Even if you have no interest in politics

Politics in Australia is a dirty business and becoming more messy as they follow our American cousins with outrageous lies and promises. Unfortunately, we have a government that barely survived but for the support of a minor party called the Greens and a couple of eccentric independents.

Our Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, whilst electioneering prior to the election, promised she would not introduce a carbon tax but days ago, mere weeks after the election, introduced a carbon tax. Bottom line is, we Australians will pay more for our food and everything else thanks to the influence of a bunch of minorities propping up this current Government

We all agree, she's a liar. Unfortunately, we must tolerate this liar until the next election unless her party dumps her.

I enjoy reading the comments of David Pemberthy. A major commentator with http://www.thepunch.com.au. He sums up our current political situation beautifully...

"Based on simple observations from walking down the street, it’s fair to say that there are a number of people getting around who are as mad as cut snakes. If our democracy is to count for anything, these people deserve to be represented in the Federal Parliament.

The question is whether they are over-represented.

Even if you have no interest in politics, I beg you, as Molly Meldrum would say, to do yourself a favour and type the words Mary Jo Fisher into Google, then sit back and marvel at the South Australian Senator’s remarkable speech on Wednesday night.

This little-known newby senator – who in a former life was a successful lawyer – puts on what’s probably the strangest turn ever seen on the floor of Parliament.

It starts as a serious and shouty rant about the carbon tax. Fisher draws an obvious parallel between Gillard’s carbon tax and Rudd’s Emission Trading Scheme, saying Labor is doing the hokey-pokey on climate change. She says hokey-pokey a few more times. Then she puts her left leg in and her right foot out and her left leg in and shakes it all about. With the gestures and everything. She then declares that Labor is as useful as “tits on a bull” and that we’re in a time warp. It’s astounding, she says. Time is fleeting, she says. And then: “Let’s dooooo, the time waaaaaarp, agaaaaaain. It’s just a jump to the left….” She then starts doing the pelvic thrust, saying that this part of the carbon tax, more than anything, will really drive you insay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ayne.

Just remarkable. If not for the conflict of interest Senator Fisher should be given a government grant and encouraged to perform in a tent at the Adelaide Fringe in her home state of SA. (Adoptive home state, that is – she’s born and bred Western Australian, so let’s drop the Adelaide gags.)

Politics in Australia has officially gone weird, and most of the weirdness has been coming from the conservative side, with a fair degree of tastelessness thrown in.

The Coalition is giddy with excitement at the massive opportunity it has been handed by Julia Gillard through her appalling breach of faith with the Australian people over the carbon tax. This is the very tax which both she and Treasurer Wayne Swan explicitly ruled out during the election campaign, said was off the agenda for this term of office, and which will now be introduced on July 1 next year.

It will obviously be the defining political issue of this term. However well Gillard has been performing in the parliamentary chamber, the debate in the community is wholly focussed on the popular conviction that she has lied. It’s hard to argue that she hasn’t. The best she can say is that circumstances changed, and that other past governments have done similar things. They’re crappy arguments, and they don’t alter the fact that she misled the voters. She also misled the voters at a time when she was talking about a new era of transparency and accountability in this new Parliament, all utterly laughable now.

As a result of all this a number of folks within the Coalition seem to be so over-excited with the sweet taste of prospective victory that they have lost the plot. The weirdness of Senator Fisher has been matched by the tackiness of the allusions several Coalition MPs have drawn between Gillard’s carbon reversal and the conduct of murderous regimes in Iraq and Libya.

Queensland Liberal Peter Dutton is a former policeman. He’s a strong speaker in the chamber and well-regarded by his colleagues as having a fine policy mind. Sometimes he’s got the narky demeanour of the type of copper who would needle a harmless young drunk bloke, and then pinch him for offensive language. He was in ugly copper mode this week when he needled Labor’s Craig Emerson on Sky Agenda, comparing him to Saddam Hussein’s spin doctor Comical Ali for defending Gillard. Emerson – who like Mary Jo Fisher is a bit of an oddball himself and has burst into song at press conferences on at least one occasion – saw no humour in being likened to the chief spruiker for a tyrant who gassed civilians, and promptly went bananas on air.

Shifting things up a gear, the job fell to Liberals Sophie Mirabella and Eric Abetz to liken Gillard to Colonel Gaddafi, whose regime has spent much of the past fortnight using machine guns and aircraft fire on peaceful protesters. As far as comparisons go it’s right off the Richter scale, and Gillard has every right to be disgusted by it.

Political parties are probably like any other organisation where the work environment is set by the person at the top. This makes it an issue for Tony Abbott, who in the past has shown an inability to draw an acceptable line in his statements, be it disparaging the dying Bernie Banton, or accusing Julia Gillard of having a shit-eating grin. If this is the environment he is encouraging or allowing, there’s a risk that many voters will find that their disappointment with Gillard is tempered by a distrust or dislike of Abbott and the rattiness of his team.

On paper, the Coalition under Tony Abbott has never been in a better position than it is now. Gillard has broken an absolute doozie of a promise, yet a significant number of conservative MPs are turning themselves and their party into the story with behaviour which is aberrant or off. If not for the Coalition’s mangled messages on asylum seekers and the public brawling over Scott Morrison’s funeral slur, the internal sledging of Corey Bernardi over his paranoid generalisations about Islam, and this week of madness with singing senators and Gaddafi gags, Julia Gillard would be in very serious strife. But a question mark will hover over the Coalition unless they get off the red cordial and start acting like adults."