This week, we appoint two co-winners to be crammed into the comically tiny Clown of the Week car.
Neither recipient — Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and backbencher George Christensen, the free marketeers championing an inquiry into banks pulling back from mining projects — qualify for the full award on their own.
Christensen gets only half the award because anyone who pays attention to him expects nothing more than this — the free market is just like free speech, a concept of upmost importance until it gives you literally any outcome you don’t like.
Frydenberg meanwhile gets a reduced sentence on account of a better than expected Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, a reminder that, for all the ideological warfare that took place under cover of COVID-19, there was much from the government this year that was at the very least rational, and glances elsewhere show how bad things could be on a lot of levels.
On the other hand, that’s the whole problem; Frydenberg is supposed to be better. For the longest time, the treasurer earned his “future PM” tag by presenting himself as a basically consistent conservative, a canny politician but someone who could be argued with on ideas.
But across 2020, with his greater proximity to power and the time in the spotlight that comes with it, he’s slid dispiritingly.
First there was his relentless partisan attacks on the Andrews government during Victoria’s lockdown, stooping to exploit the suicide of a friend of a friend in the search for political points, a grubby flourish which got him a few headlines and did precisely fuck-all for the people of his home state. Further, his apparent concern for mental health at the same time as cutting JobSeeker back below poverty levels was a joke.
And now this: lending credibility to a plan that has the government grilling the financial sector for their commercial decisions.
As Janine Perrett reminded us, this is the man who called the idea of a royal commission into the banking sector a “reckless distraction” and a “populist whinge”. Lest we forget what the commission he fought against ended up revealing — bribes, regulators repeatedly mislead, the dead being charged for financial advice.
One would think this history might give him pause. But it appears Frydenberg, like his colleagues, has learnt the great lesson of politics in 2020 — the greatest superpower a politician can have is not great charisma, work ethic, organisational sense or policy vision. It is simply the inability to feel shame.
He and Christensen deserve one another.
Frydenberg “future PM” and “someone who could be argued with on ideas”?
Must be a different Frydenberg to the dullard I have seen on tv.
In a battle of wits, he comes unarmed.
Brilliant analysis!
Good example of how media in Oz lack curiosity and simply parrot transnational talking points, don’t they know how to use Google?
‘Neither recipient — Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and backbencher George Christensen, the free marketeers championing an inquiry into banks pulling back from mining projects — qualify for the full award on their own.’
Headline from DeSmog Canada late November:
‘Trump Administration Targets Banks Divesting From Fossil Fuels In New Anti-Climate Rule‘
This has been going on for sometime in the US, these issues, campaigns or attacks are not just tactical, but copied directly from libertarian and fossil fuel related think tanks in the US, directing or influencing GOP policy and media messaging; part of the ‘architecture’.
Further, it makes our ‘sovereign’ and democratically elected MPs appear as ‘foreign agents’ with a direct line to US think tanks, or simply ‘sock puppets’ hoping a favour is returned?
Related, like Christenson, it is why many former political and/or media hacks and grifters from Ausyralia pop up supporting e.g. Brexit and Trump?
Well said. I have been shocked for years at how our “leaders” often copy US talking points holus bolus, with no apparent actual engagement with the issues.
I first noticed this when Howard started spouting views, identically worded to US officials’, on Yasser Arafat, Iraq etc that he had never before shown any interest in. (He even seemed to think that Muslim=Arab.)
Dark Money by Jane Mayer covered this brilliantly. It’s been going on here since the 90s, formally, and prior to that as lapdogs but without organisation. The Koch brothers the main contributors and strategists. Agents of foreign influence for sure. I’d be happy about those foreign agents laws, if they were ever applied.
The Christensen inquiry must represent the pinnacle of stupidity for Frydenberg and this corrupt and incompetent government. It is even more stupid than the serial attacks on industry superannuation which has led to numerous LNP warriors with feet blown off. It takes little imagination to foresee gormless George grilling companies and investors on their entirely rational (and long overdue) decisions to divest from carbon pollution and getting the serial answer: ‘That is the advice of the Reserve Bank, APRA, ASIC and every other regulator.’
The ‘Clown of the Week ‘ motor car needs more interior girth , not guts . However if the motor car is a Fiat 500 cc ‘Bambino ‘ , then George should not be subject to muffled sniggers and snide innuendo .