Why The Liberal Party Can’t Win Elections And Other Predictions That Will Looks Silly One Day…
I’m old enough to remember Gough Whitlam winning in 1972… I wasn’t old enough to vote, but I was nearly old enough to be sent off to Vietnam as a 20 year old.
That was one of those strange little bits of hypocrisy that the Liberals are so good at: in 1972 they opposed lowering the voting age because people under 21 weren’t mature enough to consider the issues but they were old enough to be conscripted into a war… or rather, “police action” because there was no war declared so that’s why it took so long for the Vietnam vets to get recognition from the government for many of their issues…
Of course, that’s the past and I only bring it up because, after the Liberals lost the election they were sensible enough to change the policies that they’d only been clinging to because they owned them and by the time they were voted out, only a handful of voters agreed with them. For example, they didn’t go to the next election promising to return National Service and send troops back to Vietnam. Neither have they ever suggested raising the voting age. As for the recognition of China, it’s only in the past few years that they’ve gone back to arguing that Labor are the captives of the CCP.
Jettisoning these policies meant that – by the time Labor had been attacked relentlessly by Murdoch and had started to fall apart at the seams – they could present themselves as a reasonable alternative… even if that reasonable alternative was the party that blocked supply and worked with the Governor-General to organise the closest thing to a coup d’état that this country has seen.
Now when we compare that to the Liberals of today what we find is that Peter Dutton is quite content to argue that they don’t need to change their values and that it’s quite ok, to be a policy free zone because they’re in opposition and that means saying no to everything because that worked for Tony Abbott and you don’t expect anyone in the Liberal Party to come up with any new ideas.
Of course, I could be pedantic and point out that the Liberals in government frequently demanded policy of the Labor Party but, as Dutton said, they intend to stay true to their values and one of the most consistent values of the Liberals has been hypocrisy.
As I may have mentioned before, I once cast a play with a group of students and one of the girls wasn’t happy that she didn’t get the lead. Being a reasonable sort of chap, I met with her and listened to her grievances which, in summary, was that she thought that she was best and so did her friend and that she thought she was better then the girl who got the role and there must be something wrong with my judgement. After listening to her, I didn’t point out that not only wasn’t she the best but she wasn’t the second best or third best or even in the top six. I merely pointed out the obvious fact that she hadn’t been in the room when the others auditioned and neither had her friend so while they formed a consensus they really weren’t in possession of any information that would inform a sensible decision. I merely bring this up because it reminds me of Liberals appearing on Sky After Dark.
The basic trouble with Dutton saying that sooner or later they’ll have to fix up the mess that Labor created is that the subtext is that you voters are all stupid and you’ve voted for the wrong party and it’ll be up to us to repay the enormous debt that Labor has run up when they didn’t pay off the debt that we ran up and interest rates have caught them out and…
Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to play well until we all forget that Josh gave away JobKeeper money to companies whether they needed it or not.
And when Peter Dutton suggests that part of the trouble was that Aston was in Victoria and the Liberals aren’t doing well there… then, the rest of his party can relax because Victoria is a fairly insignificant part of the country and not at all relevant in general election…
And when the Liberals say that they’re no longer expecting business to back them because big business has become a little too woke…
And when they tell us that there was nothing wrong with anything they did. And inquiries into Robodebt and Scotty the MegaMinister and just about anything is just a witch hunt…
And when they say that our policies are just fine because we like them and we don’t need our time in opposition to let everyone forget exactly how bad we were by not making the same mistakes…
I don’t think that they’re going to getting the lead role any time soon.
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New England Cocky -
Phil Pryor -
Paul Smith -
andy56 -
pierre wilkinson -
Rossleigh -
Clakka -
LambsFry Simplex.
Return to home pageRossleigh, may you continue to write the policies for the COALition while Boofhead Duddo remains the Life Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and the LIARBRAL$. Supported by that the enormously talented $us$san Leyzee there is no doubt that corporations will continue to support their push into political oblivion where they truly belong ….. ASAP.
Dutton has a new policy.., SSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIITTTTTTTT. This has been spelled the LLLLLLEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY way. AAAAAASSSSSSTTTTTTOOOOOOONNNNN sucked.
I know it’s not the same, but as I was reading this piece I kept getting flashes of Saddam Hussein claiming a great victory when the Americans didn’t invade Iraq after the first gulf war.
Look its all historical in context and exactly what i think but there is more to the story that needs to be told. Its their IDEOLOGY that sucks and everyone has felt the full force of it, ie how cheap is housing. Small goverrnment is fine when the streets are literally paved with gold and everyone gets a piece of the action. What the Libs have failed to comprehend is that those days are gone. “We are the government of high wages and aspirational voters”. Says it all really. We have heard this bullshit every election since whitlam and every year since, the bottom half seems to get squeezed more and more. Governments are part of the economy, without the government in the middle, we would all be surfs again. Without government assistance, there would have been no man on the moon. Some governments have funneled the riches of technology into the military and some have funneled the money into their people. We in australia have pissed it down the drain of outright largese. Governments have to work for the people or there is no need for a government. Small government is a totally discredited ideology yet the libs hang on for dear life, unless their life is at stake, all $90b of it. The Auskus land mine labor is forced to walk through is another area of discredit. All done in silence because you know, we the people are too stupid to understand yet those making these decisions have been shown to be unreliable individuals. $%nts, actually. “We are the government of individual freedom” is another one they trot out. How long is the gaol sentence for disrupting traffic for an hr in Sydney? How long have refugees been incarcerated in Nauru over the years? Its all BS talk that wins elections, wasnt it Howard, you bastard. But thats all still historical. What are the consequences of the small government ideaology? NO POLICY DIRECTION that benefits the country. Mining boom? lets give it all to the people, that will win us the next election. House prices too expensive, well thats good. Lets keep putting wood on the fire. Industry? who needs them, we have our 5%-6% unemployed, enough to balance out wages and not spook the herd. If that get a bit itts, lets roll out the dole bludgers hyperbole because there are some votes to be had amongst the aspirational, after all its about fairness. Fairness to who exactly? You can see where they fell for their own bullshit with Robodebt. Those unemployed cant be serious. More of the same. Talk about being blind with eyes wide open. Christians, we are christians, see us pray. Yea right, trading off somebody’s freedom for somebody elses rights. They can start by advocating for no discrimination in christian schools. You want to discriminate, fine, NO government assistance, non what so ever. Then i will believe they are the party of individual freedoms. What set off the fire under the libs? COVID, the unwanted disruptor. Its shaken australia. It all seems fine on the surface but the populace seems to instinctively sense danger. Unity means survival, government assistance means survival. All labor has to do is show some empathy and throw us a bone or two, unlike the libs that only like to rattle our cage. Fear will only get you so far. We no longer fear “the other side”. Saying no to everything , not even an amendment shows that they are not doing any work what so ever. Nobody tolerates that anywhere. So who are the new bludgers? And how much do we pay them? Am I scared we will become a one party state? Not really. I give the libs 15 yrs to grow up. they need a wipe out like WA. They need to understand their ideology is rubbish and doesnt suit the times. The sub issues i am sure even go beyond my simple understanding. But the story needs to be told if the libs truly want to grow up. Meanwhile,” our message isnt getting through”………..is what i hear.
The libs get another chance soon. I have been reading the bits coming out about Super and recommendations. to make it “fit”. And what i have been reading makes for disturbing news. Again its about penalising people at the top which means people on the bottom get the same penalties. A total mash up that doesnt do super any justice. Fuckme, its simple stupid. Encourage as much as possible to put in and tax on the way out. Tax it at the marginal rate. Any tax on small amounts is pure stupidity that doesnt enable super to do its job of providing an income. Even if people have $20m in super, they will still pay tax on the way out. Then you can encourage those people with high deposits to spend a little. What could be fairer?
Get rid of auditing small amounts in SF funds. Create some government bonds that super has to buy. Fuckme, its simple stuff that would make super compelling even for people like me. There, Dutton, some ideas for policy.
looks like he will get lots of practice saying that they must stick to their core values, as more rats leave the sinking ship, with Morrison reputed to be planning his escape soon and Roberts facing some quality time explaining why lying to the Australian public is good policy and what they do – with nary a peep from herr kipfler to denounce such behaviour
and all this even before we start on having a federal ICAC to investigate some of the other rorts that might need an explanation…
may the chickens come home to roost
And Paul Smith, who could forget that Iraqi minister saying that it was all fine as the bombs dropped behind him and the American tanks rolled in….“`
Or the Black Knight telling us that it was just a flesh wound…
Oh yes. Indeed I am itching for the outcome of the Robodebt RC, and then the commencement of the Federal ICAC. Still, there seems to be so little by way of by way of criminal / common law statutes to give us assurance that politicians will be forced to stop lying on the hustings and being utterly corrupt whilst in office. And the same goes for senior public servants. Perhaps there needs to be a special Federal / State court to hear such cases, a court that can’t be subverted by rearguard actions of ‘parliamentary supremacy’.?
Also.,
He needs to ask WHY the Coaliton are so on the nose in Vic.
Playing off Melbourne against Sydney is emblematic of their stale and lazy approach but has lost them both big states.