The Abbott Gaffernment
Has there ever been a Government like Australia’s. More prone
to gaffes and stumbles; mind melts and the uttering of utter inanities
and idiocies; more arrogant, asinine and absurd?
I don’t think so. Not now. Not after listening to Treasurer Joe
Hockey stumble and bumble last week over “poor people” and then hearing
Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s comments about Scottish independence.
Hockey, you will no doubt be aware, last week said the increasing petrol excise increase was a progressive tax ‒ that is, hurts the rich more ‒ because
“… the poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases.”
What the .…?
This is sort of comment that could only come from someone insulated
in the affluent, cosy North Shore of Sydney, who has no idea what it is
like to be poor ‒ to be out in the Western suburbs, or out in the bush ‒
where there are no trains, few buses and you need to drive for miles to
get anywhere. Those are the people who are slammed by increases in fuel
costs — not the rich.
Then, after a day and a bit of brazening it out and defending his comments as harsh but fair, the tide of public sentiment got too much for even slow old Joe to ignore and so he made an apology… of sorts.
What sort of apology was it? Was it on the ABC, so as to go out to
all Australians? Was it gracious and humble, with the appropriate
measure of contrition and remorse?
Don’t be daft! No, no, no, no and no.
It was on that lunar rightwing 2GB radio station, famous for Alan
Jones’ maniacal rants, with another rightwing shockjock and personal
friend of Hockey, Ben Fordham.
And it wasn’t so much an apology as a — how terrible, I’ve been badly misinterpreted by my enemies, now everyone hates me, it’s so unfair. I’m a nice guy, really!
Here’s some of what Hockey said [IA emphasis]:
“I am really genuinely sorry that there is any suggestion, any suggestion at all that I or the government does not care for the most disadvantaged in the community.
“I’m sorry about the interpretation, I am sorry about the words.
“All of my life I have fought for and tried to help the most disadvantaged people in the community.
"For there to be some suggestion that I have evil in my heart when it comes to the most disadvantaged people in the community is upsetting.
"But it’s more upsetting for those people in the community. So I want to make it perfectly clear to the community that if there’s any suggestion that I don’t care about you or that I have evil intent toward you, I want to say that couldn’t be further from the truth and I’m sorry for the hurt."
Yes, Joe is really a fighter for the disadvantaged — as you
can see by his Budget, which brutally attacks the poorest and least
privileged people in our society. And this is no “suggestion”, it is an undeniable fact.
Apology not accepted.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, then came news over the weekend of Tony
Abbott’s latest foray into the field of foreign diplomacy (god help
us).
Fresh from accusing Russia of bringing down MH17 with little or no proof and causing them to cancel farm contracts with Australian exporters, in London last week (doing who knows what, but certainly not seeing British PM David Cameron, who was on holiday) Abbott had decided to weigh in on the September 18 referendum on Scottish independence.
In an interview with Rupert Murdoch’s The Times in London, Abbott started promisingly, acknowledging the vote was none of his business and that, indeed, it would be presumptuous for him to advise the Scots:
"What the Scots do is a matter for the Scots and not for a moment
do I presume to tell Scottish voters which way they should vote.”
Things then took a turn for the worse as he proceeded to do precisely that [IA emphasis]:
"As a friend of Britain, as an observer from afar, it's hard to see how the world would be helped by an independent Scotland.
"I think that the people who would like to see the break-up of the United Kingdom are not the friends of justice, the friends of freedom, and the countries that would cheer at the prospect ... are not the countries whose company one would like to keep."
That’s right, Scots campaigning for an independent Scotland are enemies of justice and freedom. He really said that. Facepalm.
The reaction from ordinary Scots was immediate and brutal, such as this tweet:
The YES Scotland campaign
was similarly savage, mocking Abbott not only for his idiocy and
incompetence, but also noting he was born in England and is a friend of
the London elite (who are, of course, united against Scottish
independence):
He was even very publicly and directly rebuked by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, making this a true internatiional diplomatic incident:
Shameful.
But it’s not like it is only Abbott and Hockey who are floundering away, well out of their depth.
No, you only need to listen to Employment Minister Eric Abetz make a link between abortion and breast cancer on national TV, only to then, the next day, try to deny he said what everyone in the country heard him say; or Attorney General George Brandis expound upon our unalienable right of to be bigots, or blither and blather about “metadata”, to become aware of the deep inadequacy at the top of the Abbott machine.
I used to think they were mad — but then I realised I was wrong.
Madness might suggest there could be a spark of genius lying somewhere
within them — but this mob certainly have none of that.
No, now I just think they are generally stupid. Oh, and petty, and
venal, and nasty, and malicious , to be sure, but mostly just
demonstrably dumb.
How did we get into this fix?
How did it come to pass that Australia ended up such a ragtag bunch
of clowns, fools and cartoonish villains holding the levers of power in
Australia and making critical decisions about our collective futures?
How did we end up with people in power who are more ‘gaffe-a-minute’ than government?
Of course, we can blame the media, but even they couldn’t fully
obscure the now blindingly obvious nature of this Federal Government.
And there was plenty who were warning about them before they became the
Government ‒ loudly, like IA ‒ but the public voted them in just the
same.
Hopefully, the mortification will not last too long — although heaven help us if they are voted in again.
For now, there is nothing else to do, but sit back uncomfortably and
wait for the next mortifying public utterance; the next embarrassing,
nation-shaming gaffe.
It won’t be long now.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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