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Shouty warnings of doom can’t save PM
The Byron Shire Echo Volume 33 #41 • March 20, 2019
Let’s all hold our noses vote The Party Animals (oops, the Animal Justice Party) candidate Cathy Blasonato admitted at the meet the candidates forum on Monday that she didn’t really want to get elected. What a relief, someone who is genuine! As was Keep Sydney Open candidate James Wright, who was philosophical about his chances. Sitting MP Tamara Smith (Greens) fired up the room with her re-election pitch, while a slightly more subdued Labor candidate Asren Pugh reasonably outlined his party’s polices which at least attempt to address climate change and the atrocious planning laws enacted by the current NSW Liberal National Party. Yet it was the constant personal opinion of Nationals candidate Ben Franklin that highlighted how he is in total opposition to the policies of his own government. Is he in the wrong party? From supporting the Student Strike 4 Climate action, to recognising that we ‘need to do more’ to protect the environment, Mr Franklin repeatedly expressed that he could ‘work from within’ his party for change on both these more global issues, as well as gaining better outcomes for the electorate of Ballina. It’s true, a lot of our taxes have been handed back to us of late (called pork barelling), so thanks for all that largesse. Yet as we all know from the past experience of being a ‘safe National’ seat, as soon as the risk of losing this seat is off the table, all the money that we’ve seen rolling in will be off the table too. Was Franklin effective in relation to the recently delivered regional forest agreements (RFA) by his Liberal National government? That delivered appalling environmental outcomes for land clearing and habitat destruction. He voted for those terrible laws. Those who wish to live on a planet with a stable atmosphere might want to consider a report by The Guardian that annual clearing in NSW increased sharply under his government. Between mid-2013 and mid-2016, it went from 900 hectares to 7,390. Was Franklin effective in preventing the destruction of the Murray-Darling by his party’s mismanagement? Nope. Locally, the Richmond River has diminished in health considerably under his government’s watch, too. Pity the vanishing koalas. Franklin also voted for diminished civil rights with the Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law Enforcement Legislation Amendment (Interference) Act 2016. It was damned by legal experts and radically extends police powers against opponents of mining projects with heavy fines for those who ‘lock on’ to mining equipment. If that law existed at the Bentley Blockade near Lismore in 2014, neighbouring farmers and residents could have been arrested as they ‘locked on’ to the equipment. Road side drug testing is not impairment based, and this will continue if Franklin’s government is re-elected, because his government thinks all drugs are the same and anyone who does them must be severely punished. At least Labor are on the fence with this. And if his government is returned on March 23, there will be no ‘handing back control to councils on development decisions’ because that’s not how his party rolls. Instead, they roll over communities – like ours. Aslan Shand & Hans Lovejoy
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t is not clear who said it first, but it quickly became a catchcry of the long-lived government of Bob Hawke: the mob will always work you out. There was little false modesty among the superstars of Hawke’s cabinet, but the mantra usually kept their egos in check if they started indulging in what their leader liked to call ‘double-handed wankery’. By that, he meant not only going over the top with their own obsessions, but also the need to be reasonably straight with the electorate – to avoid pretending that they were something that they were not. To be, if you like, authentic or, to use the overworked cliche of the current prime minister – fair dinkum. And this is the essence of ScoMo’s insoluble problem: the mob has worked him out, and has decoded that he is a 36 carat phoney. If there was any remaining doubt, the last Newspoll has confirmed it. The optimists – more like wishful thinkers – were daring to hope for at least a small lift in the consistently dire numbers. After all, Scott Morrison has ranged tirelessly, covering the country with increasingly shouty warnings about the apocalyptic horrors that were an inevitable outcome if the loathsome Bill Shorten should darken the treasury benches. Invasion, recession, and that would be just the start of the dark ages that would cast a pall over the sunburnt country for the foreseeable future, if not beyond. But in spite of all the ranting – or more likely because of it – the coalition actually went backwards. The shrinking band of delusional apologists for Morrison and what remains of his government insisted that it was not really like that: their leader and his message was spot on, but as so often he had been distracted, sabotaged by the forces of evil. The vilest, of course, was Malcolm Turnbull, a traitor from the moment of his birth – probably from his conception, if such an obscenity could be contemplated. And it had to be admitted that Tony Abbott hadn’t helped – he meant well, as always, but yet another flip on climate change hardly enhanced the pretence that the government had any idea what it was doing. And then there were the bloody Nats, still squabbling and complaining when they should have been, cheerfully (and, preferably, silently) compliant
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to whatever the wise counsels of their senior partner might offer. It had to be someone else – it was unthinkable that the strategy energetically promoted by their indefatigable marketeer had been so decisively rejected. It had to be unthinkable – it was too late to switch leaders again, and that was the only alternative. And there were still a couple of months to go – other governments had come back from the precipice, look at John Howard in 2004…
The Pm is regarded as irrelevant, a political pothole, best avoided but quickly forgotten. Mungo MacCallum Well, okay, let’s look at John Howard in 2004. Early in the year he was in dire trouble but he had not emerged for no apparent reason in the shadow of two previous prime ministerial assassinations, with ongoing internal warfare and instability. Further, he was on good terms with the Nats, in spite of some lingering resentment over gun control. And he was opposing Mark Latham. But most importantly people listened to him. They did not always agree with his policies, but at least he had a few, and was prepared to explain them rationally and coherently. He never commanded much affection, apart from his most devoted fans, but he was what the mafia called a ‘man of respect’. This is not the case with ScoMo, who spruiks snake oil around the country and radiates insincerity. Few voters believe anything much that he offers; his scare campaigns are manifestly overblown to the point of absurdity, and on the rare occasions he has anything positive to say, it is usually only temporary anyway – as soon as there is trouble in the party room, or an adverse focus group emerges, he moves along. Or perhaps he simply forgets his previous proposals, because they were never made with any conviction, and were probably not going to be implemented, even in the now highly unlikely event he is re-elected. The real comparison is not with Howard, but with another failed Liberal
leader, the hapless Billy McMahon. McMahon was replaced as Prime Minister by John Gorton, who, like Malcolm Turnbull, was anathema to the conservatives. Also like Turnbull, Gorton was struggling against a resurgent Labor leader who had his measure and had already run perilously close to him in the previous election. The Liberal Party room panicked: one veteran conservative described the situation as that of a man with cancer – operating would be risky, but there might be a chance of success. So Billy was ensconced to restore what was hoped to be normality. The result, of course, was a disaster – Gough Whitlam’s It’s Time campaign turned McMahon into a standing joke: lapel badges reading “Stop Laughing at Billy” became a popular accessory. People are not laughing at ScoMo, and they don’t really hate him – they just regard him as irrelevant, a political pothole, best avoided but quickly forgotten. The polls have not substantially moved in a year. Morrison’s only response is to say he is not interested in what he calls the Canberra bubble. To which the obvious come back is that it must be a bloody big bubble; at the last count 54 per cent of the population have crowded into it, to assure him that they are not going to vote for him. But that is actually the good news. The bad news is the betting agencies, considered even more reliable than the coalition’s bible, Newspoll. One has the current odds on a Morrison win at well over four dollars, with a Shorten win as an unbackable $1.16. This is not in any sense a political judgment: it is a direct result of the punters putting their money where their mouths are. Morrison has still failed to explain why he is leader and Turnbull isn’t, apart from repeating the platitude that this was just the way it played out in the party room. Now that really is a bubble, and one that has well and truly burst. Our accidental Prime Minister was always likely to be an accident waiting to happen. Realistically, all that remains is to prepare for the post mortem. His colleagues know it, the pollsters know it, the betting shops know it – and now the mob has confirmed it. And it hasn’t taken long for them to work him out.
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