A Hundred Million Years from Now
Normally arid Western NSW as you will rarely see it.
Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government, 1768.
The humans cared so much about so little.
In a hundred million years it would mean very little indeed.
As if this was the first time this had happened.
In this instance, we were skipping across centuries, not millennia, and none of the longer timespans.
Ignorance is bliss.
They gathered to protect each other.
There was an instance; a reward; a flake of snow. There was a change of administration in a country called Australia. Not the chosen one, simply a transmitter, he heard the message: "Much of the work is already done."
But there was much to do; and he was disoriented, or reluctant, imperilled; really just reluctant, distrusting. There was no affection, there was duty. These things, these creatures, these moments of consciousness; while the Teals, as the wealthy women candidates trumpeting climate change were called; as if anything they did was anything more than tokenism.
"We're between two ice ages, it's all going to look rather stupid under 60 feet of ice," he used to say, in an adopted, old, cynical self. Now he just sighed; at all the progressives trumpeting the same message as the billionaires of Davos, who had all worked out how to make money out of renewables and the climate change cult; and to make the proles pay for it.
They were good at that.
Vaccinate the world.
Make us not just billions, but tens of billions; make us, too, into gods.
It would all fail, as hubris always fails. And who were these idiots to decide who lived and died, which humans would prosper and which would not, who would thrive and who would not; their brief moments of fame, their brief adulation, so in the end the same thing astonished him as had astonished him before: How little they cared for each other.
He stood in queues or said hello to the few he knew. He missed the city. The area was quiet, miasmic.
And that same wish kept coming back that he had had as a child: to understand everything.
The ectoplasmic nature of the spiritual response; the ancient feel of these places; even when he was trapped, if you will, on a suburban block, the trees cleared, the native animals, the scattering of humans who had travelled up this long valley long ago. All of it.
The trees had been cleared. The garden not yet established. The house, at less than half a century, already old.
The Year of Wonders resonated for the simple brutality, struggle of it all. The clear grasp of the awful.
Sometimes, somewhere.... They swooped, they monitored, they mustered resources.
And read with horror the creed of the Bill Gates owned, or at least controlled, World Health Organisation: "It is imperative that leaders seize this opportunity to mobilize the funding and political will required to achieve global targets for COVID-19 vaccination coverage, testing rates and access to treatments, including oral antivirals and oxygen. Achieving these targets is essential to ending the pandemic, by reducing transmission and protecting everyone from the harms of COVID-19."
They weren't the only ones to have suffered reputational damage during this benighted, cursed era; politicians, health professionals, media personnel, all were held in increasing contempt by a wearied and disbelieving, increasingly so in any case, population.
Where it would end?
In disgrace and ruin.
And far above, in a realm beyond their realm, barely a ripple in a vast sky.
But in the here and now, we would skip across centuries, we would bring the message of this time to another, equally stricken time.
While the country breathed a sigh of relief at the back of Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister, the "leader", who had done more harm to the country than any other Prime Minister in its history.
And more of it will be revealed; none of it the nirvana the Teals had whipped up frenzy to believe in; none of it this paradise they sought; none of it the social justice they chanted as genuine belief while at the same time holding their fellows in contempt.
Who are you to decide? Who are you to make these decisions? Who are you to lie so voraciously, for money, for fame, for glory, for power, for the ability to manipulate millions, billions?
Who are you?
Not who you think you are.
Not a shred of nobility in any of it. Nary a shred of honour.
Truth sayers beware.
MAINSTREAM AUSTRALIAN MEDIA
MICHAEL WEST MEDIA
The great conservative undead: don’t write off Dutton
Anthony Albanese will enjoy a deserved honeymoon and the crossbench will revel in the adulation that a political novelty attracts. But we can never underestimate the capacity of conservative forces to regroup, writes Mark Sawyer.
Grab the smelling salts, or a very big whisky. The idea that the conservatives can’t come back from here, and quicker than anyone thinks, is wrong, wrong, wrong.
And every time they come back, it’s in a more conservative guise than before. The timeline looks like this: Fraser, Howard, Abbott. Peter Dutton’s name is mud in progressive Australia, but it would be crazy to say he could never become prime minister.
Yes, the Morrison government has been smashed. Specifically, the Liberals. But the Coalition will hold at least 58 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives. That’s already more than Labor won on its way into opposition in 2013 and 1996, and Labor was competitive at the follow-up elections. More than that, only a few thousand more votes in a few seats would have brought Labor back into government after only one term in opposition.
The gossamer thread that the election result has woven around the nation: the rise of the boy from public housing, the influx of independent women, could fray sooner than we think, and from within.
THE GUARDIAN
The first chart shows the percentage of primary votes going to Labor and the Coalition in every election since 1949, with the most recent count from the 2022 election added at the end.
This shows the 2022 election result, with voters looking elsewhere besides the two major parties, is just the latest in a long-running trend:
In 1951, almost 98% of votes went to the two major parties. In the election just held, this number is currently down to an all-time low of 68.5%. This might change slightly as further results are counted, but it’s unlikely to shift too much.
THE NEW DAILY
New Zealand and the US state of California have signed a pledge to help fight climate change by sharing ideas and best practices, including how to put millions more electric vehicles on the road.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and California’s Governor Gavin Newsom spoke about the agreement at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
The agreement does not commit either government to specific policies but outlines broad areas for co-operation.
“We have a natural connection and I’m so pleased we’ve put pen to paper today to confirm that and continue our co-operation on one of the great challenges of our generation,” Ardern said.
Cars, trucks and other parts of the transport sector are California’s biggest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, and New Zealand’s second-largest behind agriculture, Ardern said.
California is moving to ban sales of new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. New Zealand wants 30 per cent of all car sales to be electric by that year.
SKY NEWS
Former prime minister Scott Morrison has been booed by the crowd at an AFL match in Sydney just days after he lost the election.
Mr Morrison was sitting among friends at the Sydney Cricket Ground to watch the Sydney Swans play Richmond when the camera spotted the former prime minister.
As he was shown on the big screen boos rang out around the 31,000 strong crowd.
“Scott Morrison in the house,geeze,” commentator James Brayshaw said.
“Frosty reception,” replied commentator Daisy Pearce.
One fan seated in front of the former prime minister appeared to show his middle finger and punch the air as he appeared on screen.
Unfazed by the reception the former leader seemed to see the funny side as he smiled and waved amid the jeers.
+++
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has confirmed the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs is looking into whether the previous government instructed the Australian Border Force to publicly announce the interception of a boat of asylum seekers.
In the middle of election day on Saturday, the Morrison government announced the vessel carrying 15 people from Sri Lanka had been intercepted by the Australian Border Force.
The details were then used in a Liberal Party text to encourage Australians to vote for the Coalition to “keep our borders secure”.
Mr Marles on Friday said if the reports are indeed correct, it represents the final “desperate acts” of a dying government.
“In the last few hours of the Morrison government, what we have seen revealed is the true character of the Liberal Party because what's completely clear is that the Liberal Party does not care about the national interest,” Mr Marles told reporters in Melbourne.
“It only had regard for their political interests. In this press release and in the texts that followed, we saw our borders become less secure.
“We saw lives risked. We saw the national consensus around border security undermined.
“And what's completely clear is that when it comes to the national interests, the Liberal Party just does not give a damn.”