Sameness

July 29, 2021 The AIM Network Politics 16

By Ad astra

Asked what he wanted from life, a wise man said: I want to live; I want to be loved; and I want a little variety.

This piece is about the latter: “a little variety”.

Are you, like me, wearied by the sameness of so much of contemporary life? Multiple lockdowns occasioned by Covid-19 has afflicted all of us. We have suffered the monotony of sameness, day after day. As many of you follow the political scene, let’s focus on the sameness of politics.

When parliament is in session, I tune into it to Question Time to update my knowledge of the issues that are extant in federal politics. Though a genuine quest for useful information, this is where my weariness with politics gets its daily top-up.

Every day, without fail, Anthony Albanese uses his privilege as Leader of the Opposition to ask the opening question, which he spits out with characteristic sarcasm, even venom. Habitually, he looks angry, hostile, even belligerent. His demeanour invites a similar response from the object of his question: almost always PM Morrison.

We know what the tenor of Morrison’s response will be: blustering, assertive, aggressive, sarcastic. We have come to expect a torrent of words, propelled angrily from his emotionally-charged glottis. The enjoyment he shows when his questioner is wounded is obvious, even to the amateur observer.

Wouldn’t it be a welcome surprise if Albanese asked a gentle question, one that sincerely sought a considered, informative response? Instead, his questions are barbed, designed not to elicit information, but to trap, to trip up, to annoy. Instead of snarling Anthony, why not surprise Scott Morrison with a carefully structured question, one that genuinely seeks important information, one that soothes rather than angers? He might be left almost, but not quite, speechless.

Scott Morrison, you would surprise everyone if your responses were helpful, gentle, and focused on offering useful information. You seem though to fear that the colleagues sitting behind you might perceive such responses as weak, as going soft on your opponents. You know that they expect you never to concede mistakes, and instead attack your adversaries relentlessly, to disparage them, to highlight their perceived past and present errors and deficiencies. Every day you sarcastically parade the same old clichés, accusations, mistakes, and perceived errors of judgement with palpable pleasure, to the enthusiastic applause of your supporters, who clearly enjoy the daily circus.

 

Image from crikey.com.au (Photo by AAP/Mick Tsikas)

 

As a torrent of allegations of misconduct, harassment, and bullying plague the government, our PM likes to portray himself as an unlucky leader of an unruly party. But a new book Power Play. Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys’ Clubs, an honest guide … by former LNP Minister Julia Banks, paints a different picture, one where Morrison is not just complicit, but a ringleader in advancing the toxicity, a man more concerned with controlling the narrative than changing the culture.

And that’s why Australian women are turning their backs on a government that just doesn’t get it. Hopefully, Julia’s courage will challenge Morrison’s carefully curated image. But it does invite the question: “When will we stop placing the burden of fixing inequality on women?”

Writing in Women’s Agenda Angela Priestly spells out Banks’ dilemma: “If women with power can’t change a toxic culture by speaking up, can anything? If that happens where there’s a minimal power disparity … you can only imagine what happens to people who don’t have that sort of power.”

Enough said!

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16 Comments

  1. “If women with power can’t change a toxic culture by speaking up, can anything?”

    Men with power not only speaking up but actually doing things. But they don’t – or maybe won’t – because their lust for power and their sense of entitlement are too large.

  2. The Liarbral Nazional$ COALiiton misgovernment is doing a great job ignoring Australian voters to concentrate on foreign owned multinational corporations inn expectation of significant ”political donations” aka ”political bribes” as it inches every so slowly towards the 2022 feral election.

    It is up to thinking Australian voters to maintain the rage because ”It’s time” again!!

    However, remember Napoleon Bonaparte’s words of wisdom;
    ”Never disturb your enemy while they are making mistakes”.

  3. The P M, a Pathetic Misfit is an unusual phenomenon, an armourplated arsehole, invulnerable to the insertions of malicious aggression rightly deserved but deflected. Morrison is so drenched in warping perverted superstition that his righteousness, blessedness, imagined supremacy, is effectively armour plate which cannot be penetrated by truth. No honesty, decency, accepted morality and ethicality worries this suppurating turd, he being saved, blessed, anointed, chosen, superior, elevated. The reality is that we have a ten bushel bag of bullshit posing as a human and such “leadership” is fatal to the nation’s progress and balance. Worse, he is supported (hah) by a worse potful in his deputy, the notorious raving, rooting, rorting, rigging ratbag from Armidale, and there is a cast, a chorus, a caterwauling of low life followers collectively known as a federal government. Bunnings sells what they really are, refined and by the bag full, for the roses, but the raw product under Morrison is vile and odious, unfit for our nation and its buggered environment.

  5. Why are my comments being disallowed ????? Is this censorship or fear of censorship. Either way not something to be proud of.

    If this is also disallowed, this is the last time I read tour blogs.

  6. Henry, nobody is censoring your comments. We wouldn’t do that to you.

    I’m guessing that when you opened up The AIMN you were taken to our old server. We changed servers two days ago and this can be a common – but temporary – problem, especially if you were coming to the site from a shortcut or old link.

    The way to fix it is to clear your browsing history, or simply still, use this link to get into the site:

    https://theaimn.com/

    Also, use the above link as your future shortcuts.

  8. Speaking of toxic culture, we Victorians dodged a large high velocity projectile when we consigned the Victorian LNP coalition to what will hopefully be a couple of decades warming the opposition benches.
    Whew they muttered wiping the sweat from the collective brow, makes a person shudder to think of the toxic mess we would be in now if what’s his name was premier.

  10. I’ve had comment rejected yesterday, with a whole page of fields saying comments not allowed.
    I gave up thinking as a newcomer here I was being censored.
    So I am pleased to see it’s your system, and there is no censorship.
    Cleared my cache and reloaded with the new link, so hopefully this comment now gets through.
    On another note, when I try and register I get..
    Error: user registration is currently not allowed.

  11. BB. Glad it was resolved for you. Clearing your cache is always a sound thing to do.

    With user registration, I’m assuming you were trying to login. You won’t need to do that as login is only for admin and authors. As you’ve no doubt seen, you won’t need to login to make comments.

    Welcome, by the way. 😀

  13. Before Julia wrote of the “boys club” in Liberal Canberra another “Julie” rubbished women’s rights and feminism and asserted her position with the boys by deliberately (and physically) clawing at her sisters in politics on the other side.
    She would not reduce herself to supporting her gender by demolishing those who may promote her within the ranks.
    Another “anti feminist” on Julie and Julia’s side would also degrade her sex to pander to the boys club.
    As long as women in politics will put career ahead of gender equity and fairness I will have zero time for their limp whingeing after the fact.
    If they want to be “one of the boys” they need to grow a pair and stand up to the boys, or use the pair they have to stand with the girls.

  14. The best answer of all my time was when I was just starting high school and heard a mau-mau say it is no use killing enemies if you want publicity you must kill friends.
    Women need to look back to the beginning of last century and find the energy and courage of the purple, green and white.

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