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Tag Archives: Election campaign

Mums and Dads – Malcolm wants YOU as a new recruit

Yes, Mums and Dads, Malcolm wants you. He wants you, he wants you, he wants you as a new recruit.

Sing it with me now….

With the Liberals, you can watch Malcolm Shoot the Breeze

With the Liberals, Nodding with Tony he agrees

With the Liberals, come and join the born to rule brand

With the Liberals, against the worker take a stand.

I mean where else can you find pleasure? Search the world for treasure?
Learn science technology? Where can you begin to make your dreams all come true?
On the land or on the sea? But with the Liberals? (or so they want us to think)

A clever positioning of the demographic – all is fair in love and politics

Linked to the Liberals’ strategy to promote Mum and Dad businesses, start-ups, entrepreneurs, investors etc., is that any criticism of this strategy can be misconstrued as disrespecting hard working mum and dad business owners. The Liberal’s appear to be bouncing an election strategy off the hard work and dedication of many who have made a success and are offering this to all mums and dads as the easy-don’t-have-to-work-hard-for-it panacea to all of their world problems. They have positioned this demographic as such, to try to make it difficult for Labor to speak out against their policies, without the Liberals trying to wedge Labor as not supporting the demographic targeted – regular mums and dads.

This blog post is not about critiquing mum and dad business owners or investors. It is about the use of a particular demographic “Mums and Dads” in emotive marketing and as a tool of deception in an election campaign.

The Mum and Dad Narrative

When Turnbull was in his Communications Portfolio happily destroying the NBN, he was strongly arguing for mums and dads along with pesky students to be sued by Film Studios (Which the CEO of Village Roadshow laughed at by the way.)

Now he is Prime Minister, all he talks about is how great mums and dads are.

In the last few months, he has used mum and dad property investors as the Investors to protect from Labor’s Negative Gearing policy. Though he has no sympathy for mum and dad renters who will be able to purchase one home that they will probably live in forever, under Labor’s new scheme.

He has used mum and dad owner-drivers as the owner drivers to be protected from the RSRT and the key driver for the abolishment of same. However, other’s have pointed out that this was not driven by mum and dad owner drivers, but larger corporations.

In his statement to sell his version of “innovation” he has used mum and dad investors and entrepreneurs as the target group to enjoy tax breaks and create start-ups and think beyond real estate and blue-chip stocks and diversify their nest egg. Never mind the highly educated young people who should be encouraged, or single tech wizards or entrepreneurial friends, but it is mums and dads who are touted as the new breed of innovative entrepreneur. Because, you know, all regular mums and dads have ‘real estate and blue-chip stocks and a nest egg.’

Agenda Setting and Priming by the Media

The media are intrinsically woven into election campaigns. They have the ability to set the agenda by framing narrative or topics through a particular lens and use that to sway votes. Turnbull needs the media to frame his narrative about mums and dads as ‘the modern worker’ as a positive for the Turnbull campaign, but so far the response from this journalist seems more tongue in cheek, than setting the agenda and priming voters with this message.

This is a subtle hint that journalists are seeing the ‘mum and dad’ pattern woven into every answer to every question. Below is either a case of clever journalism or mum and dad contagion:

JOURNALIST:

When the mums and dads of Australia come to vote on July 2 or whenever else –

JOURNALIST:

Prime Minister, do you really think that the mums and dads of Australia are going to be as seized with the building industry as you are? How do you make the link between what we see here today, and the ABCC, and their lives?
(Excerpt from Doorstop Tuesday 19 April 2016)

Turnbull’s Impression Management

Turnbull is between a rock and a hard place. He built up a persona through self-impression management to win votes in his own electorate. I view him as a chameleon. A man who does not particularly believe in anything, but manages his self-impressions for what is deemed vital for him to survive at the time. The false-world he has built himself in his pursuit of the Prime Ministership now has him stuck between the false world he created and the real-world of the right wing party he signed up to and now leads.

Essentially, Turnbull has managed his self-impressions extremely well for so long and has painted the public a very convincing false impression of the world he would lead. Now he is the Prime Minister and because of his real-world actions, the public are doubting if he can actually deliver, the paint is so flaky it is just peeling off.

There is a term to describe what we see happening to Turnbull and that term is “Face.” If the false world does not match reality or that person can’t deliver they don’t ‘maintain face.’ The difference between Abbott and Turnbull is that Abbott ‘maintained face’ before the election and lost it after he gained power.

I know people criticise Abbott, but because he built realistic impressions of who he actually is, it is my opinion that Abbott had a stronger chance than Turnbull in the election, if he was given an election period to play with. Turnbull struggling and losing face at this point, so early in the election campaign period, should have the Liberal party campaign team seriously worried.

Using impressions to create a false world

This election campaign is clearly being fought as a class war (workers/unions vs. the big end of town). So how does Turnbull try to maintain a self-impression that he is still the supportive-Malcolm he has built up in the false world he has previously created? To satisfy the message of the right (anti-union) he needs to create a new false world where the mum and dad-owner-investor-start-up-entrepreneurial-innovative-worker are the new class of modern worker to be protected (and all without those pesky unions).

In a class war election, it is essential that the Liberals counter Labor’s record of standing up for the worker. The Liberals hate unions and oppose workers in general and their main campaign will be rubbishing unions – ie workers and they will use as much as they can from TURC. In fact, the premise that unions need to be torn down is significant in motive behind this DD election.

“We are a Government that believes in the mum and dads of Australia who mortgage their homes to go and buy a truck so they can be their own boss and say no to the union…” Turnbull 19/04/2016

This links back to the impression management of creating a false world for the voting public that most mums and dads just have the ability to a) even own a home or b) mortgage that home and to c) have all the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to create a viable competitive business and d) create the false impression that mums and dads are oppressed (or unions equal no freedom) and must free themselves from the oppression of a union.

Turnbull is repainting mum and dad small business owners and investors as the proletariat rather than the capitalist bourgeoisie. I think this will be their key driver to set themselves up with emotive marketing as ‘caring for the worker’, whilst in the same breath bashing unions.

Before the election is over, the Liberals will exhaust every avenue to convince voters that every small business, investor, entrepreneur or start-up venturist and the struggling multiple property owner, all have regular mums and dads as the centrepiece. These groups will not be represented by siblings, friends and relatives, young people or singles. Definitely no super wealthy millionaires who have inherited bucket-loads of money and pretend they are ‘self-made’ will be included.

This is another key example of the Liberals pretending to be who they are not and Malcolm Turnbull pretending to be who he is not. The Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberals are NOT pro-worker, they are pro-capitalist.

The clear difference is Shorten has and is still self-managing realistic impressions for who he actually is, not who he thinks people want him to be. That is the difference between honesty and dishonesty. With Turnbull setting the campaign agenda on “Trust” voters need to think hard about this.

I predict that the accusations by the Liberals against Labor for holding back mum and dad businesses will become increasingly rabid as the campaign shapes up. We have already seen the Liberals organise protests with truck drivers for a piece of Legislation that they had the power to abolish (which they did). They essentially protested against themselves – the Government, which is one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen happen in politics. They truly still believe they are in opposition.

Whilst Labor battles to give our children the education required for the future and save Medicare and implementing fair policies to give us a fair go, the Liberals will try to smack Labor over the head for not lifting up mums and dads.

It is up to the voters (and the media’s agenda setting) to see through the smoke and mirrors of this tactic.

Recruitment to a Liberal Utopia – Sign up’s on the right

Malcolm will paint Mum and Dads of Australia a Liberal/Libertarian Utopia in a real lot of words, where everyone works for themselves and the unemployed, homeless, pensioners, welfare recipients do not exist. In time, these groups will be bracketed and labelled as “choosing not to ‘make it’. This is an underlying construct of the Liberals’ ideology.

More importantly, under the Liberal ideology, everyone is in charge of their own destiny. Being a Malcolm recruited mum and dad businesses or investor, the Liberals will encourage mums and dads to think that they will be a success like Malcolm and the taxpayer will no longer need to fund hospitals, Medicare, Schools, NBN, community housing or Infrastructure. This will save us a lot of taxpayer dollars, because mums and dads all be able to afford to pay their own way, just like Malcolm. This is the ideological Liberal Party dream in real terms. This is creating a false impression of a world that does not exist.

This is linking the self-impression of ‘self-made Malcolm’ to the creating of the false world where everyone can be a success, if only they try hard enough. (Here, Turnbull is really getting right down into the Liberal ideology, more so than Abbott every did.)

I predict, this message about mums and dads will be delivered at all opportunities, even awkward ones where the message doesn’t really fit. Like in Question Time where a serious question was asked about cancer and blood tests and Malcolm Turnbull, laughed and started talking about the RSRT (which he abolished for the ‘mum and dad’ truck-drivers.)

What Turnbull won’t tell the mums and dads – The real world impression

I see the Turnbull Government selling mums and dads a new Australia. A Utopia where they will have the freedom of not working for someone else. What he won’t tell voters is how many hours mum and dad small businesses must work to stay afloat, or the financial and family sacrifices that are necessary. He won’t tell voters about the worry of paying business taxes and he won’t tell you when consumer spending is down how tough it will actually be. He won’t tell you about the special individual qualities of tenacity and drive that are a necessity, nor will he mention the part about the ever-evolving visionary process to remain competitive. He certainly won’t tell you about the implications of flooding certain markets with new competitors, when there may not be enough demand for your service or product to remain viable. He will just tell mums and dads about freedom from the shackles of labour by rejecting Labor.

Liberal Voter Recruitment Side Effects

Will Turnbull be successful with creating this false world where Mums and Dads are the saviours of our future and the new modern worker? I hope not, but if recruitment to Liberal voting is successful, severe side effects of recruitment may persist after signing up. These are:

  • No Gonski – No real fairness in education
  • No Gonski – STEM jobs at risk
  • People still locked out of the housing market
  • Inferior NBN – costing our nation jobs
  • Destruction of Medicare, Privatisation and Fee for Service co-payments
  • No Marriage Equality and a very expensive opinion poll
  • A risk to the increase of the GST
  • A risk of non-monetary payments introduced instead of wages
  • A return to unfair work choices and individual contracts
  • No investigation into the Banking sector
  • Multi-nationals continuing to not pay their fair share of taxes

If you do not like any of these side-effects of recruitment to the Liberals as a Liberal or National Party voter, the only preventative medicine is to:

PUT THE LIBERAL AND NATIONAL PARTY CANDIDATES LAST

IN THE LOWER HOUSE AND IN THE SENATE

*If you are interested in reading more about Impression Management, please see Erving Goffman’s work.

Originally published on Polyfeministix.

 

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An invitation to Tony Abbott

Three months out from the federal election Tony Abbott must be very frustrated. He has only three months to tell us what he will do as Prime Minister but the mainstream media (MSM) cruelly refuse to hand him the microphone. He must be wondering why they’re not interested in asking him those little things about policies, plans, visions. I’m sure he has many. I’m sure he wants to tell us what they are.

If the MSM refuse to show him some courtesy then he has one alternative: the independent media. We would love to accommodate him. We’d love to ask him those questions that the MSM so rudely ignore.

Tony, we’re here to your rescue. Among the social and independent media your policies, plans and visions will reach an audience of hundreds of thousands of news hungry readers. At least those readers will be privileged to hear first hand what to expect from Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

So we invite you to speak to us.

I know that political parties keep a very sharp eye on political blog sites so I know that someone in the Coalition will be alerted to this post. Could that person please inform Tony Abbott that we want to speak to him? He could always get in touch with us here at The AIMN and following on from that we can arrange an interview with the independent media groups. It will provide Tony with the best opportunity to proudly announce what he has, to date, been robbed from doing: answering questions.

We, and only we, are interested in revealing Prime Minister Abbott to the electorate prior to the election. And I’m sure that Tony Abbott is desperate for the electorate to know more about him. How can he hope to promote himself through a lazy, uninterested, incompetent mainstream media?

By talking to our keen ears we can hear of – and propagate – the election-winning policies that are currently being stifled by the media. At last he’ll find an audience to hear him out.

Hence, Mr Abbott, we offer this invitation to you to come and talk to us.

Allay the fears of many undecided voters who have not had the opportunity to learn what you stand for, especially given there is a possibility that you might control both houses of Parliament. Some people are petrified at this prospect and the devastation you might create because of your inane personality, your reliance on Catholicism and the simplistic minds of your shadow cabinet. You can dispel those fears, which is something the MSM have not given you the opportunity to do.

Your vision is worthless without public support and yes, we are here to support you.

But let’s cut to the chase. Talk to us, on more than anything, about the Institute of Public Affairs; that free market right wing think tank that is funded by some of Australia’s major companies and closely aligned to the Liberal Party. There are rumours in the electorate that every one of your policies, plans or visions has been generated from the influence this think tank has over your party. And while the MSM are not interested to discuss this issue with you, we are.

In an article by the IPA titled Be like Gough: 75 radical ideas to transform Australia the authors suggest that:

“If he wins government, Abbott faces a clear choice. He could simply overturn one or two symbolic Gillard-era policies like the carbon tax, and govern moderately. He would not offend any interest groups. In doing so, he’d probably secure a couple of terms in office for himself and the Liberal Party. But would this be a successful government? We don’t believe so. The remorseless drift to bigger government and less freedom would not halt, and it would resume with vigour when the Coalition eventually loses office. We hope he grasps the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the political culture and stem the assault on individual liberty.”

It is the essence of that last sentence that particularly grates people and the following list gives people the wrong impression of the havoc you might cause. Here’s your chance to undo it. A chance denied by the MSM.

1. Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.
2. Abolish the Department of Climate Change
3. Abolish the Clean Energy Fund
4. Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act
5. Abandon Australia’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council
6. Repeal the renewable energy target
7. Return income taxing powers to the states
8. Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission
9. Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
10. Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol
11. Introduce fee competition to Australian universities
12. Repeal the National Curriculum
13. Introduce competing private secondary school curriculums
14. Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
15. Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’
16. Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law
17. End local content requirements for Australian television stations
18. Eliminate family tax benefits
19. Abandon the paid parental leave scheme
20. Means-test Medicare
21. End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education
22. Introduce voluntary voting
23. End mandatory disclosures on political donations
24. End media blackout in final days of election campaigns
25. End public funding to political parties
26. Remove anti-dumping laws
27. Eliminate media ownership restrictions
28. Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board
29. Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency
30. Cease subsidising the car industry
31. Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction
32. Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games
33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books
34. End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws
35. Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP
36. Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit
37. Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database
38. Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food
39. Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities
40. Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools
41. Repeal the alcopops tax
42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including:

a) Lower personal income tax for residents
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
c) Encourage the construction of dams

43. Repeal the mining tax
44. Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states
45. Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold
46. Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent
47. Cease funding the Australia Network
48. Privatise Australia Post
49. Privatise Medibank
50. Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function
51. Privatise SBS
52. Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784
53. Repeal the Fair Work Act
54. Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them
55. Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors
56. Abolish the Baby Bonus
57. Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant
58. Allow the Northern Territory to become a state
59. Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16
60. Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade
61. Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States
62. End all public subsidies to sport and the arts
63. Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport
64. End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering
65. Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification
66. Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship
67. Means test tertiary student loans
68. Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement
69. Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built
70. End all government funded Nanny State advertising
71. Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling
72. Privatise the CSIRO
73. Defund Harmony Day
74. Close the Office for Youth
75. Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme

Of course, some of those have very little bearing on the electorate. But some have a massive impact. You have been denied the opportunity to discuss these issues with the MSM while we in the independent media have been screaming for you to have a say. So come along and meet with us. Let us be the microphone that blasts your message across Australia. I doubt you’ll never get another chance.

We’d love to chat with you about the above, plus much more. You might even take this as an opportunity to re-affirm that WorkChoices is dead in the water. Put our minds at ease. You can only do this through bypassing the MSM.

My thanks go to John Lord whose article “Public apathy and 75 ideas to make you shudder” inspired this invitation to Tony Abbott.

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