Hustle and post Among the prolific posts of United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet’s Facebook page is one extolling the virtues of what can only be described as “grindset” culture, in which he argues: “It is through persistent effort and unwavering commitment that you open yourself up to opportunities, allowing the universe to bring you the abundance and fulfillment [sic] that you deserve”. And so on.
Crikey‘s Cam Wilson, presumably right before he decided to elevate his circle so as to get that bread, spotted that Babet had paid for this post — and another dedicated to a very decent-looking breakfast Babet had enjoyed that morning — to be promoted.
Modest sums, sure, but do either of these (which unlike most of Babet’s many posts don’t concern his political activity or policy initiatives) qualify for the taxpayer-funded communications budget elected pollies get? We asked if that was how these promos were funded, but didn’t hear back.
Sleep of reason produces monsters Yeah, why the hell not? The Australian Army, at a time of abject horror in the Middle East — where a “significant contingent” of aircraft and supporting troops have been sent on standby in case “this gets worse” — decided now was a great time to get into the spooktacular spirit of the season like the silly billies they are, posting a fun pic of our soldiers fighting a translucent monster.
Huge thanks, by the way, for the clarification about whether this image had been manipulated.
Apart from the continuing tone deafness of our various security agencies, what kind of rubbish monster design is this? A third arm growing out of the shoulder? Legs and tentacles? At least run it through DALL-E a couple more times guys.
Jordan, oh Jordan, the whole day through… The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), the conservative network formed by conservative celebrity speaker Jordan Peterson, member of the British House of Lords Baroness Stroud and former Australian deputy PM John Anderson, has been described, in a moment of cataclysmic journo brain, as “the Olympics of centre-right thought” in the Nine newspapers ahead of its first conference this week.
Former PM and early adopter of the group John Howard took advantage of the attention to tell GB News that he “has his doubts” on multiculturalism and surely nothing illustrates the bold new conservative thought the alliance is willing to entertain better than reheated talking points one has been trotting out in one form or another since 1988. Plus lots of jabs at “woke capitalism” and a speech from Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Indeed, there was a huge Australian contingent.
Joining Howard were his fellow former PMs Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, a host of Liberal MPs in Angus Taylor, Andrew Hastie, James Paterson and Dan Tehan, and former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet.
And if that wasn’t enough to make any Australian attendee feel at home in the absolute worst way possible, an interesting detail is the claim from The Aussie Wire, the online media outlet hosted by prominent anti-lockdown campaigner Topher Field, that they were also invited along. Presumably we can look forward to footage of Peterson suddenly getting very intense and inexplicably starting to weep coming up soon on The Aussie Wire‘s YouTube.
Settlers of Catania Big changes are underway for those pity geysers on Western Australia’s state opposition benches, with MP for North West Central Merome Beard ditching the WA Nats to join the Libs. There are surely champagne corks a-popping in the WA Lib’s Parliament Place headquarters after this sudden 50% jump in its lower house representation (for one thing, it’s the first time since March 2021 that the WA Liberals in the lower house could finish a bottle of champagne between them and likely still be cool to drive home after two hours). The shift from four lower house Nats and two Libs to three each gives Liberal leader Libby Mettam the chance to wrestle back leader of the opposition status from National MP for Moore Shane Love.
But what is it in the North West Central air that breeds such disloyalty? Back in 2009, Labor’s MP for North West Vince Catania also quit his party (this time the Nationals were the beneficiary), sparking an absolute pasting from then-Labor leader Eric Ripper, who accused Catania of being disengaged with his electorate, and being “an opportunist, lacking in both character and principle”.
“I find this decision particularly surprising given that during the last sitting week of Parliament I had to counsel Mr Catania against calling Nationals leader Brendon Grylls a liar in the chamber,” Ripper added for good measure.
