A-Wishin’ an’ a-Hopin’

Sep 9, 2007 | Arts, Australian Values, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Global Warming, OzPol Values, Values

A-Wishin’ an’ a-Hopin’

Crowning Achievement

 

Climate change negotiations at the APEC conference in Sydney have been an enormous diplomatic breakthrough, acting as a catalyst for future action, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says.

Enormous! And completely original! Un Tour de Force Diplomatique!

Good work, Bunter! Well done, that boy!

The Sydney Declaration on climate change was signed by the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders on Saturday.

Predictably enough, John Howard referred to these people as the “leaders of 21 economies” – in clear contrast to leaders of “people” – human beings, you know?

Economies — as we have learnt from John over the last, long, 12 years of grey, Calvinistic drudgery — are much more important than people. If the economy is doing well, how people feel is irrelevant – except that they ought to feel pathetically grateful.

This breakthrough “in-principle” agreement which has sent the pulses of world economies racing with its audacity and originality commits the countries to working towards a long-term “aspirational” goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

In principle.

The agreement which has been signed is an agreement – nonbinding – to consider taking some steps towards imagining what a – nonbinding – aspirational goal might be for a particular “economy”.

This is a cardboard box full of empty air.

Without the box.

What is this agreement on an “aspirational” goal? It is a commitment (in principle) to consider hoping that something good will happen.

What is a commitment to working towards hoping – at some unspecified time in the reasonably distant future – that some dream or other will come true?

It is nothing.

And what does it require?

Nothing. No action is called for or called forth.

So in a time when every month of the next ten years is said to be critical in terms of planning and action taken (in fact), Messrs Downer and Howard are pleased with themselves that they have come up with a plan, which everyone could agree on to, in principle, do nothing.

No wonder the Chinese and Americans were happy to sign such an agreement. A vacuum has more substance.

Or to unquote Dusty Springfield:

Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’
Plannin’ and dreaming each night of his charms?
That won’t get you into his arms…

But doesn’t “aspirational goals” sound ever so positive? Why, it’s almost pretty enough to fool a nation full of stupid people. Unfortunately John has still to discover that Australians aren’t stupid.

As George Bush once carefully explained, “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

Please may we now get on with replacing these people with people who have committed to actually setting targets inside an actual timeframe?

Oh, and by the way, “aspirational goals” for climate change measures was a Bush vision, as the amazing Steven Poole of Unspeak¹ discussed in June:

At the end of May, George W. Bush attempted to pre-empt the G8 on global warming with an alternative vision for reducing carbon emissions. Jim Connaughton, Chairman of the Council on ‘Environmental Quality’, was challenged by a sceptical reporter:

 

Q Now I’m confused. Does that mean there will be targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions and that everybody will be making binding commitments to each other about greenhouse gas reductions – or, at the end of the day, are those just voluntary commitments?

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: The commitment at the international level will be to a long-term aspirational goal –

Q Voluntary.

CHAIRMAN CONNAUGHTON: Well, I want to be careful about the word “voluntary,” because we do these kinds of goals all the time, international agreements. It’s the implementing mechanisms that become binding.

 

One should always be careful about the word ‘voluntary’, in case it gives the right impression. Still, aspirational goal is a lovely coinage. ‘Aspirational’ is a glossy-magazine lifestyle fantasy of fast cars, large houses and single-malt whiskies. And aspirations are always virtuous, even if they are – almost by definition – not actually going to be accomplished. As the poet said, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

¹ Unspeak.net is well worth a visit and adding to your list of favourites, not only for Steven’s clear, clever and entertaining writing but also for both his depth of analysis and his sense of fun. And the book is also very well worth reading – even purchasing. Or you can check out this helpful video: 

Loose Ends, Bad Ends

Aug 28, 2007 | Australian Values, Corruption, Democracy, Legal, OzPol Values, Terrorism, USPol, Values, War

Loose Ends, Bad Ends

  

Loose ends:

 

‘Lying’ Downer,

the Minister for opening his mouth and seeing what comes out, denying everything on principal and making it up as he goes

”  has rejected claims of a major connection between opium production in Afghanistan and funding of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and terrorist groups in South-East Asia.”

Also, water flows uphill.

Philip Ruddock

this week opined that people are sick of opinion polls and won’t decide whom to vote for until the campaign gets under way.

”  I think people have been polled out, quite frankly…In the end, I think people do make their judgments not only on your record but on the vision you have for the future…”

What he meant to say was that coalition politicians are sick of opinion polls that keep showing Labor with a 14-point 2PP lead.

Also, according to Friday’s Burson-Marsteller survey of 1156 voters only 77% of them have firmly decided whom they’ll vote for, and only 56% of them have decided to vote for Labor.

Also, we agree that the coalition has done a good job of articulating its vision for the future: more of the same, lots more, except meaner and greyer and colder.

Howard

Despite his determination to paint every Australian as a Palestinian-style terrorist who just can’t be trusted, a delinquent intent on murder and mayhem, who deserves to be locked away from the cringingly-fearful Israeli-style power elites behind a three-metre high steel wall, Howard is proud of the opportunity to display one of the beautiful cities of the world (minus inhabitants, of course) to his powerful pals. It’s just so sad that they won’t be able to see anything of the city except for, you know, a three-metre high steel wall.

 

 

Bad End

 

Alberto Gonzalez

Bush’s nasty, slimy, footpad, redefines “American Dream”, “lead”, “public service”, “honorable”, and “noble”.

Video evidence:

Also evidence of his slimy dishonesty :

George Bush

redefines “integrity”, “decency”, “principle”, “service”, “good name”, “talented”, “honorable”

Senator Chuck Schumer (D)

covers more of the ground here.

Clive of Kogarah

Aug 27, 2007 | Arts, Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Lifestyle & Life, Media Values, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Values

Clive of Kogarah

Clive James with Bill Moyers

 

Bill Moyers recently hosted Clive James on his show to talk about his new book, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts (not the 80s punk band).

Publishers Weekly  says:

“  From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, Tacitus to Margaret Thatcher, this scintillating compendium of 110 new biographical essays plumbs the responsibilities of artists, intellectuals and political leaders. British [sic] critic James…structures each entry as a brief life sketch followed by quotations that spark an appreciation, a condemnation or a tangent (a piece on filmmaker Terry Gilliam veers into a discussion of torturers’ pleasure in their work). Sometimes, as in his salute to Tony Curtis’s acting or his savage assault on bebop legend John Coltrane’s penchant for “subjecting some helpless standard to ritual murder,” James’s purpose is just bravura opinionating. But most articles are linked by a defense of liberal humanism against totalitarianisms of the left and right “and ideologues who champion them.”

Salon calls James “The greatest living critic”.

Clive’s approach in his book seems to be to help us to share his understanding of the value of culture and of humanity in all its variety, in all its forms and at all its levels. His is a passionately humanist, while healthily sceptical, world view (which is probably why we like him so much). And we like that while we don’t agree with him all the time we love that he gives us ideas to think about.

He talks about the way in which the understanding of cultures can come when they are torn apart,

”  Everybody concerned with the whole business of culture is scattered to the winds and…you see how the society fits together. It’s extremely complex and impossible to reproduce through one person’s will.

To us it brings to mind the stump of a severed limb. Sure, you can see the bits of flapping muscle, blood vessels and bone, the shiny sinews and nerves, and you can see how they were all put together. But they don’t work any more.

There are interesting parallels with the blogging culture in the interview.

” The Jewish intellectuals in the Vienna cafes, they learned to write “the article”, what they called the feuilleton, the little leaf, the entertaining thousand-word piece which is the basis of the whole of modern culture that I find fascinating.

And one of the maniacs in the Vienna cafes was Adolf Hitler…

But he is particularly passionate about the culture of liberal democracy.

” There’s something about the creative force of liberal democracy which gives you hope that it can overcome any challenge, including terrorism. I’m sure terrorism can punch very large holes in western civilisation, and probably will.

You’re inheriting civilisation. What you try to do is protect it and improve it, but get rid of the idea that it can all start again because a few men think it can.

And he doesn’t believe in an elitist view of culture (unlike some Australian journalists who hate bloggers)…

” My only originality when I started off as a journalist was I didn’t believe in these elites. I thought that intelligence was enough and if people were intelligent they’d hear what you had to say. I don’t believe that knowledge and understanding and wisdom are the property of a class at all. I believe they’re generally democratic things. That doesn’t mean that everyone will understand what anyone can, you know?

On the other hand, Clive comes to Australia so rarely, and is so busy, that he seems a little out of touch at times. He ascribes to the Leader of the National Party (and therefore Deputy Prime Minister) a statement made by Costello (Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party but not Deputy Prime Minister) and while he believes in the fair go, he is a little behind the times with one of its expressions (emphasis on the “ex”):

” In Australia we have a concept called the “fair go” which is built into the system. It’s built into the Basic Wage and so on.

In any case it is an interview very much worth watching  (if you don’t mind using Flash).

 

Which brings us to disclose that …

ValuesAustralia interviewed Clive James in London 32 years ago in the heat of the Whitlam debacle. We interviewed Clive in 1975 over a slab of Fosters about his “new” book, Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media, which is so out of print that it receives only the most fleeting of references, even on his own website.

Clive, to his great credit, has never lost or varied his Australian accent. We, on the other hand, are of the kind who tend to ‘merge’ into, or ‘immerse’ ourselves in, a new culture, to our somewhat amusement years later. We insist, however, that we have repatriated our accent.

‘My Culture the Bastard Child’

Aug 27, 2007 | Arts, Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Values, War

‘My Culture the Bastard Child’

This angry, loving, passionate, poetic piece from John White was a comment on the previous post but we love it so much we do not want it lost in the wastes of commentdom.

It deserves to be shared with you. So here it is:

 

Australian Values, Australian Gold
John White

I live in a nation of ghosts and spirits, of Anzac martyrs and rural massacres. The damp soil of Gippsland, the haze of her mountain ash – I was born here; but if you think that being Australian is a birthright, you do not understand my country.
My country is wattle and blood.

Melbourne is all around me, the ferns protecting William Ricketts, the river whose Yarra water draws up the clay, the bindi-i in the summer grass, and the two-dollar buskers and cafes edging the wide streets.

The magic of my land whispers deeper than prawns on barbies and bikinis in utes. I have lost patience with displays of bloody-minded jingoism. Posts are for football, not for displaying the flags of patriotic insecurity.

Leaving Bendigo in 1916, my great grandfather’s mining lungs could not contend with the poison air of the Somme fields. He died on a hospital ship, never to return. He had marched under the flag and sung the anthem; they were rags and noise compared to the children he left orphaned at home. The entrepreneurs of war lied to him, but his intention was true.

I am a part of the Australian community. Do not glibly say “one nation”: our country longs to be as one.

We slag on the vacuous slogans of politicians and the questionnaires of immigration bureaucrats. Our parliament mound infested with termites. They rejected our values when they took office shaking the hands of the perentie clans, their business mates. Leadership must be earned. Our Kelly sons went way too far in their war on the authorities, but we felt the injustice that took them to the edge.

Nor do we fear religion. We have been inside temples and churches, listened to humanists and prayed in mosques. Our feeble attempts to understand the transcendent only gives us affection for our fellow peoples, and a desire to depose the little kings of racism and fear that threaten their peace.

We celebrate our failures. Peter, Lalor’s wounding at Eureka stockade, the betrayal of Nancy Wake in resistance France, Albert Namatjira despondent in prison; these people are our characters. To be ‘true blue’ is not the ashes of success; it is to have integrity.

We demand a fair go for all humans, for family and friends and especially strangers. We barrack for the underdog (even at times for Collingwood!). We want to hear the stories of the refugee children, to decide for ourselves. And we know that it is never too late to engrave a treaty, to admit our past failures.

For I am an Australian, my culture the bastard child of indigenous and intruder civilisations. Not until I acknowledge our rainbow heritage can I know who I am. Only when I understand that this ground cannot be bought and sold am I truly at home. The home that I love.

 Coburg, June 2007

Draft Mateship Guidelines Exhumed

Aug 26, 2007 | Arts, Australian Values, Citizenship, Democracy, Immigration, Media Values, OzPol Values, Racism, Religious Values, Values, War

Draft Mateship Guidelines Exhumed

Fair Dinkum Aussie Mateship Cetrificate Test

 

A new Mateship test will ensure Australia strikes the right balance between the British and the rest, says Minister for Aussie Mateship, Smeagol K. Dic.

The Ministry today released a draft guide detailing what it regards as the essential Australian values every aspirationally nationalistic citizen must embrace.

In order to become a citizen, New Australians will need to correctly answer at least 75 out of 100 questions, such as “what were the Statute of Westminster and the Australia Act”.

“One of the great achievements of Australia has been to balance two things: Firstly the diversity of people that have come from more than 200 countries around the world and secondly, the opportunity to pit them against each other in the run-up to an election,” Mr Dic told reporters in Kogarah.

“This is part of the government’s desire to balance their pathetic gratitude for being allowed to stay here for a time, and the fear of terrorism which we may whip up from time to time – both of which will help to ensure our re-election.”

“Multiculturalism has been doing so well all on its own without very much government intervention at all”, said Dic, “that we thought we ought to put our oar in and fix it. If we manage not to stuff it up, we can take credit for it. If we screw it up we can claim it doesn’t work and we can go back to just importing Brits, the way we used to.”

Migrants would also need to demonstrate an adequate level of understanding of the Liberal/National policy platform if they were to realise their aspirational nationalism and if they wanted to stay here for that little bit longer before being shipped back to their hell-hole countries full of gibberish-speaking foreigners, Dic said.

“The rich tapestry of Australia today, a reflection of our diversity, has always been a problem for the Liberals and especially the National Party, and we have done all we can to put a stop to it” he said. “We tried Pauline Hanson and her policies but that only worked for one election. We had the Mayor of Tamworth try to spike it by branding desperate Sudanese refugees from Dafur as leprous, TB and AIDS-carrying, thieving, car-crashing childmolesters. But the town took the side of the refos and rolled our man. We’ve stood by as some of the diversity drowned trying to get here, and if they got here, we sent them to South Pacific paradises or to exclusive desert resorts for special education programs in the Australian government’s policy positions. But still they keep coming. So if they have to come, they have to learn to be just like us,” said Dic.

Asked why the “values” document, to be given to aspirational New Australians, lacked any meaningful reference to Aboriginal history, culture or values, with only four sentences to cover perhaps 60,000 years, Mr Dic said, “I think in a booklet like this you have to get your priotities right. I mean, who cares, right? Do they vote for us? No.”

Among the values laid out in the document are tolerance and compassion, freedom of speech and a respect for Australia’s British heritage.

Examples of the government’s tolerance and compassion can be found in reports of the death count in the Iraq war.

Australian’s respect for Britain can be seen in the attitude of most Australians to the English cricket team.

The Australian government’s tolerance and its attitude to free speech are demonstrated by its recent amendments to Wikipedia, and its action to kindly inform Values Australia in March that if it didn’t pull the site down it would send it to gaol on the basis of a variety of laws. This was in addition to its actually closing down a parody site of the Prime Minister. Aspirational immigrants need to understand that by “free speech” the government means you can say anything you like, anything at all, that agrees with the government and does not hurt its feelings.

TAKE THE VALUES AUSTRALIA MATESHIP TEST

Values Australia has prepared a special alternative Mateship Test which we defy any Australian politician or fat-arsed bureaucrat to take and pass, particularly the Minister for Dic and his silly pen-pushers.

Take it yourself. Use it for trivia nights. Many of the answers are on the Values Australia website.

PASS MARK: 75%
TIME ALLOWED: 2 HOURS

1. Who was the Father of Federation?

2. What were the real reasons the Australian colonies decided to become a federation?

a. What was New Zealand’s status before Australian federation?

3. List all the Prime Ministers of Australia in order, with their years in office.

4. What does Australia Day celebrate?

a. When was the first Australia Day?

b. What happened on the first Australia Day?

5. Who was Chips Rafferty?

a. Was he really gay?

6. Which was the only Australian State not to receive convicts?

7. Name the complete Australian Ashes Test squad from the 1948 England tour.

a. What was the team’s nickname?

8. How far is it from Sydney to Melbourne (to the nearest 10km)

9. What was the basis for the Crown to assume ownership of Australia?

a. What did it mean?

b. Was it correct?

10. Why can the Australian Prime Minister or Parliament not apologise to its indigenous peoples?

11. Were there ever any massacres (or mass killings) of indigenous people in Australia?

12. Did anyone ever take unwilling Aboriginal children from their families?

a. If they had, what would the institutions have been called which carried out these operations (if any)?

b. Did they live up to their name?

13. What has always been the general legal presumption in the Australian justice system if someone is accused of or charged with a crime?

14. According to recently proclaimed Australian laws, what is the basis upon which suspected terrorists are held?

a. What does this mean for justice in Australia and for ordinary, law-abiding Australian citizens?

15. What does the Government presume, and say, about David Hicks?

16. Habeas corpus is a fundamental of the Australian legal system. What does it mean?

17. When is Federation Day?

a. What year was the first Federation Day?

18. What is the correct spelling? “Color”, or “Colour”?

19. Two famous Australians travelled on the 1908-9 Shackleton expedition to which continent?

a. Who were they?

b. Together, they were the first to achieve which two feats?

c. Which of them is/was on the $100 note?

d. The other had an avenue named after him in Sydney. What is its name and in which suburb is it?

20. After whom is the mineral davidite named?

21. Who was the skipper of the first Australian yacht to win the America’s Cup?

a. Who was the designer?

b. What was the name of the boat?

c. In what year did it win?

d. What did the Prime Minister of the day famously say when the boat won?

e. What was the Prime Minister’s name?

22. Have there ever been Jewish Governors General of Australia?

a. If your answer is yes, what was their name(s) and in what years did he/she/they “govern”?

23. Has there ever been a female Governor General?

a. If your answer is yes, what was their name(s) and in what years did she/they “govern”?

24. Has Australia ever had a homosexual Prime Minister or state Premier?

a. If your answer is yes, what was/were their name(s)?

b. Of which State(s) etc.?

25. After what or whom is Bennelong Point named?

a. Where is Bennelong Point?

b. What is at Bennelong Point now?

26. Who was Pemulwuy?

a. What happened to him?

27. Who cut the ribbon when the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened?

a. Why?

28. What disaster happened to Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge?

29. In what month and year did a ship collapse the Tasman Bridge?

a. What was the name of the ship?

b. Where was the bridge?

30. What does DLP stand for?

31. Who was the most famous member of the DLP for most of its history?

32. What was Australia’ greatest constitutional crisis?

a. In what year did it occur?

b. Who was Prime Minister?

c. Who was the Governor General?

d. Who became the next Prime Minister?

e. Which national media icon was on the steps of Parliament House at the culmination of the crisis?

f. What was Joh Bjelke Petersen’s role in the crisis?

g. What convention did he break?

h. What was the name of the Senator whose offer of a diplomatic posting precipitated the crisis?

i. From which party did he come?

j. Where was he posted?

33. What sort of creatures populate the island off Perth, WA?

a. What is the name of the island?

34. What is the constitutional status of the Northern Territory?

35. Who was the first female Justice of the High Court Australia?

36. When did Papua New Guinea become independent?

a. Who was its first Prime Minister?

37. Who called Australia “The Lucky Country”?

a. What did he mean? (No, what did he really mean?)

38. In what year did Australia first host the Olympic Games?

a. In what city?

39. In which year and in what city did the world welcome “Matilda” as the mascot for the Commonwealth Games?

a. What was she?

b. How big was she?

c. What did she famously do?

d. Where is she now? 

40. For how many years was Robert Menzies Prime Minister?

a. From when to when?

41. Where was the Eureka Stockade?

a. What was it about?

b. When did it happen?

42. When did Aboriginal people gain the right to vote?

43. When was the legislation passed to include Aboriginal people on the Census?

44. Australian indigenous dot painting is world famous. Where did the movement begin?

a. When?

b. Name the person who initiated the movement as a community and economic enterprise.

45. Who was Australia’s most famous Aboriginal Artist before this?

a. Where did he come from?

b. What language is spoken in that country?

46. Who went to prison for planting a bomb in a rubbish bin outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney but subsequently had his conviction quashed?

a. What year?

b. What was happening at the Hilton Hotel, Sydney, at the time?

c. Of what religious sect was he a member?

d. On whose evidence was he convicted in the first place?

47. What were Ned Kelly’s famous last words?

48. Who wrote a book with those words as its title?

a. What was his real name?

49. Who was Xavier Herbert?

50. What, and in what year, was the Petrov Affair?

51. In which year did Australia first fight a war as a nation?

a. Against whom?

52. In Australia’s early years, what was the main form of personal transport?

a. What was the main form of bulk transport?

53. What is the Australian standard gauge for railways?

a. How many different gauges were there before standardisation?

b. What were they?

c. In what year did the first service operate from Sydney to Melbourne without changing gauges?

d. What was the name of the service?

54. Where was the origin of the most important breed of sheep in Australia?

a. Who imported them?

b. Where can the descendants of the first flock be found?

55. What did Paul Hogan do before he became a movie star?

a. What brand of cigarettes did he advertise?

b. To what tune?

c. What was the slogan?

56. Who was the whistler in the advertising campaign for Cambridge cigarettes?

57. Before cigarette advertising was banned on Australian television, an announcement was made at the conclusion of each advertisement. What was it?

a. Who spoke it?

b. In what popular TV serial did he appear?

c. On which network?

d. What character did he play?

e. How did the character infamously die?

58. When was cigarette advertising banned on television?

59. Who wrote the advertising campaign whose catch phrase was “Where do you get it?”

a. Which radio stations does he now own?

b. Who is his most famous employee?

c. What is the name of the book which explores this employee’s homosexuality?

60. What is the name of the most famous Australian movie about transvestites?

a. Who is Australia’s most famous operatic soprano?

b. Who is the second most famous?

c. What dish was named after her?

61. Which two nations claim to have invented the pavlova?

a. In honour of whom was it invented?

b. On what occasion?

62. What disease was the first attempt to eradicate the rabbit in Australia?

a. What was the second?

b. Where was it first released?

c. Why?

63. Which organisation released sparrows and starlings into Australia?

a. Why?

64. Why was the cane toad introduced into Australia?

65. What is the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act??

a. When was it promulgated?

b. By whom [Prime Minister]?

66. What is the constitutional principle on which the Federal Government halted the proposed damming of the Gordon below Franklin Rivers in Tasmania?

a. When was the proposed damming stopped?

b. Which famous international TV naturalist joined the protest against the dam?

67. Where is the Ord River?

a. What was the Ord River Scheme?

68. What does QANTAS stand for?

a. Who founded QANTAS?

b. From where to where was the first commercial QANTAS service?

69. What is the full name of Sydney Airport?

a. After whom was it named?

b. For what was he/ she famous?

70. What does WACA stand for?

a. What does ‘The Gabba’ stand for?

71. What does FNQ stand for?

72. What do the following have in common? Cambridge, Archerfield, Jandakot, Parafield?

73. What percentage of Australians are indigenous?

74. What was the White Australia Policy?

a. When did it end?

75. Who was Arthur Calwell?

a. Who shot him?

b. Where?

c. Why?

d. What were Calwell’s injuries?

76. When was the first modern terrorist bombing in Australia?

a. By whom was it carried out?

b. Against whom?

c. Where?

77. People from how many countries have made their homes Australia?

78. Have atomic or nuclear weapons ever been detonated in Australia?

a. If so, by whom?

b. How many?

c. What were the long-term consequences?

79. What was the name of the control centre for post WWII rocket testing on behalf of the British Government?

a. What people lived in the area?

b. What happened to them?

80. What happened at Maralinga?

81. Where is Pine Gap?

a. To what extent is Pine Gap an example of Australia/US cooperation?

b. What do they do there?

c. Why not?

d. What access does Australia have to the results?

e. Why not?

82. Who first climbed and named Mount Kosciuszko?

a. When?

b. What range is named after him?

c. Where is it?

d. What nationality was he?

e. Why did he leave that country?

f. Who was Kosciuszko?

g. What was his full name?

h. What is the correct pronunciation of his surname?

83. What was the Cowra Uprising?

84. What did Bec do before she married Lleyton?

85. What was Kylie’s first movie role?

a. What was the film’s title?

b. What was her name in Neighbours?

c. List all her boyfriends from Jason to Olivier.

86. What is Molly’s passion?

a. What is going on under his hat?

87. Whom did Elton John marry in Australia?

a. On what date?

b. What was she doing in Australia?

c. Which Australian singer was present at the wedding?

88. Whom did Graham Kennedy marry in Australia?

a. What American TV comedy show did she star in?

89. How many Twelve Apostles are there?

90. In which month are the Birdsville Races held?

91. How many members sit in the House of Representatives?

92. How many members sit in the Senate?

93. Which Australian parliament does not have an upper house?

94. Which place has the lowest elevation in Australia?

95. Where are the oldest rocks in the world?

a. How old are they?

96. Where was the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party?

a. What happened to it?

97. Who formed the Liberal Party of Australia?

98. What were the first Australian political parties?

99. Who was the shortest-serving Australian Prime Minister?

a. Who was the longest?

100. What were:

a. The Statute of Westminster?

i. When was it enacted?

ii. When was it adopted?

iii. What did it do?

b. The Australia Act?

i. When was it enacted?

ii. What did it do?

Good luck!

It’s Madeleine Albright

Aug 26, 2007 | Australian Values, Humour, OzPol Values, USPol, Values

It’s Madeleine Albright

Stop us if you’ve head this one…

 

Early in his term as Prime Minister, John Howard went to Washington for a meeting with Bill Clinton. After a private dinner, Bill says to Howard, “Well John, I don’t know what you think of the members of your Cabinet, but mine are all bright and brilliant.”

“How do you know?” asks Howard.

“Oh well, it’s simple”, says Bill. “They all have to take special tests before they can be a minister. Wait a second”.

He calls Madeleine Albright in and says to her, “Tell me Madeleine, who is the child of your father and of your mother who is not your brother and is not your sister?”

“Ah, that’s simple Mr. President”, says Madeleine, “it’s me!”

“Well done Madeleine,” says Clinton, and Howard is very impressed indeed.

John Howard returns to Canberra somewhat concerned about the intelligence of the members of his own Cabinet.

He calls in Alexander Downer and says: “Alex, tell me, who is the child of your father and of your mother who is not your brother and is not your sister?”

Downer thinks and thinks and doesn’t know the answer. “Um, you know, um, you know that is a hypothetical question and so of course …”

Howard looks at him darkly. “You know that bullshit doesn’t wash with me, Alex. I invented it.”

Downer pauses. “Yes. You know, um, I think we need to, um…such an important question obviously deserves very serious consideration. It may take some time.”

“Take all the time you need,” says Howard. “You’ve got 24 hours.”

Downer goes away, thinks as hard as he can, calls in his team, but no-one knows the answer.

22 hours later, after a sleepless night, Downer is sick to his considerable stomach – still no answer and only 2 hours to go.

Eventually Downer says, “I’ll phone Ruddock, he’s clever, he’ll know the answer.”

“Phil,” he says, “tell me, who is the child of your father and of your mother who is not your brother and is not your sister?”

“Very simple”, says Ruddock, “it’s me!”

“Of course! Just wanted to make sure you knew,” says Downer. 

He calls John Howard.

“Prime Minister”, says Downer proudly, “I have the answer:    It’s Philip Ruddock”.

“No, you idiot!” says Howard. “It’s Madeleine Albright!”