You better watch out, You better not cry, You better not pout, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
He’s making a list, Checking it twice; Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
He sees you when you’re sleeping, He knows when you’re awake, He knows if you’ve been bad or good, So be good for goodness sake
With little tin horns and little toy drums, Rooty toot toots and rummy tum tums
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
He sees you when you’re sleeping, He knows when you’re awake, He knows if you’ve been bad or good, So be good for goodness sake, Goodness sake
You better watch out, You better not cry, You better not pout, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
Santa Claus is coming
Santa Claus is coming
Santa Claus is coming to Sydney town
(Coming to town)
Santa’s a busy man he has no time to play, He’s got millions of stockings to fill on Christmas day and millions of dollars to give away
(Santa Claus is coming to town)
(Coming to town)
(Santa Claus is coming to town)
(Coming to town)
And here’s the giant balloon the ALP will be entering in the Sydney Christmas Parade:
Could some body tell me what on earth Ackerman is on about with the Heiner thing,what on earth does he hope to achive.
Cause I dont think the Govt would be stupid enough to run with that,why that lowlife stil get a run in any paper has me beat
that is fricking hilarious gummo!
I wish I had pointless scheme that could do with a cool mil before election day
Don’t forget the carers’ bonus due in October (in lieu of any actual improvements in disability service funding). How lucky is that? Just before the election; you would almost think it was planned that way!
I will be hacking up my piece of pork and using it to distract the various wolves scratching up my doorpost. And then, come election day, I’m voting green.
My wife and I just engaged in some idle speculation about this and we suspect it’s an even bigger piece of bastardry than it first appears.
Think about all the costs of closing down a parade route in Sydney, before you even stick a float on the street. There’s the cost of advertising and carrying out road closures, changes to public transport routes in the city, setup and removal of barricades and the like, as well as whole heap of time spent by council staff who probably have better things to do.
I’d be surprised if a million dollars would actually cover all of these costs. So the City of Sydney either has to carry the cost of John’s farewell parade or turn it down and look like killjoys.
He’s also throwing $10 million at a Rugby League Hall of Fame Museum.
Because voters won’t care about workers’ rights and the environment if they have football and Christmas to keep them happy…
I can’t wait to see what the Chaser does with that parade. >:D
Maybe the unions could railroad Santa Claus and run ads all through the election campaign against WorkChoices and the loss of holiday shift penalties in AWAs: “They’ll kill Santa Claus!”
“Help foster Christmas spirit”??
Surely he means:
“Help foster spending in an orgy of credit fueled consumerism”
Just what does a Christian birth festival have to do with giant balloons ?
Sounds like a giant pork barrel baloney to me.
Add this to $12 million announced for a NRL football centenary celebration.
As an non sporting atheist living in Queensland what is in this for me?
“… divisions will be under pressure to respond to the growing number of policy proposals leading up to the calling of an election and once the election is called. At this time, there is a greater than usual risk of the development of policy proposals that are, frankly, bad.” Ken Henry. Head of Treasury.
Lucky the treasury chappies won’t be perturbed by any of this. After all the Treasury boffins and boffinesses could hardly regard throwing $10 million at a Rugby League Hall of Fame Museum and the $1 million for the “Downunder Thanksgiving” tribute band performance as “policy proposals.”
Won’t even bother entering the Sydney-centric element of this profligate tosspottery.
Is Bennelong by any chance an electorate in Sydney?
Thought not. Cynical old moi shot down in flames yet again.
Meself - I reckon’ that some of the other cities should be asking why Mr Howard doesn’t want to give them a big fancy parade paid for by federal taxes.
I guess the other cities should aspire to being more like Sydney.
Hate to rain on the you-know-what, but it’s worth noting that the parade isn’t going to be totally government funded. The whole shebang is being organised under the auspices of the Daily Semaphore.
Ha ha this is wonderful. So stupid, but so fun. I can’t critique. There should be more of this in politics
All us seniors down here want of John W. is for him to underwrite/subsidise/pork barrel a big fancy Grey Mardi Gras in Melbourne.
As an non sporting atheist living in Queensland what is in this for me?
As a non-sporting atheist living in Sydney, what’s in this for me?
Nothing. Nothing but aggravation that Howard’s trying to do the social engineering that the right is always accusing the left of doing. How dare he tell us that “Christmas is part of our Australian culture” - I wonder if Jews or Muslims or Buddhists are included in that “our”? (Of course, as an atheist I don’t count.)
I think Howard wants to emulate this Perth Institution:
http://www.7perth.com.au/view/station-events/
Except fro some sponsorship money from Lotterywest (State Govt Dept), the Event is paid for by the Station and Corporate Sponsorship.
Here is a video of Perth’s Xmas Parade for what Howard’s Pork will bring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM1ungSXijs
“The theme of the day will be the three Cs - charity, community and Christ”
(the organiser)
OMG!
With the four Ss thrown in for good measure - Sales, Spiderman, Santa and the Sunday Telegraph
Source
And let’s not forget the fourth C either - Corporate hospitality
This is actually a lot more like Thanksgiving than Christmas.
The United States celebrates Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November, which means it will be just two days ahead of the Howard extravaganza this year.
As a symbol of the rampant Americanization of Australian culture, business and politics over the Howard decade, this seems a fitting spectacle.
All we need now is an election called on the same day, which remains the bookies’ favourite.
What has become of us, Australia?
gandhi,
If the election is on Saturday, November 24th, as tipped, then a Thanksgiving parade with the giant ALP balloon in my first comment might be very appropriate!
Assuming of course, that the polls don’t start to shift significantly once the campaign proper gets underway. If that happens we might as well make the last Sunday in November our first national Commiseration Day. Either works for me.
C’mon people, think outside the square.
Over the next two months there’ll be a roll-out of the Whole-of-Government, seamless, transparent, accountable, Federalism-in-Action, Parade-Led Recovery
* Fire Safety Parades in Hobart/Eyre Peninsula/Canberra/Dargo
* Bush Week Parades in Tamworth/Yackandandah/Dubbo/Mount Isa/Nuriootpa
* Crocodile & Stingray Hall of Fame Opening in Far North Queensland & Sunshine Coast
* Tiger Snake Awareness Parades in all southern regions
* Rain Dance Parades in Mildura, and Designated Murray-Darling Catchment Key Regional Towns (apply now)
* Tsunami Relief Parades in Perth & Broome
* Shearing Heritage Parades in 5 Designated Wool-friendly Districts (apply before Oct 10th)
* Golden Handshake Parades in 28 Designated Former-Centres-of-Manufacturing Industry (apply before the election is called - what election??)
* Pre-School Kiddies Fun Days at 758 Designated Marginal Childcare Centres (no need to apply: bacon has been shrink-wrapped and will be on its way early next week)
* Nursing Homes Wheelchair & Walking Frame Parades (all major suburbs and towns, I think you have to apply but what day is it? how much is the pension now? why do they want to see my assets? why don’t they ask Bob Menzies back - he’d put value back in the pound! why is that nice Mr Howard shouting on the TV?)
David, you missed the killer ending:
“The theme of the day will be the three Cs - charity, community and Christ - but it’s not a religious parade.” (emphasis added)
Glad that’s been clarified!
The SMH fleshes out the story behind the Santa parade. Turns out the CoS and the State Govt have nothing to do with the parade outside of allowing road access.
A Santa Claus parade has VIP tents? And why exactly is the Govt throwing money at this commercial venture? What would treasury say?
The PM has clearly lost his marbles.
Mr Mead said the $5 million parade is a commercial venture aimed at turning a profit but would offer charities the opportunity to raise funds on the day.
Geez, that’s big of them.
Heh. How sad is it that I saw “CoS” and thought “Chamber of Secrets” not “City of Sydney”?