Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison: their achievements (Part one)

We live in a time where horrible things are being perpetrated on us. The shame is that we have normalised them and adjusted accordingly. Our reaction to political corruption or controversy is almost pedestrian.

I say that because no matter how bad this government demonstrates itself to be, people’s attitude toward it doesn’t seem to alter. The polls back up this view.

One would expect that after each fortnight of demonstrably bad governance the polls would reflect it. But they don’t.

One of the oddities of our political polling is trying to understand how 48% of the voting public would willingly return a party that has governed so abysmally.

I find it impossible to imagine that the Australian people would be so gullible as to elect for a third term a government that has performed so miserably in the first two. But they just might.

Most of what is happening in the body politic seems to laconically pass by the general populace. Truth is no longer fashionable and in politics conservatives have overwhelmingly legitimised lying as a genuine political election contrivance.

It’s as though we have reached the point in politics where truth is something that politicians have persuaded us to believe alternative facts rather than truth based on factual evidence, arguments and assertions.

I say all this because my last article somehow found its way onto a Facebook political debating site called Last Watch.

I debated with this group of moronic individuals for much longer than I should have, before terminating the tête-à-tête. The other side was not at all moved with my meticulous truth.

Central to their argument were two points: One, was that I was so biased that I wouldn’t know the truth if I fell over it, and two, that I was just full of shit and I never wrote about the LNP’s achievements.

When I asked for a list that I could refer to, nothing was forthcoming other than more abuse. So I decided, in all fairness, to do some research.

Would they lay claim to the NDIS? “No,” I thought, “they couldn’t.” It was Rudd’s idea and Shorten did the groundwork. On marriage equality, would Morrison claim it even though it had always been a Labor/Greens imitative? And the NBN, they would have run away from.

So where do I go to from here? Trade agreements are one area in which the government has excelled. Agreements with China, Korea, and Japan, followed up with the Trans Pacific Partnership are worthy accomplishments notwithstanding the terms, in some instances, that a Labor government would seek to renegotiate.

This is a matter – if I was going to be honest – that needed serious and thoughtful consideration. After all, I didn’t want to be accused of even a hint of bias.

Needless to say I spent the rest of the day and some of the following putting the list together. A Facebook friend in doing the research assisted me. Anyway, it amounted to a considerable amount of information which necessitated another post. So tomorrow morning I will reveal Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison: their achievements (Part two).