Well, at least we know who’s to blame for this whole stinking sorry mess of an excuse for a federal government.
It’s us.
Thank you, Finance Minister Simon Birmingham, for stating it so succinctly on the ABC Insiders program yesterday when asked about the government’s $660 million car park kleptocracy.
“The Australian people had their chance and voted the government back in,” he said. Out loud. (Or to paraphrase: “It’s democracy stupid.”)
You could almost admire his honesty — except applying the word “honesty” to the most dishonest government in living memory would be ludicrous.
But he does have a point. It was the same sorry lot — this clown car of a cabinet with Meathead Morrison at the helm — that won the 2019 election against all odds.
And why was that? Why did the Australian voters miss their chance to turf it when they had the chance? Maybe it was because they concluded there was no alternative. Maybe it was because Labor persisted with a leader who, while on paper looked much more competent, just wasn’t seen as prime ministerial material by the majority of the people who get to choose.
It’s about having a viable alternative — and the really really sad part is that not only have the voters apparently not learnt their lesson, nor has the ALP.
Anthony Albanese and the rest of the Labor Party, who seem to have already accepted another electoral loss, will have to wear the blame for any defeat this time for persisting with a leader who is just not resonating.
It’s not like the opposition leader doesn’t have enough material from which to work — from the Porter/Tudge scandals to outright misogyny claims, from sports rorts to car park corruption and all manner of other ministerial misbehaviour and general malfeasance. And then there’s the ongoing implosion of the government’s Coalition partner.
And yet the PM’s personal polling has held up despite it all.
The political pundits claim it is all about the pandemic and the Morrison government is still unbeatable thanks to its remarkable response last year in keeping Australians safe.
But then came 2021 and the government’s disastrous handling of the vaccine rollout, a debacle which by rights should wipe out any lingering goodwill from the voters.
You’d think.
But you only need look at last Friday’s news cycle to see the extent of the crisis for the opposition. At the end of one of the most disastrous and damaging weeks for the hapless PM, Albo was fortuitously addressing the National Press Club. Unfortunately, he stuck to his worthy topic of a planned jobs summit should he win power.
Talk about off message. Channelling Bob Hawke is all very well but it’s not the 1980s and right now the issue isn’t jobs but finding enough workers.
If he had an ounce of “Albo from marketing” he would have changed the “positive” speech to a stirring attack, ripping apart the government on that week’s scandals alone: car park rorts; the disgraceful cabinet reshuffle forced on it by an out-of-control deputy PM; and the escalating vaccine crisis.
Sure, he touched on those during questions, but the main members of the press gallery were otherwise engaged because Scotty from marketing was holding his post-national-cabinet press conference at the same time.
And given the Yes Minister-worthy “New Deal” four-point plan Morrison was announcing, never has the nation so needed an alternative leader to stop this rot.
My Crikey colleague Bernard Keane got so desperate on Friday he decided the only answer for this sinking government is to replace Morrison with Peter Dutton.
Yet that would still leave the rest of them in charge, which means the only real alternative should be a change of government. But Albanese obviously lacks the cut-through that Keane decided Dutton could provide at this time of crisis.
So, without voters seeing a viable alternative, we are all doomed to see the same mistake repeated.
God help us all.
Oh thank heavens for Crikey who whose journalists write what I am thinking. Crikey does sometimes ask why there is no more outrage in the community. I am outraged almost constantly by this current government but I do not have an outlet. Tell me how to show that outrage. If it does not involve marching in the streets, which my arthritis prohibits, I will be there! I despair for the future of this country if the politicians we have now are the best that we can muster. There are of course a few exceptions.
I had zero knowledge of this massive rort at the time of the last election. Irrespective of which division we all voted in, how could we have possibly included knowledge of this rampant rorting in our decision? Everyone should include this knowledge in making their next vote.
Speers’ failure to follow up with the blindingly obvious questions on Insiders yesterday was a career-defining error of judgement.
Isn’t it just standard procedure these days? Must be part of the training. When was the last time you saw in interviewer actually ask follow-up questions that might have some consequence?
Let him off completely – as he does with any Coalition pals.
Once upon a time he tripped the bumbling Brandis up (for a Walkley) and has been trying to equal the ledger with a Labor scalp – how long will it take him to realise that you only get one George Brandis in a lifetime?
“… you only get one George Brandis in a lifetime …”
But then there is Scottie, there is Dutton, there is Frydenberg, there is Tudge, the list encompasses the entire government front bench, not to mention the dubious senators. They all have skeletons in their cupboards and the media hacks allow them to get off scot free, as it were, time and time again.
How many of them are going to yield Spivsy a Walkley?
Who knows what would happen if he asked real questions and fought for real answers.
As Rudyard Kipling put it – “If”.
Agree completely. Insiders is becoming a waste of Sunday morning.
It ruins Sunday if you look at Insiders.
That’s the thing – how many knew of this rorting before the election? Obvious question!
If Spivsy did (as seemed to possibly open that case, by ‘shouldering arms’ and letting it go through to the ‘keeper) then WTF was he doing keeping it from us?
…. Or maybe it was just pure professional incompetence, in interview capability, to “pick up that loose ball”?
But how thick is Fletcher (on show in that clip) : to think that we’re all as thick as him – “mitigating the rort” by explaining that these rail-lines also pass through Labor electorates, so it’s a win for everyone, so no one should be complaining?
I guess Sky Noise After Dark/Peta Credlin will be all over this corruption with a special programme all about the scandalous goings-on with the neocons.
Hahahahahahahaha……just joking.
Surprise, surprise, a greedy and fearful electorate – keen on handouts (franking credits and tax breaks) and ‘what’s in it for me’ – politics voted in a greedy, ‘what’s in it for me’, fear mongering government. Who would have thought such an outcome could occur?
Sadly you are correct, but I didn’t vote for them!
You and I, Beth, are among the 59 percent of voters who voted for candidates other than LNP. How does that tie in with Birmingham’s claim that ‘the Australian people” voted them in, so they can do what they like?
Sadly, you’re absolutely right. And, maybe even more depressing, some of Shorten’s unpopularity was because he promised to reduce inequality – which a lot of voters don’t want. I hate to say it but lesson from last election may be that many Australians are mean. Many people like to have someone to look down on.
Janine Perrett blames Labor for losing the last election…conveniently ignoring the impact on marginal voters (who decided the election) of a growing list of Coalition Grant ports…now into the billions…the completely dishonest campaign against negative gearing and franking credit reform and the campaign run by Clive Palmer in Qld.
Not to mention the blatant propaganda provided gratis by the Murdocrats.
And very large amounts of money.
Birmingham’s comments ignores the fact that all of these rorts were deliberately hidden by his Government. It’s not like Scotty got up on the pulpit and said we’re pork barrelling.