The Goldfish Bowl of Politics

Julia Gillard must think the electorate has the attention span of a goldfish.

How else can you explain that she wants to ‘move forward’ and refuses to discuss the so called ‘achievements’ of the government she has been a key part of for nearly three years?

‘Moving forward’ for Ms Gillard means ignoring the abject failures that have characterised her government and that of her politically dismembered predecessor.

In her own portfolio, billions of dollars have been wasted creating the most expensive tuck shops and toilet blocks in school history. She has Peter Garrett as part of her senior team despite his grotesque portfolio failings.

Minister Penny Wong has been sidelined as they wait to unveil their bold new plan for the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’. I wonder how much scrutiny time that will get during this election campaign?

Gillard’s ‘moving forward’ is simply spin for whitewashing the dark history of failure of this government’s programs.

Now in baby hugging mode, Ms Gillard smiles and misleads her way through interviews but is rarely pressed for a straight answer. She promises that things will be better in the future yet overlooks the fact that everything her government has actually delivered has been nothing short of a disaster.

Can we really believe her new found commitment to offshore processing of illegal boat arrivals when she has railed against it for years? Can we really believe that she is now an ‘economic conservative’ who believes in budget surpluses after destroying our national savings? Can we really be expected to ignore the pattern of failure and trust that Ms Gillard’s current crop of promises will actually work?

I don’t think we can, but her government expects you to.

That’s why Ms Gillard and her team can only think of the voters as having the attention span of a goldfish. They are hoping that by the time we get to one side of the electoral bowl we will have forgotten what the other side looked like.

Of course, the election campaign has plenty of opportunity to compare and contrast the two major party leaders – unless you want to watch the final of Masterchef.

Ms Gillard and her team of spinmeisters have ditched their commitment to three leader’s debates and are only committing to one. Surely it is a coincidence that it will only be held while the rest of the country will be watching the most popular television show of the moment.

Perhaps you consider this conclusion to be cynical – and you’d be right. But with a track record of deception, spin and duplicity that the Labor Government has, we all have every right to be suspicious.

That’s the real reason Ms Gillard wants us all to ‘move forward’; to prevent her and her team from being accountable for their own dreadful performance in running our country.

UPDATE: Since publication, in a triumph of the pan over politics, the debate has since been moved to an earlier time slot so it no longer clashes with Masterchef.

Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to Confidential Daily.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.