Dutton reminds us of Abbott, but not in a good way
Reading Nikki Savva’s The Road to Ruin is a depressing read, because it validates what many of us believed before Tony Abbott became Prime Minister.
Tony Abbott and his road to irrelevance
Many believed he was unelectable. He lacked seriousness. He lacked grace. He, like so many other ‘Rhodes Scholars’, appeared to have gotten his degrees out of a Wheaties box. He believed that he understood the country and its people. He was dangerously over-confident, and heedless of consequences.
The mistakes flowed thick and fast, and the photos of him being coddled by his Chief of Staff, the cleaning of crumbs from his clothes, the solicitous looks bestowed on the ‘warrior prince’, reminded us of how our mothers prepared us for those ‘moments of truth’, like going to school on your first day.
His greatest mistakes were that he did not listen, not to his parliamentary colleagues, and not to the public mood.
Never a policy specialist, he imported what he needed from the IPA’s shopping list, and then failed to understand that Australia had changed.
He excelled in saying “No”. Loudly. As Opposition Leader he was never a believer in climate change, and he capitalised on the Labor Party’s convoluted and tortured responses to it. He can be squarely blamed for the current existential catastrophe, by sowing doubt where there was no room for any.
He also undermined, and removed the Liberal Party’s only hope for a successful future, Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull is the acceptable face of liberalism, and the embodiment of the sensible centre.
Abbott played to the backward-looking members of the community, who put climate change, same sex marriage, Indigenous rights and multiculturalism into the too-hard basket. He thought he could rule without the cities, and frankly, without the young.
Peter Dutton has no idea of the damage he is unleashing
We are now watching a dreadful remake of the same movie. Peter Dutton is reprising the role of Abbott, down to the same faux seriousness, the same appeal to those who look backward, the same dog whistling to the chronically angry.
They want us to return to the golden days of fortress Australia, where we will choose the types who come to our shores, we will choose the low road, and we will bring the country to a position halfway between the cheerful nihilism of Boris Johnson’s Brexit, and Donald Trump’s failing state.
For a man of such limited intellectual resources, Dutton has managed to confect a formidable coalition of nay-sayers.
Of course, he didn’t have to work very hard getting the National Party on-side. They decided on a No vote before the ink was dry on the proposition.
Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, who represent possibly the most potent symbols of the No side, are incomprehensibly voting against their own interests. Their power to split the vote, and hence the country, is immense. Lidia Thorpe, who seems to be sacrificing ‘the good’, for the sake of ‘the perfect’, is similarly powerful. And wrong.
Dutton’s reasons are purely self-serving
Dutton has continued with his paper-thin repudiation of the Voice referendum with a typically threadbare slogan worthy of Tony Abbott: “If you don’t know, Vote No.”
Anyone with a shred of intelligence would substitute the words “Find Out”, instead of “Vote No”. The No side is not interested in sharing enlightenment, they much prefer doubt and fear.
He has never bothered to calculate the cost, to his party’s standing into the future, or to the social cohesion of Australia.
His recent statement that he thinks the Coalition can win government in 2025 is pure fantasy. But therein lies his reason for going hard against the Voice.
He sees it as a one-on-one contest against Albanese, and in some ways he is correct. Albanese has allowed this to degenerate from a contest of ideas to a personal political battle.
As many have noted the Voice is an advisory body only and placing it within the Constitution merely stops it from being abolished, like ATSIC was, by John Howard.
The Voice, whether enshrined within the Constitution or not, can be ignored. That is the salient point of the whole issue. The fact of Constitutional recognition is nice, but it does not help ‘close the gap’.
That objective lies with us, as to whether we demand that governments listen, and having listened, act to redress wrongs, and build a reasonable future for our fellow citizens. It is the least we can do.
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Return to home pageThanks for this. A cogent and reasonable piece. I see Albanese is promising the Opposition will be able to play a part in designing the voice if the referendum is successful. Of course he has to do that in the hope it might persuade some of the nay-sayers to change and nullify a potential scare tactic attack point but I think Dutton and every opponent has forfeited their right to have any role should the referendum get up, something that, if the polls are to be believed, is looking less likely by the day. The appalling cynicism of those making outrageous claims about disastrous outcomes, the appalling ignorance of those who believe them, the wilful laziness of those who won’t even try to educate themselves distresses me immensely. That there are so-called ‘Indigenous leaders’ prepared to oppose what is in reality a very small step forward, disgusts me. I am pleased to see that in the past few days the true extent of Price’s lack of support from her own (?) people, only supports my view that she is a traitor to those she purports to speak for. In reality she speaks for an old white conservative cohort, those who support the CLP in the NT.
I refer to my comment on24/9/2023 @10.28 …Michael Taylors article..Dutton may have well destroyed any chance of the Voice getting up,but in so doing will destroy himself and what’s left of a mean and shifty rabble.Or should that be ‘shitty’.You say ‘limited intellectual resources’..high praise for a souless vacuum in a suit, whose vision stops at the inside of his confected spectacles.It merely makes him look like a dickhead with glasses.
I hope that Boofhead Duddo remains the leader of his majesty’s Loyal Opposition after the Voice Referendum assisted by $us$san LeyZee his loyal deputy, and that the LIARBRALS continue on the Opposition benched until replaced as the major Opposition party by the Greens and their sensible, if poorly advocated policies.
.
How can Duddo be anything other than a racist after the kidnapping of Aboriginal teenagers that resulted in his early resignation from Queensland Police to avoid prosecution?
Both Abbott, and the equally repugnant Morrison, were – and still are – dangerously undemocratic, thoroughly malignant, racist and misogynistic sociopaths and, make no mistake about it, Dutton is every bit as toxic! There is nothing good – absolutely NOTHING positive – one can find to say about any of them. The destruction, chaos, hate and shameful international condemnation these vindictive, xenophobic right-wing extremists brought down upon our nation can never be forgotten nor forgiven. Furthermore, their long history of inherent self-serving corruption has revealed that neither Abbott nor Morrison (and, indeed, Dutton) do not give a rat’s behind about the health and welfare of ordinary Australians (including our children) – as the State LNP defundment of State schools revealed!
The LNP are only obsessed with two things: the enrichment and empowerment of THEMSELVES and their elitist collaborators in the Top 1% !!
The links below reveal their remorseless, diabolical level of self-serving corruption and the depths to which these sociopaths will stoop to ensure they attain – and maintain – undemocratic, autocratic power over our nation that is based on hatred, xenophobia, chaos and division!
What made Abbott and Morrison even worse is that they tried – and failed – to hide their appalling inhumanity, self-serving corruption and depravity behind a phony, thin layer of nauseating bible-thumping hypocrisy! They tick EVERY box as xenophobic, thoroughly toxic and dangerously undemocratic political psychopaths! The Lying Nefarious Parasites (aka the LNP) have revealed themselves to be the most hateful, racist, misogynistic and undemocratic regime in our history with Morrison surreptitiously – and undemocratically – trying to take over at least FIVE political portfolios so that he could rule over us like some pathetic, power-obsessed third world fascist! It is hard to imagine a worse, more shameful, inept and inhumane regime than the lying, deceiving xenophobic haters that took up every seat in the Abbott/Morrison/Dutton governments.
Thank God the huge majority of Australians had the discernment and good sense to kick them and the rest of the lying, conniving, hateful elitists in the LNP to the gutter at the last federal election because THAT is where they truly belong.
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2021/february/1612098000/nick-feik/scandals-he-walks-past#mtr
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/tony-abbott-the-aec-and-the-scent-of-corruption,4781
This was a lucky country, but was never too clever, wise, fair, honest, progressive, considered, decent, generous, no. The comments are fair, harsh, direct.., we need more of it. Te recent run jof conservatism, greedy and ignorant, in the nation and ikn NSW where I live, has set us back, down, behind, slow, empty, wondering why so many embrace a selfish stupidity as if it can deliver happiness for all. Only when we see that general prosperity and acceptanmce guarantees our own chance can we seek dialogue, resolution, negotiation, agreement and diplomacy as the educated solution to life’s problems.
look, australians were never top of the pile intellectuals, in fact we along with the americans are pretty stupid in general. Facts, look how long it took to get rid of liberal governments when it was clear for a long tiome they were corrupt and inept. Look at the americans and the tempest that is Trump. I rest my case…..
The liberals destroyed the NBN that was going to fast track us into the new century. The liberals tried to destroy the renewables we so desparately love. They still dream of nuclear power. Liberal inspired fear of housing has created the biggest housing bubble we have ever seen. Evs will take away our weekends is still being pulled out of their chook raffle. How stupid is that? I would say 50% of us are that way inclined.
You want people who are smart, work hard and will make a contribution? Get more refugees in. The migrants with lots of money are not going to improve our lot. History is on my side.
Towards the end of his piece Mark Buckley says this: “Albanese has allowed this to degenerate from a contest of ideas to a personal political battle…The Voice, whether enshrined within the Constitution or not, can be ignored.
That is the salient point of the whole issue. The fact of Constitutional recognition is nice, but it does not help ‘close the gap’. That objective lies with us, as to whether we demand that government listen…”
“contest of ideas”…Does anyone think that the NO campaign has anything like ideas? We see at Question time in Parliament time the Opposition struggles to form a question, relying on the Speaker to help them ask something.
The NO campaign in the Referendum Booklet is full of nonsense. Why would Albanese bother to engage with that?
The intellectual nonsense reminds me of what Professor in History Bain Atwood said in his essay “A Referendum in Trouble” published July 23, 2023 at Australian Book Review and Australian Finance Review. Atwood claims there are new forms of media. This makes it difficult for a ‘Yes” vote to counter misinformation and disinformation of the matter at stake. There is no guarantee the Government will not ignore the Voice often – and for for Aboriginal people it would be a struggle without end”
Is that what Buckley and Atwood think about Albanese is, a piker, a squib? We know what he said at the beginning of Labor’s government, that he would go all the way with Voice.
It is Dutton who is playing silly games. We know where he has come from, Abbott’s only country in the World with no foreign refugee people in boats except those in island prisons. And he thinks he will be PM in 2025, when he can pull out his own Voice plan, 275 pages all ready to go (aided by Chris Kenny) even though he says he knows no details and he tells us “This Voice will not unite us, it will divide us by race.”
What a fraud and dreamer!
Sadly most Australian’s are very ignorant, selfish ( but too often too clueless to truly know their own best interests), and very gullible.
The worst the Liberal party get, especially their leaders the greater chance they become PM – Howard, Abbott, Morrison.
Sadly the voice will fail, and I think this could shockingly be a one term Federal government.
This current opposition is appalling, hence a shoe in for government, regardless what the polls say now.
Labor should of realised by now most of the public are the idiots. You have to talk to most like the children they are while. While the coalition treat most of the public, like the fools most are.
We thought Morrison was bad. Wait until Dutton.
Ultimately most of the foolish public are the problem…
Take heart friends.
Outside the LNP and ‘NO’, there’s always something to be learned. Beware the absolutists and catastrophysers.
The world isn’t going to end yet, try as many might.
But for cowards and deviants, humans keep struggling towards balance and equity.
Acknowledge your soul. The soul has no truck with ‘no’ and negatives, it seeks ‘yes’ and positives.
Stay with ‘YES’
Tone the Botty’s ATROCIOUS handling of the RU-486 debate made me think, “If this idiot gets anywhere near leadership of the country, we’re stuffed.” An evangelical Christian was critical of me because she believed that I was troubled by Tone the Botty following his conscience. Well, no, that’s not it. As Health Minister, Tone the Botty did not have the right to impose his Catholic views onto the populace.
Pete the Potty Boy is following the same strategy as Tone the Botty and was never any good.