Echo NetDaily, 23 April 2019:
A short week of
campaigning and an even shorter one to come – which is perhaps why the
temperature has ramped up to almost febrile levels.
There was a heap of
colour and movement, lots of smoke and mirrors. But whether it actually
achieved anything substantial is at best dubious.
There were the usual
distractions – dual citizenships, damaging Tweets from the past, gaffes and
miss-steps, a dilemma over the kids stuck in Syria, craziness from the frotting
wanker Advance Australia’s Captain GetUp, more embarrassment from George
Christensen and the usual unhelpful intervention from Tony Abbott.
And bigger than all of
them the disaster of Notre Dame, already the subject of demented conspiracy
theories involving Islamic Jihadists. There were even a few hasty extra
promises aimed at a public well and truly promised out – and there are four
weeks to go. But mainly there was noise – if anyone could be bothered to
listen.
The loudest, most
belligerent, the most repetitive and of course the shoutiest was Scott
Morrison, screaming liar about the policies of Bill Shorten – or rather his
interpretation of them, which was not the same thing. Somewhat reluctantly
Shorten responded, calling ScoMo a liar in return.
Either or both may be at
least partly right, but the problem is that that the argument, to flatter the
brawl, is going way over the heads of the hardworking taxpayers at whom it was
aimed. The figures of the cost of the various agendas have now escalated from
the hundreds of millions to hundreds of billions – fantasy numbers
incomprehensible to normal workers.
And as a result, they
have turned off; most don’t believe them, especially when they have been
projected beyond two or more elections, but in any case they have been
dismissed as simply noise – increasingly extravagant claims and counterclaims,
assertions and contradictions, a blur of incomprehensible statistics,
page after page of tables about who wins and who loses in one, five
or ten years time, endless pots of gold at end of ephemeral rainbows.
This is not just
ordinary noise – it is more properly white noise, a background buzz whose only
purpose may be to induce sleep. And it is unlikely to let up, which in the end
will not be good news for ScoMo’s marketing strategy.
However, he has no real
choice – the economy is his only hope, the coalition’s chosen battleground, and
if he cannot defeat Shorten in that field, he effectively has nothing left.
He has tried to broaden
the attack, bellowing that everything depends a strong economy – it is only
through his diligence that Australia can provide schools, hospitals, roads, the
environment – the whole shebang.
And in one sense that is
true, but in the other – the perception that the economy is not being used to
benefit the broad commonwealth, but is being subverted to give
concessions, lurks, perks and rorts to favour the fat cats who fund Liberal
Party coffers – is utterly counterproductive, and Shorten appears to be getting
some traction for this heresy.
Big issues discerned by
a war-weary electorate – climate change, obviously, but also health, education
and welfare he is celebrating – are all largely under Labor’s control
And Morrison can only try
and shout him down, because the other big issues discerned by a war-weary
electorate – climate change, obviously, but also health, education and welfare
he is celebrating – are all largely under Labor’s control…..
Read the full article here.
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