Australians in their somewhat laconic fashion voted to give arguably the worst government in its history another term in office. Little did they know that it would continue carrying its baggage around with it like lost passengers at a domestic baggage terminal.
When you take a look at the current load of baggage it is carrying you realise that nothing has changed. Their propensity for stuffing things up compares with not being able to find one’s car at the Melbourne airport and then not being able to afford the car parking.
The Minister for Government Services, Stuart Robert has been running from one media studio to another trying to defend the use of Centrelink’s contentious Robodebt.
However, despite numerous errors, even a deceased person being chased for an alleged debt, they show little sympathy and they keep on doing it.
Angus Taylor, the Minister for Energy has spent another bad week searching through his luggage trying to find answers to all the questions he was asked last week. As it stands he looks as though Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has let him off the hook.
It seems a conversation with an unnamed Yass farmer (ha, ha), and not the interests of his family had prompted the minister Angus Taylor, to “request briefings from the environment department about a listing to protect native grasslands, he told parliament.”
Really, talk about the pub test. He wouldn’t pass a flight attendant’s luggage test he is so weighted down by his guilt.
Oh and don’t forget that it is Angus who has been charged with bringing our energy prices down. By the end of this term in office they will have had 9 years to do so, with no signs yet.
It has been three years since an attempt was made to bring Question Time up to date, and another attempt is being made to fix it. I’m suggesting they will come up with yet another band-aid solution because things like Dorothy Dixers wont even make the terms of reference.
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Question time in the Australian Parliament is just an excuse for mediocre minds who are unable to debate with intellect, charm or wit, to act deplorably toward each other. And in doing so debase the parliament and themselves as moronic imbecilic individuals.
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Then, internally at least, the Liberals are still having problems with the treatment of women.
One of the first prominent Liberal women to campaign for quotas, the former Victorian senator Judith Troeth, has urged state divisions to take action to improve the party’s culture, and says new sexual assault allegations involving staff are “absolutely deplorable”. (“Merit” isn’t working, so it’s time to introduce quotas, The Guardian).
Not to mention the utter inhumanity of refusing a rise in Newstart. It has now come to the point that the Coalition are prepared to place a surplus ahead of the welfare of the people. How many more will they put onto the streets? Sorry to say it, but we have a very sick government.
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The left of politics is concerned with people who cannot help themselves. The right is concerned with those who can.
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And at the risk of repeating myself, what has the government, after 6 years, got to show in terms of Aged Care. It has been known for decades that a crisis would eventuate. Sure we have an Aged care Royal Commission but there are known problems that could be attended to now. It’s as though the baggage collection wheel continuously revolves but no one wants to collect his or her baggage.
A classic example of this government’s inability to govern has to be the $5 million review into the Home Affairs portfolio.
The Senate demanded that the review, which was announced in last years budget, be produced. Peter Dutton – showing his usual disdain for criticism – refused to produce anything.
On the attack, Labor’s Home Affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally said:
“This is either the single most expensive single piece of paper in the history of this chamber, or a blatant rejection of the will of the Senate by a minister who is allergic to scrutiny.
There was no single consolidated report prepared as part of the strategic review process.”
The department claimed even though $5 million had been spent on the review, Mr Dutton seems to be of the view that he is answerable to nobody.
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Wouldn’t it be good if in our parliament, regardless of ideology, we had politicians whose first interest was the peoples’ and not their own.
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Now let’s move onto poverty,where we find the incidence of it on the increase and you can put it down to government decisions like moving people from welfare to Newstart.
A respected University of Melbourne study has found that:
“… the annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (Hilda) survey, released last Tuesday, found the proportion of people living below the relative poverty line – 50% of the median income – increased in 2017, from 9.6% to 10.4%. Poverty rates also rose using the lower “anchored” measure in both 2016 and 2017.”
“A tightening of the screws” was the phrase used to describe the government’s rearrangement of the welfare system, which has seen Australians moved off higher pension benefits and on to the Newstart allowance.
Labor went into the election with the intention of addressing an unfair system whereas the Coalition always has the poor in mind when seeing that the rich and privileged are not touched.
Now let’s glance an eye towards Indigenous affairs and the Aboriginal desire for recognition in the constitution and a voice in parliament. Not unreasonable, you might say, but not that simple when you have a bunch of middle-aged white men mistily and audibly telling them to know their place.
For that reason, as much as I want it too, I believe it wont happen.
Noel Pearson – a man who knows how to call a spade a spade with the best use of words in Australia – has taken politicians and conservative media commentators like Andrew Bolt to task over what he deems as unfounded opposition to constitutional reform. “Only lies will defeat us,” said Pearson.
I don’t believe that even a voice as powerful a Pearson’s will move the racists in the government.
Whilst action on climate change has dropped off the radar – for the time being – it won’t take much to resurrect it, probably at that time the electorate realises that the government plans to do nothing. Yes, nothing. No, it won’t take much for it to resonate with voters.
It may take a disaster for our reactionary senses to reawaken the monster but it will happen.
On top of all that (above) they are still carrying the luggage from the Medevac bill and is determined to have it repealed. As it stands the government would, if the bill is defeated, have to make financial allocations to keep and maintain Christmas Island. In doing so it would blow a hole in the budget … and we all know what that means.
Other baggage still left of the conservative merry-go-round of too much baggage is the continuing saga of Josh Freydenberg’s eligibility to sit in the parliament, and if the court takes the moral high ground it took with the all the others then all sorts of possibilities arise.
Carrying so much baggage for so long is a heavy burden and it takes a certain kind of person to do so. You need to be strong, with a certain kind of religious fervour.
OMG, that reminds me that the Religious freedom review recommendations are due to be released soon and on top of that the enquiry into Crown Casino.
That’s a lot of baggage to carry for so long a journey.
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My thoughts for the day
The Liberal Party has always been a party of elites and would be’s. The idea that economics and society are intertwined is abhorrent to them. Economics is the domain of the rich and privileged and society belongs to those of class and privilege.
It’s not often I agree with politicians who say the American gun problem is a mental one. The mentality of politicians certainly is.
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