An Idiot’s Guide To The Australian Election…

There is a series of books which all start with “An Idiot’s Guide To…”

It’s always struck me as a little ambiguous because it could mean either a guide FOR idiots OR a guide written by an idiot…

As for this guide, I’d like to think that it’s not a guide written by an idiot but then that tends to be rather arrogant because it’s suggesting that anyone reading this is the idiot and that’s insulting to the reader…

Of course, there is something insulting about all those books when you think about it… It’s rather like the way politicians adopt all these poses and pretend like the other side is evil and they’re the ones on the side of goodness and to remember that the policy that they’re opposing is the same policy that they supported just a few months ago. Yes, it was ok then but the work of the devil now…

Often lately, when commenting on the way politics works, I sound like I’m coming out as a rusted on Labor supporter, which is unfortunate because I’m often just commenting on the politics of the situation rather than the right or wrong of particular stances. I mean, recently I wrote about the great deal that Hitler negotiated with Chamberlain and how clever it was but that doesn’t mean that I support German expansion that followed. And if I start criticising the Nazis that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that Chamberlain made a terrible mistake.

Naturally, hindsight is a wonderful thing and it’s easy to be critical of Chamberlain from the benefit of looking at what followed. I remember, Scott Morrison telling us that hindsight was easy when people were attacking him over certain failures… In his case, however, the same people had been saying that things would end badly before Scotty “The Eagle Painting told Me To Do It” Morrison… Mm, thinking back it’s amazing that he lasted so long as PM. After all, how many CEOs would survive the next board meeting of a failing company if they said that they’d been listening to signs from pictures of birds?

Whatever, we have the very strange circumstance of a government facing a challenge from an Opposition whose leader was so unpopular that his colleagues chose the aforementioned Scotty rather than him. It strikes me as amazing that people are genuinely considering that Dutton has a chance of winning, but in the interest of fairness, I never saw Albanese as a potential PM, until it was obvious that it was too late for Labor to change leaders.

However, notwithstanding all that, I’d like to suggest that my guide is for the Man Streamed Media which has a tendency to overlook the fucking obvious when telling us the fucking obvious…

Now, I’m in Victoria where we had two state by-elections on the weekend… Normally, the MSM would caution us against reading too much into the federal implications of a state by-election but in this case, not so much, because it backed up what they wanted to say and therefore, Werribee was a kick in the pants to Labor and Prahran was a boot in the face to The Greens…

So, just to be clear here: The Greens were the incumbents in Prahran but they lost it after the sitting MP stood down after accusations of things that I won’t mention because they apparently don’t matter… if that sounds dismissive, it is, because they may have mattered to a smattering of people who decided not to vote for the Greens candidate but nobody seems to be mentioning the fact that electorates don’t like having to vote in by-elections, so they often punish the party who caused the by-election unless they couldn’t help it because the MP died…and even then some will say, “Why didn’t that bastard eat healthy food and stop smoking, I’m voting for the other team!”  Labor didn’t nominate a candidate so it was Greens or nothing… And, as the retiring sitting member was not the Messiah but, according to him, not even a naughty boy, the Greens were never going to hold the seat.

Summary: We can’t read anything into this… unless we want to… which is certainly what I’d do if I was being paid to read things into things and even if you asked me what those tea leaves at the bottom of the cup mean, I’d have damn good crack…

Now, Werribee…

Let me be clear, Labor should be worried, very worried because this electorate went from a safe one that they can take for granted to marginal…

Of course, at the time of writing it looks like Labor will hold the seat and, in spite of the swing away from them, the Liberal first preference vote was also so far in the toilet that it doesn’t need a flush.

In other words, the electorate has grown sick of being taken for granted but even then they didn’t go to the Liberals en masse… Yep, if Taylor Swift leaves her boyfriend, it doesn’t mean that Donald Trump is in with a chance of becoming Mr Taylor Swift.

As Yogi Berra once said: “Predictions are hard, particularly about the future!”, so I’m yet to be convinced that Dutton has what it takes to win over the public no matter how times the we have some puff piece about how hard it was to be divorced at such an early age when you’ve just struggled to buy your first home at 19 or how much he’s not a monster according to his current wife, which begs the question of why his first wife isn’t doing similar stories.

There is only so much bullshit that works. Yeah, Albanese’s weak, the Dutton disciples say, but in the interests of reality here, I’d like to suggest that nobody gets to be leader of the Labor Party without being at least part mongrel and part purebred Pit Bull. (Yes, I’m sure Kim Beasley was lovely and nobody has any stories about him that contradict that narrative…) So while I won’t call the election result yet, I am prepared to suggest that it’ll be Dutton who’ll be crying to Mummy Media about how unfair it is and how he’s been dealt a blow below the belt.

Of course, wearing your belt around your chin makes that inevitable!

Dear reader, we need your support

Independent sites such as The AIMN provide a platform for public interest journalists. From its humble beginning in January 2013, The AIMN has grown into one of the most trusted and popular independent media organisations.

One of the reasons we have succeeded has been due to the support we receive from our readers through their financial contributions.

With increasing costs to maintain The AIMN, we need this continued support.

Your donation – large or small – to help with the running costs of this site will be greatly appreciated.

You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969