The Australian, 19 August 2010

When you’re the bloke who once installed Barnaby Joyce as Shadow Finance Minister, it’s hard to shake the lingering suspicion that you’re not quite the safe pair of economic hands that you claim to be. Now while Tony’s packed young Joyce off to remedial maths class, the Coalition’s costings do still seem to have a touch of the Barnaby’s about them.

If you throw two abacuses into a room full of economists, you’ll almost certainly hit two economists with entirely different opinions on pretty much everything, so my suggestion is to pick two very big and heavy abacuses and to throw them as hard as possible. If this fails to shut the economists up, the resulting spew of contradictory and bewildering jargon does somewhat underline the problem the average punter has when it comes to picking the best party for the job.

Do you go with the people who say they saved us from the GFC by building million dollar shadecloths or do you go with the Coalition which has Barnaby in it and does it really matter as long as China needs our dirt as fast as we can dig it out of the ground anyway?

My first coffee mug. People have asked, so here it is.

Now buy it and I will be a mug mogul.

I got a request for a copy of 101 Uses For A John Howard the other day and have managed to dig the last carton out of the attic. Since he’s now an ex Prime Minister once removed, Johnny’s been officially remaindered at a never to be repeated $10 inc GST & postage.

Have a read and remind yourself of the good old days when we had a PM who was serious about stuff like climate change and was at least the genuine article (with an extra helping of Pauline Hanson) rather than John Howard Lite. I miss the little fella.

Buy the book for ten bucks here.

You have to admire the way Julia has taken the logical next step from having policy entirely driven by focus groups to simply making setting up a focus group the actual policy. While I’m sure that 150 people picked randomly out of the phonebook will definitely be able to sort out climate change in no time, there is in fact a mechanism for gauging the will of the people which we like to call an “election” and it does seem a shame not to use it, considering all the trouble people go to putting up the voting booths.

At least we’re all quite clear that Tony definitely probably might or might not think god will sort climate change out anyway with one of those floods or something depending on the direction the wind’s blowing at the time.

Both sides so far: zero out of ten. Please try harder, some of this stuff is actually quite important.

The Weekend Australian, 24-25 July 2010

The Hobart Mercury, 24 July 2010

The Hobart Comedy Festival kicks off on the 23rd of July. When I was starting out as a cartoonist, I used to go to the  Melbourne Comedy Festival and see every single show. Good comedy makes your brain grow bigger, bad comedy makes you feel relatively witty and comedians always need the money, so please go and see everything at this one, you can’t lose. The guide’s in today’s Sunday Tasmanian.

If you’re going to stereotype anyone, I highly recommend not doing so to a redhead on the grounds that they’re all nutters… oops.

The Australian, 7/7/2010

You have to hand it to Julia, she doesn’t muck around. Did this cartoon for last weekend and she’s now up to number three.
Disclaimer: as it is now politically incorrect to be politically correct, I’m not sure whether “xenophobe” is okay or not, but if it isn’t, let’s just put it down to speaking my mind and move on, eh? Anyway, you can’t appease all of the people all of the time…

Note: the original for this one has been bought, so if you want it, you’re too late. Prints available as usual.

The Weekend Australian 3-4 July 2010

The Hobart Mercury 2/6/2010

It turns out that the Israeli commandos had just popped in to play a quiet game of shuffleboard, then one of the passengers looked at them funny, and, well, what happens on the cruise stays on the cruise…

A cartoonist’s day pretty much involves sitting around trying to think of something funny to draw. Not that I’m complaining, it’s just that it can be a bit difficult to convince people you’re busy while you’re sipping your fifth coffee for the morning while idly bouncing a tennis ball against the wall. This can be doubly difficult when you’re asked to account for your working day on the telly. Fortunately, through the magic of editing, they managed to take out most of the stupid things I said and made me look almost busy.

Me trying to look busy for Stateline.

The Mercury 25 May 2010

Firstly, it turns out it was all der meeja’s fault and the meeja should quietly hang its head in shame while a round table of currently unspecified diameter (to be advised in good time) is prepared (as soon as we find a nice bit of timber that isn’t in little pieces).

Secondly, there are chairs to be organised, and some time after that with any luck everyone will have forgotten about the whole not-bulldozing-the-forests-for-woodchips thing, the market will have picked up a bit and it can be Business As Usual, at least until the next crisis.