It is hard to see the Abbott's Government's bizarre cult-like denial of reality and meaningless, hairy-goat expedition lasting another two years, writes Bob Ellis.
Bill Shorten is a million votes ahead of Abbott as preferred Prime Minister, Labor 1.5 million votes ahead of the Coalition as preferred Federal government and, in the Westminster system, there would normally be resignations by now.
Christopher Pyne, for instance, failed to get his university revolution through and, last night, said he was "good friends" with Senator Glenn Lazarus — a man who thinks of him as a perverted stalker.
Scott Morrison was shown to have ordered a delay for six hours of the disembarkation of heat-stressed asylum-seekers, endangering some children’s lives, until Australia Day darkened into night and their arrival could occur in secret. This is a crime and he should stand down till it is investigated by a royal commission, or his punishment determined by the Federal Police.
Defence Minister David Johnston committed treason by casting doubt on the ability of our Navy and should be stood down pending his trial for what, in other decades, was a capital crime.
Tony Abbott, also, threatened to fine a new Premier, Daniel Andrews, $3 billion if he did not go back on a promise which elected him on Saturday. This is a resignation matter.
Yet these kooks behave as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening, that this "patient, disciplined government" were going about their business in a "calm and orderly way".
My take on yesterday's Newspoll: "Respect the only answer for Abbott, maybe" @Australian http://t.co/08hqVyzq16
— Peter van Onselen (@vanOnselenP) December 2, 2014
It is, in fact, a strikingly aberrant government showing signs of being the worst in our history.
A thousand things they have done wrong could be listed by any attentive student. These include our shaming at APEC and the worst deficit in our history.
Some of the signs of Jonestown, or the Branch Davidian burning itself to death in Waco, Texas, are already apparent.
Finding their mutilation of the ABC opposed by eighty per cent of the people, they cut its money by half a billion dollars, after promising no change to it.
After killing car manufacture in this country, they then announced they were killing submarine manufacture and awarding it, smashing a whole state’s economy, to our former loathed war foe, Japan.
Seems our great big incompetent treasurer Joe Hockey has sold ASC out just like he did car industry http://t.co/I4fvkRg6kN
— Geoff Pearson (@GCobber99) December 2, 2014
After opposing the invention of Medicare and abolishing it once, they are now keen to make it unaffordable for old women who depend on it; old women who have been, till now, their most reliable voters.
It is hard to see why they are behaving so madly. It may be that the party of Menzies, Fraser, Peacock, Hamer, Hewson and Chaney is now nursing and rearing a crazy, Catholic, fundamentalist cuckoo. It may be that the autocratic rule of Credlin (or 'Meddlin’ Credlin, Queen of the Kremlin', as she is sometimes known) is nearing its end, and Malcolm Turnbull will soon be in charge again, and patient, calm civility restored to an aghast, amazed and shattered nation.
It certainly cannot last.
This cult-like denial of reality and meaningless, hairy-goat expedition (a billion will be spent on seeking MH370 and it is hard to imagine why) may stir the Governor-General to initiate, off his own bat, a Double Dissolution. The Senate, dismayed by our national ruin, may refuse Supply. Abbott, beset by enemies and half mad anyway, may advise an election and immolate his enemies along with himself.
It is hard to see it lasting another two years.
It has the smell of Bjelke Petersen and the Moonlight State, about it. Masters, Fitzgerald and Dempster will be coming soon – or their equivalent – and the story will soon, very soon, be over.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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Don't slash the ABC, cut up a blue tie instead. http://t.co/9golU8WXA0 Oh... and buy more original @JohnGrahamArt. pic.twitter.com/qVDyooHON0
— IndependentAustralia (@independentaus) December 3, 2014
