As we head into the Silly Season, there’s still no shortage of antics going on in Australian politics. Here’s just a few things the leaner class are up to, today.
Remember how I reported last week Penny Wong was assuring us that China was our friend, nothing to worry about? Yeah, about that…
Federal parliamentary staffers have been warned to switch off their phones and other internet-connected devices during a visit to the building by China’s No.3 leader on the advice of security personnel […]
“Within the identified areas, internet-connected devices including phones, tablets and laptops should be powered down.
“Where devices must be used, please ensure phones and iPads are updated with the latest software version and placed in lockdown mode, and laptops should have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth switched off.”
It’s almost like China are spying and hacking our criminal cyber-infrastructure, stealing secrets and intellectual property. Which is totally what a trustworthy trading partner would do.
But few Labor figures are as dedicated to firmly planting their tongue between Xi Jinping’s withered arse-cheeks than ‘Dictator Dan’ Andrews. Just because he’s the ‘former’ Victorian premier, doesn’t mean he isn’t still up to his neck on ruining ‘running’ the state from the shadows.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is counting her predecessor Daniel Andrews among her closest advisers ahead of next year’s state election, saying her government shares the same values and priorities as her former boss.
Well, yes: we can all see that for ourselves, in the state’s brilliant performance on everything from the economy (debt: over $150 billion) to crime (far and away the crime capital of Australia, with major retailers threatening to walk over the endless thefts) is anything to go by.
Even some of Australia’s richest are turning on Dictator Dan.
Billionaire James Packer has lashed out at former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, taking aim at the Labor politician’s economic management of the state and calling him “human filth”.
In an interview with Joe Aston’s digital news site Rampart, Packer has given a scathing assessment of Andrews, his former golfing buddy, labelling him his “least favourite person”.
Packer is also taunting Andrews to have a go at lawyering up, saying, “I hope he sues me.”
So, how are these clowns still running the circus? Because the honking, hooting Liberal clown car keeps breaking down before it even gets in the ring, with the opposition clowns all fighting each other for the wheel. The latest wet, woke clown to honk her way to the driver’s seat insists that she’s finally steering in the right direction.
An exclusive Newspoll for the Weekend Australian revealed that the state’s crime crisis was threatening Ms Allan’s premiership, with the opposition under new Liberal leader Jess Wilson seizing an advantage in the polls for the first time in more than 12 years.
We all know the normiecon legacy media are desperately to paint Wilson as the Second Coming, but that doesn’t excuse them telling outright lies. The Liberals have not “seiz[ed] an advantage in the polls for the first time in more than 12 years”. Under deposed leader Brad Battin, even under the hopeless John Pesutto, the Libs held the edge over Labor for most of the last year. More notably, Battin reversed Pesutto’s low personal rating, quickly pulling ahead of Allan to net 11 per cent favourability. Wilson has only increased that lead by about three per cent: so far, less than a third of Battin’s gains.
Wilson is just Betty-on-the-spot, reaping the reward of a Labor government so appallingly inept that even Victorians can’t stomach continuing to vote for them.
Mostly, Victorians are just hoping to hang on to their remaining limbs, before ‘teens-of-no-particular-description’ run amok with machetes again.
Crime has become the lens through which many Victorians are judging the Allan government, and it is putting Labor’s grip on power at serious risk as its primary support plunges to just 28 per cent.
The crime crisis is the single biggest driver of votes, with 67 per cent of respondents ranking law and order in their top two most important voting priorities and 81 per cent saying they are worried about it, up from 76 per cent in June.
That depth of anxiety helps explain why the Premier and her colleagues in Labor’s Left faction have signed off on new laws to send youth offenders into adult courts and expose them to the possibility of life sentences.
Except that Victoria’s new ‘Aboriginal’ (well, they ticked the box, anyway) overlord said ‘No’. Another brilliant Labor idea working out exactly as everyone expected.
Still, the polls are showing that even as Labor’s vote plunges, the Libs are barely reaping the rewards. Instead, votes are shifting to independents and minor parties. With One Nation’s vote surging to 15 per cent in federal polls, it will be interesting to see if the party’s new membership drive gets a foothold in Australia’s Wokest State.
Meanwhile, in federal politics, the Libs’ experiment with a female leader is going not exactly swimmingly.
Sussan Ley would have already been rolled as leader if she was in the Labor Party.
Successive Newspolls paint a picture of a leader struggling to connect with voters, who is being suffocated by constant leadership speculation.
Senior ALP figures, who say their comrades would have already dumped the leader if Labor’s numbers were that bad, are convinced that the first female Liberal Party leader will not make it to the May budget.
With the coalition’s primary vote at a rock bottom 24 per cent, the opposition leader is clinging on for dear life.
Well, to be fair, Ley willingly took on the most thankless job in politics: opposition leader in the wake of a devastating election loss. But, like the last bloke to do it, Malcolm Turnbull, Ley didn’t have to be so shit at the job. But then, like Turnbull, she’s a ‘moderate’.
Despite political sympathy for Ley’s predicament – after she inherited a bin fire from former Liberal leader Peter Dutton – the veteran MP is now being forced to cede control to the dominant conservative faction that controls the numbers in her partyroom.
Andrew Hastie has emerged as the most popular preferred opposition leader behind Sussan Ley, as the coalition’s primary vote remains stuck at record low levels, despite the Liberals and Nationals dumping net zero and promising tougher migration policies.
The only real question is not if Ley will be forced out, but when.
If I were a betting man, I’d say early in the New Year. Possibly between Christmas and Australia Day: taking advantage of the silly season, but allowing Hastie to establish his centre-right credentials as the left go predictably feral about our National Day.
