Labor's tupperware party of plastic politics

Barnaby Joyce is one of a small number of independently thinking members of the Australian Senate. I may be a little optimistic using the term ‘number’ as there are really not more than a couple, perhaps three, who actually think for themselves. Ever since his election Barnaby has been a consistent thorn in the side of both sides in the house. While I don’t always agree with him, it is refreshing to know that there is someone in there who won’t roll over when the party room tells him to do so. On this occasion he is in fine form.

From Australia.to News

The ALP conference seems more like a venue for Eric Zoolander than a forum of any serious debate. Democratic vibrancy has been curtailed, choreographed and scripted. The best this conference can deliver will be a new look, something along the lines of ‘blue steel’ or ‘magnum’ from the Prime Minister or some other senior catwalk participant. Maybe there will be a battle of the catwalk between Mr Rudd and Mr Emerson, hair dryers at ten paces; in any case I’m sure there will be hairdressers on hand to help in case of fatalities.

It would have been interesting to have seen a vibrant debate on who actually believes in Mr Rudd’s ETS. Perhaps this could be led off by Bill Ludwig, who stated that Professor Ross Garnaut was a ‘wakko’ and other members from the AWU, whose workers are going to get smacked between the eyes with a Zoolander like piece of policy from the Manic Monkey Café of inner suburban Nirvarnaville.

Maybe the Labor conference could have entertained a public debate about how we are going to repay the Nation’s Debt and they could have discussed which services are going to be cut because we can’t afford to pay for them.

Perhaps we could watch as the strongest Union made sure they were the last one standing as Australia’s access to borrowed funds runs out. Maybe the nurses will have more union muscle than the teachers.

A note for Mr Rudd’s ‘True Believers’ don’t forget to clap when the ‘Light on the Hill’ flashes. When the front table claps, you clap, when the front table stands, you stand, no matter how boring, puerile, pointless and self congratulatory the speech you just listened to was.

We can be absolutely guaranteed of not seeing anything today that even vaguely reflects the proper diversity of views in the Labor Party or allows those views to be ventilated. Is this democracy or is it a reflection of Mr Rudd’s micromanagement?

Has Mr Rudd finally managed to squeeze the last vestige of the liberty of self expression out of the Labor Party and are the ‘True Believers’ going to give him a standing ovation for it?

The ALP National conference has all the sincerity of a former head of the Nuclear Disarmament Party giving a speech on the benefits of uranium mining so that yellow cake can be sold to countries that produce nuclear weapons.

Mr Rudd has turned the Labor Party into the Tupperware Party, the big wow factor being ‘plastic politics’ with all the cameras focussed on its dear leader as he delivers to the nation the highly anticipated new look.

My sympathies go out to the ‘Fourth Estate’ because yet another venue, that allowed the Australian people to the see the breadth of the political debate, has now been emasculated and just like the Parliament, it’s now like ‘Show Time -Question Time’.