Sweeter than Wine
While mainstream journalists are frantically trying to work out how they could have got it so wrong and Liberal Party headquarters is already blaming Labor for a dishonest campaign focussed on Medicare, Labor supporters are euphoric.
The result has gone beyond the most optimistic of expectations. The people have dared to defy calls for stability, claims of superior economic management and the promises of a somewhat obscure plan for jobs and growth.
The Coalition were never going to privatise Medicare in the true sense. Labor knew that, however, the Coalition has consistently tried to downgrade Medicare and limit access to health care.
By claiming Medicare would be privatised rather than dismantled, Labor focussed enormous attention on the issue. They drew attention to the fact that the Coalition were seriously messing with it.
The voters did not believe it would be privatised, but they could clearly see it was being messed with and didn’t like the idea of it being dismantled by deception. You reap what you sow.
For Labor, the result is sweeter than wine. While the final result will take several days or weeks, the likely result could be a Coalition majority of two, or a Labor minority government.
The Senate will be a festival of independents. There will be no joint sitting to pass the bill that was used to call the double dissolution. It was never on the radar for the entire campaign anyway.
The decision to call a double dissolution has been disaster for the conservative side of politics. It is a disaster for mainstream media outlets too. They have been asleep at the wheel, happily believing everything the Liberal strategists had been feeding them, too lazy to do some real research, too lazy to undertake some real journalism.
It goes without saying that the “tradie” commercial for the Liberal party, apart from making us cringe, has done enormous damage to political advertising. Whoever was responsible for signing off on what will haunt the conservative side of politics for years to come, should try a different career.
“I reckon we should just see it through and stick with the other mob for a while.” How forceful, how passionate, how incredibly unconvincing. Yes, he’s a real tradie, but surely someone could have given him some acting lessons.
If it was meant to create sympathy for the blue collar worker perhaps a tearful slurp from the coffee mug would have helped. But, beyond that, most tradies viewing it would have felt misrepresented and a bit miffed.
That being said, the commercial was about the economy, it was about getting ahead, it was about negative gearing. But if fiscal policy is simultaneously scorching the economy and undermining confidence such that households and firms reduce their spending intentions and stop borrowing, surely that suggests something is wrong in the way it is being managed.
Ironically the Coalition also ran on the issue of stability. Stable government is hardly a catch-cry the Liberals could use with a straight face. Their stability was questioned the day after they won the election with Tony Abbot at the helm, in 2013.
The reckless statements, the vagaries, the missteps, the ministerial contradictions, followed by several broken promises, an appalling budget in 2014, a procession of ministerial resignations, the stability train had long since left the station. Turnbull’s accession to the leadership did nothing to reverse that. He may even have made it worse.
Perhaps too, the marriage equality issue which loomed large in the final week of the campaign played a part in swinging voters’ intentions. Time will tell. One thing is for sure. The Liberals will be at each other’s throats for some time yet.
And they also have Andrew Bolt to contend with. Wow!
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Return to home pageMalcolm and the Thug
It was nearly three years ago
That we began our tale of woe
When Abbott and his circus came to town
They’d defeated Kevin Rudd
With the help of Murdoch’s mud
And Abbott wore the shoes of the clown
The thug had gone in hard
On Julia Gillard
Earning himself the title Dr No
With Rupert on his side
He just sloganeered and lied
And got in with no policies to show
And so began the tale
Of the Mad Monk’s mammoth fail
A story that was never a surprise
Because Abbott and his crew
Had no clue of what to do
Once the public stopped believing all their lies
It didn’t take too long
When things started to go wrong
promises were broken from the start
Then Mathias and Joe Hockey
Smoking cigars and feeling cocky
dropped a budget that stunk worse than a fart
What followed was a disaster
We’d never seen it happen faster
As the polls went into terminal decline
We had Abbott’s Dames and Knights
And the Egghead’s “Bigots rights”
And the backflips of perfidious poodle Pyne
But it was the captain of team Australia
That led his team to failure
With his lies and his stupid captain’s picks
All his crew were just as weak
As he took them up shit creek
A party of pernicious lying pricks
Things went from bad to worse
As they flogged a dying horse
Till the backbench thought the jockey was to blame
So they tried to call a spill
But did not complete the kill
We were left with just some more of the same
In the months after the spill
they went right after Bill
And they tried to pull another budget con
And all the ten flag guff
Was fast running out of puff
as the polls showed that these lying fools were gone
Seeing Bronwyn on the take
Their greed exposed through chopper gate
The public had concluded they’re the worst
With a giant bullshit bubble
Abbott’s mob’s were deep in trouble
and it was the prick himself who made it burst.
As the press were asking whether
this is the worst mob ever
The voters made their mind up, they must go
They got out their baseball bats
For the liberals and the Nats
At the ballot they would surely deal a blow
So on the eve of Canning
Turnbull acted on his planning
And Abbott, still deluded, got the flick
After two years of lies and failure
There was relief across Australia
As the mad monks mammoth fail had made them sick
So Abbott’s die was cast
His use by date had passed
Soon we saw another chapter in this farce
They were hoping Malcolm’s words
Could polish their policy turds
In a desperate last attempt to save their arse
Turnbull started off so well
Saying everything was swell
What a great time it was to be alive
All ability and innovation
and intelligent conversation
the polls reversed, the party might survive
Everything was on the table
Malcom seemed so able
But pretty soon the cracks began to show
For him to lead this mob
He must appease the right nut jobs
And keep all of the thugs policies on the go
The voters were surprised
Turnbull was Abbott in disguise
Relief turned to dismay, was this a joke
Different coloured ties
More smiles but the same old lies
And slogans served on waffle when he spoke
Bill Shorten all this while
Had been working on his style
And labor had been leading the debate
Still the press all wrote him off
They all so admired the Toff
PM they said was always Turnbull’s fate
Soon we were having a GST
Then it was never going to be
And state taxes lasted all but a day
Poor decisions were the norm
As Mal returned to form
And the polls began to turn the other way
So Malcolm’s great solution
Was a double dissolution
An election that smacked of desperation
All we hear from the snake oil man
Is “Jobs and Growth” and “plan”
So much for intelligent conversation
So now as I write
The polls are very tight
Nobody knows who’ll lead Australia
Whatever is the score
One thing that is for sure
Malcolm and the thug have been a failure.
The polls have closed too close to call
Malcolm’s lost his other ball
Labors back and Bill fulsome
Abbott and his fools will plot
The senates a more unruly lot
The tale still has some twists to come
Brilliant, Graeme.
Articles here have carried long lists of infrastructure cuts ranging from women’s shelters, education cuts and cuts to public broadcasting, the CSIRO, social security and unemployment.
Medicare resonated because Labor found a way of demonstrating that these cuts across the board were not necessary or practical, but ideological, fear and greed driven. Turnbull almost simultaneously announced his tax cuts for big business and the wealthy.
People did not react to Medicare because it was an isolated fault but because it represented best a huge, concerted and deliberate policy of austerity and misappropriation of tax payer money for reasons a normal person would find outrageous.
The main stream media have proven once again how impotent and out of touch they are. Barry Cassidy on insiders lamented how they had been led to believe the coalition were well in the lead by advice from coalition sources. He was shocked that the media had been mislead. This is what passes for journalism at the moment.
They still don’t get it. Now buying into the Mediscare campaign as the reason for Turnbulls disaster. The mainstream media now consists of Murdoch hacks who are blatant coalition propagandists and lemmings who regurgitate the Murdoch spin as if it was real. The ABC and Fairfax have been equally guilty of believing LNP bullshit. The fact is the Abbott – Turnbull government have been the worst in Australia’s history and despite the change of leadership their “plan” for the future was nothing but a plan to be re-elected that has failed miserably.
I am amazed at the stupidity of the MSM. “privatise” is just a word. Please define? as Ms Hanson might say. The Coalition have chipped away at Medicare over the years. John Howard forced us to take on private health insurance by promising the insurers billions in “rebates”. They sold Medibank the day after they got in, and there is the all -revealing IPA website with its recommendations. What else do you need to know? So it was a Mediscare? Seriously? I believed it and I was scared as I am in my 70’s and bound to need some sort of treatment in the coming years. And I have seen how the “gap” payments have got larger and larger. And I have seen the stupid coalition voters on TV programs say they would be happy to pay more for their visits to the doctor in the form of co-payments. It never occurred to them that they could pay more by increasing the medicare levy. Or maybe they were schooled actors. I wouldn’t put it past the coalition to organise that kind of thing.
The great take-away from this election is that in spite of all print media supporting a coalition win, it didn’t have the desired effect. The influence of Murdoch and gang is waning. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Graeme, so very true. That’s what the msm gets for doing nothing but regurgitating Liberal Party press releases..they get to be wrong.
Bravo Graeme!
Julia Bishop lamented Liberal voters questioned her on Medicare. Surprise, surprise. Even among misguided LNP supporters there are those who don’t want to see Medicare privatised; that wasn’t Ms Bishop’s point of course.
Great post again John.As we wont know for sure final results,here is a link to a 1 hour video with some real ideas on ‘INOVATION’ that show how out of wack turdballs on inovation is. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/smart-state/ .M F.
Excellent again Graeme. And another great article John.
The one I found truly scurrilous was the piece of shite by Darren Goodsir, Editor-in-Chief of SMH/AGE (but possibly written by Mark Kenny) who came out with an Editorial 2 days before the election endorsing Turnbull and saying he was what the country needed. It ended on this line – “Given the choice between a Coalition led by the socially progressive economic reformer Mr Turnbull, and a Shorten-led Labor party backed by reform-resistant unions, we support the election of a Turnbull government.’
In what universe is Turnbull a “socially progressive reformer”? And now, of course, it’s all gone to shit.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/malcolm-turnbullled-coalition-offers-economic-and-social-reform-20160629-gpv218.html#ixzz4DMbCiPXG
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
John and Graeme well said, it definitely made me chuckle this freezing morning in Qld.
I’m a Labor supporter, I have witnessed the fact that for few years, LNP consistently tried to downgrade Medicare and Bulkbilling. I do concern about this and believe that most people have the same feeling.
Labor take this very seriously and ” put people first” , it is nothing to do with scare campaign, majority vote Labor because that they will benefit from the policy of people first.
Labor Leaders meeting today, they expect 73 seats and willing to enter discussions with Independents but no Coalition. The point was reinforced by Tanya Plibersek that there would be NO Coalition with the Greens
Excellent Graeme.
It is indeed sweeter than wine to witness the sycophantic, contemptible and elitist LNP Degenerates lose miserably and brought to their knees.
Now, it is time to reverse their destruction and make reforms that advance a great range of socio-economic-political fronts. It is also time for Australia to turn its back on neoliberalism that has diminished the kinder, fairer Australia that I want back.
That will only happen when we work together. I really hope the Greens and Labor get their acts together and form a working alliance to see that that happens. A progressive force can invite the likes of Nick Xenophon and Andrew Wilkie in as well.
The AEC Tally Room is the one to watch I learned (late) from Twitter on Sunday morning. I, too, was appalled that the count was rigged on the ABC. After midnight it started going into a slide for the LNC. They were reporting the Labor count as the LNC and the LNC as Labor. And to think I had to put up with Bull Morrison going on and on, “postal votes, postal votes”. I did flick it off for a reprieve. What is wrong with the MSM? Xenophon threw some light on the Liberal Party postal votes going back to their headquarters for possible filtering?? Yes they would be that low, and destroying Medicare by stealth is exactly what they were doing. Not to forget Howard’s Medicare (medicate) levy, so we are all paying for it anyway. Why do we put up with such low levels in power?
At least with this election we are seeing people as having more courage to say No! Thank goodness Labor ran a wake up campaign, and the BillBus was brilliant.
We certainly need a decent leader in this country to help sort all this mess. Shorten could do it, and I so hope he gets a chance to form a good minority government again.
Love your work, Graeme. Can I post to Facebook? How do I attribute you?
I wouldn’t mind seeing a well hung parliament.
I thought the last one worked OK.
Sweeter than wine it really is ,It gave me great pleasure watching the MSM and the ABC tearing their selves apart,they were gob smacked ,blaming everyone except themselves
they just couldn’t believe what was happening ,we have all the above to thank for the mess that Australia is in along with Turnbull and his motley crew
The knives are being sharpened as we speak ,there will be a return of Abbott , i wonder if the gutter press will report it the same way they did with Gillard Rudd Gillard,or will it be different with Abbott Turnbull Abbott
[Xenophon threw some light on the Liberal Party postal votes going back to their headquarters for possible filtering]
Filtering. As the voters name is on the outside of the envelop they can use the Parakeelia software and filter out the names they have that were recorded as anti-LNP.
How the hell parties are allowed to do such things as have a return address for postal votes other than the AEC is incomprehensible.
If an opportunity is there someone will take as we have seen on the donations side of things.
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