Yet the abyss beckons according to Clubs Australia executive director Anthony Ball …

… said the undertaking to implement a mandatory pre-commitment system for all poker machines across Australia as well as to limit ATM cash withdrawals to just $250 a day were completely untested.

He said the measures would close rural clubs, cost jobs, inconvenience recreational gamblers and club users, and do nothing to alleviate problem gambling.

“Julia Gillard wrote to Clubs Australia and committed herself to consultation in developing gambling policy.

“That commitment has been broken. We won’t just take that sitting down.”

Oh, really? Well, la-di-da.

Does Ball truly think anyone’s going to swallow that scenario?

Does he really think that he’s going to be able to persuade the remaining three independents, all of whom have strong, personal connections to their country electorates and have very probably heard the experiences of problem gamblers firsthand, that “inconveniencing recreational gamblers” to ATM withdrawals of $250 a day at their local club or pub will signal the beginning of the end of the industry or the devastation of their local communities?

I would suggest people who are gambling two hundred fifty bucks a day are not quite in the category of “recreational gamblers”, would you think?

And if they can’t get more cash from the ATM at their pub or club, they’re probably just going to wander off down the street to the one at the fucking bank on the corner.

I have no moral objections to poker machines, or judgements to cast on those who play them. I’ve played the things, though not to any significant extent I must admit, and certainly for no significant amount of money, a few coins now and then, or a five buck note if I’m feeling audacious. I find them almost unbearably tedious after about five minutes, as there’s nothing one is required to do beyond pressing a button and watching some fucking wheels spin round until you get heartily congratulated for winning a “top result” of fifty fucking cents, and I would drop to my knees invoking the one billion names of God in thanks if my local pub would just put a couple P!I!N!B!A!L!L! M!A!C!H!I!N!E!S in the damn room to liven it up some.

But Ball may as well eat his own arse with a one-tined fork from a circus trapeze if he thinks his industry’s lobbying efforts are going to cut it the same type of sweet ‘n’ easy deals with these independents that it gets from the major party players.

For we have heard these “major party players” for years now, gibber on about the need to address “problem gambling”, to address the yadda, yadda, yadda of this and the yadda, yadda, yadda of that, and invariably all they manage to come up with is just another fucking sticker on a fucking machine, or just another fucking poster on a wall divider, or just another fucking “helpline”, or just another fucking website, or some fucking conference, and all of it, every word spoke, every word written, is little more than lip-service paid to the ether from soft-bellied, mouth-breathing arseclowns grown fat on the proceeds of human misery who think the “collateral damage” done by gambling is but an inconvenience akin to a fart in a confessional compared to the great, greasy fistfuls of shiny, shiny coin to be had …

… All the better to use for the announcement of yet another brand new rail-link or some other such fantastic imagining, I suppose …

No, I very much doubt these independents are going to be swayed by a “lobby group” like Clubs Australia to their cause, as the cause simply amounts to, “We demand the right to exploit human frailties and weaknesses to the fullest extent we can in return for a buck.”, and I don’t think those being lobbied share much in common with the likes of Joe Tripodi or Eddie Obeid or any of the other reptilian party hacks from the dank backrooms of Sussex Street, do you think?.

The independents are the lobby group now, and the lobby group that matters it would seem, the lobby group that gets to call all the shots it damn well likes, and if one of the shots they’re calling is for measures to be taken to regulate poker machine gambling in such a way that it may help reduce some of the problems caused, I think it’s a shot long overdue to be fired.

And if they manage to get that up and running, then all power to ‘em.

On Twitter — the barometer of all things everything — he was lampooned mercilessly on election night right from the moment it became apparent he was going to get over the line in Longman. Then came a backlash of sorts, with some commentators suggesting it’s not kosher for political wonks to whinge about how kids don’t give a toss about politics, only to sling shit at one as soon as he shows the ultimate interest and gets into the thick of it.

The finger-waggers have a fair enough point, but here’s my take on it if you’ll allow me to indulge you before I get onto the more important matter of treating Roy to the Lovechild treatment.

I can understand and even sympathise with people coming to conservatism later in their lives after years of cultural and intellectual poverty, bitterness, paranoia and avarice and have taken their toll.

But it’s a scientific fact — and you can’t argue with science — that someone with the foresight to have bypassed all that moral deterioration and park himself in the Australian Liberal Party early enough to be elected to the House of Representatives by the age of 20 cannot, despite whatever decent qualities he might possess, be anything other than a complete and utter bell-end.

So there, and here, you have him — His Young Honorableness Wyatt “Top Gun” Roy:

Thanks to reader THR for the suggestion.

Yeah, I know, I promised I wouldn’t, but it’s another ACL blog post.

As some of us are probably aware, NSW is currently considering a bill to allow gay couple to adopt. Just like they already do in parts of the country.

This obviously makes Jim mad. Jim doesn’t really like teh gays, and in this video of him on Sunrise he not-so-subtly implies that allowing gay couples to adopt amounts to child abuse. Implying that gay parents would cause trauma for the child on account of not having both a mother and a father. Trauma.

“These children have already been traumatised and are wards of the state,” he laments, neglecting the fact that they are usually traumatised and wards of the state because of a heterosexual couple who weren’t very good parents. Or a heterosexual couple that didn’t want the child. So the logic that a heterosexual couple will always provide a better home for children than a gay couple is flawed to begin with.

I’m not going to dispute that it’s probably better for children to grow up in an environment with both their parents, that being, with a mother and a father. In an ideal world all children would grow up with the loving care of their mum and their dad who live together behind a white picket fence next to another loving couple and their 2 and a half children. All playing merrily together in the street. Just like the good old days that never ever existed, anywhere.

Jim Wallace uses an example of a woman whose partner had died and said she couldn’t provide the love of a father. He uses this as argument against gay adoption, but I think to follow Jim’s logic to its only logical conclusion, when a child’s mother or father dies, that child should be removed from their remaining parent and placed in the care of a loving “mother and father” because that child needs the care that only a “mother and father” can provide. Honestly, that is how ridiculous Jim Wallace’s logic seems to me.

Jim complains about “the aggressive and selfish demands of a gay rights lobby”, but Jim, these are people who want to parent. They want to provide care, love and support to a child who needs care, love and support. I suspect there is no shortage of children out there who are in need of this kind of support, so why would you deny child the right to parents just because you don’t like the way they have sex? They undergo the same parenting and relationship tests that heterosexual couples undergo before being allowed to adopt, I don’t see a problem. Not when children are being provided a loving home they might otherwise have been without.

Before the election the Coalition said its promises would add about $11.5 billion to the budget bottom line over the next four years.

But Treasury analysis given to Tony Windsor and his fellow independents Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter shows the Coalition’s promises would only add between $860 million and $4.5 billion to the bottom line.

But the opposition stands by their costings:

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb says he stands by coalition costings and says claims of a black hole relate to a difference of opinion over calculations.

“Out of 304 policies there was established at the end what I would say (was) a difference of opinion on a handful of projects,” he told ABC radio.

“It’s not an error of costings. There is a difference of opinion when you go through the projects that they had identified. We stand by our costings.”

An 11 billion dollar difference of opinion, seriously? You knew they were dodgy, that’s why you didn’t want to release them to treasury before the election. Then the parliament was hung and it all blew up in your face. You sneaky, dishonest, irresponsible swine.

How do you misplace $11 billion?

Cue a week of “treasury has a left wing bias”, “the public service has a left wing bias” and “maths has a left wing bias” in the media. Then ironically they will write a “the media has a left wing bias story” pointing to one opinion piece in The Age that will rightly tear the opposition a new one for this.

And through all of this, the ALP will fail to capitalise on this major fuck up. They just really don’t seem to be trying anymore.

Now, something a little different. Faceless Groupthink powerbroker Campbell emailed me his interpretation of ABC News 24’s Michael Rowland during the week — and since there’s no way I’d be able to top it, here it is:

See you next in Bob Katter’s Australia.

Anyone familiar with Harry Potter would be familiar with the idea Horcruxes, the dark magical objects used by Voldemort to obtain immortality. Items that store part of your soul so that you can never die. To create a Horcrux you have to split your soul and the only way to split your soul it so commit murder. In the Harry Potter universe Voldemort creates 7 Horcruxes that must be destroyed before the dark lord can be killed.

Complete with some of the best photoshop I have ever seen

Voldemort’s 7 Horcruxes were:

• Tom Riddle’s Diary
• Marvolo Gaunt’s Ring
• Slytherin’s Locket
• Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup
• The Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw
• Harry Potter himself
• Nagini the snake

It does lead you to wonder, if Tony Abbott had to pick seven items to place parts of his soul in, what would he pick?

So far I’m thinking the 7 items we would have to destroy before we could kill Abbott are:

• The last copy of The Bulletin
• His wedding ring
• A set of rosary beads
• His speedos
• The pope’s hat
• Malcolm Turnbull
• His penis

That is where I will be beginning my search for the Tony Abbott Horcruxes. What about you?

The first Whitlam ministry comprised two men, Whitlam and his deputy Lance Barnard.

For 14 days, these two men made roughly 40 decisions on how the country would be governed and dragged it kicking and screaming into the 20^th century after a little too long in grey flannel suit and felt hat land …

The withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.
An inquiry into indigenous land rights.
Recognition of China.

Some progressive thinking took place, some innovation, some ideas, some big ideas, and you didn’t need to be an “adult” or particularly politically aware to sense something very, very different was going on. Of course, it all ended in tears a few short years later, but … c’est la guerre …

Most 13 year olds aren’t much interested in politics, and I was no exception. My major concerns and interests at that time were dealing with school, skipping school whenever I could (which was often until the day I got nabbed farting about in the storm water drains near the train tracks by the cops and escorted back to school), reading science fiction and pulling myself silly. That’s what 13 year old boys do, and anyone who says different is …

Well, I would doubt them.

I’d never paid any attention to politicians before, they were all old, gray, wizened little men who gibbered about things beyond my understanding or interest.

Then Gough Whitlam came along.

And I started paying attention.

Because there was something about this man, something that made we wonder, “What’s all this about, what’s going on?”

Regardless of how one may feel about him, I doubt there can be much argument that Whitlam possessed a commanding presence. This 13 year old was riveted, if not quite sure what exactly it was he was being riveted by.

But despite this, whatever gene it is that makes political tragics tick, I definitely don’t have it. Most of what passes for political debate, commentary and discussion seems to me to revolve around trivialities, irrelevancies that appear to be of note only to and for the benefit of those charged with reporting such things. In the recent “election” campaign, this obsession with sheer bullshit reached dizzying new heights. If one of the candidates had so much as farted in an elevator with a “reporter” present, you could guarantee it would’ve become a talking point for days …

… Breakfast television shows would invite their viewers to relate similar embarrassing public gaffes, and a dietician would be called in for some expert advice on fartless foodstuffs …

When I first heard Julia Gillard say “moving forward”, I immediately thought, “There it is. That’s the one they’re going to hammer us with every time they open their fucking mouth on anything at all”, and not long after, I simply stopped paying attention.

She said it so many times over the course of the next few days, I wanted to shove a dagger up her clitoris every time I heard it.

I am not a violent man.

But for fuck’s sake.

I expect a Labor government to have a few big ideas. Whitlam had them, Hawke had them, Keating had them.

I expect a little colour, a little movement, a little oomph, a bit of Keating’s “crash or crash through” balls, a bit of Hawke’s “silly old bugger” straightforwardness, a bit of fucking something for Christ’s sake, but this limp and colourless, straitjacketed imposter currently known as the Labor Party appears to be about as full of “oomph” as Monty Python’s dead parrot.

I do not vote for a political “party” simply because of its name or the history of it, what it may have previously achieved in office, or just because some anonymous, sunken-chested, Gollum-faced dickhead has devised a shitty, facile slogan that’s supposed to get me all tingly and tumescent with excitement. I vote for whatever group’s policies and ideas best reflect my own views and thoughts at the time.

And that is no longer the Labor Party.

Because I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea what the Labor Party is anymore, but in its current state, it’s not for me.

But there were a few exceptional people leading up to and during the campaign. People who worked tirelessly to make this country a much worse place. With all the election analysis going around I’m afraid that these people might not get the recognition they deserve, which is why here at Groupthink I would like to pay my respects to these tireless individuals.

Nick Minchin

It would be easy to focus on Tony Abbott as the public face of the operation, but Minchin is the real mastermind of this. The ALP may have their faceless warlords, but the LIberal party have the eminently punchable face of Nick Minchin conducting their party room wars. The sight of an enthusiastic and happy Minchin on election night sent shivers down my spine.

The NSW ALP Right

It’s almost like the ALP had a meeting, sat down at a table, looked each other in the eyes and said “Fuck it, I don’t want to win this election”. So they disposed of a leader, backflipped on key policy issues then went screaming eyes shut to the right of every debate. And leading this blind stupidity was the faceless men of the NSW right. I don’t understand how you couldn’t say “our policies, which the opposition voted against have kept Australia out of recession” or “compared to every other developed economy our debt is unbelievably low and because we kept Australia out of recession we will be able to pay it back faster than any other economy, if it were a Liberal government there would have been no stimulus package, a recession and Australia would have slid further into debt”. They were up against Abbott, totally unelectable and became leader of his party by only 1 vote. It’s not exactly a difficult sales pitch. But no, the ALP did everything they could to fucking piss this election up against the wall.

Mark Latham

Utter, utter cunt.

Laurie Oaks

His dressing down of Latham aside, Oaks had a shameful campaign. Just in case the campaign didn’t have enough distractions, there he was at every turn with another leak flowing from his arse. Did you know that members of the same party occasionally had differences of opinion of policy issues in the party room? Because I expected that, but Oaks seemed to think it was a big deal. Which seems rather naive for a man who has been around Canberra for so long.

The Media

That’s right, all of you. The shit media coverage and the shite they called journalism has been well and truly covered here at Groupthink already.

The Young Liberals

This shameless little stunt pretty much ensured your place on the list, you grubby little turds.

While there are plenty more I’d like to mention I am out of time for today.

But feel free to rant about your favourite bad guys of the 2010 election in the comments.

What you may not be aware of is another NSW resident’s plea in response to Latham’s.

With almost all votes counted, it appears that 586 Bennelong punters listened to Victor. Obviously the Victorian head of One Nation, John Groves, wasn’t lying:

#onenation.will surprise tomorrow.