Author: John

The American GOP Representative Elise Stefanik was so sceptical of Donald Trump’s inflammatory style and hard-right stance when he won the Presidential nomination in 2016, that she refused, even when pressed, to say his name.  But all of a sudden she is pro Trump and has been voted in to replace Liz Cheney who had the courage to say that she would vote to impeach Donald Trump.  Clearly the Grand Old Party Reps would rather back Donald Trump in the next election than possibly lose their own jobs. Democracy is dead in America.  Putin and Xi Jinping must have huge smiles on their faces.

Our efforts at solving the major issues of today such as violence against women, aged care support to mention just two are doomed to fail.  I believe that the people tasked with running government are too inexperienced. Having just obtained my OBE, looking back over the last 50 years, I am truly amazed at how much I have learned and how much I have changed in my life attitudes.  In fact I am frightened at some of the things I believed in and did as a young man.  The Americans voted in Joe Biden to replace the dangerous Donald Trump.  They chose a man who is 78 years old, a former Vice-President, a career public servant, a man sadly familiar with tragedy.  He is the right man to lead America out of the mess they are in.  We need elder statesmen of his calibre to be running this country, not people with their personal vested interests who still have soap behind their ears.

Wayne Carey thinks that the Carlton captain Patrick Cripps is worth at least $1million a year (The Age Sport 14/5).  No footballer, no matter how good he is, is worth that amount of money to train in the sport they love in order to play 22 games of football plus some finals games if they are lucky.  To believe that is an insult to all of our nurses, paramedics, aged care workers, teachers etc.

One would have thought that with all the discussion about the treatment towards women in Canberra that the testosterone levels would be slowly reducing, but no, quite the opposite it seems.  The Prime Minister seems even more determined to upset China.  David versus Goliath.  Peter Dutton has come out of hibernation telling James Merlino that we don’t need a quarantine centre because the hotel quarantine system is working perfectly well.  If that is the case, then why aren’t we bringing stranded Australian citizens home and into hotel quarantine?   But no, and if they do try and get home, they face possible jail time and/or a hefty fine.  I hope none of our cricketers in India don’t catch Covid – that would really put the cat among the pigeons.  And now Major-General Adam Findlay is warning us of a likely China conflict. Of course he is – he’s a Major-General in the army and he didn’t join the army to play tiddlywinks.  War is their game and they aren’t the ones getting killed in action or coming home with PTSD.

Scott Morrison believes that social media is being used by the “evil one”.  I’m not quite sure what he means by the “evil one” but I presume he doesn’t mean the leader of the Labor Party.

He also admits that he asked God for a sign during a difficult run on the 2019 election campaign and believes God gave it to him.  If God is going to listen to a scheming ‘happy clapper’, then why doesn’t he listen to many other seriously devout Christians who pray to him for assistance?

I also wonder what his God thought about the actions of the Morrison prayer group that used to meet on Tuesday nights in parliamentary sitting weeks. And especially the one just before Scott Morrison ousted Malcolm Turnbull two days after he put his arm around Malcolm declaring exuberantly  “this is my leader and I’m ambitious for him.

I think Scott and I believe in a different God.

It is three years now since the Biloela family were taken into detention and nineteen months since they were sent to Christmas Island.  How these two girls can still smile is truly amazing.  They must be very strong.  It breaks my heart to see this picture.