How long is a really long long time in journalism and politics?
A term of government? A year? Six months?
Nope, just a couple of months.
Remember the Fairfaxians, back on September 6th 2013 blathering in an editorial, Australians deserve a government they can trust? (Actual header, question mark for rhetorical purposes only)
Abbott does not so much deserve the chance to do what Labor could not do in the past six years. Nor has he earned the right to govern with a clear, articulated vision, as the Herald has sought from him during the campaign. But the party he leads is untainted by scandal and infighting, and therefore has the best chance to unite a tired and despondent electorate.
Oh sure, there were a few other caveats and hedges, and the promise of scrutiny, but in the closing pars, the editorialist was still rabbiting on about Trust!
Labor under Kevin Rudd in 2013 is not offering a stable, trustworthy government on which Australians can depend. The Coalition under Tony Abbott deserves the opportunity to return trust to politics.
Roll that one around on your tongue. The opportunity to return trust to politics.
Amazing, since he'd failed in the most dismal way to seize on the opportunity to return trust to the business of being Opposition Leader.
So how long did the Trust last?
Less than a couple of months, as the crow flies, because yesterday - that's October 25th as the crow counts the calendar - the editorialist's knickers were in a fine old twist, as it thundered Abbott and Shorten must show leadership on expenses, reform:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott needs to show some moral leadership in tackling the poisonous public distrust of MPs over their expenses. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, too, could benefit from some added strength as he seeks to rebuild voter trust in the Australian Labor Party.
Abbott came to office in September promising to restore trust with the electorate. But he has failed to confront the spurious expenses claims of MPs, including himself.
Why drag Bill Shorten into it?
Well the rag starts off on the theme of Abbott and then spends an unseemly amount of time beating up on Bob Carr, with this sort of logic:
Let us look first at his expenses. The $4220 a day seems high but it was a crucial time for Australian diplomacy. Foreign ministers are well placed to justify expenses with records.
While Carr's expenses would normally barely raise an eyebrow, the widespread and growing distrust of MPs makes every expense claim suspect in the public mind. That draws focus away from policy discussion and plans.
Actually it's the anon editor that raises the eyebrow and makes the expenses suspect.
Was it a crucial time for Australian diplomacy? Were the expenses legitimate? Did the anon editor check the records and discover alarming discrepancies? If not, why the eyebrow shooting into the stratosphere?
Now the pond bows to no one in detestation of Bob Carr, and the mess in which he left New South Wales, never mind the way he cynically dropped in to the Senate to play Foreign Minister, and then dropped out the moment he thought he might have to sit in opposition ...
But there's no point in conflating Carr with the ongoing fuss about expenses, unless it can be shown Carr was a junketing Foreign Minister, which is to say more of a junketeer than Alexander Downer.
Now there's a challenge ...
The pond knows why the Fairfaxians wrote it up this way. They wanted to give both sides a bashing to show how even-handed, balanced, unbiased, and independent they always are ...
But conflating the two makes them sound merely silly and petulant.
Are we on about reforming the Labor party, or are we on about the sense of entitlement that bedevils federal politicians on both sides of the aisle, but is most notable in the likes of Don Randall ... and Tony Abbott ...
It turns out it can be all ladled out under that high fly blown concept, "trust":
Shorten must restore trust through leadership on party reform. Likewise, Abbott should find the moral strength to fix this entitlements farce. There is no grey area. Trust is trust.
What a silly goose. Abbott's finding it hard because his own snout was fixed firmly in the trough.
If he reprimands others, where does that leave him? Off with weddings, parties and anything involving lycra? And assorted Labor politicians are in the same precarious boat.
But there you go.
Buyer's remorse, and it only took two months. Why even electric goods from China carry a ninety day warranty ...
Now if only the editorialist had an ear for music. He could scribble a musical:
Australia is crying out
For a stable government
That can be trusted
Trusted, because
Trust is trust
There is no grey area
Only moral strength
To deliver what is promised.
The Herald believes
Oh yes lord, sing it with me
The Herald believes
Yes we do, oh yes we do
We believe, we believe
Only the Coalition can achieve that
We deserve a government
That can be trusted
Oh yes we do ...
One thing's certain...
However it's phrased:
Trust me, I'm a politician ...
I'm a politician, trust me ...
... anybody who elevates trust to the centre of political discourse will be reliably disappointed.
Abbott can be forgiven. After three years of relentless negativity, all he had to offer by way of policies was to dismantle this and abolish that, and all that was left after that was "trust me, I'll keep my word, and don't you worry that in opposition I showed a fine old contempt for my actual word".
What's astonishing is that the SMH went along with it, and proposed "trust" as the central reason to vote for Abbott.
And now, reliably, as per a few thousand years of the art of politics being on parade, it is disappointed ...
The fuss about Abbott's expenses was known long before he won government; the Fairfaxians now promise fresh revelations.
But the real revelation is the way the editorial team of a major metropolitan newspaper could, in the twenty first century, think that an election campaign should first of all have been about trust, and stability, whatever these nebulous notions mean when applied to a business that is routinely about sacrificing trust for the balancing of interests, and rather than stability, maintaining a temporary balance as forces contend for power ...
If only the editorialist had read Ambrose Bierce, as fresh as 1906:
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. (more here)
Australians deserve an alternative to the Murdochians which blathers less about trust, and more about policies.
How handy it would have been to have had that before the election, rather than discovering they'd lost their "trust" virginity a short two months after said election ...
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