Remember When Barnaby Was The Electoral Liability And Not The Brains Of The Outfit?

I remember someone saying that Barnaby Joyce was one of the best retail politicians and I couldn’t help but wonder if there were politicians you could get wholesale.

I also remember when the Coalition were concerned that Mr Joyce was going to cost them seats in the cities. Barnaby’s retailing apparently worked best in the country where people were used to things costing extra and grateful that a government representative would share a beer with them and listen to them complain and tell them that he was on their side and that he’d be happy to help as long as it didn’t involve actually doing anything.

So the rumours are now suggesting that the recent deflection to One Notion isn’t going as swimmingly as one would have expected… There are suggestions that Barnaby is finding that the grass isn’t greener in spite of the massive amounts of fertilizer being used, and that changing parties isn’t as simple as changing your spouse. Barnaby, in fact, is finding things difficult when people start rambling and posting whatever bright idea pops into their head.

Speaking of Malcolm Roberts, one has to wonder where to start. Now that the media is talking in terms of Pauline Hanson as a potential prime minister, one would think that any normal politician would pause before speaking and ask themselves how things sound to people who have some grasp on reality. Yeah, sure, chemtrails might exist and, of course, vaccines were invented a few centuries ago so that Big Pharma could take advantage of people by faking videos of people dying from Covid, and, as for that Bondi thing…

Let me be perfectly clear, I’m not saying that every conspiracy theory that ever existed is completely wrong in every way. I’m just suggesting that, were I to be going for a job, I’d probably refrain from asking if the company has a policy to stop the leakage from vaccinated people getting into the air conditioning, even if I thought such a thing to be a possibility. I’d probably be content knowing that special bracelet I bought on the internet from a doctor who didn’t complete his medical training would protect me.

The coming Victorian election strikes me as interesting because I’m pretty sure that if I’d started a party named “None of the Above”, I’d have a pretty good chance in most seats… Ok, maybe not the ones where my candidate was first on the ballot but you get my point.

Labor are definitely on the nose and a fair percentage of people think it’s time for a change, but then they look at the Liberals and think, “Are things really this desperate?”, before wondering if One Nation could be the answer because their candidates aren’t selected yet and that looks rather appealing when compared to the rest…

Yes, I am overlooking The Greens. That’s because nobody else is talking about them and, generally, they don’t get any publicity unless one of them says something so outrageous that the majority of Greens don’t agree with it, leading to a few days of controversy before either a) the person leaves The Greens, or b) everyone gets bored with the topic and the media goes back to some other clickbait topic like: “CAPITAL GAINS CHANGES COULD CAUSE COVID-STYLE LOCKDOWN”, where the article quotes Dave Hughes making some claim without giving any reason for his assertions.

So when Victoria goes to the polls we’ll see the first real test of how One Nation will actually poll after an election campaign where they actually state their policies on a range of issues in a way that precludes Pauline saying that her comment was taken out of context and when she said there should be mass deportations of migrants, she didn’t mean ones that were likely to vote for her, just the ones who won’t assimilate and insist on a Welcome to Country because why should they be welcomed to her own country when they come from a place that doesn’t even fly an Australian flag on Anzac Day.

Generally speaking, there’s sometimes only one thing worse than changing a leader before an election, and that’s not changing your leader before an election. The change to Ben Carroll could attract a barrage of criticism from the Liberals were it not for the fact that they’ve changed their leader more times than some people change their underwear.

And, while One Nation can assert that they never change their leader, having a party where the leader is cemented in power by the party’s constitution isn’t a good look in a democracy. But, as Pauline would say, “If people don’t like the way I run the party then they’re always free to leave the country!”