Would I Lie to You?

A therapist neighbour tells me that the fundamental difference between young men and young women is that 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 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, other vessels 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.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s famous quote:

"If I, taking care of everyone's interests, also take care of my own, you can't talk about a conflict of interest!”

Accused of tax fraud and underage sex, one of his weak lines of defence was, “At least I’m not gay!”

Australia’s Julia Gillard was recognised as an accomplished fibber with “I did nothing wrong “ after allegedly side-shifting union funds for private gain.  Backflipping on “we will never have a carbon tax” and securing her job with Green support, she introduced it to offset global warming and rising sea levels.

She now has a $4m beachfront house in Brighton, Adelaide, mere metres above high tide.

She clearly doesn’t consider sea levels to be a problem anymore.

Kevin Rudd, voted alongside Gillard by the Australian Newspaper’s 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.   

Former US Vice President Al Gore strutted the world stage with frightening pictures of the Houses of Parliament in London almost 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.

The Maritime Industry’s peak body, IMO, was formed to bring shipping safety into an internationally standard framework, such as the Safety of Life at Sea Convention(SOLAS).  

Green groups have pressured the IMO, a leading voice piece of the UN, and it has wandered off the safety focus, now preferring to be the world’s marine environmental policemen.

The EEDI (Energy Efficiency Design Index) started as a thought bubble from IMO's more vocal green members around 18 years ago.

These green-aligned members choose to ignore that due to fuel price hikes 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 a life in 2013.  

EEDI has nothing to do with safety, and we have allowed the IMO to be hijacked by UN bureaucrats, focussing on their job security by empire building.

Ninety per cent of deaths on vessels in Australia, like many other western nations, are predominantly incurred by recreational and non-commercial vessels, yet 90% 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 this is for your 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 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 had already concluded that the BOM should have been replaced decades ago by part-time fortune tellers, 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 essential updates:-

BOM:       “There will be an unprecedented dry period next month.”

                  “There will be an El Nina unprecedented wet period soon.”

Banks:     “Much more to do, with YOU in focus."    Meanwhile,  “ We’ll lend you an umbrella until it rains” seems closer to the truth.

Newspapers:      “Unbiased updated reporting.”  “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 and the truth are to be regarded as purely coincidental."

Three things that cannot be hidden, the Sun, the Moon and the Truth  - Buddha

Time to head back to sea!