You really do get the enemies you deserve. Tony has Clive and they deserve each other. Meanwhile Tony struggles on with the bloated corpse of the Hockey budget around his neck. This debut budget will define the Abbott regime. It is not so much that it is harsh or unfair. It is much more that it is the product of sloppy thinking and short-sighted politics. It could could only have been produced by the contemptuous arrogance and naive, narrow-minded hubris of an intellectually challenged Treasurer punching well-above his weight, in combination with the economic laziness and political shallowness of a one-punch Prime Minister. Can it really be the case that Clive is the sharpest shovel in the contemporary political tool-shed? Whether we like it or not, it certainly seems that way. Many on both sides of politics hoped - even believed - he would be a flash in the pan: he would fizz for a moment and then vanish in a puff of smoke. These same critics failed to read the data on who exactly voted for Clive and PUP. His supporters are in fact a strange brew made up of cohorts of disenfranchised Liberal Forgotten People and abandoned Labor heartlanders. It is not just a mixed bag of nuts and fruit-cakes, the naive and the unspeakable. It is actually families and individuals, living on the fringes literally, in all those outer suburban, regional and rural population centres. These voters acutely feel the pressure of youth and older age unemployment, the lack of educational opportunity, the stress of inadequate public transport and the high costs of car travel. They hate political trickiness and deceit. In the past few years they have had more than enough of that from the traditional parties. Surprisingly they dont read Clives dinosaurs, Roll-Royce showing-off, or his strangely supple political twerking as stunts, because the language Clive uses sounds sincere and his motivations seem heartfelt. WYSIWYG is an acronym for the kind of computer software and apps we all endorse with our purchase decisions. We want ease of use and functionality in technology, why should it be different in politics? Its been Mettas thesis that the so-called Gen X and Y learned their politics, not from the ancient Greeks or the Westminster model, but from reality TV - voting for Big Brother or various talent shows. Clive is just like a larger than life reality show contestant: part stirrer, part villain, a bit of a joker, but always a ratings magnet. Love him or hate him, when hes on, we watch. With Clive what you see is what you get. How functional or bug-free his killer app will prove to be is yet to be seen, but he may just be re-shaping the operating system that will decide what politics can be, rather than what the incumbents jealously cling to as theirs to do with as they wish, no matter how last-year and clunky their particular political apps may be.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 04:18:37 +0000
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