Comrades,
Jo Drinkwater, a former features editor of Tatler magazine, once remarked "the upper classes don't get angry, darling, they get furious".
And it seems the good burghers of Wentworth are indeed furious, and are about to inflict their mighty wrath at the ballot box as the Miracle of Democracy gets another run.
The former Local Member and honest dealer, as far as they're concerned, was unceremoniously robbed blind of the top job for no good reason at all. How dare they do that to a good, well educated, very successful Point Piper boy? It's said that all they ever talk about in Wentworth is the price of real estate. So what if the last PM wasn't popular? Mal & Lucy's current pile is worth a conservative $50M [as a price guide, the Fairfax family sold their Point Piper estate Elaine last year for more than $70M, the most expensive patch of foreshore dirt in that part of the world, nah, in the whole damn country, to date, ever]. That's got caché. Somehow, you just can't see them bothering the Bondi Junction Centrelink office.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't pretend to know anything about Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, despite it being just across town, no more than 20km as the crow flies from here in the Emerald City's Armpit. All I've been told is that "different people" live there. Very different. Another world again. Official Govt. stats show it's the second most densely populated electorate, it covers some of the richest suburbs in the country, and has the highest number of obscenely wealthy families of any seats in the Wide Brown Land. Just the names out there are evocative - Bellevue Hill, Bondi and Bondi Beach, Elizabeth Bay, Paddo, Point Piper, Rose Bay, Vaucluse, darling, Watsons Bay, Woollahra, etc etc etc. roll off the tongue nicely, just dripping and drooling with privilege and entitlement. You know, a very nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.
However, despite all that, if voter-intention polls are to be believed, the Tory primary vote has collapsed by about 18% [think the recent state by-election in Wagga Wagga], leaving the field wide open for the 16 snoozers who've put their rings in the hat for this one. At least the Fishers, Shooters, and Farmers Party couldn't be bothered to nominate.
Despite that many choices, in the denouement, it'll be a three cornered contest that comes down to preferences between Kerryn Phelps AM and the Liberal [David "You can call me Dave" Sharma] and Labor [Tim Murray] party stooges.
I've only ever had dealings with Doc Phelps, when she was National President of the Australian Medical Association [AMA] - an ordinary lobby group for self-interest like any other - in the early Naughties when I was a radio news reporter. She was a piece of work then and I have no doubt she's a piece of work now. There's something not quite right with "militant" doctors pretending to be GP's. Doc Ric Chalesworth ran his sole-operator general practice when he was the Labor MP for Perth back in the 80's and made no secret or apology for it, but he didn't make a song and dance about it either, or use it as some kind of power trip.
Phelps, of course, whinges that the Liberals are "spending a million dollars campaigning to discredit me", but she has first rate Eastern Suburbs credentials down Potts Point way, and has that peculiar habit of "independents" being able to change their political stripe - chameleon like - to suit any occasion at all. Just ask Tony Windsor, he'll tell you. And good luck to her. But, why she allows her Wikipedia entry to say she was once described as "one of the 25 most influential lesbians in Australia" and is, by her domestic arrangements, a converted Jew, only she can say. Is that a thing in the Eastern Suburbs? I don't know.
Also of note is that Alex Malcolm Turnbull Jnr has been actively campaigning via the good ol' antique desktop-cam attached to a tin can on yr 'social meejah' for the "Anyone But A Liberal" ticket, claiming that dear Papa's Grand Old Liberal Party has been ambushed and ruthlessly taken over by ult-right Christian fundamentalist fascist extremists who don't take no prisoners and couldn't give a blue root about Global Warming. You know what they say, "like father, like son". There's probably a conspiracy theory that they're closet unreformed Trots. And the day after, Phelpsy suddenly latches onto Climate Change. Funny like that. Doesn't everyone know the harbourside mansions will be the first to go under when the sea comes in?
As it is, The Rich Dude must be having a jolly good time in his super-luxe mortgage-free New York apartment at the minute, knowing that revenge comes cold.
Mr Trundle knew full well that resigning from Parliament exposed the ScoMo/J-Fry Govt to the risk of losing their one seat majority in the House and creating a hung parliament. "Up yours for the rent, mate!". The people hate hung Parliaments. No one's in charge. The markets hate instability. Capitalist running-dogs hate unstable markets, and calls for a General Election early in the new year will reach fever pitch, in the highly likely event the Tories go down in a screaming heap. Rupert Murdoch reckons he can put up with anything for three years if necessary. But don't hold yr breath. That last member for Wentworth is going to do them slowly.
Due to the extremely curious double-dissolution Don't Call Me Mal foisted on the long suffering taxpayer last time around, a half Senate election must be held by 18 May 2019, but the Govt.'s three year term doesn't run out until November next year. Imagine that? A stand-alone half Senate election! Hasn't been one since 1970. So by my reckoning, the December Victorian State Election gets in the way, the silly season doesn't officially end until Jan 27, then there's a NSW State Election in March, so they'll have to squeeze in an April campaign for a May General. What happens during the current votin' season in The States is anyone's guess, with the Trumpotus let loose on the praries.
And, with the Govt. about to implode and disappear up its own budgy smuggler for about six months, hasn't You Can Call Me ScoMo come up with some ripping policy initiatives of late?
While the Pinko's promise Govt. subsidised kindy/pre-school for three-year-olds at the cost of billions, in return for millions of parent's votes, the Chief Speaker-In-Tongues wants to chuck homo's out of private schools because they are perverted. Genius! ScoMo's also pledged to tip the legions of good-for-nothing god-forsaken lazy-as-fuck Dole Bludgers off their arses and into some tough, back-breaking, very lowly-paid agricultural piece-work picking fruits. Winner! Brilliant thinking. That'll get rid of the sexually maladjusted from the hoity-toity education system - send them off to be cured of their evil ways on the public purse, save them from eternal damnation - while simultaneously solving all the farmer's problems by Christmas. And while we're at it, why not move Australia's diplomatic mission to Israel from the capital to Bethlehem. A miracle! Oh, sweet Jesus. Praise be the Lord.
That'll get the votes flooding in for the Tories, nothing surer.
