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What’s Happening Across the Ditch Today

The great Australian kelpie in action. The BFD. Photoshop by Lushington Brady.

Once again, the difference between a conspiracy theory and reality turns out to be just a matter of waiting. From vaccine passports to 15-minute cities, every time the media-political class labels something a “conspiracy theory”, you can bet good money that it’ll take a couple of months, tops, before they’re reporting the fact of it without a blush of shame.

Remember, just a few months back, when it was a “conspiracy theory” that governments were going to ban gas appliances in homes?

You got it…

Victoria will ban gas connections in new homes from next year, the state government has announced.

The government said from January 1, 2024, planning permits for new homes and residential subdivisions, including public and social housing, will only connect to all-electric networks.

All new public buildings, such as schools, hospitals, police stations and government-owned buildings, that are yet to reach a design stage must also be all-electric, effective immediately.

How long do you want to give it before they mandate that existing homes must “transition”?

No sacrifice is too much for Gaia, of course.

The not-for-profit group, Environment Victoria, has described the gas ban as a bold and necessary step […]

“Gas is a fossil fuel. Replacing gas fired homes with all electric homes means we’re on a trajectory to zero emissions,” he said.

ABC Business Australia

Only when we are eating our cold cricket meal in the dark will we have achieved the green utopia.

To pass the long, winter nights, we can use our government-allotted hour of electricity to catch up on the latest broadcasts from the Ministry of Truth.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has claimed her proposed crackdown on misinformation and disinformation would have no impact on the mainstream media.

Ms Rowland said “professional news content is specifically excluded” under plans to give the regulator the powers to fine social media giants for misinformation and content it deems “harmful”.

The laws the Albanese government are trying to ram through, would make the government an arms-length censor of anything and everything Australians might say online. The government can deny it all they want, but when a social media company faces a choice between removing content it’s been told to by a bureaucrat, or cop a fine, the distinction between whether or not the government is censoring seems a pretty fine one.

Ms Rowland said the proposal, which is open for public consultation, would not give the regulator any power to remove content or order the removal of content.

The Australian

No wonder the government are so keen to exempt themselves from their own “misinformation” laws, when they’re telling porkies like this.

And when they’re specifically exempting the second-biggest liars after government, the media, then it’s painfully obvious that these laws are not about “preventing harm” at all — only about protecting the narrative.

Speaking of narratives: Anthony Albanese is busily trying to hose down one of his own. After threatening a double dissolution election, he’s suddenly trying to pretend it was never a serious threat at all.

The Prime Minister is set to reintroduce the Housing Australia Future Fund bill back into parliament this week, a proposal being blocked by the Coalition and the Greens, who are demanding a coordinated nationwide rent freeze.

If the legislation is rejected again, that would give Albanese a trigger to dissolve both houses of parliament and call an early election. Something he threatened to do, last week.

But the widespread reaction of “bring it on!” seems to have given Albo cold feet.

Anthony Albanese says he’d “rather not” have to pull the trigger on a double dissolution election as he called the Greens’ calls for a national effort on rent “frankly absurd”.

The Australian

Best not to make political threats, if you’re not prepared to carry them through.

Finally, just to prove that there’s no show without a desperately attention-seeking Punch, a week in Australian politics just can’t go by without a fresh absurdity from Brittany Higgins.

Brittany Higgins told prospective employers at a First Nations branch of government that she identifies as an indigenous Australian, according to texts with her best friend.

This little-known fact about Ms Higgins was revealed during a conversation with Emma Webster on February 10, 2021, about her forthcoming job as a media advisor for the First People’s Assembly of Victoria.

This is, remember, the woman who told a compensation hearing that she’d be unable to work for the next forty years, due to the trauma of being caught out trying to weaponise dodgy rape allegations in order to attack a conservative government — oh, and sign a five-figure book deal. The same woman who’s just taken a high-power job at the UN.

Ms Webster was The Assembly’s head of communications and strategic advisor at the time, and was trying to fast-track Ms Higgins’ application so she could secure a position before it was publicly advertised.

Daily Mail Australia

In Aboriginal circles, they call such people “box-tickers”: people with an exceedingly tenuous or non-existent connection to Aboriginal culture, who gin up a distant ancestor they just totally reckon was 1/16th Aborigine, in order to tick the “Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander” box on official forms. It’s a lucrative ticket to everything from “Indigenous” grants, welfare, employment and awards, to charging a few grand a pop to ponce about in a possum-skin cloak ahead of the local little league grand final.

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