Another interruption to "I remain rather busy..."

Just an interruption from my present "too busy at work to post" format.

I never could stand Lidia Thorpe, and her "look at me" protest at Parliament House yesterday is only likely to increase the probability of a Coalition win next election, despite Albanese not endorsing it, and even with Mr Potato Head as his competitor.    

This is because of my thesis that we are currently seeing Labor go through one of its cycles in which they are perceived as too ideological and sensitive on social justice/identity politics and not pragmatic or tough enough, and it's the Coalition that benefits from that.  

Currently, in Queensland in particular, youth crime is seen as a major issue and it's usually tied, particularly outside of the capital cities, to indigenous politics.   But at the Federal level, Albanese pushing "The Voice" early on in the government's first term gave an impression of having indigenous social justice priorities that are popular in the inner cities, but far less shared the further out you go.  (And yes, I am aware that in fact the ageing indigenous leadership actually were arguing it was a modest reform compared to the radical indigenous politics of the youngest activist set, like Thorpe.   But it still felt an unnecessary step to a majority of Australians, as the result tells us.)

The reform to the NDIS earlier this year may have been able to sold by Labor as a "return to pragmaticism", because I think to an extent it was*, but it's hard for Labor because as it's their "baby", it's hard for them to admit that it had serious flaws from the start.   I am no expert on the matter, but surely the original claim (that the scheme would actually "work" economically, because it would enable a lot of people with disability get back into the workforce when they had previously not been able to because of inadequate support) was always extremely dubious?   (Yet it is still argued as such.) 

But again, I think the vibe the public got from the review played into the "Labor isn't pragmatic enough" line of thought.    

The other thing that hasn't affected us as much as America is the culture war on transexual issues - but as I have made clear before, this is another identity issue that I don't think help Left wing parties if they appear too gullible.   

I haven't been paying too much attention to Australian Federal politics lately, but it does seem that to me that Albanese is giving the impression of someone who doesn't have his priorities "right", and it's the Right that is benefiting.  I think it is similar to the situation with the end of the Hawke run, although Albo doesn't have the same personal issues that were worn heavily by Hawke.

 

 

 

*  I thought it was kind of lucky for the government that, as far as I know, it was never publicised all that much that the NDIS was (after a court action) funding sex worker access for the disabled.