There is an old joke about the Pentecostal Christian that arrives at the ‘pearly gates’ after drowning in a flood while telling anyone that would listen the Lord will save him. He asks the Lord why he wasn’t saved. The Lord’s response is ‘I made sure you heard the weather forecast, then sent a flood boat and finally a helicopter to save you; what more did you want’.
It’s not unfair to make a comparison between that old joke and the current Liberal Party. Fresh from a general election loss their new leader, who doesn’t have a reputation for considering alternative views, calls the new government a ‘bad’ government before they are formally sworn in. After announcing his shadow cabinet of predominately the same people that lost the election, the shadow cabinet then start work. The work they start is the comparison between what they would have done and what the current government is doing. The immediate concern is the realisation that a number of the pork barrel announcements on car parks, installing traffic lights and so on were cancelled by the incoming government. Traffic lights and commuter car parks are typically not a federal government responsibility anyway.
The commentary is to ‘give them time’. They have to ‘find their feet in opposition’ and in time they will work out that they have to develop alternate policies to the government’s. It is also felt that in time they will work out that the policies they implemented during their decade of power are not relevant to regaining government sometime in 2025. The Liberal Party seems not to have understood the commentary.
The Victorian branch of the Liberal Party goes to a state election with similar policies to the federal Liberal Party against an ALP Premier that has been in power for a number of terms, had a considerable amount of time to make enemies (and has succeeded quite well with long term lockdowns during the COVID Pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 as well as his reputed management style) and some feelings that a new broom is required. Some in the Victorian Liberal Party obviously thought they had won power prior to the election day by divvying up the spoils and being less than subtle about their real agenda. The public took one look and decided they were not ready to govern, handing government back to Dan Andrews for another four years.
Then Allan Tudge, a former federal minister resigns his seat in the east of Melbourne after a mediocre career at best, highlights being one well publicised extra-marital affair and assisting in the development and implementation of the fraudulent Robodebt process. The Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme was told there were a considerable number of victims suffering mental illness as a result of stress and sadly a number of suicides directly attributable to social security recipients being told to repay debts that were not incurred or overblown.
The Opposition Leaders marketing slogan coming into the by-election was the government couldn’t run an economy because prices and interest rates were going up. Yes, they were but a similar economic problem was occurring in a number of developed economies around the world. Tudge’s election lead had been reducing at recent elections but a candidate selection by Liberal Party Victoria HQ over the wishes of the local members saw the seat won by the ALP. It is the first time in over a century that an incumbent government has won a seat from the major opposition party. The Opposition Leader’s marketing slogan after the election was that at least he had kept the party together.
Around the same time, the Opposition Leader, after ‘considering the evidence and discussing with stakeholders’ announces the Liberal Party leadership will campaign against the ‘Voice to Parliament’ referendum. A number of Liberal backbenchers have publicly announced they will either not campaign or campaign for a yes vote regardless of the official party position. The Opposition Leader still hasn’t disclosed the evidence he considered and the stakeholders he consulted.
In more recent times Karen Andrews, another former minister announced her retirement from the shadow ministry immediately and her retirement from parliament at the next election to pursue other interests. The shadow Attorney General Julian Leeser also announced his move to the backbench so he could campaign for a yes vote at the forthcoming ‘Voice to Parliament’ referendum. The Opposition Leader announced some more hard line conservatives would be taking the place of both of these former ministers and told the press that neither of the former ministers were pushed, they resigned from the shadow ministry on their own terms.
Early in May, another former and now shadow minister Stuart Robert announced his immediate retirement. In comparison to Allan Tudge, Robert had a stellar ministerial career. In 2018, Independent Australia produced a list of Robert’s Parliamentary career highlights to date – including the $2,000 per month in ‘internet charges’ charged to the taxpayer. Robert’s claimed internet usage was 300 gigabytes of data per month on a plan that allowed 50 gigabytes, the rest being charged at a ‘per gigabyte’ rate. Robert has a masters degree in information technology. More recently, Robert accepted absolute responsibility for the management of the illegal Robodebt system implemented by the Coalition Government in the ongoing quest to belittle those who need some financial assistance to survive.
It seems that the Liberal Party can’t see that Australia has moved on from the politics of division and hatred. The mythical Pentecostal Christian drowned rather than accept the reality of their situation, it seems that the Liberal Party is also fixated on an outcome that is unrealistic. Will they accept the help of the flood boat or the helicopter? No one knows, but it could be fun to watch.
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