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Exodus

It feels almost irreligious to use ‘exodus’ to portray the disappearance of so many key figures from Australia’s political scene. But it seems to fit. What outcome might we anticipate?

Ye?i’at Mi?rayim: ?'Departure from Egypt' is the founding myth of the Israelites, recounted in the Book of Exodus. It tells a story of Israelite enslavement and eventual departure from Egypt, revelations at biblical Mount Sinai, and wanderings in the wilderness up to the borders of Canaan. Its message is that the Israelites were delivered from slavery by Yahweh their god, and therefore belong to him by covenant.

Scott Morrison, who was in our face day after day, assailing us with his words, words of wisdom as he saw them, is no longer in view. Josh Frydenberg, the Liberal’s spokesman on all matters financial, no longer stands before us giving us his daily ‘intelligence’. Although he lost his seat at the recent election to Dr Monique Ryan in the blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Kooyong, we hear that he’s already contemplating a reincarnation, so central to the Liberal message he considers he continues to be.

According to press reports, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/02/disgruntled-nsw-liberals-lay-blame-in-wake-of-federal-election-loss, a wave of recriminations is sweeping through the NSW Liberal party over the division’s performance and the delays in preselecting candidates for NSW federal seats that resulted in most being chosen only weeks before last month’s federal election.

Blame is being levelled at the unwieldy, faction-riven state executive, at Scott Morrison and his “captain’s picks”, and at Alex Hawke, who had been widely blamed for holding up preselections by failing to make himself available for months to vet candidates. There’s an abundance of blame to go around. The Guardian gives a comprehensive account: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/02/disgruntled-nsw-liberals-lay-blame-in-wake-of-federal-election-loss.

The result was a wave of losses in seats where candidates and sitting members were only endorsed just days before the election was called. These included Gilmore, where Andrew Constance lost by just over 200 votes, North Sydney, where Trent Zimmerman lost to independent Kylea Tink, and Warringah, where Morrison chose anti-trans campaigner Katherine Deves to run against popular independent Zali Steggall after other candidates pulled out. As a result of the Deves appointment, several members argued that there was a backlash in moderate seats that were then won by teal independents. “The late picks definitely cost us seats,” said one prominent moderate. “Trent had money sitting in his campaign account, which he couldn’t spend because he hadn’t been endorsed. “Then we had Katherine Deves picked for Warringah and that probably cost us North Sydney and Wentworth.”
Already, we are seeing the outcomes of this. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (how good it is to type these words) is showing how well the conciliatory, outgoing approach he has chosen is going down with the public. He can expect to retain his popularity as he continues to take the people into his confidence. They like his friendliness, his frankness and his modesty. The contrast with his predecessor is so striking that no one can miss it.

The future looks promising!

Time to say goodbye

To me, Ad Astra, “Time to say goodbye” are among the saddest words in our language. Yet say them now we must. I chose Ad Astra as my moniker because my secondary school’s motto is ‘sic itur ad astra’, which can be liberally interpreted as: “Here is the way to the stars”. How inspiring these word...

  • 19/12/2022

Have we got a deal for you

There is a conspiracy theory that suggests that birds (in the USA at least) aren’t real. The claim is that all the birds in the USA were hunted down by the government between the late 50’s and early 70s and replaced with bird like drones to spy on you. According to the theory President John F. Kenne...

  • 12/12/2022

Get out of the gutter

You may not have heard of Mike Rinder. A Scientologist for most of his life, at the age of 52 he walked out, and as a result lost his family, friends, employment and pretty well everything else in his life. RInder has written a book on his time in Scientology, runs a website that questions Scientolo...

  • 5/12/2022

Was Amtrak Joe derailed?

Prior to becoming President, Joe Biden was a US Senator for around 36 years. He is known as Amtrak Joe as he routinely took the daily 90 minute each way train trip (on the USA’s national passenger train network — Amtrak) from his home in Delaware to Washington DC to represent his state. If you liste...

  • 28/11/2022

If employers can measure well-being...

Last September, you might have seen Qantas CEO Alan Joyce received a pay increase of $278,000 per annum. It seems that Joyce has met or exceeded the performance goals set by his employers and contractually has earned the reward. It does, however, raise a larger question. Joyce's pay increase for t...

  • 21/11/2022

Coming back to haunt you

In his recent Budget reply speech, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton laboured (pun intended) on the increasingly difficult to achieve promise by Prime Minister Albanese that power bills will be $275 less in 2025. While the government is claiming the modelling done in 2021 supports the accuracy of the p...

  • 14/11/2022

The good economic units

Wellbeing and politics have collided in the past couple of weeks. Federal Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers has started a conversation about measuring the ‘wellbeing’ of the nation as a result of the measures in the budget. The Opposition, as you would expect, has poured scorn on the idea. On a purely lo...

  • 7/11/2022

Do you want to smile or frown

Recently, in what could be described as an epic fail in recruiting practices, the Essendon Football Club hired and accepted the resignation of the same CEO within a day. The issue was that the CEO was also the Chairman of ‘City on the Hill’, a church that seems to promote some conservative views on ...

  • 2/11/2022

We can do it better

It was probably co-incidental that the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was held in Sydney around the time the NRL and AFL finals were occurring. CPAC originally advertised the conference would be at Luna Park — until Luna Park claimed they had never had a booking. The Conf...

  • 24/10/2022

The voice

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong recently addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Accompanying Wong on the trip was Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and ‘Special Envoy for Reconciliation’ Pat Dodson. Wong told the General Assembly that Australia believed the UN an...

  • 17/10/2022

Kicking climate down the road

You’re probably aware of some who don't see the need to reduce emissions. They have a lot of different reasons or excuses for the position, including the current systems have served us well in the past, we’re only a small population so our changes won’t mean much or just a general reluctance to cons...

  • 10/10/2022

A home amongst the gumtrees

A local real estate agent rings me every couple of months asking if I am willing to sell my house. So far he's tried the 'look how much you could get' strategy, 'the market is moving, you don’t want to miss out’ strategy and telling me he could help me buy another house if I did sell; to which my re...

  • 3/10/2022

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2 COMMENTS

totaram

20/06/2022

Even Rudd started out with too much friendliness. None of the Coalition's previous (recent) appointments was cancelled. Did that help him at all? That stacking of the various institutions with Coalition flunkeys continued to take their toll. And when Tony Abbott came in how "nice' was he?  RC's galore to go fishing for anything they could find, mainly nothing. This stacking with flunkeys includes the ABC. Can you imagine have people from the IPA on the board of the ABC. How "neutral and independent"  would these be?  Much later, some lone journalist, like Emma Alberici, only had to put her head above the parapet to immediately get shot down, by Mr. "Nice Guy" Turnbull.

Bring on the federal ICAC, completely independent, fully funded, and let the wheels of justice grind exceedingly fine.

wam

21/06/2022

Very difficult to comment on the seats with no information on distribution of preferences. But is seems obvious labor and the loonies elected the teals. 

Unless the libs are completely stupid they will import the teal women or select candidates favourable to the teal women. If so I expect the seats to return to lib hands

II expect labor to correct their fowler howler, the north townesville, north west tassie losses and to retake the conned brisbane voters.

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