Green Streets

South Australian Liberal senator Mary Jo Fisher lost her flippin’ marbles in parliament this week with a quite incredible rebuff to Gillard’s carbon tax proposals, drawing barmy metaphorical collusions between coalition policy and the Timewarp from Rocky Horror Picture Show. But this was a tame protest when you discover the sort of phone calls Independent MP Tony Windsor has been getting this week, one of which concluded with the words, “I hope you die, you bastard”.

Windsor copped some flack for taking the threat straight to Channel 7 instead of the police - which is more like the sort of thing a normal person might do - and then broadcast the message on the ABC, comparing the vitriolic response to the anger which sparked the shooting of American congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. That might sound a bit rich, but then Opposition MP Sophie Mirabella trounced Windsor by comparing Her Maj’ Ms Gillard to Libyan leader Moamar Gaddafi. It was more in reference to his deluded ‘my people will die for me’ comments, rather than all the killing and stuff.

Even The Terminator stepped in at that point. “I think that's a pretty colourful way of describing the Prime Minister, and it’s not language I would normally use myself,” said Tony "shit happens" Abbott. Now we have a media war with lefty organisations pointing fingers at talk radio shock jocks for fuelling the fire. Like 2GB’s Alan Jones, who had an on-air argument with Her Maj (pictured left with Greens leader Bob Brown) after she arrived ten minutes late for his breakfast show interview. “Surely courtesy has to be part of the way in which the public are treated?” he tuts, probably tapping at his wrist watch. “Alan, I believe I am a very courteous person. I’m also very busy…” The tiff continues, descending - quite inevitably - into name calling. Children, please.

Extending political similes further, this is far from Her Maj’s Poll Tax moment. Australia is well placed to cement its standing as a world leader in combating climate change, what with Green Party influence amongst a sympathetic coalition that recognises the potential of leading by example. But no one said changing the world would be easy.

There’s an old adage that tells of how the rich and powerful lose their connection to ‘the people’ when they forget the price of milk. Aussie diary farmers do not share such dilemmas: just the sight of the price tag alone is enough to cry over, spilt or otherwise. A price war has erupted in which the Big Two (that’s Coles and Woolworths, who share a supermarket monopoly with an equally repugnant and exploitative business sense) are both selling own-brand milk for $1 a litre. That is quite clearly outrageous, and completely cripples the farmers they claim to support.

Multi-million dollar conglomerates can afford to do this kind of swindling financially, but not morally. We have fresh organic produce delivered to our door and we try to get all of our meat from the local butcher, and I’m sure many others do the same. Australia doesn’t need to import produce in the same way Britain does, and the bush farming community is highly valued. Insults like this one will be hard for shoppers to wear. As Julian Lee writes in the Sydney Morning Herald: “We would like to see some truth in advertising, so the next time I see a supermarket ad with a farmer in it, I expect him to be in a headlock rather than an embrace.”

The campaign for daylight savings time in Queensland has stepped up a gear, judging by this graffiti I discovered on the back of a bus seat. Granted, the 345 to Aspley isn’t particularly a front runner when considering potential hotbeds of political unrest. State Premier Anna Bligh should have no reason to be losing sleep just yet. Brisbane residents want daylight savings so that they can enjoy the sunshine for an hour longer, which in turn puts north Queensland farmers out of whack as they are quite accustomed to the idea of starting and finishing earlier. Queenslanders are often faced with the prospect of a referendum regarding daylight savings - the topic is likely to be re-packaged for Queensland’s 2012 elections. Small scale campaigning may already be under way. After all, the writing's on the wall. Or, the bus seat, rather.


AU Tube: Understanding Australian TV
‘Laid’ (ABC1)

With minor exceptions, finding a good Australian sitcom amongst the turgid quagmire of American guff is a bit like discovering Solomon’s treasure. Not surprisingly, when I told an Aussie friend how good ‘Laid’ was, her reply was self-evident: “really?”, said with complete incredulity.

‘Laid’ is a black comedy in the Bridget Jones mould which is both intelligent and silly, awkward and charming, detailing the frumpy sexploits of Roo McVie who finds herself inexplicably cursed on the path to true love when her former sexual partners start dying in increasingly bizarre circumstances. In last week’s episode, two of them pop their clogs choking on hors d’oeuvres at an emergency meeting of Roo’s ex-boyfriends. Roo’s desperation in dealing with the revealing sinful extremities of her past is funny enough - she visits the hot-tub of a self-taught ocker shaman in attempts to dispel the curse - but then she must also face future implications for any potential new suitors.

Roo is played by Alison Bell with a endearing lightness of touch; her roomie Celia Pacquola is hilarious. The show’s writers Kirsty Fisher and Marieke Hardy cite ‘Gavin & Stacey’ and British comedies as their main influence, and there’s no denying a certain post-Gervais overtone to the show's dry humour. I first fell in love with Hardy as a regular guest critic on Jennifer Byrne’s ‘First Tuesday Book Club’ - with this show, she seems to have spearheaded a crucial movement for female comedic talent offering a better and more relevant alternative to the country’s dated, male-dominated gag blowers that you find on shows like ‘Good News Week’ and ‘Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday’, many of which are about as funny as heart surgery.

In a gesture of bipartisanship, I should rightfully add ‘Ben Elton: Live from Planet Earth’ to that list, which I intended to watch for this week’s AU Tube but couldn’t quite muster enough energy to sit through a whole episode. The tortuous, creaking sound of Elton’s career flat-lining was just too overbearing: the jokes are so bad not even the studio audience quite know what to do with themselves. The discomfort is palpable. I’m guessing the show hasn’t had a British airing, but it takes a particularly brazen act of disregard from Elton to presume that such a prehistoric show could ever carry weight for an Australian audience, especially when a program like ‘Laid’ proves so convincingly just how much native palettes have matured.