Tag Archives: Morrison

The politics of panic

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Peter Dutton has joined sections of the media in kicking off the new year with a new “racialised moral panic”, doing burnouts in the new modified Home Affairs Department to prevent any clear-eyed analysis of crime in Victoria.

Cartoon: gang hysteria

Cartoon: doing burnouts in the modified Home Affairs Department

On the theme of making stuff up, we also began the new year learning the government ignored advice from Treasury in order to whip up fear around proposals to trim negative gearing.

What better metaphor to use than the stuff made up by satirist Ben Ward about the US President’s obsession with a Gorilla Channel?

Cartoon: inside the Trumble whitehouse

(The Canberra Times, 5, 6 and 10 January 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)

All aboard the Omnibus

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The government is making hard work of getting its childcare package through Parliament, having stuffed it into an Omnishambles Omnibus Bill that contains various “zombie measures” from the 2014 Federal Budget that the government refuses to let die.

Cartoon: the Omnibus childcare/welfare cuts Bill

Blackmailing the Senate to get onboard, with threats to NDIS funding, seems to have backfired.

Cartoon: the Australian Political Football League

(The Canberra Times, 11 and 16 February 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)

Stick a fork in the myth of Moderate Mal, it’s done

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Cartoon: PM blames failure of National Electricity Market on renewable energy

The government is trying to blame failures in the National Electricity Market on renewable energy. Ross Gittins sees the sleight of hand; Richard Denniss deploys a nice metaphor using prawns to completely demolish the stage.

Inside Parliament, ministers brandished a lump of coal; outside, Professor Clive Hamilton resigned from the Climate Change Authority. It is “crystal clear that the Government has no interest in sensible climate change policy”:

Letter: Clive Hamilton resigns from the Climate Change Authority

Cartoon: political climate change affecting the Liberal Party

(The Canberra Times, 11 and 7 January 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)

Deflating expectations

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Polling research by Essential finds public perceptions adjusting to the reality of Malcolm Turnbull PM, “a leader that opens up debates then closes them down; who calls for a contest of ideas then slams his opponents with scare campaigns when they engage; who lacks the will to take on his own party on the issues that had previously defined him”.

Cartoon: the Canberra Political Hot Air Balloon Spectacular

(The Canberra Times, 17 March 2016)