Aussie Liberals: Taking a Cue from the Republicans
Wed Nov 21, 2007 at 06:43:09 PM PDT
First of all, a happy Thanksgiving to all my American brethren back home. This is my first T-day away from the USA, so it's a bit sad. (That, and it's not even Thanksgiving for you guys yet, but it is here in Sydney.) But we're having some people over to our house for turkey dinner tonight. Yippee!
Anyway ... Australians don't care about Thanksgiving, they care about the Federal elections that will be held on Saturday. (We should hold elections on Saturdays. Or make Election Day a holiday.)
Some quick background: The Liberal Party, which, despite its name, is actually the right-wing, conservative party*, is led by PM John Howard and is way behind the Labor Party (note Americanised spelling) in the polls. Labor leader Kevin Rudd is pretty much going to win.
And in the Liberals' desperation, they are beginning to look more and more like the Republican Party. (Psst, Liberals, that’s not a good thing.)
See how after the jump.
First was their desperate attempt to challenge the validity of several Labor candidates, specifically that of George Newhouse, who is challenging Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull for his seat of Wentworth.
The Liberals have been branded as desperate for raising the prospect of a string of by-elections after Saturday's poll in a last-minute attack on the eligibility of 13 Labor candidates.
Party officials released legal advice yesterday that a by-election would be needed if the Labor candidate for Wentworth, George Newhouse, defeated Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull and raised concerns over the constitutional validity of 12 other candidates.
...
The challenge on the candidates' eligibility relates to whether they resigned offices of profit under the Crown, including board positions, liquor licensing appointments and employment as political staffers in state governments, before lodging their candidacy for the election.
Republican Lesson #1: When you can’t win on the issues, either keep people from voting, or challenge the candidates themselves.
Next up, and this just broke today, the husband of an outgoing Liberal MP was distributing fake Labor pamphlets in the western Sydney seat of Lindsay. The pamphlet appears to be from a Muslim group, and says, among other things, "We gratefully acknowledge Labors [sic] support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings."
Outgoing Liberal MP Jackie Kelly says a bogus pamphlet that portrays Labor as sympathisers of Islamic terrorists and was distributed by her husband was just a "Chaser-style of prank".
The Liberal Party was flailing last night after a senior NSW party official and Ms Kelly's husband, Gary Clarke, were implicated in the dirty tricks campaign involving race hate in Ms Kelly's former western suburbs seat of Lindsay.
The ALP has written to the Australian Electoral Commission demanding action be taken after Ms Kelly's husband, Gary Clark, and NSW Liberal Party state executive member Jeff Egan were caught distributing bogus pamphlets in Lindsay portraying Labor as sympathisers of Islamic terrorists.
For the uninitiated, the Chaser is a popular comedy program ("The Chaser's War on Everything") on the ABC that does political humour. It's not as good as the Daily Show, but it's pretty funny on occasion. (You may have seen on YouTube a segment of one of the Chasers trying to apply to be an intern with Hillary.)
At the bottom, the pamphlet also said "Ala Akba", which we assume to mean "Allah Akbar".
I've got news for them - this isn't a "Chaser's-style" joke, it's race-baiting and election tampering.
Republican Lesson #2: When you can’t win on the issues, appeal to people’s baser instincts and fears; bonus points for race-baiting. Double bonus points for using misspellings and grammar errors to reiterate that you think said ethnic or racial group is unintelligent or illiterate.
As the election draws near—it’s Saturday—the Liberals are getting more and more desperate. We’ve all known for a while that John Howard has his head up George Bush’s ass. Now, it just looks like his party is showing its true colours as a group Republican-wannabe, race-baiting cynics who will do anything to retain power.
* Funny anecdote: A friend of a friend of mine, an Aussie, is a died-in-the-wool Liberal, and joined up on Facebook. He promptly selected "liberal" under political affiliation. My friend had to explain to him that since Facebook is an American site, "liberal" means small-L liberal. His profile now says "conservative".
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