bull in a china shop

 

Comrades,

What a week! The last working week of the Campaign ahead of us, and the Miracle of Democracy has been stretching its legs all over...Bong Bong Marcos gets swept to power in a landslide as President of the Philippines to "fulfill my family's destiny", whatever that is. Never mind that his father made off with billions from the state treasury that were never seen nor heard of again or that his mother was a kleptoshoemaniac...that's all in the past now. At least they are rid of Roddy "shoot 'em up first and ask questions later" Duterte (even though his daughter has been elected Vice President, for Chrissake!). While straight talkin' Roddy was term limited, it's still the old lesser of two evils conundrum. Saw a woman on the TV get right in the face of the Kid President during a walkabout in the recent French presidential campaign to tell Macron that his run against Le Pen was "like you giving us a choice - what do we want? Cholera, or the Bubonic Plague?!". Then Sinn Féin pops up and gets elected in Northern Ireland. You'll remember them as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the old "Armalite and ballot box strategy", and all that. Joisus.  While having a single United Ireland at the top of their platform as always, Sinn Féin's win was credited to campaigning hard with local level retail politics on problems like the cost-of-living, housing and education. Sound familiar? And then Mike Gunner gives it away as Northern Territory Chief Minister and no one bats an eyelid; the Member for Fannie Bay saying he's no longer got the "head or heart" to carry on in the Top End's top job. It's the wrong time of year to "go troppo" up there, so he must be one of the few sane ones left. It's hard just to keep up.

Hammering down a number on a minimum wage rise el pronto as soon as they win Govt (via the tried and true method of a formal Govt. submission to the Fair Work - formerly Industrial Relations - Commission and in the good ol' Australian way, the umpire makes the call and everyone gets on with it) looked like a basic, but first-rate, Pinko tactic. But this can get you called a "loose unit" apparently. Seeing the Miracle of Democracy is - in the final paralysis - a numbers game, I thought I'd wake the Stats Guru from his slumber over there in Sportsworld to flip the beads on the abacus on this one. He's landed on the 735,000 folks who are on the minimum wage (annualised at $40,175 before tax) compared to the number of "small businesses" (defined by the ABS as having 1-19 employees) at roughly 215,000. So, you can shimmy shammy all you like about how that translates directly into votes, but the Guru scratched the pimple on his arse and came to the conclusion that there are at least twice as many votes in the minimum wage as there are chits in the ballot box from those engaged in low-level capitalism. Albo's no loose unit, he counts those kind of numbers in his sleep, and whatever way you look at it, he wins the class war! The proletariat and the rank'n'file have not been to the University, the rent's too high, the grocery bill is horrendous and on and on it goes - so instead of peanuts, promising even a sniff of a good pay rise is always a winner. You don't need to know the price of a head of lettuce to heed the sage advice of PJ Keating, who's made a point of subscribing to the view that the mug punter "will always back the horse called Self Interest".

ScoMo hasn't learnt a single thing from the last time around; high-viz and beer-swilling have no appeal to the vast swathe of the electorate who have zero interest in either. Being like a bull in a china shop called Bloke's World is not a vote winner. We're three years down the track here, mate, the world has moved on. So, Scotty from Marketing then proceeding to shoot himself in the foot while on the hop by admitting he can be a "bit of a bulldozer" after all and that he needs to change was a zinger of a shocker (have you ever tried to change a man?). That of course implies that he has a weakness, and that's the very very last thing you should admit to on the Campaign Trail where everything is about projecting strength. All it does is produce a collective eye-roll from half the electorate - women - whose deep loathing of the do-nothing snoozer's guts should be enough on it's own to see ScoMo cast adrift from The Lodge. They won't forget the likes of the former Hon. Christian Porter, and the "where's Tudgey?" game of late has been right up there in the realms of farce. And the attitude and general demeanor of that home wrecker, nose bleeder, and Deputy PM - the Inbred Tomato - is well known, as is the fact that the increasingly irrelevant Country Party rump has been cut loose from the Campaign as a liability, and left high and dry on the farm. And speaking of ideology, the take over of the Liberal Party by hard-right evangelicals will be exposed for what it is in the inevitable bloodbath after an election loss and there will be a whole lot of trouble going down in conservative ranks. Just before the election was called, you'll recall, the Libs were falling over each other while queuing up to bag ScoMo and call their own Big Kahuna all kinds of names. Imagine what it'll be like when the thing goes the shape of a very large pear on Saturday. Hang on to yr hats.

Never mind the open to all kinds of rorting cynical ploy of buying sub-prime housing with the super you didn't spend during the Pando. Remember that? The 3.5 million Australians who accessed their super during the time of plague spending $36B will. They have nothing left, but they have the vote. DOFUP (DOn't-F-uck-It-UP) should be the ALP's cry for the final week. Especially since the Tories' "miracle" showing last time out, when Labor magically managed to contrive snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. While the Masters of the Dark Arts ply their dubious trade and the party's Dirt Unit works overtime on the socials, the Good Ship Pinko just needs to hold a steady course on a tight trim sailing close to the breeze. It's a pretty shitty time to take over the reins of Govt., but with hard times on the way, any time is a good time to fracture the Coalition three ways, forever.