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Last updated on August 3rd, 2017 at 11:08 am
Margo Kingston writes:
I recently asked my cleaner …
Man, she’s really making Wayne Sanderson earn his salary. Between hosing out the kitchen and delousing the carpet, perhaps Wayne could clean up Margo’s copy:
UPDATE 7.50 PM by Margo: The Government has just, without notice to non-Government Senators, guillotined Senate debate on the terror laws in what Dems Senator Andrew Bartlweet said was an “utterly corrupt process”.
The Senator previously went by the name “Bartlett”. Link at left changed in light of this alteration.
- Margo is an unemployed blogger and she hires a cleaner??Posted by Hanyu on 2005 12 05 at 09:58 AM • permalink
- Ok, somebody clarifiy for all us Americans.
What the hell is a non-government senator?
How can such a position even exist?
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2005 12 05 at 10:05 AM • permalink
- I recently asked my cleaner …
I, of course, immediately thought of Harvey Kietel in “Pulp Fiction.”
The Wolf: If I’m curt with you, it’s because time is a factor here. I think fast, I talk fast, and I need you guys to act fast if you want to get out of this. So, pretty please, with sugar on top, clean the fucking car.
- It is important for Margo and her ilk to have a cleaner. Otherwise, they would never get to meet minimum wage earners (eg immigrants etc) in person – except maybe when they wait on their tables.Posted by Flying Giraffe on 2005 12 05 at 11:30 AM • permalink
- Hey Margo- that bidet is not a drinking fountain!Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 12 05 at 01:08 PM • permalink
Margo is an unemployed blogger and she hires a cleaner??
Maybe Margo blogs for cleaning?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 05 at 03:52 PM • permalink
- Bartlweet.
That’s a beaut. Everyone makes typos, but no one else’s are nearly as funny as Magrok’s… and no one else leaves them like that!Fercryinoutloud, how long has that post been up?
Hey Mr Weet!
/obscure snl reference
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 12 05 at 04:36 PM • permalink
“What the hell is a non-government senator?” That would be a senator who is not a member of the Liberal-National coalition government.
Further to that for some of our American friends, the reason that it is possible to have government and non-government senators is that the executive are members of the legislative assembly. The cabinet is made up of members of the House of Reps and the Senate. The equivalent of the House Majority Leader is the Prime Minister.
- It works both ways.
Bartlweet can’t spell Margo’s name either.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 12 05 at 06:49 PM • permalink
- #2 what murph said. The arrangement by which the heads of the executive arm of government (i.e. prime minister and all other ministers) are appointed from members of parliament, subject to the consent of the head of state (Govenor General), is one of the hallmarks of the Westminster style of parliamentary democracy operating in Australia, UK, NZ and (I assume) Canada. That is why the opposition party gets to question the prime minister and the other ministers virtually on a daily basis when Parliament is sitting – they are all members of Parliament (that concept is referred to as responsible government). Interestingly, I seem to remember from long-past studies, very little of this is actually underpinned by the constitution – the system has evolved over hundreds of years without any formal laws and, stictly, there is no requirement that members of cabinet be members of parliament [I have a notion that, despite this, the convention has only been departed from once in all of the Westminster countries, and that occured in South Australia when Robert Champion de Crespingy, or whatever his name is, was effectively given a cabinet post – still got it I think.]
- further to previous – this is why, unlike in the US, there is no direct election of the head of government in Australia. The people vote for their members of Parliament and the Parliament decides who to appoint as ministers. this invariably gets determined on party lines (i.e. the party or coalition of parties with the most members of Parliament forms the government, and the leader of that party or coalition becomes prime minister).
- I recently asked my cleaner, who has three young children and a big mortgage after a property settlement with her ex-husband, what she thought of the changes. They didn’t understand the lot of a single parent, she said. If your child is sick or in trouble you have to walk out of your job and tend to them. There’s noone else. So what regular job could she get?…..
She still has a big mortgage AFTER a property settlement? Maybe she needs to trade down. As to getting a regular job, I would have thought Margo’s personal grooming would be a full-time occupation for a wholw whoop of simians, let alone tidying up the pen. None of these people seem to have mothers or other relatives either, what with having to flee the workface as soon as Brittney-
Schappelle gets the sniffles- why hasn’t the evil Howard government considered the fecund single orphan demographic?
- #17 That’s strictly correct PW, but in common parlance in Oz all parliamentary members of the party/coalition that controls the House of Rep.s (and therefore the treasury) are referred to a part of the government. The government depends on the continued support of these members to survive. Of course, this is not to say that Magrok meant what she said or said what she meant. The simple fact of the matter is that the Lib./Nats control the Senate (for the first time in over 20 years) because that’s the way the Australian people voted at the last Federal election and, using their majority, they decided to end the debate about this legislation. No doubt they got bored of the posturing of opposition wankers like most of the rest of us did years ago.
- Bartlweet – makes me think of a breakfast cereal.
‘Start the day with a bowl of Bartlweet.’
Uh – excuse me.
(…violent retching…)Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2005 12 05 at 09:17 PM • permalink
- SwinishCapitalist—What, you enjoyed a hearty bowl of shredded wheat swimming in Bartleby & James wine coolers for breakfast? Well, thank you for your support, moneygrubber…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 05 at 09:31 PM • permalink
- Bartlweet, Bartlweet,
It’s not healthy,
It’s not sweet,
Start your day with Bartlweet!Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 12 05 at 09:40 PM • permalink
- So if one party has a majority in the Senate and another has a majority in the lower house, which one forms the government? Is it like Blighty where the control of the lower house gives the right to form the government, the House of Lords being irrelelvant to that process?Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 12 05 at 09:54 PM • permalink
- #26—That’s correct, Michael.
Members of Parliament who are members of the governing party are thus referred to as “government senators” or “government members”, depending on which House they’re in.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 12 05 at 11:51 PM • permalink
- #26 Yes, as a matter of practicality control of the lower house confers the right to form a government. The reason being that only the lower house has the right to introduce bills to appropriate money from treasury and without this power nobody in any executive, administrative or judicial post, or anybody in the public service, gets paid and the machinery of government grinds to a halt. The upper house gets to vote on these bills, but can’t originate them. Therefore, he who controls the lower house gets to form the government of the day. This also explains how/why a government can change in a Westminster system without a general election. Loose the confidence of the majority of members in the lower house and you’re out. It also helps explain why party discipline is so important and why political party’s have the position of ‘whip’ – essentially arm twister and head kicker.
- Evidently, as seen in recent photographs, somewhere near here, the meager earnings from WD “donations” are insufficient to stretch to the cleaner attending to Margo’s laundry and ironing needs.
I think the cleaner is having a bit of a lend though; a part time cleaner with a humungous mortgage and three kiddies to feed and clothe & educate? Yeah, right. There’s obviously quite an amount adding up from cleaning, social security, and child maintenance combined.
- So if one party has a majority in the Senate and another has a majority in the lower house, which one forms the government? Is it like Blighty where the control of the lower house gives the right to form the government, the House of Lords being irrelelvant to that process?
Yes, the Senate is, mostly “unrepresentative swill”, where nutty indepedents, Greens, Democrats and One Nationers roam free in their natural habitat.
The Senate’s main ability is to block supply – that is, the money bills, without which the Government can’t operate.
If Americans are still confused, imagine how much fun it would be if the Admin (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi etc) were hanging out in the House of Reps or Senate along with the Democrat reps.
Question time is such a laff…
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 12 06 at 01:43 AM • permalink
- Pixy Misa — Condi would be wading in blood to the tops of her stylish thigh-high boots as Rumsfeld wields his hands of death…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 06 at 11:46 AM • permalink
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