As the second week of the election campaign kicked off, we are finally starting to look beyond Anthony Albanese’s gaffe last week.
That could be because the latest Newspoll showed, despite a fall in Albanese’s personal approval, Labor maintaining an election-winning lead. But it could also be that journalists, already broadly dissatisfied with the state of campaign reporting, are moving on.
They’re also moving on to things uncomfortable for Scott Morrison. Today the prime minister was trying to brush aside a series of stories about transphobic comments by Liberal Warringah candidate Katherine Deves.
In now-deleted Twitter posts, Deves accused trans women of using “womanface”, claimed half of trans men were sex offenders, and compared trans rights to the Third Reich.
Today Morrison claimed Deves had simply stood up for women in sport.
“I’m not going to allow her to be silenced. I’m not going to allow her to be pushed aside as the pile-on comes in to try and silence her,” he said.
“I think there are many Australians who agree with me about that.”
Except the “pile-on” was coming from Morrison’s own side of politics. This morning, NSW Treasurer Matt Kean reiterated his calls for Deves to be disendorsed. Trent Zimmerman, the moderate facing an independent challenge in the neighbouring seat of North Sydney, also wants her gone.
Deves, who yesterday hid from media in her garage, has vowed to continue. Morrison, who picked her to run after a tortured preselection process, will keep backing her, even though Liberals privately conceded months ago that Warringah was all but gone.
Notably, Albanese didn’t really take the opportunity to unequivocally condemn Deves’ views today, instead calling it another sign of the “chaos and division” within the Liberal Party.
Part of Labor’s “let the government hang themselves” strategy involves running from anything that could be construed as a culture war wedge. But that would be little comfort to trans people watching this play out just months after the religious discrimination debate.
What Albanese, in Brisbane again today, wanted to talk about was Labor’s renewables-tinged energy plan and emergency management. His predecessor Bill Shorten, meanwhile, was out unveiling the party’s plan to fix the NDIS.
But what really rattled Morrison was an alleged scare campaign over expanding the cashless debit card to include pensioners, which he called a “despicable lie”.
The fear has its roots in a soundbite from 2020, when Social Services Minister Anne Ruston talked about putting “all income management” onto the cashless debit card. She later ruled out putting pensioners on the card.
But something only needs the tiniest kernel of truth to become an effective scare campaign. Like the myth of Labor’s “death tax” three years ago, and 2016’s “Mediscare”, the Coalition’s support for the cashless debit card opens them up to attack. Already, it seems to be cutting through in Northern Tasmania.
Morrison moaning about Labor scare campaigns is pretty funny, and another reminder that all political discourse is just the Spider-Man meme. The government had plenty of scare campaigns of its own today. One, run on the front page of the News Corp tabloids, was a claim Labor’s energy plan would raise power bills, based on… mystery government modelling.
The prime minister was in Perth today, paying homage to the resources sector and trying to sandbag Western Australian seats. In a speech to the WA Chamber of Commerce he promised never to introduce a carbon or mining tax.
Labor hasn’t dared go near either of those things since 2013. But in an election based on “vibes”, fought between two competing, meagre visions, it’s not surprising that lines of attack so rarely aim for actual policy.
Morrison:
“I’m not going to allow her to be silenced.”
It’s interesting how he labels himself as the hero, boldly fighting against allegedly powerful anti-democratic forces. When in actual fact, it was him that silenced the voices of those Liberal party members, in a number of branches, who wanted to democratically elect their own candidates.
And despite that, there’s also tedious whininess to his pronouncements. That is, people are complaining about his unilateral decision, and yet somehow, he’s the victim.
In picture dictionairies his ugly mug, with jutting chin and snarling mouth, appears alongside “CRYBULLY”.
“What Albanese, in Brisbane again today, wanted to talk about was Labor’s renewables-tinged energy plan and emergency management. His predecessor Bill Shorten, meanwhile, was out unveiling the party’s plan to fix the NDIS.”
How dare he! How dare Anthony Albanese want to talk about irrelevant topics like, you know, actual policies? And also, while we’re at it, isn’t Labor a bunch of bastards for adopting a small target strategy and always refusing to talk about things like, you know, actual policies?
Good on yer, Crikey. You refused to take the bait. You provided us with a whole article that avoided providing even one small detail of what these policies might be, and instead stuck to the important stuff, like Labor’s refusal to get down in the gutter and roll around with the Lib’s identity-politics muck slinging, or each side’s scare campaigns.
It remind of the old limbo song lyric, “how lowww can you go“.
Nothing but weasel words and crocodile tears from a few ‘liberal’ liberals. P*ss off guys, this is what your party is now.
I really hope that Crikey is partaking in a non-zero amount of self-reflection as to its responsibilities in its position as a media entity that can shape the discussions we are having surrounding the election. I’m trying to not mainline the day-to-day of election coverage, so I’m really unsure of how ‘in the public interest’ the continued coverage of Deves is. So I say this genuinely without insinuating malice: please be careful in not taking the bait on this. Anyone keeping up with the current goings on in the UK can tell you how the media has played its part in the increased politicisation of the existence of trans people. Crikey obviously isn’t the most mainstream media source, and it’s certainly far above being a tabloid. Nonetheless I implore you to ensure that you’re walking the fine fine line of reporting in reflection of the public interest instead of throwing fuel on a fire that may go out on its own.
Without revealing too much, I am newly personally affected by trans issues. As I’m watching more fuel be added to this fire, I identify with the queer community after what they went through during the marriage equality “vote”, which was needlessly drawn out by the government, and which was needlessly thrown into the spotlight by the media “just asking the question” out of a thirst for a divisive issue to weaponise to drive engagement. I do not see Crikey coming close to doing this. I am thankful for your continued identification of trans rights as more of a fringe issue in Australia than it is in say the US or the UK, per polling. I am not advocating for media organisations to simply not report on these issues because there mere existence might “trigger” someone, but please keep in mind that in your own way you play a role in dictating what gets airtime, and in what way it does, in the same vein as the ways that “equal time” is a damaging premise as seen in the US media or on the ABC.
As a parent of a young adult diagnosed with gender disphoria several years ago but still unsure of what that means for them, current events leave me feeling ill with worry. I do see your point re adding fuel to the fire. I felt that post the SSM vote there was a chance for genuine efforts at acceptance and understanding of this issue. Then JK Rowling, Trump, bathrooms, weightlifting, swimming…all events that received increasing amounts of publicity here even when they may not have been culturally relevant. My child has not yet wished to disclose their issues beyond a few close family friends, although their own friends know and have been great. But now I see the “outrage” stories from overseas spoken about at social gatherings and shared or commented on in social media by friends. The fire has started and I take some comfort by the way this has been reported in much of our mainstream media. Never thought I would see it, but the pushback from other Liberal Party politicians has been, in my opinion, an important counterfoil. I think on balance the reporting is important, and hope that it is enough. I also hope Deves gets her arse whipped.
I think Albanese performed better in the pressconference today. I’m hating the current reporting on the campaign and much of the focus on all the (totally un-) important things, like what leaders think of the polls or all the other gossippie stuff. The scare campaigns are ridiculous, but at one point Labor will have to fight fire with fire (and in fairness, there’s more then just a kernal of truth in there – I’m sure they tried to push a bill through this parliament to expand the CDC, but got stopped in the Senate to only extend the time on the current trial sites).
Perhaps if Labor get into power they can finally pull their finger out and pass truth in political advertising laws and reform media laws – it would be utterly stupid not to do this, because they’re the serial loser here.