When Labour stole $800K of tax payer funds, Trotter called it Courageous Corruption. He's already regretting that little outburst. Never admit guilt. A year later, he's pretending it didn't really happen that way. I've translated Chris Trotter's latest opinion piece for those that do not understand "Commie":
Commie speak: State funding has become a matter of necessity for the Labour Party because of the unprecedented and massive political fines levied on it by the auditor-general in 2006.
Translation: Naturally, there were no "fines" levied by the Auditor-General, but just watch how I begin to malign Brady in this post, the first in a series of 300 articles. Labour passed restrospective legislation to ensure they didn't have to pay it back. It was only the mounting public opinion that made Clark announce an intention to pay back the stolen loot. Has she paid it back yet? Of course not. But it wasn't stolen tax payer money, it was a FINE that we owe money on. Given that no other repeat offender ever has to repay fines, why should we? [Updated thanks to Graeme Edgeler]
-----
Commie speak: Future historians' judgments of the auditor-general's actions will probably differ markedly from those of his contemporaries.
Translation: Left wing reporters like myself will keep repeating enough lies (like the one above) that future historians will be very confused as to what the truth of the matter is.
-----
Commie Speak: They will also note the arbitrary character of the decision to restrict his investigation to printed material distributed in the final three months of the 2005 election campaign
Translation: Just because there are laws that specifically cover the three month period prior to elections, that's no reason to not call the whole thing "arbitrary".
-----
Commie Speak: My prediction is that, like Sir John Kerr - the Australian governor-general who dismissed the Labor government of Gough Whitlam in 1975 - the Auditor-general, Kevin Brady, will come to be seen as a man who misconstrued his constitutional duty.
Translation: I can announce to the readers now Labour's plans to attack the Auditor-General and completely demolish his reputation so that they can appear "vindicated" for the previous mis-use of tax payer funds. Oops, for the unjustified "fine" levied on them for sticking to the rules (as validated by retrospective legislation)
-----
Commie Speak: That he is not yet perceived in these terms is largely due to the way he has been lionised and hailed as the "People's Watchdog" by those who led the campaign against his principal victim, Helen Clark. Sadly, this includes a great many of my own profession who, along with all the usual right-wing suspects, somehow managed to convince themselves the 2005 election had been stolen by Labour.
Translation: Apart from the issue of historical accuracy, which even I had to admit at the time, now that a suitable period has passed we can just make shit up and pretend it happened in a completely different way. Note to self: Never admit to wrong when caught flatfooted, it only makes it harder to wriggle out later. Still, no real harm done, given Labour are about to legislate for state funding of elections. We'll get control back pretty quickly.
-----
Commie Speak: Exactly the same process of demonisation preceded the sacking of Mr Whitlam...
Translation: If I pick an example from history that has nothing to do with the facts of this case, I might be able to turn this to our advantage.
-----
Commie Speak: Because asking a centre-left political party to find $800,000 in the year immediately following a brutal and extremely expensive election campaign is tantamount to asking it to fight the next election without any funds at all.
Translation: Because asking a centre-left political party to repay $800,000 is not fair. Public money is our money. And we simply don't have the money. Although, we did ask our members to donate and they fronted with $400K which has been sitting in our bank account earning interest for 6 months, and we do have around $12 million dollars in property that we could mortgage off, and we do get a lot of donations from the Unions, who we ensure are the recipients of tax dollars every year. But that's not the point.
-----
Commie Speak: Labour parties cannot simply hold out their hands to big business and immediately fill their coffers (unless, like the Labour parties of David Lange and Tony Blair, they have already abandoned their democratic principles).
Translation: We've taken donations from big business before, but we screwed them over so badly I'm not sure we'd get away with it twice.
-----
Commie Speak: If Mr Brady was not aware of that fact when he forced Labour to clean out its accounts, he should have been.
Translation: We got caught, and we are going to blame others. Because that's socialism, in a nutshell. It's always some-one else that needs to pay for our crimes. It's always some-one else's money that should pay for our spending.
-----
Commie Speak: So, if Labour doesn't re-stock its war-chest with the taxpayers' money, the 2008 general election will be the sporting equivalent of the All Black vs Niue.
Translation: We stocked our war-chest with tax payers money in 2005 and it felt good. This time, we are going to change the law so we don't have to pay it back. And if anyone is going to be Niue, it will be National. Bwaa Haaa Haaa.
-----
Commie Speak: That's because Mr Brady has set Labour the impossible task of raising the equivalent of three general elections-worth of funds in three years. That is, quite simply, a democratic and constitutional outrage.
Translation: We stole $800K. That's now three elections worth of money we spent in one election. See how we exaggerate when it suits our purpose? We've already collected half of it from donations, but that doesn't matter. I'm going with the "democratic outrage" angle. Note to self: Find out what this word Democracy is. My earlier diaries said it was something I liked to trample over.
-----
Commie Speak: Why should working-class voters be made to suffer for Labour's spending "sins"? Especially when, three years earlier, they were not sins at all?
Translation: If the middle class doesn't pay, we'll squeeze the money out of our own constituents. And I thought we'd all agreed to re-write history. What's the problem with your memory? It's too bloody good, that's the problem.
-----
Commie Speak: Long term, however, Labour would be much better advised to reassemble the sort of active mass membership which propelled it to victory in 1935 and 1938.
Translation: We've got hardly any party members. They've all abandoned us. Maybe we should think about ruling with some kind of grass-roots support. Problem is, how are we going to con the grass-roots?
-----
Commie Speak: As the poet A.R.D Fairburn supposedly replied when asked if he favoured the creation of a state literary fund: The mushroom grows in the open ground
The toadstool under a tree.
Translation: Let's confuse literary funds with state funded propaganda. The point is, that mushrooms and toadstools both grow in bullshit.
-----
Related Link: Chris Trotter paints labour as victims
Commie speak: State funding has become a matter of necessity for the Labour Party because of the unprecedented and massive political fines levied on it by the auditor-general in 2006.
Translation: Naturally, there were no "fines" levied by the Auditor-General, but just watch how I begin to malign Brady in this post, the first in a series of 300 articles. Labour passed restrospective legislation to ensure they didn't have to pay it back. It was only the mounting public opinion that made Clark announce an intention to pay back the stolen loot. Has she paid it back yet? Of course not. But it wasn't stolen tax payer money, it was a FINE that we owe money on. Given that no other repeat offender ever has to repay fines, why should we? [Updated thanks to Graeme Edgeler]
-----
Commie speak: Future historians' judgments of the auditor-general's actions will probably differ markedly from those of his contemporaries.
Translation: Left wing reporters like myself will keep repeating enough lies (like the one above) that future historians will be very confused as to what the truth of the matter is.
-----
Commie Speak: They will also note the arbitrary character of the decision to restrict his investigation to printed material distributed in the final three months of the 2005 election campaign
Translation: Just because there are laws that specifically cover the three month period prior to elections, that's no reason to not call the whole thing "arbitrary".
-----
Commie Speak: My prediction is that, like Sir John Kerr - the Australian governor-general who dismissed the Labor government of Gough Whitlam in 1975 - the Auditor-general, Kevin Brady, will come to be seen as a man who misconstrued his constitutional duty.
Translation: I can announce to the readers now Labour's plans to attack the Auditor-General and completely demolish his reputation so that they can appear "vindicated" for the previous mis-use of tax payer funds. Oops, for the unjustified "fine" levied on them for sticking to the rules (as validated by retrospective legislation)
-----
Commie Speak: That he is not yet perceived in these terms is largely due to the way he has been lionised and hailed as the "People's Watchdog" by those who led the campaign against his principal victim, Helen Clark. Sadly, this includes a great many of my own profession who, along with all the usual right-wing suspects, somehow managed to convince themselves the 2005 election had been stolen by Labour.
Translation: Apart from the issue of historical accuracy, which even I had to admit at the time, now that a suitable period has passed we can just make shit up and pretend it happened in a completely different way. Note to self: Never admit to wrong when caught flatfooted, it only makes it harder to wriggle out later. Still, no real harm done, given Labour are about to legislate for state funding of elections. We'll get control back pretty quickly.
-----
Commie Speak: Exactly the same process of demonisation preceded the sacking of Mr Whitlam...
Translation: If I pick an example from history that has nothing to do with the facts of this case, I might be able to turn this to our advantage.
-----
Commie Speak: Because asking a centre-left political party to find $800,000 in the year immediately following a brutal and extremely expensive election campaign is tantamount to asking it to fight the next election without any funds at all.
Translation: Because asking a centre-left political party to repay $800,000 is not fair. Public money is our money. And we simply don't have the money. Although, we did ask our members to donate and they fronted with $400K which has been sitting in our bank account earning interest for 6 months, and we do have around $12 million dollars in property that we could mortgage off, and we do get a lot of donations from the Unions, who we ensure are the recipients of tax dollars every year. But that's not the point.
-----
Commie Speak: Labour parties cannot simply hold out their hands to big business and immediately fill their coffers (unless, like the Labour parties of David Lange and Tony Blair, they have already abandoned their democratic principles).
Translation: We've taken donations from big business before, but we screwed them over so badly I'm not sure we'd get away with it twice.
-----
Commie Speak: If Mr Brady was not aware of that fact when he forced Labour to clean out its accounts, he should have been.
Translation: We got caught, and we are going to blame others. Because that's socialism, in a nutshell. It's always some-one else that needs to pay for our crimes. It's always some-one else's money that should pay for our spending.
-----
Commie Speak: So, if Labour doesn't re-stock its war-chest with the taxpayers' money, the 2008 general election will be the sporting equivalent of the All Black vs Niue.
Translation: We stocked our war-chest with tax payers money in 2005 and it felt good. This time, we are going to change the law so we don't have to pay it back. And if anyone is going to be Niue, it will be National. Bwaa Haaa Haaa.
-----
Commie Speak: That's because Mr Brady has set Labour the impossible task of raising the equivalent of three general elections-worth of funds in three years. That is, quite simply, a democratic and constitutional outrage.
Translation: We stole $800K. That's now three elections worth of money we spent in one election. See how we exaggerate when it suits our purpose? We've already collected half of it from donations, but that doesn't matter. I'm going with the "democratic outrage" angle. Note to self: Find out what this word Democracy is. My earlier diaries said it was something I liked to trample over.
-----
Commie Speak: Why should working-class voters be made to suffer for Labour's spending "sins"? Especially when, three years earlier, they were not sins at all?
Translation: If the middle class doesn't pay, we'll squeeze the money out of our own constituents. And I thought we'd all agreed to re-write history. What's the problem with your memory? It's too bloody good, that's the problem.
-----
Commie Speak: Long term, however, Labour would be much better advised to reassemble the sort of active mass membership which propelled it to victory in 1935 and 1938.
Translation: We've got hardly any party members. They've all abandoned us. Maybe we should think about ruling with some kind of grass-roots support. Problem is, how are we going to con the grass-roots?
-----
Commie Speak: As the poet A.R.D Fairburn supposedly replied when asked if he favoured the creation of a state literary fund: The mushroom grows in the open ground
The toadstool under a tree.
Translation: Let's confuse literary funds with state funded propaganda. The point is, that mushrooms and toadstools both grow in bullshit.
-----
Related Link: Chris Trotter paints labour as victims
I thought you could reduce 90% of Trotter's column to the adolescent plaint that has made parents' blood run cold (and their b.p. spike) since Cain and Abel were nippers:
ReplyDelete"But he did it first, and everyone else's parents let them do it! I hate you so much I'm going to scream and scream and scream until I'm sick!"
Mr. Trotter needs some time out on the naughty step, methinks.