Let’s play whack-a-mole, or better still, whack-a-Shorten. The disappeared man of Australian politics is, alas, still with us, after all.
It was not for nothing that Bill Shorten as given his nickname, Bull Shitten. The man who lost the unlosable election. He couldn’t even beat ScoMo (in 2019). The man who once, memorably, said “I don’t know what she (Julia Gillard, his then boss) said, but I agree with it”. The man who tried to use an almost non-existent relationship he claimed to have with the dying Bob Hawke to bolster his inevitably failing election campaign in 2019 and get him over the line. The man who, like Malcolm Turnbull, helped to overthrow a properly elected prime minister in his first term. (Yes, I realise it was Kevin Rudd, but it is the principle that counts).
Shorten is back with us. Still peddling lies to cover his fundament. Now he is bull shitten about Covid vaccine injuries, in his inimitable style. He is defending the lethal errors of the previous Liberal Government. And the Covid class of which he is a paid-up member.
What a disgrace he is. But we already knew he was a disgrace. A clueless, talentless gnome who, through union preferment and strategic marriages above his station (in turn, to a Beale girl then to the daughter of a Governor-General) slithered to the top.
Deborah Beale and Bill Shorten were considered a power couple in the Labor Party.
They met while studying for their MBAs.
Ms Beale, whose father Julian Beale is a wealthy Melbourne investor and former federal Liberal MP, was a powerful political asset for Mr Shorten.
She provided a strong link tothe corporate world through her father's friendship with multi-millionaire businessman Richard Pratt.
Mr Pratt flew Mr Shorten back to Australia from the United States on his private plane when the Beaconsfield mine disaster occurred in 2006.
Mr Shorten's role representing workers during the Beaconsfield tragedy significantly raised the former union leader's public profile.
"Ms Beale was well regarded by the Labor Party and well-connected in corporate areas,'' one source said.
Shorten ditched the first wife to head off with Chloe Bryce, who had also by then ditched her then husband.
A Labor insider told The Australian in 2008: 'I don't think the marriage split will harm Bill's career. If you look at it ruthlessly, it is better now than later. This will not be in people's minds in a decade.'
Nice.
Dame Quentin (thanks, Tony Abbott) was, famously, Bill’s (second) mother-in-law, and seemingly very happy to welcome philandering Bill into the family. Quentin Bryce wasn’t universally admired, by the way:
But while few can fault her energy and commitment, it seems all is not well within the walls of Government House, Bryce's official Canberra residence. Thirty staff - one-third of the total - have left their jobs since she arrived in September last year.
Bryce's official secretary, Stephen Brady, defended his boss when asked about the exodus by a parliamentary budget committee this week.
But one former employee told the Australian: "She is just a very difficult person to work for. She plays favourites, and if she doesn't like you, you are history. She freezes you out."
Another former staffer described her as a control freak.
That reputation preceded her to Canberra from Brisbane, where dozens of staff - including secretaries, chauffeurs, chefs and gardeners - left during Bryce's five years as Queensland Governor, upset by her allegedly high-handed manner.
Bryce also clashed with aides about the propriety of her family hosting private functions, including barbecues, pool parties and a wedding, at Government House in Brisbane.
According to the Courier-Mail, she ordered flowers to be torn out of their beds because they were the wrong colour, allowed her children the run of the residence, and complained that her ironed clothes got crushed because of a shortage of wardrobe space.
Even before she arrived in Canberra, Bryce ruffled feathers by sacking the official secretary, Malcolm Hazell, who had served her two predecessors. Brady, who replaced him, is a long-standing friend of the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.
One hardly knows where to start unpacking this lot. Jobs for the boys. Harassment and bullying in the workplace. Breaking the rules at Government House. And all of this was a mere decade ago.
But back to Bill.
Shorten even managed, unlike George Pell and Christian Porter, to avoid the pain of close interrogation for an ancient rape allegation. The victim’s name – yes, I believe we are now entitled, indeed, required, to call complainants “victims” – is Kathy Sherriff, and she is still fighting for justice. She was sixteen at the time of the alleged rape in 1986. Astonishingly, Louise Milligan left that one alone. Not like Brittany Whatsername and her accused, Bruce Lehrmann. I guess Lisa Wilkinson wasn’t returning Kathy Sherriff’s calls, either. No interest from VicPol, either, in Kathy’s allegations. It’s great having friends in low places.
Normally, unwanted politicians with murky pasts leave the building quietly and move on. Sadly, not Bull. Distressingly, he is now in charge of National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) matters. The NDIS has been and remains a national disgrace. A story for another day.
As the vaccine propagandist Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Thousands of people are still waiting to learn whether they will receive compensation for injuries they believe they incurred when receiving a coronavirus vaccine, as claimants and lawyers say delays are causing unnecessary distress to people with serious illnesses.
There are calls for the scheme to offer provisional payments to those facing long waits while their claims are assessed, with some waiting up to 10 months to learn if they have been successful.
But the federal agencies charged with managing the scheme say this is off the table, with Government Services Minister Bill Shorten having previously said the small number of approvals among applications reflected the overwhelming safety of the vaccines.
So, covering up one lie with another. Shorten’s vaccine “science” was faithfully reported by the Herald in 2022:
Less than 50 payments have been made to compensate Australians who have had adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines, representing a miniscule percentage of the total number of doses administered.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten seized upon the figures to criticise “fringe operators who spread misinformation” about COVID vaccines.
Shorten said the figures showed the vaccines were overwhelmingly safe and hit out at people trying to spread fear in the community.
“Safe and effective vaccines are scientifically proven to be the best way to prevent against death, hospitalisation and severe illness as a result of COVID-19 infection,” he said.
Fringe operators? Misinformation? Perhaps Bill is talking about Dr Peter McCullough, one of the world’s leading cardiologists. Perhaps Bill isn’t aware that several countries have dropped the lethal and ineffective mRNA vaccines. Like Switzerland and Denmark. The best way to prevent hospitalisation? Perhaps Bill might not have seen the NSW hospitalisation-by-vaccination status figures. That is, before NSW health stopped publishing the figures, so embarrassing had they become. Hardly anyone unvaccinated was in hospital with Covid. Everyone in hospital had had multiple shots. Perhaps Bill isn’t aware of the hundreds of peer reviewed studies in eminent medical journals reporting on the failures of the vaccines. The vaccines that, in Pfizer’s case, were never even tested in trials to see if they stopped transmission of the Covid virus. The vaccines that, in the case of AstraZeneca, have been removed from the market in many countries. Has Bill heard about sudden death syndrome? About collapsing athletes? Incapacitated pilots? That Australia’s excess death numbers are now approaching 20 per cent and their highest since World War Two? That they have skyrocketed since the vaccine rollout?
Horowitz: Australia bears witness to vaccine deaths - Conservative Review
As Dr Harvey Risch has summarised the current state of play, quoting Dr Paul Marik:
Negative efficacy: "The more shots you get, the greater your risk of getting COVID."
💉 A serious adverse event rate of 8%, according to the CDC's V-safe database.
💉 Over 42,000 adverse events and 1,200 deaths just in the first 90 days of Pfizer's vaccine rollout.
💉 There's been a 20% to 30% drop in live births since the outset of the vaccination campaign.
Dr. Paul Marik @DrPaulMarik is one of the most highly-published critical care physicians in the world.
Bill Shorten is either totally ignorant of matters Covid or he is a liar. He is certainly not following the science. He is ignoring the evidence. Even worse, insulting the vaccine-maimed, diminishing their suffering, dismissing their very legitimate concerns, is the act of a heartless, soulless man. A man unworthy of the moderately high office that he has attained.
The rabid vaccinators at the Murdoch press called Shorten’s take on vaccine safety and effectiveness as “sassy” in August 2022. He was insulting the legendary Senator Gerard Rennick at the time.
Sassy? Really?
Mr Shorten later outlined that less than 1 per cent of applications received under the Covid-19 vaccine claim scheme had been approved.
This is a national embarrassment. The vaccines are a deadly protection racquet. Untested. Not needed. Unapproved. Experimental. Protected from legal action. Dangerous. Deadly. The Covid Class lied. People died.
Perhaps Bill might listen to the words of Senator Ron Johnson in the USA, speaking about the vaccine injured:
You can't turn your back on people like that. All they wanted was to be seen, heard, and believed because they wanted to be cured! We're spending tens of billions of dollars on research. Are we spending any money on vaccine injuries at all? Whether it's childhood vaccinations or whether it's the COVID vaccination — are we even doing the research? I doubt they are because they don't want to know!
No, Bill simply ignores them, dismisses them and laughs at their defenders.
Speaking of the Murdoch press, one of its few Covid heroes, the lockdown sceptic, Adam Creighton, has written this week of his Covid tormentors. Creighton has always been a Covid sceptic.
Three years ago this month my life was turned upside down when I suggested in this column we might be overreacting to Covid-19.
The column triggered a torrent of hate mail that lasted well over a year, and I began to receive persistent and violent threats. I was forced to change my name on social media accounts and my parents became seriously worried for my safety. Some of the attacks were so awful, I considered taking legal action.
It was less than a month after England’s chief health officer, Chris Whitty, explained at a press conference that Covid-19 was not a particularly lethal virus, many wouldn’t get it, and of those who did the vast bulk wouldn’t know they had it, or suffer only a “mild to moderate” illness at worse.
Those facts never changed, but it was too late. By mid-April, our ostensibly civil and rational society had lost its mind, consumed by an insidious culture of consent.
Creighton’s tale is a savage indictment of the alley-cat morals and low-grade intellects of his media colleagues and of the decision-makers of the Covid era. “Those facts never changed”. No, the people who inflicted Covid fascism on us, people like Shorten, either knew then, or should have known then, that their actions were killing people and ruining lives. Without anything to justify their actions, other than craven fear of the public opinion they themselves shaped through fear and mass formation.
No doubt, Bill Shorten is – still, to this day – faithfully spinning the lines he has been given by his still-unsacked bureaucrats. The same bureaucrats who lied about the vaccines during the ScoMo driven roll-out in 2021. He seems not to have caught up with the Blind-Freddie territory evidence of vaccine harms.
The problem is that Shorten and friends are still spitting out the Covid lies. Now. Shorten’s latest intervention reminds us of a few truths about the Covid Sate:
· There is no statute of limitations on big lies;
· The Covid-enhanced power of the State will remain with us forever;
· There will be no apology, ever. Instead, there will be doubling down;
· The glib cliches – “safe and effective”, are now endemic, just like the virus they are used to describe;
· The narrative remains king;
· Arguing science with the likes of Shorten is utterly useless;
· The sheer power of the Covid State transcends changes of government.
Easily. Seamlessly. Big Pharma’s crimes roll on. As does the fight for justice for the vaccine injured, pursued vigorously and diligently by those with far greater moral compasses than Bill Shorten’s.
The Italian chemist and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi once said:
Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.
Indeed.
Our old friend Shorten strikes me as one of those dullard functionaries, a cog rather than a monster – “I don’t know what she said but I agree with it” – ready to believe whatever Big Pharma and its shills in the public health bureaucracies and the media. And to witness his continuing gaslighting of victims of vaccine harm is truly vile. Like all of the Covid Class, he has much deep red blood on his hands. Yet another example of the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt termed it. And she was speaking of Adolf Eichmann. Mr “I was just following orders” himself. If ever there as a man “just following orders”, it would have to be William Richard Shorten. It doesn’t get any more banal than Bill.
Worst of all, Shorten’s off-handed, “sassy” attitude to Covid policy victims gave permission to those like the Creighton trolls to bully and threaten free-thinking dissidents. Imagine if one of these nutters had actually inflicted physical harm on Creighton. Et tu, Bill?
If only the Covid vaccine injured had been homosexual or Aboriginal or Muslim or disabled – well, actually some of them are – then Bill’s attitude would probably qualify as hate speech.
I don’t know what the Covid Class said, but I agree with it. Bill Shorten kind-of sums up the attitude of the political class in the era of the non-event virus.
Paul Collits
19 April 2023
Brilliant thanks Paul. Maybe down the track it will be possible to simply make a one off donation rather than enter a paid subscription.
I do that with some where I am able to and it amounts to the same thing in the end.
Many will be like me I suspect challenged by the amount of information coming out.
By simply listening to new headlines one knows what rubbish is being run and what danger is coming.
But the golden stuff comes from you and so many others, quality, balanced, accurate, incisive etc.
So many writing for Substack now that MSM is irrelevant to my mind and I suspect to many.
Yes Bull is surely just as you describe him and his over confidence surely was a significant factor in his defeat, that which led to the disastrously well publicised tax grab when he and his shadow treasurer published their determination to relieve small investors of their franked earnings from shares and then said to us 'well if you don't like it don't vote for us. Thanks Lionel Bowen we did not.
And of course at that stage Scomo had not had his meeting with Bill Gates and we did not know that there was any such thing as a 'Covid class'. In my view Bull managed to show himself in his true colours and was unelectable.
I didn’t know this about Bill Shorten. Thank you for this piece. The officials in this country are seriously out of order and out of step with the rest of the world. These so very dangerous ‘vaccines’ have caused so much heart ache. As did the stupid way it was all managed.