Empathy And The Unfortunate Few Who Own Your Home…
I’ve been thinking about empathy lately.
You know, empathy. That capacity to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and wonder how they can possibly walk with heels that high.
I’ve decided that there’s a distinct lack of empathy from some politicians and it’s this lack from the Coalition that’s one of the possible reasons why – in spite of all the criticism they’ve copped – that Labor are still in front in most polls.
Yes, I know that you’ve probably read many articles about how they’re slipping in the polls and, if I were a political adviser, I’d be suggesting that they do something to try and arrest the slide. I mean, they can’t rely on media outlets giving them a boost by interviewing members of the Coalition front bench. When people start to wonder why they voted Labor up pops Peter Dutton/Angus Taylor/Sussan Ley/Jane Hume and most people go: “Ah, now I remember!”
Of course, if you were one of the few people who managed to sit through the first episode of “Nemesis”, you’d have been reminded about how Abbott lost 30 opinion polls before being replaced by Turnbull. You’d have also been reminded that when a spill was first called by Abbott, nobody stood against him so his opponent was an “empty chair”. Now, I don’t want to make it sound like the chair was unimpressive in its attempt to lead the Liberal Party, but I take the fact that it received over thirty votes, to be more a reflection on how the party felt about Credlin’s leadership than anything that the chair did.
When the time came for Turnbull, he managed to turn that around and win a few polls before people realised that he had managed to convince certain factions that he wouldn’t be doing the sort of things that Tony did. In fact, he’d be happy just having the title PM and an office window where he could stare out and wonder whether if this is how dogs chasing cars feel if they ever catch one. It didn’t take long before Turnbull had the government behind in the polls and, after scraping back in 2016 thanks to a shock result in Chisholm, there was a general expectation that he’d lose the 2019 election. Peter Dutton put his hand up, telling people that if anyone was going to lose the 2019 election it’d be him and, after successfully causing Turnbull to take his bat and ball and go home, Peter opened the door for Scott Morrison.
I bring all this up to remind everyone that, in the end, people are reluctant to change the government. When it’s polling day, they’re much more likely to go, “Mm, things aren’t really that bad, maybe I shouldn’t risk the other mob because who knows what they’ll do?”
Which is why the Liberals are running so hard on the idea of a broken promise and the idea that you can’t trust Labor. If you think back to the last time that the Coalition won government from Opposition their strategy was similar: Labor lied about the carbon tax, Labor have us in a budget crisis, and we’ll stop the boats and bring a stronger economy thanks to Jobsandgrowth. Their main positive policy was the paid maternity leave which they scrapped without it being broken promise because, well, we just couldn’t afford it and that’s not a broken promise because… Look, no boats!
However, as Heraclitus said: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
The essential problem with trying to jump into the same river for the Liberals – apart from Peter Dutton looking even worse in speedos than Abbott did – is related to their lack of empathy for anyone but the fortunate few.
Abbott managed to create a lot of concern about a “carbon tax” which was “great big tax on everything”. While anyone with an understanding of the issue understood that not only was it not on everything, it wasn’t even a tax, the fact that this broken promise might make things more expensive was a concern to people. However, I suspect it’s going to be much harder to get most people worked up by telling them that they’re getting a tax cut thanks to Labor changing their mind on Stage 3. Similarly when Keith from Kew complains that he’s only getting $3729 instead of double that, we’re hardly going to have people joining him in street marches or contributing to his GoFundMe campaign to help him manage with school fees.
And lately, the Keystone cops of the shadow cabinet have been demonstrating their empathy for landlords by suggesting that we can’t trust Labor and that negative gearing will next to go, along with franking credits. Why negative gearing and franking credits?
Well, I suspect that in their minds, it played out well in 2019 when Shorten lost the election after proposing changes to these. Of course, the trouble with elections is that when people vote they don’t add something about the reason they voted that way. This enables people to create all sorts of narratives which suit their particular agenda even though nobody has any real idea why Susie from Sunshine and Barry from Berwick voted for a particular party. I’m sure that if you could capture the thoughts of all the voters at the time of voting as well as the rusted-ons and the carefully considered swinger, there’d be a number who’d be thinking something like:
“I’m not voting for that candidate because they look like my ex.”
“I think I’ll vote for Jim because he got a grant for the footy club to build the clubrooms.”
“Mm, that one wears glasses so he must be intelligent.”
“I’m not voting for the government because they’re too woke and they want women as candidates.”
“I met our local member at a barbecue and she agreed with me on most things so I expect that’s her party’s policy.”
“Gee, I should have taken one of those how-to-vote things. Is it the highest number for your favourite candidate or should I put a one beside him.”
“My dad said that he hates liberals because they’re commies so I guess I better vote for someone else. Mm, communists are red so I guess I should vote for the Green Party.”
And so on.
As far as 2019 is concerned, I strongly suspect that a number of people didn’t think about negative gearing or franking credits or electric vehicles because these things weren’t part of their immediate concerns. However, those “Back In Black” mugs gave the impression that, even though the Liberals were heartless, cigar-smoking bastards who thought that you weren’t entitled to anything, they at least knew how to manage the economy and all the pain of Abbott, Hockey, Turnbull, Morrison and company was for a purpose and they deserved to be given another term.
So if they try to re-prosecute the 2019 election, the run the very real risk of people going: “Wait a minute, you promised the budget would be back in the black and it wasn’t…”
Not only that, but it’s harder to get renters to empathise for the poor landlord who just put up their rent by more than their promised tax cut, and it’s hard to get someone struggling to buy their first home to be upset that changes to negative gearing may force some poor landlord to sell two or more of their ten properties.
As far as the franking credits go, most voters didn’t really understand what was being proposed… Certainly a large number of Liberals didn’t based on what they said, because if they did, what they said would have been a lie and we all know that it’s not in their DNA to lie… Labor weren’t taking away franking credits; they were simply proposing to close a loophole where if you paid no or very little income tax you could convert the taxed part to a refund. Franking credits were to stop people being taxed twice, but under the change that Howard made, some share income isn’t even taxed once.
It’s not true that the Liberal Party don’t know how to show empathy. The trouble is that they’re giving too much of their empathy to landlords, self-funded retirees and those with incomes over $150,000, rather than the unemployed, the homeless and those struggling who’ll be glad of the Stage 3 changes. Nothing wrong with that, but I suspect it’s no way to win an election.
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11 comments
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paul walter -
Patricia -
Phil Pryor -
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New England Cocky -
GL -
wam -
Clakka -
Clakka -
B Sullivan -
Frank Sterle Jr.
Return to home pageActually, a somewhat Parmendian reading, no more ifs or buts,
But the debate between him and Heraclitus remains a foundational gift to humanity. It has been a great gift to humanity for nuance, logic, dialectics dichotomies etc later enlarged upon by the Socratics.
Empathy IS on trial.
Sen Wong announced a likely return for the UN Aid prog, given a tragedy involving 400,000 people in dire straights through no food and water, emerging.
hope it is true or she will forever be exposed as “lacking empathy”.
But as for gifts to rich people who don’t pay tax… ‘Empathy’ is expressed best through the statements of Dutton, Susssssssan, Agnes Taylor and David Littlemind.
I believe that the issue of tax cuts for the wealthy is really a moot point, an irrelevancy (in most cases).
I would suggest that finding a person whose income is anywhere above $200K who pays the full amount of tax that they system says they should pay, would be like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
That is what family trusts, self managed super funds, investment properties etc. etc. are for, to reduce tax. The tax system makes it very easy for those who have the means to hire a good accountant to reduce the amount of tax they pay, legally.
Littleprod represents greed, moneylusts, vanity, donors, touchytoesandcopitupya posture, while really decent people with potential are murdered, wilfully, by old superstition, zionist supremacist ugliness, thieving and grabbing, “justified” by ancient fraud, fantasy, lying scribble to claim some chosen select usurper spot, just savage murdering rubbish of no legality.
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“It’s not true that the Liberal Party don’t know how to show empathy. The trouble [with the Liarbral$] is that they’re giving too much of their empathy to landlords, self-funded retirees and those with incomes over $150,000, rather than the unemployed, the homeless and those struggling who’ll be glad of the Stage 3 changes.” Says it all, really.
”Nothing wrong with that, but I suspect it’s no way to win an election.” What a good idea!!
On a side note: I seem to remember the Libs crying to the stars that since the voters have kicked us out we are learning from from our (never ending potato shaped) mistakes. Learning? Suurree, they are unless they purposefully want to lose votes so they can blame it all on Labor:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-02/liberals-back-cdc-reintroduction-remote-western-australia/103413970
Who could elect a team whose leaders, little billy and torpid tanya, had been ineffective for 6 years then break out with a last minute ‘ripping billions off retirees about tax’ and ‘removing an anti-tax housing’. Not only giving morrison a free kick and a 50m penalty but releasing the media imagination to manufacture and release controversy. The result made morrison’s newness and shithouse grin acceptable. Seats can change hands with a last minute error eg 2010 Wyatt Roy and Natasha Griggs. The former defeated hot favourite labor’s sullivan who a couple of days before the election insulted the father of a disabled kid and the papers gleefully blared the controversy. They had another field day when the clp leader mills linked labor’s certainty Hale with a DVO on the thursday before the election. Spot on Patricia, extend the tax to the low end and remove the deductions, (45?? years ago for low end workers) at the top end, would be a winner???
There’s an old adage; ‘the people will lead and the leaders will follow’, it may be as incorrect as the notion that wolf packs are lead from the rear by ‘alpa’ males. Since the year dot, human group-organizing structures have come and gone, changed name and worn out as often as the need to change boots and socks. Theocracy, monarchy, stratocracy, dictatorships, benevolent dictatorships, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, communism, socialism, and democracy etc., and all the myriad variants.
Other than for obtaining food and shelter, there’s the martial functions of preventing theft and protecting the gene pool. In that regard, nothing much has changed but the sophistication of the information game, notions of borders and the spread of rules-based orders. Especially the nature of conviction and enforcement, via the hocus-pocus of religion and threat, and of course taxes.
Despite any science of fairness and equity, there’s politics and language – the essential tools of corruption that we adopt for our own convenience. In the above list of structures, there’s a standout term, ‘benevolent’, like the concept of ’empathy’ they are hilarious, in that they maybe ideal reminders to direct to naughty children, but for adults they are the rhetoric of corruption, serving as a way out and a cover against lassitude and abdication of responsibility.
None of it seems to matter any more, in this world of generational inde-fucken-pendance and rights. Corruption as a base for political competition, and the essential mangling of minds in the hunt for sensation by the msm. It’s become a constantly manured celebrity red carpet – the bigger the arse under the arc the better. Those not in that game may as well be writing books. With the wailing throngs, preferring celebrity, they are unlikely to make it through the blurb.
Geez, I dunno, is it ultraism or altrusim? How do ya spell it?
Just read Barry Jones’ observations in The Saturday Paper
Right on topic; The End of Political Complexity
The big question – what to do about it?
You don’t need to analyse the voters. Instead, try analysing the votes and you’ll soon understand why we keep getting the governments that we keep getting. Only 5% per cent of the votes are ever in favour of National Party representation. They get 10 representatives even when there is a swing against the coalition.Two or even three times as many votes are in favour of Greens Party representation. The Greens used to only get one, but now get four representatives, still not even half as many representatives with three times more votes. Ten votes in parliament can be pretty decisive. It definitely carries more weight than four votes do. From just five per cent of the people, who probably don’t empathise much with the three times as many people who vote for the Greens.
Most votes are in favour of parties that want to scrap negative gearing and franking credits. The representation that those votes get in parliament do not reflect that majority. Our electoral system lacks empathy with the political will of the democratic majority. Empathy doesn’t count, and our electoral system doesn’t add up to fair representation.
At least here in the far West (B.C., Canada), a large number of drivers of superfluously huge and over-powered thus gas-guzzling vehicles consider their machines to be a basic human right. It terrifies them to even contemplate a world in which they cannot readily fuel that right. And comparatively quiet electric cars are no substitute.
I’ll see parked vehicles idling for many minutes in moderate weather temperatures. There’ll also be the odd choking-thick-exhaust-spewing vanity vehicle, a metallic beast with the signature superfluously very large body and wheels that don’t at all appear used for work or family transport.
They’re the same gratuitously huge monsters that when parked roadside hazardously block the view of short-car operators turning or crossing through stop-signed intersections. They appear as though they might get about 25 gallons to the mile. Inside each is the operator, typically staring down into their lap, probably their smartphones. They may be some of the people posting protestations onto various social media platforms about a gas tax/price increase, however comparatively small.
It’s no longer prudent to have so much of society, especially our primary modes of transportation, reliant on traditional sources of energy. But industry and fossil-fuel friendly government can tell when a very large portion of the populace is too overworked, worried and even angry about food and housing unaffordability for themselves or their family — all while on insufficient income — to criticize the industry [etcetera] for whatever environmental damage their policies cause/allow, particularly when not immediately observable.
Even as bone-dry-vegetation regions uncontrollably burn, mass addiction to fossil fuel products undoubtedly helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest they feel and/or be publicly deemed hypocritical. It must be convenient for the industry. But the world — very much including Western nations — desperately needs to behave smarter with vehicular fuel consumption, therefore all need to forgo purchasing the most gratuitously environmentally hazardous of vehicles.