Mark Seymour reflects on the political process.

Author:  Mark Seymour.

Date: 24 October 2021.

Original URL: N/A.

Article Text

Best to be realistic when you’re trying to understand politics given that what punters want can be so conflicted, forming workable majorities is almost impossible anyway, in which case lying becomes necessary or to at least come up with some comfortable fabrication about the life and death issues we currently face like Covid or Climate Change..

So long as it looks like hearts and minds have been won, when, in fact,

they often haven’t..

It’s a wafty idea anyway, this business of winning people over. I mean, since when has it ever been possible to convince someone you’ve never met before, of the inherent worthiness of your ‘beliefs’ right there on the street.. or in the pub.. or at the check out.. let alone convincing enough people and we’re talking millions here, to actually win government?

AND account for everyone’s self-interest at the same time?

Have you ever tried arguing with a fool?

Cruel fact I know, but there has to be horse trading to get a workable majority over the line. It either has to be encrypted into the voting system itself, like ours is or installed after the fact like lots of European countries do where the parties sit around a large table after the count and biff it out..

Point is, there has to be an outcome one way or another otherwise you won’t have a government.

And we can’t have that can we?

Which is why, quite often it isn’t the best one..

Like right now, here in the greatest little country on earth..

See, if you look at the chart of the 2019 fed vote, you’ll notice how close it was.

The Morrison government is hanging on by a thread. One seat actually. And yet, this small but significant fact goes largely unnoticed given there have been more pressing issues recently

Like the plague.

But the pressure’s always been there. A deal on a knife’s edge. Let’s face it. Bad news of any kind could be hugely damaging. It’s only gonna take one seat and they’ll be out on their arses, hence the lengths the LIB/Nats have been prepared to go to protect Christian Porter.

They actually muzzled their own speaker when he tried to authorise a senate committee inquiry into where Porter’s legal defence budget came from. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, it was the random odd mill Porter was given so he could sue the ABC over a rape allegation..

Shit sandwich Suzan. Nothing edifying about that right? It’s all nasty stuff..

But seriously..

Who gave him the money? A million bucks no less. That’s not chicken feed. That aint just crowd funding, the odd fifty or twenty on Jo Blow’s VISA.. That’s one big invisible hand right there mate.. So who owns it? What’s more, how could Porter not know himself?

And the public, that’s us right? Surely we have a right to know these things? After all, he was the Attorney General.

Once.

It’d be laughable if it wasn’t so rotten.

To the core.

In any case, the whole saga surrounding Porter is public knowledge. You don’t have to look far to find the grisly deets. Just not about the cash. That bit’s a secret..

so suck it up..

Conclusion at a glance? Well, you’d think the bloke was a lame duck right? But given the lengths they’re prepared to go to, to protect him, they clearly do not, which can only mean one thing.. They think we’ll all glaze over eventually so then your man can be re-made.

And rise from the ashes of shame like any other blue-blood who was born to rule…

And you know what? They could be right, given most of us dismiss the political process entirely.. You know the spiel..

“They’re all the same mate.. so what’s the point in voting?”

etc..

Well they’re not.. actually..

See, you might like to think that politicians are just self-serving and that’s it… so why take an interest? Yeah ok, as long as you pay your taxes but there’s this one small unavoidable fact. Governments shape the future which means politics has to be way bigger than self-interest. It just is. And they know it.

It’s the power that matters.. and that’s the whole point. It’s not just about the individuals. It’s who gets represented. Groups, classes, tribes.. so let’s not pretend otherwise and hide in our anonymity. We are all part of a group of one kind or another.

So what comes first? Self-interest or the greater good? All politicians have to take a position on that question otherwise they’re not in the game. It’s a balancing act that divides left from right. And the entire spectrum in between for that matter.

Which means they’re not just pretending to have beliefs. They actually do have them. Which is a fair thing in my book. Otherwise why go to all the trouble of putting yourself out there, just to get slagged off?

It’s serious shit.

Politics is an ideological battle and you’ve gotta pick your team.

Call me old school, but I just don’t get why people struggle with that idea.

Because when you vote, much as you’d like to pretend otherwise, you’re making an ideological choice.

But here’s the conundrum. When it comes to the LIB/Nats.. if you voted for Katie Allen in Camberwell, you effectively voted for George Christensen in the seat of Dawson.. ‘cos they’ll line up on the floor of the reps every time like they did to protect Porter. Joined at the hip. That’s the coalition mate. That’s what you get. A ‘broad church’.

I’ll say it is. Very bloody broad.

Take Morrison’s job for example. Now there’s a wild ride. Coal workers in the central Queensland basin meet the Pentecostals of Balkham hills.

I ask you, what could these tribes possibly have in common?

Not a lot basically and that’s the problem. ‘Cos the LIB/Nat church is so well.. you know, ‘broad’, as they keep reminding us, that it actually doesn’t know what it stands for anymore… which is why..

It only has a ONE SEAT MAJORITY.

And so it has to give comfort to all the weird and wonderful outliers squawking on line over vaccination and climate change..

Which is of course, doomed to fail because see, there’s just this one other small thing..

Covid and Climate Change are REAL. Which means REAL stuff has to get done to avoid disaster and death..

AHH.. did I say that?

So how can this possibly work?

Well, we can speculate all we like about how the Lib/Nats construct is done and how it might come undone, which is a blood sport in itself and thoroughly enjoyable to watch I must say…

Still, you can’t shrug off the shabbiness of it all forever. I mean, they really are

awful..

Either way, you get the feeling right now, with all the doggerel flying around about covid, the stuffed up vaccination roll out, the spooking of AZ..(there are currently over 7 Mill doses unused)…the balking of an effective national quarantine plan, which forced VIC into lockdown..

on top of the years of bullshit we’ve had to swallow about coal being sort of ‘ok’… and that really you know, it’s not all that bad.. might even be alright, just for a bit longer..

And in the end, out of a sheer lack of ideas and conviction, and BOTTLE actually, they end up protecting the nut jobs in their own ranks just to keep the numbers up.. all courtesy of the boss’s slicked up prevarication..

And now finally, he’s off to Glascow, and he even quibbled about that in the end which is no surprise given he’s been sitting on the fence ever since he got the gig, while for the last two years it’s been the self-discipline, forbearance and mutual respect of ordinary Australians that’s kept the ship from sinking..

and now at last, he’s finally using the term ‘net zero’

See? There you go Scotty boy. That wasn’t so hard now was it??

The thing is, people will accept bullshit up to a point. As I said, you’ve got to be realistic but really, even now, watching these hicks still squabbling in the sand pit, you gotta wonder. Who do they actually represent? History is a cruel mistress and someone’s gonna lose..

Let’s hope next March..

they get smashed out of the park.

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