Nothing sounds more hollow than a statement in need of some truth. As an opening salvo from a pretend new leader, it was an insult to our intelligence.
If the revolving door of leadership in the Liberal party has demonstrated anything, it is that their loyalty and dedication to serving the people has never been very high on their list of things to do. If it was ever there in the first place.
For our newest prime minister to feel the need to say that he is on our side, infers that he was concerned that we might think otherwise.
Why on earth would we think that our elected government was not on our side? Perhaps because it wasn’t? It isn’t?
If you woke up this morning thinking that you had just emerged from a nightmare of near inescapable despair, be assured you were not alone.
This excruciatingly, agonising charade of a mortally wounded government still has some life in it, albeit devoid of oxygen. The Hillsong happy-clapper’s, ‘I’m on your side’ gasp, was a plea for mercy; a mea culpa, an apology for his party’s appalling behaviour; an internal blood-letting vendetta that has made the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd episode look like a vicarage tea party.
What has Scott Morrison ever done that might lead us to think that he is on our side?
This hard-right conservative disguised as a moderate, who won the nation’s top job, not because he was the best candidate, but because he was less hated than the others, has presided over the most disproportionate allocation of public funding since Harold Holt was treasurer in the early 1960s.
Never have we seen a treasurer demonstrate such blatant disregard for public need in favour of corporate excess, as Morrison.
Our only positive hope is that his tenure will be short-lived. His time as prime minister will, more than likely, be shorter than that of Tony Abbott.
No doubt polling will take place over the weekend to gauge public reaction to what has been the most disgraceful week of Liberal party acrimony, in living memory.
But regardless, the next six months will just be more of the same, with the defeated continuing to plot, with more recriminations, more bloodletting, more destabilising activity.
The ‘I’m on your side’ mantra will soon fade from Morrison’s mind as he tries to hide the ongoing war inside his disintegrating party.
