The government you have when you don’t have a government
Is anybody still listening to Tony Abbott? Jennifer Wilson doubts it very much, and with good reason.
I woke up this morning thinking that I don’t feel as if we actually have a real government, or a real Prime Minster.
Tony Abbott seems to be increasingly decompensating under the stress of discovering he’s so unpopular with his party he had to face the prospect of a spill motion without even a challenger for his leadership, and that must be a rare political event just about anywhere.
(Decompensation, psychology: the inability to maintain defense mechanisms in response to stress, resulting in personality disturbance or psychological imbalance).
After the acute trauma of the spill motion passed, everyone involved needed a little time to collect themselves, pass around the talking stick, and begin the process of healing. Instead, Abbott went right out and sacked Philip Ruddock as his Chief Government Whip, on the grounds that Ruddock had not adequately warned him of growing backbench discontent.
This is amazing. The rest of us knew all about it, but the PM’s office didn’t?
I’ve had doubts about the efficiency of this office for quite some time, after all, they’re supposed to be there for Tony yet every day since he took office things for him have traveled increasingly south. At first blush, it appears the PM’s staff are incompetent on a Monty Python scale.
Perhaps their secret agenda is to ruin him, or I have been watching too much In the thick of it. Either way he should sack somebody in that office and hire Malcolm Tucker, but instead he went after Ruddock.
I don’t care much what happens to Ruddock: I will never forget his days as Immigration Minister in the Howard government during which he instigated a powerfully successful campaign to demonise and criminalise asylum seekers arriving by boat, largely through the use of language he adopted from Nazi anti semitic propaganda of the 1930’s. Without Ruddock we would have no Morrison. He might look like a hurt old man, but I’m not fooled.
Then there were Abbott’s belligerent attacks on President of the Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, after the Commission’s report on children in detention was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday. In a typical conservative shoot the messenger and make so much noise that everybody will forget the message tactic, Abbott railed long and hard about Professor Triggs, while entirely disregarding the appalling findings of her report.
With the stubborn determination of the utterly cloth-eared stupid, Abbott keeps the three-word slogans hiccoughing off his far too evident, lizard-like tongue: boats, mining tax, carbon tax, boats, carbon tax, mining tax; we are open for business but not for boats, carbon tax, mining tax. I wonder to myself, does he or anyone in his office really think there are still people out here even listening to this drivel?
It is a measure of the collective desperation of Abbott and his staff that they continue to cling to this cringe-worthy robotic recitation: they have totally failed to come up with anything new, for all the millions of tax payer dollars we’ve spent on them.
The zeitgeist as far as I can tell is one of trembling, panicked uncertainty: what will their leader say next, how much longer can this go on, how can they make it better without looking like the ALP. This latter possibility seems to be the very worst thing they fear could happen to them.
It isn’t, though. Worse things are happening every time their leader opens his mouth and puts both feet in it. But hey, it’s good for the ALP.
There’s been a cute white rabbit appearing in our garden for the last few days, and like Alice in the wonderland, I’m thinking of drinking the potion to make me oh so tiny, then I can follow White Rabbit down his hole.
But wait! I’m already there!
The final straw is the sudden wheeling out of Margie. You know he’s a dead man walking when he rolls out the wife.
Tony and Margie (image from noplaceforsheep.com)
This article was first published on Jennifer’s blog No Place For Sheep.
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Return to home pageNormally for someone so publicly disintegrating I would have some concern for their psyche!
But given what Abbott has done to our collective psyche, I have no sympathy.
I wish they would lock him and his family up in villawood and ship the lot of them back to england
THE LNP HAVE THE CLAYTON GOVERNMENT SYNDROME.
Tony Abbott should concede defeat as a failed PM, or his imminent disgrace will only look worse when the day comes.
I do some work with people with diminished intellectual capacity and a recurring theme from medical people is “has no insight into his/her condition” I think this describes Tony Abbott perfectly, especially in the rationale for sacking Ruddock.
The clock is ticking, Tony, and it’s a minute to midnight. Tick tock.
I stopped listening years ago my TV remote mute button is almost worn out
“oldfartFebruary 16, 2015 at 9:48 am
I wish they would lock him and his family up in villawood and ship the lot of them back to england”
as an ex pom,and recent return visitor there I can confirm England have enough problems at the moment (at least their trains run on time) that would be the final straw or he could bunk in with his latest Knight that would be a hoot.
According to his latest security scare brainfart is “All we have to fear now is fear itself”.
He’s clearly punch-drunk and lashing out wildly at anything he perceives to be the enemy. You can see the paranoia in his eyes even through the television screen. It’s now that he’s at his most unpredictable (and we thought he was unpredictable before!) and dangerous state of mind. He is a danger to this country. His sacking of Ruddock, for whom I have no time either, and his stated reason for doing it was an act worthy of comparison with any of the weirdest behaviour of Kim Jong Un. And there’s another dear leader who loves having his photo taken in factories and nursing homes and leaning out of the cockpit of fighter aircraft. This nation is now ungovernable, not because of the electorate, but because of the government. They have to go.
I am sure one of his daughters can do the right thing, and provide a wedding to divert attention.
“His sacking of Ruddock, for whom I have no time either, and his stated reason for doing it was an act worthy of comparison with any of the weirdest behaviour of Kim Jong Un.”
In terms of realpolitik, someone had to pay.
Credlin wasn’t going to take the fall, so the axe fell on Ruddick.
How long can Australians put up with this idiot of a PM. His latest racist rant can only incite young muslims some of whom feel they are outside of society looking in. Does this pathetic man really want to stir up trouble in order to keep his position. Unfortunately I think he does despite the consequences to all the people of Australia. I too have no sympathy for Ruddock who was happy to be involved with this despicable government and their policies. Great article Jennifer.
Loz I agree with what you say about the trouble the Village Idiot stirs up every time he uses racism to “strike fear into our hearts”, but I also have serious concerns for how many damaged people who will ultimately be found as genuine refugees will then be amongst us as a consequence of his and the previous several governments actions. How will our society cope with people we have driven to mental illness in indefinite detention for no crime. that the redneck Abbott fans will simply see as being Muslims.
From the government website….
Government whips
The Chief Government Whip assists the Leader of the House in the responsibilities outlined above, and has particular responsibility for the programming of Federation Chamber business (that is, matters referred to the House’s second debating chamber). The Chief Government Whip may also move procedural motions and programming declarations in the House on behalf of the Government. The Chief Government Whip and the Chief Opposition Whip are both members of the Selection Committee, which allocates priority and times for private Members’ business and committee and delegation business.
The whips of each party are responsible for the arrangement of the number and order of their party’s speakers in debates (although not binding, lists of intending speakers assist the Chair in allocating the call to speak). The whips also ensure the attendance of party members for divisions and quorum calls, and act as tellers (record the votes) in divisions.
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/Powers_practice_and_procedure/00_-_Infosheets/Infosheet_19_-_The_House_-_Government_and_Opposition
I don’t see anything there about controlling insurrection from the backbench.
Considering the countless articles written about the backbencher’s growing dissatisfaction, the lack of consultation prior to policy announcements where even ministers found out from Credlin press releases, the accusations that staffing was centrally controlled and that all approvals had to go through the PMO, Abbott’s staff and media watchdogs were extremely remiss not to pass this on, and Tony must be living in some sort of bubble if he hadn’t heard the rumblings himself.
He is digging in and will drag any one down with him he can, by whatever dirty means possible.
Please can Labor draw attention in Parliament to the derision with which Abbott, and by association Australia (for allowing him to become PM) is regarded in the developed world.
it sure is great comedy
It was 2013, I remember
Sometime in September
When Abbott and his lying mates took over
They’d defeated Kevin Rudd
With lots of help from Murdoch’s mud
While Abbott was the dog of the drover
Tony had gone in hard
On Julia Gillard
Earning himself the title Dr No
With Rupert on his side
He just sloganeered and lied
And got in with no policies to show
And so began the tale
Of Abbott’s mammoth fail
A story that was never a surprise
Cos Abbott and his crew
Had no clue of what to do
Once the public stopped believing all their lies
It didn’t take too long
When things started to go wrong
promises were broken from the start
Then Mathias and Joe Hockey
Smoking cigars and feeling cocky
dropped a budget that stunk worse than a fart
What followed was a disaster
We’d never seen it happen faster
As polls went into terminal decline
From Abbott’s Dames and Knights
To the Egghead’s “Bigots rights”
And the backflips of perfidious Pyne
Though it was the Captain of team Australia
That led his team to failure
With his lies and his stupid captain’s picks
All his crew were just as weak
As he took them up shit creek
A party of pernicious lying pricks
Things went from bad to worse
As they flogged a dying horse
Till the backbench thought the jockey was to blame
So they tried to call a spill
But did not complete the kill
So for now it’s just some more of the same
But Tony’s die is cast
His use by date has passed
Soon we’ll see another chapter in this farce
They’ll be hoping Malcolm’s words
Can polish their policy turds
In a desperate last attempt to save their arse
Ruddock told Abbott that the spill was supported by only 16 -18 membrrs.
He appears to have been relying on #Libspill for these numbers.
LNP federal government cabinet – not a place to turn your back.
I agree, but you left out “debt and deficit”.
Tony Abottoir, has killed another messenger.
The description of Ruddock is such a wonderful piece of writing and is one I have been searching for for years.
BA
Tony who?
Your comments on Ruddock as so apt Jennifer.
He holds a special place in my memory, such was his appalling demonisation of asylum seekers, a stance consistent with that of his political leader, John Winston Howard.
This quietly spoken suburban lawyer, adopting hyper-rational utterances in relation to asylum seekers, totally devoid of empathic understanding, helped me appreciate how Germany, a nation with such a rich cultural, artistic and intellectual tradition, in another era could produce people such as Adolf Eichmann.
He is no loss, this being an absolute irony resulting from the erratic Abbott’s vindictive actions.
Ruddock did one good thing. Just one, mind you.
I was working for ATSIC when he was our Minister (under Howard). It was obvious to everyone – staff, public, media – that Howard wanted ATSIC closed.
One person in his Cabinet stood up to him. Ruddock.
Howard waited until after he removed ATSIC from Ruddock before he closed us down.