Tony Abbott is having a “mini election campaign” this week, showing us that he has a positive message and a policy platform. We’re told it’s an attempt to get away from his image as “Dr No” and a walking policy vacuum. Well, so far, not so good.
Before we get to Tony, though, let’s have a brief check-in with opposition Indigenous Affairs spokesman and noted social media expert/walking disaster Andrew Laming.
Fresh from his appallingly racist tweet two weeks ago, he had this to say today:
Tony Abbott at a Brisbane SES depot today. Where’s the PM?
— Andrew Laming (@AndrewLamingMP) January 28, 2013
The PM, as it turns out, was in Gippsland meeting with people who had lost their homes to bushfire, while Abbott was pretending to fill sandbags for the TV cameras. Nice one, Andy.
Meanwhile, it’s only day two for the new “positive” Tony and he’s reverted to his old ways already – claiming, with no basis whatsoever – that the government had plans to bring in a flood levy to pay the still-undetermined costs of the current flood crisis in Queensland.
So much for a positive new message: Abbott has reverted to type and is running the same type of scare campaign he ran against the carbon tax. The same carbon tax that is designed to help Australia do its part to combat the climate change that is leading to more frequent and more severe floods like these.
Now, maybe the government will need to bring in a levy to help Queensland and northern NSW, once the floodwaters have subsided, and maybe it won’t. Disaster recovery is jointly funded by the federal and state governments under the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements which make the Commonwealth liable for up to 75% of the cost of disaster recovery. If the Commonwealth needs to raise money to cover those costs, it has little choice but to do that via taxation. Is Abbott suggesting the government should renege on the NDRRA and just cut Queensland off?
Laming was quick to pick up Tony’s lead and is running this hilariously ham-fisted push-poll on his Facebook page:
It’s a tough choice: if you want people in Queensland to have their roads and bridges rebuilt, you’re against “responsible government,” because responsible governments presumably don’t rebuilt washed-out bridges and roads. Do the voters in Laming’s Queensland electorate know he is against flood relief? Or maybe the question is just about whether we should have a “Labor” flood levy or a kindler, gentler coalition one?
After two years of fear-mongering and scare campaigning, in which he has gone ever backward, in the polls, this week Tony Abbott set out to remake himself as Mister Positive Alternative Prime Minister. But the new, positive Tony Abbott is just a rehashed version of the old, negative one.
I imagine there his media managers are scratching their heads tonight, wondering how it all went so quickly off the rails. Who would have liked him to stay on script and tell us what great things the coalition is planning for us, instead of just pulling another ‘Labor tax’ scare campaign out of his arse.
But that’s the thing about Tony. He just can’t help himself.
Elsewhere: Tony Wright has a similar view of Laming’s day.