Saturday, April 19, 2008
THEY CAME TO TALK
I was too busy eating prawns and watching football, but Andrew Bolt somehow managed to maintain consciousness for several horrible hours of Kevin Rudd’s Tomorrowland Festival:
ABC reporter Chris Uhlmann confesses that his favorite idea in the whole summit is actually a giant verandah covering our east coast to stop people from getting skin cancer ... The WWF boss, Greg Bourne, says his group thought we better do something about global warming. Shock! Pandemonium in the hall. No one saw *that* coming.
Do click; and visit the Wogblogger, who has been made angry by all the chattering. Previously, state-approved futureweaver Marieke “Nice flag, fuckhead” Hardy unveiled her great big idea:
Writer and television producer Marieke Hardy said that while she recoiled from the phrase “artists’ dole”, due to the association with the word “bludger”, she would like to see a welfare program for unemployed artists, similar to schemes in Canada and Ireland.
Just like cultural protectionist and fellow rent-seeker Louise Adler, mooching Marieke gets her big ideas from overseas. Other attendees also have their hands out:
Kram, one name only, the drummer from the rock group Spiderbait, said: “I’m keen to get a larger percentage of Australian content on radio in Australia.”
We’ve had local content quotas in Australia for decades. Kram’s thrilling vision involves nudging the percentage up a little. Well, he is just a drummer.
The recently retired Victorian climate change minister, John Thwaites, is a delegate to the sustainability and climate change forum.
“I’d like to put on the agenda the impact of climate change on low-income households,” he said.
They’ll be fine. Very few low-income households have oceanfront views. When the Big Flood arrives, the poor will be triumphant.