i'll take that as a comment

Hi, Penny. I heard you were on #qanda this week. I mean to submit a question but it turns out that I am now too late. It's ok though; I went to church and my priest forgave me. He told me it would be unAustralian to have submitted my question on time. And that the Prime Minister was a bit late at getting around to the holy sacrament of marriage. He asked me to ask you if you could pass that on. Thanks. Anyway, I read a newspaper this week. I think it was one of those big, intellectual ones that noone reads. They tend to like you guys. Myth of the liberal media or somesuch. Socially Progressive blah blah, etc. They had a news article in this newspaper that said the NBN was pushed backed two years. This, along with the four Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers my priest told me to say, made me feel much better. Also, just so you know, noone out here in the real world understands what the NBN is. Or why it is good really. But that's Conroy's job. Maybe you could pass that on. Thanks. Anyway, hey so you're the finance minister now. That must be fun. I did like your work when you were in charge of pollution though. You were much better at that than Peter Garrett. He used to stand for things. Now he's a politician and not an activist he doesn't anymore. I like politics. How do I become a politician? Anyway, finance is fun too. I mean you've got to decide whether to continue to fund medical research that could potentially help all of humankind. And also, like, whether to keep giving money to disabled people who do nothing for it. I mean, who even knows if they're disabled? As far as I'm concerned disability is a rort. They call be a disability skeptic but, you know, what with all the lack of medical research, we can just let the disabled die anyway. I mean there's no money in a cure. If people just get better then they'll go out and spend tax-payers dollars on whatever they want. One day I hope we have another GFC; it was less tasty that KFC but i did get a widescreen TV out of it. Anyway, I spend most days watching Kim Kardashian on TV. Despite the fact she is famous for pretty much nothing and has no particular wit, skill or intellect, it makes me less angry than Australian politics. Anyhow, Penny - I hope you don't mind me calling you Penny - its just that when the Prime Minister was on #qanda people got upset when other people called her Julia (apparently it was disrespectful). See the thing is noone ever called Kevin Kevin. We called him Krudd. It was a pun you see. A play on words. We cleverly took his first initial and then appended it to his entire surname so that it sounded like the word crud. It was the ultimate mark of respect. We had branded him with a nickname. People like him better before he was PM. Maybe you could pass that on. Thanks. Also, maybe people appeared at first to like him more than they actually did because he wasn't John Howard. Man that guy got old. Literally. People like Julia better before Shorten and Arbib arranged for her to be PM. But then again, noone knew who Shorten was before some miners in Tasmania died. I think miners would be better at workplace safety if you increased their taxes. And apparently a few years back Arbib had something to do with why the ALP is now irrelevant in NSW. Anyway, Penny - is that short for Penelope? So, Penny, your surname is Wong. I have also seen pictures of you around and about the place. Anyway, it appears you may be of Asian descent. Don't worry, I'm not racist. In fact noone in Australia is racist. We're a multicultural, tolerant, cosmopolitan society you see. We used to be racist. But then we abolished the White Australia policy sometime around 1973 and that cleared all that up. Thanks, Gough. By the way, East Timor thanks you too. Maybe you could pass that along. Plus, you know, even if we were racist, Asians have it much better in Australia than Aborigines anyway so you've got nothing to worry about. How's that carbon tax coming along? Or is it an ETS? I'm not really sure. Noone out here can explain it to me. Apparently its the right thing to do for the future. The greatest moral challenge of our time. Apparently Tony doesn't like it. He is running a furious scare campaign. Like the one Keating ran against the GST. Which Howard introduced after he said he never, ever would. But it's ok, that turned out to be a non-core promise. Beazley said Labor would rollback the GST if he were elected. But then he wasn't. But then Labor was. But they rolled back Work Choices instead. Man that GST sucks. Mostly for you, being the finance minister and all. I mean, you have to give all of that money to the states. Federalism just fucks up everything. Anyway, I didn't even get to watch you on #qanda. I like how when our elected representatives go on that show, they ostensibly get asked a question but a member of the studio audience who, in turn, is ostensibly a member of the general public. And, much like when they are asked a question by a journalist, instead of answering the question, they use the juncture at which the audience member stops talking as a cue to say whatever they were going to say anyway on whatever topic they like. Anyway, Sophie Mirabella said Julia was as deluded as Gaddafi if she believed her people with her on the carbon tax issue. This was deeply offensive. Cos, you know, he's an evil, dictatorial, tyrant who's been in power for 40 years or something. Which we didn't mind so much until Time's 2010 Person of the Year and the Winklevoss twins liberated Egypt. Damn internet. How's that filter coming along? If you could check with Conroy, that would be great. Hey, do you like beards? Julia had a go a Rob Oakeshott when parliament resumed after the summer break. She said his newfound bearded facial growth was pretty ordinary. I was wondering, what do you think would happen if Tony stood up in parliament and expressed the opinion that Julia was having a bad hair day. Tim would be so upset. Anyway, the ALP are polling at about 30% of the primary vote. Lowest on record. Tony's gone back to being crazy (he only acts "normal" during election campaigns, when more people are watching). And yet were an election to be held today and the polling trends were accurate, he would be the leader of this country. Why do you think that is?