Old Johnny was rather surprised last week after it was revealed by Australia’s Age newspaper that Aussie Prime Minister Kevin “Bloody” Rudd accepted a free flight in 2005 from a good buddy of our former independence-seeking, hunger-striking, silence-vowing, (alleged) embezzler-in-chief Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
The article speculated that the cash for the flight might even have come from the “state affairs fund” that Chen is about to be banged up for “embezzling,” as it has been alleged in the past that the businessman in question, Kung Chin-yuan (龔金源), once received a large handout from the fund to further Taiwan’s diplomatic efforts with our Antipodean amigos.
But, if you ask me, the most bizarre aspect of this story was the fact that Rudd’s freebie was a business-class flight to London, where he met then-British foreign secretary Jack Straw, a man so unbelievably dull he makes Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) honorary China shill Lien Chan (連戰) look like Austin Powers.
I mean, if you’re going to accept an all-expenses junket from a rich benefactor, you could at least make sure it’s to somewhere worthwhile like Las Vegas or Bali (that’s Bali, Indonesia — not Bali (八里), Taipei County) and throw in a few showgirls for entertainment.
Kung also donated a pot-full of cash to Rudd’s Australian Labor Party (federal and state), Aussie political records show.
Whether the money was intended to curry favor with the Aussies or not, we might as well have flushed the cash straight down the dunny. After all, what has Taiwan ever gotten from those Aussie bludgers apart from grief over our dollar diplomacy in the South Pacific?
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
As far as I can remember, the only thing Australia has contributed to Taiwan’s cause in recent years is a handful of mangy, disease-ridden koalas. And even then, they seem to have given us the lazy ones. Each time I’ve been to Taipei Zoo, sleep seems to be all the little furballs can do to stop themselves from falling off their artificial stumps. And when they’re not doing that, hardly a week goes by without one actually falling off its stump for real after dying of cancer or some other ailment.
On second thought, that might have something to do with decamping the poor blighters to Taipei, which is hardly on a par with their pristine natural habitat in the eucalyptus groves of the Great Southern Land.
So, I would swear by all that is holy that the zoo replaced all its koalas with stuffed replicas a few years ago to help fund the arrival of the pandas and save on the cost of importing eucalyptus leaves.
I’d better quit while I’m ahead. Regular readers of this humble publication will be all too aware that Taipei Zoo officials are required to have a sense-of-humor transplant before commencing employment.
What else is there to thank our Aussie mates for? The Outback steakhouse?
What a con that place is. Take 100 percent, fair dinkum American food, inject Aussie words in the titles of dishes, such as “Brisbane Caesar Salad,” “Alice Springs Chicken” and the “Mad Max Burger” and everyone thinks they’re eating authentic Aussie tucker. What a joke!
(Note: Before any of my more astute readers write in, I am fully aware that Outback is a US restaurant chain, but you try finding enough material to write this column once a week. American it may be, but it’s guilty by association.)
RSS