On A Friday: Everything must go!

The phrase “selling out” has been taken more literally than usual by one Liberal National Party critic, who has decided to sell the party to the highest bidder on the behalf of the party administration.

Being auctioned under “religious products” on the online trading website eBay Australia is one “Liberal National Party”.

The unusual item is listed as “Used” by eBay seller “ilforddave”, with a more in-depth description of its condition reading as follows:

“The Liberal National is an old favourite but suffered an accident when it fell into a black hole and now needs complete restoration..
It has always run smoothly but has recently tended to lose control and veer to the right.
Fully restored it could provide a valuable resource for your home or mine.
The original policy manual has been mislaid, but currently the Liberal National Party has no polices in place to restrict an immediate take over.
Willing to sell to foreign buyer.
LOW starting price but hope to reach $73,000,000,000”

You can check out the listing and bid on this once-in-a-lifetime party take-over opportunity by clicking here. If the item has sold or been removed by eBay officials, you can click on the image below to view a screenshot of the sale.

Maybe Malcolm Turnbull will use his immense personal wealth to bid in this auction so he can again be leader of the presently cash-strapped party? With bidding thus far totalling just $1.29 from three bidders, he might get the party for a song!

It’s a safe bet too; ilforddave has 100% positive feedback for 125 transactions!

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UPDATE: The seller has added the following information:

“I have been asked about bids from RupertbearM.  All I can say is that he has asked that he be allowed to be allowed to merge Foxtel with Austar as part of his bid and that part of the ABC be added to the package.”

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(Full link to listing: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Liberal-National-Party-/180710335706?pt=AU_PinsBadgesPatches&hash=item2a132ce4da#ht_500wt_1156)

On A Friday: The Science of Opinion

It’s a strange time that we live in. Not since 1975 has the Australian public formed a strong political opinion en-masse (with the possible exception of the referendum debate), yet now Cletus has his head out of the window yelling “Ma, it’s happening again!”

It is odd - most people in the country actually seem to have an opinion, or something closely resembling an opinion, about the carbon tax. It’s one topic which you can bring up with strangers on the street and hear in their response an opinion which was obviously formed before your conversation. Depending on your views, you might even get a nice run down the street with your new best friend too.

How set and how ill-informed people’s opinions are varies greatly, but that’s not the key thing to take away from this. The really weird thing is that this issue is not about football, it is not about MasterChef – it is about politics!

It is remarkable how much of a fuss this re-ordering of the tax system has caused. It has occurred to me that yearly alterations to government budgets have done more to effect household bottom lines than this tax is set to do. Indeed, a household earning $110, 000 per year would only have to pay about $10 per week with a carbon price in place; and in most cases you can end up with a huge tax break if you switch to the untaxed renewable energy sources.

Although being ranked as the second least trustworthy group of professionals in a poll of 1000 Reader’s Digest readers this year, people seem to be taking up arms on this issue after listening to, you got it, politicians.

What’s more, this “debate” is all just political rhetoric – something that I thought the Australian public was supposed to have an aversion to. Rhetoric-ridden speeches by Tony Abbott question the quality of our climatologists, our ecologists, our economists and probably even our biologists, archaeologists, zoologists and gynaecologists. At the same time, Julia Gillard levels anti-Abbott rhetoric at the nation.

This completely throws to the wind the importance of scientific research and instead makes this a debate about “who lied about what” and “which multi-millionaire should have to pay 5c extra for a hotdog.” The science is occasionally taken along for the ride.

Indeed yesterday one politician, Malcolm Turnbull, revealed that he had been receiving persistent abusive text messages from one individual about his stance on climate change; this is not in line with political debate or scientific research.

But if all this tax talk is taking its toll on you, you might want to sit back and watch the video below. The sentiment can be appreciated by everyone of every opinion and political persuasion, and even by those managing to hold no opinion.

I’m not sure if it was Terry Gilliam who was responsible for the animations. A large part of me hopes that it wasn’t.

Or maybe that song is too scientific for some people?

But oh, if only the sun were the direct source of all our power - then there’d be no need for a debate at all.

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©2011 William Kulich.

News: Turnbull Announces He Will Not Contest Next Election

Former Liberal Party leader and Howard Government Minister Malcolm Turnbull has today announced that he will not be contesting the seat of Wentworth in this year’s federal election.

In an email to subscribers to his website today Mr. Turnbull thanked his constituents, family, personal staff and supportive party colleagues for their support during his five and a half years in parliament.

The decision was not taken lightly by Mr. Turnbull, who had been considering his future in parliament since he lost the leadership of the Liberal party in a spill to present leader Tony Abbott last year. In the email Turnbull said that after he lost the leadership he had resolved to not cause a by-election by resigning from parliament. Turnbull will continue to represent Wentworth until parliament is dissolved for the next election.

Mr. Turnbull mentioned that a highlight of his two terms in parliament was during his time as Environment and Water Minister in the Howard Government. In this position he brought about the federalisation of the Murray Darling System’s water management. He also expressed his disappointment in the Liberal Party’s opposition to a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme which had been a policy whilst he was Environment minister.

Mr. Turnbull said that he is “looking forward” to “pursuing new opportunities in the private sector” with his wife, Lucy, and wishes Liberal Party leaders Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop “every success in this election year.”

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An apology to readers: technical issues delayed the publication of this article by two hours.