The facile but dangerous Morrison Government deserves to lose not only today's Wentworth by-election but also the pending Federal election, writes contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence.
THE KKKOALITION has signed its own death warrant. Hopefully.
In supporting One Nation's Senator Pauline Hanson's toxic bilge that it's "okay to be white", the facile but dangerous Morrison Government deserves to lose not only today's Wentworth by-election, but also the pending Federal election.
They are unworthy of our vote. They are unworthy of Australia. We are surely capable of better. No longer can we tolerate what is being said and done in our name by these belligerently racist and desperate buffoons, who shamelessly lie, cheat and steal from us by masquerading as a government.
This was political expediency writ large and to describe its support of Hanson's motion as an "administrative error" indicates the contempt the Liberal National Party has for the national electorate and our intelligence. As if. They think we are fools. Where do these loons get off?
Hey @PaulineHansonOz what would Jesus say? #auspol pic.twitter.com/RjV38eJ41e
— Fr Rod Bower (@FrBower) October 17, 2018
THE LNP ARE YESTERDAY'S HOLLOW WHITE MEN
These arch-conservatives are yesterday's men. They are the hollow White men. They just don't get it. We have long moved on.
Never was the great divide more obvious than in the needless same sex referendum; nothing more than a sop to the white paper of these White men and their female accomplices. It's okay to be White but it's not okay to be blinded by the White.
The Morrison Dancers will need to dance to a different tune.
HANSON MOTION GLIMP OF INSIDIOUS FUTURE UNDER WHITE EXTREMIST RULE
Hanson's affirmation of White skin, endorsed by enfeebled and morally bankrupt government senators and conservative crossbenchers, was defeated by only three votes. In this disgraceful xenophobic episode we see a glimpse of an insidious future under far Right extremists.
Here are the facile guts of Hanson's media baiting deplorable motion:
(a) the deplorable rise of anti-white racism and attacks on Western civilisation; and
(b) that it is okay to be white.
After the public outcry for supporting Hanson's motion, the government predictably resumed its default position and blamed a staffer for the so-called "administrative error" that led government senators to vote in Hanson's favour and using their numbers in the Senate secured another vote on the motion, this time voting against it. Yet another insult on our intelligence.
Too late, our leaders have sullied our reputation, both at home and overseas.
WHAT SENATOR PAT DODSON SAYS SHAMES HANSON'S WHITE AUSTRALIA
Why was Senator Patrick Dodson's powerful rebuttal of Hansonism directed at the government largely ignored by the media and political commentators?
Here is just some of his eloquent outreach — without doubt the finest and most noble words uttered in Parliament's tawdry week:
What is the problem with being white? What is the problem?
You have privilege. You have influence. You control every strata of life where we as First Nations exist — our social, our religious and our economic positions. And you've been in control of these lands and these waters and have managed them for the last 200 years.
So, what's your problem? Over this time you have sought, through your policies, to exterminate the First Nations people, who happen to be different in colour from your whiteness... you've managed every activity of our life, through policies and practices, if not of the gun then of bureaucrats and police. You've usurped our sovereign lands, and the waters, and you continue to deny us a rightful place in the Constitution of this nation.
So, what's your problem? You've got the power, you've got the influence, you've got the status and you've got the might, and you say you're being discriminated against?
'The message went out that the motion wld be supported
— Are We There Yet ?🤔 (@KBCanB) October 16, 2018
Stuff ups happen
Our Senate team have admitted it
And we'll all moved on'
🤔😱
The man's a complete blockhead
As is #Abetz for his ridiculous/condescending reply to Pat Dodson raising this in the #Senate @ approx 3:25pm today
WE'RE HUMAN BEINGS PLEADS DODSON
This is not really a question of colour. This is not a question of black and white. We're human beings.
Maybe you want to study that a bit, and find out from people who understand that we come from one set of genes, with variations in our cultures, our customs and our practices. There's no superiority in white or black. We're human beings. And the day you want to become an Australian, then start to learn from the First Australians how to live in this country.
The act of Government senators yesterday in support of this slogan by White supremacists really happened not because of a staffer who they tried to condemn and not because of some overworked senators who have responsibility for Government business in the Senate. Let me suggest: it comes from being privileged. It comes from being privileged and allowing greed to reign. It comes from being white being synonymous with privilege and power. That's what has to be taken stock of, if we're ever going to lead to fairness for the rest of the nation's populations.
Dodson ended his statement with this reality bite and deserved reprimand:
FROM CIVIL SOCIETY VIEW — COUNTRY IS BEING LEAD TO NOWHERE
You're leading the country nowhere, from a civil society point of view. You can argue about economics, but from a civil society point of view you're not contributing to the building of this nation as a coherent, social, civil society. You're seeking to drive wedges and drive further discord and division amongst people who are honest and fair in the main, and you'd do that on the basis of colour. I condemn you for it.
You use power so well, not just to send a dog whistle; you actually had a bull's roar in here. It's not a dog whistle.
MOVING TEL AVIV EMBASSY TO WENTWORTH
But wait, children of the book of blank pages, there is more egregious political squalour.
Clumsily flagging moving Australia's Tel Aviv Embassy to Wentworth (as a clever possum put it) has further diminished our global reputation for the Australian crawl up the anal passage of the disunited states of America, if not President Donald Trump himself, Emperor of the World.
We may be good buddies, but that does not equate to slavishly following in Trump's leaden footsteps.
As if we of the great unwashed are so feeble minded and addled of brain that we could possibly be seduced or induced into thinking that moving our embassy to Jerusalem was anything other than a con job.
With only hours to go for Saturday's election, the LNP appears doomed and its clumsy ill-thought and incompetent strategies simply reflects the life force exiting a Dead Party Walking; a death rattle, no less.
What an insulting supposition, that the entire Jewish component of Wentworth's voters will fall for this disingenuous and particularly indecent pork barrelling. I don't think so.
And remember that (oops!) the Liberal Party's great White hope in Wentworth is a little tinted (as am I) — and not just in skin colour. He is a bit diplomatically tainted as well.
The Liberal Party would like us to forget the diplomatic fire that David Sharma lit whilst Ambassador to Israel. In May 2014, Sharma met with Israel's Housing and Construction Minister, Uri Ariel in his East Jerusalem office — land claimed as Palestine's capital, but occupied by Israel.
Enter Dr Sa’eb Erekat (PLO spelling), an executive committee member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and former chief of its negotiation arm, was prompted to protest. It was reported that Palestinian officials "boiled with anger" at the meeting.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is considered moving Australia's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, after speaking with Dave Sharma — a move that would echo Trump's controversial shift that angered Arab and Muslim nations: https://t.co/4mBQocwq0b pic.twitter.com/INA3AZRiqZ
— ABC Sydney (@abcsydney) October 15, 2018
At the time, then Age writer Daniel Flitton, senior correspondent covering foreign affairs and politics and now managing editor of the Lowy Institute's magazine. The Interpretor wrote that Israeli newspaper Haaretz had got a hold of a letter written by the Fatah Party's Erekat (PLO spelling) to Australia's then Foreign Minister Julie Bishop via Australian officials in Ramallah.
It is worth noting that, like the Independent Federal Member for Tasmania's Denison, Andrew Wilkie, Flitton is a former intelligence analyst for the Office of National Assessments.
From The Age article comes this quote from Erekat's letter to Ms Bishop:
'Australia's ambassador to Israel meeting with Israeli officials in East Jerusalem has the effect of attempting to legitimize the illegal situation on the ground and may be deemed as aiding, abetting or otherwise assisting illegal Israeli policies... As such, Australia's actions are tantamount to complicity in ongoing Israeli violations of international laws of war.'
Like the improvised exploding Wentworth election device it was destined to be, Morrison's embassy travelling side show caused waves of after shock.
ASIO WARNS OF DANGER OF RELOCATING OZ EMBASSY
In its exclusive report, The Guardian revealed secret ASIO warnings of the dangers of relocating our embassy.
The sheer stupidity of Prime Minister Morrison's cynical play also coincided with a visit to an already angry Indonesia by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki. We managed to offend both parties.
What is it with the LNP and its collective death wish? Now the contagion has spread to the Nationals Leader Michael McCormack (who?) is destined for the cop. He is an invisible man. Not a good look in politics.
Former leader Barnaby Joyce is chafing at the bit, it's a wonder he's not running in the Caulfield Cup. But he may have already run his race. The Joyce joke has worn off. The better leader at this stage, would be Darren Chester.
We awoke the other morning to learn of more despicable dirty tricks in the Wentworth campaign.
FAKE EMAIL ABOUT WENTWORTH INDY CANDIDATE DR KERRYN PHELPS
In their ABC exclusive, Lorna Knowles and Kyle Taylor revealed that an email falsely claiming Independent Dr Kerryn Phelps had withdrawn from her Wentworth candidacy because she had HIV had been circulated
The email, obtained by the ABC, was sent to hundreds of constituents and organisations from a fake address on Sunday and urges recipients to divert their vote to Liberal candidate Dave Sharma.
The ABC does not suggest Mr Sharma or anyone involved with his campaign was behind the email.
Dr Phelps said it was the latest tactic in a campaign being waged against her.
Anyone who claims the Liberal Party would not be stupid enough to be involved in this should stretch their minds back to two days ago when the Liberals voted with Pauline Hanson in support of a white supremacist meme.https://t.co/WbgceUwTSt#WentworthVotes #Vote1KerrynPhelps
— Seano (@SeanBradbery) October 17, 2018
She told the ABC the email was "shocking and disturbing".
"When I went into this campaign people warned me that there would be dirty tricks, but this is next level."
The ABC has published part of the fake email:
Can you divert your vote to Dave Sharma in instead? It is very urgent, please let your friends know, too," the email said.
Use all your phone, messenger and social media and show support for Dave Sharma on your Facebook too.
The voting card has been printed already, you will still see her name, but she has already quit.
Please DO NOT vote for her, just choose Sharma as your top choice only. Kerryn was diagnosed with HIV yesterday so no chance she will be running for the election.
Choose Dave Sharma. Otherwise if you choose local white, they will be molesting your children someday.
The second last sentence offers a few clues to forensic analysts.
Those responsible for the mutiny on Malcolm Bligh Turnbull will reap a bounty of another kind.
They will walk the inevitable plank.
They foolishly sacrificed Turnbull on the altar of the Liberal Party's decrepit far Right, White extremists and the Monkey Podders; small men with fattened egos.
What was it all for? They simply dug their own collective grave.
Unquestionably, there is still great affection for Turnbull as an individual amongst the electorate.
The outcome of the battle for Wentworth might manifest our justifiable contempt for our wanting leaders.
Politics has been corrupted. It is become a governance for the politcian, of the politician, by the politician.
It has become a place locked out to we the people.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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Confirming intellectual depth of Dave Sharma:
— Evelyn Scott (@AbsentmindedAus) October 19, 2018
Australian Embassy in Israel marks arrival of new ambassador with humorous video https://t.co/xTRuDjei5k
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