My minimal following of the election campaign – which occurs largely by accident since I turned off the radio and stopped visiting the news websites – suggests that a certain Tony Abbott might well become prime minister in a few weeks.
I can’t tell you how unhappy this makes me. The level of bullshit that man, in cooperation with the news limited papers, has gotten away with is astonishing. Claiming hat the Australian economy is in dire straits, when in fact it is the envy of the world. That we are inundated with “illegal” boat people, when the numbers are actually quite small, and nothing compared to the 1.5 million refugees who have fled Syrian into neighbouring countries in just the last two years. That the country has unsustainable debt when in fact we have one of the lowest government debt to GDP ratios of any country in the world.
I could go on, but I begin to froth with rage, and wonder out loud how it is this can perpetuated. Facts, it seems, have become completely irrelevant.
If that arch conservative and his creepy cronies and advisers get the keys to the government, here are some predictions about what we will be in for. Hopefully, at best, they will prove an incompetent and incapable administration that tries and fails to implement any of their terrible policy ideas. It would not surprise me if Abbott barely lasts two years as prime minister before his blundering causes his party to knife him. Or one of several impending court actions makes his position “untenable” as they say. This, people is the best case scenario.
At worst, well, I’ll meet you on the streets to protest the following:
The return of Work Choices, and other attacks on workers rights, pay, conditions. And indeed organised labour.
Climate Change, which apparently doesn’t exist. Tell that to the polar bears.
The East West Link. A dumber piece of infrastructure would be hard to imagine. It’ll cost $1 million per metre, and even the toll road operators don’t want anything to do with it.
Abortion and Women’s Rights in general. Mr Abbott has been known to say that abortion is “the easy way out”. Trust me, he’ll be trying to legislate about women’s reproductive rights.
Gay and Lesbian Rights. You filthy queers will be feeling god’s wrath.
Who knows, he’s even made noises about change the laws around divorce, like that’s a battle that wasn’t fought and won some 30 years ago. We can also probably look forward to a wholesale importation of the War on Women currently taking place in the USA.
If you listen carefully you can hear the aging white men in their suits salivating at the prospect of telling us all what to do, building some fancy new roads to make a buck or two, and getting put all them vagina owners in their place.
In the words of Le Tigre “Get off the internet, I’ll see you in the streets.”