Sunday, February 08, 2009

Petty Partisan Political Point Scoring

Or for the sake of brevity, the 4P’s. Mostly used to accuse a political party of having not so noble motives for their actions.

Most recently we have had Kevin Rudd accuse Malcolm Turnbull of the 4P’s. This was due to Turnbull’s decision to oppose the bill in the Senate and therefore delay it’s implementation. Rudd, in a 5-minute press conference, managed to refer to Turnbull getting out of the road of this bill at least 7 times.

As a general rule, though, it seems that he who accuses another of the 4P’s is in fact perpetrating the 4P’s themselves. There aren’t even any points to be scored in opposing this Bill so Rudd’s accusation is unfounded. In ‘Yes, Minister’ parlance this would be a “courageous decision” by Turnbull. As in it is so courageous it might even be disastrous to ones political aspirations. So how can he be trying 4P’s when his decision is particularly unpopular? Therefore his motives must nobler than Rudd is trying to portray.

Meanwhile, Rudd is scoring his own political points by appealing to our greedy nature and dishing out cash to those apparently most in need of a one off cash bonus. Any long-term consequences the nation might face as a result of this bill are ignored. It is after all the job of the opposition to review what the government is doing. To pass a bill virtually sight unseen would be irresponsible of them.

This is a big deal and Rudd is trivialising the Bill by expecting the opposition to let it through. As if the decision to pass it would be inconsequential. Considering all the work the previous government did to get this country out of massive debt it shouldn’t surprise or annoy anyone that the now opposition wants to review this piece of legislature.

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