Thou doth protest too much

These words in the headline have been adapted from Hamlet, but for the uninitiated, they mean the extent of a person’s denial, which means they might be protesting too much.

After Peter ‘Trust Fund’ Dutton was appropriately criticised by the public yesterday for failing to front the press about his alleged big bank share purchases shortly before the Rudd Government announced a policy to protect Australia’s big banks from the GFC, he finally fronted the media today, kicking and screaming. The Great Bard’s immortal words from Hamlet came to mind as Dutton ranted, raved and frothed at the mouth like Queen Gertrude. So here are snippets of what he who can’t count to 43 had to say, which immediately caught my attention:

1. Blaming his political opponents for the reporting. Sorry, Pete, but your political opponents aren’t reporting the stories. The Murdoch media reported the alleged share purchase (did Rupert have an epiphany within the cryogenic chamber?), and the last time I polluted my mind with the words of News Corpse, they were not an Australian Labor Party fan club, so where there is flatulence – I will leave that one suspended in midair. The story regarding the alleged failures by Precious Pete to either report real property transactions completed by him, to fully report those property transactions or to report them on time was a news story broken by Nine Media, another mainstream media outlet that hasn’t been a Labor friendly entity since the late Kerry Packer spat his chips out over not being the first cab off the rank to receive a pay television licence. Rant number one has engaged Queen Gertrude’s verbiage from the start; however, like the old television advertisement, ‘but wait, there is more’.

2. Did not address the elephant in the room. We heard the outrage about “me and dad starting this business” (funny, I thought he always liked talking about being a police officer), which was said with the authenticity of an amateur ventriloquist advisor trying to engender public sympathy. However, despite the exploding Queen Gertrude analogy I raised earlier, we did not hear he, who can’t count to 43, deny the timing of the alleged share purchases. We, the voting public, are entitled to hear that explanation. Oops – sometimes advisors fail to tick all the boxes of protestations, but on this occasion, one wonders.

3. Me and Dad. Then we heard the vitriol about ‘me and my dad’ starting this business from humble origins. Ah, that’s not precisely correct there, Peter. Your grandparents were dairy farmers, Dad was able to send you to a Brisbane private school, and you did commence amassing your property portfolio at the age of 18.

4. KISS. Stands for “keep it simple, stupid”. As Queen Gertrude’s performance progressed, blaming everyone except for himself, Peter broke the cardinal rule of politics – KISS. Unless my ears fail me, he appeared to tell the press he had never lived in any of the properties. I believe we are now entitled to find out about any Capital Gains Tax consequences (there might not have been) if there were any (if my hearing was serving me correctly about him never living in those properties), of Dutton not living in these properties. How were the sale of these properties described to the ATO? We, the voting public, deserve to know these facts given that ‘he whose name should not be mentioned’ likes to take a spec from another person’s eye.

So there are more questions than answers once the so-called ‘tough guy’ finally emerged from underneath his colleague’s skirts.

 

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