Contributor: Chris Woods
Gee it’s a great time for neoliberalism.
The poor are getting fraudulent debt letters, the rich are getting massive tax cuts, and there are currently 670 large companies operating in Australia without contributing a cent to our extremely-lopsided taxation system.
Unfortunately the increasingly brutal crackdown on entitlements such as “living in a house” and “staying alive” comes at an awkward time for our government, with Health Minister Sussan Ley forced to stand aside earlier today for using a taxpayer-funded trip to the Gold Coast to purchase a $795K investment property from a Liberal Party donor.
Naturally, people have been up in arms since News Corp broke the story on Ley’s dodgy trip, but this kind of thing isn’t exactly new.
You’ll recall that a casual, ill-advised helicopter trip ruined the career of one Bronwyn Bishop, and while her resignation as Speaker of the House in 2015 effectively quashed broader attention to parliamentary entitlements, it did lead to Bishop losing the support of her party and the preselection for her NSW seat in 2016.
So naturally, when another poorly thought out trip ruins an MP’s career, who are we, the media, gonna call?
Sky News rolls out their entitlement scandal expert to comment on Ley: “The pub test depends on which pub you’re in” pic.twitter.com/xEUen5EGMV
— Senator Lee Rhiannon (@leerhiannon) January 9, 2017
Speaking to Sky News, Bishop offered her thoughts on the current discourse around Ley’s misadventures, and boy howdy are they something:
“When I resigned, as Speaker of the House, I resigned because Tony Abbot asked me too…”“But I know that my travel was arranged by my staff, as they’re paid to do, and I can only imagine Sussan Ley’s travel was arranged in exactly the same way. But I have no personal knowledge of that.”
Here, she actually brings up the (depressing) fact that neither she nor Ley technically acted outside the rules, and could probably have spoken about the broader structural problems that allows this kind of stuff to happen.
But instead, she took the opportunity to attack socialists, because you apparently can’t criticise a politician’s use of taxpayer funds without also wanting to seize the means of production.
She then compares socialists to alcoholics, simultaneously insulting both groups, and, finally, critics of Ley to God’s animal, the noble dog:
“But I do know that there are socialists out there who want to attack free enterprise and anyone who sticks up for it.”“And I know that socialists, like alcoholics, will blame anyone but themselves, and, whereas alcoholics can damage their own families, socialists can destroy the whole country.”“Now wouldn’t it be reasonable if we allowed the two inquiries that have been established to come to their conclusions, and not have Sussan Ley being attacked by a pack of dogs?”
Captured below: someone questioning our parliamentary entitlement system.
The hypocrisy here is gut-wrenching, and you could honestly write a book on the gall of someone sincerely comparing critics to socialists to alcoholics to, presumably hyperbolic and unfair, wild dogs.
Give the full speech (monologue? rant?) a listen below, and see what you think.
Bronwyn Bishop: @sussanley is being attacked by people behaving like ‘a pack of dogs’ https://t.co/DB92We5otu #auspol pic.twitter.com/lMFd4dyunz
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) January 9, 2017
That feeling in your gut? The outrage? That is good, no matter what some truely entitled people out there might tell you.
Source and photo: Sky News.
