Horse 2923 - Could Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce Constitutionally Call An Election?

https://twitter.com/tanya_plibersek/status/1453666070221312006

 The five scariest words in the English language: Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce.

- Tanya Plibersek, @tanya_plibersek (via Twitter), 28th Oct 2021

serious question ... constitutionally could he call an election ???

- Sir Dave Lennon, @Davelennonabc (via Twitter), 28th Oct 2021

One of the things I like about asking questions like this is that you can test the boundaries of constitutional theory and practice, in the relative safety of thought experiments. Of course, the problem with thought experiments is that very occasionally if you leave a Bunsen burner on, the conclusions and ideas that you have reached become so explosive and flammable that they escape the laboratory of the mind and potentially have the power to start burning things in the real world. 

The question of whether or not the Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has the ability and authority to call an election is a good one because, it gently prods ideas with a stirring rod and if there's one thing that we like doing in poltical philosophy, it is to cause a stir.

To address the question directly, could Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce constitutionally call an election?

No.

The actual authority for holding an election (and by this I assume a general election where all of the seats in the House of Representative and at least half of the Senate) rests wholly and solely with the the Governor-General who will issue a writ dissolving the parliament; per Sections 5 and 28 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900):

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/chapter1/Part_1_-_General#chapter-01_part-01_05

The Governor-General may appoint such times for holding the sessions of the Parliament as he thinks fit, and may also from time to time, by Proclamation or otherwise, prorogue the Parliament, and may in like manner dissolve the House of Representatives.

- Section 5, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/chapter1/Part_III_-_The_House_of_Representatives#chapter-01_part-03_28

Every House of Representatives shall continue for three years from the first meeting of the House, and no longer, but may be sooner dissolved by the Governor-General.

- Section 28, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)

Writs for general elections of the House of Representatives and Senate are issued by the Governor-General and this sets in motion an entire calendar of events. Actually, there are in fact 8 such writs for a general election which are issued for each of the six States and the two Territories and they are deemed to have been issued at 6pm. I have not idea why the time of 6pm is important. As with all of these kind of events, the issue of writs is notified in the Government Notices Gazette.

Generally speaking, the Prime Minister will make a trip from the Prime Minister's Office to Government House, which is the Governor-General's residence in Yarralumla and bring the necessary paperwork requesting a dissolution and the issue of writs for an election. 

The actual authority for holding an election and dissolving the parliament doesn't lie with the Prime Minister; which means that that with regards the request for a dissolution the Governor General either may or may not accept the request but almost always does. 

A Governor-General refusing to accept a request to dissolve parliament happened in Canada in 1926, when the Governor General of Canada, the Lord Byng of Vimy, refused a request by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, to dissolve parliament and call a general election.

However, this doesn't actually address the question. What would happen if Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce brought the the appropriate paperwork requesting to hold a general election and dissolve the parliament? Then what? Admittedly this would be a really weird set of circumstances and as such, it demands a really weird answer to the question. 

Nowhere in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act will you find the existence of a thing known as the "Prime Minister". In passing there might be the the idea that there is some kind of head of the Federal Executive Council, which is mentioned, but nothing specifically about the office of Prime Minister.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/chapter2#chapter-02_62

62. Federal Executive Council

There shall be a Federal Executive Council to advise the Governor-General in the government of the Commonwealth, and the members of the Council shall be chosen and summoned by the Governor-General and sworn as Executive Councillors, and shall hold office during his pleasure.

- Section 62, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)

63. Provisions referring to Governor-General

The provisions of this Constitution referring to the Governor-General in Council shall be construed as referring to the Governor-General acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council.

- Section 63, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)

64. Ministers of State

The Governor-General may appoint officers to administer such departments of State of the Commonwealth as the Governor-General in Council may establish.

Such officers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Governor-General. They shall be members of the Federal Executive Council, and shall be the Queen's Ministers of State for the Commonwealth.

Ministers to sit in Parliament

After the first general election no Minister of State shall hold office for a longer period than three months unless he is or becomes a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

- Section 64, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900)

This is where really really weird implications arrive.

The office of the Governor-General is in fact insanely powerful even though for 121 years, the only two times that anyone tcan think that the Governor-General did anything of practical import was either in 1900 when the Governor-General appointed the wrong person and had to get someone else before the first parliament, and in 1975 when the Governor-General sacked one Prime Minister, gave assent to a budget act, appointed a new Prime Minister, then issued writs for a general election of the House of Representatives and Senate upon on the advice of that new Prime Minister. All of this was within the authority of the Governor-General.

This is where you will find the answer to the question. Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is already a member of the Federal Executive Council to advise the Governor-General in the government of the Commonwealth per Section 62, if Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce requested an election and a dissolution of parliament then it would be the Governor-General acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council per Section 63. The Governor-General would be perfectly entitled to issue a writs dissolving the parliament; per Sections 5 and 28.

Actually, truth be told, if the Governor-General wanted to, they could appoint me to be a Minister of State per Section 64, and I could request an election and a dissolution of parliament; as in the case above. I don't even need to sit in Parliament to be Prime Minister. The Governor-General could in theory appoint literally anyone in the world to Minister of State per Section 64; including Jacinda Ardern, Xi Jingping, Jeremy Clarkson, Kim Kardashian... and it still wouldn't be unconstitutional (within three months). For that chain of events to happen, you would have to assume that the Governor-General was as mad as a gum tree full of galahs and as reliable as a two dollar watch; however the sanity of sensibility of the Governor-General isn't mentioned in the Constitution. 

Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce wouldn't actually dare requesting an election and a dissolution of parliament because not only would that permanently damage the relationship between the Liberal Party and the National Party and thus ensure that the National Party would never hold any political office at Federal level ever again, the numbers simply don't work. Calling an election tomorrow would guarantee electoral wipe out; with the Labour Party picking up about 90 seats, the Liberal/National Coalition winning about 55 and there'd be 6 Others.

Since moving from being Senator for Queensland to MP for New England, Barnaby Joyce has won all of the elections with an outright majority in all cases. His seat would be safe and would likely need at least an 18% swing against him to lose his own seat but if he had the audacity to go to the Governor-General while being 

Acting Prime Minister, then you'd have to assume that there was a fantastic reason for doing so. Maybe before the invention of air travel this might have been a thing but not today.

Horse 2922 - Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill: Who Pays The Price For This Bill?

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/bills/Pages/bill-details.aspx?pk=3891

An Act to provide for, and regulate access to, voluntary assisted dying for persons with a terminal illness; to establish the Voluntary Assisted Dying Board; and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Notice of Motion: Tue 12 Oct 2021

- Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill (2021)

On the 19th of October 2021, the NSW Liberal Partyroom decided to allow a conscience vote on the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill. Presumably both the Premier Dominic Perrottet and the Opposition Leader Chris Minns both oppose the bill but sending this to a conscience vote, means that the passage or non-passage of the bill into law effectively negates any political effect that this is going to have. I think that the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill is really just another turn on the euphemism treadmill, after having previously seen that other voluntary euthanasia bills have in the past been politically untenable. 

I hate this bill. I hate that the parliament is considering this bill. I hate that we as a society have reached a point where reducing an individual's suffering has priority over other moral goals in all cases. It is almost as if we have decided that individual liberty has become the highest ideal, where literally no duties, no responsibilities, no debts, and no relationships to other people are even allowed to define the self. Almost as a case of irony, individual liberty which is set up as the highest ideal, often leads to other crimes, atrocities, and murder, committed in the name of said liberty; against people who stand in the way. While that might not exactly be the proposed case here, the passage of this bill into legislation, will lead to collateral damage.

One of the common refrains from people who want there to be legal euthanasia, is that other people shouldn't impose their morality upon them; yet at the same time, changing the legislation requires a different set of morality to be imposed upon the world because at some fundamental level (and especially if the subject of the legislation is the termination of someone's life) all law is the imposition of some kind of morality somewhere. Since I'm not going to be allowed to play in the area of the sanctity of human life (because for the purposes of this discussion that's not allowable or admittable) then I'm going to lay out the consequences.

The argument put forward for euthanasia is that it eliminates the pain and suffering of the person who wants to end their own life. That says something profound about what kind of moral product that suffering is, but since that's not allowable or admittable for the purposes of this discussion, we're going to have to assume that there is some amount of utility in the elimination of suffering. 

https://www.utilitarianism.com/rnsmart-negutil.html

Admittedly, NU (Negative Utilitarianism) as a conservative political principle has some advantages, in that people more readily agree on evils than on goods; but any clarity it brings to ethics is bought at the expense of allowing certain absurd and even wicked moral judgments. 

- Ninian Smart, Mind Vol 67, No 268, (Oct., 1958)

The problem with trying to do any kind of measure of the utility of pain and suffering is that although pain and suffering exist, they are impossible to measure empirically. Pain and suffering are experienced by an individual and that experience can not be actually shared with another. As the experience  of pain and suffering can neither be empirically measured or shared, then there is actually no calculable metric for determining what level of pain and suffering exists. People when being given pain medication will be asked to rate levels of pain against their own experience but that experience can only exist within the confines of their own existence. Thus, what you actually have is a subjective measure of a thing; which is a bad thing to be basing legislation on.

When you consider that the person experiencing pain and suffering is also a self-interested individual who exists at the centre of the universe (the centre of the observable universe is about 19mm behind the front of people's corneas), then any legislation which is going to exist, can only respond to the wishes of self-centred individuals. If that is the basis of legislation, then we move into very very rocky waters.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070710/

Euthanasia or assisted suicide—and sometimes both—have been legalized in a small number of countries and states. In all jurisdictions, laws and safeguards were put in place to prevent abuse and misuse of these practices. Prevention measures have included, among others, explicit consent by the person requesting euthanasia, mandatory reporting of all cases, administration only by physicians (with the exception of Switzerland), and consultation by a second physician.

The present paper provides evidence that these laws and safeguards are regularly ignored and transgressed in all the jurisdictions and that transgressions are not prosecuted. For example, about 900 people annually are administered lethal substances without having given explicit consent, and in one jurisdiction, almost 50% of cases of euthanasia are not reported

- J. Pereira, MBChB MSc, National Center for Biotechnology Information, US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health (Apr 2011)

Non-voluntary euthanasia is likely regarded as a crime in all legal jurisdictions where euthanasia is on the books. However, where you have self-interested parties who benefit from someone's death, which might include children who stand to inherit, or insurance companies who have a profit motive that benefits from clearing bad risks from the books, then obtaining the voluntary consent of the individual concerned who is going to be the subject of euthanasia looks increasingly murky.

How for instance do you prove in a court of law, that someone who might be suggestible to the influence of others would make a request for voluntary assisted death that they would not have otherwise considered? How can you question someone after the fact? How can you even get a sensible answer from the parties who are still alive when you consider that they are self-interested and stand to benefit?

Older people might already feel that they are a burden on others and when you have self-interested parties who benefit from someone's death, then there could very well be subtle familial pressures placed upon someone? Ticking a box or signing a document is hardly a guarantee that the person requesting assisted death has actually done so voluntarily and my twenty plus years in and around Family Law (either inside the court system or working in the field of forensic accounting) leads me to reach the conclusion that all that would happen is that self-interested parties would bricolage the necessary paperwork to make it nice and legal.

I am not really swayed by emotional appeals on behalf on somebody who is dying slowly in agony from cancer having relief because even after having seen my own mum suffer through the very late stages of pancreatic cancer and going through palliative care, I can not arrive at the conclusion that allowing a bill like this to pass into legislation when it is guaranteed by real world evidence that there will be some innocent people whose lives will be terminated for the object of profit or inheritance is a price that is worth paying. I do not think that that is just. 

If the law fails at being just then what you have is bad law. In this case you would have bad law which by action, results in people being killed. As far as I am aware, people generally die if they are killed. Also as far as I am aware, being killed is generally an undoable action. The person who has been killed unjustly can not speak for themselves. The people responsible for coercing someone into voluntary assisted dying, aren't very likely to prosecute themselves and even if they were to suffer their own fit of conscious, then they can not bring someone back.

I would argue that if people have a genuine concern about the supposed indignity of suffering and poor quality of life, then a better cause would be to go about improving people's quality of life. Presumably if physical pain is one kind of suffering and the protection of dignity as self‐respect and respect for choice would imply that voluntary assisted dying leads to more respect for human freedom and fewer violations of dignity. However, I simply do not see that as holding up in the real world and if you are going to accept that there is utility in the elimination of suffering, then you also must accept that the people who will be paying the price to allow that, will have no recourse and no right to remedy whatsoever.

Horse 2921 - Clause 0 Of The Constitution

I live in this strange country in the world called 'Australia'. Like so many other nations in the world, it was wrought from ex-colonial possessions of the British Empire, originally seized and stolen by force and which has never come to terms with the origins of its formation. Other nations have tried to deal with the long tail of colonialism by establishing law and a remedial process to address the effects of injury but Australia which is very much like a corporatocracy and acts exactly as Karl Marx described capitalist states by "pretending neutrality to maintain order, but serving the interests of the rich", very much refuses to address any injury or even concede that such injury exists.

A process was agreed upon by thousands of First Peoples groups across Australia, who sent delegates to the First Nations National Constitutional Convention in 2017. Over the course of four days and within sight of Uluru in Central Australia, the Convention made a call for 'First Nations Voice' to be inserted into the Australian Constitution and a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of "agreement-making" and truth-telling between the Australian Government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 

That process finally published the Uluru Statement From The Heart; which contains these words:

https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country. 

We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution. 

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination. 

- Uluru Statement From The Heart, 26th May 2017

All of this is fair and reasonable but it has ultimately gone nowhere. We have seen the Federal Government repeatedly rule in the interests of its corporate donors; at the expense of the people of Australia and it has done exactly zero with the Uluru Statement From The Heart. It is all very well to make demands of the Federal Government but when at law it refuses to even acknowledge that there is any injury to be addressed, then this process is condemned to stall; which it has done.

What I thought that I would do, is look at how the Commonwealth Of Australia is constituted and why the expression of that constitution has resulted in this refusal to do nothing. Parliaments tend to follow the law of governmental inertia; which states that a body at rest continues in its state of rest, or in when motion continues in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force or an inside force which somehow managed to change the direction of motion. Inertia comes from the Latin word, 'iners', meaning idle or lazy; if there's one thing that parliaments are, it's notoriously lazy.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/preamble

An Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia

[9th July 1900]

There are very few nations in the world which are not constituted by an act of parliament or a constitution of some sort. On the face of it, a constitution is merely the rules by which rules are made but it is the constitution itself which defines the set of terms under which the monopoly of force is established. When everything is reduced to its most elemental of terms, then only thing which ever determines sovereignty, is the ability to command a monopoly on force. Everyone who was born after the nation has been constituted, either by a written set of rules or perhaps by the exercise of that force, is brought into submission either voluntarily or involuntarily under that sovereignty unless they can muster another larger show of force.

This was quite brutally brought into sharp focus in an Australian context, when involuntary submission to the Crown, was demanded at the point of a gun, by the various colonial forces; which woiuld later go on to solidify into the colonies and then themselves voluntarily be brought into submission via the act of Federation into a new Commonwealth.

The Crown as corporation sole, is in fact the corporate person under whom the laws of the nation state of Australia are delivered from; with the exercise of executive and the the exercise of enforcement og those laws, also subject to that same corporation sole of The Crown. The Crown is also a different person to the Queen; who is subject to the laws which are made by the various corporations sole, which define the various nation states and sub nation states which exercise the instruments of government.

That however begs a question. Who agreed to that? The answer to that question is found in Clause 0.1

WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established:

The people of these states "have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown". Did they now? Who didn't agree? First Peoples. In fact, they were never even as much asked. In exactly zero of the colonies, the referendum questions were posed to First Peoples. They were never asked and never had the opportunity to say 'yes', 'no', or anything at all.

Before Federation, Aboriginal peoples were under the control of the colonial governments. In fact, after Federation, that control over all matters relating to Aborigines remained in the hands of State governments (except in the case of Northern Territory and what would become Central Territory for a time and the Australian Capital Territory which was under the Commonwealth Government). 

Because the status of First Peoples was under the control of the states, the wording of Section 51 which defines the powers that the Federal Commonwealth Parliament explicitly has, originally said:

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constituton, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:

(xxvi) The people of any race, other than the aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws"

Section 127 said:

In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted.

(Both of these were repealed in the 1967 referendum)

This means that at the time of Federation, First Peoples were excluded from the rights of Australian citizenship, including the right to vote, the right to be counted in a census and the right to be counted as part of an electorate. In addition, they were not subject to Commonwealth laws and benefits in relation to wages and social security benefits such as maternity allowances and old age pensions.

Not only were First Peoples excluded from the process of Federation, they were deemed not to be counted in the number of people of the Commonwealth after it.

Clauses 0.2 and 0.3 materially do nothing with the fate of First Peoples and continue to ignore them entirely.

And whereas it is expedient to provide for the admission into the Commonwealth of other Australasian Colonies and possessions of the Queen:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Inertia, which is the art of laziness in both physics and politics, happens because things that are set in motion remain in that same passage of motion unless acted upon from the outside. With regards First Peoples, that motion has never really been started; so the parliament does nothing because it has always done nothing. To claim that First Peoples were included in the process of Federation is a lie. To claim that they were included in the project of the Commonwealth after Federation is also a lie. It is also a lie to suggest that sovereignty was ever ceded to the Crown:

https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/connection-to-country-review-of-the-native-title-act-1993-cth-alrc-report-126/2-framework-for-review-historical-and-international-perspectives/the-framework-mabo-no-2/

2.44       Sean Brennan, Brenda Gunn and George Williams note:

Mabo (No 2) left the ‘settlement’ theory for the acquisition of Crown sovereignty undisturbed. But traditional law and custom—an additional source of law in Australia that does not derive from the Crown—was newly recognised as a coherent system. Native title adjudication henceforth would become an ‘examination of the way in which two radically different social and legal systems intersect’.

- Australian Law Reform Commission

If sovereignty of First Peoples wasn't extinguished by the doctrine of Terra Nullius (which is what Mabo v Queensland No.2 strikes off), then some kind of unfederated sovereignty must remain. My solution to this would be a a solution which is universally reviled by everyone and that would be to Federate First Peoples as a seventh state; which would be independent of land claims. This seventh state would be a virtual state; where First People would vote for six Senators, who would then sit in the parliament like any other Senator. That would satisfy the demands of the Uluru Statement Of The Heart but it might not be particularly popular. 

My fear is that a constitutionally enshrined voice will never see the light of day if any kind of proposal is rushed to a referendum and fails. Parliamentary inertia has been amazingly successful so far and given the Australian people's tremendous capacity for exacting cruelty on people through the ballot box, they will be manipulated by those same forces who have always denied that no injury exists. Future parliaments will pretend neutrality to maintain order but serve the interests of the rich; just as they always have done. The Constitution was deliberately racist from the outset and unashamedly so; it just that most people have never bothered to read it.

Horse 2920 - We Are Not Going To The Polls In 2021 (Almost Certainly)

The Prime Minister (Scott Morrison) has a problem. Owing to the fact that the Commonwealth of Australia has this pesky little thing called parliamentary democracy and that Section 28 of the Constitution¹ says: "Every House of Representatives shall continue for three years from the first sitting of the House, and no longer, but may be sooner dissolved by the Governor-General." he is obliged at some point to ask the Governor-General to dissolve the parliament and call an election. 

Oh democracy, what trouble hast thou wrought?

The last Newspoll which was published on 3rd October, has Labor ahead of the Liberal/National Coalition 53-47 on a two party preferred basis. Admittedly, Newspoll is owned by Galaxy (it was spun out of News Corp in May 2015) and so although it is more neutral in stance than it used to be, it is still deeply flawed and is prone to getting the nature of reality wrong.

53-47 on a 2PP basis, equates to the following allocation of seats (assuming that there is a uniform swing across the country and assuming that there will be some seats such as Kennedy where it doesn't matter a fig, which way the wind blows):

87 - Labor

58 - Lib/Nat/LNP

6 - Others

Given that there are 151 seats in the parliament and you need 76 in order to claim government, then if the election was called tomorrow, then assuming that there would be the normal period after the writs for the election were issued, then there would be a Labor government returned with Anthony Albanese as the likely Prime Minister.

While the Government in theory can call an election at any time as one of the privileges of being in government, making people go to the polls chances losing government. 

The Morrison Government may call a double election right up until the 21st of May 2022 and if does not, then 21st of May 2022 is the very last day that a House and Half Senate election must be held. That is also the last date that a half Senate election must be held.

However, if the Morrison Government decides to decouple the House and Senate elections, they could in theory hang on like a very bad small until the 3rd of September 2022².

Given that the Morrison Government is reviled in parts of the country which have those really weird things in politics which are called memories, morals, and standards, then to call an election when you are behind is political suicide. I calculate that they'd need a 50.9 - 49.1 lead in order just to break even. In that case, the L/NP would gain 75 seats and then have to count on Bob Katter who would be kingmaker. 

My suspicion is that Mr Morrison is likely to wait until after Christmas before he even begins to think about calling an election. That will be sufficient time for the restrictions to be lifted across the country, for everyone to have had a nice Christmas and New Year, and for everyone to have forgotten that the Morrison Government used taxpayer dollars to fund car parks, sporting facilities in coalition electorates, excused actual rape within the parliament building, refused to setup an ICAC, and excused secret donations to the former Attorney-General in his legal defence.

This leave Mr Morrison with a dilemma. Let's assume that he calls an election early in the year. That would mean that there is a risk of losing the election and then handing the power of the purse to Labor, who would then hand down the Appropriation Bill No.1 (Budget 2022-23) in the normal manner on the second Tuesday in May.

Let's assume that Appropriation Bill No.1 will be in Parliament by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg early. It will have to include loads of election sweeteners, which might be enough to pacify the electorate who otherwise would see the Liberal Party's right-wing formula undigestible. That might also risk the electorate spitting out the government like a piece of used chewing gum.

Lets assume that Appropriation Bill No.1 is handed down and that the Liberal/National Coalition loses government. The first act of any incoming Labor Government would be to rescind Appropriation Bill No.1 and replace it with their own appropriation bill.

Of course if Appropriation Bill No.1 isn't presented to the Parliament by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and the L/NP lose Government, then the power of the purse is handed to Labor by default.

What to do?

Mr Morrison can not call an election in 2021 because he risks political oblivion. He must therefore face the less precarious position of calling an election in 2022 but risks having that budget interfere with the very process of the election. In the ideal political world, Governments would hand down the budget in May; then call an election in June or July, in the knowledge that they have secured supply. Mr Morrison played that game in 2019 and time has rolled on.

¹http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/xx9.html

²http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s157.html

01/07/22. This term expires.

11/07/22. +10 days for the writs to be issued.

07/08/22. +27 days date limit for the nomination of the candidates.

07/09/22. +31 days date limit for the polling.

03/09/22. The last Saturday before that limit.

Horse 2918 - Who lives in a Pineapple under Duck Caroline?

Welcome to the internet. Many people think that www. at the start of URLs stands for 'World Wide Web' which sounds sensible but it doesn't take long to realise that it actually stands for 'Wild Wild West', 'Wiki Wah Wah', or 'Wiggedy Wiggedy Whack'; although truth be told, it's not Wiggedy Whack but actually just regular boring Whack, most of the time.

Also because the internet is like ten billion voices yelling into the void all at once all of the time, it means that you can do A/B Testing on people, or set up idiotic tests and have people run them for you; without their knowledge. I presume that this is how the people at Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, and myriad other websites test and evaluate program's for profit. I also suspect that with neural networks which are designed to play the internet as a game where even the object of winning isn't known, that computers might be A/B Testing on people without the knowledge of the people running the websites.

All of this brings me to an experiment which i have been running; without people's knowledge because I have access to ten billion voices yelling into the void. The experiment has not only determined that I do in fact show up in people's media feeds but that if the barrier to response is so incredibly low that people can't help but yell into the void, that there will be a reliable response. I imagine that this works similarly to GET commands in various software applications.

Directions:

1. Type one of the following into a social media post:

- Who lives in a Pineapple under the sea?

- DUCKTALES!

- Sweet Caroline.

2. Wait.

No really, that's all. 

What the internet will do, with the brain power of ten billion voices yelling into the void, is return very specific responses, which line up with your GET commands. They will be:

- SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!

- WOOHOO!

- BAH BAH BAH!

Apart from food, clothing, and shelter, among the most basic needs of people are for validation and to make a contribution. That is, we need to be heard and to speak, we need to know and be known. Also, as these things stem from shared stories which we have likely absorbed, then knowning and being known, also involves declaring that we share the knowledge of our stories. 

Also, yelling when the cost of retribution for having yelled is literally zero, not only means that there are no adverse consequences but that the payoff of amusement vastly outweighs the input costs. Yelling is fun when you don't have to pay. 

Knowing all of this, setting up a call and response where the audience knows what the game is, pretty much guarantees that you are going to get a response having made the call. So then, here are the results for the average call and response times:

DUCKTALES! -> Woohoo! - 16 minutes.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? -> SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! - 23 minutes.

Sweet Caroline -> BAH BAH BAH - 26 minutes.

My investigation is not systematic, it is problematic, and it may or may not be hydramatic. I only have a total data set of about 400 responses; which isn't enough to really be all that meaningful and to be perfectly frank, the whole thing could be flushed down the drain and disappear into the void without having achieved anything, never to be seen again and that would be fine. What it says is that at least some section of the audience knows what the proper response is to the call. 

Certainly if you were to stand on a street corner with a guitar and start singing any of these songs, you'd get instant feedback because the call and response is expected in the moment but without that context and tethering, what we're left with is just the invitation to yell into the void.

It's also worth noting that those three calls and responses relate to pieces of pop culture ephemera date from 1969, 1989, 1999 and with a reboot of one of those, 2019. That means that five generations of people will be able to eventually give a response. I do not know if this will hold true for Generation Beta. 

On that note, culture before the advent of radio was far less centralised than now. As the only way to transmit mass culture was in print, then I really doubt that this experiment would have done anything in 1880 (all other issues with technology aside). Before the days of mass broadcast, maybe there would have been call and response if you'd quoted from popular pamphlets or the Bible. It is only the advent of television and radio that mass market culture happens and I am very much showing that I am a product of the time, with late twentieth century references. 

The culture being generated for Generation Alpha moves far quicker than ever before and the massive amount of fragmentation of every single mass media platform could mean that these kind of calls and responses simply won't work for Generations Beta and beyond. 

I do know if in a hundred years' time that Generation Iota will be able to answer whatever that days' equivalent question of "Who lives in a Pineapple under Duck Caroline?" is. I also know that it will be impossible for me to know what exactly Generation Iota's equivalent question is. I think that because we, as in we who live in this current moment of time, have moved past centralised mass media, that it is fast arriving at the point where today's calls and responses might not be known in a century's time. Maybe they will not know who lives in a pineapple under Duck Caroline.

...Spongebob Woo-Bah.

Horse 2917 - You Owe It To Us To Keep Us Updated

"Dear Andrew,

This is a friendly reminder that as an important client who is themselves on the clock, I will make daily enquiries about progress on the work for which I have engaged you.

Please do not think that this is harassing you for your work. It is important for you to remember that as we have pay you for your services, you at the very least owe it to us to keep us updated on the progress.

Yours sincerely,

Name withheld."

It took exactly four days after returning to after an understandable but involuntary lockdown, for me to get an email of this nature. I would have liked to have seen among the products of this lockdown, more patience, kindness and perhaps even gentleness from the general population but I suppose that that is asking way too much. While years of lockdown and physical endangerment during a war was enough to galvanise people together into a kind of post- war commonwealth, practically everyone who lived through that is now dead and along with them, that commonwealth. Hundreds of days is not enough time to overcome human nature.

This kind of email doesn't really surprise me at all, as I understand very well that other people have deadlines. It's just that having been through the eye of the storm, I was not expecting to see the other side of the whirlwind this early.

I do not know if this is because of this unique moment in time or human nature generally but I sense that something may have changed in the world. Thanks to companies such as Doordash, Menulog and UberEats, along with loads of other click and collect services, which can have the ability to track where an order is, people's expectations may have changed. In a world where everything being on demand is becoming even more on demand, then the art of waiting may have been declared as worthless by the impulsive.

This trend has been coming upon us ever slowly since the 1950s. We have gone from car side service, to drive through service, to home delivery and now real time tracking home delivery. It is like everyone now has an analogue to room service, where you can push a button for a sandwich and a liveried bell hop with a sandwich appears. We do not have to care about the bell hop, as soon as we get our sandwich, they can go away and instantly disappear.

Or rather, to be more specific and truthful, the liveried bell hop appears for those people who the wealth and means to afford liveried bell hops. For everyone else, we have to remain outside of this magical land of instant gratification. We are the vehicles through which that gratification is delivered and if we fail to deliver, we fail at our only useful purpose to those for whom liveried bell hops appear.

So then, having been trained by the environment in which these people live in, they think that the rules of liveried bell hops, apply to everyone who happens to provide them with any service whatsoever. That's fine if that's the way that you want to conduct yourself but if everything is reduced to mere instant gratification with airs of impatience attached, then do not be surprised if that creates feelings of annoyance in your service providers.

By definition, to harass means to trouble or annoy continually or repeatedly. Making "daily enquiries about progress", fits this definition like a hand in a glove. Also, as money is fungible, that is that any dollar is as good as any other dollar, then as someone who is doing work to be paid dollars on a commercial basis, then I have quite different definitions of what an "important client" is, to someone who might see themselves as an important client.

As far as I'm concerned, kind clients actually provide me with something which money is unable to account for. 

As for the phrase "you at the very least owe it to us", I find this nonsensical as I don't owe anybody anything unless there has been an obligation established. If you have contracted me to deliver n widgets on the 35th of Catember, then my obligation extends as far as to delivering n widgets on or before the 35th of Catember. If it is the 32nd of Catember, then I don't care what kind of obligation that you think that I have towards you, until the 35th I can literally be playing golf on the moon and there ain't diddly squat that you can do about it.

If I deliver less than n widgets, then there is a problem. If I deliver n widgets after the 35th of Catember, then there is a problem. How I assign my time, on my clock, is my business. 

Inside our firm, my obligations are to my boss, who can make whatever reasonable demands, including updates on work in progress, he thinks is necessary. However, outside that ring fence, that obligation simply does not exist.

I have a feeling that this kind of sentiment exists in other fields of business where there is more than just an obligation to deliver n widgets on the 35th of Catember. The whole of the legal and paralegal industry is full of people who think that they're superstars and who push their minions to dance their strange foxtrot. The creative world where artists are commissioned to create pieces is just as awful, as people who know not and care not about the process, only know how to demand. It is probably far less prevalent in the trades, where the product can be seen as it is being constructed.

I am wondering if I should just write an automated reply message which produces a percentage based upon the time left. That way, they would be replied to, in their daily enquiries about progress, and I would still continue to work according to the only person whom I actually owe it to, to keep updated on the progress, my boss.

By the way, it's 23.3%

Horse 2916 - The Moral Justification For A Federal ICAC

I think that it is a very strange time that we live in where the Prime Minister of the day, who apparently purports to profess being a Christian, would go on national television of a morning and openly day that not only should we not have an independent corruption commission but that the whole notion of virtue itself is wrong. 

If everything you know is wrong; black is white, up is down and short is long and everything you thought was just so important, really doesn't matter any more, then why exactly should we place any faith at all in the instrument of democracy or government? I would at very least hope that government tries to maintain some kind of veneer of civility. 

Perhaps naively, I like to hold onto the notion that rational good can be achieved at large by the exercise of virtue. I think that even before you arrive at a conclusion like Jeremy Bentham's idea of utilitarianism that the greatest good for the greatest number of people is itself a good idea, I think that there should at least be an agreement that moral fitness, goodness, and trying to be upright, has some attainable form.

This perhaps takes us way way back in the history of thought, and back at least as far as Aristotle and beyond. His ideas about virtue theory have less to do with following a set of rules and more to do with being good in the first place. If we can focus on being good people and doing good to others, then doing good and doing right, that is both being virtuous and being virtuous, will follow; both effortlessly and automatically.

Aristotle tied this in with the idea that a thing in order to fulfill its proper functioning, should do what it is supposed to do. If a thing does what it is supposed to do then it is a good thing. Likewise, if a thing fails to do that which it is supposed to do, then it is a bad thing.

This ties in with natural law theory which assumes that nature itself has given us the tools in order to do good and be good. I will confess that as a Christian, I find this deeply vacuous as I think that this base assumption is deeply flawed and I have a whole kosmos of evidence to show that people are selfish and self-interested.

"Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors."

- Seneca

"The first point of justice is that none should do any mischief to another."

- Cicero

"Love your neighbour as yourself."

- Jesus

"Do not do to others what you would not have done to you."

- Confucius

"If it is hateful to yourself, do not do it to another."

- Mohammed

One of the lessons which both governments and individuals need to learn is that doing good and being good is hard. Doing good to and for one's self, at the expense of common decency, at the expense of other people, and what is evidently a shared morality across many cultures, is easy. 

I know that this is going to sound idiotic to people but the very existence of law itself is the imposition of some kind of morality upon the actions of people. If it were not, then people would pursue anything that they saw fit and by whatever means they think they can attain it. What this says to me is that we need independent referees, law teachers and enforcement, to bring us back to old simple principles which we are all so anxious not to look upon, lest we be found out.

That is the reason why I suspect that the howling chorus of knavery which has railed against the voluntary resignation of a Premier this week, finds even the suggestion of a Federal ICAC so hateful. It would find things and suddenly, there would be consequences for their knavery.

What do we expect from our governors and leaders? We expect the same things that we find so difficult to do in ourselves - to act justly, to show mercy and compassion, and to exhibit civic philos to everyone in commonwealth.

If a thing fails to do that which it is supposed to do, then it is a bad thing. If our parliament is charged with the responsibility of making laws for the peace, order and good government of the commonwealth but it doesn't even want to be scrutinized for knavery, then what? When good people are in charge, the people are made happy but when knaves can get away with anything, the people groan.

Horse 2915 - Garlic Bread and Draculas

In a previous post, I wrote about the secret to contentment and how one singularly brilliant individual said:

"Garlic Bread.

I am content with Garlic Bread. It is enough."

I think that there is great wisdom contained within these two lines of text. I also think that apart from hinting at contentment, it also points to something else equally as amazing.

Garlic Bread is typically made using a French baguette, which is only partially sliced downwards into the loaf; which allows the condiments to soak into the loaf while keeping it in one piece. The bread is then dressed through the cuts with oil and minced garlic before baking. 

Trying to find out who invented Garlic Bread is a practical lesson in insanity. Practically everyone from the French, to the Germans, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Egyptians... all claim to have invented it and to be fair, the idea of putting butter on bread with some of topping seems so very obvious that it could have been invented everywhere.

However the bread itself, only exists after Viennese steam oven style baking was introduced to Paris in 1839 by a chap called August Zang. What is now known as compact yeast doesn't appear commercially until after the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867.

The big leap forward happened in the mid 1950s with the chain driven pass through pizza oven; which also coincides with the big leap forward in doughnut making. Garlic Bread, then starts appearing on the menus for both Pizza Hut in 1958 and Dominoes in 1960.

On a slightly related topic, the lore that vampires are repelled by garlic, actually appears to have some basis in truth.

The question of why and how vampire lore comes about can be traced to a series of rabies outbreaks in Hungary from 1721 to 1728.

Rabies which can affect wolves, dogs, bats, and people, produces that same anaemic look, accompanied with snarling and slobbering, that is classically ascribed by folklore to vampires. There is also a strange tendency of people with rabies, to want to bite other people, as weird as that sounds. 

Snapping and biting appear to be automatic responses, as is punching, pulling, kicking etc. because the rabies virus attacks the central nervous system. Rabies wards in hospitals might need to have bars on the windows and locked doors from the outside. 

Also, from what I have read, precisely because rabies attacks the central nervous system, then people with the disease can show aversions to sunlight, loud noises, pungent smells, and even an aversion to eating drinking.

The first rabies vaccine was introduced in 1885, but the current Human Diploid Cell Vaccine for rabies didn't come along until 1967.

Here comes a completely bonkers coincidence. The introduction of the rabies vaccine and the introduction of pizza chains and garlic bread, happened very close in time.

To be fair I haven't read books like 'Interview With The Vampire' or the 'Twilight' saga and I have no desire to but unlike Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' which was published in 1897, all modern vampire fiction occurs after both the introduction of the rabies vaccine and the widespread commercial availability of a garlic bread.

I don't understand and do not care to understand the mechanics of modern vampire fiction but it seems to me that vampires as a thing should have ceased to exist some time ago. Dracula can be vaccinated.

Also, if your town or city is infested with draculas, then all you need to do is start a mass rollout of garlic bread on the basis of public health measures. Have you ever seen draculas at Pizza Hut? Of course not. Then again, draculas like everyone else, love garlic bread. Simply putting in a Pizza Hut or Dominoes in a town centre might be enough to attract draculas, entice them to buy garlic bread (because why wouldn't you) and then they'd presumably go away quietly and die.

Maybe that's why this person wrote:

"Garlic Bread.

I am content with Garlic Bread. It is enough."

What they are quietly telling us is that their community is now free from draculas. That is something to be content with.

Horse 2914 - Garlic Bread and Contentment

There was a tweet which came across my feed repeatedly last Friday which asked the following:

What do you want in October to complete your happiness?

Like or retweet.

My initial thought was that this was a stupid question because happiness is an emotion; which acts more like a weathervane or a barometer. Emotions are as variable as the weather; so the idea that they can be completed is a nonsense.

My second thought was that this was a stupid question because wish fulfilment by randomly yelling into the void rarely works. 

The stream of comments which followed on from this are a myriad horde of people wishing that they had more money or expressing sadness. That in itself is a bit sad. This was a practical demonstration of loads of people chasing after the wind; trying to grasp within their hands something which is inherently unstable and uncatchable.

Except for one comment which simply read:

"Garlic Bread.

I am content with Garlic Bread. It is enough."

I think that this particular comment, sounds very much like the philosopher Epicurus who in about 340BCE decided that his checklist for happiness included:

- a pot of cheese

- a jug of wine

- a garden

- some friends to enjoy them with

Epicurus went on to write that there is a kind of freedom which comes when one is not stirred up by the difficulties and disturbances of the world. He called it in Greek: ataraxia.

Admittedly his name and ideas of eudemonia and what constitutes living well are often not particularly cared about and his name is often applied to just food but as the above suggests, he thought simplicity was just as, if not, more good than a banquet. In those simple things he hoped to find contentment.

It must be stated that more than 2200 years later, in an era when you can buy practically anything that you can think of, that society still hasn't invented much in the way of a fire extinguisher, to put out the raging fires of inextinguishable discontent. 

It is like society is engaged in a perpetual and unsatisfiable quest to buy a better job, a better house, a better car, better stuff, and better experiences. 

On top of never being satisfied and never content, people also have a tendency to be envious of those who have the things that we haven't accumulated or attained.

On top of that, there is a very strong tendency in politics once people have attained things and accumulated advantage, to ensure that other people don't have access to that same level of attainment. This is certainly true when it comes to wages, education, health care, and even access to infrastructure; where those who have want more and they also want to take away the little that other people have as well.

Don't get me wrong. I do not think that it is insensible to want things. Nay, wanting things because they are nice to have, or because they are important, or because you actually need them isn't bad of itself. Wanting things and wanting things to be better, might very well be a rational response to the world. It is when that spills over the border and into irrationality and unfettered control of desire that there is a problem. 

In principle, Contentment isn't actually only about denying one's feelings about wanting and desiring what one can't have, but instead it exhibits a freedom from being controlled by those feelings.

Contentment isn't pretending things are right when they are not because clearly that's a denial of reality but instead it displays the peace that comes from knowing that problems might have solutions or perhaps even accepting that they might not and being fine with the thought. 

That means that Contentment can not be contingent upon on keeping circumstances under control because yet again that might involve denying reality itself, but rather finding joy in spite of circumstances. The paradox here is that of itself, that sounds nonsensical and foolish.

The majority of people in our society are like a box of barometers which can detect when happiness exists and then as soon as that thing passes, they feel disappointed. This is different to depression and anxiety issues; which have underlying and ill understood physiological causes. I do not wish to undermine or deny mental illness. However, I do wonder what happens if people experience a kind of pseudo happiness which comes for a time and then quickly evaporates. Does that act as a framing device for what life is? 

It is easy to hope that the next superficial satisfaction will last, but that kind of happiness is like fairy floss at the fun fair. It is saccharin sweet for a only just a moment and then instantly dissolves. A person who is happy because she they are on the sands of Vanuatu on holiday, is a person who has only a few days to be happy. A person who has learned to cultivate deep-down contentment will be a consistently joyful person wherever they are. Again, this is almost a nonsensical paradox.

What are we left to ask then? Is there some secret to long term contentment? It seems to me as an observer of people across different economic spectra that it is impossible to depend upon contentment to fall into our laps from education, money, or status because contentment arises from some other source that money and material possessions cannot purchase.

Those things we expect to bring contentment surprisingly do not.

The secret of contentment is hidden from the casual observer. What is that secret?

Old people generally are more content than younger people, even if they are in relatively diminished circumstances. I suspect that it has a lot to do with quietly not giving a hoot about things. I suspect that it also has to do with the gradual process that people go through as they quietly cease to give a hoot about their own screw ups.

I do not think that one can hope to gain long lasting contentment while holding on to past failures and mistakes; either other people's or our own. I also think that there is a category difference between ignoring past wrongs which means denying reality and forgetting past wrongs.

Forgetting wrongs means that we have to probably work through the process of forgiving other people. That of itself sounds difficult. Forgiveness of other people and even ourselves, isn't something that comes easily to anyone. 

It seems to me that walking around carrying boxes marked "should've", "didn't", "hadn't" and "if only", requires a lot of work of itself. Laying those boxes aside, looking at them, taking stock, articulating them, and writing them off, might take time. 

Getting back to our friend who said that:

"Garlic Bread.

I am content with Garlic Bread. It is enough."

...is also instructive. Firstly it doesn't demand the unattainable and so can not really be disappointed if it does not arrive. Secondly and more importantly, it expresses a quiet joy in simplicity. Thirdly, it sets a specific limit which is adequate for the want or need; and which is sufficient for the purpose of satisfying desire. 

Garlic Bread probably is enough for this person to be content. I think that's quietly brilliant.

Horse 2913 - The Premier Has Resigned: We Have A New Premier

Somebody must've leaked to the Prime Minister (Scott Morrison) that something was going down in Macquarie Street yesterday, as he announced a snap press conference and in the process, made several changes to the Morrison Cabinet.

In many respects, this was like the band on RMS Titanic playing "Abide With Me" while the ship was taking on water because elsewhere on the good ship Liberal Party, there were more leaks taking place than on the HMAS Colander.

At around about 12:47 it was announced that the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is currently investigating whether or not the Premier Gladys Berejiklian breached public trust and parliamentary regulations when she awarded grants to several community organisations between 2012 and 2018. These grants if they were tied to circumstances surrounding a relationship that she was having at the time, may or may not be a conflict of interest and a breach of the law.

Mr Morrison at 12:45 attempted to get ahead of the news cycle by making his series of announcements but it was increasingly obvious that he was likely trying to play screen for what was happening in Macquarie Street and I think that it looked like he was trying to filibuster reality itself. Again as the good ship Liberal Party sailed ever closer to the second bell of the afternoon watch (1pm), Mr Morrison's attempt to filibuster worked out about as well as trying to put a salt pork barrel in front of an ocean liner. 

At 1:01pm, the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian made her announcement that she would resign not only as Premier of NSW but also as the Member for Willoughby due to the ICAC investigation into her conduct.

In her press conference she went on to say "categorically, I have always acted with the highest level of integrity ... for the benefit of the people of NSW" and that "attacks by political opponents” means “scrutiny of my ethics and behaviour by mechanisms of democratic accountability."

She went on to iterate that resigning at such a time wasn't something that she wanted to do but she felt it necessary considering the circumstances.

Sitting here as one of the people who Francis De Groot called the "decent and respectable people of New South Wales" while he slashed the ribbon while on horseback during the official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, cutting the tape before the New South Wales Premier Jack Lang could, I can't help but wonder why NSW not only elects and returns governments which lurch from side to side but why it does so with such alarming regularity.

Of the Premiers that New South Wales has had this century...

Bob Carr: resigned

Morris Iemma: resigned

Nathan Rees: resigned

Kristina Keneally: lost election

Barry O'Farrell: resigned

Mike Baird: resigned

Gladys Berejiklian: resigned

The evidence this century says that someone is far more likely to leave the office of NSW Premier by the car park downstairs, than through the front doors on Macquarie Street after having suffered electoral defeat.

On reflection, I am a little bit sad for Ms Berejiklian. Even though she refused multiple requests to meet with the Mayors of the 12 Local Government Areas of Concern, even though her decisions as Transport Minister means that the 2222m gap between Tallawong and Schofields stations will very likely never be completed in my lifetime, and even though her Government's direct response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been demonstrably partisan and punitive on occasion, she at least seemed to want to do a competent job as Premier in the middle of the 7th worst pandemic in human history.

If ICAC does find sufficient grounds to warrant further action then fair enough, it is just and proper that she resign; but given that she at least gave the impression that she wanted to do what was good for the people of New South Wales (and in fact succeeded given that only 391 people have died out of 8 and a bit million) then she's also proven comprehensively that she was in fact a competent Premier. Put it this way, this is a job which I could absolutely not do well at all.

If what I assume will come to pass actually does happen then Treasurer Dominic Perrottet will become the next Premier of New South Wales. If this is true, then the Liberal Party of NSW will move a little further to the religious right. Nothing much will happen beyond that because the Liberal Government retains all but one of the member that it had before the second bell of the afternoon watch yesterday; changing captains mid-voyage doesn't really do all that much in changing the course of the ship in politics.

Yesterday was not a dark day in NSW politics in the way that the desires of the thirsty knife seems to arrive on Federal politics every so often. Yesterday was not the result of ambition but the machinery of accountability slowly turning to protect the decent and respectable people of New South Wales from that greatest of all threats to democracy: corruption.

Aside:

The Madden Curse, states that whoever appears on the cover artwork for EA Sports' American Football video game series Madden NFL, will suffer either an injury or a series of shockingly poor performances in the season which follows. This has also been applied to the FIFA football game, various editions of NASCAR games; as well as Tennis.

This was the front cover for the Australian Financial Review's magazine for Friday 1st October, 2021.

This would have hit newsagents by about 7am and had I been in the office (because I am still in lockdown) then by the time I would have read the magazine at about 2pm, it would have all been for naught.

Horse 2912 - EA Politik '21 - It's In The Game

 

EA Sports - It's In The Game - Because Politics is A Game

The big thing in Politik '20 was the introduction of "External Environment" play. The first rollout was mainly a visual test with Bushfire 19-20 and the proof that that was a visual test was that the Australian Prime Minister was in Hawaii and wouldn't do anything; no matter how hard you mashed the buttons.

That was followed by the Covid-19 patch and depending of which government you were playing as, you could either play as 'active' or 'irrelevant'  government.

Politik '20 had the usual Presidential Elections from previous editions, except this was badly done and the developers accidentally copied and pasted the candidates from 2016 and the Vice President from 2012. This meant that Politik '20 was very buggy and many users reported that even if you'd won the Presidency with the D candidate, the R candidate would still claim victory.

For Politik '21 you get an upgraded External Environment mod for the Covid-19 patch called 'Delta' and the developers have rolled out test features like 'Civil Disobedience' and 'Insurgency'. 

I will say that I have found the mini-games such as Insurgency Jan 6 and War Memorial Riot really boring. I think that this is because MAGA Court Fight in Politik '20 was such a disappointment that the developers couldn't think of anything new.

The Covid-19 patch appears to be everywhere and for all nation states in the game and dependable on which country you have selected, the decisions range from sensible to silly; which is also dependent on whether the Government is 'active' or 'irrelevant'.

Rather than run an election mode for Australia and the UK in Politik '21, the 'irrelevant' government mode has been turned on full-time and you get to play in state and county mode. If you've selected Canada, you get to play with the full options of 'active' or 'irrelevant' but the External Environment features of News Corp mean that for the US, UK, and Australia, you can not switch.

If you are playing in Australian state mode, then depending if you have Lib or Lab selected (I have tried selecting Nat but it appears to be greyed out) then because the External Environment mod for News Corp is set to either 1 or -1 then even if your decisions in the game are identical, you will either be reported in the various pop-up news windows as being a strong leader or the devil incarnate.

Canada comes with an election mode which is pretty dull, because although you could win Government by playing as Con, and even hold enough numbers, you can't convince BlQ or ND to join you.

The election mode for Germany, now that the Merkel player has been retired from the CDU, is quite frankly, too hard to understand and you'll find that whatever party you have selected, you still won't be able to form government because there are 11 parties and the game mechanics still haven't been written.

There is a side quest if you've chosen either Australia, France, UK or US, called Treaty. If you have selected Australia or France, then you will be greyed out of actually making any decisions because they will be made by the US or UK on your behalf. This side quest ends with a treaty and the sale of some submarines which are presumably pretend as they are supposed to be delivered in 2030. After you have concluded the Treaty, literally nothing changes in the game except that France, China and New Zealand gets mad.

In Australia, if your Party has a Senate seat, you can import previous players to your roster such as ex-Premiers, but if you then try to assign these "classic" players House of Reps seats, the game glitches. I note that this only happens for a Lab player and not for a Lib one.

There are also messages from classic PM's from previous games such as from Politik '16 or even from Politik '93 and Politik '96 (back when it was back on SNES and MegaDrive and then N64 and PS1), and they show up with messages as "Miserable Ghosts". These little interludes are amusing but don't contribute anything to gameplay. 

Politik '22 will likely come with an election for Australia, as well as mid-term elections for the US, a coalition stacking game for Germany, and improvements to the External Environment features and the Covid-19 patch.

<><><><><>

7.9

This game has achieved an average rating of 7.9 among 89 critics; which says that although the graphics have improved year on year, the base content remains largely the same.