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The Untouchables

Continued from “If you wanted more proof of Coalition misdemeanours, here it is.”

As I finished writing my previous post, I had a somewhat disquieting feeling that I had sinned by omission. I was guilty of leaving off my already long list of Coalition misdemeanours, others that should have been included. For that, I apologise. So please do not treat the following as supplementary. On the contrary, they are of equal importance.

1 The Monthly reports that the appointment of Barnaby Joyce as Deputy Prime Minister:

“… is a painful reminder to women that men accused of inappropriate behaviour can still ascend to the highest offices in the land – after three years on the backbench, of course.”

2 Rachael Clun of the SMH reminds us that:

“Voters will face another “Mediscare”-style campaign at the next election as Labor latches onto the federal government’s planned reforms to Medicare to accuse it of cutbacks to the universal health system.

From July 1, more than 900 Medicare Benefits Scheme items will be changed, across orthopaedics, general surgery, cardiac surgical services, vascular, and general practice and primary care item numbers.”

3 Another one I missed was the QAnon mystery. Here is the obvious, which unfortunately has attracted zero interest from the mainstream media:

 

 

4 Indigenous Recognition as a Preamble in the Australian Constitution: Why doesn’t the Constitution recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples? Why the hold-up?

My case is now complete. I have presented the reader with 79 factual instances where this horrific Coalition government has been corrupt, broken established conventions or lied for their convenience.

So, before we go any further, it has to be said that there have been instances, or periods, on both sides of the political divide where governments have been corrupt or even worse. Perhaps there are even darker reasons that have never seen the light of day. Others may have never been exposed and never will but remain buried in the course of Australian political history.

In the comments section of my last post, “Yes Minister” wrote this:

“Whilst there is no argument that the incumbent LNP federal government fully deserves severe criticism, avoidance of mentioning the other political factions implies that they are immaculate, perfect and beyond reproach.”

In response, let me say that l do not mean by the omission of any other comparison to create the impression that one is better than the other. It is just that in 65 years of following Australian politics, I have never known a period of less accountability, less transparency, and less responsibility. My list covers three terms of parliament.

Had I started when Tony Abbott was appointed Leader of the Opposition, it would have made things even worse for the Coalition.

In 2011 we were engrossed in the Health Services Union expense’s affair. Then there was the Pink batt’s scandal.

On top of that, we had the James Ashby/Peter Slipper scandal:

“… a covert political conspiracy by the Coalition to bring down the Parliamentary Speaker, Peter Slipper, and through him the Federal Government of Australia.”

It could have been the most prodigious conspiracy in Australian history.

This was also shameful:

“Australian spy agencies attempted to tap the phones of high ranking Indonesian officials, including the president. Abbott refused to apologise.”

Corruption in Australian Water Holdings and the NSW ICAC investigation into Liberal Party fundraising.

Offshore detention crisis where asylum seekers were locked up indefinitely while their refugee status was being assessed. After nine years, some are still there.

At a press conference, Peter Dutton was overheard saying about the Pacific Islands that:

“Time does not mean anything when you are about to have water lapping at your door.”

 

 

The first Joe Hockey budget delivered by the Abbott government was seen as the worst in Australia’s history based on severe cuts to welfare and other social programs. It triggered a polling slump that Abbott struggled to recover from.

After controversially reinstating knighthoods, Abbott gave one of the first knighthoods to Prince Philip.

And this was disgusting:

“The governing Coalition supported a motion in the senate declaring “it’s ok to be white” and opposing the ‘deplorable rise of anti-white racism and attacks on Western civilisation’.”

And how about Scott Morrison’s holiday and reactions to our bushfires last summer?

“Scott Morrison took a family holiday to Hawaii during one of the worst bushfire seasons on record. He returned only after significant public pressure.

When touring bushfire affected communities, many residents refused to engage with Morrison. On several occasions, Morrison forced a handshake on residents.

The government released an advertisement praising their bushfire response. However, the advertisement was attacked as being a party political ad paid for by taxpayers.”

And this piece of arrogance?

“Scott Morrison’s Mentor, Pastor Brian Houston, was invited to attend an official White House dinner. Houston is under investigation for covering up his father’s sex abuse.”

The primary reason for writing this series was to bring to people’s attention a list of facts that: a) drew attention to the workings of an egregious government; b) was to discuss what could be done to prevent such events in the future, and; c) was why people showed little interest in all this corruption, preferring to vote for the untouchable incumbent for their personal and often ambiguous reasons regardless of the party’s track record.

In any survey one reads, most people seem to be pure of heart and invariably are anti-corruption and against any form of those things that make for obnoxious governance.

However, when you ask whom they will vote for, they will not stray far away from the party they consistently voted for.

In plain English, people understand the truth of things, even the consequences of their party’s decisions but cannot bring themselves to stray from their allegiances. They will join the majority opinion against their party and then vote for them in an election.

So in listing all the misdemeanours, I could find I have answered question A. The answer to B is some form of National Corruption body constituted by people who are not presently politicians, and C lays at the feet of truth-telling politicians and a fourth estate with the same instincts.

On this, I agree with “Yes Minister.”

“That begs the question of creating a more expansive / more encompassing federal ICAC from which all three arms of government are excluded from administering / managing / nobbling, one that can hold politicians, bureaucrats and the judiciary to account since all three groups have demonstrated they are anything but honourable.”

My thought for the day

One of the oddities of political polling is trying to understand how 50% of the voting public would willingly return a party that has governed so abysmally.

 

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17 comments

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  1. Ken

    …………and on and on it goes. When are the people going to wake up to all these idiots in the LNP?

  2. Joe Carli

    The terrible, hidden secret of those who “rise” to become petty property / share owners is that their once identifying with the comeraderie of working-class mates becomes replaced with that familiar to the middle-classes ; distrust, suspicion and hatred toward those who “have not”…

    The reason for good polling results / continuing egregious behaviour of the LNP is because so many people in favourable financial or investment situations are “secretly” voting for the LNP even if they are closet “lefties”..believing “those others” (the poor) can take up their slack rope in elections.

    Once a person “rises” from humble / poor beginnings to accrue a modicum of what they consider “wealth”..be it good postcode, material bling or investment portfolio..the envy and distrust they harboured toward the rich and well-off, shifts 180 deg’s to be directed toward their once fellow travellers and so they vote accordingly.

  3. Phil Pryor

    The pox goes on, not just the covid ongoing problems, but the conservative political pervert profiteering at any cost corporate clan and collusion club. We get misled, coerced, robbed, betrayed, lied to and drenched in propaganda. The liars of media, following the domineering lead of a poxed old foreign warty weasel, tell us bent facts, shaped to suit their following, while the associated advertising industy, the liars of universal twist and turn, make life a picture of fraud, fantasy, fakery and foam. The old rural country party mentality is use and abuse, stock and overstock, extract and overextract, cash before care, then root, rort, rave, rubbish and ransack. Weeds, clearing, ferals, exotics, pests, plagues, poxes, aridity, erosion, all follow the B Joyce-Rooteanddrinkon mentality, the ultimate treacherous stupido way.

  4. wam

    Your thought is worth the morning warmth recovery from the pool.
    As 2019 showed polls are but loosely accurate. But as you say “trying to understand how 50% of the voting public would willingly return a party that has governed so abysmally.” is not difficult.
    If you are honest enough to look, beyond the obvious, rupert, palmer and little billy last minute policies, for reasons that enough of the workers, the unemployed and the pensioners vote against their own best interests to elect and re-elect and re-elect, the LNP, you will find the answers.
    Let me give you a big four:
    1) booby 2009 voting with the rabbott (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-10/carbon-tax-timeline/5569118): Prime minister Kevin Rudd puts its emissions trading scheme on hold until at least 2013, after accepting the Senate is unlikely to pass the legislation any time soon.
    Support for Labor drops in opinion polls.
    2)The bandit’s sleazy hypocritical blackmail 2011 resulting in the disastrous slogan ‘juliar’.
    3)Chrissie’s 2013 unlimited borrowing. I still cannot believe her assertion the loonies got nothing for that vote?
    4)boobbie’s screaming harridans in qld. The timing was for maximum damage to labor with the aim of attracting extra cash for 1st preferences from labor voters and to shore the capital city latte set and it had spectacular results 50% cash increase and two labor seats lost.

  5. Bronte ALLAN

    What a well written & insightful series Mr Lord! Well done in trying to inform the public just how bad rotten & so on are this fucking COALiion! Unfortunately I think you are possibly only talking to the converted, & not the voting public, but who knows, your series is worth reading for all the truths you have stated about just how bad this fucking mob is!

  6. New England Cocky

    1) RE Barnyard Joke: One interviewed voter noted; “”Barnaby Joyce has spent eight (8) years disgracing New England and now he has the chance to disgrace Australia”. . Women supporting adultery support Nazional$. .

    2) RE Aboriginal Recognition in the Australian Constitution: The Liarbral Nazional$ misgovernment is predominantly composed of White Supremacists content to maintain the legal advantages of the 1901 Australian Constitution rather than recognise that Australian Aboriginals are now legally natural persons rather than flora & fauna as occurred until the 1963 Referendum after the Isaac Isaacs judgment about 1906 supporting the disenfranchisement of Aboriginal persons. .

    3) RE Australia Water Holdings proposal to ”own” all NSW water; This policy appears to have been adopted by the NSW Lisarbral Nazional$ misgovernment for the benefit of broad acre farmers in the N MDB and the Costa Guyra Tomato Farm taking Armidale NSW drinking water from the purpose built town water supply Malpas Dam to grow export tomatoes. .

    The principal beneficiary for this largess is likely to be the Nazional$ Party bureaucracy, with current Norther Tablelands MP Holla4A Marshall being rewarded with promotion to NSW Leader for acquiring a source of long term ”political donations” AKA ”political bribes” from a foreign owned multinational investment corporation or even pre-selection for New England when Barnyard Joke finally decides to play full-time happy fathers.

    . Just wait for the water demands from the SANTOS Pilliga Scrub CSG gas-fields for water to be used for extraction processing and the impact this demand will have on the spot price of water for agricultural production of food & fibre. .

    I share you concern that too many Australian voters are still thinking Australian politics is operating under 1950s rules of benevolent Liarbral Nazional$ despotism when in fact the present situation is ”Every politician for themselves”.

  7. Williambtm

    The sovereign nation of Australia is in desperate need of at least 2 dozen more John Lords.

  8. Gangey1959

    Last christmas I was given a desk calendar of daily Shakesperian Insults.
    Some of them are absolute gems.
    Apply today’s to whomsoever you wish.
    “He is a disease that must be cut away”

    Re the parliament as a whole. “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here”
    Re our happyclapper in chief. “He will lie, sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool”
    Our new deputy pm. “Show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour”
    The everso deperate p-dudone “”Who then shall blame his pestered senses to recoil and start, when all that is within him does condemn itself for being there?”
    Mickmac. “By my troth. I was seeking for a fool when I found thee”
    The countess of the coloured crayons, bridge mc k. “There’s a dainty madwoman, as mad as a March hare”

    There are more to come I am sure as the rest of the year unfolds.
    Good luck and stay safe.

  9. Zathras

    What’s truly disturbing isn’t the blatant and obvious corruption and incompetence of successive Liberal governments but that people are still prepared to vote for them.

    In almost all cases people deliberately vote against their own best interests and watch their wealth being vacuumed upwards rather than expecting some to magically trickle down, time after time.

    The ALP certainly has faults of its own but definitely not on the same scale.

    Is it ignorance, indifference, a combination of both or something else?

  10. Stephengb

    J Lord, you said
    “My thought for the day

    One of the oddities of political polling is trying to understand how 50% of the voting public would willingly return a party that has governed so abysmally”.

    Have you not heard of those unbelievably thick, stupid, intellectual minows, called the average effing fcuk knuckle Australian, dipshit ?

  11. king1394

    ” On several occasions, Morrison forced a handshake on residents.” and we can suspect now that this was an attempt at laying on of hands as an expression of Morrison’s Pentacostalism. Imposing your religious rituals on people who would not be happy to be involved in them is a sort of assault

  12. wam

    what a sad read stephenb if you were anywhere near the truth the lnp would never lose but it is likely your arrogance and lord’s omissions come from talking to any of the workers that are intelligent enough to elect scummo through fear of losing their jobs but not smart enough to see through the media lies.

  13. corvusboreus

    wam,
    How about this for negotiatory dialogue:
    “You stupid selfish phuqwitz, if you continue to cut down swathes of trees and dig up and burn metric phuqtonnes of Palaeolithic carbon, you will fast-cook the planets climate and inundate the majority of arable land, meaning that your children and descendants will live diminished and shortened lives, and probably undergo horrific ensuing societal upheavals, with the extinction of our species being a possible outcome (So say science)”
    Suitable words, or should we reserve our abusive opprobrium for those who prioritise environmental concerns?

  14. Williambtm

    It seems to be that a certain stephengb is afflicted with a mind-bending defect somewhere within the brain stem.
    Referring to all the persons who surround him in the manner depicted above is tarred with his hateful rhetoric.
    Not good for a person that desires even a poofteenth of credibility.

  15. Henry Rodrigues

    Nothing these fools ever do is free from controversy or mismanagement. Now its the AZ vaccine and the rollout, and the quarantine procedures and the preferential treatment of who gets in to the country or not.

    But Murdoch and his maggots don’t see anything to comment on. No daily grilling or questions about their competentcy or their integrity. The Crudlin seems to be unaware of anything worth talking about or snarling at.

    Hail to the bastards, the whole lot of them.

  16. Josephus

    There are also approvals of new coal mines, sorry but right now I cannot bear to revisit the local nations’ defenders’ sites begging us to help them keep their land, its waterways, its scared sites ; eg a mine about to lay waste an unmarked colonial massacre site , levelling hills, as well as taking the groundwater. Labor speaks with forked tongue as we all know.
    There seems no end to the vileness of the present lot ; while Labor is split in two over important issues such as coal mines, it cannot match the coal- ition’s repulsiveness.
    The Australian is predicting that Trump will be returned, and excoriates Grace Tame too. She has no right to speak up, apparently.
    I have never felt so depressed, less about lockdown, much more about the ruling morons’ criminality and lack of morals- eg our PM and wife allegedly hobnobbing with white supremacists and kiddy fiddlers, and so it goes .
    No wonder the First Nations do not live long. Grief does cause stress and illness. What have we done to their beautiful countries?

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