Politics

Today Has Been An Extremely Stupid Day In Australian Politics

We started with Macklemore and it trended down from there...

by Rob Stott  28 September 2017
Tony Abbott

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Even by the lofty standards of the Australian parliament, today was an especially stupid day. From Tony Abbott to Pauline Hanson to Cory Bernardi, so many of our elected representatives got their hiking boots on to fight their way to the top of Mount Clusterfuck.

Let’s start where all good stories start: with Macklemore. Overnight, the rapper hit back at critics (mostly Tony Abbott), who said the star shouldn’t perform ‘Same Love’ at the NRL Grand Final because we’re in the middle of the same-sex marriage postal survey.

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Macklemore said the criticism will only make him “go harder” and took a shot at the “angry old white dudes in Australia” who want to keep him from performing. Good on you, Macklemore.

Then Attorney General George Brandis chimed in with his own shot at Abbott, saying that he “thought Mr Abbott believed in freedom of speech?” Which, yeah, good on you, George. But it’s pretty weird seeing the nation’s top law officer take such an open shot at his former boss.

Please enjoy this video of George Brandis saying “Macklemore”.

And because a day can’t go by without the media asking Pauline Hanson her opinion on everything, she also had a chance to chime in on the NRL controversy. Her solution? Forget Macklemore. John Farnham or Daryl Braithwaite should sing at the Grand Final. I find it hard to disagree with this. A broken clock is right twice a day.

I could tell you more, but why don’t you just read this absolutely baffling answer from Hanson instead?

But of course Peter Dutton also wanted to have his say on Macklemore, because that’s the sort of day it was. He told Ray Hadley that he doesn’t want to be reminded of political issues while he’s at the footy. Here’s the thing though: Dutton was the most enthusiastic backer of this postal survey in the first place. If not for him, we wouldn’t need to have this debate at all.

“When I take my kids to the footy I want them to watch the footy, I don’t want some political message jammed down their throat,” Dutton said. And that phallic phrasing isn’t accidental. Opponents of marriage equality always like to remind us that gay people fuck because they find the idea of it disgusting.

Then Tony Abbott’s daughter, Frances, went on Instagram to tell Macklemore to “go harder”, in an apparent shot at her own dad. She’s had a busy few days.

Ok, But What About Non-Macklemore News?

But by this morning, Abbott had moved on from what I’m calling The Macklemore Debacle to suggesting that the federal government use the army against states in order to keep electricity prices down. I’m not even making that up.

Abbott really wants Malcolm Turnbull to invoke the government’s defence powers to force states to increase gas supply. It’s actually impressive how Tony Abbott manages to be so wrong about so many things at once.

On any other day, this story would lead the news; but Thursday, September 28 2017 is no ordinary day.

Because what would a day of stupid political stories be without Cory Bernardi? Not content to let Abbott, Dutton and Brandis have all the fun, the conservative senator from South Australia lobbed up with his own plan to cold call one million homes to urge them to vote No in the postal survey.

Remember earlier this week when the No side complained about text messages sent by the Yes campaign, saying it was an invasion of privacy? Well, Bernardi argued that his plan is different because a phone call to a person’s home is somehow less intrusive than a text message. Alright, champ.

Then Bernardi revealed his love of Pink! And he even did it while making the completely sensible point that we shouldn’t ban songs we disagree with. Cory Bernardi was right! What a day!

For the record, I’m publishing this story at about 5pm. There’s nothing to say that the day can’t get more stupid from here, so if I’ve missed anything on this list, please let me know.

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Rob Stott is the Managing Editor of Junkee Media. He tweets @rob_stott.