The NSW extreme right has once again used its muscle to bully people into doing its bidding. Elected representatives have been coerced and cajoled into toeing the line and putting their support in for an embattled leader.
Sound familiar? I’m not talking about the NSW Labor Party. This is the extreme right of the Liberal Party. Abbott’s cronies have used their factional muscle to shore up support for the defeat of the spill motion.
The tactics are typical of those who are besotted with power. It is typical of those for whom power is the end game; it is not necessary to have good policies; it is not necessary to have the support of the people it is only important to have the parliamentary numbers.
What we saw played out in the spill motion process was factional heavies in NSW, WA, Victoria and SA employing the very tactics the Labor Party has been accused of over the years.
Well, the Labor Party does use these tactics in NSW. But compared to the Libs, they are amateurs at it.
The public have said to the Libs, dump him, the backbench majority has said we should consider dumping him but the powerbrokers have said, it ain’t gunna happen.
Senior ministers ringing colleagues tells me that arm twisting over the phone was the method. I’ve seen it thousands of times and here we go again.
I admire the 39 dissenters who have said, let’s put things to the test. I don’t admire those who used process to avert that test. The motion calling for a spill was called early, the technicality of a procedural motion allowing no debate was employed to stifle the opportunity for those members who wanted to have a say in doing so and bully boy tactics employed to ensure that ministers and whips toed the line. Essentially, it was a typical political stack.
The losers in this debacle are the PM, his cronies (they will go over the cliff with him when the tide turns – in August I predict), any good name the Libs have left and the Australian public.
The PM is mortally wounded and his closest cronies Hockey, Cormann, Pyne, Brandis, Abetz and Andrews are sitting in the mortuary waiting room.
The Australian public are the losers because the same extremists are in charge of developing the new Budget (over the corpse of the last one). Leopards and spots stuff!
The Libs claim they are not like Labor. True! They are greater haters, better leakers, better stalkers, and they have this born right to rule ethic. And they reckon if you make the rich super rich they will look after the poor people. Yeah, right!
They all wear blue ties to mimic the colour of their blood.
From my spot, watching the game from the hill, I like this blood sport. I like to see the gladiatorial contest. I like to see the Libs eating each other. I had to watch their pleasure when in the doldrums ourselves. And what goes around comes around. It is our turn to be entertained.
Don’t let the Mad Monk go anywhere. He is the best thing to ensure a Labor Government in 2016.
Apropos nothing really, did you know that Abbots live in Abbeys not Lodges. And Bishops live in Palaces, hence the refurbishments in the Lodge. Bishops outrank Abbots. I reckon also that the Abbott and both Bishops have committed a number of Cardinal sins and they have been exposed by cartoonist Pope. Funny that!
(Photo by Josh Mulrine from Shout Factor)