Look, you already know what’s going on. It’s a shitshow or whatever adjective you want to use to describe another leader of our country, Malcolm Turnbull, being knifed in the back by his own minister, in this case Peter Dutton.
Just this morning Dutton tweeted he’d be challenging Turnbull for the leadership again. Since then, dozens of headlines and tweets have surfaced each more terrifying than the last. Even Julie Bishop is reportedly keen to throw her hat in the ring.
It’s exhausting and frustrating and embarrassing so when Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale got up to speak in the Senate today, he tore the Libs to shreds.
In his scalding speech, Di Natale passionately reminded the Liberal Party that 100 per cent of New South Wales is currently in drought, that a girl – a 12-year-old girl – tried to set herself on fire in Nauru. The Guardian reports this isn’t her first suicide attempt. While a 17-year-old girl is in a critical condition after refusing to eat or drink in Nauru.
“While the Liberal Party has been tearing themselves a part, we’ve got 100 per cent of New South Wales in drought right now. We’ve got the Great Barrier Reef on the brink of collapse, we’ve got floods in India, we’ve got a 12-year-old girl who’s setting herself alight in Nauru. We’ve got kids who are in a catatonic state because they’ve given up hope, locked away in those offshore hell holes.
“What’s the Liberal Party doing? Focusing on vengeance, on payback, focusing on themselves.
“We’ve got people who can’t afford to pay their medical bills right now, we’ve got young people who are being priced out of an education.
“There are a 100,000 people in this country who are homeless.
“There are women who fear going home tonight because one woman a week is killed at the hands of a violent partner.
“And what have we got? We’ve got this spectacle, this disgrace. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
“We have people across the country who are suffering and look at what you’re doing.
“You are so focused on yourselves that you have forgotten what the country elected you to do and that is to govern for themselves, for them, not for you. Not for you. You don’t deserve to govern, you deserve to be turfed out. That’s what you deserve.”
This government deserves to be turfed out. #Greens #auspol #libspill pic.twitter.com/ttOVVuKPMU
— Richard Di Natale (@RichardDiNatale) August 23, 2018
In a longer version of the video posted by Ten Daily reporter Josh Butler, Di Natale continues:
“You walked away from climate change. You walked away from an energy policy, you ditched your economic plan and why? Because those dinosaurs inside your party room held the Prime Minister to ransom. And he didn’t have the guts to take them on.
“And what’s he done instead. What has your party done?
“We have the prospect of Peter Dutton or Scott Morrison as the next Prime Minister of the country. Now, things are pretty crook right now but they’re going to get a hell of a lot worse. I fear for those people in this country who have come from overseas when we’re going to have an election that focuses on race, that fans the flames of racism and division.
“That’s what’s coming right now. We’re going to have an election campaign where people are divided – where neighbour is pitted against neighbour because you haven’t got the guts to stand up and lead.”
