TODAY I saw a farmer scratching a faded sticker off the back of his old ute, which read “Don’t blame me I voted Liberal”.
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What did I tell you all about being careful with your preferences in my last column?
We are seeing nationwide disappointment in the media about the election result, and everyone is asking how did this happen if everyone was so anti liberal?
Preference deals from protest voting had a big hand in it, as well as a few sweeteners like maternity leave and cutting the carbon tax.
Sadly there is little we can do about it now and I am feeling nervous. The nation is feeling edgy too, what will happen next is worrying everyone, and I think we’ve just had our first clue.
This week the new parliamentary cabinet was announced, with a few glaring anomalies. No science minister. No disabilities minister. No youth minister.
No aged care minister. No mental health minister.
For a moment I’d like to channel a flame haired politician and ask, please explain? How do we take this?
We have had a science minister for the past eighty one years, are we going to go back in time like so many predicted? At this rate I’m never going to have my hover car, but I digress.
We could just write this off as a budgeting exercise combined with our new leaders beliefs, and non beliefs like those about climate change. Which doesn’t exist by the way, just like the minister for science. Maybe a Minister for Science Fiction on the cards?
Disabilities, Mental Health, Youth and Aged Care are not positions that did not exist before, they are priorities that have always existed.
The plan is to role these portfolios in with others, like industry and social services. Ouch.
This is going to be quite a workload handed to people, who may not have had a swing at a ministerial position before.
Get your game face on fellas this is not a drill.
I say fellas, because also missing from the list are women.
Just one made the cut, which coincidentally is the same number the Fraser government had. Did I mention a step back in time? I appreciate that the ministers were placed in office based on their merits not genders, but really, only one woman?
I think what happened here is that our new Prime Minister failed to read the instructions (like most blokes I know), and has put his new cabinet together all wrong. It’s missing a few important pieces and has a bit of a lean to it, and a few more knobs than it should.