Posts Tagged Family First

Health still in a half-baked crisis

by @FakeFielding on 3 March 2010
Categories: Health, Politics | Tags: , , ,

A few months ago I had the misfortune to require the services of a hospital and the experience has ultimately had a huge impact on health policy in this country. Susan was taking the kids to the cinema but I wasn’t allowed to go because it was an M-rated film so I was staying home alone. She made me some lunch and put it on a plate in the microwave with a Post-it note arrow stuck next to the keypad, and left on the table a John Farnham, Live In Concert DVD for me to watch. I love staying home alone because I can be totally independent and do what I want.

Having successfully re-heated my food after five frustrating minutes spent realising that I had to press the button next to the Post-in note arrow, not the arrow itself, I settled down in the lounge room to watch the DVD. But all of a sudden disaster struck when I stuck the DVD into the VHS machine without even thinking! What an idiot! Panicking, I frantically pressed EJECT on the remote control and the machine itself, but the disc wouldn’t come out. I changed the batteries and tried again but still nothing! I called Susan to ask what to do but her phone was on silent inside the cinema. Breathing deep to keep the anxiety at bay I knew it was time for some creative thinking.

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Rock and roll politics

by @FakeFielding on 17 February 2010
Categories: Politics | Tags: , , , ,

When I was a boy of about fourteen I remember asking my Dad if I could go to see Johnny Young’s Young Talent Time show down at the Westfield. He stopped to think for a moment, shook his head, and then sat me down at the kitchen table where all important talks took place. After Dad made us both a cup of cordial (red for me, green for him) we had a man-to-man.

“Son,” he said, “popular music is not quite what it seems to your young and innocent eyes.”

“How’s that, Dad?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, rock and roll is …” he trailed off and paused to gather his thoughts. “Rock and roll is the devil in the form of sound.”

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Steve’s psephological ponderings

by @FakeFielding on 10 February 2010
Categories: Politics | Tags: , , , ,

So, the holidays are over and Parliament is back, and it took no time at all for the crushing boringness of the House’s routine to extinguish any interest the nation’s journalists might have had in my stunning expose of Motel Christmas Island. I tell you, this democraticy of ours is sick when someone like me can put so much work into independently and thoroughly investigating matters of national importance and then have so much trouble cutting through to his public through the media. Sometimes I really wonder what my purpose is in this place, attempting to work with such a confusing and frustrating system that is seemingly imperfluous to rationality and logic. And after the events of the past week my confusion and frustration have only grown more larger.

It all began last Tuesday morning. I was sitting in my Parliament House office putting the cardboard letters into the clear plastic sleeves on my new red pencil case when Susan suddenly burst in and convened an office meeting. I’d been trying to call her mobile phone for an hour and had left four voice messages asking for help to find an ‘S’, a ‘T’, an ‘E’, and a ‘V’, and was just about to leave another asking if I could use a sideways ‘M’ instead of another ‘E’. Susan told me to put it away and got everyone to gather around the main desk.

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Busting the “asylum seeker” rort

by @FakeFielding on 31 January 2010
Categories: Politics | Tags: , , , ,

Last weekend I was really bored. The American hip hop video clips with all those bikini women on Video Hits were making me a feel a bit funny so I’d turned the television off, I’d eaten so many tomato sauce sandwiches that I was starting to feel sick, and the linen cupboard suddenly had a child-proof lock on it so I couldn’t make a cubby house. Susan was starting to get really grumpy with me moping about the house and was threatening to call the electorate office to see if there was anything I could do to help out, so I called up Nick Xzennophone to see if he could play. Nick’s wife answered the phone and said he was out, but after I asked her why I could hear Nick in the background whispering that he was out she put him on the phone.

Xzennophone told me that he’d love to play but was too busy researching the asylum seeker issue because it was going to be a big one this year. I asked him what asylum seekers were and after he told me I was overcome with sympathy for the poor sods. But after Nick suggested a coalition with the Greens who hold a similar position to us I instantly decided that I was anti-asylum seekers, or anti-immigration, or anti-whatever it is the Greens are for. The Greens can pass around the friendship bong with whoever they want but I’m going to maintain the intensity of Australia’s borders.

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Steve goes to the electorate office

by @FakeFielding on 25 January 2010
Categories: Politics | Tags: , ,

I’ve got a bit of a love/hate relationship with the summer Parliament holidays. I love them because you don’t have to work and you can sleep in as late as you want and you can sit in front of the TV in morning in your jim jams eating Coco Pops and watching cartoons and you get presents from Santa at Christmas time, but I also hate them because a few days after new year’s eve I start to get bored and Susan gets on my case about lounging around the house and whining about having nothing to do even though I lie to her and say I’ve got heaps to do and that Nick Xzennophone’s going to call up any minute and invite me around to his house to play. And every year, no matter how busy I try to make myself look busy (this year I started constructing the Mother Of All Cubby Houses in the lounge room using bed sheets and the next-door neighbour’s nailgun), Susan always eventually insists that I go in to my electorate office and help out a bit.

I didn’t even know I had an electorate office until two summer holidays ago. That year, when Susan told me to go there I thought she was saying “electricity office” and I called her a stupid idiot, poked my tongue out the side of my mouth, crossed my eyes, and did the crazy sign with my finger around my ear. After my two weeks’ grounding Susan drove me to my electorate office and told me to help my office manager do whatever needed to be done.

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A very Fielding Christmas

by @FakeFielding on 17 January 2010
Categories: Politics | Tags: , , , ,

Happy new year, everyone! Welcome to the year 2010, which began at exactly midnight on 1 January; being, of course, the 2,010th anniversary of the resurrection and celebrated by people of all races around the world.

In the Fielding household our Christmas celebrations always begin on the eve of the big day itself, with lots of carols singing and hot Milo. Our house is decorated with tinsel and plastic leaves and we always have a great big Christmas tree in the lounge room. The tree, of course, a highly symbolic symbol of the death. Under the tree are lots and lots of presents from Susan to me, Susan to the kids, the kids to Susan, and Susan to Susan (I get Susan to buy her own presents from me because of that time I was in that big crowd of people doing Christmas shopping and I felt a bit funny and I curled up up on the floor in the foetal position screaming and hit that security guard until that nice policeman came.)

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Never mind Hockey, I have a Fielding feeling

by @FakeFielding on 2 December 2009
Categories: Environment, Politics | Tags: , , , , ,

This first appeared in Monday’s Crikey email and is on the Crikey website

__________

Let me tell you, weeks like last week don’t come along every week. Calling it extraordinary would be the understatement of the century, as even seasoned political observers would attest. For starters, this nation’s government considered a number of highly important issues and my speeches in the Senate were some of the most passionate, articulate and emotional presentations the Parliament has ever seen. They had everything: shouty voice, soft voice, pauses for effect, graphs as props, and moral appeals to right and wrong. I’m exhausted just thinking about them. One of my speeches was so powerful that I went to do it again for Susan and the staff back in the office but Susan yelled at me to get down off the desk.

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ETS and One World Government

by @FakeFielding on 11 November 2009
Categories: Environment, Politics | Tags: , , , ,

As you all know I’ve been following the climate change and emissions trading scheme debate very closely. Earlier this year I travelled to the USA to consult widely with the Heartland Institute and they gave me a nifty graph to show to all my friends at Parliament. Nick Xzennophone asked if I made it myself in crayon but he shut his mouth quick smart after I showed him the quality of the laminate and the superb laser printing.

I like to make sure that I look at both sides of the story, and the ETS debate is no different. I’ve looked at the government’s side (anthropomorphic climate change is definitely real and we need an EMS right now) and the opposition’s side (anthrophomorpic climate change is possibly real and we might need an LMS sometime in the short or medium term), but Family First’s side of the story is quite different again: anhtro antro antrhop man-made climate change is a myth and the PMS is completely unnecessary and will destroy man’s way of life.

But you wouldn’t believe the trouble I’ve had in getting my view heard! Penny Wong and Ian Macfarlane meet regularly to thrash out a version of the government Bill that the coalition might support, but the way they’ve dismissed Family First’s role in these crucial negotiations is a disgrace to Australian democracy. Imagine a democratically-elected Senator being manhandled and ejected from meetings inside Parliament House! It’s not like they didn’t know I was coming; each time I’ve told Xzennophone to tell Barnaby to tell Macfarlane, and Xzennophone to tell Conroy to tell Wong.

Some nights I’ve been in tears at home, burning up with the indignity of the way the other MPs treat me. I tried telling David Hawker about the teasing and bullying but he didn’t seem to care. Even my son, when he got home from school the other day and found me on the lounge with Blanky, told me to “harden the fuck up”. I told him that’s not very Christian language but he just mumbled something about wishing he was adopted.

So when I heard some people this week start talking about a One World Government that might be formed in Copenhagen soon, I got very excited. Maybe I could run for election to a government that is kinder and more accepting. A government that is inclusive and considerate. A government that looks at all of my sides of the story. I mentioned to Susan that this new government will add significantly to the Pope’s workload given that he’s the head of the world, but Susan told me he’s only the head of the Catholic Church. And you could’ve blown me right there and then when Susan dropped the bombshell that the Pentecostal Church is not part of the Catholic Church so the Pope isn’t even the head of me! A lifetime of delusion, it seems.

Anyway, I’ve started doing some research into how one would go about running a campaign for the One World Government, and I’m trying to book a flight to the Hungarian capital to be at the centre of the action at its inception. Given that Australia is part of the world, and the One World Government will be the world’s boss, I will be able to have much more influence over Australia’s PMT policy from the OWG Parliament than from the chamber of Australia’s Senate.

Until next time.

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Pondering the Telstra split

by @FakeFielding on 5 November 2009
Categories: Politics | Tags: , ,

Telstra is so much more than just a telephone company. Telstra, like Vegemite and Hillsong, is an Australian institution and part of the national psyche. For that reason I take Family First’s role in deciding the future of Telstra very seriously and I have put a lot of thought into how I will vote on its structural separation later this year.

And I’ve had a lot of time to think. On Monday my wife and adviser, Susan, had me rearrange the office files into reverse alphabetical order. It took all day. And then on Tuesday she changed her mind and asked me to put them in Greek alphabetical order while she and the other staff went to a long Melbourne Cup lunch down at the club. Because I had to answer the phone as well I couldn’t even leave the office for a sandwich, and the Milo tin was shut really tight and Susan didn’t answer her phone or respond to any texts asking how to open it so I couldn’t even have a hot drink. And then it occurred to me that Susan doesn’t let me use the microwave unsupervised anyway so I wouldn’t have been able to have a hot Milo even if I got the tin open. Heck!

Anyway, while I filed I considered the Telstra conundrum. I thought about matters of competition, the effect on mum-and-dad shareholders, and what the new logo might look like. I took into account the government’s views, the opposition’s views, Telstra’s views, and Susan’s views (one must always take into account Susan’s views), but no matter which way I looked at the matter, I kept returning to one point which has me baffled and concerned in equal measure.

If Telstra is split into two as proposed by the government, how will customers served by one half of the company make calls to phone customers served by the other half? And where will the split line be? Will it be vertically up and down, or horizontally across the country? Will it be a city/regional split? Imagine the impact on businesses, communities, churches and families. It’s difficult to overstate the hardship that will be faced by almost every Australian.

How will mobile phones deal with the split? Will you be served by one half of the new Telstra depending on where in the country you’re standing? Will you swap from one of the new companies to the other if you walk across the imaginary Telstra split line?

Thank God Internet delivery is completely independent of these little copper wires that are causing so much trouble. Nobody owns the air.

There are so many questions yet to be answered and so much grey in between the black and the white. But there’s still several weeks to go before the vote, and Family First will be sure to consider all of the both sides of the story right up until the moment of the decision, and I suspect that my engineering background will come in handy during the complicated technical debates that are sure to occur.

Until next time.

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Steve’s 7.30 Report audition tapes

by Scott Bridges on 26 October 2009
Categories: Politics | Tags: , ,

In the comments of my earlier Fielding post, Tobias Ziegler reminded us about the magnificent Uncle Steve’s Home Movies series (just like Uncle Arthur’s from The Comedy Company but crapper) from a couple of years back. There was a doorknocking video, a swimming carnival video, a bottle suit video and a recycling video to name but a few.

So I went looking for these cinematic masterpieces to chuck a couple of links in the comments after Tobias’ reminder, but unfortunately those movies are no longer on Steve’s website. Fortunately, however, a few of them are still on my computer hard drive. So here they are complete with shitty advertising message from the free program I used to download them originally. Think of these as Steve’s audition for the 7.30 Report.

The Bottle Suit:

The Dawn Service (plus a picture of Steve interrupting everyone to film his fillum):

The Yarra Vox Pop:

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