Abbott's Agenda

Apologies for the long time between posts, it's been a fairly joyous occasion in our household this past week upon the arrival of our second baby boy, Oscar.

Now to business.

Yesterday's news regarding PM elect Abbott's cabinet held absolutely no surprises. He did state upon taking government that he would lead a government of no surprises. What's shocking, however, are the omissions from his ministry as well as the disturbing legacy that this could leave with our country.

Before continuing, here is a short list of the ministry positions now defunct under the coalition regime:

Minister for Science
Minister for Climate Change
Minister for Disabilities
Minister for Aged Care
Minister for Higher Education
Minister for Youth
Minister for Early Childhood
Minister for Workplace Relations
Minister for Mental Health
Minister for Water

And in, we have:

Minister for ANZAC Day
Minister for Border Protection (tacked on to the Immigration portfolio)

and

Minister for Sport...

Sport?

Sport?

So, essentially, the Australian public have effectively helped to vote in a majority government that deems sport to be more important than every single one of the ministries that were scrapped.

Excuse me while I staple my dick to an electric barbed wire fence.

ANZAC Day? We have a whole fucking government ministry dedicated to one public holiday of the year. A public holiday where we are virtually forced to cry our patriotic little faces off as we remember wars in Europe, and more recently, wars against those nasty brown people. At least that's the impression I get from those who take the day seriously.

Small Government

So, we are treated to small government, where the most marginalised in society now have absolutely no one in Canberra dedicated to them, and being advised on possible legislation that would actually benefit them. Nor do we have an advocate for the climate and the human impact causing the shift in temperatures that are now more than evidently clear, particularly if you look at the science.

Science, but that's OK, because we still have someone on the front bench who... oh, wait.

Science has gone as well.

I guess when you don't actually believe in science and every single one of your beliefs comes from a book written over 2000 years ago that claims the world was created in 6 days and is only 6000 years old, you don't need nasty, evil science to dictate legislation or policy. Why should we trust in medicine when we've got magic, potions, spells and good old gut instinct to get us by? Why believe what those eggheads in white coats who play with funny instruments and tools all the time say? Plus their papers are too long... no time to read all the big, hard words.

Wrong Focus by the Media

Yet, what baffles me the most is the focus that the mainstream media has now taken with the announcement.

The focus, while fairly placed on the lack of women promoted to cabinet (1 out of 20 positions), the obvious stupidity of these omitted portfolios and the ones that have been created should really be reported on or at least given more emphasis on how damaging they are to the country. We now have a very clear insight into coalition policy and the direction that Abbott now wants to take our country.

Meanwhile, things are beginning to unravel within the noalition itself. Dissent wasn't something that we saw (or at least what the media would allow us to see) within the Liberal Party while they were in opposition, however just today we have had MP's within the party criticise Abbott for both the lack of women as well as the most important portfolios.

Abbott's Agenda

Once again, Australia has been thrust into the clutches of a coalition government. The last time the Nationals and Liberals took power from Labor was in 1996. Paul Keating, who lost in a landslide that year as PM, famously said that when you change the government, you change the country. Truer words cannot be said, and the prophetic phrase rang very true shortly as new PM John Howard surely changed attitudes and the common social discourse in Australia to one of xenophobia, 'us and them', greed and selfishness. 

Labor in power between 2007 and 2013 was able to do very little to turn the tide. The ALP had already  begun it's shift to the right (virtually started in the 80's but slowed to a halt under Keating), and Howard's thug caste (yes, every right-wing government spawns them) the nu-bogan, ensured that attitudes towards foreigners or anything remotely foreign remained negative. It was a time when a rise in 'Fit in or Fuck Off' bumper stickers could be seen on one in ten utes and 4x4's, and television network programming was fairly homogenous as far as ethnic groups went.

The uphill battle of cultural and social change was fought hard by Julia Gillard - a PM who will eventually be remembered as someone who had vision and actually brought about change during her time, something that Kevin Rudd was unfortunately not inclined to do.

Abbott's agenda now seems fairly clear - cut the funding to anything intellectual, progressive or beneficial for the environment. Halt the growth of government and reverse it to a shrink that will cover only the shame of Australia's elected government.

The anti-intellectualism of the Howard years was very evident in the cuts to funding for higher education, but now Abbott has decided to erase that ministry itself. Youth and Seniors were also portfolios that were promised, so we can safely say that this is Abbott's first broken promise.

The backlash against this will be swift and loud but, rest assured, it will be hushed by the media and almost seem as if there is no issue.

After all, people voted them in on the pre tense that they would solve all our 'issues'. 

Irony will be history's buddy, in the end.