The departing Member for Hornsby has the nose of Pinocchio.
His little lie, at the least the latest, was to suggest, upon his departure from the Macquarie Street Bear Pit, was to suggest that he was off to seek new opportunities “in the energy industry”. Little did we know that this had a more specific meaning. As The Guardian reports:
Matt Kean criticised by Coalition MPs after Labor appoints him new chair of Climate Change Authority.
The former New South Wales Liberal treasurer Matt Kean has faced criticism for taking a new job as the new chair of the Climate Change Authority after he was appointed by the Albanese government on Monday.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, revealed the former NSW Liberal treasurer had been chosen for the “important” role on Monday in a surprise cross-party appointment.
The authority will play an important role in advising the Albanese government on its 2035 emissions reduction target, due early next year, as part of Australia’s commitment to the Paris agreement.
The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, acknowledged Kean’s Liberal ties but insisted “carbon dioxide doesn’t recognise political parties”.
A “surprise”? Not really.
Sky News host Liz Storer says Labor’s appointment of Matt Kean to Chair of the “Climate Communism Authority” is where he has “always belonged”.
Indeed, he did.
The photo accompanying the story showed two of the most contemptible politicians in Australia since Al Grassby and Tony Windsor. One-Term Albo and Matt the Rat, together at last. Politics as choreography.
What is the Climate Authority?
The Authority is an independent statutory body established under the Climate Change Authority Act 2011 to provide expert advice to the Australian Government on climate change policy.
https://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/
If it is meant to offer “expert advice”, one can only wonder why they picked Matt Kean. What he knows about climate change could comfortably fit on the head of a pin. If they wanted expertise, they might have appointed Peter Ridd or Ian Plimer. No, it isn’t expertise that is offered and needed. It is ideology.
Another lie, then.
Ignoring the mad gnome Bowen’s inane intervention, with its unintended and revealing irony – that there has been merely a sliver of tengu-joshi washi (very thin) paper between the climate policies of the main parties since Tony Abbott as forced to depart the building – there are larger issues here.
One concerns the propriety of inducing the resignation of a member of parliament with the promise of a reward. Yes, the impropriety can cross jurisdictions. The cases of Terry Metherell and John Barilaro both attracted ICAC (the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption) interest. The Feds now have a similar body. Maybe they should take a look at this sleazy appointment.
Another issue is that raised is Kean’s lies about Gladys. He was effusive in his farewell speech in the NSW Parliament.
Ending his 13-year run in politics, a NSW MP paid tribute to former premier Gladys Berejiklian and called her exit from politics a “grave injustice”.
In a valedictory speech attended by Liberal luminary former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy, as well as federal MPs Paul Fletcher, Julian Leeser and Philip Ruddock, Mr Kean thanked Ms Berejiklian for her “incredible leadership” and the “unshakeable belief that she had in me”.
Err, no. Gladys was corrupt, a Covid dictator, a dripping wet leftie, a pork barreller, a clueless philistine without any sense of Australia’s cultural heritage and of our urban history, a mere factional warrior, whose first cabinet (in 2017) was picked by her off-stage puppeteer, Michael Photios. What is the female version of the Peter principle?
The Peter Principle theorizes that employees in most organizational hierarchies automatically rise through promotion to higher positions. However, competent employees will be promoted, but will ultimately assume positions for which they are incompetent.
That Gladys had faith in Kean says it all.
No doubt Kean told lies to his colleagues about his departure. Well, who cares about that? What the NSW Liberals feel about the betrayal of a factional creature doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the overall scheme of things. But it is, nonetheless, a measure of the man. (Was it all a clever Albo feint in the face of Peter Dutton’s nuclear play? A reminder to the people that the Liberals are compromised on climate?)
Then there is the issue raised by Joel Jammal, about the propriety of using public service and the knowledge gained therein as a lever into the next lucrative and powerful gig.
This is no mere tut tut matter.
We now have a political career structure in which those on the make simply do their time in politics then march off to a higher place in the scheme of things. It is said that culture is upstream from politics. Well, now it is the norm that the bigger, global picture is upstream from politics. There is a new meaning to the old insult, “time server”. This makes the whole notion of honestly representing voters and party a bit of a myth. It is all about ME! Or in Matt Kean’s case Mini-Me. (As in Malcolm Turnbull’s deputy sheriff).
Then there are the lies Matt, no doubt, told his then partner when he was sexting his parliamentary colleague, Eleni Petinos.
The girlfriend of a New South Wales minister has caught him sending explicit messages to another Liberal MP.
Caitlin Keage, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, shared images of the raunchy texts between Matt Kean and Miranda MP Eleni Petinos, The Daily Telegraph reports.
“Really need to f--- you,” Mr Kean wrote in the text, which was sent just days after Christmas.
Oops. As festive greetings go, it was impressive.
Then there is the lie that Matt Kean was, in any sense, a liberal, with or without the capital L. The Menzies ideological coalition put together in the 1940s always contained wets and dries, liberals and conservatives. Few Liberal leaders have made these inevitable fissures seem unimportant, and were able successfully to sideline them. Menzies, obviously. Then Howard. Abbott never stood a chance, with so many traitors in the ranks sharpening their knives from day one. On Abbott, we will never know.
Then we come to Dutton. There are signs that he is on track to becoming another Liberal unifier and factional sideliner. It is by no means a certainty. But the signs are promising. But with Kean, what can you say? What would Menzies say of him? He has been a far left green (temporarily) in a blue suit. Nothing more and nothing less. It is astonishing, even considering the fetid culture and practices of the NSW Liberal Division, that he was able to run the lie of his liberalism for so long.
But these are all sweet little lies, as Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac called them. Then we have JJ Cale, who has had something to say on truth-telling:
You told me this, you told me that
You try to tell me, tell me where it's at
You said you loved me, I can see through that
Lies, lies, lies
You left me hangin', hangin' from a limb
You said you loved me, and then you left with him
Lord, you did it to me, I see it in your eyes
Lies, lies, lies
Tell me baby, why you take my time
You get a thrill off playing with my mind
Lord, you did it to me, I see it in your eyes
Lies, lies, lies.
A career of lies for Matt.
Then we come, at last, to the big lie. This may well be a lie that Kean has been telling himself, about the “threat” of climate change. I suspect that Kean is a true climate believer, and not merely a climate grifter.
Mr Kean also used his at times emotional and tear-filled speech to call for more national action against climate change, which he said was the “challenge of our generation”, likening it to overcoming Nazism during WWII and communism during the Cold War.
I know, it is hard to tell. Grifter or deluded? If I am right, then it is the self-deception here that matters. If you believe all the climate shite, it is one thing. To recap:
· There is a greenhouse effect;
· Human actions matter in creating greenhouse gases;
· Increased CO2 and the rest are causing the earth to warm;
· This is dangerous;
· We as humans can do something about it;
· We should do something about it;
· What we do will make a difference to the climate.
None of this is true. The whole package is risible. If Matt Kean believes it, well, whoop-di do. If silly climate buffoons believe all of the above, good for them. Everyone has to have an interest.
Alas, Kean and his peers have made careers out of mainstreaming their fringe views and then forcing these fringe views on the rest of us. Of using the power they have illicitly acquired. In Kean’s case, having claimed to be a Liberal, to screw our economy and our polity. This is his big crime, based on the big lie he seems to have been telling himself.
And now he is off to Albo. Crying as he goes, all the way to the bank and to the climate class.
Paul Collits
25 June 2024
Peak seasons greetings!🎅
Telegraph reports.
“Really need to f--- you,” Mr Kean wrote in the text, which was sent just days after Christmas.
Great writing.
Includes things I did not know or had forgotten. One of the main reasons Labor is now the NSW state govt.His destruction has been substantial. Now a well paid pawn for Albo.