When this Parliament came to us “hung”, as it were, I hoped that its nature would engender a vigorous debate, the merits of policy would take centre stage as the various sides argued their point of view.
Naively, I believed it would be an improvement on the staged party centric discipline that had dominated politics, and led to dumb, sterile, disassociated debate and sound bites that bore no relation to the question.
How wrong can you be?
The “performance” by Bill Shorten a few nights ago, someone who is held up an accomplished media performer, and a potential Prime Minister, defending a view he had not heard, almost made me lose my dinner. My only savior was I was unsure if it was laughter or sickness that was causing the problem.
Meanwhile, some of us get about trying to make a bob amongst the chaos and red tape created by our dithering, self important, disconnected from reality institutions, and it is just getting harder, and harder by the day.
At least the budget will be brought down in a few days, and that should solve everything. And, if you believe that, you will also believe leadership, integrity, vision, openness to ideas, and all the other stuff that is really valuable to a vibrant community, is no longer relevent.
