With an election only months away, conservative apologists for the Morrison government — if there’s any left — are going to have to come up with a better campaign slogan than At least he’s not Anthony Albanese! Because it’s beginning to look like all they’ve got.
Peta Credlin, previously an advisor to former PM Tony Abbott, tries to argue that it’s enough. Colour me far from convinced.
Especially given her own, too-accurate, diagnosis of the government’s faults: pandering to power-drunk Labor premiers inflicting useless misery in the name of a middling pandemic. Ceding nearly everything to the anti-religious left and calling it “religious freedom”.
Then there’s the sheer madness of trying to hold the base, who were told at the 2019 election that Labor’s 45 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 was “economy wrecking” but that the Libs’ net-zero emissions by 2050 would somehow create jobs […]
the draft national curriculum: toned down a bit, sure; but now that home-schooling parents know what their children are being taught (or not) and can better understand why we are rapidly sliding down the world rankings, picking a fight with Labor on education standards is a no-brainer. Yet the silence is deafening.
And while nuclear power is finally OK at sea, why on earth is it still prohibited on land?
But if you really want to understand the depth of the Coalition’s problems, look no further than the fact that a tiny clique of dripping-wet wokesters mouthing the platitudes of the teal bourgeoisie are consistently referred to as “Liberal moderates”.
Credlin also agrees with what I have written for months:
To Morrison’s credit, the government consistently has stood up to China, and the AUKUS nuclear sub deal is a decision of generational significance even though it won’t be consummated for many years.
But what else is there for long-suffering Liberals to cheer?
Short answer: bugger-all.
Yet, despite everything, it’s still better to vote for the Coalition. Rather than join protest parties, it’s preferable that disgruntled conservatives stay on the inside to fight for their convictions, where they may make a difference in government. As Paul Keating once said in another context, you may want to punish the government but please don’t punish the country. While the Morrison government may not deserve to be re-elected, Australia deserves so much better than a Labor-Greens government.
The Australian
Yet, that’s what we’ve got, in all but name.
To disparage parties like One Nation or the Liberal Democrats as “ghost parties” is simply to perpetuate the fallacy of a two-party system. Certainly, you can argue that the two-party system is reality — but it’s only reality so long as we keep voting for it.
And so long as we keep voting for a weak, green-washed, left-lite Coalition, the more they’ll delude themselves that they’re being rewarded for good performance.
To paraphrase P. J. O’Rourke, don’t vote for the wets, it only encourages the bastards.
