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As last year’s ‘alcopop’ tax hike heads for defeat, Greens leader Bob Brown has slammed Family First senator Steve Fielding as “the boy on the burning deck saying ‘I’m going to throw you a lifeline after he’s set the ship alight’.”
Senator Brown finds his ability to construct metaphors is severely limited when he’s been consuming excessive alcohol tax revenues.
The metaphor refers to the situation of drowning while alongside a ship that is simultaneously on fire and about to be on fire, and being forced to argue with a boy who is standing on the deck, but may or may not be directly responsible for the fire, or planning one.
Left unanswered in both the metaphor and the reality is the question, “are you going to take responsibility for the fact you’re in the water?”
The metaphor may be based on what Senator Brown considers to be a common experience, or it may refer to a children’s fable. Something like the boy who kept his finger in the dike, only set on board the Achille Lauro.
The Greens and independent Nick Xenophon promised to back the tax increase after the government pledged another $50 million for anti-alcohol causes. The Daily Grind understands that you aren’t fit to legislate after imbibing more than 0.05 billion dollars.
If the legislation is passed, Health Minister Nicola Roxon has pledged to “get shitfaced”.
