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!
