You have to give credit where credits due. The left including Labor, GetUp, the unions and of course their media wing, the ABC and Fairfax, (9) and The Guardian play a brilliant ground game.
They’ve got the strategy and tactics and the manpower on the street.
They are cashed up with millions, even tens of millions of dollars.
They’re focused, enthusiastic, committed and dedicated to their cause knocking on doors and wearing out shoe leather as they parrot their HQ, scripted talking points taking the high moral ground and framing every issue as one of ethics, morality, equality and diversity but totally un-tethered from reality and practicality.
Merit and reward for effort seem such 20th century concepts.
The conservatives don’t seem to have a come back and seem incapable of pushing back.
It’s the same with the Republicans in the US and the Conservatives in the UK.
It seems to me that the conservative forces in Australia seem frightened, dazed and confused, can hardly comprehend what’s going on, have no plan and have difficulty or are too frightened to articulate what they believe in and how they see the future.
They just seem to be along for the ride and that in a two horse race they only have to turn up on the day to stand a chance of winning.
Sometimes you get the impression that their hearts are just not in it.
There doesn’t seem to be any conviction or commitment.
On coal fired power for example they let Labor dictate from opposition. There’s a lot of huff and puff.
A lot of shoulda, coulda, woulda, gunna.
They don’t seem to be able to articulate an argument and when, from opposition, they do mount an argument they fail to follow through and wind back the excesses of the previous Labor government when they themselves are next in power.
Tony Abbott and “stop the boats” and axe the carbon and mining taxes are a couple of exceptions. But by and large they turn to jelly.
By way of example, James Allan writes in this weeks Spectator about Ted Baillieu and his handling of the Victorian Charter of Rights Bill of Rights —
“…The Libs are spineless jellyfish. Ted Baillieu came into office having promised to peel back the Victorian Charter of Rights. On the select committee he set up all the Liberal MPs voted for doing just that. But then Red Ted opted to side with Labor against his own MP’s and he did nothing. Personally, I would never vote Liberal again in Victoria because of that pusillanimous sell-out and I certainly wouldn’t preselect anyone who’d been his policy adviser at the time.
As for Queensland, during the run-up to Labor enacting their Charter of Rights, I spoke with a couple of shadow LNP Ministers. I mention no names but they made it clear to me that they thought the LNP would not do anything about repealing this Labor Charter of Rights once back in office. The problem is that there are far too many jellyfish in the LNP party room who’d never fight on this issue (which at least makes them consistent as I can’t think of anything much they’d fight for on any front..”.
It’s a tough time to be a right-of-centre person in Australia these days. The political class supposedly on our side stinks and seems not to have a principle it wouldn’t sell out for the chauffeur and nice pension.