Like a raving mad homeless man on a city corner, this week McClintock is screaming about big issues. Although, in truth, he barely discuss them at all.
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The Big Issues
As Jeff ‘The Dude’ Lebowski said, “I got issues, man.”
Or was it “a rash”?
Perhaps it was both.
Nevertheless, this country has issues, man!
We’re drowning in refugees, cheap milk, a budget deficit and The Great Barrier Reef is dying before our very eyes. All this while our planet slowly heats up in a desperate attempt to kill us all (can you blame it?). I don’t mean to understate it here, but I think we’re fucked. Thank heaven Bill and Malcolm have all the answers. Don’t they?
I’m not sure …
Trying to get a gauge on the major parties positions on big issues this week has been tricky. Especially as several of their own candidates have shown they don’t even know what they are. Usually this wouldn’t bother me so much – heck, I don’t even know my own position on some of the issues – but what was alarming was that a couple of the heavy-hitters were guilty of this heinous crime.
What do I care if some Liberal schmuck running for office in Shitsville, South Australia, doesn’t know his party’s policy on Medicare? No offence to those in Shitsville, but Julie Bishop and Sarah Hanson-Young are figureheads of their parties. Strong, articulate and powerful women who have their shit together, basically. But they dropped the ball this week. Will they come back like Thurston or capitulate like [insert any New South Welshman]? Only time will tell.
The biggest issue this week was, of course, State of Origin. New South Wales and Queensland electorates certainly couldn’t give two hoots about what was going on in politics over the past seven days. Queenslanders especially.
Should another nation ever want to invade Queensland, Origin week would be a good time to do it. If they poured their army across the border on the Wednesday afternoon, I doubt anyone would notice. As long as they avoided Caxton Street, but they could always just dress their soldiers in maroon and most would think it a parade.
They would need to ensure full and secure control of all government buildings come Thursday though. Lest they’re faced with an army of wild eyed, fiercely proud, off-purple lunatics that morning. Nursing mild hangovers and a salivating, rabid loyalty to their state, they’re likely to come with everything they’ve got. Win or lose, the night before.
So this is perhaps why, in a week when Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party MP Robert Borsak admitted to killing and eating Dumbo, and probably also consuming Bambi’s mum, Bill Shorten’s blooper in calling Queensland ‘the Storm’ may have been the most costly by far. He surely thought it a harmless faux-pas, quickly forgotten and consigned to the chuckle factory, but he has certainly lost votes.
You might be able to fuck with a Queenslander’s Super and get away with it, but you certainly can’t disrespect Cam and the boys.
By Alasdair McClintock
Twitter: @AWJP83
Read Week One – The Leaders here
Read Week Two – The Major Parties here