The Chief Whip insists you toe the party line...
Yesterday Australia passed a carbon pricing scheme, over the strenuous objections of the opposition. In fact, the opposition’s objections were so strenuous that their leader, Tony Abbot, has promised a “blood oath” to revoke the legislation.
I guess he’s thinking of a blood oath in the demonological sense of signing a contract in blood to make it more binding. It’s the natural extension of Tony Abbot’s rather unfortunate recent admission that the only promises he makes that can be trusted are promises that are written down. This surely means that promises written in blood are much more manly and believable than those written in mere ink.
This opens up a few worrying questions for me:
- Does Tony Abbot secretly believe that contract law should be changed to make blood-based signatory agreements more powerful, and if so how?
- Is this an extension of his willingness to “sell his arse” to a willingness to “sell his soul”? And if so what kind of policy-making process does this represent?
- Given the paucity of soul in the nasty little blighter, and given he can only sell it once, how much policy benefit can we gain from a government that functions in this way?
- Given he used to be a monk and now he’s become a demonologist, is this further evidence that he’s not really very trustworthy?
- Given he used to be a monk and now he’s become a demonologist, is this more of an indictment of him or the catholic church?
- This kind of language seems very fitting for a role-player, something I never suspected Abbot to be capable of. Is he actually a fantasy role-player, and if so is his party aware of how damning this is for his electoral prospects? Do they seriously think the mortgage belt is going to vote for someone that nerdy?
- If he’s a role-player, what system does he use, is he a GM or player, and where does he fall on the Gamist-Narrative-Simulationist debate?
The obvious good point of this “blood oath” is that he has finally made his position on demonology explicit. The current minority government is in the hands of the Australian Labor Party, who are widely rumoured to have sold their souls en masse to satan in order to gain admission to the party (or at least, to get the numbers for pre-selection). It’s also generally accepted that they will eat their own young and no act of treachery is too low for them. Of course rumours have long abounded that the Liberal Party are just as bad, but their god-fearing family-loving image has saved them from general acceptance of this rumour. At least now Abbot has admitted that, yes, shock! everyone in politics is up to their necks in satan’s semen, and we can all heave a sigh of relief and get back to analyzing the polls.
Politically this pledge could be a disaster for Abbot. As if suspicions of satanism and (omfg!) role-playing were not bad enough, it will probably be very hard to undo the legislation without revoking the tax cuts that came with it, which is obvious political suicide. Furthermore the only practical way he can revoke it is to get it through the Australian Senate, which is currently controlled by the realms of faerie (the Greens). Long-standing agreements between the Seelie Court, the CIA and Rupert Murdoch mean that the only way that Abbot will be able to drive through his legislation is likely to be a double-dissolution election, which means that Abbot will have to go to the next election with the pledge that he will “hold another election within 6 months of this one.” That’s not going to be popular in a country where only two things are compulsory: apathy and voting.
While overall it’s nice to see Abbot finally embracing the inevitable spiritual compromises necessary to succeed in Australian politics, and being so open about it, I don’t think this is going to be good for the party. Also, how is he going to manage to resist Satan’s demands for compulsory abortion and gay marriage?
Compromise and Conceit 
October 13, 2011 at 6:13 pm
What a load of rubbish
October 13, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Hillarious!
October 14, 2011 at 11:47 am
I’m surprised you’ve missed the biggest question in Australian politics to focus on this. Even more so given that my question is driven by emprical maths. The question you should be asking is:
Given that we know that between 2001 and 2007:
a) Temporary protection visas (TPV) and off-shore processing were used by the Australian government
b) Boat based refugee entry into Australia was at historic lows
c) “Push” factors driving boat based entry into Australia were (apparently) at historic lows. We can assume that these factors are generally higher than usual levels of suffering around the world.
At the end of this period TPVs and offshore processing was removed, boat entries to Australia increased and “Push” factors worsened.
The link between TPVs and boat entry is highly correlated, and we have assurances that the boat entries were in fact driven by the “push” factors, which assumes another correlation there.
Therefore we can hypothesise that the use of TPVs by the Austrlian government directly correlates with “push” factors and therefore worldwide suffering!
Now, you may think that this is difficult to determine a reason for, but the strength of the evidence and the importance of the subject demands an empirical verification of the hypothesis. After all, this is worldwide suffering that we could potentially ammerloriate. The Cost Benefits Analysis suggests a 100% certain cost to a couple of thousand boat people against a low probability benefit to millions.
In light of this, why does Bob Brown oppose TPVs and off shore processing? Does he support suffering by people who’s skin is a different colour to his? Does he regard peace as supporting economic development that could harm the environment? Is he just a heartless alien who eats babies when the camera isn’t on him? Is it all of the above?
The people have a right to know!
October 14, 2011 at 12:15 pm
This is clearly a very impressive application of the basic rules of causality. Given the most often cited “push” factors are the war in Afghanistan, which was caused by Osama bin Laden[1], then we have to conclude that abolishing the TPV must have angered Osama bin Laden. Since the abolition of TPVs was obviously Bob Brown’s fault[2], then we are forced to conclude that Bob Brown and the Australian Greens must have been the proximate cause of Osama bin Laden’s attack on the US. His stated aim may have been to get US soldiers out of the holy land, but obviously his true goal was the reinstatement of TPVs in Australia. Bob Brown: peace lover, or cause of eternal war? I think the facts speak for themselves…
Which leads us to the bigger issue: is Bob Brown actually Satan himself? Obviously the tabloid press (and also The Australian) want to believe he’s the reincarnation of VI Lenin, but I don’t think they’re going far enough. Here at C&C Private Investigations, we’re willing to ask the truly hard questions. Bob Brown, are you actually the Antichrist?
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fn1: various extremely plausible and well-respected conspiracy theories aside …
fn2: even though he didn’t have the balance of power at the time?
October 14, 2011 at 3:40 pm
“Given the most often cited “push” factors are the war in Afghanistan”
No, you mean to suggest it’s the worsening of the war in Afghanistan, not just its existence, otherwise it’d be worse from 2004. Except of course it isn’t, because boat refugees were common pre-2001 which is pre-9/11 and pre Afghanistan and pre-Iraq. Therefore we can’t assume anything about the wars in question because “push” factors from them would lead to an uptick in boat refugees pre-2007 that we don’t observe. Well… I guess you could conjecture that Iraq/Afghan refugees didn’t want to flee to a country governed by Howard… But logically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are totally independent on Australian boat arrivals, otherwise they would have had an impact far earlier. The fact that Afghan refugees picked up under Rudd may have something to do with them wanting to learn about China from the Great Man. Though technically that’s a “pull” factor, which I’m assured has no measurable impact. Which leads us back to “TPV abolition increased suffering in Afghanistan to the point where push factors there led to increased refugees”.
“Since the abolition of TPVs was obviously Bob Brown’s fault”
It’s cute how managed to get something right, even though you didn’t know you did. Kevin07 didn’t have the majority of the senate, therefore the TPV abolition was passed with the Greens help (cause it sure as hell wasn’t the coalition’s help). So I wouldn’t say fault, but I would say responsibility.
“we are forced to conclude that Bob Brown and the Australian Greens must have been the proximate cause of Osama bin Laden’s attack on the US”
Sorry. Maybe you don’t understand how proposing a hypothesis like this works. You can choose any two events you want and suggest a correlation then suggest adjusting the variable again to prove or disprove the causation. But you can’t suggest abrogating the arrow of time and having future events cause past events [1].
“Bob Brown, are you actually the Antichrist?”
Again, your heart is in the right place [3], but your conclusion is flawed. There’s no way that even the Antichrist could be so perpetually smug. Buddha maybe.
And we all remember the eternal advice about Buddha: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” And take his stuff.
[1] With the very specific exception of stable time loops that lead to the creation of time travel machines [2]
[2] Feel free to go berserk suggesting these. But I’m damned if I know how to adjust a variable to test for the presence of a stable time loop since by definition the variables that create it can’t be changed (without it being an unstable time loop)
[3] This is important to know if I ever need to cut you open as a human sacrifice [4]
[4] I’m not saying I will. But if Tony was asking questions earlier and looking for suggestions…
October 14, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Actually, I figured out a way to disprove the existence of time travel very easily and cheaply. All you need to do is have the government provide a group of scientists with a grant of a very large amount of money, that will be renewed annually, to invent a time machine, on two conditions:
1. The money cannot be spent for the first week of the project
2. The money must be returned to the government on the expiration of the first week, if no one arrives from the future in a time machine to prove the money was worth investing
It’s guaranteed to work. If anytime in the future a time machine gets created, then the people who made it will be able to come back in time to the day after the grant money was disbursed. But if they don’t make a time machine, then they will never come back in time to hand over the blueprints, the money won’t be disbursed, and the future researchers will cease to exist. Whoever invents the time machine is obliged to adhere to the conditions if they want to keep their invention; in fact, they couldn’t possibly have made the time machine if they hadn’t gone back in time with it to make sure that the funding was disbursed.
In fact, you could even make disbursal of the money conditional upon the researchers from the future turning up at the award to sign the grant documents. If they don’t turn up on time then we can conclude that time machines don’t exist.
October 14, 2011 at 6:20 pm
I think we have a problem with intervention modelling here, Paul. TPVs were introduced in October 1999 and by 2004 about 90% of them had been disbursed to Afghan and Iraqi refugees (I meant to say “the war in Iraq,” btw). The number of boat arrivals was at its highest for 3 years between the introduction of TPVs and the commencement of the Iraq war. In fact, the number of arrivals that occurred in the year after the abolition of TPVs (2008-09) was much lower than the number that occurred in the year after their introduction.
Mandatory detention started in 1994, which was also a year when a sustained doubling in unauthorized boat arrivals occurred. So it does look like punitive approaches to unauthorized boat arrivals lead to a sustained increase in unauthorized boat arrivals. Of course, the intervention modeling is further complicated by the fact that Australian policy from 2001 to 2007 was to tow ships back to their port of origin, thus preventing them from being registered as unauthorized arrivals. Wikipedia tells me this was conducted by Operation Reflex and then Operation Resolute.
In fact, looking at the numbers of arrivals, their nationalities, and the policies in place at the time, it almost seems as if Australian Government policy has nothing to do with asylum seeker flows. Who knew?
October 14, 2011 at 6:56 pm
I snorted my beer due to the awesomeness of that post. I’ll have to ask my local MP to see if he is for or against roleplaying games to see if he is worthy of my next federal election.
Considering I have a local and state election coming up shortly I should extend that out to all levels and make the work for my roleplaying voting goodness.
… that or get them to write all future correspondence in their own blood to cut down on the charming reading material they send me.
October 14, 2011 at 7:45 pm
“But if they don’t make a time machine, then they will never come back in time to hand over the blueprints, the money won’t be disbursed, and the future researchers will cease to exist.”
This is why any time machine that is invented will be a market driven privately funded time machine.
But the fact that we’re not living under one all powerful magnates thumb shows that that won’t work either.
“it almost seems as if Australian Government policy has nothing to do with asylum seeker flows. Who knew?”
Sorry, what does this graph show? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BoatArrivals.gif
Looks like the Pacific Solution is the only solution. Curse you roleplaying-Abbot [1] for blocking Malaysia!
@tellius
“that or get them to write all future correspondence in their own blood to cut down on the charming reading material they send me.”
If you can get the junk mail companies to agree to this, I promise to vote for YOU!
[1] That makes him a 5th level cleric in basic D&D doesn’t it? Maybe you should recruit him for your health care scheme.
October 15, 2011 at 6:13 am
@Paul: Love the boat arrivals graph. It makes me wonder if Tony Abbot didn’t start his career as a Demonologist as Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations in 2001, making his first blood pact make the Pacific Solution successful.
Tellius = next PM on the back of the promise of making all junk mail outlets to use their own blood for advertising. Cuts down landfill instantly by 20%.
October 15, 2011 at 1:59 pm
haha Tellius, I will also vote for you if you can cut down on political junk mail. Not that I get any here in Japan (not from Abbot, anyway).
Paul, that graph is actually slightly misleading, because it doesn’t include ships that were towed out of Australian waters, and I think (I don’t know) that it doesn’t include people picked up at sea and taken directly to offshore processing facilities. The reason I think this is that it is based on the data from the report I showed you (that report has the same chart) and the notes on the charts there suggest that the calendar year data (at least) doesn’t include arrivals at “excised” areas. We don’t know how many ships were towed because the government was very secretive about operation Relex, which was extremely busy, at least in 2001 and the beginning of 2002, and there were at least 400 people who never arrived at a processing point (on SIEV X). Once you include the ships that didn’t make it to shore, asylum seeker flows look very different to that chart.
The vast majority of boat arrivals come from four countries, three of which have been at war. It’s likely that the state of war in those countries is the main driver of whether people choose to come here. To think of it another way, Iran has more than a million refugees within its territory, many of them fleeing from Afghanistan. If even 1% of them decide that languishing in a camp in the arse-end of Iran is not a good idea, and that they would like to risk a journey to a country that is a signatory to the conventions, then that means at least 10,000 people will be fleeing towards Australia. The UNHCR estimates there are 95000 refugees in Malaysia and Malaysia is not a signatory to the convention, so it’s not unreasonable to suppose that the people who decided not to languish in Iran are also going to decide not to languish in Malaysia. Further to that, the UNHCR reports that since 2002 they have repatriated a huge number of refugees in Iran[1], and the agreements under which they were repatriated expired in 2007 – just when the boat arrivals in Australia began to increase again. So it could be that part of the reduction in refugee flows to Australia between 2002 and 2007 was caused by the UNHCR being able to return them directly to Afghanistan. The fact that the repatriation agreement only began in 2002 suggests, again, that the war in Afghanistan – or rather, the end of the civil war that was raging there before the US entered – has been the main driver of Afghan refugee flows. Finally, the UNHCR statistical yearbook for Malaysia shows a massive increase in numbers of refugees entering the country between 1999 and 2002 – a period pretty much exactly corresponding with the big increases in boat arrivals in Australia.
Given this, I’m inclined to support the Malaysia solution because my concern is for refugee policy to be safe and humane, and people coming by boat are taking great risks (as we have seen in all too tragic detail recently at Christmas Island). Also, most asylum seekers seem to be coming from Malaysia anyway, so they’re hardly going to rush off to Australia if they actually think there’s a chance they can get to Australia even if they stay in Malaysia. And it’s not like the Pacific Solution ultimately prevented these asylum seekers from settling in Australia – 70% of them had their refugee claims accepted, and were settled in Australia or New Zealand (mainly). So ultimately the Malaysian solution just stops them taking extreme risks before they become residents of Australia, and helps Malaysia handle its excessive refugee population.
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fn1: although to be fair, the UNHCR figures are a bit self-contradictory at times
October 15, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Sorry Fautus, but Relex would just count as part of the overall “border protection” package. As such it’s just the lever that I’m suggesting pulling to decrease arrivals. And since the assumption is that only a decrease in “push” factors can decrease refugee arrival, we know that the overall package must have a relationship with those “push” factors.
If you want to break the assumption that only “push” factors influence refugee arrival then other options become possibilities, but it also involves ignoring the refugee lobby. Which the ABC and Fairfax wouldn’t stand for (we can assume the Murdoch press will be OK with it).
Your points around argreements for repatriation to Afghanistan could be influencial too. How about we turn the Howard border protection back on and that in a controlled order to see what impact it has? We need to be methodical here.
“I’m inclined to support the Malaysia solution because my concern is for refugee policy to be safe and humane”
Watch out. You’re starting to sound like Andrew Bolt, which could lead to playing a role playing game with Abbot!
Bet he plays an infernalist.
October 15, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Actually I was thinking that Canadian refugee experience could serve as a control group, so we could compare Australian and Canadian refugee flows during the period 2001-2008 to see how they differ. But I can’t find stats on boat arrivals in Canada (they do appear to have received some in 2010, but that’s all I can find). I think Canadian policy has been more stable over the past 10 years so would be a good comparator.
I’m not sure what you mean about Relex – Relex is the official name for the “Pacific solution”[1]. The problem with Relex is that it obscures our stats, so we can’t assess the relative strength of “push” factors during that period because we don’t know how many boats were sailing (all the data on how many boats were sailing is based on how many arrived on our shores). It certainly seems like Relex was busy at least for its first 6 months, but most of its activity during that time is not reflected in statistics as far as I can tell.
Given his recent behavior I am actually not willing to extend much of an assumption of good faith to Bolt. He supports the Malaysian solution because it represents a victory for the ideology of offshore processing, not because he thinks it’s good policy.
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fn1: given its historical usage, I find the popular will to append the word “solution” to these names a bit disturbing, and I wonder if the journalists and politicians who took to using this term really thought very long about how offensive it can sound.