by I think we may be about to witness something incredible.
I think Turnbull’s Liberal National government is going to lose their majority.
The scandals and catastrophic failures are snowballing. The latest parliamentary entitlements scandal, the tens of thousands of fraudulent Centerlink debt notices, Brandis’s ever more absurd breaches of legal ethics, Mr potato head’s tropical torture tents, the billion dollars for Adani, Joe ‘Age of Entitlement is Over’ Hockey smoking cigars on budget night ’14, now pulling pension as well as being paid as US ambassador. It is all rolling down hill, gathering speed, growing into a boulder of icy public discontentment, careening towards the most cataclysmic political failure in Australian history.
They really do have a snowballs chance in the proverbial and it will likely be even more impressive than this.
Some of the governments ministers have been caught with their hands in the till. At a time when another arm of the same government is doubling down on claiming that the people who actually got off welfare owe it all back.
They have a one seat majority. For crying out loud they replaced Ley* with Sinodinos rather than risk bumping Tony back into play.
I will honestly be surprised if they make it to the first sitting day of the year intact. I don’t know what will happen when they lose the numbers, clearly they will retain minority government but for how long? The pool of buffoons from which they can replace Turnbull is small and tainted. Their characteristic inability to negotiate, the constant repetition of the idea that it is how they are selling their ideas not, you know the ideas themselves, that are the problem, their persistent inability to accept responsibility and blame for the consequences of their actions. All this leads me to believe that unlike our last minority government they will achieve very little at all besides digging themselves deeper holes, and short of a massive terror scare and a herculean effort from Rupert, eventually losing government.
The blistering hypocrisy of their ridiculous sense of entitlement the government holds is the most galling thing about the whole mess. These people who year after year have voted to increase their wages well above inflation, who have voted to increase their pension well above the median wage yet still penny pinch for Cabcharges from the airport to Mal’s place, or a trip to the polo to rub noses with Gina. These same people who think it is OK to charge everyone more to visit doctors, to renege on funding arrangements for public schools, to slash public dentistry programs, to risk driving childcare prices through the roof** (this on top of cutting the wages of childcare workers*** as one of their very first acts of parliament), propping up the ever expanding housing bubble while cutting investments in public housing, to build toll roads while cutting from public transport, to cut from actually profitable renewable investment and invest billions in coal, to undermine our human rights commissioner and keep children in concentration camps, in adult prisons or as a final middle finger to decency send them to countries they don’t even know for failing to meet the standards of the community they were raised in. These people who suck hard on the teat of the fossil fuel industry, fully concious that it’s business model fully intends to burn us all on the alter of quarterly profits.**** These people have the damned pride to claim that they have fiscal or moral authority on anything.
We are entitled to representative government. We are entitled to hold our representatives accountable. We are entitled to expect that corruption in public office when detected is appropriately punished and corrupt politicians are to be removed from office. I demand a federal ICAC with the power to prosecute now.
Until then prepare your popcorn because this is only going to get better.
End rant. Time to paint.
*Even the despicable pond scum in the Murdoch press have smelt blood in the water and are turning, looking to be on the winning side as always. ‘The Australian’ link >> .
**Eww a Daily mail link >> .
*** Item two on the list.
**** Citation no longer required.