Disappointed But Not Surprised: Campaign Week 3
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 past week of the campaign.
Dishonourable Mentions
Liberal Candidate Doesn’t Know How Facebook Works
Political candidates using Facebook can be a gloriously entertaining thing, mostly because they clearly have no idea what they’re doing and it often leaves them up the wrong end of shit creek.
Enter Angus Taylor who has clearly forgotten the value of checking which profile you are liking and commenting as:
Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus. But not enough to get you an award this week.
The Nationals Don’t Like Young People
I don’t think there’s any use pretending that the Nationals are a party for young people. When they’re made up of majority old white conservative men, why would they be? But it’s still not great when their leader, Michael McCormack, comes out and calls young voters “a big problem”.
You’re right Michael. They will be a big problem for you. Good luck surviving May 18th after making sure no young person wants to vote for you.
Runner Up
Palmer’s Candidates Don’t Have Their Own Opinions
This week, The Guardian did some digging on all of those pesky UAP candidates (there’s one for every seat). And lo and behold, they found basically the exact same speech on multiple candidate’s Facebook pages, giving one of the most beautiful videos of the whole campaign.
I don’t know what’s better: the obvious reading of the teleprompter, or how so many of the candidates look like people I wouldn’t trust to look after my wallet, let alone the country.
I mean I do feel slightly sorry for any of them who get elected (clearly a very likely scenario), given that they’ll have to pay $400,000 they choose to leave the party (honestly, who wouldn’t want to get out of that dumpsterfire), but that’s their own damn fault.
Winner
Every Party’s Candidates Suck
This week has seen a spate of high-profile resignations. It all started with One Nation’s Steve Dickson (you know, the one who tried to get money from the NRA) resigning after footage emerged of him being the slimeball he is in a strip club.
But that was only the beginning. Throughout the week, a Labor senate candidate, and their candidate for Melbourne, resigned over anti-Semitic comments and rape jokes made on social media respectively. They were joined by one homophobe and two Islamaphobes from the Liberal party who were also dumped.
But the Dumpee of the Week has to be Murray Angus, who was dumped for calling his opponent “a good bloke”. Because civil discourse in politics is clearly dead.
But honestly, Obi-Wan Kenobi said it best:
Only two more weeks to go before this is all over thank goodness.
