We wrote recently that Prime Minister Stephen Harper had no friends. That was a lie. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott dropped by early last week and he and his friend Stephen Harper had a love-in. The Hair has to like Abbott, he is the only elected Commonwealth leader further to the political right than Canada’s prime minister. Like many Aussies, Abbott is a Libertarian, misogynist racist but then nobody is perfect.
Please do not assume that we have any apprehensions about Australians. There are no people with whom we would rather spend time drinking beer with than Aussies. They are great fun. They are industrious. They are tough. They are great story tellers.
But you have to empathize with their women. Aussie men can often act as sexist louts. Their treatment of the Australian aboriginals makes us look downright generous to our first nations. It is important to bear in mind that Australia got its start as a penal colony for Great Britain. Aussies can often be very proud of their linage from this cutpurse or that forger. The problem with Canada is that the people who settled this land either came here because they were bribed to or, at least, came of their own free will.
If you are confused by the Australian Prime Minister being both a monarchist and head of Australia’s Liberal Party, you should be aware that the name of the party was picked by the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia in 1944 when they needed a replacement for the white-supremacist fascists of the Australia First Party. The Liberal Party in Australia is to the right of that country’s Conservative Party. It would be like Canada’s right-wing Fraser Institute creating the Conservative Party of Canada. Come to think of it, did they?
This is not to suggest that the Hair’s friend Mr. Abbott is all that popular back home. Most Aussie friends asked about him tend to scream a lot about “that bastard” and then become thankfully incoherent. He is not expected to enjoy as long a tenure as Prime Minister as the more subtle Mr. Harper.
One of the first things Mr. Abbott did when he became Prime Minister down under was to cancel the carbon tax and anything else environmental that denied business the right to rape and pollute at will. He even scrapped Australia’s department of climate change in case it ever found out anything. His generous tax cuts for corporations make the Hair look like a left-wing cheapskate.
The Hair should pick his friends more carefully.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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