Expect to see NRSR in a Julie Bishop speech sometime soon

A couple of days ago I had a visitor to this blog from Australian Parliament House in Canberra, searching for information on "Kevin Rudd cliches". Yes! I can't express how encouraging this is to me. This is what I love about the flat world, World 2.0, whatever you wish to call it - my little blog has the potential to reach right to where decisions are being made about this country. Even though Google shows me no love anymore at my new site. Isn't it wonderful that a rant on a tiny blog like this can be read by important decision makers? Now admittedly I had nothing particularly interesting to say on the subject other than to note my irritation at Kevin Rudd's abuses of the language, but still - I might have done. And if I had, it might have influenced somebody, somewhere.

The question immediately follows - who at Parliament House was researching this topic? I like to imagine it was Rudd himself, puzzled at the scorn heaped upon him, thinking "Why do they say I speak in cliches? I am a wonderful speaker, a wonderful writer, and let's be honest - a pretty wonderful person." Unfortunately I assume that the PM logs on through pm.gov.au. Similarly I presume that all the ministers log on through their respective departments.

Thus my attention is turned to the opposition. Malcolm is a possibility. Last week, in moving his motion censuring Rudd and Swan for their mishandling of the GFC, their stupid decision to offer an unlimited guarantee on bank deposits, their failure to consult the Reserve Bank, trying to run the economy on the basis of the 24-hour news cycle, and generally being the sort of people who probably beat their dogs in private, he took a moment to go on this detour:

The Prime Minister loves to talk about leaving no stone unturned. It might be better to say, in his case, he leaves no cliche unuttered. One of his favourite cliches today is ‘letting loose the dogs of war’.

(Hansard here, if you can be bothered.)

However, perhaps a more likely candidate is nitwit Julie Bishop, looking for something new to plagiarise. OK, I admit it - I've developed a sneaking, guilty admiration for Turnbull. I get the impression he's trying to run to the left of Rudd, which wouldn't be difficult as there is a lot of room to the left of Rudd. And I firmly believe that if you got them alone at a dinner party, you'd find that in truth small "l" liberal Malcolm Turnbull actually is to the left of Christian, socially conservative Rudd (consider their respective responses to the Bill Henson affair, for instance.) However the chances of him succeeding in taking the Liberal Party to the left of Rudd's government is probably pretty slim, with creeps like Abott and dimwits like Julie Bishop on his front bench.

To get back to Julie Bishop for a moment. I have to hand it to her for the most unusual defence of plagiarism I have heard. "I didn't plagiarise it because I didn't really write it - my staff did, I just put my name on it." How is this any better? Isn't this more-or-less just saying "I plagiarised the whole thing"?

But apparently it's OK, because it no other federal Liberal politician - other than Abbott - bothered to write their contributions themselves, either. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but I'd think in the case of this dreadful-seeming book, it's clear that there is.

posted by Nicholas @ 2:26 PM