Some of you may have noticed a strange train of thought from Pauline Hanson. She praises Putin, telling us that we need a strong leader like Putin, but before the interview is over, Australia’s answer to The T-rump is telling us that she opposes the government attempting to coerce parents into vaccinating their children because it’s like “a dictatorship”. What’s one meant to take away from that? (Admittedly, take-aways haven’t been Pauline’s strong point since the fish and chip shop days!) Apparently, we need a strong leader who can impose his or her will, but not when it comes to giving kids needles. Or even imposing action on climate change. We need a leader who can impose Hanson’s will on the people. The sort of leader who’d name a party after themselves and expel those who she didn’t agree with. In a totally democratic way, of course.
Turnbull was, of course, quick to contradict the No Notion leader in this particular instance. While the Liberals have traditionally said that they disagree with One Nation before adding, but isn’t it great that people can make xenophobic statements and generally talk the sort of nonsense about science that makes Barnaby# seem intelligent, in this particular case Turnbull was anxious to disagree. No, he told us, we don’t want a strong leader like Putin – there’s a strong case for having a jellyfish who just goes along with whatever they’re told.
Strangely, Turnbull was given praise by some sections of the media for his decision to criticise Pauline’s comments. Have we become so used to seeing Turnbull as the obedient lap-dog of every right wing nutter that we somehow think merely saying that he disagrees is the sort of performance that where we’d start refering to him as the Australian Vladimir? He’s set the bar so low that he attracts praise when he does such courageous things as telling Trump that he expects a deal to be honoured or attacks Bill Shorten for hobnobbing with the elite. On the latter, surely Turnbull wasn’t suggesting that Shorten was being a class traitor because, as any member of his government will tell you, it’s only Labor who indulge in class warfare…
Whatever, the coming Western Australian election will throw up an interesting predicament for the Federal Liberals. It’s highly unlikely that the Liberals will produce a strong result, and possibly the worst case scenario for them is winning government with One Nation holding the balance of power in the upper house (or even, less likely, the lower house!) While Labor can condemn the preference deal that put them there, it’s a lot harder when you’re the ones who made it. However, a loss would surely have the knives being sharpened in Canberra. Actually, the knives must be pretty sharp by now.
As someone said to Caesar, beware the ides of March!
#By the way, did you catch his performance on “The Project” last week?
