Who said the camera cannot lie?                                                                                                     It’s surely not so long ago?                                                                                                                      But now worldwide we hear the sigh                                                                                                    That politicans in the know                                                                                                               Can make that very truth a lie.

But surely here we see the truth!                                                                                              Barack Obama had to sit                                                                                                                 With the PM, our dear Tony.                                                                                                                  So, forced to listen to his shit,                                                                                                              He thought, “For once, let’s show the truth!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         So, for Australians all to see,                                                                                                              You’d almost say he had it planned,                                                                                                    “This guy here, sitting beside me,                                                                                                    Where’s he from?  Oh!  Downunderland!                                                                                           Come on Ozzies!  Come on!  Look!   See!

He’s no man at all!  Your Tony!                                                                                                         He’s just a fake!  Yeah! A phony!”

NOTES Check out the image. – It’s very appropriately titled: Unvarnished and strategic: Tony Abbott with US President Barack Obama. Photo: Andrew Meares.

Thank you Andrew, the camera man!                                                                                                  I know now that very often,                                                                                                           Just like many politicians,                                                                                                                  Even dreaded statisticians,                                                                                                                     The camera does not lie!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Where you’re shooting from matters!                                                                                                  A girl’s reputation in tatters                                                                                                         When Monica was named a Slut,                                                                                                    Hot news for rightist views, a butt.                                                                                                  No jokes by blokes if Bill should die?

I recant my too long held views,
On Malcolm Fraser who is dead.
He was once often headline news,
Which this ‘leftie’ always read.

He was interviewed – ‘post mortem’ –
Live?  On our ABC last night!
Watching and listening to him,
I confess, on this he was ‘right’….

Life is not meant to be easy,
But it can certainly delight!

NOTES:

I wrote this ‘recantation’ for  the Political Sword, my favorite blog site,  the day after I posted there my first reaction in verse shown below to the news of Malcom Fraser’s death on March 20th, 2015.   A regular contributor there, Talk Turkey, a man with good Labor blood in his veins, seems to have, like me, maintained the rage……

Patricia, last week I defined my thoughts on Malcolm Fraser.  He was never big enough to apologise, to Gough ………and for that I cannot forgive him.  And you should feel proud of maintaining your rage until his death. You say it very well indeed in verse.

Talk Turkey (Bruce Bilney?) is spot on there.  There is not a hint or record anywhere of Fraser having apologised to Gough.   So perhaps it explains why these still somewhat angry ‘pomes’ emerged as my response to his passing.  Yet the the death of my Labor hero, former PM E.G. Whitlam, seems not to have moved me to write at all.  Or perhaps I sensed that more than justice had been done to him and his achievements by the many memorial articles written and eulogies spoken late last year, by leading Australians.    Of particular note, of course, was Noel Pearson’s eulogy for Gough.

So. here we are then, my response to 2353 and his comment therein about….Former Prime Minister Fraser resigning from the Liberal Party. 

“Well, now he has died, passed on and he really is history!   What are my thoughts today?”

March 22, 2015.    All Passion Spent?   Malcolm Fraser’s Passing.

“Kerr’s cur” to me he’ll always be!
Why should his passing sadden me?
Though Gough may have long forgiven
That one great sin, never shriven
By this man, its perpetrator,
I, lifelong Tory hater,
Have all these years “maintain(ed) the rage,”
Never able to turn the page,
Acknowledge his recent history,
Nor understand the mystery
Of this media rush to praise a
Long time  ‘Liberal’  – Malcolm Fraser.

Am I really that unforgiving?  Cynical?  Perhaps I should have second thoughts, write this differently?  Yet, even while questioning my first  reaction, something similar comes up.

So, Gough forgave him,
Seemed to have forgot
Words which I have not.
He exhorted us
To “Maintain the rage!”
Now, despite my age,
I still remember
How in November,
Nineteen seventy five,
I first came alive
To politics here
Where there’d been a ‘coup,’
Brought on by you,
Malcolm Fraser,  “Kerr’s cur!”

Mr. Rabbit of Downunderland

Thought that he was in Wonderland.

For one moment it felt truly

As if he, with White Queen Julie,

Were already restored to power,

As he stood acclaimed, man of the hour.

Applause and cheers were long and loud.

His budget speech had moved the crowd.

Up on to their feet as it ended

They seemed to share his vision splendid

Of himself rescuing from failure

This ‘Triple A rated Australia!’

His oratory had been inspired!

Yes, the Gallery audience was hired,

There to test his election theme,

They’d adored his parents leave scheme,

Freely joined his denunciation

Of Labor’s burdensome taxation.

Confirming Newspoll and Morgan

They didn’t want a price on carbon!

Nor tax on mines! These men were workers

Not malingerers or shirkers.

All loathed Julia, despised red Queen!

Then reality intervened…..

Because there she sat. And glared,

As if to say, how had he dared!

A stunt like this? In this Chamber?

A dress rehearsal for September?

In a theatre where centre stage

Was hers?   And…..now…..he’d put her in a rage…..

NOTES: This is a copy of a post I wrote for Cafe Whispers after reading what I thought was the best critique I’d seen of Tony Abbott’s Budget in Reply speech by Bushfire Bill at The Pub. You should read it in its entirety, you’ll appreciate it, but his title alone was enough to get me going on this pome at a tangent of my own. As I’d  watched the speech myself I did wonder how Abbott could have been so foolish as to try to use that particular convention as an opportunity for a presidential style address, breaking all Parliamentary rules as he addressed, not the Speaker as he should have, but the ‘renta-crowd’ in the Gallery as if they were the ‘people of Australia!’ I was initially surprised that Madame Speaker did not rule him out of order, or rebuke his applauding visitors in the Gallery. Nor was there a single objection from the Government side, which I at first thought was because of shock at Abbott’s ‘chutzpa.’ Now, however, I see it as remarkable restraint and even forward planning on the Government side, anticipating his antics. Because that’s all it was, histrionics, pure theatrics and with nothing much new in the way of policy. Antics/theatrics……..Gillard/on guard. Too many rhymes here I thought………. particularly once I had him facing ‘the Prime Minister there’ and had to choose between with ‘her steely glare’ and ‘blazing red hair’ when he should have been ‘well aware’ of ‘her rage’ as he took ‘centre stage’. But there wasn’t enough substance to the speech itself to put meat into a pome. ‘ Then I thought maybe something new by way of policy in ‘changes to superannuation’ had potential with the ‘seeds of his annihilation.’ That was new ground that Bill Shorten and the Government could fight on…… Here was when I realized that lack of reaction alone from the benches facing him should have put Abbott ‘on his guard’………..as he faced ‘the enemy Gillard.’ They were giving him plenty of rope. They wanted him to go for broke here, to make a fool of himself, showing his ignorance of Parliamentary conventions and a lack of gravitas. More than anything they wanted him to give them some new bad policy lines to use on the hustings. Arguing the niceties of Parliamentary tradition wasn’t going to achieve any of that. As a rusted on leftie I think he did a pretty good job of making a fool of himself. Others may disagree. Like Barry Cassidy for whom the BIR held the ‘Sweet Smell of Success.’ For me it was a pretty poor performance in terms of replying to Wayne Swan’s budget presentation. He didn’t give out much in the way of new policy either, as was perhaps hoped, but that wasn’t so much the result of cunning, as his and his party’s laziness and total incapacity for policy development. There was the superannuation, of course, but as these things so often go I didn’t use that in the pome. As I read Bushfire Bill’s article about Abbott’s fear, I agreed that Abbott was indeed afraid to face Prime Minister Gillard without a prepared speech and an audience also prepared to applaud on cue. But even with those props and well rehearsed lines there is still fear there. I have chosen an enlarged image deliberately so that we can see his face more clearly. I like to think that after the speech he realized he had an even more cogent cause to fear. How could he, or his advisors, have forgotten this? when Julia Gillard, enraged by a ‘shamefully’ crass comment from Abbott had given the most powerful extempore speech of her Parliamentary career and drawn admiring comment from all over the world. What heights of eloquence will this outrageous defiance of Parliamentary convention by Abbott assist her to achieve? Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech is the first example of the digital age where an expression of passion from a politician was rewarded with numbers that a free press can’t compete with. Picture: Kym Smith Source: The Australian