Ok, I know that everyone took it for granted that Labor would win in 2019. And I know that the true believers are worried about history repeating. I know that nothing’s predictable and that there exists a chance that Scott Morrison will be able to hypnotise large numbers of the public into forgetting that his government has made Tony Abbott look empathetic and Billy McMahon look competent.
Even though I point out that this is not 2019 where Scotty From PhotoOps was largely unknown and that he seemed pretty harmless to a lot of people and hadn’t we just seen those “Back in Black” mugs which made some feel they’d be a bit silly to risk all that sound economic management, some people will still be shaking in their boots and fearing that we’ll have three more years of this bumbling bozo.
While much of the media commentary centres on the campaign and the narrowing of the opinion polls and how difficult it’s going to be for Labor to pick up the necessary seats. it’s worth remembering that he only has to lose a couple of seats and he’s in minority government. It’s also worth remembering that – by and large – 2019 was accurate in terms of the poll numbers in the weeks before the election with the exception of Queensland.
Yes, I could go on pointing out the differences and it wouldn’t soothe the nerves of those who fear that Morrison will do it again. And who knows, he might.
So with that in mind, I thought I’d concentrate on the upside of Morrison’s win.
He’ll destroy the Liberal Party.
Think about it. The NSW branch are already pissed off and have taken him to court. Of course, one of the people who tried to take him to court had his party membership revoked under some by-law which confers god-like status on the Prime Minister. How many other dissenting voices would Morrison get rid of after the election?
Morrison has also changed the rules to stop the party getting rid of him without a two-thirds majority. Add to this the fact that he’s trying to stack the party with acolytes so that it’ll be impossible to remove him.
Then we have the coming interest rate rises. Now, normally the Liberal Party have enough sense to lose an election just before the economic shit hits the economic fan. Look how John Howard said, “Stand down and leave it to Peter Costello to win? No, not only would that be terribly unsatisfying because I’ve enjoyed holding out the treat and then taking it away and there’s no fun in actually giving it to him, but I think we’re about due for another recession which we can then blame Labor for… We have to think long term and then I can have a bit of a rest and come back as leader like Lazarus with a quadruple bypass…”
(Ok, I have no actual record of John Howard saying this but – like Angus Taylor – I don’t need to have anything to back up the things I think are true; it’s enough that I believe that it might be true. Actually, it’s enough for me to want it to be true.)
Moving on, Scotty is re-elected and they can’t get rid of him, even though most of the country is waking up like somebody who drank too much and decided to get back at their ex by having a one-night stand with the first eligible person who came along only to discover that their definition of “eligible” was considerable different after three wines, a vodka cocktail and what was that last drink I ordered shortly before saying, “Viva Mr Speaker…”
Anyway, the only option is for the moderates to leave the party, form an alliance with the Independents and create a party which they’ll call the “Fuck Scott Morrison Party” until they can agree on a name that’s more acceptable to the AEC, even though there’s general consensus that the basic sentiment in the name is acceptable to more than seventy percent of Australians.
Far-fetched? Perhaps. But not as far-fetched as the general media interest in opinion polls when – if the election ends up being a win to the Coalition – I could be just as accurate if I pulled two numbers out of a hat and said that this was the two-party preferred vote. Ok, maybe the numbers need to be 50 something to the equivalent 40 something but you get the drift.
In terms of this election campaign, the line “Whatever happened to the Budget emergency?” probably won’t be used but Labor might like to consider: “When Scott Morrison says if you vote for me, you know what you’ll get, we’d like to agree, but is it what we deserve?”
Ok, it’s more than a three-word slogan but sometimes the truth can’t be expressed succinctly. Although the PM did say something about, “Better the devil you know…” Perhaps, Labor could try something like “It’s time we didn’t have a devil for PM…”
I guess this is why I’m not in advertising!
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