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Why The WA Result Has Absolutely No Implications For Turnbull

While Pauline has decided to emulate her hero, Donald Trump, and ban a certain news organisation from her post-election party because she can, I hear from other outlets that she thought that One Nation had a great result in the WA election. Yes, one poll told us that they were likely to get twenty percent, and most polls suggested a vote as high as ten, Pauline isn’t greedy and was happy with almost five. After all, they really weren’t ready and they weren’t very organised and they had to rush everything, so all things considered, it was a very good result and if it wasn’t for the media stoking controversy by reporting what she actually said, then it would have been a great result. Yes, she did talk about Putin and vaccinations but these things weren’t the things that mattered and people were drawn to her because she spoke about Important Issues that Mattered to People. And yes, the preference deal was a mistake, but they wouldn’t rule out doing it again. Similarly, the Liberals weren’t ready to concede that it was a mistake, even though they were acknowledging that maybe it hadn’t worked as well as they’d hoped.

Basically they sounded like a couple who’d hooked up online, had a quickie before they’d finished their first drink together, felt a sense of embarrassment when telling their respective friends, but neither was prepared to rule out a repeat, because they both suspected that they’d soon be desperate enough to do it again.

It seems that both parties overlooked the simple fact that the exchange of presences doesn’t work that well, unless the other party is actually getting votes. To be fair, they did both get votes. Just not enough to actually help each other actually win any seats. Although as one brave Liberal suggested, there were still a couple of lower house seats where One Nation preferences might get them over the line. If that happens that should give the Liberals bragging rights over the Nationals. “See, we still won twice as many seats as you did!” Sort of makes the deal worth it!

Predictably, there were no Federal Implications in this election. As Matt-Finish Cormann told us, this election was fought on State Issues, and when asked about Shorten’s comments that penalty rates had been a factor, the Terminated told us that Bill Shorten was irrelevant and he only came over to bask in the glory of Labor’s win. Now, I know that some Labor supporters will want to point out that Shorten went over several times to campaign, while Turnbull only went once, told WA not to expect anything to be done about the GST carve-up until after the next Federal election but he did feel their pain and he intended to do something about someday and jobs and growth, innovation, innovation, Labor bad, jobs and growth, aren’t I handsome, vote for whatsisname and yeah, Pauline isn’t a bad sort is she, jobs and growth, thank you linesman, thank you ball-boys, let’s get out of here before I have to take some of the blame, and who are those villagers circling with torches and pitchforks, before disappearing back to Canberra as fast as his little jet would take him.

So, all things considered, it seems exactly as I wrote yesterday, that Malcolm will be completely safe and that nobody will see this as something that could reflect on the current Canberra mob in any way. I’m also expecting that Tony Abbott will appear sometime today and express his belief that now is not the time to change leaders, Andrew Bolt will write a column on what a great job Turnbull is doing, Malcolm will talk about his great working relationship with Scott Morrison and Cory Bernardi will ask to rejoin the Party. because, well, this was all about State Issues!

25 comments

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  1. Vikingduk

    Certainly will happen as you predict, Rossleigh, would write more but the hogs need draining, they fly with much more grace with empty bladders.

  2. Spiral

    May you never get tired of hitting the Bullseye consistently Rossleigh.:)

  3. havanaliedown

    Well, they would say that. You know things are bad when your party cohorts ask you as PM to stay away from their election campaign!

  4. Carol Taylor

    Of course it doesn’t reflect on Canberra..things such as pandering to One Nation while ignoring wages flat-lining, jobs instability and wasting oodles of money, has zero to do with Malcolm’s mob.

  5. kerri

    Pauline blames the Libs and the Libs blame Labor?
    How long do you think Ashby will last?

  6. Stephen Griffin

    The polls are almost identical and the WA election is a forecast of what is in store for the federal COALition if they don’t accelerate their plans and/or change course. Turnbull will be lucky to make it ’till the end of March.

  7. havanaliedown

    Stephen, how should Turnbull “change course”, and will it change your vote to Liberal?

  8. Leanne Jones

    I’m so glad that Pauline pantsdown helped defeat Barnett. Hopefully she will do likewise in the next federal election. That would be so ironic!
    This current guvmint is bereft of ideas and talent. I hope that one day soon we will have actual jobsngrowth instead of a three word slogan.
    Great writing Rossliegh to by the way.

  9. brickbob

    Hanson and her mob during this whole election period were like an old steam train chugging out from the station,they go pretty well on the flat stretches but once they hit that steep hill ..eg.. the actual election they start to run out of steam,which is exactly what happened.

  10. Michael Taylor

    I’m so glad that Pauline pantsdown helped defeat Barnett.

    I wonder when she’ll start blaming him for her poor result. She’s blaming everyone else, so she may as well add him to the list.

  11. jim

    LOOK!………..ahhh……..ssluck……had I been PM we would of had a slightly better chance, you……ssluck..erm…..bet your brown onion you is. ahh… LOOK!…ill let you a secret… err……Col..Collin cannot use spin like I did in the….in the ..old days, LOOK!..shit happens Barry.

  12. Gangey1959

    180.
    ”If that happens that should give the Liberals bragging rights over the Nationals. “See, we still won twice as many seats as you did!”
    Yeah right. double digits. Grate effort.
    @ havanaliedown. Maybe he could ask those to the speakers left if they would let him still be pm if he could come and sit with them, because his private schoolyard prats that he usually played with were starting to be really mean to him.
    (The numbers would stack up, and Australia might end up with a guvvermint with an IQ higher than half-of-a-used-briquette.)

  13. Rossleigh

    I guess you haven’t seen this yet, Michael:

    Top Stories: Pauline Hanson blames ‘sour milk’ Barnett for One Nation’s poor showing
    http://ab.co/2mwZM4o

  14. Kaye Lee

    The new government is likely to have to deal with a fractured Upper House, with One Nation currently projected by the ABC to pick up two seats, while Fluoride Free WA, the Liberal Democrats and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are all forecast to win one spot each.

    2 One Notions, 1 windfall for dentists, 1 tobacco lobbyist and 1 gun lobbyist – good luck with that!

    Another page is predicting one of the One Notion’s seats could go to the Daylight Saving Party. Looks like Labor and the Greens might have 18 out of 36 Upper House seats, Libs 9, Nats 4, and 5 odds and sods.

  15. Stephen Griffin

    @havanaliedown I’ll never vote Liberal.

    When I said “change course” I was meaning that Turnbull should stop allowing himself to be held to ransom by his back bench.

    The danger for Australia now is that these ponies will accelerate their IPA wishlist because they won’t get another chance after the next federal election.

    Turnbull should call another election or resign from parliament.

  16. havanaliedown

    They’re not holding him to ransom – quite the contrary… if he’s forced from the leadership, he can merely quit as member for Wentworth, and we lose government.

  17. Steve Laing

    Ahh, to be able to go to bed and wake up to a bran nue day! The west is won, the emperor nakedness has been revealed.

    You have to hand it to Barrie Cassidy on Insiders. He managed to do what the rest of the MSM completely failed to do – reveal precisely the stupid naivety of Pauline Hanson – and everything else followed on from that point. Sure, the Libs were no doubt going to lose, but suddenly anything associated with Hanson just turned to shit, and that included the Liberals, and it all just started going south very quickly from there.

    And it’s not over yet. Poor Malcolm is now in a total pickle. Porleen has declared the problem isn’t the Liberals, but Barnett. As a closet Liberal she still wants to be back in the fold and will no doubt keep supporting them in her votes, even if she says that she’s there to keep them honest. And Malky and his band of fools know that to have any chance of getting their nasty agenda through the senate, they need to keep them sweet, even though they can now see that she is poison simply by association.

    (Actually, just as an aside, I’m beginning to wonder whether the public crucifixion of Ahmed Fahour was orchestrated as part of a sop/deal to placate Porleen? Shows them being “tough on Muzzies”.)

    But now that we’ve had Arfur and Howard and countless other Libs legitimising One Nation, whilst the public finally seem to be realising/remembering that she is actually just a racist fruitcake who has got worse rather than better, with age, and large tracts of reasonable voters will recognise that.

    The problem the Libs now have is that they’ve let that particular genie out the bottle and the cork can never be stuck back, short of begging the public for forgiveness for their rank opportunism, at the expense of any moral idealism that they might have otherwise been able to pretend they ever had. They can no longer ever play the moral high ground, and I hope the public increasingly realise it (keep reminding them Bill), and that it continues to sink that band of value-free, selfish luddites to the fringes where they deserve to be.

  18. nurses1968

    I remember reading an article on PHON where all candidates had to purchase a $3500? election starter pack of corflutes htvs etc from James Ashby or his company .{was it Kaye Lee ?}
    Interesting on (MSM today

    “Someone’s about to get fired.

    Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party appears to have misspelt Kalgoorlie on a corflute displayed at a polling booth for the Western Australia election today.

    A photograph taken by a voter shows the corflute with the town’s name spelt “Kagoorlie”.

    The photograph has since been tweeted by a number of amused members of the public.

    Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/03/11/17/23/one-nation-misspells-kalgoorlie-on-election-corflute#cVSuW1gOIlDJ0DYz.99

    From what I saw on TV it did rile the locals 😀

  19. Kronomex

    I wonder how long it will that worm Ashby to start planning to desert the One Nation ship and pop up somewhere else?

  20. helvityni

    “It’s like when you’ve got milk in your fridge and it’s starting to go sour, you throw it out, and that’s what they should have done.”

    Barnett obviously was on the nose of the Western voters, but shouldn’t Pauline also sniff under her own armpits, and she might realise that there’s nothing new and fresh about her offerings either; hating Aboriginals, Chinese or Muslims, is still JUST hating…

  21. lawrencewinder

    Yep, the Ruling Rabble’s WA counterparts have well and truly hung themselves out to dry on a few issues.
    1/ They were incompetent economic managers even with a booming mining sector (shades of Little Johnny and “I’ve-got-a-Baton” Costello),
    2/ They’re a policy vacuum, and
    3/ They’ve shown themselves publicly and with the utmost clarity, to be ethically and morally bereft.
    Nothing to see here…?. Hmmm.. the federal Ruling rabble speak the same IPA cant, deal with the same thugs and have shown themselves to be similarly fiscally innumerate.

    Let the implosion roll on like gathering thunder till these irrelevant mongrels are swept away in the coming storm!

  22. Wam

    What a great read rossleigh and I expect you will need some stitching to mend the tongue-hole in your cheek.
    Remember st jerome bill and keep working on your chance to be PM. Festina lente but keep festina-ing.

  23. Terry2

    “It’s like when you’ve got milk in your fridge and it’s starting to go sour, you throw it out”

    Those of you who remember the days before refrigerators – dating myself here – will know that sour milk was always used in making delicious scones !

  24. helvityni

    What’s the matter with the kids today, someone sings…

    They do not sniff, they look at the dates printed on items, and toss out perfectly good edible food, that’s what I say…..

  25. Kronomex

    Why did Turncoat take a (I detest the next “word”) selfie with a lump of plastic and metal? Oohh, I see, he did it to show who the true human being was and it isn’t the shithead with the camera.

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