Mike O’Connor: Sam Kerr’s use of great Aussie descriptor ‘bastard’ applies to our politicians

I’m going to cling to my petrol-engine car keys until the environment police kick down my door and drag me kicking and screaming into an EV, writes Mike O’Connor.

If you have lived in this great land for any length of time then you are certain to have met your fair share of bastards.

It was reported last week that Matildas captain Sam Kerr had met one in London, but it turned out this was not so, though it seems to me that the copper in question is a bit of a precious bastard.

It remains, however, the great Australian descriptor.

My hearing is less than acute and my wife when having tired of me asking “what did you say?” has said that I’m a deaf bastard.

“Pardon?” I reply, causing her to throw her arms in the air and call me a frustrating bastard, which is true.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Matildas captain Sam Kerr at the Women’s World Cup last July. Picture: Getty Images

I know some likeable bastards and some painful bastards who are to be avoided at all costs. Some of them are boring bastards and some of them are shallow bastards, but the decent bastards and the funny bastards I know more than make up for them.

I’ve been a stupid bastard on more occasions than I care to remember, but recall the time I managed to roll an open-topped sports car sans seatbelt being one.

Politicians can be sneaky bastards, and it pays to be a cynical bastard when viewing their pronouncements, for there is a growing tendency to treat us like dumb bastards who can be herded through the ideological shutes and into the pens of political correctness like so many sheep.

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who strikes me as being a mad bastard, wants us all to buy electric cars.

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gaye Gerard

Unfortunately, there are those stubborn bastards among us who like petrol and diesel cars and who refuse to accept the doomsday climate change pronouncements of those whom we regard as pompous, self-righteous bastards that the world will end if we don’t hand in our internal-combustion engine car keys and go EV.

What to do about these stupid bastards who refuse to see the light?

Simple. Introduce laws that will make the most popular makes of petrol and diesel engine cars in this country more expensive in a blatant attempt to herd us into the EV corral, legislative whips cracking and climate zealots snapping at our heels.

Being a difficult sort of a bastard, I’ll cling to my petrol-engine keys until the environment police kick down my door and drag me kicking and screaming into an EV.

Politicians can be tricky bastards, attempting to achieve by stealth that which cannot be effected by blunt force and all those poor, simple-minded bastards who insist on eating red meat are the latest target of these machinations.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler has backed moves by the National Health and Medical Research Council to change dietary guidelines to take into account environmental sustainability, saying that dietary guidelines are best designed by expert clinicians and scientists.

Apparently dopey bastards like you and me are incapable of deciding what food is good for us and which food is not and need to be “guided” by experts.

“Environmental sustainability” is code for a government sponsored promotion of vegan foodstuffs and a campaign to undermine the beef industry as part of an attempt to attract support away from the Greens.

Cynical bastards could be forgiven for thinking that the poor bastards who raise cattle for a living and who are unlikely to vote Labor are to be sacrificed on the altar of “environmental sustainability” in a bid to attract inner city voters.

An electric car at a charging station. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Naomi Jellicoe

Then there are the cheeky bastards who think they can get away with anything and often do.

Take federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Tony Burke, who when in opposition, charged the taxpayer $12,000 on business-class flights so his family could join him in Uluru.

He refused to pay back the money, saying it fell within expenditure guidelines.

As a minister in the Rudd government, he spent $48,000 on a European sojourn with a staff member he later married.

And he recently clocked up $58,000 for four days spent in the US including $8000 for hire cars, one of which was kept waiting for 10 hours with the meter running.

A very cheeky bastard, you might say.

Most of us are decent bastards and it’s up to us to keep an eye on the others and not to be afraid to speak our minds and let them know that we’re not the gullible bastards that they sometimes think we are.

Originally published as Mike O’Connor: Sam Kerr’s use of great Aussie descriptor ‘bastard’ applies to our politicians