As the Coalition thrash around looking for someone else to blame for their woes, they seem to have entirely missed the point. The reason they are imploding is because they are completely tone deaf to the people they supposedly represent.
When discussing marriage equality just before the 2013 election, Tony Abbott said he was “not someone who wants to see radical change based on the fashion of the moment.”
Well Tony, the overwhelming majority of the population does not view ending discrimination as “radical change” any more than they view sexuality as a “fashion of the moment”.
Whenever bits of the Ruddock review into religious freedom get leaked, there is community backlash because our increasingly secular society does not want our kids or our teachers victimised regardless of what Lyle Shelton or George Pell may want.
A couple of years later, when discussing the provision of services like water, electricity and garbage removal to remote communities, Tony said “What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices.”
I am not sure that remaining on your ancestral land should be considered a “lifestyle choice”, and, with our cities bursting at the seams, surely we should encourage those who choose to live outside them.
It is not just Tony “climate change is crap” Abbott that has a tin ear to the community.
When questions were asked of the former Minister for Women, Michaelia Cash, as to the extent that taxpayers had funded Barnaby Joyce’s adultery with a junior staffer, she responded by threatening to slut-shame women in Bill Shorten’s office. In the context of the #metoo movement, very high-profile sexual harassment allegations, and the perception that the Liberal Party is anti-women, this showed an appalling lack of judgement.
The oafish Barry O’Sullivan continued to trawl the depths by saying, of Sarah-Hanson Young, “There’s a bit of Nick Xenophon in her, and I don’t mean that to be a double reference, but there’s a bit of Xenophon in her.” How childish can this get? How out-of-touch can they be? That sort of stuff is not ok anywhere let alone in the workplace of our country’s lawmakers.
Despite the community’s growing mistrust of politicians and their ongoing rorting of expenses, despite the obvious nepotism and cronyism that rewards and promotes completely inadequate people or offers career paths for expoliticans, despite the disturbing slide down the corruption index and the growing secrecy from the government about how contracts and grants are awarded, Scott Morrison tells us that a national anti-corruption watchdog is “a fringe issue” being pushed by the Opposition.
The increasing demonisation of renewable energy under Morrison’s leadership is moving the Coalition even further away from community attitudes. People are concerned about climate change, and not just the people of Wentworth. They are concerned about the Reef. They are worried about their children’s future. They believe the scientists.
The hard work and momentum built when Indigenous people from around the country came together to ask for a Voice in their own affairs was immediately snuffed out by a government who seemed to view that as some sort of threat to their power, yet, once again, the community views the issue completely differently. It is fit and proper that they are properly recognised as the First Australians, that we tell the truth about the past, and that we allow them to help determine what is needed to make their children’s future better.
The government can no longer hide the plight of children on Nauru and people want them cared for. Yet, until very recently, they fought every case for medical transfer tooth and nail through the courts. The strategies to keep our borders secure cannot include holding people hostage.
And whilst becoming a Republic may not be a frontline issue for the majority, it is inevitable that it will happen some time so we really should be putting more thought into designing a new system of government and the symbols that will represent an independent country on the world stage.
ProMo, as part of his image makeover, keeps talking about getting out of the Canberra bubble except he doesn’t mean a word of it. Everywhere he goes he spouts his new slogan about listening, hearing and doing, yet he wanders around in an echo chamber where all he can hear is the braying threats from the far right and the marketing advice from the spin merchants.
Instead of blaming Malcolm Turnbull for the turmoil they now find themselves in – a view that requires complete cognitive dissonance – the Coalition need to get rid of the tin ear that is deaf to all but the loudest ultra-conservatives.
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