As is clear from the exchange below from The Australian’s ‘Strewth’ column, Bill Shorten has a lot of trouble answering simple yes / no questions with anything less than a mind numbingly, long winded, and potentially psychosis inducing, wall of words. The trauma of this was all over the face, and in the voice, of Justice Heydon after two days enduring Bill’s answers in the course of his duty at the helm of the Royal Commission into Union Corruption, and as he chastised the Labor leader for ‘non responsive’ answers, with failing voice and face planted to his desk. We wish the good judge well and hope he has now left the wine cellar in which he barricaded himself upon leaving the bench that evening.
The matter does not, however end there, but points to a new, and insidious threat to public health: ‘Shorten-speak,’ a condition having the potential to cause serious harm to journalists and others going about their ordinary daily business, who may be most directly exposed to this cruel disorder. The effect of Shorten-speak on innocent and unsuspecting minds has been likened by professionals in the field to that inflicted on ordinary workers and voters by one K. Rudd. As one victim, still recovering in community accommodation and requiring 24 hour care, succinctly put it, he would rather have his tongue nailed to the floor and his ears filled with super glue than listen to Kevin Rudd answer even the most infantile of questions.
Shorten-speak presents very real and similar challenges to working people. How long we ask, nay we beseech the authorities, before an honest worker, compulsorily exposed to Shorten-speak:
(a) self immolates
(b) spontaneously combusts
(c) breaks down weeping uncontrollably?
This must stop, in the name of public health. End ‘Shorten-speak’ now!
Business as usual.
Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/…/story-e6frgdk6-1227441876…
Last week we paid some attention to the royal commissioner Dyson Heydon and his apparent shock at encountering pollie speak. “A lot of your answers are non-responsive, some are responsive, but then you add something that isn’t responsive,” he told Bill Shorten, an observation that, with the arguable exception of the middle bit, could apply to most political conferences. But if he was hoping to have some sort of reforming effect, he would have been disappointed yesterday:
Journalist: “Do you think that the Shenhua mine should be built?”
Shorten: “Labor will rely upon the best science evidence. Clearly there’s a lot of concern, legitimate concern out there by agricultural land users in the Liverpool Plains. I think the government needs to, you know, they can’t keep passing the buck and blaming the NSW government, the federal government should stop blaming NSW. You’ve got (Greg) Hunt and you’ve got the PM saying this is not prime agricultural land; you’ve got Mr Joyce saying this is prime agricultural land …”
Shorten went on in this vein for a while, leaving the journalist at the end to optimistically ask, “Do you support the proposal or not?”
(Compare and contrast this with his agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon, who said of the decision: “Farmers are very angry and they should be angry.” He emphasised the disconnect he saw between the Agriculture Minister and his leader. )
