Mungo MacCallum (Dec'd)

Recent articles by Mungo MacCallum (Dec'd)

Morrison fakes authenticity

The French playwright Jean Giradoux once said something to this effect: If you can fake sincerity, youve got it made.

Morrison's foreign adventures

The past, they say, is a foreign country which is just the way Scott Morrison likes it.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison shows he is no Einstein

Scott Morrison is ploughing on regardless, business as usual. There is no need to change direction rather the imperative is to go on pretty much what we are doing, but more aggressively.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Welcome to the hung parliament.

Welcome to the hung parliament. A disaster, according to our PR obsessed prime minister instability and chaos, But for ordinary Australians it might not be so bad.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Welcome to chaos.

Emergency warning: off the streets, go to the storm shelters immediately, It is too late to flee save yourselves as best you can.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. A fairy story.

It started as theatre of the absurd, but by the end of the week it had become an increasingly improbable fairy story.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison channels Joh Bjelke-Petersen

We are now more than six weeks into the ScoMo regime, but most of us and that includes some of our most recent Prime Ministers close colleagues as well as a tentative opposition are still trying to figure out just who the man really is trying to be.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. ScoMo , public relations, marketing and billboards

They say that if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And perhaps if the only life experience you have is in PR, everything looks like a billboard.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison actually does something.

Sound the trumpets, fire the cannons, stop the presses Scott Morrisons fledgling government has actually managed a result.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Government sees no mental disease on Nauru.

Scott Morrison has announced that the productivity Commission is to inquire and report on how mental disease affects the Australian economy.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull's cronies.

Thats what happens when you make a captains pick, choose your mates to fill important jobs because well, basically because they are your mates.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison does not get it.

His thought bubble about inaugurating a public holiday well, perhaps not a holiday, but something or other to celebrate indigenous Australia is about to be shoveled into the back drawer. Thats the one where the former Treasurer keeps his cast offs the GST increase, the limitations on negative gearing, and of course the great corporate tax cut.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison is thinking about retirement villages.

Under normal circumstances Australians do not spend much time thinking about aged care facilities.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison and the Muppet Show

In hindsight, it wasnt Scott Morrisons brightest move to describe his colleagues as the Muppet Show.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. ScoMo, ProMo, Status QuoMo

We still dont know just who or what the new Prime Minister is, but he is determined to tell us whether we like it or not. Our manic leader is seldom lost for words and this is just as well as he appears chronically short of ideas.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull lets fly.

Unlike Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull did not hang around in parliament, which must be a major relief for Scott Morrison one baleful ex-prime minister glowering from the backbench is more than enough.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Appealing to Menzies and religion - worth a try

When the world falls apart, when all those carefully plans collapse in smouldering ruins, when the present seems desolate and the future seems hopeless, there is only one recourse: invoke the ghost of Robert Menzies.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Duttons double standards.

Powerful and sensitive weapons need to be handled with extreme care if they are not to harm the user as well as the intended victim. Ministerial intervention is a powerful and sensitive weapon.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. A ministry top-heavy with lightweights.

So this is what Scott Morrison calls his new generation of leadership. It consists mainly of retreads from the previous ministry, with the absence of one of the very few the voters actually liked Julie Bishop and the resurrection of some we had thought we were well rid of.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Tony Abbott from back bench rebel to back bench envoy.

Our new, or at least our current, Prime Minister, has a plan to solve the Tony Abbott problem make him an envoy to his indigenous Australia. Of course he would prefer to make the man an envoy to outer space, if not beyond; but politics remains the art of the possible. So the idea is to try and get him as far out of sight as is practicable, and hope that he shuts up in the process.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Tony Abbott - from a back bench rebel to a back bench envoy.

Our new, or at least our current, Prime Minister, has a plan to solve the Tony Abbott problem make him an envoy to his indigenous Australia. Of course he would prefer to make the man an envoy to outer space, if not beyond; but politics remains the art of the possible. So the idea is to try and get him as far out of sight as is practicable, and hope that he shuts up in the process.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Morrison is, and has always been, a creature of the right, both economically and socially.

A bandaid has been administered to the schism between moderates and rightists but the war will go on unabated.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Abbott will find another patsy in his endless search for revenge.

In the end, a vestige of sanity prevailed. The Liberal lemmings baulked on the brink and decided the final step into the chasm of a Peter Dutton prime ministership was just too crazy, and drew back. At least a bare majority of them did; they were happy to lurch well to the right, but not to launch themselves into the abyss.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull running out of energy.

Neg can be an abbreviation of either negative or negligible, both terms the vociferous critics from left and right have used to denigrate Malcolm Turnbulls masterwork in progress.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Peter Dutton wants to rule the nation.

If Peter Dutton was to be arraigned before an international tribunal for serial abuse of human rights I would cheer. If the charges were upgraded to crimes against humanity I would regard it as a fair cop.But if the court in its wisdom imposed a death sentence I would protest in the streets. My opposition to capital punishment is absolute and unequivocal.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. A prime minister progressively shriller and less coherent.

Well, what was all that about?After nearly three months of unremitting angst, barely restrained hysteria and several shitloads of money, we are precisely back to where we started.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Hywood was the very model of a modern chief executive.

It would not be fair to blame Greg Hywood alone for the destruction of the Fairfax brand.The rot set in a long time ago, arguably some 30 years before when young Warwick Fairfax decided on his own disastrous takeover bid for the company.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Interminable campaign comes to climax

At last the fateful day is looming the interminable campaign for the five by elections no-one wanted (except, of course, the media) is finally coming to a climax.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Trump, the Queen and Putin.

It could have been worse. Donald Trump did not try and grab Queen Elizabeth by the pussy at least as far as we know. But no doubt his critics would say that was only because he was so preoccupied with kissing Vladimir Putins arse.

MUNGO MACCALUM. ACCC Report ignites squabbling.

Just when you might have thought you were getting a grip on the tin full of worms masquerading as the governments energy policy, along comes yet another authoritative report.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Three Stooges ride again.

Our older readers the really old ones may remember The Three Stooges, Larry, Curly and Moe.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Tax - something will turn up.

Scott Morrison has inched forward to another interminable episode of tweaking the tax. This time its the scales of the returns the states get from the commonwealths GST, but, as always, do not hold your breath.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Libertarians.

I have never personally met Sarah Hanson-Young, and I know absolutely nothing about her sex life.And the same applies to David Leyonhjelm, in spades. But I do have some acquaintances with Libertarians, and have not always liked what I have seen.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Shorten delivers a shock.

Bill Shortens decision last week was a real shock but it was the second decision, not the first, that was the surprising one.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Abuse of and in parliament.

For even the most masochistic of political tragics, parliamentary question time can be wearing.A constant screaming match of ever more virulent abuse and insult, it sounds (and sometimes looks) less like a part of the democratic legislative process and more like the final of the big swinging dicks competition, open to all members regardless of allegiance or even gender.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull goes aspirational

John Howard announced that he was running on incentivation a word that even his colleagues could not comprehend; they thought they were hearing things.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. They dont hate us for what we do, but for who we are.

The Liberals and their allies have always favoured the private over the public, whether in hospitals, health, schools and broadcasting. The Liberal Council decision to privatise the ABC was neither new nor surprising. It was just more honest than the (private) musings of their parliamentary peers, most of whom would do it like a shot if they thought they could get away with it.

MUNGO MACALLUM. An apology to the victims of sexual abuse

Malcolm Turnbull has always regarded John Howard as some sort of political mentor. But Howard refused to apologise to the stolen generation

MUNGO MacCALLUM. America's frightened allies.

Donald Trump has spent the last three years scaring the crap out of his allies, but suddenly it has become serious.His predilection for ruthless dictators, traditionally anathema to America and its allies, has now got to the point where those same allies are disposable.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Wishful thinking.

It may be sheer fantasy, wishful thinking. But in the last week the torpor of politics appeared to lift a little; there were signs that progress might not be stalled forever in the coalition party room in Canberra. Not that anything much has changed within the gaffe-prone cabinet of Malcolm Turnbull at least not yet. But perhaps the exit of the reactionary influence of Barnaby Joyce as deputy prime minister is providing a glimmer of hope for the handful of rational optimists who have been frustrated for so long by Turnbulls capitulation to Joyce and his rightist rump.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. The end of Western Civilisation!

It was, declared The Australians resident theologian Greg Sheridan, a pivotal moment in modern Australian history. Well, modern Australian history begins with white settlement. So was Pope Greg referring to the arrival of the first fleet, perhaps? The end of transportation? The celebration of federation? The landing at Gallipoli? The victory in the Coral Sea? No, none of the above something far more important: the ANUs rejection of the proposed Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. According to Sheridan, the universitys decision means that Western Civilisation itself is now imperilled.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. One Nation and the fabled Enterprise Tax Plan

Like the leaves of a diseased and dying tree, the One Nation senators continue to fall.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Barnaby Joyce slapstick soap opera.

We have had enough of Barnaby, and it is obvious that his own colleagues have too. The sooner he retires to his fractured love nest the better.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. After all the promises, dithering, the backflips and the bullshit, the unemployment rate has not actually fallen

There can be no real doubt that the timing of the by-elections for July 28 was mean and tricky. But who was the mean trickster?

MUNGO MacCALLUM. For Hastie to drop the bomb without warning his leader was unpardonable.

Andrew Hasties use of parliamentary privilege to out the billionaire political donor Chau Chak Wing for being an unindicted (and thus uncharged) co-conspirator in the United States was always going to be controversial.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Liberals have a bloke problem.

Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison were determinedly hitting the hustings last week as they tried to persuade the sceptical that their Enterprise Tax Plan was not only viable, but is actually a good idea.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Turning a blind eye to the sheep trade.

The problem with exporting live sheep is that the practice is inherently unpleasant.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Progress taxation or a flat tax

Scott Morrisons budget has been greeted as underwhelming, which is probably the way he likes it. The goodies are unnecessarily complex -- the tax cuts arent really tax cuts, they are built in to your 2018-19 return as an offset, which means they will appear in your kick only if and when you are entitled to a net refund. No big sugar hit there.There are no real losers, apart from black marketeers, migrants, the unemployed, climate scientists, recipients of foreign aid, and the ABC, along with a basket of other deplorables who do not normally vote for the coalition, but,...

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Nicknames

Treasurer Scott Morrison got very excited last week, bouncing and bubbling all over the place.And it wasnt just because of his pretty ordinary budget: building a stronger economy may be a worthy slogan, but it is hardly inspiring. What was really turning him on was that he (or someone talking to him) had invented a new nickname for Bill Shorten: Unbelieva-Bill.

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