Apart from Karen’s case study, there are many others. Take “Tony”.
As a young man, Tony had the simple ambition of becoming the Pope, but the demands of celibacy combined with a demand that he cover his chest led him to drop out of the priesthood and before long he’d left the country to train overseas where he studied hand to hand combat at Oxford.
On his return to Australia he became involved in politics where he joined Hewson’s radical “Fightback” program, which had introducing the regressive GST as one of its aims. It also had a plan to make it too expensive for poor people to go to the doctor, which would hopefully reduce the numbers of them voting in elections.
When this was defeated in a popular vote because of the plans being accidentally released during a campaign launch – a mistake Tony was determined not to repeat – Tony decided that he was no longer satisfied with being behind the scenes and began his strategy for ensuring this plan didn’t die with Hewson’s de-radicalisation. He joined a sect with the oxymoronic name of the “Liberal politicians”. Claiming to be the love child of two of the senior members of this sect who had never had carnal relations,Tony subtly suggested that it was a virgin birth and that he was the messiah.
While such a claim may seem ludicrous to us, members of this radical cult found the claim to be plausible and were convinced by his claim that he could outdo the miracle of the loaves and fishes by returning the Budget to surplus while removing taxes with no significant spending cuts.
His capacity to reduce complex problems to three simple words impressed many, but ultimately this led him thinking that his followers would be satisfied with this when it became clear that the “plan” to which he constantly referred, consisted of nothing more than repeating the same simple slogans whatever the question. After a particularly tricky encounter where the ABC ambushed him by asking about the economy when he’d been practising, “stop the boats” all day, Tony was on a slippery slope.
Tony eventually relalised that he was on the wrong path when his colleagues voted in a new leader. Since then Tony has been helping to undo the damage that his group has done by giving beachside interviews to explain that his former colleague, “Scott” has been lying, as well as undercutting the new leader by saying that nothing’s changed.
Tony is expected to a great help to the other side of politics over the coming months.
