The Drum (ABC's
pseudo-political talkfest) had an interesting article on the
Government's asylum seeker shenanigans today. I'll post the link after the jump at the bottom of the article. This piece sighs a heavy sigh of exasperation at being forced to choose between a party that says 'stop the boats' and another that says 'but send them to Malaysia first'.
When everyone else in the room knows what to do but you, and you just keep shouting louder and louder instead of admitting you're wrong.
Here's a quote from the end of The Drum's article;
In the meantime, Chris Bowen acknowledges the greater likelihood of onshore processing as the only viable option if the Monday amendments are defeated.
If so, it will have taken a High Court decision and parliamentary defeat to force the Government to adopt its own party's official platform position.
But as Annabel Crabb suggested on television this week, a principle adopted as a last resort lacks the currency of a principle adopted as a first resort.
Hands up who remembers that glorious evening, some years ago now, as the results rolled in and with a sharp intake of stunned breath and eyes widened by delight, we all realised John Howard had gotten the arse? If I could I would have framed those shots of Grumpy John and hung them on the living room wall.
Remember that following morning? The sky seemed a little bluer, the birds seemed to be singing a song of fresh hope, the lion may have even laid down with the lamb, I can't quite recall. We thought Big Kev was a little dubious, but a change was as good as a holiday. He said the big SORRY. We all cheered - at last this country was headed in the right direction.
Instead it was like waking after a huge, massive party, taking the beer goggles off and realising we'd slept with some horrendous troll with sores like corn flakes on her lips. Kev eventually got knifed in the back by Brutus and the rest of the caucus, and we got traded a female candidate.
She was unmarried, an atheist, had a hard left background. Maybe this could be good, we tentatively thought. Sure I've been betrayed in love before, but Julia promises me she loves me, can I just loan her $500 until payday? Well, the firebrand red-head turned into a ginger cracker without warning.
See, the Howard years scarred this country. Between WorkChoices, war in Iraq, complicity in torture, abnegation of any interest in the environment, open slather deals for mining and Murdoch, the tacit championing of racism, and a million other indignities small and large, we'd gotten tired. We wanted to move on. But lurching from Honest John to K-Rudd to the Ginger Bogan, it seemed everyone had moved on, except our Government.
With everyone except the mining industry and the Murdoch press wanting action on climate change we've lumbered through three successive governments doing as little as they think they can get away with.
We have an atheist, unmarried PM championing the Christian right wing's view on same-sex equality, over the %55-75 (depending which poll you read when) of Australians who support same-sex marriage. That's a broader majority than that which got the Government in power bear in mind.
And finally we have had to play the most ludicrous and ridiculous games of political dodging and semantics just to acknowledge what we knew all along - people who cross the ocean in a leaky boat because they're afraid they're going to be killed, should maybe treated like the people in dire need they actually are.
What do we have to do Julia, Tony? We've been shouting until we're hoarse through 11 years of the Libs and four years of a lacklustre ALP. We've thrown you mandates any politician would whip their shit out and beat for glory over. I don't expect the Libs to turn around, but I wonder why the ALP can't see the golden opportunity they have. If they went hard left now, and reversed most if not all of their policies, with a few public beheadings (figurative ones - sack Mark Arbib please) to allay doubts, maybe they could regain support, stop haemorrhaging members to the Greens, and actually look, oh I dunno, different in some way to the Libs?
Come on Labor, pull your fingers out of your ears, pull your thumbs out of your arses, listen to your country and do what we've been waiting for. We've been waiting too goddamn long. The biggest risk you'll run is looking a bit sheepish, a little stupid and about as disingenuous as we expect politicians to be anyway.
Or you know what? Maybe the Libs and Labor should formally dissolve. I'd rather have 2-3 small right wing parties, 5-6 moderate ones, and 2-3 small left wing parties, than two great, huge caged monoliths that think and talk the same.
Oh and one last thing Julia, can you and Tony just f#ck and get it over with? Srsly.
When everyone else in the room knows what to do but you, and you just keep shouting louder and louder instead of admitting you're wrong.
Here's a quote from the end of The Drum's article;
In the meantime, Chris Bowen acknowledges the greater likelihood of onshore processing as the only viable option if the Monday amendments are defeated.
If so, it will have taken a High Court decision and parliamentary defeat to force the Government to adopt its own party's official platform position.
But as Annabel Crabb suggested on television this week, a principle adopted as a last resort lacks the currency of a principle adopted as a first resort.
Hands up who remembers that glorious evening, some years ago now, as the results rolled in and with a sharp intake of stunned breath and eyes widened by delight, we all realised John Howard had gotten the arse? If I could I would have framed those shots of Grumpy John and hung them on the living room wall.
Remember that following morning? The sky seemed a little bluer, the birds seemed to be singing a song of fresh hope, the lion may have even laid down with the lamb, I can't quite recall. We thought Big Kev was a little dubious, but a change was as good as a holiday. He said the big SORRY. We all cheered - at last this country was headed in the right direction.
Instead it was like waking after a huge, massive party, taking the beer goggles off and realising we'd slept with some horrendous troll with sores like corn flakes on her lips. Kev eventually got knifed in the back by Brutus and the rest of the caucus, and we got traded a female candidate.
She was unmarried, an atheist, had a hard left background. Maybe this could be good, we tentatively thought. Sure I've been betrayed in love before, but Julia promises me she loves me, can I just loan her $500 until payday? Well, the firebrand red-head turned into a ginger cracker without warning.
See, the Howard years scarred this country. Between WorkChoices, war in Iraq, complicity in torture, abnegation of any interest in the environment, open slather deals for mining and Murdoch, the tacit championing of racism, and a million other indignities small and large, we'd gotten tired. We wanted to move on. But lurching from Honest John to K-Rudd to the Ginger Bogan, it seemed everyone had moved on, except our Government.
With everyone except the mining industry and the Murdoch press wanting action on climate change we've lumbered through three successive governments doing as little as they think they can get away with.
We have an atheist, unmarried PM championing the Christian right wing's view on same-sex equality, over the %55-75 (depending which poll you read when) of Australians who support same-sex marriage. That's a broader majority than that which got the Government in power bear in mind.
And finally we have had to play the most ludicrous and ridiculous games of political dodging and semantics just to acknowledge what we knew all along - people who cross the ocean in a leaky boat because they're afraid they're going to be killed, should maybe treated like the people in dire need they actually are.
What do we have to do Julia, Tony? We've been shouting until we're hoarse through 11 years of the Libs and four years of a lacklustre ALP. We've thrown you mandates any politician would whip their shit out and beat for glory over. I don't expect the Libs to turn around, but I wonder why the ALP can't see the golden opportunity they have. If they went hard left now, and reversed most if not all of their policies, with a few public beheadings (figurative ones - sack Mark Arbib please) to allay doubts, maybe they could regain support, stop haemorrhaging members to the Greens, and actually look, oh I dunno, different in some way to the Libs?
Come on Labor, pull your fingers out of your ears, pull your thumbs out of your arses, listen to your country and do what we've been waiting for. We've been waiting too goddamn long. The biggest risk you'll run is looking a bit sheepish, a little stupid and about as disingenuous as we expect politicians to be anyway.
Or you know what? Maybe the Libs and Labor should formally dissolve. I'd rather have 2-3 small right wing parties, 5-6 moderate ones, and 2-3 small left wing parties, than two great, huge caged monoliths that think and talk the same.
Oh and one last thing Julia, can you and Tony just f#ck and get it over with? Srsly.
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