Silence of the damned

When the Liberals run out of money they come after the poor

 

“Calculated assaults on the most vulnerable and marginalised are reduced to the natural order of things.” Maeve McGregor, Crikey

The Robodebt royal commission’s findings clearly demonstrate why the Tories fear scrutiny and accountability. They have long abandoned any pretence of principled governance, relying instead on the complicity of the Murdoch spitoons’ fabrications and the fever swamp of RWNJ radio to provide cover for their mendacity. Their behaviour was always there to see for those who could be bothered to look beyond the propaganda but now their ugliness has been paraded down the main street like a turd on a flat-bed truck accompanied by brass band and marching girls.

The ‘guilty til proven innocent’ atrocity that was Robodebt is only now the cause of some red-faced shoe inspections by those who would rule over us, and while they may modify their artiface it won’t change their innate bastardry. They’ll amp up the dissembling, projection and obfuscation; dead cats will be thrown onto tables, dogs will be whistled but they will never demonstrate any humility or genuine contrition and will be only briefly distracted from opportunities to practice their nasty craft.

Aware of the pending exposure Brother Stuie Robert legged it for the exit, following the onomatapaeic Alan Tudge into the perdition of historic damnation for “venality, incompetence and cowardice”. The hubris of Christian Porter, of the born-to-rulers’ catalogue of big swinging dicks, has seen this once PM-in-waiting reduced to Lionel Hutz status, touting his wares on sandwichboards on servo station forecourts.

Brother Scotty still haunts the periphery, trousering the public coin as corporate Australia, conscious of reputational damage, lets his calls go through to voicemail. Never before has the country been led by such a repugnant, bullying blowhard who, convinced of endorsement from his eagle-staffed deity, saw a licence to ignore propriety and undermine anyone who stood in the way of the acclaim he thought was his God-given due. A feckless drudge who’d struggle to meet the KPIs of school hall monitor, a shonk who “disappeared” billions in rorts, a spiv who’d eBay his crusty undies as the shroud of Turin and a serial sackee who through guile and happenstance failed upwards into his risible, karaoke performance of PM – the role he debased with a “sly contempt for political norms” as Maeve McGregor of Crikey puts it.

Spud Dutton has walked into the cubicle after Morrison. A year after the Tories were thoroughly rinsed across the country it would be reasonable to expect he’d take the opportunity to air the place out. Spud’s Cuddly Pete re-imaging is a work-in-progress – stitching together a human skin suit as cover for his mix of Myra Hindley warmth and Norman Bates bonhomie – a teddy bear tied to a bin lorry, a ruse that won’t cover the smell. (Surely though it’s apocryphal that visitors to the Chez Spud basement find themselves coughing up moth pupae.) This Silence of the Lambs metaphor should be qualified with the observation that Buffalo Bill at least showed an artistic bent that entirely escapes the beige that is our real-life lockless monster.

Spud’s newly deployed Clark Kent specs don’t disguise his inner Tubermensch – a truncheon-headed autocrat we’ve grown to loathe and despise since he came to notice with a range of outputs from his racist oeuvre. Untroubled by the burdens of either wit or intelligence he has ridiculed drowning Pacific Island nations, tormented toddler asylum seekers, denigrated Melbourne’s Sudanese communities and exploited division and rancour in the Voice debate, all as supplements to his hobbies of drowning puppies and putting nails in the hoola-hoops at daycare centres.

Spud’s predictable duplicity with his response to the Indigenous voice to Parliament shows a change-over of personel has not improved the Tories’ amorality. His framing of the Libs as victims of Labor’s scheming in the Robodebt saga is Trumpian in its up-is-down audacity.

Not to be outdone in the scorched earth approach to acceptable standards the Lib’s partners in crime, the Nationals, are reportedly again considering a return of pink pachyderm spotter Barking Barmy Joyce. When Barmy remains a viable option it says so much about the lack of talent pool that is the ignorant oik’s party of choice. Temporary leader, the nominative-deterministic David Littleproud projects an image of himself looking for his own brain, but aesthetics aside he’s yet another National committed to their cause of steering pork and the white elephants to regions in need instead of some fundamentals such as health and education that could be serviced by, and hear me out, a fully functional NBN.

Barmy’s mouth is the source of fevered allusions to a woke, left-wing dystopia and home to a random placement of teeth like long-forgotten headstones in an abandoned graveyard. His lack of credibility is not matched by the certainty that his name is amongst the wideboys, spivs and persons of interest who have been referred to the newly opened National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The outcome of the royal commission provides some succour to those citizens demonised and persecuted by their own government. The NACC will provide huge amusement for those of us who can’t wait to see these toads cop some real consequences for their bastardry.

“Given the opposition is clearly in a state of denial over the report of the robodebt royal commission, it has obviously learnt nothing from past mistakes and would, if re-elected, presumably not hesitate to repeat them.” (Editorial in The Canberra Times).

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Refrences

Is Barnaby Joyce after the leadership again? – The Saturday Paper

Taxpayers forked out $2.5m in legal expenses for eight former Coalition ministers, including two prime ministers, to be represented in the robodebt royal commission, with almost half a million for Scott Morrison. – The Guardian.