I missed the debate. I was out. I have it recorded, waiting to be watched. Do I really, really, have to watch it?
I met a neighbour who said she’d watched it; said it was very civil. And that the audience behaved. Even more reasons not to watch it. She didn’t mention the incident of Morrison saying he was blessed to have healthy children in sympathy with the lady who explained her child was autistic; which since triggered confected outrage among the usual suspects.
I did see a bit of Sky News aftermath. Apparently, Albo was pinned by ScoMo on boat turn-backs, but ScoMo erred by querying why the Labor Party always sided with China against Australia. The audience was polled and gave the debate to Albo by a short head. A more general take was that Albo won because he didn’t mess up. In other words, he won because he didn’t lose.
I don’t really care about the debates or who wins them; unless they’re entertaining, apropos a Donald Trump debate. They don’t alter the facts on the ground. The most important of which is that in recent years, leftist parties have lost their collective minds. Voting for modern Labor is not within cooee of voting for a Bob Hawke or Paul Keating. It’s voting for a resurrected Jim Cairns, made modern. Maybe that’s doing Jim a grave disservice.
George Orwell, in The Road to Wigan Pier, wrote that “one sometimes gets the impression that the mere words socialism and communism draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, nature-cure quack, pacifist and feminist in England.” Orwell would be impressed to see how far the Left has come since 1936 in embracing faddish fetish causes. To pick one. The Victorian Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021 is a poster child for new Labor.
Those who vote for Labor must either be unbalanced or have a morbid tribal attachment. However, even more disturbed must be those who vote for the Greens or for one of those dreadful refugee-loving, climate-hysterical, fringe parties or candidates. Climate 200 fits the bill perfectly.
One of its lower house candidates, numbering thirteen comely women, is contesting my electorate of North Sydney. She goes by the name of Kylea Tink. When I say I prefer dripping-wet Trent Zimmerman, you’ll understand how bad are her polices, or thought bubbles. She wants a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2040. No new gas or coal developments. The immediate release of all refugees held in detention in Australia; and so on into la-la land. And she might win.
The problem for the dwindling number of sane voters, of course, is that main-stream centre-right parties have also lost the plot. For example, virtue-signalling has eroded and replaced standing on principle. In microcosm we saw that when Morrison threw our SAS troops to the wolves, as he did with the man accused of raping Brittany Higgins. Presumption of innocence? What’s that when the baying mob must be appeased?
Examples on a policy level. On climate change, the government’s policies are only slightly less idiotic than are Labor’s. On defence, Labor will always tend to spend too little on defence but then the Libs spending is derisory and a shambles. So, we are effectively defenceless in either case, might as well spend extra money on free child care. On Aboriginal policy, instead of making the case for a unified cohesive Australia, the Libs pander to the cause of singling out Aboriginals for special treatment. Even if, for the moment, they are not onboard with constitutionally enshrined segregation.
In sum, while Labor into has moved into bizarre territory; the Libs are chasing after them. This couldn’t and wouldn’t happen without a seismic and generational loss of common sense among a majority of voters. Politics is truly downstream from culture. And “we” (us conservatives apart) are undoubtedly getting the politics and politicians we deserve. An unhappy thought. Meanwhile I’ll put Ms Tink last; try to find a UAP, or One Nation, or Lib Dem candidate to put first and, hold my nose, and put Zimmerman second.
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