Sanur, 2016  © PJ Croft 2020

A beautiful day, only 18deg but I don’t seem to be feeling the cold. I had washing on the line yesterday when it was so wet, but managed to get it dry and off the line just before it started raining again. It’d had a nice rainwater rinse.

______________________________________

I’m pretty upset at the moment. I’ve just read an article on Crikey Why In God’s Name (I’m a subscriber, more on that in a minute) about the Catholic church in Australia. It’s been in the news because Catholic priests have been getting JobKeeper payments of about $1500 a fortnight since they started in this pandemic period.

But this is about double what priests are usually paid and the church has been asking the priests to return about half this payment. This is illegal. Employers, nota bene, are not allowed to withhold any of the JobKeeper payments or set any conditions for employees to receive it. The government pays the employer and the employer must pass it on, 100%. So, the Catholic church is acting illegally by asking its priests to return half their payments.

But since so many Catholic priests were found to have been sexually abusing children and young men in the past decades, it has mounted a legal defence that the church is not an employer and priests are not employees, so the church can’t be held legally responsible for the crimes of the priests.

So if they are not employers, why are they getting JobSeeker payments for their “employees”?

Well, it’s because they asked the Prime Minister! He’s a real God Fearer, don’t forget, a member of that Happy Clappy organisation called the Hillsong Church. Although he didn’t disclose it to us, he authorised the Catholic Church to get the JobSeeker payments. It pays to have friends in high places, doesn’t it?

So, although no members or employees of media, theatre and the arts, and no universities or employees of unis are eligible, and are “dying” as a result, the PM’s church friends have been given special treatment.

Do you feel any outrage? Do you see any hypocrisy? I’m so angry!

_______________________________________________

Along the same lines, ever since Australia started its own system of awards for service, the “Ocker Awards” as they’re sardonically called, people have been a bit cynical about who gets them. It turns out we’ve had a right to be, because Crikey has done some analysis of who’s been getting these gongs. And lo and behold, it turns out that the awards committee that chooses the recipients is stacked with Liberal Party members, and up to77% of the awards have gone to Liberal Party members. What a surprise!

Let’s never forget the ludicrous new awards that that loony Liberal polly, Tony Abbott, instituted without any authorisation, without even telling his own cabinet before announcing them, the Australian Knighthoods. What a joke. He made three Aussies Australian “Knights”, thus instantly devaluing the existing top Ocker Award recipients, then the following year he made the Duke of Edinburgh an Australian Knight! It was obvious that the Jook thought this was ridiculous, although he was too polite to say so.

The Liberal Party of Australia is a corrupt institution and is an embarrassment to this country. I despise them.