Well, the big news is that Cory Bernardi has started his own party. At last count, I understand it had precisely one member, which means that he’s got one more than me, unless I decide to start a party some time in the next twenty four hours.
That’s a political party, of course. If you were the only one at your birthday party, for example, you wouldn’t consider that a party; you’d consider that evidence that you were a social misfit. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a misfit… Just ask Cory why he left the Liberals!
It was apparently, in part, a response to the rise of Pauline Hanson. Of course when I say “rise” I mean that the media seem to find her candidates more worthy of interviewing than people who aren’t living proof of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Let’s be honest here: Some of Pauline’s party are the least suitable senators since Caligula made his horse one. Actually, all the horse did was shit in the wrong place so he may have been less damaging than the One Notion mob.
Perhaps I am being a bit harsh. Just a few days ago, Pauline came up with the great idea of compulsory pre-nuptial agreements for couples. Mm, I can picture some couples saying: “We’re never going to fall out of love and we don’t plan to breed, so can have everything and custody because we’ll never have any!”
Consistent with this idea of pre-nups, she suggested that her candidates should have a $250,000 bond which they’d forfeit if they left the party after being elected. Of course, this overlooks the technicality that one could be elected, not leave the party, but consistently bag Pauline and frequently refuse to vote along party lines. How would it work when Pauline herself tosses you out? Actually this sounds rather like Rod Culleton… Come to think of it, it was the modus operandi of many One Notion politicians, which sort of explains why they imploded last time…
Anyway, to help the conservative side of politics fight the drift to minor parties, Senator Bernardi has started another minor party, and this has upset a lot of people who seem to think that the fact he stood as a Liberal just last year and with no obvious change in the party’s position on anything, apart from the change from “jobs and growth” to “jobs and bread and butter issues” because growth was negative last quarter, Cory’s jumped ship.
Perhaps, they’ll come out in the next couple of days and suggest that Pauline was onto something with her idea of pre-nuptial agreements for politicians to prevent them doing a Bernardi.
Is “pre-nuptial” the right word in the case of politicians? I probably should look up exactly what “nuptial” means. I shouldn’t be bandying words about with no understanding their meaning like I’m the President of the United States.
Let’s see,
Definition of nuptial
1
: of or relating to marriage or the marriage ceremony
2
: characteristic of or occurring in the breeding season
Right, well, pre-nuptial is the wrong word, because there’s no marriage between Bernardi and his party. And clearly, he wouldn’t approve of breeding with them… Although, he certainly has done his best to f*ck Turnbull.
Ah, Turnbull!
It’s always interesting how people have perceived him over the years. The suggestion that now Bernardi’s gone, it gives him a chance to be the “real” Malcolm. He doesn’t have to worry any more. This conveniently overlooks that he hasn’t had to worry since the election because there’s no way they can dump him easily because all it takes is one or two Liberals jumping ship or resigning and suddenly they’re a minority government. The idea that Malcolm is hamstrung because if he upsets the conservatives, they could toss him out as leader overlooks that this could easily bring down the entire government. At the very least, it’d going a long way to making them completely unelectable at the 2019 election. Malcolm has never taken a stand that wasn’t arguably populist. His support – luke warm as it’s been – for marriage equality, the environment, the Republic, you name it, has all been backed by what the majority think. The idea that somehow Turnbull would be different if he just had a little bit more power… Gee, he’s Prime Minister! At what point does he actually start acting on his supposed real beliefs?
That’s right! He stood up to Trump and said that a deal was a deal and that’s why Trump got annoyed. Of course, he did this behind closed doors because you don’t criticise other governments in public. Yet somehow we’re being told what happened in that phone call and how he’s the only man who’s standing up to Trump. But he’s doing it on the phone and he’s not going to say anything in public. In public, Turnbull is a lamb, but let’s just background the media that in private he’s a lion.
I guess that’s why when George “I like posing with my whip” Christensen warned Turnbull today that he needed to be more conservative, Turnbull chose not to comment in public. In private, he’ll be telling George to pull his head in and not to make threats… I’m sure.
Just as I’m sure that Tony Abbott won’t be calling for a spill. No, I promise you. He won’t.
Not this week!
P.S. Someone pointed out that I incorrectly referred to Pauline Hanson’s party as “One Notion”! My apologies, I clearly meant to write: “No Notion”!
