COLUMN | Would I lie to you? [An Innocent Australian]

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

– Buddha

A therapist neighbour tells me that the fundamental difference between young men and young women is that the men will give love to get sex and women give sex to get love.

“Of course, I’ll love you in the morning,” and “You are the only one I’ll ever sleep with,” are some of the early examples of white lies made to achieve personal gain.

At sea there is no place for lies. In my inaugural career as a deck officer, on handing over the navigation watch, the ship’s position, ships in the area, water depth, and steered course were all cross checked. The all-important weather forecast, machinery, fuel, and stability status were discussed. Why lie about any of it?

Ashore, it seems a different story. Lying seemingly is always for personal gain. With the past exception of the likes of Nelson Mandela, our leaders seem to be full of it.

“The IMO has been pressured by green groups and has wandered off the safety focus, preferring to be the world’s marine environmental policemen.”

“If I, taking care of everyone’s interests, also take care of my own, you can’t talk about a conflict of interest!” former Italian Prime Minister Silver Berlusconi said famously. Accused of tax fraud and underage sex, the PM is notorious for one of his weak lines of defence: “At least I’m not gay!”

Australia’s Julia Gillard was recognised as an accomplished fibber with “I did nothing wrong,” after sideshifting union funds for private gain. Backflipping on “We will never have a carbon tax” and securing her job with Green support, she then introduced it to offset global warming and the resultant rise of sea levels. Now she has a $4 million beachfront house in Brighton, Adelaide, a mere four metres above high tide. Clearly, she doesn’t consider sea levels a problem anymore.

Kevin Rudd, voted alongside Gillard by The Australian business journalist Terry McCrann as “the two worst Prime Ministers that Australia has ever had,” espoused massively exaggerated claims of catastrophic climate change caused by human activity.

Albanese’s claim to “cut our power bills by $275″ reduce the cost of living and not touch superannuation, together with Bowen’s delusional renewables strategy already stuffing the economy, puts these two in a new liar superleague, well above the already elevated ALP baseline.

Why would any sensible person vote for them? Certainly not the 5.5 million Australians in small business, eking out a living in family and regional businesses, struggling against the recent Albanese avalanche of energy, fuel and food costs, IR, and legal imposts.

Ex-US Vice President Al Gore strutted the world stage with frightening pictures of the Houses of Parliament in London almost totally underwater in his “inconvenient truth” crusade. His untruths were so well stage-managed that he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 alongside the IPCC, whose tribal chants changed from global warming to “climate change.”  Western Governments, including Australia, continue to show gullibility on an epic scale to UN/green scaremongering.

“Around 90 per cent of deaths on vessels in Australia are predominantly incurred by recreational and non-commercial vessels, yet 90 per cent of the written regulations are for commercial vessels.”

The Maritime Industry’s peak body IMO was formed to bring safety of shipping into an internationally standard framework, such as the Safety of Life at Sea Convention (SOLAS). The IMO, a main voicepiece of the UN, has been pressured by green groups and has wandered off the safety focus, preferring to be the world’s marine environmental policemen.

The Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) started as a thought bubble from the more vocal green members of IMO around 18 years ago. These green-aligned members chose to ignore that, due to the hike in fuel prices over every year, every designer and builder of every type of ship has been refining the hull designs to ensure better fuel consumption, the vessel’s viability, and the company’s survivability.

This IMO insult to the industry was a disgrace; nevertheless, this act was forced into life in 2013. EEDI has nothing to do with safety and we have allowed the IMO to be hijacked by UN bureaucrats, focusing on their job security by empire building.

As is the case in many other western nations, around 90 per cent of deaths on vessels in Australia are predominantly incurred by recreational and non-commercial vessels, yet 90 per cent of the written regulations are for commercial vessels and are regulated by a vast AMSA team of 354 staff, headquartered far from the sea. The government assures us citizens that this is for our safety! Really???

Similarly, pollution of the sea, time and time again, has proven to be 85 per cent from land run-off.  Yet Australia’s EPA rule over-reach has stagnated our port developments and expansion, instead of addressing land run-off.

The EPA’s demonising of dredging still exacerbates flooding as highlighted in my earlier columns and joining this with another hapless bureaucracy, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), we are witnessing unnecessary tragedies over our summer holidays.

As a coastal practitioner of sailboats, I already had come to the conclusion that the BOM should have been replaced decades ago by part-time fortune tellers in each maritime area of the country, preferably with dodgy facial looks and dressed shabbily to add a degree of authenticity.

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help you,” still ranks globally as the most common lie.

Other questionable slogans, mission statements, or important updates:

• BOM: “There will be an unprecedented dry period next month,” and “There will be an El Niño unprecedented wet period soon.”
• Banks: “Much more to do, with YOU in focus” (whereas “We’ll lend you an umbrella until it rains” seems closer to the truth)
• Newspapers: “Unbiased updated reporting,” and “Award-winning journalism,” whereas newspapers or left-wing journals, such as The Guardian, should have the caveat, “The date and page numbers in this journal are generally accurate; however, any resemblance between the articles herein and the truth are to be regarded as purely co-incidental.”

Time to head back to sea!