we all think.
We castigate
Them for the don’ts,
And punish them
If we’re able.
But at bottom,
In our culture,
We know that they
Mean mostly well.
In few nations
On this planet,
Are the people
Quite so lucky.
Helicopter Overhead
It’s night: I hear
The whirring blades
And do not wince
(Taxes at work,
Protecting me).
In Homs, I’d feel
Quite different.
A Republican Ruminates
They’ve outgunned us again,
Those bloody royalists.
Fancy, a million folk
Standing patient and chill,
With the rain pelting down,
Waiting to glimpse and cheer
An old Tory lady
As she sails down the Thames!
Mind you, same lady thumbed
Her nose at Apartheid
By publicly dancing
With Kwame Nkrumah.
She’s stiff competition.
A Gaping Chasm
An English woman
Sails down a river
To the applause of
One million people.
A Saudi woman
Is sentenced to ten
Lashes for the crime
Of driving a car.
No doubt Warlpiri
Woman: black, classic
Broad and pouchy face,
Yuendumu-raised
On land she owns in
Old law, is used to
Sitting on the earth.
Self-declared woman
Of Eualeyai and
Kamillaroi strain:
White-skinned, white-seemly,
Sydney-suburb-raised,
Varsity, chaise-longue-
Lolling photograph.
At odds: both claim to
Speak for desert folk.
One talks sober of
Cultural divides;
One sly tweets obscene
Comparison in
Sneering denigration.
[Bess Nungarrayi Price is a newly-elected Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory’s Legislative Assembly. Larissa Yasmin Behrendt is Professor of Law and Indigenous Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney.]
The New Sea-green Incorruptibles
We Greens, we Greens,
We Aussie Greens,
Are pure, as pure
As ever been,
As ever seen.
‘We have values,
The rest do not,’
We lofty preen,
So sure are we
On being Green.
No compromise
On any scheme
Could we ever,
Would we ever
Durst even dream.
‘Transparency’
We urge on all
(Tho’ rightly screen
Business Green
From prying eyes).
Oh, yes, we Greens,
We Aussie Greens,
Are pure, as pure
As ever been,
As ever seen.
Six Squandered Years
Triumphant winner Kevin
Astonished by bringing to
Office a style unhinged from
Political foresight, from
Administrative nous and
From all respect for process.
Julia, hoisted in shabby
Succession, then astonished
With her uncanny echo
Of Kevin’s ham-fisted style.
Result: a great Party is
Brought to its knees by dogged
Displays of governmental
Incompetence - and worse.
Misogyny and Tony Abbott
Earlier denounced for it, your guilt
Was confirmed and proclaimed yet again
When you sly glanced at your watch as the
Prime Minister slanged and harangued you.
Such a light-fingered beast it’s become!
Death Rattle (June 2013)
Barely six years since they
Triumphantly toppled
John Howard, they connive
At their own clear demise.
They littered those years with
Abandoned promises,
Ship-wrecked policies and
Downright incompetence.
While two monstrous egos
Snarled, clawed at each other,
Uncaring of party,
Uncaring of nation.
In horror and despair,
And see the road back as
Long and conjectural.
Kevin’s ‘Great Labor Reform’
July 2013
Strip Caucus of its sole role and
Admit the ALP faithful:
What could be more democratic
In choosing the Party’s leader?
The chutzpah is magnificent!
Your ‘reform’ will likely keep you
(Win or lose the big election)
At the top of the Labor tree.
And your purity’s established
(Correcting a notorious
Fault) by your having consulted
‘Whole bunches of people’ on this.
Of course, none is named: why bother,
With Caucus over a barrel?
One thing’s quite clear, this time around:
The leopard has not changed its spots.
The Puzzling Push
for
Same-sex Marriage
for
Same-sex Marriage
2014
It presents as a radical movement,
Boldly challenging hallowed tradition
By claiming for gays and lesbians the
Right to marry in the eye of the law.
But whence this recent lust for a formal,
Conventional rite in a culture where
Couples shack up without shame, and ‘partners’
Are received in society and law?
Could it be that it bespeaks nothing more
Than a craving for what generations
Of old-fashioned radicals scornfully
Damned as ‘bourgeois respectability’?
And now, Thank Heaven,
It’s off to the Vatican![1]
27 March 2014
The Cardinal (claiming to be
Handicapped over many years
By ‘muddle-headed’ underlings)
At last deigns to apologise
To one victim of clerical
Abuse, on live television.
So the whole world could observe this
Prince of the Church dully reading
His long, laboured apology -
And not once lifting his head to
Glance at the victim, let alone
Look him direct in the eye.
[1] Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Melbourne (1996-2001) and Archbishop of Sydney (2001-2014),
was on the point of taking up a Papal appointment as Cardinal-Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.
The Politics of Walls
2014
The Berlin Wall’s intent
Was to keep people in:
Western walls are designed
Mostly to keep them out.
Was to keep people in:
Western walls are designed
Mostly to keep them out.
At Greg Combet’s Book Launch
2014
The speeches were sickeningly smug
To a rusted-on old Labor man.
No hint of involvement in perhaps
The most lethal (eleven hundred
Drowned, four electrocuted) and most
Sleazy (a Thomson protected, a
Slipper promoted) governments in
modern Australian history – let
Alone of all the other myriad
Stuff-ups and betrayals of trust that
Disfigured those horrendous six years.
Where is the hope of advance in this?
Our Wacky Politics
(As of March 2015)
Part I
(As of March 2015)
Part I
Three Prime Ministers, all lined up in a row.
One stuffs up, his mob knock him off, give Two a go.
Two stuffs up as well, so they knock her off, and
Give sneaky One (sounds crazy, eh?) another go.
He stuffs up, even worse this time, letting in
The other mob who cheer on Three to have a go.
Incredibly, Three stuffs up even quicker!
Many in his mob regret giving him a go,
Try to knock him off; don’t quite make it, but spawn
A sense the mob may yet give nameless Four a go.
Meantime, Senate becomes a kiddies’ playground,
Leaving ‘careful policy’ with nowhere to go.
The Comparative Perils of Political Leadership
2015
In democratic polities,
Some make it to stellar careers
That end mostly in spite, public
Humbling and tears – but (whatever
Their sins) they then retire in peace
With a generous State pension
And the promise of lucrative
Appointments by private concerns.
Compare the fate that may await
Top leaders in other regimes.
Recent, one died in a drain, one
At the end of a rope; others
Before, by suicide pill; and
Even more, riddled with bullets -
Though, ’tis true, most have managed to
Expire of natural causes.
Marx as Prophet
2015
Some folk still opine
‘His theory is fine,
‘It’s just that malign
‘Individuals (like
‘Stalin and Mao) chanced
‘By, and mucked things up.’
In truth, it is Marx
Who mucked up, with his
Romantic notion
That class-based violence
Would not favour thugs
Like Stalin and Mao.
Some folk still opine
‘His theory is fine,
‘It’s just that malign
‘Individuals (like
‘Stalin and Mao) chanced
‘By, and mucked things up.’
In truth, it is Marx
Who mucked up, with his
Romantic notion
That class-based violence
Would not favour thugs
Like Stalin and Mao.
The Five Golden Rules of
People Smugglers
(With Australia in Mind)
2016
First, through set-up phone talks
With fellow-nationals
(Presumed in Australia),
Sell prospective clients
Their dream of awaiting
Good wages, good living.
Second, make sure that your
Clients include women,
Preferably pregnant,
And plenty of children
(Aussies are really soft
On children and women).
Third, guarantee them that
Their boat is seaworthy;
But also guarantee
That if they strike trouble,
The soft-hearted Aussies
Will rescue and greet them.
Fourth, sell them sat-phones and
Addresses of Aussie
‘Advocates’ who will spruik
Their presence, and in need
Make their plight known even
Before the Navy’s aware.
Fifth, since they’re likely to
Be turned back (maybe drowned),
Make sure of the money.
And so collect their fares,
In hard cash, before they
Board your rickety boat.
First, through set-up phone talks
With fellow-nationals
(Presumed in Australia),
Sell prospective clients
Their dream of awaiting
Good wages, good living.
Second, make sure that your
Clients include women,
Preferably pregnant,
And plenty of children
(Aussies are really soft
On children and women).
Third, guarantee them that
Their boat is seaworthy;
But also guarantee
That if they strike trouble,
The soft-hearted Aussies
Will rescue and greet them.
Fourth, sell them sat-phones and
Addresses of Aussie
‘Advocates’ who will spruik
Their presence, and in need
Make their plight known even
Before the Navy’s aware.
Fifth, since they’re likely to
Be turned back (maybe drowned),
Make sure of the money.
And so collect their fares,
In hard cash, before they
Board your rickety boat.
Of Messes
2016
Humans, en masse, mostly mess up.
It’s the way of our precious World.
The current mess ranges from the
Agony of Aleppo through
Brexits and Trumps to the piddling
Antics of some Aussie pollies.
Parliament’s fag-end: Labor goes
Zero-sum on a stunningly
Trifling issue[1] and crashes in
Flames when the principled Greens opt
To cash in their chips[2] (while hugging
And giving rioters chocolates[3]).
And Independent Senators
(Accidentally potent) sell
Votes to a febrile government
For unrelated concessions;
And preeningly tell cameras
Of how they handled the big boys.
[1] The issue was whether the tax on the income of casual ‘backpacker’ fruit-pickers should be 10.5% or 15%: Labor insisted on 10.5.
[2] The Greens sold their votes to the government for $100 million dollars, to do with promoting the Landcare scheme.
[3] Protesters (concerned with the off-shore detention of asylum-seekers) seriously disrupted and delayed Question Time in the House of Representatives by shouting slogans from the public gallery. Some of them super-glued themselves to their position in the gallery. All of them strenuously resisted, with much screaming and shouting, attempts by security staff to remove them.
Humans, en masse, mostly mess up.
It’s the way of our precious World.
The current mess ranges from the
Agony of Aleppo through
Brexits and Trumps to the piddling
Antics of some Aussie pollies.
Parliament’s fag-end: Labor goes
Zero-sum on a stunningly
Trifling issue[1] and crashes in
Flames when the principled Greens opt
To cash in their chips[2] (while hugging
And giving rioters chocolates[3]).
And Independent Senators
(Accidentally potent) sell
Votes to a febrile government
For unrelated concessions;
And preeningly tell cameras
Of how they handled the big boys.
[1] The issue was whether the tax on the income of casual ‘backpacker’ fruit-pickers should be 10.5% or 15%: Labor insisted on 10.5.
[2] The Greens sold their votes to the government for $100 million dollars, to do with promoting the Landcare scheme.
[3] Protesters (concerned with the off-shore detention of asylum-seekers) seriously disrupted and delayed Question Time in the House of Representatives by shouting slogans from the public gallery. Some of them super-glued themselves to their position in the gallery. All of them strenuously resisted, with much screaming and shouting, attempts by security staff to remove them.
Our Wacky Politics, Part II[1]
(December 2007 - December 2016)
(December 2007 - December 2016)
2017
Now, four Prime Ministers lined up in a row.
One stuffs up; his mob knock him off, give Two a go.
Two stuffs up as well, so they knock her off, and
Give sneaky One (sounds crazy, eh?) another go.
He stuffs up, even worse this time, letting in
T’other mob, who put up Three to have a go.
Amazingly, Three stuffs up almost quicker!
Slip-ups multiply and polls go southern low:
Most of his mob regret giving him a go,
So they knock him off, give urbane Four a go.
But soon Four seems like to stuff up quicker still
(Thinks a snap election is the way to go)!
For on the stump, he proves so short of punch and
Light of bark that his mob’s hoped-for ‘lift and go’
Quails before the Opp’s mendacious Mediscare.
But somehow, he squeaks back, gets another go.
Meantime, Senate becomes more motley still; and
‘Careful policy’ still has nowhere to go.
[1] For Part I, see above
In the days when pompous Charlie
Larked around and sparkling Di rocked
The royal boat, ’twas widely thought
They’d not long outlast old Liz who
(Without much help from Phil and Meg).
Kept their flag flying pretty well.
But now Di’s boys have turned the tide.
First, Willie spurned an ancient rite
And chose a commoner for his
Ducal marriage bed: it helped that
She was pretty and soon produced
A clutch of chubby royal heirs.
Then Harry boldly went for broke
By marrying his known partner,
A black-American[1] actress
(Divorced and feminist to boot),
In a nuptial event that
Won the hearts of TV millions.
For this High Anglican wedding,
With all traditional trappings,
Made modish room for a fiery
Black-American preacher and
A group of black gospel singers.
Republicans can only sob.
Now, four Prime Ministers lined up in a row.
One stuffs up; his mob knock him off, give Two a go.
Two stuffs up as well, so they knock her off, and
Give sneaky One (sounds crazy, eh?) another go.
He stuffs up, even worse this time, letting in
T’other mob, who put up Three to have a go.
Amazingly, Three stuffs up almost quicker!
Slip-ups multiply and polls go southern low:
Most of his mob regret giving him a go,
So they knock him off, give urbane Four a go.
But soon Four seems like to stuff up quicker still
(Thinks a snap election is the way to go)!
For on the stump, he proves so short of punch and
Light of bark that his mob’s hoped-for ‘lift and go’
Quails before the Opp’s mendacious Mediscare.
But somehow, he squeaks back, gets another go.
Meantime, Senate becomes more motley still; and
‘Careful policy’ still has nowhere to go.
[1] For Part I, see above
The Date of Australia Day
2017
It’s such a silly thing to fight about
In a land (with all its past and present
Faults and failures) that is one of very
Few to which desperate millions in this
Deeply troubled world look with yearning hearts.
It’s such a silly thing to fight about
In a land (with all its past and present
Faults and failures) that is one of very
Few to which desperate millions in this
Deeply troubled world look with yearning hearts.
You’ve Gotta Hand it to the Windsors
2018
2018
In the days when pompous Charlie
Larked around and sparkling Di rocked
The royal boat, ’twas widely thought
They’d not long outlast old Liz who
(Without much help from Phil and Meg).
Kept their flag flying pretty well.
But now Di’s boys have turned the tide.
First, Willie spurned an ancient rite
And chose a commoner for his
Ducal marriage bed: it helped that
She was pretty and soon produced
A clutch of chubby royal heirs.
Then Harry boldly went for broke
By marrying his known partner,
A black-American[1] actress
(Divorced and feminist to boot),
In a nuptial event that
Won the hearts of TV millions.
For this High Anglican wedding,
With all traditional trappings,
Made modish room for a fiery
Black-American preacher and
A group of black gospel singers.
Republicans can only sob.
[1] The press generally preferred ‘mixed-race’ or ‘bi-racial’ to ‘black’.
Our Wacky Politics: Part III
(Dec 2007– Aug 2018)
2018
(Dec 2007– Aug 2018)
2018
Five Prime Ministers now lined up in a row!
One[1] stuffs up; his mob knock him off, give Two[2] a go.
Two stuffs up as well, so they knock her off, and
Give sneaky One (sounds crazy, eh?) another go.
He stuffs up, even worse this time, letting in
T’other mob, who put up Three[3] to have a go.
Amazingly, Three stuffs up almost quicker!
Slip-ups multiply and polls go southern low:
Most of his mob regret giving him a go,
So they knock him off, give urbane Four[4] a go.
But soon he seems like to stuff up quicker still
(Thinks a snap election is the way to go)!
For on the stump, he proves so short of punch and
Light of bark that his mob’s hoped-for ‘lift and go’
Quails before the Opp’s mendacious Mediscare.
But somehow, he squeaks back, gets another go.
Meantime, Senate becomes more motley still; and
‘Careful policy’ still has nowhere to go.
Four then stumble-bumbles on (for just about
As long as One had managed on his first go)
Under constant fire from revengeful Three, from
Senate cross-benchers drenched in aimless ego,
From polls saying that the other mob’s the go
And from some weird decisions that were all his own.
In his mob the feeling builds that he should go;
And though he slyly weaves to dodge the bullet,
Eventually he gets the old heave-ho,
Is replaced by loyal Five[5] (known as ‘ScoMo’) -
And then, in a final churlish cheerio
To the mob, dumps his seat, skips off to New York!
[1] Kevin Rudd
[2] Julia Gillard
[3] Tony Abbott
[4] Malcolm Turnbull
[5] Scott Morrison
Some Respect
Oh, the humiliation!
Suddenly you’re tipped from
The land’s highest office
By your party colleagues:
A late test for four PMs.
Sneaky Kev, went quiet
When tapped, but afterwards
Snarled and scratched without halt.
Swaggering Tone promised
No ‘sniping’, but then sniped
With dogged persistence.
Malevolent Mal chose
Blatant sabotage
Of his party’s prospects.
Only gender-card Jules
Maintained her dignity.
Mind you, she could be sure
Her successor would soon
Lose a public election!
The Immaculate Killing of
Qassem Soleimani
2020
The flawless intelligence on
Location, the precision of
The strike on a speeding target;
No collateral damage and
Not an American in sight!
An extraordinary
Contrast to those messy, lower-
Level assassinations linked
Recently to a Putin, a
Kim Jong-un and a bin Salman.
Trump’s display of America’s
Capacity and, above all,
Readiness to assassinate
The loftiest adds a brand-new
Element to calculations.
Feeble military responses
Imply a new caution: could it
Be that peril has just become
Personal, and ayatollahs
Are looking over their shoulder?
2019
Oh, the humiliation!
Suddenly you’re tipped from
The land’s highest office
By your party colleagues:
A late test for four PMs.
Sneaky Kev, went quiet
When tapped, but afterwards
Snarled and scratched without halt.
Swaggering Tone promised
No ‘sniping’, but then sniped
With dogged persistence.
Malevolent Mal chose
Blatant sabotage
Of his party’s prospects.
Only gender-card Jules
Maintained her dignity.
Mind you, she could be sure
Her successor would soon
Lose a public election!
Hong Kong
June 2019
One million people
Take peacefully to
The streets in tacit
Celebration of
Their colonial past!
June 2019
One million people
Take peacefully to
The streets in tacit
Celebration of
Their colonial past!
The Immaculate Killing of
Qassem Soleimani
2020
The flawless intelligence on
Location, the precision of
The strike on a speeding target;
No collateral damage and
Not an American in sight!
An extraordinary
Contrast to those messy, lower-
Level assassinations linked
Recently to a Putin, a
Kim Jong-un and a bin Salman.
Trump’s display of America’s
Capacity and, above all,
Readiness to assassinate
The loftiest adds a brand-new
Element to calculations.
Feeble military responses
Imply a new caution: could it
Be that peril has just become
Personal, and ayatollahs
Are looking over their shoulder?
A Feature of Covid-19 Stuff-ups
2020
After the deaths and the ruin,
Oh, how they dart, run for cover,
Saying the blame is another’s
Until inquiries reveal their
Own negligence, incompetence.
Then out pour the apologies,
The sympathy for sufferers.
But however ‘inexcusable’
The errors, nary a head rolls -
Either voluntary or coerced.
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