by PAUL COLLITS – MODERN Australian politicians rarely say what they mean, never mean what they say and always avoid mentioning the things they intend to do if elected.
They play “look over there” politics, never earning a mandate while peppering their speeches with cliches and propaganda.
- It’s as if the two leaders sat down together to hatch an election campaign that suits them both and that hides the real issues.
- This reflects the shared ideology of our progressive, green, globalist, woke political class.
- Minns will complete the destruction of the NSW economy commenced so capably by the current Government.
This sad state of the modern polity has rendered elections as useless platforms for discussing and resolving policy issues.
Calling this a sadness might well be seen as understatement. Perhaps it should be called a sinister attempt by the political class to render voters even more irrelevant than they already are.
LIGHTNING
An elections expert once told me that your chance of having your own vote influence the outcome of an election was slimmer than your chance of being struck by lightning on your way to the polling booth.
We might accept that our individual votes don’t ever count for anything, but, once upon a time, we could be assured that the Parties competing for our votes at elections would honestly discuss the big issues so we could decide for whom to vote.
Just about every theory of representative democracy, the social contract and the consent of the governed told the story this way. Not any more.
Worst of all, they will religiously avoid confronting the issues that matter to voters. They get away with this as a result of the major Parties all-but-merging into one broad entity which shares a certain world view.
This is the ideology of the progressive, green, globalist, woke political class.
The very few politicians who do not subscribe to this world view generally keep pretty quiet about their objections to it.
We know what happens to pollies who “freelance”, who go off-script, who defy the almighty “leader’s office”, from which all political direction, communication and strategic thinking now emerge.
Original thinkers confronting big issues are no longer welcome in our parliaments, parliaments that are now the playthings of uncontrollable executive government.
The effect of these developments, when combined with lower house voting systems that routinely punish and seldom reward minor Parties populated by the independently minded or those who promote traditional (that is, the day-before-yesterday) values, is that around one third of the electorate is disenfranchised. Permanently. These are the outsiders. The deplorables.
So. We come to another non-election in NSW.
NO MANDATE
The first post-COVID election, as it happens. The first election since both legacy Parties, each of which now struggles to gain the trust of more than about thirty per cent of the primary vote, who can never (in truth) claim a mandate to govern.
These are the Parties that, because of a minor virus, agreed the whole State should be shut down, the economy destroyed and people’s basic human rights be removed.
Neither of them has the human decency to apologise nor to beg our forgiveness. And about which neither Party will even speak.
Mark Latham, just about the only politician in the State earning his salary – and who is placing himself voluntarily on the ballot paper even though his Upper House term still had four more years to run – has offered two core issues for debate in the election.
These are the precipitous decline in our education system (accompanied by the withering away of parental rights in relation to their children’s schooling) and the coming, government-driven crisis in our energy supply.
These are critical issues, it is true. But what about the referendum on COVID policy that is so desperately required if the political system is to retain even a skerrick of credibility?
What about the still-continuing public service vaccine mandates (that even the septuagenarian lunatic running the USA and BHP are poised to terminate)?
What about the crushed rights and freedoms? Stopping people who refused to take the unnecessary, experimental, unapproved, dangerous, ineffective jabs from visiting Kmart and BigW? The curfews? The army helicopters? The tyrannical, papers-please, contact tracing society engineered by Victor Dominello?
Any sort of just political system – which includes the media – would demand that these matters be thrashed out in a serious election campaign
But, what do the major political Parties come up with? According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the forthcoming NSW election (March 25, 2023) can be summarised as follows: Tolls and trains: Sydney transport front and Centre for Minns and Perrottet.
Tolls and trains! Talk about fifth order issues. And (of course), Sydney-centric, as politics in NSW now inevitably are.
It’s as if the two leaders sat down together to hatch an election campaign that suits them both and that buries issues that should find those who perpetrated the State’s deadly COVID policies locked up in prison.
These people have blood on their hands. Brad Hazzard and Kerry Chant lied.
Hazzard is now skulking off into retirement and the enjoyment of his fat pension, without a glove being laid on him. Barilaro – the Porkmeister – the same. Gladys? Enrichment in the private sector as ICAC still sits on its corruption inquiry into her highly questionable behaviour.
PSYCHOPATH
Kean the Green? “Wrong party” doesn’t go far enough. He is an economic vandal, nothing more and nothing less. An ideologue. A political psychopath.
Then there are all of the second-tier others slinking away from Macquarie Street. Rats and sinking ships come readily to mind.
Ministers whose blunders were considerable and achievements minimal. Those that are not facing criminal proceedings, that is (John Sidoti for public corruption and Gareth Ward for sex abuse), or who were eased out ahead of time with as little fanfare as possible (Don Harwin).
What an astonishingly bad Government it has been. Incompetent and immoral.
Then there is the Sydney-centrism. We had the unnecessary destruction and rebuilding of a perfectly serviceable existing stadium, the light rail vanity project, the endless toll roads, the metro rail lines, the relocation then non-relocation then duplication (in Parramatta) of the Powerhouse Museum.
Back in the day, the Libs used to leave worrying about the bush to the then principled and powerful NSW Nationals.
Attending to the woeful State of regional services and infrastructure, the loss of services, the lack of medical practitioners, and so on.
Nowadays, the Nats’ major contribution to combating Sydney-centrism is to pilfer community grant funds from the “poles and wires” privatisation pot of magic money in order to retain their seats.
All as they’ve transitioned in very short time from an old-fashioned, conservative country Party to rainbow coalitionist. Out and proud.
Pro-gay rights, pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, pro-consent education (a version of infamous Victorian safe schools program that sexualises children), and, no doubt, support for the banning of so-called conversion therapy in the pipeline.
Whatever else the Nats contribute, they certainly haven’t prevented the emergence of one of the most Sydney-centric governments in the State’s history.
LIES
The Northern Rivers floods and their aftermath a mere few days short of one year ago provide a useful case study in Sydney-centric governing.
If ever there was a single case study that demonstrated the lies, the bungling, the papering over of issues, the “look over there” approach to governing, the total absence of administrative follow-through, the fly-in-fly-out model of leadership, and the protection and retention in their jobs of rank incompetents – think Steph Cooke and Carlene York – then it is the Lismore flood.
Then again, blood-on-his-hands Hazzard and Chant kept their jobs after lying about COVID for over two years.
Don Harwin was reappointed so fast after breaking COVID laws that he hardly left the building, and Barilaro and Gladys hung on to their jobs until it all became way too hard even for this government to abide.
What about the other side?
Like Anthony Albanese, who tiptoed silently through the wide-open political door as ScMo’s final legacy of incompetence, and who is now seeking to change the country forever in ways none of us understood to be his intentions, NSW Labor’s Chris Minns probably assumes it’s now “his turn”.
UNDERHANDED
He, too, will be able to slither into office without telling us about the underhanded schemes he no doubt has planned for us but will never mention before the election. Or the promises he will break. Or the real issues he will ignore. Or the lies he will tell us. Or the actions he will take that will complete the destruction of the NSW economy commenced so capably by the current Government.
Mind you, we shouldn’t expect too much in the way of honest review and debate about proportionate public health responses to perceived threats during the election process.
Just look at the elections in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia. Useful idiot policymakers were all returned to office, rewarded massively by supine electorates for their efforts in crushing the Australian people.
All, of course, cheered on by ScoMo in Canberra, who even elevated these mini-dictators to the national stage.
No, the electoral process doesn’t evaluate policy any more. It doesn’t punish wrongdoing in high office. It doesn’t give the outsiders any measure of justice.
The NSW election may well succeed in turning over the government of the Premier State, but it won’t achieve anything else for the long-suffering electorate.
The big questions will remain untouched, sensible policy will remain a thing of the past, and out-of-control woke bureaucrats will continue to rule the roost.
God help us all that the most likely outcome is the return of Bob Carr’s NSW Labor Party to the Treasury benches, with Matt the Green more than likely leading a chastened but still clueless, faction-ridden Liberal Opposition.PC
Now think on this . Perrotette knew the lies around Covid but still played the game . He knew the state would be broke ( whilst his cohorts ) made a killing (literally and figuratively) from the Scam Demic . But he kept Hazard and Chant around and has allowed Kean to go green as they must have some dirt on him ? Now Minns backed sacking unvaccinated workers and thinks draining Warragamba Damn will stop flooding ?! Ensure that whomever you allow to run NSW has to answer for it . Vote One Nation and they will have to make deals with them to get their schemes approved . One Nation or NO Nation .
There are few things more enjoyable than watching it slowly dawn on you pathetic old monarchists that the world has moved on.
You precious 1950s colonial mono culture is dead.
You are sad rabble of old white whinging men.
Nobody cares what you think.
You nasty anti Australian . The white men you’re refer to have built and fought for this nation and it is the likes of you and The greens that have been trying to tear it down.