“If you cannot be trustworthy with your self, you’ll be able to’t be trustworthy with anybody.”
That little homily is taking part in out for the federal Liberal Social gathering with a thread working from its election assessment by to Peter Dutton’s current gaming of the Voice referendum and on into the social gathering’s way forward for reducing relevance.
The election review may look like outdated information now – heck, it was three weeks in the past, final 12 months even – however its painful prevarication exemplifies the rot on the social gathering’s core: A collective and particular person lack of integrity that gives no resistance when charlatans, liars and chancers have the numbers.
The autopsy by Victorian Senator Jane Hume and former social gathering director Brian Loughnane is just too cute by half in (largely) blaming Scott Morrison and itemizing just a few of the signs of the social gathering’s necrosis, slightly than the trigger.
Sure, as recognized by the Labor Social gathering’s assessment as effectively, Scott Morrison was the one largest issue within the Liberal Social gathering dropping 18 seats. “Ladies did not like him” was and is apparent.
If the assessment was trustworthy, it will think about why they did not like him slightly than fiddle with excuses about COVID distraction and treating the arrival of the Teals as a considerably random occasion.
It isn’t a tough activity. The Teals have executed it for them, laid it out as their platform for all to see:
Local weather.
Integrity.
Equality.
I would go a step additional although. The voters reacted to the Liberal Social gathering’s lack of integrity about local weather coverage, its lack of integrity in coping with problems with inclusivity and primary human relations (the Biloela household, anybody?), and the shortage of integrity in addressing integrity – its federal ICAC failure and multibillion-dollar rorting.
In plain English, we’re sick of political bullsh-t, of mendacity and dissembling.
Main by instance
Underlining the distinction a present of integrity could make, one Liberal MP really elevated her margin whereas all about her suffered sharp falls: Bridget Archer.
What was completely different about Ms Archer? She confirmed she had some integrity, that she had the ticker to face up for an affordable precept by crossing the ground in 2021 to help no less than debating Helen Haynes’ federal integrity fee proposal.
As a matter of integrity, she was ready to do it once more to vote in opposition to the Morrison authorities’s religious discrimination bill and did so in opposition to help the Labor government’s climate target.
The place had been the alleged “moderates” within the Liberal Social gathering on these events? Nowhere to be seen.
Such irony within the Liberal Social gathering’s limp lettuce platoon making an attempt to guard their preselections by doing as they had been instructed by the Morrison mob solely to lose their seats for it.
Would the Teals have received these seats in the event that they had been standing in opposition to individuals with the integrity to face up for integrity, if a vote for the sitting Liberal member wasn’t a vote for Barnaby Joyce’s Nationwide Social gathering tail wagging the federal government canine?
It is a lot simpler for Senator Hume – loyal supporter of PM Morrison – and Mr Loughnane in charge Scott Morrison and “occasions, expensive boy, occasions” than to smack duty house to the person candidates for missing the braveness of their convictions.
And nothing has been realized. The Liberal Social gathering’s leftovers nonetheless undergo the movement of defending their authorities’s unprecedented corruption of grants, are nonetheless taking part in a rear-guard motion on local weather change, nonetheless do not know what to do about “ladies”.
Enjoying politics with Voice
Which is the thread that results in the political sport Peter Dutton is taking part in on the Voice referendum – the place’s the integrity?
Does Mr Dutton help the Uluru Assertion or not? There isn’t any straight reply, nothing that rings true, simply weasel phrases about “present me the element”.
Professor Marcia Langton is but the latest possessor and publisher of detail to destroy that ruse.
It isn’t concerning the particulars – it is concerning the politics. It isn’t about behaving with integrity when coping with a matter that goes to the nation’s soul – it is about making an attempt to weaken Anthony Albanese.
The Nationwide Social gathering has been elevated by the election to greater than tail standing within the Coalition canine. (Tail and fleas? Hind legs, tail, ticks and fleas?)
It was no surprise they were quick to bag the Voice however within the course of they pupped one other politician of conspicuous integrity: Andrew Gee.
Now Ms Archer will not be alone. In cheap politics, Mr Gee quitting the National Party over its opposition to the Voice may very well be sufficient to take the problem out of party-political positioning, making it a quite simple factor to undertake Ms Archer’s suggestion of creating it a conscience vote.
A easy answer, a straightforward matter – all it will require is a bit of integrity.
Oh effectively.
