Say what you like about ‘Merica (and I do) but at least they give a shit.
For a country without mandatory voting, about 120 million Americans queued up in the cold, the result being Donald J Trump 2.0 with a mandate to fuck shit up.
But this post isn’t about the Orange Man.
At our last election in 2022 the Australian Labor Party won 52.1% of the vote, with the rival Liberal-National Party grabbing just 47.9%.
Blame for this “landslide” pointed squarely at outgoing Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who bungled everything he touched.
Scotty’s memoir, Plan For Your Good: A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness, is on sale at Booktopia if you want read the “unbelievable tale of a curry-cooking hero, guided by an invisible sky fairy, who possesses a remarkable knack of falling upwards and gaslighting a nation“.
Across the sea, only time will tell if the Orange Man bungles everything he touches.
One thing won’t change. He won’t be punished for his failures like our Scotty. His supporters, deranged by their beliefs, will storm a monument and murder more police.
Today in Oz, journalist Patricia Karavelas made an argument for the fundamental difference between AU v US politics: that while Australians may be forced to vote, they can’t be forced to care.
Karavelas, citing the Australian National University 2025 Election Monitoring Survey, says our democracy is in good health so long as Australians remain meh about politics.
In Oz, we play the ball and not the man.
I disagree.
I think politics in Australia is hyper-partisan and deeply personal. It only appears meh because of dog-whistle politics and our long and proud history of scapegoating Aboriginals, Muslims, LGBTQI+ and ‘elites’ for political gain.
Stoking partisan hate has been the hallmark of every federal election I can remember, including this one.
Let’s not forget Cheryl Kernot’s early assessment of the young Peter ‘Spud’ Dutton: “He always played the politics and never the policy.”
Wake up Australia: Spud has ALWAYS played the man and not the ball. It may only be a peeling knife, but Spud’s always ready to stab his opponent in the back.
Here’s ten examples of Spud’s dog-whistling:
Last month, Spud said PM Albanese’s response to the China live-fire exercise was “the weakest, most limp-wrist response you could see from a leader.” ie., Spud nods his homophobic prejudice to likeminded supporters.
“All members of the Australian Public Service [will be required to] work from the office five days a week.” ie., that’s Spud whistling hatred of public servants to his private sector mates.
“Victorians are scared to go out because of African gang violence.” ie., Spud dog-whistling long-held anti-immigrationist views to his racist conservative voter base.
Spud in his 2002 maiden speech railed against “overtolerant society” in a direct salvo against the long, long list of people he hates. Dog-whistling this so blatantly has robbed him of plausible deniability ever since.
At a summit of Pacific leaders in 2015 he hot-miked “Time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door” i.e., doesn’t care if climate change puts brown people underwater.
In 2016, texted News Corp journalist Samantha Maiden and called her a “mad fucking witch” which tells you everything you need to know about Dutton’s attitude toward intelligent, opinionated women.
In 2018, Dutton called for Australia to treat white South African farmers as refugees and ascribed to the myth of “white genocide” in that country. White supremacy, anyone?
In 2015, intervened as minister to grant visas to three au pairs in “unusual circumstances” not at all involving a conflict of interest, nuh uh! Did I mention the au pairs were all white and cute, btw?
And finally, finding it politically expedient to grudgingly concede that boycotting the apology to the Stolen Generations may have been a mistake, a.k.a. dog-whistling to all his mates that he too does not give a fuck about Aboriginals.
Spud has been famously described as Pauline Hanson without the personality and labelled the most racist Australian political leader since the White Australia policy.
Yet he is apparently in with a chance.
In closing, almost seven years ago a genuine mad fucking witch proposed a motion in the Senate inspired by the Ku Klux Klan:
All of the sitting members of the Liberal-National Party voted ‘yes’.
All of the sitting members of the Australian Labor Party, voted ‘no’.
While the motion narrowly failed, it highlighted the true colours of our political parties and the political abyss that divides all Australians.
