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Why I’m Never Voting Labor Again…Or For The Greens…

Liberal Party Headquarters, May 20th

Strategy Meeting. Barry and Harry, two strategists are meeting after the re-election of the Coalition Government.

Barry – Morning, how you feeling?

Harry – Ok, quite a victory party, wasn’t it?

Barry – Yeah, I didn’t really expect Scomo to pull it off, but there ya go!

Harry – What do you mean, Scomo? I’m the one who’s been working on strategy for the past few years! He just came along and reaped the rewards from all my brilliant work.

Barry – Yeah, but he still had to deliver, didn’t he? It could have still all gone pear-shaped if he hadn’t run such a great campaign.

Harry – Great campaign? What was so hard about reminding people that Shorten’s first name was “Bill” and linking it to the bills people have to pay? “Electricity Bill” remember that one. That was mine too.

Barry – Yeah, but the great strength of the campaign was reminding people how Labor was likely to send us into further debt just after we’ve got everything under control, even though we haven’t.

Harry – Great strength? Bullshit! Liberal leaders have been blaming Labor for everything ever since Whitlam was elected and we managed to blame him for the oil shocks of the seventies. That’s just par for the course. The trick is making people believe it.

Barry – Well, don’t we have a problem now? I mean, Bill’s gone. We’ll have to come up with a whole new strategy. It won’t be as easy to link the new leader’s name to debt and spending. I mean there’s not much you can do with Tanya or Chris or Anthony… Although if it’s Chris, we could try: “If you chose Bowen, you’ll end up owin’!”

Harry – Ha, that’s the least of our worries. The problem is that now that we’ve been re-elected by telling everybody how good things are, how do we tell them that a surplus would be economically irresponsible because the economy is tanking?

Barry – But isn’t a surplus the result of good economic management?

Harry – Only if you’re trying to take money out of the community because the economy is overheating. When growth is more anaemic than a haemophiliac in a roomful of vampires, you need to be putting money in.

Barry – Sort of like Labor did in the GFC.

Harry – Exactly. So what are we going to do?

Barry – Blame Labor for talking down the economy?

Harry – Good idea. But I’ve got an even better one. I’ll contact a few of the boys at Sky News…

Barry – That’s a bit sexist. What about the girls?

Harry – Good one. Love your sense of humour.

Barry – No, I was being serious. I meant Peta Credlin and that other one… what’s her name?

Harry – Anyway, I’ll get on to a few of our press mates and tell them to focus on whether Labor’s going to support our mandate or not. You know, lots of articles about how their blocking the will of the people and all that.

Barry – So they shouldn’t oppose all the policies that we took to the election like…um, the… um. What policies did we take to the election?

Harry – Don’t elect Labor!

Barry – Yeah, well they can’t really stand in the way of that one.

Harry – Don’t make Bill Shorten PM!

Barry – I think they’ll all be right behind that one now.

Harry – There were the tax cuts, Adani and nuclear power.

Barry – We’ve already approved Adani and didn’t Morrison say that the Labor Party were using a desperate scare campaign when they said we’d introduce nuclear power.

Harry – Doesn’t matter, he never said that he wouldn’t do it. Just that it was a sign of Labor’s desperation.

Barry – Still it’s not much, is it?

Harry – Look, whichever way it goes we can still use the Adani strategy with the tax cuts.

Barry – The Adani strategy.

Harry – Yeah, get the media to stick them between a rock and hard place. If Labor had come out and opposed Adani, we would’ve attacked them on jobs and being captive to The Greens, but if they’d backed Adani we could have just let The Greens cannibalise them from the left by telling everyone that there’s no essential difference between the two major parties. In the end, they sat on the fence and lost out both ways.

Barry – But can that work again?

Harry – Yep, I reckon we can bully Labor into voting for them, then when the Budget’s in deficit, we can blame Labor for voting for the tax cuts.

Barry – Surely that wouldn’t work. I mean, they’re our tax cuts.

Harry – Hey, just look at what happened after the AFP raids. More people blamed Labor for supporting the legislation that enabled it, than blamed us for creating it.

Barry – There’s just one problem with that.

Harry – What’s that?

Barry – The AFP raids haven’t happened yet. It’s only May 20th.

Harry – Don’t worry. Everything’s so predictable. We’ll get the support of the cross-bench in the Senate, Labor will capitulate so that they can’t be accused of opposing tax cuts at the next election and then all those who thought this just makes inequality worse, will direct their anger at Labor and Scott will win the first Newspoll in three years.

Barry – It seems unbelievable. How can Labor keep getting the blame for the things we do?

Harry – It’s a mystery, but some things just seem to work no matter how many times you try them… Well, that was a good day’s work. Shall we take an early lunch?

Barry – Why not?

 

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18 comments

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  1. Phil Pryor

    Since Hawke and Keating, it has been a flow from sugar to shit, and, it seems the flow is on the go. Vomitous for those wishing for honesty, integrity, truth, foresight, intelligent planning, a fair go for all, openness, inclusiveness, harmony, awareness. Instead we got queer, queazy Queensland’s quirks, general brainless conservative greed and stupidity, anti-modernism and unscientific representation, endless bullshit, media intrusion for money, profit and assertion, and a gloominess in that the stupidos try to ignore inevitable problems of environment, climate, population. The old Athenians would despair at such blind stupidity, deliberate wrongdoing, wilful ignorance.

  2. nonsibicunctis

    The irony or this satire is that the LNP are not even capable of a strategy discussion of that level. What’s worse than that irony is that a large percentage of the Australian voting public will swallow the lies, deceit, and vacuous ‘policy’ of the LNP, even when the most cursory review of comparative approaches shows that a vote for the LNP is a vote against their own interests.

    There has to be a way to counter the bias of the largely Murdoch controlled media, the scare campaigns whose instigators seem never to be called to account for the damage they do, and the apparent impunity with which the incumbent government can spend $millions of public funds on promoting their own party by media bombardment of ‘public service announcements’ that are quite obviously simply thinly disguised party political advertising.

    Obviously, substantial review of our electoral system is needed, including our methods of drawing electoral boundaries, the option for some voters to vote long before the actual polling day and the compulsion to vote without an accompanying ‘None of the above’ option on the voting cards.

    A review should also include the design of key selection criteria for acceptance of candidacy. This should include detail that clearly indicates the character of each candidate in relation to social justice, human rights, immigration, truth, integrity, equity, religion, war, crime and punishment, education, research, ethical and moral understanding and values, and the role of parliament and of government.

    Unless candidates can demonstrate examples of their conduct, behaviour, volunteer or paid work and such that clearly show that they care about and for people and the active promotion of a healthy, free, and fair nation, they should not be allowed to stand for election.

    Perhaps, if we assessed potential candidates in this way and culled those who didn’t match up to the criteria, we might achieve a parliament of intelligent and caring politicians who would actively work together to build a better nation for all.

  3. James O'Neill

    All too depressingly true. And you didn’t even get into foreign policy where the two parties are Tweedledee and Tweedledum on pointless and self defeating foreign wars at the behest of the Americans whose only concern is the USA. The Americans have now backtracked on invading Venezuela (after heavy Russian and Chinese hints) leaving Australia’s recognition of the usurper looking even more foolish than the original decision. Australian troops are still in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq where they are neither wanted nor useful. We are going out of our way to annoy our largest trading partner and ignoring the increasingly heavy hints to reconsider the folly of our ways. One despairs at the sheer profound ignorance of the Canberra time servers.

  4. wam

    Dear Bazza and Harry,
    We could have a a little problem if Albanese hits the morning shows attacking our ‘grand in the hand’ slogan that might be a hit with catholics who don’t get the grand?
    What about labor’s focus on teamwork and with quality exceptional girls and a great gender balance? They might just exposed the green boys as cash gathering fraudsters. Like the greens, our two boys do the talking, fortunately, keeping girls quiet. Can we do something with sunjrise and today they seem to portray our girls as always be up schitt creek? Every time I hear about them, I wonder how they got past the deselection process? Did anyone check their banks for sudden dips in their balance?
    Thanks for your causerie!
    Yours in scones Noella
    ps A lot of problems with McCormack and Bridget looks good with twin set and pearls, her living in Bendigo rort seems over and is nearly 50, so no children difficulties, With Barnaby about to get ‘watered’ again with the Darling so he is out. We could not do better than a Victorian and a woman??.

  5. Stephengb

    Nonsibocunctis – You say

    “There has to be a way to counter the bias of the largely Murdoch controlled media, the scare campaigns”

    There is but the Right already has it flooded with anti ALP, and anti Left, Anti socialist, anti communist posts and commentary – just look at Facebook, it is absolutely inundated with attacks on Social polpolicies claiming that every thing left of extreme Right is automatically a Stalinist communist regime writ large.

    Making posts and commentary in the echo chamber’s of sites like AIMN, whilst good for your soul and nice n cosy, does not air the good stuff about a Social Democracy.

    The Right is dominating Facebook, right now, and are very good at bully boy tactics, litteraly killing Labor in every which way.

  6. Lawrence S. Roberts

    The Left is short of aspirations or achievable goals. The Shorten agenda grew like Topsy.

    Scomo’s quiet Australians are Ozzie battlers trying to keep their heads above water.

    Targetting Chinese voters with a scare about immigration and The Crosby Texta style

    emails to gullible Queenslanders and Northern Tasmanians;

    possibly makes this administration illegitimate.

  7. wam

    Stephengb,
    There is a worry in the air. My rabbottians, mostly retired policemen, are scared of the loonies and frightened by what they are told of islam and have started re-sharing annings bullshit about muslim men and pensioners. I expect this is to boost the fear of medivac? The pictures all contain women in niqabs. Perhaps fraser has a fetish??

  8. Paul Davis

    Those quiet hard working Strayans who are having a go ….. of course this nonsense could only be dreamt up in some LNP focus group after a few slabs…… reminds me of The Thick Of It’s “quiet bat people”.

    I am sure that HolyMo actually believes this rubbish, but then “he is so dense light bends around him” to quote Malcolm Tucker.

    Forget about homelessness, starvation, health services, climate disaster, water shortage and theft, Mo’s grubment has just two pressing concerns, protecting religious freedom (wtf?) and ‘reforming’ IR laws (outlawing or impeding organised labour) to reduce wages and ‘improve efficiency’.

  9. Claudio Pompili

    Labor’s support for last week’s Coalition’s Tax Package bill, that will increase inequality and undermine our progressive taxation system, was a step too far.

    This, in addition, to Labor’s bipartisanship on: support for Adani and fossil-fuel industries; off-shore and mandatory detention; sycophantic foreign policy and participation in US illegal wars; the installation/permanent rotation of US marines on Australian soil; draconian national security and privacy legislation; the re-introduction of user-pays university fees; the suppression reasonable increases in welfare benefits; the abandonment and demonisation of Australian citizen whilsteblowers Julian Assange and David Hicks before him; the continuation of LNP discriminatory NT Intervention and Cashless Welfare card legislation; and the promotion of the nuclear industry by SA Labor and its NFCRC, along with Bill Shorten’s accommodation for revisiting the legislation, are just some of the long list of examples of the ALP’s repositioning to the Right.

    I’ve been a Labor supporter all of my working life but no longer. The modern ALP no longer reflects my values.

    I will vote Greens and other progressive parties/independents but will not give my secondary preferences to the ALP/LNP.

  10. Peter F

    @ LS.R ….. The legitimacy of this government will be determined by their performance. Based on the legitimacy of their past six years’ effort, I don’t expect much.

  11. Wobbley

    After the last”federal election” I have decided at the next election, state, federal or local, I will have my name ruled through and then out the door. Why would I bother actually voting anymore when the decision of who will win has already been made for me by the ABSOLUTELY right wing media in this country?

    I am I being laughed at along with the millions of other Australians who vote for a fair country by the fascists and their enablers within big business, mining, banking and every other vested interest who totally abhor a fair days anything unless it hugely benefits them. I think the next time I actually cast a vote in an election in this country will be after the revolution.

    I will probably be dead before I vote again because there are too many turkeys voting for Christmas in this nation who are a big part of Australia’s problems along with the so-called MSM.

  12. Kerry

    Claudio: Perfectly stated and ditto for me!

    Rossleigh: Can’t stand the dishonest clickbait titles that don’t match the content.

    labor, Libs, Murdoch yada yada yada.

    The labor party that is plainly telling all who care to notice exactly on which side their Neo-Liberal bread is buttered. Beats me why people can’t see this. They didn’t lose the election they threw it on purpose and that intention is obviously continuing under the new leadership.

    It seems to me that real journalists would be interested in why this is so.

  13. Rossleigh

    Thanks, Kerry. I usually write satire so I presume that people don’t presume my titles are clickbait. Anyway sorry if you read the article expecting that it would just agree with everything you’ve already decided…

    Perhaps I should have listened to my mother and got a haircut. I’d be leading the Nationals by now…

    Mm, maybe it’s not too late.

  14. Michael Taylor

    Dishonest clickbait! 😳

    I’m shocked, I tells ya. Shocked.

  15. Kerry

    Rossleigh

    I did not know you only write satire, my sense of humour was very tired yesterday, sorry.

    I can’t find the humour in these partisan jokes anymore.

  16. Rossleigh

    It gets harder to write anything but satire when a description of the real events may be mistaken for satire and vice versa. I guess everyone’s sense of humour must be getting tired in days like these.

  17. Colin Stuart-Campbell

    Bothism is high in this group of opinion. On one hand we have the sad truth that Murdoch has created a web of lies. On the other we have folk saying the major parties are the same. The two political opposites are not the same and never will be. We are shown what the right want us to see, it would be better to remember this when commenting.

  18. Jack Cade

    The problem with articles like this is that the L-NP is beyond lampooning. Our two closest ‘allies’, that is, our former owners and our current owners, each have clowns at the helm and seem not to notice. Furthermore, The most recently un-elected buffoon is using the L-NP immigration attitudes as a template, so we may have a future in which the UK prime minister openly boasts about the benefit of prayer.
    The US president already speaks in tongues.
    Just ponder – Scomo mentor to two ‘world leaders’. They may even decide to shave their heads in honour of their hero.
    Even leaving a small quiff above the forehead to disguise alopecia, as he does.

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