One of the less significant but more entertaining aspects of yesterday’s parliamentary antics surrounding passage of the carbon price legislation was Nationals Senator Ron Boswell’s sledge of former colleague Tony Windsor:
Nationals Senator Ron Boswell branded Mr Windsor “the greatest sell-out since Judas Iscariot” yesterday after the Government’s carbon tax bills were passed by the Senate.
Mr Windsor has told ABC Radio’s AM that he is not worried by the jibe.
“I don’t give a grain of salt 1 anything he’s said,” he said.
“He’s been a lap dog for the Liberals for many years. He just plays short-term politics. I take absolutely no notice of anything Ron Boswell says, and wish him well in retirement.”
It isn’t immediately obvious to me who Boswell reckons Windsor is betraying or why we should see it as having biblical proportions, but leaving that aside … I can immediately summon up several manifestly bigger betrayals:
- Sonny Bill selling out the Canterbury Bulldogs helped by that self-important wanker Anthony Mundine;
- Mark Thompson selling out the Cats for the Bombers. Mind you he was a Bomber originally, but spending the entire season hypocritically trying to convince Gary Ablett that he’d be a traitorous dog if he took Gold Coast’s money and decamped northwards makes it a Big League Betrayal;
- Ross Lyon stabbing St Kilda, his own management and Mark Harvey simultaneously by suddenly shifting to Freo;
- Des Hasler’s selling out Manly, moving to the Bulldogs from 2013 but trying to stay on at the Sea Eagles for long enough to rape and pillage their playing list. I’ve always been a bit mystified about how a sanctimonious tosser like Thomas Keneally, almost certainly Australia’s second most overrated author of all time and pipped at the post only by Patrick White, could have engaged with a good bloke like Hasler for long enough to write his biography. I was beginning to think I might have misjudged old Tom, but it looks like I misjudged Des instead. I don’t object to his doing the best for himself financially, especially if there was strife on the Sea Eagles Board, but there are ethical and unethical ways of going about it, as Chad Bennett says:
If Hasler had been significantly affected by the fractured board at Manly to the point he could no longer continue at the club, then so be it. Walk away.
But don’t try and keep your fingers in two pies at once, Des.
It’s unmanageable, underhanded and most importantly, unprofessional.
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You might try considering that Windsor has betrayed his electorate, who overwhelmingly oppose the carbon tax.
What about Michael Clarke’s appalling performance in the Test against South Africa. The wicket was obviously unplayable and yet Clarke the wanker proceeded to bat as if it were a normal wicket. What a gross betrayal of the rest of his team. No wonder Katich grabbed him around the throat in “that” incident. The man has no team feeling whatsoever.
It isn’t clear to me whether you are advancing the theory that self interest is a good predictor of human behaviour, or whether you are attempting to discredit this theory.
I think Steve is correct, Boswell is not being especially obtuse. Windsor’s voters would be feeling especial well “Represented”. That’s a pretty big betrayal of faith by an obviously self-regarding wanker.
Funny how all your betrayals are sporting Ken. What about Chezza K following her heart to the ALP (and the front page of WW)? Or Mal Colston? Bertie Field for that matter (doubly ironic with Colston).
What about Klutzy Haddin, who batted like it was a T20 when his skipper was at the other end approaching a hundred.
Much as I detest both Windsor and Oakeshott, I don’t buy the argument that their electorates have been betrayed. They voted with their eyes wide open, and got the members they deserved, particularly in Windsor’s case. Similarly Australia voted for the government headed by Bob Brown with Julia Gillard as his front person.
Being from NSW, I have never had any sympathy with people who whinge about what a rotten government they have. As my mother used to say when I was a kid, “you make your bed, you lie on it”. We had to put up with Iemma, Rees and Keneally for years. It was a just punishment.
My forecast is that Brown/Gillard will get back with a clear majority in 2013, with Turnbull as Liberal leader, thus having the three major parties well left of centre. A fourth party, the fast declining Nationals with less votes than the Greens will leave the Coalition and play footsie’s with Katter’s ratbags. Good one, Australia!
Windsor’s electorate ain’t getting a carbon tax they are getting an ETS , with a fixed price for a certain period. After that companies can trade those permits when the price goes to a floating price.
Thus we find SATP is as ignorant as most of the electorate.
Colston is a very good example of a sell-out.
Kernot is not as good. She obviously could no longer be part of the ADs in making the decisions on what legislation to pass and what not to pass.
She has clearly gone over to the ALP in wanting to oppose most but not all legislation.
That appears to be pretty honorable to me.
I agree with Whyisitso. you had idiots like Soony voting for the ALP in NSW when we clearly should have had a changer of government.
Then the very people who voted for the clowns whinged loudly about it instead of making a mea culpa.
Far too early to make a call on the next election.
Clearly Whyisitso was a fan of the Hawke/Keating governments who were right wing and didn’t like Menzies or howard who were clearly left wing!!
Sonny Bill at least went on the play prorugby with quality teams in France before returning to NZ and following the Kiwi dream of participating in a quality Super 15 team and a World Cup winning side.
He also got to shoulder charge a close friend and NZ’s public enemy Number One in the semifinals.That red card was a medal of honour.
It’s not like he went straight to the Dragons or the Sharks.
Not often I agree with Homer, but in economic policy Hawke and Keating were certainly right-wing in their first two terms. They were however neither able nor willing to deregulate the labour market. I forgive them that because avoiding a debilitating fight with the thuggish unions representing a small minority of the workforce (mainly in the public sector and the heavily protected rent-seeking industries) was a necessary tactic to allow the major reforms without which we’d now in the the same mess as Europe. Thank heaven Reith was able to force some deregulation on the stevedoring industry, but the Brown government is doing its best to take us back to the disastrous Whitlam/Fraser days.
I’d plug for Varg Vikernes topping Øystein Aarseth but that’s my specialist interests showing through.
First in last out went out essentially in the Hawke years.
EBA bargaining started with Keating. Reith did diddly squat.
I remember asking his advisor why not simply copy the 96 page NZ legislation?
john howard didn’t like it. It gave employees the option of staying with unions.
Unions were on the decline with Hawke which continued until Howard.
They never had the same ‘power’ after the reduction in tariffs and increased competition at home courtesy of Hawke but mainly Keating. People forget this was drastically slowed down under howard as a sop to the National party.
Again Whyisitso is not taking his pills.
Inflation is within comfortable levels, The budget more so.
Nobody sane can compare today with the Whitlam/Fraser eras
Given the focus on Asia literacy, we need to look to our region for hyperbolic analogies. Apart from Wu Sangui and Wang Jingwei, we may as well have Demchugdong and Lee Wan-Yong as well, maybe even Subhas Chandra Bose and drawing back in time a bit, Akechi Mitsuhide.
Ken, you’re forgetting Dally Messenger.
Also, why don’t cricket fans understand the concept of a betrayal?
Most of you mob aren’t very interested in sport, are you? As for Windsor, I’m sure Steve at the Pub’s interpretation of Boswell’s remark is accurate as to what the latter meant. But that doesn’t actually make it a great betrayal or indeed a betrayal at all. Even Abbott was relaxed and comfortable (if not exactly supportive) about carbon pricing until he realised he could build an election strategy around lying and misleading people about it. Moreover, not being stupid, he also knows very well that most of the current public concern will evaporate once the regime is introduced and people progressively discover that Abbott was bullshitting them. Whether it will evaporate in time to save the Gillard government’s electoral bacon is the current 64 million dollar question.
A MHR is in no sense “betraying” his electorate by assessing the merits of an issue before Parliament and voting accordingly. As Edmund Burke once famously put it:
Cricket is essentially about test cricket.
In the 20/20 rubbish it is just a dash for cash so there are no fans to get upset about being betrayed. Betrayal is part of the system.
Hard to get betrayal there unless you bet against your own team ( as Dick Wilson did when playing for Balmain.)
You used to get it in the xenophobic sports of Thugby League and Awzie Rules but now you don’t as much because the Authorities released to survive you had to ‘equalise’ the teams which meant considerable player turnover from team to team.
Similarly you used to get betrayal in the beautiful game when leagues were essentially domestic. No player ever transfered from Manchester United to City and vica versa, Everton to Liverpool, Arsenal to Spurs, Barcelona to Real, inter to AC but now it is well and truly the world game it is passe.
Ken if voters didn’t like Edmund they could always see the back of Bourke!!
Homer
It’s a strange creature, the pun. The line between excellent and execrable can sometimes be quite small, although not in your case.
and it all started with Des causing a hasle.
I Keneally laugh at that one …
That is because you are not Manly
No player ever transfered from Manchester United to City … inter to AC
Andreas Pirlo
Dario Simic
Christian Brocchi
end thats excluding players like Zlatan Ibrahimovich – who joined AC after a brief excursion elsewhere
Another great moment in Paxtonology …
sorry Homer actually making your point – the tribal loyalties are much more complex with the most cosmopolitan nature of the league
much more complex – with the increased cosmopolitan mix in all the leagues.
Yep rushed in too fast to point-score – feeling a bit like Steve Horvat caught out of position against Iran as they steal qualification with that away goal
Stephen,
I was talking about the past and IF they did they were traitors.
to think this all started with Ross Lyon and Mark being a freo agent.
Keneally was always a write winger
yes Stephen they Iran away with that goal.
Before that they were persian … uphill.
to think Vidmar could have had a het-trick in the first half.
I am still haunted by it
I keep looking for “Homer” that appears on so many threads, but I can’t see it. I assume he’s a commenter. Am I missing something? Is it code for “stupid” or something? The references appear to be pointing that way.
Homer’s current pseudonym is KB Keynes. As well as puns, he also thinks it’s funny to name himself after various dead economists. Fortunately we all know it’s him, Homer’s unique style is impossible to miss …
You might well say that.
Fyodor
I see you’ve adopted a new email address following Bird’s hijacking of your old one. Does that mean we don’t need to un-ban the old one?
I’m quite partial to the old one, but best leave it blocked for the moment wrt to fowl play. Ta.
Could Crikey’s Bernard Keane really be Homer Paxton? He’s peddling a new phenomenon “Desi-mation” on twitter.
I’m waiting for Bird to impersonate Ken.
Ahem
KB Keynes is to anyone who lived thru the 70s a comment on a can of beer which had a liquidity trap.
Impersonate Ken, Parish the thought
Hmm, great betrayals. Ron Barassi has to be mentioned first, he was the progenitor in the VFL. Arguably his betrayal is still hurting Melbourne FC. Their last flag was in 1964 after which Barassi defected to Carlton, they didn’t make the finals for decades.
Then there’s Wayne Carey in Anthony Stevens’ bathroom with Mrs Stevens, of course.
Addressing the original topic – surely Wayne Carey rooting his vice-captain’s wife stands as a great sports betrayal…
Thanks Paul. The Barassi one is long before my time of following AFL/VFL, but I can imagine it would have been huge at the time. Like rugby league, those were days when an amateur-like ethos of club loyalty still largely prevailed even though players were paid.
Carey’s low act is certainly right up there in the annals of great betrayals, possibly the biggest of the ones mentioned to date.
Nobody ever seems to blame Kelli Stevens though.
Yes, who is worse, your best mate or your wife when you find them both in the sack? I’m guessing it would often be the best mate.
Ken, your MP might owe you their judgement, but at some point on the continuum between voting for A and getting Z is the grey area. I expect many of Windsor’s voters reckon he is on the Z side of that. I know you like what he did, but that is not the point.
Homer, Stop!!!!
well Kelli didn’t have a Carey in the world.
just as well anthony didn’t attempt to get even stevens
Ouch.
Homer, you must resist the sirens calling you further on this dreadful odyssey.
Barassi is the first major defection that I can recall in VFL/AFL history. This occurred in 1964/65 as Paul Montgomery noted. A later one was Ian Stewart’s defection from St Kilda to Richmond.
When I was a Melburnian all those years ago, the only suburb that anyone knew in Sydney was one called St George. It was only after we moved to Sydney that I discovered there’s no such suburb as St George, it being a district comprising three separate municipalities. VFL clubs were named as distinct suburbs, and loyalties to these places were very strict. There were no generic names like Eastern Suburbs, Western Suburbs, St George or South Sydney.
Pedro
I’m quite attracted to the idea of tying Homer to the figurative mast and filling his bodily orifices with beeswax. Perverted perhaps but effective I expect.
That’d be interesting, Ken. I wonder how that’d go down at the Lilli Pilli Street function centre. I must get my daughter to point Homer out to me one day when we’re at one of our grandson’s cricket events. I wonder if he looks anything like I would imagine he does.
Pedro,
sounds to me you are quite illiad. Perhaps I have been troying to hard.
Of course Carey and Stevens may have been looking to be divorced from reality or maybe they just up ap an adult a tree.
Reading these puns is like going to Helen back.
It’s the nth qld version of the Hoodoo gurus, what’s mycen-ae.
But beats me why the economic genius is wasting time here when Paris clearly needs his advice.
pedro, stop trying to hittite everyone here. Are you horsing around.
Never mind perhaps Helen was trying to sign the paper
Aurelio Vidmar – yep he missed so many chances – as did a lot of the team that day – I felt a bit sorry for Vidmar as he wasn’t match sharp due to the lack of game-time when he was playing in Spain with Tenerife. Turned out to be a pretty good coach at Adelaide and seems to have the Olympic Squad doing OK. Still have painful memories from that day – thought we were home and hosed – if we’d had Milan Ivanovic as sweeper might have been different.