Spinach or shit?

Dr Victoria Fielding

12 years ago

A friend recently sent me a classic Tweet:

‘Voting for Tony Abbott because you don’t like Julia Gillard is like eating shit because you hate spinach’.

Fine, some people don’t like Gillard (spinach). They don’t like her voice. They don’t like her hair. They don’t like her glasses. They don’t like her boyfriend. They don’t like her marriage status. They don’t like her lack of religion. They don’t like her gender. They don’t like her. Fine. Some people are unhappy with some of Labor’s policies. I get it. It’s absolutely understandable that you don’t like everything the Labor party does. Neither do I. I like most of it. And I like some of it very much. But not all of it. Big deal. The odd thing is, every time these shit-eaters are asked why they are eating shit, they just go on and on about hating spinach. It’s quite irrational.

Let me say first up, I quite like spinach, especially with feta, so this is an easy choice for me. But there do seem to be quite a few people in Australia who are absolutely hell bent on rejecting the healthy spinach option, and haven’t even considered the side effects of eating shit instead. Let’s have a closer look at the alternatives in a few important areas of political policy.

Climate policy

There has been a lot of fascination over the last few years in Gillard’s determination to bring in an ETS, and her supposed lie of bringing in a Carbon Price instead. Never mind that Gillard quite clearly is doing what she promised, and bringing in an ETS, with the Carbon Price used in the interim to compromise with the Greens to form a minority government. Either way, if you’re a shit-eater who hates the Carbon Price, have you ever had a look at the shit alternative?

Ever heard of Abbott’s Direct Action Policy? In this fantastic post on the Political Sword, Ad astra asks some very good questions about this shit policy. It’s probably not your fault that you know little about Direct Action, considering how pathetic the mainstream media’s scrutiny of this policy has been. But if you can’t be bothered seeking it out, and haven’t even thought about the alternative once the Carbon Price is ‘axed’, it’s important that you know you are not being offered zero action against climate change. What you are being offered by Abbott is a shit, no details policy that will cost tax-payers $1,300 per household, per year. Considering the bleating about larger electricity bills, you’d think $1,300 per household would raise some eyebrows. And even worse, no one has been able to confirm that this policy will even reduce emissions, when the Carbon Price is already effectively doing this. So Direct Action is expensive and possibly won’t work. It’s funding coal instead of research and development into sustainable energies. It’s bullshit. And Abbott hasn’t even explained how he will fund it. If you’re going to hate the Carbon Price, the least you can do is justify this hatred with a love for Direct Action instead. And if you can’t muster love, at least be informed. Rather than ranting about ‘Gillard lying’ as if this is some sort of critique of the Carbon Price, when deep down it’s clear you don’t believe in climate change and therefore can’t understand why action needs to be taken, at least give it five seconds thought. Have a think about how it will taste to eat shit.

The NBN

Surely you can see how desperately embarrassed Malcolm Turnbull is of his party’s shit alternative to the Labor government’s National Broadband Network. If Turnbull can’t get excited about a crap alternative to a superior network, why on earth should you be excited about it? Labor’s NBN is going to cost $37.4 billion and will offer super-fast broadband to homes and businesses Australia wide. Turnbull and Abbott’s shit NBN will cost $29.5 billion, and will only supply not as fast broadband, to businesses in metro areas, and households who can afford up to $5,000 to connect. Murdoch is happy with this policy. It keeps his Foxtel TV subscriptions monopolizing the market for many years to come. It’s no wonder the Liberal’s launched their policy at Fox Studios, just to show Rupey how much they care. So you shit-eaters, when Telstra’s copper gives out and you’re left without any broadband, let alone the not so fast version that you paid through the nose to connect to, and when giant fridge units turn up on your pavement, will you at least do us spinach eaters the courtesy of admitting you’ve been eating shit?

Gonski Education Funding Reform

So you’re not happy about the Gonski school funding model? You don’t want extra money from the Federal Government for schools to provide a more equitable standard of education for all Australians, regardless of family wealth? Fine. So what do you think of the alternative? Christopher Pyne, the so called Shadow Education Minister, who wouldn’t recognise a good education if it was gifted to him, claims that:

“too much money has been wasted on reducing class sizes and that instead there should be more focus on the quality of teaching.”

Pyne also thinks the 5 – 15% of teachers, who he describes as ‘not up to scratch’ should be sacked. Apparently he thinks sacking teachers helps education quality. I guess the spinach eaters in this case would have to be those who value the benefits of a good education for all, whereas the shit-eaters just want to see the government cut, slash and burn spending with the selfish hope they’ll be left with a few extra dollars in their pocket each week through a tax break, and if that means larger classes, less teachers and lower quality education system, so be it. Sorry to tell you, those eating shit, that a short term tax decrease at the expense of quality education will just end up costing us all. Please think about this before picking up your spoon.

King of the Scandal

If you relied on the mainstream media for all your news, you might think the Labor party is the party of scandal and smear. You might think the most newsworthy political event in the last twelve months was a nasty misogynist blogger urging an incompetent, biased, idea-free press into beating up a story about the Prime Minister, surrounding unproven wrongdoing by her boyfriend 20 years ago. You might therefore have missed that Abbott was sued this week over his own little slush-fund affair, which he used to destroy the career of his right-wing rival, Pauline Hanson. It’s amazing how the mainstream media and their shit-eating cheer-squad change their tune about truth, public-interest and political scandal when it comes to Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party.

You might also think ex-Liberal Peter Slipper was the most corrupt in James Ashby’s sexual harassment case. Again, the mainstream media would have you believe this to be the case. The mainstream media don’t want you to know that the real rat is Ashby. And Abbott’s pre-selected friend Mal Brough. So while you’re complaining about the problems with spinach, think how silly you’ll look, when you realise just how badly you’ve been duped. Duped by the mainstream media. Duped by the rich vested interests of Gina Rinehart and Rupert Murdoch who have every reason to promote the eating of shit over spinach for their own self-interest.

So you hate Julia Gillard? Can you at least understand why I’m not just asking you to stop eating shit? I’m also asking you to stop forcing others into a shit-eating situation which is not of their own making. Don’t elect Abbott as Prime Minister. I don’t care if you don’t like spinach. Disliking spinach does not justify a vote for Abbott. Grow up and think of the alternative.

UPDATE: Original spinach or shit Tweet was by Geezlouise (@Turlow1)