On Tuesday night, in an interview on 7:30 report, Scott Morrison made a very ugly confession.
When asked about the change in rhetoric from “budget emergency” and “debt and deficit disaster” to “the most exciting time to be Australian” his trite response was
“Well, you’re asking me about politics Leigh. You’re asking me about politics. What I’m talking about is what is actually happening with the budget.”
So are we to infer from that that everything you said to get elected was bullshit? And that you think that is all ok?
Apparently misleading the Australian public is an acceptable practice if it gets you into power.
How are we to know that what you are saying now isn’t just “politics”?
Scott went even further than Tony by admitting that even what they write down can’t be trusted when he said, about the downgrading of growth forecasts, “The inclusion of this more realistic outlook should be seen as a statement of confidence.”
I don’t quite follow that. Does he mean that we are feeling so secure now that the polls have turned around that we can now tell you the truth?
Are we to be confident amidst worsening economic figures just because the message is delivered with a smile as we are told we should now be excited just to be alive?
Morrison’s whole idea of “politics” is to whip up fear and hatred. Whether it be his despicable suggestion to exploit unease about Muslims, his direction to dehumanise asylum seekers and to paint the trickle of people arriving here as an invading horde of potential terrorists, his vilification of welfare recipients as leaners and cheats and women accessing parental leave as fraudulent double-dippers, his hysteria about the ‘job-destroying’ carbon and mining taxes, his despair over burdening future generations with our debt – he seeks to manipulate opinion through misinformation.
Our ‘new’ government is indeed innovative, flexible and agile – innovative with their slogans, flexible with the truth, and agile in their backflips.
But hey, that’s politics – right Scott? Whatever it takes.
