The Politics of Grievance & Negativity
Tony Abbott has backed Scott Morrison’s warning about the number of Australian households that do not pay tax, in a major speech that steps up the case for budget and economic reform despite the challenges of the new parliament.
The former prime minister rebuked Labor for its “relentless negativity” and urged Malcolm Turnbull to fight for the Liberal Party’s core beliefs rather than giving up on spending cuts.
Mr Abbott defended his legacy, including his firm line on business welfare when Qantas sought a commonwealth guarantee, given the airline announced a bumper profit this week without the help of government aid.
He also warned of a lack of government power to enact reform, given that Julia Gillard’s administration was about to legislate 90 per cent of its bills with its alliance with the Greens but that this fell to 80 per cent in the next parliament when Labor and the Senate crossbench blocked the Abbott government’s plans.
“In other words, it was not the hung parliament that suffered from ‘relentless negativity’,” Mr Abbott said.
“This will also be a challenging parliament for reformers because every difficult change will have to run the gauntlet of political parties that pander to grievance.”
The former prime minister rebuked Labor for its “relentless negativity” (from original post).
That is so funny. I love the irony of politics. Another gem from the master of the genre. My only regret is I voted for the idiot, in protest at the idiotic party antics from the other side, at the time.
When the woman threw the banana at Eddie Betts it was an incredibly offensive act. Or was it? Let’s assume for the moment that the woman did intend to harm Betts. Not physically — a banana would be unlikely to do much damage — but psychologically. Let’s assume, rightly or wrongly, she wished to convey something like: you are an ape-like creature so here’s a banana to feed on.
As I said, deeply offensive. In fact, you can’t really get any more offensive. Yet Eddie Betts simply refused to take the offence. In fact, not only did he simply shrug it off, but he went on to actively forgive her for her insult and to urge others to do the same.
What a legend.
Compare that to the actions of the entire “grievance industry”, in whose warm and fuzzy embrace we can include Adam Goodes, Waleed Aly and the woman at the heart of the QUT case.
Goodes, you will recall, when confronted by a little girl yelling “ape”, pointed her out in the crowd. She was hauled off and Goodes was, in my view laughably, made Australian of the Year. In that position he went on to say he was “ashamed” to be Australian. Hardly a unifying action.
Meanwhile, Aly used his Gold Logie speech to complain Muslims are discriminated against on TV, using the example of a Muslim actor who, er, is the star of a show.
The QUT woman claims to be the victim of racism because one of the students complained of “fighting segregation with segregation”.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-left-created-a-law-that-is-an-ass/news-story/4bd8f79ea579840985db1514de4bba43