Mungo MacCallum (Dec'd)

Recent articles by Mungo MacCallum (Dec'd)

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Government baking pie in the sky.

Well, we made it to budget day thats the easy bit. Selling the bastard budget will be more problematic. But the Business Council of Australia is at hand.!

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull missed his chance to be his own man.

Malcolm Turnbull was properly effusive in his meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron, but there may also have been more than a touch of envy.In many ways Macron is the leader Turnbull could have been, should have been, and, one suspects in moments of introspection, would like to have been. And on all the evidence the general public would have liked it too.

MUNGO MacCALLUM.

Correlation is not causation. The scientific method instructs us that events which may often occur simultaneously or in close succession are not necessarily connected, let alone actually resulting in one another.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Government by the bankers, for the bankers, and, in Turnbull's case, of the bankers.

As Malcolm Turnbull returns, no doubt reluctantly, from the photo-ops of Europe to the harsh world of Australian politics, he is inevitably turning his mind to the oncoming conflict and the need to vaporize Bill Shorten.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison spins some fairy tales

Last week the Sydney Daily Telegraph spent a couple of days playing silly buggers with our beloved Treasurer Scott Morrison, depicting him first as Santa Claus and then as not.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Girt by Sea - Australia, the refugees and the politics of fear.

Some at least of the South Africans who have come here, and no doubt most of those Dutton is promoting, want to emigrate to get away from blacks.

MUNGO MaCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull still doesnt get it.

Malcolm Turnbull still doesn't get it. While desperately playing down the significance of his own 30th Newspoll loss on the unconvincing basis that he wished he hadnt mentioned Tony Abbotts, our leader has taken what he apparently considers the high road.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Integrating the events for the able-bodied and the disabled into the same Commonwealth Games program.

Instead of simply a celebration of perfectly presented superbeings the games have had a texture that has not been there in the past. We have seen inclusive, even human overtones that have transcended the usual pageant of brawn which can and should be admired, but seldom produces the emotion and empathy we have seen in the last week.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull manages the fallout.

So the 30th Newspoll has finally dropped, and as he waits for the mushroom cloud to dissipate, just what will Malcolm Turnbull do to manage the fallout?

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Manus - a tourist destination or a crime against humanity?

My first reaction to the report that the Australian government was planning to boost tourism in Manus Island was one of disbelief and revulsion. This was the place well, one of the placesthat successive coalition ministers gloated was hell on earth.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull howls at the moon

Malcolm Turnbull spent the last week of the current parliament howling at the moon baying about just how wonderful his corporate tax cuts would be, the remorseless logic of the laws of supply and demand, the purity of Economics 101.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Sledging on and off the field.

As what is left of Australian cricket segues from its dismal autumn into a miserable winter, there is at least a tinge of irony in the disaster. Last week, Malcolm Turnbull, still drooling with spittle and bile after another session of parliamentary question time, gave the world a homily about the evils of sledging before returning to denigrate, abuse and generally defame his political opponents, principally Bill Shorten.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. The Government hands around the silver.

The Roman Catholic Church, according to Education Minister Simon Birmingham, could be bought with a few pieces of silver.What about One Nation?

MUNGO MacCALLUM. The banks are bastards.

The banks are bastards.Every Australian knows that and has known it from birth it is fixed in our DNA. Deep in our psyche is the indelible picture of Mr Moneybags, the bloated cigar-smoking capitalist, shovelling in the loot and grinding the faces of the poor.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Batman conquered

So far so good. To the surprise of many including, one suspects, Bill Shorten himself the Batman by-election is done and dusted and it appeared that the confected furore over the great dividend imputation refund had little, if anything, to do with it.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Peter Dutton and his South African friends.

A minor set back last week for Peter Duttons unbending plan to rule the world. Not only did he put his own jackboot in a cowpat, but his chief enforcer, Commission Roman Quaedvlieg (anagram: love and quagmire) hit the wall over findings of inappropriate and misleading conduct with the employment of his girlfriend.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Tariffs and Mateship.

Yet another triumph for our indefatigable Prime Minister. Now he has saved the nation maybe the world from the scourge of The Donalds dastardly tariffs on steel and aluminium.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and those thirty Newspolls.

In just under three weeks time, unless either there is a major miracle or The Australian imposes censorship, Malcolm Turnbull will confront his 30th successive losing Newspoll.So what happens then? Actually, not much. As Christopher Pyne has pointed out with the unarguable logic of arithmetic, our Prime Minister still has the numbers. When Tony Abbott hit the same target in 2015, he did not, and there is the difference.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Adani.

Bill Shorten has finally taken a firm position on the Adani coal mine: procrastination.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Federal Hotels win in Tasmania

So Tasmania has a new government.Yes, I know the Libs are still in office at 1 Salamanca Place and Will Hodgman is still premier. But the real government, the one run by the pokie industry under the Federal Group and the Farrell family has now been confirmed as the successor of the dynasty of rent seekers who actually manage the Apple Isle.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce

Incredibly, it is being counted as a win for Malcolm Turnbull. He has got rid of his errant deputy Barnaby Joyce will retire to the backbench, just as the Prime Minister advised him to.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Holy by-election, Batman, this could be serious!

Well, that depends on where you sit. In the effective numbers in the House of Representatives, it actually wont make any difference whether Labors Ged Kearney or the Greens Alex Bhathal fills the vacancy given the voting record of the Green incumbent Adam Bandt, Malcolm Turnbull has no hope of securing an extra crossbencher on anything that matters.

Supply and demand

Our mild-mannered Prime Minister has become an uncompromising economic fundamentalist. The law of supply and demand, he proclaimed, cannot be suspended.

Warriors of the right stumble into minefield

The latest incarnation of the identity politics so despised by the elites of the right (but vigorously embraced when it suits them) is the non sequitur that what people have done previously (even generations ago) can be used as an excuse for their current transgressions.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Merchants of death

Australian government has in recent years, become debased opportunist, secretive, poll-driven, fixated on short term political gain and unwilling to engage in serious issues when (as is always) they interfere with its internal wranglings. It has been depressing and demoralising, and the public has responded by branding our parliamentarians a bunch of untrustworthy go-getters, obsessed with their own well-being rather than the public good.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The TPP was never all about the economic gains, even for the most dedicated rent seekers. The strategic planners especially in Australia, Japan and South Korea saw the original TPP as a means of locking America involved in Asia as a permanent bulwark against the dominance of China, whose government was pointedly excluded.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Do we really need an honours system?

The hard fact is that the lists which bulk up the morning papers each year are far from representative of our diverse population, and suggest that there is at least a vestige of the despised British class system still lingering at the edges of the cultural cringe.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Captain Goodvibes Turnbull and political correctness.

So even if we ignore the bunyip in the room the invasion, the stealing of the land and the children, the destruction of the culture, the systematic trampling of the many nations which once made up the continent there are copious reasons to question whether our national festival of nationalism and booze is, to use one of Turnbulls favourite words, appropriate.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Turnbull's scare campaign on negative gearing

Exclusive, scoop, shock, horror! Politicians tell porkies! In an amazing journalistic breakthrough, it can be revealed that sometimes Australias political leaders may not hold strictly to the unvarnished truth. Lengthy and painstaking research shows that there are times when they exaggerate and even mislead the public in a quest for advantage.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Downer finally puts fishnet stockings behind him.

So here we go2018, the year of delivery. Or was that 2017, or maybe 2016? No matter 2018 will be the year Malcolm Turnbulls government seizes the initiative, surging forward to cement its underrated achievements to take control of politics and the economy.

Malcolm Turnbull's new slogan has an ominous ring.

Malcolm Turnbulls New Year resolution is apparently to update his slogan jobs and growth is so 2017, and thus is ready for a rejig.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull ship still laden with barnacles

The renaissance of Malcolm Turnbulls leadership proclaimed with such jubilation by John Alexander after regaining the seat of Bennelong lasted just 24 hours.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull overhauls his hyperbole

You may have missed it in all the excitement and jubilation of the passage of same sex marriage, but last week Malcolm Turnbull announced the most significant overhaul of Australias espionage laws in decades.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Alexander wins return to obscurity

So after all that, the bomb did not drop, the world has not ended. John Alexander has been re-elected and Australias champion, Bennelongs champion, will relapse into the obscurity of the backbench whence he came.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull ran dead on SSM

Malcolm Turnbull may not have wished to appear churlish last Thursday after the final vote on the same sex marriage bill, but he had no choice: that was his job. So rather than following the parliament to embrace bipartisanship at the long and tortuous procedure, he had the obligatory swipe at Bill Shorten.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and Sam Dastyari.

There is an old science fiction story about a totalitarian state which regularly paraded dissidents before a packed arena bent on retribution and punishment.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and John Barilaro.

When the New South Wales Nationals leader John Barilaro called for Malcolm Turnbulls resignation last week, it was simple for Turnbulls federal allies to dismiss it as just another distraction just another frustrated voice howling into the empty air.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Tax cuts, religious freedom and Turnbull's other distractions

A vague and uncosted promise of tax cuts and a debate on religious freedom are Turnbulls tactics to push serious policy issues off the Parliamentary agenda, and to distract public attention from the Coalitions troubles.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Bishop's credibility leaking away.

The government of Malcolm Turnbull has now transcended mere dysfunction it has lapsed into anarchy, total chaos.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. What silent majority?

The best thing about the same sex marriage survey (apart, of course, from the entirely predictable numbers) is that it finally and conclusively disproves the myth of the silent majority the conservative fantasy that somehow, somewhere, there is a great mass of Australians who are against all progressive change but have never actually said so.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull spooked into wrong strategy

Lets cut to the chase: whatever the optimists in the ALP may imagine, there is almost no chance of Kristina Keneally beating John Alexander in the Bennelong by-election.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull acts tough while crisis brews.

So Malcolm Turnbulls big idea to end the dual citizen crisis is to ask (or perhaps tell it is not clear which) his troops, and presumably the rest of the parliament, to explain openly and concisely whether they believe they are compliant with the constitution or not.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Bizarre 'No' campaign still trying to grab the controls

Simon Birmingham and other exasperated colleagues are quite right: it is bizarre and dishonest in the extreme for those who have spent the last months - years even - implacably opposing same sex marriage to now demand the right to determine how it is to be implemented, assuming the interminable plebiscite get a majority this week.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. What is Malcolm smoking?

Taking a break between grave matters of national security and remembering the holocaust in Israel, Malcolm Turnbull said somewhat incongruously that he was having more fun than he had ever had in his life.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Real Malcolm stands up and tells First Australians to piss off

After a week of incompetence, chaos and downright embarrassment Malcolm Turnbull may have been looking for a silver lining.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Game changer.

Malcolm Turnbull crows that his National Energy Guarantee is a game changer and so it is, but that doesnt mean much. The energy game has been changing for well over the last decade, and in all likelihood will go on changing for the next ten years at least. The point, surely, is not to keep changing the game but to end it, delivering certainty, price stability, and above all political success.

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and Daniel Andrews.

The success of Victorias Labor government in passing its Assisted Dying legislation through the lower house is surely an object lesson in how to handle a sensitive and contentious subject.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Bravura performance from Tony Abbott as stand-up comic.

Tony Abbotts bravura performance as a stand-up comic at the Flat Earthers Twilight Home Laugh In, or whatever it was called, deservedly received rave reviews the consensus was that he was a raving ratbag.

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Welcome to Malcolm's brave new world.

Malcolm Turnbull began last week with the regular ritual of re-announcing that, yet again, he had solved the gas crisis.

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