When slogans won’t cut it anymore
When Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg suddenly found themselves leaders of the government, they couldn’t hide their delight. The smirks turned into shit-eating grins.
As he launched the election campaign a few months later, Scotty began with “How good is mum? How good is Jenny?”
His victory speech a week later was more of the same.
“How good is Australia! How good are Australians! Thank you!”
Even as the country burned, Scotty was asking “How good is the cricket?”
From the time the Coalition came to power, they have had a relatively easy ride.
Disasters elsewhere delivered a much higher iron ore price than expected. Company profits delivered a budget boost.
The casualisation of the workforce has meant they can boast of more people in jobs, hiding the real problem of underemployment and insecure jobs. And all they have done really is keep up with population growth. Wage stagnation has become a persistent problem despite their claims of low unemployment.
They “stopped the boats” from landing in Australia but thousands of people still drown in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. “Queue jumpers” who are in a position to get a visa and get themselves on a plane are arriving in their droves. Despite the tough talk, the people smugglers have just changed their business plan. Meanwhile, people still languish in immigration detention and camps and nothing is being done to stem the worldwide tide of refugees.
They “axed the tax” which also stopped the decline in emissions. And electricity prices continue to rise. Private investment in research and development has fallen dramatically. Instead of polluters finding ways to reduce their emissions, we pay farmers to not cut trees down and to reduce herd sizes during drought.
Infrastructure spending keeps getting announced and then re-announced and then re-re-announced. Very little actually gets started let alone finishing anything. We have feasibility studies galore but little real action.
Scotty assured “quiet Australians” that, “if they have a go, they’ll get a go”, whatever the hell that means.
The “debt and deficit disaster” is over, Josh and Scotty tell us, now that we are “back in black” and “Labor’s debt” will be repaid in a decade by the Coalition’s surplus budgets. Except they are about to deliver their seventh deficit and the debt has more than doubled under their watch.
After cruising along, wasting money on pork-barrelling rorts and political advertising and countless reports and inquiries, they are now being asked to actually govern.
2019 was the hottest and driest year on record. The drought has savaged large parts of Australia and rivers and dams have dried up. The catastrophic bushfires that experts had been warning about (whilst being ignored) eventuated, devastating so many communities and so much wildlife and their habitat. When rain did come, it came in the form of terrible storms causing widespread damage and flooding.
And then the coronavirus hit.
Finally, it seems they have been jolted out of their lethargy to realise that slogans and blaming Labor just won’t cut it anymore. A surplus is no longer a Holy Grail and stimulus is no longer a dirty word.
But can these arrogant entitled people, so used to behaving like an Opposition, step up and do the job they are paid for rather than just a marketing campaign? Can they listen to experts? Can they admit we have problems? Can they stop passing the buck and actually lead?
That remains to be seen.
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Return to home pageI despair of Australia. Any country which elects lunatics like these is in deep shit.
Not to worry ScottyFromSales will fix it. Ha Ha
They have gone from worrying about a surplus to frantically spending (or at least announcing they will spend) to avoid a recession because they sure don’t want to be remembered for that.
The trouble is, they don’t have a plan for their spending.
Hugely increasing the instant asset write-off is hardly likely to work when demand is low and the supply chain has shut down.
Paying businesses to keep apprentices on won’t help if there is no work.
They stubbornly refuse to increase Newstart on what can only be ideological grounds though they are talking about maybe something for pensioners – but nothing “structural” ie no welfare or taxation reform other than ill-directed tax cuts.
They don’t seem able to administer the funds they have to hand out – unless they have a colour-coded spread sheet. Drought and bushfire victims have still not received the promised assistance.
Will they ever realise that, when you don’t have a goal, it’s hard to know which road to take?
Focus groups and messaging might help you get elected but they do nothing to help deal with a crisis. Does Scotty have a clue about how to do anything other than marketing?
Scotties miracle election is now a penance for the unholy mess he has led the country into in so many areas. My thoughts are with him now and they ain’t Godly
You are worth your weight in platinum, Kaye Lee.
Bring back Bridget MacKenzie. At least she knew how to distribute money. Meanwhile is this the same $2 billion that has been announced twice before or a new $2 billion?
Poor Bridget McKenzie, fall guy for “Ralph Nickleby” Morrison.
People (perhaps apart from the likes of Grattan and Katharine Murphy) really seem to have missed that a week ago she came close to overtly calling the PM a liar, something the PM would not face up to at subsequent pressers.
Since the government has done a backflip after bagging Labor for it’s stimulus “hand outs” I wonder how long it will take to distribute the hand outs and whether some will go to dead people and whether they’ll now stop bagging Labor for theirs.
Now Kaye Lee, I think you are being very unfair to accurately describe the parlous state of Australian politics and the lack of misgovernment policies for the benefit of ALL Australian voters. Surely with your wide ranging research you must have realised that the Smirkie Sacked from Marketing Liarbral Nazianal$ COALition misgovernment is following the Fascist Socialism for the Undeserving Rich ideology to ensure that egalitarianism is made totally redundant.
Kaye Lee,
In answer to your concluding four questions, I am duty bound to reply:No,No,No and No.Mind you, they were in the easy one pointer catergory.Frustratus in Extremis.
King1394 it’s the same $2b – the bushfire $2b was “notional”.
Lots of Devils in the details…..
Why are they “waiving fees and charges for tourism businesses that operate in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and waiving entry fees for commonwealth national parks”?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/12/what-australian-governments-coronavirus-stimulus-package-means-for-you-explainer
No!
just listened to patronising smirko, our lamentable pentacostal pm
everything will be fine
because I am behind the wheel of the coalition plan
and our plan is a great plan
much better than anything Labor could do
and with a view in mind of the election to come and my own personal approval ratings,
I will actually appear avuncular
like the drunken groping pervert at a family wedding
Please excuse the cynic in me and my love of all things ScuMo and the Lying Nasty Party.
On 11 February Italy had 2 confirmed cases of caronavirus.
Two weeks ago, Italy had 322 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Today it has over 10,000 cases and nearly 1,000 deaths.
Let that sink in for a bit.
This virus has a very high fatality rate for aged and health impaired.
Now consider the Lying Nasty Party announcement today with their stimulus package payments are to begin flowing from 31 March 2020, that is 19 days from now.
2.4 million pensioners and those with a commonwealth seniors card will get a $750 payment.
If nothing is done to stop the spread of the virus in Australia and we end up like Italy, how many of the 2.4 million pensioners and commonwealth seniors card holders will still be alive to do anything with the payment?
19 days is a long time with this virus. Do you think the morons that are ScuMo and the Lying Nasty Party have thought of this and taken it into account already?
The cynic in me says yes. But I hope to god I am wrong, my mother is one of those pensioners.
I expect we will never know because ScuMo and the Lying Nasy Party do not have a very good relationship with the truth.
My expectation is that IF (Big if) after the payments do get paid out and not many are alive, this government would be expecting a refund of any money they have sent to the dead recipient.
As I said, excuse the cynic in me.
I am not drunk, but sometimes I wish I was when I think of these scumbags we call our leaders.
Kaye, if only the msm journalists would ask the same questions that you do.
Pingback: When slogans won’t cut it anymore #newsoz.org #auspol - News Oz
I wonder if the concept of conscripting and qualified researchers who have experience in the development of vaccines for humans or animals and funding them well and using any labs which may be useful to produce a vaccine for the control of this virus in humans has been considered.
If this virus is as bad as many suggest, having the intellectual property to make the vaccine could be a “very good earner”. At the least, we will be able to use and sell a vaccine for both Australian citizens and sell to others with out enriching other companies and nations.
Trouble is that this could be a much too radical solution which will not suit the funders of the current government.
The only thing the LNP care about, is OUR MONEY and they are panic buying votes, just to save their own arses
from being wiped out of government, federally and stately.
Scotty from marketing I have a new slogan for you ” the smirk behind the lerks and perks ”
As elderly pensioners are most at risk from this virus , should they unfortunately catch it
and consequencly shuffle off their mortal coils but shortly after their demise receive their stimulus cheque , will this current government then be vilified for sending money to dead people .
These are interesting, yet scary times. Each day we will wake up to news that is likely to shock us.
I don’t like this one bit.
I’ve started using The Smirkinator from Smarm.
They don’t need a plan for money, Kaye, because, thanks a non-quiet dendrelaphis, the lnp adolts haven’t had a limit on cash since 2013. That could be another lucky reason for their electoral success.
They don’t need to be tested after meeting Dutton, how arrogant and/or stupidity relying on but the powerful and rich having access to the hospitals(wonder if albo’s mob will be in the hospital set?? NB italian doctor’s have been given the right to choose who gets Hippocrates)
ps
Must be a hill song tomorrow as the 500 limit starts Monday?
pps Michael the msm will ask them if it is ‘ratings buoyant’, is controversial and is duplicitous enough to suggest stupidity sex violence and corruption. Labor cannot bring themselves to incite the morning shows nor can the mobilize their members by giving them the ammo to counter the lnp lies about them. (Do they do enough on the unpatched abc)