Note: I started this entry a couple of weeks prior to the elections. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete it until several weeks after!
Close to 10 years ago, a couple of years after Malcolm entered politics, I sheepishly admit that, I thought he would be a visionary leader for this country. He was truly progressive and liberal (not conservative). But he faced a dilemma. Here was a rich white man, who naturally would be assumed to have conservative views but instead had progressive views.So just as he could have very well fitted in either camp (i.e.. Labor or Liberal) he equally didn’t fit in neither! Malcolm chose the Fiberal party although his beliefs were more in line with the Labor party.
Malcolm’s Hockey like ambition to be Prime Minister to stroke his own ego was always a concern (one should always be suspicious about these ambitious jokers who want to be PM for the sake of being PM) and there was also the issue that he was not electable by the Australian public, who typically hate tall poppies and distrust rich arrogant men with egos that couldn’t fit in the parliament house in Canberra!
Malcolm stood fast with his beliefs for many years. At first, because he felt that was his best chance for leadership of the party. He maintained he views after he killed Brendan Nelson – collateral damage one might say – on the march to his objective. It was when he was dumped by the party that political reality began to hit. This was a spoiled brat who got his way in most scenarios and had just had his pant dropped and whooped by his party.
He dragged his sore bottom to the backbenches and embarked in Rudd like passive resistance. This was good political training for the brat! During this period, it was in his interest, as passive resistor, to maintain some of his progressive views on climate change and SSM to remain popular with the public and make a fool of the mad hatter Abbott. But when he struck the final blow to the Mad Phoney Abbott, that was when he knew he had to do whatever it took to be the PM – his ambition! His stars were aligned as the unelectable Turnbull had achieved his goal without having to be elected.
. . . the transformation had begun.
His performance at a recent Q&A displayed his elitism and the extent to which he had embraced the Fiberal culture. Malcolm had morphed– from Turnbull to TurnBullShit.
He was now the specialist in the Fiberal party’s skill of simply fabricating and lying about everything. Ever since Howard, the truth has always been irrelevant to the Fiberals and the Aussie public seem to accept that but castigate the Labor party. The media seem nervous to tackle Malcolm because of his ill-founded reputation of a brilliant business man!
Let’s breakdown Malcolm’s performance at Q&A and it’s quite breathtaking how he was able to Spin so much in so little time.
Border Control
Border control has always been seen as a strong point for the Fiberals. To give them credit they have always had the courage to be more inhumane to refugee seekers and in this particular instance, take what is really an insignificant issue, build it into something that the more racist Aussie plebs find important and emotive and make it an election winner.
There is little doubt that the Rudd’s initial position increased the number of boats. The Labor party, despite it’s inner principle’s had to give into the strong Aussie public racist sentiment and change their position. Apart from the turning back boats aspect, it was the Labor party that introduced the current regime and what is even more important and often forgotten – the boats had pretty much stopped before the Fiberals came into power. I guess, it was pointless the Labor party attempting to “labour” (sorry) this point, when they opened the flood gates to begin with.
The big fib it appears to be, is the grand statement that there have not been any boats for six hundred odd days. It now appears that there have been over 20, which have been turned around – those are the boats that the government has been willing to tell us about.
The “we don’t discuss on-water operational matters” shield was no different to a Nazi, Communist or dictatorship regime type action to remove any accountability.
Whenever a government decides to hide something from it’s people, it is due to it being involved in an activity that the majority of Australians would not want to put their name to.
The thing is, the Fiberals discovered that the average dumb Aussie voter, is gullible, racist and really does not care what we do to stop the boats. Cos the illiterate boat people are after their jobs!
Climate Change
Climate change is where Malcolm’s desire to be PM over principle’s shows best. In true Liberal (not Fiberal) spirit, he supported market based emission scheme. He lost the leadership over this when he wanted to support Labor. But now he seems to suggest that he supports the Direct (no) Action approach of the mad Abbott! One that has increased Australia’s emission and made us the worlds pariah’s on this matter.
Malcolm’s suggestion that Obama thanked him for his position is mastery in spin. Malcolm had only just assassinated the Abbott and really had no time what so ever to have any policy discussion before Paris. He didn’t want to be totally snubbed by the other leaders who saw Australia’s position under Abbott as backward and stupid. So he cobbled together a target (nothing else) and took it to Paris.
Of course Obama was going to thank him for some improvement and in any case, Obama would have thanked everyone there for the level of cooperation. This was absolute spin mastery. And the dumb Aussie public felt all warm and fuzzy about the compliments of the US president and swallowed the spin in glee!
The so called “Economic Plan”
The strategy of the Malcolm’s advisers has clearly been to make him appear the successful corporate business man leading a party that is professional and business like! And so the election ads which looked like IBM or BHP corporate ads. The 5 point slide presentations etc.
But this grand “Economic Plan” just materialised over night! The dumb Aussie public, once again bought into it hook line and sinker. One didn’t have to scratch the surface much to realise that there was no plan what-so-ever. The reference to the budget papers over and over again was evidence of this. A budget is a budget but a plan required a whole lot more strategic thinking planning. A budget is not an Economic Plan, STUUUPEEED!!!
The “Economic plan” was no more that a tax cut for large corporates. Malcolm sold it well.
Medical costs
Malcolm’s statements on this were complete lies or if you wanted to be generous, simply wrong! With inflation and population growth, the is no doubt that bulk billing will be higher and continue to grow. Not something that Malcolm can claim credit for. His policy is quite different – the plan is to stop increasing the scheduled rates. Naturally, this will have an impact on doctors and there ability to continue bulk billing.
Malcolm has obviously never been bulk billed. There is complete confusion about the GP co-payment. A search on the internet will give you different views on whether a bulk billing doctor should charge the co-payment and if so is it in fact being bulk-billed. Do the doctors who bulk bill have to absorb $5.00 or do they charge the additional $7.50 and end up not bulk billing?!
Getting more competition in the medical industry is a good thing. Increasing the supply is as well – something that the AMA have tirelessly prevented to maintain a closed shop. However, suggesting to the public that reducing the government contribution to doctors will not end up with increased cost to the patient is fantasy.
Medicare, Mediscare!
The Fiberals clearly got caught out on this one. What has resulted is that they now cannot privatise even sensible sections of it! Well, not that their election rhetoric has ever constrained them. If Labor didn’t call this out, we would have had quite a different Malcolm after the election.
Outsourcing Medicare as a whole would be quite difficult. The government would have to pay a high premium to get any organisation to take the risk and the funding model would be complex. But by privatising it, the government would be able to reward the service provider for reducing payments – and we all know what will happen there.
The thought of Aussies attempting to put together a modern IT system, is hilarious– let alone a bunch of public servants! It will cost 10 times more than it should and take 3 times as long for half the services (Don’t I know it, just take the Customer Management System ($80m) and website ($23m) solution at Sydney Water!! – that’s another story altogether).
The Fiberal DNA is survival of the fittest and efficiency. There is no place for the sick in such a world – they are inefficient and a burden on society! Why should the rich pay to keep ‘em alive?!! They reluctantly play ball, as otherwise they would lose votes.
The 2 tier NBN
Malcolm attempts portray this image that he is big on innovation and technology. People tend to get confused between a man who made money on a speculatory investment, with someone who is a progressive advocate for technology. They are confused because the Fiberals push this message.
The form on the NBN is a clear indication of the Fiberal values. We now are spending pretty much the same amount on the NBN as Labor proposed (admittedly, there might have been some increases there too, but less likely, as it was all new and not dependent on assumptions made about the existing network.), and sinking large amounts of funds (close to half the overall costs) on 19th (yes, 19th Century, not 20th or 21st) century technology – copper.
If you are rich, you can pay extra and get the fibre to you resident – tier 1 (Rich, Fat, White man’s version). If not, you get the copper version – tier 2 (Pleb’s version). Malcolm himself says that 85% chose the copper version and received 20Mb connections. The reality is that the old technology ADSL pretty much reached those speeds anyway. And so we have the great waste – an investment of $70b, half of which is on 19th century technology, simply to provide a service that is no better than what most of us have already.
So much for the great technology revolution.
No doubt the Fiberal spin will be that 85% purchasing the pleb version is clear evidence that that is all that is required – supply meeting demand. The reality is that most of them could not afford anything else.
His grand comparison with Labor’s delivery record is simply grandstanding. Anyone with any intellect would know that it is complex to plan these large infrastructure projects. Even in delivery, there is a large learning curve. The hard bits were done by the Labor party. Now they simply have to deliver it using tried and tested approaches. They bloody well should be delivering much larger numbers – you are in the delivery phase – STUUUPEEEEED!!!
The NBN investment is much like building a 2 lane harbour bridge, because there wasn’t many vehicles on the road at the time! Thank heavens that decision was made by more progressive thinking individuals that the current mob.
4k movies are already upon us – but that’s only for the Rich Fat White men. The rest can do without! Malcolm is full of contradictions on this one!
Same Sex Discord!
This is one of the biggest cock-ups of the election. However, it is one that the Aussie public is not particularly interested in. The selfish nature of the average dumb Aussie, ensures that the only reason they would have any interest in the LGBT group is to discriminate against them such that they have a competitive advantage – like racism, really.
The Phoney Abbott tactic to postpone any decision by the Fiberals, who are completely in disarray on this issue, has even got Malcolm flustered. He is suddenly a “leader but not a dictator”!
For some reason, he thinks that Australian are capable of a civilised discussion on this! When has Australia had a discussion on anything, let alone a civilised one. The level of “civilised” discussion taking place within the liberal party itself – bestiality etc. – is fuel for his confidence! Yours truly thinks that Shorten has a much better perspective of the path that this discussion will take.
It seems that he has already reneged on his promise to have the plebiscite by the end of the year – Surprise, Surprise!!
The greatest revolution in taxation in Australia’s history!
All that, and it fizzled out to be simply “a moment of clarity”! This is wonderful spin. The states pointed out the stupidity of the plan. The moment of clarity was that your revolution was really a hurried thought bubble, much like your predecessor – the mad Abbott’s
Clearly a lower tax environment help making our companies more competitive globally. The problem is that our companies that operate overseas simply dig dirt and they have an incredibly good environment to make money. The other companies that operate here simply take all the profits overseas. That is the reason for the Treasury giving such low rates of return on the massive tax payer investment in his “mates” companies.
If one believes in the trickle down theory, that is mostly canvassed by the Fiberals, then due to the goodwill of the rich, the poor will get some of the spoils. But the reality is that reducing company tax benefits high income earners at the expense of low.
Keating may very well have been the “biggest reducer of company tax” but what you failed to mention (and strongly stated by Keating a few days later) was that Keating implemented a series of changes with it, to compensate the low income earners – a group of people who are not getting anything from your supposedly fair policies.
You have to say that Malcolm did tremendously well to squeeze in soo much TurnBullShit in such a short time – and I’ve only picked some of it!
Ultimately, Australia voted the TurnBullShit back into power and so we will have to delve in it knee deep, for the next 3 years.
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