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The price of arrogance

By Ad astra

It’s all very well for us to say how much we deplore the arrogance of our Prime Minister, but as Aussies who live under his ‘rule’ we can’t avoid the awkward fact that those who live elsewhere may see us as tarred with the same brush! How easy would it be for them to believe arrogance is an Australian characteristic? His behaviour taints us all.

So when he represents us in international fora, what he says, and the attitude he exhibits, reflect on all of us. Just as does the behaviour of a religious leader whom we might follow, or the top person in a club to which we belong. They not only represent us; their persona also has an impact upon us.

How many of you were embarrassed by PM Morrison’s response to the Biden-sponsored forum on climate change involving 40 world leaders? I certainly was. Any of you who wish to peruse the details of the forum can find them here.

In introducing the summit, Biden said: “The signs are unmistakable. The science is undeniable. But the cost of inaction keeps mounting.

Did that impact upon our PM? No! Did he make you as uncomfortable as he did me by telling the world that he will run his own race irrespective of other countries and their opinions?

In announcing Australia’s response, with characteristic arrogance, he refused to bow to pressure from the US to use the summit to announce an increased target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He told an astonished summit: “We are well on the way to meet our Paris commitments,” thereby laying bare the gulf between Australia and many of its key allies in how best to tackle the climate crisis. He added: “We’ll update our long-term emissions reduction strategy in time for the Glasgow COP26 climate action conference” scheduled for November.

In a recent revelation, offered in a speech to a live audience at the Australian Christian Churches conference on the Gold Coast last week, Morrison claimed he was called upon to do “God’s work as Prime Minister of Australia”. In the same address he labelled social media as “the work of the devil”.

What do you think? Those of you who believe they have a fix on Morrison’s nature and intentions may be living in fantasy land. While there is bound to be a diversity of opinion, who can avoid the conclusion that his unbridled arrogance is obvious? And that it is dangerous?

This article was originally published on The Political Sword

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16 comments

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  1. HENRY RODRIGUES

    Its not arrogance, its subservience to the crinkled old bastard and the mining industry and the coalition donors. Scummo does not have the ability to formulate his own response, but he is master of bowing and scraping and licking arse, and rubbing his nose in the crap that emanates from the backsides of the climate denying bastards. He owes his position to those same bastards and they make sure he never forgets.

  2. Terence Mills

    Have you noticed how the National Party retaining the seat in the Upper Hunter, a seat they have held for over ninety years, has been turned into a massive loss for Labor ?

    If Labor are to gain any mileage before the next federal election they have to either neutralize the LNP spin department or get a better one themselves.

    Newscorp are off the wall with their joy at Labor being “thrashed” and Sky after Dark have become positively venomous in their hatred for Labor : it’s not healthy.

  3. pierre wilkinson

    The man is an international embarrassment, a serial liar and totally corrupt, both morally and socially.
    The sooner the Australian public wake up to his misogyny, hubris and unflinching dedication to the IPA and Murdoch, the sooner we can be rid of his incompetence and ineptitude.

  4. Vikingduk

    This morrison thing, all smirk & mirrors, truly the liar from the shire, the empty vessel full of arrogance, deception, hypocrisy, lies and that sanctimonious fucking smirk, powered by another thing known as repulsive rupert, the purveyor of a completely corrupt ideology lovingly spewed forth by its propaganda machine, news corpse — where the truth goes to die.

    How to convince the brainwashed many to look beyond the gloss, look behind the lipsticked pig, wake up and look. Otherwise we will be stuck with this merry band of grossly incompetent, lying, conniving, traitorous, arrogant scum suckers.

  5. ajogrady

    Under their masterful and expert dereliction of duty and their corrupt guiding influences the L/NP, with their usual ability to disregard any practical use of due diligence or forward planning, has Australia destined to become a major economic backwater and an internationally recognised pariah state that will be ridiculed, ostracized and become irrelevant on the world stage.
    Scotty from marketing or SlowMo,the periferous penticostalot Pinocchio, with his conga line of corrupt theives and con artists masquerading as a government are doing what they do best, deceiving and destroying gullible Australians lives and living standards while they funnel taxpayers monies into the pockets of L/NP donors who mostly do not pay taxes. Corruption 101.
    Australians keep voting for the party that does not represent or respect them. A party that is an insult to Democracy and an embarrassment to good governance. A party that is built on nepotism and corruption. A party that is practised in the art of deception. A party that is big on rhetoric but small on achievement. A party that has overseen the collapse of Australian living standards. A party that has been the architects of the most failed policies in Australian history. A party that has decimated the economy and the emvironment. There has been enough evidence in the public arena for many many years that the L/NP are a criminally corrupt cabal of foot soldiers for big business and have been a continuous and destructive impediment to Australia reaching its true potential. The fact that the L/NP shake hands with devils and turn their backs on angels is indisputable. Greed and corruption is their religion. Lies and distortion is their game. The L/NP are a parasitic pox on good honest hard working Australians. “1984” was written as a warning … not as an instruction manual for the L/NP.

  6. guest

    It is with great joy that the Nationals celebrate their victory in the Hunter elections. Anyone would think they were expecting to lose – even though they have always won in that electorate over the past 90 years. It seems that they are nervous that the inner-city ‘leets might have had some influence and brought about the failure of working rural coal miners.

    But no, here they have won again. They point to gains to their towns brought about by the profits of their labour and the coal companies they work for.

    Halfway between Newcastle and Dubbo, near the Upper Hunter, is the town of Wellington. There can be seen a large array of solar panels, and along the ridges of the nearby hills are rows of wind turbines. What are coal miners to make of those? Are here rural people who think like inner-city latte-sippers and know something about the big elephant: Climate Change?

    Climate Change is happening everywhere, for rural people and city people. It is inescapable. Even when we look at photographs from places overseas, we see renewable energy sources. While miners have been digging up and shipping coal overseas, other people have been working to reduce carbon emissions. Even Adani is working at a much lower rate than it promised, with less work force, and at the same time are in the business of making sources of renewable energy.

    Coal is in decline. Even the Newcastle Port Authority is working on how it will survive in the future. No wonder Hunter Nationals are overjoyed they have survived this election, but must be concerned about their futures. Especially with people working alongside them in alternative energy sources which are becoming universal and the cooking of the planet is less and less desirable.

  7. Andrew J. Smith

    Unfortunately this is not news to many people outside of and/or those who have visited Australia, over decades, the imagery is of white angry aggressive and nationalist moaners, with a strong economic libertarian streak.

    Worse, have been those (Singaporean and a Scot) describing Australians as clearly not relaxed nor comfortable but anxious, fearful and often angry about non issues (Can be a symptom of narcissm or NPD); thanks to our media for which this is the modus operandi for 24/7/365 electoral campaigning, all puff, presentation and paucity of principles.

    On the other hand, I have observed Thatcher’s English children (I know many both Brexit and Remain) who are middle aged now, but can become very nationalist, riding on feelings, emotions and outbursts, from similar media conditioning, with Brexit being a symptom supported by ‘collective narcissism’.

  8. wam

    Arrogance is the new Australians character since the lying rodent we have replace the septic tanks as arrogant travelers. If anyone has met Nelson, you know arrogance extremis but if not any pollie will do.
    ps
    Terence and guest labor should be worried I maybe wrong but labor 2600 and nats 4200 out of 13000 formal whilst in the last election labor 14000 and the nats 16000 out of 48000 formal. That shows if labor had got off their arse and encouraged labor to turn up even three or four thousand votes could have won the seat. Labor are inept at understanding the electorate and the system. They believe their internal polling and act on that belief. They don’t equip labor members with counters to slogans and they think the non labor politicians are colleagues when arseholes like fitzgibbon hasn’t been a colleaguessincegillardsmackedhis little red bum.

  9. guest

    wam, I will leave others to decipher your obscure comment on arrogance and instead go to your advice for Labor’s state election campaign in the Upper Hunter, an election which Labor has not won in 90 years.

    Your analysis leads you to think that Labor has crept a little closer and if Labor had “got off their arse” and had equipped Labor voters “with counters to slogans”, then Labor “could have won the election”. Coulders and shoulders and woulders do not cut it.

    The movement of votes you note is significant, of course. But one might think that the reality of Climate Change might have had a more significant impact. Stockton Beach near the North Arm of the Hunter River, adjacent to Newcastle, in 2019 lost 500,000 cubic metres of sand to surging sea waters and some 20 cabins near the foreshore at Stockton Caravan Park had to be moved.

    I am sure the people of the Hunter Valley are aware of these matters – and other effects of Climate Change in rural areas – and inner city people are aware as well. Joel Fitzgibbon, despite a smack on the bottom, is aware of the problem of what will happen to coal miners and mine workers in his electorate if coal becomes a stranded asset.

    It is a problem for the whole country, because coal is a big item in the Oz economy. And money speaks the loudest in some parts of the electorate. They want to get it while they can, because mining pays big to the declining numbers of workers left in the job. How can they support their families without a job?

    What is the answer, wam? More answers to slogans?

  10. Florence Howarth

    I wonder how many who voted had any connection or interest in coal or gas & miners. In truth, it is a diverse region. Not sure picking a miner as a Labor candidate was a good move.

    Time for a serious survey in an attempt to identify what influence the vote. This needs to be done before Labor overreacts, leaping to the wrong conclusion.

    IMHO, Labor probably lost more votes by not being clear, more honest & sticking to reality when it comes to the future of coal. Forget the fear of PM wedging. Will try in every decision Labor makes.

  11. Terence Mills

    WAM

    What is interesting is how the Murdoch media including Sky have embarked on a campaign to unseat the Labor leader, Jodi McKay.

    They are saying that her position is ‘untenable’ – they love that word – they are saying that she was responsible for the massive loss in the Upper Hunter – which nobody ever expected Labor to win.

    So far there are no challengers for the leadership but Newscorp won’t rest until they have her scalp.

    It won’t be long before they find that Albanese’s leadership federally is untenable and they’ll go after him, probably closer to the election.

  12. marty

    Yep you are right there Wam, if labor has a media strategy of looking like insipid cowards then its working just magnificently, if you cannot muster enough passion and downright hatred for this bunch of fucking corrupt assholes then just go and join them like Fitzgibbon has, as for Albanese his best mate in parliament was Pyne FFS……What hope?

  13. Zathras

    This government is inept, incompetent, financially reckless, dishonest and corrupt yet somehow still has electoral support.
    Apart from the eternal coal dilemma, the ALP is making the right noises but nobody seems to be listening or even care.
    Maybe we really do get the government we deserve and not the type we need during a time of crisis.

    How are those 10,000 Adani jobs working out?

  14. GL

    I see Scotty from Marketing as being as equally ignorant as he is arrogant.

  15. guest

    So there are those who want to criticise Albo. Read his response to the budget – full of accusations against the Coalition which everyone knows are true.

    What do they want? Bells and whistles and dancing in the streets?

    There are criticisms ofgovntappearing in the Murdoch media. Niki Savva for example. Or Janet Albrechtsen (26/5/2021)

    Albrechtsen says, concerning COVID: “…government no longer has an excuse for its go slow mode…the government still refuses to set a basic threshold of vaccinations for reopening borders for the vaccinated…there is not a hint of a plan here…charting a political course to re-election by maintaining a pandemic status quo.”

    And with regard to plans for net-zero emissions by 2050, we might well echo Albrechtsen by asking SloMo what his plans are for 2050. And what are his plans for the future coal and coal miners.

    Because there seems to be a contradiction between net-zero emissions and the suggestion that coal will be and essential part of our economy until the end of this century.

    As time goes on, we can be sure more and more questions will be asked.

  16. DrakeN

    GL, Scott’s arrogance is born of his ignorance.
    That is, however, not uncommon in commerce, religion and politics – actually, it can be a real disadvantage to be fully acquainted with facts.

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