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Tomorrow the political year of 2011 officially begins.

Of course it has actually been going for month at least – the QLD floods brought out the politicians from their summer’s rests much earlier than usual. And in some ways tomorrow really won’t be the start because there will be no Question Time (and we all know the nation hangs on that 90 minutes of fun – and yes I know, I do, but I have a problem and I admit it, what’s your excuse?), but will instead have condolence motions for the flood and cyclone victims.

The two leader’s condolence speeches will be quite interesting to observe.  The last time there was such a day of condolence it was for the Victorian Bushfires, and the two main speakers were Julia Gillard and Malcolm Turnbull. Kevin Rudd you may recall was absent as he was in Melbourne assisting with the fire recovery (the fires occurred on 7 February, so Parliament was already sitting). Gillard that day gave a beautiful speech. You can listen to it here.

She was very emotional, and for much of it was struggling to get through without her voice cracking – often she failed. Turnbull as well gave an excellent speech, and many members of the House were weeping.

Tomorrow will be a different emotion for many members. This is not because the deaths from the floods (and the one during the cyclone) are less tragic, but more because the fires happened only 3 days before the House gave its condolence and so the pain was still very raw – no time had passed yet to heal.

For Gillard of course, it was also a case of the tragedy occurring much closer to home. I think that people who have lived only in the south have a much more visceral fear of bushfires because it returns every summer; cyclones and even flooding as was seen in the Lockyer Valley is perhaps just too foreign to comprehend the horror. It certainly was for me growing up in South Australia. Floods and cyclones? Cyclone Tracy and the Brisbane floods happened when I was 2, whereas the Ash Wednesday fires happened when I was 10 , and I still remember the heat of that day.

It’s why I think Today Tonight and news.com.au had a countdown clock running for when Cyclone Yasi crossed the coast – as though its crossing the coast actually meant anything, as though the 3-4 hours before the cyclone crossed the coast weren’t the most gravely dangerous times, as though the 2-3 hours after it crossed the coast weren’t also full of fear and venom. You’d never see such a meaningless thing being done during a bushfire.

So tomorrow I think there will be emotion, but not that cut-to-the-bone emotion that we witnessed on 9 February 2009. There will be those MPs from Queensland who will of course be full of grief, but it will be grief that has at least had some weeks to work through.

It will also be interesting to to see how both Gillard’s and Abbott’s speeches are reported. Back in February 2009 Gillard was covered in tributes for her heartfelt speech. The tone of political coverage has changed so much that she could probably cry tomorrow in her speech and the analysis will be why didn't she cry two weeks ago? (oh and did you see what she was wearing??).

For Tony Abbott it will be a chance for him to show he can give a speech absent of political inference. Will he go to the cost of rebuilding and the levy (will Gillard?)? Will he spend more time praising the decisions of Joh Bjelke-Petersen in the 1970s than the response by the Anna Bligh two weeks ago?

But as the new political year is ready to start, let’s have a quick look at how things have changed in 12 months.

Twelve months ago before the first sitting day I wrote:

The parliamentary year started as it often does with a Newspoll. It was not great news for the ALP. On the two party preferred the ALP was only leading by 52-48 (pretty much on par with the last election). Of note however was that the ALP’s primary vote was now behind the LNP’s 40% to 41%.

What we have is a pretty divided electorate. We also have some figures that show that Rudd has been off the playing field for most of the summer and needs to get back into gear quickly. His appearance on last Friday’s Sunrise program was lack lustre, so he’s going to need to improve to reconnect with the public (or at least some of the 38% who don’t approve with what he is currently doing).

Well this year it starts with a Newspoll and it’s now LNP 52 – ALP 48, and even worse for the ALP , the Primary is now 32, and the LNP’s in 44.

Here’s the Newpoll for the past 12 months:

Not great news for the ALP that’s for sure.

Gillard wasn’t there 12 months ago, so let’s look how Abbott is doing as preferred PM in that time

So he’s doing better than he is was back then. There has been murmurings about his position, and this is mostly because the LNP is now ahead of the ALP, but Abbott lags behind Gillard. And when such a thing occurs, opposition leaders always get a little bit antsy, because back benchers start thinking they should be further ahead, and because they think the Preferred PM actually matters (it does, but you only need to see how Keneally has polled compared to the NSW ALP, to see it doesn't matter that much). But Abbott isn’t actually travelling very well at the moment. His performance on Insiders last night wasn’t flash – take his opening lines:

BARRIE CASSIDY: On the flood levy, one thing we seem to have learned from this, that is; in times of crisis, while Australians pull together, politicians rarely do.

TONY ABBOTT: Well look there are all sorts of lessons from this. But I don't want to be part of a higher-taxing political party.

And the Government unfortunately is addicted to taxes. And it's addicted to spending, often wasteful spending.

And I think I've set a very clear contrast between a Government whose first instinct is to tax and an Opposition which thinks that governments, like households, like businesses, should live within their means.

Boom – straight into his focus group spiel. He may think the government is addicted to spending, but he’s certainly addicted to spin. Take his response to another Cassidy question:

BARRIE CASSIDY: Okay. The gun levy - what's the difference between that and this?

TONY ABBOTT: Well this is a Government which can't be trusted to spend money wisely which means that it's all the more important for the Government to reorder its priorities and to find savings.

The Prime Minister herself admitted at the Press Club that there were further savings that could be found. And that's where the Government should be looking, to the fat in the budget, to meet reconstruction costs.

Now there is dodging the question, and then there’s Tony Abbott –Mister “Straight Talker” (yeah, right).

But bugger the polls (as Annabel Crabb quite rightly says we should), let’s look at the real world over the past 12 months. First unemployment:

Looking good, hard to complain. Now inflation:

Hard to fault. Interest rates?

This is less great – depending on how you look at things. Had the rates stayed low, you can bet the first graph on unemployment would not be looking half so good, so it is good that the rates went up. But in political terms, the ALP would not be wanting them to rise any higher – there’s only so long you can say interest rate rises are sign of a strong economy.

And so to the year ahead. Predictions? Yeah right, I’m that silly.

I will say one thing, the polls won’t really matter in my opinion until the budget (as it will also be a good period after the NSW election is out of the system). The political year will be interesting in the first half, but the real game begins when the Senate changes and the Greens get the balance of power.

The price on carbon is the biggie. Not only will it be the test of Gillard, it will also affect Abbott. It’s all very well for Libs to think Hockey (or Turnbull) could give them better numbers, but what happens when a price on carbon comes up for debate – I’m sure they all remember November 2009?

One other little aspect forgotten over the summer is the wikileaks. There are still a heap to come out, that have been held back because of the big news of the floods and cyclones, and also because it was the summer silly-season. We have no idea how embarrassing they will be for the government – though we can probably bet that Fairfax will time them for the biggest impact.

But, oh bugger it, here’s a prediction: Will Gillard and Abbott still be the leaders in December? I’ll bet one of them will be, but not both.

In 2005 I did something that I don’t think my wife will ever totally forgive. First I finished my PhD (ok, she was fine with that), but then I got a job in Canberra working in the public service.

It meant we would be leaving Far North Queensland after 11 years. A place she loved like she was born to live there. And it meant going to Canberra a place she… well we have a nice house and many friends here.

We lived in a town north west of Cairns called Redlynch. She had got a job teaching in a nearby school, and when we moved to Cairns we decided to either live in the towns of Freshwater or Redlynch. For some reason I liked the sound of Redlynch more, and so when we found a townhouse for rent, we took it. We were only going to stay 2 years, 3 tops. Within 18 months we bought the townhouse next to ours and stayed for nearly a decade longer.

The town is nestled right in the foothills around Cairns that lead up to the Atherton tablelands. The hills there don’t rise gradually – they shoot up like mountains. They are covered in trees and the lushest most verdant vegetation you will see anywhere – no bare grazing hills here.

Back then most of the area was sugar cane. In the time we were there blocks were sold off bit by bit and turned into new housing estates. After we left even more cane was replaced by houses such that when we returned last year for a holiday we were able to shake our heads like old timers and wonder at the changes that had occurred.

We lived in a street right behind the big glorious Queenslander pub the Red Beret. We lived a street behind the house where Xavier Herbert lived when he wrote Poor Fellow, My Country. The Kuranda train went by every day at 5pm. When we had our first child we would always go for walks at that time so she could wave to the driver and all the tourists. The people would always wave back, and there are many Japanese people who have back in their homes a photo of our daughter waving to them as they stopped at Redlynch.

When we got there the cane toads were plentiful (still are – especially in the summer). We learned very quickly not to leave cat food outside, because toads love it and pretty soon you’ll be seeing the biggest, most ugly creatures you’d ever want to cross. But there were also many many green tree frogs – the fellas would cling to our screen doors. They and the cicadas would provide a natural cacophonic symphony each sultry night. 

When we arrived in January the temperature was hovering in the mid 30Cs, and the humidity was in the mid 90s. For us two from dry old SA, it knocked us around – we lived in the pool.

The wet season was an eye-opener, and we would see our old home town’s annual rainfall fall in 1 or 2 days. I bought a rain gauge and didn't bother to count how much rain we had received unless it was more than a inch.

We came to love the place – the relaxed way of life – too hot to bother with shirt and tie, too far away from Sydney or Melbourne to worry about keeping up with the pack. Bugger the pack, have a drink, relax.

The barrier reef? My God. As a rule I am not a beach person, and I love a river more than the ocean, but floating along the top looking at the most vibrant colours imaginable? Ah me, such bliss.

The rivers of course are no go zones – too great a danger of crocodiles. But there are water holes – such as Crystal Cascades which is in the Redlynch Valley, and it was where I used to take my daughter when she was a toddler to paddle and throw stones in the water. Down south near Babinda, there are the “Boulders” a collection of massive rocks through which streams flow and tranquillity is attainable. Go north and you drive along a road which makes all other scenic roads hang their heads: rainforest to one side, the bluest ocean on the other. And you’ll reach Port Douglas, home of resorts, but also of beautiful Four Mile Beach and a lovely town worth spending the day walking around and smiling. Go further north and you get to Mossman Gorge, where you will find yourself in the middle of a Steve Parish photograph. It is the type of spot, where you find yourself saying, I could die happy right now.

Turn back south and head to Mission Beach – it’s a bit of a drive, but it is worth it. You could go out to Dunk Island, or you could do, as my wife and I often did, and stay in a caravan park on the beach. And at night, though it is July, and all back down south are wearing jumpers and sitting close to the heater, you will be walking along in shorts and a t-shirt. And you’ll be smiling.

Back in Redlynch, go just 5 minutes north and get on the Sky Rail which will take you up to Kuranda. The views are amazing, and on a clear day, you may not be able to see forever, but you can certainly see as far as you would ever wish to.

Kuranda is indeed a tourist town, but enjoy the markets, enjoy the train station with its massive palms and staghorn ferns.

Come back happy, come back smiling.

My wife and I would sometimes go to one of the northern beaches for a walk – say Palm Cove or Kewarra Beach. We’d smile and think to ourselves that for some people doing what we are doing would be the trip of a lifetime, and yet here we are living here.

In the end I did kind of go troppo – the summer is bloody hot, there’s no getting around it – and with a child, I really needed to get a decent paying job (tutoring part time didn’t cover many bills). But geez, for about 5-6 months in the winter, the weather and climate is as close to perfect as you can get. And the entire year round, the people and the life is unlike anything you’ll find down here in the south.

If this all sounds like a love letter or perhaps an advert, you’re right.

Cairns and many places in the Far North survive on agriculture – sugar cane and bananas – and on tourism. And after the impact of Cyclone Yasi we can’t all plant cane or bananas, but we can go there for a holiday. It is a long way, and it is expensive for families. But if you are thinking of a big trip this year; give Bali a miss. Don’t bother with Thailand or Vietnam – you’ve got enough pirated DVDs and “Louis Vuitton” bags. Give the Far North a go.

You can even blame me if you find you never want to leave.

Have a good weekend – to those in the FNQ, have a great one.

Well this may be a record. It’s taken less than 24 hours for me to break my pledge not to be personal and not to add to the hate. But I really want to say this:

Mark Latham, you are a complete and utter wanker.

Today it was revealed that in the next issue of The Spectator Australia (no I don’t read it, and couldn't find anyone at work who did either) Latham writes a charming little piece titled “Latham’s Rules”.

In it, relates Jacqueline Maley and Ellie Harvey, he writes of Julia Gillard that:

she is ''not a particularly empathetic person - displaying, for instance, noticeable discomfort around infant children''.

He then tops it off with this pearl of wisdom from the sociology sh*t heap:

“'The femocrats will not like this statement but I believe it to be true: Anyone who chooses a life without children, as Gillard has, cannot have much love in them.”

Maley and Harvey end with a beautiful stab at Latham, saying:

As opposed to Latham, of course, who is known as a great spreader of love and a favourite of little children.

Now a couple things.

First: What the hell??!!

Why is he writing a piece of political “analysis” in which he thinks it is relevant whether or not Julia Gillard is good around infant children. I have two kids, and I’m not sure if I’m all that good around infant kids. I love my own kids. The infants of others? Well you know, I’ll smile when I see them and given them a little wave, but it’s not like I am volunteering to do babysitting. But hell that’s all by the by, because it is utterly irrelevant to Gillard’s performance during the flood crisis. It wasn’t the shots of Anna Bligh with young kids that made people think she was doing a great job, it was the way she did her job that made people think she was doing a good job.

So while that is bad enough – and irrelevant enough – to then go on and make such a butt-numbingly stupid statement as to suggest those who “choose” a life “without” children “cannot have much love in them” is to go beyond the pale. Well beyond.

All I know is that anyone who would choose to write such a line, even though he knew it was going to cause great offense, must be lacking in a fair bit of love for his fellow man and woman as well.

There is, as I wrote last night, a lot of hate around – on the net and in the media. Some of it is written because people didn’t think what they wrote was offensive to some people, some is written because they had no idea that taken out of context it could be offensive, some is written because it was done in the heat of the moment and it is regretted immediately.

But in this instance Latham calmly and calculatedly thought about and wrote something he knew would be offensive – in fact the whole point of his writing it was because it was offensive. He wanted to offend people.

How do you get to that point in your life?

Well, we all know how – hate. Hatred especially of one person (though Latham certainly hates more than one)

Latham hates Julie Gillard without any limitations. He used to be a friend but now, as sometimes happens when friends fall out, he hates her more than poison. The way he writes and commentates about politics, you know it is a deep seeded hate. Gore Vidal wrote that it is not enough to succeed, others must fail. Well for Latham it is because he has failed; others must be torn down.

But the problems of Latham’s hatred for Gillard are only a minor issue here; what is more important is why is The Spectator giving this guy a voice? Why does the Australian Financial Review give him column inches? Why does Sky News give him time on its programs? Why did 60 Minutes give him a voice in the last election?

Where is the editor or news director who is saying, you know what Mark, we know you hate Gillard (and Rudd), have you got anything else to contribute?

But no, they don’t say that, they bring him on and let him go and laugh at the attention they get.

If Latham were dropped in a pit deep enough so that no journalist could ask his opinion and no internet service would allow him to email his column to any media outlet or blog, then not only would the political discourse of this nation not be worsened, it would be improved more than it would by the absence of any other person. Big statement I know, and I’m prepared to debate a few other names that could go in the pit. But most of the others commentators who I vehemently disagree with, I disagree with because I think their political philosophy and views so completely out of whack that what they write is disgusting. With Latham, I don’t care about his politics, because he has none, other than hatred of Gillard (and Rudd, and the ALP and.. and..) – all he says and writes must be viewed through that lens.

Here’s a tip to all media outlets who wish to use Latham’s services: he is not doing you any good. His hatred makes him blind to common decency. To suggest that someone who chooses not to have children (male or female) cannot have much love in them is so offensive that were Latham to have said it to the face of a person in that circumstance, I wouldn’t be surprised if a judge were to let them off for slapping the guy in the mouth.

I don’t mind snark in my political coverage; I don’t even mind bias (heck I am biased), but when all you have to offer is hatred of someone because they got to PM and you didn’t? Well, I think we’d all be best to give his opinions a wide berth.

Will I rush out and get this month’s The Spectator magazine? Not on your life. And I suggest even those who normally would buy it to give it a miss.

As a mate of mine who spent time in the army would say – Latham is a waste of rations. In a media context, he is a waste of column inches. To editors I suggest this – give that space to someone who will add to the betterment of the political discourse – it wouldn't be hard to find someone better; and don’t worry, you could stay in the gutter, because Latham is in the sewer.

Yesterday at lunch I read a blog post in The Australian by Caroline Overington that made me so angry I actually had to go for a walk around the block to calm down.  The flippancy with which I believed she was treating Cyclone Yasi had me walking around clenching my fists. As I’ve written before, I lived for 11 years in Cairns and so I have quite a few very close friends who were bunkering down on Wednesday night; and knowing the area so well, the scenes of destruction shown in the media yesterday morning hit very close to home. And so when I read what I took to be her very blasé view of the destruction caused by Yasi, well I was angry in a way that I am never so when reading some piece in the media that gets me irritated.

On my drive home, which takes about 30 minutes, and during which I usually start thinking about what I will write, I was writing some bloody angry prose in my head. After dinner, I sat down, as I always do, and let fly on the keyboard. I went in as hard on Overington as I have ever gone in on anyone. It felt bloody good. I had the evidence, I had the pictures, and I had the words all on my side.

And as I always do, I posted the link on Twitter, and lo did the tweets follow. And many were not pretty at all.

I soon reflected on my piece and felt that I had overstepped the mark and so did a slight retraction. I posted the retraction on Twitter – and apologised to Caroline for what I had insinuated. She hadn’t asked me to, and no one had said I should. Many people – including some journalists, tweeted to me that I had no need to retract what I had written, that she was fair game, and that I had not written anything legally wrong.

And yet in my gut, the more I thought about it, the more I thought I was wrong, even if not in a legal sense. It is to do with the tone of my piece, and given I was attacking Caroline Overington for the tone of her piece, I think it is only right to admit I got the tone of mine wrong as well.

Now I attack journalists and politicians everyday on this blog. When I get stuck into The Australian I’ll insinuate stupidity and bias and bias and stupidity. And you know what – I think I am on the money every bloody time. (You may disagree, and that’s fine by me.)

But here’s the thing: when I go in hard on something Matt Franklin or Patricia Karvelas has written, I go in hard on what they have written. I could not give a stuff about what they think privately. That is, the focus of the attack is their words not them. I may insinuate that they are poor journalists; but poor human beings who don’t love their friends and family? No. Now maybe with politicians I play the man a bit more than the ball, but again I keep the attacks to those based on what they say, and stay away from personal slurs. (Professional slurs? You betcha.)

I have a wonderful curse that I am generally able to throw out a line of sarcastic scorn with little trouble. It is a curse because whenever I do it – and I mean a personal, spot-on, right between the eyes hit – I hate myself afterwards for a very long time. Once about 18 years ago I drilled my sister with a line of scorn. I doubt she even remembers it now, but I still think about it pretty regularly, and I hate the memory of the look on her face just after I said it. Now my sister and I spent most of our childhood arguing with each other, but that was the only time I said a line to her that I had thought up earlier and workshopped in my head and then let fly when the moment arose.

What does this have to do with my post yesterday?

Well that is the one time I have let fly a post that as soon as I thought about, I knew I would hate myself for having written.

I think Overington made a joke that badly misfired. And that should have been my target. And yes, it largely was. I took her words off the page and I showed them to be stupid and uncaring. But you know what? At the end of the day it was just a stupid joke on her part that she has now acknowledged on Twitter could be seen as flippant. Did it deserve scorn? Yeah I think it did. She is paid to write for the flagship paper of News.ltd. If she, and The Australian, cannot be criticised for what is published on its site, then we might as well all give up on democracy.

But in my anger I let the tone drift from scorn on her attempt at a joke, to scorn on her. I suggested she was uncaring, whereas what was right was that her words could be read as uncaring.

Now some may say, who cares, what’s the difference?

Now some may say, so what? She wrote it, she gets the scorn.

But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I had missed the mark. Not by much. It isn’t so much what I wrote about was wrong, but the way I went about it.

A couple things on Twitter last night hit me. Stephen Spencer – a bloke in the press gallery I have a lot of time for, and certainly no friend of The Australian or news.ltd – tweeted:

It was a joke that like @Catherinedeveny at the logies missed the mark, but the assault on @overingtonc is a little OTT don't you think?

He then followed it up with:

people who supported Deveny now bagging @overingtonc and vice versa. Not a fan of the pack attack.

And he’s right. I hate the pack attack as well. I hate that I could write something that would fuel not just comments on my blog saying “you nailed it”, but that it would fuel abuse at Overington on Twitter. I do think that had someone like Deveny or a political staffer, or even a humble public servant written the “joke” about the lack of damage from the cyclone, there would have been hell to pay from certain right-wing bloggers and columnists in the media.

Doesn’t make it right, and doesn't make it right when I did it either.

And yeah, Spencer is correct: I did go over-the top. Originally it was going to be just part of a larger blog (I was going to focus on the idiotic use on Today Tonight and news.com.au of a countdown clock to the cyclone hitting the coast), but it grew as I wrote it. And as I wrote it, my anger grew as well.

If I ever “nailed a post” (a phrase Overington has used to describe how people react to blog posts) that was it. Doesn’t make it right though.

Her post was two lines long (three if you count the line below the duck-video), and I made every bit of all of them.

Too much in fact.

This doesn’t mean two sentences can never be worthy of an entire post; just not those two.

It was a misplaced, ill-timed joke. Call her on it, sure. But writing a post with a tone that effectively unleashed a pile of hate at someone? Sorry that’s not why I blog.

There’s a lot of hate on the net. I read some blogs on the net and the tone, if not the words, is geared towards fuelling anger. The comments on those blogs reflect that as well.

Last night I wrote a blog post that conveyed that type of tone, and it led to those types of comments.

Sometimes I hate this hobby of mine. Underneath the TV we have two DVD series each of The Wire, The Tudors and Battle Star Galactica. I have the box set of The Pacific, the old BBC series of War and Peace starring Anthony Hopkins, the mini series of Little Dorrit and Bleak House. I have the old series of Power without Glory. I have close to 50 books I desperately want to read. And each night I say, tonight we’ll start watching that series, or tonight we’ll watch that movie, or tonight I’ll go to bed early and read that book.

And yet I don’t. I’ll write a blog post; I’ll chat on Twitter; I’ll tinker with the post; and it’ll be 11:30 and I think oh bugger, not again.

And yet I absolutely love doing it. I love writing; I love the debates and laughs on Twitter.

But last night was the first time I had wished I didn't have a blog. Because even if it was in the mildest sense, I had added to the hate on the internet.

I felt like I did the moment after I had let rip at my sister 18 years ago.

This is my hobby. It has brought me a lot of joy. But a hobby that has me implying someone would prefer to see people dead? Really? Is that what I want to do each night? Is that joyful? Does that tone add anything of value? No, no and no.

I have achieved a certain amount of attention for this blog; and mostly people read it because they agree with me when I attack the media or the Liberal Party – or even occasionally the ALP or Greens – or they read it because they at least enjoy what I have to write about those topics. The one thing I hate most about all of those whom I attack (and especially the media) is when they stuff up, they don’t admit it. They see people distressed by things they have written or said, and do they apologise? No, they effectively say “up yours” and they say they’re paid to be provocative and so we need to deal with it.

Well good for them. And maybe if I were being paid to do so I would act the same. But I would like to think not.

And so I say I regret my post last night. Not because I think I was wrong and Overington right, but because sometimes, being right isn’t enough.

Others – whether because they are paid to be so, or because they enjoy it – can be mean on the internet, and go hard at a person. I choose not to. My post crossed over and I didn’t feel comfortable with where that put me.

What others on Twitter or on this blog think or don’t about whether or not I was right, really isn’t much of an issue to me.

The post had an ugly tone; one I don’t care to repeat. One that made me embarrassed to take any credit for any praise that came my way for it.

The most angry post I ever wrote was one that never saw the light of day. It was in response to my being outed. I wrote it and thankfully had people around me who told me to put it in a drawer. I had written it in red-hot anger. Sure it was all perfectly correct and right. But sometimes, being in the right isn’t enough.

Don’t blog angry.

Last night, like many people around Australia, I sat watching the television and looking at news on the internet following Cyclone Yasi’s movements across North Queensland. 

In this amazing age of the internet there were a number of webcams set up by people in various places, that provided horrific pictures and audio before they finally cut out due to loss of power. One webcam in Ingham was showing only blackness, but the sound of the cyclone passing was nothing less than a shriek of nature at its most terrible.

I went to sleep, and slept lightly, hoping and praying for good news in the morning, but my head knew not to expect much.

The morning brought news that the worst had not occurred, but that for all talk of “dodged bullets”, Yasi had not been overestimated. Yes the city of Cairns was fortunate not to get the full force of the storm, but in the towns of Mission Beach, Tully, Innisfail, Ingham, and Cardwell no one is talking about missing bullets, except in terms that no one died.

Take this view of Cardwell:

Yes roofs are mostly still intact, but you don’t need to be familiar with the town to know that something very awful has happened. Something monstrous. Something that could have killed.

A look at the main street of Tully tells a similar tale:

Everyone, I think would agree that the destruction caused by Yasi was phenomenal; that it was frightening; that it was something no one would wish upon their worst enemy; and that it was only through luck and excellent management that no one died.

Well everyone except The Australian's Caroline Overington.

This afternoon I foolishly decided to have a read of her “Media Diary blog”, whereupon I saw this headline:

Much ado

Was this “Much ado” (as in, much ado about nothing) the headline for her piece of News.corp onanism dealing with the launch of the new ipad e-newspaper? (Because hell, a newspaper on the internet, wow, that’s revolutionary.) Err no. The headline and the piece of utter contemptuous tripe that Overington wrote was to do with Cyclone Yasi:

A resident of north Queensland has just called into Sydney radio to say the roof of their cubby house was blown off during Cyclone Yasi.

Also, reports of garage doors being battered. Some poles are down. Palm trees have of course lost fronds.

Well hell, sorry Caroline, next time we will be sure to let people up in North Queensland know that you prefer your cyclones to be tragic.

“Palm trees have lost fronds”? Oh you mean this?

Or perhaps Overington doesn’t grasp that people’s livelihoods have been destroyed? If not, how about we cheer her up and show her what happens to banana plantations when they meets a Category 5 cyclone:

Maybe Overington thinks losing your income for a year is a piffle? You  know – harden up you lot, it’s not like anything bad happened.

Some poles down, garage doors battered?

Her post is even more stupid when you realise it was done at 9:17am this morning – a time when no one was completely sure that no lives had been lost.

But don’t worry Overington really does care – after all here she was on Twitter last night:

What a wonderful country when we down south can't sleep for the love of our brothers and sisters in Queensland#tcyasi

Except we now know that is bullshit. She thought it was all exaggerated. Last night on ABC24 there was lots of footage of webcams. One of them in Townsville was on in the background when the operator of the cam decided to have some fun:

When it happened, everyone on Twitter who saw it laughed and pretty well thought it showed how Aussies keep their sense of humour even in the worst of times. But Overington? No she didn’t think that, rather she thought it showed:

It’s a perfectly Australian response to officialdom, and hyperbole.

Officialdom? Err what officialdom exactly would that be, because the webcam was in the guy’s home, so it’s not like he was being pushed around by pedantic officials. Perhaps she means the officialdom that ensured people were evacuated and given adequate warning and told to prepare for the worst? You know, the officialdom which deserves almost all the credit for ensuring no one died.

Was it officialdom of the kind of Noelene Byrne, the Red Cross worker, who decided to close the citizens senior hall in Tully and sent the ten senior citizens to Tully evacuation centre? If so I don’t think anyone is mocking that officialdom because is saved those people’s lives:

NOELENE BYRNE: So I just made a quick decision and ... so I closed it down, transferred people up to the Tully Red Cross centre, and I'm now in front of the senior citizens and it's just one mangled heap.
Had I let the people there there would've been loss of lives.
The destruction is just heartbreaking. It's just one big mangled heap. Everything's just collapsed, there's only the front door of the hall that is standing. The rest is just one big scrap heap.

And what “hyperbole”? Obviously the hyperbole of the cyclone (remember – pfft, no big deal, “Palm trees have lost fronds”)

Maybe she should tell her own newspaper to reduce the hyperbole because here’s what it said:

“Cyclone Yasi whirled out of the heat and humidity of a tropical afternoon with the intensity and shocking violence of a nuclear explosion. In my part of this shrieking world of wind and driving rain, the windows are shaking, the doors are rattling and trees are bent over…. will the roof hold?” McKenna reports. 

Overington’s response is utterly disgraceful. I was as angry when I read it as I would have been had someone written in response to the terrible news of Corporal Atkinson’s death in Afghanistan that it wasn’t that big a deal because only one person died.

Should Overington ever get the opportunity to once again speak at a “Future of the media” conference (yeah, I know), maybe she can talk about how she covered Cyclone Yasi. She could tell the audience how she decided it was all a bit of a joke. She could say how she saw the destruction and the loss of people’s homes and she thought the best response was to laugh at them, to mock them.

At that point she may also like to talk about why the public holds the journalism profession in such contempt.

Oh but really, we should spare a thought for her – after all, she’s in Sydney doing it tough don’t ya know – from Twitter this afternoon she tells us:

Alright. Enough with the 37 degrees already.

Poor petal; someone should organise a telethon for her.

UPDATE: In my anger, while writing this post I in effect suggested Overington would have preferred a death or two to accompany the cyclone. That was wrong of me, and a very stupid thing to write. I do not think she would want that, and am sorry I wrote it. I apologise to her for causing any offence. (I should note, I do this not because I have been asked, but because it is the right thing to do). I generally do not write the blog posts in anger, but given the time I had spent living in Cairns, and the people I knew who live there and who were, to be pretty frank, bloody scared last night, I was incensed at Overginton’s attempt at a joke. I stand by everything else I wrote. If what she wrote is a joke, I think it badly misfired, and was offensive. But that’s no excuse for me being offensive as well.

My apologies.

UPDATE 2: I’ve placed all comments in moderation for now. A couple got through that were just abuse, and I don’t want that here. I don’t know how to turn off comments on this post only, so I’ll keep it all on moderation for now. The tone of these responses makes me wish I hadn’t written this piece at all.

To those in Far North Queensland, good luck and stay safe.

My thoughts and prayers are with you this terrible night.

On most days when the Reserve Bank makes a decision on interest rates, it’s a good bet it’ll be headline news. The Australian media (with some good reason) is pretty obsessed with interest rates. A decision to increase rates by the RBA becomes the single easiest decision for any news editor on what story to lead with in the 6pm news or on the front page the next day. Admittedly a decision to leave rates alone is less of a news-worthy item (no news like bad news), but still it would rate.

Today the RBA left rates at 4.75%



This is of course a wonderful thing for mortgage holders, and it points to a pretty healthy economy – the unemployment rate is at 5 per cent, and yet the RBA is at present not so concerned about inflation that it feels a need to nip it in the bud.

As we can see from below, that is because underlying inflation is right in the area the RBA should be comfortable. Yes it’s above 2 per cent, and we might like to hope that below 2 per cent will become the long term average, but when you look at the last ten years, you see anywhere around 2.5 per cent is pretty good.



Unemployment, as I said, is ticking along beautifully, and heading back down after the horrors of the GFC were handled nicely by Rudd and Co.



How nicely did they handle it? Let us remind ourselves of our American cousins:



(Cue Andrew Robb with, “If the stimulus worked, why is the unemployment rate in the US at 10 per cent” – my response – “It worked because we’re not at 10 per cent – live with it”)

The RBA statement had this to say:

Employment growth was unusually strong in 2010. Most leading indicators suggest further growth, though most likely at a slower pace. After the significant decline in 2009, growth in wages picked up somewhat last year.  Some further increase is likely over the coming year.

Inflation is consistent with the medium-term objective of monetary policy, having declined significantly from its peak in 2008. Recent data show underlying inflation at around 2¼ per cent in 2010. The CPI rose by about 2¾ per cent, reflecting the once-off effect of the increase in tobacco excise. These moderate outcomes are being assisted by the high level of the exchange rate, the earlier decline in wages growth and strong competition in some key markets, which have worked to offset large rises in utilities prices. The Bank expects that inflation over the year ahead will continue to be consistent with the 2–3 per cent target.

This is all good news that pretty well destroys the arguments of those commentators who were predicting a wages blowout post the introduction of the ALP’ s industrial legislation laws. In fact things are going along very nicely…

If we look at the Misery Indexes (Unemployment + Inflation), and my “Grog’s Misery” (Unemployment + RBA Cash Rate) we also see we’re in a good position:



Hard to get worried about that. The traditional misery index is around where it was for most of the Howard glory years, and the Unemployment + Cash Rate index is at “record lows”.

But what about the future? What about Joe Hockey’s plaintive wailing about the inflation rate and the price of “fruit and vegies” and the impact of the floods on inflation due to capacity constraints brought about by the Gillard Government’s wilful spending, and thus wages blowout?

The flooding in Queensland and Victoria is having a temporary adverse effect on economic activity and prices. Some production of crops and resources has been lost and some other forms of economic output have also been lower in the affected areas. 
 The floods also resulted in damage or destruction to physical capital in the affected regions. Over the next year or two, the efforts to repair or replace infrastructure and housing will add modestly to aggregate demand, compared with what would otherwise likely have occurred. The extent of this net additional effect will depend on the full extent of the damage, the speed of the rebuilding, and the extent to which other public and private spending is deferred. The Bank's preliminary assessment is that the net additional demand from rebuilding is unlikely to have a major impact on the medium-term outlook for inflation.

So much for that then…

But why is this not front page news (aside from it being relatively good news)?
Well because of another chart – a chart which shows that mortgages and unemployment and inflation are not the most important thing in our lives (but that the lives of ourselves and our friends and family members are):



Cyclone Yasi is bearing down on Cairns. In the last 24 hours the path has shifted up from Townsville to the northern beaches of Cairns to a little bit further south where it looks now like hitting somewhere around Gordonvale.

It now looks almost certainly to be Category 4, which means massive destruction for anything in its path (and remember the most destructive force of the cyclone is front left) – ie south-west of the eye).

What is worse is even after it has hit land it is expected to stay as a cyclone (Category 3) for a good while as it heads in-land. This is not good (understatement there). Most cyclones hit the coast and the become low depressions. This one looks like it wants to keep on pounding long after most give up.

The infra-red shot of it it truly horrifying:



It’s not often you get scared by a weather map, but that picture has me as worried as any of the pictures of violence coming from Egypt. It’s like watching a photo of two road-trains just before they have a head-on collision.

To those up north, stay very safe. I know many down south are thinking of you.
Comic Jester on Twitter reminded me tonight that after Cyclone Larry hit in 2005, Miranda Devine, displaying all the compassion she could muster, wrote a piece stating:

I'M sorry, but if you live in a place prone to cyclones every 80 years and a cyclone comes along after 80 years, what's the surprise?

We in Sydney are very sorry for the people in northern Queensland who have lost their homes to Cyclone Larry. But, much as we will miss their avocados and bananas on our supermarket shelves, we can live without their whingeing.

Here’s hoping after Yasi has hit, we see little damage or human injury (whether from winds, or the often forgotten storm surges), and from the media, here’s hoping we don’t see examples of the above being expressed.

UPDATE
And so we wake to the worst news possible. Cyclone Yasi has been upgraded to Category 5. Its eye has an air pressure of 920 hectoPascals. With cyclones the lower the pressure the worse they are. Anything below 950 is terrible news. The winds associated with it are currently around 295km/h.

Two hundred and ninety five kilometres per hour.

That is beyond comprehension.

Here’s what the Bureau of Meteorology says about such cyclones:
5 Severe Tropical Cyclone
More than 280 km/h
Extremely destructive winds
Extremely dangerous with widespread destruction.

At such levels hyperbole is not enough. When you have winds of 295km/h the laws of physics are for nought.

The path has moved more south – Innisfail is right in the middle of the target zone, but when the eye is 125 km wide it is not going to matter all that much to the people of Cairns, who in normal circumstances (say a category 2-3) would largely miss out on the destruction. And what is worrying as well is that a storm surge of around 2.5m above the highest tide is expected to hit.

It is expected to hit around 9pm-10pm tonight.

The infrared image is here.

It looks like Van Gogh’s Starry Night as though painted by a visitor to hell.