Before looking at Marvellous Melbourne again, I want to note and praise the decision made yesterday in Washington on the war in Ukraine. At long last, Joe Biden has decided to allow Ukraine to hit Russia with the missiles the US has given it to defend itself against Putin’s invasion. Up until yesterday, the weapons were subject to a bizarre restriction: they could be used in Ukraine where they were of limited value, but not in Russia where they would be of real value. It was the sort of Clayton’s aid package that you give when you really don’t want to give one. And what was the reason for this strange restriction? It was that if the missiles were used to strike into Russian territory, Russia might be provoked! After all, we would not want to upset Russia, would we? It was only the aggressor and Ukraine was the innocent victim! The restriction was, however, consistent with the weak line taken during the whole of Biden’s presidency and so consistent with the hollow words of Obama that had virtually invited Putin to come in and occupy Crimea if he felt like it, which of course he did and with no opposition from the West. Thereafter, the West went into reverse gear as the autocracies and dictatorships continued to expand their influence and terror while the West did nothing but issue mild little protests. Needless to say, the West has been steadily losing its influence. But now, at long last, and by a miracle, the West has shown some backbone and given Ukraine the chance to win and some hope that perhaps the West may not be the paper tiger it was beginning to seem. And what an irony it was that the biggest factor in galvanising Biden into fighting back was the overreaching by the ghastly Kim Jong-un, of North Korea, in sending troops to fight on Russia’s side in Ukraine. Biden must have thought that unless Ukraine got some real help, and particularly the unrestricted use of its missiles, it would probably fall and he would get the blame. It looks as if we owe Fat Kim a debt of gratitude. Ukraine should repay the debt by making the destruction of the North Korean Army of 50,000 in Ukraine its first target with its newly liberated weapons. The second target should be that wretched bridge to Crimea that is Russia’s lifeline, which, if it can be destroyed, will be the beginning of the end of the Russian adventure in Ukraine. Biden certainly does not deserve unlimited praise for taking so long to help Ukraine in this real way, as it may turn out to be a case of too little too late. But there is now at least some hope that the Ukrainians will be able to hold on and turn back the evil Putin tide. We should therefore acknowledge that Biden has done something real and substantial for Ukraine and we should encourage Trump to follow suit with a new-found vigour to end the war not just by getting rid of it but by winning it.

Now, back to Marvellous Melbourne. The gargantuan tax appetite of the Victorian government will seemingly never be satisfied. Its latest meal is to increase the fees on filings for probate by up to 650 per cent. In reality it is a new inheritance tax and yet another tax on property and punishment for those who have acquired it. And it is just one more in a long list of increased costs and charges imposed by the socialists to pay for its burgeoning interest bill and its Mussolini-like public buildings, although Mussolini had better taste. The last imposition, just before the new inheritance tax, was a series of increases in land tax where the tax-free threshold drops from $300,000 to $50,000. Land tax will now apply to a lot of landowners who were not previously liable, and the tax rate itself has been increased. The most galling feature of this is the pathetic excuse given to justify it; the government says it is part of the Debt Levy to pay for Covid. In other words, we lost money during the lockdown due to the government’s incompetence, but instead of the government paying us compensation, we now pay them again through land tax. It is like Daniel Andrews’ new job; he, more than anyone else, caused the big upsurge in youth mental health problems through the draconian lockdown, so he now becomes the new chair of the organisation that is supposed to cure them.

The other thing that chugs along here behind the scenes is the government’s fixation on Aboriginal affairs and in particular its proposed treaty. I have always opposed this and have encouraged the federal Coalition to announce that treaties are the sole responsibility of the federal government, that it will not accept any treaty cooked up by a state government and its camp-followers and that any so-called treaty that is on the books when it comes to government will be revoked. I have got nowhere, so far. But we now find it is worse. The First Peoples Assembly, the state equivalent of the Voice, roars on ahead and by doing nothing to oppose it, we endorse the notion that a race-based law-making body is legitimate. Secondly, negotiations on the treaty are now underway and what is emerging is that a treaty will be agreed with the state government alone; the government will have what they call Treaty Negotiators; but you and I will have no say on what goes into the document and what stays out; the government negotiators will do it all for you. The final insult is that you will never have a vote on the Treaty as it will simply be dumped on you, whether you agree with it or not. It really is an outrage that this can go ahead in complete secrecy and that you will never have a say in what is being done and agreed to in your name.