Peter Dutton - How Long?

[MC Extra Dollop]

And for those thinking Dutton’s announcement is appeasing the right…

Not at all. Warren Mundine came out and said he’s disappointed with the Liberals decision to oppose the constitutional voice and aim for all those “regional voices”, saying the Liberals should be a hard No and oppose any type of Voice full stop.

The far right still thinks Dutton is a “leftie”…..

I think it was Nikki Savva on Insiders who mentioned this in terms of Dutton and how those in the party consider him to be a good leader because he ensures that everyone's heard. She said something like, well that's great, until he actually needs to formalise a position on something as the leader of a political party.

And we're seeing it now. The opposition to the official 'No' position now from both sides of the Coalition has really shocked me. I'm so much more confident that this referendum will pass now than I was a few days ago. Every time I refresh a media site, it seems that someone else whom Dutton should consider an ally has come out against it, or another mealy mouthed 'moderate' is hedging their bets to see what will be best for their own political hides long-term.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

They're dog whistling to their base. They still think this is how they'll win the suburbs. It's all they've got, they can't change because they've stacked their branches and their party room with cultural warriors, who would rather see the party lose than make any change to their RWNJ, hateful world view and policies.
If you want to know what their policies will be tomorrow, watch Fox tonight.

It’s not so much that the cultural warriors would rather see the party lose than make any change. It’s that a high proportion of these cultural warriors are religious nutters who believe they are fighting a much bigger fight than mere secular politics.

I really do believe some moderate Lib is going to throw the towel in soon and use the opportunity to spill the beans on just how much the direction of the party has been dictated by these infiltrators who believe they are actually on a higher mission than everyone else.

 

[Gough]

Dutton's lack of any sort of professed faith has always set him apart from the other nutters in the party, while they could claim some sort of alleged higher calling as an excuse for their actions you're left to think he's just a genuinely unpleasant person who enjoys the suffering of others.

 

[Grin]

It’s not so much that the cultural warriors would rather see the party lose than make any change. It’s that a high proportion of these cultural warriors are religious nutters who believe they are fighting a much bigger fight than mere secular politics.

I really do believe some moderate Lib is going to throw the towel in soon and use the opportunity to spill the beans on just how much the direction of the party has been dictated by these infiltrators who believe they are actually on a higher mission than everyone else.

Fundamentalist Christian Taliban and conservative cultural warriors are one in the same thing IMO. I guess the secular version is the anti science, anti vacc, sovereign citizen types which the far right have also captured. Ironically it's been a blessing, especially for the Greens, especially in NSW, to offload those nutters who previously saw themselves as lefties.
It all appears to have a very strong American influence, and one wonders if American christian fundies have been here proselytizing to vulnerable groups as they are want to do.

In another thread I pose the question asking why these people in particular are so vulnerable to conservative/right wing propaganda

Society/Culture - Why do less intelligent people gravitate to conservative/right wing ideology.

So would I. Here's a meta-analysis that's far more wide ranging. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/55893129.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiZksKNiq38AhWmwjgGHVyFAdQQFnoECC0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2xHhvNmp4MW8yHxMsywA_c There is a significant body of work on the...

www.bigfooty.com

 

[Gough]

The American evangelical investment in Uganda has just paid out for them. That was a long game they'd been playing there for years.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Dutton's lack of any sort of professed faith has always set him apart from the other nutters in the party, while they could claim some sort of alleged higher calling as an excuse for their actions you're left to think he's just a genuinely unpleasant person who enjoys the suffering of others.

Although you don’t have to remind me what an unpleasant person Dutton is (I would go further and say “sinister” - let’s not forget his true colours displayed in the Border Security portfolio), my point is that a lot of the baffling intransigence currently on display by him and his party may be attributed to the fact that they have been comprehensively infiltrated from the ground up by a kind of zealot that actually believes they’re on a higher plane altogether than mere politics.

Of course it is completely impossible to reason with anyone who holds such convictions, and Dutton (for whom the ONLY positive thing I’ll say for him is that he’s secular) knows that his role is to be the “acceptable” (LOL) public face of this madness.

 

[peetoo]

Although you don’t have to remind me what an unpleasant person Dutton is (I would go further and say “sinister” - let’s not forget his true colours displayed in the Border Security portfolio), my point is that a lot of the baffling intransigence currently on display by him and his party may be attributed to the fact that they have been comprehensively infiltrated from the ground up by a kind of zealot that actually believes they’re on a higher plane altogether than mere politics.

Of course it is completely impossible to reason with anyone who holds such convictions, and Dutton (for whom the ONLY positive thing I’ll say for him is that he’s secular) knows that his role is to be the “acceptable” (LOL) public face of this madness.

All the while letting some very nasty criminals into australia. All,the while going to parliament looking for more and more draconian powers . Labelling the opposition soft if they mentioned it was over reach

A thoroughly nasty piece ofwork

Trafficked: Women shunted ‘like cattle’ around Australia for sex work

The identity of a Sydney-based Mr Big running a global human sex trafficking ring has been revealed.

www.theage.com.au

 

[Grin]

The American evangelical investment in Uganda has just paid out for them. That was a long game they'd been playing there for years.

Do tell.

 

[Gough]

Do tell.

They've been sending homophobic missionaries down their for years, getting involved in education and now Parliament has passed some of the most regressive anti LGBTQIA+ laws in the world.

 

[TheEscapeClub]

After doing nothing for 9 years he comes out with his own version of the voice!!!! Now!!!


Where’s the D E T A I L????!?

Detail or not, this is pissweak by him. You oppose it or you don't. Don't try and hedge your bets.

I'll still vote no to the Voice, not because I like his alternative but because I don't want the Voice fullstop.

 

[Mofra]

I really do believe some moderate Lib is going to throw the towel in soon and use the opportunity to spill the beans on just how much the direction of the party has been dictated by these infiltrators who believe they are actually on a higher mission than everyone else.

Are there any left?
The wet libs have been purged. Just a generation ago the teals would have been wet libs, now they're standing as independents.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Are there any left?
The wet libs have been purged. Just a generation ago the teals would have been wet libs, now they're standing as independents.

Don’t know and I don’t care

 

[sherb]

Although you don’t have to remind me what an unpleasant person Dutton is (I would go further and say “sinister” - let’s not forget his true colours displayed in the Border Security portfolio), my point is that a lot of the baffling intransigence currently on display by him and his party may be attributed to the fact that they have been comprehensively infiltrated from the ground up by a kind of zealot that actually believes they’re on a higher plane altogether than mere politics.

Of course it is completely impossible to reason with anyone who holds such convictions, and Dutton (for whom the ONLY positive thing I’ll say for him is that he’s secular) knows that his role is to be the “acceptable” (LOL) public face of this madness.

Eg our last Prime Minister.

 

[Leeda]

Dutton's lack of any sort of professed faith has always set him apart from the other nutters in the party, while they could claim some sort of alleged higher calling as an excuse for their actions you're left to think he's just a genuinely unpleasant person who enjoys the suffering of others.

I am sure he is not a person who doesn't care. The waves of dissent may not be what they seem. FAngry can be a short moment

 

[Festerz]

I really do believe some moderate Lib is going to throw the towel in soon and use the opportunity to spill the beans on just how much the direction of the party has been dictated by these infiltrators who believe they are actually on a higher mission than everyone else.

Isn't that exactly what Turnbull did and is doing?

IMHO throwing in the towel and whining about how bad things are AFTER you have left an organisation is pissweak. Especially if you were a senior executive or leader within that organisation (like, say, a frontbencher, Minister or PM) and did f-all about the corruption or inaction when you had the power to do so.

 

[Gough]

I am sure he is not a person who doesn't care. The waves of dissent may not be what they seem. FAngry can be a short moment

For Dutton, bipartisan support for the Voice represented the best opportunity at softening his image he's ever going to get, and when offered that he raised the middle finger. What else are we to think?

 

[Crankyhawk]

Given Dutton resorting to "private conversations" as a reason to discredit public statements, I am going to call bullshit that he spoke to anyone in Alice Springs who approached him and said "they oppose the voice" unless they also come out themselves and say it. Because Dutton has negative credibility. If he said the sky is blue I'd instinctively have to fact check it.

 

[Leeda]

For Dutton, bipartisan support for the Voice represented the best opportunity at softening his image he's ever going to get, and when offered that he raised the middle finger. What else are we to think?

Ah well he got that wrong and he should have agreed to it with concessions. Surely there is no hardship with agreeing for the country's good. ..but allowing for some concessions. You get more likes by satisfying both sides.

 

[Leeda]

From The Shot .......

General News
It’s not a mystery: the Liberal Party is unelectable because it sucks.

By Dave Milner
April 6, 2023

---

“No one was expecting this result,” said a stunned David Speers, signing off from his on-the-pulse Aston by-election coverage, utterly bewildered that the thing happening an awful lot recently happened again. As with the Victorian, NSW, and federal elections, Australia’s highest profile political commentators appear flummoxed by politics, defaulting into perfuming the stench of the Liberal Party’s bloated corpse, unwilling or unable to accept the reality of the rot, the depth of the decay.

The Liberal Party’s run of recent blows now encompasses election defeats in Queensland (2020), WA (2021), SA (2022), Australia (2022), Victoria (2022), NSW (2023) and this weekend’s Aston by-election. I am a Leeds United supporter and intimately familiar with losing streaks: this is a bigggggggg one.
Peter Dutton’s party – that phrase in and of itself illuminating – holds just 14 urban seats. Greens and Independents hold 12. It’s even worse than that sounds though. As Kos Samaras, director of Red Bridge Group and former Victorian Labor deputy campaign director, points out, this tally drops to just eight seats if you eliminate those also encompassing semi-rural areas. There is no heartland anymore. In Sydney, they do not hold any seats with Harbour views; in Melbourne, just two seats remain, Team Blue being chased into the hills by Victorians with too much self-respect to vote for their abusers.

This crisis is existential for the Liberal Party. Wedged to the right by semi-sentient, wholly-drunk Akubras in the National Party and blood-thirsty psychopaths at News Corporation, and neutered in the centre by the Labor Party’s own enthusiasm to enact Liberal policies – stage three tax cuts, AUKUS and the offshore Gulag thing – there is presently little reason for the ‘party of Menzies’ to exist. It is today less a ‘broad church’ and more a support group for assholes.

Only one in five Millennials support the LNP. Amongst Gen Z that figure is even lower. And it’s not ******* suprising, David Speers!! By targeting older people almost exclusively since the Howard era, the Liberals have acted as antagonists to the young, actively working to undermine the things they care about most: social inclusion, the ability to afford somewhere to live, life on planet Earth, the arts, and decent ******* Internet. Somehow this approach did not pay off in the longer-term, the existence of time and death ultimately undermining this particular negatively geared strategy.
But this is horse before the cart stuff, because it was all inevitable. The Liberal Party’s unelectability is not really about shifting demographics. Or fatigue. Or bad luck. Or poor leadership. Or impotent talent pools. Or the quirks of preferential and compulsory voting, as they are now arguing. All of that is applicable, absolutely, but none of it would matter if not for the two related main points: (1) the Liberal Party ******* sucks, and (2), this has become increasingly obvious of late.

The sheen enthusiastically applied to the s**t – media myths like the LNP’s “superior economic management” and that they quote-unquote “aren’t monsters” – is fading away, less mesmerising with every dwindling NewsCorp readership, less plausible with every Liberal Party stance against inclusion, every piece of disingenuous bad faith *ery, every war of American aggression enthusiastically paid for in Australian blood, every lie or cover up or portfolio of seven secret ministries. We have seen too many instances of “foreigners are going to take your jobs” or “African gangs are making restaurants in Melbourne unsafe” or “refugees throw kids into the sea” to collectively fall for it anymore. Their contribution to the nation, since the mid-90s, is almost exclusively appalling, a series of deliberate and devious ratchettings of the nation’s macro anxiety, fear and hate levers.

Consider Dutton opposing the Voice, standing there yet again in the face of history and asking it to pass him the * on by. Disingenuously insisting on “more detail” for months, to confuse, to muddy waters, to create a myth that the ALP’s cack-handed approach to messaging played right into. A man literally fleeing Parliament to avoid voting on how those details work does not appear genuine in his quest for more details!! Anyone with half a brain knew Dutton was always going to land on the side of White Right and Might, and I do not understand why you do not understand this, David Speers.
Routinely and reliably, over three decades, the Liberal Party has favoured the wealthy over the poor, the old over the young, the callous and scared over the empathetic and kind. And they were ******* awful to Victorians during the early pandemic period, creating yet another cohort of people that will never even consider voting for them, a fact rarely acknowledged in Medialand – the only realm in which the Liberals make any sense. Political cynicism and opportunism is the party’s North Star.

The Liberal Party does indeed have a perception problem, but that problem is that the country perceives the Liberal Party accurately. It is unelectable because the electorate at large has a clearer picture of what they stand for (money, and not much else), what they are capable of (distraction, and not much else), and the types of people they attract (self-interested assholes, and not much else). It is decrepit, corrupt, devoid of good ideas and fundamentally obsessed with stupid bullshit, like which persecuted minority is waiting for you in the bathroom this time around. David Speers, please talk this through with the other kids on the monkey bars.

It really is quite simple: the Liberal Party is unelectable, not because of any unknowable mystery or demographic shift or quirk of the electorate, but because it ******* sucks and has ******* sucked uninterrupted for three decades now. In 2023, its remaining core beliefs deserve to be fringe. The decline is about what they stand for. It is not the party’s messaging that needs tinkering – its soul needs an exorcism.

We all knew ...it was coming....

 

[Sun Ra]

Ah well he got that wrong and he should have agreed to it with concessions. Surely there is no hardship with agreeing for the country's good. ..but allowing for some concessions. You get more likes by satisfying both sides.

Make sure you give it 4 weeks of darkness before and stress them with a strobe light and flush with frozen seawater 48hrs before harvest bro trust me bro that's how the bikies do it bro.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Isn't that exactly what Turnbull did and is doing?

IMHO throwing in the towel and whining about how bad things are AFTER you have left an organisation is pissweak. Especially if you were a senior executive or leader within that organisation (like, say, a frontbencher, Minister or PM) and did f-all about the corruption or inaction when you had the power to do so.

AFAIK Turnbull didn’t address my specific point, which is that the Libs are now infested with people who actually believe they report to a higher authority than mere humans.

They publicly sanitise it as “Christian values” and “religious freedom”, but it’s much more radical than that.

Even though there’s no denying the close links between the conservatives and the church over the years, my hunch is that up until recently, Libs who identified as Christians still knew to keep politics secular. Not any more.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

From The Shot .......

General News
It’s not a mystery: the Liberal Party is unelectable because it sucks.

By Dave Milner
April 6, 2023

---

“No one was expecting this result,” said a stunned David Speers, signing off from his on-the-pulse Aston by-election coverage, utterly bewildered that the thing happening an awful lot recently happened again. As with the Victorian, NSW, and federal elections, Australia’s highest profile political commentators appear flummoxed by politics, defaulting into perfuming the stench of the Liberal Party’s bloated corpse, unwilling or unable to accept the reality of the rot, the depth of the decay.

The Liberal Party’s run of recent blows now encompasses election defeats in Queensland (2020), WA (2021), SA (2022), Australia (2022), Victoria (2022), NSW (2023) and this weekend’s Aston by-election. I am a Leeds United supporter and intimately familiar with losing streaks: this is a bigggggggg one.
Peter Dutton’s party – that phrase in and of itself illuminating – holds just 14 urban seats. Greens and Independents hold 12. It’s even worse than that sounds though. As Kos Samaras, director of Red Bridge Group and former Victorian Labor deputy campaign director, points out, this tally drops to just eight seats if you eliminate those also encompassing semi-rural areas. There is no heartland anymore. In Sydney, they do not hold any seats with Harbour views; in Melbourne, just two seats remain, Team Blue being chased into the hills by Victorians with too much self-respect to vote for their abusers.

This crisis is existential for the Liberal Party. Wedged to the right by semi-sentient, wholly-drunk Akubras in the National Party and blood-thirsty psychopaths at News Corporation, and neutered in the centre by the Labor Party’s own enthusiasm to enact Liberal policies – stage three tax cuts, AUKUS and the offshore Gulag thing – there is presently little reason for the ‘party of Menzies’ to exist. It is today less a ‘broad church’ and more a support group for assholes.

Only one in five Millennials support the LNP. Amongst Gen Z that figure is even lower. And it’s not ******* suprising, David Speers!! By targeting older people almost exclusively since the Howard era, the Liberals have acted as antagonists to the young, actively working to undermine the things they care about most: social inclusion, the ability to afford somewhere to live, life on planet Earth, the arts, and decent ******* Internet. Somehow this approach did not pay off in the longer-term, the existence of time and death ultimately undermining this particular negatively geared strategy.
But this is horse before the cart stuff, because it was all inevitable. The Liberal Party’s unelectability is not really about shifting demographics. Or fatigue. Or bad luck. Or poor leadership. Or impotent talent pools. Or the quirks of preferential and compulsory voting, as they are now arguing. All of that is applicable, absolutely, but none of it would matter if not for the two related main points: (1) the Liberal Party ******* sucks, and (2), this has become increasingly obvious of late.

The sheen enthusiastically applied to the s**t – media myths like the LNP’s “superior economic management” and that they quote-unquote “aren’t monsters” – is fading away, less mesmerising with every dwindling NewsCorp readership, less plausible with every Liberal Party stance against inclusion, every piece of disingenuous bad faith *ery, every war of American aggression enthusiastically paid for in Australian blood, every lie or cover up or portfolio of seven secret ministries. We have seen too many instances of “foreigners are going to take your jobs” or “African gangs are making restaurants in Melbourne unsafe” or “refugees throw kids into the sea” to collectively fall for it anymore. Their contribution to the nation, since the mid-90s, is almost exclusively appalling, a series of deliberate and devious ratchettings of the nation’s macro anxiety, fear and hate levers.

Consider Dutton opposing the Voice, standing there yet again in the face of history and asking it to pass him the * on by. Disingenuously insisting on “more detail” for months, to confuse, to muddy waters, to create a myth that the ALP’s cack-handed approach to messaging played right into. A man literally fleeing Parliament to avoid voting on how those details work does not appear genuine in his quest for more details!! Anyone with half a brain knew Dutton was always going to land on the side of White Right and Might, and I do not understand why you do not understand this, David Speers.
Routinely and reliably, over three decades, the Liberal Party has favoured the wealthy over the poor, the old over the young, the callous and scared over the empathetic and kind. And they were ******* awful to Victorians during the early pandemic period, creating yet another cohort of people that will never even consider voting for them, a fact rarely acknowledged in Medialand – the only realm in which the Liberals make any sense. Political cynicism and opportunism is the party’s North Star.

The Liberal Party does indeed have a perception problem, but that problem is that the country perceives the Liberal Party accurately. It is unelectable because the electorate at large has a clearer picture of what they stand for (money, and not much else), what they are capable of (distraction, and not much else), and the types of people they attract (self-interested assholes, and not much else). It is decrepit, corrupt, devoid of good ideas and fundamentally obsessed with stupid bullshit, like which persecuted minority is waiting for you in the bathroom this time around. David Speers, please talk this through with the other kids on the monkey bars.

It really is quite simple: the Liberal Party is unelectable, not because of any unknowable mystery or demographic shift or quirk of the electorate, but because it ******* sucks and has ******* sucked uninterrupted for three decades now. In 2023, its remaining core beliefs deserve to be fringe. The decline is about what they stand for. It is not the party’s messaging that needs tinkering – its soul needs an exorcism.

Beautiful piece.

 

[geoffjennings79]

I think Dutton actually believes that by fronting up at the Aston concession speech, then Insiders next morning (something I can't recall Abbott or Morrison ever doing at all?), that he is somehow being noble or brave.

In hindsight, the total BS he spouted to Speers just makes him look (more of) a fool.

He has no ability to read the mood at large - he's shown that again and again. All he panders to is a decreasing echo-chamber of RWNJs. Most moderate Lib supporters have jumped ship, most moderate Lib MPs have exited parliament courtesy of teal wins, and he is too ignorant and stupid to realise the world has moved on.

Saying that, I really hope he stays as Lib leader to contest the 2025 election. All Albanese has to is continue with his progress in election promises, and avoid major stuff ups - and it will be a repeat of last year's Vic election. But with Dickson so marginal, Dutton and a few more Libs will be blown away. There may be more teals and Greens in a second Albanese term, hopefully with BOP in the senate to keep them honest, but the Libs will hopefully be irrelevant. And all their cooker and fascist and religious nutters with them.

I want an inclusive country, an inclusive society, an inclusive local community, where my kids and their friends, my family and friends and my work colleagues - which include indigenous, trans and other minorities - can all live happily alongside each other. Not agreeing on everything, even on most things - but at least agreeing everyone has a right to lead a happy - and safe - life, free of persecution for who they are.

 

[Sun Ra]

Beautiful piece.

Which is now gone.

Gough, Mofra can I ask why ?

 

[Gough]

I want an inclusive country, an inclusive society, an inclusive local community, where my kids and their friends, my family and friends and my work colleagues - which include indigenous, trans and other minorities - can all live happily alongside each other. Not agreeing on everything, even on most things - but at least agreeing everyone has a right to lead a happy - and safe - life, free of persecution for who they are.

It's another reason Gen X hasn't gone conservative like our folks did. We're the parents of Millenials and Gen Z, and would like to see them have the chances of the sort of youth that we were able to enjoy without the crippling concern for their future.