More of the same

It’s always amusing when the ‘news’ from a political party’s parliamentary meetings is the leader told people to stop leaking information to the media. The only way we find out about the speech is that someone leaked it. It also shows there is some frustration as a number of members of the political party see no danger in open criticism of the party’s political leadership. Apparently Opposition Leader Dutton gave ‘the speech’ this week in Canberra behind locked doors. It was reported in The Guardian the same day.

It seems that Dutton’s policy of not releasing policy has caught up with him. Take the performance of Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor on the ABC’s Insiders last Sunday. Taylor’s sales pitch was that their side of politics was better, we were all mad for voting against them last time and if re-elected, the Liberal/National/LNP/Country Liberal Coalition will revert to how things were before Australia made the horrific mistake of voting in the ALP. Besides, their coalition is far more unified than an ALP/Greens/Teal coalition which would be a disaster for Australia if elected.

The thing is we do want to go back to the days where:

• The Prime Minister arranged to be sworn in as another minister for five portfolios without telling the relevant ministers. 
• The Prime Minister failed to act on reports of alleged rape by a political staffer in a Ministers Office. 
• The Prime Minister claimed in Parliament that protestors outside Parliament House in Canberra were lucky they were not met by bullets.
• The Prime Minister caused relationships to sour so far with one of this country’s largest trading partners they put tariffs on Australian goods. The difference between this and the current USA tariffs is that the USA Government has chosen to implement tariffs to some materials from all countries.
• The Prime Minister picked fights with some state Premiers over border closures during the COVID era in the early 2020’s.
• The Prime Minister that would not take climate change seriously. 
• The Prime Minister that claimed the budget was already back in the black (next year) – it wasn’t.

Not that Dutton seems to be much better. 

• Only last week he announced there would be a referendum to ensure that Ministers could renounce citizenship of Australians who committed some crimes. Shortly after ‘senior’ Coalition members were announcing that wasn’t their policy.
• At various times over the past 12 months, Dutton has been in favour of using divesture powers to ‘break up’ the large national supermarkets without any clear plans on how that would work and who would buy the shops that were forced to be sold. 
• In the past month as severe flooding was occurring in Queensland and Cyclone Alfred was wandering around the Queensland Coast, Dutton also threatened to force insurance companies to divest if they didn’t reduce premiums. Again there was no plan for how this would work and National’s Leader David Littleproud then announced that this was not Coalition policy.
• We won’t even start on the problems with Dutton’s nuclear power ambitions except to mention a recent report claims there is not enough water to run the plants if built.

While Home Affairs Minister in the Morrison Government, Dutton was responsible for presiding over an

immigration system was “seriously and systemically” broken, allowing for the perpetration of sexual slavery, human trafficking, and organised crime to go virtually unchecked. 

… according to former Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon who was commissioned by the Albanese Government to undertake a ‘rapid review’ into the Australian immigration system

Earlier in March, Crikey’s Bernard Keane listed a number of reasons why Dutton should be considered a security risk to Australia including falsely claiming that a caravan of explosives found in North West Sydney was a terrorist plot. 

In 2022, Australia collectively made a decision to change from the politics of division, fear and outright lies to something far more constructive. The reality is that no government anywhere in the world can ensure that the wants of every individual citizen is addressed with every decision, but at least the current government turns up with the cheque book already open rather than flying off to Hawaii when the country is burning or heading south for a party fundraiser when the alternative Prime Minister’s own electorate is at risk of a direct hit from a cyclone and flooding.

Do we really want to go back to the Coalition’s division and ineptitude, because that’s all they are really promising.

 

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