Disappointed But Not Surprised: Campaign Week 1
Sorting through the unexpected but actually very expected trash of the week.
Welcome to Disappointed But Not Surprised, where we catalogue the events of the past week which reminded us of how trash Australian politics is, and how detached from reality our political class is.
Each week we award the biggest disappointment of the week the Malcolm Turnbull Compromising On His Principles Award, in honour of the man who did the most in stoking DBNS culture within Australian politics.
Without further ado, here are the winners from the first full week of the campaign.
Dishonourable Mentions
Captain GetUp Gets Weirdly Sexual
Last week’s runner up manages to his way into the list again, by really not even trying to step over the really low bar for decency and instead rubbing himself against a poster of Zali Steggall, the independent taking on Abbott in his seat of Warringah.
After everyone promptly yelled out “what the actual fuck” when Advance Australia, the group behind the caped crusader, shared the video, it was quickly removed with the only explanation being “it was posted in error”.
Because of course they’re not going to take responsibility for their actions, why would you possibly think that?
Fraser Anning And His Candidates Are Terrible Terrible People
I know that this is the least surprising thing on this list, but Anning doesn’t deserve to win anything, not even getting named a disappointment in a memey look at the week of campaigning on a satirical Auspol website.
But he does deserve getting called out, hence this:
We already knew the calibre of candidates that were willing to stand with the dumspterfire egg-head of a man that is Fraser Anning, but when the example “loaded question” in candidate training is literally “have you stopped beating your wife”, I’m sorry but please pull a Harold Holt and disappear into the ocean.
Runner Up
Liberal Candidate Cries Fake News And Is Immediately Proven Wrong
It’s not rare for a candidate to claim that a report or article on something they said in the past was completely inaccurate, or just deny that they said those words in the first place.
What is rare is for that to backfire so immediately and so spectacularly.
Earlier in the week, Liberal candidate Gladys Liu was asked about comments on same-sex marriage and the Safe Schools program attributed to her in a Guardian article in 2016. Liu claimed that these were not her views, rather they were ‘representative of the Chinese community’, saying the original Guardian article was “fake” and “wrong”.
However, the Guardian wasn’t a huge fan of that assessment. In fact, they published an excerpt of the interview with Liu, which quite clearly showed all of the comments very clearly being Liu’s personal views.
Unsurprisingly, Liu has gone very very quiet since and hasn’t made any public statements. But I highly doubt she’ll be the last candidate caught up in a lie.
Winner
Bill Shorten Forgets How To Human
In this campaigns’ Iceberg Lettuce moment, Bill Shorten’s social programming failed once again, when he asked a grown man how his school holidays are going. It’s just as awkward as you would imagine.
Here’s hoping his operating system is updated before election day.
