At this point, I’m wondering exactly how many people will comment on the title without reading what I actually write. I imagine at least one person will write: “You idiot, the ABC are INDEPENDENT and won’t be siding with anyone!”
Which is sort of my point. I don’t know about anyone else but when I hear an ABC journalist asking one of the “Voices of” candidates who they’ll be supporting in the event of a hung parliament, I want them to say that because they’re independent they can wait and see – but given that both parties strongly support climate change action and an integrity commission, we’ll wait and see which party proposes the best way to make that happen with actual legislation AFTER the election. If the journalist persists and suggests that they can’t claim to truly be independent because they won’t declare who they’re siding with, they should reply with something along the lines of why the ABC is claiming to be independent when they won’t tell us who they’re siding with.
Yes, it would be quite silly but just about everything that the media are doing is quite silly.
I mean, Albanese does an in-depth profile on his life and the media complain that Labor are a small target and aren’t releasing policies. Then Labor release policy and the media talk about how we don’t know who Anthony Albanese is. Then we’re treated to a detailed discussion of who the various journalists think will win the election followed by a discussion of the preferred PM and how this is somehow significant.
How often is the Opposition leader the preferred PM? Was Tony Abbott?
Then, when discussing things like Albanese’s disapproval rating, they completely ignore the fact that at least part of that figure includes people who disapprove because he hasn’t attacked the government enough and wouldn’t vote for the Liberal candidate if it were a choice between them and Clive Palmer.
So it’s pretty clear that the independents have certain candidates more worried about them than the Labor Party which is why I find their whole strategy about as clever as Barnaby Joyce running on a platform of: “I’m so into family values that I have two families.” The first difficulty any independent has is getting noticed. If I were to run in Kooyong, I’d be lucky to attract a handful of votes but if Josh were to say publicly that you shouldn’t vote for me, I’d probably get more votes than if he ignored me.
Similarly, Timmy Wilson’s dummy spit about Zoe Daniel’s signs means that I know who’s the “Voices Of” candidate for Goldstein even though I’m not in that electorate.
Let’s be real, it’s thanks to the Libs that Monique Ryan is being interviewed here, there and everywhere. It’s thanks to the Libs that a large number of the people in the endangered electorates know who the teal candidate is and what they stand for.
I haven’t seen incompetence like that since Frydenberg suddenly realised that his figures were out by $60 billion but that’s ok because it was $60 billion less so let’s all have a party. As for the campaign decision to put posters about a strong economy on shops that have gone out of business, one has to wonder whether that’s a case of irony or whether it’s the fact that even his own party want him to lose.
And still, Josh doesn’t get it. His announcement that Monique Ryan’s mother-in-law told him that she’d vote for him may go down a treat at Liberal functions but take a step back and consider how it plays in the wider community.
For a start, one has to ask if he took any steps to ascertain that it was, in fact, a relation of “that fake independent”. I mean, I’m pretty sure that nobody would be irresponsible enough to quote me if I were to say that I was Josh’s best friend from childhood and that I was voting for Monique without first checking with him. But even if I was, so what? I mean, has anybody checked how Barnaby’s ex-wife is planning to vote this election?
Yes, that’s right – families are meant to be off-limits. But in any case, how desperate must he be that he thinks that he needs this? I know that his justification was that Rob Baillieu was working for Monique Ryan, but I’d argue that there’s a difference between someone who makes a public statement and someone who tells you who they’re intending to vote for. After all, I frequently tell people who bail me up in the street during election campaigns that I’m voting for their candidate even though I’m not. Just as I tell Jehovah’s Witnesses who come to the door that I’m a Satanist looking for a virgin to sacrifice and if they know any…
It saves a long conversation that won’t result in anything positive for anyone.
But when it comes to the idea that somehow what one’s mother-in-law thinks…
I mean that’s about as relevant as we should vote Josh back because he’s a real nice guy… who likes bringing relatives into the campaign but families are off-limits.
Anyway, I started composing a list of things to ask which were reasonable and which were unreasonable. What do you reckon about the following?
- Person told that they did well in the job interview and the references all checked out, but the job is going to someone else because the boss bumped into the person’s mother-in-law who said that they were a bit sloppy round the house.
- Art student announces that they will vote for Josh because he can’t trust the Independent candidates owing to the fact that they’re claiming that they dress in teal when the colour is “turquoise”.
- Politician visits nursing home where resident says that he’ll definitely be voting for him/her because they don’t want Peter Costello to become PM and that Kevin07 is a great slogan. They tell everyone that John Howard has endorsed them because the man insisted that he was.
- Man tells his wife that she’s wrong because his mistress tells him that he’s really great in bed and that’s the reason she’s with him and not because of the car he bought her.
- Jane Hume tells Patricia Karvelas that Labor have the equivalent of a carbon tax because even if businesses use technology to offset Labor’s policy that will add to costs and doesn’t mention the Liberal policy is the slogan, “Technology not taxes”!
- Murdoch paper runs story showing candidate for election with happy family with lots of photos of father happily playing with kids. Should people vote this person out of office so that he doesn’t miss the best years of his kids’ life?
- Pauline Hanson insists that she is Pauline Hanson and nobody has a right to tell her that she can’t do anything she wants and it’s all wrong since it was her who gave the ignorant a voice and now there are so many choices that she may not get elected again.
I could go on, but I’m not sure that Josh can.
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