Politics

Tony Abbott: A question of incompetence

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It will be remarked by historians how incompetent Abbott was at tyranny.

He claimed he had "stopped the boats" and, when thousands of stateless Rohingyas were found floating off Malaysia, he continued to claim he had; refused, moreover, to obey the UN and the Pope, and take some of them in.

He allowed the rapists of children to continue their dark work on Nauru, though some of the children attempted suicide, claiming it was "Nauru’s business" what the police did about it and let 12 of Reza Barati’s alleged murderers – one of them apparently a white Australian – go free.

He refused to speak to the frantic female hostages of Man Monis, alleging he was "too busy". He cancelled the money that would have saved Luke Batty, and made his mother Australian of the Year and cut off her money again.

He agreed with the ethnic cleansing of 150 Aboriginal communities, but proposed no place where the exiles would go next.

He sent the Australian Army into a war it was bound to lose. He proposed to dig up the dead of another lost war, Vietnam, at a cost of hundreds of millions but left the widows and sisters to find a grave to put them in.

He spent a billion dollars on a search in three oceans for a downed plane and, in a year, found nothing; and promised to spend another billion searching — what for was never established.

He threatened to "shirtfront" Putin and ended up cuddling koalas with him.

His most recent tyranny, however, stripping citizenship from certain Australians, has been the stupidest of all.

If a dual citizen Australian-Kurd, for instance, serves as a nurse on the side of Kurds fighting ISIS, she will be stripped of her citizenship and get 25 years in gaol if she comes home, or beheaded by ISIS, probably, if she stays. He imagines driving an ambulance, binding wounds, stretcher-bearing and inoculating children are war crimes and should be punished worse than rape-and-murder, with 25 years’ incarceration, away from the medico’s children, or any chance of engendering others.

He has proposed, as well, that a seven-year-old could be deprived of his citizenship if he tries to come home to escape being beheaded by DAISH or crucified if he stays.

He has proposed, too – though he is minister for women – that women should be punished for menstruating and men rewarded for sexual intercourse, by putting a GST on tampons and removing it from condoms. This has annoyed many women, like his previous decision to punish them for breastfeeding, and calling "double dippers" and "rorters" those who prefer to bond with their child in the first six months of his life and not go back to work after one month at Woolworths.

The mind boggles at how badly this tyrant is doing. He lately described the Opposition Leader as "the Prime Minister" and the Opposition as "the Government" in Question Time, thus hinting that he, an ex-boxer, is suffering now from dementia pugilistica*, like Muhammad Ali, and will be a similar sad, shuffling figure in ten years or so.

Will he last out the financial year? It is unlikely. It is likely he will be found to have wrongly defended a paederast, John Nestor, and be condemned by a Royal Commission for getting this creep out of gaol. It is likely he will vote against gay marriage and be rolled by his party when that law is enacted.

It is likely he will be found to be our most ludicrous figure, very soon, and be so derided by the world’s commentators when he is expelled, in August, from the Lodge.

Or am I wrong about this? Discuss.

* Editor's note: Dementia pugilistica is now more commonly known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

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