By opposing same sex marriage, Tony Abbott has reinforced the notion that homosexuality is “queer” – that members of the LGBTI community are a threat to our society.
By indefinitely incarcerating asylum seekers in offshore detention camps he has reinforced the idea that refugees are not victims but criminals who pose another threat to our society.
By labelling us as lifters or leaners he has reinforced the perception that those on welfare are bludgers, scamming the system because they are too lazy to get a well-paying job.
By calling women who receive maternity leave from their employer “double-dippers” who are committing fraud, he has failed to appreciate the disadvantage women face in the workplace and denied them their workplace entitlements.
By saying he wants Sydney house prices to go up – if people are buying them they must be affordable – he shows an unbelievable ignorance of the housing affordability crisis.
By his perpetual dog-whistling about imminent terror threats from an apocalyptic death cult, as well as brief flirtations with banning cultural dress, he has alienated the Muslim community and made them the target of suspicion and abuse.
By ignoring all scientific evidence about climate change and the dangers of burning more coal, he has destroyed the renewable energy industry and damaged the global effort to avoid catastrophic weather events.
By proposing the deregulation of university fees, despite receiving the benefits of a free education and several of his ministers campaigning against fees when student politicians, he is potentially saddling our children with a huge debt before they even begin their working lives thus precluding large numbers from even considering a tertiary education.
By dismantling FttP NBN, he has made Australia an information backwater, ranked 44th and falling for internet speed. While the rest of the world moves to fibre, we are paying a fortune for Telstra’s copper network.
By stripping people of their citizenship, he is breaking up Australian families and leaving people homeless.
By demonising unions he has robbed workers of their collective voice in preparation for the resurrection of workchoices and the demise of penalty rates.
By slashing over $500 million from Indigenous funding, combined with intemperate comments about uninhabited Australia and lifestyle choices, he has shown a blatant disregard for our First People, their culture, the crisis of Aboriginal incarceration, and our failure in closing the gap.
By defunding NGOs, charities and community groups, he has caused the closure of refuges, crime prevention and mentoring programs, and domestic violence support groups.
By introducing metadata retention and criminal charges for disclosure, he has sanctioned spying on all citizens and overridden the public’s right to know what is done in our name.
By refusing to release government advice and modelling, he is robbing us of the chance to make informed decisions.
By slashing funding to the States he is making it basically inevitable that the GST will go up, greatly increasing the cost of living.
By freezing the indexation on Medicare payments, he will force doctors to make up the lost revenue – a co-payment by stealth. He has also almost entirely dismantled Australia’s national preventive health system.
By slashing funding to the CSIRO and other research bodies, he has caused many promising programs to be abandoned and we are losing our brightest researchers to other more enlightened countries who understand the value of their work.
By being unwilling to undertake economic reform, he has overseen a deterioration in all economic parameters with no upturn in sight.
By insisting on captain’s picks, usually advising his colleagues via the Murdoch press, he has alienated his Cabinet, his party room, the Parliament and the people.
By abrogating our global responsibilities towards asylum seekers and credible action on climate change, combined with gaffes too numerous to mention, he has trashed our international reputation.
But hey, he gave up billions in revenue from the carbon and mining taxes and stopped talking about the boats. And IS haven’t invaded us yet. Surely that’s enough reason to want him as our leader?
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