Spinning for a living


Tanya Plibersek’s effective last-minute banning of the McPhillamys gold mine in regional NSW occupies much of the news. Apparently, secret Aboriginal business says no. To be clear, Ms Plibersek, in her practised supercilious manner, tells us that she has not banned the mine at all, just the tailings dam. This is echoed by Albanese and his disingenuous crew.

Reports earlier this year had suggested that cost blowouts might scupper the mine. But apparently it was due to go ahead. The rising price of gold no doubt helps.

It is hard to imagine that spending money and time choosing an alternative tailings site – if that is at all feasible – and the years trying to navigate regulatory hurdles will not finally deal a death blow to the project. It is also hard to imagine any large resource project attracting capital under Plibersek’s rules of the game. This of course has all been said. What is passed over to a large extent is the preparedness of government ministers to lie with a straight face.

Plibersek could have said that she appreciated, having discussed the matter with the company, that her decision on the tailings dam puts the project in jeopardy. She could have said that the likely loss of jobs, of shareholder returns and of state and federal government revenue was worth it when set against the protection of an Aboriginal heritage area.

Her decision would still have been mystifying and monumentally careless of Australia’s wellbeing, but she would not have hid behind a tall tale. What this episode shows is that she is unwilling to take accountability for her decision and is prepared to deceive the Australian people in order to save face. What could Albanese and his conga line of ministers do? No problem for them. Just repeat the deception. Spinning for a living is their recipe for winning. And that is all that counts.

Albanese spoke directly into the camera and said that the Gazan refugees were on temporary visas, knowing, as though we didn’t, that they could never be booted out. They were actually on tourist visas, which he hid also.

How do you engage with liars? Well, you can’t and retain your equilibrium; or even your sanity. Unbound by the truth, there are a legion of deceptive and capricious twists and turns they can take. It is the lingua franca of the father of lies. (John 8:44) To switch continents, imagine trying to pin down Kamala Harris? She is the personification of lies. A shape shifter, as Andrew Bolt put it.

You might say that politicians, particularly those on the left, have always lied. To a limited extent maybe, but not to this current level. I put it down to the corporate media. Taken over by callow left leaners (and by women who by nature are less inclined to simply stick to the facts), they have long since given away holding authority to account. Now they only hold conservatives to account while buddying up to their left-leaning political mates. A plug: a forthcoming new book of essays Against the Corporate Media. I am in it. Still worth a read.


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Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
August 31, 2024 3:10 pm

Peter, you are depressingly correct.

I have asked a colleague to order a copy for the library of the university where we both formerly worked.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
August 31, 2024 4:54 pm

Nailed it Peter.

Bruce
Bruce
August 31, 2024 5:02 pm

Scupper or Scuttle?

“Scuppers” are deck drains as made famous in the song about “drunken sailors”. Viz: https://www.lyrics.com/lyric-lf/5561064/Paul+Carbuncle/Drunken+Sailor

To “scuttle” is to deliberately sink a ship. Usually by disabling the bilge pumps and opening the sea-cocks.

Nautical pedant mode / Off.

Roger
Roger
August 31, 2024 5:16 pm

Ah…I see you included the Biblical quote I was thinking of replying with.

This is what we’re up against.

And, fwiw, Andrew Giles still sits on the front bench despite lying to misleading parliament over released immigration detainees being on visas with strict conditions when they were actually free to go wherever they pleased when they pleased.

Muddy
Muddy
August 31, 2024 7:48 pm

These people know that even the righteously outraged will still vote for them at the next erection (sic), and the one after that, and … because, welllll … you have to, right? Isn’t that what we’ve always done? Who else is there? It’s a ritual, and nostalgia, and they kept us saef (sic) and stuff. You know. Stuff.

These moral vacuums forced the elderly, and the terminally ill to DIE ALONE during the covidiocy. None of those cowards – who had enormous resources at their disposal – have accepted responsibility for their shameless acts. Yet WE will still vote for them. For now and always.

Eff the Die-Alones. I for one, will not forgive the unforgivable.

Vicki
Vicki
August 31, 2024 8:28 pm

While Plib’s motivation in stopping a cursed mining operation is very obvious, her dopey use of a dubious Aboriginal ginger group to assist, was hilariously flawed. It simply riled the local mob, who saw any possibility of “royalties” disappearing by the second!

But she also seriously underestimated the opposition of the state Labour govt who saw genuine benefits to both the state economy & local workers.

Love to see the irony in all of this. Plibs has jettisoned any hope of future federal leadership of the Labor lot.

Vicki
Vicki
August 31, 2024 8:30 pm

Incidentally, drove through the district very close to Blayney today on the way to Canberra & saw an awful lot of traffic heading in the opposite direction to Blayney. A protest or meeting of some sort?

Rabz
September 1, 2024 8:45 am

Apparently the first application(s) for approval of the mine were lodged in 2019.

Five years only to have the project killed stone dead by blabbersack’s last minute reliance on the beliefs of a mad ol’ blow in fraud who’s about as indigenous as I am (i.e. not at all).

One aspect of this living abortion of a government that’s increasingly becoming front and centre (apart from it staggering incompetence) is its jihad against any industry and its determination to shut down as many as possible. The latest of course being the live export trade in WA.

About the only thing they’re remotely competent at is stuffing the country to the gills with useless insoluble third world imbeciles in the midst of the most destructive housing crisis in this country’s history – which of course, they’ve also caused.

Worst feral government in my lifetime. They have got to go. The prospect of them clinging on to power while dependent on the greenfilth and those teal slags is simply too hideous to contemplate.

Perplexed of Brisbane
Perplexed of Brisbane
September 1, 2024 8:49 am

We’re not stopping you from buying a car, you just can’t have an engine in it.

Forester
Forester
September 2, 2024 11:07 am

And I think it raises the question about the role that Tony Abbott’s playing

Tanya Plibersek

NFA
NFA
September 8, 2024 11:53 am

Sydney Harbor is a Tailing dam

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