BLOG: Beware Boadicea Gillard and her gang of Greens!

IN a forum of this nature, perhaps it is never a good idea to display one's political leanings overtly or forcefully or display partisan, opinionated leanings in any way, but as yours truly submits all his treatises and opinion pieces from the safe haven of a pseudonym, that basic rule of etiquette can therefore be dispensed with. Doubtlessly, like most of you, dear readers, I find politics (and its protagonists) relentlessly depressing, as it is a sphere occupied, for the most part, by cloying, nausea-inducing, narcissistic, devious, deceitful dropkicks who are, for the most part, as capable of securing proper, meaningful employment as Tahiti is of fielding an Olympic-winning bobsleigh team.

By and large, The Skipper usually regards politicians the way the British view the French (and vice versa): irritating, pathetically offensive, posturing and full of histrionic, arm-waving (but ultimately ineffective) hyperbole and inflammatory invective. This is why they (politicians; not necessarily the French and the British!) are best left to their own devices and regarded as lepers – alright in their own colonies but keep the hell away from people who don’t want to become infected. All of which brings us, dear reader, to the forthcoming election…..

As Bob Hope once remarked of a looming US contest between Reagan and – I think – Walter Mondale: “Whoever wins, it’ll be the evil of two lessers.” We have the thrilling spectacle of Gillard versus Abbott to look forward to – the Boadicea of the empty fruit bowl versus the Stan Laurel of the Northern Beaches. Two extremist zealots who understand what makes ordinary people tick the way George W. Bush understood the Arab psyche. But, despite the fact that Abbott perennially looks like a befuddled lay preacher who has blundered into the practical-demonstration session of an S & M convention, The Skipper will be voting for the Coalition. Read on and you’ll see why….

Just by way of setting the scene, anybody living in the Sydney area would be acutely aware of a totally unreconstructed, addled, myopic, spoilsport Green MP by the name of Lee Rhiannon, a Luddite and a NIMBY of the worst sort and an out-and-out “water melon” – someone who is green on the exterior but thoroughly red on the inside. The sort of person who, now that Communism has been shown to be as successful as a tofu take-away stall at a rodeo, has fervently embraced the environment as her sole raison d’etre. If you are (or were) an importer, retailer or user of personal watercraft, then this woman is to you what Enola Gay was to Hiroshima. For whatever reason, Bob Carr (a man who doesn’t even have a car driver’s licence and who has demonstrated as much love for the internal combustion engine as the French Navy did for the Rainbow Warrior) ended up needing the support of this painful, sanctimonious, self-important Rhiannon woman to stay in power some years ago and one of the results of this nefarious pact was that PWCs were banned from Sydney Harbour – a reprehensible, egregious act from which, arguably, that segment of the industry has never recovered.

If you have given the newspapers and news websites even a cursory glance this week, you will see that Boadicea and Bob Brown (Tasmania’s very own Ralph Nader) are cosying up to each other in relation to preference deals in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. One Labor apparatchik actually ventured the darkly portentous, ominous opinion: “We really need them (the Greens) this time.” If you are involved in the marine industry (particularly in the sale of any craft utilizing internal combustion engines), then hear this: “BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID!” It’s not so much the Green Party per se; it’s the rabid, irrational, frenzied fanatics on the sidelines - the peripheral groups of fervid, ascetic, pleasure-forswearing killjoys who will slowly, cunningly, deviously and insidiously peddle their cant and doctrine and who are just waiting patiently and salivating at the very thought of all the fishing areas they’re going to close and all the marine parks and “preservation areas” they’re going to create. And although the lunatic fringe greenies are as big as a danger as a loaded revolver with a sawn-off firing pin, a hair trigger and a chamber full of hollow-point explosive bullets rammed down the front of your shorts, don’t forget the current “danger within”. That moribund, moronic, maladroit galoot Garrett has called for a moratorium on all submissions regarding closure of the Coral Sea. Oh, is that right? What he didn’t say, but what is hanging palpably in the air like fallout from an explosion in a nuclear reactor, is the phrase “…..until after the election”.

Yes, dear readers, politicians are sources of ridicule, mirth and amusement but the unfortunate thing is that they form governments. We live, of course, in a democracy and it would be presumptuous and exceedingly arrogant of The Skipper to influence or dictate what way an intelligent person should vote. However, I have a pronounced, sickening feeling – a portent of doom and an impending sense of cataclysmic, irreparable, terminal destruction, actually – about the irreversible mortal damage that will befall our industry, our people and our livelihoods should Labor secure power on the back of Green support. As history has shown, there is no group more rapidly eager to call in a favour or invoke a desperately proffered quid pro quo than politicians, particularly politicians from marginal, non-mainstream, extreme and off-the-wall groupings. So vote as you see fit, dear reader, for whom you like, but vote with the wellbeing of your staff, your customers, your families and your competitors (actually your comrades in arms!) foremost in your mind.

The last thing any of us wants is to try to sell products that could eventually become as ignorantly maligned and as socially unacceptable as tobacco. You think I’m joking? Give the Greens any say whatsoever on August 21st and watch the “For Sale” signs start to appear on marine dealerships along the entire length of the eastern seaboard.