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September 8, 2010
My my. The bitterness, anger and resentment in the conservative side of politics this morning over the formation of a minority Labor government supported by two regional Independents is something to behold. Is this a sign of what is to come?
The wing nuts are on the rampage in the comment threads of the mainstream press with their partisan rancour about traitors. The conservative noise machine is being cranked up. The smell of blood is in their nostrils and you can hear the sound of their gnashing teeth as they hunt down their limping prey.
Greg Craven, writing in the National Times, says that the result is a mess:
Whichever way you look at it, this is a first-class parliamentary mess... This is no triumph of participatory democracy for Australia. This is a Parliament that looks like an upturned jigsaw puzzle...The fundamental question is, how long can it all last?...with a double and diverse minority in the Senate and the House, this is an exceptionally vulnerable government. Its mid to long-term prospects are not strong...Is government really worth having at this price and in these circumstances?
The partisan op-ed commentators are hostile. For some it is wrong that a third of the infrastructure funding should go to regional Australia.
Others are in a more toxic mood. Consider Janet Albrechtson in Games powerful independents play in todays Australian
Politics does not get more elitist than what happened yesterday. The independents use fine rhetoric of grassroots politics, respecting their constituents, supporting their electorates, improving our democracy.Windsor and Oakeshott revealed that independents play raw politics just as toxic as either of the political parties that independents like to scorn. Their game has been one of self-interest clothed in the tricky language of stability and longevity. Backing the party less popular with voters does not improve democracy. It diminishes and devalues democracy.
Windsor and Oakeshott used their power to get a better deal for regional Australia. Their argument was that regional Australia's concerns had been sidelined over the last decade and that this was inequitable. Such a strategy, they have said, works better for regional Australia than that pursued by the Nationals, which is aligning with the Liberals and having the concerns of regional Australia ignored.
Albrechtson is not interested in engaging with such an argument. What matters is undermining the legitimacy of the Independents. She continues:
Their holier than thou positioning is a pretence. Oakeshott and Windsor have been playing some pranks of their own.There was always a sneaking suspicion that Windsor and Oakeshott were enjoying their moment in the sun far too much.The transformation from irrelevant backbenchers to media tarts playing kingmakers was too quick. Now we know that their singular focus on stability has been a singular focus on making sure they remain in the spotlight for as long as possible.
Yep, they remain with the balance of power for as long as they can to ensure the inequity issue for regional Australia is addressed as much as possible. They've probably got three years max before majority government returns.
For Albrechtson the credibility of the Independents must be destroyed. Hence the talking point that what they are doing that they doing has a great deal to do with self-interest and very little to do with national interest. For Albrechtson the last election was a sham. It was undemocratic.
The conservative strategy is to bring on the next election as soon as possible by whatever means. Attack, attack, attack. Destroy, destroy, destroy. The national broadband network has already been marked (huge cost blowouts; a minefield of waste and incompetence) as this was 'the broadband election'. The NBN was a result of market failure and it addresses the issue of poor net access in rural areas, because it is uneconomical.
The talking point of the Abbott-led Coalition campaign against Gillard Labor is already clear: Gillard's minority government is without legitimacy. Labor faces an antagonistic media that will take delight in both jabbing Labor's wounds and supporting an aggressive Coalition who will have fun pulling out the stitches in Labor's wounds.
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I guess we are going to hear a lot more about "the nation being held hostage by a couple of power-hungry independents" from the partisan Murdoch Press. It is partisan because they would not have run this line of the two Independents had supported the Coalition.