Independent thinking

THE PM HASN’T ANNOUNCED THE DATE YET, BUT HE IS DOING AN OFFBROADWAY TOUR AS A REGIONAL WARM-UP. BLOWING OUT THE COBWEBS WITH SOME BOLD ANNOUNCEMENTS, REINVENTING THE PAST AND TESTING OUT SLOGANS.

CHRISTMAS parties and breakups are in full swing. Things should be winding down.

Traditionally, this is the time when our politicians may be scooting off to Hawaii for a quick pre-Christmas getaway. But something is different this year.

Pre-selections are popping up like sunflowers, independent candidates are putting their hands up and the leaders of both major parties are out on the hustings already. An election is in the wind and promises, like petals, are falling from the sky.

The PM hasn’t announced the date yet, but he is doing an offBroadway tour as a regional warm-up. Blowing out the cobwebs with some bold announcements, reinventing the past and testing out slogans.

The longest one so far sounds something like, “we are looking through the windscreen instead of looking into the rear-view mirror”. It’s a bit of a mouthful.

First appeared on my dashboard when he was flying around Mount Panorama on his hot lap photo-op.

It made sense in the petrolhead environment, but when you frame this slogan in the real world of analysis, it sounds like somebody who doesn’t want to be held accountable for the mistakes of their past.

This PM is literally saying: “don’t look at this … look at this.”

Scott doesn’t want anybody to ask questions about Porter or Tudge or sports rorts or car parks or vaccine rollouts and electric vehicles. He doesn’t want to talk about climate and France and nuclear submarines, he doesn’t want us to remember that he hasn’t been able to legislate his religious discrimination bill or fulfil his election promise of an independent body to examine federal corruption.

He wants us to blame the Labor party for all that, and look into the future. It is unusual for an incumbent to choose not to run on their record, but that’s his decision.

This way he can move around the marginals making more announcements and just hope that voters will forget he has been in charge for the last three years.

We are still not “back in the black”, but real estate prices are still rising, and that’s good, right?

The biggest fear at this next election for the Liberal National Coalition is the rise of independents.

Indie candidates are hard to fight if you don’t want to run on your record.

“You can’t trust Labor” doesn’t cut it when you’re talking to a political cleanskin.

You may even have to take them seriously and, horror of horror, fight them on actual arguments and issues.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is the sitting member for Kooyong and he is facing a serious push from lobby groups like the “Voices of Kooyong”.

Voices of Kooyong has a website that tells the world they are not a political party. They are a self-described grassroots movement. They think the seat of Kooyong has been held by the one party for too long. Their votes are being taken for granted and they are looking for an independent to support. Somebody like Professor Monique Ryan. The professor has no previous political experience and she works at the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Senator Sarah Henderson doesn’t like the Voices of Kooyong. The Senator has taken to Twitter, turned off the comments and tweeted: “The ‘voices for’ movement is a fraud. These so called ‘independents’ are the voices for Labor/Greens whose agenda is to destabilise our health and economic recovery and wreak political chaos.”

“Fraud” and “chaos” is oldschool electioneering.

Scaremongering will not win Kooyong. In fact, it may actually lose the next federal election.

Ryan is clearly not committed to wreaking “political chaos”. Her professional background clearly demonstrates she is committed to health and recovery.

The hacks inside the party machine will need a new communication strategy. Perhaps one centred on actual communication rather than blanket condemnation.

As we arrive at Christmas 2021, it is clear independents like Ryan are standing because they’re sick of the same old faces parroting the party line and getting nothing done on climate and transparency.

This is why the government is trying to discredit them early.

They know that in a fair election, you cannot just “move that the member no longer be heard”.

You have to put some truth to the table, or run on your record.

The new year is going to be brutal.