Vlad n U 2
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2008
- Messages
- 28,386
This new Liberal Party ad with the "miner" is essentially 'yeah okay we might be a bit dodgy but stay with us because Shorten will take away your investment property'.
Maybe they're vanity exercises. Cause otherwise, yeah, why not just swing in behind the Greens and help elect their candidate? Maybe it's personal in some cases.
Did you know that Sir Joh's 'successor' in Barambah, Trevor Perrett, won as a Citizens Electoral Council member? He later defected to the Nats and was a short lived minister for primary industries under Borbidge until an unfortunate connection to a dead hooker made the news.
You think that's bad. Go check out the rhetoric on the Family First homepage, which I shred in my review. Guys, everything will be fine because Fundies First will enable you to go about a quiet life with a few simple pleasures like getting haircuts and buying takeaway pizza.
That's as good an explanation as any. It's fucking weird.
It also means I share a mutual dislike with the CEC for royalty, but at least the motivations are so divergent as to make the coincidence meaningless.
What I actually think happens with some of those vanity parties is maybe someone tried to get preselected for the Greens and failed, or has a problem with whoever did get preselection, for myriad other reasons.
(Though I do enjoy people complaining that each state gets equal representation in the Senate. Funnily enough they're always people from NSW or Victoria. Uh, guys, if you haven't noticed, we already have a house with seats distributed according to population. It's the one where government is formed.)
The Jacqui Lambie Network will likely end up the same way as the PUPs; chaos. I'm not even sure why it exists, except that she (like Lazarus) is there now, and she has to make a decent fist of it.
Wouldn't it be simultaneously shit and kind of redundant if Pauline Hanson finally won a spot this time? Despite the woman's ubiquity it is going on twenty years since she held elected office. I don't think those decades have improved her, or the company she keeps.
Indeed. Our senate is really very like its US namesake in this regard. I think there's a place for that, and people who don't like it can get stuffed. It's obviously not any sort of pure 'states' house', but at the same time, I'm not sure how Tasmania (for one) would get listened to at all without that sort of clout.
Has any other person constantly tried so hard in Australian politics?
Yep. It's an interesting one though, because the Senate functions now - and has for decades - as a parties' house. Wouldn't it be more honest to elect it proportionally, like the New Zealand and some European parliaments? If your party gets 8% of the national vote, you get 8% of the seats.
But of course that raises the question of where that leaves the small states. It removes even the theoretical possibility that their elected members could combine to defend their interests.
I've never actually heard of him. Does he live in Nimbin?
I think it's fine as it is, but if you want to talk proportional representation in the lower house, party-wise, well that's a whole other conversation. The Greens should by rights (people will say) have 10% or whatever seats in the House. Of course Beazley should also have won the 1998 election. If wishes were fishes...
What happened with One Nation is that its economic concerns (this was the highwater mark of 'economic rationalism', which John Howard later partly defused with his middle class bribes) got lost in a fog as every far-right outfit in the country flocked to the flag-draped Joan of Arc. I'd say it turned Pauline's head. I'd say the company she keeps and the people who praise her, give her the strength to go on contesting elections. Well that, and she has to keep herself in the manner to which she has grown accustomed. Regular employment is right out; Dancing with the Stars is over; how many stories are New Idea or Woman's Day going to pay for at this point?
Pretty much.
I've spent far too long working on this JLN review, but by "working on" what I really mean is that she suggests Indigenous parliamentary seats along the lines of New Zealand's Maori seats, so I've gone down a New Zealand history wormhole. Because I definitely haven't done enough of that at work over the last six years.
That's actually a surprisingly stirring idea from her. Honestly, it's the one thing that would really set the cat among the pigeons, because as I've said before, part of the reason why Indigenous people in this country have it so fucking bad is that they are politically ignorable. That didn't happen in NZ.
Never happen of course, but a bloc of guaranteed Indigenous seats in the house or senate could be interesting times...
I just watched that controversial Bob Katter ad where he shoots the ALP and Liberal "candidates".
Not only is the timing tasteless, but it's just a really shit ad anyway.
And god, how is this a man who's maintained a political career. Every time I see him speaking I think I'm listening to a crazed uncle verbalising a chain email. What's the name of that character on Micallef's show who parodies right-wing talkshow callers? Katter basically sounds like a real-life version of that guy sometimes.
Speaking of everybody's favourite export from Dannevirke, Katter began his political career as a strong supporter of Joh, as you probably know. Covered in glory from the get-go.
I seriously can't even imagine what working with the Mad Katter must be like. I envisage his office as a few people trapped inside a giant hat shouting about immigrants while sculling pints of XXXX.
The thing about Katter though is that he was a staunch Joh man right to the end - yet managed to hold on to a cabinet post after Joh's fall. That's kind of impressive.
I really would love to read a biography of Joh from 100 years in the future though. The shadow of Joh continues to lie heavily upon Queensland. It's impossible to find a dispassionate take on him, and I wonder what future generations will make of his legacy. He may have been a detestable, corrupt, and vain man, but he was nothing if not remarkable.
I do often wonder what I would make of some of the politicians I study if they were my contemporaries rather than 150 years in the past. Would I admire or dislike them in the same way? Indeed, would I be able to assess them from a perspective of moderate objectivity? Even those I loathe, the issues are done and dusted. I have no emotional stake. There's one guy in particular I consider a total idiot because his publications are the insane rantings of a disgruntled old crank (James Busby of Auckland) but I genuinely love writing about him precisely because he's so entertaining. Could I say that about politicians today? Simply reading Peter Madden's tweets makes my blood boil.