I was prompted to start writing about politics when the spectre of the highly inadequate Tony Abbott as Prime Minister was first being seriously considered.
Having known Tony at university, it was completely unfathomable to me. We had always dismissed him as an inconsequential bovver boy, an overconfident loudmouth who spouted his indoctrinated views, a young man with anachronistic opinions and an overinflated sense of his own ability – a ‘second-grade footballer, third-rate academic and fourth-class politician.’
When the unthinkable happened, it didn’t take the country, or his own party, long to realise they had given the job to a man who wasn’t up to it, and Tony was disempowered. The people of Warringah then completed the disengagement.
Sadly, for all his high and mighty words, both before and after, Malcolm Turnbull turned out to be a Fizza, unable to lead a party that always viewed him with suspicion.
In part, that was his own fault. He, and subsequently Scott Morrison, intervened to ensure the preselection of nutters like Craig Kelly, Andrew Laming, and George Christensen.
These guys were not supported because of the great contribution they have made whilst in parliament. The politically expedient value of incumbency was put ahead of merit or the wishes of the local preselectors.
For different reasons, none of these three will be running for the Coalition in the next election. Good riddance.
But there is still work to do.
Peter Dutton has failed at every ministry he has been given. He is a plodder, a dull bully boy whose approach to everything is destructive. The negative reports about his administration from stakeholders, the ANAO, and his own departments, are endless.
And now they have given him defence.
This morning Dutton, the man now in charge of the guns, fired a shot at China on Channel 9.
“We’re not going to have our values compromised, we aren’t going to surrender our sovereignty,” the defence minister said as he admonished Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews for doing the wrong thing in signing the agreements with China which have now been abolished by the Federal government.
“He shouldn’t be entering into agreements that aren’t in our national interest,” says the man whose government allows our gas to be sold to overseas buyers far more cheaply than to the domestic market, the man whose government continues to subsidise fossil fuels and the technologies that will prolong their use.
And what of the Country Liberal Party’s decision to lease the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company for 99 years?
At the time, federal trade minister, Andrew Robb, was an enthusiastic supporter.
“Landbridge’s commitment to the growth of the Port of Darwin will be a huge spur to the development of Australia’s north, serving as a catalyst for the entry of major investment right across the port’s upstream supply chain in agriculture, resources and energy and economic infrastructure,” he told the Guardian in late 2015.
The day before the 2016 election, Robb accepted a job with Landbridge paying $880,000 a year.
Dutton also took aim at China for building up military bases in the region and launching cyber attacks – topics the intelligence, foreign affairs, diplomatic and defence communities have been at pains to deal with circumspectly.
Not Dutton, who launches straight in.
“All of that is not the actions of a friend… We need to make sure that yes, we’ve got an important trading relationship, but China and others need to understand that Australia is not going to be bullied. We are standing up for who we are. We’ve got very important diplomatic relations with many countries including China, but we aren’t going to be compromised by the principles of the Communist Party of China.”
Dutton apparently wants to look like a hawk but the reality is that he is an albatross around the neck of this country.
It’s time for the people of Dickson to ‘take out the trash‘ before this idiot, as he inevitably does, makes things worse.
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