I’m currently out of the country so I’m only catching up on the greatest disaster in the history of Australia. Apparently cancelling a contract is the sort of thing that can do world-wide damage to our country’s reputation.
No, I’m not talking about Scott Morrison’s decision to cancel the subs deal with France. That was fine. No, I’m talking about Dan Andrews cancelling of the Commonwealth Games which has apparently sent shock waves everywhere including countries who aren’t in the Commonwealth and can only watch with the sort of envy that makes them wonder why any country would demand their independence from Britain when we have such wonderful side benefits as our own games. Something that rivals US baseball’s World Series which only includes American teams.
Speaking personally, it did strike me as strange that most of the criticism was about the cancellation rather than the original decision to bid for them. Particularly as it came from the same quarters who’ve been complaining about the Victorian government’s spending and debt. As I see it this is like me putting down a deposit on a Maserati only to discover that this didn’t lock in the price and that, while I could sell my house and close the deal, I’d be homeless and unable to afford the upkeep of the car. By all means, attack me for being silly enough to put down the deposit but surely you shouldn’t be telling me that withdrawing from the sale was a foolish thing that’ll ruin my credit rating.
Anyway, I’ve been keeping up with what’s happening in my home state via the media which seems to only be able to find people critical of the decision. Even the good old ABC is only balancing the people who are highly critical of this decision with people who are highly critical of everything that Dan Andrews has ever done.
Phil “Gladys Saved The Nation” Coorey wasn’t content to rebuke Andrews, but suggested that Victorian voters were fools and insisted that Dan had gaslighted Victorians just like he did with the pandemic when he dared to adopt a different strategy from Phil’s “let her rip” heroes of Scotty and Gladys. Ok, in real terms neither of them were ever prepared to totally let it rip, but it always struck me as odd that the same people who were advocating no lockdowns were also hypercritical of Andrews for the virus escaping hotel quarantine.
Sure. People have a right to criticise Andrews but to suggest that anyone who disagrees with him is somehow mentally defective seems a trifle arrogant. Like I always say I don’t expect everyone to agree with me all the time but when they start disagreeing with themselves in the space of one opinion piece it’s a worry. Like when people who are complaining about laws against misinformation are censorship and an outrage, only to turn around and demand that Big W stop selling a book because they think it should be banned.
When they do it in the space of one post on Twitter, it’s an even bigger concern…
Without naming the person and leading to a possible pile-on, there is one person who keeps popping up in my Twitter feed and I’m trying to work out why unless it’s part of Elon Musk’s cunning plan to drive all the woke people off Twitter. Said person has been railing against the Labor government calling them communists, socialists and evil people who are dividing the country. Albanese is even worse than Whitlam who destroyed the country. Included in her tweets was:
“We are all aware on Tweeter (sic) that not everyone agrees with our views. But there are people who are also mentally unstable and have their own agendas to challenge anything to create a situation”
Which would be fine. Everyone’s got a right to an opinion, etc. However, today this person posted the following:
“The abuse that is levelled at people who are against the “voice” is sadly indicative of the intolerance towards people who have a different opinion. It’s the most divisive issue that we have ever seen.”
So, it’s all right to suggest that some of the people challenging you are “mentally unstable” but just make one or two little comments like “this will give the Indigenous population “the power to challenge any decision or legislation of the government of the day”, and people start suggesting that you might be racist because you seem to be ignoring that the status quo is that anyone can already do that, so why should we be concerned that a Voice with no veto powers could do what everyone can already do… Ok, people may not get very far, and the Voice may get a bit more media coverage if they suggest that what the government it doing lacks input from the people most affected, but the point remains.
Anyway, I’m sure that I could spend several useless months picking up all the inconsistencies of people and talk at length how confirmation bias means that two people can look at the same by-election and conclude that Fadden was a poor result for Dutton because he only got something like the expected swing in spite of spending ten times more than Labor, while someone else may look at it and think that it was a great result for Peter because he received more first preferences than the percentage of people who have him as preferred PM…
Whatever, I recommend taking a stoic path and deciding that you can’t do anything about the inconsistency of others, so you’re best to control your own. It might be wise occasionally to take a step back and say, “How would I feel if the other side did this? Would I justify it? Would I say no big deal? Or would I be demanding that King Charles break with protocols and declare martial law until a government who understands the meaning of integrity is returned, no matter how many elections that takes.”
As I mentioned at the start, I’m out of the country but we did receive our energy bill while away making us wonder if it would be cheaper to extend our holiday indefinitely even if it meant moving to a five-star hotel. I do remember sometime last century, Jeff Kennett privatising everything he could manage in order to make it all more efficient and cheaper. Imagine how expensive it would be if it were still in public hands…
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