I wonder if his hubris would ever allow Scott Morrison to recognise himself from that description?
Silly me! Of course it wouldn’t!
Just as Trump has a rusted on ‘base’, which lets him feel he is universally worshipped – except by the foolish few who believe ‘fake’ news – so, too, has the Coalition enabled Morrison to believe he is doing a good job of managing the economy, the country and our place in the world.
One of the major problems we have today is a refusal by so many to recognise that we really are all – in a global context – in it together.
And we all have two major problems to negotiate – COVID-19 and Global Warming.
In Europe, over the period most significantly affected by WWII, whichever side any particular country was on, supporting their government through a massive war effort was the sole concern of each nation. And their governments had to balance the needs of the war effort against providing sufficient support for those at ‘home’.
Personal needs had to be put on one side in order to allow all necessary resources to be available to stay on course for victory.
Sadly, only one side in a war can ‘win’, but efforts by the USA to help Germany, in particular, and to some extent its allies, to rebuild after the war, made it less likely that there would be any comeback attempts, as there had been after WWI.
No one society can ever expect to live in total harmony, so it is not surprising that the countries in the European Union experience friction and disagreement from time to time.
However, there is a high degree of agreement between the members of that Union as to how they need to deal with both major problems.
In Australia, Victoria has been the State which has had the most severe second wave of the pandemic to deal with – and in part that situation has arisen because modern societies are less cohesive than is really necessary to deal with a crisis.
Personal rights might be important, but not when insistence on freedom to act at will puts the lives of other members of society at risk!
Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand for anyone who wishes to remain an accepted member of society.
For sure, mistakes were made in handling that second wave, but praise is flowing in from outside the country for the success that Daniel Andrews has achieved.
Of course – politics blinds antagonists, and, just as the Coalition rubbished the way Labor dealt with the GFC (although it did not stop them from going down a similar path to deal with the current crisis!), so too the Coalition are still criticising the Victorian Premier’s actions, in contrast with the rest of the world.
One thing which has gone badly wrong in Australia has been having someone so stubborn and self-opinionated as Morrison in the role of PM at this stage in our history.
By preventing Parliament from meeting – ostensibly because of social distancing – and choosing his own ‘executive’, selected from too narrow a field, he has succeeded in creating his own power base which is totally resistant to input from others.
A petty tyrant would best describe him!
The government’s agenda is his agenda and his ‘vision’ – apart from aiming to hold the reins of power as hard and as long as he can – is so limited that we are going to lose lives for reasons other than the pandemic if he is not reined in!
Yet look at how small his majority actually is!
He refuses to be involved in developing an appropriately constructed and powered body to deal with corruption and abuse of power – why? – because he wants to be totally in charge.
How much do we hear of any other government Minister these days?
Barnaby Joyce made a pathetic attempt recently to raise his head above the parapet, but he made little or no impact.
Despite his earnest hopes and desires, Clive Palmer is no part of the government, but his dishonest campaign against Labor makes him a useful weapon for Morrison when it comes to State elections.
That man is a crook and the sooner he is off the scene the better!
With such a high level of unemployment, with so many enterprises out of business, and with the continuing threat of another wave of COVID if we do not closely guard against importing it, the only thing the government should be concentrating on is keeping people alive, fed, housed and job-ready when an opportunity presents itself.
Stop throwing money at businesses rather than the unemployed.
Look at all the Job Keeper funds which have been paid out as bonuses and dividends, rather than helping to keep desperate people in work!!
What is going to happen about people paying rent if they have no income?
What is going to happen when banks start foreclosing because people are having to choose whether to eat or pay the mortgage?
Have you noticed that food prices are going up?
Have you also noticed that the government is in cahoots with employers, to use every opportunity to keep a tight cap on wages and conditions?
Why cannot the government members get their heads round the fact that median income has been about $60,000 pa for those able to find a job, that many families are lucky if one member has a job, and child-minding costs are now out of reach for many, which means looking for a job for many is not even an option?
Pressures to return to ‘normal’ come from a cloud cuckoo land mentality, because we no longer have a normal.
Ignorance about statistics is such that people do not really understand that if ‘median’ income is $60,000, that means half the adult population receives LESS than $60,000 per year!
Think hard about that one!
There are quite a few very wealthy people who want for nothing.
And there are a great many far from wealthy people who lack for basic needs!
Does the government really care?
Have you noticed any pigs in full flight lately?
Until we can make the government do its job honestly and compassionately – am I asking for the impossible? – ‘normal’ will remain a shambolic mess for most of the population.
What do we want?
ICAC!!
How do we want it!
With real teeth!
When do we want it?
NOW!!
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Just so, RosemaryJ36.
The US and with it our planet are cursed with Trump, we are cursed with Morriscum, may our respective terms in purgatory end at our upcoming elections.
Well said Rosemary. I suspect that we are in for several election cycles of upheaval.
Labor is not in a position to govern for the people, they also have their right wing rump that determines how much they will step out of the accepted governing behaviour that has become somewhat normal over the past few years.
I suspect that the next effective labor PM is not yet in politics. What we need is a Jacinda Ardern but Australian voters are not politically sophisticated enough yet to understand that a politician that has the needs of the people and a vision for the future in their sights still has to clean up the past while still moving forward.
The situation in which we find ourselves started in 1996 and has continued unabated for for the 18 years that the LNP has been in government, and seriously effected the 6 years that labor was in government, although Morrison has taken the Howard playbook and rewritten it to the detriment of just about everyone in this country.
In the words of someone “Hang on, we are in for a rough ride”. Unfortunately many people will be lost along the way.
On yesterday’s QLD Labor landslide, Scummo, fat Palmer and one neuron Hanson, suck it up knobheads.
The Queensland election results were a rebuke to Newscorp after they had devoted vast resources, energy and editorial space to attack the ALP and promote their preferred LNP candidates. Sky-after-Dark will need to have a good look at their lineup of conservative shock jocks who have spectacularly failed in their ferocious campaign against Labor.
Clive Palmer with all his millions and his lies about imminent Death Taxes did not win a single seat but he did demonstrate the fact that we need to have a good look at truth in political advertising.
The One Nation vote took a big hit and the mystery is that neither Pauline Hanson nor her colleague in the federal Senate, Malcolm Roberts, took the trouble to campaign : go figure !
Scott Morrison despite saying that his focus was entirely on COVID-19, took a full week off to campaign for the LNP in the Northern seats of Townsville, Thuringowa and Mundignburra : each of them were retained by Labor
Yes Labor had a good win but not unexpected. (As an aside – if Labor does badly at the national election it will invariably do well at the state level (and vice versa) and even a cursory glance at the historical record will verify that. So Albo should take no comfort from this Queensland result.
Clive Palmer’s figures – significantly less than 1% – despite another massive spend – will probably be cited as evidence that there is no need to limit campaign spending or even attempt the virtually impossible task of demanding truth in advertising. (Good luck with attempting to legally define that truth.) Further, Palmer’s efforts to preference the LNP didn’t work either and perhaps might have even been counter productive. The LNP lost seats and had significant swings against – most notable on the Sunshine Coast – a LNP stronghold, at least of recent times.
Hanson maintains she did campaign strongly and across the State but she didn’t get the coverage – the result of the demise of local media and financial constraints on those which remain. She has a valid point. Perhaps someone will therefore ask her a question at the next press conference re Murdoch’s decision to devastate local media production. She now has a problem because she shuns the ABC. Bad decision.
A big winner was The Greens which have at least doubled their representation with another one or two possibilities (unlikely) and albeit from the minimum base and despite losing some first preference share. What should worry Labor is the demographic of those two seats. Both largely ‘inner-city’ formerly Labor seats, and populated by the more highly educated (U of Q and QUT are within the boundaries.) And again Labor shut a few doors by lambasting The Greens on the ABC post-election coverage. Slow learners – but then again politicians are obsessed with the present and couldn’t give a rats about the future – even the foreseeable one.
But a good win nevertheless. And has ‘made history’ for a variety of reasons.
That fat, faecal, fantasyfoaming fraud Palmer, a political pervert of the worst demented type, has done us a service, exposing the emptiness, stupidity, gross insolence of his lardy existence. And, the Henna Harpy, that red furred frump and fake Hanson has been seen as irrelevant, having exhausted any statement of hatred, xenophobia, utter ignorance and resentment in her. The Katterites get some loyalty from the northern hicks and Brisbane haters, but who are they? What do they offer? The LNP is a huge list of liars, losers, loudmouth louts and length polishers. Media bent fistfondlers abound in Merde-och’s brown stained boofhead, boring, bent bumwiper rags. Commercial T V is the new home for misfits, sickos, psychwhackodicko deviates, especially it seems on Sky. Up ’em all.
While most elections provide opportunities for political bastardry, none surpass that inflicted on Annastacia Palaszczuk by former Premier and colleague, Peter Beattie. In the week preceding the election, Beattie launched a full frontal assault on her electoral strategy via an unfavorable comparison of the handling of the Covid response with that of the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s.
However, those who follow Beattie’s career would not be surprised. Now he’s for sale to the highest bidder and he never lets a chance go by. Bites all hands that used to feed him. Wise that he currently resides elsewhere. Now a fully fledged Mexican in the eyes of many.