by PAUL COLLITS – HISTORY repeats, first as tragedy then as farce, as Anthony Albanese’s guiding mentor Karl Marx once stated.
I couldn’t help but notice one of Freebie Albanese’s more recent indiscretions. With a political tin ear that is hard to comprehend, even in an era where politicians are brazenly self-serving, Albo decided to buy a $4.3m property on the NSW Central Coast.
- While in office they suck up the perks.
- Post politics, they slink off to academic, corporate and NGO sinecures.
- Here is a pathetic Prime Minister, an accidental leader with a pathetic narrative.
Then to sign off on $100m worth of road works that will ease his commute and that of his fiancé Jodie Haydon.
It was pure Joh Bjelke-Petersen. I can’t decide whether it’s history repeating itself as tragedy or as farce.
CORRUPTION
One of the late, great Joh’s many minor acts of corruption was to arrange for funding a bitumen road to the gate of his son John’s property, up Kingaroy way.
It summed up an era of sloppy, self-absorbed governance in Queensland that now seems wonderfully nostalgic.
It was a world of corrupt coppers and ministers (Terry Lewis and Russ Hinze), business welfare, jerrymanders and the white shoe brigade.
As it now happens, they were the halcyon days.
I always prefer limited government crooks to big government, deep state crooks. Joh never spied on me. Never abused me. Never closed the borders.
Now, I have nothing against property investors. I am one myself.
Albo has about fifteen investment properties, I gather. Good for him. If only he pushed harder to stomp on the various Leftist suggestions to get rid of negative gearing emerging from within and adjacent to his “Government”.
But, as gifts to the Opposition go, this is up there. During a nationwide crisis in both housing – largely created by Albo’s manic mass immigration policy – and in the cost of living, it is hard to imagine a better trigger for 2025 Liberal election adverts.
I also have nothing against Albo’s fiancé. She’s a coastie, apparently. Alas, without taste in husbands.
But Albo’s new girlfriend has set the cat among the political pigeons by enjoining soon-to-be hubby to buy her a multi-million-dollar pad overlooking the sea.
When bad, indeed awful governments come a cropper, it is often some weird trigger that somehow brings into suddenly sharp focus all the things we hate about modern government. And about bad governments, in particular.
With Gough Whitlam, it was probably Khemlani and the Arab loans. Some call these things barbecue stoppers.
HEADLINE
Will the purchase of the Copacabana property be Albo’s Khemlani? It happens when some headline grabbing event tells everyone, instantly, something about the bigger stink at the heart of government.
The beauty of this recent crisis is that it neatly reveals and condemns the whole political class. They are on the take. They do not seek to hide this. Such is their collective arrogance.
While in office, they suck up the perks. Post politics, they slink off to academic and business and NGO sinecures.
Often they become university chancellors or professors. The list is far longer than any voter would ever know. It is a routine progression. The reward for services to the corporate, public-private-partnership model.
Daniel Andrews is the latest. He is chairing a mental health outfit!
Jacinda Ardern is a Dame. As we know, there is nothing like a dame. Prince William’s buddy.
If only the punters could join the dots.
Here is a pathetic prime minister. An accidental leader. With a pathetic narrative.
My mother lived in public housing, for God’s sake. A hollow narrative, zero skills and a disastrous “vision” for our country.
DESERVED
This week I attended a Family of League luncheon. Its main purpose was to venerate the great rugby league player, Ron Coote, who was recently made the league’s fourteenth “immortal”. Massively deserved, if a little late.
The big screen video of the induction showed Ron being presented with his honour by – Anthony Albanese.
Albo serially associates himself with popular causes. He is a cosplayer. But he has not done the hard yards of national leadership.
He was elected on a minority of the vote. He had no mandate that we all agreed on. He has no clue about the national mood.
He has little political capital, as a result. So, when he buys a mansion on the coast for millions and then fixes infrastructure funding to benefit himself, he is going to come unstuck.
Bob Hawke was able to pull off the populist strategy. Hawke led an outstanding government. He had substance. And a sense of the people.
Albo, not so much. He isn’t, remotely, a simulacrum of good governance. And a disgrace to once great Labor.
His passing will not be lamented. In the meantime, we all suffer and the nation declines.PC
Albanese, as is widely reported, is a ‘houso’ who went to a private school. Thence to uni and on to the Labor party and into the Federal Parliament. He has shown himself to be exceptionally incapable of being other than a faithful follower of Labor’s left and when it suits anti Israel. This is a downside of Australian democracy. Why Labor Right has allowed him to progress thus far is an indictment. The ‘light on the hill’ is extinguished. It shows in Labor’s rapidly declining core vote, its attempt to flood our population, it’s feting sectarianism and now seeking to control free speech by other than government officials. This govt has added 36,000 to the public service, another example of constituency farming.
But guess what, baseball bat sales are up. We will get one shot to turn the socialist tide, Labor, teals and Greens, a 3 sided bad penny. Is the Dutton led Coalition up to it?