When Julia Gillard was Prime Minister, after every government announcement, action, or inaction the first line of most mainstream media articles on the subject – with predictable and monotonous regularity – began with; “Tony Abbott says …” or “The Leader of the Opposition says…”.
We haven’t been subjected to the same tedious announcements as much since the last federal election, but fear not, it is making its anticipated return.
Today offers no better example.
The announcement that our new $5 banknote will not be graced with King Charles’ portrait had Peter Dutton, in Abbottesque fashion, leap like a startled gazelle and seek a willing, compliant ear at 2GB.
This is some of the text that appeared both in news.com.au and Sky News this morning (the “Leader of the Opposition says… ” moments are in bold):
But Peter Dutton blasted the move as “woke nonsense” and claimed it was a political attack by the government on Australian society and its institutions.
The Liberal leader said ditching King Charles was akin to the movement to change the date of Australia Day, which he likened to “discrimination”.
“I know the silent majority don’t agree with a lot of the woke nonsense that goes on but we’ve got to hear more from those people online,” he told 2GB Radio on Thursday.
Mr Dutton claimed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had been “central” to the change and suggested he hadn’t been upfront with Australians.
“If it’s a decision they’ve made, own it, just be responsible and put your hand up and say this is the reason we’ve made it,” he said.
“I think it’s another attack on our power systems on our society and our institutions. There’ll be significant tax on Australia Day. People want to change that.
“There will be been an attack on the national anthem, that flag the name of Australia as we’re seeing in other parts of the world. So I just think you’ve got to stand up and in a lot more Australians have to be heard.”
I’m cursing myself for not taking a screenshot of the above because much of Mr Dutton’s “wokeness” rant has now been removed. Here is a link to the updated article.
Maybe the online poll received too many “No” votes and keeping the rant online painted Dutton in a negative light. (Yes, it’s conspiracy theory stuff, but I’ll own up to it.) I guess the only way we can find out is if a reader is a subscriber to the websites and is able to see the results.
Or simply, we’ve all had enough of the negative class/race/culture baiting coming out of the current Leader of the Opposition and the mainstream media has finally caught on that it’s not what their readers want.
We can only hope.
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