On Radio Pravda the ABC there was a telephone interview with Mike Devereux, the CEO of General Motors Australia Holden in which he put forward the case for, well, I’m not really what he put the case for.

He tried very hard to get three points across;

1. Holden manufacturers the 4th and 6th best selling cars in Australia from their ShagYerDadAlaide factory (Cruz and Commodore).
2. Things are expensive in Australia, “from a soda pop to a meal in a restaurant to factory salaries”.
3. Government policy needs to “be competitive”.

So, well done on making a couple of cars some people want, even if, as you stated, the factory runs at a loss. I’m sure we all can agree that car manufacturing in Australia is a very worthy charity.

Yes, things are sphincter-tighteningly expensive in Australia and the exchange rate is one cause of this but, actually, two other factors are more significant here; unsustainable land/property prices and 1970′s style union insanity.

As our commentor Russell stated on yesterdays post, you’ve signed up to incredibly-restrictive and uncompetitive enterprise bargaining agreements with the unions, Mike. Don’t come bleating to the taxpayer to help you out of a situation of your own making.

Oh hang on, that was your fucking third point wasn’t it?

If we’re going to keep spunking $1.2bn of corporate welfare into the economy, can’t we at least direct it to a sector with good margins and a future, such as medical technology instruments, high precision tools or the really great start-up idea I’ve just had that will distribute apostrophes to all previously deprived Australians?

In the meanwhile, down in that engine-house of intellectual thought, South Australia, a “Thinker in Residence” has, ahem, detailed why subsidising the complete clusterfuck that is the Australian car industry makes financial sense.

“Thinker in Residence”? Brilliant job description and one I’m going to use to justify the time I spend sitting in the smallest room in future; “don’t disturb me, I’m the thinker in residence. And could you chuck a new toilet roll through the door please?”.

According to Goran Roos, a man who’s salary is paid in return for providing justification for South Australia State policy, $1bn pissed away invested in Holden returns $40bn back.

So why are they running at a bloody loss then, genius?

Oh, and while you’re reading that article, ponder the throwaway line about the mining and food industries getting $1bn welfare too.

Who the fuck is John Galt?

Look what came through on email to the hotline this morning; a response to my Freedom of Information Request for the summary of the business case or cost/benefit analysis for the $275m gift the Federal and State Governments handed over to Holden last March.

Their response was a publicly-available fact sheet. This one.

What I was looking for was some figures against the assumptions, for example; how many jobs will be retained, what is the calculated benefit to the local and national economy (using what assumptions), how much investment is Holden committing, etc.?

What I got was the equivalent of George w. Bush’s detailed justification for invading Iraq,

We gotta ‘cos we gotta.

So I’ve responded (for the third time now) with a request to give me the bloody analysis, if it exists.

We all know it does, right? There’s no way that a bunch of Australian politicians who, collectively, have no private sector experience whatsoever apart from being singer in Midnight Oil, would piss $275,000,000 up the wall on a whim, surely?

As I’ve previously observed, there seems to be a general malaise around these parts which results in folk never stopping to consider the logic of what it is they do or why.

Back at the chocolate dildo factory today, I had a bemusing conversation with our, soon to be fired, orders manager;

TNA: Hi, I’ve just been looking at our order history from our specialist adult confectionery franchise outlets and, after I got someone to key the data into a spreadsheet from the carbon paper they come in on, I can see a 47% rejection rate on the orders. Any clues why?
Soon To Be Fired Orders Manager: Yeah, that’s because they rarely give us all the information on the order form first time.
TNA: Examples?
STBFOM: Well, maybe they’ll tell us the required length but not girth. Or perhaps that it needs to be a white chocolate dildo but not specify whether it needs to be circumcised or not.
TNA: So have you actually communicated this requirement for complete information to the franchises?
STBFOM: Huh?
TNA: (voice rising in pitch slightly): Have you ever told them what the options are that you need to know to be able to process the order immediately for them? Surely both they AND you would prefer to just get on with the order straight away?
STBFOM: Erm, I s’pose….
TNA: In fact, the rest of the process uses electronic forms which have mandatory fields. Why are we still taking orders on triplicate carbon paper forms?
STBFOM: Well, I’m not really sure…..
(sound of Englishman walking off and throwing a stapler at the intern)

That conversation has been repeated at least three times in the last two weeks now with “orders” being substituted by “invoices” or “raw material deliveries”.

There seems to have been a shocking level of respect for the status quo going on for the last few years in this place.

The corporate balance sheet ain’t as healthy-looking as it was four or five years ago and I’ve been tasked with contributing to the effort of fixing it. If the obvious process improvements had been taken when times were good, the subsequent redundant staff (and I’m estimating that’s 40% of this department) would have been easily redeployed around the organisation. As it is, the inefficiency will be solved and we’ll not need the headcount.

Have a think about that for a moment the next time your union rep comes along rattling the subscription tin and telling you he’s on your side; process improvements are just that, and if you don’t embrace them when they present themselves, you can be damn sure your overseas competitor will.

It says, “Another Glass Fence – Dimension One Glass Fencing”.

I can only assume that the glass has recently been professionally cleaned to give us a clearer view of the rickety old wooden fence behind it.

Wes and TLM can’t make it up from Melbourne so I’m putting their unwanted tickets out to the readership of this blog.

The New Australian is not an equal opportunity employer though so there is very definitely a pecking order that these tickets are being offered in.

First refusal goes to English rugby fans.

In the absence of a pair of fine English yeomen or women, they’re being offered in the following sequence;

- Scotch
- Irish
- People from Canadia
- Folk from any other British Commonwealth Country
- French
- Americans
- Folk from countries outside the British – Commonwealth
- Kiwis
- Aussies
- Convicted war criminals
- The undead
- Mythical creatures and fictional characters
- Welsh

If you want the tickets contact me in the comment section or by email (address top right of this page). To prevent ticket touts buying them, I’ll be handing them over at the stadium or in Manli ™ if you want a lift.

It’ll be a dead rubber anyway as the Lions will be 2-0 up by the time we get to Sydney….

The result is that the Sydney CBD Fashion Bingo category has been woefully ignored.

Here’s a chap worth looking up and down though;

Clearly, sometime back in the late 90′s, he strode purposefully into a menswear shop, picked a suit he liked, checked the waist size of the trousers and splashed the plastic down on the counter.

Obviously, paying any attention to the length of the trousers to ensure they reached the shoes would be far too metrosexual for an Australian male, wouldn’t it?

What’s a couple of inches of socks between friends after all?

This shoe/trouser disconnect is all too common in Australia, even in the more sophisticated (cough) metropolitan centres like Sydney, so Christ knows what the ShagYerDadalaide town centre is like.

Maybe there’s a potential pitch to be made to the failing Channel Ten executives for a new series; “Look the part, not a tool; The New Australian guide to dressing for the office“.

If you hold shares in brown shoe or black shirt manufacturers, it could be time to sell up.

Whilst in the queue and trying hard not to breathe in the noxious powder, I noticed this season’s unsold Anzac Day kitsch has reached the bargain bucket now.

$99 for the “Sands of Gallipoli” (limited edition) and $79 for the collection of enamel beach-scapes.

Stunning value.

I, for one, take great comfort from the thought that, should I be forcibly-enlisted for a senseless foreign war and find myself slaughtered on a faraway battlefield following an error of command, it shall not be in vain.

In fact, there will be an entire industry created around cloying sentimentality and misplaced patriotism with scant regard to the wider historical facts…. in my name.

“It’s what they would have wanted, lest we forget”.

Better still, just round the corner of the tasteful display case was this excellent investment opportunity;

For those of you who don’t follow bitcoins and gold daily; today’s spot price of gold is AUS$1,444 per ounce.

Obviously 1/10th of that is $144.

So you’re being offered a cardboard picture of a snake for $185.

I bought their entire stock.

Wendi Deng clearly has a reasonable pre-nuptial agreement which won’t see her sifting through bins on the streets anytime soon. She’s probably a very good catch right now, actually.

What will be fascinating will be her next choice of beau (maybe that was the reason for the separation?). This is the acid test; does she have a “type” and is now on the hunt for her next leathery old billionaire or, now she is financially-secure, will she choose an 18 year old Spanish tennis coach?

Wendi, we’ve never had consecutive Richmonds on here before, we have great expectations of you!

(h/t L’il Bastard)

They do things differently here. In the last two days the election battle lines seem to have been drawn on abortion, a picture of an offensive menu which was distributed on Twitter (but not on the tables of the restaurant), a couple of emotional references by La Gillard to her late father in a speech and whither blue ties?

The blue ties “issue” was quite surreal; La Gillard seemed to suggest that if she lost the election we would be consigned to a fate of being governed by men in blue ties. Whatever that means.

The menu furore was simply yet another a case study in poor Australian journalism. A picture of a menu appeared on Creepbook, then Twitter, with an inference that it was used at a party political fundraising dinner. You’ll struggle to find the contents of the menu as the Australian media have saved your blushes by refusing to reprint it. After going to press with the non-verbatim reporting of the menu, no media outlet actually got a 2nd confirmation that it was ever placed on the tables. Reporting Twitter IS news nowadays.

It’s not exactly Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by the way. Probably the most offensive item was the “Julia Gillard Kentucky fried quail, small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box”. How about that for the pinnacle of political satire?

Menus and blue ties aside, the abortion question seemed to come from left field; until Tuesday I don’t think anyone knew it was a policy that either party was planning to change. Two days later and I’m still not sure if there are any differences between the two parties on “choice”, as the obsessive Americans call it.

Since La Gillard called the election date of September 14th all those years ago, the only debates on policy between the two parties seem to have been on whether to pay themselves more from public coffers for campaigning (that got a “yes” from both parties until the public heard about it and then it died a death), whether or not our Superannuation taxation would be further fiddled with (still unclear on where we landed on that) and what type of tow ropes would work best to “turn the boats back”.

Maybe the Liberals have a large book of draft legislation that they are about to propose as law on September 15th but as yet they’ve not had to tell us about it as the entire media coverage of the election has been about this absolute candyfloss and drivel.

La Gillard is ostensibly driving the debate here but it seems not to be a debate at the same time. All the Liberals have to do to win is shut the fuck up for the next 3 months.
In fact, this is just desperation of the most pitiful order. Increasingly, the Prime Minister resembles the character in my favourite Brel song, Ne Me Quitte Pas, promising the world to a departing lover if only they would turn back and stay:

Don’t leave me
I will weep no more
I will speak no more
I will hide myself there
To watch you
Dance and smile
And listen to you
Sing and then laugh
Let me become
The shadow of your shadow
The shadow of your hand
The shadow of your dog
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me
Me ne quitte pas……….

Let’s use the Triple J Hottest 100 list as a half-decent excuse to re-open the running sore that is the lack of musical talent in Australia.

I first heard Triple J just over a decade ago. It was a fairly diverse music station back then playing a good mix of tracks not found elsewhere on the largely-conservative Australian wavelengths.

Fast forward and I find Triple J more than a little annoying most times that I turn to her on the dial. The reason being that they’ve taken the no doubt worthy attitude that they should promote Australian music in all its forms.

This is clearly a good thing and to be encouraged however……

It would seem that I’m not the only one who thinks they’ve got the mix wrong. Looking at the results of the “Hottest 100” survey where listeners were given the opportunity to vote for the 100 best songs of the last 2 decades, they mostly said “nah, maaaate” to the home grown talent.

In fact, they picked “Wonderwall” by Oasis as the best song in the last twenty years, FOR FUCK’S SAKE. I’m not even going to go into why that is just wrong, wrong, fucking wrong.

And I suddenly wanted to buy an automatic weapon and go postal on a room full of vegans when I saw Coldplay on the list.

Breathe, count to ten. Better……

Hang on a minute, what about all those really great Gold Coast white-boy rappers talking loudly about smoking cones and driving Ford Falcons with all their honeys?

Oh yeah, everyone else thinks they are shite too, not just me.

Well, everyone with the exception of Deane Wyldman‘s mother and the Gold Coast Mayor, I suppose.

 With a mad ass beach and a proper break,

Honeys all around and their breasts are fake,

There’s no place I’d rather be,

Than at Surfers baby.