There’s been a lot of analysis of the Nepean by-election in Victoria where the Liberal candidate won thanks to – according to several speakers at the victory party last night – Jess Wilson and him being “on the ground” every day, which just shows that it’s not just Barnaby who does his best work on the ground after falling off a flower box.
Anyhow, the rise of One Nation has been meteoric!
I know this because I’ve been reading the papers and listening to the radio and television and a large number tell me that this is unprecedented.
And I must agree. It’s certainly been a sudden and meteoric rise. I mean, Pauline’s only been banging on about how certain people get too much and certain people don’t belong here (even if these people have changed from Asians to Muslims) for twenty or thirty years now so it’s basically an overnight success story and no other party has been able to come from nowhere and win three or four seats in a state election where one of the major parties was about as popular as syphilis ..
Popular as syphilis.. mm, that’s an odd expression when I think about it because the way most people get syphilis is doing something they enjoyed doing whereas I don’t think anyone has enjoyed being exposed to the Liberal Party recently… including a large number of its own MPs. (And yes, before pedants point out things like hereditary syphilis and other things that aren’t anything to do with choice, I’m using hyperbole and metaphor and all those things that make points while not being literally correct!)
Anyway back to the meteoric rise of Pauline’s Party – and it is her party; it’s in the name: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation!
In this case, calling it a “meteoric rise” is a metaphor that’s quite apt for both literary and literal meanings. For a start, a meteor doesn’t actually rise. It just streaks across the sky and we only notice it when it’s one that has a lot of light around it. There are actually plenty of meteors occurring every day but we just don’t notice them because they’re not as bright as others. At this point the comparison to Pauline Hanson and her party members breaks down… which is rather ironic because, well, so does a meteor. There’s a greater chance we’ll see them in the darkness (metaphor quite strong again), and after that flash of light and attention, it’s all over because they burn up and disintegrate… Again, quite appropriate, given One Nation’s history with its MPs.
Leaving aside the metaphors, it’s time for some plane speaking… And yes, it is a pun, so don’t tell me I can’t spell “plain”.
The little present that Gina Rinehart gave Pauline has sparked a bit of controversy because, well, it’s a rather large gift and there have been suggestions that it seems a bit inappropriate for a billionaire to be giving a party leader a plane. Of course, the obvious answer to that is: Who else could give a party leader a plane? I mean your average nurse or teacher or uber driver has enough trouble purchasing their own plane thanks to the inflation caused by Jim Chalmers, so buying one for a politician is out of the question.
Now there has been a defence mounted by Pauline’s pals:
- It’s not a jet; it has propellers. Thus, making the criticism that Gina bought a jet for Pauline completely invalid in the same way that Rupert Murdoch can claim that he’s not responsible for anything his journalists write on the grounds that they’re not journalists.
- Just because Ms Rinehart buys someone a jet that doesn’t mean that she expects to be able to influence the policies of said politician because that would be like buying them. No, Ms Rinehart only rewarded Ms Hanson for her outstanding work in promoting sensible policies that Ms Rinehart agrees with. Pauline stands for the battler and Ms Rinehart has a history of standing up for the battler. Remember her support of Africans who work for $2 a day and how she complained that Aussies could learn a thing or two from them?
- Other parties have people making donations. For example, the Labor Party have trade unions making donations and that should surely influence them to make policies that help people in unions. This argument is a little strange given that a previous argument was that the plane wouldn’t influence Pauline at all. It’s also a little strange to argue that a group of people have the same potential for corrupting a political party as one individual, but that’s just my opinion and if you don’t like it, well, there’ll be no plane for you this Christmas. Not from me, anyway. You’ll never know what Gina might give you if you say the right thing!
- It’s ok, because Gina wasn’t the only one to make a large donation. One of her employees, Ian Plimer, also kicked in $500,000. Ian Plimer is climate change enthusiast and complained because nobody would publish his book, which he argued was because of a bias against anyone presenting an alternative view to people who supported the view of most sensible people. You can’t find any articles against the accepted view on climate change apart from a few billion words in the Murdoch Machine. (I use the term “climate change enthusiast” because lots of people object to climate change denier!)
As for the future of the One Nation party, it may be too early to dismiss it as I did before, but to stick with the meteor analogy: I suspect that it’ll look bright and colourful and attract a lot of attention but just like a meteor if it starts heading straight toward you, you’ll suddenly think that it looks dangerous and you want to get out of the way, only to be glad that it burns up rather quickly once it finds itself in the Earth’s atmosphere.
There once was a pollie Poorleen
Who wondered “which way should I lean?”
“ok for a start”
“I’ll suck up to Rinehart”
“so the battlers will know that I’m clean”
Australian politics has a “body” and the old major parties simulated organ activity for us all, able to hear, see, taste, feel, move about, ingest and eliminate so that the political “life” therein seemed obvious. But this current surge of One Nation is obviously not healthy, being of rapidly advancing scale, scurf, scabbiness, a threatening nonfunctional pox. Hansonism is whining tumourism, uselessly threatening even if enticing to the unbalanced, desperate, frustrated. Just awful.
@Phil: “…Hansonism is whining tumourism….”, an apt metaphor.
It is important to correctly classify and define the clinical nature of a tumour so that appropriate therapies can be applied. In other words the therapist needs to know what they are dealing with.
Broadly, a benign tumour is an abnormal mass, the growth of which is uncoordinated with the surrounding normal tissue. It causes pressure as it grows and this affects the functions of the normal tissue surrounding it. It is usually separated from the surrounding normal structures by a thin membrane that tends to confine the tumour as it grows. Growth promotional factors are generally unknown and the tumour may spontaneously cease growing and even “shrink” as its nutrient supply dries up. Or they can be surgically removed without recurrence.
A malignant tumour however is made up of abnormal cells that proliferate in a manner quite different the surrounding tissues – malignant cells become immortal. A malignant (cancerous) tumour does not contain a space limiting capsule and the abnormal cells invade and destroy the normal surrounding cells and may spread (metastasise) to distant sites via the circulatory system. Even if growth factors are known but are eliminated, the cancer will continue to spread. Malignant tumours rarely spontaneously regress and frequently re-appear after major therapies are applied.
I think you can understand the metaphoric comparison.
“Oi’m a grarse root arse trailerian.”
Well done Mediocrates, got the complete unhealthiness of it. Ughh.
Uhm ….. What about the $600 million jet donated to TACO Trumpery by a Gulf State soon after his 2025 confirmation?? Must be wondering why their country got well bombed as part of the Iran self-defence.
Still, there will be plenty more drones, rockets and missiles after TACO Trumpery erroneously believes that he can win hard ball against Iran without wiping out all the water treatment plants along the Gulf plus the likely loss of fossil fuel extraction and refining infrastructure.
Sadly, this would mean continuing high prices for Australian fossil fuel consumers, demonstrating the desperate need for the return of regional passenger and freight rail services, the latter requiring building of regional bulk handling facilities for minimum container sized loads.
Was it reported that PHONey Puppet Porelean was disappointed when she learnt that the Cirrus D7 had a left wing??
And now, we hear that Barnaby Jucking- Foyce, the blueprint of a political slut, has criticised the One Nation candidate for Farrer, who blurted sense and NOT “party policy” on immigration. And the drunken footpath presser says that ordinary people will not worry about the gift plane, a dirty inducement, filthy fiddle, freeby, corruption and sicko shit in the face of the overlooked, the screwed, the deluded. Hansonism is impure filth, farcical of unethical immoral outlook, ADOLFIAN.
Imagine the uproar if Anthony Albappeasey was gifted a personal plane by one of his filthy rich donors (Yes, Labor has ’em too!). Woah, hang on! Imagine the nationwide meltdown if Larissa Waters got a free million dollar Cirrus G7!!!
Australian ‘right’ or ‘conservatives’ are replicating their civil wars of the past decade+ in UK & US tearing them apart, but kept in the game by Murdoch led RW MSM doing permanent 24/7/365 pincer campaign vs the centre.
Stupid importing and adoption of US fossil fuel ‘segregation economics’ Koch and anti-immigrant Tanton Network policies, which inform not just the right and government, but some of the left, who are too easily astroturfed.
Good news is our electoral system inc compulsory and preferential voting, does not reward insurgency campaigns like FPTP and referendums and preclude urban seats for the right, which are essential to form government.
Samaras of Red Bridge did good analysis on electoral demographics of which the skip RW MSM are oblivious?
If you want to dog whistle Chinese and Indians, good luck with that; Indian born now outnumber British born and is a generation younger…..as ‘The Great Replacement’ does its work (also in UK deaths now outnumber births, we are several years off that yet, thanks to permanent migration program).
The full article on SubStack is here:
‘A Decade of Dog-Whistles, and a Decade of Lost Voters. The Coalition’s natural voter just became Australia’s largest diaspora. It doesn’t vote for them…..
https://redbridgeintel.substack.com/p/a-decade-of-dog-whistles-and-a-decade
I see that Barnaby has announced on SKY that he may seek to be re-elected in the federal seat of new England for One Nation after having been encouraged by various people in the community who recognise the significant contribution he has made to that electorate whilst sitting as a National Party member.
I cannot imagine that the good people of New England would seek to re-elect this man but it may be an opportunity to once and for all get rid of him from the political scene.
“I cannot imagine that the good people of New England would seek to re-elect this man but it may be an opportunity to once and for all get rid of him from the political scene.”
To paraphrase Forrest Gump: Life is like box of bogans, you never what stupidity you’ll get.
@ Terry Mills: As a too long suffering voter in New England I can assure you that the Beetrooter has lost his automatic pre-selection with the NOtional$, reportedly due to a fresh lady Chairperson of the NOtional$ Pre-selection Committee who decided that Beetrooter was a ”very naughty boy”.
It was not his 13 years of ignoring the economic and social needs of the electorate while he cultivated his personal pecuniary interests, nor was it his adultery, alcoholism, bullying. corruption, deceit, fornication, sexual harassment, philandering or misogyny. Rather he was caught on camera by a passing tourist caressing a Canberra planter box.
The shame!! The shame!! Such picadilloes should only be practiced in the privacy of a bedroom!!
New England voters have a track record of punishing politicians who change parties between elections. It is considered a little like a jockey changing horses mid-race …. ”Just not cricket, you know”.
Northern Tablelands Independent MP Richard Torbay and former progressive Speaker was suckered by the NOtional$ to change parties immediately before the criminal investigation into the business dealings of Eddie Obeid came knocking. Torbay was warned that he could be an Independent MP or lose his electorate, he chose the NOtional$, before immediately retiring to take a long overseas vacation; Mr Obeid had some ”interesting” friends …..
Cocky
Barnaby on SKY wasn’t saying he would stand in NE for the Nats but for ON.He quit the Nats.
Pauline and Barnaby are boasting that they increased their vote in the Nepean state bi-election with no policies and are hoping to do the same in Farrer. For Barny to expect to take NE in a federal election absent any polices that he can actually influence is loony-tunes. Surely the electorate is not that stupid?
T. M., there are few surelys left. Whingeing juvenility, the actual One Nation policy core, only requires bitter childishness, endless fantasy unscratchableness. Non achievement has been their achievement, the fart has its own short life and effect and voters know they have no hope personally, so there. As for B Joyce (burp), giz another. And it seems, Farley is floating to the exit…
@ Terry Mills: I am not too sure about that ….. The local is on the Armidale Regional Council Mayor to be the next pre-selected NOtional$ candidate.
He has two outstanding features; an inherent good ability to make bad choices and a father-in-law with decades of political experience who is owed many favours by the NOtional$ party that are expected to be repaid so that his daughter and grand-daughter will have a financially secure future. Otherwise there is little to suggest that he has the imagination, energy or will to rectify the neglect of Beetrooter’s 13 year reign of representing his personal pecuniary interests.
Doubtless this will please the locals who are voting the same way as their great grand parents seeking a 19th century result in a 21st century world. The growing industry in New England is emptying commercial premises, closing retail shops and departing fast food outlests. Even the charity shops are moving on.