In response to porkies in the Murdoch media, in the previous essay, I related how comedian and political commentator Jordan Shanks (aka Friendly Jordies) filmed himself rolling up an Azerbaijani flag and walking into Kelly’s home in Illawong in Sydney’s south last month. The Kelly home is up for sale and Shanks visited during an ‘open house’ when it was open to the public for inspection. The stunt was to mock Kelly’s previous expressions of admiration for some of Azerbaijan’s political processes, which observers from the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe said were neither free nor fair1,2.
In a Youtube video, Shanks said “We are currently undertaking operation ‘piss Craig Kelly off’. He is selling his house and we are going there now to plant an Azerbaijani flag in there”2,3. In a statement, NSW Police said it was advised of the incident, and later confirmed that no offence was committed and therefore the investigation had concluded.
Kelly, of course, condemned the prank and said “I believe it was trespass and [am] disappointed that the police didn’t press charges, as it sets a very dangerous precedent”2. Whether Kelly believes it was trespass is immaterial as it would be very difficult to argue such a case, given the house was, at the time, open to the public.
Kelly continued: “It’s not comedy; the nations of Azerbaijan and Armenia have recently been involved in a significant military conflict where there have been numerous deaths on both sides. “I have found this (all) very distressing, as I have friends on both sides and have continually called for peace, ceasefires and negotiations”2. This is immaterial too, as Shanks did not reference the conflict, only Kelly’s mindless endorsement of the dodgy election in Azerbaijan.
Even more bizarrely, Kelly stated that “the act of the ‘comedian’ was [in my opinion] just to stoke and incite religious and ethnic hatred”. How he could construe Shanks’ actions in this way is to draw a very long bow. Then Kelly moaned about how it was open season on MPs and that ‘they’ “can publish our home addresses in the media”2. Good grief! And here’s me thinking that the people who published the home address were real estate agents in preparation for the open house. Who knew they were leftist fascist communist nazis working for the deep state?
To cap it all off, Kelly stated: “This diminishes our democracy”2. I’d suggest that what has diminished our democracy is not the activities of comedians, it is the lies promulgated by the Murdoch media, the lack of quality of our parliamentarians, the promulgation of misinformation by politicians like Kelly, the bald-faced lies uttered by so many parliamentarians, the corruption by politicians of the political process and the corruption committed by so many parliamentarians, and the constant dog-whistling by ‘conservative’ parliamentarians and the Murdoch media. That is where the problem lies.
Sources
Why waste time, money and common sense on anything even remotely concerning kelly? The bloke is no longer relevant, nor of any practical use to the people of Hughes Electorate, or Australia. Just ignore him and let him drift away into oblivion, like a bad smell.
David,
I just like to keep the idiot as visible as possible so that the embarrassment doesn’t go away, as I am sure the government would prefer.