Wagga Wagga Muppet Show

Was the federal “muppet show” to blame for the Libs terrible performance in Wagga Wagga? William Bowe argued it as a major contributing factor yesterday, but some readers disagree. Elsewhere, debate continues on Serena Williams.

On the “muppet show”

Bucko writes: I come from Wagga, yes the federal “Muppet Show” had an effect, but this one was more that the state parties had taken us for granted over many years. It was a perfect storm of corruption, state issues like the council mergers, the stadiums issue and sheer bloody mindedness of the city-centric politicians that anyone over the mountains doesn’t count. Those clowns in the Country Party are no better, they forget where they come from.

Kyle Hargraves writes: Although I’m not a resident of the place it seems to me that the result was rather more about local issues than muppetism in Canberra. Only a brave soul would generalise the result to the magic date in 2019. There is the budget for 2019-20 awaiting us along with the memories of goldfish.

Having written that Andrews (short of gross idiocy) could breathe relatively easily for November but, depending upon how it’s looking for Berejiklian, Morrison could go early. The postal voting over the festive season would probably favour the Libs.

On Serena Williams at the US Open

Arky writes: She’s a sportswoman. It is not “deferential politeness” to accept the umpire’s decision without throwing a racquet-smashing tantrum and stopping the match to have a five-minute tirade. Nor is the history of other people being sexist and racist justification for throwing that tantrum at someone else who made a decision with no racist or sexist overtones whatsoever (seriously, the umpire is officiating between two women of colour here, even implying he’s being sexist or racist by enforcing a rule against Serena Williams is very very unfair to the umpire who was just doing his job).

In most sports a player would be sent off or ejected or disqualified for a tiny portion of the ranting at the umpire Serena Williams did. I’ve never understood why tennis is so tolerant of it, but even in tennis there are lines… You can be a fan of Serena Williams and laud her record as a player and even still find her inspirational for all she has achieved despite all the obstacles in her way — without having to also find a way to excuse her terrible behaviour here.

Fletcher Beverley writes: Sexism/racism in any form is abhorrent, but banging on about the “disadvantage” of a working woman worth around $180 million feels like virtue signaling.

We have female-dominated careers which are systematically disadvantaged when compared to male-dominated fields in terms of hours worked to remuneration received, which if addressed would change the experience of millions of women around the world as it relates to their gender. If we raised wages for the lowest paid half of all industries, the primary beneficiaries would be women. (NB: female-dominated industries were paid less initially because they could get away with paying women less. Now they’re paid less because the industries historically paid less. New branding on the same ol’ thang.)

That is the most black and white display of modern day sexism in our society. Instead we focus on this noise and argue over the relative disadvantage of one millionaire when compared to their millionaire peers. By any reasonable measure, Serena Williams “disadvantage” at work is not typical of what it is to be disadvantaged in work for the rest of the world.

Di Keller writes: Well, until I read this article I may have agreed with most of the negative comments. But this made me think deeper. A spoilt brat ??? She earned every cent of that $180 million the hard way. To get where she has is nothing short of miraculous. It is not sportsmanlike to put up with discriminatory crap. As she points out she now has a daughter and she wants her daughter to know better and to be treated better.

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